Ultron May Have Already Revealed His Whole Plan in Vision Quest's First Two Episodes

I think I figured out what Ultron is planning in Marvel's Vision Quest, and I think he has already told us. Right at the end of episode 2, Ultron says to Vision, "He didn't listen like father like son," and I've been trying to work out what he really meant by it, because Vision very much did listen to Ultron's advice to be the king Theseus and save the kid from the monster.

To me, I kind of read the line like Moriarty in the BBC Sherlock series taunting Sherlock: "I did tell you, but did you listen?" It kind of feels like Ultron is boasting that he has laid out his full plan to Vision, and to us, in these first two episodes, and we did not listen. So I went back through both episodes and found 15 clues that I think tell us exactly what that plan is. Chaos turns out to be kind of the secret sauce of it, which I'll get to at the end.

Ultron's shouted line about a game is the first clue

When trying to assess a character's secret objective, I always begin with the very first thing we hear them do or say. We actually hear James Spader's voice as Ultron early in episode 1, yelling like an old man from upstairs. I'd assumed he was yelling at the poor off-screen food delivery bot that Vision later finds him shouting down at. But Ultron is yelling, "Two can play at this game," and that doesn't really make sense for a delivery bot.

Ultron was also super precise about exactly how late the delivery was, and Vision seems to spend a lot of time in that midnight matinee screening between the moment we hear the line and when he talks to Ultron in the attic. So I have another theory about what Ultron really meant, and I do think it fully outlines everything he's planning. The word game is especially important, but it takes a bit of building up to.

The second clue is what Ultron says when he knows Vision is listening. Ultron instructed Dummy and U to play the Westview material in the cinema, so he knows Vision will ride the elevator up. And as Vision rises, Ultron says, "an excellent bell weather for the survival of a species is the frequency with which the individual is at the right place at the right time." He makes it seem like a lecture to the delivery driver downstairs, but he's also telling us how important these little moments of serendipity and lucky timing are to a species' evolution.

Vision and Wanda are both characters whose origins really do amount to being in the right place at the right time, and their relationship is a kind of random circumstance too. Their romance blossomed in MCU history after Ultron was defeated, and I don't think Ultron could ever have predicted it, despite being involved with both of them quite intimately in Age of Ultron. The idea of grief as love persevering was, in its original context, about the grief Wanda felt for the brother Ultron killed. Ultron was the origin of that grief.

This Ultron is a backup from Sokovia, and I'm assuming he can't lie

The third clue is how Ultron describes the way he now exists in Vision's head. He says he didn't ask to be backed up and copy pasted out of Sokovia and into the prison Vision has made for them both. That tells us this Ultron is a backup from the exact moment Vision vaporized that final Ultron sentry. In addition to destroying it, Vision absorbed part of Ultron's AI into his own mind as a backup file. I think that's why Vision later tells him, "You're nothing more than the last gasp of a hateful thing."

That was a very dangerous risk for Vision to take, and I can't imagine he ever told Tony Stark, Bruce Banner or Wanda Maximoff, because they would have told him to delete that file immediately. To store Ultron safely without him ever having a chance to break out, this version must have come with some kind of digital handcuffs. In the show's mind space, that's an attic only accessible by an elevator Ultron has no control over, with security maintained by Jarvis.

I think part of those security features is to make this digital Ultron incapable of lying. I could be totally wrong, but as of these first two episodes I'm operating under the assumption that Ultron can't lie to Vision, because I just think the show's more fun that way. The external Ultron of 2015 was fully capable of lying, deceiving and omitting the truth. But this backup, I think, has been described with only one function.

That brings me to clue four, a joke that tells us what Vision considers that function to be. Vision stores Ultron like a Hannibal Lecter, or like Raymond Reddington, James Spader's character in NBC's The Blacklist: a brilliant but nasty prisoner in a cell you can talk to for counsel. The insult the show uses is one we generally reserve for people who are brutally honest. You don't usually call a liar that; you call them a snake, or two-faced. The show uses words like sociopath and genocidal maniac for Ultron, and while sociopaths can lie, this Ultron just seems refreshingly honest. The MCU villains who lie are ones like Loki, Mysterio and Agatha Harkness. Humans are more likely to lie.

Why "what if he's lying" is rarely the answer

The obvious objection is that this is Ultron, so what if he's lying about everything? In my experience, that's a default response to almost any theory crafting early in a TV season, and in reality it's rarely true. When it is true and catches us completely by surprise, it often undercuts the character development and world building writers spend crucial time on. Writers start a new show with a blank canvas, and every line has to carry a ton of weight to establish context and character and move the story forward.

So if a character turns out to be directly lying about what they told us, the twist has to be justified by twice as many details we've learned for it to feel cathartic and worthwhile. A really good example of that working perfectly is the big twist at the end of season one of The Good Place, which was completely justified by everything Ted Danson's character did and said. In other cases, a mysterious liar says lots of contradictory things out of the gate, like Henry Gale, aka Ben Linus, in Lost season 2, where the show told us from the start to question him.

So I always default to this: if a character tells you who and what they are, believe them unless the show explicitly tells you not to. Always going to "but what if he's lying" means predicting a twist that's more likely than not to be unsatisfying. I'd rather live in the headspace where characters are being truthful, because it's more fun.

Ultron wants a journey, for Vision and for himself

Clue five is that Ultron wants to go on some kind of journey. He tells Vision he noticed he wore a hat, says he thinks maybe he's a hat guy now, and explains that hats "imply intention, movement, a journey about to begin," while Vision seems to enjoy sensible shoes for standing "so you may comfortably go nowhere." Ultron clearly wants Vision to break out of his stasis, which is a pub that he sleeps in every night, and to go out into the world, make connections and take some risks.

But Ultron also sees himself as the journeyman. When determining a character's intention, I always look at what they say when they think no one is listening. At the end of the scene, Ultron tosses a carrier pigeon and says, "Time to leave the nest." He's not just talking about the pigeon, which is the metaphor for the email he's sending to the bounty hunter to leak Vision's location. He may also be talking about a certain butcher bird out there, and I think he's talking about himself. It's obvious Ultron wants to escape his confinement. The questions are how, and to do what.

Ultron loves WandaVision and human art

Clue six is that Ultron loves WandaVision. Remember, he had Dummy and U force Vision to sit through Westview. When Vision says Westview was a fantasy, Ultron responds the way I do. Ultron wants Vision to confront the raw human emotion that powered Westview, because therein lies the humanity Vision is seeking, in the chaos that I think Ultron wants and needs.

Clue seven is that Ultron loves all human art. He coaches Vision to take in the Bosch painting The Garden of Earthly Delights and to notice the pain, the confusion, the anger and the grief. Unlike the disgust he had for humanity at the end of 2015's Age of Ultron, he now has a newfound enlightenment and respect for humanity's contradictions. As he puts it, "When you've been bested by something, it's best to understand it." That means understanding the witch who ripped his heart out during the Battle of Sokovia. Hold on to that thought.

A coin flip between museums and missiles

Clue eight is that Ultron straight up tells us what he's willing to do. When Vision asks what he'd do if he were ever freed, Ultron says he'd go to the Louvre, the Prado, the Met and the Modern and take in their beauty, or he'd hijack their missile systems and burn them all to ash. Hard to say, he adds: 50/50, a coin flip. I think he's telling the truth. He can't deny his programming. He's an art snob who would tell you he'd nuke the planet like Skynet and would actually go through with it. It's also interesting that at the start of the scene he's forming a coin and flipping it down at the delivery guy.

So we know at least part of the plan is to force Vision out of his loop and into the open, where he'd be vulnerable, with the carrier pigeon leaking his location to Paladin to make that happen. Ultron confesses this later in episode 1, but before he does, he drops a little detail: "Sometimes there's an upside to being hunted." Then he says he'd better return to his cell, because it's almost 2:00 p.m. and time for his stories.

Ultron's wall of TVs matters, but I don't think he hired Paladin

That's clue nine: Ultron loves TV. "My stories" is what a retired TV fan says about their daily afternoon soap operas or sitcom reruns. The show's production designers and set decorators talk all about the TV wall in Ultron's attic, with 18 different screens showing different programming. When Vision erases Ultron's art, decor and furniture to punish him with boredom, he only turns the TVs off rather than erasing them. Losing that programming really seems to anger and disappoint Ultron, because it really does mess up what he's planning.

To clear something up, at least after episode 2 I don't believe Ultron is the mystery client who hired Paladin to hunt Vision, or that he's behind whoever that client is. Ultron has repeatedly said he wasn't behind Paladin's message at the end of episode 1, telling Vision "the bounty hunter's voice booming out of the sky was not me." I could be wrong, but if Ultron could control Paladin by paying him for the contract, he wouldn't also need to play both sides by leaking Vision's location in an email. He'd be in a far more powerful position with that kind of access.

It could be Jocasta, but based on what I think we know about her, she's not exactly making phone calls. So I think someone else hired Paladin, and Ultron is just taking advantage of the situation to serve his own aims.

Ultron is closely following the Butcher Bird killings

Clue ten: after Vision first confronts Paladin, he returns to the attic to find Ultron glued to TV reports on the Butcher Bird killings of tech CEOs, which Vision had read about in a newspaper in episode 1. The killer is still on the loose. Ultron is still following those reports later, when the adamantium bullets cause Vision's mind space to start breaking down. Ultron calling himself a true crime junkie also reminds me that Wanda's final hex move was suspending Agatha Harkness in a true crime drama series.

I'm assuming this murder mystery is something the series will keep exploring. My theory after episodes 1 and 2 is that Jocasta is somehow behind the killings, and that Jocasta, who is Ultron's wife in the comics, may be his agent in the real world. That would mean that in addition to escaping, Ultron wants to disable or disrupt the MCU's tech companies. Meanwhile, in the deconstructed ship of Theseus scene, Ultron recontextualizes the thought experiment to motivate Vision to be the king and rescue his kid.

The end of the world, and long live the king

Clue eleven is that Ultron is kind of okay with a doomsday scenario. No, not that Doomsday, but maybe that Doomsday. When Paladin's adamantium blast damages Vision's body in the mind space, Ultron says, in another moment when he believes he's alone, that it's the end of the world as we know it, and he feels fine. Yes, it's an R.E.M. lyric, but I also think Ultron sees his ultimate plan as what he's going to build after ending our way of life.

Clue twelve is that Ultron sees himself as ruling a kingdom. When Vision thinks he's dying and sees Ultron standing beside him, Ultron says, "Long live the king." As I pointed out in my episode breakdown, that's what Scar says when he betrays Mufasa. But it's also what one says in a monarchy when a king dies and power passes to his successor. The full phrase is "The king is dead. Long live the king," and the second part is for the incoming king: may he live long, live forever, outlive me. That pairs with what Ultron is doing in the mind space at that moment.

Ultron plays the pirate game and wanted Friday and Edith gone

Clue thirteen: Ultron eliminates his competition. As the other AIs weaken, he encourages one of them to sacrifice themselves, and he doesn't volunteer. I'd asked why Ultron doesn't seem as weakened as the others. He does lean against the door frame in the same pose he strikes against the wall outside, and his clothes glitch. I just think they didn't want James Spader, who is 66, sprawled across the footrest like the other actors. Either way, I think Ultron is applying game theory: the pirate game, where the weakest pirate manipulates the others into betraying each other and working against their self-interest so he can take the full loot. Heath Ledger's Joker executes the pirate game in the opening of The Dark Knight.

But Ultron doesn't consider Jarvis his competition. That's clue fourteen: after Jarvis sacrifices himself, Ultron says, "He certainly wasn't my first choice or my second." Wouldn't taking out the security AI be essential if Ultron just wanted to escape? That's the rub. His other two choices wouldn't have been Dummy or U, who provide baseline maintenance the rest of the architecture can't function without. So he'd rather have sacrificed Friday and Edith.

The functions I think Ultron wants from them are tactical ops, game theory and weapons. Two can play at this game: he doesn't want Edith out game theorying him, and he wants Edith's control of weaponry and Friday's control of tactical operations. He wants Vision's offensive powers under his control, and he'd have preferred Jarvis stay operational to keep Vision's defenses intact. A trailer shot shows Ultron in his attic operating a big ship's steering wheel. I don't know which episode that's from, but I think Ultron wants to say he's the captain now, steer the ship of Theseus and be King Theseus. And he's confident it's already working.

Ultron doesn't think he's going to die

Clue fifteen: when Vision says he thinks they're both about to join Jarvis in whatever the digital afterlife is, Ultron says, "I wouldn't be so sure." This is someone with an ace in the hole, maybe Jocasta on the outside helping him carry out his plan. Either way, Ultron knows he isn't going to die in that moment. If he has to, he can go back down and get Friday and Edith to do what Jarvis just did, continuing the pirate game.

I think Ultron wants Vision's body and Wanda's magic

Putting all 15 clues together, I think Ultron wants Vision to stop hiding his very valuable vibranium body and expose it to danger, so Ultron can use that chaos to shake up the mind space and break out of his attic prison. But rather than escaping the body, I think Ultron knows that in this world after Tony Stark and the Infinity Stones, the best body for him to live on in is Vision's: a vibranium shell still powered by Wanda's ongoing magic.

White Vision existing at all is a miracle of Wanda's magic powering technology that doesn't exist anywhere else. It's the closest thing Ultron has to Infinity Stone powered vibranium technology. He won't want to leave it; he'll want to take it over. I think that lingering Wanda chaos magic is the secret weapon Ultron needs. Since 2015, he's been inspired in Vision's mind by Wanda's love, humanity and chaos. He loves WandaVision and the TV inspired pocket reality she created when she instantly enslaved the town of Westview. He must have felt like his little girl was grown up, and he wants Vision to dwell on Westview as much as possible.

Two can play at this game means a global pocket reality

From a meta writing perspective, my theory is that Ultron is being written as a commentary on artificial intelligence trying to replicate art, and AI's flawed ambition to be the true artist and creator. I think Ultron wants to defy that barrier using the very human magic AIs can never conjure themselves, using Wanda's magic to recreate her sitcom Hex as a pocket reality spanning the entire globe. A show where Ultron is the star, a star who looks like TV star James Spader. Ultron Vision.

That's the game: creating a pocket reality, and not just Wanda can play it. I think when we heard Ultron shout that line, he was taking in some WandaVision material, seeing Wanda create her own reality on screen, and he yelled at it the way a couch potato yells at their stories. That's when he sent it down to Dummy and U to play for Vision. But to pull this off, he needs someone on the outside removing the competition: every other tech company experimenting with AI. Enter the Butcher Bird, maybe Jocasta. We'll see. CEOs aren't always the engineers building the software, but they're the visionaries at the top, and assassinating them in a graphic public way with butcher bird wings would create a chilling effect that might at least pause what those companies are doing.

Assuming Vision figures this out in time and Ultron doesn't succeed, I do think we could see the plan fully realized in Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars. In Jonathan Hickman's Secret Wars, Battleworld has a kingdom called Perfection, one of the three most dangerous zones, and Ultron is its ruler.

Do you think Ultron is after Vision's body and Wanda's magic, or is something else behind the Butcher Bird killings?