Well played, Marvel. Well played...
Listen, we know how this works.
We know that Marvel likes to play things pretty close to its chest, especially with
WandaVision, which was overflowing with potential moments to have completely spoiled for viewers who were digging the excitement of the week-on-week slow burn, drip feed of information.
However, it turns out that there was quite a few times when the show, the stars, and its creators weren't just hiding information from us, but actively pointing us in the wrong direction.
Paul Bettany's actor rumour
Speaking to
Black Girl Nerds, Paul Bettany (aka Vision) told them the following:
"There's stuff that I can't talk to you about, where I get to work with an actor that's going to be a surprise for everybody. I get to work with an actor that I've been wanting to work with forever, who is just unbelievable. We have some real fireworks together."
And that actor turned out to be... Paul Bettany. Yep, if you've seen the finale, then you already know Bettany appears as both OG Vision and new White Vision, and they share a number of scenes together. We'd almost be mad, except this is actually a pretty funny troll, so we can't help but laugh.
The casting of Fietro
Fietro - or Fake Pietro - has maybe been the biggest sticking point for viewers since the finale aired. When Evan Peters suddenly appeared at Wanda and Vision's front door, claiming to be Wanda's long-lost (and long-dead) brother Pietro, this was all the confirmation that we needed to prove that the show was bringing in the multiverse.
However, by the end of the show, it turns out that this Fake Pietro was merely being controlled by Agatha, who seemed to imbue him with Pietro's ability for hyper-speed. And when Monica ends up in his man-cave basement, it turns out he is a wannabe actor by the name of Ralph Bohner. It appears that the makers of the show wanted to do nothing more than tease the multiverse by casting Peters in the role, but it was all a very complicated (and kinda messy) misdirect.
Which leads us nicely to...
"Ralph"
Throughout the course of the show, Agnes/Agatha constantly referred to her off-screen husband, "Ralph". While many guessed correctly that Agnes was going to end up being Agatha, which led many to believe that this Ralph was going to end up being Mephisto. He is an actual devil, evil incarnate, heavily tied to both Agatha Harkess and the Scarlet Witch in the comics. Many believed that Fietro might end up actually being Mephisto? Or maybe was the inexcusably douchebaggy Director Hayward? Or some other random member of Westview?
Nope! "Ralph" was just an actual Ralph, as in Ralph Bohner. That isn't to say that Mephisto won't show up as the big bad in a future Marvel instalment, but we were primed and prepped for his arrival here, and that final revelation definitely would've given the final episode that one big, last rug-pull.
Emma Caufield Ford's story
Early on, Ford told
Collider that she basically had to get Kevin Feige's approval in order to secure the role of Dottie, which had fans believing she'd be a big deal in the story, especially after Agnes introduces her as "the one who runs this neighbourhood". Could she be a third witch? Could SHE be Mephisto? Nah, she's just another victim of The Hex.
She later told
Still Watching the following: "It was impossible for people to not be disappointed! I’m trying not to feel disingenuous, but knowing full well [their theories were] just so far removed from the truth. That’s tough, being the red herring. Again, I hope no one eggs my house."
The commercial breaks
Stark Industry toasters. Strucker watches. Hydra bath powder. Lagos paper towels. That horrific claymation Yo-Magic yoghurt. Nexus antidepressants. These were the adverts we got throughout the series, and many fans pealed away at them for deeper meanings. They all seemed tied into specific events in Wanda's life. Others believed they were each directly related to a different Infinity Stone.
Regardless, we never actually got an explanation for them. Did anyone in "the real world", like Darcy or Woo or Monica, actually see them? Or were they just for us? Were they from Wanda's subconscious? Were they being put there by Agatha? Who knows? We don't. And we likely never will.
Monica's engineer friend
This one hurts the most, because we had such high hopes for this answer. We had initially
done a deep dive on who Monica's secret engineer friend might be, even going so far as to suggest the show might be introducing us to Reed Richards (aka Mister Fantastic from the Fantastic Four). Then the show revealed the engineer to be... some lady we'd never heard of. Okay, fine.
But THEN the show's director muddied the waters further,
unwilling to confirm if this was actually the engineer friend at all, which spurred on our guessing game once more. Only for the show to end, with no further mention of the engineer. Damn you, Marvel!
