In the first five episodes of WandaVision, much of what viewers saw in Westview focused on a very small part of the city and only a handful of its residents. We saw the town square as an important place outside Wanda and Vision’s house and met residents like Agnes (Kathryn Hahn), Dottie (Emma Caulfield), Norm (Asif Ali), Herb (David Payton) and others. What the rest of Westview looks like, however, was a mystery until last week’s Halloween Spooktacular, which revealed a truly disturbing truth about the world of Wanda’s sitcom and revealed another secret.
While Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) and the residents of Westview enjoy a big Halloween party in the town square, Vision (Paul Bettany) claims to be part of the neighborhood watch. What he’s really doing is poking around and exploring Westview further and further from downtown. Like him, he recognizes residents who are in a semi-frozen state, while those who move do so through slow, repetitive movements. One woman even tries to put up some sort of Halloween decoration. As she does so, a tear runs down her cheek, suggesting that she is in pain. In this part of WestView, just off Ellis Avenue, which is at the edge of Wanda’s energy field, Vision even finds Agnes, who is largely stuck and confused about how to get to the town square.
A rather disturbing situation. Those near the town square seem to be going about their daily business, although the Wanda controls life, with general freedom of movement, but those near the edges seem either frozen or caught in a tight traffic loop. The obvious question is why. So far, the series hasn’t offered an explanation, but there are some theories. On the one hand, Wanda is incapable of maintaining such a complete illusion so far from the city center – though we can probably refute this a bit, as Wanda enlarges her bubble at the end of the episode to bring Vision back into her world while bringing in SWORD – literally turning them into clowns. We see these agents moving at a normal speed, so Wanda can stretch it far.
If Wanda manages to control her illusion, it is possible that while she takes over the entire city, the people who are in the center of the city and closest to her – i.e. free to move in her manipulated world – could be of some importance. We have assumed that it is the mountain that connects the main residents of Westview, but they may be there for other reasons as well. If Wanda is indeed being manipulated by dark forces, perhaps the residents of Westview are connected to those dark forces, even as victims. It’s also possible that they are connected to Wanda in ways we don’t know yet.
The only thing that is clear to the people of Westview at this point is that they are suffering from Wanda’s manipulations. At first it seemed mental and emotional, now it seems physical too. Now that Wanda has brought more people into her world – including Darcy (Kat Dennings), who was stuck on a SWORD machine and couldn’t escape – it will be interesting to see how they deal with it as the series embarks on its final three episodes.
The first six episodes of WandaVision are now airing on Disney+.
