Flourish!
In the second episode of WandaVision, the show gets to the most natural sitcom pastiche for Wanda and Vision: Bewitched. The show is once again downright uncanny in terms of its mimicry; the animated opening sequence is absolutely glorious. Bettany and Olsen are both excellent as well. Bettany in particular shines during the magic show climax of the episode, getting a chance to do the kind of broad comedy he rarely gets to do in his career. I’m just slightly less high on this episode than I was on the first episode, I think; the neighborhood watch plotline really goes nowhere and didn’t work for me that well. But the magic show climax and the ladies’ meeting are both absolutely perfect. Emma Caulfield Ford is great in a small supporting role and now let’s get into spoilers.
Because while I’m talking about the cast, I need to discuss Teyonah Parris entering the show as Moni-I-mean-Geraldine. I’ve been a fan of Parris ever since I saw her in Dear White People, the original movie, not the Netflix show, so I was glad to hear that she was joining the MCU, so I’m spoiled on her being Monica Rambeau. Kathryn Hahn continues to be absolutely delightful as Agnes and let me just start speculating that Agnes is the villain of the series. I mean, it’s Kathryn Hahn. Do you really hire her for just this nosy neighbor role? I mean, yes, I guess you would, but it seems more likely that she’s got secrets to reveal. Also, I’m going to speculate that this is a riff on House of M, not a straight up adaptation. The MCU has been really good at doing this, at taking familiar story arcs from the comics and changing them up sufficiently that they work as spiritual adaptations, but not direct ones. Civil War is really the best example of this and I like when they do this because it plays into the idea of a multiverse. What happens in the MCU isn’t replacing the comics versions of these stories; it’s just that this is how Civil War-like events play out in different universes, right? Like Cap & Tony are fated across many universes to play out some version of these events, some serious conflict between the two of them, but the scenarios are different in different universes. I like that. So, anyway, I think this is the MCU’s House of M and in this version, Wanda isn’t actually the one doing this or maybe she’s being manipulated into creating this reality. But I think it’s important that the voice on the radio says something along the lines of “what’s happening to you?” or “what are they doing to you?” to Wanda and not “what are you doing?” It’s a thought anyway. I will say I loved the segue from Help Me, Rhonda to the radio speaking to Wanda. That was cool as were all of the surreal bits here, particularly the ending with the beekeeper (?), the miraculous pregnancy and the change to color. You know what, I don’t know why I said I liked this episode a little less than the first one. That neighborhood watch subplot is a bit flat, like I said, so the sitcom pastiche of this episode isn’t quite as tight and perfectly executed as the pastiche was in Filmed Before a Live Studio Audience, but this episode also does a lot that episode wasn’t trying to do and does it really well. Yeah, this was great too. Series continues to be awesome. 4 stars.
tl;dr – second episode goes for Bewitched and boasts great performances as well as some nice Twilight-Zoney weirdness; still 100% on board. 4 stars.