The Toaster
Episode 1 of WandaVision whisks us back to the simpler time of a delightfully quaint sitcom with Scarlett Watch and Vision, complete with fourth wall breaking stares and a laugh track to boot. Vision and Scarlett Witch prepare for their big day, marveling at a calendar featuring a large love heart above the 23rd. Neighbour Agnes arrives to greet her and learns that the pair are new in town. Here though, Scarlett Witch is going by the name of Wanda. She’s on the verge of celebrating her anniversary and starts to busy herself to prep the house for Vision’s return. At work, Vision dons his human disguise and gets through his work in record time. Only, he’s not actually sure what the nature of his work entails. Since Vision has arrived, their productivity has improved by 300%. Vision is troubled though given he doesn’t know what this anniversary is about. However, it may well be dinner with his boss, Mr Hart. Vision phones home and tries to explain they’ve got guests for dinner but the duo miscommunicate exactly what’s going on. Inserted in the middle of this episode though is a surreal advertisement for a toaster developed by Stark industries. Back to our sitcom, chaos ensues that night as Wanda believes she’s about to engage in a romantic evening with Vision. When he returns with his boss, hilarity ensues. Well, hilarity for the laugh track audience anyway. Wanda is not happy about Vision’s miscommunication, but it turns out the heart on the calendar was an abbreviation of Mr Hart. Finally on the same page, the duo decide to rustle up some magic to help make the evening go swimmingly. Wanda quickly uses her magic to begin cooking while Vision sings Old MacDonald to entertain his guests. And just like that, Wanda sets the table and prepares the food. As they sit down to eat, Wanda and Vision have difficulty remembering their past and exactly how they arrived in town. Before they can think too hard though, Mr Hart suddenly doubles over and begins choking on his food, prompting Vision to use his powers to take the chunk of food out his throat. When Vision boss leaves for the night, Wanda and Vision say goodbye before breathing a sigh of relief. Sitting together on the sofa, they magic up a pair of rings as the episode comes to a close. Or does it? As we pan out, we see a control room and someone seemingly in charge of the channel.
The Episode Review
So there we have it, the first episode of WandaVision. This is almost certainly going to be one of the bigger critical darlings of the year. The actual sitcom itself fails to really inspire much enthusiasm, with jokes jumping between cringy and try-hard to hopelessly archaic. However, that seems to be the intention here. Given what we’re working with, it seems like the setting is supposed to exemplify how old the sitcom is, and the third act of this episode definitely adds some intrigue given Scarlett Witch and Vision aren’t quite sure how they’ve ended up here. It’s certainly an unusual show, but whether this can remain memorable and fresh across 10 episodes remains to be seen. For now, WandaVision gets off to an okay start.
