S01.E08: Previously On

[Bruinsfan]

6 hours ago, swanpride said:

And with Wanda the solution is not to put her into the raft either (hell, the raft is part of the multiple reasons why she snapped in the first place), the solution is to put her into therapy until she is deemed safe again. What she needs is a mix of a psychologist and someone who can help her controlling her powers better.

Dr. Strange can provide one half of the brief, but there would still someone needed who can provide the other half.

Ironically given her villain status, Agatha seems to be better at doing the former than anyone else we've seen. She walked Wanda through all her past traumas and got her to face what set off the whole Westview situation, which is essentially what a therapist would have tried to do, albeit with regular talk sessions rather than a quick hallucinatory guided tour through Wanda's memories.

It's a pity for Wanda that the Ancient One was already long dead by the time this sequence of events played out. I think she'd have been eminently qualified to provide all the sorts of help needed, and to prevent collateral damage from any breakdowns.

Edited February 28, 2021 by Bruinsfan

[notagain]

2 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

I will respectfully disagree. 

vision was objectively, legally and morally real. A sentient being who has been dead since 2018 and who had a will. It seems like Hayward has disrespected that will, but that disrespect has nothing to do with Vision's not being real or even (as far as we know) Hayward believing that Vision is not real.

 

Hayward’s disrespect of Vision’s will has everything to do with not seeing Vision as a real man. To Hayward Vision is only a robot that needs to come back “online” with him controlling it. 

I'll also add that “will” in the legal document context isn't the only thing being disrespected here. The will to life and death, in Vision’s case peace in death is denied. 

Edited February 28, 2021 by notagain

[Chicago Redshirt]

25 minutes ago, notagain said:

Hayward’s disrespect of Vision’s will has everything to do with him not seeing Vision as a real man. To Hayward Vision is only a robot that needs to come back “online” with home controlling it. 

We really don't know if a) Hayward does see Vision as a real person or not b) if Hayward would have been just as likely to try to harvest DNA from the body of a dead Hulk/Captain America/etc. as he was to try to disassemble Vision.

My personal guess is that Hayward does think of Vision as a person but would totally have been fine with experiments on dead superheroes (or for that matter, probably live superheroes) if he could get away with it.

[Ailianna]

23 minutes ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

We really don't know if a) Hayward does see Vision as a real person or not b) if Hayward would have been just as likely to try to harvest DNA from the body of a dead Hulk/Captain America/etc. as he was to try to disassemble Vision.

My personal guess is that Hayward does think of Vision as a person but would totally have been fine with experiments on dead superheroes (or for that matter, probably live superheroes) if he could get away with it.

Which supports that he doesn't see Vision or any of the Avengers as human or deserving of respect.

[Wolfprincess]

Learning that the Vision in the hex is not the "real" Vision, if you consider the body held by SWORD his body and his "soul" long departed, then it puts Haywards' lack of concern for him in a new light.  Who knows what he thinks about hex Vision, much less the kids.  He probably considers them all just Wanda's creations with no real feelings or worth.

It is kind of ironic though that hex Vision has more compassion and morality than him.  I don't know what their backstory is going to be for Hayward, if any, to justify his attitude.  With only one episode left it is sure going to be interesting to see what happens.

[Chicago Redshirt]

23 minutes ago, Ailianna said:

Which supports that he doesn't see Vision or any of the Avengers as human or deserving of respect.

It seems clear that he is prejudiced against  superpowered people generally from his comments to Monica about Captain Marvel and his comments about Wanda.

That is not the issue.

The issue is whether a) he thinks that Vision is not real with the rights that any real person is entitled to and b) he therefore feels entitled to do whatever he wants to Vision's remains.

We know that Hayward knows that Vision has a living will that apparently would have prevented Hayward from doing at least some of the experimentation he has done. What we don't know is why. It could be as the question suggests that Hayward thinks of Vision as a thing whose wishes just don't matter. It could be that he thinks that the stakes are too high to just go with Vision's wishes. What happens when the next Thanos comes along? The Good Guys are down a Cap, an Iron Man, a Vision and possibly others. 

I don't think that there is evidence one way or the other on b) but my suspicion, as I said, is that he would 100 percent experiment with the bodies of Bruce Banner, Cap, or whoever else if he could. 

 

[Crs97]

Based on the language he used with Wanda - Vision is an “it” he is “dismantling and reassembling” because he is trying to get Vision back “online” and Wanda can’t be allowed to bury “$3 billion worth of vibration,” I think Hayward has made it clear that he sees Vision as a thing and not a being worthy of any rights.

[tessaray]

I am only a very casual MCU fan.  Which is why I don't see Wanda as irredeemable quite yet.  The show seems to be telling us that Westview was accidentally taken hostage by a person in the throes of a nervous breakdown.  (And as is often the case, right now they are in more physical danger from their would-be rescuers than Wanda herself.)  

I'm not sure how one final episode will resolve all this though. 

[Chicago Redshirt]

50 minutes ago, Crs97 said:

Based on the language he used with Wanda - Vision is an “it” he is “dismantling and reassembling” because he is trying to get Vision back “online” and Wanda can’t be allowed to bury “$3 billion worth of vibration,” I think Hayward has made it clear that he sees Vision as a thing and not a being worthy of any rights.

As far as I am concerned, Vision's corpse is an "it." As a lot of people might think of any corpse. The spirit/soul/life force is gone,

But Hayward does say "the best I can do is let you say goodbye to him here." Now it could be that he was being diplomatic and still doesn't think of Vision as a real person. But other than the slip about bringing Vision "online" as opposed to "back to life," I think Hayward was actually pretty sensitive to Wanda's grief (for Hayward. It probably would have been better to prepare her for the fact that Vision's body had been disassembled.)

When Hex!Vision was trying to break free from the boundary, Hayward noted that "He really does want out, doesn't he?" That strikes me as him acknowledging that Vision's personhood IMO. 

[Ailianna]

1 hour ago, Wolfprincess said:

Learning that the Vision in the hex is not the "real" Vision, if you consider the body held by SWORD his body and his "soul" long departed, then it puts Haywards' lack of concern for him in a new light.  Who knows what he thinks about hex Vision, much less the kids.  He probably considers them all just Wanda's creations with no real feelings or worth.

It is kind of ironic though that hex Vision has more compassion and morality than him.  I don't know what their backstory is going to be for Hayward, if any, to justify his attitude.  With only one episode left it is sure going to be interesting to see what happens.

 

16 minutes ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

When Hex!Vision was trying to break free from the boundary, Hayward noted that "He really does want out, doesn't he?" That strikes me as him acknowledging that Vision's personhood IMO. 

I thought he was very surprised when he said that. As if surprised the "unreal" Vision could want something so much.

[arc]

5 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

By contrast, if the twins are essentially figments of Wanda's imagination, it really does not matter what Agatha does to them. Or at least, it is not the equivalent of kidnapping and choking an actual child.

The kids are clearly sentient and sapient and not purely Wanda's whims. If they were, they never would have aged up from 5 to 10 contrary to her wishes, and she could free them from Agatha's grasp by just wishing it. So by my measure they're real enough that what Agatha is doing is bad.

[Morrigan2575]

Dear Marvel

Thabk you for giving me an entire episode dedicated to Wanda's character. Her trauma and growth, her grief and love. It was sad but, beautiful to watch. We can have a riveting episode with no action and all exploration.

Also, thanks for not coping out, for having this be Wanda, just breaking down in grief and creating a sitcom world to make her happy and safe. I still say she needs to make amends because at some point she realized she was controlling it but, chose to continue the fantasy. 

 

4 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

As far as I am concerned, Vision's corpse is an "it." As a lot of people might think of any corpse. The spirit/soul/life force is gone,

But Hayward does say "the best I can do is let you say goodbye to him here." Now it could be that he was being diplomatic and still doesn't think of Vision as a real person. But other than the slip about bringing Vision "online" as opposed to "back to life," I think Hayward was actually pretty sensitive to Wanda's grief (for Hayward. It probably would have been better to prepare her for the fact that Vision's body had been disassembled.)

I actually agree with this, whatever made Vision, Vision died when the stone was removed. At this point he's an It, a construct without life, or sentience. Wanda even said as much, she couldn't feel him and yet she could feel him dreaming when he was in the Cradle.

 

[Chicago Redshirt]

39 minutes ago, arc said:

The kids are clearly sentient and sapient and not purely Wanda's whims. If they were, they never would have aged up from 5 to 10 contrary to her wishes, and she could free them from Agatha's grasp by just wishing it. So by my measure they're real enough that what Agatha is doing is bad.

We know that the twins seemed to choose to age up and that they are resistant to Wanda's magic. They seem to react to stimuli at an appropriate level for 10-year-olds judging from their actions overall, and in particular, that they were able to do narration. 

That said, it doesn't make it clear that they are actual individuals with actual sentience and sapience (as I understand those terms) any more than a NPC in a videogame I'm playing is. If the twins are basically just a slightly more fleshed out magical equivalent of Princess Peach. Hurting them isn't necessarily the same as hurting a real-world kid, in much the same way as destroying a magicked up Westview building isn't the same as destroying a real world building.

We still don't know exactly what the kids are. They can simultaneously be things that Wanda created with a great deal of independence but still not real beings in their own right, just very good and very active props. They could be people that someone else created. For all we really know, Agatha herself created them just like she created Fietro (who, it seems to me, is just as sentient and sapient as the twins if not more so). 

[Ailianna]

There are still strong cultural and legal prohibitions against the dismemberment of the bodies of the formerly sentient. Treating him like parts is disrespectful, as if taking a human and harvesting organs against that person's living wishes. It's why we opt in for organ donation instead of it being automatic and requiring people to opt out.

[Chicago Redshirt]

7 minutes ago, Ailianna said:

There are still strong cultural and legal prohibitions against the dismemberment of the bodies of the formerly sentient. Treating him like parts is disrespectful, as if taking a human and harvesting organs against that person's living wishes. It's why we opt in for organ donation instead of it being automatic and requiring people to opt out.

A lot of those have to do with either religious traditions or wanting to avoid having people get away with crime. None of that sort of stuff applies here.

We don't know details of what Vision wanted for his remains, just that he had some form of a living will. He might have been OK with thhis remains being used for scientific research, just not for potential weaponry. He might have wanted his $3 billion worth of vibranium melted down and sent back to Wakanda. 

And there's no telling for sure, but again, if dismembering Bruce Banner's corpse seemed like the key to finding out how to create (or prevent) future Hulks, I don't have much doubt that Hayward would do it in a heartbeat if he could.

[Morrigan2575]

20 minutes ago, Ailianna said:

There are still strong cultural and legal prohibitions against the dismemberment of the bodies of the formerly sentient. Treating him like parts is disrespectful, as if taking a human and harvesting organs against that person's living wishes. It's why we opt in for organ donation instead of it being automatic and requiring people to opt out.

True but, I don't really think that applies here.  This is more like a body donated to medicine or science, not grave robbing. Med students practice on donated or obtained (unclaimed bodies) cadavers all over the world.

From Hayward's POV Vision isn't human he was a sentient Android. The Vibrainium was stolen from Wakanda the body was created in Korea and the programming was Stark Tech (Jarvis). I can't even imagine all of the groups trying to claim Vision as theirs. 

Hayward is an asshole but, I can also see some legit reasons for wanting to bring a sentient weapon (that he can control) back online. I mean Humanity faced alien attack on 3 different continents and suffered a nearly extinction level event. 

I would love to see that explored, it was brought up in Episode 4 (the people left behind trying to hold it all together). However, with one episode left I have no doubt that Hayward will basically be a mustache twirling villain.

 

[Megras]

31 minutes ago, Ailianna said:

There are still strong cultural and legal prohibitions against the dismemberment of the bodies of the formerly sentient. Treating him like parts is disrespectful, as if taking a human and harvesting organs against that person's living wishes. It's why we opt in for organ donation instead of it being automatic and requiring people to opt out.

That depends entirely on where in the world you are. In the UK the law was recently changed to opt out. So that may not be universal.

[Wolfprincess]

4 hours ago, Ailianna said:

I thought he was very surprised when he said that. As if surprised the "unreal" Vision could want something so much.

I agree, and I said so in another post.  Sorry if I didn't make that clear =). The surprise and tone in his voice seemed genuine.  At the time though I thought that it was Vision, as in his body that was stolen and put together by Wanda somehow.

Now though we know Hayward knew that it wasn't, it adds another variable to the question of his thoughts and motivations.  If he thinks that hex Vision is just a creation then what does it mean if hex Vision has a mind of his own?  How will that change his response to the situation?  Or maybe he just doesn't care...

Something tells me that philosophical and moral concerns aren't high on his list of priorities at the moment (hah).

Edited March 1, 2021 by Wolfprincess

[bmoore4026]

I just caught this on the second viewing - when see the flashback of Wanda's first talk with Vision, there are some DVDs in the foreground.  I didn't catch that on the first viewing but they're the DVDs that Wanda's father was trying to sell.  However, there was one DVD set missing - The Dick Van Dyke Show boxed set.  They were probably destroyed when Maximoffs' apartment was bombed.  I also just realized that she didn't replace them when she could after becoming an Avenger.  It's because The Dick Van Dyke Show reminded her of her family, isn't it? 

Edited March 1, 2021 by bmoore4026

[Kromm]

9 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

We really don't know if a) Hayward does see Vision as a real person or not b) if Hayward would have been just as likely to try to harvest DNA from the body of a dead Hulk/Captain America/etc. as he was to try to disassemble Vision.

My personal guess is that Hayward does think of Vision as a person but would totally have been fine with experiments on dead superheroes (or for that matter, probably live superheroes) if he could get away with it.

We kind of do know he doesn't think of Vision as a person, because there's a very specific moment where he refers to Vision as "that thing" and a different moment where he slips and tells Wanda she can bring him online, instead of back to life. 

Are those 100% proof?  No.  But they're pretty compelling indicators. 

 

[Chicago Redshirt]

29 minutes ago, Kromm said:

We kind of do know he doesn't think of Vision as a person, because there's a very specific moment where he refers to Vision as "that thing" and a different moment where he slips and tells Wanda she can bring him online, instead of back to life. 

Are those 100% proof?  No.  But they're pretty compelling indicators. 

 

Once again, "this thing" is a corpse and not the living Vision. I think it's fair to think of the body of Vision as less than an actual being.

And I don't think it is incorrect to think interchangeably about bringing Vision online and back to life. Just insensitive. For an AI they are interchangeable.

But it strikes me that generally Hayward refers to Vision as he/him rather than as an it. 

[swanpride]

It's too bad that there wasn't an opportunity to add Wanda's time in the raft into the flashbacks. Apparently the audience needed a reminder. But I get that they focussed on things we didn't see beforehand.

Taking Vision apart is so gruesome in my eyes because they do it in front of Wanda. Yeah, nowadays there are people who are totally okay with having their body taken apart for science and even to be part of a public display, but there is a difference between them being okay with it and their loved ones actually watching the process in the middle of their grief.

 

[arc]

34 minutes ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

Once again, "this thing" is a corpse and not the living Vision. I think it's fair to think of the body of Vision as less than an actual being.

People don’t generally speak about human corpses that way.

[Llywela]

10 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

But Hayward does say "the best I can do is let you say goodbye to him here." Now it could be that he was being diplomatic and still doesn't think of Vision as a real person. But other than the slip about bringing Vision "online" as opposed to "back to life," I think Hayward was actually pretty sensitive to Wanda's grief (for Hayward. It probably would have been better to prepare her for the fact that Vision's body had been disassembled.)

Sensitive to her grief? He showed her the dismembered corpse of her loved one as it was actively being further violated, and all but laughed in her face that she was grieving over a 'machine', because that's all he thinks of Vision. He wasn't remotely sensitive to her grief.

1 hour ago, arc said:

People don’t generally speak about human corpses that way.

Agreed. I've lost plenty of loved ones and have never once referred to their corpse as an 'it'. As a race, human beings like to treat the corpses of our dead with great respect. When my cousin was buried just last week, I never would have dreamt of saying that 'it' was in the coffin. He was in the coffin.

Vision was a sentient being who helped save the world at least once and was willing to give his life to save it again. He deserved to have his body to be treated with respect after death.

[Morrigan2575]

4 hours ago, arc said:

People don’t generally speak about human corpses that way.

Depends, people don't refer to their loved ones as it or the body/corpse.  However, cops, doctors, med students, scientist will have that clinical detachment. 

For the viewers, Vision is a person, just like on ST:TNG Data was a person. When they introduced Dr Pulaski in S2 she kept calling him "It". They had a season long story about the difference between a person and, a smart machine. They even had one of their best episodes, The Measure of A Man which deals with a very similar subject, was Data a living sentient being with the right to self determination or a piece of Starfleet property that a scientist had every right to disect and study.

For me, the only difference between that episode and, this is Vision is already dead and, has been for 5 years. So while I've no doubt Hayward is intended to be nothing more than an asshole...a Ross stand in. I do give them some wiggle room with them taking Vision apart in order to study, replicate, being "back online". 

While I'd love to believe his intentions were somewhat good...we need a weapon to protect us against another alien invasion. They've made the character to oozy to be even remotely grey at this point

 

[peachmangosteen]

14 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

For all we really know, Agatha herself created them just like she created Fietro (who, it seems to me, is just as sentient and sapient as the twins if not more so). 

Oh, she created Fietro? Was this like straight-up confirmed? I somehow missed that lol but I was watching most of this ep through massive tears so.

[blackwing]

I felt like this finale didn't resolve a lot of things (where was Monica?) but I understand that the point of this show is to tie movies together, so I assume further answers will be resolved in the movies.

I liked that Agatha called Wanda the "Scarlet Witch".  I hope she adopts the name in the movies.  Not sure why she hasn't used it before, she was always just Wanda.  Everyone else on the team had a codename except for her.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, blackwing said:

 

I felt like this finale didn't resolve a lot of things (where was Monica?) but I understand that the point of this show is to tie movies together, so I assume further answers will be resolved in the movies.

 

It wasn’t the finale. There is one more episode. 

[blackwing]

51 minutes ago, Dani said:

It wasn’t the finale. There is one more episode. 

Oh, thank you!  That is great.  I could have sworn I read that this was the last episode and that it was an 8 episode season.  My son and I were so confused at the end and wondering why so many storylines didn't get wrapped up.

[Kromm]

1 hour ago, peachmangosteen said:

Oh, she created Fietro? Was this like straight-up confirmed? I somehow missed that lol but I was watching most of this ep through massive tears so.

No. She never says she created him. It's strongly implied he's an existing person who she's puppeteering. 

[Bruinsfan]

But if he's just some random person, how does he have superspeed? Does Agatha know a spell to grant someone that? Did Wanda believing he was Pietro imbue him with Pietro's powers inside the fake sitcom reality?

[peachmangosteen]

5 hours ago, Bruinsfan said:

But if he's just some random person, how does he have superspeed? Does Agatha know a spell to grant someone that? Did Wanda believing he was Pietro imbue him with Pietro's powers inside the fake sitcom reality?

This is why I'm still going to assume he's X-Men Pietro until they explicitly say he is not lol.

[Ottis]

Hey, stuff happened! That was interesting! And tied to other Marvel universe pieces! It only took 8 episodes.

”It’s not that kind of show.” Indeed. I noticed today that in the description of WandaVision, it lists “romance” first, and “science fiction” fourth and last. That explains the first 7 episodes.

At least Agatha gets to the point. She is the shrink we needed in episode 2 to respond to Wanda - “I’m grieving, listen to me ... or else.” Sigh. 

Hayward needs to go back to finishing school, though. 

[Llywela]

7 hours ago, Ottis said:

Hey, stuff happened! That was interesting! And tied to other Marvel universe pieces! It only took 8 episodes.

Stuff has happened that was interesting in every episode so far.

[questionfear]

17 hours ago, peachmangosteen said:

This is why I'm still going to assume he's X-Men Pietro until they explicitly say he is not lol.

Me too! Because if he's being puppeted and he's a rando, there's ways to get around why he doesn't have superspeed, he could just claim "omg, I lost my superspeed when I died", or "my superspeed is intermittent, so here's a very brief demo and then I won't ever do it again". His continued use of it indicates that he naturally has it IMO. 

I also think they could indicate he's Peter Maximoff without it being a main plot point-just have Agatha return him to his own universe, and then leave that plot thread open for Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness. Once they open up this idea that you can magically cross multiverses, they can use that storyline whenever they feel like it, they don't have to give a full powerpoint on "and this is where the alt-universe X-Men come in". 

I also think Evan Peters and Aaron Taylor Johnson don't look nearly enough alike to be handy-dandy doppelgangers for Agatha to yoink into her plot, and this is too big of a part to be a "tee-hee" wink to the camera. If they showed Evan Peters walking through a crowd with the same hair as ATJ and Wanda briefly thought he was her brother/saw her brother instead for a moment and it was Evan Peters, then that would be a fun wink to the audience. But as a full on speedster puppet, it makes more sense to use him as a door-crack to the multiverse without fully committing to anything. If they like Evan Peters, he gets to stick around in Marvel-Prime universe. Need a new Magneto? We're not tied to alt-Marvel Universe Magnetos thanks to the multiverse. It's an easy way to loosely make all the X-Men movies canon but in their own silos, and they can pick and choose what overlaps with the MCU-Prime and what doesn't. 

[VCRTracking]

Good lord. It's fine if that line didn't move or impress you but a disdain for the MCU or the superhero genre doesn't give you license to shit on people who were effected by it.

 

[Kel Varnsen]

On 3/1/2021 at 1:00 PM, Bruinsfan said:

But if he's just some random person, how does he have superspeed? Does Agatha know a spell to grant someone that? Did Wanda believing he was Pietro imbue him with Pietro's powers inside the fake sitcom reality?

Agatha turned a fly into a bird, and can fly herself. It doesn't seem to hard to imagine that she can make someone run really fast.

[Morrigan2575]

4 minutes ago, Kel Varnsen said:

Agatha turned a fly into a bird, and can fly herself. It doesn't seem to hard to imagine that she can make someone run really fast.

Yep.

Its also possible that once Wanda accepted the idea of him being Pietro that her Chaos magic gave him Pietro's Speed.

 

[Dixie Sugarbaker]

What if Wanda, when trying to remove the Mind Stone from Vision, was able to absorb enough of its powers that she was able to recreate Vision, even down to his mind, character and soul? That could be why Vision seems like Vision, except he does not have memories beyond his re-creation.

With Disney big on cross promotion, I wonder if we will see Dr. Strange or Hawkeye in the last episode in order to gear up for their respective movie and tv show. As she and Hawkeye became close in Ultron, it would make sense to utilize his character as someone who could reach her emotionally.

[absnow54]

2 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

Agatha turned a fly into a bird, and can fly herself. It doesn't seem to hard to imagine that she can make someone run really fast.

If she can turn a fly into a bird, why couldn't she take a rando off the street and give him Pietro's face? I mean, I'd buy your logic, if that's what they tell us, but I still think it's really weird that she specifically couldn't bring back Pietro's face, because he was "on another continent and full of holes" if she didn't need an actual Pietro to pull off the con. 

[Ailianna]

7 hours ago, VCRTracking said:

Good lord. It's fine if that line didn't move or impress you but a disdain for the MCU or the superhero genre doesn't give you license to shit on people who were effected by it.

 

Some people are just horrid. In my opinion, as long as your emotional comfort isn't hurting/bothering anyone else, whatever brings comfort is good. 

[Morrigan2575]

5 hours ago, Dixie Sugarbaker said:

What if Wanda, when trying to remove the Mind Stone

She wasn't trying to remove it, she was destroying it. She was basically blasting it with power. 

[Chicago Redshirt]

On 3/1/2021 at 2:51 AM, Llywela said:

Sensitive to her grief? He showed her the dismembered corpse of her loved one as it was actively being further violated, and all but laughed in her face that she was grieving over a 'machine', because that's all he thinks of Vision. He wasn't remotely sensitive to her grief.

Agreed. I've lost plenty of loved ones and have never once referred to their corpse as an 'it'. As a race, human beings like to treat the corpses of our dead with great respect. When my cousin was buried just last week, I never would have dreamt of saying that 'it' was in the coffin. He was in the coffin.

Vision was a sentient being who helped save the world at least once and was willing to give his life to save it again. He deserved to have his body to be treated with respect after death.

What I said was sensitive FOR HIM.

We know Hayward is not a touchy feely guy. He threw Monica's mother's death in her face, he has been generally rude to Monica and Darcy. He doesn't like super-powered people. As director of SWORD he is presumably a busy person.

He could have opted to just refuse Wanda entry entirely. He could have pawned her off onto a subordinate. He could have been way more brusque. He could have not permitted her to see Vision's body. He could have simply insisted on what he thinks are SWORD's legal rights to retain possession of the body. He could have even tried to have her arrested for breaking the glass and posing an apparent threat to the SWORD researchers and tac team.

Instead, he started off by saying it was an honor to meet her. He corrected his slip of the tongue about whether Vision is alive. He gave her a chance to say goodbye to Vision.

Now all of this might have been insincere on Hayward's part and might have just been a reflection that Wanda's powers required her to treat her with respect that he doesn't give to others always. Or it could be that Hayward generally treats people with respect until they start to oppose him. 

As to how people react to corpses, again, different people react different ways. I would not expect a coroner to see a body as full person. 

As to whether Vision deserved better, I agree. But again, I would argue that the reason he didn't get better has nothing to do with his being a synthezoid and that Hayward would 100 percent have experimented with the corpse of any powered Avenger if he had the chance. Not because he does not think Captain America/Hulk/Thor/etc. are people but because he thinks the ends justify the means.

On 3/1/2021 at 9:10 AM, peachmangosteen said:

Oh, she created Fietro? Was this like straight-up confirmed? I somehow missed that lol but I was watching most of this ep through massive tears so.

Agatha called him Fake Pietro and Fietro, and said that it was a case of "crystalline possession" that was fueled by Wanda's belief.

And while there is a possibility that Agatha is lying or is clueless about Pietro's real nature, it seems that Fietro is effectively a creation of hers either in its entirety or he is superimposed on some poor schmoe from their reality (as opposed to being X-Pietro). As to how he has superspeed, I would submit that he has it because Wanda believes he does.

[Llywela]

5 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

What I said was sensitive FOR HIM.

We know Hayward is not a touchy feely guy. He threw Monica's mother's death in her face, he has been generally rude to Monica and Darcy. He doesn't like super-powered people. As director of SWORD he is presumably a busy person.

He could have opted to just refuse Wanda entry entirely. He could have pawned her off onto a subordinate. He could have been way more brusque. He could have not permitted her to see Vision's body. He could have simply insisted on what he thinks are SWORD's legal rights to retain possession of the body. He could have even tried to have her arrested for breaking the glass and posing an apparent threat to the SWORD researchers and tac team.

Instead, he started off by saying it was an honor to meet her. He corrected his slip of the tongue about whether Vision is alive. He gave her a chance to say goodbye to Vision.

Now all of this might have been insincere on Hayward's part and might have just been a reflection that Wanda's powers required her to treat her with respect that he doesn't give to others always. Or it could be that Hayward generally treats people with respect until they start to oppose him. 

As to how people react to corpses, again, different people react different ways. I would not expect a coroner to see a body as full person. 

You might not expect a coroner to see a corpse as full person, but you would expect a coroner to talk about that dead person as a person in dealing with their loved ones, yes?

Hayward shows no sensitivity at all. Agreeing to see Wanda in person and greeting her politely is not the same as being sensitive to her grief. He had to deal with her in person. She's an Avenger and incredibly powerful, not someone who could be fobbed off. But re-watching that scene, he doesn't waste any time at all. Wanda enters. He greets her (with a show of politeness, sure, but it really is just a show), verifies the reason for her visit, and immediately walks her over to the window to show her Vision's disassembled corpse, and then all but laughs in her face when she doesn't at first realise what she's looking at. He's just like, 'well, you wanted to see him, so there he is' - and while we're on the subject, how creepy is it that he had a window in his office directly overlooking the lab where Vision was being worked on?

What he did was the absolute bare minimum, in terms of the basic humanity that would be expected in such a situation. Sensitive would have been explaining to her in advance what was happening, so she'd be prepared. Sensitive would have been arranging for the dismantled body to be quickly made presentable before actually taking her in person to see it, even if all that meant was pushing all the little workbenches together and throwing a blanket over it so it wouldn't be so obvious that he was in pieces, just the head showing - like how morgues make victims of violent crime as presentable as possible before the family view the body, so they don't see any distressing wounds. That would have been giving her the chance to say goodbye. Letting her look through a window at a bunch of scientists taking her lover's body apart with surgical saws is not giving her the chance to say goodbye! She took that for herself - and he let her, because he wanted to see what she would do. Because he'd planted the idea in her mind that she might be able to bring him back online and wanted to see if she'd actually try it. Because that's what he wanted to achieve.

Edited March 4, 2021 by Llywela

[Danny Franks]

This was really cool. I don't know that I've seen Kathryn Hahn get a really meaty, serious role before, but she's killing it as Agatha Harkness. As is often the case with comedic actors, she's really good at playing a genuinely threatening character.

The way Wanda's grief and trauma is manifesting is so interesting. She's clearly been very messed up, for a very long time but hasn't ever been able to process any of it. This is why, no matter what she might do that hurts people (especially inadvertently), it's hard to see her as a villain. She's damaged, just like she was in Avengers: Disassembled when she used her powers to destroy the Avengers.

Elizabeth Olsen has been amazing throughout this show. Her range is incredible, going from (different kinds of) funny to dramatic so often, but the depth of sadness and pain in that scene with her and Vision in the Avengers Compound was palpable. And again when she went to what would have been their house in Westview.

Pietro being a fake is disappointing in one respect - the idea of the mutants coming into the MCU sooner rather than later was exciting - but it's not like I ever want Fox's version of the mutants to continue. They need a full reboot. And it does seem that he was a fake, that using Evan Peters was just a fun meta joke to get everyone talking.

By the by, this is why Wanda should be revealed as a mutant, and the sceptre as activating her latent x-gene. The evolution of her powers from telekinesis to reality altering fits completely within the established logic of mutants progressing through the power stages from Beta to Alpha and then Omega. In those terms, this show is about Wanda becoming an Omega level mutant.

Edited March 5, 2021 by Danny Franks

[Perfect Xero]

So if the reason Wanda survived the Mind Stone was that she was already a low level Witch, what does that mean about Pietro? Did he get super speed just because of his proximity to Wanda, or did he also have latent powers that the Stone activated?

[Brn2bwild]

After seeing the Black Widow movie, I decided to binge on this show again.  When I watched this episode, I realized why I was dissatisfied with Monica's role: because it should have been Monica who spurred Wanda's breakthrough, not Agatha.  Monica was the only one relentlessly trying to get through to Wanda and have her face her pain; then she was tossed aside so Agatha could be Wanda's makeshift therapist.  Don't get me wrong, Kathryn Hahn was great and she and Elizabeth Olsen had great chemistry, but story wise, it felt clumsy.  That's why Monica's arc would not have been improved even if she had an enhanced B-plot, because by episode 8, her plotline should have merged completely with Wanda's.

An alternative could have had Agatha threatening Wanda's children while Wanda and Monica are both trapped in her basement.  Monica would help Wanda remember what caused her to create the Hex, and once Wanda remembered, events would basically proceed as in the current episode 9.