Wednesday is back for season 2, with four new episodes of ‘woe’ now available on Netflix, ahead of another four arriving to the streamer next month.
The bulk of the cast returns for the Tim Burton-directed gothic drama starring Jenna Ortega, with some big-name additions including Joanna Lumley, Billie Piper, Steve Buscemi and even Lady Gaga.
With a loaded cast, the Wednesday showrunners Miles Millar and Alfred Gough have teased the sophomore season will have a ‘little more complex’ mystery than the Hyde killer of the first season.
Gough told Collider: ‘The world is bigger and you get to really explore other characters. Wednesday’s not in every scene, so you get to learn more about Enid [Emma Myers], you get to learn more about Bianca [Joy Sunday].’
But one character you will not be learning more about is Percy Hynes White’s psychic teen Xavier, who has been written out of the Netflix show.
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The first episode, Here We Woe Again, addresses the character’s sudden exit from Nevermore Academy, after the first season finale had teed up Xavier as a longer term love interest for Wednesday.
Is Percy Hynes White in Wednesday season 2?
Ahead of the second season, the Netflix show had confirmed White would not appear in the second go around, when they shared a cast list he was notably absent from.
White quickly addressed his absence from season two, appearing to take the news in his stride.
The 23-year-old re-shared a photo of season two’s main cast members that had been posted by show co-creator Gough on Instagram.
‘I had so much fun working on this show. I can’t wait to watch season two. Much love,’ he wrote alongside the image on his Story, with a heart emoji.
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Xavier’s absence is quickly addressed in the fresh batch of episodes, as Wednesday arrives back at Nevermore for a new year with her family in tow – the first time she has ever willingly returned to a school.
She meets the new school principal, after Gwendoline Christie’s head met an untimely demise last season. Steve Buscemi has stepped into the breach as Principal Dort, who is keen to champion the Outcast cause. But he quickly lays out that the school has recently lost not only its large endowment fund, but Xavier has been pulled out by his father Vincent Thorpe.
‘After Xavier was falsely accused of murder, he pulled his son and his endowment from Nevermore,’ Dort explains in the school courtyard.
Wednesday asks about him not returning, with a momentary furrow of the brow, and Dort says he’s going to Reichenbach Academy in Switzerland instead – so a long way away from the Vermont setting of Nevermore.
On Xavier’s absence in the new season, Wednesday star Ortega told Vanity Fair that his vanishing act from the school was ‘a weird redirect’, but added: ‘We’re introducing so many different characters that I think it kind of will get lost.’
Metro’s thoughts on Wednesday season 2
Senior TV Reporter Rebecca Cook shares her take…
As virtually every interview has assured us, this season is darker, grittier and generally a ‘No More Miss Nice Wednesday’ type of affair.
After saving the school last season, Wednesday (Ortega, as unblinkingly good as ever) returns a B-list celeb with a stalker to reckon with. She’s also started crying ink tears, which the NHS is curiously lacking advice on. Plus, there’s a literal murder of deadly one-eyed crows causing havoc, furthering Alfred Hitchcock’s scary bird agenda.
So the plot has bulked up, but we’re not here for the macguffin mystery as much as the world itself. With Tim Burton’s maximalist gothic direction, the show is stylish, witty, and lushly-set (in new filming location Ireland).
Our main gripe is the decision to isolate Wednesday. We lose something by the Addams family being so divided and largely sequestered from normie society. The moments she bumps up against it – one sequence where Wednesday terrorises a driving instructor stands out – make you realise that is where most of the fun lies.
Percy Hynes White allegations, explained
Neither White nor Netflix have commented publicly on the reason White was dropped from the second season of the show, particularly after he had been so prominent in the first season.
The decision came after a sexual misconduct allegation was made against the actor in a now-deleted post on X (then Twitter) in January 2023.
The claim was made on an anonymous and unverified account, but began circulating online, with users’ sharing allegations from when White was a teenager living in Canada.
Hynes White publicly denied the allegations in June 2023, describing them as a ‘campaign of misinformation’.
In a statement posted to his Instagram Story, he wrote: ‘The rumors are false. I can’t accept the portrayal of me as someone bigoted, or criminally negligent of people’s safety. These are the kind of baseless, harmful claims that can create mistrust toward victims.’
Metro contacted Percy Hynes White’s representatives for further comment.
Wednesday season 2 launches today, with the second part arriving on September 3.
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