Warning: Contains spoilers for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
Elizabeth Olsen's explanation for why Vision is missing in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness not only makes no sense, but also weakens Scarlet Witch's MCU story. Doctor Strange 2 sees Elizabeth Olsen's Scarlet Witch establish her power within the MCU by making her a multiversal villain driven to her actions by grief. The events of Wandavision saw Wanda Maximoff create a fictional family for herself, consisting of Vision and later two sons, Billy and Tommy. By the end of the Disney+ series, Wanda is forced to release the residents of Westview from her spell, losing her family in the process and embracing her Scarlet Witch persona. However, a version of Vision still exists in the MCU: White Vision has regained his memories and lives, meaning that Wanda's husband (or an incarnation of him) is still out there.
Doctor Strange 2 shows the MCU's Scarlet Witch seeking to gain power over the Multiverse in order to recover her lost children. However, not only is her husband, Vision, not present in the film, but he's hardly even mentioned. The reason for Doctor Strange 2's Vision snub has been explained by Elizabeth Olsen, with the actor saying that "they got divorced. They're separated. She's not wearing a wedding band for a reason," and that "once you're a mother, the loss of your child is more painful than any other loss you could ever experience."
However, this explanation simply doesn't work, and actually undermines the emotional weight of Scarlet Witch's MCU story. Wanda's grief over Vision's death was what led to the creation of her sons in the first place, and though it's understandable that her drive to find Billy and Tommy would be even greater than her Wandavision motivations, Vision being missing in Doctor Strange 2 makes her reasoning seem far less rational by ignoring such a key part of the Scarlet Witch's MCU origin. This is especially true given that Elizabeth Olsen's Vision snub explanation suggests she suddenly doesn't care for an integral figure in her life.
Olsen's explanation that Wanda and Vision "got divorced" off-screen feels distinctly cheap, particularly after the events of Wandavision, in which she effectively enslaved a town out of her grief. With her love for Vision being such a key part of her character arc, having it suddenly disappear due to seemingly off-screen events feels jarring. As Vision was such an integral part of Wanda's MCU origin (particularly in the forming of her Scarlet Witch persona), not including him as part of Doctor Strange 2's cast feels like a very odd way to continue her story.
In this regard, Elizabeth Olsen's explanation of why Vision is absent in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness makes very little sense. The notion that Wanda would simply move on from Vision without any more than a passing mention is far-fetched, even considering that the Scarlet Witch is focused on finding her sons in the multiverse. The implication of Vision's absence is that Wanda deliberately sought a universe without Vision in order to make it easier to integrate herself into Billy and Tommy's lives, which paints her as far more ruthless and calculating than she has been previously. Though the Darkhold's corrupting power over Wanda was ultimately to blame for her villainy (as evidenced by Doctor Strange 2's ending), the idea that she could so easily forget about her love for Vision in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness simply makes no sense.
