WandaVision & the MCU

I cut out of the Marvel Cinematic Universe properties after the Spider-Man: Far From Home film. After Far From Home, which everyone save for myself seemed to enjoy, I figured that now that Endgame had been released and most of the character arcs had come full circle, they were simply grasping at straws for storylines, and, in the case of Far From Home, they were not just pandering to fans of the web-slinger, but to fans under twenty who who enjoy the campiness of teen romance with the occasional usage of superpowers. Tom Holland and Zendaya are both extremely talented, but it's hard to tell with films like that.

So I skipped most of the comic-book films and television shows that came out over the next couple years, save for shows like The Boys or My Hero Academia which were more deconstructive toward the genre instead of being a by-the-numbers recycling of the same ideas. However, I continuously heard critics I follow and friends of mine say things about how WandaVision takes a hard left from the superhero cliches. People were comparing its initial episodes to Lynchian works and describing it as parodic toward the sitcom genre. So naturally I paid up another few dollars for Disney+ and tried the first few episodes.

One of my big complaints about these Marvel properties is that many of them feel like mere cogs in the “machine” of a big franchise. I feel with every passing year that there are more and more of these films and shows that are impossible to enjoy unless you do over twelve years of homework. In this, WandaVision is hardly an exception. It references global tragedies of this world, heroes that are far away at this time, and the faux commercials will mean nothing to you at all if you haven’t seen the other thousand Marvel works.

But I will concede that this 9-episode miniseries is most certainly, at least at first, a left-turn from the other properties, giving a larger deep-dive into comic-book lore adapted for the screen through less black-and-white character moralities and motivations and concepts that, while they are simply explained away with comic-jargon, are oftentimes used in more high-concept genre works.

The first few episodes play out like sitcoms from various decades, beginning with the 1950s. There’s a painfully corny opening song to fit this theme. Wanda and Vision are living the domestic life, hiding away their abilities, locked in what appears to be a suburban heaven. But in the first episode there’s one particular moment that grabbed me. When a side-character is struggling with a life-or-death issue, the character’s wife simply laughs again and again saying “Stop it!” as if the whole thing is a ruse. This is, fair warning, as “Lynchian” as it gets, as Disney's MCU would not allow itself to build the entire worlds of depth under the surface that Lynch would, but still, the moment is very capable of satisfying people’s appetites for the bizarre.

So clearly, not everything is what it seems. We later see traces of occult, more fantasy-based abilities, etc. But where WandaVision shines most, I believe, would be within its main character’s dealings with grief, and how someone so powerful might go about dealing with losses so major that she cannot snap out her denial.

I was admittedly annoyed, and even stopped watching for a bit, when after three episodes of the writers hinting at what was happening, the fourth episode explains most of it for us. It reminded me of all the things I disliked about Marvel media in the first place, and reminded me that while they may dip their toes into more mysterious and complex genres, they will never fully commit to them in grandiose fear of losing those precious dollars.

Nevertheless, I eventually finished the miniseries, and while the crescendo was satisfying and conclusive to Wanda’s character arc, it did feel a bit wanting. Marvel frequently does this, but never in the showmanship “Leave them wanting more,” way but in the “Wait six months and cough up some more money for satisfaction,” way. Despite this, I was pleased with WandaVision as a contained narrative, even when the writers don’t allow it to be one.