When WandaVision initially premiered, airing its first two episodes on Disney+ for its many subscribers to watch on January 15th, 2021. Over nine total episodes, WandaVision proved to viewers why expanding Phase Four of the MCU into the television shows was a great idea. Unfortunately, as the show came to a close, it let its audiences down once again.
Exciting storylines never came to fruition, brand-new characters fizzled out, and exhilarating ideas amounted to little more than crude jokes. While WandaVision started incredibly, by the end of the show, it was just standard Marvel fare. Among its successes, unfortunately, there are a fair few times that WandaVision disappointed us all.
10 When It Completely Dropped The Framing That Made It So Special
The first few episodes of WandaVision were good for many reasons, but one that stood out above all else: this show was unique. As Wanda was going through an extremely traumatic event, she had entered a sort of fugue state in which she used her superpowers to construct a reality that resembled sitcom television.
Most of the episodes in WandaVision pay specific homage to sitcoms of a particular decade, but by the end of the show, this framing was completely abandoned. The concept that made the show so special, to begin with, was thrown out the window. The last couple of episodes felt like any other Marvel movie, framing-wise.
9 The Show Became Like Any Other MCU Movie By The End
Unfortunately, everything that made WandaVision look and feel special had gone by the finale. The show felt unique for many reasons, even beyond its special sitcom framing. WandaVision dealt with grief and loss in a way that the MCU really hasn’t before. Besides, it gave a lot more space to Wanda Maximoff as a character, allowing her to be really fleshed out and explored in her cinematic entirety.
Despite this, the show slowly lost everything that made it unique, and, by the end, it felt like a Marvel movie. The action was subpar, the lines were cheesy, the character interactions were surface-level, and everything the audience had worked for alongside Wanda felt all for naught.
8 Every Villain In The Show Ended Up Fading Out
Multiple different potential characters could have ended up being the main villain of WandaVision. While some fans thought that it would ultimately be revealed that Wanda was the show’s villain, others predicted that Agnes was Agatha Harkness all along. Still, others speculated that Mephisto or Nightmare might show up.
Hayward was, arguably, more of a villain than anybody else. Still, all of these characters—save Mephisto and Nightmare, who never appeared—stopped being bad. Each of them faded out from their evil actions into simply doing nothing, and for no apparent reason in any case.
7 The Action Just Wasn’t Good Anymore
While the action in WandaVision was rather sporadic before the show’s last couple of episodes, where it did appear, it was more interesting than most action sequences elsewhere in the MCU. The MCU has an ongoing problem with action in that its fights are notoriously not well-done, but WandaVision actually got off to a strong start.
Unfortunately, by the end, the action just wasn’t all that good anymore and had become standard Marvel fare. Even the fight between Vision and White Vision amounted to little more than the two of them flinging each other around.
6 Refused To Commit To Losing Any Characters For Good
Part of what WandaVision was trying to tell audiences—at first—is that the trauma of grief may be difficult, but you will ultimately overcome it. It is important to feel your feelings and process them after you lose somebody. As viewers saw Wanda struggle to come to terms with how much grief and loss she had suffered, they slowly realized, as did Wanda, that holding on was worse than letting go.
However, by the end of the show, WandaVision refused to actually say goodbye to any characters for good. Agatha is still around, in a daze; Vision still exists as White Vision; Billy and Tommy are in another universe or somewhere. Even “Fietro” (Fake Pietro) is basically a big old question mark. For a show that’s supposed to be about grief, it pulled its punch at the last moment, and the entire show suffered for it.
5 Never Fully Cleaned Up The Mess That Was Avengers: Age Of Ultron
The penultimate episode of WandaVision took viewers backward through Wanda’s past to see her at different phases of her life. Audiences saw her as a child, they saw her being experimented on, they saw her after the events of Age of Ultron, and they saw her immediately before the events of WandaVision began.
Although this episode tried to explain some of Wanda’s past and attempted to fix other elements, the show never fully committed to cleaning up Age of Ultron. Ultimately, Wanda is still not Magneto’s daughter; Quicksilver is still dead; she was still, inexplicably, willing to work with the bad guys.
4 Mutations Still Do Not Exist In The MCU
By refusing to walk back and attempt to clean up the mess that was introducing the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver as “experiments,” rather than mutants, WandaVision disappointed viewers hoping to see the MCU finally deal with the mutant problem.
Because the X-Men's rights have finally been secured, it’s only a matter of time before characters start showing up in the MCU. While WandaVision had countless opportunities to introduce mutants, especially since Wanda herself is supposed to be a mutant, it never seized any of them.
3 That Ralph Bohner Alternate Universe Letdown
Marvel and Disney actually went to a lot of trouble to recruit Evan Peters specifically to play the role of Fake Pietro in WandaVision. He was snuck on and off the set, he was secretly filmed, and the secret was kept for months until the show actually aired. Ultimately, though, fans found out that Quicksilver wasn’t Quicksilver from the X-Men universe at all, but just some guy named Ralph Bohner.
Inexplicably, although people hated this very same twist with the Mandarin in Iron Man 3, the MCU decided to do it again and turn Quicksilver into nothing more than a joke. More than a disappointment, this felt like a slap in the face and proved the MCU still has a long, long way to go before they’re anywhere near as good as they think they are.
2 Many Characters And Plotlines Fizzled Out
There were quite a few characters and stories introduced to WandaVision to fade away and never become anything. In fact, the actress Emma Caulfield revealed recently that she was specifically cast to be a red herring.
Like other titles in the MCU, WandaVision became too concerned with tricking people, diverting fans, and tying itself into the rest of the universe to stand on its own truly. All of these perfectly good concepts and characters faded into the background of what had been an excellent and unique show, to be replaced with the MCU’s standard fare of film for the show’s finale.
1 The MCU Still Has Not Proven They Know Where They’re Going From Here
In the midst of the pandemic's chaos and uncertainty, countless Marvel movies and television shows have been pushed back and/or delayed indefinitely. WandaVision is really the first thing that Marvel fans have gotten to see from their favorite universe in some time, and, at first, it seemed that the franchise was going in a great direction with this show.
Unfortunately, though, the show's end only showed viewers that the MCU is basically at the same place it’s always been in. They haven’t moved forward at all, and WandaVision’s promised had all but vanished by the finale. While fans hope that the MCU will get its act together soon, WandaVision’s finale has made more than a few viewers slightly less optimistic about the franchise’s future.