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The Falcon And The Winter Soldier - Episode 1: "New World Order" Mar 19, 2021

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The first episode of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is here, and we’re breaking down all the big moments on the series premiere, “New World Order”. Sam Wilson, a.k.a. The Falcon, is struggling with what to do about Captain America’s shield in the aftermath of Avengers: Endgame, and taking a side-trip down to New Orleans. Meanwhile, Bucky, a.k.a. The Winter Soldier, is dealing with the sins of his past and going on dates. But while these two Avengers deal with personal issues, in the background Sam’s sidekick Joaquín Torres is investigating the mysterious Flag Smashers, who might be a big threat than anyone realizes. From The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Easter eggs, to Marvel Comics references, to who that new Captain America is, we break it all down on this week’s episode. SUBSCRIBE TO MARVELVISION ON ITUNES, ANDROID, SPOTIFY, STITCHER, OR RSS. FOLLOW US ON TWITTER, INSTAGRAM AND FACEBOOK. SUPPORT OUR SHOWS ON PATREON. Full Episode Transcript Alex: Welcome To MarvelVision, a podcast about Marvel the MCU and now Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which premiered today on Disney+. It’s finally here. It was suppose to be the first Marvel series on Disney+. Turns out, as you all know, it’s the second, to come out after WandaVision. That’s what happens in the real world. That is some real truths. Justin: It’s crazy to say it’s finally here when literally WandaVision just ended. We’re spoiled. We’re spoiled is what it is, and now we’re diving into it like “Oh, we finally got this next one,” and we’re already doing it. We’re already here. Alex: I had to watch Marvel Studios’ Assembled for a week instead of my friend adventures with my super friends. Very upsetting. Justin: Yeah. I know. I had to take this time off and look at my family members and my pets. Pete: Oh. Oh, gross. Justin: Yeah. Just- Alex: No thanks, man. No thanks. So as usual, or maybe you’re tuning in for the first time because you’re more interested in Falcon and the Winter Soldier than potentially you were in WandaVision, we go pretty heavily into spoilers on this podcast. That’s what we talk about here. So go watch the first episode right now before we get into it. We’re going to talk about some of our general thoughts on the show, how it kicked off, how it kicked off potentially compared to WandaVision, but we’ll also be talking about Marvel Easter eggs, references from the comics, anything that we picked up, and speculation for the rest of the show. Alex: So let’s start off with our first thing. From your guys’ perspective, WandaVision, I think, in a very surprising way, really raised expectations before Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which I certainly wasn’t expecting going into WandaVision. That was a huge hit, global domination just built over the course of the run. Obviously, there was a lot of consternation about the last episode and how it went. I liked it, for my note, but this is a very different show. This is much more straightforward MCU. Pete: Wait. Wait. Wait. Alex: How did this first episode strike you? Pete: Wait. What about the last episode? There was conversation? What did you say? Alex: Consternation. Just there were people that I think were a little upset about how certain things turned out with the last episode of WandaVision. Pete: Oh, really? Alex: Yeah. Pete: People were … Oh, okay. I didn’t know. Alex: Yeah. I mean, it was a huge surprise to me too that- Pete: You’re using big Cornell words. You’re going to lose our audience. You know what I mean? Alex: No. That’s fair. Pete: Let’s not flex our knowledge on us all the time. You know what I mean? Justin: Oh, my god. When you say consternation, just use a smaller word, like butt angry. Pete: Yeah. There you go. Thank you. Yeah. Alex: Lot of butthurt fans out there. Okay. Justin: There you go. Now you’re speaking to the people. Alex: Let’s talk about Falcon and the Winter Soldier though and this first episode here. It’s obviously very different from WandaVision, but given those expectations going in here, given what you knew about the series, just broad strokes, how did the episode strike you? Pete: Well, I also feel like it’s tough because it has to follow WandaVision now, which is such a quirky, huge hit, and I feel like that is a little tough because it’s a little bit straightforward. But what I really enjoyed was there’s a lot going on. It’s not just a simple kind of action thing, which I was happy about. There’s a lot going on with these two gentlemen’s lives, and it’s like we’re just really kind of digging into where they are. I thought it was fun. I was impressed with a lot of it and how quickly … I was surprised that there’s still, by the first episode, because we’re only getting a small handful here, that they’re not already together and kind of working together. So I was a little like “Oh, no. We didn’t get them together in the end,” but that’s the only- Alex: You got to save something for episode six, man. That’s what it’s all building to. Pete: Oh, don’t. I can’t do the whole thing apart. I don’t want to do the whole thing apart. Justin: We’re just going to see them passing each other in a hallway now and again like “Hey.” Alex: Game of Thrones style. Justin: Yeah. I mean, I think the biggest … When you talk about WandaVision and Falcon and the Winter Soldier, it’s … If the TV show Friends … If they’d released Joey first because of a pandemic, it would have been a little bit harder to see what’s going on. Alex: I’ll give you one better. It’s if they released Episodes first. Justin: Yeah. Okay. For all you Matt LeBlanc heads out there, you must be loving- Pete: Is that a shot against Joey? Alex: No. Episodes was literally about him playing a Joey-type character on a show and commenting on the idea of television based on both Joey and Friends. So yeah. It feels like it’s skipping a beat. It’s like they jumped ahead and then they’re going back to the thing that should have come right after Endgame. Justin: But it’s interesting because I think so much of all the commentary, the consternation, the butt anger about WandaVision was because the potential was all over the … Everyone was like- Pete: Was huge. Yeah. Justin: … “Fantastic Four. Al Pacino is Mephisto. Who’s going to be … The Mandarin’s rings are going to be hidden,” all this stuff, and it wasn’t that. Pete: Also, Paul Bettany’s joke, which was hysterical, kind of fueled the fire for it as well, which didn’t help. Justin: For sure, but what I think … If the original order had been preserved and Falcon and the Winter Soldier had come first, I think there would have been less of that, because what we see in this first episode of Falcon and the Winter Soldier, to me, is like this is like the bridge from Marvel movies to television. It’s like has the same pace, the same type of storytelling as the first act of a Marvel movie, where lots of actions, a little bit of introducing stuff, some table setting. The main characters don’t even meet here. Pete: But you got Rhodey also being the bridge as well. Justin: Rhodey pops in, but people aren’t like “Are we going to see War Machine?” It’s like “No. He’s here. He’s already here.” Alex: Yeah. He’s here. Justin: He’s watching. Alex: Yeah. He left. He came here, and then he left. Justin: Yeah. He’s out of here. It was nice to see him. It was a drop in. Pete: Yeah. It was nice. Justin: I think- Alex: He was on set that day anyway. So they just added him in. Justin: That’s how Holleywood works, you know? Alex: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Justin: It’s like “Hey. Pop in.” Pete: Hey. You going to be around for something we’re shooting later? Because that would be cool. Justin: We’re shooting this thing over here. Alex: Yeah. No problem. What do I have to do? Is this like a Black Monday thing? Or what’s going on? Justin: Yeah. It is. They tricked him. But I don’t think there’s going to be that kind of speculation for this show, because it is just starting in a different place, and its expectations are sort of right where we thought they were going to be, and that’s good. I was psyched to watch this, but it is such a different viewing experience, to your point. Alex: Yeah. The thing, I had a blast watching this episode, like I think you guys are getting at. It’s very relaxing to watch this show, in a certain way, because WandaVision … You have to have this hyper attention while you’re watching it for all the details, everything that’s happening in every frame. That’s what was so wonderful about that show is the amount of different levels that it was working on. Here, it felt like “Ah, I’m back in the movie theater. I’m watching a Captain America movie,” or whatever, “It’s pretty cool. Just got to chill out, watch two handsome dudes have a good time kicking butt. Let’s have fun.” Alex: But on the flip side of it, and this may have to do with the WandaVision expectations … I certainly talked about this a lot during the WandaVision podcast, and I think I was pleasantly surprised. What happens here is this really does feel like we’re making more of a six-hour movie thing, which is typical for streaming but I don’t love on TV and I don’t love in the weekly release format. It’s the sort of thing that I might totally change my mind on watching the second episode because we’ll see what happens. Justin: Your mind’s about to change. Alex: We’ll see what happens, but it’s the sort of thing that I feel like, if you’re into the MCU like we are, you jump into this episode, you’re in, you’re happy, you’re good, you’re having a good time. If you’re not sure about the MCU, I think this is the sort of thing you might actually want to wait until the second or third episode so you get more of a chunk and have more of a sense of what it is, unless, of course, you’re really into bank loans and fishing, in which case this is the show for you. Justin: [crosstalk 00:07:59]. Pete: Come on, dude. Justin: Yeah. Pete: I mean, that’s really what I want. I want to know. Is he going to get bank loans as easy as I can? Because he’s got that star power, and what’s nice to know is that he’s still like me if I went in there. I wouldn’t have my numbers. I mean, the last five years have been a shit show, but- Justin: Yeah. You pop into the bank and just ask for a loan sort of whenever you’re passing by, right? Pete: Yeah. Exactly. It’s kind of in my route, you know? Justin: Hey. You got a loan for your pal Pete? Pete: Yeah. Hey. Just checking. Remember that loan I applied for a couple years ago? Alex: Pete, for the last time, banks don’t work like a slot machine. Okay? Pete: I’m just going to keep pulling that lever. Hopefully [crosstalk 00:08:36]- Alex: That’s what bank tellers are. You’re pulling their arm. Pete: He doesn’t seem cool with it. Justin: He’s a one-eyed bandit. That’s the thing. Or one-armed bandit. That’s what it is. Pete: I just wanted to say, though, I agree with you a little bit, but also, the action and stuff is kind of stressful. It was a pretty close call a couple of those times, but overall, I agree with what you’re saying, but I do disagree, though, with Justin with … There are fun little things that, because I’m WandaVision trained, I was like “Oh, what does that mean? Okay. Oh, my god. Those hand prints on the mask could be a crossover with Lord of the Rings. That looked very much-“ Alex: They’re a bunch of Uruk-hai? Justin: Yeah. Pete: Yeah. So I was like … You know? Just my mind is trained from WandaVision. So it’s hard to kind of shift into neutral. Alex: Well, I do think- Justin: I’m so sorry. You’re saying it was trained by WandaVision? You’ve one mad. [crosstalk 00:09:30]. Pete: Oh, right. Right. Right. Alex: I mean, that’s part and parcel with the MCU and superhero movies, right? We do look at every frame and every scene for Easter eggs all over the place. WandaVision just took it to the Nth degree, just to an insane amount where there were those Easter eggs in every single frame hidden in little corners. Here, it’s thing like … I mean, I jotted down a couple of things. There weren’t much, but things like, oh, Erin Kellyman, who people probably know or might know as Enfys Nest from the Solo movie, from Solo Star Wars, plays Karli Morgenthau, one of the Flag-Smashers, and the original Flag-Smasher was Karl Morgenthau. That’s not the sort of thing where it’s like “Oh, shit. They put an I on the back of her name. Pete: Whoa. Justin: What do you think it means? Alex: But it’s like “Oh, yeah. That’s a reference to the comics. That’s cool.” Justin: Yeah, but we’re doing a lot of comparison, but this show … The whole opening sequence, the amount aerial … If we want to get into the episode a little bit- Alex: Yes. Let’s please. Pete: Can we, please? Justin: First off, we start with the shield, and I don’t think we want to diminish this to be like “This is just a dumb movie-“ Pete: Well, first off, let’s really talk about first off we see him ironing, which is a relaxing thing to do. It seems like he starts his day right. Alex: That’s a reference to Iron Man. Did you know that? Justin: A little Easter egg. Pete: How did I miss that? Alex: Yes. Justin: Easter egg. Pete: Right out of the box. Oh, man. Alex: On a similar very Pete-focused nose, did you notice that sweet shield case that Sam had that he put it in? Justin: Yeah. Pete: Yeah. Alex: That’s very cool. I wonder if he got that custom or he went to- Justin: Merch. Pete: Yeah. It looks like it was custom. Justin: I would think so. It’s hard to know what size shield someone has. It’s like- Alex: Hey. Can I get that shield case over there, the one in tan? Not the black one or the red one, please. Justin: One shield case fits all. I’m so sorry, but to … It starts with the shield, which I think, to get into some of the beginnings of themes for this series, I think it’s like symbolizing. An object like the shield is this symbol, and Sam treats it with this respect, and he’s like “I can’t bear this. It has the weight of history,” and so he puts it away. He puts it in this museum, and nobody else seems to think of it that way, or at least not the US government here, as we find at the end of the episode, and I really like that. Justin: I think the idea of functional symbolism or functional patriotism, what stuff actually means to people versus the way we revere things that start to lose their meaning … That, to me, is what I took out of this first episode, and I think that’s a great theme, and just real quick, I think it’s reflected in the credits. The credits are a smattering of graffiti on these sort of icons, and I think that may be what the credits are getting at, that there’s these iconic things all around the country, all around our world, but the graffiti are the people saying something. They’re the people on the street. They’re putting their ideas out there, and I think the mixing of those ideas is what we’re going to get into in this series. Alex: Yeah. That seems spot- Pete: Yeah. Alex: Oh, go ahead, Pete. Pete: I was just going to say yeah. I really do like what they’re doing, this setting up of the weight of things, this symbolism. What does that mean? What does it mean to different people taking it for different things? But also, the fact that we picked up right where Falcon left off of like “Yo, man. This ain’t my shield,” or “I feel like I’m not good enough to rock this,” something that’s like he holds such reverence for it … It’s not like he’s not considering it. It such a big thing to him, and it means so much. So I love the fact that that’s where we are with him, and I also like this exploration throughout this episode of symbolism, like with the mask and the graffiti, and I’m glad you pointed that out, Justin. Alex: Well, to that point, what I was going to say is about tearing down the iconography. I think that really ties into the villains as well. I love the idea of the Flag-Smashers, the idea that they’re people who lived through the Blip, thought it was great, and want to go back to that. That’s really fascinating…

Full show notes at the publisher

The Falcon And The Winter Soldier - Preview Mar 12, 2021

Show notes

On a special preview episode of our Marvel podcast, we’re breaking down everything we know about The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. With Bucky and Sam both having possible claims of Captain America’s shield, are we heading for a showdown? How do Baron Zemo and Batroc play into this? And will the show attempt to tackle the classic Marvel series “Truth”? All this and much more as we get prepped for Marvel Studios’ follow-up to WandaVision. SUBSCRIBE TO MARVELVISION ON ITUNES, ANDROID, SPOTIFY, STITCHER, OR RSS. FOLLOW US ON TWITTER, INSTAGRAM AND FACEBOOK. SUPPORT OUR SHOWS ON PATREON. Full Episode Transcript Alex: What is up, everybody. Welcome to MarvelVision, a podcast about Marvel, the MCU. And coming up, the Falcon and the Winter Soldier, not one but two of them. I’m Alex. Justin: I’m Justin. Pete: I’m Pete. Alex: And we are doing here a preview episode for the Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Now we have been doing this Marvel podcast throughout the run of Wanda Vision. It’s been very fun talking to you all, getting your theories either on our Patreon Slack, patreon.com/comicbookclub, or socially at MarvelVisionPod. Alex: But we’re moving on to the next series. We’re going right into it. This is a slam bang action spectacular, where the last one was a sitcom puzzle box, I guess we can call it. Justin: Ooo, okay. Alex: How does that work? Justin: I like it, it’s good. Alex: But I’m excited to chat about this. I’m excited about this, not least of which because this was supposed to be the first series out of the gate. They were supposed to release Falcon and the Winter Soldier, then they switched it up and went for Wanda Vision first. That obviously enormous hit, I think way beyond their expectations. Justin: Yeah. Alex: But interestingly, and I’m curious to get your guys’ take on it, I think this has set up very different expectations for Falcon and the Winter Soldier. What’s your guys’ take? Justin: Well, I do think it made so much sense to put Falcon and the Winter Soldier first, because it was going to be just the most seamless tonally into Marvel movie on television. Pete: Right. Yeah, exactly. Justin: And Wanda Vision would have been a great like, oh, you like what we did Falcon Winter Soldier with all these fights and fun stuff. Pete: This is different. Justin: But this is a little different. So that got upset, and the order was swapped. But it actually works this way too, because the way Wanda Vision ended was with sort of the big Marvel movie action that you might expect, with just some great emotional moments. So now we’re just picking up on the Marvel movie action beat and just giving you sort of a much more fun, guns, punches, talking shit. Pete: Are you sure though, Justin? Justin: Well, pretty sure. I’m pretty sure. Pete: I don’t know, man, what if people are like I miss the weird, quirky, I don’t know what’s happening. I’m trying to shoe horn in my philosophies from comic books onto the show, and it may or may not pay off. Justin: Wait, are you saying that maybe grief is just a buddy comedy persevering? Is that what you think? Pete: That’s right. Alex: What if each episode of Falcon and the Winter Soldier is a pastiche of all the action shows? So like the first episode is Gun Smoke? And then the next episode is A-Team. Justin: Oh, yeah. Pete: Come on, dude, yes A-Team, just stop there. That’s where it peaked. Alex: Oh, that’s it? Pete: That’s it. Alex: Can’t get any better than that? Miami Vice, there’s a Miami Vice episode. Pete: Aw man, that would be crazy. Justin: Magnum PI. Alex: Now let’s talk about the actual contents of the show before we get too far into it though. Justin: Air Wolf. Alex: I’m sure everybody is familiar, this is picking up on the end of Avengers Endgame. It was actually supposed to come out I believe in August, right after that. Pete: Yeah, what happened? Alex: I don’t know. I haven’t heard any news on it. Justin: Don’t tell him. We’ve lasted a whole year without telling them anything about COVID. Don’t tell him at this point, he doesn’t know anything about it. Pete: Everybody looks at me weird when I walk outside, I don’t get it. Alex: Pete still thinks we’re talking about Ovid, his favorite. Justin: His favorite canonical poet, is that what you were driving, Alex? Alex: I was going to say philosopher, but that was wrong. Justin: You know, there was some philosophy in there. Alex: So this series buddies up Bucky Barnes, AKA the Winter Soldier, and Sam Wilson, AKA the Falcon. Takes them and is picking up on the fact that Steve Rogers passed the shield onto Sam Wilson. We don’t know a lot about the plot, but we do know a couple of things that are going to happen, and certainly have some speculation and guesses. We know that Daniel Bruhl is coming back as Zemo this time, wearing that classic purple mask that everybody loves so much. Justin: The people have been dying for that mask. Everyone’s crazy about that mask. Alex: I want a turtle neck and the mask. Justin: Yes, Alex: Here’s the big, I love Zemo as a villain. I’m excited about the mask. Justin: One hundred percent, and that’s what that moment was for, him holding a purple mask. But can you imagine being like, I just love, I’ve really enjoyed, I really liked Iron Man 2 and that’s all the Marvel movies I’ve seen. I’m curious about this new show, why does everyone care about the color of that dude’s fit ski mask? I feel like that’s the approach their making. Alex: The funnier thing is all we know really from the trailer is that Zemo says something like superheroes are over, there’s no room for superheroes in the world. Pete: That’s right. Alex: Instead, I’m going to put on a purple ski mask and blow shit up all over the place. You know, not like superheroes. Justin: I mean he is a Baron. So think of the other Barons you know, like Red Baron- Pete: Sasha Baron Cohen. Justin: Sasha Baron Cohen, also a huge Baron. Lot of Barons out there. Alex: [crosstalk 00:04:45] Snoopy Cartoons are the ones were Sasha baron Cohen is chasing him through the air. Justin: Oh man, what a prankster. Alex: Goes up to Woodstock, says, “My wife.” Justin: The next in a long line of many, many barons is Baron Zemo. Alex: Yes, exactly. Justin: A turtle neck on all of them. Alex: Other folks that are showing up, we know that Emily VanCamp is going to be back at Sharon Carter, AKA Agent 13, so that should be fun. And there’s a new one, which is a very interesting twist on the plot, Wyatt Russell is going to be there as John F. Walker, AKA US Agent. So we’ve talked about this a little bit on other podcasts, we do a live show every Tuesday night at 7:00 PM, Crowdcast and YouTube. I think we talked about it there. But US Agent is I think presumably going to be the person that the government assigns to be Captain America, leading to some sort of battle for the shield type thing. Does that seem fair? Justin: Yeah, and I think it points to this show is going to be about who deserves the mantle of Captain America, with John Walker being like definitely not him. But really being the interplay between Bucky and Sam, and I think they’re both going to want it. They both think they are the more, the better inheritor of the shield than the other. Pete: Well, always- Justin: Let me finish. But also it’s a heavy mantle. They know that they can’t ever really live up to their idol, their mentor, Steve Rogers. So it’s a great push pull between the internal fight of do I deserve this, and the external, well, I deserve it more than this dude over here. All he does is have one big metal arm. Pete: Wait, wait, wait. First off, there was a handoff, all right? Old one handy or one army didn’t walk over and grab the shield, all right, so he’s got no claim to it. There’s no take backsies. You can’t be like, hey listen, I know that Captain America was super old and gave you the shield, but you know how old people are. He was kind of out of his gourd, and I don’t think he was smart enough. I think I should take the next shift. Alex: Yeah, dude, right after Endgame, that dude ran and won the Presidency of the United States. So that’s pretty impressive, before you slam him, Pete. Justin: It is true, in candid Joe Biden? Pete: I don’t know, oh, you’re calling him Joe Biden, okay. Alex: Nope, I don’t think I will. I could see a world. I’m curious to see how this plays out, but to Justin’s point and kind of to the point you’re making Pete, sort of, I do think we could see a world where Bucky starts to feel like no, Sam is not the right person for this. I worked with Captain America, Sam is doing something, Sam is going rogue, who knows. Justin: Oh, I think- Pete: No, no, no, they’re going to fight because it’s two dudes, so sure there’s going to be that kind of fighting. But I would hope that they have a little bit more reverence for the shield and wouldn’t kind of fight over the shield. Justin: Well, based on the trailer it does seem like there’s at least a competitive element to what’s going on. Pete: Sure, agreed. Justin: The whole trailer is built around that. So I do think there’s going to be something that happens either to Sam or to Bucky that causes them to question who should be the person to take the shield. And that’s an exciting thing, that’s a great emotional undertone for what also is extensively two dudes quipping at each other while they fly underneath trucks and screw around fighting anti superhero terrorists. Alex: Well… oh, go ahead. Pete: That’s the thing, like the great TV shows of past, like an A-Team if you will- Justin: Like your A-Team. Pete: Yeah, yeah, where you just were waiting for the action sequences. You wanted to see someone jump over a hay barrel, that’s the fun. So I think it’s- Justin: Real quick, sorry to interrupt you, did you say hay barrel, because I don’t know why farmers keep their hay in barrels, because that’s an expensive place to keep your hay dry. Pete: Well, okay, sorry sir. Justin: I guess a barn is technically a big hay barrel, if you think about it. I’m from the country, so let me speak to this. You’re in my world here. Pete: And I know that’s true, because I’ve seen your teeth fallout. It’s one of those things. Justin: Donkey Kong famously rolled a bunch of hay barrels trying to get Mario. Allergic to hay, is what happened there. Pete: Oh man. So I just think that don’t fuck up this great thing that we know and love. The two of them, kind of odd couple working together, is going to be fun. We want to see over the top action. We’ve got to find a working relationship with those two, and I think that’s where the show should be. I don’t want it to start one person questions somebody’s leadership and stuff like that. Alex: No, I just think we could see that as a plot point at some point. I don’t think they’re going to end up in a place where Bucky’s going to try to kill Sam or anything like that. Pete: Yeah, that would be whack. Alex: Zemo’s whole thing in Civil War was working behind the scenes to, successfully mind you, break up the Avengers. Zemo one at the end of that movie, regardless of him ending up in jail. Justin: The watch hit. Alex: So his MO is not necessarily to be like I’m going to shoot you until you die, I’m going to do a heist. He plays on them psychologically, so I could see a plot line where he brings Sam and Bucky to a breaking point, but then they get past it and work together to ultimately beat him at the end. Pete: And I just want to correct you real quick. Zemo did not win. Alex: He won. He won the Civil War. Pete: Winners don’t get thrown in jail, okay? Well, sometimes, I mean it’s a fucked up, horrible- Alex: Nelson Mandela. Justin: Yeah, Gandhi. Pete: All right, yes, okay, it’s a horrible system. I’m just saying that like- Alex: Charles Manson. Pete: What? Alex: Sort of. Too far? Justin: Larger topic, all right. Pete: Yeah, way too far. Justin: You should check out our True Crime Podcast, where Alex roots for the killers. Pete: I just- Alex: I hope they get another one, I always say. Pete: Maybe I have to rewatch it, but I remember Black Panther coming out on top at the end of Civil War. So that’s how I will remember it. Justin: I think at the end of Falcon and the Winter Soldier they take the shield, split it in half, best on one side, friends on the other. Pete: Hang it on their necks. It’s a necklace. Justin: They each take their half and whenever they come together, they get a whole shield. Alex: That’s going to be great. A couple of other details to mention about the show. We are going to see Batroc the Leaper is going to be back again, so that’s super fun. Pete: I’m sorry, what? Alex: Also Don Cheadle is going to be in it as War Machine at some point, he revealed. Justin: Ooo, very good. Alex: And one I’m very excited about, Erin Kellyman, who’s an actress who she played, what was it, Enfys Nest in Solo. I don’t know if you remember that. Which ended up at a very weird reveal and petered out, and obviously people have mixed feelings about Solo. Pete: Don’t say stuff like that. Alex: But she peted out, sorry. Justin: Pete LePaged out. Alex: But she was great in that movie, and she’s going to be playing Flag Smasher. So I think that’s going to be exciting to see. And the last thing that I’ll mention that I do think is kind of interesting is that Malcolm Spellman is the guy behind the scenes. He’s the guy who created the show, is the showrunner of the show. And I do get a sense, based on his previous work, that there’s going to be a little more or maybe a lot more to do with race than we think from the explosive trailers. Pete: Cool. Alex: There’s some hints. We were certainly speculating, again, when we were talking about the series earlier that maybe they might start to go into the truth storyline for the comics, which showed that there was a Captain America before Captain America who was African-American and experimented on like the Tuskegee experiments. And that to me feels like that’s a lot going on in six episodes, but potentially a natural extension to show Sam and Bucky, if they do get to a point where they’re fighting about the shield, to be like, no man, this doesn’t even belong to Steve. This was somebody else’s first. Justin: I love that. Especially like as a full episode where we get, or three quarters of an episode or whatever, where we get that backstory, I think is a great episode. And I don’t know how explicitly they’re aiming at young Avengers with what we saw at the end of Wanda Vision, that Billy and Tommy- Pete: Those kids are dead. Justin: They’re probably still out there- Pete: Those are dead kids. Justin: Speed and Wicked, two of the young Avengers, to set up to go into this and get into that storyline. And we’ll set up a third young Avenger, so I think that’s very exciting. Pete: Wait, first off, a couple of things that you touched on there, Alex, I want to dissect. First, what the fuck you mean only six episodes? Alex: I mean, it’s only six episodes. They’re going to be longer episodes. Pete: Are they two hour episodes? What are we talking? I’m not going to fucking invest time for a half an hour, six episodes. I mean what the fuck is that? Alex: Yeah. And they’re going to release them every two to three years and call them movies, Pete. Justin: Yeah. Alex: So Marvel is still experimenting with the lengths of their shows, but Kevin Feige said as they’re going into it that they are going to be aiming for half hour-ish shows, with variation for more comedically inclined serious, like Wanda Vision as we saw at the beginning. And once it’s stretched into the MCU nature the episodes got a little bit longer. She Hulk, which is coming down the road starring Tatiana Maslany, that’s also going to be a half hour comedy. It’s going to be a legal comedy, and that’s kind of what they’re aiming for there. But things like Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and presumably also Loki, are going to be more hour long shows. And in this case, that means 40 to 50 minute episodes, typical TV…

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WandaVision - Episode 9: "The Series Finale" Mar 05, 2021

Show notes

It’s time for the series finale of Marvel’s WandaVision, appropriately titled “The Series Finale,” so let’s break it all down on our podcast. Agatha Harkness stands fully revealed, and is going witch versus witch with Wanda Maximoff, aka The Scarlet Witch. Meanwhile, White Vision and Westview Vision settle things the only way a synthezoid can, Monica tries to escape from Fietro and discovers a surprising secret about him, and Billy and Tommy step up to the plate, with their lives – and the fate of the whole town – in the balance. From what happened to White Vision, to Skrulls, to Ralph Bohner, to the TWO WandaVision Episode 9 post credit scenes, to what this all means for Captain Marvel 2, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Spider-Man: No Way Home, to all the WandaVision finale Easter eggs and comic book references you can shake a gnarled, withered old hand at, we’ve got you covered. SUBSCRIBE TO MARVELVISION ON ITUNES, ANDROID, SPOTIFY, STITCHER, OR RSS. FOLLOW US ON TWITTER, INSTAGRAM AND FACEBOOK. SUPPORT OUR SHOWS ON PATREON. Full Episode Transcript Alex: Welcome to MarvelVision, a podcast about Marvel the MCU, and right now, the finale of WandaVision is a very secretive title called The Series Finale. I’m Alex. Justin: I’m Justin, coming at you live from the children’s bedroom, the very hub where all great content comes from. Pete: I’m Pete. Alex: Pete is awake this time. That’s very excited. I’m excited that your alarm went off here for the series finale. Now, requisite spoiler warning here. Go watch WandaVision The Series Finale. We’re going to spoil it. We’re going to talk about everything, all the Easter eggs, all the Marvel secrets, also talk about the two post-credit sequences. So if you watched through the regular WandaVision credits and then tuned out, keep watching through the regular credits, because there’s another sequence after that. Justin: Actually, even beyond that, there’s this whole credit sequence called The Age of Ultron that I actually really enjoyed that you can keep watching, and then at the end of that, there’s another post-credit sequence. Alex: Oh, man. What was that next post-credit sequence? Was it Raya and the Last Dragon? Justin: Yes, and that one was expensive. I had to pay for that. Pete: Wow. Alex: Man, Marvel … They’re just- Justin: They get you. Alex: They’re taking us for everything we’re worth. Now- Justin: Plus, there’s a whole pre-credit sequence I don’t know if you watched, which was the actual episode of television we’re talking about. Alex: I skipped that completely. Justin: Yeah. Oh, that’s sort of the important part. Alex: Let’s talk about this. This is, of course, the final episode. It’s bringing everything together. Certainly, I’m sure there’s some things we want to talk about that weren’t necessarily touched on, but huge episode. We got the Fantastic Four. We got X-Men. We got Mephisto. Pete: What the fuck. Alex: Every theory- Pete: Shut up. Alex: … was 100 percent true, and that was great. I was very excited about that. What did you guys think? Justin: About the episode? I mean, this was good. Earlier this week, the director … Right? Matt Shakman came out and said “Hey. You’re probably going to be disappointed,” which is always a weird thing to hear from one of the main creatives on a project before it comes out, but I see what he was saying, where it’s a classic end of the third act of a Marvel movie, where it’s mostly a big fight. There’s some nice, touching moments. There’s some really smart moments in this, and then everyone just sort of goes back to their corners, and we see what happens going forward. Pete: Except for the fact that there’s a lot of loss and a lot of sadness that is still there. You know what I mean? I mean, we’ve said goodbye to a whole family in this episode, man. That’s a tough way to start your fucking Friday, especially so fucking early in the fucking morning. Alex: I do that every Friday. Every Friday, I wake up, I say goodbye to a family, and then I go- Justin: He has an ant farm that he smushes an entire family of ants every morning on Fridays when he gets up. Alex: Teaches me about mortality. That’s how I like to end my week. Justin: That’s a good way of saying it when you’re murdering tiny little creatures. The thing is, Pete, I don’t think we actually said goodbye to very many characters. The Vision gets- Pete: There’s two Visions now. Which one you talking about? Justin: Well, I think there’s eventually only one, the ghost Vision, that I think our old Hex Vision converts ghost Vision into the one true Vision. He just goes off. The kids, we hear … There’s no way we’re not going to see them again, and we hear, even in the post-post-credits sequence a little whisper from some sort of child. Alex: Help. Mama, help. Just before we get too into the minutia of the episode, I’d also like to chime in and just say that I thought this was great. I thought this was a really good finale, and to your point, Justin, yeah, one of the pleasures of talking about WandaVision week to week has been talking about the theories and speculating about it and throwing out “Ooh, is this teasing X-Men? Is this teasing Fantastic Four? Is this teasing Mephisto?” whatever other Marvel characters you want to throw in there, “Is Dr. Strange going to show up? What are the cameos going to be?” and like we sort of talked about last week, what they did really smartly was the story. Alex: I think, as a watcher, as a fan, go crazy. Theorize as much as you want. I think this is what Matt Shakman was saying, but at the end of the day, put those theories aside and just watch it, because what they were telling was a story about Wanda’s grief, her sadness, and not how you completely move past that, but how you start to move past that, and I think that’s what they effectively did through the action sequences, through the plot in this episode, which I really appreciated. Justin: I agree. I mean, and like a lot of fans, I love speculating, but the ultimate speculation in fan theory is a show about grief. I think that, at the end of the day, there’s a million blog posts about “Yeah. It was grief. It was grief all along. Woo.” Alex: Yeah. Now, we should talk about the Marvel Comics origins of grief, which is a classic character. It’s a demon, has a … No. It doesn’t. I don’t know. I liked that. I liked how, like we sort of even speculated about, they ended it with this quieter moment with the family of their house that was so sad and so poignant, but it really was that Wanda … It was all Wanda. Like they said in the third or fourth episode, it’s Wanda. It’s all Wanda, and that’s what it was about. It was about her emotional journey to getting to the point where she can let go of Vision, even though, to your point again, Vision is a god. He’s still out there somewhere. Justin: Yeah. Pete: Where do you think the White Vision flew to in such a hurry? Alex: I mean, now that he realizes he’s alive, he’s probably going to get a good burger or something, go to In-N-Out? Pete: Really? Alex: That’s a good place. Pete: I thought he- Justin: Wow. Pete: I thought it was more like “Hey, man. Go start your own family. Don’t live like this, all right? Go pick a town, take it over. You can do it better this time.” Alex: If you look at the closed captioning, he was actually … While he was flying off, he says “It’s time to get married.” Justin: Yeah. I love the idea, Pete, that you’re like “Wow. When someone’s really sad, the best advice is to go start their own family.” So when you were an angsty teen, you were like “That’s it. I’m out of here. I’m getting married, and I’m just going to have kids, and I’m going to be in charge of that family.” Pete: That’s right. Alex: I’ll tell you what. If you’re having problems, having a whole family … That’ll fix everything. Justin: That’s a hundred percent right. Look at me, I make total sense. I’m on top of the world in here. I’m in a tiny, tiny room, and look at this. These are the Nordic sculptures at the end of the episode in the double post-credit sequence. Pete: Oh, look it. You- Justin: This is an Easter egg. Pete: … cast your own spells in your own home. That’s smart, man. Justin: Yeah. Alex: Let’s talk a little bit more about Vision just to focus this in a bit. I loved that not only that we got the White Vision versus Westview Vision, or whatever we want to call him, fight, which was great and fun to watch, but that it ended with this very classic Vision fashion of having a philosophical discussion, which was very much … I mean, I know we’re joking about Age of Ultron and everybody’s been like “Jesus Christ, Disney Plus. Stop pushing Age of Ultron on me at the end here,” but one of the absolute best scenes in Age of Ultron is when Vision just talks to Ultron in the woods about humanity at the end there right before he takes care of him as he did. Pete: You can’t say plateaus like “One of the best things of Ultron.” That’s crazy. There were so many fun little points. What about when Hawkeye threatens to shoot? He was like “Nobody would know. I could just take you out.” There was a lot of good moments. You can’t just say one of- Alex: I’m not trying to slam your favorite movie, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Pete. All I’m saying- Pete: All right. Well, don’t say best moments and talk about a moment that was like “All right. Let’s talk about life in the woods.” Alex: That’s a great moment. You’re wrong. Justin: Alex, don’t push him too much further. He’s going to go start another family, and he’s got too many fucking families. Alex: Regardless, I think this whole thing about the ship and discussion it was really great and a great way of wrapping it up that I certainly was not expecting. Justin: Yeah. Pete: If you don’t like your family, move and start a new one next town over. No one will know. Justin: Wow. That maybe used to work, but not anymore. I agree. I thought this was a cool way, especially in an episode that started … At the very beginning, it was just fight, fight, fight, and to have it sort of heighten and elevate to the point where we actually get to see this butting of heads in a really smart way, I thought, was great, and the way that it ends with him sort of … We see his stone flash to the Mind Stone yellow briefly and then back to blue, and then his eyes go from blur to just human, good old-fashioned human eyes. Pete: Yeah. I mean, it’s impressive how after all the action movies, Marvel is like “All right. We’re going to make something that’s a little bit more sad, something that’s going to tug on the heartstrings a little bit and isn’t really going to be about fighting,” and it’s great that creatively we can be doing shows like this. Sure, you walk away not as pumped and maybe a little bit more sad, but it is a cool story nonetheless. Alex: Shout out to my boy Paul Bettany for doing a great job on this series. Just everybody was great across the board, fantastic cast, but like we’ve been talking about on this podcast all along, he played so many modes of different comedy. In this episode, like we’re talking about, he got to be classic Vision, but that speech at the end to Wanda as he’s saying goodbye was so sweet and so sad and so beautiful. I do hope people don’t lump on it the same way they did the “What is grief but love persevering?” line, because- Justin: That wasn’t getting lumped. I mean, it was elevated to the point after last week’s episode. This was on Twitter, if you don’t follow all this nonsense. It was elevated to the point of “Look at this perfect line,” and then everyone went after it then, but I mean, it was a good line. Alex: It’s a good line. It was well said. I’m just saying that I think this was another good speech, and I feel like people are going to equate them in their minds a little bit. So it’s like “Lay off, buddy.” That’s all I’m saying. Justin: Alex, we should give a shout out to you for calling Paul Bettany describing himself as the actor he wanted to work with. Alex: Oh, yes. Thank you. Every once in a while … Here’s the thing. This is a little business thing that maybe you guys don’t know about. Pete: Wait. Wait. Wait. Justin, are you kicking your own kids out of their own room right now? Is that what you’re- Justin: Yeah. This is Daddy’s time. Pete: Your kid just wants to go to its bed. Let that kid- Justin: Its bed? Wow. For a man who has multiple families, you don’t know how to talk about kids very well. She’s awake. Ever since we’ve been doing this podcast, getting up at the crack of dawn, she gets up before me and sits in the living room. So we’ve really evolved as a family. Alex: Does she talk to you about speculation and spoilers? Justin: Yeah. She’s- Pete: Yeah. What does she think? Justin: She wanted to interrupt and say “Where the fuck was Al Pacino? I really wanted [inaudible 00:11:22].” Pete: Give that kid a mic. That’s comedy gold. Alex: But yeah. I do think it’s very funny, and Paul Bettany had this interview on Good Morning America, I believe, where he was like “Yeah. I thought it would be funny when I was saying that, and it kind of blew up out of control.” So that’s great, and that’s fine. I don’t love when they’re lying about stuff. Love Tatiana Maslany. The fact that she was like “No. I’m not She Hulk,” and then she was cast as She Hulk … That’s not her fault. Somebody told her to say that and deny that, but this Paul Bettany thing is just funny enough. I would rather they do stuff like that. It reminds me a little bit … I don’t know if you guys remember when Michael Shannon was doing a little press and people were asking him about Batman v Superman. He was like “Yeah. I’m in that as Zod again, but I have flipper hands. It was really difficult to open the bathroom door with my flipper hands.” That’s the sort of thing that’s like “Sure. Fuck with people. That’s fine.” Justin: Do you think that Paul Bettany got a phone call late at night from Kevin Feige like “Hey, man. You really fucked us on this whole guest star thing. You get on Good Morning America and you fix it. You fix it.” Alex: Probably, but it was good, and I did like seeing him go up. Yeah. It’s funny that we were speculating this much about the cameo. While we’re sort of talking about these things that we speculated a lot about, who was in witness protection for Jimmy Woo? We never tied that up. Justin: That’s crazy to me because it’s one thing that we went off on our own little wild speculation. That’s our thing, but even the little nuggets they dropped didn’t really pay off in a way, and I was very surprised there wasn’t a cameo. Obviously, I think, last time I was like “It could still be Mephisto.” That was always a reach, but I thought for sure we would get Dr. Strange. We get a lot of reference to him. Pete: Sure do. Justin: We’re fully in his world with the Darkhold and all these other things that we’ll probably talk about in a minute, but I still was surprised that we didn’t get a resolution on the witness protection thing, because what is it? Was it Agatha? Also, the- Pete: Also- Justin: … the Ralph thing was odd. We just get- Pete: Yeah. Yeah. Justin: So that was an open-ended thing, really. Pete: But also, it was like if you’re the Sorcerer Supreme, how do you not feel or notice this crazy shit going on? There was a lot of crazy shit happening magically that … You don’t have something that kind of senses that or kind of points in that direction that maybe you should check out? Alex: I did not come up with this one. I saw somebody tweet it, and I do not remember who tweeted it, but somebody very correctly pointed out “You try getting somebody who lives in Midtown to come out to Jersey for a party.” Justin: That’s legit. I mean, come on. He’s not going to leave his- Pete: I was hoping that’s where she was going was going to New York City when she left. Alex: I expected that we would see somebody at a post-credits. I was surprised that we didn’t see Dr. Strange in that last moment with W…

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WandaVision - Episode 8: "Previously On" Feb 26, 2021

Show notes

We’re going back in time to discover Wanda’s full origin — and Agatha’s — as we break down WandaVision Episode 8, “Previously On.” Held captive by Agatha Harkness, Wanda Maximoff is forced to relive the most traumatic moments of her life: trapped with Pietro in Sokovia; getting her powers from the Mind Stone and HYDRA; the aftermath of Avengers: Age of Ultron and falling in love with Vision; and discovering Vision’s body post-Avengers: Endgame at SWORD. And this all leads up to a revelation about Wanda’s powers that changes everything. From Chaos Magic, to White Vision, to Scarlet Witch, we’re breaking down all of the WandaVision Easter eggs, Marvel Comics spoilers, and much more from WandaVision Episode 8. SUBSCRIBE TO MARVELVISION ON ITUNES, ANDROID, SPOTIFY, STITCHER, OR RSS. FOLLOW US ON TWITTER, INSTAGRAM AND FACEBOOK. SUPPORT OUR SHOWS ON PATREON. Full Episode Transcript Justin: Zoom, good. I can’t believe I’m hiding in here specifically, so I wouldn’t be bothered. Alex: Ready? Justin: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Alex: We’ll clap, right? Three, two, one. Feels like a little peekaboo. Justin: Yeah. Alex: One second. Welcome to Marvel Vision, a podcast about Marvel, the MCU, and specifically right now, WandaVision. I’m Alex. Justin: I’m Justin coming at you live from the most adult Marvel place I can, my daughter’s bedroom. I got the unicorn balloon popping in the background. We are ready to go. Alex: So here’s what we’re fighting about taping these early episodes. Before we get in and talk about episode eight, “Previously On”, and this will give you enough time to go watch the episode, check it out because we’re spoiling the heck out of it. Typically, this early in the morning, sometimes you tape stuff right in your daughter’s bedroom. Sometimes one of you Pete, over sleeps. Justin: Could be, that could be. Marvel Vision is what happens when you get up too early in the morning on a Friday to watch TV. You have to develop Marvel Vision. Alex: Exactly. In case I wasn’t totally clear, Pete our third member did in fact oversleep. So we are taping this without him. I’m sure he will have many thoughts once he finally wakes up luxuriously at 10:00 AM. Has his brunch breakfast, he usually has five eggs and two biscuits, I believe. Justin: I can’t believe he can’t wake up this early. I’m up, like five, four or five in the morning everyday just to check and see if WandaVision has been premiered. Even on a Monday or Tuesday, my calisthenics, prepare my farm-fresh breakfast that I send out to Pete. Alex: I’ll tell you what, I didn’t sleep last night. I just kept waking up and now I’m totally jazzed because the title of the episode was previously on and I guessed it. I called it. Justin: I was going to say, Alex credit to you. So you couldn’t sleep because you were so excited about getting the title right? Alex: I was nervous honestly. I was lying there, my brain going up like, what if it has this other title? What of the other title? What if I get it wrong this time? It’s not going to be previous now. This is going to damage my reputation for real. Justin: Your shattered reputation. You’ve never guessed correctly yet so far. So this is [inaudible 00:02:47] Alex: I did get now in color. So at this point, I have a two out of eight, which is 25%, which is like, I’m going to say what, B+, A, is that how that works? Justin: I believe that is how That’s grading works. It’s been so long. Let me ask ne of my daughters that I know that will be bursting in here any minute. Alex: What other shout out that I want to make? An actual shout out before we get in and talk about the episode, a shout out to Rachel Thompson who plays Major Goodner on the show popped up in the last episode. Watched her last episode on YouTube and posted a little clip on her Twitter and was very nice about it. So thank you for that. That was a very cool surprise. Justin: We called her out as the big reveal, which she clearly was because she’s such a nice person. Alex: There you go. Surprise. People are nice sometimes. Let’s get into this episode. This is a big one, the overall plot, as you could probably guess from the title and also hopefully again, watching it. Justin: From watching it. It’s not called a guest when he just watched something and then know it. Alex: That’s very true. Justin: It’s the ultimate guess. Alex: This is the big reveal episode, we walk through Wanda’s entire history with the MCU, get a bunch of recoms there thanks to Agatha Harkness, Kathryn Hahn, officially playing witch, straight up, not like, “I’m a science witch.” But, “I’m a witch.” Justin: Actually, Salem based witch. Alex: Yeah, walks her through her history, therapy style to try to find out how Wanda pulled off the Hex. A lot of the things that we thought were true, turned out to be true. We were talking about this actually before we came on. So let’s broad strokes before we get into any specifics, Easter eggs theories or anything like that. How do you feel about this? Justin: I thought it was good. I liked the areas that the show’s covering. I liked the backstory they’re building for Scarlet Witch. Vision by the end of this episode lands in an interesting place. It was interesting that the big reveal by the end of the episode is knowledge we already had. Like to hear her be like, “You’re the Scarlet Witch.” Is like, “Yeah, we know. That’s why we showed up here.” Alex: The funny thing about that end note, if we want to jump ahead to that last thing is for comic book fans. I’m sure there’s three levels of this almost, right? There’s comic book fans of like, “Yes, we’ve been calling you Scarlet Witch, even if you’ve been call yourself Wanda Maximoff. We know who you are from the comic books.” There’s also MCU fans who’ve been waiting for her to be called Scarlet Witch and I’m sure a bunch of them we’re like, “Oh, shit. They said it. They said the words.” So probably totally worked for them and then there’s the non comic book fans who were like, “I don’t know what that means.” Justin: “Is that a big deal? Is that Scarlet? Alex: Which is fine. It’s all fine. What I liked about this episode is sometimes the reveals don’t have to be, [inaudible 00:05:42] all the time or 30 layers of Easter eggs. One of the things the show has been doing really well is it’s been layering in, like we’ve talked about it here on the podcast, lots of different things, all the time, different layers of Easter eggs for sitcoms, for MCU, for Marvel Comics, for everything. Some of them are just like color and some of them mean something, but in this episode, they’ve been doing all along, they’ve just been telling us what’s been happening. It’s more about the outside world has been pulling it apart like we’ve been doing here, when the show has been pretty straight up about what’s happening. Justin: Yeah. That’s what Marvel does really well. They’re like, “We have a story we’re telling and we’re going to give you little tangential teases to light you up.” Like the Quicksilver casting, just lit everybody on fire when really it’s just like, that was what it was designed to do in the end at least in this story. Maybe it’s going to be a way of dipping into the multi-verse by having that be the choice there as a larger plot choice. But I respect the move just as a like fun nod or poke to the fan base to be like, “Whoa! They’re doing it. They’re doing the thing.” But they aren’t doing yet, but they got us. Alex: To get a little behind the scenes on that, there was a talk that Kevin Feige, the head of Marvel Studios did with the Television Critics Association this past week and for those who don’t know, this is a trade organization. The panels are very weird. They’re not like Comic Con panels or anything. It’s basically virtually, but the people sitting there taking question, after question, after question from press and that’s it. It’s not about announcements or trailers or anything. Alex: But he did give some really good interesting information about the process of WandaVision and two the things he mentioned, one Evan Peters was very early on, he said that they blue sky everything. They did talk about Alan Donaldson, but ultimately decided, you know what, this Evan Peters thing, if he can pull it off, this is going to be the right thing for the show. But the other thing he said is exactly what you’re saying, that they felt like if they’re going to do weekly TV shows, this is their chance to try to create weekly conversation the same way that they do weekend conversation when they release a movie. So he- Justin: By next year, there’ll be a Marvel TV show every week and a feature film every weekend so truly will be our entire lives. Alex: Oh my God, I love it. Bring it on. Justin: I love it. I’m dying. Alex: But I respect that. I respect the fact that they were very specific about, “We want to give people something to talk about between the episodes.” That’s really nice. The other thing that I really liked about this episode that I’m curious to get your take on, this is the one that hit me emotionally the hardest. There were a couple of times where I got really teared up in this episode and I haven’t felt that same way throughout the show, but now it has enough weight, not just with the movies in the MCU, but also with the TV show that I feel like we’ve appropriately gotten to that place. Justin: What I also give them credit for, this story, the format or the structure of it, it’s pretty like we could see that coming once the episode started, but they do a great job of upsetting our expectation like when Wanda finally sees the Vision’s body in Hayward’s lab. You think, “Oh, this is it. She’s going to lose it.” I love the choice they had of her, like touching his head and being like, “There’s nothing of him here. I don’t feel him here.” And then walking off and like, “Oh, it’s not it.” Then we see her emotional breakdown in Westview at the house they were going to build. Justin: That hits so much harder because they got us one step later. Again same thing with the parents. You think you’re going to get this nice “vision” of her childhood life and then it’s upset immediately heartbreaking. They didn’t even have to show us the actual parents loss and then be gone. It was just, we see Wanda instantly fixing her trauma with her powers. Alex: That was the first one that really got me specifically because we know where the Stark bomb is. So when they have that pause where she’s watching the sit-com, I was like, “Oh, it’s coming. Oh, this is so sad.” Just having her and Pietro under the bed with the bomb, knowing that we’ve heard this story, but never seen it before, awful. The other scene that I thought was really wonderful, we didn’t get a lot of Vision in this episode obviously with the big reveal with the Vision at the end of the episode, we should probably talk about at some point. But the scene post Age of Ultron probably like concurrent with civil war, right before they really started their relationship or anything like that, I thought was great. The stuff that they’re talking about there, about grief being another form of love. I thought was really smart and pointed and very nice. Justin: Yeah, it made their romance real. I’m assuming in the last episode, we’re going to get a lot of that payoff or how they actually feel for each other. But this was such a great little… Because we’ve never really seen too much of this in the movies we got with them together and just like fighting, but never did we see them have any real, super sweet moments. It was just the high emotion of them being together and then the loss. So this was really great. It really helped set up what I assume is going to be the big emotional payoffs next time. Alex: Yeah, I agree. To that point, I think a lot of Marvel fans all along have been like, “An Emmy for Elizabeth Olsen.” Which she’s great, she’s been doing a great job. Everything is super fun, but I haven’t necessarily felt that. This, if anything, is the Emmy’s submission episode for her because there’s so many different emotions and modes that she walks through here. Justin: Wanda is obviously submit for the rabbit for the pet Emmy’s for eating that- Alex: Which are on the CW, I believe. Justin: Yeah, a hundred percent. For eating that fucking bug. Rabbits eats bugs? Alex: Ugh, I guess rabbits eat bugs. I had a rabbit, but I don’t remember it eating flies. Justin: Uh, good. I thought you were going to say, “Rabbits eats bugs. I had A rabbit. I fed it bugs all the time. I’m a sociopath.” Alex: Oh, boy. Should we talk about some of these recoms here because this is a big change to Wanda, her origin, what we get here. We talked about Agatha straight up witch, at the Salem witch trials, sucked her whole coven dry. Justin: Sucked the coven. Hey, welcome to Marvel Vision in the morning, we got to sucking coven today. We’re going to be here in the Marvel Vision. Ail suck it up, I’m coming right out. Alex: That’s coffee, my man. This opening scene was great. Wow, Disney- Justin: Disney Plus mug. Alex: Really compromising your journalistic integrity to kick off this breakdown of the episode. Justin: I’ll tell you what, nothing more journalistic than a Marvel podcast that we excited comic book fans woke up early in the morning to do. Alex: It’s just very funny. That was like a Wayne’s world moment of the person reviewing the thing being like, “Cheers Disney blood.” I thought this opening sequence was great. Kathryn Hahn, I was imagining them filming this and she’s being zapped by a bunch of invisible CGI energy and she has to play the pain of it and then instantly switch it to like, “Ha ha, I got you. I’m sucking you dry coven.” Justin: Now, why is that? Because I had that thought pretty much all episode two, maybe it’s because Kathryn Hahn comes from indie films and is sort of known like this quirky background or foreground potentially person. But we haven’t seen her at a big budget thing like this necessarily, maybe that’s it. All episode I was like, “Man, it’s great that they got Kathyrn Hahn to do this. Alex: I also think she’s really good and the energy she brings. She brings this sort of the meme going around, the winking energy to so many of her roles where it feels like she’s looking at us being like, “Is it crazy I’m in this TV show. I’m acting here.” And I think that’s what it is. The fact that she gets to… She has a real audience surrogate power to her. She’s just great to watch. Despite the fact that she’s playing big in this episode every line is like “Well, my pretty eyes, they’ve captured you this time.” Then she still lands it. Even at the end, when she’s in full, hair styled witch regalia it’s- Justin: Oh my God, those eyebrows were out of control. Alex: I got them right here so I’m pretty psyched to see them on screen. Justin: This is the first time you’ve seen yourself on screen. Alex: I finally see my brow. So she was great. Loved the walkthroughs here. The big recom with Wanda, I was about to say Scarlet Witch, is that she had these witch powers, All Along and the Mind Stone- Justin: You love saying All Along, by the way, ever since last ever that’s what you talk about. I’ve seen the tweets Alex. We know you like it. Alex: I like it. I enjoy the song. It really is by resting state right now is Agatha All Along playing in my head and it’s driving me a little insane. Justin: She’s deadly. That’s deadly. Alex: Wanda had the witch powers from the beginning. That’s what Agatha is walking her through and the Mind Stone only amp them up quite a bit. What do you think about that record? Justin: That’s mutant, right? I think that’s being a mutant. It is. It feels weird to say that but in the comic books, that’s what it is. Your powers come to you. We didn’t get to see Quicksilver be very fast here and his youth, but this could easily be it. It’s what they showed us. They just didn’t tell us. Alex: For those who haven’t read the comics this is certainly changed a lot through…

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WandaVision - Episode 7: "Breaking The Fourth Wall" Feb 19, 2021

Show notes

WestView is falling apart, and so is Wanda, as the WandaVision villain is revealed on Episode 7 “Breaking the Fourth Wall.” While Vision slowly makes his way back to the center of town with the help of Darcy, Wanda is taking some “me” time to recover from expanding the Hex in a The Office inspired episode. But things aren’t going well, leading to Agnes taking the twins… And revealing some less than altruistic motives. Meanwhile, outside the Hex, Hayward prepares to launch a full-scale attack, and Monica reenters, ready to try and help Wanda — leading to the birth of a new hero. From the Nexus to Major Goodner to the Darkhold, we’re breaking down all of the WandaVision Easter eggs, Marvel Comics spoilers, and much more from WandaVision Episode 7. SUBSCRIBE TO MARVELVISION ON ITUNES, ANDROID, SPOTIFY, STITCHER, OR RSS. FOLLOW US ON TWITTER, INSTAGRAM AND FACEBOOK. SUPPORT OUR SHOWS ON PATREON. Full Episode Transcript Alex: Welcome to MarvelVision, a podcast about the MCU, Marvel, and right now, WandaVision. We’re talking to episode five… Excuse me, episode seven. I don’t know. It’s very early right now. Breaking the Fourth Wall. I’m Alex. Justin: I’m Justin. Pete: I’m Pete. Alex: And very exciting, big episode of WandaVision as usual. Spoiler warning if you haven’t watched it yet on Disney+, which maybe you did because it crashed for a good point this morning. Go away. Go watch the episode. We’re going to be talking about all the big spoilers and Easter eggs and everything going on in here. Pete: Plus after credits. Alex: We got a mid credit sequence this time. Justin: 100%. Alex: So don’t turn it off. Justin: They’ve been keeping that spot open in the mid credits, and it’s about time we used it. Alex: Yeah. I’ll tell you what, usually I turn off the episodes halfway through because I’m like, “I’m done. Let’s just move on.” Justin: “I’ve had enough.” Alex: I have other things to do with my day. Let’s go. But this time I actually kept it on, not just through the entire episode, but also through the credits, and I was pleasantly surprised. Pete, I appreciate, since we’re on video now, that you’re just sinking lower and lower in the camera. Pete: Don’t bring it here, asshole. You don’t want none of this. I’ve seen too much behind the curtain today for you to fuck with me, man. I was watching as you greased up your forehead, got the lighting all right, placed your sex dolls in the background. I don’t know what the fuck you’re doing. Alex: Those are owls, Pete. Pete: All right, well… They’re missing beaks. I don’t know what you’re doing to them. Alex: I went out a nature hike with Pete once, and he was like, “What are these fucking sex dolls doing hooting up there in the trees? What’s going on?” Anyway, let’s talk about this episode. The broad strokes, this is the mockumentary style episode, a little bit of The Office, a little bit of the Modern Family going on. In case you haven’t picked up on what’s been going on, Vision was left for dead, pretty much, at the end of the last episode after the Hex expanded. This episode, we pick up with that. He teams up with Darcy to try to get back to the center of town and get back to Wanda. Meanwhile, Wanda’s in a real funk, having a me day, and gives the kids over to Agnes, which leads to the big reveal at the end of the episode that it’s been Agnes all along. Justin: So funny, so weird. Pete: Can I ask- Alex: Wait, I just want to… The last thing, outside the Hex, we got Monica and Jimmy trying to get back inside. We finally meet the aerospace engineer. Huge moment that we’ve all been waiting for. Justin: God, I can’t believe that. What a character reveal. Alex: Monica does go back inside, does finally get powers, though we don’t get to see the full range of them, confronts Wanda and ends up in some trouble of her own by the end of the episode. Pete, what did you want to say? What’s going on? Pete: So with the title, Breaking the Fourth Wall, I got very excited because I was like, “You know what famous Marvel character breaks the fourth wall all time? Deadpool.” So I was like, “Please, please give me Deadpool in this weird world, just a throwaway.” Make him a clown in the background or something. Alex: I thought we were going to talk about Kool-Aid man. The Marvel character who famously breaks the fourth wall. Pete: And a living room wall, not just a fourth wall. Justin: Any living wall. The walls are alive and the Kool-Aid man is coming for them. Alex: Before we talk about specific moments, as we usually do at the beginning of episodes, broad strokes, what’d you guys think? We’re now at the end of here, two episodes from the end, we’ve got a big finale, we know who the villain is. Here’s the gig spoiler warning. It is Agnes, who is Agatha Harkness, who we suspected all along. So that’s been pulled back. We don’t have all the answers yet, but certainly we have a better understanding of what’s going on here. How are you feeling about the series right now? Pete: I’m very excited. I feel like this is doing a great job of building momentum. First episode, not that exciting, but it’s really been building since then, and I’ve been really into it. I’m really impressed with how things are going. I cannot wait to watch the last two eps. Justin: This episode was weird to me. There was a lot of air in it. It felt very like… Especially the outside of the Hex stuff. The scenes where like… They’re left, they weren’t moving very quickly. And I thought that was interesting. I don’t know what that means. My tooth just literally broke. Pete: You don’t have to put it in. Alex: That one’s worse. That’s worse. Justin: No, it’s good. It’s perfect. I’ll explain this later. Alex: This doesn’t make much sense for our audio podcast. Can you quickly explain… Justin: I broke a crown and it keeps sliding out. I’m getting it fixed on Monday, but now I have this half… I won’t talk about it anymore. It’s great for audio. So what was I saying? There’s so much air- Pete: You’re part clown. You were saying you were part clown. Justin: The Hex just absorbed me. There’s so much air in the episode. I thought it was strange on the outside how the longest scenes were going and stuff. I don’t know why that was. Alex: That’s interesting. I had the opposite problem. I was okay with the stuff outside the Hex. Inside the Hex. I feel like they didn’t quite nail the mockumentary tone, and I think part of that is Wanda is depressed, so I get that. I think also it’s clearly falling apart, as we see, that the whole thing is dealing with. Justin: I know all about that. Alex: For the most part, this is no knock on her, but she’s been fantastic so far. I don’t think Elizabeth Olsen quite nailed the voice, and maybe that was a conscious choice because Wanda is not really into the sitcom format anymore. Versus Paul Bettany, who did that very funny scene outside of the funnel cake truck, where he’s kind of scratching his ear even though he doesn’t have an ear, taking off the microphone. He got it. She didn’t. Again, maybe a character choice, but it really felt like a lot of the structure of the jokes that have been hitting over the past couple of episodes didn’t quite work for me. Pete: I’m not going to sit here and let you take down Olsen’s acting choices. I thought the fact that she is playing unnerved heightens the tension of the scenes and doesn’t give it that just like, “Hey, this is The Office. Whoa, hey, looking at the camera, having fun.” Shit is going down. Alex: Hey, we’re having a good time here. Pete: I don’t appreciate you taking shots at her like that. Justin: Pete, very spicy when we do anything before dawn, it turns out. I mean, I agree with you. It does feel like a conscious choice in that the documentary sort of format for a sitcom is the closest to reality, and then that makes Wanda the most uncomfortable because they’re dealing with this actual real stuff that’s happening. I think it’s intentional. Alex: Leave it out. Careful. Pete: No, this whole catching his tooth as he’s talking is just such a nice thing in the morning. I can’t tell you. Alex: I just watched a whole episode of WandaVision where she went down to a horrible dungeon. This is the most [inaudible 00:07:15]. But I think what we got here in terms of her grief and her depression and everything are really good. Like I was kind of indicating before, I think the horrifying moments are really good. Pete, I thought of you when Wanda went down to the basement. You had to be alone screaming, “Don’t go down into the basement.” Pete: Yeah, why would you do that? Why would you do that? Justin: You got to go down to the basement. Pete: No, you do not have to… You fight her up here where she has no powers and secret charms. You fight her in the daylight. You don’t go into the witch’s secret room. That’s where all her power is. I mean, that’s fucking 101. Justin: It’s interesting to me, the end of it. I mean, I don’t know if we want to talk about that now, but the way we’re getting the blend of… Agatha Harkness is a straight up witch. The science of Vision with the magic of Agatha Harkness is a totally new sort of blending, I feel like. Pete: Justin, I think you’re really missing an opportunity to whistle while you talk, because- Justin: I don’t know if you know, but no one wants to do that. Alex: I agree with you. We talked about this a little bit the last episode, the fact that magic in the MCU is not strictly magic necessarily. It’s science masquerading as magic. And I’m sure that’s the direction they could go in. They also don’t need to have somebody be like, “Well you know, magic is actually this thing.” At this point we’re over a decade into the MCU. Pete: Just real quick, were you doing the Bunny’s voice from the TV show? Whose voice were you just doing? Justin: Señor Scratchy? Alex: Yeah, that was Sir Scratchy. [crosstalk 00:08:53]. Pete: [inaudible 00:08:56]. I really hope next episode bunny explains magic to us because [crosstalk 00:09:00]. Alex: Bunny might be something. I mean, he’s certainly something in the CapEx we talked about this before, but Nick Scratch is Agatha Harkness’s son. I think… We’re kind of jumping all over the place here, but I think we’re probably going to discover that there are a couple of lieutenants, like we’ve speculated, that are working for her. Justin: I think maybe Quicksilver is Nick Scratch, right? Alex: Yeah. I think that’s pretty fair. Also the mailman, the delivery man. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but he has Presto written on his name tag. So certainly he seems to be aware of what stuff is going on. I think we could write off… We were getting the name wrong. Herb, right? Not Hugh. I think we were calling him Hugh. But Herb seems to have been spelled by Agatha, so he may not be quite as much a lieutenant as we thought. But I don’t think she’s doing this alone. I think she has people working for her. Justin: And Ralph definitely seems like someone who we’re going to find out is perhaps a larger bad that maybe looking forward into the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Alex: Well who do you think… Again, we should probably go back and talk about individual moments throughout the episode, but since we’re here anyway, who do you think that could be? Do you think given the big song and dance, literal, at the end of the episode that, yes, Agatha Harkness is the villain, that’s what we’re following. Or is there another uber-bad beyond that? And if so, who is it? Justin: I think there is. And what do we think? Like Immortus is a possibility. It feels like we could get into some of the weirder Doctor strange villains are the good crossover points here. Or some of the larger like Chaos, all those big elemental galactic figures. I don’t know. Alex: The two that I’ve seen speculated about… One, everybody has mentioned Mephisto. That feels like a little bit of a reach to have a literal devil her. Pete: Well that’s a shitty choice. Alex: You just don’t like Mephisto. Pete: Damn right I don’t. Alex: The one that I find way more intriguing and makes a lot more sense to me is Nightmare, who is a Marvel comics villain, for those of you who don’t know, who is the literal manifestation of nightmares, has battled Doctor Strange a ton of times, Spider-Man, absolutely everybody. And if we’re going for a villain, this is a nightmare that she is living in, or she is trying to push it away and turn it into a dream. So that potentially makes a lot of sense to me. Justin: I thought of that too, but the only thing that I don’t think it’s nightmares is he doesn’t seem powerful enough to really warrant a show across into the movies character move. He’s not that big of a villain Alex: To throw out another possibility, it could be like Loki and Avengers. He was working for Thanos. We don’t get that Thanos reveal until later. So we don’t get an uber-bad in these last two episodes. It really is Agatha for the show, but Agatha is getting her power, was working with or for somebody else, potentially Nightmare. I’ll throw out another piece of evidence for you. So the commercial, this episode- Pete: Yeah, Nexus. Alex: Nexus, very on the news pointed to exactly what is going on now. We’ve had stuff throughout Wanda’s past we’ve speculated in terms of what’s been going on with the commercials. This very much seems to be the present. But in terms of a nexus in the Marvel universe, you got the Nexus of All Realities, which is where the Man-Thing lives and guards down in the Florida Everglades. Not in New Jersey usually, but I think we can fudge it a little bit. And that’s exactly what it sounds like. It’s this doorway to the multiverse, knowing that we’re going into the multiverse in Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness and also in Spider-Man 3, potentially. That certainly seems like a good indicator there. Pete: Now I’m all excited for man thing, and when we don’t get Man-Thing I’m going to be pissed at you. Justin: I could see us getting Man-Thing. Pete: No way, man. Alex: Give us Man-Thing. All the people are demanding. Don’t go on Twitter, Man-Thing is trending right now. Justin: Pete, we just got Agatha Harkness, like the old lady witch from a couple of random comics, and you’re like, “Man-Thing’s a bridge too far.” Alex: Pete, you love that, though. Agatha’s basically a granny, so you must be over the moon right now. Pete: All right. All right. That’s weird. No, but I do- Alex: No, you love grannies. You talk about it constantly. Justin: You love bad-ass grandma. Pete: I like bad-ass people and if it happens to be a grandma, that’s even better, okay? This is kind of exciting. I’m not really familiar with Agnes too much. This would be fun to kind of have… I’m excited for this witch-off that’s going to be coming in the next two episodes. Alex: No, wait, I wanted to… Just to close the loop here on this Nightmare conversation. The one thing that I wanted to throw out is- Justin: Alex, this is a podcast, not a nightmare conversation. Alex: What’s the difference? Pete: I’ve had nightmares about this. Alex: So the Nexus of All Realities could… There’s another area of the Marvel universe, I don’t think they’re directly connected. Maybe they are in some coming that I’m forgetting, but there’s a thing called the Crossroads of Reality that’s played into a lot of different stories, particularly Doctor Strange stories. I think that’s where it came from, and it was also a fantastic Hulk arc where he was stranded in the Crossroad of Realities and tried to find his happiness there. Absolutely fantastic. But I feel like they can kind of fudge the two together, and if I remember correctly, a lot of the Crossroads of Reality stuff was… At least led in some part to Nightmare. I remember him being part of some of those stories. Justin: He was always hanging out in there. Alex: Exactly. So I could see it all connecting in some way. Justin: I think it does. The Crossroads and the Nexus are even drawn very similarly. There’s always just random p…

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WandaVision - Episode 6: "All-New Halloween Spooktacular!" Feb 12, 2021

Show notes

Westview celebrates Halloween in the creepiest way possible on WandaVision Episode 6 – “All-New Halloween Spooktacular!” Wanda and Vision are on the outs, after the revelations of the last episode — and the reappearance of Wanda’s dead brother Pietro (played by Evan Peters) isn’t helping things. While Vision heads to the outskirts of Westview to figure out what’s really going on, Wanda goes trick r’ treating with Billy and Teddy, leading to the twins figuring out what their powers are. And outside the Hex, Jimmy, Monica and Darcy get closer to figuring out what Hayward is really up to. From Yo-Magic to Cataract, let’s break down all the WandaVision Easter Eggs, Marvel Comics spoilers, and much more. SUBSCRIBE TO MARVELVISION ON ITUNES, ANDROID, SPOTIFY, STITCHER, OR RSS. FOLLOW US ON TWITTER, INSTAGRAM AND FACEBOOK. SUPPORT OUR SHOWS ON PATREON. Full Episode Transcript Alex: Welcome to Marvel Vision, a podcast about Marvel, the MCU and WandaVision. Justin: WandaVision. Alex: We’re going to be talking about WandaVision, Episode six, all new Halloween Spooktacular. Justin: Oh, fun title. Alex: Fun title. I’m Alex. Justin: And I’m Justin. Pete: I’m Pete, Happy Halloween motherfuckers. Justin: Happy Halloweenie. Alex: So, as mentioned, we’re going to be talking about Episode six, usual spoiler warning here, we’re probably going to jump pretty much right into it, so go watch the episode, come back here. We’re going to be talking about highlights, we’re going to be talking about Easter eggs, we’re going to be talking about theories- Justin: Low lights. Alex: Low lights, absolutely, all that stuff. But first off, we’ve been waking up pretty early to do this, I’ve been really appreciating this wake and Wanda, you know what I’m talking about? Pete: Oh my God. Don’t. Justin: Yeah. Another day, wake and Wanda, man. I love it. Kicking off the weekend. Pete: So hardcore man. Justin: It is hardcore. Pete: Getting up early. Wanda. Alex: Now Pete, it seems like, I don’t know if you want to talk about it this here, but it seems like you were very emotionally affected by this episode of WandaVision. Pete: Well, it’s just crazy, this idea of living in a bubble and when you go outside of the bubble, all this crazy stuff is going to happen, is just… with everything that is happening right now, it’s just weird how some friends seem to be bubble affected, others acting like there isn’t a bubble. I don’t- Justin: Oh, shit. Is this a Pete… are you having a PeteVision? Pete: Yeah. It’s just… the show is very crazy right now. It’s- Justin: Because I feel a little bit like Quicksilver. Pete: Yeah? You do? Alex: You definitely have the hair. Justin: Exactly. Pete: Cool. Well, yeah. I wouldn’t say you’re the fastest of the group. You’re a quick guy. You won’t shut the fuck up. Justin: I can’t believe that landed in a compliment. Oh, there it is. Okay, great. Pete: Yeah, yeah. Wait. Pete. Justin: And Alex is the Agnes. Alex: How was that? Good? Justin: It was good. Alex: Actually, yeah. Justin: It was too good to have just done it randomly. Alex: I’ve been practicing for weeks, at this point. Six weeks. So broad strokes about the episode, as you can tell from the title this is the Halloween episode. It is set in the 2000s. We were- Justin: Did not see that coming. Alex: Well, we were a little off in our guesses in terms of what this was, because at least for the opening, very specifically Malcolm in the Middle. Justin: A hundred percent. And I was not ready for that. I guess what it was is, last episode we did the Full House and Family Ties. There was a double… and this just jumped forward past where we thought, and Malcolm in the Middle, wow. Strong choice. Alex: Strong choice down to Billy and Teddy doing the narration directly to camera, which I thought was super fun. Also- Justin: Billy and Tommy? Alex: Tommy? I keep doing that in my head. Justin: It’s okay. Names are hard. And I guess you’re just a comic fan like the rest of us. Pete: Yeah. Alex: Oh, I’m sorry that I keep mistaking two members of the ARG Avengers who have very similar names. Justin: Don’t try to flex with more knowledge to make up for your mistake. It doesn’t work that way. Alex: [inaudible 00:03:14] Pete: I’m having fun. This is great. Justin: Alex, I didn’t mean to do that. It’s the PeteVision. He made me do it. He made me do it. I would never correct you like that. Alex: Pete. It’s all Pete. So Billy and Tommy doing the narration directly to the camera- Pete: Can you fucken move that wire that’s right in the middle of your fucken shot? It’s driving me nuts. Alex: Who are you talking to? Pete: You, man. The wire that’s right running down the front of your fucken cameras. It’s driving me insane. Alex: The wire? Pete: Yeah. There’s a… right there. Alex: This is great for our audio podcast. This thing over there? Pete: Yeah. Yeah. What is that? Alex: It’s a beam gorgeous light that is lighting me up, Pete. Pete: Oh, Jesus Christ. Justin: This is- Alex: I cannot bend light the way that you can. Justin: See, we can’t do this, this early in the morning because nothing makes sense. Alex: Lots going on this episode, just a broad [inaudible 00:04:03] what’s going on, Pietro is here now. It is evident who Pete is from the X-men series, a lot of mystery that we’ll talk about, I’m sure in a moment. He seems to know what’s going on in Westview. He is talking to Wanda about that throughout the episode, but he’s also acting as the cool brother-in-law, Uncle Dude hanging out with the kids, kids start to develop their powers, Vision tries to make his way outside of Westview, because very poorly, and as a result, Wanda expands the hex, capturing Darcy as well as most of the members of S.W.O.R.D. Hayward makes it out with two people, probably that we don’t 100% know, Jimmy Woo and Monica Rambeau manage to make it out, they’ve had a break with S.W.O.R.D. this episode, after they’re kicked out. They are going to need- Justin: We’re on a break. We’re on a break Pete: We’re on a break. Alex: They’re going to need Monica’s contact outside of Westview, so we’ll probably pick up on that and I’m sure have some theories there, so outside of Westview, where things are getting real bad, inside of Westview, things getting even worse and it’s still up in the air exactly who is behind this? Who is controlling this? Who is in charge? What is causing this, as we go through the episode. Justin: We’re going to speculate. Yeah. This episode was interesting. It started to… the format starting to really fall apart. The way this episode ended, I was like, “Oh, that’s not an ending place.” Pete: Yeah. It was a very interesting ending, where I was like, “Wait, what?” And then I was like, “Is there something pass the credits or something, because it feels like there should be a button of some kind.” Justin: I always watch all the credits, including the Dutch ones, because maybe that’s where it’s buried. Pete: Oh, nice. Alex: You’ve got to read all of them. That’s the important part. Justin: Duh. I got to learn so many languages. Alex: It somewhere in there. Justin: Yeah, exactly. Alex: I agree with you, but we’ve talked about the structure of the season and we’re not going to fully know how it lands obviously, until the final episode, but I do feel like here, we’re kind of getting the end of the second act of the series, but also we’re just kicking into high gear, into the MCU movie. To my mind it feels like this episode, the last three episodes, that’s the MCU movie, the rest of it, there’s no slagging off at all, but the rest of it was set up that was the setting up the House of Cards, so that everything can start tumbling down this episode. And I think that’s what we’re going to see happening. Justin: Yeah. And it is interesting we talked about how the different eras of television bends to more realistic storytelling. And then but we didn’t say, and it makes total sense, to make the jump into full movie storytelling, I think it is to your point, what’s happening here. But it makes for… it’s not TV. It’s fully- Alex: It’s for HBO. Justin: Exactly. Wow. How dare you. You’re about to get hexed in a major way from the Disney Corporation. But it does… it makes for a whole other way of telling the story. We’re just going to get little chunks of a movie basically, I think, going forward. Pete: Yay. Movie chunks. Justin: Yeah. Alex: So what [inaudible 00:07:01]. Justin: Love [inaudible 00:07:03] Alex: In the episode, what was something that you thought was particularly interesting or dramatically or plot wise? Justin: Pete, what cars did you like? Pete: I really identified with the crying lady who was putting up just frozen in a one move thing, where she was trying to put up Halloween decorations. Justin: You identified with her? Pete: Yeah, because I feel like because… time is weird right now, so it’s like, “Oh,- Alex: Are you okay? Justin: Yeah, Pete’s [crosstalk 00:07:29] Pete: We’re all in this loop that we can’t stop and it’s just so weird and what are days anymore? I really identified with her and her single tear. Justin: Wow. That was the most haunting moment of the episode. I think they did a good job of making it actually scary. I don’t think this is a purposeful connection, but it felt very Stranger Things to me. The vision sections here, because it was just like the Halloween connection and the way that they just went from very normal look/feeling and looking things into a very unsettling imagery by just freezing people. Unfreezing them when you don’t expect it. Pete: Yeah, that was really… just seeing people frozen, that was very unsettling. Alex: And I like how it hasn’t exactly been a slow progression, but the progression through the episodes where they’ve let things fall apart, where we start to get hints that things weren’t right, the reality was breaking down into little bits for the first couple of episodes and then it felt like the lid got popped off there in that last episode, where it’s with that moment where Agnes says, “Hey, do you want me to take it again?” Where now we know there are people who are aware, they know they’re in a sitcom, we get that from whatever’s going on with Pietro this episode, we get it from Agnes, we also get it from [Hugh 00:08:48], I believe that’s the name of the character which I thought that was interesting. Alex: We got a little bit of that when he was trimming the hedges a couple of episodes back, but he seems to be on maybe the same kind of level of awareness as Agnes, in terms of the sitcom world. But also, like you’re saying, with Vision walking out of Westview, seeing outside of wherever Wanda is, things are frozen and people are just trapped. And that’s it. And that’s terrifying. Justin: And while we’re talking about this, maybe it makes sense to talk about the commercial, the Go [Group 00:09:23] commercial, because that was ominous as well, where you have some Claymation characters, he’s just hungry, the kid on the island and he gets a YoMagic yogurt thing and just we watch slowly die. Pete: Do you know how hard it is to peel off those things, especially when you’re on a deserted island. Justin: Exactly. I was like, “If there’s a character Pete’s going to identify with, it’s going to be the kid who can’t open the yogurt.” Pete: Oh, my God. Yeah. I feel like I’m that kid waiting for Black Widow to come out. It’s just… I’m going to slowly turn into a skeleton. Justin: And Pete, I’ll be down to your apartment to open your yogurts. Obviously from outside your front door. Pete: Well, make sure you open them and then leave them. There’s no point in [crosstalk 00:10:02], Jesus Christ. That would be… kids of the neighborhood walking by, “Oh, there’s the guy with the bunch of open yogurts.” Crazy old Pete. Justin: “What’s your main form of income?” “I open a friend of mine’s yogurts and leave them on his welcome mat.” Alex: You know it will a fun surprise Justin, just to wrap it all together, fill one of those yogurt with a bunch of actual black widows. So it’ll be, “Oh, [crosstalk 00:10:25]. Justin: It’s a tie in. It’s a product tie in. Pete: I walk with that together. Alex: What do I think is going on there? Because I feel like a lot of the other commercials, if a [inaudible 00:10:36], and this is the popular interim theory as we’re sort of progressing through Wanda’s history with all of these commercials, all the traumatic events she’s dealt with, what are you doing? What is this thumb? Pete: There’s this- Justin: The light. Pete: … beam of light streaking down your thing and it is… I don’t know what to do with it, and it’s just… Justin: I will say, Alex, did you shoot a gun into the sky recently? It looks like a bullet hole. Pete: [inaudible 00:11:00] 77. It’s just like Pete have WandaVision this morning- Alex: I was just so excited about this episode about WandaVision, I was like, “Oh, darn it. Living rabbits.” Pete: Dude, when you were looking for places to live, do you have a single beam of light that will come down into my basement? Alex: I’m sorry, when you looked for your apartment, you asked about the breathing calls, right? Pete: Yes, of course. That’s smart. Justin: It’s suffocating in here. Alex: I’m going announce to get air if there are no holes in my apartment. Justin: That’s great. If we can move past the shaft of light. I imagine it’s shining down on a button that says upload or something like that, or don’t download. Alex: Can we get back to YoMagic? What’s going on there? Justin: So I don’t know. This one is confusing me a little bit, because I didn’t know if it was a way of showing that the town’s people are slowly dying because they’re not eating, because the magic is killing them, which I thought was interesting and ties into the Vision being like, “You have to help these people,” when he gets past the bubble. And maybe that’s where it will turn and the Scarlet Witch will be like, “I have to stop doing this. I’m killing this town of people.” Either that, or maybe the magic is killing the Scarlet Witch. And that’s maybe about a reference to her past or something. And we’re going to find out that it’s related to her powering up in this show. Pete: It was just weird how the shark was like, “I remember hunger.” He’s always full. What is that about? That doesn’t make any sense. Alex: Whatever is going on there, I thought it was great to get in a Claymation commercial. I thought that was really a fun thing. Pete: Do you think it’s a tease for a full Claymation episode? Alex: Oh, that will be great. I didn’t see [inaudible 00:12:58] Justin: Oh yes, definitely. Alex: Well what we’re… if we’re moving to the 2000s and the 2010s as we all know the majority of the sitcoms in the 2010s were Claymation. That was the popular form. Justin: That’s true. It started with the California Raisins, if you don’t what that is, I guess Google it or don’t. Just guess. Pete: Don’t Google it. Justin: Or guess what it is. Pete: Don’t Google. Alex: It actually also ended with the California Raisins. Justin: That’s absolutely right. Alex: That’s a little sitcom history for you all. Justin: Do you think that they are going to push into 2010 sitcoms or are we done with it? Alex: Yeah, I think next episode is going to be The Office style episode with confessionals and things. We’ve seen… there’s been footage in the trailers of Wanda talking directly to camera, so I do think we’re going to get that, but that’s going to be the final iteration of sitcom. Pete: You mean we’re going to skip past Friends, like no Central Perk, nothing? Justin: Well, let me just say it- Alex: What is different about Friends that any of… I don’t know. Justin: What an indictment of Friends from Aflix. He hates friends. Pete: The guy hates Friends. Justin: You didn’t watch all of Friends? Alex: I didn’t. Justin: Wow. Maybe I don’t know who you are- Pete: Did you even get Justin’s reference from them before? Alex: Could it be any more obvious? Pete: Oh, wow. How could you do that? How…

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WandaVision - Episode 5: "On A Very Special Episode..." Feb 05, 2021

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Things start breaking down in Westview as we recap WandaVision Episode 5, “On A Very Special Episode…” While the sitcom world transitions to the ’80s, outside Monica Rambeau tries to figure out what happened to her while she was under Wanda’s control, leading to a showdown with Hayward. And inside the Hex, when Tommy and Billy begin to grow up too fast, Vision starts to realize things are very, very wrong leading to a series of confrontations — and a surprise that we bet you didn’t see coming. Let’s break down all the WandaVision Easter eggs (that X-Men cameo!!), comic book references (Sparky!!), MCU references (Lagos!!) and more. SUBSCRIBE TO MARVELVISION ON ITUNES, ANDROID, SPOTIFY, STITCHER, OR RSS. FOLLOW US ON TWITTER, INSTAGRAM AND FACEBOOK. SUPPORT OUR SHOWS ON PATREON. Full Episode Transcript: Alex: Welcome to MarvelVision, a podcast about Marvel, the MCU, and specifically WandaVision episode five, On a Very Special Episode. I am Alex. Justin: I’m Justin. Pete: I’m Pete. Alex: And man alive, guys, this was a big one. This is a potential universe changing episode of WandaVision. Justin: Our universe. Alex: Yeah. What are you guys doing differently after this episode? I feel like just a new, fresh person, honestly. Justin: I got a dead dog as a pet. I was like, let me just jump to the end. Alex: Nice. I electrocuted my dead dog. Pete: I’m going to go back to sleep. Alex: Oh man, this is very early for Pete, but we’re very excited to talk about this, because again, this is a huge episode of WandaVision. Requisite spoiler warning here. We’re not going to talk about every single aspect of the episode. We’re not going to recap beat by beat, but we are going to get right into spoilers and talk through it. And there’s a lot of big things that happen. So if you haven’t watched episode five, again, episode five, On a Very Special Episode, check it out right now, and then head back here. Broad strokes, here’s what’s going on in this episode, just as a reminder. So now we’re splitting our time between the sitcom world of WandaVision and the real world of the MCU, which of course is our real- Justin: Our reality, yes. Pete: Very meta. Alex: In reality, Monica Rambeau is out of the Wanda Hex. We have a name called Hex. We’ll talk about that in a second. Darcy and Jimmy are trying to help her out and figure out what’s going on with Wanda. There’s a big confrontation outside with Hayward, who attacks Wanda inside, and we find out a lot of more…. There’s a lot of Easter eggs, a lot of questions there that, again, we’ll get back to in a moment. Inside the sitcom world, we’re in the 80s, Tommy and Billy growing up real quick. Lots of weirdness going on here, both with the residents of Westview and with Wanda and with Tommy and Billy. Agnes is getting more in the mix of everything that’s going on. And Vision is definitely becoming self-aware. Alex: We get a couple of notes that we’ve certainly wondered about. Some answers, more questions. And then the biggest one of all at the end, I don’t know if we want to talk about this right now, or we want to save it for a little later [crosstalk 00:02:29]- Pete: Probably save it. Alex: But I’ll mention what it is. You all know if you’ve seen it. But Evan Peters shows up as Quicksilver, which is wild. Justin: It is wild. Alex: Let’s let’s put it a little pin in that and come back because we have a huge discussion. First of all, as we do, let’s talk about the episode. What’d you think? I thought this was phenomenal. I was so excited that they’re bringing everything together, splitting the time between the two worlds. This is great. Justin: So good. And a lot of people were like, “This is moving so slowly.” There’s all this criticism of how weird it is. It’s all laying the groundwork, and that’s the confidence that you get from a Marvel show, from the MCU, where they’re like, “We understand you might not get everything right from the first one, two episodes,” but it’s all worth it when they start to weave this stuff in and it’s just so much happening and so many revelations happening in this episode. Pete: Guys, I want to go back to the 80s. You know, Jazzercise, you could give your kids liquor. I mean, those were the days, you know what I mean? Justin: If the Vision grabbed your temples, you’d be like, “Hi, I’m Pete. I like it here. Please leave me here. I want to live here in this sitcom world.” Alex: Vision, get it together, right? We’re all stuck in this. Stop fighting it. Go get an Orange Julius, Julius. Things are going to be cool. Yeah, instead of calling your family and letting them know where you are, you’re going to immediately run off to a 7-Eleven Justin: Just have someone punch me right in the crotch before the commercial break. That’s all I’m living for right now. I’m the funny one. Alex: To the point you were saying, Justin, I love how fast they’re whipping through story. I think going back to the first episode, we were like, “They’re going to be in sitcom land for eight episodes, and then we’ll see what the revelation is in episode nine.” Nope. They pretty much announced how quickly they’re going through it, I think, with episode four. We talked about this last time. This is only my suspicion here, but it really does feel like you got this first act, which is sitcom land, something’s wrong. The second act is Wanda versus Vision. And I still do think we’re going to see a twist here that this is not all Wanda, even though they’re doubling down very hard on it in this episode in particular. Justin: But I do think we’re seeing what the cracks there in the theory that Wanda’s bad. Hayward’s clearly an overarching villain here, and I think Agnes is- Pete: Agnes is in on it. Justin: At the core of this somehow, obviously, as well. So I do think we’re going to get… Even the mailman at the end of sort of like… He seems suspect. And I just don’t trust mailmen in general. [crosstalk 00:05:01]. Alex: What’s their agenda? That’s what I want to know. Justin: They’re always at my house. Alex: Deliver mail. Justin: Every day they got something to give me? Suspect. Pete: Well, if you didn’t order all those crazy Amazon packages, maybe they wouldn’t have to be there. Justin: I’m on my computer and they show up in real life from this guy. Alex: Let’s talk about Agnes. I think that’s a good place to start, because we get a lot of Easter eggs here about that. Certainly there’s been a lot of speculate… Pete: I mean… Alex: Yes, Pete, Pete: Let’s talk about that Jazzercise outfit. That was glorious. It brings me right back. Justin: Brings you back? What are you talking about? It’s not like you were an adult in the 80s Jazzercising. Pete: No, but my mom was. It was fun to see those outfits. Like, “Hey, you know what? Kids will shut up if you give them booze.” I was like, “Oh yeah, this was the time.” Justin: Could you send us that picture of your mom in the Jazzercise outfit that you keep talking about? Pete: That’s creepy and no. Justin: You said it. You said it. Pete: No, no, no. When you say it it’s creepy. Justin: You said it, it’s creepier. Pete: The binkies bit was just fun television, you know what I mean? The dad coming in with them in both ears. I mean, that’s classic physical comedy. Alex: I do want to talk about, actually, the easter eggs with Agnes in a second, but to the point that you’re making, Pete, I love getting back to the sitcom tropes here. I think something that they’ve been pushing really hard that I think a lot of viewers have been struggling with… Forgive me, I know Pete’s going to yell at me for this, but the jokes aren’t very funny most of the time, but that’s okay. They are very much 80s sitcom style jokes. They perfectly fit the era. Pete: Still hold up. I don’t know what the you’re talking about, not funny. Alex: Nope. Pete: Did you see those binkies? Justin: Stop saying binky as such an adult man. Well let me say this. I think the jokes in the first couple of episodes when the sitcom world- Alex: Hey Justin, take the binkie out of your ear. Justin: Those are headphones. In the first couple episodes, the jokes were strong when the sitcom reality was strong. And now that Wanda’s attention is split between so many things and there’s all these problems starting to emerge, I think this is purposeful. She doesn’t have as much time to mentally write good sitcom jokes. I really think that’s… My takeaway from this episode is the stories in the sitcom are getting dumber because Wanda’s attention is split. Alex: Yeah, she’s got so much going on. The little writer’s room in her head is having a tough time keeping up with all of it. Justin: How’s the writers’ room in your head, Pete? They’ve been passing out booze for a couple of seasons now, let me be honest. Alex: Let’s get back to the Agatha/Agnes easter eggs. We’ve certainly spent- Justin: Dropping Agatha [crosstalk 00:07:39]. Alex: A lot of people have speculated that she is Agatha Harkness from the comics who ends up taking care of the kids. I believe takes care of Wanda and Pietro’s kids. Here she straight up calls herself auntie Agnes, says she has some tricks up her sleeve. But the big thing, I think, for overarching with the show that you were mentioning, Justin, is she seems to be aware in some way. I don’t know if she’s the villain necessarily, but she certainly has known what is going on and does know what’s going on. We talked about this with the last episode… Not last episode, two episodes back as well, where people seem to have different levels of awareness of what’s happening. But Agatha… I keep calling her Agatha. Agnes is definitely at the top of that chain. Justin: And we see in this episode that Wanda is comfortable enough with her to use her powers in front of her. There’s definitely some… I feel like she’s being manipulated by Agnes in some way. I think when the Vision calls out that she used her powers in front of her, that was a moment where it felt like Wanda wasn’t quite sure why she did something, which is the only instance of that. And I also thought it was telling the Agnes is like, “Do you want me to take that again?” Because I should have the kids in my care. She wants the kids, the kids are her focus. She seems like she’s operating in and around Vision and Wanda so that she can have more time have control over the kids. Pete: Oh, that’s interesting. But you know, as a classically trained actor, the take it from the top is something that is used in stage and television. Wouldn’t you say that? Justin: Thank you, yes. Alex: That’s a great inside baseball tip right there, Pete. Pete: But this show does love sitting in these awkward moments, these kind of painful moments of like, “Let’s take it from the top.” “What are you talking about?” [crosstalk 00:09:25]. Oh God, yeah. Justin: When the reality breaks. It’s almost like they were going to go back to one. Pete: Look at this guy. Alex: Like you’re saying, Pete, I think this episode did this really well in particular. We got, in the first episode, just that, “No stop it, stop it” moment that broke the reality. Here we’re going back and forth from the camera angles to what’s going on in the scenes. It comes in close and has a more modern style whenever the reality starts breaking down. And it’s pretty much constant. It’s non-stop here. To the point that it’s alarming to watch, and I think purposely so, because it’s breaking cinema convention. You’re getting all of these things all at the same time. Justin: But what also, I think, is so cool about this is cinema convention caught up with reality over the course of these decades of television they’re dealing with it, so that modern TV is meant to feel as much like everyday life in a lot of ways. You get hand held camera work and all that now. So as reality is creeping in on the sitcoms world of the show, the same pace that reality crept in reality looking television crept in on TV. It’s a little bit of a mindfuck, And I think that I’m in a Hex of some sort. Alex: It’s catching on. Justin: But it makes everything really works so well, I think. Alex: Yeah, the other thing… I know I’ve been doubling down on this pretty much every episode, but one thing that I really liked about this one in particular, given everything that was going on, it really had a very strong theme about grief and how you deal with grief and it hit it on every level. I know a couple of people commented and pushed back on me, both in our Patreon Slack and on Twitter about- Pete: It’s my favorite thing to do. Alex: [Crosstalk 00:11:10] love… Oh, was it all you, Pete, with different alts accounts? Pete: Burners? I love pushing back on you, regardless of what’s happening. Alex: I didn’t love last episode because I liked what they did, and I thought there were some really smart choices, but particularly when it came to Monica Rambeau, I liked what they set up, but it didn’t feel like it panned out over the whole entire episode. The theme with her and her grief over her mother’s death and missing that really played out in this episode. It played out with Wanda, of course, in the quote unquote real world. But it also played out in the sitcom world, which is what I think the last episode was missing a little bit, because we get this whole storyline with Sparky that ties in with the kids, with Wanda, with Vision, with everything. Very smartly written across the board, and I liked that quite a bit. Pete: Well, you guys had to be nervous when you saw that dog because you know the rule in television, that dog’s got to die so those kids learn about responsibility. That was a scary moment when they’re teaching this dog tricks. I was like, “This is going too well.” [crosstalk 00:12:09]. Alex: Is that a thing that regularly happens, they kill dogs on television? Pete: That’s how I learned about responsibility. Justin: Yeah. That’s how Pete learned how to kill a dog. Alex: I do remember there was an episode of full house where they got a dog and then by the end it was just a bloody smear on the pavement. Pete: You got it, dude. Justin: To your point, Alex, I do think Monica dealing with her mom’s death makes her the only character that really, I think, sympathizes and understands what Wanda’s actually going through. And we see that in the scene, the confrontation scene at the end of the episode, and that’s why Monica is so important, and she’s really the leader of the Jimmy and Darcy triumvirate that are going to be sort of our outside heroes here. Alex: Do you want to talk about outside the Hex a little bit, because I think there were so many different things going on there that we possibly could plumb through. Certainly, like you mentioned, there’s the grief thing. I do love the three of them working together. I think that’s super fun. Justin: Great trio. Pete: Oh, for sure. Alex: The Hex, I’m sure comic book fans caught onto this, but just in case, there are people who are not diehard comic book fans listening to this podcast. Wanda’s powers in the comics are called hex powers. They riff on this a little bit when Hayward and Jimmy Woo talk about does she have a cute nickname or anything like that? No, she doesn’t. She’s not really called Scarlet Witch in the MCU, though I expect we’ll be calling her that by the end of the series. So that was all fun. But there’s a bunch of questions that get brought up as well. Little things that are teases. One, Monica goes through these scans after she comes out of the Hex, and it seems like maybe she is empty from the scan, they need to do blood tests again. We know from the comics, she becomes Captain Marvel, Photon, bunch of different names, Monica Rambeau sometimes. So this certainly seems to be the first hint of her powers. But what do you think’s going on here? Are we actually going to see her power up in this series? Justin: I think so. That’s what the test results really told me. And I think she’s going to be called Photon, which is what her mom’s nickname was, and I think she’ll take…

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WandaVision - Episode 4: "We Interrupt This Program" Jan 29, 2021

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WandaVision Episode 4 takes things outside the dome, and officially brings Monica Rambeau, Jimmy Woo and Darcy Lewis into the series. Geraldine, a.k.a. Monica, post-Blip, discovers that something is very wrong in WestView. Things only get weirder from there as SWORD tries to find out who is manipulating Wanda, leading to a shocking twist. Join us as we break down all the WandaVision Easter eggs, spoilers and comic book references in “We Interrupt This Program.” SUBSCRIBE TO MARVELVISION ON ITUNES, ANDROID, SPOTIFY, STITCHER, OR RSS. FOLLOW US ON TWITTER, INSTAGRAM AND FACEBOOK. SUPPORT OUR SHOWS ON PATREON. Full Episode Transcript: Alex: Welcome to Marvel Vision, a podcast about the MCU, Marvel, and specifically WandaVision. We’re going to be talking about episode four of WandaVision. Pete: We interrupt this program. Alex: Thank you, Pete. Justin: That’s… Wow, way to show and not tell, Pete. Alex: I’m Alex. Justin: I’m Justin. Pete: I’m Pete. Justin: Shouty Pete. Alex: And we are very excited to talk about episode four of season one, maybe the only season, we don’t know. Right now it’s a limited series, we’ll see what happens. Justin: Alex, stop talking about these harsh realities. Pete: Yeah, geez. Alex: Maybe this is the final season of humanity. Pete: Oh, wow man. Justin: Jesus, Alex is going through it. This show is in your head. Alex: Pretty soon, as soon as my reality bending powers, as soon as my hex powers develop, that’s it for all of you, that’s all I’m saying. Pete: Well, if you keep eating those sketchy ass Oreos, yeah, I’m sure it might happen for you. Alex: Fair enough. Justin: Yup, that’s how it works. Alex: So, here’s what we’re going to do, first of all, go watch WandaVision episode four, because we’re going to be talking very broad strokes, probably immediately veer off into theories and things like that, there’s so much to talk about in this episode. Justin: Certainly. Alex: So definitely watch that first, because spoilers past this point. We probably could talk quality-wise what we thought about this episode versus the other episodes, as well as theories, speculation, and Easter eggs and things like that, but before we do, it’s time for everybody’s favorite segment, or rather, Pete’s favorite segment, which is corrections and additions. Corrections and additions. Pete: We interrupt this program! Justin: Just so we’re clear, this is when Alex walks us through things that he found, that he said incorrectly, and Pete and I don’t ever acknowledge any mistakes. Pete: That’s right. Alex: Yup, pretty much. So the first one, right off. This is one that we called right off at the beginning of the third episode, I griped about the lack of episode titles for the show. Justin: Yes. Alex: The little caveat here is we actually taped episode three of our podcast before they released episode titles, now they are there. Justin: Yes. Alex: I’ll read them off, so I don’t get them wrong. The first one is Filmed Before A Live Studio Audience, second one is Don’t Touch That Dial, third one, Now In Color, and the fourth one is We Interrupt This Pro- Pete: We interrupt this program! Justin: He gets it, he gets it. Alex: I feel like there’s a pattern there, I haven’t really caught on to what it is yet, but there’s definitely something going on. Justin: I can’t think of anything because of all the shouting from Pete. Alex: Regardless, though, that’s what’s going on. Obviously, they’re calling on TVTropes throughout there, so that’s pretty cool. A couple of other things, these are little Easter eggs people have mentioned to us either on Twitter, or on our Patreon slack, Patreon.com/comicbookclub. Come join us, hang out, we’ve been speculating wildly about- Justin: It’s fun. Alex: It is fun. About WandaVision. So one thing, this is from the first episode, a lot of folks caught on to this, but Agnes called out if she, I’m forgetting the exact line, but she mentions some beer, and she says the beer would be named June 2nd, after her anniversary with Ralph, that was the start of the Salem witch trials, a lot of people caught on to this, certainly there’s been a fair amount of speculation about what’s going on with Agnes, I’m sure we’ll have more this episode as well, but yeah, there you go. More evidence that maybe she is not just a regular resident of Westview, but perhaps the witch, Agatha Harkness from the comic books. Justin: Hundred percent. Alex: This is one that nobody thought it was as interesting as I did, but I thought it was interesting. The name of the town they’re in is Westview, which is W V, just like Wandavision, I don’t think that’s a clue. Pete: Oh! Justin: No, that’s just letters, that’s just reading letters. Alex: No, but what the show is doing really well, even through episode four, without jumping ahead, is they’re layering in things that aren’t necessarily like, this is a clue, this is a clue, but just additional things that show that they are paying attention to every detail that is going on. Justin: That’s right, and that’s not an Easter egg, that’s what we call an Easter basket, which is the not fun part, but a detail that did happen. Alex: It’s equally tasty though. Justin: True, eat your whole basket, and I mean the whole thing. Alex: Start with the basket, eat your basket before you get your candy, that’s what my parents always said. We’re Jewish. Justin: I save the basket for last. Pete: I want to just say though, in the beginning of the ep, when they ask the cops where they’re from, and they say Eastview, I touched my heart, because Eastview mall is where I grew up and would ride my bike to to play video games and stuff like that, so that was just like, a little personal shout out. Alex: Are you an Easter egg, Pete? Justin: Yeah, he’s our Easter egg, and eventually he’s going to hatch into a full blown Easter monster. Pete: They had this creepy theme song though that always fucked with me, it was like ‘Eastview mall, just around the corner’, like it was this creepy thing that you couldn’t escape if you ever went there and I did feel like I was in this kind of like, time warp trap thing playing video games for hours on end. Justin: There it is. Alex: I’m very excited about this, you’re going to bring the Jersey to this podcast going forward, Pete. The last two things that I wanted to mention, I’m sure there are plenty more Easter eggs that we have not mentioned in the first three episodes of the podcast, one that I thought was super neat, as the color was changing at the end of the second episode, you could see the hydro facility that Pietro and Wanda were held at, it’s even like, legitimately the shot from [crosstalk 00:05:18] that they put onto the wallpaper there. Justin: Very cool. Alex: Certainly bringing credence to some theories, perhaps we’re going in other directions with this episode, which we’ll get to later on. Then the last one that I saw a couple people catch onto on the internet, the house number is 2800, which I believe has long been rumored to be the universe number of the MCU, if you wanted to put it in with the comics and everything, but specifically it’s a call out to the fact that the house in Vision, the series by Tom King and Gabriel Walta was 616, after Earth 616, which is the designation of the main Marvel universe in the comics. So just, again, I think it’s not pointing to anything, it’s not like suddenly they’re going to go into comic book world, so much as we’re getting more fun Easter eggs and attention paid to detail. Justin: And one other thing, the headpiece from what’s his name… Alex: Grim Reaper. Justin: Grim Reaper, the vision series, is at least partially, perhaps used as a source material, here, was hidden in the credit sequence, I want to say, the title sequence. Alex: Yeah, I feel like we talked about this actually. Justin: Did we? Alex: Because we went on a whole riff about Wonder Man and whether they’re going to turn Vision into Wonder Man at the end or something like that. Justin: Yes. Alex: But again, there’s probably many more things we didn’t catch onto, let’s move into episode four, before we talk about plot points or anything like that, because a lot of stuff is going on here. This of course, is the episode that does, as I speculated… took us outside- Pete: Don’t you fucking do that. Justin: Hold for applause, hold for applause. Pete: Don’t you fucking do that. Don’t like, list the points that like, ‘Oh, I missed all this’, and then be like, ‘Oh, I got this one thing right!’ Justin: I mean, you’ve got to give it to him. Alex: I’m allowed to be proud of myself. Justin: You’ve got to call it when you see it. Alex: I’ve got to get it back somehow, that cred. Justin: How many times did Babe Ruth point to the outfield, and then he finally hit a home run, right? Alex: Hey, one out of a hundred is still one out of a hundred. Justin: That’s a hell of a motto. Alex: This is the episode that takes us outside, we loop back to the very beginning, we go back even to the blip, which I’m sure we’ll talk about. Big deal right there. Followed Geraldine, she disappears into the dome. We get to see outside with Darcy, from the Thor movies- Justin: Kat! Pete: Kat! Alex: We get to see Jimmy Woo from the Ant-Man, Ant-Man and The Wasp. I was about to say Ant-Man movies, but he’s just in the second one. They’re all teaming up together with some new folks, trying to figure out what’s going on in this dome, by the end of the episode, we loop back to where we left off with Geraldine, aka Monica Rambeau, though we kind of knew that based on casting, popping out there and saying “Wanda, it’s all Wanda, this is her fault,” and that’s where we leave off, so that’s the broad strokes of the plot. What did you guys think about this episode? Very different episode, obviously, because we’re not in sitcom land at all at this point. Pete: Yeah, I was like, geeking out when we saw the dust reverse from the movies where it was like people coming back. I was like, holy shit. I thought it was really cool the way we’ve been in this separate TV world, and then went into what we know and love from the movies. So I thought that was a really cool, crazy way to start. Justin: It was- Alex: How’d you feel about this one, Justin? Justin: There are two things that really stood out to me. One, the way that they were able to just really drop into the Marvel cinematic universe tone here. Having the first three episodes are very much their own thing, and then instantly, it was like, oh, this is a series of scenes that could be in any marvel movie, and I love that. It’s amazing that they are able to do that so quickly, and how much I as a viewer, love the one liners, action, everything’s movie very quickly, but at the same time, we’re really getting character moments, they’re so good at that in all of the Marvel shows and movies. And the second point is just how they wrap everything up in this episode so we can move forward from here into a totally… the actual story of the show. Alex: I’ve been worried about Pete yelling at me all day at this point that I’m about to say, he’s definitely going to be like, no, fuck you. Justin: Yes. Pete: Oh, this is very exciting. Alex: So I’ll just pull the bandaid off here. I really like this episode, I agree with you guys, just seeing the MCU literal cinematic nature of it, getting the cold open, going to the Marvel studios logo, going into the main episode, wrapping everything up, well filmed, I loved a lot of moments that I’ll definitely be talking about, I also think this was the weakest episode of the series so far. Pete: What the fucking shit are you talking about?! Justin: That was like when your dog is waiting for food and you hold it over his nose for like a couple minutes, and then finally throw it in his big old mouth. Pete: We can’t keep living in crazy town, we need some reality so we can enjoy it! Alex: Here’s why, I agree with you, I think this episode was necessary- Pete: So don’t say that- Alex: I liked it, I didn’t hate this episode, I’m not saying it’s garbage. Pete: It sounds like that’s what you’re saying. Alex: What I’m saying is something that we’ve been talking about, or at least I’ve been talking about with the first three episodes, is- Pete: Sounds like you’ve been talking about it. Alex: I’ve been trying to look at them as like, an episodic nature, like how do they work as an episode of television. Because even though they produced Falcon and The Winter Soldier first, this is the first chance we’ve seen Marvel studios do a TV show. So are they trying to do the classic, ‘Oh it’s more of a six hour movie’, or are they actually trying to do TV shows. So far they’ve been really successful on multiple levels in each individual episode of layering in little tiny bits of the plot, making it work as a classic sitcom, but also tying it to something emotionally with Wanda and Vision. Here, I do think there was something thematic, definitely, which we can talk about in a second, but on an emotional level, it felt like more it was filling in gaps in the plot, versus having that strong emotional theme weaving throughout. Pete: No, no. It was going back and being like, all these weird things we’re going to explain so you don’t seem like a crazy person who’s hanging on to this stuff being like, ‘what does this mean, what does this mean?” We’re going to kind of go back, show you from a different vantage point of what’s going on, so then when we get to the end of the episode and we’re right back in the motion of after she gets thrown out, now we’re really feeling things. Alex: So you feel like it’s the sort of thing where somebody explains something, and then they explain the same thing back to you, but in a different way. Pete: No, what I’m saying is, you can’t say garbage statements like ‘This is the weakest episode’ when this episode explained things so you could enjoy it moving forward! Alex: To be very clear, I’m talking about you, Pete. You were explaining the thing back to me, what I just said. Justin: Yeah, that’s what just happened. Alex: We’re in agreement, you’re just ignoring the last point that I made, Pete. Justin: I feel like I’ve been trapped in a scarlet witch bubble, with this especially shouty episode of crossfire. Alex: Here’s what I think is going on, I mean I’ll just throw it out there[crosstalk 00:12:21]. Justin: Here, let me say it. I think you’re both actually right. This, dramatically, was the weakest episode, because they had to do all the work that Pete’s talking about that he was looking forward to. This is like, a classic middling episode, where you have your fun, you eat your steak, then you’ve got to eat your vegetables before you get your candy. And this is the vegetables, and here comes candy when we get to see all the ways they’re going to confront scarlet witch. And I think they gave us tastes of that when we get to see her hex powers activated, we get to see the stuff that we’re like, yes, we’ve wanted this, but we’re still not getting it. So it’s an explanation episode tied in with what we’re going to get next. Pete: Yeah, but here’s the thing. As you get older, the vegetables become something that you look forward to as well, okay? Justin: That’s not true about you, for instance. Pete: Okay, well, fine. Me aside, but normal people would agree- Alex: Pete, like me, is a basket first kind of guy. Pete: I just think that, regardless of how… I just can’t believe that you guys want to say that this is a shitty episode when there were so many great moments. Alex: Nobody is saying that. Justin: We both liked it. Pete: Literally both of you people- You called it a middling episode, you said it was the weakest one of the thing. I was saying Justin, pay attention. The thing is, it had those great Marvel moments, which is why we’re all here. So saying that this is a bad episode is insane to me. Alex: Nobody said it was a bad episode. Pete: Oh my god. Justin: I think what it is though is the first three episode…

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WandaVision - Episode 3: "Now In Color" Jan 22, 2021

Show notes

Wandavision Episode 3 “Now In Color” jumps from the ’60s to the ’70s, but those aren’t the only big changes in store for Wanda and Vision. While Wanda is rapidly getting more pregnant by the second, expectant father Vision is freaking out as he prepares for the impossible prospect of having children. And in the middle of everything, the mystery of who Geraldine is, and what’s really going on in Westview expands in a big, big way. SUBSCRIBE TO MARVELVISION ON ITUNES, ANDROID, SPOTIFY, STITCHER, OR RSS. FOLLOW US ON TWITTER, INSTAGRAM AND FACEBOOK. SUPPORT OUR SHOWS ON PATREON. Full Episode Transcript: Alex: What’s up, y’all? Welcome to MarvelVision, a podcast all about the MCU, Marvel TV shows, specifically WandaVision. Third episode… Justin: We’re in a Wanda world right now. Alex: It’s Wanda’s world, Vision’s just living in it, and so are we. I’m Alex. Justin: I’m Justin. Pete: I’m Pete. Alex: And as mentioned, we are going to be talking about the third episode of WandaVision that just dropped on Disney+. It is very creatively titled Episode 3, I believe. Justin: Whoo. Pete: Oh-ho. Justin: See, there’s a clue. Alex: Yeah. Pete: There’s a clue. Alex: I got to tell you, before we get into the episode, and regular note, we’re going to talk about spoilers here for the entire series up until now. We’re not going to recap every little plot point. So go watch the episode first, then come back here, because we’re going to get into it. Justin: Yeah. Pete: Yeah. Alex: But doing a little bit of pickup from the first week, from Episode 1 and Episode 2, I got to admit, I- Pete: Wait, Justin, do you have any corrections that you want to give first, or… Alex: Hold on, I’m not into the corrections. You are jumping ahead of the narrative here, Pete. Pete: Oh. My fault. My fault. Sorry, sorry. Alex: It’s fine. You’re very… Pete is very excited, because I told him before we got on that I had made some errors on previous episodes. Pete: Yeah? Alex: He’s just excited that he was not the one that made errors. Justin: Oh, no, he made errors, it’s just he didn’t clock them. Alex: Oh, yeah. He didn’t check them. He didn’t fact-check them at any point. Pete: Nobody cares if I make errors, but… Alex: The one thing that I wanted to say first, though, I got to admit I was a little bummed that the episodes don’t have titles, that they’re just calling them Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3. It felt like an opportunity for some fun and creativity there that’s a little missed, personally. Justin: Yeah. I hear that. I think that’s a very modern thing. I would argue that while older TV shows did have titles, most often, we would never hear them or see them. Pete: Also, it’s very Kendrick Lamar, you know what I mean? Just releasing an untitled album, just kind of giving you the track numbers. I like Marvel on the cutting edge of what’s hot and cool. Justin: Plus, there are clues here, like Episode 1 is obviously like, “Oh, this is the beginning. This is where it all starts.” Alex: Episode 2 is the one that follows up on Episode 1. Justin: Exactly. And Episode 3… Alex: Episode 3. Justin: Everything changes, specifically the number. Pete: Oh, wow. Alex: I mean, it’s kind of like, if you think about it, Episode 3 is like two plus one, which is pretty cool. Pete: Wow. Justin: Exactly. You got to think. You got to think. Open your third eye in Episode 3, specifically. Alex: By the way, we should mention this week’s episode is sponsored by the Children’s Television Workshop. Pete: What? Alex: Yeah, we’re teaching her how to count in this episode. Pete: Oh, okay, okay. Alex: So I don’t know. That was a little bit of a bummer. I just wanted to mention that right off, but it’s fine. I think we’ll all move on emotionally from there. The corrections and additions that I wanted to mention that I thought were interesting, first of all, I messed up. That was not Saul Rubinek as Mr. Hart in the first episode. Very different character actor. That’s actually Fred Melamed in the episode. My bad there. Also, there was the sign in the opening credits to Episode 2 in the supermarket, which I thought maybe was milk or cereal or something like that. It’s actually Auntie A’s Kitty Litter, which is an even stronger indication, because you got a black cat, you got Auntie A, that Kathryn Hahn is probably some form of Agatha Harkness going on there. Alex: Another couple of things that I thought were interesting that I didn’t pick up on, now that other people have seen Episode 1 and 2, they did. One, this is a little dicey, I think, but also in the animated credits, some people noticed what looks like maybe the Grim Reaper’s headgear in the opening credits. Now, this is getting pretty deep into comic book stuff. Yes. Justin: Yeah. I was going to say Grim Reaper, famously in the Tom King Vision story is sort of the villain. Alex: Yes. Yeah. So Grim Reaper is the brother of Wonder Man, who in the comics is the template… His name is Simon. He is the template for Vision’s brain patterns, or am I reversing it? Justin: Uh, no, I think that’s accurate. And it’s sort of a weird thing. Wonder Man is not a super-popular character. He’s an actor who’s very powered. In the last like 15 years in Marvel comics, he’s been way powered up. Because before, he used to be just super-strong, he could shoot some lasers out of his eyes. And then, yeah, I think the Vision’s brain patterns were modeled on Wonder Man. So that has created in the comics a weird relationship between Wonder Man and Scarlet Witch and his brother, Grim Reaper, who hates them. Alex: Yes. And Wonder Man has had romantic relationships with Scarlet Witch. They’ve kind of switched off between Vision. So it’s definitely possible he could be mixed in there. It might just be a weird Easter egg. I guess we won’t know until later. The other theory that I thought was kind of neat that I wanted to throw out there, we talked about the people in the commercials. Right? There’s two people. We see them again in Episode 3. Pete: Same two. Alex: Same three people. They seem very separated from everything that’s going on. I thought this was an interesting catch, and I don’t know if I’m 100% sold on this theory, but I like it anyway, is that those are Wanda’s parents. Now, in the MCU, we never met Wanda’s parents. We just know that a Stark bomb blew up, killed Wanda’s parents, and Wanda was trapped there with, I believe, Pietro for about two days, staring at her parents’ dead bodies before she was finally rescued in Sokovia. And the fact that you got this toaster in the first episode that’s doing a very bomb-like beep, and it’s a Stark toaster, seems to indicate that might be a potential there. Justin: So are we saying that those are manifestations of her parents, maybe dealing with all that… She’s dealing with trauma, with Vision having just died, perhaps, and maybe these are other traumas in her life coming out? Because that would explain the Strucker stuff, since he’s dead in the current continuity. Alex: Mm-hmm (affirmative). I mean, I think so, and I think the fact that they’re walled off, like they don’t exist in the same part of the reality as everybody else in… it’s Westview, right? I’ve been very terrified about getting it wrong. Justin: Yeah. Alex: But Westview. Justin: Terrified, you say? Alex: Yeah, terrified. Might mean that they don’t actually exist. They are figments of her imagination, perhaps in a different way than everybody else is. Pete, what were you going to say? Pete: I just wanted to say, this is my new favorite part about doing a podcast with you, is the part where at the beginning, you admit your flaws and that you’re not perfect. This is really… Alex: We’ve moved on from there. That was the last topic. Pete: Well, I’m just saying. Alex: We’ve now moved on to theories, Pete. Pete: This is really enjoyable. I got to say, as a long-time listener of the show, this is my new favorite section. Justin: Oh, Pete, news flash, you’re actually on the show. Pete: Oh, dang it! Oh, man. Busted! Justin: But Alex, we would love to hear an official apology for your mistakes, if possible. Alex: All right, everybody. Before we get into talking about Episode 3, I want to look all of you in the eyes here, and I want to say I’m sorry for everything… Pete: Wow, he’s looking right into… Alex: Pete has gotten wrong for 14 fricking years. Pete: This is great [crosstalk 00:07:09]. Justin: Didn’t want to swear, buddy? Hold it back in the end there. Alex: No. I want to keep this safe for kids. Pete: Could actually apologize. Alex: Children’s Television Workshop, again. Justin: Yes. Pete: Oh, right, right. Alex: We have a lot of kids tuning in this episode. I know we’ve spent a lot of time here at the beginning of the episode. I do want to move on to actually talking about episode 3 in a second, but the last little thing that I thought was kind of neat, after Episode 1 and 2, they released this behind-the-scenes thing to tease the episodes that are coming up. And at least for the first episode, the one set in the ’50s, we knew it was filmed in front of a live studio audience, but I didn’t know until they showed the behind-the-scenes stuff that everybody on set and in the audience is wearing vintage clothing as well. Pete: Wow. Alex: Which is crazy. Justin: I mean, the thoroughness with which Marvel makes their products is admirable. Alex: I do wonder… Pete: I wonder… Alex: I was just going to say, I do wonder if that’s just for fun, they were like, “Have a little fun with it and live in the moment,” or if we are going to loop back to the ’50s thing, see the studio audience at some point, and kind of break that fourth wall. That seems like a place the show could go. Pete: Yeah. Otherwise, it would be kind of like a waste. I don’t think that Marvel would just waste money like that, so I feel like we would have to see something. Alex: Yeah. Marvel, famously frugal. Justin: The House of Frugal Ideas. Alex: Let’s get into the episode. There’s so much to talk about here in Episode 3. Pete: About time. Alex: Broad strokes, the sitcom plot here is Wanda is now pregnant. They’re dealing with the fact that she has a much-expedited pregnancy that’s going on, to the point where it takes under a day for her finally to give birth to twins. Our new… I keep blanking on her name. Is it Gabrielle? Is that what we’re calling her? Teyonah Parris’s character? Justin: Geraldine. Alex: What? Justin: Geraldine. Alex: Geraldine. Pete: Yeah, Geraldine. Alex: I don’t know why I keep messing that up. Geraldine is coming into the house, and Wanda’s trying to keep the pregnancy secret. Meanwhile, Vision is going to get the doctor, who’s about to head off on vacation. So lots of stuff going on there, and by the end of the episode, we’ve gotten a lot more information about what’s going on outside this bubble that’s been created or whatever’s going on. We’ve certainly found out a lot more about what’s going inside the bubble as well, and the town. They’ve given birth to twins. They are Tommy and Billy, who fans of the comics know grow up to be Scarlet Witch’s twins, so great not just Easter egg, but plot point there. Justin: That’s just a regular egg. It’s an egg. Alex: Yeah, it’s just an egg. Justin: It’s an egg. Alex: Yeah. Maybe even omelet, to be honest. Like something that’s come to fruition. I don’t know [crosstalk 00:09:40]. Pete: Don’t make omelets out of your kids. Justin: Whenever I eat an omelet, I’m like, “I’m so happy these eggs came to fruition on my plate.” Alex: Oh, boy. Okay. So that’s broad strokes about the episode. A lot of stuff to dive in there. What do you guys want to start with? I mean, I think- Pete: The fun new intro is what I want to start with. Alex: Go for it, Pete. Pete: I like how every episode, we’re getting a kind of different time period intro. I think it’s kind of a cool thing to look forward to with each ep. Also, now, we got the kind of “WandaVision in color,” which was something they actually did back in the day when television went to color. “It’s in color!” So that was just kind of a funny bit. And also, the house is different. It seems like it’s a completely different house, which is kind of fun. Alex: It’s basically… Maybe you’re about to say this, Justin. It’s basically the Brady Bunch house. Pete: Yeah, it’s the Brady Bunch house. [crosstalk 00:10:37] Justin: I was going to say our TV references, to me anyway, are Mary Tyler Moore, Brady Bunch here. Especially with the opening credits. And I do think the set is a slightly tweaked version of the reference show in each episode, I think. In the first two, same thing. But I would also argue it’s a slightly purposefully uncomfortable version of the set. Like the way that door is on the left, and the stairway is awkwardly in the shot the whole time, and maybe I’m reading too much into this, but it feels like it’s oppressive, like it’s being laid on them in a way that’s awkward. And I think that’s true of the previous sets. Like the double doors that opened in the first episode were way too big and felt unruly and sort of oppressive when they were in the kitchen, and I think that’s perhaps an intentional thing to show that these shows are really bearing down on our heroes. Pete: Now, let me ask you guys. You both have kids. When your wives got pregnant, did it feel like same day, just shooting out babies? Does it go by so quick? Alex: Certainly to me. Pete: Yeah? Justin: Wow. Uh, let’s bring Alex’s wife into the stream, just to [crosstalk 00:11:48]. Alex: She’s ready. Justin: Yeah. Alex: No. I do think… We talked about with the previous episode how well this is balancing the whole MCU nature with, thematically, does it work as TV episodes? And certainly, I think that’s where my head is really at when I’m looking at this, is, “Does this work as a TV show?” Or the thing that makes me super annoyed when people say it, “Is it more of a six-hour movie, but on TV?” And right now, I actually think they’re doing a good job of making it episodic. Specifically, what they drive in immediately, and particularly with Paul Bettany’s performance in this episode, is the panic of being new parents. Alex: It’s sped up, it’s magical, so they get to go through all of the different parts of it very quickly, but that feels like a sitcom episode that they would’ve done back in the ’70s with some sort of magical couple, with all of the emotional… To your point, Pete, all of that panic that you potentially feel as a father, “What am I going to do? Do I know how to do it right? I’ve got to practice putting on the diapers so I get it right, so I know what I’m doing.” And then, it all changes when you actually have the kid in your hand, and it becomes something entirely different, which is exactly what happens over the arc of this episode. Pete: Now, did you guys both practice on dolls, putting on diapers and stuff? Justin: Nah. The diaper stuff, you sort of figure it out, and then once you do it once, it’s like, “Well, I’m going to do this 1,000 times going forward.” But this parenting workshop, if I can put it on hold for one second, I feel like when last episode’s… I feel like the reference was Pleasantville. This one feels almost like Too Many Cooks, the Adult Swim sketch that was released like maybe 10 years ago now, which was about the circular nature of sitcoms and how it’s almost… family sitcoms over the years, and it’s sort of how they make you crazy by the end. I feel like that is so accurate for this. Justin: And then, as we’re moving into this sort of 1970s sitcom world, no more workplace. All the workplace people have moved to become neighbors or people that they bump into. I think that’s very accurate for the decade. And that’s when we start to see the reality really start to degrade around Vision and Scarlet Witch. Alex: Yeah. I mean, in terms of references, this could probably be applied to all three episodes at this point, but it really drove home to me with Scarlet Witch’s reaction…

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WandaVision - Episode 2: "Don't Touch That Dial" Jan 15, 2021

Show notes

Things get weirder as WandaVision heads to the ’60s in Episode 2 of the brand new Marvel Studios Disney+ series, “Don’t Touch That Dial”. Wanda and Vision are getting ready for the town’s talent show, but a stick of gum manages to mess things up. Meanwhile, Agnes introduces Wanda to the neighbors, including the tightly wound Dotty and Geraldine, who seems to know more than she’s letting on. And we break down some wild theories about what might be going on in the show, as well as the usual comic book Easter eggs and references. SUBSCRIBE TO MARVELVISION ON ITUNES, ANDROID, SPOTIFY, STITCHER, OR RSS. FOLLOW US ON TWITTER, INSTAGRAM AND FACEBOOK. SUPPORT OUR SHOWS ON PATREON. Full Episode Transcript: Alex: MarvelVision, a podcast, all about the MCU, Marvel movies, Marvel TV shows, specifically Marvel TV shows because we’re going to be talking about the second episode ever of WandaVision, which just dropped on Disney+. I’m Alex. Justin: I’m Justin. Pete: I’m Pete. Alex: And very exciting. Lots of stuff again to talk about. Requisite spoiler warning upfront. We’re not going to recap every moment of the episode. We’re definitely going to get into it. We’re going to get into predictions. We’re going to get into Easter eggs. We’re going to talk about some of our favorite moments in the episode, but before we do, I think the big thing that we need to talk about, because two episodes dropped on Disney+ today. From now on out, it’s going to be one episode a week, but a lot of discussion on our first episode was focused on how does that episode hold up by its own? How does it pair with the second one? We’ve seen the second one, in particular, I’m curious to go to Pete who was panicked I think about the first one Justin: He was a screaming lunatic I think we could say. His [crosstalk 00:01:06] was literally on fire. He couldn’t deal. Had to take a nap and then woke up [inaudible 00:01:10]. Alex: Just fell down in the middle of the podcast. If you listen to the podcast, there’s a half hour of blank space when Pete was unconscious. Justin: I went to get smelling salts and put them under his little nose. [crosstalk 00:01:21]. It was like an old timey cowboy story. Wake up, Pete. It’s time to talk about MarvelVision. Alex: Finally, put a pie on the window sill and he just floated right up. Pete: Pie or cheeseburgers will work. Justin: Big old bucket of water in the face and he was like, let’s talk about Wanda. Alex: How are you feeling after this one, Pete? Pete: A lot better, I’m feeling a lot better. And I think that’s obviously why they dropped two in the beginning because that first one is off and the second one is a lot more digestible. Not as stressful, even though there are things happening for sure. It’s just dealt with it in a way that was a little bit easier on my heart and mind, but I would like to point out something I did notice right at the beginning. We’re getting that famous Marvel logo showing all the action and oh, you know this, you know what’s up. Oh, you remember this when this happened? Oh yeah. And this show is none of that. So it is a little bit jarring for somebody who just knows the maybe movies and TV stuff to come in and just be like, where is the Wanda that I know and love? Justin: But frankly, I think that’s exciting. I think it’s exciting that this is so different and able to still be super interesting, unique, while also being under the same banner. Because I think what that banner does at the top of the episode is it gives you that promise that, hey, trust us, we nailed all of these projects. So have a little confidence that we’re going to get there with this one. You’re going to get to see… Alex: Just calm a little bit. We’ll get back to this. Justin: Exactly. Like a little… Alex: Eventually, it’ll get back to this. Justin: Like a little sedative to put you at ease. Alex: A couple of things, not to harp too much on the first three seconds of the episode too much, but I did want to talk about it because I forgot to mention this in the previous podcast, I got so, I don’t know, excited isn’t the right word. Relieved actually might be closer, when the Marvel Studios fanfare came up at the beginning of the episode because it has been so long since anything Marvel. We’ve gotten used to this cadence of two, three movies a year, things coming out regularly. It’s been almost a solid year since we’ve seen anything. So to see something else coming up new, it felt good. Justin: Exactly. I got so hyped. I took a bucket of water and put it on my face. I was like, [wooorrr 00:03:41]. Alex: I baked a whole pie and put it on the window sill. An hour later it was gone. Justin: I took some smelling salts and poured it right in my mouth because I was like, what am I doing with this stuff, I’m so excited? Alex: The other thing though, and these are two little caveats and I love this episode. I thought this was a fantastic episode, but two things that I thought were, not bad choices, but weird choices. Well, still talking about the logo here. I loved it the first episode, how it changed into sort of a classic TV logo. I was expecting that again this episode and that didn’t really happen, which was strange. The other thing is the, previously on, is a weird choice here in terms of how they execute it, because it doesn’t feel stylistically consistent with the rest of the episode. I think it’s probably going to become much more important as we go out in this series, which is why they set it up here, but right now it’s like, I don’t need to remember most of this. Justin: Well, here’s what I think. I think you do need to remember most of it. And I also think it was sort of recreating the tone because they don’t want to have to keep slow walking us into the tone of this show every episode. And I think to both of your points, the logo changed into the black and white television intro in the first episode, in this episode it’s almost reminding us what’s up, giving us a little sense of the tension, dread and classic look of everything. And then it’s almost like a hard transition into the new episode. And I think that serves a dual purpose in that we saw it’s a different sitcom this time. So it’s almost like the characters are also changing channels, changing eras a little bit into this new episode and I think that’s important. Pete: I disagree, Justin. I think what Alex is saying is right. Somebody dropped the ball and someone needs to be fired because it was a sweet transition, really helped us. The second one, they left us high and dry. I was like, what the fuck is going on? Because it goes into this fun animated thing, maybe do a little bit of that with the logo. [crosstalk 00:05:34]. Alex: I love the idea that Kevin Feige didn’t watch this at all until it’s Friday morning, Disney+, wakes up nice and early, gets himself a cup of coffee, is about to sip it, sees the intro and is like, “What the fuck?” Pete: Yes. Spits it on his brand new computer. Alex: Someone is getting fired. What the… Justin: And he’s like, “Give me Tanya on the phone. She’s fired.” Well, because the two camps here, just to be clear, is me saying pat on the back, that was a cool choice. And Pete saying, someone’s head has to roll for this obvious mistake. So you be the judge listener. Alex: [crosstalk 00:00:06:04]. It was definitely me first and Pete was just backing me up. Pete: I’m just supporting his choice. Alex: Great. I think we’ve pretty much covered everything in the episode. Justin: We’ve covered that in seconds of dialogues so far. Alex: I’m going to give kind of a broad strokes about the plot. We did this last time. Pete: Okay, you want to move forward? Okay. I’ve more things to say but okay. Alex: Hold on. We can get back to the logo for our middle chunk of the podcast where we do logo revisited. Justin: Yeah, logo, go, go, go, our favorite section. Here we go. Let’s go back and talk about the logo. Alex: Like the first episode, this is a very typical sitcom plot. And I think I was a little too dismissive about the first episode being a premise pilot. This is what’s really driven home here is the idea of this show is twofold. Obviously whatever’s going on outside in the world, whatever’s happening with Scarlet Witch and Vision in the “real world”, but the premise of the show is they moved to a small town of they’re trying to hide their magic powers, which is a very classic sitcom premise. And I got that in the first episode, but I think that’s driven home in a really good way, thematically in a modern thematic way as well in this episode, which I thought was really cool. So we get mostly, they’re trying to prepare for the town talent show, at the same time they’re hearing some weird noises outside. So Vision joins the community watch program. Justin: Neighborhood watch. Alex: Gets accidentally drunk on some gum, a very classic sitcom premise for a robot, I guess. And they go to the talent show, think they’re messing it up because they’re showing off their magic powers, but turns out they actually win the talent show. And so that’s the sitcom of the show. The other thing that I thought was really fascinating stylistically, because you compare this to the previous episode, is the performances because they’ve evolved as well. Scarlet Witch is now more sarcastic 1960s. Everything’s a little looser, it’s a little sexier. We see more different races in here as well, which is something that you wouldn’t necessarily see in the 1950s. So I thought it was neat to see that evolving, take on the sitcom in episode two. Justin: Well, I think that all of this, there’s just so much in every choice in this show and to your point, yes, it’s just a slow natural progression from the 1950s to the 1960s typified I think by, at the beginning we see the bed separate. And then in that opening sequence, the beds get pushed together which was a big landmark choice in I think, I Love Lucy. And it was a legit controversy back in the day when they put the beds together. Which is crazy to think that back in the day… It’s not like people in the 1950s slept in separate beds. Everyone always slept in one bed. It’s just on television they couldn’t insinuate that people might touch each other at night. So they set the two child beds. Pete: I would like to point out something that [inaudible 00:08:52] said though, is that it’s very hurtful. I felt like the lady in the horse costume in this episode, because I’ve been to talent shows and worked really hard and not only my outfit, but my routine, gotten it all down and then someone shows up stumbles through it. Everybody loves them and they win. And it is fucking heartbreaking to sit there, holding your horse head in your hand, just emotionally drained from what you’ve put in for months and months at a time. And somebody just stumbles their way through and just kills it. Justin: Pete, imagine how I feel as the horse’s ass standing right behind you, being the butt, still coming in second place in over 100 talent shows that we’ve entered. Alex: I just want to give a little bit of clarity to what we’re talking about here. Back when we were allowed to meet in person, Justin, Pete and I used to do our horse centipede act. There was lot of… Pete: Ah, don’t make this creepy, you asshole. Justin: Pete was the head. Alex: I was the middle. Justin: I like the idea that this horse centipede act with three people is one head at two butts. And you and I were butts and Pete was the head. No second head. Alex: What were we talking about? Justin: I have a point to make. You said that the premise of the show is about them hiding their magic powers. And I think that is one of the central tensions of the show because they’re not hiding their identities. Their identities are, they’re called Vision, they’re called Scarlet Witch. That’s real, but they have to hide the instances of their superpowers when they’re using them. And I think that points to a lot of facts that we have yet to uncover on this show in that they are in control of this environment. And the only reason they can’t use their magic powers is because it breaks the sitcom format. If that makes sense. You know what I’m saying? They can’t be super powered because then… Pete: And again, this is something that doesn’t make sense to us, but because you are a line producer and have worked in television for so many years, this is your kind of second calling. Like you understand how sitcoms work and their structure and everything. Alex: Actually, let’s take a step back there. As a line producer, so what is that? You make sure that everything lines up properly? Justin: Yes. Exactly. Pete: Well, no, it’s lined in frame. It’s producing everything that’s in frame. I think that’s how it works. Alex: Or are you a lion producer? Justin: Yeah. I mostly make sure that the lions have the right amount of meat. So no one gets… Pete: And that’s the lion that roars at the beginning before the movie starts. Justin: Shout out to Siegfried who died this week. Pete: That’s right. Man. Oh, why would you do that? Alex: We’re going wild today already. Let’s talk about some specific things in the episode that jump out to you, plot points you liked, moments that you thought were interesting or fun. Without getting too much into speculation, let’s talk just raw about the episode. What were sequences you were [crosstalk 00:00:11:37]. I’ll mention like, I thought the animated sequences both in the title sequence and in Vision’s stomach were very fun and perfectly done. Pete: Now, to me that said, Jetsons. How about you guys? What was your feeling on the animation? Justin: Bewitched. Alex: Yeah, Bewitched. Pete: Okay. Justin: Bewitched, I think is the main touchstone and I Love Lucy with some of the stuff. So they’re moving forward in time through sitcoms. One other observation there about the opening credit bit, the animated thing, they’re the only two characters introduced despite the fact that there are a ton of other recurring characters here. We talked about Debra Jo Rupp from last episode, the ultimate sitcom mom. Pete: Dottie is in this one. Justin: Yeah, Dottie. We see, well, she’s new in this episode, I think. But we do see the mustachioed guy and all the other supporting characters, but we’re only introduced in the title sequence to Wanda and Vision making me think that they’re the only real people and everyone else is a construct of some sort. Alex: Interesting. I mean, that’s definitely getting into some speculation. Pete: Agnes isn’t real? Alex: Okay. Let’s talk about Agnes. Kathryn Hahn continues to be great this episode. So funny. Pete: “How do people do this sober.” Oh, what a line? Alex: I love that she gets to move forward through the decades. Now she is the boozy housewife. The one that’s constantly getting drunk and wasted, very classic sitcom trope there. Her delivery of her lines are good. I love her exchange with Dennis, the mailman where she’s looking back and [crosstalk 00:13:01], checked him out, very funny. The lying about her husband, Ralph, being the assistant and making him disappear, also very funny. And all the stuff that was said, you’re a scratch, the buddy, was very funny as well. To get into like the theorizing part about it, I think there are a couple of interesting things here. This, potential spoilers I guess. We talked about this in the first episode, but a lot of focus was on maybe her being some variation on the character, Agatha Harkness from the comic books. We get a couple of clues here. Maybe I’m looking into it too much, but seeing a Scratch, in the comic books, Agatha Harkness’ son is Nick Scratch. Not the character on Sabrina. Don’t nobody freak out. We don’t have a bad boy alert here or anything. [crosstalk 00:13:47] Justin: I was about to hit the light. Alex: But her son is named Nick Scratch, and I looked this up. She has a husband that we never see. We never find out who Nick Scratch’s father is. So that seems to be at least… Yeah, they’re playing wi…

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