Wednesday Season 2: Bolder and romance-free? Here’s what to expect from Jenna Ortega's goth glam return

With a soul-defying blankness, she springs into a dance.

It’s the moment most fans of Wednesday can’t forget: A deadpan Jenna Ortega, draped in gothic black frills, moving with eerie precision to The Cramps’ Goo Goo Muck on the dance floor.

 She doesn’t smile. She doesn’t blink. She simply commands her awkward, angular moves.

It works.

And in that moment, she shoots and scores both as Wednesday Addams and as the actor reinventing her.

The morbid magic of Jenna Ortega

That dance was an example unusual charm that Ortega brought to the morbidly beloved child of The Addams Family, a famous tale that has seen several interpretations over the past five decades. For over fifty years, Wednesday has haunted pop culture in various forms—from the deadpan innocence of Lisa Loring in the '60s sitcom to Christina Ricci’s mischievous menace in the '90s films. But Ortega’s take is something else entirely: sharp-edged, emotionally layered, and unmistakably modern.

Wednesday, once again, is back, but for Gen Z.

Now a teenager sent to boarding school after unleashing piranhas on a bully, Wednesday finds herself at Nevermore Academy, a school for the supernatural—home to werewolves, sirens, and all manner of eerie beings. 

But Ortega doesn’t play Wednesday for laughs or gimmicks. Her portrayal goes deeper. It’s studied, unsettling, and refreshingly sincere. She disappears into the skin of Wednesday, offering viewers a character both new and nostalgic. And despite her razor-sharp glares and emotional stoicism, there’s a surprising tenderness that surfaces, especially in her unlikely friendship with the ever-optimistic Enid, her pink-hued, werewolf roommate.

For once, the Addamses aren’t the weirdest ones in the room. In Tim Burton’s fantastical world of oddities and absurdity, they almost blend in. Almost. Even here, among outcasts and mythical beings, Wednesday stands out, with her raven braids, all-black ensemble, and piercing sense of self.

Season one offered a refreshingly twisted take on the Addams Family legacy, merging familiar horror aesthetics with coming-of-age storytelling. And as the series shows, perhaps the worst horror, is adolescence itself. The series follows Wednesday as she stumbles through teenhood, boarding school, and a murder mystery that pulls her into a dark prophecy involving an ancient pilgrim.

There’s joy in watching her play detective, interrogations, sharp deductions, and plenty of wrong turns. She makes innumerable mistakes, with every possible wrong assumption, but that’s what makes her compelling. She’s brilliant, but not infallible. Her mistakes make her real.

What we can expect from Season 2

 Still, the first season left us with chilling loose ends: Who is Wednesday’s anonymous stalker? What exactly is the monstrous threat that now lurks in the shadows?

Season two promises to be darker and bolder. Ortega has already teased a deeper dive into horror and confirmed the love triangle is dead and buried. So the question is: Can teen drama thrive without romance?

If anyone can make that work, it’s Wednesday Addams.