Disney+ Review – WandaVision Episode 7

Contains spoilers

This week, WandaVision takes on the mockumentary style of The Office (2005) and Parks and Recreation (2009) in “Breaking the Fourth Wall”.

Wanda’s suffering a bit of a crisis after expanding the Hex in last week’s episode. While staying in her pyjamas the world around her keeps fluctuating and she can’t control it. On the edge of town, Vision pairs up with Darcy who reveals her findings from the outside world to him as they try to get back to Wanda with little success. Meanwhile, outside the Hex Monica and Agent Woo plan another way to get inside – but when that goes wrong, Monica forces her way through the barrier, somehow without being rewritten. She confronts Wanda who immediately attacks her but cannot get her point across before neighbour Agnes whisks Wanda away. The episode ends with the reveal that Agnes is actually witch Agatha Harkness – and she’s been causing trouble all the way through.

WandaVision really kills it with the cliff-hangers and twists every week, but there were many things to love in episode 7. Firstly, Wanda’s crisis was excellently comical and simultaneously intriguing on a story level – and Elizabeth Olsen’s performance as depressed-sarcastic-nihilistic Wanda was spot-on. Vision and Darcy also made a surprisingly hilarious comic duo with their antics being my personal highlight of the episode – the onslaught on stop-signs was gold.

Also I felt that Monica’s character really came into her own and I finally got what she’s about. The fact she now has powers and can resist Wanda was interesting and their stand-off dramatic – but her speech about grief was what really got me as I finally realised (probably later than everyone else) Monica is the only character that’s going to get through to Wanda, because they’re counterparts of the other.

There were of course a couple of things I felt were a bit off about this episode. Firstly, I think they could’ve executed the mockumentary style more accurately. Maybe they never intended to be that accurate with it but I think after all the attention to detail in the previous episodes, it was a little disappointing in parts – like the colour palette was off, the shot compositions weren’t that Office-esque, although I obviously loved the talking-heads moments. Also everything that happens outside the Hex never excites me – it wasn’t until Monica was in the Hex that it got interesting. Mixed in with the brilliance and creativity of the sitcom scenes, they’re just underwhelming.

Finally, I’m already obsessed with the little song and montage revealing Agatha’s identity – absolute genius. Also Agnes/Agatha saying “actually I did bite a kid once” made me really laugh whilst also, I now realise, foreshadow the twist. Love that. Another cracking episode.

Episode 7 | Disney+ | Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany, Kathryn Hahn, Kat Dennings, Teyonah Parris, Randall Park, Evan Peters, Josh Stamberg, Jett Klyne, Julian Hilliard