[Editor's note: The following contains spoilers for WandaVision, Season 1, Episodes 1 through 4]

Given its first three episodes and then fourth episode somewhat explaining the first three, one would expect WandaVision to be a relatively light show. After all, even when the MCU gets “heavy”, it’s still packed with comedy and action, and not much is lighter in the entertainment world than sitcoms. And yet sitcoms seem like such an odd fit for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and we still don’t have a firm explanation as to why they’re happening in this odd little pocket universe in Westview, New Jersey.

While we’re a little less than halfway through WandaVision, my current theory on why sitcoms is because they’re safe, and that’s what Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen), who can bend the fabric of reality, has created. “You took everything from me,” she tells Thanos (Josh Brolin) in Avengers: Endgame, and that’s kind of true. She lost her brother Pietro (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) in the Battle of Sokovia in Avengers: Age of Ultron, and then when she found love with Vision (Paul Bettany), he was killed by Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War. Her closest relationships have now been severed, she’s totally alone, and she has the power to create new realities.

But why sitcoms? While there could be a flashback scene of a young Wanda watching sitcoms in her home in Sokovia, it would be unnecessary because we all know what sitcoms are. If we didn’t have a baseline understanding of sitcoms, the premise of WandaVision would fall apart, but the beats and tones are so familiar because they’re part of a worldwide cultural fabric.

And I believe it is that very familiarity that’s the reason Wanda is using sitcoms. What is a sitcom? It’s a safe, low-stakes story where there may be comic mischief, but ultimately everything is resolved and tidy at the end. The comedy keeps things lively, but in the case of the family-based sitcoms WandaVision draws from, we see domestic tranquility is always restored. What does Wanda want after losing her brother and then the man (or syntheziod) she loved? She wants restoration in a world that makes sense as artificial as it may be, so she’s essentially taken over a small town in New Jersey and everyone is now playing a role in this sitcom world.

It’s a sunny exterior over what could end up being an incredibly dark reality. You essentially have a powerful young woman who is having so much trouble managing her trauma and grief that she created a reality to escape (and sitcoms are definitely a form of escapism) from her pain. The consequences of that could be pretty dire with Wanda possibly going so far as to use Vision’s corpse (as we may have seen in Episode 4) and depriving an entire town of its free will. The best-case scenario here is that Wanda may have simply made a deal with the devil, Agnes (Kathryn Hahn), who could in reality be the comics characters Mephisto or Agatha Harkness.

However, the “how” of it isn’t as interesting as the “why” and the why is that Wanda is grieving and alone. Despite playing with the sunniest and happiest format with sitcoms, WandaVision could be heading towards a fairly tragic conclusion as Wanda realizes that while The Blip may have brought back half of all organic life in the universe, the man (or synthezoid) she loved isn’t among them and never will be. The life she envisioned with him is a fantasy, and at some point she’s going to have to exit that fantasy and rejoin the real world, which sadly doesn’t resolve with a laugh track.