The following contains spoilers for episode eight of WandaVision.
With just one episode to go before WandaVision reaches its conclusion, the pressure is on to wrap up storylines. With those wrap-ups come a whole lot of Easter eggs for comic book fans and those keeping a close eye on the events so far.
In addition to nods to the comic book past of Agatha Harkness, Wanda Maximoff, and the Vision, “Previously On,” also gives the audience a new point of view. Wanda’s memories of different events are unlocked, some people are revealed to be lying, and a more complete picture of Westview is shown as well.
The episode doesn’t open in the usual way. Even the Marvel Studios logo is drenched in purple this time around – Agatha’s signature color. Before picking up where the seventh episode left off, WandaVision heads to Salem in 1693, which is pretty significant for Agatha Harkness. It is, however, a little different than her comic book roots.
In the original comics, Agatha is a witch who dates back to the sinking of Atlantis, not Salem. She does, however, live in Salem during the Witch Trials. In fact, Agatha attempts to create a place for her coven to practice magic freely, but they’re persecuted. She eventually creates New Salem in its place. That particular safe haven for magic users is where Agatha is burned at the stake in the 1982 Vision and the Scarlet Witch comic book series, much as her coven attempts to do here.
What’s interesting about the attempt to subdue Agatha are the subtle nods to comics and the show. It appears Agatha has the ability to siphon magic from other witches. When she’s done with her coven (and her mother), they are shriveled and lifeless, not unlike the subject of WandaVision’s “yo-magic” commercial, indicating it might have been a nod to her after all.
Her mother Evanora is not in the comics. The crown-like symbol that appears on her head when she attempts to subdue her daughter is. It’s similar to that of Scarlet Witch, but actually appears to look more like that of Zhered-Na. Zhered-Na is an Atlantean sorceress who fights with white magic. She also has her own magical book of spells, which could be the book Agatha had in her basement last week.
The audience also gets a slightly better look around Agatha’s basement before she and Wanda take their walk down memory lane. Agatha calls the symbols on her walls protection spells. One of them appears similar in shape to the headdress worn by Scarlet Witch in the comics, as well as the shape Evanora’s magic takes on her forehead. The runes for the protection spells are also inside hexagons, just as Wanda placed Westview inside of one.
When Agatha discusses magic with Wanda, she turns an insect into a bird before snatching the bird out of mid-air and angrily squeezing it. Her motion and mannerisms when doing so are very much like Madame Mim in Disney’s The Sword And The Stone, a rival of Merlin’s.
This particular episode doesn’t take on a sitcom format, but it does show the audience just why Wanda loves sitcoms. As a child in Sokovia, sitcoms are an escape from the world outside the Maximoff household.
Wanda’s favorite sitcom is The Dick Van Dyke Show, which the first two episodes of WandaVision homage, right down to the furniture and the kitchen. Though she chooses for the family to watch a particular episode of it, amongst the other DVDs the family owns are Bewitched, I Love Lucy, and Malcolm in the Middle, all sitcoms homaged in Westview.
It’s not just Wanda’s choice in sitcoms revealed in her memory of Sokovia. This particular memory is from when she’s ten. She and her brother (wearing their signature red and blue colors) survive the Stark Industries missiles that hit their apartment, but their parents don’t. It’s a story she’s told before, but this time, the audience finds out that she uses a probability hex on the missile. Her original magical powers in the comics used probability hexes to help her win fights. The missile also has the same blinking light and beeping of the toaster in the commercial from the very first episode.
Before Wanda debuted as a “villain” in Avengers: Age Of Ultron, she had to volunteer to be experimented on by Hydra. This episode gives the audience a glimpse at her time there, including Wanda in the same outfit she first appeared on screen in for the credits scene in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
When Wanda interacts with the Infinity Stone that is in Loki’s scepter, she has a vision. The silhouette that appears in the middle of the bright light is pretty close to how Scarlet Witch appears in the comics, crown-like headdress and all. It’s likely a vision of her future.
Also during her time with Hydra is another nod to Wanda’s love for sitcoms. She watches an episode of The Brady Bunch that features Cindy Brady losing her doll. That same doll appears in WandaVision in episode three. It’s the doll Vision practices changing diapers on when they’re preparing for Wanda to give birth.
When Wanda first walks into the SWORD building, just as when Monica Rambeau walked in during episode four, clips from a WHiH news broadcast play above the security desk. The clips focus on people returning to the world as a result of “The Blip.”
As Wanda gets to see Vision’s body, the scene, as in episode five, recalls the visuals of West Coast Avengers #43. This time the audience sees it from her point of view and discovers that Hayward lied to his agents. Wanda takes the time to say goodbye to Vision, echoing a scene in Avengers: Infinity War. In that movie, Vision asks her what she feels from the Infinity Stone in his head, and Wanda responds, “I just feel you,” but here, she tells Vision’s body, “I can’t feel you.”
Wanda drives to Westview after leaving SWORD. Her car has New York plates, a nod to where the Avengers live. In another Easter egg, newer New York plates feature the word “excelsior,” which is the state motto. That’s also comic book legend Stan Lee’s catchphrase. It’s how he used to sign off his letters to readers in comics.
When Wanda reaches Westview, many familiar faces walk around town. One Easter egg fans can spot is that “Phil” puts up an ad for piano lessons. It’s his grandmother’s piano that Wanda turns into cardboard during Vision’s magic act at the start of the season.
Wanda’s reason for coming to Westview reveals itself as a gift from Vision. Before his death, he purchased a plot of land for them to build a house. That spot is where Wanda plays out her sitcom life. His note on the deed is circled with a heart. That same heart marked the calendar in the first episode. Kate Weddle is the person who signs the property over. Weddle is a member of the art department on the show.
As Wanda’s emotions overcome her, her power bursts from her the same way it did in Avengers: Age of Ultron as she learned of Pietro’s death. Likewise, as the house forms around her, it’s the same pixelated building block style used in the credits, which is right out of the House Of M comic books. As Wanda’s wave of magic washes over the town, her trauma is also already evident in the billboard above Westview. It advertises the Lagos paper towels from earlier in the season.
Though the audience has called Wanda the Scarlet Witch in the real world, the MCU never has – until now. Agatha names her as someone who uses chaos magic and calls her a Scarlet Witch.
Chaos magic is a very specific kind of magic in pop culture. It involves changing the very fabric of reality. Fans see Wanda do just that as she rearranges Westview to suit her sitcom fantasy. Reality warping is another name for her gifts in the comics.
Her being called “a” instead of “the” Scarlet Witch by Agatha is also likely a nod to the name being a title in the comics. In one of the characters many retcons, she inherits the title through a long line of witches. Before Wanda, her birth mother Natalya had the same title. They even wear similar costumes in the comics, which the sixth episode of WandaVision provides a nod to. Natalya was likely just as powerful as Wanda, but only appears in a handful of comics. Wanda’s power as the Scarlet Witch, however, is so great, that she’s considered a Nexus being as well, someone whose power can change the future.
Fans have joked that the “Please Stand By” that appears as the credits roll is the real villain of the series, but this episode is the first time the phrase doesn’t appear. There is, however, another scene during the credits.
In it, Hayward reveals to his SWORD agents a reassembled Vision’s body. He uses Wanda’s magic, siphoned from the missile he fired at her, to reanimate Vision, but his body is completely white. That version of Vision exists in the comics. In the same West Coast Avengers storyline that has been referenced with Wanda seeing a disassembled Vision, his reanimated form is white. In that form, however, he doesn’t have his emotions or his own memories.
That makes Vision’s episode seven line of, “it feels like it happened to someone else,” pretty prophetic since that version isn’t in his own body.
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