#which is absent from billy's/captain's transformation

[freddyfreeman]

Wow Comics #12

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Press: A Thorough Breakdown of All the Marvel Easter Eggs on WandaVision

POPSUGAR: WandaVision has finally arrived, and it’s chock-full of hidden goodies for Marvel fans to devour! While the series is built upon a mystery that we’ll be spending a reported nine episodes trying to figure out, the smallest details in each episode provide clues on where the show is heading. From supermarket banners to foreboding commercials, viewers have an abundance of references and callbacks to classic comic lore and pivotal MCU moments. Are they setting the stage for a big reveal at the end, or are they just fun details included for fans to enjoy? While we try to figure it all out, scroll through to see what we’ve gathered! And check back every week for an episode-by-episode breakdown as WandaVision progresses.

WandaVision Episode 7 Easter Eggs

The episode opens the morning after Wanda has expanded the border of the Hex, finding the Avenger hiding from the world under her comforter. The comforter in question has a hexagon pattern, which is both a nod to the overall theme of the show as well as a metaphor for how Wanda is literally hiding away under a hex.

Billy and Tommy run into the room to reveal that their video game console has been messing up. Everything in the house is glitching, trying to transform back to earlier versions of themselves.

Billy also tells his mother that his head hurts and things are “noisy.” Since the twin inherited his mother’s ability to read minds, it seems he’s able to hear the thoughts of everyone in the bubble (and near it on the outside, since he was able to hear his father when he was dying). It’s a sign that Billy’s powers are growing, which means we could see the little boy reach his Wiccan potential before the end of the season.

Wanda wanders into the kitchen as the news drones on in the background. The news station is called W.N.D.A. or Wanda. The newscaster makes pointed comments, noting that there’s “not a thing weighing heavily on your conscience,” and that they “hope your little ghosts arrived home safe last night. It’s always such a treat to see those creepy kiddos out and about once a year.” The comments refer to Wanda’s building guilt at her actions in the previous episode and the rare appearance of children during the Halloween episode.

As Wanda makes her breakfast of “Sugar Snaps,” a nod to the big Snap of the universe, her milk carton reverts from its modern design to the old school glass bottle and back. The carton has a missing person’s ad on the back with a picture of a little boy on the back. This could be a reference to the oft-mentioned absence of children of Westview, and what could have happened to them.

Wanda and the twins “break the fourth wall” frequently to talk to the camera in the same vein as Modern Family.

This week’s theme song sounds similar to The Office’s, which also usings talking head segments like Modern Family. The opening credits are similar to the show Happy Endings and allude to the show’s focus on Wanda, even attributing the creation of WandaVision to her with the title image. Vision is notably completely absent from the opening credits, but there’s a clue that someone else is watching in a message that reads, “I know what u are doing Wanda.”

Agnes stops by to take the boys off of Wanda’s hands, which the exhausted mother is exceedingly grateful for. The twins are visibly uncomfortable with the idea, with Tommy asking Wanda if they have to and Billy telling his mother that someone has to stay to take care of her. It seems like they can sense that something is off with their “kindly” neighbor.

Wanda sends them off with Agnes, but once they’re gone, her magic goes incredibly haywire. All the furniture begins glitching again, with the stork from the painting in episode three making a reappearance. “I don’t understand what’s happening,” Wanda laments during a talking head segment. “Why it’s all falling apart and why I can’t fix it.” The off-screen interviewer responds, “Do you think maybe it’s what you deserve?” which visibly unnerves Wanda, who notes that they aren’t supposed to speak. It’s another sign that Wanda does not have as much control as she’s been led to believe.

Cue the sixth commercial, and it’s even more pointed than any of the others have been. It’s an ad for the antidepressant Nexus, for “when the world doesn’t revolve around you. Or does it?” The drug allows people to anchor themselves to the reality of their choice with side effects that include “feeling your feelings, confronting your truth, seizing your destiny, and possibly more depression.” Whew, the pointed commentary is even making me sweat. Nexus is a nod to two things: Wanda’s crippling inability to deal with the trauma she’s been through and her depression that’s pushed her into the creation of Westview, and two Marvel comics concepts. The first is the Nexus of All Realities is a kind of gateway point between dimensions from which all universes in the multiverse can be accessed. (Remember, Wanda’s next reported appearance is in Multiverse of Madness.) The second concept is the existence of Nexus beings, people who have powers that can alter reality, probability, and the Universal Time Stream. Guess which two Westview residents are considered Nexus beings? That’s right, Wanda and Vision! The commercial can either be just a cheeky nod to the couple’s seemingly infinite power or an allusion to the bigger picture that WandaVision is leading to.

While Darcy and Vision are attempting to make their way to the house, the doctor gives the synthezoid a brief rundown of his origin story, explaining how he died twice in an attempt to save the world. Vision points out that it seems like someone is trying to keep him from getting home, which spurs him to fly off, leaving Darcy behind in the blocked truck.

Billy and Tommy are watching Yo Gabba Gabba in Agnes’s lowkey creepy home. (It tickles me that Yo Gabba Gabba is more canon in the MCU than the X-Men or Fantastic Four right now.) While Billy pets Agnes’s bunny Señor Scratchy, he notes that he likes being around the older woman because he’s unable to hear any of her thoughts. “You’re quiet inside,” he says, an allusion to the idea that Agnes can hide her thoughts from him because she has magic.

Back outside the Hex, after the super-rover isn’t able to penetrate the field, Monica decides to run through it again. As she struggles through the barrier and we watch her, a montage of dialogue from Captain Marvel plays. The voices of Maria, Nick Fury, and Carol play over Monica getting through, and as Captain Marvel says “when they were handing out little kids, your mom got the toughest one,” Monica she pushes through to the other side. She lands in the stereotypical three-point-stance of all Marvel heroes, and her eyes glow, showing that she can see energy. We just witnessed the rise of Photon, folks! (Or Spectrum or Pulsar.)

Monica confronts Wanda in her home, and as their fight spills onto the lawn, the residents of Westview watch from their own homes. The delivery man is wearing a “Presto Delivery” uniform, a reference to the magic words said by magicians before they pull a magic trick.

In the first blatant show of Agnes’s ulterior motives, the older woman stops the fight when she realizes Monica is getting through to Wanda and pulls the young mother into her home. But when Wanda gets there, she notices the green bug and rabbit in the living room and the lack of her sons’ presence. When she asks Agnes where the boys are, she’s told to head to the basement, where the big showdown occurs. The scene hints at the eventual disappearance of Billy and Tommy.

Wanda notices a book on an altar, which could be the Darkhold, also known as The Book of Sins, The Shiatra Book Of The Damned. Originally a collection of papers known as the Chthon Scrolls, the book contains all the spells and ideas of the evil Elder God known as Chthon. The book is a conduit for Chthon’s power and can open a doorway from Earth to Chthon’s dimension. If that book is in Agnes’s basement, it stands to logic that she may be working with the evil god. The Darkhold emits an orange glow, which is a distinctly different color than the purple of Agatha’s magic.

Speaking of magic, Agnes finally reveals herself as the witch we’ve known her to be. Although the show tells us that “it’s been Agatha all along,” it still doesn’t ring completely true. There’s definitely more at work than just Agatha’s magic.

In the mid-credits sequence, Monica is caught snooping in Agnes’s backyard by Pietro. Her eyes seem to glow purple, the same color that signals Agatha’s magic. Does this mean she’s now under the witch’s spell?

  WandaVision Episode 6 Easter Eggs

The opening credits for episode six seem to be a tribute to Malcolm in the Middle, which ran for seven seasons between 2000 and 2006.

The entire Wanda and Vision family wear their comic book character costumes for Halloween.

There’s another reference to Thanos’s snap as Director Tyler Hayward talks about dealing with the repercussions of all the people “who left.”

The terrifying Yo-Magic commercial seems to foreshadow Vision’s future. Even though Wanda was seemingly able to bring Vision back to life, it looks like he won’t stay alive for long as it’s implied that he can’t exist outside of the Hex later in the episode.

Blink and you’ll miss the fun Disney movie Easter egg on Westview’s movie theater. The sign outside the theater shows a double feature of The Incredibles and The Parent Trap. Connecting right to Wanda’s family, The Incredibles is about a family of superheroes, while The Parent Trap is about a pair of long-lost twins reuniting.

Wanda’s changing accent has been brought up countless times by fans, and in episode six, Pietro makes a slight reference to it when Wanda asks, “What happened to your accent?” to which he quips, “What happened to yours?”

There is another reference that Agnes is actually Agatha Harkness as she is spotted wearing a witch costume on Halloween.

It appears that Vision has no memories pre-Westview, as a conscious Agnes tells him he’s one of the Avengers, and he has no clue what she’s talking about.

The episode further hints at Monica’s powers as Darcy confirms that the Hex rewrote her cells on a molecular level.

A few interactions between Pietro and Wanda have fans wondering if he might actually be Mephisto in disguise. Not only is he fully aware about Wanda creating Westview, but he makes several references to the devil and hell throughout the episode.

  WandaVision Episode 5 Easter Eggs

Wanda and Vision’s brand new house, suitable for a family of four, is reminiscent of homes in ’80s sitcoms such as Full House and Growing Pains.

When Agnes comes in to offer her babysitting help, she refers to herself as “Auntie Agnes,” which is eerily close to her comic counterpart’s nickname, Auntie Agatha.

An uncomfortable break in conversation leads Agnes to ask Wanda if she wants her to “take it from the top.” Though Wanda appears confused for a moment, she readily smoothes the conversation and carries on. Vision is visibly perturbed, though Wanda attempts to redirect his attention. It seems like the facade is fading all around.

To the surprise of their parents, Tommy and Billy age up five years while the two argue over Agnes’s break in character.

This episode’s opening sequence shows Wanda and Vision growing up, which we know didn’t happen in real life for the synthezoid. The theme song sounds very similar to those from Family Ties and Growing Pains, and consists of lyrics noting that “we’re just making it up as we go along.” Sounds pretty close to how things are going with Wanda and Vision!

When Wanda’s scans come back, they’re inconclusive and show up blank. Considering Monica gains her powers due to bombardment by extradimensional energies in the comics, it’s entirely possible that the blast from Wanda back in episode three, coupled with passing through the forcefield around Westview twice, have given her those abilities. We could be seeing the rise of Photon!

While Jimmy Woo is explaining Wanda’s backstory to the agents of S.W.O.R.D., Director Hayward asks if she’s ever used a “funny nickname” like the other Avengers. She hasn’t, in fact, she’s never been referred to as Scarlet Witch in the MCU ever. Since her powers are different from her comic book counterpart, there’s never been a reason for anyone to call her a witch.

That never-before-seen post credits scene from Infinity War has officially made its debut. Director Hayward reveals footage of Wanda entering S.W.O.R.D. headquarters to steal Vision’s disassembled body. The video harks back to a moment in the comics where Vision was kidnapped and taken apart — but still very much alive. Much like that Vision, the one in Westview has his memory wiped and doesn’t remember anything before he woke up in his new world. So, the question is whether Vision is actually alive or not. Wanda’s hallucination from episode four might suggest he’s a walking corpse, but there’s more to the story.

Jimmy mentions that Wanda’s stealing of Vision’s body violates the Sokovia Accords, which haven’t been mentioned since Captain America: Civil War. Unfunnily enough, the Accords were a direct response to the mission gone wrong in Lagos where Wanda lost control of her powers and caused the death of many civilians.

Darcy mentions that Vision is playing “Father Knows Best in Surburbia,” referencing the ’50s sitcom.

Tommy and Billy find a dog that, with the help of Auntie Agnes, they name Sparky. The Vision family has a dog with that exact name in the King and Walta comics, but he’s green. Sadly, he meets a similar fate as his live-action counterpart.

Wanda blatantly uses her powers in front of Agnes, who has seemingly handled the magic around her with ease. It’s almost as if she’s used to magic.

Darcy calls the Westview anomaly the “hex” because of its hexagonal shape. Although the magic has been taken out of the phrase, Wanda’s powers are known as hexes in the comics.

Jimmy, Monica, and Darcy try to understand how Wanda can revive Vision and control the Hex, which takes much more power than she’s ever displayed before. Monica notes that Wanda has always been powerful, being the only Avenger who was close to taking down Thanos singlehandedly, which Jimmy interjects to note that Captain Marvel could as well. Both are empowered by Infinity Stones, with Carol’s Kree biology giving her a power boost.

When Jimmy brings up Captain Marvel, Monica is visibly uncomfortable and changes the subject back to Wanda. What happened there?

Vision’s office mates learn about the sweet glory that is dial-up internet! But when he and Norm open their first bit of electronic mail, it’s a transmission picked up from S.W.O.R.D. talking about the Maximoff anomaly.

Vision breaks through Norm’s conditioning, revealing that he’s under the control of a woman (alluding to it being Wanda). He directly references his family, a conversation that Jimmy mentioned in his notes in the last episode.

The twins have aged themselves up to 10 by this point and are seemingly completely aware that Wanda has control over certain aspects of life, like time. They point out that it was Saturday when they woke up, but Wanda says it’s now Monday. She apparently changed the day to send Vision to work. Is their awareness because they also have magic or because she doesn’t control them?

Monica sends an ’80s drone into Westview after working out that Wanda’s Hex is rewriting reality to suit each era occurring in the bubble, and the drone would need no era-appropriate change. Though she attempts to speak with Wanda through the drone, Director Hayward commands agents to fire a missile at Wanda instead — directly ignoring that Monica said she doesn’t see Wanda as a danger. The action results in Wanda leaving the Hex and confronting the S.W.O.R.D. agents outside. She’s wearing the suit we last saw her wearing in Infinity War and Endgame and has her accent back, although it’s much thicker than it’s been since Ultron.

Episode five’s commercial is more pointed than any of them have been. Lagos brand paper towels directly reference the city in which Wanda accidentally killed several people in Civil War by blowing up a building. Thus, the Sokovia Accords were born.

While Wanda and the twins are searching for a missing Sparky — with no one calling out the fact that Wanda disappeared for some time — the mailman tells the boys that their mom “won’t let him get far.” It seems almost like a dig at how no one can leave Westview, like the doctor mentioned during episode three.

When Agnes reveals that Sparky died after eating too many azalea bush leaves, the boys ask their mother to reverse his death. Agnes seems particularly surprised by the idea of Wanda having that ability despite having seen other displays of her power and watching the twins age up rapidly twice. Wanda tells the twins that they can’t reverse death as there are still rules to things, which almost seems hypocritical considering her circumstances. Is she trying to say that she hasn’t revived Vision? Or is she simply trying to keep her boys from expecting too much from her?

Later that night, Vision reveals that he unearthed Norm’s repressed memories and demands to know what’s going on. He tells Wanda that she can’t control him, which she cooly responds asking him, “Can’t I?” Although the credits start rolling, their argument continues as Vision unleashes his frustration with not knowing his past and his confusion over their circumstances. Wanda tells him that she doesn’t control everything, saying, “I don’t even know how all of this started.” Vision believes it began subconsciously, but chastises Wanda for letting it get that far. Wanda reiterates that she isn’t controlling everything, which gives weight to the theory that there’s someone else behind the scenes. But who could it be if Wanda isn’t the “she” that Norm was referring to?

Mid-argument, the Vision family doorbell rings, which Wanda states she didn’t do. I’m inclined to believe her because when she opens the door, she is genuinely shocked speechless. At the door is her “brother” Pietro, now sporting the face of Evan Peters. Darcy asks the question we were all thinking as the episode closes, “She recast Pietro!?”

  WandaVision Episode 4 Easter Eggs

This episode opens with the heartbreaking reveal that Monica Rambeau was one of the people lost to the Snapture from Infinity War. She returns from Endgame’s Reverse-Snap in a hospital where she had been awaiting news after her mother Maria’s surgery.

As Monica is waking up, we hear familiar voices echoing in her head. It’s Captain Marvel calling her by her childhood nickname, Lieutenant Trouble.

As Monica weaves through the chaos of people reappearing in the hospital post-Reverse-Snap, she finally locates someone who recognizes her. Although Maria survived the surgery five years ago, she died from cancer three years ago in real time, having not been blipped with her daughter.

We finally have some information on S.W.O.R.D.! The acronym stands for Sentient Weapon Observation Response Division, rather than the meaning in Marvel comics, which is Sentient World. It sounds a little more ominous, right?

Maria’s badass legacy continues well past her friendship with Captain Marvel; according to S.WO.R.D.’s acting director, Tyler Hayward, Maria helped build the agency during its inception. She was the acting director until her death.

Tim gives Monica a mission to help out the FBI in the town of WestView, NJ, where something super freaky is going on with a missing person’s case. This confirms that WestView is, indeed, a very real place.

Welcome back, Jimmy Woo! Monica’s FBI contact is none other than Scott Lang’s parole officer and semifriend, Agent Jimmy Woo.

Jimmy reveals that a person in witness protection has somehow dropped off the map in a town that no longer seems to exist where no one recalls anyone who lived there. In an attempt to figure out what’s going on, Monica sends in a S.W.O.R.D. drone that vanishes inside the forcefield. It’s revealed to have transformed into the retro-style helicopter that Wanda picks up in episode two! We can only assume that since it’s an item from the outside world, it gained color when it entered Wanda’s reality to show that it doesn’t belong.

Darcy Lewis is back! Now a doctor in astrophysics, Darcy is called to help figure out what’s gone wrong with WestView. She’s the one who figured out a signal for the broadcast and is the owner of the hand we saw watching Wanda and Vision in episode one.

The mysterious beekeeper from episode two is revealed to be S.W.O.R.D.’s Agent Franklin, who journeyed through Westview’s sewers to investigate. His hazmat suit became a beekeeper’s uniform, and the cable around his waist becomes a jump rope as he travels through the tunnels.

Darcy explains that the sitcom that’s become Wanda and Vision’s life is literally being broadcast through the signals that S.W.O.R.D.’s viewing, with an audience and everything. There’s no explanation for how this is happening, but Darcy and company watched those first three episodes just like we did, credits and all.

Darcy also points out that Vision is supposed to be dead-dead, which leaves his presence in WestView still unexplained.

While Darcy and Jimmy can identity a majority of the neighbors we’ve met in WestView to their real-life counterparts, Dottie and Agnes are the only ones who are missing real information.

It’s revealed that Agent Woo was the voice behind the radio disruption, just as we suspected! But while we can see Wanda and Dottie’s reaction to the call, Darcy’s broadcast didn’t show the same thing. She explains that someone is “censoring” the visuals they’re receiving, which means someone knows they’re watching.

Back in the sitcom WestView, we see that Monica’s slip-up resulted in Wanda blasting her through the house and the energy field. It’s the first time we physically see Wanda using her powers again, so she still has them. But the lapse in her facade has consequences — when Vision returns from his talk with Agnes and Herb outside, Wanda hallucinates him as she last saw him in Infinity War, a corpse with his head crushed in.

It’s important to note that Vision seems to become more aware of the strangeness of their world with each episode. It makes sense because no matter how human he may seem, he’s still a synthezoid who has always been able to see beyond the superficial. It harks back to his “birth” in Age of Ultron. He’s omnipotent and always learning.

When Monica lands back in the real world, all she says is, “It’s all Wanda.” That seemingly serves as an answer to what’s going on in WestView, but it’s not a whole answer. Wanda seems just as confused and unaware as everyone else, but she is willing to stay in her “perfect” world. The question is, who put Wanda in the position to have her perfect world?

  WandaVision Episode 3 Easter Eggs

Much like the comics, Wanda magically becomes pregnant! But this time around, things are progressing much more quickly, and her doctor isn’t Dr. Strange.

The first of the episode’s weird glitches happens with Wanda and Vision’s neighbor Herb, who is attempting to saw through the brick fence separating the two houses instead of trimming his hedges. When Vision points out that his aim has gone a bit askew, Herb’s detached reaction is a bit creepy. He thanks Vision but keeps sawing through the wall! And unlike the previous weird behavior, there’s nothing that triggers the moment, especially not from Vision or Wanda.

Wanda and Vision contemplate what to name their baby boy, with Vision suggesting Billy and Wanda throwing out Tommy. (The argument becomes moot when they have twins!) These are the names of the pair’s sons in the comic, who later become members of the Young Avengers. In the show, Wanda chooses her name because it’s “all-American,” which is also a fair indicator of why her perfect reality is framed around sitcoms. Vision cites William Shakespeare as his inspiration and uses a quote from As You Like It that seems pretty on the nose. “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players” seems like a pointed reference to the fact that WandaVision is, in fact, all a show.

Wanda decorates the nursery using Simser brand paint, which is most likely a nod to Jeremy Simser, a storyboard artist for Marvel Studios and WandaVision.

The second glitch appears when Wanda says the residents of WestView always seem “on the verge of discovering our secret.” Vision has a moment of sobering clarity where he notes that something is wrong in WestView, citing the incidents with Mr. and Mrs. Hart and their neighbor Herb. A second after his says this, reality glitches and the scene starts over with Vision seemingly worry-free. The last time this happened with the beekeeper, it was clear Wanda was the culprit in turning back time, but in this case, she doesn’t seem to do anything to force the change. This suggests someone else is pulling the strings.

Wanda mentions that their child could be human or “synthezoid,” a term that originates in the comics. Although fans like to joke that Vision is an android, he’s technically a synthetic human. He’s not made of metal or machinery — in the comics, his body is composed of the bioengineering tech of Dr. Helen Cho, while in the MCU, he’s made of organic tissue mixed with vibranium and “powered” by the Mind Stone.

Vision jokes that Billy will be just like his mom, which is funny because, in the comics, Billy has magical abilities similar to Wanda’s powers. Tommy ends up having superspeed abilities like his uncle, Pietro.

It’s time for the third commercial! Much like the previous episode’s watch promotion, this break references Hydra — though a tad more directly. It’s all about Hydra Soak, and the message is decidedly more pointed than we’ve had before. ��Escape to a world all your own, where your problems float away,” the announcer says. “When you want to get away, but you don’t want to go anywhere: Hydra Soak.” Marvel: Agents of Shield fans will recall that Hydra Soak HAS been mentioned on the show. During the series’s Framework arc, Phil Coulson claims that Hydra is brainwashing people using soap, so he makes his own. Is the commercial another sign that Hydra is behind the mystery of WestView? Is it a warning that no one in the town will be able to get away? And what’s that about finding the goddess within?

The actors in this ad are the same ones as the previous ones, Victoria Blade and Ithamar Enriquez. Their recurring presence might mean they have some significance in Wanda’s life. Maybe they’re her parents?

In what feels like an ominous follow-up to the Hydra Soak commercial, the doctor reveals that he and his wife won’t be taking their trip away after all. “Small towns, you know, so hard to escape,” he mutters, pointedly. I think we’re starting to get the hint, folks! Wanda mentions she is a twin and that her brother was named Pietro. It’s been a hot minute since anyone has talked about MCU’s Quicksilver — he made his debut back in Age of Ultron, the same film in which he was shot and killed.

When Geraldine lets it slip that she knows about Pietro’s death at the hands of Ultron, Wanda interrogates her and discovers her necklace bears a familiar symbol — it’s that damn S.W.O.R.D. logo, and Wanda is apparently not a fan.

In another sign that something is UP, Agnes and Herb seem to warn Vision about Geraldine. They note that she’s “brand new” to town with no family and start to say that “she came here because we’re all —” before they’re cut off. It’s worth noting that the two figures that may be MCU versions of formidable Marvel characters are the ones who seem to understand that strange things are going on in WestView. If Agnes and Herb are the MCU’s Agatha Harkness and High Evolutionary, they would definitely be the ones in the know. But why would they try to warn Vision about Geraldine if WestView is a trap?

Agnes is wearing her infamous brooch as a necklace that could be referencing an MCU supervillain mentioned before. The necklace has three figures close together, with the center figure holding what looks like a giant scythe. Is it another clue that the Grim Reaper is on his way?

Wanda literally throws Geraldine out of town — though she tells Vision that she had to run home — and Geraldine passes through what seems like a magical forcefield. While fans have been assuming WestView is a fake town, this shows us that physically, it’s a very real place. But it’s currently bubbled off with a barrier that Wanda can apparently allow people in and out of. And the song that plays as Geraldine finds herself outside the barrier? “Daydream Believer” by The Monkees. It seems pretty appropriate for a situation that feels like a surreal dream.

When Geraldine lands on the outskirts of real WestView, she’s instantly swarmed by cars and agents all bearing the S.W.O.R.D. logo. Since we know Teyonah Parris is playing the adult Monica Rambeau, it’s safe to assume Geraldine was an alias she used to go undercover in WestView. Combined with the mystery agent watching the show within the show from episode one, we can conclude that Wanda and Vision are being closely observed by S.W.O.R.D. for some reason. But they clearly aren’t the ones in control, since Monica is so easily forced out. What will they do next?

While the opening credits of this episode are a reference to The Brady Bunch, it’s the end credits that give us another clue about the big bad coming our way. Just like the previous episodes, Wanda and Vision are framed in a hexagon as the end credits roll. The symbol is so important because it’s the preferred shape of the creators at Advanced Idea Mechanics, or AIM, who are last seen in Iron Man 3. Remember the beekeeper suits that resemble AIM agents’ clothing? It seems like the evil organization might be making a comeback.

  WandaVision Episode 2 Easter Eggs

The opening credits for this episode aren’t just an adorable homage to Bewitched but a whole bevy of Marvel Easter eggs! The illustration of the moon happens to be surrounded by six stars, and we can’t help but be reminded of the Infinity Gauntlet.

When Vision phases through the floor, there’s a dark shape that looks exactly like the helmet worn by Marvel supervillain Grim Reaper hidden in the space. In the comics, he’s the brother of Wonder Man, whose brainwaves were used in Vision’s creation.

When Wanda goes to the supermarket in the opening, three references hang above the aisle! Bova Milk refers to Bova, the humanoid cow who raised Wanda and Pietro on Mount Wundagore. Auntie A’s kitty litter is a witchy reference to Auntie Agatha or Agatha Harkness, whom we’ve discussed before, and her cat-like familiar named Ebony. And Wonder Mints is most definitely a cheeky reference to Wonder Man, aka Simon Williams, the superhero who Vision’s brainwaves are based on in the comics!

When animated Wanda and Vision settle on their couch, the small figure on their side table is a statue of the Whizzer. Featured in 1982’s Vision and the Scarlet Witch, the Whizzer thought he was Wanda’s father but later discovers he was wrong. Whizzer and his wife were offered the chance to adopt Wanda and Pietro when they were kids on the mythical Mount Wundagore, but they declined.

When Wanda hears a crash outside the house, she heads out to the front, where she finds a colorful toy helicopter in an otherwise black-and-white world. Not only does the red-and-yellow helicopter have the number 57 stamped on it, but it also bears the S.W.O.R.D symbol! The number is likely in reference to Vision’s first appearance in Avengers #57, while the symbol hints to the presence of S.W.O.R.D outside Wanda’s perfect world.

The creepy, cult-like refrain spoken by the fundraiser organizers of it all being “for the children” seems to be a reference to Wanda’s involvement in the comic event The Children’s Crusade. The story follows her son, Billy, who’s trying to gain control over his reality-warping abilities by looking for a missing Wanda.

Well, here’s another blast from the angsty past! The Strücker timepiece is a very obvious callback to Hydra and Baron von Strücker. The watch bears the unmistakable octopus skull symbol of Hydra, and Strücker is the Hydra leader who recruited Pietro and Wanda for the experimentation that gave them powers. He was later killed by Ultron in his prison cell. Does anyone else hear that ticking noise? Remember good ol’ Herb? In the comics, a character named Herbert is also the High Evolutionary who runs Mount Wundagore, the very same safe haven where Bova delivered the Maximoff twins. Time will tell if the super-scientist is the same character, but it can’t be a coincidence.

Wanda and Vision’s magic show has two gems that we’ve noticed! First thing, the literal Mind Stone happens to be the design on the doors of the Cabinet of Mystery that plays a huge part in their act. Second, Wanda and Vision use the names Illusion and Glamour for their actor, which are also the names of the magicians that Vision goes to see in an issue of The Vision and the Scarlet Witch.

Though we all enjoy a good jam, The Beach Boys’ “Help Me, Rhonda” gets interrupted by someone asking, “Who’s doing this to you, Wanda?” And doesn’t that voice sound an awful lot like Randall Park’s Jimmy Woo?

While it may seem weird that Wanda shows her pregnancy in an instant, it’s in line with what goes on in the comics. Wanda uses magic to help her have children, which checks out since her husband is a synthezoid.

Oooh, that mysterious beekeeper! Not only does their presence lead to the reveal that Wanda has some control over the reality they’re in, but it also sets off some alarm bells. Even though the beekeeper’s suit bears the S.W.O.R.D logo on the back, the costume is reminiscent of the yellow costumes worn by A.I.M., a military science organization founded by Baron von Strücker. Could this be a sign that Wanda is being watched by more than one organization? And is this a hint that Hydra is back!? (Obviously, it is.)

  WandaVision Episode 1 Easter Eggs

When Wanda accidentally smashes a plate into Vision’s head, he jokes about his wife and her “flying saucers,” and she comments back about his “indestructible head.” Considering that Vision died after having the Mind Stone ripped from his head, it’s a dark joke to kick off the series.

Vision’s work tie has a visual reference to his comic-book alter ego! In Tom King and Gabriel Hernandez Walta’s Vision, whenever the character dresses as a human, he wears a tie clip that emulates the diamond pattern on his chest.

Vision’s boss, Mr. Hart, is likely named after comic creator Steve Englehart, who created 1985’s The Vision and the Scarlet Witch with Richard Howell, a miniseries that heavily influenced WandaVision. It’s been heavily implied that Kathryn Hahn’s Agnes is the MCU’s Agatha Harkness, a witch who helped train Wanda’s magic back in the ’70s and ’80s.

When Wanda magically saves dinner, the bottle of wine she pours from is Maison du Mépris, which translates to house of contempt or scorn. As fans have pointed out since the trailer drop, this seems like a reference to the House of M comics storyline in which Wanda bends reality into a new world ruled by her family.

The Stark commercial break refers to two things: Avengers icon Tony Stark and his part in Wanda’s dark past. As Wanda and her twin brother, Pietro, explain in Avengers: Age of Ultron, their parents were killed by an explosive Stark Industries device, leaving the twins trapped under rubble. The Maximoffs were trapped by a Stark Industries shell for two days, expecting it to detonate before they get rescued. Even though Wanda eventually fights beside Tony in the future, there’s still some trauma from that experience and her brother’s death. If it weren’t for the Starks, Wanda could have been a completely different person.

The episode closes with a mysterious observer watching the “show” and taking notes on a pad with the logo of S.W.O.R.D. on the cover. For those who don’t know, S.W.O.R.D stands for Sentient World Observation and Response Department and is a subdivision of S.H.I.E.L.D. It’s a counterterrorism and intelligence agency that deals with extraterrestrial threats to world security. Expect to see them around more.

  Press: A Thorough Breakdown of All the Marvel Easter Eggs on WandaVision was originally published on Elizabeth Olsen Source • Your source for everything Elizabeth Olsen

[septembriseur]

A comprehensive theory of The Terror, pt. V

Hickey.

Oh, Hickey.

Or should I say: not-Hickey?

Hickey is a man who, over the course of the series, undergoes a profound transformation. When we first meet him, he’s a sullen and fairly useless caulker’s mate whose clumsy manipulations always seem to go slightly awry— he mistakes Crozier’s eagerness to get sloshed as an overture of friendship; he deploys his awareness that the tuunbaq isn’t really an animal to an unimpressed panel of officers; his daring escapade to kidnap Silna gets him flogged. Yet by the end of the show, he’s become a kind of ragged, savage would-be prophet, an unstoppable and hardly-human consumer of other men. 

The seeds of this are already present in his initial appearances. The first time we see Hickey as Hickey, rather than as one of a group of seamen, is when he helps to bury David Young in episode one. There is a miniature transformation that takes place here: at first, he’s a comic figure, flicking Tozer the V before hastily turning it into a thumbs-up, but when the other men leave him to work, he opts to climb down into Young’s grave. This is ostensibly so he can fix the broken lid of Young’s coffin, but in fact (we later learn) to rob Young’s corpse, and perhaps for some other, less articulable reason. 

The scene in the grave is lit dramatically, which my terrible capping probably can’t really capture; there are several distinct moments at which the sun is positioned just above Hickey’s head, obliterating him like a particularly ruthless halo.

When it isn’t, he remains wreathed in a foggy light, or else struck by a sort of painterly chiaroscuro.

There’s something uncanny about the effect thus produced, particularly at the moment when Adam Nagaitis does a brilliant bit of physical acting: a lizard-like head-flick and lip-licking that will recur later, when Hickey kills Irving. It’s a gesture that looks wrong, at the same time as it communicates a kind of joy or a physical release. 

Hickey wants to be in the grave, face-to-face with the dead body. I’m undecided how much he’s indifferent to any potential taboo— how much we should believe the casualness with which he later says, about the ring he steals from Young’s body, that he got it from “someone who didn’t need it anymore”— and how much it’s the very violation of that taboo that excites him, the touching-the-corpse and the going-down-into-the-grave. Either way, we know from this point on that he is someone whose nature is to transgress boundaries.

Sometimes that transgression is sympathetic! Why shouldn’t he get off with Billy belowdecks? He seems genuinely besotted with Billy, in a sort of feral, half-formed way. But the explanation he gives as to why Irving won’t inform on the two of them should raise red flags. Irving won’t say what he saw, Hickey says, because to do so would mean “he’d have to open his imagination to what he didn’t... That’s a man afraid of chaos. He’s not going to invite more if he can help it.” 

Here, “order” becomes what is seen, and “chaos” what is not seen— not only what is not seen, but what cannot be seen without puncturing order. This is tremendously important, I think, because the grave scene above also features one of several moments in the show at which the camera deliberately does not follow Hickey, barring the audience from seeing what he sees. 

This is what the audience sees while Hickey is actually in the process of rifling through Young’s corpse: a long, slow push in on the exterior of the grave. We hear Hickey’s noises of effort, but we don’t rejoin him until he’s slipped the ring into his pocket. 

This is exactly the technique used in the scene in episode six where Hickey puts his fingers into Heather’s exposed brain. We see Hickey pull the “veil” back to expose Heather’s injury, then bend over his body to inspect him:

However, we then cut to an angle at which the camera is positioned behind the veil, watching Hickey’s face yet concealing his actions.

We hear the wet noises as he touches Heather’s brain, but the show has literally drawn a veil across his actions, preventing us from seeing them and allowing us to leave them unimagined. (There is, I must note, a grimly clever little cut from this scene to Jacko the monkey digging his fingers into a tin of food.)

This isn’t a show that shies away from gore. I mean, in the final episode, we get multiple straightforward shots of Goodsir’s naked, butchered, and partly-consumed corpse. So it seems significant that there are these moments when the camera specifically will not let us follow Hickey where he is going, as though it does not want to implicate us in his violation. 

When I say violation, I don’t want to imply that these things are somehow inherently morally wrong. What they are is exactly what Hickey says: chaotic. (I should note that the scene in which Irving finds Hickey and Billy having sex draws on elements of this same pattern— we distinctly hear Hickey and Billy going at it, but don’t see them until they’re clothed— but everything about the way the show depicts not only their relationship but also that of Bridgens and Peglar suggests that we are meant to find these relationships tender and tragic, not unpleasant.) Hickey is, characteristically and centrally, chaotic. To paraphrase a wise man: he sees a boundary, he eats a boundary and washes it down with a cup of hot steaming rules. He’s a social transgressor, having sex with men and drinking with the captain. He’s a spatial transgressor: he sneaks back onto the ship during Franklin’s funeral and wanders through everyone’s private places, touching their intimate possessions. He takes a shit in Billy’s bed. There are other elements of confusion: he’s a man who’s “punished as a boy.” And, of course, deeper than all of these things runs the abiding formlessness at the heart of Hickey: he isn’t really Hickey. We never know who he is. He has no name, no past; he’s just someone who wandered onto the ship, looking for a “change of everything.”

We find this out about him in episode seven, the end of which marks the break between his nascent chaos and chaos unleashed. Something... happens to Hickey. In the scene that sees Irving return from his meeting with the Netsilik, Hickey is shot from angles and in poses that are designed to make him appear inhuman. First there’s this—

—a weird, disturbing shot in which Hickey is crouched, mostly naked, concealed under a greatcoat, and vaguely monstrous over Farr’s corpse. Then, as Irving approaches, Hickey springs animalistically at him, stabs him, and proceeds to squat over Irving and hold a hand over his mouth until he dies. We see Hickey through Irving’s eyes while this happens, at an unnatural angle that not only accentuates the sharp, triangular shapes of his body, but also seems to distort him slightly. He looks demonic, even before he repeats his restless and lizard-like head-flick...

And then: yikes.

It’s a shedding-his-skin motion, is what I think of that head-flick. From this point forward, Hickey is no longer a resentful man kicking against his confines. He has escaped those confines. He slips into an easy, ruthless, natural command of the mutineers, including men who outrank him and have previously mocked him. 

He also slips further and further away from humanity, moving towards something else. “I’ve shot smaller hawks than you,” Jopson says, but Hickey isn’t a hawk, exactly. He looks like a man, albeit a man who’s mostly running around in his long underwear and a greatcoat in the Arctic, seemingly unable to feel the cold, but gradually all his previous strangenesses come to the fore. With a rope around his neck (once more lit strangely through a haze) he tells Crozier that he “must pierce this thing [Crozier] calls truth,” and takes on Crozier’s own voice/accent to do it— another absenting of identity, another piece of evidence that Hickey is not so much a person or a thing as a void of anything, a formlessness.

I can’t help but think that what the mutineers are following is not Hickey, but the formlessness that has broken free from within him. At the mutineers’ camp, Hickey takes on the demeanor and appearance of a prophet, embracing the air with his arms open (in the same pose that recurs throughout the series as an emblem of chaos and collapse) while skinned of most of his clothing— 

—or meditating alone on hillsides for hours, “listening to his thoughts.” (“I dare not go up” to interrupt him, Tozer says.) He’s killed and eaten Billy by this point, and if we were looking for a logic to his actions, it would be possible to read it in the toast he reminds Crozier of: “Ourselves.” Crozier intended it as a self-deprecating joke, he says, but for Hickey it’s become a tenet: he is a wholly self-interested being whose principle is survival, a formlessness that wants to go on being a formlessness.

Yet he has contrived a strange plan that he doesn’t reveal to anyone, which rests on an observation that Crozier makes about him: “You must be a surpassingly lonely man, Mr. Hickey.” I’m not sure how sincere Crozier’s being in this moment; it’s pretty obvious he doesn’t agree that he and Hickey were each other’s only “equals” on the expedition. The observation is accurate, however, I think. Hickey is a surpassingly lonely man, but: “Not for long,” he tells Crozier. He plans to bind himself to the tuunbaq, becoming a shaman.

So let’s talk about this plan.

Hickey arranges this bizarre sacrificial tableau in which he stands atop the boat, again almost unclad in the middle of the Arctic, and rambles from what seems like a place of holy madness, cursing all the national and religious figures of England while offering what are pretty nakedly incisive truths. “What if we’re not the heroes?” he asks. “Our empire is not the only empire. I’ve seen that now.” Arguably, what allows him this vision is that he now stands outside of all the empires, having transcended every taboo, every boundary line. 

Yet when he offers his tongue to the tuunbaq, the tuunbaq rejects it and eats him. The important question is: why?

Let me get philosophical for a second: what is a connection? It’s a point of contact between two beings, right? It’s a touch; the place where two parts of the world are joined to one another. For this to happen, there has to first be a dividing line; there has to be a way in which the world is divided up into things to start with. I am separate from you. Man is separate from animals. The sea is separate from the land. There are these boundaries in the world that allot us places; there are rules that govern how we relate to every other kind of thing. It’s not good or bad, any more than chaos is; it’s just order. And fundamentally there has to be an interplay; we always have to be moving towards a synthesis of order and chaos. But when you have just chaos, with no boundaries, then what you have is an everythingness that is also a nothingness, which is: Hickey. Everything is permitted, is his attitude, pretty explicitly; or alternatively: everything can be consumed, an act that literally treats everyone and everything around him as just a potential part of his body. The result of this is that it is impossible for him to connect. 

When I was first trying to figure out why the tuunbaq refuses Hickey, I thought to myself: is it because Hickey thinks he’s the shaman, but he’s actually the monster? It’s possible to view him as “a spirit that dresses as an animal,” or as an animal that dresses as a man. But I think it’s that, at this point, Hickey has become so formless that he simply isn’t enough of a thing to be able to touch another thing. I think that’s the birthplace of the urge that drives him to to bind himself to the tuunbaq in the first place, but it’s also the reason why he can’t.

I find Hickey quite tragic, actually, because I can understand his frustration with order— with boundaries that are arbitrary and don’t seem to make sense. But in breaking and breaking and breaking forwards past those boundaries, Hickey fails to understand that the boundaries don’t exist to be boundaries qua boundaries. They create the possibility of relationship. And while touch is perhaps the push of chaos that nudges us to new and more perfect iterations of order, we can’t allow it to become the will to consume. 

And on that note... next time, I have much to say about Goodsir.