Marvel pulled out all of the stops for the series finale of WandaVision.
It’s incredible how fast time zoomed, and now, eight weeks have already passed.
This means it’s time for us to tearfully bid adieu to Westview and the Vision-Maximoff household.
WandaVision has kept its audience revved up, week after week.
Even the complainers, who had their qualms with the series but still religiously watched each new episode.
Simply put, it is a series that will go down in cultural history as its relevance shone through this time of unprecedented grief and severe quarantine-bubble boredom.
As I stated last week, the series is a shoo-in for the Primetime Emmys and hopefully more.
This time next year, I’d love to see a Golden Globe in Elizabeth Olsen’s hands.
Thank you for joining me on this journey of recapping WandaVision and without further ado, here’s our recap for WandaVision episode 9, “The Series Finale.”
Magic, magic, magic
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“The Series Finale” picked up exactly where the last episode left off— with Agatha (Kathryn Hahn) using her magical powers to hold Billy and Tommy by their throats.
Watching them struggle, Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) demands her to let them go and uses her magic to disarm the other witch.
It is revealed that Agatha has the ability to “take power from the undeserving,” and she uses it to absorb Wanda’s blow and regurgitate them back towards her.
This encounter is interrupted by Wanda picking up a vehicle and throwing it in Agatha’s direction, striking her house instead.
The camera does a strange pan to a pair of golden boots (Agatha’s?) laying underneath the car.
Is this a nod to the classic Wizard of Oz — a preface to tell the audience that Wanda will win this battle and Agatha will be crushed — or is this something Agatha planned, to mock Wanda? Honestly, who knows.
(Let’s just add it to the number of gimmicks left unexplained throughout the series.)
After this, Wanda sees White Vision and approaches him skeptically. She asks, “Is it really you?”
For a brief moment, there’s a glimmer of hope in her eyes as they move closer to direct contact.
However, he violently reaches out and begins to crush her face between his hands.
Oh yeah, Hayward really instilled the “Wanda is evil” thing into his cute little android head.
Not to worry, Westview Vision (Paul Bettany) swoops in and saves the day.
Remember, he was slowly on his way back to suburbia in episode 8?
The Visions collide and Westview Vision gains the upper hand.
Once freed from fighting, he rushes back to Wanda and the two quickly make-up for their past tensions.
They join forces and decide, “let’s save our home.”
Back at the SWORD office, Hayward is doing his normal evil plotting.
It’s the typical “yada, yada, yada, yada, I’m a generic villain” stuff.
He claims that with White Vision on the loose, nobody will trace it back to him and he’ll be free from his crimes.
A huge ha-ha as Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris), Jimmy Woo (Randall Park) and Darcy Lewis (Kat Dennings) all bared first-witness to his constant wrongdoings.
Woo points this out and says that someone from Quantico will be at the scene within the hour.
Trying to call his bluff, Hayward throws him in a self-made and unsupervised cell.
This was totally strange as SWORD has a lot of expensive resources and a handful of useless guys who could’ve stood watch.
Of course, trained FBI agent Jimmy Woo easily “jimmies” his way out of his handcuffs and calls his guy at Quantico.
All of this… pretty useless. But a nice scenic break from the action that fills the rest of the episode.
Trying to keep this recap a considerate length, I will only skim over the fight scenes.
As one can predict from this moment on, there are two major fights going on: Agatha vs. Wanda and Westview Vision vs. White Vision.
WandaVision’s Finale: Agatha vs. Wanda
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Back in Westview, Wanda is trying to convince the witchy Agatha that she is not a witch.
Wanda stresses that she hasn’t had the training or the studied the resources.
She incessantly argues that there’s no way she is the Scarlet Witch (spoiler alert: she’s wrong).
Despite this, Agatha is confident in the knowledge she has received from the highlighted book from last week’s episode, revealed to be the Darkhold.
That being said, WandaVision never truly delves into what it means to be the Scarlet Witch or how it’s possible that the title was bequeathed upon Wanda, without any other consulting. Awkward for non-comic book watchers.
As the two bicker, Agatha begins snapping the Westview civilians out of Wanda’s mind control.
Dottie (Emma Caulfield) approaches Wanda and begs her to “let her daughter out of her room.”
Dottie insists that her daughter will follow whatever storyline Wanda desires.
One by one, the citizens approach Wanda and begin accosting her.
This is how she becomes aware of the pain she’s inflicting on the others, whom Wanda claims to be protecting.
She insists that they were just having fun. But the thing is, they were not having fun.
They tell her that whenever she [Wanda] would let them sleep, her nightmares would be inflicted on them.
One old lady takes it a few steps farther than everybody else and says that if Wanda doesn’t let them out, she might as well just “let them die.”
Okay, lady, speak for yourself. I’m sure that’s not what Dottie wants…
Agatha guides Wanda to let the civilians go (thank goodness, it’s about time).
She tells her, “Heroes don’t torture people.”
Wanda opens the Westview portal and allows the citizens to escape, which also allows Hayward to enter (seriously, just get rid of him already).
As the portal is ripped open, fragments of Vision and the twin boys (who have escaped their home to help their mom handle this madness) begin to dissipate into thin air.
Visually, this scene was reminiscent of the Marvel snap era — too painful.
Wanda closes the portal just in time to save the bodies of her family.
Agatha tells her, “You’ve tied your family to this fictional world.”
Diverting to Fietro
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What a waste of time.
Fake Pietro (played by X-Men’s Evan Peters) was revealed to be a man by the name of Ralph Bohner brainwashed by Agatha.
She has gifted him with a magic-infused necklace which allows him to mimic Quicksilver’s powers.
The last time we saw him was when he snuck up on Monica while she was moseying around Agatha’s place, during a mid-credits scene.
It turns out he kidnapped her and the two are holding up in his stoner-esque man cave.
Smart, strong and wise Monica quickly discovers his game and rips his necklace off, voiding him of his powers.
And that’s the end of Fietro.
Anti-climatic and totally misleading. Nice game, Marvel. Nice game.
Vision vs. Vision
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This is easy.
The ever-resourceful Visions battle it out for a few minutes before remembering that at the core of their sexy android existence is a computer-operated algorithm.
They decide to do something that very few men in Marvel are capable of doing: They talk things out.
Westview Vision gifts White Vision with his memories.
He says, “As a carbon-based synthezoid, your memory is not so easily wiped.”
This takes the audience through a quick flashback of Vision’s past events in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and then the white dude says “I am Vision” and flies away, never to be seen again.
JK, he’ll probably show up in future movies or whatever, but seriously… what the heck?
Back to Wanda vs. Agatha
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Hayward and SWORD launch a quick attack on our gals which is quickly disarmed because, once again, SWORD’s weapons and useless direction have absolutely nothing on Wanda’s powers — or even a more amateur superhero, as the twin boys assist their mom in taking them down.
There’s a quick throwback to Agatha’s coven which was shown briefly in Episode 8 and the witches (who were previously crucifying Agatha) turn to chant “you are a witch” at Wanda.
Once again, they insist that she is the Scarlet Witch.
Wanda is seen with a glowing red crown and Agatha continues to ask Wanda to give up her powers.
Agatha claims that she can fix everything that went wrong with Wanda’s initial Westview spell.
Wanda pushes them back into the current-time and out of Agatha’s past and the two witches continue their battles in Westview.
Recapping: Wanda tells Agatha to take her powers and after a few minutes of battling, Wanda’s body becomes sunken and Agatha appears to absorb all of her powers.
We learn that Kathryn Hahn has an excellent witchy laugh.
Jokes on Agatha though because Wanda had cast a protection spell with runes, which she picked up from Agatha in the past episode.
She reiterates the learned lesson and says, “In a given space, only the witch who cast them can use her magic.”
Basically, Wanda’s good and Agatha is struggling.
I don’t need you to tell me who I am
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The second half of the episode is much less climactic and sticks with the strong emotional scenes we’ve been able to witness throughout the series.
First, Wanda uses her magic to revert Agatha back into Agnes.
While Agatha claims that Wanda will need her (reasonably so, as she is well-versed in magic), Wanda is confident that they’ll reconnect when the time is necessary.
Next, Wanda has to address the temporariness of her make-believe family.
Heading home, she says a tearful goodbye to both her sons and Vision.
The couple tucks their sons into bed and tells them that they are proud of them.
Wanda leaves them with one last sentiment, “Thank you for choosing me to be your mom.” Yup, a tearjerker.
In the living room alone with Vision, they watch the approaching end to the Westview portal and the destruction of all that Wanda built.
Visions asks her, “What am I?” and Wanda confirms that he’s part of the Mind Stone that “lives inside her.”
She goes on and tells him, “You are my sadness and my hope. But mostly, you’re my love.”
Vision reassures her that they will reconnect again.
He states all of the forms he’s lived in and says, “We’ve said goodbye before.”
To which Wanda replies, “We’ll say hello again.”
This transforms us back to where Wanda began this madness, standing solemnly on her empty plot of land.
However, now she’s surrounded by the hurt real Westviewians and she simply walks past them to fly off to wherever is next.
Monica and Wanda have a touching moment— nothing out of the ordinary as Monica has always been “Team Wanda,” and Hayward is arrested.
This is the end… if it wasn’t for the mid-credits and end-credits scenes.
WandaVision Finale’s Mid credits scene
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Monica is approached by someone sent by an “old friend of her mom’s” who is revealed to be a Skrull.
The Skrull informs her that someone wants to speak to her and Wanda looks up.
Captain Marvel? Nick Fury?
WandaVision Finale’s End credits scene
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Wanda is living in a cold, barren area, taking shelter inside of a rustic cabin.
She follows the sound of a kettle whistling and while pouring herself a warm drink, the camera travels through the cabin to a back room.
Revealed in the back room is another Wanda, in full Scarlet Witch form, flipping through the Darkhold and listening to the cries of her children.
Conclusion
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What an adventurous ride that was! Surely enjoyable even throughout the irksome moments of too-much filler and unresolved plot bunnies.
Personally, I would’ve liked some more insight into the commercials that aired throughout the first seven episodes.
Many of them spoke for themselves, but it feels like they were abruptly left in the past as the story unfolded.
There’s also the wasteful tease of Monica’s un-notable aerospace engineer friend and Bettany’s incessant mention of a super cool guest star — who he revealed was just himself.
But that’s all part of Marvel’s game.
Silly enough as they know their committed audience will return series after series, and movie after movie, but they still rely on gimmicks and endless cliffhangers to tell their stories.
Even with what seems like a finite ending, WandaVision ended with so much more speculation in the air.
I mean, at the very least, what about Agatha?
She can’t still be trapped in Westview as Agnes if Westview is no longer there?
And where did White Vision go?
Looks like Phase Four will have much to answer to and I’m excited for what’s next.
Let’s just not do the Fietro thing again, that was pretty cheap.
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier premieres on March 19th.
What did you make of WandaVision’s finale? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
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