“Wednesday” Season 1 came out in 2022. (If you need a refresher, check out our recap.) That’s eons ago in adolescent years, though not so long in streaming years. But for a show like “Wednesday,” which employs several adolescents in its cast, this has occasioned some shake-ups. These include Isaac Ordonez, who plays Pugsley Addams, and Moosa Mostafa, who plays Wednesday’s friend Eugene, shooting up like weeds in the time between seasons. Plus, Percy Hynes White, who played Xavier in Season 1, is missing from the cast (he’s been accused of sexual assault). Additionally, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Luis Guzman, as Wednesday’s parents Morticia and Gomez Addams, join the cast on a more permanent basis — the product of Season 2 being bigger in every way.

While the first season leaned on a charismatic turn by Jenna Ortega as Wednesday Addams, relying on her to make the show work despite featuring the sometimes inane stuff of teen dramas, the second season, at least so far, relies on so much more. Morticia and Gomez are staying in Vermont to be near Nevermore Academy because the new principal, Barry Dort (Steve Buscemi), has recruited Morticia to chair a committee. Pugsley now goes to Nevermore as well and has made friends with a zombie called Slurp (Owen Painter). Bianca Barclay (Joy Sunday) is now the student liaison to Morticia, which has cut into Bianca’s plans to be her mother’s protector despite their fraught relationship last season. Wednesday’s roommate, Enid (Emma Meyers), is caught between her old love, Ajax (Georgie Farmer), and her new one, Bruno (Noah B. Taylor). Plus there’s an assortment of teachers at Nevermore and staff at the psychiatric facility for the criminally insane, Willow Hill, played by noteworthy names like Billie Piper, Christopher Lloyd, and Thandiwe Newton. So it would be an understatement to say this season is stuffed.

Perhaps it’s no surprise that with all those characters to serve, Wednesday herself would at times get lost in the shuffle. The character doesn’t lack for story, mind you. She has plenty to deal with in Part 1 of Season 2 — but even then everything doesn’t seem entirely true to her. Wednesday drops a lot of juicy bon mots — my favorite was about Pugsley having limited opportunities: “We both know being tall and male will only get him so far” — and between what’s going on at the school and what’s going on at Willow Hill, she has enough on her plate to keep her busy. But it still doesn’t seem to be enough for this show. Not only do all the other characters impinge on Wednesday’s screen time, but in Episode 3, “Call of the Woe,” Wednesday inexplicably becomes the main player in an event that she would normally ignore. So, while “Wednesday” Season 1 neatly introduced the character and her world, this season, showrunners Alfred Gough and Miles Millar along with their executive producer, Tim Burton, just want more.