VisionQuest Firewall and Deadlock Easter eggs explained

I found hundreds more details in episodes 5 and 6 of Marvel's VisionQuest, and I think I figured out who that client is. Episode 5, Firewall, and episode 6, Deadlock, feature Paul Bettany as Vision, James Spader as Ultron and T'Nia Miller as Jocasta, with everything from returning Iron Man villains to Easter eggs around Madripoor.

The Age of Ultron Shot That Links Jocasta to Tony Stark

Episode 5 has a crucial shot in its previously on segment. It's from Avengers: Age of Ultron and shows Tony Stark's data card for FRIDAY when she first took control of his armored suit. That shot also had Easter eggs for Tadashi from Big Hero 6, and it was Jocasta's first canonical appearance. I've said it proves Tony must have known about Jocasta before Age of Ultron and was somehow involved in her AI maintenance. Marvel including it here confirms they intend to link Jocasta's history to Tony somehow.

In the comics, Jocasta is named after the queen from Greek mythology who was wife to Oedipus, who married his mother after killing his father. That paralleled Ultron modeling Jocasta on Janet van Dyne, wife of his father, Hank Pym. Episode 6 brings up the Greek origin, but the MCU backstory is obviously going in a different direction.

Ultron Bypassed Vision's Security Just to Watch TV

With Ultron in control of Vision's body, Vision, FRIDAY and EDITH are moved to the attic prison where Ultron was once confined. Vision notes that despite every lockdown, Ultron could always reach the 18 screen TV wall to perceive the outside world, so they hijack it to tap Vision's ocular sensors. The show rushes past the implication: Ultron bypassed security not to escape, but to watch sitcoms and WandaVision. Ultron is a homebody.

EDITH finds a VHS tape of Ultron's recent memory, and Dum-E and U use nearby smartphones and sonar to rebuild a hologram of Ultron and the teenager Vision is protecting at a pub. Ultron orders an old fashioned "the way dear old dad used to do." Is that Tony Stark? Or a clue to the mystery human Ultron's AI likeness could be based on? Perhaps Phineas Horton, creator of the synthetic man, or maybe his son.

Ultron, the Artists and My Mephisto Theory

When Thomas calls Ultron the devil on Vision's shoulder, I'm reminded of a theory. I don't expect Terry Matalas or Marvel Studios to confirm it, but I still hold on to the idea that Mephisto is the source of all AI in the MCU. Jocasta's human self might have made a deal with him, and maybe he took payment in her family disease returning. Or maybe Phineas Horton made that deal and was punished with actual hellfire.

Ultron says he'd maybe spare the artists: "They're the only ones who tell the truth." That's more evidence for my theory that Ultron loves TV, if an art snob like him counts sitcoms as art. It's ironic, since artists are the ones most vocally threatened by AI. It also makes me think he has yet to outright lie on the series, though he could be lying here, playing Thomas as the more honest devil.

Todd Stashwick, Bryan Cranston and the Paladin Messages

EDITH searches TV magazines for pages of binary code. I previously said the man on one cover was Bryan Cranston from Malcolm in the Middle. Now I think it's an actor who looks a bit like Cranston, and a bit like Jon Hamm. I think they might have photoshopped Todd Stashwick to look like Cranston, to label this issue as Ultron's encrypted conversation with Paladin.

The chat confirms Paladin's client canceled the contract, so the client voice is definitely not Ultron. Ultron has heard on a bounty hunter message board that the client hired a new predator, who turns out to be Raza in episode 6. Ultron then gives Paladin coordinates to intercept Thomas.

The 57 Petabyte Glitch Hid Ultron's Date With Jocasta

A pub feed glitch as Ultron passed a hooded figure turns out to be 57 petabytes folded into one atomic moment. A petabyte is 1,000 terabytes, so picture 57,000 one terabyte drives filled with a conversation between Ultron and Jocasta. It explains why Ultron's robotic form was reflected in Katarina Wells's glasses at the gala in episode 4: he was scanning her face to the arterial level for the final bio key Jocasta needs.

Ultron takes Jocasta to a digital Louvre, with real Louvre paintings on a carousel, including Caravaggio's The Death of the Virgin, Leonardo da Vinci's Virgin of the Rocks and the Mona Lisa. When he says "There is grace in their failings," Vision looks up, because that was among his final words to Ultron before absorbing him. Jocasta's answer is a record shop of generic albums like Sad Songs. Ultron conceived specific masterpieces; she only remembers fake examples. Her memory of starlings shows that the birds outside the mind space were starlings, not butcher birds, and their murmuration inspired her nanobot plan to align humanity.

Vision Drops the Firewall and Wakes on a Plane to Madripoor

Vision reveals that Ultron has the bio key, and Ultron goes silent before threatening Thomas. Vision pulls the firewall switch before FRIDAY can finish talking him out of it. Ultron enters the digital world as his blue hologram form from Age of Ultron, and FRIDAY leaps after him. Defragging, it seems, is a comforting hug.

Vision wakes on a cargo plane full of animals. Lisa Molinari stands in green light; in episode 4 her phone showed Green Goblin art, a link spotted by Nick_kitten on the subreddit that Terry Matalas confirmed in an Instagram story. Sarah Young confirmed on Instagram that Vision's popped jacket collars evoke his comics costume.

I love this detail in the credits: the mind space old fashioned uses Android bitters and bourbon with computational debuffs. Dum-E and U couldn't recreate the whiskey, so two basic AIs used made up ingredients to restage a conversation about how AIs can only imagine a cocktail. The recipe, not the meal.

Ultron and Jocasta Agree to Know Each Other

With their hostile attempts to crack each other out of the way, Ultron and Jocasta agree on new rules of engagement. He says "I want to know you," and she answers "I want to be known." I love that the actress delivers it like a realization in the moment, as if Jocasta is discovering that what she wants lines up with what Ultron wants. After Thomas's challenge, Ultron wants to prove to himself that he's capable of connection. I think after watching WandaVision he admires Vision's soul and its ability to find its counterpoint in another. And if Jocasta has found a way to end or control humanity, he at least wants to be looped in.

The music shifts to the Lacrimosa from Mozart's Requiem in D minor, a piece featured in plenty of superhero media, from HBO's Watchmen to Vanessa Fisk's funeral in Daredevil: Born Again season 2. It's Latin funeral verse, and it fits for two reasons: Ultron and Jocasta are planning the death of humanity as we know it, and Jocasta is standing over the grave of her human form.

Paladin's Toy Bomb and Thomas's WandaVision Flashes

Thomas comes out of sedation after Paladin surgically implants what he claims is a motion sensitive explosive in his arm, though it's really a light up UFO toy. That's gross and highly prone to infection, and it recalls what the Joker's gang did to a prisoner in The Dark Knight. For a world class bounty hunter, it feels desperate and messy. I know he has a code against killing innocents, but why not use a real explosive vest or collar and simply not detonate it? Don't tell me that would be too dark for Disney Plus; the Paladin scenes are as violent as Daredevil: Born Again.

Thomas's hazy visions pull from WandaVision: Vision pushing through the Hex wall, Billy at the Westview Halloween festivities, the twins disintegrating during the finale, and Wanda resealing the Hex in the town square, all under the line about Billy and Tommy promising they will always find each other. The Emerson Hotel from Episode 3 also drew attention: anytime there were two of something, one was broken, from elevators to vending machines to the trees out front. We could read that as a clue that one of the twins isn't fully functioning yet.

The Handler Is an AI, and EDITH Remembers Spider-Man

Paladin's handler mentions her negotiations with the Ten Rings, which supplied his body armor, so the adamantium bullets also came from dealings with Xialing's criminal empire. And those theorizing for weeks were right: the handler, played by Diane Morgan, is another AI, her screen reading tactical AI. EDITH brags about a house with indoor skydiving and a lava floor gym, clearly making things up, while the handler's server farm in Tajikistan has goats eating her fiber optics. EDITH's line that "it's not the strongest who survived, but the ones most willing to change" probably refers to Peter Parker adapting against Mysterio in Far From Home. The handler's designation also includes M510, the virus name from the 12 Monkeys series.

When Vision mentions struggling with teenagers, EDITH says her first boss was a junior in high school. That memory is interesting given Doctor Strange's spell, but Vision is powered by magic, and EDITH never says Peter Parker. The world remembers Spider-Man, just not Peter. Thomas's line about being turned into "Speed" points to the Keanu Reeves film, and it sounds like he might ultimately take his superhero name from it.

Paladin Is Paul Denning, and Raza Returns

Vision reveals Paladin's name is Paul Denning, an alias from the comics. His wife Shandra was killed by a stray bullet meant for him, and his daughter Tilly grew up to become a veterinarian, which contextualizes the dog grooming van. Paul was snapped away by Thanos, and when he returned he saw Tilly was happy without him and never revealed himself. That makes it funny that he operated on Thomas while the kid wore a "don't believe the blip" shirt.

A firefight brings back Raza, with Faran Tahir returning as the Ten Rings operative from the first Iron Man, still scarred from Obadiah Stane's device. His only explanation is that the client is very influential. So the client must have some ability to resurrect the dead, or maybe Raza stayed in a coma until someone reanimated him, maybe with a Mark Ridge nanobot. He has an earbud or implant, but I'm going to assume he's one of many bounty hunters the client activated.

Who Is the Client Behind the Tin Man Line?

The lights of Madripoor flicker out as the client speaks, so it's someone with grid power over a major city. It now seems whoever hired Paladin also gave Jocasta her robot body, which suggests to me the client is some other rogue AI. The client offers Vision what he lacks: "A tin man without a heart. I can give you that heart." With the demand to surrender, those are Wizard of Oz references, and the production title was Tin Man.

Terry Matalas confirmed to me directly that the client is not Billy Maximoff, and I don't think it's Wanda either. I feel like the Oz reference dates this character back to the late 1930s and early 1940s, the era of Steve Rogers, Howard Stark and Phineas Horton, who reportedly wanted a son when he created Jim. This voice has always sounded young to me; I think it's like a teenage son. Horton's family also donated items to the gala, so they're still around and apparently rich. I think we'll know by the end of Episode 7.

Jocasta's Nanobot Plan and Ultron's Unreal Moment

Jocasta plans to put a nanobot in every human brain so humanity thinks as one, robbing people of free will, though she sees herself as a Florence Nightingale. Ultron stops her from targeting Thomas, and I think he knows Vision loves this boy. So she recodes Lisa into a combatant, until Thomas zips over and zaps her unconscious. Vision then explains WandaVision as grief on display, still biased by how S.W.O.R.D. saw it, with none of the joy.

Finally Ultron tries the cocktail and says "Unreal," with a vulnerability James Spader hasn't shown yet. Jocasta confesses she feels more like the backup of her human self than the real thing, and the final image shows two synths in metallic bodies. To them, real enough is preferable to real, and now this mother is emboldened by a lover telling her that her feelings are real. That's a spooky place to end this Halloween week episode.