With the advent of color WandaVision, the series evokes an era of change and prepares for a major change – which may or may not be the real problem behind the current circumstances of Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany). But, considering what we now know about Westview, can we safely say that this is all Wanda’s doing?
Let’s try to decode the puzzle of television history to see what becoming a family sitcom means WandaVision.
Spoiler alert: This feature reveals details of WandaVision episode 3 “Now In Color.” Stop here if you haven’t seen the episode yet.
In Bewitched for The Brady Bunch: WandaVision Advances Its Sitcom Aesthetics for Family
(Photo: © Marvel Studios 2021. All rights reserved.)
As we mentioned last week, the television series Bewitched started his life in black and white. He also started his run by focusing on the newlyweds Samantha and Darren. The first season’s stories included Samantha meeting Darren’s parents – it was a quick relationship – and Darren trying to stop Samantha from revealing her witch powers to her boss or neighbors. The parallels with last week WandaVision are obvious.
Continuing the parallel, at least to some extent, is the shift to Wanda’s color and pregnancy – both a child and the colored footage would arrive Bewitched in his third year. But of course episode 3 Partridge family– inspired credit sequence and The Brady Bunch– the style defines changes that WandaVision is moving away from Bewitched format in the late 1960s or early 1970s and the sitcoms for large families of that time.
The Brady Bunch, released in September 1969, told stories about a mixed family of six children – three girls from wife Carol’s previous marriage and three children of widower Mike Brady – dealing with their new life arrangement. Although it lasted only five seasons, endless repetitions of the 80s and 90s (and four attempts to continue the series in new ways) made it iconic and a clear reference point, as Wanda anticipates his future family.
Although, one can argue The Brady Bunchthe most iconic element is the decoration of the late 60’s, with a loving tribute in WandaVision through the multicolored frosted glass feature above the entry in this week’s episode. The sudden appearance of bricks throughout the house, the descent from the foyer to the living area and certain elements in the kitchen – look at the island and the oven – also evoke the look of a classic sitcom.
(Photo: © Marvel Studios 2021. All rights reserved.)
But, as with stylistic callbacks for 1950s sitcoms in the first episode, episode 3’s commitment to Brady the aesthetic extends outside the home. Both the backyard and the front areas are made with scenery (and an obviously painted plan for Herb’s house), fake grass and some other visual cues that honor the Bradys’ backyard on the scene and draw attention to the artificiality of the situation.
In previous episodes, the front of the house was filmed on the spot (or a studio backlot) with natural sunlight. Here, Vision’s conversation with Herb (David Payton) and later with Agnes (Kathryn Hahn) amplifies the set-bound feeling of the Maximoff-Vision house, which we will refer to from now on by his address number. 2800. For careful observers, the change in production technique should offer a feeling of foreboding long before Vision realizes that Herb cuts the cement wall with an edge trimmer.
But going back to The Brady Bunch for a moment, the feeling of limit was not absolute. The production used to go out to shoot outdoor scenes at nursery schools (an administrative building on the Paramount lot in Los Angeles), on neighborhood streets and on family vacations. That means WandaVisionthe choice to be so determined this week means something.
It is a pity that Vision loses his train of thought before he can feel that meaning.
Geraldine’s otherness begins to unnerve Wanda
(Photo by Suzanne Tenner. © Marvel Studios 2021. All rights reserved.)
And while Vision is contained in the “exteriors” of the sound stage, Wanda is left to deal with the initial contractions and the unexpected arrival of Geraldine (Teyonah Parris). From the sound of the story, she tells Wanda about her day at work, it looks like she’s the star of her own show. It turns out that the first sitcom to feature an African American woman in a professional role (as opposed to a maid) was Julia, which ran more or less simultaneously with the first seasons of The Brady Bunch. He starred in Diahann Caroll as a widowed single mother who worked for a doctor at an aerospace company. And while the story Geraldine tells Wanda about getting a job at an advertising agency takes us in a different direction, single mothers and the aerospace industry lead us to Geraldine’s true identity.
We also highlight the feeling of its star power and possible connections with Julia because the emerging feeling that she doesn’t belong to Westview has a connotation that we don’t think WandaVision intends, but it is still an aspect of TV history. For the purposes of this episode, Geraldine is a black woman in 1968 entering the world of advertising, and both Agnes and Herb find her “strange”. Agnes’ suggestion that Geraldine is wrong for the city would be an offense if it weren’t for other non-white faces like Herb and Norm (Asif Ali).
This week’s commercial, with its mixed family and direct reference to Hydra, could be a point about the values that Strucker wanted Wanda and his brother to believe. Did Hydra purposely feed her a classic sitcom diet to instill her notion of a “suitable society?
(Photo by Chuck Zlotnick. © Marvel Studios 2021. All rights reserved.)
In the text of the series, however, Geraldine’s otherness comes to the fore as she tries to get Wanda to talk more about her brother Pietro (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). It seems, at least for now, that she forgot her death. Or, at least, the circumstances of his death in Avengers: Age of Ultron. But Geraldine’s knowledge of the events and his attempts to persuade him reveal an important detail for Wanda: Geraldine’s knowledge really not around here.
Of course, as we’ve all known for a long time thanks to Marvel’s advertising machine, Geraldine is actually Monica Rambeau, the adult daughter of Captain MarvelMaria Rambeau (Lashana Lynch), fighter pilot and single mother. In addition, thanks to Wanda’s rejection of his presence in Westview, we also know that the city is a physical location somewhere on Earth surrounded by an energy field that resembles the Red-Green-Blue of a ray tube television cathodic. It is also surrounded by some type of government agency. Let’s assume it’s SWORD
The on-screen twins from Wanda and Vision parallel a comic book plot
(Photo: © Marvel Studios 2021. All rights reserved.)
The Westview reveal may be the biggest reveal in any other program, but for WandaVision, is just a counterpoint to the arrival of Billy and Tommy, Wanda’s miraculous twins.
Back in comics, the existence of the twins was a point of debate for many years. Originally introduced as sons of Wanda and Vision – by magical means – it later turned out to be a big mistake involving various demons and mystical entities. The twins are gone for a while, but today they exist as flesh and blood beings and members of the Young Avengers.
It seems clear WandaVision he wants to play with that tension because even at that point, Wanda can be the real force behind it all. This week’s evidence comes in the way she forcibly removes Monica from the city and her edit in Vision’s line of thought when he starts noticing all the oddities in Westview. If she’s causing all this, the goal was to raise a family with children. Ultimately, two children were needed because Wanda was a twin, and we bet she never dealt with the loss of Pietro; in fact, it is possible that Wanda entered into his relationship with the Vision to avoid his grief.
All of this presupposes, of course, that Wanda is causing all of this. But there is another suspect: Agnes. At this point, all we really have is her status as a nosy neighbor and the way she expressed her suspicions about Geraldine. It is also possible to interpret her interest in Wanda’s life and the way she called her “the star of the show” in episode 2 as evidence that she is aware of more than she demonstrates. So, of course, there are rumors on the internet suggesting that she is really Agatha Harkness, the former sorceress who taught Wanda in magic and revealed to her the true nature of Billy and Tommy in the comics.
We are not fully convinced of this yet. On the one hand, Harkness is typically an ally of the Avengers and the Fantastic Four. As we are still inclined to believe that Wanda is behind all this, we are inclined to believe that Agnes is just another Westview resident who was recruited to be part of the TV fantasy. Since Westview is a real place, it seems that everyone we know so far is also real and is struggling with these sitcom roles and characterizations.
Perhaps that’s why Ms. Hart (Debra Jo Rupp) pointedly asked Wanda to “stop it” in episode 1.
The Kitchen Review
(Photo: © Marvel Studios 2021. All rights reserved.)
As we noted last week, the 2800 evolution came with notable recreations of the kitchen sets from The Dick Van Dyke Show and Bewitched. But with the arrival of the aesthetics of the late 60s and early 70s, the kitchen scene stopped changing dramatically between episodes. The kitchen’s place in the general layout of the house and the partition that separates it from the dining area remain since the previous episodes. Instead of exactly replicating the iconic color scheme of Brady’s kitchen, it just evokes aesthetics with the colors of Vision comics. In addition, those who look closely will see the central island and the double oven are explicit quotes from the Brady house.
We think the changes in the kitchen are significant. In terms of TV history, the mother characters were relegated to the kitchen on programs like Lassie and Dennis the Menace. It is also the place where Darren Stevens Bewitched and Ricky Ricardo in I love Lucy he would have preferred his wives to stay while they went to work. Even in The Brady Bunch, the kitchen was the place where Carol was expected to be, despite housekeeper Alice.
(Photo: © Marvel Studios 2021. All rights reserved.)
Next week, it will be interesting to see how the kitchen evolves again. Of the trailers, we know it will eventually imitate the Family ties kitchen, but will a comedy from the late 1970s inspire decor before the 1980s hit Westview, or are we already going into the Reagan Era with only four episodes?
New episodes of WandaVision opens on Fridays at Disney +.
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