(courtesy IMP Awards)
The Addams Family has always been popular because everyone comes as a unit.
They are tight, love each other and have each other’s backs as the members of the one kooky tribe, and while like any loving family, they clash and fracture at times, they always have each other’s backs and who doesn’t want a family like that, Thing (Victor Dorobantu), of course, included?
One of the very best parts of the immeasurably excellent second season of Tim Burton’s Wednesday is that while the titular character, played with restrained gusto by a superlatively good Jenny Ortega, is still very much front and centre, her family has been brought far more to the fore than they were on season one.
And, in fact, than they even were in part 1 of the second season, which premiered on 6 August 2025, with even more time being given to Morticia and Gomez (Catherine Zeta-Jones and Luis Guzmán respectively) particularly, Pugsley (Isaac Ordonez) and even Grandmama Hester Frump (Joanna Lumley, purringly eating the role alive in gorgeously malevolent fashion).
The Addams have always been better as a family, and while yes, much of the narrative to this point has been driven by Wednesday and Morticia being at daughter-mother odds, the finale revolves very much about all three Frump women coming together as one.
The only reason the Big Bads are dealt with, and rather cleverly, Wednesday has more than one set on the go, is because differences are set aside, empathy is engaged and everyone realises they need the other and the closeness of full disclosure to stand against some fairly nasty events and characters.
To say too much about what goes down would be a disservice to a very smartly written and emotionally nuanced show that may trade on fairly out there tropes of monsters and villains and attendant bigotry and flawed natures, but which never loses sight of the innate humanity, in all its gloriously diverse forms, at the heart of the story.
So, while there are some blockbustery moments, and a finale to absolutely write home about – or write in a blog as the case may be – and you will have your heart in your mouth more often than not, what really hits home about Wednesday is how even the darkest, most twisted and flawed among us has more nuanced than first impressions might suggest.
Wednesday, for instance, if you take her solely on goth face value, is all bristling menace and scornful disdain, her life guided not by attachment or emotion but by a cold regard only for what’s useful and is in front of her.
She has no time you might think for too much mushy-mushy love and friendship but as the four gripping episodes of the back half of season two play out, she and Enid (Emma Myers) reach a point of true, empathetic friendship courtesy of a very unusual set of circumstances, and even her sweethearted stalker Agnes (Evie Templeton) comes into her own and thus forges an authentic relationship with Wednesday.
So connected does Wednesday become in these episodes to friends and family that one of the major threads of a confirmed season 3 (!!!), in ways that stay true to her character while importantly allowing her to develop and grow, is her search over the summer, with a fabulously gungho Uncle Fester (Fred Armisen) ———– SPOILER ALERT !!!!! ———- for a full wolfed-out Enid who transformed into an Alpha wolf to help save Wednesday at one critical juncture and now can’t turn back.
The Wednesday of season one would likely never have even countenanced such an idea but by the end of the second season, with the Big Bads dealt with in ways final, and also evolving (ooh mysterious!) – we’re looking at you Tyler Galpin (Hunter Doohan) ! – it’s a pretty instinctual and followed-through decision that beautifully highlights how much growth Wednesday has seen.
She will never be a bubbly party girl (the clip below notwithstanding which comes courtesy of ———– SPOILER ALERT !!!!! ———- a Freaky Friday-type body swap situation) but she is not the same person that she was when she arrived at Nevermore Academy and she’s growing up in ways that make her a far more rounded and interesting human being.
One of the strengths of season two’s second half is how it handled its second tier characters andf their stories.
While it looked a little hit-and-miss in the first four episodes of the season, things really progressed in a far more cohesive way in the final batch of four stories and became far more integrated into the overall story rather than looking like add-ons that took us away from Wednesday’s adventures in ghoulish sleuthing.
So, Bianca Barclay (Joy Sunday) and her mother end up being connected to one of the major characters in this season and in turn, their story is beautifully woven into the overall story of Wednesday and her growth as a person.
Similarly, Agnes and Enid not only grow as people as previously touched upon but become wovenly deeply into the full narrative of the show in a way that the first half of the show only hinted at.
It’s a masterful joining together of A and B-plots that not only adds to the richness and emotional heft of the overall narrative but gives its characters far more body and form and impact which is only to the greater good of the season.
Rather wonderfully, Wednesday season two, part two carries the best parts of season one and the first half of season two and builds magnificently and enthrallingly on them, serving up a story that will absolutely compel you to watch every second (you will not need the ten-second button trust us) but which impressively nuanced character growth, a fine balance between epic storytelling and emotional intimate connection and a lovely of the whole family being back together again which makes it feel like The Addams Family we have always known and loved and which, after this cracker of a season, we now love even more.
Wednesday streams on Netflix.