WandaVision

[Raguel]

I find myself again at odds with just about everyone on the internet. Didn't really like the finale.

I'm fine with all the stuff with Agatha (more than fine with it tbh), but I think my suspicions about Hayward was vindicated by this episode. Everything I hate about this series can be tied to this character and Marvel's need to make someone other than Wanda the bad guy. The scene with Jimmy and the phone was just pants on head stupid IMO. The show would have been much stronger if a character like Hayward didn't even exist in the show.



So basically I like the end credits stuff and some of the beginning, but the stuff in between I had problems with.

[Riggswolfe]

I had the opposite reaction. I found the finale deeply moving even more so than Endgame

[MahrinSkel]

I had the opposite reaction. I found the finale deeply moving even more so than Endgame

I can see being unhappy about how Wanda was allowed to just walk away, but come on: At this point, who is going to stop her?


--Dave

[eldaec]

Despite how good this has been, I didn't expect a final episode that strong.

That was a better ending than any MCU film or series. MCU has always had a problem with final acts degenerating into meaningless punching and this didn't.

I don't think the exchange with Monica at the end acknowledged the what she'd done well enough, but better that than a kop out making it all someone else's fault.

And for anyone daft enough to be reading this before watching, there are two credits scenes to wait for.

What they did with the kids in particular really surprised me.

Also I can't help thinking that second scene makes a second season into a racing certainty. Neither rescuing the the kids nor whatever happens with white vision seem appropriate to resolve in someone else's movie.

[Threash]

Yeah, overall this was incredibly good, probably the best thing Marvel has done. If it has a flaw it's that it doesn't really acknowledge how fucked up what Wanda did was, specially after having Agatha actually show her what she was doing to those people.

[eldaec]

One simple thing they could have done is put the log cabin scene in before the credits.

I think they were going for 'I fucked up, I can't live in a normal town like I want, so I'm exiling myself to figure this shit out'. But I think putting that scene after the credits makes it feel like 'this story is over, here is the teaser for the next story' instead of 'here are the consequences of my fuck up'.

[schild]

those of you asking for a kat dennings tv show (someone mentioned x-files)

ok but did you know she's truly terrible and can't carry a show

[Velorath]

Overall I thought the show was decent but not great writing elevated by Olsen and Bettany's performances which were fantastic. Bettany can make dialogue that would sound heavy-handed coming out of anyone else's mouth sound like some universal truth. If the guy ever ended up starting a religion I would probably buy into it entirely.

The sitcom stuff was fun and well done, and Wanda had a good arc as a character, I'm just not crazy about some of the additions to her backstory and her powers. Even in the comics I'm not a huge fan of all the magic stuff that's part of Wanda's character. Comics can sometimes have a habit of layering origins on characters, particularly when they're having trouble finding a take on a character that works, and it usually has the effect of just making things more complicated. In the comics we go from a fairly easily explainable origin of Wanda and Pietro being mutants, to them being Magneto's children, and then to the elder god Chthon infusing her with some of his essence when she was born and her and Pietro aren't Magneto's kid, and there's some stuff in there with the High Evolutionary, and her father was the Scarlet Warlock and none of it makes for a good or interesting story.

We're going down that road a bit here, and I know it's comics and we already have stuff like the Sorcerer Supreme, but I'm just never going to take "the Scarlet Witch" seriously as a thing someone is born as rather than just a code name Wanda goes by.

[Threash]

[01101010]

those of you asking for a kat dennings tv show (someone mentioned x-files)

ok but did you know she's truly terrible and can't carry a show

Agreed. She is good in support, but not in a main roll unless it is some slapstick type stuff like her other show.

[Khaldun]

I agree that they're going to have to really really watch out for the major danger of serial storytelling in a franchise, which is that over time characters accumulate way too many layers of "but wait! actually the REAL deal with this character is that they're an ancient ninja from Mongolia whose soul has ended up in a transgendered midget math genius". Chris Claremont was kind of the original sinner on this over at X-Men, but it's also a consequence of comic books needing to constantly prevent characters from getting old while also constantly making them seem like they're changing. So maybe the MCU is going to avoid this because a) they have fewer installments--there aren't 30 titles coming out 12 times a year and b) they're letting the characters get older, change and die. So with Claremont's model, you get a character like Danielle Moonstar who begins by being a Native American who has to fight a bear spirit, becomes an actual Valkyrie who is supposed to ferry the spirits of the dead to Valhalla on her flying horse, is begged by a Native American deity to come back to them instead, becomes a SHIELD agent, gets more psychic powers, becomes a teacher for mutants who also teaches Native American history, loses her powers, regains her powers, becomes an awesomely skilled marksman with guns, becomes a Valkyrie again, and after that point the complexity of the character's evolution just loses me completely.

Wanda is another like that. They really have got to avoid this. It's ok to have one or two twists in a character's evolution, especially if they haven't had a movie of their own, but they have to put a cap on it.

[Raguel]

I can see being unhappy about how Wanda was allowed to just walk away, but come on: At this point, who is going to stop her?

She can stop herself, which is the point.

[eldaec]

I agree that they're going to have to really really watch out for the major danger of serial storytelling in a franchise, which is that over time characters accumulate way too many layers of "but wait! actually the REAL deal with this character is that they're an ancient ninja from Mongolia whose soul has ended up in a transgendered midget math genius". Chris Claremont was kind of the original sinner on this over at X-Men, but it's also a consequence of comic books needing to constantly prevent characters from getting old while also constantly making them seem like they're changing. So maybe the MCU is going to avoid this because a) they have fewer installments--there aren't 30 titles coming out 12 times a year and b) they're letting the characters get older, change and die. So with Claremont's model, you get a character like Danielle Moonstar who begins by being a Native American who has to fight a bear spirit, becomes an actual Valkyrie who is supposed to ferry the spirits of the dead to Valhalla on her flying horse, is begged by a Native American deity to come back to them instead, becomes a SHIELD agent, gets more psychic powers, becomes a teacher for mutants who also teaches Native American history, loses her powers, regains her powers, becomes an awesomely skilled marksman with guns, becomes a Valkyrie again, and after that point the complexity of the character's evolution just loses me completely.

Wanda is another like that. They really have got to avoid this. It's ok to have one or two twists in a character's evolution, especially if they haven't had a movie of their own, but they have to put a cap on it.

I don't think it matters how many twists you have, but what does matter is that the story doesn't become about all that lore cruft.

The MCU has done a good job of avoiding it.

[Khaldun]

I'm just proud that my perfect record of inaccurate lore-nerd predictions about possible twists remains intact. Very nearly batting .000!

[MahrinSkel]

I just noticed what the closing shot reminds me of:


--Dave

[Threash]

I just noticed what the closing shot reminds me of:


--Dave

It was exactly that, it even had his theme song.

[Draegan]

I really liked this. It's a great prolonged to the next MCU phase. Happy it didn't get into big bads and big reveals. The scale was just right.

[Raguel]

I forgot to mention one of my favorite bits: there's a scene in the Vis v. Vis fight that's eerily similar to Supes vs. Zod in MoS. I thought it was kind of hilarious, given how both fights ended very differently.

[Riggswolfe]

I just noticed what the closing shot reminds me of:


--Dave

It was exactly that, it even had his theme song.

I think his theme song was there to hit us over the head with "This will be continued in Doctor Strange 2".

Also, I read up on the Darkhold and it says it corrupts those who use it. I guess it's basically Marvel's answer to the Necronomicon which considering it's from a god named Cthon is a bit of a "duh" thing. Anyway, that'd explain why MCU Agatha is so different from comics Agatha. It also leads me to think Wanda may be the antagonist of Doctor Strange 2.

[HaemishM]

The Darkhold was actually used in Agents of SHIELD which I realize will probably have no bearing on this whatsoever but there you go.

I thought this was goddamn brilliant. Yes, I know it's comics and I'm a nerd so I'm scoring it on a curve but still. So I was wrong about Dormammu and I still don't think Agatha gets to be a complete villain from here as she clearly is going to be in Westview for when Wanda needs to ask questions about magic. I dug just about everything in this episode, though I do agree that Jimmy Woo getting the phone was kind of silly. It's comics, so I'll allow it. I also think this show needs some credit for not really shying away from things. Wanda's a villain in the eyes of the people of Westview and nothing she ever says can undo that. She didn't get to have a happy ending with Vision and her kids, and had to make the hard choice to let them go.

With this level of quality, I'm really looking forward to Falcon/Winter Soldier.

[Surlyboi]

The Darkhold was also in The Runaways.

[Raguel]

Trolling twitter and apparently people didn't know about the ship of Theseus. I would have thought that the paradox was better known but I guess I've been living in an echo chamber.

[Teleku]

I'll admit that despite my higher education and endless internet debate bs for the last 20 years, I'd never actually heard of The Ship of Theseus till this.  Kind of awkward, because googling, feels like I really should have.

[Khaldun]

Hey, comic books were a great way to learn about shit like this when I was a kid. Next they need to do Zeno's Paradox in the Hawkeye show.

In the comics, the Darkhold is definitely and invariably bad news. Among other things, it's what was used to create vampires tens of thousands of years ago.

Is Runaways or SHIELD MCU-continuity now? Has Feige said anything about that? I've been kind of assuming that they're just going to quietly forget everything that happened in both shows. They used the visual design of the book from the other shows, so...

[HaemishM]

Feige really hasn't much acknowledged the Runaways or Agents of SHIELD past Winter Soldier. The last season of SHIELD though could open up all sorts of possibilities for putting it in an alternate timeline than the MCU one.

Also, the Darkhold has been known to have an effect on the person using it, similar to a demonic possession, or at the very least a demonic seduction.

[Velorath]

The short-lived Darkhold comic in the 90s had a fairly good premise although the execution lacked at times (partly because it was launched as part of the Ghost Rider/Midnight Suns family of books).

[MahrinSkel]

I'll admit that despite my higher education and endless internet debate bs for the last 20 years, I'd never actually heard of The Ship of Theseus till this.  Kind of awkward, because googling, feels like I really should have.

I've heard of it as the Paradox of Grandpa's Axe: My grandfather only ever owned one axe, he replaced the handle 5 times and the head twice. But he was very specific it was always the same axe.

--Dave

[Riggswolfe]

I'll admit that despite my higher education and endless internet debate bs for the last 20 years, I'd never actually heard of The Ship of Theseus till this.  Kind of awkward, because googling, feels like I really should have.

I've heard of it as the Paradox of Grandpa's Axe: My grandfather only ever owned one axe, he replaced the handle 5 times and the head twice. But he was very specific it was always the same axe.

--Dave

I don't think it's that unusual not to have heard of this philosophical discussion. I have a college degree and even took a philosophy and logic class but if I ever learned of it, I forgot it until years later. I only knew about it before the show because of a nerdy Star Trek debate I once had. Basically the old Dr. McCoy "do you commit murder the first time you use a transporter on someone?" thing became a topic of debate at my gaming table one night when we were waiting on food or something.4

[eldaec]

Script was properly written. The bit about the ship relied on you either not having heard of it or at least recognising it was obscure, to reinforce that Vision is smart, susceptible to logic, and that the white one is definitely Vision.

[NowhereMan]

I... don't know that it relied on you never having heard of it? Maybe you meant it assumed most of  the audience wouldn't know it? I did a philosophy BA and MA so it's pretty bread and butter but yeah, it would have been a pretty awful move to use the Ship of Theseus as a shorthand without explaining the problem directly in the dialogue. It was definitely an appropriate way of ending it that did some good character reinforcement. I was actually afraid it was going to result in a logic trap where WandaVision caused Vision to self-destruct since he was the 'real' Vision that he had been tasked to destroy. I think that would have sucked, doubly so in the context of what actually happened.

I'll admit to being a little disappointed with the Agatha plotline simply because her motivation really wasn't clear. I don't think her actions really went full on villain, considering that the only beings she threatened (that we saw in the modern day) weren't actually real. She wasn't going out of her way to endanger people and what she did would seem to line up with either getting power for power's sake or taking Wanda's power to try and prevent some greater evil happening due to ignorance. So she could be outright comic book Evil but she could equally be an arrogant and selfish person who at least has an admirable goal.

+1 that this seems like it's setting Wanda up as, if not an antagonist for Strange 2 then at least a plot driver with Strange competing against someone else for 'control' of Wanda. Although I'm curious to see how they handle all this plot and character development for her in the movie without assuming people have seen WandaVision. Basically I think they'll have to add something in so do they just have a 1 liner explaining the situation or will we get a set piece of some kind with Strange investigating legends of a special magic user that might be endagering the world? They'll have a fine line to tread between not confusing people who haven't seen the series and not boring people who have.

[Khaldun]

Yes, I also was afraid for a second that this was going to be a Captain-Kirk-destroys-computer-with-illogic thing. SO GLAD they did not do that: any sapient being that can be convinced to annihilate itself just by changing its linguistic-cognitive understanding of its instructions is not sapient (it's not even a good program!)

I'm ok with Agatha. It's Hayward whose motivations are either unbelievably boringly comic-book pop-culture standard or are underexplained/odd. If there's any organization in the MCU that should be hyper-alert to being infilitrated/subverted by people who have their own agenda, it's SHIELD/SWORD. Just the whole "I'm not letting 3bn in vibranium go to waste, I want a synthetic being whose former comrades and lover think is dead reanimated in a recognizable form but under my command!" is like wait what? at this point in the MCU. What did Hayward think was the plan from that point onward? What was he going to use "his" Vision to accomplish? Just why has he shifted SWORD away from aliens to robots and AI generally considering that the threat from aliens must be a 100 urgent global priority in the MCU after the Snap? Why is he being given that kind of latitude?

Maybe the post-credit #1 is an indication that Hayward will be explained further in Secret Invasion (e.g., he's an evil Skrull). But otherwise the character is either a lame cliche or a dangling plot thread.

[NowhereMan]

I could also buy he has some awareness of Skrull plots and sees Vision as a weapon humanity might be able to wield outside of the Avengers framework to combat interstellar threats. But yeah, as things stand he was a fizzle of a threat that they seemed to be teasing by having him goad and set up Wanda. I mean, him doing that didn't seem to make any sense with the context we were given beforehand so it almost felt like the writers had been planning for something like him working with Agatha to set Wanda off but decided to drop that without really fixing the set up with Vision's body.

I'm not expecting any fleshing out of the character though, I think Hayward has played his role unless they're going to retread the Hydra plotline with Skrulls in SWORD or something.

[eldaec]

I... don't know that it relied on you never having heard of it? Maybe you meant it assumed most of  the audience wouldn't know it? I did a philosophy BA and MA so it's pretty bread and butter

Like I said, it relied you either not having heard about or recognising it was obscure.

Because if it were neither of those things it would tell you nothing about white vision.

[eldaec]

As for hayward, he just seemed like a typical antagonistic senior officer to me.

[Riggswolfe]

I... don't know that it relied on you never having heard of it? Maybe you meant it assumed most of  the audience wouldn't know it? I did a philosophy BA and MA so it's pretty bread and butter

Like I said, it relied you either not having heard about or recognising it was obscure.

Because if it were neither of those things it would tell you nothing about white vision.

This doesn't make sense. Your average viewer probably just went "oh, they're talking philosophy. Oh, they're both Vision! I get it!"

It wasn't intended to prove how smart either Vision was or anything like that. It was just a non-CGI fight resolution that fit with Vision's prior characterization.

As for hayward, he just seemed like a typical antagonistic senior officer to me.

The dude shot at children. That puts him a bit above "typical" antagonist. He didn't even have a compelling reason to do it at that moment. It wasn't intended to threaten Wanda or Vision. The kids were just standing there. He just flat out went pure sociopathic villain.