You are about to reach the spoiler zone for the Wanda/Vision and its brilliant finale. Although much of this article won't touch content, my own feelings might take away from seeing the finale with fresh eyes. This is your last chance to turn back before being spoiled.
You're now entering the heartbreak zone.
As I watched each episode of WandaVision, I tried to fully process the dynamic storytelling that was happening right in front of my eyes. It was transformative in the fictional craft. Leaning into something unique and going down a completely undiscovered rabbit hole. Going to a place that I was unexpected to find: connection on the deepest levels of anything I've ever grasped before.
WandaVision is the story, now that I've watched every episode, that once completed I felt a semblance of feeling like I've watched the greatest thing I've ever watched. Will it ultimately be my all-time favorite show? I've long held the feeling that Star Trek: The Next Generation is the only piece of my heart, with Fringe following oh, so closely behind.
But, for me, in this moment, no other story has captured me in such a way where I felt quite so connected. In watching WandaVision, it was like watching my own internal struggles play out on screen. The earliest of episodes depict this weird, perhaps corny, and somewhat jovial disposition. But, underneath the surface, we see that something isn't right.
As we move further along, those happy moments, those smiles, those feelings of belonging are hiding something. We don't necessarily know what's wrong or that it's something fixable, but it's there. And, by the end, we're struggling to grasp with the overwhelming sense of grief and sadness. Something that was there all along, but until you saw it, until you understood what you were actually seeing and feeling, it was all masked by an illusion.
The finale of WandaVision is devastatingly great. The bond between Wanda and Vision is the relationship of all relationships, and the crushing realization that it's over before you even realized what they had is, well, just what it sounds like. It hurts. It's sad. The feelings I have as I try to articulate their love are churning as I come to grips with my own self. Seeing each episode play out as I grapple with the realization that my own feelings, my headspace, my own internal struggles, resemble a 9-episode series.
The creators of this show have generated something amazingly honest, surreal, and profoundly impactful for me. I'm not sure how impactful it will be for others, though I assume their own feelings will be just as great. For me, how can WandaVision mirror my own being in such a way? How do the tears I held back further shape the story, the characters, or me moving forward?
WandaVision is magnificent. There's no denying that for me. If I were to state anything else, I'd be denying the fact that I recognize my own struggles. In recent times, I've tried to do so much more to be more open to those struggles, those fears, the inescapable questioning of my own self-worth. To not state unequivocally that WandaVision is the greatest show I've ever seen would be a disservice to me. I'd be lying to myself, because the feelings this show generated are beyond the limits of Westview's scarlet wall.
Wanda and Vision's pain is real. Their love is boundless. Their story is beyond anything I've ever seen or felt before in fiction, or at least, I haven't seen replicated in any other character that resembled my own existence.
I am not alone.