Bear with me a moment while I workshop a personal theory: the less consequential to the wider MCU a Marvel Studios show is, the better they usually turn out to be.
The evidence? WandaVision's unique premise and its initial embrace of the sitcom format made for a fascinating and distinctive series. Loki's first season was terrific as a sort of psychedelic, trans-dimensional buddy cop narrative – and kind of lost the plot in season 2 when it got bogged down in the Kang of it all. Ms. Marvel was more conventional than either of those shows, but told a charming and relatively self-contained coming-of-age story. By contrast, the likes of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Secret Invasion – both nominally key pieces of the ongoing saga – were stodgier and somehow much easier to ignore.
