By: Alex Tilton

Spoilers ahead.

Some complaints are cheap shots that I shouldn’t bother with. The most important aspects of a good show or movie are (in no particular order): Sincere storytelling, tight continuity / character motivation, tonal consistency, good writing and performances, a well-organized and concise plot, and production value.

Wednesday season 2 does the most frustrating thing imaginable by doing a great job with most of these things most of the time, only to nosedive to the bottom of Lake Stupid at the last second. Whenever the heroes find a way out of a bad situation, I often found myself asking “why didn’t they just do that before?” Because the solution was obvious, and very accessible to people with superpowers. The answer, of course, is because the plot won’t work if the characters are always smart. But there are bigger problems. Many plot points in the show depend on an incidental event or accident that might just as easily have never happened. The main villain for this season (Isaac) only exists because Pugsley accidentally revives him. And he only does that because someone told him a legend about a former student of the school who went missing. And without this guy, there would’ve been no second act of the season. So…I guess we lucked out?

The first draft of this review contained a lengthy rant about the legion of plot holes, nonsensical motivations and convenient stupidity the characters exhibit to set up the big ending action scene. I was 600 words into that rant when I realized it would take me another 2,000 words to adequately chart all of it. And that’s just one part of one episode. So, I’ll just say that I was hoping for something a little smarter but it turns out this is a ‘switch your brain off and don’t ask too many questions’ show. Case in point, the main sub-plot revolves around the principal blackmailing a student with mind control powers to fleece money out of wealthy donors. Since she has mind control powers, she tries the obvious thing and uses them on him, only to find out he has a magic talisman that blocks her abilities. And in the end the solution to this is…have an invisible girl pickpocket him. This could’ve happened at any time of course, but then we wouldn’t have a show. Characters are smart when they need to be, stupid when they need to be, strong when they need to be, weak when they need to be and above all they’re very, very twee. 

But there’s a much bigger problem. In this show people with superpowers are called Outcasts, and this season takes away the main character’s powers early on so she can learn an important lesson, basically: you don’t need superpowers to belong to a community. Throughout the series thus far, Wednesday’s father Gomez is the only ‘Outcast’ without any powers. He’s just creepy and weird (and a lawyer). At one point his mother-in-law Hester makes some ablest comments about not letting anyone without powers into the school anymore. His existence demonstrates the point the show is trying to make. Community is (or at least should be) something you earn and build, not something you’re given by being born special. But then it turns out that he was born special. He had the same electrical powers as Pugsley (and Uncle Fester), but the main villain Isaac stole them. So the point is…what exactly? As long as you were born with superpowers you’re an Outcast, even if someone takes them away. But you do need to be born with them?

Moving on…the show has too many subplots and too many holdover characters from the first season that don’t have very much to do. Everyone gets a moment or two of relevance to justify their existence but only the major characters have anything going on. They could’ve spent more time on fewer people with a better result. 

But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t fun. Wednesday has some clever jokes and some genuinely heartfelt moments, and it was nice to spend some time in that world instead of the real one. But if they’re going to keep doing this they need to streamline the plot and hire a continuity checker. It would also be nice if the message, whatever it was, stayed consistent and didn’t undermine itself at the last moment. Where this show really shines is its sincerity. The people in charge wanted to make something fun that people could escape into for a while, and in that they succeeded.

The fans will no doubt love it and it will make Netflix a pile of cash. And in spite of my complaints, this show deserves that kind of result more than a lot of things I’ve seen.

Image Source: Netflix.com