WandaVision Review

There are definitely ups and downs in the quality of this show, those who love everything Marvel does blindly without accepting any criticisms are ridiculous and exhausting. There is not a single flawless Marvel project and to act otherwise is a disservice to the franchise, the fanbase and the characters we love. That said it is no secret that Wanda is my favorite comic book character and so I was naturally cautious about their treatment of her, also considering that Marvel’s treatment of their female characters is dismal.

Episode 1

We start off with Wanda and Vision just married in the 1950s. They are very confused about an occasion that's marked on the calendar that neither of them can remember. The occasion turns out to be a dinner with Visions boss, Wanda thinks it's an anniversary. A Dick Van Dyke style misunderstanding happens and Wanda uses her handy magic skills to save the evening with a little help from her neighbor Agnes. The dinner scene is comical and light until everyone sits down to eat, Mrs. Hart starts asking a lot of questions, like what brought them to Westview? How long have they been married? And of course why don’t they have children yet? This causes Wanda to kind of zone out as she didn’t have answers for her, at this point Wanda truly doesn’t remember how their story started. At this point Mr. Hart starts to choke and his wife repeats “stop it” in her cheery tone. The whole scene starts to get very ominous and no one moves until Wanda tells Vis to help him. After Heart stops choking the scene resumes in it's light and happy tone. Anyone who knows anything about Wanda and the extent of her powers knows that we’re living in her reality right now but they started to make it clear in that dinner scene that she was very much in control. The last scene is someone watching Wanda and Vision on a vintage television, it is not yet revealed who or how.

Episode 2

Time jump! Now it's the 60s, and we open on Wanda and Vision sleeping but a noise outside wakes Wanda. The opening sequence is inspired by Bewitched singing the theme song are the other people of Westview and I think this shows that they are all just playing roles in Wanda’s role. We get to see Wanda and Vision rehearse for a town talent show where they do a magic act under the names Illusion and Glamour who are, for those that don’t know, a couple in the comics that are friends with Wanda and Vision. Wanda heads to a talent show planning meeting and Vis heads to a neighborhood watch meeting, Wanda hears the same banging sound as she is leaving the house and when she walks outside she finds a red toy helicopter on bushes that sticks out in an otherwise black and white world. We now know that the banging sound was the helicopter making its way into the hex. Agnes lends her rabbit to Wanda for their magic act, we now know that the bunny is Agnes’ familiar. Now we meet Dottie and the rest of the planning committee, Dottie has a throw away line “The Devil’s in the details” to witch Agnes responds “That’s not the only place he is” now this very irrelevant line caused many fans to start speculating the possible appearance of Mephisto even though that would make exactly zero sense. Next Wanda meets Geraldine who we know is Monica Rambeau. Back to Vision; he ends up swallowing some gum at this neighborhood watch meeting, gumming up his internal mechanics. Wanda has an eerie encounter with Dottie that leads Wanda to say “I don’t mean anyone, any harm” to which Dottie responds “I don’t believe you” this reiterates the idea that the people of Westview have some level of awareness that Wanda is controlling things even if she's currently unaware of what's happening. Next we hear a voice over the radio trying to break through to Wanda’s world and asking “Whose doing this to you Wanda?” The question repeats and as it does it breaks Wanda’s hold enough that when Dottie cuts her hand we see the red of the blood. The aftermath of the scene leaves Wanda a bit shaken. Time to address the commercials, the one in this episode is for a Strucker watch the tagline being “He’ll make time for you” Now a power comic book Wanda has that's never really addressed in the show is her ability to manipulate time and I think this could still open the door for that, should they choose to pay it off in a later project. Vision is so out of it because of the gum in his system that their magic act turns into the real thing. Vis starts to use his powers to fly and Wanda has to attach a rope (we now know it was Agatha that made him fly), Vision lifts the piano with a single hand and Wanda has to turn it into a piece of cardboard, and a few other tricks that are real and have to seem fake. Their “cabinet of mysteries” has what appears to be the mind stone on the front of it. The next super important thing that happens is we find out that Wanda is pregnant, just the episode after she was asked why her and vis don't have any kids. Wanda and Vision encounter the beekeeper and Wanda’s response is “No” which takes that moment out of existence and to a moment where the world of Westview gets colorized.

Episode 3

It's the 70s! Wanda gets very pregnant very fast, Wanda conveys looks of pure happiness and contentment with being pregnant. We see her truly getting what she wants. This episode is also really the first moments we see of the townspeople acknowledging that their will isnt their own. The beginning of the episode is Wanda and Vision preparing for their new baby and as Wanda gets further into her very accelerated pregnancy she has less control over her powers, this is more than likely due to the majority of her magical energy being channeled into her pregnancy. In this episode Vision also starts to develop his own awareness, it also starts subtly expanding Wanda’s powers depicting her use of elemental magic (rain, and wind). This episode caused a lot of speculation, with Wanda not being able to get rid of the stork, when again it was simply that her magic was being channeled into creating two life forms at an accelerated rate making it more difficult for her to control the more subtle aspects of her reality. The most entertaining internet analysis of Wanda’s inability to get rid of the stork is people trying to say it was mephisto due to the red smoke whenever Wanda tried to make it disappear, completely ignoring the fact that Wanda’s hero name is the Scarlet Witch...Scarlet is a shade of red….get it together internet. Anyway Geraldine (Monica Rambeau) visits and Wanda goes into labor. Elizabeth Olsen’s acting in this scene is phenomenal, her fear of labor, the physical pain of labor, the relief is all perfectly conveyed. Monica starts to see through Wanda’s mental hold on her, and Vision’s interactions with the townspeople are alarming to him. The mention of Pietro and Ultron in the end of the episode is heartbreaking and triggering for Wanda, Geraldine’s comment angers her and she blasts Monica out of her world. Wanda does her sexy and frightening head tilt and dismisses Geraldine from Westview. This was the point where I was very very concerned that they were going to lean into the trope of overpowered women being emotionally and mentally unstable.

Episode 4

Episode 4 mostly happens outside of the world of Westview and though it lends some development to the supporting characters it was heavily expositional and in my opinion, unnecessary provided you’ve actually been paying attention up to this point. The episode opens just after the snap when Monica comes back, and she finds out that her mom has died. Monica Rambeau returns to SWORD where she has a meeting with Hayward who briefly fills her in on the last 5 years. She then gets sent in on a missing persons case in New Jersey helping out the FBI and Jimmy Woo. When the two meet up to investigate Westview the police officers have no recollection of the existence of Westview. Then we get to meet Darcy who is definitely the highlight of the episode. We find out that the one watching Wanda on the television is Darcy. They use the show to identify the townspeople, we also find out the person breaking through the hex by the radio was Jimmy Woo. In this episode we actually see Wanda blast Monica, and it's the first time we actually see Wanda use her powers the way we’ve seen them before up to this point it's been parlor tricks but this is her first real demonstration of power. Wanda also sees the dead version of Vision and he tries to tell her that they can leave but Wanda is adamant that they can’t leave. The episode ends with Monica saying that “it's Wanda, it's all Wanda”.

Overall the first 4 episodes were very underwhelming and really didn’t give us much depth or character development for anyone. We got a glimpse of power from Wanda but the worldbuilding was slow and I maintain that the episodes were too short and that the slow burn was the wrong approach for this story. However the second half of the season definitely picked up.