WandaVision's power was always in its nostalgia
Warning: There are minor spoilers for WandaVison below. I strongly urge you to watch the series spoiler-free for maximum enjoyment!
On Friday, the final episode of WandaVision premiered on Disney+. I've kept pretty quiet about the show until now because it was hard to decide how I felt until I saw the pieces come together during the theoretical series finale. WandaVision gave us a glimpse of what the MCU's female characters could have looked like, if they were actually written by women. Wanda, a character who I can honestly say I didn't care about at all before this series, became someone I empathized with and rooted for. Elizabeth Olsen ate this part up. When it became clear the show was doing exactly what I hoped, centering its story on a woman processing her grief, I was all in. I found myself struck by how beautiful it was to see such a smartly-crafted story built around a woman's journey through her emotions and her ability to channel her supernatural powers. In the show's post-credits scene, it hints that we'll get to see Monica Rambeau (who was underutilized during the show) go on her own superhero journey in a future movie or series. Even more notable, all of this happened within the Marvel universe, where female superheroes have been relegated to the sidelines, until Captain Marvel's appearance in 2019. Jac Schaeffer, the series showrunner, also wrote the script for Black Widow, a late-in-the-game attempt to flesh out another under appreciated Avenger. WandaVision also stood out because the story was told through clever homages to TV sitcoms, hinting at (and then directly spelling out) the ways TV shows provide us a source of comfort and sense of escape. As you've probably gathered from this newsletter, I love watching TV. When I was a kid, I planned my schedule (as much as a kid can plan a schedule) around my favorite shows. As an adult, TV is both a mode to connect with people, through watch parties or conversations, and a method of comfort. When I'm anxious, when I moved to a new city, when a global pandemic started, TV, and more specifically re-runs of my comfort shows, helped settle me. WandaVision is an ode to all of that. Sure, the Marvel-ness of it all sometimes distracts from its central mission. When the finale began, I felt a sense of dread, as I realized it would likely feel like the last 30 minutes of a Marvel movie, with 10-15 minutes dedicated to fight sequences. But this show about grief and villainizing female emotions doesn't exist without the supernatural story at its core. WandaVision would have been better if it was released all at once -- or perhaps in two sets of installments -- to better fit the show's structure and avoid problems with fan theories running amok on the internet. But with WandaVision rooted in a sense of nostalgia, I did enjoy the buzz of Friday excitement around each new episode. Everyone eager to find what happens next on the same viewing scheduling. I watched most episodes at the same time every Friday, immediately after I finished working. It reminded me of sitting down as a kid to watch a new episode of television premiere, with no spoilers or preconceived notions about what I was about to see.
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If you finished WandaVision and want some deep dives, you can read more about the incomparable Kathryn Hahn, how Paul Bettany trolled fans, director Matt Shakman's approach to title sequence and the detailed sitcom nods featured in each episode.
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