Disney+ Retrospective - WandaVision

I’m likely going to do episode by episode breakdowns for most of the Disney Plus Marvel line-up but I’m making an exception for WandaVision, which especially in its early episodes has a main plot happening very much in the background. Because of it happening so close to the end of Infinity War, Wanda being among those blipped and the 5-year time-jump, there really wasn’t time in those films to explore the impact the death of Vision, that’s where this show comes in. Let’s take a dive in and see how things go.

The first episode: Filmed Before a Live Studio Audience, takes its inspiration from a 1950’s sitcom, complete in black and white with a 4:3 aspect ratio. Wanda and Vision, who is back from the dead, somehow, are living in a suburban house in the town of Westview. It’s a fairly standard sitcom plot from the era, made only slightly weird when Vision’s boss begins to choke after asking too many questions. We’re introduced to the nosy neighbour Agnes who will be important later. As the credits roll, we see someone somewhere is watching the goings on like a show. There’s a cute little touch of period appropriate outfits in each episode.

The next episode, “Don’t touch that dial” moves the era along to the 60s, with a limited animation opening. Shenanigans are afoot as a fully-in colour remote control helicopter lands in the series but as Wanda is starting to wonder what that’s about, Agnes comes with a rabbit for the magic act. There’s a talent show to raise money for an elementary school, hence the magic act.

Whilst sitting on a planning committee meeting regarding the show, Wanda meets Geraldine, who will be important later. Later on the next bit of weirdness happens as Wanda hears someone call out for her through a regular 60's radio. The ad in this one is for a Strücker, a Hydra branded watch. The end of the episode reveals that Wanda is pregnant but something more mysterious happens at the very end, a beekeeper comes up through the sewers but somehow the film rewinds back a few seconds until just after the pregnancy reveal, after said reveal, the house and setting transform in 70s style colour show.

The next episode, Now in Colour, relocates us to a 70s setting, taking influence from the Brady Bunch in particular. Wanda doesn’t seem all that worried about her sudden out of the blue pregnancy, and it’s having a weird affect on her powers, causing her magic to lash out involuntarily, causing a full blackout.

Vision is beginning to realise things aren’t what they seem here, but there’s no time to think about that as Wanda’s quickly heading into labour. The ad this week is for HYDRA brand bath soap. Vision rushes to get a doctor, as Wanda is getting more painful contractions. Geraldine arrives wanting a bucket and she starts going into labour, giving birth to twins: Billy and Tommy.

Agnes and another neighbour, Herb, are discussing Geraldine. Wanda mentions to Geraldine her brother Pietro and begins singing in Markovian, Geraldine asks if Pietro was killed by Ultron. Agnes remarks that Geraldine has no home, and that she’s here because… Geraldine is launched out of Westview and surrounded by suits as the credits roll.

Episode 4, We Interrupt This Programme gives us some insight into what’s actually going on through the eyes of several lesser-known supporting characters. We have the now aged to the period Monica Rambeau, who’s mother died from cancer as she was blipped away; Darcy, who’s ditched Ian and went out away from Doctor Foster, and Agent Woo from Ant-man and the Wasp. I’m gonna limit the full extent of the story here to what’s important to the overall plot

S.H.I.E.L.D. has been replaced by S.W.O.R.D., the sentient weapons division, the department always existed, being founded by Maria Rambeau likely after the plot of Captain Marvel but is stepping up in the face of more hostile alien threats. The acting director of the project is Tyler Hayward, and we’ll want to watch out for him later.

Tyler assigns Monica to work with the FBI as they investigate a missing persons case in Westview, they’ve requested a SWORD tactical drone. It’s here she meets up with agent Woo, who tells her that the missing person was on the witness protection list and when he tried to ring up old contacts, they had no idea who he was. Even weirder the Sherriff outside says the town doesn’t exist, and the town seems to be actively discouraging people from entering it. They get the drone out, but it disappears, when Monica investigates she disappears through the force-field.

It's then re-enforcements are called in, including scientists from all fields. And Darcy seems to have her upped her game, now apparently a doctor in her own right, SWORD have set up a base outside the town with Tyler leading the charge.

Darcy’s quick analysis finds a high level of cosmic background radiation, and a wavelength hidden beneath it that seems to the broadcast signal of the episodes we’d seen previously. A guy named Franklin is sent through a sewer tunnel wearing a haz-mat suit, he’s tethered to keep him safe as he’s tasked with recovering Monica, who has gone into the show as Geraldine.

With the broadcast now showing, they can use facial recognition to identify some of the missing persons, and they quickly discover Monica. Darcy has an idea, using some tech to hijack some radios, as they prepare, one of the agents shows them a photo of the downed helicopter drone from episode 2, looking rather co-incidentally like one of the SWORD drones. It’s Woo who’s talking through the radio, but of course it didn’t work.

Back to Franklin, he approaches the barrier which converts his haz-mat suit into a bee-keeper’s uniform, and transforms the tether into skipping rope, meaning it detaches from his side. The third episode is now playing but we know nothing extraordinary happens in that episode until the end.

We see Wanda blast Monica all the way from her house out of the force-field, then cleaning up the mess before anyone takes notice of it. Monica has been assured that all of this is Wanda’s doing.  

We move into a late 80s/early 90s sitcom setting for the next, A Very Special Episode and the first one to get 16:9 aspect ratio, that being said, it’s a little early, for that isn’t it? When Vision throws a hissy fit about Agnes holding the babies, Agnes acts all nervous and asks Wanda if they want to do another take, much to Vision’s confusion.

The twins stop crying when they age to 5 years out of the blue and that’s all before the Full-House style opening credits.

Lab analysis on Monica shows nothing at all but at the briefing, Tyler is treating this as a terrorist incident with Wanda is as the principal victimiser and that they need to stop her by whatever means necessary. He also shows them footage of her storming SWORD headquarters 9 days ago, seemingly killing the scientists there and extracting Vision’s body.

Billy and Tommy have found a dog, a dog without a tag, Agnes arrives with a dog-house, convenient. And the boys age from 5 to 10 as Vision says they need to be 10 to be responsible enough to take care of it. Once again, Agnes is right there and pays no mind to it.

Monica develops a theory, a theory that’s soon proven correct as her show costume survives bullets thanks to the Kevlar she was wearing when she went in. To get through the barrier without being changed, whatever they sent must be period-appropriate. At Vision’s place of work, they intercept a SWORD briefing about the high radiation levels. Most of the staff laugh it off but Vision is still concerned. Vision is able to briefly disconnect a co-worker of their mind control and they’re screaming for help.

Later, the guys on the outside manage to get an 80's drone thorough the shield and into Wanda’s vicinity, Monica tries to talk her down, but unbeknownst to her, the drone had a missile onboard and Tyler gives the order for his men to take the shot, it backfires spectacularly, Wanda exits the shield, now called a Hex to warn everyone to back off, showing that she can turn his own men against him if she wanted to.

Sparky ran off during all the chaos but it’s Agnes who finds him, dead. Wanda gives them speech about growing from grief, although they argue that she can fix the dead. As quick as they have him, they’ve lost him and now they’re putting away his things, and it’s time for Vision to reveal what he’s been learning the whole time, this leads to a pretty major argument between the 2 of them which is only stopped by the arrival of a guest, someone claiming to be Pietro Maximoff, played by Evan Peters, who played Pietro Maximoff in the Fox X-men films.

The next episodes brings the sitcom inspirations to the early 2000s, particularly Malcolm in the Middle, meaning the boys get extended screen-time in this episode: All-New Halloween Spectacular. They get to talk to the audience a bit and dump a bit of exposition. Wanda and Vision get in their comic style outfits for the episode, same with “Pietro”

Vision deciding to use his neighbourhood watch credentials from episode 2 to duck out of being with the family on Halloween. Outside, Tyler’s deciding to send in the big guns and kill Wanda. Monica points out many reasons while this is dumb, including not knowing whether killing her brings down the hex or makes it permanent. Tyler kicks Monica, Darcy and Woo off the base, they’re escorted by guards who they take down and steal the uniforms of.

Wanda tries to test Pietro’s identity but he manages to shake it off, but she does find out that Vision is not supposed to be on active neighbourhood duty. Vision is walking towards the outskirts of the town, seeing people move in repetitive cycles. The ad for this episode is just fucking weird. Turns out one of Wanda’s twins, Tommy, has super-speed. I’ll get to them when I can.

Darcy has really outdone herself, as well getting a doctorate, she became a world-class hacker as well since we last saw her, hacking into SWORD files and discovering Tyler had found a way to keep a headcount of people in the town, and track Vision’s vibranium… They also see people on the edge of the town are barely moving, something Vision takes notice of too, he flies into the air and notices that sound is only coming from one direction. He sees a car at a junction and finds Agnes within it

He removes the filters from Agnes who asks about the Avengers, who this Vision has never heard of (his memories start and finish with Westview) then she asks if she’s dead, as she knows Vision is. Vision approaches the hex. Back outside it’s revealed that traversing through the Hex has rewritten Monica down to her cells twice, and going inside a third time, even in a photon cage that she’s preparing would likely result in a more permanent change. But Monica’s insistent on helping Wanda, knowing the grief she’s going through. Darcy is going to stay behind and continue her hack whilst Woo and Monica head to get that photon cage.

Darcy’s soon through the last firewall and sends what she knows to Woo, but also spots Vision heading towards the Hex. Vision attempts to walk through it, with a SWORD Team waiting on the the other side, but as he does so Vision’s body begins to break down, something Billy, the other of Wanda’s twins can hear, revealing that he has powers similar to Wanda

Darcy is caught and handcuffed, Wanda freezes all the residents and uses her powers to expand the hex, a few SWORD agents make it out of harm’s way but Darcy and the entire SWORD base is caught up, turned into a circus carnival.

Episode 7, Breaking the Fourth Wall brings the sitcom homages to the modern era, with The Office being the most notable inspiration, it’s also the last of the sitcom homages as the story takes over completely from the next episode. Wanda’s powers are on the fritz, with various items changing eras for no reason at all.

SWORD have a established a new base outside of the new perimeter, they’re preparing to launch something today. Vision wakes up in the middle of a circus, where Darcy is playing the escape artist. Agnes comes and takes the children as Wanda’s close to having a mental breakdown… again.

Monica and Woo discover from the files Darcy send to them that Tyler was in fact looking to reactivate Vision but nothing he tried could work until Wanda came along. She meets an old friend of her mothers that provides a vehicle with the specifications they asked for. Vision restores Darcy’s memories and they abandon the circus in a massive truck.

Billy mentions that Agnes is somewhat quieter than anyone else, he doesn’t find it at all suspicious. Monica is all suited up ready for her attempt to breach the hex. Unfortunately the super-rover doesn’t work, so Monika decides to make once last ditch effort to get through the barrier, which she does, earning herself some level of super-powers in the process, also her suit isn’t rewritten and her memories are in-tact, which is definitely odd.

Darcy explains what happened to Vision and I’m just wondering how she knows any of this, including bits from a timeline that was immediately undone. Darcy tells Vision everything she knows. Monica arrives at the suburb and has a standoff with Wanda, something Agnes pays attention to and intervenes.

Vision’s decides he’s had enough of his wife’s stalling tactics and flies off. Agnes brings Wanda into her house, but there’s no sign of the children. Agnes tells Wanda they’re in the basement and she goes down to search, finding long passageways covered in roots, she enters what appears to be a chamber.

Agnes comes along, stroking a rabbit like a bond villain, and reveals she knows magic too, her real name is Agatha Harkness and she gets a little ditty inspired, I guess, by like Addams Family or the like. She’s been secretly pulling strings behind the scenes, making Vision more suspicious of what’s going on, bringing in the fake Pietro and most horrifying of all, she killed Sparky. I suppose they had to add that bit because when you really boil it down, she’s done nothing wrong, yet. Wanda could be considered eviller than her, she’s subjecting a whole town of nearly 2000 people to her will, and whilst she never intended to initially, she knows this. In a short mid-credits scene, Monika is captured by the fake Pietro when she sees the basement.

With that reveal, the final 2 episodes are more story-driven. We flash back to get of Monika’s backstory as her mother, the head witch of a coven sentences her to death for practicing dark magic, but even in the 1600's she was a powerful witch, able to absorb the energy intended to kill her instead absorbing the energy from and executing the coven, including her mother.

Wanda finds he can’t use her magic, as there are runic symbols on the wall that prevent anyone but the caster from using their spells. Of course, Agatha isn’t capable of doing close to the level of what Wanda’s been doing and she wants to know how. Wanda can’t or won’t tell her so Agatha fashions a journey inside her head.

The first piece of the puzzle comes in her childhood, as she and her family watch the Dick Van Dyke Show, the inspiration for the first episode of this show. All whilst a civil war is happening in the streets, resulting in an explosion in their house that kills their parents. He and Pietro are stuck hiding under a bed as another missile lands in their house, a Stark Industries missile, the missile was defective apparently but her and Pietro were safe for 2 days, a hint to Agatha that she always had magical potential.

But as we know, the next part of the story is where she gets her strength, experiments with the mind stone, which we find out here was voluntarily. We also see Cindy-Lou, another sitcom inspiration. Next doorway comes after another personal tragedy, the death of Pietro and details the first time Wanda and Vision truly had at the Avengers Compound. Vision’s take on grief is quite profound.

The next part of this is coming into SWORD to get Vision’s body, intending at the very least to give him a proper burial, she’s allowed entrance, contrary to what we were told earlier and is lead directly to Tyler Hayward, who shows her Vision being dismantled. Again, whilst she’s angry she never actually hurts anybody, the footage Tyler showed earlier of her stealing the body has been doctored. She leaves, without the body and makes her way to Westview, to a plot of land her and Vision had secured to start a permanent life together.

Its here when Wanda finally breaks down in her grief and unleashes the hex, and creating a copy of the Vision to reunite with. This all but confirms Agatha’s suspicions, she been using chaos magic, a type only thought be usable by the mythical Scarlet Witch. In a mid-credits scene, it’s revealed that Tyler has used some residual magic from Wanda to reactivate the real vision, or at the least the shell of him.

And so we come to the Series finale, titled… The Series Finale. Wanda manages to rescue her kids and hold off Agatha but the arrival of Vision and Fake Vision complicates matters. Vision and Fake vision fight as Wanda goes after Agatha, oh and she has the Darkhold, last seen in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and it looks completely different.

Agatha goes one step further and begins releasing people from Wanda’s mind-control spells, many of them come to her begging for help. Turns out the fake Pietro’s real name is Ralph Bohner. *sigh* one hand, the you count the number of reference to Agnes supposed husband Ralph on the side of a pick-up truck. On the other, did we see seriously go for a boner joke? Real classy Marvel.

But at the risk of sounding controversial, it was largely a well-executed bait and switch. Nothing is gained at this late stage revealing him to be someone important to the plot, giving him ties to the x-men or the like would be unnecessary, and given that this was in production before the Fox-Merger had completed, I doubt it was even possible.

I think we built up a lot of hype around him and are mad at the show that we were wrong, and that’s not the show’s fault. This episode is not faultless, the visuals are at their weakest in this episode but I can’t really in hindsight fault the show for us setting impossible expectations of it.

Wanda is overwhelmed by their collective emotions, so much that Billy can feel it and him and Tommy race to help. Agnes convince Wanda to take the barrier down, allowing SWORD to start storming the place. But undoing the Hex means undoing all of it, her family and vision as well and she can’t do that. Agatha begins draining more of Wanda’s power.

Tyler goes out like a right punk his car being smashed in by Darcy. I know they wanted to give her a moment but… actually, what is Tyler going to prison for, exactly? As for the Vision fight, it’s settled in the most Vision way possible, through a philosophical discussion. Vision manages to restore fake Vision’s memories and with that he’s out of the picture. But there’s still the matter of Agatha, Wanda takes her back to the time she executed her coven, the mental trick resurrects the coven but they turn on Wanda calling her the Scarlett Witch, Agatha tells her to give up her powers and she’ll correct the spell, as she’d have both the power and the knowledge.

Wanda does something actually quite clever, she pretends to give it up, firing bursts of energy right at her but at times deliberately missing and casting runes onto the barrier, making it so Agatha can’t use her magic, and that Wanda can use hers to absorb it all back, giving herself a more comic accurate costume.

Wanda decides to trap Agnes in the role she chose as punishment, since she’s not gonna stay locked up in prison with her abilities. It’s time to set everything right, they head home as the barrier begins to shrink. It’s not an easy goodbye, particularly for the children. And of-course we have to say goodbye to the Vision we’ve known across the 9 episodes.

Wanda is left, alone, again, on the plot of land that was once her home, but the people of the town are free, though few of them pleased with her after all she’s put them through. Wanda decides to she needs to understand her power and flies away as the police arrive and yes I know a lot of people feel she should’ve faced legal consequences for her actions and whilst I get why they feel that way, no prison could’ve held her anyway.

Mid credits scene and Monica is called the theatre, by someone who’s revealed to be a skrull, sent presumably by Nick Fury, who wants to meet with her. See you in the Marvels. In Post Credits, Wanda is in a log-cabin far away from civilisation… she’s also reading the Darkhold and searching for her children, as she can hear them calling out for help, to be continued in Doctor Strange.

Wandavision is not your typical Marvel movie, the TV format allowed them to be more experimental, and the streaming model even more so, episode lengths get longer with each passing episode, starting from the first episode that was barely above 20 minutes to the near 50 for the finale. 

It was nice to get a little bit of extra time with Darcy, Monika and Woo, but I can and I shall argue that of them only Monika gets any real development, and it’s because of her being a mirror to Wanda and how she copes with grief.

And that’s the primary theme of this series, each of the sitcoms is a lens to view Wanda’s grief, though as the main plot becomes more of a factor, the sitcom aspect is less well pronounced, with more and more links to the main plot. Wanda’s grief however is present throughout and much of this story is her having to learn to live with it, to move forward rather than cling on to what was and cannot be, easier done when this isn’t the latest in a long line of personal tragedies. 

Whilst she may not face legal ramifications for what she did in Westview, there were consequences for her, as she sacrificed just about everything to put things right, and since she didn’t know how to cast the spell in the first place, I don’t she can just do it again on a smaller scale. [Edit, I've seen Doctor Strange 2 now and she totally could have done that]

Agatha is a fun antagonist, she’s much a call-back to a classic Disney villain. She’s evil and she’s loving every moment of it. Kathryn Hahn absolutely kills it in the role and I’m thrilled she’s getting her own spinoff show out of this. I hope they don’t do too much to humanise her and lose that classic Disney villain magic that made her so fun.

Tyler was about as interesting as dried bread. He’s your usual stuck-up suit who thinks violence is the only solution against Wanda, even when its clear that it won’t work. Ergo, he’s an idiot. Him being a friend of Maria Rambeau doesn’t add much as we never saw him before this show. Still don’t know what crime he’s actually gonna be charged with.

WandaVision explores the avenue of grief through a unique lens, paying homages to various eras of sitcom with a fair share of laughs but ratchets up both the emotional and physical tension as the series progresses. It starts out as a mystery combined with a sitcom and ends on a more traditional Marvel fight, which is less impressive visually but at least feels like an appropriate climax.

Rating 75/100