WandaVision Episode 5: Huge reveals in biggest episode yet
** Warning: This review contains spoilers for the current episode of WandaVision **
Last week’s WandaVision welcomed us back to the real world, where we met the real Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) and saw organisation SWORD’s attempts to breach Wanda’s (Elizabeth Olsen) reality. We’ll admit, it wasn’t our favourite, becoming a bit of a familiar detective show after three episodes of the surreal sitcom. Thankfully, we’re back to our usual programming this week. Sort of.
We’ve now progressed to an 80s family sitcom complete with subtext laden theme tune (“we wanted a world with a vision of what life could be”). Wanda and Vision (Paul Bettany) are wrestling with parenthood, trying to get the twins to sleep. Agnes (Katherine Hahn) arrives to help before stalling, asking if we should “go again” when Vision isn’t fed the lines she expects. Wanda quickly corrects things but Vision is suspicious, more so when the twins suddenly age up to 5.
There’s a lot going on in this episode, but chief is Vision slowly realising the things that were bothering him can no longer be ignored. As it begins to become clear that SWORD is fighting a battle it can’t win, Vision is the timebomb in this series waiting to destroy Wanda’s new reality.
Cut to the real world. Monica is describing how Wanda controls the citizens of Westview by putting a voice and in their head and giving them a hopeless feeling. “It was grief” she explains, revealing that the citizens of Westview are having their minds controlled against their will. It opens up a moral can of worms in the subsequent briefing. Monica’s superior Director Hayward (Josh Stamberg) calls Wanda a terrorist and that they are in a hostage situation. Monica argues there is nothing aggressive about her acts otherwise she would have killed already, or controlled more people. It’s also revealed that Wanda has gone rogue even from Vision. 9 days before the present, Wanda stormed SWORD facility and stole his body, resurrecting him inside this bubble. Aside from breaking the law, it disregards Vision’s own will, written out of the fear he may be used as a weapon.
Whereas Wanda’s reality is intriguing, the SWORD scenes can feel a bit like homework. Yes, it’s necessary to make sense of things but the pace drops to a crawl whenever we’re back in the meeting rooms. Still, Monica forms a good team with FBI agent Jimmy Woo (Randall Park) and astrophysicist Darcy Lewis (Kat Dennings). If this is the cop show segment, then Parris is the maverick star breaking away and solving the case herself. There’s also a tease of someone amiss with Monica, as her body scans come back blank and at the briefing she bristles when the name Captain Marvel is mentioned.
Dual investigations commence – in the 80s world, Vision begins to notice Wanda is being more open with magic as the twins adopt a puppy (ageing up to 10 in order to do so), and at work receives an “electronic mail” from SWORD. Suspicious, he works out the mind control method and releases one of his co-workers, who begs him to “stop her”. In reality, Darcy names Wanda’s bordered reality The Hex, and Monica finds out materials such as clothes are switched to fit in with the timeline.
They send an 80s drone (which doesn’t need to be altered) to try and communicate with Wanda. Unbeknownst to Monica, Director Hayward armed the drone and orders to take the shot, but the star of the show has had enough. Wanda drags the broken drone out to the perimeter of The Hex, where she meets SWORD agents and says this is their last warning to not interfere. Monica pleads with her, asking what she wants. Turning SWORDS guns on Heyward, she replies “I have what I want, and no one will ever take it from me again”.
It’s certainly something we didn’t see coming – Wanda is essentially a villain. Yes, this is all an act of grief, but she’s holding people’s minds hostage. There have been Marvel villains that have been taken down for less. It creates a wonderful debate as to her intentions, and whether or not she deserves comeuppance.
After an advert for Lagos paper towels (“for when you make a mess you didn’t mean to” – Lagos is the town Wanda inadvertently destroyed in Age of Ultron), we come back to the sitcom where the boys are looking for their dog Sparky. Agnes finds him dead, and the heartbroken twins compel her to bring him back to life. She refuses, despite their apparent knowledge that she has the power.
Back at their home, Vision has had enough and confronts Wanda. He talks about his co-worker and his knowledge that they are all controlled by her. He begs her to stop what she’s doing, asking why he can’t remember anything before the sitcom started. Wanda insists this isn’t her doing, before the doorbell rings. It’s her brother Pietro… but not as she knows him. Instead of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Pietro, played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson, it’s… Evan Peters. “They recast Pietro?!” a watching Darcy exclaims, before he turns to Vision and asks “who’s the popsicle?”
Quick catch-up for those lost: The Avengers films and the X-Men films both had the rights to Quicksilver aka Pietro, and used their own versions in both. The Pietro that was killed by Ultron in the MCU was played by Taylor-Johnson, and the X-Men version that appeared in Days Of Future Past, Apocalypse, and 2019’s Dark Phoenix is played by Peters. Same character, different realities. Got it? Good.
Why is this important? Well, Disney bought Fox, and with it came the X-Men rights, meaning Wolverine and Co. can play with The Avengers in the same universe. This seems to be the first bridge between realities, a potential way to bring the X-Men world in and account for any recasts. There’s also a kind of logic to it – Evans Peters’ Pietro existed in the 80s, so it’s possible The Hex incorporated another version of the man to suit the timeline.
Overall, a huge episode of WandaVision filled with reveals and twists that make the future very exciting. We didn’t see this ‘shades of grey’ narrative for Wanda, meaning she is both the hero and villain of her own story. It’s a welcome bit of nuance in a plot that’s about to get very messy.
New episodes of WandaVision are available every Friday on Disney+.