RIOTUS

Final Thoughts and Revelations

Rioters! We can finally talk about it. But I have questions for you first. Does the WEDNESDAY fandom have a name? Allow me to submit: Woebegoners. So, my dearest darling Woebegoners, did you notice that Wednesday’s Wolf is full of woe? I mean, Wednesday’s Wolf is completely different from Enid’s. It’s darker, leaner, with dripping sabertooth fangs and glowing yellow eyes. Enid’s Wolf is a golden retriever with Rottweiler tendencies, but Wednesday’s Wolf is a nightmare. Just the way we like it. When they say “death becomes her,” they meant our girl. 

Another question: Do you see why episode 6, “Woe Thyself,” is my favorite of the season? And did you catch all the clues in my last review? When Wednesday visits the grave of Rosaline Rotwood (Lady Gaga), the fellow Raven isn’t pleased. The two still make a deal, with the dire warning that “If you pull your palm from the flame, you will break the Raven’s gaze, and there will be a price to pay.” Since ‘love don’t cost a Thing’ and Enid’s life is still at risk, Wednesday goes for it. She breaks the gaze, and the Rotwood plays a “dirty trick.”

If you missed our breakdown on the rest of the season, you can read A Freakier ‘WEDNESDAY’ – Season 2 Part 2 Gets Flipped Turned Upside Down right here, right now, but only if you want to, but we really think you want to

When I said you’d have your choice of memes and dance scenes, I didn’t lie. And that’s how Freaky Friday becomes Freaky WEDNESDAY, with a bestie body swap. Of course, even in each other’s bodies, Weds and Enid still struggle with misunderstandings. The next thing we know, Enid takes vengeance by dressing Wednesday in glitter, pink, and purple. Then she dance bombs the Nevermore Quad to “BOOMBAYAH” by BLACKPINK—creating her very own LISA-FRANKenstein. Woebegoners, did you love it or what? Should we call her Rainbow Wednesday or Neon Wednesday? I’ll let you decide. You’ll also have to decide which dance scene you love more: Rainbow Wednesday to “BOOMBAYAH” or gothic Enid and Agnes to Lady Gaga’s “The Dead Dance”?

Sidebar A: Jenna Ortega and Emma Myers make the body swap feel real, with Wednesday’s Enid going cold and unblinking, while Enid’s Wednesday is wide-eyed and emotional., 

Sidebar B: This series loves a reference, especially a visual one. Playing on the urban legend, Lady Gaga’s Rosaline Rotwood evokes the Lady in White. 

Sidebar C: Wednesday is legitimately allergic to color, and it shows. If you’re going to take revenge, do it from outside your mark’s body; otherwise, you did it to yourself. 

“I haven’t enjoyed a mother-son relationship like this since Psycho.”  

Were you hoping Patient 1938 was Ophelia Frump, like me? Either way, the reveal that she’s Tyler’s mother, Francoise Galpin, comes with just as much family drama. Especially after the reveal that the Galpin-Addams Family connections go beyond Wednesday’s hidden feelings for Tyler (her Dr. Boyfriend and Mr. Hyde). How far beyond? Oh, that’s a whole THING.

From The Hands of Orlac (1924), to 1981’s The Hand, and Idle Hands in 1999, to 2022’s Talk to Me, amputated hands with minds of their own are known to wreak havoc. WEDNESDAY Season 2 Part 2 puts the show on a different foot—I’m so sorry, but it was right there. After Enid reads her for filth, Agnes leads us to a self-help group called Some of Your Parts. Led by Professor Orloff, this meeting helps disembodied parts feel whole. Since all are welcome, Enid gets to share her troubles, but the real plot point belongs to Thing, another newbie to the group. That’s when we find out Thing has no idea where he comes from. He woke up one day and was taken in by the Addams. The only clue to his past is a silver signet ring. 

“Sometimes the parts are greater than the whole.”

This is where we see the true depths of the Orloff character in Christopher Lloyd’s performance. To soothe the body parts and Agnes, he tells them, “You can’t see yourself as an appendage, but as a whole person, worthy of love and respect. We are more than just the sum of our parts. But sometimes, the parts are greater than the whole.”

I was wrong, that message isn’t just for the body parts and Agnes, it’s for you and me too. That makes it hurt more when we find out Thing’s origins—it’s too soon, if you ask me, which you didn’t, but still. Unlike our beloved Oscar Issac, the Nevermore Issac, aka Issac Night, also known as Slurp, is a bitch. How dare he? How dare he murder Professor Orloff? How dare he kidnap Pugsley like he did with Gomez? 

Morticia explains it all when she, Grandmamma Hester, and Wednesday join hands for a seance, and Weds realizes her mother and father buried Issac in a shallow grave beneath the Skull Tree. Turns out Issac tried to use Gomez as a power source to remove the Hyde from his sister, Francoise. It would have killed the old boy, so Morticia put an end to it and him. During the fight, she cut off Issac’s hand, and Thing was born. Which brings me to my next question: No one thought Issac should be named Victor, as in Frankenstein? It was right there. Did I mention Issac is a bitch, because how dare he think that because Thing came from him, Thing belongs to him? Yes, we know Thing is an anagram for Night. It doesn’t matter, Thing is his own person and he proves it. It’s too bad he had to break his origin’s mechanical heart.  Oh well. I guess WEDNESDAY really is full of woe—for the villains.

“Knowing you were cut from the literal cloth of an evil genius, it makes sense why we’re so compatible.” 

We knew Isadora Capri couldn’t keep her true motives hidden for long. She offers Tyler a support system, a secret Hyde pack he can join. What’s in it for her? Her father was a Hyde. The family drama just keeps getting more chaotic. Don’t believe me? Uncle Fester picks up Wednesday on his motorcycle. They’re going on a road trip North to rescue Enid, ‘cause she’s an Alpha. But now that Wednesday has her Aunt Ophelia’s dairy, she has more than one mystery to solve.

Who wants to bet the Alpha Enid, who transformed permanently to save her bestie, is about to become part of the Hyde Pack? It would make sense, since Alphas are lone wolves. Kind of like a Hyde, they only move alone or in pairs.

Sidebar D: Wednesday enjoys being buried alive, so that’s nice. 

Sadly, we say goodbye to Weems, again, but we have a feeling she’ll be back. You can’t keep a good spirit guide down. As a matter of fact, in WEDNESDAY you can’t stop the women from saving the day.

If you thought it was over, the final episode of WEDNESDAY Season 2 Part 2, “This Means Woe,” wasn’t done with us yet. We knew Grandmamma Hester was shady, but damn, this heifer knew where Ophelia was the entire time, and it’s looking a lot like a Japanese horror movie. Wednesday closes out with, “As I venture into the unknown, I am determined to exhume every lie and deception, or die trying. Sounds like a perfect vacation to me.”

I was right about Season 2 when I said, “…it’s about to get better by getting so much worse.” The woe comes in multitudes, but so does the character growth, and the revelations feel like gifts rather than cheats. While Part 1 wasn’t as thrilling as we hoped, Part 2 was heady deadly redemption; we got our viral moments and our memes, in a story engine fueled by blood and love. In Season 2 Part 2, the Addams Family values get “flipped, turned upside down,” for a Freakier WEDNESDAY.

In the end, “Sweet Dreams” are made of Woe…until Season 3

New Characters and Expanded Roles

• Pugsley Addams (Isaac Ordonez): Now a student at Nevermore, Pugsley’s expanded role will explore his adjustment to the supernatural academy and his developing, sometimes awkward friendship with Eugene Ottinger (Moosa Mostafa), who is also getting more screen time this season.
• Eugene Ottinger (Moosa Mostafa): Eugene’s friendship with Pugsley is a new comedic highlight, and his role is more prominent as he teams up with the Addams siblings.
• Morticia Addams (Catherine Zeta-Jones), Gomez Addams (Luis Guzmán), and Uncle Fester (Fred Armisen): All return with more involvement in Nevermore’s affairs and Wednesday’s life.
• Joanna Lumley: Grandmamma Hester Frump is as formidable as she is fabulous and she’s also really, really, terrible.
• Lady Gaga: One of the great Ravens in Outcast history and a legendary teacher at Nevermore, Rosaline Rotwood breathes new death into the Woman in White urban legend
• Steve Buscemi: Barry Dort, the new principal of Nevermore Academy, is a cult leader and a manipulator with a long history of scamming and other crimes.
• Billie Piper: Portrays Capri, a mysterious new teacher at Nevermore who is drawn to the outsiders among the Outcasts.
• Heather Matarazzo: plays Judi, Dr. Fairburn’s overly chipper and sycophantic executive assistant at Willow Hill, who she develops an instant dislike for Wednesday.
• Christopher Lloyd: The former Uncle Fester is now Professor Orloff, a disembodied head in a jar and a senior teacher at Nevermore who still remembers where the bodies are buried.
• Noah B. Taylor: Bruno, live and direct from the Philippines, this new member of the wolf pack has Enid on lock—lip lock (no, I’m not sorry).
• Christina Ricci: Marilyn Thornhill, the woman with reverse mommy issues who puts the delulu in delusional. 
• Hunter Doohan: Dr. Boyfriend and Mr. Hyde.
• Evie Templeton as Agnes Demille: Did our girl gang just induct a third member and a clingy baby sister? Yes, I think they did.
• Owen Painter as Slurp aka Issac Knight: The lethal zombie whose best beauty regimen is brains—yours, not his; turns out to be the mad scientist of the Skull Tree legend and Tyler Galpin’s uncle. Girl, what?
• Luyanda Unati Lewis-Nayo: No longer left standing in the rain without an umbrella, Sheriff Ritchie Santiago is the newly appointed Jericho sheriff who replaces the disgraced Donovan Galpin.
• Francoise Galpin: The mysterious and very scary mother of Tyler Galpin, and when it comes to Hydes, the females are deadlier.