THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED SERIES. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
It was very ambitious to know that the Marvel Cinematic Universe would continue to grow after the Infinity Saga had concluded with Endgame and Phase Three ended with Spider-Man: Far From Home. The ambition would only rise even higher when learning that the franchise would also be explored through scripted shows as well. In 2021, it returned boldly with their first series, WandaVision.
PLOT
The pilot ‘Filmed Before A Live Studio Audience’ shows the superhero couple Wanda Maximoff and the presumed dead Vision live a 1950s luxurious lifestyle. Vision disguises himself as human to fit in within a small town in New Jersey known as Westview. Wanda tries to surprise her husband on their anniversary, but it does not go as she plans it due to him inviting his boss Arthur Hart (Fred Melamed) and his wife Sharon (Debra Jo Rupp) for dinner. It goes mostly smooth until Vision stealthily uses his powers to save his boss from choking. Once the couple leaves after a festive dinner, the super couple take a moment of relaxation when realizing they don’t have an actual anniversary. Wanda makes it official by making rings for them both. However, it is shown that a control room technician is watching them.
“Don’t Touch That Dial” shows the couple now in a 60s lifestyle. They attempt to fit in by volunteering in a magic show. Before then, Wanda notices strange things happening in the town: She sees a toy helicopter crash into rose bushes and hears someone calling her through a radio. Vision participates in a neighborhood watch meeting and becomes mentally incapacitated when swallowing chewing gum that jams up his insights. During the actual magic show, Wanda is able to keep his cover by: conjuring a rope when he levitates, turning a piano into a two stage prop when he lifts it with his own strength, using a mirror to make the audience believe he is not phasing himself through the top hat, and teleporting Geraldine inside a box. The audience believes it all to be part of the act, resulting in them to cheer by the end. By night, Wanda sees a costumed figure appear from the manhole near her home. When she replies ‘No’, she rewinds time moments before and decides to revert the town to color, while also casting a spell that impregnates her.
‘Now in Color’ follows the couple now living in a 70s lifestyle. Vision is extremely nervous of becoming a father as the baby is rapidly growing. When the neighborhood suffers a blackout, Wanda begins going into labor. Her husband is absent during this due to trying to restore the power. Despite trying to hide her pregnancy, she gets help from the neighbor Geraldine to give birth to her son Billy. When Vision returns, she gives birth to their second son Tommy. After finding relief that both babies are healthy, Vision takes a moment outside and notices neighbors Agnes and Herb talk of Geraldine, who is new to the neighborhood and has no family. In his residence, Wanda shares her personal life with her for the first time, talking about her brother Pietro. Geraldine shockingly crosses boundaries when mentioning that he died in the hands of Ultron. This surprises Wanda because she never brought up Ultron before. When she refuses to share who she really is, she doesn’t just kick her out of her home, but the whole town that is surrounded by an invisible electronic barrier. When Vision asks what happened to her, his wife replies that she rushed home.
‘We Interrupt This Program’ shows a whole new perspective and follows Geraldine herself, who happens to be an adult Monica Rambeau, daughter of Maria who was close friends with Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel. Monica was a Blip victim and when she returned from existence five years later, she discovered that her mother died of cancer during her absence. She then returns to work as an agent of SWORD (Sentient Weapon Organization and Response Division). Her superior, Director Tyler Hayward assigns her to aid the FBI with a missing persons case. There, she meets agent Jimmy Woo who explains that the town of Westview is invisible due to the barrier. When she comes into contact with it, she is pulled inside. SWORD gets heavily involved to find Monica and scientist Darcy Lewis gets involved as well to better understand what happened to Westview. She calls the barrier ‘The Hex’ as it is shaped like a Hexagon. When monitoring its levels of radiation, she picks up high CMBR levels and picks up the broadcast in which shows Wanda living her fantasized life. She and Woo do find Monica in the broadcast, believing her to be playing along and decide to make contact with the Avenger. After Woo’s radio transmission, an agent named Franklin infiltrates while wearing a hazmat suit. He does see Wanda and Vision, but does not return. When Darcy watches the 70s episode, even she is surprised when Monica breaks character and references Ultron. Once she is kicked out, Wanda reverts the damage she created before Vision enters the house. By the time Monica returns to reality, she reveals that what is happening is all Wanda’s doing.
‘On a Very Special Episode..’ shows Wanda now living an 80s lifestyle. Only this time, Vision is starting to grow suspicious of his surroundings. Outside the Hex, Hayward strategizes on how to stop Wanda as he identifies her as the victimizer. However, Monica makes clear that this is not the case since Maximoff took Vision’s corpse from a SWORD facility, implying that she was able to resurrect him. Monica and Jimmy study with Darcy that the Avenger is manipulating reality within the Hex as her Westview clothes are mostly made of Kevlar. Back in the Hex, Billy and Timmy rapidly grow from babies to age five to age ten. They live as happy as their mother imagines them to be, until their dog Sparky is unexplainably killed. Monica sends a drone into the Hex to make contact with Wanda again, only for her to throw it back out when noticing it to be armed by Hayward. Both women talk to each other outside and accept that there is trust between them, but it is not enough for her to free the town as she returns to her fictional home. By night, Vision confronts her of how his co worker Norm (Asif Ali) is scared and in pain since she won’t let anyone go. Wanda tries to deny it, but he calls her out for trying to lie to him. Before she could give a straight answer, she is interrupted by a man outside the door who claims to be her long lost brother Pietro.
‘All New Halloween Spectacular’ shows the Maximoff family living in the style of the late 90s/early 2000s, preparing to celebrate the holiday of Halloween. While Billy and Tommy trick or treat around the town, Wanda catches up with Pietro, relieved to reunite with her brother. Vision lies to her by claiming to join the Neighborhood Watch, when in reality, he is investigating the neighborhood to figure out the truth of it. He does make contact with Agnes, who confesses that he is supposed to be dead. Outside the Hex, Monica openly draws suspicion of Hayward’s intentions, which causes her, Woo and Darcy to be escorted off base. They sneak back in and notice at the edge of the Hex, where Vision is near, many of the townspeople are shown to be immobile. Monica plans to go back to confront Wanda, but Darcy warns her that would be dangerous as her last experience inside caused the hex’s energy to rewrite her body on a cellular level. She ignores this revelation as she is only concerned with helping Wanda. She eventually changes her mind when Darcy also reveals that she is unable to hack Hayward’s computer and unveil his secrets. When she tries again, she notices that Vision is attempting to leave the Hex on his own, which is slowly taking his life. Although Tommy has the super speed ability like his uncle, Billy has psionic abilities, which helped him sense his father in danger. When he alerts her mother of what’s happening, she quickly decides to expand the Hex which saves him. However, this would only trap Darcy and multiple SWORD agents inside, whereas the likes of Hayward, Monica & Woo are able to avoid it.
‘Breaking the Fourth Wall’ shows reality constantly changing as Wanda attempts to continue living inside the Hex with her fictional family. Billy and Tommy question what is happening, but she is unable to give them a straight answer. Agnes visits and offers to babysit the boys in order to give their mother some me time. Vision does meet Darcy and as they make their way to the neighborhood, she explains his origin to him of how he evolved from Jarvis to Vision before his eventual demise. The only thing that is real at this point is the love he and Wanda have for each other. Outside the Hex, Monica & Woo check what Darcy was able to find before entering the Hex, revealing that Hayward has a secret project known as ‘Cataract’. Monica then decides to go back into the Hex, equipped with an astronaut suit and a SWORD space rover. Once back in, she is now granted multiple powers thanks to going through a genetically altered physiology: Super Reflexes, Spectral Vision, Energy Absoprtion and Intangibility. This helps her hold her own against Wanda when confronting her again. She is able to tell her that the Hex won’t change what happened to Vision, much like how she can’t undo what happened to her mother. Before they could go another round, Agnes intervenes and tells her she overstayed her welcome. She then invites Wanda to her home, where the boys appear to be absent. Wanda looks around and finds a chamber downstairs. This results in Agnes revealing herself to be a witch named Agatha Harkness, whose manipulated many things during her time, including bringing back Pietro and killing Sparky.
‘Previously On’ shows a series of flashbacks that tie into the main story. Agatha is revealed to be hundreds of years old when she last drained the entire life force of her own coven in 1693. In the present, she wants to understand how Wanda got her powers before figuring out how to drain them from her, since the former Avenger doesn’t understand how she created the Hex. So they go through her own memories to get the exact answers. The first memory she looks into is when she and Pietro survived the bomb attack that killed her parents. During this period of time, she enjoyed watching American sitcoms with her family, which explains the reasoning of her particular recent fantasies in the Hex. It is also shown that Wanda was able to make a probability hex to defuse the bomb, without even knowing it. This means that the Mind Stone only amplified it when being experimented on by HYDRA. Agatha goes further to understand her love for Vision. She sees that it sparked when he naturally chose to comfort her in her new life without her brother. The last memory she sees is Wanda attending SWORD HQ, demanding the remains of Vision to bury him. She meets Hayward who reveals to be dismantling him in hopes to weaponize him. Unallowed to take his remains, she says goodbye. She then went to Westview to where she planned to spend the rest of her life with her love. As she screamed in agony, heartbroken of feeling so alone, the energy of the Hex is unleashed upon the town and everything it touched first converted to a 1950s setting, recreating her own Vision. With all the information that was shown, Agatha deduces that Wanda has been capable of spontaneous creation because she is the mythical Scarlet Witch, the only figure that can wield such magic.
‘The Series Finale’ shows Wanda fight Agatha as she refuses to surrender her complex powers. Hayward unleashes his own reincarnation of Vision that is whited out and was able to awaken thanks using energy from the Hex. He almost kills Wanda, but Hex Vision intervenes and unlocks his memories, inspiring the real Vision to leave Westview. Monica is held captive by the fake Pietro, who happens to be Westview resident Ralph Bohner. She is able to leave his home by removing his charmed necklace that granted him superspeed. Agatha offers Wanda to remain in Westview with her fantasy if she surrenders her power. Instead, she temporarily opens the Hex to free the residents. She chooses to close it again when she refuses to lose her fictional family. Billy & Tommy intervenes by disarming SWORD soldiers that entered the Hex. Hayward shoots at the boys, but Monica saves them by turning to energy and stopping them. Billy is able to catch one she misses. When Hayward tries to retreat, Darcy blocks him. When she leaves to avoid being debriefed, he is later arrested for attempting to kill Wanda and defy Vision’s free will. Wanda is able to Agatha by scattering runes around the Hex to neutralize her magic, accepting her identity as the Scarlet Witch. Rather than imprisoning her to a supervillain prison like The Raft, she chooses to trap her in Westview, turning her into her role Agnes for good. She then says goodbye to her family by completely opening the Hex, which causes them to disappear. After this, she apologizes to Monica for the pain she caused and leaves Westview to better understand her powers. A mid credits scene shows Monica get recruited by a friendly Skrull to come to space with her to meet a close friend of Maria. The series officially ends in a post credit scene, showing Wanda studying the Darkhold (held prior by Agatha) in astral form, suddenly hearing the voices of her children.
THOUGHTS
Like the many fans of this ongoing franchise, I was heartbroken that the Covid-19 pandemic delayed the release of this show and the many movies/shows that came afterwards. When it started streaming on Disney+, it felt like the best 9 weeks of my life because it felt great returning to this unique fictional universe. After a year of no MCU content, they didn’t skip a beat as each episode felt investing. This was the most different of stories we’ve seen because they don’t play it straight. The story is full of mystery and seeing it all unravel was incredible. It’s easy to compare this and the following shows of Marvel Studios to Game of Thrones because the budget needed to provide impressive visual effects is extremely worth it. With each episode, it felt moving to see how out of this world it would get. While all of these traits pay off, the big selling point goes to how showrunner Jac Schaefer and Director Matt Shakman were able to present a fascinating depiction of the five stages of grief (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance). Each episode patiently transitions from stage to another to show how important it is to face pain in order to heal. In an incredible lead performance by Elizabeth Olsen, Wanda Maximoff was going through this big time. Due to being a Blip victim, she never got the opportunity to properly grieve over the loss of her love. That alone led to a trail of making radical decisions without thinking them through. It felt relatable to see her use her sitcom fantasies to cope because those kind of shows are common to cheer people up in moments of crisis/grief. All she wanted was to be happy and get rid of all the traumatic pain she’s been through, but struggled to understand that the only way to make that possible is to let it all go. She hesitated on letting go of her fantasy that was her family because she didn’t want to lose her remaining happiness. But when Agatha pushed and shoved, she finally decided to put aside her selfishness for the first time. We still choose to root for her here because we know she doesn’t mean to hurt anyone. It is very satisfying to see her officially her Scarlet Witch persona because it showed the benefit of embracing. Although she took a rocky turn in the Multiverse of Madness, it was nice to know that she actually wanted to learn from her mistakes. Paul Bettany definitely expressed as much range as Olsen in his return as the Vision. At one point, he’s balancing each sitcom tone, to being a whole new being that becomes the Truman Burbank of the story for preferring the truth over lies. Although people outside call out Wanda for her actions, he is the one who truly gets to her which only proves that only loved ones can get to one another better than strangers. He even brings an extra layer in his official return as the original Vision. Seeing him being remodeled by SWORD as an almost mindless figure was definitely something to stir up the pot, which only put me in a relief to see him regain his prior consciousness. There is no telling when we’ll see him again, but I’m sure it’ll be a satisfying moment down the road. The true moment that made me appreciate this character is during his only flashback scene. There, it showed that he and Wanda truly loved each other for seeing their innocence and looked past their flaws. He gave her comfort because he naturally wanted to, not that he had to like other Avengers would have. When he said “What is grief if not love persevering”, it moved me deeply because it reminded me how the process of therapy is worth it when losing someone. It was still sad to see Hex Vision die with his kids because this is the moment for Wanda officially trying to move on and if she left the Hex open, she never would. While both iconic Avengers are what convinced me to check this show out, we still had a supporting cast that kept everything else in between just as investing. Of all the characters I never thought I would see again, it would definitely say Monica Rambeau as her first appearance in Captain Marvel was arguably minimal. Here, Teyonah Parris is able to flesh out an adult version of her that has an interesting journey of her own. She is arguably the most mature in comparison to Wanda because she doesn’t let her grief consume her. She chooses to go through the Hex more than once because that’s how determined she wants to help her, as her mother would. It sounded off putting when she said that she would bring her mother back if having the same powers as Wanda, but I’m sure that she said that because she knew she would be responsible on how to do it. Now that she has powers of her own and knowing that her story continued in The Marvels, it only makes her growth as Photon, named after her mother's callsign, only more exciting. It was definitely a treat to see Randall Park and Kat Dennings respectively return as Jimmy Woo and Darcy Lewis, continuing to play them as courageous people in their own right. They stood out once again because they were always adaptable in their surroundings, proving such a benefit when brains outweigh brawn. Originally, I was upset like everyone else when seeing that Evan Peters was not a Quicksilver variant, as he first played the character in 20th Century’s X-Men movies. But casting him as Ralph Bohner actually made sense because it wasn’t just part of the joke, but this helped us feel the same experience as Wanda where we wanted the character back and were too happy to believe it. Going into the new characters, it’s hard to not like Billy and Tommy because even though they’re not real in this universe, it doesn’t mean they’re not alive. Both Julian Hilliard and Jett Klyne succeed in making their counterparts as lively as their father. Even though they thought differently, they still chose to live their lives to the fullest, which is something you can’t help but admire. As if one villain was not enough to keep this show interesting, we got two to spice it up. The first of which is Tyler Hayward. Played greatly by Josh Stamberg, this is a guy who seems to act with well meaning, but chooses to
allow his corruption to speak louder than his morals. If we knew him before the Blip, we likely would’ve figured him out better. But for now, his good intentions make him the asshole in the room who gets what came to him. Last but not least, you know you have a great villain at hand when they’re hiding in front of the protagonist’s face. That is exactly what you got with the evil Agatha Harkness. Kathryn Hahn owns this role for not only nailing the sitcom tone as well, fooling us as a charismatic friend, but for mainly portraying her as a cruel woman who had lust for power. The stronger she got, the more she wanted and she knew if she got Wanda’s power, she’d officially be unstoppable. Lucky for this universe, that did not happen as Wanda overpowered her with her own advice. It was even cool that she got her own show because it’s hard enough for a character to be as interesting as this. Even though I admire this show for its creativity, I can admit that there were moments in the show where I still question elements and plot points of the story. Like for instance, it is funny that the fridge was empty in the pilot because Vision is technically incapable of eating, but Wanda can. This is her fantasy, so it’s odd that she would give herself an empty fridge for the sake of a laugh. That’s even weirder than when there were a bunch of drinks yet zero food later on. I even laughed when she unintentionally surprised the Harts in a nightgown, but come on. She had lit candles, so should’ve turned around the moment she saw Sharon. I like that there is a neighborhood watch fantasized by Wanda, but why was the meeting held in a public library? I don’t think it would’ve been bad for any of the neighbors to host it in his/her home. I then wonder how exactly Wanda keeps the secret of her pregnancy when she does see a doctor and the intro shows her going baby shopping? I really don’t want to pick on how she writes a story, but this is a trippy continuity error she makes even though she’s not expecting anyone to watch what she’s going through. It is cute when she chooses to paint the house on her own, but how does she not know that pregnant ladies can’t be around paint fumes? I really don’t want to question her intelligence, but she fantasized about having kids, she should’ve looked up a few risks. I then wonder how not many drove into Westview before Monica gets there. It may not look like a major road, but it does look like a shortcut kind of road for people to cross. That’s more confusing than the fact that none of the loved ones from Westview ever checked on the residents trapped in the Hex. That’s a lot of people in a small town, which makes it crazy that nobody reached out. And seeing the residents still there after the Hex was gone for good makes it weirder. I don’t blame Monica shooting at her costume to better understand Wanda’s rewriting reality, but it wasn’t so smart of her to shoot at it when Darcy & Woo are in the room. She couldn’t have known it wouldn’t ricochet, so it was pretty uncool of her to put them at risk like that. That’s more baffling than how no one checks on them after those shots fired. I actually thought it was funny that the boys thought Ralph was a vampire, but that joke is ruined when there is so much sunshine beaming in the damn house. Also, why didn’t Wanda go looking for Vision after expanding the Hex? She did that to prove her denial of grief, so it’s pretty crazy that she didn’t do that since she didn’t hesitate getting rid of the drone. Hayward’s pretty stupid in general for thinking he’d get away his actions against Wanda & Vision, but he truly proved to be an idiot when asking a receptionist is she’s still at SWORD HQ when he’s looking at the cameras. And am I the one baffled by how no one saw Woo snatch a phone to call for backup? Of course Hayward ain’t gonna care and try to frisk because that’s how overconfident he is, but there were guards behind the FBI agent. No one can be this blind unless they’re Daredevil. However, as long as you’re not overthinking like I did, then you’re gonna enjoy all nine episodes as well as the world did. In conclusion, WandaVision is one of the best MCU stories out there for taking advantage of being creative with its concept and nailing it in the long run. If you got Disney+ and you missed this franchise during the first year of the pandemic, then you’re in for an overall satisfying experience.
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