(The editor’s note: The following article contains spoilers for “Wednesday” season 2including The Ending – Section 8, “This Means Woe.”)
“The crack in your monochrome armor is strenuous arrogance.”
So says Rosaline Rotwood, played by Lady Gaga, to her visiting wish, Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega), when the Dour student searches for his “legendary” teacher at Nevermore Academy. Wednesday must use the mental powers she lost at the beginning of season 2, and Rosaline’s glowing revelation can give them to her – temporarily (so Wednesday can promote the action without disturbing her larger story, such as using a cheat code in a video game).
Maybe Rosaline will appear in season 3, but until then her character is a little more than a comfortable pit stop in season 2, part 2 – more product placement than plot development. (Maybe you’ve heard, Lady Gaga wrote a New song For season 2!) Despite her trivial inclusion, Mother Monsters warning still remains. After all, this is not the first time Wednesday has been told that she is stubborn, single and self -important. Such descriptions dogs her during season 2 and surface treat when she refuses to agree to agree, which is quite a lot all the time.
If her mother, Morticia (Catherine Zeta-Jones) asks her to avoid a certain family member, you should better believe that Wednesday will seek them. If her best friend, Enid (Emma Myers), asks her to consider fate for her fellow students before running to play detective, Wednesday will surely ignore her. About her cosmically appointed spirit guide, Larissa Weems (Gwendoline Christie), tells her not to chase her werewolf-like ex-boyfriend (who is not A werewolf, which is a matter other than a Hyde, apparently), then Wednesday is already out and lurking the night and looking for clues, the poison syringe ready.
The point is: Wednesday never backs down. But “Wednesday” always does.
Over a button two seasons, Alfred Gough and Miles Millar’s Netflix The series is consistent in a state of retreat: back to elements that worked in its first season; Return to elements that have maintained the long -established “Addam’s family” IP; and most annoying, retreating from The basic duty of storytelling to provide emotional closure to its stringed audience.
If “Wednesday” in itself shared an excerpt of Wednesday’s harmless arrogance, season 2 might feel less shy, more creative and ultimately intended to grow the franchise instead of protecting it from developing at all.
One of the most open concessions for the Convention is also a fairly common problem for Marquee Second Seasons: Repetition. When a new show hits, it is tempting to follow up with more of the same thing. That’s what the studios think the audience wants (when what they really want is to feeling As they felt during the first season, not literally see it again), and it is easy enough to give it to them. Perhaps the frame of mind explains why “Wednesday” is so desperate to hold on to Tyler (Hunter Doohan) as a chronic antagonist.
After Wednesday liberated him (by mistake) at the end of Part 1, Hyde Teen promises to finish her in part 2. Instead, his mother, Francoise (Frances O’Connor) – who is also a Hyde – cares him, and introduces him to his uncle, Isaac (Owen Pugs), The Reanimathed Corpse Corpse Corpse Pugs) The crazy researcher in the family believes that he can save Francoise from a mysterious disease by removing the Hyde side of her. He just needs to rebuild his laboratory on campus, recruit some living subjects and complete the experiment he first tried 30 years ago.
… back when Gomez Addams (Luis Guzmán) was his roommate at Nevermore. Issac recruited Wednesday’s future father as his victim, Morticia had to save him, and then the couple buried his body to avoid a murder. History repeats itself (like “Wednesday”) when Isaac takes Pugsley as his range of compensation, does his sister have to save him on Wednesday, and no one has to worry about murder, who has time?
Extending the Season 1 conflict between Tyler and Wednesday to Galpin and Addams families is not the worst idea (provided there was a kind of mandate to give more time to the entire Addams family in addition to Wednesday, you know, because “bigger is better”), and pyrotecnic. But Season 2 kills the older Galpins without eliciting any fear from their dastardly plans or sin for their ultimate difficulties. How can something so big feel so small? When no investment is required.
Even worse is that the expanded family focus does nothing to develop Tyler and Wednesday’s relationship. She literally does the same thing twice – saves him from captivity (and probably death) first at Willow Hill, then with Isaac – without any of them as much as discussing what it means. In her closing monologue, she wonders if her kindness will be her ultimate downfall, but simply playing the question on the road does nothing for this season’s drama, nor does her bland-boyfriend make a convincing big bath. (He flees with the city with the former music teacher, Isadora, played by Billie Piper, so you know he will be back for upcoming seasons.)
Outside the plot machines that resurface season 1, a more open attempt will go through the past in section 7, “Woven me the money.” (I will say: The section titles are pretty good.) Through a long -lasting dance scene on the School Galla, Enid and Agnes (Evie Templeton) appear for the above -mentioned Lady Gaga single, “The Dead Dance.” Now, for those of you who can keep track of three-year-old pop culture trends, you may remember that “Wednesday’s” viral Tiktok videos were part of what helped it spread aware Wider audience. Inspired by a cut of Jenna OrtegaDance excluded the dance to Lady Gaga’s “Bloody Mary”, many teenagers tried to flip their hands from side to side – as did Madonna, Kim Kardashian and Gaga himself.
Will “The Dead Dance” take off the same way “Bloody Mary” did? Can companies manufacture viral moments? Does any of us really know why teens do what they do? I would dare the answer to each of these questions is the same, but to admit that so much also means that I do not claim that I know what will happen in the coming weeks. What I know is the song’s inclusion rings of shameless imitation – an attempt to reverse construction a random cultural phenomenon, rather than trusting the series’ natural creative choices to get people to talk, dance or do something else completely (which is what actually borrowed season 1 dance movement its magic).
(Side labeling: The fantastic body swap-story- A lively disposable bow in a sea of repetitive plot extensions-enlargers really season 2’s missed opportunities. Do more pieces! Have more fun! Give Jenna Ortega new shit to do!)
Even if you could set aside the inflated role and crash consumerism, there is still the problem with the payments – or the lack of it. “Wednesday” season 2 ends without the most basic element a story can offer: emotional closure. The plots get in the head, safely. They have to pretty much, and seeing the Galpins get and main Dort (Steve Buscemi) crushed in a million rocky pieces gives the eight episodes the illusion of resolution. (Dort, mainly thanks to Buscemi’s lively turn, deserved a much better death.)
But what really changed for our heroes? Pugsley makes a (1) friend who complete the shallow arch that is possible for a child who is basically there to feed the villain long enough to eventually become his victim. Morticia and Wednesday’s season -long dispute get a smooth gesture against reconciliation when the eldest Addams hand over his Kiddo Aunt Ophelia’s magazine. (That the object is immediately transformed into a plot device for season 3 only proves how little weight is given to the Mother’s Dynamic.) Gormor Frump (Joanna Lumley) and Enid is in the same way as threads for the next season, with the latter only learning that she may not need a boyfriend right now (OK?!) And the previous learning nothing.
Finally, there is Wednesday. What got of The dilemma that she met to start her second yearLike the annoyance she expressed for her newfound fame? It is wrapped without her, because Agnes abandons obsessive fandom when she is sufficiently established in the group to be seen as a “normal” friend. (Her transformation has the relaxed, worrying implication that fanatical persecution is nothing but a phase?) And Wednesday’s persistent insistence that people are not changing? Throw aside or forgotten unless you count the characters’ lack of growth as evidence of Wednesday’s position.
Ok, but her often promised comeuppance to be so brave-something must come from it, right? That’s how the season began, as she rushed to catch Kansas City Scalper and how the half season REStarted, when (in the fifth episode’s self -described “Summary”) Larissa Weem’s “congratulate” Wednesday on being “The architect of her own passing away.” Her hubris is, of course, the guilty, just like different adults repeatedly insists that it will be in season 2. But in the end, Wednesday’s arrogance is still an asset, as she again goes on her own and browses her new book while asking the question on the question of what will happen thereafter.
Based on what we have seen so far, it will surely be more of the same.
“Wednesday” season 2 is on Netflix. The series has already been renewed for season 3.
