After the shocking ending of last week’s episode which saw the Marvel Cinematic Universe debut of Evan Peters as the X-Men version of Pietro, this episode was always going to be super exciting, just to see how they explained how that was possible.
Marvel took the route of not giving us all the answers, and had lots of teases and what are possibly red herrings littered throughout. Marvel know their fan base well, and they are going all in with making this show loaded with Easter eggs and references to all sorts of story lines from the comics and characters.
Where as episode 4 really went into the world outside the sitcom and showed what was happening with Monica and Darcey and Jimmy etc, and episode 5 balanced the two fairly evenly, this episode edged things back to being more focussed on showing the characters inside the sitcom reality of Westview.
The time period has jumped up to the 1990s and with it the references where heavily in the Malcom in the Middle camp, which was a shame, as I was hoping it would lean towards doing Friends references. Still, this focus on Malcom in the Middle worked well to allow a bit more prominence to Tommy and Billy who would occasionally talk to the camera. This is an interesting development because even though it links back to Malcom in the Middle, it also is the first step towards the MCU to allow a character like Deadpool to also do the same as he did the X-Men series.
Speaking of X-Men, this episode just moved things on with Pietro so that it is just accepted that he is Wanda’s brother, and in true sitcom fashion he was in the role of quirky relative who comes to stay and is also a bit of a layabout. It was surprising to see Wanda and Pietro directly address that he looks different, but without giving any definite answers. Also they showed a flashback to their childhood which Wanda didn’t remember which hinted that he isn’t the sam Pietro that Wanda knew growing up just with a different face, but on the flip side Wanda got a vision of Pietro looking quite dead with bullet holes just as Aaron Taylor Johnson had when his version of Quicksilver was killed in Age of Ultron.
This confusion over the status of who exactly this new version of Pietro is was only made more confusing with Wanda asking questions to Pietro to test him, and him quite confidently calling her out on being questioned. This makes him more suspicious than not, and at this stage it’s hard to believe that Pietro may not be a big tease of the crossover with the Fox X-Men films, but actually turn out to be the villain of the show in disguise.
One thing that they did in this show which was super cool was have Pietro use the phrase ‘kick ass’ only for Wanda to pause for a moment to think and say it herself. Of course this could just be her questioning him saying it to her kids, but of course we all know why this line was really in the show. Both Evan Peters and Aaron Taylor Johnson who play the two versions of Quicksilver appeared together in the comic book movie Kick Ass. The Kick Ass comic is connected to Marvel, but technically independent so not part of the wider Marvel Cinematic Universe. Bold prediction now – at some point in the future they will make a reference to things on the DC side of the comic world which will blow every nerd’s mind.
On the Vision side of the episode, where as Wanda and the kids were all celebrating Halloween, the Vision went further out in the town to investigate why he is finding that people don’t seem to belong in Westview. He saw a woman stuck in a loop trying to hang out washing and with a tear running down her face, and later found Agnes sat in her car frozen in a similar manner. Suspicion is high that Agnes will turn out to be a villain in the show, so it’s good to see that with her Pietro and Haywood on the outside of the town we have several suspects for who the yet unseen big bad may be.
Agnes revealed to Vision that he is dead, and Vision had no memory of this, or eve an understanding of what an Avenger is. Time will tell just how much Vision knows about his reality and why he seems to have these gaps in his knowledge. As a true Avenger he promised to help Agnes and went out to the edge of town.
On the outside of Westview Haywood showed himself to be the scumbag we all suspected as he ejected Monica, Jimmy and Darcy from the mission. Jimmy and Monica then busted out some moves to disarm guards and were lucky to do so, as within a few minutes Vision tried to exit Westview with difficulty. By trying to go through the force field around the town Vision appeared to be disintegrating and it looked like leaving the town would kill him.
Fortunately for Wanda, her children have the same superpowers as she and Pietro do, and Billy who will grow up to be known as Wiccan could sense that the Vision was in trouble. With no time to locate Vision exactly Wanda caused a huge blast of her Hex power to radiate out and expand the border of Westview. This should save the Vision’s life as it would seem he needs to be in the reality that Wanda has created in order to survive.
As the border expanded we saw loads of the agents of S.W.O.R.D transformed into circus clowns in the reality of Westview, and we also saw Darcy taken in too, so it will be interesting to see how she is portrayed in the next episodes. No doubt the temptation will be there to acknowledge her from her time in the sitcom Two Broke girls.
Things are really building to something special in this show and this was another excellent episode. Roll on next week.
