WandaVision Thoughts

 Fair warning:  Spoilers ahead after finishing the season 1 finale of WandaVision...

The first couple of episodes were slow.  The finale was... not awful, but not great.  But the middle six episodes were brilliant.  

It was a weird show- at first looking like a lighthearted comedy with a couple of odd points, then slowly pulling back to revealing the truth.  

I'm so glad that Wanda really was responsible for what happened in Westview.  Yes, there were other villains- Agnes wanting her powers, and Hayward (I'll get to Hayward shortly).  But Westview was solely because Wanda, in her grief, wanted to create a happy reality for herself- and it meant kidnapping 5000 other people to play bit parts in her drama, she didn't care.  Wanda caused a lot of damage to innocent people- and I'm glad the show acknowledged that.  

Elizabeth Olsen deserves major kudos for her performance.  Paul Bettany, Kathyrn Hahn, Teyonah Parris, and others were also excellent- but Olsen held the show together.  It was Wanda's grief that drove the show, covered by a thin veneer of lighthearted tv comedies.  This show could have been a spectacular failure- but for the most part, it succeeded.

Agnes was fine- Hahn was glorious in chewing the scenery, and while MCU Agatha Harkness is more of a villain than comic Agatha Harkness, she's a great character and a foil for the magical MCU characters.   

The biggest flaw of the show was the character of Hayward.  The incompetent, mean, and corrupt leader who was always wrong is a cliched character that belongs in a much worse show.  He wasn't even consistent.  If his goal was to restart Vision, once Vision was recreated he didn't need Wanda anymore.  He should have packed SWORD up and gone home.  By sending his new Vision into the Hex, he lost everything he was working for.

Some other finale comments:

* With the Hex disappearing, shouldn't Agnes revert back?

* I would have liked to see much more of Kat Dennings in the finale

* Did Wanda's Vision happen to mention what happened to the other Vision to her?  Seems kind of important?

I don't know if I want to see WandaVision season 2.  But I want to see what happens to these characters.  So by that standard, the show succeeded brilliantly.