‘VisionQuest’ Episodes 3 and 4 Introduce a New Threat

Like last week, this week’s episodes of VisionQuest cover a lot of ground. There’s some heady, emotional stuff going on here, plus a whole new problem for Vision to deal with. It’s a lot to break down, so let’s get into it. Back in episode one of VisionQuest, eagle-eyed viewers might have caught the headline on a newspaper Vision was reading in his Mindspace: “Tech giant murdered. ‘Butcherbird wings’ carved beneath victim baffles police.” It wasn’t just an offbeat background detail; episode three, “Reboot,” opens with Ultron, who’s gotten his televisions and painting supplies back in his attic, indifferently watching a news report about the second victim of the “Butcherbird Killer.” The police, the news report tells us, are looking for any connection between the two victims. Ultron turns away from the TV screen and continues working on his painting, which depicts, to my best guess—based solely on my nonexistent bird knowledge and a quick search for black birds with red eyes—an Asian glossy starling flying above a spooky, lonely forest road. We cut to a very expensive-looking high-rise apartment, where a man peers anxiously through his curtains while the Butcherbird Killer news story plays on the TV in the background. He pulls out a shotgun, and not a minute too soon. His security systems shut down, and the elevator into his apartment opens, revealing a figure dressed in a black robe with red eyes. He fires off a few blasts from the shotgun at them, and even though they seem to connect, they don’t slow the figure down. They just keep heading straight for him. The show cuts to the title sequence before we see what happens, but we know this guy is done for. “Reboot” covers a lot of plot ground, switching between various emergencies related to the physical injuries Vision sustains after taking an adamantium bullet to the gut at the end of episode two and the emotional injuries Vision inflicts on Thomas by repeatedly denying that they have a connection. Vision is crashing out, in more ways than one. © Marvel When we first see Vision in this episode, he and Thomas are in the station wagon Thomas stole at the end of episode two to escape from St. Mabyn’s. J.A.R.V.I.S.’ sacrifice bought Vision some time, but not a whole hell of a lot. He cauterizes his wound using the acid from a dead battery he sniffs out in the back of the station wagon and achieves “a state of not quite dying yet,” but he’s still not what you’d call “good.” He’s being held together by spit and a prayer. Maybe that’s why he keeps fucking up with Thomas. He’s frazzled and can’t get it together enough to understand that no matter how many times he runs a simulation where he answers Thomas’ question about how any of this—some part of Tommy Maximoff taking up residence inside his body, Vision being his father—can be real, if his answer is always some variation of “It can’t be real, so it isn’t; you’re not Tommy Maximoff and I’m not your father,” Thomas is going to keep storming away in anger. Eventually, after running that simulation over and over and failing to come up with an answer that results in a decent outcome, what he settles for is avoidance. He tells Thomas that this is not a conversation that mixes well with unstable systems, which also causes Thomas to storm off. All of this takes place in a hotel where Vision and Thomas have holed up after escaping St. Mabyn’s. The hotel has a pool, and Thomas’ fear of the water quickly becomes apparent. Even if he’s not convinced that he is Thomas’ father, Vision does at least recognize that he is currently Thomas’ father figure. And that means inquiring about what’s wrong when he sees Thomas having a bad reaction to the pool, even if he’s just spent the last couple of hours dodging Thomas’ questions and refusing to open up to Thomas. Thomas initially pays him back in kind, refusing to talk about the water, but eventually, he explains. He’s not afraid of the water; he’s afraid of what he did to it. We knew the incident for which he was arrested had something to do with a swimming pool, but this is the first time we’re hearing exactly what happened. “These kids were holding me under,” Thomas says. “You know, one second, it was a prank; the next, I was drowning. Dying. Leaving my body until… something else tried to fill the space. And then screaming. Theirs. Every atom in my body was vibrating, and the water started to boil. My hands… my everything was moving so fast.” © Marvel Something about Thomas’ description of what happened and of how his hand phased through the glass of a vending machine just a few minutes ago (which, as Thomas points out, is one of Vision’s powers, too) gets through to Vision, cracks his façade of denial. It’s just in time; despite the best efforts of F.R.I.D.A.Y., Vision is in total system collapse, and he’s only got minutes left to live. He needs to shut down and power back up again, but once he shuts down, the AIs won’t be able to power him back on. His only chance is Thomas, who protests that he can’t control his powers. “You are the very essence of speed,” Vision tells him. “You can move and vibrate at such a frequency that you cause a friction between the molecules so powerful it will power me.” They’re going to have to get into the pool to do it, though, and Thomas needs a little more than that to help him get over his fear. Vision obliges, with Paul Bettany delivering a heartfelt monologue. “I have run thousands of simulations of what I’m about to tell you,” Vision says. “And at the end of each and every one of them, you run from me more confused, more angry than you are now. But all my simulations were flawed. Because I do not know you well enough, Thomas Shepherd. I haven’t listened to you well enough. And therefore I haven’t considered that inside you is Tommy Maximoff. Son to Wanda and Vision, brother to Billy, who adored him. He is not your fantasy. He is not your delusion. You are real. Tommy Maximoff is real. You are who you think you are.” Bettany sells the whole speech as something Vision actually believes, but even though it sounds like what Thomas has been wanting to hear, there’s still an emotional distance in his phrasing. “Son to Wanda and Vision,” he says, not “Son to Wanda and me.” There’s still a difference, in his mind, between who he was before and who he is now. Vision powers down in the pool, and Thomas successfully reboots him, making him significantly more stable than he was before. © Marvel All of that would be plenty for one episode, but throughout “Reboot,” the Butcherbird plotline unfolds in the background as Paladin tries to track down Vision by following traces of a supercoolant for micro quantum computers. It’s one of Vision’s components, something only he should be leaking when he’s injured, and yet, Paladin ends up in the high-rise apartment from the beginning of the episode, where the guy who peeked through the curtains is, indeed, dead, with a set of wings carved into the floor underneath him. A trail of the supercoolant leads him to the figure in a black cloak, who’s still inside the apartment. The figure wants to know who sent him, and when Paladin refuses, they reach directly into his mind instead. We learn that Paladin isn’t a true Paladin; he was adopted and raised by the last of the line, who didn’t have any children of his own. Paladin eventually escapes from the apartment, seemingly before giving up the name of his client. That might be a moot point, though, because his client is so mad that he still hasn’t found Vision that he fires Paladin. Paladin tries to protest, saying that his oath won’t let him break a contract and offering to complete the job for free, but the client hangs up on him. Inside Vision’s head, the AIs are having a funeral for J.A.R.V.I.S. when they get interrupted by the lights turning red. Apparently, during the reboot, Vision’s neural network made a connection with another synthezoid. Who this is, or where they came from, we don’t yet know. We hear the figure in the black robe’s voice say “Hello, Vision,” and then the episode cuts to black. The credits list T’Nia Miller as “The Butcherbird.” © Marvel By contrast, episode four, “Malware,” is less about the difficult emotional work of connecting with the son you never knew you had and maybe don’t fully believe is actually your son and more about figuring out what the fuck is going on. While their minds are connected, the Butcherbird tells Vision that they’ll leave him alone if he leaves them alone, but Vision isn’t about to let another killer synth run around unchecked. He learned his lesson with Ultron—right? E.D.I.T.H. severs their connection (it’s visually depicted as an exorcism, which is a cute touch), and Vision and the AIs get to work finding out everything they can about the Butcherbird’s victims, hoping it will lead them to the Butcherbird’s identity. Vision, in a display of significant emotional growth, shares what happened with Thomas, but he’s still not quite comfortable telling Thomas everything. When Thomas asks who he’s always talking to, Vision says he has four other AIs in his head to help him with various tasks, purposefully omitting Ultron. Back in Vision’s Mindspace, the AIs discover that the Butcherbird Killer files are locked down tight in an Interpol database. Vision and Ultron are going to have to hack into Interpol, which the show depicts in the style of a spy thriller in which they’re undertaking a dangerous infiltration. Like the exorcism, it’s another fun touch. After they retrieve the files, they realize that all three of the victims were formerly part of a team of five researchers who created the first synthetic consciousness—essentially, the precursor to Vision. There’s only one person in the group who’s still alive, since one of the other team members, Dr. Josephine Carrington, died of natural causes in 2008. They pull up a picture of Jo, and it’s T’Nia Miller. They also realize that the Butcherbird has been taking DNA keys from each of their victims: a liter of blood from the first, fingerprints from the second, and an eyeball from the third. The last remaining scientist who is still alive is Katerina Wells (Mary McDonnell), and she’s conveniently about to host a fundraising gala. Fearing that she’s going to be the next victim, Vision and Thomas decide to infiltrate it. Thomas loops in Lisa, who accepts his story about Tommy Maximoff and his newfound robot dad pretty easily. Lisa helps them lift the tickets they need to get into the event. © Dennys Ilic/Marvel Once inside, Vision spots Katerina talking to a small group of people about Dr. Phineas Horton, whom she calls the great-grandfather of robotics. Dr. Horton created J.I.M., or the Synthetic Man, the first synth. When Thomas asks what happened to him, Vision responds, “His inability to process complex emotions spun his clockwork too quickly, flooded his solar cells with oxygen until… his entire being was consumed in fire.” That’s the painting we saw back in episode two. Before Katerina takes the stage, Vision lets it slip that he has five other AIs in his head. Thomas picks up on this discrepancy immediately and asks who the fifth AI is. At this point, Katerina is onstage and talking about Ultron, and that’s when it clicks for Thomas. He feels deeply betrayed that Vision not only lied to him but is also hosting a genocidal maniac in his head. He storms off and, of course, that’s when the Butcherbird shows up. They throw off their robe, and underneath, they look an awful lot like Ultron. Vision tries to stop the Butcherbird from attacking Katerina, but his flying, phasing, and lasers are still offline. He’s not up to this fight. Throughout the episode, in Vision’s Mindspace, E.D.I.T.H. has been having something of a personal crisis as she struggles with her identity. In “Reboot,” F.R.I.D.A.Y. told her that almost all of Stark’s AIs were based on real people, and in “Malware,” E.D.I.T.H. learns more about Edith Marks, the test pilot upon whom she was based. But she doesn’t like what she finds; Edith’s life was marred by tragedy, and E.D.I.T.H. is supposed to be the fun AI. Surprisingly, it’s Ultron who helps E.D.I.T.H. through this crisis of identity, telling her that who was Edith was doesn’t need to define who E.D.I.T.H. is. It’s all this thinking about who she is and was that makes E.D.I.T.H. realize that if she’s based on a real person, maybe this mysterious synth is, too. She’s based on Jo Carrington. Vision tries to use that to gain the upper hand in the fight, telling her he knows that her code is based on Jo Carrington, but the Butcherbird reveals a huge twist: “I am not based on her,” she says. “I am her.” © Marvel The implications of that will have to wait for a future episode, though, because right now, Vision and Jo are still fighting, and she’s got him on the ropes. According to Ultron, Vision can’t win this fight because he’s emotionally compromised. He needs someone who’s not so invested to take over. We all know what a horrible idea it is for Vision to let Ultron take control of his body, and Vision knows it, too, but Ultron promises he won’t hurt Jo, and that is, ultimately, enough to sway him. Ultron takes control, and he doesn’t kill Jo—but he does trick Jo into firing a laser at Katerina, killing her and disintegrating her body. Jo is pissed, because she didn’t get the DNA key she wanted from Katerina. She takes off, flying away through the skylight. Ultron, meanwhile, is busy locking Vision and the other AIs out of all of his key systems, rendering them helpless as Ultron says it’s time he and Thomas had a little chat before putting his arm around Thomas and walking away. Earlier in the episode, there was flashback to Avengers: Age of Ultron in which Vision tried to empathize with Ultron, only for Ultron to call him naïve. He does it again, later, when Vision is looking at an image of the evolution of man with a synthezoid tacked on to the end and Vision says he sees it as a family tree. The end of “Malware” hits particularly hard because Ultron was right—Vision can be frustratingly naïve, and this time, it might just be his downfall. New episodes of VisionQuest air Tuesdays on Disney+. Want more io9 news? Check out the best movies and TV shows to stream this month and all the upcoming sci-fi, fantasy, and horror books that should be on your radar.