WandaVision episode 1: what is the Stark Industries toaster?

The first episode of WandaVision (2021), starring Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany, won us over as a funny, committed tribute to classic sitcoms. It also left us wanting far more answers. The show premiered with two episodes on Friday, January 15, 2021, and our reaction to the black and white opener was "already in love with this show."

WandaVision embraces the I Love Lucy and classic sitcom era

The episode treats its setting like a real era of television, with that old 1950s sound in the music. Comparisons to I Love Lucy and Bewitched came up. The episode commits to the I Love Lucy and Dick Van Dyke era of sitcoms for its full running time. Because that look was so prominent in the trailers, there was a question in the discussion about whether each later episode might focus on a specific sitcom era. That was only a guess, since the second episode was still to come.

The classic tropes each got their own moment: the forgotten anniversary, the boss coming over for dinner, the line "if you don't remember then I'm not going to tell you," and the husband and wife who think they're on the same page but aren't. The episode was also funnier than expected. In the words of the discussion, "it's so wacky and i love it."

The glitches, the heart on the calendar and the Stark Industries toaster

Even inside their own little world, the episode keeps you waiting for something to break through. Those glitches started when Wanda and Vision couldn't remember why there was a heart around August 23rd on the calendar. It wasn't clear whether the heart connects to Mr. Hart or becomes a recurring theme.

A commercial break for a Stark Industries toaster recalled I Love Lucy. With its dials, it looked more like a radio, and the dials and dot seemed to form a face. Its red light also stood out. That could just be theories running wild, but it prompted talk about red linking to the Reality Stone and to the Aether as the source of Wanda's magic, before landing on the memory that the stones got put back.

The ending showed someone surveilling Wanda, with a sword symbol on screen, and left us asking who they were and how it would all come together. The credits noted that the score came from the people behind Frozen, and that the casting directors had also worked on The Mandalorian.

Paul Bettany's Vision gets to be funny, and why two episodes made sense

Both leads play Wanda and Vision with slightly different personalities here, almost caricatures of their characters. Paul Bettany's Vision didn't really get to be this funny before.

The two episode premiere made sense to us. The first episode lays out the reality Wanda and Vision are living in, and the second would probably reveal more. Had viewers been made to wait a whole week, they'd be excited and mad at the same time, because this was "still very much a teaser."