Wandavision review

To say Wanda Maximoff’s notoriety in the funny books has been a legacy of super-cringey, massive event comics would be an understatement. And it also makes it a challenge to adapt major Wanda-centric plotlines in a way that fits seamlessly into Marvel Cinematic Universe continuity and doesn’t upset the House of M(ouse)’s sensibilities.

So when the time came to draft Wandavision, almost all the material they had to draw from couldn’t be adapted straight-up. So they ended up making a stew with different ideas and themes from the various “Wanda goes crazy and endangers/alters the world” storylines that came out like clockwork in the comics. And then they dialed down the stakes to allow the focus of the show to be a personal arc for Wanda, set in an altered community rather than an altered universe.

(She still does monstrous things, but to much fewer people and with the writers being a lot more compassionate to her). There’s more fridge horror to be had here than I expected would be tolerated, and I do hope it provides a payoff later on rather than just plain shock. It would be nice for the whole experience to be more constructive than the comics repeatedly doing Wanda dirty just because they can.

Wandavision covers a new sitcom aesthetic every episode, including a new in-universe opening credits, and crushes it out of the park every time. Set design, camera movement, lighting, plots, dialog, it’s all extremely on-point. Apparently, having Dick Van Dyke himself dropping by to consult was worth every penny.

We get on-point performances up and down the cast, too. But the style of each classic television decade needed to be aped as perfectly as possible because every crack and imperfection is supposed to be deliberate and meaningful. And while the series starts just sprinkling those crumbs, it doesn’t take long for the cracks to blow wide open. It’s only a 9-episode series after all.

Wandavision‘s gimmick is certainly a wonderful stroll down memory lane for the Nick at Nite or MEtv veterans out there. But for anybody less familiar with the development of sitcoms over the decades, more than one episode amounts to a half-hour joke that you don’t get. As such, I would not begrudge anybody who hit the wall sometime during the first two or three episodes.

That being said, even if you don’t end up enjoying the story, Wandavision still has value as a unique experience. There’s nothing quite like it in television, and it’ll only take 5 hours out of your day to binge. …though the series was very clearly paced to give you something to talk about each week while you waited for the next episode. I certainly wish I had an old-fashioned work watercooler meetup after the 5th episode.

For those of you who have wanted the MCU to be a little more clear on Wanda’s powers (as well as flesh out her backstory), you’ll get what you’ve been looking for. Those who want the MCU to be more clear about Vision’s powers, however, will go home empty-handed. Sorry.

There are a few ideas that are played with, but left unresolved. There’s a missing person of some significance that leads to the discovery of Wanda’s new reality who is never identified. The show also implies that Wanda’s inexperienced use of magic nudged events in such a way to ensure the creation of the Sokovia Accords (as made famous by Captain America: Civil War).

As one of the foundational blocks of the MCU’s phase 4, Wandavision also has the duty to set up or at least allude to the upcoming projects. While the most direct link is Elizebath Olsen’s casting in Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, it also reintroduces supporting characters Agent Woo ahead of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and apparently never-snapped now full-fledged astrophysicist Darcy Lewis ahead of Thor: Love and Thunder.

Wandavision also provides us with the origin story for the superheroic version of Monica Rambeau, whose code name has yet to be determined, but was hinted to be Photon, her mother’s Air Force call sign seen in Captain Marvel. As the character in the comics was one of the Captains Marvel and lead The Avengers, it’s probably safe to assume Teyonah Parris is going to have a hand in a lot of upcoming MCU projects.