(Some spoilers for Avengers: Age of Ultron, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers: Endgame)
WandaVision, now streaming on Disney+, is what you get when the Marvel Cinematic Universe decides to settle down, have a couple kids, and move to a suburb…except the suburb is less Levittown, more Twin Peaks.
The titular characters are superheroes and romantic couple Wanda “Scarlet Witch” Maximoff (played by Elizabeth Olsen)—who manipulates and projects magical energy—and “Vision” (Paul Bettany)—an android who can fly; has super strength and resilience; and can make himself intangible, or appear as a regular human male.
Presumably taking place in the present, each episode of WandaVision is nevertheless done in the style of a TV sitcom from earlier times. The first episode harkens back to I Love Lucy, and The Dick Van Dyke Show: shot in black and white, and actually filmed in front of a live audience, with Wanda as a housewife, Vision as a suit-and-tie wearing office worker, and a cast of minor characters that hit all the tropes from TV shows of the Fifties.
Despite no discernible time passing, the second episode (titled “Don’t Touch That Dial”) has the trappings of the Sixties show Bewitched (complete with opening animation, and laugh track), and the third (“Now in Color”) evokes the Seventies and The Brady Bunch. Each show features a built-in commercial break: in one episode, it’s for a toaster oven; in another, it’s for wrist watches.
All three episodes (of nine) released thus far are, superficially, typical 20th Century sitcom fare of hijinks, misunderstandings, and repartee, with the two trying to hide their superpowers and blend in (none of the other characters comment on the oddity of Vision going only by the name “Vision”).
However, there’s something secret and strange and sinister going on in WandaVision. All is not remotely what it seems to be, starting with the elephant in the room: Vision was murdered by the alien supervillain Thanos at the end of the film Avengers: Infinity War, and was not resurrected in Avengers: Endgame. So, yeah, there’s that.
Although husband and wife, Wanda and Vision cannot recall getting married, or what their wedding date was; before Wanda uses her powers to conjure some up, they don’t even have rings. They do not know why they came to the suburban town of Westview, or what the company (“Computational Services, Inc.”) that Vision works for does.
The artificial world of WandaVision starts suffering glitches: a toy helicopter appears in vivid color during a black-and-white scene. An unknown voice calls to her over a radio. Recurring characters that were “kooky” and “friendly” become hesitant and fearful, as if they know something about the situation that they dare not say.
Time passes very swiftly—Wanda becomes pregnant, carries twins to term, and delivers them in minutes—and strange people begin to appear. “Geraldine” dispels the feel-good sitcom vibes by reminding Wanda that her twin brother Pietro was killed by the robotic villain Ultron (in the second Avengers film); a mysterious beekeeper (yes, really) emerges one night from a manhole.
Is all of this an alternate reality that Wanda has created to assuage Vision’s death? Is she being held captive and gaslighted by a clandestine organization? Is it something else? New episodes are released every Friday (through March 5), and I can’t wait to find out what’s really happening, and what will happen next. If you’re a fan of the MCU, don’t miss WandaVision.
Kenton Kilgore writes killer SF/F for young adults and adults who are still young.
In his latest novel, This Wasted Land, high-school senior Alyx Williams learns that witches are real when one attacks her and her boyfriend Sam, dragging him off to a nightmare world where Alyx must go to get him back.
Kenton is the author of Lost Dogs, the story of the end of the world as seen, heard–and smelled–by a dog. He also wrote Dragontamer’s Daughters, like Little House on the Prairie…with dragons!
With Patrick Eibel, he created Our Wild Place, a children’s book about the joy to be found in exploring Nature. Kenton also published Hand-Selling Books to help authors better their sales.
Follow Kenton on Facebook for frequent posts on sci-fi, fantasy, and other speculative fiction. You can also catch him on Instagram.