Thanks to the pandemic essentially confining my life to what I can see on my television, I've had a fairly boring blog over the past year. A stronger person than myself would likely have used this as an opportunity to just stop blogging altogether and find a better use for that time... but I think we all know I'm not that strong. The evidence is staring you in the face.

I think this is why I'm alternately fascinated then disappointed with the latest thing to come from Marvel Studios and Disney+: WandaVision. On one hand it's nice to have something new after a full year of rewatching the existing Marvel movies... and the potential for cool things happening is huge with this show. On the other hand, they are really dragging things out... and not in a good way. Wanda's ability (and desire) to rewrite reality is a frighteningly timely concept in these COVID times but it's just not moving fast enough for me. And since there's only three episodes left, I'm beginning to wonder just how good the resolution can be.

After last week's bombshell finale, I thought that this week would finally get us the promise we've been shoveled about the television shows being filled with epic events just like the movies are...

Alas... not so much.

While there's certainly some very cool nods to the comic book source material (seriously, it's been a comic fanboy's dream!), once again not much is happening in the actual show.

But that leads us into spoiler territory, so I'm putting that discussion in an extended entry. Hopefully it all makes sense, because I'm writing this at 1:00am...

Needless to say, WandaVision and Marvel comic book spoilers abound...

   
So we're now into the 90's and 00'a which is a full-on Malcolm in the Middle parody.

As I said, most of the stuff that this episode had to offer was in the form of callbacks to the comic books. For example, let's start with a repeat of the image I posted above. It shows Wanda and The Vision in their comic book costumes as Halloween costumes...

So, yeah, that's a fun Easter egg for comic book fans, but what does it offer the actual show? Nothing. Somebody unfamiliar with the comic books are likely bored because all the things which make this essentially interesting are way over their heads. Like her brother Pietro being in his comic book Quicksilver costume...

Of course there's still the matter of Pietro being played by 20th Century Fox X-Men's Evan Peters instead of the Marvel Studios Avenger's Aaron Taylor-Johnson (who died). Is this real or an illusion? If he's actually alive and remembering his life before he was killed, does that mean he's being pulled from across the multiverse and merged with the Pietro Wanda knows? Or is Wanda manipulating a corpse that she's transformed into a different look?

(bonus points if you caught the phrase "kick-ass!" being uttered, which is Aaron Taylor-Johnson's OTHER super-hero franchise!)

Where things start to get interesting for me... while still blowing right past viewers who haven't read the comics... is when WandaVision started exploring Wanda and Vision's kids Billy and Tommy. They are, more or less, Wanda's reincarnated sons from the comics where they are known by their codenames Wiccan and Speed (inheriting modified versions of their mother and uncle's powers respectively)...

The story of Wanda and The Vision's kids in the comics is a long and very complicated story. How much of it will apply to their respective characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe characters is unknown. Assuming they're even around by the end of WandaVision, which isn't a given.

It's not until the frickin' half-way mark that stuff relevant to the actual show starts to happen.

From all appearances, everything is Wanda's doing. But she doesn't really know why it's happening or how she's doing it. This is made (more) clear with the presence of Pietro which, like her sons, she's not in control of...

It's particularly interesting that Pietro brings up the morality of it all... and also addresses the missing children of Westview and why they have all suddenly appeared, as well as Wanda and Pietro's vanishing accents.

Meanwhile... the further Vision gets away from Wanda, the more her reality bubble starts to fall apart. People are trapped in their Wanda-dictated roles while barely functioning. And their original real-world personalities are breaking back through, as Vision notices when he sees a tear fall from one of the trapped citizens of Westview...

Things only get worse when he runs into Agnes who is halted at the edge of town acting confused. Once he wakes her up, she thinks that she's dead because Vision is dead.

Meanwhile... back in the real world... Jimmy Woo, Monica Rambeau, and are told to leave because SWORD is in control of everything. A few interesting things come up...

• SWORD is not tracking Wanda... they're tracking Vision. Why tho? Possibly because the can only detect vibranium through the reality bubble, but it feels like there's a lot more to it.
• Monica is still intent on getting back into the hex bubble reality to try and save Wanda, and plans to do so with the help of an astrophysicist she knows. But who is it though? Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four? Somebody else?
• Darcy informs Monica that going back into the bubble for a third time may be a terrible idea because the first two times she crossed the threshold her cells were rewritten. But rewritten how? Is this how she will get her powers to become Photon?

Meanwhile... Vision tries to escape Westview despite being ripped apart because he's constantly being sucked back into it...

Fortunately, Wiccan, errr... Billy... uses his telepathy powers to "hear" what's going on and warns his mother. This causes her to expand her bubble to consume even more of The Real World (along with Vision)... after she blasts Pietro for telling her not to worry because her dead husband can't die twice.

The way WandaVision has distinguished the time periods of Wanda's bubble from reality is by the screen ratio. It started as SD television, then jumped to HD. But our reality is cinema 4K widescreen. And as Wanda expands the bubble, it becomes reality which is an interesting take on what's happening...

Then, once absorbed, it's all Wanda's reality again as we switch from cinema 4K widescreen back to 90's HD...

So... to recap what actually happened this episode: Vision confirms that he's trapped in Wanda's reality bubble and he's likely dead, then tries to escape Westview or die trying until Wanda expands her hex bubble reality to absorb him back in. The End.

And, oh yeah, we got another commercial. This time for Yo-Magic Yogurt. Previous commercials have recapped tragic events in Wanda's life. This latest commercial does the same, showing how she was left alone and starving for love that had been denied her after the death of her boyfriend and her brother. I suppose that it's also a metaphor for her having been "snapped to ashes" by Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War...

It's like I keep saying... Wanda's story is tragic enough. If she doesn't get some resolution out of this series which at least puts her at peace with her life, I'm going to be a bit disappointed. But it's looking more and more as if she's being set up to become a villain for the MCU Phase 4 movies. Whether she's being manipulated or this is temporary is anybody's guess.

Soooo... all in all this was a weak episode that was mostly comic book fan service filler and precious little substance. Hopefully now that the time period of Wanda's hex bubble is catching up to reality, things will finally start happening. With only three episodes left, you would sure hope so.