A Very Brady 'WandaVision' Expands The Family And Deepens The Mystery

Hello all, and welcome to your weekly recap of whatever wildness occurred on the latest episode of WandaVision. These are meant to be read after watching, so they will go deep into spoiler territory. You have been warned!

A whole heck of a lot. And also...not much we can say for sure. It's a strange show. But for those just now tuning in, WandaVision appears to be a sequel to Avengers: Endgame in which Wanda Maximoff – an extremely powerful sorceress whose powers have yet to be fully explored by the MCU – and her very dead robot boyfriend Vision enjoy a life of domestic bliss dictated by the tropes of a chronologically advancing series of television sitcoms. So when people tell you every Marvel thing is the same, here is where you send them.The first two episodes went hard explaining the concept, first with a Dick Van Dyke-inspired romp in which Vision and Wanda must impress Vision's new boss, and then in a Betwitched-heavy second episode where both parties struggle to fit into their new neighborhood. If that sounds like just some bland sitcom pastiche, please keep in mind that Vision is dead and the walls of reality surrounding the couple seem to be shifting all the time, threatening to expose them – or maybe just Wanda – to a reality too stark to endure. 

Episode three takes The Brady Bunch as its inspiration, but unlike the previous two episodes, does not shroud its larger story progress within a typical sitcom plot. In fact, Wanda and Vision barely leave their shag-carpeted house to participate in neighborhood shenanigans, and the interactions they have with others are fraught with non-sitcom context. So if you were worried every episode would dole out small doses of mythology between moments of put-upon silliness, have no fear – WandaVision is already breaking that structure in its third of nine outings. How the concept will support six more of these is hard to guess. I'm starting to think it might not even bother a few weeks from now.So without a sitcom A-story taking up time, episode three gets to luxuriate in its core issue: Wanda is pregnant. Super duper pregnant. Pregnant fast enough that even Vision – a dead robot stuck in a sitcom – has a difficult time believing it. As the show implied last week, Vision put that bun in her oven just that morning, back when everything was black and white (the couple has also enjoyed a full opening credits montage of parent-prepping activities since then). Now, according to their good-natured family doctor, she's four months along. Wanda doesn't seem all that bothered, but it's a lot for a suburban android to take in, and he asks the doctor to keep it secret. How Vision thinks such a thing could remain secret once anyone sees Wanda is not addressed. Or, well, it maybe starts to get addressed before Wanda wipes that line of thought from his mind.Most of the episode has to do with Vision's anxiety over becoming a father. Part of that manifests in monitoring the rapid maturity of Wanda's pregnancy, but we also see him over-educate himself on medical issues and hone his diaper changing skills. As with everything WandaVision, a sense of dread hangs over the shenanigans. But as with everything else WandaVision, there is almost too much charm to care. Paul Bettany in particular really shines in this one as a '70s dad just trying to do his best. It almost makes you wish the show would slow down even further and spend more than one episode in this era.But, of course, that is not what happens.

We met Teyonah Parris' Geraldine last week in episode two. It has been previously confirmed that this is actually Monica Rambeau, that cute kid we met way back in Captain Marvel, all grown up and up to... well, it's still kind of hard to say. As Geraldine, she supposedly plays another neighbor resting in fearful bliss on the edge of self-awareness. But here we get signs that something is very different about her.Geraldine visits the WandaVision household, leading to a bunch of sitcom nonsense in which Wanda must hide her pregnancy from a guest who simply will not leave. She stays long enough, in fact, to throw all that pretense out the window and deliver Wanda's first baby while Vision gets the doctor. Of course, Wanda is having twins, a revelation that causes her to remember her brother Pietro and also slip into her old accent. Mention of Pietro has an effect on Geraldine as well, who also breaks the sitcom wall, remembering: "He was killed by Ultron, wasn't he?"If that's not weird enough, Vision is having an equally strange conversation with his neighbors Herb and Agnes, who warn him to keep Geraldine away from Wanda. Why? Because she doesn't have a home. Herb is about to explain what this means before Agnes cuts him off and abruptly goes back to her sitcom schtick. Back in the house, Wanda is not happy with Geraldine's mention of Ultron. Nor does she like Geraldine's pendant, which seems to represent SWORD, a kind of SHIELD-like outfit that is apparently in charge of this whole thing somehow. Wanda approaches Geraldine in a threatening manner and the next thing we know, she's gone from the scene as if she were never there. But hey! She's not dead at least. Instead she pops back into our reality, on the other side of Westview, Wanda and Vision's weird Truman Show stage. The mystery deepens, and it really is intriguing to think of where all this will go with so much put on the table only three episodes in.

So now Wanda and Vision have a full family, and anyone who knows their comics can tell you that everything is going to be smooth sailing when it comes to those children. In the meantime, there were so many great moments to cherish in this episode. I am particularly fond of the way Wanda invites Vision to revert to android form to see his children for the first time as himself instead of in his human mask. I am equally fond of the creepy scene in which Vision begins putting things together and Wanda straight-up rewinds his ass to set him straight. Who doesn't wish they could do that?