Three years after Jenna Ortega shot to superstardom with its initial run, “Wednesday” Season 2 is just as much a sensation as Season 1 was. IndieWire’s Brian Welk concluded that the 50 million views notched by the first four episodes of Season 2 that dropped this month makes for “effectively the biggest debut for English-language Netflix series ever.” And it was only the first half of the season.
When “Wednesday” Season 2 Part 2 unspools on September 3, it’s likely there’ll be yet another surge of interest. And the trailer for Part 2 below certainly should whet fans’ appetites for more (even if IndieWire’s own review of “Wednesday” is much more muted.)
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A big return appears to be in the offing, if not quite in the way one might expect: In the Season 1 finale, Gwendoline Christie’s Principal Weems was murdered. Wednesday’s quasi-nemesis had also been the Nevermore Academy roommate of her mother, Morticia (Catherine Zeta-Jones), some decades before. In her dealings with Wednesday, and the constant threats of expulsion she proffered, Principal Weems always brought the forced smile and cheer of a frenemy — a perfect foil to Ortega’s deadpan cynicism.
Now Weems appears to be back. Showrunner Alfred Gough said via Netflix, “Nobody in our world is truly dead dead.” Christie and her character made their return in the last installment of Part 1, with many viewers wondering how exactly she could be alive. Well, the Part 2 trailer explains it: She is dead, but she has returned to be Wednesday’s spirit guide, offering advice from beyond. Hey, if there’s any place where this could happen it would be Nevermore Academy, the show’s central boarding school that turns the entire series into kind of Harry Potter meets The Addams Family.
Following Weems’ death, Steve Buscemi’s Barry Dort took over as principal. He brings a different tone to the role as someone wanting to wear this school’s outcast status with over-the-top, perhaps monetizable relish. IndieWire’s Ben Travers suggested in his review he hoped that role would be a commentary on “educational institutions’ self-serving support of LGBTQ causes and DEI initiatives — that are happy to fly the rainbow flag when it’s making the school money, but less inclined when it could cost them federal funding.” Should be interesting to see how Buscemi and Christie’s characters interact, if some supernatural occurrence makes it possible.
“Wednesday” Season 2 Part 2 starts streaming on Netflix on Wednesday, September 3. Watch the trailer below.
