WandaVision Episode 4 Spoilers, Review, & Breakdown: What’s Going On with S.W.O.R.D.?
WandaVision finally gave us a look at what’s going on in S.W.O.R.D. while getting more Marvel-ish in Episode 4. Some of us missed the humorous sitcom storyline, but it was important to emphasize what’s going on outside of “the Hex”.
The first scene goes back in time to right after Avengers: Endgame. Iron Man has just snapped his fingers and Monica Rambeau has just been restored from the Blip, but her first thought is not of what happened, but of her mother. Who’s her mother? If you watched Captain Marvel, you would remember that her mother was Maria Rambeau, a fighter pilot hero. But Monica isn’t ready to hear the bad news that would change her for a lifetime…
Rushing around the clinic’s halls searching for her mother, she suddenly encounters the surgeon who was treating a cancer-infected Maria. Monica, of course, remembers what happened and demands the location of her mother. “I’m sorry,” the doctor says sadly. “Your mother just died when the cancer came back.” Apparently, Maria had temporarily healed but died in the emergency room when her sickness abruptly returned.
And poor Monica is devastated by the tragic truth. I mean, many of us wouldn’t be able to deal with the fact that a loved one had just passed away while you couldn’t do anything about it! But the surgeon here is telling the truth: the receptionist also repeats that she had died.
Suddenly, we arrive back in the present time! Monica is no longer weeping over her mother’s death but is a SWORD agent, a captain in the ranks. Therefore, she meets the director Tyler Hayward. Who’s he? A new guy, but someone who hates superheroes and is basically self-centered without any regard to the other agents’ opinions. However, at first, no one could ever tell what he would turn out to be unless they met him in the middle of a mission.
If You Noticed: Traditional Marvel text appears in the bottom left corner that tells us when/where the current scenes are taking place (such as “5 hours later” or “SWORD Headquarters”). This time, the words inform us (finally!) what SWORD stands for. Here are the words behind the acronym which greatly explain the later actions of the organization: (S)entient (W)eapon (O)bservation and (R)esponse (D)ivision!
Scene switch! A truck vrooms down the road as the corner text tells us that this takes place 24 hours later. Then it parks beside the SWORD facility, dropping off a lady. Who? We’ll talk about that in a second.
So, who’s the other woman that got off of her truck? Of course it’s the one and only Darcy Lewis (last seen as Jane Foster’s intern in Thor: The Dark World)! Only she’s an astrophysicist now, also associated with SWORD. And then she gets a brilliant idea when basically no one else can figure out how to contact Wanda…
Upon stumbling on a physio-scope outside of the SWORD location and seeing the faint outlines of Wanda in the 50s, she immediately tells one of her chaperones, “I need a TV. An old one. Like, not flat.” That really helps to explain your point! It’s so true, Darcy, the modern TVs are pretty flat (compared to those of the 1900s).
And inside the headquarters, it ends up working! Jimmy Woo from Ant-Man and the Wasp soon joins Darcy in watching the first episode of the sitcom WandaVision, this explaining who the unknown person watching Wanda and Vision on a 50s TV box was. (This is actually going back in time to explain the events going on outside of Westview starting during the time when WandaVision just aired.) It turns out that only the TV of a specific era – weirdly – can play the episode taking place in that decade.
Okay, theory guys. All your predictions about the identity of the mysterious beekeeper were all wrong (unless you said he was a SWORD agent). I mean, if you didn’t even get it related to S.W.O.R.D., how can that make any sense? There was a big logo right on his back that easily gave away who he was and where he came from! It turns out that he’s nothing but a guy in a suit going in to investigate the anomaly, crawling through the sewer to enter. And those weren’t bees flying around his face: they’re simply insects he collected from the subterranean areas he traveled through.
Episode 2’s voice on the radio is also explained here. Darcy and Jimmy, now good acquaintances, are planning to contact Wanda by getting to her radio.
Darcy stays indoors to stream the sitcom again. Meanwhile, Jimmy Woo is outside and ready to pass the message. Here we go: “Wanda, Wanda, can you hear me? Who’s doing this to you?” All right, a bunch of us also thought that someone was doing it to Wanda. With all the Agatha Harkness/Agnes theories whirling by, it was easy to believe that Wanda was just a victim of the witch’s creation. But Episode 3 changed our minds with that big line at the end: “Oh, don’t worry, darling. I have everything…. under control.” Say that again?!
Outside of Westview, we get to see that same beat-up sign, but look at the small words below “Welcome to Westview”! They read, “Home, it’s where you make it.” This gives us another clue that Wanda is the one… making her home here, and that she’s the one who created everything…
Back to Monica now. There’s a nearly invisible boundary a foot behind the welcoming sign, but you can’t see any people inside. Yep, it’s definitely a missing person case if you ask me (and Jimmy Woo). So, to investigate, Monica walks up to the barrier and tries to touch it, but Woo yells, “Monica, no!” Hey, don’t ignore your hilarious FBI guy! I guess she doesn’t listen to Woo’s warning and ends up getting straight-up sucked into the “Westview anomaly”. There were benefits, though: that big climax in Episode 3 probably wouldn’t have happened without Monica’s help to deliver the twin babies!
While everyone’s away, the camera’s focus zooms on the boxy 70s TV that Darcy had at her desk. Traveling inside, we see the scenes that Wanda cut out of the episode – and a proper ending.
“You’re an intruder.”
“No, Wanda, I’m only your neighbor!”
That drama between Wanda and Monica! It seems like anyone who decides to break reality to Wanda would probably get kicked out of the illusion so that the perfect life could continue. Then, something else gets Wanda’s attention: that SWORD pendant that Monica’s wearing! (Monica, think about this: why are you wearing a necklace that obviously gives away your identity when you’re trying to hide?) Now this assures Wanda’s negative beliefs about her – that she isn’t just a friendly neighbor but an outsider who’s coming in to check on her – so she blasts Monica straight out of the house. There it is: a destroyed library and a demolished wall. At least Wanda’s smart enough to fix it?
Vision comes in and asks her where Monica had gone. (This is a scene that we already saw.) As an excuse for her actions and hiding-reality-from-her-husband thing, Wanda tells him, “Oh, she had to hurry home.” Vision believes Wanda and sits down on the couch with her to watch TV. Each of them pick up a baby, place it in their lap, and smile at each other – just as if everything were fine again.
Inside, not outside. SWORD’s definitely not fine.
