WandaVision: It’s Been Fun, Don’t Feel Disappointed

WandaVision‘s finale has now premiered on Disney+, bringing the series to a climactic close. As promised, the ending of WandaVision ditched the retro-sitcom format for an all-out Marvel Cinematic Universe experience, as Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany) defended Westview and their family from evil witch Agatha Harkness and the white body version of Vision that SWORD re-built. Now that WandaVision is over, a lot of fans are expressing feelings of disappointment in how the series stuck its landing (or not). But context is important in this case: WandaVision has been a fun milestone, and Marvel shouldn’t leave feeling any disappointment, at all.

WARNING! WandaVision finale SPOILERS Follow!

There are a lot of Marvel fans who are experiencing disappointment with WandaVision following the finale. Most of that disappointment seems to be centered around the fact that a lot of the more popular fan theories about WandaVision didn’t pan out by the end of the finale. Evan Peters’ “Quicksilver” turned out to be another Iron Man 3-style red herring, with Peters playing a local actor that Agatha used as a Trojan Horse version of Pietro. Mephisto never showed up. The aerospace engineer wasn’t John Krasinski’s Reed Richards. Doctor Strange never showed up for a cameo – nor did Patrick Stewart’s Professor X or Michael Fassbender’s Magneto. The MCU still hasn’t confirmed mutants, or even truly acknowledged a Marvel Multiverse concept. That’s a lot of understandable letdowns for fans to process.

At the same time, all of these WandaVision theories and discussions kept Marvel fans buzzing. for weeks. At a time when the fandom hasn’t gotten any new Marvel Cinematic Universe content in over a year. In the end, the most “fun” and “satisfying” thing about WandaVision is the contest of when it arrived, and what it provided to this thirsty Marvel fanbase.

The show’s themes of grief, loss, isolation, and retreating into false realities are eerily resonant after a year spent in quarantine lockdowns, with many people experiencing serious personal losses, be it livelihoods and/or loved ones. The fact that the series unified fans in deep theorizing and discussion week-to-week, for nine straight weeks, is a special kind of milestone that transcends any payoff a twist cameo would’ve provided. After one of the most challenging and divisive years imaginable, Marvel’s WandaVision gave us content we could all once again dive deep into, together, in only the way that Marvel can inspire.

It’s long been my personal theory that when it comes to comic book fandom, the imagination of what could happen in an exciting storyline is always more fun than the actual payoff of what does happen. That’s exactly the kind of experience WandaVision has been for Marvel fans, at a time when we desperately needed it. If the last year should’ve taught us anything, it’s probably that we should cherish such experiences much more, and focus on the negative aspects a lot less.

WandaVision was fun – now bring on The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Loki, Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness, Spider-Man: No Way Home, and all the rest!