WandaVision Season 1 Review

 [Music] hi and welcome to the dynamic duel podcast a weekly show where we review superhero films and debate the superiority between marvel and dc by comparing their characters in stat based battle simulations i’m johnny dc and i’m his twin brother marvelous joe and this has got to be an exciting episode for you because this is the first time we are reviewing a marvel like new release from the mcu in over a year yeah you’re right we haven’t had new mcu content in so long it feels so good to finally get it and WandaVision was a really good show can’t wait to talk about it it’s like a weight that’s been lifted off my shoulders and i assume that you almost feel the same way with zack snyder’s justice league coming out in just a few weeks sort of i guess yeah i mean i do feel like we’re getting an entirely new justice league film so that’s exciting it will actually be discussing the justice league later on in the episode when we break down the comic book movie news from the past week because zack snyder has released justice league character trailers and posters on his social media accounts yeah so we’ll talk about those then get into the WandaVision review as always we list our segment times in our episode description so feel free to check out the show notes if you want to skip ahead to a particular topic remember guys this podcast now has a card game out called dynamic duel war and you can get it by joining us on patreon on any one of our tiers you can find information on how to get the game if you want to have fun simulating card battles between marvel and dc characters check us out at patreon.com dynamicduel and as always a reminder to please subscribe to our show if you haven’t already and if you have please help jonathan and i grow our podcast audience by leaving a quick rating or review on whatever platform you’re listening to us if you’re able to sharing us with your fellow dc and marvel fans is also a big help and with that out of the way quick to the no prize a no prize is an award marvel used to give out up until the 90s to fans our version the dynamic duel no prize is a digital award we post on social media that jonathan draws for those who we feel gave the best answer to our question of the week last week’s question tying into the news that jj abrams will be producing a superman reboot film was do you want jj abrams dc films to be a part of zack snyder’s established dc or do you want a complete reboot with new versions of the characters it was a big question and we got some great answers let’s go ahead and run down our honorable mentions before naming the no prize winner our first honorable mention goes to isaiah bethune who said hey twins it’s isaiah with you uh i think jj abrams uh dc films should be included in the dceu established films um i think it would enrich overall the dc experience give you more films to watch but i’m not the largest dc fan so i don’t have a strong opinion about it you and me both uh the tricky word with this news that was released last week is the word reboot you know it’s being like described as a reinvention and reinterpretation a new interpretation of the superman character so it’s hard to see that coexisting with cavill superman you know alongside that well i mean if they just ignore the justice league movie superman did die within the dc eu and then you could just have him come back maybe in a different body but still interact with gal gadot’s wonder woman jason momoa’s aquaman things like that so just ignore the whedon cut and the snyder cut no i don’t like that our next honorable mention goes to mickey medengien who said hey guys it’s maggie and while i would love to see superman continue to interact with the rest of the dcu i’m down for a reboot just so we can see his morality and the way he brings hope to people correctly because in my opinion they didn’t really do that right with henry cavill we could put him in his own continuity like badenson and the dcu can focus on the rest of the justice league characters kind of like how they did it at the beginning of the silver age justice league comics i actually really like the answer the only problem is that jj abrams is also producing a constantine film and you know some justice league dark properties so i really don’t see this superman standing on his own i really do think that jj abrams is creating a broader universe with which his characters can interact i could be wrong but i wouldn’t be surprised i mean the justice league dark properties are being made for hbo max so they don’t necessarily have to interact with each other that’s very true but then again do the justice league dark characters exist in the dc eu or with this new superman they don’t have to interact but are they isolated i don’t know what dc’s doing man everything’s isolated to them it’s dumb our final honorable mention apparently goes to kermit the frog who said current frog here and um i think that uh jj abrams needs to start fresh because uh what we’ve gotten so far with the dceu is uh hot garbage and uh i think it’s time to move on uh they’re moving on from superman they’re moving on from batman we got no bad flack we got no cavill it’s not worth holding on to let’s just move on really good impression i’m impressed yeah but also like it’s kind of too soon to just like you know give up gal gadot and jason momoa and everyone else i don’t want to say goodbye yet i i don’t want to well you’re going to get a flash movie with ezra miller very true and i’m totally looking forward to that we’ll see how many members of the justice league you know make an appearance in that film before we name our no prize winner we want to give a quick shout out to shane habeson for going on our website and leaving his answer there thank you very much man for taking the time to do that but the winner of this week’s no prize goes to michael hagerty who said hello guys michael hagerty here um i think it should all be one multiverse but jj abrams should be on a different earth and then someone down the line eventually will connect them all in a crisis type event and this is my favorite answer because this is the one i think that is the most likely to be the correct answer in that all of the dc executives and the warner brothers executives have been really pushing this idea of a multiverse you know in the dc fandom even in the cw shows you know we know that robert pattinson’s batman apparently takes place on earth too this is a thing that is going to happen for sure so why not you know have jj abrams films in his own universe as long as we don’t get like two different superman films two different batman films then i’m down with this the dc eu continuity will continue to exist i’m assuming through the flash film through the wonder woman films and the aquaman sequel everything else will exist on its own and we’re just not going to get a whole lot of interplay within each respective universe yeah and i mean we’ll kind of see what audiences are able to tolerate who kind of knows right now what you can get away with what you can’t it’s all kind of an experiment i do have to say though that in terms of a crisis film you know they’re just now establishing the multiverse so why would you want a crisis film to happen that you know is supposed to merge the multiverse if you’re just barely establishing it so basically what i learned here is that there is no good answer for dc and they’re just piling [ __ ] on top of itself i just really wish the news of jj abram’s superman reboot like didn’t happen because i’m still not sure what to think about it and you know judging from the number of responses we got to this question i think a lot of people don’t know what to think about it dc fans just come over to the marvel side it’s easier no it’s just easier that sucks less headaches it’s better it’s better congrats again to michael hagerty for winning this week’s no prize if you the listener want a shot at winning your own no prize stay tuned to later on this episode when we’ll be asking another question of the week and now that that’s done on to the news so the justice league hype train has like been going full throttle non-stop every week it’s been really cool and a lot of it has been coming from zack snyder’s social media accounts recently this past week he’s been releasing character specific trailers for the film and posters the posters are kind of you know basic it’s just you know black and white versions of the characters standing but the trailers are really interesting they offer new footage new voice voiceover and it’s all pretty exciting to see yeah so far as of this recording we’ve gotten trailers for batman superman aquaman and the flash the next few are going to come out in the next couple of days so we’ll be talking about the wonder woman and cyborg individuel trailers later in our next episode probably but yeah zeck snyder started things off with batman and really there’s no one who shoots a better batman like a more iconic batman from the comics than zack snyder i love the shot of him on the gargoyle with the lightning behind him you know it’s something that we got from early trailers of the original theatrical cut but it’s just great to see it here once again knowing that we’ll actually get the greater context of why he’s on the gargoyle it’s gonna be pretty cool and it’s cool seeing batman stand on the nightcrawler vehicle too no that’s not the nightcrawler that’s the war machine what yeah that’s what it’s called what a rip-off i mean that looks way cooler than don cheadle i’m just gonna say no way i think of the four character trailers that we’ve gotten so far this one definitely has the most interesting voiceover we get to hear darkseid for the first time talking about how he’s finally gonna come and claim his prize you know whether that’s earth or maybe the anti-life equation or maybe the mother boxes i’m not quite sure but we also get to hear martian manhunter and we get to hear volcko who was cut from the first justice league film yeah this one definitely gave the best hint of kind of what’s to come in regards to characters beyond just batman whereas the other trailers were a little bit more character specific yeah definitely i mean the superman one was essentially a short mini sneak peek of a scene where he’s entering the kryptonian ship but he has those you know different suits that pop out at him he chooses the black one because we see that in the following shot superman’s monologue of they resurrected me for a reason i need to find out what that is was really interesting again this is stuff that wasn’t even hinted at in the theatrical cut now the aquaman one is really interesting especially considering the context that this came out before the aquaman film yeah which we loved jason momoa is awesome as aquaman it’s kind of cool to see how zech snyder is establishing or expanding the mythology of aquaman yeah ever since the aquaman movie came out i’ve always really liked the setting of atlantis and just being underwater so i’m really looking forward to these scenes the most i think and not only that but in the theatrical cut the scene with mira and aquaman was just atrocious so i’m looking forward to seeing something way better yeah yeah we’ll see what’s changed from that scene definitely now my favorite of the character trailers was actually the flash zach showed us a glimpse of a scene that was entirely cut from the theatrical version of the film which was of barry allen’s saving iris west played by kirsty clemens and seeing things that we haven’t seen before like you know his shoes disintegrating or seeing barry allen get nervous from holding her and just like running away it all adds like these interesting fun aspects to the character of ezra miller’s barry allen even more so after that scene when we see him like running through what appears to be the speed force and we hear him say it’s all right now which could have multiple meanings for the flash like everything is okay right now or all of time is like gonna be condensed into this one moment that he could travel through hearing billy crudup as his father again also was a nice treat we didn’t get too much with that character in the theatrical cut we’re hearing new dialogue from the characters so it seems like there’s going to be you know expanded footage which is just great i can’t wait these character trailers i think are just a great way to promote the film and i can’t believe it’s only like two weeks away yeah the trailers were all good but i’m starting to wonder if maybe this movie is being over promoted i mean i know that they want to get hbo subscribers and everything like that so they’re showing as much as they can to build the hype but we’ve seen a lot now for a film that we’ve largely already seen and i’m wondering if perhaps they’re showing too much and that brings us to our question of the week do you watch all the trailers released for a film or do you prefer being surprised record your answer at dynamicduel.com by clicking on the red microphone button in the bottom right hand corner which will prompt you to leave us a voicemail your message can be up to 30 seconds long and don’t forget to leave your name in case we include you on the podcast we’ll pick our favorite answer and draw that person a dynamic duel no prize that we’ll post to social media be sure to answer before march 14th and that does it for all the news for this episode so let’s go ahead and get into our main event where we reviewed the marvel disney plus television show WandaVision all right marvel’s WandaVision is a nine episode series on the streaming platform disney plus the first marvel produced series for that platform set in the mcu it chronicles the lives of wanda maximoff and vision after the events of avengers end game in which wanda returned from vanishing at the hands of thanos and his infinity stones in end game we last saw wanda grieve over the loss of vision whom she had begun a romantic relationship with and at the start of WandaVision we see her envision living the suburban lifestyle in the 1950s sitcom setting and the big mystery behind the show was how they ended up there and what was happening it was a compelling little enigma with eventually satisfying answers and if you don’t want to know the answers and haven’t seen the show i would recommend switching off this podcast because we’ll be diving deep into spoiler territory here and you definitely don’t want to ruin this series for yourself now for those of you still here i assume you’ve seen the show and i’ve already formed some kind of opinion of it judging from the responses online there are some people who thought it was a flawlessly executed entry in the marvel cinematic canon and there are some who were disappointed in the story’s ultimate answers both judgments are fair but it needs to be said that at its essence this show is a story of loss grief and emotional mending over anything else it’s also a sort of celebration of television sitcom history but that’s secondary what this show was not was a marketing effort to tease the upcoming slate of marvel movies because so many people hinged their enjoyment of this show on its ability to support their fan theories like oh we know what marvel movies are coming out next so where are the titans mr fantastic was supposed to be monica’s aerospace engineer and we were supposed to see the multiverse and wanda is a nexus being here definitely comes ultron it’s like stop the only answers the series owed were the ones set up by its premise nothing else was promised and one can’t really be upset at the show for that i think another thing that people may have found disappointing with the show was just how different it was especially initially in the first few couple of episodes from the rest of the mcu it’s unlike anything else marvel has ever put out and i know that this originally wasn’t supposed to be the first show that they released you know that was supposed to be falcon and the winter soldier and that sort of seems a little bit more in line with what the mcu delivers especially you know on the captain america side but with WandaVision you know wanda has always been kind of weird even from her introduction but this kind of took it to a whole nother level that kind of left everyone with a what the [ __ ] is going on kind of feeling in those first couple of episodes but of course if you stuck with the show that all you know of course gets resolved by episode three ish yeah it’s definitely a unique show a little weird and a large part of that was in how true it tried to stay to the sitcoms that it was emulating i think the pitch perfect writing was both to the show’s benefit and detriment because although the sitcom stuff was interesting you know it was just part of the fantasy and largely didn’t address the primary plot at hand and i think people who are used to the standard stuff that marvel puts out may have gotten a little bit impatient with that although personally it’s strange because in those first few episodes like i was hoping for more mcu type stuff and in the later episodes i was kind of longing for more of the sitcom weirdness stuff uh in the end i think that the series balanced it all mostly well for the number of episodes it had yeah and you know marvel has always kind of borrowed from other movie genres you know captain america is a spy thriller ant-man is like you know a heist type film this you know being their first television show kind of borrowed from television comedies throughout the decades but i’m not convinced that they actually needed to i don’t think it really served the story in a way that was particularly meaningful other than the fact that hey this is this cool thing we could do let’s try and do it it to me it wasn’t as successful as it should have been i think you have a good point there it was an experiment you’re right the premise of the show as an homage to classic television series didn’t really service the plot it wasn’t necessary it was something that they wanted to do i thought it was fitting that since you know it’s marvel’s first television series they would homage what came before but i’ll definitely say that it seemed like there was too little plot at the start of the series and maybe too much plot at the end yeah it was all kind of i don’t want to say it was rushed at the end because i think the end was done really well and it was really exciting you know i’m sure especially for marvel fans to see how they tied everything together and wrapped everything up but yeah i think the plot could have been more evenly distributed and better balanced throughout the nine episodes yeah episodes which were ultimately too short if i’m being honest you know if marvel is sticking with five to six hours of content for these disney plus series then really they need to release it all in five to six weeks although some episodes were a tad longer than others it felt like we were digesting the story in tiny morsels as opposed to you know a fulfilling bite at a time if they didn’t want to combine episodes i think marvel should have just released two at a time like they did with the first week of the show and i hope that in the future marvel never returns to the half hour format it’s just not enough oh yeah for sure i i [ __ ] hated that please stand by sequence but you know that that also partially speaks to the quality of the show’s cliffhangers yeah each week i you know signed into disney plus i somehow forgot that like the last 15 minutes of each episode was just credits yeah these were really just like you know 20 to 30 minute episodes because the timeline said 45 minutes but it wasn’t that was pretty frustrating now in regards to my previous point about fan theories and you know basing your judgment of a show on what you thought you would be promised there is one exception to that when it comes to this show and that was the moment that they introduced evan peters as pietro because at that point all conjecture and theorizing was fair game and when we first saw evan peters pietro it was beyond exciting unlike anything else i was so psyched i was like is this a merging of realities like do mutants exist in the mcu now and what does this mean for other deceased characters i was going bonkers that moment was so ripe for speculation and marvel knew that they set it up specifically for that and it turns out all along they were just jerking you off and not even finishing yeah the fact that fake pietro was essentially a red herring was a [ __ ] huge disappointment it was literally a troll move on behalf of the production team and like i’m sure they had fun with the gag but considering how pointless it was how did they think they were going to do anything but disappoint fans with that reveal marvel dropped the ball so [ __ ] hard there in a way that they rarely do however fake pietro aside this show does not succeed or fail based on the internet’s conjecture of what fan service moments could have happened it succeeds or fails on its own merits of which it does have a lot for all the weaknesses of the show as a whole i really did enjoy it and i thought it expanded on the mcu’s existing continuity really well and as fans we still got so much from it like outside of the story of grief we got to see an elaboration on the past and potential future of the scarlet witch you know vision is back from the dead now that’s exciting uh we have monica rambo all powered up now her origin was cool we got a new villain in agatha harkness we got an introduction to two young avengers characters speed and wiccan and we got a damn good setup for the doctor strange sequel i mean continuity wise WandaVision had a lot of great stuff which as we said before really came in the latter half and really the last few episodes of the show yeah and i think that the way people feel about the show is really determined upon if they thought what happened was worth the wait or not i think overall my big takeaway and the message that i want to give to the listeners is that you don’t actually get points for guessing a plot before you see it as fun as it is to try and guess for some reason like there’s this obsession with a large portion of the fandom to try to know everything about a film or a show before it’s actually out there yeah totally i got really sick of all the different conspiracies that was going on simultaneously and before this show came out i just ignored them largely because ultimately if they’re wrong they’re wrong and if they’re right i don’t want to know they’re right until i see the show right and you see that happening a lot with like upcoming movies like spider-man 3 and doctor strange and stuff like that and really you know outside of the marketing material that the studio officially puts out uh it’s just not worth it i think it’s best just to you know be patient and wait yeah good luck with that on the internet we don’t need to have like every single permutation of what could possibly happen within a show or movie theorized on you know before it’s actually released enjoy the experience as it happens don’t get too worked up over what it could be before you experience it and honestly that’s not just with wanda vision or the mcu you know joseph and i often say we’ll judge films based on whether or not we think it could have been done better i think in hindsight with doing a lot of these reviews if you go into a show or a movie with inflexible preconceived notions you’re kind of setting yourself up for disappointment so what you’re saying jonathan is that people should manage their expectations i mean unless you’re like really excited about it you know like like zack snyder’s justice league then you know just abandon all restraint absolutely let’s get into our character breakdown starting with wanda maximoff aka the scarlet witch who was played by elizabeth olsen now elizabeth olsen is [ __ ] bae she never quite got the opportunity to shine as a supporting player in the avengers movies but not only did she i think solidify herself as a mainstream leading lady here i was really impressed at her ability to transform her acting style through the decades yeah she has a pretty solid range you know going from the 50s all the way up to you know the odds for the most part you know i definitely think she sold like the classiness of the earlier episodes than the kind of like no personality slash semi-emotional wreck of like the modern family type episode yeah but i think she did a good job of selling the emotion that was necessary to carry the story oh yeah absolutely like when she was displaying emotion especially during like those later episodes when she sort of like broke the character that she was supposed to play i thought she really nailed the character of wanda maximoff in those scenes yeah yeah it was like hard seeing her grieve you know as i mentioned earlier ultimately this is a story about wanda dealing with her loss and i agree the show did a great job in its later episodes of addressing her mental health i thought it was neat how they showed how she used sitcoms as a coping mechanism you know through the death of her parents through the hydra experiments through pietro’s death wanda is a woman who has lost so much and seeing her at the end sacrifice her comfortable reality and add to her personal loss was just a heartbreaking moment though it’s worth noting that the lesson that she learned here was not about accepting her grief it was about accepting reality because at the very end of the show in the after credits we see her using the darkhold to try and bring her kids back in the real world so she’s no longer living a fantasy but she’s still grieving in the wrong way it’s tragic stuff and while her actions in this show don’t make her the most sympathetic of characters it does make her feel more human perhaps because like monica rambo admitted which of us given the power wouldn’t try to bring back our loved ones i do think it was really interesting how they almost set her up as a villain in multiple episodes and you know especially like at the very end there’s something very sinister about scarlet witch you know even in the comics and they really played up on that here yeah we know she started off as a villain she nearly destroyed the avengers during the disassembled arc she’s gone through a lot and you can learn more about her in our zatanna vs scarlet witch episode she has often straddled the line between hiro and villain just like her father just like her father yeah like formerly her father stupid yeah what did you think of wanda’s final scarlet witch costume i liked it it was a darker red than maybe i thought it was going to be but i think it’s a nice scheme with the very saturated bright chaos magic powers that she wields because you don’t want her powers to be bright red and and her costume be really bright red you want that kind of contrast there so i thought it looked good yeah i’ve seen a lot of people on twitter saying that like this is the best mcu female costume ever and i don’t disagree with them i mean i think they’re all good i really liked captain marvel’s costume i really like the wasps and i think this one was right up there i really like the design i didn’t love her hair it was very wild and untamed like it was a very 80s style i hope that isn’t a sign that that style is coming back no i think it was just for witch hair because like agatha harkness had really wild unkept hair when she was like in full witch mode too yeah i guess which is just you know don’t use shampoo well i mean it’s not like you know scarlet witch has straight hair in the comics you know her hair there is you know very curly and pretty wild yeah and maybe i would have liked that style more if her hair was more brown because here it was very you know fire red true yeah but overall you know i was pleased with her look i thought they did a cool job especially when she gave her costume that hood that she put on and then you see her flying over west view and stuff i thought that was pretty iconic yeah that was pretty interesting actually i thought i i did like the crown i like the fact that the witches had like these crowns when they were like displaying their their magic at like full force or something like that now let’s move on to vision who is played by paul bettany now paul bettany brings so much truth to his performances there’s nothing dishonest about his acting which is so novel when applied to an artificial life form like vision i don’t foresee these actors winning awards for this show and i think that’s more to do with a lack of respect for the genre than anything else but to see betany transform himself in each setting so effortlessly and remains so true to his character still it’s amazing and i do hope that both elizabeth olsen and paul bettany get nominated for this and i can’t wait to see vision again in the mcu because i’ve always been a fan of benny’s performance i did think it was interesting how they gave vision powers that he’s never displayed before though did that bother you at all well it wasn’t true vision so not really you didn’t know that at the time though no you didn’t but ultimately it was the conditional vision so basically he just needed the powers to suit the story he came across as very like superman to me which kind of pissed me off with like the super speed you know just like the super strength the mind powers were interesting but that kind of made sense because he was an aspect of the mind stone his function really within the series was to serve as wanda’s moral conscious literally because he grew suspicious and questioned wanda as the show progressed but he was also a manifestation of her you know wanda created this version of vision she could have made him as compliant to the hex as she wanted but she knew deep down that this all wasn’t right and that kind of manifested in the vision’s suspicions and accusations and that kind of gives me hope for wanda in the dr strange sequel that things will end up all right for her because despite the fact that she is a flawed individuel she is still a person who subconsciously deeply wants to do good i do think that vision had the best line in the show when he said what is grief if not love persevering i thought that was a remarkably profound truth and it spoke to me so much you know especially after losing our half brother recently grief is love cut off too soon it naturally flows out from the same source as love and it’s okay to grieve as much as it is to care i loved that moment in the flashback between the two at the avengers compound it was pretty cool that we got to see white vision in the show you know which is from the comics i did think it was pretty cool that they had what looked like a little mini arc reactor in his forehead in place of the mind stone that was interesting yeah and you guys could learn more about the white version of vision in our martial manhunter versus vision episode but yeah that was true to the comics in them vision was dismantled by the us government for use as a weapon and when hank pym tried to put him back together as best as he could he was devoid of all emotion and color and wanda was devastated by that and it was until much later that vision got his emotions and his color back let’s talk about agnes aka agatha harkness who is played by katherine han i am a big fan of katherine han she has cracked me up so much in movies like anchorman and stepbrothers and she’s always had this kind of like sultry flirtatiousness that has always made me feel like eh you uh looking at me catherine han all right i don’t know if it’s just me it’s just you ah but i enjoy her work and i think she did great with the sitcom stuff yeah just like elizabeth olsen i think she has a really good range you know she was able to play the classic stuff she was able to play you know like the modern funny kind of stuff and she was also able to play like the kind of scary villainous stuff yeah i mean i do think that she was a little bit out of her league when it came to the mcu superhero stuff like i didn’t fully buy into her as a marvel super villain really i feel like her inclination as a comedic actress would be to go campy with it and maybe they told her to tame it down and she didn’t feel quite comfortable with it or maybe she could have used a few more takes but that’s the impression that i got overall i did enjoy her character i thought she nailed it i thought she was like one of the more interesting marvel villains ever maybe it was just me then i don’t know i did think that it was like the worst kept secret that she was actually agatha harkness though right yeah we all knew that but it was still fun to see that reveal i think i really liked that song that played homage to the monsters sitcom oh yeah agatha all along yeah that was great yeah i did think it was messed up that she killed sparky though yeah like who kills a dog it was a fake dog but still you know exactly in the comics sparky is also a fake dog he’s a robotic android dog uh who belongs to vision and his family now i know that agatha harkness was the one that trained wanda in magic in the comics was she a villain no in the comics she’s not a villain but she’s also not a hero she’s kind of like a neutral witch who has popped up throughout the comics like she was scarlet witch’s magic mentor and she was a nanny to the fantastic four she’s just always kind of represented that wiccan black cat witch sort of magic in the marvel universe i don’t mind though that they made her a villain here yeah i thought the show handled the character really well let’s move on to monica rambo who is played by tiana paris now i’ve never seen any of tiana’s work before but sometimes that’s good because for me she embodies the character of monica rambo and i love her in this role yeah again just like elizabeth olsen just like katherine hahn i thought she had a really good range when she was like chatting with wanda about like her co-workers and stuff that was really fun then all of a sudden like a switch when she was outside the hex you know she was like serious monica rambo and she just played everything really well i really found myself rooting for monica rambo in later episodes i think monica’s purpose in this story was to provide the audience with that sympathetic perspective of wanda you know monica was kind of going through parallel themes alongside wanda having lost her mother and she saw through that apparent evilness of wanda’s actions recognizing her as a woman trying to process her emotions and monica tried to appeal to that in order to help and the hex and save westview i thought it was really cool how they showed how monica got her powers in this show and it was way better than you know how you described how she got her powers in the comics as we talked about in our last episode but i kind of have to get frustrated with marvel over how they play the long game with these characters you know we just got a glimpse of photon here and it’s like what am i gonna get to see like fully realized photon yeah but that’s part of the enjoyment of it all you know now her origin was cool but when you think about it it does raise some questions like so she passed through the hex field three times and that’s how she got her powers everyone else in west view went through twice when the reality was created and when it ended so are their cells all screwy now too like would everyone have gotten energy powers if they went through one more time yes i don’t know but it was cool that we could see that monica could see electromagnetic energy and we saw her fly and how she could turn somewhat into this intangible energy form i’m really excited to see how the secret invasion show goes and expands on this because monica and the comics can use their powers in such a variety of ways again which you can learn more about in our last episode which was obsidian vs photon where we delved into her abilities and backstory let’s move on to agent jimmy wu who was played by randall park now i love randall park he is a hilarious actor and i thought he was a good bit of comedic relief and i thought they built on his appearance in ant-man and the wasp really well yeah the fact that they tied in like the the sleight of hand kind of magic angle i thought was was pretty clever yeah and when he escaped the handcuffs he was like flourish yeah i’m really crossing my fingers that they will one day announce an agents of atlas television show or movie or maybe he could even join sword we’ll see but he’s too good of a character not to show up again speaking of sword how did you feel about the interpretation of that organization in the show i didn’t love it to me it seemed like less of an offshoot of shield that monitors space and more of just a replacement for shield in the comics sword stands for sentient world observation and response department and here it was sentient weapon observation and response department and even though it is and even though it seems like they did a lot of work in space the new naming of the organization i guess lent itself to a lot of earthbound work as well yeah i guess shield is still disbanded and this is really just a replacement it does seem that way let’s move on to darcy lewis who is played by kat dennings now i never really liked darcy from the thor movies she was kind of like the sarcastic assistant to jane foster but to me she was never really that funny and she wasn’t really that funny here but i do think her character was used better overall and the show made her really likable i actually think she was funnier in this show than she has been in previous times that we’ve seen her yeah i mean she was amusing kat jennings definitely has always had a lot of charisma as an actress and she’s done a lot of sitcom work with two broke girls i really like the way she stepped back into the role with this and i’m wondering if we’re ever going to see her again in another show or maybe we’ll see her in the thor movies since we’re going to see jane foster in the next horror movie i don’t know yeah i think that’s a pretty safe bet but i actually am looking forward to seeing her again yeah she proved to be pretty crucial to like sort of the behind the scenes of what was going on outside the hex you know she was one who discovered the broadcast transmission she really just showed up all of the other scientists there which was kind of cool to see yeah i like how uh she was the one to put the gabash on director hayward as well speaking of director tyler hayward played by josh stamberg uh the character was fine but he was kind of generic you know that generic corporate governmental bad guy was he from the comics no he was introduced in this show i think he’s just too generic for the comics the leader of sword was always abigail brand and it would have been cool to see her here maybe they have plans for her in the secret invasion show that’s coming up i don’t know it kind of seems like they’re setting up monica rambo to be the new director of sword which is kind of cool because she’s being set up as like the new nick fury of the new shield yeah that would be awesome if she got that role i thought it was really cool how they made it that her mom was the creator of sword yeah that was cool it makes sense you know considering that she was a pilot alongside carol danvers and she was a huge part of her adventure and was like the first to fly quinjet into space and everything you know and had ties to nick fury yeah let’s talk about ralph boner aka fietro maximoff who was played by evan peters we talked a little bit about him already but i just can’t get over how much we were toyed with regarding his character you know what’s interesting is that agatha cast a spell on ralph through this enchanted necklace and it put him under her control and granted him a super speed but since it was like this magic curse thing marvel actually didn’t have to go with the actor evan peters to trick us into thinking this is emerging of the x-men films agatha had the power to transform the appearance of things so she could have made anyone in west view look like aaron taylor johnson’s quicksilver and i think that if we got to see aaron taylor johnson in the show that would have been better because marvel wouldn’t have [ __ ] with us and it would have been cool to see him back in the role for a bit i think it would have meant more emotionally to see him back like i said earlier marvel really dropped the ball with this quicksilver thing how they just made it kind of like a cute joke it wasn’t cool it’s right up there with the whole mandarin reveal you know luckily for marvel they have a tendency of you know setting things right like the mandarin you know he’s going to be in chongqi apparently that film so maybe down the road we’ll get aaron taylor johnson back hopefully we’ll see but those are all the major players in the show let’s get into the episode highlights now the first episode was called filmed before live studio audience and it heavily referenced shows like the dick van dyke show and i love lucy so living in west view new jersey in a 1950s television setting wanda and vision attempt to blend into their new neighborhood living a simple suburban life they both try to remember a previously planned engagement that evening and their nosy neighbor agnes helps wanda prepare for an anniversary the event turns out to be a dinner with vision’s boss mr hart and while eating mr hart questions the couple’s past unable to remember they begin to realize they don’t have all the answers vision saves mr heart from choking and the couple settles down giving themselves wedding rings this is probably my least favorite episode really i mean yeah i thought it was kind of a horrible pilot trying to explain this episode to my daughters and my wife who aren’t too familiar with marvel to begin with i really had to be like no like we we should watch the show you do want to watch the show it was a hard sell i mean even if you know all about the mcu and marvel going into this show was not easy i loved it i mean i thought it was a great homage to uh you know those old television shows if i cared about those old television shows i’d be watching them but i don’t watch them because they don’t care and i really didn’t care for this that’s just ignorance let’s just dig into it speaking that’s great classic television i remember watching a few episodes of like i love lucy and dick van dyke when i was a kid but i remember like falling asleep after the credits it was just it was just not interesting at all and stop acting like you’re some kind of like classic television connoisseur no not i mean if naked knight is on which you know i don’t have cable so it’s never on but when it was on i’d watch it what’s your favorite dick van dyke episode i don’t know the names of the [ __ ] episodes but but it’s not necessarily about whether or not you enjoy that type of sitcom or not it’s about how novel it is that they were able to so effectively recreate it no that did not matter to me you’re totally lost you’re totally way off baseman i don’t know what to say i loved it i thought it was great can you explain the commercials to me because i did not understand why they were even included i mean the first commercial in this first episode was for the toastmate 2000 and it was kind of a reference to the stark missile that was beeping that crashed into the twins apartment in the time that their parents were killed now i know a lot of people myself included were looking at these commercials for you know clues as to what the mystery was ultimately the commercials were there more as a novelty they didn’t really have anything to do with the plot for the most part at least in a relevant way you know not without doing some heavy mental acrobatics was that frustrating for you in hindsight a little bit i feel like the show did have one too many red herrings where you thought they were giving you something and then it was really ultimately not necessary the first two episodes were unnecessary you’re way off base man i don’t know what you’re talking that’s just ignorance the second episode was called don’t touch that dial in a paid homage to the bewitched television series now in a 1960s television setting vision attends a neighborhood watch meeting with the guys while wanda helps plan an upcoming talent show with the ladies there she meets a woman named geraldine and a strange voice calls out to her from her radio wanda envisioned participate in the talent show as a stage magician and assistant with wanda trying her best to hide vision’s powers as he was temporarily malfunctioning due to gum in his system they return home and a mysterious beekeeper emerges from a nearby sewer cover wanda resets reality to remove the ominous figure and the pair discovers she’s pregnant as the world turns to color there are some definitely like david lynch type [ __ ] in this episode yeah very weird vibes especially i love the beekeeper especially with like the radio and everything yeah so good i guess good is a word you can use describe it yeah real compelling like the color toy helicopter and the red blood and everything it was so fascinating i don’t know if the answers lived up to what i was expecting but uh i remember just being all in just like wondering what the hell is going on i want to say i was all in by this episode i i was questioning what was going on just like you though um i do think it was funny that you know vision got all messed up from swallowing gum yeah like if i had known that was possible i definitely would have done something like that during our martian manhunter versus vision episode it was such a just like a funny you know sitcom-esque kind of gag it was great now the commercial for this episode was for strucker watches which was a reference to a hydra organization that was experimenting on wanda the third episode was called now in color and it was heavily inspired by the brady bunch in a 1970s television setting wanda and vision prepared to become parents as wanda speeds through her entire pregnancy within the course of a day as she goes into labor vision leaves to get the doctor while their neighbor geraldine visits and helps deliver one of their children when vision returns a second child is born and they named the twins tommy and billy seeing the doctor out vision notices the neighbors acting strangely while wanda reminisces about her former twin brother pietro geraldine mentions ultron causing wanda to eject her from the pocket reality out into the real world vision begins to suspect something’s wrong now i have to wonder if like anyone would have mentioned ultron if it was just geraldine like was she playing a part or was she actually still like mentally controlled by wanda i think that wanda had less of a mental hold on geraldine monica because monica came into the fold later she was an outsider essentially as opposed to the rest of the town okay yeah that makes sense i really loved how they played with the aspect ratios at the end of this episode where you went from 403 television ratio to the 16 9 movie ratio as you’re going between the realities i thought it was kind of creepy actually but really well done the commercial in this episode was the hydra soak luxury bath powder again just another reference to hydra and wanting to escape reality basically the commercials were more metaphorical than anything else they weren’t clues they were just kind of analogous to situations that have happened in wanda’s life they’re almost like i guess subconscious in a way because i don’t think wando would want to be selling like hydra watches on purpose yeah yeah i don’t know the fourth episode was called we interrupt this program and it was set entirely outside of the hex in a flashback monica rambo comes back after being blipped from existence by thanos and she learns her mom maria died from cancer while she was gone monica is sent by sword director tyler hayward to assist fbi agent jimmy wu on an assignment regarding strangeness around the town of westview and she gets pulled into its energy field becoming geraldine dr darcy lewis discovers a broadcast frequency emanating from the field which airs the WandaVision sitcom they identify west views reality warped citizens and attempt to communicate with wanda and they pick up monica when she’s ejected from the pocket reality i liked this episode actually this was the episode where i really started getting into the show yeah i think maybe it was because it provided some answers but i think mostly it was just the character of monica you know seeing her backstory seeing her you know be a survivor of the blip that was really interesting yeah that was really well done it would be so traumatic you know to come back and just realize that your mom’s gone you know and not only is she gone you’ve been gone for five years you know yeah yeah you weren’t there to say goodbye or anything yeah sad i do love the names that they gave each of these episodes and i thought this one was especially on the nose yeah they were really clever with that for sure the next episode was called on a very special episode and that of course is like a reference to the sitcoms of like the 80s and 90s when they would kind of break from their traditional comedic format to deliver a more like serious message to the audience viewers like dealing with like drugs or abuse or something like that you know just a more serious topic so i thought it was especially fitting for this episode which was heavily influenced by like family ties and full house so in a 1980s slash early 90s television setting wanda and vision raised their boys who age at an accelerated rate before wanda tells them to stop in a lesson about coping and grief sword sends a drone into the reality now known as the hex to investigate and wanda tells them to stay away before erecting a force field around the hex vision intercepts an email communication from outside regarding the hex and manages to snap one of his co-workers out of wanda’s control his suspicions confirmed he confronts wanda about their situation and the two argue over her actions they’re interrupted by a sudden visit from wanda’s brother pietro seemingly back from the dead what a great episode the beginning was like man but the way this ended i started like doing laps like wondering what the hell was going on like i was so [ __ ] naive if i had only known better i would have just calmed down but at the moment it was so exciting the commercial for this episode was lagos brand paper towels and that of course was a reference to the incident that happened in lagos where wanda accidentally blew up the building in the captain america’s civil war movie so the show established that wanda’s twins were real like everything she was creating was reality you know it was it was chaos magic as agatha harkness described later on spontaneous creation but the twins seem to have some control over what was going on because they were obviously able to control their ages i don’t think that was something that wanda did it was them which was interesting she created something that was able to manipulate her reality that she created so it’s almost like is one of her twins also like a scarlet witch no are you talking about wiccan yeah no billy aka wiccan later on in the young avengers he has powers similar to her but i’m assuming that the twins were just manifestations of a piece of wanda basically just like how vision was like she called him her love you know and the twins may have also been manifestations of her love not real in the sense that they would disintegrate if the hex disappeared but real enough that she really cared for them as her own children the next episode was called the all-new halloween spooktacular and it definitely heavily referenced malcolm in the middle in a late 90s early 2000s television setting wanda pietro and the boys celebrate halloween out on the town and the twins discover they have powers at sword monica jimmy and darcy are kicked off the investigation team for dissenting with director hayward pietro asks wanda questions about how she remade this reality meanwhile vision investigates the outskirts of town passing through the barrier where he begins disintegrating outside of the hex wanda expands the hex to save him after billy’s powers warned them that vision is in danger i loved the malcolm in the middle angle i thought the the young child actors did a terrific job they could totally start on their own you know sitcom shows if they wanted and as much [ __ ] i’m throwing the whole quicksilver situation’s way uh i do think that evan peters was funny in this episode yeah i mean the guy’s just a good actor yeah yeah and it was really cool to see like an homage to the classic quicksilver costume and and i guess the scarlett which one as well yeah and the classic quicksilver hair yeah yeah that’s funny the commercial for this episode was for yo magic which i think they really nailed the tone of 90s kids commercials yes absolutely i mean except for the end when it got a little bit creepy the next episode was called breaking the fourth wall which was influenced by shows like modern family and the office in the late 2000s 2010’s television setting wanda’s stress is causing her reality to malfunction she has agnes watch the kids while vision learns about his past prior to west view from darcy who was pulled into the hex monika tries to use an armored vehicle to get back into the hex but it fails to get past the force field and monica goes in by herself getting transformed and getting her photon energy powers she confronts wanda recognizing the hex was created out of grief but they are interrupted by agnes who takes wanda to her home and reveals herself as a witch named agatha harkness monica is captured by the fake pietro now why do you think that monica was able to get through the force field but her vehicle wasn’t uh surface tension on the force field the smaller objects are able to pass through easier than larger objects i have no idea honestly maybe it’s because her personal body chemistry was different since she had already passed through before okay yeah that works now the commercial for this episode was for the nexus antidepressant which i thought was another [ __ ] huge red herring did not appreciate it because nexus seemed to be a reference to the nexus of all realities which is a gateway to the multiverse within the marvel universe so it was like oh yeah yeah they’re probably gonna you know bring in the multiverse angle which they never did on the show i did think that that commercial was spot on for how stupid those pharmaceutical commercials are though yeah it’s like oh yeah treat your depression with this may also give you more depression yeah suicidal thoughts things like that oh god yeah yeah the next episode was called previously on and it heavily incorporated flashbacks it starts off with a flashback in 1693 salem and we learned that agatha harkness was a powerful black magic witch with the ability to absorb and drain magical energies from others in the present agatha tries to learn how wanda was able to cast such powerful magic but wanda is unaware of the magical nature of her powers agatha looks into wanda’s past and they see that wanda unknowingly had minor mystic abilities since her childhood in sokovia manifesting when her parents died in an explosion that occurred as the family was watching sitcoms agnes and wanda see that these abilities were amplified through hydra’s experiments with the mind stone and they witnessed the moment wanda fell in love with a vision as he comforted her after pietro’s death they also see wanda’s attempt to recover vision’s body from sword after the blip realizing that he’s truly gone wanda visits an empty house law in west view that vision had purchased for them before his death in her grief wanda inadvertently created a spell that rewrote the reality of the town and manifested a new version of vision and losing herself to this fantasy world agatha calls this chaos magic and declares wanda the scarlet witch meanwhile hayward unveils an all-white vision recreated by sword now this was another favorite episode of mine i think also because i answered a lot of questions but also how it found ways to expand sort of the mcu mythology i guess yeah and how wanda fits into that with like the mind stone and everything yeah it was cool that we finally got to hear the moniker scarlet witch and it was really cool to see the white version of vision it was just it was just a really good episode it was jam-packed of great stuff this is also my favorite episode for all those reasons i love learning new things about a universe that i’m already so invested in the final episode was called the series finale and in it wanda fights agatha to save her children but they’re interrupted by the white version of vision who nearly kills wanda before her vision enters the fray agatha releases west view citizens from wanda’s control and they plead with wanda to release the hex she begins to but realize doing so will eliminate her family sword manages to enter westview in that time and monica is able to release fake pietro from agatha’s spell wanda’s vision reveals the true vision’s identity to him the twins take care of sword and wanda fights agatha she casts runes to prevent agatha from using her magic and she defeats her embracing the power of the scarlet witch wanda and her family return home to say goodbye as wanda collapses the hex ending both her children and her version of vision hayward is arrested as monica is secretly approached by a skrull who wants her to join her up in space wanda goes into hiding at a remote cabin perhaps at wondergore mountain where she tries to use the darkhold to bring back tommy and billy is that what she was trying to do at the end i thought she was just learning more about you know chaos magic and being the scarlet witch well you hear the kid’s voices cry out to her as she’s pouring through the dark hold she’s looking for them she’s trying to bring it back okay that makes sense now yeah it was really sad you know seeing them say goodbye to the kids and then saying goodbye to vision it was a very very heartfelt episode that hit all the emotional beats that i was hoping the series would hit in regards to her emotional crisis now i did think it was interesting that this episode was called the series finale i take it that there’s not gonna be a season two of WandaVision well they haven’t announced one i wonder if all of these you know mcu shows are going to end up being one-off shows that’s hard to say who knows i really love the special effects of this episode like seeing the two visions duke it out you know it really brought me back to our martial manhunter versus vision episode where it was so hard to determine how two characters who can phase through each other are actually able to affect each other and it was interesting how like when these two visions made physical contact while intangible they kind of like locked into each other a little bit it was really cool yeah that was cool i also liked their whole very logical approach to determining which was the real vision you know like the whole ship of theseus thing that was interesting it’s a kind of a cool thought experiment and kind of like how the battle was resolved through something like that rather than like fisticuffs because there was no way that either one of them was going to overpower the other yeah those kid actors who played billy and tommy they’re so [ __ ] lucky like they got to play superheroes as like seven and eight-year-olds with like the big players you know vision and scarlet witch like i would have [ __ ] killed to be able to do that you know stop bullets and stuff like that and like tell monica hey you’re not so bad yourself you know lucky kids they don’t know how good they have it that could have been us is all i’m saying you know like we’re actual twins exactly they could have just used that de-aging software on us to make us look like we’re seven and eight i totally would have done that i would have been like look out photon die director hayward jeez yeah that line that wanda says you know like you weren’t trained for this but you were born for this that was pretty cool yeah that was really cool it’ll be really interesting to see like where those characters pop up again i guess it would be doctor strange but who knows or young avengers if they are working toward that now agatha’s book the dark hold is that from the comics yes yeah the dark hold is a mystic book of evil spells uh it was written by kathan who was this demon elder god of chaos and uh the book was written inside one dagor mountain in europe which is why i think the anderson takes place near wundegor mountain it’s where catholic was trapped and where he later influenced the newborn wanda into having chaos magic powers if you remember that from our zatannav scarlet witch episode the darkhold actually played a big part in agents of shield i want to say season 4 whichever season had ghost rider and in that show they learned that no matter the intentions of the book’s user the spells from it can never result in a good outcome did it look the same in that show as it does in WandaVision uh yeah if i remember correctly yeah interesting okay in the end scene where we see like wanda sitting on the porch and then she like goes to the kitchen what was that about like where there’s multiple versions of wanda that was bizarre it was her astral form the scarlet witch that was pouring over the dark hole to wearing the outfit she was semi-translucent okay yeah that was obvious well they i mean they set up that visual style in the doctor strange movie okay look i remember that if you don’t remember things i have no idea how to help you man i have to watch all the freaking movies again before i watch these tv shows apparently yeah you don’t do that already no that’s on you i guess so but that’s it for the episode breakdown overall again i think the show is really well made i thought it was well acted i really appreciated the themes of grief and loss that they addressed and i really loved the way that the show expanded mcu canon and set up its future the show did troll us a little bit with multiple red herrings and i think it could have done better spreading its plot over its episodes but ultimately i had a lot of fun with the show i really liked this show and i’m giving it four stars out of five it’s hard to imagine them doing much better than they did like with just a few tweaks here and there it could have been like four and a half but i think they got really close to what they were going for yeah i think it was a solid first entry to a mcu television show you know i think they could have done a lot worse i think this was interesting enough despite its slow start to really get people talking and get people interested and and really deliver a story that no one saw coming but was very satisfying i think by the end for fans of scarlet witch i think if i were to take that average of probably all the scores i would give each episode it would probably be around four stars so yeah i think that’s an apt star rating for the show yeah i’d probably rate the episodes depending on the episode between four and a half to probably three stars so the average would probably come out to probably just under four but i’m rounding up here so yeah it’s fine it works but that does it for this review let us know what you guys thought about the series by writing to us at dynamicduelpodcast gmail.com or by visiting us on facebook instagram or twitter you can find links to all of our accounts by visiting our website dynamicduel.com and on our site you can find a link to our patreon page where we offer bonus content and again our very own marvel vs dc card game called dynamic duel war check it out right after this episode our lowest tier is only two dollars a month also on dynamicduel.com is a link to our merch store where we sell t-shirts hoodies stickers and more with our dynamic duel no prize artwork which this week will be scarlet witch i’ve drawn her before but that was like years ago so i want another crack in it i think it could be better yeah i’m looking forward to it in our next episode which will lead into our review of zack snyder’s justice league we will be putting on a justice league themed duel in which we pit the dc villain gorilla grodd against the marvel character of psylocke now known as captain britain yeah i think it’s a pretty unique match that not too many people have thought of but i think it’s a good one and i’m really looking forward to it we want to remind everyone once again to please subscribe to our show if you haven’t or please leave a rating or review on your platform of choice sharing the show on social media or in person is also a big help for us but that does it for this episode we want to give a big thanks to our executive producers ken johnson jace krump john starroski john speez isaiah bethune zachary hepburn and john betchinina for helping make this podcast possible and we’ll talk to you guys next week up up and away true believers