WandaVision started extremely strongly. Then it
started having more direct connections to the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe
and everything began to fall apart. While the addition of Evan Peters certainly
helps to give this episode a new and electrifying energy, the series has lost
some of its early magic. No longer is story charming. It is instead a largely
boring affair. The same can be said of the supporting characters. Luckily, this
episode provides just enough entertainment to keep viewers invested.
Full Spoilers for ‘All-New Halloween Spooktacular’ follow. You have been warned.
Before getting into the meat of the episode, let’s discuss
the increasingly diminutive sitcom portion of the episode. This episode takes
on a vaguely Malcolm in the Middle-esque style and, like that show, it
is bad. The jokes are bad—unless Pietro is involved, and sometimes even then--and
the theme song is worse. Do not get me wrong, the MitM song is ear-rendingly
bad, but the WandaVision one is so bad I skipped it the second time through.
Because WandaVision wants to trick viewers into
thinking it is adopting the style of MitM, Billy and Tommy get slightly
more focus than before. Not much is done with it. The pair are blanks slates
with nebulously mischievous personalities. Now they have superpowers, but who
cares? That will likely matter in the stories to come but is treated as such a
minor plot development it is difficult to be interested.
The same is true of the S.W.O.R.D. storyline. It is so
laborious to even try to care about what happens here, especially when anyone
other than Monica is talking. Turning Jimmy Woo into a fifth-string character
does not help at all either. At least Hayward finally went full heel. If he
turns out to be the primary antagonist of the series, that will be incredibly
disappointing.
Vision has now seen S.W.O.R.D., though he does not know who
they are. He knows what Wanda is doing. The question is what he will do now. It
seems as though he must confront Wanda soon or the show will be spinning its
wheels. The way his body was dragged back into Westview piece by piece at the
end seems to confirm Vision is in fact a part of the world Wanda has created, not
just an inhabitant. That is interesting in that I have been assuming he will
make it out of this series intact. Of course, may still, but not in any way I
anticipated.
Much of Wanda’s time this episode is spent with her brother.
And it’s great! Elizabeth Olsen immediately an easy rapport with Peters,
despite their characters only somewhat knowing each other. The pair have deeper
conversations than Wanda has had with anyone in entire MCU thus far. From trying
to dig into why Pietro has a new face to how Wanda was able to do all this when
she has never exhibited anything near this level of power before. It even has a
fantastic joke about neither doing the dumb Sakovian accent.
I am not sure Wanda expanding Westview in the final moments
actually means anything, but it is confirmation that she did all of this to
begin with. The town is bigger now, which is framed as a raising of the stakes,
but nothing has changed. There is still a town full of hundreds of people with
no control over there lives. Now that town has bigger city limits.
WandaVision is largely spinning its wheels until it hits
the correct episode count. On some shows, that is not a problem. On this one,
is the biggest problem. As it enters the homestretch, I hope the series can
find its footing and finish strong. Hopefully, they drop the sitcom portions as
they become more extraneous by the episode. Clearly, the writers do not wish to
do anything interesting with the format, they simply want to mask their show in
the aesthetic. Of course, they will not, and I bet the next episode is in a
mockumentary style. Can’t wait.
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