Season 2, Episode 3: Call of the Woe
As the tile of this episode suggests, this a camp episode. The inclusion of which doesn’t distant the show from the 90s movies, maybe they don’t really want to. However this episode is the exact same step-up as season one’s episode three where Wednesday uses a school outing as cover to investigate a separate location. As well as the outing pitting “normies” and outcast against each other, though this one is more organized than the bullies of season one .
So instead of community service jobs, Nevermore goes to a near by camp which “oh no” has been double booked by some normies scouts. Whom, despite their troop leaders, are seem like decent sorts. So instead of just sharing the camp the two sides play essentially capture the flag. The whole thing seems more like padding for some set-up of getting that damn zombie to be on the loose and to distinguish Wednesday as super awesome. Just seems like it padded out the plot which is odd for a show with eight episodes per season.
However the outcasts win, because of Wednesday, and the scout master doesn’t take defeat well which leads the scout to accidentally freeing aforementioned damn zombie. While is going down the students enjoy campfire songs. The cover of “Bad moon” and the scouts’ reaction to Ajax getting dump were the highlights. But why was campfire song sung downbeat by the chaperones? At least it sounded good and hit the mood Right?
While the students enough ambiance of singing around the fire or getting dumped, Wednesday discovers that Galpin was investigating outcast’s death which are tied to facility where Tyler is held as well being link to someone or thing called “LOIS” unclear if it’s a person’s name or an acronym though the all caps clearly suggests it’s an acronym but it’s no fun if Wednesday doesn’t assume it’s a person.
Wednesday apparently doesn’t like doing investigated work and would rather just use her powers. Her powers which in very a contrived way don’t work anymore due to stress, so she needs Goody’s book which Morticia is keeping from her. So they have a sword fight which Wednesday losses. This show could stand with more sword and less zombies.
This show is rather perplexing in balancing comedy and horror and how it doesn’t really do either all that well in certain scenes. The scene of Gomez showering while that damn zombie attacks him is puzzling. At no point does it seem like Gomez is going to be eaten by the zombie so there is no tension but since the conclusion is Gomez being scared the scene is not played for comedy either. The idea of Gomez Addams or any Addams being afraid of something like a zombie is fundamental wrong. But then again the show is very muddle in tone, it’s a plays all sides a black comedy, teen drama, mystery, horror that tries to be poignant with erudite words but Disney channel level line reads.
This episode felt more like it was grinding its gears for the midseason crescendo rather developing the characters or plot too far. Sure this episode did a little bit but it was the bare minimum.
And Now a Tangent…
Back on the Davincis. So the whole contrived outcast vs normie scout was dumb and just used for zombie chaos. But why were are the Davincis only used as explanations of stuff in the show. The Davincis made the zephyrs for the game but their telekinesis can’t be used as part of team? Nope, because that would require a new character and there are too many of those now so they just alluded to them with no real form, only off-screen function and non-speaking extras. They are more like set-dressing than anything else.
Also Also Miss. Capri remarks on the outing being the same time as a full moon but it doesn’t even matter since nothing wolf-related happens. So why bring up in first place. It’s a set-up with zero pay-off. And if was to make the point about her being a werewolf why would it need to be hidden? Or maybe the line was let in but the pay-off scene was scrapped or deleted.
