WandaVision

[HalfGlass]

No, there was absolutely no chance of a Scarlet Witch movie being made before this show. She had all of 20 total minutes of actual screen time before this series. She wasn't popular or known beyond MCU fans.

This show has made her probably the most popular female superhero in the MCU (if not one of the most popular female superheroes, period) and one of the most popular Avengers period now. She could easily lead her own movie *now*, but before this, a Scarlet Witch movie probably wouldn't have even brought in Ant-Man money. This was great character development for her in the lead-up to her starring in Multiverse of Madness.

And Captain Marvel had never been in any movie before she hosted one. And what’s wrong with Ant-Man money? Clearly Disney is okay with that, thus why they’re making a third film after both previous movies performed way less than other Marvel entries.

But that wasn’t even the point I was trying to make. I was saying this show was bloated and poorly paced. If you go back and re-watch it now, knowing what happens, a great deal of it will feel drawn out.

 

[RevFreako]

The finale was an all-time banger. As far as I'm concerned, WandaVision was Marvel at its absolute best, front to back.

 

[Nick]

And Captain Marvel had never been in any movie before she hosted one. And what’s wrong with Ant-Man money? Clearly Disney is okay with that, thus why they’re making a third film after both previous movies performed way less than other Marvel entries.

But that wasn’t even the point I was trying to make. I was saying this show was bloated and poorly paced. If you go back and re-watch it now, knowing what happens, a great deal of it will feel drawn out.

I do plan on rewatching it eventually and I really don't think i'll feel like it's drawn out because I actually enjoyed the sitcom parts of the show almost as much as the action. Not everyone is going to feel that way and clearly you don't, but it was different.

MCU stuff is for the most part just action-adventure with lots of fight scenes. I expect to get that out of Falcon and the Winter Soldier. I was happy for the change in pace with WandaVision.

 

[chris.g]

This show fell off hard. What a disappointment. What I'd do to go back to the initial charm and originality the first three episodes had.

 

[HalfGlass]

I do plan on rewatching it eventually and I really don't think i'll feel like it's drawn out because I actually enjoyed the sitcom parts of the show almost as much as the action. Not everyone is going to feel that way and clearly you don't, but it was different.

MCU stuff is for the most part just action-adventure with lots of fight scenes. I expect to get that out of Falcon and the Winter Soldier. I was happy for the change in pace with WandaVision.

Fair enough - I know it’s just my opinion and I respect yours. I think I’m just frustrated since I was looking so forward to this show.

 

[Nick]

Fair enough - I know it’s just my opinion and I respect yours. I think I’m just frustrated since I was looking so forward to this show.

The show definitely seems to be a show that a lot of people are split on. Some people loved, it, some hated it, and some were just meh. I can understand the disappointment in some areas, I do recognize it isn't flawless.

When you boil it down to the shows title characters though - Wanda and Vision - this show gave really strong performances by both Bettany and Olsen, it had strong writing by Jac Shaeffer (which gets me a bit more excited for Black Widow, as she was a write on that movie), and it had great character development that Wanda needed, but there was no room on the film schedule for them to tell it and it probably would've been told over the course of a couple movies like Hulk instead of in what was essentially her own origin story.

 

[Scott W.]

I enjoyed it and it was well wrapped but I expected something a bit more.

 

[joelbryant11]

This show fell off hard. What a disappointment. What I'd do to go back to the initial charm and originality the first three episodes had.

For me the series peaked in episodes 4, 5, and 6. Ep. 5 is one of the best episodes of TV that I’ve ever seen, even with what we know now about the twist at the end

 

[HalfGlass]

For me the series peaked in episodes 4, 5, and 6. Ep. 5 is one of the best episodes of TV that I’ve ever seen, even with what we know now about the twist at the end

This.

 

[chris.g]

For me the series peaked in episodes 4, 5, and 6. Ep. 5 is one of the best episodes of TV that I’ve ever seen, even with what we know now about the twist at the end

I HATED episode 4. It felt like it was just back to the basic, bland and formulaic MCU pedigree I'm so tired of seeing, and just ruined the magic of suspense so soon. The Halloween episode was amazing though. Might be my favorite aside from the first.

 

[Nick]

I HATED episode 4. It felt like it was just back to the basic, bland and formulaic MCU pedigree I'm so tired of seeing, and just ruined the magic of suspense so soon. The Halloween episode was amazing though. Might be my favorite aside from the first.

Episode 4 could’ve definitely been structured much better, but they needed to introduce the characters that were outside of the hex, mostly to set up Monica’s story. I hated Hayward from beginning to end though. He was as vanilla/generic/stupid of an antagonist as you’ll ever see in the MCU.

 

[belloq87]

The writing for Hayward was atrocious stuff. What they had him doing in this last episode was hilariously stupid (and designed purely to hammer home to the cheap seats that he's a villain).

I'm imagining a much better version of the SWORD/Monica/Hayward storyline where it was patterned after CRIMSON TIDE. Make both Hayward's and Monica's perspectives valid, and have both of them coming at the problem from a solid place. Conflict between two reasonable characters is much more dramatically interesting than conflict where at least one of the participants is a caricature.

 

[Scott W.]

Episode 4 could’ve definitely been structured much better, but they needed to introduce the characters that were outside of the hex, mostly to set up Monica’s story. I hated Hayward from beginning to end though. He was as vanilla/generic/stupid of an antagonist as you’ll ever see in the MCU.

I can't figure out what was his motivation was.

 

[SeventyOne]

So, I was watching Dan Murrell's review of the episode and he actually pointed something very interesting out:

Spoiler

In Bohner's lair, there was a very, very prominent baseball jersey hung in a shot between Monica and "Ralph". The jersey that was in the shot was #19 Chris Davis of the Baltimore Orioles. Why is this relevant? Well, in the Fox X-Men movies, Pietro/Quicksilver was originally said to be living "just outside of Washington, DC". Baltimore is obviously just outside of DC.

Long story short, I think there's a decent chance this is the Fox quicksilver still.

Here's the still from that scene:

And earlier on there was a milk ad featuring the cow-woman who was Wanda's midwife, and there were probably half a dozen references to the devil ... at a certain point, I think we have to acknowledge this show was packed with Easter eggs that were just in-jokes for sharp viewers, nothing more. Not a bad thing--that's what gives the Spider-man ride in IoA a great deal of its charm--but read too much into them along with the cast hyping up a phantom guest star, it leads to disappointment.

 

[Nick]

And earlier on there was a milk ad featuring the cow-woman who was Wanda's midwife, and there were probably half a dozen references to the devil ... at a certain point, I think we have to acknowledge this show was packed with Easter eggs that were just in-jokes for sharp viewers, nothing more. Not a bad thing--that's what gives the Spider-man ride in IoA a great deal of its charm--but read too much into them along with the cast hyping up a phantom guest star, it leads to disappointment.

To be fair, the cast never hyped the Luke Skywalker thing. TVline asked her if there are any cameos that would generate buzz like The Mandalorian’s similar to the Skywalker premiere. She simply said “yes” and “I can’t wait for fans to see”. I believe she was talking about Evan Peters, which did generate a lot of buzz.

The rest of the media ran with stories saying that she said there would be a Luke Skywalker level cameo, which isn’t really true at all as she just answered a question.

Now I have no idea what Bettany was talking about though. Probably just being cheeky about getting to have a fight scene with himself (although that’s a bit rude to toy with fans like that, imo.)

 

[Tbad556]

This... has me really lowering my expectations for the rest of the MCU shows in all honesty.

Hayward's writing went off-the-walls incredibly hard. Darcy was essentially introduced and discarded only to be used for one-liners. I can't stand the way they turned things around with Agatha/Wanda in the last episode. Etc. This feels like a prime example of a finale completely ruining an otherwise fairly enjoyable show for me.

Also, they absolutely deserve shade for the way they hyped certain things up lol.

----

EDIT: I think I'm slowly pinpointing my real issue here. Marvel critics often complain about their stories not making sense on their own (i.e. Infinity War). I've never really minded that, but I think this is a key moment of me feeling that this is becoming a real issue for me personally. I shouldn't finish this show going

Spoiler

"Oh, I'm sure they'll explain Hayward's insane actions down the road" or "I'm sure we'll get some clarification on WTF Quicksilver/Bohner was at some point. There's no way they literally ended his arc as a boner joke".

At some point, you can in fact have too many cliffhangers. I feel very little closure from watching the finale of a show. That shouldn't be normal. I shouldn't have to hope and assume that things that are baffling now will eventually be redeemed. You can have a cinematic universe without leaving endless things open at the end of shows/movies.

 

[Nick]

This... has me really lowering my expectations for the rest of the MCU shows in all honesty.

Hayward's writing went off-the-walls incredibly hard. Darcy was essentially introduced and discarded only to be used for one-liners. I can't stand the way they turned things around with Agatha/Wanda in the last episode. Etc. This feels like a prime example of a finale completely ruining an otherwise fairly enjoyable show for me.

Also, they absolutely deserve shade for the way they hyped certain things up lol.

EDIT: I think I'm slowly pinpointing my real issue here. Marvel critics often complain about their stories not making sense on their own (i.e. Infinity War). I've never really minded that, but I think this is a key moment of me feeling that this is becoming a real issue. I shouldn't finish this show going

Spoiler

"Oh, I'm sure they'll explain Hayward's insane actions down the road" or "I'm sure we'll get some clarification on WTF Quicksilver/Bohner was at some point".

At some point, you can in fact have too many cliffhangers. I feel very little conclusion from watching a finale of a show. That shouldn't be normal. You can have a cinematic universe without leaving endless things open at the end of shows/movies.

I agree here. The MCU is new to television so maybe they’ll adapt over time, but there’s a lot of looming questions, which there really shouldn’t be after a finale. I know we’ll get answers eventually, but they’ve gotta do a better job of at least making the ending feel like you got your questions answered.

The reason I’m stuck on Quicksilver/Ralph is because they cast him to play a version of Quicksilver right as we have SM3 and Strange 2 coming up in which the multiverse is confirmed through casting pretty much. I just have a hard time believing that they handpicked Evan Peters to ultimately just be a nobody when we know what’s on the horizon.

 

[Tbad556]

I agree here. The MCU is new to television so maybe they’ll adapt over time, but there’s a lot of looming questions. I know we’ll get answers eventually, but they’ve gotta do a better job of at least making the ending feel like you got your questions answered.

The reason I’m stuck on Quicksilver/Ralph is because they cast him to play a version of Quicksilver right as we have SM3 and Strange 2 coming up in which the multiverse is confirmed through casting pretty much. I just have a hard time believing that they handpicked Evan Peters to ultimately just be a nobody when we know what’s on the horizon.

And don't get me wrong, I'm happy for everyone who enjoyed this. Definitely don't want to take away from that. It just isn't clicking for me unfortunately even though I was really sold almost all season. I felt a little concerned about how they'd wrap it all up after last week, and just felt off after this ending.

I definitely believe that Quicksilver/Ralph has to be brought back and explained at some point and there's probably a good chance I'll be happier then and maybe years from now I can look back on this show through a better perspective. But, man... I just shouldn't be praying for so many things to be wrapped up in future movies.

 

[SeventyOne]

Now I have no idea what Bettany was talking about though. Probably just being cheeky about getting to have a fight scene with himself (although that’s a bit rude to toy with fans like that, imo.)

In retrospect, that's definitely what he meant. Which would've been fine but for the rest of the hype that grew (or arguably was cultivated) around this show.
...

I agree here. The MCU is new to television so maybe they’ll adapt over time, but there’s a lot of looming questions, which there really shouldn’t be after a finale. I know we’ll get answers eventually, but they’ve gotta do a better job of at least making the ending feel like you got your questions answered.

While I agree, even if they answered every question, wouldn't excuse the horrible writing ...

Spoiler

Hero uses the one trick the villain taught against her would be a cliche in a kids movie.

Wanda committed multiple felonies against innocent people, yet the FBI and SWORD Capt Marvel don't care. Equally nonplussed that a sentient A-bomb who is now on the loose.

Agatha is doomed to be her nosy neighbor 1960s TV character ... in a real world NJ suburb??? With the same people that watched her fly and blow up buildings???

This stuff would be fine in a fluffy turn-off-your brain comic book movie. But in a 300-minute dissertation on the stages of grief, I expect the ending to have a bit more verisimilitude.

 

[joelbryant11]

I think that this show, by its own nature, was always going to be a sloppy start to MCU D+. Again, this was never supposed to lead things off. TF&TWS will be more of a crowd pleaser I think. WV by nature had this convoluted/first of its kind hook that was always going to lead to the pacing issues that people have. Also, none of the other shows appear to have a stunt casting like WV did.

on top of that @Nick, it would feel so bizarre if they validated all of the previous movies that Sony did by including TM & AG when they’re going to act like the Fox movies will never count in their multiverse. To me, it has to be an all-in or all-out kind of deal. This kind of makes me think that Tom Holland might not be lying about them not being in SM: NWH.