The second episode of WandaVision doubles down on its excellent supporting cast. Last week we got Kitty Foreman / aka Mrs. Hart (Debra Jo Rupp). This week, former chaos demon Anya, now Dottie (Emma Caulfield Ford), joins the gang!
RELATED: Missed episode one? Catch our latest WandaVision recap here!
When we last saw Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany), it was the ’50s, and their home and dynamic had a very Dick Van Dyke Show vibe. Although Wanda’s interactions with neighbor Agnes (Kathryn Hahn) suggest that very little time has passed, Mr. and Mrs. WandaVision are in a different house with different furnishings in a different decade. Everything is still in black and white, but this is clearly the mid-’60s, and things are feeling a little Bewitched in Westview.
The action in this episode centers on Wanda and Vision trying to fit in by getting involved in the community. She’s joining the planning committee, headed by society matron Dottie (Caulfield Ford), he’s joining the neighborhood watch, and together they’re planning a “magic” act for the school fundraiser talent show.
Things start off with a literal bang as Wanda’s disturbed in the night by a loud noise. She and Vision, both riddled with amazing powers, are too frightened to get out of their twin beds to investigate, so Wanda magics the beds together and then magically whisks the curtain from the window to reveal … a tree branch banging the house in the wind. Since they’ve already scooted so near each other, though, she further magics the beds into a single king, and they disappear under the covers to “woos” from the studio audience.
The next day, as Wanda prepares to attend her first planning committee meeting, she finds something odd in her rosebushes: a bright red toy helicopter. Wanda puzzles over it, evoking Pleasantville as she holds the vibrant toy in her grayscale fingers. When Agnes approaches, she ditches it, clearly worrying that its oddness will impede her social progress.
The women join Dottie and her acolytes in a cabana at the country club pool, where Agnes spikes her own drinks and Wanda befriends another neighbor, Geraldine (Teyonah Parris). Wanda’s newness and awkwardness with the meeting’s proceedings draw Dottie’s negative attention, leading to her being the last one there, doing cleanup duty.
As Wanda tidies the dishes and snacks and tries to make nice with Dottie, something odd happens. First, Dottie tells Wanda that she’s “heard things” about her and her husband. Wanda assures Dottie that she means her no harm, and Dottie responds that she doesn’t believe her. The Beach Boys‘ “Help Me, Rhonda” is playing on a little transistor radio as tension between the women grows, when a voice starts breaking through, asking, “Wanda, who’s doing this to you?” Dottie freezes, gripping a highball glass so tightly that it shatters, slicing her hand.
Wanda rushes to help, giving Dottie a white napkin to press to the wound, which is gushing bright red blood. The women regard the blood, then Dottie hides it with the napkin and departs with a joke about housewives removing blood from linen.
Meanwhile, Vision meets the husbands of all the planning committee ladies at the library, where they’re holding a “neighborhood watch” meeting. Eager beaver Vision is interested in how the men patrol the streets and coordinate with police, and when he discovers that the meeting is really an excuse for the men to eat danishes and share gossip, he fumbles his way through participating by “joking” that his colleague and neighbor Norm (Asif Ali) is a communist. He then accepts a piece of Big Red gum from Herb (David Payton), the man he’s sitting next to, and accidentally swallows it.
A retro-style animation shows the audience how the gum jams Vision’s gears, and we see the effects when he arrives disheveled and late to the talent show a while later. He seems soused, and Wanda has to cover for his repeated use of real power during their act. She adds a rope to him when he starts flying, converts the piano he lifts to a 2-D standup, explains away his passing his hat through his body with mirrors, and inadvertently converts their botched magic act into a trophy-winning comedy routine.
Once they get offstage, Wanda finds and removes the gum from Vision’s system, and they make it home with a community of new friends and a small trophy to remember the occasion by.
As they settle in to relax on the sofa, they notice that Wanda has a big baby bump. She looks at Vision and asks him if it’s really happening, and he assures her that it is. (If what is really happening, though? Baby WandaVision, or everything altogether?) They hear another loud bang outside, and Vision leads the way to investigate. Instead of a tree branch, this time they find a maintenance hole cover in the street moving, and a mysterious beekeeper emerges from the maintenance hole. Wanda looks at the figure, says a decisive “No,” and the scene rewinds until she and Vision are once again regarding her suddenly prominent belly.
This time, there’s no bang and they kiss each other. When they do, Vision’s face turns red. Wanda remarks, admiring it, and the entire scene goes Technicolor.
RELATED: Follow our WandaVision season one recaps here!
What’s up with all the red in the episode? Is it just because Vision’s red, or is there more to it? Who was the voice on the radio? And what was the significance for the Hydra-made watch advertisement that broke up the action? We’ll definitely keep tuning in to find out!
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