What The Hell Actually Just Happened on ‘WandaVision’

WandaVision has been a very strange show, and it’s not getting any less strange as it goes on, despite episode four’s brief foray into the real world. Episode five, On a Very Special Episode…, cranked up the weirdness surrounding Wanda and Vision’s sitcom world right from the beginning.

At the center of it, once again, was Kathryn Hahn’s Agnes, who started the show by asking Wanda and Vision if they wanted her to do another take in the middle of a conversation about newborn twins Billy and Tommy. Agnes was completely unfazed when the twins aged themselves up to five and then ten years old, practically right in front of her, and Wanda and Vision had a heated argument when Wanda used her powers in front of Agnes, who again acted oblivious.

We did find out that Wanda knows the world she’s in isn’t real; she dramatically exited Westview, reclaimed her Eastern European accent and told S.W.O.R.D. to leave her alone before reenforcing the magic field around Westview with red energy.

Everyone at S.W.O.R.D. seems convinced Wanda is behind all the strangeness in Westview, but Agnes is always just showing up when Wanda needs help with something or she and Vision need distracting. Everything strange that happens inside what Darcy calls “The Hex” happens around Agnes. When we saw Wanda use her powers on it, they were red. Wanda’s hex powers are always red. If she’s the one trapping everyone inside, why isn’t the energy field red to begin with?

Also, our biggest piece of proof that Wanda is behind the weirdness is the tape of her stealing Vision’s body from S.W.O.R.D., but as Darcy points out, Vision didn’t want to be turned into a weapon after he was killed, so what exactly was S.W.O.R.D. studying him for? Just last episode Monica told S.W.O.R.D.’s director “It says ‘Observation and Response’ on that door, not ‘Creation.’” Vision sure looked like he was being studied to me, but to what end?

Speaking of Vision, he managed to break the spell over his workmate Norm, who said a woman was in his head and that the mind control was painful. Vision, like us in the audience, assumes he means Wanda, who does display a good deal of control over the sitcom reality of Westview, trying to roll the credits to avoid a fight with Vision, which Vision isn’t having.

As Wanda starts to tell Vision she’s not controlling the people in the neighborhood and that she doesn’t know how it started, there’s a knock at the door, and Wanda swears to Vision she isn’t responsible. When she answers the door, it’s her brother Pietro… kind of. Darcy exclaims “She recast Pietro!?” and we get a good look at Evan Peters, who played Quicksilver in the X-Men movies and was a much superior version of Quicksilver to the MCU’s.

Remember when I said Agnes always seems to be around to provide a distraction? She was also heavily involved in the episode’s sitcom plot, which involved Billy and Tommy getting a dog that dies eating Agnes’s azaleas. The twins beg Wanda to bring the dog back to life, telling her “you have to bring him back, he’s family,” in a way reminiscent of episode two’s chorus of “for the children” before Wanda ended up pregnant.

Wanda has a level of control over the sitcom reality because of her powers and awareness that it isn’t real, but I think she was being honest when she told Vision it wasn’t her doing. Wanda is hurt and broken and maybe a little crazy, but she’s not malevolent. I think she had a good reason to take Vision’s body, to uphold his wish that it not be used to make more weapons, and I think she’s found herself wrapped up in someone else’s plot in Westview.

But the big question is how did this new Pietro get to the MCU and is he really the same Peter Maximoff we saw in the X-Men films? It would be incredibly anti-climactic to find out “oh, it’s just an Easter egg” and he’s just some brainwashed resident playing a part like the rest of Westview. And he had the same general demeanor as Quicksilver.

WandaVision is tied to Spider-Man 3 (rumored to be subtitled Homeworlds) and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, both of which deal with the concept of a multiverse, which the Fox X-Men films would be a part of. It seems like someone looking to keep Wanda and Vision from working together and comparing notes on Westview could have plucked an alternate version of Wanda’s brother from the multiverse and placed him in Westview as a distraction. But who could have possibly done such a thing, what is her ultimate plan and where does she get those stylish broaches from?