Watercoolering With WANDAVISION - Ep. 3 - NOW IN COLOR (Patreon)

Annnnnd we’re back to pantomime.

At least for 20 minutes or so before the ending swoops in and becomes all we want to talk about (and yes, we will talk about it). But first we have to talk about the errant nature of those initial 20 minutes and how much they highlight the fundamental problem with Wandavision’s approach. Because gone is the funky in-between and off-kilter tone that made the second episode more manageable. Also gone are the inklings of Lynchian noir and investigation that were trapped underneath the shiny happy exterior. And they're gone because Wandavision either doesn’t know how to be that show or it doesn’t want to do the work. It is instead far more comfortable moving on from the entire situation, just like the shows many endless distractions from itself.

This time we’re in the 60’s! It’s fun! We have all the songs you know! There’s even different credits! It’s just like The Brady Bunch! Only it’s not like The Brady Bunch at all. Once again, we have a problem with the show making fun of the thing that it’s proclaiming it loves and wants to be. Don’t settle for your memory. Go back and watch a random episode of that show and notice that it takes it’s time, moves with deliberate focus, often while being light on it’s feet and rarely hamming it up. It feels different because they played the truth of their characters. But instead? We just get the texture of those shows. And perhaps as a result we get Wandavision’s most manic, unfocused, and uncomfortable effort at sitcom farce yet.

It’s so much of what I was said last time, but applied ten fold. Our two leads are genuinely trying to play it funny, but have to spend so much of their time not playing it real. But that’s mostly because the writing isn’t playing it real, either. Virtually ever moment just has the characters reaction to something strange, like the hedge clippers thing, and they go “that’s weird!” and move the fuck on to some new distraction (they’ve done this like fourteen times in three episodes and I am EXHAUSTED by it. These are insane levels of plot-blocking). And again, the characters sitcom reality isn’t strong enough to hold onto either (last week’s talent show was much better though). Without those real motives, you see the actors trying their damnedest, desperate to fill the void of how nothing is actually happening, all while the laugh track tries to assuage the same feelings. It’s overplayed for the same reason it is overplayed some sitcoms: it’s afraid of the painful untrue sound without it. But for all my criticism of execution it comes down to a simpler question:

Does it actually mean anything?

That’s the whole thing. Most Marvel efforts have always been light on theme (besides Black Panther, which I feel like should be a forever caveat whenever I reference Marvel), but when you’re engaging in something as meta and abstract as this show, the lack of any real semiotical interest becomes soul-crushing. My mind races with questions: Does this transition to color actually mean anything? Does the update to the 60’s actually mean something? Will the hedge clipper moment mean anything besides “something is weird and wrong” and will there be motivation for it? Will the laugh track be revealed as some actual object with purpose? Is there a reason for the specificity for any of these choices? Without answers to those questions, it’s all a meaningless wave of texture whose fun can run out rather quickly.

Thus, the only option is to believe “it will all make sense when we get more answers.”

But it probably won’t. The show will have moved on and you will have forgotten that we cared about these questions all because there will be a shiny new distraction. Case in point: the episode’s ending. Where our cares about the bad 20 minutes of sitcom go away because we finally have another breakdown, but this time with some actual engagement from the characters! And it seems Wanda has sent Geraldine packing. She flies through some sort of barrier and the military swoops in and we realize with a bit more specificity that they are in a Truman Show-like "on an enclosed set" type situation.

At least we think that’s what it is. Because it’s also the kind of choice that’s still so unspecific and will have to say that way. Why? Because Wandavision has zero interest in revealing its own core motivations (imagine watching The Truman Show from his perspective and how much that would defeat the dramatic point and thematic clarity of just about everything it’s trying to do). But this is what bad writing does (I shouldn’t say bad, let’s say unconfident and unaware of how mysteries actually work). It tries to outsmart you. It tries to hide. It tries to reveal “ta-da! I knew what I was doing all along!” when really it’s just been floundering in misunderstanding and using every possible try to entertain instead of fix its core problem.

I always feel like it’s really important to clarify that the great harm of mystery boxing is that it convinced a generation of writers that mysteries were about creating situations where you have no fucking idea what’s going on and everything is vague. They’re not. Mysteries are actually very clear situations with a driving central question that is also clear (usually who killed X or something). They investigate. New information comes to light and changes the scope of the understanding. And then, in the end, you have utter clarity of the driving questions at the start (even Twin Peaks did this, it just relied on abstract art at times). But nowadays, you have now idea how many fucking bad mysteries don’t realize their “big reveal” is actually their initial incident and main conflict (and should probably be treated as such). So far, Wandavision is just another example of that. I mean, there’s a reason the breaks in reality FEEL like the only compelling and real things that happen in this show…

Because they are the show.

Or at least what the show should be about. Hearing Wanda talk about her brother and Ultron? It matters because it's our baseline reality AND hers (and the only moments the characters are playing the untruth of pantomime). Naturally, we want to be engaging this in some sort of way. But because of the core conceit and the need for all sitcom indulgence, it can’t quite go there bEcAuSe ReAsOnS. Or it doesn’t know how to give us both at the same time. So it just keeps running and teasing and spinning wheels and hoping "curiosity" will be enough. All before utterly depending on the last minute teasing moves to make it seem like we’re having genuine movement. 

Sure, we can say it must be part of Marvel’s growing pains what with the getting into television and all, but the movies were infamous for this, too. I can’t remember how many times I voiced criticism of something only to be met with, “they’ll deal with it in the net one!” And they rarely ever did (like when Hulk’s grand character catharsis that’s been built up for 10 years, you know, happens off screen like it never fucking mattered). Marvel’s always been notorious with this. So I don’t know why I expected this to be better?

We just always have the same instruction: Please stand by.

But I’m so so so so so so so so tired of television that only knows how to promise you that more will happen later… Often because what comes later is just another promise.

RANDOM THOUGHTS

-HYDRA Soak - Any takers on a guess? Or is it just more texture?

-Actual good sitcom laugh: no lines this week, but Bettany can scream funny.

-Let’s hear it for the Doctor character: Randy Oglesby, the small bit “that guy!” actor of thirty years who has been seeming to get more work the last few years.

-I’m trying to tell if this was filmed on part of Universal lot where they filmed The Good Place or another part of the Warners lot… when you’ve lived in LA long enough it becomes a background part of each and every single thing you watch. And with some things, it’s your favorite part.

-Let’s talk more about knowing your voice and understanding your identity. Because when the “Does this make me look fat?” / “Oh thank god” joke comes when power goes out, I was left asking: what is the point of this? What are you REALLY doing here? Because that’s not making fun of 60’s sitcoms, is it? That’s just making fun of tired Tim Allen Last Man Standing shit. This tone is what I meant when I said the show was not lovely recreating sitcom, but making fun of them. Or perhaps this is what they think is a good sitcom-y joke is and are just copying in that vein? But the real reason for the confusion is because I think the show doesn’t know, either. It’s all part of the wishy washy and complete misunderstanding of what this show is doing, what it loves, what it’s making fun, and what it’s trying to get you to feel about it. Instead, it’s just clinging to the notions that feel like reference and pastiche and trying to skate by without us noticing that it doesn’t really know… but we know.

-My final complex thought this week is the acknowledgment of a horrible catch 22 with Wandavision in that virtually all my criticism can be dismissed as being part of the show’s intention. The sitcom isn’t supposed to be good! They have to be uncomfortable with it! They have to not know what’s going on for the bad guy’s plan to work! They show has to be constantly distracted from itself so the characters will be, too! You know, it’s all part of how tHe sHoW kNoWs that and it’s doing it on purpose!

Oh no, there’s nothing is outside the text!

Cue classic Dinosaur comic!

This comic makes me so happy.

Anyway, the sad thing is that this choice is also full-proof genius in the most cynical of ways. The conceit makes real hardline criticism of these issues feel fruitless. And as a critic, you’re often running into such blind acceptance of whatever the show is doing, along with the fact that the devoted audience can take that endless space for conjecture and create virtually any motivation that makes sense to them. And THEN, it’s sort of impossible to argue that anyone is doing that, of course, nor argue one way or the other. It makes it impossible to really engage. But even then, my real problem is this sort of show construction turns all those critical and thoughtful questions of “why?” behind the show's writing and MAKES IT about engaging in guesswork of the plot. And not, you know, engaging in meaning and theme and every other thing I adore and love to write about. And I care because, ultimately, it’s the difference between creating things as distracting placation and creating the things that truly hit us in meaningful and resounding ways. 

So I just think it’s fair to say that I don’t want more promises.

I want a show that exists in the now.

Even when the characters don’t.

<3 HULK