WandaVision delivers most unexpectedly. It’s truly a fantastic beginning for the very first Disney Plus MCU series!
After a whole year without any new Marvel Cinematic Universe content, the drought is finally over as we’re entering Phase 4 with WandaVision!
A MARVEL FIRST
This is the first Marvel series made for Disney Plus. It was originally going to be released in December 2020 but due to the Coronavirus pandemic, everything was delayed and WandaVision ended up being the start of Phase 4. It is quite a peculiar way to enter this new phase but it’s also why it’s such a great way that it is the beginning of the new era!
The first two episodes take us back to the fifties and sixties sitcoms and what a joy it is! That means the show is presented in black and white with a 4:3 ratio. They recreated those eras in such a perfect way, from the costumes to the sets, to the jokes, to the tone, to the delivery of the lines, everything is there! The laughs you’re hearing during the episodes, it’s from a live audience, they even got that! You can tell the whole team studied the series from that time because it could just right in.
At times, it could have almost felt like an episode of I Love Lucy. The jokes were so funny, I stopped counting how many times I laughed during the series premiere! The writing for these two episodes is simply brilliant!
SITCOM MAGIC
The way it was filmed felt like a proper sitcom as well. Everything was there to send you back to these eras. For the characters, in episode 1, we meet the helpful neighbor type of character along with the boss type of character and in episode 2, we meet the annoying party committee character – Dottie, and a new friend for Wanda.
Christophe Beck is composing the score, he nailed that 50s and 60s vibe while also giving us an end credits track that feels very Marvel-like. (He had already composed MCU scores like Ant-Man and The Wasp). Speaking of the score, you have different opening credits for each episode and they are incorporated in a way as if it was part of the actual story – it says starring Wanda and Vision and not the actors’ names.
POWER COUPLE
Wanda and Vision have a perfect little life in this sitcom. The interactions between the two characters feel so natural, they have wonderful chemistry. Obviously, not everything is at it seems – it’s Marvel. So while opening a brand new era of Marvel and being a different kind of TV series, WandaVision also feels very much like an MCU story. And I’m so glad our Marvel superheroes are back, it felt as if they never really left!
Throughout the first two episodes, you get some clues that there is something wrong and the characters can also feel it while not completely understanding the reason for what’s happening. The first episode has Wanda and Vision not knowing where they come from and for how long they have been married, they don’t know their own stories. But the most intriguing part of that first episode is the final scene – someone is watching that sitcom.
Comics fans will have noticed the S.W.O.R.D. logo on the little notebook. S.W.O.R.D. means Sentient World Observation and Response Department, it is an agency like the SHIELD but this one works on the extraterrestrial threats to the world. The S.W.O.R.D. logo comes back in the second episode near the end on the outfit of a strange person coming out of the manhole before Wanda rewinds the tape and the black and white disappear to let the colors appear. Colors first make their appearance when Wanda picks up a helicopter toy that is colored unlike her who was in black and white at the time.
CLUES
These two episodes raise A LOT of questions because we don’t know exactly what is happening. They just give us enough clues to have us wondering and start creating theories in our heads. Jimmy Woo, the FBI agent who first appeared in Ant-Man and the Wasp asks the same question as we do, who is doing this to Wanda. She doesn’t know the answer or at least she doesn’t seem to know the answer.
I’m left to wonder then is someone doing this to her or is she doing it to herself. Locking herself up in a reality where she is happy with Vision. I got to say these little clues just feel like they’re trying to tell Wanda to wake up from whatever this is. But she can’t or at least, she can’t for the moment. She doesn’t know how to. Only time will tell!
COMMERCIALS
There is one last clue I want to mention – the commercials. There’s one in each episode and they feature the same male character. But he promotes a different object. The first one is a Stark Industries toaster while the second one is a Hydra watch. We hadn’t seen Hydra in quite a long time in the MCU so what does it mean? As I said, the show will leave you with a lot of questions. It’s what makes it so compelling and intriguing, you want to know what happens next. I’m obsessed and I can’t wait for next week’s episode!
VERDICT
Marvel’s big return to our screens comes most unexpectedly. With a throwback to different eras of sitcoms while slowly unveiling its mysteries. It’s truly a fantastic beginning for the very first Disney Plus MCU series!
WandaVision is streaming exclusively on Disney+ NOW!
Author
Collectables Editor at Future Of The Force.
Star Wars and Marvel specialist, anime expert
The humor was absolutely perfect