WandaVision

[Techwright]

(spoilers ahead)

 

The MCU is back and with its strangest entry to date:  WandaVision.

 

Thoughts, discussions, and especially speculations?

 

How did you like the show as it has progressed, especially now that the all-important fourth episode has been released?

 

Please remember the forum rules for spoiler-y talk.

 

Edited January 31, 2021 by Techwright

[The_Warpact]

House of M, MCU version. 

[El D]

Myself as well as the friends who watch the show have been enjoying it since the first episode but yeah, Episode 4 really kicked things into a higher gear. In a lot of ways, Wandavision is the kind of content I'd wanted from Agents of SHIELD (and I say that as someone who absolutely loved the show as it was) as well as the Netflix Marvel shows (which were also good, but felt like they were mostly in yet another separate bubble of their own). The fact that I have no idea who will or won't show up or what the ramifications of the story will be is a huge boost to personal interest. Agents of SHIELD had to advertise when they got MCU film characters as guests and their appearances were always self contained - Wandavision has MCU continuity as the default and is able to leave any character appearances as a surprise, which works so much better.

Edited January 30, 2021 by El D

[Techwright]

I've enjoyed every episode, though sometimes the sitcom comedy felt forced to the point of awkward, but that really might be a deliberate writer's choice to emphasize the oddity that is WandaVision.

 

I do think there's something the production could have handled better: the knowledge level of the casual MCU viewer.  One of my coworkers is a casual, and he was (and supposedly his friends were) ready to quit WandaVision after episode two.  Everything about it baffled him, which came from only a passing knowledge of Wanda and Vision in the comics.  A couple of us had to sit him down and explained the comic book details of Wanda and Vision before he began to realize that we were seeing the episodes from an entirely different vantage point,  I know in a different video under "Legends" Disney rehashed most of Wanda's movie screen time, but I'm not certain casuals would have realized it's significance.  They've likely forgotten the first appearance in a tag scene where Wanda both created constructs seemingly out of thin air, then squashed them to pancakes all while displaying the face of a bored child.  It showed both her creative and destructive potential in one small shot.  Somehow adding that up front to WandaVision might have clued the casual viewers in that something more sinister lay underneath.

 

Sinister...now there's a name with potential to really ruin Wanda's life. 

 

 

Edited January 31, 2021 by Techwright

[Mr. Vee]

I loathed the first 3 eps but liked the 4th. But then I knew I'd be annoyed by the sitcom setup as it's essentially an extended rehash of the dream/mind control episode that's in every superhero show/comic at some point. I really think they could've handled it better by making ep 4 into two episodes with more clips from 1-3 interspersed rather than making us sit through 3 episodes waiting for the info dump. Glad to hear some enjoyed it at least.

[Techwright]

 

Observation:

  Reveal hidden contents

WandaVision's core concept is extremely similar to one on the animated Justice League. So much so, that this feels like classic comic book piracy between companies.  I believe the episode was called "Legends" if you want to view it.  In the episode, Green Lantern John Stewart and other JL's are pulled into a pocket reality where the town is stuck in the "perfect" 1950s, and Stewart is shocked to see his comic book heroes in the flesh.  Eventually it is discovered that the pocket reality is in a parallel dimension where Stewart's comic book heroes once lived...and died.  A deformed, disturbed individual with potent reality bending powers had created this altered reality, capturing a small town in the process and bringing to life his dead heroes.  In that story, he's defeated when the part of his own mind that controls the hero constructs, turns on himself, having the heroes do what they do best: stop the villain.

 

Question:

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Anyone have a guess as to who the unnamed missing person is that Jimmy Woo is hunting?  I'm not really buying that it is a case that he never existed.  After all, that's coming from the same people that don't believe Westview exists.

 

Speculation:

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Much online has already posted that folks believe Wanda isn't just seeing things, but that she's animating Vision's remains.  Speculation:  Wanda actually has both parts of Vision: his body and his mind.  Recall that she was in contact with the Mind Stone ultimately destroying it while Vision was connected to it.  I think it very likely that a copy of Vision's consciousness was uploaded to Wanda's mind.  Under this viewpoint, Vision is able to interact with Wanda and maintain a separate identity, one that has a individualized growing concern.  This may be a contributor to her mental breakdown, but I rather think Vision's mind may act as a conscience, keeping her from fully succumbing to a real threat:  Hydra sleeper agent programming.  Wanda's insistence that they not move out of town stems from her belief that Vision's consciousness will not survive the experience, and she may be correct.  It's already public knowledge that Wanda will be in Doctor Strange: The Multiverse of Madness, and that might be because she fails to keep Vision running. 

 

Speculation #2:

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It would be a cool twist if the people of Westview, or at least a few of them, are a Hydra sleeper cell that tricked Wanda to Westview and tried to trigger her Hydra sleeper agent programming.  She may have fought back, however, by creating the alternate reality bubble which forces both sleeper agents and villagers to play roles.  I'm bringing up Hydra, because the three commercials shown in the sitcom segments all have elements of Hydra:  the miracle toaster has a mysterious light & buzzer that create a pattern which looks like someone is trying to send a message; the watch commercial has a clear reference to both Hydra and von Strucker, the one who "trained" the twins, and the bath commericial refers to a Hydra soap, in a manner which calls "brainwashing" to mind.  It's pitch line even refers to creating your own reality to escape from it all.  Lastly,  it's rather ironic, and therefore I suspect intentional, that if the story does turn out to have brainwashing involved, another word for brainwashing is "programming" which is exactly what is on TV in Westview: programming. 

Edited January 31, 2021 by Techwright

[Glacier Peak]

It's pretty out there in the beginning, but as folks have pointed out it really pulls you back in by Episode 4. I like the direction of the show. I'm also glad it's transitioned to color, as it was giving my eyes a bit of strain watching the black and white episodes on a modern screen. 

[SuperPlyx]

Hmm, reading these post may actually give me reason to watch 3 and 4. I gave up after suffering through 1 and 2. 

[Mr. Vee]

3's not quite as tough to get through as 1&2, but there's enough shown in 4 that you could skip 3 and not be lost. really you could skip 1-3 without being lost.

[Greycat]

I've been enjoying them, especially the tendancy to

Spoiler

go from sitcom to twilight zone

in tone during the episodes.

 

I just wish they'd cut the credits down to something reasonable for such a short show. Keep the extra long set for the last ep.

[Glacier Peak]

4 hours ago, Greycat said:

 

  Hide contents

 

 

I just wish they'd cut the credits down to something reasonable for such a short show. Keep the extra long set for the last ep.

Totally, like each episode is a movie lol

[TemporalVileTerror]

Spouse and I just binged it up to episode 4.  We'll check back in a month or two after the rest of the season drops.

 

But after those four episodes we immediately started watching Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.  Got through the first two episodes.

We'd been meaning to get around to it for a while.  Looks like we finally found the impetus.

[Mr. Vee]

Wait, people watch credits? Who knew?

[Techwright]

13 hours ago, SuperPlyx said:

Hmm, reading these post may actually give me reason to watch 3 and 4. I gave up after suffering through 1 and 2. 

Highly recommend hanging in there.  Three will start to evolve the story, and then the jigsaw gets the corners and framework done in four.

6 hours ago, Greycat said:

I just wish they'd cut the credits down to something reasonable for such a short show. Keep the extra long set for the last ep.

Hear, hear.  I've been disappointed in that.  At least have a tag scene to make it worthwhile.

2 hours ago, TemporalVileTerror said:

But after those four episodes we immediately started watching Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.  Got through the first two episodes.

We'd been meaning to get around to it for a while.  Looks like we finally found the impetus.

Oh, you've started a gem!  Some have felt the first 16 episodes were rough (I disagree), but hang in there, it is laying valuable foundation for the rest of the series.  Eventually you'll be seeing call-backs to season 1 and going "Oh! So that's why that happened!"   Many feel "Turn, Turn, Turn", season 1, episode 17 is where AoS really hit it's stride, but you'll need the preceding episodes to build context.  "T, T, T" ran concurrent with the movie "Captain America: The Winter Soldier".

19 minutes ago, Mr. Vee said:

Wait, people watch credits? Who knew?

MCU has conditioned us to watch credits hunting for tag scenes.  Unfortunately, their Disney Plus branch doesn't appear to have gotten the memo.

[Mr. Vee]

I guess I'm weird, I just hit the right arrow in VLC to jump through if it's something that might have a post- or mid- credits scene. Can't imagine folks sitting through the marvel netflix stuff hoping for some with all the multiple language credits netflix shows have.

[DougGraves]

I am enjoying WandaVision.  It is the second Marvel tv series that I've liked.

 

Daredevil was  good.  Iron Fist had good parts, not including Iron Fist himself.  The others I did not like. 

 

Marvel tv shows have felt so slow and ponderous and grimdark for the sake of being grimdark.  AoS started off dumb but fun but then just became dumb and dark. 

 

WandaVision feels like they are actually trying to be entertaining.

[TemporalVileTerror]

 . . . you may want to brace yourself for more grimness and darkness then, Doug.

[Techwright]

SPOILER ALERT Stay clear if you wish to know nothing about MCU casting for upcoming works, nor how the Phase 4 projects might interact.

 

Spoiler

The MCU powers that be have announced that Elizabeth Olsen (Wanda Maximoff) is going to be in Doctor Strange and The Multiverse of Madness, and that it will be their first horror movie (though on the lighter side of horror, I gather).  Since they follow a storyline continuity, it stands to reason that some element within WandaVision will affect the upcoming movie.  This may also set the stage for the third MCU Spiderman movie as well.

 

 

On 2/1/2021 at 4:08 PM, DougGraves said:

Marvel tv shows have felt so slow and ponderous and grimdark for the sake of being grimdark.  AoS started off dumb but fun but then just became dumb and dark. 

 

I suspect that is because the MCU movie team more or less abandoned the TV teams.  Although there were crossovers with some of the movie characters showing up on TV, the movie team has pointedly left out the TV characters.  I personally didn't follow the Luke Cage series, so I don't know how it ended, but he might have been a big help at the Battle of Waukanda or the Endgame Battle, I'd think.  Those who track such things point to Kevin Feige, whom they say apparently made a unilateral, unpublished decision to cut ties with the TV units.  Agents of SHIELD writers didn't even get notice of a HUGE event in the MCU that affected everyone.  As a result, their show ended up playing like a close alternate universe/timeline to the movies, rather than a partner to them.  Disney Plus projects are under Feige, and are getting the love the abandoned shows didn't.

 

[DougGraves]

On 2/1/2021 at 5:12 PM, TemporalVileTerror said:

 . . . you may want to brace yourself for more grimness and darkness then, Doug.

 

I am not opposed to grimdark.  I was playing warhammer 40k when it came out.  I still have the original blue book and a massive collection of 40k epic armies.  And Eisenhorna and Ravenor are two of my favorite series.

 

But Marvel didn't do anything with grimdark.  It just seemed to put grimdark on the screen as if grimdark=good.  Grimdark does not replace characters, action, and plot. 

[Ulysses Dare]

4 hours ago, DougGraves said:

 Grimdark does not replace characters, action, and plot. 

You'll never get a job in Hollywood with that attitude, mister! 😄

[twozerofoxtrot]

My thoughts, as someone who likes CoH but has only surface-level knowledge of comics and very little appreciation for most of the comic-related stuff on TV outside of the X-Men and Batman cartoons from the 90s:

 

I had it on a second screen while playing CoH. When Ep. 4 came on, CoH became the "thing on the second screen."

 

 

[SuperPlyx]

Well I made through 3 & 4 it's finally starting to come together and it is interesting . While it answered some questions it made you ask a lot more.

I still think 1,2 and 3 could have been condensed into 1 episode.

[The_Warpact]

SPOILERS SPOILERS ALERT

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OK so 3 things about this episode 5.

1. Vision is realizing something is seriously wrong.

2. With Wanda acting the way she is but seems genuine that she doesn't know how it started is this a tie in to something larger que in 3.

3. Quicksilver from the XMen not the MCU, AND Wanda was shocked to see him.

Is this indeed the tie in to the XMen being ushered in finally to the MCU?!?

 

Speculation; who what is exactly behind all of this? Is it Wanda manipulating it but ultimately someone else is feeding it?

Now we know WandaVision goes straight into Doc Strange 2 and I believe Nightmare is the big bad, so is it him feeding off of this and the others in this sitcom?

 

[Mr. Vee]

There's a perfectly good spoiler button you could use - it's the eyeball. 

Spoiler

I'm now convinced the entire TV show reality idea was just so they could use the 'recast' line.

 

[Glacier Peak]

Spoiler

Well the next big universe altering tie-in seed is here. MCU just merged with X-Men Universe, multi-dimensional rifts are abound! I like how Wanda was momentarily confused about who was at the door when she first opened it (the keen eye will notice it was actually Mickey with a sack full of money), but once the camera pans, in we see the Quicksilver from X-Men (who's in-universe dad is Magneto as a reminder).  I found that really interesting considering they did a character background on Wanda describing how her parents were killed when she was younger (not even retconning, actually retelling the same story of Starks name on the bomb casing). This is shaping up to be a deep cut mixed with some really juicy future plot lines!

🤪

Edited February 6, 2021 by Glacier Peak