Post by backroadjunkie on Feb 8, 2021 6:44:39 GMT
Hey Everyone!
We are now midway through WandaVision. Since the last two eps kicked the series up into the MCU, I thought I'd post some random thoughts on it. (Actually, ever since the end of AoS and the untimely and unnatural death of my laptop, I haven't written anything substantial, so I should probably post something just to keep my writing skills intact. (Such as they are.) That, and after shoveling a couple of tons of snow around and none of my muscles want to move, lol. Now I'm having temps below zero. That's below zero in Fahrenheit...)
This isn't a specific review, but on overview of what we've seen and where I think the MCU will go. Otherwise may be known as running off at the keyboard. If this all seems a bit incoherent, it's because it probably is...
I will try to avoid spoilers until I tell you I'm going to spoil things. Then it's open game, and at that point if you don't want spoilers you should probably leave. To be honest, some of the off-the-hand things I'm going to talk about may be spoilers to you, depending on how... uninformed you want to be going into phase 4.
First, we should probably talk about Disney+.
The Mandalorian was the first big test, to see if fans would be attracted to content on the "small screen". (Well, HDTV isn't NTSC/PAL, and is hardly "small screen". Today the terms "big screen" and "small screen" seems to refer to production size rather than screen size.) Thanks to Favreau and Filoni (and Grogu, lol), The Mandalorian was not only a complete success, but revitalized a Star Wars market that many fans abandoned because of the sequels.
Along with the contribution of the isolationist tendencies due to COVID, and the push from Management to dominate the streaming market with Disney+, the success of The Mandalorian is the reason we're going to see 10 Star Wars series in the next couple of years. It almost seems like Kennedy wasn't going to fully commit Lucasfilm until she saw how The Mandalorian was received. I just hope the well from which all this source material is derived doesn't get diluted to the point of irrelevance. (Thank goodness I don't talk like that IRL, lol.) IOW, don't eff it up. (And to be blunt, I don't see the sequels as Disney's fault, as much as Kennedy's. And even if Kennedy is left in charge at Lucasfilm, Favreau/Filoni should be the ones in charge of the Star Wars universe, or at least approval of the content. I'll get off my soapbox now...)
And it makes sense. The Mandalorian cost a third of Last Jedi while providing 3 times the runtime, lowering the bar on profitability while keeping a viewer base even if the theaters are closed. Even if you include season 2, production/marketing costs are still under the cost of any of the sequel movies. And I'll bet by this time, more may have seen The Mandalorian and created more buzz than Star Wars 8 or 9.
On the flip side, Marvel initially announced several shows on Disney+, and now totals something like eleven different productions. I believe we'll see a new Marvel show on Disney+ every week for the rest of the year, and probably beyond.
More importantly, now that Feige is in complete creative control at Marvel Studios, the Marvel/Disney+ shows are all based in the MCU, and are integral and influential to the rest of the MCU. (Unlike, well, you know.)
Marvel's first entry into the streaming market was supposed to be The Falcon and Winder Solder, but like almost everything else in 2020, was delayed.
Instead Disney+'s second big entry (and the rookie for the MCU) into the streaming market, is WandaVision. Since Disney didn't delay it, and moved Falcon/Winter Solder after WandaVision, I wonder if there are some necessary events in WandaVision that need to happen now.
(Spoilers follow about the content of episodes 1 through 3.)
To be honest, I've been ambivalent and somewhat less than impressed with eps 1 through 3. I get what they were trying to achieve, but they took (and may be taking) far too long getting to the meat of the show. We still haven't seen the main antagonist. We still don't know the point of the series, other than establishing Wanda's reality.
A quick rundown of the first three episodes:
Ep1 (Title: Filmed Before a Live Studio Audience) has Wanda and Vision driving into New Rochelle...uh, Westview... and well, it's The Dick Van Dyke show. And it really looks and feels like The DVD show because the director got Dick Van Dyke to tell him how to make it look and feel like The DVD Show.
It establishes the main WandaVision cast, in B&W, which immediately made me think of AoS 7.4, lol. The only clue we're given that something external to Wanda's reality is happening is a few seconds at the end of the show.
Considering this is the first MCU content we've seen since Far From Home, they could have added a 5 or 10 minute segment to the start of Ep1 that establishes the series in the MCU, much the same way The Mandalorian established itself in the Star Wars Universe. It would have been nice, but I understand the show runners intent.
Ep2 (Title: Don't Touch That Dial) follows the trend by paying homage to Bewitched. I mean, it makes sense, she's a witch trying to live in a mortal world. Except she's married to an android, and a dead one at that. And yet, at the end of the episode, she's pregnant. (The last virgin birth in the movies I remember was Anakin Skywalker. That one didn't turn out too well.)
More cracks appear, like some color in a world that's supposed to be black and white, and a man in a hazmat suit appearing at the end of the episode.
Ep3 (Title: In Living Color) is the Brady Bunch, because, well, sisters. Twin sisters. Get it? Huh? Huh? I'm not sure I can find a connection beyond that. And during this episode, Wanda has twins. Every mother's dream, to have a pregnancy that only lasts 30 minutes without having to endure labor... (In the comics, Wanda and Vision have twins, Thomas (Speed) and William (Wiccan). You can probably guess where this is going to go...)
And the person who helps deliver the twins (Rambeau) is a person who knows her brother was killed by Ultron. Uh-oh... She's not supposed to know that. Watching Wanda turn from sit-com mom to angry, hateful witch was pretty frightening. She e-ticket rides Rambeau from her reality (through several walls), where she eventually gets dumped outside of town where SWORD has set up their command post.
One of my first observations: Wanda is in her early 20's and grew up in Sokovia. What would she know of 60's American Television? Did Hydra have the DVD sets or something? Did she watch a lot of MeTV during her time as an Avenger?
(Actually, my first observation is I hate laugh tracks. Ironic, since the title of the first ep is "Filmed Before a Live Studio Audience". Laugh-tracks may be time-period correct and I probably didn't think a thing about it when I was a kid, but now that I'm a crotchety old man, I just find them annoying...)
But yes, it's apparent over the first three eps that Wanda is indeed fabricating the reality. We still don't know why, although some logical guesses can be made. (Beyond the fact Wanda has PTSD.)
The townsfolk of Westview are clearly being mind-controlled into roles by Wanda. There are, however, two exceptions. The first is Vision, who is clearly confused at times at the unfolding events; and a character named Agnes, who is a much more important character than you might think...
(Okay, major spoilers follow about ep4 follow.)
This brings us to Ep4. (Title: We Interrupt This Program.) They made us wait 90 precious air-time minutes to get to the meat of what's happening outside of Westview. I do wonder how the show was structured when it was first announced WandaVision would be 6 one hour episodes, instead of 9 episodes. (The eps so far have been 30 minutes. But that could change, I'm not sure the run-times have been set...)
It starts with the blip. It focuses on Monica Rambeau, the daughter of Maria Rambeau, who created... Ready? S.W.O.R.D. The pair was last seen in Captain Marvel, where Monica was 11 years old. Monica is now in her late 20's (physical, not logical years, lol), and is an Agent of SWORD. After Monica... uh... blips back, she finds Maria died from a reoccurrence of her cancer three years ago. It also establishes those that got dusted have no idea they were gone. (I'm not sure if they established that fact in Far From Home.)
After the opening Marvel Studios sequence we are at SWORD headquarters, which now stands for "Sentient Weapon Observation Response Division", not "Sentient World Observation and Response Department". SWORD has shifted away from manned missions and refocused on robotics, nanotech and AI... and Sentient Weapons.
Monica is reporting back to SWORD after 3 weeks. This fixes the time frame. Three weeks (logical time) since Wanda lost Vision.
She finds SWORD's mission has changed after the Snap. They seem to be a pre-Avengers SHIELD, again developing weapons against enemies in a post-snap universe. She also finds she's restricted to terrestrial missions only, and Acting Director Tyler Hayward (who seems like a nice guy, but I think he's wearing a red shirt under that suit) sends her to help the FBI in Westview, New Jersey. While clearly aggravated she's grounded, she agrees to go. Cue montage of scenes going to Westview.
She arrives, and the FBI contact is... Jimmy Woo! (No, wait, it gets better...) He magically makes his business card appear in his hand, lol. I wonder if he got Scott to teach him the trick. Makes me wonder if Woo will be more an ally than an antagonist in the next Pym franchise film.
Seems he's looking for someone in the witness protection program who has disappeared.
Woo: I've contacted known associates, relatives...
Rambeau: And let me guess, none of them have seen him either?
Woo: No. None of them have ever heard of him.
And in a perfect Jimmy Woo scene, they interview two sheriffs, who insist Westview doesn't exist, even though they are standing in front of a giant sign that says, "Welcome to Westview", and the patches on their arm says "Westview Sheriff".
Rambeau sends a SWORD drone toward the town, and it vanishes. This is the same drone Wanda finds in the bushes in Ep2. Rambeau approaches the town, and finds a "field" that surrounds the town. (The field strangely looks like an analog television phosphor mask.) Woo wants nothing to do with it, but Rambeau touches it and gets sucked into Wanda's reality. I mean, literally disappears and gets sucked into Wanda's reality.
Well, that kicks the investigation up a notch.
The next day (well, the text on the screen says, "24 hours later", we see an armored truck. Inside are four occupants, one of which is... Darcy Lewis! (See, it got better, lol.) And Dennings plays Darcy the same way she plays it in Thor, quite the smartass. Actually, a smart smartass, so I see her behavior as... acceptable.
So in the first 11 minutes, we establish the series in the MCU using three characters from three other MCU movie franchises, not counting Wanda and Vision. (Well, Rambeau is over twice her age when she appeared in Captain Marvel, but still appeared as a character. That counts, right? ) Minor characters to be sure, but instantly recognizable, MCU characters.
Further into the structure of Ep4:
At 17 minutes in, we see what essentially is the end of Episode 1.
At 22.5 minutes in, we see what essentially is the end of Episode 2.
At 26 minutes in, we see what essentially is the end of Episode 3.
And by the end of episode 4, we've been caught up with the events external to Westview in Eps 1-3. And by the time Ep4 is over, the sit-com humor of the first three shows is thrown out the window. I think the show is going to get progressively darker.
What spoilers in a spoiler review? Yeah...
<spoiler>Wanda could have been nicer expelling Rambeau, but at least she didn't kill or seriously injure her. And the dead Vision thing was not sit-com material, lol. It was actually a holy-spoon moment for me...</spoiler>
(Spoilers for Ep5 follows)
The structure of Ep5 (Title: On a Very Special Episode...) alternates between the events inside and outside of Westview, a better plot structure now that we've established some of the ground rules and both POV's (Wanda's and SWORD's) are synced.
Interestingly, at the end of episode 4, after Wanda banishes "Geraldine" (played by Rambeau), this is the dialog:
Vision: Where is Geraldine?
Wanda: Oh, she left honey. She had to rush home.
In the "Previously on WandaVision" at the start of Ep5, the dialog is different:
Vision: Where is Geraldine?
Wanda: She's gone. She didn't belong here.
A more decidedly... darker tone. Intentional? Was the Ep4 the "edited" version?
And this episode is dedicated to... Family Ties. I don't see any connection, other than to bring WandaVision into the 1980's.
In the first six minutes, the Twins magically age from infancy to about 5 years, every parents dream. Agnes is present, who doesn't seem to notice they've aged. The Family Ties style credits introduce them as "Tommy" and "Billy". In the comics, Wanda and Vision have twins. Their names are Tommy and Billy, otherwise known as Speed and Wiccan, members of The Young Avengers. Hmmmm.... Where could this possible go, lol...
Meanwhile, in the real world, Director Hayward is talking with his team, and declares Wanda a terrorist. She's taken an entire town hostage, and they have video of her breaking into a SWORD facility and stealing Vision's corpse.
Well, okay, he's got a point. But he's another Thaddeus Ross, and won't see the other side of the coin.
Meanwhile, back in WandaVision, the boys find a puppy. Vision says they shouldn't have a dog until the boys are 10, and they magically age from 5 to 10, in plain sight of Agnes, who again doesn't seem to notice.
A nitpick here. Rambeau shoots the clothing that she was wearing when she was ejected from the 70's, and find's it bulletproof, made of Kevlar because she was wearing a Kevlar vest when she was sucked into Westview. Sorry, a single layer of Kevlar that thin won't stop squat. The bullets should have passed right through. But it was fun to watch Darcy and Woo's reaction when Rambeau pulled Woo's gun. (And do you know how much paperwork that just cost Woo? He's FBI, after all...)
Rambeau, and team (Woo and Lewis) find out a way to get a drone into Westview. Unbeknown to Rambeau, the drone she's given has been armed, and once Wanda is in view, Director Hayward tells *his* team to take the shot.
Excuse me? SWORD is trying to kill Wanda with her kids present? Let me count the ways that this is a bad idea. Wanda confronts SWORD, and Team Rambeau is able to talk her down from killing anyone, and reenters Westview issuing only a warning. Leave me alone and I'll leave you alone. Hell, I'd listen...
Also gone wrong, Vision finds out Wanda is mind-controlling the people of Westview to perform parts in her sit-coms, and they're terrified of what she's doing. More than that, he can't remember his past. He knows something is very wrong.
And, as the episode ends the doorbell rings, and... It is her brother Pietro. I didn't see that coming. (<-- Haha, joke...) Wanda looks surprised to see him, quite possibly because he's the X-Men/Mutant version of Pietro.
Need to let that soak in for a while. The X-Men/Mutant version of Pietro...
So it only took two episodes to get me fully involved. Actually, Ep4 got me involved, but Ep5 is beginning to show how WandaVision is going to be the start of the post Iron Man/Captain America MCU.
(Start spoilers of all sorts, lol.)
How integrated will the Disney+ shows be? Feige has already said that WandaVision leads directly to Dr. Strange 2, and will supposedly lay the groundwork for all of the MCU that follows.
For instance, it's rumored that WandaVision is how Mutants get introduced, which makes it *the* game changer in the MCU.
It's unclear who SWORD is in the MCU. They don't seem to have a connection to SHIELD, though because of Hayward's attempt on Wanda's life, maybe this will change. We are also still short on information on what happened after the snap. Does SHIELD even still exist?
I like the chemistry between Woo and Darcy. Considering Darcy is becoming a extraneous character in the Thor franchise, it would be cool to see them team up again. I jokingly called them Team Rambeau, I wonder if that's more a reality by the time the series ends. Certainly Ant-Man can require help from SWORD (or vice-versa), right? I suppose we'll eventually find out how Team Pym is getting along with SWORD...
As for WandaVision.
Feige has stated that WandaVision feeds directly into Dr. Strange 2. Let's look at that.
Agnes was the only one of the cast who remained unidentified when matching townsfolk to roles in Westview. It's widely believed that Agnes is really Agatha Harkness, a witch with powers that rival Dr. Strange. She has been both ally and enemy of Scarlet Witch, and closely involved with Speed and Wiccan. Most recently, she trained Wanda on how to use her powers.
Also intertwined with the comic storyline of Harkness, Wanda, Vision and the kids, is a character named Mephisto. Mephisto is the arch-enemy of Ghost Rider, and has had conflicts with Dr. Strange, Spiderman, Dr. Doom among others.
My theory is Mephisto is the antagonist in Dr. Strange 2, and may actually be introduced in WandaVision. I do wonder if Strange will show up as well.
As for Harkness, I'm unsure at this point if she's an ally or enemy. That she seems to ignore Wanda's use of magic and the growth of the twins, suggests she's in Westview for a reason, and we have four episodes left to figure out what that is.
My greatest fear, is Wanda has met Palpatine, who has convinced her she can use the Force to resurrect Vision. Oh wait...
We are now midway through WandaVision. Since the last two eps kicked the series up into the MCU, I thought I'd post some random thoughts on it. (Actually, ever since the end of AoS and the untimely and unnatural death of my laptop, I haven't written anything substantial, so I should probably post something just to keep my writing skills intact. (Such as they are.) That, and after shoveling a couple of tons of snow around and none of my muscles want to move, lol. Now I'm having temps below zero. That's below zero in Fahrenheit...)
This isn't a specific review, but on overview of what we've seen and where I think the MCU will go. Otherwise may be known as running off at the keyboard. If this all seems a bit incoherent, it's because it probably is...
I will try to avoid spoilers until I tell you I'm going to spoil things. Then it's open game, and at that point if you don't want spoilers you should probably leave. To be honest, some of the off-the-hand things I'm going to talk about may be spoilers to you, depending on how... uninformed you want to be going into phase 4.
First, we should probably talk about Disney+.
The Mandalorian was the first big test, to see if fans would be attracted to content on the "small screen". (Well, HDTV isn't NTSC/PAL, and is hardly "small screen". Today the terms "big screen" and "small screen" seems to refer to production size rather than screen size.) Thanks to Favreau and Filoni (and Grogu, lol), The Mandalorian was not only a complete success, but revitalized a Star Wars market that many fans abandoned because of the sequels.
Along with the contribution of the isolationist tendencies due to COVID, and the push from Management to dominate the streaming market with Disney+, the success of The Mandalorian is the reason we're going to see 10 Star Wars series in the next couple of years. It almost seems like Kennedy wasn't going to fully commit Lucasfilm until she saw how The Mandalorian was received. I just hope the well from which all this source material is derived doesn't get diluted to the point of irrelevance. (Thank goodness I don't talk like that IRL, lol.) IOW, don't eff it up. (And to be blunt, I don't see the sequels as Disney's fault, as much as Kennedy's. And even if Kennedy is left in charge at Lucasfilm, Favreau/Filoni should be the ones in charge of the Star Wars universe, or at least approval of the content. I'll get off my soapbox now...)
And it makes sense. The Mandalorian cost a third of Last Jedi while providing 3 times the runtime, lowering the bar on profitability while keeping a viewer base even if the theaters are closed. Even if you include season 2, production/marketing costs are still under the cost of any of the sequel movies. And I'll bet by this time, more may have seen The Mandalorian and created more buzz than Star Wars 8 or 9.
On the flip side, Marvel initially announced several shows on Disney+, and now totals something like eleven different productions. I believe we'll see a new Marvel show on Disney+ every week for the rest of the year, and probably beyond.
More importantly, now that Feige is in complete creative control at Marvel Studios, the Marvel/Disney+ shows are all based in the MCU, and are integral and influential to the rest of the MCU. (Unlike, well, you know.)
Marvel's first entry into the streaming market was supposed to be The Falcon and Winder Solder, but like almost everything else in 2020, was delayed.
Instead Disney+'s second big entry (and the rookie for the MCU) into the streaming market, is WandaVision. Since Disney didn't delay it, and moved Falcon/Winter Solder after WandaVision, I wonder if there are some necessary events in WandaVision that need to happen now.
(Spoilers follow about the content of episodes 1 through 3.)
To be honest, I've been ambivalent and somewhat less than impressed with eps 1 through 3. I get what they were trying to achieve, but they took (and may be taking) far too long getting to the meat of the show. We still haven't seen the main antagonist. We still don't know the point of the series, other than establishing Wanda's reality.
A quick rundown of the first three episodes:
Ep1 (Title: Filmed Before a Live Studio Audience) has Wanda and Vision driving into New Rochelle...uh, Westview... and well, it's The Dick Van Dyke show. And it really looks and feels like The DVD show because the director got Dick Van Dyke to tell him how to make it look and feel like The DVD Show.
It establishes the main WandaVision cast, in B&W, which immediately made me think of AoS 7.4, lol. The only clue we're given that something external to Wanda's reality is happening is a few seconds at the end of the show.
Considering this is the first MCU content we've seen since Far From Home, they could have added a 5 or 10 minute segment to the start of Ep1 that establishes the series in the MCU, much the same way The Mandalorian established itself in the Star Wars Universe. It would have been nice, but I understand the show runners intent.
Ep2 (Title: Don't Touch That Dial) follows the trend by paying homage to Bewitched. I mean, it makes sense, she's a witch trying to live in a mortal world. Except she's married to an android, and a dead one at that. And yet, at the end of the episode, she's pregnant. (The last virgin birth in the movies I remember was Anakin Skywalker. That one didn't turn out too well.)
More cracks appear, like some color in a world that's supposed to be black and white, and a man in a hazmat suit appearing at the end of the episode.
Ep3 (Title: In Living Color) is the Brady Bunch, because, well, sisters. Twin sisters. Get it? Huh? Huh? I'm not sure I can find a connection beyond that. And during this episode, Wanda has twins. Every mother's dream, to have a pregnancy that only lasts 30 minutes without having to endure labor... (In the comics, Wanda and Vision have twins, Thomas (Speed) and William (Wiccan). You can probably guess where this is going to go...)
And the person who helps deliver the twins (Rambeau) is a person who knows her brother was killed by Ultron. Uh-oh... She's not supposed to know that. Watching Wanda turn from sit-com mom to angry, hateful witch was pretty frightening. She e-ticket rides Rambeau from her reality (through several walls), where she eventually gets dumped outside of town where SWORD has set up their command post.
One of my first observations: Wanda is in her early 20's and grew up in Sokovia. What would she know of 60's American Television? Did Hydra have the DVD sets or something? Did she watch a lot of MeTV during her time as an Avenger?
(Actually, my first observation is I hate laugh tracks. Ironic, since the title of the first ep is "Filmed Before a Live Studio Audience". Laugh-tracks may be time-period correct and I probably didn't think a thing about it when I was a kid, but now that I'm a crotchety old man, I just find them annoying...
)But yes, it's apparent over the first three eps that Wanda is indeed fabricating the reality. We still don't know why, although some logical guesses can be made. (Beyond the fact Wanda has PTSD.)
The townsfolk of Westview are clearly being mind-controlled into roles by Wanda. There are, however, two exceptions. The first is Vision, who is clearly confused at times at the unfolding events; and a character named Agnes, who is a much more important character than you might think...
(Okay, major spoilers follow about ep4 follow.)
This brings us to Ep4. (Title: We Interrupt This Program.) They made us wait 90 precious air-time minutes to get to the meat of what's happening outside of Westview. I do wonder how the show was structured when it was first announced WandaVision would be 6 one hour episodes, instead of 9 episodes. (The eps so far have been 30 minutes. But that could change, I'm not sure the run-times have been set...)
It starts with the blip. It focuses on Monica Rambeau, the daughter of Maria Rambeau, who created... Ready? S.W.O.R.D. The pair was last seen in Captain Marvel, where Monica was 11 years old. Monica is now in her late 20's (physical, not logical years, lol), and is an Agent of SWORD. After Monica... uh... blips back, she finds Maria died from a reoccurrence of her cancer three years ago. It also establishes those that got dusted have no idea they were gone. (I'm not sure if they established that fact in Far From Home.)
After the opening Marvel Studios sequence we are at SWORD headquarters, which now stands for "Sentient Weapon Observation Response Division", not "Sentient World Observation and Response Department". SWORD has shifted away from manned missions and refocused on robotics, nanotech and AI... and Sentient Weapons.
Monica is reporting back to SWORD after 3 weeks. This fixes the time frame. Three weeks (logical time) since Wanda lost Vision.
She finds SWORD's mission has changed after the Snap. They seem to be a pre-Avengers SHIELD, again developing weapons against enemies in a post-snap universe. She also finds she's restricted to terrestrial missions only, and Acting Director Tyler Hayward (who seems like a nice guy, but I think he's wearing a red shirt under that suit) sends her to help the FBI in Westview, New Jersey. While clearly aggravated she's grounded, she agrees to go. Cue montage of scenes going to Westview.
She arrives, and the FBI contact is... Jimmy Woo! (No, wait, it gets better...) He magically makes his business card appear in his hand, lol. I wonder if he got Scott to teach him the trick. Makes me wonder if Woo will be more an ally than an antagonist in the next Pym franchise film.
Seems he's looking for someone in the witness protection program who has disappeared.
Woo: I've contacted known associates, relatives...
Rambeau: And let me guess, none of them have seen him either?
Woo: No. None of them have ever heard of him.
And in a perfect Jimmy Woo scene, they interview two sheriffs, who insist Westview doesn't exist, even though they are standing in front of a giant sign that says, "Welcome to Westview", and the patches on their arm says "Westview Sheriff".
Rambeau sends a SWORD drone toward the town, and it vanishes. This is the same drone Wanda finds in the bushes in Ep2. Rambeau approaches the town, and finds a "field" that surrounds the town. (The field strangely looks like an analog television phosphor mask.) Woo wants nothing to do with it, but Rambeau touches it and gets sucked into Wanda's reality. I mean, literally disappears and gets sucked into Wanda's reality.
Well, that kicks the investigation up a notch.
The next day (well, the text on the screen says, "24 hours later", we see an armored truck. Inside are four occupants, one of which is... Darcy Lewis! (See, it got better, lol.) And Dennings plays Darcy the same way she plays it in Thor, quite the smartass. Actually, a smart smartass, so I see her behavior as... acceptable.
So in the first 11 minutes, we establish the series in the MCU using three characters from three other MCU movie franchises, not counting Wanda and Vision. (Well, Rambeau is over twice her age when she appeared in Captain Marvel, but still appeared as a character. That counts, right?
) Minor characters to be sure, but instantly recognizable, MCU characters.Further into the structure of Ep4:
At 17 minutes in, we see what essentially is the end of Episode 1.
At 22.5 minutes in, we see what essentially is the end of Episode 2.
At 26 minutes in, we see what essentially is the end of Episode 3.
And by the end of episode 4, we've been caught up with the events external to Westview in Eps 1-3. And by the time Ep4 is over, the sit-com humor of the first three shows is thrown out the window. I think the show is going to get progressively darker.
What spoilers in a spoiler review? Yeah...
<spoiler>Wanda could have been nicer expelling Rambeau, but at least she didn't kill or seriously injure her. And the dead Vision thing was not sit-com material, lol. It was actually a holy-spoon moment for me...</spoiler>
(Spoilers for Ep5 follows)
The structure of Ep5 (Title: On a Very Special Episode...) alternates between the events inside and outside of Westview, a better plot structure now that we've established some of the ground rules and both POV's (Wanda's and SWORD's) are synced.
Interestingly, at the end of episode 4, after Wanda banishes "Geraldine" (played by Rambeau), this is the dialog:
Vision: Where is Geraldine?
Wanda: Oh, she left honey. She had to rush home.
In the "Previously on WandaVision" at the start of Ep5, the dialog is different:
Vision: Where is Geraldine?
Wanda: She's gone. She didn't belong here.
A more decidedly... darker tone. Intentional? Was the Ep4 the "edited" version?
And this episode is dedicated to... Family Ties. I don't see any connection, other than to bring WandaVision into the 1980's.
In the first six minutes, the Twins magically age from infancy to about 5 years, every parents dream. Agnes is present, who doesn't seem to notice they've aged. The Family Ties style credits introduce them as "Tommy" and "Billy". In the comics, Wanda and Vision have twins. Their names are Tommy and Billy, otherwise known as Speed and Wiccan, members of The Young Avengers. Hmmmm.... Where could this possible go, lol...
Meanwhile, in the real world, Director Hayward is talking with his team, and declares Wanda a terrorist. She's taken an entire town hostage, and they have video of her breaking into a SWORD facility and stealing Vision's corpse.
Well, okay, he's got a point. But he's another Thaddeus Ross, and won't see the other side of the coin.
Meanwhile, back in WandaVision, the boys find a puppy. Vision says they shouldn't have a dog until the boys are 10, and they magically age from 5 to 10, in plain sight of Agnes, who again doesn't seem to notice.
A nitpick here. Rambeau shoots the clothing that she was wearing when she was ejected from the 70's, and find's it bulletproof, made of Kevlar because she was wearing a Kevlar vest when she was sucked into Westview. Sorry, a single layer of Kevlar that thin won't stop squat. The bullets should have passed right through. But it was fun to watch Darcy and Woo's reaction when Rambeau pulled Woo's gun. (And do you know how much paperwork that just cost Woo? He's FBI, after all...)
Rambeau, and team (Woo and Lewis) find out a way to get a drone into Westview. Unbeknown to Rambeau, the drone she's given has been armed, and once Wanda is in view, Director Hayward tells *his* team to take the shot.
Excuse me? SWORD is trying to kill Wanda with her kids present? Let me count the ways that this is a bad idea. Wanda confronts SWORD, and Team Rambeau is able to talk her down from killing anyone, and reenters Westview issuing only a warning. Leave me alone and I'll leave you alone. Hell, I'd listen...
Also gone wrong, Vision finds out Wanda is mind-controlling the people of Westview to perform parts in her sit-coms, and they're terrified of what she's doing. More than that, he can't remember his past. He knows something is very wrong.
And, as the episode ends the doorbell rings, and... It is her brother Pietro. I didn't see that coming. (<-- Haha, joke...) Wanda looks surprised to see him, quite possibly because he's the X-Men/Mutant version of Pietro.
Need to let that soak in for a while. The X-Men/Mutant version of Pietro...
So it only took two episodes to get me fully involved. Actually, Ep4 got me involved, but Ep5 is beginning to show how WandaVision is going to be the start of the post Iron Man/Captain America MCU.
(Start spoilers of all sorts, lol.)
How integrated will the Disney+ shows be? Feige has already said that WandaVision leads directly to Dr. Strange 2, and will supposedly lay the groundwork for all of the MCU that follows.
For instance, it's rumored that WandaVision is how Mutants get introduced, which makes it *the* game changer in the MCU.
It's unclear who SWORD is in the MCU. They don't seem to have a connection to SHIELD, though because of Hayward's attempt on Wanda's life, maybe this will change. We are also still short on information on what happened after the snap. Does SHIELD even still exist?
I like the chemistry between Woo and Darcy. Considering Darcy is becoming a extraneous character in the Thor franchise, it would be cool to see them team up again. I jokingly called them Team Rambeau, I wonder if that's more a reality by the time the series ends. Certainly Ant-Man can require help from SWORD (or vice-versa), right? I suppose we'll eventually find out how Team Pym is getting along with SWORD...
As for WandaVision.
Feige has stated that WandaVision feeds directly into Dr. Strange 2. Let's look at that.
Agnes was the only one of the cast who remained unidentified when matching townsfolk to roles in Westview. It's widely believed that Agnes is really Agatha Harkness, a witch with powers that rival Dr. Strange. She has been both ally and enemy of Scarlet Witch, and closely involved with Speed and Wiccan. Most recently, she trained Wanda on how to use her powers.
Also intertwined with the comic storyline of Harkness, Wanda, Vision and the kids, is a character named Mephisto. Mephisto is the arch-enemy of Ghost Rider, and has had conflicts with Dr. Strange, Spiderman, Dr. Doom among others.
My theory is Mephisto is the antagonist in Dr. Strange 2, and may actually be introduced in WandaVision. I do wonder if Strange will show up as well.
As for Harkness, I'm unsure at this point if she's an ally or enemy. That she seems to ignore Wanda's use of magic and the growth of the twins, suggests she's in Westview for a reason, and we have four episodes left to figure out what that is.
My greatest fear, is Wanda has met Palpatine, who has convinced her she can use the Force to resurrect Vision. Oh wait...
