VisionQuest Series-Premiere Recap: Home Is Where the Bots Are

VisionQuest

No Strings
Season 1Episode 1
Editor’s Rating
3 stars
Vision returns to the MCU fold to deal with the fallout from the events in WandaVision.Photo: Marvel

The MCU’s Vision (Paul Bettany) is returning to TV at an awkward time for AI superheroes. With AI tools rapidly expanding into every part of our lives that technology touches, related debates have infected every aspect of public life. Even the most political Marvel TV shows and movies only deal with hot-button issues in broad, glancing ways, so no one should expect VisionQuest to seriously or insightfully address humanity’s relationship with this technology. But will AI-debate fatigue affect viewers’ sympathies? Is there a dedicated audience right now for a whole show about artificial-intelligence bots’ feelings about their relationship with humanity?

VisionQuest’s pilot episode, “No Strings,” suggests that creator–showrunner Terry Matalas (12 Monkeys,Star Trek: Picard) is moving away from the science-fiction futurism of 2016’s Avengers: Age of Ultron, where some of these characters originated. That also means steering away from even the slight, surface-level ideas that movie raised about AI. Instead, VisionQuestleans toward the magical fantasy of its other key starting point, 2021’s WandaVision. “No Strings” suggests this will be a “roll with it for the vibes” series first and foremost.

“No Strings” is a little sad, a little goofy, and extremely talky. Matalas (who scripted the first two episodes and the finale) has a lot of pieces to get on the board and a lot of parallels to establish. But the core story has the latest version of the robot (well, “synthezoid”) superhero Vision yearning to be more human — with no idea what that means.

The series opens with a quick MCU recap that skips a lot of crucial details to focus on emotion. Here’s my version of what’s actually relevant for this episode.

The superhero Vision was created during 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron to help counter the genocidal AI Ultron. Thanos killed Vision in 2019’s Avengers: Endgame. Between those movies, mostly offscreen, Vision and Ultron’s turncoat lackey Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) fell in love. In WandaVision, Wanda escaped her grief by psychically enslaving the town of Westview into a fantasy where she and an illusory version of Vision were a happy couple in a vintage sitcom. They even had two superpowered sons, Tommy and Billy. But Illusion Vision was so true to the noble, selfless Original Vision that he resisted Wanda’s hex and worked to save Westview from her.

Meanwhile, the government agency S.W.O.R.D., under interim director Tyler Hayward, built an all-white duplicate Vision and sent it into Wanda’s hex illusion to stop her. Illusion Vision stopped Neo-Vision by appealing to its sense of logic and desire for identity and by unlocking Neo-Vision’s suppressed copy of Original Vision’s memories. Neo-Vision promptly flew away. Wanda erased Illusion Vision at the end of WandaVision,but we haven’t seen Neo-Vision again until now.

Post-Westview, Neo-Vision retreated to Edinburgh, where Original Vision and Wanda used to hole up together. Disguised as a human, Sherwood Ellis, he works at a bar whose motherly owner, Fiona, knew Wanda and Original Vision as a happy couple. “I was a different person back then,” Neo-Vision sighs.

After hours, Neo-Vision parks his body in the bar’s walk-in fridge and retreats to a mind palace modeled after a British country manor. Tellingly, it seems like his own version of Wanda’s Westview hex, from the glimmering energy-wall borders (hers were red; his are blue), to the Technicolor vintage-movie styling, to the cast of characters reskinned to fit the theme. Vision (we’ll use that name for the Neo version wherever it won’t be confusing) downloaded all of Stark Industries’ AIs, and he’s embodied them in his mansion as household servants. The early mute helper robots D.U.M.-E. and U. are now coverall-wearing maintenance workers. J.A.R.V.I.S. is back to being the butler and security agent Tony based the AI on. F.R.I.D.A.Y. is a social and tactical director. And E.D.I.T.H., seen in the Spider-Man movies as the tactical AI assistant Tony passed on to Peter Parker, is in charge of experimenting with concepts like “fun” and “thrills.” (Also “game theory” and “weapons.”)

Vision is confident the outside world has forgotten him: He’s been in hiding for years with no pursuit from S.W.O.R.D., the Avengers, or anyone else. He’s free to spend his time replaying and analyzing Original Vision’s key memories and working with F.R.I.D.A.Y. on fitting in with humanity. He thinks interfacing well with humanity will help him feel grounded.

The house’s sixth occupant disagrees. Vision keeps a secret downloaded copy of Ultron locked in a mind attic cluttered with TV screens and great works of human art. Vision demands Ultron use a human avatar, which saves Marvel Studios a lot of CG budget and lets us see original Ultron voice actor James Spader in the flesh. Humanoid Ultron is a portly, bearded, fussily suited man who looks like he should be teaching a classics course at Oxford and sounds like he’d spend half of every class calling his students imbeciles.

Ultron’s philosophical snarkiness and jaded, exasperated air from Age of Ultron carry over here. He obviously resents Vision and chafes at captivity, but he’s collegiate, patronizing, and petty rather than openly destructive. While trying to steer Vision away from becoming more human, he admits he’s studied humanity during his imprisonment and now admires them. “When you’ve been bested by something, it’s best to understand it,” he mutters. Lest he seem too defanged, though, he says there’s a 50-50 chance he’d continue trying to exterminate humanity if he were free. And behind Vision’s back, Ultron ominously releases a carrier pigeon, sending a message to a mystery recipient.

Back in the real world, Vision is working at the bar when a sniper’s bullet abruptly kills Fiona. A tactical squad breaks in to attack Vision, who kills them all. A mercenary we’ll soon come to know as Paladin calmly monitors their deaths from a distance. He watches, unfazed, as Vision emerges undisguised from the bar and locks eyes accusatorially with Paladin before flying away. Paladin casually kills his own sniper for murdering a civilian, then wanders through Fiona’s wrecked bar for “a quick scan and scram.”

But he’s shaken when the client who ordered the hit calls to upbraid him for recklessness. “Your contract clearly indicates I need Vision intact,” the client says through a voice changer. “This was a fact-finding mission,” Paladin splutters. After the client disconnects, Paladin’s assistant says the call used S.W.O.R.D. encryption — a breadcrumb possibly leading back to Hayward or another government agent as the client.

In a Silence of the Lambsnod, Vision consults Ultron for insight into Paladin’s predator mind-set but quickly realizes Ultron leaked his location, enabling the attack. Ultron admits it but denieshiring Paladin. He claims there was already a contract out on Vision and Ultron was just taking advantage to push Vision out of hiding. Blaming Ultron for Fiona’s death, Vision deletes his art and possessions.

Meanwhile, Paladin researches Westview and discovers footage featuring Billy and Tommy. The episode meaningfully cuts from there to a pair of London con artists, Thomas (hint, hint) and Lisa, as they scam a bargoer. Afterward, Lisa brags about her pickpocketing skills and says theft is easier and less insulting to the mark. Thomas, by contrast, enjoys the finesse of con jobs and the joy of betraying people before they inevitably betray him. There’s a lot of character packed into that description — a complicated combination of ego, insecurity, cynicism, and self-justification.

When Thomas sees a news report about Vision’s Edinburgh pub confrontation, he has a brief, choppy flashback with quick flashes of children playing in a pool, Illusion Vision landing in front of kid Tommy and Billy in Westview, a sign for “Saint Mabyn’s Psychiatric Sanitarium,” and Neo-Vision walking through flames. He has a panic attack, and Lisa tries to calm him with fantasies about inventing a different identity — a pointed thematic parallel to Vision’s existential questions about identity and purpose.

Unfortunately, Paladin interrupts and kidnaps Thomas. Using stolen S.W.O.R.D. communications schematics, Paladin sends a threatening message to Vision’s mind mansion: “I have your son.” It looks like Vision will have to shift focus for a while, going from Who am I? to Who the hell is this Thomas kid?

• The headlines on the newspaper Vision reads in his mind mansion are clearly Easter eggs for something coming up in the story: “Tech giant murdered, ‘Butcherbird wings’ carved beneath victim baffles police,” and “Hunt for stolen adamantium continues.”

• Vision deciding not to call any other known MCU character for help because “I won’t put anyone else in danger” is a neat little shortcut around the MCU’s usual questions: Where are all the other heroes?

• Ultron telling Vision to explore the world because he was “tangled in strings, caught up in lines of code, but now you’re free” is an obvious callback to Ultron repeatedly referencing Pinocchio’s song “I’ve Got No Strings” in Age of Ultron. Betcha this comes up again when Ultron inevitably escapes.

• Interesting to learn that S.W.O.R.D. covered up the Westview crisis as “an Avengers training exercise gone wrong.” How do you keep that many deeply traumatized people under wraps?

• When Thomas produces Lisa’s cut of the scam cash, she’s momentarily taken aback: “I knew you were fast,” she says, “but that’s weirdly fast.” Remember that Westview’s Tommy Maximoff was a super-speedster.

VisionQuest Premiere Recap: Home Is Where the Bots Are