Started watching WandaVision tonight and my post is pretty long, apparently I had a lot to say! Sorry about that.
Got to the end of the episode where Pietro shows up. I got a good chuckle out of it being the Fox Xmen kid. He's actually a lot taller than I thought, or maybe Elizabeth Olsen is shorter then she seemed. It's a good casting gag, it's a shame the fandom tried to make it out to be more autistic then it actually was.
I've spoiled myself on a bunch of it so I know the ending won't be that great. I feel like that's on par with most of the MCU right now. The movies are where the best action goes and even that has a lot of mediocre crap in it. There are a lot of creative things the creatives could do but they just refuse to take those chances. At this point I feel like it's a rule that fan theories are better than what Hollywood can come up with so it's not a surprise that the fanfiction writers on 4chan etc came up with better ideas. The creatives just aren't creative enough and that's without the usual Hollywood BS piled up on top of them.
I read about the media blitz that preceded WandaVision and I find it peculiar that Marvel keeps teasing Mephisto stuff. Iirc that's what they did with Defenders and Sigourney Weaver, right? And that ended up not being true either. By the time they get to Mephisto they're really going to have stretched out that welcome and it's not going to be as good as it could have been. They're really wasting the character's potential. If he doesn't show up in Dr. Strange 2 then I would expect him to be DOA.
Unfortunately I think the defining quality of the MCU, now that Cap and Iron Man are gone and Thor is a GotG character, is that mediocrity. I had a conversation with this with a work buddy after Endgame came out: the MCU is going to be weird with them missing. And now that it's over the people in charge don't know what to do, especially since the most popular characters are gone or permanently changed and there's no more star power to use in crossovers to draw people in. Unfortunately actors are not actually comic book characters. You could probably get audiences interested in Shang-Chi if Steve showed up but that won't happen. If it was a comic book you could do it easy, but sadly this is real life. Questionable if they'll be able to make a good movie that will get butts in seats.
ANYWAY, WandaVision is enjoyable even if the scriptwriting just isn't as good as it could be. The period sitcom bits could be really improved if they had better writers. I've watched some Dick van Dyke Show reruns and there the scripts are snappy and funny, even if it is dated. The shows still hold up because the word play and humor was so clever. The period stuff here just does not reflect that, the scripting just isn't good enough even though it feels like they were really trying. It also feels like the creepiness that they were trying to go for was not well integrated either, even if it is...actually pretty good for what it is. But the quality just isn't there. It's noticeable even in the Family Ties parody. It's just not quite up to snuff.
WandaVision is a little frustrating in that aspect, the entire thing feels like it's just one re-write away from being really great. They're almost there, they're really close! It's like they're just on the cusp of doing a well made period piece per episode. Just one more draft, and it would be perfect. The period stuff needs to be punchier, the Lynchian horror could be waaay better. (Too bad they didn't get David Lynch to come do it though I guess he's out because #woke.) The sad thing is I have the feeling that this is really the best that the assembled creative team could do. I truly believe you could plumb the cum-soaked anal cavity that is AO3 and there will be fanfiction writers that could do it better if only because they're old enough to remember watching and loving Family Ties and would pay respect to the idea while also leaning into the horror of what Wanda is doing.
It feels like the scriptwriters are trying to pay an homage to the material they're parodying but they don't have a true passion for period television, or sitcoms, or anything that's older than 2008. (Which includes the Twin Peaks horror they're trying to draw from as part of the parody!) That lack of passion makes it all feel hollow. So close...so far.
I liked seeing Monica Rambeau in there. I guess she came back from Captain Marvel which I am sure didn't do anything interesting with her character and I would bet that they won't do anything interesting with her actual comic book history. (I didn't catch that movie since I only liked Brie Larson in Scott Pilgrim, and she hasn't been good since.) I'm sorry Romita, your people deserve better.
On the other hand the black lady they have here has more acting ability and charisma than Brie Snoreson so if they recast her as Captain Marvel, I wouldn't complain honestly. The scene where Monica comes back and is desperately searching for her mother was a really good scene. The actress also did a wonderful job with the period work, especially making the jump between the Bewitched parody and the Brady Bunch parody. She falls down a little on the SWORD stuff but tbh I think that just shows the weakness of the framing material. When the period stuff works, then it really works thanks to the hard work of the actors. Monica really sells it and does a good job of fitting into the two distinct time periods as represented by these shows. The present-day SWORD scenes are so weak in comparison.
I guess that's why the hospital scene stands out for me, it was really short but she did a good job with it because it wasn't about capeshit, it was about a terrified woman searching for her sick mother. Then they start doing the mandatory comic book stuff and it comes off as silly. Reminds me of watching Daredevil, Charlie Cox was great when he was deep into the weeds of Matt Murdock's horrible shitshow of a life (him desperately trying to make Foggy stay with him in season 2 still sticks out as a great scene for me) but once the costume came out then it just kinda went....eh. Not bad, just not good. It needed something special then and the same is here in WandaVision.
There's no way they'll introduce the concept of the Xmen in a show and not a movie, so I fully expect this foreshadowing to lead precisely no where, for now. We won't see Westchester, we won't see Professor X, we won't catch any more hints of the Xmen. There was some furor surrounding WandaVision and the Xmen leading up to the end because the autists were disappointed that there was no Wolverine or whatever, and I get it. I do. We want this material to be better than it is. But I think that the fans are simply expecting too much from Marvel and Disney.
Ultimately the onus lies on Disney I think, because they could make something genuinely great with this stuff. The first season of Daredevil proved that there's incredible pathos in these capeshit characters if you are willing to mine for it. The problem is that Disney/Marvel refuses to do so except in fits and bursts. And that's really bad, because the fans expect so much more and Marvel just won't get it. They're actively refusing to get it at this point, they could do way better than this and they know it, but still they refuse.
We're coming up on a period of Marvel comic book history where I dropped off. I didn't like the Skrulls in the comics as it felt like everyone was a Skrull which meant characters who got killed off would just be revealed as fakes which meant there as no drama. No point in buying comics for more of that. I kept up with the Xmen, because of course I fucking did, but then House of M really rendered the whole thing pointless. I figure there's 0 chance of them doing anything like that here so at least we don't have to sit through a boondoggle of Marvel movies dealing with "no more mutants." After that my knowledge generally stops except for fits and bursts.
At least we won't have to sit through the death of Captain America though. Whew.
The point of this rambling is that WandaVision is...good, but not great. Marvel is really stretching at the limit of their creative output for this stuff and unfortunately, this is the best they can offer. It's entertaining but it will never bring more to the table. I'll watch some more another night. 6.5/10.
