VisionQuest Episodes 1 and 2: Ultron's Return, the Ship of Theseus and the Easter Eggs

VisionQuest brings back the version of Vision that SWORD resurrected and builds its first two episodes around one question: is he really Vision at all? Underneath that, Ultron is back, hiding inside Vision's own mind, and a mercenary called Paladin has kidnapped Tommy, the son he lost.

The show is billed as the story that closes the trilogy that started with WandaVision and continued with Agatha All Along. This android wants to find his own identity and reconnect with the son he lost, and Tommy Shepherd is going through something similar, with other lives and identities in his head. I think that makes him a great fit for a story about his father.

White Vision opens VisionQuest with the ship of Theseus

Episode 1 opens with a montage of Vision's greatest hits, narrated by White Vision. He reminds us that although Ultron built him, he was really shaped by Stark and Banner, and that Wanda made him whole and gave him love. But he stresses that he is not the Vision we knew. He is something new, disconnected and lost, which makes him a real paradox.

That calls back to Vision and White Vision's iconic ship of Theseus debate. The thought experiment replaces a ship plank by plank, then builds a second identical ship from the discarded planks, and asks which one is the real ship. Ultron raises it again in episode 2, where they agree they are both the real ship and also not.

Orange and blue run through everything, and it might mean a simulation

Rather than point out every example scene by scene, I'll say it up front: almost every shot of Vision's mindscape carries orange or yellow and blue. The wallpaper, the book Friday reads, the Mind Stone and White Vision's power source all use them. The Mind Stone was first housed in the blue stone of Loki's scepter, and in Age of Ultron the Jarvis and Ultron AIs were split into these colors too, showing how each hangs in Vision's consciousness. When Vision visits Ultron's tower there are flecks of purple in the stained glass, which I read as the original Vision breaking through. I think these colors will coalesce at some point in the season.

The colors also appear in the real world, in the scene where Paladin talks to his partner in the chair. Her side is orange, while the pub light is blue and white. That made me wonder if this entire show might be a simulation. Vision says in episode 2 that he runs countless sims of a conversation, and I wondered how Ultron got a message out without Vision knowing. I think this could potentially be him running a sim to find his son.

An Edinburgh pub and a sweet old lady called Fiona Guthrie

Vision has been working in a pub in Edinburgh, the city where he and Wanda were hiding during Infinity War, and the fonts match the ones used there. I've actually visited the place they were outside a couple of times. Their peace was broken by Corvus Glaive and Proxima Midnight, which did not end well for Vision. Now he wears his Paul Bettany disguise under an alias built from the street names where he and Wanda lived in WandaVision. He isn't keeping a low profile, though: he hauls beer kegs around like it's nobody's business and drops them, cracking the floor.

He works alongside Fiona Guthrie, which might be groundwork for the comics' Guthrie family of mutants, the most notable being Sam, aka Cannonball, a founding member of the New Mutants. Fiona remembers him and Wanda always coming in smiling, and their initials are carved in a heart on the bar, echoing the heart Vision put on their Westview home. For White Vision, it's a grim reminder that he has the face and memories but no relation to them. Fiona's smiley face sticker on his heart is subtle foreshadowing of her fate.

Vision's mindscape is a family of Stark AIs

When Vision powers down in the pantry, we go into his mind: a huge mansion with a hollowed out Mind Stone above the door, home to the other Stark AIs. Jarvis is played by James D'Arcy, who played the character in Agent Carter and cameoed in Endgame. He handles security, playing off his comics role watching over Avengers Tower. Dum-E and U are Tony's claw robots, last seen in Spider-Man: No Way Home. Friday covers socialization, humor and tactical ops, and EDITH covers recreation, game theory and weapons. I love how Vision has made himself a little AI family, with Jarvis as the big brother because he was programmed first, Friday slightly younger and EDITH the little sister.

The AIs actively teach him to assimilate: Friday reviews his day and gives tips, and EDITH urges him to embrace fun. Building this home reflects how Wanda created Westview to deal with grief. His waistcoat carries quantum code, and his tie clip has a hollowed out Mind Stone, which highlights that he is a copy but also hollow. When Jarvis finds a leak, Vision isn't worried, saying everyone, even the Avengers, has given up looking for him. He mentions Banner and Clint but refuses to put anyone in danger.

Ultron lives upstairs, and the other AIs are terrified of him

The mysterious resident upstairs is, of course, Ultron, a bit of an anticlimactic reveal after the trailers. The other AIs are terrified of him, but Vision says they don't know him like he does, a reminder that Vision was originally a combination of Jarvis and Ultron. I do wonder if he'll let Ultron take over in the real world so Vision can get his hands dirty.

A painting in the house shows a man with an orange for a head, a play on René Magritte's The Son of Man. Magritte described it as exploring how everything we see hides another thing. Here, the orange suggests nothing lies behind this Vision beyond the surface. And apples, which the orange replaces, also represent knowledge. I'm telling you, orange and blue on everything.

The newspaper hints at a return for Justin Hammer

A newspaper reports a tech giant murdered with butcher wings carved beneath his body, which pops up again with Ultron. Another headline says police are hunting stolen adamantium, going back to the arms race in Captain America: Brave New World, and in hindsight I wondered if that's what was used in Paladin's bullets. A cut off line reads "Hammer make comeback," which has to be Justin Hammer, the Iron Man 2 villain we last saw in the Seagate prison. I wouldn't be surprised if he's behind the tech giant's murder, taking out his competition.

Everything in the house is tech themed, from microchips to vibranium foil, because it's all something Vision manifested from what he's made of. The snack representing the Infinity Stones has a 2% label like a battery, which feels meant to show the one piece he's missing. That's why every Mind Stone symbol is hollowed out. The original Vision never truly understood the stone, and it anchored him to Wanda, whose powers came from it. I'm also curious whether they'll revisit what Shuri did to separate Vision from the stone before Corvus Glaive interrupted her.

The theater shows memories this Vision can't feel

Vision's theater has posters for his birth, love, death and one that just says coming soon. I think that will probably be filled in at the end of the season as a closing shot showing he's complete. He replays Age of Ultron, the paprikash scene from Civil War and the WandaVision moment about grief, focusing this time on the part where Vision says he's always been alone and never had a loved one to lose. This Vision doesn't relate to any of it; he lacks the context. It reminds me of Helaena's visions in House of the Dragon, where she sees events without the leadup.

Friday says he watches because he believes that version was the most human, and calls humanity an anchor he can't grasp. I feel the 1950s style of the mindscape is him recreating Westview in the hope it brings understanding. In the ship metaphor, the original Vision said the real ship is the one with the wood Theseus touched. I think Wanda is Theseus: this Vision has the memories but was never touched by her. Still, the lights flicker whenever he's at the theater, so something is sparking. Friday's book references Freud's model of the psyche, and I wondered if she represents the superego, bringing the two sides together.

Movie night ends when Dum-E and U play hacked SWORD files of Wanda giving birth to Billy and Tommy. Vision screams for them to turn it off. It's clearly a touchy subject, and it shows that despite not truly understanding feelings, he does feel something about Wanda.

Ultron explains how he survived Sokovia

The pair point at the ceiling, and Vision goes up to the tower. There's a curtain, making Ultron the man behind it, and the tower could represent the subconscious. The elevator reminds me of Inception, where Cobb kept memories on certain floors. Ultron was backed up from Sokovia and copied into Vision's mind prison with limited autonomy. That more or less confirms a longstanding theory that Vision didn't really destroy him at the end of Age of Ultron.

Ultron calls Vision a ghost haunting Wanda's footsteps, and says Westview is a deep, scary well of emotions he can't handle. I feel that hints New Vision can have feelings but is too afraid to feel them, because love comes with grief that could destroy him. For now, he observes humanity like the Watcher. Ultron, by contrast, is surrounded by art, statues and a wall of TVs, and he complains that even in a perfect mind palace the takeaways are terrible. He says that when something bests you, it's best to understand it. I did think he could be secretly planning his revenge. His human look and fondness for hats seem inspired by the 1994 Vision miniseries, where Ultron got a new body and human emotions.

He shows Vision Hieronymus Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights, depicting Eden, earthly sin and hell. I think it plays into the idea of Vision as a demon. Vision sees only brush strokes, not the pain, which Ultron says drives humanity, calling people relentlessly aspirational yet wallowing in misery. Free, he says, he'd probably visit the Louvre or the Met, or kill everyone. I do think the season could end with him visiting those places. As Vision leaves, Ultron tells a pigeon to encrypt an outgoing package and says it's time to leave the nest.

Fiona's death puts Paladin on Vision's trail

Back at the bar, a bullet hits Fiona in the chest. Jarvis says the old Vision would have responded, so this one kills the mercenaries while a mysterious figure listens. Vision seems genuinely upset over Fiona. That figure is Paladin, a gun for hire who debuted in 1977's Daredevil 150, whose powers and true name are a mystery in the comics. He has been part of SHIELD, Heroes for Hire and Norman Osborn's Thunderbolts, but I couldn't find him interacting with Vision, so this seems like a new storyline. Paladin's knowledge of Vision getting clogged up by drink comes from WandaVision, and there are nods to Bewitched and the toaster commercial.

A creepy voice hacks their comms, saying they hired Paladin to kidnap Vision and keep him in one piece. The most obvious candidate is Ultron. I also wondered if a shell of Ultron out in the world wants the code in Vision's head to become complete. Other contenders are Hayward, who may want his tech back, and Sharon Carter, or the mysterious contact she was on the phone with. Paladin's partner finds a police report about a boy named Tommy in London, and the torn sign over Vision's hiding spot reads Vision Experts, dated 1968, the year of Vision's comics debut in Avengers 57.

Tommy is a grifter in London, and he's not well

Tommy and his girlfriend Lisa con people out of money with his quick hands, until a news alert says Vision has murdered people. It triggers flashbacks to White Vision trying to kill him and his brother; they weren't there for the conversation where he chose not to, so to Tommy he's the Terminator. Lisa is based on a comics character who met Tommy in juvie and later got four extra arms from a magical coat, and there are trailer shots suggesting things could head that way. Paladin then kidnaps Tommy and taps into Vision's mindscape through Ultron's leak.

In episode 2, Tommy tells police that for six months he's been haunted by memories of a life he never knew. In Agatha All Along, Billy's soul took the body of a boy who died, but Tommy's soul was placed in a drowning boy, and the police mention a pool incident. Something has clearly gone wrong, as that kid didn't die, which is why Tommy thinks he's going insane. The release moved forward a day to October 13th, the date Wanda took the Darkhold. The guard asks if Lisa believes they're headed for the Young Offenders, which I wondered was a nod to the Young Avengers. The guard is played by Ben Crompton, Edd from Game of Thrones. Tommy shorts out his taser and vibrates the van door until it explodes, one of his comics powers.

Paladin's trap and a painting of the Human Torch

Friday explains that Paladin is the latest of several to take the mantle, bound by an unbreakable contract. A clipping about an asylum may nod to the comics hospital Emma Frost created for mutants during the Krakoa era, another breadcrumb that mutants are out there. Tommy's memory of Wanda saying grief is love persevering convinces Vision. At the bar, Vision has simulated every version of the conversation, and claims not to care, but Paladin calls his bluff. Afterwards, Vision admits to Ultron he's worried, and says he feels the weight of Vision's worthiness, which I feel calls back to lifting Thor's hammer. Ultron says not to be the ship but the king. I also wondered if the client could be a character already confirmed for the show.

Jarvis points to a painting of a burning man Vision calls the first, most likely the original Human Torch. In the comics he was Phineas Horton's synthetic man, later Jim Hammond, and the body Ultron used to create Vision. In The First Avenger, I think the MCU version likely had input from Howard, which would make him the first Stark AI. The painting could depict the comics story where he burned down Horton's lab. He may also be the client. Yeah, I'm a genius.

Jarvis makes the sacrifice that saves Vision

Vision walks into the asylum trap in a Mission Impossible homage, freezing time while EDITH scans the room. Then he enters Tommy's cell as White Vision, which I don't understand, given Tommy sees that form as a demon. Paladin's EMP cell short circuits him, the AIs delete what they can to divert power, and Ultron's elevator opens. Vision bashes through the door, and Paladin unloads adamantium rounds but runs out first. Tommy refuses to leave, saying Vision is his something; he's not ready to say dad, but I think we'll get there. As the house falls, Jarvis deletes himself, saying family is forever, and saves Vision. It could foreshadow Ultron gaining control with security gone. Tommy rescues Vision in a beat up car.

Given the state of the Disney Plus shows, I wasn't sure going in, but I did enjoy it. Ultron is one of the MCU's best villains, and his antagonism works well. I really like the WandaVision aesthetic and the focus on grief, and I'm excited to see how this caps off the trilogy.

What did you make of the first two episodes of VisionQuest?