Paul Bettany may nominally be the star of VisionQuest, but we can all probably agree that this has largely been The James Spader Show up until now. Spader's gleefully acerbic Ultron has been the best and most pressing reason to follow the series. But we shouldn't count out Bettany. He has a lot to bring to the table, and Episode 7 allows him to really stretch his legs and prove that he can dominate the screen every bit as capably as Spader.
"Immolation" opens with a WWII-era flashback, where we finally meet the elusive Phineas Horton in the flesh. And - surprise, surprise - he turns out to be played by Mr. Bettany. This is the first of several opportunities Bettany has to play a different character in Episode 7, and he doesn't waste it. There's such a palpable sense of haunted suffering emanating from Horton in this scene, and it nicely sets the tone for the rest of the episode.
From there, the show forces Vision to look inward and finally deal with all the emotions and memories he's been suppressing since he first climbed off that operating table at S.W.O.R.D. If VisionQuest is literally about the character undertaking a stereotypical vision quest, then this marks the point where he consumes a bunch of peyote and goes off in search of true enlightenment.
I enjoyed the way Vision's descent into his own mind is framed here. T. Vision keeps circling the same hallways, with each loop bringing an extra dose of dread and psychological unease.
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