WandaVision Episode 5: was Evan Peters the real Pietro?

When WandaVision Episode 5 was released on February 5, 2021, my verdict was simple: this was great television. I didn't believe the Pietro who turned up at Wanda's door was the real thing. The episode, for me, wasn't a transition but a turning point.

WandaVision (2021) is the Disney+ series starring Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany and Kathryn Hahn. Some people were angry that I felt the new Pietro wasn't really him. I could understand it. Just like Wanda, you want it to be Pietro, and I could see how you would think it was.

Why I didn't think Evan Peters was the real Pietro

The theme running through the episode was control. Wanda couldn't make the twins go to sleep. She couldn't control Vision. And I believed she couldn't control this new Pietro either.

Wanda claims she likes both twins equally, but I didn't buy it. Tommy takes after her brother, so she probably gravitates toward him because she misses Pietro so much. I thought whoever Evan Peters was playing was using that against her, which is cruel.

WandaVision Episode 5 was a turning point, not a transition

The first time through, I felt the episode was too short, more of a transition. After two viewings I saw such a wealth of information that I'd call it a turning point. This is a show that benefits from repeat viewing.

The opening shot of the new house mattered. Vision says later in the episode that Wanda changes it every night, and he's becoming aware of that. The set was the Family Ties home I had flagged from the trailers. I was terrified I'd have to sit through an entire sitcom episode, and thankfully it ended up a mix.

Wanda's failure to get the twins to sleep established that she has no control over them in this world. They didn't have their powers yet, even as they aged up. Getting powers at puberty is very X-Men, and as an X-Men fan I enjoyed those vibes. I also liked the gag of the pacifiers in Vision's ears, since their "primary directive is not noise canceling". It was such a Vision thing to say.

Agnes, the twins and the question of who is in control

When Agnes showed up on her way to Jazzercise, Vision quickly changed his appearance. He was still maintaining the charade that they're a normal couple. When he discouraged her from holding the babies, she broke from the sitcom and asked Wanda whether she wanted her to hold them.

The question was whether Agnes was scared, feeling Wanda was in control and that she'd be kicked out like Monica. Or was she threatening to break Wanda's fantasy? I thought we'd see it clearly once we had all the answers, but the duality was impressive from the writing, directing and acting.

Vision pulled Wanda aside to ask what that was, and she pretended not to know. I thought that would only make him want to scratch that itch more. Agnes then sprayed lavender on the twins. I couldn't find any specific meaning for lavender in witchcraft. But Ralph sprays it on her every night, so I wondered whether it stood in for them all being under Ralph's control.

The kids aged up while Agnes fetched dark liquor. With all due respect to those cute children, I didn't think they were very good actors. Still, the show was working hard to give Tommy a rambunctious personality, taking after his dead uncle. Tommy never really got a personality in the comics, so I was glad to see them doing a better job already.

Agnes wasn't fazed and said something important: "kids, you can't control them no matter how hard you try." This might reference her comic book son, Nicholas Scratch, and her rabbit, Señor Scratchy. Given set photos of filming Agnes's past, I expected they'd probably cover it. Maybe she made a deal with Mephisto to save her son. And she did find the liquor, which was for her after all.

The Family Ties opening credits

The credits copied Family Ties, right down to the paintbrush filling in a pencil drawing. I thought they went on too long. My favorite part was Vision as a child, even though he never had that childhood. The toddler in the little suit was excellent.

You see them as a family around Westview, though as Vision later points out they seem to be the only family in town. I found that good and creepy. My favorite shot was the twins celebrating five birthdays in one. The final framed picture was both cute and creepy.

Monica Rambeau and Tyler Hayward's briefing at S.W.O.R.D.

Monica's test readings weren't showing up. Since Wanda can rewrite reality, I suspected this might be a very subtle origin story for her powers. Or maybe her consciousness was still in there. I loved the new trio of Monica, Jimmy Woo and Darcy.

I also wondered about time. It's daytime inside the Hex but night outside. We knew days were passing outside, but what was the difference in rate?

Tyler Hayward is only the acting director of S.W.O.R.D., so Monica could still get the job. There was a fan theory that he's the devil. I didn't think that was true at all. I did feel he was nefarious, because he clearly stole Vision's body, but his evil was good old-fashioned government evil. There was an increased military presence, and I thought he'd done it because he felt Wanda was a threat. He says she's gone from "one of the victims to principal victimizer".

Jimmy's backstory never showed Aaron Taylor-Johnson, though Darcy later acknowledges the recasting. Maybe they didn't want to pay him; I believed he'd get royalties for appearing even a second. Hayward reminded everyone Wanda started as a villain. I thought he had a point: he may not be the devil, but he was playing devil's advocate. Wanda is a gray zone character.

Her stats listed her at five foot six, my height. Her powers included mental manipulation and neuroelectric interfacing. They were turning her into Jean Grey. She had barely used mental manipulation since Age of Ultron, and here she turned it up to 11. The Lagos reference, given the later commercial, was subtle. Monica argued Wanda has no political agenda and put up a quarantine to stop this spreading. I still saw where Hayward was coming from.

Wanda stealing Vision's body

Hayward's declassified footage of Wanda breaking in and stealing Vision's body discredited the unused Avengers: Endgame end credit scene. Paul Bettany had said his biggest regret about losing that scene was missing profit participation on the highest grossing movie of all time. I found that hilarious.

The body had been pulled apart. Maybe she put him back together, or maybe he was lying in the field. Wanda later emerges in her Avengers costume, which raised the question of why she'd change clothes, given she didn't change Monica's when she threw her out.

Jimmy noted that using Vision went against his living will. I thought Hayward had taken Vision for nefarious purposes, since S.W.O.R.D. was building artificial intelligence tech. That was likely why Wanda went to get him, but we didn't know. It happened nine days earlier, when Monica was already back, so why wasn't she told? Hayward was covering for himself.

Sparky and Tom King's Vision comic

A tiger sat on the table, after giraffes before. I still felt this might be a reference to Wakanda, where Vision died. Naming the dog Sparky confirmed the influence of Tom King's Vision comic, where Sparky was a robot dog. Wanda's line about the responsibility of caring for a living thing carried double meaning about the twins.

Agnes showed up with a doghouse, wearing her brooch again, and Wanda made a collar in front of her. Wanda told Vision she was tired of hiding. In her fantasy, you wouldn't have to. The twins then aged themselves up again. I thought the actor playing Tommy was better and pops on screen. He also got more favorable framing, maybe foreshadowing his uncle.

The Hex, the twins' origin and the Mephisto theory

Darcy calls it the Hex for its hexagon shape. In the comics, Wanda's powers have always been her hex powers. Hayward said she has no code name, but she's the Scarlet Witch, and I hoped she'd get it by season's end.

When Monica reached out to an engineer contact, my theories were the Pyms, Victor von Doom or Reed Richards. Kevin Feige said Fantastic Four was in the works, and I'd heard Reed Richards would most likely show up in a Disney+ show first.

Monica believed the twins were real. In the comics they're shards of Mephisto's soul. If Wanda inadvertently made a deal with him, he'd have leverage to take them back. Jimmy said she'd never been that powerful, which begged the question of who was juicing her up. When Jimmy mentioned Captain Marvel, Monica changed the subject fast. I wondered if there had been a betrayal. And nobody discussed why there was no ID for Agnes.

Monica fired Jimmy's gun at her old clothes, now 87 percent bulletproof, though she only wore a vest. Maybe Wanda was protecting her.

Vision's email and Norm's warning

At Vision's office, a coworker asks if the computer can find him a wife, and Vision says someday soon. Then an email from S.W.O.R.D. arrived. I bet Vision would reply at some point, maybe internally, since he's a living computer.

Everyone reading at once was creepy and very 80s, reminding me of Spielberg films like Close Encounters and E.T. Norm's line, "it's a joke can't you tell none of this is real," was so well written. I didn't think Wanda was totally in control, like Magneto in the gray zone.

Freed, Norm begs to call his sister because his father is sick. That raised the stakes. His plea for Vision to stop her set up Vision versus Wanda, which I thought would get worse. Paul Bettany's subtle face acting was amazing.

Wanda walks out of the Hex

When the twins questioned Wanda about it being Saturday, she admitted she sent Vision to work. That was an instance where she controlled him. She said her brother was "far away from here". Then the 1980s drone appeared. The drone camera shot of Wanda looking powerful and dangerous was a favorite.

The trailers showed someone emerging from the force field, and I loved the misdirect that it was Wanda. She dragged the drone and asked, "is this yours?" The laser sights on her chest were so Magneto. She wasn't scared, as if they were beneath her.

Monica reminded Wanda that she had let her into her home and let her help deliver her children, which raised the question of whether Wanda was operating on two levels. Elizabeth Olsen's acting was as good as Angelina Jolie's Maleficent. Turning the guns on Hayward was so Jean Grey and Professor X. She didn't make them pull the trigger. Her line, "I have everything I could ever want and no one's ever gonna take that away from me again," showed her pain.

Sparky's death and "fix dead"

A commercial's red spill read to me like the blood on Wanda's hands from Lagos. Then Sparky died. I found it suspicious and wondered if Agnes killed him. Wanda couldn't bring him back, so she needed help to raise the dead. Maybe Mephisto, or whoever Evan Peters was playing, got her the Mind Stone back.

Tommy's "fix dead" was great and disturbing. Agnes asking if Wanda can do that made me wonder whether Mephisto brought Agnes back.

Vision and Wanda's fight before Pietro's arrival

Vision said, "it's not often that you get a dog and bury it all in the same day." Wanda insisted she didn't know how this happened. Vision chose to believe it started subconsciously, and I thought he was probably right. Whoever controlled her was dividing them.

His "who's the popsicle" suggested he was like Agnes. I thought Wanda knew it wasn't him, and I didn't believe it was him.