WandaVision rewatch: why the Mephisto theory missed

The Vision Quest trailer gave me a reason to go back to the two Marvel titles that came before it in this trilogy, WandaVision and Agatha All Along. This piece covers WandaVision (2021), starring Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany. Revisiting it reminded me what a great nine episodes of TV it was, and that I'm still the guy who made the wrong call about Mephisto.

Jessica Clemons and I did this rewatch as part of our Road to Doomsday series, where we went back to past Marvel titles we think inspired where Marvel Studios was in the months before Avengers: Doomsday. You could say things from WandaVision and Agatha All Along might not come back in Doomsday. We do know there is at least one key line spoken by both Lilia Calderu and Magneto: "Death comes for us all." Jess and I first really joined forces back in the days of WandaVision.

How WandaVision became the first Marvel Disney Plus series

WandaVision was the first Marvel Disney Plus series we ever saw. It was not intended to be the first, but due to reshoots and everything happening during COVID, this series from Jac Schaeffer and Matt Shakman was the one ready to release on the new platform. It ran nine episodes, from January 15, 2021 to March 5, 2021, and it was the best and worst time of my life.

The show is about Wanda Maximoff dealing with her grief over the death of Vision in Avengers: Infinity War. We find out she has projected a hex of altered reality over the town of Westview, New Jersey. But it begins with her back in a kind of Dick Van Dyke Show era, and for the first three episodes we didn't know exactly what it was, which was the wonderful thing about it. Episode two moved to Bewitched, and episode three was something like The Brady Bunch.

I believe they dropped the first two episodes in the first week, with episode three a week later. Those of us in the press got screeners for the first four episodes, or maybe the first three. We didn't even know there was a fourth episode centered on Monica Rambeau. Something magical happened between week one and week three, because we didn't know what was going to happen.

Monica Rambeau, Uncle Pietro and the Halloween episode

The Brady Bunch episode had Teyonah Parris playing a character with a SWORD necklace who helps Wanda deliver her babies. Then we got Darcy with her finger on a switch, looking at a TV screen. Episode four opens with Monica Rambeau in a hospital flashback with her mother, who is dealing with cancer, and then the Blip happens. It's an incredible ER, The Pit type scene, with trauma all over the screen, and I'm here for it. Teyonah Parris gives an Emmy worthy performance.

We catch up with Jimmy Woo doing his close up magic outside Westview. Monica gets sucked in, and we see everything from her perspective. SWORD has a camp set up around the town, and some kind of anomaly is happening. Episode five is the Growing Pains and Family Ties episode. Vision is already upset about what's going on, the boys Billy and Tommy are aging rapidly, poor Sparky the dog doesn't make it, and there's an interesting red glow around everything.

The credits roll while the argument continues past the episode, and then the doorbell rings. It's Evan Peters as Uncle Pietro, blowing everyone's minds with the idea that Fox X-Men crossovers were coming to this show. Who else was going to show up? Was he Mephisto? It was a wild time going into episode six, the Halloween episode, which has many creepy background details. Wanda expands the hex even further to engulf the SWORD camp.

The Agatha Harkness reveal in episode seven

Episode seven, I believe, is the Modern Family episode. There are commercial breaks in every episode that kept blowing our minds about what was going on in this television broadcast. Episode seven ends with the greatest needle drop of all time, when Agatha reveals herself. Nosy neighbor Agnes, played by Kathryn Hahn, is the witch Agatha Harkness: "It was Agatha all along."

I believe that song was nominated for an Emmy, and it was wonderful. I don't think I've cackled so much at a TV show.

Episode eight, White Vision and the WandaVision finale

Episode eight is a tour through Wanda's memories that tells her origin story and how the different stages of her powers manifested. It shows the importance of the Mind Stone in giving her a prophetic vision of the Scarlet Witch. We learn Wanda was born with some kind of natural powers. I think she is still a mutant. It ends teasing a big battle, with Agatha telling Wanda she is destined to become the Scarlet Witch while puppeting her sons.

Meanwhile, SWORD director Tyler Hayward has resurrected Vision using residual magic on the Stark drone Wanda tossed back through the barrier. So there are two Visions: Hex Vision, or Scarlet Vision as we call him, and White Vision, a Terminator killing machine. In the finale, they battle. We also find out Evan Peters is not Uncle Pietro. It's a recasting gag like the Aunt Viv joke from Fresh Prince, and he's Ralph Bohner, a working actor living in Westview.

There's a witch battle through Westview with runes set up, and Wanda fully powers up to become the Scarlet Witch, with a new suit. She puts Agatha in a memory wipe spell. But the hex needs to collapse, because Wanda is enslaving the people of Westview. There's a heartbreaking scene where Wanda and Vision tuck the boys into bed, after the beautiful episode eight moment where we heard "what is grief if not love persevering."

The hex collapses as Wanda holds Vision's face, and she's back on the plot of land that was going to be the dream house Vision made for her. The people of Westview give her stink eye as she walks out. She flies to a cabin, reading the Darkhold and dream walking to find her sons in the Multiverse of Madness post credits scene. There was also plenty with Darcy, Jimmy Woo and aerospace engineers, and fun theorycrafting about Reed Richards and Mephisto. None of that was on the table, but it was a lot of fun.

Why so many fans expected Mephisto in WandaVision

Jess called me out for skipping over Mephisto, so here it is. Many of us thought Mephisto was going to be in the series. We had heard Evan Peters was going to show up, the American Horror Story actor who had also played in the Fox X-Men films, so we figured he was either Pietro or something else. There were also rumors of some kind of demonic presence. In the West Coast Avengers storyline, Wanda and Vision's kids are puppets of Master Pandemonium, a servant of Mephisto, and Mephisto is highly connected to Agatha Harkness.

I went into WandaVision not thinking that was on the table until December 2020, when Luke Skywalker shocked everyone at the end of The Mandalorian season two finale. Around then, Elizabeth Olsen said in interviews that there was a surprise cameo coming at the end of the show. Paul Bettany said: "I got to work with an actor who I've wanted to work with for quite some time." That actor turned out to be himself.

All of that gestated into a perfect storm. Then there were lines like the devil being in the details, the spawn of Satan line from Uncle Pietro, and Agnes constantly bringing up her husband Ralph. Those little lines made us think there was some other villain. And yes, my team and I did our share of Mephisto theorycrafting.

Staying on the Mephisto train into episode nine

After episode seven or eight, when Agatha was revealed, most people got off the train and decided Agatha Harkness was the villain of the series, not Mephisto. I did not. I stayed on the train all the way off the cliff in episode nine. I went into the finale, I think, as the only one still saying Mephisto was coming. That's why I deserve to get made fun of for it.

Months later, Matt Shakman said Mephisto was never part of the plan, and Jac Schaeffer said he wasn't on their vision board at all. I learned a lot from the experience, I still had fun, and it became something I was synonymous with for a while. Some trolls online think bringing up Mephisto hurts me. Some people don't know how to read a joke. Jess thinks it's a recurring bit that will follow me until I die.

That's okay. I'm happy to own it, because it's part of my armor now: I'm the guy who made the wrong call about Mephisto, and I think that's fun. I feel like Marvel eventually redeemed me by putting Mephisto in the MCU. He does show up. This is a universe constantly retconning its own history, so who knows, who cares? He was always there.

Inside the Hex, outside the Hex and early Marvel fatigue

When I think back on WandaVision, I think about the Easter eggs, the clues we chased and the wild goose chases that made no sense. I also think about Jess and me together in that state of confusion, and everyone else up at midnight with us. Each episode was a mystery box of lore and clues, but it was also vibes in a way few Marvel Disney Plus shows have been. Characters were in costumes, doing transatlantic accents or impressions of Claire Dunphy from Modern Family. "It felt like a little Halloween party every week and that I think was the best part of it."

WandaVision permanently changed the MCU, at least on the television front. But I think many people feel it was the early ripples of Marvel fatigue. We went in expecting an Avengers level experience, but what people loved wasn't the Agents of SHIELD style material outside the Hex. They loved the goofy, playful material inside it. Other shows tried the outside the Hex approach, with agents in jackets doing a lesser version of Agents of SHIELD. Jess suggested Loki, but I was thinking of Secret Invasion.

I think what Loki did well is embrace the inside the Hex approach: an escapist elseworld with Avengers characters, colorful sets and great production designers, rather than a street corner in Atlanta or London. The fandom was activated in a particular way by this show, and the Marvel experiment on Disney Plus felt like an open road of possibilities. I think one of those roads is still open with Vision Quest. Its trailer made me feel an excitement I hadn't felt since Agatha. I loved a lot of Wonder Man, but there's something about the confidence in the production design, and how every prop seems designed with details to activate fans like Jess and me. We got that from WandaVision, Loki and Agatha, and we were getting it from Vision Quest.

Jess on Wanda's sorrow, and WandaVision as a COVID experience

For Jess, the story that mattered most was Wanda herself, a woman who has suffered time and time again. She doesn't think we ever saw a happy moment for Wanda in the MCU except when she talks with Vision. Even with her brother, it was under the turmoil of Ultron, alongside losing her family, being locked up and accidentally blowing up a building. Even under house arrest, talking with Vision made her feel normal. Jess likes that the one thing Wanda wants ends up doing worse damage than she ever imagined, the same reason she likes a sad Peter Parker: it makes them human.

That resonates with me too, along with how the show lined up with COVID. I don't think it was designed to be this, but it ended up a perfectly timed COVID experience. In the finale, it's Wanda in her grief, wearing dumpy clothes you'd wear when you weren't planning on seeing anyone, on an empty plot of land, building a dream world out of rerun TV. That's how I felt through 2020 and 2021. I let myself go and put on old sitcoms with my wife, grieving certain things while making wonderful, wacky things with friends and Zoom call pods.

I think that's how we all got through COVID: we found our screens. The screen wasn't the addictive, toxic, painful thing that lures us in like a siren call now. It was a window of escape and connection, and I think that's what it was for Wanda, a beautiful proscenium. I miss the time when screens could be that. Revisiting the show makes me love the history of television even more.

The WandaVision sitcom eras and commercials we loved

Jess's family was a big Roseanne family, so the Roseanne section was a little triggering for her, remembering her mom making her sit through it before school. She loved the Van Dyke episode, and how campy it was with Wanda's Bewitched style magic. I grew up on many of these shows, certainly Bewitched and The Brady Bunch, and the Halloween episode drew on Malcolm in the Middle, which I followed episode by episode. I loved anything that reminded me of Full House, which is funny since Elizabeth Olsen is the little sister of the Olsen twins.

Jess felt the older eras were more nostalgic than the newer ones. Roseanne and Full House were what made her want to get into television, while Modern Family was what she was absorbing as she was getting into it. The commercials were fun too: the Stark toaster, the soap, the paper towels, and the island ad with a kid and a shark. Those were more reasons we thought Mephisto was coming. It was fun, ridiculous, inventive TV programming.

The show also had playful TV tricks. In episode three, a glitch jumps back a few seconds, and we all thought our Disney Plus was glitching. There's a zombie jump scare in episode three and a zombie version of Ralph in episode six. We felt on edge at midnight, wondering what jump scare was coming and what random corpse would appear on screen next.