Well, here we go. It’s 7:30 a.m., I’ve got a big mug of heated chocolate flavored beverage, and I kind of wander how salty I’m going to get. Is this episode 7 of 8 or 7 of 9?
The Previously On recaps the previous episode, and then we open up to Wanda in bed (alone), intercut with a reality-show confessional style talking-straight-to-the-camera segments, and straight-up flashbacks. Tommy and Billy helpfully dart in to provide extra drama, uh, we mean exposition. Their game controllers keep changing types, and then vanished completely.
WandaVille reality is glitching in a serious way at this point, and no amount of hiding under the blankets is going to help that. Additionally, the red twin reports that it’s really noisy inside his head. Wanda ignores this in favor of a “quarantine-style staycation” day. Heh. But then her almond milk keeps glitching into different types and bottles. Wanda ignores this, too.
Back outside in the S.W.O.R.D. “temporary retreat,” (eight miles further out) we get our daily dose of jackbooted types doing important jackbooted things, like setting up tents and bustling around in black minivans. Director Hayward and his slightly-brown female minion make it known to the audience that they’re going to “launch today.” Oh noes! Anyway.
Vision, meanwhile, has woken up over by the ex-S.W.O.R.D. base now turned circus…and is promptly told a) good job for being in makeup alread, b) he’s late for practice with the escape artist….Darcy. Pwah.
Back at home, questions are being asked. Such as: where’s Dad?…why did Uncle P say he’d been dead? (Where is Uncle P?) Also, if he’s not our uncle, who is he, Mom? Wanda has a miniature breakdown at this point, admitting that she has no answers and is beginning to leave that everything is meaningless. It’s Agnes and Mephisto, isn’t it.
AND THEN AGNES COMES BREEZING IN. Riiiiiiiiiight. She drags the twins off to allow Wanda some alone time, despite their reluctance. Red twin, who seems to be the only one allowed a personality, wants to stay and take care of his mother, but he gets hustled out the door. The house glitches some more, but Wanda un-glitches it and then keeps repeating to her invisible psychologist-slash-the-audience that she’s fine. Fine. Fine.
Back with our most diverse and least likeable leads, it turns out that, SURPRISE SUPRISE WAIT FOR IT OH NO HOW COULD HE WHAT A SHOCK, Hayward was trying to reanimate Vision from the get-go. (In contravention to Vision’s own legal living will, BTW.) Of course, it wasn’t working until Wanda actually made her deal with the devil or whatever else she was doing.
The actual tragedy of this situation is that my hot chocolate has all gone away.
People. “Weapons” aren’t this really terrible, mystical thing that needs a high-level government lab and white-coated scientists to manufacture. A weapon is a rock. A weapon is a sharpened screwdriver. A weapon is half a ton of fertilizer and some other stuff. A weapon is person with a book and a vision and the ability to force other people to see themselves as expendable. Fuck you. Stop pretending that weapons R&D is a catch-all bogeyman and get a fucking grip.
Oh gods. So.
Monica and Agent Woo meet up with Monica’s engineer friend who just so happened to be able to provide her with a twenty-ton neutron, photon, peon, and moron-shielded mobile shelter to re-enter the barrier, in secret, without Hayward knowing about it.
It’s some army Colonel, in uniform. What the everliving hell. Explain to me how you were exactly able to commandeer this really expensive and important piece of MILITARY EQUIPMENT without Hayward’s approval? Without Hayward’s knowledge? How…wha…???? People, when your cartoon reality show has better internal logic than your “real world” events, that is BAD WRITING.
The Colonel is a woman of color, but that’s really just a cherry on the top.
OH WOW HA NO IT ISN’T. SHE CAME AS A FAVOR TO MONICA BECAUSE SHE KNEW MONICA’S MOTHER. Golly. I’m imagining S.W.O.R.D 2.0, under Monica, being run as a gal-pals network. And I’m imagining how, while this is going to be written as The Best Thing Ever, having all these Stronk Women in charge!, what I’m thinking is what is going to happen when these completely unprofessional and incompetent widgets get mad at each other for refusing to share makeup tips or one department buys out all the Warm Beige concealer.
Do I hate women characters? Fuck no. I just hate having to watch unlikeable, incompetent, condescending, personality-less womannequins who are IN CHARGE because everyone else is sooooooo much worse. Explain to me why I should like watching a show where everyone is merely a different shade of unlikable and incompetent?
Back at the circus, Vision is trying to break through to Darcy and finally does. Explain to me why he didn’t start with the de-brainwashing zap? They get interrupted by a guy in striped tights, who attempts to grab Darcy but soon finds what REALLY happens when you try to chain down a strong woman. But what makes this scene really, really, really terrible is watching Darcy waddle-run away afterwards. What the fuck. That’s not even a girly-girl run, it’s an old-lady-in-long-skirts-who-just-stole-the-last-piece-of-pie run. What. Why was that shot even left in the show? It makes no sen…whatever, nothing matters. Never mind.
Back over at Wanda, the house glitches some more. She admits she doesn’t know what’s going on and how to fix it. Aand now we hear a voice answering her! “Do you think this is maybe what you deserve?” Wanda freaks out, because the…audience? isn’t supposed to answer back. It might be worth pointing out that the voice asking that question is male.
And then there’s another one of those ads. It’s for Nexus, the medication which can solve your existential ennui by anchoring you to reality. Or A reality. (So….like inferior dried frog pills, then?) Side effects might include demonic possession.
Meanwhile, Agnes and the boys are on her couch. Red Twin (why is only one of them allowed to speak?) says he likes it there with Senor Scratchy…because it’s quiet in her house. And so is Agnes. Agnes starts paying a lot more attention to Green Twin at this point, because she’s not going to be the one who tells the ten-year-olds with magical powers that their mother is insane.
Monica, meanwhile, is getting suited up. I’d mock the show’s efforts to paint her as a trailblazing astronaut-equivalent, but at this point what I really want is for this damn episode to go back to Wanda. And Vision. The main characters. The ones who have personality, motivations, desires, and conflicts. The people I actually care what happens to. Oh, and Agnes, because Agnes is interestingly wacky even when she’s going to turn out to be the villain.
OH MY GOD, WOO SAYS “GODSPEED, CAPTAIN.” Goddamnit, she is not trailblazing in unknown frontiers, she is not that special, and she is not freaking interesting! If you wanted to make her any of those things, you should have started by letting her be any of those things. Incidentally, whatever did happen to the guy S.W.O.R.D. sent in through the sewers in the first episode?
So Monica takes off in the rover (at quite a clip, one might add), only to crash right into the barrier and stick. Agent Woo recognizes that the rover is being re-written, and radios Monica to get out. She jumps clear (somehow losing her helmet?), as the rover gets ejected….as a jacked-up pickup.
Monica then (sans helmet) walks through the barrier on her own instead. Because, as the voiceover helpfully informs us, she’s is the most powerful person they know. Also, her eyes have turned blue and she’s seeing energy fields. She ditches her suit (AFTER ALL THE TIME THEY SPENT CLICK-CLACKING YOU INTO IT, THAT WAS KIND OF FAST) and takes off running. I’d also like to point out two things at this point: a) her under-suit is bicolored, kinda like a superhero costume (hmmmmmmmmm), b) it’s not really a flattering costume.
We cut back to Vision and Darcy. Darcy is providing unhelpful and unusuable exposition regarding Vision’s death. They keep running into random red lights, road crews, etc. Vision tells the audience he feels Wanda is trying to keep him away from home….and he’s not amused. You keep that spine, boy. It’s all that you’ve got going for you.
Vision wants to know what he is now, after his physical body was killed. Darcy, being a scientist with a STEM degree and lots of important, plot-relevant science skills, provides a very unhelpful affirmation of their love storyline. And Vision finally, also, breaks with the TV-style plot and decides to head out on his own, to go do what needs to be done.
Monica crashes into the WandaVision residence and immediately gets ejected….except that Monica manages to get through to Wanda that it is HAYWARD’s fault, HAYWARD has done this, HAYWARD has manipulated her into becoming THE VILLAIN, HAYWARD is going to burn down the town, ARE YOU READING ME WANDA, THIS IS HAYWARD’S FAULT OVER.
I can’t do this anymore. That’s it. I’m done with this show.
Anyhow, yeah, Agatha Harkness. Whatever.
Riders of Skaith 