Here’s my VisionQuest episodes 1-4 recap, and the headline is that Marvel has finally followed up the best thing it did on TV, WandaVision, by putting Vision back at the centre and handing him an honest-to-goodness mystery to solve. The first four episodes arrived in two pairs, “No Strings” and “Theseus” on October 13 and “Reboot” and “Malware” a week later, and between them they set up a hunted android, a boy who thinks he’s Wanda’s son, a killer called the Butcherbird and Ultron living in the attic of Vision’s own head. If you want to see where it all began, I did the same sort of walk through WandaVision, episode by episode, and it’s worth keeping that one open in another tab. Spoilers from here on, all four episodes of them.
Episodes one and two: No Strings and Theseus
This is White Vision, the rebuilt one without Wanda’s memories, trying to work out who he is and who he used to be. What makes it interesting straight away is that he’s not alone in there. Ultron, played by James Spader, is locked in an attic inside Vision’s mindspace, and a handful of other AIs share the place with him, a sort of living room full of voices that Vision has to keep ticking over just to stay upright. It’s a lovely visual way of showing a character who’s literally crowded, and the show plays it with a straight face.
In the real world a bounty hunter called Paladin is tracking Vision for an unknown client, and the theories are already flying about who that might be, S.W.O.R.D. or someone else with a government badge. Paladin has also got hold of a young man, Thomas Shepard, who believes he’s the son of Wanda Maximoff and Vision, and he’s got him locked up in a mental institution. Vision isn’t sure what to make of that, and the idea that a copy of him could have fathered anyone ties straight back to the cabin scene I wrote about in my WandaVision rewatch. Ultron, helpfully, tells him that anything is possible in the MCU, which gets a laugh and no actual answer.
So Vision goes in to rescue Thomas, and walks straight into a room built as an EMP chamber that shuts down his powers and short-circuits his mind. It’s Tommy who gets them out, quietly loosening the screws on the door, and the pair of them burst into the hallway and straight into Paladin. Paladin shoots Vision with adamantium bullets and he goes into system collapse, telling Tommy to run for his own safety. As Vision shuts down, Ultron’s prison opens and he walks into the living room of Vision’s mind, where the other AIs are failing, and he proposes that one of them could sacrifice themselves to reroute power to the rest.
J.A.R.V.I.S. is the one who does it, and that was the moment that got me, because he’s been around since the very first Iron Man and to watch him go quietly like that has real weight. It gives Vision just enough juice to come back for a moment, and Tommy drives them off in a stolen car. The premiere is a bit uneven, with a fair amount of set-up in the first hour, but the central trio of Vision, Tommy and Ultron is already working, and the show is careful to give each of them something to want.
Episode three: Reboot
“Reboot” opens on Ultron in the attic, painting, watching a news report about the second victim of the Butcherbird killer. We then see that kill, a man with a shotgun in a high-rise apartment taken apart by a robed figure with red eyes, and the shots don’t even slow it down. Vision is in rough shape after the adamantium bullet, J.A.R.V.I.S. is gone, and he cauterises his wound with battery acid before the pair hide out in a hotel. It’s a grim sequence, and it sets the tone for how bleak the show is willing to get, which is more than Marvel usually allows itself on a Tuesday.
The heart of the episode is the hotel pool. Thomas is afraid of water and tells Vision why, that some kids held him under once, and his powers made the water boil, and he heard someone screaming. Vision admits he’s been ignoring him, then tells him that he’s Tommy Maximoff, son to Wanda and Vision, though the way he phrases it keeps a bit of distance, which I thought was a smart choice for a man who doesn’t remember being a father. Then Vision powers down in the pool and it’s Thomas who reboots him, and he comes back more stable than before. It’s a small, quiet scene, and so far probably the best thing the show has done.
Meanwhile Paladin follows a trail of supercoolant from Vision’s wound to the apartment, finds the dead man and wings carved into the floor, and the robed figure reads his mind. We learn he was adopted and raised by the last of his line, and his client fires him, so he offers to finish the job for free, which tells you how personal this is getting. The episode ends with the reboot connecting Vision’s neural network to another synthezoid, and a voice greeting him with “Hello, Vision.” I haven’t been this keen on a Marvel cliffhanger since Agatha All Along had me checking the clock every week.
Episode four: Malware
“Malware” starts by cutting the link, E.D.I.T.H. severing the connection between Vision and the figure in what plays as a digital exorcism, which is funny and a little frightening at the same time. The figure had offered to leave Vision alone if he left them alone, and it’s clear neither of them is going to keep that promise. The victims turn out to be members of a five-person research team that created the first synthetic consciousness, Vision’s precursor, and the killer has been collecting DNA keys, blood, fingerprints, even an eyeball. Vision and Ultron hack an Interpol database for the Butcherbird files, and the trail leads to a fundraiser hosted by Katerina Wells, the last surviving scientist, played by Mary McDonnell.
The gala is where the episode turns. Vision lets slip that he has five AIs in his head, Thomas works out that the fifth is Ultron, and he storms off feeling betrayed, which is fair enough. The Butcherbird, played by T’Nia Miller, takes off the robe and looks like Ultron, and with Vision’s flight, phasing and lasers all offline he’s in real trouble. Along the way E.D.I.T.H. learns that her own base was a real person, a test pilot named Edith Marks who had a sad life, and Ultron comforts her, saying that who Edith was doesn’t define who E.D.I.T.H. is, a line I did not expect to land as well as it did. Everything in the second half is really about who the Butcherbird is, and the show keeps that card hidden until the very end.
The twist is that the killer isn’t merely based on Dr. Jo Carrington, the scientist who died of natural causes in 2008. When Vision says the code is based on her, the killer answers, “I am not based on her. I am her.” Ultron promises not to hurt Jo and takes control of Vision’s body, then tricks her into firing a laser that kills Katerina, and Jo escapes through a skylight. He locks Vision and the other AIs out of the key systems and tells Thomas they need to talk. It’s a great way to close four hours, and the idea of Vision shut out of his own body by the voice he’s been trying to keep contained is properly unnerving.
Where do you think Ultron’s going with Thomas, and do you trust him? Tell me in the comments.
