HOW THEY KEPT 'WEDNESDAY' WEIRD

For Season 2, showrunners deepened the relationships — and added Lady Gaga

- YVONNE VILLARREAL

"IT'S BEEN gratifying that people have come back in the way they have," says Miles Millar, right, with co-creator AI Gough.

In a world where teenagers grapple with accusations of withering attention spans and a lack of motivation, Wednesday Addams managed to rouse from a coma and made the back-to-school scaries feel even more like a mind trip by ... summoning Lady Gaga?

“Wednesday” returned for the second half of its sophomore season on Netflix last week, picking up right after Part 1's ominous cliffhanger to reveal that its moody teenage protagonist evaded potential death and that she was ready to dive back into the twisty world of deadly family secrets, monsterly situationships and friendship woes.

In the middle of the new threats and old mysteries are the showstopping contributions from the pop superstar (and honorary mother to all outcasts, including her legion of Little Monsters, as her fanbase is called). Lady Gaga, whose real name is Stefani Germanotta, made a roughly two-minute appearance as Rosaline Rotwood, a deceased professor at Nevermore, the school for outcasts that Wednesday (Jenna Ortega) attends, with second sight capabilities that trigger a Freaky Friday/body-swap interlude between Wednesday and her estranged friend Enid (Emma Myers). The multi-hyphenate artist also provides the song “The Dead Dance” to score what’s poised to be another social media dance trend akin to Ortega’s viral Season 1 moves to the Cramps’ “Goo Goo Muck.”

The Times spoke with creators and showrunners Al Gough and Miles Millar to break down the season. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

You know where we have to start: Lady Gaga. Tell me the origin story of this casting.