I'm saying ours instead of yours so that it doesn't sound like I'm pointing a finger, but in reality, I don't really mean me, or necessarily you, if either you haven't really watched the show or weren't among the many fans who came up with some pretty bad theories and are now wallowing in disappointment that quite a bit of it didn't happen.
Yeah, I got too far into the weeds reading about the speculation surrounding WandaVision, and yeah, everyone's a critic and no one's allowed to enjoy anything.
Whatever.
Episode 9, the series finale for WandaVision became available for streaming today. That means all this rampant and wild speculation can be put to bed until the next show comes along. Regardless, I know this. I'm going to just walk away from all the hearsay or boohooing because this happened or this didn't.
Why did I bother in the first place with all that stuff? I don't know. I haven't been this wrapped up in a television show ever. I knew better. Won't happen again.
I guess I should include a spoiler alert here, in case anyone really wants to wait to watch the episodes first before reading this. As has been my habit, I'm diving straight in, too.
Now that it's over, let me tell you what WandaVision was, and then talk about what we now know and still don't know.
First And Foremost, This Was About Wanda
Even Vision, as it turns out, was a bystander, really. So, all the possible cameos, villains, where the shows might be leading to or opening the door for—extraneous.
And with the season finale—and thus every episode leading up to it—we got Wanda. Not an aerospace engineer, not Luke Skywalker level cameo from the MCU (whatever the heck that was ever going to be), and Acting SWORD Director Tyler Hayward wasn't a supervillain or a Skrull.
And I for one am happy about this.
Now, I can't blame people for jumping on some things. They got trolled by the actors and director of WandaVision pretty hard. But you know what, good for them. Two can play at this game, and they should.
Secondly, The MCU Is It's Own Thing
I said early that I didn't want this to turn into House of M, and aside from morphing a small New Jersey town into Wanda's version of sitcom idyll, we didn't get it.
Nor did we get Master Pandemonium, Mephisto, Nightmare, or any other major villain. And while I believe there must be other beings out there that must have detected what Wanda did as much if not more as Agatha Harkness, those folks didn't show up.
Not even Doctor Strange, even though it would have made sense for him to at least touch bases. Unless he's already seen where this is all going and he's okay with it.
Which leads me to conclude that we will find out why he didn't show up when his own movie Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness finally arrives on the big screen. Other than seeing the future and condoning it, he could have also been busy (maybe he was keeping said power hungry interdimensional beings at bay). Even if things turn out in the end, that doesn't mean there won't be a whole lot of destruction or heartache, though. So, let's go with busy.
With all that said, Marvel Studios and by extension the MCU is carving its own path through the source material. Being someone who is pretty familiar with a lot of it (no, not all of it), I believe they've been doing a much better job with all of their properties than Fox ever did with the X-Men and certainly with Fantastic Four. I think their version of Spider-Man has been much better than Sony's two attempts, even though I liked the first two movies with Tobey Maguire.
While they've updated and changed some things, I believe, by and large, they've kept pretty true to the characters, though I'm still wondering where Thor is supposed to be going. I might have to see if he's ever been self-loathing or self-doubting in the comics. Sure, it's kind of humorous, but it's not like we don't already have plenty of that in the MCU already. Not everyone has to be comedic relief.
What We Now Know
We now know the answers to all of the questions Agent James Woo wrote up on the whiteboard.
Q. Why hexagonal shape?
A. Referring to the Darcy Lewis-dubbed Hex, or magical manifestation that transformed a pretty decrepit Westview into what may have once been its glory days, it was that shape because it was a hex. I don't think there's much of any answer than that (certainly not officially from the show itself), and in reality, it's a fairly minor point.
Q. Why sitcoms?
A. Wanda was obsessed with them, from her childhood days in wartorn Eastern Europe with her family, at least through the aftermath of Avengers: Age of Ultron. The fact that there were more recent sitcoms in the mix tends to tell me she was watching the newer ones as well.
This is much more of a major point from the standpoint of Wanda's grief and it bringing her comfort in the form of denial and escapism (literally), more than anything practical. Since the hex was accidental, born from her grief on a very base, deep level, it wasn't something she intentionally did.
Q. Same time and space?
A. Yes, probably. That question wasn't really addressed. If reality is warped, is it still in the surrounding reality? That I don't know. Maybe more will be made of it in Dr. Strange if they decide to get into the nuts and bolts of what actually happened.
In the finale, Episode 9, Westview was actually entered directly, and not through a hex wall, by SWORD commandos, so I'm going to say same time and space until someone in a Marvel Studios show or movie says otherwise.
Q. Is Vision Alive?
A. Well, inside the hex, yes. Outside the hex, not really. Since his existence, along with the twins', was wrapped up in that of the hex, there was nowhere else for them to go. However, it seemed pretty clear that thanks to the residue of Mind Stone residing in Wanda, she was able to create a living thing. That's basically how she describes him at the end of the Episode 9.
Now, that obviously means he didn't have total autonomy, though he did manifest quite a bit of it. At any rate, Wanda's version, as far as we know, is gone. Even if his consciousness does eventually come back somehow, perhaps in a modified White Vision, since that one is now running around loose somewhere.
What Else We Know
The book in Agatha's Basement lair? Darkhold.
Was that really Quicksilver? Nope. Trolled again. Though, I really liked the Agatha controlled and made for sitcom version than any other Quicksilver (movie, TV or comic book, to tell you the truth) to date. I find that to be sad, because we're probably not ever going to get Uncle P (aka Fietro) back.
Aside for really wanting to sell Wanda's grief (a move they didn't have to make in the comics as far as I've read), killing off Quicksilver so soon seems like a waste. He could have gone missing (or, maybe he's not actually gone but his own twist on super speed healing kicked in and he's been taken and hidden somewhere). Anyway, while I'm very much okay with the fact that WandaVision did not end up being the gateway for all things mutant, I wish this version of Quicksilver could show up now and then.
Major Goodner isn't a Skrull, (at least not yet), but obviously there was a Skrull sent to fetch Monica Rambeau for the tie in to Captain Marvel 2.
That aerospace engineer? A distraction, just like, to a lesser degree, Woo's missing person. As a writer, I don't think I would have just thrown those two things out there without reason, but these Marvel Studios folks know they are dealing with hyper fan theorists, who manage to take even the smallest thing and make it something impossibly important, so, again, can't blame them for the misdirection, even if the former was a plot device for a space vehicle (something Reed Richards would have been ashamed to be associated with, given its total and abject failure), while the latter was a plot device to bring Woo from Oakland to Westview.
Regardless, I'm glad Woo showed up. I wasn't that impressed with the character in Ant-Man and the Wasp, but this follow up did him justice, I think.
Darcy doesn't like debriefs. In the last episode, she had one line and about three seconds of airtime (after being totally left behind in Episode 7 and nowhere to be found in Episode 8).
Again, this is another character I'm glad showed up. While still a fairly minor character in the MCU, it was good to see her being able to problem solve rather than being all comedy relief.
Who Ralph is, the husband Agnes was always mentioning. Ralph was Agatha's Quicksilver, and it was his house she was inhabiting this whole time. I was leaning towards him not being real, but Marvel Studios made him a full blown Westview resident caught in the middle, albeit manipulated a little more, just like everyone else there.
Now, in my mind, if they wanted to be super tidy, he could have been their missing person. And it would have been nice to know why he was in the witness protection program, too.
Yes, I can let go.
What We Still Don't Know
Is there an actual aerospace engineer? I think I'll let that one go, too. I don't need to be trolled.
What happened to the White Vision? My guess is, he took off to contemplate his next move. Since Bettany hopes to retain his employment at Marvel, I think it's safe to say White Vision will be reappearing at some point, since he is now the only one still standing. In the West Coast Avengers, it caused some major distress and fireworks between him and Scarlet Witch, so I'm hoping the MCU might not want to scuttle that potentiality out of hand.
What did any of this have to do with the multiverse?
The short answer is nothing. No rifts, no people wandering in from elsewhere or elsewhen. No mutants. Zero, zip, zilch, nada.
Spider-Man: No Way Home is supposed to be a multiverse saga, even though things still seem to be up in the air as to who may or may not be appearing in it. Regardless of whether or not this is another Marvel Studios act of trolling, what is apparent is, a multiverse didn't spring forth from WandaVision. At least not in any tangible way I saw.
Were their nods? Okay. Were there hints? Yeah. Were there lots of Easter Eggs for the hardcore fans who couldn't just be satisfied with the storytelling itself? Fortunately for them, yes there was. Were there feints and misdirection? Plenty of that.
So, no multiverse. The only thing that makes me hesitate is the line Agatha throws at Wanda at the end, after she's told she's going to be playing the nosy neighbor for real. She tells Wanda she doesn't know what she's done and that she's going to need someone to help her. We don't know what she's done, exactly, by taking on the mantle of the Scarlet Witch, though I'm going to guess that it has more to do with those aforementioned beings wanting to take her power like Agatha did.
The true fate of the twins. Because Wanda's Vision disintegrated at the end of Episode 9, the assumption was, so too the children. However, in the final end credit scene we hear their voices calling for her again, and in a split second, it appears like she vanishes to find them (there's not much to go on but a red burst of chaos magic before we're back to the credits).
The fact that both Billy and Tommy get retconned in the comics as young adults supposedly completely disassociated from Wanda doesn't mean that the MCU has to do the same thing. Early speculation is, that's where we get the multiverse. Since she's going to be in the next Doctor Strange movie, maybe her meddling with the reality streams in search of her boys is what finally draws the good doctor's attention.
There Is A Potential Moral Dilemma Brewing Though
Will the MCU pick it up?
Maybe.
What is it?
I'm hoping it's obvious.
At the end of Episode 9, Wanda now Scarlet Witch, flies off into the sunset after saying goodbye to Monica and making sure they're all good. Monica doesn't try to stop her. No one does, and for what it's worth, no one present could have.
However, she did just hold a town of nearly 4,000 people hostage for an untold period of time, even if it was accidental, thanks to her overwhelming sense of loss and grief.
While, on the other hand, Hayward was at least arrested for his unsavory role in the whole affair. Lying about Wanda's actions won't get him put in a jail cell, and frankly, I think he can justify sending in a re-weaponized Vision even if it was shortsighted to think that he would remain under SWORD control for very long.
Of course, that might be in violation of the Sokovia Accords.
At one point, Monica says Hayward's going to nuke the place. That didn't happen. We find out that White Vision's objective is to take out Wanda and her Vision. While not White Vision's doing, Wanda's Vision is gone, which leaves Wanda herself.
As much as this could be about grief, and I think it is, bumped up to what happens when you have Chaos Magic powers of the Scarlet Witch, it's also a morality play. Why does Hayward's ethics get called into question for doing what he thinks is right (okay shooting at Billy and Tommy and sending in an armed drone back in Episode 5 when who knows what kind of collateral damage could have occurred is absolutely overboard), but Wanda gets the equivalent of a do over?
Simply because no one can stop her?
We Had An Entire Movie Devoted To This
Isn't this the same kind of thing that got her in trouble in the first place? Why the Sokovia Accords actually exist? I thought it was more than a little disingenuous for others to say that the Avengers were cavalier and didn't care about what damage they caused or who died when in every case they were going up against threats that:
a) no one else was going to effectively handle the threat, which meant more death or eventual slavery
b) if it weren't for those threats, there would not have been destruction of biblical proportions
It was them being blamed for what Vision was talking about in Captain America: Civil War—causality. Because the heroes exist, some malevolence will arise to fight against them. The argument could actually be flipped, but the idea of escalation in any event is undeniable. If your foe is more powerful, you have to come up with a greater soldier, weapon or ally to defeat them.
I don't know. To say that superheroes are at fault or don't care rings hollow.
This Just Feels Different
However, if Scarlet Witch can just say, Oops, sorry, I deserve a mulligan on this one because all of what life has put me through, then there's a lot of excusing of a lot of bad things that could be done in the world.
In my way of thinking, the greater the power, the greater the responsibility. And Wanda running off to her hideaway somewhere in the middle of nowhere to teach herself magic doesn't, right now, smack of accountability or responsibility.
It makes the MCU's Zemo's indefatigable quest to rid the world of super humans a little more understandable.
Speaking Of Which
Zemo is apparently the main antagonist in the next Marvel Studios TV show, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which will start streaming in two weeks (March 19) on Disney+.
I don't plan to miss it.
However, I can't say that I have the same level of intrigue with it as I did with WandaVision. Other than how Zemo escaped (a pretty small mystery considering that supervillains always escape somehow), it doesn't have the same aura of what the heck is happening as WandaVision did with the sitcoms. In fact, the trailers make it look like straight up Marvel action fare, with some kind of buddy relationship therapy thrown in.
Sigh.
As I said, I'm going to watch it anyway. As I did with WandaVision (and I think it worked out well for me), I'll give the next show the benefit of the doubt and see where it takes us.
Until such time...
...Enjoy!
All images source—Media kit on Disney.com