TV Rewind: WandaVision Still Remains the MCU’s Most Powerful Project

Editor’s Note: Welcome to our TV Rewind column! The Paste writers are diving into the streaming catalogue to discuss some of our favorite classic series as well as great shows we’re watching for the first time. Come relive your TV past with us, or discover what should be your next binge watch below:

Imagine it. You’re stuck at home every day, forced to live again and again through the same endless routine. The world outside is gray, devoid of color. All you want to do is escape, but that’s just not possible, and even attempting to do so can put your life at risk. 

This was the reality in Westview, a town Wanda Maximoff transformed using nothing but grief and a touch of chaos magic after Vision’s death in Avengers: Infinity War during her breakout Disney+ series WandaVision. But this was also the reality countless people faced in the real world too, back when WandaVision arrived during one of those early COVID outbreaks in January 2021.  

Just as the residents of Westview suddenly found themselves trapped in a nightmare of the Scarlet Witch’s making, we too had our lives upended in a flash with untold suffering as disease claimed the world. You’d think that watching our own experiences reflected back at us would have been painful or hard to watch—because yes, that was absolutely the case for most COVID-set stories that followed—but WandaVision was different.

Marvel’s first show was special, and not just because it was the first or because it was the best—a fact which remains true even now, three and a half years later. WandaVision was bold and daring in ways the MCU had never attempted before. 

The weekly release format lent itself extremely well to Wanda’s channel-hopping journey across various eras of TV, which inspired the kind of visual innovation only seen otherwise in Doctor Strange movies. But more than that, this story of a reality-bending witch and her android husband was also more human than anything Marvel had ever depicted on screen. 

Every Friday morning, I would wake up still buzzing from Drag Race UK the night before, ready to devour each all-too-short episode of WandaVision with a cup of tea in one hand and my notes app ready in the other. I did it for work, the note-taking, and I would jump into writing one or more pieces on the show as soon as the credits rolled (checking for a post-credits scene each time, of course). But watching WandaVision was never a chore. 

Along with It’s A Sin and Season 2 of Drag Race UK, WandaVision helped make that hellish month bearable, if rather sad still at points. Because January isn’t fun at the best of times in Europe, what with all the endless rain and damp. Throw another lockdown into the mix and even the horrors of Westview seem preferable, witches and all. Watching Wanda navigate a hell of her own making helped pull us out of our own, even if just for 30 minutes each week. Grieving for those we had lost while trapped in our lockdown bubble, whether it was because of distance or something infinitely more painful, we could relate to Wanda’s grief too, despite her villainous streak.     

Loss defined that time in so many ways, and it’s how Wanda’s story has long been defined on screen as well. WandaVision’s penultimate episode showcased the magnitude of loss the Scarlet Witch has suffered, all leading her to create this trauma-defying bubble. Everything Wanda’s ever held dear had been cruelly snatched away, from her parents and her brother to her free will at the hands of Hydra. That’s a lot for any human to bear, even a superhuman. 

As Wanda continued to fight for something better in the wake of all that sorrow, Vision glided into her life with compassion, carrying understanding and seven particular words that would ultimately transcend WandaVision and the broader MCU with its touching poignancy. 

Pietro’s death is still fresh in this flashback that takes place a short time after Avengers: Age of Ultron. Wanda is feeling overwhelmed, knocked down over and over again with “a wave” of grief that she fears will “drown” her completely. Vision, ever the source of logic, disagrees, saying “No,” that’s not going to happen. But how can a synthetic human ever possibly know that? 

“Because it can’t be all sorrow, can it?” he replied. “I’ve always been alone, so I don’t feel the lack. It’s all I’ve ever known. I’ve never experienced loss because I’ve never had a loved one to lose. What is grief, if not love persevering?”

Jaded MCU critics mocked people who were moved by this sentiment, suggesting that they should watch more shows and films if they’re looking for something “actually deep.” But snobbery aside, it doesn’t matter where the words come from. While massively popular entertainment produced on this scale isn’t typically the place for art that resonates, what writer Laura Donney captured in this line of “love persevering” is deeply moving regardless.

Because, at a time when grief was all-consuming and there was no end in sight, here was a character lovingly explaining that this pain isn’t something we should run from. We can distract ourselves all we want, whether we’re baking banana bread or trapping innocent townsfolk in a bubble of chaos magic, but the grief will still be there until we learn to embrace it. And embrace it we should because grief isn’t just sorrow. It’s a love that endures, that perseveres beyond loss to keep those no longer with us in our minds and in our hearts.  

Even now, it’s safe to say that many of us haven’t fully reckoned with what we went through collectively as a world besieged by the virus. Trauma still lingers, consciously or not, and the effects are still apparent everyday. But in the midst of it all, WandaVision offered us a way forward at a time when I—and we—desperately needed hope, this idea of centering love even in tragedy. 

Subsequent Marvel projects also touched on grief in their own way, most notably Spider-Man: No Way Home with Aunt May’s death and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, which had to reckon with the passing of its star, Chadwick Boseman, ahead of production. But no other project has come close to the moving power of WandaVision, and that’s particularly disappointing given the number of shows and films that have been released since. 

The success of WandaVision proved that there’s scope to tell more meaningful MCU stories with the extra time and space that a series can allow. But then Marvel made Secret Invasion, a show that almost makes you long for COVID again just for the endless production delays. 

Other MCU shows have come and gone since with varying degrees of success, but the only one with any real potential to resonate like this again is Agatha All Along, Kathryn Hahn’s upcoming spinoff which will take us back to Westview once more. 

Will it make us cry and feel in all the ways WandaVision did? The world is different now, yet grief is immutable, a constant in our lives no matter what. So whether Agatha Harkness and her coven end up bringing us joy or disappointment, our love for WandaVision and what that show did for us at a time when we needed it most will persevere regardless.  

David Opie is a freelance entertainment journalist. To hear his ramblings on queer film and TV, you can follow him @DavidOpie.

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