WandaVision (1.5): The Story of Grief is Different for Us All

The more the story of WandaVision is fleshed out, the more I find myself enamored with the creative vision for the show. I have spent a bit of time reading other WandaVision recaps around the web to get other perspectives on the show and even pick up on things that I am missing. The breadth and depth of this show certainly makes for an enjoyable half-hour of television each week but its sheer ambition is what consistently draws me in time and again. It started as a delightful, if often odd, homage to sitcoms from the 1950s on. How it has managed to tether itself to the larger Marvel Universe created across nearly two dozen movies while also telling the stories of this tight ensemble of characters has been a terrific feat. As WandaVision enters its fifth episode, the emotions that laid dormant the first few episodes have risen to the surface in a remarkably organic way. As we start to uncover more about the Westview “anomaly” (as S.W.O.R.D. calls it), it has become clear that the story resists the simple interpretation. As more and more characters within the Westview anomaly start to “break” character (especially Norm), we start to see the impact that Wanda’s grief has on the other residents being forced to play these sitcom roles. Whether she knows it or not, she is inflicting pain on others largely as a result of her own pain. The show recognizes this. It refuses to ignore both the bad and the good of Wanda Maximoff. It embraces her complicated nature in a way that not only views her story as worthwhile but one that does not touch just her.

In her first moments of this episode, we are treated to Monica’s description of what it was like to play a role in Westview. She references a feeling, specifically identifying grief as a connecting force. For Monica, this moment inextricably links her and Wanda’s stories. While Wanda is processing the grief of losing the person she loves most in the world, Monica is processing a similar grief with the loss of her mother. Monica is not just essential because of her survival and exit from the anomaly but because she understands Wanda’s pain. Monica’s empathy also starts to uncover even more of the mystery of the Westview anomaly. The villain may not be exactly who it seems in holding Westview hostage. While Wanda works to keep order in Westview (hence her expulsion of Monica), Director Hayward of S.W.O.R.D. makes it clear over the course of this episode that he is keeping secrets of his own. As he sees it, everything in the anomaly is black and white. The person to pin it on is Wanda and that’s all there is to it. While it could be that he is just looking for a solution, his hardened reaction to Monica’s pushback of his interpretation and attaching a gun to the drone they fly into Westview appear to underscore different motivations. Hayward’s motivations are not the only question mark raised in this episode given the enormous reveal in the last few seconds of the episode. What this reveal indicates has yet to be seen, but it certainly appears that Wanda has far less control over WandaVision than either we or our S.W.O.R.D. friends thought.

In the first few episodes, we are treated to Paul Bettany and Elizabeth Olsen navigating the world of different eras of sitcoms. However, as the Westview anomaly starts to break down, so do the performances of Bettany and Olsen as they shed the sitcom peppiness and uncover something entirely new. None more so than this episode as they find themselves at odds after Vision discovers Wanda’s control over the residents of Westview. While this tense moment is stirring for a relationship we have largely only experienced as loving and tender, it still is not the most striking moment in the episode. When Director Hayward and S.W.O.R.D. confront Wanda outside the anomaly, Wanda does not just express contempt for them but exerts a palpable pain. This culminates with Elizabeth Olsen uttering through gritted teeth, “I have what I want and no one will ever take it from me again.” I cannot tell if we will look back at this series as a turning point for the Marvel Cinematic Universe and what it is to become after its endgame, but I’ll be damned if I am not just going to take some time to enjoy the ride.