The MCU gave us a lot to enjoy in 2021—characters like Shang-Chi and the Eternals finally got some well-deserved silver screen time,Spider-Man: No Way Homewas better than anyone could have expected andshows likeLoki,What If…?, andThe Falcon and the Winter Soldierallowed us to reimagine some of our favorites in amazing new ways.
Among all these entries in the lineup, one stands powerfully above the rest: the imaginative, heart-wrenching, mind-blowingWandaVision. The 9-episode series follows Wanda Maximoff and her husband Vision, a super-powered couple who star in a sitcom that rapidly changes time periods with each episode. From the 1950s to the mid-2000s, the duo engages in wild neighborhood antics, starts a family and attempts to blend in with their human neighbors. As the series progresses, the citizens of Westview realize their reality might not be so real after all. This show kept audiences hotly guessing until the very end, and the cast’s performances immersed us all into the unpredictable world of Wanda Maximoff. Here’s a brief look at why WandaVision was easily the best MCU release of the year.
Related:Here Are the Toughest Female Superheroes, Ranked
Viewers Experienced A Journey Through Television History
One of the features that make this show stand out so far above the rest is its ultra-dynamic setting—viewers are essentially watching a TV show in a TV show! Wanda Maximoff’s reality is represented throughWandaVision, which she expresses as a sitcom (we later find out this stems from her love of sitcom shows). However,WandaVisiontakes things a step further by changing the sitcom’s decade nearly every episode, so the audience is treated to ajourney through television history.
The first episode brings usWandaVisionin a 1950s setting complete with a black and white color scheme, a catchy theme song and a timely opening sequence. As the show progresses, we get to watch the characters and the little town of Westview develop into the late 2000s; the show’s ‘cast’ is costumed to match the fashion of every decade, and we’re treated to bits of old-school dialect and slang as they were used throughout American history. The world explodes into Technicolor by episode 3, and the series is packed with homages to classic television. Even the theme song gets an update with every step toward the future.
It Put A New Twist An Old Superhero Trope
The old ‘superhero tries to keep their powers a secret’ trope has been used since the earliest days of the superhero genre. By now, everyone has seen a million takes on this idea, butWandaVisionwas bold enough to turn this trope on its head. The first half of the series focuses primarily on Wanda and Vision’s personal lives and their struggle to blend in with the neighbors, though the former begins to notice strange things in her world (like a colorful toy helicopter and the beekeeper rising out of the manhole in episode 2).Things might not be what they seem, and we learn this information alongside Wanda. She’s just as confused as we are.
Once ‘Geraldine’ reveals that she knows what happened to Wanda’s brother Pietro, we see the shift: agents from S.W.O.R.D. have been posing as characters in the show to keep tabs on Wanda the whole time. While Wanda and Vision struggled to conceal their heroic identities, S.W.O.R.D. was doing the same, but our protagonists hadn’t realized it. It’s sort of a fun play on ‘the hunter becoming the hunted’, and it adds to the element ofmystery surrounding the show.
Fans Connected More Deeply With Wanda
The Scarlet Witch has been a longtime Marvel Comics alum, but at her core, she’s just Wanda: a woman with a dream of marrying someone she loves, raising a family and living a well-adjusted life. While this might not be everyone’s dream, fans can connect with Wanda because she’s just a regular person. She’s not pursuing power or money or even admiration; she wants to be happy, full stop.
What’s more, she’s flawed, and we see her make mistakes. After suffering massive emotional trauma, Wanda hexes the entire real town of Westview to escape from reality, which any of us might do after walking a mile in her shoes. Not everything she does is right, and that’s how it should be. She may be a chaos magic user, but life didn’t provide an instruction manual for anyone; Wanda is learning to be human one day at a time just like everyone else.
Related:Here Are the Most Powerful Magic-Users in the MCU, Ranked
The Story Was One of the Most Tragic in the MCU
Speaking of building her own reality, the story ofWandaVisionis easily one of the most heart-wrenching tragedies in the MCU, and that’s saying a lot for Wanda’s character. She and her twin brother lost their parents in a mortar attack, and they spent years rallying against superheroes after learning that Stark Industries was involved in the war on their home country. Eventually, the pair switched sides and joined the Avengers, where Wanda met Vision. During the fight against Ultron, Pietro lost his life trying to save Hawkeye and a little boy, and Wanda fell apart.
In wake of the tragedy, she and Vision grew closer together, but he would eventually give his life and his Infinity Stone in the fight against Thanos. After the final battle, Wanda wanted to bury her beloved’s body but was denied permission by S.W.O.R.D. She soon realized Vision was being completely dismantled, and in a fit of emotional turbulence drove to the lot in Westview he bought for their life together. There, Wanda manifested the Hex that would becomeWandaVision. It gave her a chance to be with her partner and raise a family with him, but this was also short-lived—she was forced to leaveWandaVisionbehind to trap Agnes (who was actuallyAgatha Harkness, as revealed in the finale) inside of it, and she had to say goodbye to Vision and her children for good. When happiness arises in Wanda’s life, it’s always stripped away from her, and the show makes this heartbreakingly evident.
