In the latest “WandaVision” recap, Monica Rambeau returns to work and gets put on a missing persons case that brings her to a town that doesn’t exist…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
Patience is most definitely a virtue.
After three episodes of “WandaVision” only offered hints at what was really happening in the pseudo-sitcom world inhabited by Wanda Maximoff and Vision, a number of answered were finally revealed in episode four.
While the latest installment didn’t tell everything that’s happening — partially because the people involved in this episode don’t even know that answer just yet — there was far more explained in this episode than any previous.
The end of last week’s episode saw “Geraldine” — a woman we know is actually Monica Rambeau — mention to Wanda that her brother Pietro was killed by Ultron. That little slice of reality awoke Wanda to a reality she clearly prefers to forget as she quickly turned on Geraldine and told her to leave the house.
A few moments later when Vision re-entered, Geraldine had mysteriously disappeared with Wanda explaining that she just went home.
In the closing moments we found Monica being vanquished from some kind of energy field as she lands on the ground and suddenly she’s swarmed by agents checking on her condition.
How did Monica end up in Wanda’s sitcom? And what exactly is Wanda’s sitcom reality?
Let’s dive into those questions as we recap the latest installment of “WandaVision” with episode four…
It’s All Wanda
When the Avengers were able to time travel and retrieve all of the Infinity Stones in order to undo the “blip” where Thanos wiped out half of life in the universe, we only witnessed the numerous heroes returning to life in order to come back and battle the Mad Titan one last time. What we didn’t see was the actual moment when they were reanimated after turning into ash at the moment Thanos snapped his fingers.
In the latest episode of “WandaVision” we actually see Monica Rambeau being brought back into existence out of nothing after she was a victim of “the blip.” It seems Monica was resting in a chair in a hospital room looking over her mother Maria Rambeau, who had been admitted for surgery to her cancer.
After frantically wandering the hallways looking for answers as more and more people suddenly return to life, Monica finally tracks down a doctor that recognizes her. That’s when she has to learn the awful truth of what really happened.
Five years earlier, Monica disappeared but her mother was left behind and sadly two years after her surgery, Maria died.
Just as a reminder — Maria Lambeau was a pilot and friend of Carol Danvers before and after she became Captain Marvel. Maria’s daughter Monica also appeared in the “Captain Marvel” movie as a child back in 1995 but now that she’s grown up, she’s become a member of S.W.O.R.D. — Sentient Weapon Observation and Response Division — under her mother’s supervision.
Now Monica has returned five years after the blip and her mother’s gone and the world is a much different place after the Avengers defeated Thanos.
Following that revelation, Monica returns to work at S.W.O.R.D. where she’s greeted by the new acting director Tyler Hayward, who took over after Maria’s death. It seems Monica was meant to eventually become director but when she disappeared, the world moved on without her.
Since the battle took place in “Avengers: Endgame,” the responsibilities of S.W.O.R.D. have changed and Maria set up protocols for agents just in case any of them returned from the dead after the blip. Part of those orders were none of those agents would be allowed to travel into space, which grounds Monica to Earth and that is seemingly the last place she wants to be right now.
Still, Monica is anxious to get back to work so Director Hayward sends her to New Jersey to work alongside the FBI because they’ve requested use of a S.W.O.R.D. imaging drone on a particularly important missing persons case.
As disappointed as Monica might be that she’s stuck not flying, she takes the assignment and drives to New Jersey where she meets up with Agent Jimmy Woo, who should be recognized after his appearance as Scott Lang’s parole officer in “Ant-Man and the Wasp.”
Agent Woo welcomes Monica to Westview, New Jersey while explaining the complexities of the case he’s dealing with currently.
It seems his missing person is somebody who was living in witness protection but not only have they disappeared off the face of the Earth, anybody who has ever known them suddenly has no memory of them existing at all. Add to that, the local sheriffs are particularly weirded out by this entire situation because it seems the town of Westview, New Jersey doesn’t actually exist.
The cops tell Monica and Agent Woo that they reside in Eastview but no such town of Westview exists despite the fact that they can see a sign with the name on it and a quaint group of neighborhoods clearly just up the road. Once the sheriffs are dismissed, Monica gets the drone ready to send inside for a look but after a few seconds, it just disappears into thin air.
That’s when Monica realizes that the town of Westview is encased by some kind of energy field. She touches with her hand, despite Agent Woo’s warnings, and just as her hand slips through, she’s sucked into the town except it’s as if she’s completely disappeared with no trace.
With Agent Rambeau now missing as well, the rest of S.W.O.R.D. is called into action to monitor the town to find out what exactly is happening.
Among the people sent to investigate is Dr. Darcy Lewis, who you should recognize from her previous appearances in “Thor” and “Thor: The Dark World.” When last we saw Darcy, she was Jane Foster’s intern but it seems she’s now graduated to become Dr. Darcy Lewis, a highly regarded astrophysicist in her own right.
Once she arrives, Darcy scans the town and picks up massive amounts of CMBR — cosmic microwave background radiation. CMBR is an actual scientific term used to describe an electromagnetic radiation, which is a remnant from the early stage of the universe. CMBR is an essential component in explaining the Big Bang, which is how the universe was created.
Embedded within the CMBR are larger microwaves and once Darcy begins scanning those, she discovers a sitcom actually taking place over the airwaves.
After retrieving an old tube style television with an antenna, Darcy begins receiving a signal that displays the sitcom that’s been happening during the first three episodes of “WandaVision.”
The first two people recognized are Wanda Maximoff and Vision except for one problem — Agent Woo recognizes that Vision is dead. He was killed by Thanos during the events of “Avengers: Infinity War” when the Infinity Stone implanted in his head was ripped out and he did not come back from that.
Director Hayward tells the team to continue the investigation and while retrieving information on Monica Rambeau remains priority, Agent Woo decides to start at the beginning with his missing persons case. That means watching each episode of the sitcom taking place inside the Westview anomaly and identifying the real people playing these parts.
Mr. and Mrs. Hart from the first episode are played by Todd and Sharon Davis. Norm from Vision’s office is actually Abhilash Tandon. Harold Copter is Jones. Isabel Matsueida is Beverly and John Collins is Herb and it seems all of these people are random missing residents from around New Jersey.
As the team continues to identify people, Darcy is shocked to see Monica has been absorbed into this sitcom as well as a neighbor known as “Geraldine.”
At this point, S.W.O.R.D. is assuming that somebody has kidnapped Wanda and she’s being trapped in this weird sitcom universe with Vision, who is actually dead.
To make matters even stranger, Darcy is shown an image captured during one of the episodes of the drone that Monica sent into retrieve imagery from the town before it disappeared. Remember that strange red and gold helicopter that appeared in color during the first episode? That was the drone Monica flew into Westview except it disappeared and transformed into something else before landing in the bushes outside Wanda’s home.
In order to retrieve more information, Director Hayward sends an agent underground in hopes of getting access to the town while Darcy decides to attempt to reach out to Wanda through the real radio waves she’s picking up from inside. The next time Wanda gets near a radio — and this is what happened during episode 2 when she’s talking to Dottie and we hear the voice speak to her through static.
That voice belonged to Agent Woo, who was trying to break through the energy field by asking again and again ‘who’s doing this to you, Wanda?’
Sadly, the radio explodes and the S.W.O.R.D. team is no close to any answers about what’s happening inside this energy field. To make matters worse, the agent sent underground is the one we saw pop up in a beekeeper’s outfit that just suddenly disappeared when Wanda saw him and said ‘no.’
As Darcy and Agent Woo continue to monitor the most recent episode where Wanda gave birth to twins, they witness the moment when Monica mentions that Ultron killed her brother Pietro. They realize right away that this is the first time their reality has ever been mentioned in this alternate sitcom world.
A moment later, the scene resets and Wanda is rocking her babies with Vision on the couch as the “episode” comes to an end. Darcy attempts to rewind the footage but all they can see is a weird glitch on the screen and suddenly Monica has disappeared and Wanda is sitting their happily with Vision and the twins.
Back inside the Westview bubble, we see what actually happened.
Wanda realized that “Geraldine” wasn’t her neighbor at all and instead this was somebody trying to break into her perfect sitcom world. Suddenly, Wanda’s powers materialize and she blasts Monica through the entire house and the rest of the neighborhood as she’s cast out of the energy field. Wanda then reconstructs the entire town back to the way it was before by using her powers.
Back inside, Wanda has a momentary lapse where she sees Vision after he died and his head had been ripped apart by Thanos but a quick blink later and he’s back to normal. Vision wonders if they need to leave this place but Wanda promises everything is all right and they can go back to being one big happy family.
She then returns to that perfect sitcom world where she’s sitting on the couch next to Vision as they rock their baby boys back to sleep.
As for Monica after she’s thrown out of the energy field and hits the ground, the rest of the S.W.O.R.D. agents surround her and that’s when they learn the truth of what’s actually happening.
Nobody is doing this to Wanda.
Wanda is doing it to everybody else.
“It’s Wanda. It’s all Wanda.”
~ Monica
In other words, this weird alternate sitcom reality has been created by Wanda Maximoff — just as we’ve kind of assumed all along — as she continues to struggle with the grief and loss from Vision’s death after she already saw her brother killed by Ultron. Not only as she created this energy field encapsulating a town that doesn’t actually exist, but she’s kidnapped dozens of people in order to fill the roles of her friends and neighbors.
It’s also worth noting that for all the identifications made, Wanda’s best pal and next door neighbor Agnes was not among them. Perhaps “Agnes” is the person under witness protection who Agent Woo was sent to retrieve in the first place?
Obviously this is just one small piece of the pie but now we’re beginning to peel back the layers on what’s actually been happening as Wanda’s fractured reality has now created an entire world where she can continue living happily with Vision despite the fact that he’s long since dead.
“WandaVision” will return for episode 5 next Friday on Disney+.
