Warning: The most major spoilers ahead for WandaVision season 1 finale, “Series Finale.”
In the wake of the WandaVision season 1 finale, “Series Finale,” Twitter was left awash with tears. As star Teyonah Parris teased last month, the episode was “epic and incredibly sad.” Protagonist Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) spends the finale battling scheming baddie Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn); “New” Vision (Paul Bettany) fights White Vision (Paul Bettany, again), allowing the characters’ portrayer, Paul Bettany, to live out his most extravagant acting dreams. The heroes win the day. Yet, in a gutting-but-foreseeable twist, Wanda must dismantle Westview for good — and therefore lose Vision and their two children together, Tommy (Jett Klyne) and Billy (Julian Hilliard), in the process.
Like any immaculate Westview home or the ever-evolving town movie theater, Vision, Tommy, and Billy are all connected to the chaos magic that made Wanda’s version of her sitcom paradise possible. In the final, sob-inducing main section of “Series Finale,” Wanda mourns the imminent death of the family of her creation. In a flash, she finds herself back in the empty brown lot that was meant to be the start of her beautiful life with Vision.
Despite the sadness of WandaVision’s ending — series insiders like director Matt Shakman have said there are “no plans” for a second season “at all” — “Series Finale” still gives you reason to hope. WandaVision is done, but the finale promises, in ways big and small, that we will see Wanda and her lost love Vision back together again. That possibility, more than anything, is the ultimate aim of WandaVision.
Vision himself gives the strongest defence of Wanda and Vision’s continued Marvel Cinematic Universe romance in his “farewell” speech to Wanda. As the Hex closes in on itself, “New” Vision — now totally aware that he is not the reanimated corpse of the Original Vision, but something else entirely — asks Wanda what he is. She explains he is her “sadness,” “hope,” and (mostly) “love” made flesh and wires, through the power of the piece of the Mind Stone that lives inside of her.
“I have been a voice with no body. A body, but not human. And now, a memory made real,” Vision responds, looking back on his journey through the MCU. “Who knows what I might be next?”
If the MCU didn’t really want you to invest in the likelihood of seeing Vision again, it would have stopped the optimistic theorising between WandaVision’s lovers here. “Series Finale” does not. “We have said ‘goodbye’ before. So it stands to reason…” Vision begins. Wanda finishes his sentence, adding, “…We’ll say ‘hello’ again.” Vision is a computer-made man. He can do probabilities. If he believes in this possibility enough to allow it to be his parting words to the love of his life, he is not speaking without pragmatic facts to back him up. Wanda and Vision, in some form or another, will see each other again.
“Series Finale” offers up a few hints about what could be next for these characters. In the mid-point of the episode, White Vision (whose body is that of the Original MCU Vision) and New Vision debate what would make either of them truly Vision. “Memories” is the answer they settle upon. New Vision offers to restore the memories that already exist in White Vision’s wiring and systems. White Vision accepts, and is flooded with the recollections of his past with Wanda. The faux chip in the centre of his head momentarily turns yellow like the Mind Stone of Original Vision; his eyes go from detached ice blue to a techy aquamarine to, finally, a creepily human blue. “I am Vision,” White Vision announces before flying out of Westview, clearly no longer under the control of S.W.O.R.D. or the villainous Tyler Hayward (Josh Stamberg).
It is unclear if White Vision can feel the effects of his memories, or if he is merely able to process them like a computer. Yet, there is now a version of Vision walking around the MCU with a solid understanding of his and Wanda’s star-crossed love story. This development is a good starting point for Wanda, who is left believing everyone she has ever loved is dead and gone when “Series Finale” closes.
If Wanda doesn’t want White Vision — and instead prefers the companionship of Westview’s darling, dead Vision — the WandaVision post-credits scene gives us an inkling that her creations from that reality are not gone forever. In the absolute final shot of “Series Finale,” Wanda, now fully dedicated to her Scarlett Witch studies, hears Tommy and Billy call for help from some alternate dimension or timeline (the closed captions specifically credit the characters for these screams). If Wanda can connect with the children she birthed through chaos magic — why not her husband?
As Vision now famously asked in WandaVision’s penultimate episode, “What is grief, if not love persevering?” No one knows how to keep that love alive (and turn it back into life) better than Wanda Maximoff.
Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?