Idgi

I think WandaVision totally redeemed itself in the brilliant final episodes.
Yes, it had massive pacing issues with the front half of the series, and it was basically twice as long as it should have been, but ultimately Marvel got away with it.
Why? Because Marvel and Feige are smart. They're in for the long haul rebuilding the MCU after Endgame's effective coda to the series. They have a plan. It's going to take years for that plan to slowly unravel and build towards another distant climax, but dammit, they've sat down and worked it all out in advance.

The fools across the road at The Poundland Cinematic Universe really should be taking notes by now, rather than just continually firing a blunderbuss of half baked ideas against the wall and seeing what sticks.

Both Olsen and Bettany absolutely bossed it. Brilliant actors. Brilliant performances, and some seriously brilliant dialogue in the last episodes. They genuinely made you care about the characters they are playing, and when you are invested with the characters, then that elevates the traditional scenes of punching to an altogether different level. 
Marvel really do casting well, and while the stories they tell can be well worn trope-fests, they do tend to have dialogue writers who can really help to breathe life into the characters, and while the series was undoubtably flawed in it's length (but hey, you've got to keep that Disney+ sub money rolling in somehow), it was a pretty ballsy move to re-start the MCU with what amounted to an eight hour meditation on grief and loss.
Hell even the ending pretty much worked. That now classic Marvel thing of having an ending that's as much a beginning as anything else, and the money machine rolls on and on...
Someday they'll inevitably fall on their arses with all this, but on the strength of WandaVision, you'd have to believe that's a ways off yet.

It's kinda interesting going back to the 2017 posts in this thread and seeing a lot of discussion about the serialised nature of the MCU and the difficulty of catching up with it all - now with Disney+ it's almost all on one service and you can just work through the chronological list.

I thought the last two episodes were decent but the piss take of a few before tainted them somewhat.

Also don't put actual interesting stuff at the end of the 9 minute credits.
Better yet ditch the 9 minute credits all together.

Still, its the best of the Marvel TV stuff in that I could sit through a season of it.

If I'm honest I'm chomping at the bit for a proper movie now that sets a proper starting point/foundation for the next phase.
This, Spiderman Far from Home and Cap Marvel all hinted and winked. I dont really want to wait 3-5 years for things to get established again. The last phase was over a decade but I dont think phase 2 requires the slow build that one did.

Next up is Black Widow which is a prequel right? Or at least takes place before the last phase chronologicaly. May still tie into the next phasers story.

I enjoyed every episode, I thought they took some really obscure stories and turned them into a really easily understandable and mainstream-friendly series, whilst keeping the emotional core of the whole thing intact. Also of course, sets up lots of cool stuff to come and makes wandas inclusion in the new horror-esque dr strange film make way more sense. Strange was name dropped a couple of times I think?

Cant wait for the Falcon/WS series next (Zemo! US Agent!)

I’m assuming that every time there was a retro advert (the ads in Wanda’s broadcast, billboards in the town, company names on vans, etc) they were all nods to names/characters in the comics. Nuggets of gold for the geeks. I didn’t get a single one, past the obvious stuff like Stark Industries and Hydra near the beginning.

I liked the Wizard of Oz reference in the last episode.

I'm still unsure about this show, perhaps I was watching a different version. It all just feel incredibly average. Bettany is the best thing in it by a long shot, but his end stuff just seemed to be typical fly around punch things and blast stuff for a third of the episode, with some emotional bits at the end, which was ok.

I still think Wanda is borderline evil. She doesn't really seem to have remorse about what she's done. But it's always the same with shows/films like this. Real people traumatised for months... ahh they'll be ok, made up kids... oh I'm meant to cry for em because they are main cast... nah you're alright mate.

b0r1s wrote:

I still think Wanda is borderline evil. She doesn't really seem to have remorse about what she's done. But it's always the same with shows/films like this. Real people traumatised for months... ahh they'll be ok, made up kids... oh I'm meant to cry for em because they are main cast... nah you're alright mate.

I kind of think this was intentional. Like, you get a sense they explained why she does what she does, but also point out that there’s no real justification, and you’re right, she doesn’t seem to really care when she does find out.

My hope this is the beginning of this characters ‘arc’ towards doing some baaaaad shit...

cosmicjellybean wrote:

b0r1s wrote:

I still think Wanda is borderline evil. She doesn't really seem to have remorse about what she's done. But it's always the same with shows/films like this. Real people traumatised for months... ahh they'll be ok, made up kids... oh I'm meant to cry for em because they are main cast... nah you're alright mate.

I kind of think this was intentional. Like, you get a sense they explained why she does what she does, but also point out that there’s no real justification, and you’re right, she doesn’t seem to really care when she does find out.

My hope this is the beginning of this characters ‘arc’ towards doing some baaaaad shit...

Spoiler:

All as a way of trying to ‘get her kids back’, like an avengers disassembled/house of M style major fuck up.

Yep I'm with cosmic here, I think I know where it's going but not exactly how.

b0r1s wrote:

Yeah I’d buy that spoiler Cosmic.

Here’s a good Time article about what’s next and that this wasn’t the plan.

https://time.com/5942709/mcu-after-wandavision/

I must admit I don’t know a lot of the references here or that I’ve forgotten most of them from films I watched years ago.

Plan went to shit when guardians 3 got cancelled with James Gunn, then didn't.
But they are a bit out of order now in comic world with lots of characters missing so there's lots they can do and run with.

Some things didn't pan out the way I expected.

Oh man I just remembered there’s an eternals movie coming as one of the first lot of films isn’t there? I think that might be a rare miss for them, I can’t see it being very good personally but I hope I’m wrong. Maybe it’s just because I never read them/was interested in reading them.