Welcome to our weekly WandaVision recap article! It’s been a blast writing these after watching every weekly episode and I think we’ll definitely keep this up with future Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) series like The Falcon and The Winter Soldier and Loki when those shows are released on Disney Plus this year.
So, let’s dig into the latest episode in what has really proven to be arguably the most creative and innovative MCU content to date. If you haven’t read any of our past WandaVision recaps, give them a look.
As episode 7 reached a conclusion, we had just learned that it was Agnes all along! The big reveal of neighbor Agnes as the evil(?) puppet master pulling the strings in Westview since episode 1 answered a lot of questions while creating plenty more as we came into episode 8. Is Agnes the ultimate big bad or is there an even bigger villain off stage (a common MCU strategy)? So, is Pietro just another Westview neighbor that Agnes controlled, or is he actually a version of the character pulled from another universe? Is Monica definitely a superhero now?
Well, episode 8 answered a bunch of questions, while giving us even more to think about - in true typical MCU fashion. The action picked up with a flashback to let us know a bit about Agnes. Agatha Harkness lived in Salem Massachusetts in 1693, during the infamous witch trials. Of course, in Agatha’s case, she really is a witch - who has apparently been delving into some dark magic that her fellow witches (including her mother) are not OK with and they have condemned her to death. However, it turns out that Agatha’s purple magic takes them down fairly easily, draining their power and lives along the way.
We then jump right back to the end of the last episode ditching the sitcom facade, and we see Wanda and Agnes facing off in the basement. It seems that Agnes has some of the same questions that viewers do - how is Wanda doing this? While we know that Agnes was pulling strings and manipulating the actions in Westview, it is still very much Wanda’s creation and she really wants to know how she did it. We’ve had magic in the MCU, at least since Doctor Strange came along, but Wanda’s power has always been a little ambiguous. We knew it was unlocked by exposure to the Mind Stone, but it was never described as magic. Agness definitely calls out Wanda as a fellow witch and her aim all along seems to be to figure out how Wanda used her powers to transform Westview.
Agnes mentions that she has the twins hidden away and that Wanda needs to do as she says if she wants to see them again. It turns out that what Agnes has in mind is a little trip down memory lane for Wanda, starting as a little girl, up through how she created the Wandaverse. We learn a lot about Wanda that we never fully understood.
The Sitcoms
Turns out Wanda and her family in Sokovia used to watch American TV sitcoms as a way of learning the English language and for entertainment. Old sitcoms like Dick Van Dyke were her favorites. On the fateful night her parents were killed during an attack, the family was watching the show when the bombs started falling, with one unexploded Stark Industries bomb coming to rest in their living room. It never goes off and Agnes (who is with Wanda watching the flashback) says that Wanda used a probability hex to ensure the bomb never explodes.
The SWORD Director was Lying
In another flashback, we see Wanda visiting SWORD to get Vision’s body for a proper funeral. We have already seen Tyler Hayward, the director of SWORD show Monica video footage of Wanda attacking the facility and stealing Vision’s body. But, in the flashback, we learn that that video was misleading. Wanda never stole Vision’s body. Instead, she tried to find some remnant of Vision in the body and came up empty. She then left the facility empty-handed. Hayward seemed to want Wanda to interact with the body, but why? We learn that a bit later.
Why Westview?
We learn from the final flashback that Vision bought a house in a little suburban town called Westview for he and Wanda to live out their days together. The house never made it past the initial foundation before the events of Infinity War and the entire town went through a lot during the years before half the population of the world returned. Safe to say the town is anything but the bucolic town that Vision anticipated when he bought the house. It is Wanda’s grief as she visits the place where they were set to live together that explodes outward, altering reality and creating Wanda’s idyllic version of Westview, complete with a new Vision.
The Scarlet Witch
Following the flashbacks, we get to see that Agnes has the twins on magical leashes to keep Wanda from attacking. She also says that she now understands what Wanda is. Agnes tells us that Wanda is indeed a witch, whose latent powers were awakened and amplified by the Mind Stone. But she isn’t just a powerful witch. She is “The Scarlet Witch,” a previously mythical magical being who controlled chaos magic. Comic book fans of course all applauded, since Wanda’s name in the comics has always been The Scarlet Witch. Just for fun, during the flashback where Wanda was exposed to the Mind Stone, we got to see a golden silhouette of what looks an awful lot like the comic book version of The Scarlet Witch!
The episode ends with Agnes and Wanda facing off, with the twins in between. Cliffhanger! So, this leaves us with a bunch of new questions.
- Are the twins real? It seems that Wanda created the twins (at Agnes’ prodding?). But, we saw that Vision couldn’t survive leaving Westview, so what about the twins? Are they real or is their existence tied to Wanda’s altered reality?
- What is Agnes really after? She initially says she just wants to know how Wanda created Westview, but do we think it’s just intellectual curiosity? Not likely. So, is she planning to take Wanda’s powers, like she did to her coven back in the 1600s? Why is she so focused on the twins?
- Is Agnes really the ultimate villain? We know the MCU has a habit of revealing the real big bads over time (remember how Thanos started as a cameo?). So, is there another force at work behind Agnes?
Bonus Scene! White Vision?
We got another midcredit scene and this one is a doozy. We see that SWORD has indeed been working on something behind the scenes. Operation CATARACT comes to fruition now that we learn Director Hayward has been trying to reactivate the body of Vision. Using some of Wanda’s energy attached to a missile that came through the barrier, they are able to reanimate the body. But, this vision is stark white. He awakens in the midcredit scene. The comics have an entire story arc for White Vision, largely focused on him coming back to life with little to no memories, before eventually regaining his ‘humanity’. So, if this White Vision is the physical body, without the personality Vision, will it simply be an incredibly powerful weapon under SWORD’s control? What are Hayward’s plans for White Vision?
We have so many questions and just one episode left! Come back next week for our episode 9 recap and let’s see what we discover at the end of this fun MCU series.
