Marvel’s official website was able to speak with “WandaVision” showrunner Jac Schaeffer about the last episode’s big cameo reveal and how they had to make sure there was a good reason for it. Spoiler alert: Stop now if you haven’t seen the latest episode, as they go into detail about the cameo, as do we.
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Last week’s episode started to show cracks in the illusion of Westview, and the growing tension as Vision starts to piece together that things are simply not right with Wanda or their situation.
An unexpected doorbell ring and enters a version of Wanda’s dead brother Pietro Maximoff (previously referred to in the episode), played by “X-Men” franchise alumni Evan Peters, but only seen in the 20th Century Fox version of the Marvel Universe, that’s been, until now, totally unrelated. We see Dr. Darcy Lewis flabbergasted by the reveal as she clearly knows this isn’t the same Pietro from “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” (played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson at the time) asking with confusion, “she recast Pietro?” when Wanda opens the front door. Darcy taking the role of resident super-fan, saying what I have to assume the audience was thinking at that moment, is a neat audience perspective trick.
Jac says she had a difficult time putting everything together despite how game Evan Peters was about returning for the series.
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“We loved the idea of [bringing him back],” Schaeffer told Marvel. “And then we were like, how in the world are we going to make this make logical sense? Like, how do we justify this? Because that’s the thing, you can hatch a million great ideas, but to make them land, to make them be grounded, to make them feel organic to the larger story.”
“This show is such a mind scramble, and because it’s working on so many levels, and there are so many notions of what’s real and what’s not, and performance, and casting, and audience, and fandom, and all of that, we just thought it would be the biggest thrill to bring Evan over to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.”
“It was complicated to make happen. Evan was always up for it — like, always, always, always. He is a comic book fan, and a Marvel fan. He is always up for the absolute weirdest option. And he’s a pleasure — truly a pleasure to work with. Everybody was really excited. I think Kevin [Feige, Marvel Studios president] wanted to make sure that there was a reason for it, that it made sense. And I hope that’s what we did.”
While we ultimately don’t know if Evan Peters will be seen outside of the Disney+ series or other things will come to light concerning his incarnation of Pietro Maximoff, it’s going to be interesting to see how and why they brought him back for “WandaVision.” Plenty of fans have made assumptions that this cameo means that other previous 20th Century Fox franchise actors will be returning for Marvel’s “X-Men” reboot, but that has really hasn’t been supported. We’ll still need to see what happens with Evan.
The next episode drops Friday exclusively on Disney+, and perhaps we’ll get more answers.