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WandaVision | Paul Bettany is in this | Fridays on Disney+
- Thread starter Deleted member 1248
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- OT
Yea it was brought up with the Lagos paper towel commercial
"clean up your messes with Lagos towels"
Ah. Good catch.
Gotta admit my attention drifts during the commercial bits when I should be paying more attention.
More like a speed demon if you ask me
Energy perception and manipulation, ability to turn into a being of pure energy
I mean scopes bigger than that, but we saw the first two clearly in the episode. How far they'll reach and how high compared to the comic version who knows
Just that whatever he is he is being manipulated by Agatha.
I'm surprised people are more sour on this episode. The mockumetary vibe is done very well (Vision bailing the "set" had me rolling), the aerospace engineer seemingly being a red herring was a bit of a bummer but all the stuff with Monica is fantastic, the parts with Vision and Darcy bonding are pretty solid (I don't know why this episode would tire you on Darcy compared to others - she's mostly fine and Bettany's mostly carrying), and we're getting some time with Wanda for Olsen to really stretch her stuff. Overall just continuing to deliver.
And then the Agatha Harkness reveal...oh man, that was amazing. Talk about taking a fairly obvious twist and setting it up to hit a fucking grand slam with it. The song itself is just pure ear worm - my parents especially loved it since they both grew up with The Munsters as kids and caught the homage instantly. "And I killed Sparky too!" Just so great. XD
So Agatha's clearly being pitched as the main villain, which in hindsight makes sense though it's really funny how a lot of signs of her potentially being a victim were her fucking with the audience and misdirecting. I am still fully on the Mephisto train - there's just way too many hints and allusions that are only further piling up, the giant fly/cicada only adding to it (I didn't even get the comic reference, instead seeing it as an allusion to Beelzebub, Lord of the Flies). I am leaning towards him being more passively alluded to than actively involved, the Thanos to Agatha's Loki as someone noted earlier.
My first thought seeing the giant tome was indeed the Darkhold, plucking that memory from AoS (and I'm firmly in the "no longer canon" camp). Whether it's that, the Necronomicon, or something else, we shall see. Also the first thing I thought hearing "Nexus" was the Nexus of All Realities and thus Man-Thing, which again I'm really personally hoping it isn't given that being so tied to the Everglades. That said, people have brought up Nexus Beings, of which Wanda is explicitly one of, which I could see working more.
Finally, I fully think "Pietro" doesn't have anything to do with either version of Quicksilver and that it's fully a casting gag. What I'm thinking is he's either a fully magical construct created by Agatha just to keep things disrupted or, more daring, he's actually Nicholas Scratch doing his mom's bidding.
And then the Agatha Harkness reveal...oh man, that was amazing. Talk about taking a fairly obvious twist and setting it up to hit a fucking grand slam with it. The song itself is just pure ear worm - my parents especially loved it since they both grew up with The Munsters as kids and caught the homage instantly. "And I killed Sparky too!" Just so great. XD
So Agatha's clearly being pitched as the main villain, which in hindsight makes sense though it's really funny how a lot of signs of her potentially being a victim were her fucking with the audience and misdirecting. I am still fully on the Mephisto train - there's just way too many hints and allusions that are only further piling up, the giant fly/cicada only adding to it (I didn't even get the comic reference, instead seeing it as an allusion to Beelzebub, Lord of the Flies). I am leaning towards him being more passively alluded to than actively involved, the Thanos to Agatha's Loki as someone noted earlier.
My first thought seeing the giant tome was indeed the Darkhold, plucking that memory from AoS (and I'm firmly in the "no longer canon" camp). Whether it's that, the Necronomicon, or something else, we shall see. Also the first thing I thought hearing "Nexus" was the Nexus of All Realities and thus Man-Thing, which again I'm really personally hoping it isn't given that being so tied to the Everglades. That said, people have brought up Nexus Beings, of which Wanda is explicitly one of, which I could see working more.
Finally, I fully think "Pietro" doesn't have anything to do with either version of Quicksilver and that it's fully a casting gag. What I'm thinking is he's either a fully magical construct created by Agatha just to keep things disrupted or, more daring, he's actually Nicholas Scratch doing his mom's bidding.
Agreed, even on second watch.
I'm just not at all invested in the larger MCU SWORD plot. It's incredibly stale and generic. It's what we get in damn near all the movies. And they're really not doing anything to make it interesting. Even when the sitcom bits falter, I still give Marvel credit for using the episodic medium to tell a unique story.
I'm really trying hard to like Monica. I'm a HUGE fan of Teyonah Parris, and I get that not every superhero's origin is profound (or even a major event), but she still feels underwritten to me. Where's her development? Who is she outside of this single-minded drive to help Wanda? I know she's going to play a prominent role in the MCU going forward, so they've got time to flesh her out. But I'm not seeing what makes Monica compelling in WandaVision.
Also, Darcy ...whew, Darcy. Marvel really loves its fan insert characters, but Darcy is egregious. She really only exists as an exposition drone or to reference previous MCU movies. Kat Dennings is giving her every drop of charisma she's got, but what can you do when there's really no character there. All of her scenes feel like a huge drag on a show that's already strapped for time.
Still, that reveal saved the episode. It was a minute long concentrate of everything that has made WandaVision so entertaining to me. It was hilarious and campy, and it used the format of the story to poke fun at itself and the history of television sitcoms. It was also a lesson that, as long as you're telling a good story, and you're being consistent with your characters, your big reveal doesn't have to come out of nowhere to be good.
Secret Wars rearranged the multiverse anyway so there's no reason for the MCU to maintain the same multiversal designation.
Besides, the number was only mentioned in a guidebook, not in the actual pages of any comic. It's easily subject to change regardless.
That's kind of the point. It's just one of many worlds.
If they follow the comics:
Monica Rambeau (Earth-616)
Demonstrating light and energy manipulation at a young age, Monica Rambeau hid and suppressed those abilities until she was bombarded with extra-dimensional energy emitted by a stolen device. Rambeau, now a harbor patrol officer, then discovered an ability to convert her body mass into any form...
marvel.fandom.com
They'll tone things down, like probably not keeping her an immortal energy being, but that's the jist.
Welp, that was mostly disappointing up until Monica confronting Wanda. Monica's contact turned out to be no one that I'm aware of. Vision and Darcy meet, but nothing really comes of it. And Monica's dedication to saving Wanda feels off. I understand that she feels some similarity in their situations, but she doesn't know Wanda at all. She feels more like an audience surrogate than she does her own character.
On the positive side, Monica trying to talk to Wanda was good, even though they do the whole "I need to tell you something!" but say nothing schtick, Agnes, er Agatha, is amazing as always, and her song is fun as hell.
On the positive side, Monica trying to talk to Wanda was good, even though they do the whole "I need to tell you something!" but say nothing schtick, Agnes, er Agatha, is amazing as always, and her song is fun as hell.
I cannot wait until next week when we meet Agatha's brother.
Apparently Jack is actually named AFTER Agatha, according to Barrowman.
For me, I think it's a combo of Monica fundamentally being a heroic person, and seeing Wanda as someone she can save, unlike her mother where she was powerless to do anything.
I'm not even sure I'm going to watch it if he is. It just feels so bland. Maybe it's got an X-factor we haven't seen yet, but I've got no clue what that would be.
I agree with all of your points.
I just finished a rewatch of the episode and the SWORD dialogue was particularly bad this go. Like, who is it for when Woo restates to Monica that Darcy's in the hex and Monica reaffirms that she's going in there to get her? It's bad enough that those characters have no reason to say that to each other in that scene but it serves no purpose, it's already unmistakably clear to the audience what is going on.
In general, the SWORD stuff is so ham-fisted it's almost like they do it on purpose to make you appreciate that the whole shown isn't like that
Yep, this is what I feel.
I wonder if more time would have helped the Shield segments/characters to develop, but being honest, the time they have is also underutilized/mismanaged so idk. It's not even that I dislike the Shield characters, bc I think they each have their charm, but damn, they just go through the motions with this script sometimes.
Plus Hayward went shady as fuck and wants to kill Wanda, so there's some "fuck that guy" zing and a ticking clock she's working with, as well. Wanda aside, she's still trying to prevent the unnecessary murder of somebody who's not necessarily an innocent, but definitely also a victim.
I can buy it.
It's not the exposure that's the issue, it's that the barrier of the anomaly rewrites whatever goes through it. It's pretty likely that when the anomaly breaks down, it's not going to rewrite anything BACKWARDS, just stop controlling people now that the timeline has caught up to the present day.
Monica got her powers because she passed through the barrier three times and it ran out of ways to rewrite her.
I often feel like I'm watching a totally different show than everyone else when I participate in these types of "group watches."
Like, I thought the episode was great.
The Hayward stuff is standard fare, in terms of jerkass human wanting to destroy something that the protagonists hold dear, but there's also a lot more going on with that story than just that, so I find it interesting. There's still some layers to his involvement that have yet to be pealed back in my opinion.
Vison and Darcy, I thought, was great, primarily because we get to see how Vision processes and reacts to the gaps in his memory, his death, not knowing what he even is anymore now that he's been revived, and beginning to understand Wanda's mindset after the events of the previous episodes had shaken his trust in her. He now knows his wife isn't "a villain," but someone who is really struggling through grief, and, as a superpowered being, is capable of far more damage to more than just herself. He knows he's going to have to stop her, but also help her, because, well, it's his wife and he loves her. Also, I love Darcy (though that could be because I love Kat Dennings), so I don't really understand much of the hate for her. I liked her in the Thor movies, and I like her here. She's weird, and awkward, and fun.
The "reveal" of Monica's "guy" didn't have any reaction from me, because I wasn't expecting it to be a "reveal" in the first place. Not an important one, at least (and even so, they could still be Skrulls or some shit, because, why not?). I had no expectations, so it wasn't disappointing to me, personally.
The ending, was, of course, brilliant, but like I mentioned before, I thought the episode was great because there was such an undercurrent of discomfort and tension throughout the whole thing, even the "funny sitcom" moments, that weren't really funny at all when taking it in with the overall context of Wanda literally suffering from major depression and grief, and now everything was unravelling. I felt sorry for her the whole damn episode, and maybe it's because my family often uses humor to cope with grief (I've lost many family members over this past year, and it's been hard, but laughter has definitely been a way for our family to work through the grief), so I empathized with Wanda this episode, and understood where Monica was coming from in wanting to save her, and not because she has any personal connection to Wanda, or Vision, or much of this shit, but because Wanda is still a human, and Monica is just a good person. She's very much that same, optimistic and enthusiastic and compassionate person she was the last time we saw her as a kid in Captain Marvel. Her going through the barrier felt, in my opinion, exactly like something she would do, like I said in my previous post. It was a "heroic sacrifice moment," even though she didn't die. lol
I thought that whole moment with her powers awakening as she passed through the barrier to be very beautiful and powerful. Maybe it's because I watch these shows with subtitles, so I was able to catch all of the dialogue that was being played as she did it. It was super moving to me. I'm not even terribly familiar with Spectrum/Photon, though I know a little bit about her from the comics. It was still a hype moment for me (and my friend who texted me excitedly when she got to that part of the episode).
So far, I've loved every episode, and I'm looking forward to being able to re-watch all 9 episodes in one go when it's all said and done, especially once the "full story" has been revealed, and I can watch it all with new eyes. This definitely seems like a show that begs for at least one re-watch.
The acting of the entire cast has been great, but Olsen, Bettany, and Hahn are most definitely standout performances. Bettany especially continues to make Vision such a ridiculously endearing and likable character, that I really hope he's able to stick around for future MCU stories. I've always liked Vision since AoE, but this show has really elevated him and Wanda to very high up in my "favorite MCU characters" list.
Like, I thought the episode was great.
The Hayward stuff is standard fare, in terms of jerkass human wanting to destroy something that the protagonists hold dear, but there's also a lot more going on with that story than just that, so I find it interesting. There's still some layers to his involvement that have yet to be pealed back in my opinion.
Vison and Darcy, I thought, was great, primarily because we get to see how Vision processes and reacts to the gaps in his memory, his death, not knowing what he even is anymore now that he's been revived, and beginning to understand Wanda's mindset after the events of the previous episodes had shaken his trust in her. He now knows his wife isn't "a villain," but someone who is really struggling through grief, and, as a superpowered being, is capable of far more damage to more than just herself. He knows he's going to have to stop her, but also help her, because, well, it's his wife and he loves her. Also, I love Darcy (though that could be because I love Kat Dennings), so I don't really understand much of the hate for her. I liked her in the Thor movies, and I like her here. She's weird, and awkward, and fun.
The "reveal" of Monica's "guy" didn't have any reaction from me, because I wasn't expecting it to be a "reveal" in the first place. Not an important one, at least (and even so, they could still be Skrulls or some shit, because, why not?). I had no expectations, so it wasn't disappointing to me, personally.
The ending, was, of course, brilliant, but like I mentioned before, I thought the episode was great because there was such an undercurrent of discomfort and tension throughout the whole thing, even the "funny sitcom" moments, that weren't really funny at all when taking it in with the overall context of Wanda literally suffering from major depression and grief, and now everything was unravelling. I felt sorry for her the whole damn episode, and maybe it's because my family often uses humor to cope with grief (I've lost many family members over this past year, and it's been hard, but laughter has definitely been a way for our family to work through the grief), so I empathized with Wanda this episode, and understood where Monica was coming from in wanting to save her, and not because she has any personal connection to Wanda, or Vision, or much of this shit, but because Wanda is still a human, and Monica is just a good person. She's very much that same, optimistic and enthusiastic and compassionate person she was the last time we saw her as a kid in Captain Marvel. Her going through the barrier felt, in my opinion, exactly like something she would do, like I said in my previous post. It was a "heroic sacrifice moment," even though she didn't die. lol
I thought that whole moment with her powers awakening as she passed through the barrier to be very beautiful and powerful. Maybe it's because I watch these shows with subtitles, so I was able to catch all of the dialogue that was being played as she did it. It was super moving to me. I'm not even terribly familiar with Spectrum/Photon, though I know a little bit about her from the comics. It was still a hype moment for me (and my friend who texted me excitedly when she got to that part of the episode).
So far, I've loved every episode, and I'm looking forward to being able to re-watch all 9 episodes in one go when it's all said and done, especially once the "full story" has been revealed, and I can watch it all with new eyes. This definitely seems like a show that begs for at least one re-watch.
The acting of the entire cast has been great, but Olsen, Bettany, and Hahn are most definitely standout performances. Bettany especially continues to make Vision such a ridiculously endearing and likable character, that I really hope he's able to stick around for future MCU stories. I've always liked Vision since AoE, but this show has really elevated him and Wanda to very high up in my "favorite MCU characters" list.
I mean yeah he's either someone roped into this(speedster from the multiverse/someone manipulated and given powers by the hex; either could result in him sticking around as say Speed Demon), or he's Agatha son/husband and they're using magic to temporarily give him speed powers. Lots of ways it could go, will likely be revealed next week
Well the fun part with this show is that I think everyone in this thread has felt that at one point or another lol
Like I thought Episodes 4 and this one were the worst ones, but for others they're the best ones? Then we get all the people who want the sitcom parts to all be cut out but I think they're the best parts, and vice versa. And that's not even counting people who are seeing X-men clues everywhere or really disliked what happened with Pietro.
It doesn't bother me though, it's fun really.
Had no idea that's where they got the name. That's cool.
I feel like the second Young Avengers series mentioned it as one of the universes that the team traveled to.
I honestly felt the same. Like I was not expecting them to blow a huge MCU character reveal on something so minor.
I do wish they spent less time building up to it, though.
Yeah. I'm not sure if it was Davies or Barrowman himself who picked the name, since Moffat didn't create Captain Jack.
This episode reminded me A LOT of Arrested Development.
I thought that too, but there was no narrator which would have been mandatory for an AD homage. I wish they would have tossed at least one Ron Howard line in. The episode was almost 100% Modern Family (an ABC production).
I was a little disappointed by the reveal of Monica's contact, but not because it wasn't a big Marvel character. I was expecting her to get a cool Man-Bot suit or something:
So the moon buggy was a bit of a letdown.
It does raise an interesting question, though - What is SWORD doing with heavily-armored moon buggies?
So the moon buggy was a bit of a letdown.
It does raise an interesting question, though - What is SWORD doing with heavily-armored moon buggies?
Not sure if you read this, or if it's something that matters to you, but it definitely gave me hope that it would be a bit more than just standard MCU fare. Not that I actually have any problem with standard MCU fare.
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier‘s Malcolm Spellman Is Ready to Deliver an Undeniably Black Superhero Story
'The Falcon and the Winter Soldier' executive producer Malcolm Spellman is set to deliver a Black superhero story in the upcoming series.
tvline.com
Not to discount your opinion of the episode (if people liked it, they liked it), but this was the biggest problem with the episode for me personally.
Up to this point, Vision has been the co-lead of the show. He's not just another player; his name is in the show title and his perspective is one through which we've seen the events of the story play out. And figuring out that something is wrong with the town, and something is wrong with him has been a huge part of his character arch. Like, these are not minor beats.
So Vision getting this information from Darcy, and largely off screen (!!!), felt really cheap to me. It felt like the writers looking for a reason to include the SHIELD characters, when Vision learning what's going on and the nature of Westview and his existence in it should have been a big moment in the show...and not an excuse to make Darcy relevant.
I feel like the opening joke that flashed to the barrier eating everyone was pretty AD, especially with the music punctuating it.
I was a little disappointed by the reveal of Monica's contact, but not because it wasn't a big Marvel character. I was expecting her to get a cool Man-Bot suit or something:
So the moon buggy was a bit of a letdown.
It does raise an interesting question, though - What is SWORD doing with heavily-armored moon buggies?
Well, their primary mission objective before the snap was to explore space/protect earth from space threats, Hayward is the one that changed to sentient weapons.
As for it being armored, Monica probably requested it be shielded against all kinds of radiation because their idea was that Wanda was rewriting reality through radiation.
That's definitely true.
I also really love the sitcom parts, partially from having grown up with many of the ones they've referenced (mostly 80's-present day; but i also watched reruns of old shows like I Love Lucy, The Brady Bunch, The Munsters, etc, on Nick at Nite as a kid), and partially because I love how unsettling those sitcom parts have been since episode 1, and the overall narrative of it being tied to Wanda and her grief/anger, and then seeing it start to unravel. I feel like removing the sitcom parts would rob the show of one its strongest elements, including the showrunner's penchant for meta-commentary, within and outside of the universe. It's just been a really clever, refreshing, fun ride from jump for me, and I'm expecting them to stick the landing with these last two episodes too.
Different strokes for different folks, I suppose. I just like sitting back and enjoying what the showrunners have in store for us.
Considering my job, I'm actually pleasantly surprised that I still managed to be caught off guard and surprised by how they've executed their vision.
Honestly, I didn't have much of a problem with how they handled Vision discovering the truth offscreen for 2 reasons. I don't see why it matters that it was Darcy that was the point of exposition for him, as her primary role in the series has been that of "relatable exposition/audience surrogate." Anyway, reason 1, is more practical: This is a television show with 9 episodes of limited run time. As a writer, one of the challenges is trying to find out the best way to utilize the time and space you have to tell your story. Side tangent, while working on my graphic novel, it was originally conceived as a 4 issue mini-series, with each issue being 22 pages long (roughly standard American comic book length). I had to think long and hard about what I actually wanted/needed to show in each issue to tell the story I wanted to tell. It requires a lot of shorthand and shortcuts, without losing much of your plot/characterization/etc. It's really tough to do, I learned the hard way!
Reason 2 is tied to reason 1: The information Darcy is relaying to Vision about his past, is stuff that we, the audience, already know about Vision and his history, as such, it would be burning valuable screentime to have a scene or two of her running through the events the audience is already familiar with, so the writers instead did two things; peppered a little of that throughout previous episodes (in particular, the last episode, and the episode where Pietro shows up, where Vision is slowly realizing that something is very wrong with this idyllic world he and Wanda live in, and that there's something off about his memories. Then, he learns in episode 6 that he was dead, which leads to more questions, but he isn't able to really get answers from Wanda, as his investigations lead him out of the Hex, where he's nearly killed until Wanda expands it and saves him. The second thing the writers did was focus on just a few of the key elements of Vision's predicament to devote screen time to, gave it to Darcy, since it saves time (she's a familiar face that Vision recognizes as not being hostile from last episode, though he may not have been 100% sure that she could give him all of the answers he sought, but hey, she's from the outside world, so she's bound to know something). Darcy is both shorthand as point of catching Vision up, shorthand for skirting past Vision having to convince a stranger that he's not hostile (and they're not hostile), while also giving Vision a bit of important character arc growth by having him realize that his wife isn't untrustworthy, just traumatized and "lashing out" through grief. Not to mention that we, the audience, also already know that Darcy is non-hostile, so for our benefit, she was the bearer of trustworthy information for our hero. I mean, if it was Pietro, for example, telling Vision this, we'd be suspicious, and so would Vision. Even Wanda herself is a bit of an unreliable narrator at this point, despite us knowing Wanda is, ultimately, not a bad person.
We already know this, as the audience, and I think this was a pretty solid way of solving the episode run-time/important information/character arc trajectory issue that the writers and show faced.
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So is there a specific reason why Wanda got weirded out by the cicada? I imagine she got weirded out by Señor Scratchy being in the cage because she expected the twins to be playing with him... but what was the weird part about the cicada?
