Marvel's VisionQuest Finale Delivers A Shocking Last-Minute Villain Twist

Contains spoilers for "VisionQuest" Season 1, Episode 8 — "Forever"

"VisionQuest" knows how to subvert expectations, and the season (and possibly series) finale "Forever" is perfect proof of this. The previous episode, "Immolation," explicitly seemed to reveal the identity of the "VisionQuest" villain, the Client, by having F.R.I.D.A.Y. (Orla Brady) state that Ultron (James Spader) is behind everything. What's more, the last scene of that episode features what seems like a version of Ultron's human avatar walking out of the Horton mansion. 

Yet none of that turns out to be quite as advertised. "Forever" reveals that even Vision (Paul Bettany) justifiedly assumes that the mansion guy is Ultron. However, the Client is actually a real human being named Virgil Horton, also played by Spader. He's a bitter descendant of Dr. Phineas Horton (Bettany) who's keen to fix the family legacy — and turn humanity into cyborg drones with some 20 billion nanobots. He also happens to be Jo Carrington/Jocasta's (T'Nia Miller) former husband, who's conveniently erased himself from her data files until just now. 

Virgil Horton is the guy who rebuilt "White Vision" for S.W.O.R.D., as seen in the "WandaVision" Episode 8 post-credits scene. After Wanda Maximoff's (Elizabeth Olsen) magically-created Vision manages to convince this new Vision to overcome his directives during the ending of "WandaVision," the latter embarks on a vision quest that unfolds on, yes, "VisionQuest." This puts a wrinkle in Virgil's original intention to replace Vision's mind with his own and take control of the synthezoid's body. Hence, Virgil's "Client" persona and mission to search for and acquire Vision. 

Virgil's whole motive is simple: Love. He realizes that as an aging human, he's vastly inferior to Jocasta, and he wants a body that makes him her equal so they can rule the nanobot-infected world together. Shockingly, Jocasta isn't a fan of the plan, having already fallen for Ultron — and originally intending to use the nanobots as a force for good. The villain finds this out the hard way; After Tommy Maximoff (Ruaridh Mollica) frees the synthezoids from Virgil's control, Jocasta immediately attacks her former husband, leaving Virgil no choice but to shoot her. Jocasta retaliates by helping Ultron gain control of Virgil's nanobots, which leads to Spader's AI character killing Spader's human character in an extremely gruesome fashion. 

Though Virgil Horton's time in the MCU is brief, his influence is massive. His actions are either directly or indirectly responsible for bringing Vision and his assorted AI buddies back, creating Jocasta, letting Ultron loose upon the unwary world once more, introducing Paladin, and acting as the catalyst of the whole plot. We may have seen the last of the Horton bloodline for now, but they certainly made their mark.