WandaVision

“But what is grief, if not love persevering?” Show so good that I named my three cats Wanda, Billie and Tommy (for reference Billie turned out to be a girl but I was committed to the bit). Wandavision still remains one of my favourite MCU shows. I love the approach with each episode being a different era of sitcoms while also exploring the stages of grief. It’s so unique and interesting, so much so that I was kind of disappointed whenever we cut away from it. Inside the hex we get such an intriguing mystery from the get go, and a deep dive into Wanda and Vision as characters, as Wanda tries to construct a perfect idealised life for herself to escape her pain, while Vision discovers his own will and finds himself in the process.   Everything outside of that, with S.W.O.R.D is kind of a snooze fest though. I understand why it was necessary to explain what was actually going on, and it was great to see side characters like Jimmy Woo and Darcy Lewis return, but throughout their sections I was just waiting until we could return inside the hex. However, I do appreciate Monica’s inclusion and how she parallels Wanda’s own loss, although I do wish we got to see more of that in their dynamic. Agatha is also a huge standout character and an extremely entertaining antagonist. Even though I loved Agatha I was not a huge fan of the finale. After the deeply emotional, unique and character focused story that was being told throughout the first eight episodes, the finale feels like a generic superhero blockbuster where the heroes must defeat the villains. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the ending with Wanda finally accepting her loss and giving up her new family, but I wish that it was given more room to breath and we could’ve spent more time with Wanda making that decision rather than a big cgi final battle which felt really out of place for this show. Overall, despite its shortcomings Wandavision succeeds when it’s exploring Wanda and her grief, telling an emotional and heartfelt story about two Avengers who found each other when they had no one. Wait one last thing, SCREW THE RALPH BOHNER TWIST, IT STILL ANNOYS ME TO THIS DAY.