VisionQuest Jocasta theory: Was she Tony Stark's side project to partner Ultron?

I found roughly 300 more Easter eggs across VisionQuest episode 3, Reboot, and episode 4, Hardware. I also figured out what I think Jocasta's secret history with Tony Stark is. Jocasta has the likeness and personality of Dr. Josephine Carrington, one of the AI engineers who died mysteriously in 2008. My theory is that she was a Stark side project meant to give Ultron a partner. Before I can lay that theory out, there are more clues to go through.

Jocasta's possession of Vision suggests she is on a mission of her own

Episode 3 opens on an extreme close up of red paint floating in water as Ultron rinses his paintbrush. Red paint drops on the floor beneath the canvas, and I read it as the blood the Butcher Bird is shedding, blood that is on the hands of her victims. In the Emerson Hotel, Thomas sees news of the Butcher Bird's third murder. The broadcast reuses the B roll of the crashed sedan and the corpse with only the eyes blacked out. Since Vision has been hacked, his eyes light up red, and in the mindscape the TV now looks like an MRI scan of a brain.

Based on how Ultron reacts to what Jocasta seems to be doing, he is clearly not controlling her from the outside, and she is on a mission of her own. She talks to Vision through a television set and asks the question from episode 1 back at him: who are you? It's a question she can't answer. When Vision asks what she wants, we flash to a device. The episode doesn't show exactly what it is, but trailer shots show a large 3D printing type device with particles swirling above it. We also see ants swarming on rotting flesh and Butcher Birds moving in a flock, the kind of instinctual hive movement mathematicians have encoded as algorithms.

Jocasta's next target is Katarina Wells, played by sci fi icon Mary McDonnell, who played President Laura Roslin in Battlestar Galactica and First Lady Marilyn Whitmore in Independence Day. Wells is the last surviving member of the Markridge AI engineering team, who introduced AI technology to the MCU, including to Tony Stark for Jarvis. Jocasta asks when anyone's desire to change the world has not been personal. I think she's hinting that what went down between her and Wells was something very personal.

Edith's coding exorcism comes down to Control Alt Delete

Edith retrieves the programmer's bible, the Vision testament, which has a start button icon on the binder. Programmer's bibles were real documents used by IBM engineers, but here it becomes a religious text for an exorcism. Edith, now in a priest outfit, reads commands like end function that come out like biblical scripture. Ultron eventually shouts his own version of the power of Christ compels you: the power of code compels you. Terry Matalas told me there's often improvisation, and I feel like James Spader decided to make the direct Exorcist reference so nobody missed the joke.

I believe the pages Edith reads from are filled with binary code. What finally seems to zip Jocasta away is the Control Alt Delete keystroke. Vision calls the possession an entanglement with another synthetic, and we've seen digital entanglements before in Avengers: Endgame, when Nebula from 2023 got entangled with her 2014 self. It's the MCU version of Bluetooth headphones pairing with the wrong device.

Katarina Wells defends AI on Sokovia Remembrance Day

Vision sees an FXN interview with Wells on Remembrance Day for the Battle of Sokovia, the first time we've heard of this day. I'm surprised the MCU public still marks the 177 people who died, given the snap, the blip and the emergence of Tiamut since. I guess I'm glad they aren't desensitized, but that's a lot of trauma to hold on to. Wells calls the computer the end product of a thousand years of human innovation, defending AI as the next step.

Terry Matalas himself cameos as the FXN host who asks if Wells considers herself a transhumanist. Transhumanism supports using technology to extend longevity and address existential risks to human health. It comes up in AI debates when advocates talk about curing diseases, though so far AI seems to be sold to companies to make things more efficient at the cost of human labor. I love the idea that Matalas is playing an MCU Fox News host who might not understand transhumanism and might just want a tech CEO on the record labeling herself as trans anything.

I don't think SWORD had anything to do with Jocasta

Friday, Edith and Vision speculate that Jocasta was built by SWORD as a 2.0 after Vision flew the coop, and Ultron suspects SWORD hired Paladin to recover both synths. We're halfway through the season with these AIs speculating about SWORD, and until someone from SWORD owns up to it, I'm going to assume it's speculation to throw us off the trail. I ultimately think SWORD had nothing to do with any of this.

The painting of Jim Hammond hangs behind these proceedings, and Marvel used it as the thumbnail of a promo. It has been confirmed that Paul Bettany will play Jim Hammond, which I think is brilliant casting. It explains why Vision looked like Paul Bettany rather than James D'Arcy: there was an earlier synth created by Phineas T. Horton in 1943 with that likeness. It also recalls when Bettany teased a secret actor during WandaVision who turned out to be himself. People made fun of me for that, and I deserved the mockery, but his unprompted junket statements were what I was going on. Getting to do it again feels like a full circle moment. Hammond presiding over this debate also makes me wonder if he's somehow echoing through code to be the client Paladin hears.

Ultron may have been in cold storage all along

Remembering Sokovia, Vision flashes back to his final moments with Ultron, and we again cut to a wide shot of Vision's blinding laser. Terry Matalas confirmed in our interview that the framing left the door open to new lore about Vision absorbing and backing up Ultron. In his words, "just because he backed up his code didn't always mean it was switched on." Vision might have kept Ultron in cold storage until White Vision got access to his memories, found him in a backup and was curious.

Thomas remembers Sokovian refugees coming through the foster system with him. The battle happened in 2015, 13 or 14 years before the series. I'm guessing Thomas is meant to be 18 or 19, so he was probably fostered around 6 or 7. Ultron's newspaper headlines Sokovia's scars, which I think is more international coverage than the 14th anniversary of 9/11 got, though I shouldn't be that critical. Side headlines include Wanda Maximoff from Powerhouse to Pariah and Sokovia Accords Success or Failure, even though Matt Murdock told us in She-Hulk that the Accords had been repealed.

Thomas catches the fifth AI in Vision's head

When Thomas calls Vision out for talking to imaginary AI friends, Ultron asks how Vision will tell him, Sybil. That's a Fawlty Towers reference, which John Cleese's Basil said sarcastically to his wife Sybil, played by Prunella Scales. Vision leans against the window frame to look down at Ultron's chair as he lies about having only four AIs: Friday, Edith, Dummy and U. Thomas calls them his fab four, which is why five later becomes a red flag.

Ultron taunts that an omission isn't really a lie, or so the best liars tell themselves. Much of my theorizing has centered on whether Ultron can lie. His analysis is a kind of honest authenticity that I think makes Ultron a jerk but not necessarily a liar.

Vision and Ultron hack Interpol with a dog's name

In the mindscape, Vision and Friday do an Aaron Sorkin walk and talk into an Interpol bullpen, where Vision and Ultron change costume. Ultron's fedora recalls Red Reddington in The Blacklist, and his look reminds me of Ice T in Law and Order: SVU. Vision's suspenders aren't connected to his pants. Their costumes are AI hallucinated, and Ultron is better at posing as a detective. The background desk workers often freeze while ambient sound continues, which is creepy.

Security bot 72181 raises a captcha asking for squares with fire hydrants. Vision says four, Ultron says five, but there are only three, plus a red parking meter, yellow poles and the roof of the Griffith Observatory tinted red. Vision corrects to three, but Ultron, as an older AI, gets tripped up by the observatory. They use falsified IDs for Isabella Torres and Becky Simmons, and I think those names might be random. With only three password attempts, they flip through Izzy's Instagram, shown as a paper flip book with hexagon profile icons, and land on her French bulldog, Sir Java the Mutt. I love that they both know to add sir.

A Tony Stark weapons quote leads the Markridge Biotech article

The victims, Richard Gaines, Rebecca Edwards and Simon Moorhouse, are linked to Markridge Biotech and beneath that Stark Industries. Markridge is a reference to Terry Matalas's 12 Monkeys, where the Markridge Group was responsible for the virus that wiped out mankind. That says something about how this show maybe wants us to view AI. The MCU's Markridge is a biotech company that claims to have developed AI to cure diseases, wanting it to replicate human emotion for empathy and bedside manner.

An article shows T'Nia Miller's Joe Carrington front and center and leads with a Tony Stark quote about synthetic intelligence pushing the boundaries for things that go boom: "Imagine a weapon smart enough to launch itself." Yikes, Tony. Another article says Stark Industries acquired Markridge for 1.4 billion and notes that Dr. Josephine Carrington, project co-lead, died of natural causes in 2008. That puts the acquisition right before Afghanistan, the last heartless thing Tony did as a warmonger. Her obituary says she loved the arts and could be found with a pencil, paintbrush or carving tool, so Jocasta was an artist just like Ultron is trying to be.

Tony modeled his AIs on real people

Edith realizes Tony used Wells's code and modeled his AIs on people from his life. Jarvis was Edwin Jarvis, with album art showing James D'Arcy in Endgame. Friday was based on Allison Hogan, Howard Stark's gal Friday, who kept his office and helped raise his son. I have to wonder if there's any relation to Happy Hogan. Perhaps Allison was Happy's mother, which could explain how he ended up in Tony's employment.

Edith was based on Edith Marks, Howard's test pilot and an Amelia Earhart figure who I assume drove his early hover cars. That would explain why she's unafraid of death, and it's unsettling that Tony likened her to how he used Peter Parker as a crash test dummy. A 1964 report describes her husband, Lieutenant Edward Marks, dying in a plane crash by Pine Haven, New Jersey. Asked why he chose his avatar, Ultron says it suits him. Terry Matalas said James Spader showed up with a beard, but I do think the series will explain why Ultron looks like Spader. Wells also uses the phrase peace in our time, so it wasn't only Tony's, and she ends with: "God created man in his image, and we create AI in ours. Devils be damned." That's a bleak abandonment of responsibility.

The gala reveals Jim Hammond felt himself to death

At the gala, a marionette wears the red and yellow suit the synthetic man wore at the Stark Expo in Captain America: The First Avenger. White robotic arms resemble Dummy's design, which raises whether Wells is taking credit for Tony's engineering or showing medical uses. Ultron leans on a bust I think shows Hephaestus, god of the forge. Wells's tour credits Dr. Phineas Horton, creator of Jim, the synthetic man and first automaton AI, saying Horton's source code was the genesis of all AI. She also echoes Tony lines like a suit of armor around the world, and I wonder who got those quotes from whom.

Jim was deactivated after incendiary mishaps. Vision explains that Jim's inability to process complex emotions spun his clockwork too quickly until he burst into flame. Thomas asks, "You mean he felt to death?" That feels like how this show is saying Wanda died. Vision credits the Mind Stone, but Thomas says it was the family tree of AI in his head, and Vision tilts his head like strength might come from family, alive and dead.

Jocasta is not based on Josephine Carrington, she says she is her

Thomas realizes Ultron is the fifth AI just as Wells admits guilt and talks about forgiving her mistakes. Jocasta arrives: "Mistakes. Is that what we're calling it?" She takes out security, and her hood digitizes away. Edith pulls the Carrington obituary, and we realize the Markridge engineers led by Wells somehow backed up Joe as a ghost in their machine. When Vision reminds her she's based on Carrington, she corrects him: "I am not based on her. I am her." In the comics, Ultron built Jocasta as his wife, modeled on Janet van Dyne, before she found her own autonomy.

My theory: Jocasta was meant to balance Ultron

I haven't seen episodes 5 through 8, but here's where I think things are going. I think Joe fought against selling to a weapons maker like Stark Industries and wanted AI with guardrails for healthcare and goals like solving climate change. Then something happened to her. Maybe her fellow engineers murdered her, maybe they let her die, or maybe automatons killed her. Katarina then approved the 1.4 billion sale, and the team either intentionally or accidentally kept Joe's consciousness alive as a backup.

I think Tony and Wells collaborated on side projects that produced the Ultron prototype. Peace in our time was originally Joe's phrase, which Wells sold to Tony. The original plan, before the Mind Stone, may have been for Ultron to have a partner to keep him from going down Jim Hammond's path. Maybe Tony even built the body as a queen bee to the Iron Legion. I think that's why Jocasta appears on a file drive in Tony's drawer in Age of Ultron. The plan never happened, Vision found love in Wanda, and Jocasta was left a spurned AI, an artist betrayed and imprisoned. She seems to want flesh keys, maybe to access Markridge servers and free herself, or something involving that device. I don't think Ultron knows this history; when Jocasta repeats peace in our time, I think he realizes his mission had deeper roots.

Ultron finally takes the wheel

Thomas uses speedster abilities to rescue Wells, and Vision shows papa bear rage. Ultron asks Vision to give him the wheel, promising to get them out without killing Jocasta. The attic becomes a ship's helm, Ultron's hat lands on the rack, and Vision, eyes red, completes the line there are no strings on me. Paul Bettany perfectly evokes James Spader's mannerisms. Ultron clearly checks Jocasta out, then makes Wells vanish, depriving Jocasta of her final flesh key. Jocasta escapes through the skylight as the Jim Hammond painting burns, which I think is the backstory the next two episodes explore. An evidence drawer reads plot twist incoming, and Jocasta as Tony's secret fail safe for Ultron is a very specific plot twist I hope isn't a red herring.