You can read Ron's Batwoman Season 2 recaps on Show Snob here, and her WandaVision recaps here.
You can also read Mon's review of the brilliant fourth episode of WandaVision on Bam Smack Pow.
Ron: Hello and welcome to another What’s New episode of Stereo Geeks. I’m Ron.
Mon: And I’m Mon.
Ron: Today we’ll be talking about Batwoman Season 2 and WandaVison.
We’ll be discussing spoilers for the first three episodes of Batwoman Season 2 and the first five episodes of WandaVison. If you haven't caught up with the shows yet please check them out and come back to our episode.
[Continuum by Audionautix plays]
Ron: Batwoman Season 2 introduces a new Batwoman in Javicia Leslie's Ryan Wilder. The show takes off shortly after the events of last season where Ruby Rose’s Kate Kane, aka the first Batwoman had a showdown with the Crows led by her father Jacob Kane. And now we find out that she's probably been killed in a plane crash.
Seeing as she was Batwoman that seems a bit unlikely. Why would she have been killed? How would she have died in a plane crash? She's Batwoman, she can't die!
Unfortunately, Team-Batwoman don't have the luxury of that hope, and now they've had to turn to a new person to take over the mantle of Batwoman, Ryan Wilder.
The first episode of the season was a Marvel. It set up so much about Ryan’s life and her history and gives an inkling as to why she would want to be Batwoman and do a good job in the cape and cowl. The succeeding episodes have just run with that.
More than anything else, I've really been enjoying how Ryan is working with Team-Batwoman, especially with Kate's stepsister, Mary, and Kate's associate Luke Fox. Mary definitely seems to be more pro Ryan whereas Luke is… yeah, he's not into it.
Mon: Luke is still holding out hope that Kate will come back, whereas Mary is being very pragmatic, and she doesn't feel like they should just leave Gotham hanging without a protector. So, she's quite gung ho to be working with Ryan, to be encouraging Ryan—she's introducing her to all of the Batcave secrets.
But I like that there is a little bit of conflict among Team-Batwoman, but at the same time, it's not something personal. The thing with the Batwoman show is that all the main characters were somehow connected to Kate; taking her out of the equation, changes the dynamic.
But so far—and it's only three episodes—the writers have really run with it. And yes, we miss Kate, but Ryan is so full of life, such a full-fledged character already that while we do miss Kate as a character, we do not feel her absence in the writing.
Ron: Javicia Leslie bring a Black actor is obviously bringing a different dimension to the show, and through Ryan she's actually channeling a lot of the problems that the United States have had—which we saw last year during the Black Lives Matter marches.
Ryan is the everyman. She's very representative of the injustices that have been done to marginalized people, especially lack women, and what she's trying to do is be more than just a statistic. She kind of makes that quite obvious in the first episode, but we've seen that over and over again in different ways throughout these first three episodes.
Mon: In the first episode, she's introduced to Team-Batwoman as this statistics-spewing vigilante, and then a few scenes after that, they contextualize what the statistics mean and what they mean to Ryan, and I really liked that. Because with Ryan, she is looking at Gotham from the bottom up. And this also means that when she is the hero for Gotham, she is going to start saving people from the bottom up. And this goes back to what we talked about in our very first Stereo Geeks episode where we challenged how Batman, in the comics especially, treats the systemic issues of Gotham. He looks at it from the privileged point of view of his life. Now Kate was somewhere in between. She did come from privilege, after all she’s from the Kane family who married into the Wayne family so, you know; but she was also reminded that the little guy needs help. And because she was part of a marginalized community herself, she was looking out for them.
With Ryan, she expands that even further, she is living the life of the people that she is trying to save, and this makes it personal, but also professional. And I think that's what's making Ryan so compelling, even though we're only three episodes into the show.
Ron: What I've really enjoyed about these last three episodes, is that Ryan is obviously trying to step into Kate's shoes, because as far as she knows this is a stopgap. Kate is gonna come back, they just don't know how. And that means donning Kate’s wig, wearing her suit, her shoes, we see how she kind of struggles because of that. It's not made for her. So, she keeps slipping and sliding, the hair gets in her way, she can't figure out where everything is in the utility belt.
And then by the end of the third episode when she realizes that she can put her foot down, she can make a stand, and she can make the suit her own, she's transformed completely.
Mon: By the end of the third episode, she goes from being an imposter to being Batwoman.
Ron: And everything changes; her stance is so much straighter, she seems so much more comfortable, and most importantly, her confidence is so obvious.
Mon: And it's hilarious that she gets a pep talk from Victor Zsasz of all people.
Ron: Not to mention fashion advice, which she takes!
Mon: Ryan becoming Batwoman is quite reminiscent of how Lauren Lance in the third season of Arrow finally took on the mantle of the Black Canary. She really struggled to become a hero. Of course, she had the additional problem of having Oliver Queen constantly doubt her. With Ryan, it's not like that. Luke is not happy that she’s stepped into the role because she's an unknown factor, and he's holding out hope for Kate.
But yeah, I really like that because, in a way, it's easy to imagine that somebody will just get into the shoes of some kind of hero and then become one immediately. It's not easy. And it's important for us to keep in mind that Kate had military experience, Ryan had martial arts experience. And these are important factors in allowing them to fight the battles that they need to fight.
Ron: Ryan, because she has martial arts experience, and has actually been associated with criminals when trying to get out of the justice system, she's got a completely different perspective on the city, and that actually helps them solve the crime in Episode 3. But I feel like a few episodes in Ryan and Team-Batwoman will realize that they've bitten off more than they can chew.
Mon: Let's talk about the villains.
Ron: They've already met Alice, who is furious because she thinks Kate is dead, and she hasn't been the one to murder her. Then we find out that there's Safiyah, who Alice has a very strong relationship with, and she's coming as well. How is Team-Batwoman going to deal with all this?
Mon: They thankfully have not gotten rid of Alice yet. I mean, she's a terror, but she's a great character, and it would have been a shame for her to be written out just because of Kate. I doubt she's gonna last beyond the second season, there's only so much they can wrangle with this character, but she's fascinating. What I like about Alice is that she's just pure evil. Yes, it comes from a place of pain, it comes from a place of loneliness and anger. That's great. But when you're looking in in from the outside, she just looks like any other Gotham maniac.
So, the thing with Alice in this season so far anyway, she is outraged that Kate’s death was taken away from her. Now, this is something that you and I have been talking about, and I hope that the show itself will address it within the context of the episodes; Alice arrived in Gotham in the first season mainly to be a pain in the neck for the Crows and for the Kane family. This was payback. However, she and Kate were bonding at one point, and it almost seemed like they were facing a reconciliation. How come at the start of this season, all she cares about is how she wanted to murder Kate, and she couldn't?
Here’s our theory: there was that time when an alternate-Earth Beth arrived on Earth Prime and Kate finally saw what her life would have been like had Beth not been abducted, and they had grown up as twins together. I mean, that Beth was amazing. She was smart, she was sweet, she was funny. She was exactly the kind of sister that Kate needed and wanted.
When it was a toss up between one sister or the other surviving, Kate chose Beth, but she made the mistake of kind of divulging that to Alice. She wanted to be with her real sister when her sister died, and then Beth got shot and Alice lived. And I think like that's what turned the tables. What do you think?
Ron: Up until that point, it seemed like Kate and Alice, despite being on two different sides, could find some common ground. They were twins after all, they did care about each other. But the moment Alice realized that Kate would let her go in a heartbeat if she could get a better Beth, something went off in Alice's head. And I think we’re seeing the ramifications of that now, especially because we now know that Alice's big plan also involved her killing Mouse. She literally has no one now.
Mon: Yeah, when she was talking to Safiyah, and Safiyah kinda quizzed her on what changed her mind about Kate, she really doesn't divulge the origins of her hate. But honestly, everything about the way that Alice is dealing with Kate’s death, it appears to be an anger that is fueled by betrayal.
Ron: I don't see this Team-Batwoman being able to reconcile with Alice at any point. While Kate was there, Alice had some measure of protection. But now, Mary is never going to forgive Alice for killing her mom right in front of her. Even if Alice gives her the Desert Rose and helps her save all those people, that's not something Mary's gonna forget.
And then you have Ryan; her mom was also murdered in front of her by Alice's Wonderland gang. The primary reason why Ryan wants to be a hero is because of what Alice did to her. So, Alice has two enemies in Team-Batwoman. And Luke is 100% going to side with these two.
Even with the Crows, Jacob Kane, he's given up on his daughter, especially now that he thinks that he's lost the good daughter—who he also had issues with.
Mon: Yeah, I don't think Alice is gonna find any friends over here. So the one person that she can turn to is Safiyah, who is a new villain that has been introduced in the season. Safiyah is really hard to figure out. Just from her introductory episode, she really was manipulative and smart. It seems that she and Alice have a long history; Safiyah seems to have rescued Alice at one point. And then, Alice broke some cardinal rule of Safiyah’s island—that's so Alice. Now how will this impact Gotham? That's the major question.
And now that Safiyah has met Sophie and seems to be intrigued by her, will Safiyah trap Julia, Alice, and Sophie in her net?
Ron: Let's not forget, according to Safiyah, she did bring down Kate’s plane and apparently she has Kate locked up somewhere, but not on her island. Do we believe her? Part of me obviously does want to. I don't want Kate to be dead. But at the same time, Safiyah doesn't seem to be very trustworthy, and it felt like she kind of pulled out the Kate’s alive and I’ve got her card just to manipulate Alice into helping her.
Mon: You're probably not wrong. The Batwoman writers have had to adapt a lot of Safiyah’s storylines in the show because Kate is not there. In the comics, Kate and Safiyah are very close, and it's their relationship that drives the story forward. But that's not possible in the second season of the show. So it seems like some of those storylines and Safiyah’s crushes and relationships might be adapted for Sophie and Alice.
Now that's interesting because we know that Sophie is gay. I'm not sure she will be interested in being in a relationship but a bad guy like Safiyah. But what about Alice? Can we see her being on the queer spectrum? That would be nice to see as well.
Ron: Well, from Safiyah and Alice's interactions and whatever Alice had to say to Sophie, it felt like there was more to the relationship than just a mentor and a mentee. Alice hasn't given us a reason to believe that she's straight, or queer. So, anything is possible right now.
I like the fact that we're getting a lot of queer characters in Batwoman Season 2. In the first season, it was Kate and her partners and Sophie was really going through the coming out process. But now, Sophie seems to be well and truly out; Julia is there; we know that Ryan is also queer; Safiyah is clearly gay, maybe Alice is joining them. So that's going to be quite interesting. So it's great that we're getting so many queer characters on both sides of the spectrum of good and evil.
Mon: Do you think we’ll see Kate anytime during the season?
Ron: I think it would be nice if they could wrap it up, somehow, and have, kind of, like a passing the mantle moment between Kate and Ryan. I would love, love to see the two of them together in at least one scene. But the thing is that this season so far has been shot completely in the pandemic. The fact that we've got such polished episodes—especially episode three was gorgeous—I'm honestly stunned. So how is that going to happen, I'm not quite sure. But I know that right now they're still shooting; Javicia Leslie regularly posts videos of herself training and having fun with the gang, but I'm not quite sure how Ruby Rose is going to be transported all the way from Australia to Vancouver. But yeah, here’s hoping.
Mon: Yeah, I hope so to because it'll be a nice way to wrap up Kate's story. She needs a conclusion and I think her family, extended family including, they need some closure.
Ron: When we look at it, the Kane-Hamilton family has gone through the worst time. Jacob Kane has lost his wife, after he'd already lost his sister and brother-in-law—the Waynes—he lost a daughter who came back to be evil. He lost his second wife to his evil daughter, and now he's lost his other daughter. This family needs a break.
Mon: So true. After only three episodes, we are so excited for the season. We are very excited to see Ryan becoming more comfortable as Gotham City’s protector, and we can't wait to see just what Safiyah’s got up her sleeve, and how Gotham is going to cope.
Ron: Moving on to WandaVision. I don't think any of us knew what to expect from this show, but most of us were just happy to finally get some Marvel content because there's been nothing since 2019. Suffice to say, you can't predict what's gonna happen, not in any episode, or what to expect in the entirety of this miniseries. Five episodes in, and I am floored. But I'm also extremely intrigued. Where are we going?
Mon: When they announced to WandaVision, I think a lot of people assumed, or at least hoped, that we would get something as simple and condensed as Avengers: Disassembled and House of M, which we will be discussing in next week's ‘What We've Been Busy With’.
But once the promos and the trailers were released, we realized this was nothing like those comics, which is a good thing. From the get-go, this show spices things up. It makes you question your reality, but it also is a refreshing change from the formulaic style of Marvel films. As the first Marvel spinoff series on Disney Plus, WandaVision had a lot riding on it. And so far, halfway through the miniseries, I think they've met our expectations, maybe even surpassed it.
Ron: Absolutely. The first couple of episodes were just quirky fun. They were showing us this strange world where Wanda and Vision were a married couple, and they were living through the 50s, the 60s, the 70s. And then the tone started changing, and we have been getting a little bit more of an inkling of what's going on around them. We still don't have all the answers, but the fact that there is so much suspense and intrigue? It makes me look forward to Fridays in a way that I haven't in a very long time.
Mon: There are so many questions that need answering in this show, and I really like that, because it doesn't feel like they're just dragging us along for the ride. We genuinely want to spend time with Wanda and Vision, but we also want to figure out why Wanda is in this perennial sitcom cycle. Is she in control? Does she want to be in control? Who's pulling her strings? So, there's a lot of questions. And then outside of Westview where Wanda and Vision have made their new life, we have S.W.O.R.D., who have just been introduced in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and those characters are just as intriguing.
Ron: So, let's take a look at the characters. Initially we get only Wanda and Vision. I'm just glad to see them again. They’re great. I think we're also coming from the fact that we like Wanda, Vision and Pietro from the comics. We obviously haven't got much of them in the movies, but just those moments in Infinity War, they were so heartfelt, and you really felt that loss for Wanda when she had to kill Vision and then watch him die in front of her, again. How horrid. But now we’re getting to see them in this very domesticated setting. They're so sweet and adorable and they love each other very much, and it feels really homely and fun. But of course, we know that there’s, like, this sinister undertone because Vision’s dead. He's dead-dead.
So, from the very first episode, that's playing a part in how we feel about the show. But then it kind of ends with that little easter egg of whose arm is that and what’s that weird logo? And then the second episode plays into that and kind of adds more with the beekeeper wearing the S.W.O.R.D. logo on his uniform. But those two episodes are very self-contained. They take place completely in Westview.
But then Episode Three. Nothing much really happens, aside from Wanda having her twins, which is canon from the comic books. But then the very kind neighbor, who helps Wanda give birth to her children, mentions Ultron. And that's it. The spell is broken. But in Episode Four, we get the events of the first three episodes from a completely different perspective. I think, Episode Four was such a turning point. Like, I was enjoying the first three episodes but that fourth one. That was beyond anything that I could have imagined.
Mon: I'm still trying to figure out what about Episode Four had us so enthralled. Was it the change in POV? Was it the fact that it felt like a Marvel film? Was it the spy stuff? What was it? I don't know, but Episode Four was brilliant.
Ron: So, let's break it down. We start off that episode with Monica Rambeau re-materializing, and we realize, it takes us a few minutes, but eventually we realize that she's re-materializing after Hulk’s snap. So, this very firmly sets the show post-Endgame. We now have a timeline which changes the way we view the first three episodes. We weren’t sure when they were, I mean, they were literally going through the decades, but now we know that it's obviously after Wanda has returned, and she's faced off against Thanos. And of course, we all know that Vision didn't come back. Then we learn that Maria Rambeau has passed away. I gotta say, that hurt.
Mon: Look, we all love Tony Stark. You can't watch the MCU movies and not love the guy. But there's no doubt that he was flawed, very, very flawed. Because post-snap, he'd been able to make a happy life for himself, he insisted that their experiment to bring everyone back needed to bring people back five years in the future. We saw the ramifications of it that in Spider-Man: Far From Home, but that was a really humorous take on it. Younger brothers becoming older brothers. So, it is kind of funny. But here in Episode Four of WandaVision, we see just how heartbreaking Tony's one selfish decision was.
Not only did Monica disappear in the blip, but she disappeared just prior to her mom having successful surgery. So, when she reappears, she thinks her mom is probably all set to be discharged and be back on her feet. Instead, Monica learns that three years prior to her return, her mom died. Gosh, that sucks. So, was her mom alone? We would assume that Maria and Captain Marvel would have been together during her last days, especially since Carol was in touch with the Avengers on Earth. But we also know that she had a lot of work to do, and her job was to take care of the entire galaxy.
Now there's this moment in Episode Five, when Jimmy Woo - we'll get to those characters in a minute – mentions Captain Marvel and Monica does not look pleased. Did they have a falling out when we weren't looking?
Ron: Yeah, I'm really intrigued to see where they're going to go with that. Because when we saw Monica, as a young child, in Captain Marvel her obvious, ebullient love for her aunt was so strong. But it's been years. We also know that Captain Marvel is still off-world, because that's what we found out when Peter asked about her in Far From Home. Could it be that Monica has found out that Captain Marvel was not by her mother's side? Could it be something else?
Now the thing is that, in the comics, Monica becomes the hero Photon, and Captain Marvel, at one point. What does it mean? What are we going to see?
Mon: And we can already see that something is definitely up with Monica, because when she goes through a whole bunch of tests, there are no results. So, Wanda’s powers could have done something to her, and is that affecting how she feels about Captain Marvel? And I do like them Maria Rambeau is the one who had the callsign ‘Photon’ in the show. So, it would be really cute if Monica does take on the role of Photon, because she'll be honoring her mom, who was the founder of S.W.O.R.D.
Ron: There are all these Easter eggs that have been popping up throughout these five episodes, and it's been great. I know that we've got a few of them, but we still miss so many. Which brings us to Jimmy Woo.
Now the thing is that Marvel had already announced the cast for this show. So, we knew that people like Randall Park, Kat Dennings, Teyonnah Parris, Evan Peters, that they would all be appearing in some way or the other. It's kind of exciting to see people like Jimmy Woo and Darcy Lewis, especially because they are part of the Marvel Universe, it's just that they haven't had much growth.
The thing with Jimmy Woo is that he was an unintentionally bright spark in Ant-Man and the Wasp. And his chemistry with Scott Lang? So unexpected and such a joy to watch. And he's kind of continued in the same vein. He's still very earnest, but he's also very sarcastic. I love the fact that he's managed to master the magic trick that Scott taught him. How adorable.
And Darcy Lewis. We have not seen Darcy since Thor: The Dark World. It's been a long time! And now she's like totally upgraded her life. She's a PhD, she's an astrophysicist in her own right. Way to go, Darcy!
Mon: What I really like about Darcy's introduction in this show is that she is so confident in herself. And because she's one of those pop culture-type people, she really thinks outside the box. And because of her, they actually find the transmission of the WandaVision show. And her chemistry with Jimmy Woo? I mean, two misfits from two different franchises in the Marvel Universe? They're just a match made in heaven. They are brilliant partners in crime. And they work effortlessly together. I actually really want to see a buddy-cop comedy, X-Files-style with these two. It would totally work.
Ron: What I'm excited for with WandaVision is that they're putting together different elements of the Marvel Universe in ways that we didn't expect. And that's what the Disney Plus shows can do. I don't know what's gonna happen with the others, but I'm liking what I'm seeing in this one.
Mon: What happens with a lot of shows is that they end up feeling like they're being drowned by the wealth of characters and storylines that are being introduced in them. This is Teyonnah Parris’ introduction as Monica Rambeau. She is going to be one of the central characters in Captain Marvel 2, but everything about the way she plays this character feels so lived in. You do not feel like WandaVision has stalled because we are getting to know this new character, and that is quite an achievement in the writing.
Ron: It feels like we've known this Monica forever, but we only met her two episodes ago. That's really, really good work.
Mon: And there's so many layers to her. She's really smart but she's also had really unconventional upbringing. I mean her mom was a pilot, but her aunt was an intergalactic superhero. This person is always going to be slightly above the rest.
Ron: From her return to S.W.O.R.D., she says somethings that tell you so much about her. The fact that she doesn't perceive all intergalactic beings as threats. Of course not, because she met friendly Skrulls when she was a child. She also met villainous Kree. She knows that just because something is coming from up there doesn't automatically make them a villain. It's an effortless segue between what we've seen in the films, and what we're seeing in this show, that's making this such a brilliant watching experience.
Mon: And they’ve put some thought into making these characters feel grounded. Even with Jimmy Woo, he is honest. He's socially awkward, but he's really good at his job. He's so thorough with his research, but he's not judgmental. The way he introduces Wanda to the entire S.W.O.R.D. team. He is giving context to the person that they are dealing with. Whereas with the de-facto boss of S.W.O.R.D., and he's only a de-facto boss because Monica wasn't there, this guy, you can tell that he has no experience working with beings who are unlike him. He is governed by fear. His immediate reaction to Wanda is that she's a threat; we need to fight her. But Jimmy Woo is not looking at her like that. More importantly, Monica, who has experienced Wanda’s reality-warping firsthand, even she wants to converse with Wanda. She wants to understand what Wanda is doing and why she's doing it. And that's what I really like about these characters, and I like how they've been written.
Ron: Despite the fact that whatever mind control is happening within Westview is really, really painful, Monica still believes that Wanda maybe doing all this, not because she's a bad person, but because something worse could have happened if she wasn't. And that's something that Director Hayward doesn't even begin to imagine. He dismisses it completely.
And I'm interested to see how that's gonna work because when he sends that drone to kill Wanda, and he dupes Monica into thinking that they're going to be using the drone to talk to Wanda, and she makes it very clear that she does not want anybody interfering in her home. Why is this her home? Why are these decades going past? What is the endgame for this? We really do have a lot of questions after Episode Five. It just makes us more excited to see more.
Mon: Yeah, and Episode Five is quite a tipping point, isn't it? Because the spell has been well and truly broken and what Wanda is trying to do in this fantasy, it's kind of seeping into the reality. So, we see how her neighbor Agnes is very aware of the fact that she is playing a role, and that she has to follow Wanda’s directions. And we see how the kids, Billy and Tommy, are in control of their powers and they keep evolving according to their requirements. Most importantly though, Vision, can no longer be duped. He is asking questions. And it's funny because we are so used to seeing in pop culture where it's the woman being gaslighted, but it's Vision over here. It's kind of refreshing.
Ron: It's an unexpected subversion which I have to say I do enjoy, especially because there's just this natural chemistry between Wanda and Vision in the show. So, it works. When Vision sees something that doesn't seem right, he has his way of asking about it which is so natural. Especially in Episode Five, where he's seen Agnes do that whole thing ‘should I take it from the top’, and he's just like, did you really not see that? I really loved it because it's so organic, that he would keep thinking about it after that. And then the whole thing with Norm. And then finally, when he confronts Wanda about it.
But that scene leaves us with even more questions because it does seem like Wanda is not controlling everything. I mean, when the doorbell rings, rather conveniently during the argument, how did that happen? Why did that happen?
Mon: And there's also the hint that Wanda may be the one who's inside these people's heads, but she does not know that she's actually hurting them. So, it could be that while Wanda is living out this fantasy, she may be protecting these people, or all of Earth, from something even more sinister.
Ron: Of course, I'm not quite sure whether she's the one who's hurting these people. When Vision brings Norm out of the mind control, Norm doesn't say anything about Wanda. He says that ‘she’ is hurting them. ‘She’ could be somebody else. We don't know about that. But of course, Vision, like us, can only work with the information that he has, and the information is that Wanda is controlling them.
So, let's talk about that doorbell.
Mon: It's a bait and switch. When Evan Peters was cast in the show, pretty much everyone went bonkers. Because Evan Peters plays Quicksilver in the X-Men trilogy. However, in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Aaron Taylor-Johnson played Pietro Maximoff. He was never able to use his codename, Quicksilver, because of licensing issues. I think there were a whole lot of us who thought, this is just a weird coincidence. Evan Peters has been cast in a completely unrelated role. He just happens to be from the X-Men universe.
Well, were wrong. Wanda opens the door, she looks very, very confused. And from the back, we can see somebody with silver hair. We all think it's Pietro. We find out that it is Pietro, but he's been recast as Evan Peters. It was a weird bait and switch because, as excited as we are for a Pietro to be back in the Marvel Universe, at the end of the day, it's not Wanda’s Pietro. So, is she gonna be happy?
Throughout this show, she's so obviously missing her brother so much, but now that there's this new version, how is she going to feel? How is she going to deal with him? And what does it mean?
Ron: It's funny that we're talking about two shows that have twins in it. Being twins, these things affect us a lot. In Season One of Batwoman, those scenes between young Kate and Beth, when they didn't know that the other was on the other side of the door, those were so hard to watch. And then we came to Ultron, where we saw how close Wanda and Pietro were, and then Pietro was killed at the end of the movie. I mean, on the one hand, it sucked because Pietro was really cool. He had really nice chemistry with some of the characters. He had potential, and it just sucked that he was just given the one film.
But on the other hand, one twin was killed, and these two were really, really close, but the Marvel films were never able to do anything about that. In fact, until WandaVision Episode Three, Pietro’s name had not even been mentioned in the Marvel Universe. Of course, that was because of licensing issues, but it's still frustrating on a story level.
Now that Pietro has returned in some form, I can't help but wonder what's going to happen. Because yes, there is a Pietro and everything in WandaVision, the universe is kind of different. It's not like this is the real Vision. It's not even the real Wanda. We see Wanda briefly in Episode Five and she's quite different. So, she could possibly accept this different version of Pietro. But I don’t know. I would really struggle with it.
Mon: We really struggled with it when we saw that scene because we got so excited. I think our view of this version of Pietro is going to be a bit more complicated because the Pietro in the MCU is significantly different from the Quicksilver we see in the X-Men universe. They both have their ow pros, but they’re both very different characters. And Pietro being Wanda's twin in this universe—and we know how Wanda feels about her brother—it just feels like, Wanda completely and utterly accepting this version of Pietro is not going to be 100% believable.
However, if somebody is pulling her strings, she may just be falsely affectionate towards her brother because she has to pretend like it's him.
Ron: It definitely feels like this Pietro thing isn't really under her control. When the doorbell rings she tells Vision that she did not know that was going to happen. So maybe somebody else who was controlling this fantasy saw that the fight between Vision and Wanda was getting out of hand, Wanda was not able to win, Vision was asking too many questions and thought, let's just throw in a distraction, that's gonna keep them really busy. But why, in that case, did whoever is controlling the situation, not bring back the Pietro that he saw in Ultron? Could there be another nefarious reason for bringing this version?
Mon: Of course, you and I have not even talked about the multiverse theory at all. We know that Doctor Strange 2, is going to be about the multiverse of madness. We also know that Wanda is going to be in there. So is this the first hint that there is an actual multiverse? Mysterio in Spider-Man: Far from Home pretended to be from the multiverse and most people believe it was obviously foreshadowing the actual arrival of the multiverse. So, are we there yet?
Ron: The thing is that Disney and Fox now have a merger. That's why, actually, we managed to get Pietro back in some form or the other. And that's probably how they managed to convince Evan Peters to be a part of the show. The X-Men films seem to have completely ended with Dark Phoenix, does Evan Peters being in the show mean that all those X-Men are actually going to be part of this universe?
Now, let's not forget, Logan happened sometime in the future. How does that fit in? I for one believe that we should move on. I think the X-Men films started off really strong, fell away, and now they don't really have any connection to the MCU. It would probably make more sense to just start with a whole new bunch of X-Men, because the universe that we had already, they just messed it up.
Of course, it becomes a bit more complicated because if you have an existing X-Man, appearing in an MCU TV show, then why shouldn’t the others?
You know what, we’re just gonna have to watch the rest of the show to find out.
Mon: I firmly believe that even if the multiverse theory is proven in the show, we can still have a brand new bunch of X-Men, because this Earth has not found its X-Men yet. But a few cameos from the others would be nice; not necessarily in this show, but just in general.
Ron: I think opening up the doors to the multiverse is a great idea, but I think if you're going to go with a regular X-Men group, then restart it.
Mon: What I love about the WandaVision show is that it is so full of references and Easter eggs, but it doesn't forget to be a compelling story in its own right. It's bringing characters to the fore who were given short shrift in the main MCU films, and you're falling in love with them all over again.
Seeing the ease with which Wanda and Vision have slid into a life of domesticity, seeing how cute and adorable their relationship is, it really makes the show quite sweet to watch. It also harks back to Wanda and Vision’s love story in the comics, especially in the early years—there is a sense of simplicity to it, which I guess we can all get behind because, honestly, Marvel films can be complicated, sometimes unnecessarily so, and tied into that we have SWORD’s investigation, with characters who are just as intriguing and compelling—and you have this full-fledged TV series, which keeps you at the edge of your seat every episode.
Ron: WandaVision has successfully managed to surpass any expectations that I had. I'm really looking forward to the rest of the series. I'm going to be super sad when it ends. And we're probably gonna need a lot of tissues because we know the state that Vision is in. I don't know how that's gonna play out, but it's probably gonna be super depressing, but also really necessary, because we never really got to say goodbye to him properly, did we?
So yes, this show is totally unexpected, a complete joy to watch, it's expanding the universe in so many fantastic and intriguing ways. If the other Disney+ Marvel shows have this kind of quality, wow, I cannot wait.
Mon: Talking about Vision, I think it's interesting that the original plan was to have the scene where Wanda is breaking Vision out of the SWORD facility as a post-credit scene for Avengers: Endgame. In a way, I'm kinda glad they left it out. First of all, that entire film was about closure and saying goodbye to the original Avengers. And I think Wanda and her mission, whether it was off her own free will or not, needs to have belonged to her show itself.
So, one of the Easter eggs that I kind of love but may have slipped by a lot of people's notice, are the credits. They’re kinda in these geometric shapes and very colorful and pretty, but if I'm not wrong, they look like how people disassemble in the House of M. I really do wonder, what is the significance of that?
Does it mean that when this fantasy dissolves it's going to dissolve in that fashion? Is it an aesthetic sense? I don't know, but it's really interesting.
Ron: What do you think of Batwoman Season 2 and WandaVision? Let us know.
Ron: You can find us on Twitter @Stereo_Geeks. Or send us an email [email protected]. We hope you enjoyed this episode. And see you next week!
Mon: The Stereo Geeks logo was created using Canva. The music for our podcast comes courtesy Audionautix.
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Transcription by Otter.ai, Ron, and Mon.