REVIEW: WandaVision, Season 1 Episode Four 'We Interrupt This Program'

 REVIEW: WandaVision, Season 1 Episode Four 'We Interrupt This Program'

With The Falcon And The Winter Soldier having now wrapped its first season on Friday, I thought I would take a look back at my thoughts on WandaVision's fourth episode 'We Interrupt This Program'.

This seems like a very odd thing to say about WandaVision, given that it's hardly a conventional TV Show to begin with, but this is a really unusual episode of WandaVision. Not only does it change the format from old style U.S. sitcoms to a sort of supernatural mystery drama akin to The X Files, but it also switches the main characters, gets rid of one of the new main protagonists only ten minutes into the episode when Monica (Teyonah Parris) ends up in Wanda's (Elizabeth Olsen) sitcom world, and shows us very little of Wanda and Vision (Paul Bettany). Some who have invested in this series could see that as disappointing, and certainly last week I saw people on my Twitter feed who were upset about it, but for me it works. It's always interesting to see events from a different perspective, and it means we get some cool if obvious explanations for the segments of reality breaking in from the second and third episodes of the show.

I wasn't a fan of Darcy Lewis (Kate Dennings in Thor: The Dark World; I found her pretty irritating, but here I actually quite like her. She seems quite endearingly awkward here, feeling a little like a social outcast rather than somebody comfortable around people. As somebody with autism I can relate to that, as I have my own daily struggles interacting with others, and I am more confident in a solitary environment rather than among a group of others. It's also really interesting seeing Monica Rambeau from Captain Marvel all grown up. When we last saw Monica she was a kid who looked up to Carol Danvers, so it's quite startling at first to see her as a full-grown adult, but I guess that's the effect of seeing a character in a prequel first set years before that fictional universe's current timeline, before you see her in the present times.

Monica and the others who were dusted returning after the snap was a really cool effect, and the sequence was quite disturbing in the way that it showed just how messed up the whole 'snapped away' thing was. The fact that Monica returned to find her Mum had died three years ago was quite a grim twist that showed the cold reality of what it would be like if such a thing happened in real life. You'd imagine that must have been a heavily traumatic event for Monica to suddenly return to, especially as her mother died in hospital of cancer, and she couldn't be by her bedside; it feels really quite cruel for somebody to have that last moment with a loved one snatched away in such a way, and it shows the very real emotional ramifications of Thanos's actions in Avengers: Infinity War.

I loved also seeing Jimmy Woo (Randall Park) and the SWORD agents all theorising over the WandaVision episodes. That was a really fun meta-moment, reflecting exactly what everybody is doing on social media right now. I like that Jimmy, Darcy and SWORD are effectively becoming audience surrogates, and watching the transmissions very much as viewers of this strange sitcom world that Wanda has created. It's almost as though we are watching it with them, which adds an extra degree of immersion to proceedings that otherwise wouldn't be present.

It's interesting to note how Vision appeared dead to Wanda, as we see a flash of his lifeless corpse in the sitcom clothes. Does that mean she's reanimating his corpse with her powers, to live the ideal life with him in this faux sitcom world (NB: No, it doesn't)? Whatever the explanation, it seems clear to me that Vision is still very much dead. Before this point I had wondered if Wanda had found a way to bring him back to life, but if this is a sign of reality continuing to break into her sitcom facade, then that no longer seems a likely outcome.

Overall, episode four of WandaVision was an interesting diversion from the normal format of the show. It's an interesting move by the creative team of this series to give us an episode that largely operates as a supernatural mystery drama rather than a sitcom episode, especially as it changes our main characters from Wanda and Vision to Jimmy Woo and Monica/Darcy. The episode also throws in one of the show's most intriguing moments with the flashes of Vision's lifeless corpse , which suggest that Wanda perhaps hasn't found a way to bring her Vision back after all. It's a strong episode that gives us something a little different for the series, and I for one am intrigued to see where WandaVision goes next.

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What are your thoughts on WandaVision's fourth episode? Let me know in the comments.