WandaVision spoiler discussion

Topic

The show starts on Disney+ this Friday, with the first two episodes.

Here’s an article revealing a little more about the show, including what sitcoms are homaged along the way.

Presumably the Malcolm in the Middle-inspired episode will introduce us to twins Tommy and Billy, thus introducing two more Young Avengers to the MCU.

Replies

Dave wrote:

In the end the White Vision scene felt like a sort of “oh look, we never tried this, just plug some of her power into his dead body” moment, not the culmination of some great plan.

Oh, yeah – I didn’t think the plug a “hex-infected” drone into the body to revive it was the plan; it was a last minute improvised gamble that may or may not work.

Dave wrote:

Talking of Vision, where was he this episode? Last I remember from episode 7 was him zooming off and leaving Darcy behind. Feels like he (and Monica and Pietro and Darcy) just disappeared altogether this episode.

Yeah, pretty much. I mean, it was an ep taking place in Agatha’s little magic world and in Wanda’s mind, so that’s fair enough. He’ll be back to fight WhiteVision. That’s my prediction for how that goes: WhiteVision and WandaVision fight and at the end of that they merge, restoring/creating a new Vision (with both his old and new memories, which is going to be fucking confusing to him).

Oh, and I always assumed that WandaVision’s mind was completely Wanda’s creation, even when I thought it was his old body, because it repeatedly was made clear that he doesn’t have any memories before WestView.

So, like Jon said, what are the predictions here? Wanda is going to fight Agatha, she’ll lose until Pietro and Monica pitch in and save her. Vision tries to help her, too, but is attacked by WhiteVision. Tom and Billy use their magical powers, and together with them, Monica’s powers and Pietro, Wanda defeats Agatha. WandaVision is at the same time being defeated by WhiteVision, but Wanda steps in and merges them.

The one thing I can’t figure out is Hayward. He very clearly planted that thought in Wanda’s mind, and the Hayward we know is not a master manipulator. He also seemed entirely too unrattled by Wanda’s presence. Maybe there is a reveal coming where he is concerned… I suppose that might be how Doctor Strange could play into this. Just when Wanda and Vision seem to have won, Hayward is revealed as the big bad (okay, so maybe it’s fucking Mephisto, what do I know), who now has his ultimate weapon because Vision is back and this was all his master plan and when he seems to have won, Strange pops in and saves the day.

So I guess this is my prediction for the last episode.

Christian wrote:

Oh, and I always assumed that WandaVision’s mind was completely Wanda’s creation, even when I thought it was his old body, because it repeatedly was made clear that he doesn’t have any memories before WestView.

In which case a lot of the stuff about him fighting back against Wanda’s illusions feels pretty hollow, given that it’s just Wanda fighting against herself. Or is the idea that she created a Vision who is somewhat autonomous and can think independently for himself?

(I say “somewhat” because obviously we have several moments where she is able to force him to forget his objections to the fake reality of WesTView and control him to an extent that way.)

If Vision has just been a Wanda creation all along I think it undermines a lot of that conflict.

Wanda created Westview Vision but he was made with yellow magic energy whereas the rest of the town was with red magic energy, so there’s something unique about him. Most likely it is their shared connection to the mind stone.

It would seem that the show is building up to some version of Vision returning to the MCU. That would serve to undermine the whole point of the show being about finding a way to deal with grief. Wanda has had a very rough time of it but she throws a major wobbler and gets what she wants anyway, even after messing up everyone else in the town? Not sure about that.

saga wrote:

Wanda created Westview Vision but he was made with yellow magic energy whereas the rest of the town was with red magic energy, so there’s something unique about him. Most likely it is their shared connection to the mind stone.

It would seem that the show is building up to some version of Vision returning to the MCU. That would serve to undermine the whole point of the show being about finding a way to deal with grief. Wanda has had a very rough time of it but she throws a major wobbler and gets what she wants anyway, even after messing up everyone else in the town? Not sure about that.

Are you saying big budget disney hollywood is perpetuaring antiquated ideas about personal responsibility and relationships and thus furthering a reactionary agenda rather than a progressive narrative? Absolute lunacy! How dare you! Don’t fuck with the mouse!

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Christian, Todd

As a Disney shareholder, I am drafting my statement debating the plot of Wandavision for the next AGM.

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Christian, Todd

saga wrote:

As a Disney shareholder, I am drafting my statement debating the plot of Wandavision for the next AGM.

That’s just code for trying to have me assassinated, isn’t it?

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Christian, Todd

[Steve Sensible]

saga wrote:

It would seem that the show is building up to some version of Vision returning to the MCU. That would serve to undermine the whole point of the show being about finding a way to deal with grief. Wanda has had a very rough time of it but she throws a major wobbler and gets what she wants anyway, even after messing up everyone else in the town? Not sure about that.

I mean, she gets a little of what she wants – she’s still mourning her brother and parents too. It’s just a quirk of fate that one of the people she lost can be switched off and on again.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by Steve Sensible.

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Anonymous wrote:

saga wrote:

As a Disney shareholder, I am drafting my statement debating the plot of Wandavision for the next AGM.

That’s just code for trying to have me assassinated, isn’t it?

I’ve said too much. Mouse ears hear everything.

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I loved the White Vision scene because it was a deep dive easter egg.  I read an article last night that laid it out. I’m sure you can find it if you look. White Vision is the real Vision. In the comics he had taken over the world’s computers and then the Government possessed his body after he became inert and wiped his mind to remove his knowledge of all their nefarious schemes and dirty secrets. When he was retrieved Wonder man did not want to share his brainwaves so Vision was emotionless. Of course, It was all justification for Byrne to get rid of the marriage but I liked the story because I was a child & did not care about adult motivations and behind the scene schemes.

It will be interesting because Wanda’s Vision can not leave and White Vision can not enter without being transformed so I wonder what kind of writing mechanism they use to have them meet.

I agree that Bettany’s favorite cameo will be himself but how do he meet himself.

I thought all along that Wanda loses control of her “chaos magic” and causes a dimensional tear in the universe that Strange must fix.  I hope that the tear is a massive elaborate piece of FX that just blows our minds.

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lorcan_nagle

Rocket wrote:

I thought all along that Wanda loses control of her “chaos magic” and causes a dimensional tear in the universe that Strange must fix.  I hope that the tear is a massive elaborate piece of FX that just blows our minds.

I know we’ve been told this leads into Doctor Strange 2, but I’d be surprised if they end the series on a cliffhanger. I’d also be surprised if they have Wanda create a mess that someone else has to fix, like she did in Civil War.

 

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lorcan_nagle

Rocket wrote:

It will be interesting because Wanda’s Vision can not leave

It was agoraphobia all along.

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Rocket, Todd, lorcan_nagle

#WandaVison pic.twitter.com/tASDJAM9vk

— Comics Dave (@ComicsDave) February 28, 2021

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Rocket, lorcan_nagle, Todd

Steve Sensible wrote:

I know we’ve been told this leads into Doctor Strange 2, but I’d be surprised if they end the series on a cliffhanger. I’d also be surprised if they have Wanda create a mess that someone else has to fix, like she did in Civil War.

I tend to agree, I suspect it’ll be more along the lines that some strands will flow into future stuff but the main storyline is concluded.

I could be wrong but I think it’s important for Marvel not to make this all too complex with you being unable to understand DS2 without seeing Wandavision, this show and Disney+ is not legally available in many territories which is why I have to torrent it in Malaysia. So much is global now (Netflix and Amazon) I hadn’t downloaded a torrent client on my new computer I’d owned for over a year.

So far, albeit I’d exclude Endgame, most MCU material does work as standalone with the continuity being a plus for the big fans. There’s enough recap or broad enough ideas it doesn’t get bogged down like that. It is possible that after Endgame’s massive success they could be emboldened to go into full ‘comics crossover’ mode on the newer material but I think it would be a mistake if they did.

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Ben

garjones wrote:

It is possible that after Endgame’s massive success they could be emboldened to go into full ‘comics crossover’ mode on the newer material but I think it would be a mistake if they did.

I agree and I don’t think they’ll fall into that trap.

But I think their movies and TV series will be seen as different creatures and they might make different decisions about how to link them because of that – based on the assumption that the shows are being watched by fans who will almost certainly be familiar with the movies and will be seeing the new ones too.

So I do think it’s possible they’ll have a show like WandaVision explicitly tie its ending into the next Dr Strange movie – while still structuring that movie so you can understand it without having seen the TV series.

But they wouldn’t ever end a movie by tying it into a TV series. It doesn’t flow in that direction. (You can’t expect most of a movie audience to have seen the MCU tv shows. But you can expect most people watching WandaVision to be on top of the MCU movies.)

It’s kind of how it used to work with Agents of Shield early on – in its first season that show had stories and plots flowing out of movies like Thor 2 and Cap 2. But you’d never have an MCU movie with a plot flowing out of Agents of Shield.

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Todd, lorcan_nagle

[Ben]

Well, that’s how it worked in a pre-streaming world but if the bulk of your audience can access the material for low, low cost, compared to cibema or physical / digital copy, how does that change it?

That said – No one wants to feel they must have to watch X to enjoy Y, but it’s likely Y summarises X in a way that encourages viewers to seek X out.

Either way, Disney need to ensure the material is easily available.  If they are going to link it all up, to whatever degree, global releases becomes more important.

Also, with the greater budget allocated to TV and the production ambition to match that is now possible, the cinema / TV division may not be what it once was.

Wait, knew there was something I forgot – they are very annoying and inconsistent on end credit scenes.  Eps 1-6 didn’t have them, eps 7-8 do – missed both as I had no idea they would be there.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by Ben.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by Ben.

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Rocket

Ben wrote:

Well, that’s how it worked in a pre-streaming world but if the bulk of your audience can access the material for low, low cost, compared to cibema or physical / digital copy, how does that change it?

Either way I think they’ll still be careful to make sure everything is accessible in its own right. Even after having massive billion-dollar hits you could always watch and enjoy a new MCU film without feeling like you had to have seen all the others first.

I’m convinced they stopped using numbers on the films except 1-3 so as to not scare new viewers off.  Their big Thanos story racks up 20+ filns!

Rocket wrote:

It will be interesting because Wanda’s Vision can not leave and White Vision can not enter without being transformed so I wonder what kind of writing mechanism they use to have them meet.

Vision can become intangible, so he shouldn’t have much problem to enter unscathed.

Dave wrote:

In which case a lot of the stuff about him fighting back against Wanda’s illusions feels pretty hollow, given that it’s just Wanda fighting against herself. Or is the idea that she created a Vision who is somewhat autonomous and can think independently for himself?

“Just”? Internal conflict is the best kind of conflict, man, especially if it’s externalised!!!

But yeah, I think it’s a bit of a mixture. That she tried to give him as much autonomy as she could – she needed to, for her scenario to work, after all. And Tom and Billy are completely autonomous creations (I expect), so it’d be reasonable to assume the same for him.

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Rocket

Christian wrote:

“Just”? Internal conflict is the best kind of conflict, man, especially if it’s externalised!!!

Ok, but it’s a completely different kind of conflict than we understood it to be (Vision trying to leave Westview and Wanda not letting him is  totally different thing to WandaVision trying to leave and Wanda not letting herself).

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Christian

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Steve Sensible wrote:

but I’d be surprised if they end the series on a cliffhanger.

I will give you that. but I still want to see the massive elaborate FX.

Dave wrote:

Ok, but it’s a completely different kind of conflict than we understood it to be (Vision trying to leave Westview and Wanda not letting him is  totally different thing to WandaVision trying to leave and Wanda not letting herself).

Yup. I like it when shit is weirder than it seems to be.

Weirdness I don’t mind. I’m thinking more about how you feel if you invest in a certain idea and then you have the rug pulled out from under you.

If you’ve invested in what’s happening to Vision in his own right, then having him be effectively un-charactered and revealed to be just an extension of Wanda is a big shift – and not necessarily a good one, as I’m not sure that a lot of his previous actions in the series make sense in that light.

This isn’t an “oh that makes sense of everything” twist. It’s the opposite.

I mean, it’s not like the show is airtight in terms of logic and all that… there’s a lot to pull appart from. That said, I don’t know why people think he’s just an extension of Wanda, he’s never been shown to be that at any point… since the very begining he showed his own agency, even when Wanda kept trying to “reboot” him…

I don’t think he’s an “extension” of Wanda per-se, but rather a collection of memories she had of him (possibly more, considering what I’ve said about the possibility of Wanda “syphoning” his soul when she killed him in IW), you have to remember that Wanda is a telepath in the MCU, and more than that she had a stronger connection to Vision because of the mind stone, so no, all evidence points to him being his own self, albeit somewhat incomplete or with missing/blocked memories… he could very well recover all of his memories next episode for all we know.

Oh, also, speaking of telepaths… this show kinda feels like the Scarlet Witch’s Dark Phoenix saga, ain’t it? Not that it’s a bad thing, of course…

See you next week 🤞🤟🤟🤘🤙 pic.twitter.com/uVrh5xNLSg

— Alex Maximoff (Let go of my children) (@WandasCape) February 26, 2021

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Todd

Jon wrote:

I don’t know why people think he’s just an extension of Wanda, he’s never been shown to be that at any point… since the very begining he showed his own agency, even when Wanda kept trying to “reboot” him…

Because of the revelation that it isn’t his mind and body “reactivated” by Wanda as we’d been led to believe.

Dave wrote:

Because of the revelation that it isn’t his mind and body “reactivated” by Wanda as we’d been led to believe.

We were led to believe that she took and reactivated the BODY, yes, but not the mind… Vision’s “soul/mind” was destroyed in Infinity War when Thanos took the mind stone, so there’s nothing to reactivate*… that was kinda the point of getting Vision to Wakanda and trying to extract his soul/mind from the stone before Thanos could get his hands on him, but of course they failed. So, no, that much was never a question.

*There should be a copy of Jarvis (or newborn Vision) somewhere in the “tech Nexus”, which could come into play, but probably not, since it’s not really necessary.

Ok. Maybe it’s just me but I had been following this show on the basis that the Vision living with Wanda had Vision’s mind reinstated as a result of her magic, rather than just being a Wanda puppet without a true mind of his own.

Because if that’s the case then it kind of makes a nonsense of the earlier storyline where he’s trying to find out what’s really going on in Westview and is shocked by the revelations.

But maybe let’s wait until the series is over before we get too far into picking apart a story that isn’t fully told yet.

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For what it’s worth, the way I interpreted it from the get go (mind you, that’s just me) is that Wanda probably absorbed at least part of Vision’s “soul” or whatever when she blasted the mind stone to destroy it… so I’ve got no issues so far with any of that. And in fact, it’s interesting to note that in Agatha’s flashback she’s seen absrobing the other witches’ life essence, which basically means that yeah, it’s very much possible that Wanda did it without knowing, since she seems to do magic “on automatic”.

Oh and by the by, speaking of that whole thing, I was thinking that Agatha might try that trick on Wanda and it’ll backfire, aging her quite a bit so that she looks like her CB counterpart… if they don’t outright kill her, that is, but hey, even as a corpse she’ll look like CB Agatha Harkness I guess =P

And second thought on the “life essence” leeching… is that how vampires work in the MCU? I mean, not your footsoldier vampire maybe, but you know, the big ones like Dracula? That’s one way of making Blade into a PG13 movie I guess…

Dave wrote:

But maybe let’s wait until the series is over before we get too far into picking apart a story that isn’t fully told yet.

You’re new to the Internet, aren’t you?

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Ben, njerry, Dave, Steve Sensible

Agatha and White Vision Are Getting New Funko Figures

https://nerdist.com/article/agatha-and-white-vision-are-getting-new-funko-figures/

Who the hell buys all of that funko crap?

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Todd

Jon wrote:

Who the hell buys all of that funko crap?

Apparently lots of people:

Third Quarter 2020 Financial Summary

Net sales of $191.2 million
Gross margin1 increased 30bps to 38.6%
SG&A expenses decreased 21% to $41.2 million
Net income of $15.6 million
Net income margin increased 120bps to 8.2%
Adjusted EBITDA2 of $36.2 million
Adjusted EBITDA margin2 increased 70bps to 18.9%
Total liquidity3 of $106.9 million as of September 30, 2020
Cash flow from operations increased 87% to $28.1 million

No account for taste I guess…

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Todd

Jon wrote:

Who the hell buys all of that funko crap?

The back wall of the ThinkGeek/Zing shop at my local mall comprises entirely of them, and it’s always the busiest part of the store.

I have two of them; one came in a LootCrate box (a half Batman, half Joker), and the other was a gift (Lemongrab from Adventure Time, one of my favourite characters).

They’re surely quite popular, easy gifts – I just missed out on getting a Mariah Carey one for my cousin, but got my wife the April Ludgate (from Parks and Rec).

Dave wrote:

Because if that’s the case then it kind of makes a nonsense of the earlier storyline where he’s trying to find out what’s really going on in Westview and is shocked by the revelations.

Does it though? I mean, come on, we’re comics readers. Is the idea that somebody is a) actually a physical representation of an aspect of another person’s psyche without being aware of it or b) a fictional creation that has achieved autonomy and is maybe even shocked at the revelation that it isn’t real something that’d be all that surprising to us? Moore did the latter kind of thing with Swamp Thing in the eighties, and we’ve had the former in all kinds of variations at this point, I’m sure.

Is that supported by the show though? Are we supposed to believe that the Vision created by Wanda is independently sentient? Or is it just a puppet that’s going through the motions?

The truth is we don’t know yet, even an episode before the end. So we’re in this difficult limbo where we don’t know how to feel about something because their entire nature is a bit of a mystery.

This can be the trouble with stories that are rooted in fake realities like this. It can be difficult to know what we’re meant to treat as real, and what we should care about.

It’s a little bit the same with the kids. The cliffhanger with Agatha threatening them wasn’t that effective for me because as far as we know they’re just Wanda’s illusions too.

Dave wrote:

Is that supported by the show though? Are we supposed to believe that the Vision created by Wanda is independently sentient?

It’s one of the options that have been hinted at, certainly. I mean, he clearly is doing things that Wanda has no knowledge of, he feels violated when she takes mental control of him and he refuses to let go of his suspicions. On the other hand, we’ve known for a long while that he doesn’t have any memory of his life before Westview. Because of the latter, I always assumed that his mind was Wanda’s creation (even when I thought his body was his actual dead body.) On the other hand, it depends of your definition of “independent”. He could be like a multiple personality, only physically manifested. So he might feel independent but actually only be part of Wanda’s mind. Personally, I think that that’s how he started out, but became truly independent at some point, because they’ve now established that Wanda’s thing is true spontaneous creation.

Anyway, like I said, this (multiple personalities becoming real and autonomous) is the kind of stuff I like.
(Of course, his personality will be merged with the former vision’s personality, so that’ll be a hell of a mindfuck for him and he’ll leave Wanda because of it.)

Dave wrote:

It’s a little bit the same with the kids. The cliffhanger with Agatha threatening them wasn’t that effective for me because as far as we know they’re just Wanda’s illusions too.

Yeah, me neither, but I didn’t feel like it was aimed at me, either. The point was that it put Wanda in a state of terror.

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garjones

Christian wrote:

The point was that it put Wanda in a state of terror.

Christian wrote:

It’s one of the options that have been hinted at, certainly. I mean, he clearly is doing things that Wanda has no knowledge of, he feels violated when she takes mental control of him and he refuses to let go of his suspicions. On the other hand, we’ve known for a long while that he doesn’t have any memory of his life before Westview. Because of the latter, I always assumed that his mind was Wanda’s creation (even when I thought his body was his actual dead body.) On the other hand, it depends of your definition of “independent”. He could be like a multiple personality, only physically manifested. So he might feel independent but actually only be part of Wanda’s mind. Personally, I think that that’s how he started out, but became truly independent at some point, because they’ve now established that Wanda’s thing is true spontaneous creation.

See, I had assumed all along that it was the real Vision that she’d somehow resurrected and had just blocked his memory of his past – just like she’d blocked the memories of all the people in Westview – and he was fighting back against it.

It didn’t occur to me that Vision might not actually be Vision until the white Vision appeared in the post-credits last week.

I think this conversation demonstrates how unclear a lot of the show is in terms of what we’re actually being shown. It’s hard to buy into a story and its characters when you have such a loose idea of what’s meant to be real or not , there’s always that risk of stuff being revealed to have been fake all along.

Hopefully the final episode clears a lot of this up, but it’s maybe a little late by that point.

Jon wrote:

Who the hell buys all of that funko crap?

Dunno, but as I checked out at the LCS today, they had a Elvis ’68 comeback tour Funko.

Dave wrote:

It’s hard to buy into a story and its characters when you have such a loose idea of what’s meant to be real or not , there’s always that risk of stuff being revealed to have been fake all along.

Keep your analysis of politics to the politics thread please.

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njerry, Dave, Todd

Anonymous wrote:

Dave wrote:

It’s hard to buy into a story and its characters when you have such a loose idea of what’s meant to be real or not , there’s always that risk of stuff being revealed to have been fake all along.

Keep your analysis of politics to the politics thread please.

Make Agatha Great Again

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JRCarter, Todd

Make Agatha Granny Age.

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Rocket, JRCarter, Todd, lorcan_nagle

If you squint a bit you could see the Hex as the wall and Westview as an allegory for Trump’s would-be America, being challenged by automatons, women and ethnic minorities.

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JRCarter, Todd, lorcan_nagle

The Scarlet Hat.

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JRCarter, lorcan_nagle

[Steve Sensible]

The cameo Paul Bettany teased was… himself??

Paul Bettany confirms the secret #WandaVision cameo he was hinting at was himself.

“They were guessing people like Benedict Cumberbatch or Patrick Stewart, I was thinking, 'God, that's a good idea', they're gonna be so disappointed when they find out it's me.”

(Source: @GMA) pic.twitter.com/lmHMjyKVXw

— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) March 4, 2021

• This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by Steve Sensible.

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Rocket, Todd

[Steve Sensible]

Steve Sensible wrote:

The cameo Paul Bettany teased was… himself??

Paul Bettany confirms the secret #WandaVision cameo he was hinting at was himself.

“They were guessing people like Benedict Cumberbatch or Patrick Stewart, I was thinking, 'God, that's a good idea', they're gonna be so disappointed when they find out it's me.”

(Source: @GMA) pic.twitter.com/lmHMjyKVXw

— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) March 4, 2021

• This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by Steve Sensible.

Honestly, I was hoping for Dick Van Dyke.

Yeah, I saw the penny drop for some people on that just after the white Vision reveal last week.

Of course, it could be a bluff but we’ll see.

At this point, I don’t see a senses-shattering cameo coming. I assume the last episode is pretty much going to be Wanda, Vision and Monica vs Agnes, EvilVision and Pietro and it’ll skew closer to standard MCU fare than the stylised sitcom pastiches. Vision will end up inhabiting the EvilVision body, and the tie-in to Doctor Strange will be Wanda going to him to learn magic.

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Dave, Todd

lorcan_nagle wrote:

At this point, I don’t see a senses-shattering cameo coming. I assume the last episode is pretty much going to be Wanda, Vision and Monica vs Agnes, EvilVision and Pietro and it’ll skew closer to standard MCU fare than the stylised sitcom pastiches. Vision will end up inhabiting the EvilVision body, and the tie-in to Doctor Strange will be Wanda going to him to learn magic.

Alternate ending:

After massive FX-laden battle where good triumphs over evil and love conquers all, screen fades to black.

Fade in to an office where Wanda and Vision have just finished pitching “WandaVision” to Kevin Feige.

Feige: “This sound great and sounds like a great fit for Disney+. But tell me, why do you want to be television writers? What not continue to be Avengers?”

Wanda: “To be honest, this feels like the next step in our careers.”

Vision: “While Hollywood has a reputation as a brutal shark tank, it’s a lot safer than facing the likes of Thanos and the Infinity Gauntlet.”

Feige: “You do realize you would be working for Disney, right?”

Wanda: “And this is where actually fighting Thanos gives us an edge.”

Vision: “Superhuman altercations are valuable experience in being an executive producer in Hollywood.”

Feige: “All very true. I guess there is nothing else to say other than welcome aboard!”

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lorcan_nagle

[JRCarter]

💜 Agatha Harkness & Wanda Maximoff ❤️
based on Mother Gothel $ Rapunzel from "Tangled"#wandavision #wandamaximoff #scarletwitch #elizabetholsen #Rapunzel #Punzie #MotherGother #Tangled #DisneyPrincess #marvel #avengers #mcu #marvelstudios #disneyplus #marvelcomics #tv #cartoon pic.twitter.com/wmcYsmSoOf

— daekazu (@daekazu_) March 4, 2021

• This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by JRCarter.

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Todd, njerry

‘WandaVision’ Director Expects ‘A Lot of People’ to Be ‘Disappointed’ by Finale Over Fan Theories

“I hope that they feel like the journey was satisfying for them,” Shakman said when asked what he hopes viewers take away from the “WandaVision finale. “I know there are so many theories out there; there will be a lot of people who will no doubt be disappointed by one theory or another. But we’re always telling this story about Wanda dealing with grief and learning how to accept that loss, and hopefully people will find that the finale is surprising but also satisfying, and that it feels inevitable because it’s the same story they’ve been watching the whole time.”

This kind of managing of expectations ahead of a finale feels fairly unusual. Feels like they’re worried that all the weeks of rabid speculation they’ve been stoking is going to catch up with them.

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Todd, Ben

After the GoT debacle, I’m not surprised…

Dave wrote:

Feels like they’re worried that all the weeks of rabid speculation they’ve been stoking is going to catch up with them.

There’s a lot of “what can you do” though? I mean the mystery they set up was why are Wanda and Vision living in a sitcom.

Most of that has been answered, in relatively short time compared to other ‘mystery’ shows like Lost or X-Files or whatever. We have a few questions on how ‘alive’ are the kids and Vision and Pietro that may well get answered this week.

The rest of the speculation about Mephisto and Magneto turning up is pure fan fantasy really. It’s probably fair to have a go at Bettany’s hint albeit the answer is still a surprise in the story than nothing at all but that’s all they’ve really directly fed. It’s people’s imaginations that ‘an aerospace engineer’ would be Reed Richards.

In something that looks far more conventional like Falcon and Winter Soldier I expect we may see a degree of that too. They mention a priest in dialogue and someone gets excited that Nightcrawler or some link to Daredevil will be in the next episode.

It may not be everyone’s favourite style of storytelling but I’d hate that we got to situation where you can only present a narrative where everyone is at face value.

In the end too I think it’ll completely escape the majority of the audience who aren’t chasing fan theories on various online platforms and taking the story as presented.

 

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lorcan_nagle

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johnstamos
Verified
One day she’s a little girl wandering the set, and next thing you know, she’s taking over a whole town, mindcontrolling the citizens to play out her favorite TV Sitcoms! They grow up so fast… Wanda had a vision we’d both be on @disneyplus Check out #BigShot coming in April and @wandavision Tonight!

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Todd

Well, that was a load of guff. A very bland conclusion to the whole thing that really didn’t deliver on what was needed to land the story, for me.

For all the talk of how unconventional the series has been, it’s like they really wanted a standard MCU movie finale to the whole thing. It felt very empty, like they really didn’t want to have to address all the difficult questions they’d raised after all.

It also seemed determined to crib from loads of other, better movies at the same time (they were really shameless with their Incredibles and Matrix moments). Vision’s line “I do not have one single ounce of original material” is maybe the most honest the show has ever been.

I think the showrunner was right, I think people are going to be disappointed by this.

Oh, and as well as a post-credit scene there’s also a post-post-credit scene this time, so look out for those. Neither is a real knockout though.

I on the other hand thought it was very good. Not great, but I enjoyed it a lot and felt genuinely emotional when Vision was saying goodbye. They could have taken the easy route and given Wanda what she wanted by having WandaVision meld with Whision, but this was much better.

Also Wanda now has the best costume in the MCU.

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Rocket, njerry, garjones

Eh… I’m fine with it…

I love that they basically DESTROYED every single dumbshit clickbait theory out there… that’s just delicious. No mephisto, no mutants, no multiverse silliness, no Magneto, no Ultron, no nothing. Kuddos to Bettany for sending people into a feverish speculation rampage when he was just being a cheeky monkey, that’s probably one of the best trolls ever 

I’m actually amazed they had the balls to erase the kids… I mean, somewhat, given the post credit scenes, but for now at least… I was hoping they would but considering they’re obviously building up the YA, I didn’t expect them to do it, but I suppose they can still have their cake and eat it in the future.

At any rate, the series did what I wanted all along with 1) Wanda being the one responsible for that whole mess and 2) Reviving Vision… I hope we get to see how white vision deals with it, although I suspect he won’t remain white for too long given he unlocked his memories.

That said, the show was very flawed, from the already beaten to death issues with the pacing, so let’s not get into those again, to the many inconsistencies at stupid thing they did along the way. Plus in a very disappointing turn of events, they kind of left a lot of stuff unresloved… like what happened with faux Pietro? Was he the witsec dude? Who the fuck was the witsec dude????? Come on show, you just needed a couple of lines to resolve that one… but Kat Denings got it worse… she was in the episode for 2 seconds and had one line… seriosuly? You gonna do her like that??? Crass… u_u

Also, if that book was the Darkhold, then is this confirmation that AoS is not MCU canon?? Good =P

What’s the deal with Agatha’s witch-cave? Did she create it? was it there all along? I guess we can scratch that one up to Agatha building a little creepy basement for herself. Speaking of Agatha… Meh… her motivations were shit, they really fucked it up with her, but whatever.

And the last silly thing I wanna point out is: What was the whole fuckin’ deal of trying to save Vision in Infinity War since it would seem he was never in danger? I’m glad Vision is back, but that was a bit dumb… I would’ve prefered if both Visions merged exactly for that reason.

Anyways… it was okay… but HOLY SWEET FUCKIN JESUS MARVEL!!! You really need to come up with something different that “hero vs hero’s dark reflection”… It’s always the same fucking thing… u_u

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Todd

Yeah, I liked it overall, it took a few interesting turns like Vision Kirking WhiteVision, some of Wanda’s moves while fighting Agatha like when she snuck up and entered Agatha’s thoughts, and having the guts to actually get rid of the illusory Vision and the kids.

That said, Monica needed more to do, there was a lot of hackneyed bits for the standard last act of this kind of story like Heyward just deciding fuck it, he’s gonna kill somebody and it might as well be kids.

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Martin Smith, njerry

[Steve Sensible]

Jon wrote:

Who the fuck was the witsec dude?????

That’s just one of those things people picked up on and decided it had to be a Big Deal. It was literally nothing… just a plot device to get Jimmy Woo to WestView.

What was the Darkhold doing in Agents of SHIELD?

• This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by Steve Sensible.

I thought that was great, really emotional ending, a few connections for the future. I’ll miss this, it was a must watch as soon as it aired, the action thriller stuff of Falcon and WS doesn’t appeal as much but I’m sure it’ll be fun and look nice.

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njerry, Steve Sensible, lorcan_nagle

Another thing I liked… the Westview townsfolk giving Wanda the “feared and hated” look. As we should view ALL muties!

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Christian, Rocket, Bruce, Todd, lorcan_nagle

Steve Sensible wrote:

That’s just one of those things people picked up on and decided it had to be a Big Deal. It was literally nothing… just a plot device to get Jimmy Woo to WestView. What was the Darkhold doing in Agents of SHIELD?

Yeah I know I was kinda joking about that… but they did set it up as a chekov’s gun kind of thing… but eh, doesn’t matter… it was probably Mrs Foreman, she’s shady as fuck =P

Oh and I don’t remember what it was doing there, but it sure as fuck didn’t look like this Darkhold… I don’t remember what happened to it though… I think that was the season with Ghost Rider (the only worthwhile thing in that whole show) so maybe he had something to do with it…

Steve Sensible wrote:

That’s just one of those things people picked up on and decided it had to be a Big Deal. It was literally nothing… just a plot device to get Jimmy Woo to WestView.

Agreed, as people look for clues in every line of dialogue then it’s hard to write something for a simple plot purpose (why Jimmy is there, why Monica gets a space tank) without some thinking it’s the secret key to the entire show and the Marvel Universe.

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Rocket, Todd, lorcan_nagle

Steve Sensible wrote:

They could have taken the easy route and given Wanda what she wanted by having WandaVision meld with Whision, but this was much better.

Isn’t that exactly what they did? The fake Vision put all of his thoughts and memories (which now seems to include all of his adventures with the Avengers) into White Vision, who just buggered off, presumably allowing a fully real version of the Vision to come back later despite the fake one being erased.

It felt like them trying to have their cake and also erase it from reality.

Dave wrote:

Isn’t that exactly what they did?

He might decide he’s not the same Vision – he just has someone else’s memories. Next time he appears I doubt he’ll be all “happy families” with Wanda.

Steve Sensible wrote:

Another thing I liked… the Westview townsfolk giving Wanda the “feared and hated” look. As we should view ALL muties!

Which is fair enough, really. If you showed this story from any other perspective Wanda basically fits a supervillain role: driven crazy by grief and taking over an entire town against their will to act out a fantasy family while their children are apparently imprisoned in their homes.

It’s why I thought there would be some additional twist to show her being manipulated – because otherwise, without that, surely you have to show some kind of consequences for that kind of abuse.

But Wanda just seems to have been rewarded with a snazzy new costume and codename and a power upgrade, and we’re meant to feel sorry for her that her fake Vision and fake kids aren’t real.

(What’s stopping her keeping them, anyway? She seemed to have created them out of nothing, so why can’t she either retain them or just make them again? It’s not like you need to take over an entire town to do that.)

Dave wrote:

What’s stopping her keeping them, anyway? She seemed to have created them out of nothing, so why can’t she either retain them or just make them again? It’s not like you need to take over an entire town to do that.

She could easily recreate them, but the whole point is that she’s come to terms with her grief, and continuing that lie is no longer helpful to her.

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Rocket, Todd

Steve Sensible wrote:

the whole point is that she’s come to terms with her grief,

I didn’t get that sense from the post-credit scene. It looked like she was still isolated and going down a dark road. The end of the series is basically her leaving and withdrawing from the world after WestView falls apart, and still hearing the cries of her imaginary kids.

Are we meant to feel that she’s ended the series in a healthy place?

Dave wrote:

Are we meant to feel that she’s ended the series in a healthy place?

A healthier place. I guess they want us to consider her a three-dimensional person, someone who’s been through a lot, but who’s come out the other side stronger, and now wants to find out who she is. She’s clearly not meant to be completely heroic – she’s done some terrible things and if the Darkhold is to be believed, she’ll do even more. I guess we’ll find out which path she’ll choose in the Doctor Strange sequel.

Dave wrote:

Isn’t that exactly what they did? The fake Vision put all of his thoughts and memories

No, no, those memories were inside white vision’s CPU or whatever he has for a brain, they’re the memories of the original vision (so, his memories)… What fake Vision did was just unlock them, because like he said, they were being kept from him (implying Hayward was trying to control him and he put a block on them to do so).

The problem with that is like I said: it kinda retcons Vision’s arc in IW and makes it irrelevant… in a way at least. I dunno, I guess that by loosing the mind stone he lost 1) his power source (thus his life I guess) but also maybe 2) his “soul”… but in the end it turns out he just needed a jolt of Wanda’s magic to regain his power source, plus some repairs… and the memories had backups… soooo…

But who knows, I guess we’ll have to wait and see what they do with Vision going forward… I would assume he’d evetually go back with Wanda, but I guess it all depends of Feige’s master plan… Maybe they just decide that he’s got no emotions just because, and that’s that…

Dave wrote:

Which is fair enough, really. If you showed this story from any other perspective Wanda basically fits a supervillain role: driven crazy by grief and taking over an entire town against their will to act out a fantasy family while their children are apparently imprisoned in their homes.

Indeed, and that’s what I wanted from the show… she was indeed the “villain” of the story… It’s really the sort of Dark Phoenix tale for Wanda I was hoping for.

I really love it that as it stands right now, Wanda is THE most powerful being in the MCU… she deserves it! =)

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Todd

Jon wrote:

No, no, those memories were inside white vision’s CPU or whatever he has, they’re the memories of the original vision… What fake Vision did was just unlock them, because like he said, they were being kept from him

So fake-Vision has the power to push past memory blocks that the real Vision can’t? By magic, presumably. And these memory blocks have been put in despite Vision being more advanced AI than anything else SWORD has, and them not having even been able to activate him until now?

It’s like a lot of stuff in this show, once you start to think about the plot developments, some of them fairly major ones, it just doesn’t make much sense.

Dave wrote:

It’s like a lot of stuff in this show, once you start to think about the plot developments, some of them fairly major ones, it just doesn’t make much sense.

I mean… it’s a show about a witch and a robot.

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Rocket, Todd

Steve Sensible wrote:

I mean… it’s a show about a witch and a robot.

I thought we’d got past the “it’s based on a comic so it doesn’t have to make sense!” stage of superhero movies and TV shows a while back.

It’s hard to claim on one hand that the show is a deep and meaningful meditation on love and loss, and on the other that we shouldn’t expect the story to make sense because it’s about a witch and a robot.

 

Dave wrote:

So fake-Vision has the power to push past memory blocks that the real Vision can’t? By magic, presumably. And these memory blocks have been put in despite Vision being more advanced AI than anything else SWORD has, and them not having even been able to activate him until now?

I mean I get your point about the show and yes, there’s a lot of nonsensical stuff… but this much ain’t an issue: How could Whision push past those blocks when he wasn’t even aware he had blocks? fake Vision had to literally talk some sense into him (now, how did fake Vision know that? That’s the real question =P) So not an issue of magic, but more an issue of selfawareness I suppose…

As for SWORD tinkering with him, what they couldn’t do was power his body… it’s the only thing they mentioned… clearly they were somehow able to tinker with his programming.

Again, sure, it’s not like air tight logic or whatever, but they did explain those things, even if in the end they don’t really make sense… does that make sense? =P

Dave wrote:

I thought we’d got past the “it’s based on a comic so it doesn’t have to make sense!” stage of superhero movies and TV shows a while back.

It’s hard to claim on one hand that the show is a deep and meaningful meditation on love and loss, and on the other that we shouldn’t expect the story to make sense because it’s about a witch and a robot.

It’s fairly clear you’re actively seeking out reasons to shit on it, Dave, so why bother trying to reason with you any more.

Drops into thread, deploys ‘that escalated quickly’ GIF and gets the hell out.

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Todd, Dave

For those who missed it, there are two post-credits scenes in this ep.

I was mostly satisfied, though some bits, like the Monica and Pietro/Norm scenes, and the SWORD wrap-up, were underwhelming. All of the Wanda parts worked for me though.

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Martin Smith

Steve Sensible wrote:

It’s fairly clear you’re actively seeking out reasons to shit on it, Dave, so why bother trying to reason with you any more.

Not at all. I’ve watched it with an open mind and I’ve been honest when it’s done stuff that I’ve liked just as I’ve been happy to say when it hasn’t worked for me. You can see evidence of that all through this thread.

And this isn’t just me – a majority of people I know off-board who watch it have been similarly disappointed or confused by it at various points.

I’ve found the conversation here interesting though, especially a lot of the posts that have disagreed with me, as it’s helped me to see a different perspective on the show.

But I don’t want to be the person spoiling other people’s fun, and if my comments are doing that then I’m happy to leave the discussion there. It’s a show that has had its moments but generally hasn’t worked brilliantly for me. Clearly it’s worked better for some others.

Dave wrote:

But I don’t want to be the person spoiling other people’s fun, and if my comments are doing that then I’m happy to leave the discussion there.

Yeah, after the way I’ve been treated over the whole snydercut thing, NO ONE gets to complain about anyone “spoiling other people’s fun”… just sayin’…

So spoil away to your heart’s content!

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Dave

Do you think Snyder would recut WandaVision if we asked nicely?

Put in enough slomo and he might even get it up to the mythical six hours.

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Todd

Oh yeah, the mythical 6 hours… so I’m guessing that means Falcon & Bucky is also gonna be “not really 6 hours as advertised”… yay… u_u

[Ian Smith]

Overall I enjoyed the show. The story of Wandas grief was well handled and quite powerful by the end. I hate weekly telly so the pacing was definitely an issue for me. But I think the finale delivered well enough with the action and setting up plot points for the movies to continue, but also feeling like and ending to this part of the story.</span>

I got tired of the discussion around the show quite early on though. “Is this pointing towards the Fantastic Four?!?…”OMG!, Is this side character secretly a mutant”..Just felt like people were reading into every little detail and setting themselves up for disappointment. Kind of reminds me of when Lost was at its hight.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by Ian Smith.

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Christian, Rocket, Bruce, Todd, garjones, lorcan_nagle, Dave

Ian Smith wrote:

I got tired of the discussion around the show quite early on though. “Is this pointing towards the Fantastic Four?!?…”OMG!, Is this side character secretly a mutant”.

This bullshit to be fair is not restricted to this show. I remember Disney bought Fox in late 2018 and people were expecting an FF/mutant reveal in Avengers Endgame which wrapped up filming a year earlier. I called it as nonsense then because it was.

Admittedly they cheekily pointed towards it this time with the Evan Peters casting but there were 75 other theories to fit into 45 minutes.

It’ll appear in the other MCU shows too. The only sensible approaches are either to ignore it or just take it as a bit of fun to wildly speculate but not expect.

 

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To an extent I think we can also blame the Mandalorian for that heightening of expectations, after its recent second season finale actually delivered on one of those seemingly outlandish fan theories.

Having found the modern day episodes pretty duff, I wasn’t expecting much from this finale.

I think the problem for me is it tries to go every which way but can’t really cover it all well.  So we get Wanda being briefly confronted with what she did, which ends as her saying “sorry” with a large dollop “you lot can’t do shit to me” on the side.  Agnes / Agatha – so she just wanted a power upgrade? Umm, Ok.  Hayward? Arse.

Where it got more confusing for me was the stuff with White Vision and Monica and ‘Quicksilver’, as it all spun out of those stealth mid-credits sequence.

It was a rather neat inversion that while the women are engaged in ‘whose magic blast is bigger’ macho magic battle, the Visions resolve things rather differently.

Overall, I think they wanted to set up this horror-tinged series but not actually follow through on it as that’d wreck Wanda as a character.  So they didn’t.

Will future story pieces help this series? I really don’t know.  I suspect however it is covered in the Strange sequel, it’ll be a neat, capsule explanation that doesn’t need anyone to view WandaVision, so probably be more of curiosity.

Olsen and Bettany really do their best with what they’ve been given to work with though.

Fan theories? Hadn’t seen or read any, so no, those played no role for me.

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Dave

Ben wrote:

Olsen and Bettany really do their best with what they’ve been given to work with though.

Are you taking the piss?  Anyone may not like the show, which is fair enough, but Olsen has been given about as broad an acting challenge as you can imagine and pulled it off all the way through.

I’m genuinely bemused by this reading.

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Todd

Huh? How did you get the idea I was slagging both of them off?

Overall, I’m middling on it – don’t love it, don’t hate it, but the sitcom episodes were the best part for me.  Some neat stuff in those.

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I really liked the finale.

“I request elaboration” was a really badass moment, and the subsequent discussion between the Visions was great.

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Rocket, Ben

Ben wrote:

Huh? How did you get the idea I was slagging both of them off?

Overall, I’m middling on it – don’t love it, don’t hate it, but the sitcom episodes were the best part for me.  Some neat stuff in those.

I don’t see any other take from:

Olsen and Bettany really do their best with what they’ve been given to work with though

You may not love the show’s plot but rarely has any actress been given more to work with. Having to play through several decades, from contented to in anguish.

How does being less than impressed with the script equal being less than impressed with the actors?

I’m not seeing how my statement gets from the one to the other.

Olsen and Bettany manage to make the idea of a sitcom episode work again and again.  Story goes in all directions but they still make it work well enough.  If this counts as slagging them off, well, fine.

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Well I’ll say this, and I think we can all agree: They delivered in terms of production… this had MCU quality through and through… so that’s good, I mean I’m guessing it was expensive as fuck, so it’s nice to see it was succesful… it means they won’t back away from the quality at least.

Plus it’s really nice they’re finally giving some quality scree-time to all those woefully underused character… I love Paul Rudd, but it’s egregious that Antman’s got 2 movies and they completely have been wasting Wanda, Vision, Hawkeye, Bucky, Falcon, War Machine, and obviously Black Widow… seem they’re correcting that. Although BW’s movie really feels like too little, too late, tbh.

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Todd, Ben

And given that the MCU started as cinema, maintaining that level of resource and expectation isn’t easy.

I think this first work in TV does show up there are differences between the two mediums.

It’ll probably work better in combination with other stories too.  As first attempts go, this isn’t bad.

Jon wrote:

I love Paul Rudd, but it’s egregious that Antman’s got 2 movies and they completely have been wasting Wanda, Vision, Hawkeye, Bucky, Falcon, War Machine, and obviously Black Widow… seem they’re correcting that.

I don’t know, I think Ant Man has a very fun visual gimmick that lends itself well to movies. I don’t know if any of those characters are great choices to lead an MCU movie, Black Widow aside. TV shows are a good home for them.

Ian Smith wrote:

I got tired of the discussion around the show quite early on though. “Is this pointing towards the Fantastic Four?!?…”OMG!, Is this side character secretly a mutant”..Just felt like people were reading into every little detail and setting themselves up for disappointment. Kind of reminds me of when Lost was at its hight.

I half convinced myself for a couple of weeks that Mojo might have been involved. TBF, putting superheroes into TV shows is his MO.

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Rocket, Todd