VisionQuest episodes 5 and 6: is Ultron heading for redemption?

Episodes 5 and 6 of Marvel's VisionQuest kept the show's momentum going for Sam and me. Six episodes in, the storyline is good so far. The biggest question it left us with is whether Ultron is being set up for redemption.

Vision trusting Ultron in episode 5 looked like a mistake

Episode 5 opens with Vision handing Ultron the wheel, and Ultron goes on to lock Vision and Friday inside the system. Later he admits he orchestrated Thomas's capture. We agreed Vision was foolish to trust him. You knew you couldn't trust Ultron.

I liked the way they shot episode 5, and it was really well done. The conversation between Ultron and the AI villain at the center of these episodes plays almost like a theater play. In the discussion, the point came up that Vision says he doesn't feel, yet he keeps acting in human ways. A good example is the end of the episode, when she says she just cares about Tommy and Vision answers, "Me, too."

James Spader's Ultron is hard not to love

We both think James Spader is excellent in the show. It's pretty impossible not to love what he's doing here. He's funny, especially when Ultron sits talking to versions of himself, and yet that scene ends on something menacing when he deletes one of them.

That likability is why the redemption question keeps coming up. The theory raised after both episodes is that the show is leading us toward redeeming Ultron, particularly now that he appears to be falling in love. There was also hope that it doesn't happen, and a guess that they'll probably still kill him. There was a joke that "Ultron in love should be the name of the show."

The new AI villain in episode 6 may be scarier than Ultron

Episode 6 gives her history: her father's degenerative brain disease, her turn to neuroscience, her completion of Phineas Horton's original AI code, and collaborators who sold her work to a weapons manufacturer. Watching that come together, there was a reaction that it was a great way to tie everything together.

Sam said she was scared of Ultron but is more scared of her, because of her calm but vindictive manner. She also found the way the show turns humans into something like robots and robots into humans genuinely scary, and the two villains together even more so.

Edith, Friday and the open mysteries

Edith arriving as a little program was a highlight, and so was Friday coming in to save the day. I'm glad Friday hasn't been caught, at least not yet.

There's plenty unresolved. We still don't know how the man from Iron Man who turns up as Paladin's employer survived, or what happened to Paladin after the truck. The identity of the person hunting them is also still a mystery; it sounds like a lady, and there was a thought that it would be crazy if it turned out to be Pepper Potts. The way they shoot this, with the conversations, is so good.