“Don’t let him make you the villain.” “Perhaps I already am.” – Monica Rambeau and Wanda Maximoff, “Breaking the Fourth Wall”
We have to speak concerning the WandaVision downside.
The next column contains spoilers for WandaVision as much as Season 1, Episode 7.
One of many issues is that too many individuals are wanting for this to be a characteristic movie disguised as a TV present. But it surely’s a TV present; it purposely attracts from tv historical past, it’s structured like a TV present, and it’s launched like a TV present. The opposite downside is the will for there to be a “massive unhealthy” prefer it’s a formulaic Marvel film. If something, WandaVision had confirmed itself to be something however, till its seventh episode.
Nonetheless, TV critics like Ben Travers of IndieWire have decried its use of the televisual format. Travers mentioned: “Other than its weekly small-screen aesthetics, WandaVision nonetheless feels far an excessive amount of like an inflated characteristic movie that simply retains dragging out its story through inconvenient weekly installments.” Travers concluded his recap of final week’s sixth episode with this: “Information is the actual energy, Wanda doesn’t have it, and neither will we.” By stating this, he takes away Wanda’s company. Up till the seventh episode, it’s truly very clear that Wanda is aware of precisely what she’s doing, and that’s all a protection in opposition to her PTSD attributable to the occasions of the films.
Give it some thought: Wanda has had her brother killed, her love killed, and her world taken away from her a number of instances, be it Sokovia in Avengers: Age of Ultron or her freedom in Captain America: Civil Conflict. Wanda is determined for an escape, and the top of episode 6 makes it infinitely clear that she’s controlling the captivity of Westview. Simply because she doesn’t perceive some issues concerning the phantasm she’s created doesn’t imply she’s clueless. This doesn’t imply there’s a WandaVision downside.
Credit score: Disney+
However in our spoiler-heavy, theory-riddled panorama, all the things has to have a solution, even the unanswerable. For instance, Pietro’s change from Aaron Taylor-Johnson to Evan Peters. We don’t know why Wanda’s phantasm of him has modified his face, however in a manner, we do; Wanda can’t confront the actual ghost of her brother, so she provides him a brand new face, one she will be able to confront. That it’s one other model of Quicksilver/Pietro, from the X-Males movies, ought to be handled extra like an easter egg than as proof that one thing nefarious is happening past Wanda’s personal mistreatment of her trauma.
That brings us to a different level concerning the WandaVision downside, that there’s no “massive unhealthy”—however, as CNET editor and host Ashley Esqueda pointed out on Twitter, couldn’t the massive unhealthy simply be Wanda’s grief and PTSD? She says: “I wish to elaborate extra on my theories however don’t wish to say something if individuals haven’t caught up, however…what if Wanda’s grief ends in a world-shifting occasion with out a foul man behind it? Wouldn’t that be sufficient?” Wouldn’t it? We don’t want one other Thanos or a Mephisto or an Ultron…couldn’t Wanda be her personal villain? Very like, say, Don Draper or Walter White? Wanda follows a latest custom of anti-heroes in tv, besides she is an anti-heroine, which distinguishes her from the principally male-dominated lineup of protagonists who bend the world to their will, for good or ailing (principally ailing).
However then the seventh episode arrived, revealing that the useful, daffy neighbor Agnes was Agatha Harkness all alongside. This suggests that Mephisto, who is usually tied to each Scarlet Witch and Agatha Harkness within the comics, will make his first look by the top of the sequence. And truthfully? That’s disappointing. From the quote on the prime of this column, this present might have been about Wanda’s trauma and her coping with it–or not coping with it. Monica even factors out that Wanda doesn’t must be just like the nefarious Director Hayward. This present might have been concerning the wrestle for Wanda’s soul–as a substitute, it’s now a few scheme to manage Wanda, but once more. That’s the actual WandaVision downside, now.
There’s a brand new present popping out on AMC, truly, which bears a resemblance to WandaVision, in that it’s a present a few housewife who’s caught in her personal delusions: Kevin Can Fok Himself, starring Schitt’s Creek’s Annie Murphy. A trailer was simply launched, which has already drawn comparisons to WandaVision in The Beat’s personal newsroom. However Kevin Can Fk Himself has the good thing about not being tied to a universe that’s cinematic in nature and virtually all the time depends on true heroes and villains to drive its tales.
WandaVision has the privilege of being a Marvel property, sure; however that will probably be its downfall in the long run. If its creators can’t cease seeing it as an overblown Marvel film, the place morals are black and white, and there has to be a giant unhealthy on the finish of the story, it could fall by the wayside of Marvel’s numerous productions. That is actually too unhealthy; it’s a great present, a devoted tribute to sitcom historical past, and a very good examination of what trauma does to a superpowered thoughts. It’s clear that even when Wanda could also be obliterating her personal trauma, she’s creating a lot extra for others. Which may be a tough tablet for followers to swallow, who simply wish to see her save the day versus no matter massive unhealthy the MCU conjures.
Credit score: Disney+
I’m upset that Agnes turned out to be Agatha, a villain showing apart from Wanda herself. The present possesses practically an hour and a half hours of extra story to get us to the end line. However all the earlier critique and my critique of the present begs a query: if it was Physician Unusual as a substitute of Wanda controlling the little metropolis in New Jersey, would there be such a necessity for large unhealthy to be controlling him?
