WandaVision First Anniversary: The Show's 16 Most Memorable Moments

On the 15th of January, 2021, Marvel Studios made took it's first step into the world of streaming television with the debut of WandaVision. The series starred Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff, and Paul Bettany as The Vision, following the couple's adventures in the idyllic sitcom-like town of Westview, New Jersey. However, it soon becomes clear that life in Westview is not as it seems.

WandaVision proved an instant hit upon it's debut, becoming must-see TV. Even now, a whole year on, the series still regularly appears as a trending topic on social media. To celebrate WandaVision's first anniversary, let's take a look back at the series' most memorable moments.

1. Mr. Hart almost chokes

The plot of WandaVision's first episode is mostly focused on a misunderstanding with a calendar date, which leads into Wanda and Vision struggling to host a successful dinner party for Vision's boss, Mr. Hart, and his wife, Mrs. Hart. After a few sitcom style mishaps, Wanda manages to get the night back on track, until Mr. Hart begins asking questions about Wanda and Vision's life before Westview.. questions the couple are strangely unable to answer. Moments later, Mr. Hart begins to choke. The tone of the whole scene shifts, as Mrs. Hart begs him, then Wanda, to 'stop it'.

Wanda eventually orders Vision to help Mr. Hart, and once he does, everything immediately returns to the light, sitcom tone. However, viewers saw what they saw. The eerie choking scene was the first sign that things were not normal in Westview.

2. Vision gets 'drunk' on gum

At the core of the 'sitcom' plot that dominates WandaVision's early episodes is Wanda's desire to keep her and Vision's identities as a witch and a synthezoid secret from Westview. The secret is first seriously threatened in episode two, 'Don't Touch That Dial!', when Vision, who is not supposed to eat food of any kind, accidentally swallows a piece of gum. The gum messes with his systems and causes him to behave in the way a drunk human would. This leads to him repeatedly using his powers during a magic show Wanda and Vision put on for the town. The couple's secret is only saved by Wanda's quick thinking.

The magic show scene is a huge testament to WandaVision's talented cast as they pull off a scene genuinely matching the humour of 60s sitcoms.

3. Wanda's Pregnancy/The Beekeeper

Soon after Wanda and Vision's surprising success with their magic show, the couple return home, and, while watching a movie together to celebrate their success, discover that Wanda has suddenly become pregnant. As they begin to celebrate their happy news, they hear a strange noise outside. Going to investigate, they see a mysterious beekeeper emerging through a manhole in the middle of the street. In response to the strange event, Wanda utters a single word:

"No."

At this point, time rewinds. Wanda and Vision are back in the house, celebrating her pregnancy, and everything bursts into colour as the sitcom world moves into the 70s. The beekeeper scene was the first time we saw confirmation that Wanda has some sort of control over Westview.

4. Wanda evicts 'Geraldine' from Westview

In the end of episode three, 'Now In Colour', the real world begins to ominously creep back in. After her twin sons Tommy and Billy are born, Wanda makes a reference to her own twin, Pietro. Wanda's friend, 'Geraldine', shaken for a moment, remembers that Pietro was killed by Ultron. After this, Wanda eerily turns on Geraldine. When Vision returns to check on Wanda and the babies, Geraldine is gone, without a trace.

In episode four, 'We Interrupt This Program..', we learn exactly what happened. 'Geraldine' was really Monica Rambeau, a S.W.O.R.D agent accidentally sucked into the Westview anomaly while investigating it. Wanda expelled Monica from Westview once she recognised her as an outsider, and a threat to her 'home'.

5. Back from the Blip

In the opening scene of 'We Interrupt This Program..', we see the aftermath of the Avengers reversal of the Blip from the perspective of Monica Rambeau. When she was blipped, Monica was at her Mother, Maria's hospital bedside following Maria's successful cancer surgery, but wakes in the same spot to find her Mother gone. Navigating the chaotic aftermath as people continue to pop back into existence, Monica discovers tragic news: while Maria had survived her initial surgery, her cancer returned in the years following Monica's disappearance in the blip, and she had since died.

Our first experience of the reversal of the Blip was the triumphant 'Portals' scene in Avengers: Endgame, while Spider-Man: Far From Home played the moment for laughs. Many fans liked seeing an individual character's point of view of 'coming back' from the blip.

6. Wanda confronts S.W.O.R.D

In the series' fifth episode, S.W.O.R.D leader Tyler Hayward hijacks Monica's attempt to peacefully contact Wanda when he has a missile placed in Monica's drone, and attempts to fire it at Wanda and her children while they are out searching for their new dog, Sparky. A furious Wanda exits the hex to confront S.W.O.R.D. While Monica attempts to talk Wanda down, Hayward only aggravates her further.

Wanda angrily warns S.W.O.R.D to stay away from her home, and mind controls the agents to turn their guns on Hayward. Wanda disappears back into the Hex before anything can be resolved. This is the first sign we have that Wanda is fully aware that the real world is still going on outside the hex. However, as we eventually learn, she is not clear at this point on how she made it happen.

7. Wanda rolls the credits on Vision

Meanwhile, during Vision's own episode five subplot, he discovers that things are not quite right in Westview, and that Wanda is somehow responsible. He confronts his wife towards the end of the episode, but Wanda avoids the conversation, even attempting to roll credits and end the 'episode'. Vision refuses, and the argument escalates, until Vision reveals that he has no memory of life before Westview.

At the time, viewers probably assumed that Wanda was blocking Vision's pre-Westview memories from him to hide the knowledge of his death, though we later learn that this was not the case. For a while after this ep aired, Wanda's rolling the credits on Vision became a meme.

8. 'Pietro' arrives

Before Wanda and Vision can resolve their argument, the doorbell rings. Wanda gets up to answer it, and the new arrival raises alarm bells both in and outside of the Westview anomaly. It appears that Wanda's dead brother, Pietro, has been recast.

Evan Peters, the actor playing the 'recast' Pietro, had already played an alternate Quicksilver, Peter Maximoff, in Fox's X-Men films. Many fans hoped that Peters' appearance in WandaVision signalled the beginning of the multiverse. Those fans were rather disappointed that Peters' version of Pietro was simply Ralph Bohner, an actor enchanted by Agatha to play the role.

9. Wanda expands the Hex

For much of episode six, 'All-New Halloween Spooktacular!', Vision embarks on a quest for answers. Upon reaching the edge of the hex, Vision begins to force his way out, hoping to seek help for the Westview residents still trapped inside. However, as he exits, he begins to disentegrate, unable to survive outside the boundarys of the hex.

Billy, with his newly developing powers, senses his Father's distress and rushes to inform Wanda. In a huge burst of red energy, Wanda expands the boundaries of the hex, both saving Vision, and trapping the majority of S.W.O.R.D, transforming them into a circus, along with fan favourite Darcy Lewis. The scene is remembered as one of the most dramatic, visually stunning moments of the series.

10. Monica re-enters the Hex

Ever since being expelled from the hex at the end of episode three, Monica has worked on a way to safely re-enter Westview, hoping to help Wanda. In episode seven, while the vehicle she had built to safely re-enter Westview fails, Monica presses on on her own, despite having been warned that crossing through unprotected could permanently alter her DNA. As she fights her way through the hex, Monica sees various different versions of herself, and hears snippets of voices from her past.

As she finally pushes through, Monica's eyes glow, indicating that she has in fact been changed by the hex. In the comics, Monica becomes a hero usually known as Spectrum, with the ability to convert her body into pure energy.

11. Agatha All Along!

To 'punish' herself for expanding the hex, Wanda plans a day on her own. This includes allowing her neighbour, Agnes, to babysit the twins. However, when she heads over to Agnes's house for comfort after a dramatic confrantation with Monica, Wanda realises that her sons are missing. As she searches for Tommy and Billy in Agnes's basement Wanda discovers a number of spellbooks, before Agnes reveals herself, and her true identity as Agatha Harkness, a witch.

Through a very catchy song, 'Agatha All Along!', Agatha reveals that she has been subtly messing with the events in Westview in a failed attempt to make Wanda break character. 'Agatha All Along!' became almost as big a popculture phenomenon as WandaVision itself, beating Justin Bieber on the charts and scoring a number of award nominations.

12. "What is grief, if not love persevering?"

In episode eight, as Agatha forces Wanda on a painful tour of her past memories, we see a glimpse of Wanda and Vision's early days at the Avengers compound. The scene, set soon after the death of Wanda's brother, depicts the pair discussing grief. During the conversation, Vision says this rather beautiful line:

"What is grief, if not love persevering?"

The quote became beloved almost instantly, appearing on quite a lot of fanmade WandaVision merchandise. Some fans have even declared it to be among the greatest scriptwriting of all time.

13. Wanda creates The Hex

In Wanda's final episode eight memory, after learning she cannot claim Vision's body from S.W.O.R.D, Wanda follows his Will to a plot of land in Westview, New Jersey. From his documents, she learns that he planned to build a home for them there. Learning this news, Wanda collapses in a wave of pain and grief that engulfs Westview, creating the hex, Wanda's house, and a brand-new Vision.

Soon after, Agatha explains that Wanda created the hex from chaos magic, making her the mythical Scarlet Witch.

14. Vision vs Vision

In the post-credits scene of episode 8, we learn that Hayward had custody of Vision's original body the whole time, and uses some of Wanda's magic, taken from the missile from episode five, to revive him, albeit with his original memories locked away. This new, White Vision is ordered to kill Wanda, and almost succeeds until Hex Vision arrives just in time to save her.

After a brief battle, the two Visions enter a philosophical discussion on the ship of Theseus, which leads into the topic of which of them is the 'real' Vision. After having his memories unlocked by Hex Vision, White Vision makes his decision:

"I am Vision."

He then disappears, to parts unknown. Some fans expect the character to return in the upcoming Armor Wars series.

15. Wanda becomes the Scarlet Witch

After a long battle over Westview, Wanda eventually outsmarts Agatha by secretly casting runes around the edge of the hex, rendering Agatha unable to use magic within Westview. Taking back the energy Agatha had drained from her, Wanda makes her full transformation into The Scarlet Witch.

The scene has awesome visuals, and shows off the first in a string of awesome, comic accurate suits that have been made for characters in Phase four of the MCU.

16. Wanda says Goodbye

Despite Wanda’s victory over Agatha, the series was not destined for a happy ending. Errors in the casting of Wanda’s original spell mean that Vision and the twins cannot survive outside of it. Ending the hex means Wanda will lose her family. In WandaVision’s heartbreaking final scenes, Wanda says goodbye, first to her sons, then to Vision, as the hex crumbles around them. Vision, and then the house, are the final things to disappear. Wanda is left alone once more, with Monica Rambeau the only one to acknowledge her sacrifice.

While Vision's original body is still out there, complete with memories, and there are hints in the show's post-credits scene that Wanda may be able to recover the twins, the goodbye scene is still tough to watch.

With WandaVision having been such a success, fans are now even more eager to see the next chapter in the Scarlet Witch's story when she returns to the big screen in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, due to hit heatres in May, 2021.