WandaVision Finale Recap Season 1, Episode 9: Final Fate of Westview

In what quickly became the most anticipated finale in recent memory, “WandaVision” delivered the good on so many fronts, bringing together all of the disparate characters, storylines and realities into one explosive final confrontation.

By the time the dust settled, nothing and no one was the same as when we’d first met them in this series. Well, except for Darcy. That woman is unflappable!

While it had a slightly extended runtime, it’s remarkable just how much the writers were able to pack into this finale and it’s two — yes, two! — post-credits scenes.

It’s hard to downplay what an incredible success this project was, succeeding on all fronts. For the purposes of the MCU, it does a great job of progressing the character of Wanda where she needs to be for her next appearance in “Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness.”

It also effectively takes several huge steps forward in the realm of magic, which is still relatively new to the MCU — but clearly about to have a huge moment. On top of that, it was innovative and quality entertainment on its own with some stellar performances from Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany and scene-stealer Kathryn Hahn.

So let’s break down what we just witnessed, what it might mean for the future and what lingering questions still remain after nine episodes in Westview.

Paul Bettany was perhaps too clever by half when he joked that there was one upcoming surprise guest that no one had guessed. Speculation ran wild, but he was only talking about performing opposite himself. Still, we kind of loved that he did, as he actually played off of himself very well.

By this point Westview Vision knows that he’s not real, though he doesn’t quite know what he is. By that same measure, he then knows that this White Vision is actually the true him. Through their encounter, he was able to outthink his robotic counterpart (a classic case of more humanity equaling more abstract thought and cleverness equaling overall superiority).

But in so doing, White Vision allowed him to unlock his true memories, meaning that the real Vision is actually now fully and totally back, though he’s going to have to grapple with his own trauma having now relived not only his whole life in a few moments, but also both of his deaths.

Having the knowledge of that scene in our back pockets added so much extra weight to the closing moments of the show, which was achingly beautiful and performed with so much genuine affection from Olsen and Bettany. But we’ll get to that in a bit.

Obviously, the big battle of the episode was the final showdown between Agatha Harkness and Wanda. One is a centuries-old witch of immense power who has the added ability of being able to siphon power from other witches. We saw her do this already in Salem, and it turns out that’s what she wanted here.

Apparently, she just wanted a little help understanding how to use Wanda’s powers before she stole them all. Unfortunately for Agatha, she just couldn’t help rubbing it in to Wanda just how little she knew about magic, offering little tips and tricks along the way to mock Wanda for not knowing them.

While Wanda has no need of speaking Latic or making incantations or plucking hairs to make her spells work, that doesn’t mean she hasn’t been paying close attention.

We also learned a little bit more about what Scarlet Witch means in the MCU, which appears to carry a lot more weight than it does in the comics (it’s kind of just her name there). Here, we learned that there’s a whole chapter to her in the “Darkhold” book, another familiar name for comic fans.

The Scarlet Witch is not born, she is forged. In Wanda’s case, that could be her encounter with the Mind Stone when she was a recruit for HYDRA and touched it, seemingly expanding her powers exponentially. Her power is also apparently greater than that of the Sorcerer Supreme aka one Doctor Strange.

That’s certainly possible, as the Sorcerer Supreme is a title earned through years of discipline and study, and Wanda can make her sitcoms into reality just by crying magic. That’s a pretty big difference right there.

Most disturbing, though, is the prophecy that she’ll destroy the world. In fact, when Wanda fully accepts and takes on the mantle of the Scarlet Witch, Agatha seems genuinely horrified Either she believes the prophecy, or it’s all a big lie.

In a way, this storyline sets Wanda up to be more like the Phoenix Force from the X-Men stories, with her a hybrid hero and enormous threat to all life based on something that is in her, but not necessarily her. It’s still a little murky, to be honest.

One of the highlights of their battle was definitely when they wound up in the town square and Agatha began freeing the citizens of Westview from Wanda’s spell. Here we got confirmation that she kind of just kept the children locked away in their bedrooms, which is torturous, aside from that Halloween episode. And they are definitely suffering inside while playing their roles in her world.

Regardless of how Wanda comes out of this grief, the damage she has done to the people of this town will not soon be forgotten. She may never be able to atone for it, but there are thousands of lives darkened because of her walking into that town.

Hopefully, the MCU doesn’t just shake this off and ignore it from this point forward; it should remain a part of her development that she did this to these people.

Every MCU project has a “yahoo!” moment, where you get all pumped because the tables are about to turn and you finally figure out how the hero is going to pull this off. With Agatha desperate for her power, and already having stolen some of it, Wanda suddenly decided to give it all to her.

We expected we were about to see the trope of the villain getting all the power from the hero only to find out they can’t handle all that power and they basically explode, or wipe themselves out. Instead, we got something far more clever, and a nice callback to boot.

Wanda was blasting Agatha over and over again, feeding her power. But it was also a diversion, as just as many of Wanda’s blasts were actually slamming into the walls of the Hex as they battled it out in the sky. But Wanda wasn’t missing, she was writing.

As they fought, she wrote runes on the walls of The Hex. Per Agatha’s less, only the witch who casts the runes can work magic within them. With that, even as Agatha took the last of her magic, Wanda had cemented the villain’s fate. Suddenly, only Wanda could conduct magic.

Easily she took her power back, reducing Agatha to a mewling worm on the ground. Even worse, she sentenced Agatha to a fate worse than death. She made her Agnes for real. “Okie dokie!” Kathryn Hahn was such a gift in this show, though we definitely enjoyed the layers of her Agnes portrayal more than her over-the-top Agatha.

One of the most mind-blowing moments of the whole series was when Evan Peters showed up as Pietro, but not the one MCU fans know. Instead, everyone wanted to know if this was really the X-Men Universe converging with the MCU finally, now that Disney owns them both, or just an Easter Egg.

After capturing Monica and holding her hostage in Agatha’s house, Monica uncovered that it wasn’t Agatha’s house at all. In fact, it was his house. And he wasn’t Pietro at all, but rather a dude named Ralph Bohner.

So not only was his appearance just an Easter Egg to rile up Marvel fans, it was a pretty rude one, too with his real name being even more ridiculous than his outfits and behaviors. There’s no indication as to why Agatha chose him, other than he was the guy whose house she was living in.

Fans could probably start postulating ways this could still mean something, but it seems far more likely they were just trolling everyone. Once Monica knocked him free of Agatha’s control, he was even more pathetic, and apparently lost his powers, too.

We remain incredibly disappointed that Darcy had quite literally one scene in this episode, though it was a pretty great one. She got to smash the ice cream truck/military vehicle into Hayward’s, locking him in and leading to his arrest.

But she didn’t even stick around for any of the wrap-up stuff. She always was too cool for this world!

Hayward got what he deserved, though. Already the villain of this piece, he reached a new low when he and his men finally got inside the Hex and confronted Wanda and her family. Seriously, when Wanda and Vision left the kids to deal with the military, Hayward emptied an entire clip at them.

Dude was just calmly going to mow down a couple of kids. Sure, we don’t know exactly what they are, but we do know they’re kids and that’s just not right. He probably wouldn’t have hurt them anyway, but Monica still played the hero, revealing a little more of her abilities.

We got another eye color shift as she absorbed the bullets into her body, ejecting them harmlessly after they passed through her. It would seem there is more to learn about what traveling the the Hex border three times has done to her.

Wanda and Vision really are so adorable together, even if the Vision we’re talking about is a sentient construct of chaos magic. Once the enemies had been vanquished, Wanda realized what she would have to do, coming to terms with her grief and letting her family go.

It was already clear after she’d nearly freed the citizens of Westview earlier that her husband and children could not exist without the Hex. We know Vision is Wanda’s creation, but it’s always been a little less clear about the twins, though she did birth them in an episode.

Nevertheless, Wanda more in her right mind knows she can’t hold thousands of people hostage in order to save the lives of her fake family. And so, she shut it down, with the Hex slowly retreating back to where it began, Wanda and Vision’s house.

We have to admit, there was a part of us hoping she’d leave just enough of the Hex around the house to allow the house to exist and perhaps Vision and the boys to enjoy some semblance of a life there. Of course, they’d be confined to the house and without her, so would they be happy?

There was a graceful beauty in seeing Wanda and Vision tuck their boys into bed, knowing that they would soon cease to exist. And then they got their own beautiful goodbye. But considering how many times Vision has died, he left Wanda with the nugget that maybe he’ll see her yet again.

Of course, Vision already knows this to be true, having helped OG Vision aka White Vision regain his memory. That Vision hightailed it out of there, but as he now remembers his whole life, including Wanda, it’s just a matter of time before they’ll be reunited.

It was actually a compassion of Westview Vision that he did not tell Wanda about White Vision, because this allows her to fully process her grief and close this very unhealthy manifestation of it.

Plus, on a more selfish note, maybe he wanted this goodbye to be about them and not some other version of him. After all, he is as complete and real in his love and feelings for Wanda. So this moment was for them. Let her and White Vision have their reunion some other time.

Wanda said she was leaving Agatha as Agnes, the nosy neighbor, in Westview. But once the Hex walls came down, the runes disappeared as well. Is it that Wanda also siphoned away Agatha’s magic when she took back her own, or does Agnes have Agatha’s magic in there, if only she could remember that’s who she was? We suspect time will reveal that. She’s too delicious a villain to ignore forever.

During cleanup in the mid-credit scene, Monica is invited into the theater, where an agent is revealed to actually be a Skrull (shapeshifting alien). “I was sent by an old friend of your mother’s,” she teased. “He heard you’d been grounded. He’d like to meet you.”

As it was Hayward who grounded her and he’s on his way to prison, perhaps that order can be rescinded. Or with her new powers, Monica doesn’t have to pay any attention to it. Either way, it looks like she’s soon headed out into space and directly into “Captain Marvel 2.”

Then, in the post-credit scene, we got a glimpse of what life is looking like for Wanda in the lead-up to her adventures with Doctor Strange. She’s enjoying a cuppa tucked away in the mountains, but also–

There are two Wandas in this cabin. The one up front is sipping tea, while the Scarlet Witch in the back appears to be reading and studying (is that the Darkhold?). But then, she suddenly hears her boys crying for help, just as she did when Agatha had them.

But the boys ceased to exist with the Hex and Vision right? Perhaps not. We never really understood if they were fully created like Vision was. We never saw them be created and we didn’t see them disappear, either. What if they do exist? Where are they? Does Mephisto have them?

Will their cries be a part of her character’s story when next she appears in the Doctor Strange sequel? Will she send all of herself on that adventure, or keep one version of her back in the cabin sipping tea? Someone’s gotta keep an eye on the place, right?

Final note, we were definitely digging the pop culture references, from the black boots callback to “The Wizard of Oz” to the Visions recreating Superman and Zod’s dark battle.