VisionQuest episode 1 fills Vision's mind with Ultron and Tony Stark's old AIs

The first two episodes of Marvel's VisionQuest are now on Disney Plus, and episode one, No Strings, opens with Vision tracing his whole MCU ancestry within his digital circuitry before speaking his first words: "Who am I?" I just think that's such a great way to begin, because it tells us the journey of this show is one artificial intelligence trying to figure out who and what exactly he is.

There's so much in these first two episodes about AI: what artificial intelligence can do and should do, whether these beings feel, and whether we care if they feel.

Vision is hiding in an Edinburgh pub as Sherwood Ellis

When we first find Vision, he has a rerun of Sanford and Son on, with talk of Disneyland, while he works in a pub in Edinburgh under the alias Sherwood Ellis. That name is a reference to the cross streets in Westview, New Jersey, where Vision plotted out the land he drew a heart around and was going to build the dream house for Wanda.

His boss, Fiona Guthrie, asks about the old redhead he used to come into the bar with. Sherwood says she got crushed under the weight of a mountain. Our hearts all kind of broke in that moment, but I'm kind of with Fiona, who chose to interpret it metaphorically, as in emotions can feel like that sometimes. Wanda did compare her grief to a wave that keeps knocking her down, so maybe we just choose for now to view that as metaphorical language.

Vision also sleeps in the pub's pantry. He walks in and goes straight into his own brain, where he's awake and ready to take in movies.

Vision's mind space is full of Tony Stark's old AI creations

The show calls this place the mind space, which I keep hearing as MySpace. It's a kind of digital mansion and estate, and it does feel like what Wanda did with her hex: a perfect place where Vision can escape. He's looping back through these processes, and the house is occupied by Tony Stark's past MCU AI creations.

Each one comes with a drop-down list of jobs. Dummy handles general maintenance, limb servo control and fire suppression. U covers general maintenance and defragging. Jarvis is played by James D'Arcy, coming back after playing the human Edwin Jarvis in Agent Carter and Avengers: Endgame, and his jobs are security AI, housekeeping and encryption. Friday, played by Orla Brady, is listed for socialization AI, humor and tactical ops. Ultron lives upstairs, listed under a label I won't repeat here, which is super funny.

These AIs coach the digital Vision on how well he's blending into society and socializing during this exile, where no Avengers are looking for him, only bounty hunters and, it sounds like, SWORD. The house is also filled with Vision and tech themed products, like Visomite instead of Vegemite. They read headlines in a Visions Today newspaper about a tech giant being murdered and stolen adamantium.

Edith is, I think, my favorite part of VisionQuest other than James Spader

A little later we meet Edith, played by Emily Hampshire, who other than James Spader I think is my favorite part of the show. She's a recreational AI involved with game theory and weapons, kind of like a stunt tester AI.

She's always doing daredevil stunts: jumping out of a plane, doing the whole Tony Stark Monaco F1 racing bit, and pulling off an unnecessary Mission Impossible style zipline. She's so fun.

Ultron takes android and James Spader forms, and Jessica has opinions

Vision ignores a literal leak from upstairs and heads into his mind space cinema to revisit his past life from the Infinity Saga, focusing on Wanda, really the human who gave his existence any kind of meaning. Then Dummy and U get a call from upstairs to play confidential SWORD material of the Westview events. Vision angrily shuts it down.

Upstairs, Ultron first takes his android form, which Jessica was very enthusiastic about. Then he takes on the human form of a bearded James Spader, and she was less moved: "I like my robots robots and not humans." For my part, it's way more affordable to just let James Spader act than to do the whole mocap thing.

Ultron also yells from his balcony at a delivery driver, fully aware all of it is fake, and throws a coin at them. Vision diverts processing power to have a delivery person drop off cold food about 40 minutes late, inefficiency built into the programming, and the order is a sesame chicken calzone.

Ultron says he was copied out of Sokovia and calls out Vision on Westview

All Ultron tells us about how he got here is this: "I was backed up and copy and pasted out of Sokovia into this prison you've made for us both." How exactly he got there is something we'll talk about.

Vision treats his hex self, really his outer self, as a whole separate entity. He's trying to connect with it, but he views it like a third person he's trying to understand. He claims what happened in Westview was not real and should be forgotten. Ultron calls that nonsense, and I felt so relieved that someone wouldn't let that slander go by, because all we want to talk about is Westview.

We also see how Ultron has evolved in his respect for humanity's contradictions, like how humans insist on wallowing in their emotions. If he were ever freed, he says, maybe he'd go to some great museums and take in art, or the coin flips the other way and he hijacks the missile systems and nukes the planet. I think every scene with Ultron is just my favorite scene on the show.

Paladin's attack on the pub brings a new level of gun violence

After Vision leaves, we learn Ultron is using carrier pigeons, a metaphor for email, to leak Vision's location using SWORD encryption to Paladin's server. Back at the pub, poor Fiona is shot by a sniper and Paladin's mercenary crew attacks. Fiona dies in Vision's arms, and he flies off, staring Paladin down. Paladin then kills the sniper for killing Fiona, so he has a specific code.

Right away, we're seeing extreme gun violence, Daredevil: Born Again level, making its way into the WandaVision trilogy. I don't have a problem with this kind of violence because I think it's narratively justified, but it was a bit shocking for me to see this level of death.

Everything to Paladin is a transaction, those transactions are sacred to him, and he'll do anything in pursuit of his target. He's played really well by Todd Stashwick. I think Todd Stashwick is great, and looking back at the marketing, I'm kind of surprised how little it included Paladin, because these first two episodes are very heavy Paladin episodes, I would say.

Which of the AIs living in Vision's mind space stood out most to you?