Marvel’s WandaVision Recap: The Big Bad Reveal
With seven episodes down and only two left to go, Marvel’s WandaVision will soon be coming to a head, but does that mean fans will get a happy ending? We’ve all been sitting on the edges of our seat since the premiere episode. Wanda Maximoff and The Vision, two of the most super powered beings on the planet are just trying to live a normal suburban life. By the time the final episode finishes, the Marvel Cinematic Universe may have a completely different look.
Scarlet Spoilers
Warning: The following article contains spoilers for Episode 6 of WandaVision. If you skip to the bottom and listen to the latest episode of The Other Identity, there are only light spoilers. Make sure you watch WandaVision before you continue reading!
In this episode we follow multiple character perspectives from Wanda, to Monica and Jimmy and Vision and Darcy. Darcy and the Vision while a great comical duo, don’t get to do as much in this episode. Darcy and the SWORD encampment have been turned into a circus but once Vision uses his powers to free Darcy, they begin to race back to Wanda. She fills Vision in on everything from his time with the Avengers, to him dying and what’s happening with the hex.
Wanda is Losing It
Wanda, channeling her best Modern Family vibes, is at home with Billy and Tommy and seems to have trouble holding herself together. All over the house furniture and appliances and the house itself are constantly shifting between different era’s. Agnes shows up and offers to take the boys off her hands so she can have some time to herself.
Meanwhile, Monica meets up with engineering friends and it turns out it’s not Reed Richards, Hank Pym, Fitzsimmons from Agents of SHIELD or anyone else who we would recognize. It’s just some lady from SWORD she knows who still has loyalty’s to Monica’s mother for creating SWORD. They’ve brought a heavily armored and protected space rover that should get Monica through the hex wall. But, try as she might it doesn’t work and the hex swallows it up and spits it back out half transformed into a pick-up truck.
Not to be discouraged or stopped, Monica instead just runs straight into the hex wall herself determined to push through. Which she’s able to do, but in the process of doing so we see multiple versions of herself as though the hex is tearing her apart or re-writing something.
When she emerges on the other side, she’s still in the same clothes she was in and now she can see various colors, energies and a whole new spectrum of cosmic influence. Make sure you’re paying attention because this is the origin story of one of our next heroes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Monica goes straight for Wanda, who attacks her but Monica absorbs the blasts from Wanda’s powers and lands a three-point super hero landing. It’s obvious now to her and Wanda, she has some type of power. But before Monica can get through to Wanda, Agnes shows up and leads her back to her house.
Once in Agnes’ house, Wanda notices that her boys aren’t there and Agnes says they’re playing in the basement. Wanda heads down discovering a creepy, medieval type dungeon setup (with Tommy and Billy no where to be seen). Wanda spots an ominous looking book glowing with an illegible text and then Agnes shows back up. She tells Wanda she’s not the only magic girl in town and reveals herself to actually be Agatha Harkness.
Agatha explains that she was the one responsible for messing with the magic show in episode 2, influencing Herb the next door neighbor in some way, she created Pietro for Wanda and she even killed Sparky the dog. She was also the one behind the camera who asked Wanda earlier in the episode, “Do you think it’s because you deserve it?” in reference to everything going wrong.
That’s not the last of it though! If you stayed tune until after the first credits, there’s a bonus scene with Monica snooping around Agnes house and when she opens a cellar door Pietro appears behind her saying, “Snoopers gonna snoop.”
What Does It Mean?
The two biggest reveals here come in the form of Monica and the Witch formerly known as Agnes, Agatha Harkness. Monica is a bit more forward, so we’ll start there. The internet has been absolutely buzzing wondering what the consequences are going to be in regards to everyone else trapped inside the dome. Because Monica’s cells and DNA are changing, there’s been speculation that this could be what introduces ‘mutants’ to the world.
I’m sorry to bust everyone’s bubbles, that is very likely not going to be the case. On top of the fact that mutant’s need to be a global issue, not just a handful coming from New Jersey, mutants are born not created. That might seem like a silly distinction, but people like Captain America, Black Panther, Iron Man and even the Hulk are celebrated. Because they’re humans who were given special abilities. Mutants are feared because they’re ‘different’ from humans, they next stage in evolution. In order to keep that essence it’s going to take more than a hex field or a snap to bring mutants into the MCU.
So, why was Monica transformed but no one else inside the hex was? Because up until this most recent episode, Monica was the only one to actually pass through the hex wall. And she had to do it three times before started to manifest powers. In the comics Monica Rambeau has taken on many aliases. She was once Captain Marvel, she went by the name Photon, which was her mothers pilot name. She’s also been known as Spectrum.
We don’t know exactly what her powers will be just yet or what alias she’ll take on. We can’t even be sure her transformation is complete just yet. But, some of the powers she’s had in the comics include an energy form, the ability to alter her appearance, flight, super human speed, intangibility, invisibility, energy absorption, duplication and blasts. One thing we did see her use when she first emerged from the hex barrier was Hyper-Cosmic Awareness.
What about Agatha?
Now you might think Agatha’s reveal is pretty straight forward, she’s the bad guy, right? Maybe not. She’s clearly doing some bad stuff too Wanda, but her motivations are still up in there air. Something to keep in mind is that in the Marvel Comics Agatha is actually a mentor to the Scarlet Witch. Prior to that she was a nanny to the Fantastic Four and Franklin Richards. She even sacrifices herself during the Salem Witch Trials.
What Agatha’s motivations are, I don’t think they’re entirely evil. She seems to be trying to make Wanda work through her emotions and issues by confronting them head on. Whether Agatha sought Wanda out, or just happened to be in the hex when it appeared is hard to say. Could she have been the one to inspire Wanda to retrieve the Visions body?
So, if Agatha isn’t the final big bad…who is? Marvel Studios could still be setting up a Mephisto reveal. Or if some fan theories are correct, the tome we saw in Agatha’s basement could be the Darkhold and the story could be hinting at Chthon, an old god that Wanda and Doctor Strange have tangled with in the comics.
Hopefully, within the next two episodes we get more answers than we get questions. But if WandaVision sticks to the script we’ve seen so far we’ll be left scratching our heads and deep diving into Marvel comic book lore for more wild theories. By the end one thing is for sure, Wanda will become the Scarlet Witch. And just like in the copy, a powerful witch is capable of a reality warp on just a whim.
Marvel’s WandaVision stars Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany and premiers every Friday on Disney Plus.
The Other Identity
If you want more on WandaVision, the MCU, or comics in general, check out the Other Identity podcast. Each week Robbie Landis and Ben Morse (former Marvel Alumni) dive into various DC Comics and Marvel Comics topics. Everything from the comic book pages to the heroes on the silver screen, the Other Identity celebrates the fan in all of us. Whether a veteran reader or a new fan of the MCU, the show is for everyone.
This week they recap their reactions to episode seven of WandaVision. They also take a deep dive into one of the most important crossover events of the Green Lantern mythos, the Sinestro Corp War. The is event saw the birth of the second Corp besides the Green Lantern. Hal Jordan and the other Lanterns of earth are pushed to the bring as Sinestro proves why he’s such a top tier villain. To hear their thoughts and find out if you’d enjoy the Sinestro Corp War event download and listen to The Other Identity. You can subscribe and download on Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your podcasts.
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Feature Image screencap of Disney Plus and Marvel’s WandaVision, episode 7.