Call of the Woe

I love love love Tim Burton. But I cannot for the life of me understand why the direction is to airbrush the life out of their faces. Jenna Ortega and Catherine ZJ's blurry cheeks is super distracting for me. It might just be me but I prefer texture in people's face.

And they did Thandie dirty by not covering her five o'clock shadow moustache.

The previous two episodes had included an involving mystery and were very interesting with some unexpected twists but this episode struck out for me. This was silly and goofy and introduces useless characters in that have no importance to the story. This one really confused me after watching the first two. It kind of felt like the creators had a minimum episode requirement to hit as only 5-7 minutes of this episode are really important. Did it seriously have to be an hour long? The important parts are serious and interesting but it's ruined by the goofiness of the rest of the plot for this episode. This epsiode is a real low for Wednesday.

The whole boy scout thing was out of touch with the show. Since when boy scouts are trained like the military with a highly insulting "commander" and all the "sir yes sir"s?

"I've been training this for the last 365 days" the scout master says. For what? A 2 day glamping trip in a fancy camp?

Waw I feel the show has ran out of creative content.

Catherine Z and Guzman are still incredibly miscast. They have zero chemistry I don't believe they crave each other for a minute.

It's not the addams family anymore, it's just a random family with a walking hand.

Ep 3 "Call of the Woe" finally clicks the season's gears into place.

Shipping the school to Camp Jericho is a sly reset: the Outcasts-vs-Cadets color war gives Wednesday room to be mischievous and methodical again, capped by a ruthless zip-line checkmate.

The B-plot's zombie slapstick shouldn't work, but Pugsley's Slurp fiasco swerves from goofy to grisly with a clean horror punch line. Meanwhile, the Bullpen discovery and that ominous "Lois" scrawl sharpen the central mystery without info-dumping us into boredom.

Performance-wise, Ortega's deadpan is a weaponized metronome - she can sell a gag and a clue in the same breath. Zeta-Jones finally gets something meaty: the blindfold duel is mother-daughter therapy with stilettos, and the "Bad Moon Rising" duet is a cheeky mood swing that still feeds the full-moon stakes. Buscemi's Principal Dort is a welcome new flavor of exasperated adult, while Myers keeps Enid's heart intact even as the Bruno/Ajax beats flirt with CW-ish froth.

If Ep 1 felt cautious and Ep 2 table-set, this one eats. The tone blends campfire fun, classic Addams mayhem, and real plot momentum. Not flawless, but it proves Season 2 can juggle jokes, gore, and clues without dropping the head. Solid 8/10.

Episode 3...

The second episode was a slight improvement over the first... So I was hoping this one would confirm a positive evolution and raise this second season above average... Alas, it's the worst of the three for me, and when I see that it gets the highest rating here in the first part of this season, that is among the first four episodes, I find it hard to believe...

The series has become entertainment for young teenagers aged 12 to 14. What a waste! These "games" with scouts are abysmally weak! The story is completely disjointed. We don't see the point of the ghoul story. Is it just to put a zombie that teenagers love in their video games? Seriously, guys... We're almost at zero level regarding the plot.

Enid, the driving force behind Season 1's appeal, is reduced to a useless foil, and Agnes, whose arrival was promising, actually serves no purpose.

And to make matters worse, Jenna Ortega, in robot mode, continues to treat us to her unsubtle and dark glares. I'm stunned to read the rave reviews of her performance...

I'm going to watch the fourth and final episode of this first half of the season hoping for a miracle... I can't believe it could happen...