How ‘WandaVision’ perfectly depicts grief and loss

Warning: ‘WandaVision’ Spoilers ahead.

At first glance, ‘WandaVision’ is a quirky sci-fi TV miniseries, which continues the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s story after Avengers: Endgame. Through the episodes, we see Wanda and Vision living in a town called ‘WestView’, and beginning to start their own family, in a ‘sitcom’ setting, beginning with episode 1 with a 1950s theme, progressing decade to decade, mimicking elements of sitcoms from that time. As the season progresses, it becomes evident that this ‘super-hero’ storyline is actually telling a story about the human elements of grief and loss… and boy does it do it perfectly.

As the season progresses, we begin to understand that Wanda, after suffering the death of her parents, her brother Pietro, and her husband Vision through the MCU timeline, has created an ideal home that she and her husband (who is alive in the ‘WestView’ bubble due to Wanda’s powers) can live the dream lifestyle that a lot of us strive for — family, peace, and tranquility.

However, it’s not until the final two episodes of this series, where we understand at what cost Wanda has gone to create this world, delving into notions surrounding grief, pain, and loss.

In the second last episode, Wanda in a flashback scene stands in the area in which was what would’ve been the home she’d share with Vision. Consumed by her loss of her parents, brother and now her partner, Wanda unleashes a field of glowing red energy that engulfs the ‘WestView’ suburb around her and turns it into a sitcom safe haven, where Vision is alive, and their superpowers serve as comedic plot devices, not weapons of destruction, trapping WestView’s citizens inside and controlling them to make them feel as if they were living in a sitcom.

Wanda by building these walls (both metaphorically and physically) was covering her pain with laugh tracks and comedic value to hide her pain. Wanda essentially had created a sitcom safe haven to shield herself from her pain following the loss of her partner, Vision.

Grief is an emotional response to loss, though there hasn’t always been agreement on how a person should respond. The loss of a loved one, in particular, is among the most stressful events a human can experience. This is explored further in a flashback scene before Vision’s death in ‘the real world’ where Wanda is comforted by Vision after her brother is killed. Wanda explains to Vision how she’s so ‘tired’, elaborating that it’s like she’s swimming against a tide that keeps trying to drown her. At this point Vision mutters “..but what is grief, if not love persevering?” alluding to the point that grief is the way many carry their lost loved ones with them.

During the final scenes of WandaVision, Wanda’s world collapses on itself, and she says goodbye to Vision once again, but this time there is an element of acceptance on Wanda’s part — concluding what could be described as the final stage of grief — acceptance.

WandaVision as its story progresses can be viewed as watching someone progress through the stages of grief in which Wanda experiences. If you’re not convinced that WandaVision is telling a story about grief and pain yet, I’ve listed the five stages of grief under the Kübler-Ross model and how WandaVision fits perfectly under this model to prove my point to end this article…

Denial

The first three episodes show Wanda and Vision living in a sitcom setting progressing from the 50s, to the 60s and then to the 70s by the third episode. Viewers who follow the MCU know something is wrong by episode 1 though, as they had witnessed Vision die in Avengers: Infinity War.

These first three episodes depict Wanda’s grief throughout the series, showing how she doesn’t want to accept what’s happening, and instead creates a fake ‘sit-com’ world just so she doesn’t have to feel her grief and loss. It’s something that almost everyone would want to do at some point or another. Even Monica at the end of the final episode explains how she would’ve ‘brought her mum back’ if she had Wanda’s powers.

Whether a lost relationship or a loved one, Wanda truly embodies the grief that most people have felt at some point in their lives, or will eventually feel. That denial is evident when we can suggest that we have all wished to have powers like Wanda’s where we don’t have to feel our grief. But once we can no longer be in denial, that’s when we give way to anger.

Anger

Anger can be seen throughout WandaVision, such as Wanda going back to the real-world briefly to tell authorities and S.W.O.R.D to stay out of her business before popping back into her bubble, or her rage coming from the loss of Vision and her world begins to truly crumble around her no matter how much she tries to stop it. There are so many more examples of anger throughout WandaVision.

Bargaining

Wanda highlights this stage of grief through her superpowers and actions. Wanda creates this ‘sitcom’ world to have a life similar to the sitcoms she grew up watching (as seen in flashbacks), and bargaining for her love back (in the form of vision). The entirety of the show is Wanda re-writing reality in order to bring back that which she lost, even if that means enslaving an entire town just for her to live her dream life.

Depression

When Wanda’s world starts to ‘glitch’, she highlights her depression through her actions and words. “I’m fine” she constantly says in the episodes leading to the final. Wanda pushes away Monica, the one person trying to help her, and anyone who has ever had depression, no matter the severity, can understand what Wanda is going through at that moment, as she listens to her demons instead of positive notions to help her.

Acceptance

The final and possibly the most important stage of grief is acceptance. The penultimate episode is spent showing every bit of trauma that Wanda has experienced. Loneliness, pain, and loss are all laid bare. Creating this fake world wasn’t the morally right thing to do even if it gave her happiness, and she realizes this in the final episode, wanting to make things right.

In the end, after Wanda accepts herself as the Scarlet Witch, and defeats Agatha, she again — for the third time in the MCU —has to witness Vision die. This time, however, she accepts Vision’s death with the hope that they’ll meet again, producing a touching scene of them saying goodbye. The sadness and pain are still present, but it is no longer destroying her life and she can finally move on, hopefully finding some form of peace or ‘closure’ (whether closure exists or not is another topic). Like real life, there’s no sudden fix to make everything immediately better, but the steps toward healing are all present.

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