Hey everyone welcome back to Silver Screen Spectacle! It’s WandaVison time as we take a deep dive into this week’s episode. As always, this will be a spoiler-filled article.
Ya’ll I’m literally in awe. This episode was everything to me and easily one of my favorite pieces of MCU content. It shocked me; I bawled tears many times and squealed in joy. I can’t overstate how much this worked for me. We start the episode with the expected Salem flashback, seeing Agatha’s origins. Some things I immediately noticed besides the obvious display of how powerful Agatha is was the fact that all the magic was a different color. I have a theory that it might correspond to a different infinity stone, but I’m not sure how yet. I also think the yo magic shark commercial was about Agatha now. What she did to her fellow witches looked a lot like what happened to the kid in that commercial. The flashback ends and we pick up exactly where the last episode ended with Wanda in Agatha’s basement with the kids missing. So while the MCU has mentioned witches before specifically in the Thor films, it’s nice to see more about how it all works. Agatha says Pietro who she calls Fietro was what’s called a crystalline possession, where it’s her eyes and ears but he is an actual person. Since he does still have Quicksilver’s powers, I’m becoming convinced that this actually is the Fox Quicksilver. While I definitely think in retrospect, I have overanalyzed parts of this show, I’m still not convinced Agatha’s rabbit is just a rabbit.
We now get to the meat of the episode as Agatha takes Wanda through events of her past, trying to figure out how Wanda did this. This whole idea felt very Christmas Carol esque to me. So the first flashback we get to see is with a young Wanda and her family in Sokovia. The moment this scene started I knew it was going to be the bomb we heard about in Age of Ultron. I was bracing for it the entire scene, but they brilliantly lured me into a sense of happiness and the second I let my guard down the explosion happened. I jumped so high despite expecting it. This scene also confirms the popular theory that Wanda chose sitcoms for her world because they’ve always been her escape from reality. I like the change that Wanda has always had her powers because of being a witch, but the infinity stone amplified them. This makes much more sense to me than the bomb just being a straight-up dud.
We now go to where Wanda volunteered for Strucker’s experiments to destroy the Avengers. They instruct Wanda to touch Loki’s scepter as we hear everyone who touches it dies. Before she can, the stone comes to her with the shell cracking, revealing the Mind Stone as its exploding light. As Wanda looks into the light, she sees what I assume is a vision of the future with her in the classic comic book costume. As she passes out and gets put in quarantine, we see her watching The Brady Bunch on a tv. The episode shown includes the baby doll that Vision was testing changing diapers on in episode three.
Next, we get to see Avengers HQ shortly after the events of Age of Ultron, and this is where I got emotional. Wanda and Vision interacting now have a completely fresh feeling than it did before this show. I felt so bad for Wanda when she said the only thing that would bring her comfort is seeing her brother again. This explains why she would so easily buy the different-looking Pietro. I know the line has already become a meme, but I’m sorry the “What is grief if not love persevering” hit me hard. I loved seeing Wanda and Vision get to be happy together and it just hurt more knowing what was coming.
Finally, we get to the final flashback of the episode where Wanda goes to SWORD HQ after the events of Avengers: Endgame to retrieve Vision’s body. Now we were “shown” and told earlier by Director Hayward that Wanda broke in and stole the body. We now learn that was a blatant lie. Hayward lets Wanda in as he’s trying to trick her into reviving Vision because he wants to use him as a weapon. I already hated Hayward and didn’t think I could dislike him anymore. But showing Wanda Vision’s mangled cut-up corpse without warning her is despicable. Wanda eventually breaks the glass and flies down, giving Hayward the evidence he needs. This is where the crying started as she uses her magic, where the mind stone used to lie and cries saying I can’t feel you. After rewatching Infinity War recently this especially broke me. Wanda leaves peacefully and as we see an envelope in her car, she drives to Westview. She walks into an empty lot and opens the envelope. This is where I totally broke as we see that Vision had bought land for him and Wanda to build a house and grow old together in. Wanda breaks down crying and in her grief, her power explodes creating a house, a new Vision, and taking the town captive. As they sit on the couch together and we see the current Wanda standing behind them, it broke me.
Agatha now has her answers and lets Wanda go of her control. As Wanda hears her children screaming for help, she runs outside and sees Agatha flying in full evil witch mode, strangling the children. She tells Wanda that she was supposed to be a myth as she is capable of spontaneous creation. Agatha ends by telling Wanda that she is using Chaos Magic and that this makes her the Scarlet Witch. Now you can debate the cheesiness of the name drop, but it made me squeal in joy to hear her get called that. Also, it seems the Scarlet Witch is more than just a name it’s some sort of secret witch prophecy. We now get the post-credits scene where Hayward brings what’s known as White Vision online using the power from the missile he shot at Wanda in Episode 5. Now I know about who this character is in the comics but I’m hoping because of the frequent mentions of Ultron throughout this series that this Vision will have Ultron’s voice.
With only one episode to go, they have a lot to wrap up in next week’s finale. I hope the episode is long enough to give the show a satisfying ending, even though I know this is only part one of this overarching story. I haven’t been scoring the individual episodes, but I’m just going to say this was a 10/10 for me. I adored every single second of this episode. So guys that’s it for this week’s WandaVison if you enjoyed give it a share and I’ll see you next time.