I’ve been rewatching Battlestar Galactica lately and one thought keeps jumping into my head each time I see the words “And they have a plan” flash onto my screen. Would the series have been better if Ronald Moore and company hadn’t promised us that the Cylons had some type of plan behind what they were doing? Would not having the promise of a lot of huge revelations and some kind of overarching plan behind everything happening to the last remnants of humanity have been better when the series finally reached its endgame?
That thought had been on my mind a bit leading up to my viewing of the series finale of WandaVision. After two months of intense online fan speculation, the finale’s director had come out and warned fans the finale might not answer or address every question being raised in multiple online forums.
And with rumors swirling that we’d get a big-name guest star for the finale and Disney releasing a promo featuring Doctor Strange in it, it was hard not to elevate expectations to levels that virtually no finale could expect to live up to.
And then, WandaVision did something unexpected. It tossed all those expectations aside and delivered the finale this series needed. We didn’t need an answer to every single question. We didn’t need a big-name cameo from the MCU to justify this show’s nine-week run. Instead, what we got was a show that focused on its two title characters and the impact creating and then taking down the reality Wanda created would have on them.
In many ways, that would probably have been enough.
But, I do feel like there were some angles not necessarily covered as well as I’d hoped.
The biggest stems from Agatha releasing the citizens trapped in this reality from Wanda’s hold and hearing their cries for Wanda to free them or let them die. That intrigued me a bit — especially given how much a part of the first few episodes all the neighbors were. Would it have been interesting to see how Dottie really felt about going through the motions of Wanda’s fundraiser in the early installment? Or seeing the people who came to dinner and finding out how they felt the whole time? Possibly, so. I can’t help but feel that there’s got to be someone from the clean-up crew who is going to have to come in and offer these people a lot of therapy.
It felt like a bit of a sidestep to give Wanda some conflict over her decision to pull the Hex down and then put it back up. I get that Wanda was very invested in her family and creating a perfect home for herself to deal with her grief. And maybe it’s because she started out as a bad guy in the MCU that we can see how she might give into the selfishness. But I still felt like there should have been more to the decision and its consequences. Possibly having Wanda find out this bit of news last week would have given it time to breathe a bit.
Of course, this being a comic book property (and it does feel like a miniseries event), there has to be some set-up for things to come. I feel as though Wanda’s decision to study the book and learn from it will have some huge implications for the next Dr. Strange movie and we did get news that Monica is needed up in outer space, probably setting up events for the next Captain Marvel movie. There is also the question about what happened to the newly unlocked memories version of the white Vision. I get that Jimmy and company are busy cleaning up SWORD and Hayward’s mess (more on that in a moment), but it seems like they wouldn’t want to forget about this billion-dollar sentient robot that is now running around.
As for Hayward, there was the audience cheering moment when he tries to get away and Darcy rams his truck with the ice cream truck. But I do feel like his character vacillated too often between good and bad in the series. It felt like he reached whatever level of evil was needed for each’s week script — up to and including shooting at Wanda’s kids here. I’m not sure exactly how Hayward got into this position of authority and what, if any, fallout there will be when it comes to SWORD. But I do think his level of villainy fluctuated so often that it was hard to get a read. And I still want to know what he expected to gain by creating (I assume) the video of Wanda taking the Vision’s body by force.
Now, all that may sound like I hated the finale. That’s not the case at all. I do think it achieved a great wrap-up to Wanda’s arc and the series was an exploration of her grief and her going through the five stages. (Possibly pushed along and manipulated just a bit by Agatha). I’m just not sure the series stuck the landing. It was a good end and it certainly doesn’t color my feelings on the series as a whole (like How I Met Your Mother did, where it basically told me I’d wasted a lot of time and energy in the series and the characters). But it wasn’t quite as triumphant as I’d hoped it would be.
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