The Short Take:
Episode three took a half-step backwards in creative storytelling, but put more on the line with a “what if” scenario that targets that which many MCU fans hold near and dear: the Avengers.
Image Credit: Marvel.com
The Long Take:
[SPOILERS are just about as likely as a Nick Fury eye joke in an Avengers movie.]
For all the multiverse gives, the multiverse can taketh away. This week, Marvel’s “What if…?” shows us a darker, colder universe, in which nearly all of the Avengers we know and love are dead before they can even assemble.
I was overjoyed watching last week’s episode because it was so fresh and so new, showing how a “what if” approach can get those narrative synapses firing. This episode, which contemplates what would happen if someone murdered many A-list Avengers before Nick Fury even has a chance to recruit them, resembled Episode 1 a little more than Episode 2 in its rehashing of past plots. We revisit the opening of the first Thor film, as Agent Coulson spearheads an investigation of Mjolnir in the New Mexico desert. Loki, despite cooperating initially, still takes over Midgard, delivering the same “you don’t really want to be free” supervillain speech to the masses.
This is the first episode, however, to explore difference as lack or absence rather than a surplus of story. Peggy Carter as Captain America? Yay! T’Challa as Starlord? Fun! Tony Stark as…still dead, just different dead? Really depressing. But, when I consider the timing of this episode and how it may contribute to the pacing of the season overall, this makes sense. Much like “the snap” suddenly erases several major characters from existence, this “what if” hits a painful, dramatically ironic note because we already know what could have been in this iteration of reality. We know what Nick Fury has lost even though he has no idea. And we’ve been gallivanting too much for our own good so far. It was time for a Hawkeye-level shot through the heart.
This melancholy episode does more heavy-lifting for the larger MCU as well. It’s another carefully planned step in our post-Endgame pivot because, by the end of this episode, we’re shown the possibility of a whole new Avengers team forming. Steve Rogers’ Cap Shield peeks out of the ice as Captain Marvel answers Fury’s 90s beeper call. As a reminder, this is not our timeline and our Avengers, so nothing we see here directly correlates to the future of our Earth’s mightiest heroes. Still, I think the message is clear: we can start anew. Does this convince me that I can forget about RDJ’s Iron Man and accept new heroes into my life? Not in of itself. But it puts the idea on the table in the hopes that I eventually will. The heroes that remain are still heroes, after all.
Of all the heroes no longer with us, I really enjoyed that we got to spend some more quality time with Natasha Romanoff. Her detective work and banter with Fury in this episode seemed like a much better salute than Black Widow because it focuses on Natasha as a SHIELD agent rather than on passing the mantle of Black Widow on to Yelena. And no, that wasn’t Scarlett Johansson you heard. (Unsurprising, considering her recent feud with Disney.) It was Lake Bell, who, coincidentally, also voices Poison Ivy on HBO’s Harley Quinn series. She did a decent job of not just trying to do a ScarJo impression, but still reminded me of the Black Widow we’ve seen in the films.
So, what will the Avengers look like in our world, in our Phase 4? If the recent Spider-Man: No Way Home teaser trailer — which set the Internet on fire — is any indication, Doctor Strange and Spider-man will feature prominently. Though a prevailing theory is that the Doctor Strange we see isn’t actually him, or may be a variant of him — and that’s exactly why a multiverse arc is going to be so crazy and exciting. If we round up characters from the other Disney Plus shows, that adds Scarlet Witch, White Vision, Sam Wilson’s Captain America, the artist formerly known as The Winter Soldier, and….maybe Loki? And we can’t forget a new hero who’s about to hit the big screen: Shang-Chi. Oh right, and Hawkeye’s still here. *waves awkwardly*
I’m getting ahead of myself, though. We may be so busy glueing the multiverse back together that the Avengers won’t actually form in any recognizable way in a very long time. In the meantime, we can keep asking “what if…?”