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It’s going to be harder and harder to avoid spoilers, but we are going to strive not to reveal too much … even though Marvel has not been shy about revealing the identity of a key character whose truth has not yet been revealed on the series. Therefore, we will also not go down that path for those of you who have been avoiding the online spoilers (and yes, they are true spoilers if they haven’t yet aired).
At the end of the previous Bewitched themed episode, the show transferred from black and white to full color, just as shows that debuted in the early 1960s did mid-decade as color TVs became more common in the home. And following with the trend of the first two episodes, Episode 3 moves the WandaVision couple into a new era of TV sitcoms — actually a mix of genres — with the couple now residing in a reasonable facsimile of The Brady Bunch house, minus all the kids but with a healthy dose of magic. And at the end of Episode 2, Wanda discovered she’s pregnant. By the start of this episode, even though just a few hours have passed, Wanda is now about four months along, driving Vision into a bit of a panic.
The panic only increases when, after Doctor Nielsen leaves the house, Wanda is significantly more pregnant. According to Vision’s calculations, Wanda is now due in … three days. The sitcom tropes come into place as the couple gently bicker over the impending baby’s name — Billy or Tommy. There’s also a surprise visit from Geraldine which forces Wanda to hide her condition with a winter coat and a bowl of fruit (a nice nod to ways shows of the past used to hide their stars’ pregnancies … think Julia Louis-Dreyfus carrying a really large purse during her pregnancy while filming Seinfeld).
But with all the normal sitcom happenings, the couple are beginning to realize all may not be what it seems … and shows why this episode should have been included with the premiere of the first two because it helps things make a whole lot more sense.
For Vision, he first notices his neighbor Herb trimming his hedges, but his hedge trimmer is also cutting through the cinder block wall that divides their property (no mention is made, however, of the shockingly artificial background scenery that’s obviously just a painted backdrop). Later, Vision is struck by a conversation Agnes and Herb are having at the same wall. They seem concerned about Geraldine, who is inside with Wanda. They are terribly suspicious of this newcomer to Westview — no family, no husband … no home. Herb tries hard to spill more beans to Vision but Agnes says enough with her eyes that Herb needs to zip it tight. Later, Doctor Nielsen, who was supposed to be off on a vacation with his wife to Bermuda, tells Vision that the vacation is off because you just can’t escape a small town. Escape seems to be a very curious word for him to use, and it certainly causes concern for Vision.
Inside the house — which, by the way, is a mirror image of the Brady home instead of a more exact replica like the Petrie house from Episode 1 and the Stevens house in Episode 2, so I have to wonder if that was on purpose or just a production design decision — Wanda is trying to entertain Geraldine while covering up her condition. The bowl of fruit is working but suddenly a stork appears and stalks around the living room with Wanda doing everything she can to make it disappear … but it won’t go away, at one point grabbing the fish print pant leg of Geraldine (but she jumps up before she notices the bird). But Geraldine needs a bucket because the pipes in her house burst (during one of Wanda’s contractions that also burst their pipes, leading to a ‘my water broke’ joke, and knocked power out in the neighborhood). But Agnes and Herb said Geraldine doesn’t have a house. Hmmmm.
She sees the newly converted nursery where a storage room used to be (the stork hiding itself against a painting of a stork on the wall), and Wanda goes into labor. With only Gerladine to help and appliances and artwork going crazy, Wanda doesn’t think she can do this but Geraldine talks her through it and Wanda gives birth to a boy. Vision comes in just after the birth and confirms he’s okay with Wanda’s choice of name, Tommy. But … there’s another one coming so Vision runs to get the doctor and before you know it, they are the new parents of twin boys, the second named Billy.
While Vision walks the doctor out, Wanda tells Geraldine that she’s a twin, but her brother Pietro died. Suddenly Geraldine seems to go into a trance and says Wanda’s brother was killed by Ultron (in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Wanda is stunned and asks Geraldine what she said, but Geraldine tries to play it off, offering to help take a shift babysitting. Wanda just tells her it’s time for her to go home.
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When Vision returns, he asks where Geraldine is and Wanda said she had to leave. And then the aspect ration of the image changes from square TV to full widescreen film and the scene cuts to a night sky with some odd distortion in it. From out of the distortion flies Geraldine, landing on the ground stunned, a plethora or military personnel, tanks and helicopters quickly surrounding her. So what’s going on here?
Well, that’s where the episode ends but there were a couple of other things that happened during the show that signaled all was not as it seemed. Earlier when Vision and Wanda were having a rather serious discussion about things not seeming right, there was a bizarre glitch, sort of a bad edit, that restarted the scene before Vision sat down on the couch with Wanda. This was similar to the previous episode when Wanda saw the ‘beekeeper’ coming out of the sewer and the scene rewound when she said ‘No.’ Also, there is the question of the symbol that keeps popping up that I incorrectly identified as an inverted cross. I think the hardcore Marvel fans already know what the symbol represents — it’s a sword. Wanda saw it on the back of the beekeeper outfit and Geraldine was wearing a necklace of the symbol. Of course, Marvel fans probably already know exactly what this means, but we’re going to play along with the show and not reveal its significance just yet but it is a very curious twist.
As they used to say during the Golden Age of television … stay tuned.
New episodes of WandaVision premiere Fridays on Disney+.
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