What a twist . . . What? I’m invested.
Let’s just get into spoilers immediately. This episode does indeed pay off where we ended last time with Monica Rambeau having just been blasted out of Wanda’s bubble and back into reality. I know some people feel like the show was too slow getting started, but I think the series is pretty well-paced actually. By running time, I feel like we’re not actually a third of the way through the season when Now In Color ended, thanks to the shortest episodes being frontloaded, but by episode count, we get a solid first third of slowly unfolding mystery and then now, as we enter act 2, things take a turn, we get a look back at everything that’s come before from a different perspective and the show sets itself a new, refreshed course with a foot in both worlds, as it were, Wanda’s television pastiche Westview and the real world right outside Westview.
This episode really pops, right from the beginning, with a strong opening scene of Monica returning from Thanos’ snap, struggling to understand that she’s been gone for five years. This is actually probably the most nightmarish of all the ways to go, interestingly enough, at least in terms of coming back. I mean, it’s pretty traumatic to go like Peter did in Infinity War (Parker, not Quill, because **** Starlord), but Monica literally went in her sleep, which is kind of existentially terrifying to contemplate. What if you were dreaming when you disappeared? Anyway, being snapped while asleep feels like an extra violation. The helplessness of a person . . . and then it’s obviously such a bizarre experience upon returning. If you knew you got snapped, presumably, you have some memories of that when you return; but Monica Rambeau essentially dozed off and woke up five years later with the world entirely changed. That’s crazy. Anyway, I think this is a smart way to introduce Monica to us; there’s an instant empathetic connection we have with her and, honestly, finding out about the death of Maria Rambeau, a character I really loved in Captain Marvel, in this way is kind of a gutpunch. That line about how Maria had set up the protocols for when the snapped people came back is really emotional; as the character says, at the end of the day, she never gave up on Monica coming back, always believed it would happen somehow. I like the character of Monica and I like the internal struggle they’ve given her here.
Of the return of Kat Dennings as Darcy and Randall Park as Jimmy Woo, I mean, they’re delightful; they were delightful in their appearances before and they have really good chemistry together. I’ve really been a booster of Darcy coming back ever since The Dark World and her appearance here really does help underline part of what is so special about what the MCU has created; it’s been almost ten years in real time since we’ve seen her (unless I missed some small appearance somewhere) and it’s like bumping into an old friend. I like the way the episode structures its story as an investigation, kind of X-Filesish, which is really right up my alley of course. And it allows the show to get into some amusing meta-commentary on why people watch television and how they feel about the shows they watch and what it means to be a fan of something. And Monica, at least, seems pretty sure that it’s Wanda creating the bubble; what does this do to my theory that Kathryn Hahn is secretly the big bad? Mm. Who knows?
Anyway, I know that some people felt the first three episodes moved too slowly, but I disagree. I think this is the pitch perfect episode to start the second act of the series. With nine episodes, this series has a real shot at doing a perfect three-act structure for this story; the first act to set up the world and introduce foreshadowing and some mystery elements; the second act to clarify what’s happening with dual plotlines including an investigation from the outside; third act: reveal true villain and the entire structure of the Westview bubble starts to collapse? We’ll see. As it is, this was great. Great performances all around; a really great tie back to the all the chaos the MCU is still dealing with from the Thanos story; and, yeah, I really loved it. 4 stars.
tl;dr – fourth episode interrupts the format in a smart, sophisticated way and kicks off the series’ second act with a bang; great performances from old and new faces alike. 4 stars.