In Avengers: Endgame, the Avengers made sacrifices to bring back the half of the universe that Thanos (Josh Brolin) had Snapped to dust. We thought the Snap was the worst thing that could happen to the characters in the franchise. We were wrong. The Avengers brought everyone back five years in the future, and since then, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has slowly shown us the true effects of the Blip. Almost every property since the end of the Infinity Saga has touched on the repercussions of people being resurrected. But none demonstrated how devastating the Blip truly was like WandaVision.

We’ve seen how a lot of characters have struggled with the ramifications of the Blip. Peter Parker’s (Tom Holland) teacher, Mr. Harrington (Martin Starr) found out his wife faked being Blipped so she could run away with her secret partner; Doctor Strange’s (Benedict Cumberbatch) former colleague Dr. Nic West (Michael Stuhlbarg) lost his two cats and his brother during the five years that he was Blipped. The new Captain America, Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) struggled to get a loan because he was missing five years of credit (a problem that other Avengers don’t appear to have had). While we hear about these horrors after the fact, WandaVision Episode 4 placed us right in the middle of things.

Back From the Dead

Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau disappearing in the blip in WandaVision
Image via Marvel Studios

“We Interrupt This Program” was the first time we got an insight into the chaos of returning from the Blip. People were gone, dusted, and suddenly they reappeared five years after the fact in exactly the same spot they were in. We saw it go down through the eyes of Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) in possibly the one place that didn’t need any more turmoil — a hospital.

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Monica’s introduction on WandaVision was scary stuff. This was the first time someone was undusted on screen. Monica had no clue what was happening. For all intents and purposes, she’d closed her eyes for a few minutes, and then out of nowhere, there was mass panic around her. We’re with her as she tries to get answers from fellow visitors, patients, and even staff who are just as confused as her. And just like her, many of them are searching for their loved ones. Director Matt Shakman and the writing team build up the tension of why Monica had been in the hospital. Before the Snap, Monica’s mother, Maria “Photon” Rambeau had cancer and had undergone a successful procedure. Monica was waiting to take her mother home. Instead, she learns that two years after Monica’s disappearance, Maria died. From Monica’s point of view, she went to sleep knowing her mother was on the mend and woke up to find her dead. As seen in Captain Marvel, Monica and Maria (Lashana Lynch) really only had each other, so in a post-Blip world, Monica suddenly found herself on her own.

Despite such a devastating and sudden loss, Monica heads straight back to work, except there’s no good news there either. Monica was an agent at the Sentient Weapon Observation and Response Division (S.W.O.R.D.), working directly under the organization’s founder and director, her mother. In Maria’s absence, Monica would have taken over, but because she was Snapped, she reports to Director Tyler Hayward (Josh Stamberg).

Under New Management

Jimmy Woo and Monica Rambeau looking in the same direction in WandaVision
Image via Marvel Studios

Hayward doesn’t seem that bad when we first meet him; at the very least he’s self-aware enough to know that he lucked into his position. But he soon proves to be a villain who is covertly trying to turn Vision (Paul Bettany) into a secret weapon. Nor does he have any diplomatic skills, as is obvious from his attempts to kill Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) and her children at every turn, because he refuses to listen when Monica advocates for open dialogue with Wanda.

Honestly, Hayward saying that Maria made a policy that anyone who returned from the Snap should be grounded sounds like he was trying to do away with his competition. After all, it is Hayward’s idea to send Monica to investigate Westview. And on her very first mission back, Monica’s sucked into Wanda’s warped reality where her mind is taken over, and her body altered at a cellular level. Yes, she gets superpowers, but Monica also has to go through a traumatic experience. She calls being under Wanda’s mind control, "excruciating, terrifying, a violation," but during WandaVision, Monica refuses to acknowledge that the experience has any effect on her.

Teyonah Parris in WandaVision
Image via Disney+

In fact, Monica acts like she’s on some kind of death wish as we see her enter the Hex again despite being warned about the negative effects on her body. In a way, she is, because Monica felt Wanda’s grief and recognized it because Wanda’s grief mirrored her own recent grief. Plus, Monica saw that Wanda had resurrected her dead beloved, and she admits to Wanda in the finale that she too would have gone to extreme lengths to bring her mother back. Monica’s grief isn’t buried, it’s waiting to explode.

We feel for Monica and the losses she endures through Teyonah Parris’ performance. WandaVision was Parris’ debut in the MCU, and her take on Monica only comes to life in the fourth episode. Yet, she’s able to capture the closeness between Monica and Maria, as well as Monica’s dogged determination to get back to work, over the course of only a few scenes. There’s a relentless energy to Monica when she’s in her workplace, almost as if she’s working herself to distraction because that’s what she’s likely doing. But there are these small moments that suggest layers to Monica’s life and personality. The way Parris’s face falls when Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) is mentioned — what happened between the Rambeaus and Carol that Monica doesn’t even want to hear her godmother’s name? They’re supposed to be flying higher, further, faster together in The Marvels, but it looks like that may be a rocky ride.

We felt the true horror of the Avengers’ decision in “We Interrupt This Program.” Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) chose to bring everyone back five years into their future so he wouldn’t lose the family he had created during that time. But at what cost? Monica and Maria could have spent Maria’s final years together. Maybe Maria would have lived longer had she not struggled with the grief of losing her child to an event that claimed millions. Without bumbling Hayward in charge, perhaps Monica could have taken over S.W.O.R.D., and prevented Wanda from ever becoming the Scarlet Witch. As we know from Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, the Scarlet Witch would go on to take hundreds of innocent lives in Kamar-Taj. That’s just one person, though we know there are countless others in the MCU whose lives have irrevocably changed, not because of Thanos’ Snap, but because of Tony’s. The MCU may have a new hero in Monica Rambeau, but it also has yet another character marred forever by grief; grief that’s inadvertently caused by Tony Stark and the Avengers.