“I don’t need you to tell me who I am,” Wanda states, floating high in the air with Agatha in front of her, dark clouds surrounding the both of them. Wisps of Wanda’s magic create a crown around her head.

      Agatha starts to shake her head, fear emanating from her. A single wordplays over and over again at her lips. 

      “No.” 

      Wanda’s eyes glow a dark red. As she moves her arms towards Agatha, rods of magic flow through her hands. An ear-piercing scream leaves Agatha’s lips as she watches Wanda suck away her magic. Agatha tries everything she can to stop Wanda, but she isn’t able. 

      Wanda floats in a bubble of red and purple light. Her casual jacket and sweatpants morph into a full leather suit. Her normally straight, pulled-back hair flows out of the rubber band in cascading curls. 

      “Oh god,” Agatha whispers, “you don’t know what you’ve done.”

      This is just one of the entertaining battle scenes from the recent Marvel web series, WandaVision. The action series stars actors like Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany, Kathryn Hahn, and Teyonah Parris. The entertaining show follows what happens to Wanda and Vision after the events of Avengers: Endgame, but their sitcom-style life together isn’t as it seems. 

      WandaVision displays a heartbreaking, adventurous, and relatable story of life through the stages of grief.

      The characters help portray different ways of grieving. Wanda depicts how some people choose to cope with loss by gaining control of everything in her life. Wanda depicts this by taking over an entire town, due to her uncontrollable feelings of grief. Sword agent Monica, on the other hand, illustrates how some people connect with others who have felt pain as a means of overcoming their own. 

      In the series,  Monica is one of Wanda’s first friends outside of her neighbor, Agatha. Monica is there for all the important moments in Wanda’s sitcom life; she shows up before Wanda discovers she is pregnant, and she is one of the first people to hold Wanda’s newly born twins. Monica is also the first person to be kicked out of Wanda’s sitcom reality, suggesting Wanda is too scared to get rid of the power she has. 

      Throughout the show, Monica continuously tries to help Wanda. In one of the episodes, she expresses her belief that Wanda can’t cope with all of the losses in her life. 

      “Of course I have remorse for Wanda,” opined Alyssa Rim, 9. “She lost her soulmate, her sons (doesn’t matter that they weren’t real), her brother, and her parents.”

      In the beginning episodes of WandaVision, there isn’t much action. Most of it is what seems to be a sitcom about their married life. Yet, there are some strange occurrences. For example, when Wanda helps out at a school fundraiser, the radio turns on and starts saying her name. The voice through the radio tries to make sure she’s okay, but then the voice slowly disappears. 

      Throughout the show, the audience learns that Wanda had created a perfect life for her and Vision, not realizing she may have taken people, hostage. 

      I find it fascinating that Marvel has taken the idea of creating your perfect life, and made it literal. The symbolism behind it intrigued me. Wanda creates her perfect life with her husband and kids, but in the process has separated hundreds of families. 

      There are parts in the show where Wanda’s neighbors break character and plead for their old lives back. Wanda immediately feels guilty but continues to live her perfect life. Though she has felt empathy for these people, she simply cannot give up her dream.

      In WandaVision as you progress through the episodes, the time period in which the episode takes place changes. For example in the first episode, we see Wanda and Vision living their perfect 1950’s sitcom life. Then in the second episode, we move to the 1960s. 

      When asked about the change in time period Elena Middleton, 9 stated, “It was kind of confusing but not terrible.”

      The transitions through time mimic one of the popular sitcom series of that era. For example in the second episode during the 1960s, most viewers believed the show mimicked the famous show Bewitched. 

      The music played in the episode changes, as well as the costumes. You can see how in the 1950s all the women wore dresses, but then in the 1960s, they wore pants. There is even a moment in the second episode where you see the transition of black and white television to color television. 

      Throughout the duration of the show, there were many fan theories and memes. Some of the theories floating around the question of what the relationship between Agatha and Wanda would continue to look like in the Marvel Cinematic Universe(MCU). In the comics, Agatha had been a mentor to Wanda, while in the MCU it seems like she is more of a villain. 

      “I love Agatha,” Rim commented. “She’s a very interesting and powerful character. After watching the ending of the show, I personally don’t think she’ll be significant to the MCU… Maybe the most she’ll do is weigh down on Wanda as she carries on with her life.” 

      Though I personally liked the show, there were many different views on it, especially the last episode. The action and symbolism in the episode satisfied me, but it didn’t satisfy everyone. 

      “I was impressed by it… up until the forgettable finale,” opined Gregg Greentree, Film Studies teacher, when asked about the finale. 

      “It took some time,” Middleton explained, “the finale episode made me mad because I felt like there was so much more to happen.”

      WandaVision was different from anything we’ve seen from Marvel. Though the shift was unexpected, it caught a lot of attention from viewers. It shows how though you may seem perfect, there is always something underneath the surface. 

      “Some fans probably wanted bad guys and big battle scenes,” Greentree remarked, “but instead we got a clever show about someone trying to make reality a little closer to what she dreams it could be.”