Jenna (Beetlejuice Beetlejuice/X/Scream 5-6) Ortega has returned as Wednesday Addams in Netflix/MGM/Tim Burton's Season 2 (with a four-episode kickoff), where the titular lass heads back to Nevermore Academy (after a summer derailing Haley Joel Osment's Kansas City Scalper) to undergo Hyde-thwarting, celebrity worship and questionable, communal assimilation.
This time, her psychic powers burn with determined woe as she contends with her ardent mom, now a Nevermore, gala organizer. How Wednesday matches the matter is the crust of the plot, in addition to an impressive, Hitchcockian, crow assault that appears to usher our bittersweet protagonist toward another Kolchak-ish unveil, though one sprinkled with maniacal traces of Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell, thanks to a frantic, asylum sojourn.
Wednesday's colorful, lycanthrope compatriot, Enid Sinclair, portrayed by Emma Myers, also returns, along with the expected, Addams members: Isaac Ordonez's Pugsley (taller, wiser and Nevermore's zombie-conjurer outcast), Catherine Zeta-Jones' Morticia, Luis Guzman's Gomez, Fred Armisen's Fester, Joonas (Chewbacca) Suatomo's Lurch (replacing George Burcea) and Victor Dorobantu's Thing, with Joanna Lumley's Hester "Grandmama" Frump making her riveting, if not judgmental debut.
Linking to this eccentric chain is Hunter Doohan's Tyler "the Hyde" Galpin, Jamie Shane's Sheriff Donovan Galpin, Christina Ricci's alive-and-sort-of-well Laurel Gates (aka Marilyn Thornhill), Joy Sunday's Bianca Barclay, Moosa Mostafa's Eugene and Georgie Farmer's Ajax, joined by a fresh crop of supporting performers that includes Billy Piper, Steve Buscemi, Thandiwe Newton, Heather Matarazzo, Anthony Michael Hall, Evie Templeton, Owen Painter, Casper Van Dien, Noah B. Taylor, Luyanda Unati Lewis-Nyawo, Lady Gaga and famed, former Fester, Christopher Lloyd in a nifty nod to his Amazing Stories ("Go To the Head of the Class") role.
The episodes that dropped on August 6 are quite good, and it's a shame that we must wait until September for the next four. Why not have released one episode a week after the introductory quartet? It would have sustained the melodramatic suspense, though without such a frustrating, double-snap gap.
Be that as it may, it's nice to (re)experience Tim Burton's quirky side (and all the better when embolden by Danny Elman's orchestrations), proving that the filmmaker was ideal to enliven Charles Addams' concept. As a result, the sequel crackles with wicked camp, referencing the kooky hijinks of the 1960s sitcom, though with mature insertions where and when needed.
Time (and patience) will tell where Wednesday's latest journey goes. I'm anxious to see what crawls beyond the sinister tease, though I'm confident I'm not the only who craves more.
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