The cracks engulf the happy sitcom that Wanda has tried to wrap herself up in.
Oh my, with these two extra posts
this month I’ve gotten through my first theme week in about three years. Go me!
Last time on WandaVision, the
Maximoffs celebrated Halloween. Wanda spent time with the boys and spent time getting
to know this new Pietro. Turns out, while he remembers a fair number of things
from back in the day, there is still something about him that just seems off.
Meanwhile, Vision explored the rest of Westview without his family. He sees that
without Wanda nearby or him being in an area that she is aware of, people are
on autopilot, moving in the same repetitive motions waiting for Wanda to come by
so they can act out their scene. After speaking with Agnes, whom he freed from
Wanda’s trance, Vision decides to leave Westview. He made it to just outside
the Hex, but his body began to fall apart outside the radius. Outside the Hex,
Monica and her crew were removed from the SWORD base for insubordination, but
they elected to not go. Monica and Jim left to meet with Monica’s contact whom
had thrown together the vehicle she’d need to reenter the Hex. Darcy stayed
back to get more of Hayward’s files decrypted. So, she was in the blast radius
when Wanda, warned by Billy that Vision was dying, expanded the Hex, engulfing
most of the SWORD camp. Oh, and Wanda blasted Pietro for making a crass remark about
Vision dying. Enough recap, let’s get to it.
Simple opener this time, and it has me concerned.
We find Wanda in bed with the covers up to her neck. She seems exhausted,
probably from expanding the Hex, and just wants to veg. The boys come in to ask
her what is going on, as their game system keeps changing. It swaps between
pretty much every major console before setting on Uno. Weird. Billy also complains
of hearing voices. Wanda tells them to give her a few minutes and sends them
away. In one of those cutaway interviews, Wanda says that she’s going to have a
Quarantine style Staycation to reset. She gets out of bed, and it’s revealed
she’s still in her Scarlet Witch costume. While the boys are fighting over their
game, Wanda comes down and gets breakfast going. As she fills a bowl of cereal,
we see the milk she grabbed shift between multiple incarnations, from plastic
jug to milk carton to glass bottle. Perhaps the field is too big?
Outside, the not captured SWORD
agents have set up a new base of operations eight miles out from their old basecamp.
Hayward asks about the broadcast, but it’s gone off the air since the expansion
of the Hex. He tells his assistant that they’ll launch something today.
Darcy as an escape artist? Yeah, that actually makes
total sense.
Back inside the Hex, Vision wakes
up. He apparently shut down just outside the SWORD camp, which has since turned
into a Circus. The strongman comes up and assumes that he’s the new clown. He
tells him that he’s late practicing with the escape artist, whom is Darcy.
Back at the house, the boys ask
their mom about what happened last time, both the events and what Uncle Pietro
said about their dad dying. She claims to not remember and is adamant that that
“Man” isn’t their Uncle so they should stay away from him. She explains to her sons
that, while they assume that she as an adult should have all the answers, she
has no answers. Agnes comes over, she offers to take the boys for the day to
give Wanda some me time. Wanda enthusiastically agrees. Once she’s alone, Wanda
tries to relax, but the house keeps randomly shifting between the various eras
that it’s existed in.
Meanwhile, Monica and Jim are
driving to the rendezvous with Monica’s engineer contact. They get the data
from Darcy, giving them access to Haywards files. They find out about Project Cataract.
The point of the project is to get Vision back online, not study the corpse.
They’d been trying to get him online up until Wanda “stole” the body. They meet
with Monica’s contact, Major Goodner and her team. Goodner was able to whip up
the mobile bomb shelter Monica thought she’d need to get back into the Hex.
At the circus, Vision is trying to tell
Darcy what happened, but her character isn’t listening. She thinks he’s weirdly
hitting on her, and agrees to go out with him but she’s getting lobster. He distracts
Darcy for a moment with a mine and breaks Darcy’s trance when her back is
turned. She agrees to help him and tell him what’s going on, and the two make
to steal a funnel cake truck. The strongman tries to stop them, but Darcy bops him
on the nose and knocks him on his ass. They drive off. Once they’ve gotten
going, Vision asks if his sons are okay and who Pietro is. Darcy doesn’t know.
Elizabeth Olsen playing Wanda Maximoff acting
like Claire Dumphy is disturbingly good.
The Maximoff house keeps shifting
despite Wanda’s efforts. The stork also comes back. If I were Wanda, I’d be
scared that is a sign that I’m pregnant again. In an interview cutaway she
doesn’t know why it’s falling apart and she can’t fix it. The interviewer asks
her if she thinks she deserves it, which confuses the heck out of Wanda since
he’s not supposed to talk.
The Commercial this week is for Nexus
Antidepressants. “The World doesn’t revolve around you, or does it?”
Over at Agnes’ house, the boys have
gotten comfortable. Billy is playing with Agnes’ rabbit. He likes it at Agnes’
house, says that it’s “quiet” there. They ask if their mom is okay, and she
assures them that Wanda is, even though her face says otherwise. In a cutaway
she says her husband Ralph tells her she sugarcoats things, but she has no idea
how to tell a ten-year-old that their mother is coocoo for coco puffs.
Life Before Death, Strength Before Weakness,
Journey Before Destination!
For my Stormlight Archive readers.
At Monica’s camp, she is in a full
space suit and about to get into the truck. Jim wishes her good luck. She
straps in and drives at the Hex. The rover hits the barrier, but it resists her
passing through it. Monica bails out as the rover pitches backwards. It’s half
transformed into an old van. Monica drops her space helmet, and still believes
she can get through. She runs at the barrier and forces her way through. While
traveling through it, things get trippy. Like multiple Monica’s appearing,
energy sparking all around her, that sort of thing. Monica looks like she’s
about to drop, but then she hears the line that Carol Danvers told her as a
kid. About how her mom lucked out because she got the toughest kid in the
world. She’s able to get up and force her way completely through. On the other side,
Monica’s eyes are now a vivid blue, and she seems to be able to see into the electromagnetic
spectrum. She drops off the outer most layer of her space suit and runs off.
Back at the Funnel Cake truck,
Darcy has just finished explaining to Vison how he died, that Wanda killed him
to destroy the Mind Stone, but then Thanos used the Time Stone to rewind time
and ripped the stone from his skull. Wanda had to watch both times. They hit a
red light, which is then beset with a construction crew. In a cutaway, Vision
says that he thinks Wanda is trying to keep him from coming home. While they
wait, Vision muses on his existence, that he’s mentally based on Jarvis’ code
in the body Ultron built for his plan of global genocide, and wonders what he
is now. Darcy isn’t sure, as she thought he was the OG Vision that Wanda
somehow figured out how to power back up in the Hex, but him coming to pieces outside
the Hex suggests otherwise. Despite his worries, she reassures him that she
thinks his and Wanda’s love is real.
Monica runs into the Maximoff house.
She tries to warn Wanda, who was popping a few pills, about Hayward, but Wanda
isn’t listening. She telekinetically lifts Monica and marches her outside. She yells
at Monica to leave and ties to slam her into the concrete. But Monica is able
to hit the ground on her feet and absorb the impact. Wanda claims she’s a liar,
but Monica points out the only lies she told were the ones Wanda put into her
mouth. She tries to warn Wanda, to not let Hayward make her the villain, but
then Agnes comes over and interrupts. She convinces Wanda to come to her house.
Monica tries to follow but Wanda warns her off, telling her to not make Wanda
hurt her.
It Was Agatha All Along!
At the Funnel Cake truck, the
construction finishes up, but then a long parade of school children starts to
crossing the street. Vision starts another interview cutaway, realizes that all
of this is absurd and ends up flying off to make it home. Darcy calls out that she’ll
just meet him there.
Agnes sits Wanda down. She sees her
boys stuff laying around and that the TV is turned to a kid show. She asks where
they are, and Agnes tells her that they’re probably playing in the basement. Wanda
goes down to check it out. Rather than a slightly cluttered basement of the
modern suburbanite, she finds what looks like to be an evil and creepy looking
sanctum. Complete with a Necronomicon looking book. Agnes comes down and
reintroduces herself with her real name. She’s “Agatha Harkness and it’s lovely
to finally meet you.” She disables Wanda with some purple energy, and then we
get the weirdly catchy song “it was Agatha all along” where it showcases all
the times she, just off screen, manipulated things to complicated Wanda’s life.
She was controlling Pietro from his arrival, caused many of the randomness that
complicated their lives, and also killed Sparky. The witch.
Yeah, this is either really bad or really good.
There is no inbetween.
In a mid-credit scene, we’re shown
Monica looking around Agatha’s house for an entrance. She finds a door to the
cellar that she opens, but then suddenly Pietro is beside her and says “Snoopers
gonna snoop,” before the credits roll for real.
And, ladies and gentlemen, I
believe we have our villain. Agatha Harkness, one of the original Salem
witches, a powerful magic user and devious mastermind. She’s trained Wanda in a
few realities, but in this one, she seems to want something from Wanda. If you
haven’t seen it, look up It Was Agatha All Along, the song weirdly slaps. It’s
still not completely clear what she wants from Wanda, but it can’t possibly be
good. We also have the debut of an underappreciated Marvel hero. Yep, in the
comics Monica Rambeau is a cosmic superhero like her friend Carol Danvers. She
goes by Photon and is one of those characters that could probably destroy planets
if she wanted to. I think? I’m actually not that well versed in her, either.
Maybe she should be the subject of a Hero Profile soon to correct that. Just
know that she’s immensely powerful and that that will probably play into the
finale. I liked that during her final transformation, it was that memory of
Carol that seemed to push her fully through the Hex. Good symbolism there. For Vision,
like how last time I really appreciated that his first concern was getting
SWORD to help the people in the Hex, when he’s back his first concern is
figuring out how his children are and who that guy is pretending to be his brother-in-law.
Man has strong priorities. Oh, and I just need to give props to Elizabeth Olsen’s
Julie Bowen impression. I think Elizabeth has been great throughout, but her playing
Wanda playing Clair Dunphy is weirdly perfect. Hell, Julie Bowen seemed to agree,
she posted that it was a real honor to see Modern Family being slightly parody
in WandaVision along side greats like the Dick van Dyke Show and The Brady
Bunch. That’s good TV right there. We’ve only got two episodes left for WandaVision,
and I can tell you the penultimate episode is heartbreaking. Just so you’re aware.
See you then!
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Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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