Paul Bettany’s Vision finally stops running from his own story, and a hooded killer robot shows up at the worst possible moment.
VisionQuest Season 1 Episode 3, titled “Reboot,” is where Vision and Thomas (Ruaridh Mollica) stop circling each other and start acting like a father and son. It’s also the episode where James Spader’s Ultron watches a serial killer story unfold on the news, and where Paladin takes yet another beating. This Disney+ series from creator Terry Matalas is the last chapter of the trilogy that started with WandaVision and continued with Agatha All Along, so every family beat carries weight. Below is the full recap, followed by my honest review of what works and what doesn’t.
Recap: What Happens in VisionQuest Episode 3
A Serial Killer Who Turns Victims Into Angels
The episode opens with Ultron watching a news report about a new serial killer. The culprit leaves a signature at every crime scene: wings, arranged so the victim looks like an angel.
Elsewhere, a terrified man hunts for a gun. His door opens, and a hooded robot walks in. He fires once, the scene cuts away, and it’s pretty clear who won that fight.
Vision Patches Himself Up While Paladin Licks His Wounds
Thomas is desperate to save Vision, and the AIs living inside Vision are scrambling just as hard. They figure out that he has to cauterize his wound, so Vision steps out of the car, finds an acid, and uses it to stabilize his body.
Paladin is healing, too, but his mind is still on Vision. While he looks over his own injuries, he sends out his drones to scan for any signal that matches Vision’s “blood.”
A Hotel, Free Cash, and a Pool Thomas Can’t Face
That night, Vision and Thomas check into a hotel. Thanks to Vision’s malfunctioning, he accidentally makes a cash machine spill out money, and Thomas uses it to pay for the room. Vision doesn’t approve, but I’ll admit it works as a small bonding moment between them.
Inside Vision, Friday keeps hunting for a way to heal him properly. She tells EDITH that Jarvis had already died once and that she took over his job.
Then Thomas realizes the hotel has a pool, and he panics. Vision can’t grasp why the boy feels that way, and he has no idea what to say. He runs several simulations of how to tell Thomas about his past, and none of them work. In every one, Vision insists Thomas isn’t his son, and the boy walks out.
In his final (and real) attempt, Vision stalls and tells everyone to rest. Thomas gets angry anyway and storms off.
Tommy, the Vending Machine, and a Wrapped Hand
Poor Thomas can’t even get a drink to calm down. A can gets stuck in a vending machine, he keeps hitting it, and his powers kick in so hard that his hand ends up trapped inside. He eventually pulls it free, but he breaks the machine’s glass and cuts himself in the process.
When he comes back, Vision helps wrap the injured hand and cracks a joke about boxers. It lands, and Tommy finally opens up. He explains what happened at the pool: some kids tried to drown him as a prank, his powers suddenly appeared, and he vibrated so violently that he electrocuted them.
He also describes the vending machine incident, and that’s when they notice his powers look a lot like the old Vision’s phasing ability.
Paladin Walks Straight Into the Killer Robot
EDITH warns Vision that a drone is nearby. For a moment it seems Paladin has found them, but the drone eventually leaves.
Here’s the irony: Paladin is actually tracking the serial killer robot. He realizes it far too late, and the other robot beats him up and captures him. This one can read minds, and it digs deep into Paladin’s past.
We learn his father mistreated him and was later killed by the previous Paladin. That older Paladin then raised and trained him as a successor. Ever since, he’s been trying to prove he belongs to the Paladin lineage, even though he isn’t a blood heir.
When he wakes up, Paladin sends his drones after the robot, and while it’s busy wrecking them, he escapes.
Vision Dies on Purpose, and Thomas Has to Bring Him Back
Meanwhile, Friday finally works out the plan: Vision has to die and wake up again, rebooting himself.
Vision takes Thomas to the pool and explains that he’s about to die, and it’ll be Thomas’s job to use his powers to wake him. The boy is understandably confused. Vision answers that by opening up for the first time, too. He tells Thomas that he’s real, that everything he’s been through was real, and that no matter what anyone says, he’s Vision and Wanda’s son.
Then Vision “goes to sleep.” At first, Thomas can’t wake him. He keeps vibrating faster and faster, though, until he builds enough energy to reboot Vision. When it works, the entire city blacks out. Somewhere out there, the killer robot feels it and understands that Vision is behind the blackout.
Vision wakes up and hugs Thomas, feeling more human than ever before. Then they head back to their room to rest.
The Firing, the Funeral, and That Ending
It’s another failure for Paladin. His contractor calls to fire him, even after Paladin offers to hunt Vision for free.
Later, Vision and the AIs hold a funeral for Jarvis, but a dark, mysterious force crashes it. When Vision rebooted himself, he made contact with another synth and unknowingly opened a path for it. The killer robot is now inside him.
The episode closes on Vision floating in the air with red eyes, a shot that looks lifted straight from The Exorcist. The killer robot says hello, and the screen goes black. I actually said “oh no” out loud.
Review: A Great Father-and-Son Hour Dragged Down by Paladin
Episode 3 confirms that VisionQuest’s strengths and weaknesses are going to stay constant all season. Vision’s relationship with Thomas and the show’s questions about his humanity remain the highlights, while Paladin keeps pulling things down no matter what the writers do with him.
What Works
- Vision and Thomas. This is the heart of the show, and this episode lets them bond and talk more. The awkwardness, the humor, and the drama all land in the right proportions.
- Thomas as a character. His dilemma mixes so well with Vision’s that they make each other better without trying. I also love how much he already uses his powers this early in the season.
- The reboot scene. Vision opening up before he “dies” is the emotional core of the episode, and it earns the blackout that follows.
- The killer robot. It’s an intriguing piece, and there’s plenty left to learn about it.
- A mystery hirer. Nobody knows who hired Paladin. That could turn into a messy plot, but it could just as easily surprise us.
What Doesn’t Work
- Paladin’s backstory. It makes him more interesting on paper, but honestly it reads like a “sob story” you can find anywhere.
- The plot armor. The show keeps putting Paladin in life-or-death situations, and it never works. The killer robot had many chances to finish him off and simply didn’t, because the show clearly doesn’t want to kill him so soon. He escapes thanks to a weak script for the third time, which keeps making him feel out of place as an antagonist, and in the show at all.
- The side emotional beats. Jarvis’s funeral and Friday opening up don’t hit very hard. They’re far better than Paladin’s story, but they still feel light.
My Rating
7/10. The Vision and Thomas scenes carry this episode, and that ending hooked me hard. But Paladin keeps spinning his wheels, and until the show fixes that, it can’t quite reach the next level.
FAQ
What is VisionQuest Episode 3 called? It’s titled “Reboot.”
What happens at the end of VisionQuest Episode 3? After Thomas reboots Vision, the killer robot finds a path into him. Vision levitates with red eyes, and the robot says hello.
Does Paladin get fired in Episode 3? Yes. His contractor fires him after his latest failure, even though he offers to hunt Vision for free.
