WandaVision 1x03
Jan. 28th, 2021 11:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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tori_reviewsWandaVision 1x03
I think I have to give this another huh reaction, though for a somewhat different reason than the last set. To mix metaphors, there’s a lot more to chew on in this one, but it’s also keeping its cards close to its chest. And I don’t know how to feel about it, just in this case it’s for a more common reason of feeling like I need more information to know how to judge this.
I think that read in and of itself is almost a positive thing; the show is clearly meant to have us asking questions about what’s going on and why and how, but in the first eps the characters weren’t actually facing the questions the audience was asking. Now they’re starting to, in their own ways, and/or face the further the mysteries around themselves.
And I find myself a bit torn between talking about the imbedded jokes about sitcoms (especially of the past, but still in the present) or spend time pondering the implications on the larger plot. There’s nothing that says I can’t do both, and I will at least to some extent, but I sort of feel like spending time on one will kill the inertia to talk about the other.
Although one thing I’ve thought ever since the trailer hit, but haven’t actually brought up, is something that sort of bridges those two thought processes. It’s not hard to figure that Wanda could have been exposed to some old school US sitcoms when she was younger, that kind of thing still gets play in eastern Europe. So it makes sense to me (and I doubt I’m the first to make this assumption), that she would have these settings and tropes in her mind, they don’t need to come from any other source.
To go an extra step of nerdiness, I’m getting some Madoka Magica vibes from this. And Wanda is a witch, a scarlet one in fact. And in that view, a lot of this makes sense; she at some point surrendered to despair and is in a pocket dimension of her own lost hope and dashed dreams. And sometimes people wander into her labyrinth and they become part of the scenario, their own sense of self lost to be absorbed by the witch. Making Wanda both victim and villain as far present circumstances are.
Now, the more direct comparison is House of M, for obvious reasons. Most of what I know about that comic arc is from what I’ve cobbled together from references over the years as I haven’t read it (I basically don’t read comics, though I did actually read one of the follow-up series), so obviously I don’t know all the details. But I’m guessing this is sort of a blending of that story itself and the leadup to it; as part of what sent Wanda over the edge in that case was the loss of her children as I recall. In this case I still feel like we don’t know how this started; whether it’s something she did to herself or if some outside force started causing her powers to develop further and that pulled her into the dream world.
And for that matter, how much does she even know what’s going on? She clearly has some knowledge, as she resets Vision when he starts to be suspicious, and kicks people out when they touch on her real life pain; but the way she was talking about Pietro was…hard to read. I can’t fully read it as her fully remembering things from her real life; but I also can’t quite read it as a moment of reality breaking through the forced character she’s playing. That part is both terrifying and haunting, largely because we don’t know where she is at mentally; and we’d clearly be right to be worried.
Even in the first episode, one thing that was something of a stumbling block for me is that we do see scenes from Vision’s perspective. To me that indicated that he is a more ‘real’ part of this scenario as opposed to one of the background figures that prop up the fantasy. It wouldn’t be impossible to for Wanda to imagine there being scenes she wasn’t directly in, as that would be expected of the in-show; but what it conveys to the audience on our level is to think of this as being about both of them. But this ep is the first time when he starts to feel like he’s an active part of the story; and elevates some of the background characters to also be aware of the cracks in this idealized world. That the neighbor seems to have some knowledge doesn’t surprise me; I had her on the list of suspects already; and her husband makes some sense to. The doctor is actually the one that made me rethink some of my existing thoughts; because he seems more like a background character than the neighbors who crop up in the different situations.
Plus, Vision is now gaining some awareness that Wanda may be up to something, I’ll be curious how that goes.
I was really glad to hear Wanda bring up Pietro, he’s been forgotten for a while, and shouldn’t be in Wanda’s world.
As predicted I got onto the larger implications and have forgotten some of the things I wanted to discuss about the way this treats sitcom pregnancy and especially childbirth. Having the birth take place behind the couch was just funny to me because it fits right in; and then they held up a much too large and clean for a newborn baby, and I definitely laughed at that. Because that has to have been done deliberately. While yes, even now when children are used on shows they tend to be too large it they’re show as newborns; but this seemed less on a modern ‘pretend this works until we can switch to the doll’ and more of a times past version of ‘the audience will buy this right?’
I think I have to give this another huh reaction, though for a somewhat different reason than the last set. To mix metaphors, there’s a lot more to chew on in this one, but it’s also keeping its cards close to its chest. And I don’t know how to feel about it, just in this case it’s for a more common reason of feeling like I need more information to know how to judge this.
I think that read in and of itself is almost a positive thing; the show is clearly meant to have us asking questions about what’s going on and why and how, but in the first eps the characters weren’t actually facing the questions the audience was asking. Now they’re starting to, in their own ways, and/or face the further the mysteries around themselves.
And I find myself a bit torn between talking about the imbedded jokes about sitcoms (especially of the past, but still in the present) or spend time pondering the implications on the larger plot. There’s nothing that says I can’t do both, and I will at least to some extent, but I sort of feel like spending time on one will kill the inertia to talk about the other.
Although one thing I’ve thought ever since the trailer hit, but haven’t actually brought up, is something that sort of bridges those two thought processes. It’s not hard to figure that Wanda could have been exposed to some old school US sitcoms when she was younger, that kind of thing still gets play in eastern Europe. So it makes sense to me (and I doubt I’m the first to make this assumption), that she would have these settings and tropes in her mind, they don’t need to come from any other source.
To go an extra step of nerdiness, I’m getting some Madoka Magica vibes from this. And Wanda is a witch, a scarlet one in fact. And in that view, a lot of this makes sense; she at some point surrendered to despair and is in a pocket dimension of her own lost hope and dashed dreams. And sometimes people wander into her labyrinth and they become part of the scenario, their own sense of self lost to be absorbed by the witch. Making Wanda both victim and villain as far present circumstances are.
Now, the more direct comparison is House of M, for obvious reasons. Most of what I know about that comic arc is from what I’ve cobbled together from references over the years as I haven’t read it (I basically don’t read comics, though I did actually read one of the follow-up series), so obviously I don’t know all the details. But I’m guessing this is sort of a blending of that story itself and the leadup to it; as part of what sent Wanda over the edge in that case was the loss of her children as I recall. In this case I still feel like we don’t know how this started; whether it’s something she did to herself or if some outside force started causing her powers to develop further and that pulled her into the dream world.
And for that matter, how much does she even know what’s going on? She clearly has some knowledge, as she resets Vision when he starts to be suspicious, and kicks people out when they touch on her real life pain; but the way she was talking about Pietro was…hard to read. I can’t fully read it as her fully remembering things from her real life; but I also can’t quite read it as a moment of reality breaking through the forced character she’s playing. That part is both terrifying and haunting, largely because we don’t know where she is at mentally; and we’d clearly be right to be worried.
Even in the first episode, one thing that was something of a stumbling block for me is that we do see scenes from Vision’s perspective. To me that indicated that he is a more ‘real’ part of this scenario as opposed to one of the background figures that prop up the fantasy. It wouldn’t be impossible to for Wanda to imagine there being scenes she wasn’t directly in, as that would be expected of the in-show; but what it conveys to the audience on our level is to think of this as being about both of them. But this ep is the first time when he starts to feel like he’s an active part of the story; and elevates some of the background characters to also be aware of the cracks in this idealized world. That the neighbor seems to have some knowledge doesn’t surprise me; I had her on the list of suspects already; and her husband makes some sense to. The doctor is actually the one that made me rethink some of my existing thoughts; because he seems more like a background character than the neighbors who crop up in the different situations.
Plus, Vision is now gaining some awareness that Wanda may be up to something, I’ll be curious how that goes.
I was really glad to hear Wanda bring up Pietro, he’s been forgotten for a while, and shouldn’t be in Wanda’s world.
As predicted I got onto the larger implications and have forgotten some of the things I wanted to discuss about the way this treats sitcom pregnancy and especially childbirth. Having the birth take place behind the couch was just funny to me because it fits right in; and then they held up a much too large and clean for a newborn baby, and I definitely laughed at that. Because that has to have been done deliberately. While yes, even now when children are used on shows they tend to be too large it they’re show as newborns; but this seemed less on a modern ‘pretend this works until we can switch to the doll’ and more of a times past version of ‘the audience will buy this right?’
