(Welcome back, MCU. We missed you)
I have no idea what's going on in the first two episodes of WandaVision, the MCU's debut on the silver screen, but I'm here for all of it.
We've got homages to classic sitcoms such as Bewitched and I Love Lucy (and even the movie Pleasantville). We've got callbacks to several mainstays throughout the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But most importantly, we've got Wanda and Vision continuing their journey together in new, exciting ways. They carry these first two episodes with enthusiasm and with grace, even when they screw up.
Thankfully there was no cheesiness in their acting at all. It felt genuine and lifelike. This story of Wanda and Vision trying to live the 50s-60s life couldn't be more befitting for any other MCU characters; as a couple, they've always eluded to wanting a life without their superhero jobs pulling them out of it. A quaint life together just the two of them. It's a wonderfully natural evolution of their relationship.
And boy, do Paul Bettany and Elizabeth Olsen nail it. Bettany tows the line of exposing who he truly is while instead coming across as a goof incredibly well. The best example of this in Episode 1 is when he reacts to a co-worker calling him a walking computer. So funny, and again, this setting couldn't be more perfect for Vision, who already has had comical moments of struggling to understand human expressions and metaphors.
In the second episode, Bettany gets his chance to shine in a different way. After swallowing some gum (shortly after a funny, but incredibly overused and predictable "mastication" joke), Vision becomes impaired (not his eyesight, of course...okay bad joke, much worse than the night vision joke Wanda makes). This makes for an entertaining magic show Wanda and Vision stumble through to perform. Vision acts weird, and Wanda secretly uses her powers to cover it up.
Olsen matches Bettany's range scene for scene. She's flustered when playing a game of "guess who" with Vision's boss. She's perfectly out-of-place as she tries to fit in at a committee meeting with a group of housewives. Olsen and Bettany are a perfect match.
The sitcom tropes were strong. One scene was cleverly written as Vision and Wanda discuss their dinner plans. Wanda thinks they're having a romantic evening just the two of them. Vision thinks she's properly preparing for his boss and his boss's wife to join them. I love when writers pull this off well (for a more recent example, it happened a lot on Modern Family, which was great every time). That dinner literally felt like a replay of an I Love Lucy episode in which, perhaps not so coincidentally, Ricky is trying to get promoted to manager, same as Vision.
What's really happening?
In the familiar Marvel style (especially for you fellow Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. fans), we don't get a full grasp of what exactly is going on. Are Wanda and Vision in a time travel show? Are they actually interacting with real people living the same way they are? Are the other characters aware of what's going on? Maybe even in on it (whatever "it" is)? At one point, it seemed like there was a director calling out shots of what he wanted to happen, further leading us to believe that not everything is at it seems.
It's hard to tell at what exact point of the MCU timeline the characters actually are in. At one point, we get mentions or references to Strucker, the classic Hydra villain. Strucker, of course, is the one who first introduces us to Wanda and Quicksilver as "The twins," but isn't he dead now? We see fake commercials for Hydra and get a mention of Stark Industries seemingly during their respective rises, but that all happened years ago, right?
More likely, what's going on is some kind of fake reality. During the scene in Episode 2, when Wanda and Vision go outside to see if a burglar is on their roof late at night, Wanda finds a toy helicopter stashed in the bushes. It stands out more because it's in actual color (is it coincidence that the helicopter is painted with Iron Man's red and gold colors? I doubt it). The whole Pleasantville spoof comes into play one or two other times when something is seen in color while on a black-and-white show. Maybe color is an indication that something is wrong in this fake reality.
We find out that the head of the aforementioned committee meeting is named Dottie? Does that mean she is none other that Dottie, the Soviet spy (who likely was a Black Widow) who appeared on the show Agent Carter (if you've never seen it, I highly recommend watching it!)? Dottie (and Peggy Carter), of course, was alive decades ago, though, so how would she still be around? Again, are we time traveling? Are we seeing alternate dimensions/timelines? Or has some sinister person created this entire façade as an illusion of some sort?
My theory and my hope is that this show will be the connection to Dr. Strange's Multiverse of Madness we're supposedly getting. No matter what, I'm excited for the remaining seven episodes.
Notes:
-There was a weird moment when we saw a man crawling out of a sewer wearing a bee suit while being completely surrounded by bees. We didn't see his face, but he definitely seemed to be a bad guy. I wonder if that's a character we've seen before.
-At one point, we saw some SWORD insignia (the outer-space version of SHIELD). Might there be connections to Nick Fury in this show? Is this finally the time when we get to see Skye/Daisy/Quake take on a more prominent role in the MCU (If you watched the AoS series finale, you'd know it's a possibility)? Having SWORD present in this story opens up so many possibilities. Also, if we do discover that time/reality manipulation shenanigans are going on, does that open the door enough to serve as a teaser for the Time Variance Authority (TVA) that will appear in the Loki show? So many questions! So much going on!
-We get a re-introdution to Monica (played by Teyonah Parris), the grown-up version of the little girl we see in Captain Marvel. This makes it seem like the show is more present-day.
-Vision's boss's wife is played by Debra Jo Rupp, a perfect fit who already has experience playing in time-piece sitcoms with her work in That 70s Show.
-To add to the perfection of Wanda and Vision's relationship, the fact that they stumble through a cooking disaster shows how far they've come (or not come) since Civil War after the whole paprika incident. Later during this scene, Wanda still seems a bit stunned when the boss chokes on some food at the dinner table. Maybe she never fully got over what she did in Sokovia? (Hawkeye gets her to fight eventually, of course.) Any sort of callback to her sorrows from that incident would land strongly for me.
-The music was pleasant throughout as it harked back to the 50s and 60s (they even threw in a bit of swing music). Wanda and Vision even get their own theme song at the beginning of the episodes!
-The fact that these episodes were shot in front of a live audience is the topper.
-I can't wait to see where they go with this.