Maximoff boys go through a growth spurt, and Vision starts seeing the cracks.
Last time on WandaVision, we got to
see the “behind the scenes” bits. We learned that the woman hastily dubbed
Geraldine in her introductory episode is in fact Captain Monica Rambeau, SWORD
Agent and daughter of Captain Marvel’s bestie Maria. After coming back from Oblivion
with roughly half the world, she was assigned to investigate the Westview
Anomaly as a means of getting her feet wet again. She meets FBI Agent Woo just before
being sucked into the anomaly. SWORD gets more involved, sending in Dr. Darcy Lewis
whom discovered the WandaVision broadcast. Their attempts on studying the anomaly
beyond watching the broadcast proves less than useful. Monica is eventually
forcibly removed from Wanda’s sitcom, and realizes that she’s the one doing all
of this. Enough recap, let’s get to it.
I actually really love these domestic moments.
We open on the Maximoffs doing
their best to calm their son’s down to sleep. Unfortunately, Tommy and Billy
prove to be rather fussy boys. Wanda goes so far as to try to calm them with
her powers, but they seem resistant to her powers, how odd. They seem to laugh
at their mother’s frustration, but start crying again after she tries to binky
them and they spit them out. Agnes comes in and offers to help Viz and Wanda
out. There’s a bit of an awkward pause, where Agnes turns to Wanda and asks her
if she should do the line again. There’s a blip and they run the line again,
with Wanda turning her infant son’s over to Agnes. Vision pulls Wanda aside and
ask what the hell that was, cutting between bits of Agnes being weird. The baby’s
eventually stop crying, at first, they think they’ve gone to sleep, but no, it’s
revealed that they’re not baby’s anymore. Somehow, they’ve rapidly aged to about five. Agnes
muses that you can’t control kids, no matter how hard you try.
The opener this week is based on
late 80s, early 90s sitcoms. Lots of family photos and aging cast members, sort
of thing. The images of Vision as a baby are particularly cute.
Outside the anomaly, Monica is
getting debriefed. She explains how she felt in the anomaly, that somehow Wanda
projected her grief into everyone she controls, it’s all pain and misery in
there. She gets some brain scans done when Darcy and Jim come to visit her, and
tell her that they have a briefing in 10. The doctor tries to keep Monica from
going, as her scans are coming up completely blank, but Monica isn’t sticking
around. They make it to the meeting. Woo is tasked with giving a brief history
of Wanda Maximoff, born to Sokovian parents (Maybe, I’m still holding out hope
Magneto shows up), survived them with her brother after their house was bombed,
radicalized and given powers by HYDRA, you know the rest. Hayward clearly has
some negative views on Wanda, seems to think they need to take her out. Monica doesn’t
think that this was premeditated, and that if Wanda is the cause, she’s also
the solution. They’re shown a video of Wanda breaking into the SWORD Lab where
they were examining the Vision’s body, Hayward says she stole the body and
seems to have revived him. Which went against some statute in the Sokovian
Accords and Vision’s own Will. The plot thickens.
I know they say kids grow up so fast, but this
is ridiculous.
Back in the sitcom, the boys found
a puppy and are cleaning it in their sink. Wanda comes in and they try to
convince her they should keep him. Vision walk in, already human faced. He says
it’s because he predicted Agnes will be coming over any second, which she does,
with the exact thing they needed. In this case it was dog stuff. They dub the
dog Sparky, after an electrical outlet shorts out near it. Kay. Wanda magics up
a collar for Sparky, much to Viz’s shock. He’s not a fan of her using her powers
in front of Agnes, but Wanda claims she’s tired of hiding. Viz convinces Wanda
that a dog isn’t a good idea, that the boys need to be at least ten before they
can have one. Hearing this loophole, the boys somehow magic themselves to ten.
So… I guess they’re keeping the dog.
Outside, Monica, Darcy and Jim are
trying to figure out a way to get Monica back into Westview. Well, the ladies
are, Jim just brought coffee. Basically, Monica needs a mobile nuke shelter to
do it. It’s a tall order, but she knows an aerospace engineer that might be
able to do it. Jim notes that if the Maximoff boys keep aging this fast, Wanda
and Vision will be empty nesters by dinner. Darcy calls the anomaly the Hex, given
its hexagonal shape and because they’re setting up that Wanda is the damned
Scarlet Witch. Darcy asks if she really wants to go back in, and she says she does.
Jim asks who Tommy and Billy actually are, both the ten-year-old’s and the
babies. Monica says that they’re hers,
that everything in the Hex is real even if she’s forcing people to act the
parts. Jim and Darcy are doubtful, claiming that it would require way more
power to manipulate matter and energy like this. They think she’s just making everyone
in the Hex to hallucinate. Monica points out she could have taken out Thanos if
he hadn’t unleashed a carpet bomb, the only one to do it, Jim points out that
Captain Marvel also came close, but Monica clearly doesn’t want to talk about
her. She has a lightbulb moment looking at the picture of the helicopter drone.
They go to check on her “costume” from her time in the Hex. She shoots it to
prove a point, namely it’s bulletproof. It looks like 70’s chic, but it’s made
of Kevlar, like the vests she wore when she got sucked in. Wanda manipulates
anything that goes into the Hex to match her fantasy, so they think they’ll
need something that would require no change.
Breaking someone out of a trance, what could
possibly go wrong?
Back in the Hex, Vision is at work.
While he’s typing on his computer, he somehow gets one of Darcy’s emails. Norm
and the entire office read it off in a creepy manner. They laugh like it’s a
joke. Vision touches the computer, but it just cuts out. He does the same thing
to Norm, breaking his trance. He starts freaking out, wanting to find his phone
to call his sister, his dad is sick. Talks about feeling Wanda’s pain, begging
Vision to make it stop. Viz puts him back under, as it seems less cruel, I
guess.
Back at the house, Wanda and the
boys are playing with Sparky and teaching him tricks. Both sons seem to note
the logical inconsistency of their father going to work on a Saturday. Wanda
tells them that he needed to put his mind on other things so sent him there. She
turns it into a life lesson, complete with schmaltzy music, about how family
fights but is forever. Tommy asks if she had a brother, and she tells them about
Pietro. She tells them that he’s far away from her and she misses him. While
they talk, Sparky starts barking. Wanda is drawn outside by whatever seems to
be making Sparky freak out. She tells the boys to stay inside, but the dog goes
out, so that’s not happening. Where’s Pietro when you need him? … oh, right.
It's actually kind of cute that they think a bunch
of guns is in anyway a deterent to the woman that
went one-on-one with Thanos and has altered
reality for an entire town. So cute.
The thing Wanda felt was an 80s era
drone they sent into the Hex. Picture isn’t great on it, but it’s functional.
They locate Wanda, but find that the drone is cropped out of the footage, Wanda
seems to be controlling what’s broadcast. Monica tries to make contact with Wanda,
but Mama Maximoff’s eyes start glowing, and Monica loses control. Hayward tells
someone to take the shot, revealing the drone is armed. The video cuts out and
an alarm starts blaring. Wanda leaves the Hex, coming out in her combat gear
and with her Accent back. She tells everyone to back off and leave her alone,
or things get nasty. Monica tries to talk to Wanda. She knows that Wanda knows
she didn’t know the drone was armed, that she sensed that Monica is there to
help. It’s why she telepathically drew Monica to her when she was in labor. Monica
wants to help, but Wanda claims to have what she wants, and that no one is
taking it from her again. She mind controls the guards to point their guns at
Hayward as she walks off. As she reenters the hex, it turns bright red. Or
scarlet, maybe?
Commercial this week is for Lagos
brand Towels. “For when you make a mess that you didn’t mean to,” in reference
to the inciting incident in the Civil War in Captain America 3. These
Commercials are getting weirder and weirder.
Maximoffs are looking for Sparky. A
passing Mailman assures the boys he’ll turn up, as Wanda won’t let him get far.
They do find the dog with Agnes… unfortunately, he ate some of her azaleas, got
poisoned by them and died. Damn, dark turn. The boys start freaking out. Wanda
sense that they’re going to try to age themselves up again, but talks them down,
saying that running from the pain won’t help… kay… They ask her to bring Sparky
back, but Wanda can’t, telling them that somethings are forever. Vision walks
up, learns the dog is dead and tries to comfort his family.
Looks like Pietro has gotten a little nip and tuck
since we last saw him...
The Maximoff’s return home. Wanda
tells Vision that the boys are heartbroken but will be alright. Vision seems
depressed by the dogs death, he reveals to Wanda that he spoke to the real Norm.
Wanda tries to brush it off, but Vision isn’t going to let her have them go to
bed so she can change everything in the morning. Vision tells her that he’s
figured out that she can’t control him like she does everything else. She tries
to force the argument to end by playing the credits, but Vision isn’t having it.
He demands to know what the Maximoff anomaly is, and tells her that he HAS to
believe that she isn’t doing this on purpose. Wanda keeps trying to play dumb,
but Vision is losing his temper. He tells her that Norm has a family that Wanda
is keeping him from. They both start flying in anger. Vision wants to know what’s
outside Westview, but Wanda refuses to tell him. Vision can’t remember his life
and that’s got him scared. She tries to talk him down by asking if their life
is enough. Vision asks why there are no children in Westview. Wanda starts
freaking out, admitting she doesn’t know how this all started. Vision starts
telling her that this is wrong, but they’re interrupted by the doorbell. Vision
gives her a look, she denies that she did that, and Vision points out if he
believed her, he’d be ignoring statistics entirely. Wanda goes to the door. Outside,
Darcy gets to her computer just in time fore the reveal of… Pietro. Not the MCU
Aaron Taylor-Johnson version, though, no, this one is Evan Peters version from
the Fox X-Men movies. Darcy is rather shocked that Wanda somehow recast her brother.
Pietro asks if a long-lost brother is allowed to hug his stinking sister. Wanda
is clearly shocked but hugs him. Pietro asks who the popsicle is, pointing at
Vision, as the credits roll. Damn
So, there’s a lot to unpack with
this episode. I liked seeing the Vision begin to see more and more of the cracks
in Wanda’s illusion. Him noting how odd it is that Agnes always stops by with whatever
is needed, and seeing the email and even realizing how to break people out of
Wanda’s trance were all very good scenes. The boys make a nice addition to the
series too. They both are a product of Wanda’s sitcom, but clearly have the same
level of… immunity or maybe resistance, to Wanda’s control that Vision has, so
that they can start questioning why she’s doing things the way she is. If you
think rapidly aging them up to ten was probably at least in part to use child
actors that might have some talent, you’re probably right, but Tommy and Billy
have gone through seemingly random magic growth spurts in the comics as well. I
think technically they’re five in universe but through magic time shenanigans are
physically in their late teens or early twenties. Billy just got married to his
teammate and longtime partner Teddy in the comics (yep, he’s gay), so at least that
old. Wanda seems to be not handling Vision’s growing autonomy super well. It’s
clear that she loves him even now, but clearly preferred the version of him
that kept playing along with her daydream. The plot on the outside is super interesting
too. Monica and her crew trying to find peaceful solutions while Hayward continually
tries the most aggressive option, love that conflict. And then kinda subtle,
kinda obvious point that Monica has conflicting feelings about Carol was neat.
And then there’s the reveal. That crazy, I didn’t see it coming reveal of the Fox
Pietro. Blew my mind. What? Oh, no I totally expected Wanda to do something
involving her brother, I just assumed it’d be the Taylor-Johnson one. What?
Infinite power in her fantasy world, OF COURSE she’d bring back her twin. No
spoilers, but his presence in their lives will be as jarring as his arrival.
Looking forward to talking about the Halloween episode next time. Have a good
night, everybody.
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Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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