Watercoolering With WANDAVISION - Ep. 6 - All-New Halloween Spooktacular (Patreon)

First off, I want to take a second to say how much they’re nailing the cinematography of this show. While the effectiveness of the writing sort of goes in and out, the stylistic approach of the camera work has been ON POINT every step of the way. And this week’s “90’s episode’ is probably the best work yet, in that it so absolutely fucking nailed the Malcolm In The Middle sensibility and joke style (though I have a fun caveat about that at the bottom). But it’s not just the show’s ability to capture pastiche of sitcom - it’s when they know how to break it and use traditional camera work to bring us close to intimate moments in all the right ways.

This is all a miracle considering that cinematography has been one of my biggest gripes with the MCU, particularly what they do with grading in the DI (we used to call this color timing, RIP film). Because pretty much since Phase 2 started, there’s been this washed out, milky gray dreary tone to virtually everything they’ve produced. Hell, I can’t remember the last time I saw a proper intentionally crushed black within the frame (I’d even take an unintentional at this point). But they don’t go near it. Why? Well, I’ve heard horror stories about how they really like to avoid night scenes because they “don’t test as well,” and that argument spills right into the overall grading itself.

But it’s also part of the world-building argument. Because while the MCU films are theoretically supposed to be in different genres (I mean, they’re not, we usually get a handful of scenes that reflect whatever time they’re making “a paranoid thriller” or a “high school movie” before it devolves into the superhero operatics, which is fine, I’m just saying), it is important to Marvel that they be made uniform to better make the worlds of each film come together in stylistic unity when characters meet up. Because “nothing should seem too out of place” with the larger world they have oh-so-carefully built.

Obviously, these criticisms are also generalizations because there were always moments of great flourish, too (like the gorgeousness of the Wakanda Ancestral plane or scenes with other heightened realties). Nor am I saying that all these filmmakers were having their visual voices stripped from them, as many brought certain aspects in regardless. I mean, Gunn knows how to shoot comedic wides with a lot of characters better than most filmmakers. Taika’s absolutely gonna get his goofy center-point framing and “accidental renaissance” action shots in. But there’s no denying that when I look at the MCU on the whole, the underwhelming emphasis seeps in. So many inert compositions. So little of the action is shot for tension. Heck, I’d even argue the last couple avengers movies have been the one most affected by tall his, as they often look like a geography-less mish-mash (which is sadly part because of the insane schedules of its cast and literally everyone having to be shot on their own and on green screen).

Point is, it’s NOT GREAT, BOB! And Wandavision using it so damn well only highlights the stark difference between the two. In needing, repeat, really NEEDING to use cinematic language to tell their story and capture the right look, it has finally broken the MCU out of their ridiculous color grading approach (even their real world scenes have properly crushed blacks now!). And what I hope more than anything is that it becomes a fundamental lesson for all that follows. Get some proper black values in there! Don’t wash it out! Make the colors pop! We already understand this one big world. You won. Now use some contrast make it look GREAT. Elevate for all that is to follow! Have fun with it! Make it feel NEW!

Anyway, I cannot overstate how much better this show is with the cards on the table.

Specifically now that we know the score between our two leads. Here, Vision is playing detective against his wife while and going in and out of her mind control in a way we can recognize. This allows for the conflict to play in such a rich way, with subtlety even. My favorite moment is just that little look that Wanda gives when Vision insists on going to neighborhood watch by himself. The whole “okay, I’m not going to fight you on this, play your little game, I’ll still be in control.” We sense so much of her exhaustion and how she doesn’t want to fight everything. And we can relate to this moment because we finally know where they both stand. It’s actually the same thing that makes Vision’s “well there were no other clothes in my closet” joke lands so hard. We can see him being resigned to being trapped in this fate and going through motions. They can finally just play everything real.

Given that, I think this is the first episode where Elizabeth Olsen REALLY gets to shine. It’s not just that her comedic timing is better fit the 90’s / 2000’s funhouse style (though her work prior is also good, she’s just saddled with way more pantomime). It’s that from start to finish we get to see what she’s really feeling and why. She outright tells us she’s “tired of pretending.” So now there’s baseline tension to the jokes, which makes it all work so much cleaner. What makes it work EVEN BETTER is the fact that she now has Pietro with her, which means she can have brazenly honest conversations about what she’s feeling and why. Interiority is the name of the game, folks! And given that the show is working so well now, it also leads to a question…

Was this really the best way to get here?

I realize it might be less important to the viewer, but it’s the kind of story question I obsess over, largely because it delves into the very heart of dramatic functionalism (and it is often literally my job). Imagine getting handed all these scripts and it’s like okay what are the notes? What’s working? What isn’t? How do you make it better? Chiefly with this show - if everything’s finally working now in episode 6, how should those first five episodes have been done for optimum effect in getting us to where we are now? What is the best path?

There’s no singular solution, of course. There’s lots of approaches, often relating to timing of information. But it really starts with recognizing the deeper-tissue problems. For instance, I keep saying that the cards are now on the table and that’s why it’s working, but that’s mainly because they are good cards! These are real compelling conflicts and motivations! But just because they are the right ones doesn’t mean we need to blindly accept the way those cards came to the table. I mean, just because you purposefully hide those motivations does not mean you successfully “did a mystery” or even had good reveals. It just means you finally got to your dang point. And that’s a problem when your audience had to wait for too long and got stuck in the repetitions of pantomime. You have to use that time surgically.

But you can’t just shove all the important information to the start, either, right? If we started where we are now in episode 6, it would be so much harder to introduce the dynamics between her and Vision (but only a couple episodes worth if I’m being completely honest). But then you’d be left with so much time to play out their fighting as they are now, right? This is what I mean when it comes to timing of information: you have to make the best dramatic use of your time.

So that’s the real question - what do you do with ten episodes? How do you make this idea work? You certainly don’t want to pad it out. The thing is that Wandavision clearly wanted the early sitcom plotting to be strong enough that they could work as “A stories” and I know some liked it, b but as I’ve explained 1) that doesn’t work super well because even if you’re making good jokes, comedy needs a real baseline reality and 2) doing three whole episodes of that is way haaaaaaard. I think we honestly get all the mileage we can out of “realizing their messed up situation” with just one episode. So it needs to have the stronger dramatic force underneath it for what follows.

Chiefly, you need stronger character motivation. Wanda and Vision can still be sitcom versions of themselves, but we also already established it works way better if they’re actively investigating their circumstances. It gives them agency and a conflict for us to root them through. I mean, two superheroes we already love being caught in a a Twin Peaks-ian world and trying to find their way out? That sure as hell works for me. And imagine them actually investigating the weird bee people instead of constantly blipping to restart.

But this also shows how Wandavision clearly runs into a conceit problem: how do you do that when Wanda is secretly the one in control? I argue the big mistake comes in the way they just tease that blipping thing / her control out through vague allusion. First, it creates this constant re-start and non-drama. Hell, it’s like an improv group where everyone is “no, but-ing” the scene. Second, all the vague allusions are the same reason the big hammer drop at the end of episode four doesn’t feel like a big turn or twist. It’s just the confirmation of the notion we always had. The hid the show instead of misdirecting us. It’s less compelling. And instead, they could have had Wanda actively teasing but still going along with her husband’s suspicions - but then you play that as a twist at the critical moment.

This kind of stuff is CRITICAL to storytelling because we only have so much patience with a given conflict before it’s repetitive. What need new conflicts and changes in alliance and motive to make us feel like the story is evolving. No, you can’t just rely on changing aesthetics of going from 50’s to 90’s sitcoms. That’s just the surface stuff. It has to be ingrained in the story conflict itself. A movie like Green Lantern is so hard to watch because watch him wrestle with the same exact problem for nearly two hours and constantly “no, but-ing” the plot of the movie. A movie like The Good The Bad and The Ugly becomes a cinema classic at three damn hours precisely because it is constantly changing our understanding of the characters and reforging alliances before creating more betrayals (it’s seriously a masterpiece example of how to shift your character dynamics). This stuff is drama 101. But the point of drama 101 is never to look at a film or show and go “this is the paint by numbers way to tell a story.” It’s take the function of what makes those great moments work and apply the same fundamental lessons behind them to the story you are doing now.

Because we all understand that’s Wandavision’s conceit is incredibly complex. There is no “set path” for something like this, no blueprint for this particular show (which is part of why I only have empathy for the process, believe me). But the same is true of everything. Which is why this entire conversation is predicated on the art of talking about process. We have to acknowledge that these are really strange story circumstances! And the way they are executed right now makes it really easy to invite our curiosity, but so much harder to invite our dramatic interest. Which is always the goal, you know? To create the kinds of situations where the audience leans in and not wonders, but WORRIES about what’s going to happen next. Because that’s what involving stories do. And while I’m so glad Wandavision is finally getting there, I can’t help but wonder about how the show could have also got us there along the way. Because it’s my nature. And even then, perhaps the best thing I can say is this…

Pretty sure the best fireworks are yet to come.

RANDOM THOUGHTS!

-Mentioned this last week, but SWORD Boss guy isn’t really working because he suffers from “Sudden Asshole Syndrome.” You know, where a character suddenly changes their temperament to suit the tension of the story? Rather than have the tension EMANATE out of the character’s established behavior? Look, sometimes you need asshole characters to root against, but this dude’s moves all feel trite, almost like it’s trying to auto-side us in the conflict. And I honestly feel like it would be so much more effective without the SAS? If he was really playing all this earnestly, but just afraid? God, I hope that they’re not just laying on a thick bit of telegraphing that he’s the main bad guy.

-By the way, withe re-emphasis on Wanda not knowing how this happened, this week pretty much confirms that she’s not the BIG bad guy, because that’s how the MCU rolls…

-Similar to SAS there is Monica Rambeau’s “Sudden Empathy Syndrome” where she’s really laying out lines like “I know what Wanda is feeling, and I won’t stop until I help her!” And it’s not just the inconsistency with what got established with her gun grabbing earlier, it’s actually another one of those things where I feel like they are putting cart before the horse. We are being TOLD that she cares - and more that there’s some real reason that she cares. But then we have to do the guess work of what they will eventually fill in. Like I said with cards on the table, that’s not dramatic, that’s curiosity-piquing. And it’s more involving if we fully understand the motivations and watch the ensuing clash.

-Gotta say that Evan Peters is really damn good in this. It genuinely makes you realize how much the show needed someone Wanda could talk to who was NOT Vision (and in the end, here’s she’s really just talking to herself), but that would have stopped a lot of the hiding. I also really like his lines like, “If i were running shangri-la, I wouldn’t be reminded o the past either.”

-I also love the moment where she asks “what happened to your accent” and he fires back, “what happened to yours?” I’ve seen some commentary online where people are talking about the immigrant experience in this show and it’s one of those things you can see in little details like this, but I really want more of that come to the forefront of the text, too, ya know?

-Another good line: “Hey there he is, the guy who almost got murdered by his own murder squad.”

-Also: “Hahahahah, all is lost!” - God bless Kathryn Hahn

-I like that lots of people can fight in these shows, but it’s better when not EVERYONE can fight in these shows. It’s just a fun dynamic to see people immediately flinch at action because it’s reminder that real people exist in these ding dang worlds.

-The “yo-magic” commercial makes me realize how weird this show SHOULD be more often, but then I have to remind myself this is still MEGA weird for the MCU. It’s a weird difference to split.

-Seeing Vision silently fly is one of those reminders of how eerily powerful he is… Like, full on capable of wrecking shop in a profound way… Kinda looking forward to more of that.

-Moving the bubble is great, fun moment. Really excited to see what happens with Darcy inside (PS - I never watch the “next week on…” stuff, prefer going in blind)

-People kept saying this was the 90’s episode which totally reminds me of my rant last week about “do people know what the 80’s is?” I mean this was a clear Malcolm in the Middle homage and THAT WAS 2000-2006. Also, I am purposefully subtweeting my younger friend right now who calls things “90’s” and I’m like THAT WAS 2004. Anyway, of course that happens! Hell, we all do this constantly because decades weren’t clean breaks. The 60’s was The 50’s until 1966, really. The 70’s were the sixties until 1974. You could say the 70’s went until 1983 (funnily enough, the end of the 90’s have a pretty clean break with Bush election). Anyway, this is just a thing that always happens when we fall to such naming conventions. And it’s always a little different / pushed together than we remember, based on our age brackets. My brother is older and had such a better grasp on “living through” grunge in more organic fashion, where I was mostly being a kid aping it through MTV. But I can also think of “The 90’s” as being very late 90’s alternative era when I was in high school and listening to Radiohead and shit. But some younger people remember “The 90’s” as being the dawning of Boy Bands and Britney right around 98-99. This sort of bleeding stuff happens all the time.

It’s not like the ball drops and it’s suddenly the renaissance.

-Anyway! I love how every week I’m like “I’m not sure how much I have to write about” and then I find these tangential topics I really love digging into that fit more “alongside” the show rather than me piddling around and playing detective with the easter eggs. I just feel like it’s more fun conversation? Oh well, it’s what I care about it at least.

Until next time!

<3HULK