The trailer for Wednesday’s long-awaited second season is here and one thing is clear: its second installment will pick up right where the story’s last delightfully dark cello note left off. Composers Danny Elfman and Chris Bacon’s eerie but exulting score deserves more credit for the show’s success – their brilliant musical selections and mystery-tinged covers make the show pop. Just think back to season one’s famous balcony scene in which Wednesday plays a dark, mischievous, and character-making rendition of the Rolling Stones’ “Paint it Black.” Wednesday is a show that uses music to its advantage.
There is a reason why Jenna Ortega painstakingly learned to play the cello for the iconic role; Wednesday Addams keeps her true feelings close to her chest but reveals her twisted and deep-feeling heart through music, a passion she shares with her parents. But while the macabre yet caring Addams Family’s Latino/Hispanic heritage – often present in their choice of music – has been a part of their canon since creator Charles Addams’ sanctioned 1960s television adaption, it has never featured as prominently as in the current Netflix rendition. Be it in the cast with Jenna Ortega, Luis Guzmán, and Isaac Ordonez in main roles, in the narrative rooted in American xenophobia, or in Wednesday’s exquisite musical taste, Latinos take center stage here.
This Wednesday is a raven – a psychic with dark visions – thanks to the bloodline of her Mexican ancestor and witch Goody Addams. A survivor of a xenophobic massacre and the first slayer of the series’ villain Crackstone, she went on to found the Nightshade Society, which both Wednesday’s parents and eventually a reluctant Wednesday become part of. They’re a band of powerful outcasts sworn to protect their kind from a mistrusting and prejudiced world. This backstory fleshes out the Addams’ origin like never before – now we know why they delight in dark magic and the macabre but are also a fiercely loving family, protective of their ancestry, outsiders, and free, independent thought. Goody is an incarnation of the duality that makes the Addamses so beloved, and her ghost not only benevolently guides Wednesday through her investigations but also subtly aligns her with her family legacy, which is deeply rooted in the special Mexican relationship with both death and community.
In the very first episode, Wednesday uses music to foreshadow all this. We see Wednesday writing on her typewriter while listening to grand Mexican singer Chavela Vargas’ version of the folk and ghost song “La Llorona” blaring from her gramophone. It’s worth remembering that La Llorona is a complex and much-maligned figure, though modern historians and especially Chicana writers consider her not a traitor but a victim and mother of modern Mexico, who was forced to make complicated choices. The song is traditionally a big part of Día de los Muertos, which Wednesday speaks of fondly in the show.
Wednesday’s gramophone continues throughout the series as the conduit of her heritage in the warm space of the attic room she shares with her werewolf roommate Enid, who like Goody and Wednesday’s mother Morticia, stirs the gentler and protective side of Wednesday. As Wednesday begins to involve Enid in her murder investigation, she happily listens to “Tierra Rica” by Carmita Jiménez, an ode to the beauty of Puerto Rico. As she talks Enid through her gruesome murder board, there plays “Ven, viajero, conmigo, y contempla el paisaje divino – Come, traveler, with me, and admire the divine landscape.” These musical choices are so powerful because they distill the titular character’s dark and free-thinking Mexican spirit and heritage, by underscoring her choice to not only face the dark but to find joy and fascination in it. The show’s heart lies in Wednesday striving for nihilism in the face of an ugly world but ultimately defying both by feeling deeply about the oppressed and those she loves.
These themes are embodied in the show’s music and cleverly reflected in the season 2 trailer, where the editor chose the Lennon Sisters’ ghostly cover of The Sound of Music’s “My Favorite Things” as the musical center. In the musical’s film adaptation, Julie Andrews famously sings it to comfort children who are afraid of the roaring thunderstorm outside. The cheerful waltz remains rooted in a dark minor mode which the cover fully embraces and builds on with haunting harmonies. In the trailer, we see Wednesday sprawling out her impressive weapon arsenal, being captivated by creepy moving dolls, and once again facing the Hyde while her parents tango to the ominous music box sounds and stirring strings of the Lennon Sisters – who, go figure, are of Mexican ancestry as well. So the trailer serves as a musical promise that the Addams’ dark and cheerful dance with the macabre will continue with full force in season 2.
Jenna Ortega, who has now assumed an executive producer role for the show, has promised that its second installment will lean more boldly into horror. So grab a good old record, don a sharp black outfit, and: “When the dog bites, when the bee stings, when you’re feeling sad,” simply remember that Wednesday season 2 is only months away.
Wednesday Season 2 will premiere on Netflix on August 6, 2025.
