WandaVision Episode 8 Makes All Those Classic Sitcoms Part of MCU Canon

WandaVision‘s latest episode answered a lot of questions, including why the reality Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) created in Westview has been going through sitcom history. Warning: Spoilers Ahead! During the show’s eighth episode, “Previously On,” Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) takes Wanda through a series of memories ranging from childhood to the events that led to the Westview anomaly, and one important throughline in Wanda’s life has been sitcoms. In a flashback, we see Wanda’s father with a suitcase of television show box sets, which means all of the sitcoms WandaVision has paid tribute to are now a part of the MCU canon.

I Love Lucy, Bewitched, I Dream of Jeanie, The Addams Family, Who’s the Boss, Malcolm in the Middle, and The Dick Van Dyke Show were all series shown in the episode, which pretty much means Dick Van Dyke, Bryan Cranston, and many more actors technically exist within the MCU. The real question: has Wanda seen Breaking Bad? (Seriously, though, try not to think too hard about those things or your brain will start to crumble while wondering if Benjamin Bratt being on Modern Family means he exists in the MCU separately from the character he plays in Doctor Strange.)

While these shows obviously would have had to exist within the MCU for Wanda to channel them, it was a bit jarring to see all of the DVDs piled together. While pop culture references aren’t exactly uncommon in the MCU, especially when it comes to any character named Peter, you rarely actually see the heroes watching other content. Either way, it was fun to see the reasoning behind the sitcom reality, and we hope we get another new nod to the classics in the final episode.

Recently, Paul Bettany (Vision) spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about the light-hearted sitcom world and how was never meant to last.

“Yes, initially, it really was [relieving], but it’d be a pretty boring TV show if it stayed that way,” Bettany explained. “What you will begin to realize is that it’s not an arbitrary decision or a cute decision to set this story in these sitcoms. What’s wonderful about the comfort level that comes with these sitcoms is that you have a seemingly insoluble problem that when the couple unite, the problem becomes eminently soluble. Unfortunately, real life isn’t quite like that, and it can’t stay that way forever.”

The final episode of WandaVision drops on Disney+ on March 5th.