[Editor’s note: The following containsspoilersforWandaVisionEpisode 4, “We Interrupt This Program."]
Real talk: I’m genuinely on the fence about “We Interrupt This Program” coming in as it does in this season ofWandaVision. On the one hand, I love how the show is taking a step back to show a whole other side of the story being told here, and the insights we gain from these 30 minutes are essential to understanding what’s going on. That said, I gotta say, I waslovingtheexploration of genresthat had been happening until now, and the break from format is a bit jarring.
But let’s be clear, no TV show has ever captured the experience of what we humble TV journalists go through while covering a show like “We Interrupt This Program” does. (Trust me, if Collider still had a centralized office, there would be a whiteboard covered with exactly the sort of wild theories that Agent Jimmy Woo is scribbling down.)
Let’s back up a bit — in fact, let’s back up to what feels like five years ago to Monica Rambeau, who in the opening moments of the episode rematerializes after “The Blip” to learn that her mother (Captain Marvel’s best friend Maria Rambeau) died of cancer three years ago.
Three weeks later (giving us a sense ofwhen all ofWandaVisionis happeningrelative to the MCU timeline), Monica is back at work in the division built by her mother, despite her SWORD badge not working. And she’s been tasked to help out the FBI with a missing persons case that ends up literally sucking her in.
To be clear, what’s happening in this episode is an explanation as to what’s been going on for the past three episodes. When Monica arrives at Westview, Jimmy’s there to greet her and also witness her being trapped inside the bubble. Fortunately, soon after Darcy (Kat Dennings), now a doctor in astrophysics following her time working as Jane Foster’s intern, uses her savvy to figure out a way of monitoring what’s going on inside the Westview bubble: Old-school TV technology.
Dr. Darcy, who is legit the best and honestly, I would get her a cup of coffee any day, is the one who has been monitoring the “episodes” coming out of the Westview bubble. (Oh, I should mention here that this is all happening in New Jersey, orVinnie Mancusowill getmadat me.) Through vintage TVs, they discern that Wanda and Vision (who it’s made explicitly clear is very goddamn dead) are living in their idyllic sitcom lives. What they don’t know is why.
Agent Franklin (otherwise known as the “beekeeper” we spotted in Episode 2) goes into the sewers to try to figure out what’s happening, while Darcy and the others monitor the action from outside the town — where, they discover, Monica is slipping into the action as “Geraldine.” (Darcy is very excited to report that she eventually graduates to having a speaking role in the “show.")
Agent Woo brings up excellent theories about whether what they’re watching is an alternate reality or “some cockamamie social experiment,” and Darcy comes up with the idea of trying to use a radio inside the “current episode” to haveJimmy try to connect with Wanda.
Unfortunately, Agent Franklin’s attempt to infiltrate theWandaVisionuniverse ends with him being rejected (with his tether to the outside universe being transformed into an old-school jump rope) and Monica ends up experiencing a similar fate after (as we saw in part during last week’s episode) pushing Wanda about what happened toWanda’s brother.
This entire episode featured no sitcom gimmicks, nooriginal theme song by the Lopezes, and a truly horrifying glimpse at what might really be going on, when Wanda looks at her beloved and sees this:
Is Wanda the one in charge here? That’s definitely the implication. But here’s what we know for sure, as Jimi Hendrix’s “Voodoo Child” plays — nothing is for sure.
