Today I'm looking at the other big writing challenge of a finale like WANDAVISION--THE SUPERHERO SMACKDOWN.
Let me ask you a question: If you were to think about the battle "half" of the finale (it's actually the first three quarters)--What's the moment that most stood out for you?
For me, it's the Not-Quite Vision/Real-White Vision conversation about who is the Real Vision.
Anybody else say the same?
Why is that?
Here's what I think: It's ONE OF THESE THINGS IS NOT LIKE THE OTHERS.
The specifics of the showdowns, even the likely resolutions are mostly familiar at this point. Like, didn't we all know on some level Wanda was going to end up Trojan Horsing Agatha, or at the least consuming her power?
And of course it was going to be Vision against Vision, with lots of x+∆+∆ punch-phase combos, and Monica was going to end up facing down against SWORDBro--although weirdly, after working so hard and so well to build her up as a character, she really doesn't get that much to do in the Battle Royale. In a sense her battle moment in the finale is really there just to finish Act I of her super hero origin story by showing a bigger use of her powers.
There are only two scenes in the whole Wanda Marvel Battle Extended Remix Delite! that are not like this. The first is where the people of Westview are set free of their brain traps and beg Wanda to let them go. Which has some horrifyingly nice reveals in it--they all feel her sadness all the time, and some of them can't even remember who they were any more.
But we have already had a number of moments like this where West'ers are temporarily set free, or where it's clear that they experience themselves as trapped.
The only moment that's altogether new is the two Visions stopping their battle to have a chat.
I love that they even set the scene in a library. It might as well have a WELCOME NERDS sign.
The scene that ensues has three nicely distinctive elements, too. First, it begins with a philosophical conundrum, the Ship of Theseus. As the tens of thousands of think pieces written after THE GOOD PLACE did the Trolley Problem demonstrate, people love chewing on philosophical puzzles. It's just plain yummy for the brain.
This is a pretty good one, too. If I am always changing who am I? Or where is me?
At the same time, second, the writing zags away from the typical "How To Defeat an AI" move, insert a paradox that blows its circuits. It looks like that's where it's going at first--uh oh, He's not the Real Vision, I am... Argh... Contradiction... Must... Destroy... Self...! But then we get none of that.
(Please God Please can we never write that plotline again? If computers are so smart they can think and fly and wear white after Labor Day, surely they're smart enough to recognize when someone is attempting to Murder Paradox them and shut it down.)
Instead, Third, the sequence becomes a chance for RW Vision to choose to be liberated, to be free. People struggling to make choices to be free is always compelling to watch. And as quiet as it is, there are a couple beats of real struggle here--RW Vision hesitates, backs away even, before finally deciding to accept what NR Vision is offering, his memories.
As I'm writing this part of me is All Caps screaming, Yes, but RW Vision was introduced literally like 5 minutes ago. Why should him getting free mean anything at this point? We're worried about Our Vision and Da Boys.
I think for me the reason it works is because on another level the whole series has been about the Real Vision being trapped. He's trapped in the fiction of Westview of course, but ultimately he's also trapped in death and/or the hands of Team SWORDBro.
Your mileage may vary, but I wonder if that incredible sequence in 106 where he's risking his life fighting like hell to get out of Westview--and doing so to try and save the people trapped within--didn't in effect build the emotional runway for this moment in the finale. Like it imprinted on us so deeply the pain and wrongness of Vision trapped that any version of that happening feels like The Win We Want (even if we're also at the same time distracted by the question of how this other Vision is possibly going to be able to deal with smudges on that costume).
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The finale ends in sadness, as on some level we knew it probably had to. Some devastating moments in there. (They tucked their kids in AND THEN THEY WERE ERASED FROM REALITY, YOU GUYS.)
