Forget all I said, everything is back to normal. EVERYTHING works in this episode. Humor (dark and quippy/witty), the introduced elements throughout the show like the sirens' "mind-controlling" song are used to great success in two occasions (and the effective use of the shape shifter's ability, coming full circle with a previous conversation she had with Wednesday and precipitated by newfound information provided naturally through Eugene), the reveal of many plot threads like the character treatment and reveal of the prophetic purpose of a character (the reason for Christina Ricci's character and Tyler's character to be interested in Wednesday); every plot point serves its purpose and the scenes flow with gravitas (like the wolfing-out scene happening not by coincidence alone to serve the battle but also as a character arc culmination based on a decision), the writing is as witty as it is sharp. Even small details like the exchange Christina Ricci's character has with the resurrected racist pilgrim who obviously gets easily mad at her because he is a freaking misogynist of the old days (and her small quip is brilliant, "never meet your heroes").
Even the CGI transformations are pretty amazing and film-level worthy. Everything comes full circle, Wednesday's final fencing-sword showdown. All the things I said I had a gripe with in the previous episode were the most premature I have ever had. All the gripes I had with the forced romance between Wednesday and Tyler is now render as such on purpose now that I know what were his intentions all along in this episode. So many wrongs are righted here and I for one am really glad I was proven wrong. I really really enjoyed the season finale of Wednesday Season 1. I even like the last conversation she has with Xavier through the smartphone gift. Brilliant and perfect for a character interaction that involves someone like Wednesday. And I am also particularly glad, the season finale has such a sense of closure. They could screw up in the next season and yet we would have this "self-contained season" to look back to and rewatch. I really like that. Also, the finale felt like the end of any of the first three harry potter movies: the talk of those who passed during the school year, talking about whether they'd see each other next school year, melodic music while (injured) people say goodbye,... And the references on this episode don't end there (all welcomed of course) but if I may list them, they would be: the underappreciated teacher (Quirrel) that ends up being the villain, the resurrection which needs some sort sacrifice on behalf of the main character (just like in Goblet of fire), the fight between two monsters involving a werewolf (like in Prisoner of Azkaban), the ornamentation of the principal's office reminds of the snake's lair headstone from Chamber of Secrets.
But all in all it was the final reveal of the "bad guy monologue" that sold me on this show's brilliance leaving me looking like a complete idiot. So much so that I had to go back to my previous episode review and change it.(there could be a case made about whether you should judge a new episode of a show before knowing what happens in the next, but we won't get into that). Particularly the part that I always thought was not planned: the fact that Wednesday arrival to Nevermore set in motion EVERYTHING that happened. I thought at first it was a "narrative coincidence for entertainment's sake" that when she got there for some reason weird murders began to just happen and she "happened upon them". But as the story progressed and she learned more about the mystery so did we (I) and now in retrospective I feel like a complete idiot, judging the merits of the show based on my soapbox-claims, creating an opinion without giving the show "a moment to explain".
Now to be fair, the show isn't perfect, there are a lot of convenient things that happened (and didn't happen) that a case could be made up for. Things like: what is Marilyn's motivation to hate "outcasts" so much? She had a relation with the Main Pilgrim murderer but she never said why she wanted to kill the outcasts. Also, there's a bit of Voldemort-defeteaded-by-kids-vibe going on too, like, granted Wednesday was stabbed (so technically killed) by him so he did cohesively outpowered what some would say is "a normal odd girl" (i don't know what Wednesday's powers are other than having visions and having a lot of "magical friends" to help her get out of situations). But later on he and Marylin could have killed her (shot her) but she wanted to quip a little more. I don't know, overall I like the final fight and the underlying theme with the fencing and I like it's not drawn out and Wednesday's "arrow-sacrifice". It's a bit weird she "shrugged it off" but it serve her character growth's purpose.
And finally some weird scene development, like the murder of the Principal. She just allow herself to get stabbed and Wednesday didn't even flinch or attempt to call anyone. But these are mere nittpicks. I think all decision in general in the episode were gold, and I am glad the writing got so much more better and climactic than it was on 7. I just in general feel 7 did so much progression in such small amount of time. Like, there were 3 "plot twists" or villain reveals that ended up not being true, so it just looked like the show wanted to misdirect us and yet it resulted in a mishmash of disorienting plot culminations that weren't really in the end.
Lastly, I want to commend Jenna Ortega, every single character, everyone in the art, music, prop, every department relative to the creation and in support of this show because they really made some trully special that I haven't watched in a while. I'm already looking forward watching it next year over Halloween season just to get the vibes just right! Thank you and good job!
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