VisionQuest episode 6 review: does Ultron fall in love?

Episode six of VisionQuest, titled Deadlock, is weird, crazy, interesting and a little uncomfortable, but intriguing at the same time. The Disney Plus series stars Paul Bettany, with James Spader as Ultron. Coming out of this chapter, the feeling was simple: "I think the show is doing its job."

With Ultron now free of Vision's body, Vision heads to Madripoor to rescue Tommy, with Tommy's friend Lisa along for the ride. Ultron goes his own way, and that is where the episode gets strange.

Ultron meets his match in a synthetic rival

Ultron goes after the synthetic woman, whose AI is built on a scientist from the project, and she turns out to be a step ahead of him. She infects him with a virus and tells him, "This isn't a meal, love. This is chess." The reaction in the room was that she might be even crazier than he is, and that Ultron has met his match. Their talk of wanting to be known blends innuendo with literal meaning, and it was not what we expected. By the end, the takeaway was blunt: "Ultron feels love for the first time."

The Paladin, Edith and the Jarvis reveal

The Paladin plants a motion sensitive explosive in Tommy, which drew a joke that this is reverse Speed: go too fast and it blows up. The scene freeing Edith from a cheap server farm, complete with a line about only wanting to help college students write term papers, was called a very fun scene.

The bigger reveal is that the scientist's code became Jarvis, sold off by her collaborators. Then a man named Paul Denning is told that his daughter, Tilly, could be threatened using nothing but data. "Oh, the reveals in this show is so good."

Lisa becomes the nanobot test

A nanobot that can take over human minds is tested on Lisa. Choosing someone close to Vision seemed odd at first, but the stakes are bigger that way for the show. One thought is that these nanobots could find their way into a future MCU film, though there was also a sense of not really wanting that.

Who is the client, and will Billy show up

We still don't know who the client is. It has to be someone we know, or maybe a Marvel character we haven't met yet, like the Paladin was. With the episode leaning so hard on flashbacks to the twins, there is a feeling Billy will appear, though there would be no complaints if he doesn't. Tommy needs answers about who he is, and Billy is the only one who can give them.

Other open questions: where the woman's body came from, why it resembles Ultron, and whether Ultron stashed away copies of himself, which sounds very much like something he would do.

Why the romance works

The Ultron romance is meant to feel unnatural, artificial trying to be real, in the tradition of Data in Star Trek or the Terminator in Terminator 2 learning to be more human. This is an interesting take, and we really think James Spader pulls it off very well. With only two episodes left, there's a lot to wrap up: "I think those last two episodes better be an hour long each."