Spoilers WandaVision discussion thread

[Nightowl1701]

One look at a list of 90's sitcoms tells you there wasn't really anything to work with that would fit the Maximoff family. Agnes as The Nanny? Vision hosting 'Tool Time'? Pietro as Urkel? And they damn sure weren't gonna go anywhere near Married with Children, The Simpsons or (especially) Roseanne...

Besides, we're entering Act 3 now, the story's ready to hit the gas. It's been fun playing sitcoms, but now it's time to go full-on MCU.

 

[Photoman15]

If they get to the 2010's sitcoms and Darcy has been pulled in, she can be living with a roommate and constantly not have money and sell cupcakes.

 

[Nerys Myk]

If they get to the 2010's sitcoms and Darcy has been pulled in, she can be living with a roommate and constantly not have money and sell cupcakes.

I could actually see them doing that sort of nod.

 

[Reverend]

The lack of sitcom material as TV's tastes and conventions roll on with the decades, works perfectly as a parallel to Wanda's increasing instability and loosening grip of reality. It started off as the idyllic, orderly facade that was the 50's, then with each decade things get closer and closer to the chaos that is reality. When it hits the 2000's, all bets are off.

As for the various clues and hints that seem to point at certain things from the comics; I'd just remind everyone about the whiteboard that had "what do the hexagons mean" scrawled on it. The makers of this show know their audience, they know everything will be dissected, they know the conclusions that people are likely to come to. That means that there could be a lot of red herrings in here. For that reason, I'm inclined to filter out the surface level details, the peripheral meta references and the "hints" that a lot of people are latching onto and keep focused on the plot and character.

 

[Guy Gardener]

If they do the Champions that means they would have to somehow introduce Hercules... (Of course the original Defenders had Doctor Strange, The Valkyrie, and the Silver Surfer, so who knows...)

Poor Black Widow is dead.

Ghost Rider has already be used by Agents of SHIELD.

 

[Jayson1]

To me it felt late 90's to early 2000's which is when Malcolm in the Middle ran but it also had a kind of Nickelodeon vibe as well. Jason

 

[Nerys Myk]

Poor Black Widow is dead.

Ghost Rider has already be used by Agents of SHIELD.

They did have a Ghost Rider show in works for a while, but balked on it.

 

[137th Gebirg]

I miss Punisher and Daredevil.

 

[Jayson1]

Me to and also Jessica Jones and Luke Cage. But not Iron Fist. Jason

 

[Caretaker]

Weren't we already in the 00s? This episode seemed very "Malcolm in the Middle" to me, with Billy and Tommy talking to the camera, the weird flashbacks/manatee gags and Pietro being a stand-in for Francis?
Plus Agnes' "classy" stretch pants with the fake jewels glued to her butt, I think that was a 00s fashion.
Though it is odd that they seem to have skipped over the 1990s entirely...

Yep, the opening credits sequence was definitely modeled on the MitM credits.

I could have sworn Malcolm started in the late 90's, like 1999 - but nope, Google tells me it ran from January 2000 through May 2006.

 

[Sketcher]

Technically the 90s ran from 1990-2000. So...I guess it still sorta works.

 

[Guy Gardener]

The 90s are still there, inside your heart.

Me to and also Jessica Jones and Luke Cage. But not Iron Fist. Jason

The one good thing about Iron Fist is that I haven't finished it.

 

[Grendelsbayne]

Last issue of All-New Avengers they said next month we are going to be the Champions, and the first few months of champions they were still printing letters from All-New Avengers.

It was physically the same book, even if they were telling a different story.

Like how New Mutants became X-Force, and then X-Statix, or Batman and the Outsiders became the Adventures of the Outsiders, or Journey into Mystery became The Mighty Thor, and then Back to Journey into Mystery Briefly while Thor was "Dead" because of Heroes Reborn, and then back to the Mighty Thor again when they found the Odinson in Franklin Richard's Volleyball, and Then back to Journey into mystery when Teen Loki took over form Thor, and Sif got a year in the driving seat too, before it was back to The Mighty Thor.

Regardless of how they promoted things or whether you want to see it as the 'same' book, it's still explicitly two different teams with wildly different rosters and a wildly different ethos. Just like X-Statix is clearly not the same thing as X-Force even though Marvel (rather inexplicably) gave them the X-force book for a while. Or like how the final arc of the Thunderbolts is clearly not about the Thunderbolts. Marvel does weird shit with titles and promotions sometimes.

 

[Relayer1]

If they do the Champions that means they would have to somehow introduce Hercules... (Of course the original Defenders had Doctor Strange, The Valkyrie, and the Silver Surfer, so who knows...)

I was thinking of the current Champions.

Definitely not Hercules or those others.

 

[Orphalesion]

So, after watching the episode again, I'm really a bit disturbed by that yo-magic commercial. The starving child is fed yo-magic by the shark, but is unable to open the lid, je4ks the same, failed movement again and again, and finally dies.
Is that supposed to show what happens to the town residents under Wanda's power? At the edge of town people repeat the same movements constantly, clearly aware of their situation (the woman crying as she repeatedly moves her arm to hang up a halloween decoration) are those people starving because Wanda won't let them eat? Have people already died?

And they damn sure weren't gonna go anywhere near Married with Children, The Simpsons or (especially) Roseanne...

What would have been wrong with Roseanne? Because of that tone-deaf, awful revival a few years back? Because from what I know Roseanne was a popular show at the time, and not really any crasser than Melcom in the Middle, which they did choose to adapt.

 

[Grendelsbayne]

So, after watching the episode again, I'm really a bit disturbed by that yo-magic commercial. The starving child is fed yo-magic by the shark, but is unable to open the lid, je4ks the same, failed movement again and again, and finally dies.
Is that supposed to show what happens to the town residents under Wanda's power? At the edge of town people repeat the same movements constantly, clearly aware of their situation (the woman crying as she repeatedly moves her arm to hang up a halloween decoration) are those people starving because Wanda won't let them eat? Have people already died?

I don't think so. I'd say the name here is very significant. Someone is 'snacking' on 'yo magic/your magic'. The regular people in town aren't magic. I think that spot is the first confirmation that Wanda isn't really the one controlling everyone, even if she thinks she is, and that whoever's pulling the strings behind the scenes is doing it to steal her magic (and the kids' presumably). That death shows what will happen to Wanda/her kids if they stay in Westview.

As for the people at the edge of town, I doubt they're like that all the time. It seems to be that that Wanda's power can only really control a limited number of people at a time so at any given time, some townspeople are trapped in a weird pseudolife that only looks believable from a distance, but they presumably wouldn't be the same ones all the time. It would depend on what part of town Wanda's focusing on, probably.

And even that pseudolife is still clearly designed to look believable from a distance, so they must still go inside to eat and sleep at night.

 

[The Wormhole]

This episode was definitely supposed to be in the 2000s. When you see them walking by the theatre, one of the movies listed on its sign is The Incredibles, which came out in 2004.

 

[Grendelsbayne]

This episode was definitely supposed to be in the 2000s. When you see them walking by the theatre, one of the movies listed on its sign is The Incredibles, which came out in 2004.

An interesting detail, but the style of the episode was very definitely 90s. That clay-like x-treme!!1! surfer shark in the Yo-Magic commercial was one of the most aggresively 90s things I've ever seen.

 

[Captaindemotion]

This episode was definitely supposed to be in the 2000s. When you see them walking by the theatre, one of the movies listed on its sign is The Incredibles, which came out in 2004.

I thought it felt 2000s too but the other film was The Parent Trap, which was 1998. Could’ve been a re-release, of course or a general blurring of the decades (but more likely TPT was just a nod to Wanda and Vision’s twins).

 

[Anwar]

They skipped the 90s.

Malcolm in the Middle is technically an "End of the 90s" show.