The alarms are going off - Wednesday is finally back for a second season.
Tim Burton’s delightfully spooky horror series has finally landed on Netflix, with Jenna Ortega in the lead role once more as the morbid Wednesday Addams.
She’s got a lot on her plate. Having saved Nevermore Academy in season one, season two finds Wednesday dealing with a stalker, family drama, psychic powers and a new spate of murders.
Amongst all that, there are some new arrivals to our cast of misfits that promise to spice things up even more. Here’s who (warning: mild spoilers ahead).
Joanna Lumley
When you want somebody to play a delightfully evil grandmother, who else do you call? The veteran Ab Fab star will be making her debut in the Wednesday verse to play Morticia’s own mother, Hester Frump. Hester built Frump Mortuaries into one of the biggest Outcast-owned businesses in America, but on the downside, she never speaks to her daughter at all. Safe to say, they don’t get on.
"She's a whole different flavor of Addams that brings such delicious fun to the show and into the family," co-creator Miles Millar told Entertainment Weekly.
"We weren't sure how many episodes that character should be in, but seeing how well it played, I think Grandmama will definitely be coming back if we get a season 3."
Billie Piper
Piper has been in the news recently, of course, thanks to Doctor Who: she apparently is playing the next iteration of the Doctor, after Ncuti Gatwa’s character regenerated into her during the last season finale.
She’s staying mum on that, though – in Wednesday, she’s playing Isadora Capri, a werewolf music prodigy who starts the season as Nevermore’s new music teacher. She also takes an especial interest in Wednesday – why, we’ll doubtless find out.
Steve Buscemi
Steve Buscemi is one of the biggest names in Hollywood, who has appeared in films including Boardwalk Empire, Reservoir Dogs and Fargo during his career.
He’ll be playing Headmaster Dort, the replacement for Gwendoline Christie’s previous headmaster Larissa Weems, who met a sticky end at the hands of the Hyde in season one. However, his approach is pretty radically different: he believes Weems “really fudged up”, and wants to adopt an approach of Outcast pride instead.
He also has another motive: he wants to save Nevermore from being shut down, and turns to some quite unorthodox methods to get the funding he wants.
"I’ve been a big fan of The Addams Family since I was a kid so it was surreal and very exciting. It was a really, really fun experience," he told the Hollywood Reporter.
Thandiwe Newton
English actor Thandiwe Newton has been in so many shows and films we’d struggle to list them all here, but she has form with channelling spooky vibes: she made her breakthrough appearance in the film Interview With A Vampire. Since then, she’s appeared in Westworld, Mission: Impossible 2, and Solo: A Star Wars Story.
She’ll be playing Dr. Fairburn, a leader Outcast psychologist and the head of the psychiatric facility in which Tyler is being kept.
Lady Gaga
Yes, that Lady Gaga. The pop star sensation (who is just about to embark on a massive world tour) clearly made space between recording her latest album and filming the Joker films to make an appearance here.
Her casting wasn’t revealed until May this year, but it seems she’ll be playing somebody called Rosaline Rotwood, a "legendary Nevermore teacher who crosses paths with Wednesday." No more information on this character yet, but stay tuned.
Wednesday Season 2, part one is streaming now on Netflix
