Warning: SPOILERS for WandaVision episode 6, “All-New Halloween Spooktacular!”
WandaVision episode 6 opens with a recap of how Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Quicksilver died in Avengers: Age of Ultron. While it serves as a helpful reminder of how the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s original Pietro Maximoff’s demise for fans who haven’t seen the film in a while (or at all), it also sets up the crucial reveals between Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) and the new version of Pietro (Evan Peters) who is visiting Westview.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Quicksilver was a rare one-and-done MCU superhero. Pietro and Wanda are superpowered twins who debuted in the second Avengers movie but, unlike Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver didn’t make it out of Age of Ultron alive. Pietro was shot dead during the film’s climactic Battle of Sokovia when the Avengers faced a horde of Ultron replicants while the prime Ultron (James Spader) launched the nation of Sokovia into the sky in order to cause an extinction-level event. Wanda went on to appear in Captain America: Civil War and the next two Avengers films before headlining WandaVision on Disney+. Given the reality-bending premise of WandaVision, fan expected to see Quicksilver resurrected like Vision (Paul Bettany), who died in Avengers: Infinity War, but instead, Marvel delivered a true shocker by recasting Pietro with Evan Peters, who played a different version of Quicksilver in Fox’s X-Men movie franchise.
It’s hard to blame Wanda for being skeptical that this man really is her twin brother Pietro since he’s played by a completely different person. It was crucial, then, for WandaVision to begin with showing Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Quicksilver to reinforce how different Evan Peters is – because aside from having superspeed and white hair, the two Quicksilvers behave very differently. Wanda, Vision, and their twin sons Billy (Julian Hilliard) and Tommy (Jett Klyne) all noticed that the new Pietro acts like a “man child”. And yet, Peters’ Pietro seems to be the real deal despite outward appearances. He remembers growing up with Wanda in Sokovia (although their memories of Halloween are different), and he agreed with Wanda that their deceased parents Oleg and Irina would have loved living in Westview, New Jersey, an idyllic all-American town that you can only find in a TV sitcom.
But Pietro also has some pointed and unnerving observations to make about Wanda and the Pleasantville she has magically created in Westview, although he doesn’t morally object to how Scarlet Witch is controlling 3,000 souls against their will. Pietro’s observations that Wanda is repressing her trauma are spot on, and he’s well-aware that he only appeared because she called him. In fact, Pietro seems to fully understand that he’s in Wanda’s TV show and that he’s just doing his part, which is to “come to town unexpectedly, create tension with the brother in law, stir up trouble with the rugrats, and ultimately give [Wanda] grief.” Which is what Wanda wanted.
And yet, despite his different face, Pietro is a reminder of the horrible past that Wanda is diligently trying to keep out of the safe haven of Westview. Like Vision, who Wanda glimpsed as a corpse in WandaVision episode 4, a dead Pietro with bloody bullet holes in his torso also briefly manifested in front of his sister. As Pietro bitterly complained to Wanda, “I got shot like a chump in the street”, which was the most ignoble death of any MCU superhero. This is, tragically, the true Pietro, who is dead and Wanda can’t truly resurrect outside of her magic bubble. But, as she proved against S.W.O.R.D., Scarlet Witch can make The Hex even larger to swallow up even more people and area.
Pietro also said something cruel but telling that caused Wanda to attack him: “It’s not like your dead husband can die twice.” If this is true about Vision, then this rule also applies to Pietro Maximoff. Quicksilver died in Avengers: Age of Ultron and, despite the reality distorting happening in WandaVision, there are some deaths that just can’t be undone, even in the MCU.
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