Goodbyes are Never Easy in WandaVision Episode 9

For our WandaVision episode 9 recap, we find Mikey Zee floating in the sky, holding ComicsXF hostage as he ponders the denouement of the first Disney+ Marvel Cinematic Universe TV show.

Mikey Zee: So, it’s finally come to this. At last, my WandaVision column will finally come to an end. All of my planning… to steal the great power of ComicsXF all for myself–wait, what’s this? No. Not you! Not… Karen Charm!

Karen Charm: Oh Mikey… you didn’t really think you were the only one at CXF who wanted to talk about the last episode of WandaVision, did you??! I’ve been quietly observing you and your guests talk about this show week after week, biding my time for when I might have a chance to join in. [the earth trembles as flashes of light streak across the sky] I may not have the same level of training, the same deep understanding of the Scarlet Witch, but still, I was born for this! So thanks for having me :> 

Like I said, I’ve really enjoyed watching this show, especially with your ongoing coverage as a supplement. I remember back at the start, you and Charlie dissecting comparisons between this show and Twin Peaks. Now, twenty-five years later (wait, what year is it?) we’ve come to the end, and I’m thinking about how well those comparisons have stuck. I can definitely see a few parallels, what about you?

MZ: I was definitely thinking about the ending of Twin Peaks: The Return while watching this finale; my brain couldn’t help it. I promise there’s a thematic throughline there. But first… let’s dig into the meat of the episode.

We’re Not in Kansas Anymore

MZ: So, I’ll be honest. I thought the way this episode started felt a little abrupt; we get a brief trading of quips between Wanda and Agatha before they get into a battle. The twins want to stay with Wanda, but she (understandably!) tells them to go home where they won’t get hurt.

I think a lot of the issue has to do with the cuts between cameras; the cuts that have worked so well for the sitcom episodes in keeping the scene and narrative flowing feel choppy and impatient here, making it hard to follow the action. What did you think of this whole initial fight, Karen?

KC: I can appreciate the episode picking up directly from the last one, and wasting no time getting into the action. I do have some issues with the episode’s time management, but that comes later. Maybe I was just totally distracted by Kathryn Hahn, which tends to happen when she’s on screen (I love her finger makeup!). The fight was fun although thinking about Agatha’s magic-stealing plan too deeply makes it unravel for me a bit. I wonder if it would have been more interesting if we learned she had been sapping Wanda’s magic away for the entire series rather than just at the final moment, but I guess that’s curiosity killing the cat. I did enjoy them taking the bait and going for the Wizard of Oz reference when Wanda chucks a car at Agatha. 

Of course, after that, Agatha kind of conveniently disappears long enough for our good friend Vision to come back. Looking a little pale there, buddy – oh no.

MZ: Okay, I admit, they got me with this newer, Backstreet Boys Millenium version of Vision lifting Wanda up, seemingly caressing her… but crushing her skull instead! That was a good bait and switch, playing on our emotions. Wanda’s Vision rushes in to save her, and they have a brief moment of reconciliation… too brief, honestly.

I was talking with our wonderful editor Charlie Davis about this episode this morning, and it really feels like this series could’ve used another episode or two. Not only is nine episodes a weird length for a miniseries in my opinion, but I feel like there’s too much that had to be done here. So, instead of a scene where we get Wanda and Vision acknowledging their mutual faults, we get kind of this cheesy scene. They’ve gone through their separate journeys, but one thing that’s really important to me is still seeing characters do the work to acknowledge that forgiveness and moving on is something that has to be done together, not apart. And unfortunately, we don’t get that here, because there’s like three superhero flying battles to have.

KC: Ah yes, that gets to the heart of what I was talking about with “time management.” They’re left with so much to do in a single episode, and it’s illuminating to see what they choose to prioritize. I had honestly been expecting for this to be an extra-long finale spectacular and was surprised to see it was only, what, ten minutes longer than any other episode. Anyway… 

I do really like the Double Vision fight – as we’ve seen in Marauders, you can do some clever things with intangibility powers. I’ve seen criticism of Marvel’s reliance on climactic doppelganger fights, but in this case it feels justified to me. At least for the moments, it’s got the edge on visual flare over Wanda and Agatha’s hand-acting battle, although that one has far meatier dialogue. Better props, too.

While I tend to prefer to be surprised by media, I do enjoy guessing correctly from time to time. In this case, my limited knowledge of Important Books in Marvel Magic led me to the impression that Agatha Harkness was in possession of the Darkhold. As luck would have it, we learn that is the case, as Agatha pulls the Book of the Damned out of thin air to teach Wanda a lesson. 

MZ: Yeah, and I think the scene where the Darkhold is introduced is one of the better fight-related scenes in this episode. We get this whole eerie scene of Wanda walking through main street Westview in her sweats, the town being eerily pleasant to her before we pan up to Agatha in front of a billboard for a cleaner that derives its power from “mother earth.” (Which is just another great example of this show using fake ads to reinforce its themes. 

What comes here feels actually very Twin Peaks to me, even if it’s more overt than anything that show ever did. The twins, via Billy’s empath powers, see exactly what’s going on and go to save Wanda… and it’s not good. Agatha breaks Wanda’s hold over the town, and everyone walks forward, telling her exactly what she’s doing to them. 

“I used to try to resist you, but now, I can’t remember why. Do you?” – Herb

“Your grief is poisoning us.” – Mrs. Hart

Unlike Twin Peaks where the recurrence of trauma and abuse come from the town putting a veil over its past mistakes to keep the status quo, here Wanda’s has put a veil over her past and her trauma. She’s refusing to admit to herself what is truly happening. For all her obvious faults, Agatha has since the very beginning refused to let Wanda delude herself, and she pushes forward here. She, like the audience, sees that Wanda needs to break through this last bit of bargaining before accepting her grief and moving on. (Sorry to toot my own horn, but I am rather proud of that Twin Peaks essay I linked!)

KC: As you should be! Like Cooper, Wanda tries to fix things all by herself – she started it, after all – and frees the people of Westview, opening the Hex without fully knowing what she’s letting in. 

Catch-22

KC: While the superheroes and villains tussle in the more populated areas of town, we learn the fate of beloved Monica Rambeau. Monica is decidedly not chillaxed, held captive in Fietro’s man-cave as he strums his guitar for maximum drama. As much as I like the guitar and Monica figuring out the secret of Ralph, it’s too bad that this is about the best action we get to see from Monica. Of all the amazingly cool things to introduce in this show, we do not get to see nearly enough of Monica as Spectrum. Stephanie Williams writes compellingly about how this show underserves such a great character, and I have to agree. Now, I imagine Marvel is “saving” Spectrum for a future release (essentially the Russo Brothers’ reasoning for not giving more time to Black Widow in Endgame was because she was getting her own movie), but again, it betrays the showmakers’ priorities.

MZ: Yes, I definitely agree… Monica is such a cool character, with such an amazing history, and they developed her so well in the early episodes only to not pay any of that off emotionally or narratively. It’s one of the many reasons I felt this finale was a little hollow.

I’ve seen similar criticism with how the show uses Randall Park, and I feel like that’s worth bringing up here too. We see him finally stand up to Hayward only to get handcuffed, letting S.W.O.R.D.’s Shit-Stirrer in Chief monologue at him. I do like how Jimmy once again shows how much he learned from Scott Lang as he whispers ‘flourish’ to himself. But he gets about two small moments this episode and that’s it.

Speaking of Hayward, I’m still not sure how I feel about his role in all this, and honestly at this point he felt a little bit… superfluous.

KC: Completely agree about all of that. Hayward has been an enjoyable antagonist throughout the series but gets reduced to a stock villain in the final hour. It felt cartoonish, and I don’t really buy him getting arrested in the end. While we in the audience are certainly meant to root against him, I’m not sure they made a clear enough explanation of why he would be legally wrong in the show. Maybe I’m just cynical. In any case, he brought us Cataract Vision, and for that I am grateful.

MZ: Same!

KC: For all his scheming, though, it’s too bad Hayward didn’t count on how susceptible androids are to logic puzzles and ontological head-scratchers. When Wanda’s lifting of the Hex begins to also disintegrate her family, colorful Vision decides to take his bleached-out counterpart to the library. I very much appreciate this next level to their battle, happy for them to talk it out finally. White Vision looks so sensitive when he’s questioning his entire existence! 

MZ: Yes. Though the CGI and effects fell a little flat for me this episode, whatever they did to Cataract Vision to make him look slightly more robot-like than Wanda’s Vision worked perfectly. Plus, even though it is kind of Philosophy 101, I do appreciate a good “Ship of Theseus” discussion. Robots and breaking their binary programming! This was another of my favorite moments in the episode, though we sadly had to bid farewell to Cataract Vision too soon, as he flies up out of the library and isn’t seen again for the rest of the episode.

Again, it just feels like a convenient way to deal with a plot element that is now extraneous, in an already over-stuffed finale. There’s so much here that feels like the production team saying, we wanted to get this moment in the final episode, but there isn’t enough time to see it through completely. For example, I completely forgot to mention the five seconds of family action pose we got with Vision, Wanda, and the twins right before the library fight! I was so, so glad to see Billy and Tommy using their powers to help Wanda while his dad takes on his doppelganger. And they worked together as brothers!!! But only for about five seconds. 

It’s like every time I managed to turn off my critic brain and let myself get excited, the disjointedness of the time management pulled me out of my suspension of disbelief. Especially with the Monica powers reveal, which is a shame because I feel like it’s one of the moments that was built up to best. They could think of all these cool things for Vision to do with his intangibility, but Monica gets to… stop bullets? 

While the bullets were aimed at the kids Monica helped deliver, thus dovetailing into her meeting them for the first time, none of that meaning and emotionality is conveyed here. Monica doesn’t even get the satisfaction of taking on Hayward directly after he spent so much of his time on-screen tearing her down. Even Monica herself looks vaguely confused at everything happening. Although… I did really like the cute interchange between Billy (BIBBY!!! ?) and Monica. What did you think, Karen?

KC: Definitely cute, especially the way Billy’s actor Julian Hilliard dropped the bullet with his powers. Also!! Was it just me or was that a little Days of Future Past movie reference when Tommy came back with the hat and sunglasses? Evan Peters is all over this show.

MZ: Oh my gosh, you’re totally right, I remember that now! Nice catch.

KC: While all this is going on, Agatha is hanging out in the sky trying to goad Wanda into using her scarlet witchcraft. I like the way Agatha is riding the line between antagonizing and commiserating with Wanda, blatantly trying any tactic available to getting what she wants. Again, Kathryn Hahn is just so good in this show, what a treat. Elizabeth Olsen is doing great work here too, more so on the smaller emotions. In any case, Wanda is turning out to be a quick study, and starts pulling tricks that she saw Agatha pull before. We get a very cool scene of Wanda pulling them both into one of Agatha’s memories, that single flashback to Salem we saw in the previous episode. Wanda lays out what sets the two witches apart – Agatha committed her crimes on purpose.

MZ: Yes, and it’s also the first time we’ve seen Wanda do the kind of mental manipulation that we saw her do the first time we saw her in action in Age of Ultron, and haven’t seen much of since. It’s especially great since she wasn’t able to get into Agatha’s head earlier! I have a lot of criticism for the effects in this episode, but this one really worked for me.

KC: Oh you’re right!! Nobody’s been able to get in her head, oh that’s cool. Even still, Agatha retains the slight edge, for now. 

It’s at this point of the finale that Wanda stops protesting against Agatha calling her out, and begins to accept it. In my experience, shame and guilt are some of the worst impediments to healing, and we’re seeing Wanda finally get over that. It doesn’t magically cure everything, but it does allow her to move forward. It’s pretty exciting to start to get a Wanda Maximoff that even slightly resembles her character from the comics, at last (not to discount the many important ways that Elizabeth Olsen will never be able to represent the character).

MZ: Even if I will always be frustrated that we didn’t get an MCU Wanda who is canonically Jewish and Romani, I’m glad that at the very least the version of Wanda we get on screen is one who gets to reckon with her history and guilt with narrative agency, rather than as a thinly-veiled cypher for all the women that have wronged the male author or whatever. I don’t know what was going on with Bendis for him to write Wanda the way he did in “Avengers Disassembled” and “House of M,” but… woof. 

Again, I’m not the person to deep-dive into the way Wanda’s heritage has been portrayed in the comics as compared to the lack of it in the MCU. My big hope is that WandaVision showing writers can bring forward those same themes and plot beats without the character assassination and misogyny means we will get a version of Wanda’s story that is inclusive of her Jewish Romani heritage, but without the canon that has been an albatross around her neck.

Writing on the Wall

MZ: So, we come to the big showdown we hinted at earlier in the episode, where Agatha is antagonizing Wanda into… Well, I can only describe it as charging her up with good magic, so she can suck the life force out of Wanda.

KC: Agatha had offered Wanda a deal – let me take this Scarlet Witch thing off your hands, and I’ll let you live in Westview with your family, happily ever after. When Wanda seems to agree (I guess by just blasting Agatha with red magic?) the older witch admits she sold Wanda a lemon. I’m not sure the specifics of her reneging on the deal are super clear, but it boils down to “magic is a one way street,” and there is no true happily-ever-after.

MZ: I think basically she promised she could fix Wanda’s Westview spell so she could have her cake and eat it too, but then revealed once a spell has been cast, it can’t be changed. That doesn’t quite seem to square with Wanda being a special magical girl and constantly breaking the rules, but like you said, it’s not clear and seems like the writers are glazing over the details in favor of moving the plot forward.

KC: And in this case, I’m glad they did! Wanda is just giving Agatha hell, throwing sparkly hex bolts every which way as her life force saps away. HOWEVER! In my absolute favorite moment of the show, Wanda pulls another new trick out of her sleeve. Agatha is suddenly powerless (Hahn really selling the ineffectual magic-casting) and Wanda’s decrepit skin re-moisturizes as the camera rotates just slightly to reveal the massive, glowing rune in the sky behind the Scarlet Witch. Wanda has turned the entire Hex into her warded space, copying Agatha’s cruel lesson in episode 8. 

This kind of twist seems obvious in hindsight, but on first viewing I was floored. I love it because the giant runes are so comic-booky, so anime, so… visual. It’s these fun stylistic choices that make me so forgiving when it comes to the other plot or pacing shortcomings. Now I wonder, being less familiar with the Scarlet Witch comics, if this scene has any greater significance to someone who does know that stuff? I do notice that they’re different runes than Agatha was using – does that mean anything?

MZ: I actually had to check, and sure enough, they’re a totally different set of runes that Wanda casts. So, these runes are kind of an artistic re-interpretation of Elder Futhark, which is one of the oldest runic alphabets and used by Germanic peoples. Alphabets inspired by it are common in fantasy fiction; I first saw it in the video game Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain. 

Runes as a magical device have been used a scant few times in Marvel comics, most notably in 2004’s “Thor Disassembled” arc. I didn’t read it, but it seems to have something to do with Ragnarok and some mysterious primal entities. So while they don’t have any special significance to Wanda in comics, I’m definitely interested to see how they pull the magic cosmology together in the MCU, and the reveal did make the whole cheesy flying magic battle conceit worth it.

KC: Fascinating, thanks for the explanation! I am too – although I’m not really that into the magic side of Marvel, I appreciate the franchise as a whole heading in more fantastic directions. Part of that new direction is Wanda’s new outfit! I’m curious what inspired the majority of the look, but I’m definitely a fan of her official Scarlet Witch crown. It looks very lovely to me, and seems to carry a lot of the sadness inherent in the character somehow.

Agatha gets a makeover too, as Wanda decides to put her back on the shelf rather than mete out a worse punishment. Specifically, Agatha must spend the rest of her days (or until she’s needed) as Agnes, the nosy neighbor she pretended to be in the first place. The show undersells it, but this is a pretty grisly fate when you remember the anguish the rest of Westview was under. Presumably, she won’t be dreaming Wanda’s nightmares but still, a horrible way to live without any agency over your life. Wanda oughta know, you know? 

It’s the first of several neat little bows that get tied up in quick succession, but before we get to those final notes, we have the saddest goodbye of the whole series. Wanda is bringing down the Hex for good, finally accepting what that means for her family. She and the Vision-Maximoff family head home to spend their final moments together. The music here is so gorgeous, by the way. *sniff* Could you pass the tissues?

MZ: Oh geez, this was so rough. Her saying goodbye to the twins with a “Thank you for choosing me to be your mom…” I’ve been pretty honest about the fact that I have a lot of emotions regarding the twins Billy and Tommy, and this goodbye was just heart-wrenching as the Hex encroaches in the background.

I think, out of anything, this and the next scene had the most Twin Peaks: The Return energy… that bittersweetness that comes from being unable to truly put things right, because you don’t understand enough about how you failed.

KC: Yeah I can totally see that. To me it feels like a mix of the last two episodes of The Return. On the one hand, you have a semi-saccharine ending that puts everything in exactly the right place, but on the other it’s mixed with this haunted, defeated tone that weighs on you. That no matter what, you can’t go back and fix the mistakes.

MZ: I’m so glad you picked up on the exact episodes I was thinking about. Also, another good line between Wanda and Vision.

“You are the piece of the mind stone that lives in me.” – Wanda

KC: It’s kind of funny that Wanda takes off as we start to hear sirens, because she’s now practically a god living on Earth, what law of man could possibly restrain her? I hear the same in Teyonah Parris’ final, bewildered “good luck.” The stakes have gotten pretty steep in the MCU, huh?

MZ: They have, but I wish the dialogue felt like it matched up to the stakes. “They’ll never know what you sacrificed for them” was the one line that really stuck out to me, even in a series of scenes that under-utilized Monica this episode. What did Wanda sacrifice? A life that, realistically, she should’ve never had? It just didn’t work for me. Monica existing to forgive Wanda doesn’t work on a narrative level for me–it was never hers to forgive–nor does it feel good to have Monica as a Black woman act as a panacea for Wanda’s pain. Even though Wanda and Monica have been through some similar stuff, it doesn’t feel right for that to be Monica’s final interaction with her.

KC: Yeah, that is a very important point, I agree with you. It’s part of what felt so pat about the ending. If there was just another episode, or another twenty minutes, maybe they could have sat with the consequences of this traumatic event. The characters continue to exist only to serve Wanda. 

MZ: Right, which sucks! Because if anything, it goes to show that as much as the build worked, neither Wanda nor the writers have learned how to balance Wanda having agency versus Wanda being a hero. It’s a pat ending, but it’s also a transitional ending that’s clearly just setting up another MCU movie. 

I think if anything, that’s the most disappointing thing of all. No matter how thrillingly different this show’s structure was, how much it helped us learn who these characters are as people… ultimately, it will just go back to an MCU movie with the same kind of MCU structure. I’d love to be proven wrong, but… that’s exactly what the post-credits scenes feel like.

KC: MCU stuff for me is best enjoyed once, as multiple viewings tend to wear thin quickly. I do have to agree with you, in that its IOU half-resolution pales in contrast to The Return’s final unresolvedness. I would hope that the promise of more stories may at least give hope that we will see some growth. Maybe that’s unlikely. That said, I do enjoy the ride while I’m on it. As much as I look forward to more Monica, the post-credit scene with her and her Skrull friend felt as hurried as the pre-credits ending, maybe more so. I have to admit that I loved the final sequence as much as Wanda’s big runes in the sky – it was slow and serene, and had a more satisfying reveal than a Benedict Cumberbatch cameo like I was expecting.

It feels like we’re near the end now, Mikey. Do you have any final words, before I discorporate and turn back into sadness, wires, hope, and love?

MZ: I do want to say I do love that even as disappointed as I was by this episode in so many ways, I did love how the last parts of Wanda’s arc brought in elements from Wanda’s comics canon. We had allusions to Doctor Doom trying to take Wanda’s Chaos Magic in Avengers: The Children’s Crusade with Agatha, we had Wanda taking a remote cabin in the mountains as an allusion to her amnesiac fate after “House of M,” where Hawkeye eventually finds her.

And it’s an interesting inversion of that comics history, because instead of Billy and Tommy having to find a lost Wanda, Wanda hears Billy and Tommy’s voices as she’s studying the secrets of the Darkhold, knowing that they still exist in some form. It’s very satisfying as a resolution to Billy and Tommy’s fates, even if the rest wasn’t.

But as for our article here, I’ve really, really enjoyed having you here Karen! It’s been an absolute blast, and I couldn’t have asked for a better person to work with.

KC: The blast was mutual, Mikey. This has been a beautiful home you built for talking about WandaVision. Thank you for choosing me… to be your guest co-host [disintegrates into pixels and squiggly light].