WandaVision Episode 4 review – Marvel fills in the gaps.
Up to this point, WandaVision has revelled in the enigmatic nature of its plot. We’ve been given only threads of what is happening, and who’s behind it.
Last week ‘Geraldine’ (Teyonah Parris) cracked Wanda’s reality by mentioning that Wanda’s (Elizabeth Olsen) brother was killed by Ultron. Infuriated, Wanda threw Geraldine out of their sitcom world and into reality, where it’s revealed a government base had been set up to surround whatever is happening.
This week, we got all the answers we needed, and perhaps a little bit more.
We open with Parris in a seat beside a hospital bed, rematerializing along with a number of people in a manic hospital. We learn what anyone who has read the Wikipedia page for the show already knows: she is in fact Captain Monica Rambeau, the now adult daughter of Captain Marvel’s best friend Maria, now an agent of government body SWORD. What we didn’t know is that she was a victim of Thanos’ click (referred to as The Blip in the show) and presumably coming back after the events of Endgame.
It’s not a happy return, however. Thinking she had simply been asleep, she finds a doctor who informs her that she has been away for years, and that in that time her mother has died. After being caught up by the new director of SWORD, she is sent on a seemingly innocuous missing person case, which turns out to be a missing town. Meeting FBI agent Jimmy Woo (Randall Park), she discovers the town of Westview is gone and no one close to it even remembers it was there. She sends in a drone, before discovering the bubble in which Wanda’s reality exists. Monica walks through, goes missing, and SWORD surrounds the area.
So, a little bit of background story, which fleshes out the background of Rambeau and how she came into Wanda’s world. If you’re a person that’s been scratching their head as to what’s happening, this is the WandaVision episode for you, because a lot more gaps are about to be filled.
Dr. Darcy Lewis (Kat Dennings), the astrophysicist from the Thor films, is brought in to work out what’s happening and finds the frequency of the sitcom, which is showing the first three episodes as we viewed them. This timeline then explains many of the mysteries behind the previous episodes – the toy helicopter was Monica’s drone, turned retro in order to make it useless. The beekeeper in episode 2 was a SWORD agent in a hazmat suit. Wanda’s fellow cast members are real life people playing roles, just like Monica. The voice on the radio trying to contact Wanda was Jimmy, assisting Darcy in an experiment.
The information is spoon fed, which to us is a little bit disappointing. Yes, a little bit of reading gave you an idea as to what was happening, but the fun of the first few shows was its surreal mystery, the sense that like Vision you weren’t entirely sure what was happening. Episode 4, taking the tone of a posh Agents of SHIELD episode, removes all ambiguity.
That’s not to say these new additions aren’t welcome. Parris is an exciting new hero for the plot, and learning her backstory connects you further. Dennings is likeable, and even if every line ends with a quip there’s the beginning of an interesting partnership with her and Park. It’s just that much of what made WandaVision so intriguing is missing here. Up to this point, the show was unlike anything you’d watch on TV, but the fourth chapter felt like any other procedural.
Still, we are given a tantalising revelation. The real-world timeline catches up to the point where Monica mentions Ultron to Wanda, and we see an extended version of what happened. Wanda says that if Monica knew about what happened, then she is “not my neighbour, and not my friend” before hurling her out of her reality and back to SWORD where we left her last episode. Surrounded by agents, she gasps “It’s Wanda. It’s all Wanda”.
It’s a fun, dramatic end point in an episode that has been a bit paint-by-number, firmly placing Olsen in control of the plot. There’s a short coda that shows Vision returning, and asking where Monica/Geraldine went. Wanda has a brief glimpse of Vision as he was when he died, before snapping out of it and making an excuse about their departed guest. Suspecting something’s wrong, Vision says “we don’t have to stay here”, only for Wanda to insist that they are home.
We still have the big questions remaining as to whether Vision and the twins are real, and Wanda’s endgame (sorry) regarding the whole façade. Also, conspicuously missing from the cast members on SWORDS board were Agnes (Katherine Hahn), who has a file but no ID, and Emma Caulfield Ford busybody Dottie.
Episode 4’s title is We Interrupt This Program, and hopefully normal scheduled programming will be resumed next week. This cavalcade of reveals was necessary to ensure everyone is on the same page, but it came at the cost of the show’s ominous feel. Here’s hoping the WandaVision showrunners can find a happy balance in the remaining five episodes.
New episodes of WandaVision are available every Friday on Disney+.