'WandaVision' Is Alright

WandaVision is arguably the first MCU TV show ever.  Sure, there have been Marvel TV shows before from ABC (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Agent Carter, Inhumans), Netflix (Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, The Defenders, The Punisher), and others (Runaways, Cloak & Dagger) that claimed to be set in the MCU –  some of which even featured characters and elements that were introduced in the films.  However, the MCU films have never really acknowledged them in a meaningful or official capacity.  And thus, no matter how much these TV shows insist that they are also set in the MCU, their supposed link to the MCU totally feels non-canon.  WandaVision is surely the first true MCU TV series, because its MCU identity and association are instantly unquestionable.

Set after the events of Avengers: Endgame but before Spider-Man: Far From Home, the 9-episode miniseries follows Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) and a mysteriously resurrected Vision (Paul Bettany) who have somehow become characters of a sitcom, wherein they are a young married couple trying to live a normal, picturesque suburban life in a town called Westview, while they keep their powers a secret from their neighbors.  At the start, they appear to be unaware of their strange reality, but as existential cracks begin to appear, they gradually come to realize the truth.

My title for this review may imply that I’ve found WandaVision to be just average.  Well, not really.  In my weekly watching, I was actually completely absorbed.  It’s a stylish and diverting show.  It has a gripping sense of mystery, and it peels off its layers in a stimulating manner.   While mimicking the sitcoms of the 1960’s to the 2000’s, it delightfully evokes their technical aspects, motifs, aesthetics, tropes, humor style, and ambiances with near perfection.  The cast is charismatic, and the acting is phenomenal (especially from Olsen, Bettany, and Kathryn Hahn).  The script is clever and original in adequate points, and the dumb, flawed parts of the story (e.g. SPOILER why is Wanda not punished for what she did to the town?) are usually concealed by the solid direction and the show’s other merits.  Almost all of its twists-and-turns are well-executed (the “Agatha All Along” musical number is brilliant).  It’s not necessarily action-packed, but when it does do action, it’s adequately spectacular.  It has quality thrills, laughs, and feels.  When it starts to explore matters of thematic substance, it generally hits the target, inciting the appropriate emotional response from the audience.  Indeed, there are many things to like and praise about this show.

However, after watching the finale and letting the whole show marinate in my mind a bit, I felt that WandaVision wasn’t as rewarding as I thought it would be.  I realized that my enjoyment of the show was greater during the earlier episodes – where the “what the heck is really going on here?” sense of mystery was strongest – than the latter episodes, and that I enjoyed the parts more than their sum.   Moreover, we won’t really know how well WandaVision has set up Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (Scarlet Witch’s arc will continue there) until we get to see it in 2022, but I don’t think WandaVision offered anything of concrete and exciting significance yet (i.e. SPOILERS it didn’t introduce the Multiverse yet, which was something I was expecting it to do going in.  Spider-Man: No Way Home is our next plausible candidate for our first introduction to the MCU multiverse.  I have this theory, though: Wanda will retrieve her construct children, Billy and Tommy, from a different universe).

My biggest gripe is probably what was meant to be its biggest surprise (SPOILER) – Evan Peters, the Fox X-Men franchise’s Pietro Maximoff a.k.a. Quicksilver, playing Pietro Maximoff in WandaVision’s sitcom reality.  He eventually turned out being a fake Pietro, and that might as well, since I don’t want the entrance of the X-Men to the MCU be done through this way.  So what’s my problem then?  It’s casting Evan Peters and making him play a fake Quicksilver in the first place.  First of all, since he wasn’t really a version of Pietro, the whole thing didn’t really add anything of value to the narrative.  Secondly, not only was it pointless, but it was inherently unfair.  It was supposed to be a meta play on the sitcom trope of characters getting miscast.  Still, doing so in such a way gave the fanbase – especially those who were expecting the Multiverse to be introduced in the show – an unwarranted and false cause for excitement, which is pretty cheap and manipulative thing to do.

Still, although WandaVision got too subversive for its own good with the whole “Evan Peters/Quicksilver” thing, it is worth stressing that it’s successfully exciting with its other attempts for clever surprises.

I really dig the MCU introduction of white Vision (a look that the original comic book character had notably undergone), which was something I wasn’t expecting at all to happen at any point in the MCU.  I especially appreciate how it was brought about.  Not only did it give the character a cool makeover, but it also paved the way for his future MCU appearances without undermining his death in Avengers: Infinity War.  On top of that, in the process of instating the white Vision, the Ship of Theseus – which used to be one of my favorite philosophical topics to ponder on – even got to be tackled.

The white Vision isn’t the only hero moving forward who got an “origin story” in WandaVision.  There’s also Billy and Tommy (whom I anticipate will also become Wiccan and Speed in the MCU, like their comic book counterparts) and Monica Rambeau (I don’t know which of her many superhero names will she have in the MCU).  But aside from them, WandaVision actually also serves as the “origin story” for Scarlet Witch.  Yes, Wanda Maximoff may have been around for some time now in the MCU, but there actually had never been any mention of “Scarlet Witch” as her official superhero name.  By pointing out overlooked details like that and through smart retcons, WandaVision finally establishes Scarlet Witch in the MCU as how we essentially know her in the comics.

In relation to that, considering all the loss and grief she went through in her life and her sinister actions in this show (again, why wasn’t she punished for what she did to the citizens of Westview?), a Wanda Maximoff face-heel turn would have been perfect here.  It would have been certainly heartbreaking, but it would have been an awesome and logical twist.  She would make an amazing, complex, well-developed MCU villainess, and such thing happening would have been the boldest and most compelling development in MCU history.  The more I think about it, the more I feel that it was a massive missed opportunity.  Nonetheless, the show failing to capitalize on this doesn’t necessarily ruin it for me.

All in all, although it isn’t as great as I hoped it would be, I still had a good time with WandaVision.  Well, that’s already a given by mere virtue of being an MCU installment – more so, being the first new installment in almost two years.  Its flaws can be easily forgiven since it’s part of the awesome big picture that is the MCU.  But, even by itself, its highs do outweigh its lows.

Next up: The Falcon and the Winter Solider.