Finally, The Scarlet Witch Rises
In an epic series finale, Elizabeth Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff officially assumed the mantle of the Scarlet Witch.
*WandaVision spoilers below*
The tour de force of WandaVision has come to a thrilling conclusion in its ninth and final episode “The Series Finale”. Overall, the show was one like we have never seen before. It began as a sitcom that soon evolved over episodes back into the Marvel Cinematic Universe style storytelling that we have come to love. WandaVision was a phenomenon because of three different factors; those factors are the talented cast of the show, the evolution of their storylines, as well as the connections to the larger MCU.
Front and center of the cast and the show is the two phenomenal actors Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany. Elizabeth Olsen proved that she has complete mastery of Wanda Maximoff. The actress perfectly plays Wanda as a woman who suffers through grief and turns to her power to save herself from her dreary reality. Additionally, Paul Bettany continued to play Vision with a perfect balance of emotion and aloofness. Furthermore, WandaVision contained beloved actors and characters from other Marvel movies. Randall Park reprised his role as F.B.I. Agent Jimmy Woo. With a sweet note, the writers of the show decided to include a small moment of character growth when Woo performs a magic trick that he was trying to perfect in Ant-Man and the Wasp. Additionally, Monica Rambeau made her return to the screen as an adult played by Teyonah Parris. Fans were excited by Parris addition because it finally meant that the superhero Photon finally arrived. The only aspect of criticism of this cast is the use of Evan Peters. Marvel Studios wasted an opportunity to expand the universe to include Quicksilver and his band of X-Men. Instead, Marvel used him as a red herring and had him as an actor named Ralph Bohner disguised as fake Pietro (Wanda’s brother) or “Fietro”. Last but not least, Kathryn Hahn outshone the cast as Agatha “Agnes” Harkness. She brought a greater than life aura to her villainous character. All of the cast proved that they had the flexibility and range to portray characters through a comedic lens as well as a dramatic lens.
Concerning the depth of the characters the two characters that shine the most are the titular characters of the show—Wanda and Vision. Wanda’s storyline in this TV series expanded her origin story. They explained reasons why she survived the Strucker experiments with the mind stone as well as her affinity with sitcoms. Additionally, Wanda learned how to refine and control her powers and eventually earned the full mantle of the Scarlet Witch. This show marked the official beginning of Wanda Maximoff as the Scarlet Witch in the MCU. Vision’s character was expanded on that he was dealing with the aftermath of realizing that he was intended as a weapon of mass destruction. Additionally, with the help of Wanda he experienced his first few emotions and true memories. He was able to fully understand complex human emotions and perfectly helped Wanda cope with her grief of losing her brother with the perfect quote: “What is grief, but love persevering?”
To many fans’ approval and with tradition in mind, Marvel included two post-credits scenes. The first shows a Skrull discussing that Fury is waiting in spacing. This connects to the last time we saw Fury in the post-credits scene of Spider-Man: Far From Home. These two things teases the upcoming movie Captain Marvel 2 which will unite Carol Danvers (Captain Marvel), Monica Rambeau (Photon), and Nick Fury (played by Samuel L. Jackson). The second post-credit scene shows Wanda isolating near a mountain range making tea. The camera pans to Wanda’s astral form studying the Darkhold (Marvel’s devil book of the damned). This kind of magic was last seen in Doctor Strange when Stephen Strange was studying magic while he was sleeping. In the scene, she later hears her kids that were born in her sitcom universe calling for help. This post-credits connects to the two other upcoming movies—Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness and Spider-Man: No Way Home. These movies promise a future of complexity especially with the emergence of the multiverse.
Since WandaVision has concluded, many fans can only speculate what the future will hold for Wanda. Until then, fans can tune into Marvel’s second miniseries The Falcon and The Winter Soldier which begins streaming on March 19th on Disney+.
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Colette Bu is member of the Class of 2023 who has attended Newman since 7th grade. Some of her favorite subjects include History and English. Outside of...