WandaVision First Anniversary: Remembering The Series' 5 Greatest Red Herrings

January 15 marks the first anniversary of WandaVision, Marvel Studios' first foray into streaming TV. The series, lauded as a celebration of the history of television, focused on Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff/The Scarlet Witch, and Paul Bettany as her husband, the synthezoid Vision, as they become trapped in the seemingly idyllic sitcom world of Westview, New Jersey.

WandaVision became appointment TV in a time where that is no longer the norm, leaving fans on the edge of their seats each week as they tried to unravel the mystery of what was really going on in Westview. Was Wanda at fault, or was someone else to blame? Who were the heroes, and who were the villains? Most of the time, no-one was entirely sure, but that only made the series even more enthralling to viewers.

Over the course of the show's nine episodes, WandaVision implemented a number of false clues and characters intended to delay fans in their quest to solve Westview's biggest mysteries. To celebrate the anniversary of the show's debut, let's take a look back at WandaVision's best red herrings.

1. Mephisto

For the majority of WandaVision's run, comic-savvy fans were convinced that Mephisto, effectively the Marvel Comics version of the devil, would emerge as the series main villain. Nearly every episode brought with it a new Mephisto related theory. Agnes's unseen husband Ralph was Mephisto. Agnes was a servant of Mephisto. Agnes's rabbit, Senor Scratchy, was Mephisto. Dottie was Mephisto, Phil was Mephisto, the fly in Agatha's basement was Mephisto.. You get the point.

The theory was not without merit. In the comics, Wanda is able to create her twin children, Tommy and Billy, by accidentally binding them to pieces of Mephisto's soul, shattered in an earlier battle. Therfore, it seemed well within the realms of possibility that Mephisto could feature in a series starring Wanda and incorporating the birth of her twins. However, by WandaVision's end, Agatha Harkness became the main villain, with no sign of Mephisto at all. Easily the series biggest red herring.

2. Ralph

In nearly every episode of WandaVision, Agnes, Wanda and Vision's nosy next door neighbour, makes some sort of humorous reference to her unseen husband, Ralph. On the surface, it seemed that Ralph was a play on the classic sitcom trope of a character whom is often mentioned, but never seen. However, fans jumped on the absent Ralph as having some greater meaning.

There were multiple theories regarding Ralph's identity. Some believed that Ralph was Mephisto, the true mastermind behind the events in Westview. Others believed that Ralph would turn out to be an Avenger who had been accidentally caught up in the hex over Westview. In the end, Ralph was neither of these, and was in fact not all that relevant to the series at all. While some fans were disappointed in the eventual Ralph reveal, others respected the show for yet another successful red herring.

3. Dottie

The second episode of WandaVision introduced former Buffy The Vampire Slayer star Emma Caulfield as Dottie Jones, another neighbour of Wanda and Vision. Agnes describes Dottie as the Queen of the Cul-de-sac, and claims that Wanda must earn her favour if she is to survive in Westview. Some fans assumed Dottie's importance in the town hierarchy implied greater importance to her character as a whole. There were a few possible clues that this was the case, such as Dottie's being suspicious of Wanda, and her complete absence from S.W.O.R.D's wall of Westview residents to be identified during episode four. A theory arose that Dottie may actually be Clea, a supporting character from the Doctor Strange comics sent to Westview to monitor Wanda.

Instead, Dottie was revealed as Sarah Proctor, just another Westview resident under Wanda's spell. After WandaVision's conclusion, Emma Caulfield revealed that her casting in the series was a deliberate attempt to set up Dottie as a red herring. As a beloved actress from a cult classic show, fans would naturally assume her character was important.

4. Fake Pietro

For many Marvel fans, one of the most surprising , and at the time, exciting moments from WandaVision was when Wanda supposedly recast her dead twin brother, Pietro, at the end of episode five. Pietro's new actor, Evan Peters, had previously played Peter Maximoff, an alternate version of Quicksilver, in Fox's X-Men films.

Many hoped that Peters' appearance in WandaVision was a sign of the multiverse opening up, and that other Fox-verse characters could be merged into the MCU. However, Pietro was soon revealed to be Ralph Bohner, an actor enchanted by Agatha to play Pietro. The multiverse was later opened officially in the Loki series, before being explored further in What If..? and Spider-Man: No Way Home. While many fans assumed Wanda's actions were going to cause the events of the upcoming film Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, but in reality, it seems to be a combination of events in Loki, as well as Strange's own mistakes in No Way Home that trigger MoM's plot.

5. Commercials

The first seven episodes of WandaVision included a commercial at the halfway point which matched the decade in which the episode was set. For example, the first two commercials were in black and white, while the 90s commercial was made with a particular style of stop-motion animation popular during that period. Many fans assumed there was some sort of greater meaning to the commercials, that they may have held clues, or were possibly connected to the series villain.

However, it was eventually revealed that the commercials were simply rather abstract references to events in Wanda's past, or sometimes reflections of her mental state. Originally, the commercials were planned to be revealed as messages from Doctor Strange trying to reach Wanda, but this idea was dropped after it was decided that Strange's presence would detract too much from Wanda's story. While the Multiverse of Madness trailer reveals that Strange was aware of the events in Westview, for some reason, he did not intervene. Perhaps the film, due for release in May, will offer an explanation as to why.

Happy Anniversary, WandaVision!