So, needless to say, massive spoilers ahead. If you haven’t been watching WandaVision on Disney+ stop what you’re doing and watch the first five episodes before reading any further. What happens in episode five not only changes the audience’s view of the show but the entire MCU moving forward.
WandaVision always seemed like an ambitious undertaking but the meta approach the show takes to itself ups the ante entirely. Having SWORD be aware that Wanda is in a television show that plays by certain rules means they get to be the audience surrogate and discover what it means with the audience as the mystery unfolds. Quite a lot of that happened in episode 5 so let’s unpack some of it.
First, it’s becoming clear that Vision is not thereby choice, and despite and being an essential part of the WandaVision dynamic he seems to be just as much of a puppet in the charade as everyone else in the town. Wanda, it seems, has had some sort of mental breakdown and stolen Vision’s body from a SWORD lab shortly after the events of Avengers: Endgame.
We learned from last week’s episode that the events in Captain Marvel led Maria Rambeau to form SWORD (probably with the help of her new pal Nick Fury and SHIELD). Her daughter, Monica, joined the organization and has been an agent since. That connection led her to the events of WandaVision where she infiltrated the town as an undercover agent (kidnapped is more like it but both work for the sake of this description).
The image that is becoming clear is that Wanda now controls most of the town and, as we saw in the episode, can actually leave of her own free will whenever she wants. She knows it’s an illusion and is totally fine with that. What is also becoming clear is she may not be the only one in control. Though the House of M storyline in the comics shows that Wanda has the power to warp reality she’s never exerted this much control and even she seems surprised by the amount of power she is wielding. This brings up the possibility that there’s another player at work.
SWORD finds a way to send a message to Vision allowing him to essentially wake from the spell Wanda has put him under and confront her about the entire situation. The show breaks out of its episodic structure going well beyond the credits proving Vision is no longer playing by her rules.
That’s when everything cracks wide open. Just as the two are talking about Pietro (Quicksilver) and how Wanda used to have a brother the doorbell rings. At this point the audience expects Pietro to show up, it’s built into the structure of the genre. And he does, just not the one we expect.
Here is where some history may help. Back before Disney bought out FOX two versions of Quicksilver made their way to cinemas at the same time. Aaron Taylor-Johnson joined Elizabeth Olson as the Maximoff Twins in Avengers: Age of Ultron while Evan Peters joined the X-Men in Days of Future Past. In the MCU Quicksilver was killed during the battle with Ultron but within the X-Men timeline Quicksilver is alive and well albeit quite a bit older than his MCU sister at that point. But, since Fox’s mutants are now fair game, it is Peters’ version of Quicksilver that shows up at Wanda’s door at the end of the episode.
His appearance marks the first real mutant and X-Men to show up in the MCU. Of course, the MCU was going to introduce the X-Men at some point but it was always assumed they would be rebooted and much further down the line. By bringing Peters in Wanda has somehow broken the multiverse and pulled him out of the X-Men timeline. What’s even weirder though is that he seems to recognize her as his sister. Unless of course, that’s not actually Pietro just someone pretending to be Pietro to further mess with Wanda’s brain. It goes without saying that next week’s episode is going to be bonkers.
