WandaVision: Our Favorite Theories About The Biggest Mystery In The MCU

With Episode 4 in the books and Episode 5 right around the corner, we've officially hit mid-season in WandaVision, the first ever MCU TV show--and, surprising no one, the show's core mysteries are only getting more and more complex as more information is revealed.

While fans of the MCU are no stranger to wild speculation and conspiracy theory building, WandaVision has presented us with an unusual challenge. Not only are we getting new clues doled out on a week-to-week basis, leaving plenty of room for red herrings and false starts, we're also trying to piece together the very first official entry into Phase 4, meaning we've got to try and figure out where the pieces we're putting down might fit in a mostly obscured bigger picture. After all, with all the status quo changes in Avengers: Endgame, it really does feel like anything is possible for Marvel movies going forward.

Of course this is exciting, but it's also a bit overwhelming--especially if you're trying your best to figure it out as you go along, rather than waiting for all nine episodes to be available for bingeing. We get it--we're in the same boat. And that's exactly why we've compiled a list of our favorite working theories for the show, ranging from absolutely bonkers off-the-wall improbabilities to involvement from the actual, literal devil.

It takes all kinds here in Westview.

Let us know your favorite WandaVision theories, no matter how bizarre, in the comments below.

The mystery of who, exactly, is responsible for Westview sits at the core of WandaVision. Monica, following her ejection from the "bubble," claimed that it's "all Wanda," which certainly seems plausible--Wanda obviously has a degree of control over who gets to stay inside--but it also seems like Wanda herself is just as confused most of the time.

We know concretely that SWORD didn't put Wanda inside to neutralize her or keep her contained, which narrows the list of suspects down considerably. And everyone in Westview has been accounted for as a civilian except two--Wanda's neighbors Agnes and Dottie. If, hypothetically speaking, Agnes actually is the MCU incarnation of Agatha Harkness, a witch who mentored Wanda briefly in the '80s, it's entirely possible that her powers are at play here too.

Agatha's role in the comics hasn't always been entirely on the up-and-up, but she's never actually been a full blown villain, which leads us to wonder: What if Agnes is responsible for Westview, but she's doing it to protect Wanda from something much more dangerous?

Dovetailing nicely from the "Agnes is a good guy, actually" theory comes one about who, exactly, could be posing a threat to Wanda great enough to necessitate hiding her like this--and there's a fairly short list of possible suspects.

One of the big ones that actually does relate back to Wanda's comics history is Immortus, AKA Kang the Conqueror, who at one point was in the running to "steal" Wanda's "temporal nexus energy" (don't ask). He was thwarted, obviously, and it's unlikely that the MCU will literally try and use the phrase "temporal nexus energy," though stranger things have happened. Either way, Immortus/Kang is definitely in the running as we already know he's on his way to an MCU debut--Jonathan Majors is playing him in the third Ant-Man film. And he's powerful enough that keeping Wanda off his radar could require some genuine magical intervention.

Another prime candidate if not Immortus is Mephisto, otherwise known as the actual, literal devil in Marvel Comics (or one of them--the most traditional looking of the bunch). Mephisto has also had beef with Wanda in the past and played a tertiary role in the birth of her kids the first time around.

With the twins having been introduced in the show back in Episode 3, the potential for a demonic influence is not out of the question--though if Mephisto is the big bad here, it's unlikely that Agnes is trying to protect Wanda. It's not entirely out of the question, but it does feel a bit less likely.

However, Mephisto seems to be a major fan favorite in terms of theory crafting on the show's subReddit, even becoming something of a meme. So, if nothing else, at least bringing him in would make a lot of fans very happy.

While it would be a departure from most of her comic book stories (assuming she is indeed a version of Agatha, that is), having Agnes be the villain--or perhaps in league with the villain--does seem just as viable an option as anything else.

There's also the possibility that Agnes is not a version of Agatha and instead is borrowing inspiration from an entirely different corner of the Marvel universe. It wouldn't be the first time the MCU has pulled a fast one and there are no hard and fast rules governing what does or does not end up in this show. Agnes could represent a version of, or combination of, any number of magical entities in the MCU, or an entirely new character who just has it out for Wanda for reasons that we've yet to discover.

Dottie, the mean-spirited queen bee neighbor, is another chaotic variable in the equation. She's been less active in Wanda's life than Agnes has, but she's also yet to be identified as a civilian. And, given her prominence in the social hierarchy of Westview, it seems like she's going to be important in one way or another.

The question then becomes: Are she and Agnes working together? Against each other? Are they even aware of each other's motives?

In Episode 4, Jimmy Woo spells out an interesting question on his own conspiracy-chasing whiteboard: why the hexagonal pattern? The shape of the Westview "bubble" seems to be hexagonal, the credit titles in Episode 2's animated opening were hexagonal, and so was the SWORD emblem on the Beekeeper's sitcom-ified uniform--not to mention the shape of beehives themselves. It's a shape that keeps cropping up in mostly innocuous ways, but there's clearly something there--otherwise, Jimmy's note on the whiteboard wouldn't have made it into the shot, right?

There's admittedly not a lot to work with on this one yet. Users on the WandaVision subreddit have submitted theories ranging from possible connections to the cosmic cube (AKA the Space Stone)--because a cube at a certain angle in a 2D view is hexagonal--to relationships between hexagonal patterns and honeycombs creating a possible link to Ant-Man (because bugs and also the hexagonal patterns used in the Ant-Man logos and posters.)

Written out, it sounds a bit flimsy, but there may actually be something to that last one. Reddit user smacksaw pointed out that at the end of Ant-Man, HYDRA makes off with Yellowjacket's knock-off Pym particles. This has prompted some debate about whether or not shows like Agents of Shield should be considered part of MCU canon--but regardless--the possible connection to Ant-Man, given the Immortus theory, may still be something to keep in mind.

Of course, we can't discount Occam's Razor here--the simplest explanation for Westview and the events of the show is that Wanda is just out of her mind with grief over Vision's death and created the Westview anomaly as an escapist fantasy.

The brief glimpse of Vision's corpse in Episode 4 seems to even imply that she may have taken Vision's lifeless body into the town to "reanimate" him.

This doesn't exactly explain the question of "Why a sitcom?"--something that Darcy asked directly in Episode 4--nor does it explain the whole hopscotching-through-American-pop-culture-history conceit, but it definitely shouldn't be written off. Monica, who thus far is the only outsider with any perspective on the inside of Westview, seems adequately convinced Wanda's the one behind it, afterall.