WANDAVISION Showrunner Addresses Evan Peters's Ralph Bohner, Mephisto, Doctor Strange, and More

WandaVision showrunner, head writer, and executive producer, Jac Schaeffer, recently dove in and talked about a few things with Deadline regarding Marvel Studios’ first live-action series. During the interview, she addresses Even Peters’s Ralph Bohner character, Mephisto and why he wasn’t included, and also why Doctor Strange didn’t appear.

While talking about the ending of the series, Schaeffer was asked if there was an alternate ending that was being played with, and she explains:

“Not really. This is essentially what we envisioned from the very beginning. This was always going to be a story about grief, and we took that seriously, and it’s a little bit reductive, but we used the stages of grief to map out the arc of the season, and we knew that we wanted to take it to a place of acceptance. It is acceptance in two ways, it’s ultimately Wanda’s acceptance of the mantle of the Scarlet Witch, and then secondly and perhaps more importantly it is acceptance of her grief and of the fact that she has to let Vision and the boys go. So, you know, things changed along the way and there were discoveries and enhancements and all the sort of ins and outs of the finale specifically was kind of ever-shifting, but the actual goodbye scene was written fairly early on and we were all united behind it.”

I appreciate the story that was told and how that story was fueled by Wanda’s grief. I loved seeing Wanda and Vision’s story arc move forward, and the creative team did a great job with telling that story. However, I didn’t like how they teased a bunch of stuff that never ended up really being anything. Schaeffer addresses some of those things in the interview.

When asked about Evan Peters’s character and if we’ll ever see him again, she gave no indication of what is going on:

“What I can say is that I think Evan Peters did an incredible job with this role and I found it to be such a joy to both work with him and watch him on screen, and you know, as a fan, I’m interested to see whatever he does next.”

When talking about Peters’s Ralph Bohner character reveal and if this was the same Ralph that Agatha mentions being her husband, Schaeffer says:

“Yeah. The idea is that Agatha came to town and took over the neighbor’s house in order to sort of be undercover, and there happened to be a young man named Ralph Bohner who was already living in Westview. In the writers’ room, we enjoyed writing Agatha’s sense of humor, and so the idea that she would actually be talking about her hostage through the entirety of the series really tickled us.”

There was a lot of talk about Peters’s character or Agatha’s husband possibly being Mephisto. That never came to pass, and when asked why Mephisto never showed up in the series, the showrunner said:

“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.”

So, it seems Mephisto was never in the cards for the show. With WandaVision tying into Doctor Strange, fans like me were confident that Strange would show up in the final episode, but it was just another one of those things that didn’t happen. For those of you wondering why, Schaeffer said:

“I heart Doctor Strange just like anybody. Yeah, it’s one of those things, that’s how the chips fell, that’s how the cookie crumbled, is what I will say, but I look forward to seeing him on screen with Wanda in Doctor Strange 2.”

It’ll be interesting to see how some of the threads from this series will continue to unravel in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. But, don’t expect to see aWandaVision Season 2. There’s was never a plan for a new season. But, with Marvel, you never know what could happen.