Wanda Vision Video Essays

  • Goes beyond being “just” a superhero show and tells a tale of grief
  • In the MCU it was clear she was reaching a breaking point with all she has had to deal with
  • Wanda isn’t a bad person and all her choices, while misguided, come from a well-intentioned place
  • Having to kill Vision in Infinity War, only for it to be useless and have to watch him die again, was her breaking point
  • Her trauma takes her over and she creates an idealized place, not fully intentionally, where she and Vision can live happily ever after
  • Vision starts the series out as an innocent bystander, but then gains more agency and Wanda must pull more and more tricks to try and deceive him
  • Interesting parallel between Monica and Wanda since they’re both battling trauma and have thrown themselves into something else to ignore their pain (Monica throws herself into work at SWORD to ignore her mother’s death).
  • Monica is able to see both sides of the situation and sympathizes with Wanda due to her own grief, unlike most people
  • Trauma makes remembering hurt so much that a person is unable to communicate their pain
  • When Agatha takes Wanda through her own most traumatic memories her denial begins to crumble, her blissful ignorance breaking down
  • Wanda puts herself in a sitcom world because sitcoms have been the only real constant in her life
    • She connected with her family over TV, a TV was all she had when being tested on by hydra
    • There is a scene in one of the movies where Wanda explains to Vision that in a sitcom, the main character is not really injured even though the roof has fallen on him
    • She wants this world where no one is hurt

Short summary: Wanda Vision goes beyond a normal superhero stories and deals with important things like grief, trauma, and empathy. It shows us her trauma and how she tries to erase it by creating a world where no one is ever really hurt.

  • From the beginning, hooked on bizarre mysterious sitcom universe where we don’t really know what is going on
    • Funny sitcom on their relationship but with mysterious creepy bits occasionally, hints that something is wrong
  • Once we hit episode 4, a bit disappointing
    • Characters weren’t bad, but felt the mystery was a bit cooler than the actual reveals
  • Cutting back and forth between the sitcom and real world made it feel less unique
  • Unlike most people, okay with quicksilver’s lack of payoff in the show
  • Once Wanda expands her barrier, it felt very stilted and unfunny and uneventful by the shows standards
  • Episode 8 picks back up again, really liked the series of flashbacks of Wanda’s trauma
  • After that, felt like everything cool about the show was gone now, and realized wasn’t that interested in seeing how this present conflict (with SWORD and Wanda) played out
  • Episode 9 (final episode)
    • “Worst episode in the show by a landslide”
    • Liked Vision’s conversation with Vision, when Wanda is confronted by the townspeople, and her saying goodbye to Vision and her kids
    • Editing choppy, CGI bad
    • A show this unique shouldn’t have ended with a giant CGI battle
      • Feel like Wonder Women’s finale: completely unjustified and stupid based on what came before it
      • Something like Dr. Strange’s finale would’ve worked better
    • All the sitcom elements gone
      • Cool to see something in the MCU that wasn’t overtly superhero-esque
  • Overall good entertaining show but with some sloppiness in storytelling, and could use less scenes in the outside world

Short summary: Liked the elements of the show that were not typical superhero, and was disappointed when those elements went away and it went back to the traditional.

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