VisionQuest Episode 7 Review: Viz Didn’t Start the Fire

This article contains spoilers for VisionQuest season 1 episode 7.

Thus far, VisionQuest has been a good show, but definitely a flawed one. Its strongest asset has been its compelling cast, actors who would be captivating on screen no matter what they’re doing. Even better, the sludgy CGI environments that plagued the first two episodes have been replaced with compelling and visually striking compositions, giving those actors interesting spaces to inhabit. But the central mystery of the Butcherbird Killer has not been captivating, making the whole thing play like an acting exercise, albeit with excellent performers.

With the mystery set aside, and a supervillain pact formed between Ultron and Jocasta, VisionQuest seems poised to do what all Marvel TV shows do: end with a giant superhero throw down. Yet, VisionQuest’s penultimate episode, “Immolation,” the show swerves away from heroic battles and does what Vision has always done best: thoughtful philosophical discussion.

“Immolation” certainly begins as if it’s setting up a major superhero clash. The episode begins with a flashback to 1939 and the stately home of Dr. Phineas Horton (played by Paul Bettany), whose obsession with a machine has driven away his wife and daughter. That machine is a Joule Individual Machine aka J.I.M. a.k.a. Jim Hammond, the original Human Torch. The Human Torch was the first Marvel superhero, appearing on the cover of 1939’s Marvel Comics #1, a character who went on in the comics to inspire Johnny Storm of the Fantastic Four and the Vision.

But “Immolation” isn’t interested in a mere Marvel nod, though several appear in the episode. There’s the return of the blade wielded by Corvus Glaive of Thanos’s Black Order, used to skewer Vision in Avengers: Infinity War. Lisa gets a multi-armed backpack, essentially getting the abilities of her character Coat of Arms from the comics. Yet, most of the episode’s action and big set-pieces turn inward, as Vision, Ultron, and Jocasta must learn more about themselves to achieve their goals.

In the case of Ultron and Jocasta, the latter discovers that she must once again become Josephine Carrington if she wants to open the Nest that contains the nanobots she plans to unleash onto humanity. Vision must go deep into his source code to retrieve a secret, which he will give to the shadowy client who has been hunting him, via Paladin and Raza, throughout the series. In exchange, the client will give Vision the means to free Thomas’s girlfriend Lisa from one of Jocasta’s nanobots.

The heightened plot mechanics only serve to give the characters reason to talk with one another about identity and family, the way we owe debts to even those we dislike and the pain of being in love. Unsurprisingly, the Jocasta plot line is the weaker of the two, despite being the more grounded. As she returns to her Carrington identity, Jocasta learns the truth of what happened to her, how her partner Wells stole her research and allowed her to die—something we’ve more or less known from previous revelations. T’Nia Miller continues to be a fascinating screen presence, and no one will complain about having the opportunity to hear her recite “The Raven.” But the deeper point about having one’s passions stolen gets buried under an unnecessary mystery box structure.

One would expect that problem to plague Vision’s plot line, as it fundamentally is a problem that stems from Marvel continuity. The Vision we knew died in Infinity War. The Vision we’ve been following is the White Vision, a copy created by S.W.O.R.D. and implanted with the previous Vision’s memories. All of his questions stem from events from pervious Marvel movies and TV shows, they all address Marvel plot points.

And yet, to his credit, writer Terry Matalas (working with director Matthew Okumura for this episode) uses those genre requirements to ask rich questions about the nature of selfhood. When White Vision faces the previous Vision’s memories, when that Vision appears in his Mindscape to accost him, the specifics of his charges may be all related to Marvel lore, but the questions themselves are universal: what parts of ourselves are we afraid to face? Are we beholden to our actions in the past? What debts do we owe to those who shaped us, especially if that shaping hurts?

Even better is the sequence where Vision reaches his source code to face J.I.M. the Human Torch, also played by Bettany. The image of Vision running into a spacious library to find a flaming man standing in the center captures the horror of the existential question that Vision has been avoiding: Are we forever defined by the intentions of makers?

Vision, of course, was created by Ultron, by Banner and Stark, by S.W.O.R.D., and by Wanda. Some of those people wanted to use him for evil, others for good, but almost all of them contributed to his creation because they were scared, lonely, or afraid. J.I.M., we come to learn, was created by Phineas Horton as a replacement for his late son James, a way to avoid his grief and regain some sense of control over his life.

Bettany plays J.I.M. as someone bitter at his creator, all too aware of the weaknesses that led to his birth. When J.I.M. and Horton hurl accusations at each other, they seem less like mad scientist and unruly creation and more like what the episode wants them to be, parts of a battered psyche at war with themselves, too hurt and broken to peacefully cohere. So when we learn that the Human Torch bursts into flames because he feels too much, his superpower becomes poetic.

So poetic is “Immolation,” in fact, that the big reveal that the client is human played by James Spader doesn’t feel like a cheat. Instead, it feels thematically earned, giving us hope that VisionQuest can outdo its own progenitor, WandaVision, by ending with a strong final episode.

VisionQuest streams new episodes every Wednesday on Disney+.

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