MarvelVision: WandaVision Episode 9 – “The Series Finale”

WandaVision Episode 9 The Series Finale

It’s time for the series finale of Marvel’s WandaVision, appropriately titled “The Series Finale,” so let’s break it all down on our podcast. Agatha Harkness stands fully revealed, and is going witch versus witch with Wanda Maximoff, aka The Scarlet Witch. Meanwhile, White Vision and Westview Vision settle things the only way a synthezoid can, Monica tries to escape from Fietro and discovers a surprising secret about him, and Billy and Tommy step up to the plate, with their lives – and the fate of the whole town – in the balance. From what happened to White Vision, to Skrulls, to Ralph Bohner, to the TWO WandaVision Episode 9 post credit scenes, to what this all means for Captain Marvel 2, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Spider-Man: No Way Home, to all the WandaVision finale Easter eggs and comic book references you can shake a gnarled, withered old hand at, we’ve got you covered.

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Full Episode Transcript

Alex:                 Welcome to MarvelVision, a podcast about Marvel the MCU, and right now, the finale of WandaVision is a very secretive title called The Series Finale. I’m Alex.

Justin:              I’m Justin, coming at you live from the children’s bedroom, the very hub where all great content comes from.

Pete:                I’m Pete.

Alex:                 Pete is awake this time. That’s very excited. I’m excited that your alarm went off here for the series finale. Now, requisite spoiler warning here. Go watch WandaVision The Series Finale. We’re going to spoil it. We’re going to talk about everything, all the Easter eggs, all the Marvel secrets, also talk about the two post-credit sequences. So if you watched through the regular WandaVision credits and then tuned out, keep watching through the regular credits, because there’s another sequence after that.

Justin:              Actually, even beyond that, there’s this whole credit sequence called The Age of Ultron that I actually really enjoyed that you can keep watching, and then at the end of that, there’s another post-credit sequence.

Alex:                 Oh, man. What was that next post-credit sequence? Was it Raya and the Last Dragon?

Justin:              Yes, and that one was expensive. I had to pay for that.

Pete:                Wow.

Alex:                 Man, Marvel … They’re just-

Justin:              They get you.

Alex:                 They’re taking us for everything we’re worth. Now-

Justin:              Plus, there’s a whole pre-credit sequence I don’t know if you watched, which was the actual episode of television we’re talking about.

Alex:                 I skipped that completely.

Justin:              Yeah. Oh, that’s sort of the important part.

Alex:                 Let’s talk about this. This is, of course, the final episode. It’s bringing everything together. Certainly, I’m sure there’s some things we want to talk about that weren’t necessarily touched on, but huge episode. We got the Fantastic Four. We got X-Men. We got Mephisto.

Pete:                What the fuck.

Alex:                 Every theory-

Pete:                Shut up.

Alex:                 … was 100 percent true, and that was great. I was very excited about that. What did you guys think?

Justin:              About the episode? I mean, this was good. Earlier this week, the director … Right? Matt Shakman came out and said “Hey. You’re probably going to be disappointed,” which is always a weird thing to hear from one of the main creatives on a project before it comes out, but I see what he was saying, where it’s a classic end of the third act of a Marvel movie, where it’s mostly a big fight. There’s some nice, touching moments. There’s some really smart moments in this, and then everyone just sort of goes back to their corners, and we see what happens going forward.

Pete:                Except for the fact that there’s a lot of loss and a lot of sadness that is still there. You know what I mean? I mean, we’ve said goodbye to a whole family in this episode, man. That’s a tough way to start your fucking Friday, especially so fucking early in the fucking morning.

Alex:                 I do that every Friday. Every Friday, I wake up, I say goodbye to a family, and then I go-

Justin:              He has an ant farm that he smushes an entire family of ants every morning on Fridays when he gets up.

Alex:                 Teaches me about mortality. That’s how I like to end my week.

Justin:              That’s a good way of saying it when you’re murdering tiny little creatures. The thing is, Pete, I don’t think we actually said goodbye to very many characters. The Vision gets-

Pete:                There’s two Visions now. Which one you talking about?

Justin:              Well, I think there’s eventually only one, the ghost Vision, that I think our old Hex Vision converts ghost Vision into the one true Vision. He just goes off. The kids, we hear … There’s no way we’re not going to see them again, and we hear, even in the post-post-credits sequence a little whisper from some sort of child.

Alex:                 Help. Mama, help. Just before we get too into the minutia of the episode, I’d also like to chime in and just say that I thought this was great. I thought this was a really good finale, and to your point, Justin, yeah, one of the pleasures of talking about WandaVision week to week has been talking about the theories and speculating about it and throwing out “Ooh, is this teasing X-Men? Is this teasing Fantastic Four? Is this teasing Mephisto?” whatever other Marvel characters you want to throw in there, “Is Dr. Strange going to show up? What are the cameos going to be?” and like we sort of talked about last week, what they did really smartly was the story.

Alex:                 I think, as a watcher, as a fan, go crazy. Theorize as much as you want. I think this is what Matt Shakman was saying, but at the end of the day, put those theories aside and just watch it, because what they were telling was a story about Wanda’s grief, her sadness, and not how you completely move past that, but how you start to move past that, and I think that’s what they effectively did through the action sequences, through the plot in this episode, which I really appreciated.

Justin:              I agree. I mean, and like a lot of fans, I love speculating, but the ultimate speculation in fan theory is a show about grief. I think that, at the end of the day, there’s a million blog posts about “Yeah. It was grief. It was grief all along. Woo.”

Alex:                 Yeah. Now, we should talk about the Marvel Comics origins of grief, which is a classic character. It’s a demon, has a … No. It doesn’t. I don’t know. I liked that. I liked how, like we sort of even speculated about, they ended it with this quieter moment with the family of their house that was so sad and so poignant, but it really was that Wanda … It was all Wanda. Like they said in the third or fourth episode, it’s Wanda. It’s all Wanda, and that’s what it was about. It was about her emotional journey to getting to the point where she can let go of Vision, even though, to your point again, Vision is a god. He’s still out there somewhere.

Justin:              Yeah.

Pete:                Where do you think the White Vision flew to in such a hurry?

Alex:                 I mean, now that he realizes he’s alive, he’s probably going to get a good burger or something, go to In-N-Out?

Pete:                Really?

Alex:                 That’s a good place.

Pete:                I thought he-

Justin:              Wow.

Pete:                I thought it was more like “Hey, man. Go start your own family. Don’t live like this, all right? Go pick a town, take it over. You can do it better this time.”

Alex:                 If you look at the closed captioning, he was actually … While he was flying off, he says “It’s time to get married.”

Justin:              Yeah. I love the idea, Pete, that you’re like “Wow. When someone’s really sad, the best advice is to go start their own family.” So when you were an angsty teen, you were like “That’s it. I’m out of here. I’m getting married, and I’m just going to have kids, and I’m going to be in charge of that family.”

Pete:                That’s right.

Alex:                 I’ll tell you what. If you’re having problems, having a whole family … That’ll fix everything.

Justin:              That’s a hundred percent right. Look at me, I make total sense. I’m on top of the world in here. I’m in a tiny, tiny room, and look at this. These are the Nordic sculptures at the end of the episode in the double post-credit sequence.

Pete:                Oh, look it. You-

Justin:              This is an Easter egg.

Pete:                … cast your own spells in your own home. That’s smart, man.

Justin:              Yeah.

Alex:                 Let’s talk a little bit more about Vision just to focus this in a bit. I loved that not only that we got the White Vision versus Westview Vision, or whatever we want to call him, fight, which was great and fun to watch, but that it ended with this very classic Vision fashion of having a philosophical discussion, which was very much … I mean, I know we’re joking about Age of Ultron and everybody’s been like “Jesus Christ, Disney Plus. Stop pushing Age of Ultron on me at the end here,” but one of the absolute best scenes in Age of Ultron is when Vision just talks to Ultron in the woods about humanity at the end there right before he takes care of him as he did.

Pete:                You can’t say plateaus like “One of the best things of Ultron.” That’s crazy. There were so many fun little points. What about when Hawkeye threatens to shoot? He was like “Nobody would know. I could just take you out.” There was a lot of good moments. You can’t just say one of-

Alex:                 I’m not trying to slam your favorite movie, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Pete. All I’m saying-

Pete:                All right. Well, don’t say best moments and talk about a moment that was like “All right. Let’s talk about life in the woods.”

Alex:                 That’s a great moment. You’re wrong.

Justin:              Alex, don’t push him too much further. He’s going to go start another family, and he’s got too many fucking families.

Alex:                 Regardless, I think this whole thing about the ship and discussion it was really great and a great way of wrapping it up that I certainly was not expecting.

Justin:              Yeah.

Pete:                If you don’t like your family, move and start a new one next town over. No one will know.

Justin:              Wow. That maybe used to work, but not anymore. I agree. I thought this was a cool way, especially in an episode that started … At the very beginning, it was just fight, fight, fight, and to have it sort of heighten and elevate to the point where we actually get to see this butting of heads in a really smart way, I thought, was great, and the way that it ends with him sort of … We see his stone flash to the Mind Stone yellow briefly and then back to blue, and then his eyes go from blur to just human, good old-fashioned human eyes.

Pete:                Yeah. I mean, it’s impressive how after all the action movies, Marvel is like “All right. We’re going to make something that’s a little bit more sad, something that’s going to tug on the heartstrings a little bit and isn’t really going to be about fighting,” and it’s great that creatively we can be doing shows like this. Sure, you walk away not as pumped and maybe a little bit more sad, but it is a cool story nonetheless.

Alex:                 Shout out to my boy Paul Bettany for doing a great job on this series. Just everybody was great across the board, fantastic cast, but like we’ve been talking about on this podcast all along, he played so many modes of different comedy. In this episode, like we’re talking about, he got to be classic Vision, but that speech at the end to Wanda as he’s saying goodbye was so sweet and so sad and so beautiful. I do hope people don’t lump on it the same way they did the “What is grief but love persevering?” line, because-

Justin:              That wasn’t getting lumped. I mean, it was elevated to the point after last week’s episode. This was on Twitter, if you don’t follow all this nonsense. It was elevated to the point of “Look at this perfect line,” and then everyone went after it then, but I mean, it was a good line.

Alex:                 It’s a good line. It was well said. I’m just saying that I think this was another good speech, and I feel like people are going to equate them in their minds a little bit. So it’s like “Lay off, buddy.” That’s all I’m saying.

Justin:              Alex, we should give a shout out to you for calling Paul Bettany describing himself as the actor he wanted to work with.

Alex:                 Oh, yes. Thank you. Every once in a while … Here’s the thing. This is a little business thing that maybe you guys don’t know about.

Pete:                Wait. Wait. Wait. Justin, are you kicking your own kids out of their own room right now? Is that what you’re-

Justin:              Yeah. This is Daddy’s time.

Pete:                Your kid just wants to go to its bed. Let that kid-

Justin:              Its bed? Wow. For a man who has multiple families, you don’t know how to talk about kids very well. She’s awake. Ever since we’ve been doing this podcast, getting up at the crack of dawn, she gets up before me and sits in the living room. So we’ve really evolved as a family.

Alex:                 Does she talk to you about speculation and spoilers?

Justin:              Yeah. She’s-

Pete:                Yeah. What does she think?

Justin:              She wanted to interrupt and say “Where the fuck was Al Pacino? I really wanted [inaudible 00:11:22].”

Pete:                Give that kid a mic. That’s comedy gold.

Alex:                 But yeah. I do think it’s very funny, and Paul Bettany had this interview on Good Morning America, I believe, where he was like “Yeah. I thought it would be funny when I was saying that, and it kind of blew up out of control.” So that’s great, and that’s fine. I don’t love when they’re lying about stuff. Love Tatiana Maslany. The fact that she was like “No. I’m not She Hulk,” and then she was cast as She Hulk … That’s not her fault. Somebody told her to say that and deny that, but this Paul Bettany thing is just funny enough. I would rather they do stuff like that. It reminds me a little bit … I don’t know if you guys remember when Michael Shannon was doing a little press and people were asking him about Batman v Superman. He was like “Yeah. I’m in that as Zod again, but I have flipper hands. It was really difficult to open the bathroom door with my flipper hands.” That’s the sort of thing that’s like “Sure. Fuck with people. That’s fine.”

Justin:              Do you think that Paul Bettany got a phone call late at night from Kevin Feige like “Hey, man. You really fucked us on this whole guest star thing. You get on Good Morning America and you fix it. You fix it.”

Alex:                 Probably, but it was good, and I did like seeing him go up. Yeah. It’s funny that we were speculating this much about the cameo. While we’re sort of talking about these things that we speculated a lot about, who was in witness protection for Jimmy Woo? We never tied that up.

Justin:              That’s crazy to me because it’s one thing that we went off on our own little wild speculation. That’s our thing, but even the little nuggets they dropped didn’t really pay off in a way, and I was very surprised there wasn’t a cameo. Obviously, I think, last time I was like “It could still be Mephisto.” That was always a reach, but I thought for sure we would get Dr. Strange. We get a lot of reference to him.

Pete:                Sure do.

Justin:              We’re fully in his world with the Darkhold and all these other things that we’ll probably talk about in a minute, but I still was surprised that we didn’t get a resolution on the witness protection thing, because what is it? Was it Agatha? Also, the-

Pete:                Also-

Justin:              … the Ralph thing was odd. We just get-

Pete:                Yeah. Yeah.

Justin:              So that was an open-ended thing, really.

Pete:                But also, it was like if you’re the Sorcerer Supreme, how do you not feel or notice this crazy shit going on? There was a lot of crazy shit happening magically that … You don’t have something that kind of senses that or kind of points in that direction that maybe you should check out?

Alex:                 I did not come up with this one. I saw somebody tweet it, and I do not remember who tweeted it, but somebody very correctly pointed out “You try getting somebody who lives in Midtown to come out to Jersey for a party.”

Justin:              That’s legit. I mean, come on. He’s not going to leave his-

Pete:                I was hoping that’s where she was going was going to New York City when she left.

Alex:                 I expected that we would see somebody at a post-credits. I was surprised that we didn’t see Dr. Strange in that last moment with Wanda in the cabin or something like that, but I appreciate that we didn’t actually have any cameos. It would have felt distracting.

Justin:              Oh, okay, Alex. You appreciate that we didn’t have any cameos? Wow. What a strong point of view.

Alex:                 No. I do, because it kept it focused-

Pete:                After the fact, after you’ve been speculating and wanting a cameo the whole time.

Alex:                 I have been saying, people can listen back, that maybe we’ll get some cameos, but I think that we would get Dr. Strange in a post-credits or showing up at the very end of the episode and that’s pretty much it all long.

Justin:              Wow.

Alex:                 All along.

Pete:                Sure. Sure. Sure.

Justin:              Alex-

Alex:                 Also, all of the X-Men and Reed Richards.

Justin:              Yeah. Exactly.

Alex:                 Other than that-

Justin:              I think-

Pete:                How did you like … Oh, go ahead.

Justin:              No. You go, Pete.

Pete:                I was going to say how did you like the kind of thing of like “Hey. It’s okay to come back to the theater. No, no, no. Come back to the theater. Please go into the theater, sit down in the seats, pay $30 for popcorn. Yes. Back in the theater. That’s where you belong. That’s where-“

Justin:              You thought there was a little-

Pete:                “… Marvel belongs, back in the movie theater. Right, everybody?”

Alex:                 Oh, okay. I didn’t get that at all.

Pete:                “Home stuff is cool, but right? We should all be back in the movie theater. Now look up. Look up. Ah, yeah. Look at the giant screen. That’s nice, right?”

Justin:              Wow. The ultimate post-credits sequence is being brainwashed.

Alex:                 Yeah. I think that might have been slightly more your thing. Can we talk about the stuff outside of the Hex, the folks outside of the Hex, and kind of run through them a little bit, talk about Jimmy Woo, what happened with him in this episode?

Pete:                Flourish.

Alex:                 Flourish. Yeah. Straight out of Ant-Man and the Wasp, right? That’s where he learned-

Pete:                It’s just magic talk. It’s a nice-

Justin:              Yeah. That’s straight out of David Copperfield’s magic show, and I don’t know if I ever told you this, but David Copperfield made me disappear, actually, when I was five years old.

Pete:                Yeah. I want-

Justin:              [crosstalk 00:16:10].

Pete:                I want the original Justin back. I don’t want this Copperfield copy. You know what I mean?

Alex:                 Yeah. Did you get-

Justin:              Copyfield.

Alex:                 … dumped into a basement somewhere like in The Prestige?

Pete:                Yeah.

Justin:              Yeah. Exactly.

Alex:                 Spoilers for The Prestige.

Justin:              Wow. Alex dropping bombs. Jimmy Woo, I think, is … It’s funny how much he sort of took center stage and Darcy got a little bit left on the wayside here. She had a-

Pete:                Yeah, but come on. I mean, that was … The Kat entrance was just money.

Justin:              Fun moment, but interesting how she really felt like center of the sort of outside-of-the-Hex show for a bit and then was just sort of here for a car accident.

Pete:                Come on. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Let’s not undercut it. It’s a bucket list dream, I think, of every person to drive a clown car into a clown. I mean, come on. That was just unbelievable.

Alex:                 Pete, I don’t want to keep lumping on … You did this the last time as well. It’s not a clown car. It is a funnel cake truck. I can’t believe you of all people is getting this wrong.

Justin:              Yeah.

Pete:                Okay. All right. Unbelievable.

Justin:              We should tell you Pete has driven a clown car for several years, him and all of his [crosstalk 00:17:10].

Pete:                Looking for some clown to run over, and I still haven’t found one.

Alex:                 I do wonder if maybe they didn’t have Kat Dennings really for this last episode, because-

Justin:              It seems that way.

Alex:                 … it seemed like that was an insert shot and there was a credit in the end credits for double for Kat Dennings, double for Darcy. So I wonder if they were able to just grab her for one shot and that was pretty much it. So that’s why we got that.

Justin:              It feels like-

Alex:                 It was a little bit of a bummer.

Justin:              The Jimmy Woo stuff was fun. I liked him at the end of the episode. It’s like “Ooh, he’s running shit.” The idea that he gets to be maybe a more power player in the S.W.O.R.D. area. Or I guess I don’t know. He’s not technically in S.W.O.R.D., right? He’s in the FBI.

Alex:                 Well, I think that’s an interesting thing to talk about in terms of the MCU is we’ve seen S.H.I.E.L.D. dissolve. Then we get S.W.O.R.D. here, which we haven’t seen most of the development of, but certainly with Hayward gone, it seems like obviously there’s going to be some big changes there or that’s going to be dissolved, but it’s almost like they’re realigning the MCU to be the power player in terms of law and order is the FBI, very straightforward, which is interesting.

Justin:              Well, and let’s not forget that Jimmy Woo is a character from the comics who ran the Agents of Atlas. Is that correct?

Alex:                 Yep.

Justin:              So I could see him … Wow. Good job with the Hex situation in Westview. Maybe you can take over this random organization we just made up where there’s a talking gorilla and some other people.

Alex:                 Yep. First choice. First choice, talking gorilla. Also, we’re powered by a dragon. Don’t worry about it. It’s fine.

Justin:              Yep.

Alex:                 That was good. We also got Monica, of course, and the full reveal, definitely has powers. She protects Billy and Tommy. Pretty fucked up that Hayward was trying to shoot a bunch of children.

Justin:              Yo. I was like-

Pete:                Yeah. Hayward just finally gets out of the truck to shoot kids? That’s his plan?

Alex:                 Jesus.

Justin:              From a leadership position, it’s really hard to imagine being like “All right. Let me assess the situation. All right. Shoot the kids first. Bang, bang, bang.”

Pete:                Yeah. I was like “Man, that’s like that Men in Black training where they took one shot at the poor kid the whole time.” That was crazy.

Alex:                 Well, particularly because all Billy and Tommy did was they were like “All right. We’re going to take care of the Army, steal their hats. Yeah.”

Pete:                Oh, man. Military hates it when you steal their hats though. [crosstalk 00:19:16].

Alex:                 That’s where all their power is. They just shut down after that.

Justin:              I will say it’s a very Olsen twin type movie choice at the end there too. Maybe that was a subtle nod to Elizabeth Olsen’s family.

Pete:                Yeah.

Alex:                 Yeah, and then of course we get Wanda. Let’s go over to Wanda and the big witch battle with Agatha. What was your take on that? How do you think all of that panned out?

Pete:                I thought it was fun. It was cool how we had a witch off and then a Vision off, and it was tough because they did a great job of being like “Oh, man. I don’t know if Wanda’s going to be able to win this, because she doesn’t know she’s a witch or is kind of denying it,” and then a fun kind of turn of like “Oh, I listened to your first lesson, and I’m now using that against you,” … That was really badass.

Justin:              Yeah. I agree. It was sort of at a standstill for a while where I was like “She’s sucking her powers, and it really feels like there’s no way for her to get around this.” I liked the twist of the runes in the Hex. I thought that was a smart way to do it, and I guess I don’t know. Between those two battles and then the Vision battles, I wanted them to switch for just one little sequence.

Alex:                 Yeah. I thought that was going to happen, have the classic “We’re equally powered. Let’s switch partners,” but-

Justin:              It wouldn’t have made a lot of sense.

Alex:                 … come on.

Justin:              Yeah. No. Just for even a second. I thought that would have been cool just to break up the action of it a little bit, because it was just such a clean transfer of who’s winning from. Agatha was winning the entire time, and then it was like “Flip. Nope. I won,” later, and I wanted a little bit more nuance to that, I think, and Kathryn Hahn didn’t have a ton of chance to just not be spouting supervillain lines from hovering in the air. So I would have liked a little bit more stuff for her because she’s such a great character, such a great actor, such a great villain for this series. I like where we left her though, in a great way.

Pete:                Oh, yeah. That was really crazy, the way it was kind of like touch the side of her head, and now she’s just like this little nosy neighbor, and it was fun to kind of see her back in that, and it just made it seem more empty and hollow than it was before and so added a nice kind of flavor to that.

Alex:                 Yeah. I 100 percent agree. I think we talked about this a little bit the last episode. There was just too much witch makeup on Kathryn Hahn. They poofed up her face and gave her these enormous brows. She’s great, but it felt like she was sort of trapped in this whole thing.

Pete:                Also, I have a question. So the whole town is free except for her?

Alex:                 Yeah.

Pete:                So she’s playing a 1950s nosy neighbor. Isn’t the town going to be like “Yo. What’s with this lady?”

Justin:              That’s really funny. I didn’t think of that, like “Hey, Agnes. Cool it. All right? Go home.”

Pete:                It’s not 1950. What are you doing out here baking?

Alex:                 Okie-dokie, Artichokie.

Justin:              Go home. We’re trying to do our taxes.

Alex:                 That was great. I also like the fact that they didn’t back down from the damage that she had done to Westview. I was sort of surprised she didn’t turn herself in at the end, Wanda, I mean, but the fact that everybody was looking at her, the fact that they were like “Please. We’ve been living your nightmares. Let us die.”

Justin:              Yeah.

Pete:                That was … Oh, man. The living your-

Alex:                 I like the fact that they … Well, they didn’t back down from making it very dark at the end there, which I think is a-

Pete:                [crosstalk 00:22:39].

Alex:                 … tribute to the production. It would be very easy to be like “Oh, Wanda. Save us. It wasn’t your fault. It was Agatha’s all along,” but no. It was actually Wanda all along. She was the one that was doing this. She was wrecking them, and it did a terrible job. So-

Pete:                Yeah. Did you-

Alex:                 … she didn’t completely fix it.

Pete:                I was hoping for after the post we’d get a little Wanda song that was like “Actually, it was me all along.” How come she didn’t get a fun song?

Justin:              Pete-

Alex:                 The Wanda rap?

Pete:                Yeah.

Justin:              Pete, write and record it, release it. You have a couple hours before the internet …

Pete:                Don’t be a white guy beat boxing.

Alex:                 Maximoff is going off.

Pete:                Stop it. Stop. Stop. Stop.

Justin:              I appreciate it, Alex.

Alex:                 Thank you.

Justin:              Rhyming off with off this early in the morning is confident.

Alex:                 Well, I was going to rhyme witch with something, but it felt inappropriate.

Pete:                Speaking of inappropriate, let’s talk about Ralph Bohner.

Alex:                 Just to be clear, B-O-H-N-E-R, Pete.

Pete:                It’s Bohner. It’s Bohner is how you pronounce it.

Alex:                 It’s Bohner. It’s Ralph Bohner. It’s not Ralph Boner. Okay?

Pete:                Yeah. Well, yeah.

Alex:                 I was okay with that. It sounds like you guys were a little disappointed that it wasn’t Quicksilver, it wasn’t Pietro actually or anything. It was just an actor.

Justin:              I’m fine with-

Pete:                Just an actor.

Justin:              I’m fine with that choice. Any actor, especially a classically trained actor, is a star in my mind, but I do think it was weird that there wasn’t one little extra turn there, one little extra turn there, you know? Sorry. My-

Pete:                Did she have an-

Justin:              My daughter wants her bedroom back.

Pete:                Yeah. Does your daughter have an idea about the extra turn? Is that why she jumped in?

Justin:              Yeah. She was like “Maybe he’s Wong.” I don’t know what she’s talking about.

Pete:                Oh, wow.

Alex:                 Huh. Interesting. I will say it’s interesting … There’s a lot more to talk about in the episode, but since we’re kind of touching on this now, there was a lot of speculation and it was well about how this tees up the next couple of Marvel movies, and they said “This is really going to open up the multiverse. It’s going to tie into Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. It’s going to tie into Spider-Man: No Way Home.” It doesn’t, specifically, right?

Justin:              No.

Pete:                No.

Justin:              Zero, which again, that’s fine. It’s just there was … They had all these open threads and they didn’t close them, in a way. They just sort of let them hang, and I guess, if you’re not going to use them for all these wild speculation ideas, which is totally fine, at least close them up a little bit.

Alex:                 Yeah. So-

Pete:                Yeah. I mean-

Alex:                 Go ahead.

Pete:                … Olsen was on Jimmy Fallon and she said “This puts me exactly where I need to be,” for the Sorcerer Supreme movie that she’s shooting now. So I was hoping for a little cameo or a little something, but I guess Sorcerer Supreme finds her in a little cabin in the woods, which is totally-

Alex:                 Well, no. I mean, I think that’s the one that … To talk about the two post-credit sequence, one is setting up Captain Marvel 2. The other one is setting up Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, but like a lot of this stuff when they do the end credits, and I feel like people have probably forgotten because it’s been so long, it’s not specifically like “Here’s the first scene,” most of the time. It’s something that tees up the idea. So talking about the second one first, we got Wanda. She’s making tea. She’s in a cabin. You think she’s dealing with her grief. She’s in a sweat suit. She’s in quarantine just like the rest of us.

Pete:                I think it’s like casual active wear is what she’s wearing. I don’t know why you’re-

Justin:              Wow.

Alex:                 All right then.

Justin:              Interesting stance to take, Pete. Athleisure wear? Is that what you’re talking about?

Pete:                Yeah. Exactly.

Alex:                 Sure, but at the same time, she is also in her full Scarlet Witch outfit. She is floating in some magic. She’s-

Pete:                Reading the Darkhold.

Alex:                 … reading the Darkhold, when she hears Billy and Tommy calling out from somewhere, and Billy says “Mom, help. Mom, please,” and Tommy says “Help, Mom. Please.” So we know, even though seemingly they disappeared in Westview, they’re out there somewhere. So I guess it’s a question of-

Pete:                Do we know that? Or is she just hearing their cries because she’s grieving for them?

Alex:                 This is the open question, right? I think the thing that kicks her in is she’s exploring her powers. She’s been told in this episode she is more powerful than the Sorcerer Supreme. She thinks her kids are out there somewhere. Are they in the multiverse? Do they still exist in the MCU? Is it somebody tricking them? Clearly, she is going to seek out Dr. Strange to find them, and that’s going to be at least a part of the plot of that movie. So I think that was a very direct line there.

Justin:              It’s interesting. She is in that post-post-credit … She’s in the pose in the Darkhold that Agatha referenced as a problem, a very problematic pose. So we speculated a little bit that maybe Wanda was some sort of villain in this Dr. Strange movie or at least a agent of chaos, and it sounds like she will be the catalyst to push Dr. Strange into the Multiverse of Madness on a quest for Billy and Tommy. Though, the Dr. Strange movie can’t be about finding Wanda’s kids, right?

Pete:                Yeah, because Wanda killed her kids. So what is she looking for her kids for?

Justin:              No. I don’t think that’s what happened, but-

Pete:                Well, she controls the kind of field around the thing, and she was setting everything back to the way it was.

Alex:                 Just to touch on this a little bit, she took the field. We presume they disappear. I expected there to be a little thing at the end where she’s standing in the ruins of the house and they pop up like “What’s up, Mom?” but obviously, they didn’t. So yeah. I mean, to Pete’s point, yes. They disappeared. So we don’t know.

Pete:                She killed them.

Alex:                 We don’t know how she hears those voices. Do their spirits exist? Are they out of the multiverse. We’re not sure at this point.

Pete:                She killed them.

Justin:              Well, I think-

Alex:                 [inaudible 00:28:21].

Justin:              … if I were to speculate, which we can do … We have the power to do that in our own little personal Hex.

Alex:                 So far, we’ve been spot on with every bit of speculation.

Justin:              Spot on. Spot on. I think, either Wiccan himself was like “Oh, I see what’s happening here,” and just jooped them out of there-

Pete:                Yeah, because we didn’t see them. They died off screen.

Justin:              They didn’t die for sure. Or there is something to this chaos magic that we’ll get to learn more about, where because they were fully realized people, they have souls, that the chaos magic couldn’t destroy them, they were just moved to a place of pure magic or something.

Pete:                Wow. You’re really working hard to try to save the fact that she killed her kids, man.

Alex:                 Well, hold on. We heard their voices at the end. So there’s something going on there, Pete. Plus, it was very pointed that we didn’t see them disappear in the same way we saw Vision disappear. I think, first of all, that was put emotionally back on Wanda and Vision, also, real rough to recover a show after watching kids die, I think. But I do want to say, just while we’re jumping around here, I don’t know if you feel this way, Justin. There is a certain sense like I thought it hit on a very specific parental thing of when you say goodnight to your kids, you’re like “Oh, my god-“

Pete:                Yeah. You might never see them again. Yeah. That’s it.

Alex:                 Honestly, there’s some times when that goes through your head, and it’s terrifying. So-

Pete:                That was like “Oh, goodnight, kids,” and then the way they were hanging on it was like “Wait a second. This is bigger than a ‘Goodnight, kids,'” and then I was like “Oh, god. She’s going to murder her kids, isn’t she?”

Justin:              Stop saying that.

Alex:                 She did not murder her kids.

Pete:                What did she do then? You tell me. The whole thing slowly came and wiped everybody out and reset everything. Those kids didn’t exist until the spell. She wipes the spell, kids are gone, dude.

Justin:              Monica Rambeau kept her powers. The Vision who was changed by the Vision in the Hex flies off, is still changed. The Hex world influenced the outside world. I don’t think you have to worry about it, but to your point, Alex, when you-

Pete:                We just watched nine episodes of somebody bringing kids to life and then murdering them in front of us.

Justin:              When your kids go to bed, that’s why you always check on them, and you whisper in their little ears “Hey. I’m recording a podcast tomorrow morning. Please, sleep in for a change, would you?”

Pete:                The timing on the kid attacking you as you said that was magical.

Justin:              Yep. That’s-

Alex:                 Real quick while we’re talking about post-credits things, there’s also the tee off of Captain Marvel 2. Pete preferred to focus on the fact that it was in a movie theater, but I do think it’s important or nice to talk about, I guess, that Monica seems to be heading into Captain Marvel 2. That seems like maybe it’s going to be headed more to space, because we had the reveal of a Skrull friend of her mother’s, who I assume is Talos-

Justin:              Got to be.

Alex:                 … the Skrull.

Pete:                Just real quick. If you were in a movie theater and somebody points up, what do you think they’re talking about? You know what I mean? Well, I just-

Alex:                 The theater right above it.

Pete:                Right. Exactly. I would like a little bit like “Actually, there’s a giant sword floating above the Earth. That’s what I’m pointing at.” Be clear. If I got called to a movie theater, and then someone was pointing up, I’d be like-

Alex:                 Would you have preferred if Monica-

Pete:                … “Help me help you.”

Alex:                 Would you have preferred if Monica was like “The ceiling?”

Pete:                Yeah. Exactly. Are we talking about the ceiling, bro? Is there something on top of this building? Help me.

Justin:              No. She was like “Let’s go sneak into Black Widow. It’s right upstairs.”

Alex:                 All right. As Justin’s kids are starting to get a little persnickety, why don’t we start to wrap this up here, talk about some other Easter eggs and little things in the episode? I could read through a couple I noticed, but I’d love to hear from you guys, of course, as well. First of all, in the witch battle right at the beginning, Agatha gets knocked into the house. We see Wanda looks underneath. You see just the shoes. It’s just like Wizard of Oz.

Pete:                Oh, that’s a fun little-

Justin:              Oh, Wizard of Oz.

Pete:                Come on.

Justin:              Just classic witch ref.

Alex:                 Well, they’ve had Oz stuff throughout the entire series. So it was a fun little point there.

Pete:                Yeah, and if you look in the rubble, there’s a little dog tag that says Toto.

Alex:                 Man, you’re really into murdering kids and dogs in this episode.

Justin:              [crosstalk 00:32:30].

Pete:                Dog got murdered by that car, yo.

Justin:              At the end of Wizard of Oz, Toto is going strong, dude.

Pete:                Oh, right. Right. My bad.

Justin:              Obviously, Dorothy, again, was just dealing with her grief. Every time I watch The Wizard of Oz, I’m like “Grief gang. Let’s see this.”

Alex:                 We talked very briefly about the Darkhold. We have speculated about whether this was or was not. They reveal that it is, in fact, the Darkhold. This is probably going to be a huge issue, I assume, online today, because the Darkhold played throughout Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and also played into Runaways a little bit. This looks entirely different. I think you could excuse it one of two ways. Either, A, yes, they are completely erasing everything that happened in Marvel TV before this, or it’s just another copy of the Darkhold either way.

Justin:              Oh, yeah? You’re going with “Yeah. There was a big-“

Alex:                 No. I’m going with one, but I think, if people want to feel better about it, they could go with two.

Justin:              Oh, that’s nice. If you want to delude yourself with your own personal Hex about the Marvel continuity, yeah. Go that way. I like the idea that you’re like “Yeah. Well, there was actually a pretty large print run on the Darkhold. Everybody got a copy.”

Alex:                 Hey. Can I get a copy of that, man?

Justin:              Yeah, like the college bookstore where you’re like “Yeah. I just need to buy a couple copies of the Darkhold.”

Alex:                 The shittiest thing … I remember standing outside Barnes & Noble in a line before midnight waiting to get my copy of the Darkhold, and some asshole walked along and was like “She’s the Scarlet Witch, man.” God. Spoilers. Come on.

Justin:              Some huge spoilers.

Pete:                Oh, man.

Justin:              I mean, to be fair, that’s right at the beginning of the Darkhold. There’s so much-

Pete:                What sucked was I was in line, and then the person in front of me got two, and I didn’t get one, and I was like “Oh, that should be illegal.”

Alex:                 Did you get yours signed though by the fucking devil?

Justin:              The Darkhold … I know we referenced, like “It’s probably the Darkhold.” I mean, there is only really one super magic book in the Marvel universe. So it’s not like we were-

Pete:                You want credit for recognizing the one-

Justin:              No. I’m saying we shouldn’t take credit.

Pete:                Yeah. Okay.

Alex:                 No. It’s about on par with somebody being like “Hey. I’m going to go grab this nullifier,” and we’re like “Is it the Ultimate Nullifier?”

Justin:              Nope. It’s just sort of the regular, casual nullifier. Oh, okay. Cool, but I mean, the Darkhold … Just leaving all the TV continuity aside from this show, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., that I guess some people watched, there’s a … That’s a dig on you, Alex. There is a-

Alex:                 I watched most of it.

Justin:              Yeah. Cool. You and literally everyone else. There is a lot of comic book stuff that the Darkhold sort of opens up, even beyond sort of the magic side into the sort of more horror side. There was a series called the Darkhold Redeemers, which was a team of magical heroes track down and resolve horror monsters and stuff like that. So that’s cool. It opens the door for characters like Blade and whatnot to maybe re-enter the Marvel universe.

Pete:                Yes. Come on.

Justin:              Obviously, we know there’s a Blade movie that was announced very early on in the process. We have no idea what’s happening there, but it’s a nice doorway to have there.

Alex:                 I think that’s a really good point about the horror thing in particular. Since Sam Raimi is directing Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, there was a whole sticky thing behind the scenes where Scott Derrickson, who directed the first movie, was like “Yeah. We’re going to make this a fucking hard R horror movie,” and Marvel was like “Maybe not.” They brought in Sam Raimi. I think we’re still going to see whatever it means for horror in the MCU in that movie, which is cool. A couple of … Oh, go ahead, Pete.

Pete:                I want to say some stuff I want to quickly talk about. I really love Jimmy Woo coming into power, especially the part where he got that douche military guy to start monologuing. That was, for me, a real hero move to get the bad guy to spill the beans on his plan and stuff, why he’s doing the Flourish. I really appreciated, and I wanted to kind of talk about the last moment there that we had with Vision and Wanda where it was like Vision cried, which was unbelievable moment, and then Wanda cried, and then I fucking cried because it was really a very touching moment that … I don’t know if we’re going to see Vision again or what’s going to happen after this. It was a pretty crazy, cool moment that we got to kind of witness that.

Justin:              It was crazy to see a robot cry, and by that, I’m talking, of course, about you, Pete.

Pete:                Oh, [crosstalk 00:36:56].

Justin:              So that is truly amazing.

Alex:                 So I’m going to admit something now that is a bad thing to admit. I’ve definitely told you guys before, but I haven’t said it on this podcast. I have never seen Blade Runner, but on the marquee for-

Pete:                How about the second one?

Alex:                 Yeah. I watched Blade Runner 2049, but-

Justin:              That’s the one that people say to go see. That’s the [crosstalk 00:37:17].

Alex:                 But I know enough about references from Blade Runner. On the marquee, and they reviewed this the last episode, the movie that’s actually being shown there is called Tannhauser Gate: Puts the Fun 1n Dysfunction, with a one for the I, and that’s from the whole tears in the rain monologue that Rutger Hauer gives in Blade Runner. So I think that was a neat little Easter egg tee-up for Vision crying in the last episode.

Justin:              I think Tannhauser Gate is like a warp station, or it’s like a doorway to other wilder places, so I think that’s definitely … Because we see it once when they’re sort of fighting and they sort of fight past the theater, right? Then I was like “Oh, cool. That’s got to be something,” and then later when they’re just like “Oh, go meet in the theater,” and then it’s a long, lingering shot, I was like “Okay. That’s like an Easter egg.”

Alex:                 Paul Bettany kind of comes into frame and is like …

Justin:              Like “Try that out.”

Alex:                 [inaudible 00:38:17].

Pete:                Go to movie theaters, guys.

Justin:              It’s like if the-

Alex:                 That is not what anybody was saying.

Justin:              You’re a conspiracy theorist, Pete.

Pete:                Yeah.

Justin:              It’s like if the Easter Bunny hid all of your Easter eggs on Easter morning inside an egg carton in your fridge.

Alex:                 Couple of other Easter eggs, speaking of which, and thank you for the transition, Justin. So this is something that a couple of people picked up on a couple of episodes back when Vision left the Hex, but I feel like it was even more prominent now. When Vision and Billy and Tommy are being ripped apart when Wanda’s taking down the Hex, it kind of looks like pixels, but it also kind of looks like puzzle pieces. There’s a classic cover from House of M of Scarlet Witch breaking apart into these puzzle pieces, into these bits. So I think that was a visual callback to that. Again-

Pete:                I thought it was kind of like a callback to the Thanos snap where people turned into dust.

Alex:                 It definitely felt like that, emotionally, which sucked.

Pete:                Yeah.

Alex:                 Another one. Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but when Wanda does the disappearing thing behind Agatha right at the beginning of their witch battle, it felt very I Dream of Jeannie or Bewitched to me just in terms of the movement, which I thought was cute. You watched Age of Ultron, Justin.

Justin:              Of course.

Alex:                 So you know about this-

Justin:              [crosstalk 00:39:34].

Alex:                 … but we got a callback to the Wanda doing the nightmare thing to Tony Stark in Age of Ultron, which we haven’t seen her do since, where she does that to Agatha and sucks her back to Salem 1602, I think it was, or something like that.

Pete:                Sure.

Justin:              Probably not, but that’s a good guess. 1602 is a big date in Marvel Comics, but-

Pete:                Yeah. Exactly.

Alex:                 [crosstalk 00:39:53].

Justin:              … I know we have a hard time differentiating between the two histories.

Alex:                 Oh, wow. Pete just pulling it out right there. Always on your person. That’s amazing.

Pete:                Yeah. You got to be ready for when things like this happen.

Alex:                 Well, I-

Pete:                Did I create that moment by having the comic ready? Or did you create that moment, and then I was ready for it, like-

Alex:                 Great question.

Pete:                … “Oh, what? Oh, shit.”

Justin:              Pete either took a philosophy 101 class just now, or this show has ruined him [crosstalk 00:40:23].

Alex:                 Couple other quick things that I wanted to call out. We got the energy head sock, which I thought was fun, a callback to the crown from the last episode, and then it becomes the real-

Justin:              Wait. Head sock? Is that what you’re going with?

Pete:                Yeah. What head sock are you talking-

Alex:                 Yeah, like the thing … I don’t know. It’s not exactly like Gambit’s head sock where he’s wearing this thing on his head that reveals his face, but I’ve always felt it’s the same thing with Scarlet Witch where it’s like … I don’t know. There’s too much stuff going on in your face.

Pete:                What moment in the show are you talking about?

Alex:                 Wear a that or wear a mask. Choose one of the two. That’s all I’m saying.

Justin:              It’s like the little-

Pete:                Who are you talking about? What part of the show was-

Justin:              When the Scarlet Witch got her little Batman ears.

Pete:                Oh, okay. All right.

Alex:                 But before it was a costume, when it was just energy. Yeah.

Pete:                Okay. All right. You call that a head sock?

Alex:                 Yeah. I call it a head sock.

Justin:              I will say head sock is maybe the worst way of saying it, because that implies something very different. A head sock is like a little stocking that you have over your head.

Pete:                Yeah.

Alex:                 Just to keep running through my notes here, I think … Yeah. The Westview, home is where you make it … We’ve seen that sign before, but it’s just driving that home one last time. Also, just the last thing that I’ll mention really got me, the line-

Pete:                Don’t say that, because it won’t be the last thing that you mention.

Alex:                 The last thing I’ll mention from my list of things that I wrote down in my notes.

Pete:                Okay. Thank you.

Alex:                 The line “Boys, thanks for choosing me to be your mom.”

Pete:                That was weird to me. That’s-

Justin:              That’s to show that-

Pete:                That’s not how kids work. Kids don’t sit there and pick who their mom is.

Alex:                 Speaking-

Pete:                You make the kid-

Alex:                 Speaking as a parent-

Pete:                … and then that’s how you-

Alex:                 I understand what you’re saying, Pete. I know you’re making sort of a joke. Speaking as a parent, that line got me. That was the line that I cried to.

Justin:              It was a good line. My kid just walked in, said “Hey. Thanks for choosing us, but we’re out.”

Pete:                Yeah. Smart kid. Smart kid.

Justin:              But I think that is also a good nod to show that they are fully realized beings. They’re not just another Hex creation. They have souls. “Thanks for choosing me,” means that they came from somewhere.

Pete:                Yeah, but it was a crazy line to say to somebody after you then wipe them out of existence, “Hey. Thanks for choosing me. You choose wrong, because your mother’s about to kill you.”

Alex:                 Oh, my god, Pete.

Justin:              Stop saying that.

Alex:                 Come on. Any other notes before we wrap up here, Pete?

Pete:                Yeah. I mean, I felt like the whole kind of back and forth, like you don’t have power … It was a very cool reveal that when she was missing hitting Harkness that she was creating that thing, and I’m so glad that made sense, because it was definitely frustrating during the fight, and I really liked the exploration of the … As she’s kind of holding Vision, being like “That Mind Stone was the Mind Stone that lived in me in my memories,” and I thought that was an interesting kind of explanation for that that kind of made sense. So I thought those were some kind of touching moments. Yeah.

Alex:                 Just, any final notes from you?

Justin:              I mean, it’s great talking about it with you guys. So much happened in this final episode, and it is crazy if we … Thinking about it all the way back to the first couple episodes, which were so … They started so far away from this sort of knock-down, drag-out Marvel movie style fight, and just giving credit to Marvel, if people are critical of this episode for not having enough whatever, they really took a swing with this show and started really far away from their comfort zone, and so I really appreciate being able to go on that journey and having characters that felt a little bit different and the show have a real theme rooted in something. Of course, I’m talking about everyone’s favorite character, grief.

Alex:                 Yes. Can’t wait to see how grief plays out in the MCU. Now, normally we’d end these episodes of Vision Board for the next episode, but obviously this is the actual series finale. Kevin Feige, just as a note, did say “Never say never,” or at least he’s learned to never say never when it comes to a sequel, but clearly, this episode is called The Series Finale. So they are planning it as a series finale for WandaVision until now, but this isn’t the series finale of MarvelVision. We’re going to keep going.

Justin:              What?

Alex:                 Yeah. We are. Surprise, guys. In two weeks, we’re going to pick it up with … I keep wanting to say Captain America and the Winter Soldier … with Falcon and the Winter Soldier next episode.

Pete:                Yeah. What? Are you racist, dude? Come on.

Alex:                 Jesus, Pete. No.

Pete:                Good.

Justin:              Pete’s ready to be done with these mornings.

Alex:                 If anything, that’s the opposite of racist because I’m calling Falcon Captain America right now.

Pete:                Oh, okay. All right. I thought you were like “I can’t see that …” Or anyways.

Alex:                 Nope. Don’t follow that train of thought.

Pete:                Yeah. Yeah. I’m not going to. Yeah.

Justin:              No. Keep finishing your sentence.

Alex:                 Anyway, in two weeks, we’re going to be recapping that show and putting those up super early as well, which I know is Pete’s favorite thing.

Pete:                No. Come on.

Alex:                 But we’re going to do-

Pete:                Seriously. Please comment if getting this up earlier makes a difference, because it’s fucking killing us.

Alex:                 Nah.

Justin:              I feel great.

Alex:                 I love it.

Justin:              Yeah.

Alex:                 I feel more alive than ever.

Justin:              I say earlier.

Alex:                 But-

Justin:              I got to get up before my kids wake up. So we need to do this in the 4:00-

Alex:                 3:00 AM. There you go.

Justin:              Yeah. Exactly.

Alex:                 Before we’ve even watched it.

Justin:              Yeah.

Pete:                You guys can do a fun dad show. All right?

Alex:                 Well-

Justin:              Dad show.

Alex:                 Speaking of which, we are going to do one more episode before Falcon and the Winter Soldier premiers. So here’s what we’d love from you. We’re going to do a preview for Falcon and the Winter Soldier, but we’d also love your thoughts on WandaVision, your theories, what you thought about the show, anything-

Pete:                How sad you are.

Alex:                 … you thought was dangling, how sad you are. Send us your best griefs.

Justin:              Yeah. Your grieves.

Alex:                 Grieves.

Pete:                [crosstalk 00:46:01].

Alex:                 You can send us a couple of places, comicbookclublive@gmail.com, or hit us up on Twitter @MarvelVisionPod. We’re try to read a couple of those things, those letters or tweets, in the next episode of the show before we get into Falcon and the Winter Soldier proper, and that is it, folks. If you’d like to support us, patreon.com/comicbookclub. Also, we do a live show every Tuesday night at 7:00 PM to Crowdcast and YouTube. Come hang out. We would love to talk about grief or WandaVision or whatever you want to discuss. Happy to discuss it live.

Alex:                 iTunes, Android, Spotify, Stitcher, or the app of your choice to subscribe and listen to the show. Specifically on iTunes, we would love you to rate and comment on the show. That helps us out quite a bit. So we would appreciate it if you do. As mentioned, MarvelVisionPod on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Comicbooklive.com for this podcast and more. ComicBookClub on YouTube. Until next time, Marvel ya later.

Justin:              Off to start a new family. Bye.

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