WandaVision is absolutely packed with MCU Easter eggs and references. When the MCU launched in 2008, Marvel’s catchphrase was simple; “It’s all connected.” They weren’t exaggerating, because soon eager viewers realized they were watching one continuous narrative – a story that built up to the Avengers, and ultimately to Thanos.
At last, after a forced hiatus of more than a year, Marvel Studios has launched Phase 4. It all begins with WandaVision, a 9-episode TV series airing exclusively on Disney+. Starring Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch and Paul Bettany’s Vision, WandaVision is set just three weeks after the events of Avengers: Endgame. Scarlet Witch is fresh from the trauma of watching her beloved Vision die, and she’s using her power over reality to create the “Happily Ever After” she was denied by Thanos.
The first few episodes of WandaVision are set entirely within the fictional, sitcom-esque world Wanda creates. As such, while they have a number of subtle callbacks, there are few explicit ties to the wider MCU. Everything changes from WandaVision episode 4, though, when Marvel introduces the world beyond Westview – and from that moment on, the show is absolutely packed with Easter eggs.
Scarlet Witch has created a fantasy world where she can live happily ever after, with the resurrected Vision at the center of it. She has restored Vision using her magic, and in WandaVision episode 1, viewers learn that – in Wanda’s make-believe reality at least – Vision has an “indestructible head.” This is an early sign to the trauma and grief Wanda is undergoing, because in Avengers: Infinity War she learned the real Vision’s head was anything but indestructible – and watched helplessly as Thanos tore the Mind Stone from it. WandaVision episode 4 revisits this in a shocking moment in which Wanda sees Vision’s broken head – reality as it really is.