WandaVision prepares for a new arrival in “Now in color”

Wanda and Vision are coming to their screens in full technicolor! Which is apparently only surprising to them. Come on.

resume

Wanda and Vision call Dr. Nielson (Randy Oglesby) to see how Wanda is doing. He tells them that she is four months pregnant, despite Wanda’s condition showing up yesterday. The doctor tells the couple that he will soon go on vacation with his wife. The vision seems to know that something is wrong, but the episode “goes back” again and he forgets his suspicions. Later, the couple is decorating their nursery and discussing whether to name a boy Tommy or Billy. Wanda feels a kick, which should not have happened before six months, leading Visão to suspect that they will be parents on Friday. Wanda has a Braxton Hicks contraction, which causes a series of unexplained phenomena, cutting off the power of the entire block. So Wanda has a real contraction and Vision goes to get Dr. Nielson.

While the Vision is gone, Geraldine arrives to borrow a bucket due to the sudden flood in his home. Wanda is busy trying to hide her pregnancy while trying to give Geraldine what she needs, and her friend gossip about her office and her recent promotion. There is a live stork in the house that Wanda cannot get rid of, but Geraldine finally realizes the nursery and the pregnancy, and Wanda goes into labor on the living room floor. She gives birth to a baby boy just before Vision and the doctor appear. The birth continues and Wanda has twin boys, so they call them Tommy and Billy. Vision says goodbye to Dr. Nielson, asking if he is going on vacation now, but the doctor does not think so because it is difficult to leave small towns like the one they live in.

Agnes and Herb (David Payton) are whispering about the hedges; before, Herb was mowing his bushes and accidentally cut the brick barrier between his house and theirs. The two neighbors look distressed, but are unable to tell Vision what bothers them. Agnes points out that Geraldine does not have a home in his city. Inside, Wanda mentions that she was a twin and says her brother’s name aloud before starting to sing a Sokovian lullaby. Geraldine remembers that Wanda’s brother was killed by Ultron – Wanda realizes that she has a pendant with the emblem of a sword and asks who she really is. Geraldine doesn’t seem to remember. When Vision enters the house again, Geraldine is gone and Wanda claims that she has returned home. In the real world, we see Geraldine lying on the grass and surrounded by trucks and cars. The city of Westview is clearly isolated by some kind of energy barrier.

Comment

We can go full Brady Bunch strike Partridge family in this episode, mainly to the reconstruction of the house and obviously to fashion (and references to macramé). Sure, sitcom episodes that deal with pregnancy are common enough, but it’s nice to watch the series roll its eyes about how women have been treated in the past with these issues. (Your baby is a fruit! Don’t be afraid!) If I made a dime for every time I watched a silly birth scene, or someone teaching Lamaze breathing techniques, I would be able to take a run to the supermarket right now.

Tonally, there is a lot to enjoy on the show, particularly in the combination of sitcom laughs with lingering and lingering dread. It seems to me that this works as a metaphor for sitcoms in general; within the history of the genre, audiences are more aware than usual that they are separated from reality when watching a sitcom. This is partly due to its initial construction: the live audience of the studio, the laugh track, the single stage sets, a certain level of wink and nudge directed at the audience. Sitcoms negotiate with artifice and, for a long time, were assembled more like pieces than other filmed media.

WandaVision is to take that known separation and make it “real” in essence. The gimmick is often spurred on by Westview residents, who know something is wrong in their lives. This, in turn, points to the inherently scary concept surrounding any traditional sitcom setup – worlds where all the action takes place in a room, where you know your lock, where you set up your spouse or friends for a single line … but also the worlds were expected to all behave the same and look the same, where problems are perfectly summarized in half an hour and where any lack of uniformity has to be erased because it creates an imaginary rhythm.

Of course, there is an underlying terror to this show. Sitcoms are a horrible place to be.

My real question is whether the series will finally go deeper than what we saw, however, because superhero narratives have their own version of this exact problem, and even more so with respect to the MCU itself. We fail to see much real emotional digging, consideration beyond a brief word or shared look. This is confirming right in front of us: Our two most exciting moments in the episode involve Vision, first with her perception that something is not right in her world, then, when Wanda points out that she must remove her human “cover” before holding your child for the first time. These moments are disturbing for different reasons – the first because a momentary discovery is clearly erased by Wanda trying to keep this world intact, the second because of the reminder that hiding in plain sight was necessary for Vision’s entire life – but we cannot sit with one or those moments, or even reflect on them within history, and it is unlikely that we will ever do so.

The mystery is quickly unraveled, with Geraldine (who is actually Monica) expelled for failing to hold the line. It seems that Wanda created his own mental prison and possibly arrested an entire city together with it. Agnes and Herb come close to telling Vision that they cannot leave, although Agnes prevents Herb from saying so immediately. Dr. Nielson is more clear on this point, however. If Wanda is doing this entirely on her own (it is still possible that she is not, but very little that we have seen suggests otherwise, references to Hydra aside), SWORD has a job done for them. She is not receiving visitors well, and Monica’s inability to remember her own name when questioned probably means that people are dominated the instant they enter the world of Wanda.

My hope is that they will maintain their presumption as much as they can. Glimpses of the outside world are good, but clinging to the summary of the sitcom’s history is making the show irresistibly. Very real world and we might as well be watching SHIELD agents. WandaVision deserves to be yours.

Thoughts and appearances:

• The commercial for this one gives even more prominence, an ad for the “Hydra Soak” soap, which promises to help people get rid of all their cares and concerns. Gosh, I wonder why anyone might want to do this.

• That thing with the butterfly on Vision’s nose was too beautiful, and I’m still thinking about it.
• Could Herb be Herbert Wyndham? The character has some important ties to Wanda and her brother within the comics, but it’s also possible that this is just a fun misdirected Easter egg.
• You can recognize Randy Oglesby from several places, but Trek fans will know you better as a Degra in Star Trek: Enterprise. Rose Bianco, playing his wife, also recently appeared in Cobra Kai on Netflix.
• Westview is reportedly in New Jersey and shares some similarities with Leonia, New Jersey, where Wanda and Vision lived when married in the comics. It makes some sense to be in Jersey for its proximity to New York State, where the final battle of Endgame went down. Your sign says “Home: this is where you do it”.
• This is really the first time that Pietro has been educated a lot since his untimely death in Avengers: Age of Ultron. It’s a strange reminder because your character was frankly treated badly and killed long before we could meet him. It is also another example of how the development of Wanda’s character so far in the MCU has been hurried or nonexistent.

• Billy and Tommy are the names of Vision and Wanda’s children in the comics. Billy later became known as Wiccan and became one of the founding members of the Young Avengers – he also has an adorable boyfriend on a Kree-Skrull named Teddy aka Hulkling. Tommy is also known as Speed, with powers very similar to those of his uncle Pietro. Both boys were introduced to comics in mid-childhood and created separately by non-super couples, due to them being formed from fragments of the soul of a demon who destroyed their host (his name is Mephisto) due to the power that Wanda left them . So, they are basically reincarnated. Yes, it’s a very. I’m not sure if that’s where WandaVision plans to continue, but we should probably expect something a little simpler.

Next week, maybe the 80s?

Emmet Asher-Perrin is looking forward to the supercut of all versions of WandaVision theme song. You can bother them Twitterand read more of his work here and elsewhere.