WandaVision Is An Exciting Start To A New Chapter Of Marvel (Spoiler-Free Review)

Donovan Nichols, Co-Editor In Chief

With six episodes released and three more to go, WandaVision is a fantastic and bold first step from Marvel Studios into the realm of TV. The show is easily the MCU’s weirdest entry yet; the premise of a magic witch and her robot husband playing along as characters in a decades-hopping sitcom is both bizarre and mostly self-contained for a franchise known for its epic crossovers and giant action setpieces. Yet, this uniqueness is what helps WandaVision shine.

The show picks up shortly after Avengers: Endgame, following Wanda and Vision’s daily escapades in their small town of Westview. Here, the antagonists are not killer robots or hordes of aliens, but grumpy bosses and gossiping housewives. Part of what makes the show work so well is just how hard it commits to the sitcom premise, especially in earlier episodes. The cheeky references to classic TV like The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Brady Bunch reward older fans who watched those shows, while the jokes themselves are legitimately funny on their own. As a sitcom, WandaVision is truly fairly funny. This attention to detail, stretching all the way to period-accurate cheesy special effects, make the few moments where something seems to be wrong, even more powerful. The whole atmosphere changes from idyllic to sinister in just the blink of an eye, as Vision desperately tries to find out what is going on. These hints of evil seeping through the cracks of Westview color further episodes; the jokes are still funny, but there is always a creeping sense of dread that something is terribly wrong. This small push into the realm of creepiness and horror is fantastic to see from a Marvel property, even if sometimes it would be nice to see it go even further.

Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany, as Wanda and Vision, are excellent here. They have chances to actually act that they just do not get in the movies, bringing their all to their characters, truly telling an emotional story. Wanda’s grief over all she has lost is especially well portrayed; it colors every aspect of each episode, showing a carefully constructed façade desperately trying to hold back Wanda’s internal anguish and despair.

The production value is impressive; each episode legitimately looks and feels like a miniature movie, not just an expensive spinoff. There is legitimate care put into the set design and the world of Westview; just like another Disney+ powerhouse The Mandalorian, everything is meticulously plotted out and perfectly constructed.

The show is admittedly a bit of a slow burn; fans expecting the traditional quipping and fighting of most MCU movies will be disappointed if they expect more of the same from WandaVision. The heavy embrace of the sitcom premise means that many mysteries and questions are raised in the beginning of the season that have yet to be answered, and it takes some time before more pieces fall into play and the plot truly begins to heat up beyond small sitcom vignettes. Additionally, WandaVision might be hard for newer fans to get into; while anyone can enjoy the small, self-contained sitcom stories, the overall plot loses some of its relevance without the context from previous movies like Wanda’s tragic life, losing her parents, her brother, and Vision by the end of Avengers: Infinity War, and Thanos’ snap that decimated half the universe and his eventual defeat at the hands of the Avengers. While WandaVision is a fantastic beginning to the next stage of the MCU, it is not a very good entry point for new fans.

Overall, WandaVision is an excellent and exciting new entry on Disney+. It is definitely a bold choice to kick off the next stage of Marvel, and while not all fans may enjoy its smaller, more personal scale, it is a nice breath of fresh air for superhero movies.