Well folks, it’s finally here. The first Disney+ Marvel Cinematic Universe Event Series has arrived, only 28 months after then Disney CEO Bob Iger announced the plan to bring the majesty of the MCU to the small screen on Disney’s nascent streaming service.
WandaVision, staring Elizabeth Olsen (Ingrid Goes West) and Paul Bettany (Solo: A Star Wars Story) as their respective MCU characters, Wanda Maximoff (aka the Scarlet Witch) and Vision, has been promised to be a delightfully genre-bending tour through the history of American TV sitcoms focusing on one of the most notably doomed lovebirds in the MCU. After the special two-episode premiere this week, one is left to wonder whether Marvel Studio’s head Kevin Feige’s big gamble on series creator Jac Schaeffer (Black Widow) and director Matt Shankman (Game of Thrones) will pay off.
We should, of course, start at the beginning. Wanda and Vision are not the most name-brand of the characters in Marvel’s roster, so you may be wondering why they, of all “people,” are getting the privilege of launching Marvel’s first truly “connected” television series. According to comments Feige has made in the press over the last two years, that their status as pivotal supporting players in films such as Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: Civil War, and Avengers: Infinity War is exactly what drew Marvel Studios to select them as a mission statement of sorts for one of their earliest Disney+ entries. While Marvel’s films are the place where the largest stars and biggest spectacles will continue to thrive, Disney+ offers Marvel with a unique opportunity to shine a light on some of their tremendously talented supporting performers and flesh out their own characters and stories. They also intend to launch new characters who will, in turn, play supporting roles in future Marvel Studios films. Can these two actually carry such an ambitiously off-center project on their own, however?
When last we saw Wanda, she was at Tony Stark’s (Robert Downey, Jr, Zodiac) funeral at the end of Avengers: Endgame, mourning the loss of not just Iron Man but also her Avengers mentor Natasha (Scarlett Johansson, Under the Skin) and her great love Vision. Vision, of course, died at Wanda’s hand, a sacrifice they both thought would help save the world, only for him to be immediately reconstituted and killed again by Thanos. Having already lost her brother Pietro (Aaron Taylor Johnson, Tenet) during the events of Age of Ultron and her parents when she was only a child, it is no surprise that Wanda might need a break from this super heroic life of her’s in order to process her grief and adjust to the world again. It may be a bit of a shock to viewers of WandaVision that she appears to be taking that break in a black and white, 1950s-esque American sitcom in the style of The Dick Van Dyke Show.
How Wanda ended up in this world, married to an apparently alive Vision, still in control of her telekinetic and vaguely unspecified other magical powers (if only to get through the wacky hijinks of a midcentury family sitcom plot), and surrounded by a town full of supporting players is a mystery that will likely unwind slowly over the course of this nine episode limited series. For most of these first two episodes however, this mystery is pushed aside so we can have the pleasure of indulging in studied homages to classic sitcoms, and what a pleasure it is.
Fans who most know Olsen and Bettany for their dramatic work will be delighted to see them jump through the wacky hoops of hosting Viz’s boss for dinner in Episode 1 and, in the 1960s-esque Bewitched send up in Episode 2, performing a “magic act” without actually exposing their true magical powers. In both comedic set pieces, the couple shine as performers who feel perfectly at home in the heightened sitcom setting and who still seem to adore one another.
Our titular couple are not alone in this sitcom purgatory. Excellent character actors such as Fred Melamed (A Serious Man) and Debroah Jo Rupp (That 70’s Show) are prominently featured in Episode 1 as Viz’s boss Mr. Hart and Mr. Hart’s wife, Mrs. Hart. It is no surprise to see Rupp feel right at home in a sitcom space given her years working in the format, and she is, as always, a pro here, selling the silly jokes one might expect to find in such a comedic farce. Meanwhile, Melamed is well cast as Viz’s comedically domineering employer. Episode 2 introduces other familiar faces such as Teyonah Parris’s (Dear White People) Geraldine and Emma Caufield Ford’s (Buffy The Vampire Slayer) Dottie, two fellow housewives in the town of Westview that Wanda & Viz have apparently decided to call home, though they can’t exactly remember why they moved their or where they moved from or…much of anything beyond their love for each other for that matter.
One supporting performer stood above all the rest in these first two episodes, however. Kathryn Hahn (I Love Dick) is a performer with a tremendous amount of range. Not only can she do comedy and drama, she can play cartoonish sitcom characters (Parks & Rec), broad and baughty comedy film leads (Bad Moms), quietly interior supporting love interests in messy dramedies (Transparent), comedic supervillains (Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse), and award caliber dramatic leads (Private Life). It turns out, she was also born to play a scene stealing neighbor in a black and white sitcom, because she is pitch perfect here as Wanda’s trusted confident Agnes. As great as this entire ensemble has been over two episodes, no one is better at slipping into this world and its timing and delivery than Hahn. It will be very interesting to see how her character, who may or may not be more than she appears, develops from here.
Speaking of things that may or may not be more than what they appear, viewers may be wondering after two episodes of well-honed sitcom nostalgia why exactly their favorite super-powered redhead is experiencing any of this in the first place. Episode 1 hardly gives any indication at all that something may be afoot, but by the end of Episode 2, the strangeness is certainly starting to invade the corners of the screen. A colored helicopter, a drop of red blood, and an apparent message from “outside” over the radio all let us know that something is not quite right. Emma Caufield Ford’s Dottie, drives this point home to Wanda, during a brief moment where she appears to break from the prefab reality of the sitcom world to let Wanda know she’s heard things about her and her husband. Wanda assures her she means no harm, to which Dottie earlier replies “I don’t believe you” before panic rushes into her voice and she asks “Who are you?” Later, as Wanda and Viz excitedly celebrate her sudden state of pregnancy, a beekeeper with the logo of Marvel Comics’ governmental agency SWORD on his back pops out of a manhole. This triggers Wanda to declare, “No,” rewinding time, and reaffirms her “happy” ending as her and Viz enter technicolor.
If David Lynch’s Twin Peaks was an interrogation of the twisted underbelly of Americana by way of prime time soap operas, WandaVision appears to be grasping at something similar through its tour of TV sitcom history. It is hard not to think of Lynch’s masterwork as we try to unwind the symbolism and mysteries of these first two episodes, but those are also quite big shoes for Schaeffer and co. to be attempting to fill with this latest MCU entry. Whether they can pull it off while still satisfying superhero fans feels like an open question two episodes in, but I for one cannot wait to watch them try to walk that tightrope for another week. Check back here next week for my continued weekly coverage of WandaVision!
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