WandaVision Series Thoughts
I loved that they were trying something new for the MCU so I quite enjoyed the first three episodes and them basically being a 50s sitcom. There were some hints along the way that signaled that something wasn't quite right with Mrs. Foreman's looped dialogue at the dinner scene, the radio broadcast, and the toy helicopter that was in color. That reminds me, the show never quite mentioned what happened to that S.W.O.R.D. agent who came in through the tunnel.
Going back to the sitcom show it reminded me of the times on occassion where I would watch I Love Lucy and I Dream of Genie on Nick-At-Nite I think that's where they aired during the 90s. I didn't watch those shows often, mostly when there wasn't much else to watch, but I still enjoyed them a bit. My primary experience with sitcoms are 90s and early 2000s black sitcoms like Martin, One on One, and Living Single. I still enjoyed those first three episodes because it gave me something that I haven't had in a while and that was a wholesome periodic sitcom experience.
The end of episode seven is where things really start getting crazy and the main conflict of the show surfaces. Wanda suddenly becomes pregnant and gives birth to twins. Teyonah Parris's character mentions how Wanda's brother was killed by Ultron which triggers Wanda and makes her send the woman out of the reality. I knew this was a separate dimension that Wanda made, but that cliffhanger at the end had me excited to see where the show would go and show went kind of meta with it's presentation of the conflict. The three sitcom episodes we saw wasn't just for us the audience, but for the characters as well. Through the use of a television S.W.O.R.D. could relay the signal coming from inside Wanda's hex and view it like a sitcom.
It was quite amusing to see the characters talk about the same show we're watching and even talked about the power levels in Avengers: End Game. "Wanda came pretty close to taking out Thanos on her own. Captain Marvel did too." A lot of fans were talking about that after End Game came out, but I was wondering how they knew about that. Was that battle being filmed for the world to see or was it spread by word of mouth by some of the fighters? It was pretty funny though. So the human element we get in WandaVision are Monica from Captain Marvel, Jimmy Woo from Ant-Man and The Wasp, and Darcy from the Thor movies. These three became a favorite trio of mine with their banter and teamwork.
You had the typical military/cop like jerk agent with Hayward. the trio weren't so gun-ho on immediately villainizing Wanda because at this point it wasn't clear (to them) that Wanda was conscious that she was doing this. When Hayward asked who was the sassy friend between Monica and Darcy I was ready to throw hands for them. But the best scene in WandaVision for me was when Wanda stepped out of the reality in her MCU outfit carrying the drone Hayward sent in. She walked out of that shit like the boss that she is and turned all the guns onto Hayward. That was reminiscent of when Magneto turned the guns back around on the cops in the first X-Men movie. Her daddy would be proud.
The most surprising moment was the end of episode 5 after Vision and Wanda's fight the doorbell rings and it's Pietro at the door, but it's not the Pietro from Age of Ultron it's the one from Fox X-Men movies. Evan, motherfucking Peters!
Before I give my final thoughts I just wanted to state how cool it was when we saw Monica finally get her powers and she got them shits during Black History Month. The outfit she was wearing definitely felt like a proto-superhero costume. I'm eager to see what her suit looks like when she finally becomes one.
What kept WandaVision from being great for me was the series finale. Coming from the reveal of Agatha Harkness in episode 7 to the journey into Wanda's backstory in episode 8, episode 9 starts straight into the final fight. While this isn't necessarily bad it does feel a bit too fast especially since it doesn't really slow down at all. It's like how some movies start off with an intense action scene, but that is usually followed up a calmer scene to set up the mood and premise, but Series Finale is nothing, but action and conflict resolution. There were things set up in previous episodes that got wrapped up too quickly so it didn't create a sense of accomplishment.
The first thing for me was when the White Vision showed up in the hex. It was teased in a mid credit scene at the end of episode 8, but it still needed some proper build up. Wanda just squares up with Agatha who suddenly disappears after having a car thrown at her and then White Vision just pops in and tries to squeeze her head in. In normal cases a show or a movie would've shown Hayward getting White Vision ready and sending him off into the Hex. We saw every other crossover attempt into the hex so it was weird why this was the only one where we didn't. It was just a tease White Vision is coming and then he pops in. If he we got the chance to see him trying to go in, then his arrival in the hex would've had more of an impact than a "what?"
So the two Visions start fighting and it's a good action scene, but I'm still a bit taken aback at how quickly this all happened. We also get to see what was up with the Evan Peters Quicksilver. He did not turn out to be our first glimpse of the X-Men universe coming into the MCU. He was nothing which made me wonder why they did all of that shit in the first place. They knew what they were doing when they cast Evan Peters in that role. They even did that applause that the audience does when there's a celebrity guest appearance on a sitcom, but they did miss the whistling that usually goes with it and it lasting too long. The end result of that ended up being he was just some random guy named Bohner that Agatha possessed to get closer to finding out about how Wanda created the hex. Like, why did you cast Evan Peters for that? You could've gotten anybody. Did the casting director just wanted to troll the fans? That was pretty mean if so.
So Monica knocks his ass out and we're back with the fight between Wanda and Agatha. Agatha ends up freeing every nearby civilian from Wanda's hex influence and they all plead to her to let them go and how much pain they've been suffering. Wanda doesn't want to face the reality of how much pain she's been putting people in, but then decides to take down the hex until she realizes that she would destroy her husband and children in the process. Hayward comes back and Darcy comes in for a split second to crash into his truck and never to be seen again.
The kids finally get to fight albeit briefly and when Hayward suddenly decides to shoot them, Monica comes in giving us kind of her first display of powers. She stops most of the bullets with her body as she's now pure energy, but that's all we get to see. I was disappointed by that. I was hoping we'd get to see more of her powers.
The battle between the two Visions end up being resolved by philosophy. It was a clever way to end the battle and I'm glad they did it. It is easy to wrap up a fight with violence so it resolved with words. It was weird though how White Vision just took off never to be seen again. Wanda battles Aagatha and tricks her into draining all of her power by casting the runes around the hex. It's kind of weird how she thought of doing that when she was oblivious to magic a moment ago. It is a simple spell, but it's hard for me to believe that she remembered those symbols that quickly. It's a minor complaint though. My main issue is with the pacing. So Hayward is hauled off to jail for unknown reasons. I don't know what he did illegal there. I guess it was shooting and the children that turned out not to be real although in a previous episode it was stated that they were real. If they wanted to make Hayward look bad or seem like a villain in this final episode they had to make him do something worse than that.
With how he was acting in the mid show It wouldn't have surprised me if he attempted to drop a bomb into the hex to take out Wanda. He did send in the armed drone with civilains around so I wouldn't put it past him if he dropped a bomb in trying to kill Wanda and the residents of Westview in the process because he's afraid of superhumans so much that he's willing to sacrifice hostages. I did like the resolution of the story. Wanda, Vision, and her kids had a nice farewell scene. I'm also glad they didn't kill of Agatha as she was a fun villain, but I am a bit confused. Wanda had the hex up when she turned her back into Agnas. People have said that spell was independent of the hex, but if so then what was the point of showing that Vision and the children would be gone from the hex as well? So if she could do that she could make it so that Billy and Tommy would be separate from the hex as well. As I mentioned before the show said through Monica that the children are real so I was expecting them to come out of this, but I don't know I guess that kind of were at least to Wanda, but anyway in the post credit scene it is implied that we'll be seeing them again.
Some parts of this episode was nice, but it was a bit too rush. The human characters like Jimmy Woo and Darcy really didn't have a conclusion to their story. Only Monica got a chance to talk to Wanda, but all three of them were contributing in the plan to investigate and rescue her. I felt that all three of them should have. Also the end of this episode tried to make you feel like Wanda really didn't do much wrong by Wanda's conversation with Monica, but she definitely did. Agatha probably was going to use Wanda's power for some evil shit, but Wanda herself was a villain. She took a whole town's population by hostage via mind control and the people under the influence felt agony and that they were violated. Monica and Darcy were the only ones who didn't seem that shook from it, but Darcy was barely under her influence.
I know I'm a bit all over the place, but I have to point out how cool it was the first time Monica got her powers. It hyped me up beyond all hell and then Agatha's song at the end of episode 7 was a banger. In the mid credit scene we see Monica talk to a S.W.O.R.D. agent that turns out to be a Skrull and apparently Monica will be on the space S.W.O.R.D. base that we saw at the end of Spider-Man Far from Home. In the post credit scene we see Wanda in a snowy mountain area making tea, but the camera moves back into another room where we see Wanda in her new Scarlet Witch outfit, which that outfit is bomb, studying The Darkhold. She hears Tommy and Billy's screams for her when the screen goes black. This scene is most likely teasing that we'll see the children return in a movie and that there will be an interdimensional being playing a part in her next appearance. Now, Marvel said WandaVision will lead into the Doctor strange sequel, but by that they only meant the end credit sequenc which was a bit disappointing. I believe given what was presented to us in WandaVision that Cthon, the ruler of the Chaos Dimension has Wanda's children. He'll probably use them as hostage for her to do his bidding or something like that, but we'll see Wanda again in the next Dr. Strange movie.
Comments
Post a Comment