By: Emma Best, SFU Student
What do you get when you put a dead synthezoid and a sorceress into a sitcom in suburban New Jersey? Miraculously, you get a romantic, emotional, and haunting look at two of Marvel Studios’ most underused characters. WandaVision is the first of several Marvel Disney+ shows to release this year, and the first Marvel TV show to directly connect with the blockbuster counterparts. The series is a smart way to reintroduce fans to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and utilizes all the great aspects of television storytelling — but that wasn’t Marvel’s original plan.
Back in April of 2019, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige announced Marvel’s phase four slate, which included twelve films and television series. At first, they were going to start with the much-anticipated Black Widow solo movie and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier series, set to release in 2020. However, with the COVID-19 pandemic, all film releases were pushed back — Marvel being determined to debut them in theatres — and filming on projects including The Falcon and The Winter Soldier were cut short. This forced Marvel Studios to completely rethink their release order and fully take advantage of the Disney+ streaming service. With the blockbuster films pushed to the side for the time being, the television series needed to fill that gap, especially with fans having no Marvel content for over a year.
Originally planned or not, WandaVision is the perfect Marvel release to not only welcome fans back to the universe, but to introduce them to the television format. The show follows former Avengers, Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany), as they navigate an idealized suburban lifestyle that is not exactly as it seems. Nearly each episode takes place with the backdrop of a classic family sitcom throughout the decades, from The Dick Van Dyke Show and Bewitched in the 60s, to Malcolm in the Middle and Modern Family in the 2000s.
By parodying theme songs and borrowing set designs and storytelling techniques from the aforementioned shows, the story being told through these sitcom episodes could not be told in a movie format. However, at the core of these stylistic sitcom episodes is still a familiar Marvel movie feel. With returning side characters including, but not limited to, Jimmy Woo (Randall Park) from Ant Man and the Wasp and Dr. Darcy Lewis (Kat Dennings) from Thor, there is still a clear connection and grounding in the pre-existing universe. It has also been confirmed that the events of this show will connect to the events of the second Doctor Strange film, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which Elizabeth Olsen is set to co-star in.
While Marvel has often been criticized for its portrayals of female heroes — such as Black Widow calling herself a “monster” because she’s infertile, or the way it took almost ten years to get a female-led film — WandaVision is taking a step in the right direction. For starters, it has a female showrunner, Jac Schaffaer. When Wanda was first introduced to audiences in Avengers: Age of Ultron, there was very little done to explain the origins or capabilities of her powers. However, in Schaffaer’s WandaVision, Wanda is at her strongest, demonstrating the extent of her reality warping powers.
Simultaneously, Wanda is shown at her lowest, explicitly dealing with her grief. Having lost so much in just the four movies she’s been a part of, this is an aspect of her character that is important to explore — especially with her being a prominent female character. So much of the show highlights Wanda’s unique experiences through her powers and her own mind, and that makes her character even more powerful than it was in the films.
WandaVision acts as a stepping stone between the previous Marvel films and the ones soon to come, and it also demonstrates how the Disney+ TV series can expand the universe in ways the movies can’t. It’s clear that WandaVision is an important piece in the greater Marvel Cinematic Universe puzzle. For any Marvel fan, this show is essential viewing.
The season finale of WandaVision airs today and is available only on Disney+.
