WandaVision Episode 1×09 Review: “The Series Finale”

The final episode of WandaVision, ‘The Series Finale’, reveals the fate of Westview and The Scarlet Witch!

It breaks my heart to have to say goodbye to WandaVision, mainly because it feels like just yesterday the series began. But now it’s over and we’re faced with the very real reality that we’ll never see a Marvel series quite like this one. For those of you that might be confused as to what I’m talking about, WandaVision was a limited series. It’s not like the Netflix Marvel shows that can get ordered for multiple seasons. So the finale of WandaVision’s first season is quite literally the series finale. The rest of Wanda’s adventure will carry on in the MCU movies, like Doctor Strange: The Multiverse of Madness. 

WandaVision’s final episode, ‘The Series Finale’ gave us the final showdown between Wanda and Agatha. Much of the penultimate episode from last week was spent getting the audience up to speed as to what exactly pushed Wanda over the edge and made her form her “hex” over the city of Westview. This episode was the resolution of everything, which is why it got a slightly longer runtime than the other episodes of the show. The episode picks up right where we left off—with Agatha holding Billy and Tommy hostage. 

One thing that I absolutely loved about ‘The Series Finale’ was that it was full of action. I would say that a majority of the 50-minute runtime was fight scenes and large explosive displays of power. In fact, right off the bat, Wanda and Agatha begin to duel in the streets of Westview. They throw magical attacks at one another and Wanda even goes as far as to toss a whole car at Agatha to stop her from attacking the twins. And then not even more than a few seconds later, White Vision and Vision face off in the skies. 

Quickly, Agatha reveals her true intentions. She wants Wanda’s power. As it turns out, Agatha didn’t just call Wanda “The Scarlet Witch” for a cool little name drop. The MCU is doing something cool with this mythos, turning the concept of “The Scarlet Witch” into a mythical being as described in the Darkhold. We find out that the Scarlet Witch (as an entity) is more powerful than the Sorcerer Supreme (Doctor Strange) and that it is meant to destroy the world. Agatha wants that power for herself, because she believes that Wanda is not equipped enough to handle it. 

This will be interesting because it seems as though the MCU is setting Scarlet Witch up to be something akin to the Phoenix Force from the X-Men comics. Now, we’ve seen the “Phoenix” used twice in FOX’s interpretations of The Dark Phoenix Saga from the comics, once in 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand and more recently in 2019’s Dark Phoenix. Both of those films are generally regarded as horrendous misinterpretations of the comic story, so I’m willing to bet that the MCU won’t be touching that story for quite some time. Instead, it seems like they’re doing something similar, yet unique, with this whole “Scarlet Witch” business. 

Agatha is determined throughout the episode to make Wanda see the errors of her ways and understand that she is unfit to be the Scarlet Witch. She brings the residents of Westview out from under Wanda’s control, allowing them to finally speak freely. Wanda learns that while everybody was under her control, they were not living pleasant lives. But rather, they were being tortured by Wanda’s own nightmares and unable to break free from her control. This leads Wanda to make the decision to open the “hex” and let everybody free. 

However, none of Wanda’s creations can exist outside the barrier of the Hex. So just as soon as she opens everything up, Vision, Billy, and Tommy begin to disintegrate. Naturally, Wanda reforms the Hex in an effort to keep her family alive. They regroup and confront their new threats. White Vision, Agatha, and Hayward with his hoard of angry S.W.O.R.D agents that still want to take her down. We get an awesome Incredibles-type scene where each character takes on their own opponent. Wanda takes on Agatha, Vision takes on White Vision, and Billy and Tommy take on the S.W.O.R.D agents. 

Something that I wasn’t fond of with ‘The Series Finale’ was Hayward’s plan and fate. Hayward draws his gun and attempts to shoot both Billy and Tommy in the middle of the street, but Monica jumps into action and uses her phasing powers to protect them from gunfire. Hayward then attempts to make his getaway in a car, but is then t-boned by Darcy in her circus van. And then the next time that we see Hayward, he’s being arrest by Woo and the FBI. 

I’m disappointed because throughout the series, Hayward was presented as being secretive and determined to take down Wanda. And yet, it was only in the last episode’s end credit scene that we found out Hayward had restored the original Vision’s body and reformed him into White Vision. We still don’t really know why he wanted so badly to take down Wanda and why he had so much resentment towards her and her family. I mean, he literally tries to shoot two kids dead in broad daylight with the rest of his agents watching. It felt somewhat out of place and with no real explanation as to what his endgame really was. 

Anyways, White Vision and Vision get back to fighting, halting their brawl in the town’s library when White Vision announces his intentions. He says that he’s been programmed to take down “Vision”, only to immediately get stumped when Wanda’s Vision notes he isn’t the real, original Vision. The two then exchange some adorable nerdy literature babble, before Vision restores White Vision’s memories of everything from the past movies. And then, that’s kind of the end of the two fighting. 

This is another thing that left me stumped. White Vision was definitely revealed in last week’s end credit scene to be a formidable threat, but then gets easily defeated with some words and memories. And then just as soon as he’s restored, we don’t see him again. White Vision ends as the series’ biggest mystery, yet to be answered, because we don’t even know what happens to him. Where does he go? What does it think? Is he just out there in the world, totally lost with his newfound memories? This is one loose end that feels like it should have been resolved in the finale, but it wasn’t. 

Meanwhile, Wanda and Agatha continue to battle. Wanda infiltrates Agatha’s mind and sends her back to the Salem Witch Trials to scare her, but the whole thing backfires. The two fight again and Wanda decides that she’s officially had enough. She seemingly doesn’t want to be a witch and she doesn’t want her powers, so she trades all of her powers to Agatha—giving her what she wants. But then the absolutely best part of the episode hits and we get a fantastic plot twist. 

Wanda reveals she printed runes on the walls of “The Hex”, meaning that only the witch who cast the runes has the ability to use her powers, leaving Agatha completely defenseless. This is even more of a burn on Agatha, because she was the one who inadvertently taught Wanda about using runes in such a way during the opening scene of last week’s episode. Well, Wanda proceeds to take back all of the power she handed off to Agatha, drawing the power back into herself, and finally becoming the Scarlet Witch. 

We finally get the official reveal of Wanda’s superhero costume as The Scarlet Witch, which looks amazing. It obviously draws inspiration from the classic Scarlet Witch costume from the comics, the one that we saw brought to life during WandaVision’s Halloween episode. But, Wanda’s costume is modernized and fits in with the rest of the superheroes that inhabit the MCU world. I can’t wait to see her in action when Doctor Strange’s sequel movie comes out in 2022. I feel like the costume is going to look even better on the big screen. 

Wanda defeats Agatha, using her powers to revert Agatha back to Agnes—sentencing her to spend the rest of her life in Westview as the nosy neighbor that she played for the first handful of episodes in WandaVision. However, we get the hint that we might not be seeing the last of Agatha. Before Wanda reverts her back to being Agnes, Agatha proclaims that Wanda will need her again sometime in the future. To which Wanda responds that she’ll at least know where to find Agatha if that situation comes around. 

Personally, I think that this is obvious foreshadowing. Wanda doesn’t truly have full control over her powers, nor does she know how to use them. Even though Agatha is evil, she knows more about magic and can still teach Wanda a lot. I think that somewhere in the MCU, Agatha will return to be somewhat more of a mentor to Wanda. This is closer to what their relationship is in the comics, as opposed to Agatha being Wanda’s actual nemesis. I wouldn’t be surprised if Agatha returns for Multiverse of Madness. 

Obviously, it can’t be an episode of WandaVision without some heartbreak. And ‘The Series Finale’ delivers. Wanda and the rest of her family return to their home in Westview as night draws closer. Wanda decides that it’s time to stop playing pretend. She has to accept reality, so she allows for “The Hex” to begin reclaiming Westview and reverting everything back to normal. However, in the time before the wave of the Hex washes over Wanda, she and Vision tuck the twins into bed for the night and then reunite downstairs to say their final goodbye. 

I knew that this would be the ending because I knew that the show was taking major beats from the comics. And in the comics, Wanda doesn’t get to keep Billy and Tommy. In the comics, Billy and Tommy were created using pieces of Mephisto’s soul, leading him to reclaim his soul in the future. This does away with the twins, even though they go on to get reincarnated and reunite with their mother. Now, WandaVision doesn’t end up bringing in Mephisto, much to a lot of theorists’ disappointment. However, as “the hex” washes over Westview, Billy and Tommy fade out of existence alongside Vision. 

Once everything is all cleaned up, Wanda finds herself back in the empty lot in Westview and walks into town. She says goodbye to Monica and then leaves the town for good, accepting the fact that the townspeople she kidnapped will never forgive her for her actions. 

Much like the previous two episodes, ‘The Series Finale’ includes a bonus end credit scene. In fact, it contains two. The first one sees Monica meet up with a Skrull, who reveals that Nick Fury wants to speak with her up in space. This seems to set up the events of Captain Marvel 2 or Secret Invasion. Possibly even both. The second end-credit scene reveals that Wanda has decided to spend her time in seclusion up in the snowy mountains, where we see the Scarlet Witch reading through the Darkhold. We then hear Billy and Tommy crying out for their mother before the show finally ends. 

Personally, I thought that ‘The Series Finale” did a great job at wrapping up WandaVision, despite not delivering on any of the popular theories that fans got a bit crazy with throughout the weeks. The show focused on Wanda handling her grief and breaking into her future as The Scarlet Witch. It was simple, yet powerful, and so much fun to watch. I am so excited to see what the MCU has in store for her character. And I’m hoping that it doesn’t take too long before we get to see if Vision, Billy, and Tommy return in future shows or films. 

But what did you guys think about WandaVision’s ‘The Series Finale’? 

Let us know in the comments below!

Author: Rodney

Rodney has a bachelor’s degree in English Literature. Aspiring to one day write television shows and novels, he’s an avid slash-shipper and enthusiast for all things gay. Rodney’s especially a lover of magic, mystery, and superheroes—holding Harry Potter, the X-Men, and Scooby-Doo close as his own personal favorites. But when he’s not fantasizing about how cool it would be to have magic, he’s busy writing fanfiction and re-watching old TV shows.

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