Looking Back at the WandaVision Finale, Its Misdirects and the Ralph Bohner Twist

I thought Marvel Phase Four was going to be different, and I enjoyed the season finale of WandaVision, which arrived on March 5, 2021. I could also see a fight brewing, on the level of Wanda versus Agatha, between Wanda fans who got everything they wanted and MCU fans who did not.

Wanda fans were very defensive about it. Their argument was that the show was fabulous and that MCU fans were to blame for coming up with all those crazy theories. My view was that it was everybody's fault.

Marvel shared the blame for how far WandaVision fan theories went

Yes, we went wild with theories. We weren't used to the weekly release format; we were used to getting our Marvel content a full serving at a time. But Marvel also trolled us hard, and I don't think it's fair not to point out that Marvel was also culpable for how off the rails we went. The show did kick things off with the multiverse, but with a slower, softer start than we expected. There was a clear multiverse reference on the other page of the Darkhold that I only saw when I went back to the episode, because I was so busy looking at Wanda's fashion. That's a really subtle reference.

There were also lines and things in the show that were clear, intentional misdirects, and a lot of them. Monica's contact Dottie never turned up on the board, even though the actress who played Dottie went around saying her role was very important. There were all the Mephisto references, and there were a lot. The line calling the twins demon spawn was still an open book, as the final end credits sequence showed. White Vision felt like a waste, although that was really just setting up what might happen going forward, since he is literally a lifeline for Vision going into the MCU.

Then the actors trolled us in interviews, promising a cameo, their words not ours, on par with Luke Skywalker in The Mandalorian season two finale. There wasn't one. I don't know why they said that. I guess they meant Paul Bettany acting with himself, but as Vision himself said, we are not amused.

Why I thought the Evan Peters reveal was a rare Kevin Feige mistake

The worst thing of all, and the thing I felt would haunt the show, was what they did with Evan Peters. It's not going to pull the show down, but I thought it would be a shadow cast over it. Why cast the actor who played Fox's Quicksilver as your Quicksilver? Some Wanda fans argued that Evan Peters deserves to keep getting work, and he does, but playing the same character is odd. Then they made him just a random actor with a joke name, Ralph Bohner.

He wasn't multiverse Quicksilver, even though we know they are doing the multiverse and bringing actors from other Marvel franchises into the MCU, so it would have made sense to do the same here. The subtitles in some countries, as many people pointed out, said he was Fox's Quicksilver. Why have that reference in the subtitles if that's not what's going on? He has powers, although Agatha obviously gave him those, which is a bit of a leap. He wasn't Nightmare and he wasn't Mephisto either.

I thought that if he was going to be an actor, he'd at least be Simon Williams, who was an actor and superhero in the Marvel comics with a very strong tie to Wanda and Vision, and who was even teased in the background of a featurette. More trolling. Instead of making Evan Peters a joke, they could have done that. Some were already saying this was as bad a fake out as the Mandarin in Iron Man 3, who also ended up being an actor. I agreed. I think they maybe felt they were being clever and mischievous, but I think it was a mistake, a rare, actual mistake from Kevin Feige, and I think most of us felt it was really bad.

WandaVision gave Wanda the best character development the MCU has seen

We still got some wonderful things out of this show, all relating to Wanda, and to be fair it was supposed to be all about Wanda and Vision, although they kind of pushed us in the other direction. We got her romance with Vision and her twins, who I expected to be very important going forward with the Young Avengers coming. The whole family was clearly coming back. Wanda got an amazing new costume, and there was a wonderful new villain in Agatha Harkness. Really, we got two anti heroes in Wanda and Agatha. I couldn't believe they put witches in the MCU, and I thought Agatha was clearly going to come back, because they'd need her help when Wanda goes full villain.

Thanks to the extended TV format, we got the best character development the MCU has ever seen, and that's a really nice bonus. It made Wanda the Scarlet Witch, and it made her, as a character, the most powerful for sure. I'd say she became the most popular female character in the MCU, and it's what Wanda deserves.

Agatha and White Vision bring the fight to Wanda in the finale opening

The episode was more surface level, so I didn't go through it in the same depth as usual. It opens with Agatha rising up off the ground like a plank, which I thought was very funny and witch like. Wanda sends the boys to their room, and Agatha, as set up in the previous episode, tries to drain Wanda's powers. Because Wanda is so powerful, Agatha only gets her hand, which looks awful. Then Wanda, in a wonderful bit of product placement for Buick, and who also loves to throw cars, as we remember from Civil War, hits Agatha with one in a nice Wizard of Oz joke. She hit her so hard she knocked her right out of her boots.

White Vision shows up, and I loved villainous Paul Bettany. He so rarely plays the villain and he's really good at it; in some close ups he looks a little Clint Eastwood. He starts trying to squeeze Wanda's head like a grape, and Elizabeth Olsen really sells it. She is a phenomenal actress, and that's the clearest thing to come out of WandaVision. I liked his line, "I was told you were powerful," and the cruel way he delivered it.

Then came the first of two superhero landings. I feel Deadpool should start popping up to point these out, because it has become so funny. When the other Vision arrives, I felt they broke their VFX budget, because some of the effects with the two Visions were super wonky. Vision tells Wanda he knows what she did, and she insists she can fix it. So we had our science villain and our magic villain, and Agatha got her great quips, like your ex and your new boyfriend being at the same party.

S.W.O.R.D. tracked two vibranium objects, and Jimmy Woo escaped

Monica was stuck in Pietro's man cave, kept there by his powers, and to add insult to injury he uses them in a very similar way to Quicksilver in the Fox movies, but it's not him. Back in the Vision on Vision action, S.W.O.R.D. tracks the fight, and they are tracking two vibranium objects. So I guess Wanda really did create not only a chunk of the Mind Stone, which she confirmed as the part that lives in her, but vibranium too, all on her own.

Jimmy Woo gets Hayward monologuing. Monologuing really took down both of our villains this episode, Hayward and Agatha. Jimmy takes a phone, and I don't know where he got a safety pin from, but he uses his amateur magic to break free, saying flourish as he takes off the handcuffs. I thought it was a missed opportunity to contrast his trick magic with Wanda's and Agatha's very real magic. Then he calls his FBI buddies in.

The Darkhold told Wanda she was the Scarlet Witch

Back in town, Agatha reveals the Darkhold, which is from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. It seems they were taking things from that show without actually referencing it or making it canon, and I wondered what would happen with more popular characters like Mockingbird, Quake and Coulson. Agatha tells the story of the Scarlet Witch, with illustrations: the Scarlet Witch on the right and the multiverse on the left. She says Wanda is more powerful than the Sorcerer Supreme, so at least Doctor Strange got a name check, and that her destiny seems to be to destroy or rip apart the world.

Dottie confirms Wanda has been holding her captive. I liked the line where she says her daughter is the same age as Wanda's boys and maybe they could be friends, since Wanda only just let her out of her room. That was evil. Agatha lets everyone go, and they converge on Wanda, saying they'd rather be dead.

Monica freed Ralph Bohner as Wanda pulled back the hex

In the man cave, Monica finds Ralph's electric bill and headshot. He laughs at the name; none of us laughed. Monica easily takes him down, and I don't know what happened to his speed powers. We learned more about her powers: her eyes glow to whatever color she sees on the energy wavelength spectrum. So she wasn't taken over when she looked into Agatha's basement; she could see magic, which I'd have thought wouldn't fit her science based powers, but I guess it does. She sees purple, realizes Agatha controls him through his necklace, rips it off, and he says please don't hurt me. That was the end of Evan Peters in the MCU.

Wanda, upset at being yelled at, lashes out and chokes the neighbors. Agatha asks if she's a villain, so Wanda lets everybody go and starts to pull back the hex in an amazing tracking shot, my favorite in the episode: down Main Street with everyone running, past Wanda, to Agatha on the building with the billboard changing behind her, and the Visions fighting in the background. The second time I saw it, I noticed Vision start to fall apart as the hex goes away. He falters and gets taken out, and Hayward drives in through the opening. Agatha points out that Wanda's family, her children too, can't exist without the spell. That's a big deviation from the comics, or is it, because the end credits scene makes it seem they do have a connection to hell and dark magic.

Hayward opened fire on the twins, and Billy's magic stopped a bullet

Wanda pulls the hex back in and, in a very Incredibles moment, protects her family from Agatha, who uses the chance to suck up more of Wanda's magic. We get a great family shot, then the children take on the S.W.O.R.D. soldiers while mom and dad fight their villains. I liked that the two Visions have different head designs, a little bit of an upgrade, though it makes him seem more machine than man. They fight in a library, which is so Vision. Agatha has a line I liked, "Same story, different century," about pitchforks for gals like them. Wanda saves the S.W.O.R.D. people, and I was impressed she could now teleport, a setup showing she's a fast learner.

I thought Hayward shooting at the kids was very out of character. I don't care how evil he is, he's not going to shoot kids, and he knows they're super powered, so why would he think it would even work? Monica steps in and turns into a being of light, creating what seems like a photon force field, her code name most likely being her mother's, Photon. It slows the bullets, but she misses one, and Billy takes care of that with blue magic, which makes sense to me because he's not the Scarlet Witch. Darcy, a little bit of a waste of Darcy, pins Hayward in and tells him to enjoy prison.

A riddle about a ship gave White Vision his memories

The two Visions debate a quandary about a ship, which I thought was a pretty good metaphor for the two of them, though it took up a lot of time. Vision literally jogs the other's memory, in a moment very much like the famous Sistine Chapel painting. Maybe a little bit of Mind Stone goes into him and rewrites his programming, and his eyes change to look human. Eyes being the window to the soul, it's almost like he gives him a soul. It's too much for White Vision, and he flies off into the MCU's future.

Wanda turned Agatha's own runes against her

In a callback to Age of Ultron, Wanda gives Agatha a nightmare and puts her back in Salem, but the townspeople call Wanda the Scarlet Witch and put her up to be burned at the stake. I loved that her crown appears with her magic. Agatha offers to let her live in her fantasy in exchange for her powers, and Wanda says no deal. In the sky fight, Wanda seems to miss, but she's casting runes. Agatha seems to take all her power, then discovers she has no magic. Wanda explains that she learned that casting the runes means Agatha can't use magic, a very good callback, although, again, don't monologue.

Wanda pulls in the chaos magic and transforms into her new costume, just like the vision the Mind Stone showed her. It's a stunning outfit, with crazy unkempt hair like Agatha's, a more Eastern European and darker look. She traps Agatha in Westview as the nosy neighbor. When Wanda says she's sorry, Agatha says she's not, she's cruel, which I thought was a hint at Wanda's villainous tendencies. Agatha warns that Wanda will need her, and Wanda says then she'll know where to find her.

Wanda's goodbye to Vision was the heart of the WandaVision finale

As the hex shrinks, the sun sets on the family, the whole reason for this episode. They tuck their children in to die, which is crazy, with the callback "family is forever" and "thank you boys for letting me be your mother," an interesting line, since they didn't have a choice. Vision asks what he is, and she says he's the piece of the Mind Stone that lives inside her: "you're my sadness you're my hope but most of all you're my love." He says they've said goodbye before, she finishes that they'll say hello again, and I think they will too. He says so long, darling, and disappears, a stunning, very Disney princess moment, like the reverse of the Beast transforming.

Someone pointed out to me that it was the most crazy grief counseling we've ever seen, and Wanda feels much better now. She leaves in a hoodie, and the town still hates her. Monica tells her they don't know what she gave up and that she'd have done the same thing if she could have seen her mom again. That grief comparison is really strong. Wanda adds a hood and cape, takes one look back, doesn't turn to salt, and flies off.

The end credits pointed Monica to space and Wanda to the Darkhold

In the first scene, set in a movie theater that reminded me how much I missed movie theaters, a Skrull tells Monica a friend of her mother's wants to talk to her up there. I believe it's Nick Fury and his space station from Far From Home, though S.W.O.R.D. has no director now. In the second, which I believe takes place in the mountains of Sokovia, Wanda makes tea while, in another room, in what some said looks like a Doctor Strange style astral projection, she studies the Darkhold. Then her boys call, "mom help." I thought it was a strong setup, but not as aggressive as we had thought, and much more like the MCU has been in the past.

Which part of the WandaVision finale stands out most to you?