After last week started to put the pieces together this week offers us more mysteries whilst shedding a little more light on the events in Westview.
Warning Spoilers Ahead
"On a very special episode..." serves to bring us back to the sitcom world of Westview in a 80's themed episode that seems to mark the crumbling of Wanda's world. Since the debuting the show has continued to go from strength to strength with five fantastic episodes that continue to move Marvel into unchartered territory, this weeks offering does that and more with a game changing appearance from a certain X-Men (but I'll get to that).
The show returns to the sitcom structure for the beginning of the episode with 80's week! The episode starts with Wanda and Vision's attempts to get Tommy and Billy to sleep to no avail, Wanda can't even achieve it with her magic! Agnes also returns in this scene, using various methods (such as dark liquor and lavender) to get the children to sleep. This fails however with the children actually ageing themselves becoming five years old in a matter of moments.
Straight away the episode doesn't waste in giving us some mysteries to solve, Agnes declaration of "shall we take it from the top?" poses many questions, the mystery of who Agnes is still rumbles on (my money is on Agatha Harkness), whilst her reference to Wanda as a director also suggests she may not be in pain as the other townspeople seem to be. This starts Vision's journey through the episode putting the pieces together to figure out what is happening in Westview.
Tommy and Billy's rapid ageing suggests one thing to me, Wanda can't control them, it's unclear as to why but I'm certain Mephisto (basically the devil incarnate that abducted Tommy and Billy in the comic) is involved in some form especially given our cameo at the end.
This week we get our first look at the real world with SWORD and Westview's sitcom world side by side. The SWORD side of the episode mainly serves to provide information to the viewers that sitcom world can't, we discover that Wanda broke into SWORD to steal Vision's body seemingly confirming that the Vision in Westview is his corpse reanimated by Wanda. We also discover that this is not only against the Sokovia accords but Vision's living will. This is such a devastating plot point that will surely only get sadder when Vision inevitably remembers his life prior to Westview.
The episode also took more time to shed some light on what Westview is like for the people living there with Monica describing it as excruciating and torture with Wanda's grief being the things that kept her there. We also see Norm "awoken" by Vision who asks about his family and asks Vision to stop Wanda, this confuses me and goes against scenes from previous episodes that suggested the townspeople knew they were being controlled. It has me out of answers which I guess is the point but I do hope it's cleared up later down the line which I'm sure it will be.
Monica, who seems to have fallen out with Captain Marvel, spends the episode battling Director Hayward about whether Wanda is a terrorist. This is a great conflict that will surely continue throughout the season. Despite Director Haywood's attitude in this episode you can see his point, Monica described the feeling as torturous herself in addition to this these people have been abducted taken away from their families and forced to live in a sitcom. Can Wanda really be treated as anything but a terrorist now? Unless she is being controlled herself.
The 80's plot continues with Tommy and Billy (who can seemingly age themselves when they please) find and adopt a dog which later dies in a typically sitcom plot. The plot seemingly exists to further the idea that the kids can't be controlled by Wanda no matter what she try's.
The best scene of the episode arrives after Monica manages to get an 80's drone into Westview to speak to Wanda, this goes south when it turns out that the ridiculously stupid Haywood has armed the drone and tries to take Wanda out which of course fails because it's a stupid idea!!!!!
This does lead to one of the best scenes in the season as Wanda marches out of Westview with the now battered drone Sokovian accent and all to make it abundantly clear that she has everything she wants, she warns that trying to take that away from her will only end badly for them. Monica, who as mentioned has been fighting for Wanda all episode tries to get through to her and fails as Wanda users her powers to point the SWORD guns at stupid Director Heywood whilst departing back to Westview. It's a great scene that finally shows us Wanda not the person pretending to be a sitcom wife the person mad with grief who is enslaving people it's quite chilling.
Whilst this has been happening Vision has been slowly figuring out what Wanda has done leading to a great confrontation with Wanda back at their house. As I say in every review I am so happy that we get more of Vision (and Paul Bettany) this scene exemplifies what you can do with five episode of slowly fleshing out a character that is one dead and two being held hostage in a sitcom with no knowledge of who he is!! Imagine what could have been achieved with Vision when he was actually alive and had one of the most powerful stones in his forehead!!!!! Anyway rant over, Vision and Wanda square off and we get to see Vision's humanity (despite not being human) he's not affected by grief and see's everything clearly for what it is, wrong which Wanda just can't seen.
It is still unknown how much Wanda is in control of Westview, there do seem to be scenes where she is confused or unaware of what happening (stay tuned for an article coming soon where I dive into this a bit more). Of course the big moment of the episode is the arrival of Wanda's brother Pietro, but not the MCU one Evan Peters from FOX's X-Men films. I must admit to screaming when this moment occurred, with the potential ramification's of this being enormous I'm looking at you Hugh Jackman. Of course, there is a possibility that this a Easter egg that is a nod to fans which would be the most disappointing move this Game of Thrones (yes I am still not over it). Of course with Doctor Strange next movie happening to be called Multiverse of Madness then maybe just maybe there's a chance Wanda has just opened up the whole multiverse and a whole lot of potential when it comes to the X-Men (I'm still looking at you Hugh Jackman).
Regardless of the meaning of Evan's appearance it was great to see him arrive (wonderfully combined with Kat Denning's "She recast Pietro!" comment) and surely means a dark turn for Wanda especially if she has torn through the multiverse and with four episodes left really have reached the Endgame of WandaVision (pardon the pun).
Episode five was another great episode that continues to unravel the mystery of Westview whilst sill offering new mysteries for us to ponder for the next week, the show seems to go from strength to strength highlighting the best of Marvel and making this geek very very happy! Next week we will surely get our Halloween episodes (or so I'm hoping) hopefully giving us our Vision/Agnes scene that will hopefully shed some light on who she is. Oh I'm excited see you next week folks!
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