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

xpost Not a bad theory, given the apparent levels of radiation.

guys the red light on the toaster is clearly the hibernating soul of Count Zorbon - if this does not pay off i can only assume it’s because of dumb internecine studio politics and frankly i am already preemptively disgusted

Besides, the MCU architects intentionally feed the speculative nature of fans. They want people to jump to conclusions based on the source material if only to pull the rug out from under them by going in some completely different direction with the filmed material.

Sure, but I feel like there's a clear line between "stuff we put in as Easter Eggs for the fans" (The Incredibles / Parent Trap, Ag<atha Hark>ness, Kick-Ass) and actual balls that they have in the air (Hayward's plans, Monica's friend, Monica Rambeau, possibly even Jimmy's witness?)

It seems likely that Agnes or Dottie will the witness at this point
"...in the town you grew up in?"

oh wait, that wouldn't work. Jimmy would've seen them on the broadcast.

They finally clear everything up and the witness is Ralph, played by Stan Lee.

The theory of Agnes is that she had no Westview counterpart, that they didn't identify the name of a civilian "playing" her.

In this episode she was finally included in the sitcom credits as "Agnes". All the other people in the credits (Vision, Wanda, Pietro, Tommy, Billy) are essentially playing a fictional version of themselves; there's no actor name as you would have in normal TV series credits, as it's Wanda playing Wanda. So it would seem she has no other name/identity outside the simulation, she really is Agnes. Also, when Vision (supposedly) wakes her up from the simulation, he keeps calling her Agnes and she doesn't tell him her real non-simulation name, like Vision's co-workers in the previous episode did.

I do agree that Agnes is a red herring, but only in the sense that she's not Agatha Harkness, nor in anyway related to Mephisto, but she is somehow tied to what happened with Wanda and how she ended up controlling the simulation. Like I said upthread, the MCU has been pretty good at teasing comic existing book stories, and making people think they're adapting them wholesale, but the changing the plot in significant ways so it's still fresh. Like when the second Cap movie was called Winter Soldier and introduced the eponymous character early on, so everyone thought they're gonna adapt the comic book plotline where he first appeared, but then the main plot was actually something else and not from any comic. Or when Civil War gave us Zemo as the antagonist, but the character only had the same name as his comic book counterpart, and his background and motivations turned out to be almost opposite from Baron Zemo.

Meantime, The Youth have spoken.

My niece looooooves Wandavision and insisted on rewatching the Halloween episode today. Now her new bit is pretending she’s in the same fugue state as the people under the spell and just keeps repeating her actions in a loop pic.twitter.com/K1FC7KdUuY

— Laura Hudson (@laura_hudson) February 13, 2021

looooool

So since Vision has never had any 'wake people from their mystical trance powers' before, the suggestion seems to be that his powers as we already understand them are able to disrupt whatever force is acting on the town. Which may in itself be a clue as to the nature of that force (perhaps something technological?).Which may in itself be a clue as to the nature of that force (perhaps something technological?).

I agree with this; in the Marvel comics phasing through technology makes them malfunction, and with Kitty Pryde especially its one of her signature moves. I can't recall if Vision has done the same in comics, but I'm sure he has? Also, the red wall of the illusion is certainly made to look like some kinda of technological forcefield, not a mystical barrier - it doesn't have the fluid lines of Wanda's powers, but seems rather to be made out of hexagons... And when Vision starts to disintegrate, you can see hexagon-shaped pieces of him flying back towards the illusion wall. So I think the whole is most likely revealed to be nanotech or something. And if Striker knows more about this whole than what he told Monica, which is hinted in this episode, it might mean that his goal is to acquire this technology so SWORD can use it to battle aliens.

Whoops, I meant to say "if Hayward knows more about this whole thing..."; the whole discussion upthread about Striker made me misremember the character's name.

It's Stryker now. He's been recast.

I enjoyed the line the SWORD chief fires off at Rambeau & Darcy: “And which one of you is the sassy best friend?”

(and that the answer is Jimmy)

But why would something technological gives Wanda new powers?

Wanda hasn't gained new powers, she can just control the simulation.

I think they are still playing with residual power from Infinity Stones. Wanda can control it because she received her powers from an Infinity Stone and Vision can disrupt it and has some level of immunity to it because he gets his powers from an Infinity Stone. I’m wondering if this was some sort of trap triggered by Wanda’s theft of Vision’s body that she then took control of and bent into a haven. My onlyniutsftanding question is if this speculation is correct, who laid the trap in the first place? S.W.O.R.D.? If so, how did they get their hands on the (possibly residual?) power of one or more Infinity Stones in the first place?

i've seen it claimed that agnes' car has connecticut plates; can't quite tell but it's possible. it's not a new jersey plate, tho. since salem is a town in connecticut, this proves mephisto is behind the whole thing

i haven't watched too many purely streaming shows, so -- is 30-minute episode followed by eight minutes of credits a standard thing now?

xpost But Wanda is (apparently) expanding the hex/town/simulation? How can she do that if she is not causing it?

It's the same one, the Mind Stone.

Well if it's, say, nanotech, and she can control it, she'll just make the nanobots spread to a wider area.

(xpost)

The episodes seem to be varying length, with 4 minutes of credits? Episode 5 was 34 minutes long.

er, with meaning _not_ including there, obviously.

the credits ARE insanely long. not sure why they are doing this

fuckin' with people who probably every week try to see if there are mid-credit scenes

Wait, have you been missing all of the mid-credits scenes?!

oh shit did they reveal ULtron was really Rosie the Robot

Speaking of the end credits, the initial animation sequence with all the old electron gun/phosphor bits is really lovely.

This week's mid show advert was grim stuff

yeah that was morbid!

I wasn't sure what its point was. Was this the first fake ad that took such a surprising turn?

I loved it, what a perfect combination of tonally OTM ads from the time and...something else.

things are breaking down

even the theme song was kind of curdled and strained, a kind of desperation in the chorus to “keep on going” or whatever

The ad had some magic yogurt that was supposed to save the guy on the island, but it didn't.. I guess the point was to subconsciously suggest Wanda's "magic" ultimately can't save Vision the way she thinks it will.

theme song lyrics btw

Don't try to fight the chaos
Don't question what you've done
The game can try to play us
Don't let it stop the fun

Some days it's all confusion
Easy come and easy go
But if it's all illusion
Sit back, enjoy the show

Let's keep it going
Let's keep it going
Through each distorted day
Let's keep it going
Though there may be no way of knowing
Who's coming by to play

life is unfaaaair

hahaha

lol

As a big Legion (the show) fan, I would love it if Wanda was actually being controlled by Farouk. Was Legion part of the MCU at all?

when Wanda uses the toilet are the people temporarily freed from enslavement

amal farouk is too interesting and charismatic to be an MCU villain, sorry

Oh cool, didn't realize Shadow King was in Legion. Really should get around to watching that someday.

And no, Legion is mutant-related and aired prior to the Fox acquisition so it was separate from the MCU.

I've just temporarily freed the townspeople from enslavement, I wouldn't go in there for a while if I was you.

Nailed it. Seriously, nailed it.

🥺🥺 pic.twitter.com/KPnoEYj1Qd

— nick | wandavision spoilers (@fitzbarnes) February 14, 2021

so she's going full Captain Marvel (II) in two episodes, yes?

If Monica Rambeau is getting superpowers from going in and out of the hex. Wouldn't it make sense for all the people trapped in the hex to get powers too? There has been speculation about who various characters from the town who might actually be supervillains that are responsible for this but couldn't it be the other way around and this is actually the origin story for a bunch of future MCU characters?

One storyline I haven't seen referenced amid all of the speculation is the recent Standoff, which features a prosaic little town whose residents are revealed to be supervillains who have all been changed (via Cosmic Cube fuckery) into upstanding citizens by SHIELD.

As I said ^^^^ there's lots of speculation that Monica's "aerospace engineer" is Reed Richards and a flurry of suggestions at the weekend that this is going to be the FF origin story and them crossing the boundary will power them up.

If Monica Rambeau is getting superpowers from going in and out of the hex. Wouldn't it make sense for all the people trapped in the hex to get powers too?

well, if the people are trapped in the hex then they're kinda by definition not going in and out of it, so probably not

Yeah, you'd think that creating lots of people with powers would be a possibility, or a set-up for a "Wanda *creates* mutants" twist or something, but again, I think that's just too much heavy lifting and, um, too many people with super powers. We still don't really know who most of the people in the town are in "real" life, before they were captured or transformed. Clearly if you can go from a SWORD agent to a clown then we really have no idea who they are/were. (And then of course there's the matter of all the kids that suddenly appeared. Did Wanda do that? Where did they come from? And if Wanda *did* do that, does that mean she can just import more people into the town at will? Seems ... unlikely.)

Loose introduction of Fantastic Four seems a better, more manageable possibility. I bet they show up as guests in a future movie, a la Spider-Man in Civil War. A stand-alone F4 movie seems several years away, so it would be weird to formally introduce them now and then just sit on it. Is there any indication that Marvel is even planning to spin a big arching event again out of their Phase Four rollout? I don't know much if anything about some stuff on the loose schedule, but Black Widow prequel (we assume?), Thor 3, Eternals, Shang-Chi, Spider Man 3, Guardians 3, Dr. Strange 2, Captain Marvel 2, Ant-Man 3 seems a pretty diverse hodgepodge. Which of these are done? Black Widow, Eternals, Shang-Chi? And Spider-Man, Dr. Strange and Thor have at least done some filming?