I See What You Did There - WandaVision (2021)

I’ve developed something of a love-hate relationship for all things Marvel over the last few years: the comics, the TV shows, the movies - even associated things like video games and T-shirts. It’s becoming consistent too: take this thing that I adore, and something will happen to or within it, a thing that takes whatever power or love I have away completely.

Some of that is just life itself. I get that, I really do. Within the very nature of comic-books and any other ongoing narrative, change is necessary, otherwise the narrative remains stagnant: the characters, the readers, the market, all remaining the same.

I can accept change (if you know me at all, please stop laughing as you read this.) But when it comes to narrative, such changes have to be done in a fashion that they fit with the story you want to tell. Or perhaps with the story that wants to be told.

The story that wants to be told in WandaVision, Marvel’s newest comic-book adaptation, is a story of grief and mental health, and how they play in a world of super-heroics. WandaVision brings the world of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) to an episodic TV format, one that will actually be acknowledged on other screens (unlike Agents Of Shield.)

As such, WandaVision is a story that works very well for what feels like seven of the show’s nine episodes, only to dramatically lose such appeal when coming to a close, forgetting any heart and focus it had, moving instead to solely show off its actions and powers.

The heart of WandaVision has already been seen within the Marvel movies, namely in the interactions between the show’s titular characters, Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany.) Sure, their romance felt somewhat forced when it was taking place within the ensemble of bigger movie characters, and yeah, Vision’s initial appearance spent a lot of energy to show him as a wholly inhuman artificial intelligence (of sorts), only to have him then have a perfectly normal romance with Wanda.

But the opening episodes of the show embrace that relationship in a fashion that the movies never could: it may be a relationship whose origins were forced due to lack of screen-time, but the initial beats of WandaVision go out of their way to show genuine warmth and love between these two characters.

Of course, the fact that we last saw Vision brutally killed in Avengers: Infinity War, sacrificing his life at Wanda’s hands in order to save reality itself…that is the kind of thing that might have left Wanda a little bit broken, no? Especially when, unlike many of his colleagues within the heroic community, Vision was intentionally not brought back to life at the close of the storyline. With that in mind, the initial episodes of WandaVision are somewhat surreal to watch, uncomfortable, in a way, because we the viewer aren’t entirely sure what’s going on.

The first few episodes of WandaVision embrace more of the tones of televisual humour than the Marvel cinematic universe ever has. However, such tones come with an unsettling air of darkness, flaring up on occasion, clearly wanting the viewer to feel uncomfortable in a fashion that is entertaining while challenging the reality of the narrative what we are watching. The initial episodes and interactions between Wanda and Vision play out with classic black-and-white sitcom feels, complete with canned laughter, ad-breaks and opening credit sequences; there is something joyously weird in watching them, especially amongst those of us of a certain age who might remember daytime repeats of such classics. In my case, those repeats also included commentary from a grandparent as to when such programs, like I Dream Of Jeannie and Bewitched were first on air.

But those episodes of WandaVision also throw in some unsettling, and jarring imagery or events, with the show eventually allowing its viewers to return to the world of the Marvel universe that we are used to, where we discover that Wanda has seemingly created this world-within-a-world (referred to as “the Hex”) in which she can play out the happy life that she could have had with the Vision. Wanda and viewer alike see small discrepancies in the world, including blink-and-you’ll-miss-it shots of a deceased and decaying Vision; in doing so, the show, or certainly its initial episodes, embrace this world through the airs and feels of a depressed and grieving Wanda, airs that linger throughout the show and prove to be one of WandaVisions strongest and most powerful elements.

After all, in a world of superheroes, how do those heroes deal with grief? Especially not when the main goal is solely to defeat the bad guy and save a few lives, all within a time-frame that makes space for the next screening.

Such bigger questions are powerful beats, with both Olsen and Bettany’s characters showing subtle signs of a deep love and respect for each other, the kind that goes as deep as those classic sitcoms. Indeed, the show wholly embraces those TV format, including ad-breaks, theme tunes and canned laughter, with WandaVision eventually revealing that the life she is playing out within “the Hex” is, in fact, based on her own previous interactions with such sitcoms and the happy lives they promised her. Because Wanda’s new world is playing out like a TV show, it’s also being broadcast, meaning that various government agents who have turned up at the area to rescue the other people that Wanda has managed to keep locked up within the Hex can watch what’s going on inside.

It’s a powerful narrative, and the show-within-a-show format really drives home the viewer’s investment in WandaVision’s characters and their relationships. It also allows for such an investment to be shared within the show itself, with Kat Dennings (previously appearing within the first two Thor films as Darcy Lewis) returning to our screens as Darcy, called to investigate the Hex. Darcy, however, is less there for the science and more to play the role of the audience-insert, investing in our characters and relationships in the same way as the “real” viewer is expected to. What could be a dumb or forced way of looking into the Hex actually feels natural and entertaining within the context of the show and the way in which it plays out.

Unfortunately, WandaVision doesn’t keep that up.

Oh, it tries, but by the show’s finale, the show has gone out of its way to undo and undermine whatever heart it has had in those initial beats.

What I took from the opening episodes of WandaVision was a show that existed as an episodic study of grief in the world of superheroics. If it had remained like this, I would have loved it; many of the show’s early episodes embrace this fully, even if, in going so, such episodes suggest that Wanda’s grief is making her do things that are somewhat villainous.

But the show plays it safe by introducing two separate two-dimensional manipulative forces to play with Wanda, forces that are so villainous that the experienced comic-book fan might expect them to revealed as something much bigger. Such villains come in the form of Tyler Hayward (Josh Stamberg) the acting head of SWORD (a body that we’ve never seen before in the MDU) and Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) the episodic nosy neighbour within the Hex, only to be revealed as a real-life witch who wants to understand and manipulate Wanda’s immense powers.

Neither of these villains are truly given a chance to shine: sure, in keeping with the TV-show-style world, Agatha’s reveal at the end of the seventh (of nine) episodes gets an amazingly memorable theme song that is still in my head, but her previous appearances as that nosy neighbour aren’t a good fit. After all, that same neighbour (within the TV-trope-world) should either have a heart of gold, or be nothing more than a nosy neighbour. The show has other characters who interact with both Wanda and Vision too, colleagues and neighbours who have also been sucked into the Hex in order to build this happy world: there are enough of these characters that their presence takes away from Agatha’s villainy, doing more to help the show focus on creating the warm town-ship qualities of Wanda’s world than allowing any other character to have any more than two dimensions.

WandaVision goes out of its way not to offer further reveals, whether they be villains working with higher powers or other heroes who might come to help. This proves especially jarring after setting up this world-within-a-world-within-a-world format, leaving Agatha as nothing more than a centuries-old magic-user who wants to understand and access Wanda’s powers, while Hayward is nothing more than…I don’t even know, actually. The show goes out of its way to establish him as a nasty, manipulative power-hungry force but in doing so, Hayward comes across as nothing more than a bad-guy-in-a-suit who gets arrested at the end for not being entirely honest about his decision-making in his government job.

Agatha and Hayward’s presences feel solely as if such characters are necessary only because this is, after all, a superheroic Marvel narrative and, if there are going to be heroes, then there obviously have to be villains for them to fight.

But with WandaVision going out of its way to challenge Wanda’s mental health and reasoning, I genuinely feel that the very existence of such villains takes away huge amounts from the narrative of loss and despair that the series is trying to tell. With that in mind, I can’t help but wonder if there were expectations for a longer show (whether that be longer episodes, or more episodes) that could address that, or if, within the production, someone higher up simply insisted that a narrative about grief would not sell without recognisable villains and a closing fight scene.

This leaves WandaVision with some serious discrepancies that really ruin what could be a beautiful, intimate narrative.

Monica Rambeau, played by Teyonah Parris,is introduced as one of the (many) characters that would have disappeared at the end of Infinity War only to return five years later as if nothing happened. Monica un-snaps in a hospital faced with the revelation that the mother she was visiting is long dead. Such an event adds to the feelings of loss and grief within the show, with Monica trying her hardest to set that aside and get back to work. Monica becomes the MDU’s newest empowered hero, moving in and out of the Hex a number of times and gaining powers in doing so: however, the series’ end doesn’t really give her any closure at all, let alone fitting for the story we are introduced to.

Despite the show setting her up as either the one character who might be able to come face-to-face with Wanda and fight her if needed, or maybe to share in their grief, Monica spends little time with Wanda, the two of them doing little more than acknowledging each other’s existence following the unnecessary fight against Agatha, just before Wanda flies off, having faced no real repercussions for detaining people within the Hex for the previous few weeks.

Such an exit suggests that Wanda might just be flying off to meet with someone to analyse her new understanding of her powers, now completely associated with magic, and possibly even more powerful than the Sorcerer Supreme, Doctor Strange. The show also explains that Wanda’s powers have always been there, rather than was shown in Avengers: Age Of Ultron in which she and her brother were experimented on in the name of terrorism.

But rather than going to speak with Strange and set up her appearance in his next film, Wanda’s just flying off to a post-credits scene that, rather than seeing her acknowledge and deal with her depression and grief, suggests she is going deeper into it, using the darkest of magics in an attempt to to reconnect with the children that she had created within the Hex.

For a show that spent its early episodes wanting its viewers to connect with Wanda, WandaVision sure does spend its final moments wanting those same viewers to hate her. The show does similar in-universe also, with the various “supporting cast” who have been appearing within the Hex, important enough to be played by recognisable actors and getting significant interactions and dialogue, but getting no apologies and no acknowledgement from Wanda. They themselves just watch and stare as Wanda walks past them before flying off, none of them showing any significant anger nor understanding towards her. Yeah, maybe they’re scared of her, but there is no real attempt to show how truly angry these people might be at her for leaving them locked up in the Hex for a couple of weeks, nor in protecting them from the maybe-worse power that was Agatha.

There are similar inconsistencies throughout the series, themes or steps that the show sets up in a fashion that the viewer will want to see addressed by the close, but that never happens. Darcy, our self-insert, saying all the same things as the more cynical (but still lovable) viewer, gets to be nothing more than a talking info-dump; her appearance within the show (and, as seen from her previously), pitches her as a character who, even without superpowers, can provide the emotional human support.

Darcy gives such support to Vision as he comes to terms with the knowledge that he is, in fact, dead and exists solely because he has been created in Wanda’s grief. Vision then flies off from a forced traffic jam in episode seven, only for Darcy to turn up for mere second in the finale to crash the same truck she has been driving an enemy. She is then spoken about in the third person, it being loudly explained that she isn’t the type of person to linger for the debrief that comes at the episode’s close.

Treated as the audience-insert, Darcy expresses an element of self-awareness of the narrative that breaks the fourth-wall and, as such, is also involved in my last, and most-hated moment of the show. There is a suggestion early in the show that Wanda may be able to use her the powers to bring people back from the dead and/or create life. But the show also skates this knowledge, suggesting that such can only exist within the Hex, and even then, some such moments are only Agatha’s manipulations.

Such a beat plays with Darcy and the audience alike when Wanda’s deceased brother Quicksilver/Pietro Maximoff turns up at the front door. Only this time he’s not the same actor who played the character in Age Of Ultron (Aarton Taylor-Johnson) but Evan Peters, the actor who played what is ultimately the same character in Fox’s X-Men movies. Wanda, and her brother, while associated with the Avengers in some ways, have previously been seen as the biological kids of X-Men villain Magneto, and as such have existed in a fashion that they have been used by both franchises. Watching their interaction, Darcy comments on such a “re-casting”, but Quicksilver’s presence here suggests something a lot more, an acknowledgement of both franchises.

This could take the form of a powerful creative statement to any of us watching, reading this as the first acknowledgement that Disney have the rights back and the X-Men will soon be sharing the screen with the Avengers.

That promptly gets aggressively undone with the reveal that this is just a part of Agatha’s attempts to mess with Wanda’s head. And maybe ours too, with Evan Peters just playing another resident of the area to whom she has assigned this role. It’s an interesting, and somewhat fun take, but within the grander scheme of things, this totally undoes whatever joy and excitement I had for this character’s appearance, instead feeling like something of a middle-finger that the production is directing towards any fans that might have been expecting something genuinely world-changing from such a reveal.

If such a world-changing comment is there at WandaVision’s close, it’s not clear, if simply because the narrative has been so messy that we poor viewers are left unsure of exactly how we are meant to read. Is Wanda a broken, depressed heroine that is giving us mere mortals an opportunity to deal with our own grief and broken lives? Or is the Scarlet Witch that Agatha sees her as, the power that could trigger the end of all things? As such, it remains totally unclear as to whether Agatha might be trying to stop Wanda, or to take such powers for herself.

But if Wanda is to become a powerful villain and enemy, even if unintentionally so, then why has WandaVision gone out of its way to make its viewers invest in Wanda’s emotional health and losses, to watch her heart break as she watches her husband (and the kids that she has created with him within the Hex) move on and leave her.

Such is the nature of comics, and other ongoing narratives, messy turns of character and plot that arrive out of seemingly nowhere, changing direction simply because that’s where the next arc or production team will be going.

On a grander scale, I can see why such things can and might happen.

But on a nine-episode mini-series that spends its opening episodes dealing with the power of grief, pain and loss, I truly expected more from WandaVision.