WandaVision it is, in many ways, a great entry point for someone who has never watched a Marvel movie or series before. The shifting-sitcoms theme makes it widely accessible from the start. Your non-MCU relatives, friends, lovers, friends and co-workers can still enjoy the constant references and familiar configurations of TV grounds, and it’s hard not to be sucked into the compelling premise.
Many of the heaviest MCU events around “Maximoff Anomaly” look like Easter eggs to longtime MCU fans, rather than the necessary knowledge. Still, when you watch WandaVision with someone who has no concept of the wider cinematic universe, you find yourself saying some … interesting things as an explanation. Here are some of mine.
“Oh, this is Agent Jimmy Woo. He was the absolute best thing about Ant-Man and the Wasp and had some real chemistry with Paul Rudd. I wish they had gone on that date. He was kind of a well-intentioned contrast Ant Man but they wisely realized they had gold in their hands with Randall Park, so now he’s here. I love him. I wish this was the Jimmy Woo Show. If they do a X Files-sque spin-off starring him i would literally die. “
“This is Darcy Lewis. She interned with Natalie Portman in Thor but now she is a doctor of astrophysics. She’s one of everyone’s favorite secondary characters, like Jimmy Woo, so the supporting cast for this series is the MVPs for the MCU secondary characters, which is a great idea. Kat Dennings has also starred in a sitcom for a decade, so I think they’ll probably enjoy it if they get to more modern sitcoms. She dated Loki for a while. No, not Darcy. Kat Dennings did. “
“So Monica Rambeau is basically also Captain Marvel’s daughter? Captain Marvel is a superhero who disappeared in the 1980s during a test flight and gained superpowers. She thought she was an alien, but she only had amnesia and so she had to fight the evil Jude Law. Her film was set in the 1990s, which was shown via Blockbuster Video and Nirvana t-shirts.
“Monica was a child at the time and now she is an adult and she is also going to be a superhero. She is not Captain Marvel’s real daughter, but she is the daughter of Carol’s best friend, Maria Rambeau, and they were really girlfriends in everything but the name on the screen. Monica’s mother, Lashana Lynch, will be 007 in the next James Bond film, which is probably why she was dropped. No, she is not the new James Bond, she is 007. Anyway, Captain Marvel, Maria and Monica spent Christmas mornings in pajamas that we saw in old photos. Do you understand what I mean about Captain Marvel and Maria being girlfriends? I love my friends, but I never had pajamas on Christmas Day with them, you know? “
“Okay, Wanda’s twin brother Pietro died in Ultron era, that movie that I unfortunately made you watch on the debut day that you hated, but this Pietro is played by Evan Peters, who played the character in X-Men universe of films. So he’s Mercury, which is what Pietro is called, in other films, but this is a surprise appearance that was only possible because Marvel and Disney own the X-Men now. But for a while they couldn’t even say the word “mutant” and it was very strange. Please just trust me. Pietro is probably from Multiverse, who has appeared in some films and will be in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness which Wanda will also be in. He may also not be Pietro or, like, the wicked Pietro, but he is essentially a great internal joke. Their father is also Magneto. Kind of.”
“Babies Billy and Tommy have grown and become super important, so they will probably exist after the show. They are part of the future of this franchise that is better to be a lot more gay. Billy ends up marrying Teddy, who calls himself Hulkling, and is a kind of alien like the ones in the movie Captain Marvel and it’s all connected. What? No, he is not married to the Hulk. “
“Elizabeth Olsen is the actress of Wanda and she is the sister of Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen and looks a lot like them, so Full house the tribute we just saw was, like, a direct wink to your sisters playing Michelle Tanner. I think they missed a real opportunity to bring ALF, however. “
“OK, so Paul Bettany signed up to give voice to Tony Stark’s AI computer system, JARVIS, named after his father’s butler, and do a little light voice work. But then it turned into a sensitive superhuman computer – wait, stay with me – with the help of a magic stone, the same kind that gave Wanda his powers. He and Wanda fell in love and it wasn’t very good or convincing how they did it, but then she had to kill him to prevent the bad guy from taking the magic stone, which was sad, but the bad guy got the stone anyway and took half the universe out of existence because he thought he was an environmentalist.
“Now Paul Bettany has to spend eight hours putting on magenta makeup and he’s starring in five different surreal series, but he’s doing a great job, isn’t he? And am I really convinced of your love story now? Only if Vision doesn’t remember anything before his resurrection, why are he and Wanda in love, like when that happened? Wait, come back! “
Are you watching or discussing WandaVision with new people at the MCU? Did you find yourself deeply involved in some complicated explanation? Has WandaVision made you realize that you are, in fact, a walking composition of more than a decade of films, TV shows, comics and actor factoids, all of which are confused in your head, but can still be recovered at any time? Let’s talk WandaVision in the comments.
(images: Marvel Studios / Disney +)
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