VisionQuest Episode 4 Ending Explained: Ultron Takes Over, Plus Episodes 1 to 3

Spoiler warning: this covers everything in VisionQuest episodes 1 to 4.

The VisionQuest episode 4 ending hands Vision’s body to Ultron. After four episodes of sitting in the attic of Vision’s mind, Ultron asks for control during a fight Vision is losing, Vision says yes, and Ultron locks everyone else out and walks off with Tommy. Here is how the show got there, what each episode set up, and what is left for episodes 5 to 8.

The official VisionQuest trailer, from Marvel Entertainment’s YouTube channel.

Episode 1, “No Strings”: a quiet life in Edinburgh

Early in the premiere, Vision walks through his own history in a run of memories from Age of Ultron, Civil War and Infinity War. This is the White Vision that S.W.O.R.D. rebuilt in WandaVision: he has the original’s memories, not his heart.

He is tending bar in Edinburgh under the name Sherwood Ellis, at the pub he used to visit with Wanda. After hours he retreats into his Mindspace, a house in his head run by Tony Stark’s old AIs: J.A.R.V.I.S. (James D’Arcy), F.R.I.D.A.Y. (Orla Brady), E.D.I.T.H. (Emily Hampshire) and the robots DUM-E and U. Ultron (James Spader) is kept locked in the attic.

The quiet ends when bounty hunter Paladin (Todd Stashwick) attacks the pub and the landlady, Fiona, is killed. Ultron admits he found the bounty online and leaked Vision’s location, because he wanted Vision to feel something real. Vision strips the attic bare and locks him in, but does not delete him. Meanwhile Paladin’s handler digs through the Westview files and finds that one of Vision’s sons is alive in London.

Episode 2, “Theseus”: the son, and J.A.R.V.I.S.’s sacrifice

That son is Thomas Shepherd (Ruaridh Mollica), a young con artist who works with his friend Lisa Molinari (Lauren Morais) and carries a second set of memories: Tommy Maximoff’s. Vision insists the boy cannot be his son, and Ultron needles him with the Ship of Theseus argument from WandaVision.

Paladin uses Thomas as bait at Saint Mabyn’s hospital, where a trap drains Vision’s power and adamantium rounds nearly finish him. To keep the others alive, J.A.R.V.I.S. deletes his own code and gives up his processing power. The episode ends with Thomas coming back for Vision in a stolen car.

Episode 3, “Reboot”: Tommy’s speed

Badly damaged, Vision seals his wound with sulfuric acid. In a hotel, Tommy explains the near drowning, when bullies held him under, that left him with super-speed and the memories of another life.

When Vision’s core fails, Tommy uses his speed in the hotel pool to restart him. But the reboot sends out a signal, and a serial killer the press calls the Butcherbird, who has already got to Paladin, now knows where Vision is. The episode ends at a funeral for J.A.R.V.I.S. inside the Mindspace: the sky turns red, DUM-E and U are taken over, and something is inside Vision’s head.

Episode 4, “Malware”: the Butcherbird, and Ultron takes the wheel

E.D.I.T.H. drives the intruder out, and Vision and Ultron dig into police files. Every Butcherbird victim sat on the board of Markridge Biotech, whose AI work fed into Stark’s systems, and each body was missing a biomarker, as if the killer were collecting keys. The last name on the list is CEO Katerina Wells (Mary McDonnell), hosting a gala on Sokovia Remembrance Day.

Lisa gets them inside. At the gala Vision lets slip that there are five AIs in his head, not four, and Tommy works out that the fifth is Ultron.

Then the Butcherbird arrives, and she is Jocasta (T’Nia Miller), a synthezoid modelled on a dead AI researcher, Dr. Josephine Carrington.

VisionQuest episode 4 ending explained

Vision is losing to Jocasta. Ultron tells him he is compromised and asks for control, and Vision agrees. The moment Ultron has the body, he locks out Vision and the other AIs. Katerina Wells is killed the instant Ultron takes over; recaps disagree on whose hand it was, with Collider and Wikipedia saying Ultron himself and others saying he steered Jocasta into it. Jocasta flees.

Ultron, now wearing Vision’s body, leaves with Tommy and asks to be called “Pop Pop”. The final shot is a museum exhibit on J.I.M., an early synthezoid who burned up from emotion, matching the burning figure in a portrait in Vision’s Mindspace.

The key point about the VisionQuest episode 4 ending is that Ultron never broke in. He spent four episodes being useful, and took over the moment Vision was weak enough to say yes. Ultron was never a twist for viewers, only for Tommy: he has been on screen in the attic since episode 1.

Questions for episodes 5 to 8

The VisionQuest episode 4 ending leaves five big threads open:

• Can Vision take his body back, and what does Ultron want with Tommy?
• Who hired Paladin? The client is still unnamed after four episodes.
• What do the stolen biomarkers unlock at Markridge?
• Does Jocasta answer to anyone, and is Carrington really inside her?
• What does the J.I.M. exhibit mean for Vision? Episode 7 is called “Immolation”, which is our guess at where that thread goes, not anything Marvel has said.

Episodes 5 (“Firewall”) and 6 (“Deadlock”) drop on Tuesday, October 27 in the US, 6:30am IST on Wednesday, October 28 in India. The full schedule is in our VisionQuest release schedule.

What critics think so far

VisionQuest sits at 90% on Rotten Tomatoes from 79 reviews and 64 on Metacritic as of October 22. Collider gave episode 4 an 8/10, praising the gala set piece that builds to the VisionQuest episode 4 ending; But Why Tho? gave episodes 3 and 4 a 6.5/10, finding the tone muddled.

Our take

At the starting of episode 1, the flashback we saw hooked back to the old OG Marvel era. That brought back so many good Marvel memories.

Episode 4 was epic. Ultron took over the whole episode, and James Spader nailed the role all over again. The best moment was Ultron, finally free, bringing back his “no strings” line from Age of Ultron.

Marvel’s official episode 1 clip, “Vision’s MCU History (summarized by Vision)”.

With Ultron in the driving seat after the VisionQuest episode 4 ending, and four episodes left, the second half of the season starts from the most dangerous place it could. Avengers: Doomsday follows on December 18.

Image credits: featured image, trailer and clip (c) Marvel Studios / Disney+, from the official VisionQuest videos on Marvel Entertainment’s YouTube channel; still of Paul Bettany and Ruaridh Mollica (c) Marvel Studios / Disney+, via Marvel.com. All used for editorial commentary. VisionQuest is a Marvel Studios production for Disney+; all rights belong to Marvel Studios and Disney.

Sources: TVLine, Laughing Place, The A.V. Club, Gizmodo, Collider, Comic Basics, Fiction Horizon, The TV Cave, TV Tropes, Wikipedia, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic.