If you haven’t seen WandaVision episode 8 yet, now is your chance to bail out. The following article contains massive spoilers for the episode and beyond.
The penultimate episode of WandaVision has cleared the air around all the confusion over sitcom-themed events within the Westview anomaly. The events inside the Hex, as Darcy Lewis coined it, occur in time-jumps, while everyone inside along with the town setting draws inspiration from American sitcoms. Though the S.W.O.R.D agents couldn’t figure out the reason for all of it being like sitcoms, the latest episode of the series titled, “Previously On”, shows that it’s all attached to Wanda’s past.
Throughout the episode, Wanda is forced by Agatha Harkness to relive her past to determine how Wanda was managed to jinx an entire town in long-running continuous witchcraft. Yeah, that’s true! WandaVision’s latest episode finally confirmed that it was indeed Wanda (not Agatha) who created Hex and trapped all the people from Westview in her creation. Episode 7 introduced Agatha Harkness, who was disguising herself as Wanda’s neighbor Agnes from the beginning. The montage, “Agatha All Along” seemed to convey that the entire anomaly was her creation and Wanda’s just a pawn. But turns out Wanda did start everything, while Agatha just manipulated the events inside to bend Wanda to her will.
Wanda’s connection to sitcoms
Coming back, when Agatha starts showing Wanda her past, it begins with her childhood, where she’s staying in Sokovia, with her parents and twin brother. Her father, Oleg Maximoff sells American film DVDs illegally to meet daily needs. Sokovia is war-ridden and caught between US-Russia Cold War. This explains why Oleg keeps his collection of DVDs hidden, as many Russian and East-European territories back then resorted to Anti-American sentiments, which included disregarding American culture and its aspects as well. We see how every week, the family arranges for a TV night and that day decides to watch The Dick Van Dyke Show, Wanda’s favorite sitcom.
Here we realize that sitcoms are Wanda’s favorite entertainment genre and she likes to experience the fun in them with her family. Unfortunately, that is the same night when Maximoff’s house is destroyed by a Stark Industries missile, killing both Oleg and Irina. While waiting for the second bomb to go off, Wanda sees the show’s still on the distorted TV set. Wanda recites,
“At the end of the episode, you realize it was all a bad dream. None of it was real.” That’s where the sitcoms came from. Wanda’s past.
Sitcoms were Wanda’s wishful reality
As a kid, sitcoms were her scapegoat from the harsh realities she grew upon. It was her way to experience, feel, and understand true happiness, something that lacked in their day-to-day life. Those sitcoms were her medium to embrace the horrific times she was growing up in with her brother, and she probably desired that laughter to be a permanent part of her life. That’s where the sitcoms came from.
Wanda never gave up on sitcoms
As we move further into Wanda’s past, we see that Wanda never gave up watching sitcoms even after her parents’ demise. She continued to deal with her grief and anger against Stark and political war-mongers through sitcoms, even when she volunteered for Hydra’s human experimentations for enhanced individuals. Sitcoms were still her scapegoats from reality; her source and inspiration of happiness.
Sitcoms led Wanda to form a bond with Vision
In the final part of her backstory, we see Wanda watching Malcolm In The Middle. Wanda is sitting in Avengers compound, and grieving over her brother’s death. She’s trying to find some solace in the sitcom before Vision comes through the wall. Vision talks to her about his lack of emotions (at the time, Vision was still trying to understand humans), and tries to console her. They even share a laugh, which is the first time they bond together; thus having sitcoms to lead her into a new life, a new relationship.
Wanda didn’t create a “Sitcom Reality” by choice
In the beginning, it feels like Wanda has created the Hex in the form of her long-loving sitcoms by choice. But that’s not the complete truth. Wanda’s outburst after finding Vision’s body being dismantled at S.W.O.R.D headquarters came from utter sorrow and anguish. What she did with Westview, was neither a plan nor a choice.
Wanda’s creation of Hex was her version of a happy place, where she is free from all the negativity that her life has always been surrounded by. Unfortunately, she doesn’t have any happy memories apart from the few she shared with Vision. She lost her parents in childhood, half her adulthood she craved for revenge, leaving nothing in her life to be glad about, and when the time came right, she lost her brother. Even her relationship with Vision never found peace given the Accords; then she lost him too.
The sitcoms were her only sense of happiness, the only joy she ever experienced. That’s why, when she released all her energy to trap Westview in her own reality, the result was of a sitcom, one place where she knew she had always been happy. This is how the sitcoms came into Hex. From Wanda’s past and her sole experience with true happiness and peaceful life.
The way the writers and director handled these sitcom-themed realities and gave them a greater significance to the overall narrative of the show. The sitcom factor even gave MCU a chance to explore Wanda’s past and place easter eggs to a wider potential storyline that may spawn more productions centered around Wanda and other associate characters. Now, it will be interesting to witness how WandaVision will conclude this captivating story in the final episode scheduled to stream next week.