And now the curtain has finally been lifted on what the hell is going on in Westview for Wanda and Vis!
It has to be said that WandaVision is without a doubt one of the most unique shows I’ve ever seen. And that’s saying something considering in my reviews of the previous episodes I express how good they are at emulating other shows. Episode 4 is nothing like the previous episodes and in many ways is almost like a behind the scenes look at the episodes that came before.
The show begins with Geraldine, who at the end of last week’s episode fell from the sky at the border of the town of Westview only to find herself surrounded by S.W.O.R.D agents. But instead of picking up where last week left off, we go back in time to a timeframe that took place when the Incredible Hulk used the infinity gauntlet during the Avengers End Game movie…not that we specifically saw this. Instead we see the effects of the Hulk snapping his fingers as we begin the show with Geraldine…aka the person who we now know as Monica Rambeau, an agent of S.W.O.R.D blipping back into existence.
A criticism you could level at the show is that if you are a more casual fan you may not understand the context of the blip, and that they didn’t really explain where people were appearing out of thin air, but Marvel may just be confident that this is a show for fans heavily invested in the MCU, and also confident that anyone watching will get it as after all End Game made like $2,000,000,000 at the worldwide box office.
Monica is panicked to discover that she had been missing/dead during the blip and discovers that her mother who was not blipped has also passed away.
Monica picks things back up with her work with S.W.O.R.D and she is soon investigating the town of Westview, which interestingly some local cops who say they are from the town of Eastview, say doesn’t exist. This scene also reintroduces viewers to the character Jimmy Woo, who we previously met in Ant-Man and the Wasp. He was a fun character in that movie and his comedic tone worked well throughout the episode. It was also great to see him back from a world building perspective as whilst not the most prominent character in the MCU, it’s great to have some of these smaller characters showcased in a more prominent light in this show.
Speaking of which brings us to Darcy Lewis, who I’m sure many fans looked at and said ‘where do I remember her from?’ Another prominent side character from the MCU history, Darcy featured in the first two Thor films, and as the third Thor film went fully intergalactic there wasn’t really a place for her. It’s also the case that as the Avengers series has featured more and more major superhero’s cross over from one film to another there has less space to develop some of the smaller characters that would feature more heavily in pre-cinematic universe style films.
Darcy here is the key to starting to unravel what’s happening in Westview and she identifies that Wanda and Vis are living in an old sitcom. What’s interesting is that from things they say about what’s happening in each episode almost gives the sense that they have seen more episodes of WandaVision than we the viewers have. In a sense it’s nice to think that within the universe of the show there are whole seasons worth of the Bewitched style episodes.
This episode really does play out like a group of fans asking the exact same questions we’ve all been asking for the last couple of weeks. It’s very clever that Marvel have been able to create something so unique that does that. The show within a show aspect makes you question if the world we’ve seen within this week won’t later turn out to be another show within a show. The clue is there in that each episode seems to have 2 or three distinct end credit sequences.
The episode eventually catches up to show how Geraldine/Monica ended up ejected from Westview and we see that it is quite possibly Wanda who has created this sitcom world around her to in some way keep Vision alive. We see Vision come back into the house having spoken to Herb and Agnes outside, and when Wanda looks at him he appears as his post murdered by Thanos self which is genuinely creepy when it’s shown on screen. A second later Wanda sees him looking very much alive again and when vision suggests that they could leave Wanda indicates that they can’t, and that this is their home.
The question is how much awareness does Wanda have over what is going on here? She sent Monica away from the town after she mentioned Ultron, but this would mean that Wanda wasn’t already aware that Monica was an outsider. Wanda definitely seems to know more about what is happening compared to Vision, and the big question is whether she is making the sitcom world around her, or whether she is being manipulated by some big bad.
This episode of WandaVision really does change the rules of everything we have seen so far, and you can’t help but wonder if the rules are going to keep changing as the weeks go on.
