WandaVision episodes 1 and 2: was it the MCU's House of M?

When the first two episodes of WandaVision arrived in January 2021, they convinced me the MCU was back and had finally given us a genuinely good mystery. I believed the sitcom world Wanda was living in was the MCU's version of House of M, and that the episodes were packed with Easter eggs pointing to who might be pulling the strings. The Disney+ series (2021) starred Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany as Wanda and Vision. The series concluded in March 2021, and its season finale resolved these theories, so what follows is a look back at what I made of those opening episodes at the time.

There had been some worry that half-hour episodes wouldn't give us enough to dig into. That worry turned out to be misplaced. At first I wasn't sure what counted as a clue, but whenever I went back and pulled on a thread, I'd find it wasn't only a clue, it was a huge one. I'll go through my theories and the clues behind them first, then my thoughts on the story and the acting.

WandaVision as the MCU's House of M

We'd all been wondering what kind of House of M this show could create. My epiphany was that this was the House of M: the alternate world Wanda creates to make herself feel better, where she and others are trapped. If you wanted a bigger version of that story, I thought this one was good.

In the MCU, it seemed to me that what would drive Wanda mad was Vision's double death, including the time she killed him herself. She obviously didn't break from reality right away, but perhaps she slowly descended into madness. Did she move into a suburban home and take everybody there with her? We didn't know yet. If this was House of M, then I expected the end of WandaVision to be the end of that story, with Wanda ripped out of her safe space and her children taken away from her.

In the comics, she uttered the famous line "no more mutants." My read at the time was that here she was going to rip open the multiverse instead, which ironically would probably lead to the creation of mutants. What I wanted to know was what the MCU's equivalent of that iconic line would be. I felt it had to be something as catchy as "no more mutants."

Avengers: Standoff and Pleasant Hill may have influenced WandaVision

Everyone said the show reminded them of Tom King's recent Vision comic, and that was true. But I had another epiphany: it was also like the Avengers: Standoff story from a couple of years earlier. In that story, the Cosmic Cube created a sentient child with abilities, and that child used those powers to turn supervillains into regular people living in the suburbs, in a place called Pleasant Hill. It was not a good story, but I thought parts of it were being used here.

WandaVision's town had an innocuous name too. In the comics, SHIELD knowingly used Pleasant Hill as a prison, which Captain America had a problem with, and that prison was surrounded by a force field, like the one we knew about from the trailers. So it seemed that comic book story was at least influencing this one.

At the end of episode one, it was revealed that SWORD had a way to view Wanda's sitcoms. I didn't think SWORD was totally behind it, though, because they were sending people in to try to get to her. SWORD obviously wasn't in control, but I thought they had some access. So the show wasn't copying Avengers: Standoff wholesale. The Russo brothers had given an interview saying they didn't want to tell the exact same story fans had already read, but I believed elements of that storyline were being used here. There were too many similarities.

I couldn't believe how well constructed this was. The Loki showrunner, who had signed on for Doctor Strange 2 and a Kevin Feige Star Wars movie, said his team was next to the WandaVision writers room and was blown away by what they were doing. At first I wondered if that was true. Having seen the episodes, I suddenly understood what he was referring to.

Someone wanted Wanda to have children

It was very clear to me that someone was trying to get Wanda to have children, because of all the subliminal suggestions. I thought someone might be saying that to her outside, wherever her body was, or somehow giving her that suggestion, and it was manifesting itself in what I called the neighborhood of M. Wanda seemed to be in control of this world to some degree. Was she? We didn't know for sure yet.

In the first episode, everyone asks why they don't have children. Agnes, Kathryn Hahn's character, asks it, and so do Vision's boss and his wife when they come over. In episode two, the talent show is for the children, which is said numerous times. And at the end of episode two, Wanda has subconsciously made herself pregnant.

Why did someone want Wanda to have children so badly? Maybe it was her biological clock ticking. But I thought it was something else, because there were obviously outside forces trying to influence her. It reminded me of Mr. Sinister from the X-Men, who is obsessed with combining the DNA of Scott Summers and Jean Grey to get a mutant as powerful as Cable. How did an entity know the kind of children Wanda would create? I thought this entity probably wanted those children, which would lead to Wanda losing them at the end. That would help contribute to her madness, and in the comics it was the sole reason for it.

SWORD, Stark and Hydra inside Wanda's world

I saw three contenders working behind the scenes. SWORD was the outsider trying desperately to get in. They were viewing her sitcoms, there was the radio message trying to break in, there was the helicopter that turns up as a toy when Wanda finds it, and there was Monica Rambeau herself, who goes by Geraldine in the neighborhood of M. That helicopter is in the Iron Man colors, which I thought was great.

Then there was Stark. The first commercial makes you sit through a whole ad for a toaster, and then it turns out to be a Stark product, and you realize what's happening. The light on the toaster was blinking red, in color, a blinking red light of danger. I hadn't seen any other Stark technology in the first couple of episodes, but Stark was clearly there.

The third group was Hydra. Their logo is on the face of the watch in the episode two commercial, and that watch is called a Strucker, as in Baron von Strucker, who gave Wanda and Pietro their powers. It fit together like a Swiss watch. I wasn't sure what was going on with Stark, but I felt Hydra and SWORD were both desperately trying to get to Wanda first. Or maybe Hydra had control of Wanda and SWORD was trying to fix it; something in episode three made me believe that might be the case. I therefore believed some people inside the neighborhood of M could be Hydra agents, just as Monica Rambeau was a SWORD agent.

Was Kathryn Hahn's Agnes Deidre Wentworth?

The department store in episode two is called Wentworth's. It was hard to get a good look at the name, but sure enough, in the comics there's a character called Deidre Wentworth who worked for AIM, and I thought she could easily work for Hydra now. Was Agnes Deidre Wentworth? Was she an Agatha Harkness and Deidre Wentworth hybrid? Or was Deidre Wentworth an outside force having some subconscious influence on Wanda?

Either way, Agnes seemed more aware than the other supporting players that something was going on. Also, in every episode, including episode three, she wears the same brooch, a pin that becomes something else. I hadn't been able to get a good look at it, but I felt it was obviously very important, because nothing else was that consistent throughout the show.

Agnes's husband Ralph and the beekeeper who may have been Swarm

Agnes keeps bringing up her husband Ralph. That's a sitcom staple, the character everybody talks about but you never see, so it was very clever. But I was thinking Ralph might be important and could show up at some point. Maybe it would be Evan Peters.

Or maybe it would be the beekeeper who emerges from the sewer with bees swarming around him, though I didn't think so. In Marvel Comics there's a low-grade villain called Swarm who is made up of bees, while this figure controls bees. Swarm started out as a Spider-Man villain but originated in Nazi Germany, so he could easily be retconned as a Hydra villain. I wasn't rooting for the beekeeper to come back. It was a wild moment, and it's rooted in Marvel Comics, so nice job.

Wanda saying no showed she had some control over this world

Wanda clearly had some control over this world, even though she didn't totally realize it wasn't real. When she sees the beekeeper, she says no, and it's a powerful moment. She rewinds, they never go outside, and they never see the beekeeper. Maybe that meant the beekeeper wasn't able to get in. I found that interesting.

The unsettling undercurrent is played up nicely in the end credits too, with a close-up of Wanda's scared eyes, trapped in the television, while red particles form elements from the episode.

WandaVision recreated The Dick Van Dyke Show and Bewitched

Both episodes did an incredibly impressive job replicating The Dick Van Dyke Show and Bewitched, not only in the sets, with The Dick Van Dyke Show set almost exactly the same, but in the shenanigans. An anniversary mixed up with a dinner party for the boss is something that would happen on Van Dyke. Real magic being passed off as fake magic is Bewitched. I felt both were genuinely funny.

I particularly liked the magic show, especially when the piano turns into a cardboard piano and a man in the crowd says it was his grandmother's piano. I also thought it was funny that Vision used Wanda being from Europe as an excuse for their odd behavior during the dinner scene.

At the end of episode two, the show goes from black and white to color, which was perfect. Bewitched did the same: its first 74 episodes were in black and white and later colorized, then the show transitioned to color. It was so well researched that I thought maybe it could get an Emmy, or at least a nomination, though it's competitive. The Mandalorian had plenty of nominations but hadn't won any of the major non-craft awards.

Vision, the romance and the acting

I got a kick out of Vision being so self-aware that he's a robot who doesn't eat and always covering for it. I loved when he gummed up the works by accidentally swallowing gum, shown with a cutaway animation. His ability to analyze and question things at the office is why he's less taken in by this fake world than Wanda. He goes along with it because he's so happy.

The show was also so romantic. The moment they got married in episode one gave me so much of the feels. Usually when someone decides to get married, one person says let's think about it. They did it without stopping for a second, and it was such a pure love. Then Vision said they lived happily ever after, and we all knew they weren't going to. I found it romantic too when they were prepping the magic show and he told her she looked great in her costume.

You could feel that they love each other, and that's the actors. Olsen and Bettany are the superstars, but the supporting cast was excellent too. I loved when Agnes arrived saying it's the star of the show, meaning her rabbit, which she was lending for the magic show. That was such good writing. I wasn't sure why the blood on their neighbor Dottie's hand was red when she cut it; maybe it wasn't expected, or she cut it in real life. I didn't know if Dottie was a Hydra agent, a SWORD agent or an innocent bystander. Wanda and Vision both covering with their social groups was so well done and made them even more likable.

Cozy, funny and a genuinely good mystery

The first opening wasn't much of one, though Vision phasing through the door and dropping Wanda is hilarious sitcom humor. I loved episode two's opening, not only because the animation was so much like Bewitched but because it reminded me of The Jetsons, which I'm also a fan of. Maybe we should all have been eating cereal with it.

Those first two episodes were incredibly cozy, with laughs and romance, and they still felt like the MCU, especially because of the mystery they gave us to solve. It was a genuinely good mystery.