WandaVision’s most significant MCU connections

While WandaVision is very much its own unique entity in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, its connections to the preceding films are abundant.

WandaVision is, in many ways, the first true MCU television series as it is produced by the same studio that creates the movies. The show is extraordinarily creative and distinctive; there is nothing quite like it in the MCU, or on television in general. However, WandaVision is still a narrative successor to the 23 films that make up the Infinity Saga. Therefore, there are numerous links to the larger universe scattered throughout the nine-episode series. Let’s revisit some of the most significant connections.

SWORD replaces SHIELD

The organization that is practically everywhere in the show is SWORD, which is usually SHIELD’s space counterpart in the comics, but the acronym was changed to Sentient Weapon Observation Response Division for the MCU, instead of Sentient World. This means that they have terrestrial representation in WandaVision, categorizing Wanda as a weapon. Yet this is not the first time we got a look at the organization. Actually, the final seconds of the MCU before WandaVision was released was an introduction to SWORD, with Nick Fury in space during the Spider-Man: Far From Home stinger.

Monica Rambeau is the heroic SWORD agent in WandaVision and her efforts were not unnoticed by Director Fury, who sends a Skrull colleague to bring Monica to meet with him in the mid-credits scene of the finale. This continues Fury’s Captain Marvel storyline, where Monica was a young girl and her mother Maria aided Fury and Carol Danvers.

The fourth episode of WandaVision reveals what was going on with the Rambeaus during the snap and the blip. Maria was recovering in the hospital, and Monica was also there to check on her, at the same time that Thanos gathered all of the Infinity Stone in Avengers: Infinity War. Thanos’ decimation resulted in Monica disappearing for five years. She returned in the blip when Hulk snapped the Iron Gauntlet in Avengers: Endgame and she learned that her mother passed away from cancer while she was gone.

A few familiar faces

While MCU fans did meet Monica in Captain Marvel, she was about 25 years younger, so we can’t recognize her by face. Yet there are other MCU characters that round out the cast of WandaVision. Agent Woo was the FBI agent in Ant-Man and the Wasp who monitored Ant-Man’s house arrest after Scott Lang violated the Sokovia Accords. In WandaVision, Woo is a part of the team investigating the Westview anomaly with Monica Rambeau.

Darcy Lewis was Jane Foster’s assistant in the Thor films and the last time we saw her was back in 2013, in Thor: The Dark World. She clearly got quite the education from Dr. Selvig and Jane to become a genius astrophysicist and discover Wanda’s television frequency in WandaVision. Here she functions as comic relief just as effectively as in Thor.

One last familiar face is fittingly and fantastically bizarre. Wanda’s deceased brother Pietro makes a surprise return to Wanda’s TV hex universe, but instead of being played by the MCU’s Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Evan Peters reprises his Quicksilver role from Fox’s X-Men Universe.

At first, the Quicksilver confusion appears to suggest a gateway was opened to a multiverse, but we find out in the finale that Peters is really a guy named Ralph that Agatha turns into Pietro. Quicksilver is the only superhero to be in both the MCU and the X-Universe, so having Evan Peters play Wanda’s fake brother (Fietro?) is just another delightful meta-occurrence for WandaVision.

Commercial breaks

In all the WandaVision episodes that pose as one of Wanda’s mentally-crafted sitcoms, the Scarlet Witch sneaks in an advertisement. Most of them have a deep connection to her MCU past.

The first commercial is for a Stark toaster. Wanda went from hating Tony Stark, since his weapons destroyed her family, to joining him as an Avenger. This is detailed in Avengers: Age of Ultron. The slogan “forget the past, this is your future” comments on the importance that Stark had on her past, but also voices Wanda’s desire for the ideal future. Also, Tony Stark was commonly known as a futurist.

The second product placed inside Wanda’s show is a Strucker watch. At the end of Captain America: The Winter Soldier and the beginning of Age of Ultron, Baron Von Strucker was the Hydra general who experimented on Wanda, tapping into her unlimited power. The slogan “he’ll make time for you” is irreverently directed at Wanda. Strucker could care less about his volunteers who died during experimentation, so he spent extra time and effort on his two survivors.

The tertiary advertisement is for Hydra Soak bath powder. Wanda did volunteer for Hydra and they ultimately led her to “find the goddess within”, like the slogan states. The last commercial that has connections to other MCU movies is Lagos paper towels. Lagos is where Wanda tried to stop Crossbones’ bomb from hurting innocent people in Captain America: Civil War. The explosion wound up killing humanitarian workers.

The commercial exclaims that Lagos paper towels are “for when you make a mess you didn’t mean to”, which is purposefully on the nose. Wanda was in Lagos to stop terrorists and ended up accidentally being partially responsible for a deadly explosion. The other advertisements, Yo-Magic yogurt and Nexus antidepressants, are more of a projection of Wanda’s current mental state rather than a link to past MCU events.

It was Wanda all along

A vast majority of the series is either from the perspective of Wanda or revolves around Wanda’s reality-altering abilities. Just like the Stark Toastmate ad declares, Wanda is trying to forget her past, but she can’t help it from creeping back to haunt her. She has quick flashes of Vision’s head broken open (by Thanos’ hands in Avengers: Infinity War) as well as her brother with bullet holes (courtesy of Ultron in Avengers: Age of Ultron).

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In the penultimate episode, Agatha takes Wanda down memory lane. First, we watch an expanded scene when her parents die – we see the Stark missile that never exploded, which she first described in Age of Ultron. This was the catalyst for why she despised Iron Man and fought against the Avengers.

We also see how the mind stone brought out her immense powers; these details were previously revealed at the end of Winter Soldier, but now we learn exactly how her abilities manifested at the Hydra facility, tapping into her latent witchcraft. Then we are transported the Avengers facility as Vision walks through the wall into Wanda’s room. This action is copied from Civil War, so that emotional scene clearly takes place around the same time period.

Then the story of Wanda visiting Vision’s corpse in the SWORD lab is told in full. She touches Visions head and says “I can’t feel you”, which is a callback to Infinity War when she touches the mind stone on her love’s forehead and tells Vision “I just feel you”.

Finally, during the climactic battle against Agatha, Wanda tried to cast her nightmare spell on her, which we have not seen her use since Age of Ultron; she put a spell on Iron Man, Captain America, Black Widow, Thor, and Hulk. Agatha also explains that a source of great power is the mystical Darkhold. That book may be familiar to fans of the MCU-adjacent series, Agents of SHIELD, where it was used by the Life Model Decoy Aida.

The end-credits scene shows Wanda is studying the Darkhold and using a type of astral projection to absorb as much knowledge as quickly as possible. This is a nod to how Doctor Strange learned sorcery at the Ancient One’s library in his standalone feature. These are fitting final moments for WandaVision considering that the Scarlet Witch’s next appearance will be in Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness.

All episodes of WandaVision are now available on Disney+.

Did you spot all the references to the wider MCU in WandaVision? Let us know in the comments below!