When the first trailer for VisionQuest was released, it felt like “Oh yeah, that’s right, the government made a white Vision at the end of WandaVision and he blasted off and we haven’t thought or seen him since”. So, it was a bit of a mystery as to what this new miniseries would even be about. Admittedly, every trailer for VisionQuest was more intriguing than the last. Especially the inclusion of Ultron. We haven’t seen that guy since Avengers: Age of Ultron – remember that?
VisionQuest is said to be the last entry in the trilogy – the trilogy being WandaVision, Agatha All Along, and now this show. And it very much has the feel of WandaVision. The show is a little strange, a little confusing, and has that 60s retrofuturism feel to aspects of the show that really make the artificial world that we spend most of our time in really fun. Pair that with actual espionage, identity crises, and some trauma, and it’s a captivating show.
It was a risk for Marvel to make a show where a lot of it takes place within the artificial mind of Vision (“mind palace” for us Sherlock fans), but it works. Not only do we have Vision using his human avatar attempting to understand what made THE Vision love humanity so much, but we also get the human avatars of other previous Tony Stark A.I.s. It’s been really fun getting to see J.A.R.V.I.S., F.R.I.D.A.Y, E.D.I.T.H., and even A.I.s like Dum-E and U interact with one another. They all interact very naturally and their little artificial family is incredibly believable. Pair that with Ultron as the seemingly grumpy uncle in the attic and it works. You wouldn’t think bringing back what is supposed to be one of Marvel’s most terrifying villains in this capacity would work, but it really does. James Spader has been super fun to watch and it’s very obvious that he’s plotting. What is he plotting? Who knows – we only have two episodes so far.
These two episodes have been very captivating to watch and definitely makes us want to view next week for the next pair of episodes. Episode one starts with a great recap of how we got here, so even if you haven’t rewatched WandaVision since it came out, you’ll be caught up enough for VisionQuest. This Vision may have been reconstructed from the body of the Vision we’ve followed throughout the MCU and has the memories of that Vision, but he struggles with the emotions and humanity that the Vision who fell in love with Wanda had. Vision brought back the other A.I.s to help him understand, but it’s clear this is a different Vision. And Paul Bettany is doing a great job. There are moments where Vision is genuinely scary. And while there’s a lot of humor and strangeness in the show, there are some dark moments, and some really good action sequences.
We then meet Tommy in the second episode and so far, his personality and relationship to the memory of Wanda and Vision are much different than Billy’s. So, it’s good to see Marvel treating their experiences differently from one another. And having Tommy be paired with Vision is a good choice. Tommy must grapple with the question who is Vision to me? A question that mirrors what Vision has been asking himself this whole time, which is essentially who am I?
Episode two ended with heartbreak and action and we’ll be tuning in next week. Will you?
A girl with too many fandoms to count.
