At first, thinking of how this show once consisted of (and was catapulted by) fairly unknown actors, I was a little perturbed by the abundance of celebrity appearances. Then the twist happened… and that was actually all really clever.
So no one is going to talk about how the order of episodes for this show is messed up? And it's not Trakt. Even on Peacock the order is like this. They threw in the Olympics episode after the season 1 finale?
Glenn still has his job. Chey is still pregnant Disorienting for binging purposes.
[7.7/10] Another really entertaining episode. This is more explicitly doing Bewitched and 1960s sitcoms, and there’s a lot of sheer entertainment to be had from a riff on tropes of odd couples trying to fit into their idyllic neighborhoods.
I also appreciate the recognition of classic sitcom tropes and how they’d evolved in the subsequent decades. That goes beyond just the different decor in Wanda and Vision’s home. We see them walk outside and go seemingly on location, beyond the confines of a single set. We also see many more people of color populating their white picket fence town. It’s small details, but they add up to show change.
The notion of Wanda trying to impress Dottie, the queen bee of the neighborhood (Emma Caufield, aka Anya from Buffy the Vampire Slayer), and Vision to get in good with the neighborhood watch, so as to further their joint initiative to fit in works as a great premise for the episode. There’s a lot of humor to be wrung from off-beat Wanda trying to fit in with the Stepford-esque ladies under Dottie’s purview, and awkward square Vision accidentally fitting in with the guys of the watch.
What’s more, the set piece of the two of them trying to pull off a magic act at the local talent show, where Vision is functionally drunk due to some literal gum in the works, and Wanda has to work to make people think it isn’t magic, is fantastic. There’s a great, frantic energy to the whole routine, and both Olsen and Bettany play it to the hilt.
This was also a great episode for stray lines. The running gag of people chanting “For The Children” in unison brought a lot of yuks. The poor mustached man from the prior episode going “That was my grandmother’s piano” when Wanda turns it into a wooden standee was a solid laugh. And one of the housewives in the audience asking “Is that how mirror’s work?” when Wanda uses them to try to explain Vision’s phasing hat trick had me rolling in the aisles.
But it’s not all laughs. There’s more horror at the edge of the frame that’s done quite well. The presence of an airplane that’s visibly Iron Man’s colors seems to shock Wanda as revealing that something’s wrong here. When Wanda assures Dottie that she doesn’t mean any harm, Dottie says “I don’t believe you,” in genuinely frightened tones, while a strange voice cuts through the radio, causing her to break a glass and bleed fluid that likewise breaks through the black and white color scheme. It’s another superbly done unnerving moment.
There’s also some interesting lines that have double meanings that are quickly glossed over, like their new friend saying “I don’t know why I’m here,” seemingly referring to the garden party, but also suggesting she’s been wrapped into this fantasy world somehow and doesn’t know why. There’s a lot of little bits of dialogue that work like that in this one, and it’s fascinating.
We also see and hear some loud thumping, played for laughs in the “move the beds together” scene (another wink toward classic TV changes), but also witness it used for legitimate scares. There’s some frightening imagery when the man emerges from the sewers in a beekeeper outfit and more “Who’s doing this to you, Wanda?” calls are heard, especially when Wanda uses the power to rewind the tape. The advent of a pregnancy is an interesting development, and the arrival of color with their kiss is some great effects worth.
I’m nursing a theory that this is all part of Wanda coping with the loss of Vision, feeling sick or afflicted and unwittingly creating this fantasy world out of some kind of grief, wrapping more and more people into it. Whatever the answer, color me appropriately intrigued by the mystery, charmed by the pastiche, and appropriately disturbed at the hints of something deeply wrong with all of this.
[8.2/10] What a blast this is. I’m impressed both at how well WandaVision is able to replicate the 1950s sitcom vibe, especially for supernatural-themed comedies like Bewitched mixed with The Dick van Dyke show, while also including a subtle but palpable sense of existential terror beneath the three camera confines of the show.
I really enjoy how this first episode plays on the classic sitcom tropes: a couple not remembering an important date on the calendar, a wacky neighbor, a boss coming over for dinner who needs to be impressed. The show does a nice spin on them, while also feeling true to the sitcoms it’s paying homage to. I’m particularly stunned by the cast, who are able to replicate that acting style, and the editors and other behind the scenes craftsmen, who are able to replicate the rhythm, to such perfection.
What’s neat is that the episode works pretty perfectly separate and apart from its larger MCU connections as a solid old school sitcom pastiche. There’s a lot of nice setup and payoffs of gags, like Wanda repurposing a magazine's “Ways to please your man” article to distract her husband’s boss and his wife, or Vision singing “Yakety Yak” after decrying it earlier. Even the lobster door knocker routine was a fun and comical grace note to an earlier bit. As cornball as it is, there’s something charming about this sort of thing, right down to the “What do we actually do here?” gag about the computer company. And despite the light spoofing at play, this works as a solid meat and potatoes sitcom episode.
But the show goes a step further and has real fun with the fact that its leads are a self-described witch and a magical mechanical man respectively. There’s tons of amusing gags, starting with the intro, about the pair using their powers in trifling 1950s household sorts of ways. At the same time, it does well with the jokes about hiding their true identities. Vision writing off Wanda’s behavior as “European”, Wanda reassuring her neighbor that her husband is human, and Vision taking offense when a coworker tells him he’s a “walking computer” are all entertaining bits that make the most of the weird premise.
And yet, what really elevates this episode is the unnerving hints that there’s something terribly wrong going on here. It’s not hard to guess that after the events of Endgame, there’s still concerns about what happened to vision. The show plays with the melodic rhythms of the sitcom form to suggest something off at the edges here, in a really sharp way.
For instance, there’s an interstitial commercial featuring a Stark toaster, and not only does it feature the only bit of color in the black and white presentation with the beeping light, but the toasting takes just a beat too long for comfort. Likewise, the fact that Wanda and Vision can’t remember their story or how they got married is initially played for laughs, but then it becomes creepy when Mrs. Hart demands answers.
The peak of this comes when Mr. Hart chokes on his broccoli and the artifice freezes for a moment, leaving everyone paralyzed by the departure from how things work in this sort of situation. It’s a great piece of work, of a piece with the likes of Twin Peaks and Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared in its quiet horror.
I’ll refrain from speculating about who’s watching the broadcast we see or who’s in the monitoring room we seem to have an eye on, but the hints at what's really going on, and how that influences the images the audience witnesses, creates a great organic mystery and another layer to the proceedings.
Overall, this is a boffo debut for the series, and I’m excited to watch more!
As Zach Dempsey said, let’s pile on the closure dirt
Started with Hannah and ended with Hannah. I absolutely loved the ending.
This episode was so much crying for me
Shouldn’t the TARDIS have caused the Cyrillic sign in the underground tunnel to appear as English?
I see many people here complaining that the message of this episode was blatantly obvious and simple, but I don't really think that is the point of the episode.
In my interpretation, this episode was mainly here to tell a story of a tragic character that does immoral things out of desperation whilst also showing glimpses of humanity in his actions, which in no way justify his actions. Similarly, they try to humanise each and every side of this story. Even the big CEO of the company that arguably does a lot of social evil has his big humanising moment, where he admits that it all spun out of control, and I think we can all relate to that.
There is no evil character. It is all a complex web that creates evil, and the point, as I see it, was not to bash into the heads of people to not text and drive, or to stop using social media, but simply to tell a story. A story that utilises the all-consuming technology in our society, and I think it does that job fantastically. It is suspenseful, layered, and incredibly moving.
A wonderful goodbye to a decaying show. After quite a few underwhelming seasons, against all odds, they gave us a genuinely funny and very heartwarming episode. Ain't gonna lie, I shed a tear or two (and not only during Sheldon's Nobel speech). They've truly put some heart into this series finale, there isn't a single thing I can complain about it. The show ended on the highest possible note.
I was prepared to be disappointed by the lack of guest stars in the final episode, but then Buffy the Vampire Slayer :heart:
Twelve seasons is a big chunk of life, and I'm glad to have The Big Bang Theory being a part of mine for this long. I will miss these guys.
I'll miss you, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Titus and Lillian and and all of you.♥️
P.S.: Except Mimi
First of all I’m a really GREAT fan of The Orville :) But start of this episode looked strangely familiar, then i remember it. Black mirror, season 3 episode 1 - Nosedive :)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5497778/?ref_=ttep_ep1
Anyone seen that?
Damn. That last scene literally sent goosebumps through my entire body. Holy shit! It definitely stays with you. What a beautiful, hauntingly heart wrenching episode. All of them were really, really good so far, but this was exceptional.
Great dual moment at the end with them both realising they have met. And so the game of cat and mouse begins!
I like how flawed they both are, it's such a rarity to have layered female characters written well. Really liking this show.
FIFTY HUNDRED OUT OF TEN STARS.
Designated Survivor is great and enjoyable because of the people involved in it... but also increasingly predictable. They have this structure of:
I like the show because I love to see Kiefer Sutherland and the supporting cast has been wonderful as well, and it's been a "feel good" show, really - even when the outcome of Kirkman's problems is not that great, there is still a positive message being shared. And what can I say about Lyor's scenes, always on point. However, I fear that without innovation the show doesn't have much of a future, especially with the investigation stuff not being that interesting. We'll see what happens.
What the hell was that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"We are still talking about cars, right?" Right at the moment I was thinking that the conversation sounded an awful lot like it was about iPhones! That was pretty great. But oh, the kerning of "first" on that pamphlet… Ew.
Apropos of having Eda stop at a pharmacy on the way back in time, when does that place Misako's purchase? It was probably small enough that she paid cash, but would the transaction timestamp show her buying something while she was provably somewhere else if she used a card?
Naito really struck me in certain scenes as a Japanese version of Marcus Kane (Henry Ian Cusick, The 100), for some reason. There was something about his facial structure & hairstyle that connected the two in my head.
Nice to see Eda-san is a good salesman, equally willing to dissuade his customer from purchasing as he is to encourage it if he believes the purchase wouldn't be in their best interest. That's true customer service!
He also keeps getting more creative with trying to make the time travel experience feel more special. Each time Eda comes up with another idea to try and make the whole experience feel properly commercial, it gets funnier. This latest thing with the safety video is hilarious, as thought he's trying to make it feel like an airplane.
I do wonder whether the restriction Eda mentioned—that the driver of the taxi can only repeat their previous actions, without changing them—is a regulation or a physical law. Strictly speaking, is he able to change his actions but forbidden from doing so, or is he bound by universal forces to repeat the same actions regardless of will? It would be an interesting subject to explore, but I doubt the drama will touch on that again in the three remaining episodes.
Suddenly there's a plan that Saul gave to Carrie and she played right along with it? Either I haven't been paying nearly as much attention as I thought, or they missed inserting some clue. Unless the clue was Virgil's line about Carrie's mom on the phone, which I took at…well, not exactly face value…but to mean that he was cluing her in that the call was being monitored and she should GTFO. Maybe instead, it was a hint that it was all an operation and to just play along.
Somehow I can't be mad that I feel like I missed something. A show like this can't be obvious all the time—it's about a CIA agent, ffs.
The funny thing is that after the episode ended, I came here to give it some stars.
Huh. Y'all can skip this one
Holy shit what a great way to open the season. This episode manages to hit my nerdy blockbuster spots so well.
It also really dissected the toxic parts of our current nerd culture climate. Also it's an episode with a good ending too! Amazingly well-done episode.
Once again, so. much. stupid. My two faves: (1) Four missiles are headed for DC and so a message goes out that residents within 400 miles should evacuate. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! As if folks in DC would even be able to make it to the Beltway in that amount of time. (2) After all of the time and drama surrounding which people to pick for the ark, they basically just herd everyone who happened to be at Tanz into the silo when the time comes. So not only was Jillian the most annoying character on the show right up to the very end, but she was the most useless, as well. There's so much more to mock, but it's just piling on at this point. It's over. Maybe now I've finally learned my lesson regarding "science" fiction and CBS summer shows. But probably not. I'm pretty desperate at times.
How can I not love a show that does a tribute to one of my fave movies of all time?
The beginning is a hilarious tribute to Ferris Beuler's Day Off. The episode is a bit different than the others since Brian is in the woods throughout.
I see nothing wrong with a change in scenery though.
Shows don't often get more out of me than a nose exhale, but the Ghost reference "Anybody got e pottery wheel?" literally had me laughing out loud, and unexpectedly, so did "Ninja please!" Great episode in my book
"We have no idea how to write a coherent story so we just do another time-skip and be done with it." - Helix Writer's Room
