Last night was a big deal for MCU fans as it marked the first time we ever saw footage from Kevin Feige‘s grand plan of dabbling in canonical MCU television. Dubbed Expanding the Universe, we got a bunch of insanely exciting first-looks at what’s to come for Phase 4.
THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER
As the first MCU show on the Disney+ slate to come out (August is where everyone’s head is at), it’s understandable the first thing we see from this teaser was the shield bestowed upon Sam Wilson by Steve Rogers at the end of Avengers: Endgame. We see Sam hurl the shield at a tree as we hear Bucky say, “It’s time.” The halo jumpers shooting at Sam in his new suit (that we barely get to see) is a neat scene that I think is a callback to Sam’s origins as a pararescue officer.
Bucky’s comes face to face with the puppet master who awakened his demons in Captain America: Civil War, Zemo. It looks like a very intense confrontation as Bucky aims his gun point-blank at Zemo’s head only for him to let the bullets slip through his fingers. Could this be a moment of absolution between the two?
The icing in this Falcon and the Winter Soldier cake is the brief shot of John Walker aka U.S. Agent’s homecoming, a scene whose set photos we saw a couple of months ago. Walker’s gonna have a true blue American homecoming and it’ll be a spectacle to see just based on this brief shot alone.
WANDAVISION
As if footage of Sam hurling the shield wasn’t enough, we finally get a look just how Wandavision‘s sitcom antics are going to look and boy, does it look good. There’s a crapton of stuff to take away from this, starting with Wanda’s various looks that will be explored as they pay homage to classic sitcoms in the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s.
That brief shot of her in the iconic Scarlet Witch costume has been a talking point for many. Thanks to an audition video and a report from our friend Charles Murphy saying that the show would include a “pivotal” Halloween scene with the family, it’s likely Wanda in that costume is part of that gag.
The big thing fans have been pointing out are the two cribs that can be briefly seen in one moment. We’ve known for some time that their kids from the comics would be making their way to live-action but seeing actual onscreen evidence of the twins’ existence in this show is pretty exciting.
The “Vision residence!” scene where a present-day Wanda is across a 50s-tinged Vision particularly stands out to me. A couple of weeks ago, Wandavision set photos confirming the presence of S.W.O.R.D. in the show surfaced online. In those photos were Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau and Elizabeth Olsen herself. In those set photos, Olsen seems to be wearing the same outfit as Wanda is in this “Vision residence!” scene. So I’m wondering if S.W.O.R.D. plays a part in this trippy fantasy world of the Vision family. S.W.O.R.D. is an organization with access to all kinds of technology; human or alien. What if this how Wanda initially learns to access this part of her psyche?
LOKI
Details for Wandavision and Falcon and the Winter Soldier have been public for some time now but the real kicker was that Loki tease at the end, an unassuming scene of Tom Hiddleston strapped to a chair, being on-brand as he threatens to raze the place holding him, which paints a very different picture of what Phase 4 could be. A closer look at the logo on the shirt tells a pretty big story.
TVA stands for Time Variance Authority, who in the comics was a group of faceless beings in charge of monitoring the time-space continuum of the multiverse. Whatever they deemed a threat to the order of things, they dealt with. Obviously, in this instance, Loki is the threat they’re wary of. Hence the God of Mischief being under their watch.
The introduction of the TVA bodes for some very interesting things for Phase 4. As we all know, Avengers: Endgame revolved around the team messing with the multiverse on their own terms. Now, if the TVA is pissed at Loki for joyriding through history, imagine how pissed they are at the Avengers for stealing the Infinity Stones from their respective timelines, casually messing with the continuum on their own terms, and destroying the natural order of things.
It’s very likely that we continue to hear about the TVA beyond Loki, particularly in the Doctor Strange sequel. Heck, I wouldn’t even be surprised if these clandestine keepers of time happened to cross paths with Steve Rogers himself during his adventure back into the past.