Disney Plus
I don’t think I’ve been this completely gobsmacked by an episode of a TV show for quite some time, but WandaVision pulled off one of the truly most amazing final moments that I don’t think anyone was expecting. But we’ll get to that shortly (and if you’ve been able to avoid spoilers which began the moment the episode ended, don’t read on just yet because we can’t not talk about what just happened).
So, according to Monica this whole construction of Westview is all Wanda’s doing. And that would seem to make sense since Director Hayward just dropped a major bit of information about the situation — Wanda stormed into a S.W.O.R.D. facility nine days ago — nine days is all the time that had passed over the last five episodes! — and stole Vision’s body. So of course she must have created this world in which she and Vision could live out their happily ever after. We’re also reminded of what Wanda did inadvertently in Lagos (see Captain America: Civil War), and that seems to still be weighing heavily on her mind. Each episode so far, minus Episode 4, has featured a commercial during the sitcom. The first three were all Hydra-specific, but this week’s was for a brand of paper towels called Lagos. Perhaps Wanda is suggesting with the commercials (and it seems she is controlling not only the edits to the show, but the ads as well) that she is trying to clean up a mess she didn’t intend to make.
But the real question remains: is this all Wanda’s doing? In one of the show’s creepiest moments yet, things get off on the wrong foot right at the top of the episode when Wanda and Vision are having trouble getting the twins to stop crying (a typical sitcom trope, and this week’s episode is 80s-set Family Ties/Growing Pains ‘very special episodes’). And in sitcom fashion, best friend and neighbor Agnes shows up with some ‘tricks up my sleeve’ to make the babies stop their squealing. But Vision is suddenly unnerved by Agnes’ always spot-on appearance when they need help and he ‘breaks character’, refusing to let Agnes pick up the babies. Everything goes dead silent. The audience, the babies … it was a quite chilling moment. And then Agnes breaks character as well, asking Wanda if she wants to take the scene from the top. There has been much speculation of Agnes’ true identity, and we’ve seen before that she seems to know more of what’s going on in Westview than anyone else (besides Herb). Wanda continues to play along with her ‘character’ but Vision is unnerved, even more so when Agnes doesn’t bat an eyelash when the twins suddenly age up to five-year-olds, and again to ten-year-olds so they can have a puppy, the appearance of which also baffles Wanda. If she’s controlling an actual town full of actual people — which Vision also notices has no other children — then where did this dog come from, and how did Agnes know to show up with a dog house at just the right moment?
Many believe that Agnes is actually Agatha Harkness, an ancient sorceress who lived through the Salem witch trials. In the comics, she and Wanda have a prickly relationship, but there are things going on that suggest she may not be whom everyone suspects. For instance, when the dog (Sparky) dies by accidentally ingesting too many of her azalea leaves, Agnes seems surprised when the boys tell Wanda she can bring the dead back to life. Wanda insists that the dead are dead and she can’t bring them back, but of course there is the little matter of Vision, who is dead but since he’s not a carbon-based being maybe she just considers him to be rebooted? And this also brings Wanda back to the mess she made a Lagos, killing dozens, and the death of her brother Pietro. She very easily could have brought him back to life, but she didn’t and that pain certainly weighs on her as much or more than the deaths at Lagos. But is Agnes behind at least some of what’s happening with Wanda? We also have to remember all the way back to the end of the first episode — who was watching the show then, and could that person be the one in control?
On the outside world, Monica, Darcy and Jimmy are trying to determine how Wanda has created Westview. It’s clear that what Monica saw inside what Darcy is now calling ‘The Hex’ due to its hexagonal shape (and we’ve seen that shape throughout the series) was not just in Monica’s mind — although she did feel Wanda in there. Everything in Westview is real, to a point. Jimmy remembered Monica was wearing a bulletproof vest when she got sucked in, and firing a few rounds at her groovy outfit she was wearing when Wanda ejected her shows that the whole thing is made of Kevlar. Somehow Wanda (?) manipulated the material to make it fit in with the era of the episode. So if Wanda is manipulating objects to fit the time period, perhaps sending in something that she doesn’t need to alter will help them contact her. They send in a new drone with Monica attempting to talk to Wanda, but she loses control after Hayward takes over and tries to fire a shot at Wanda. Suddenly the wall of The Hex begins to breach and Wanda exits, back to her normal accent, tossing the drone at Hayward, warning them all to just leave her alone. To demonstrate she’s not fooling around, she controls all of the agents to train their guns on Hayward before returning to Westview, the wall of The Hex now glowing an ominous red.
Disney Plus
Back inside, Vision has a lot of questions. At work he was able to release Norm (Asif Ali) from whatever was controlling him and Norm begged him to get ‘her’ out of his head. We and Vision assume he means Wanda, but could it be Agnes? Or someone else? Vision confronts Wanda about everything and demands to know what Wanda is doing. He accuses her of controlling everything, and he seems to know that he’s dead but he wants her to tell him. She just tries to brush off his accusations turning it around on him, asking how he thinks she could be controlling everything and suggests they just get some sleep, but Vision is quite aware that every next day is simply a new construction. As things come to a head, the doorbell rings.
Wanda freezes because she did not make that happen. Usually Agnes just bursts in unannounced so who could be ringing their doorbell. Wanda makes her way to the door and looks stunned when she opens it. From the back we can see very familiar silver and black hair. And when we finally get Wanda’s point of view, we see … Pietro. But not Aaron Taylor-Johnson Pietro because he is dead. Nope, this is Evan Peters Pietro/Peter/Quicksilver from the X-Men movies! WHAT?!?!
This turn of events is such a significant development in the Marvel Cinematic Universe because this version of Quicksilver existed only in the 20th Century Fox Marvel Universe (with Deadpool and the Fantastic Four), and he’s not dead in that universe. Now that Disney has control of that part of the Marvel world, this is the first major step to bringing the X-Men, Deadpool and Fantastic Four into the MCU proper. At one point Wanda said there was someone who could help her and many are also speculating she’s referring to Reed Richards, but there was another name dropped that Monica was not too thrilled to hear — Captain Marvel. So Evan Peters as Pietro was a major bombshell but are we due another major Marvel appearance in the form of Brie Larson? It would make sense since the adult Monica, played by Teyonah Parris, is set to appear in the second Captain Marvel movie. It’s going to be very interesting to see who or what shows up over the course of the next four episodes, and if any of the fan theories thus far are correct.
New episodes of WandaVision premiere Fridays on Disney+.
Share this post
