[Analysis & Review] WandaVision Episodes 1 & 2 [Impressions & Easter Eggs]

Contents

*Extremely important* After finishing episodes 1 & 2

The premise: WandaVision leads into Doctor Strange 2

This has already been announced officially, but the show is a work with an extremely strong connection to Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

On top of that, it seems Wanda appears in Doctor Strange 2 as well. Source below

https://theriver.jp/doctor-strange-before-wandavision/

*Important* What Wanda, AIM and S.W.O.R.D. are after

The factions revealed so far are three: Wanda, AIM and S.W.O.R.D. So let me think about what each of them is moving towards. My prediction is

1. Wanda’s goal is to bring the Vision she loves back to life
2. AIM are an offshoot of Hydra, so they want to get hold of Wanda, who Hydra created. Or they want to restore the lost Infinity Stones and take them
3. S.W.O.R.D. are an offshoot of S.H.I.E.L.D., so they want to rescue Wanda

That’s how I see it. As grounds for “Wanda’s goal is to bring the Vision she loves back to life” in particular, the trailer running in America had the scene below.

That yellow stone is the Mind Stone that Thanos took from Vision. Which is to say, my thinking is that this story is about restoring the shattered Mind Stone and trying to bring Vision back to life.

On top of that, the Wanda of episodes 1 and 2 knows this world isn’t real and behaves normally anyway, so I don’t think there’s any doubt that all sorts of commotion looks to be happening because of a plan Wanda started.

So: while Wanda is crushed by the grief of having lost Vision, AIM make contact. AIM sweet-talk her with “there’s a good way to do this,” take her off to a laboratory and help her revive Vision. But in fact, the moment she tries to bring Vision back, she’s hooked up to a device that makes Wanda’s power AIM’s. Or else she tries to bring Vision back by restoring the Mind Stone and the other Infinity Stones, and AIM are planning to seize the restored stones. That’s my prediction. Personally I’m backing the theory that AIM are scheming to have Wanda revive the Infinity Stones.

Whichever of those theories it is, I think it’s all but certain that the world Wanda is in is being generated by AIM’s device.

The question is what the person with the S.W.O.R.D. notebook is doing in front of AIM’s device at the end of episode 1, and probably: Wanda vanished, so S.W.O.R.D. investigated, and as a result they found Wanda hooked up to the device at an AIM facility. But they’re in a position where they can’t carelessly disconnect Wanda from it. So my prediction is that the S.W.O.R.D. agents are trying to make contact with Wanda from outside the device, using the radio and the helicopter and so on.

And then the beekeeper appears at the end of episode 2, and

• The beekeeper suit has the S.W.O.R.D. logo
• The bees are attacking the man wearing the suit

taking those into account, my prediction is that the man in the beekeeper suit is a S.W.O.R.D. agent, and the bees are a visualisation of AIM’s defence system attacking that agent.

Are the Infinity Stones coming back?

Now, I set out the Infinity Stone (especially the Mind Stone) revival theory in the previous section, but anyone reading this is probably thinking my theory makes no sense, since Thanos destroys the Infinity Stones early in Endgame.

But Endgame itself says that their existence itself hasn’t been erased. If it had been, the universe would have fallen apart lol

So even if Wanda’s power alone isn’t enough, with the help of science and technology it might be possible to bring the Infinity Stones back once again now.

*Important* Where Wanda and Vision are

The place Wanda and Vision are in isn’t reality, as the end of episode 1 makes clear.

In particular

1. The house Wanda and Vision live in is different in episodes 1 and 2
2. Dottie’s hand should have been injured and it’s healed
3. Rewinding is possible

are the clinchers.

So where is it, then?

Somewhere like the afterlife, accessed with AIM’s device and Wanda’s power

is what I can personally imagine. The reason I came to think that is the following scene, from the promotional trailer that ran in America before the show aired.

Astonishingly, in this scene she says

“I’m dead.”

She bursts out laughing right afterwards, so she may not have meant it seriously, but it sparked an idea in me.

Which is this: in the MCU, when a person or an animal dies, something like a soul carrying their memories and personality may remain in the real world. And I came to think that those remaining souls are in somewhere like the afterlife, which is in the real world but can’t normally be accessed. The thing I want to hold onto here is that this isn’t the usual kind of afterlife — the afterlife is on scientific grounds, in a higher dimension inside the real world that we can’t perceive.

There is some grounding for this afterlife theory: Ant-Man and Endgame showed the Quantum Realm, a place where even time travel is possible, so I figured something like this could exist as well lol

Which would make everyone in that place, apart from Wanda, dead.

What the colour red and the ads mean

Episodes 1 and 2 both had that mysterious use of red, and an ad.

I think the red and the ads are things Wanda and Vision have in common. First, red is their signature colour, needless to say.

And then Stark Industries and Strucker, who turned up in the ads:

• Stark was Wanda’s sworn enemy, and Stark created Vision
• Strucker is the man who gave Wanda her powers. Strucker had Loki’s sceptre, which held the Mind Stone — the thing you could call Wanda’s heart

that’s what I think it comes down to. Maybe that afterlife-like space was influenced by Wanda and Vision, and ads like those came out of it?

*Important* The Mind Stone and the revival of Vision’s soul

Having said all that, plenty of people probably thought, why not just revive the Infinity Stones and be done with it? Use the Soul Stone and it looks like Vision’s soul could be brought back easily enough.

But going by Age of Ultron, using an Infinity Stone inside a housing doesn’t seem to carry much of a downside, whereas bringing someone back to life would surely kill the user, so perhaps that’s why Wanda chose a different method.

I think the way to revive Vision’s soul is to make him recognise that “this is real.”

Or to let Vision experience normality. (Episode 1 the proposal, episode 2 the pregnancy, episode 3 onwards raising children?!

The grounds for this are the scene in episode 2 where Vision affirms that it’s real, though why that would bring him back to life I don’t quite understand. Something to look forward to from episode 3 on.

Also, I think Vision can’t live without the Mind Stone, so how it gets restored has to be worked out too. Presumably by amplifying Wanda’s power with AIM’s device?

How does WandaVision end?

Does Wanda turn villain?

The theory being whispered around is that Wanda becomes an MCU villain.

But I don’t think it goes that way. It would call X-Men: Dark Phoenix to mind, and it would flatly deny the relationship of trust built up to this point. As a character she’d be all over the place, which is nonsense.

There is a scene that bothers me, though. Below is from the promo trailer.

This looks like a scene of Vision and Wanda fighting side by side, but fans can also take it as Wanda saying “this is home, so let’s stay here forever” while Vision says “no, this can’t go on. We have to face reality and get past it.”

So the destination I’d put on this show is

1. Vision recognises that this world is fake
2. Wanda confesses that at this point she doesn’t care if the world is fake, she wants to stay together forever
3. Vision wants Wanda to face reality and let go
4. The two of them fight
5. Wanda admits it was a mistake made out of love and escapes the fake world
6. Wanda gets past Vision’s death
7. It comes out that Wanda was in fact carrying Vision’s child as far back as Infinity War (Wanda was dead until Endgame, so the logic holds). Vision is gone, but she resolves to live on with the child he left behind
8. Doctor Strange appears and the story ends

— that’s what I think it’ll turn out to be. Watching episodes 1 and 2, it felt like “children” is going to be the key word.

To say something meta, though, I love Vision, so I really do want him brought back to life.

Also I think the afterlife theory I set out in the earlier section becomes the key to the multiverse and leads into Doctor Strange 2.

Agent Woo from Ant-Man and the Wasp is confirmed to appear, by the way lol

And it looks like he’s joined S.W.O.R.D.

Maybe the beekeeper is Woo?!

That’s everything.

Thank you for reading.

Episode 3

The episode 3 review is here

[Analysis & Review] WandaVision Episode 3 [Impressions & Easter Eggs]