VisionQuest, S1E5: Firewall

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STV034: Season 1, Episode 5 of VisionQuest, “Firewall,” keeps Vision locked in the attic of his own mind. Ultron has his body, Tommy is gone, and the only way out is to drop the firewall that has kept Ultron caged since Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Patrick Mason, Jeff Haecker, and Rob Leonardi call it a near-bottle episode, “synths in a box,” and Patrick points to the way it switches between color and black and white to separate the AIs’ room from the recordings they watch. Those recordings carry the story: Ultron at a pub with Tommy, an old fashioned for him and a glass of milk for the kid, drawing out the question Tommy won’t ask out loud, whether Vision actually loves him.

Jeff calls this the episode where Vision stops hedging and takes up the role of father, even while he keeps saying “he’s not my son.” Rob talks about how much fathers pour into their families, and how that pull competes with everything else in a life.

Then there’s Paladin. Todd Stashwick and James Spader trade insults by email, Ultron hands Tommy over anyway, and the panel asks why a speedster gets cornered by a van (Patrick blames the milk). Patrick walks through what a real firewall does and why it would keep Ultron from leaving, and Rob wonders whether the Nexus from Age of Ultron still holds pieces of J.A.R.V.I.S.

At the center of the episode is Ultron’s meeting with Jocasta, the synthezoid carrying the mind of Jo Carrington: a trip through the Louvre, talk of art and pain, a story about starlings, and an offer to “murder the world.” Patrick hears a plan to remake humanity in it, and pushes back on Ultron’s line that artists are the only ones who tell the truth.

Does Ultron have a redemption arc ahead? Jeff compares him to Loki. Rob brings up Tolkien’s eucatastrophe and a faith that always looks for redemption, while wondering how far a computer can be redeemed. The panel also trades theories on the Client, from the Power Broker and Madripoor to the Synthetic Man.

Last, F.R.I.D.A.Y. chases Ultron out into the world, E.D.I.T.H. needs a hug to “defrag,” and Rob shares what he learned working at Disney World about letting a child be the one to end the hug.

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