VisionQuest is the third installment to the trilogy of Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) and her Vision (Paul Bettany). Starting with WandaVision, the series has continued to explore their family by slowly bringing their twin boys, Billy (Joe Locke) and Tommy (Ruaridh Mollica) into the fold. And as VisionQuest continues to shine, it is important to remember that the show works because of what was already built.
In 2021, WandaVision debuted on Disney+ and was the first live-action Marvel series on the platform. Since, it has remained the favorite of many fans given how the show explored Wanda’s grief, her pain, and what the loss of Vision did to her. It led to the creation of the White Vision we now have in VisionQuest and helped to set up the magical world that has been explored through all three shows on Disney+.
Because of the dedication fans have to both WandaVision and Agatha All Along, it allows for fans to love and care for the characters of VisionQuest without too much work being done to make us care. That kind of power only comes from the work that both of those shows put in and it is important to remember that both WandaVision and Agatha All Along are why we can have a show like VisionQuest and why it can be a thrilling ride for fans.
The Grief of WandaVision
Wanda Maximoff is not a villain, she never has been. What we saw in WandaVision was a woman so consumed by her own pain and grief that she lost control over her power. The anti-hero traits of Wanda were explored so beautifully and in a way that made you care about Vision in the first place. Her love for him allowed him to feel real and human in a way that we never really got to explore in the films.
More than appreciating Vision and introducing the twins, the show set the tone for the entire trilogy of shows by allowing Wanda to explore her grief and understand her pain. “What is grief if not love persevering?” Vision says to Wanda and despite Vision not being human, it is the most human thing he could understand.
That allowed fans to understand grief and pain and that it is okay to explore it. In VisionQuest, Vision tells Tommy that “WandaVision is that grief on display” when he is asking about what happened in Westview. And without WandaVision as a series, a lot of the emotional weight of VisionQuest wouldn’t work.
The Anger and Chaos of Agatha All Along
With Wanda’s grief in WandaVision comes Agatha Harkness’ (Kathryn Hahn) anger in Agatha All Along. Wanda was not angry over her situation, she was devastated. Agatha, however, was angry and allowed that anger to fuel her in a similar way to how Ultron and Jocasta (T’Nia Miller) are in VisionQuest. This is where things are a little tricky because Ultron’s anger was established so Agatha All Along wasn’t giving that to the series, but the show did establish one important figure in Tommy and Vision’s story: Billy.
The show explained how Billy came into existence, what that entailed, and how the twins would interact with the news that their old lives were gone and they were now the children of Vision and Wanda. So much of how Tommy is handling this change comes from what Agatha All Along did with Billy and it allows the twins to be grounded and real, even if the show also gave VisionQuest its ability to explore anger in a new and exciting way.
All for Vision to Find His Humanity
Vision, like many synthetic beings before him, long to understand humanity. The difference in VisionQuest is that Vision’s former self did. White Vision has to remember that and unpack what it means to be a father and how to understand what Tommy needs from him. So it makes the show’s core rooted less in the inhuman nature of the A.I.s that Tony Stark built but instead how we all long to find connection and our humanity, no matter our origin.
VisionQuest is brilliant but it is important to remember that a lot of what makes the show work comes from the two shows before it. Both WandaVision and Agatha All Along allowed their characters to feel so that Vision could learn how to.
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