Scarlet Witch
Wanda Maximoff
Series · Phase 4
WandaVision
2021 · 36 min
Wanda Maximoff and Vision are living in a New Jersey town called Westview in a black-and-white 1950s sitcom, complete with a laugh track and neighbours who ask no useful questions. Every episode…
The Multiverse SagaDisney+92%Released
The story
Wanda Maximoff and Vision are living in a New Jersey town called Westview in a black-and-white 1950s sitcom, complete with a laugh track and neighbours who ask no useful questions. Every episode advances a decade and the format starts leaking: a coloured helicopter in a hedge, a beekeeper climbing out of a manhole, a voice on the radio asking who is doing this to her.
Outside, a S.W.O.R.D. operation is camped at the town's edge and cannot get in. Wanda has taken three thousand people hostage with a grief she cannot name, and the series' real achievement is making the reveal land as tragedy rather than twist — she is not a villain, she is a woman who could not put a body down.
Key facts
- Release date
- 15 Jan 2021
- Status
- Released
- Phase
- Phase 4
- Saga
- The Multiverse Saga
- Runtime
- 36 min
- Certificate
- TV-14
- Director
- Matt Shakman
- Writers
- Jac Schaeffer
- Seasons
- 1
- Episodes
- 9
- Streaming
- Disney+
- Timeline placement
- 2023 — roughly three weeks after Avengers: Endgame
Cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Elizabeth Olsen | Wanda Maximoff / Scarlet Witch |
| Paul Bettany | Vision |
| Kathryn Hahn | Agatha Harkness |
| Teyonah Parris | Monica Rambeau |
| Kat Dennings | Darcy Lewis |
| Randall Park | Jimmy Woo |
Characters
Easter eggs
- Each episode recreates a specific sitcom era, from The Dick Van Dyke Show and Bewitched through The Brady Bunch, Family Ties, Malcolm in the Middle and Modern Family.
- The fake commercials are Wanda's traumas as advertising: a Stark Industries toaster, a Strücker watch, Hydra Soak bath salts, Lagos paper towels, the Nexus antidepressant and Yo-Magic yoghurt.
- Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez's 'Agatha All Along' won an Emmy and charted on Billboard, and its lyrics spoil the plot in retrospect.
- Evan Peters appears as 'Pietro', trolling the audience with his Fox X-Men casting before being revealed as a Westview resident named Ralph Bohner.
- Wanda's finale costume is her first comic-accurate Scarlet Witch headdress and cape in live action.
- Monica's line about needing an aerospace engineer is a Reed Richards tease that Marvel never paid off.
- The Darkhold appears in the finale's post-credits scene, directly setting up Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
- Billy and Tommy are Wiccan and Speed from the Young Avengers, and Billy returns as a teenager in Agatha All Along.
Trivia
- It was Marvel's first Disney+ series and the opening chapter of Phase 4.
- The earliest sitcom episodes were shot in front of a live studio audience using period-appropriate lenses and lighting rigs.
- Dick Van Dyke consulted on the 1960s episode, advising the team on the internal logic of the era's comedy.
- Debra Jo Rupp's casting as Mrs. Hart deliberately echoes her decade on That '70s Show.
- It received 23 Emmy nominations, the most of any Marvel project, and won three.
- Kathryn Hahn's performance drove Marvel to greenlight the Agatha All Along spin-off, which arrived in 2024.
- Jac Schaeffer, who created the series, went on to showrun Agatha All Along as well.
Reviews
Critics
92%
WandaVision's slow-burn sitcom pastiche is a bold swing for the MCU, and Elizabeth Olsen and Kathryn Hahn make its stranger impulses sing.
The MarvelGossips verdict
Still the best thing Marvel has put on television, and the only Disney+ series with a genuinely original formal idea. Its finale collapses into the same sky-beam fight it spent eight episodes avoiding, which became the template for every MCU show's last act. Olsen's grief-counselling monologue is the single best-written scene in the franchise.
Related titles
Related reading
WandaVision Ending Explained: The Hex, White Vision And How Wanda Became The Scarlet Witch
Wanda takes down the Hex, kills the family she made and walks away with a title she never wanted. Here is what…
WandaVision Easter Eggs: Every Sitcom Homage, Fake Advert And Comic Reference Decoded
Six fake commercials, six decades of sitcom pastiche and a witch hiding in plain sight. WandaVision's easter eggs…
Frequently asked
Do I need to watch WandaVision before Multiverse of Madness?
Yes. The film opens with Wanda already corrupted by the Darkhold and grieving Billy and Tommy, none of which is explained on screen. Without the series her behaviour in the film reads as arbitrary.
Was Evan Peters playing Quicksilver?
No. He plays a Westview resident named Ralph Bohner, mind-controlled by Agatha to imitate Pietro. Marvel has been widely criticised for the misdirection, which was never given a further payoff.
What is the Hex?
The chaos-magic reality Wanda unconsciously creates around Westview, which rewrites three thousand residents into sitcom characters. Its edge is visible as a shimmering boundary that transforms anything crossing it.
Where is Vision now?
White Vision flew away in the finale with his memories restored but no emotional attachment. Paul Bettany returns in Vision Quest, which premieres on Disney+ on 14 October 2026.