WandaVision finale predictions: 1 movie reveals Pietro's multiverse origins
Agatha says Uncle Pietro is "Fietro," but is that the end of the story?
Who was "Fietro," really?
It was a mere few weeks ago when Marvel fans lost their minds as Wanda, Elizabeth Olsen's Avenger-in-grieving, opened the door to greet her late brother, Pietro, known in the comics as Quicksilver. But something was different about Pietro: His face. It wasn't a face Wanda knew.
Last played by Aaron-Taylor Johnson in the 2015 blockbuster Avengers: Age of Ultron, "Pietro" was recast with Evan Peters, who also played Quicksilver in movies of the separate X-Men franchise. (Fun coincidence: Both co-starred in the 2010 superhero comedy Kick-Ass.)
Following a massive acquisition of rival studio 20th Century Fox, the appearance of Peters as his Quicksilver was the first of a coming unification of Marvel's once-disparate movie universes. With confirmation from Marvel itself at Comic-Con 2019 that WandaVision and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness will connect as a multi-part narrative, fans began to believe Peters was the first of many more multiverse crossovers to come, such as in the December picture Spider-Man: No Way Home.
But last week, speculation came to a screeching halt. In Episode 8, the exposition-filled "Previously On," Kathryn Hahn's Agatha said a few cryptic things that allowed fans to believe maybe, just maybe, Evan Peters' guest role wasn't confirming Marvel's multiverse; it was just an acknowledgement of the multiversal potential. Cue hearts breaking.
However, I'm here with a counter theory: Nothing Agatha said ruled out the multiverse.
It was Agatha all along. But what is Agatha truly capable of?
What Agatha said about Pietro
In "Previously On," Agatha has Wanda in her clutches in her magical dungeon when she tells Wanda that fake Pietro — "Fietro" — wasn't "literally" Agatha, as in something like a disguise. Instead, Fietro was Agatha's golem, a puppet, a hacked Alexa device with fast legs.
Agatha also says, with heavy implications to the limits of magic, that the "real" Pietro (the Age of Ultron version) is impossible to use for her own ends. This not only gives an in-universe explanation for why Aaron-Taylor Johnson didn't return, it sets parameters that Agatha — and the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe — must abide when it comes to magic.
Here's the full, relevant lines of Agatha's speech to Wanda:
"I got close with fake Pietro. Fietro, if you will, but no dice."
"No, it wasn't literally me. Just my eyes and ears. A crystalline possession. Necromancy was a non-starter since your real brother's body is on another continent. Not to mention, full of holes. But you're so crippled by your own self-doubt that you believed it."
The conversation moves on without further identifying "Fietro," thus leading to the speculation fans are engaging with right now. But while Agatha does call him "fake Pietro," there's reason to believe Evan Peters was not just a random person magically forced to pose as Wanda's brother. I still think Agatha plucked Pietero from the multiverse to use.
Here's why.
Evan Peters joined the MCU in WandaVision, playing the role he and Aaron-Taylor Johnson share in their careers. But was Peters more than just a cameo?
Why "Fake Pietro" isn't fake
Agatha said Fake Pietro was, well, fake. But perhaps that's contextual. "Fake Pietro" simply means it's not a Pietro that Wanda can recognize. After all, magic is fueled by the multiverse.
In 2016's Doctor Strange, Tilda Swinton's Ancient One tells Stephen Strange how magic works within the MCU. While the Masters of the Mystic Arts could very well operate on a different wavelength of magic than gothic witches, the Ancient One still says that "the language of the mystic arts is as old as civilization," adding, "The sorcerers of antiquity called the use of this magic 'spells.'" The implication: all magic in the MCU is unified.
In Stephen Strange's first lesson in the beginning of the movie, the Ancient One says this about magic:
"We harness energy drawn from other dimensions of the multiverse to cast spells, to conjure shields, and weapons, to make magic."
The MCU was in a different place in 2016, with all signs pointing towards Thanos and the coming one-two combo of Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. But even then, Doctor Strange was planting the seeds it needed for the more distant future of the MCU, and that includes how magic and the multiverse are deeply, fundamentally intertwined.
With the MCU strongly associating "magic" with "multiverse," it is reasonable to believe that Agatha tapped into the multiverse to pull off her crystalline possession spell. Since necromancy (the resurrection of a corpse) was not possible, Agatha used another Pietro from the multiverse. That is how Evan Peters' Pietro from the X-Men films showed up.
Case Study: In the DC Universe...
It might be cheating to bring up Marvel's distinguished competition, but DC recently did its own multiverse story, and knowing how DC explained things could clear up headaches why there's different versions of Pietro.
In the 2019/2020 TV special "Crisis on Infinite Earths," it was established that characters can, and will, have different faces across the multiverse. Superman, played by Tyler Hoechlin, met other Supermen played by other actors who've also played Superman, including Tom Welling (from Smallville) and Brandon Routh (from 2006's Superman Returns). All the characters shared the same identity, but looked and behaved differently.
The Man of Steel wasn't the only one. The Flash, played by Grant Gustin, also met The Flash of Earth-90 (John Wesley Shipp's version from the 1990 TV series The Flash) and The Flash of Earth-1 (Ezra Miller, of the big screen Justice League).
In "Crisis on Infinite Earths," Grant Gustin and Ezra Miller, both playing their versions of Barry Allen, met in a historic moment that bridged the gap between DC films and television. Can the multiverse function in this exact way in the MCU?
While that is DC's approach to the multiverse, it's not forbidden for Marvel to approach its multiverse in the same way. There can be other Pietros — and Wandas, and Tony Starks, and Bruce Banners, and Peter Parkers — who will look, sound, and be different.
That brings us back to WandaVision. While Agatha never said that "Fietro" was from another universe, she never said he wasn't, either. And given how the MCU has defined magic, it's possible, and plausible, that Fietro was the very same Quicksilver we saw run around in Days of Future Past. Until WandaVision says otherwise (with just one episode left, no less), the real identity behind "Fietro" is as infinite as the multiverse itself.
WandaVision streams its final episode Friday, March 5 on Disney+.
