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There’s something about VisionQuest that’s both harkened to the past while casting its sights ahead to the future. Over the past few weeks, the show has been ruthlessly plunging further and further back through the expansive history of the MCU in order to deliver a story that hints of what could be. We’ve picked up major story threads that were left dangling at the end of Age Of Ultron, carried on the narrative flow of both WandaVision and Agatha All Along and even addresses easter eggs laid as far back as 2011 by using a background prop in the first Captain America movie to expand upon the history of AI within this ever-expanding universe. But while all this looking back and harvesting details from various places in the MCU’s eighteen year history could result in us getting a stiff neck, the show has also given us ideas of what lies ahead as it explored the paradox of Billy and Tommy – the children of the Vision and the Scarlet Witch. But now we’re at the end, and with so much to get through, can VisionQuest’s processing power possibly handle the excessive workload?
All the digital masks are off and the identity of the mysterious Client is none other than Virgil Horton, the grandson of Phineas Horton who wants to restore his family name after his grandfather tarnished it in his obsessive quest to create artificial intelligence. Not only has his likeness been used to create Ultron’s human avatar, but he was the one who sold Jo Carrington’s AI to Tony Stark and created the Jocasta body for her digitised mind to inhabit. Yes, Virgil is every inch the self-obsessed arch villain, and his grand plan is fairly simple. After reprogramming Vision and Jocasta to be under his control, he aims to place his digitised brain waves into Vision’s body and restart his romance with Jocasta as her nanobots head out and mind control every human being on the planet as immortal robo-gods.
But what of Ultron? Well, the murderous AI has been purged out of Jocasta and placed inside a hard drive where he can’t do any damage; but while Virgil explains his plan like all good megalomaniacs often do, the team of Paladin, Tommy, Lisa and Vision’s surviving AIs are plotting to crash the party. However, while they’re partially successful, Jocasta’s body is irreparably damaged by Horton’s adamantium bullets and in a last ditch, hail mary play, the dying android hurls Ultron’s hard drive into that cloud of nanobots in order to ensure that the murder-bot is born anew.
However, with Horton decidedly squished, there’s an even bigger problem to deal with as Ultron is not acustomed to dealing with grief, and after Jocasta dies in his arms, he reverts back into his old, genocidal ways and plans to use his swarms of re-purposed nanobots to murder London. Can Vision manage to corral his “father” into a WandaVision style scenario that’ll help the kill-happy clanker process his feelings and save the human race?
If you thought that VisionQuest was something of a crowded season to begin with, the fact that the season finale is a hefty hour and eleven minutes long should be an indication of how busy it truly is. So many things have to be addressed, wrapped up, teased and handled and they all have to have enough room to breathe in order to register and evoke the necessary emotions. There’s Vision’s feelings toward fatherhood, Ultron’s destructive mindset, Jocasta’s fate, the long awaited Tommy/Billy reunion and all those various AIs to deal with. But beyond that, the show still has to deliver the final act pizazz of a typical crash/bang Marvel adventure while still remaining true to that distinctive, reality-warping, story telling that started with WandaVision. Well, in something of a miracle, “Forever” manages to actually pull this all off – and while some parts of it certainly work better than others, it’s not only a fitting end to the WandaVision trilogy, but it feels like a rousing tribute to the MCU television arm that started “officially” in 2021 (sorry Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.).
You could argue that the finale is something of a box checking exercise that has to wade through audience expectations – but to be fair, isn’t that what every end of season episode has to achieve? With that being said, there are certainly a clutch of fan-friendly moments that are dutifully delivered to make you punch the air. Yes, we finally get the reunion of the remainder of the Maximoff family, with Joe Locke’s Billy returning to finally pay off years of expectation, and James Spader’s Ultron not only gets his physical form back, but he even has another crack at mass murder on a massive scale. We get an expensive-looking fist-fight between an updated Vision and his paternal nemesis, a return of F.R.I.D.A.Y. and even a post credits sting that not only delivers a massive tease for Avengers: Doomsday, but suggests that the Maximoff reunion isn’t yet fully complete.
However, if VisionQuest didn’t manage to keep it’s emotional centre steady, all this awesome fan service could be in danger of feeling trite or hollow, and thankfully, while “Forever” does tend to feel slightly overlong, it wisely ensures that its three main characters are wisely treated. Despite all the noise and glamour of CGI robots and whirling clouds of nanobots, director and season creator Terry Matalas doesn’t forget that one of the main themes of the Vision/Wanda arc is grief. Bringing everything full circle, and in an attempt to talk Ultron out of his latest attempt to eradicate the human race, Vision traps him in a familiar-looking sitcom reality called UltraVision in order to get him to process the rage of Jocasta’s death. Some might feel that shifting to a lengthy discussion about coping with loss is something of a step down after watching colourful robots brawling for the future of the human race, but finding the humanity in inhuman things has always been one of VisionQuest’s biggest virtues.
Of course, the biggest takeaways that some will have from the final episode will undoubtedly be that final sting that reworks the climax of Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness, and strongly suggests that a certain green-hooded Lateverian is on a major recruitment drive, and that long awaited reunion of the Maximoff brothers. However, the real glue that’s held the show together has really been the superlative work of both Paul Bettany and James Spader as this warring father/son duo have tried to disentangle themselves from their digital generational trauma. But considering that the show ends with Ultron still at large and still pondering the human race and if he should end it, it’s weirdly reassuring that whatever multiversal hoopla we’re in store for in December, when Doctor Doom finally makes his bow, both Vision and Ultron (complete with his new, Loki-style layers) will still be out there.
VisionQuest reaches its end in style, but while anyone not well versed in 18 years of MCU history may have been flummoxed each and every week at the sheer weight of backstory, its energetic pace, quirky reality and heartfelt messages of family means that if this is the last character based show Marvel does (the upcoming Zodiac seems like a move more towards a group effort), this era went out operating at the peak of its powers. Incredibly dence, yet still light on its feet, Vision’s latest foray into human emotions was top of the line and bleeding edge. Plus all that and we get Ultron back…
