The cracks begin to widen in Wanda and Vison's sitcom world.
Last time on WandaVision, the
Maximoffs had a comedic misunderstanding over a heart shaped symbol on their
calendar. She thought it was for their anniversary, he found out it was for
dinner with his boss, Mr. Hart and his wife. Over the course of the day, it’s
clear that there’s something hinky going on, with neither Maximoff remembering details
of their lives pre-Westview, New Jersey, and other details of their lives not
really making sense. They decide to ignore it, though, with Wanda magicing up
some wedding bands for them before the credits roll, and we see someone is
watching this show somewhere else. Spooky. Enough recap, let’s get to it.
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| So, do you think Vision actually sleeps, or does he just sit quietly until morning to humor Wanda? |
After a Bewitched style animated
opening, (What? I watched Nick at Nite growing up.), we’re shown that the
Maximoffs are prepping to perform a magic act at the local talent show. Huh.
Wanda misses her initial cue but then rolls out the cabinet of mystery. They do
the trick, with Wanda “disappearing” into the box. She comes back out and
Vision wonders if the neighbors might see through their charade, but Wanda
laughs it off. Oh, Wanda, you fool.
Color? In a black and white world? The insanity!
The two Maximoffs head out to their
community duties, Vision going to a meeting of the neighborhood watch and Wanda
to a planning committee meeting for the talent show. As they go, Wanda hears
another bumping noise. She looks down and sees a bizarre thing in this world of
black and white, a splash of color. Said color is on a toy helicopter, the red
and gold copter has a logo of a sword on it… oh my… More on that later. Wanda
is distracted by Agnes whom had brought over her pet rabbit for her and Viz’s
act. They end up going to the committee meeting together, with Agnes warning
that the planning committee run by Dottie is a super big deal for housewives.
Wanda asks if maybe she should just be herself, but Agnes laughs at that. The
committee meets by the pool and discuss topics, with Wanda copying Dottie’s
motions exactly. The group has got a creepy, Stepford wives vibe as they
discuss inane topics. Wanda gets distracted chatting with another lady, whom
introduces herself as Geraldine (clearly made up on the spot B T Dubs). She
asks how anyone is doing this sober before being snapped at by Dottie and
forced to pay attention.
Meanwhile, Vision goes to the
library where the neighborhood watch meeting is. Everyone is clearly
uncomfortable with his arrival, but Norm is also there and he vouches for him.
After sitting down, the watch is clearly a men’s gossip group more than
anything. He ingratiates himself with the group by jokingly claiming Norm is a
communist. Haha, the 60s. One of the other guys offers Viz a bit of gum, which
he tries. I mean, it’s not really food, right? He gets slapped on the back, accidentally
swallowing the gum and it literally gums up his works.
Not exactly ruby slippers, but just as vibrant.
Back at Dottie’s, Wanda is helping
Dottie clean up. They get confrontational, with Dottie clearly feeling threatened
by Wanda, whom doesn’t mean any harm. As they argue, the nearby radio starts
picking up someone asking “Wanda, Wanda, who is doing this to you?” This seems
to cause Dottie to ask who is that and then looks at Wanda and asks who she is.
Wanda shorts out the radio and the glass in Dottie’s hand shatters, cutting her
hand, and her bleeding vivid red blood. Wanda gets a cloth to stop the
bleeding. Dottie blinks and asks Wanda how a housewife get’s a bloodstain out
of white linen? By doing it herself, and walks off. Yeah, that’s really weird.
We get another commercial, this one
advertising a line of watches, the Strucker. It has the HYDRA logo and makes me
uncomfortable.
At the talent show, Wanda is in
costume and freaking out that Vision isn’t there yet. He does wander over at
the last minute. He’s stumbling, uncoordinated and showing all the signs of
being drunk but no one seems to want to say it… Wanda tries to explain the
weirdness she’s seen today, but he’s too loopy to understand. They get the call
that their act is up. In his basically drunken state, Vision decides to go off
script and show off some of his powers, Wanda quickly altering things to give
people plausible explanations to his tricks. He flies, she creates a pulley
system to look like it’s holding him up, he lifts a piano, she turns it into a
cardboard cutout, he passes his hat through his body, Wanda adds mirrors… okay,
I don’t get how that one would work as a plausible solution, but whatever.
Vision does the trick with the cabinet of mysteries without Wanda in it, so she
magics Geraldine into it. Geraldine is clearly confused by being teleported
without her knowledge or consent, but rolls with it. The three take a bow, and Wanda
leads her husband backstage.
Love how Viz and Wanda look about as confused
as Geraldine.
Realizing that something in Vision
is probably messing him up, she magics the gum out of his system. He immediately
sobers up and realizes that them *might* be in trouble if people realize what
happened. They try to slip away before the crowd starts crying for their blood…
and motor oil, I guess, for ruining the show. Dottie sees them, though, and
calls them over. They’re given an award for Comedy Performance of the Year and
given a standing ovation. As they make a bow, Geraldine has to ask how the hell
that happened, but Wanda and Vision distract her with that “A Magician never reveals
their secret” bit. The crowd keeps saying “For the Children,” which is just as
creepy as it sounds.
Now in full technicolor!
They return home and start doing
the wrap up on the couch. When they mention that they did all this “for the
children” Wanda realizes that she’s noticeably pregnant. Oh my. There’s another
bumping noise and they go out to investigate. Really not sure how any noise could
distract me from the subject of my wife being noticeably, suddenly pregnant
when I am in fact a machine and logically incapable of reproduction, but there
ya go. They don’t see anything outside, but then a manhole cover moves. A man
in a beekeeper suit comes out, surrounded by bees. The suit also has a Sword as
its logo. Wanda says “no,” and rewinds back to when they realized she was pregnant.
They kiss, and color gets added to their show. As the credits roll, we hear
that message again “Wanda, who is doing this to you, Wanda?” Spooky.
This was a step up from last time.
The cracks in the sitcom that is the lives of the Maximoffs are growing more noticeable.
The things like the helicopter, the message, the blood, and the bee keeper at
the end are all spooky and indicative that something very wrong is happening
there. The color being added to a black and white medium was a really simple
and effective way to show these things don’t belong here. You know why the
sword logo is important? There are several agencies within the Marvel universe that
handle different specialized fields. The Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement
and Logistics Division is one that handles things planet side. And the Sentient
Weapon Observation and Response Division, or SWORD, is another and their purview
is typically space threats. The W in the comics is “Worlds,” and they handle
guys like Ego or Skrull/Kree invasions. This version’s change of W will be made
clear. The point is that the Sword logo on the copter and bee keeper suggest that
something is really wrong here. Oh, and there’s the obvious one of someone
sending her a distress call. That’s a kind of a big deal. And this is all without
mentioning Geraldine, a woman that roll with everything just like the rest of
the citizens of Westview but also very obviously made up her name on the spot.
Super weird. When I first saw that Wanda was pregnant at the end of the episode, I was shocked. Sort of. Wanda and Vision do canonically have children due to Wanda’s magic powers, a
pair of twins named Tommy and Billy whom have identical powers to Pietro and
Wanda respectively, but I sure as hell wasn’t expecting them to be brought in
so… abruptly. It’ll be interesting to see where the show goes with Wanda’s
pregnancy. I say, being on episode 7 and thus know where they’re going with.
Such is life. Have a good night everybody.
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Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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