We have just three episodes of Marvel’s WandaVision left and there are still so many questions to be answered. This week’s episode, “Breaking the Fourth Wall,” provides some of those answers but also leaves things open-ended for some more wild witchcraft in the final two episodes. Things are starting to reach their boiling point as we get closer and closer to the end.
Spoilers ahead!
The episode opens with Wanda in bed, seemingly recovering from the events of last week’s episode and last night’s Halloween fiasco. The episode uses the talking heads trope from popular TV series like Parks and Recreation, Modern Family and The Office, telling us we’re now in the 2010s. Wanda explains to the camera that she expanded the borders of the Hex before we return to a shot of her pulling the covers over her head in bed.
Billy and Tommy rush in, back to wearing their signature colors, mirroring their comic book costumes. They tell Wanda their game is “freaking out” and we see a cut away of the video game controllers changing in their hands again and again until they’re eventually holding “Uno” cards instead.
Wanda brushes the boys off, with the covers will over her head. Interestingly, a hexagonal pattern can be seen on the covers. Billy informs her that his head feels weird and describes it at “really noisy.” This is likely in reference to his newfound powers as he could be hearing the voices of all the citizens in Westview. Another interesting development on that comes up later.
Wanda again brushes the boys off and tells the camera that she’s taking a “quarantine-style staycation.” She interestingly says it is a punishment for her “reckless evening.” It’s clear she just wants some time to herself but on some level she seems to be aware that she is losing control. She removes the covers to reveal that she is still in her classic Scarlet Witch costume from Halloween.
She comes downstairs to see the boys fighting and simply ignores them and turns toward the kitchen, which the boys find odd. Wanda goes to the fridge and grabs almond milk before heading to a cabinet to cet general. As she turns around though, the milk changes to an old carton befitting an older time period. It’s worth noting that there is a missing child on the carton, though we can’t see any information about them. After she pours her milk, the carton changes into an even older glass bottle.
Also worth noting in this scene is the radio in the background. It’s almost completely inaudible unless using headphones, but the closed captioning picks it up. The radio host refers to the station as “W.N.D.A.” and says “Not a thing weighing heavily on your conscience.” This seems like he is speaking directly to Wanda but he does go on to talk about Halloween and tips on not eating all of the leftover candy.
We then get this episode’s theme song, which is cleary very similar to that of The Office. Notably, the introduction features Wanda’s name written in a variety of ways but we don’t see “Vision” come in until the final shot. There are also a couple of other interesting things to catch during this intro. One shot features letter clippings that spell out “I know what u are doing Wanda” and the final shot has “WandaVision” written on top of a calendar. ON the calendar, we can see a heart drawn around the date Friday the 10th. This is of course in reference to the show’s first episode, but the date has been changed. The heart was previously on the 23rd.
Outside the Hex, we see Hayward and S.W.O.R.D. setting up a new temporary retreat. Hayward seems as determined as ever to take out Wanda and put a stop to this. And agent informs him that the signal from the broadcast is gone and he tell her they’re making their move today.
Back inside, Vision wakes up to find a carnival made up of the former S.W.O.R.D. agents. He’s mistaken for a clown and told he has a rehearsal with the escape artist, the new role in which Darcy finds herself. She gets her own talking head in which she explains that this wasn’t the role she wanted – within the carnival, not the sitcom. Vision approaches her, remembering that Darcy appeared to be a friend while he was trying to escape the Hex. Darcy being under the mind control of the Hex, mistakes this for Vision hitting on her and turns him down.
Wanda asks the boys if they’ve seen Vision and they tell her they haven’t. Billy asks if she wants to go look for him and she tells him “if he doesn’t want to be here, there’s nothing I can do about it.” This is a stark contrast from the attitude we’ve seen from Wanda in previous episodes. She appears to be loosening her grip a little bit and not trying so hard to control everything. Billy brings up Pietro and Wanda tells the boys “he is not your uncle.” When they ask who we is, Wanda cracks and tells them she has no answers and that she is starting to “believe that everything is meaningless.” As she points out in her subsequent talking head, things are starting to get dark and it looks like Wanda is losing it.
Agnes knocks on the door and Wanda uses her powers to open the door. The nosey neighbor offers to watch the boys to give Wanda some “me time.” Agnes does get a couple of talking heads of her own, mostly just to throw in some jokes, but she does explain that she got their in the nick of time because she can see that Wanda is cracking.
As Wanda sits down to relax, she notices things around her home starting to change to fit with decades of previous episodes. She quickly uses her powers to fix everything and, in another talking head, she says she’s fine over and over, clearly indicating that she is, in fact, not fine.
Outside the Hex, Monica and Woo drive to meet with Monica’s aforementioned aerospace engineer. Woo tells monica about the email he got from Darcy about Project CATARACT, and explains that Hayward planned to bring Vision back online to be a sentient weapon.
They approach a small camp of soldiers just outside the Hex and Monica greets Major Goodner. This is seemingly the aerospace engineer Monica had been referring to in previous episodes, though she is not, on the surface at least, the major Marvel character fans were hoping for. Still, there seems to be more to this character than meets the eye. When Monica thanks Goodner for her loyalty to her mother, Goodner tells her “she’s not the only one we’re loyal to,” and Monica puts on an indifferent face. Perhaps Major Goodner is the young Skrull Monica met back in the 90s during the events of Captain Marvel.
Back at the carnival, Vision continues to pursue Darcy. He eventually frees her from the mind control and she jokes that she wanted a guest spot on the show but she didn’t like that. The pair escapes the carnival in a funnel cake truck while Vision tries to get more information from Darcy, though she doesn’t have the information he’s looking for.
Back at home, Wanda sees her house changing more and more. She even sees the stork from episode three and appears to be truly out of control. In a talking head, she says she can’t fix it and a voice from behind the camera asks her if she thinks this is what she deserves. Wanda questions the cameraperson and tells them they’re not supposed to talk.
The episode is interrupted by an ad for Nexus, an antidepressant. In Marvel Comics, the nexus is a point in which all realities converge, creating a cross-dimensional gateway. The ad talks about being able to “anchor you back to your reality, or the reality of your choice.” It also warns that “you should not take Nexus unless your doctor has cleared you to move on with your life.” This of course seems to be referencing the grief Wanda has been dealing with by running to her own new reality.
At Agnes’ home, Billy tells his neighbor that he likes it here. He tells Agens it’s quiet and that she’s quiet. Remember, at the beginning of this episode, Billy told Wanda it was “really noisy” in his head. Now that he’s not at home with Wanda, things are quiet. It seems that noise was actually coming from his mother. Perhaps he was inadvertently reading her mind and hearing the voices of all of the citizens of Westview.
Back at the camp, Monica prepares to board the new vehicle Goodner brought her and break back into the Hex. Goodner assures Woo that this vehicle is made from their “most heavily-armored space rover” and Monica will sail through unharmed. Again, this points to Goodner being tied to Skrulls, or at least some sort of space travel.
The vehicle is unsuccessful however, and the Hex rewrites the front half of the vehicle into a pickup truck. Monica gets out safely but decides, against Woo’s pleads, to rush into the Hex herself. As she pushed through the barrier, we hear voices playing out scenes from Captain Marvel, including that of her mother, Maria, as well as Nick Fury. We also hear the doctor informing Monica that her mother is dead, Woo saying she was an inspiration and Carol Danvers calling the young version of Monica tough. In that moment, Monica’s eyes begin to glow blue and she pushes through into the Hex. We see her point of view, with distorted vision that appears to be showing her energy. It appears we’ve seen Monica’s final transition into the superpowered individual that she is in the comics. Now we just have to wait for her to realize her abilities.
Darcy and Vision continue toward Vision’s home while Darcy tells him about the events of Avengers: Infinity War. Vision notices that they have had a lot of obstacles on their way home and, in his own talking head, he explains that Wanda is likely creating these obstacle to stop him from getting home. Darcy tells Vision she can’t explains why he is alive again but she does tell him she’s been watching WandaVision for the past week and the love Wanda and Vision have is real. That seems to get through to Vision, but it’s still clear that he wants some real answers.
Monica bursts into Wanda’s home and tries to tell her what is going on. Once she brings up S.W.O.R.D. and Hayward however, Wanda uses her powers to kick her out of the house amd lift her high about her lawn. Neighbors look on as this is the first time Wanda is publicly using her powers, aside from a few quick moments here and there. Notably, we see Dottie and the mailman watching the events, two character we’ve speculated might have bigger roles. Wanda blames Monica for Pietro and Monica objects, tell her “that wasn’t us.”
Wanda brings Monica crashing to the ground, but instead of crumpling in a heap, Monica does a perfect “superhero landing” and her eyes once again glow blue. This visibly surprises Wanda, who is now realizing she’s dealing with an enhanced individual. Monica pleads with Wanda to not let Hayward make her the villain, to which she says, “maybe I already am,” poking at early theories that there may not actually be a villain in this series aside from Wanda. As Monica continues to try to convince Wanda to stop the Hex, Agnes interrupts and takes her to her house.
Vision and Darcy continue to struggle on their way home and Vision explains that he had no idea what Wanda has been through. He points out the fact that all of these events she endured were all within a matter of weeks to her, referencing the fact that Wanda disappeared in the blip and that this series is taking place just weeks after Avengers: Endgame. He eventually realizes he needs to be home and simply flies away, leaving Darcy in the truck.
At Agnes’ house, Wanda asks where the twins are. Agnes tells her they’re probably playing in the basement. When she goes to investigate, she notices things are not quite right about this basement. She finds vines and roots growing on the walls and heads into a dark room with columns and strange markings on the walls. She sees a glowing book on a stand and hears Agnes enter the room with a very different tone. Agnes reveals that she has magical abilities and that her name is actually Agatha Harkness! She mind controls Wanda to show her an episode intro and theme song for a show seemingly called “Agatha All Along.” The intro reveals that Agatha was responsible for Pietro, Herb acting strangely, the voice behind the camera and several other moments in the show. She even reveals that she killed Sparky.
Harkness is an important character in Wanda’s comic story, serving as a mentor of sorts. She is also one character we have been speculating would show up in this series for some time. Agatha babysits the twins and usually has Wanda’s best interests in mind throughout the comics, but it appears that is not the case here. She is seemingly the mystery villain of this series, but I still wouldn’t be shocked if there’s more to the story. Her motivations are still a bit of a mystery.
While the episode comes to a close after Agatha’s song, we do actually get a mid credits scene. Monica investigates Agatha’s home, opening a cellar door before being startled by Pietro, who says “snoopers gonna snoop.” So, while Agatha’s song made it seem as though Pietro was never actually there, it seems some semblance of the character just might be.
This was a huge episode of WandaVision packed with new information. While last week’s episode seems to simply stretch out old questions without providing any answers, this one delivered far more answers than I was expecting. We met the mysterious aerospace engineer, found out Hayward is in fact planning to use Vision as a weapon and got the reveal of Agatha Harkness. Things are really heating up now with just two episodes remaining.
You can watch WandaVision on Disney+ now.