After a brief moment of hype-driven confusion as to how many episodes WandaVision’s debut season would ultimately clock in at, the series is coming to a close this week with a ninth chapter that’s likely to answer just as many questions as it leaves standing about the life of Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen).
While WandaVision’s most recent episode “Previously On” dropped a significant amount of revelatory information about the origins of Wanda’s powers, how the Hex came to be, and what the MCU’s take on the Scarlet Witch actually is, there were still more than a handful of complicated threads left unaddressed. Even though WandaVision’s episodes have been getting progressively longer, one of the big questions left for the finale has been whether one single episode can possibly address all of its characters’ plotlines with the same degree of depth.
This is something that series director Matt Shakman and the rest of WandaVision’s creative team were keenly aware of during the series’ production, and in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Shakman expressed his hope that audiences are satisfied by the conclusion. Shakman detailed how, because of WandaVision’s many moving pieces, the vast majority of the show’s details were locked down long before cameras began rolling. While fans’ theories have at times matched with the the show’s twists, Shakman was careful to state clearly that WandaVision may very well zig in directions people don’t expect.
“I know there are so many theories out there; there will be a lot of people who will no doubt be disappointed by one theory or another,” Shakman said. “But we’re always telling this story about Wanda dealing with grief and learning how to accept that loss, and hopefully people will find that the finale is surprising but also satisfying, and that it feels inevitable because it’s the same story they’ve been watching the whole time.”
As wild and out there as WandaVision has often been, most everything about the show’s conceit within Westview, from the aesthetics to the various comedic settings, have all been outgrowths of Wanda’s deep-seated trauma — something Agatha (Kathryn Hahn) was able to uncover in “Previously On.” That being said, there were moments during WandaVision’s production where ideas suddenly came to Shakman that ultimately made it into the show, like Agatha chilling on Wanda’s lawn during “Agatha All Along.”
“I remember coming up with the idea two minutes before we did it that she’d have a picnic on the lawn while she’s controlling Pietro, and Kathryn had so much fun eating grapes and drinking wine and controlling him,” Shakman said. “And it was just incredibly surprising how people responded to the song and to watch it climb the iTunes chart and to see Kathryn Hahn move ahead of Justin Bieber and the Weeknd.”
WandaVision’s finale probably won’t unleash another chat-topper unto the world, but as the bookend to Marvel’s first foray into live-action series, which is meant to be an integral part of the MCU’s future, it’s certainly going to worth checking out when it hits Disney+ this Friday.
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