Interesting to immediately throw away a red herring: the kidnapper was “bearded”, which at least three possible culprits are, but Mr. Potts only had a little stubble.

So, Lori is the focal point of the town, right? She’s the only thoroughly likeable character, and everyone seems to trust her (even with vital evidence!). 

Agreed. This type of Scandi-inflected noir detective can get *really* dour. I’m glad they were smart enough to have Evan Peters and the interrogation scene here to have some sense of levity. 

It’s definitely consistent with his character, in that his character has been thoroughly underwritten and being an oddly dumb, unthreatening evil guy. 

Moncia, Jimmy, and Darcy could only ever have a bigger part in a longer show - this was already very overstuffed. They’re fun characters, but cutting the entirety of SWORD (with some excuse for White Vision) and focusing solely on the world within the Hex would’ve done the show so much good. 

Narratively that’s extremely lazy, though. “How do we give them a reason to take out Hayward and his (apparently insanely dumb) goons? Have him shoot at kids!” “Oh well he got hit by a two second cameo from Darcy who’s otherwise not in the episode, the end.”

I really liked the idea of last episode - as this is all about Wanda dealing with grief and wanting a normal life, Agatha kind of acted like an aggressive therapist to her, with some good psychoanalysis. But no, it’s Marvel, so you have to have them chuck awful CGI purple and red blobs at each other.

Agreed on all points. The Evan Peters thing is especially baffling - why make him a bad guy at all if you’re not going to have a scene where you fight Quicksilver? Instead of disposing of him in a second?

This was one hell of a quirky and unique show except for half the show trying to get across that no, don’t worry, it’s not quirky and unique at all. 

There’s so much wrong with that Wanda and her parents scene that there has to be something up with it, right? Shows that didn’t exist, DVDs in the 90s, aesthetics/clothes that are way earlier than the 90's, the parents not moving out of an apartment that’s in the middle of a warzone? 

This one was my favorite yet. I think there’s a positive correlation between between Time Spent In Hex and Quality Of Episode (because even here, the stuff with the moonrover seemed to be written by toddlers and had zero point except having a neat vehicle for three seconds). Kathryn Hahn is absolutely killing it. TWO…

Excellent episode - if only it stayed completely within the Hex. I keep dreading the show cutting to the SWORD people, because between them doing funny gestures and quips constantly and the main SWORD people being ridiculously incompetent, I hate having them on screen. “I’m hacking past firewalls” was particularly…

But... Vision just told her exactly that? That whole scene came across as very nonsensical and mostly made SWORD seem completely incompetent. Wanda does need *some* argument for her world existing, soon. 

“You’re holding a whole town hostage!”

I thought Dory was already found in the Pixar sequel

She’s more annoying in the movies? I found her pretty unbearable here, but I’ve never seen the movies she’s in. 

“Frank Oz’s the Blackcoat’s Daughter” would be very fun, but a very different movie, Dowd.

I mean... really? It’s a off-beat series and more interesting than most Marvel fare, but this isn’t really ambitiously odd - it’s that kind of safe “experimentalism” that Marvel tends to do that never goes anywhere. The recent Legion TV series came the closest, but even that ended up playing it pretty safe.…

Well yeah! She’s Doc Ock!

Great post, and great notes on casting - which is reflected by how Neil Gaiman was casting Good Omens as well, gender-blind for quite a few characters who are “he” in the book, because it actually doesn’t matter as long as the character stays intact. Same for ethnicity: when I read the books as a kid I imagined…