WandaVision

[Red Fel]

okay, so

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What confuses me here is Haywood

Why would he say "Wanda stormed SWORD and took the Vision's body" when that never happened? Was he trying to sell Monica and the others on Wanda as a threat? We already have "Wanda is holding a town captive with her powers" for that. It seems like a completely unnecessary lie on his part.


Yes, Haywood is shady and trigger-happy, but the two don't seem to be connected anymore. He's not being overly aggressive because he wants his toy back, he HAS his toy.

So we're back to "Wanda is holding a town captive and Haywood objects to that" with a side order of "Haywood is able to use this situation to get Vision back online".

So, Haywood is just pointlessly extra-evil. Whatever, he's not the point.

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So much this. As much as I love the rest of it, Haywood at this point is my biggest beef, and arguably the biggest plothole. Let's review the timeline.

First, the Snapture comes unsnapped. People - including Rambeau - start coming back. Rambeau arrives at SWORD, where now-Director Haywood gives her an assignment - go investigate something odd happening in a small town in New Jersey. Once there, Rambeau slips into the Hex. She's in there a day, maybe two. In that time, SWORD has mobilized and formed a perimeter.

So far, so good. It makes sense up to here. Then she gets out, and explains to Haywood that she doesn't think Wanda is doing this on purpose. At this point, Haywood has his suspiciously prepared Evil Powerpoint Presentation, in which he shows the video footage of Wanda stealing the intact Vision body - something we now know never happened.

This means that, on a day or two notice, Haywood had to doctor footage to show an event that never happened in order to convince Rambeau that Wanda was a threat - despite the fact that, merely a day or two before, nobody was even aware that Wanda was in any way up to anything. She came into SWORD HQ, saw the Vision autopsy, flipped out, sighed, and left, and that is all they knew. Haywood was unaware of the Hex when it first formed, or else he would have sent more than a single agent in a jeep. Haywood was unaware of the events inside the Hex, including the new Vision, because as Darcy pointed out, no scans could penetrate the Hex. We found out eventually that, once Haywood became aware of Double Vision, he was able to track the Vibranium decay rates inside the Hex, somehow, despite no signals getting out, but prior to that he would have had no reason to scan for it.

In short, Haywood's apparent prescience - the fact that he knew (1) that Wanda went rogue, and (2) that she had a second Vision inside the unscannable Hex, and the fact that this enabled him to (1) doctor a surveillance video and (2) search for said Double Vision - is a massive plothole, and it bothers the crap out of me.

"But wait," the show wants us to think, "he clearly wanted to frame Wanda because her powers could fuel the newly reconstructed Vision." Well, no, that's crap, because he had no reason to believe she could provide power for the new Vision. At least, not until she sent that magically-charged drone back out of the Hex. And somehow, Haywood was able to transfer the glowing red magical energy from that drone into new Vision, because apparently SWORD has the technology to transfer magic like it's electricity. And then, having the technology to transfer the glowing red magical energy, he decided to do that, because - despite it being utterly beyond control and comprehension and magically transmuting matter in ways he can't explain - it just seemed like it would work. Yes, let's transfer the dangerous and unstable power source into our sentient weapon, I can think of no way it will go wrong. That all makes so much sense.

Aside from that, I have only two, relatively minor beefs.

First, Agatha grabbed ahold of the idiot ball. When you have determined that your adversary possesses limitless power and releases it in uncontrolled bursts during times of emotional turmoil, why in creation would you proceed to taunt said adversary by threatening her fictional magical delusion children? What possible reason could this otherwise master manipulator - who has done so well so far - have for doing something so suicidally stupid?

Oh, right. This is Marvel and we need to kill off our villains. Well, it was nice knowing you, Agatha.

Second, I love little in-lore asides that make things canon. In the various Star Wars series and films when they make an offhand reference to the novels or other parts of the Expanded Universe? A treat. Every nod to Thrawn or the Darksaber or similar, it gives me delight. Same in this series - when they had nods to, say, everyone's comic book costumes, or things like that? A joy. But there's a difference between an offhand reference to a subject with no significant impact on the plot, and a major reveal.

"You are the Scarlet Witch." That is not a minor aside. That is said with a sense of fear and gravity. Like it's something significant. Which it would be, if there were any reference made to it at any point prior, ever. Stick it in a book somewhere. An offhand statement. A remark by Doctor Strange in a movie. A legend in a bit of narration. Something. But saying "the Scarlet Witch" like it means something, when it clearly means nothing, is patronizingly insulting.

I saw a Wired interview with the actress awhile back. One of those autocomplete interviews. Have you seen them? Well, one of the questions was "Is Elizabeth Olsen the Scarlet Witch?" And she just kind of smiled coyly, and said that that name had never been used in the movies. Which was true, and was also a sentence clearly designed to make fans think, "So it will be, at some point."

This is not how I wanted that to happen. Not somebody throwing out the name like it means something when it clearly doesn't. That's just a letdown.

All that aside, love this series just so much. So impatient between weeks. Gripping, masterfully done.