filmboicole

What I like so much about what I'm seeing here isn't just the action choreography (which is really good), but it's how effectively that action choreography is used to tell stories under the surface, supplemented by the dialogue. John Walker is a fascinating character because of how easily most people detest him--which is good, you should detest him. But it's excellent how the show uses Walker's descent into a world he doesn't belong in as a highlight for how Sam and Bucky are trying to do things the right way.

The Captain America films in the MCU (particularly The Winter Soldier and Civil War) worked so well for me because of how they established Steve's internal conflict to be the divide between America's ideals on paper and how those ideals are put into practice. So Captain America didn't represent America as it was, but America as its citizens hoped it would be. This is a slam dunk because the citizens (in the MCU) have a figure they can stand behind and the government also has a figure to boast--at least initially. I like thinking of the subtext of what perhaps happened behind closed doors post-Winter Soldier and during Civil War. The government probably started realizing they couldn't always control Steve and, I'd imagine, this became something of a problem for them. So naturally when Steve's time came to an end and the military saw fit to replace him, they had a task of choosing someone who more closely aligned with their ideals.

But again, this doesn't always work out. Because The Falcon and the Winter Soldier feels like a primer for the icky-ness of America these statements aren't always super deep but that's okay. Here, the show puts into practice the faults of American individualism. Within the context of this episode we are reminded of how Steve was likely the best possible scenario for a super-soldier, how the government completely steam-rolled over a black super-soldier, and then shows us how super-soldiers are bad when placed in the hands of easily corrupt-able government men. "Power just makes you more of yourself," and now we've been shown exactly who John Walker is. What I like is how that subversion comes in the form of the American military. But it's done through a subtextual lens. You could be fooled into thinking Walker is "just one bad apple," but you'd be missing the point. Very excited about where we go from here.

There's something kind of brilliant in how a sub-plot of a supporting character's best friend ends up being a mirror for the season itself. Imogene and Archie's turbulence showed the entire arc of Marvelous Mrs. Maisel subverted and reshuffled, giving just the tiniest tease of the finale here.

So many times during this show did I wonder if I was reading too heavily into things: I wondered if Shy was gay when we first met him, I wondered if I was misreading the date with Lenny as imperfect, I wondered if Susie's expansion taking on Sophie would be a mistake, and I was absolutely TERRIFIED when Midge got on stage at the Apollo (like basketball games in Uncut Gems terrified). And every time, a few moments later, I felt like the show had done a bit of a bait and switch on me by showing how things seemed to be working out. But also each time, given a little more time, those initial thoughts--which felt so fleeting in the moment--proved to be proper assumptions. And this is something absolutely stellar about how this show is made. It writes its characters and foreshadowing so well that it would make the audience feel like absolute geniuses for picking up on something that seemed so minute. And (although I'm sure all of you are very bright) in reality what we actually got is just really, really good writing.

I'm sort of obsessed with the idea of glass cannons in video games. For those of you who don't know, that's when you absolutely max out your ability to deal damage completely at the expense of being able to take any. So when I play Dark Souls, I'm the dope who goes into a fight with some overpowered weapon with a maxed out strength stat but no armor. The high risk/high reward of the fights is so absolutely satisfying when you pull it off because your victory pretty much has to be flawless. But the path to get to that success comes with the other edge of that sword. One singular mistake comes at the cost of immediate failure.

Right now in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, everyone seems a bit like a glass cannon. Midge is extraordinarily able to dish out a shocking amount of damage without really knowing it--her obstacle with Sophie Lennon is one of her own making. She single-handedly ended her father's dream job with a joke at a club she barely remembers. And just when she was about to have a new sense of happiness, she decides to choose herself again. But she does it in a way that again prioritizes her ability to dish out that damage. Benjamin doesn't seem like the guy that would mind waiting six months while Midge is on tour to get married--he's been supportive of her career until now and it doesn't seem like he would want her to give that up, not when it's at the expense of such a big break for her. And yet, Midge's decision to leave comes with the one-two punch of also choosing Joel again.

But it's not just Midge either. Joel has honed his business acumen to make his father's factory profitable. Then he's fired. He seems primed to buy a nightclub and this can either go one of two ways: he could use it to help Midge or he could use it to blacklist her when they potentially don't get back together. Abe attained the peak of his career but started blowing it up (with help from Midge), but his season-long temper tantrum at his children had the back-handed effect of ruining his relationship with his professor job as well. Susie has been covertly building up Midge's obstacles even though it hurts her own success too. And Rose? She's the very definition of a glass cannon. The words she spits to her family and those around her are so painful, but will lock herself in her room when that knife is turned back onto her.

So why does this show feel so warm? And why do these characters feel so likeable? I think it's because they keep building themselves up again. And because every time they get shattered, they find a way to keep on going. They even stick together. Midge's parents, even though they clearly still have issues supporting her career, find reason to sit down and have meals together. One could call it repression or toxicity, but it also could be that they love each other more than they disapprove. Even Joel, perpetually twisting the knife in their separation (while also getting hurt as well), drops everything to immediately come to Midge's aid when she needs it. That sort of wholesome escapism with a tinge of toxicity is such a nice touch.

Good episode. Great season.

This is an interesting episode. The script was flipped here. Midge is no longer infallible and I see the beginning of a fish out of water--perhaps even a critique on code switching. In the Paris episode, I wondered if it was intentional how awkward of a path Midge took to get up on stage. And this episode proves that correct. The woman in the audience who recommended therapy provided a nugget of insight into Midge the show hadn't yet delved into.

Midge is funny, obviously. And she's very good at what she does, but her predilection for stand-up comes at the cost of her ability to fit into the environment with which she typically associates. I like that critique. I think that commentary and arc is going to be a valuable and good addition to the show because I think it commits itself even more wholeheartedly to the theme of people changing. Within the episode, I think it emphasizes how the uptick of every character might be a bit shakier than the average show would have you believe. Midge's somewhat meteoric rise might be built on a house of cards that is coming with a backhanded inability to fit in. Abe and Rose's newfound happiness is potentially leaching off of Abe's career (and again, Rose struggles to fit in). The scene with the dean of Columbia was easily the best bit of the episode (Shalhoub is consistently a gift to this show). And even Susie's shift into management is coming at considerable cost to her finances.

So what makes it all so much more interesting is Joel. This is the character that we've arguably seen punished the most so far. Even though Midge lost everything, the hope of her comedy career was always there. Her personal life failing gave rise to her career. But Joel's self-destructive tendencies not only cost him his stand-up dream, but also his career, his family, and even whatever illusory happiness he had with his affair. Joel's rock bottom provided a solid foundation for a change in character that actually might serve as an opportunity for solid success later. He seems to have done enough soul searching that he understands his faults and likely understands that his own misdeeds are, to an extent, irreparable. So even though he is tearing his hair out babysitting his parents' finances, there's a sense that he might actually be on an uptick built on rock. While watching the first season, I really appreciated how much the show beat up on Joel. He made some awful decisions and I admire the show telling us that. But it may have been more than just a feminist tinge in practice, it seems that because the audience has seen Joel be punished it actually might allow us to empathize with him better now. We don't have to judge him, the universe of the show already enacted vengeance upon him.

So yeah, parts of this episode seemed significantly off, but I don't really feel as though that has anything to do with the quality of the episode, but more because of how the episode subtly started exposing cracks. I have no doubt that everything that is about to happen in this season will likely be tied in to one of the unexpected turns from this episode.

Good push and pull. I like to see the mirroring of Midge and Joel in Rose and Abe, because I think it highlights the strength of the latter while retroactively highlighting the façade of the former. And that is even further highlighted within this episode as Rose shows Abe an apartment for them in Paris while Joel attempts to get Midge an apartment in Manhattan. I think it's a fascinating comparison directly drawn in the narrative to show that although Abe and Rose are also on rockier ground at this point, it shows how both of those character have growth--particularly in Abe. It's extremely refreshing within this narrative to show that our "masculine" characters should still be expected to change and alter themselves for collective happiness. Joel's irrational ping-ponging around in his malaise is central to how Midge and have issues with reconciliation. But it's even better because the show has shown us that Midge is extremely capable of communicating needs necessary to healing. When she and Abe went to Paris, she gave very firm directions to Abe for how best to make amends: listen and be kind. And so it's touching to see Abe's final moments in this episode. There's a synthesis: old Abe back on his tightly regimented work grind, but also pulling strings to contribute to Rose's happiness as best he can.

So then this goes back into Midge and Joel. We know that Midge is able to identify problems and therefore is likely able to enact changes for rebuilding a healthy relationship. But the compromise aspect is what Joel is unable to give. Everything Joel works for is to continue putting Midge in her box, the very box that Joel felt a desperate need to shatter. And as Midge aims to break outside that box (and is doing so pretty well), it feels that subconsciously Joel is trying to contain her again.

I'm 25, nearly 26. And as a lot of people have experienced with the last year, there's been a lot of instability to my life. I am enraptured by The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel because it sets out a roadmap for how people can struggle but still find success. But it also lays out that wealth is not happiness (even though some form of wealth is 100% necessary to attain stability). So it's nice to see characters have struggles and work their way up. It's nice to see it in a heightened reality so the show never gets too real--allowing for that lovely escapist tone--so that the valleys of these characters never feel hopeless unless they are more deserving it. I've enjoyed seeing Joel's arc because he was punished pretty harshly in the first season (rightfully) and still seems to be working to get out of the hole he dug for himself. It gives me hope for myself to see characters work hard and start to attain hope.

Hell yeah. There's something so interesting about how this season wraps up, how it seems to inject a bit of chaos. I like knowing there's a good sense of where these characters are in relationship to where they were, but it's also nice to have a bit of a question as to what happens next. Although to be frank, I'm surprised I'm even typing this. I'm usually not a big fan of endings that leave the door open so heavily--particularly not on an opening season when during production there probably wasn't a guarantee of a second season. But I guess I like it here because what this season brought to the table was so confident. This is one of the stronger opening seasons I've seen in awhile. And yeah, there are a couple of stumbles along the way. Some of the filmmaking feels like it lends itself to melodrama. There are shots that linger on characters while they "make decisions" in a way I found a bit on the nose in the length of time they lingered, or even the freeze frame the season goes out on felt a little cheesy. But that's all very nit-picky and shallow. Obviously none of those moments ruined anything for me and, really, who am I to point out filmmaking fault in something I binged so quickly. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is like lightning in a bottle, a stellar piece of period formalism with a feminist strike more refreshing and authentic than anything else I've seen this side of Booksmart.

As the dust settles on Wandavision, I think we can see things a bit more clearly. I know I was regularly more of a dissenting opinion on this show each week, but it comes from a place of love for the genres the series pulled from and a desire for Wandavision to challenge itself more deeply. Although there a breaths of fresh air throughout the nine episode arc, Wandavision instead settles for sufficiently moving explorations of loss done in a method that feels shockingly unsure of itself considering the massive creative gamble presented by the first few episodes. Don't get me wrong, Wandavision is solid television. But when putting any irons to this fire, the facades it wanted to rest on reveal themselves to be as illusory as Westview itself.

The most interesting part of watching Wandavision week to week was seeing everyone who was not into the sitcom episodes be so lackluster on them only to retroactively become so much more into them after the fact, while many of us (myself included) who were on board for the weird fiction became more dissatisfied as the tone eventually became entirely scrapped by the finale. And listen, I'm not saying it was a bad way to plot it out like this, but the first few episodes stick out like a sore thumb. After watching the pilot, I really loved what I was seeing, but knew that what we watched was probably a failure of a pilot: it didn't present the show as we were going to get it, it functioned as a tease when the rug was pulled out from under us. And as the episodes wore on, that proved to be the case. The weird, nearly Lynchian tone of the opening was a gimmick. The metaphoric interpretation was shallow. Wandavision did very little with the profound potential of being trapped in a meta 50s set sitcom. For a point of comparison, look at the first episode of Twin Peaks: The Return. From the get go, Lynch showed us the surrealist tendencies of the season. He didn't waiver from that. It was consistent throughout and was frequently moving and always exceptional.

But in Wandavision, the surrealist flourishes of those sitcom episodes don't mean anything more than visualizing Wanda's escapism by using the flawed picturesque, idealistic sitcom of the 1950s. But that's it. There's little more to it than that. There could have been some explorations of women's rights and gender roles in the 50s as portrayed by sitcoms (hell, I Love Lucy even did that when it was on television); there could have been commentary on how Wanda had trapped herself in a reality she set up for herself. But it didn't. And so the figurative interpretation became so simple that the sitcom gimmick likely had to be dropped because they weren't pushing themselves any further. It still feels weird that the show leaned so hard into it in those early episodes, but considering the show's eventual conclusion I understand why it was dropped.

And I think that's likely the root of my opinion of Wandavision. I love surrealism and I love weird fiction. So, when I thought I was going to get those things in the MCU, I was pumped. Those early episodes teased the tip of the iceberg for something similar not only to Twin Peaks, but also things like Annihilation, Maniac, or even Legion. But it didn't. It eventually reverted back to something more similar to the rest of the MCU. And I really like the MCU, but the bait and switch didn't sit well with me. It might not really be entirely on me, but Wandavision led me on.

Scene starts -> scene ends -> cut to: LA landscapes -> rinse and repeat

This was dry. And I think there's an important distinction to be made between dry and slow. Slow isn't necessarily a bad thing. It certainly works wonders for the first season and a multitude of other pieces, from Malick to Tarkovsky. Dry is something more bland. The show is still slow, sure. But that's okay, it's a slow-burn. But the problem is that it's just kind of devoid of a lot of the most intriguing bits that made the first season so delicious. Namely the broody, bleak philosophizing that permeated the entire series, whether in the interview scenes or the period scenes. Rust was always there, getting a read on you. It was beyond engrossing.

Here, it feels like the editing structure stayed unchanged from the previous season without an understanding the writing structure is different. This season is much more detective, noir focused. Without any sort of voice over to cover the reliance on landscape imagery, I really don't know what I'm meant to glean from repetitive shots of LA highways.

McAdams is still great. Farrell got some much needed depth and judgment checks here. Vaughn definitely gave his all in that opening monologue and it was solid. I loathe Kitsch's character through and through--sexist, homophobic asshole.

So I'll get this out of the way up top: genuinely glad for all who enjoyed this series! It wasn't for me, but to each their own.

Wandavision represents Wanda's realization of the Dunning-Kruger Effect. It is her understanding of just how much she does not know. We thought for a long time it was going to introduce the X-Men to the MCU (which, I did assert, was heavily overblown and was far more likely just to be a cheeky cameo) and we thought that this was going to represent a new era and style for the MCU too. What we really got was something that will likely be less consequential for the overall timeline than the more significant solo entries in the mega-franchise and instead functions as a nearly four hour film. In terms of significance to the plot of the MCU as a whole, I'd imagine Wandavision will set itself somewhere between Guardians of the Galaxy and Thor: Ragnarok. It does a little more than just introduce lore and characters, but doesn't do quite so much as provide major developments that will serve as a starting point for the next big thing. This makes sense. It's the MCU's first major outing as a streaming series so I can't blame Feige et al for being hesitant to really let the story push things forward. It would be a little janky if that were the case too. Like what if Rise of Skywalker had been a streaming series instead of a movie? It might have been better, but it would have been weird.

And so instead, we're pitched with Wanda's journey to learn she doesn't know that much--and probably should know more. It's kind of an exploration of loss, but the audience has been sitting with Vision's death for nearly three years now. Wanda has even been in another film since then, so I found her grief to be late to the party when it's actually been five years in universe since he died. That might sound insensitive if I said that to someone in reality, but really what I'm trying to say is that the grieving process was already internalized by the audience (and even seen to a small extent in Endgame) so what I was left with after the finale wasn't a sense of loss because I'd already said goodbye in 2018. Instead, I was looking down the barrel of Wanda again realizing she doesn't understand her powers after her fifth major outing in the MCU (which, same tbh).

This finale doubles down on some of Wandavision's oddest tendencies. Namely: its lack of a central style and odd writing flow. The MCU has been skirting around goofiness since the get-go, but once we were handed full fledged fireball battles in the sky with witches saying things like "an imperfect spell can never be corrected" (while also claiming someone else could somehow fix it???) we pushed past my suspension of disbelief. I've thought a lot as to why this was the case, but I believe it has something to do with how the MCU had long incorporated action-comedy into its climaxes. So when Ant-Man is fighting with giant Pez dispensers, it is funny for everyone. Wandavision opted for meta-humor--stuff that would only be funny to the audience and is non-diegetic. Here, I realized exactly why that can be an awkward step. Meta-humor urges the audience to laugh at the artificiality of it. The laugh tracks and corny jokes of the earlier episodes aren't really that funny, but they're intentionally that way to bring a figurative interpretation of escapism that reinforces Wanda's inability to cope with reality. It becomes funny how silly and goofy all this is because of the meta-humor we experience in the form of heavily referential callbacks. It's funny to see Wanda and Vision roleplay in different sitcom universes because they aren't supposed to be there. The literal side effect that comes along with that, however, is that it urges the viewer to poke at the construction of the series. And, once you turn that lens on, it is difficult to turn it off. So when we got to the end and I saw some ultra self-serious flying witch fireball battles with words like "sorceress supreme" being thrown out there, I was still laughing--except this time I don't think it was meant to be funny.

For all my criticism, I still watched Wandavision every week, first thing in the morning before I started my work day. I never found myself disliking anything I saw, but I continually found myself underwhelmed. I wondered if I had just lost the appetite for the MCU so I even re-watched Age of Ultron and Ragnarok during one interim week to test this and I still like those movies, so I just didn't really vibe with this series. I saw flashes of stylistic boldness in marketing materials and the first few episodes that were never brought to fruition and so really I think my expectations were a bit too high. Ah well. Growing pains for the MCU I suppose.