Why Wanda Is The Real Villain Of ‘WandaVision’

The best movie villains tend to be driven by legitimate grievances – with the exception of Loki, Marvel didn’t have many memorable villains until the arrival of Killmonger and Vulture. Then, Thanos, the delusional ideologue who believed he was saving the universe, made his big impact.

So far, the most interesting parts of WandaVision deal with the consequences of Thanos’ destruction. The opening scene of episode 4 shows the surreal chaos that followed the second snap, as a hospital fills with disoriented people who have just been reassembled from dust particles, years after being fragmented by Thanos. 

While Spider-Man: Far From Home didn’t bother dwelling on the psychological impact of the second snap, or how on how confusing and stressful the sudden influx of souls would be, WandaVision gives us a good glimpse of this world through the eyes of Monica Rambeau.

And it’s through Monica that we see the dark side of Wanda; as soon as she recognizes that Monica has gone “off script,” she shoves Monica out of her bubble – quite literally.

Wanda doesn’t want to be reminded of bitter reality, and her traumatic memory manifests itself in an uncharacteristically gruesome image of undead Vision, bearing a gaping head wound left by Thanos, after he tore the Mind Stone out of his metal skull (here’s hoping that Doctor Strange 2, said to be a tie-in to WandaVision, really expands on the untapped horrors of the MCU).

That scene sparked a particularly unnerving fan theory, as viewers wondered if Wanda had been puppeteering Vision’s corpse this entire time. I’ll admit, that would be a great plot twist … but Marvel would never do something as creepy as that. Plus, Vision and Wanda have clearly been having sex in this show, so the walking corpse theory just doesn’t add up (WandaVision will never be able to touch the depravity of Wonder Woman 1984). 

Clearly, Vision is sentient, as the show is building toward a conflict between him and Wanda, in which Wanda attempts to keep Vision ignorant – and alive – as it appears that Vision can only exist within Wanda’s sitcom world. Why else would she keep the truth from him? He is no longer being powered by the Mind Stone – surely, something within Wanda’s world is keeping him together.

It might eventually turn out that there’s an evil force pulling Wanda’s strings behind-the-scenes, but … I sincerely hope not. After all, if keeping an entire town hostage inside a fake sitcom reality, and keeping her husband blissfully ignorant is the only way that they can spend their lives together, then Wanda is, technically, a supervillain – but she’s also acting like a human being. 

Grief isn’t rational, and the most interesting superheroes are not perfect – they make serious mistakes, and if it turns out that Wanda isn’t really in control of her situation, then there’s no character development happening in this show, at all. 

While S.W.O.R.D. studies Wanda’s “show” as a cute nod to the way viewers frantically try to pierce together theories, their presence is eventually going to burst Wanda’s bubble, and that makes Monica a serious threat to Wanda’s fantasy. Thus, there will probably be a point where Wanda has to really deal with Monica, and another shove isn’t going to cut it.

Why else did this episode spend so much time talking about Monica’s dead mother, Maria Rambeau? Maria was Captain Marvel’s best friend, but that wasn’t just a random MCU easter egg – that connection is likely going to affect this story, and I have a feeling that Wanda is going to offer to “revive” Maria, and hence, pull Monica into her alternate reality. 

At least, I hope so; watching Wanda descending into delusion and supervillainy would be one of the most interesting, and lasting, consequences of Thanos’ actions.