Things have gotten much worse for Wednesday in Wednesday Season 2 Episode 4 “If These Woes Could Talk.” Once again our titular character is the quintessential teenager, thinking she knows everything, with the ending proving that she doesn’t. Luckily enough she has a mother that cares for her in a way that her grandmama never cared for Morticia.
If anything, the one thing that bothers me about the end of Part 1 of Season 2, is that there is a Part 1. I do miss the days of everything coming out weekly and seasons being dropped in one big bang it is a bit overwhelming. But I wish there was another way. Because what we’re doing right now makes this episode feel like a season finale. And I’m having trouble looking at this episode through that lens when I know there are so many more episodes to come that tell the rest of the story.
Wednesday Was Cruel with the Grandmama Jumpscare
A staple of teenage angst is thinking that your mother does not understand you. So of course Wednesday would enlist her mother’s mother to stir the pot and distract your mother from what’s going on. And like predicted, it backfired on Wednesday while also showing that she doesn’t understand the difference between you feeling like your family is torturing you and cruelty. But again, she’s a teenager, so she gets a bit of grace because we’ve all been there.
Nevertheless, bringing Morticia’s mother in Wednesday Season 2 Episode 4 was a cruel act by Wednesday grounded in our lead feeling like no one was listening to her. Or more so, the person that she had opened up to previously, her own mother, wasn’t listening to her. Plot twist: Wednesday wasn’t listening either. If anything, this proved how alike Wednesday and Morticia are and how Grandmama is a bad influence. As a viewer we understand this. But for Wednesday, she’s on a journey. We only hope she gets to the end without too much damage.
Besides the Grandmama of it all, this episode proved that Wednesday is only scared of one thing.
She’s not scared of her mother’s wrath, zombies, breaking and entering, or even facing a Hyde. But she is afraid of losing Enid. You could see it in her face when Enid asked if she even wanted to be friends with her anymore. It goes back to that saying that to be seen is to be loved. And Enid sees Wednesday just as much as Wednesday sees her. With love comes vulnerability and I’m really wondering what’s going to happen when Enid finds out that Wednesday has been trying to protect her this entire time.
I expect hugs, conversations, and the eventual payout that this show has been building towards all along: Wednesday realizing she doesn’t have to do it alone and that others can have her back.
This is the Most I’ve Liked Morticia
I love when a show makes me really invested in a character first, story second. And for a lot of fans of Wednesday, they already love Wednesday, Enid, or Bianca. They’re invested in them as characters. But for myself, even though I’m here reviewing this show episode by episode, that moment where I want to know absolutely everything about a character hasn’t happened to me. Well, that was until this episode of Season 2. I want to know everything about Morticia Addams.
In Season 1 of Wednesday, Morticia was painted as just another mom getting in her teenage daughter’s business. She was an obstacle or annoyance, often painted by her daughter like she had never been a teenager in the first place. And then something curious happened in “If These Woes Could Talk.” Morticia decided to destroy the book. And she didn’t do it because she was trying to teach her daughter a lesson or stick it to her mother. Morticia burned that book because her family always comes first.
I’ll give it to the show, they’ve really sold this dark and gloomy aesthetic with the lead character that is seemingly devoid of softer emotions and brandishes aloofness like a weapon. But Morticia, she’s got this tenderness to her that is unexpected for an Addams. That’s not to say that other Morticia’s haven’t cared for their children. They have. But there is pain and a gentleness in the way she is navigating what is happening with Wednesday born out of a pain she didn’t choose and where she was ignored and lost her sister because of it.
Morticia is not here to tear down Wednesday and that makes her infinitely more interesting than a rich Grandmama.
Like I’ve mentioned in previous reviews, one of the season’s weaknesses is not bringing Wednesday and Morticia together more often. But it makes sense from a writing perspective because A) Wednesday is a teenager and B) if they work together and solve things, the story would be over in a lot of respects. But hopefully in Part 2 of Season 2 they get to a point where the teenage angst is over and these two can look at each other with honest eyes. Because they’re the same people. The difference is that Morticia has lived a life where someone she loved was destroyed by visions and where her mother didn’t listen to her.
That’s not going to happen with Wednesday. Not under her watch.
That’s Ophelia in the Asylum
I should have known that Netflix’s Wednesday mentioning Morticia’s sister over and over again could lead to her possibly being alive. That woman that Wednesday freed, that’s Ophelia.
While it hasn’t been confirmed yet that this is indeed Morticia’s sister and Wednesday’s aunt, all the pieces throughout the season fit together. This is where Ophelia was before she disappeared. The normie turned outcast was continuing her father’s work. And a power like Ophelia is a dangerously powerful one. It would be easy to whisk her away during a vulnerable time and act like she ran away. And that’s what was done.
Combine this possible Ophelia reveal with Morticia intriguing me and Wednesday continued character growth, and this is the most I’ve been interested in Wednesday Season 2. Because I’m not worried about Tyler and his whole Hyde revenge. I’m also not worried about what the principal is up to. What I’m concerned about right now are how these women’s stories are going to be woven together when Part 2 comes around.
We’ve seen the power of teenage angst in Wednesday Season 2 Part 1 already. For Part 2 of the season I’m hoping to see the power of a mother’s love. Not Morticia with Grandmama, but Morticia and Wednesday. I’m also really hoping we get to see the love between sisters. Everything that Morticia does is because she feels guilt at not being strong enough to protect her sister. And to find out her sister is still alive, has glued me to my seat in a way that I really didn’t expect from this show.
Bring it on Wednesday Season 2 Part 2.
Wednesday Season 2 episodes 1 through 4 are available on Netflix. Part 2 arrives September 3rd.
