Overall, Wednesday is finally the creepy kooky mysterious spooky and altogether ooky fun I’d been promised during Season 1, only to wind up disappointed. By leaning even harder on the gifts of its two irrepressible leads, then adding a third cut from the same living-cartoon-character cloth in the form of Agnes (she refers to them as “the Three Musketeers”; Wednesday and Enid disagree), the show located and leaned on its greatest strengths — not the plot, but the performances. Wednesday is a showcase more than it’s a show, and accepting that its superpower.

I reviewed the season finale of Wednesday for Decider. The whole back half-plus of the season was a lot of fun!

Enid locks herself within the confines of the lupine cages to prevent her from wolfing out, since a full moon is coming up, and if a young alpha transforms at that stage of the lunar cycle, they’re stuck that way permanently. Inside her cell, Enid tells Wednesday something Professor Capri said to her about her pack being her strength. “You’re my pack, Wednesday,” she insists.

And even though both characters are essentially living cartoon characters — very literally, in Wednesday’s case — that bond between them feels legit. It’s not so much that opposites attract, it’s that each of these people has gotten so used to looking at their opposite number and thinking “I know exactly what she needs” that they now consider each other in this way as a matter of habit. You can’t not make Wednesday care about Enid, not for long, nor vice versa. They’re too determined to stay in each other’s business. That’s a very believable basis for a comedy friendship, and this is one of the best comedy friendships on TV.

I reviewed the penultimate episode of Wednesday Season 2 for Decider.

Did I say the last episode was the best Wednesday episode ever? I lied. Boy, did I ever. A body-swap comedy that sees the mind of Wednesday Addams inhabit the body of Enid Sinclair and vice versa, “Woe Thyself” (Season 2, Episode 6) proves that Wednesday, well, knows itself. From the start, leading actors Jenna Ortega and Emma Myers have played their mismatched roommate characters as if they were John Goodman and Jeff Bridges in The Big Lebowski, no matter how far short the material they were given fell of the talent they were giving it back. What this episode, co-written by co-creators Miles Millar and Alfred Gough, does is simple. It takes the best things about the show and gives them even more to do: act like each other.

I reviewed episode 6 of Wednesday Season 2 for Decider. This was a hoot.

It wasn’t a fluke. Wednesday Season 2’s mid-season finale was the show’s best episode ever — funny, frightening, and genuinely striking to look, all in ways the show had so often struggled to achieve. That struggle seems to be over. The fifth episode of the series’ bifurcated second season is even neater and nastier.

I reviewed the mid-season premiere of Wednesday for Decider.

In terms of sheer imagemaking, this is Tim Burton’s best work on the show. In terms of overall quality across the board, this is the show’s best episode. It’s scary, it’s actually funny, it’s relatable (knock before you enter the room when your roommate’s in there, god!), it’s got that awesome orc-troll-Gollum-Large Marge monster design for Tyler, it’s got goth Patsy from AbFab, and it ends with the possibility of Wednesday Addams journeying to the realm of the dead for real. It makes me want to tune in next time, even if that’s a month away. That’s exactly what you want a midseason finale to do.

I reviewed the midseason finale of Wednesday for Decider. I liked this one!

So yeah, random animated sequences? Jenna Ortega and Catherine Zeta-Jones doing their best Uma Thurman/Lucy Liu impression? Horror comedy centered on a Luis Guzmán shower scene? Christina Ricci getting dragged before Thandiwe Newton in chains? It would be churlish to deny the show’s pleasures. But it would be foolish to deny the many ways it hobbled itself right out of the gate.

I reviewed the third episode of Wednesday Season 2 for Decider.

It took me a minute, but I figured out what the second episode of Wednesday’s second installment reminds me of: Conan O’Brien’s old “Late Night’s Parade of Characters” bit. Hey, everyone, look! It’s Thandiwe Newton as a director of psychiatry for a hospital for the criminally insane! It’s Heather Matarazzo as the hospital’s chipper, ugly sweater–wearing personnel director! It’s Hunter Doohan returning as his evil Tyler/Hyde character, who’s now basically the Red Hulk! It’s Fred Armisen making an Uncle Fester Cameo for ten seconds! It’s Christopher Lloyd as a severed head in a robotic jar! It’s Catherine Zeta-Jones and Luis Guzmán as Morticia and Gomez, who are now series regulars because we realized the Addams Family is more interesting as a concept when it’s an actual family! And don’t forget Principal Evil Steve Buscemi! But wait — Morticia’s estranged Mama Hester is still on her way!

I reviewed Wednesday Season 2’s second episode for Decider.

So why did the series hit so big? The cast, plain and simple. Headlined by overnight sensation Jenna Ortega in the title role, supported by a breakout turn as Wednesday’s chipper werewolf sidekick Enid by Emma Myers, and augmented by a cast that included — let’s face it — certified dimepieces Catherine Zeta-Jones, Christina Ricci, Gwendoline Christie, Joy Sunday, Riki Lindhome, Hunter Doohan, and Percy Hynes White, the show felt more vivacious and charming than it actually was at any given time, just by virtue of how pleasant it was to watch these people act out their haunted-house hijinks. The flatness of any scene involving the badly miscast Luis Guzmán as family patriarch Gomez Addams shows how important the casting was to the overall project; it’s the exception that proves the rule.

I reviewed the season premiere of Wednesday for Decider.