The Blue & White

by Abigail Edgerly

The following review contains spoilers from the Marvel show WandaVision.

WandaVision was released on Disney+ on January 15 and ran for eight weeks. It is the first of several shows planned to be released in Marvel’s current release phase. The nine episode long show follows Wanda Maximoff as she copes with the grief of the loss of her husband by creating a false reality. As the series progresses, the audience and Wanda learn more about her life and the true nature of her powers.

The show itself follows an interesting structure. The first seven episodes, excluding episode four, take inspiration from famous sitcoms over the decades. Episode one draws inspiration from the 1950’s, and each episode following showcases another decade of American TV. Everything from the costumes to the opening themes were fitting for the period. This all occurs in the false reality Wanda created while the rest of the world exists in modern times. Meanwhile, as Wanda is living in her false reality, SWORD, a new agency, is working to uncover the secret of Wanda’s reality and how to stop her. The final two episodes bring both of these worlds together as the audience learns about Wanda’s past and speculate about her future.

The show earned a lot of praise from online fans and gained popularity across social media platforms. It seemed as though the show was always trending on Twitter after a new episode came out. In addition to the Twitter fame, the show led to the creation of several Tik Tok trends. These trends included dressing up from the different decades depicted in the show, dancing to the opening theme from the second episode, and making jokes about who to blame for all of their problems by lip synching to the song “Agatha All Along”. However, the most popular trend consisted of finding actor Randal Park, who portrayed the fan favorite character, F.B.I. Agent Jimmy Woo, in other movies or television shows.

Fan popularity has benefited the show greatly as it has already made several achievements. The show has been nominated for an award from the Directors Guild of America as well as two awards from the Scream Awards.

The show was gaining attention even before release. The trailer for the show had 53 million views in the first 24 hours after its premier, and the soundtrack to the show has also been reaching insane heights. The song “Agatha All Along” has been on both the iTunes and Billboard charts. The song debuted at No. 36 on the Billboard charts and has notched around 2 million streams on Spotify (as of the beginning of March).

In my opinion, the show is a wonderful showcase of what Marvel has to offer. It presented two Avengers who had often been overshadowed by big name heroes in the movies and made Marvel fans truly care about the characters. The show was very witty and had very comedic moments but kept the worldbuilding and action sequences fans have come to expect from Marvel projects.

However, at its core, the show is a depiction of grief and how it feels to lose a loved one. Wanda is not a perfect human being and though she does things that morally are not correct, it is easy to understand why she does it and you truly feel her pain. You go through the stages of grief with her and the ending of the show is both heartbreaking and sweet. It is truly a wonderful show that both older fans of the series and people who have had no prior interest in the franchise can enjoy.