There were strange clues of color in the black and white sitcom world Wanda Maximoff (Scarlet Witch) and Vision were trapped in. Suddenly, Wanda was giving birth to twins, she had a twin brother with Pietro (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015). Wanda sent out Geraldine from it after she said the name Ultron. The sitcom bubble is Wanda’s power unleashed and creating a fantasy world of denial? Victims of trauma sometimes retreat into reassuring memories and this may be fulfilled through Wanda’s hexes. Some of the mysteries are revealed in this episode. The show opens on the other side, the real MCU world, there are distorted voices as ashes re-assemble into the face of the person we knew as Geraldine. This was the event called the Blip in Avengers: Endgame (2019). She revives in a hospital chair, she goes into the hall of the hospital, and it is a panic with people suddenly unsnapped.
She looks around lost in the chaos and is met by Dr. Highland (Lana Young) who is stunned that Monica is there. Monica thinks she fell asleep next to her mother in the hospital bed and Dr. Highland has to inform her that her mother died of cancer. Monica is shocked that her mother, Maria Rambeau, is dead. Maria was the good friend of Carol Danvers and played by Lashana Lynch in Captain Marvel (2019). Dr. Highland explains that she died three years ago and Monica was snapped two years before that time. This is a more realistic and impactful context to a galactic reappearance. It firmly sets the series in the MCU. Then, we get S.W.O.R.D. Headquarters. It appears to me that this is the replacement for S.H.I.E.L.D., a secret government agency with vast resources. The headquarters has a launch pad, a large hangar structure, and other buildings.
It must be some time later, we have the S.H.I.E.L.D., I mean S.W.O.R.D. agents walking in the lobby while there are reports of the Blip. Monica tries to use her i.d. badge, but it doesn’t read. She meets with Director Tyler Heyward (Josh Stamberg). He was Max Cadman in the dramatic series The Affair. He takes her into the building and they passes a photo of Maria Rambeau. Direcotr Heyward mentions the loss of astronauts. They have shifted to “sentient weapons.” Monica and Director Heyward walk through a hangar and into a hallway. Hayward says, “your mom built this place.” He takes her into his office and mentions that the FBI is working on a missing person’s case in New Jersey. Heyward reveals that Captain Rambeau is “grounded”, her mother’s policy if “vanished persons ever returned.” Monica drives to New Jersey and takes the Westview off ramp. She is met by FBI Agent, Jimmy Woo (Randall Park), we last saw him in Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018). He had a witness who disappeared, Dennis the Mailman?
Jimmy takes Monica over to talk to local police officers with their car parked in front of the Westview billboard. When asked about Westview, they are told, “no such place exists”, a town blocked from the rest of the world. Jimmy says he can’t enter the town because “it doesn’t want me to.” Monica takes from her van trunk, a S.W.O.R.D. helicopter drone, but her control is disrupted and drone has disappeared. Monica walks towards the town and sees the wall of television static. Jimmy warns her, but Monica reaches out and then taken into the strange world. Very Twilight Zone. A day later and we get an armored truck, inside is Darcy Lewis (Kat Dennings) whom we last saw in Thor: The Dark World (2013). These are memorable supporting characters from the MCU played by two actors who have also worked in sitcoms. Bringing supporting characters makes me think that the person who should be brought back is Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg). He was connected to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. which was produced by Marvel Television, which caused a rift with Kevin Feige and Ike Perlmutter, but Coulson was our introduction into the MCU.
Darcy asks the other members about their fields and notes she is a doctor in Astrophysics. She enters the S.W.O.R.D. response base. It is a bit like the government operation in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). Heyward takes Darcy into the base and doesn’t give her data on the drones disappearing into Westview. She gets to work and detects Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation, Heyward is a little slow to catch on, and finds something else. Darcy looks at a Physio-Scope and then asks for an “old tv.” Heyward sends in an agent in a chemical suit down to the sewers. He goes to monitor the situation with Jimmy and sees a map in a hexagon shape. Then, Heyward hears laughter and sees that Darcy is watching WandaVision. Darcy starts searching facial recognition and finds that Mr. and Mrs. Hart are really Todd and Sharon Davis. Agnes is the only one without a driver’s license, there seems to be a little more to her. Darcy drops a Maruchan Cup of Noodles, brand name is almost commercial tv here, when she recognizes Monica on the show. Darcy comes up with a way to tap into the radio so it is Jimmy’s voice we heard in the show. We get up to speed with the last episode and it looks like Wanda has to confront the hard truths of her life. It is only at the end of the show that we get our main characters which ends up as a mixed bag.
Three Mind Stones out of Five!
#WandaVision, #WeInterruptThis Program, #JoshStamberg, #RandallPark, #KatDennings
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