WandaVision

Let’s not try to fool ourselves here, WandaVision is good and everyone should know that. At the moment of writing and having about the whole day to think my thoughts over on this series, I'm irritated with some of the response it's getting being all said and done now. There are sentiments of “this is the best thing Marvel has done” and sentiments of disappointment, neither of the two I have as takeaways. The year-ish long MCU drought due to a certain worldwide pandemic really shows in the most disheartening way with how people are talking about WandaVision. To the “The first few episodes are fresh, new, and unique” group, yeah they feel different because it’s a new deviation from the typical superhero hubbub that Marvel has garnered a reputation for, but paying homage or parodying already existing pieces of pop culture isn't a revelation that came out over a quarantine period; this series does wonderfully at capturing these moments of reminisce and Leanardo Di’Caprio pointing at the TV screen meme moments by fans but that's just WandaVision's backdrop, nothing special or deserved of awards, it's just wholesome. Then, to the “I just think there was wasted potential here and I’m disappointed” reaction, it sounds to me like you want to have your cake and eat it too. Due to the year long absence of MCU produced titles, WandaVision unintentionally attracted a raging onslaught of expectations leading to dissection into the connections and comic book “easter eggs” that could be predicted or formed squeezing every ounce of the 35 ish minute durration of content each new week to the point where an idea of what the show could be was held onto so closely and dearly that accepting what was presented on its own was never an option apparently. Basically the desire for events/characters/plotlines that hypothetically could happen and eventually didn’t turn out that way are what leads to the obvious next step: start applying that clown makeup and dawn a colorful wig. Now if you would have seen me watching the initial Avengers Endgame trailer 2 years ago I would have been all over the comic book connections and theorizing that is typically attributed with MCU stans. I get that it's fun and I absolutely love the comic books but why do things twice? Marvel Studios should be a platform like other studios, to make good movies and series’ first and foremost, not a tone deaf factory solely adapting fans’ comic book fantasies to the big (or small) screen. The funny thing too is that there are mild hints to connections into the following movies as any end credits or good finale should do for Marvel’s system but here fans are so used to that ~reveal~ slapping them in the face that when these HIGH expectations weren’t fulfilled everyone got mad. I’m mad that you’re mad. I mean we got Elizabeth Olsen in the entire final form Scarlet Witch get up! She's a whole fucking badass smoke show going on every single episode while also topping it off with that suit in the finale and you’re disappointed? Make it make sense. Even through easily ignorable minor details: its screenwriting dialogue in anything that's not sitcom territory being sub-par, side characters not getting enough development, and weird quirks here and there, for only nine episodes it does what it wants really well and even pulls those tender emotional strings by the end neatly wrapped up and I love it for all that. The loads of Twitter memes, discussions, and genuinely feverish excited comments in anticipation for the following weeks episode were so so fun to look through, much like the longevity of the Mandalorian discussions. Disney and Marvel together got a good thing going and rebuilding here and I just wish going in, fans maybe enjoy what is actually produced and not entirely focusing so much on what could be. This was a long review and (mostly) rant but I just really wanted to get my thoughts out somewhere about WandaVision, so if you read this all I appreciate you and love reading what you had to say about Marvel’s first mini-series too. Elizabeth Olsen and Kathryn Hahn each equally share my whole heart, hope to see more of quirky Agnes and villainous Wanda again. “We have said goodbye before, so it stands to reason-” “We will say hello again.”