‘WandaVision’ Episode 6 Review: ‘All-New Halloween Spooktacular!’

WandaVision heads into the 90s’ in the sixth episode of the Disney+ series. And it just keeps getting better and more intriguing. The mysteries deepen as Wanda’s control over the town expands and becomes ever more sinister.

In ‘All-New Halloween Spooktacular’ quite a bit happens both inside Westview and outside Westview, though the lines between “inside” and “outside” are hardly static by the end of the episode. To say they “blur” would be a gross understatement.

There are essentially three storylines playing out over the course of the episode. We’ll start with . . .

Wanda, Pietro and the Boys

The episode opens to Tommy and Billy running around being boys, squabbling with one another and goofing around with their long lost uncle. Each talks directly to the camera from time to time. This fourth-wall-breaking brings us into the 90s’ as we’re reminded of shows like Saved By The Bell or Malcolm in the Middle.

This is the first episode where Pietro really has a major part to play, having only showed up at the very end of last week’s episode. Pietro is basically a huge man-child, goofing around with the kids, zipping them about with his super speed (he is Quicksilver, after all).

When Vision says he has to help out with the neighborhood watch instead of trick-or-treat with the kids, Pietro offers to fill in as the father figure.

So Vision takes off and the boys, Wanda and Pietro head out to trick-or-treat. Funny shenanigans follow, as he zips them around stealing candy and playing pranks. He’s a fun uncle, that’s for sure.

He’s also completely aware that Wanda is doing all of this. He’s not being mind-controlled. At one point he asks Wanda how she’s doing it, but she can’t remember. All she can remember is feeling so alone. That’s important. To me, this and other clues this episode, make me think that someone—or something—else is pulling the strings, and that Wanda’s power is not hers alone, nor is she completely in control.

I say this in part because of the very strange, dark Yo-Magic commercial that plays part way into the episode. If you look at each ad, it can shine a little bit of light on Wanda’s life. The Stark toaster oven comes first. It reminds us that a Stark Industries bomb killed Wanda’s parents. Then came the Strucker watch ad, pointing to Baron Wolfgang von Strucker, the Hydra leader who used Loki’s scepter to perform experiments on people. The only survivors of these experiments were Wanda and Pietro Maximoff. This is how they got their powers.

Then there was the Hydra soap, perhaps a little reference to Wanda leaving Hydra and joining the Avengers, cleansing herself of Hydra’s influence. The Lagos paper towels, of course, are a reference to Wanda and the Avengers’ disastrous intervention in Lagos when she attempted to divert a blast and inadvertently blew up a building, killing eleven people.

And now, finally, we come to the Yo-Magic commercial which contains literally zero easter eggs or references to Marvel comics or lore as far as I can tell. It’s a claymation ad in which a boy is stranded on a desert island. “I’m so hungry I could eat anything,” the boy says. A friendly shark appears and has just what the boy needs: “Yo-Magic” yogurt cups. The shark leaves, but the boy can’t open the yogurt and eventually starves and dies, turning into a skeleton.

Dark.

So what does it mean? I think it’s actually telling the story of Wanda right now. She’s the boy. She was filled with sadness and then, mysteriously, she took over a town with her power, resurrected Vision and started a make-believe sitcom life. She was so sad she could eat anything. Then a shark showed up and gave her “Yo Magic”—aka more power—and now things are starting to go badly. Who the shark is remains a mystery. But it seems clear that something is behind all of this. It’s not just Wanda.

The name Mephisto has been bandied about, and that certainly seems possible.

Vision

Vision, we discover, is not actually out with the neighborhood watch keeping the streets safe from crime. He’s just out walking around the town—a town now filled with children who we’ve never seen before. The humor of Pietro and the boys’ trick-or-treat shenanigans stands in stark contrast to what Vision witnesses.

Outside of the center of town with all its hustle and bustle, things are much worse. A man and woman appear stuck in a loop in their yard, repeating the same actions over and over. As Vision watches, a single tear slips from the woman’s eye and runs down her cheek.

Further out toward the rim, the people simply stand and stare. Maybe they were on their way to trick-or-treat and then whatever power Wanda held over them simply stopped working correctly. Her sphere of influence is smaller than the Hex itself, or she was simply controlling too many people at once to allow for the rest of the town to function properly.

At the very edge of town, Vision finds Agnes sitting in her car. She tells him she took a wrong turn and got lost. “In the town you grew up in?” he asks, puzzled. Then he does his little temple-press thing and Agnes is zapped out of her reverie.

This part has me questioning my previous theory—that Agnes is Agatha Harkness—though not entirely. Harkness is a witch and I don’t think it’s an accident that Agnes was wearing a witch’s costume. But if she is a powerful, ancient witch why is she also under Wanda’s mind control?

MORE FROM FORBESWho Is Agnes In ‘WandaVision’? Here’s The Most Compelling Theory

She asks Vision if this means she’s dead. He’s confused. “Because you’re dead,” she tells him and then starts shouting “dead” over and over and laughing hysterically

The only other person in Westview other than Vision who isn’t completely under Wanda’s control, it appears, is Pietro. She sees him as a dead version of himself at one point, much like she saw Vision, so I’m inclined to believe he’s been resurrected. But he could also be from a different universe as we move toward a multi-verse storyline or—and this is what some fans are theorizing—he’s not Pietro at all but rather some supervillain disguised as her brother. I’m not sure about this. He has Quicksilver’s powers.

In any case, Vision finally makes his way to the forcefield and starts to push through. He can’t make it all the way, but he’s incredibly determined and seemingly willing to die in order to force his way out, pleading with the SWORD agents on the other side to help the people inside the town.

Back in the city square, Wanda and Pietro are talking when suddenly Billy hears a voice in his head. It’s Vision and he can tell he’s in trouble. Billy and Tommy both suddenly develop powers this episode. Tommy gets his uncle’s super speed. Billy appears to have something more akin to his parents’ powers.

When Wanda realizes what’s happening, instead of rushing over to Vision she simply expands the Hex. The forcefield barrels outward, quickly enveloping the surrounding countryside including the entire SWORD outpost, nearby car dealerships and most of the nearby people. Director Hayward and a couple of his people escape but only barely. Jimmy Woo and Monica Rambeau also make it to safety. Darcy Lewis, who was handcuffed to a vehicle, is consumed.

The SWORD outpost becomes a circus, its agents clowns and other circus folk.

Monica, Jimmy & Darcy

I’m starting to suspect that Hayward was using Vision to develop a weapon, going way outside his boundaries in order to do so. I’m also starting to suspect that he may have had a hand in Monica’s mother’s death. Yes, she had cancer. But for all we know it was in remission and she had many years left. Did she discover what Hayward was doing? It’s possible that Hayward is working for Hydra, but I like to think he’s just a bad guy, a rogue agent with too much ambition.

In any case, Hayward is determined to kill Wanda. It’s his only plan. He doesn’t listen to anyone else’s warnings. When Monica warns him that further antagonizing Wanda will lead to disaster, he has her and Darcy (who just mocked him) and Jimmy escorted out of the camp.

This is where Jimmy really surprises us. Once the agents take them to the trucks and tell them to get in, Jimmy springs into action. He and Monica quickly take down their guards while Darcy stands by in shock. “Why didn’t anyone tell me the plan?” she asks, as though it would have mattered. I didn’t see Jimmy busting out those moves, and it was pretty great to see him and Monica just sync up so perfectly.

They lock up the guards and don their uniforms and head back into the camp. Darcy tries to hack into Hayward’s files and see what he’s really up to, and in the process discovers that Monica’s cells have undergone a transformation twice—both when she entered and exited the Hex. She tells Monica not to go back in, but Monica isn’t swayed. She’s convinced that the only way to stop all this is to reason with Wanda.

She gets a message from her mysterious engineer contact and her and Jimmy head out to meet up with him. He’s constructed the special vehicle Monica needs to break through the Hex and “safely” enter Westview. The identity of this mysterious helper remains a mystery, though many are suggesting it’s Reed Richards, aka Mr. Fantastic of the Fantastic Four, though prior to his becoming a super. Many are also hoping that The Office alumni John Krasinski will be cast in the role, and given that next week’s episode is almost certainly the mockumentary style sitcom, this makes a lot of sense.

Darcy stays to keep digging which leads to her running over to try to help Vision and ultimately getting swallowed into the Hex. Jimmy and Monica escape but don’t meet up with her contact just yet.

Verdict

WandaVision just gets better and better every week, as the sitcom world and the real world keep plummeting toward their inevitable collision. I find myself almost wishing they’d just release the rest of the episodes right now because I’m dying to know what’s coming. But I’m honestly glad Disney is doing the weekly release schedule. It gives us time to talk about each episode and that wonderful anticipation that comes with waiting, when instant gratification is withheld.

The moment with Vision being torn apart by the barrier was the first really stressful, emotional moment of this show. Wanda has had some great emotional scenes, but this felt more dire, more awful in a way. Even the fight last week, where Vision cries out that he’s scared, that he can’t remember his life, wasn’t quite as powerful as this scene. You just start to feel so bad for Vision, and then to watch him start to die again, it’s awful.

I love the addition of Quicksilver to the show and I hope it really is him and not the Big Bad, but this could go either way. I just have no idea. WandaVision is doing a really excellent job at keeping its secrets even as it drops little clues and breadcrumbs for viewers each week. There is more to the story than meets the eye, that’s for sure.

What did you think? Let me know!


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