From the very moment WandaVision debuted on Disney+, Marvel fans were convinced that the demonic villain Mephisto would appear as the show’s “big bad.” The character, who is essentially the Marvel Universe’s version of Satan, has a complicated history with Wanda/Scarlet Witch in the comics, especially when he relates to her twin sons, Billy and Tommy. Once the two made their debut in WandaVision, the Mephisto theories only heated up even more as fans searched for clues that he was the real mastermind pulling Wanda’s strings, either personally or through Kathyrn Hahn’s Agnes.
However, as the show neared its epic finale, it became more and more clear that Mephisto wasn’t appearing, as the show began making it very clear that person wreaking havoc on the town of Westview was entirely Wanda. Sure, Agnes was revealed as a villain, but only in the sense that she craved Wanda’s chaos magic for herself. Nevertheless, Marvel fans still held out hope that Mephisto would make his presence known, but when WandaVision wrapped, he was nowhere to be found.
In a new interview with Deadline, series creator Jac Schaeffer explains Mephisto’s absence, and why making him the villain would’ve taken away from the story that WandaVision wanted to tell:
We didn’t think this series needed a big bad. I mean, the big bad is grief, you know, and that’s the story that we were telling, and then we got a bonus baddie in the form of Agatha Harkness who ended up facilitating Wanda’s therapy, so yeah, I think we feel pretty good about that.
However, Schaeffer is candid about how the show did set out to make audiences think that there was “some nefarious force” out there by sprinkling “red herrings” throughout the series, and as a narrative choice, it was pretty effective. The viewer is essentially placed in the same confusing situation as Wanda as she tries to piece together who’s truly controlling Westview, only to learn it was her all along.
(Via Deadline)
