Did I say the last episode was the best Wednesday episode ever? I lied. Boy, did I ever. A body-swap comedy that sees the mind of Wednesday Addams inhabit the body of Enid Sinclair and vice versa, “Woe Thyself” (Season 2, Episode 6) proves that Wednesday, well, knows itself. From the start, leading actors Jenna Ortega and Emma Myers have played their mismatched roommate characters as if they were John Goodman and Jeff Bridges in The Big Lebowski, no matter how far short the material they were given fell of the talent they were giving it back. What this episode, co-written by co-creators Miles Millar and Alfred Gough, does is simple. It takes the best things about the show and gives them even more to do: act like each other.

There’s a whole rigamarole involved of course, a communion with the spirit of Rosalind Rotwood (Lady goddamn Gaga!), the eponymous psychic who once lived in the cottage now occupied by Wednesday’s mother. Like both Wednesday and her Grandmama (Joanna Lumley), but unlike the more positively disposed “Dove” Morticia, Rosalind was a Raven, a cynic given to more pessimistic pronouncements. Like Wednesday’s spirit guide Larissa Weems, Rotwood criticizes the girl’s arrogance for presuming to rekindle her powers without first fixing the familial bonds necessary to sustain them. Of course, god forbid Wednesday admit she needs anybody, let alone her mother Mortiica.

But even as she’s enduring a trial by flame to temporarily unlock her powers, Enid races to the scene and snaps her out of her trance to prevent her from getting busted for violating curfew, thus screwing her whole dorm out of some gala they’re looking forward to. The price Wednesday pays for this failure? Waking up in Enid’s body, while Enid wakes up in Wednesday’s. Only Thing is aware of the swap.

As the episode rolls on, each girl learns all the others’ secrets — inadvertently, but fortuitously, because that’s what Rotwood says is required to regain possession of their original physical frames. Wednesday discovers that Enid’s boyfriend Bruno is cheating on her, and takes the liberty of dumping the guy for her. She also learns via Professor Capri — who’s a werewolf now, apparently? okay — that Enid may be an Alpha, an ultra-powerful werewolf whose transformations are not dependent on the lunar cycle. Such wolves are destined for great things, but they’re also destined for life alone more often than not. 

Enid, meanwhile, discovers secrets of her own. She learns that Morticia is secretly a trashy supernatural-romance novelist, a fact she’s kept hidden from her own aspiring-writer daughter. She also learns through Wednesday’s invisible tagalong Agnes that Wednesday has foretold her death in a vision. And flipping through Wednesday’s manuscript, she reads hurtful things about a character clearly a thinly veiled version of herself.

So to the dulcet tones of Blackpink (a perfect band name for this pair, when you think about it), Enid gussies up her Wednesday host body in rainbow makeup and clothing and goes dancing and giggling through the quad. Only after she’s drawn the attention of the entire student body does she discover that Wednesday’s alleged allergy to color was literal, not figurative. (Morticia provides her with various pills and creams to cure the condition.)

In the end, Weems appears to Morticia and reveals the swap, outing “Wedneday” as Enid in goth’s clothing. What’s more, if they don’t switch back by dawn, they’re dead.

There are other parties in play, of course. The Galpins reunite with Slurp the zombie, aka Isaac Night, the late Nevermore student and scientific prodigy who is in fact Françoise Galpin’s long-dead brother. Turns out they’re all huge pieces of shit! Françoise, a Hyde herself, becomes her own son’s “master,” and slaps him in the process. Tyler’s still eager to deal death and vengeance to Nevermore in Hyde form. And Isaac is a psycho who tracks down, kills, and eats the brain of Professor Orloff (Christopher Lloyd), his one-time mentor. 

Agnes, who’d found acceptance in Orloff’s support group for disembodied persons like himself and Thing after getting screamed at by Enid in Wednesday’s body, catches Isaac in the act. She sneaks into the trunk of his car, only to find herself sandwiched in there with the body of the murdered Dr. Stonehurst. When she arrives at Stonehurst’s underground lab with Isaac, Françoise, and Tyler, she gets caught and imprisoned.

Fortunately, Wednesday and Enid, in Enid and Wednesday form, arrive. Wednesday’s inside Enid’s body when it fully wolfs out, looking a lot like G’mork from The Never-ending Story. In the chaos that ensues, Agnes screws with the big sci-fi machine Isaac designed to remove outcast powers like his sister’s terminal Hyde condition. Everyone escapes before the place blows.

In the end, the two did uncover their deepest secrets, as they reveal on Rotwood’s enchanted grave. Enid discovered how much she admires Wednesday’s fearlesness, while Wednesday realized that Enid’s relentless kindness is a strength, not a weakness.

Anyway, Weems says that all of this has somehow short-circuited Wednesday’s season-long premonition that Enid will die — I guess it had something to do with the body swap, idk — but now an Addams will take her place. The question is only which one. (Well, that and how permanent it could possibly be.) 

But look, the star attraction here isn’t any of that convoluted mumbo jumbo. It’s Jenna Ortega doing her best Emma Myers impression, and Emma Myers doing her best impression of Jenna Ortega. I’ve written things like “clearly this actor is having a blast” before, but I’ve rarely seen anything quite like this. The overwhelming impression you get is that of two friends completely taking the piss out of each other, with Myers skewering Ortega’s monotone downcast delivery and Ortega riffing on Myers’s relentless OMG-you-guys perkiness. They make this work so well for the duration of the episode that I almost wish it were the full-scale premise of the season, or at least a story arc.

I do have one regret, though, and it’s real inception-level stuff. When Enid is inside Wednesday, she frequently tries to act more like Wednesday in order to fool people. In real-world terms, this means you get to see the actor behind Wednesday pretending to be the actor behind Enid pretending to be the actor behind Wednesday. But when Wednesday inhabits Enid, she stays in pretty much the regular Wednesday the whole time and never pretends to be perky. So you don’t get to see the reverse — Emma Myers pretending to be Jenna Ortega pretending to be Emma Myers — and that’s a shame.

But that’s also my only complaint. This episode is an absolute delight. Here’s hoping the two that remain measure up.

Sean T. Collins (@theseantcollins) writes about TV for Rolling Stone, Vulture, The New York Times, and anyplace that will have him, really. He and his family live on Long Island.