‘WandaVision’ Creator Reveals Who Was Behind Those Cryptic Commercials
WandaVision is jam-packed with Easter eggs and hidden Marvel references, especially during the show’s “commercial breaks.” Wanda Maximoff’s constructed reality mimics every aspect of a real television show, right down to the advertisements. Each new decade brought us an era-appropriate commercial, although it’s never explained how or why. Now, WandaVision creator has Jac Schaeffer revealed the character behind the mysterious ads.
Speaking with Collider, Schaeffer shared that the commercials’ original purpose was to fill in any plot holes that arose in the creative process. “My experience at Marvel, toward the end of making something, is that there's usually a hole that you have to patch, and I sort of kept being like, ‘It’s going to be the commercials. Whatever the thing that we box ourselves into, we're going to solve with the commercials,’” she stated. “And then ultimately we didn’t need that and it really ended up being just so tied to her subconscious in this open-ended way.”
So who is the “her” Schaeffer is referring to? None other than Wanda herself. “In my mind, they're Wanda. Yeah. The completeness of her show, and her vision, and the experience of it, included commercials,” Schaeffer explained. This is interesting, because many fans speculated that Agatha Harkness was behind the ads all along. Following that theory, Agatha constructed the ads to subliminally keep Wanda tethered to her sitcom reality. But after learning in Episode 8 that Westview is indeed Wanda’s creation, it makes more sense that the commercials belong to the Scarlet Witch as well.
Although we now know who created the commercials, it’s still not really clear why Wanda chose to broadcast them to the world. As Schaeffer said, it could be her dedication to having her own “real” TV show. We also know that Wanda isn’t fully aware of how her powers created Westview — the commercials could very well be an uncontrollable byproduct of her subconscious guilt and past trauma. Either way, we’re glad the show included them. Beyond their hidden layers of meaning, they’re also just fun bits of cheesy entertainment.
Gallery — Every WandaVision Commercial Explained: