Marvel Cinematic Universe, Phase 4 & Beyond (and a chance to change your vote)

Bettany has been pretty great throughout, but this episode in particular, his constant astonishment, terror and eventually anger was so perfect. We're only halfway done too! So into this.

I gotta remember to stay off Twitter on Fridays from now on - the trending topics spoiled this for me. Same problem happened with Mandalorian.

I agree with the theory that Wanda isn't really the one who created the Westview illusion, she's just taking advantage of how it allows him and Vision to have a happy domestic life. Nothing in the series has indicated that her powers have grown to reality-warping levels, and the SWORD crew also seems to be baffled how she's able to do all this with the power she supposedly has (telekinesis and telepathy).

Note that while in the sitcom world she appears to have reality-altering magical powers, when the sitcom facade drops she doesn't have them; in episode 3 the sitcom made it look like she magicked Monica away from Westview, but in episode 4 we saw that she actually just used her telekinesis to do that. And in today's episode she seems pretty honest when she tells Vision she doesn't control everything in Westview, and of course the appearance of Quicksilver seems to be a genuine shock for her too.

Also, when Vision temporarily lets Norm drop the illusion, Norm said "she's controlling my mind", but he never actually names Wanda as the person who's doing that. Of course we were meant to assume he was talking about Wanda, but I think the "she" he was referring to is Agnes, who in this episode is shown to be well aware of the Westview illusion, so she's probably the one behind it.

Also also, the discussion where the SWORD agents mention that Wanda doesn't have any codename felt pretty pointless, so I'm thinking it was actually foreshadowing. Maybe in the MCU it's Agnes who's the original Scarlet Witch; maybe she's even Wanda's real mother (from whom she inherited her witch powers in the comics, if I remember correctly)? And by the end of the series she'll inherit the Scarlet Witch name from her?

And if the appearance of Quicksilver is meant to indicate the existence of the multiverse (meaning that he really is the character from the X-Men movie universe brought to the MCU), then maybe the Vision in this series is an alternate universe Vision, who was brought to the MCU soon after his conception, and who therefore still has his Mind Stone? That would explain why he has no memory of a life before Westview, and why Wanda tells Tommy and Billy she can't reverse death, even though she's seemingly done exactly that with the Vision.

Stet really earned his Buffy DVDs for show hidden text.

I'm simultaneously excited by the direction events are taking and, mmm, a little hesitant inasmuch as I just recently watched the CW DC shows wring the absolute life out of the whole multiverse thing and ultimately make it a fairly unremarkable concept but I continue to have faith in the Feige so let's just sit back and see what the next several years have in store, I guess, since it's increasingly clear that this is gonna be a running theme.

Nothing in the series has indicated that her powers have grown to reality-warping levels

Apart from the multiple times she rewrites reality, you mean? Starting with the beekeeper.

Yeah, but if the simulation wasn't created by her, that just means that the simulation can rewrite reality, and she has (some) control over it, but it's not her powers that are doing it.

I think the MCU movies have been pretty good at taking a basic story concept from the comics, but then adding some new, unexpected plot developments, so even the comic readers won't be spoiled. Like in Winter Soldier everyone thought they're just gonna do the big plot twist from the Captain America storyline of the same name, which they did, but then the actual big plot twist was something else, and not adapted from any comic. So similarly, I think in here they've let people believe that this is a variation of the John Byrne West Coast Avengers story/Avengers Disassembled/House of M, where Wanda snaps and rewrites reality, but actually there's something else going here.

Or at least I'm hoping they're doing something else, because the aforementioned comic book stories ruined Wanda as a character for a long time (essentially making her characterisation as "hysterical woman, who can't handle the loss of her kids, and becomes a villain as a result"), which I wouldn't want to happen here.

Yeah, but if the simulation wasn't created by her, that just means that the simulation can rewrite reality, and she has (some) control over it, but it's not her powers that are doing it.

This is fanfic - she is seen, in the series, doing these things. It's of course possible that some other explanation is in effect, but you said "nothing has indicated", and that is the indication.

She is seen doing those things within the sitcom setting, which is presented as a fake, a fantasy. In that setting the Vision also has powers that he hasn't shown before in real life, like superspeed. I dunno, I just feel that it would be weird if Wanda is all of a sudden revealed to have developed a power set that has little to do with her established powers or their origin (she got her powers from the Mind Stone, not the Reality Stone).

So yeah, I guess it is pure speculation, but IMO it feels significant that when we see her use her powers outside the sitcom fantasy, like when she throws Monica

(Sorry, that post was cut short.)

So yeah, I guess it is pure speculation, but IMO it feels significant that when we see her use her powers outside the sitcom fantasy, like when she threw Monica out of Westview in the previous ep, or when she goes against the soldiers in the latest one, we only see her use her established powers (telekinesis and telepathy), not reality-warping.

I reluctantly agree that it looks like this is not just Wanda's doing - reluctant not because it's a bad idea as such, more because of the timing. This episode is probably too early for everything to be as it seems, but it feels too late to introduce an antagonist.

Like, I understand what you're saying about twisting comic book story settings, but I'd suggest the perspective that they're rewriting the stories not as a nod to the comic book fans, but for the benefit of everyone else. Turning around in episode 6 of 9 and saying "oh by the way the villain is Mephisto or Agatha Harkness who you've never heard of before" would be a bewildering decision. I'd even prefer the idea that it's Wanda's mother because although we've not seen that figure before, the existence of that figure can be inferred, wouldn't need the same levels of explanation.

I feel like the codename is just lampshading that SWORD are going to refer to her as 'Codename Scarlet Witch' and then after this that's what she'll be - it's dumb but so is the Vision, so is Iron Man, so are a lot of superhero names.

maybe the Vision in this series is an alternate universe Vision, who was brought to the MCU soon after his conception, and who therefore still has his Mind Stone?

I'm not sure why she'd need the original Vision's body (in kit form, from the look of things) in that case?

why Wanda tells Tommy and Billy she can't reverse death, even though she's seemingly done exactly that with the Vision.

My reading of this scene is partly not wanting to freak out Agnes, partly fear that the kids shouldn't know what's going on, and partly fear that they might have the same power - the scene at the start where her powers don't work on the kids seems the start of things slipping from her grasp.

I'm mixed on Agnes - her early freaking out, and that scene, looks like someone from that Twilight Zone episode, but her reacting to the twins growing up with "Kids - you can't control them" does sound like a hint of the "Wanda's mother" option

xp The beekeeper is also outside the fantasy too though? The film stock, iirc, is different.

I'm surprised to see that no one has mentioned Monica's washed-out x-ray results, indicating that her clothes aren't the only thing to have been changed within the Hex.

My friend thinks she's all Kevlar now

The beekeeper becomes part of the fantasy as he enters Westview, as his clothes change from the SWORD gear to something recognisable within the sitcom. And we don't actually see what ultimately happens to him; IIRC he isn't shown to be ejected from Westview like Monica, so maybe the mind control simply set upon him and he became a background character in the sitcom?

the scene at the start where her powers don't work on the kids seems the start of things slipping from her grasp.

Monica has obviously gained her comic book powers now and is a being of pure energy. Isn't he set to appear in the Captain Marvel sequel?

Whoops, sorry, I forgot to put that in spoiler tags.

"Isn't she set to appear..."

Kind of interesting:

Go behind the scenes to find out how Marvel movies are mapped out far in advance with advanced visualization technologies, from previs to postvis pic.twitter.com/KFQoqAp76V

— Entertainment Insider (@EntInsider) February 1, 2021

I do feel like it's weird that nobody in SWORD seems concerned about beekeeper guy; I was wondering whether Wanda literally turned back time so far that SWORD actually never sent him on that mission in the first place? Or are we NOT supposed to believe that she has actual timebending power, only that she can so to speak rewind the "broadcast"?

The beekeeper becomes part of the fantasy as he enters Westview, as his clothes change from the SWORD gear to something recognisable within the sitcom.

Sure, but so does Monica? As I understand it, your position requires that the Beekeeper is 'part of the show' and Monica's expulsion isn't, and I'm not sure how that works - the other way around seems more likely to me.

Aesthetically I loved all the Family Ties interior decorating, they do such a great job with the aesthetics of each episode. Loved Wanda’s Tina Yothers big hair in the first scene & Vision in the Steve Keaton flannel. As the kids say, I live!

The theme song visuals & music was great
I was nerdily bummed that they didnt get better singers? Or at least try to be on Johnny Mathis & Deniece Williams’ level lol

The beekeeper becomes part of the fantasy as he enters Westview, as his clothes change from the SWORD gear to something recognisable within the sitcom.

Sure, but so does Monica? As I understand it, your position requires that the Beekeeper is 'part of the show' and Monica's expulsion isn't, and I'm not sure how that works - the other way around seems more likely to me.

Did the beekeeper become the postal worker in that episode?

I think we already saw the postal worker guy before the beekeeper entered Westview?

Yeah, just checked the credits and they’re separate characters.

We should poll the show intros when it’s over.

Kind of interesting:

Watched a bit of this and the "simple" storytelling animatic looks 1000x better than the final film's sea-of-pixels-animation-with-actors-faces-CGIed-in

Andrew Ellard's writeup at the Graun helpfully annotated something I had no idea I was seeing in this ep:

Bad enough Hayward wants to dismiss Wanda as simply a radicalised terrorist and allocate her a nickname to dehumanise her – worse that, from the video Hayward foolishly shows, what Wanda actually stole wasn’t the body of Vision … but the body parts of the lovable synthezoid.

Since Vision died in more or less one piece, this clunky and exposing info-dump scene suggests SWORD were doing weapon research on the corpse – against what we are told were Vision’s express wishes. If we were looking for the incident that drove Wanda to do what she is doing, we may just have found it.

Link for that: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/feb/05/wandavision-episode-four-shownotes-disney-marvel

disregard SEO error

It was a little tough to discern precisely what was happening in that security camera footage (although that might just be my tv) but yes, that would seem to be significant.

"oh by the way the villain is redacted or redacted who you've never heard of before"

Like I posted before, my other thought was given Wanda is reportedly set to show up again in Dr. Strange 2 (and he may show up here?), and this series is supposedly a limited one-off, the show is actually under no pressure to introduce a clear villain, or even wrap things up. It can serve as a bridge. It may very well end with Dr. Strange showing up and saying "Roads? Where we're going, we don't need ... roads." And then "the adventure continues in Dr. Strange 2" or whatever. Recall that the introduction of Thanos was iirc just a wordless smirk in the end credits of whichever movie that was, so I think even casual fans are primed for cliff hangers and the serial nature of these things, which is kind of a gift to the enterprise. Like I also suggested, it's great publicity for future shows and movies. "Who is Thanos? All your questions answered!" etc. Stuff like that.

Anyway, I wasn't totally sold on this episode until as it was wrapping, but there some pretty radical things it did that I liked. Like interrupting the credits, or "recasting" a character from a recently acquired property, which is pretty novel, isn't it? Certainly in this manner. I had to explain what was going on to the person I was watching with.

One weird thing I might have missed: Monica notes that Wanda could have taken out Thanos by herself. Why does she say that? She wasn't there and had barely just come back when it happened. Iirc Wanda was kicking his ass, though.

a wordless smirk in the end credits of whichever movie that was

It was Avengers, Josh, which had just had an ending, featuring its villain defeated. I get the impression you snooze a lot during films, but that was what had just happened.

I had to explain what was going on to the person I was watching with.

That must have been an experience.

I meant that Avengers, despite having an "ending," was still toward the beginning of a bigger arc. That appearance of Thanos basically announced "no, this isn't over."

I do like the theory that Agnes could be her mom. Did they name her parents in any other Marvel thing? Anyone catch their names?

OK, they were Irina and Oleg Maximoff. Ring any bells? I have no idea.

Meanwhile, in nerdvrlle:

Before Agnes shows up the second time around, Vision is reading a newspaper with the headline, “LOCAL HOMEMAKERS INNOVATING RECIPES.” Moments later, he folds the newspaper in a way so that it only says “HOM.” HOM is short for the big Scarlet Witch comic event House of M.

And lots of ideas about the “aerospace engineer who’d be up for this challenge" floating about.

IIRC, in the comics Irina and Oleg Maximoff were Wanda and Pietro's adoptive parents, whom they thought were their real parents until they found out who those really were. As for who the real parents are, that's more complicated, since their parentage has been reconned more than once. But the best-known story of their parentage is that they are the children of Magneto and her wife Magda. I guess they could something similar to the comics here... I mean, it's not very likely Magneto is gonna be introduced to the MCU in this series, but they could reveal Irina and Oleg weren't their biological parents and introduce the real mother.

Then again, since MCU Wanda and Pietro are not mutants, it would be pretty convoluted to have their dad be a famous mutant and have their powers come from somewhere else than their genes. OTOH they just introduced the X-Men version of Quicksilver, who is a mutant and son of Magneto, so who knows?

If we assume that the simulation is something working independently from Wanda (even though she has some control over it), then the way it deals with outside interference is to assimilate it in the sitcom setting. So the drones become period-appropriate toys, the guy in the hazmat suit becomes a beekeeper, and Monica becomes a character in the show, with her clothes changing to fit that. And the assimilation works on a mental level too, brainwashing the real people to become sitcom personalities.

Sure - I'd say independently from Wanda's consciousness - it's not being depicted that she's aware that a hazmat suit guy is now a bee keeper (though it's far from clear whether he's brainwashed?)

But the 'editing' is something that she's consciously doing, including in parts that aren't in the broadcast or look anything like broadcast (the Beekeeper)

Then why did Agnes in this most recent episode break character and ask to do a retake? Actually, not just that, she specifically asked Wanda if *she* wanted to reverse it and do it again. But then iirc did another "take" without Wanda's doing anyway. Then again, Agnes is clearly external to Wanda's fiction, so I guess that is another reveal to be, er, revealed.

The editing trick is actually a neat way out of this, because we don't always know if what we (as viewers) are seeing is what actually happened or what Wanda wants "us" to see. Like when she made Monica "vanish" and then we see what actually happened later. Or how she keeps the drone out of frame in this most recent episode, but the drone is without a doubt still there in her world, as a drone, iirc. And for that matter, when she returns the drone to SWORD it's still a drone, too, not a little toy or anything.

Then there's the matter of the dog (assuming the dog is dead). Who did that? How did it die? Wanda didn't seem to (consciously) create the dog, nor did she seem to kill it.

So many ways this all can go, especially with the drastic expansion of the MCU universe, but to what end, who knows. What scenes have been in trailers that we haven't seen yet? Halloween stuff, with Vision as a janky Vision, Wanda as, er, Scarlet Witch and Agnes as ... a witch?

there's always the possibility that agnes is in fact mephisto - no reason for marvel to be beholden to casting that character as male

Good point! And that ties in with their habit of taking inspiration from past familiar/famous storylines without necessarily sticking exactly to their beats. Like when Red Skull shows up in Endgame but for a split second I think you're supposed to think it's Death, because of the comics, and then it's not.

And for that matter, when she returns the drone to SWORD it's still a drone, too, not a little toy or anything.

It got a little buried but they explained this, saying that they dug out a really old drone from the 80s (that's why the image it send back was lo-res) so it didn't get changed on entry to the FamilyTiesVerse

Yeah, for once I didn't miss that, but I wasn't sure if it was the drone that was old or the camera, since there was a reference to the '80s video quality. Still, that's some weird logic, since it's not really like there would be a drone there at all in fictional '80s-ville. But that kind of hand-waving I can accept.

I meant that Avengers, despite having an "ending," was still toward the beginning of a bigger arc.

Sure, but it still had an ending - unless you're being more incoherent than usual, you're arguing that they might just not have one in WandaVision?

(other examples of stories with endings include Back to the Future, just so you know)

lol I like the idea of being incoherent about a show that's already incoherent by design.

But yeah, I know what an ending is. Star Wars had an ending. The Matrix had an ending. Fellowship of the Ring had an ending. Back to the Future, etc. And so on. But clearly all these movies had more story to tell, and are connected and serialized to a degree that, say, the Toy Story series or Raiders of the Lost Ark is not. Anyway, sure, I predict that WandaVision, while not concluding mid-sentence or something, may not have an actual everything-tied-up ending, and that despite being a limited series (reportedly) it may conclude with lots of stuff unanswered (or characters unexplained, maybe) that will then get addressed in future movies. That's my guess.

Another thought I had this morning, sort of bouncing off the "maybe Agnes is other villain" idea ... maybe the Wanda we saw face down SWORD, or for that matter the Wanda that supposedly stole the remains of Vision in the real world, is not Wanda. We've officially got the multiverse thing going on now, for one, with multiple versions of her redacted and (again reportedly) multiple versions of Spider-man showing up in the next movie. But we're also making some assumptions based on what the show has smartly showed us or not showed us so far. So maybe Wanda in the show is the Wanda we know, and she is indeed trapped there (for some reason) and maybe able to control some stuff and push back against some impositions but ultimately is along for the ride like everyone else. And the Wanda that brought back the drone or stole Vision is either a second/different Wanda or someone pretending to be her.

Also Josh was only saying that Thanos smirking wordlessly happened in the end credits of a movie which he had not previously appeared in, not that the movie had not ended.

He was saying it in the context that since 'this series is supposedly a limited one-off, the show is actually under no pressure to introduce a clear villain, or even wrap things up. It can serve as a bridge. It may very well end with Dr. Strange showing up and saying "Roads? Where we're going, we don't need ... roads." And then "the adventure continues in Dr. Strange 2" or whatever.' - iirc you were the person who tried to disabuse him of the idea that there were comic book series that worked like this?

Sigh. I was just saying that The Avengers, at the very very end of the credits of a movie that was "over," suddenly introduced a new villain that the vast majority of everyone knew nothing about, and then parceled out minimal further information about said villain until said villain became the driving force and focus of the entire series.

forecasting this show's direction at this point is a fool's game imo; they have loaded it with intentional red herrings and have multiple continuities to work with. clearly the lead sword guy has a hidden agenda. yes the "scarlet witch? never heard of it" bit is leading somewhere. Likely there's another baddie lurking under the surface and THING WE DON'T YET KNOW. All these ideas are valid! Some would play out better than others! I'm content waiting to see how shit plays out.

I am also gratified that we're half in/half out of Wanda's world and wish they could've built a structure that supported that from episode one. Still watching this on day of release though so clearly i'm enjoying it!

just want to pop in and say i love wandavision and think it's pretty wild that this very strange show is getting the living fuck marketed out of it

lol at some interview with feige linked upthread where he says 'if you know nothing of the MCU and just like old dick van dyke episodes you won't miss anything'.. now... i know little to nothing about the MCU and whoa boy i found the shift to 'normal' reality quite difficult to follow

like, the first couple of episodes would have definitely lost my kids - and the next couple lost me - but i enjoy this actually, that they are not dialling down the difficulty for anyone

ultimately the pleasure for me in this is the same sort of pleasure as reading edgar allen poe or henry james ghost stories - you've got an impossible, supernatural reality created by a crisis of the human psyche which is the subject of rational inquiry by official forces - this collision seems to just be an endless well of narrative possibility

i also feel like this show has massive racial undertones and it's difficult to tell whether or not the creators are aware of them

i.e. there are black people living in small-town 1950s America who appear to enjoy the same rights, privileges and respect as the white people there. yes this is a sitcom, not real life, but sitcoms didn't have Black people in these positions either. so it's a little bit like racial justice has been retconned into the MCU! which is.. super weird!

- however there's another guy with burgundy and blue skin who hides that skin every time he goes outside or sees someone besides his wife. He pretends he's white, which equates as human. At home is the only place he can really be himself.

- this family is different from everyone else and they have to literally hide their light for fear of some unspecified repercussion.

- good fences make good neighbors - and Wanda and Vision's Black neighbor has somehow used his hedge trimmer to slice through the wall dividing their property. I found this detail particularly nightmarish - something weird/threatening/impossible about it that felt the most like a David Lynch movie than anything else in the show