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

agnes's husband ralph is gonna be confused

yeah, didn't work for me either. may type up some more reasoned thoughts later but my 2cents is this ended up being deep true emotional story sabotaged by laser beam blasts and midair punch'em-ups... and vice versa! Everything after Agatha All Along was too absurd for me to take seriously and too serious for me to effortlessly enjoy.

Lots of people just standing around watching while stuff happened around them in this episode.

Or, you know, just hovering in place.

Nothing against you, forks, but...absurdity is built into the whole overarching enterprise.

Of course, but deep true emotional stories are not! I think this worked for the most part as long as it tried to tell its story on a small scale.

Or more to the point, when marvel did deep true emotional stories in the books, they were couched in heavy camp, aimed at the young and the stunted and landed fairly leaden. "Even an Android Can Cry," referenced explicitly in this episode, has long been the subject of scorn and academic conversation for just that reason.

It wasn’t until I became a parent that I noticed how often kids are treated as props with little concern for the real logistics, like “oh and who is watching their kids now??” questions going unanswered — but even given that baseline leaving your apparently beloved children to die, painfully, alone, awake, while you get emo downstairs is some written-for-teens nonsense.

yeah, let's tuck in the mindbabies for dramatic effect as the red wall of reality relentlessly encroaches was a bridge too far for me too. Though obviously the second post-credits bit is meant to suggest that wanda is scouring the reaches to bring them back, so we have that to look forward to in Doc Strange 2: Doc Stranger

Liked this! It's funny, whenever I read people gushing over this I'm like "come on it's good but not that good" but whenever I see people going "come on it's good but not that good" I realize I really like it! Anyway: they had a lot to do and they didn't really get it all done but it's episodic TV, I get that.

As for the kids, it doesn't bother me at all because I take that scene to be Wanda understanding that those are not actual kids, they are just projections of her wants; by contrast with Vision, who is a memory of an actual being who existed and who is explicitly set up as created in part by the Mindstone. The "kids" were inventions who at this point in the series she's known for four days. Nothing painful is going to happen to them, they are not existing people who now have to live with the memories of the torture they underwent like the people of Westview, they are just going to cease to pretend to exist!

I feel like this left it really unclear what the story is with white Vision. Are they saying that because he still has the memories the Vision robot still "really is" Vision, and Vision just goes back to being alive in later movies? I have to say, MCU has already been really bad about killing people and then being like "we fixed it, no longer dead" -- I guess I have to admit it's very true to the comics to do this so maybe I should just get used to it.

Finally, I really hope Agatha Harkness had a premonition that some hardcore magic was going to happen in Westview NJ so she moved there like a year before these events and started hooking up with Ralph the doofy but strangely hot young stoner who lived alone in a house with a big basement

Re the kids, then again the strange line "thank you for choosing me to be your mom" suggests that maybe the kids ARE real beings who somehow entered the hex to portray Wanda's children, and who have some existence outside of it -- but then of course they're not dying in that scene, just reverting to their true selves, whatever they are.

Honestly what's great about the [ show hidden text ] element is how it can make a whole series of responses seem like a blank Mad Libs page.

What is [ noun ] if not [ noun ] [ gerund ]

The mid-credits one is just a set-up for Captain Marvel 2

Correction, set-up for future Disney+ show Secret Invasion (featuring Nick Fury & the Skrulls and now presumably also Monica R.).

Also not sure how relevant it is (possibly not relevant at all given how sidelined the Marvel tv shows have become at this point) but the Darkhold was featured extensively on Agents of SHIELD, wherein its powers were utilized to turn an LMD into a real live girl. Perhaps worthy of note.

there was a lot to like about this show and some fine moments in the finale (most of them with Bettany on screen) but it takes away nothing from the great moments that they stuffed a ton of exposition into the finale, which is kind of, if you’re still doing exposition in the third act you did kind of fuck it up.

anyhoo, film crit hulk kinda nails this one I think: https://t.co/mJYqbUPKvN

Yeah, I enjoyed this and am clearly a harcore Marvel stan in general but that review is pretty on point. Real rough around the edges in the home stretch. Don't know how much of that is attributable to questions that will be answered elsewhere (as I assumed at least one of the jobs of the Disney+ shows would be seeding the ground for future plot developments in the films) and how much is shit that's gonna be left to dangle.

oh god. i couldn't keep reading after a couple paragraphs of that film crit hulk blog. did i really read this kind of stuff in my salad days?

i rewatched the previous three with my brother who wasn't caught up, and still very happy with those episodes (Halloween, Spectrum/Agatha All Long and Wanda's between-the-films flashback ep)

series is still absolutely great overall, though I do have a bit of deflated feeling about the final episode, because it was impossible I suppose for all the questions to be answered (what happened to Jimmy Woo's witness? Monica's engineer friend was a total dud after all? that's Ralph?? what about X-Men??) and because the incredible final cameo that we were waiting for never materialized

Well ultimately that last bit was Bettany’s amazing troll and I respect it.

Bettany's troll was indeed great

really enjoyed bettany’s physicality as evil vision, very subtle changes in posture and expression really made the character feel distinct

Aw, all the TV bloggers are sad because they put all their eggs in one basket for a show that turned out to be B+ at best.

Anyway, first 7 episodes were terrific, last two were a letdown, but that's not a bad batting average. Great show! More like this.

Thinking (wondering) if Falcon & Winter Soldier will be typical action Marvel and then Loki something more interesting?

These shows (and Star Wars too) are like Kroll Show’s parodies of reality TV where every character no matter how minor or annoying gets a spin-off.

Is WandaVision the Joanie Loves Chachi of the MCU?

Couple of other nit-picky loose ends: why was Dottie one of two unidentified people in the hex? Why was Pietro, if he was really just a resident, not identified as such? If he was just a person, how was he given Pietro's super powers? Why, after the showdown in the town square, were all the people (and Monica, and the members of SWORD, plus their evil villain leader) still just apparently standing there all night? Has Monica even acknowledged the arrival of her new abilities? What has Agatha been up to for the last 300 years? Had Darcy just been sitting in that ice cream truck for days? If the hex is now gone, then where is Agatha? The difference between Vision and White Vision is that Vision has (some version of) the mind stone, but White Vision has the same powers as Vision, so what does the mind stone get Vision?

Didn't the necklace that Agnes put around his neck give him those powers?

I don’t understand what happened with white Vision at all.

I thought the necklace allowed her to control him, but if Agatha's powers were strong enough to give a dude powers strong enough to take out Monica with a flick, then what did Agatha even want?

White Vision ... flew away to float another day.

None of this detracts from the fact that at least 80% of this show was really good, which makes me hopeful for Falcon and the Winter Soldier (I keep wanting to call it Falcon and the Snowman) despite not caring one bit about Falcon or Winter Solider as characters.

But if white Vision is now good and has all his memories restored then why doesn’t Wanda know that and go after him? This whole thing was about her grief of losing him. Now he’s back. It seemed like a weird thing to just toss off

he had to use the bathroom for 30 years

Well given the tease at the very VERY end of the episode, there's maybe more to come on the whole family front.

yeah we're gonna get some multiverse shit

lol at Ralph Bohner tho

Next year on the Disney++ service, newly introduced: ten episode series called Bohner.

(I'm wondering if that was actually an old Evan Peters headshot they used!)

But if white Vision is now good and has all his memories restored then why doesn’t Wanda know that and go after him?

I thought when the camera moved inside the rustic cabin at the end it was gonna be WhiteVision holding the whistling kettle and then the big reveal is that the entire series was an extended infomercial for Hydra brand coffee

the best part of waking up
is fascism in your cup

Part of the problem with this (addressed by the Film Crit Hulk guy) is that there's really been no real setup for Scarlet Witch or her/its mythology, in this series or before, so a lot of this show, as an origin story, stays pretty muddled. Losing her brother plus losing Vision (twice) is what apparently causes Wanda to snap, gain the full Witch powers (why? how at the end of this did she suddenly know how to do stuff like make runes/do leather work? I guess they'll go into it), create a full (more than mere) simulation that includes not just Vision, not just (sort of) some version of her brother, but two loving children as well, and then resolves that by ... having her in essence kill them herself? You'd think that'd be even tougher, psychologically, than watching them die, but clearly she has gone off to Think About What She's Done. (And yeah, implication is that her kids spirits are currently in some other dimension or something, maybe next door to wherever she put Agatha.)

I loved how at the end White Vision, rather than phase through the roof, just dramatically busts through the glass skylight on the way out. It's like he figured, eh, we broke plenty of stuff already, fuck it.

do you want a montage that lasts 30 minutes for every skill she learns, Karate Kid style?

my 2cents is this ended up being deep true emotional story sabotaged by laser beam blasts and midair punch'em-ups... and vice versa! Everything after Agatha All Along was too absurd for me to take seriously and too serious for me to effortlessly enjoy.

― G.A.G.S. (Gophers Against Getting Stuffed) (forksclovetofu), Friday, 5 March 2021 16:12 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

otm. it just felt like it was cheapening the emotional heft they were going for. i would love a season of wanda just dealing with her grief and learning to let go, and another season of hilarious agatha hijinks and wanda learning she's a witch, but the mix felt really weird and i don't think benefited either story well.

xpost Yes, that would be awesome. With a song. Though, come on, it is a little weird to have her suddenly in full control of vast super witch powers she didn't even know she had until, like, an hour earlier.

Come to think of it ... what was Agatha all along? Next to nothing, right? Wanda's grief gave her new powers, Wanda created the hex, Wanda expanded the hex, Wanda controlled all the people, Wanda trapped them inside the hex, Wanda created Vision, Wanda created her kids, Wanda created the sitcom context. What did Agatha do? Control fake Pietro (and give him super powers, though on both counts, why?). And kill Sparky? As my viewing companion pointed out, what was up with the scene with the television set, with Agatha as director, if Agatha was neither creating nor controlling what we were seeing?

I honestly wonder if the pandemic interfered with other plans they had. Like, it was going to go another direction, or maybe another episode, but they had to quickly rewrite some stuff and wrap it up. I'd sure like to think that's the excuse.

Had Darcy just been sitting in that ice cream truck for days?

Are you being for real here?

As my viewing companion pointed out, what was up with the scene with the television set, with Agatha as director, if Agatha was neither creating nor controlling what we were seeing?

Do you mean the one-second joke shot in a non-diegetic comedy song?

The Tannhauser Gate/Bladerunner reference on the theatre marquee caught me by surprise. Has to be about whether a synthesized Vision is as real or as much or more than the original, I guess?

xpost No, there are a couple of times. One, a little into "Breaking the Fourth Wall," where you hear the director's voice, and Wanda is all "wait, why are you talking to me?" or something, but also toward the end of the flashback episode, "Previously On," where Wanda is in a TV studio lit by klieg lights and Agatha gives her a slow clap as the only member of the studio audience.

Agatha was trying to pump Wanda for information on the source of her power and find out how she created the hex. She was manipulating Wanda into giving up her secrets, which was made pretty explicit when she said something along the lines of “tell me how you did this and tell me the source of your power so I can take it” multiple times

I know that, but she did that in the guise of a director, which fits the Agatha After All reveal, but not the reveal that it was not Agatha after all.

Agatha All Along was a comedy song placed as a punchline, not a solemn promise of dramatic canonicity. Lots of things happen in the Hex parts of the show that do not make realistic sense.

Good point. Also, they are actors playing fictional superheroes with magic powers, so ... (waves hands).