‘WandaVision’ – ‘We Interrupt This Program’ – Review
For the last three episodes of WandaVision we’ve been living in a serialised American TV sitcom, and now in ‘Episode 4’, ‘We Interrupt This Program’, reality comes knocking and nothing is what it seems…
While Wanda Maximoff (Elizbeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany) might be living the perfect American sitcom life inside the town of Westview, outside everything else is going slightly haywire and the sudden disappearance of an entire town and populace calls in the joint forces of both the FBI and clandestine secret service S.W.O.R.D looking for answers.
Having made her first appearance in ‘Episode 2’, ‘Don’t Touch That Dial’, the truth behind Teyonah Parris’ Geraldine is now made clear in that she is actually Captain Monica Rambeau, Agent of S.W.O.R.D or Sentient Weapon Observation and Response Division, who is called upon to investigate the Westview anomaly. Audiences are introduced to Monica in the immediate aftermath of the reversal of ‘the blip’, and her sudden re-appearance captures the frightening urgency of this freakish phenomenon and it certainly makes you sit-up. Now living in a changing world, Monica is sent in to investigate the Westview anomaly and is soon drawn inside this strange phenomenon.
Alongside gaining a clearer look into Parris’ Rambeau, audiences are re-introduced to previous MCU characters, including FBI Agent Jimmy Woo (Randall Park), and now Dr. Darcy Lewis (Kat Dennings), who since the events of Thor: The Dark World has now become a well-respected astrophysicist. Series director Matt Shankman uses these three characters to follow the events of WandaVision in real-time, and there are many call-backs to the three previous events of the series. And like the audience, the characters of Rambeau, Woo and Lewis all find themselves invested into the on-going narrative of WandaVision.
While questions of reality and illusion have bounced back and forth all through the previous three episodes of WandaVision, ‘Episode 4’, ‘We Interrupt This Program’, firmly establishes that this sitcom fantasy of WandaVision, is Wanda Maximoff’s creation….and she ain’t letting go of it. While Elizabeth Olsen really only makes a background appearance in this episode, it’s clear to audiences that she is in fact not the bubbly, happy-go-lucky mother and housemaker we’ve come to see, but a rather more damaged and psychologically conflicted character whose power are on the fritz, and who is now a very real dangerous entity.
‘We Interrupt This Program’ definitely raises the stakes for what comes next in WandaVision, and there’s a danger and uncertainness that we can feel building in the coming episodes. Brace yourselves because the Marvel Cinematic Universe is about to be shaken up.
WandaVision streams every Friday night on Disney+.
Image: Walt Disney Pictures
