Hark! \u2019Tis the peal of baleful bells, for a new semester has befallen Nevermore Academy, and freshly minted celebrity Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega) is, naturally, having none of it. \u201cI liked it better when I was feared and hated,\u201d she monotones as a flock of awestruck fellow students scrabbles around her ankles, autograph books a-flap.<\/p>\n
Alas, her newfound fame is inescapable. \u201cYou\u2019re kind of a big deal now after the whole saving the school from the demon pilgrim thing\u201d, \u201cIt girl\u201d Bianca (Joy Sunday) explains, as much to the viewer as to Wednesday, who is perhaps too busy administering icily efficient death-stares to her swooning fanbase to fully appreciate the ramifications of last season\u2019s finale. The demon pilgrim thing? Ah, yes. The demon pilgrim thing. This, you may recall, was the climactic first-series kerfuffle surrounding one Joseph Crackstone, a bloodthirsty 17th-century pilgrim resurrected by dastardly botany teacher\/beastmaster Marilyn Thornhill (Christina Ricci). Having already manipulated barista\/actual monster Tyler Galpin (Hunter Doohan) into killing a series of pupils, police and local therapists, Thornhill planned on using the reanimated Crackstone to help her snuff out everyone else. Anyway, thanks to Wednesday the evildoers are now either exploded (Crackstone) or banged up (Thornhill and Galpin) and Nevermore, finally, is safe. Let joy \u2013 or at least guarded relief \u2013 be unconfined.<\/p>\n
And now? Peace descends and the second series of this most deliciously macabre of smash-hit murder-mystery\/high-school comedy dramas \u2013 or at least the four episodes available prior to the second half of the series being launched in September \u2013 can proceed in orderly fashion. Or not, as the case may be, because \u2013 ruh-roh \u2013 here comes another baddie! Specifically, here comes the Kansas City Scalper, a serial-killing, doll-collecting professional dog groomer in a velour tracksuit played, with much oleaginous glee, by Haley Joel Osment (of The Sixth Sense fame)<\/a>. In a breakneck pre-title sequence, we learn that Wednesday has spent her summer vacation tracking down the Scalper, being tied up by the Scalper, turning the tables on the Scalper, relieving the Scalper of his scalp and, finally, delivering the Scalper to justice. The ultimate significance of all this is moot (certainly the incident is, at least in this first episode, not referred to again) although only a berk would bet against the scalpless sod popping up at a later date and putting everyone off their Weetos.<\/p>\n