Don't change that channel. WandaVision is continuing to reinvent the wheel
for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, taking the reality-warping series into a 1990s pastiche.
Keep watching to check out everything you might have missed in episode 6.
WandaVision's sixth episode — "All-New Halloween Spooktacular!" — takes a leap over the '90s to
deposit us in the early aughts. With its faux home video camera work and pop punk theme,
the intro to episode 6 echoes the intro to the sitcom Malcolm in the Middle,
which premiered in early 2000 and concluded in 2006.
The intro song includes lyrics reflecting the bizarre events in Westview like "Don't try to
fight the chaos" and, later, "What if it's all an illusion?" Amusingly,
the actual theme song to Malcolm in the Middle, with it's "You're not the boss of me now" refrain,
also feels like it would be suitable for Wanda's reality-warping rebellion.
Like Malcolm often did with its title character, episode 6 begins with Billy narrating,
though his inner dialogue doesn't last past the first scene.
Young Avengers fans are no doubt hoping that Billy and his brother
Tommy will eventually grow to become their super-powered comic book counterparts.
In the comics Billy is Wiccan, a mystical hero
and one of the founding members of the Young Avengers. Meanwhile Tommy is, like Quicksilver,
a mutant with the gift of super speed whose codename is, creatively, Speed.
Whether or not Billy and Tommy appear in the MCU
after WandaVision, fans can at least say they got a chance to see them use
their powers and dress in their — for the most part — comic book-accurate costumes.
Billy's costume — which he wears throughout the episode — is Wiccan's costume in the comics.
Pietro gives Tommy a smaller version of his own costume,
which is not what Speed wears in the comics -- but it's still fitting, considering his powers.
You may also notice that just before Pietro starts wreaking havoc in the
suburban neighborhood with his nephews, he and Tommy share a Top Gun reference.
Episode 6 gives us some scenes between Pietro and
Wanda after the bombshell cameo at the end of episode
5, and unsurprisingly there are a lot of obvious callbacks to 2015's Avengers: Age of Ultron.
Sokovia is mentioned a few times, including Wanda saying her outfit is a "Sokovian fortune
teller" and the quick flashback to the young Wanda and Pietro trick-or-treating in their
homeland. Wanda mentions their childhood growing up in an orphanage together, and after she calls
Pietro a bad influence, the brother fires back, "who beefed in your borscht?" — with borscht
being from the same region of Europe where you would find Sokovia, if it were a real place.
Right after that exchange, the twins both ask each other about the disappearances
of their accents — something Wanda slips back into briefly in the previous episode.
And of course there are the references to Pietro's death. Early in the episode,
Tommy teases Billy, saying that his twin is afraid that Pietro's a vampire — a creature who,
possibly like Pietro, is neither dead nor alive.
"You get killed -- walk it off."
At the Town Square Scare, Pietro tells his sister he remembers being
"shot like a chump," and later she has a brief vision of him pale and riddled with bullet holes.
"You didn't see that coming."
One thing worth noting is that Pietro says he was "shot like a chump for no reason at all,"
when in fact in Age of Ultron he sacrifices himself in order to save Hawkeye
and a Sokovian boy -- which seems like a pretty worthy cause to us.
"All-New Halloween Spooktacular" finally gives us Wanda and Vision in their old school Marvel
comic book get-ups. Images of the pair in their half-baked costumes were some of the first photos
released for the series. Billy appropriately thinks his mother is dressed as "Old Red Riding
Hood" while Pietro compares Vision to a traffic light, a half-shucked corn cob, and a booger.
"He's what you call 'a manchild.'
After Pietro suggests he join Wanda and the boys for Halloween,
Wanda says he doesn't have a costume, prompting Pietro to use his super speed to put himself
and Tommy in matching outfits reflecting what Quicksilver used to wear in Marvel's comics.
The silver lightning bolt is straight from the funnybooks,
as is the slicked-back, Wolverine-style hair. Does it look good in real life?
Well, not really -- but it's still a pretty neat thing to finally see.
Some fans are understandably hopeful that Evan Peters' presence in WandaVision could be the
beginning of the entrance of the X-Men into the MCU. While it's far too soon to
say whether this is the case, episode 6 has a couple of X-Men references early in the story.
As the couple argue about whether or not Vision will be trick-or-treating with Wanda and the boys,
Pietro steps in to take the synthezoid's place.
"Big guy has a conflict, twins need a father figure for the
night -- Don't sweat it, sis. I got the old XY chromosome."
Weird line, right? For Pietro to mention his DNA
and the letter X is a pretty obvious reference to the team Professor X built.
There's another X-Men reference that's just a little bit easier to miss a few moments earlier.
"The neighborhood watch is the only thing that stands between the trees and the toilet paper."
As Vision says his line,
he points in opposite directions and his forearms cross to form a big, yellow X.
The ad for "All-New Halloween Spooktacular" is perhaps the
most bizarre faux commercial we've seen yet on WandaVision.
The ad uses stop-motion animation and shows us a boy stuck on an island in the middle of the ocean.
A talking shark drops in with a surfboard, gives the boy a "Yo-Magic" yogurt snack,
and leaves. The boy can't seem to open the container, and his teeth clatter as if he's
freezing even though the sun seems to be baking him. Time speeds up and he keeps
trying and failing to open the Yo-Magic snack. Eventually he withers away to a skeleton. The ad
ends with a shot of the Yo-Magic packaging and the slogan "Yo-Magic! The snack for survivors!"
The ad seems to be a fusion of at least a couple of different brands of similar
snacks from the '90s and early aughts. The packaging is reminiscent of Yoplait's Go-Gurt,
while the ad itself pulls heavily from YoGo Yogurt, which used stop-motion in
its ads. As for magic being essential for survival? The message seems obvious.
At the Town Square Scare, a movie marquee gives us a couple more Easter eggs,
and like many of the other references, there's a bit of a time gap between them.
Westview's Coronet Theater is showing two films. On screen 1 is The Incredibles,
which came out in 2004. It's a fitting movie reference considering by the end of episode 6,
every member of Wanda and Vision's family has superpowers.
In fact, only moments after we see the marquee, Tommy discovers his super speed.
Screen 2 is showing The Parent Trap, however, which — assuming we're talking about the remake
and not the original from 1961 — came out six years before The Incredibles in 1998.
Either way, both versions of the film feature a pair of twins separated at birth. It's an apt
reference, considering how Pietro and Wanda have been separated since the former's death
and how — in the comics, at least — Billy and Tommy were long-lost twins themselves.
Check out one of our newest videos right here! Plus,
even more Looper videos about the Marvel Cinematic Universe are coming soon.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one.