Wandavision

[Drunk Monk]

She isn't home yet. But during her obligatory Dad-birthday call, she said her D+ subscription had another slot and added me. It's fair because she still has access to our extra Netflix slot.

[Greg]

Can I have the keys to the car has evolved into can I have your Netflix password?

Now, you can watch the 18 films in the MCU in order.

[Drunk Monk]

E6 captures the series dynamically so far. It starts with vintage homage, moves into the surreal, then reverts to the cliched MCU Armageddon scenario. A shorter Ep (under 40 min) but good cliffhanger

---

Also. There's a new villain in town, last name: Harkness.

I'm just saying.

 
The e7 mcguffin. Nicely played. Didn’t see it coming but in my defense, I was distracted by the overall style of the show so far. 

I liked the 4th wall break and the circus.

I’m going to stop now though and save the last two for later.

[Drunk Monk]

Footnote to e7 - I connected with all of the TV parodies really well until e7. I got the whole 'breaking the 4th wall' style, but I wasn't watching as many sitcoms when that became a popular TV trope so I'm sure I missed a ton of Easter eggs. I think this is telling about my age demographic - our age demographic - but perhaps Greg's opinion will differ as it often does.  

This is such an Easter egg show. Such is the way of any franchise now. I get it and enjoy it, but it makes my job writing about it much more difficult. Cobra Kai got so thick with Easter eggs, especially the shot framing ones, that it became overwhelming.

[Greg]

S1 Ep9

The finale. I think the series peaked at Ep7. Ep 9 was just people throwing fireballs at each other. All the questions were answered, sort of. No cliff hanger to lead into another season.

And I have so many question that I won't ask because they would be kind of spoilery. The biggest of which is (and not really a spoiler) why did the villain show to torment Wanda? Or maybe how did the villain show up to torment Wanda. I knew the villain was coming because I'm dumb enough to read the message boards that speculate what is going on and in this case they were dead on. I did read to find out more about the Wanda backstory so I did notice some things. Although there did seem to be an Incredibles homage in last night's episode. The last two episodes could have used a lot more Darcy.

I'm now getting ready for Falcon and The Snowman which starts in two weeks.

[Drunk Monk]

The last two episodes could have used a lot more Darcy.

Totally agree. She was a fav character. I didn't put together that she was the same role as in Thor until Tara clued me in. 

At first, I was with you with the fireball throwing. I started to think 'oh well, back into the MCU gratuitous spectacle.' But then it became a moving love story, and that turn got me a little misty. Overall, it was very well played. Impressive writing. There are surely holes if you pick at it, but I often think that's an intentional device of comic book writing, something to force fans to project into, take sides and invest in. Getting stuck into that MCU minutiae is a deep, deep rabbit hole from which there is no return. I'm sure the crew at fandom.com had a field day with this. 

I still don't really understand who Wanda and Vision are. I may have to rewatch Ultron. Or not. I think I've let go of caring who some of the MCU are. It's too much to think about. As long as I have a basic sense of what their powers are, 'tis 'nuf. But wasn't she the Scarlet Witch in Ultron? Oh never mind. Not going back to find out. I suppose I could just read up on it in fandom.com.

There was a tiny cliffhanger in the second after credit scene, or at least an implication that the character is going somewhere. I didn't understand it. I know if I was sitting next to Patrick, he would've gone ballistic and rattled off a ton of Scarlet Witch lore and postulated what it all meant. Yeah, not going there. 

Regardless of all that, I was very entertained. 

Not sure if I'll watch Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Here's a story - when we first moved to Svale, when my folks would meet with the real estate agent, they'd give me some money to buy a comic book at the drugstore in the same strip mall. I didn't read comics and knew very little about them. I picked up a Captain America on a lark, and at the end of that issue, Cap gets knocked down by Falcon and Bucky. I had no idea who they were. It was a weird ending and I never got the following comic to find out. But it has always stuck in the back of my mind. I wonder if I still have those comics stashed away somewhere. I'll wait for Greg's review.

[Greg]

I did do the deep dive on the 2nd end-credit scene. Lots of lore going on with that place. Plus, there is the homage to The Shining.

My plot hole is big. I might have to go rewatch some of the scenes because there's maybe something I missed.

Vision comes up in Ultron but he's been around for a while as Tony Stark's AI Jarvis. Bettany laughs all the time that this simple VO job has kept him going for a decade. Wanda and her brother Pietro appear at the end of Avengers but play a big role in Ultron.

[Drunk Monk]

Those Easter eggs are ridiculous - that’s where this show really ... well, shines. I missed the eggs for The Shining but see them now - https://www.google.com/amp/s/nerdist.com...ggs/%3famp  - Thanks for clueing me in. 
 
Tara filled me in on the Darkhold, which I just assumed was the MCUs necronomicon. 

Finally I watched shield for a reason! There’s like two whole seasons about the darkhold!

The darkhold is in doctor strange, it’s the book that the one guy used one page of to summon dormamu

It’s also used in agents of shield by Aida, and ai who reads it because when humans read it they lose their minds, so she reads it but also goes crazy and creates an alternate universe where everyone gets super messed up.

She also uses it to create an organic body for herself with superhuman powers and also creates robot copies of everyone in shield which messes them al up.

I finally feel vindicated for the hours I wasted on shield.

 
She also reminded me about the Scarlet Witch

She’s first introduced in an end credit scene for captain America

She is also in civil war, so is vision. That might help clear up the timeline

Who needs fandom.com when you’ve raised a strong nerd daughter?

[Greg]

I let a lot of the minutiae roll over me. Look! It's a book of spells. Moving on. I'm old. I don't have time to do the research. Although, my Yahoo News Feed has at least ten stories about WandaVision everyday.

Although it is fun to see how all these little tidbits tie together.

I did predict that Dr. Strange was going to make a cameo, but he never did. Although he was name checked in Ep 9. I'm looking forward to the making of documentary that is supposed to be out this week. There is also doc on Disney+ called, I think, Legacies that details where all the characters come from.

[thatguy]

I didn't realize that Elizabeth Olsen is the younger sister of the Mary-Kate & Ashley Olsen twins (that played the baby sister on Full House). I am old.

--tg

[Drunk Monk]

I didn't realize that Elizabeth Olsen is the younger sister of the Mary-Kate & Ashley Olsen twins (that played the baby sister on Full House). I am old.

Ha. I knew that and schooled my daughter there. She was all 'well, that explains why they look so much alike.' 

I thought Elisabeth did well in this. She reminded me faintly of Jennifer Bailey in the first few episodes.

[Greg]

Here is my big spoilery question and maybe it was in the show but I didn't understand it at the time.













How is Agatha even in the Hex at all? Wanda created the world for her and Vision. So, how did Agatha get in there?



And the other one is during the Vision-Ghost Vision fight, why didn't Ghost Vision just become Vision since he has all the Vision memories now?

[Drunk Monk]

A1: I wrote that off to Darkhold magic. Not that I know what that is. But who cares really? It made for a good mcguffin. 

A2: Yeah, I was wondering that too.

[thatguy]

No mo’, no mo’

https://www.cnn.com/videos/media/2021/06...xp-vpx.hln

—tg

[thatguy]

--tg