WandaVision Episode 3
As we saw at the end of last week’s two-episode premiere of WandaVision, Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) had decided to avoid some troubling cracks in her black-and-white sitcom world (like that eerie beekeeper) by sprucing the place up with some color. In episode 3, WandaVision fully embraces the 1970s TV comedy esthetic, complete with crazy hairdos and outfits, brightly lit sets and even a new theme song and credits sequence that all look like they arrived fresh from a Brady Bunch audition. And let’s also not forget that Wanda is now pregnant, and as episode 3 progresses, so does her pregnancy at alarming speed. As the show opens, Wanda and Vision (Paul Bettany) are finishing up a home visit from the rather obnoxious Dr. Stan Nielsen (Randy Oglesby), who explains that everything seems fine despite Wanda rather abruptly looking like she’s four months pregnant. Meanwhile, Vision has some odd encounters of his own: first, as he sees Dr. Nielsen out, he notices next door neighbor Herb (David Payton), who Vision met for the first time in episode 2, “Don’t Touch that Dial,” is trimming the hedges on the border of their property — except that Herb is actually cutting through the low wall between their two lots without seeming to notice. Who are they whispering about? “Geraldine,” a.k.a. Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris), who has stopped by to visit super-pregnant Wanda and, as it turns out, ends up helping her give birth as the timeline shoots forward once again and Wanda’s big moment arrives. And boy, does it — as her water breaks, rain falls inside the Maximoff/Vision residence, and as her contractions come hard and fast, reality starts to break around them — more power outages, earthquakes, fire and even a manifestation of an actual stork. Wanda delivers — and as Marvel comics fans might well have expected, she gives birth to not one baby but two. The second twin surprises everyone (except, again, diehard fans) and the debate over whether to use the name Tommy or Billy is quickly settled. Meanwhile, delivery over, the world of Westview stabilizes…at least for a minute. But not all is well as episode 3 reaches its momentous conclusion: looking down at the twins with Geraldine, Wanda murmurs that she had a twin brother herself. To which Geraldine replies nonchalantly, “Your brother was killed by Ultron, wasn’t he?” (Quick refresher: yes, Wanda’s twin brother Pietro, a.k.a. Quicksilver, was killed by the title villain in Avengers: Age of Ultron.) And with that — and finally noticing that the pendant around Geraldine’s neck is the same S.W.O.R.D. logo she saw on the toy helicopter she discovered outside their house last week — Wanda has had enough of her new friend. She flings Geraldine/Monica out of the house and out of Westview itself, with the agent landing on a grassy field outside the town and immediately surrounded by helicopters and cars. This is where we are also afforded our first look at how Westview appears from the outside, and all we can really see is a massive energy field surrounding whatever Wanda has constructed in there. As an episode (directed once again by Matt Shakman and written by Megan McDonnell), WandaVision works just as well as the first two installments, creating humor out of both the bizarre sitcom universe Wanda has created and the terrific comic chemistry between Olsen and Bettany. And in classic Marvel fashion, the segment moves the story forward while leaving behind all kinds of tantalizing mysteries. Things are starting to happen rapidly on the show, and we expect that next week’s episode will be a pivotal one.
