TV Review: WandaVision Episode 6

WandaVision Episode 6: “All-New Halloween Spooktacular!”

Director: Matt Shakman

Starring: Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany, Kathryn Hahn, Teyonah Parris, Randall Park, Kat Dennings, Evan Peters, Julian Hillard, Jett Klyne, Josh Stamberg, David Payton, Alan Heckner, Selena Anduze

Rating: TV-PG

Runtime: 35 minutes

WandaVision has been steadily decreasing the emphasis it places on recalling specific sitcoms.  Part of the reason for that, of course, is that we’re getting closer to the end and the serial drama is taking more precedence. But the show hasn’t stopped studying sitcoms entirely, it’s just doing so in a broader way. Last week was more interested in invoking the preachy sentimentality sitcoms use for very special episodes than specifically paying homage to Family Ties.  And while this week’s title sequence and the boys talking to the camera seem inspired by Malcolm in the Middle the episode is more invested in using the general premise of a Halloween special to continue to up the eerie tension.  “All-New Halloween Spooktacular!” doesn’t reach the spectacular highs of “On A Very Special Episode…” but it maintains WandaVision‘s generally high level of quality and dramatically ups the stakes for the remainder of the show.

We pick up with the Maximoff household getting ready to celebrate Halloween. Everyone’s dressed in intentionally cheap, silly-looking versions of their classic comic book outfits, with Wanda explaining the red tights and weird headdress as what Sokovian witches were believed to wear. Vision says he has a neighborhood watch shift patrolling for people toilet papering houses but is secretly heading out to investigate the strange goings-on in Westview. “Uncle Pietro” volunteers to help Wanda take Billy and Tommy out Trick-or-Treating, which predictably leads to unexpected hijinks, especially when Tommy starts displaying super speed powers just like his uncle’s. Outside of Westview, Sword reacts to Wanda’s warning from last episode. Hayward is still insisting on having Wanda assassinated while the likable trio of Darcy, Jimmy, and Monica continue to push for more compassionate approaches. This leads Hayward to ban them from the base but Jimmy and Monica dispatch the guards escorting them out and the three of them begin sneaking around to fix things their way.

The main focus is, as always, on Wanda but this episode also does a lot of work integrating “Pietro” into the cast and playing up the mystery of who or what he actually is. Evan Peters served mostly as much-needed comic relief in the relatively dark X-Men films and WandaVision‘s sitcom side continues to highlight his comedic talents, even if there are also dark undercurrents to a lot of his scenes and lines. The twins tell the camera that Wanda refers to her brother as a “man-child” and Pietro is an amusingly immature, wild influence on his nephews, zipping them around to get all the town’s candy and smash pumpkins before Tommy develops the ability to do so himself. Pietro is self-aware about a lot of the situation, plainly responding that he doesn’t know why he looks different than he did in the regular MCU and when Wanda asks where his accent went he smugly turns the question back on her. But he’s also a decent sibling to Wanda, providing support that she desperately needs at the moment. He asks where she had been hiding all the town’s kids until they were needed for their “holiday episode cameo” but then compliments her on her handling of the ethical issues inherent in the Westview situation. Wanda is surprised he doesn’t think what she did is wrong but Pietro says on the contrary he’s impressed and thinks their parents would have liked her version of Westview. He does ask how she made it, but Wanda says she doesn’t know. She only remembers feeling “alone,” “empty,” and an “endless nothingness.” Olsen continues to capture Wanda’s underlying pain perfectly and she and Peters quickly develop an interesting rapport. It’s not the same as the mostly unspoken reliance she shared with Aaron Taylor-Johnson in Avengers: Age of Ultron but it’s its own kind of quiet warmth, and it makes the dark turn Pietro makes at the end of the episode all the more upsetting.

Monica, Jimmy, and Darcy infiltrate a Sword server room and Darcy is able to hack the system, revealing a lot of Hayward’s secret files, including a project called Cataract that had involved Vision’s body and information on the Westview situation that has not been shared, like the fact that Hayward has a system capable of tracking Vision by monitoring the Vibranium in him. Monica and Jimmy leave to meet up with Monica’s “guy”, presumably the unnamed aerospace engineer mentioned last episode, while Darcy stays behind to learn more. It’s entirely possible it will be a new and or insignificant character but the way the aerospace engineer is being teased has led many to assume it will be a major comic book figure, with speculation ranging from Riri Williams or Blue Marvel to icons like Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four.

Meanwhile, Vision travels to the edge of Westview, where Wanda’s hold seems to be more tenuous. People seem to be glitching, for lack of a better word, with one woman stuck putting up decorations over and over. At a stop sign just a few feet from the hex barrier, Vision finds Agnes seemingly frozen in her car. When he “wakes” her to her regular self as he did with Norm, she recognizes him as the Avenger Vision, but he doesn’t know what an Avenger is. Agnes asks if she’s dead and after saying no Vision asks why she would think that and she responds “because you are,” and then cackles maniacally. Disturbed, Vision puts her back in sitcom-mode and Agnes drives away. After this Vision tries to push through the barrier, even though his body begins to fall apart, with pieces of him flying back into the hex, which seems to be pulling him back in. Sword personnel rush out to see, with Hayward noting that “He really does want out,” and Darcy calling on them to help. Vision has never been one of my personal favorite Marvel characters and honestly I don’t think he ever will be (I’m still mad at him for paralyzing Rhodey in Civil War) but Paul Bettany and the rest of the WandaVision team have done great work making him a more compelling, endearing character than ever and this episode provides a strong demonstration of his innate heroism.

At the town square’s Halloween fair Tommy is speeding around when Billy’s powers come in. He telepathically senses his father’s pain and is able to stop his brother from moving with a simple wave of his hand, which glows with blue energy. The boys rush over to Wanda and Billy tells her what he saw. Pietro smugly remarks that “It’s not like your dead husband can die twice,” after which an enraged Wanda blasts him away. Wanda freezes all the townspeople and then begins expanding the Hex, with Vision’s possibly lifeless body, Darcy, and most of the Sword people being engulfed, although Hayward and a few others manage to drive away, the barrier hot on their heels.

WandaVision has been an unsettling show from the get-go but the “Halloween Spooktacular” has a more consistent tension and sense of dread throughout. Because of this, the ending, which otherwise could seem like just the start of yet another superhero finale, is instead an effectively dramatic shift that makes the future of the show delightfully unclear. Wanda’s world is getting even bigger and despite what she thinks that’s a very bad thing for her and everyone (and everything) else, but a good thing for viewers.

Notes:

• This week’s commercial is the strangest so far. A claymation kid is marooned on an island when a talking shark shows up and gives him a cup of “Yo-Magic”, seemingly a weird brand of yogurt, but the kid isn’t able to open it and starves to death. A jingle names Yo-Magic as a snack for “survivors.” The commercials’ connections to Wanda have been obvious so far, and while she is definitely a survivor the significance of this one is harder to discern. It’s possible someone is feeding off her magic or that it’s meant to show how magic doesn’t provide actual solutions to life’s problems but with how surreal the whole thing is and limited by the information we have now it’s impossible to say for sure.
• The boys’ individual personalities take a bit more shape here though they’re still mostly limited to Billy being the sensitive one while Tommy is more of a jokester.
• Pietro jokingly refers to the boys as “demon spawn”, which seems like an especially direct tease to all the Mephisto theories, whether that’s where the show is ultimately going or not.
• The show is generally getting less and less funny but the flashback to one of Wanda and Pietro’s Sokovian Halloweens, in which a terrifying old woman gives them a fish while fighting rages in the streets behind them is one of the show’s best dark comedy gags yet.
• After Pietro says something was kick-ass, Wanda repeats the word with a bemused look on her face. Kick-Ass was an adult comic book movie that starred Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Evan Peters.
• Westview’s movie theater is playing The Incredibles and The Parent Trap. The connection between the former and WandaVision is obvious, as The Incredibles is also about a superhero family in which the mother and father are often at odds. Including the latter is probably a literal play on its title, as Vision, and possibly Wanda, are both trapped in Westview. The protagonists of both versions of The Parent Trap are also twins.