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Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness returned Wanda Maximoff to the bog screen, in all of her Scarlet Witch glory. But did the story in her return work, or did it squander all the careful character work in WandaVision?

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Featuring
Matt Singer: (  / mattsinger  )
Adam Lance Garcia (  / adamlancegarcia  )

Written and Hosted by Ryan Arey (  / ryanarey  )
Edited by Harriet Lengel-Enright, Randolf Nombrado, and Ella Danyluk

#DrStrange #WandaMaximoff #ScarletWitch

0:00 Wanda's Story Was a Failure
16:40 Where Was Vision
22:28 No Big Monster Fight (Thank Goodness!)

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Now we’ve already made videos praising this movie. The visuals, the actions, the character arc—and the fun Raimi violence. But one part of the movie was very disappointing–the villain, Wanda Maximoff. I wasn’t cool with this, because it betrayed her arc in WandaVision, and her motivations were pretty dumb and inconsistent.

In other words, they did her dirty, and I’m going to explain why.

First, I gotta say–while I didn’t like how the movie portrayed Wanda, Elizabeth Olsen was great. She is fantastic in this role, and one of the best actors in the MCU. She brought it.

Now, leading into the movie, it was surprising how they were able to keep the villain a secret. From the trailers, you think they’re going to be fighting a monster, or an evil Stephen, and that maybe wanda heel turns toward the end. But the heel turn happened in her very first scene, and she only gets more ruthless from there.

The problem is, WandaVision did not leave this character in a place where she was ready to immediately turn evil. Well..they kind of did, but I’ll talk about that in a second.

Some fans have seized on this quote from Sam Raimi, where he admits that he hadn't seen all of WandaVision before making this movie–he only saw scenes that were key to her character.

Doug: Yes, so he would not have been aware of Wanda’s character arc.

I don’t think that’s fair. As a director, Raimi wouldn’t need to see every second of the show, just the parts that informed Elizabeth Olsen’s acting in this movie. But, screenwriter Michael Waldron, I’m sure, saw the show multiple times. Which make s it even more baffling that
Wanda’s character arc from the show is so severely undercut by the movie.

So let’s talk about WandaVison

The show is structured around the five stages of grief. There are specific episodes that deal with Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance.

Creating the hex was a form of denial, as she lived in a 50s fantasy world [clip]. Because frankly, 50s sitcoms were denying all of the world’s social ills. Anger was when Wanda decided to expel Monica, and how she threatened the Sword agents [clip]. Bargaining was the introduction of her brother Pietro, just after he fought with Vision Like maybe she can’t have her brother and her perfect life with Vision, but she can have a fake brother.

Depression is from the direct address episode [clip]. And acceptance is where she ends up, finally understanding that her fantasy is hurting others and she has to learn to let go of Vision and her boys [clip, saying goodbye to kids]. That is stellar writing. A mother having to sacrifice her kids for the good of others is the ultimate act of love. Which makes it even more frustrating that, in this movie, she is willing to sacrifice hundreds of lives to be with any version of her children.

That last episode of WandaVision gets dumped on by fans, but I loved it. We got the big action scene, Wamda realizing her destiny as a witch, and then doing the right thing. This is the most complex emotional arc we’ve ever seen in the MCU. Over about 7 or 8 hours, Wanda goes from being enveloped in her grief, to being a stronger person who is able to face reality. There are so many life lessons about grief in this show that are inspiring to people who have gone through loss.

And nine of this character journey is present in Multiverse of Madness. They took this nuanced character study and gave it the Game of Thrones season 8 treatment.

The dragon lady go bad because the screenplay says so. And in this movie, the witch lady go bad because the screenplay said so.