WandaVision Episode 5 Biggest Theories & Questions Answered

WandaVision episode 5 has arrived on Disney+, and the world of Westview is beginning to unravel as more questions and cliffhangers come to the forefront. Episode 4 finally gave viewers a peek outside the sitcom world of Scarlet Witch’s creation and showed the joint FBI/SWORD operation going on beyond her bubble. Now that both sides have been shown, the tension in WandaVision is beginning to ramp up significantly.

Episode 5 jumps between Wanda and Vision’s creepily idyllic sitcom world and the military response being organized outside the Westview hex barrier. Within, the couple’s recently born children, Tommy and Billy, begin growing up at an alarming rate. The citizens of Westview show brief signs of consciousness, revealing that Wanda is controlling the whole town in brutal, painful ways to maintain her bizarre fantasy. When SWORD attempts to kill her to save the town, Wanda confronts the force outside the barrier – her Sokovian accent returned – and orders them to leave. In the final scene, Vision demands an explanation from Wanda before a ring at the doorbell reveals a truly shocking character return – Scarlet Witch’s brother Quicksilver, played by X-Men’s Evan Peters.

After the events of episode 5, WandaVision is now carrying serious momentum. The conflict between SWORD and Scarlet Witch will only intensify as she continues to hold the town of Westview hostage, and the return of Pietro Maximoff is baffling for a number of reasons – is Fox’s X-Men universe crossing into the MCU through the multiverse? Has Quicksilver been resurrected from the dead? Here are the biggest questions and theories after WandaVision episode 5.

How Does Agnes Know What’s Going On In WandaVision?

WandaVision Episode 5 - Agnes Breaks Character

WandaVision episode 5 reveals that the citizens of Westview are being mind-controlled by Scarlet Witch, their normal personalities and memories replaced with flat sitcom caricatures. However, an early scene shows that one neighbor doesn’t seem to be under the spell. When Agnes comes over to help get the babies to sleep, she beaks the fourth wall after a panicked reaction from Vision. “Should we just take it from the top?” she asks Wanda, fearfully, suggesting that Agnes is aware of what’s happening around her, unlike the other townsfolk.

The popular theory since before WandaVision even premiered has been that Agnes is actually the witch Agatha Harkness from the Marvel comics. It would make sense for her to be someone of note for a few reasons: she’s Wanda’s closest friend in Westview, she hasn’t been identified by Jimmy Woo and Darcy Lewis, and she's seemed to be freer of the mental shackles keeping everyone else in Westview in line. Wanda tells Vision at the end of the episode that she doesn’t remember how the whole Westview situation began, and it’s possible that Agnes is secretly pulling some strings behind the scenes. Or perhaps her apparent free will is the result of some other discrepancy in Scarlet Witch’s grand illusion.

Are Vision, Tommy And Billy Real In WandaVision?

In WandaVision episode 5, security footage from nine days prior is shown, revealing that Scarlet Witch broke into SWORD’s headquarters and stole the remains of Vision’s body, which apparently went against his own wishes before death. That means the Vision seen in WandaVision is likely real, or at least the same physically. Whether or not he’s actually been resurrected by Wanda remains unclear. Wanda has stood firm that they need to stay in Westview, which might suggest there’s something about the area that’s giving her the power necessary to keep him alive. Since both Vision and Scarlet Witch were born of the Mind Stone, it seems plausible if her abilities were sufficiently amplified.

Their two sons, however, are a bit more complicated. They appear to be sentient and not controlled by Wanda’s magic, as she is unable to make them fall asleep or keep them from growing older. It also seems that they wield some part of her own reality-altering powers, as evidenced by their unsettling growth spurts. But are they actually real? In the Marvel comics, Scarlet Witch creates children for herself using magic from Mephisto – magic that is later absorbed into him, killing her twins in the process. Darcy also confirms in the episode that Tommy and Billy were not previously residents of Westview; they seem to be brand-neww. It’s likely that whatever other forces are at play maintaining Wanda’s illusion – possibly the MCU's own version of Mephisto – are also the key to understanding Tommy and Billy.

Is Scarlet Witch Really In Control In WandaVision?

Scarlet Witch in Endgame and Wanda at SWORD in WandaVision

WandaVision episode 4 gave a pretty strong indication that Wanda herself was the villain of the story, and that perspective only gets stronger in episode 5. Her confrontation with SWORD in particular shows her in a fairly antagonistic light as it reveals she is aware of what she’s doing to Westview, and that she has no plans of stopping no matter the harm to the town’s residents. No matter how hard her life has been of late, that behavior steps pretty far into reprehensible villain territory.

Even still, there are a few indications in episode 5 that Scarlet Witch isn’t fully in control after all. When Vision confronts her about her controlling the townsfolk, she says she doesn’t know how it started. It’s pretty clear her magic is being used to manipulate the minds of people, but it’s possible she was either coerced, tricked or forced to begin the illusion. That fits with fan theories that an external force like Agnes/Agatha Harkness or Mephisto could be working in the shadows in WandaVision, and it also might explain why Wanda is so adamant about staying. Perhaps now that she has begun the magic, she is somehow unable to leave.

Why Are There No Children In Westview?

WandaVision Episode 5 - Tommy and Billy at Aquarium

At the end of WandaVision episode 5, Vision demands answers from Wanda about what she’s doing in Westview. One of the things he brings up is that the town has no children save for Tommy and Billy. Up until now, the absence of children seemed to simply be the result of what parts of town were being shown. However, it now sounds like there aren’t any kids in Westview, period.

The reason for this is a mystery. Obviously, the fake reality Scarlet Witch has created is largely centered on her desire to have children, which could be part of why no other kids are seen. Westview is supposed to be home to thousands of people, but only a few have appeared on the sitcom being broadcast to SWORD. It’ possible that Wanda can only control so many people at once, but if that’s the case, where are all the other residents being held?

How Is Evan Peter’s X-Men Quicksilver In WandaVision?

Pietro Maximoff at the door in WandaVision

The biggest question of episode 5, and perhaps of all of WandaVision so far, comes during the episode’s final cliffhanger scene. In the middle of a fight with Vision, the doorbell rings. Wanda opens it to find her dead brother Pietro, a.k.a. Quicksilver, seemingly alive and well. There’s just one small problem – the Pietro who appears at the front door isn’t the MCU version of the character played by Aaron taylor-Johnson in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Instead, Wanda opens the door to find Evan Peters’ version of Quicksilver, who previously appeared in Fox’s X-Men franchise.

The return of Peters’s Pietro is baffling for a few reasons. First and foremost, the character died in Age of Ultron and hasn’t been seen since. That hasn’t stopped Vision from coming back, but it seems less plausible with a regular (well, super) human. More significantly though, Peters’s appearance is the first direct crossover of the MCU and the X-Men franchise since Disney absorbed Fox. It’s unclear exactly how Quicksilver’s return will be explained, but it seems highly likely that X-Men is being made canon with the MCU, possibly through a parallel universe being tapped into via Wanda’s powers, setting up the introduction of the multiverse that will play a large role in both Spider-Man 3 and Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness.

The other big mystery around Quicksilver's return in the MCU is why Wanda didn’t know he was coming. Vision doesn’t believe her when she says she didn’t orchestrate the doorbell ring, but the look of shock on her face appears to be completely authentic. If she didn’t know he was coming, how did he arrive? Who sent him? And why does she welcome him even though he clearly isn’t the brother she knew? All these questions and more will hopefully be answered as WandaVision continues.

Next: How Endgame’s Scrapped Post-Credit Scene Connects To WandaVision