The WandaVision Fan Theory About Agnes That Will Make Your Jaw Drop
Contains spoilers for WandaVision
WandaVision may be headlined by one of the most powerful Avengers and her sentient synthezoid husband, but the only character anyone can seem to talk about is Wanda and Vision's kooky neighbor named Agnes (Kathryn Hahn). From the moment the WandaVision trailer came out back in September 2020, months before the show premiered on Disney+ , fans have wondered what Agnes' true identity is — speculating she's actually a witch from the Marvel comics: Agatha Harkness.
With each passing episode, that theory only seems to hold more weight. While everyone else in Westview, New Jersey seems incapable of withstanding the magic at play, Agnes appears to almost thrive on it. She's having an absolute gas through all the weirdness, but things take a major turn at the end of WandaVision episode 4, when Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) ejects Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) out of the sitcom reality, making it appear as though Wanda herself is the one with absolute power.
Wanda assures Vision (Paul Bettany) that she has "everything under control," and Monica even ends episode 4 episode by telling her fellow S.W.O.R.D. agents that "it's all Wanda." But now, with WandaVision episode 5 having just premiered on February 5, swirling around amongst the show's fandom is a jaw-dropping theory as to what could genuinely be transpiring in this sleepy little town. Expectedly, it has something to do with Agnes and who she might possibly really be.
Is this all Agnes' doing?
For this theory to work, one must assume that Agnes is actually Agatha Harkness, which does seem to make the most amount of sense at this point. In the comics, Agatha serves as a mentor to Wanda, allowing her to get a better handle on her reality-warping abilities. The idea goes that WandaVision will reveal Agnes as not just a witch named Agatha Harkness, but also as someone who found Wanda, somehow convinced her to create Westview (or even forced her to do it), then subsequently wiped her memory so she wouldn't know what was happening at first.
This has precedent in the Marvel comics: Agatha removed some of Wanda's memories so she wouldn't fully understand the nature of the creation of her twin sons Tommy and Billy, whom Wanda was only able to conceive by using her powers and unknowingly stealing fragments of the evil Mephisto's soul. Could Agnes/Agatha be cahoots with Mephisto, or is she trying to protect Wanda from him — or perhaps an even greater evil? Did she track down Wanda and push her to build Westview to shield herself from danger? Did Agnes/Agatha and Wanda actually team up and decide to do this together, with Wanda handing over control so that she could live a blissful life free of pain and fear, all while Agnes/Agatha pulls all the strings and keeps the illusion up as best she can?
Anything goes in WandaVision, and this idea gets somewhat floated in episode 5 itself. When Monica reconvenes with her team, Director Hayward (Josh Stamberg) labels Wanda as a terrorist. However, Monica disagrees with that assessment, stating how she doesn't think Wanda throwing her out of Westview and back into reality was "a premeditated act of aggression," especially considering the clothing Wanda had Monica wear inside the false reality was bullet-proof. That statement suggests that Wanda either made a snap decision as she started to understand what's happening around her, or perhaps someone else made that decision for her.
There's another important scene to note in the episode. Darcy Lewis (Kat Dennings) is able to break into the computer systems and send a message to Vision's office. His co-worker Norm (Abilash Tandon) momentarily breaks out of his trance to tell Vision, "You have to stop her" and "she's in my head." He never explicitly mentions Wanda by name, so the "her" he's referring to could in fact be Agnes.
Lastly, at the end of the episode (before that earth-shattering cameo from Evan Peters' Quicksilver) when Wanda and Vision are fighting, Wanda states, "Do you really think that I am controlling everything? That I am somehow in charge of everybody in Westview? [...] I don't know how any of this started in the first place." Could this mean that Wanda was given a choice to accept this easy, breezy sitcom life in exchange for ... something? Perhaps it could be her twins if Mephisto from the Marvel comics is set to make an appearance down the line.
We still have some questions, but we think we're finally starting to see how all of this is coming together.