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"This is chaos magic and that makes you the Scarlet Witch"
The end is near as the season finale of this incredible MCU T.V show is next week. The eighth episode, titled Previously On, takes us on insightful journeys of both Agatha Harkness and Wanda's pasts. This episode provided a lot to dissect, and with the season coming to an end, I have certain things I would like to see. With that being said, let's get to it.
This episode starts right where the last ended in Agatha's witchy basement. It is revealed that Harkness was part of a coven in Salem during the trials. She killed all her coven members, including her mother, after they accused her of practicing dark magic and presumably attempted to strip her of magic. In this scene, she also mentions how the magic called to her later. She says the same thing about Westview. The witch then gives a brief lesson and demonstration on the difficulties of learning magic, suggesting what Wanda did should have been impossible. Of course, Wanda has never seen herself as a magic wielder, so she seems to be taken aback. At this point, Agatha takes the audience and Wanda on a journey through the Avengers past.
We are first taken to the tragic scene we had only heard about until now, the night the Maximoff household was bombed, and Wanda's parents died. In this scene, Wanda's love for old family sitcoms is explained as the family had boxsets of every sitcom she adapted that they would watch together with The Dick Van Dyke Show being her favorite. As we were already aware, the two siblings were trapped with what was thought to be a faulty Stark Industries bomb. Agatha shed light that this moment showcased that Wanda was a baby witch, and she unknowingly cast a safety hex, which was why the bomb didn't go off and why she and her brother survived. I also have my suspicions that their parents might not be as dead as previously thought, but that's just a hunch I have nothing to back up with. Next, we go to when Wanda was with Hydra and interacted with the mind stone. We see that before she can even get to the stone, it reacts to her. As this is happening, we see a mysterious silhouette that looks like the classic Scarlet Witch costume. Later after visiting a tender moment between Wanda and Vision, we are taken to the day Wanda visited S.O.W.R.D headquarters.
The scene was the most revealing and terrifying moment to me in this episode as we see what Hayward is truly capable of. This is terrifying to me because it is revealed that he manipulated all of this with no powers whatsoever. He also outright lied about Wanda storming S.O.W.R.D and used the video footage to help him towards his mission of getting Vision. I think he hoped Wanda would have been able to bring Vision back to life right there, but he still definitely got what he wanted, as we see in the after credit, but I'm getting ahead of myself. After seeing what had become of Vision, she leaves and heads to Westview, where, at some point, Vision had bought a lot of land to build a house for him and Wanda to grow old in. This is the moment Wanda creates the Hex and manifests an entirely new Vision.
After the little field trip to the past is over, the episode's ending is perhaps the biggest moment in all of Wanda's MCU history. In full crazy witch clothing holding Billy and Tommy by magic leashes, she reveals that Wanda is a wielder of chaos magic which only a Scarlet Witch can do. This is the first moment Wanda is referred to as her alias in the MCU, and it makes it even cooler that she is given it for an actual reason. This is the ending of the official episode; however, as I shortly touched on, there is an after-credits scene with Hayward. We see the magic-induced drone from a previous episode hooked up to a machine with the actual Vision put back together and upgraded in this scene. The black and white Vision clicks back online, and now Hayward has a Vision at his disposal.
Now here are my hot takes for this episode. One, I love the updated backstory of Wanda and all the potential it contains. Two, Hayward is the most terrifying non-powered person in the MCU, and I hope he dies soon. And Three, I will be so angry if Doctor Strange doesn't at the very least have an after-credits cameo scene in the final episode. Strange is supposed to be aware of all things magical, so if he doesn't show up, I will view that as a major plot hole. It will also make sense knowing Wanda will be in Multiverse of Madness. This now makes even more sense as we now know that Wanda is indeed a witch, so Strange will presumably be helping her understand herself more. As a final thought, I'm also slightly disappointed we didn't see Monica at all in this episode. I mean, she just got her powers. I wanted to see more. However, that being said, I still give this episode a high rating of 9/10 stars and expect the finale to score a 10.
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