Netflix’s hit series Wednesday is back with its second season, finally concluding a long three-year wait to return to Nevermore Academy. Critics and many fans are calling Season 2 an improvement over the already solid debut season, with plenty of the Gothic imagery and humor viewers have come to expect. And, considering Tim Burton serves as an executive producer, it makes sense that the show nails the Gothic element as well as it does. Burton isn’t just one of Wednesday‘s executive producers, either, as the Beetlejuice Beetlejuice director helmed four of the first season’s eight total episodes.
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That is the case with Season 2, as well, though we have only seen two of them (episodes one and four) thus far and will need to wait until September 3 to see the second half of Season 2 (which will include the Burton helmed episodes seven and eight). But in Season 2 Part 1 we have already seen Burton do something he hasn’t done in a long time. Specifically, since he released the short Frankenweenie back in 1984.
Frankenweenie runs for 29 minutes and stars Home Alone‘s Daniel Stern and the late Shelley Duvall of The Shining fame. It follows Victor Frankenstein, a kid who enjoys making movies starring his Bull Terrier, Sparky. But when Sparky is tragically hit by a car, Victor is devastated. However, he learns about electrical impulses in school and decides to put that concept into practice, reviving his best friend. But like the title character of Edward Scissorhands and, well, Frankenstein, Sparky’s renewed life makes the people of Victor’s neighborhood quite nervous, and volatile.
From 1971 to 1984, Burton directed quite a few shorts, including The Island of Doctor Agor, Tim’s Dreams, Luau, and Vincent, but Frankenweenie was the big one. It may have been too dark for Disney’s taste at the time (it even got him fired from the company), but it was still his breakthrough project. And it’s not as if Disney stayed mad at him for its dark nature, though, as 28 years later he directed an animated feature length version of it for them.
But Frankenweenie was nonetheless a major turning point for Burton. The following year he hopped over to Warner Bros. and made his feature length directorial debut with Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. And for the first time since that point, he’s directed a short. Specifically, The Tale of the Skull Tree, included within Wednesday Season 2’s “Here We Woe Again.”
It’s only a minute and a half but it’s more than enough to give someone who grew up with Burton’s early work some strong nostalgia vibes. It’s gorgeously animated and a great way to establish a major plot point in Wednesday Season 2’s debut episode. Check it out below.
What did you think of the first half of Wednesday Season 2? Did it live up to the high bar set by Season 1? Sound off in the comments.
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