After nine weeks of mysteries and shock reveals Marvel’s WandaVision end with a finale that had huge expectations going in. The results unfortunately didn’t quite live up to the expectations, but to be fair to the show, they never could. Some of this was their own fault, and some of this is down to fan theories fuelling each other, and a big part of the expectations came down to Vision actor Paul Bettany trolling everyone with by saying he got to work with an actor he’d always wanted to perform with…only for it to become apparent last week that it was himself.
Yes we didn’t get the Magneto cameo, or any of the other X-Men as we’d hoped. The blame for the disappointment here is shared partly by Bettany for leading us to believe that there would be some amazing actor joining the show, but also from the show makers themselves for giving us Evan Peters at the end of Episode 5 and then after featuring him prominently in Episode 6, barely using him since.
Let’s address Pietro in more detail first to get it out the way, as there was so much else in this episode to enjoy that if we go over what they perhaps got wrong first we can just get to the good stuff.
Pietro being played by Evan Peters was by far the most exciting thing in this entire series, and the fact that it seems to have all been a piece of stunt casting and a misdirection is perhaps the biggest waste of an actor in a role since Iron Man 3 when just as in this episode it turned out that Ben Kingsley’s Mandarin was actually just an actor playing the supervillain. We did get a follow up to that story with a short film based around Ben Kingsley’s actor being in prison and being broken out, but with that being many years ago it would seem that whatever plans they had at the time have long since been abandoned. It’s not impossible that Even Peter’s could return and still turn out to be a form of Pietro form the multiverse, but with the reveal that he is just an actor who was put in the role of Agatha’s husband Ralph would seem to put a book end on it.
This doesn’t explain how come Evan Peters had Quicksilver’s abilities, so there is a lingering question there. Maybe it will turn out that he was Pietro with a double layer of mind control on him. But still a change in direction like this would feel clumsy now. The thing this brings to mind for me is a reference to things that have happened in the wrestling world. Whenever the WWE would hire a former WCW star, they would make a point of making them lose and look foolish to establish that they are better then their competition. This of course always seems foolish on the WWE’s part as by the time they made the former WCW star look foolish they were no longer working for WCW and were by that point now in WWE. So they made their own stars look stupid. In this same sense Disney bought Fox and with it have full control over their X-Men franchise, but since they bought it they have allowed Dark Phoenix and New Mutants to go out with little fanfare as broken and unfinished movies, and have not poured salt onto the wound by saying that the X-Men Quicksilver is just a fake Pietro who is literally called Ralph Bohner…
Lack of X-Men or other debut from another big new character aside, we also didn’t get an appearance by Doctor Strange or another Avenger as people had hoped. This wasn’t the end of the world for me as the introduction of the evil Vision was still a big thing to have and does still have big future implications for the future of the character and the Avengers form this point on.
We saw at the end of last week’s episode that Haywood had managed to bring back a form of the Vision who appeared all white which references the character’s past in the comics. This version of Vision arrived to Wanda who instantly recognised that this was not just the version of Vision that she created and was something more. Things took an instant dark turn when white Vision attempted to crush Wanda’s skull with his hands. Fortunately the good Vision turned up just in time and the two engaged in some epic combat for much of the episode. It was good to see Vision get to have a good fight as he was made to look incredibly weak in Avengers Infinity War, and is truthfully more powerful than most of the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.
Whilst Vision was fighting himself, it left Wanda battling with Agatha Harkness who had some cool sequences hurling magic at one another. Wanda soon found that Agatha was absorbing her powers when used against her and this was slowly draining the life force from Wanda with her hands turning wrinkled and dark like they were burnt out. When there were signs that Agatha was having trouble from Wanda Agatha released the people of Westview form their trances that Wanda had put them under and they all turned on Wanda revealing that when they slept they experienced Wanda’s nightmares. This was a dark twist which like Wanda accidentally causing people to die in Captain America Civil War, just adds more to Wanda’s history of tragedy and may at some point lead to her going further to the evil side as has been rumoured for some time now.
Whilst all this is happening we do catch up with other characters such as Jimmy Woo and Haywood and Monica who was being held captive by the fake Pietro. Monica in particular seems to have fizzled out somewhat in the series after not being in last week’s episode at all. She didn’t have a big battle with Pietro and would only get a few moments of importance in the episode. Although I guess creating her backstory and establishing her superpowers may have been the full extent of the arch they wanted to establish with Monica in the series. The mid credits tease off a Skrull showing up will no doubt lead into Captain Marvel 2.
We did get one cool moment when Haywood and his people from S.W.O.R.D showed up and the future Young Avengers Billy and Tommy were left by their mom to handle the military. They had things mostly handled, but then Haywood fired a gun directly at the children just in case you weren’t sure if he was a bad guy or not. Fortunately Monica turned up heroically and got in front of the bullets and absorbed them without harm. Well, all but one, but luckily Wanda’s kid Billy who will become Wiccan is able to stop the bullet in front of his face with Wanda like powers.
Vision is then able to convince his evil doppelgänger who is on a mission to kill ‘The Vision’ that the good one is not made of any part of the original Vision, so he can’t actually consider him the Vision at all. Likewise the evil Vision doesn’t have Vision’s memories, but is made from parts of the original Vision’s remains. This paradox stops the evil Vision being evil and the good one transfers memories to the bad one who then flies off. This leaves a few questions.
If the bad Vision is now good, why did he not stay to help Wanda? Perhaps the good Vision convinced the bad Vision to destroy himself, but why would he do that if he is now also good. Either way this definitely leaves a version of the Vision who can come back in the future.
I say this of course, because Wanda was able to defeat Agatha with the same trick that Agatha had used against Wanda in the last episode. Wanda put runes all around the barrier of the town and this prevented Agatha from being able to use her magic against Wanda any more. Wanda then put a spell back onto Agatha to turn her into the nosey neighbour she had been masquerading as earlier in the series. This defeat of Agatha also saw Wanda take on her full potential and power and with it appear in the full Scarlett Witch costume for the first time.
Agatha did give warning to Wanda that she doesn’t know what she is getting herself in for and Wanda said she would always know where to find Agatha now once again Agnes, if she needed to consult her. This again tied into the world of the comics as Agatha has acted the role of an adviser of sorts to Wanda at times as well as being an antagonist. So needless to say we have not yet seen the last of Agatha in the MCU. In fact I would see this story in a similar light to Loki’s first appearance in Thor before becoming a much bigger villain in the series in the first Avengers movie.
With Agatha defeated and with Haywood stopped by Darcy who appeared out of nowhere in the same vehicle her and Vision were last seen in a couple of episodes ago it just left Wanda to undo her magic on Westview, and with it it would mean that the good Vision and their children who could only exist in this false reality would cease to exist.
In a touching series of scenes Wanda and Vision put their children to bed knowing that they would no longer exist as the barrier to the fake reality classed in on them. Then Wanda said goodbye again to the Vision with the acknowledgement that just as they have said goodbye before, that they would have the opportunity to once again say hello. Vision then broke up with an acceptance of his fate, and perhaps this came from knowing that the white Vision who now has his memories is still out there. It’s interesting that they didn’t think to address this on screen though. I mean did Wanda just not ask how the fight with the bad Vision went? Or where he is now?
Wanda exited the town and Monica expressed that if she could she would have done the same thing to bring her mom back. The show ended with a post credits scene where Wanda is living in a cabin in a very remote area of mountains and seems to be projecting herself out split herself into two of some kind. As we see one version of Wanda just living a normal day in the cabin whilst another in full Scarlett Witch costume is studying the evil book Agatha had in the previous episode. Again this seems to hint that Wanda may still not have full awareness or control of things and may once again be creating a sense of false reality for herself whilst the Scarlett Witch side of her existence could be studying the dark magic that will set her up as a villain in the Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness movie.
This episode was very solid in many ways, and whilst it was hard not to feel a little let down by the lack of surprises or massive reveals, it’s my feeling that now we all know what to expect from this episode now that we’ve seen it, that within time the opinion of it will only get better. I’ve already seen a lot of negativity towards the episode online, and so much of this seems to be solely on what they were hoping for not being present rather then complaints that what we got actually being that bad. For the first Disney Plus Marvel series this has been full of risks and really build up intrigue and excitement. Even if the payoffs we wanted weren’t quite there, we’ve certainly let Disney know what we’d like form future episodic MCU adventures and fingers crossed we’ll get them!
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