Today saw the release of the third episode of Wandavision, the utterly out-there and bizarre MCU project on Disney Plus. I think that they released the first two episodes on the same day to establish a pattern: the show is mostly formatted like the sitcoms that form the basis of the strange reality that our super-powered protagonists (or maybe just protagonist?) find themselves in. The first two episodes see the veneer of this reality break only momentarily, and instead mostly serve to establish a pattern: we're going to get an episode set roughly in each decade starting with the 1950s, and that Wanda and Vision will have some wacky hijinx while the audience fights to remember that this is not just a silly old sitcom, but a story with much darker implications (though, you know, still within the confines of a broadly-appealing superhero shared narrative universe.)
This week's episode reveals a few things: for one, that we actually have a sense of time within this bizarre world. The events of the second episode are referred to as happening just the previous day from this one - which means the jump from 1960s black-and-white Betwitched-style sitcom to 70s Brady-Bunch aesthetics took only one day from their perspective. And Wanda's pregnancy is progressing at an absurd rate - she goes from instantly pregnant one day to delivering twin boys the next.
We also see, for the first time (other than the glimpse of the monitor at the end of the first episode) the outside world - and we can start to infer some of the truth behind the reality of the show: for one thing, it seems that there truly is a Westview, but the town is surrounded by some sort of reality-warping force-field out of which "Geraldine" (it might be considered a spoiler, but cast lists have identified her as an established MCU character that has been on-screen before, albeit with a different actor) is ejected at the episode's conclusion.
To sum up, briefly: in the now-colorful 70s reality, Wanda's sees a doctor while she and Vision try to obscure the strangeness of how quickly her pregnancy has developed. Wanda struggles to contain her power, manifesting in many goofy ways, but the one thing she seems to have total control over is Vision - once again demonstrates her "editing" power after Vision begins to voice concern about how bizarre this is and why they should be worried - changing it so that instead of that, he simply gives a trite speech about how anxiety about parenthood is normal and such.
More than in the previous episodes, the laugh track is particularly invasive. Previously, the humor of the show managed to earn genuine laughs even if we knew it was part of a deception. But more and more, the laugh track seems to be covering for the breakdown of the sitcom reality. Laugh tracks exist in order to sort of "guide" the reaction to a show. The broad humor of the 3-camera sitcom works a lot better as communal entertainment, and people figured out early on that if you wanted to replicate the kind of audience experience that one might have watching a comedy at a theater (something the 3-camera format is sort of based on) you'd need to feel like there was an audience watching with you. Single-camera comedies - which are much more prevalent today - don't use laugh tracks because it's a different sort of humor.
But while I think there's nothing sinister about TV producers wanting the audience at home to feel like they're sitting in an actual audience, it is, definitionally, manipulative. And given that we know (if by nothing else than the fact that we've seen these characters before in their true reality) that this is all wrong, the laugh tracks feel like they're there to force us into compliance with the conceit that this is just a sitcom, and that Wanda and Vision are just a charming TV-couple.
It's clear that a lot of the people in Westview are A: real and B: trapped. Indeed, the doctor who sees Wanda and then arrives (too late) to deliver her twins, is excited for a trip to Bermuda, but then announces that the trip's cancelled as "it's hard to escape these small towns" (I paraphrase.) Dottie's reaction in last episode, and Vision's boss in the previous one, both suggest that these people are prisoners.
But not all of them, right?
In a surreal moment, Vision sees next-door neighbor Herb using his hedge trimmer to cut through the wall of cinderblocks between their properties. Later, Agnes (who is, I guess, the neighbor on the other side? If her status as next-door neighbor is even valid anymore?) is there, and seems to be talking worriedly about Geraldine, then warning Vision that she's "new" and doesn't have a family, or even a home, which seems odd.
As Wanda and Geraldine coo over the newborn boys, Tommy and Billy (the latter named for William Shakespeare - Vision's choice) Wanda has a moment in which she recalls that she, too, is a twin, and reminisces about her brother Pietro, who died in the film that introduced the two of them. And it's at this point that Geraldine reveals she knows he was killed by Ultron.
The veil is torn, and Wanda is clearly not happy about it. And when Vision comes back inside, Geraldine is gone. Where? Well, as that scene ends, the letterboxing on the sides of the screen recede, and we get a modern 16:9 aspect ratio, and we cut to an abandoned-looking sign welcoming people to a town called Westview. Geraldine materializes as she passes through some sort of force-field barrier before landing, alive but probably in a lot of pain, on the grass outside of town. Modern helicopters and trucks approach her, but who, exactly they are (well, it's S.W.O.R.D., obviously) but the show is starting to answer some questions, even if those answers lead to more questions.
As I see it, the most straightforward reading of what we've gotten these past three episodes is that Wanda has created this reality as a grief-avoidance tactic. The last time we saw her, she had only just recently been snapped back into reality five years after her dissolution into ash along with half the universe. She did some ass-kicking, giving Thanos a run for his money, but Endgame was not her movie, of course. What little we saw of her was raw rage and terrible grief directed at the person (well, technically his earlier-timeline doppelganger - Endgame was a weird movie that should not have worked as well as it did) who took Vision from her (actually, even more horribly, forced her to kill him first and then rewound time to kill him all over again.)
This is more than most people go through, to put it lightly. And if you had vaguely-defined incredible powers, you might do something like create a bright-and-shiny reality in which you can the man (well, robot-man... synthezoid) you love can have a perpetual happily ever after, wouldn't you?
Thus, some of the more disturbing moments - Vision's boss choking, or Dottie's blood - can be explained as Wanda reacting aggressively and powerfully to those who would dare take her out of this comforting fiction.
Maybe Wanda is her own big bad.
And it certainly seems to me that Geraldine was trying to get her to acknowledge reality - when Wanda starts talking about her brother, Geraldine brings up the painful truth that Pietro died violently. And that gets her booted from Westview.
And yet...
The voice on the radio (again, minor spoiler, but the voice is an established MCU character) in the second episode is asking "Who's doing this to you, Wanda?" Sure, it could be that the answer is "Wanda is," but I think that's a red herring.
Instead, I suspect that Wanda's desire to escape her grief by going into this make-believe reality is actually something being exploited or manipulated by other forces. And I think Agnes is in on it, and possibly Herb. Their apparent mistrust of Geraldine could suggest that they're worried she'll ruin their plan. What plan?
Well, to get two kids, for one thing.
Remember that in episode one, Agnes is pushing Wanda to have a romantic evening with Vision - one that then allows for some wacky miscommunication hijinx given that Vision's boss and his wife come to dinner. But also, given that episode 3 reveals it's only the next day after episode 2, that could imply that the first episode was just two days ago. And if that's the case, it's possible that this whole false reality was created immediately before the first episode took place. Thus, the very first interaction that Wanda has with Agnes is when the latter tries to push the former to produce children.
And two days later, there they are.
Now, I'll tip my hand here and mention that I have read some theories and such based on people who know the Marvel comics a lot better than I, including storylines that were major inspirations for Wandvision. For example, there are some visual hints that Agnes is actually another established Marvel character that hasn't been introduced to the MCU just yet.
But the MCU also does a lot of remixing of established Marvel lore (like making the Skrulls good guys, for instance) so I think one needs to take all that established Marvel knowledge with a grain of salt.
In any surreal mystery show, this is the sweet spot - filled with potential and mind-blowing turns at every corner. Here's hoping that once the answers start outweighing the mysterious questions, it'll be satisfying.
