This recap of Disney Plus’s WandaVision season 1, episode 1, contains significant spoilers. Our spoiler-free season review is here.
Have the people running Disney and Marvel gone mad? Or have they just succumbed to corporate self-indulgence like most Fortune 500 companies? The creation of WandaVision, taking two beloved Marvel characters and placing them in a sitcom, would suggest just plain crazy and greed go hand in hand. The streaming series takes place after Avengers: Endgame and places Wanda and Vision into a world of classic shows from the 1950s to the 2000s, whose concept isn’t that original, but makes it feel that way.
WandaVision episode 1 starts in black and white, as Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany) are driving in a classic car, as a regular newlywed couple, driving up to a house they bought with a flick of Vision’s fingertips. He attempts to carry his bride over the threshold, but instead of opening the door, he walks through it, leaving his new bride sitting on the welcome mat outside the door. He opens it, and she smiles that classic sitcom smile that practically says, “Oh, Vision.” He picks her up, carries her inside, and puts a kiss on her lips that makes a Mad Men housewife glad that she’s a woman.
The couple has a delightful little disagreement as the show opens, with Wanda cleaning the kitchen touchless, which seems like a great idea for the current pandemic. She dries a dish that is floating in the air with a towel, and as she puts the dish back in its sideboard when Vision walks in and the plate smashes on his robotic head (cue the live studio audience noise, which was actually filmed in front of a live studio audience). They discuss why a heart is drawn on the date August 23rd, and they debate what that means (I searched high and low for the meaning of this date, but the only thing I could find in the MCU had something to do with Groot). As Vision walks out the door to work, Wanda reminds him to change into his fleshy self, with little hand-drawn magic stars to make the point that the audience should now laugh.
After Vision leaves, Agnes (played by Kathryn Hahn) stops by. She is an Ethel type, asks how her bridge game is and tells Wanda about a “cracker-jack” article on how to keep your husband (I then commented, as I turned my head, that the makers of WandaVision really found something there when it comes to a marriage, and found my wife’s glare colder than usual. Who knows what got her pantyhose in a bunch. Maybe she is mad I haven’t told her what to cook me for dinner yet?).
Meanwhile, Vision has increased productivity for computational forms 300%, which makes him management material to his boss, Mr. Hart (In a World’s Fred Melamed). He then reminds him of dinner with him and the missus (That ‘70s Show’s Debra Jo Rupp), who reminds him that new employee’s dinner with their boss is a rite of passage, and his future at the company depends on it. Of course, when Vision calls Wanda to tell her the good news, there is a misunderstanding, and both aren’t on the same page.
Of course, the new Disney+ “program” (cue the progressive commercial guy) is equipped with commercials, with a middle-aged, nicely dressed couple, pushing a toaster from Stark Industries, complete with a bottom toaster and an alarm light that makes a noise that I am certain we will find out more in later episodes — it may not be a toaster at all.
When Vision brings the Harts home, they walk into a dimly candlelit abode. He leaves the room looking for his wife, when Wanda comes in, dress in a nightgown that would be considered prudish today. She sneaks behind Mr. Hart, covers his eyes from behind, and gives him a seductive whisper in his ear, “Guess who?” (as if he didn’t like it in the first place). The young couple plays off the situational comic moment by saying it’s a European greeting, and all is well.
WandaVision season 1, episode 1 ends with Agnes saving the day by having a five-course meal ready for Wanda to cook (coincidently, this is when I reminded my wife about making sure to take the meat out of the freezer to thaw for dinner, but strangely she left the house without saying goodbye. Perhaps she was going out to buy something frilly to wear to keep me happy in our marriage. I made sure to write down a note reminding myself to buy her a vacuum so she feels special). Wanda, bewitchingly you might say, juggles a dozen or so items in the air, literally, as she attempts to get dinner finished, but loses the lobster, under and overcooks the bird, and Vision tenderizes the steak until it’s pulverized. Wanda even attempts to faint for Mr. Hart to catch her because it is ladylike to do so.
Wanda, though, saves the day with breakfast for dinner, which Mrs. Hart smooths over with her boorish husband because it is European. She asks them a series of questions that range from how they met and why they don’t have children yet. This polarizes Wanda and Vision in unspeakable ways and the tone of the show takes a complete, bipolar 180-degree turn. Mr. Hart demands why they won’t answer, demanding answers villain-like until he starts to choke on a piece of pork sausage he took too much of. While lying on the ground, not breathing, the female Hart laughs, telling her husband to stop it as he chokes, each laugh getting more desperate and serious than the next. The mood turns chilly and we realize that she isn’t talking to her husband at all, but Wanda and Vision, almost as she thinks they are responsible for her husband’s predicament. Wanda then tells Vision to help him and he kneels over the man, reaching through his body, to free his windpipe of the lodged food in his throat.
The show then goes back to its light-hearted style. The Harts thank them for a lovely time, while Wanda and Vision decide to be a real married couple, with a ring for each one’s hand. This cues the ‘50s-style program credits, and as they roll in, the camera pans out and we see someone was watching a program on their monitor, with computers on each side of the television set. She puts down her notepad with a noticeable symbol on the front (that matches one on the computer to the left) and begins to dial a number as the screen goes black.
What did you think of WandaVision season 1, episode 1? Who do you think is watching Wanda and Vision on the monitor? Where do you think the show is headed? Did you spot the “House of M” label on the bottle of wine? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!
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This recap of Disney Plus’s WandaVision season 1, episode 2, contains significant spoilers.
WandaVision episode 2 begins in black and white and I Love Lucy style with Wanda and Vision in two, separate single beds with each having their own sconce over the headboard. They are frightened by the sound of a rat-a-tat-tat on the window. The man of the house, all 77 inches of ***-kicking, philosophical metal, is frightened by it. So, naturally, the playing of the xylophone lets the audience know it’s time to cue the audience’s laughter. Another sound sends Vision hiding underneath the covers and his lovely bride deadpans, “You were saying?” Oh, that Wanda—she’s a feisty one who is so forward with her desires she manages to push the beds together and exchange two comforters for one large one. All we needed was a bluebird chirping in the window with the shades blowing in the wind to know what happens next.
The credits this time have an I Dream of Jeannie homage, but Wanda is dressed like Mary Tyler Moore and the whole scenario’s comedic farce is reminiscent of countless I love Lucy episodes. The Visions are getting ready for the annual neighborhood talent show that’s a fundraiser for “the kids.” They have a magic act; he is the magician and she is the basic rabbit in the hat. Wanda wants their performance to go well so they can fit in. After one sight of Wanda in the skin-tight one piece, I am guessing they will be just fine. Vision reminds his wife that he is going to stop in at the neighborhood watch and she playfully teases him, “You tell those tree branches who’s boss!” Oh, Wanda, we tell ourselves, you are a delight.
The next scenes are straight out of the Joe Johnson classic Pleasantville. Wanda hears a crash outside and finds a bright red helicopter in her prize-winning rose bushes. She is startled when her nosy neighbor Agnes (Kathryn Hahn), who is Ethel to her Lucy, stops by with her pet rabbit to borrow for the how and get a good look at the local mailman who hates to see him go, but loves to watch leave, if you catch my drift. She accompanies Wanda to the head of the rotary club fundraiser house, Dottie (Emma Caufield). She is a tiny, blonde cutthroat, about whom Agnes says, “Her Roses bloom under penalty of death.”
Wanda is warned by Agnes how important Dotty is to fit in Westview. She runs her committee like The Iron Maiden; no time for taking and wasting time with your thoughts when she can speak. She doesn’t like Wanda much. She doesn’t dress the part and mingles with the new members who have no home and no husband. One of those she befriends is Geraldine (If Beale Street Could Talk’s Teyonah Parris) who thinks Wanda’s pants are “peachy-keen”.
Dottie then chooses Wanda to help her clean up after the meeting when they both hear someone calling Wanda over the screen saying, “Can you hear me? Who’s doing this to you?” It’s one of WandaVision signature mood-changing moments, where Dottie now questions who Wanda is and breaks a glass in her hand in the process; she opens up her palm and red blood covers her hand, once again revealing a splash of color during a revealing, what-the-fudge is going on here moment.
Of course, there is another commercial break, with that same middle-aged, well-dressed couple, now in evening attire, telling the camera that a man is only as good as the woman on his side and a Swiss-made tie piece on his wrist that must be Stucker. When the camera zooms in on the piece, you’ll notice the ostentatious and familiar symbol of a skull on an octopus body with the word “Hydra” to the left-hand side.
After Vision is classified as a cut-up at the neighborhood watch and a piece of gum slows down his metal wheel innards that have the effect it seems of intoxication, he shows up at the fundraiser half in the bag. In an entertaining scene in WandaVision season 1, episode 2 that is reminiscent of some of the best I Love Lucy farces, the team combines Wanda’s Jeanie/Bewitched moments that give the crowd some true magic, but then has her pulling her rabbit out of the hat with a human explanation to cover up the real magic they are creating. For instance, when Vision passes a hat through his body, Wanda creates mirrors out of thin air that is revealed behind curtains so the audience doesn’t pass out and think the apocalypse or the last Messiah is coming to town. Of course, multiple times during the show, the crowd stops to chant in an ominous tone, “For the children,” as if they were in some sort of cult, and we start to wonder where Wanda and Vision may be in some danger after all.
The happy couple returns home, with the first-place trophy in Wanda’s grip, and it on the couch to recap the day that finally has the members of Westview accepting them. Then, all of a sudden, the blushing bride starts to watch her belly expand past the first and into the second trimester of pregnancy. Vision touches her stomach gently, with one cold metal hand on each side, and Wanda asks him if this is really happening. He whispers, “Yes, my dear.”
Right before they kiss, they hear branches rap against the window, and the now expecting couple goes outside to find the source of the noise. When they reach the sidewalk, they look at the dark, deserted suburban street to see a manhole cover move. The cover pops off, a human arm reaches out to move it to the side, and a person dressed in a beekeeper’s protective clothing climbs out with hundreds of honeybees in tow. The mood turns ominous once again, and the man turns his head and you can hardly see his face with the mask on. Wanda then says, “No.”
The video then rewinds and we are back at the final scene of Vision’s “Yes, my dear” line. Wanda then touches his cheek and his head returns to his red and silver metal complexion. The splash of color spreads over the entire house and their bodies, and it’s like they are seeing each other for the first time all over again.
What did you think of WandaVision season 1, episode 2? Who do you think was behind the beekeeper’s mask? Why did Wanda say, “No”? What does Hydra have to do with the Vision’s existence in Westview? Is Wanda altering reality? Most importantly of all, why is the Mind Stone still smack dab in the middle of Vision’s forehead?