WandaVision 3: Here Be Magic (Spoilers)

[Argonath Diver]

I'm glad some people enjoy it - we all have wildly different opinions on entertainment. 

Good things:

Vision v Vision was superb

Wanda v Agatha witch-off looked great. I really dug the spooky withered hands.

Monica's a welcome addition to the MCU gang

Bad things:

About three dozen moments I thought "Okay wait but what about..."

I think my loudest snort of derision was Jimmy pocketing the ringing cell phone while a soldier was *directly behind him watching him*. In an episode chock full of hand-waving (literally), that moment took the cake. 

So she gets to kidnap and enslave several thousand people - kids as well - and "Hey guys, I didn't mean it!  But Agatha did so she's in the wrong." We have a huge thread over in General about Intent, I would think most people there would agree that Wanda literally walking away from those people ground more gears than mine.

I'm not really upset they didn't have any major cameos, and Dottie and Pietro were blatant red herrings. Kudos on them for keeping the series self-contained, even if I found it completely absurd. Olsen and Bettany are charismatic actors, and without their gravitas, I think the show falls apart into schlocky, ludicrous camp.

[RumHam]

Seemed weird that SWORD didn't try to arrest Wanda. And were totally fine with her torturing Agatha. 

Also did I misunderstand something or was Wanda's original plan to free the townsfolk "I'll crack open the barrier for a sec and you guys run out abandoning your children?"

I'm still confused why fake vision and Ralph had super speed. Does Ralph get to keep his? 

I'm glad they kept Agatha around to serve as a Hannibal Lecter type advisor in the future. 

 

[Ghostlydragon]

The issue with white Vision is that he basically completes the trio of undone Infinity War deaths.

Loki lives with his pre Thor Ragnarok personality, Gamora survives being from a time of having not developed feelings for Peter Quil and white Vision is around with memories of everything that original Vision gave him.

Vision may as well have just been snapped and come back with the others.

It was a good finale but making it so that Pietro is not from the new x men films is a let down when we were clearly meant to think that he was. And I guess he is the Luke moment, even though they teased it being someone else.

[RumHam]

10 minutes ago, Ghostlydragon said:

It was a good finale but making it so that Pietro is not from the new x men films is a let down when we were clearly meant to think that he was. And I guess he is the Luke moment, even though they teased it being someone else.

I dunno, I think if we were really meant to think that Peter's was playing fox Quicksilver he would have been dressed in his fox quicksilver clothes when he appeared at the door. Or Agatha would have explained where he came from when she dubbed him Fietro. There was no reason to drag out the reveal if they expected everyone to immediately assume he was the fox character. 

It was a pretty kick-ass joke, in my opinion.

 

[DMC]

16 minutes ago, Ghostlydragon said:

The issue with white Vision is that he basically completes the trio of undone Infinity War deaths.

How dare you omit Heimdall.

[sifth]

So Wanda basically gets the same treatment Magneto gets in most of the X Men films; after he causes a lot of trouble and usually kills people in the process, the X Men just let him go. I find it beyond funny, that the ending tries to make us feel bad for Wanda when, A)- it let's her get away with enslaving people and B)- a version of Vision exists out there, for her to eventually meet and probably fall in love with, since he has all of the same memories and feelings of his last life. Kind of strange how White Vision just vanishes form the story halfway through.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

14 minutes ago, sifth said:

So Wanda basically gets the same treatment Magneto gets in most of the X Men films; after he causes a lot of trouble and usually kills people in the process, the X Men just let him go. I find it beyond funny, that the ending tries to make us feel bad for Wanda when, A)- it let's her get away with enslaving people and B)- a version of Vision exists out there, for her to eventually meet and probably fall in love with, since he has all of the same memories and feelings of his last life. Kind of strange how White Vision just vanishes form the story halfway through.

My question precisely.  If White Vision is “Vision” why did he abandon Wanda?

[Corvinus85]

16 minutes ago, sifth said:

So Wanda basically gets the same treatment Magneto gets in most of the X Men films; after he causes a lot of trouble and usually kills people in the process, the X Men just let him go. I find it beyond funny, that the ending tries to make us feel bad for Wanda when, A)- it let's her get away with enslaving people and B)- a version of Vision exists out there, for her to eventually meet and probably fall in love with, since he has all of the same memories and feelings of his last life. Kind of strange how White Vision just vanishes form the story halfway through.

 

1 minute ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

My question precisely.  If White Vision is “Vision” why did he abandon Wanda?

I'm not sure Wanda simply "got away" but who was going to stop her at this point? The residents of Westview hate what she did to them, even though some may be empathetic to her pain. The only person who really let her go was Monica. Wanda is basically on the run again, but good luck finding her. I would say the consequences of her actions can still come back in another story, or hopefully a season season. It's similar to how consequences in other MCU have been treated.

WhiteVision has all of Vision's memories, but not the heart. He lacks the Mind Stone, and the feelings of love developed over the years.

Honestly, I'm scratching my head more about Hayward's arrest. His part ended with the good feeling of the authorities got the bastard villain, but not sure if he will actually be convicted of anything, unless someone can prove that it wasn't legal for SWORD to mess around with Vision's body. He was arrested on the word of a FBI agent who didn't like his methods.

[Winterfell is Burning]

The ending was mostly disappointing, in large part due to elevated expectations, but not entirely so- while I really liked the resolution of the two Visions, Wanda getting away scot-free and with us still being supposed to feel sorry with her was lame. Ironically enough, the same thing happened in the comics.

I also don't like shows that throw a lot of red herrings for the sake of them.  You could remove Dottie from the show entirely and wouldn't have made a difference.

[RumHam]

21 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

Honestly, I'm scratching my head more about Hayward's arrest. His part ended with the good feeling of the authorities got the bastard villain, but not sure if he will actually be convicted of anything, unless someone can prove that it wasn't legal for SWORD to mess around with Vision's body. He was arrested on the word of a FBI agent who didn't like his methods.

I'm guessing he violated section 36B of the sokovia accords by bringing vision back to life. Then he sent him in to battle without UN approval. But yeah it could have been clearer. 

[Kalbear]

21 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

I'm not sure Wanda simply "got away" but who was going to stop her at this point? The residents of Westview hate what she did to them, even though some may be empathetic to her pain. The only person who really let her go was Monica. Wanda is basically on the run again, but good luck finding her. I would say the consequences of her actions can still come back in another story, or hopefully a season season. It's similar to how consequences in other MCU have been treated.

It's still pretty shitty. And at this point there are avengers around who could be called up to go try and find her. At this point she's shown that she's massively dangerous, shows virtually no remorse, and then proceeds to prove precisely that by reading the latin book. Don't read the latin! 

21 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

WhiteVision has all of Vision's memories, but not the heart. He lacks the Mind Stone, and the feelings of love developed over the years.

I don't think this is particularly accurate. But I also don't know if he is going to be easily able to get over Wanda killing him and then Thanos killing him. I think he needed more...well, anything, really. It was very weird.  

My personal view is that the show needed less cute things to cause buzz and didn't stick the landing because of it. Pietro is the obvious big one - that was just stunt casting and utter bullshit, all the speculation and importance of him being recast by that particular actor being used to manipulate for no actual payoff. But things like White Vision's memory restore, Wanda having no consequences for torturing a town for a couple weeks, where the hell Agatha actually came from (the coincidence of her living in Westview when Vision had bought a lot there is not particularly useful)...a lot of it just kind of thudded out quietly. 

Even worse, largely, Hayward was right. Much like in Civil War, Hayward had almost entirely the right of it. Wanda is now likely to be an even larger  danger and threat to the whole damn world, and awakening White Vision was a net win no matter how you slice it. And he gets arrested for what, attempting to stop a mass terrorist who is literally torturing a town?

[JGP]

24 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

I'm not sure Wanda simply "got away" but who was going to stop her at this point? The residents of Westview hate what she did to them, even though some may be empathetic to her pain. The only person who really let her go was Monica. Wanda is basically on the run again, but good luck finding her. I would say the consequences of her actions can still come back in another story, or hopefully a season season. It's similar to how consequences in other MCU have been treated.

Will there be anti-Wanda sentiment? Of course. Consequence? Likely only whatever she may bring upon herself.  It's definitely an illustration of how nonlinear consequence is for the powerful. 

[DMC]

4 minutes ago, Karlbear said:

And he gets arrested for what, attempting to stop a mass terrorist who is literally torturing a town?

Well, he did try to murder two ten year old boys.  While they don't technically exist, the person he ended up shooting - Monica - does.

[sifth]

28 minutes ago, DMC said:

Well, he did try to murder two ten year old boys.  While they don't technically exist, the person he ended up shooting - Monica - does.

Not entirely sure if trying to kill someone/thing that isn't real, counts as a crime. I mean Wanda pretty much was the one causing all of this mess in the first place.

[DMC]

7 minutes ago, sifth said:

Not entirely sure if trying to kill someone/thing that isn't real, counts as a crime. I mean Wanda pretty much was the one causing all of this mess in the first place.

Again, shooting an actual person is.

[Ghostlydragon]

1 hour ago, DMC said:

How dare you omit Heimdall.

Oh whoops. I.titally forgot about him. We can always count on love and thunder to resurrect him, but I really hope not. Death needs to be permanent.

[RumHam]

Real or not it's great that Hayward's response to seeing two children have super powers is to murder them immediately. He's got to be one of the worst mcu bad guys.  

[Poobah]

Yeah sorry Hayward is definitely a bad guy, sorry ya'll. Anyone willing to shoot a couple of children deserves throwing in the deepest possible hole. Saying they weren't real is all fine and good but they were real enough at the time and he had no way of knowing otherwise, they could reasonably have been the children of one of the residents conscripted by Wanda to play those roles.

56 minutes ago, Karlbear said:

Even worse, largely, Hayward was right. Much like in Civil War, Hayward had almost entirely the right of it.

There's also no evidence that killing Wanda would have ended her spell either, even when Agatha was draining her the reality stayed intact. Perhaps another spellcaster like Strange could have been brought in to dispel it or whatever but I'll never buy that escalating with a heavyhanded military response is anywhere close to right. He wanted his own pet super-robot to do black ops with! This the kinda guy who'd be totally down with the sentinel program in the xmen verse.

Anyway from the start it was his attempts at manipulating Wanda by goading her with Vision's disassembled remains that may well have set off this entire situation.

Actual finale thoughts: I thought it was ok and certainly the visuals and general spectacle nature of it was pretty much cinema quality but I do think the series got a lot weaker following the "Agatha All Along" reveal - once the reveals started the the mysteries were peeled away it became a much more basic show. Also I know this is just a general MCU issue but the magic in WV in particular I felt had this weird thing going on where it felt simultaneously very over-explained with all the exposition heavy segments in the last few episodes but also still incredibly nebulous, vague and under-defined in the actual scope and specifics leaving it all just feeling like a plot convenience ass pull. Much like Wanda's powers which have always been kinda all over the place and that definitely stepped up a notch in this finale. Agatha's purple power-vampirism situation never got explained either, except apparently it wasn't strong enough to deal with the Scarlet Witch, whatever that means.

I do really wanna praise the Vision "Ship of Theseus" scene though. That was great. And I think Bettany and Olsen did really good work in the more intimate, emotional scenes.

[sifth]

33 minutes ago, DMC said:

Again, shooting an actual person is.

Which he didn’t do.

[Corvinus85]

There is no doubt that Hayward is a bad person. Power has gone to his head, and he hates enhanced people. Just not sure his arrest will hold, unless he did break the Sokovia accords as suggested.