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WandaVision Episode 5 Recap: "What Happens When He Learns the Truth?"

Photo credit: Disney+/Marvel
Photo credit: Disney+/Marvel

From Esquire

If last week's WandaVision was a big colouring-in exercise after three episodes of set-up and breadcrumb-dropping, this is the first with one foot inside Westview and the other in SWORD's camp.

We're in Roseanne territory now, with Wanda channelling Cindy Lauper, Vision sporting an absolutely excellent Simon Le Bon wafty-wave and Katherine Hahn's Agnes in legwarmers and a gigantic perm. The lads – Tommy and Billy – are babies still until suddenly they're not. Kids grow up so fast these days.

Auntie Agnes, however, has started noticing something's off. "Should we take it from the top?" she asks. Wanda still tries to play happy families, but Vision's rattled by this sudden wobbling of the sets: "Did you really not see what I saw?"

Meanwhile, Monica Rambeau's finally woken up in the field hospital outside after having been pinged out of Westview by Wanda, and the SWORD response is splitting into two factions. Jimmy Woo, Darcy Lewis and Monica take the view that Wanda's grieving and in pain; Hayward from SWORD would quite like to kneecap her.

Photo credit: Disney+/Marvel
Photo credit: Disney+/Marvel

That said, the most disturbing fan theory that had been doing the rounds turned out to be true: at some point after Endgame Wanda turned up at SWORD and stole Vision's corpse, which was being disassembled/dismembered by assorted boffins. "What happens," Darcy asks, "when he learns the truth?" You can't imagine a sentient robot genius would be too pleased to realise that he's a walking skeleton.

The other big question fans have been debating, and which Jimmy wrote on a whiteboard last week – what's with the hexagons? – got a nod too. Darcy's started referring to 'the Maximoff Anomaly' as 'The Hex'. "It’s starting to catch on," she notes.

Soon an attempted Trojan drone attack from SWORD has brought Wanda out of hiding for the first time, not that she's feeling very conciliatory. "I have what I want," Wanda spits in her Sokovian accent. "And no one will ever take it from me again."

That's debatable. The arrival and sudden, sad death of Sparky the dog – who immediately tried to electrocute himself, and whose apparent death by poisoned leaf buffet we didn't actually see – pulls all the strands of the episode together.

"The urge to run from this feeling is powerful. I know," she tells Billy and Tommy, who looked like they were about to pelt themselves into puberty. "I’m trying to tell you there are rules in life. We can’t rush ageing just because it’s convenient, and we can’t reverse death no matter how sad it makes us. Some things are forever."

Photo credit: Disney+/Marvel
Photo credit: Disney+/Marvel

Unfortunately, Vision has sussed out Wanda's game. "You can’t control me, the way you do them," he tells her. "You don’t get to make that choice for me."

She tries to brush it off, rolling the credits as he hounds her, but to no avail. "I can’t remember my life before Westview," he says. "I don't know who I am. I’m scared."

And then, that classic sitcom bombshell: the long-lost brother returns! And this Pietro's a skeezy Noo Yoik sleazebag!

But even there, something's wrong. Well, even more wrong than bringing someone back from the dead. "She recast Pietro?" wonders Darcy. Who actually is that at the door, and who sent them? Hmm.

Some other thoughts:

  • This theme song is the first to feature a Van Halen-esque guitar solo, and, you hope, the last. Good lyrics though: "You wanted a world with a vision of what life could be... we’re making it up as we go along."

  • Paul Bettany's choppy wave goes straight in at number one in the ranking of his hairstyles so far in WandaVision, just ahead of last week's Robert Redford effort.

  • Vision had some big, big looks this episode too: the Larry David ensemble he had in the bit where Sparky turned up was just magnificent.

  • And, actually, Pietro's Hawaiian shirt and leather jacket was very good too.

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