‘WandaVision’ Finale: Big Battles, Big Ending — and a Window Into More Marvel (RECAP)

Spoiler Alert

WandaVision

The Series Finale

Season 1 • Episode 9

rating: 4.0 stars

[WARNING: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for WandaVision‘s Season 1, Finale, “The Series Finale.”]

Several decades of sitcoms have been leading to this thoroughly Marvel finale, which sees Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany) face off in big battles against frightful foes — but the scariest of these might be the real world itself. While several fan theories don’t quite pan out, there’s plenty revealed about the Scarlet Witch, and, for Agents of SHIELD fans, a notable book makes a reappearance.

Elsewhere, Monica (Teyonah Parris) works to escape Pietro’s (Evan Peters) capture, plus, of course, Agatha, Agatha, Agatha (Kathryn Hahn). Here’s how it all comes literally crashing down.

Battle Time!

As the episode opens, Agatha proposes that Wanda surrender her powers to her, explaining that taking magic from the undeserving is “kind of [her] thing.” Wanda’s not in favor of that, so she throws a car at Agatha, knocking her through the window of a house — the witch, of course, survives. Oh, and White Vision shows up, and for a heartbreaking few seconds Wanda believes it’s really him…until he tries to kill her. Thankfully, Vision swoops in to save the day, and two battles form: Vision versus White Vision and Wanda versus Agatha.

Vision and White Vision go at it, and they’re pretty equally matched. (More about that later.) Wanda versus Agatha, however, is a different, intriguing matter. Agatha reveals that there’s a whole chapter devoted to Wanda as the Scarlet Witch in the Darkhold (Agents of SHIELD fans understand that reference!), which this show defines as “the book of the damned.” She claims it’s Wanda’s destiny to destroy the world, and she lifts Wanda’s magic on the people assembled in the town square.

Like zombies approaching fresh meat, they swarm around Wanda, who is forced to listen as they tell her how her trauma is affecting them; they have her nightmares when they sleep and they miss their loved ones. Wanda’s distraught and when Agnes (who’s been watching the whole time) urges her to let the people go — “heroes don’t torture people!” — she starts to lift the Hex. But when she sees Vision and her kids, who showed up at the fight to help her, start to dissolve, she just can’t go through with it.

Well, Ralph’s Not Mephisto

Meanwhile, a trapped Monica discovers who Ralph, Agnes’ “husband” really is — and it doesn’t look like he’s Mephisto. Instead, Ralph is the real owner of the home Agnes had been living in, and when Monica rips an enchanted necklace off of him, he reverts back to being himself. No longer imprisoned, she leaves the house.

Getting back White Vision versus Vision, the fight ends unexpectedly, to say the least. When White Vision reveals his directive is to destroy Vision, Vision convinces him otherwise; he can’t be the real Vision, he says, because he doesn’t contain an ounce of the real Vision’s material. He’s also able to give White Vision his own memories, which changes his eyes from eerie blue to something more human. Seemingly overwhelmed by the weight of his new knowledge, White Vision flies away.

SWORD shows up, since they were able to get through the Hex when Wanda started to lift it. Thankfully, they’re nothing Monica, the twins and Darcy (Kat Dennings) can’t handle. Wanda takes care of Agnes, too, after casting a few runes that rendered the evil witch powerless…and then absorbing her magic (and gaining a cool new superhero outfit in the process).

A humiliated Agnes tries to tell Wanda that she’ll need her help, and Wanda says that might be true — but if she does, she’ll know where to find her. She uses her powers to turn Agnes into the “nosy neighbor” character she’d been playing, and she’ll presumably be living in Westview under Wanda’s mind-control.

Goodbye for Now

With SWORD defeated, Agnes defeated and White Vision (kind of?) defeated, there’s one last monster left to confront: The truth. And the truth is that Wanda’s family can’t survive if Westview goes back to normal. At home, Wanda and Viz tuck the kids into bed. “Thank you,” she tells them as she stands in their doorway, swallowing tears, “for choosing me to be your mom.” As she closes the door, the red glow of the Hex’s receding walls falls over the room.

She says goodbye to Vision, too, who asks her to tell him one thing: What he really is. She explains what he’s made of, but most of all, she says he’s her love. As the walls of the Hex creep down their street, Vision notes that they’ve said goodbye before, so it stands to reason that they’ll say hello again. And then, with Wanda holding him, the Hex dissolves, and so does he.

Wanda’s left standing in the foundations of the home she and Vision were going to build; the very same place she first cast the Hex. She walks to the town square, doing her best to avoid the enraged glares of the townspeople, but she finds a friendly face in Monica, who listens as she expresses regret for the pain she caused Westview.

“Given the chance, and your power,” Monica tells her, “I would bring my mom back. I know I would.” Wanda says she doesn’t understand her powers yet, but she will. And, clad in her super-cool new superhero outfit, she flies away from Westview and toward a better understanding of who she really is.

Disney+ / Marvel

After the Credits…

But wait, there’s more! In the first post-credits scene, Monica chats with Jimmy (Randall Park) and receives an invitation to space, to meet with an “old friend of her mother’s.”

In the second post-credits scene, Wanda appears to be living a peaceful life off the grid, in a little log cabin by the lake. But is she, really? Inside the house, the Scarlet Witch — yeah, there are two Wandas here — reads the Darkhold, while hearing her children cry for her help. And just like that, the stage for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the next Marvel installment in which Wanda is scheduled to appear, is set!

WandaVision, all episodes now streaming, Disney+