Halloween and a visiting sibling, what could possibly go wrong?
No, your eyes aren’t deceiving you,
I’m doing more than five posts this month. I’m trying to get all caught up for
Falcon and Winter Soldier next month. Enjoy the added content. 😊
Last time on WandaVision, the
Maximoffs went through some growing pains. Your infant twins rapidly growing to
five and then ten-year-old’s count as growing pains, right? They also found a
dog they dubbed Sparky. Outside, Monica, Darcy and Jim try to find a way back
into the Hex (Darcy dubbed it as such) so Monica can help. They land on sending
an 80s era drone into the Hex, as they realized that items brought into the Hex
seem to be transformed into something era appropriate. Monica’s 70s pantsuit
being bulletproof because it’s technically Kevlar taught them that. Hayward
tried to ice Wanda with rockets on the drone, but that didn’t help. Wanda left
the Hex to tell them to back off and leave her and her family alone, and flexes
her girlboss powers by getting all the SWORD guards to turn their weapons on
Hayward. Meanwhile, Vision is beginning to notice more problems in Westview. He
is temporarily able to break Norm’s trance, but resents it when Norm can’t help
but scream about the agony he’s feeling from Wanda. The dog dies from eating Azaleas,
much to everyone’s heartbreak. Vision starts demanding that Wanda tell him what
is going on, but their argument is interrupted by the arrival of… Pietro. But not
HER Pietro. No, this is the Evan Peters version from the Fox films. Weird.
Enough recap, let’s get to it.
They look so happy, it's a shame that said happiness
is causing so much misery.
We open on a mid-2000s era sitcom
opener, inspired by Malcom in the Middle were I to hazard a guess. This episode
features a bit of narration from Billy, who appears to be taking on the Malcom
role for this episode. He talks about how much he and his brother love Halloween,
even though this is their first one. Billy is dressed in a very simplistic
version of his Wiccan costume, and Tommy is just dressed normally, claiming to
be the “Cool Twin” when asked. Pietro is passed out on the couch. It’s clear the
boys are quite taken with their crazy uncle, as demonstrated when he wakes up
and superspeeds around them to play-scare them. Wanda comes down in a red
costume, like Billy’s it’s a low budget DIY version of her costume. Pietro says
it reminds him of the year they got typhus on Halloween. There’s a pretty funny
cut away of the two of them receiving a fish as a Halloween gift, the two
dressed oddly like Black Widow and Nick Fury. Wanda claims she doesn’t remember
that, but Pietro shrugs and says she’s “Probably suppressing a lot of the trauma.”
Huh. Billy notes that there’s been a lot of weird moments like that between his
mom and Pietro, they chalk it up to being apart for so long, and a part due to Pietro
being a bit more of a man-child this go round.
Something about these two seem familiar...
Vision comes down in his DIY costume,
they don’t even bother trying to claim he’s dressed as anything besides
himself. He makes a comment about how this was the only thing in his closet,
but then switches back to the flirty husband he’s been for most of the show.
For a second anyway. Vision then says he’s going to work with the neighborhood
watch tonight, much to Wanda’s evident displeasure. She clearly wanted him to
play the part of Dad tonight, but isn’t able to force him to do so. Narrator
Billy says that the have been “not-fighting” like this for a while. Pietro
offers to fill the role while Vision is out, defusing the situation. Wanda
gives Vision a kiss as he leaves. Wanda turns around and almost runs into
Pietro, who asks her for water balloons, and complains about not being able to
fill them with shaving cream when Wanda says they don’t have any. He blames
Tommy, but calls him Billy, for the idea when Wanda gives him the “You’re an
uncle, set an example” look. What? I was 14 when my older sister had kids, I
got that look a lot. When Wanda points out he doesn’t have a costume, he grabs
Tommy by the hand and Superspeeds away, the two returning in their own DIY
versions of their costumes.
Outside the Hex, the barrier is
glowing bright red now. Hayward wants the drone analyzed and for them to prep
another plan to eliminate Wanda. Monica once again comes to Wanda’s defense, pointing
out that if she’s the problem, then she can be the solution too. Hayward tries
to use Monica’s disappearance in the blip and her dead mother as evidence that Monica
isn’t thinking clearly. He has her and the sidekicks removed from base. Or tries
to. Once they’re outside, Monica and Jimmy beat up the guards so they and Darcy
can sneak back in using their uniforms.
Think Vision feels left out neither of his children
are cyborgs? Maximoff genes are... technically
the only genetics present, I suppose.
Both sets of Maximoff twins enjoy
trick-or-treating, with Pietro doing his best to encourage his nephews to ‘Unleash
the hell.’ Wanda asks Pietro about their time at the orphanage after their parent’s
died, testing him. Pietro knows this and deflects her question. She asks the
obvious question of why he looks different, and he deflects it again. He says the
word Kickass which seems to surprise Wanda for some reason, before he grabs the
boys and high speeds them around to get more candy. Wanda sees Herb and goes to
talk to him. They do the bit where he tells Wanda about weird reports of All
the candy disappearing, jack-o-lanterns being smashed and silly string being
sprayed everywhere, and showing in the background that it’s Pietro and the boys
doing all of it. She asks where Vision is patrolling, but Herb says Vision isn’t
on duty tonight. How odd.
Vision, meanwhile, is wandering
around town. It seems that when Wanda isn’t directly in the area, her control
shifts to more of an autopilot. We’re shown a really creepy couple of scenes of
people doing repetitive tasks like forever waving, putting up a single piece of
laundry before putting it back in the laundry basket and doing it again, sort
of thing. Very creepy.
This week’s commercial is for an “extreme”
yogurt, Yo Magic. This one gets pretty dark, with the Claymation character dying
because they couldn’t get the thing open and withering away to a skeleton. The
tag line is that it’s Yo-magic, the snack for survivors.
Back with the Maximoffs2,
Wanda is forcing her boys to return the candy. She’s quizzing Pietro more. He claims
that this is part of his “role” the quirky brother-in-law showing up, to annoy
her husband, rile up her kids, and generally shake things up. She presses him
for more information. The Details to him are fuzzy, he remembers being shot and
dying, then nothing for a while, and then feeling Wanda calling out to him.
They’re distracted by Tommy superspeeding over, seems that he’s taking after
his uncle quite a bit. Wanda tells him to grab his brother and Tommy and Billy
speed off.
At the SWORD outpost, Monica’s team
sneak into the surveillance area. Darcy begins hacking into Haywards stuff. She’s
able to discover that Hayward has a means of seeing through the Hex wall. They
figure out that Hayward’s tech is somehow tracking the Vision via the atomic
decay signature of Vibranium. They see that Vision is currently at the edge of
town, and that people around him are barely moving.
Vision makes it to this super
creepy cul-de-sac, where people aren’t barely moving at all. No one even reacts
to him when he talks to them. The only motion is a flickering lamppost. Vision
decides to transform transforms into his MCU costume and flies off. He sees a
car stopped at a stop sign. He lands and finds out it’s Agnes. She talks about
making a wrong turn and how hard it is to keep going. Vision “wakes her up”
with his touch. She freaks out upon seeing him, revealing to Vision is dead.
She cackles about no one ever leaving. Vision reactivates her trance, promising
that he’ll fix this. Vision keeps walking to the edge of the barrier.
Outside Monica is going to go meet with
someone who can get her back into the Hex. Darcy reveals that might not be the
best idea, as Monica’s tests suggest that her multiple trips through the
barrier are rewriting her DNA. Monica still wants to help Wanda, so she’s going.
Jim is going with her, but Darcy is staying behind to get through the last few
firewalls on Hayward’s computer. While it’s a dangerous spot to be in, she’s
right that that info is worth the risk to her personally.
I see either of my brothers or my sister like this,
and the scream I let out would shatter glass.
The two sets of twins make it to
the town Halloween party. Pietro seems to know that Wanda is controlling
everything. He’s not judging her, he claims to be impressed by how many people
she’s controlling. He asks her how she’s doing it, but she doesn’t know. Claims
she just remembers feeling alone and empty before things changed. She looks at
Pietro, and like Vision a few episodes ago, sees him as a corpse.
The men in Wanda's life have a bad habit of dying.
Just sayin'.
Darcy is able to get through the
last fire wall and uploads the data to Monica and Jim. She then sees that
according to his signature, Vision is right at the barriers edge. Vision passes
through the barrier, but his body starts falling apart the moment he’s on the
other side. He screams at the nearby guards that they need to help the people
of Westview. Darcy runs over to try to help him, but the guards grab her and
hold her back. In the Hex, Billy senses that his dad is crumbling apart. He has
Tommy speed them over to Wanda and he explains what he’s feeling. Pietro makes
a jibe that her dead husband can’t die twice, to which Wanda magically slaps
him across the street and into a sign. Wanda stops everything in her Hex and
forces it wider. The barrier surges outward, engulfing Vision, Darcy and the
SWORD camp, turning it into a car dealership and a circus as it goes. Jim and
Monica, and Hayward in another vehicle, are able to escape the radius of the Hex
just barely. Wanda opens her eyes just before the credits roll. Damn.
Lots of things are happening in
this episode. We’re shown that Hayward is definitely hiding things, what with
his hidden means of tracking Vision. No good comes from having a means of
tracking someone that you keep hidden from the rest of your team. Vision is
clearly at wits end about being stuck in the Hex. I like that he’s not being
overly aggressive with Wanda, but he’s done just playing the role for her, too.
The bit where he actually makes it through the barrier but starts getting ripped
apart was especially well done. I loved that even while he was being shredded
to bits, his primary concern was helping the people stuck in the Hex. He is
really worthy of Mjolnir. And on a
similar note, I like that even when she’s shown that trying to help Wanda is probably
bad for her health, Monica is still set on doing it. Doing the right thing is
often difficult, but when one’s own life and career are also put in jeopardy by
doing so, it adds weight to it. Very similar to how Darcy ran over to try and
help Vision even though she knew she’d probably get arrested when she got
involved. Selflessness at its best. I also liked how they handled the new Pietro
in this. I like how they made it clear that something hinky is going down with
him, besides with the obvious clue of him being played by an entirely different
actor. His mannerisms are different, his personality is wildly different, and
yet Wanda seems to still feel some kind of connection to him. At least until he
makes the dead husband crack. Oh, Pietro, there are some wounds you don’t poke.
Seeing Tommy and Billy start developing their powers are also neat. Either by
coincidence or via Wanda’s mystical meddling, her boys ended up with powers identical
to her and Pietro. In their teens, they’ll go on to join a hero team called the
Young Avengers, where young heroes related to or inspired by the early Avengers
band together. Tommy will go with the simple moniker of Speed, and Tommy goes
by Wiccan. He originally wanted to be called Thorite, but was told that might
not be the BEST idea, what with him being in a known relationship with Teddy “Hulkling”
Altman. The jokes about Hulk and Thor doing it would have been insufferable.
Much like in the comics, I have no idea if Wanda intentionally gave them
powers, or if something about the environment they were in triggered latent abilities
that just so happened to mirror their mother’s and her brother. Maybe they’ll
explain it someday. I also liked how Wanda is clearly not happy with Vision
increasingly deviating from her script. While the setting might keep changing,
she very obviously liked the sitcom they’ve been living in the last few weeks
and disruptions to it are getting to her. Oh, and I think the production delay
actually helped with the increased feeling of unreality. Had the show premiered
late last year like had been planned, I believe the Halloween episode would
have aired the week of Halloween. Not having it do so just highlight that Wanda
is just playing with how time moves in her sphere of influence. Makes for an
increased sense of unreality. With this episode, we’ve only got three left. It’s
the home stretch, and it’s about to get really weird. I’m looking forward to
talking about it. Have a good night, everyone.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/48108800
Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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