Lines In WandaVision That Are More Important Than You Realized

In WandaVision, the Marvel Cinematic Universe show airing on Disney+, it's clear right away that not everything is as it seems. How could it be? When last we saw the Vision in the MCU, he had been murdered by Thanos. When last we saw the Scarlet Witch, she had been brought back to life after being snuffed out by Thanos' Infinity Stones-powered "snap." The first thing WandaVision shows us is the two of them married and living in a small town named Westview.

Of course, all of this is presented in black and white, in the style of a sitcom from the 1950s or 1960s. Homages to shows like I Love Lucy, The Dick Van Dyke Show, and Bewitched (of course) are obvious. The first episode reveals that this actually is some kind of show, but who staged it? For what purpose? How much control does the Scarlet Witch have over her situation? Many of the lines in the show clearly have more than one meaning, and others are more important than they initially seem. Throw in oblique references to the comics and the MCU, and it's clear that there's a lot of ground to cover, so here's a look at lines in WandaVision that are more important than you realized.

"Wanda, charmed" is a line uttered by the mysterious Agnes, Wanda's busybody next door neighbor. Friendly and ingratiating on the surface, she barges her way into Wanda's house and immediately starts bombarding her with questions. Who is Agnes? Is she friend or foe? The word "charmed" might be a clue that Agnes is actually a variation on Agatha Harkness, Wanda's magical mentor in the comics. "Charmed" in this case could be a pun on magic, or "charms," and an immediate statement that Agnes is aware of exactly who and what Wanda is. 

Agnes' appearances seem too well-timed to be just coincidence, like when she storms into Wanda's kitchen to help her with a dinner for Vision's boss. Another example is when Wanda examines a toy helicopter with a S.W.O.R.D. logo that appears to her in color in a black and white world. Agnes chooses that moment to interrupt her and distract her with something else. If Agnes is a malignant presence, it wouldn't be surprising to see her announce herself in an oblique way. And if she doesn't mean Wanda harm, Agnes' behavior might mask an attempt to try and slowly, subtly alert her to what's really going on.

The "commercial breaks" in each episode start off innocuously enough, but each ends on a note of enigmatic menace. In the first episode, there's a commercial for Toast Mate 2000, a Stark Industries-produced toaster. Given that the Vision has been jokingly described as a toaster in the comics over the years, this is a sly reference. More ominous is the commercial's tag line, "Forget the past, this is your future." The technology from Stark is literally telling Wanda to forget her past and to embrace the reality in front of her, because it's her future, like it or not. It's quietly, awkwardly, telling her and anyone watching that this is what's happening, and what a wonderful thing it is. It does make one wonder: what is the audience for this "show" that Wanda seemingly has some influence over? Is it trying to control her, or vice versa? In the ad, it's notable that the red dot on the toaster is the first color seen on the show — and it's reminiscent of the gem on the Vision's forehead, especially as the two dials next to it look like eyes and the heating element looks like a mouth. 

The central conflict of the first episode is a classic sitcom-style mixup regarding a dinner at Wanda and Vision's home. Wanda thinks it's an anniversary celebration, but it's actually a dinner for Vision's boss and his wife — all made wackier by Wanda's use of magic in an effort to make dinner and Vision's desperate attempt to entertain their guests.

When the dinner is miraculously served, the Harts aggressively start asking them questions. Where did they come from? Why were they here? Why didn't they have kids? These are questions that Wanda and Vision don't know how to answer, because they didn't know the answers themselves. As Mr. Hart is yelling about why Vision and Wand are here, he starts to choke on his dinner. In a surreal moment, his wife simply stares at him, smiles, and repeatedly tells him to stop it, as though she was programmed to do so but something was wrong. For an uncomfortably long time, no one acts to save him.

Wanda breaks the tension by commanding "Vision, help him." It's not a request so much as it is an order, and Vision dematerializes his hand and pulls out the food blocking Mr. Hart's airway. The Harts then leave cheerily, sitcom problems resolved, as though none of it happened. Wanda and Vision don't discuss it either. Was the whole thing a glitch in the simulation that Wanda barely fixed?

In episode two of WandaVision, Wanda and Vision perform in the town talent show, doing a magic act. Vision's stage name is Illusion and Wanda's stage name is Glamor. This is a reference to an actual magician couple from the Vision and the Scarlet Witch comic, also named Glamor and Illusion. They were neighbors of Wanda and Vision in Leonia, New Jersey. Ilya Zarvov was Illusion, and he had the power to control the molecules of anything he touched for one minute. His wife Glynnis was Glamor, and she had the power to control her body's density. She could phase through walls, turn liquid, and even "detach" limbs. The show leans heavily on that comic series for its suburban setting, so this is a nice homage.

Vision utters another notable quote in introducing their act: "In a real magic act, everything is fake." That's a reference to the possibility that this entire setup is a result of Wanda's magic and reality-warping powers creating a fake, perfect life.  

In the second episode of WandaVision, while Wanda is being subjected to hectoring by Westview's dictatorial homemaker Dottie, she makes a friend named Geraldine. Like Wanda, Geraldine seems a little confused, telling Wanda, "I actually don't know what I'm doing here." In the moment, that's a reference as to why she's at the wives' meeting. In a larger context, it's a reference to Geraldine being a resident of the town who was placed there by someone else. Geraldine's confusion indicates that she has no sinister intent and feels a kinship with Wanda in dealing with the Stepford Wives quality of the rest of the planning committee.

It's telling that later in the episode, Wanda feels comfortable enough to put Geraldine in Vision's box for a magic trick, even if she knew it would give Geraldine cause to suspect her. Instead, Geraldine rolls with the punches, indicating that she's there for a reason — but may have had her memory wiped in the same way that Wanda and Vision seem to have. 

The commercial in the second episode of WandaVision is a seemingly normal ad for a men's luxury watch from Strücker. The tagline, "He'll make time for you," is weird on its face, as it refers to the man behind the brand instead of the watch itself. Of course, this is a reference to Baron Wolfgang von Strucker, a former HYDRA chief. Using the Mind Gem that was attached to the Asgardian Scepter, Strucker experimented on human subjects who were refugees from Ultron's attack on Sokovia. Two of those subjects happened to be Wanda and Pietro Maximoff. He twisted the twins' minds, who worked with Ultron until finally switching sides when they realized the full horror of what their ally was going to unleash. 

Strucker was killed by Ultron himself. What this commercial suggests is not only that Strucker might somehow by alive, but that he could have a hand in what's going on with Wanda. Both of the commercials featured in the first two episodes of WandaVision reference time, with the Toast Mate 2000 ad mentioning the future and the Strücker one implying that this timeline has been created by someone else. Notably, the watch itself reads "Swiss Made" and "HYDRA Tough." 

After Wanda and the Vision succeed in their sitcom goals for a second consecutive episode by delivering an unintentionally hilarious performance at the talent show, they share an intimate moment together at home. Suddenly, Wanda realizes she's visibly pregnant and asks, "Vision, is this really happening?" After he assures her that it is, they're interrupted by a noise out on the street, where a man in a beekeeper's outfit emerges from a manhole. Alarmed, Wanda says "No," and the show promptly rewinds itself back to the point when the Vision reassured her. The show then turns from black and white into full color as they celebrate Wanda's sudden pregnancy. 

When Wanda utters this line, she's altering reality. Her ability to do this is established in the Avengers Disassembled and House of M storylines in the comics. What the show leaves vague at the moment is whether this is her idea — or, as the mysterious voice she hears on the radio keeps asking, whether someone else is doing this to her and she's reacting. Either way, this line gets to the heart of the central mystery of the first part of the season.

In the third episode of WandaVision, "Now In Color," the sitcom trope is reflected in a series of pregnancy gags done in the visual style of The Brady Bunch. When the Vision brings up the possibility of naming their child Billy, Wanda replies "Billy? Well, I was thinking Tommy." This is a direct reference to the comics — Vision and the Scarlet Witch Vol. 2 #12 in particular, when the Scarlet Witch gives birth to twins. 

On the show, the Vision picks Billy because of William Shakespeare, whereas Wanda favors the "all-American" Tommy. Of course, Wanda is a Sokovian, not an American. In the comics, both names were connected to the Vision. "Tommy" came from Phineas Thomas Horton, the creator of the Human Torch, the Vision's original incarnation in World War II. "Billy" is a reference to the Williams family. The Vision receives his new personality from the brain patterns of Simon Williams, better known as Wonder Man. When he seemingly died, Hank Pym recorded his brain patterns, which Ultron later used when he revived the Vision. 

Of course, in the comics, the twins came to a horrible end when it was revealed that they were manifestations of Mephisto's soul by way of a cursed demon-man named Master Pandemonium. He later came to claim the twins as his own, sending the Scarlet Witch into a downward spiral. 

When the Vision starts to realize that things in their neighborhood and lives aren't quite adding up, he says "I think something's wrong here, Wanda." She looks at him with almost desperate eyes, and there's a momentary glitch in the film before the show goes back to the moment right before he utters that line — and this time, his real concern about the reality of their world turns into yet another sitcom platitude.  

That particular quote speaks to the dawning realization that something is deeply wrong with this reality. It doesn't make any sense and is idealized to deliberately saccharine levels. Vision's question poses a series of others to the audience: Is Wanda doing this because it's what she wants? Is someone making Wanda do it? Is all of this a manifestation of her unconscious mind, or is she part of some kind of experiment? Is it magic or science that's at work here? Finally, how self-aware is the Vision in all of this? Is he the ghost of old programming, or does he have any sentience?

The tagline for the commercial in the third episode is "Escape to a world all your own" for a bath product called Hydra Soak. This is the second consecutive reference to HYDRA in as many episodes, which is significant: HYDRA was the organization that found Wanda and Pietro Maximoff and gave them their powers through the use of the Sceptre, which had the Mind Stone on it. 

The tagline seems to hint that the world Wanda is inhabiting is entirely for her own benefit, a "world of her own." Who is providing this fantasy world for her, and for what purpose? Is it SWORD, the organization whose symbol has appeared multiple times and is related to SHIELD? Or is it HYDRA, who could have put in deep hypnosis triggers for Wanda? What does this fantasy world indicate for Wanda's sanity, and why do the ads hint so strongly at outside interference? The show is being watched, but by whom and for what purpose?

After the birth of her twins Billy and Tommy, Wanda makes a reference to her life before the show for the first time. She tells her friend Geraldine that she was a twin, and had a brother named Pietro. Then she begins singing to her boys in Sokovian. A change comes over Geraldine's face and she quietly asks about Pietro: "He was killed by Ultron, wasn't he?" 

In fact, this is exactly what happened in the MCU film Avengers: Age of Ultron. After initially siding with Ultron, Wanda and Pietro turned against him, and Pietro was gunned down by an Ultron-controlled Quinjet. But why does Geraldine know this? Why does she choose to mention it at this moment? Wanda never answers the question; instead, she grows angry and panicked. While Agnes and Herb are outside telling the Vision that Geraldine isn't trustworthy because she has no home, Wanda asks Geraldine who she is and what the symbol on her necklace's pendant — the SWORD insignia — means. When the Vision comes back inside, Geraldine is gone — Wanda, still visibly upset, tells him she had to "rush home."

The last moments of the episode see Geraldine falling out of a crackling sky (almost looking like it was computer-generated) and deposited outside Westview, only to be greeted by a host of military personnel as the Monkees hit "Daydream Believer" plays over the scene.

Episode 4, "We Interrupt This Program," deals out a number of answers but also brings up a number of questions. We learn that Carol "Captain Marvel" Danvers' closest friend, Maria "Photon" Rambeau, was the architect of a space-related program called S.W.O.R.D.: Sentient Weapon Observation Response Division. Her daughter, Captain Monica Rambeau, grew up in the program and apparently became one of its top pilots.

When Thanos snapped his fingers and erased half of the sentient life in the universe, an event known on earth as "The Blip," Monica Rambeau was one of its victims. This is something she has in common with Wanda Maximoff, and like Wanda, her life is not the same when she comes back. When SWORD director Tyler Hayward tells Monica "The program hasn't been the same since you've been up there, Rambeau," it's tantalizing because of much it leaves out. When did Maria Rambeau create SWORD? Did she do this as a response to the Kree invasion, the Skrull infiltration, or both? What exactly was Monica Rambeau training for? Is the "Sentient Weapon" in question here Carol Danvers herself, or potential alien threats with powers of their own? Of course, in the comics, Monica Rambeau was a police officer who received energy powers and became known as Captain Marvel since the original, Mar-Vell of the Kree, was dead. What does Monica's MCU fate hold?

FBI agent Jimmy Woo is a character who predates the actual Marvel Universe, debuting as the sworn foe of the Yellow Claw in the latter's comic. In the MCU, he's a former SHIELD agent who was sent to monitor Scott Lang during his house arrest in Ant-Man And The Wasp. When Woo found he couldn't contact someone in the Witness Protection Program in Westview, New Jersey, he was alarmed to discover that the witness' friends and relatives had never even heard of him. When he went to New Jersey and tried to contact local law enforcement, they claimed that Westview didn't exist — even as Woo and Monica Rambeau were standing next to a sign for the town.

When Rambeau asked why he didn't investigate the town, Woo responded, "You can feel it too, can't you? Nobody's supposed to go in." While Woo has been portrayed as a little goofy at times, he also clearly has a sense for dealing with weirdness, and he knows there's something off about Westview. Even as he was the first outsider to become aware of the town, he also intuitively understood that outsiders were not wanted. 

"1950s, 1960s, and now the '70s. Why does it keep switching time periods?" So wonders Dr. Darcy Lewis, the one-time intern for Dr. Jane Foster and Dr. Eric Selvig. They were all there when they followed the strange weather patterns and saw the wormhole that brought Thor to Earth. While she was depicted in the movies as a wisecracking smart-aleck who didn't seem to take all the weirdness surrounding her seriously, her first appearance in WandaVision reveals that she's earned a doctorate in astrophysics. That, and her experience with space-related weirdness, is undoubtedly why she was called in to Westview.

She discovers that in addition to the massive amount of Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation emanating out of Westview, there's a separate signal being broadcast as well. That's when she discovers the WandaVision television show being broadcast from the town, starring Wanda Maximoff and the Vision. Darcy asks a crucial question: in Wanda's sitcom reality that she created, why is she constantly updating the time period? What's all this leading to?

When Wanda banishes Geraldine, a.k.a. Monica Rambeau, from Westview after Monica brings up Ultron killing her brother Pietro, she seems to lose her grip for a moment. She completely erases Monica's expulsion from the TV broadcast, cutting straight to the credits. This is after blasting Monica through several walls and punching her outside Westview's energy field. Visually, Wanda suddenly appears "real" in a way that she doesn't in her own show. When the Vision enters the room, he momentarily appears in his actual state: dead, with his head ripped open where Thanos tore out one of the Infinity Stones.

Wanda quickly restores Vision, but her "husband" continues to question this reality, asking her if she's sure they should stay in Westview. "Don't worry, honey. I have everything under control," she assures him, and Vision — somewhat uneasily at first — follows her to the couch to watch TV with their newborn sons. What's clear in this moment is that while Wanda has a frightening amount of power over reality, things are obviously not as they should be.

After being blasted out of Westview by Wanda, Monica Rambeau is found by SWORD. When she regains her wits enough to speak, she tells them, "Wanda. It's all Wanda!" After speculation throughout the first three episodes that Wanda might be the victim of some outside antagonist, the fourth episode suggests that she's the one who made this world for her own purposes. The question then becomes: Is Westview is the result of a psychotic breakdown after she tried to process the trauma of Vision's death, or did outside forces contribute in any way? The references to HYDRA in the WandaVision show's advertisements might indicate that the organization that gave Wanda her powers may not be done interfering with her life.

This episode reveals the true identities of virtually every key WandaVision character except for Dottie and Agnes. Dottie is the closest thing to a villain that the WandaVision show-within-a-show has, and Agnes is a constant plucky presence in Wanda's life. The episode makes the viewer wonder: Is she the one who spurred Wanda on? If so, why? Wanda may well have enough power to have done this on her own, but she may not be entirely in control of her faculties. 

"If I don't meet you no more in this world, then I'll meet you in the next one. And don't be late." This is a quote from Jimi Hendrix's "Voodoo Child," the song that plays over the end credits of "We Interrupt This Program." The song's title is a reference to magic, which leaves the audience wondering whether Wanda in the MCU has learned magic the way that her comics counterpart did. The quote is particularly relevant to her relationship with the Vision. In a cruel twist of fate, Wanda was rescued from the Blip thanks to the Avengers, but the Vision remains really and truly dead. Or is he? Considering that Shuri of Wakanda was working on duplicating his brain patterns in order to remove the Infinity Stone, is it possible that his consciousness could be revived? Is Wanda reanimating the Vision through science or magic? Is the song referring to the fact that Wanda can't be with the Vision in this world, so she simply constructed her own for them to live in? 

"We're making it up as we go along" is the chorus for the intro song in the fifth episode of WandaVision, "On A Very Special Episode..." This entry draws heavily on the 1980s sitcom Family Ties, and that particular choice has everything to do with the tone of this episode of WandaVision. Family Ties was a sitcom with a laugh track and all the usual shenanigans, but it was also a show about generational divides between adults and children. On that show, Elyse and Steven Keaton were former hippie-types who were alarmed that their children were either apolitical or worse, conservative. Michael J. Fox broke out as the hyper-conservative Alex P. Keaton. The show was also well known for mining the trope of the "very special episode," wherein the usual laughs were muted in favor of a serious subject. One of them was about Elyse's brother (played by Tom Hanks), an out-of-control alcoholic. Another featured Alex in therapy.

All of this ties into WandaVision as this episode questions the amount of control Wanda is exerting on her surroundings. The lyrics of the song seem to suggest that all of this is not as deliberate as S.W.O.R.D. director Tyler Hayward insists. As in Family Ties, there are cracks in the family's foundation. The children don't do what they're told; in this case, they keep aging up without permission. And of course, Wanda's wayward (and dead) brother returns. 

"Auntie Agnes is here and I've got a couple of tricks up my sleeve" is one of many meaningful quotes in the episode. Agnes continues to draw suspicion as a character who has no known analogue in the real world. She's also the character who manipulates events directly, even if it's through sitcom tropes. Only Vision started to notice that she would show up at the most convenient times with a needed item of some kind, but Wanda simply waved him off. 

Agnes volunteering to take care of the kids points to her being a version of Agatha Harkness, the powerful witch who trained Wanda in the comics and helped raise Franklin Richards as his governess. She was not only nonplussed that Tommy and Billy aged themselves up twice, she even tossed off the line, "Kids. You can't control 'em. No matter how hard you try. " In the moment, the line about "tricks up my sleeve" seems like it could be a sly reference to magic. 

Agnes also demonstrated that she was aware of the artificiality of the situation when Vision reacted in a way contrary to the "plot" of the episode, dropping her cheery face and saying "Do you want me to take that again?"  Notably, the babies stopped crying and the laugh track faded away during that fourth-wall-breaking scene, making one wonder who exactly was in control.

When Wanda uttered the line "Taking care of a living thing is a big responsibility" to her sons when they wanted to keep a puppy, it was a question the audience should also ask of her. First of all, the episode tells the audience that she stormed into S.W.O.R.D. headquarters and took Vision's (dissected) corpse with her. How did she revive him? How much of Vision is truly him, and how much of it is Wanda's memories of who he was? The line also refers to Wanda having thousands of people under her control, moving them about their days, and making them part of her perfect sitcom utopia life. The fact that "Norm" revealed that the entire process was constantly painful and that Monica Rambeau described it as a violation indicates that she doesn't fully understand the ramifications of her actions. 

However, this line is especially pointed when one considers she's saying it to two beings that she more or less conjured out of thin air. Who are Tommy and Billy, really? How did she come to be impregnated with them? Why did Wanda think she was ready to take care of children, and what was she expecting with regard to their potential abilities given her own unstable, Mind Stone-generated powers? 

Monica Rambeau asked the question, "Wait, what's a Hex?" when Dr. Darcy Lewis referred to it as the environment Wanda had created in Westview. In the show, it was a reference to the hexagonal pattern surrounding the city, which FBI agent Jimmy Woo asked about. Why hexagons? In the comics, the Scarlet Witch's mutant power has been referred to as a "hex," causing bad luck and warping reality at a local level. Hexagons also have six sides, and in numerology, they represent love and sanctuary – exactly what Wanda was trying to create in Westview. 

Entering the Hex also means getting transformed and having a "hex" put on you, altering reality and matter itself. This episode makes it clear that what's happening in Westview isn't a hallucination or delusion, the sort of thing that Wanda initially used as part of her powers. She's gained enough power to physically transform an entire town, and Rambeau implies that she could have kept going if she'd wanted to. Whether she's had this level of power all along or if something is boosting it is another question this episode leaves the audience to consider. 

This week's commercial — for paper towels — has this tagline: "Lagos. For when you make a mess that you don't mean to." This is a reference to Captain America: Civil War, where the Avengers tracked former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and Hydra operative Brock Rumlow to Lagos, Nigeria, stopping him from stealing a deadly virus from the Institute for Infectious Diseases. When he tried to kill himself and Captain America by using a bomb vest, Wanda redirected the explosion but accidentally sent it into a building, killing many innocents. This was the trigger incident for the Sokovia Accords, an international agreement that would track and essentially control the Avengers. 

This sparked a conflict between Iron Man, who agreed with the regulations, and Captain America, who refused to be controlled by bureaucracy. Wanda sided with Captain America while Vision sided with Iron Man. If the commercials in the WandaVision show-within-a-show represent some kind of manifestation of Wanda's subconscious, this particular ad is the most telling in that regard. It's clear that Wanda feels guilty about what she mistakenly did and wishes she could just wipe it away. It's no coincidence that the fluid the paper towels pick up is blood-red.

When Vision confronts Wanda about Norm, finally understanding that this life Wanda has constructed is a lie, he and Wanda nearly come to blows. He's terrified because he can't remember his life before Westview, and she isn't willing to tell him about it — or even about what's beyond their town. When he tells her "You can't control me the way you do them," she coldly responds "Can't I?" as the credits start rolling on her show. 

When they calm down, Wanda flatly denies controlling every detail of Westview, and she even seems to believe it. Earlier in the episode, when she tries to use magic to make her twin infants go to sleep, she fails. She blurts out, "Why won't you do what I want?" There are aspects of life in Westview she clearly has no direct, or perhaps conscious, control over. 

When her sons ask her to resurrect their dog, she refuses, even as Agnes gasps and asks, "You can do that?" That question remains unanswered in the moment, especially with regard to Vision. However, when her dead brother Pietro rings the doorbell, Darcy Lewis notes that Wanda has "recast" him. This is quite literally true, as Quicksilver here isn't portrayed by the actor who played him in the MCU (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) but rather the actor who played him in X-Men: Days Of Future Past (Evan Peters). One of the wilder cliffhangers in a show full of them, it leaves the audience wondering whether Wanda pulled him from a different universe entirely.

The sitcom the sixth episode of WandaVision, "All-New Halloween Spooktacular!," is based on is Malcolm in the Middle, which aired on Fox from 2000-2006. This is a big jump from the '80s and early '90s theme of the previous episode's Family Ties and Growing Pains pastiche, going from a traditional sitcom with serious overtones to a more modern sitcom that took a wrecking ball to television conventions. Malcolm in the Middle was about a highly dysfunctional family with weirdo parents and bizarre kids; it had nothing to do with the more idyllic sitcom tropes seen in earlier episodes. The jittery title sequence reflects the anarchic quality of life in the house with Uncle Pietro around, as the focus of the show moves away from Wanda and Vision and to Pietro, Billy, and Tommy. 

The line "If it's all illusion, sit back, enjoy the show!" is deeply packed with multiple meanings. There's a sense of not knowing whether or not this is real. At the same time, there's a sense of knowing that everything going on is part of a show, that it's for Wanda's entertainment. There's also an overwhelming sense of powerlessness in this situation; all you can do is sit back. At a meta level, it's also telling the viewer to enjoy it. 

In "All-New Halloween Spooktacular!," Pietro says "You've probably suppressed a lot of the trauma" to Wanda in reference to a horrible Halloween experience they had as kids back in Sokovia. However, it's also the first line in the episode where Pietro starts to break the fourth wall of Wanda's reality. He isn't really referring to old Halloween costumes; he's making an oblique reference to how much trauma he knows Wanda has experienced. They saw their parents killed in front of them, then they survived on their own as children, then they joined up with Hydra and were experimented upon.

They fought the Avengers, and then he died right in front of her. Pietro may not even know about Wanda seeing the Vision die in front of her and then ceasing to exist for five years. Wanda is a giant ball of unprocessed trauma, a tinderbox just waiting for a match. The question remains after this episode: how did this all start? Not even Wanda remembers. 

When Tommy and Billy go to get candy around the neighborhood for Halloween in "All-New Halloween Spooktacular!," Pietro encourages them with a bellow of "Unleash hell, demon spawn!," which — while clearly a joke — is still a funny thing for an uncle to say to his rambunctious nephews. It may also have been an oblique reference to the original fate met by Billy and Tommy in the comics. When Wanda discovers that the twins are mysteriously appearing and disappearing, she learns to her horror that they are actually shards of the demon Master Pandemonium's soul, which in itself holds shards of Mephisto's soul. Mephisto is a major-league devil, and their simple existence as babies for a brief period of time speaks to just how powerful Wanda's magic is. 

Of course, their souls are later reincarnated into humans who were quite similar in appearance. Billy becomes Billy Kaplan, a.k.a. Wiccan. The Halloween costume Billy wears during "All-New Halloween Spooktacular!" resembles Wiccan's main costume in the comics, and Tommy, a.k.a. Speed, looks like a junior Quicksilver, right down to the lightning bolts on his costume. Who are this Billy and Tommy? Are they demons, misplaced souls, or something else?

When one of the twins exclaims "Kick-ass!" after Pietro uses his super-speed in order to help them get candy in "All-New Halloween Spooktacular!," Wanda looks puzzled and repeats "Kick ass?" as a question. This is a deep meta reference, because Even Peters, who plays Quicksilver in WandaVision and in the Fox X-Men franchise, is not the same actor who played him in the MCU. Peters also previously starred in 2010's Kick-Ass, a satirical superhero film in which ordinary schmoes decide to put on costumes and beat people up. Peters played Todd, a.k.a. Ass-Kicker, a friend of the main character — Dave Lizewski, a.k.a. Kick-Ass, played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson. Taylor-Johnson, of course, played Quicksilver in the MCU franchise entry Avengers: Age of Ultron.

It's a smart meta gag — and one that, coupled with the brief clip of Taylor-Johnson's Quicksilver that we see earlier in the episode, hints that the MCU may not be quite finished with the Age of Ultron version of the character quite yet.

As the WandaVision show-within-a-show becomes more postmodern, its characters start to possess a more open awareness of what's happening to them. When Wanda looks vaguely dissatisfied after she learns that Vision isn't on neighborhood watch patrol like he told her he'd be in the opening scenes of "All-New Halloween Spooktacular!," Herb asks her "Do you want something changed?" This would be a strange thing for a normal person to say to another person. However, in a scenario where everyone is seemingly under Wanda's control, it makes sense — the residents of Westview have learned that staying in her good graces is their best option for overall mental health. 

Herb is willing to go along with Wanda in case she wants to rewrite reality, which she does multiple times earlier in the series. Sometimes she's rewound scenes; other times, she's edited them. Herb's statement — coming on the heels of the previous episode's "blooper" in which Agnes asks Wanda if she should do another "take" — reflects that not only are the residents of Westview aware of what's happening to them, they're now capable of expressing it to Wanda.

Throughout "All-New Halloween Spooktacular!," Pietro not only displays a clear understanding of what Wanda's doing, he's also quite willing to speak out about it. When he starts nonchalantly asking her for details about how she did things, like waiting until this episode to introduce children into the mix in order to avoid traumatizing them, he seems genuinely curious regarding her methods. When he says "You've handled the ethical considerations of this as best you could," he means it. In this bizarre life that he finds himself in, one where he knows he'd been shot one moment and is now suddenly alive, he admires how much restraint Wanda has shown in the exercise of her powers.

He even seems to approve of the whole thing, saying their parents would be proud. Wanda seems surprised at this level of validation, and even allows herself to think about why and how it started. Of course, she can't remember — she simply went from grief and emptiness to Westview, NJ. This quote suggests that there's much that's still hidden with regard to Westview.

Early in WandaVision's seventh episode, "Breaking the Fourth Wall," Wanda's sons ask her if they should go look for their missing father and she blithely replies, "If he doesn't want to be here, there's nothing I can do about it." This goes to the heart of her dilemma: how much control does she have over Westview? The early episodes suggest that she has near-total power over everything and everybody. After being forcibly expelled from town, Monica Rambeau understandably assumes everything stems from Wanda. However, Wanda doesn't consciously summon her dead brother Pietro, and as the series goes on, she finds it increasingly difficult to force the Vision into her sitcom version of reality. Wanda also can't control her sons and their "growth spurts," and she has to make an emotional appeal in order to get them to stay at ten years old. 

That lack of control over people starts bleeding over into reality itself more visibly during "Breaking the Fourth Wall," as furniture, food, and toys warp back and forth in time. Wanda has an air of light-hearted detachment about all of this in tune with one of this episode's sitcom inspirations, Modern Family. Also in line with that show's mockumentary style, she unburdens herself to an unseen documentary crew as she speaks directly to the camera — but she's visibly confused when the interviewer asks her a question. Her own sense of agency, if she had any at all to begin with, seems to be fading.

One thing that becomes increasingly clear in "Breaking the Fourth Wall" is that the sitcom conventions Wanda and Vision have been living in aren't necessarily Wanda's doing after all. The faux-documentary style confessionals they find themselves in, where they speak to the camera and an unseen interviewer, are just the latest trope the show within a show explores. Vision eventually realizes that what he's doing is absurd, and rips off his microphone in order to try to get back to Wanda.

Wanda, meanwhile, is still (mostly) buying in. She's so invested in the illusion that when she admits she doesn't understand why things are "all falling apart and why I can't fix it," she's stunned when an unseen interviewer asks, "Do you think maybe this is what you deserve?" Unsettled, she responds, "You're not supposed to talk," and then the "show" goes to commercial. 

This is Wanda's hidden tormentor confronting her in a surprisingly open way. They want Wanda to doubt herself, to feel bad about herself, and most importantly, to remain in a state of confusion. On the similarly mockumentary-style The Office, the filmmakers revealed themselves on rare occasions, and it was always jarring when they did. This reveal isn't just unsettling for Wanda, it's meant to continue eroding her grip on her sanity. As she says earlier in the episode, "I'm beginning to think that everything is meaningless."

The commercial segment in "Breaking the Fourth Wall," which arrives right after the interviewer confronts Wanda, advertises an antidepressant of sorts called Nexus. Taking it will bring you back to reality — or "the reality of your choice" — and the ad's tag line promises "Nexus: Because the world doesn't revolve around you. Or maybe it does." While all of this clearly refers to the reality-bending Wanda has been doing in Westview, it goes deeper than that.

In the comics, when Wanda goes insane after Billy and Tommy are revealed to be demons, she's being manipulated by Immortus, the time master from Limbo who is also a future persona of Kang the Conqueror. He knows Wanda is a Nexus Being, which gives her tremendous power over probabilities — and in turn gives her the ability to alter potential futures. He also knows that any children of a Nexus Being will be unbelievably powerful, and he wants control over them. 

The commercial seems to hint that if Wanda is a Nexus Being, she's far more powerful than she knows. The world does revolve around her. However, it also suggests that all this is beyond her control and comprehension, and it further hints that there are others who do understand her power — and how to manipulate it. 

Early in "Breaking the Fourth Wall," Billy tells Wanda that his head feels "weird," saying "It's like, really noisy." Billy, showing signs of the telepathic powers that his older self in the comics, Wiccan, was born with, is clearly distraught about "hearing" the voices of everyone in the town crying out for help. When he's in Agnes' house, however, he feels calm — he tells her "You're quiet, Agnes. On the inside." Whether he just can't read her thoughts or she's shielding them from him, what's clear in this moment is that the anguish he hears in everyone else's thoughts isn't coming from hers. This is a huge clue that Agnes isn't what she seems — and that she may even be the only person in Westview who isn't under someone else's control. Agnes clearly has a healthy respect for what the twins can do — she never seems to attempt exerting direct control them, although this is the last time she appears as a kindly figure.

There are multiple threads running through episode seven of WandaVision. One of them is the story of the determined Monica Rambeau, who remains intent on getting back into the Hex because she knows that the only way to stop Wanda from continuing her takeover of Westview is to reach her through reason instead of trying to kill her. When she makes it through (rewiring her DNA again and evidently gaining superpowers in the process), she pleads with Wanda not to let SWORD director Tyler Hayward make her the villain. Wanda's response — "Maybe I already am" — indicates just how deep her well of grief and self-recrimination goes, and how easy those feelings may have been for someone else to manipulate. 

She's no longer sure that what she's doing is right. Her brother reassured her that she'd done the best she could in episode six, but in retrospect, that casts doubt on his true intentions. Wanda is twisted by grief, but it's obvious that on a deeper level, she knows what she's doing is wrong. Before Wanda was shown reclaiming Vision's body from the SWORD labs, Hayward was working to reanimate him in order to use him as what Darcy describes as "a sentient weapon" — meaning however complicated her motives may have been, Wanda did the right thing by Vision. Monica reminds Wanda that she isn't a bad person, no matter how misguided — or manipulated — her actions in Westview have been.

As predicted by fans, wacky next-door neighbor Agnes is actually Agatha Harkness. She introduces herself toward the end of "Breaking the Fourth Wall" by noting that Wanda isn't the "only magical girl in town" and reveals her true self by saying "The name's Agatha Harkness. Lovely to finally meet you" before working her magic on Wanda. In the comics, Agatha has long been Wanda's magical mentor and friend, although she has also occasionally manipulated her. In the comics, Agatha is the one who told Wanda that her children Billy and Tommy weren't real — they were both soul fragments from the demon Master Pandemonium, who in turn unknowingly held them for the elder devil Mephisto. 

The snappy sitcom theme song that plays after Agatha's reveal, over a montage that effectively works as the opening credits of a new show-within-a-show titled Agatha All Along, reveals that she's been behind every evil twist in Westview, including controlling Pietro with her purple-tinged magic. And what's the source of Agatha's tremendous power? It turns out to be the Darkhold, the ancient book of evil magic written by the elder chaos god Chthon. Written with fire on parchment made of flesh, the Darkhold is first glimpsed in Agatha's basement, radiating energy.

In the eighth episode of WandaVision, "Previously On," a lot of information is revealed. However, there are a number of tantalizing mysteries hinted at in a number of lines. The first scene takes us back to Salem in 1693, during the era of the infamous witch trials. We see Agatha hauled through a forest, bound by magic, and asked if she's a witch. But she's not on trial because she's a witch — instead it's because she betrayed her coven. The leader of the coven, who she refers to as "Mother," angrily accuses her, saying, "You stole knowledge above your age and station. You practice the darkest of magic."

It quickly becomes apparent that Agatha is more powerful than her whole coven combined, which leads to the question: what knowledge did she steal to become this strong? What is the darkest of magic? While Agatha gets a lot of answers from Wanda in this episode, she reveals nothing about herself. In particular, she says nothing about the Darkhold, written by the evil elder Chaos god Chthon. Chthon invented dark magic billions of years ago, and the Darkhold was his record of his evil deeds and spells. It's also appeared on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Runaways, and Cloak and Dagger.

When Agatha traps Wanda in her basement, she's surprised that Wanda was so easy to fool. When Wanda doesn't recognize basic protection runes, an incredulous Agatha asks, "How do you not know the fundamentals?" When she tries to understand what Wanda's doing in Westview, she marvels at her use of mind control and transmutation magic so powerful that it's "Magic on autopilot!" She has to know how Wanda does it, because "When I sensed this place, the afterglow of so many spells cast at once, I couldn't make heads or tails of it."

Agnes is baffled because she thinks she's going up against a trained, experienced witch. Instead, she finds someone who doesn't know how her powers work and has never thought much about them. Given Wanda's non-stop history of trauma, this isn't all that surprising. What took Agnes years of study to master comes naturally to Wanda, and at first, neither of them know why. 

Agnes refers to trying to get close to Wanda's "true self" with "fake Pietro, or Fietro — if you will, but no dice." When Wanda says, "That was you?," Agnes corrects her and says that it wasn't "literally me, just my eyes and ears." She goes on to give a few more details. It was "A crystalline possession. Necromancy was a non-starter, since your real brother's body is on another continent. Not to mention full of holes. "

There's a lot to unpack here. First, Agatha confirms that the Pietro Wanda meets is not actually her brother, but she also implies that she could have used his body if she had access to it. Second, she reveals that she possessed "Fietro," which implies that he's an actual person under her control. Given that his powers match the true Pietro's almost exactly, the strong implication for the audience in this moment is that he isn't just a random person, and the possibility of Agatha having access to the multiverse is very much in play.

In a memory of the Vision visiting her room in the Avengers compound, Wanda and Vision have a powerful conversation about grief. When Vision offers himself up if she wants to talk about grieving her brother Pietro, she tells him that "The only thing that would bring me comfort is seeing him again." Vision tells her how grief is an extension of love before he chuckles at a scene in a sitcom that Wanda finds comforting.

In a flashback, Wanda is faced with the reality that she can't "feel" the Vision's mind anymore when she sees his disassembled body at the SWORD lab — and does not, despite what Hayward's now-obviously doctored footage showed, take it from the building. Instead, she travels to Westview, New Jersey. Many faces that will become familiar fixtures of the "anomaly" later are there as she drives through town. When she comes upon a particular vacant lot, she looks at a piece of paper that Vision gave her, which explains it's a lot meant for the two of them as a couple. On it is a note from Vision that reads "To grow old in." That sets Wanda off, and in her grief, she creates an entire sitcom world in her bubble — and conjures a brand-new Vision in the process. What she says about the only possible comfort lying in seeing her loved one again holds true — it's just that the "him" in this case changes from Pietro to Vision, the love of her life. And she makes it happen.

Wanda grows up loving sitcoms because, as she tells her brother, "At the end of the episode, you realize it was all a bad dream. None of it was real." Young Wanda is especially delighted by The Dick Van Dyke Show, because she loves the "shenanigans" that Rob and Laura Petrie get up to. She describes "shenanigans" as "like problem, but more silly than scary, but can sometimes be a little scary." This is how she starts to think about life in general, wishing it was all a dream.

So when she creates her own version of Westview, it cycles through classic sitcom tropes. They have to impress the Vision's boss. They have to do well at the local talent show. They have to engage in wacky hijinks with their kids. In the end, all of the shenanigans are resolved, everything is reset, and reality is completely malleable. She's literally living a dream. What's initially unclear is whether her dream is falling apart because of Agatha, or if it would have collapsed on its own. 

After seeing Wanda's life through her memories, Agatha hits on Wanda's true nature. "This is chaos magic, Wanda," she tells her. "And that makes you the Scarlet Witch." This is the first time Wanda's superhero alter ego has ever been uttered in the MCU — prior to this, she was just Wanda Maximoff. Referring to chaos magic and the Scarlet Witch as a title has very specific meanings in the comics. 

Wanda started her career thinking she was a mutant with a probability-altering hex power. Then Agatha Harkness claimed to see potential in her as a true witch, and she trained her for a while. For years, Wanda thought that her actual father was Magneto and her mother was a Roma woman named Magda. Much later, she learned that she wasn't a mutant after all — the High Evolutionary claimed to have given powers to her and her brother. On a quest to save magic, Wanda discovered that her true mother was named Natalya Maximoff, the sister of Django, the man who raised her. More importantly, she was known as the Scarlet Witch, one in a long line of witches, and they saved the mother of all witches from Chaos.

In WandaVision's season finale, Agatha Harkness drops more tantalizing hints to Wanda about the nature of the Scarlet Witch. While Agatha constantly spouts half-truths and isn't to be trusted, she is right about a lot of things. For example, when she asks, "Did you know there's an entire chapter devoted to you in the Darkhold? That's the 'Book of the Damned,'" she's not lying, as she shows Wanda some of the pages, and Wanda later sees them on her own. 

First spotted at the end of episode 7 in Agatha's basement, the Darkhold is a book of spells and information that has reality-altering properties. Diehard Marvel fans know that different versions have appeared on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Runaways, but in the comics, it was written by the Elder Chaos God Chthon as a way preserving his knowledge before he had to leave the mortal plane to avoid being consumed by Demogorge the God-Eater. So as you might assume, this is one serious tome, and it's implied that Agatha killed her coven and her mother through the use of the book — the "forbidden knowledge" her mother referred to. 

In WandaVision's big finale, Agatha Harkness gets to monologue quite a bit, revealing details about the legendary Scarlet Witch. According to the villain, "The Scarlet Witch is not born, she is forged. Your power exceeds that of the Sorcerer Supreme. It's your destiny to destroy the world." 

Agatha is right that the Scarlet Witch is someone who's forged, not born. The look back on Wanda's life in the eighth episode reveals this, when Wanda first demonstrates her power to save herself and her brother. She then manifests her hex power and nightmare-causing telepathy when she's exposed to the Mind Stone. And she comes into her full power as the Scarlet Witch when she tries to cope with her overpowering sense of grief. Ironically, Agatha herself is an instrument of this forging, as she gives Wanda what she lacks — knowledge. 

The bit about the Sorcerer Supreme is, of course, a reference to Doctor Strange. Considering he has the power to use the Time Stone, this reveals just how overwhelming Wanda's potential is. Of course, other than being on the same battlefield in Avengers: Endgame, Strange and Wanda have otherwise had no interactions. That will change in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, but it remains to be seen if the Scarlet Witch and Doctor Strange will be friends or foes. 

All throughout the series, Agatha refers to her unseen husband Ralph, and for a while, it's unclear if this is even a real person. But when Monica Rambeau is trapped in Agatha's home by the fake Pietro (who nonetheless still has Quicksilver's powers), she discovers that he's really an actor named Ralph Bohner. Moreover, this is his house, not Agatha's. 

Monica eventually overpowers him and uses her energy-detection abilities to discover the source of Agatha's control over Ralph — his hipster necklace. Earlier, Agatha referred to using "crystalline possession" to control "Fietro," and these were the crystals in question. When Monica yanks them off his neck, he immediately reverts back to his true self and begs for mercy. Monica simply replies "Nice to meet you, Ralph."  

This scene retires a few different fan theories. Ralph simply appears to look like X-Men's Pietro by coincidence, with perhaps a few touch-ups by Agatha. He's just a regular guy hanging out in his man cave, watching Steven Seagal movies. He wasn't summoned by either Wanda or Agatha from another dimension, and the casting of Evan Peters in this role seems to be a red herring. How exactly Agatha gave him super speed is never addressed.

In their big showdown, Agatha forces Wanda to truly look what she's become when she frees the people of Westview from Maximoff's control. The people confront Wanda, with one woman begging for death and crying, "Your grief is poisoning us." When Wanda tries to deny it, as she has all along, she learns that the citizens are having her nightmares instead of their minds being at peace, as she claims. 

That's when Agatha angrily crows, "Heroes don't torture people." Of course, she's not doing this to be a moral scold. Agatha doesn't care about anyone but herself and her own pursuit of power. She does it because she thinks she can talk Wanda into giving up her power willingly. Wanda responds by finally doing the right thing and letting everyone out of her control and urging them to run. This has the byproduct of letting in S.W.O.R.D. forces determined to kill her, but Agatha is certainly happy with that outcome as well. 

Still, even though Agatha doesn't mean to be Wanda's moral conscience, this is exactly the effect she has, making her almost a mentor of sorts. She forces Wanda to decide if she's a hero or villain. 

The ghostly White Vision is sent by S.W.O.R.D. to kill Wanda and the Vision of Westview. When asked why, he replies that his programming is to destroy the Vision. But when the red-skinned hero explains that he's not the true Vision, only a "conditional Vision," the White Vision pauses for the first time, saying, "I request elaboration."

What follows is a fascinating philosophical discussion about the Ship of Theseus thought experiment. If the parts of an object are slowly replaced over time, at what point does it cease to become the original object? Moreover, if those replaced parts are repaired and then assembled to form a duplicate, is this really the original object? White Vision says that both are the same ship, and neither are the same ship, just as neither Vision is exactly the original. 

White Vision then realizes that he's been cut off from his memories in order to be "a weapon to be more easily controlled." He allows his Westview doppelgänger to restore access to his memories and then leaves, saying, "I am Vision." Where he goes after this is mystery to be solved later. 

When Wanda uses her old trick of sneaking up on an opponent and using her telepathy, she conjures up Agatha's greatest fear. Here, we see the villainous witch tied to a stake after she's just killed her coven. Wanda smugly notes that Agatha did this on purpose, unlike her, and then revives the corpses. But when the witches turn on Wanda and start chanting, "Harbinger of chaos — so it is written, so it is foretold," it's Agatha's turn to smugly say, "I told you so." The coven recognizes Wanda as the Scarlet Witch, hinting at her purpose.

But for all of her bluster and scheming, Agatha seems genuinely terrified after Wanda beats her and takes her power away, first saying, "You don't know what you've done," and finally, "You have no idea what you've unleashed." These all indicate that whether or not Wanda means to do it, she could be the cause of a reality-threatening event as the herald of some kind of Chaos entity. Whether that's Chthon, Mephisto, Nightmare, or another dark entity remains to be seen. It's also unclear if Wanda mastering her powers will be a good or a bad thing, as she could become possessed by these forces of Chaos. Regardless, Wanda is now the Scarlet Witch, and she's no longer running away from her emotions or her responsibilities.

When Wanda decides to bring Westview to an end, she also knows it's the end of the family she's created. But when she says goodnight to Billy and Tommy for the last time, she whispers something curious: "Thanks for choosing me to be your mom." 

The existence of the boys is left unexplained in the series. It's revealed that the residents of Westview are the people who lived there before. It's also revealed that Wanda created the new Vision herself. However, Wanda implies here that she didn't create the boys, and furthermore, she implies that in her quest to have children, they chose her to be their mother. And Monica notes in an earlier episode that though it was on Wanda's show, the kids that she helped deliver are real. The boys love Wanda and Vision as though they're their real parents, but it's also clear that with their superpowers and ability to age up at will, they have their own sense of agency and purpose. 

Who are Billy and Tommy, really? How did they receive their powers? Are they essences of the multiverse? Are they shards of Mephisto's soul as they were in the comics? Only time will tell.

When Wanda is unmaking Westview, Vision asks her who he really is. She tells him, "You are the piece of the Mind Stone that lives in me." She also notes that he's her hopes, fears, and most importantly, her love. 

However, Wanda talking about the Mind Stone clarifies much about how she was able to create this new Vision. The connection both of them share through the gem is a powerful one. Wanda's exposure to the Mind Stone not only triggered her powers, it gave her an image of her future as the Scarlet Witch. The Mind Stone offers clarity of self as much it offers power and the ability to control minds. Being exposed to an Infinity Stone profoundly changes its recipient, if they're able to survive it. For the Vision, it's an essential part of who he is. Wanda's ability to tap into that, along with her formidable powers over Chaos magic, allowed her to create a different version of the being she loved. 

During the credits, there's a scene when Monica Rambeau is asked to answer some questions in the Westview theater. But instead of finding a bunch of officials, Monica discovers a lone woman... who then shapeshifts into her true Skrull form. That's when the alien says, "I was sent by an old friend of your mother's. He'd like to meet with you." 

This is likely a reference to Talos, the Skrull leader who became an ally of Carol Danvers and Maria Rambeau. Talos traveled to Earth with his team at the behest of Nick Fury and was last seen in Spider-Man: Far From Home. The Skrull tells Monica that the unnamed "he" had heard she was grounded, and when Monica asks where he wants to meet, the Skrull simply points up, implying that Talos is aware that Monica now has the power to travel to space on her own. 

Monica is due to appear next in Captain Marvel 2, and she'll hopefully get a chance to confront Danvers about what's bothering her. Is she angry at Danvers for leaving Earth, or is it because she wasn't there when her mother was dying? Either way, her ability to turn into pure energy makes her ideal to explore space, and we're excited to see what happens to Monica next.

In the post-credits scene, Wanda is in a secluded cabin, seemingly enjoying a quiet life as she makes herself some tea from a whistling kettle. However, all is not as it seems. In her astral form as the Scarlet Witch, Wanda reveals that she took a souvenir from Westview — Agatha Harkness' copy of the Darkhold. As she peruses it, she hears her sons shouting for her help. This reinforces the idea that Wanda didn't create Billy or Tommy. She called for them from somewhere else, and after she dissolved Westview, they weren't disintegrated like the other things she created. They either went back where they originated... or somewhere much worse. 

This reinforces the popular theory that they're aspects of Mephisto's soul, which is what they were originally in the comics. However, their powers and personalities in the show reflect their later comic book personas as Wiccan and Speed. This brings up the possibility that their souls are still alive somewhere and that Wanda has the power to help them. But where are they? And who's hurting them? Is it Mephisto that's involved? Chthon? Time will tell, but the story of Billy and Tommy is clearly not over.