It isn’t until WandaVision’s second episode that Teyonah Parris actually makes her first appearance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. She’s one of the many people living alongside Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany) in the small town of Westview, where the most pressing thing on most everyone’s mind recently was a local talent show.
It’s a planning meeting for that same talent show that first brings Olsen and Parris’ characters into one another’s orbit. Though Marvel’s been open about Parris’ casting as Monica Rambeau, when we’re introduced to her in WandaVision, she calls herself “Geraldine” after a brief moment of confusion. Because WandaVision’s a series that touches on the idea of realities becoming warped, the strangeness of Geraldine’s introduction at first seems like a hint at the show’s deeper mysteries. When Gizmodo spoke with Parris recently, she explained that it won’t be long before the truth about Monica’s identity begins to come clear.
Though the exact point in time the Disney+ series takes place isn’t spelled out, Monica being an adult is one of the few ways the show concretely establishes to MCU fans that it takes place long after the events of Captain Marvel (where she first appeared as a child). While more recent events that have taken place in Marvel’s big-screen outings haven’t been addressed in WandaVision just yet, Parris said that Monica’s definitely been influenced by the world’s events prior to the series.
“They’ve definitely been through some things and seen some things, and it’s actually cool that you bring that up because we do get to learn particularly what those things are that Monica’s experienced, and how they’ve shaped her life,” Parris told Gizmodo. “I don’t want to give too much away, but we will be touching on a lot of that through the show.”
Some of WandaVision’s early trailers featured Monica/Geraldine and Wanda interacting in another era of technicolor later on in the season, and each subsequent ad spot has implied that whatever the women end up talking about somehow leads to the friends turning against one another. Whatever it is that prompts Wanda to literally fling Monica out of Westview’s strange bubble reality is likely to be one of WandaVision’s next major story moments that reveals just as much about Wanda as it does about Geraldine, Monica, or whoever she becomes next.
WandaVision airs Fridays on Disney+.