WandaVision Episode 2 Easter Eggs: Devil Clues, a SWORD Beekeeper and Westview's Missing Children

WandaVision episode two is where Wanda's sitcom dream bubble begins to bleed, and I went through it shot by shot for every Easter egg and hidden detail I could spot. Along the way, the episode drops more hints that Agnes might be connected to the devil, that SWORD might be trying to break in, and that Wanda might not be the one in control.

The episode opens with a bump in the night, and soon a line about "a few unsavoury characters settling in the neighbourhood." That suggests the town of Westview is feeling threatened by outsiders, presumably the forces of SWORD trying to infiltrate Wanda's pocket reality.

WandaVision's Bewitched opening hides a cry for help

Episode one was inspired by sitcoms like The Dick Van Dyke Show and I Love Lucy, but episode two appears to be based on the late '60s sitcom Bewitched, complete with a very Bewitched inspired animated opening. Notice the melody and the beat of the new WandaVision theme. It has the same general syncopation as the other big song featured in this episode, The Beach Boys' "Help Me Rhonda."

That song plays through the static on the radio in a way that makes it kind of sound like "help me Wanda." All of this makes the episode a cry for help for Wanda. And Wanda ends up helping: she helps Vision, she helps Dottie, and she helps save this fragile reality from the mysterious beekeeper by just saying no and rewinding. As the animated neighbors sing the theme, they're all kind of begging for her help.

The animated Westview billboard reads, "Home, it's where you make it." That's an interesting reflection of the way Wanda is literally constructing this home around her with her mind.

Skeletons between the floors and the Grim Reaper's helmet

As animated Vision floats through the house, there's a Simpsons style gag showing the horrors between the floors. There are a few bones, a cobweb, and a four pronged helmet that looks like the helmet of the Marvel villain the Grim Reaper. He comes from a Vision comic involving transferred consciousness, which might be part of the show. That's Avengers #102, which could tie into a license plate we saw in episode one.

Remember, Mr. Hart asked Vision in episode one if he had any skeletons in his closet. Apparently he does. There are some horrors in this house, and my theory that Westview is a graveyard is starting to look a little less insane.

Dottie's dark stain and Agnes's daytime martini

As Vision drives past his neighbors, Dottie's floral coat appears to have a dark stain on it. I don't think it's part of the pattern, because you don't see any other marks that dark. She later references getting blood stains out of white linen, something she has to do herself. It's a very unsettling line.

Meanwhile, Agnes holds her rabbit Señor Scratchy along with a martini, and it's daytime. Agnes's drinking is another thing we should probably keep an eye on.

Fred and Linda's moat, Illusion and Glamour, and a Hydra fortress

Rehearsing her magic act, Wanda talks about the talent show acts planned by some of their neighbors. Fred and Linda are building a moat and a fully functioning portcullis, and no one even knows why. We never see any act with a moat or a castle. It's a throwaway joke, but it's kind of a weird one. Why were Fred and Linda, whoever they are, building a moat and a fortress gate? Who are they trying to protect themselves from?

The stage names Illusion and Glamour are a nod to the Zarkovs, who live in Leonia, New Jersey with Vision and Wanda in their 12 issue comic from the '80s. They start off against the couple but later kind of shelter them.

The dining room wall art shows a different fortress. It's the Hydra lab base in Sokovia where Wanda and her brother were experimented on in Age of Ultron. All of Westview is tied to Wanda's inner thoughts and memories.

The SWORD helicopter might be an intruder turned into a toy

Then we hear that bump again. At first I thought the sound was a lawnmower, but no, these are the whirring blades of a helicopter. Wanda finds it outside, bright red and yellow with a SWORD logo. It's possible this was the helicopter we saw in the trailer outside Westview, which maybe got a little too close to the border and was warped into this harmless toy.

We've talked before about the creepy Twilight Zone episode "It's a Good Life," in which a boy in a remote town mind controls everyone and forces them to bend to his will and play his game, kind of like it looks like Wanda is doing here. In that episode, he terrifyingly turns a man into a jack in the box. That could be kind of what Wanda is doing here. Every time we hear a bump, it could be a different member of SWORD trying to break in: Monica, the helicopter, and at the end of the episode, someone as that beekeeper figure.

Agnes keeps dropping hints about the devil

As Wanda tries to figure this out, her concentration is broken: "Look, it's the star of the show." It's as if Agnes doesn't want her to look at that chopper. There's another possible double meaning there, perhaps a nod to Wanda being the star of this fake town. Notice Agnes is also wearing the same pendant we saw last episode. That could be a sign of her constancy throughout this variable reality. She doesn't really change when it warps; she's just pretending to be part of it.

Agnes then mentions that Señor Scratchy played baby Jesus in last year's Christmas pageant. The son of God played by an animal is a little odd, dare I say sacrilegious, because the name Señor Scratchy sounds like an ode to Mr. Scratch or Old Scratch, nicknames for the devil. Agnes said last episode that her and Ralph's anniversary was June 2nd, the date the Salem witch trials began in 1692. Is that the date she married this demonic figure? It sounds like we're getting more clues that her husband Ralph, whom she can't stop talking about, and this rabbit could be the same devil by different names.

There's also a bizarre moment with the mailman: "Stick 'em up." "Don't shoot. I'm just a messenger." Maybe Agnes is keeping a close eye on what messages and correspondence get in and out of this town. Right after this, she focuses Wanda's anxiety on a different evil queen bee, Dottie, to deflect from herself. And there's abject fear in Agnes's face when Wanda suggests just being herself. That's the last thing Agnes wants. She wants Wanda to play along with this charade and never access her true awareness.

At the planning meeting, you might have caught this little gem: "The devil's in the details, Bev." "That's not the only place he is." I had been betting for months that this series would introduce Marvel's devil, Mephisto, whom Agatha serves in the comics, and Agatha is who we think Agnes is based on. So any mentions of devils or satanic elements need to be highlighted. Sure, you could read this as Agnes throwing shade at Dottie, or even hinting at the booze she was about to whip out. But then why wave her away as if already knowing what Agnes meant before seeing the flask? Agnes is hiding a lot, she shows up at suspicious times, and she's now talking about the devil hiding in places.

"For the children" in a town with no visible kids

Dottie declares that all of this is for the children, and it's pretty creepy how mindlessly that phrase gets parroted in this episode, especially when you consider that nowhere in Westview, not even in the background, are any children visible. This is supposed to be a family town. They talk about their kids, but we don't see them.

Clearly, this isn't about the other children of Westview, but the children the whole town is designed to trick Wanda into bringing to life. That's what Mephisto and Agatha do to Wanda in the comics, to drain her of her chaos magic. As Wanda meets Monica, who gives the fake name Geraldine, look behind her: Kathryn Hahn sips her booze and really gets into it.

Hackensack, communists and the show's fear of red

Meanwhile, the men's neighborhood watch turns out to be a bunch of gossips, revealing that Arthur's bowling trophies were bought at a yard sale in Hackensack. Hackensack, New Jersey, along with that Jersey area code, is another clue that Westview and SWORD could be set up near Camp Lehigh in New Jersey. We also saw Arthur's fake bowling trophies in the office last episode.

Vision tries to play along by calling Norm a communist, the second time Cold War era anti communist sentiment has come up this season. This whole red scare motif parallels the fear of the literal color red on this show: the helicopter, Dottie's blood, the creepy light on the toaster, and in this scene, the red gum that clogs Vision's gears. I didn't know that's how his body worked. I thought he could just phase shift food through him, but clearly he wanted to ingest this. If you think about it, Vision has kind of become the Mr. Hart of this episode. He accuses others of being communists, and he chokes.

The radio voice suggests Wanda isn't in control

Dottie holds nothing back calling out Wanda, but she's interrupted by a voice on the radio asking, "Who's doing this to you, Wanda?" The voice sounds a lot like Jimmy Woo, who does work for SWORD. More importantly, it tells us that Wanda is not totally in control of Westview. She's at least partially a victim, probably of some third party tricking her into wanting to stay in this bubble.

As Wanda listens, the radio explodes right as Dottie shatters her glass and cuts her hand. But then "Help Me Rhonda" resumes, and the radio isn't broken anymore. This illusion just kind of patched its leak, and it used Dottie's accident as a misdirect.

The Strucker watch commercial points to Wanda's Sokovian past

Next comes a commercial for Strucker Swiss made watches, with a Hydra logo in the word Hydra. Strucker is the Hydra leader who experimented on Wanda and Pietro using the Mind Stone to activate their powers, whom we know from the Captain America: The Winter Soldier post credits scene and the beginning of Age of Ultron.

The last commercial was for a Stark made device that beeped kind of like a bomb about to go off, much like the Stark projectile that didn't explode next to young Pietro and Wanda but made them always hate Mr. Stark. So this commercial is also an expression of Wanda's Sokovian past.

A drunk Vision, Agnes's purse and the missing Mr. Hart

At the talent show, the gum clogging Vision's gears makes him seem drunk, and he says that human beings are easily fooled. It's like Vision drunkenly revealed a big part of the show's deeper mystery. We're being deceived because we don't fully understand the nature of reality and how Wanda can control it. Vision keeps using actual magic, and Wanda has to cover for him by making it look like handmade tricks.

Very briefly, Agnes puts her purse back down in relief, which made me wonder what was in that purse and what she was about to pull on them. Note too that Agnes is sitting with Mrs. Hart. Mr. Hart is nowhere in sight: again, talked about but not there.

Their neighbor's name is revealed as Herb. We were kind of on the lookout for a Herbert in the MCU, since we'd been theorizing that the High Evolutionary, Herbert Wyndham, might be introduced in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, maybe as the geneticist who made Rocket the way he is. I'm not sure this guy is going to be the same Herbert, though. When the magic act falls apart and Wanda needs someone in the cabinet, the crowd starts referencing the movie Seven with chants of "What's in the box?" They teleport Monica in there, and Agnes, as if knowing this was impossible, actual magic, looks concerned to say the least.

A baby bump, a SWORD beekeeper and Westview as a hive

Back home with their trophy, Wanda and Vision connect the dots on what "for the children" was really about, and out of nowhere comes a big baby bump. Then they hear another bump, and outside they see the beekeeper. The beekeeper suit has a SWORD logo, suggesting this is the same kind of intruder that Monica and the helicopter were, warped into a new, bizarre form inside the bubble. Maybe Wanda is rejecting this outsider, as we know from the trailer she'll do to Monica at some point.

If you brighten up the shot, the face belongs to a stunt performer for this show and a number of Marvel productions. So it's less about what mystery actor this is and more about what the character represents to Wanda. Maybe we can look at this pocket reality as a kind of hive, with Wanda as the queen bee commanding the drones and rejecting the beekeeper when he comes to reap the honey. Both episodes one and two end with a hexagonal honeycomb wipe, and this episode opens with six stars around the moon forming the points of a hexagon.

However you look at it, I think this is clearly a failed rescue attempt. Wanda is so delusional that she wants to stay trapped in this illusion and move on to the next chapter rather than close the book and wake up from the dream. I'm not sure we can blame her for that, because, as the voice repeats in the final line, it's not her who's doing this.

Which of the clues in this episode do you think points most clearly to who is really behind Westview?