WandaVision - S1E4: We Interrupt this Program
The fourth episode of WandaVision takes a step away from the increasingly familiar sitcom concept and seeks to shine a light on the mechanics of the outside world. SWORD – that’s Sentient Weapon Observation Response Division – takes center stage and the pieces of this show’s puzzle fall neatly into place.
The episode opens with an interesting angle. Flashing back to ‘the Blip’, which is the reverse snap that the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) did in Avengers: Endgame in order to bring back all the missing people, we see Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) brought back into existence whilst in a hospital ward. What follows is brief and utter chaos, with many other people being snapped back to life, causing havoc for the unsuspecting hospital staff. It’s nice to see that the heroic event that the Avengers created in a previous movie being brought down into a real, crushing manner here, serving to exemplify how this superhero business isn’t particularly glamorous for the civilians on the ground.
From here, Monica is keen to get back to work after learning the fate of her mother, Maria Rambeau (Lashana Lynch from Captain Marvel), who was also the founder of the SWORD organisation. Teaming with the FBI’s Jimmy Woo (Randall Park from Ant Man and the Wasp), Monica is assigned a missing person’s case in a town called Westview. However, it quickly becomes apparent that this case goes beyond a missing person and that Westview itself contains a huge amount of secrets.
This episode feels most like it fits in the MCU and not just because it briefly pulls the brakes on the sitcom style. The Marvel connections come in thick and fast and, as well as the aforementioned returning characters, this episode also sees the return of Doctor Darcy Lewis (Kat Dennings), who previously provided comic relief to Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster in the first two Thor movies. Dennings carries a lot of warmth, but it’s peculiar to see Darcy take on such an integral role. Park as Woo seems to be having the best time and gets to build on his rather inept character take from Ant Man and the Wasp; here, Woo gets to prove he’s more than just a bumbling idiot.
There isn’t too much progression here. Instead, episode four focuses on filling in the gaps. The slight teases scattered across the first three episodes are directly paired with the workings of SWORD in this episode and it seems that, from this point on, there’s going to be a lot more story played out across a mix of the two settings.
Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany are missed, but branching out into the real world was inevitable and a welcome break from the sitcom world. The show has hit a turning point and it would feel unnatural if the pace began to slow down now.