![]() There are only hints at what Rambeau’s duties were at S.W.O.R.D. is S.H.I.E.L.D.’s sister organization, concerned with extraterrestrial threats to Earth, and that seems to be the implication here as well. Three weeks after returning to the land of the living, Rambeau returns to her job at the Sentient Weapons Observation Response Division, or S.W.O.R.D. Our main focus is on Captain Rambeau as she tries to pick up her professional life where she left off. Instead, the entire episode is told from a “real world” perspective, as we catch up on the events of the series so far from the point of view of characters who are not trapped in Westview, NJ. ![]() ![]() (Seeding Plots Ahead of Cinematic Extension)Īfter the compelling teaser in the hospital, I expected that the episode might resume something close to the rhythm of earlier episodes, perhaps bouncing back and forth between a sitcom pastiche and the people observing it. And, hell, we love our explainers, but on a show that is preoccupied with the way television has changed over the years, it’s notable that this kind of omission of exposition would never happen on a series made ten years ago.Īgent of S.P.A.C.E. Granted, it’s not too presumptuous to assume that viewers have at least a passing familiarity with the events of the highest-grossing film of all time, and storytellers can now count on the audience’s access to thorough explainer articles so that they don’t have to spend expensive screentime boring the portion of the audience that has seen all the films with information they already know. The nature of the Snap and the Blip are not explained at all in this episode and it’s fair to assume that they won’t be later, either, since the window to explain it to a character who missed that whole thing has now closed. ![]() While it’s par for the course considering this is a Marvel Studios production, I pity anyone who put on WandaVision because they were curious about this quirky not-sitcom everyone’s been talking about but who hasn’t seen the Avengers films that led up to it. Monica learning of her mother’s death is just a taste of the collective trauma that the Blip would cause. In the long term, this is a miracle, a universally joyful event, but in the short term, half of everyone on Earth or elsewhere has just missed five years of history, and the other half is about to be faced with the people they’ve had to mourn and move on from. The scene of the reverse rapture in the hospital is tense, panicky, and as unsettling as the disappearances had been. In the most recent MCU film, Spider-Man: Far From Home, the return of the half of the population who were dusted by the Snap is only depicted briefly and is played for laughs, given the comical nickname “the Blip.” Here, we get a more earnest depiction of what it might be like for billions of people to suddenly reappear wherever they were when they died, without any idea that they were even dead. Monica is quickly informed not only that she’s been (accurately) presumed dead for the past five years, but that her mother has died of cancer during her absence. The majority of viewers who are familiar with the events of the Marvel Cinematic Universe are ahead of her from the get-go, and understand that Monica must have been among the 50% of all life in the universe who was snapped out of existence by Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War, and is now coming back to life during the climax of Endgame. “We Interrupt This Program” opens as the body of Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) reassembles from cosmic dust and she awakens in a hospital room, where she believes she’s simply dozed off. Until now, WandaVision has separated itself from the rest of the Marvel Studios oeuvre by not holding the audience’s hand, but now we’re getting the full guided tour when wandering around for a bit longer might have been more fun. While an episode like this isn’t unexpected, and is probably necessary to make the series comprehensible in the long run, taking a break from the show’s central gimmick so soon is a bit of a disappointment. Utilizing the familiar tone of a Marvel movie (though mostly sans action), “We Interrupt This Program” draws back the curtain for viewers who hadn’t already pieced together the mystery, but doesn’t add much to it, focusing instead on the grander Marvel Universe outside. After three episodes that held to a rigid but intriguing formula, WandaVision ’s fourth chapter is a dramatic departure from what we’ve seen so far, a more conventional drama that investigates the show-within-a-show from without.
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