WandaVision theory: was Mephisto behind the twins plot?

When episode 3 of WandaVision arrived on Disney Plus, I believed a set of well spotted Easter eggs had revealed what each villain's role would be and what they wanted from Wanda. My theory was that the demon Mephisto was controlling the reality, with Agnes, aka Agatha Harkness, and the Grim Reaper working for him to take back Wanda's newborn twins.

WandaVision (2021) starred Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany. I wrote this before the series finale aired on March 5, 2021, so what follows is what I thought at the time. Even after episode 3, we were still left with questions we didn't have answers to. Most of the major events came in the last seven minutes, not counting the credits, but there were important moments in the first 20 minutes too.

The Brady Bunch hexagons in WandaVision episode 3 pointed to AIM

The episode opened in the style of The Brady Bunch, and some people might not have looked too much into it, but there was a very obvious trend of hexagons. I think Marvel Studios did this very intentionally, because the original Brady Bunch intro uses squares, not hexagons. Marvel specifically put those hexagons there.

What interested me is that a hexagon is the logo for AIM, which stands for Advanced Idea Mechanics. AIM is mostly associated with the villain MODOK. But WandaVision had also been calling back to Hydra, and there was an Easter egg in a commercial in this episode that showed Hydra. So it could be that AIM was simply a branch of Hydra, or the new Hydra, going by the name AIM instead. Either way, it definitely looked to me like AIM and Hydra were both part of whatever was happening in WandaVision.

Vision's panic and Herb's hedge trimmer suggested Westview was under a trance

Episode 2 had left Wanda magically and suddenly pregnant. As episode 3 began, the doctor was over, and Wanda seemed perfectly fine and very happy about it, while Vision was freaking out. That was counterintuitive to how Vision normally is. He's calm, cool, collected and calculating; after all, he is kind of a robot. Here he seemed very human. The doctor said Wanda was four months along, and as he left, Vision asked him to keep the pregnancy a secret.

Then came a very peculiar scene with Vision's neighbor Herb. Herb had cut through his hedges and was now cutting through the wall. Vision called him out in a friendly way: "hey Herb, I think you might have taken the hedge trimming a little too far there, old chum." Herb looked at him, eyes wide open, said so I have, thanks buddy, and kept cutting, his eyes never leaving Vision.

We knew Wanda was in a different reality, and we'd been wondering what the other people's roles were. It seemed to be getting more certain that they were under some sort of trance. Herb didn't seem to have much control over what was going on. It was an odd scene and it bugged Vision, who could tell something wasn't normal, though Vision isn't exactly normal either. When he went back inside, Wanda was even bigger.

The butterfly mobile hinted one of Wanda's twins had her powers

Wanda and Vision, mostly Wanda with her powers, set up the baby's room, putting together the crib and everything else. Wanda pulled out a mobile with butterflies on it. The baby kicked, and right after, the butterflies came to life and flew around the room. Wanda said, "oh, did I do that? I didn't mean to."

Wanda turned out to have twins. She and Vision thought they'd have one child and argued over the names Billy and Tommy, so with twins they used both. In the comics, Wanda and Vision's kids are Wiccan and Speed. Wiccan has the powers of his mother, the Scarlet Witch, and Speed has the abilities of his uncle Quicksilver; he's super fast. So my read was that Wiccan, with the same abilities as his mother, made the butterflies come to life, not Wanda. That's why she asked if she did it: she didn't. At that point she had no idea one of her kids had the same powers she does.

That continued when she went into labor. As the contractions started, the lights flickered and the power went out across the whole neighborhood, and it began to rain when her water broke. I thought this was most likely a combination of her powers going out of control during labor and Wiccan's powers, but if it was her, she clearly had no control. Vision freaked out and flew into the air, and Wanda had to calm him with her breathing technique. This Vision had emotions and was almost hysterical in parts, where the Vision we know would understand exactly what was going on and stay calm. To me that was more evidence this Vision may not be alive, and if he is, he's definitely not the same husband that Wanda knew.

Vision realized something was wrong in Westview before he was reset

Whoever this Vision is, he realized something was wrong. Wanda said she felt like the people of Westview were always on the verge of discovering her secret, and Vision said yes, he knew what she meant. He seemed to have caught on that the reality wasn't real, saying it was more than people discovering their secret. The background music turned very eerie, and he said, "I think there's something wrong here." Right after, he was reset.

We'd seen this at the end of episode 2, when the beekeeper came into the reality, Wanda said no and reset it. So Wanda clearly had control over this reality. Or did she? The answer, as I saw it, came later in the episode.

The Hydra Soak commercial described Wanda's escape

Next came a commercial for Hydra soap. Again, AIM could simply be Hydra or a department of Hydra, but it was clear to me that Hydra was somewhat involved. The words of the commercial described Wanda's reality. The narration went: "escape to a world all your own where your problems float away, when you want to get away but don't want to go anywhere. Hydra Soak. Find the goddess within."

That's essentially Wanda. She escaped to a world of her own, a reality where she can control what happens, where Vision is alive, they're married and they're about to have children. She escaped all her problems after Avengers: Endgame, her brother being dead and Vision being dead. Her problems floated away, but she's still on Earth, in a bubble reality. That's the line about wanting to get away without going anywhere: she hasn't gone anywhere, she created a different reality around herself.

Wanda couldn't get rid of the stork during the birth

As Wanda went further into labor, Vision ran off to get the doctor. Wanda heard a noise from the nursery, then Monica tapped on the door. In this reality she was Geraldine, but we knew her real name in the real world is Monica Rambeau. She came to borrow a bucket. Wanda tried to hide the pregnancy, but she went into labor and couldn't hide it, so Geraldine helped her give birth. Things went into madness: a photo spun on the wall, the chandelier fell and the fire ignited, which I think was a reference to Mephisto and his hell realm.

Right before the birth, a stork magically showed up. That wasn't shocking on its own, since so much was happening with Wanda unable to control her powers and Wiccan most likely causing things too. But the stork wasn't a product of Wanda or her son. The key point is that Wanda tried several times to get rid of it, and all we saw was red smoke. That was very big, because it meant Wanda couldn't fully control this reality. Somebody else could.

Wanda gave birth to her son. Vision returned with the doctor, and Geraldine took the doctor into the kitchen to give the couple time alone. Wanda asked, "don't you want to meet your son as yourself?" and Vision turned into the synthezoid. Then Wanda screamed because another baby was coming, and Vision freaked out, yelling what. That they didn't know about the twins comes from a comic storyline where Doctor Strange didn't know Wanda was having twins either.

Agnes and Herb hinted Westview's residents were trapped

Things got very intense from here. Vision walked the doctor out, and the doctor said he most likely wouldn't go on his trip anymore, adding that small towns are so hard to escape, with a very weird emphasis, as if it were important. Vision seemed to be starting to realize things weren't right again, and then he heard his neighbors. With the closed captions on, Agnes whispered, "what is she doing in there," and Herb said, "I don't know." Vision said hi, and they said hi back. Agnes asked if Herb saw her go inside, and he said she went right in. Agnes's last words before Vision came over were "that's fine."

This was quite possibly the most important scene in WandaVision so far. Vision asked if they lost power, and Agnes said yes, but Ralph looks better in the dark, another mention of a husband we'd never seen. Agnes and Herb asked if Geraldine was inside with Wanda, and talked about how strange she was: new to town, no family, no husband. Vision said that was all right, and they looked at him and said, "no home."

Then Herb said she came here because they were all, and Agnes stopped him. I thought he was most likely going to say that they're all trapped there. The people inside clearly had some sort of trance over them, but some seemed aware they were in another reality they couldn't escape, which lined up with the doctor's line about small towns. They also seemed aware that Monica wasn't one of the people involved.

Geraldine's slip about Pietro and the SWORD necklace

Meanwhile, Wanda told Geraldine she was a twin with a brother, Pietro, and sang to the babies in Sokovian. Geraldine had a sudden awakening and said Pietro was killed by Ultron. The trance over her was slowly fading. Wanda got upset and asked what she said. Geraldine seemed to realize she shouldn't have said it, but she was now very aware of where she was and who Wanda was. When Wanda asked what she said about Pietro, Wanda realized her reality was being threatened and told her to leave.

Then Wanda saw the emblem on Geraldine's necklace. Geraldine acted as if she didn't know what it was, because it's the SWORD emblem. In the comics, SWORD stands for Sentient World Observation and Response Department, but in the MCU it has apparently been changed to Sentient Weapon Observation and Response Department. SWORD is basically a different department of SHIELD, though in the MCU, SHIELD may have simply changed its name to SWORD.

As Geraldine stumbled for words, Wanda slowly walked toward her, clearly unhappy and threatened. Next, Vision walked in and Geraldine was gone. The music took a horror tone. Asked where Geraldine was, Wanda said, "oh, she left, honey. She had to rush home," with a very creepy smile. The frame expanded, and we were outside some type of bubble or energy force field as Monica came out. SWORD surrounded her, and in the background there was clearly an energy field around Westview.

Agnes's brooch and my theory that Mephisto wanted the twins back

Here was the biggest Easter egg we'd had. During the conversation with Vision, Agnes wore the same brooch from previous episodes, and we got a good look. It seemed to show three figures. One looked to be the Grim Reaper, with a scythe, and episode 2 had already given us a Grim Reaper Easter egg, so I expected him to be involved somehow. The other two looked to maybe be children.

Here's what I thought was happening. Mephisto, who is in charge of the hell realm, basically the devil, was controlling this reality and somehow possessing Wanda. That's why the last words at the end of episode 2 were "Wanda, who is doing this to you?" SWORD was observing her but not controlling her, because somebody else was, and they didn't know who. That same person had trapped everybody else in the bubble. Working for Mephisto were Agnes, aka Agatha Harkness the witch, and the Grim Reaper. The plan was to get Wanda's kids, who are really Mephisto's, back now that they were born, and the way to return them to the hell realm is to kill them. That's where the Grim Reaper comes in, so the brooch would show the Grim Reaper alongside Wiccan and Speed.

I also believed the stork was either Mephisto or Agatha. Vision can't exactly give Wanda kids, and in the comics the children are shards of Mephisto's soul, which I thought was most likely happening here. A stork brings children, just as Mephisto most likely brought these children to Wanda, and as the stork he was spying on the birth. It would explain why Wanda couldn't get rid of it, because it's his reality, and the red smoke too.

So my theory was that Mephisto wanted children for whatever reason and picked Wanda because she's an extremely powerful witch. He trapped her in this reality and put the children inside her, with Agatha containing the reality and the Grim Reaper returning the children by killing them. That would ultimately lead to Wanda exploding: she lost her brother, she lost Vision, and then she'd lose her children. I thought it would lead into Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, where Wanda might be a villain. It was very hard to pinpoint exactly what was happening, but that was my theory.