WandaVision: Sitcom Land

WandaVision | Season 1 | Episodes 1-3

For a quick read, go to Review. For a complete summary, go to Recap.

KBear Recap [Read time: 5-7 min]

Episode 1. Filmed Before a Live Studio Audience

Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany) arrive in Westview, New Jersey. They are newly married. There’s a date on the calendar with a heart drawn on it, they both don’t know what it’s for. After Vision leaves for work, noisy neighbor Agnes (Kathryn Hahn) welcomes Wanda to the neighborhood. Vision works at Computational Services and asks Norm (Asif Ali) what they do there. Vision finds out his boss Mr. Hart (Fred Melamed) and his wife Mrs. Hart (Debra Jo Rupp) are coming to dinner. He calls Wanda but they have a misunderstanding, she thinks it’s a romantic dinner for the two of them. Agnes helps her prepare a gourmet meal, Wanda rushes her out and tries to finish the meal using magic. It goes disastrously wrong. Mr. Hart grows furious with the delay, but Wanda saves the evening making breakfast for dinner. The Harts ask Wanda and Vision questions they can’t answer. Mr. Hart gets aggravated and starts to choke. Wanda orders Vision to save him; he phases this hand through Hart’s throat to pull out the food. Suddenly everything is fine, Mr. Hart promises to discuss a promotion with Vision in the morning. As Wanda and Vision prepare to watch TV, someone is watching their program.

Commercial: ToastMate 2000 toaster by Stark Industries.

Episode 2. Don’t Touch That Dial

Wanda hears loud thumping noises outside and asks Vision to check it out. Scared, Wanda magically pushes their twin beds together. Nature takes its course. The next morning, they practice their magic act for the talent show fundraiser for Westview Elementary. Wanda worries about fitting in. Wanda attends the planning committee meeting while Vision goes to the neighborhood watch meeting. Wanda hears a crash and finds a toy helicopter which is in color. On their way to the meeting, Agnes warns Wanda about the committee chair Dottie (Emma Caulfield Ford). Wanda meets Geraldine (Teyonah Parris); Dottie gives the newbies a hard time. Vision finds out the neighborhood watch mostly gossips and eat snacks. Herb (David Payton) gives him a stick of gum which Vision accidently swallows; it gums up his gears. Wanda is left alone with Dottie to clean up, Dottie is suspicious of Wanda. A message comes over the radio: “Wanda. Who is doing this to you Wanda?” The message brings both women back to reality for a moment before Dottie breaks the glass she is holding. Vision shows up at the talent show acting drunk. He messes up the tricks using his real abilities. Wanda covers it up by making everything he does look fake. She gets the gum out of his system, and they try to sneak out. Dottie awards them the first ever Comedy Performance of the Year. When they get home, they jokily say, “For the children,” suddenly Wanda is pregnant. A beekeeper (Zac Henry) emerges from the sewer, Wanda rewinds the scene. After she replays the discovery that she is pregnant, their world goes from black and white to color.

Commercial: The man and woman from the first commercial (Ithamar Enriquez) and (Victoria Blade) are in a Strücker watch commercial manufactured by Hydra.

Episode 3. Now in Color

Dr. Nielsen (Randy Oglesby) examines Wanda who is four months pregnant. Escorting Dr. Nielsen out, he tells Vision he’s going on vacation, he’ll be back before her due date. Herb is trimming his branches but begins to trim the brick fence. Vision walks back inside and sees that now she is six months pregnant. Wanda magically decorates the baby’s room while Vision reads baby books. Vision wants to name the baby Billy, while Wanda likes Tommy. Wanda gets a false contraction which causes her powers to go haywire, affecting the town. Vision tells Wanda something is wrong, but before he can go further, there is a blip and suddenly he’s no longer suspicious. Her water breaks causing a shower inside the house. Vision leaves to retrieve the doctor. Geraldine stops by and Wanda tries to hide her pregnancy. A stork walks around, but Geraldine doesn’t notice. When Geraldine goes to the room and sees the decorations, she notices Wanda’s very large pregnant belly. The doctor hasn’t left for his vacation yet, Vision carries Dr. Nielsen on his back. Everything goes berserk as Geraldine helps Wanda deliver her baby. Vision arrives with the doctor; he and Wanda name the baby Tommy. As he holds his son, Wanda delivers the second twin, Billy. Vision walks Dr. Nielsen out, he’s not going on his vacation now, he sadly notes it’s hard to escape small towns. Vision sees Agnes and Herb; they are whispering about Geraldine; she doesn’t belong here. Vision asks what they are talking about before Herb can answer Agnes shuts him up. While rocking the twins, Wanda wistfully talks about her twin brother Pietro. She begins singing a Sokovian lullaby. Geraldine slowly snaps out of her trance and asks didn’t Ultron kill him. Wanda angrily asks Geraldine what she said, Geraldine doesn’t remember. Wanda asks who she is. Vision walks in and asks where Geraldine is, Wanda tells him she had to go home. Wanda sends Geraldine flying outside Westview. A military base is set up outside Westview and troops are running towards her.

Commercial: A harried mother needs a break, so she soaks in Hydra Soak, a luxury bath powder.

KBear Review [Read time: 1-3 minutes]

Wanda Maximoff first appearance into the MCU was in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Wanda and Pietro are Avengers in the comics, but they are also mutants, and at the time Fox owned the rights to mutants. To get around it, the MCU couldn’t state the Maximoff twins were mutants or that Wanda was the Scarlet Witch or that Pietro was Quicksilver. So, throughout the movies, we never got Wanda’s full character arc. She was someone who could move objects with her mind and mess with other people’s minds. We the audience knew she could do more, but the MCU had to be careful with how powerful they could show her to be. Since we apparently don’t have anti-trust regulations any longer, Disney bought FOX and the right to the mutants. The good news for MCU fans, we finally got the Scarlet Witch. We know that Vision died in Avengers: Infinity Wars, but here he is with Wanda in a 1950 era sitcom. If you were unfamiliar with the Avengers, you might have taken this as a sendoff of that era’s sitcoms, until you noticed that a mysterious person was watching the program. The second episode takes place in the 60s, and it takes its cues from Bewitched. Both episodes had the usual sitcom shenanigans, the first with the boss and his wife coming to dinner, and the second being a talent show. They seemed to always have talent shows in 60s sitcoms. We received another clear indication this isn’t a sitcom when at the end of the second episode, Wanda reversed time and the show turned to color. This is a superhero show and we can expect the fantastical. We get that in episode three with Wanda being pregnant and going through the normal nine-month gestation within a day. We get our first shoutout to the MCU when Geraldine mentions Ultron. For most of the first three episodes, Wanda was in as much of a daze as everyone else, but she snaps out of it and becomes very dangerous, blasting poor Geraldine out of town, where we find out that a military operation is taking place. These first three episodes were very good, setting up the crazy world we are in. They were comedic of course, but there was also a Twilight Zone feel to each episode. Things were clearly not like they appeared. Each episode takes place in a different decade, episode one in the 50s, episode two in the 60s, and episode three in the 70s, with the appropriate era production styles for each one. Having veteran sitcom actors like Debra Jo Rupp and Kathryn Hahn made the sitcoms seem more authentic. Our stars Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany are naturals as sitcom stars. Now in Color had a Brady Bunch vibe, and Teyonah Parrris’ s performance in the episode reminded me of Ja’Net DuBois’s Willona on Good Times. It was an excellent callback to black sitcoms of that era. We’ll find out there is more to Geraldine in the next episode. Each episode had theme songs that fit their eras; with commercials that linked to the MCU.

WandaVision Episode 1 Intro