‘VisionQuest’ Sets Up an Ambitious Journey in Two-Episode Premiere

The mail slot in the door of his country estate reads “The Vision”—capital T, capital V, technically capital H-E-I-S-I-O-N, too, but that’s a stylistic choice. It’s the T and the V that matter, the definite article, the dividing line between synthezoid and something distinctly more human.

VisionQuest is, at its core, about Vision’s (Paul Bettany) journey to understand where he falls on that spectrum. It’s the latest Disney+ TV series from Marvel Studios, and the third part of a trilogy with WandaVision and Agatha All Along . The first two episodes, “No Strings” and “Theseus,” set up an ambitious premise that is, like many Marvel projects, trying to do too many things at once, but there’s still a lot of promise here.

That’s the opening monologue that Vision delivers in VisionQuest episode one, “No Strings.” Part recap, part thesis statement, it plays over footage of past Marvel Cinematic Universe films and television series, showing the relevant moments of Vision’s story so far. It sets up the main conflicts of the show with remarkable efficiency: nature vs. nurture; artificial vs. human; father vs. son; understanding the concept of love vs. actually feeling it.

In the back room of the Old Selkie pub in Edinburgh, Scotland, there’s a TV playing an episode of Sanford and Son . Lamont (Demond Wilson) is telling his father, Fred (Redd Foxx), that he wants to visit “jungles, deserts, mountaintops.”

“Well, they got that at Disneyland,” Fred replies. “See, you just ain’t been on all the rides.”

Vision watches this, looking like he’s trying to understand something he can’t quite grasp. In the background, a woman shouts at him to hurry up; she wants to go home. She calls him “Sherwood,” and she’s his boss, the owner of the pub, Fiona Guthrie (Polly Frame). It is, apparently, a place he used to frequent with Wanda, and Fiona remembers the two of them seeming so happy. When she asks “Sherwood” what happened to his “bonnie wee lass,” he says, “She was sort of… crushed under the weight of a mountain.” Fiona takes this as a metaphor; we, of course, know it’s literal.

After Fiona leaves, Vision goes to the pub’s walk-in freezer, where he retreats to his Mindspace, a sort of virtual world inside his brain that takes the shape of an idyllic country home, albeit with some architectural quirks. Inside his Mindspace, Vision has downloaded several other Stark AIs and preserved them in his quantum processors, including D.U.M.-E. (Henry Lewis) and U. (Jonathan Sayer), who are general maintenance AIs; J.A.R.V.I.S. (James D’Arcy), his security AI; F.R.I.D.A.Y. (Orla Brady), his socialization AI; and E.D.I.T.H. (Emily Hampshire), his recreational AI. None of them, however, are big fans of the as-yet-unseen fifth presence currently causing a ruckus in the attic.

J.A.R.V.I.S. is worried about a data leak, but Vision brushes him off. “Whilst I appreciate your concern, it’s been years,” he says. “I’m no longer on anyone’s proverbial radar. Every government agency, S.W.O.R.D. included, has given up trying to find me.