Tear Jerker / WandaVision

"So long, darling."

Sure, Westview might seem like a delightful place, but behind the sitcom curtain is one of Marvel's most heart-wrenching and personal stories yet. You'll want to give Wanda a big punch followed by a hug by the end of it.

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Moment subpages are Spoilers Off. You Have Been Warned.

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Episodes

Episode 1: "Filmed Before a Live Studio Audience"

• Wanda's very first line comments on Vision's "indestructible head", in clear contrast to how Vision died in Avengers: Infinity War, with Thanos crushing his head and ripping out the Mind Stone from it (and right in front of Wanda to boot). This does a perfect job of setting up how deeply Wanda seems to be in denial of Vision's death.
• The tears in Mrs. Hart's eyes as she begs Wanda to 'stop it', especially considering her real self is also married to Mr. Hart's real self.
  • "Previously On" makes this worse, as Wanda tearfully begs S.W.O.R.D to 'stop it' when they're taking Vision apart.
• A retroactive one. Vision and Wanda are unable to remember why a particular date on the calendar has a heart on it. Vision had acquired a plot of land for him and Wanda to build a house in Westview before his death, and he'd drawn a heart on the deed circling the location.

Episode 2: "Don't Touch That Dial"

• Rewatch the ending of this episode. Wanda's quiet "No" is actually kind of heartbreaking. She just became pregnant and seems so happy in this world she created. Even if the S.W.O.R.D. beekeeper seems to want to help her, she doesn't accept. She just wants this idyllic life with her deceased lover and their hypothetical kids.

Episode 3: "Now In Color"

• When looking at her twin boys, Wanda reveals/remembers that she herself was a twin. Her brother's name was Pietro. She sings to her newborn sons in Sokovian. And then Monica asks if he was killed by Ultron.
• Dr. Nielsen being unable to leave with his wife, telling Vision that it's too hard to "escape" a small town like Westview. Literally, as it turns out, given that they're all trapped in the Hex. He seems so defeated when he says it, and you can't help but feel bad for him. Even Vision himself seems to notice how unhappy the doctor is, which is what spurs him to start investigating the inanities of Westview.

Episode 4: "We Interrupt This Program"

• The Cold Open, in which we find out that Maria Rambeau, Monica’s mother and Carol Danvers' best friend, died from cancer during the five-year timeskip in Avengers: Endgame. To further twist the knife, it’s revealed that Monica herself was snapped shortly after Maria came out of surgery. When Monica reforms, she's told that her mother died three years ago after the cancer came back.
  • Also, we know that Carol got to Earth before and after the time skip - did she ever find out? It was after the Snap, so she'd be the only one left to visit Maria... so did she?
• We also get more of the confrontation between Wanda and Monica, and Wanda is close to tears, terrified about what she's doing/done, even as her expression is thunderous.
  Wanda Maximoff: Who are you?
  Monica Rambeau: I don't remember.
  Wanda Maximoff: [takes a step closer to Monica, her voice barely above a whisper] Who...are you?
  Monica Rambeau: Wanda, I'm just your neighbor.
  Wanda Maximoff: Then how did you know about Ultron? [conjuring her powers] You're not my neighbor. And you're definitely not my friend. You are a stranger, and an outsider. And right now, you are trespassing here. And I want you to leave.
• After Wanda throws Monica out of Westview, there's a repeat of the scene where Vision comes back and asks what's wrong... but this time when Wanda first sees him, he's colorless, blank eyed and with his forehead caved in, as the real version of him looked like right after he was brutally murdered by Thanos. Wanda's brief look of despair and grief shows how broken she still is after his death, and how desperate she wants to stay in the sitcom paradise to be with him.
  • Vision tries to reassure Wanda that they can go and be happy anywhere they want, but Wanda near tearfully tells him that no, they can't before saving face by saying that Westview is their home. It's the kind of hopelessness she says it with that makes it really tragic.
• This episode shows just how broken Wanda is. She's clearly so crushed by what's happened to her since the final act of Age of Ultron that she's in deep denial of her pain and aggressively imposing a happy sitcom facade over the world around her.
• Monica is informed by Hayward that she's grounded (a Fate Worse than Death for a pilot) because of a protocol established by her mother after the Blip in the event that those taken ended up returning. But she's told there's a silver lining. "She always thought you'd come back."

Episode 5: "On a Very Special Episode..."

• It's revealed that before the start of the series, S.W.O.R.D. had possession of Vision's body for the purposes of experimenting on it. So, to put things into perspective: Wanda had to kill her lover and then watch him be brutally murdered, was turned to dust by Thanos, was brought back and immediately had to fight a version of Thanos from an alternate timeline, had to track down her lover's body — and when she did find him, his corpse had been turned into a test subject and was being flayed and dissected. All within the span of (for Wanda) a fortnight.
• We finally get an explanation for why nobody tried to reactivate Vision or fix him during the five years of the Blip, or after: he expressly refused it in his living will. He knew someone would try and turn him into a weapon (the will was all that stopped SWORD from having a go, it seems) and he preferred death to that.
• A small moment, but when discussing Wanda's level of power rising, Monica notes that she almost beat Thanos, and Jimmy Woo chimes in that Captain Marvel almost did as well. Monica noticeably bristles at the mention of Captain Marvel and irritably changes the subject, implying she may have developed some resentment towards her "Aunt Carol", contrasting her younger self's idolization.
  • This raises the question about just what happened between 1995 and 2018 to lead to Monica growing disillusioned with Carol. If one imagines Carol did come back to Earth at some point during the Blip and was there when Maria died—especially since she'd have learned that Monica died in the Snap—Monica could resent the fact that Carol was away for 20+ years before the Snap and only came back near the end of Maria's life, so she didn't "earn" the right to say goodbye to her mother when Monica herself was unable to.
• When Vision temporarily undoes Abilash's brainwashing, he reveals he has a sickly father and a sister who takes care of him and he hasn't been able to reach either of them because whoever's in control of Westview won't let him. Even worse is that Vision can't do anything else but re-brainwash Abilash back to "Norm" in order to calm him down.
  Abilash Tandon: Please! Please help me! What day is it? How long has it been? [feels his pockets] Where's my phone? I have to call my sister!
  Vision: Norm.
  Abilash Tandon: She's taking care of our dad, he's sick! Where is my phone?!
  Vision: Calm yourself, Norm. I can't understand what you’re trying to tell me.
  Abilash Tandon: You have to stop her!
  Vision: Stop who?
  Abilash Tandon: She's in my head! None of it is my own! It hurts. It hurts so much! Just make her stop! Just make her STOP!
  • Even worse - even if Abilash could reach them from within the Hex, they wouldn't remember who he is because the Hex is strong enough to erase the memories of anyone with a personal connection to Westview.
• When Vision confronts Wanda, he reveals he can't remember anything outside of their life in Westview. He doesn't remember how he first met Wanda when he was alive, or how they grew closer and fell in love during the two years between Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War.
  • He also doesn't remember his creator, Tony Stark, and has no idea Tony died three weeks before.
  • After venting all of the above, Vision admits that more than angry, he's scared because he has no idea who he is.
    • This serves as a heartbreaking Call-Back to Captain America: Civil War where Vision mentions that he's the only one not afraid of Wanda.
  • The way Wanda's voice breaks when she says she's doing everything for him. And when he says he doesn't know who he is, she replies "You are my husband. You're Tommy and Billy's father. Isn't that enough?" She also notes that Vision has never raised his voice to her before, and is on the verge of breaking down throughout the whole scene (you can even hear her Sokovian accent briefly reappear). If they hadn't been interrupted, she probably would have caved.
  • When the doorbell conveniently rings to interrupt Vision finding out the truth about Wanda, Wanda notes that she didn't cause that to happen. What makes this moment tragic is that Vision admits that he wants to believe her, but with everything that he knows now, he simply can't. A person who has been lied to in a relationship multiple times and continues to do so after being called out on it would certainly relate to this.
• The episode's commercial is for Lagos paper towels, in which a housewife wipes up the mess, and ends up with red all over her hands.
  "Lagos. For when you make a mess you didn't mean to!"
• Wanda being reunited with what she thinks is Pietro after all these years, even if it isn't the one she knows. Which makes it even sadder that she still can't have her Pietro back.
• Billy and Tommy asking their mother to revive their dog, stating that she can fix anything so doesn't the dead fall under that, too? For that matter, their dog getting lost and eating azalea bushes, which is fatal if left untreated. Given that time continuously accelerates, there was likely no real opportunity to save him and anyone who's lost a pet in a similar manner will immediately empathize. Made worse after it's revealed Agatha killed him.
• Monica describes being under Wanda's mind control as being crushed under terrible grief. We even get a few flashes of Wanda from the moment she created the Hex. Which must have been excruciating for Monica to experience on top of her preexisting grief for her mom.
  Tyler Hayward: What's the first thing you do remember?
  Monica Rambeau: Pain. And then, Wanda's voice in my head.
  Tyler Hayward: Did you try to resist?
  Monica Rambeau: There was this feeling keeping me down. This hopeless feeling. Like drowning. It was grief.
• Wanda's confrontation with Hayward after the missile strike.
  Wanda Maximoff: Is this yours?! [Wanda tosses the drone at Hayward's feet]
  Tyler Hayward: The missile was just a precaution. You can hardly blame us, Wanda.
  Wanda Maximoff: Oh, I think I can. This will be your only warning. Stay out of my home. You don't bother me, I won't bother you.
  Tyler Hayward: I wish it could be that simple. You've taken an entire town hostage!
  Wanda Maximoff: [sneering] Well, I'm not the one with the guns, Director!
  Monica Rambeau: But you are the one in control.
  Wanda Maximoff: [conjures a ball of energy in her right hand] You're still here.
  Monica Rambeau: Wanda, I didn't know the drones were armed. But you know that, don't you? A town full of civilians. And you—a telepath—brought a S.W.O.R.D. agent into your home. You trusted me to help deliver your babies! On some level, Wanda, you know I am an ally! I want to help you.
  Wanda Maximoff: How? What could you possibly have to offer me?
  Monica Rambeau: What do you want?
  Wanda Maximoff: [glares at Hayward] I have what I want. And no one will ever take it from me again.
  • Wanda's voice breaks a bit when Monica insists on helping her. She's been let down by enough people in her life she thought she could trust that the idea someone actually wants to sincerely help her is foreign to her.
  • Then her voice turns cold and furious as she directs her attention back to Hayward and says "I have what I want. And no one will ever take it from me again." Moreso once we get the full context in episode 8: Hayward not only refused to turn over Vision's body to her, he not-so-subtly tried to coerce her into bringing him back to life for the needs of Project Cataract. Wanda is now face to face with the latest individual (after Ultron, Thaddeus Ross and Thanos) to cause her pain in her life, and now that she has a recreation of Vision with her in the Hex, she's not going to let Hayward take him from her either.
• Overall, it is pretty sad that Wanda is once again vilified by others as a monster, like the incident in Lagos, and deemed a dangerous terrorist, when in reality she is just a broken woman who is so desperate for happiness that she resorts to extreme measures to achieve it, no matter how selfish or dangerous they are.

Episode 6: "The All New Halloween Spook-tacular!"

• Vision manages to force his way through the Hex barrier — and immediately starts falling apart at the seams, even as he screams that the people inside the town need help. And the S.W.O.R.D. officials just stand and watch, while Darcy's horrified and begging for someone to save him.
  • Related to the above, Wanda sees what's happening and expands the Hex beyond its perimeters in an effort to sustain him. She has a Single Tear running down her face when Billy frantically tells her what's happening; that, and the sheer desperation in her voice when she asks her son where he is, shows how terrified Wanda is of losing her recreation of Vision again.
  • Billy somehow sensing his dad is in trouble and immediately shouting for his mother to fix it. When you're ten years old, how else do you react to one of your parents in trouble? Kid must be terrified.
• For one horrible moment, "Pietro" turns into a blank-eyed, bullet-riddled corpse... which is what Wanda's real brother looked like when he died, the final time she saw him.
  • Remember that Wanda didn't even get to see his death, seeing as she was on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge after Pietro's death and very much looked like she was willing to stay on Sokovia to rip the core out of Ultron's main body. Vision had to rescue her in order for her to catch up with the rest of the Avengers, but she probably got to see Pietro's body later once she was out of danger. The corpse vision she sees might also be Agatha rubbing more salt into the wound.
• While Tommy's fourth wall breaks to the camera are snarky and similar to how Malcolm was in Malcolm in the Middle, Billy expresses sadness that his parents aren't getting along. Billy really sounds like a child wanting to know why his parents are (not)fighting.
• Hayward talking about how hard it was living through the effects of the Snap and subsequent Blip, especially when you consider that he had to hold things together for five years while everyone was going through a severe depression. No wonder he's developed such a hard edge.
  • He also starts to become a cruel jerk towards Monica, telling Monica it's a good thing she wasn't there when her mother died, and she looks unbearably hurt. His introduction implied that they were friends, before the Snap happened.
• "Pietro" knows that Westview is an illusion and is fully aware of what his "role" is supposed to be. Again, this ties into the previous episode showing that Wanda really can't have "her" brother back.
• When "Pietro" tells Wanda he knew she needed him, she doesn't argue against this point. Even though he's actually Ralph Bohner, the fact that she needed her brother after Vision's death counts is sad; she settles for the Closest Thing We Got. And worse is that Agatha is exploiting that.
• At one point Wanda, apropos of nothing, asks "Pietro" about a memory from when they lived in an orphanage and a boy who kept trying to steal his boots. It's unclear if it actually happened since she's proposing this question as a "test" when she notices that he isn't acting like the real Pietro did in life, but it's still a grim reminder of the life they both lived.
• Vision's conversation with Agnes hammers in the point that as much as he might seem like it, this isn't fully "our" Vision. He doesn't even remember what the word Avenger means.
  • When Agnes tells him that Wanda won't let anyone leave, Vision is heartbroken as it's seemingly confirmed that the woman he loves is controlling everyone in the town.
  • Earlier, his goodbye kiss to her has a rather melancholy feel, almost as if he's steeling himself to say goodbye for more than a few hours.
• Agnes takes a "wrong turn" on her drive and ends up getting stuck at the very edge of the Hex's boundaries, unable to leave due to Wanda's mind-controlling powers. Her conversation with Vision shows that she's definitely aware, even while mind-controlled, that she's trapped in Wanda's Sitcom reality, and tearfully tells him that she "got lost", as if she knows that she was doing something wrong. Then, Vision proceeds to break Wanda's hold over Agnes' mind, and we see her start to freak out about where she is... it's hard not to feel sad as she begins to realize that Vision doesn't remember anything before Westview, and devolves into a Laughing Mad Heroic BSoD, saying "all is lost". Though subverted when you realize Agatha is just faking it here.
• Wanda admits to Pietro that she has no idea how this whole thing started; she just remembers feeling completely alone and empty.
  • The fact that Wanda felt completely alone is rather depressing, as she ended Avengers: Endgame surrounded by friends like surrogate-big-brother Clint. Even with the other Avengers, her grief was overwhelming.
• Monica's line about why she cares more about getting to Wanda than about her own scary lab results clearly indicates that the loss of her mother is weighing on her more heavily than she lets on:
  Monica Rambeau: Seen enough lab results to last me a lifetime. Cells metastasizing, cells in remission. I know what Wanda's feeling and I won't stop until I help her.
• A literal example, as Vision watches a woman outside Wanda's viewing area stuck in a loop trying to hang up a skeleton decoration, a single tear falling down her cheek.

Episode 7: "Breaking the Fourth Wall"

• The opening omits Vision’s name from the title and the intro altogether until the very end, treating him as an afterthought, which shows that their relationship at this point is very strained.
  • When Wanda wakes up, she automatically reaches for him - and he's not there.
  • In addition, it shows how Agatha is trying to keep Vision and Wanda apart, as Wanda seems more controllable without him there and is emotionally and mentally falling apart.
    Wanda Maximoff: [tightly] Well if [Vision] doesn't want to be here, there's nothing I can do about it.
• Seeing Wanda trying her best to insist that she's fine and everything's okay... when it's obvious that she's starting to come apart at the seams. Even when she threatens Monica and calls herself the villain, she seems a bit more scared and defeated than angry. You just want to give her a hug and tell her to let it all out.
  Wanda Maximoff: I'd get up, but I... I just don't want to!
  • Not to mention how her sons are clearly concerned with her depressive episodes.
  • To make matters worse for her emotional state, the interviewer (who isn't supposed to talk) asks her if she thinks she deserves this, throwing her off even more.
• Because she's depressed, Wanda comes across as neglectful to the twins this episode. She dismisses Billy when he suffers from headaches because of his powers and asks her for help, gives an overly pessimistic answer to their question of what's going on and then justifies it by half-heartedly stating that the twins probably inherited Vision's "tough skin" and will be fine. And then she hands them off to Agnes at the first opportunity, with Agnes barely needing to convince her to do it.
• Monica's third journey through the Hex giving her powers is a predictably awesome moment, but her final impetus to push back into Westview is hearing "Aunt Carol's" voice calling her the toughest kid, to which she reacts by scowling and screaming in anger. She's clearly using the grief about her mother's death to push forward.
• Darcy fills Vision in on his backstory, which means explaining the climax of Avengers: Infinity War. Vision is disturbed enough to learn that Wanda killed him on his own request, but then Darcy tells him that Thanos brought him back only to kill him again while Wanda had to watch. Having learned just how much his wife has been through in such a short time, Vision realizes he needs to get to her immediately.
• When Monica initially catches up to Wanda at her house, Wanda flies into a rage and attacks her at the mention of Hayward's name. After Monica gets back on her feet, she challenges Wanda to kill her to prove she's as evil as Hayward is making her out to be, and Wanda is very much horrified by the suggestion.
  Monica Rambeau: The only lies I've told are the ones you put in my mouth!
  Wanda Maximoff: Careful what you say to me. [Wanda conjures energy in her hands]
  Monica Rambeau: Do it then. Take me out. [Wanda's complexion falters] It's easy. That's where you and Hayward differ. He's going to burn Westview to the ground just to get what he wants. Don't let him make you the villain!
  Wanda Maximoff: Maybe I already am.
  • Although Wanda is trying to put on a defiant face as she says, "Maybe I already am", her voice belies her true emotions. She's very much trying not to cry, and sounds resigned to the fact that she'll be constantly viewed as a monster no matter what she does.
• The Nexus commercial is just depressing. It advertises an ultimately harmful anti-depressant that insufficiently helps and is even implied to make the user's mental health worsen while taking it, which neatly mirrors how the Hex is basically Wanda's band-aid on her bullet wounds and will most likely leave her even more emotionally devastated when she inevitably has to take it down.
• It turns out that Agatha has been deliberately creating conflict for Wanda and Vision since the first episode, including killing Sparky the dog, all in order to isolate Wanda and make her vulnerable.

Episode 8: "Previously On"

• The whole episode is a massive Tear Jerker, as we finally get a look at Wanda's past and her grief.
• Wanda is noticeably uncomfortable during the first two flashbacks. She is a trauma survivor, forced by Agatha to relive some of her worst moments. Who can blame her?
  Wanda Maximoff: I don't wanna go back there.
  Agatha Harkness: I know you don't, but it's good medicine, angel. The only way forward is back.
• We see why these sitcoms are so important to Wanda. She watched them with her family as a way to learn English. In fact, the family was just watching the Dick Van Dyke Show episode "It May Look Like a Walnut" when the bomb killed Wanda's parents.
• The fact that Wanda was so devastated and desperate to do something about the bombing that after hearing that all other test subjects were killed after touching the Mind Stone, she's still willing to go through with the experiment.
• The third flashback shows Wanda sitting alone in her bedroom at the Avengers Compound, watching Malcolm in the Middle, and lost in grief over her brother's death.
  Agatha Harkness: Oh, Wanda. Movin' on up. So, where are we now?
  Wanda Maximoff: The Avengers Compound. It was the first home Vision and I ever shared. Pietro was dead and I was in a new country. I was all alone.
  • Wanda calls for Vision, who phases through the wall moments later. He sits down next to her on the bed, and tries to offer her moral support. He's a newborn synthezoid who's never grieved...but he's also a man whose loved one is showing signs of depression, trying to help but unable to fully relate.
    Vision: [hesitantly] Wanda, I don't presume to know what you're feeling. But I would like to know, should you wish to tell me, should that be of some...comfort to you?
    Wanda Maximoff: What makes you think that talking about it would bring me comfort?
    Vision: Oh, see, I read that-
    Wanda Maximoff: The only thing that would bring me comfort is seeing him again.
    [Vision falls silent, glancing at Wanda and visibly unsure of what to say next]
    Wanda Maximoff: [softly] I'm sorry. I'm so tired. [Wanda wipes tears from her eyes] It's... it's just like this wave washing over me, again and again. It knocks me down, and when I try to stand up, it just comes for me again. And I can't... It's just gonna drown me.
    Vision: No. No it won't.
    Wanda Maximoff: How do you know?
    Vision: [pensively] Well, because it can't all be sorrow, can it? I've always been alone, so I don't feel the lack. It's all I've ever known. I've never experienced loss because I never had a loved one to lose... but what is grief, if not love persevering?
  • Notably, even Agatha has to stop to wipe at the corner of her eyes while listening to the conversation.
  • Vision's line was notably Paul Bettany's idea as he felt that the scene needed to emphasize that while grief is a traumatic feeling, it ultimately is important to go through, and it fit Vision's philosophical nature.
• The final flashback shows what happened when, after being un-dusted, Wanda went to S.W.O.R.D. headquarters to claim Vision's remains.
  Agatha Harkness: So, to recap: Parents dead, brother dead, Vision dead. What happened when he wasn't there to pull you back from the darkness, Wanda?
  Wanda Maximoff: I can't do this anymore.
  Agatha Harkness: Come on, Wanda! You're on the precipice. You are right there! Tell me how you did it.
  [Wanda's breathing intensifies]
  Agatha Harkness: Vision was gone. But you wanted him back.
  Wanda Maximoff: I wanted him back. I wanted him back.
  • As it turns out, Wanda never stole Vision's body. Hayward let her enter S.W.O.R.D and let her watch in horror at how he's been disassembled. Not even her powers can heal him, and Hayward refused to let her have his body for burial, treating her dead lover as an asset rather than a person. Then, she traveled to Westview, and her powers created that construct of Vision, making even more sense why Wanda is determined to not have him leave the Hex, or for that matter, let Hayward anywhere near him.
  • Hayward shows a complete Lack of Empathy when Wanda comes to his office, wanting to take Vision home to bury him. He legitimately cannot fathom that Wanda wants to give her lover a funeral rather than bring him back to life (or "back online", as he puts it), and shows her the dissected Vision, while casually telling her exactly what the team is doing for Project Cataract, and dismissing her protests that Vision is not a weapon, but a person.
    Wanda Maximoff: [horrified] Stop...stop...stop it! [turns to Hayward] What...what are you doing to him?!
    Tyler Hayward: We're dismantling the most sophisticated, sentient weapon ever made.
    Wanda Maximoff: Vision's not a weapon! You can't do this!
    Tyler Hayward: In fact, it is our legal and ethical obligation.
    Wanda Maximoff: I just want to bury him! That's all I want!
    Tyler Hayward: Are you sure?
    Wanda Maximoff: [bewildered] Excuse me?!
    Tyler Hayward: Not everyone has the kind of power that can bring their soulmate back online. [Wanda glares at him] Forgive me, back to life.
    Wanda Maximoff: Well I can't do that. That's...that's not why I'm here!
    Tyler Hayward: Okay. But I cannot allow you to take $3 billion worth of vibranium just to put it in the ground. So the best I can do is let you say goodbye to him here.
    Wanda Maximoff: [fighting back tears] He's all I have!
    Tyler Hayward: Well that's just it, Wanda. He isn't yours.
  • Wanda shatters the glass, and flies down to Vision's dissected body. She walks over to his head and places her hand over the hole in his forehead where the Mind Stone used to be, trying to feel some evidence of activity in his brain.
    Wanda Maximoff: [sobbing] I can't feel you. I can't feel you...
    • Making this more tragic is that this is a heartbreaking callback to their early exchange from Infinity War about how they feel each other through the Mind Stone ("I just feel you"), as well as one of the last things Vision said to her before she killed him in Wakanda ("It's alright. You could never hurt me. I just feel you").
  • Watching the scene frame-by-frame, one will notice that when Wanda breaks the window, the glass shatters in the shape of a heart, a visual representation of her heart shattering at the sight of her lover's body being desecrated.
  • The flashback also reveals that Wanda came to the S.W.O.R.D. facility peacefully, and simply left after saying her goodbyes to Vision, meaning that the footage of Wanda storming the place and stealing Vision's remains was all manipulation on Hayward's part to justify his actions. Wanda is also trying desperately hard to keep her patience and cool despite her grief, a few doors notwithstanding, and for all her efforts she still gets branded as the villain anyway.
• Before he died, Vision bought a plot in Westview to eventually settle down with Wanda and build a home. After leaving SWORD, Wanda drives to Westview and decides to check it out for herself.
  • As Wanda drives through Westview, it's pretty clear this town has seen better days. The place is dirty and cluttered with various public spaces (like the gazebo and the pool) showing signs of clear disrepair, clearly still suffering from the five years following the Snap, in a way that might remind one of towns that died out when a big source of their economy disappeared. John Collins (Herb) is seen to be much more dour in reality. Harold Proctor (Phil Jones) is implied to be desperate for employment. Sharon Davis (Mrs. Hart) looks to be nervous and lonely, and her husband Todd (Mr. Hart) is notably absent. Dennis the Mailman is actually a pizza delivery guy who appears to be far less happy with his work. Sure, they'd probably want their lives back even if they were imperfect, but we've only ever seen them in the happier, shinier reality of the Hex.
  • Eventually, Wanda makes it to the property that Vision had bought. There's nothing on it except the barebones foundation for the house. It is at this moment that Wanda realizes she truly has nothing left. Her brother is dead, her soulmate is dead and the nice little house he bought for her turns out to be a barren patch of earth in a downtrodden town somewhere in central New Jersey. She isn't even allowed to give her lover a proper funeral.
  • Then she decides to look at the property deed, on which Vision drew a cartoon heart over the lot with a simple message:
    "TO GROW OLD IN— V."
  • This is the final breaking point for Wanda. Her knees give out as she breaks down in uncontrollable sobs, and triggers a massive explosion of magic, creating the house, a recreation of Vision, and transforming the rest of the town into the 1950s sitcom atmosphere of the first episode. The scene is actually quite reminiscent of Wanda's reaction to Pietro's death: an uncontrollable, anguished burst of power, accompanied by a loud scream (but whereas her scream was muted when Pietro died, here, we get to hear it full-blast).
  • Even when we see her smile as she greets the recreation of Vision, the tragedy sinks in that it's all an illusion. Wanda comes off as someone who has truly given up on everything so she could live in her own delusion.
    Hex Vision: Wanda. Welcome home. Should we stay in tonight?
  • Several things from earlier episodes now take on a bleaker light.
    • Wanda's insistence that "This is our home". Westview was going to be their home, and they never got there; their perfect suburban house was only a concrete foundation.
    • The whole subplot in the first episode of a misunderstanding based on the heart on the calendar may have been Wanda’s subconscious way of incorporating Vision’s message into the sitcom.
    • As later revealed by The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, the nation of Sokovia stopped existing after the fracas with Ultron, and got annexed into its neighbors. Wanda's references to Sokovian culture throughout the sitcom episodes are her ways of trying to keep some reminders of her birth nation alive.
• It's pretty clear that even back then, Vision wanted to marry Wanda. Considering that they had around a year between Age of Ultron and Civil War, after which Wanda had to go on the run for about two more years until Infinity War, Vision and Wanda barely had any time to spend together even before his death.
• Agatha reveals Billy and Tommy are still alive at the end of the episode, albeit as her hostages. Their cries for help, combined with Wanda's own fear and pain, are hard to watch.
• Agatha's backstory gets at least some sympathy. While we don't know what she did, she's clearly terrified as her own mother and coven attempt to execute her. Even after she kills most of them in self-defense, she tries to spare her mother, which leads to an exchange that implies Agatha's actions may have a more tragic meaning.
  Agatha Harkness: Mother, please. I can be good.
  Evanora Harkness: No, you cannot.
  • The brooch that Agatha wears with every outfit was her mother's.
• Of all the people Wanda has ever met, it seems like the only two who have ever provided her any amount of counseling on her vast amount of trauma are the newborn synthezoid who did not yet understand grief or loss and the woman who is currently holding her children hostage. Wanda's had a really rough life.

Episode 9: "The Series Finale"

• The brief Hope Spot of White Vision and Wanda meeting. Wanda is clearly overjoyed to see him and White Vision initiates contact by softly cradling her face in his hands - only for him to start crushing her head and taunting her about how he was told she'd be strong.
• Agatha breaks Wanda's hold over the people of Westview. They can finally speak their minds over what they've been through, and each story is as awful as the last. It's sad to see Wanda rejected after saving the day, but after what these people have been through, you can hardly blame them:
  • Sarah Proctor (Dottie) desperately "pitches" a storyline that will let her see her daughter again.
  • John Collins (Herb) barely remembers the man he used to be, and has begun taking his existence as "Herb" for granted, to his horror.
  • Abilash Tandon (Norm), along with the rest of the residents, are forced to experience Wanda's nightmares every time she lets them go to sleep.
  • Isabel Matsueida (Beverly) pleads for Wanda to let her out-of-town husband know she loves him, and to warn him to never return home.
  • Sharon Davis (Mrs. Hart) simply requests to die rather than continue living under the weight of Wanda's misery.
  • It all gets too much for Wanda, as she's panicking, begging them (or convincing herself) that they've been fine, until she howls in agony and her powers choke everyone.
• When Hayward's S.W.O.R.D. agents show up with guns, Agatha remarks that no matter the time, there will always be "torches and pitchforks" for witches like her and Wanda. Especially considering that she's proven right by the way Hayward has been treating Wanda throughout the series.
• Wanda being forced into a Sadistic Choice between Westview's citizens and her family. While at first the overwhelming anguish of the residents is enough to make her try and take the Hex down, she then sees both Vision and the twins disintegrate before her eyes, begging her for help. The parallels with the Snap are unlikely to be a coincidence.
• Though Wanda's transformation into the Scarlet Witch is one of the show's most awesome moments, it's also this when you consider that all Wanda ever wanted was a normal life with a family and friends. By accepting her destiny as the Scarlet Witch, she's accepted that she'll never have the life she wanted.
• While she did deserve it for manipulating and trying to steal Wanda's powers, as well as kidnapping and hurting Billy and Tommy, it is somewhat sad to see Agatha turned into Agnes so that she can never harm anyone ever again. Agatha is now a shell of her former self and basically trapped in a living hell for the rest of her life.
  Wanda Maximoff: I'm sorry.
  Agatha Harkness: No, you're not. You're cruel. You… You have… You have no idea what you've unleashed. You're gonna need me.
  Wanda Maximoff: If I do, I know where to find you.
• Wanda and Vision tucking their children into bed and telling them they love them, all the while knowing the twins are about to be unmade from existence as The Hex slowly dissolves inward. It calls to mind the iconic scene from Titanic (1997) of the Irish mother telling her children a story while their room is filling up with water.
  • Even worse when you consider that Billy's powers involve reading minds. He knows what's going to happen to him and his twin, but he doesn't say anything so as not to make it harder for everyone involved.
  • Look closely as The Hex contracts and everything is unmade. While Wanda is outside, it's still daylight, but it's nighttime by the time they arrive home. It's daylight when the Hex fully dissolves, so they didn't walk home long enough for the sun to set; Wanda made it nighttime so the children could be asleep as they disappear.
    Wanda Maximoff: Boys...thanks for choosing me...to be your mom.
• Wanda holding onto Westview Vision as he fades away for good and Vision saying his last goodbye to her. He sheds a Single Tear, which she wipes away.
  Vision: So long, darling.
  • Noticing that he's frightened as he watches the Hex closing in on them, even though he holds it together admirably, Wanda goes to stand by him and hold his hand.
  • Before that, Wanda turns all the lights out, probably because she couldn't bear to watch him die again. Vision turns them on again and quietly admits he just wants to see her.
  • The fact that, from Wanda's perspective, this is the third time she has to see Vision dying in the same month.
• The people of Westview, traumatized and angry over being held captive, tortured and forced to play along in Wanda's sitcom fantasies against their will for weeks, see their tormentor fly off without so much as a slap on the wrist (as far as they're aware). Once again, Wanda will be hated and feared for something she had no real control over in the end.
  • Monica warning Wanda that Westview will hate and fear her without knowing that she sacrificed her husband and children to free them, to which Wanda states that it wouldn’t help if they did know.
• Wanda has to abandon the place Vision bought for her, the last thing she had to remind her of him. In the post-credits scene, Wanda hasn't gone back to her fellow superheroes or any other allies she may have. She's alone again, with the voices of her disappeared children as her only company.
• While she turns it around on Wanda, Agatha looks terrified at being brought back to her worst memory, where her mother and coven tried to execute her.

General

• Considering the continued trauma that Wanda's going through, the idea of her making this sitcom life for her and Vision is probably her idea of what would happen if the two just had a happy and normal life.
  • Despite how happy Wanda and Vision are in their sitcom fantasy, she seems at least subconsciously aware that it is a mere illusion but wants to stay to enjoy her happily ever after. After all the trauma and loss she endured in the last few years, including the deaths of Vision and Pietro, who can blame her?
• All the early episodes become this when we learn that not only are the Westview residents all miserable at being forced to play their sitcom roles, but that the pain they're experiencing is Wanda's pain, as she unconsciously broadcasts her own grief and nightmares into their heads. Meaning that for the most part, all the happiness we saw was fake, even Wanda's.
• Cinema Wins notes that you can break down Wanda's arc according to the Five Stages of Grief.
  • Episodes 1-3 are the "denial" stage, with Wanda trying to pretend everything is fine while she's in denial over Vision's death and the way she's hurting the citizens of Westview.
  • It's late in episode 3 that Wanda shifts to the "anger" stage. She expels Monica from the Hex for reminding her of Pietro's death, commandeers a bunch of SWORD gunmen to turn their guns on Hayward, the man who has been desecrating her lover's corpse, and gets into a heated argument with her recreation of Vision when he finds out the truth about the Hex.
  • Episode 6 marks the "bargaining" phase.
  • Episodes 7 and 8 see Wanda going through "depression".
  • The last episode sees Wanda hit the "acceptance" stage.
• Everything about this show makes Wanda's appearance at Tony's funeral at the end of Avengers: Endgame even more devastating in retrospect. She might've been the most miserable person there by far. Tony Stark made a sacrifice that everyone will know about and remember, and it was that sacrifice that meant they had won. And then he got a hero's funeral, where Pepper and all of Tony's many friends could mourn and celebrate his life (and as seen in Spider-Man: Far From Home, Tony got plenty of murals painted all over the world immortalizing him). All of those people lost Tony, but they all still had something left in their lives. Pepper still has Morgan, Scott still has his family and the Pyms, Clint got his family back, etc. Wanda got none of that. Vision's sacrifice (which was Wanda's too because she had to be the one to kill him, which is heartbreaking enough already) won't be one that is remembered...or if it is, it's going to always be overshadowed by Tony's sacrifice. Vision's sacrifice should have meant that the heroes won in Wakanda, but because 2018 Thanos had the Time Stone by that point, he just rewound time and Wanda had to watch Vision die a more brutal death, after she already killed him. Then, after everything settles in Endgame, she doesn't even get a funeral for Vision because SWORD has taken his body, and she probably doesn't even get many people's condolences (if at all) because people were either too busy giving them to Pepper, Happy, Rhodey and Morgan and/or just didn't know/care enough about Wanda and Vision.
  • Put that another way: Wanda Maximoff, after losing every little bit of what she had left, has to go to a funeral where she sees everything that she should have gotten. Tony got to die knowing that they won and with reassurance from Pepper that she and Morgan would be okay, while Wanda had to lose Vision, the only good thing left in her life, by killing him in order for the heroes to win against 2018 Thanos, just to have that not happen and then watch him die again, meaning the heroes lost (because the Mind Stone was the last stone Thanos needed to complete the Infinity Gauntlet). And she still has to find a way to go on with her life with nothing she has ever loved. Then Wanda has that scene where she talks with Clint, and a clear difference now with the events of WandaVision is that Wanda was heavily bottling up all her emotions. She put up a façade of epic proportions, enough that Clint (who Wanda looked up to like a big brother) was convinced she was somewhat okay, when clearly she was not okay at all.
  • This even raises the question of whether Wanda was at Tony's funeral out of respect for Tony (since he did end 2014 Thanos) or felt pressured into attending because all her fellow Avengers were going, dependent on whether one assumes she still harbored resentments towards Tony after Age of Ultron.
  • This was even acknowledged in storyboards of the scene where Wanda visits SWORD to claim Vision's body. Originally, Wanda was meant to say this (and in the aired episode, it's easy to imagine that this is what she was thinking when trying to talk to the receptionist):
    Wanda Maximoff: I'm sick of everyone acting like Tony Stark is the only person we lost. Like he's the only Avenger there ever was. Too bad, then, if you're Natasha, but at least she was flesh and blood, right? But where are the memorials for Vision? No moving tributes for the synthezoid?
    • The fact that Wanda was meant to even mention Natasha, means that she also missed Nat.

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