WandaVision 2: Sitcoms and Superheroes and Spoilers too

[Rhom]

17 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

This gets better and better.

  Hide contents

Yes, from the little I've learned, Billy has magic powers similar to Wanda.

 

That's what I figured would make sense.

Since they jumped straight to Malcolm in the Middle, they have basically skipped the 90's entirely.  (Malcolm premiered in January 2000.  Which surprised me, I didn't realize it was a mid season addition.  There really weren't a lot of those that went on to be so successful.) So next week will presumably be Modern Family?  

[Werthead]

The names on the graves are Janell Sammelman, who is the show's assistant director, and Dr. Riyus, which has no immediate MCU relevance. It may be a nod to comic character Dr. Cecilia Reyes, one of the X-Men, but that seems a stretch.

I think the imagery was more of a confirmation that Quicksilver is dead, and this isn't him (or at least the "real" him). 

2 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

QS doesn’t seem to be the Xverse QS but clearly looks like the Xverse QS.  He moves like the MCU QS.  Is Monica in the process of mutating?  That’s not how “mutation” Is supposed to work.  They’re supposed to be born with it.

Hayward seems to really hate people with superpowers.  If there is such animosity toward Supers why were they left to their own devices at Avengers HQ?  Lack of resources to stop them?[/spoilers]

This is now a spoiler thread, so we can rest easy on the boxes for the latest episode.

This may be how they create mutants in the MCUverse. The natural endpoint of Wanda's expansion of the Hex is that it ultimately encompasses the entire world and when it is defeated or removed, it leaves behind changes that result in the creation of the mutant gene.

Spoiler

Since they jumped straight to Malcolm in the Middle, they have basically skipped the 90's entirely.  (Malcolm premiered in January 2000.  Which surprised me, I didn't realize it was a mid season addition.  There really weren't a lot of those that went on to be so successful.) So next week will presumably be Modern Family?  

There's been a fair few mid-season replacements that went on to impressive success: Seinfeld and Buffy the Vampire Slayer immediately come to mind.

[DMC]

3 minutes ago, Rhom said:

Which surprised me, I didn't realize it was a mid season addition.

Fox did that a lot back in the day.

I'm not sure what to make of the Agnes scene.  But overall quite the ep - WandaFLEX!

[Rhom]

3 minutes ago, Werthead said:

This may be how they create mutants in the MCUverse. The natural endpoint of Wanda's expansion of the Hex is that it ultimately encompasses the entire world and when it is defeated or removed, it leaves behind changes that result in the creation of the mutant gene.

That makes a lot of sense.  

Monica was the one showing the changes.  What if the ones that mutate are primarily ones that were Blipped?  Hawthorne already seems to have some disdain for those that disappeared.  So maybe a natural distrust for mutants could come from people that disappeared and then came back only to have super powers?

[Quijote Light]

Wasn’t there an early X-Men storyline that involved a carnival, a mind controlling mutant, and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants?

[Corvinus85]

Did anyone think the commercial this time was a bit of a curve ball? I get that it had to do with Wanda's magic, but it didn't really seem to follow the pattern of the previous commercials, especially since it didn't have the same characters, and it was animated.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

12 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

Did anyone think the commercial this time was a bit of a curve ball? I get that it had to do with Wanda's magic, but it didn't really seem to follow the pattern of the previous commercials, especially since it didn't have the same characters, and it was animated.

It seemed to be geared at kids. 

[DMC]

I didn't get the commercial at all.  But then I'm not too well-versed in some of the lore.  Even just, like, as a commercial, dude never actually opens the yogurt.  That's just bad advertising!

[JGP]

19 minutes ago, DMC said:

I didn't get the commercial at all.  But then I'm not too well-versed in some of the lore.  Even just, like, as a commercial, dude never actually opens the yogurt.  That's just bad advertising!

Trapped on an island, unable to access what's required to live, dies... while not in the vein of the other commercials, it's foreshadowing Vision's predicament [or so it seems to me]

---

To whoever asked [sorry, kind of breezed through] in comic lore Billy is Wiccan, and his abilities are similar to Wanda's, ie: reality warping, etc 

[RumHam]

Maybe the commercial was about her magic being unable to save her from the snap? Like the yogurt didn't save the kid. 

[Poobah]

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

This may be how they create mutants in the MCUverse. The natural endpoint of Wanda's expansion of the Hex is that it ultimately encompasses the entire world and when it is defeated or removed, it leaves behind changes that result in the creation of the mutant gene.

Mostly I figure this is how they're gonna give Monica powers.

Maybe this is a dumb/ignorant question, I'm not really that up on the comic lore but why would they need to create/add mutants to the MCUniverse? There's already 123456789 canon ways that people can get or manifest powers, including Inhumans which seem quite a lot like Mutants-but-not (for copyright reasons or whatever?) and we've already had characters who were X-Men get powers in MCU through different means. I guess there was some new deal about rights ownership and they wanna do X-Men franchise but within the MCU or what? Honestly the concept of a single unified "Marvel Earth" really starts to get a bit... idk silly? when it goes from "well sure the 5 heroes on the planet can't solve all the problems and be all the places at once" to "yeah there's literally thousands of superpowered people, but everyone else is busy today so only <hero of this particular movie> can save the world today".

[Werthead]

11 minutes ago, Poobah said:

Mostly I figure this is how they're gonna give Monica powers.

Maybe this is a dumb/ignorant question, I'm not really that up on the comic lore but why would they need to create/add mutants to the MCUniverse? There's already 123456789 canon ways that people can get or manifest powers, including Inhumans which seem quite a lot like Mutants-but-not (for copyright reasons or whatever?) and we've already had characters who were X-Men get powers in MCU through different means. I guess there was some new deal about rights ownership and they wanna do X-Men franchise but within the MCU or what? Honestly the concept of a single unified "Marvel Earth" really starts to get a bit... idk silly? when it goes from "well sure the 5 heroes on the planet can't solve all the problems and be all the places at once" to "yeah there's literally thousands of superpowered people, but everyone else is busy today so only <hero of this particular movie> can save the world today".

It's a difficult one but the same argument can be made in the comics: there's literally six hundred super-powered individuals active at any one time and one specific hero has to deal with a problem because he can't call in backup, sometimes in a city where there's literally dozens of other heroes living? That's a problem the MCU is just going to have get used to. I mean, it's weird already that in WandaVision they haven't discussed ringing Dr. Strange or Nick Fury via Space Phone to get some backup, or Jimmy could call Ant-Man (maybe not the most applicable guy for the job, but he's at least got his number and he knows other people). The director's apparent dislike of people with powers gives one reason why they haven't done that, but it's odd.

The growing resentment between the snapped/unsnapped suggests could be a interesting floor-level scene-setting if the unsnapped start developing mutant powers.

[Caligula_K3]

One of the reasons I've always liked my X-Men to not be connected to the rest of Marvel is because the central conflicts of X-Men make absolutely no sense in a world where people idolize the Fantastic 4 and Spiderman. I'm still skeptical that they can really pull off bringing the two together.

I liked the episode. It was probably a bit weaker than the last three, but I don't blame the Malcolm in the Middleness for that (though unfortunately, the kids' acting couldn't really handle it), but instead how predictable and cliche Hayworth or whatever his name is as a villain. That was already a problem last episode and the way it played out here wasn't any more interesting, down to the hacking scene. I'm glad that a lot of the SWORD stuff has now been integrated into the TV show world.

Do people still think that someone else aside from Wanda is causing all this? If yes, who? Agnes was my best guess, but it seems pretty unlikely after this episode. I can't say I bought the Dottie speculation; she's only been in one episode and played her sitcom role as you'd expect.

[JGP]

31 minutes ago, Caligula_K3 said:

One of the reasons I've always liked my X-Men to not be connected to the rest of Marvel is because the central conflicts of X-Men make absolutely no sense in a world where people idolize the Fantastic 4 and Spiderman. I'm still skeptical that they can really pull off bringing the two together.

It's going to be weird.

I mean, in Marvel comics mutants have been around a long time. Oh, our moody-angsty teen that we were struggling to support [or just struggling with] has suddenly had their mutant ability activated. Look what they are and/or can do, are they a freak, does this mean we're freaks because they're our kid, is this my kid at all, mix in resentment [both ways] with all the other feels, there's decades of accumulated familial baggage-- estrangement, alienation, all that pernicious shit. General society, which has absorbed and been changed by all of that othering, may be fine with a WWII vet and a super solider formula [one example] but being left behind by the march of evolution...

[spreads hands]

I guess I'm also skeptical of how they're going to pull it off, but they have to.

 

31 minutes ago, Caligula_K3 said:

Do people still think that someone else aside from Wanda is causing all this? If yes, who? Agnes was my best guess, but it seems pretty unlikely after this episode. I can't say I bought the Dottie speculation; she's only been in one episode and played her sitcom role as you'd expect.

Dottie is as trapped as everyone else, ie: the radio break

There's really no reason Wanda can't be the big bad. Fear of what she's actually capable of and what her motivations and/or goals might be totally plays into the comic-verse Mutant Problem and, franchise aside, is important from a story perspective. 

Just thoughts.

 

edited for editing

 

[Kalnak the Magnificent]

I don't think Wanda is going to be the Big Bad. For starters, she's an avenger and a hero. That's not how they play that.

Plus there's the weirdness of Pietro being brought back and having full knowledge of things. Or the kids yelling at her to 'fix' things. Everyone in her direct family is not directly under her control, which is interesting. Also, everyone in her direct family is either dead or imagined. 

[Corvinus85]

Pietro was definitely fishing for information. He was sent by someone. By the way, his superspeed effect is the MCU style not Fox, so I wonder if that is a clue, or just Disney telling us this is how it is.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

I don’t think Wanda is the “big bad” either.  Her lack of knowledge as to how the Hex started her lack of knowledge as ro how she is maintaining the Hex all point to her being on someone else’s strings.

[JGP]

18 minutes ago, Karlbear said:

I don't think Wanda is going to be the Big Bad. For starters, she's an avenger and a hero. That's not how they play that.

Good points, Kal, but I wouldn't just handwave. Arguably good people do bad things. Considering the breadth of Wanda's power [thinking No More Mutants from the comics, here] coupled with the conviction that what's she's doing is right [edit: ok, maybe not conviction, but she's had some kind of break. Wanda may not be illustrating a full understanding of what's going on, but she's not exactly denying stuff, ie: sleeping kids, consciously expanding the boundary, et so on]

The family angle you've pointed could be a few things, subconscious manifestations trying to break her grief, I don't know, but I also don't know how the heroism or lack thereof plays in, but, were I the showrunner or editor of the MCU, I might want to establish the scope of Wanda's power and how that is threatening before diving into Mephisto, or a Mojo type, because you'd also be incidentally establishing the underlying feelings behind Mutie hatred.

Again, just thoughts.  

 

[Kalnak the Magnificent]

7 minutes ago, JEORDHl said:

Good points, Kal, but I wouldn't just handwave. Arguably good people do bad things.

At best, good people accidentally do bad things and then spend a lot of time upset about it and then making it better. 

What they don't tend to do is really selfish things. They don't kidnap a town and make people cry and freak out. Not in the MCU. Not avengers.

7 minutes ago, JEORDHl said:

The family angle you've pointed could be a few things, subconscious manifestations trying to break her grief, I don't know, but I also don't know how the heroism or lack thereof plays in, but, were I the showrunner or editor of the MCU, I might want to establish the scope of Wanda's power and how that is threatening before diving into Mephisto, or a Mojo type, because you'd also be incidentally establishing the underlying feelings behind Mutie hatred.

I think it's more likely that this is setup for some other horrible controlling thing; the next Thanos level threat. She's doing horrible things the same way that she made Hulk do horrible things and the same way she vaguely influence Stark to create Ultron or the way that Winter Soldier was controlled. This is the common MCU way - heroes don't do horrible things on their own; if they do bad things, they do bad things under the influence of bad people. 

And they've clearly been portraying what Wanda is doing is bad. Like, really bad.

[Werthead]

45 minutes ago, JEORDHl said:

It's going to be weird.

I mean, in Marvel comics mutants have been around a long time. Oh, our moody-angsty teen that we were struggling to support [or just struggling with] has suddenly had their mutant ability activated. Look what they are and/or can do, are they a freak, does this mean we're freaks because they're our kid, is this my kid at all, mix in resentment [both ways] with all the other feels, there's decades of accumulated familial baggage-- estrangement, alienation, all that pernicious shit. General society, which has absorbed and been changed by all of that othering, may be fine with a WWII vet and a super solider formula [one example] but being left behind by the march of evolution...

[spreads hands]

I guess I'm also skeptical of how they're going to pull it off, but they have to.

I think this is an area where the MCU can improve on the comics. In the comics it was always weird that people have such a hate-boner for mutants but also seem to be really happy with Iron Man, Spider-Man, Thor and the Hulk saving them from annihilation. The distinction - Iron Man built his powers, Spider-Man got his by an accident, Thor is an alien and the Hulk the product of genetic engineering versus natural evolutionary mutation - always seemed a rather thin one for millions or billions of people to accept.

The way things are being set up now, people are happy with the Avengers and the other people with powers or abilities because there's maybe a few dozen of them scattered all over the world, and they've literally just saved the entire universe, so the collateral damage thing (resulting in the Sokovia Accords) gets some more leeway. But there's still a big difference between that and suddenly the potential there being for many thousands, maybe millions, of people developing superpowered abilities, including your kid or your spouse or whatever, and there's a lot more potential for some of them to be villains.

The only problem with having mutants suddenly emerge right now is that it removes the timeframe needed for the many decades of backstories about Professor X, Magneto, Wolverine etc. Still, it means it could at least be a different approach to Fox.

Or perhaps the mutant thing was starting to happen anyway, but an event (maybe this one) causes it to suddenly explode out of control.