Five Things I Liked About The Wandavision finale.

 TV  It's been a while since I've been this excited about seeing an episode of television, but after eight simple weeks of build up, with so many question to be answered about the show, you bet I was sat in front of my television at 8am this morning waiting for the Disney+ upload.  Any-hoo I have some thoughts, so let's fulfil the promise of the title of this blog post.  Spoilers, obviously.

(1)  No Huge Cameo

After weeks of speculation based on some veiled comments in publicity videos, neither Doctor Strange, Mr Fantastic or Magneto wandered in at the last moment to distract us from the big emotional arc of the show.  The appearance of Luke Skywalker at the close of business in The Mandalorian had already been baked into the storyline, whereas a surprise cameo in Wandavision, an even bigger boss than Agatha, perhaps Hayward being revealed to Mephisto in disguise, was not on the agenda here.  He was just some human tool.  Instead, quite rightly, the climax focused on the characters who we'd become attached to over the previous eight episodes, that it truly was Agatha All Along.  

(2)  The Triumph of Intellect and Romance Over Brute Force And Cynicism

Although both Wanda and Vision enjoyed the MCU trope of fighting a mirror enemy who shares their powers, lots of flying in the sky and throwing magic or lasers at one another they both ultimately won their respective competitions by outthinking their opponents, Wanda using the same technique Agatha employed initially to kerb her powers and Vision and White Vision having a meeting of minds which resulted in the latter rekindling his memories of being the former B-4.  The source for the title for this paragraph in case you're wondering.

(3)  Symmetry 

I've already seen criticism which suggests that the show simply becomes another action action fighty fighty thing from its humbler origins, especially from those who liked the earlier funny ones.  But the show actually has a very symmetrical structure, the opening episode filmed completely on a sound stage in front of a studio audience in academy ratio, the finale with all of the tools of big budget filmmaking in a scope setting, a production decision which itself comments on the development of the television as a whole.  

(4)  Evan Peters

Absolutely amazing.  After weeks and weeks of speculation in YouTube videos, on social media, on here, it's revealed the production team have just been fucking with us and that Evan Peters isn't playing the alt.Quicksilver from the FoX-Men but just some random bozo with a euphemistic surname who like everyone else in town has had his identity replaced.  As I've said previously, the MCU is going to want to do its own spin on mutants as and when and acknowledging the existence of the cast from the other franchise would simply draw away from an endeavour which will already be a source of comparisons.  Can you imagine the actor who's going to play Wolverine next?  Damn.

(5)  Consequences

The show acknowledges that although Wanda has somewhat come to terms with the tragedies in her own life and become stronger because of it, she herself has brought pain to others.  Even though Wanda is clearly the protagonist of his series, unlike most of the MCU's heroes, she now finds herself in the ambiguous place of having destroyed even more lives, albeit psychologically.  So although she's allowed to walk away at the end much as she did after Lagos, it's more because she's too powerful to contain at this point having absorbed Agatha's gifts too.  Much like the rest of the MCU  actions have consequences and there are no reset buttons or easy outs.  

I've found a use for motion flow on modern televisions.

TV There's nothing much to this post except to note that a whole new level of verisimilitude can be gained when rewatching the earlier audience-based episodes of Wandavision by ignoring Tom Cruise's advice (and mine usually) and turning on the Motion Flow or Smoothing feature on your modern television and letting it interpolate extra frames making it look like the video tape such shows would originally have been recorded on. Oh and turn down sharpness to zero if you can for added smudginess.

This does of course fall apart when the outside world intrudes and the episodes cross cut between the two formats, not to mention that with so many shows from those earlier periods being remastered for HD anyway due to the way they were shot, your mileage on this may differ anyway.  Perhaps if the show ever reaches a physical format, Disney might make it available on limited edition VHS, with the widescreen scenes panned and scanned or open matt for old times sake.