Warning: This post contains spoilers for the VisionQuest season finale
First things first: Yes, that is Robert Downey Jr.’s Doctor Doom voice you hear in the post-credits scene that closes out the VisionQuest finale, “Forever.” Omitted from the advanced screeners made available to critics, but featured when the episode went live on Disney+ on Tuesday, the sequence begins by making Marvel Cinematic Universe fans relive Wanda Maximoff’s apparent death as the Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) in the climax of the 2022 hit Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
But after a four-year entombment in rubble, this missing Avenger is officially back in action. As the VisionQuest post-credits scene continues, Wanda is unearthed by a powerful new presence, Downey’s Victor Von Doom, the main antagonist in the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday. “Scarlet Witch, awaken — your power will be mine,” we hear Doctor Doom say as Wanda’s eyes pop open… and our collective minds explode.
Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Doom in ‘Avengers: Doomsday’Marvel“That’s Downey’s voice,” VisionQuest showrunner Terry Matalas confirms to Gold Derby, adding that while he wrote and directed “Forever,” he wasn’t personally behind the camera for that particular sequence. “I can’t talk too much about how it was constructed, because I don’t want to give away, but yes, that line was designed for this moment, specifically.”
For Matalas, including Wanda’s resurrection as VisionQuest‘s final beat solved two problems. Obviously, it allows the events of the series to flow directly into Avengers: Doomsday, due in theaters on Dec. 18. And, more importantly, it allows the character who launched the MCU’s Disney+ era with 2021’s WandaVision to close out this particular phase.
“It was something we all knew that we had to have,” the showrunner says. “She was the missing component of that finale, and we talked about a dozen different ways to bring her back. This was the one that felt like the biggest promise of more for everybody. It came together really fast, and was really collaborative in a very fun way.”
It’s worth noting that Wanda’s lover, Vision (Paul Bettany), mentions her absence earlier in the finale to one of the two sons they share, Tommy (Ruaridh Mollica), a now-grown speedster in the vein of her dead brother, Pietro aka Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). “We had talked about having her appear in a dreamlike ways, but if that happened at the wrong time, the episode would become about that,” Matalas says. “It really needed to be about Vision, so the end credits sequence was the perfect way to address Wanda.”
It’s a dramatic final beat for a Drama-contending show. As Gold Derby exclusively revealed on Wednesday, VisionQuest will be submitted as a Drama Series this awards cycle after WandaVision went the Limited Series route and Agatha All Along — the middle chapter of this MCU streaming trilogy — apparated in the Comedy Series races. Funnily enough, we broke that news to Matalas during our conversation, who says he agrees with the designation.
“It always felt like a drama,” he says, while acknowledging that the series does have plenty of laughs. “I also think dramas can be funny! But it’s very cool to be considered for anything in terms of awards.” Asked if he has an early idea for which episode he might submit for contention, he understandably points to “Forever.”
“The finale is really the episode that I think everyone shines the brightest in,” he remarks. “But I leave that up to the Marvel and Disney gods. Personally, I just feel that I’m just lucky to do this.”
Read on as Matalas shares other secrets behind the VisionQuest finale, from that instantly viral “Rhinestone Cowboy” moment to the origins of UltraVision, the sitcom-within-the-drama.
Professor X marks the spot?
Before joining the MCU, Matalas piloted the Enterprise-D through the much-loved series finale of Star Trek: Picard, the show that served as the late Patrick Stewart’s farewell to the final frontier. Matalas boarded the series in Season 2 and then turned Season 3 into a season-long love letter to the Next Generation crew, culminating in a finale that saw that entire crew back on the bridge where they belonged. “It was an honor to be able to tell the last Captain Picard story, at least the one led by Patrick Stewart,” he says now.
Meanwhile, Avengers: Doomsday will mark Stewart’s final performance as Professor Charles Xavier — and his final screen performance, period. Right before the Wanda reveal, “Forever” features another post-credits sequence with James Spader’s killer robot Ultron in human form looking a lot like a certain bald, clean-shaven schoolmaster and leader of mutants. But Matalas swears that’s not another Doomsday tease or a salute to Stewart.
“James wanted to make sure that he had three distinct looks in the series,” he explains. “He started as an unbelievable hairy prisoner, and then he became a strange mustached villain, Virgil Horton. At the end, he wanted to have a clean slate, so that was the inspiration behind that final look. Although if you see Ultron again, I wouldn’t be surprised if the beard didn’t come back again in some fashion.”
Have rhinestones, will travel
Spader’s taste in music is almost as impeccable as his taste in facial hair. Midway through “Forever,” Phineas cues up the classic Glen Campbell tune, “Rhinestone Cowboy,” and leads Jocasta (T’Nia Miller) — the synthetic version of Jo Carrington, who was married to Virgil — in a merry dance.
“Because the show is so much about fathers and sons, I thought about music my father used to play in the car when I was growing up,” Matalas explains about that choice of song. “There were three key songs; one was ‘Calypso‘ by John Denver, which we used during an action sequence in Episode 2. The other was ‘The Last Farewell‘ by Roger Whittaker, which you hear in the first and last episodes. And then there was ‘Rhinestone Cowboy,’ which is one of those songs that just gets stuck in your head and becomes joyous.
“I’m a musical theater kid at heart, so that scene was magical for me,” Matalas adds, noting that “Rhinestone Cowboy” was played live on-set for Spader and Miller to dance along to in the moment. “I would have loved to have featured even more music, but those songs are expensive!”
The Lopezes all along
Speaking of musical theater nerds, Matalas confirms that he brought Emmy-winning WandaVision songwriters Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez back into the MCU fold to pen the theme song for UltraVision, the fake TV sitcom where Vision attempts to trap Ultron lest he follow through on his plans to destroy the world. That motivation ended up inspiring the married couple’s oh-so-’80s UltraVision tune, “Don’t Kill the World.”
“We showed them the finale, and I said, ‘What I really want is an anthem that reminds people who have just had the worst day that it’s okay to not kill the world,'” Matalas remembers. “Immediately after I said that, Kristen started singing, ‘Don’t kill the world’ out loud. They found the hook right away, and it was the coolest thing ever to watch that happen.”
The final track heard in the episode is sung by Jonathan Coulton, the folk artist responsible for such geekosphere favorites as “Code Monkey” and the bouncy, brainy zombie tune Re: Your Brains. And if you’re looking for more comedic Easter eggs, freeze frame the rush of zany UltraVision episodes titles that fly by after Ultron seizes control of the metaphorical remote.
“There are so many good ones,” Matalas says. “I like the trio of ‘Ultron Does a Murder,’ ‘Ultron Does Another Murder,’ ‘Ultron Can’t Stop Doing Murders.’ That’s a three-parter that probably went on for another hundred episodes!”
That Vision thing
VisionQuest may close out its own three-parter, but Matalas stops short of saying that “Forever” represents a true series wrap on a journey that started with WandaVision. “I don’t think it’s really over until that family is reunited,” he says, referring to Vision, Wanda, Tommy, and the fourth family member, Billy (Joe Locke), who inherited his mother’s witchy powers. “Even though this show concludes Vision’s arc, there’s something really special about them [as a family][, and it feels like there’s a lot more to do with those characters.”
What Matalas can’t say, of course, is whether that family reunion will happen in either Avengers: Doomsday or its follow-up, Avengers: Secret Wars. Ultron could also easily resurface in either or both of those movies to meet Doctor Doom, who shares the same face as his maker, Tony Stark. Should those events come to pass on the big screen, Matalas would happily accept an invitation to tell the next chapter in these characters’ journeys.
“Paul, James, and I were so creatively aligned,” he says. “We peeled back layers of their characters, and really got to the root of them. With Vision, we got into his source code and revealed his repression and trauma. And with Ultron, we took a psychotic robot, gave him a heart, and had him fall in love. We just kept trying to surprise each other and make each other laugh throughout the process. It was so much fun, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”
