Wednesday 2 Part 1 Review: Jenna Ortega Anchors An Overstuffed Yet Spellbinding Sequel

There's something deliciously ironic about Wednesday Addams making a grand return in the sweltering heart of summer. 

The pale-skinned, all-black-clad queen of deadpan, striding back onto our screens while the rest of the world basks in sunshine, feels like a sly wink from Netflix, as if to say that mystery, morbidity and macabre wit don't need a seasonal slot. 

Three years after the first season became a cultural juggernaut, inspiring viral TikTok dances, a tidal wave of Halloween costumes, and a renewed fascination with all things kooky and ooky, Tim Burton's gothic prodigy is back for a second outing. And, in true Wednesday fashion, she's brought both baggage and bodies with her.

Season 2, Part 1 of Wednesday picks up after the events of the first season, with Jenna Ortega's delightfully caustic heroine returning to Nevermore Academy fresh off a summer of tracking a serial killer who scalped his victims and donated their hair to porcelain dolls. 

If that was her idea of a holiday, one can only imagine what she considers "work." This time, she's not walking into the school as an unknown outsider, she's a celebrity, the campus saviour. 

Unfortunately, fame for Wednesday is about as welcome as a pastel cardigan. Her arrival comes with new complications: her younger brother, Pugsley (Isaac Ordonez), now enrolled at Nevermore, is struggling to control his newfound ability to generate static electricity, her parents, Morticia (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and Gomez (Luis Guzman), have inexplicably decided to stick around after being roped into helping with the school's fundraising gala and a new headmaster, Principal Barry Dort (a cheerfully suspicious Steve Buscemi), is running the institution with the kind of eager energy that feels one crow short of ominous.

But if adjusting to new family dynamics weren't enough, there's the matter of the visions. 

Wednesday's psychic abilities (so pivotal in solving last season's mystery) are starting to glitch, producing black tears and increasingly disturbing premonitions. 

One in particular, involving her werewolf roommate and closest friend Enid (Emma Myers), shakes her more than she lets on. This destabilisation isn't just physical, it threatens her ability to solve the chilling murders plaguing Jericho, a town now stalked by a murderous murder of crows (yes, the bird kind) with a penchant for plucking out victims's eyes. 

Add to that a determined stalker shadowing her every move, and the season's central mystery feels more personal and more urgent than before.

The storytelling this time around is bigger, busier, and bolder. Tim Burton and showrunners Alfred Gough and Miles Millar have dialled up the scale and woven in a parade of new characters - from Thandiwe Newton's asylum doctor to Billie Piper's music teacher - while giving familiar faces more to do. 

Uncle Fester (Fred Armisen) drifts in to steal scenes, Grandmama (Joanna Lumley) sweeps in with chaotic charm, and the ever-loyal Thing (Victor Dorobantu) continues to emote more with a flick of the wrist than most actors manage with their whole bodies. 

But the trade-off for this expanded ensemble is that at times the narrative feels overstuffed. There are so many moving pieces: teen dramas, resurrected zombies, invisible stalkers, ambitious galas, romantic subplots, that Wednesday herself occasionally risks becoming a player rather than the player in her own story.

And yet, Ortega's performance refuses to let that happen. Her mastery of the character is complete. Whether she's dismantling a pompous adversary with a single line or wordlessly calculating her next move in the face of danger, Ortega ensures the show's centre never falters. 

Enid's arc is also given more depth, her sunny disposition tinged with frustration at being pushed aside, while Bianca (Joy Sunday) emerges from the shadows of Season 1 with more texture and purpose.

Visually, Season 2 is a feast for lovers of Burton's signature aesthetic: ornate sets, gothic flourishes, and meticulous costume design that makes even a school uniform feel steeped in character. 

The Nevermore interiors are richer than ever, layered with details that reward a lingering gaze, while the exteriors, from mist-swathed graveyards to the unsettlingly cheerful campgrounds of a disastrous overnight trip, strike the perfect balance between eerie and enchanting. 

Burton sprinkles the episodes with references to horror classics, his own filmography and even an animated sequence that feels ripped from a morbidly beautiful storybook. The lighting remains crucial, bathing scenes in moonlit blues, candlelit ambers and shadows so velvety they seem to swallow the edges of the frame.

Tonally, Wednesday still walks its delicate tightrope between humour and horror, but there's more bite to the proceedings this time around. 

The stakes feel sharper, the danger more immediate, and the jokes - when they land - cut with surgical precision. 

That said, Netflix's decision to split the season into two halves feels more like a marketing ploy than a creative choice. Part 1 ends just as the threads start knotting into something truly gripping, leaving the viewer suspended in a month-long holding pattern. 

It's not that the four episodes are unsatisfying, far from it, but the momentum they build begs to be ridden straight into the conclusion.

In the end, Wednesday Season 2, Part 1 is like an elaborate gothic banquet: some dishes are overcomplicated, some ingredients threaten to overpower the main course, but the flavours, when they come together, are rich, intoxicating, and entirely worth savouring. 

Ortega remains the unshakable anchor, the production design is sumptuous, and the mystery, though sprawling, still crackles with enough intrigue to make the wait for Part 2 feel like a challenge. 

Halloween may be months away, but in Wednesday Addams' world, it's always just a blink or a death rattle away.