Episode 2 runs, from start to finish, as a parody of the legendary show Bewitched, which aired from 1964 to 1972.
The opening especially was the spitting image!
Ahh, so nostalgic!
I watched it myself as a kid on NHK reruns! And if I remember rightly the actor playing Darrin changed partway through… I have memories of enjoying it enormously!
The sound effect when Wanda uses magic is identical too, and it made me laugh.
Early on, a “red” helicopter drops into the front garden of Wanda’s house, even though this is supposed to be a black-and-white world. Agnes from next door comes over at that point so the helicopter doesn’t get carried away, but it looks like it’s going to be a very important key.
The helicopter had the S.W.O.R.D. logo on it, by the way.
I’ll go into the details in “After finishing episodes 1 & 2.”
This is my own guess, but it looks like the show carries over the era of whichever drama it’s parodying. So in the late 60s and early 70s when Bewitched was airing, hostility towards communist countries like the Soviet Union was extremely high, which is presumably where a joke like that came from. I’d like to get a firmer grip on that historical background too.
Dottie tells Wanda, “I’ve heard the rumours.”
“I don’t know what the rumours are, but I have no intention of hurting anyone”
is how Wanda answers.
Isn’t there something off about this scene?
Because thinking about it normally,
rumour = the two of them are magic users
is what Wanda should assume it means, and yet her comeback to Dottie is “I have no intention of hurting anyone,” which is loaded with meaning.
Halfway through episode 2, while Wanda is reluctantly tidying up at Dottie’s house, a man’s voice comes out of the radio.
“Wanda, can you hear me? Respond.”
“Wanda, who is giving you your orders?”
I’ll get into that in the final chapter of this post, “After finishing episodes 1 & 2.”
The radio throws Dottie into a panic and she breaks a glass. Which leaves “red” blood running from her right hand.
I’ll go into the details in the final chapter of this post, “After finishing episodes 1 & 2.”
Halfway through episode 2, in the same vein as episode 1, this time a watch ad starts.
What to note here is
Strucker first. Strucker means, of course, the Hydra man who appeared in Age of Ultron and created Wanda and Quicksilver!
And to hammer it home, the watch even has the Hydra logo and the name on it… lol
The thing that got me most, personally, is the position of the hands.
Look up photos of watches and you’ll see it: on a watch as sold, the hands are stopped at “10:08:42.” The Seiko article below explains why very clearly, but in short it’s because that shows the dial off most beautifully.
https://museum.seiko.co.jp/knowledge/trivia01/
Seiko have used that approach since 1964, so WandaVision, doing a Bewitched parody, should be following it… and yet it’s 2:42… and on top of that there’s no second hand!
I’m sure this 2:42 is a key word.
Except I can’t come up with a single thing that follows from 2:42 lol
Spotted it and still got nowhere — so frustrating lol
Updated 24 January 2021
Astonishingly, it looks like the hand positions on the watches in episode 2 are semaphore signals!
Source below
https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/wandavision-xmen-mcu-clocks-easter-egg
And what that semaphore spells out is…
X-MEN!!!!
Wanda is originally the daughter of Magneto from X-Men, and
is this a message from Kevin Feige saying the X-Men will be coming to the MCU, so don’t worry?
Whoever spotted this first is genuinely amazing.
At the end of the magic show Dottie presents Wanda and the others with a trophy, and her right hand — which should have been cut on the glass a moment ago — has no bandage or anything on it.
This is loaded with meaning too.
Late in episode 2 a mysterious man in a beekeeper suit emerges from a manhole.
The point to note is that the protective suit has the S.W.O.R.D. mark on it.
Look at the suit in the show and it does feel AIM-ish, like the image above~. But the S.W.O.R.D. mark is on the back… a mystery.
I’ll go into the details in the final chapter of this post, “After finishing episodes 1 & 2.”
When the beekeeper appears, Wanda astonishingly says “no” and literally rewinds the story.
This clearly means Wanda is aware that this world is a fabrication. The radio lines point the same way.
So what is she after? Sorry — I’ll go into the details on that as well in the final chapter of this post, “After finishing episodes 1 & 2.”
The point Wanda rewinds to was the scene where the sudden pregnancy comes to light.
And then Wanda asks Vision
“Is this real?”
and Vision says that it is.
As a result the world the two of them are in takes on vivid colour, they kiss, and episode 2 closes on that honeycomb cut-out.
The theory review starts on the next page!