By Aidan Callahan, Back Page Editor

Well folks, WandaVision has come to an end. Either you’ve been obsessed with this show for the past three months or you have no idea what I’m talking about. I’d like to address both groups in this article, first with a spoiler-free review for those who haven’t seen it and then a look back for those who have.

Spoiler-Free Review

I can imagine why a lot of people might be turned off by WandaVision, especially if they are not fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). But if you’re a fan of good science fiction or just good television, you’ll probably love this show.

While the story is connected to the MCU, you don’t need to have an intimate knowledge of the movies to understand it. The beauty of this show is that even if you’ve seen the movies, you’ll have no idea what’s going on.

The series is a mystery that drops you in on the titular superheroes, Wanda and Vision, living in a 1950s sitcom for no clear reason. It’s a fascinating piece of science fiction that will keep you theorizing about what’s happening every episode. 

It’s especially entertaining if you have a love for television. The show pays homage to classic sitcoms in a way that’s both hilarious and impressive. 

Point is: if you haven’t seen this show, what are you doing? Go stream it on Disney+.

Looking Back 

(Spoiler Alert!)

Alright, for those of us who have seen it, I think it’s important we look back on it critically. I love this show, but too much fanboying is dangerous. 

WandaVision is far from perfect. While the writers faithfully replicated the dialogue of whatever sitcom to which they were paying homage, once they went into the real world the dialogue fell into the same trap most Marvel movies do: bland writing.

Need to make a new character immediately likable? Easy, just say she loves coffee. Everyone loves coffee. 

WandaVision should have spent much more time in the world of the hex. Not only was the writing much stronger there, but it’s also so much more intriguing than the classic Marvel world on the outside. I loved the mustache man and his grandma’s piano — I wanted to see more of him. 

I think Disney was scared that people wouldn’t like this show, so they made sure it looked as much like a Marvel movie as possible. This was definitely a smart move on their part, as there were a lot of people who said the first two episodes were the worst. But we have a name for people who say that: wrong.

As much as I’ve been trashing it these past few paragraphs, this show is still amazing, especially if you consider Disney breathing down writers’ necks the whole time to make it as Marvel-esque as possible.

Fake Pietro ultimately being a boner joke may have been disappointing, sure, but they still got us to talk about it for weeks. I love a show that can get people talking, and this show is certainly one of them.

With WandaVision, you gotta take the good with the bad. Sure, I wish it was a little weirder, but if it was too weird, it would scare people off and I wouldn’t have as many people to talk about it with. For all its faults, I still think this is the best show that has come out in years.

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, though…? Well, that’s a story for another article.