Spoiler Alert: The following article contains spoilers about Episode 3 “Now in Color” of Disney+’s WandaVision
After all the Dick Van Dyke Show and Bewitched satirical hijinks on WandaVision, the series began to deliver in a way that put fans at the edge of their seats: Wanda Maximoff delivered her twin boys, Thomas and William (Billy) at the end of episode 3.
And in Marvel lore those guys will become the Young Avengers: Wiccan and Speed. Wiccan will have the sorcery powers of his mother, and Speed, the rapid mutant talents of his late uncle, Quicksilver.
From there, the fanboy universe is prognosticating a slew of details: that big bad villain Mephisto is lurking around the corner in the WandaVision neighborhood; Easter eggs sprinkled galore throughout the series’ first three episode indicate this (i.e. the ‘666’ upside down in the toaster commercial, Agnes’ (Kathryn Hahn) unseen husband being named ‘Ralph’ — a name associated with the protagonist from Lord of the Flies, the list goes on). Tommy and Billy are reabsorbed into Mephisto and ultimately cease to exist. Let’s also not forget that Wanda is Magneto’s daughter (Is Michael Fassbender or Ian McKellen reprising their role?).
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We spoke with WandaVision EP, head scribe and creator Jac Schaeffer today who pleaded the 5th to whether most of these Marvel canon details will be played out on the series; in particular the notion that Agnes’ husband Ralph is Mephisto.
“I cannot answer that,” she laughed, explaining to us when asked that “there is not an Easter eggs staff member” on the series who plants hints throughout the show.
The breadcrumbs that are doled out in each episode actually come from the show’s department heads.
“There are so many people who have worked on Marvel productions, it’s a lot of talented people coming together and contributing their ideas that they know,” explains Schaeffer who has a story by credit on the upcoming MCU feature Black Widow.
There are other looming questions in WandaVision, i.e. how S.W.O.R.D., the organization that’s monitoring Vision and Wanda, came to be (in the comics, they’re the counter-terrorism intelligence group that’s the spaced-based counterpart of S.H.I.E.L.D.) and Darcy Lewis’ (Kat Dennings) involvement with the org. The notion is that her Thor character has been monitoring the duo, and she’ll make her debut on WandaVision in the near future. How did Darcy go from wisecracking scientist sidekick to Jane Foster to mutant caretaker?
Schaeffer says, “Like everything in the MCU, there’s the version that exists in the comics, and the version that makes it to the screen.”
Wanda is a pretty powerful person, and it’s agreed she’s created this virtual world. But what’s with her whole sitcom obsession?
“The obsessions with sitcoms are mine, Kevin Feige’s and Matt Shakman’s” says Schaeffer, “Sitcoms are a place of comfort and safety for us as a community and culture. The superhero movies exist in these enormous stakes environments; more than life or death, it’s the fate of the galaxy. In a sitcom everything is going to be fine, no matter what. I think we were fascinated between the intersection of those two things.”
While we know from the promos that a Family Ties homage is at hand in WandaVision, when the sitcom well runs dry, will the show offer alternative universes of popular hour-long TV shows, i.e. Dallas, Love American Style, The Love Boat, B.J. and the Bear, C.H.I.P.S. and The Sopranos? How long will the TV parody conceit hold up on WandaVision?
Promises Schaeffer, “The show will continue to push the boundaries of television and continue to be surprising and subvert expectations.”