Wednesday Season 2, Episode 1 Review: A Morbid Renaissance

After a nearly three-year hiatus that saw its first season ascend from a mere television show to a global cultural phenomenon, Wednesday returned to Netflix with expectations as towering and gothic as Nevermore Academy itself. The premiere of its second season, titled “Here We Woe Again,” debuted on August 6, 2025, as the first installment of a controversial two-part release strategy that splits the eight-episode season into two halves. An analysis of this highly anticipated episode reveals that it is far more than a simple continuation; it is a deliberate and ambitious recalibration of the series. “Here We Woe Again” actively pivots towards a darker, more horror-centric tone, exponentially expands its narrative complexity by launching multiple intersecting mysteries, and profoundly deepens its character dynamics by fully integrating the wider Addams family into the core setting of Nevermore.

Part I: Deconstruction of the Narrative

The episode’s structure is a masterclass in narrative momentum, using a three-act framework to reintroduce its world, escalate the stakes, and establish a web of interconnected perils that will define the season.

Cold Open: A Summer of Morbid Hobbies

The episode begins not at Nevermore, but in the midst of Wednesday’s summer vacation, with a six-minute pre-credits sequence that immediately establishes the season’s darker ambitions. This opening, partially previewed at Netflix’s Tudum 2025 event, reveals Wednesday’s rather unique holiday pastime: hunting down her favorite serial killer, the “Kansas City Scalper,” brought to life in a guest appearance by Haley Joel Osment. The sequence demonstrates a marked evolution in her character. Using her now-honed psychic abilities, which she has been studying from her ancestor Goody’s spellbook, she successfully tracks the killer. The scene is a perfect blend of the show’s signature gallows humor—exemplified by a sequence where airport TSA agents confiscate her vast arsenal of weaponry but are far more concerned about a bottle of sunscreen that exceeds the liquid allowance—and genuine horror, as she allows herself to be captured and awakens tied to a chair in a basement surrounded by the killer’s grotesque doll collection. Her subsequent escape, coolly facilitated by Thing, cements a fundamental shift in her agency. Where Season 1 positioned Wednesday as a largely reactive detective, thrust into a mystery upon her arrival, this premiere establishes her as a proactive hunter. She is no longer just solving a puzzle presented to her; she is actively seeking out death and danger as a macabre hobby, immediately fulfilling the creative team’s promise of a “darker, bigger, better” season by escalating not just the external threats, but Wednesday’s own morbid initiative.

Return to Nevermore: New Faces, Old Ghosts

Upon her return to Nevermore Academy, Wednesday finds the institution and her place within it significantly altered. In a major structural change for the series, her family—Morticia (Catherine Zeta-Jones), Gomez (Luis Guzmán), and her younger brother Pugsley (Isaac Ordonez), now enrolled as a student—are living on campus, a narrative device that facilitates their elevation from recurring guests to series regulars. This immediately brings the core family dynamic into the daily life of the school.

The academy itself is under new management. Following the death of Principal Larissa Weems, the school is now led by Barry Dort (Steve Buscemi). His enthusiastic, almost manic “outcast pride” and eagerness to reinstate archaic traditions like the “Founder’s Pyre” ceremony present a stark, unsettling contrast to Weems’s polished and authoritative demeanor. Compounding Wednesday’s misery is her new status as a school celebrity, a hero who saved Nevermore. This unwanted fame makes her the object of fawning and imitation from students, most notably a new sycophantic admirer named Agnes DeMille, a development she finds utterly repulsive.

A Confluence of Catastrophes: Seeding the Season’s Mysteries

Unlike the first season’s singular focus on the Hyde monster, “Here We Woe Again” launches at least four distinct, high-stakes plotlines simultaneously, weaving them together to create a complex and foreboding narrative tapestry.

The first mystery begins with the brutal murder of a local private investigator, Carl Bradbury, who is viciously attacked and has his eyes plucked out by a flock of crows. The disgraced former sheriff, Donovan Galpin, appears in the woods and reveals to Wednesday that he and Bradbury were working together on a case that threatens all Outcasts. This new “crow killer” mystery is immediately tied to the past when Wednesday receives a note from the now-departed Xavier Thorpe, which includes a drawing he made from a psychic vision of a one-eyed crow—the same distinctive creature seen leading the attack.

Second, the anonymous stalker from the Season 1 finale makes a dramatic return. Having stolen the manuscript for Wednesday’s novel, the stalker uses it as bait, luring her into the large pyre during the Founder’s Pyre welcome ceremony. She is nearly burned alive retrieving her work, an act that escalates the threat from cryptic text messages to direct, life-threatening physical assault.

The third plotline introduces a classic gothic horror element. During a campfire ghost story—told through a visually stunning black-and-white animated sequence reminiscent of Tim Burton’s other works—the students hear of a brilliant but tragic Nevermore inventor who built himself a clockwork heart. Intrigued, Pugsley later wanders off to the fabled “Skull Tree,” where he trips and accidentally unleashes a surge of his burgeoning electrokinesis powers. The electricity courses into the ground and reanimates the inventor’s corpse, which Pugsley delightedly adopts as a new, gurgling friend he names “Slurp”. This subplot injects an unpredictable,

Frankenstein-esque element into the season’s narrative.

Finally, the episode culminates in the season’s central emotional and supernatural conflict. As Enid grabs Wednesday’s shoulder to comfort her after the pyre incident, she triggers Wednesday’s most terrifying vision yet. Wednesday sees herself in a graveyard, standing before a tombstone bearing Enid Sinclair’s name. Perched atop the grave is the one-eyed crow, holding a white rose in its beak. The psychic trauma is so intense that Wednesday collapses, crying black tears—a physical manifestation that her powers are becoming unstable and dangerous. Morticia witnesses this and recognizes the symptom with horror, ominously connecting it to the fate of her estranged sister, Ophelia. This intricate seeding of plotlines demonstrates a more ambitious narrative structure. The threads are deliberately interconnected: the crow from the murder appears in the vision about Enid, linking the external threat directly to Wednesday’s internal, emotional conflict. This provides a powerful anchor amidst the sprawling supernatural chaos, shifting the central question from “Who is the monster?” to the far more personal “How do I save my best friend from a fate I might cause?”

Part II: The Dramatis Personae of Nevermore

The premiere populates Nevermore with a host of new faces while redefining the roles of its returning cast, creating a fresh and volatile social ecosystem.

Character Name	Actor	Status	Narrative Function in Episode 1
Wednesday Addams	Jenna Ortega	Returning	Protagonist; investigating multiple mysteries while her psychic powers destabilize.
Enid Sinclair	Emma Myers	Returning	Wednesday’s roommate; subject of a premonition of death; embroiled in a new love triangle.
Morticia Addams	Catherine Zeta-Jones	New Series Regular	Wednesday’s mother; concerned about her daughter’s deteriorating powers.
Gomez Addams	Luis Guzmán	New Series Regular	Wednesday’s father; living on campus to support his family.
Pugsley Addams	Isaac Ordonez	New Series Regular	Wednesday’s brother; new Nevermore student who reanimates a zombie.
Principal Barry Dort	Steve Buscemi	New Series Regular	New, manipulative principal of Nevermore Academy.
Isadora Capri	Billie Piper	New Series Regular	New head of music at Nevermore.
Grandmama	Joanna Lumley	New Guest Star	Wednesday’s grandmother; teased as a new family influence.
Professor Orloff	Christopher Lloyd	New Guest Star	Veteran Nevermore teacher, appearing as a disembodied head.
Agnes DeMille	Evie Templeton	New Series Regular	A new student who idolizes Wednesday.
Bruno	Noah B. Taylor	New Series Regular	A new werewolf student and love interest for Enid.
Kansas City Scalper	Haley Joel Osment	New Guest Star	Serial killer hunted by Wednesday in the cold open.
Donovan Galpin	Jamie McShane	Returning	Disgraced former sheriff investigating the crow murders.
Bianca Barclay	Joy Sunday	Returning	Coerced into a student liaison role by Principal Dort.
Ajax Petropolus	Georgie Farmer	Returning	Enid’s ex-boyfriend, part of her new love triangle.
Eugene Ottinger	Moosa Mostafa	Returning	Pugsley’s new roommate.
Thing	Victor Dorobantu	Returning	Wednesday’s disembodied hand-servant.

The Addams Family Ascendant

With Morticia, Gomez, and Pugsley now living at Nevermore, their presence is no longer an occasional interruption but a core component of the story. The premiere wastes no time exploring the friction between Wednesday and Morticia, particularly regarding the dangerous nature of their shared psychic abilities and Morticia’s past trauma with her sister, Ophelia. Simultaneously, the show establishes Pugsley’s own arc as he navigates life in his famous sister’s shadow while discovering his own formidable powers. The impending arrival of Grandmama (Joanna Lumley) is also set up to further complicate the family dynamic.

A New Regime and Its Secrets

The new leadership at Nevermore introduces immediate instability. Principal Barry Dort (Steve Buscemi) is a masterfully ambiguous character. His outward cheerfulness and “outcast pride” are consistently undercut by a sinister aura and a clear willingness to manipulate his students, as seen when he blackmails Bianca into becoming a student liaison for the school’s fundraising gala. The faculty is further reshaped by the arrival of the intense new music teacher, Isadora Capri (Billie Piper), and the bizarre Professor Orloff (Christopher Lloyd), a disembodied head in a tank who keeps a close watch on troublemakers.

The Evolving Student Body

The episode quickly establishes new conflicts for its returning students. Enid’s (Emma Myers) primary storyline is a love triangle between her ex-boyfriend Ajax and a new werewolf in her pack, Bruno (Noah B. Taylor). This subplot was immediately identified by several critics as one of the season’s weakest points, feeling like a regression to conventional teen drama tropes that the show was attempting to move past. Bianca’s (Joy Sunday) arc is set on a new path as she is coerced into working with Morticia on the gala committee, creating a potentially powerful and fraught alliance. Meanwhile, the introduction of Wednesday superfan Agnes DeMille (Evie Templeton) provides a new source of social irritation for the protagonist.

The Ghost of Romances Past: Departures and Thematic Pivots

“Here We Woe Again” makes a decisive narrative course-correction by addressing a major criticism of Season 1: the love triangle. The episode confirms the departure of actor Percy Hynes White, with his character Xavier Thorpe unceremoniously written off to the “Reichenbach Institute” in Switzerland. Tyler Galpin (Hunter Doohan), the other corner of the triangle, is now imprisoned, his role shifting from love interest to an incarcerated villain whom Wednesday may consult in a

Silence of the Lambs-style dynamic. This move, heavily influenced by star and producer Jenna Ortega, aims to align the show more closely with Wednesday’s canonical aversion to romance. However, this bold pivot is immediately undercut by the creation of a nearly identical, conventional love triangle for Enid. This reveals a core tension within the show’s identity. While it sheds one teen trope for its protagonist, it immediately embraces another for her closest friend. This contradiction, noted by multiple critics, suggests the showrunners are not yet fully committed to a pure horror-mystery genre, creating a tonal imbalance between Wednesday’s elevated, horror-centric storyline and the more standard teen drama of her peers.

Part III: A Study in Macabre Aesthetics and Themes

The Embrace of Horror: From Teen Mystery to Slasher Homage

The creative team’s stated intention to “lean into the horror aspect” of the show is evident from the opening frames of the premiere. The episode moves beyond the monster-of-the-week mystery of Season 1 into more visceral and psychological territory. The cold open with the Kansas City Scalper functions as a mini-slasher film, and the brutal crow attack on Carl Bradbury is staged for maximum unsettling effect. Furthermore, the body horror elements of Wednesday’s psychic seizures—the black tears and violent convulsions—are a clear elevation of the stakes. Jenna Ortega has noted that these sequences were inspired by vintage slasher films like

Carrie and Prom Night, signaling a conscious effort to ground the show’s supernatural elements in a more terrifying, cinematic language.

The Burtonesque Imprint: Animation, Allusion, and Atmosphere

With Tim Burton returning to direct the premiere, his stylistic imprint is unmistakable. The most prominent example is the black-and-white, stop-motion-esque animated sequence used to tell the ghost story of the boy with the clockwork heart. This sequence is more than just a visual flourish; it is a stylistic signature that serves multiple purposes. It functions as a direct homage to Burton’s own iconic films like

The Nightmare Before Christmas and Frankenweenie, enriches the lore and history of Nevermore, and provides a visually distinct method of exposition that breaks from the live-action narrative.

A Tapestry of Terror: The Episode’s Intertextual Web

“Here We Woe Again” is woven with a dense network of literary and cinematic allusions, placing the series in direct dialogue with the Gothic and horror canon. These “Easter eggs” are not merely clever nods but a key part of the show’s artistic strategy, adding layers of meaning for the attentive viewer. References include Edgar Allan Poe (the ticking clockwork heart from “The Tell-Tale Heart” and Principal Dort’s Poe-like appearance), Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds (the murder of Carl Bradbury), and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (Pugsley’s reanimation of a corpse). Even Xavier’s place of exile, the “Reichenbach Institute,” is a direct reference to the Reichenbach Falls, the site of Sherlock Holmes’s supposed final confrontation with Moriarty. This allusion does more than simply explain his absence; it invokes the famous “death” of a great detective, subtly hinting that Xavier’s story may not be truly over and framing his departure as an event of narrative significance. This strategy elevates the show from a simple mystery to a sophisticated pastiche that rewards analytical viewing.

Part IV: The Episode in Context: Reception and Ramifications

The Critical Consensus: A Triumphant, if Flawed, Return

Professional critics and audiences alike have hailed “Here We Woe Again” and the first part of Season 2 as a triumphant, if slightly flawed, return. The season’s first four episodes earned an 83% critic score and an 86% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, a significant improvement over Season 1’s ratings. Reviews from publications like Den of Geek, Screen Rant, and the Times of India universally lauded the show’s darker tone, the “spectacular” and commanding performance of Jenna Ortega, the successful integration of the wider Addams family, and the captivating additions to the cast, particularly Steve Buscemi.

However, criticism was consistently leveled at two key areas. First, Netflix’s decision to split the season was widely condemned as frustrating and detrimental to the viewing experience, undermining the binge-watching model that made the first season a sensation. Second, the formulaic love triangle given to Enid was seen as a “boring” and unnecessary subplot that felt out of place with the show’s otherwise elevated ambitions. Some critics also pointed to a “wildly uneven tone,” where genuinely clever moments were sometimes followed by comedy that fell flat.

The Voice of the Fans: Decoding the Woe on Reddit

Immediately following the premiere, fan communities, particularly on Reddit, erupted with discussion and theories, attempting to piece together the episode’s many clues. Several key theories dominate the discourse. One of the most prevalent revolves around the identity of the mysterious patient Wednesday rescues from the Willow Hill psychiatric facility in a later episode, with fans debating whether she is Morticia’s long-lost sister Ophelia or Tyler’s Hyde mother, Francoise. Another popular theory questions the ultimate purpose of “Slurp,” Pugsley’s reanimated zombie, speculating whether he will remain a harmless pet or evolve into a major antagonist for the season. Finally, with Laurel Gates dead, fans are theorizing about who, if anyone, now controls Tyler’s Hyde, with some suggesting that Wednesday herself could become its new master.

The Casting as Meta-Commentary

The show’s casting choices for Season 2 function as a savvy form of meta-commentary on its own legacy and its relationship with its fanbase. The casting of Christopher Lloyd—who famously played Uncle Fester in the beloved 1990s Addams Family films—as a new character creates a direct bridge to a cherished past iteration of the franchise, a tradition started with Christina Ricci’s role in Season 1.

Even more significantly, the announcement that Lady Gaga will guest star in the season’s second part is a direct acknowledgment and canonization of a massive fan-driven phenomenon. During Season 1, fans virally paired Wednesday’s iconic Rave’N dance sequence with Lady Gaga’s 2011 song “Bloody Mary,” catapulting the decade-old track back up the charts. By officially bringing Gaga into the show’s universe, the creators have validated the fan community’s creative engagement. This act transforms the show from a one-way broadcast into a two-way conversation with its audience, demonstrating a thoroughly modern approach to building and sustaining a cultural phenomenon.

Conclusion: A Promise of Delicious Misery

“Here We Woe Again” stands as a resounding success, an episode that not only meets the monumental expectations set by its predecessor but confidently forges a new, more ambitious path. It masterfully reboots the series’ stakes, tone, and narrative complexity, balancing the introduction of multiple compelling mysteries with the establishment of a powerful, personal emotional core for its protagonist. While minor flaws in tonal consistency and a frustrating release strategy persist, the premiere ultimately delivers on its promise of a darker, richer, and more intricate season. By deepening its lore, embracing its horror potential, and engaging with its own cultural legacy, Wednesday has, with its first episode back, solidified its status as a premier title in Netflix’s portfolio and a landmark of modern gothic television. The stage is set for a season of truly delicious misery.

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