WandaVision

[schild]

I don't think she's evil, I think she's curious. They're witches.

I also don't think this entire thing is due to grief, as the last episode implied. That said, we'll probably never get answers now since it's the white vision show from here on out.

[NowhereMan]

Yeah that definitely happened.

I don't think Agatha is a villain, which is not the same as saying I think she's a good guy. She has been messing with Wanda the whole series but none of the acts seem like they're aimed at manipulating Wanda or getting her to enact some goal, they were much more trying to break the 'happy' life she was crafting. I think Agatha wants to know what Wanda is and how she did what she's done and she has no qualms about upsetting or traumatising Wanda to do that but the trauma isn't the goal. Also when I saw them powering up the White Vision I was thinking 'please don't be Ultron' but I kind of think we are going to see some kind of Ultron. Possibly even just because that was the original plan for the body and without the Mind Stone, Wanda's magic joojoo might well be bringing the body back 'as it was intended'. Hayward clearly sees it as a weapon and it would make sense that intentionality will have a big play when magic is involved.

I'd be happy with this series introducing Wanda as a part of the MCU magic universe and also establishing her power level, I'm not really sure we will see a Dormamu cameo. That said it's definitely MCU style to have a villain behind the villain reveal in a credit sequence.

[Draegan]

I get the feeling that Agatha is kind of neutral that can swing up and down the villain/hero spectrum.

[Khaldun]

That's certainly comics Agatha.

[Threash]

You're all crazy. That was the most standard run of the mill bad guy story we've gotten so far. Gets involved with forbidden knowledge, kills her entire coven including her mother, kidnaps Wanda's children in order to blackmail her into showing her how to get more power. There is not even a slight shade of grey here.

[Velorath]

Kinda with Threash on this one. If Agatha wasn't based on a morally ambiguous character from the comics, I think there'd be a lot more people here calling Agatha out in this show as just being a villain.

[schild]

You're all crazy. That was the most standard run of the mill bad guy story we've gotten so far. Gets involved with forbidden knowledge, kills her entire coven including her mother, kidnaps Wanda's children in order to blackmail her into showing her how to get more power. There is not even a slight shade of grey here.

I think there is grey since the "hero" reformed Vision from her fucking mind bullets (and yet kept him a skin of dead, as she last saw him - theoretically, though maybe Vision is Vision and Dead Vision was Trickster Agatha shit) and kept an entire town in thrall like some bullshit vampire.

Edit: Basically, for agatha to be a villain, we would need to have a hero, and there don't seem to be any here - and vision is a lost little puppy

[Threash]

Monica would be the hero in that case.

[Riggswolfe]

You're all crazy. That was the most standard run of the mill bad guy story we've gotten so far. Gets involved with forbidden knowledge, kills her entire coven including her mother, kidnaps Wanda's children in order to blackmail her into showing her how to get more power. There is not even a slight shade of grey here.

It appeared to me her coven was trying to kill her for her dabbling in forbidden magic and it backfired on them. I'm not saying she's a hero, but I don't think she's pure villain either. She's most definitely in the grey category.

[Threash]

I'm sure whatever she got into that caused her own fucking mother to want to kill her was not pure fucking evil at all.

[Raguel]

You're all crazy. That was the most standard run of the mill bad guy story we've gotten so far. Gets involved with forbidden knowledge, kills her entire coven including her mother, kidnaps Wanda's children in order to blackmail her into showing her how to get more power. There is not even a slight shade of grey here.

It appeared to me her coven was trying to kill her for her dabbling in forbidden magic and it backfired on them. I'm not saying she's a hero, but I don't think she's pure villain either. She's most definitely ni the grey category.

It's not particularly clear Agnes purposefully killed them. Normally an actor will make a move to show they are causing whatever effect (magic, telepathy, etc.) is happening. The only time she made a move was to break her bond around her hands, and later to break the magic tendril thingies from the redshirt witches. They were already dead or dying at that point.

To Threash's point: whatever she learned (whether Agatha consciously summoned the purple magic bit or not) is what killed the witches. But it wasn't "forbidden knowledge" in the sense that no one could learn it. She was on trial for stealing the knowledge before she earned the right to learn it (or perhaps more importantly, before she was deemed mentally stable enough to handle it).

Agatha is obviously a manipulative liar but I think she was sincere when she said she could control it if they only taught her, and that she wanted to be good. As her mother said though she can't be good. I think Agatha will want to help Wanda learn to control her power (and maybe she thinks she's helping now) but she can't express that in behavior like a normal person would anymore, because she's been corrupted.

[Velorath]

I think it's pretty clear that she purposefully killed the other witches and that her attempts at saying she needed help controlling her power was her being manipulative. How rapidly her attitude changes as she tries different attempts to get out of the situation, and the fact that she shows zero remorse after killing her own mother (and then snatches the brooch from her corpse and takes off) don't even really show of hint of this just being some accident.

And you know, holding two kids captive and tugging them by the necks with magic is fairly unambiguously evil imagery.

[HaemishM]

TBF, we aren't even sure the children are actual children rather than creations of chaos magic or even Agatha's magic.

[Velorath]

Sure but if the writers/director were actually trying to show Agatha's moral ambiguity in that episode, that's generally not an effective way to go about it.

Edit: And I understand that there could still be a reveal next episode that she doesn't have evil motives here. This is more of a response to people who are suggesting that there was some ambiguity being displayed in this last episode, because I'm just not seeing it.

[Teleku]

Agatha will likely be a tragic villain or something (maybe turns to help take down the big bad and dies like Darth Vader), but she is not good.  I believe she thinks she isn’t bad, and the fact she tried to play nice with Wanda means she has some empathy, but the show has made it clear.  The magic that came out of her was purple.  That’s the Dark Dimension magic color (also the color of the Power Stone which just destroys everything.  Marvel has established purple is evil).  To me it seems obvious her sin was reaching out to the dark dimension and likely making a deal with Dormammu, or at least letting it’s corrupting power possess her.  She is literally Kaecilius from the Dr. Strange movie, but got caught.  And I think the line where she pleaded to her mother “I can be good.”  And her mother said “No  you cannot” and then tries to kill her, means that no matter what Agatha thinks she’s doing, the power she tapped will corrupt her (or already has).  Maybe it works like the symbiont from Spiderman.  Anyway's, this is why her own mother knew she had to die, and why Agatha will be evil.

As for Hayward, I thought the last episode also made it clear he is more than he seems.  The way he looked at Wanda and the way he spoke at certain points, showed he was specifically trying to manipulate her.  Maybe reading to much into it, but I think he knew what would happen, knows exactly what’s going on, and engineered this entire thing for his own goals.

My guess:  We’ll find out he either is an imposter who is pretending to be Hayward (alt dimension Loki? Heh), or Hayward who has been possessed by something magical/cosmic (Hydra theory also works, but I’d like to think MCU has moved beyond Hydra at this new phase.  Also, the purpose of this show is to world build up Magic).  Hayward likely caused Monica’s mother’s cancer to come back and kill her, so he could seize control of SWORD. 

[eldaec]

Edit: And I understand that there could still be a reveal next episode that she doesn't have evil motives here. This is more of a response to people who are suggesting that there was some ambiguity being displayed in this last episode, because I'm just not seeing it.

I think she has selfish motives. And not fussed if you want to call them evil or her a villian, but they seem to be a different sort of motive to the archetypal villains we've seen, mostly because they aren't purely antagonistic.

She's here to see what she can get out of the situation. And for funsies.

[Threash]

Eh, "I want more power and I'm willing to do fucked up shit to get it" is about as archetypal villain as it gets.

[Riggswolfe]

Eh, "I want more power and I'm willing to do fucked up shit to get it" is about as archetypal villain as it gets.

That's Hayward. Agatha is more "wow, how did she do this? I have to know!" but she hasn't really crossed any lines yet other than killing the dog. But I'm not even convinced that was real. The show has a very "unreliable narrator" feel to it and I think maybe "Agatha All Along" is Wanda's version of how she felt about the reveal as it let her blame someone else for what's happening, if only briefly.

The biggest villain thing she has done is holding the kids by the neck. But so far, she hasn't threatened Wanda. She just told her what she is. It could be as simple as her holding them by the necks to keep Wanda from blasting her the second she sees her. We'll know next episode but I'll be very surprised if she doesn't team up with Wanda and HexVision next episode to face off against Sword and WhiteVision. After the fight I suspect she'll just disappear and say something like "We'll meet again Wanda, we have so much to teach each other!" It's always possible she will be a side antagonist in Doctor Strange 2. The Darth Vader to whatever the big bad is basically but I just don't see it.

Edit: The opening scene, I think, really is open to interpretation so I'm not willing to consider it a "villain origin story" at this point.

[Khaldun]

The more I think on it, the more I'm thinking that

[Threash]

I really hope not, she's been amazing.

[HaemishM]

I think it's clear you can't take anything that has happened in Westview at face value, not even the dog. AFAIK, the dog could be just as made up/created/illusory as the kids, or Dead Pietro or anything else. Agatha literally turned a bug into a different bug then had her rabbit eat it, talking about illusions the whole time.

[Khaldun]

Sparky tried to kill itself the moment it 'appeared' so yeah, who knows.

[Sky]

Hahn is amazing in this, they'd be stupid to waste her as a setup character. So far my favorites have been her and the Kat Dennings/dude from Ant-Man combo.

I've been liking the series overall, really cool stuff. I don't try to figure it out, I just enjoy the ride 

[01101010]

Have to admit, the wife wanted to watch this and the first episode put me off. I know nothing about the MCU or the comics or any of that and I really did not like 50's or 60's sitcoms... so I left the wife to go it alone. However, she decided to binge it Saturday while working on her Etsy shop and I was playing around with an old laptop - have to admit, the show picked up and brought me back into it around the 3rd/4th episode. Not my favorite show, but I will admit I will continue to watch it.

I enjoy reading everyone's thoughts as it gives me some insider opinions about what is going on which fleshes things out a bit more.

[eldaec]

the Kat Dennings/dude from Ant-Man combo.

That should be a TV show right there.

Just have them wander around the fall out from the movies one at a time trying to manage collateral damage.

[Riggswolfe]

the Kat Dennings/dude from Ant-Man combo.

That should be a TV show right there.

Just have them wander around the fall out from the movies one at a time trying to manage collateral damage.

I want to see them in an X-files or Fringe style show personally. They wander around tracking down weird stuff that happens. Besides, isn't what you mentioned basically Damage Inc. ?5

[Khaldun]

I will say that the payoff in this last episode of the entire sitcom premise was fantastic. Remember when we were talking about whether two kids from Sokovia would have seen all those sitcoms? Well, they were about three steps ahead on that one, and it was really poignant, actually.

They also managed in one scene to make the Vision-Scarlet Witch relationship make more actual emotional sense than it did in twenty years of comic-book storytelling.

Re: Agatha

[eldaec]

I will say that the payoff in this last episode of the entire sitcom premise was fantastic. Remember when we were talking about whether two kids from Sokovia would have seen all those sitcoms?

Tbh I thought

(a) this was way too on the nose.

(b) having all the shows on DVD instead of VHS was a weird anachronism.


But the avengers compound scene was great.

[Khaldun]

Re: DVD rather than VHS it's one of the classic problems comic-books always have, which is backstory or origins that trap a character in a particular time frame. As soon as it's VHS, Wanda is of a certain age.  (Also, at least in my experience, DVDs were more likely even pretty early on in the technology to be hustled on the street in underdeveloped countries: they were lighter, less destructible, and could be played on computer drives. Try to imagine Papa Maximoff having all those old sitcoms on VHS--that's a lot of shit to be hauling around.)

[eldaec]

She was born in 1989 per Jimmy Woo. Her parents died when she was ten.

DVD players were just coming to market but certainly wouldn't be in reach of a poor family in eastern europe.

The specific box set wasn't released for several years.

Given the effort made on the rest of the set it just seemed weird. Obviously not a huge deal, says more that this is the biggest moan I have.

[Velorath]

If you want you can argue that the elevated level of tech in the MCU allowed DVD players to get to market there several years earlier.

[eldaec]

If you want you can argue that the elevated level of tech in the MCU allowed DVD players to get to market there several years earlier.

And the same elevated tech simultaneously threw the TVs they get used with backwards 15 years?

What I suspect happened is that they originally planned the scene on VCR, then realised there was a product placement opportunity, or possibly CBS insisted on it. That Dick Van Dyke compilation is available to buy from all good Amazon websites right now. There is even a VCR player in the scene, which looks weathered in keeping with the rest of the set. Then there is a rather slim and clean not-1999 era DVD player sat on top of the VCR.

If you really want an in universe explanation I'd go with Wanda's unreliable memory.

But I'm OK with a weird anachronism.

[Pennilenko]

Um, as late as 2003, I had seen dvd players with special adapters on TVs that were old as shit when I was traveling to various places in Central and South America. Shit, the memory is fuzzy but I had seen a DVD player on one of those old barely color box TVs, in the style I remember my family owning in the mid 80s, this was like 2001 and it was somewhere in Texas.

You all just don't have enough experience in third world or developing countries.

[MahrinSkel]

My first DVD player was a PS2 connected to a 36 inch CRT (150 freaking pounds of it, ask me how many times I carried it up or down a flight of stairs). Flat screens were basically unavailable before about 2004, unless you had stupid amounts of money, DVD players were merely very expensive in the late 90's.

Yeah, the timing doesn't totally work, reasonably it would have been 5-10 years later for street hawkers with DVD's in Eastern Europe. But it's fine, it works, VHS would look weird to a less pedantic audience.

--Dave

[HaemishM]

Trying to tie comics down to specific dates is a bad idea (even though they did it with the birthdate). It's really a minor detail not worth worrying about. Also, the dude was selling shit on the black market in a war-torn Eastern European country. He might just as easily have traded a third child (they were triplets!) for a nice DVD player.