It was Agatha all along! Yes, after last week’s Spooktacular Halloween episodes (we’re still rewriting the lyrics to The Addams Family theme to include “Vision” a lot) WandaVision gets even creepier, confirming a long-held fan theory about Kathryn Hahn’s Agnes and (apparently) revealing the truth about what’s been going on in Westview.
But before all that, there’s plenty of introspection to get through. Last week, in Wanda’s last-ditch attempt to save Vision from decay/sneaky SWORD agents she made the Hex even larger – but that expansion came at a cost, with the sitcom reality malfunctioning around her in this week’s episode.
Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) herself has hit a new low, thrown by the arrival of her fake “brother” Pietro (and yes, if there was any doubt all the characters this week seem to consider him an imposter) and Vision’s betrayal, taking to her bed and ignoring her kids while everything in her home malfunctions and flips back through the decades.
And while Wanda’s “quarantine-style vacation” may be very in vogue these days (I guess the Hex is its own kind of lockdown, right?) it’s also a good opportunity for the show to delve deeper into the emotional strife Wanda is still going through. In fact, this week’s sitcom riff – a take on mockumentaries like Modern Family and The Office, down to the “Wanda!” opening credits – helps achieve this well, with both Wanda and Vision (Paul Bettany) able to just tell the unseen camera crew how they’re feeling in fourth wall-breaking segments that keep the laughs coming while also providing more colour to the emotional subplots.
Basically, Wanda is depressed (as referenced by this week’s commercial, which is based off some sort of medication), and just wants to be alone. “I’m starting to believe everything is meaningless,” she tells her sons at one stage, and is more than happy for neighbour Agnes to come and take the kids off her hands.
“I don’t understand what’s happening… why it’s all falling apart and why I can’t fix it.”
“Do you think it’s maybe what you deserve?” an eerie voice, from the supposedly unseen director, replies.
Meanwhile, her husband is having his own troubles. Waking up in Westview’s new circus and mistaken for a clown by the ringmaster/strong man, Vision is able to reunite with the sitcom-ified Darcy – a pitch-perfect Kat Dennings, who is one of the few characters to be essentially the same whether she’s an escape artist or an astrophysicist – steal a van and head back home, being filled in on the events of Avengers: Infinity War (and his double dip death) en route.
Vision remembers none of it – and interestingly, he considers himself a different person to the one those things happened to – but he’s struck with sympathy for what Wanda’s been through, especially considering it was all within the last few weeks from her perspective. And while she can’t explain why he decomposed outside the Hex, Darcy has another bit of information for him.
“I’ve been watching WandaVision for the past week and the love you two have is real.” Spoken like a true fan.
Outside the Hex, Darcy’s pals Jimmy (Randall Park) and Monica (Teyonah Parris) make their own discoveries, learning SWORD Director Hayward’s motives – he was trying to bring Vision back online, and he wants his “sentient weapon” back – and finally collect the special vehicle created for them by their mysterious aerospace engineer.
After a lot of build-up and fan theorising, the person they meet… isn’t actually anyone interesting, instead just represented by a character called Major Goodner. Huh. Nope, me neither. Maybe Reed Richards will still turn up in another episode. In any case, Goodner is able to provide them with the specialised space rover they need to break through the Westview anomaly, resulting in one of WandaVision’s best visual sequences yet.
As the rover dramatically smashes its way into the Hex and is pushed back (half transformed into a car), Monica makes a drastic decision, pushing her way through the Hex without any protection at all. As she does so, we see different aspects of her identity splinter off from her, while dialogue from her childhood (including a few words of wisdom from Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel) echo around her.
It’s a psychedelic, exciting sequence that shows just how far this show has grown from its initial episode – and it also appears to have rewritten Monica’s cells once again, giving her the energy-based powers of her comic-book counterpart Photon. Everyone has superpowers nowadays.
Still, the powers don’t help her much when she finally confronts Wanda (curiously unaffected by the Hex, presumably because of her new abilities). Instead, drawing on the memories of her mother Maria (who died during the “blip” caused by Thanos) she reasons to her as a grieving woman, trying to help Wanda stop hiding from her pain.
“I can’t control this pain any more and I don’t think I want to… because it’s part of my truth,” she says, resisting Wanda’s attacks while the Westview neighbours (including Dottie, hey, remember Dottie?) watch on. It seems like she’s getting through… only for Agnes to swoop in and kill the moment, taking Wanda back to her home. But there, the trouble is just beginning.
Inside Agatha’s home, Wanda notices a strange vibe. Her sons are missing, and Agatha suggests they might be “playing in the basement”…but that basement is a lot more old-timey and creepy than you’d expect for a modest suburban home. Lovely pillars. Plus you know, all the howling wind, creeping tree roots and vines and spellbooks.
Because you see, Agatha isn’t just any old neighbour – she’s a character fans have been theorising about for a long time, and seems to have been pulling the strings “all along.”
“Wanda Wanda…you didn’t think you were the only magical girl in town, did you?” she says, unfurling her own brand of purple magic (does every magical person get their own colour? Who gets puce? Anyway…).
“The name’s Agatha Harkness. Lovely to finally meet you dear,” she adds, before throwing into her own theme song – yes, Kathryn Hahn gets her own theme song! It’s great – that lays out who’s really been behind the weirder events in Westview. In flashback we see Agatha turning up at the Vision residence, creating “Pietro”, and all other sorts of mischief, while the seriously catchy tune plays on.
“Who’s been pulling every evil string… it’s been Agatha all along,” is the refrain. And just in case we didn’t know she was a wrong-un, she reveals that she killed Wanda’s dog Sparky a few weeks ago! Oh, now this is war.
And that could have been that –but in true Marvel style it wasn’t, with fans treated to their first MCU post-credits scene since 2019 (ah, it feels good doesn’t it?) to remind us that, oh yeah, Monica was still just standing outside the house, she didn’t go anywhere. Sneaking over to Agatha’s humble abode, Monica cracks open the doors to the cellar… only to be confronted by a familiar face wearing a slightly new look.
“Snoopers gonna snoop,” the fake Pietro says to Monica, making her jump out of her skin.
All told it’s one hell of a cliffhanger to leave off a well-rounded episode. You want plot progression and comic-book twists? Well here’s the ultimate villain (at least, as far as we know) and presumably the beginning of her endgame. You like the thoughtful examination of Wanda’s mental difficulties? Good news, that’s here too. Just prefer Kat Dennings dropping some one-liners? My friend, you’re in luck.
And with two episodes left, I can’t wait to see what’s coming. Is Wanda more witchy than we realised, and what are Agnes’ plans for her? Will Vision get to his wife in time after leaving Darcy on the road? What are Monica’s new powers (apart from the cool glowy eyes) and what is Hayward’s plan of attack? And where have Billy and Tommy gone anyway?
At last, we’re not far away from answers. Even if a few of those answers will invariably be that “it was Agatha all along!”
Want more WandaVision content? Check out our guide to the WandaVision cast, the WandaVision release schedule, Agatha Harkness and the creepy WandaVision commercials. Plus, we ask: When is WandaVision set and how did Vision survive?
WandaVision releases new episodes on Disney Plus on Fridays. You can sign up to Disney Plus for £5.99 a month or £59.99 a year.
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