A Look Back on WANDAVISION

SUMMARY:
In the aftermath of Avengers: Endgame, former Avengers WANDA MAXIMOFF (Elizabeth Olsen) and VISION (Paul Bettany) are living a quiet, idyllic life in the American suburban town of Westview, New Jersey. Between their nosy neighbor Agnes (Kathryn Hahn) and the pitfalls of relationships, this unusual couple certainly has their work cut out for them. Yet, there are some nagging questions that need answering: How did Wanda's powers get stronger? Why does her idyllic life look like sitcoms of past decades? And isn't Vision supposed to be dead?
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One of the benefits of re-watching the various entries of the MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE is hindsight, how past films or characters that were taken for granted or generally ignored could be examined with the benefit of what comes after or recently. That is most certainly the case for characters of Wanda Maximoff and the Vision. First properly introduced in Avengers: Age of Ultron in 2015, these two characters have always been in the periphery of the adapted heroes in the films. They definitely are important comics characters and have had important things happen to them that propel the plot of the films they star in, but they are still the backup dancers when compared to the heavy hitters like Captain America, Iron Man and Thor. And it's not like they got their own separate films either like Spider-Man or Black Panther; Wanda and Vision starred in only four of the 23 current MCU films, and all of them Avengers-dominated. While we did get hints of these two, we never were given a reason why we should care about them...until now.

WANDAVISON is the first of the Marvel Studios shows on the streaming service Disney+, as well as the beginning of Phase 4 of the MCU in the wake of Avengers: Endgame. Unintentional or not, I felt WANDAVISION needed to set a precedent for this new paradigm of fully supported Marvel Studios productions beyond films, especially during the state of the world of late 2020-early 2021. WANDAVISION needed to show that MCU television shows can work after the mixed results of the past, and get the audience to love two characters that had little reason for investment. And through a combination of excellent writing, unique presentation, and great acting, WANDAVISION succeeded with flying colors.

The first to be praised are the leads, and Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany were fantastic. As this is a story focused on them, and a television story of roughly six hours instead of a movie story of two-three, the actors and their characters are given so much more depth, nuance, personality and emotion than ever before. It's as if the four previous films they starred in gave only a taste of what they really were, and in fact thanks to WANDAVISION, this previous taste is now stronger with this movie and television continuity. By the time this show is over, you will have cared so much more for Wanda and Vision than ever, want these two to get their happy ending, and make you uncertain for the future that's in store for them. The insight and drama into the two characters is legitimate and well-handled in my opinion, and if you don't care for these two by the end, I don't know what else can be done to get you to like them.

Another of the cast that also deserves praise is Kathryn Hahn as the nosy, friendly neighbor Agnes. Without going too much into spoilers, I really liked the wide range she gave in her performance as being both friendly and unsettling as the show progressed, and will make you hope that she will come back again in the future. And it is great seeing Kat Dennings and Randall Park reprise their roles as Darcy Lewis and Agent Woo from the films, even allowing us to see their own character development. And though she still has yet to properly show her stuff, Teyonah Parris did pretty good as Monica Rambeau, giving us some good progression from the character's time in the Captain Marvel film and showing promise for future appearances in the MCU.

Second to be praised is the sitcom angle, as I feel it serves to be a great hook more so for the casual viewers instead of the fans. Oh sure the fans will really dig into this show for the characters and continuity, but for the casual viewers the sitcom stuff works well as practically everybody has seen at least one sitcom in their lives.  The angle of the episodes presenting a sitcom from many eras allows for tons of fun and creativity, as it homages shows like The Dick Van Dyke Show, Bewitched, Malcolm in the Middle, and Modern Family with pride. Thus each episode is influenced by the sitcom eras in a number of ways, whether it's Aspect ratio, the coloration of the show, musical style, writing, and even comedic sensibilities. Even the "commercials" that play during the episodes are of the different eras, and in my opinion are particularly inspired because of the humor and continuity nods on the surface, while deeper analysis of them reveals a more unsettling and dramatic mystery.

If I had to give any negatives against the show, it's the runtime and episode count. The runtime of the episode is roughly 30-40 minutes, which was fine for the early episodes. As the show moved forward and reached its ending though, I felt that maybe the length should've been extended to an hour to allow as much storytelling to be done as possible. This also extends to the episode length. Nine episodes is most certainly great and this could just be me, but why NINE? Why end one short of a perfect TEN? On top of that, ten episodes again would allow for much more to be accomplished.

But if episode count and length are my only nitpicks, that speaks volumes of the show's overall quality. WANDAVISION was outstanding and befitting many of the adjectives that Marvel uses on their comics: Amazing, fantastic, incredible, sensational, etc. It's a superb start to Phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and is highly recommended to any who have and will eventually have Disney+. It shows tons of promise for Marvel Studio's future projects in this format, and even divorced from all these Marvel elements it's still a well-written and well-made series.

THE CROWN Reviews: Season 4 WRAP-UP

 

SEASON 4 INDIVIDUAL REVIEWS:

Episode 1: GOLD STICK

Episode 2: THE BALMORAL TEST

Episode 3: FAIRYTALE

Episode 4: FAVOURITES

Episode 5: FAGAN

Episode 6: TERRA NULLIUS

Episode 7: THE HEREDITARY PRINCIPLE

Episode 8: 48:1

Episode 9: AVALANCHE

Episode 10: WAR

I’m pretty impressed at how THE CROWN continues to top itself as each season comes and goes. SEASON 4 so far is the best when it comes to its production, filming and acting. Though I initially had some reservations when we began with this new cast in Season 3, Season 4 completely won me over, and I am so bummed that they are done and we have to get used to a new cast all over again for Seasons 5 & 6. Olivia Colman (ELIZABETH) and Josh O’Connor (CHARLES) in particular did great, and that’s in part because of the newcomers they had to play off of.

Gillian Anderson (THATCHER) and Emma Corrin (DIANA) were exemplary, giving depth, weight and dimension to these two famous/controversial British figures. Regardless of how one feels about them historically, I feel to not give credit to these performances greatly diminishes Season 4. Corrin’s Diana is most definitely a highlight, as we are given a new interpretation of the her we could only have imagined behind the scenes and pomp & circumstance. I’m again bummed that Corrin is only in this season, as the role of Diana will also be passed to another for the remainder of the show.

Diana’s strength & presence however is a double-edged sword, and leads to my only criticism of the season: the writing.  Whatever feelings & leanings creator Peter Morgan has on the Royal Family, I appreciated how a sense of objectivity was maintained throughout the show since it started. If there was any conflict with two parties on issues, the show frames itself to understand both and ultimately leave it to the viewer who to decide with or be in the middle. That objectivity was steadily lost by the end of the season to the point of siding with Diana against the Royal Family, and I wonder if that could be because of the media martyrdom of her built up since 1997. 

Despite that, I still greatly enjoyed this season. My highlights are THE BALMORAL TEST, FAIRYTALE, THE HEREDITARY PRINCIPLE, and 48:1.

THE CROWN Reviews: Season 4, Episode 10: WAR

WAR, huh. What is this episode is good for? Absolutely...something. I’m extremely split on this finale to the 4th season, and it boils down to the two new players of PM THATCHER and PRINCESS DIANA.

I really liked the Thatcher story, it ending on a rather high note as the Iron Lady’s era ends, we see her at her lowest emotional moment, and she has her final audience with the ELIZABETH. It was a very effective exit and makes me think about future PM stories in the next two seasons. I also do wonder about its overall accuracy, as I understand that Thatcher is a controversial, usually-vilified figure. Regardless, I really enjoyed this as a closure to Thatcher.

Less enjoyable is Diana’s story. I do not doubt that the massive discomfort of her, CHARLES and CAMILLA PARKER-BOWLES could be accurate to history, but Diana being such a major focus while the royals are reviled/seen in a negative light breaks one of my earlier praises of this show. To me, The Crown is at its best challenging its audience to be objective on the subject of the royal family and its events, how to see both sides in the matters and arguments in the episodes. Lately though it seems as if the show is telling, borderline shouting at its audience to side with Diana.

This unfortunately overshadows the moments in the episode I do like, such as the NYC trip and PHILIP’S talk with Diana at the end, a very powerful & effective bookend to this season and era of the show as we bid farewell to this cast. In the end for me, this is a well produced, acted episode & finale that is undermined by its writing. I do like its strong half, but overall am highly critical of it for its other half.

THE CROWN Reviews: Season 4, Episode 9: AVALANCHE

 

Penultimate episodes of each season of The Crown tend to be some of the more emotional/dramatic ones as they feature two opposing characters in relation to one key issue:

Season 1 had Elizabeth VS Philip on their damaged marriage.
Season 2 had Philip VS Charles on self-esteem.
Season 3 had The Royal Family VS Charles on his love life.

The story and characters are framed in a way that you can be objective and see both sides & viewpoint. The same however can’t be said for Season 4’s penultimate, AVALANCHE, as we see CHARLES VS DIANA on their own damaged marriage. Regardless of how it frames a suffering Charles after a brush with death & using it as justification to end the marriage and be with CAMILLA PARKER-BOWLES, everything about this episode makes you side & sympathize with Diana. The writing, the acting, the soundtrack, it’s all done to show that Diana did her damnedest to keep the marriage going to no avail.

I’ve always praised the show for its good balance of character investment VS bias & objectivity, how the show can challenge you to think or consider on these real life figures despite how things played out in history. But when you see Diana give this grand gestures of love, be the first to speak to ELIZABETH & PHILIP when confronted, deliberately sever ties to her secret lovers, and be a good mother to WILLIAM & HARRY, you can’t help but pity her when all this is not reciprocated. You can’t blame her for falling back into temptation after all that. Charles on the other hand does absolutely nothing to gain audience sympathy, to the point that I just don’t care anymore when he rants to ANNE about a lack of kindness in the great family of Windsor.

But with all that said, this doesn’t make it a bad episode. There’s a lot more to say on the subject but I’ll save that for my Season 4 wrap-up. Objectively there’s nothing outright wrong with this one, but subjectively I don’t see myself eagerly re-watching it like most of the episodes. I’ll split the difference and put this one as middle of the road.

THE CROWN Reviews: Season 4, Episode 8: 48:1

 

When watching 48:1, it really felt like I was watching a multi-level political thriller, what with the next battle of wills between QUEEN ELIZABETH & PM THATCHER, the UK’s role in the Commonwealth of Nations, the growing Apartheid in South Africa, and the crucial role a lower-decks Buckingham Palace employee would play in this. All in all I really enjoyed this story on multiple levels.

On the political and worldwide level, it was interesting to see the UK’s role in the international stage given what the UK used to be as an empire, and serves as a reminder of how the show started from post WW2. On the leadership level, it’s again both entertaining and fascinating to see the Queen and PM at odds again, as their both strong characters of presence handled well by Olivia Colman and Gillian Anderson respectively.

Going further down, we reach my only nitpick of the episode as we follow Michael Shea, palace press secretary. His story and role was good, but it was hard for me to get invested given his both his importance and lack of prior tales. We even get to see the royal siblings get some time as we get our first real scene of CHARLES, ANNE, ANDREW & EDWARD together reacting to political events. Probably my favorite scene in the episode, given how Charles is during this moment.

Add some other good scenes via excellent editing & camera work, plus a very strong prologue that has the surprise return of a previous actor, and this is one I’m definitely going to enjoy rewatching in the future.