Marvel Cinematic Universe, Phase 4 & Beyond (and a chance to change your vote)

Well, the end of this ep was the longest they've gone breaking character, right? I assume it will speed up from here.

I don't know enough about comics to know who Nightmare or Clea is, but it's telling that Kathryn Hahn's husband has remained unseen for three episodes. They could be making him like one of the infamous invisible sitcom spouses, but there are rumors abounding that he could be the/a Big Bad. Certainly Hahn has pretty high billing for not playing a big role so far, so who knows. Teyonah Parris one assumes will re-enter the story, given who her character apparently is, having just looked at the wiki to see how to spell her name. In fact, I saw a couple of other (small) names that have appeared in other MCU shows on deck for this one. (Plus, weren't there rumors of a Dr. Strange cameo?) Then again, all these characters could just be easter eggs for comics fans, priming them for future MCU appearances, but one of the pleasures of this show so far is I have no idea!

Just looking some more, S.W.O.R.D. was allegedly going to show up earlier in the MCU, as early as Thor, but S.W.O.R.D. was owned by Fox. Likewise, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which was on ABC, apparently wanted to incorporate S.W.O.R.D., maybe in the series finale, but were reportedly refused permission by Marvel Studios. And I guess there was supposedly a S.W.O.R.D. reference at the end of the last Spider-man? I find it kind of fascinating, given how consistent the MCU has been, that they could not only juggle all these characters and storylines but also (as we've half-surmised) *potential* characters and storylines that might become available (after buying Fox, or working stuff out with Sony, say). Add in not just the green lighting of Disney+ and one presumes the absorption of those other Marvel Netflix characters, plus factor in the massive premiere and production delays of the movies, and there are suddenly even more moving parts. There must be some Disney vault with piles of different timelines and crossover ideas and new characters and other contingencies ready to be put into play.

I just want to say more clearly that whatever the deeper plot machinations Olson and Bettany are ABSOLUTELY perfect throughout this thing so far; chemistry for days and embracing the ridiculous conventions while still selling the 'off'/unsettled moments.

I think it definitely helps that they (but particularly she) are good dramatic actors, so that when they shift from exaggerated sitcom acting to realistic acting the effect is very, well, effective.

yeah, that's otm.
again, my issue is that i'm just not interested in watching tiresome sitcom tropes even when they're done winkingly and the first hour and a half of this program has been 80%+ tiresome sitcom tropes... filmed lovingly and cleverly, but still tiresome! get to the meat!
increasingly, i think the structure here just isn't for me. Even so, I don't begrudge the risk and I expect future episodes to be closer to 50% meat and 50% pastiche which is where I'm likely to get more into it.

it's telling that Kathryn Hahn's husband has remained unseen for three episodes.

filmed lovingly and cleverly

A small, very sharp touch has been how the camera angles have slowly started to shift at various points to be utterly unlike typical angles/framing from the era that they're replicating, often at moments of particular emotional stress. The first episode was almost totally on point for the early sixties though notably there were a few moments at the breakfast-dinner where that changed. In this most recent episode there were a lot more of those, like with the edit/glitch moment for Vision and especially during the birth scenes.

xpost Yeah, that's one theory. I think I saw a link to this:

https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/22/22243271/wandavision-episode-3-recap-explainer-mephisto-agatha-harkness-tommy-billy-sword

Huh, should that link be hidden? I don't think it counts as a spoiler, since it's total guess work and doesn't give away anything we've seen on the show so far, or even that we necessarily expect to see.

This potential Big Bad also has a lot of connections to Dr. Doom, who is perhaps the best known Big Bad as yet absent the MCU, but whom I assume is teed up somewhere along with the Fantastic Four. I still think they should release a stand alone Dr. Doom movie.

Incidentally, I think I saw someone note elsewhere that June 2, the circled day of the boss coming over for dinner in the first episode, just happens to be the date of the first Salem witch trial.

I think reading a bunch of Q material over the week has lowered my appetite for that sort of "but this is connected to that via this obvious clue!" stuff

Still, some people going deep, and the show is definitely going nuts with easter eggs that, sure, may be there just for fun, but may add up to more. For example, I saw a Den of Geek discussion of this still:

https://www.denofgeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/wandavision_house_of_m_wine.jpg

As Wanda used her sitcom witch powers to set the table, she poured a bottle of wine called Maison Du Mepris. This is a very clever Easter egg, as it translates to “House of Contempt.” There’s also an M on the neck of the bottle, suggesting we look at the product as, “House of M.” In other words, they’re subtly telling us to look at Wanda Maximoff’s far-from-finest hour from the comics, a story called (you guessed it) House of M.

That reminds me, I love all the ads -- especially now that it seems clear Hydra finances its plans via common household products.

(And the 'Coy' instead of 'Joy' detergent in the kitchen.)

There's definitely a division on my friends feeds between "This is awesome" and "The weird stuff is good, but when are they going to ditch the sitcom elements?"

I'm all the way over to "I hope it just stays like this and they don't turn it into a Marvel property where people fight each other with superpowers" --- I would love for it just to be purely a modestly surreal/symbolic psychological piece on the Wanda-Viz relationship as it has been so far, but I think I probably won't get that

I think the show is also (at least currently) ingeniously low budget compared to, say, The Mandalorian.

Maybe comic nerds can help me out here, but the movies have only showed Scarlet Witch's powers as being more or less telekinetic, right? No reality bending stuff? It seems weird to me that they would suddenly introduce radically new super powers just for the show, with no foundation. But ... who knows!

xpost Yeah, kinda the same way I would have been fine with a Mandalorian that was just him and Grogu just wandering the universe doing things. Can't last forever but I'll enjoy what I've got in the meantime!

I think the show is also (at least currently) ingeniously low budget compared to, say, The Mandalorian.

Well it does help that the set designs alone are simpler!

lol at that House of M easter egg, nice touch

i think the telekinesis stuff is a nod (and blink and nose twitch) to Bewitched and Dream of Jeannie

can i just say Kathryn Hahn is just painfully hot all the time
http://i.imgur.com/asUL6SW.png

the knottiness and endless rebooting of the marvel universe lends itself well to this kind of red herring baiting... to be honest, the "oh you think you know what's going on fanboy?" approach of the storytelling is among its most winning qualities, especially given that i think it functions without interrupting the base arc

ned, to your point, i think they also change film quality in the "breaks from fake reality" angles as well?

Maybe comic nerds can help me out here, but the movies have only showed Scarlet Witch's powers as being more or less telekinetic, right? No reality bending stuff?

She turned plastic butterflies into real butterflies (though this experience may not have been "real").

I think I saw someone note elsewhere that June 2, the circled day of the boss coming over for dinner in the first episode

The date of the boss' dinner was 23rd August. People who are not me have speculated this is a reference to Avengers #238 where Vision effectively comes back to life having been shut down by Annihilus in #233.

Sorry, it was actually a line from Agnes!

"Lucky gal, the only way Ralph would remember our anniversary is if there was a beer named June 2nd."

xpost She does that in the show, but she's never done anything like that in any of the movies she's been in, right?

Going with the idea of dates referring to Avengers issues, June 2nd can give us #26.

Captain America shows everyone the new system for recieving secret messages, but Hawkeye doesn't pay attention. Hawkeye returns to the mansion and tries to check his messages but can't remember how to work it. He decides to use one of Tony Stark's inventions: the "subliminal recall inducer" to remember.

Maybe comic nerds can help me out here, but the movies have only showed Scarlet Witch's powers as being more or less telekinetic, right? No reality bending stuff? It seems weird to me that they would suddenly introduce radically new super powers just for the show, with no foundation.

Which would explain the kind of general unease the neighbors have around her. But how to explain the presence of Vision at all, then?

There was a glimpse in the teasers that sorta explains it regarding the Mind Gem, but I guess we'll see how that pans out

It's worth noting that even though everyone in The Infinity War assumed the Vision would die if the Mind Stone was ripped off of his head, we can't be sure the damage really was beyond repair. We don't see a burial for him in Endgame, so maybe his body was kept somewhere in the hope that one day he might be brought back to life? So maybe someone has managed to do that, except that for some reason he can only exist in this weird simulation? And Wanda has decided to stay there with him cos it's the only place where they can be together?

So Im enjoying Wandavision but it sounds like coming at it with no MCU knowledge is rendering it a bit lesser? I mean I dont know/care, but apparently Im missing multitudes, which is a bit irritating.

I'm assuming it's more the other way around, and I get to just enjoy the vibe rather than furiously scrying the runes for Easter eggs.

Good point!

Yeah, seriously, I have watched about half the MCU movies, remember nothing about them (e.g. apparently Vision died in one of the movies I saw but I can't say I remember that, there were like a hundred characters and a lot of stuff was going on) and I am enjoying WandaVision a lot, much more than I have enjoyed any but two or three of the movies, for what matter. It's really good they're trying something different.

another vote for ignorance being bliss here; i think the creators are definitely jerking me around by my nerd leash

I highly doubt the show (or the MCU in general) will go as deep and convoluted as the comics, especially with so little real set up of, say, characters like Wanda and Vision, but who knows. I have a casual understanding of some comics stuff from decades ago, but I'm still enjoying this, as I've enjoyed virtually all the movies. The only time a complete lack of knowledge has hampered me was Agents of SHIELD, which just wasn't doing it for me. And maybe Legion, though I only saw one or two of those episodes.

Legion I loved with no backstory knowledge but I will say I did some reading up on the general gist of his story there. Not that I think it followed the comics that closely anyway?

I think I agreed most with film crit hulk's take on this show - am greatly enjoying Olsen/Bettany's performances but the mystery-box framing is very tiresome and doesn't allow you to fully engage with either the characters or the sitcom settings: https://www.patreon.com/posts/46555836

Someone in the comments mentioned The Good Place as a comparison and I think I would've liked it more if the show had been structured similarly, where the sitcom plots themselves play a role in teaching Wanda to accept/discover reality and face whatever it is she's running from. Right now, it all just seems like elaborate window dressing for the weird bits/main mystery arc and it's hard to say whether it will end up meaning anything more than that once the walls (so to speak) come down.

MI dunno, to me it feels a bit early to judge the show by saying the sitcom elements don't have a deeper thematic meaning, when we don't yet have any idea why Wanda and Vision are living in one. It could be all window-dressing, sure, but we just don't know yet.

Certainly one theme that seems to have been suggested already is that the sitcom reality offers a neat, comfortable setting for Wanda to experience the sort of life she would want to have, but which she has been denied because of her incredibly traumatic experiences. For example, the tragedy of losing your twin is pushed aside because violent death is not subject that would be discussed in this kind of setting, thus allowing Wanda to go on with her daily life without having to think about it. It's worth noting that Pietro's death hasn't even been discussed in any of the movies following Age of Ultron; last Friday's episode was the very first time the MCU actually addressed the issue of how traumatic it must've been for Wanda to lose him.

Another issue is the one the latest episode was all about, i.e. Wanda and Vision having kids. We know that they lived anonymously as a regular loving couple between the events of Civil War and The Infinity War, so certainly the idea of having kids must've crossed their minds. But since she's a weird mutant and he's not even human, the thought of becoming pregnant with his kids and how it would work out, would the kids be healthy or deformed or capable of surviving, must be super scary for them and especially her, since she's the one having to carry them in her womb.

So the latest episode does address these fears and doubts (Wanda is afraid people will see her as a freak and tries to hide the pregnancy, Vision wonders whether the kids will look like half-synthezoids, etc.), but they are resolved in a neat manner with some gags and laughs. The kids turn out to be healthy humans, the doctor is just happy that the family is OK and doesn't seem to care that Wanda went from being 4 months pregnant to giving birth within one day, etc. So again, the sitcom setting allows for clean, tidy way of resolving fears that are not so easily addressed in real life. Even the birth itself is literally clean and lacking of bodily fluids, as TV births tend to be.

yeah I could be on-board on that if they played everything straight without needing to interrupt every episode with "look at this weird thing that doesn't fit in this perfect world" because then, THAT becomes the story and everything else is secondary. as the hulk piece notes:

I always feel like it’s really important to clarify that the great harm of mystery boxing is that it convinced a generation of writers that mysteries were about creating situations where you have no fucking idea what’s going on and everything is vague. They’re not. Mysteries are actually very clear situations with a driving central question that is also clear (usually who killed X or something). They investigate. New information comes to light and changes the scope of the understanding. And then, in the end, you have utter clarity of the driving questions at the start (even Twin Peaks did this, it just relied on abstract art at times). But nowadays, you have now idea how many fucking bad mysteries don’t realize their “big reveal” is actually their initial incident and main conflict (and should probably be treated as such). So far, Wandavision is just another example of that. I mean, there’s a reason the breaks in reality FEEL like the only compelling and real things that happen in this show…

Because they are the show.

Or at least what the show should be about. Hearing Wanda talk about her brother and Ultron? It matters because it's our baseline reality AND hers (and the only moments the characters are playing the untruth of pantomime). Naturally, we want to be engaging this in some sort of way. But because of the core conceit and the need for all sitcom indulgence, it can’t quite go there bEcAuSe ReAsOnS. Or it doesn’t know how to give us both at the same time. So it just keeps running and teasing and spinning wheels and hoping "curiosity" will be enough. All before utterly depending on the last minute teasing moves to make it seem like we’re having genuine movement.

hard disagree. experiencing the mystery is the main driver, not necessarily that all the pieces will fit together properly. of course, it will be MUCH more satisfying if they do, thematically - but if they don't, that can be judged at the end

Why does this have to be an either/or situation? Why can't the show be about Wanda hiding from her grief and fears in a bubble of unreality that forces outside the bubble are attempting to contain/pierce due to its affect on the outside world?

I dunno, feels like that guy is only just reading the very surface level of plot development without thinking about the subtext, which (I think) has already given us plenty to chew on. Take this quote from him:

Mysteries are actually very clear situations with a driving central question that is also clear (usually who killed X or something). They investigate. New information comes to light and changes the scope of the understanding. And then, in the end, you have utter clarity of the driving questions at the start

* The first episode sets up the mystery and the central questions: why are Wanda and Vision living inside a sitcom, and how is Vision alive again? The ending of the episode reveals that there are some glitches in the sitcom world, i.e. it doesn't fully function as whoever created it wanted it to function.

* The second episode reveals that Wanda is on some level aware of the simulation, but doesn't want it to end, so when something bad/creepy happens, she can alter the events. This strongly hints that the simulation was created so that she and Vision could have the sort of happy, domestic Hollywood love story they didn't have in the actual world. That larger plot is also neatly reflected in the inner plot of the sitcom story, where Wanda uses powers so that the "freak" nature of her and Vision isn't revealed to the inhabitants of Westview, thus upholding the status quo of the sitcom. We also find out that some outside forces are trying to break in to the simulation, possibly to help Wanda.

* In the third episode, again the inner sitcom plot reflects on the traumas and fears of Wanda (and possibly Vision) too, as I outlined in my post above, further explaining why Wanda wants to stay within the simulation, even if she (at least on some level) knows it's fake. We also learn that at least some of the inhabitants are aware of the nature of their simulated lives, and that the simulation exists in physical space, so it can be infiltrated, and there are competing groups of people trying to do that.

So yeah, I really don't feel like this is the sort of mystery show where everything is revealed with a big twist, because we've already learned a lot about both the outer workings of the simulation and the inner workings of the characters inside it. Admittedly it's happening quite slowly, but I don't mind, IMO the sitcom pastiche is very well done and often funny in itself, so it doesn't feel like only the non-sitcom bits "are the show".

(xxpost)

Mostly I'm impressed with how well they are pastiching the source material

comfortable setting for Wanda to experience the sort of life she would want to have

Though if you think about it, why would the ideal imagined by an Eastern European millennial raised at least partly in captivity be a series of classic American sitcom tropes?

Yeah I don’t buy that; there’s a clear feminist undertone cutting through the story that suggests Vizh as well meaning but lost and Wanda as somewhere between subjugated brainwashed and self-deluding.

They show American sitcoms on European TV too, I used to watch reruns of I Love Lucy and The Munsters when I was a kid. Maybe they were exactly the sort of escapist entertainment she loved in wartime Sokovia?

So assuming this is the overall rolling thread -- Thor: Love and Thunder is under way

https://www.instagram.com/p/CKf4dEGJDNG/

And that's a pretty good message there from the Odinsson

Episode 4 of WandaVision continues to successfully hold my interest in this show and answers a lot of “what is going on” questions.

looking forward to watching it tonight