WandaVision: Who Controls the Sitcom Reality of the Hex?

The mystery surrounding WandaVision is only growing more and more complex, as the Disney+ exclusive series shifts a lot of what people thought they were expecting from a Marvel Cinematic Universe installment. Even as more details have begun to be revealed surrounding the “Westview anomaly” — the sitcom-themed alternate reality that Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) and The Vision (Paul Bettany) have taken residence in — there are still a lot of questions being raised. That has particularly been the case with the Westview anomaly itself — while multiple characters in WandaVision seem to believe that Wanda herself is controlling it, the series’ most recent episode began to throw that into question. Spoilers for episode 6 of WandaVision, “A Very Halloween Spooktacular!”, below! Only look if you want to know!

Outside of a few sequences in the present day, the majority of the episode took place in a version of Westview themed around the sitcoms of the late 1990s-early 2000s. The plot of the “episode” saw Wanda, Vision, and their kids, Billy (Julian Hilliard) and Tommy (Jett Klyne) celebrating their first Halloween as a family, something that had become slightly complicated by the arrival of Pietro Maximoff (Evan Peters).

Midway through the episode, Pietro broke the proverbial fourth wall and asked Wanda how exactly she created Westview, and particularly how she decided to have more children appear in the town during the Halloween festivities, after they had noticeably been absent from the town in prior episodes. Wanda told Pietro that she doesn’t actually know how she did so — she just remembered “feeling completely alone” and overcome with grief.

Sure, a lot of the text of WandaVision has argued that she’s responsible for the Westview anomaly, right down to her significantly expanding out its borders after hearing that Vision tried to escape. But just as much of the series has begun to hint that even if Wanda has some form of control over Westview, she might not be the only one who does. Everything from Pietro coming back (and being “recast”, as Darcy Lewis (Kat Dennings) remarks in the episode) to the sheer number of people existing and going about their era-appropriate lives in Westview has been established to not entirely be her doing.

So, if Wanda isn’t entirely in control of the “hex” that is the Westview anomaly — who is? One of the biggest theories remains Mephisto, who famously had a dark tie to the birth of Billy and Tommy in the comics, after Wanda unintentionally used a portion of his soul to bring them into existence. Mephisto then decided to reabsorb the twins into himself, causing mental trauma for Wanda that resulted in her controversial reality-warping decision in House of M. Even as fans have begun to doubt Mephisto’s role in WandaVision, the series continues to make references to this storyline, whether through the creepy “for the children” mantra in Episode 2, or through Pietro referring to Billy and Tommy as “devil spawn” in Episode 6.

Of course, there’s also Agnes (Kathryn Hahn), who many have speculated to be a version of the ancient Marvel Comics witch Agatha Harkness. Bits of the show — particularly Episode 5 — seemed to indicate that Agnes has some form of control or knowledge over what’s going on in Westview.

A newer theory has also popped up surrounding the Marvel villain Nightmare, with the word “nightmare” being brought up multiple times in Episode 6 alone. In the comics, Nightmare serves as the ruler of the Dream Dimension and has the ability to control and draw energy from people’s subconscious. While the nature of Nightmare’s powers would have to be retrofitted slightly to work with what’s already been established in WandaVision, the idea of him (or her) imprisoning Wanda in an increasingly-hellish sitcom-themed world doesn’t seem out of the realm of possibility.

WandaVision debuts new episodes on Disney+ every Friday. If you haven’t signed up for Disney+ yet, you can try it out here.

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