Read our reviews for the previous episodes of WandaVision here.
Proceed with caution as there are SPOILERS ahead for the latest episode.
At the very end of Avengers: Endgame, Hawkeye and Wanda have a conversation. He wonders if Black Widow knows they won, and she replies, “she knows. They both do.” Looking back on that scene and tying this into the entire ethos of WandaVision makes things that much more melancholy. Think about that entire scene where people are seeing Tony’s conductor off into the lake. Peter has Aunt May. Hawkeye has his entire family. Wanda is alone again. She’s left to go into the world by herself again. From that mode of soul-searching, we get what we have. Everything from Westview itself and the show premises all has a deeper, interconnected meaning.
In a show that progressively ups the stakes every week, ‘Previously On’ is a deeper dive into the situations that made Wanda who she is. The sad part about this is her life is constantly saturated with grief. It’s one of the few consistencies in her life that she knows. ‘Breaking the Fourth Wall’ had Wanda look into the camera and say, “I’m fine” many times as if she was trying to convince us and herself. The penultimate episode is no longer hearsay from other characters about how Wanda feels. We see it up close and personal. Briefly, in the beginning, we see the origins of Agatha Harkness. She gets into some dark magic that her coven and mother cautions her not to, and they try to destroy her to no avail. Agatha’s question goes back to what faux-Pietro asked Wanda in the Halloween episode. “How did you do it?”
To figure that out, they go through impactful points of Wanda’s life. In her younger days, we find where her love for sitcoms started rooted in family. Also, that she had been unknowingly using magic since she was little. While they are going through these memories, Agatha gives some snarky comments. In seeing how deep Wanda’s sadness goes, Agatha shows emotion. Is it as simple as saying that Agatha is evil? Maybe not. Perhaps we will find out that Agatha is trying to use Wanda’s chaos energy for other uses. Or maybe Agatha is trying to make Wanda realize her Scarlet Witch potential.
We find out the contents of the actual meeting of Wanda and Hayward. A tragedy that’s realized throughout this entire show is the varying views of what he is. Vision is the solitary reason why The Avengers beat Ultron, and he also gave his life in fighting Thanos (twice). However, he never gets that hero moment that Tony does. There’s no funeral for him or any acknowledgment of who he was outside of Wanda. Director Hayward and SWORD are just interested in him as a husk of what he was. Not only does he not allow Wanda to bury him, he considers him property or pounds of Vibranium. This was somebody that Wanda was going to start a family with. So, it makes sense that fake Westview was born out of the promise of a barren plot of land.
Place that in contrast to the scene that happens in the Avengers Compound. While Vision is an android, he provides a very thought-provoking look at grief. That it’s just love that perseveres over time. While he looks at things in equations and scientific terms, he can care. Just being there for Wanda after Pietro’s death meant so much. However, it’s in contrast to what Wanda says first. That her grief feels like a wave that washes over her. Maybe that one day, it’s going to drown her. Elizabeth Olsen‘s performance throughout this episode is probably the best in the series. When Wanda goes over to Vision’s lifeless body and mutters, “I can’t feel you,” the audience really feels the heaviness within her heart.
Going from the mid-credits scene, there’s a nefarious role that his body will play in the last episode with Project Cataract. The concept of “White Vision” has been done within the comics where his shell exists without his consciousness attached. We see during Wanda’s time in the facility, she absorbed some mind stone’s power. It’s what Hayward uses in making this new Vision and also how Wanda accidentally brings what she sees as his consciousness. Remember that Westview’s Vision would say that the memories that he has felt like somebody else’s.
This sets up a finale where Wanda may have to fight Vision’s physical body. For someone that’s teetering on the edge of her mental health, it’s going to be further traumatizing. As this story looks towards Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness, the villain may be under our noses the entire time.
Photo Credit: Disney +
