WandaVision

WandaVision. The show we didn’t know we needed. I had no idea what to expect when the trailer debuted. For once, a trailer played it close to the vest rather than give away the whole kit and caboodle. Bold move, Cotton. And damn, did it work out.

The latest episode is a departure from the first three episodes and sure to whip the Negative Nellies into a heated fervor. I am going to take the opposite side in that debate. We take a break from the decade skipping sitcom, but it stays in line with the show’s cat and mouse relationship with the audience.

“We Interrupt This Program” has managed to find a new way to break the fourth wall. The show has spent time winking at us coyly here and there. In this episode, though, the audience is pulled into the action specifically through Agent Jimmy Woo and Dr. Darcy Lewis’s characters. I’m thinking of that scene with Darcy munching on a bag of chips and exclaiming, “What? I’m invested.” Let’s face it. We are. We just are. Munch. Munch. Munch.

Maybe I should say, the comparison extends out to the entire S.W.O.R.D team. A whole bunch of people gathered around dissecting the town of WestView, and its inhabitants figure out what’s going on and who’s involved. That doesn’t sound like the buzz on the Internet or anything.

This acknowledgment of the audience does take us away from the elegantly constructed charm and nostalgia of the previous episodes. As a slight side note, who didn’t feel like they were in their childhood living room on those days when you were somewhere in between a raging fever or invented malady?

I know they were shooting for mirroring the Dick Van Dyke Show, but I got more of a Bewitched vibe. Anyone else? Not sure if that is because of the magic or because I never watched the Dick Van Dyke Show.

Anyway, this pause is necessary. You know what they say about too much of a good thing. We needed some answers. Not that we got many. In fact, I might have more questions now than I did before I watched the episode.

This is such a great show.

I know everyone went gaga over Lost and how it kept the audience guessing. I didn’t share the sentiment and never made it out of the first season because it lost me. WandaVision is successfully walking the line between enigma and solvable mystery while also maintaining the entertainment factor we expect from the MCU.

We’re getting to watch Wanda and Vision’s happy ending play out, despite Infinity War and Endgame ripping that possibility from us, quite literally. And all the while, that little voice in the back of our heads is saying, something’s not right. This isn’t right.

It sucks. But we know that’s true. So who’s pulling strings to make this possible?

There have been references to Hydra in the commercial breaks. And, let’s face facts, they are the usual suspect in the MCU. But that just seems too likely. Too overt.

Especially since we have a lot of evidence piling up pointing directly to the Scarlet Witch herself. Not Wanda. The Scarlet Witch.

I can’t help but look at what we’ve seen and think we’re watching a sitcom predicated on a mental split. One with Wanda’s id in firm control and taking the form of the Scarlet Witch, as seen at the end of episode four.

As I cannot see how he could be anything else, Vision is a construct created to complete Wanda’s idyllic world. His presence gives her exactly what she wants. Not that she can really have it. I also have a sneaking feeling he’s the part of Wanda’s brain that can call bullshit on her reality.

But is this a show about a superhero’s mental break down?

That’d be really disappointing. And almost undoubtedly unlikely, seeing as there are other people involved. See the character board from the latest episode. This probably leads us right back to Hydra or at least Strucker. But he’s supposed to be dead. Or is he? He looked pretty dead in Age of Ultron.

More and more questions.

Needless to say, I’m fully committed to this rabbit hole of nerdy goodness they have us falling down.