If you have seen the finale of WandaVision, you may still be full of adrenaline like I am. What a story Marvel has given us and finally putting two underrated yet important characters into a spotlight they so much deserve!
The trailer did not give us many clues of what the story would be and how it will evolve or more importantly, how the series would connect to the movies. Fans around the world had dozens of theories and a lot of them did not come true, but one of the biggest wishes has been finally granted: we have our Scarlet Witch!
From January 15th to March 5th, Disney+ released nine WandaVision episodes and by doing that, they have started a new era for the MCU, who now have the possibility to develop content with a focus on characters which have not had the fair amount of screen time in the movies but are equally important. Or as fans and Sebastian Stan (who plays The Winter Soldier, Bucky Barnes) called it, “agreed, instead to send the mentally broken characters to group therapy” and they got their own series. Honestly, I am not complaining about seeing more of Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany), as well as getting introduced to S.W.O.R.D. and Monica Rambeau, along with Darcy and Agent Woo again. Without further ado, let us break down what has happened!
Status Quo after Avengers: Endgame
First, we need all to be on the same page. So, if you have not watched Avengers: Infinity War or Avengers: Endgame, please stop reading now and come back when you have!
The last time we saw Wanda was at Tony’s funeral when she and Clint (Hawkey) talked about losing Natasha and Vision and how they think that they know for what they have sacrificed their lives. Personally, I thought, they would stay in contact because after all they are kind of connected. Her brother, Pietro, saved Clint’s life and he named his son after him and he was the one who pushed her to become an Avengers in Age of Ultron. However, it seems that she chose to be by herself and grieve, but what we know is, that soon after Thanos got defeated, the events of WandaVision took place.
Welcome to Westview
The series starts with Wanda and Vision being newlyweds and moving into their house in Westview. The set up looks like it did in the 50s on The Dick van Dyke Show, followed by I Love Lucy. They settle in and invite Vision’s boss and his wife over for dinner. Everything is peaceful until he chokes, and no one does anything to help him until Wanda commands Vision. We’re also introduced to the nosy neighbour, Agnes (Kathryn Hahn).
In the second episode the set up changes to the series Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie and it sees Wanda and Vision prepare for their magic performance at the town’s charity event. To be accepted and find friends, she and Agnes attend a lady’s brunch, which gives The Stepford Wives vibes, with the town’s first lady, Dottie (Emma Caulfield Ford). There we meet Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) aka Lieutenant Trouble in Captain Marvel. However, she introduces herself to Wanda as Geraldine. Putting everything else aside, this was the point where everyone’s brain has truly started overthinking as to what was actually going on. If the helicopter in the beginning and the beekeeper at the end of this episode indicated that something strange is going on, as well as the voice from the radio asking her, who is doing this to her.
The first episode in colour is the third one, in which the series style changes to mirror The Brady Bunch and All in the Family, where surprise, Wanda is pregnant and not even Vision can explain this! We witness how Wanda’s powers have started to change and she is not only able to just move things but let them appear out of thin air. The pregnancy progresses so fast that at the end of the episode we can congratulate the new parents to twins, Billy and Tommy, who are also known as Wiccan and Speed in the comics. The episode ends with Monica confronting Wanda with the truth, that she is not living in the real world and that she needs to stop what she is doing, but Wanda kicks her out of town, which seems to be under a magic dome.
Episode 4 gives us more information as to what has been going on outside of Westview, which we will discuss a little bit later!
The fifth episode transforms to the setting of Family Ties and Growing Pains as well as paying homage to the intro to Full House, in which Olsen’s older sisters starred in. The twins are growing up fast and are now ten years old, whilst Vision starts to become more and more suspicious about what is going on around him and confronts Wanda and she herself cannot explain it. At the end of this episode the biggest cameo was revealed when Evan Peters (who played Peter Maximoff aka Quicksilver in the X-Men First Class movies) stands in front of Wanda.
What has happened to Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who originally played Pietro in Age of Ultron, you might ask? Well, the last time we saw him he was killed by Ultron while saving Clint’s life, who took his body with him on a rescue ship. During the finale events of the show, it is revealed that Pietro’s real body is buried on another continent which means Wanda has brought him back to Sokovia to be buried next to their parents.
The story gains more speed in the next episode, which looked a lot like an episode of Malcolm in the Middle, in which Westview is celebrating Halloween. Wanda and Vision both dress up as their characters in the comics, only that they refer to it as being a Sokovian fortune teller and a Mexican wrestler. Pietro and the twins dress up as their comic counterparts as well, which gets topped by the fact that the twins get their powers too. While Wanda and Pietro are out for trick or treating with the twins, Vision is exploring the town. The closer he gets to the town’s border, the slower the people move until they are not moving at all. He discovers the magical wall and goes through it to see agents surrounding him, ready to shoot.
After Wanda has expanded her territory and saves Vision, episode seven breaks the fourth wall again in a Modern Family and The Office way. Vision tries to make his way back to his wife, while Wanda starts to realise what she did. The seventh episode is the last sitcom-ish one before we all finally get to know what the heck is really going on. And, oh boy, we have not been prepared for this. Grab your tissues and something to cuddle because this will hurt.
What really is going on in and around Westview and introducing S.W.O.R.D.
So far it is entertaining but weird, right? Yeah, well because it is not real! The whole thing is just a made-up reality. To start processing everything, episode four gives us the break we needed to take two steps back and see the bigger picture.
Five years ago, Monica blipped and returned to a world in which her mother has died from cancer. Despite that, she settles into her life quite easy again and starts to work for her former employer, a company co-founded by her mother, S.W.O.R.D., or ‘Sentient Weapon Observation Response Division’ (in the comics it stands for ‘Sentient World Observation and Response Department). Remember the after credit scene in Spiderman: Far From Home?
Monica is sent to assist an FBI agent (hello Agent Woo, played by Randall Park, who was previously seen in the second Ant-Man and the Wasp) in a missing people’s case, which turns out to be Westview. It seems that no one can remember that this town or the people who lived there ever existed. Monica sends in a helicopter drone, which is found by Wanda in episode two. After touching the energy field, Monica gets sucked into Wanda’s world. Shortly after, S.W.O.R.D. agents build an observation base on the town’s border and seek the help from a scientist, which marks the first appearance of Darcy Lewis (Kat Dennings) in the MCU since Thor: Dark Kingdom. I don’t know about you, but I was extremely happy to welcome Kat Dennings back in the MCU. I think she has a great natural amount of humour and as much as I like all my beloved superheroes, they are nothing without the help of friends and allies. We learn that she made a new life of her own in her field and became Dr. Lewis. But apart from that, we do not got any further information on what her life has been like in her time off-screen.
“You’re saying the universe created a sitcom starring two Avengers?”
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Darcy quickly finds out that the energy surrounding Westview is similar to the one after the Big Bang and somehow, she is able to “plug” into Wanda’s mind and see what she has created. Imagine people seeing your thoughts, feelings, hopes, and wishes. It is sad to know that so many people can see how she is suffering…
Hayward, the director of S.W.O.R.D., wants to take down Wanda because he sees her as a villain, a possible threat and accuses her of having stolen Vision’s body. The last time we saw Vision was in Wakanda when he was killed by Thanos, so does this mean that the Avengers have left his body for S.W.O.R.D. to pick up? This is not okay and I still have a problem with processing this!
Darcy, Agent Woo, and Monica, who literally have been in Wanda’s head and describe her emotions as a “hopeless feeling like drowning and grief”, are on her side and see in her the solution. The three of them start to take the matter into their hands, to warn Wanda and ask her to release the people. They find out that Wanda rewrites reality and the only need to find something that requires no change because it is from the decade as the sitcom she is currently living in. They send in a drone, but the plan goes sideways when Wanda leaves her bubble to confront S.W.O.R.D. and tell them to leave her alone in an epic Magneto kind of way.
Hayward kicks out the trio after referring to Monica’s difficult relationship with Karen Danvers aka Captain Marvel, but the trio sneaks back into the base again and while Darcy stays behind to hack into the S.W.O.R.D. database, Monica and Woo are on their way to get backup. At the same time, Wanda is expanding her territory to save Vision and the base becomes a circus with Darcy in the middle.
This is the moment in episode 7 when Vision finds Darcy, who he recognises being the only person willing to help him when he stepped out of Westview, and he finally gets all the answers he so desperately was looking for.
Outside the dome Monica and Woo meet her aerospace contact and to our dismay, it was not a superhero guest star like Richard Reed from the Fantastic Four. Monica desperately tries to get inside the town and what follows is the birth of a new hero. While fighting her way through the barrier, Monica turns into a superhuman known in the comic books as Photon, who can see and use electromagnetic energy.
This leaves Agent Woo as the only one outside who has to take care of the information Darcy has sent him before she got sucked in with it being about Project Cataract, which is Hayward’s plan to bring back Vision, but this time as an emotionless weapon.
Commercials, clues and Easter eggs
Before we continue, we first have to take a closer look at the commercials and Easter eggs! During the series, we see six commercial breaks, which all are referring to a traumatic event in Wanda’s life. The first is a Toaster by Stark Industries. While the company never was in the business of household appliances, this is a hint to the bombing of Sokovia during which she and Pietro lose their parents and they both have been trapped with a ticking bomb in front of them for two days. The bomb was made by Stark Industries.
The second commercial is showing a Strucker watch, which is a hint to Hydra’s experiments with the mind stones. You can see it as a countdown until the twins got their powers. The next one is Hydra Soak soap “Find the Goddess Within”, which only can refer to the moment when she got her powers.
Then we have the Lagos paper towel, which is obviously referring to the events taking place at the beginning of Captain America: Civil War. The slogan “When you do a mess you did not meant to do”, is referring to Wanda accidently killing people because she has not had her power under control yet. In episode six, we have the Yo-Magic yogurt commercial, which is not as easy to decipher. This could hint either to the Hydra volunteers who have died during the mind stone experiments or to Wanda who is sucking the life out of the people in Westview. The last commercial is about Nexus, an anti-depressive, which clearly alludes to Wanda’s mental health state and the fact that she escaped into a false reality to avoid her emotions.
Aside from these obvious hints, there are a lot of Easter eggs hidden in the show. For example, the wine Wanda serves in the first episode “Maison du Mepris”, which is a nod to the comic book “House of Madness” in which Wanda has a massive break down and has to cope with the loss of her husband and children, who never really existed. However, this is not the only nod to the origins of Wanda.
There is the house number 2800 and the license plate of her car having “Excelsior” and 12-28-22, Stan Lee’s birthday, on it. Nods to X-Men are not only made by Peters appearance, but as well in the last episode when Billy and Tommy take part in the epic seasons finale fight which ends in the twins recreating the epic scene from Days of Future Past with Charles Xavier and Quicksilver in the White House’s kitchen. There’s also an honourable mention of another comic book movie adaptation Kick-Ass in which Peters and Taylor-Johnson have been playing besties is made and do not let us forget about all the Hexagon’s.
It’s been Agatha all along … or not?
At the end of episode 7, Monica finds her way back to Wanda and tries to warn her about what is going on outside her almost perfect bubble. Agnes, who took care of the twins, takes Wanda to her house and offers her a cup of tea, but Wanda is confused to not see or hear her children. Agnes tells her that they are playing in the basement, but this is extremely far from the truth because what Wanda finds there is a magic vault and as a homage to The Munsters and The Addams Family the song “Agatha All Along” reveals her as Agatha Harkness, a powerful witch.
Warning: Emotional flashback rollercoaster incoming! Grab those tissues.
In Salem 1693, Agatha’s coven wants to burn her because she betrayed her coven by practicing dark magic. However, she calls it that she only bents the rules with her power, which she cannot control yet. While the witches, including her own mother, try to kill her, she absorbs their magic and becomes even more powerful. So apparently witches are real in the MCU, but what was Agatha doing the 300+ years before she appeared in Westview? Back in Agatha’s basement, she confronts Wanda with what she has been doing and wants to know how. She mocks Wanda for not being capable of doing the fundamentals like a protection spell but is able to bend reality. To find out what led to this very day, Agatha takes Wanda down memory lane.
The first memory is about the Maximoff’s preparing for their movie night which explains all the sitcom style episodes because she watched them with her family and loves especially The Dick van Dyke Show. This happy memory turns quickly into one of the darkest, when the bombing starts and her parents die with the twins trapped and a bomb in front of them for two days. Agatha has the theory that Wanda used a probability hex to stop the bomb from exploding, which would mean that Wanda had her powers way before she actually got them from the mind stone.
The next memory brings us to the scene in which Wanda was brought into the room in which Loki’s sceptre has been waiting for her. The stone moved towards her and she has a vision of herself in the famous Scarlet Witch costumes. We still do not know why Pietro survived the experiments, but it seems it was Wanda’s fate.
“But what is grief, if not love persevering?”
The next memory brings us back to the Avengers compound, which is the first home she ever shared with Vision. As he enters the room by walking through the wall, he offers to comfort her and after a while she opens up to him about losing her brother. This scene right here is the basis of their relationship.
“What happened when he wasn’t there to pull you back from the darkness?”
The next memory is showing us what brought us to this mess. Wanda is at S.W.O.R.D. HQ asking if she can see Vision and give him a proper burial. Hayward is willing to grant her wish to see him, but the scene unfolding for her is a brutal one. S.W.O.R.D. is “dismantling the most sophisticated scientific weapon ever known” while pointing out that she cannot bury three billion dollars worth of Vibranium. Full of anger, she destroys the lab and tries to find out if there is anything left of Vision, but she cannot feel him anymore and she leaves.
Wanda drives to Westview and in her hand, she holds a property deed that says “To grow old in – V.” Out of grief, she unfolds what Agatha calls chaos magic and created her house, turns Westview into a 50s sitcom and recreates Vision out of her mind.
Agatha points out that Wanda has no idea how dangerous she truly is, and that this chaos magic makes her a Scarlet Witch and that she should surrender her magic. Wanda attacks Agatha, who gets stronger with every hit, calling it herself “taking power from the undeserving”, which is her thing. The fight between these two is put on hold when Wanda throws Agatha under a car and it looks like The Wizard of Oz with only her shoes peeking out, but there is no break for Wanda. Vision is finally back at her side, saving her from Hayward’s White Vision who is trying to kill her.
Wanda is sure she can fix everything, while at the same time realising that she has to sacrifice her own happiness. The moment she takes down the magical dome, Vision and the twins dematerialise, so she stops and continues her fight against Agatha.
“Did you know there’s an entire chapter devoted to you in the Darkhold? That’s the book of the damned. The Scarlet Witch is not born, she is forged. She has no coven, no need for incantation.”
“I’m not a witch. I don’t cast spells. No one taught me magic!”, is Wanda’s reaction to this revelation. The MCU did not follow the original comic path and did not took the opportunity to introduce mutants into their world, but chose to make Wanda a witch. They are connecting the show with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D and The Runaways through the Darkhold and Agatha mentions something what Dr. Strange might not like to hear: “Your power exceeds that of the Sorcerer Supreme. It’s your destiny to destroy the world”.
“I do not have one single ounce of original material. Perhaps, the rot is the memories. The wear and tear are the voyages. The wood touched by Theseus himself.”
Vision continues his fight against White Vision until he points out that he is not the true Vision, only a conditional one and White Vision requests elaboration. Vision mentions the thought experiment of “the Ship of Theseus in the field of identity metaphysics”. Both then come to the understanding that both of them are the real, they are just two pieces which have to become one. Vision helps his doppelgänger to regain his memories because as a carbon-based synthezoid, his memory storage is not so easily wiped.
In the last minutes of their fight, Wanda beats Agatha with her own tricks unleashing newly found powers, which turn her into the Scarlet Witch. She does not kill Agatha but put her into the role she chose for herself, the nosy neighbour, forever.
So long, darling
There is one last thing for Wanda to do and Vision is here to encourage her to do that. The family of four goes back home and the parents bring their children to bed. Wanda thanks the twins for choosing her to be their mother. While the magic is lifting form the town, Wanda and Vision prepare themselves to say goodbye again in a heartbreaking scene.
V: Wanda, I know we can’t stay like this. But before I go, I feel I must know. What am I?
W: You, Vision … are the piece of the Mind Stone that lives in me. You are a body of wires and blood and bone that I created. You are my sadness and my hope. But mostly, you’re my love.
V: I have been a voice with no body. A body, but not human. And now … a memory made real. Who knows what I might be next? We have said goodbye before, so it stands the reason …
W: We’ll say hello again.
Wanda had the chance to say goodbye and she came out stronger out of it. On her way out of town, everyone looks with hatred at her, but not Monica. Wanda apologises and asks her why she does not hate her. How could she? She would to the same to get her mother back if she could. Wanda leaves Westview and Agent Woo takes care of clearing up the bit of mess that is still there, starting with arresting Hayward.
WandaVision is about Wanda dealing with her mental health and we follow her through the five stages of grief. She mentioned to Fake Pietro that she does not know how she did it. She was feeling completely alone, empty, endless nothingness. It is time to understand that every human or hero for that matter, is going through a traumatic event at some point and that it is equally important to address that and to understand that it is okay to not feel okay. Most things in Wanda’s live have been far from happy and those fewer positive moments are yet not enough to make up. Depression is something you do not always see, so pay attention. In my opinion, Elizabeth Olsen deserves all the awards that exist for her amazing performance and Paul Bettany I salute you to making me cry like a baby. I really do hope that he has renewed his contract with Marvel.
When Darcy meets Vision, she points out to him that the love they have is real. It might be weird at first to think of a human loving an android. Vision has evolved not only from an A.I. who got a body, but he has actually developed feelings, including regret, pain, and love. They both have been given life in some way from the mind stone and this created a special bond between them. I like to refer to them as soulmates. They complete each other. While I love to see their love, it hurts as well. Honestly, I am still not over the fact, that none of the Avengers have been there to catch her when the darkness overcome her.
To be continued …
The big question we are left with is, how will this all be woven into the future Marvel projects.
One thing we do no for sure is that Evan Peters appearance was a nice idea but has nothing to do with the mutants being introduced to the MCU because when Monica escapes from Agatha’s and Fake Pietro’s house, she finds a portrait shot with his name on it, Ralph Bohner.
After crashing into Hayward’s car, Darcy took off, but I do not think they brought her back just for a quick hello. I am positive we will see her again, hopefully very soon. Agent Woo came to stay and who knows, maybe he will get a larger part in the MCU at some point. And who knows, we may have not seen the last of Agatha, as well.
A sure bet is Monica as in the mid credit scene of the last episode, an FBI agent approaches her who later revels herself as a Skrull, mentioning that an old friend of her mother’s is inviting her, to space. This connects to the after credit in Spiderman: Far From Home in which we saw Fury chilling on a spaceship and may be the bridge to Captain Marvel 2 as well as another Disney+ show.
And then there is this epic after credit in which we see Wanda in the middle of nature all by herself in a small wooden house, drinking tea on the porch, while an astral Scarlet Witch is studying the Darkhold. In the last second, she hears Billy and Tommy scream for help. Knowing that Elizabeth Olsen is currently in London working on Doctor Strange 2: Multiverse of Madness and confirming that her character will be in it, it is safe to say that we will see a desperate Wanda seeking Dr. Strange to help her understand her powers more and bring her children back.
And we cannot forget about the fact that there is a White Vision flying around, who needs to be reconnected with Wanda and live happily ever after!
Wow have never seen a movie like this just hope she will have her children and vision back