It was only a matter of time before we reached the talking-to-the-camera-crew episode.
Summary
Wanda wakes up and cannot figure out how to keep caring or making things happen. The world is on the fritz, items and settings changing at random, and she can’t figure out why. The boys are worried about her, and Agnes shows up to hurry them away so Wanda can have some time for herself. At Agnes’s house, Billy says that he likes it because it’s quiet there and Agnes’s mind is quieter than everyone else’s. Wanda is talking to the camera crew about how things are unraveling, and someone behind the camera asks if this is maybe “what she thinks she deserves.” Wanda is stunned to be asked that question.
Hayward is planning to destroy the entire Westview area to get to his real mission, which turns out to be Vision; Jimmy gets the files Darcy sent along and finds out that SWORD was planning to reconstruct him for their own purposes. Monica and Jimmy meet up with a SWORD officer named Major Goodner (Rachael Thompson), a friend of her mother’s who is loyal to her rather than Hayward and has brought space equipment to get through the Hex barrier. Monica tries, but the barrier is stronger now and starts to alter the space rover she’s driving. She exits the vehicle, but decides that she’s going through anyway, and pushes in, rewriting her cells yet another time. She gains powers.
Vision finds Darcy and lifts the mind control so that they can speak. They steal a truck, intent on driving to Wanda to see if they can talk to her, but obstacles keep appearing in their way as they drive. Vision assumes that it’s Wanda doing this because she doesn’t want to see him. Eventually, he decides that he is getting there regardless and phases out of the truck to fly to Wanda, leaving Darcy behind.
Monica tries to confront Wanda, who insists that Monica is a liar. Monica notes that the only lies she ever told Wanda were the ones Wanda gave her to recite, that she understands that Wanda is grieving because she is too, and that she wants to help her get through this. Agnes shows up and tells Monica that it’s time to leave Wanda alone, taking Wanda back to her home. Wanda notices that the boys don’t appear anywhere about, but Agnes suggests that they’re probably playing in the basement. Wanda heads downstairs to find them, instead finding a stone lair full of magical objects. Agnes comes down and shuts the door with powers of her own, asking Wanda if she really thought that she was the only magical person in town. Only her name isn’t actually Agnes—it’s Agatha Harkness. A new credits sequence rolls, revealing that she has been behind everything we’re seeing, disguising herself as a helpless Westview neighbor to throw everyone off the scent.
A mid-credits sequence shows Monica trying to access Agatha’s basement through a cellar door, when Pietro shows up and scolds her for snooping.
Commentary
Didn’t want to spoil the reveal ahead of time, but this was assumed from the outset, before the show even started airing—reason being that Agatha Harkness was an important figure in the comics where Wanda was concerned, particularly within the plot concerning her kids and Vision. For those who haven’t heard the name yet, Agatha is a witch—in fact, she’s one of the witches from the Salem witch trials in the comics, because of course she is. That was the deal with her witch costume in the last episode, basically a big glaring sign to anyone who suspected.
Now the important thing here is that in the comics, Agatha actually helps Wanda to work through trauma and also gives her some instruction on how to better wield her powers. She’s a wild card, but she’s not a full-out “bad guy”, more a morally gray character who can go in a number of directions. So is that what’s happening here? It looks as though she’s being set up as more of an antagonist in this scenario, both due to her confrontation with Monica and the hilarious Munsters-esque send-up credits sequence. The gasp-shock-horror of it all—oh no, it’s Agatha! She’s pulling the strings and screwing with everything! She even killed Sparky the dog!
It’s worth pointing out that she did actually kill someone’s dog because, as it has been revealed, Wanda’s not making things out of nothing, only altering them. That dog’s dead.
There’s still a lot we don’t know, like what this means for Pietro and his involvement, and whether or not there are even bigger players at work here. And of course, we’re not certain where Agatha’s involvement in this charade started either. She might have been the driving force behind everything, but the credits indicate that she arrived at some point after Wanda constructed her sitcom bubble. We’re not sure if we can take that at face value, but I personally think it’s more interesting if Agatha turns out to be an interfering force rather than an instigating one.
Okay, but what did I say earlier about that footage of Wanda collecting Vision’s body? I said that was shady stuff going down, and now we find out that SWORD was planning on reconstructing Vision and what—making him into their lackey? Super curious as to how they sold the idea of that project to various government agencies, unless this whole thing is top secret because, you know, it’s deeply immoral to resurrect a dead being just because you consider it to be some form of property rather than an autonomous lifeform, but I digress.
Buy the Book
Fugitive Telemetry
The sitcom conceit here plays into the talking-to-the-camera style sitcoms we’ve had in the past fifteen-ish years or so, which was popularized by The Office. But the version we’re seeing here is based more heavily in Modern Family’s schtick, which is mostly just fun for Agatha’s side comment about biting kids. Other than that, the conceit has a largely disturbing bent to it, which I appreciate; this particular breed of sitcom has always been incredibly off-putting to me since its inception because there’s an inherent cruelty built into them. By making them half-documentary style, having the characters break their own “fourth wall” within the context of your show, you’re making it clear that everyone knows they’re putting it on for the camera—and you’re deliberately piquing the audience’s curiosity on what they’re not seeing, what’s being edited out.
You have to hand it to the writers here for taking the concept and letting it sit in that uncomfortable space whenever the frame device is used. Not one of the asides with Wanda is actually funny, and Vision’s aren’t really either. They’ve brought this conceit to a far more natural place of horror, and we’re the monsters in viewing it—gawking at these people’s lives while they literally deteriorate in front of us.
But here’s a thing to consider—the broadcast is no longer going out, according to Hayward’s people, which means that it’s continuing on the inside purely for Wanda’s benefit. Which brings me back around to the question about how the conceit was created, and who it’s ultimately for: Is this really just Agatha’s doing, her suggestion?
I did like that Monica’s friend, Major Goodner, turned out to be a woman with SWORD space gear, though. (People were hoping real hard for Reed Richards, which seemed like too big of a reveal to shove into this show—he’d be a major distraction, as a cameo would go.) And that this is about people helping Monica due to their relationships with her mother, thereby continuing to give Monica that connection that she’s missing due to her own grief. On the other hand, the Hex just transformed what was probably millions of dollars of space equipment in one attempted drive-through. Whoops.
But that leads to Monica making the choice to go through the barrier unprotected, rewriting her cells yet again and resulting in—superpowers! (After we hear a bunch of callback lines, mostly from Captain Marvel, featuring her mother and Carol Danvers and Nick Fury and little Monica, which is extremely affecting.) Because you knew it was gonna happen. We’ve got a funny thing happening here, though, where all the powers are different colors: Wanda’s are red, Monica’s blue, and Agatha’s purple. And we’ve got our first post-credits sequence with Pietro coming up on Monica, who’s trying to figure out a way to get inside Agatha’s house. So I guess we’ll find out where that leads next week.
Where’d the kids end up, though?
Thoughts and Asides:
- Coming back to Sparky the dog (because I gotta), there’s an extra level of humor here if you watched Parks and Rec and remember Hahn’s role as Jennifer Barkley: When she’s running her smear campaign against Leslie Knope on behalf of Bobby Newport, she suggests that Leslie’s fiddling with the city budget has shut down the animal shelter, making her “a dog murderer”.
- Within the first credits sequence we get a brief flicker of a message that reads “I know what u are doing Wanda” and that’s not freaky at all. Who is that message coming from, though? Is it Agatha? Vision? Wanda herself? Someone else?
- And the ads keep getting less and less opaque, this one parodying all the awful pharmaceutical ads we see these days with an anti-depressant medication called Nexus. It preemptively echoes Monica’s words about coming to terms with her grief as her “truth”, but of course, that moment is cut short by Agatha.
- It’s interesting that the circus bit with Vision and Darcy is fully realized with everything moving about because Wanda was having trouble keeping everything running outside her immediate sphere before now. Is this part of the reason things are destabilizing—she’s putting out too much power to other parts of the Hex? Is it Agatha?
- It’s been said before, but Darcy has a ton of information on the exact specifics of what happened with Vision and the Avengers, way more than you’d expect from the person in a largely civilian sphere—where did she get all the info? Is the public receiving it, or is this stuff she maybe heard from Thor at one point?
- There’s a cricket sound that plays around Agatha’s house that lets you know horror stuff is about to go down. I don’t know how to describe it, but it’s always the crickets that you hear before bad stuff happens—a very specific sound effect. Witchy crickets.
We’ve only got two more episodes, and it’s possible that the sitcom conceit is over and done now. Guess we’ll find out next week.
Emmet Asher-Perrin would like to watch the entire series from Agatha’s perspective now, thanks. You can bug them on Twitter, and read more of their work here and elsewhere.
Agnes turneing out to be Agatha Harkness was, as you said, not a surprise. We’d all gueessed.
But with the confirmation and display of her magicial abilities, I wonder if that’s the launchpad for bringing Wanda into the Doctor Strange sequel.
This show is… so disappointing. It feels more like a trivia contest than a story–who can guess what’s coming next based on obscure comics references? I don’t feel like you have to hand it to the writers here–they didn’t make the sitcom framework funny, but they also didn’t make it biting enough to really be uncomfortable. It just came off as bad.
In order for any of the sarcasm to have bite though, we would have to have a much stronger idea of who Wanda and Vision are. Not only do we not know much about them or their relationship, but neither do they. There have been a few instances of people in the MCU effectively losing their memories of relationships with other people–Quill and Gamora, Danvers and Rambeau, and now Wanda and Vision. But in the latter two examples, they shoot themselves in the foot by not showing us the relationship first. How is a viewer supposed to interpret mourning for a relationship they didn’t experience? All you are left to work with is the skill of the actors. They have good actors, but it’s not enough.
(We’ll see how they handle the other example eventually, I guess.)
If it had been a snake…
After the Halloween episode last week I had actually crossed Agnes aka Agatha Harkness from the suspect list. Her pleas for help toward Vision were just so convincing. I had honesty begun suspecting Pietro. What a great red hering.
Reed Richards didn’t show up, but we still got an FF connection, because in the comics, Agatha first appeared as young Franklin Richards’ babysitter. Really.
Kudos to everyone who predicted Monica getting powers, Agnes being Agatha, and SWORD’s aim being to resurrect Vision. The collective wisdom of Marvel fans is not to be trifled with.
THAT, unless I am totally off the mark, was a cicada which are infinitely more gross and upsetting up close and personal than crickets particularly if one encountered one indoors.
Ok, so the thing I noticed, and this may be unique to my TV, is that during the scene where Wanda is getting milk there is apparently background sound I wasn’t noticing. Because, with my TV if you rewind the show it temporarily turns on CC. And while Wanda is pouring the milk and there is no talking, there was nonetheless CC displaying. It’s worth looking at if you have that feature.
I don’t question at all that Darcy knows what happened in Wakanda. In the five years between snaps, the surviving Avengers would have given statements and interviews, there would be news investigations (a 60 Minutes special and an Errol Morris documentary), sub-committee hearings and whatnot. Plus, she has an in at SHIELD and SWORD, and most likely visited Thor in New Asgard … and I really want a Marvel One Shot of her and Korg drinking beer and hunting down Noobmaster69 in Fortnite.
I’m still pretty sure that Pietro is ultimately going to be revealed to be Mephisto,and that he’s the string puller here. Mephisto has his own reality bending/multiverse-traversing powers (One More Day, anyone) and provides a direct connection to Dr. Strange.
So Agatha conjured up this Pietro so it isn’t the Quicksilver from XMen…. but but … why does this manifestation look like the Quicksilver from that universe? She must have got the image from somewhere or perhaps more specifically someone? Perhaps a cohort who is trying to break through the Multiverse? Maybe one with a family connection to Quicksilver, one known for wearing a particular sort of helmet and able to manipulate metal?
@7:
I don’t question at all that Darcy knows what happened in Wakanda. In the five years between snaps, the surviving Avengers would have given statements and interviews, there would be news investigations (a 60 Minutes special and an Errol Morris documentary), sub-committee hearings and whatnot.
Exactly. Endgame made clear that Thanos was public knowledge to the civilian population after the time skip.
We saw it with Steve’s support group and Cassie Lang told her father after their reunion (albeit off-screen since he knew who Thanos was by the time he got to the compound).
I love the way that this show has progressed! And we finally get to see Monica get her powers! Now, the big question is “What exactly are her powers in the MCU?”
It’s hard to believe they’ll give her the full Captain Marvel/Photon/Spectrum powerset. Maybe it will be more aligned with the powerset she displayed after initially losing her powers when she conducted herself across the ocean in that whole Leviathan mess (long story). She came back with a more physical based powerset, manipulating more of a mechanical/kinetic energy moreso than various energy waves.
Regardless of what her powers end up being, this has been a moment I’ve been waiting for since the first early rumors of a Captain Marvel showing up in the MCU!
This episode is also staring to reinforce a theory of mine, that WandaVision has a lot to do with powerful entities trying to access and use the remaining energy of the Infinity Stones, dissipated as it may be. It’s always been weird that Wanda’s powers come from the Mind Stone (which is yellow) but that her energy signature is red, along the lines of the Reality stone. And in this series, she is now able to warp her local reality with the red energy signature often prevalent in larger and more noticeable ways. Now, Agatha/Agnes is able to do “magical” things, and her power signature is purple, like the Power stone. And of course, Monica’s power signature is Blue, similar to the Space stone that powered the Carol Danvers’ Captain Marvel (although it looks like a lighter shade).
Final point about the Infinity Stone connection: after the first run of the credits, one of the last images is that of two wedding rings connected together, like a sideways “8.” or the infinity sign.
Anyway, really curious to see how things continue to unfold.
@6 — I noticed the same thing — I was watching with subtitles turned on, and there were captions that didn’t match anything I was hearing on the audio track. It looked like it was a radio broadcast or TV audio that was playing in the background of the scene?
Did anyone notice that one of Wanda’s twins was on milk carton (When soy milk turned to cow milk and before it turned to glass bottle). Its an Easter egg for something. Does that mean that twins are someone’s kids kidnapped, brainwashed and transformed on genetic level to Wanda’s, so that when Hex is undone they go back to their families till they discover their powers and “remember” Wanda? Or is it a premonition that Agatha (and possibly her co-conspirator) will kidnap the twins and both Wanda (and Vision?) will be searching for them in what’s coming next (Dr Strange 2 and Young Avengers)?
It occurred to me that another possible explanation for the signal’s disappearance is that the sitcom world has entered the modern era – no more broadcast signals, only digital, hi-def ones. Maybe they need to check for wifi? =)
@11,
Regardless of what her powers end up being, this has been a moment I’ve been waiting for since the first early rumors of a Captain Marvel showing up in the MCU!
Yeah, anyone versed in the comics knew that introducing Carol would open the door for bringing in Monica (and Kamala Khan). Like Cassie Lang in the Ant-Man films, we understood the significance of Monica’s minor role in the 2019 film.
The question of interest has been how they would revisit and re-integrate the now-adult Monica into the narrative in the Present Day and I’ve liked the road they’ve taken here in WandaVision.
@Alan: Yeah, I’m wondering if Agatha will be used as a bridge to the FF.
There’s a scene on Modern Family where one of the dads makes an amazing basketball shot and frantically tries to repeat it so he can get it on camera. It’s probably the most obvious illustration that the show isn’t a “mockumentary” – there’s no actual camera crew around for him to get the footage from.
This is The Office.. not Modern Family
Loved Agatha’s Munsteresque theme song, almost as much as I loved the fact that Monica’s costuming under the pressure suit makes a passable superhero costume. Oh,and “Agnes” remark about a suspicious mole on her back — a witches mark, perhaps?
So, I actually called Darcy as showing up as an escape artist in the circus.
@11: Even moreso than the wedding rings, the book in Agatha’s basement had two sets of double rings on it which looked more like a proper infinity symbol. And obviously the hexagons come from the seals above the pillars near the ceiling, each of which appears to have a different symbol inside of it. I’d already been connecting the hexagons to the Infinity Stones in my mind as well, because in the Bewitched episode, the hexagon shape is represented by the cartoon stars as the points. Six points, six stones. So I still wonder if the breaking the seal/ floating about infinity power thing somehow plays into this.
And what is happening with the talking to the camera asides? Are they physically changing position, or is it in their heads? Because Vision realizes he shouldn’t be in a chair talking, and gets up and starts walking away, but then he’s back in the truck where we last saw him with Darcy before he phases and flies away. And if it’s physical, what’s Darcy doing? Because for as much as Vision has been “waking up” and breaking out of the Hex’s control, this version of Vision is still ultimately a part of it. He doesn’t remember his pre-Westview life. So it makes sense that he would still conform to the conceits of the show just as much as Wanda does, or the twins do despite being “unable” to be controlled. But in theory, Darcy should be completely free–though I do find it odd that Darcy, given her character, would stop at a red light on an empty road in this situation, or not drive on the grass to get around the other obstacles.
@21, thank you for noting the hexagonal framing around the mystic sigils, a detail I’d missed. I’m going to claim half-calling that one, as I’d previously speculated that the hex shape might represent the Seal of Solomon, as in containment magic.
I wonder if the commercial for Nexus is a reference to Man-Thing’s Nexus of Realities, which is, among other things, a multiversal portal. Don’t know how it migrated to New Jersey from the Everglades, but what the hell, MCU, different universe, I get it.
What if the mailman is Mephisto (or otherwise involved somehow)? He keeps showing up at significant moments…
Hm. Is Agatha playing the role that Modred the Mystic played as a herald for Chton? Either wittingly or unwittingly?
So here’s a fun theory: We have a bunch of people affected by, or represented by, an Infinity Stone. So far, we’ve seen…
Vision – Yellow – Mind Stone
Wanda Maximoff – Red – Reality Stone
Monica Rambeau – Blue – Space Stone
Agatha Harkness – Purple – Power Stone
So what’s left? =)
Doctor Strange – Green – Mind Stone
It’s his to protect, and he’s obviously connected to Wanda now, as those details about the next movie have come out. So should we expect at least a cameo in the finale to connect to the movie?
The only wild card is:
??? – Orange – Soul Stone
I’ll take a wild guess that this will be the real villain here. Unless there’s a huge misdirect, who would one associate with orange (flames) and…souls?
Et tu, Senor “Scratch”y?
@22 My first thought when seeing it was that he commercial was clearly referencing the Nexus of Realities. A lot of the dialog in the commercial could be construed that way. It could be a feint, but I’m thinking it was a shout-out.
We still don’t know who Monica was referring to as her engineer friend. The actress said in article I read today that people will be really excited by the reveal. So it seems Major Goodner was only responsible for transporting and preparing it in the field. Given the connection of Harkness, it could be Reed Richards, but I think Blue Marvel is just as likely, given his relationship with Monica in the comics.
I’ve also been waiting for Doctor Strange to show up since the show started, since we’ve known for a while that WandaVision ties very firmly into his next movie. Now, with Agatha Harkness present, and the magical aspects made fully explicit, I think he’ll feature in the finale.
I have to admit that in some ways, Agnes as Agatha felt…anticlimactic due to all the theorizing (which I kind of wanted to stay away from but couldn’t help myself). But on the other hand, I would have no idea who Agatha Harkness was otherwise, so without that knowledge the reveal wouldn’t really have meant anything to me (aside I guess from Agatha being behind it, although I might have guessed that due to her behavior anyway). However, I had no idea she’d get such a delightful song! I loved the aesthetic of the basement, and since purple is my favorite color, I loved the purple theming (and especially her outfit in this show) and that cool purple dress you only really get to see for a second or two before it morphs into her 50s dress.
However I have a feeling that there’s still something in the wings for the last two episodes. I’m definitely curious as to Pietro’s deal – was Evan Peters really just stunt casting, or maybe even a red herring/diversion? Or do they just want us to think that for now?
I hope the kids are okay! I thought I saw something like a blood spattered tarp in the basement but it could have been the lighting. I was also wondering if Agnes is the kind of witch who ‘eats’ children (or feasts on magic), hence the commercial in the last episode. And I really felt for them (and Wanda) during the beginning when she’s breaking down and not able to give them the assurance/stability they are looking for. She definitely seemed on the verge of accepting her ‘truth’ (she was shown taking some pills right before Monica showed up; perhaps a nod to the commercial?) until Agnes interfered.
@25: I’ve been trying to line up the colors too; but since Wanda’s powers also came from the Mind Stone, and not the Reality Stone, that’s the piece that doesn’t seem to fit–though she does seem to have more Reality Stone-like powers in WandaVision that she can’t explain. At any rate, orange is a mix of red and yellow, so maybe Billy for the Soul Stone.
@28: When Agnes said, “I actually did bite a kid once,” I immediately thought of gingerbread children.
RE: The Nexus: I’m not familiar with the comics Nexus, but I thought of the Star Trek one where you get whatever you want. Surprise crossover! Picard left a piece of himself behind like Guinan, and that echo becomes the MCU Professor X!
I don’t really have much to say because this episode ends in such a cliffhanger that you kinda feel in limbo, IMO.
Kathryn Hahn’s vocals in her song are amazing.
So is Monica Photon or Spectrum? I was first thinking Photon, but with the emphasis on how her vision changes visual spectrum, well…
Is the Mailman Ralph? Like an automaton that Agatha powers that can wander the neighborhood at will to spy for her? Because the way it followed Wanda and Agnes down the sidewalk made me feel that way.
An old sobriquet for the devil is “Old Scratchy” and I wonder if that doesn’t signify something about Agatha’s rabbit, which got the creep focus along with the cicada on the curtain.
While the show indicates that Agatha is messing with the construct, it didn’t definitively answer who Norm’s “her” is. I hope the next episode does.
I thought there were only 8 episodes, but I keep seeing people say there are two remaining? Does anyone know for sure which is which.
@Aeryl I’ve seen a lot of various reviewers/reactors mention 9 episodes, so maybe that was released somewhere. I did a quick google and people have mentioned it although none of the sources seemed ‘official’.
That is a great hint with the ‘Old Scratchy’ thing, especially because this whole series I’ve been thinking ‘Senor Scratchy’ is such a weird name for a rabbit lol. I bet you are on to something. Plus I just found out kinda telling that she made a point of holding the rabbit during her big reveal. Like…normally a fluffly bunny rabbit is not what I would be snuggling when I do my big dramatic villain reveal :)
Dottie also showed up briefly in this episode – I’ve been wondering what happened with her. It’s possible she was just an actress brought in for one episode (well, I think maybe there was a glimpse of her in 3) and so the character itself actually isn’t that crucial, but I’ve seen a few theories about her. (I miss Jones though!)
Speaking of guest actresses: I noticed Debra Jo Rupp was credited – where did she show up? Was she just in one of the flashbacks (maybe in the crowd)?
Darcy is friends with Selvig on social media, she gets all the deets.
I will say that I now have a sense of dread regarding how this will end, that I didn’t have at the beginning. I was much more confident this wouldn’t end without Vision reconstituting his body, and that Tommy and Billy would continue on in some form, than I am now.
Oh, and here’s something kind of neat!
I follow a YouTuber named Samuel Kim who does a lot of soundtrack themes/mashups/orchestrations, and he did a cool mashup of the WandaVision theme and the Doctor Strange theme which is really cool. The WV theme has definitely grown on me a bit (and, funnily enough, @cryzydroid has mentioned to me that in some ways it – and the credits sequence art in general – is somewhat similar to the Picard theme/credits) even if I associate it with the ‘Please Stand By’ rage (seriously, I think the writers purposefully pick the most irritating place to put it as a kind of meta element of the show – I think it’s supposed to leave you feeling really unsatisfied and not just in a cliffhanger kind of way) – but anyway, the theme has that great, mysterious, kind of haunting and offputting feel.
BUT – I think it might actually be derived from, or even an off key version of, the main Avengers theme – in his arrangement he includes a few hooks of the Avengers motif and they blend together really well. Anyway, I’m kind of a music/soundtrack nerd so I like stuff like that :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYy3Npctm3A
@Lisamarie, that rabbit has been referenced since Agnes first appearance, so I have to think it matters. Someone on Twitter juxtaposed a comics panel of Agatha holding a cat with the screenshot of her holding the rabbit, so I get it’s referential, but it likely goes deeper than that. My best theory is that some entity, in the form of the rabbit gave Wanda the power to create this, and used Agatha as it’s own agent to interfere with it for their own ends. And I’m not letting go of the idea that Hayward is more involved than we know, and that Jimmy’s missing witness is important here, either.
@25 – yeah, this rabbit seems to have an undue amount of importance in what is a pretty tight script.
The rabbit is, at least, a familiar. And it’s likely a connection to an overall Big Bad that is being constrained.
My bet is that Vision is toast, and the two children are real….but are catapulted into the multiverse and that sets up Dr. Strange 2.
Okay, I have a general question – I keep seeing people talk about Wanda in terms of Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness and how this would explain her being in it; is that something that’s a sure thing or has been announced, or is this just a theory based on comics history or other hints?
I heard/read somewhere that this has basically been Monica Rambeau’s superhero origin story, and that totally fits. I love that Marvel properties know how to tell good stories while organically expanding their superhero universe at the same time. Now I just need someone in WandaVision to refer to her as “Auntie Monica” at least once, to give a little fan service to us Monica stans.
@16 – Yes, both Monica and Cassie were named characters in Captain Marvel/Ant Man, so I agree there was no surprise there. I’m talking about those of us who were speculating about the who/what/when/how of the Captain Marvel movie when there were just rumors and speculation in 2013 or 14, I believe. Auntie Monica was the first female Captain Marvel, after all.
@20 – Good observation about the two infinity-like symbols on the book and the hexagon shapes in the room. I didn’t catch that the first time at all, just that the book had some “magical” looking orange energy coming out of it, which is more consistent with the magical energy signature we’ve seen in Doctor Strange.
@25 – I like your fun theory, although I don’t know if someone else will show up using an orange energy signature, as it was pretty common with sorcerers like the Ancient One, Wong, Dr. Strange, etc. I do wonder if we will end up with a Dr. Strange appearance at the very end of WandaVision as a direct link between this show and Dr. Strange 2.
@27 – I would be thrilled to see the Blue Marvel introduced to the MCU in this show! Here’s hoping.
@38 – I believe that when the Phase 4 movies were announced, Kevin Feige introduced the title “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” and he also introduced Elizabeth Olsen as part of the cast.
@38 – Here you are:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qi_J2AAfuUQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qi_J2AAfuUQ
Thanks!
I wonder what the next two shows will be like. I hope at least one more of the shows has a show-within-a-show. I like the idea that we could get an episode from Agatha’s point of view (kind of like how episode 4 re-told the first 3 episodes from the ‘real world’ point of view), but I’ve said this before but I also think it would be kind of a fun/unexpected jump if they went REALLY crazy and borrowed from a ‘genre’ show instead of a sitcom, especially as those got really popular in the time period they’re encroaching on. Like, let’s see WandaVision Game of Thrones style. But within the bounds of the show I get that this would probably be warping the reality of Westview way too much. Then again, we now have actual witches and magic….
My husband was joking they could go full meta and do a Mandalorian episode (hey, they could just wander over and use the Volume) and that would be the ‘Luke Skywalker level cameo’ (I mean….technically Luke Skywalker is a marvel comic character…). But then he was like, wait, no, really, they could get Mark Hamill to cameo as Mephisto since he has a history of doing comic villains, and that could be the Luke Skywalker level cameo ;)
ETA: Aaaaand apparently he’s not even the only person to come up with this theory (which he was definitely just joking about).
https://www.reddit.com/r/WANDAVISION/comments/ldowgf/i_think_im_confident_enough_to_put_cards_on_the/
Here is the C-3PO’s cereal add:
https://youtu.be/Fe3TWZ_3qRg
Notice how the rings come together to form an infinity symbol EXACTLY like what’s on Agatha’s necronomicron. This is confirmation that the big cameo is a Star Wars character.
@37,
My bet is that Vision is toast, and the two children are real….but are catapulted into the multiverse and that sets up Dr. Strange 2
That actually may be another reason why America Chavez will be making appearing in the film.
I mean, it made sense before WandaVision aired. The sequel is, after all, dealing with the Multiverse — and America does hail from a parallel reality (the Utopian Parallel).
But the interesting thing there is that the Utopian Parallel was crafted by a multidimensional messiah America’s people called the Demiurge…and then Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie’s Young Avengers subsequently revealed Billy was destined to become the Demiurge at some point in the future.
So if Feige and company decided to adapt those elements of Wiccan and Amerca’s characters when they were developing Phase Four, then I can see WandaVision ending with that setup.
FWIW, here’s the subtitles which were displayed in the scene where Wanda takes the milk out of the refrigerator, puts it on the counter, and gets cereal to put in a bowl (and milk transmogrification occurs):
I’m guessing that there was an additional audio track which was left out of some broadcast distributions, or something like that? Or maybe it was there if you have the right multichannel audio hardware?
@44: You can definitely hear the audio, but it’s faint. You .ay be on to something with the multichannel thing too. I’d recommend headphones if you want to try and hear it.
Hands up who hasn’t been able to stop humming “Agatha All Along”??
There are lots of villains in the MCU, but she’s the only one with her own theme song. She wins!
@46,
Actually, with the closing confession re: Sparky, is anyone else making the inevitable John Wick jokes?
“Well, Wanda wasn’t exactly the Boogeyman. Wanda was the one you sent to kill the Boogeyman…I once saw Wanda cast an impenetrable hex on a small town…just by closing her eyes! Her f****g eyes!”
@43 Well the Russo’s conformed that Old Man Steve from the end of Endgame came from a parallel world where he decided to stay after he returned all the stones (creating it by staying with Peggy after the war).
In that world, I just cannot IMAGINE he let Hydra be, and he knew where Wakanda was and how they were hiding, so it’s entirely likely that any Utopian Reality was created by Captain America Captain America-ning his way through the second half of the Twentieth Century, and fusing Wakandan technology with the rest of the world about 70 years early. That would be a timeline where the Good Things happened.
Thowing a few more thoughts about…I’m wondering what connection, if any, Hayward has to any of this. There are a few possibilities:
1)Hayward is basically exactly what he seems to be, which is a kind of dick-ish authority figure who got promoted beyond his ability, has some lingering trauma and is responding in the typical way (we have to get them before they get us, the ends justify the means, etc) it goes in tropes like these. His decision to experiment on Vision (and Wanda’s reaction to it) just happened to be what happened in this reality.
2)He is somehow in cahoots with Agatha because he wanted Wanda to create the hex because that was the only way they could get Vision online
3)Agatha manipulated HIM to do what he’s been doing because she knew it would spur Wanda to create (or at least assist with creating – unclear how much of it is hers, how much is Agatha’s) the hex, which she really wants because she wants the twins.
Or some combination of those.
And that’s not going into things like ‘X is a Skrull!’. I actually kind of hate those types of theories because once you have shapeshifters you can basically just retcon everything with ‘they were an imposter the whole time!’ So if they are going to do that, I hope it’s sparingly used (and well planned for).
@48, You have to learn to take the things the Russos say with a grain of salt, they are almost always contradicted by the writers afterwards. For example, the Russos thought Tony HAD A POINT in Civil War, while the writers say it is irrefutably Steve’s movie, he is correct in his stance on the Accords and that he is vindicated by he story.
Likewise, the writers of Endgame say that Steve went back to our timeline, that he was always the husband Peggy refers to in her interview Steve watches in Winter Soldier, and that he specifically refused to use his knowledge to change the future.
@49, See that’s my theory. Hayward is neck deep in this, I just don’t know how yet. For me, it is just economy in story telling. There is likely some “greater reveal” in store, beyond the Agatha reveal, and it can’t just be someone we’ve never seen before, there is no audience payoff in that, we aren’t invested in a Big Bad that is revealed in the penultimate episode, unless it’s related to someone we’ve been introduced to.
@49 and @50,
Re: Hayward, I also keep wondering if part of the reveal might be that he’s the MCU Henry Peter Gyrich.
Gyrich has history with S.W.O.R.D. in the comics going back to Kieron Gillen’s short-lived run (none of it pleasant) and history’s repeating itself with Al Ewing’s current S.W.O.R.D. relaunch.
Plus, Gyrich is one of the most vocal anti-Superhero bureaucrats of mainstream Marvel and they can’t keep using Thunderbolt Ross indefinitely as the face of MCU bureaucracy. I’m actually kinda surprised Gyrich hasn’t shown up in the MCU at this point.
(Then again, it could be that Marvel Studios couldn’t use him until after they got the X-Men film rights back after the Fox merger. While Gyrich technically debuted in Avengers, he’s usually more associated with the Mutants).
When Agatha first shows up (in the color flashback), she’s wearing BLUE and purple. I’d suggest blue is really her color. The purple is the result of her stealing Wanda’s red magic (or that’s my theory).
Once we hit color, Wanda is always wearing at least some red until this last episode, where she is exhausted and dresses in BLUE pajamas and bathrobe.
If Wanda can’t break free of Agatha, she’ll waste away and die the way the kid in the commercial did.
Or that’s my theory.
I’m about 70% convinced Pietro is bad and an impersonator working with Agatha. However, depending on how her own abilities work with other dimensions, she may have grabbed an alternate universe Pietro, who she has been controlling. If that’s the case, his saying, “Snoopers gonna snoop” might be a reference to him as well as Monica.