I don’t understand it. How are people working for Marvel so brilliant, they made me care about Wanda and Vision? How did this happen? Maybe it’s because they gave them characters and made them actually interesting, unlike the movies they appeared in…? Yeah, that’s probably it. But let’s start from the beginning…
When I first heard about this show, I thought to myself “hard pass” and moved on. Because as I said prior, I didn’t really care about those two characters and now, they will star in their own TV show, that will somehow be a sitcom…? Just nothing about this made sense, which is exactly what those Marvel bastards wanted you to think. And I stuck to my guns, didn’t watch the show until people were talking about how good it actually is and how there is more to it, it’s a mystery kind of show, how they actually work on them as characters… So I broke and caught up on the first 6 episodes, as those were the only ones out by the time I broke. And after those, I was fully on board with WandaVision. And after the finale, I can only say those crazy bastards did it again. They yet again took fairly uninteresting characters we kind of knew, gave them proper backstories, heart and brain and thanks to that, you can’t help by care about both Wanda and Vision.
Let me just preface this – I will try really hard to say as much as I can without going into some serious spoilers, as that was one of the things that also put me over the edge of watching WandaVision – every Friday/Saturday after brand new episode, things were popping out on my Twitter timeline, full of spoilers. Even though I don’t follow people who’d spoil stuff, sometimes you just see enough context clues or a name trending on Twitter and say “hey, why is X trending” so you’d click on it and found out that they either appeared on this show, or will appear, or are rumoured to appear here. And it got to the point where it’s not just day or two, these spoilers became regular thing on Twitter, so the only “real” solution is not to go there at all. Anyway, back to this review.
Yes, first 2 episodes you will be thinking “what does this mean?” but if you stick with this show, I can promise you, everything will be explained. I mean, everything when comes to WandaVision. That is my only “quarrel” with this show – it’s Marvel after all. So they can’t just make one contained show, give us all the answers. They need to tease us with more things! So even though this feels contained more or less, I would be lying if I said I didn’t have any questions once the show ended. But mostly I am just amazed how they managed to pull this one off. How I didn’t really care about either of those main characters and now, I need to know more about them, mainly what will happen to them from here on.
I need to talk about a few people here. First of all, it’s been great to see Kat Dennings again and the fact she is Dr. now, brings me joy. She needs to be in more things, as she’s not only pleasant to look at (after all, I am but a weak man) but I love her sense of humour. I really hope Teyonah Parris will become more important moving on beyond this TV show (and from what happens to her, I would presume so?) as she was also great. It’s been awesome to see that Kathryn Hahn is finally getting the recognition she deserves, as she’s spectacular in this show. But it’s mainly about Paul Bettany and Elizabeth Olsen. And I think the main reason this show works so well, is they understand their characters and how they function, not only in this show, but in their relationship, so it’s reflected heavily in the entirety of WandaVision. What am I talking about? The fact Vision is the brain and Wanda is the heart and soul of this show and their relationship. If you have already seen this, think about it and you will see I am right. Vision has plenty of amazing lines (the one that will stick with you is 100% “What is grief, if not love persevering”) and Paul Bettany delivers those lines really, beautifully. Which is strange, as he’s technically a robot and in his delivery, you can tell it’s kind of robotic, but in the best way possible…? It’s hard to describe, but what he did with this role, is definitely top notch. But even that can’t compare with what Elizabeth is doing with Wanda’s character. She goes above and beyond and she deserves some recognition. Most emotional things on this show “fall” on her and her character, and she delivers. But not only with this, everything else, even the early comedic episodes, they are both brilliant in them.
What I really appreciated is WandaVision kind of brought back the hype surrounding a TV show, by releasing it one episode/week, it managed to build up more and more hype around it and managed to give us something that almost everybody watched. And that isn’t a small achievement, as we live in age of “content” (sorry, Martin Scorsese, I hate that word too) where there are so many movies, TV shows, YouTube videos available to us at all times, everybody is watching something else, or everybody is watching the same thing on Netflix for a day or two and then the hype dies down. Since Game of Thrones (2011 – 2019) ended, I can’t remember a show that would achieve what WandaVision achieved. Even The Mandalorian (2019 -, my reviews can be found here for the first season and here for the second season) and that was a great show, didn’t feel like it managed to hype up as many people on weekly basis, where fans would talk about the possible plot points, trying to predict what will happen the next episode… I guess with WandaVision it might have been slightly easier to do, since it is technically a mystery show…? Who knows why, but Marvel struck gold yet again.
Overall, if you liked most things Marvel has done in the past decade and then some, I don’t think you will disappointed with this show. Make sure you stick around, as everything becomes much clearer later on, but again, don’t count on having every question answered, as it’s Marvel and you know they will probably answer some questions in one of their 45 839 upcoming movies. 😉 And if you think “I don’t know whether I want to watch it, as I don’t really care about Vision or Wanda”, I understand you, as I was the same as you. But I think you will care, if you give this show a chance, Paul Bettany and Elizabeth Olsen make sure nobody underestimates their characters ever again. Can’t wait to see more of them… well, hoping to see more of them.
That’s all for this one! Did you see it? What did you think about it? Let me know!
Until next time,
Luke
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