Wednesday's Child

It doesn't say much for my observational skills or my critical faculties that it was only a couple of minutes ago, when the title of this post popped into my head, that I realized why every episode of Wednesday's second season is some kind of pun on the word "woe". It's not that I didn't notice. I did. I just thought "Huh. That's a dumb pun..." and immediately forgot about it.

With that in mind, it might be as well to treat anything more I have to say about the show with some caution. Clearly I am not going to be a very reliable witness. But, hey, you work with what you've got.

And in that framework, I'm going to say I found the second half of the season very much more to my liking than the first. Not that I didn't enjoy Episodes 1 to 4. I enjoyed them quite a bit. I just didn't see how they were leading to anything or even going anywhere much. 

Episodes 5 to 8 went everywhere and lead to a lot. A lot of deaths. A lot of revelations. A lot of changes. Oh, probably ought to give the spoiler warning now... but that one I used last time was really annoying, wasn't it? And everyone here can read, right? So if you haven't seen the show and plan to, maybe this would be a good time to go find something else to do. Maybe bookmark this for later. It's not like I want to lose the page views...

Okay, we all good?  Then let us continue.

I thought all four episodes on the downslope of the season were excellent. Much more engaging than the earlier ones and also less bitty. There seemed to be a lot more of Wednesday and she was more central to the action. The rest of the Addams Family were there but their presence felt more in context, rather than the somewhat shoehorned-in plot mechanics employed in Part 1, when the writers had to come up with a reason for them to be there at all. With their continuing presence explained and established, they felt more like supporting cast members, no different from the teaching staff or the Sheriff, instead of pulling all the attention to themselves and away from the actual star.

Speaking of whom, Jenny Ortega was on particularly fine form, I thought. The body-swap episode, which I loved, made it very clear just how much acting she's doing, something that's not always apparent. I don't really know her well from any of her other work, although obviously I know of it and did before the show even aired, so in my mind the Wednesday Addams character and the actor playing her were mostly interchangeable.

When the most important thing you have to do as an actor is maintain almost the exact same expression and tone of voice throughout, it makes it quite hard for an audience to realize just how much work you're doing. With Enid inhabiting her, Wednesday was free to laugh, smile, talk in something other than a monotone and even move her arms as she walked. Or, I should say, skipped!

The opening of that episode, where Enid-as-Wednesday is in full KPop dance mode, is a great shock start and one of the rare times the trope of starting the story at the end (Well, the middle in this case.) and then tossing up the "16 hours Earlier" interstitial actually worked. Honestly, it felt genuinely outrageous. I was ready to be outraged. And then I was charmed and delighted instead, which is a pretty fine bait&switch if you can pull it off.

Speaking of Enid, she gets far more to do in the second half of the season. Oh, sure, she's in the first four episodes, all the time, but she doesn't know what's going on and the atmosphere between her and Wednesday is sour and it never feels comfortable. I know, I know... Wednesday isn't supposed to be cosy. But still, you want the team to pull together, don't you? I do, anyway.

Emma Myers is excellent as Enid as always and her story arc develops in a very interesting fashion. As with everything in the show - and in most fantasy shows if we're going to be sensible about it - a lot of things don't bear close examination. I'm not entirely convinced by the Alpha lore, or perhaps it's the naming convention that's confusing. Wouldn't the Alpha be the dominant pack member? Why would the pack shun their Alpha, let alone hunt her down and kill her?

That, however, may all be explained at some future stage, most likely in Season 3, since the really excellent ending of Season 2 sets everything up for just that. And since I've mentioned it already I'll take the end out of order. I just loved it and I can tell you exactly why.

For one thing it's a set-up, not a cliffhanger. It's the best way to go out of a season, leaving your audience excited for what might come next, rather than frustrated because something got cut off in mid-flow. 

For another, it's a very open-ended set-up. It's entirely possible the third season of Wednesday might not be set in Nevermore Academy at all. All those problems with the students starting to look like they really ought to be doing post-grad work just fall away if the school setting isn't there as a backdrop. 

And for the third and possibly best thing (Apologies to the actual Thing.) it brings back Uncle Fester along with the delicious possibility of a prolonged Wednesday-Fester double act. I'd take a whole spin-off series of that. 

Season 3 could be a wilderness adventure, a road-trip or pretty much anything. Or it could be a pre-credit sequence, then back to Nevermore. For that matter, Season 3 could take place entirely in the summer break and Season 4 could be the start of the next academic year. 

I hope not, though, and I'm not sure Nevermore is even still in business, anyway. There's one line in the last episode, I forget who's speaking, where someone clearly suggests the school has closed. Possibly for good.

For that matter, I was never sure just how much of the school year had passed by the end of Season 2. All the parents turn up and everyone goes home but is that the end of the Fall semester or has a whole year gone round? Or have they all just turned up to take the kids away because the place is on fire and the Principal has just been publicly exposed as a murdering con-man?

Oh, yeah, and he's dead, too. The Principal, that is. And one of the teachers. And there's a dead Hyde on the werewolf statue. And a couple more people died earlier. It's a bloodbath (Except blood is one thing you never seem to see - it's a very not-gory show, oddly.)

Throughout the season but mainly in Part 2, a lot of people die, including a whole bunch of major supporting characters played by famous guest actors. Steve Buscemi, Christina Ricci, Christopher Lloyd... It seems a bit wasteful but then, just dying doesn't mean you're not in the show any more. Gwendoline Christie's character, Larissa Weems, Nevermore's Principal in Season 1 died but now she's back as Wednesday's spirit guide (She's great, too.) and the previous Sheriff, also killed in Season 1, makes a couple of cameo appearances in Season 2, so I wouldn't rule out a reappearance from any of them.

This is, of course, one of the things that can undermine the emotional significance of... well, any plot development really, in a show like this. It's the old horror movie problem, where no-one's ever really dead until you've seen the body. Except in fantasy, even if you've seen the body burned to a crisp, it doesn't mean whoever burned isn't coming back. 

I'm long-since inured to it after a lifetime of reading comic-books.  My reactions are in the moment. They pretty much have to be if you commit to this kind of thing. I rarely find myself saying "Well, that would never happen..." while it's happening right there before me. Doubt only comes later, when I'm thinking too much as I write something like this.

After two seasons, it's still a little hard to figure out exactly what genre of show Wednesday is supposed to be, always assuming it's intended to be any genre at all. It's a fantasy-comedy-drama but also a detective show, something I had thought might just be a season 1 thing but apparently is going to carry on. It's also quite the soap opera at times and you get the feeling someone really, desperately wanted it to be a romcom until they were talked out of it.  

There was some press about that in relation to Wednesday herself, when it was made quite plain, coming into the second season, there was to be no more mushy stuff with the title character. Probably a good decision. Wednesday needs to retain that trademark dark purity and intense focus to be recognizable as the long-established character. The slight fussiness around the bleak edges as she develops genuine friendships is already enough of a risk, without throwing romance into the cauldron.

Enid picked up romantic slack for most of the season but I was interested to hear her tell Agnes, the one, very strong, Season 2 addition to Team Wednesday (Sorry - I think I mean The Nightshades.) she was done with boyfriends for a while. Whether that's a marker for the future, meaning a further pullback from romantasy, or just a wobble for Enid before she gets her romantic mojo back, I guess we'll find out next season. She's not going to be going on many dates as an Alpha werewolf who can't turn back into a girl, though, so there's that to consider.

Agnes, the human equivalent of a set of skeleton keys, makes a much better showing (Ha!) in the second half of the season. I found her a little one-note in the first but as she reveals just a little of her background and personality she becomes considerably more interesting, not to say poignant. Her rapprochement with Enid was sweet and quite touching although I'll miss those little spats, pitting Enid's spluttering lupine outrage against Agnes's cloying, passive-aggressive sarcasm.

Pugsley remains as pointless and charisma-free as ever, but since that's his well-established personality I suppose we can't complain. By the end of the season I was feeling slightly more sympathetic to him so there's some progress but I could happily do without him from now on. Morticia and Thing continue as before although it was a surprise for a disembodied hand to get an actual character arc. I'm betting Lurch will get one eventually. He certainly hasn't had a lot to do so far.

Perhaps the greatest revelation was the reason for Gomez's lack of paranormal abilities. I have always wondered just why he's part of the outcast world but now I have two valid explanations. Firstly, as Morticia says, it's a matter of attitude, not aptitude, and secondly he did used to have electrical abilities like Fester and Pugsley, so in some odd way he almost represents a disabled Outcast. All this lore fill-in is fascinating. I can take plenty more as the series goes on.

One thing I tried to notice was whether having an episode be directed by Tim Burton made any appreciable difference. I'd like to think that, if it did, I'd have been able to say afterwards which specific episodes he helmed but I don't believe I can. I'm looking at the credits now and I see he directed the final two, which I did think were the strongest of the whole season, but I'm not sure how much that had to do with the direction as opposed to them just being the climactic drawing-together of all the plot points.

And those plot points were tied up neatly enough, if not with a pretty little bow. There were a few loose ends left dangling here and there but only enough to give the writers of Season 3 something to grab onto. I found the whole thing a deal more satisfying than I expected after what felt like a relatively baggy and incoherent first half.

It does make me wonder how smart an idea it was to split the season in the first place. I realize it was done for commercial rather than aesthetic reasons but in retrospect I wonder if it might have had the opposite effect from what was intended. I can imagine a few Wednesday fans feeling somewhat less invested after watching episodes one through four, left perhaps not as excited as they could have been for the rest.

If the whole thing had either dropped week on week for a couple of months or landed in a big, binge-friendly block, I suspect the story arcs might have felt more coherent (Or noticeable, even.) and the sense of anti-climax that came with the end of the first half might not have been felt, or felt so strongly. It'll be interesting to see if Netflix goes the same way next time.

Of course, that's likely to be at least a year from now. It's a long time to wait, isn't it? I don't think I used to notice these lengthy gaps so much back when all TV was broadcast in real time. Now, in the age of on-demand entertainment, it does feel very strange to have to wait so long.

In the mean-time, though, there's apparently an Uncle Fester spin-off in the works. Too much to hope it'll be that Fester/Wednesday double act I was wishing for earlier. (When I wrote that yesterday I didn't know about the spin-off, either...) but I'll take it as it comes and gratefully.

To conclude, as a whole, I was happy with Wednesday Season 2. I'd like to re-watch it without the hiatus to see if it does, in fact, hold together better that way. But not right now. 

I have a lot going on, as you might tell from the reduced output here at the moment. This should have posted yesterday, neatly on a Wednesday, but outside factors intervened as I imagine they will continue to do for the foreseeable future. I might have to miss more than the odd post. Or maybe not. We'll see how things go.