Tara McCauley February 12th, 2021 - 3:23 AM
After Wanda Maximoff’s jaw-dropping recasting of her brother Pietro as X-Men’s Evan Peters (X-Men: Days of Future Past, X-Men: Apocalypse) at the end of WandaVision’s fifth episode, fans were clamoring for answers in the Disney+ series’ latest installment. While “Episode 6” brought Halloween to a late ’90s/early ’00s-themed Westview, New Jersey, it managed to evade the questions lurking prominently in the minds of Marvel fans and theorists.
Counting down the hours ⏰ A new episode of Marvel Studios’ #WandaVision is streaming tomorrow on @DisneyPlus. pic.twitter.com/dvlUnSvLRX
— WandaVision (@wandavision) February 11, 2021
The episode saw Vision, Quicksilver and Wanda’s Scarlet Witch don comic book accurate costumes for Halloween, something ScreenRant mentioned star Elizabeth Olsen (Avengers: Age of Ultron, Avengers: Infinity War) personally lobbied for with the show’s creative team. The hashtag #Wanda, which featured an emoji of the character’s classic comic book look, began to trend on Twitter quickly after the episode dropped on Disney+ at midnight.
The turn-of-the-century pastiche of WandaVision’s sixth episode drew comparisons to Fox’s 2000 sitcom Malcolm in The Middle, which likewise became a trending topic on Twitter Friday. While Wanda’s twins, Billy and Tommy, are seen having fun and developing their own powers alongside their Uncle Pietro, Wanda harbors some of the same burning questions that fans do about Westview’s arrival.
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As the super powered siblings trick-or-treat their way through a manipulated Westview, they both interrogate one another about their current predicament. This sequence also includes a tongue-and-cheek reference to the 2010 super-hero film Kick-Ass which starred both Peters and Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Nocturnal Animals, Nowhere Boy), the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s original Pietro Maximoff.
Though Peter’s Pietro claims to have arrived because his sister called to him, Wanda seems suspicious and once more suffers a traumatic visual reminder that she’s speaking to a living visage of someone beyond-the-grave. Throughout their conversation, the audience is reminded by Wanda that she might not be entirely in control of the circumstances in Westview.
The notion that someone else is pulling the strings of Wanda Maximoff’s vast powers is nothing new to comic book fans. The A.V. Club recently reiterated the importance of WandaVision’s parallels to The House of M, a storyline in which the Scarlet Witch “was being manipulated into using her powers to change the world.” Though it’s still unclear who could be manipulating Olsen’s version of the character, theories have emerged about Marvel comic’s deal-striking devil Mephisto lurking in Westview.
While Pietro probed Wanda about the creation of her Westview reality, Paul Bettany’s (Avengers: Infinity War, A Knight’s Tale) Vision took to exploring the town’s far-reaches, where he bumped into Agnes. Kathryn Hahn’s (Mrs. Fletcher, Transparent) nosy-neighbor Agnes is yet another character believed to have ties to Marvel comics as she’s rumored to be the powerful witch and Wanda Maximoff mentor Agatha Harkness, a theory aided by the fact that Agnes appeared dressed as a witch for Halloween.
As her car idled on Ellis Street, the outer reaches of Wanda’s Westview reality, Vision found her and temporarily freed her mind from Wanda’s influence. In doing so, Vision discovered that he was an Avenger, that is until he died. This seed of knowledge prompted Vision to peek beyond the veil created by Wanda at the town’s perimeter.
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S.W.O.R.D.’s operations just outside of Westview experienced a bit of a hiccup when Monica Rambeau, Darcy Lewis and Jimmy Woo uncovered director Tyler Hayward’s nefarious intentions to stop Wanda with deadly force. Hayward accused Rambeau, played by Teyonah Parris (Dear White People, If Beale Street Could Talk), of loyalty to super-powered individuals due to her connection to Captain Marvel. The complicated relationship between Rambeau and Captain Marvel was likewise referenced in WandaVision’s fifth episode.
In an attempt to save Wanda from Hayward, Rambeau plans to travel back through “The Hex” into Westview, despite her discovery that the first voyage rewrote her DNA. In order to make her trip back to Westview, Rambeau calls in help from a friend not seen onscreen. It’s likely that whoever Rambeau plans to meet will give fans another MCU cameo to look forward to in episode seven of WandaVision. Though many sources, including Forbes, believe Rambeau’s off-camera aerospace engineer may serve as an opportunity to introduce the Fantastic Four‘s Reed Richards into the MCU.
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As Rambeau and Woo depart to rendezvous with her mysterious colleague, Lewis stays behind to uncover more about Hayward. Kat Dennings’ (Thor, 2 Broke Girls) intrepid astrophysicist feels a moral obligation to intervene when she witnesses how Vision’s travel through the veil has seemed to induce painful deterioration.
When Wanda’s newly-powered twins inform her that their dad’s in trouble, and Pietro goads her about her dead husband dying once more, she unleashes her powers and extends the barrier of Westview. While Hayward, and a handful of associates, were able to escape, Darcy Lewis was not so lucky.
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Since it appears that Darcy has now been engulfed into the sitcom world of Westview, comedian Riley Silverman (The Game of Rassilon, Take My Wife) suggested that the actress might get a chance to reprise her 2 Broke Girls’ persona when Wanda takes Westview’s aesthetic into the 21st century, via Twitter.
Spoiler warning
I’m calling it now. Kat Dennings is gonna do a self parody of 2 Broke Girls as Darcy in the Hex.
— Riley Silverman (@rileyjsilverman) February 12, 2021
“Episode 6” served to expand the universe of WandaVision both literally and figuratively. As The A.V. Club mentions, Wanda’s revisionist reality in House of M engulfs an entire planet, making “Episode 6’s” expansion of her influence notable for comic book readers. However, until episode seven airs on Disney+ next week, fans can look forward to another week digging for Easter Eggs and speculating about Vision’s fate, Darcy in Westview and the identity of Monica Rambeau’s unnamed connection.
