The first two episodes of WandaVision have just premiered on Disney Plus, the first show in a series of Marvel Disney Plus originals featuring characters from the MCU. WandaVision stars Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda (Scarlet Witch) and Paul Bettany as Vision living in a world that resembles classic TV sitcoms. Wanda’s powers and Vision’s robot self cause some wacky hijinks in their normal sitcom neighborhood, but it’s clear things aren’t as ideal as they seem.
Alongside references to classic sitcoms like The Dick Van Dyke Show, I Love Lucy, and Bewitched, the show also contains some references to other movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While no other characters are referenced by name by Wanda or Vision themselves, it’s clear WandaVision belongs in the same universe. There are only a few direct MCU movie references in the first two episodes, but there are certainly more to come.
Spoilers ahead for jokes, references, and scenes from the first two episodes of the show.
In the first episode, when Wanda accidentally mistakes Vision’s boss for Vision when he comes over for dinner, Vision explains away her flirtatious greeting by saying it’s a “traditional Sokovian greeting” and that his wife is from Europe. In Wanda’s proper introduction to the MCU in Avengers: Age of Ultron, we learn that she is a native of the country of Sokovia, where she and her brother Pietro grew up orphans and became test subjects. Sokovia became a battlefield between the Avengers and Ultron in the same movie, with some of the country even rising from the ground. Both Vision and Wanda were major players in the battle, with Wanda ripping out Ultron’s core while avenging the death of her brother, and Vision later ultimately ending the threat of Ultron.
During the Battle of Sokovia, Vision saved Wanda, marking one of the earliest signs of their connection that follows through into the later MCU films and eventually leads to a romance. The battle also led to the signing of the Sokovia Accords, which was the main source of conflict in Captain America: Civil War. While the reference to Sokovia is used as a punchline in WandaVision, it’s a real part of not only Wanda’s background but of how the characters got to this point.
Both episodes of WandaVision feature a “commercial break” with a fictional, black and white, 50s or 60s style commercial. In the first episode, it’s for the ToastMate 2000, a sort of advanced toaster being advertised to housewives. The ToastMate 2000 is being sold by none other than Stark Industries. Stark Industries is the massive industrial company and tech conglomerate founded by Howard Stark and later taken over by Tony Stark. Stark Industries seems to have a hand in all sorts of technologies, and the name Stark is said or seen in nearly every MCU property.
Both Vision and Wanda have ties to both Tony Stark and Stark Industries in general. Vision’s consciousness came from the remains of Tony Stark’s personal AI, J.A.R.V.I.S., and he sided with Tony Stark during the Sokovian Accords. Wanda, meanwhile, had a negative association with the name Stark. She and her brother stared for two days at a bombshell with the name Stark on it while waiting to be rescued from the rubble of the bomb that had killed their parents, waiting for this one to go off as well. In the ToastMate 2000 commercial, the Stark Industries toaster ticks ominously, perhaps resembling the sound of a bomb like the one Wanda would have encountered as a child.
In the second episode of WandaVision, the fake commercial is for a watch, and the name of the watch should be immediately recognizable to MCU fans. The watch is called a “Strucker Watch,” sharing the name with Baron Von Strucker, one of the leaders of HYDRA. If that wasn’t clear enough, the watch says HYDRA on the face alongside the ominous logo.
Von Strucker experimented on humans using the Scepter of Loki, and Wanda and her brother Pietro were the only surviving text subjects. Wanda and her brother are briefly seen as Strucker’s subjects in the post-credits of Captain America: Winter Soldier before audiences see exactly how much their newfound powers can do in Age of Ultron.
The watch ad includes the tagline, “Forget your past, this is your future.” In the first episode of WandaVision, fans can see that Wanda and Vision are unsure how or why they are in their sitcom universe and don’t know where they were before this, but they seem unable to focus on these questions for very long. The tagline “forget your past” in a commercial featuring the name Strucker, a name that is a massive and traumatic part of Wanda’s past, is especially pointed as Wanda seems unable to remember her exact past.
While Vision can make himself appear human in front of his and Wanda’s human neighbors and co-workers, he is still definitely not human in WandaVision. There are several references to what he actually is throughout the episodes, generally played for laughs. In the first episode, an oblivious co-worker tells Vision he is like a walking computer because he finishes his work so efficiently.
Vision, to an extent, is indeed a walking computer, being a manufactured body that was programmed with Tony Stark’s computer AI in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Vision jokes about his non-human status several other times, saying he does not eat, is incapable of forgetting, and does not have a skeleton.
WandaVision is streaming now on Disney Plus.
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