Why Dottie From WandaVision Looks So Familiar

After the first two episodes of WandaVision dropped on Disney+, fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe immediately set to work, picking apart every little detail of the classic TV-inspired pseudo-sitcom. There are lots of people, places, and even objects that potentially hint at how WandaVision could change Marvel's TV universe going forward.

Take Westview community leader Dottie. Dottie, like many of the residents of Westview, is already beginning to see through the cracks in WandaVision's world. As she and Wanda clean up after a town planning event, she makes it clear that she has "heard things" about Wanda and Vision and, moreover, doesn't trust them. More than that, when a mysterious voice calling Wanda's name is heard coming through the static of a nearby radio, both Wanda and Dottie are able to hear it.

It's obvious that there's more to Westview and Dottie than meets the eye, and the actor who plays her likely seems more than a bit familiar.

Her name is Emma Caulfield Ford, and this is far from her first foray into the world of science fiction and fantasy.

Perhaps you've seen her in Fear the Walking Dead, Supergirl, Once Upon a Time, or another of her dozens of TV appearances over the years. But, chances are, you know her from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

In Season 3 of Buffy, Cordelia Chase wishes that Buffy Summers had never come to Sunnydale, thus creating an alternate universe ruled by The Master and overrun by his creatures of the night, in one of the most iconic episodes of the show. The "scary, veiny, good fairy" who made Cordy's wish come true? Why, that would be none other than Emma Caulfield Ford, known at the time as just "Emma Caulfield," as the vengeance demon Anya.

It wouldn't be until the fourth season of Buffy that Anya would be slotted in as a series regular, but it didn't take long before fans realized the character would become far more than Cordelia's replacement after she absconded to Los Angeles with Angel.

Anya was a fresh, snarky take on the "inhuman being must learn to be human" trope. After centuries of helping scorned women take extreme revenge on the men who spurned them, Anya becomes friends with Buffy and the gang while also falling in love with Xander Harris. The romance between Anya and Xander is a huge part of the Buffy story, and very nearly leads to marriage.

Of course, it wouldn't be Buffy if true love didn't lead to misery, so we get to see Anya cope with being a vengeance demon all over again, making her one of the most complex characters in Buffy's seven-season history.

The same year that Buffy the Vampire Slayer concluded it's seven-season run, Emma Caulfield Ford was already starring in a horror movie with a concept that actually feels like it could've come straight out of an episode of Buffy — Darkness Falls.

Darkness Falls is both the name of the 2003 film and the town in which the story is set, raising the question — who would choose to live in a town named Darkness Falls? The answer, as you might have guessed, is Emma Caulfield Ford playing Caitlin Greene.

In A Nightmare on Elm Street, Wes Craven found success redefining the Sandman as a knife-fingered monster who kills you in your dreams named Freddy Krueger. Darkness Falls performs a similar trick, but this time it's the Tooth Fairy getting a murderous makeover. Just like the parents from Elm Street killed Krueger, the parents of Darkness Falls kill Matilda Dixon, a.k.a. the Tooth Fairy; the difference is that Matilda Dixon was innocent of the crimes she was accused of.

The result is the same: The Tooth Fairy becomes a vengeful spirit and returns to do some killing. Considering Caulfield Ford just wrapped playing a vengeance demon on Buffy, she naturally was the perfect person to fight an evil Tooth Fairy.

Two years before Black Mirror existed in any form, Emma Caulfield Ford starred as Oona O'Leary in 2009's TiMER — a movie with a very similar premise to the Black Mirror episode "Hang the DJ." In the future, most people accept who their "soulmate" will be via a high-tech dating app. The app in TiMER is a device installed in the wrist that counts down to when a person will meet their soulmate, but Oona's clock is not counting down. Does she have no soulmate? Is her soulmate dead? Or has her soulmate simply not gotten their own device installed?

#WandaVision #Dottie #EmmaCaulfieldFord

Read Full Article: https://www.looper.com/314368/why-dottie-from-wandavision-looks-so-familiar/