Maybe? We don’t really know what Wanda intended. She blasted Monica through an interior and exterior wall. If she was just trying to blast Monica, that should have splattered Monica, not shredded the walls. It could be that Monica already had powers that shielded her, but all we saw was Wanda’s scarlet hex energy, and Wanda seemed to expect the wall damage, as if it were Wanda that shredded the walls. Wanda seemed surprised that Monica was back in Westview, but not surprised that Monica was still alive. On balance, I think the internal evidence is that anyone would have survived Wanda’s cornfielding blast, because it was an ejection, not a damaging blast.
That does bring up another unique aspect to Monica’s interactions with the Hex barrier. As far as we know, she’s the only person that’s been forcibly ejected through the barrier while surrounded by Wanda’s Hex energies. AND the only person to force their way through the barrier. AND the only person to pass through the barrier multiple times.
I mentioned upthread a couple of times that I think Westview sits on the Nexus of All Realities. I think that may be a key element of Monica’s powers. In the comics, she got her powers through exposure to “multidimensional energies”. In the show, when we see her forcing her way through the Hex barrier, we see multiple versions of her splitting off and merging back.
I think what may be going on is that Wanda is using her powers to manipulate the multidimensional energies of the Nexus of All Realities to create the reality distortion Hex field. When Monica forced her way back through, the Hex barrier tried to re-write her, not just to conform to Wanda’s sitcom reality, but we were actually seeing actual alternate reality versions of Monica from different parallel universes, because the Hex barrier is an extension of the Nexus of All Realities. I think it’s also likely Monica was special before she forced her way back through, which is why she was able to do so, and after being shuffled through a, well, spectrum of herselves, she emerged on the other side of the barrier with powers.
Head SWORD guy also implied that Monica’s already been to space. “Cosmic radiation” is a big part of Marvel superpowers.
Also, I think there’s a difference between the people “absorbed” by the hex (Westview residents, the Sword agents), and the people who’ve actively gone through (Monica, the beekeeper). Remember that when Monica first showed up, Jimmy said he couldn’t even get close to the town. Something was subconsciously pushing him away.
What if, after Monica rewound time, the beekeeper became Pietro? As far as we know, the beekeeper is the only other person to actively go through the Hex of their own accord.
There’s also Firestar, who gave herself breast cancer, because her power is to manipulate microwave radiation, but she’s one of a handful of mutants who’s somehow not immune to her own powers.
I think all the players are on the board now. Hoping for a nice finish to what I think has been a good series overall, if uneven. Although it was more-or-less explained here what was up with all the sitcom stuff.
The early sense of it some of us had and Agatha not being ALL all along, but instead trying to figure out HOW Wanda did it both verified. Agatha doesn’t know how the hex works and neither does Wanda even though she cast it.
Other than that most of this ep was a recap to bring everyone up to speed with her past traumas.
Big new thing: whoever it was who Wanda saw when she first approached the Infinity Stone … looked mystical female with horns or a horned crown to me; that she never actually took possession of Vision’s body but created a version of it, leaving Hayward to power up Vision without Vision’s soul; and of course the reveal that Scarlet Witch in the MCU is a mythic master of Chaos Magic.
That was a great episode of television. Unfortunately, I think there are too many plot points wandering about to wrap it up satisfactorily in one final episode. (It’s reminding me of some of the final episodes of LOST. I was disappointed in the series, while individually some of the episodes were quite nice.)
I agree with this. However, I now believe that we have what we need for the conflict of the final episode — Wanda trying to control and escape from something she doesn’t understand and doesn’t know how to control, while Agatha continues egging her on to understand and perhaps exploit her powers. I don’t expect the final episode to give us the big twist many were expecting (including me), that Agatha was somehow an agent or victim of a greater malevolent power. I think we’re going to ride out what we have now. However, that said, I still do expect something to be revealed as being behind the curtains of power, probably in the very last moments, as a setup for the villain in the upcoming Doctor Strange movie.
Edit to add: My favorite part of this episode was how, while there were a lot of plot details being managed in the various flashbacks, it’s structured as essentially a two-hander, with Wanda and Agnes carrying the narrative spine. It serves as a showcase for how absolutely tremendous Hahn and Olsen are in their roles, both individually and together. It may be a silly comic-book show, but these two women are bringing it.