Review and Recap WandaVision S1E5: “On a Very Special Episode”

After last week’s arrival of bundles of joy and a fuller picture of the circumstances around Westview, you have to approach this episode wondering what exactly they were going to do. Would be it an homage to television again? Would it be SWORD focused?

The truth is they split the difference and double-sized the kids! We open with what is very much an homage to the 80s sitcoms and I think that the clearest one is the show Family Ties.

Recap of WandaVision S1E5 “On a Very Special Episode”

We open with new parents Wanda and Vision unable to get the babies Tommy and Billy to sleep. Agnes comes in ready to dispense neighborly advice. But Vision raises objections and, it gets weird.

Like an actor turning to a director and asking if they are going to do a second take, Agnes talks to Wanda but Vision is fully aware and unwilling to let the issue go until the kids age themselves up to a pair of adorable five year olds.

But the throughline is laid: Vision knows this world isn’t right.

(Quick shout-out here: these television theme songs have been crushing it. Like the shows themselves have been an homage to each generation of television, the theme songs have been spot on. Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez are the songwriting duo recruited for the task and for good reason. With stellar work on Disney’s Frozen (“Let It Go”) and Pixar’s Coco (“Remember Me”), the duo has just magnificently leaned in and made great theme songs in what could have been a throwaway gag. Proof that Marvel is willing to invest to make its works the best and spend the money to get the talent to do it!)

The show then breaks into the outside world, where we see Captain Monica Rambeau wrapping up her tests after having been ejected from Westview. FBI man Jimmy Woo welcomes her and introduces her to Dr. Darcy and they form a trio.

At the debriefing, we learn pretty quickly that our illustrious trio want to investigate what is going on while most everyone else, including acting SWORD director Taylor Hayward, sees this as a pretty cut and dry case of Wanda being the villain, which means they cut straight toward solution of how to stop her. And to be fair, they are aided in their opinion when we see footage from 9 days ago of Wanda breaking into the SWORD facility to free Vision’s body.

But the trio persists and Rambeau works a theory that Wanda is changing things just enough so they belong in her television world but not changing them entirely. She proves her case by showing that her groovy outfit from inside Westview maintained its kevlar properties, stopping the bullets that she fired at it.

Back inside the Westview world (or “The Hex” as the trio calls it), Vision goes to work and is hooking up his computer company to the internet for the first time. And the first email they get? It is all about the Westview situation and it only deepens his questions.

Eventually, he touches his colleague and learns the truth: this world is being controlled by his wife and these people are starting to get desperate to leave her control. Vision then undoes his relief and things go back to “normal” in the television year.

Back at home, the kids have negotiated getting a dog, but only after they age themselves up to 10 year olds. And while Vision is out at work, they get a lecture about the value of the family, learning that they have an uncle, but not learning that Quicksilver is dead. (Reminder that he sacrificed himself saving lives in the film Avengers: Age of Ultron.)

But then there is a noise outside and we shift to the outside group, seeing that they have sent an age appropriate drone into the Westview bubble. Captain Rambeau tries to communicate with Wanda but then she is shocked to learn that the drone is armed with a weapon, that others try to use on Wanda.

Needless to say, Wanda is not pleased and for the first time, we see her breech the walls of Westview, dragging the drone behind her. Her message to the gathered group is clear: Do not try and enter Westview and disrupt her family.

She even turns those with rifles and scopes pointed at her to the SWORD director, but doesn’t fire. And, to be noted, she does not directly deal with Captain Rambeau’s important claim that Wanda knows she is an ally who wants to help. (Monica’s claim is strengthened by the fact that though through her through the wall of Westview, Wanda protected her as she was ejected.)

Wanda returns to the bubble, where things seem to be fine, except that the dog escapes and eats the wrong flowers and dies in Agnes’ yard. The discussion there is incredible. First, Wanda stops the boys from aging up to avoid the pain, having seen them nod to each other and seemingly start the aging process. When one of the boys says “You can fix anything Mom. Fix the dead.”

That statement really seems to throw Wanda for a loop. But she doesn’t heal the dog and later Vision comes back to the home. Vision discusses what he has learned but Wanda clearly wants to avoid it and we even see the television show credits roll but Vision is relentless.

As Vision is pushing his point home that Wanda cannot do this to all these people and of not knowing what he was before Westview, the doorbell rings. Wanda promises that she isn’t responsible for it. And when she answers the door, it is an unexpected guest.

Thoughts on WandaVision S1E5 “On a Very Special Episode”

So, that guest at the door at the end was Quicksilver. Which seems like a “Of course. If she resurrects an android, she can resurrect her brother.” But, welcome to the multiverse friends, because this Quicksilver isn’t the brother we saw from Avengers: Age of Ultron; no, this Quicksilver is the character that was portrayed in the Fox X-Men universe. (Dr. Darcy commented on it as “She recast her brother”.)

Knowing that Scarlet Witch is supposed to be a key part of the upcoming Dr. Strange movie that is centered on the multiverse, this is going to get very, very wild. Throw in the Spider-Man rumors of actors who previously played the role of Peter Parker being in the Spider-Man movie upcoming and Spidey’s involvement on the same Dr. Strange movie, it is about to get so wild. So, so wild!