Whatever happened to predictability?
The milkman, the paperboy, evening TV?
How did I get to living here?
Somebody tell me please!
— "Everywhere You Look," AKA the Full House Theme Song
For over a month now, my sick, twisted brain, starving for a flaming hot distraction, has been thinking a lot about Full House.
You see, I cover WandaVision for Esquire. If you're unfamiliar, it's a Marvel show about a woman who—looking to escape her grief—uses her superhero magic to create a play-pretend world that takes the shape of an episodic sitcom. Laugh tracks, bad jokes, etc. Each couple of episodes pays tribute to a different era of American sitcoms. WandaVision stars Elizabeth Olsen, sister of Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, who, together, played Michelle Tanner in Full House. Two episodes ago, WandaVision's Sitcom Era of the Week found us in the '90s. This episode tipped its hat to Full House.
This whole damn swirl of Olsens and Full House and sitcoms and the '90s made me wonder: What happened to Michelle Tanner in Fuller House, Full House's Netflix sequel series? (Remember: Sick brain, need distraction.) Turns out the Olsen twins didn't even sign on for the show's revival. Fuller House's screenwriters explained the no-show with measly lines saying that Michelle moved to New York to start a fashion business. Boring, I thought. Stopped thinking about it for a few days. Then, it hit me. Goddamn did it hit me. The fan theory of all fan theories. A solution for all of WandaVision's mysteries and the reason why Michelle Tanner didn't show up in Fuller House.
First up, let's. quickly revisit Wanda Maximoff's official backstory in the MCU. Basically, she grows up in a war-torn country called Sovokia with her twin brother, Pietro. The two want to help their nation out, so they link up with the villainous HYDRA and agree to the experiments that give them superpowers. Now, check out what's actual canon for their childhoods:
Wanda Maximoff was born in Sokovia to Oleg and Irina Maximoff along with her twin brother, Pietro. She grew up on watching American by-products such as television series and sitcoms. In 1999 at the age of 10, while having dinner with her family, a mortar shell hit their apartment building, killing Wanda's parents.The building started to crumble, trapping Wanda and Pietro inside as they hid under a bed.
Or so they want you to think.
Hear me out. Full House ended in 1995. This alleged bombing happened in 1999. What if, after the events of Full House, Michelle Tanner somehow disappeared, only to be found by HYDRA? (You can imagine Michelle going NO WAY JOSE! when she sees the HYDRA agent.) Then, HYDRA—being the sketchy comic-book-big-bad-organization it is—rewires Michelle to think she's a Sovokian woman named Wanda Maximoff. Cue the superpowers and everything we see in the Avengers saga. Including the death of Vision. Which prompts her to steal his dead body and fire up the events of WandaVision. So, when Wanda/Michelle creates Westview to cope with the loss of Vision, her mind's eye places her in a world that's so much like the one she lived in Full House. Laugh tracks, zany uncles, a big beautiful house. This is what we see in WandaVision.
I know this is insane. I know I'm sick. But stay with me. This thing makes sense from what we've seen in Fuller House and WandaVision. Let's tackle the former first. In Fuller House, all we know about Michelle is what the family—D.J., Jesse, Danny, the whole lot—tells us. Which amounts to a ton of sitcom-y gags riffing on the "fashion business." What if quipping about Michelle is the way the Tanner family copes with her disappearance? In one episode, Danny, Rebecca, and Jesse, can't spend Christmas in San Francisco because they're visiting Michelle. Were they out looking for her? During the holidays, is the Tanner Family Tradition a two-week-long manhunt for Michelle? From what we see in Full House, the never-not-sassing Michelle is the heart of the family. So it'd make sense that if anything did happen to her, the family would be at a total loss at how to handle it.
Now, let's peek into Michelle's new life as a cranky, goth Sovokian woman. Wouldn't it make sense that because her childhood was literally a sitcom, that she would develop an obsession with sitcoms as Wanda Maximoff? Obviously, the '90s episode is the biggest hat-tip to Michelle's real-life origins, with Kathryn Hahn's Agnes taking on a Kimmy-esque fun-best-friend role, and the house looking a lot like her multi-storied San Francisco home. Plus, this whole thing explains why Wanda's accent keeps coming and going, too. The rewiring likely wasn't entirely effective, so the glitches come when Wanda slips back into Michelle's American accent. Same goes for the whole multiple-actors-playing-Pietro thing. None of them are her brother! So of course they're interchangeable. Side note: This theory also makes John Stamos's Jesse Katsopolis MCU canon, which instantly makes the universe 10 times sexier, a hundred times cooler, and a thousand times more mullet. Have mercy.
Before we go—and you retreat back into a life where the mere sight of an oversized '90s sweater will make you shudder—allow me to take this one glorious, greedy step further.
You might've seen the excerpt from "Everywhere You Look" up at the top, better known as the ballad of old-timey cheer at the top of every Full House episode. You also might've noticed how goddamn creepy the lyrics are when you strip away Jesse Fredick's angel voice. Read em' and weep. Friends, I must end our time today by telling you that "Everywhere You Look" is the Woman Formerly Known as Michelle Tanner crying for help from Westview. The opening stanza comes from Michelle/Wanda's perspective, terrified and wondering aloud how the hell she ended up in an endless sitcom: "Whatever happened to predictability? // The milkman, the paperboy, evening TV? // How did I get to living here? // Somebody tell me please!"
After the chorus (which, statistically, 90 percent of Americans know by heart), the song ends with a glimmer of hope. A light. A bright, shining light. Waiting to carry Michelle home, away from the pain, free of the torments of Westview and this strange superhero life she's found herself in. "When you're lost out there and you're all alone // A light is waiting to carry you home // Everywhere you look // Everywhere you look."
Michelle, do you see the light? Keep looking. It's over there. Look a little more. Right there.
You got it, dude.
