House of R - ‘WandaVision’ Revisited

Episode Date: October 9, 2026

Mal and Jo revisit ‘WandaVision’ in the run-up to ‘VisionQuest.’ They talk about what they loved about the show, its place in the history of the MCU, and the show’s most important scenes. Plus, they give out some superlatives! (00:00) Intro (05:18) Opening Snapshot (01:07:43) You See the Vision (01:32:58) Wanda Wows Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Mallory Rubin Producer: Carlos Chiriboga Production Assistant: Scott Lee Studio Production: Jacob Cornett Social: Jomi Adeniran Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome back to The Hex and welcome back to House of Our. I'm Joanna Robinson. Joining me today. If she weren't here, I'd simply have to create her. It's Mallory, Rubin. Hey, Mal. Oh, Joanna. What is podcasting? If not love persevering. Wonderful to be here with you today, though not in the flesh. I'm home fighting off something. Fighting a cold. Coming down with something. Didn't want to expose you with the team. But I'm sad not to be with you today for the pod because we love the show so much. Are you mostly sad not to be here today? Because I promise to make Tom King's ancestral family dip for this podcast. And I didn't make it because you're not here and I wasn't going to eat it solo on Mike. I can talk about book solo on Mike, but I'm not going to eat dip that might kill me on Mike by myself. So I still look forward to sampling the dip at some point, at some point in the near term, hopefully. Perhaps next time. Now more than ever, quality matters, but so does price. At Marshals, you don't have to choose.

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Been a minute. Here we are with our guy, Paul Bettney, in the mental mind palace for Vision Quest. We're really excited to cover that starting next week. And so this is our Wanda Vision sort of rewatch primer to get us ready to watch Vision Quest. So that, the only episode we're doing next week is Vision Quest. Very exciting. And then after that, the week after that, is a week we've been talking about for a very long time because we looked at the calendar in October 23rd, there are just so many House of Our Coded movies coming out, including Clayface, Wicker, Wildwood, Clara and the Sun, which will actually get a mention in my sort of vision conversation.

today. And so we will be covering some of those in some form. Mine eyes have seen the glory of Wicker. Mallory is going to see it soon. We're very excited. Other things are on the horizon. But that is what is coming up on House of R. Mallory Rubin. How can folks keep track of all of that and perhaps watch us poison ourselves with molten cheese dip in the future? I feel like the dip is going to be just delicious. Here's what I would recommend to follow the pod. Follow House of Our on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. You can watch full video episodes of House of R on Spotify, incredible stuff,

and also on the Ringaverse YouTube channel. So follow us there too. While you're at it, follow us on social at House of Our Pod on Instagram, on TikTok. Follow the Ringervverse as well. And then your phone's on your hand or your computer, whatever. Send us an email because the inbox is always open. and Dragons at gmail.com if you have questions about wicker, questions about Vision Quest, questions about, you know, really anything at all.

Questions about what Mallory thinks of the baseball musical Damn Yankees, which she drafted in her baseball draft. Do you know how thrilled I was to see Damn Yankees in your baseball draft? Amanda was furious. I mean, I got a little bit of the like the response that Mahoney typically gets from Dobbins when, you know, when he steals something right before. So that That was a fun moment. I feel pretty good about my performance in that draft. It's fun to provoke that kind of delightful outrage in Amanda, but mostly I felt like you were honoring our connection by drafting a baseball musical, and I thank you so much for doing it.

One last thing before I get to our spoiler warning, and this is really important. The Valkyries are leading in the semifinals. I believe they're going to the finals of the WMBA playoffs, so I just want to shout out I love this for you. I just wanted to shut out the bouts. They're doing really well. Listen, this latest journey for sports joes is wonderful. Are you watching any of the baseball playoffs?

No. No, I'm not. Who's in the playoffs? Like, who should I be dressed? I just don't want to ever miss an opportunity to say on the public record, the Yankees got swept last night. Now, is my team in the playoffs, no? So a lot of Yankee fans going to hear that and say, fuck off?

Yeah, but I don't really give a shit. Who swept? The Yankees got swept. Who swept? All right, Tampa Bay. The race. Spoiler warning today. We have not seen any of Vision Quest.

So we are not able to spoil Vision Quest. We have not seen it. We have seen trailers, that's it. So no spoiler for Vision Quest, just our hopes and dreams and expectations, and what could possibly spoil that. We will be talking about, primarily about Wanda Vision. Agatha all along is definitely

on the table for discussion. Anything in Marvel Comics is definitely on the table for discussion. anything in the MCU thus far, specifically, you know, as it pertains to, Wanda and Vision is on the table. Certainly, Dr. Strange, the multiverse of madness, which is a key part of the Wanda story is on the table. So that is a spoiler warning. Should we go now to our opening snapshot? Let's do it.

So we alluded to this the other day, but I thought we just start with refreshing people who don't know what our personal relationships are. to the television show Wanda Vision, a show we never got to podcast about together, but a show we certainly watched when it originally aired. Mallory, what's your Wanda Vision relationship? Oh, I love this show. You know, it's one of my favorite,

not just MCU shows, but MCU projects, and especially now the connection to Agatha, a show that we also adored and did get to cover together in the anticipation for Vision Quest, this trilogy, that's obviously part of what is fueling our anticipation for what might await in Vision Quest is just the quality of the two prior installments in this little triumvirate. Wanda Vision, we briefly kind of like talked about

this a couple pods ago, but it was so harrowing to confront that this came out more than a half a decade ago. Like obviously the COVID time dilation thing is, it makes it really difficult. Yeah. When did things happen? Where were we in our lives? But I kind of can't believe how long ago this was. It feels very recent, even though so much story has been released since, you know, I think still to this day, even though all of that time has passed and we have gotten so many shows since, this is my second favorite MCU show. Loki is still number one for me, but it's close between them. I just have like a really, really deep attachment to you and love for Loki. But I think that the creative execution of Wanda Vision, the cleverness and

deftness of experimentation and exploration and concept paired with the character dynamic and the really thoughtful interrogation of grief and loss and pain and identity and family. It was just beautiful. So the combination of like watching it in real time, wondering what was going to happen next, what sitcom, what decade were we going to be dabbling in, how was that going to render on screen, and then the just wall up after wall up as we started to really understand what was happening, what Wanda was doing, why. Just a really, really, really pleasurable experience in the moment. It's something that has not only held up, but I think in many ways strengthened

over time as we, you know, have seen so many MCU shows that were not very good and have even more appreciation for what they did here. So yeah, Wanda Vision, just love it. Really delighted to have a chance to revisit it heading into Vision Quest just to rewatch it. It's fun to have the opportunity to do that. But, you know, mostly excited to talk about it with you. Yeah, I love this show. Yeah. Canonically, Loki is Mallory's favorite MCU Disney Plus show. This is my favorite MCU Disney Plus show. Loki a close second. And Agatha is in there as well. And I think, you know, I think if Loki season two had been as good as Loki season one, I think maybe Loki he would have edged it out. But

Wanda Vision, if you choose to take it as a standalone thing, is just so strong. And that if you choose to make Agatha its sequel, you know, which why wouldn't you? These two things could not be more for me. Agatha, as we talked about at length, which stuff

go, like is so for me. But like as a latchkey kid of the 80s and 90s, like who grew up watching these sitcoms, like watch the Dick Van Dyke show over and over again, watch the Brady Punch, watch Bewitch, watched all of this stuff, family ties, et cetera, et cetera, like the world that they're playing in. And it's just astounded to think about this as like the first.

It wasn't supposed to be that this wound up being the MCU's sort of first foray into television. And, you know, comes out January 2021. In the wake of the smash success that was The Mandalorian, we were just sort of like, wow, Disney Plus, they have it all figured out. and then they didn't, but like for a shining moment, we were like, the nerds, we have arrived in Prestiage Television land. And no matter what has happened, the ups and downs of MCU television, the secret invasions, the whatever, like, nothing dims the light that is, that is Wanda Vision. These are characters. I just think this is such a smart way to pluck out characters who had significant roles to play, but definitely could. stand to have a bit more attention paid to them.

Elizabeth Olson and Paul Bettney have just such incredible chemistry. So to watch them play together is just so astounding. You mentioned grief as a theme. I think also thinking about Wanda Vision and Agatha together and then, you know, using that to sort speculate about what we think Vision Quest might be about, thinking about created realities, you know, as they relate to trauma, coping with trauma. Right. And so the way we submerge ourselves in stories to avoid looking in the mirror and dealing with our own grief, who could possibly relate to that. And the way that stories can help us heal at the same time. Like, you know, stories can be used to numb and avoid, but they can also be used to process and self-reflect. And so I just think the layers that are involved here. And, you know, Jack Schaefer, who we just, you know, absolutely. love the creative

mind behind this show and Agatha All Along as well and then Matt Shackman who just did an incredible job as her close collaborator as the series director the production design the special effects just everything together

do I have some notes for like what's happening outside of the hex with sword and all of that like is that my favorite stuff in the season no it's not but there is enough of, that's like the MCU's worst tendencies. And then the MCU's best tendencies are what's happening inside of the hex and everything

that has to do with Wanda, with Vision, with the kids, with Agatha, you know, and with Monica to, you know, when she's sort of more closely involved in that story, et cetera, et cetera. So I'm really excited to talk to you about it. We, it has been a whole in our sort of like shared, loved relationship that we haven't gotten to cover this in earnest. So yeah, here we are. 2021, January 2021, full pandemic mode is when this show came out. It premieres over a year after the release of Avengers Endgame.

It wasn't supposed to be even that long, but that still feels so close to Avengers Endgame. And in the universe, only three weeks between the end of Avengers End game and when this show starts. And that's so wild because, like, to think about this show, having such strong connective tissue to the biggest movie in the world. This was the dream and the promise of what MCU television could be, which is just sort of like this feels like a beautiful continuation of one of the biggest stories that we all watch together in theaters. And now we can watch an offshoot of it,

a sort of like beautiful pea tendril unfurling at home for us. And then that all sort of like got overburdened and, and confusing and all this other stuff. But, like, at the beginning, it was so clean and so perfect. Do you remember what your reaction was when you found out that, like, Wanda and Vision were going to be at the core of their own story? I think mostly just intrigue, like a little bit of surprise in terms of what it might indicate for the MCU's intention, but certainly not surprised in terms of the depth of

comics canon and the history of great stories for those two characters together individually. So, you know, I think the thing that I know. now with distance from the release cannot wrap my mind around anymore is the fact that five MCU shows came out in one year. Like that is just so far removed from where we are. And now we had Wanda Vision, we had Falcon, we had Loki, we had What If, and we had Hawkeye. Hawkeye, obviously, the very, very end, you know, a holiday release again. But all of those shows either aired in full or debuted in 2021. And that is just wild. And I think, you know, given what you, what you already indicated about the evolution on that front and the necessarily, genuinely necessary recalibration, right? We were getting

too much content. The quality was not maintained. The ability for people to know what they needed to have seen and consumed in order to be able to dip into a new release became prohibitive for many fans. But this was just a moment of kind of pure excitement, right? Oh, what does it, what does it mean that we're going to get to spend time with these characters? So it for me, and I mean, obviously also, it's not just about thinking of it inside of the hex and the cocoon of the MCU. It's like, where were we as fans of pop culture? One of the things that I was thinking back on was like, now my brain is barely working in general at this point in my life and certainly not today while I'm fighting off a cold, but my memory is that, because I was like, did I podcast about Wanda Vision?

Yeah. And, you know, Jason and I were wrapping up binge mode Marvel. We, like, talked about it. We would check and we would mention it, but we didn't cover it in full. The ringerverse did not yet exist. My memory is that Van and Charles potted about this on TV concierge now for Staged TV. And that I potted about this on the big picture with Sean because there were no movies. So he was like, right? Because it was COVID. It was COVID. Wow. What a time. It was COVID. Yeah. So it was like, we're not in a stretch of active film releases. People aren't back at the theaters. And Sean was like, you want to talk about Wanda Vision on the big pick? And so, you know, I think that was also obviously part of it. Now, if it had not been COVID, I think we would have still been very excited for the show. And certainly nothing would have changed about our assessment of its quality and its inventive nature and its heart, right? And depth. But the fact that.

And it was a moment, like a real dearth of, this is like a counterpoint to how many MCU shows we got that year, was like a real dearth of new releases more widely across the pop culture universe. It was really central. It just felt like everybody was watching Wanda Vision and talking about Wanda Vision and excited about Wanda Vision. The theories were inescapable in a way that I think definitely, this is a real two things can be true at once, like made this feel like a shared weekly experience. and also hurt the show because then there was so much disappointment when a number of those theories either went differently or didn't pan out. But yeah, I have like really strong memories of watching Wanda Vision in real time, much stronger than I have of like many of the MCU shows that followed. It was like, yeah, to take people behind the curtain of sort of what it meant to cover things during the pandemic, it was such a strange time to be, you know, I was still at Vanity Fair and to, you know, you know, we were kind of leaning into these MCU shows sort of only by my own sort of like,

we're going to do this. And basically they just let me do whatever I wanted on that podcast feed. And so, but everyone was home. So we could talk to any talent. You know, it was all over Zoom, obviously, but we could talk to any talent for a podcast because they were just sort of like, we're at home. So yes, you can have anyone you want. And it was just like weird scramble time where, they weren't giving us screeners after the first three episodes, but we were trying to get those podcasts out the next day. So it was just sort of like crack of dawn recording with Richard and with Anthony. We would like scramble record it first thing in the morning and then also a talent interview and try to package that all out the next day.

And it was just sort of like, because we weren't doing video, it was easier. But like it was just a completely insane. I don't think I've ever like sweated harder than I did to like get those. podcast out there. And that was sort of like the last hurrah. But also, I guess, kind of my audition for working on the Ring ofverse feed. So, you know. This is not a Wanda Vision story, but obviously very closely there. After one of my favorite, oh, I'm also, you know, I'm thinking about covering it, but I'm just like, I can't wait to hear about it and what are people talking about and saying, but this is obviously, you know, as I've told you before, my first vanity fair tote came from signing up

to read your pieces. So, long time fan, long time admirer. But you're the turnaround on the Loki finale, the Loki season one finale. I just have such a clear memory of watching that, being awed by it. Still to this day, one of my favorite hours of MCU TV, you know, texting with our, and slacking with TD, we miss you TD, with Juna. We were just like, this is incredible. And we were talking about it into the wee hours of the morning. And then your pod was up. It was on like 5 a.m. Or 6 a.m. or something. And I remember you opening it, basically, I paraphrased me, were like, I didn't go to bed. Because this ruled, and I just had to get, I just had to get on it. And it was one of those ways that really, like, genuinely heightened the sense of connection during a time when people were not seeing each other as much, right? So that also contributed, I think, to why some of these, you know, Wanda Vision, Loki Season 1, those are just dynamized seasons of TV. But they allowed people to feel like they were sharing something. Like, that was really, really meaningful. I also just loved how much, so, you know, this is smash it. It's a beginning of Base 4, for better or worse.

Beating of MCU TV, for better or worse. 92% critics on Rotten Tomatoes, 88% audience on Rotten Tomatoes. High score. High score. Large viewership. As you mentioned, Theory Corner, huge driver of the show.

But I remember the Agatha reveal, which happens late in the game, but the Agatha reveal with the accompanying viral bop that comes with it, was partially responsible for breaking this show out into a wider audience because I remember

so like when I worked at Vanity Fair with Anthony Breznikin everyone there most people there felt like they were too good for Marvel or too good for nerd stuff so they were like Joanna and Anthony will cover the nerd stuff and we don't have to worry about her to deal with it

but Agatha became but Wanda became such like a thing that everyone was watching. And that was like, that was just sort of like my canary in the coal mine is that like my Vanity Fair colleagues were watching and were invested in Wanda Vision. And I was like, what's happening? Like, I'm not even sure these people saw endgame. Like, what is even happening? That was like the insane thing that happened with Wanda Vision. Do you know, are you in touch? Do you know if they've seen that in Game Encore? I should ask. I know exactly who'd ask to find out. And so then the show got 23M nominations overall, which is an insane. number. But, like, I think what's even wilder is the eight sort of, like, main competition Emmy nominations it got because, like, it's one thing for a nerd show to be nominated in a lot of the technical categories because, you know, and certainly, like, Game of Thrones was running,

the table on the Emmys to a certain degree. But, like, there was something about Wanda Vision, like, for Paul Bettany, Elizabeth Olson and Catherine Hahn to all get nominated for their performances. And Catherine Hahn was the frontrunner. she did not win her category, but she was the front runner to win that category for those people who were, like, speculating. I mean, Julianne Nicholson won, and I would not take her mayor of East Town Emmy away from her. But, like, you know, like, I wouldn't have been surprised if Paul Bettney and Catherine, Elizabeth Wilson, her category, she's up against Kate Winslet. She was not going to win.

But Paul Bettney and Catherine Hotton, like, I wouldn't have been surprised if they won Emmys for WandaVision that year. And that is just an insane thing to think about. you know, even this many years later. So just really wild stuff. Amazing. You think Spader's going to be competing for Emmys for Vision Quest? Don't roll it out. You know, the man loves a competition.

Loves a competition. Key players. So something I also want to mention, Marvel is still struggling to figure out its approach to television. But a wild thing that those of us who are covering Marvel TV at this time, like sort of learned in real time. was the very strange approach Marvel took to... They just decided to make television

unlike television had ever been made before, and that worked for a minute until it didn't. But the way they would think about it like films, so they hired a director and a writer. And there was a writer's room. There are individual writer credits on these episodes, but there was a head writer, which is often the case with television,

but that person, the head writer is usually called the showrunner, and is usually in charge of the show. That's not what they did. They hired a director, headwriter and those two people were sort of in charge or in the case of like falcon and the witch soldier it was like a handoff from one to another and that was like very dysfunctional um but like they were like we don't do showrunners because they didn't really want to like empower anyone that much with the tv shows because it was still very much like this is all under the mcule dome

and so i remember talking to jack shafer and matt shackman um you know and and waldron and kate heron about Loki and stuff like that. And they would talk about this process where, you know, we'll talk about this a bit when we talk about like Darcy and Jimmy in the way that they're used in this episode, where basically like, here was the description. It was like, you are one car on a train and you're allowed to decorate your car. But the car and your train has to fit with the other cars on the train, but you're not allowed to go into those other cars in the train to look at them. So they were like, we weren't allowed to know what was happening elsewhere in the ambit. We were just sort of told unilaterally sometimes we couldn't do this for reasons that they wouldn't explain, but because it would impact something else that was happening in the MCU, but we weren't allowed to know about it. Or we'd be given a character to play with. You know, they would say, you know, Kevin Feig, you talked about this a lot. It's like, okay, we look at Wanda Vision and we need a law enforcement person and a science person. And they picked Jimmy and they picked Darcy, but they could have picked a number of people. But it's just sort of like they have these holes in the story, who from the larger MCU can we plug in to fill it?

So, like, not something they were doing, but, like, some of these creatives behind the scenes of the TV shows would say, we were given a character, told we could use them, and then they were taken back away from us because they were being used somewhere else or, like, we couldn't use them. So it's just this very, like, weird black box way to try to make a story that makes sense on its own, but also makes sense in a larger world that you're not allowed to know all the details of. So it was, like, a quite impossible task when you think about it. So the fact that Jack and Matt pulled it off the way they did is just a huge testament to their ability.

But also this show sort of lends itself to that because it's literally taking place inside of a bubble. Falcon and Winter Soldier had a much harder time with that because it's trying to deal with the global impact of the snap. Just like a really, really tough assignment. Whereas this is like what's happening in this literal bubble here in New Jersey, you know, at the end of the day. incredible stuff. Anything you want to say about, like, that moment in the MCU or Matt and Jack in general

or anything like that? I think we've talked about the moment in the MCU part of it. I mean, I think the creative hive mind of that show, you know, is just wonderful. We've had the pleasure, as you indicated earlier, of having Jack on the pod before, you know, during the Agatha run,

came back for a House of Recommend, just like a genius and a dynamo. And, you know, I think that something that is undeniable about Jack and about bad and about the pairing and what they did in this show and then what Jack and her team did moving forward and Agatha is the, you know, innovation and the thoughtfulness of how the show should be made, right? Just the craft is kind of undeniable. Like, I don't know. one of the things that I always love so much about rewatching Wanda Vision is the color bleed clues.

You know, because you have in your mind, oh, okay, like the drone. We see the drone in color in the bushes. But even before, you know, there's the little blinking indicator on the Star Tost made 2000, even before that, right? And the color bleed, but then also the bleed of the clues, like things like that are just so, it's also intentionally and methodically calibrated and dispensed to us. So the level of execution is just really high. But the thing ultimately that I think makes the show made the show impactful in real time, and makes it lasting, right, allows it to have kind of held on to the place that it took root in our hearts, is that there's an understanding of and a love for the characters, right?

There is a genuine desire to not just show us something about their lives, but to try to understand them, to try to parse and navigate and mine the heart. and the psyche. And like, I feel like if, you know, our respective and our shared coverage of MCU over the years, if we went back and said, what's, like, one of the notes that we have, like, hit the most? It's probably that. Like, things can be different in adaptations. But do you understand the character?

Is there, like, an appreciation of and an understanding of the spirit of the thing? And I think that's that had to be right with Wanda here. but it's as important ultimately, and certainly now as we think about where the story was going to go moving forward, as important to have nailed that with vision. I think like, I don't mind teasing we have categories coming. I don't mind teasing that the finale is my least favorite episode of the season, but that it contains some of my favorite scenes of the season inside of it. And those are the ones that are rooted in their relationship and also the questions that those characters are asking themselves and each other. And you can't bring that to your own.

audience if it's not something as a creator that you're interested in discovering. So I think that's just really to their credit and something that made this such a rewarding watch. You bring up such an important point of why these shows can and should be so impactful, which is just sort of time invested in character. So I was just thinking about this last night, actually, because I was looking at the new release books this week. This is related, I promise. And I was reading the description of a book.

And I was like, wait, I think this is yet another Dermite fan fiction that has been turned into a novel, which is true. It's called once again always. I've read that story. I was like, wait, I know this story. But something that these books that are either based on Raylo or Dermite or any kind of fan fiction bump up against when they become, when a fan fiction writer rescins the story and takes out the Draco and Hermione and takes out the magic and takes out all this sort of stuff and puts it in new context is what you lose is. You what you lose is context. You lose the history that you have with those characters. So that's why fan fiction can be so powerful is like you're already emotionally invested in these characters. You already know their background. We don't have to explain their background. And so when we meet

Wanda and Vision from scene one episode one of this episode, like of the show, we are already so invested in their love relationship and also just like deeply curious and confused because we're like, isn't Vision dead? Like what's happening here? Um, so there's the intrigue in the confusion that comes from the continuation of the story. But, like, in theory, that's, you know, what should make an Obi-Wan show work. And that's what it should make an Asoka show work. And that's what, you know, is like, we're already in these worlds and in with these characters. And so, like, a pilot doesn't have to do what a pilot normally has to do because we're already emotionally invested.

And so I just, I love these characters. It's wild to think about actually. how little time we had with them, you know, in Ultron, in Infinity War, before we got here. It's just like, it's actually just like kind of mere minutes of screen time at the end of the day. But like Elizabeth Olson and Paul Bettany are so good. And also like her love for him or his survival is is the core of, you know, what happens with Infinity War, obviously. But like it's, I just, I just feel like this show is a miracle. Okay, we wanted to do a little mini

Billy and Tommy primer refres refres refresher just because we know that Tom, we know, as opposed to them hiding, trying to hide the fact in Agatha, we know that Tommy is going to be in Vision Quest. And we know that Agatha ended with with Billy and Agatha saying,

like, let's go find Tommy. So we know that like the search for Tommy, the potential reunification of Billy and Tommy and Vision like as a family unit, it is something that this new show is going to tackle. So, you know, I sort of vomited a bunch of information into our doc here, Mallory, but like what do you think is the most important thing to remind our listeners about in terms of

Wanda and Visions, invented but real children, Billy and Tommy? Yeah. Created, right? Creations. The magic, that big bang, radioactive energy. Radioactive energy. Yeah. You know, I think one of the things that was really on my mind was actually what you just said,

which is, you know, if you think back to the, we obviously were talking about this every week on the pod when we were covering Agatha. I can't even remember if we were like attempting to be discreet about it and doing it in like separate theory corners or if we were just saying throughout like, this is definitely going to be winning. He's just a dude being a guy. Yeah, for sure, a lot of that. For sure, a lot of that. But, you know, I would say that the internet was beyond a buzz. People felt pretty sure that they knew who Joe Locke's character in Agatha was going to be teen, yeah. And that is true, but it is still different from definitively knowing and not just definitively knowing, but knowing the how.

I mean, we had, you know, if we think back to the experience of watching Agatha and the car crash and the blood and the sea and these little nuggets and what happened and what happened ultimately to William Kaplan and the essence and the porting of the, you know, one of my favorite memories of potting about Agatha was ever saying soul shard and just not being able to like not talk about Mephisto, which obviously is like the plight of being an MCU fan and covering the MCU. It's just impossible to avoid. That's one of my tics, you know, as you like to point out. But we know, you know, we know exactly how the reincarnation works because we know what happened with Billy. And so we have, and then we glimpse, you know, the little crumb for Tommy. And so I think we will be in a different place than the character. Because at least, like you said, we haven't seen Vision Quest. But just from the commercials, it seems like the show is mostly going to be about, you know, and this is where we leave, White Vision at the end of Wanda Vision, like, who am I, right? These are the questions. And it was where Vision was the entire season of Wanda Vision. What am I? Who am I? There are multiple, you know, overt conversations between Wanda and Vision about that very question. This is a show exploring, you know, identity and how that changes, depending on who you share your life with, what memories you maintain, et cetera.

So a lot of vision requests we are assuming is going to be about vision piecing together his sense of self. A lot of the cast is like other AI from across the MCU. So, you know, we know that that means a lot of things, data, information, the ability to share context, etc. Did you say data or did you say data? You know what I mean? Indeed, indeed, yeah. You know, so there's going to be like the who am I, but then also the who are you. And that's going to be a really.

Yeah. Yeah. That just feels like it's... I don't know what the balance of that will be. I don't know how... I mean, it seems like Tommy's the third lead of the show, right?

I think so. I don't know. I don't know. I think so. Based on trailers and sort of credits, but I don't know. And I don't know how quickly that becomes the case

if that's like something that happens like a couple episodes or not. We haven't seen it. Let me just like big picture just in case folks didn't rewatch WandaVision

or Agatha. Let's just like big picture. and say, it happens differently in the comics, but in the context of the MCU TV shows, Billy and Tommy, Wanda and Vision's twin children are sort of created out of Wanda's

like grief and energy and ability to bend reality. She becomes suddenly alarmingly pregnant in episode two. The twins are born by episode three. They are aged up to 10 by episode four. And that's where they stay for a while. Those two actors who play the 10-year-olds are also in multiverse of madness. So that's sort of like where we left them inside of that story.

Their powers and ability, so Billy, aka Wiccan, who is the second lead of Agatha all along, has psychic ability, ability, chaos magic wielding ability, can create reality the way that his mother can, et cetera, et cetera. Spoilage for Agatha, you haven't seen it. creates the entire witch's road, like out of his own magic and imagination and grief and angst. And then Tommy. Like mother like son. Exactly.

Same tell. Tommy, aka Speed, is a speed sir, like his uncle. And so we get the manifestation of both of these kids' powers inside of Wanda Vision. We see the speed. We see the psychic connection, especially that Billy has with vision inside of this season of television. The choice that Wanda has to make at the end of Wanda Vision is in order to not be the villain, at least until the movie, to not be the villain, is to destroy the creative reality that she's made. And that means saying goodbye to Vision and saying goodbye to Billy and Tommy. So she undoes the creation of her children.

But she says something in that final episode about sort of like, you know, once your family, you will always remain. family and the post-credit scene in the Wanda Vision finale, One of, is Wanda thumbing through the dark hold ominously, and then she hears Billy and Tommy sort of elsewhere in the multiverse. So multiverse of madness is a movie I have a lot of issues with, but Wanda is in pursuit of her children and feels like she deserves, this Wanda of our reality feels like she deserves to be with her children, even if it means destroying reality or she. stealing them from another reality. Billy aged up, appears in Agatha all along, as played by Joe Locke, because when the hex collapsed, his soul flew into the body of a 13-year-old named

William Kaplan who had just died in a car accident. So 13-year-old boy named William Kaplan dies. Billy Maximoff's soul goes into his body. And a question that Billy has... Soulshard, Mephisto. Yes. And the question that Billy has for a lot of Agatha is, I Billy or am I William? Like who am I? Which one am I? The answer is actually both at the end of the day. And then at the end of Agatha all along, Billy and Agatha in the Pendleton episode, together, find Tommy's soul shard, if you prefer to call it that way, his essence, which like the implication is kind of like he was actually, Billy was carrying Tommy with him sort of to, you know, it's just sort of like you're breathing with him. His heart is in your heart. It was just sort of like, you're breathing with him. His heart is in your heart. It was just sort of. Like, was he literally carrying his soul essence in him or just like that connection? But anyway, he takes Tommy's soul essence, shard, Mephisto, whatever you prefer, and puts it in a drowning boy. And so like a similar idea of like a boy who was dying or about to die now has Tommy's Tommy Maximoff's soul inside of him. something that Billy says when he does it

to Agatha is he like, am I killing this boy so that my brother can live? Like that's a question. He's asking him and Agatha says her very sad. Like, no, boys die all the time. Billy. But something, one key thing he says about when Billy is finding a body for Tommy's soul to go inside of,

he says it's a bad place. There's nobody there to love him. No people around. of no family. So whoever this Tommy is that we're about to meet in Vision Quest, he was not raised lovingly by the Kaplan's. He's had a different experience in life. So that is just something to know and learn. And I don't know how angry this Tommy is going to be, you know, because of his circumstances or something like that. So that is, I think, all of the Billy Tommy stuff we know. I it's a nice reminder too that you know certainly we'll we'll mind this more as we continue the pod today

and I suspect that this will be present across the division quest experience as well but the one of the things that was not just satisfying about Wanda vision vision but interesting you know stimulating kind of like emotionally and mentally was that it it was emotionally and and ethically and morally complex you know the example that you cited of that conversation between Billy and Agatha. Like we had we had that conversation, right? We had conversations like, well, about the Kaplan's and what they deserved to understand or know. Like the shows, both the shows, Wanda Vision and Agatha invited so many real moments of reflection about those choices and the consequences, not just on the individuals who they impact them most directly, but on everybody else. Obviously, that's an escape. across Wanda Vision and certainly at the end of it. In terms of the power sets, like, I love, you know, it's really, it's fun.

It kind of plays for a laugh and a chuckle when Speed's powers manifest in Wanda Vision. And, you know, Fiatro, fake Pietro, great when Agatha coins Fiatro is there. And like, oh, a little bud, dude, raw, you know, and you zip it around, it's Halloween. There's smashing Jacqueline. Like, it's fun. But then the delay of Billy's. powers manifesting and to your point about that connection with vision, you know, the fact that he can sense, one is juggling a lot right there, right? She's got a lot of, a lot of, a lot of little

marionette strings to manage, but that Billy is the one who first senses. Vision's peril, not only is that like a fun thing for us to revisit ahead of this new show that we'll explore, you know, vision as father. But also that's a great moment because it's our first, you know, when Vision is pushing his way through the hex and trying to understand, he's been, his suspicion has been mounting across the episodes. You know, obviously we have a moment like the harrowing. You know, he frees Norm from Wanda's control and really starts to understand. There's the moment with, I mean, he thinks it's Agnes. It's Agatha all along. But we have all of these mounting moments for Vision and eventually, you know, he'll confront Wanda.

But when we see him try to push the hex and he starts to come apart, we are primed for what that calculus is going to be at the end, that they are born of not only Wanda's magic, but thus entwined to the hex. And, you know, the way that Agatha kind of weaponizes and mocks that idea that these things are tied, the family and the town is the tragedy of it, of course. And so that's just also brilliantly done inside of the show. You also have on the power front, like a great, we talked about this a lot when we were covering Agatha, but that great little moment where Billy is sitting next to Agatha on the couch and it's like, you're quiet, you're quiet. You know, and so what we will see through the kids and their towers. And how startled Agatha is by that. Yes. Just sort of like, you know, uncomfortable.

Really, really. Just really great. And like, and just a reminder that these boys have been, you know, fighting. since they were, I mean, they're not real, but if they're real, since they were 10. I mean, also, I don't know, three days old, but also 10. Listen, boys, your mother and I are never really prepared you for this, but you were born for it. Billy and Tommy, born of two, two of these. And Dave Gonzalez and I used to talk about this all the time, how, like, Wanda and Vision were always such a problem once they were introduced to the MCU because they're way overpowered compared to everyone else.

Like when you have, so when you have something like the tarmac fight in Civil War, you have to have Wanda and Vision sort of on opposite sides and like occupying each other. Otherwise it's just over. It's curtains. Like, you know what I mean? They're just like way, way, way too overpowered. So how do you like take them out of commission? Make them the problem for Thanos. So, you know, because it was just sort of like Thanos fighting something else like Wanda and Vision together like surely should have been able to take him out. So. it's fun to watch them here in this context to have this moment in the Wanda Vision finale where Wanda's like, boys take care of the military and just like leaves like feeling sure that her 10 year olds can take care of the military and they do. So, you know, just something to think about Billy and Tommy.

I have some parenting notes for Wanda on that one and obviously also some notes. Parenting notes for Wanda across the board. In general, yeah. Some notes for Hayward on unloading a clip at two children, but thankfully, you know, thankfully Monica, Monica was there. And, you know, Billy was a steward as part as well. So if Tyler Howard didn't exist, this show would be better. That's how I feel. Okay. Yeah. You mentioned, not a great character. You mentioned

Uncle Fiatro, um, Ralph Bonar himself. Let's just dump, like, quickly dip our toe into, I would say, two of the biggest, barring the absence of Mephisto, which was never promised to us in the first place. The two biggest actual controversies of Wanda Vision, which is Ralph Boner and the ending. I think these are the two things that people bumped on the most. So let's start with our guy, Ralph Boner, played by Evan Peters, who did win an Emmy that year for Mayor of Easttown. But what a year for Evan Peters, honestly. But do you remember how we lost our mind when Evan Peters showed up? And so a context reminder, this was so.

fresh into the Fox Disney merger era and so fresh into this idea that like the Fox universe of mutants could collide with the MCU. And so I remember I wrote a piece where I was like, it's happening, it's happened, here it is. This is why this is so seismic. And like, you know, that was up within like hours of him appearing or whatever. And that turned out to not be the case. But listen, you know, I had every reason to believe. But it was like, I just, you got a blog. You got to walk. You got to, the content never sleeps. You got to react.

So I was like, here's why this changes everything. And Disney's like, it doesn't. But later, you know, they would do it. Anyway, I always loved Evan Peters in the X-Men movies. And in general, I'm a huge Evan Peters fan. And so when he showed up, I just like absolutely lost my marbles about it. And then we get the Ralph Bono reveal at the end of the season. And then, crucially, for this kind of.

conversation, we get the Ralph Boner follow-up in Agatha, which I had the pleasure of re-watching this morning. And so my question for you, Mallory, is like, do you remember your Ralph Boner feelings at the time? And then I know we talked about it when we covered Agatha, but like, how much does knowing about Ralph Boner's appearance and Agatha impact how he lands for you here in your rewatch? This is something that. I have a different experience with now on a rewatch, genuinely, unlike actually the thing we'll talk about next. I was in the same place as you.

The end of episode five, Evan Peters knocking on that door, the glimpse of Quicksilver's hair were cutting, we're on Wanda's face, visions like, who is that? All-time iconic Darcy, they recast she recast P.H. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just, you know, amazing stuff. And, you know, like I said earlier, Jason and I were not covering Wanda Vision week-to-week on binge mode Marvel, but this was something we were like, we must. Oh, we must. They're here. The X-Men are here. Exactly. Exactly what you're saying. Like, this was the reaction that people had. It was like this seismic, seismic thing. And like you, I just share a great enthusiasm for Evan Peters as a performance. So it was, it felt massive for the MCU. It felt massive for comic book storytelling for the Hollywood. would merger aspect of it. And it was just really fun and interesting and also kind of opened up

all sorts of other, even outside of the X-Men stuff, possibilities and questions about what they could do inside of this altered mixed reality. It was a really, really, really fun, active moment on the internet. And then I think people felt betrayed, like betrayed, which- Like lied to, you know? Yes. Like actively led to feel stupid was how, I think, in real- time people were like, this is how I feel. Yeah, which I never felt quite that strongly about it. I, you know, enjoyed saying we got Ralph Boner just like everybody else. But I think, you know, I think if we're being like good faith were counters, there was a level of real, like, what, whoa, what? Like a real lament. I, I think I had some, wait, what just happened, feelings in real

time, but not quite to that fever pitch. We had the same reaction watching our Guy Ralph Bonar Return in Agatha, which was not only, that was just great storytelling inside of that show, but it was so emblematic of the MCU at its best, which is let's actually continue to refine and improve the story that we're telling as we are telling it. Let's learn, wrap our arms around something that is a perceived error. You know, let's not pretend we never bonered anyone, but let's It's just double down on the boner and make sure that everyone has a good time with the boner. You know what I mean? Which we did.

We had a great time. The boner campground like T-shirts. Pitch a tent. The stealth meetings in the parking lot. It was such a great little way of, I don't know, I think it's probably overstating it to say it was like an apology to the fans or something. I don't know. But it was an acknowledgement of how people felt about it to what you're saying. And, you know, I think the idea that the MCU is a living document is just undeniable.

And so, like, the ability to say something didn't quite land, something maybe didn't quite work, or even if it worked the way they creatively intended, it wasn't received the way that they hoped it had been. And so there's a little bit of an ability to adapt, refined, tweak, and redeem, right, to rehabilitate Ralph Bonner. I think that what's important to note is that that is not the same as saying the MCU should or has to be constant. worried about what, oh my God, if we're always just like, I remember we talked about this in real time, it's actually very dangerous for a creative hive mind to constantly be worried about pissing off the fans. That's how you end up with Rise of Skywalker, right? I was literally about to say, I was literally about to say, what's the worst thing it could happen rise of Skywalker?

Yeah, 100%. Exactly. And so that's very dangerous. And it could be a real slippery slope. And so that's also, I think, one of the things that we really admired about the way this was handled was it was done in a way. that felt like a recognition and an acknowledgement, but actually still made sense in this story and it continued the stories forward momentum. Now when I rewatch Wanda Vision independent of,

and look, I love Theory Corner on the internet, but kind of independent of the hex that that created around all of us in real time, that reality distortion, is to just watch the show. And I honestly think the Ralph Bona stuff is like great. It's really fun. I've just had such, I've done such a one-eastern.

on this in a way that like kind of surprises me. Maybe I'm just more open-minded as I age. But yeah, I love it. The performance is great. It doesn't feel like I don't have that lingering pull of like disappointment when we when we build toward the Monica Ralph Addick scene and in the finale. It's just all I see clearly now when we understand what they were trying to do. And so I'm able to appreciate that as I watch it instead of feeling duped.

So I like the Ralph Boner stuff now. What a twist. I agree. And I think, I mean, we're going to talk about. theory stuff in the categories that we have today. But like, I guess, I mean, I'll, I'll, I don't think this is our answer, but like, I'll just potentially step on the fact that, like, when Monica's, like, my guy was a truck. Okay. We can talk about it later then. But it's just sort of like, I'm like, what mushrooms were we on that we just like lost our minds about that? Like,

it's just insane to watch. So, okay, anyway, we'll talk about that later then. Um, yeah, I'm, I'm with you. Like the Ralph Bonner stuff, I don't, I agree with you. I was not as outraged as some people were at the time. Um, but I was still like, oh, this sucks. You know, there's like so many reveals inside of the show that like, it almost feels like they could have, you know, were they to do it again? Maybe they could have sort of like nodded to the fact that something weird was going on to like give us a like a kernel that like something else might be going on here. But I guess they kind of, anyway, whatever. Ralph Boner. Yeah. Re deemed to a certain degree. Yes, I just don't feel that sense of deflation now.

No, I think that's the, that's the summation of it. And like, I think it's always wild to rewatch things outside of the fever dream of, of theory corner. And I do think, you know, it was a less than hard, hard one over covering many shows. But I do think Wanda Vision is like a huge source of my Hold Your Theory is loosely, sort of, you know, lecturing attitude that I take towards people. I'm just sort of like, why wind yourself up and set yourself up for disappointment? When the show itself, you know, yes, it's trying to like be cheeky and fun, but it's never trying to like screw you over, really at the end of the day. And so like it's really only we work ourselves up into a lather that leads to that kind of

feeling, do you know? Yeah, I think that is often true. I think that for people who are really, really bummed out by this, it probably does still run a foul of that where it's like maybe you can watch it through those eyes and see it's fun, it's cute, it's winky, it does actually kind of ultimately fit and abide by the rules of what we come to understand is happening. But there was a multi-episode, like invitation to consider that this could just be the Quicksilver in the MCU now and what would that mean? So yeah, what a time that was on the internet? My goodness.

Meanwhile, something we have not necessarily changed our minds about is the ending of One Division, which like, you know, and you acknowledge this earlier, there are things in the finale that are absolutely beautiful. You know, and rewatching, you and I discussed about whether or not we were going to rewatch all of Agatha, and I wound up rewatching basically like the back half of Agatha and then sort of like spot watch some stuff in the beginning. But like the finale of Agatha is also not my favorite. And so like, you know, I think there's some misfire, miscalibration of what is exactly wanted versus, you know, like the Loki finale, which is like one of the one. an incredible episode of television.

So I don't think a finale, a bummer of a finale, you know, leaves a bad taste in my mouth for a whole season of television. I don't personally feel that way. And there is enough, as you alluded to, enough, like incredibly strong stuff in the finale,

Wanda in Vision, Vision, you know, it's just some of the, like, I actually think the penultimate is really, really strong, the sort of like, walk back. through Wanda's Mind episode. It's just that the MCE was still in a place where they felt like people needed to

punch each other in order for it to feel like a conclusion of a story. We weren't yet to like the Thunderbolts Group Hug, you know, version of how to de-escalate or even like, you know, what we just talked about on the lanterns finale. And so I was thinking about lanterns a lot rewatching this finale because it's now, I guess I'll acknowledge that not every thematic personal conversation in this finale works either, which we'll hit in a second. But, you know, that like, I think the the Punch Em in the Sky stuff in the finale here is just,

it's bad, does not measure up to the quality of the rest of the show at all, obviously. I just, I, the Monica Wanda exchange, no matter how many times I revisit the show that I love, will never sit right with me. It won't. I will actually add and say, I think the Monica stuff in general, and perhaps, you know, to the Ralph Boner point, like perhaps if Monica in Captain Marvel,

like the Marvels and the way that had been deployed, like if Monica had been used, you know, we enjoyed the Marvels more than a lot of people enjoyed the Marvels, but like still I would not say that as like the most successful character piece I've ever seen in my entire life. And so like maybe if Monica had become a character that we were all just like really, really invested in, it would have retroactively helped some of this origin story that, but like it almost, I'm just sort of like, we're doing a whole character's origin story of their powers inside of this other story that we're telling. There was just like way

too much on the plate. And unfortunately, like I feel like Monica's story then gets like a short shrift. Like I really like the performance a lot. I like the section where, you know, she's, you know, coming back from the snap and all of that sort of stuff. Like, that is incredibly powerful. And the stuff when we first meet her inside of the hex, like, that stuff is really good. But, like, I guess it's just a, it's just a factor for being associated with the sword stuff. And the sword stuff, I think, in general, is just like really rickety. That, that Monica's just not well served by, I would have just rather her have.

a more dedicated origin story than just sort of like a sea plot origin story inside of this, this larger show. So yeah, that stuff doesn't really work for me. Yeah, I agree. And I think like, this is kind of a tricky thing to parse and like a little bit of a difficult argument to even attempt to make because on the one hand, obviously it's undeniable that part of the, you know, purpose and mission of this show of this story is to find empathy for somebody who is going through something devastating and world shattering, right? That is like what the show is about. So it's not like it is inherently invalid that Monica is a character who is able to show

an uncommon degree of empathy to Wanda compared to some of the people around them in the story because she has some sort of parallel loss, right? She has come, she's come returns from the blip and she has found out that her mother died and she has this grief. And so she's like, I understand what that pain feels like. I would bring my mother back if I had the ability to do so like you had, right? At the end of the day, one of the things the show does well is like, you know, don't let him make you the villain. Maybe I already am. That's actually another Monica Wanda conversation from earlier about Hayward. Obviously, all of the Agatha Wanda stuff on this front is like really good. Not the shooting spells in the sky stuff, but the who are you, what are you,

right? And why have you done these things? Every moment that Vision and Wanda share about what is right, what you want and what you seek and what you need and why, but also with. you have to let go of. All of that stuff that connects to that core interest is perfect. And what is real? Yeah. And what is real? And what is real?

And isn't it all real if you feel it, right? Like, that's all beautiful. That's why we love the show. Yeah. They'll never know what you sacrificed for them. Like, I get it literally. You said goodbye to the kids and your husband and the house so that they could be freed of your mind control.

But these, it's 3,000 people that Wanda canonically mind controlled and tortured. Right. And it just doesn't, it just as an end, one of the end notes on the season, it's like, it really, it does not work for me at all. Here's my defense of Wanda. And I feel like, and I know you're not, you're not saying this, but I just feel like, and a lot of this unravels with what happens with multiverse of madness, which I think is a huge misstep in terms of where we leave this character at the end of the show and then where we find her multiverse of madness. like, you know, we love Michael Waldron. We have a lot of admiration for the storytelling in general. But I think that movie did Wanda really dirty.

And I think, you know, yes, she has this sort of like self-sacrificial, heroic redemptive move at the end of that movie. But like her walking out of this experience where you could say, and it's in the text of the show that you could say, like, she didn't fully realize what, she was doing. And then once she realizes it, that's when, you know, she wrestles with it a bit, but she ultimately makes the right decision when she really understands the consequences of her self-involved selfish grief spell. Like, like versus an Agatha. And the argument I made at the time, and I would stand by it again, multiple madness really undercuts me. But like, in terms of like second chances and redemptions and all these things that characters are allowed to have. Like the red carpet that is rolled out for a character like Loki and the door that is slammed

in the face of a character like Wanda, I'm just sort of like the people we allow to have a redemption versus not is really patently obvious. And so I just remember at the time people were just sort of like she should have died or she should be locked up or all this sort of stuff like that. And again, she breaks even further bad. in the movie. So, like, maybe that just nullifies my entire argument. But I still maintain at the end of this show that, like, a redemption path is available to her. She doesn't get to necessarily get the pat on the back that she gets from Monica, which is what you're saying.

And I agree with you. But I just think that, like, there, she doesn't do anything in this show that I watch and say there's no coming back from this. Agatha does. And Agatha does in her own show, which is why, spoiler to that show, she is a ghost now. she is a ghost now. Like she doesn't get to live at the end of her show because she's irredeable

at the end of the day. You know, despite the self-sacrifice that she makes at the end of that show, she's already crossed the Rubicon. Wanda, there was still a turning back moment for her here and then there wasn't.

So, you know. Yeah, I mean, I think I, the moments across, you know, the middle stretch of the season into the end where Wanda is, as you said, initially she does not know what she has done, right? As her awareness is budding and building and she is saying, has these moments, these opportunities

in real time, but does not take them and continues on with it, right? The casting out of, quote, unquote, Geraldine of Monica, the active challenge to to sword when when vision tells her that he freed Norm and that he's in pain and she, they have that exchange about like, you know, visions like you can't control them, like you can't control me like you control them. And she says, can't I. You know, we have the point of that is that it is complex. I agree with you.

Like, I never ended the series thinking Wanda was beyond redemption or that that was the point. Certainly it's not. I think that the complexity, you know, I, in that. Monica changed. I like Wanda's response, which is it wouldn't change how they see me, right? You know, when you have a moment, because in the finale especially, she's really grappling with what this means, what she's done and agonizing over it, you have like, Doddy, Sarah. I have a callfield. Unbelievable stuff. Anya, my queen. I did not recognize her at first. Adam had to tell me. I was like, wait, what? I just said, this was amazing to realize that. And then you had texted me about it as well. that moment where Dottie is, the spell lifts and Dottie, aka Sarah, begs Wanda to let her daughter out of her room is so harrowing.

And those moments are in the show for a reason. Wanda and the viewer at home has to confront what has happened here. I don't think that the intention is for us to say, and thus she must die, be in prison, pay forever. I just think where Monica goes with it is too much. of an instant handwave. Like, it's too, it's just too sweeping. And I think that for a show that is defined in its excellence by its nuance and its subtlety, it felt out of step with the really deft ability to weigh and hold in our hands at once,

our love and empathy and sympathy and desire to forgive and accept someone who has done something really grievous with our ability to identify that they have. Like that is what the show does at its best so many times. And so that moment with Monica and Wanda in the town square feels really outside of that, almost like it's from a different show. Do you expect or want Elizabeth Olson in Vision Quest? You know, okay, so to recap, Wanda gets a mountain dropped on her at the end of multiverse of madness. So, tough.

But in Agatha, Billy asked Agatha. is Wanda dead and Agatha's like, yes, no. Yes, no. It's complicated. You know what I mean? Leaving the door open for this opportunity. I believe Elizabeth Olson has said, hey, I kind of want to be done. And she's out there saying like she's excited to watch Vision Quest, but that's something

she would say anyway if she was in it. So like, do you expect her to be in it? Are we setting ourselves up for a Mephisto level disappointment if she's not? But do you want her in the story? Like, how do you feel about it? I would be absolutely thrilled if, I think from the moment multiverse of madness ended, we were like, Wanda will be back at some point. And the thing you just noted, like Elizabeth Olson sort of saying, I'm good here.

Like, I'm good here is the reason it has felt maybe really unlikely that she would return. That can change, obviously. Like, for a long time, Chris Evans was like not for the same reasons, but was like, I'm done. You know, I played cat for a while and I'm done, and that was, you know, not the case either. So nothing is forever. I think it would be lovely to see Wanda here in some capacity. I mean, I expect to see her in memories, basically, no matter what, as we like, as vision unlocks. Yeah.

Existent footage. Yeah, existent footage. As vision unlocks, you know, access to this life. Yeah. But whether Wanda will return in the storyline and the timeline moving forward. I think the reason I'm most inclined to say no is the Elizabeth Olson thing, but also that this feels like putting a bow on the Wanda vision. Wanda end vision, a slice of the MCU, like that this is the end of it. But then I don't, I kind of don't believe that anything is ever over in the MCU, honestly.

And also, like, Billy and Speed are continuing on. Yeah. Robert Donnie Jr. I know not as Tony Stark. But Robert Johnny Jr. being back, I'm just sort of like everything's on the table at this point. Visit BetMGM Casino and check out the newest exclusive. The Price is Right Fortune Pick. BetMDM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly.

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The 2026 Chevrolet Tracks is the stylish SUV for those on the move. And with the standard Chevy safety assist package, you have the backup to handle every turn with confidence. The 2026 tracks, start your build at Chevrolet.ca. Next is the section I'm calling, you see the vision. In honor of Wanda Vision Vision Quest being two of the most delightful play-on-word titles that we've gotten for TV shows ever. We're doing what we did with

Stranger Things Rewatch or like a version-ish of what we do with our Buffy, which is we each picked a scene that we felt exemplified specifically like the character of vision because that's what we're spinning forward with is we're going inside of Vision's mind and we're spending time with the great Paul Bettany.

And so the character of vision inside of this show Want a Vision, what is the scene that sort of best exemplifies what the character can be? at its best and what we expect to explore going forward. We both agree that there were really only two options. So we each picked one. And we're going to start with Mying from episode eight.

Because it can't all be sorrow, can it? I've always been alone, so I don't feel the lack. It's all I've ever known. I've never experienced loss because I've never had a love to lose. But what is grief? If not love, persevering. The most famous line to come out of this season of television,

an incredible moment from the penultimate episode, where we sort of go back to Civil War sort of timeline. I love this season. so much. And that clip cut off before, for legal reasons, of duration of clips we're allowed to have. But like, if I had enough time in the world, I would show you Agatha herself wiping away a little tear that I actually don't think is ironic in her reaction to that scene. Here's why I think this is so important for the character of vision. is a storytelling opportunity that comes inside of sci-fi stories. And I'm saying sci-fi specifically not sci-fi fantasy

because of the nature of an android, is androids as storytelling devices to unlock exploration of human emotion. This sort of outsider perspective, this childlike wonder inside of the mind of a hyper-intelligent, sophisticated, you know, creation that is in Android's mind allows again and again across literature and film and television for these kinds of moments where you have, you know, whether it's in Blade Runner, I Robot,

or, you know, all sorts of things, just sort of like, what is it that makes a human a human? And why are you different from me? And what is the essence of you? I was thinking about Claire and the Sun, a book that I know you love very much, Kazu Ishiguro, about, which is about an artificial friend, this little helper girl trying to understand the humans around her. It's told from her point of view. So she's trying constantly to understand like what makes a human a human versus what makes me, me. And there's this exchange earlier in the book, do you believe in the human heart?

I don't mean simply the organ, obviously. I'm speaking in the poetic sense. The human heart, do you think there's such a thing, something that, makes each of us special an individual. And then at the end of the book, Clara, talking about the girl she befriended Josie, she says, there was something very special, but it wasn't inside Josie.

It was inside those who loved her. And this is just like one of the mic drops of the book is that idea. And so it's just like as a storytelling device, you know, this is true of data on Star Trek. This is true of Anya in Buffy, though she's not an Android, she fulfills that sort of archetypal role.

of just sort of like, one of a character like Anya inside of an episode like The Body on Buffy Vampire Slayer, you have this sort of like, I don't understand or I'm trying to understand this human condition that we're all born into and were raised by adults who have gone through things and just sort of like accept the status quo or don't closely examine some of these bigger thoughts and emotions and feelings because I don't know, they're hard to examine or they've just always been around us. It's just sort of the the frog in the boiling pot of water that we've always just sort of come up in our lives in. And so it takes this outsider perspective a vision to sit with Wanda in this moment of profound grief over the loss of Pietro in Ultron.

And underscore something for her. And then he follows it up by just sort of like noticing something that's happening on the television. Then they laugh together about a sitcom and they just like sit there together and enjoy sitcoms, storytelling, which is, canonically, we just found out earlier in the episode, this thing that she

loved to do with her family. And as she states overtly, this idea that, like, shenanigans inside of a sitcom are just sort of these manageable issues that could be solved within the half an hour. And it's just a way to make big feelings feel small and manageable and accomplishable and is why people find comfort in either, like, procedural television or sitcoms, whatever the case may be. And so, like, to go from this, like, big profound, let's talk about these big, emotions to like, let's share this small, simple human pleasure together is just a big part of like why I think Vision is such a wonderful character. His curiosity and interest and love for Wanda in the first place, this like troubled teenager,

this troubled teen that he like, they just sort of yada yada over that, but like this troubled teen that he meets. And how, you know, his Android heart is, is, you know, with love and respect to Peggy and Cap, like the most sort of romantic, I think, character, like, you know, in terms of like chivalric romantic character we have inside of the MCU. And I just think it's it's so beautiful. And I just, I love the two of them together. I love this scene. I cry every time, just like Agatha. And, and I'm really excited to think about what this means for, you know, again, we haven't watched the show, but we've seen the trailers, like vision trapped inside of his own mind,

trying to figure out, and this will play into your scene pick, but like, what makes him, him, what makes versus a human, you know, and then how can he, you know, we're theorizing here, how can he have love for a Tommy? How can he have that kind of connection? Where does that kind of emotion come from in this newer version of vision that we are to meet in Vision Quest? What do you want to say about this scene, or would you like to move? to your scene instead. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. Definitely want to talk about this one. Yeah, I love that scene, too. One of my least favorite things that happened during the Wanda Vision run was the contingent of people who were like,

why do MCU fans think that's, like, touching and profound? You know, that was, like, such a bummer, and there was definitely a string of this. Rob said it the other day, and I almost kicked him off the Prestige TV podcast. I was like, get that line. out of your derision for that line out of your mouth, you know? You know, for a lot of reasons.

But I think what, you know, what you were saying about just genre stories, right? And that's so much of the joy we find in them as the way that a moment, an idea, a line can unlock something about your real life inside of this world that is not yours, right? That's the beauty of it. So, you know, it's a, it's a line that has, I think, that it resonated in real time and has lasted, you know, for a reason. and it obviously means a lot to a lot of people. I think that that's obviously a beautiful Wanda scene,

and in that moment with Agatha and Wanda, like, parsing and trying to, Agatha's on the fact-finding mission of who, who, what is this? This magic, right? But, you know, it's such a crucial kind of thesis statement for what the show is going to continue to explore and has been exploring. You know, but to your point about what it tells us about vision, like I love the, that I've always been alone, so I don't feel the lack and, like, thinking about vision in that moment newly born,

versus, and this is a newly born vision of a different sort now, but that that's not true anymore, right? That when the vision that Wanda created inside of this show, converses with himself in the scene we'll talk about next, and touches, you know, the gem on his forehead, and the dad is there, and unearths it and brings it back, and then the physical, you know, the corporeal vision that Hayward has befouled and restored, starting to like recall who he was in the life he lived,

so that like I've always been alone won't be true for him because it wasn't true for this vision, right? That he is going to rediscover the relationships that meant so much to him and that he has grief of his own now as a result. Like it's such an interesting way to think about character evolution. especially given the different versions and realities in this world. But like what you were just beautifully saying about what an android or a figure like that can do, I mean, listening to you talk about that in the Claracomp, which I of course love, like it just makes me think of that scene between Vision and Ultron at the end of Age of Ultron.

Not my favorite MCU movie, but I love that scene and that conversation. You know, it's the it's the ha-ha, like, well, I was born yesterday after the year, you know, I'm bearably naive, but it's the humans or odd vision moment, right? They think order and chaos are somehow opposites and try to control what won't be, but there is grace in their failings. I think you miss that. Like, right away, that's how vision is thinking about humanity. Now, some of that is the necessary shorthand of why is this robot good and this robot bad?

Why is this AI good and this AI bad? Like, you kind of have to establish that for, now, many MCU fans have an attachment to vision as a comics character already, but some won't. And so they have to understand why they can believe him, basically, right? Hopefully he lifts Smilnierer. The hammer. The hammer does a lot of shorthand. It really does a lot of that for us.

But, you know, that's also the great, like a thing isn't beautiful, because it lasts sequence, which then we're thinking about when we're watching Wanda Vision, and now we will be thinking about after Wanda Vision. So it all feels just across the story really kind of amazingly connected. I think what you said earlier is definitely right. about the potency and impact of the moments, given the relative dearth of screen time, certainly before the TV show,

but even, frankly, after, compared to the TRT that some characters have racked up across the MCU. So I ride for the what is grief line, and I always will. And not everybody has to, and that's okay, but don't, my thing is always like, you know, that's like, I think people can critique something

that they don't think is good. That's fine. I don't like when people makes other people feel bad for thinking something is meaningful. I don't like that. Yeah. That's all. I feel like that was happening a lot in 2021 when we were all watching this.

I think that to your point about that, solitude, again, we haven't watched Vision Quest, but like our understanding from closely watching the trailer, which I recall saying I watched like 15 times when it came out, is like he seems quite alone. He's like working in like a pub somewhere in the, middle of nowhere and we don't really like and then we see him sort of like powered down in the storeroom and so he has these like AIs inside of his head but in terms of like I don't want to undercut the AIT AI connection and and say it's not real but like there's that connection but like what other connections will he be able to make in the world and will it be Tommy or will that

be a billy or will it be both of them I'm sure it will. But yeah, just that sort of like he has gone from. And this happened to Wanda too in the post finale, you know, or when we meet her in multiverse of madness, like to go from being surrounded by your husband and your kids or your wife and your kids in the case of vision to I clean glasses in a pub in the middle of nowhere or I am in a cabin reading the dark hold, this is fine, this is fine, don't worry about me, I'm fine. like the pang of that loneliness after so much life and love and and bustling around you is just yeah something that hurts my feelings to think about. All right, let's talk about your

scene. Carlos, let's see the clip. The ship of Theseus is an artifact in a museum. Over time, its planks of wood rot are replaced with new planks. When no original plank remains, is it still the ship of Theseus. Secondly, if those removed planks are restored and reassembled free of the rot, is that the ship of Theseus? Neither is the true ship. Both are the true ship.

Well, then we are agreed. Just an incredible, incredible scene. This is one of the, not the only, but one of the things I was referring to earlier when I said the finale is not my favorite, but it has some of my favorite scenes. I mean, this is one of my favorite scenes in not just the series, but the MCU. It's amazing. Look, I mean, could it be on the, like, which stuff go from from the beginning of the pot? Could it be more for us? We're Greek mythology nerds.

We're philosophy nerds. We're TV nerds. This is basically, like, crack for us. One of the best, I mean, the Paul Bettney performance is wonderful across the board. This is just to get to be doing two versions of the character. You know, part of what we love so much about Loki, obviously, the idea of variance, different versions of yourself. There's some of that here. and that's really fun.

But in terms of what is actually at the core of this discussion, it is what makes me who I am. Yeah. Right? And so Vision is interrogating that throughout the season with Wanda, and it will come up again on the heels of that.

With Darcy, yes, exactly. It'll come up at the end of the finale in a scene that'll be coming up in some of our superlives. So we'll save it for then, but in a very emotional and intense moment, there's something interesting about being able to ask a version of yourself that question, though, right? Who am I? What am I?

What makes me me me? Using the ship of Theseus to ask this because it's like literally the question of, well, is it about the body? Who has the body? Isn't about who has the memories or the memories the rot, you know, like in the conversation that continues? It's just like a really kind of intellectually rigorous and rewarding way to have the character parse this.

And it is much like Wanda is on a journey of. of asking who she is and wants to be and thinks she can be absent the person she loved most in the world. And now if he's gone in an inability to share her life with him and if the kids that she created are gone in an inability to share her life with them, vision's asking himself a version of that question, right? You know, I have not retained memories, but you do have the data. It's merely being kept from you. I love the, as that scene plays out, but certainly you are the true vision for you believe yourself to be. And how quickly, we go from when White Vision comes in, you know, we get the Stinger, the Hayward, the Stinger at the end

of episode 8, and then White Vision, just blasting his way into the scene, you know, putting his hands on Wanda's face in the finale and then trying to crush her skull. It's so disturbing right away. And then the vision that Wanda created comes in and attacks himself. Like, this is a kind of fascinating from the word go there inside of the finale. My programming directive is to destroy the vision. That is what Hayward's real. reconstituted vision says to a version of himself. The version of himself that is, many MCU fans at home would be saying, more truly vision because he does, though he, as he says to Wanda, I don't remember my life before this, but he's born out of Wanda's memories of the life that they shared, right? So there

is something like truer and purer because it is connected to mind and heart and soul and experiences, even though he's not in possession of all those facts. And so that response to the, The shift from, I'm here to, my directivist to destroy the vision to like, wait, who is the vision? But certainly you are the true vision for you believe yourself to be. And then our vision, Wanda's vision, is response to that by saying that was once the case. But upon meeting you, I have been disabused of that notion. So they're like shifting perspective in real time. And it's just kind of brilliant.

And it positions us as such a fascinating because then white vision, you know, little tap to the no longer the Mindstone. Obviously, there was some Thanoscentric plot in there. Yeah. The little gem plate that the vision that Wanda created touches, activates all of the data that's still inside. We see all these flashes. We hear all these moments.

And then our guy just like shoots off through the skylight into a new show. So that's where we're, I mean, like you said, the Lerich. In 2026. Exactly. That's, man. The line that you alluded to, perhaps the rot is the memories, the wear and terror, the voyages, the wood touched by theses himself. Absolutely gorgeous writing. I think something that I love rewatching this season and thinking about Vision Quest is like the detective vision aspect of it, the way that like vision, a construct created by Wanda, is nonetheless like so vision himself that he is.

questioning the reality around him and investigating. And, you know, in the Halloween episode especially, just sort of like lying to Wanda and slipping off so that he can like get to the bottom of what's going on. In that scene with Darcy, you know, talking about his origins, right, in episode 8, he says, so if I understand correctly, my original code dates back to an AI called Jarvis. Shout out Jarvis. But my corporeal form was born of Ultron's plan for global genocide. Darcy says, correct. And he says, what am I now? And Darcy says, honestly, I'm a stem type of lady.

So I thought she just flipped a switch in your head and brought you back to life. But what I don't get is why you can't leave the hex. What do I know is I've been watching Wanda Vision for the past week. And the love you two have is real you belong together. So like what is the most real thing about this fabricated being his emotion, like his love? You know, there's just so many fun little, like, throwaway jokes inside of this, you know, like talking about, he talks about his nerves of steel. Juana says, like, my husband and his indestructible head, you know what I mean? We get the whole, like, gum in the works, like, all these reminders of, like, what a piece of machinery vision is.

But at the end of the day, it is that emotion and that emotional appeal that he makes to himself when they have that, when the white vision and our vision, let's say, or Wanda's vision, let's say. have this conversation and the white vision's like like requests clarification you know they're having just this sort of like highly intellectual philosophical debate but the but actually it progresses really quickly from yeah my my my my mission is to destroy you to I didn't think about this or like you know I I need to find find a life of my own and so visions inherit curiosity and the fact that inside of these three mysterious mystery box sort of shows Wanda Vision, Agatha, along Vision Quest, we presume Vision Quest, that there are like, there has to be detective figures, right?

Like, sword on the outside of the hex trying to figure out what's going on, but Vision on the inside trying to figure out what's going on. Agatha and Teen, Billy, both trying to figure out something about what's going on inside of that. And so for like Vision and Tommy inside a Vision quest to be like, what's what's the truth here? What's going on here? What's the reality? And then we as the viewer are along for the ride.

But just Vision as a detective. And then like Paul Bettney and his very like debonair British sort of way, being the voice of that kind of detective figure is really animating and exciting. But the fact that like the biggest mystery that he has to solve is himself and his own nature is like, great. Joe, would you say that the best answer to a mystery as a person? A mystery as a person? Yeah. I would say the only thing worth writing about is conflict inside the Android heart at the end of the day. Oh, man, just great shit. I love, there's that little, you know, an attempted zinger from Agatha.

Oh, no, like, your exing, your boyfriend. Who you get to choose? Yeah. And the thing I love about it is not just that Agatha rules. obviously, but that it's uncomplicated initially, actually, the answer to that question. Even though the physical form of her love, her soulmate, a soulmate who we saw in the penultimate episode in the memories, just the heart-wrenching moment where she, you know, she's an infiltrated sword and then is standing above him, maybe this will come up in another category, so I won't

talk about it too much, but there he is. And it's a... no question the ex or the boyfriend because the boyfriend is the vision who has a sense of granted the one that she provided and only the one that she provided but a sense of a life shared right the physical the physical form does not have that but the second that he does even though he doesn't have that full context and full connection to he just has the unearthed data and now as you know the journey is to seek the rest of it the second that changes and he had a is in possession of those connections, of that tether to Wanda and to not only their history with each other, but our history to him with him, then like that change, the math changes.

Then we would not no longer want anything to happen to him. We need him to escape. We need him to go into his own spin-off. Yeah, into his spinoff, into that detective journey and into hopefully that clarity that will allow him to be present, hopefully for, you know, for Billy and Tommy and maybe Wanda if she returns. She's great. I think what's devastating about, what's so devastating about that white vision,

his hands on the side of her face, and then going from a loving caress to a crunching motion, is like, so this idea of Wanda has created from her own grief and sorrow and heart and minding chaos magic, this vision-shaped husband, who loves her,

is asking questions now, but who fundamentally loves. her and believes that she's good, believes in her goodness. Because this is something that Wanda has, you know, like, in Civil War, she's, like, locked up for her own good and it's only, like, Hawkeye who's, like, actually, like, come with me. You know what I mean? This question of, like, am I good has been at the core of Wanda's character from the moment we met her inside of the MCU. And so there's the vision that she created that is, like, you're good, worthy, I love you, I want to marry you.

I want to build a life with you. I want to have kids with you. So like, and then like, here's the quote unquote real vision. And he shows up and he's like, you're a monster. Do you know? And it's just sort of like, even though he is not in possession of all the facts or all the memories, what's true is that in some, by some definitions, he's the quote, more real one. And he has identified her as the enemy.

And how heartbreaking and devastating that is. I'm so excited for white vision. to get closer and closer to the vision that we know and love. I don't know how close he'll be when we find him in the beginning of the show. Like, you know, it's been a while or has it. I don't know. We'll find out. We don't know the BBYs on this one yet.

So, yeah. That's right. We don't. Yeah. All right. Should we go to our categories? Yeah, these will be fun. We're calling these the Wanda Wows.

A request has been made from our production team that, we set up these clips in the order that they are, the doc, which means selfishly I will always be going first. And it is not because I'm impolite, but because it is logistically easier. So we're going to start with Best Sexual Innuendo. And we're going to start with my clip. Play it, Carlos. You are incorrigible, darling. I know you're going to have a secret thing for Mexican wrestlers.

I like much. Chili con carne. Oh, poor. Is that an innuendo? I don't know. Who's to say? But I just, I remember actually, so yeah, it was before I worked here, I made like a super cut of like all the horniest moments from Wanda Vision and put it. So I like, I knew every single one of these was roadmatched because I am not built for video editing.

And so it took me a million years to make this supercut. But that's my, of all the darlings and there are many, that's my favorite because it's like the most sort of. of like snarled. And I just, you know, he's, he's actually in that moment kind of trying to distract her so that he can get out of there and like go do his detective work. But it still really works for me. They're in their dumb Halloween costumes, which is, you know, their canonical comic book costumes. That's right. I just, I just love that moment. So I want it in here. The comic accurate costumes, this is like a delightful little, little aspect of that episode. I love how horny those two are for each other.

You know, there's the fun little, like, granted, it's in a pretty active gaslighting stretch for Wanda toward vision. But when she's like, you know, Vision, it's not Agnes's the fault, but she has an unusually active libido. And it's like, you know, Wanda and Vision, I mean, one of the great moments early in the season, the separate beds, you know, when we're in that decade. And then using the magic to, let's push those beds together and then one cover. and then they just crawl under the covers of a fuck, because they're horny for each other. It's great. In that same episode with Agatha,

when the babies are crying and he's like, come on, lads, I'm going to get my leg over. Get my leg over. Get your leg over is like one of my favorite Britishisms. But like, yeah, he's just sort of like, anyway. What's your clip for this? It's so good. What are you wearing?

What are you wearing? Also wonderful. What are you wearing? I was, while there are no shortage of Wanda, envision horny moments to pick from. I felt pretty confident that you would pick a moment between those two, and I have gone in radically different direction.

Carlos, can we see my clip? Hey, careful stick of Big Red. Well, hold on there a second. Did you hear the man? He doesn't eat food. Is gum food? Well, my understanding is that it's purely for mastication.

Oh, no, I don't do that. This is just a hysterical moment. The Big Red scene at the neighborhood Watch, episode two, mastication, masturbation. Oh, no, I don't do that from Herb. My guy, Herb.

Hysterical. A lot of interesting and very compelling performances from the townfolk in their roles. Herb is one of my favorites. Phil Jones quite good. Bev, is that how mirrors work

cannot be denied. Hysterical, but Herb is just, I absolutely love him. And, oh, no, I don't do that. It's just hysterical. Daryl, kills me every time. On this, on this tack you've taken,

which is the sort of like, I don't know, sort of sixth grade boy tack, I will say, Ralph Boner saying, Boner, he had to his own name is a really top tier moment.

Incredible stuff. He just, like, Bonerhead his own name. That's incredible. Fun to think of how many times across his life he must have done, Every day. Every day of his life. He's just sort of like, my name's Ralph Boner. Boner, ha-ha. Like, what are you talking? Every hour, maybe. That's a great one. On the runner up front,

I'll also toss out, same episode, the same stretch from my clip, episode two, the neighborhood watch scene, when Vision says he kind of fucks up for a second, says he doesn't eat, right? And then he covers by saying, I mean, I don't eat between meal times. At meal times of a regular eating machine. I'm putting that in the innuendo category. And I'm happy for Wanda. And you should. And Wanda deserves that. Yeah.

All right. Favorite fake commercial? This is one of the, just kind of in general, because we haven't talked about these yet. This is just one of those little touches in the show that makes me love it so much. It not only kind of heightens that we're watching a sitcom, we're watching. a broadcast, but obviously it connects to the, it's a broadcast that is rooted in Wanda's history and Wanda's life, right? So the fact that like Wanda's subconscious is fueling this. And so, you know, the Stark Industries aspect of the toastmate because of the Stark bomb and

Sikovia or the Strucker watch because of the Strucker, the Hydro Sigil, the experimentation with the Scepter, the Lagos, Brandtals, all of it. That's just, it's just great. It's like just a great idea. Whoever had that idea, congrats to you, it's wonderful. My pick is the Hydrosoak from episode three. We see these little scenes of chaos on the home front. The spills, the burnt food, a dog pissing at the island in the kitchen, tough, tough stuff. And then the voice, do you need a break? You read my mind.

Come with me. Escape to a world on your own where your problems float away when you want to get away but you don't want to go anywhere. Hydra Sok. Find the goddess within. And then we see luxury bath powder. One of the better clues, actually, to like what Westview is and what exactly is happening here. And with that hydra tie to Wanda's past. And also, I think we're just both very much in a like shout out comforting bath spot vibes. Shout out, pass. So. Absolutely. Yeah.

Mine comes from episode seven. It is the Nexus antidepressant commercial. This is the episode so episode seven breaking forth wall. Wanda is just completely unraveled. She's just like inner gym jams, you know, direct addressing the camera, talking about how she's unraveling. And then we get like a classic antidepressant commercial. Nexus, because the world doesn't revolve around you or does it. And the joy of getting, like, that's one of those like comic book Easter egg moments because, you know, Wanda is a rare nexus being inside of. of the MCU and this idea that like there's a version of her that exists in all realities

or she can bend reality around her and all the sort of stuff like that. But getting to explain to people what that means, why what Nexus is important, why this is like a fun comic book illusion. I really like that one. My runner up for like best accurate commercial vibes, I think the yo magic yogurt from episode six, which is like a claymation show. shark sort of commercial, a real sort of like juicy fruit kind of like fruit by the foot, like real early 90s aimed at children kind of commercial.

Perfect vibes. Loved that one as well. That's, that one is so upsetting. It's so good. So good. All right. Best Agatha ism. This is a rich category.

What have you chosen? So can you define this for me exactly? Is this like one of her kind of like quirky turns of freezer? Is it just an opportunity to honor anything about Agatha? Like any Agatha line is available to you. Okay. Okay. So I mean, we've already talked about it, but just to say again, any like Agatha category,

it's got to go to the Agatha all along song and reveal at the end of episode seven, which is just historic. Unbelievable. But since we've already kind of covered that, I oh my God like you said it's a rich text

there are so many so many fields I want you to go first because I can't quite pick I have like kind of comic contenders and then sort of like

intense contenders and it's difficult this is kind of like the equivalent of Buffy where I'm kind of like I have like 10 finalists

what do I actually think I only have five finalists I tried to show some restraint but it's really difficult here do you have a clear winner I think

and though this is This is part of the Agatha all along song. I think, and I killed Sparky, too, as the sort of button on that song is maybe my pick. It's either that or I actually did bite a kid once direct address to the camera. That's very good. And all of, and I will say, Catherine Hahn's performance is just utter perfection, heaven on earth throughout this entire show, obviously. Yeah. But the episode, episode seven where she gets to direct address the camera, she's just on another level good at it.

And so all of her lines from that sequence. But I will give it to, and I killed Sparky, too, from Agatha all along. My top contenders are also from episode seven on the more comic, but also maybe like an Agatha-ism front, like something that just feels particular to how she speaks in the show. And this is like she has come over and found, you know, a very beleaguered Wanda, an offer to take the twins and then we get the direct-to-camera. I think I got here in the nick of time because she was one split end away from cutting her own fangs. Incredible, Agatha line. Just the way she says it.

I don't know. I rewound that part so many times just to be like, what is it that Catherine Hahn does here that is so funny? I don't know. She's perfect. It's absolutely incredible. On the more intense harrowing front, and we hear this line from the, quote-unquote producer in that episode, and we don't realize, you know, till later in the reveal,

I always have just loved this. The do you think this is maybe what you deserve? It's just such a savage, savage moment. A couple other runners up, because one of the kind of through lines is referencing Ralph and, like, alluding to this marriage that they share that is obviously fictitious. I think my favorite on that front is from episode one.

The only way Ralph would remember our anniversary is if there was a beer named June 2nd, I'm just hysterical. That's just hysterical. I quite like in episode eight, got close with fake Pietro, Fiatro, if you will. It's like she's podcasting. Just amazing. And then I think the one where I'm always like, this is just a fucking bar.

This character is instantly undeniable. The performance is God tier. Also from episode eight, Wanda, Here's the Twins, goes outside and sees Agatha kind of holding them on the magical leashes. It's the, you know, you have no idea how dangerous you are. You're supposed to be a myth and being capable of spontaneous creation. sequence, but the specific line. And here you are using it to make breakfast for dinner. Unbelievable.

Just withering and incredible. I ride for breakfast for dinner. Let me just say that. I love breakfast for dinner. It's a great line. I'm going to hit you with a couple more. When she's mocking one and she goes, whoa, my children.

That accent really comes and goes, doesn't it? Like making fun of the Sokovian accent coming and going. Incredible stuff. Really good writing. Really well delivered. My thoughts are not available to you, Toots. The use of Toots as like a through line, but like my thoughts are not available to you is really good. That macromay is not going to hitch itself. Yeah. Yeah. Really. And then she like dings the bell on her bike. Really, really good. His mother's cuckoo for cocoa puffs. And then, yeah, the lavender line that you mentioned earlier. But lavender is supposed to have a calming effect. Ralph said, sprays it on me every night, but there's no taming this tiger, which is like in head-to-to-lil lycra. So funny. Really good. Agha, what an incredible creation. All right. Best Classic TV Reference.

This is also a rich text as far as I'm concerned, but, you know. You go first here. What's your pick? If I had to pick one thing. Here's one that I don't think I recognize at the time. but I believe to be true when she throws a car at Wanda like when Wanda and Agatha are fighting

and Agatha reveals that she can like absorb Wanda's powers so just hitting her with a blast of power is not going to do Wanda any good so instead she throws a car at her you know we get like a sort of classic Wicked Witch of the West like the boots are under the car something like that but the car goes into the house which is a plot line on full house

So I choose to believe that this is a reference to the time that I believe was Stephanie drove a car into the Tanner Kitchen in full house. That's what I choose to believe that that's a reference to. I have others, but that's my winner, yeah. They're really given Buick their money's worth on the product placement endorsement front there with the use of that car. So, boy, you know, like you said, just a loaded field. in a rich text here. I think more broadly just, you know, we've been kind of talking about this all pod,

but the, how fulfilling it is when we get into the penultimate the previously on episode and we go through the memories and we realize like the role that these sitcoms had in Wanda's life, we, you know, we see that moment with like young Pietro and always sitcom, sitcom, sitcom, sitcom, and we learn about like watching American TV and the family learning English

and like the Dick Van Dyke show in the hole in the wall, like even outside of all of the other. box sets in the briefcase, like Wanda's favorite kept in a special place. And then obviously the scene we already talked about, the grief scene with Wanda and Vision, and, you know, she's watching the Hydra, the stretch before that. She's watching Brady Bunch, and then she's watching Malcolm in the middle. So, like, that's all great. Obviously, all of the, like, not just what decade is, the decade match inside of each episode

and the shows that they're, you know, alluding to. We've got episode one. I love Lucy Dick Van Dyke, episode two, Bewitched. I dreamed of Jeannie. I found the Bewitched one particularly sad. post-Augtha, actually, given everything in Agatha about, like, flying on brimsticks and, like, you know, all that. Like, it was kind of fun to have that come back up. Episode three, the Brady Brunch, all in the family, et cetera.

I want to shout out Darcy for a second here, because in episode four, you know, we're not getting another Wanda sitcom vision. We're kind of, we're panning out, and we're connecting the dots. We're tying, we're tying all these little strands together. when Darcy says, the next time she's watching dishes, because she's like, that would be a radio there, right? The next time she's washing dishes, which by my count happens about once an episode, barf, just an incredible little dig

at like the role of the homemaker and the old sitcoms, etc. We built toward episode five, we've got growing pace, full house, family ties. How can I not shout it out? Because I am named after Mallory v. Keaton from Family Ties, so I've got to shout it out. Episode six, Malcolm, in the middle. We're getting into more of like the, I was actually never a Malcolm in the

middle watcher, but like more of the, you know, but ultimately my favorite in terms of just the structure of the episode of Wanda vision and how it connects to the reference to the illusion is the modern family episode seven. I just think that's the best. I really love the direct-to-camera confessionals of where we find Wanda and, as you know, and Agatha in that episode. So that's my pick, but it is just, I guess given what we learned about the Dick Van Dyke family, history that's like that and the Malcolm in the middle one like feel so meaningful. I don't know. This is a spoiler for my pick for favorite episode, which we will talk about later. But like episode one is actually my favorite because I was like, which is a weird choice, I think.

But like I was so into the Dick Van Dyke show that to like watch something that was so beat for that's that episode is the most beat for beat. Let's recreate like a classic sitcom plot. And so to watch that was just so enjoyable to me. But yeah, the intro where he like carries over the threshold through the chair as an allusion to like Dick Van Dyke show him like tripping over the ottoman is like so good. In the Bewitched episode, at one point when she's like irritated with Dottie, she like does this space where she sticks her tongue out, which is like a perfect match for Elizabeth Montgomery and Be Witch sticking her tongue out. The set deck, right, the like the Brady Bunch staircase. being there, the family tie staircase being there. And in terms of like the opening credits,

or like the evolution of TV that happens inside the episode. So like the twin bed to double bed transformation that you already talked about. Yeah. Like how sitcoms, you know, like Rob and Laura Petrie who like have a child sleep in twin beds. It's so crazy. I think Lucy and Ricky were in twin beds and then later in the same bed like as as time went on. Or like something like Bewitch, which started in black and white and then became in color. So like the fact that that episode like ends with them transforming into color into episode three now in color is like really fun.

But in terms of like the different opening credit sequences that they did, I have to shout it out to your namesake family ties because like that opening credits where we get like the, you know, the growing pains family ties as like photos of them when they were younger. So we get like baby vision, which is just so fun. because, of course, there never was a Baby Vision. But Vision dressed as Santa, the Easter Bunny and a turkey while, like, holding the twins and looking exasperated is so funny. The lyrics, nothing can phase me because you're in my heart is, like, so good. And then it's just like, the hook of that song is we're making it up. Like, it's just, it's so good.

The show rules. I love it so much. Were you a big? I assume the answer. Not only do I assume the answers, yes. I feel like we must have talked about this. And I just can't remember through my fog right now. Big Nicket Night kid, you must have been.

Yeah. Yeah, same. Oh, yeah. Same. Yeah. Donna Reed, Mr. Ed. You know, yeah, all of it. Dick Van Dyke, et cetera, et cetera.

I loved, I loved Nickett Knight the best. Same. Wildest slash favorite abandoned theory. You zagged. I took the obvious one. Carlos, will you play this clip, please? The devil's in the details, Bev. That's not the only place he is.

He couldn't get out one word, let alone a whole pitch. So I'm trying every trick in the book to help this poor man. I'm hiding. I don't understand what's happening. It's Mephisto. I would say specifically the stork as Mephisto, which was one of my favorite flavors of the Mephisto theories, but just how... We were so Mephisto-pilled that I believe I wrote, and I, like, there are many things

that I'm embarrassed, have my byline on them, but one of my most embarrassing is, like, when I was theorizing, because I think Al Pacino took, like, a meeting with Kevin Feige, and so I was like, Pacino's playing Mephisto. Write it down in ink. It's happening. We're getting Pacino as Mephisto in this season of WandaVision. Don't worry, we got Sasha Baron Cohen, which is the same as Petino as Mephisto, in a show that people definitely watched.

Anyway, Molly Rubin, anything you want to say about Mephisto or you want to move on to your... Incredible. I mean, you're right. Obviously, that's the pick. I feel like the Mephisto theory of craze just feels to me like it extends into basically every MECU property until we finally got them. But like WandaVision was the disease. like origin because of the shards that are, you know, like, Mephisto is tied to the Wanda InVision story.

But like once it started there, we just like couldn't let it go. Yes. We were crazed. Right. The heft of comics canon, it felt like it like justified and supported theorizing. Great clip mashup there. That was just a really fun thing to be living through in real time. The reason that I picked as I teased earlier when you mentioned the Monica

the Monica line in question, the reason I picked the engineer is because this to me feels most reflective of we just, we all went too far. We were way far ahead. We actually didn't, like, yeah, it's just like, why, why? So this is the, not just that the engineer

was going to be Riedrichers, but also then the casting extension of that Khrzinski was going to be playing him and would definitely be appearing in the final few episodes. episodes of Wanda Vision. So episode five, Monica wants to get back into town, get back through the hex and says, I know an aerospace engineer who'd be up for this challenge. And like, the show doesn't actually go, dun, dun, dun, but like, kind of like, there's like a glint to

the eye and a felt like that in real time. It did feel like that, but looking, watching it back, I'm like, she just says it normally, I think. But this is like, this is the, this is the other reason I picked. This is like, I love the show. I think it's wonderful. Just that, what is that line there for in that fashion? Why? And then the episode six, Monica receives the text and says, just got to meet my guy over the ridge.

You were like, it's happening. And then episode seven, they meet Monica's source. And it's not only not John Krasinski playing Reed Richards, which we'll get eventually. Yeah. It's Major Goodner, a friend of mine. And then this whole truck that she's built, which gets destroyed into.

seconds and I'm like, what are we even doing here, man? Space rover? That's the thing. Like, the line could just have been, and I think it is difficult at the end of the day to separate this from the Ralph Boner response. That's also why I picked it. Because I think there's like a, if the line had not been, I know an aerospace engineer would be up for the challenge. Like, do you feel like they were, one of my mom's friends can help. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think they were trying to make us think Reed Richards was going to be there, but like, yeah, we lost our mind about it, really, truly.

Yeah. A mania. But also, let's bear in mind is 2021. And all of our, all of our sanity was holding on by a thread, you know? We were sure. This was just going to be,

Ray Richards, because of this one line. And obviously, like, there are, you know, power sets and what was happening here. And, like, it wasn't, it wasn't an indefensible line of, theorizing. It's just like, obviously that is not only not what happened. It was not a character of consequence at all. So it was such a like... It's so weird. Wah.

Well, yeah. And also, yeah, the stork was just a stork. Sometimes a stork is just a stork. And sometimes aerospace engineer is major goodner. So like, don't even worry about it. All right. Best fit slash fashion decade. Mallory, what's your answer for this? Shocked myself with my pick here. Shocked myself. Because, As you know, I'm such a fan of like 60s and 70s fashion. And I will say there's just some exceptional knit polo work from the gents at the neighborhood watch scene in episode two on that front. And the 80s is it's not my favorite fashion decade.

But I had to pick it specifically because the first couple outfits we see not my favorite. When Wanda comes out in the plaid button down like kind of cap sleeve with the high waisted jeans and the suspenders, and then Vision comes into the kitchen, and he's in this, like, knit, sporty, long-sleeve polo thing. And then Agnes comes in and her jazzer size. I'm just like, we're cooking. We're cooking with gas. This is the best. That Wanda fit, I think, is my single favorite fit in the entire season. It's just incredible. Very, very, like, a material girl, season three, Stranger Things, shopping mall montage vibes with that look in a way that, like, is very memorable as well. The high waist, I can see it. I can see it. Yeah.

Yeah, so I just think that fit is iconic. I love it. What about you? Did you pick something classic? I picked a different decade for each of our three main characters. And I will say, for Vision, I'm picking the 60s, specifically the striped sweater that he wears in, like, the second episode. Perhaps in that neighborhood watch scene. Agnes' jazzercise in the 80s.

I don't think there's any beating it. It's just perfection. And then for Wanda, I'm going with the 7th. the like pregnancy dress, the boots, and the long straight hair wig. I just think that that is just an incredible fit. And like the sequence where she and Vision are like back to back sort of like ready to like fight, you know, and she just has like her like magic hands up in that fit. I just think is iconic from the show.

So yeah, Wanda in the 70s, really, really good stuff. Great stuff. All of the hair journey across the decades. Oh, the wigs. Just perfection. Visions wigs are a wild journey. Wanda's wigs are extraordinary. Yes, Wanda specifically.

So good. Favorite use of a minor MCU character. I'm just going to shout out Darcy. My babe looks great in her escape artist's outfit. Looks great always. It's really fun. Jimmy, it's fun to see you, but I got to give it to Darcy. It's obviously Darcy.

I will say I want to honor Darcy and Jimmy as a pair as well because I think they're They're great together, as we've noted, the Hayward's sword stuff in general, just not the strongest part of the show. But when we're with Jimmy, shout out close up magic, shout out flourish. And when we're with Jimmy and Darcy together, like I love in episode four, for example, as they're puzzling out what is going on. And they're watching, they're watching the broadcast. And Jimmy says, I can't believe Wanda and Visioner having a baby. You want them? You want any?

Yeah. Heck, I thought about it for sure. A little Jimmy Wu, get him a tiny little FBI badge. Oh, oh, you mean the chips? Yeah, sure. It's just hysterical. But yes, on the Darcy front. From the second, I love her.

She's like, you know, I love, I just love her from the minute we meet her, obviously. And as you know, Mewew, Mewew, Mew, Mew. House space, as you know, is one of my favorite moments in Dark Worlds. It just kills me. So her's kind of the sass. right back there with that energy when she's coming in with all the other scientists and like trying to puzzle out their specialties and then gets the guy like won't answer. Oh, no one cares.

Right away, she's like, is there somewhere a lady can get a cup of coffee? You guys look like you might get down with those little pod things. Terrible for the environment. It's just so good. And of course, she's the one who puts together, like figures out, okay, the waves and the lines and there's something else here. and I need a TV, not one that's flat, and it finds the broadcast. And also just on the she recast p.

HO front, the fact that she's such a great avatar for us at home, like trying to figure out what is happening and kind of like feeling that we're giving ourselves over to it, even as our minds are racing. It's just the best. She's great. She's the best. So the next, I will just say this. So in the next category is favorite episode, that's where I picked episode one.

The fact that episode one ends and, like, somebody's watching. And you're like, it's. Darcy? Like, that's just, that's just wild great stuff. Yeah, I already mentioned why episode one's my favorite. I don't know. I just think what an exquisite bonkers way to start a TV series, just to like, we're just going to do an episode of the Dick Van Dyke show. And I just, something I think is underrated inside of this TV show is how good Elizabeth Olson and Paul Bettney are at the various modes of sitcom acts. and they're just like genuinely like so funny, so charming and so capture the like the

delivery especially for one in like the first couple episodes is sort of like musical way she has of like reading all of her lines. I just, I think they're extraordinary. So I got to give it to episode one. What's your what's your pick? I love it. I had an incredibly hard time with this category, which obviously is a testament to the show. I think there are a number of eligible episodes. Episode three is not my pick, to be clear, but just wanted to shout out because we haven't hit it yet. The end of episode three, you know, that Ultron moment with Monica, Geraldine, and Wanda, and then casting Geraldine out of the hex and when the trucks and the choppers and the lights

and the modern tech bade the scene and daydream believer kicks in, I just remember so vividly watching and being like, this is amazing. This show is amazing. So the ending of that one, and as you noted, the beginning of episode four with Monica returning, those are just really memorable sequences. And I do think episode four overall is like really good, actually, but it doesn't feel right to pick an episode that like isn't a

primarily Lwanda edition episode. So I have three contenders. Episode five, episode seven, and episode eight. all of which are bangers, just bangers. Episode 5 on a very special episode, we've already talked about the appearance of F and Peters at the end of that episode, but that's also just the twins, right?

They're here, they're aging up. Sparky, you already mentioned. On the Sparky front, I just really am always awed by the scene when the boys are grieving Sparky and they ask Wanda to bring him back. and she is able to give them wisdom and counsel that she cannot heed herself. Don't age yourselves up.

The urge to run from this feeling is powerful. I know. It's too sad. You can fix anything, mom, fix the dead. What? No, you can do that. I'm trying to tell you that because there are rules in life, we can't rush aging just because it's convenient and we can't reverse death no matter how sad it makes us okay.

Some things are forever. And then there's the bring him back, bring who back. and the kids are talking about sparky, but then vision walks up. That scene is just amazing. And I love that it shows us that Wanda understands that and has that clarity, but that is not the same as being able to do it yourself, right? It's just great. This is also the episode, episode five, where Wanda reveals herself to sword,

and that's just a really intense sequence and a really good one. I have what I want, and no one will ever take it from me again. And that's the stretch where vision's suspicion has been mounting, but it really reaches a fever pitch there. So that's a, I just think that's a great episode. Like, I don't know that it stands out quite as clearly in our minds as, you know, previously on or some of the others, but it's really, really strong. Episode seven, we've already talked about a lot, the modern family one, the breaking the fourth wall.

That's when, you know, we get that. Do you think this is maybe what you deserve line? That's the your quiet, Agnes on the inside line. That's the don't want him make you the villain. Maybe I already am, and that's Agatha all along. Like, we've talked about all the things that make that episode great. it's really excellent. That's probably my favorite one. Previously on, we've already talked about a lot, the memory episode. It's just awesome. Like, it's just awesome. There's a way for an episode like that to

really not work. I feel like it is stagnating the forward momentum. Yeah. Halting the forward momentum and almost like, okay, well, we had to all in one place kind of like fill in all these missing spaces and like make sure we had covered our bases. And it just doesn't feel that way at all. It feels not only inside of this show, but something like the, oh, the Mindstone didn't give Wanda her power. You know, the clarity, like the line from Agatha amplified what otherwise would have died on the vine. Obviously something comics fans have been talking about for years at that point. There's a lot of just satisfying connective tissue there. So that's a great one.

Yeah, five, seven, and eight are like basically neck and neck. I think I'll pick seven, but it is close. It's close. Guess what? It's a great show. Really is Funniest moment What do you have?

I have a I have a duo here But they're connected I'll explain why Though it'll probably be clear Carlos, you've already talked about one of them Carlos, can we see this? What happened to your accent?

What happened to yours? Details are fuzzy, man I got shot like a chump in the street For no reason at all And the next thing I know Oh, I heard you calling me. I knew you needed me. Where are my children?

Where are my children? Oof. That accent really comes and goes, doesn't it? So good. I'm so sorry that I stepped on that earlier. No, no. No, it deserves to be celebrated as often as possible. I am calling this the double Ultron.

Yeah. I... The gratitude I felt in both of these moments. Now, to be fair, during Agatha, we've talked elsewhere about, like, actually Wanda moving in and out of her Sukovian accent. There's, like, a really kind of heartfelt way to look at that. But I really got a kick out of the joke from Agatha there,

calling back to the Secovian accents. The Fiatro clip there also, obviously, connects to the accent stuff. But I got shot like a chump in the shod. street for no reason at all is to me one of the most important moments in the history of the MCU because as I have talked about for hours on fucking end on ringer podcasts, Pietro in Age of Ultron is one of the most baffling renderings of a character to me. And I say that as, as you know, one of the leading Aaron Taylor Johnson enthusiasts. There is no way that

that should have happened. Should Aaron, should Aaron Taylor Johnson, did you just say Aaron Rogers? Did you say Aaron Taylor Johnson? Aaron Taylor Johnson? Why did I hear you say Aaron Rogers in my head for some reason? I knew who you were talking about, obviously. Will Aaron Taylor Johnson get one more crack at playing a superhero? And will it be good? Are you implying that Craven wasn't good?

Yeah, Craven's a perfect movie. I don't accept it. What could have been better? Nothing. I would just say... That's my double. I would just say everything that Ralph does as Pietro is really funny to me. So the Halloween episode I actually really, really like. And then drunk vision from episode two, drunk because there's chewing gum in the works, I think is really fun.

So, yeah. I love that. I don't know why this stands out to me so much, too, but my runner-up is on the stork front, shout out Mephisto. So not specifically that entire sequence. So that is obviously all, like, amusing. It is when the stork comes back around and his beak reaches to just grab the fish on Cheryl Dean's pants. Yeah. It is hysterical.

It's very good. It's hysterical. Oh, man. All right. To wrap up, we have most emotional moments. I'm going to go first with something you started to talk about. about, but then you saw maybe a look on my face and you stopped talking about it. So let's watch it. Just devastating. Just absolutely devastating. Guess what? Elizabeth Olson is a great actress.

She's very, very good. She rules. That's absolutely when she kind of does but doesn't break into sword. She's like allowed to go back. But then she just does it kind of dramatically. So it looks bad on footage. But, you know, and then she's like, Tyler being a piece of shit and being like, He doesn't belong to you. He belongs to the government and all this or stuff like that. Anyway, yeah, just her psychic abilities, but not, but there's nothing, there's no there inside of the pieces of the body of the person that she loved more than anything else. It's devastating.

Really bad. Yeah, that is just so heart-wrenching. I agree. The performance there is really beautiful. And, of course, like the connection and, you know, to the call back to those moments. moments in infinity where, you know, the I just feel you from the version that we got from both of them, the Edinburgh stretch, the Wanda kind of, I just feel you, you know, the kind of calming nature. And then the grace and the forgiveness and the permission from vision in that fateful

moment, you know, I just feel you. And so to call to call back to that too, kind of adds that extra real wallop to the gut. If I had the opportunity to ask, Paul Bettney anything. I think I would ask him which of his vision deaths was his favorite because he's had so many. Who's died the most in the MCU? Is it Loki? Is it Vision? Who's done it the most number of times? I'm just going to put that out there. I don't know the answer, but it might be Vision. Oh, trying to think back to like all of the different things we saw in like Stephen Poo and Wolverine. Stephen Strange died. I don't know. Anyway. What's your answer? Well, I know what your answer is here. Give it to me. I have a clip as well. Let's let's see it, Carlos.

But before I go, I feel I must know. What am I? You vision. are the piece of the mindstone that lives in me. You are a body of wires and blood and bone and my hope. You are my sadness and my hope, but mostly you're my love. It's so heart-wrenching and beautiful. I'm going to start saying that to you whenever I can. That scene is gorgeous.

You already say that to me. People might not know that at home, but you just text it to me on the regular. It's true, but now they know. Now it's canon. The cat's out of the next. that's one of the like, you know, finale, not my favorite, but that scene is just gorgeous. The battle's over. Vision has said, I know you'll say everything right, just not for us.

And Wanda has said, no, not for us. And we have this clarity and we're building toward it and they say goodbye, tuck the boys in for bed. She saved the Shire, but not for them. Exactly. Exactly. Boys, thanks for choosing me to be your mom. Her wrenching.

And then we go down to the living room, and Wanda is turning off the lights. And then Vision turns one back on, and he says, just wanted to see you clearly. And she says, end, like with, you know, because what does it look like to see?

What does it mean to see Wanda clearly, right? And there you are. And then we get that exchange that we just saw. And I loved how it called back to, a version of that conversation that was so heated that was an argument in episode five before one, I can't remember my life before Westview, I don't know who I am, I'm scared.

And Wanda said, you are my husband, you are Tommy and Billy's father, isn't that enough? And he was, it's not that being in their family wasn't enough, it's that he didn't have a sense of the truth, right? And so to be able to call back to that period of withholding. and have this just be about a complete sense of truth and understanding and shared embrace. It was so, so, so sad. And then we build toward, this is really, you know, heading into the new show,

obviously even more wonderful to revisit. I've been a voice with no body, a body but not human, and now a memory made real. Who knows what I might be next? we've said goodbye before, so it stands to reason. We'll say hello again. I mean, that's maybe the answer to your question earlier about like... It is.

I don't know. That's a promise, isn't it? It's a promise. Re-watching that scene, I was like, they don't have to. Let's hold it loosely. Let's hold it loosely. Nothing is promised. Lizzie Olson might be like, I don't want to do it.

But I'd really like it if we got a scene with... If she shows up for the finale, that would be great. Agreed. That is our tour back through Wanda Vision. I had a great time. We were going to watch it anyway to prepare for Vision Quest, but now we got to celebrate it together. I'm really, really, really, really, really hope it's good,

excited for Vision Quest. So we will be starting our coverage of that show. They're doing a funky little like two episode here and there drop, you know, like the first two weeks. Yeah, 2-2-1. 1-1. Interesting. Five weeks.

Intriguing. To spend with Vision. quest, but we were really excited for that show. So we will start our coverage of that next week. Hopison Dragons at gmail.com. Thank you to our hex, our, the residence of our bubble. It's Carlos Chirboga. It's Jacob Cornett.

It's Jomea Dineron. It's Arjuna-Ronga Powell. It's you, Mallory Rubin. It's me, Joanna Robinson. I don't know. I haven't seen Scott Lee today, but perhaps Scott Lee will be working on this episode. Thank you to all of them. And we will see you back inside Vision.

mind palace next week. Bye.