Streamin' (Madverse) Meemies: WandaVision Ep 9, "The Series Finale"

 

So we've come to the end of the series, and I've gotta say....it's been quite a ride. 

WandaVision was pitched as the official opening of Marvel Phase 4. This finale, along with the two end-credits scenes, are setting up at least two movies: Captain Marvel 2 and Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness (the latter title borrowed in part for this blogpost series). This is fine, and I enjoyed seeing Monica Rambeau's superhero origin story--even if, out of necessity, it was given rather short shrift. And Jimmy Woo and Darcy Lewis were a nerdy, competent delight. But the entire point of this series, and the element I enjoyed the most, was getting to dig into the mostly overlooked character of Wanda Maximoff. She was thinly characterized, to put it charitably, in the previous movies, and mainly defined by her relationship with first Quicksilver and then Vision. Of course, Vision was also an important part of this story, and the depiction of his and Wanda's relationship provided many of the series' best moments. But first and foremost, from beginning to end, this was Wanda's story. Despite the endless fan speculation about the introduction of the X-Men, due to the clever fakeout of Evan Peters being hired to portray Pietro, Wanda's seemingly resurrected brother--actually revealed to be some schlub named Ralph Bohner, manipulated by Agatha--and my own prediction that Dr. Strange would show up in the finale, neither turned out to be the case, and rightfully so. This exploration of Wanda's grief and loss transformed her into what I think is one of the richest characters in the MCU. 

(I only hope her development will not be undone in the second Dr. Strange movie. I haven't yet thrown anything at the screen while I'm watching a Marvel film, but if she's turned into some sort of one-note Multiverse villain, I will be sorely tempted.)

Having said all that, I was, shall we say, a wee bit disappointed by this finale. I know this is on me and not the showrunners, because after all they were only following the established, winning Marvel formula: OH MY GOD IT'S THE THIRD ACT AND/OR THE LAST EPISODE AND WE HAVE TO TURN THE FULL SCREEN CGI AND PEW-PEW SLAM-DUNK SUPERHERO BATTLES UP TO ELEVEN!!!!! Nearly every superhero movie I've ever seen (with rare exceptions, such as the vastly underrated Fast Color) has been like this. (And sometimes the formula really makes you wince, such as in my otherwise beloved Wonder Woman.) All the same, I found myself hoping against hope they would avoid going that route with this show. It had already been so different from anything I'd seen from Marvel before, with its decade-hopping sitcom format, even after the introduction of the outside world in episode 4. I really hoped they would find a way to carry that through to the end, but sadly, it wasn't to be. The episode, for the most part, consisted of Wanda/Agatha and Red Vision/White Vision (and they really missed an opportunity by not following through with what Darcy Lewis saw on S.W.O.R.D. director Tyler Hayward's computer and calling the latter Cataract--I mean, what a perfect name for a white, rebooted anti-Vision) zipping through the sky, knocking each other ass over teakettle, throwing globs of red and purple magic, and shooting red and/or white laser beams out of eyes and chewing furrows through the hapless Westview streets. A little of that goes a long way after having seen it in so many movies, and Wanda/Agatha's fight especially pushed the limits of my tolerance. However, offsetting this were some genuinely poignant character moments. I just wish there could have been more of those, and less teakettle-tossing. 

Nevertheless, those character moments were memorable. The best part of the entire episode was Vision/Cataract's (dammit, I'm going to call whiteVision Cataract, even if nobody else does) philosophical wrestling over the "ship of Theseus" problem. Vision attempts to defuse the fight between the two right away, tossing this question at his opponent: "Might we resolve this peacefully?" Cataract at first refuses, insisting his mission is to neutralize Wanda Maximoff. After a bit more slam-dunking and teakettle-tossing, the two of them end up in a library, which is a most appropriate place for Vision to distract Cataract (heh) with his logic puzzle. But unlike the use (or overuse) of similar strategies by Captain Kirk, the "ship of Theseus" exercise isn't posed to blow Cataract's circuits. Vision wants his rival to see what has been done to him by S.W.O.R.D. and Tyler Hayward by resurrecting him and denying him his memories. "A weapon to be more easily controlled," Cataract says, realizing what he is. Vision offers to restore his memories and presses the blue stone in the middle of Cataract's forehead, the S.W.O.R.D. replacement for the Mind Stone, and everything comes rushing back (basically a quick-cut ten-second highlight reel from the Avengers movies, unintentionally laying bare just how both Wanda and Vision were underutilized in those films). Cataract, stunned by what has been revealed, says, "I am Vision," and flies through the library's skylight and away, not to be seen again. 

(Now this is interesting. In gaining Vision's memories, Cataract remembers his and Wanda's romance. Yet he obviously doesn't feel it, as evidenced by the fact that he doesn't go straight to Wanda. But in the grand Marvel tradition of hardly anybody ever really dying, the door has been left open for a future reunion between the two, if Kevin Feige so chooses.)

On the other side of this coin, definitely sliding more into the over-the-top pew pew, was Wanda and Agatha's careening in red and purple lightning bolts across the sky. (At one point, Wanda slams her car into her fellow witch and smashes her halfway through a nearby house. When Wanda goes to look, all that can be seen under the car are two empty boots, in a sly homage to The Wizard of Oz.) Agatha is trying to convince Wanda that she is indeed the Scarlet Witch, more powerful than the Sorcerer Supreme according to the purple-black floating magic book the Darkhold, and she is prophesied to do terrible things...but if Wanda will just give Agatha her power, she can stay in this little world she has created for herself and her family. Agatha also says "give me your power and I'll correct the original spell." Wanda, in a clever bit of quick thinking and misdirection, pretends to go along with this, hurling red energy globs at Agatha over and over again, until she is seemingly drained and nearly zombified, hanging limply in the air over Westview. Agatha then reveals that Wanda's original spell cannot be fixed: "Once cast, a spell can never be changed. This world will always be broken, just like you," and prepares to finish Wanda off. 

But Wanda learned from Agatha's taunting of her earlier, when Agatha slammed Wanda around in her basement. Two red runes manifest on the walls of the Hex, preventing Agatha from casting her magic. Wanda then says: "But I don't need you to tell me who I am," and takes all her magic back, pulling it out of Agatha. More than that, at that moment the vision generated years ago by the Mind Stone comes true--Wanda takes on the power and the mantle of the Scarlet Witch (even though she still doesn't understand what that means) and a shimmering red crown manifests on her head, along with a very cool-looking new red costume. She breaks free of Agatha and slams her down to the Westview town square, defeated. 

Agatha's punishment is this: she will have to live in Westview, taking on the persona of the "nosy neighbor" she created for herself, until Wanda sees fit to release her. Agatha calls this cruel, and maybe it is...but it's not undeserved. (It also serves the purpose of tucking Agatha away in limbo until a future storyline can use her. I hope that is soon. She was a bit one-dimensional in this finale, but I think she has the potential to be an interesting character if she's developed right.)

But along the way to this ending, Agatha succeeded in breaking not only Wanda's magical spell over the people of Westview, but also Wanda's internal spell of self-deception. Now I know there are two schools of thought about this. The first is that by trapping the people of Westview in the Hex and forcing them to play out Wanda's little scenario against their will, acting in storylines she envisioned as part of her selfish, grief-stricken little world, she is a monster that should be tried under the Sokovian accords. The effect this has had on the townspeople is driven home when Agatha frees them from Wanda's control in the middle of their fight, and the townspeople circle around Wanda, telling her what they have experienced. 

"When you let us sleep, we have your nightmares."

"We feel your pain; your grief is poisoning us."

"If you won't let us go, just let us die."

That's not an unreasonable position to take, I suppose, but I don't think it tells the whole story. We must remember that Wanda didn't know she was a witch, and she didn't accept the fact of her being the Scarlet Witch until the end of this story. Even Darcy Lewis, when reviewing the S.W.O.R.D. files on Wanda, categorized her powers as "telepathy and telekinesis" (which it seems Wanda does have to some extent, but it's powered by magic, not pure mind powers). She certainly doesn't understand it or know how it works; all this time she seems to have been operating on untrained instinct. The conversation with fake Pietro a couple of episodes back revealed Wanda didn't know how she created the Hex, and she subsumed herself in the storyline she had spun up out of the depths of her past so deeply it took Agatha's forcing her down memory lane, to the flashbacks to her family, Hydra, the beginning of her romance with Vision, and what really happened when she went into S.W.O.R.D. headquarters to retrieve Vision's body, to shake her loose. Subconsciously she knew she had created Vision and the twins out of nothing; maybe she thought the townspeople, and the entire little pocket universe of the Hex, were part of that fantasy as well, the fantasy she clung to so desperately because it gave her her love back, for a little while. The full import of what she has done comes crashing in on her at  the end of the above scene, and she releases the walls of the Hex, for a short time. Unfortunately this causes Vision and the twins to start flying apart, and Agatha tells Wanda: "Save Westview or your family." 

This sets up the choice Wanda has to make, and at the end she does. And Vision knows she has to do it. As he tells her after she defeats Agatha and rejoins him and the boys, "I know you'll set everything right. Just not for us." What Wanda does at the end--bring down the walls of the Hex, return Westview and all the people within it to rights, and let the twins and Vision go--is not the action of a monster. It's the choice of an immensely powerful, complicated, grief-stricken woman who for a time lost her way, but not a monster. 

The scene where Wanda and Vision say goodbye was so beautifully written and acted I rewound it and watched it twice, pausing it so I could write down all the dialogue. 

"But before I go, I feel I must know--what am I?"

"You are the piece of the Mind Stone that lives in me. You are the body of wires, blood and bone that I created. You are my sadness and my hope, but mostly you're my love."

"I have been a voice with no body, a body but not human, and now a memory made real. Who knows what I might be next? We have said goodbye before, so it stands to reason--"

And Wanda finishes, "We'll say hello again." And the walls of the Hex rush in, and Vision disintegrates back into golden energy, and the whole thing snaps shut on that half-built, abandoned house that was to have been Vision and Wanda's home together. 

This does not mean there won't be consequences for what Wanda has done, I think. Presumably this will be taken up in the second Dr. Strange movie? The second end-credits scene has Wanda in an isolated cabin somewhere, her astrally-projected form studying Agatha's purple-black book the Darkhold, which has some serious bad vibes about it. And we hear, from somewhere far away, an echo of the twins crying, "Mom! Mom!" 

So. Again, parts of this were disappointing, and the payoff didn't really live up to the buildup. Still, it was certainly a worthy effort, and an arresting beginning to Marvel's Phase 4. All I have to say is, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (starting next week) had better be damn good to live up to this. 

Streamin' (Madverse) Meemies: WandaVision Ep 8, "Previously On..."

 

After last week's reveal (and insanely catchy theme song) of "Agatha All Along," it's time for the show, and the viewer, to stop and reflect. At 46 minutes, this episode was the longest yet. (Although that's not the true length of the program, as one has to account for the extremely drawn-out credits, even if they do include some good music. So the actual show clocked in at 40 minutes at most, and probably under, which is about what the series has been running.) I suppose this could be called the "infodump" episode, as we received what essentially amounted to Agatha and Wanda origin stories. The latter, especially, was necessary--as a character, Wanda Maximoff has been notoriously glossed over and given short shift by the movies--but what was revealed is more than a little bit of a downer. It fits, though, as this is basically a show about the exploration of grief, given added depth by Vision's memorable line: "But what is grief, if not love persevering?" 

Once more unto the spoils:

SPOILER

SPOILER

SPOILER

SPOILER

SPOILER

The reveals in this episode can be divided into five parts: one for Agatha, and four for Wanda. A rather lopsided divide, perhaps, but Wanda is the ostensible hero (or maybe anti-hero is more like it, depending on the ending) and Agatha, so far, is the villain. As such, she's a bit more simply written than Wanda, despite Kathryn Hahn's best cackling, lip-smacking attempts to give her depth. (Which is not to say I dislike Agatha. Not at all. Kathryn Hahn is clearly having a lot of fun with the character. But Elizabeth Olson's subtler, somber performance carries the day throughout.) The show opens with an extended scene depicting exactly what happened to Agatha in Salem, Massachusetts more than three centuries ago: she was caught by her coven "stealing knowledge above your age and station and practicing the darkest of magics"--and despite Agatha's protestations that she should be taught, and "I did not break your rules; they simply bent to my power," the coven tries to kill her. But Agatha takes their blue lines of magic and turns them to her own purple--which is emphasized by the normally red Marvel Studios logo shading to purple as the show opens--and sucks all the life-energy out of the other members of the coven, leaving them mummified corpses. Even her own mother, following a rather unbelievable protestation by Agatha, "Please, I can be good." 

"No, you cannot," replies her mother, and despite her best efforts, she joins the other witches as a dried-up body on the ground. Agatha takes her mother's cameo and leaves, the same one she's been wearing on her collar through the show.

Wanda's reveals are four carefully structured scenes of her past, forcibly brought to the surface by Agatha, trying to determine how Wanda constructed the layers of spells that comprise Westview and using the twins to force Wanda's cooperation. (Although, at least at the beginning, Wanda is pretty well caught in Agatha's web, with the runes carved on the underground chamber's walls preventing Wanda from using her own magic. Wanda is more powerful than Agatha, but lacking even the most rudimentary witch's training, she is easy prey.) Agatha admits she used fake Pietro, or "Fietro," a "crystalline construct"--I think that was the phrase; I didn't write it down--as her eyes and ears to talk Wanda into spilling he secrets. But as Wanda told PFietro, she doesn't remember how she constructed Westview. Agatha means to find out. She takes Wanda back to the beginning of what turns out to be a litany of pain and horror: our first stop is in Sokovia, when Wanda's parents were alive and the family was watching collections of old sitcoms on DVD to practice their English. (The first referenced being The Dick Van Dyke Show.) We briefly see a happy, loving family, watching the program in their living room--until one of Stark Industries' bombs takes out most of the apartment. 

According to Agatha, this is when Wanda first manifests her powers: as a "baby witch obsessed with sitcoms," she uses a "probability hex" to keep the bomb from exploding. The next scene shows Wanda in Hydra headquarters, being introduced to the Mind Stone. All other experimental subjects to do this have died. The Mind Stone loosens itself from its staff and comes out to meet Wanda, and when she touches it she sees a silhouette which, perhaps, is a future vision of herself. She collapses and later, back in her room, falls back on what is clearly becoming a habit: watching American sitcoms (supposedly The Brady Bunch, although the clip shown looks suspiciously like Family Affair to me) to distract her from what else is happening. Agatha offers more commentary: "The Infinity Stone amplified what would've otherwise died on the vine."

The third scene takes place in the Avengers compound after Age of Ultron, the "first home Vision and I shared together," according to Wanda. This is a scene of Wanda and Vision talking about death and grief that also serves as the beginning of their connection and romance. It delivers the line from Vision that serves to sum up the episode and maybe the entire series as well: "But what is grief, if not love persevering?" 

Finally, we come to the scene that shows exactly what happened that fateful day Westview came to life, and also reveals what a lying SOB S.W.O.R.D. director Tyler Hayward is. Because contrary to the footage Hayward showed Darcy, Jimmy Woo, Monica and the others at the S.W.O.R.D. compound outside Westview, Wanda came to S.W.O.R.D. headquarters after the Blip not to steal Vision, but to bury him. Hayward let her in and let her view Vision's dismembered body, telling her she could not take "three billion dollars of vibranium" away because it didn't belong to her. (He also suggests she is there because she has the power to resurrect Vision, which Wanda denies: "That's not why I'm here." Which makes one wonder if letting her in was something of an experiment.) Wanda goes to Vision's severed head and and puts a little squirt of her power into the gaping hole left by the Mind Stone, and whispers four words that are just heartbreaking: "I can't feel you." Realizing that her lover is truly gone, she leaves. 

But in the car outside, there's a piece of paper lying on the front seat. A paper that is the deed to a property in Westview and a half-build house, a house Vision intended for Wanda "to grow old in," according to a heart drawn on the deed. Wanda drives to Westview, and we see a downtrodden, decaying town wrecked by the aftermath of the Snap. At the partially built house, Wanda finally gives way to the full force of her rage and pain, screaming as scarlet energy pours out of her. She constructs the house from the ground up, turns Westview into the 50s black and white town that we see in the show's first episode--and rebuilds Vision as well, recreating him in gleaming yellow energy. He looks at Wanda and says, "Welcome home," and she steps into her own personal sitcom as a bedressed and pearl-necklaced 50's housewife and joins him. 

Now, Agatha knows what happened. She snaps her fingers and disappears in a burst of purple mist, and Wanda hears the twins' screams. She runs outside to see Agatha hovering in the air, twin lassos of purple power around the boys' necks. "I know what you are," Agatha says. "You have no idea how dangerous you are. You're supposed to be a myth. This is chaos magic, Wanda, and that makes you the Scarlet Witch." 

Cue credits....

Well, almost. There's another mid-credits scene, going back to Hayward saying he's "ready to launch." Launch what? That was my question last episode. Now we see what he meant, as he has the drone Wanda brought out of Westview, still glowing with her scarlet energy, on a table. A switch is flipped, and the energy begins to drain out of the drone and down a cable--and into a white figure which we suddenly realize is the reassembled Vision, being rebooted by Wanda's power. Indeed, as we watch, his eyes open and one gleaming white hand flexes. 

Now cue credits. 

Well, hot damn. Talk about whetting the viewer's appetite for the finale. This episode was probably the slowest-paced of the episodes to date, but it was necessary to reveal the full context of what we've seen so far. I must point out that while Elizabeth Olsen has been giving a very good performance up till now, she really knocks it out of the park here. If there was any awards justice, she would be nominated for a Best Actress Emmy. (Not that I expect this to happen.) WandaVision is also, according to numerous reports, the most popular TV show in the world. 

Now if it can only stick the landing. That's the challenge, isn't it? There are a great many plates spinning in the air that need to be dealt with, and hopefully Tyler Hayward will get his comeuppance. We must see what happened to Monica, and (red) Vision and Darcy still need to show up--but I think (white) Vision, probably under Hayward's control, will make his play as well. Unfortunately, I think Wanda's heartbreak has also not reached its end. 

We shall see. 

Streamin' (Madverse) Meemies: WandaVision Ep 7, "Breaking the Fourth Wall"

 

Two episodes left, and the revelations in this show are starting to come thick and fast. (Also, apparently people broke Disney's servers for a bit when the episode dropped.) So, as I have done for the past few episodes, I shall include spoiler space for the few of y'all who haven't seen or heard what went on.

SPOILER

SPOILER

SPOILER

SPOILER

SPOILER

The two main drivers of this episode were Wanda's depression and the identity of...the person I will get to. The episode begins with Wanda trying to hide under the covers and the twins not letting her ignore them. Her control is slipping even more, as evidenced by the fact that all sorts of objects around the house, and later on the furniture and wallpaper, are fuzzing out of existence and reforming as something entirely different. This shows as Tommy and Billy's video game controllers turn into Uno cards, and--when Wanda finally gets up--her almond milk transforms into a carton of whole milk. She can't even answer the twins' questions, mainly why all this is happening, but also why Pietro isn't really their uncle. Nobody has any idea where Vision is, and Wanda does not want to deal with any of it. 

This episode takes its cue from the "mockumentary" sitcom style, with several of the characters speaking directly to the camera and the audience (hence the title). Wanda's dialogues to the camera reveal quite a bit about her mindset: "I don't understand what's happening and why I can't fix it." In a pointed break with the tradition of the invisible interviewer, at that point a voice asks: "Do you think maybe this is what you deserve?" This brings Wanda up short: "You're not supposed to talk!" Exactly who is talking will be answered later.

It's also emphasized that Wanda is depressed, primarily because of the Nexus anti-depression commercial that airs (and apparently this does double duty, as fans of the show have pointed out the Nexus also refers to the Nexus of All Realities, a multidimensional gateway). The voiceover for this commercial, it seems to me, is very pointed.

Feeling depressed? Like the world goes on without you? Do you just want to be left alone? Ask your Doctor about Nexus, a unique antidepressant that works to anchor you back to your reality, or the reality of your choice. Side effects include: feeling your feelings, confronting your truth, seizing your destiny, and possibly more depression. You should not take Nexus until your Doctor has cleared you to move on with your life. Nexus: because the world doesn’t revolve around you. Or does it?

"Your Doctor?" Capitalized? It's no wonder many viewers are assuming Doctor Strange will show up in the finale. 

At just the right, totally non-coincidental moment--and not the first in this episode--Agnes shows up to take the twins off Wanda's hands. They go to Agnes' house, where we see a series of increasingly creepy asides--playing with Agnes' rabbit, Senor Scratchy; Tommy noting that he likes Agnes because she's "quiet on the inside"--and the twins finally go downstairs to play in the basement. Only, as we see at the end of the episode, it's rather more than a basement.....

Meanwhile, in what's left of the S.W.O.R.D. camp after Wanda's red wall has rampaged through it, S.W.O.R.D. director says, "We launch today." What they're going to launch, and what he thinks will actually make it through the barrier, is presumably an exercise left for the finale. Jimmy Woo and Monica Rambeau, having escaped being sucked inside Westview, discover what Darcy found behind Hayward's last firewall--he was tracking Vision inside the Hex. As Monica puts it, "Hayward wanted his sentient weapon back," which raises the unpleasant possibility of Hayward trying to reconstruct Vision and bring him back online minus his free will. Jimmy and Monica meet up with the person Monica was talking to in the last episode, a Major Goodner who knew her mother. Goodner has brought with her an enormous six-wheeled space vehicle to storm the Hex and bludgeon its way inside. Monica suits up and tries to breach the wall, only for the vehicle to flounder at the energy border. In fact, the red coruscating energy breaches the vehicle's interior, and Monica climbs out and flings herself away just in time, as the vehicle is spat out "rewritten"--its front half is now a 90's pickup truck. But Monica realizes that she can, by herself, enter the Hex--and so despite Jimmy's yelling at her to stop, she plunges through the barrier.

This is a rather neat sequence, as we see refracted copies of Monica, dressed in different costumes, bloom around her as she fights her way through the energy barrier, and hear snippets of dialogue (and make sure to turn on the closed captioning for this, as that reveals who is talking--it's her mother and Carol Danvers, in fragments from Captain Marvel). Finally, Monica makes it through, seemingly intact--but her eyes are now a bright glowy blue, and in a point-of-view shot, she can now see the energy that animates the Hex. This is the birth of Monica Rambeau, superhero, but there's no time to dwell on it, as she takes off running to Wanda's house. 

There, she tries to talk to Wanda, convince her to take the energy walls down, but Wanda is having none of it. In fact, she summons her own red energy and throws Monica outside. Monica tells her she understands what Wanda is going through, because she lost her mother, but she has accepted that because it's "her truth." Wanda pauses, and we can see that Monica is beginning to get through to her--but at that moment, in another uncoincidental coincidence, Agnes interrupts and takes Wanda away. 

While all this is going on, Vision and Darcy find one another at the circus, or what was the S.W.O.R.D. camp and personnel. Vision awakens Darcy from Wanda's thrall, and they take off in a food truck. On the way back to Westview, Darcy gives Vision a capsule version of what happened in Avengers: Age of Ultron and Infinity/Endgame, which Vision can hardly believe, as he still doesn't remember any of it. But as Darcy says, she's been watching WandaVision for the past week, and "the love you two have is real. You belong together." Unfortunately, Wanda (or somebody) is trying to thwart Vision's attempt to get to her, as they are stopped by first a red light in the middle of nowhere and then a series of obstacles--a repair crew fixing the light, and a parade of Westview kiddies marching down the road in front of them. Vision even has his own brief fourth-wall-breaking, as he talks to the unseen interviewer about what Wanda went through. At least until it dawns on him, why am I talking to this person when I need to get to my wife? He takes off the microphone and storms off, flying away. Darcy watches him go and says, "I'll meet up with you later." 

After pulling Wanda away from Monica, Agnes takes Wanda to her house. Sitting in the living room, Wanda sees two plates on the table with half-eaten sandwiches, and asks, "Where are the twins?" Agnes notes they're playing in the basement, and Wanda goes down the stairs in search of them. But Agnes' basement is a great deal longer, twistier and weirder than any basement has a right to be, and Wanda wanders through a series of extended hallways, calling for Tommy and Billy. She finally comes to a large, extremely creepy room, decorated with purple and black, with a mystical-looking book (also festooned with purple) on a desk. Wanda stops to take this in, eyes widening, and the door slams. She turns to see Agnes coming into the room, saying (paraphrasing): "Oh, Wanda. Did you think you were the only witchy girl in Westview? It's Agatha Harkness. So nice to finally meet you." 

Thus confirming a fan theory that's been floated and talked about for weeks.

At this point, a new catchy theme song plays: "Agatha All Along," including shots of Agnes/Agatha shedding her purple witch's dress as she floats into the show's very first episode. It ends with Agatha holding the hapless deceased dog, crowing, "And I killed Sparky too!" and throwing her head back and laughing manically. Cue end credits.

(Then, in a first for the show, there's a mid-credits scene. Monica, following after Wanda and Agnes, come up to Agnes' house. She looks around for a way in and sees the outside entrance to the cellar. She throws the doors open, and we see a shot of another long spooky-looking staircase and hallway, festooned with the purple energy ribbons seen earlier. But Monica doesn't have a chance to look around, as Pietro suddenly approaches her from behind: "Snoopers gonna snoop.")

So. It was Agatha all along...or was it? I'm not convinced, because Wanda knows she's in a simulation and is strenuously resisting leaving it (with some reason, as we've seen that Vision will die if he does). And she previously stated she doesn't remember how she got her or knows how she's doing this. Still, there remains the fact that she's taken over the minds of all the townspeople, forcing them to play along, as she scripts her desperately wanted happy ending. 

Two episodes left.  

Streamin' (Madverse) Meemies: WandaVision Episode 6, "All New Halloween Spooktacular"

 

With each episode, WandaVision is becoming darker and more intense. We're a long way from the black-and-white, curly-haired, housewife-in-a-dress 50's. (Although looking back, that episode had a foreboding scene of the participants breaking with what they were "scripted" to do as well, when Vision's boss choked on his food and his wife just stared at him, repeating "Stop it" over and over, until Wanda looked at Vision and said, in the commanding tone of a showrunner, "Vision, help him.") The jaw-dropping introduction of Wanda's supposedly dead brother Pietro is the core of this episode, I think (along with what Vision ends up doing, which I will get to). 

Once again, I will take pity on the maybe two or three people who haven't watched this episode or seen discussions about it on social media. 

SPOILER

SPOILER

SPOILER

SPOILER

SPOILER

Now. When I went back and watched this the second time and wrote up my notes, the first thing I think is important is this episode's theme song. I kept pausing the stream until I had transcribed all the lyrics. (This is the 90's-early Oughts episode, taking from "Malcolm in the Middle," which I have never watched.)

Don't try to fight the chaos 

Don't let it stop the fun

Some days it's all confusion    

Easy come and easy go    

But if it's all illusion

Sit back, enjoy the show

Let's keep it going

Let's keep it going

Through each distorted day     

Let's keep it going

Let's keep it going

Though there may be no way of knowing

Who's coming by to play

(This last line played over a shot of Pietro, with a credit of "Pietro Maximoff as Himself.")                    

This plays into, I think, one of the two major revelations in this episode: Whoever and/or whatever Pietro is, he knows a helluva lot more than anyone else, and much more than he should. This was evident in almost every line of dialogue he uttered, from his mentioning Wanda's creating "Shangri-La" in their first extended conversation, to acknowledging he looks different (as a matter of fact, the two snippets of Quicksilver's death scene from Avengers: Age of Ultron both showed the other actor who played the role), to him referencing said death scene by saying he was "shot in the street for no reason at all and then heard you [Wanda] calling me", to him remembering an incident from their childhood differently than Wanda, to him praising Wanda for the "scenario" she's constructed (and when she asks him if it's wrong, he says no), and finally, at the episode's climax, when Vision is in trouble, he snarkily tells Wanda, "It's not like your dead husband can die twice."

(This remark causes Wanda to throw out one hand, the angry red of her power swirling in her palm, and hurl Pietro clear across the street. I don't know if Wanda, Pietro or someone else will turn out to be the villain behind this whole thing, but by crackey, at that moment he deserved it.) 

Of course, it's been theorized the Marvel is using Pietro, and the actor from the X-Men series who is playing this version of him, to introduce mutants into the Marvelverse. That may be true, but obviously there's more going on here than Wanda just yanking over an alternate version of her brother into this world. 

The second major revelation of this episode is that Vision cannot go through the energy barrier around Westview without starting to come apart, in a manner eerily similar to the original Snap. We find this out when Vision treks to the edge of town, discovering some disquieting details along the way: the further from the center of town, the slower people are moving, until they go from repeating their movements over and over to standing frozen in their tracks, like winding down dolls. (In a particularly disquieting shot, one woman is standing at a clothesline raising and lowering her arm again and again, with a single tear trickling down her cheek.) Vision tries to talk to them, but no one answers. He finally finds Agnes stuck in her car at a stop sign, and "unfreezes" her from Wanda's control. Agnes recognizes him as one of the Avengers, even though Vision doesn't remember what an "Avenger" is--and Agnes asks if she's dead, because, as she tells Vision, "YOU'RE dead." Over and over. Repeating the phrase as her voice rises in hysteria, until Vision, to stop her, finally returns her to Wanda's control. He tells Agnes he will get help, and she starts her car and moves off. She's at the border of Ellis Avenue, where Wanda had previously told the twins never to venture past. But Vision walks to the energy barrier, and starts to push his way through it. This takes a herculean effort, and sets off alarms at the S.W.O.R.D. compound on the other side. Hayward and his people jump in their vehicles to meet Vision, and watch as the synthezoid forces himself through the barrier, telling them the people inside need help--and then Vision starts to crumble, with pieces breaking off him and being dragged back inside. 

(Which is another mystery: if Wanda's power is both a) generating the barrier; and b) keeping Vision's corpse operating, why didn't she sense when he stepped through it? Instead, it's left to their son Tommy, who like his brother Billy has abruptly developed powers--Billy is zipping around in a supersonic blur like Pietro--and who can see "inside his head" what is happening to his father. He runs to Wanda and tells her, "Dad's in trouble. I think he's dying." Which Wanda apparently didn't know until she is told.)

Vision collapses outside the barrier, and Wanda flings up her hands, stopping time, movement and everything else in Westview. This leads to the best action scene of the episode, as she expands the energy barrier. The entire huge red wall moves out in every direction, rippling across the landscape like a gargantuan lava flow, overwhelming everything in its path. Hayward jumps in his SUV and flees, and the officers/FBI agents who are left behind are transformed into clowns, with the S.W.O.R.D. encampment becoming circus tents. Darcy Lewis, who was trying to help Vision and got handcuffed to a vehicle for her trouble, is sucked inside. Jimmy Woo and Monica Rambeau, who left the compound earlier to meet Monica's mysterious "guy" (who had texted her saying he was coming, supposedly bringing another way into the "Hex"--Darcy's nickname for the area) similarly see the barrier coming and put the pedal to the metal trying to outrun it. We're not shown where this expansion stops, but the last shot of the episode is Wanda opening her eyes, which are now blood-red orbs. 

So what's going to happen now? Because Vision clearly knows Wanda is causing this, even if she can't remember why it started or knows how she's doing it. In fact, it seems after their little argument in the last episode that was interrupted by Pietro's arrival (and Wanda insisted, "I didn't do this," so who did?), Vision is avoiding confronting Wanda--except for some snarky remarks as he leaves to go on his Halloween patrol. (And in one of this episode's many Easter eggs, both Wanda and Vision are wearing their classic Marvel costumes.) But after Vision comes back to himself and realizes that, to save him, Wanda both expanded the boundaries of Westview and dragged a great many more people into its maw--what then? 

Three episodes left. 

     

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

Streamin' (Madverse) Meemies: WandaVision Season 1 Ep 5, "On a Very Special Episode"

 

 

I guess I'll have to start including Spoiler Warnings for these reviews, something I don't normally do. But with the shift to including the outside world in the last episode, and the parallel tracks in this one juxtaposing what's happening in Wanda's Westview bubble and what's happening outside, there's a lot of bombs being dropped. (Sometimes literally.) This series is being reviewed pretty extensively, I think, so I'm sure most of you already know what I'm talking about. Nevertheless, for anyone who hasn't had a chance to watch this yet....

SPOILER

SPOILER

SPOILER

SPOILER

SPOILER

Okay. Here we go. 

As I said, there are two parallel storylines in this episode: the outside looking in (the S.W.O.R.D. camp, with Monica Rambeau, Darcy Lewis, Jimmy Woo, and the head of S.W.O.R.D., who in this episode was revealed to be a real asshole), and the inside looking in, with Wanda, Vision and the twins. The latter is the sadder story of the two, as despite Wanda's increasingly desperate attempts to keep control, it's obvious that Vision is catching on to what she's doing. It's also apparent that he doesn't like it one bit. In the very first scene, when the now Jazzercise-clad neighbor shows up to rock the screaming twins, there's an odd bit where Vision doesn't say the dialogue Agnes thinks he's supposed to say, and Agnes asks Wanda if they should start the scene over. The two of them laugh hugely and try to hustle past this break, but of course Vision has noticed this and questions Wanda about it. Then he is (conveniently) distracted by Tommy and Billy's sudden aging up to five, which Agnes witness and doesn't blink an eye over. (There's two other instances in the episode of Agnes witnessing Wanda and/or the twins doing impossible, magically powered things, and not only does this not freak Agnes out, she makes snarky remarks about it. The mystery of Who Exactly Is Agnes is going to be very important, I think.)

Later on, back at "Computational Services" where Vision works, we've progressed to the early Apple-II computers (at least that's what they looked like) and Vision's coworker Norm making a big deal out of "electronic mail." But Vision downloads an e-mail which actually comes from Darcy Lewis and the S.W.O.R.D. crew outside, mentioning the "Maximoff anomaly." He is so upset by this that he presses his hands to the monitor to wipe it from his sight, and then uses the same gesture on Norm's head when Norm won't shut up. This has the unintended side effect of momentarily loosening Wanda's hold on Norm, and Norm begs Vision to make Wanda stay out of his head. He's also frantic to contact his family, which disturbs Vision mightily. All this comes to a head in the last scene in the episode, where Vision confronts Wanda at home. He demands to know what she's doing and why.

There are quite a few things revealed in this scene, among them that Vision can't remember anything from before Westview, which would make sense since he was, y'know, dead before Westview. Wanda is either partially or wholly in control of the Westview bubble (and there's a rather sinister moment where Vision states, "You can't control me like you do them," meaning the townspeople, and Wanda says, "Can't I?"), but she also admits that she doesn't know how she got here or why it started. The fight starts with Wanda making the end credits roll as Vision questions her, and then both she and Vision rise in the air and hover as they continue to argue. Then Vision asks why there aren't any other children in Westview and why the playgrounds are empty. After that, right at the end of the episode, the doorbell rings--and Wanda protests, "I didn't do that," only to realize that Vision doesn't believe her--and I will get to who was at the door in a minute. 

The twins, Tommy and Billy, figure prominently in this also, both in that typical sitcom way of children learning a sad lesson and the WandaVision sitcom way of children aging themselves up from zero to five and then five to ten when they want to adopt a puppy they found. (This is another thing that is done right in front of Agnes, along with Wanda's manufacturing a collar out of thin air for said puppy.) In the second half of the show, following another Marvel universe-pertinent commercial break ("Lagos" brand paper towels), Sparky (the dog) wanders off, and Wanda and the twins roam the streets in search of him. Turns out he got into Agnes' azalea bush and was poisoned by eating the leaves. (Agnes has the dog supposedly bundled up in her arms, but we don't actually see the dog's body.) There follows another typical sitcom moment when the twins cry over Sparky, set against a WandaVision sitcom moment where they beg their mother to resurrect Sparky and bring him back. (And in a supremely ironic bit of dialogue, Wanda refuses to do so, saying that there are rules that have to be followed and death can't be reversed, even though that's precisely what she's done with Vision.)

In the outside Westview S.W.O.R.D. storyline, Captain Monica Rambeau, who Wanda kicked out of what Darcy Lewis calls "the Hex"--the hexagonal-shaped bubble of Wanda's power--is debriefed (and her xray scans are eerily blank, which no doubt will come into play later on). She admits that Wanda controlled her, that Wanda's voice was in her head and "it was grief." Hayward, the head of S.W.O.R.D., hold a meeting and brings everyone up to speed, giving them Wanda's history with Hydra and the Avengers and all but proclaiming her a sentient weapon/terrorist. Monica objects, and Hayward shows the gathered crowd the footage where, nine days ago, Wanda stormed a S.W.O.R.D. research facility and took away Vision's dismembered corpse. In the back of the room, after Darcy Lewis calls Hayward a "dick" (in a quick cutaway bit of editing, we don't actually hear the word, but we know that's what she said), Darcy raises a pertinent and prescient question: since Wanda has "the world's only vibranium synthezoid in Suburbia playing Dad, what happens when Vision learns the truth?" 

After this meeting, Monica is trying to figure out a way to get back into Westview and surmises that period-appropriate technology could penetrate the surrounding force field. They find an 80's drone and send it in, and Monica tries to talk to Wanda. Hayward, however, tries to use the drone to shoot Wanda (told you he was an asshole). This does not work and leads to the most dramatic scene in the episode: Wanda brings down the drone, picks it up and carries it outside the Westview bubble, emerging in her modern Infinity War-style superhero costume. She knows what S.W.O.R.D. is there for and what they're doing, and she warns them off. Once again Monica tries to talk to her, finally asking: "What do you want?" 

"I have what I want," Wanda says, "and no one will ever take it from me again." 

She then forces all the soldiers standing around who have drawn beads on her to shift their aim to Hayward instead, and turns around and walks off. As she disappears inside the force bubble, it turns a whole lot redder and arches a whole lot higher, which makes me doubt any kind of tech, 80's or otherwise, will ever make it through from here on out. 

(This also makes me suspect that at the end of the show, it's not Monica who will talk Wanda down--it will be Vision. Vision, who cannot live with what Wanda has done to bring him back to life.)

Finally...back to the doorbell. Wanda opens the door and gasps. We see the back of a man's head, silver hair on top and dark underneath. This proves to be Wanda's formerly dead brother, Pietro. (In a meta bit of casting that nearly exploded the internet, the actor playing Pietro isn't the one from Avengers: Age of Ultron, but rather the X-Men movies. And in a really meta snippet of dialogue as she watches this episode on her TV, Darcy Lewis remarks on it: "She recast Pietro!") This was foreshadowed by a bit of dialogue: y'all remember from episode 3 when Wanda said she "had" a brother? In this episode, when questioned by one of the twins, she says she has a brother. Present tense. And she's separated from him, which makes her sad. Of course, with the real-world announcement from Marvel head honcho Kevin Feige that Marvel's Phase 4 movies, particularly the upcoming Dr. Strange sequel, will feature the multiverse, and since this very show is being used to set up Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness...did Wanda reach into the multiverse and port an undead version of her brother over to this universe? 

Questions, questions. One thing for sure, though: Elizabeth Olson and Paul Bettany are absolutely killing their roles. The 80's trappings and theme song for this episode--drawing from, according to what I've read, Family Ties, Growing Pains and Full House--are spot on. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure Wanda and Vision's story is going to end in tragedy. I don't know how it could be otherwise.

 

Streamin' (Madverse) Meemies: WandaVision Season 1 Ep 4, "We Interrupt This Program"

 

In this episode, WandaVision gets serious.

Whoever is running this series has an excellent grasp of pace. The first three episodes set up the wacky premise, with its decade-reflective sitcom jumps and slow expanding thread of horror, in three brisk half-hour increments. (I wonder if it's a coincidence that Disney Plus's first two original series, The Mandalorian and this program, are both knocking out their episodes in 30- to 40-minute time frames.) Last time out I was speculating which 80's classic sitcom would be referenced next. Instead, we get a full stop and a pullback that's more than a bit meta in that it involves the characters doing the very same thing we in the audience are doing--watching the episodes and trying to figure out what in the hell is going on. It's a clever little breather that answers quite a few questions while posing still others.

This episode, in its opening sequence, also focuses on something the Avengers movies never had the time or seemingly the inclination to do--the aftereffects of the Snap, Thanos' dusting half the universe in Infinity War, and the Blip, the restoration of said half in Endgame. In this case, the Blippee (sorry, couldn't resist) is Monica Rambeau, the daughter of Maria Rambeau, Carol Danvers' best friend in Captain Marvel. She is reverse-dusted back to life in her mother's hospital room five years later, not knowing that her mother has died in the interim. This is a very effective sequence of Monica dashing down the hospital corridor surrounded by chaos: people popping back into existence, filling the rooms and hallways, and overwhelming the hospital. Finally, a doctor who worked there previously spots Monica and explains what happened. I do wish this scene had gone on longer, as society coping with the aftermath of the Marvel superheroes knocking heads has been sorely lacking till now. 

It's established that WandaVision is taking place three weeks after Endgame, when Monica returns to work at S.W.O.R.D. (Sentient Weapon Observation Response Division), the agency founded by her mother, presumably after the events of Captain Marvel. The agency's director says she's one of the first to return, even though it's obviously too soon, and he farms her out to the FBI on a missing persons case...taking place in the town of Westview, New Jersey. The FBI agent on the case turns out to be Jimmy Woo, from Ant-Man. He's looking for someone in the witness protection program (and we never find out who this is) who was in Westview, and who has vanished--along with the entire population of the town and everyone's memory of it. This is driven home when Monica and Jimmy have a conversation with two police officers while they are standing right in front of a billboard advertising Westview and the officers deny it exists. Monica sends a drone towards the town and it vanishes into an energy field. She approaches the field, touches it, and is sucked in herself.

24 hours later, there is a "multi-agency response team" set up around the town. This is where astrophysicist Darcy Lewis, from the first two Thor movies, comes in--she is part of a team summoned by the FBI to try to explain various readings captured by the team's equipment. The focus on the rest of the episode, except for the very end, is on Darcy and Jimmy Woo as the former solves some of the mysteries about Westview--it's Darcy who figures out that the high readings of cosmic background radiation emanating from the town are also hiding "longer wavelengths." She realizes this is some sort of broadcast, and sends the FBI underlings looking for an old "non-flat" television. She plugs this in, and voila, the team ends up being able to watch the exact same episodes we in the audience have been watching. This causes Jimmy Woo to utter one of the episode's best lines: "The universe created a sitcom starring two Avengers?" This is funny, but it's also sobering: Darcy confirms that Vision is "not Blipped, dead," and she is the one who sees Monica playing a character trapped inside the show. 

The anomalies from the first two episodes are also explained: the first drone Monica sent in was transformed into the red toy helicopter with the SWORD logo, and an agent in a hazmat suit was sent crawling through the town's sewers to bypass the hexagonal-shaped energy field, only to discover it extends underground and changes him into a beekeeper, complete with surrounding buzzing bees, as he passes through it. (He climbs out of the sewer and Wanda sees him and rewinds reality just as she did in episode 2, and we never see what happens to him.) Jimmy Woo's is the voice we hear over the radio, also in episode 2, trying to reach out to Wanda.

Then we reach episode 3, where after the (accelerated) pregnancy and birth of Wanda's twins, Geraldine/Monica makes the mistake of mentioning Ultron to Wanda. At first the scene cuts out just as it did before. Darcy rewinds it, trying to see what is missing. Then an alarm goes off (signaling that the energy field has been breached, by Monica being tossed outside) and Darcy and Jimmy rush out to see what is happening. Alone in the tent, Darcy's laptop now shows the rest of the scene: Wanda realizes that Monica/Geraldine doesn't belong in her little bubble, and brings up her powers--those red glowing energy fields emanating from her hands--and slams Monica through several walls and out of Westview. This is ominous and sinister, but afterwards Wanda seems shocked and dismayed by what she has done (and Elizabeth Olson plays this beautifully) and quickly knits both the walls and her little reality back together. Then Vision, who has been outside talking to the neighbors, comes in and asks about Geraldine--only it's the Vision from Endgame, after his death, his synthetic flesh grayed out, his eyes whited over, and a gaping hole in his head where the Mind Stone has been ripped away. 

Wanda turns around and sees him, and in that minute we know she realizes Vision is dead. But she quickly changes him back to his normal red-and-silver self. This zombie Vision seems to have at least some semblance of consciousness of his own, separate from Wanda, as he suggests that "we don't have to stay here. We can go anywhere." Wanda denies this: "This is our home. I have everything under control." She sinks back into the illusion and picks up one of the babies, asking what they're going to watch tonight. For the moment, Vision acquiesces, but in another nice moment from Paul Bettany, we can see the uneasiness rippling over his face. He knows something is wrong. Outside, Monica, lying on the ground after being thrown out, gasps up at the people surrounding her: "It's Wanda. It's all Wanda." In the very last shot, the camera fixes on Wanda and Vision holding the babies and sitting in front of the television, and the credits fade into Jimi Hendrix's "Voodoo Child."

Well boy howdy, talk about raising the stakes. This episode was very well written and paced, with the comic relief (and drama-free competence) of Darcy Lewis to balance the creeping horror of the end scene. The odd, fourth-wall-breaking moments of the first three episodes are brought into context, and the stage is set going forward. And all of this is only packed into (since the show's end credits are really long) twenty-six minutes. This was outstanding, and I can't wait to see where the show goes from here. 

Streamin' Meemies: WandaVision Season 1, Episodes 1-3

 

So the WandaVision series is supposedly the start of Marvel's "Phase 4," and the events of this series are reportedly going to tie into the next Dr. Strange movie, Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. (Does that make Disney Plus part of the Streaming Madverse? Maybe I should give that title to these reviews from now on.) However that works out, this series is starting out pretty damn weird. 

The three episodes so far are set in three different decades--the 50s, 60s and 70s--and taking off of sitcoms from each of those decades--I Love Lucy, Bewitched/The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Brady Bunch/The Partridge Family. But there's also a steadily escalating horror thread running throughout, especially in the last minutes of episode 3 when the canned laugh track fades away. We're not sure if the entire setup is the product of Wanda's traumatized, reality-twisting mind, an outside source with the acronym S.W.O.R.D. (with its upside down cross logo seen at the end of episode 1, the colorized toy helicopter in episode 2 and Geraldine/Monica's necklace in episode 3) or both. Another thing to remember is that WandaVision takes place after Avengers: Infinity War/Endgame, and in the latter, Vision was stone cold dead, the Mind Stone ripped from his head. Since he wasn't snapped, he also wasn't resurrected. Yet here he is, in all his redheaded synthezoid glory, even putting on a decades-appropriate human mask when he steps out of the house. 

We shall see. I have Tom King's excellent limited-edition Vision comic series, Little Better Than a Man/Little Worse Than a Beast, but I haven't read any of the older Wanda or Vision comics. But it seems to me Wanda Maximoff was terribly overlooked by the movies for as powerful as she is--I'd say she's at least the equal of Captain Marvel--so it's nice to see her spotlighted here. 

Episode 1: "Filmed Before a Live Studio Audience"

This is the 50's I Love Lucy episode, filmed in black and white with an old-style narrow screen on a single interior stage: Wanda and Vision's kitchen and living room. They have a theme song over credits of the two of them arriving in the town of Westview as supposedly a newly married couple. When we meet them, Wanda displays her powers in the house, and Vision shows his android head and body; but they don't know when or why they came here, how long they've been here, when they got married, or what the circled date on the calendar is. Vision goes to work at a "Computational Services" office and has no idea what he's doing there. All this is brought home later in the episode when the boss, Mr. Hart, and his wife come to the Visions' for dinner. After Wanda uses her powers to whip up the food (although she can't quite manage the four-course dinner the neighbor Agnes sneaks in the back door and changes everything to breakfast materials instead) and the four of them are sitting and eating, Mr. Hart peppers them with questions they can't answer. Then he chokes on something--I suspect Wanda made him do so just to shut him up--and the scene goes super creepy, as Mrs. Hart just looks at him and repeats "Stop it" over and over. Mr. Hart, still struggling to breathe, finally falls on the floor. Wanda looks at Vision and says, in a different, commanding tone of voice, "Vision, help him." Vision does, phasing his hand into Mr. Hart's throat and plucking out the offending chunk of food.  

The episode ends with Wanda and Vision grinning at the camera while the theme song plays and the end credits run. Then the camera pulls back and out of the ancient TV-style monitor to show someone watching, and a piece of paper or notepad bearing that upside-down-cross logo. 

Episode 2: "Don't Touch That Dial"

We now jump to the 60's sitcom model, opening with Wanda and Vision sleeping in twin beds and freaking out over a loud bang outside. They decide it's just branches hitting the window, but Wanda uses her powers to shove the twin beds together and wrap them in a full-size comforter. The two of them then dive under the comforter for a bit of nookie, which will be hugely important later.

The thrust of this episode is Wanda and Vision working up a magic act to perform at the neighborhood talent show "for the children" (another creepy phrase repeated throughout). Wanda gets to wear slacks and flat shoes in this episode, as opposed to the dress and high heels of the first. The first "crack" in her reality appears after Vision leaves to go to the Neighborhood Watch Meeting, and Wanda goes outside to see a toy helicopter caught in a rosebush. This helicopter is a a colorized bright red, sporting the number 57 and the upside down cross logo. We're not given much of a chance to dwell on this, as Wanda's neighbor Agnes shows up to take her to meet the group running the talent show, led by "Queen Bee" Dottie. This consists of white women with one exception: a beehived black woman with straightened hair calling herself "Geraldine" (although there's a split second hesitation when she says the name). After the talent show meeting, Wanda and Dottie have a bit of a confrontation and Dottie accidentally cuts her hand--and she bleeds red as well. At the same time, the radio suddenly sizzles and a man's voice emerges: "Wanda, Wanda, can you read me? Who is doing this to you?"

At Vision's (surprisingly integrated) Neighborhood Watch meeting, he is given a piece of gum to chew (after loudly proclaiming, android-like, he "doesn't eat food" before backtracking to amend, "between meals") and in a neat little animated sequence, the gum goes down his gullet and clogs his gears. This makes him act like he's drunk when he shows up for the talent show (and you can tell Paul Bettany is having a blast playing this). In fact, he keeps doing superhero things like hovering in the air and lifting a piano with one hand, and Wanda has to use her own powers to make it look like everything is a sequence of planned pratfalls. This goes over so well they are given a trophy for 'Comedy Performance of the Year.'

Back home, Wanda says, "It wasn't so hard to fit in after all." She gets off the couch and the camera pans down over a suddenly pregnant stomach. Wanda gasps, "Is this really happening?" There is more banging outside, and Wanda and Vision rush out to see what's going on. It's right here that the subtly building thread of horror comes into full view, as a man in a beekeeper's suit, bees buzzing around him, climbs out of a manhole in the street. Wanda, again in that flat, commanding tone of voice used in episode 1, says "No," and rewinds reality back to the moment she discovers she is pregnant. She says again, "Is this really happening?" meaning the baby, but more starts happening--Vision's head turns read and silver, and color splashes across the screen. 

And once more we hear the man's voice through the radio: "Who's doing this to you, Wanda?" 

Episode 3: "Now In Color"

This is the 70's Brady Bunch/Partridge Family analogue, with opening credits that are very much Brady Bunch. Wanda's hair is long, parted in the middle, and ramrod straight; Vision has collar length hair and jaw length sideburns; and Geraldine is rocking a gorgeous Afro and bright blue eyeshadow. This storyline centers on Wanda's accelerated pregnancy (12 hours) and the birth of her twins. There are more concrete hints about what's going on dropped in this episode, particularly at the end. 

Vision is obviously taking to his new role as a father, as he buys and reads Wanda books, works on breathing exercises with her, and practices speed-changing diapers on a doll. Opening the episode approximately four months along (confirmed by a house-calling doctor who condescendingly mansplains fetal development to the couple), Wanda suddenly pops out to her third trimester. This provides the first indication that the pregnancy is messing with her powers, as the baby kicks and makes the butterfly mobile that Wanda is about to hang over the crib come to life. This is a running gag throughout the episode, as first false labor contractions and then the real contractions makes the faucet spew water, causes pictures to revolve on the walls, ignites the logs in the fireplace, and floods the house when her water breaks. (Wanda summons some wind to dry out the carpet.) She also knocks out the power for the entire neighborhood, which complicates things when the real labor pangs begin and the phone doesn't work (and this being the 70's, cell phones don't exist). Vision speeds off to fetch the doctor, leaving Wanda there alone when Geraldine shows up. Wanda spontaneously generates coats and holds fruit bowls and vases of flowers to hide her bulging belly. Geraldine doesn't leave--she insists on sitting on the couch and regaling Wanda with a long drawn-out tale about her temp job, while Wanda tries to hide her stomach, her contractions, and the stork that popped off the nursery wall and is now walking around the living room. But it's just as well that Geraldine is there, as the baby is coming. Geraldine doesn't bat an eye at Wanda's sudden pregnancy, just laying her down behind the couch and telling her "it's time to push." And indeed it is, as the baby makes his appearance just before Vision returns, carrying Dr. Nielsen piggyback. Dr. Nielsen ushers Geraldine into the kitchen, giving Vision a moment to morph back to his actual synthezoid appearance and meet his son--or rather his 1st son, as the second of two makes his presence known as well.

After both babies are born, the creepiness starts and is ratcheted up beyond the first two episodes. Dr. Nielsen leaves, and Vision asks if he's still going on his trip (he was just about to get in the car when Vision grabbed him). No, says the doctor. "Small towns are so hard to escape."

Outside, Herb from episode #2 and Agnes are talking. They start to warn Vision about Geraldine, and there's clearly something else they want to say, but neither one of them can get it out. Herb tries to say "we're all" something and can't finish the sentence. Meanwhile, inside admiring the twins, Wanda admits she's a twin and she had a brother, Pietro. She then starts singing to the babies in the Solokovian language. Geraldine makes a mistake; she asks Wanda, "He [meaning Pietro] was killed by Ultron, wasn't he?"

This sets all of Wanda's alarm bells off. Not only Geraldine's question, but the fact that she notices Geraldine wearing a necklace with the upside down cross symbol. She demands Geraldine explain herself, and when Geraldine continues to dodge the question, insists she leave. By the time Vision returns from talking to Herb and Agnes, Geraldine is gone. He asks where she went, and Wanda says "she had to rush home."

But as we see, that's not quite what happened. Geraldine is suddenly shown flying through the air through a shimmer that looks like a force field (and this scene is shot in modern screen widths, instead of the compressed early TV ratio of the previous episodes) and lands on the ground. A helicopter hovers in the sky, modern-looking SUVs surround her, and the screen fades to black to the strains of "Daydream Believer."

So. There's quite a mystery here to unwind, whether it's all happening in Wanda's mind or otherwise. But it can't all be in Wanda's mind or generated by her powers, because Geraldine knows what happened to her, and Herb and Agnes are trying to warn Vision of something. There are also "commercials" in each episode dropping further hints: Episode 1 is advertising the ToasterMate 2000 for Stark Industries; Episode 2 shows off a fancy watch by "Strucker"; and episode 3, the most pointed, touts "Hydra Soak" soap: "Escape to a world all your own, when you want to get away but you don't want to go anywhere." This show is unlike anything Marvel has ever done, and I'm down for it.