TV Review – Wandavision Episode 5

Wandavision Episode 5 (Disney+)
Written by Peter Cameron and Mackenzie Dohr
Directed by Matt Shakman

Wandavision did something I didn’t see coming. But we will get to that in a moment. We’re now past the mini-series’ halfway point, and I think the overall premise is straightforward. As I’ve said for a while now, Wanda is the main problem here, possibly with some outside manipulation. We see some security footage of Vision’s body being reclaimed by her, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this was spurred on by promises from some supernatural being we haven’t met yet. But that wasn’t the biggest surprise of the episode.

The sitcom side of the story is finally crumbling as Vision is fully aware this world is not right and that Wanda is at the center of it all. He confronts her, and Wanda is very avoidant and even threatening in her remarks. She clearly doesn’t want to return to the outside world and prefers her simulation. The truth is leaking through though, even this episode’s commercial break referenced Lagos, where Wanda killed Wakandan diplomats when trying to get Crossbones out of the way in Civil War. Wanda and Vision’s children Tommy & Billy, are fully aware they exist in a simulation, and we watch them will themselves to age up. 

At one point, Billy & Tommy are about to bring their dead dog back when Wanda stops them. There’s an emphasis that you cannot bring the dead back, and paired with episode 3’s moment, Wanda sees Vision as his black & grey dead self makes me think even he isn’t really back. In episode 4, the SWORD agents mention the energy coming out of Westview is the same that would have been present during the Big Bang. This means an act of creation is occurring inside that energy dome. It’s also widely known that Wanda will be a part of Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, while rumors about Spider-Man 3 are Tom Holland will be meeting the Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield versions of Spider-Man. It’s even confirmed that Alfred Molina will be back as Doctor Octopus in that film.

And then the ending of this episode, the return of Pietro Maximoff. I had a feeling they would bring him back after his mention in episode 3, but I expected Aaron Taylor-Johnson to reprise the role. I was delightfully surprised that we were given Evan Peters from the X-Men universe. This character bears the codename Quicksilver, something Pietro in the MCU never did. Add that one of the SWORD characters in this episode makes a brief mention that Wanda has never had a codename. By the end of Wandavision, she will be Scarlet Witch, with my guess being that the witch part comes from whatever deal she made to create this false reality.

Additionally, Quicksilver’s father is clearly Magneto, as hinted at through the post-First Class X-Men films. That would mean Wanda’s father will now be Magneto, which leads to mutants in the MCU. Wanda’s actions are going to crack open the walls of the Multiverse. We’ve already seen it happen before in another movie. in Spider-Man: Far From Home, we are teased with the Multiverse as part of Mysterio’s false backstory, but in the final scene of the movie, we’re shown the Multiverse is leaking. J. Jonah Jameson, played by J.K. Simmons, shows up, which is just the first of many to come. With Evan Peters returning as Quicksilver, it begs the question who else will be brought over the X-Men universe and who will be replaced? I think Michael Fassbender is a fantastic Magneto, but everyone else in that cast I’d be okay with replacing. Will cast members from the failed Fantastic Four reboot show up, or will we have new actors?

I think Wandavision will be the spark of the next wave of Marvel films, which will be all about partially rebooting the universe to make way for mutants and the cosmic corners of the universe the Fantastic Four like to explore. Mainstream audiences are going to be introduced to the idea of retconning, which should be interesting. As someone who has read comics since I was seven years old and love seeing timelines and realities rebooted and alternate realities explored, this is pretty easy to understand. It also sounds like Warner Bros. is embracing this fluid reality concept for the DC superhero films. It will be interesting to see if the movies’ fans accept this tweaking or get confused trying to figure out what changed and what is the same.