VisionQuest Episodes 5 and 6 are where the show picks up. The first four spent most of their time introducing characters and setting up the rules. Now the story moves, and the show is clearly about AI: Vision (Paul Bettany), the AIs in his head, the AI he can't trust and the one he's up against.
If you've watched every episode so far, you can start enjoying it here. The structure follows WandaVision, whose early episodes left viewers asking what was going on, with small clues here and there, before the picture came into focus. VisionQuest's picture is clearer now.
The AI story in VisionQuest Episodes 5 and 6
Very little of the technology is new. Rogue AIs, people controlled from a distance, mind-bending simulations and nanobots have been on screen for years, and these two episodes use all of them.
The world around it has changed, though. When The Matrix came out in 1999, a story like this felt like a distant future. Now deepfakes circulate, people make whatever they like with AI tools, and AI is starting to take over some people's jobs. Nanotechnology is still a long way from what VisionQuest shows, but much of the rest feels like it could happen any day.
Vision is a very advanced AI trying to become human. He wants emotions without knowing whether he's capable of them, at a time when real AI models are being trained to sound more like people. The timing makes the show's message hit much harder than it would have ten years ago.
Budget and Vision's human form
VisionQuest feels constrained by its budget. It keeps finding reasons to hold Vision back, and the spectacle looks smaller than the character. You rarely get to see him at full power. For much of the series he's in human form, a disguise the show set up from the start, when he was learning to live among people.
The workaround is clever, but the big Vision moments a film would give you never come.
James Spader as Ultron and T'Nia Miller as the Butcherbird
The bigger problem is how much of these two episodes is dialogue. After a while it gets hard to keep listening. At one point E.D.I.T.H. (Emily Hampshire) looks as if she can't take any more, and by then the feeling is mutual.
Ultron (James Spader) and the Butcherbird (T'Nia Miller) get long conversations in which her whole background is laid out. They flirt about murdering the world like a pair of psychotic lovers, a Joker and Harley Quinn. But the Butcherbird is a polished, composed AI, and the scenes are played very seriously. If you stop and think about it, the creepiness is there. While you're watching, you don't feel it, because the conversations describe the danger without ever making it immediate.
Ultron is as despicable as ever, though the show keeps hinting that he could change by the end. That would be a good arc for him, if the last two episodes follow through.
Inside Vision's mind
VisionQuest keeps drawing Vision's computer brain as a house. Memory sits in boxes and in booklets of encrypted code, the firewall looks like pixelated fire from a video game, and with Ultron in front of it, the fire looks like hellfire. The show is trying to be smart, and it comes off as a bit dumb.
If you know the basics of how computers store and protect data, the jokes are funny. Without that background, some viewers may wonder why there's fire around an elevator and ones and zeros printed in a booklet. Six episodes in, the show has explained its system plenty, but it's hard to say how many people will follow it.
Paul Bettany as Vision and Ruaridh Mollica as Tommy
Vision and Tommy (Ruaridh Mollica), the son who isn't really his son, keep getting closer. Trust is building, the awkwardness between them is cute, and the two actors sell it. Lisa Molinari (Lauren Morais), Tommy's friend and partner in crime since Episode 1, is fine, but her appearance in Episode 5 feels abrupt.
The household AIs are still cute too. One of them takes a big risk in Episode 5, and after what happened to J.A.R.V.I.S. (James D'Arcy), it's easy to worry she'll go the same way.
Todd Stashwick as Paladin
Paladin (Todd Stashwick) seemed to have real capabilities in the premiere, and he has since become the jester of the season. Here, the episodes keep undercutting him and treat him as a joke.
A villain needs something sinister about him, and Paladin has lost it. He'd have worked better as an ordinary, serviceable hunter.
The real threat now has to come from elsewhere, and whatever steps up still needs to prove itself. The story moves to Madripoor, the fictional Southeast Asian island nation The Falcon and the Winter Soldier visited in 2021.
Are VisionQuest Episodes 5 and 6 worth watching?
Yes, if you've watched the first four. There are a lot of moving pieces now, and the story is finally going somewhere.
The pressure is on the last two episodes. WandaVision's world-building was fine, and its final two episodes flipped the whole show and made it worth the wait. VisionQuest's beginning was weaker than WandaVision's, so if its ending isn't worth it, the season will be a total and utter disaster.
The review of Episodes 3 and 4 covers how the show got here.
Locked in the attic. With Ultron (James Spader) driving his body, Vision (Paul Bettany) and his AIs are locked in the attic, where Ultron used to be kept. They watch old footage on Ultron's televisions and rebuild what they can from phone data.
Ultron and Tommy. Ultron takes Tommy (Ruaridh Mollica) for a drink and argues that Vision can't love him the way he hopes. Tommy tells him, "You're alone, and you always will be." The ride Ultron calls for him turns out to be Paladin (Todd Stashwick), who takes Tommy again.
Ultron meets Jocasta. The credits now call the Butcherbird Jocasta (T'Nia Miller). Ultron scanned the face of Katerina Wells (Mary McDonnell) before she died, the last biometric key Jocasta needs, and he holds it as a bargaining chip with her. Their dates take place in simulations: the Louvre, then a record shop.
The firewall. Ultron gives Vision a choice: drop the firewall and set him free, or stay locked up while Paladin has Tommy. Vision drops it. He warns Ultron that he'll come after him and Jocasta, and Ultron answers, "I'd be disappointed if you didn't."
F.R.I.D.A.Y. leaves. F.R.I.D.A.Y. (Orla Brady) chases Ultron out of Vision's mind into the digital world, and E.D.I.T.H. (Emily Hampshire) glitches at the loss. After the deletion of J.A.R.V.I.S. (James D'Arcy) in Episode 2, it's hard not to fear she'll go the same way. It would be good to see him back.
Madripoor. Vision wakes up in his own body on a cargo plane full of animals, bound for Madripoor, where Ultron has sent him. Lisa Molinari (Lauren Morais) has stowed away on it.
Jocasta's past. In Episode 6, Ultron goes into Jocasta's mind and she shows him her past. Josephine Carrington lost her father to a degenerative disease, studied neuroscience and built an AI from a scan of her own brain, planning nanobots that would give everyone an AI of their own. Her colleagues sold the work to Stark Industries, and the nanobots were locked away behind the biometric keys. Ultron thinks her real plan is a hive mind. Later, he admits to her that he's unsure whether he still wants to wipe out humanity.
Paladin's bluff. Paladin claims he put a bomb in Tommy's arm, and Tommy complains that Paladin has turned him into Speed. Vision brings up Paladin's estranged daughter, Tilly, and the bomb turns out to be fake.
The Handler walks out. E.D.I.T.H. reaches Paladin's Handler (Diane Morgan), who turns out to be an AI too, and talks her into quitting. That leaves Paladin without his support, and with his drones under E.D.I.T.H.'s control by the end of the episode.
Raza and the Client. Raza (Faran Tahir), the Ten Rings man from Iron Man, turns up to claim Vision for Paladin's client. Then Madripoor's power cuts out and the Client addresses Vision through the city's screens, calling him a "tin man without a heart" and offering him a heart and a soul if he surrenders. Lives won't be spared if he doesn't. The episode doesn't say who, or what, is behind it.
Lisa. Disguised as one of the bots in Jocasta's mind, F.R.I.D.A.Y. warns E.D.I.T.H. that Jocasta is there. Jocasta wants to test a nanobot on Tommy, but Ultron stops her, warning that Vision would come after them. She uses it on Lisa instead, who turns red-eyed and attacks under Jocasta's control. Tommy uses his powers to stop the attack.
Vision and Tommy. Paladin had told Tommy that S.W.O.R.D. rebuilt Vision to kill Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen). Vision gives Tommy the whole WandaVision story, though he still says the Vision Tommy remembers was the old one, not him.
The ending. Jocasta shares a drink with Ultron, and he says it makes him feel real. They kiss.
Bright Bulbs
- The story finally moves, and after four episodes of setup it's clear where VisionQuest is heading.
- Its AI ideas are familiar, but in a world of deepfakes and everyday AI tools they feel much closer to home.
- Vision (Paul Bettany) and Tommy (Ruaridh Mollica) build real trust, and their awkwardness together is cute.
- The AIs in Vision's head are still easy to care about.
Dull Bulbs
- Long conversations explain the danger without making it feel immediate.
- Ultron (James Spader) and the Butcherbird (T'Nia Miller) behave like a murderous couple, but the scenes are too polished and serious to feel creepy.
- The budget looks like the reason Vision stays held back, and the big Vision moments never come.
- Vision's mind, drawn as boxes, notebooks and fire, may lose viewers who don't know the computer terms behind it.
- Paladin (Todd Stashwick) has gone from a threat in the premiere to the season's jester.
Cast
- Paul Bettany as Vision
- Ruaridh Mollica as Tommy Maximoff / Thomas Shepherd
- James Spader as Ultron
- T'Nia Miller as The Butcherbird
- Todd Stashwick as Paladin
- Lauren Morais as Lisa Molinari
- Orla Brady as F.R.I.D.A.Y.
- Emily Hampshire as E.D.I.T.H.
- Diane Morgan as Handler
- Henry Lewis as D.U.M.-E.
- Jonathan Sayer as U.
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Also in Marvel Cinematic Universe
White Vision Explained: The Comics Behind VisionQuestJohn Byrne's rebuilt Vision, the loss of his family and the comic history behind the man who remembers a life he cannot feel.- Who Is Paladin in VisionQuest?Todd Stashwick's hunter has a contract, a Handler and a selective moral code. How VisionQuest changes Marvel's mercenary.
- Every AI in VisionQuest, and Where You've Seen Them BeforeWho plays the six AIs inside Vision's mind, where they appeared in the MCU, and why J.A.R.V.I.S. has a particularly familiar face.
- What to Watch Before VisionQuestStart with WandaVision. Which Avengers films help, why Agatha All Along matters, and what you can leave out of your catch-up.
- How Is Tommy Alive in VisionQuest?From Westview to a swimming pool: Billy's search for Tommy, Thomas Shepherd's memories and the differences from Marvel's comics.
- VisionQuest Episodes 1 and 2 Ending Explained: Tommy, the Trap and J.A.R.V.I.S.Thomas Shepherd's memories, Paladin's trap and the questions left inside Vision's mind after the two-part premiere.