Small Details You Missed In The WandaVision Trailer

With canned laughter utilized as the backing track for a ceremony held remotely in the middle of a global pandemic, the 72nd Emmy Awards set a high bar in terms of weirdness. Luckily, the new trailer for WandaVision, which aired for the first time during the 2020 Emmys broadcast, cleared that bar with aplomb — adding a much-needed sense of lunacy, senselessness, and, surprisingly, fear to the proceedings.

Starring Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff and Paul Bettany as Vision, WandaVision is set to debut on Disney+ later this year, and it certainly hasn't been shy about sharing its wild aesthetic in the lead-up to that release, appearing eager to drop a heaping scoop of otherworldly confusion in audiences' laps. The fact that fans are now within spitting distance of watching the series and still have next to no clue as to what it's actually about? That just makes the whole thing more tantalizing. While the show's new trailer definitely offered a closer-than-usual look at what viewers can expect from WandaVision, one would be inclined to run through the footage with a fine-toothed comb to pull anything meaningful from its frames — and we did just that.

A sizable section of the WandaVision trailer centers around a dinner party that Wanda and Vision host for two especially nosy guests. After a short vignette of scenes focused on Wanda and Vision moving into 1950s suburbia following their wedding — "This is our home now," Wanda tells her android beau, "I want us to fit in" — we watch as a curly-haired woman asks Wanda a trio of questions in rapid succession: "Where did you two move from, how long have you been married, and why don't you have children yet?" Before Wanda has a chance to answer, Vision kindly steps in to try to address the inquires himself, but finds that he can't. He stumbles, and the quizzical woman's husband demands answers from Vision, slamming his hands on the table as he shouts, "Moved from where? Married when? Damn it, why?!" The woman asks her husband to "stop it," and the trailer shifts to its title card reveal.

It's certainly a memorable portion of the newest round of WandaVision footage — and not just because it teases some intriguing mysteries about what and who might threaten Wanda and Vision's life in marital would-be bliss. The dinner party scene also sticks out because of the woman at the table, whom the trailer's transcript reveals is named Mrs. Heart, and her familiar face. She's played by actress Debra Jo Rupp — best known for her performance as the laughter-prone, liquor-loving, nervous mother Kitty Forman on That '70s Show. (Actor and comedian Fred Melamed portrays her husband, Mr. Heart.)

Fans didn't know Rupp (or Melamed) would be a part of WandaVision until she popped up in this new trailer. How's that for a sweet surprise?

About that dinner party: It kicks off with a stylish pouring of red wine, this one a playful number with curious undertones. Only the most discerning connoisseurs — i.e., Marvel fans with sharp eyes — will have have noticed the bottle's label, attributing its creation to the Maison du Mépris winery.

There are a couple of potential takeaways here. First off, "Maison du Mépris" translates from French to English as "house of contempt," which is creepy enough on its own, foreshadowing a less-than-ideal domestic situation for Vision and Wanda, who aim to be a super-powered-sorceress-and-undead-android couple living happily in the suburbs.

From a more comic book-y perspective, the name could be a reference to House of M. For the uninitiated, over the last six decades, Wanda Maximoff has a pretty impressive track record when it comes to warping reality to try to fix her bad moods. In the 2005 storyline House of M, she creates a world where every character has had their deepest wish fulfilled: Spider-Man's uncle is still kicking, Captain America wins World War II and retires, and Wanda has a pile of kids to call her own. Painting with broad strokes, it seems pretty similar to the evident scratch-the-surface-and-it's-a-nightmare world that's present within WandaVision. 

Also, for whatever it's worth, the wine bottle says "F. Amblard," potentially referencing set designer Frédéric Amblard of the MCU's Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.

Another familiar-looking star who appears in the newest trailer for WandaVision is Kathryn Hahn, whose casting was announced in August 2019 during the D23 Expo. Until now, info surrounding Hahn's WandaVision character has been sparse if nonexistent; the House of Heroes only shared that she would be playing someone who, according to Marvel Studios head honcho Kevin Feige, would fit the typical sitcom trope of the all-too-curious woman next door. He teased on stage at D23, "What does every sitcom need? A nosy neighbor! There's always a nosy neighbor that's stirring up trouble" (via Entertainment Weekly). 

This WandaVision trailer does paint Hahn's character in that light, but it doesn't give her a name or set up her backstory ... at least not explicitly. Looking at the transcript of the trailer posted on YouTube, one will see that Hahn's character is named Agnes. The footage shows her being, true to Feige's word, the typical busybody neighbor in the past — setting up the dinner party that turns sour and simply hanging out at the WandaVision household — but it also shows her striking true fear into Vision's heart by telling him that he's dead in what seems to be the present day. Adding to the creep factor is that Agnes is dressed as a witch when she drops that bombshell on Vision, lending perhaps the biggest piece to the puzzle here.

Taking everything into consideration, it seems that Hahn's character Agnes might be some version of Agatha Harkness — "Ag" plus "ness" to make "Agnes." In the comics, Agatha is a powerful witch (hence the Halloween costume she wears in the trailer) who mentors Wanda Maximoff. Unfortunately, things don't end well between Wanda and Agatha in the comics, but we won't spoil that for you.

Later on in the trailer, we watch as Vision walks the suburban streets on two different Halloween nights, seemingly one in the past and one in the future. In the first instance, Vision appears as most Marvel Cinematic Universe fans know him to look like on the big screen: with a deep red face; silver markings across his ears, temple, and top of his head; what looks to be the Mind Stone nestled right where his hairline would be if he was a human; and a sleek costume. In the second instance, which is situated later in the trailer, Vision rocks a different look — one that's kitschier by comparison but incredibly comic-book-accurate.

Vision's bright red face, green hooded bodysuit adorned with a yellow diamond in the center of his chest, matching yellow cape with a big flared-out collar, and green diamond adorned on his forehead all come together to give a clear callback to the costume he sported in the pages of Marvel comics. But not just any comic issue – The Avengers #57 from October 1968, in which Vision made his first-ever appearance.

Marvel Comics

Wanda is also seen wearing a costume from the comics — an all-red get-up with her signature headpiece and a tied-in-the-front cape — but that's something fans previously saw in the earlier WandaVision teaser from February 2020.

When cutting together a trailer, editors have to ensure that all the footage included packs as big a punch as possible and sets the tone of the series without spoiling anything. But that's only part of the creative endeavor. Editors also need to select the perfect song to set the trailer to, and in most cases, the tune chosen says just as much about the project in question as the footage itself.

This new WandaVision trailer is no exception. It's set to "Twilight Time" by The Platters, a vocal group established in 1952 that rose to prominence during the early stages of the rock-and-roll era of music in the United States. The song, released in April 1958, is a good fit considering that WandaVision will in part take place in the 1950s, but it's also appropriate due to its lyrics. Written by Buck Ram, the lyrics to "Twilight Time" tell of a deep love between two people. When used in this WandaVision trailer, the song's lyrics help underline both the true affection that Wanda and Vision share for one another and the hardships that the couple must endure.

"Here in the afterglow of day / We keep our rendezvous beneath the blue / Here in the sweet and same old way / I fall in love again as I did then," the song goes. It ends on a bittersweet note, "Each day I pray for evening just / To be with you / Together at last at twilight time / Together at last at twilight time."

Being superheroes, one with various magical abilities and the other an artificial being, Wanda and Vision aren't like other couples, and their relationship will never be quite "normal." Though they still try to fit in, they must keep their superhero rendezvous hidden and hope that at the end of the day, no matter what, they can be with each other. The line "I fall in love again as I did then" also hints at the fact that WandaVision will skip across time, moving through the decades from the '50s to the '80s and beyond, but that the couple's love will remain strong through it all.

Additionally, many have also drawn parallels between WandaVision and The Twilight Zone. The trailer for a series with possible Twilight Zone influences utilizing a song entitled "Twilight Time"? That might not be a simple coincidence.

At one point in the trailer, Wanda and Vision can be seen in a very '70s iteration of their household, toting two infants — seemingly baby boys. The shot is so quick and comes in the midst of so much craziness that one would be forgiven for thinking it's some kind of throwaway gag. In actuality, this might be super significant, as there's precedent in the pages of Marvel comics for Wanda and Vision having twin boys (although, since Vision is an android, they were conceived by magical means).

In the comics, Wanda uses her "probability magic" to become pregnant with twin boys named William and Thomas, whom none other than Doctor Strange delivered. Unfortunately, in their initial incarnations, William and Thomas weren't exactly real, as they had a weird habit of blinking out of existence whenever Wanda wasn't thinking about them.

Eventually, though, Wanda was able to combine her powers with those of the extra-dimensional demon Mephisto (to make a very long story short) to give the twins actual life. When they reached their teen years, they began to exhibit powers: William possessed a version of his mother's reality-warping abilities, while Thomas inherited the blinding speed of his uncle, Quicksilver. As the heroes Wiccan and Speed, respectively, the two became key members of the Young Avengers.

With other Young Avengers members either already having been seen in the MCU (like Cassie Lang, the daughter of Ant-Man) or known to be arriving shortly (like Kate Bishop, the protege of Hawkeye), the appearance of these two little tots could constitute the strongest evidence we've seen yet that the Young Avengers are a part of Marvel's plan for the future.

In one of the trailer's final moments, a young woman dressed in attire from the '60s or '70s is seen being forcibly ejected from Wanda and Vision's reality. She flies through the air backwards, zooming across a country pasture in broad daylight and then breaching some kind of inter-dimensional barrier before being plopped down outside of a modern military installation in the dead of night.

Her arrival appears to cause quite a bit of commotion at the base — evidently belonging to S.W.O.R.D., the S.H.I.E.L.D. counterpart otherwise known as the Sentient World Observation and Response Department — and it's possible that a few of the soldiers rushing to investigate may have seen her before. She's Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) — ace Air Force pilot and the daughter of Maria Rambeau, the best buddy of Carol Danvers, AKA Captain Marvel.

Fans have long known that Monica would be appearing on WandaVision, although the context of her appearance hasn't been clear. The trailer doesn't exactly make it any clearer, just a lot more intriguing. How has Monica, last seen as a little girl in the mid-'90s in Captain Marvel, found herself in Wanda's orbit? It appears that she was somehow able to slip into the alternate reality that Wanda created, but how did she do that and why would she be thrown out so violently? Are all of those could-be-S.W.O.R.D. guys mobilizing just because of the oddly dressed woman who came flying out of the inter-dimensional breach, or are Wanda's activities causing ... other weird problems?

All should become clear when WandaVision debuts on Disney+ later this year.