LAVENDER ALERT: Let’s Talk About That WandaVision Spoiler!

by Rebecca Kaplan · February 19, 2021

Olsen as Wanda in The Case of the Mondays

Well, Marvelous metafiction mateys, T.G.I.F.! It’s not just the end of the work week, it’s also time for another new episode of WandaVision. As usual, there’s some serious spoilers to be seen, so if you’ve yet to watch the episode that was released for streaming today, on Friday, February 19th, 2021, “Breaking the Fourth Wall,” you’ll want to turn the channel and check out another page in order to avoid any spoilers.

Don’t be naughty and peek if you haven’t seen this week’s episode of WandaVision yet! Photo: Marvel Studios

What do we recommend? So glad you asked! Consider finding out what happened when science fiction author James E. Gunn’s obituary caused confusion for Marvel Cinematic Universe director James Gunn, the man behind Guardians of the Galaxy Volumes 1, 2, and the video segments of Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout at Disney’s California Adventure!

WHO’S BEEN MESSING UP EVERYTHING?

It’s been Agatha all along! In the final moments of “Breaking the Fourth Wall,” a confused Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) went down in the basement that belongs to her neighbor “Agnes” (Kathryn Hahn) – only to have “Agnes” reveal that she’s actually Agatha Harkness.

Agnes (Kathryn Hahn) reveals she is actually Agatha Harkness ALL ALONG. Photo: Marvel Studios

Just who is Agatha? Well, if you’ve been regularly reading our WandaVision speculation here at Marvel Blog, then you already have some idea! Agatha is a witchy ally of Wanda’s. But according to the theme song at the end of “Breaking the Fourth Wall,” Agatha is less of Wanda’s ally in Westview and more of an antagonist!

Photo: Marvel Comics

Is the MCU’s Agatha more villainous than the one who resides in the 616? We’ll have to keep tuning in to find out, but consider: in this week’s episode, we learned that Director Hayward of S.W.O.R.D. was attempting to reactivate Vision so he could be a weapon all their own – and if that’s the plan that Agatha messed up, maybe we should be thanking her!

SHE’S INSIDIOUS… SO PERFIDIOUS

But how about the fact that the big reveal took the form of a musical number? We didn’t have much of a theme song on WandaVision this week (the minimalist opening we do get matches the sitcom openings of the 2000s quite well), but instead, the episode’s punchline is a flashy throwback that heavily recalls one of the greatest sitcom theme songs of all time: The Munsters.

There’s several ways that Agatha’s big reveal matches The Munsters theme: for one thing, there’s the sound of the song, which has that amazingly funky bassline. Then there’s the text, which looks just like the font that’s used for the opening credits on The Munsters, which began in 1964 and ran for two seasons on CBS.

The Agatha Harkness title card homages the Lily Munster title card. Photo: Marvel Studios

And finally, there’s some metajokes (because of course there is).

While The Munsters was originally meant to be in color, it was ultimately changed to black and white, which necessitated changes to the cast’s makeup over the course of the first season (hey, isn’t there another show that plays with black and white and color – oh, that’s right). It’s probably worth noting that after the series concluded, they made several movies, which were in color (so they probably had to change up the makeup again).

Photo: Marvel Studios

And speaking of makeup, many of the sitcom punchlines delivered by The Munsters involved the elaborate makeup and costumes of the actors, or some unusual special effects. Again, this reminds me of some show we’ve been watching, but just can’t remember “witch.” Anyone got any ideas?