Who is the Client in VisionQuest? The top theories after episode 6 — the showrunner has already crossed one name off

VisionQuest is the final Disney+ chapter of the trilogy that started with WandaVision and continued with Agatha All Along, run by Terry Matalas. Paul Bettany plays Vision, hiding out and working at a pub, James Spader is back as Ultron, and Todd Stashwick plays Paladin, the bounty hunter hired to bring Vision in. Episodes 5 and 6, "Firewall" and "Deadlock," arrived on October 27. Episode 7, "Immolation," lands November 3, and the finale, "Forever," on November 10.

Spoilers through episode 6 from here on.

What we know about the Client

Not much, but more than we did a week ago:

• They first spoke through a digitally altered voice, hijacking Paladin's comms to chew him out over a failed ambush.
• In episode 6, they fire Paladin and hire Raza instead, the Ten Rings terrorist Faran Tahir first played in 2008's Iron Man. Raza's orders are to capture Vision and kill Paladin.
• In Madripoor, during Raza's attack, the Client takes over the city's screens, the power starts flickering, and a figure in a suit and fedora walks across them.
• The pitch to Vision is surrender in exchange for "a heart and soul." The Client also calls him a "tin man without a heart."

The crossed-off name

Billy Maximoff, Wanda's other son and Tommy's twin, was an early favorite. He's looking for his brother, so why not hire someone to find him? Matalas shut it down in an interview with the TikTok account New Rockstars.

"It's not Billy," Matalas said. "It's not that kind of story."

He also cleared up the sighting behind a lot of the Billy talk: the boy who seemed to be following Tommy in the premiere. "It's not. It's an extra," Matalas said. "But Billy is not walking around Borough Market."

The top theories

With Billy out, here's where the guessing stands after episode 6.

Jim Hammond, the original Human Torch. The current favorite, and the show keeps feeding it:

• A painting of a burning man hangs in Vision's mindscape, as far back as episode 2.
• Episode 4 introduces J.I.M., the first synthetic man, who couldn't process complex emotions and burst into flames.
• The name Phineas Horton, Hammond's creator, keeps coming up, and episode 6 reveals that Dr. Carrington's work was built on his AI.
• The Client's suit and fedora look straight out of the 1940s, when Hammond was in action.
• In the comics, Vision's body was built from Hammond's.
• Episode 7 is called "Immolation."

Ultron. He leaked Vision's location in episode 1 and took over his body at the end of episode 4. He has also told Vision he isn't the Client, which is exactly what the Client would say. One skeptic on Reddit called that twist "monumentally bad screenwriting."

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Sharon Carter. Episode 6 lands in Madripoor, where her Power Broker runs her criminal empire, and she has a history with stolen tech and hired guns.

Arnim Zola. The HYDRA scientist who uploaded his mind into a computer would explain a voice that lives inside screens.

Xu Xialing. Raza is Ten Rings, and since Shang-Chi, she's the one running the Ten Rings.

Dr. Josephine Carrington. Some fans suspected her early on, especially after episode 4 revealed her as the Butcherbird killer. But she clashed with Paladin in episode 3, and it's hard to hire someone you're actively fighting.

The answer should arrive by November 10, when "Forever" closes out the season.

Previously we wrote: I didn't expect to root for Ultron in 2026. VisionQuest made me