WandaVision Review!

 Alright! Today I am reviewing Marvel Studios' first TV show, WandaVision. WandaVision details the lives of our favorite robot/Sokovian love story as they try to live out the perfect sitcom life despite none of it being real, a la The Vision and Scarlet Witch comic from the 80s. 

The first thing I have to say about the show is that it was predictable. Practically everything went how I thought it would. This is definitely a drawback of the MCU's interconnectivity, because between knowing what House of M is, knowing that villains from previous films would show up in Spider-Man 3 2, and knowing that the second Doctor Strange would be about "The Multiverse of Madness," it's easy to see the general outline of a story. Obviously, Wanda went insane after losing everything in Infinity War and Endgame so she wiped an entire town off the map Storybrooke style. In this reality, Wanda has Vision and a loving family.

However, even if the general plotline of the series was easy to see (And the MCU stans freaking out over every little thing was super annoying), I still commend WandaVision for breaking the MCU mold. 

Basically, the MCU appropriates other genres - Captain America: The Winter Soldier is a political thriller, Spider-Man: Homecoming is a teen comedy, and Thor: Ragnarok is a comedy - and they appropriate them better than the movies actually in that genre releasing that same year (Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, The Outcasts, and Baywatch, respectively). WandaVision is nothing else if but unique, albeit still appropriating all of television (Not the funny part though. WandaVision has, like, two solid laughs).

And the television gimmick was simultaneously the best and most disappointing thing about WandaVision. I'm a big fan of old sitcoms, so the first two episodes being pitch-perfect recreations of the 50s and 60s sitcoms was amazing to watch, especially with the hints of The Twilight Zone peaking through. However, after those two episodes, it feels more like a thing tacked onto the series, a burden that it most fit itself into. In the 80s, 90s, and 2000s episodes, the gimmick is more intrusive than ingrained into the show. So that was disappointing.

I absolutely loved the 1950s episode (Filmed Before a Live Studio Audience). Excellent cinematography, loved that it was in 4:3.

A common complaint I saw about the show was how long the credits were and how short the runtimes were. This just bothered the living daylights out of me every time I saw it. Each episode cost $25 million. They put as much effort into this as they did regular MCU projects, thus the long credits. And 22 minutes is the standard sitcom length anyways! Streaming has just given people lofty expectations of what television is. 

One of the highlights of the show was easily Vision. I've always been a big Vision fan (He was awesome in Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes), and I really liked how Paul Bettany portrayed him. That being said, has anyone else felt like Vision and Wanda's relationship has been underdeveloped? They made eye contact in Age of Ultron, talked about paprika during Civil War, and then in Infinity War they're... married? Living together? Their strange witch lady/synthetic android who's technically 3 years old love story hasn't exactly been fleshed out. Luckily, this show has done respectable work to substantiate their relationship. 

Actually, kudos to the entire cast, but especially Olsen and Bettany (Wanda and Vision). They did an excellent job doing the sitcom tropes.

But let's talk about the story. This is your spoiler warning. You have been warned.

I really liked the show. It had a happy but creepy mystery vibe going, with even some good emotional beats - right up until the last episode. The last episode really screwed things up for me, but we'll get to that.

The first few episodes of the show were great. They could've been lifted straight out of 50s and 60s sitcoms, and I loved it. Sure, the pacing was slow, but the stuff happening was intriguing. It was a slow burn. The middle episodes (4 and 5) were kind of "Meh." These were the episodes where the show was both trying to move the plot along but also balance the sitcom, and it couldn't do them both, so it gave a half-hearted attempt at both. That was sad. 

Luckily, I felt like the show picked up after episode five. Episode 6 was totally solid (That was the Halloween one). I really loved the callbacks to the original designs, the humor, and the dark moments sprinkled in. Episode 7 was once again burdened by the sitcom gimmick, but Episode 8 (The one with the flashbacks) put the show back on track. That, combined with the Agatha Harkness and Pietro reveals, made the show really exciting. You didn't know what would happen next.

And then you did. 

This was an excellent reveal (If you hadn't already seen the leak).

The finale of the show was... bad. Not because I had theories that the show couldn't live up to (What is this, Star Wars?), but because for something so unique, so different, so refreshing from Marvel, that the revert to the basic MCU formula (CGI fight+skybeam+underdeveloped villains) was so disheartening and honestly boring. The Vision vs. White Vision battle of logic was infinitely more interesting than however many lasers Wanda could throw at Agatha Harkness. 

Another really disappointing thing about the show was the villains. A common complaint about the MCU is the underdeveloped villains, and it felt like Marvel was on a roll with it. Killmonger, Thanos, Ghost, Yon-Rogg, and Mysterio all got substantial amounts of praise for their motivations and performances. Here, Agatha Harkness and Director Haywood are more interesting the less they appear. 

Agatha Harkness had no clear goal or motivation, just a vague thing about chaos magic she's trying to steal. I don't think it's ever clearly defined if she's keeping the power for her own gain or because Scarlet Witches are dangerous though, the latter of which would have made for a far more interesting villain. It also would've been neat to see her as a "Mentor" figure to Wanda as she was in X-Men: Evolution. But alas, we have an evil (?) witch who can float and shoots purple lasers. And the choreography for the lasers wasn't even interesting, it was just... lasers... and floating. 

Agatha went from unique and intriguing to generic really quickly.

Director Hayward could've been potentially interesting - here we have a guy who just wants to save a town full of enslaved people - but he's just a thin sketch of an evil authority figure. He even tries to shoot children, for crying out loud. He could've been a legitimate hero. 

Why are these villains so lame, when they could've been well balanced and morally correct? Well, it's possible that Feige and co. needed the most basic evils they could have to make the person who kidnapped a town the heroine. Maybe they needed vaguely evil menace for the first half of the series, but then couldn't balance an evil heroine and evil villains. Either way, something really wrong happened here. 

This dude needed some work.

White Vision was okay. I thought he looked pretty dope, so a visually compelling villain is nice. But I thought that the finale once again dropped the ball. At the end of the day, he's basically the regular Vision, but white! He Gandalfed! But we have no closure for him! He just flies away with his restored memories. Does this mean that Vision survived Infinity War? Are literally no Marvel deaths permanent? When's he gonna pop up again? 

And Quicksilver as some dude named Ralph Bohner... I was cool with that. While it would've been fun to have Evan Peters' Quicksilver be a mainstay in the MCU moving forward, I always assumed it wasn't actually Pietro and thus he would have to go away at some point. 

And the finale really failed at giving substantial resolutions for Jimmy Woo, Darcy Lewis, and Monica Rambeau. For all the time spent with them during the show, they're barely given screentime in the finale. Darcy has, like, one shot! 

Monica started out good, but was disappointingly sidelined.

I also felt like the finale didn't give proper closure for Wanda and the town. She kidnapped these people and locked their memories and families away for weeks, and by the end, she's off Scott-free. Sure, she lost her kids and husband, but they were never really real anyway. The townspeople give her a mean look and she leaves. She even gets a heartfelt speech from Monica Rambeau about how she would've done the same thing! No! She did something wrong! 

Also, assuming Wanda is the villain of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, I don't think this series really gave her enough stuff to be evil. She ends up accepting her family's deaths by the end of the show, and she's already gotten over Vision's death before. 

This might be the darkest thing the MCU's ever done, honestly. This was messed up.

I would've fixed this by having Agatha killing Wanda's two kids - I mean, that would be devastating and give Agatha some weight as a villain. Then the sky beam fight is emotionally charged, not plot charged. Sure, it would be dark, but I think Marvel is going to have to go in that direction eventually (Assuming the endgame is for Wanda to be a villain).

The finale was a huge letdown for me. I had really high expectations from the rest of the series, but the ending didn't deliver. And that saddened me. 

Overall, I give WandaVision a 7/10. "Although it had some good moments, solid emotional beats, and excellent performances, WandaVision didn't stick the landing."

It was all worth it for this Baby Vision. I will protect him with my life.