S01.E07: Breaking the Fourth Wall

[Kromm]

49 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

The strongman Darcy punched is the same guy who cuffed her to the car and left her when the Hex engulphed SWORD. 

He's also the same guy who first greeted her when she arrived at the base, who she had to specify she was "Doctor" instead of "Miss". 

[Cobalt Stargazer]

56 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

Wanda pops a few pills in the kitchen, Nexus pills perhaps? 

Yes. The container is on the counter next to her when she washes the pills down with water, and it's the same one from the commercial. It's also the first time she used one of the products from the ads.

[swanpride]

1 hour ago, tennisgurl said:

The mailman has a rabbit on his hat and Presto on his uniform. Is he Mr. Scratchy in human form? 

No, can't be. In the second episode Agatha gives Scratchy to Wanda for her magic act, and the mailman is in the scene, too.

[FnkyChkn34]

On 2/19/2021 at 8:51 PM, Racj82 said:

Who is the chatty Kathy telling people all these things that only the avengers experienced like how Vision died?

I would assume that someone held a lot of press conferences after half of the world's living things died.  That's the boring part that happened in the months after Infinity War that we don't need to see.  Steve and Tony had a lot of 'splaining to do!  And I'm sure that some of the questions were about casualties.  Plus Darcy is already sort of on the inside, and she probably knows more than the average person.

[Kel Varnsen]

5 minutes ago, FnkyChkn34 said:

Plus Darcy is already sort of on the inside, and she probably knows more than the average person.

The end of Age of Ultron shows Selvig working in the Avengers Compound. I imagine that once she switched her field or study to Astrophysics if she wanted a summer job, or needed a research project to work on, it wouldn't be that hard for her to get a job working for him.

 

6 minutes ago, FnkyChkn34 said:

would assume that someone held a lot of press conferences after half of the world's living things died

The number of official investigations would be insane. The crazy thing though is to imagine other random planets where half of all stuff disappeared and no one ever heard what was going on.

[FnkyChkn34]

10 minutes ago, Kel Varnsen said:

The number of official investigations would be insane. The crazy thing though is to imagine other random planets where half of all stuff disappeared and no one ever heard what was going on.

Maybe that's where Captain Marvel finally was useful?  She could travel to those other planets and tell them.  I don't think we saw her until Endgame but that doesn't mean she wasn't around, since they all seemed to know exactly who she was.  I'd say that Thor could too, but it seems he didn't really leave Norway.

[Bruinsfan]

2 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

Agatha All Along is still suck in my head, truly a powerful and devious magical spell. 
 

Hey, at least we're not spending the intervening week bereft at waiting for more content with that mental turntable playing 24/7. Thanks songwriters!

[Cobalt Stargazer]

3 minutes ago, FnkyChkn34 said:

Maybe that's where Captain Marvel finally was useful?  She could travel to those other planets and tell them.  I don't think we saw her until Endgame but that doesn't mean she wasn't around, since they all seemed to know exactly who she was.  I'd say that Thor could too, but it seems he didn't really leave Norway.

Rhodey asks Carol somewhat snarkily when she brings Tony and Nebula back from space where she'd been all that time, and she said that the other planets didn't have the Avengers to protect them, so I think it's safe to say she was flying around doing what she could to keep the not-Earth places safe.

[Llywela]

31 minutes ago, FnkyChkn34 said:

I would assume that someone held a lot of press conferences after half of the world's living things died.  That's the boring part that happened in the months after Infinity War that we don't need to see.  Steve and Tony had a lot of 'splaining to do!  And I'm sure that some of the questions were about casualties.  Plus Darcy is already sort of on the inside, and she probably knows more than the average person.

Steve alone at first - Tony was off-world when the Snap happened and didn't make it back until later! That leaves Steve as the last high-profile Avenger standing in the wreckage of the world, in the first instance. There would for sure have been a lot of explaining to do!

8 minutes ago, FnkyChkn34 said:

Maybe that's where Captain Marvel finally was useful?  She could travel to those other planets and tell them.  I don't think we saw her until Endgame but that doesn't mean she wasn't around, since they all seemed to know exactly who she was.  I'd say that Thor could too, but it seems he didn't really leave Norway.

Isn't that pretty much what Endgame tells us? Carol brings Tony back to Earth, then we skip forward five years to find Natasha hanging on by a thread trying to hold everything together while Carol is mostly off-world dealing with the devastation across the universe, but remaining in regular contact while she's at it.

[FnkyChkn34]

12 minutes ago, Llywela said:

Steve alone at first - Tony was off-world when the Snap happened and didn't make it back until later! That leaves Steve as the last high-profile Avenger standing in the wreckage of the world, in the first instance. There would for sure have been a lot of explaining to do!

Isn't that pretty much what Endgame tells us? Carol brings Tony back to Earth, then we skip forward five years to find Natasha hanging on by a thread trying to hold everything together while Carol is mostly off-world dealing with the devastation across the universe, but remaining in regular contact while she's at it.

Having just watched Winter Soldier again over the weekend, I think Natasha was pretty high profile too.  So it was probably Steve and Natasha that had to do the explaining.

Exactly - she was useless and MIA in their fight in Infinity War but must have been dealing with the other planets afterwards, so she finally did something helpful.  When Rhodey asks where she's been, I took that to mean during their initial fight, too.  They could have used her help and never been in the situation where they were, they could have won and prevented the snap in the first place, but she must have had better things to do...  (Sorry, she's not a favorite of mine, so I apologize if the snark is too strong.)

Tying this back to WandaVision, it's pretty obvious that Carol is MIA again, and has been all of Monica's life as well.  She just pops in and out way too conveniently for me.  She's not going to show up in Westview, NJ, is she??  Ugh.

[lovett1979]

9 minutes ago, FnkyChkn34 said:

Exactly - she was useless and MIA in their fight in Infinity War but must have been dealing with the other planets afterwards, so she finally did something helpful.  When Rhodey asks where she's been, I took that to mean during their initial fight, too.  They could have used her help and never been in the situation where they were, they could have won and prevented the snap in the first place, but she must have had better things to do...  (Sorry, she's not a favorite of mine, so I apologize if the snark is too strong.)

Tying this back to WandaVision, it's pretty obvious that Carol is MIA again, and has been all of Monica's life as well.  She just pops in and out way too conveniently for me.  She's not going to show up in Westview, NJ, is she??  Ugh.

What's with the Carol hate? She has not been on earth since the events of Captain Marvel (my assumption). Like she says, there are other planets in the universe that needed her help, and Earth had all the rest of the Avengers. You're ragging on her for not fighting in Infinity War? She didn't even know it was happening! When it was over, and Thanos snapped, and Fury started to dust away, only then did he use the pager to call her back to Earth. And she did! And found Tony floating out in space! And brought him back! And helped the remaining Avengers find and kill Thanos! Then went back out to deal with the resulting issues in the rest of the universe and kept in contact. How can you be mad at her for not fighting in a war she had no idea was happening?

 

[FnkyChkn34]

3 minutes ago, lovett1979 said:

What's with the Carol hate? She has not been on earth since the events of Captain Marvel (my assumption). Like she says, there are other planets in the universe that needed her help, and Earth had all the rest of the Avengers. You're ragging on her for not fighting in Infinity War? She didn't even know it was happening! When it was over, and Thanos snapped, and Fury started to dust away, only then did he use the pager to call her back to Earth. And she did! And found Tony floating out in space! And brought him back! And helped the remaining Avengers find and kill Thanos! Then went back out to deal with the resulting issues in the rest of the universe and kept in contact. How can you be mad at her for not fighting in a war she had no idea was happening?

 

Thanos was supposed to be the biggest baddie in the whole universe at this point, right?  He had been for awhile, and posed this huge threat for a long time.  How did she NOT know it was happening?  Please.  It shouldn't be up to Fury to call her back.  If she's as great as she thinks she is, she would have known.  (But we're getting off topic; there's a whole MCU topic this could move to.)  

[swanpride]

The universe is huge and Thanos isn't the only problem out there. You have no idea what she was fighting in the meantime. You can just as well complain that the GotG didn't bother to do anything about Thanos before Thor conveniently ended up on their wind shield. They had two years to collect allies, and Gamora actually knew what his plan was.  

[calliope1975]

Well, whatever issues Monica may have with Carol, she did hear her voice as she was pushing through the Hex barrier, so there's got to be some love left there. 

[Llywela]

28 minutes ago, lovett1979 said:

What's with the Carol hate? She has not been on earth since the events of Captain Marvel (my assumption). Like she says, there are other planets in the universe that needed her help, and Earth had all the rest of the Avengers. You're ragging on her for not fighting in Infinity War? She didn't even know it was happening! When it was over, and Thanos snapped, and Fury started to dust away, only then did he use the pager to call her back to Earth. And she did! And found Tony floating out in space! And brought him back! And helped the remaining Avengers find and kill Thanos! Then went back out to deal with the resulting issues in the rest of the universe and kept in contact. How can you be mad at her for not fighting in a war she had no idea was happening?

This. Carol can't be blamed for not taking on an enemy she didn't know existed in a fight she didn't know was happening until it was over. She is powerful but she is still only one person, and omniscience is not one of her superpowers. She can't be everywhere at the same time and she can't know everything that's going on in the universe. Earth isn't her home anymore, but she came when called. It isn't her fault she wasn't called until it was too late.

Anyway, back on topic, I'm loving the ride so far and can't wait for the next episode!

[Sakura12]

Carol actually does more than the Avengers since they only focus on Earth. She is out there trying to help other planets and that's probably why she couldn't make it home as much as she wanted. 

Whatever Monica's issue with her we'll probably find out in CM2. But she did hear her voice when running through the barrier. So she doesn't hate her, she just seems mad at her right now. 

[Wolfprincess]

Does anyone think that there is any significance to the weird bug on Agatha's curtain?  I mean, between the creepy silence and the camera's focus on it I wonder.
 

Also, I wonder about the timing of the twins' disappearance.  Did she take them at that moment, unplanned, just because Monica was there?  Or was it because she didn't want it to get out that Billy (I think) said that he couldn't read her?  She looked surprised.

 

Edited February 22, 2021 by Wolfprincess

[Abra]

I think I might be the only one who doesn't care for the Agatha All Along theme.

The twins better be okay, and I can normally take or leave kid characters.

I refuse to believe that Major Goodner is Monica's aerospace engineer "guy", and I'm cranky we didn't get to meet him this episode. I was not distracted from this by the Agatha reveal and Monica's powers coming online, show!

[calliope1975]

50 minutes ago, Wolfprincess said:

Does anyone think that there is any significance to the weird bug on Agatha's curtain?  I mean, between the creepy silence and the camera's focus on it I wonder.

I'm pretty sure that was a cicada, which per Wikipedia - "They have also been used in myth and folklore as symbols of carefree living and immortality." Not sure that fits here, but I remember them being annoyingly loud when I lived in Texas. 

[AimingforYoko]

REEEEE-MIX!

 

[Cobalt Stargazer]

The guy dancing in his chair is gold. GOLD.

[peachmangosteen]

1 hour ago, Wolfprincess said:

Does anyone think that there is any significance to the weird bug on Agatha's curtain?  I mean, between the creepy silence and the camera's focus on it I wonder.

Absolutely. What the significance is I have no idea, but it definitely means something lol.

[Wolfprincess]

It has been established that a lot of the major "characters" in Wandavision are actually SWORD agents.  Does anyone have any ideas on how they even came to be in Westview in the first place?

[Fiftyninth]

34 minutes ago, Wolfprincess said:

 

It has been established that a lot of the major "characters" in Wandavision are actually SWORD agents

 

It has?

[Kromm]

8 hours ago, FnkyChkn34 said:

Maybe that's where Captain Marvel finally was useful?  She could travel to those other planets and tell them.  I don't think we saw her until Endgame but that doesn't mean she wasn't around, since they all seemed to know exactly who she was.  I'd say that Thor could too, but it seems he didn't really leave Norway.

I've read a theory that she was back at least long enough to find out Monica had been snapped, which under that theory is why she was almost as effective as Wanda in the battle: she was pissed off. 

3 hours ago, Wolfprincess said:

It has been established that a lot of the major "characters" in Wandavision are actually SWORD agents.  Does anyone have any ideas on how they even came to be in Westview in the first place?

No such thing has been established. In fact, the very opposite was suggested by the driver's license thing. 

Admittedly there's a suggestion Hayward has some foreknowledge of this, but even that isn't proven. He could just be being an opportunist. 

5 hours ago, Wolfprincess said:

Does anyone think that there is any significance to the weird bug on Agatha's curtain?  I mean, between the creepy silence and the camera's focus on it I wonder

You might ask in the Comics thread about that, since there's a specific Comics related character suggested by it. 

[Wolfprincess]

20 minutes ago, Kromm said:

No such thing has been established. In fact, the very opposite was suggested by the driver's license thing. 

Oops, I thought that they said the people were SWORD agents.  Sorry, thanks for the correction!

Edited February 23, 2021 by Wolfprincess

[Captain Carrot]

I'm still not convinced that Agatha is the villain, and I have to wonder if her theme song being an homage to The Munsters is a hint that things aren't as they appear. After all the central joke to that show is that these people that appeared to be monsters were actually very nice.

[formerlyfreedom]

Just a gentle reminder to keep this topic for ep discussion, and much thanks to the all for taking spec and comic discussion to the appropriate topics. Thank you!

[Ailianna]

9 hours ago, Kromm said:

He's also the same guy who first greeted her when she arrived at the base, who she had to specify she was "Doctor" instead of "Miss". 

And the same guy who wouldn't get her coffee. He's just always trying to look down on her. 

[Featherhat]

This from FFH might be an indication of how regular people might know of events in IW and then Endgame. Someone provided enough information for a documentary/ripped from the headlines Paul Greengrass film to get Thanos's glove right which can only have come from those that were there. So possibly details of what Wanda and Vision went thought to try and prevent everything. It's both the type of harrowing and brave story people like to tell and part of their succeeding plan to defeat Thanos until he changed the rules with the Time stone. 

And that's before you get into Darcy potentially being involved with SWORD before and having access to other debriefings. 

Edited February 23, 2021 by Featherhat

[paigow]

12 hours ago, Captain Carrot said:

I'm still not convinced that Agatha is the villain,

She is A villain but likely not THE villain.

[swanpride]

She might be more an antagonist than a villain...after all, we don't know what her goals are.

[Danny Franks]

Right now I'm hoping that Agatha has opportunistically seen a chance to take advantage of Wanda's powers somehow - not that she's manipulated Wanda from the start, but that she's now manipulating the situation that Wanda already created, to benefit her.

I don't think the Agatha All Along montage showed her forcing or tricking Wanda into anything. She just gave little shoves and threw in distractions like Pietro, to seemingly keep Wanda on track.

Also, I'm hoping that Pietro wasn't ambushing Monica in that mid-credits scene, but that he's actually a multiverse Pietro who Agatha plucked out for her charade, and without Agatha actively controlling him he's realised he's out of place and wants to get back home. It's not that I want those X-Men to be part of the MCU, but I definitely want an MCU version of the X-Men at some point.

[Guest]

You can now listen to WandaVision’s latest spoiler-filled bop on Spotify and Apple Music

[Cobalt Stargazer]

5 hours ago, Danny Franks said:

Right now I'm hoping that Agatha has opportunistically seen a chance to take advantage of Wanda's powers somehow - not that she's manipulated Wanda from the start, but that she's now manipulating the situation that Wanda already created, to benefit her.

I don't think the Agatha All Along montage showed her forcing or tricking Wanda into anything. She just gave little shoves and threw in distractions like Pietro, to seemingly keep Wanda on track.

But on track for what? Even if Agatha didn't create the situation, she's clearly taking advantage of Wanda's mental state to keep it going. She wouldn't have told Monica to get lost just as she might have been able to break through to her otherwise, and for all of Wanda's "don't make me hurt you" and "all you do is lie" she wouldn't have been so lethargic this episode if she wasn't slowly coming around to the realization that this isn't a solution. And the boys are at least missing, since we don't know what happened to them once they were at Agatha's house. FWIW, I think Wanda probably did create Westview itself and the Hex surrounding it, but Agatha has been giving those little pushes right along for some as-yet-undisclosed goal. And again, Tommy and Billy have disappeared at least temporarily.

I would posit, though this might belong in the speculation thread, that one of Agatha's 'little shoves' was to tip Wanda off about Vision's body being in SWORD's custody. We saw in this episode that she has some mind-control powers, since she mojo'd Herb into some kind of trance in the episode where Wanda gives birth, and that may well have been the impetus for Wanda to create this elaborate fiction. How else would she have known where to find him?

[koganei]

just two more episodes!

so Wanda needs a real material before she can warp reality on it? like turning a space car into a normal van?

so how the kids came about? Agnes created them?

[Bruinsfan]

13 hours ago, Cobalt Stargazer said:

How else would she have known where to find him?

Well, she is a telepath. I imagine asking people what happened to Vision, starting with the Avengers and following the chain until she found someone who knew his current whereabouts, would have worked.

[Cobalt Stargazer]

1 hour ago, Bruinsfan said:

Well, she is a telepath.

Is she? I'm genuinely asking, because I know that she 'read' Tony in AoU to see his worst fears and how they would jolt him in the direction of creating Ultron, but I don't know if that's how it would work for something more mundane like discovering what happened to Vision. Though it would be amusing if she found out that way from one of Hayward's people and he doesn't even know it. He's been instigating all along too, it'd fit that his own underlings would let the cat out of the bag.

[benteen]

Very fun episode with a nice reveal at the end.  I liked the Modern Family homage.

[Llywela]

14 hours ago, Cobalt Stargazer said:

Is she? I'm genuinely asking, because I know that she 'read' Tony in AoU to see his worst fears and how they would jolt him in the direction of creating Ultron, but I don't know if that's how it would work for something more mundane like discovering what happened to Vision. Though it would be amusing if she found out that way from one of Hayward's people and he doesn't even know it. He's been instigating all along too, it'd fit that his own underlings would let the cat out of the bag.

She's been called a telepath within the dialogue of the show, so yes.

[Biggie B]

On 2/22/2021 at 5:06 PM, Abra said:

I think I might be the only one who doesn't care for the Agatha All Along theme.

 

Upon listening to it again a couple of times, it's not that I don't like it, I just don't find it remarkable or unique or special. 

[Chicago Redshirt]

10 hours ago, Llywela said:

She's been called a telepath within the dialogue of the show, so yes.

There are different levels/types of telepathy, though.

She clearly has to have some amount of awareness of what people she manipulates are thinking, as shown in Age of Ultron. So she has at least some ability to determine what people's fears are and to make them experience that fear. In Age of Ultron, she seemed to need to touch people to use that ability.

But can she read minds to figure things out at a distance, like, say, Prof. X can? Can she read minds of people she touches, like, say Spock from Star Trek? Does she just have a generic telepathic/empathic awareness of people, as it seems Monica hypothesized that she does in talking about how Wanda must sense that Monica is an ally because she let Monica get involved with her despite being a SWORD agent?

All that remains to be seen. I can't remember an instance in which she has displayed the sort of Prof. X/Spock mind-reading ability.

[Kel Varnsen]

4 minutes ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

She clearly has to have some amount of awareness of what people she manipulates are thinking, as shown in Age of Ultron. So she has at least some ability to determine what people's fears are and to make them experience that fear. In Age of Ultron, she seemed to need to touch people to use that ability.

She had more than just that though since in AoU when Ultron started building Vision she read his mind and saw that he wanted to kill a bunch of people.

[Chicago Redshirt]

6 minutes ago, Kel Varnsen said:

She had more than just that though since in AoU when Ultron started building Vision she read his mind and saw that he wanted to kill a bunch of people.

Right, but a) Ultron is a unique sort of intelligence and b) it's not like she set out to read its mind. 

All I'm saying is we haven't fully established how Wanda's telepathy works. If Prof. X were in this universe, especially armed with Cerebro, he could hypothetically read any mind pretty much anywhere to determine where Vision was. If Spock were in this universe, he would have to mind-meld with a series of people to figure out where Vision was. We have not seen Wanda exhibit the sort of mind-reading control that she can extract particular information from someone that is not on the surface of the person's mind or that does not relate to a person's deepest fears/hopes. Maybe she can, maybe she can't.

[Cobalt Stargazer]

11 minutes ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

Right, but a) Ultron is a unique sort of intelligence and b) it's not like she set out to read its mind.

IMO, the addition of the Mind Stone boosted the signal, since Wanda's powers in the movieverse originated from the stone in Loki's scepter. She did have to put her hands on the cradle thing to have the realization that Ultron's plan was something entirely different than what she thought it was, because later she tells Vision 'I looked into your head and saw annihilation.' Earlier, when Ultron first meets the twins at the church, he expressly states that she couldn't read him and was wondering why, so the Mind Stone itself gave her the ability to do so.

[Ottis]

So when we are in Wanda’s world, I do taxes and play phone games and check email. Because besides the conceit of the sitcom decades, there is nothing to learn besides who Monica is (unless you enjoy easter eggs and like to connect a baking dish to one in Ultron).

Which means each episode is actually about 10 minutes long. Handy.

Agatha All Along is another sigh-inducing permutation that comes from Wanda’s original selfish sin. Plus it stretches out the season at least two episodes. Yay? Guess I am committed now though. 

[Ailianna]

I noticed two things rewatching this tonight. One is a duh. Haywood calls his project Cataract, as in the thing the blocks one's Vision. I can't believe I didn't notice that before. it

The second is more of a question. How did Wu and Monica know Darcy was in the Hex? They knew she was left in the csmp, but not everyone in the camp was caught inside. Did they know or just assume or just go worst case scenario?

[Llywela]

9 hours ago, Ailianna said:

I noticed two things rewatching this tonight. One is a duh. Haywood calls his project Cataract, as in the thing the blocks one's Vision. I can't believe I didn't notice that before. it

The second is more of a question. How did Wu and Monica know Darcy was in the Hex? They knew she was left in the csmp, but not everyone in the camp was caught inside. Did they know or just assume or just go worst case scenario?

I guess they assumed the worst when she didn't make contact with them as agreed.

[Kromm]

On 2/20/2021 at 7:22 PM, blackwing said:

I NEED a full length version of the “Agatha All Along” theme song released on iTunes!  Everything about it was perfect, it was clearly a nod to the Munsters.  In addition to Agatha being a witch, the music had the horns and beat very much like the Munsters and the writing was in the same style.

Fun fact:  the team that wrote "Agatha All Along" (and the other WandaVision theme songs) also previously wrote a very obscure, little known song called "Let It Go".  I'm sure you've never heard of it! 

[Chicago Redshirt]

On 3/4/2021 at 5:21 PM, Ailianna said:

The second is more of a question. How did Wu and Monica know Darcy was in the Hex? They knew she was left in the csmp, but not everyone in the camp was caught inside. Did they know or just assume or just go worst case scenario?

Given the speed with which the Hex expanded and given (as far as we know) only Hayward and the person who was with him managed to outspeed it, it seems like it would be the safer assumption that Darcy and everyone else got caught up in the Hex.