Wednesday Season 2: Exclusive Look Inside a Darker Danse Macabre with the Addams Family

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The key to writing a brutally funny Wednesday Addams joke is to not write a joke at all. By virtue of her macabre predilections and hobbies—as well as the naturally sardonic performer channeling her on Netflix—the humor speaks for itself. Take the first scene of Wednesday Season 2 where the daughter of Gomez and Morticia finds herself bound and gagged at the tea party from hell. All around her sit eerie dolls made with real human hair and other ghoulish accouterments. Yet Jenna Ortega’s raven-hued vigilante seems nonplussed about her situation when she makes eye contact with the camera.

“I’m tied up in a serial killer’s basement,” her voiceover states with the undercurrent of a boast. “Who says nightmares don’t come true?” To showrunners Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, this is the epitome of Wednesday’s appeal as a character and series.

“I think it’s really about her point of view,” Gough says of why the humor of the show connects with so many people. “I think when you write to a joke, it always falls flat. It always feels like you’re reaching. Every one of her lines is really her point of view, and that’s what is ultimately funny about Wednesday: how she sees the world.” That and, as Millar also adds, keeping her lines clipped. “The fewer words she says, the better.”

Indeed, the mind adds far more to the punchline when that opening scene ends with the tables turned and Ortega the one standing over the killer with a knife. “Now,” she lightly smiles, “let’s play dolls.”

It’s funny, a tad disturbing, and a sign that things are going to be darker this year at Nevermore Academy.

New Addams Family Values

Before Ortega’s Wednesday Addams, or for that matter Christina Ricci and Lisa Loring’s versions, there were the Charles Addams illustrations. Begun in the pages of The New Yorker in 1938, these cartoons were often one-shot gags of a slightly unsettling or sinister disposition. Nearly a century later, they remain a north star for any savvy creator playing in the Addams milieu.

“When we look at certain sequences or moments in the show, we always say ‘that could be a Charles Addams panel,’” Gough notes. That includes the season 2 opener, which might well be captioned “how Wednesday spent her summer vacation.” Nonetheless, the Addams of it all is coming much more to the forefront in season 2 with the whole family moving into Nevermore—whether Wednesday likes it or not.

“Her family informed so much of who she is that we wanted to find a way to bring them into the story organically so that we could see that interaction,” Gough explains. Hence the development of not only Pugsley (Isaac Ordonez) enrolling as a freshman this year but a new shady principal (Steve Buscemi) inviting Moritica and Gomez (Catherine Zeta-Jones and Luis Guzmán) to stay on campus and chair an alumni committee.

“Pugsley is a character in the previous iterations who had always been a third banana, really,” Millar says. “He hadn’t been explored in any way or complexity. For Wednesday, it’s not something she’s going to enjoy, but it felt like he’s a character that we could really surprise people with by showing his personality.”

It also opens up various dynamics, including with Gomez, who gets to introduce his son to the rites of Caliban, the boys’ dormitory at Nevermore. There Papa Addams gets to tell new roommates that soon enough “you’ll kill for each other and provide alibis.” For Guzmán, this meant an opportunity to build on what the show did several years ago.

“The first season is like trying on a new pair of shoes,” Guzmán explains. “Going into the second season, it’s like, ‘Okay, the shoes fit well, so let’s go.’” The experience of both has been interesting, too, for the actor. “Because of this show, my fanbase became a whole lot younger, which is cool,” he chuckles.

At the same time, Guzmán is quick to point out the unique appeal of the family aspect within the Addams Family: “Even when I say something [odd] like ‘Oh my little thundercloud,’ do you know how many parents started calling their kids thunderclouds? It’s a very catchy kind of phrase, but it has a little meaning to it. And that’s the beauty of the show.”

Thus by bringing in the full Addams Family, season 2 has a lot more space to gather new thunderclouds, particularly between Wednesday and her mother.

“It’s really about exploring that mother-daughter relationship,” Gough says of the second season. “Then on top of that, adding in Morticia’s mother, Hester Frump [Joanna Lumley]. You get three generations of these very determined, very strong-willed, very different women.” The interplay between Wednesday, Grandmama, and Morticia in the middle offers a lot of conflict. Still, it remains a family where everyone can share a good belly laugh after Pugsley causes a traffic accident.

Joining Tim Burton’s Cabinet of Curiosities

While the Addams Family lore remains constant, the appeal of any show that catches on in the zeitgeist is what it adds to the canon. This includes new fan favorites like Emma Myers’ technicolored werewolf Enid and mysteries such as Tyler Galpin (Hunter Doohan), the nice coffee shop barista that Wednesday was low-key crushing on in season 1 before he turned out to be maybe, kind of… a monstrous Hyde who nearly murdered half the cast while in the thrall of an evil Puritan (Christina Ricci). 

Suffice to say that when Wednesday visits him in an asylum in season 2, the new energy he brings is quite different, complete with Tyler chained shirtless to a wall like an au naturel Hannibal Lecter.

“I think Tyler has been dreaming of the moment Wednesday is gonna walk through that door and trying to decide how he’s going to play it,” Doohan says of the scene. “He wants to get under her skin, but a huge part of Tyler still has feelings for Wednesday, and when she walks in the door, he’s thinking, ‘She’s finally caved.’”

Onscreen it’s surprisingly tense. On the set, it was a different animal.

“Yeah, the chains were funny. We were just laughing the whole time about how we’re going to have to ADR the whole scene,” Doohan says. “I was clanking around, and Jenna walked in and just started laughing when she saw me oiled up and chained.” Yet like his Jekyll and Hyde character, the asylum sequences have a weird tonal urgency to them. Says Doohan, “Those scenes felt so much more fun and lighthearted on the day, so it’s crazy to see how they come across once everything is edited together.”

For those who masterminded the sequence, that’s the point.

“It sort of makes sense that the first boy Wednesday Addams would fall for would be a vicious monster,” Gough muses. “He really did pull one over on her… [proving] he is an incredibly smart, malicious villain.” There has been much said about how this season is dialing down the romantic subplots in favor of horror, but as Millar points out, it’s only natural for Wednesday to be wary after being burnt by an evil monster. Still, one might wonder if it is fair to write Tyler off as only a monster. After all, he was controlled in season 1, and in season 2, he has reasons to be both angry and doubted.

“It’s interesting because we’ve never seen Tyler fully himself or fully in control,” Doohan says. Even in that second episode, he is still said to be partially under the sway of Ricci’s Ms. Thornhill. All parties remain circumspect about whether the character could find any redemption. However, Doohan does share a curious note from director Tim Burton this year.

“I’ll always keep with me that Tim said he was welcoming me into ‘a long line of sensitive monsters,’” says the actor. “Because we do get these moments of what’s driving Tyler to be the way he is.”

Coming of Age

When the second season of Wednesday hits Netflix in August, it will be almost three years since its debut. Perhaps because of the long gap, the showrunners have already planned up to Wednesday’s graduation. Yet much of the joy in a series like this is the happy accidents discovered along the way. For instance, they never intended for Ortega’s self-choreographed dance in the first season to go viral.

“When we first saw that dance cut together, we thought, ‘Oh God, it’s basically the Pulp Fiction dance for teenagers!’” Gough chuckles. One does not force those flashes of inspiration. In fact, they claim they won’t even try to replicate it in season 2, with Gough insisting that “you can’t chase those moments.” But while they stay mum on whether Nevermore will even have a school dance this season, the pair admits to leaving room for creating similarly serendipitous developments.

Onscreen that can mean a lot more of Nevermore’s spooky campus getting a spotlight. Millar tells us there was plenty they wanted to do in season 1, but “you usually have more limitations in budget because no one knows what the show is until they see it.” Now they have the freedom to build bigger and to dive more into the supporting characters who, other than Enid, stayed relatively peripheral last year.

Off-screen there’s growing up too, with Ortega taking on a producer credit and a more active role in shaping her character’s arc and destiny. “We have a blast at every stage, and I think we all have a shared desire to make the show as good as it can be,” says Millar. “There’s no sense of complacency or resting on our laurels.”

For the star’s Addams paterfamilias, it’s also a point of fatherly pride.

“She really has grown into the vision of what Tim Burton laid out,” Guzmán says. “I’m proud of her for taking on that position. She is a powerhouse, man. I stand next to her doing these things, and I just feel this incredible energy from her.”

Now that energy can be fully unleashed into the kookier, and spookier, corners of Nevermore.

Wednesday Season 2 premieres on Wednesday, Aug. 6. Of course.