Hope you’re ready, because it’s getting real now—and this is definitely the best episode of WandaVision so far.
Summary
Wanda and Vision are trying to get their boys to sleep, and Agnes shows up to help them. Suddenly, Agnes loses the thread of the plot—she asks Wanda if she wants her to “take it again” and what she’s supposed to be doing. Vision is perplexed by this break, while Wanda tries to assure him that nothing is amiss. They turn around, and Tommy and Billy are now five years old. Agnes seems unbothered by this change in circumstances.
The next day, Tommy and Billy have found a dog and ask Wanda if they can keep him. She insists they can’t have a dog until they’re ten, so they age up again. Agnes shows up with a dog house, and again, Vision starts to notice how strangely convenient everything is. Wanda manifests a collar for the dog (who they name Sparky) while Agnes is in the room, prompting Vision to ask Wanda why she’s getting so cavalier about her powers. Wanda suggests that perhaps they don’t have to hide so much anymore. At work, Vision is helping Norm (Abilash Tandon) with his new computer, and everyone at the office reads an email that Darcy has sent from the outside. This prompts Vision to try to get through to Norm, who reverts back to his old self and panics, telling Vision that he needs to get in touch with his family, and that it’s painful to be forced to perform like this. Vision resets him, visibly disturbed by the information.
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Fugitive Telemetry
Outside the bubble of Westview, Monica gets medical tests (that turn up blank) and heads to a SWORD meeting. Given the information she gave about being inside Westview, Director Hayward is classifying Wanda as a terrorist, which Monica takes exception to because she believes that there is no political motivation behind what she’s doing. Hayward shows footage of Wanda from nine days ago, storming a SWORD facility to liberate Vision’s corpse. Monica, Jimmy, and Darcy are doing some research to figure out how to get back inside Westview (dubbed the Hex by Darcy) without being reabsorbed into Wanda’s reality, coming up with an idea for a mobile bunker. They realize that Wanda is reforming reality rather than making matter out of nothing; Monica’s outfit was reformed out of what she walked in wearing. She suggests that they could avoid a structural change if the item entering already seems to belong.
They send a drone from the 1980s into Westview to that effect, and Wanda goes outside with her boys to see what the commotion is, letting Sparky out in the process. Monica attempts to talk to her, not realizing that Hayward has armed the drone; he orders a strike on Wanda as soon she appears hostile, and the feed cuts out. Wanda then emerges outside the Hex, tossing the drone back to Hayward and telling them all to leave her and her world alone. Monica tries to talk to her, but she won’t hear it, instead forcing all of the SWORD personnel to turn their guns on Hayward as she retreats into the Hex.
On return, Wanda and the boys find that Sparky ate some azalea leaves from Agnes’s bushes, and has died. The boys beg their mother to bring the dog back to life, prompting Agnes to ask if she’s actually capable of that. Wanda tells the boys that it’s wrong to bring people back to life like that, and tries to help them work through their sadness, telling them not to age up again in response. Vision arrives and they head home, where he finally confronts Wanda about what he’s seen. She tries to avoid the conversation, and when he persists, Wanda “rolls credits” on the episode, but Vision continues their argument. He gets angry, admits that he’s frightened and doesn’t remember his life before arriving here. Wanda tells him that she couldn’t possibly be running this entire town with her mind—then the doorbell rings. She realizes that Vision thinks she strategically caused it to get out of their fight, but when it rings again, she opts to answer the door.
It’s Pietro. But not Pietro of the MCU—it’s Evan Peters, the Quicksilver from Fox’s X-Men film series. Outside the Hex, Darcy sees the end of the episode and asks if Wanda “recast” her own brother.
Commentary
Well. Welcome to the Multiverse, y’all.
I mean, sure it’s possible that Wanda found a guy from Westview and forced him to be her brother, and he just happens to look a lot like another Quicksilver from a different universe. But we already know that the multiverse is coming to the MCU—practically every actor to ever emote in a Spider-Man film is going to show up in their next Spidey flick, and the Doctor Strange sequel is titled Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness (and is reported to costar Wanda in some capacity). Which means that this isn’t truly a “recast” as Darcy suggests. Instead, it likely means that Wanda has been wishing for Pietro’s presence so hard that she punched a hole in space-time to yank another Pietro out of an alternate reality. Which is both magnificent and devastatingly sad.
This episode significantly ups the game, starting on the sitcom front. Of course, we can’t ignore the fact that the biggest influence on this episode is Full House—which has an extra meta-conceit because Elizabeth Olsen’s twin sisters, Mary Kate and Ashley, starred on that show as Michelle Tanner. Hollywood is a lot easier to break into when you’ve already got family in the club, so to speak, so it could be argued that Elizabeth Olsen owes her entire career to Full House and how it made her sisters household names. There are so many shoutouts within this frame, from the family picnic on the blanket during the opening theme to the shots of Billy and Tommy growing up. And of course, the fact that her boys are twins, and Wanda is a twin, and the actor playing Wanda is parodying a sitcom that her twin sisters used to star in, it’s a turducken of twin references.
But the place where the episode really shines are all the spots where things are beginning to break. Every time one of the “characters” can’t figure out what they’re supposed to to do, every time the laugh track falls out, every time it becomes clear that Billy and Tommy expect their mother to be able to mend the world, the tone of the show coalesces into something far more sinister and painful. This is taken to its logical conclusion quite literally: Vision insists that Wanda can’t shut down his inquiries and she responds ruthlessly by “rolling the credits”… only to have Vision refuse the cue and continue their argument as words and names scroll by. I’d argue that’s it’s the most unique and effective moment that the show has presented to us thus far, the aesthetic and concept finally butting its head against something horribly real that we’re not permitted to look away from.
Sitcoms often use artifice to avoid the hard conversations, but this episode is aptly titled “On a Very Special Episode…”, the terminology created by networks to indicate a forthcoming episode was going to tackle darker and more serious subject matter. WandaVision tricks us on that front: Our assumption is that the very special episode subject matter is about the death of Sparky the dog, and Wanda having to tell her boys that it’s wrong to bring beings back from the dead. (There’s a whole aside here about her telling them not to age up again, the metaphor of “growing up too fast” due to trauma made literal by their abilities, which is really messing with me right now.) But in actuality, the very specialness of the episode is in the distress of her neighbors, in Vision’s emerging questions, in Wanda’s slow realization that she perhaps doesn’t have this all under control.
It took exactly one episode for Hayward to prove himself as inept as suspected, so that’s gonna put a damper on any attempt to solve this problem going forward. I wanted to hug Jimmy for verbally calling him out on his oversimplification of Wanda and Pietro’s “radicalization” and their work for Hydra. (If you are fuzzy on this, Wanda and Pietro’s home was destroyed by bombs with a big Stark Industries emblem on the side, so the point is, maybe America needs to own up to the hostility it creates if it’s going to bomb civilians, a fact that can coexist with Hydra being a monstrous organization with fascist dreams of world domination.) Monica is doing her best with Darcy and Jimmy as her cohort, but there’s too much interference at the moment for them to subvert his poor choices. There’s also Monica’s reaction to the mention of Carol Danvers, which makes her visibly upset—seems like someone’s unhappy that her aunt hasn’t been around, and you can hardly blame her.
There are a couple of revelations here that create new mysteries, the primary ones being that Wanda isn’t creating matter out of nothing, and that there are no children in Westview outside of Billy and Tommy. Which could mean something super dark, like Billy and Tommy are somehow an amalgam of the children living in Westview, and Wanda has somehow compressed all the kids into these two children. But it’s more likely that they’re being held somewhere out of the way—the question is, has Wanda tucked them off screen (in a pocket universe or some such), or is this the work of an interfering force that is trying to keep those kids safe?
The other major revelation concerns Vision, namely the fact that he doesn’t remember his life before this reality. What makes this particularly interesting is that we don’t know why—it could be that Wanda is suppressing him, the same way that she is suppressing the whole town. But what if it’s due to his death? What if he simply can’t remember anything before being reanimated, like a restart button? Because that’s a more potent tragedy by far. It would mean that Wanda will eventually have to come to terms with the fact that this isn’t really Vision; she’s just reprogramming the matter he used to occupy to make it speak and behave like him.
All the themes of this show seem to turn on consent and also trauma, and the ways we do and don’t give people space to process those things. If the show plans to delve on those themes in the upcoming episodes, we could be in for something really spectacular. Fingers crossed.
Thoughts and Asides:
- Those babies are visibly not crying at the start of the episode and it’s hilarious. Also, it’s kinda weird that they stayed pretty widescreen on this episode? TV wasn’t widescreen yet in the era they’re parodying here. It’s odd when they’re been pretty consistent about those choice overall.
- There are plenty of other sitcoms being parodied here as well, but you really can’t beat the ode to the Family Ties theme with that ridiculous painting of the whole brood, ughhh, it’s so awful, how did we survive this as a culture.
- What does it mean that Monica’s tests came up blank? Because that seems not great.
- That video of Wanda grabbing Vision’s body looked like he was maybe in pieces? What was SWORD doing with his body, and why was it deemed okay for them to have it? If anything I would have assumed that the federal recovery unit that Tony Stark developed for amassing/storing all the alien tech falling out of the sky would have been the ideal place to put Vision’s body to prevent someone from trying to use it. (You know, like the warehouse Peter gets trapped inside during Spider-Man: Homecoming.)
- The advert in this episode is painfully meta—Lagos paper towels, to help you clean up your messes. You know, like when you accidentally cause an explosion in a highly populated city while you’re trying to stop a really bad guy from stealing a bio weapon, and end up causing an international incident that leads to the dissolving of the Avengers.
- Awkwardness of the Sokovian accent aside, I love the fact that Wanda’s accent reasserts itself outside the Hex, thereby affirming that she’s putting it on “for the camera” so to speak. It’s a great subconscious choice for her brain to make.
- I’m deeply bemused by the fact that Wanda spends exactly one scene in that deeply unflattering outfit with the vest, and then they promptly shift her to a much better 80s wardrobe. Even Agnes’s aerobics outfit is more flattering than the usual look for the era. I understand the impulse, but if you watched sitcoms in the 80s and 90s… you know how bad it got.
Next week, more modern sitcoms, maybe? Further deterioration is pretty much a guarantee.
Emmet Asher-Perrin might need to rewatch that running sequence from Days of Future Past now. You can bug them on Twitter, and read more of their work here and elsewhere.
I’m gonna lay few markers down right now.
Hayward was studying VisionT to use as a weapon in opposition to his living will, and Wanda rescued him from that.
The “she” Norm is referring to is Agnes, not Wanda.
Wanda was telling the truth when she said she doesn’t remember how this started.
The show took the time to confirm that Wanda’s parents ARE NOT Magneto, yet the Pietro that showed up is fathered by Magneto. I don’t know what that means, but to me it confirms again that what is happening here is not solely Wanda.
“What does it mean that Monica’s tests came up blank? Because that seems not great.”
Wasn’t that an X-ray of her head? So, the image being overexposed (not just blank) makes sense, if you know the comics. And it seems like a good thing instead of not a great thing.
TV wasn’t widescreen yet in the era they’re parodying here.It’s odd when they’re been pretty consistent about those choice overall.
I think it indicates the break down in Wanda’s control. All the background characters are openly acknowledging Wanda’s control now, while Agnes continues to knowingly play her part. Agnes didn’t want to redo the scene from the top because she lost the plot, Vision did. Vision was supposed to accept Agnes offer to care for the children, and when he didn’t she didn’t know how to proceed. She ascertained from Wanda that she was supposed to improv going forward when Vision won’t play his role, and did so for the rest of the episode.
But Wanda is no longer trying to convince the audience(us and SWORD) or the cast itself, that the show is authentic anymore. The aspect ratio change actually came in the previous episode, when we saw the part of the show Wanda cut from the broadcast, when she ejected Monica, but continuing with it indicates that Wanda(or someone) is no longer expending effort on that conceit anymore.
I do wonder if they are getting into Jean Grey/Phoenix territory here. Hayward’s decision to linger over the fact that Wanda isn’t known by a superhero moniker in this universe, in the same episode the actual Fox Universe leaks into, seems intentional to me, that the show is nudging us towards an understanding that the entity powering the Hex is the Scarlet Witch, a separate persona from Wanda herself and not in her control.
RUMOR SPOILERS AHEAD (Also Mandalorian SPOILERS)
So Olsen was recently quoted that there was “Luke Skywalker in Mandalorian” level cameo coming up, and it is possible that she’s referring to Peters, but I think since they’ve brought in Peters, there is a possibility it could be either Mckellan or Fassbender as Magneto. I mean it is the ONLY thing close enough meet that bar, IMO.
END SPOILERS
Also, on a personal note, when I noted to a coworker that this episode was riffing Full House, she said it was too bad it was missing an Uncle Jesse, and boom, Peters is literally channeling Uncle Jesse here.
Emma Caufield or Agnes are super suspect to me…
They got the better Quicksilver.
Some of them. Monica blows off the blood tests which ought to be a big old red flag about the state of her health and/or identity. Although I suspect it is just the standard trope of badass hasn’t got time for fussy rules because they are a tough badass; a trope I loathe desperately and wish that television, particularly genre television, would stop dipping into. Following rules saves lives, especially when it comes to health and/or identity. Please, folks, follow the rules more, they protect everyone.
That rant aside, I wouldn’t say Hayward is inept. He’s outclassed by Wanda’s sheer power levels, but so is everyone short of [maybe] Captain Marvel. The decisions he made were either right for the situation as the show presents it as being known to him, or only wrong because of Wanda’s sheer eldritch-abominationitus. She is, by any reasonably standard, a terrorist and a monster at this point. He was right to try and take her out if he had the chance, and Monica is seriously overstepping her own bounds. Monica is going to be right by Studio Fiat in the end, but she really oughtn’t to be.
Plus Wanda has killed someone’s little dog too.
I kinda wish the person Wanda summoned through time and space was your friendly neighbourhood Deadpool, but I guess it is not that kind of show. Man, I wish it was that kind of show.
I won’t believe this Pietro is actually the same Quicksilver from the X-Verse until I see some superspeed though.
When the show was first announced and was made clear that it was going to be some kind of weird retro sitcom, I thought it was going to be a fun, whacky show. I had almost forgotten that Vision was dead-dead and not a Snap victim. But as this show is really taking shape, there is something very sad and melancholy going on. I didn’t expect a Marvel show to lean in so much to this atmosphere of grief. There’s something very poignant about the world Wanda has made for herself, in her refusal to accept death, be it her brother or Vision.
Email, on a Commodore 64 plugged into a TV? Yeah, sure.
I think half hour episodes once a week are going to be increasingly frustrating.
I’m reasonably sure there’s something else going on than just Wanda going overboard. She’s never shown anything like this level of power before so I think someone gave it to her. The gift probably had strings attached
I would have liked if they’d noted whether she killed anyone getting Vision’s body. It seems relevant to the “terrorist or not” discussion.
@@@@@10
Wanda has literally abducted and enslaved a whole town, I think whether she killed someone while graverobbing is more of a footnote than anything else.
I don’t think we know the whole story regarding the research into Vision’s body or how Wanda is doing all this. I feel like there has to be another person or group manipulating things.
Wanda’s character in the MCU has always been someone who gets an idea (sometimes a bad one) and runs with it long past the point where it would normally work, but she rarely comes up with something on her own. Which is why pairing her up with Vision works, because he often gets good ideas but isn’t always able to execute them. My own feeling is she discovered something really bad (real or invented by a third party) that has to do with Vision and that plus her grief led her to whatever created this anomaly (and again, maybe with the help of a third party).
As far as the problem with Vison’s memory, that could have been caused by the Mind Stone having been taken from him. It’s odd that he’s able to do so much with his powers but is missing those memories, but not that odd.
@9 – Those weren’t Commodore 64s.
They were modern computers, connected to the internet, and made to look like Commodore 64s connected to Commodore monitors (not televisions) by the properties of the Hex.
#7 Hayward is right in that someone of Wanda’s power level is dangerous….but he’s also inept in that he can think of only one way to deal with her. Yeah, she’s capable of lots of bad stuff…and you don’t have the firepower to deal with that, so you need to have a repertoire of responses to handle her. A soft word and a convincing argument may be more powerful than chemical high explosives and missiles….because Wanda can’t deal with them as well as she can conventional weaponry.
Capt. Rambeau realizes that. You’re not going to aim a nuke at the town, so try talking with her, hm?
@9 @13
Bbs’s were a thing in the 80s. So you could do email on a C64
Something that clicked to me in this episode: they said that Wanda was born in 1989, and she and Pietro were traumatized by their building being bombed when they were 10. So Sokovia is Serbia? Sokovia was a kind of Ruritania (Eastern European Stereotypical Country Trope) in Marvel, but the timeframe makes it clearer what comparison should be made. I’ve talked with some Serbians and Montenegrins for a while and it’s always curious their point of view of the events in the 90s and how they view the US.
@10 – On average, the episodes are getting longer each week. It seems that we may be building to longer form episodes more appropriate for the shift away from the sitcom conceit as we move into the endgame (pun intended).
I was willing to give Hayward the benefit of the doubt at first (he’s been holding things together when half his agency and the world vanished, apparently killed. Give him some credit). But, not anymore.
What broke my trust in him was the way he handled Monica’s intel. He took what she told him and made his conclusions on his own, without discussing them with anyone, including her, his first hand account source. Also, when you make conclusions the eyewitness strongly disagrees with, you have a problem.
This makes the last episode a lot more suspicious. If Monica was set to be the next agency leader after her mother, then I assume she was acting head when everyone vanished. That means, to the half of the agency that just reappeared, she still is the acting head.
After three weeks, none of the others have come back, and SWORD isn’t prepared for them to come back. Judging by Monica, their card keys are all nonfunctional and the gate guards have no protocol for dealing with them. The key thing might be understandable, but no guidelines for what could be literally hundreds of people showing up on the doorstep?
At this point, I’m not so sure that Monica was the first to come back as she was the first to be let in.
And, almost the moment she came in, she was sent off on a mission without a proper briefing (although that could be a TV show needing to give us the info dramatically), a mission that came very close to getting rid of her permanently seconds after she arrived.
Getting back to Wanda, this episode has me thinking she ISN’T behind what’s going on. When faced with a choice to try and bring the boys’ pet back to life, she refuses to. She also says it would be wrong to do that and tells the boys not to change to try and escape their grief. This doesn’t fit with someone who’s created this whole illusion because she can’t deal with death and grief.
I’m wondering what Agnes is doing. She might have killed the dog to get Wanda to bring it back to life. But, she seemed honestly shocked when the boys suggested Wanda could do that. If this were a setup, wouldn’t she have gone straight to trying to get Wanda to do it? Did her creepy, unseen “husband” kill the dog to try and manipulate Wanda instead?
Tinfoil hat theory: Vision’s body was being experimented on. Wanda stole his corpse back. But, not before he became the focal point for whatever is happening. Ralph is the main villain trying to do whatever it is he’s trying to do, but the Westview world is actually Wanda’s attempt to contain him and whatever it is he’s doing with Vision.
@18 Hm. Interesting deduction. And would it be too big of a step to think that Hayward was in charge of studying Vision’s body? Which would DEFINITELY seem ghoulish to Wanda (and I’m not too certain about either?).
X-Men theory: Everyone who was “dusted” and then “blipped” back has a chance of having the X gene and being a mutant. That could explain Wanda’s power up and Monica’s X-ray; they’re both mutants (and in Wanda’s case, also with Mind Stone powers).
Vision had clearly been dismembered. I was horrified.
I agree with @1, Hayward wasn’t telling it straight. The video he was showing clearly shows that Vision wasn’t being “respected”. Wanda was effecting a rescue, not theft.
@7, 11
That’s quite a leap, from “former ally appears to have gone rogue, we need better info” to “assassination is the logical next step as soon as her presence is confirmed”. In a world where the other Avengers still exist, and would be quite capable of lending a hand if needed.
Also Monica didn’t blow off the blood tests, she refused having another set taken because the doctor apparently had problems with the first set of results. She’s avoiding being held and tested repeatedly when it is clear there are larger issues.
@22
That’s quite a leap, from “former ally appears to have gone rogue, we need better info” to “assassination is the logical next step as soon as her presence is confirmed”. In a world where the other Avengers still exist, and would be quite capable of lending a hand if needed.
Thinking about it, that’s not even the least amount of force available to non-powered humans. What happened to tranquilizers, anesthesia and other non-lethal forms of weaponry?
Everyone’s right; there’s something kinky going on with Hayword.
Do we know Hayword’s first name? I’m seriously hoping it’s Ralph.
I haven’t had a chance to read the comments yet but:
1)These 80s family sitcoms are my jam and I love how they did it. (I also totally gut Uncle Jesse vibes from Pietro lol).
2)WHERE ARE ALL THE CHILDREN? I’m glad somebody (in show) finally asked it, and my first thought was that it has something to do with how she “created” her children (especially given how they also hammered home the fact that she can’t create, she can just manipulate).
3)Something is DEFINITELY up with Agnes.
4)Yeah, Hayward is a dick. At first I was worried they were going straight up ‘Wanda is a villain’ but it seems like they are at least trying to add some nuance/perspective to the argument, and I think the key (as I think you pointed out last week, or maybe a commenter) is going to be Monica’s grief because I think she will understand what is driving her (and I also think there’s obviously something else going on and it’s not JUST Wanda…I think even she admits she doesn’t totally know what is happening, or at least she didn’t in the start.) And man, I honestly teared up a little at the whole thing going on with the dog. Of course it doesn’t mean she’s not a threat or doing something horrible but there’s more to it. I also have a feeling more is going on with what they were doing to Vision’s body than he is letting on (perhaps THEY were the ones trying to resurrect him/turn him into a weapon).
5)That scene where she tried to roll credits at the end and they just fought straight through it – it reminded me so much of the Too Many Cooks skit that I had to go back and watch it and actually…it’s not a bad analogy. People forced into sitcom roles, mashing of genres, somebody trying to rewrite/cast themselves into the story…
6)My husband and I literally screamed at my computer when the doorbell rang. The funny thing is I had actually guessed it was Pietro, but when they showed him from the back we were both like “HIS HAIR! IT’S THE OTHER PIETRO!”. I’m so glad that for once I wasn’t spoiled because I had NO idea that was coming, aside from a few speculations that maybe she would bring him back in some way, and a few speculations about multiverse stuff.
7)Also, I predicted the title :) I was trying to think about what tv tropes might be used for titles for future episodes and especially in the 80s there were lots of ‘very special episodes’. Too bad I didn’t get a chance to put it in writing beforehand. I wonder what will happen when this show jumps the shark ;)
@23: Do you mean “hinky?”
@1Aeryl – ah, I think we have a lot of the same ideas (including Uncle Jesse), BUT I didn’t even put two and two together and realize that it might be Agnes that is the one ACTUALLY controlling all the minds. I actually am definitely on board with this right now.
A few other thoughts:
I’m also becoming more convinced that there will be an eventual reveal/discovery that the commercial characters are her parents.
I was actually thinking the kids created the dog. I don’t know who killed it, or why, or if it really did just happen to die, though. I also wonder about Wanda’s refusal here – is she just (subconsciously, maybe) trying to raise her kids to handle it better than she has, or did she really not do any of this? I don’t know – some of her dialogue in the ‘real world’ seemed to indicate she was at least partially on board with it.
Also unclear if Hayward is just your average dick who is jumping to conclusions but thinks he is doing the right thing, or if he actually is pulling more strings. So far I’m leaning towards the former.
@27 Well, WHO KNOWS WHAT HE WAS DOING TO VISION’S CORPSE?!?!?!
@28 If he was directing the dissection of Vision’s corpse, and he was trying to hide something he was doing, he’s being more than your average dick, and he’s trying to cover his tracks.
The level of unsettling they pack into just five minutes of show is incredible.
Okay, this is really me just joking around, but I was on some other comment threads where people were speculating other possible crossovers, maybe even from other franchises, and it was getting into kind of joking territory, and then it occurred to me…maybe the Luke level cameo is Luke Skywalker ;)
And then I realized hey, if you really want to go there, they could actually get Sebastian Stan to do it, but of course he’s Bucky, which then made me think of the Halloween episode and you know…Bucky also has a bionic arm. Anyway, now I just think this would be really funny (although obviously there’s no reason for him to be there).
@29 oh yeah, I’m not ruling out something more menacing. Especially as I do find it a little sus how he conveniently had the “secret” footage to show at that very moment. It almost seems TOO obvious though.
I just had a thought – regarding all the debate about if somebody was trying to kill the dog to make a point. I was rewatching the episode and there’s that part where the dog almost gets electrocuted by a socket, which is definitely a weird thing to happen. Was that possibly another indication that Agnes is trying to manipulate the scenario here? She also makes a reference to not being able to ‘control’ children….which might also have some unsettling implications given the lack of children around. The more I think about it the more I think she’s probably the real villain.
Another question I had during the re-watch – how exactly does Vision get into Norm’s head, especially as he doesn’t have the mind stone anymore? I know he has powers that he shows around Wanda, but he’s acting here without her control, and so where would those powers have come from?
Any ideas on who the aerospace engineer is that Monica mentions?
Also, Darcy finally got her coffee ;)
I can’t believe that alt-Pietro’s first line wasn’t “Bet you didn’t see that coming.”
I have to say that was one of the most brilliant rug pulling endings I have seen to any episode of any television series ever.. I also get the feeling Kevin Feige had been dreaming of pulling something like that off with quicksilver ever since Fox put Days of Future Past out the same year as Age of Ultron.
@20 That is an interesting theory, but it would erase a lot of rich backstory that can be mined for these characters.
@Lisamarie I saw one guess that the engineer is Reed Richards, and there seems be a 4 drawn as the logo of the Fantastic Four on the whiteboard behind Monica when she said it.
@33 It was someone quoting that on Twitter that spoiled it for me, though I’d seen the rumors about Evans Peters weeks ago(his Spanish dub voice actor spilled the beans)
@Lisamarie, I also think the answer about the missing town children lies in Agnes line about how you can’t control children. They are too much a loose cannon to maintain the deception.
That means I don’t think Wanda reconstituted the children of the town into her own children. I think Monica has it right, they are her children, created the old fashioned way, her powers just accelerated the process. That is why they have powers themselves.
Weird that raising the dead dog isn’t impossible but is “wrong”. No, okay, good luck finding two minutes in the show that isn’t weird.
Comics Monica Rambeau spent some time as a being composed of light who had to concentrate mentally to be physically solid, so, who knows.
OK wow, so someone on Twitter just pointed out the Hexagon motif continues in Hayward’s office. The pictures on the wall are in a hexagon pattern and rug pattern.
That makes me wonder if the construct Wanda is in was constructed by SWORD using Vision, and Wanda has commandeered it for her own purposes.
@37, I definitely feel we’re getting hints that Monica has picked up some powers during this. Or, as someone suggested above, during the Blip.
Which could be a way to go. Sell it as not EVERYONE who was Blipped gets powers, but 1 in 10 are somehow altered to have them. Could possible be what happens with Peter’s friend Ned, who is a villain in the comics.
I love the fact that they contrived a way to use the word “hex.” Scarlet Witch’s powers were, for many years, described as her “hex powers,” before they changed it to “chaos magic.” It’s a silly nerdy thing, but I love it.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Amusing that they noted within universal that Wanda has no superhero name. Wonder if that’s going to change after this…
Anyway, there are all sorts of things that are pleasing viewers in this series; just hope they can stick the landing halfway decently (won’t mind if they do a little hope or stagger, as long as they don’t face plant).
It just struck me, with all this talk about “Hex” and “Hexes” — if we think about this in terms of magic and sorcery instead of science and infinity stones, a hexagon can describe the outline of a Seal of Solomon, one of the most powerful mystic sigils of containment. Could be the anomaly isn’t creating the sitcom world; it might be the cork in the genie’s bottle…
@39,
Yeah. Those familiar with the comics knew the significance of Monica’s appearance in Captain Marvel and that we could expect to see her adult self as Spectrum at some point in the Present Day.
Exposure to the Stones granted Carol, Wanda, and Pietro their abilities. It stands to reason the Snap may very well be a mechanism for introducing (or mass-activiating) the X-Gene.
“Hexe” is German / Dutch for “a witch”, and “a hex” in English is a witch’s magic spell, typically to the disadvantage of the hexed person, “to hex” being the verb. Since the nineteenth century at least, in English.
@31: I think this was the “Luke level cameo” (which Elizabeth Olsen never described as a “Luke level cameo”. She just answered “yes” when asked if there would be anything similar).
I was so disappointed that Hayward went directly to using deadly force on Wanda. We just met SWORD, and they are already following in the footsteps of SHIELD, corrupted by arrogance.
@38 – I noticed the hex pictures last episode! I didn’t mention it, and I also wasn’t sure if it was just a visual aesthetic thing, or hinted at something else. I’m still hoping Hayward is something other than the smarmy authority figure is actually a villain trope. I was definitely willing to give him the benefit of the doubt regarding his decisions to respect Maria’s wishes as they pertained to newly unsnapped operatives, but he’s stretching that right now.
@40 – my husband laughed out loud at that.
I was thinking Monica got her powers when Wanda blasted her, since in a way it’s indirect exposure to the Stones power. And since the whole anomaly is apparently caused by that same radiation (and they even point it out in this episode)…is it possible that it was caused by being in the Hex, and the other residents may as well? (Hah she ‘hexed’ them!)
I was so disappointed that Hayward went directly to using deadly force on Wanda. We just met SWORD, and they are already following in the footsteps of SHIELD, corrupted by arrogance.
In fairness, we’re seeing SWORD not just after the Snap, but also the death of its founder (i.e. Maria Rambeau). It’s SWORD under new management and I expect things were different under Maria’s tenure.
Hopefully we’ll get to see more of the organization in its prime at some point in flashback or even Cap. Marvel 2.
@34:
I also get the feeling Kevin Feige had been dreaming of pulling something like that off with quicksilver ever since Fox put Days of Future Past out the same year as Age of Ultron.
I also wonder how much of it (if any) is Feige’s response to the Distinguished Competition (i.e. Warner Brothers and DC Entertainment) throwing down the gauntlet (pun intended) last year during the Arroweverse’s “Crisis on Infinite Earths” event.
By crossing over their TV and Cinematic universes (along with the previous DC Film/TV cameos), one could argue WB took the lead for once and opened the door for Marvel to do the same.
Hm….wonder if the Fox Pietro disappears at the end of WandaVision, which then leads into Dr. Strange 2, as Wanda chases him down?
Minor point on Director Hayward – his office in the basementwas in Room 101, which is probably not a good sign.
@49. I doubt it. with the way DC’s crash and burn movie strategy has played out, still mired in Snyderitus, they probably don’t feature at all. More likely is that it was when Marvel tried out the “Most Ambitious Crossover Event In History” tagline for Infinity War and it got memed to death with people posting everything from the Muppets to obscure British and anime crossovers that prompted it. Feige wanted to do something that shut up people who poked fun at it, and I love it. Even though I was firmly in the meme-camp. You think we didn’t do an ambitious crossover, he no doubt said, how about now, not laughing now are you?
@7
[Wanda] is, by any reasonably standard, a terrorist and a monster at this point.
There isn’t enough information to reasonably come to the extreme conclusion with regard to a noted ally. There are too many unknowns, and Heyward is pushing the interpretation that allows him to recover Vision’s body and continue weapons research against his will and testament.
Monica may be overstepping, but she’s acting on her experience. Don’t forget without the snap, this directorship would have been hers. The show is going through great lengths to show us she is more than competent, and has values that put emphasis on the humanity of “Sentient Weapons”. Hey ward’s values are on the “Weapons” part, sentience be damned.
All I have to say is, if those kids don’t end up as the arms of a c-list supervillian I will be very disappointed.
@@@@@53. I’m sure all those brainwashed people really feel warm and friendly to Wanda, and we’ve been told it is all Wanda [so far], so going on what we’ve seen, Wanda is either a terrorist or has committed mass kidnapping, false imprisonment, and assault. So, not a great look whichever way you want to slice it.
As for Monica, nepotism is never a great look to start with so her supposedly being her mother’s handpicked successor to run SWORD is not a great look either. And has the show gone out the way to show how comptetent she is? The show seems to think so, but so far we’ve seen her prodding an anomaly [which resulted in her being sucked in, and she called it, we’re told, a violation]. Which is not a great show of competence right from the off.
When she was blasted out, there was a problem with her medical tests, which she blew off getting retested [in Stargate SG1 that would result in someone hitting an alarm and those tests being done or else], even though she was mindwiped and physically altered. She’s shown a disturbing amount of insight into Wanda’s world since, unprompted and suspiciously so, is automatically on Wanda’s side, all of which are big red flags that the mental tampering is still active and she is compromised. She’s shown reckless gun safety. And she got really pissy when an alternative Avenger, Captain Marvel, was mentioned as possibly more powerful than Wanda. None of that exactly screams competence. The show endorses her because she is the protagonist, and we’ve got protagonist centric morality going on, but that is about it.
I’m sure Heyward will be a villain because of the same writer fiat, but his calls have all been, in-universe, correct so far. Even the drone missile strike, which is supposed to be the big strike against him, he only ordered after a communication attempt with Wanda failed and she turned on her glowing red eyes of doom [check the scene] and he, ostensibly anyway, does have a duty to those people in the town to free them of their abuser and use of force is proportional to that duty. Oh, and Monica being an “ally” to Wanda? During the confrontation scene outside the barrier, Wanda was about to blast Monica again before she turned on him. So, again, not a great mark towards Monica’s judgement.
SWORD studying Vision’s corpse? I would hope they would be. After Ultron, they ought to be doing stuff like that for the sake of the rest of the population, especially since Tony retired after Infinity War. Studying a body isn’t the same as necromancing it, not even in the same league. Like I say though, he will probably will turn out to be a baddie, and Monica right all along, but so far the show is not earning that. I love the show, it is fascinating and enjoyable, and Olsen and Bettany have superb chemistry, and Doctor Darcy and Agent Woo need their own spin off, but it is not earning the labels of goodie and baddie for Monica and Heyward.
I’m sure all those brainwashed people really feel warm and friendly to Wanda,
They’re not feeling warm and friendly toward somebody, but whether it’s to Wanda is not clear.
I’m sure Heyward will be a villain because of the same writer fiat, but his calls have all been, in-universe, correct so far. Even the drone missile strike, which is supposed to be the big strike against him, he only ordered after a communication attempt with Wanda failed
After one minute of conversation? ABSOLUTELY NOT. Lethal force, AS ALWAYS, is a move when all other methods have failed—which is not the case here. And as a hostage negotiation tactics, it’s straight up incompetent. No, this is a straight up villain move.
SWORD studying Vision’s corpse? I would hope they would be.
Hm. For a chance at resurrection? Maybe. But have they even thought of that?
I don’t think your arguments are as strong as you think they are.
Lethal force depends on the situation. Yes, after a single failed attempt it can be justified, like maybe if it over a thousand people at risk, being actively harmed and violated, and you have their violater in your sights, and they are powering up to do harm again right in front of you. Then yes, it is completely justified, in fact it would be justified without even the attempt at communication here. Heyword in endorsing an attempt to communicate is already going above and beyond. The mission is not to get through to Wanda or rescue Wanda, Monica by her own statement has already said “It’s All Wanda“ and said that it was Wanda in her mind, that changes the mission to retrieve the victims at all costs. There is an immediate and clear and pressing danger to them. Wanda is acceptable collateral at that point.
And to be clear, SWORD should have been studying Visions body to learn what made him tick and to gather information that could help a similar Ultron level synthetic stop ticking if need be. That is their job.
You want my arguments to not be strong? Take it up with the showrunners, they set the scene here. Once you set aside the natural affection for a designated protagonist, that is what is left.
When she was blasted out, there was a problem with her medical tests, which she blew off getting retested
They weren’t telling her what those tests said, she had to snatch the XRay out of the technicians hand. You aren’t going to get cooperative patients without honesty.
[in Stargate SG1 that would result in someone hitting an alarm and those tests being done or else],
Who cares? And besides that, invasive medical procedures against patient consent are typically considered unethical.
even though she was mindwiped and physically altered. She’s shown a disturbing amount of insight into Wanda’s world since, unprompted and suspiciously so, is automatically on Wanda’s side, all of which are big red flags that the mental tampering is still active and she is compromised.
I’ll give you this, but none of this indicates that Hayward is correct in how he is dealing with this situation.
And she got really pissy when an alternative Avenger, Captain Marvel, was mentioned as possibly more powerful than Wanda.
OMG her reaction to that has nothing do with Wanda’s superiority being challenged, and everything to do with how she feels Auntie Carol abandoned her and her mother, and left her mother to die alone. That moment had more to do with where things will go in the future of the MCU than it does this moment.
People aren’t Team Monica because she’s been telegraphed as the hero, but because she’s trying to get to the truth, and Hayward isn’t and all his actions indicate he’s hiding stuff.
There is an immediate and clear and pressing danger to them.
This is completely wrong. You’ve picked up a lot of jargon without understanding what it means. Let’s grant that Wanda is the outright villain. There is no clear and present danger. You are in a hostage situation. But they are, at present, healthy and not in danger of life or safety. There is a very large possibility that negotiation can end the situation. That can take minutes or take hours. THAT’S WHY THERE ARE SPECIALISTS IN THAT IN SWAT TEAMS. Going to lethal force within a minute is tactical incompetence in the highest degree.
You don’t have an argument at all here.
Oh, and one other thing. Wanda has been established as having telepathic powers. That’s not necessarily the same as mind control. She MAY have that power, but I don’t think that’s been established, as I don’t think the examples in Ultron quite escalates to that level.
That may be sloppiness from the writers…or that may be a clue. We’ll see about that
From the character’s point of view, Wanda is actively torturing people. If you don’t think that is an immediate, present, and active danger, then we have nothing more to say. Wanda is an active shooter now, not just a passive hostage taker. She is, from the character’s point of view -and remember not to bring out of universe knowledge that the characters are necessarily not privvy to into it, because that is not what we’re discussing here- someone that needs stopped immediately.
And specifically @58, those tests need to be done to ensure Monica is who says she is. She is a government agent who has just been inside a reality rewriting situation. Her tests coming up unclear and her blowing them off is a big old red flag, and the show ought to have either addressed that somehow or not had that scene at all. We all know, out of universe, that it is Monica, but in-universe there should be real worries that whoever or whatever it is walking around a highly sensitive area with all sorts of sensitive information, is not Monica. Because their own tests suggest that something is wrong and the subject refuses to be retested. Who cares? The characters should care, that is who.
And Heyward, the director of a secret government intelligence service is keeping secrets and has more in play that he isn’t telling the characters? Well stop the fucking presses, that would an unprecedented thing for the director of a secret intelligence service to be doing, unprecedented I tell you.
Quote from Agatha Heterodyne Girl Genius: “it could be a really evil town…” (Agatha has got enthusiastic and designed a circus “merry-go-round” that could pound one flat.) Maybe they are all secretly Hydra or whatever. Maybe they had kinds, but LMD ones.
I mentioned Kulan Gath, commenting on a previous episode: both he and comics Wanda either intended or carried out alteration of the whole world to be their magicked slave domain, not just a little bit of it. You would want to stop that. Using major weaponry to stop things like that is broadly what it is for. It is not a happy ending in a superhero story, but it is a realistic response. Also: Lying to a suspected miscreant until you can get them out of harm-causing’s way is not superhero-y, you may not look up to the person who does it, but telling lies is a lot less bad than other things that we’re seeing happen.
@57:
And to be clear, SWORD should have been studying Visions body to learn what made him tick and to gather information that could help a similar Ultron level synthetic stop ticking if need be. That is their job.
Yeah. Vision was the most advanced human-built artificial creation alive between Stark and Hydra tech, Helen Cho’s synthetic tissue, and the Wakandan Vibranium — not to mention housing an Infinity Stone for 3 years.
But we’re also still missing a key piece of puzzle here: How did SWORD acquire Vision’s body at all?
This was a loose end that bugged me even during Endgame. I can’t imagine the Avengers would’ve left Vision’s body behind in Wakanda after the Snap.
Did Tony or Banner try and repair him at any point during the five-year jump? Did the Wakanda Design Group take custody since he died on their soil?
Was Vision being stored at the Avengers compound and did SWORD acquire it under cover of the clean-up after HQ was destroyed by 2014 Thanos?
It just feels like this missing link in the chain is crucial to the gap between Endgame and WandaVision — and I mean beyond just that glimpse we saw in the surveillance footage.
Hayward knows what directions Vision left for his body. That suggests those directions were read and followed. My guess is somebody did some grave robbing.
Sue: You could get modems on a C64 and connect to BBS systems that had email; This was quite common before the internet.
Another problem with the shoot immediately plan is what happens to everyone if Wanda dies? (Assuming Wanda is primarily responsible for what’s going on). It could kill everyone or leave them with their modified memories and personalities. Not to mention what would have happened if they’d only injured her. Or hit the kids standing next to her. There are a lot of unknowns which makes escalating in this situation particularly reckless.
Hayward keeping secrets is understandable (though you’d think from their history they’d be a bit more careful about it) but he actively lied to Monica about the drone being armed. I think that shows he knows he’s crossing a line.
61 said:
Uh-huh… except in this case “powering up to do harm” is blowing up an unmanned drone. Right now, the situation inside the bubble is weird, but the bubble itself is stable and is actively keeping to itself. It’s clear Wanda is central to what’s happening, but it also appears she is not in conscious control. What do you think happens if she dies? Does it all magically go back to normal? Does it stay exactly as it was at the moment of her death? Does the whole place implode? Are those thousand people brain dead?
Competence demands that the responder have considered and balanced the risks, and chosen a path of action that both has a chance of success and doesn’t actively make things worse. Heyward’s attempted lethal force, delivered after actively and intentionally misrepresenting the intelligence he’d received does neither.
Nothing of what he does after arriving on the scene is the right call, not because of “writer’s edicts” or imminent danger, but because it is reckless and careless. The response you’re lauding is like if a school bus full of kids missed its arrival time, was spotted speeding erratically on the highway, and then the police decided to tried to shoot the driver while it’s still moving. It’s stupid because the most likely outcome is that it makes things catastrophically worse.
Hayward keeping secrets is understandable (though you’d think from their history they’d be a bit more careful about it) but he actively lied to Monica about the drone being armed.
Generally, when you lead a unit into the field, you brief your entire team on your strategy and tactics. Pulling a cowboy move like not telling your lead contact person what you intend to do is a recipe for failure of the overall mission, and a good way to get your own people killed.
Personally, I wonder if is actually Wanda we see in all scenes with Wanda. Either due to someone impersonating her in some scenes or split personality. As others have said, there are a lot of discrepancies between things Wanda says and appears to be do vs what she says and does in other places.
Examples: this whole sitcom reality appears to be about bringing Vision back to life… but Wanda tells the boys she can’t or shouldn’t do that. The Wanda who steps outside seems to indicate she is running the show inside vs in the dialogue with Vision she sincerely doesn’t seem to be the one who set this all up. Etc
Also: was this bubble created as a trap for Wanda but her abilities are stating to break it down. She is breaking character and breaking the sitcom world’s rules more and more (not hiding powers, etc, rewinding time, etc). At the same time, she seems sincere that she didn’t create the situation. And she seems genuinely surprised by the doorbell and Pietro but accepts that this person who looks nothing like her brother is actually her brother
So either this is leading to a split personality reveal (hopefully not), someone is impersonating her in certain scenes to set her up and make her look bad, or something else is going on to justify these contradictions.
Agnes clearly has something going on as she seems less mind controlled than others. And we haven’t seen Dottie on screen since episode 2… have we?
I watched all of WV (at least what’s been released) over the weekend and it’s pretty amazing, crystallizing around this episode. Some thoughts:
* The Family Ties painting was kind of amazing.
* All the accent windows being stained glass is also kind of amazing. I don’t know where that stylistic design originated (whether in Family Ties or Full House or some other sitcom) and I kind of wish I had more stained glass in my life. (If I had to guess, it was originally a choice made by set designers to let in exterior light without revealing the exterior of the house was a constructed set.)
* I really like the idea that Agnes is the one who is pulling the strings. Her moment of breaking character being so radically different from Vision’s office colleague seems important as does the attempt and success at killing the dog (both situations in Agnes’ locale.) Perhaps the Agnes entity is trying to provoke Wanda into true resurrection (Vision’s reincarnation seems to be a facade.) Wanda does actually seem to be resisting this idea as she tries to talk to the kids in very special episode scripting. She’s talking to them about the dead staying dead but it seems like she’s mostly talking to herself.
* Pulling Quicksilver from an alternate time-line universe really has to be a 3rd party entity. There’s no way her internal desires would bring that one over. If it were her, it’d be far more likely to bring her own brother back to facsimile life a la Vision. Even if she did get a version from an alternate time-line it’d be her brother where he didn’t die. There’d be no reason for her wish fulfillment to imagine her brother based solely on his powers.
* Personal guess is that the only current person who can solve dimensional hole punching is Dr. Strange, so hoping he shows up soon!
It read way more as Family Ties than Full House, from the opening song and credits over a painted portrait and the living room and kitchen.
Some people’s skulls are a lot more resistant to x-rays than other people’s skulls, he said from personal experience.
Regarding the Internet and e-mail being available in an 80s-era workplace… it first struck me as off (my instinct was an error intentional by the writers) but it seems just possible. The Internet so to speak began when ARPANET was combined with Defense Data Network over a TCP/IP protocol in 1983. The term Internet had already been used in some way since 1974, though it was sort of a small-i “internet” referring to networks combined in this manner. It was not applied to the newly forming global network until the late 80s. So the term “internet” is iffy, but it could have been used to mean “the internet we’re connected to” rather than “The Internet”. The other obstacle is its presence in a commercial operation so soon–however I would imagine it would have been possible in the 80s under a defense contract, which has implications for what Vision’s workplace actually does.
(very late response)
“email” in the sense of electronic messages *within* an organization goes much further back*. It was a very logical feature of any centralized (mainframe) computing system with any kind end-user text interface. Usage/penetration would have varied depending on the technical sophistication of the employees, but Vision’s company is clearly a tech-oriented company and would skew towards adoption. What arpanet and “the internet” gave us was (easier) interconnectivity with outside organizations.
In this particular case, I assumed that Darcy had ‘hacked in’ to the internal system, because she’s just that awesome.
On the question of C64 + TV and email, I was 100% doing email with precisely that system 1983, connected to my college mainframe. (Also instant messaging with GEnie.)
* My dad worked for a tech company had mainframe-hosted internal email (although they didn’t call it that) and sold it along with other “time-sharing” services. I remember him using it from at least the mid-70s (could have been in use earlier, I was young).
@73 I’d say what Vision’s workplace actually does will adjust to whatever the plot or joke requires, by authorial intent.
It’s somewhat interesting that Vision HAS a workplace outside and independent of her immediate perception range. If Vision had tried the “show me your real mind” move in her presence, it might not have gone well.
@75 Yeah….that independence is a clue. It was a mystery until now, when we learned Wanda took his body.
And that might explain his retention of his personality. His programming and personality couldn’t have all been in the Mind Gem. It had to have basis in the memory banks and hardware in his body, which DID remain. The Mind Gem was the key to his sentience, true, but they were working to replicate that, so it’s theoretically possible for Vision to live again.
(Which makes Hayward’s decision about his body even worse)(though it does make questions about Vision’s living will even stickier…what does “do not revive” even mean, if you could restore his health by replicating the mind gem’s function?)
I’m not entirely certain the purpose of the Hex is to bring Vision back, I think it was to create the twins.
I’m also pretty sure Vision’s “work” is what is powering the Hex. Like Bitcoin mining.
@75 Another question is how much control does Wanda have over Vision’s mind. He’s obviously poking holes in her attempts to manipulate him, but on the other hand she did convince him to go to work thinking it was Monday. Perhaps whatever she’s doing to him can’t work when she is either too obvious about it or Vision is already “off script “
Usenet was around in the early 80s, too. The WWW didn’t arrive until the early 90’s, but there was lots of emailing and ftping before that.
I first used email in 1989 at college via Usenet. (Which is apparently the last year Family Ties was on the air.)
I ran an email listserve that began in the early 90s (I wanna say 1993 or 1994). And I began a web page (which still exists) in the early or mid 90s (internally at least 1997, but probably a year or two before then….didn’t learn to keep records until a bit after I started)
Called it!
Right back when Marvel got the licenses for the X-men back, I said that the way to merge the two universes would be via Wanda (who helpfully never showed up in the Fox universe), effectively a reverse-“No More Mutants“.
Now I’m off to do my smug dance :)
Oh yes, and Sparky was the name of Vision’s dog, when he, er, created a whole family to surround him as a way of dealing with grief… They’re riffing on a lot of different comics history here.