The Empty Grief of WandaVision

With every new leech-like addition to the endlessly expansive Marvel Cinematic Universe, it sadly becomes harder and harder to deny the truth in Martin Scorsese’s controversial declaration that Marvel movies “aren’t cinema”. Of course, such a condemnation is far from the whole story when it comes to the newest generation of comic book movies; as long as the film industry is forced to operate under a capitalist framework, the profit motive will always infect everything it produces, and as far as obligatory blockbusters go, we could do a lot worse than movies like Avengers: Infinity War and Captain America: The Winter Soldier (does anyone really miss the reign of Michael Bay?). Indeed, even without that caveat one could argue for the existence of exceptions to Scorsese’s universal dismissal, could put forth the Wes Anderson-inspired humor of Thor: Ragnarok or the genuinely affecting character drama that is Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 as proof that, in the right hands, franchise films can do marvelous things even constrained as they are by the bounds of the bottom line. The problem, however, is that for every well-constructed movie that at least meets a minimum threshold of amusement, Disney has churned out in the same year multiple paltry cash grabs that are, quite literally, not worth the price of admission. At a time when the average moviegoer is seeing fewer films per year than ever before, that a greater and greater portion of this dwindling number is taken up by an endless procession of franchise installments is, in a word, worrisome.

After Avengers: Endgame wrapped up everything that the past decade of MCU content had been building up to, there was no uncertainty regarding the franchise’s future, in that nothing as trivial as narrative resolution was going to stop such a lucrative business from continuing to operate. That movie alone took in nearly $2.8 billion at the box office, and as long as any more blood can be squeezed out of their stone, Disney will no doubt continue to produce an endless slew of Marvel sequels as long as they keep producing anything resembling a profit. Enter WandaVision, the latest in a previously underperforming lineage of TV series meant to serve as addendums and side narratives to the main cinematic thrust of the MCU. Yet unlike earlier flops such as Iron Fist or Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., WandaVision was met with both immense critical praise and unprecedented popularity as soon as the first pair of episodes dropped back in January, an acclaim that largely endured right up until the season finale in March. Beneath its initially intriguing aesthetic, however, WandaVision is remarkably devoid of personality and merit, and the utter apathy with which it handles such compelling character arcs as those of its main protagonists deserves more scrutiny than even the most mediocre of its predecessors. Given the opportunity to take risks and deviate from a decaying franchise that has become formulaic in all the worst ways, the show lacks the courage to even stay true to the emotions and stakes of the movies that came before it, setting an alarming standard for the deluge of content that is already set to follow in its unsteady footsteps.

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The first two episodes drop the viewer into a pitch-perfect homage to the golden era of ‘50s sitcoms, relying on a combination of nostalgia and sparse moments of vague unease (think Dick Van Dyke meets The Twilight Zone) to intimate that things are not quite as they seem in the charming suburbs of Westview. Even if the writing is far from subtle in establishing that Wanda and Vision’s retreat into the ennui of a normal life is an illusory sham, the lack of needless indulgences for the sake of the canon leaves these earliest episodes downright enjoyable. One can easily imagine a version of WandaVision where the intrigue slowly bleeds into the couple’s idyllic existence over the course of a full season, instead of being bluntly shoved aside a third of the way in. Unfortunately, Episode 4 (of a mere nine) promptly does away with any pretense of subtlety or tension, and all the tantalizing questions raised earlier are unceremoniously answered: we’re still in present-day America, Wanda has surrounded a town in New Jersey with a reality-bending force field, and regardless of whatever magical shenanigans are going on in Westview, Vision is still just as dead as he was at the end of Avengers: Infinity War. Few mysteries remain past this point, and those that do are hardly given proper closure, with many left ambiguous either due to poor writing or in service of cheaply setting up plot points for future MCU ventures (what the hell is up with Wanda and Vision’s kids?). The remaining episodes exist to serve many purposes at once, and providing quality entertainment soon proves to be far from a priority, at least compared to the canon’s insatiable need for more content.

Nothing in WandaVision is left pure; even the most imaginative aspects of its premise serve purely as fodder for a gluttonous universe that has quickly become Disney’s fattest cash cow. Nostalgic references to the various eras of sitcoms throughout television history can’t just be a charming aesthetic choice on the part of the creators; they have to be explained in-universe with needless flashbacks to Wanda’s childhood growing up in fictional EastEurope-istan and watching The Dick Van Dyke Show. Ignoring how this still leaves room for plotholes (even Wanda’s familiarity with old-school sitcoms can’t explain Episode 7’s Modern Family parody), the compulsive need to explain and rationalize every slightly inventive element of the show takes the focus away from what should be its emotional core. Creativity is still present, of course, and inspired decisions like “recasting” Wanda’s dead brother Pietro or the nostalgic commercial parodies slotted into the middle of each episode are illustrative of how the lineage of inspirations for WandaVision (be they old-school sitcoms or modern superhero movies) could have been used to flesh out the potential inherent in such an offbeat premise. But therein lies the problem: these should be clever little in-jokes existing beside the main content of WandaVision, yet it quickly becomes clear that the show exists to serve the canon, not the other way around.

The lack of substantial material within the overarching plot of WandaVision is certainly compounded by its litany of uninspired performances, though how much that can be blamed on the otherwise proficient cast themselves as opposed to those behind the camera is largely a matter of guesswork. No one who saw Martha Marcy Mae Marlene would ever say that Elizabeth Olsen isn’t talented, and she does a passable job through the earliest parts of the show’s plot, but her portrayal of Wanda Maximoff too often lacks the sympathetic intensity that characterized her appearances in earlier MCU movies; the few moments in WandaVision where she attempts to sell what is supposed to be unremitting grief are far from convincing. Paul Bettany as Vision gives a much tighter performance, albeit while playing an emotionally demure robot that requires little of him besides his British accent, and Kathryn Hahn is having way too much fun in her role as the couple’s antagonistic neighbour to deliver what the show requires of her in later episodes. The rest of the performers lining the CGI sets of WandaVision are generally held back by awful writing and direction, while the few notable exceptions like Randall Park (reprising his role as FBI agent Jimmy Woo from Ant-Man and the Wasp) are given precious little to do throughout the season. Such a cast is far from the star-studded lists of expensive names that usually line the posters for Avengers movies, but there is no shortage of talent here; that they are used so ineffectively is merely another consequence of the same lackluster vision that wrote their lines in the first place.

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Still, the saddest instance of missed potential is in how the show presents Wanda’s efforts to come to terms with her grief and let go of Vision…or rather, how it doesn’t present them. While the first two-thirds of the show are largely focused on unraveling the mysterious existence of Westview through the lens of Wanda’s family, once the town’s nostalgic façade is done away with, she is forced to confront not her own inability to process her loss, but an unremarkable sorceress named Agatha Harkness (the latest in a long line of generic Marvel villains). Even in the climatic pair of final episodes, nowhere is Wanda asked to actually reckon with the depth of her anguish; she holds onto her selfish fantasies far longer than any competently written plot would have allowed, distracted from the need to convey any sort of guilt by Agatha’s erratic and counterintuitive villainy. The antagonistic enchantress torments Wanda by illustrating to her face the cost of maintaining her fantasy (an entire town enslaved and controlled), yet entirely fails at getting the younger witch to undergo any sort of self-reflection. Not that Agatha cares about Wanda Maximoff’s emotional growth, of course, but her schemes in the later episodes are essentially perfunctory (the age-old evil incentive of wanting more power), and thus it would have been nice to see her status as a foil actually used effectively to develop Wanda’s character instead of just being an overstated nemesis threatening her and Vision’s children (who may or may not even exist; WandaVision remains frustratingly unclear on that point right up until the last post-credits scene).

The show’s resolution is just as dull; Wanda defeats Agatha using an obscure magical technicality and is framed as a hero by the show for setting the people of Westview free…from an arcane imprisonment she herself forced onto them in the first place. Maybe Wanda’s actions would be more forgivable if her character was given time to show any sort of regret or empathy, which would have gone a long way towards breaking up the monotony of the lifeless climax we ended up with. For a franchise that usually knows how to throw enough money at CGI fight scenes to make them visually appealing if nothing else, Wanda and Agatha’s magical duel while awkwardly hovering in mid-air looks painfully artificial, and between Elizabeth Olsen’s apathetic delivery and Kathryn Hahn’s obsessive need to chew the scenery, the dialogue interspersed between computer-generated spell casts hardly fares any better. As it stands, the atmosphere that engulfs the last moments of the season is not one of thematic catharsis; the finale of WandaVision reeks of (ironically) a sitcom-esque return to the status quo, the necessary regenesis of “the bad guy was defeated, guess everything can go back to normal now”. If the show actually were a sitcom, perhaps writing this lazy and contrived might get a pass, but for a Disney production with a budget nearing $25 million per episode, a little character development is far from an outrageous ask.

The writers even waste a perfect opportunity to mirror Wanda’s grief with that of S.W.O.R.D agent Monica Rambeau, who returned to Earth five years after being snapped into non-existence by Thanos at the end of Avengers: Infinity War to find that her mother Maria, who was battling cancer, had passed away during her absence. Imagine not being able to say goodbye to a loved one and only learning that they had died years after the fact…or alternatively, imagine going through what Wanda did at the end of Infinity War: being forced to kill your own partner for the good of the world, only to have your efforts be undone immediately and you lover nonetheless murdered right before your eyes. Both characters suffered a tremendous loss made all the worse by tragic circumstances that were largely out of their control, and the final act of WandaVision desperately wants for some quiet story beats between the two characters, when all the cards are laid out and they can find some form of solace in each other’s remorse. Instead, any interesting character drama hinted at in the first few episodes is instantly forgotten, and Monica spends the rest of WandaVision gifted with both the arbitrary discovery of latent superpowers and some of the worst dialogue the show’s writers have to offer. Her brief interaction with Wanda in the show’s final moments, despite the scene’s clumsy writing, gets tantalizingly close to what could have been; that their relationship never develops past a mere acknowledgement of their shared trauma is perhaps the greatest of the season’s many missed opportunities.

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In spite of every cinephile who scoffs at the ubiquity of superhero movies in modern pop culture, it cannot be denied that the past decade of Marvel films have resonated with a significant number of people, innate artistry be damned. Those movies, chained as they are to the inequities of capitalism, are made by the same talented people as any other work of cinema, and even the most uncharitable interpretations of their merit would be remiss to not account for the visual and dramatic appeal of the franchise’s best moments. Sadly, the failure of WandaVision to articulate anything close to a coherent vision or compelling story proves that this artistry is not inherent; no matter how much money Disney throws at even the most insignificant of its properties, simply hinting at the next trite expansion of your cinematic universe is not a valid raison d'être. WandaVision needs to offer more than a vague, pointless explanation of Wanda’s ‘backstory’ to justify its existence, especially since the only MCU fans who know or care about the Scarlet Witch already knew that Wanda Maximoff and her were one and the same, and just assumed the replacement of the iconic mask and cape for a red leather jacket was a stylistic decision. For all its efforts, the show’s attempts to portray and develop Wanda’s well-established grief ring depressingly hollow, and nothing else lies beneath the veneer of self-serving references and cliffhangers that overcrowd every promising moment the show has to offer. Those meta developments are WandaVision, more than any poorly conceived character study ever was, and what comes next will only be even more indebted to a cinematic universe so far beyond its original limits that many fans hardly recognize what it has become.