Why Was ‘This Is Us’ In ‘She-Hulk’ Episode 4?
Image Source: Marvel Studios/Twentieth Century Fox Television/Disney
If you watched episode 4 of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law “Is This Not Real Magic?”, much was made about Wong’s streaming habits. In the main part of the episode, Madisynn is portaled into his home, in the middle of his watching The Sopranos on HBO Max, which was carefully utilized. When Donny Blaze goes too far with using Mystical Arts magic, unleashing bat creatures upon his audience, he portals into Wong’s living room, and this time he’s watching the recently ended, and highly acclaimed, series This Is Us. In the mid-credits scene, he’s back watching it, chilling on the couch with Madisynn while she’s asking him what kinds of drinks he’s ever tried. So why and how is it This Is Us?
Well, as one might surmise even just on a surface level from airing on HBO, and last year’s prequel film The Many Saints of Newark being distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, The Sopranos is indeed Warner Bros.-owned. That’s why all we saw when that was playing was the HBO Max interface paused on what was presumably some fade to black, or a frame on the shift between the main credits and the dub credit listings. Admittedly, seeing HBO Max’s interface on a Disney+ series was a bit bizarre too. Anyway, with that same surface-level logic, This Is Us just finished a very successful six-season run on NBC, so one might assume it was some sort of Universal production. In fact, it is a 20th Century Fox-produced series. The 20th Century Fox film and television studios were under Fox Entertainment Group, an asset of 21st Century Fox. Studios producing programming for networks rival to their parent company was very common practice. Scrubs was produced by Disney-owned Touchstone but aired on NBC for its first seven seasons. The Big Bang Theory and Young Sheldon are Warner Bros. productions that ran on CBS. Gotham and Lucifer are shows based on DC Comics and thus are also Warner Bros. productions that originally aired on Fox. Let alone everything Warner Bros Television made before The WB existed.
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Image Source: Marvel Studios/Twentieth Century Fox Television/Disney
When Disney’s purchase of 21st Century Fox began in December 2017, This Is Us was in the midst of its second season. By the time the purchase was completed in March 2019, the show was three-quarters of the way through season three. It has been a Disney-owned series ever since, making its full inclusion possible. Unfortunately, as someone who has only watched the show casually a few times, identifying the episode (probably episodes) could not be done, searching the lines was a nightmare, and other sites’ articles about this episode wouldn’t identify what episodes were being watched either.
The choice showed Wong comfortable with his masculinity. For someone who didn’t know who Beyoncé was when he first met Stephen Strange, this also seems to indicate Sorcerer Supreme might also be stepping into Steve Rogers’s shoes as the character catching up on pop culture. Quite a journey of character development indeed. This Is Us is streaming in its entirety on Hulu and the NBC app, so bet on the former being the likely spot where Wong was watching.
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