It took a few days, but here is our recap of WandaVision episode 5, before episode 6 comes on February 12.
We won’t go into too much detail on past episodes, but you can read our reviews of those shows here.
So, episode 5 brings us forward into the 1980s, after episode 4 was a bit of a departure from the weekly sitcom format established in the first 3 episodes. With the ‘real-world’ grounding we received in episode 4, it was time to jump back into Westview with a lot more context for the viewers to work with.
For the Children
Along with the move to the 1980s, we get to see a lot more of Wanda and Vision’s kids. From early on, we’ve heard the mantra “for the children” being said by various characters in the WandaVision sitcom. However, as many viewers noted, there were no children on the show until the arrival of Billy and Tommy at the end of episode 3. Vision himself notes this very strange discrepancy, in his most lucid moment to date, later in episode 5.
Billy and Tommy are clearly something different in this altered reality. We see that Wanda is apparently unable to control them the way she apparently controls everything and everyone else in Westview. Initially, she can’t make them stop crying, and then they start aging themselves up, apparently of their own volition, during the episode, starting as babies and ending up as 10-year-olds by the end of the episode. We may not know exactly why, but it’s clear that the twins are somehow outside of Wanda’s control and appear to be core to the reason behind everything that is happening.
Death is Final
After their dog Sparky dies from eating poisonous plants, the twins ask Wanda to bring him back. But, she explains that she can’t bring beings back to life. Of course, we immediately wonder “what about Vision?” While we don’t know for sure, we did get a flash of an obviously not alive Vision in a past episode, so it might relate to the fact that Vision simply was never a human being or a truly living being, but rather a synthetic being.
Is that Who We Think it is?
So, really all anyone wants to talk about is the ending of the episode and the big guest character reveal. Toward the end of the episode, Vision and Wanda get into an argument where Vision is essentially questioning what is happening and whether Wanda is in control of everything. We suddenly see credits rolling, as Wanda appears to want to end the episode, but Vision persists and follows her into another room, where the credits stop rolling and we’re back in the episode. As Wanda claims she is not in control of everything, there is someone at the front door. This has been a strategy Wanda appears to use in various instances where uncomfortable questions come up – suddenly there is a knock at the door to distract and change the subject. This time, Wanda claims she didn’t cause it and has no idea who it might be.
We get our big reveal when actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson is there, as her brother Pietro. Let’s unpack this a bit and explain why this may be a HUGE deal for the MCU. In the MCU, Pietro (aka Quicksilver) was played by a different actor who died in Avengers: Age of Ultron. We’ve heard reference to this in WandaVision before, as well. Taylor-Johnson plays Quicksilver in the X-Men movies, which up until recently were owned by a rival studio and therefore wimpy weren’t in the same ‘universe’ as the MCU. However, we know that Disney now has ownership of the X-Men franchise and characters. Disney has promised that the plan is to incorporate the X-Men characters into the MCU at some point. So, here we have the X-Men version of Quicksilver appearing in WandaVision. But, what the heck does that mean?
So, it might simply be an entertaining Easter Egg for fans to all go crazy over, and that’s the end of it. The alternate reality of WandaVision is a sitcom after all and there is a long history of bringing on guest characters that appear and disappear without really making any long-term impact. So, is that all this is?
Alternatively, is this actually the X-Men universe version of Quicksilver officially stepping into the MCU? We’ve already been exposed to the idea of a multiverse in the MCU (thank you Spider-Man and the Spiderverse!) and rumors have persisted that the multiverse is about to play a big role in the MCU phase 4 with the next Spider-Man and Doctor Strange movies. Is this the official merging of the mutant universe with the ‘real-world’ of the MCU? If so, it means we could see Magneto or any number of other characters coming into the MCU. Does it also mean that effectively every past movie about Marvel characters, effectively part of the larger multiverse reality? Mind blown.
Let’s see what we find out next in episode 6!
