WandaVision
Is Wanda Maximoff the villian of WandaVsion?
In the idealized, sitcom version of Westview, it is clear that Wanda is at the center of this construct but how much in control is she?
As we saw in episode 6, the further out from the center of the town, the population is less active, either engaging in repetitive actions or simply frozen in place. And the residents are painfully aware of their plight even as they remain unable to escape it.
Vision finds Agnes in a car, staring straight ahead at lonely stretch of road that goes to nowhere. As established in previous episodes, Agnes is aware of her role in this hyper actualized reality but how and why?
Meanwhile, the "return" of her brother Pietro is cause for confusion and concerned. Pietro is portrayed by Evan Peters who played the super speedster in the X-Men movies but not in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Wanda is surprised by Pietro's appearance in Westview and also by his "recast" with a different face.
And Wanda confesses she is not entirely sure how this version of Westview came to be or how exactly she is doing what she is doing. But even without answers to how and why this world exists, Wanda is damn sure going to protect it and her loved ones within in it.
When Vision breaches the Hex barrier that encloses Westview, he begins to disintegrate. In a show of power, Wanda expands the Hex field to reconstitute Vision and draws the SWORD encampment outside of town into her version of Westview. SWORD becomes a circus and its agents are turned into clowns.
While Wanda Maximoff is clearly at the center of this Westview creation and clearly there are unwilling participants in this fantasy land, it is not clear exactly what Wanda's involvement is. The best guess is there is another power at work, manipulating Wanda's powers and her grief.
The most prevalent guess online is that it's Mephisto as work. New to the MCU, Mephisto is a long time antagonist in Marvel Comics as Marvel's version of the devil.
Snowpiercer
There may be hope for the frozen Earth. The climate is warming enough to create snow.
To know for sure we'll require SCIENCE!
As Snowpiercer continues it's trek around the globe, weather balloons will be sent up to collect data from around the world.
This data will be transmitted to a science station in the Rocky Mountains.
Someone who knows what the fuck they're doing needs to operate the weather station.
Melanie Cavill is the someone who knows what the fuck she is doing.
So Snowpiercer is diverted to a dangerous section of alternate track to get Melanie as close to that science station as possible.
Here are the alternate scenarios of what will happen to Melanie.
1) Melanie Cavill will die on her trek to the science station.
2) Melanie Cavill will die at the science station if it is unable to sustain her upon her arrival.
3) Melanie Cavill will die if resources run out before Snowpiercer can return a month later.
4) Melanie Cavill will die on her trek back to Snowpiercer.
Alex, Melanie's long lost daughter, arrived aboard Big Alice with a full head of disdain for her mother. As the moments tick down to Melanie's jump from the train to what the numbers indicate will be her certain doom, Alex is starting to know her mother better and begins to regret that their time together is growing short.
Meanwhile, Mr. Wilford is giddy beyond all reason that the cards are so stacked against Melanie's survival. Never mind she is on a mission that is of utmost importance to everyone on the train and thus everyone on Earth. All he cares about is that Cavill stole Snowpiercer from him and damn it, she needs to pay for that.
We're getting a good look at why Melanie Cavill thought it best to keep Snowpiercer and the fate of all humanity out of Wilford's hands in the first place. Wilford is a cold, manipulative sociopath is prepared to have people die in deference to his own twisted needs and in service to his ego.
Meanwhile, revolutionary turned political leader Andre Layton is juggling trying to hold Mr. Wilford's nefarious ambitions in check while still running a fragile society not fully healed from the fractures of revolution.
To add to the number of things on his to do list is the unexpected return of Josie. Back last season when Melanie Cavill was still trying to maintain order on Snowpiercer with the fiction that Mr. Wilford was alive and well up in the Engine Eternal, Melanie tortured Josie to get intel to surpress the uprising from the Tail. In the course of that torture, Josie was frozen to death.
Or it seems, appeared to be frozen to death. Josie is a medical car, her flesh burned by sub zero temperatures. Among the things pissing Josie off is that Andre is working with the woman who tortured her.
Andre Layton is trying to maintain order and calm while getting assailed on all sides: the first class residents who resent losing to the tail during the revolution; the Tailies who resent Andre for being slow to deliver on the promises of democracy; pro-Wilford forces who see Wilford's return as a good thing; and Wilford himself.
And he's now doing this without Melanie Cavill. Yes, she was his opponent in the revolution but Andre Layton recognizes that Melanie Cavill is someone who knows what the fuck she is doing.
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Brooklyn Nine-Nine
Heard last week that Brooklyn Nine-Nine is on it's way out. Between the impacts of racial injustice protests against the police and the pandemic, the 8th season of Brooklyn Nine-Nine was seriously behind the eight ball.
The good news is that Brooklyn Nine-Nine will get to make it's farewells but not in the current television season. Season 8 will not drop until sometime during the 2021/2022 cycle and it will be for only 10 episodes.
Unlike the shock abrupt cancellation of Brooklyn Nine-Nine by Fox after it's 5th season, I am bit more magnanimous about this news. While I am grateful for NBC rescuing the show, I found the 6th and 7th season have lost some of Brooklyn Nine-Nine's spark and a kind of rote familiarity has settled on the proceedings.
I was happy to have merely adequate Brooklyn Nine-Nine that none at all but I think it is time for the 99 to say good-bye and thankfully it gets to do so on it's own terms.
OK, that is that for today's post. Until next time, remember to be good to one another and keep it down, would ya? I'm trying to watch some TV over here.
