What’s up in Westview?: A WandaVision Overview

In Episode 2, we’re still seeing black and white as Wanda and Vision are preparing a magic act for their neighbourhood’s talent show fundraiser. When Wanda walks outside, she finds a red and yellow toy helicopter in colour. While she’s inspecting it, Agnes comes up and tells Wanda she’s brought her bunny Señor Scratchy for Wanda’s magic act. They head out to meet the other ladies and we see Dottie say “The devil’s in the details, Bev” to which Agnes mutters to Wanda, “That’s not the only place he is”. Some people think this could be referring to Mephisto (known as the devil and a villain in the Marvel Comics).

Wanda and Vision hear a noise and head outside to check it out. When they get there, they see a man crawling out of the sewer in a beekeeper outfit with bees swarming him. Wanda says “No” and time rewinds and they’re back in their living room before ever having gone outside. Then we see them start to gain colour and the episode ends.

This scene is also where Wanda meets Geraldine who we know is Monica Rambeau, the daughter of Maria Rambeau—Captain Marvel’s best friend—but we don’t know why or how she got there yet. This gets revealed in Episode 4. While Wanda helps Dottie clean up, we hear a man’s voice coming from the radio asking Wanda how she got there and who was doing this to her. At that moment, Dottie shatters a glass in her hand and you can see her bright red blood in colour. There’s a break for a commercial and then near the end of the episode we find out that Wanda is pregnant.

Episode 3 starts off and we see Westview fully in colour for the first time! Wanda’s pregnancy is going by rapidly. Her pregnancy is causing her to have just a bit less control over her powers. Vision starts to tell Wanda he thinks some things are off with Westview and their neighbours but just as suddenly, time reverts and it’s like he never questioned what was happening.

Geraldine helps Wanda deliver her twin boys and next we see Vision go to talk to Agnes and Herb. Agnes mentions her husband Ralph, who we still haven’t seen, looks better in the dark, which some think could be hinting that he’s Mephisto.

We take a break for commercials and come back to Geraldine coming to Wanda’s house to have a quick chat. While they’re talking, the stork that Wanda had earlier put in the baby’s room shows up in the sitting area. Wanda tries to make the stork go away, but can’t, as if there is a block on her powers at that moment. Some theories indicate that the stork could be Mephisto, because he is powerful enough to overrule her powers. Another reason people think the stork is Mephisto is because storks traditionally in stories bring babies to families and in the comics, Wanda’s children are two shards of Mephisto.

Back inside, Wanda tells Geraldine how she had a twin brother named Pietro and then starts to sing a Sokovian lullaby which is the same lullaby Magneto sings in the X-Men franchise. Geraldine mentions that Pietro was killed by Ultron and we see Wanda in a state of shock. She notices the necklace Geraldine is wearing and asks her what that symbol is. We know from earlier that it’s the S.W.O.R.D. symbol.

Meanwhile, Agnes is telling Vision that Geraldine has no home and no family. Once Vision gets back inside, Wanda tells him Geraldine had to go home. The episode ends with Geraldine landing on the grass outside of Westview with helicopters and other vehicles surrounding her.

At the start of Episode 4, we see Monica Rambeau coming back after being snapped away. This means that this is at the time of Avengers: End Game when Professor Hulk snapped and brought everyone back. Monica meets with Tyler Hayward, the director at S.W.O.R.D. (Sentient Weapon Observation and Response Division—although in the comics it’s Sentient World Observation and Response Department). She’s sent to work on a missing persons case and meets with Agent Jimmy Woo right outside of Westview (the magic trick that Jimmy performs when he meets Monica is the same one he wants to learn from Scott in Ant-Man and the Wasp). They then meet Darcy Lewis, who we know is Jane Foster’s friend from the Thor movies. Darcy finds the TV broadcast to watch the “show” from the town of Westview.

Back in Westview, we see Wanda had used her powers to send Geraldine through the Hex which is what caused her to land on the grass. Wanda looks at Vision and sees him as how he was when he died and tells him they have to stay in Westview when he mentions that they can go wherever they want. As mentioned in the last episode, the twin boys are named Tommy and Billy a.k.a Speed and Wiccan in the comics. We see their powers in later episodes.

*We get to see how the beekeeper enters Westview in this episode, so the outside world is technically in line with the second episode at the moment*

In Episode 5 we see Agnes helping with the twins in Westview while back outside the Hex, the agents are trying to figure out what Wanda is doing. One of the things noticed in this episode is how the twins are able to suddenly age and how Agnes is always with them when it happens, but we don’t know if she has anything to do with it.

When Sparky is found dead, Tommy and Billy tell Wanda that she can “fix the dead”, and Agnes asks if she really can to which Wanda says she cannot. This is jumping ahead a bit, but in Episode 7, we find out that Agnes killed Sparky. This helps confirm part of the theory that she killed him because she did want to find out if Wanda could bring back the dead. Some think that she wants to bring back Mephisto and find out how Wanda was able to supposedly do so with Vision.

Vision starts to grow suspicious during this episode, as Wanda doesn’t conceal her powers in front of Agnes and Agnes doesn’t even react when the twins age in front of her. Plus, when he touches Norm’s head, Norm snaps out of whatever trance the Hex has put on him and tells Vision to help him. Hayward also sends an armed drone into Westview, and Wanda leaves the Hex to tell him to leave her alone and she won’t bother them.

Wanda and Vision later have a fight and Vision tells her that what she’s doing is wrong. However, they are interrupted by the ring of the doorbell. Who is that you may ask? Pietro! But it’s not exactly Aaron Taylor-Johnson. Like Darcy says, he’s been recast by no other than Evan Peters. He only shows up at the end, so onto the next episode where we see more of this new Pietro…

Episode 6…the Halloween episode! It’s ABSOLUTELY action packed. The costumes this family wears for Halloween pays homage to how they look in the comics. Viewers think that some of the lyrics in the theme song such as “Don’t try to fight the chaos. Don’t question what you’ve done” and “But if it’s all an illusion. Sit back, enjoy the show” could be referencing Wanda taking hostage all these people to create her “sitcom world”. It also says “Pietro Maximoff as Himself” which it doesn’t say for any of the others so maybe it trying to say it’s really him? Even though we already know that Pietro was shot during the Battle of Sokovia. We’re also reminded of this later when Wanda looks at Pietro and sees him with multiple bullet wounds in his chest.

Continuing with Episode 6, we see Vision go and talk to Agnes while she’s sitting in her car at the town’s boundary. She’s barely moving like the others so he touches her head to snap her out of her trance. She tells him he’s an Avenger and then asks if she’s dead. When Vision is confused on why she’s asking that, she tells him that he’s dead. He puts her back in her usual trance and now she’s cheerful and wishes him a “Happy Halloweenie” before driving off. We can assume that Agnes is not being controlled by Wanda because after acting blank, she’s able to move fine and simply drive off. She also acts shocked when seeing Vision and asking if she’s dead, but for her to drive off like that, she definitely knew she was perfectly fine and just wanted to make Vision more doubtful of what Wanda was doing.

While both sets of twins are out trick or treating, we see Vision going to explore his suspicions near the edge of town. In the last episode, he told Wanda he never saw any kids, but now the neighbourhood is full of them. This is also referenced later in the episode when Pietro asks Wanda where she’s been hiding all these kids and mentions that “there’s no need to traumatize beyond the occasional holiday episode cameo” which could be hinting that she added kids to appease Vision’s concerns. As Vision gets closer to the edge of town, he sees that some of the people there are barely able to move. Outside the town, Jimmy, Darcy, and Monica also realize this when they access Hayward’s files and see that he’s able to see the well being of the citizens.

Outside of Westview, Monica is planning to re-enter the Hex but Darcy said it’s already started to rearrange her cells. This hints at her comic book superhero “Photon”. Back inside, as Vision tries to exit the Hex (reference picture below) the position he’s in as he’s falling/slowly breaking apart is the same as when he died in Infinity War.

After Billy tells her “Dad” is in trouble (trying to leave the Hex), Wanda uses her powers to expand the perimeters of the Hex, enveloping S.W.O.R.D. agents plus Darcy, but Hayward is able to get away in time. We also see the twin boys get their powers this episode, Tommy/Speed with the name obviously meaning he takes after Quicksilver, and Billy/Wiccan has magical abilities like his mother.

Episode 7 has everyone breaking the fourth wall (hence the episode name) as they talk to the viewers. Agnes takes the twins to her house to give Wanda some “me time” and we see Vision working with Darcy to figure out what’s going on. Outside of town, after being removed from the S.W.O.R.D. base, Monica and Jimmy meet with a friend who lends them a space rover so Monica can re-enter Westview. The rover is unable to enter but Monica pushes her way into the town and we see her finally gain her powers.

Monica goes to talk to Wanda and warn her about Hayward, but Wanda gets angry and thinks she’s lying. Agnes then comes and takes her to her house telling Monica that she should leave. Wanda goes to look for her twins in Agnes’s basement but finds the room covered in vines and a book with an orange aura around it.

Agnes then reveals that she is in fact, the witch Agatha Harkness and we hear the wonderful song “Agatha All Along“. While in the basement, Agatha has her bunny Señor Scratchy with her. In the comics, Agatha’s son is named Nicholas Scratch so maybe he’s the bunny. It would explain why she’s always praising the bunny (like a parent to their child) and why she even brings him with her to the basement. The song also shows us that Agatha was the one causing all the mischief in town.

In the last episode, Wanda had been asking Pietro questions from their childhood as to test him and it’s good she did because Agatha is the one who was behind him being in Westview. We also see the mid-credit scene where Monica discovers the outside entrance to the basement but Pietro suddenly appears behind her. Unfortunately it ends right there, so onto the next episode!

While Episode 8 isn’t very focused on what’s going on inside Westview, it provides us with a lot of vital information including how this all started. We begin by getting to see Agatha during the Salem Witch trials, and the origin of her dark magic. Back in the basement, Agatha has Wanda bound by magic and also has protective spells cast on the walls, prohibiting Wanda from using her own magic. Since we know Agatha is the cause of Pietro reappearing it now makes sense when back in Episode 6, Pietro was asking Wanda how she was able to create this town and control everything. That’s the same thing that Agatha is now asking Wanda in the basement and starts to take them on a trip through the past. We see some of the tv shows that it looks like Wanda has based her own show on.

Wanda has to relive the moments when a bomb explosion killed her parents and when she volunteered herself for Hydra. During this scene with Hydra, we see Wanda “bond” with the mind stone (the same stone in Vision’s head) and we see the silhouette of a figure who we can recognize is the Scarlet Witch. Since Fox owns the X-Men this could be to take away from the fact that she really is a mutant, but maybe she still is, and Marvel doesn’t want to explicitly mention it. Next we see Wanda entering S.W.O.R.D. Headquarters and asks for Vision’s body. Director Hayward tells her that they’re dismantling him as he is the world’s most sophisticated, sentient weapon ever created. This scene shows us that Wanda never actually took Vision’s body, like Hayward had said in Episode 4, meaning he lied to the other agents.

Wanda had then driven to Westview, New Jersey with the deed of where her and Vision had planned to live. We see her in anguish and then her magic enfolds her and she starts to recreate the town of Westview. We then see Vision being made from Wanda, with all of this being done with her magic.

Back to the present, Wanda rushes outside to see Agatha using her magic to choke Billy and Tommy. The episode ends with Agatha telling Wanda that everything that she’s done to make this new life is Chaos Magic and that makes Wanda the Scarlet Witch. This is the first time they’ve actually referenced Wanda as the Scarlet Witch in the MCU.

The mid-credit scene then shows us Hayward preparing to send his new Vision into the Hex. We know that he used the old Vision’s body and was finally able to power it by using the energy from the drone they had sent (but had been returned) into Westview. This new Vision is completely white and we can assume Hayward might use him against Wanda, since he’s already painting her as the villain.