“WandaVision In Review”
The first of many Marvel Disney+ shows has just recently concluded. With fan theories running rampant, and twists and turns during almost every episode, it isn’t surprising that WandaVision was so successful. However, the show is not without its own issues as nothing can ever be quite perfect. Below is our spoiler-filled review of WandaVision.
My first impression when watching the early (first two) episodes of WandaVision was confusion. I had a hard time trying to determine why Disney and Marvel would take us on a nostalgia tour through classic television series featuring two underserved and underutilized Avengers. I have to admit, I wasn’t overly invested in the project in the beginning. I enjoyed the references to The Dick Van Dyke Show and Bewitched, but I honestly didn’t care much for it past that point. Despite this, I kept watching for curiosity’s sake, and it certainly paid off.
When it becomes clear that Wanda is more in control of this reality than was initially assumed, I was hooked. I’m a big fan of Wanda Maximoff as a character. In the comics she has been a force to be reckoned with and the Marvel Cinematic Universe hadn’t seized the opportunity to really utilize her until this point. It was exciting to see Wanda use her powers in a way we hadn’t gotten to see on screen before, and the ending definitely implies that this is just the tip of the iceberg for her.
As someone who has been critical of Vision in both comics and film, I have to say that this did wonders for his character as well. We finally get to see a more “human” side of the synthezoid. That said, it’s hard to determine how real this side of him was, as he’s technically a manifestation of Wanda’s grief. At the very least, we get to see Vision as Wanda saw him, which is almost beautiful in its own right.
As mentioned above, some of the best content to come out of WandaVision is the character development. While the two titular characters had the most development, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the other characters who stuck out. The first of which is Monica Rambeau. The last time we saw this character she was a child in Captain Marvel, and while she may have been dreaming for the stars, she had a lot of growing up to do before she became the version of her we see in the show.
Monica was another bright spot in the show, she was fearless, and certainly didn’t back away from a challenge. She, similarly to Wanda, is dealing with grief. Losing her mother in addition to the last five years of her life, would be maddening to anyone, yet Monica jumps right back in to work at SWORD, and is often the voice of reason throughout the series. It was also incredibly exciting to see Monica get her powers after being exposed to the boundaries of Wanda’s “hex” three separate times. We even got to see her powers in action, first being able to withstand Wanda’s attack to get her to leave the neighborhood again, and then being literally bulletproof in the finale. I don’t think I need to go too deeply into the significance of the MCU literally giving us a bulletproof black female superhero! It was amazing, seeing her protect Billy and Tommy, while also being impervious to Hayward’s attack. It was a powerful scene that only highlighted Monica’s character even more.
However, what impressed me most about this character was her empathy to Wanda. No one would have been overly critical of Monica if she had taken Hayward’s side. After all, she too was held hostage by Wanda and forced to play a role in Wanda’s show. The experience was even described as “excruciating,” in Hayward’s retelling of Monica’s experience, and yet Monica is unyielding in her opinion that Wanda is not doing this maliciously. In fact, she willingly exposes herself back into the “hex” despite knowing that it is quite literally altering her DNA, with unknown side effects. This was something that Jimmy Woo wasn’t even willing to expose himself to once. During his first scene in the show, he says he doesn’t enter the town because he can “feel” that they’re not supposed to go inside. He stays true to that throughout the series, only entering Westview when Wanda breaks down the “hex” during the final episode.
As mentioned previously, Jimmy Woo was another character we got to see develop a bit since his Ant-Man and the Wasp appearance. He and Thor’s Darcy Lewis, were oftentimes the comic relief in the show when things got heavier. However, we got to see a side of Jimmy Woo’s character that we hadn’t seen before. While he was appreciated in Ant-Man and the Wasp, he was often at odds with Scott Lang as he was assigned to make sure that Scott was following his house arrest. It was refreshing to see Jimmy defy Hayward and fight back, being a key role in thwarting his escape.
It was nice to see Darcy Lewis get in on the action as well. In the Thor franchise she was often comic relief but rarely in the spotlight during action scenes. While she still didn’t do much fighting in WandaVision it was refreshing to see her stop Hayward with her stolen truck, and have her be the leading expert during SWORD’s investigation of Wanda. It was particularly exciting to see that she has earned her doctorate, so she is no longer Jane’s intern, and isn’t playing second fiddle to Jane Foster or Erik Selvig.
Finally, Kathryn Han’s Agatha Harkness is also deserving of praise. With the exception of a few of the films, Marvel has had a bit of an issue with giving fans villains that were worthy adversaries to their favorite heroes. This was not the case with Agatha Harkness. Seeing her toy with Wanda throughout the series was a highlight of the show and seeing her be a full fledged witch was equally as exciting. While Wanda defeated her in the finale, they certainly left the door open for Agatha to return, and I certainly hope they find a way to incorporate her in the future.
While I have mostly praised WandaVision, I have to mention some of the negatives as well. Overall, I greatly enjoyed the show, there are still a few points that I took issue with. The first of which is Maria Rambeau. Maria Rambeau was last seen in the Captain Marvel film and had become a bit of a fan favorite. She was a pilot, similar to Carol Danvers before gaining powers from the Space Stone, single mother, and according to WandaVision the eventual director of SWORD, yet she is killed off-screen from cancer.
While this is frustrating for a number of reasons, I was particularly miffed because Marvel still has a long way to go in terms of diversity in their films, and to kill off one of your few female black characters off screen left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. That’s without getting too deep into the fact that many fans were hopeful that Maria and Carol might have a romantic relationship in the sequel, and this all but confirms that won’t be the case. This adds another layer to the fact that Marvel has yet to have an LGBTQ+ hero in the films.
Additionally, the Marvel films have always handled Wanda and Pietro’s Romani roots poorly. Not only are the actors not of Romani descent, the culture of their characters is often used as a prop or a joke. Specifically, Wanda’s costume in the Halloween episode being referred to as a “fortune teller.”
Additionally, having the twins willing join Hydra--a Nazi organization while having Romani and Jewish roots, through their father Erik Lehnsherr, in the comics has always rubbed me the wrong way. WandaVision had an opportunity to remedy that when Wanda is reliving her past. They could have easily given us a one off line about Wanda and Pietro not knowing that it was Hydra when they signed up to be experimented on and didn’t find out until later. Unfortunately, all we get is a line about the twins wanting to “change the world.”
One of the other issues that I took was the presence of Evan Peters’s Quicksilver. Initially, I was very excited to see him show up on the show and hoped that this meant we’d be seeing more of Fox’s X-Men in future Marvel films. Not only was he not the real Quicksilver, but he was instead just a long running “boner” joke, as he was Ralph Bohner, Wanda and Vision’s next door neighbor that Agatha was controlling. While I wasn’t expecting him to be a huge character, I was hoping for something a bit more significant than Ralph Bohner.
Finally, something that has been sticking out in my head for a while is Jimmy Woo’s missing person. Jimmy Woo mentions in his first scene that Quantico had sent him to investigate a missing person in witness protection, who lived in Westview. Initially, this was who I believed Evan Peters’s character to truly be, yet when Jimmy sees him on screen in the All New Halloween Spectacular episode, he just makes a note that Pietro has “the wrong face,” and doesn’t indicate that he recognizes him. In fact, Jimmy’s missing person is never mentioned again later in the season and it seems as though that was just a plot device used to include him in the show.
Overall, I greatly enjoyed WandaVision. It was refreshing to have Marvel be able to spend six hours to devote to character development and plot rather than it just being action-centric. I think the show was an excellent first step in setting up a post-Iron Man Cinematic Universe. After Avengers: Endgame, so many characters were lost, and it felt like a finale of sorts. I think this was a great way to continue the story with a whisper rather than a bang, and I look forward to their upcoming Disney+ content.
WandaVision is currently streaming on Disney+.