Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega) has taken down a Hyde, unraveled a generations-long conspiracy, and traversed the dangerous hairpin turns of teenage friendship. Yet in Wednesday Season 2, the titular sleuth finds a “thorn in her side” even she didn’t expect: encroaching familial closeness. Oh, the horror!  

In Season 2, Wednesday’s parents, Morticia (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and Gomez (Luis Guzmán), move onto the grounds of Nevermore Academy as the former becomes the chairperson of the school’s fundraising committee. While, as Zeta-Jones says, “Morticia and Wednesday’s relationship lends itself to times of separation,” Mrs. Addams is now tangoing right in her daughter’s backyard. But Morticia isn’t the only character helping Wednesday expand its Addams family history. Director and executive producer Tim Burton and co-creators Miles Millar and Alfred Gough have also welcomed Morticia’s own mother, Hester Frump (Joanna Lumley), to the Gothic proceedings alongside a surprise finale guest … Wednesday’s no-longer-lost Aunt Ophelia. 

“One of the things we learned in Season 1 is how much people love the Addams family, and there really isn’t a lot of Addams family lore that exists,” co-creator Gough says. “We love having the open playing field of creating the Addams family myth and delving deeper, so we wanted to bring them to Nevermore.” 

PHOTO BY OWEN BEHAN

Much like Morticia is drawn to the academy to be closer to her less-than-enthused daughter, so is Grandmama Hester. The mortuary mogul  brings a fresh element of grim glamour to Wednesday, complicating the already tricky relationship between Wednesday and Morticia. These three generations of Addams family women find themselves coming together — and crossing swords, literal and metaphorical — to create what Gough calls the “delicious family triangle” that becomes the desiccated heart of Wednesday Season 2. 

Ortega was excited to uncover new layers of Wednesday’s maternal connections. “In Season 1, she is a very typical teen, rolling her eyes, saying ‘Get away from me,’ ” says the actor and producer.

And yes, in Season 2, the burgeoning psychic would very much like a little space from her stylish and “clingy” mother, as Wednesday refers to Morticia. But they’re also pulled together as they face a dire new issue. In Episode 2, Morticia learns that Wednesday is suffering from “psychic exhaustion” after attempting to manipulate her supernatural abilities to save werewolf Enid Sinclair (Emma Myers) from looming danger. 

Morticia wants Wednesday to hand over Goody Addams’s ancient book of spells, which the teen is using for her latest mission. Wednesday would rather weep endless black tears than lose her biggest asset in saving Enid — especially as her powers are starting to become increasingly unpredictable. Neither mother nor daughter is willing to back down. 

“Wednesday and Morticia’s relationship is beautiful. It’s encouraging. It’s contentious. It’s fraught,” Zeta-Jones says. “It’s all those things a mother-daughter relationship goes through.” 

Ortega went into Season 2 making it her priority to reveal new shades of Wednesday’s behavior and also explore her connection with her mother. “Obviously teenagers are always going to butt heads with their parents,” she says. “But I tried my best to leave in moments where we actually see Morticia and Wednesday be alike in certain ways, or at least have a bit more respect for each other.” 

PHOTO BY OWEN BEHAN

Complicating the matter is Grandmama Hester, who joins the series in Episode 4. Psychic abilities run in the family — Grandmama has them too, and Wednesday takes after her in more ways than one. “Wednesday and Grandmama — who’s played by the beautiful, wonderful Joanna Lumley — are best friends,” Ortega explains. “They love each other. They’re very alike, very hard, not very sensitive or open to things, love all things gothic and dark. They just really understand each other.” 

Lumley, on the other hand, calls Morticia and Hester’s relationship “ghastly.” Hester is one of the richest outcasts in the world, and she isn’t exactly pleased with her daughter’s lot in life. “Hester secretly quite admires Morticia and she’s hugely irritated by her,” Lumley says. “Hester wishes that Morticia had taken after her a bit more. And she thinks Morticia’s married beneath her — that Gomez is not up to it. She thinks he’s just useless. ”  

Wednesday’s co-showrunners thought adding Hester into the spooky mix would be the perfect way to add more “emotional depth” to Season 2. 

Millar says, “Al and I both have teenage daughters, so seeing the mother-daughter relationship is something that we’re very familiar with. For us as writers, it’s a very fertile plain, so that was something we were very excited to explore. Bringing the whole family to Nevermore felt like a no-brainer.” 

The tension of this forced Addams proximity hits a fever pitch in Part 1, after Morticia manages to nab Goody’s spell book. Determined to regain the relic, Wednesday challenges her mother to a Duelo a Ciegas, or a blind duel. Addams family traditions are, let’s say, unique. The duo meets in a secluded part of the forest for their showdown. Clad in all black — save for their satin blindfolds — Morticia and Wednesday go foil-to-foil among the trees, trading blows and barbed words. Their prowess as Nevermore fencing team members is evident. Zeta-Jones was delighted by the opportunity.

PHOTO BY HELEN SLOAN

“We had the chance to really get deeper into the relationships and the family. When I was reading each episode, it was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I get to do so much more. I get to fence. Brilliant!’ ” she says. Zeta-Jones drew on her fencing chops and leaned into her lessons from past projects like her 1998 breakout hit The Mask of Zorro, for which she first learned to fence. “I actually wanted to continue doing it after I finished shooting. I loved it. And Morticia Addams fencing is on a different level.” 

Unfortunately for Wednesday, Zeta-Jones is correct. Morticia is an expert fencer and the duel doesn’t exactly solve Wednesday’s problems. But that’s what she has her beloved Grandmama for. The teen sleuth turns to the eldest family member when times get difficult. “Wednesday is like a little closed book,” says Lumley. “She hardly ever shows emotions.” It’s clear from their first scene together that this pair has an intense love for each other (though they’d certainly never call it that).

The hard-won familial admiration extends across all three generations in the Season 2 finale, when Wednesday, Morticia, and Hester band together and use their collective psychic abilities to find a kidnapped Pugsley (Isaac Ordonez). Not only does the moment force physical connection between the women, it reveals a few long-hidden secrets. To save her son, Morticia admits that Gomez once had electrical powers like Pugsley. But they were then stolen by Gomez’s former best friend Isaac Night (Owen Painter). Suddenly, Hester sees her daughter’s marriage in a new light — Gomez is the victim of a twisted scheme.

“There's a great expression of surprise from Hester. She has realized that she underestimated Gomez,” Millar says. “Now — through this recollection of the story of Isaac Night and what happened — there’s definitely a sense that the family is coming together. They've all learned from this season.” 

PHOTO BY HELEN SLOAN

To prove as much, Morticia closes out Season 2 with a grand gesture to Wednesday: giving her Ophelia’s journal. Until that moment, Morticia had been terrified that her daughter would follow the same destructive path as her sister, who was also a Raven. By allowing Wednesday to read the troubled tome, Morticia shows she trusts Wednesday to make the best decisions. “There's a new level of understanding, and Morticia's learning as a mother. As much as she wants to protect and kind of control Wednesday, she knows that she can't,” Gough says. Millar agrees, calling the moment “a big deal.” 

Yet, even as the Addams family ties grow stronger, there are always secrets bubbling just below the surface of Wednesday. In the final seconds of Season 2, we see Hester — supposedly in a newfound “détente” with her relatives, according to Gough — strutting through the halls of her own mansion. Hidden away in the darkest hallways, behind the darkest door, she unveils Ophelia, who is very much alive (and not missing). With the single turn of a key, Hester has conjured an entirely new mystery about horror’s favorite family. 

“The re-emergence of Ophelia is going to definitely hit this family like a bomb,” Millar promises. 

Prepare to see the sparks for yourself when Wednesday Season 3 snaps back. Until then, (re)watch all of Wednesday Seasons 1 and 2 right now — and keep coming back to Tudum for all your Nevermore news. 

Jenna Ortega Breaks Down Her Return to Wednesday Addams in Season 2