Marvel's What if...? breaks its own rules
The penultimate episode 8 revises the entire premise of the series.
The Short Take:
I was all ready to complain about how this episode was too close to the plot of Age of Ultron, but then…something unexpected happened.
Image Credit: CNET
[SPOILER WARNING: There’s only one more episode of season 1 to go, so don’t be like Tony Stark “tinkering” with world-ending technology — proceed with some caution. Some Loki spoilers at the very end as well.]
The Long Take:
THE big question looming over What if…? as we approach the season finale is whether or not it is a true anthology series or if the alternate realities from each episode merge into one overarching plot. This episode confirmed that it’s the latter, in a big way. By the time the credits roll, the multiverse, which includes all the universes of past What if…? episodes, is on the brink of destruction. In weariness and desperation, The Watcher turns to the “evil” Doctor Strange from Episode 4 and begrudgingly asks for help. In a snap (or, in this case, a Thanos slice) we go from a series of disjointed narrative experiments to a connective, team-up-filled plot, with literal rather than meta implications for the MCU’s Phase 4.
I have to admit I did not see this coming because the start of the episode lulled me into a false sense of critical security. We see Hawkeye and Black Widow battling Ultron and his robot army because, unlike the film Avengers: Age of Ultron, Tony Stark’s AI successfully takes over Vision’s body, becoming too powerful for the Avengers to handle. The scenario, like past episodes I’ve complained about, seemed too similar to the original, and I was gearing up to blast the episode for its lack of imagination. The role reversal of Natasha’s final self-sacrificing scene in Avengers: Endgame was touching (I’m not an Ultron), but it’s still just retreading old story. The same old plot, but with a slight, safe twist.
Until the uncanny moment when “Perfect Ultron,” as Charles Holmes and Van Lathan call him on The Ringerverse podcast (and honestly, other than maybe “Uber Ultron” for the alliteration, I couldn’t come up with a better name), evolves to the point where he can sense The Watcher’s presence beyond the boundaries of his own universe. This was by far my favorite scene in the episode — and maybe my favorite moment in the entire series to date — because a.) it feels like a jump scare moment in a horror film and b.) more importantly, it breaks rules that had been previously established in the show. The Watcher introduces each episode because he’s the only one who can see them all, and his voiceover at the start and end of each episode implies that he’s only in the show to guide us and provide narrative continuity. I would call this a frame narrative because The Watcher telling us these stories and bringing us to these variant universes is its own timeline, separate from any alternate universe narratives or “what if”s.
Or so I thought. The second I heard Perfect Ultron say, “Who said that?” while The Watcher narrates the episode, I knew that he was going to go after The Watcher and the multiverse, and it was thrilling. The frame narrative and the main narrative collide. This brought the same mischievous joy I feel whenever characters in film and TV break the fourth wall. The closest example that I can think of would be the Winnie the Pooh animated films because the book narrator has conversations with various residents of The Hundred Acre Wood, but, in terms of my reaction, we’re more in the Monty Python and the Holy Grail or Ferris Bueller’s Day Off zone. (If you’ve got better comparisons, please drop them in the comments section.) The Watcher’s befuddled and frightened response once he realizes that Perfect Ultron can hear him was not only amusing — it instantly made him more human.
I very much enjoyed the knock down drag-out fight between Perfect Ultron and The Watcher, which reminded me of last week’s Thor v. Captain Marvel (Lots of over-powered characters butting heads lately, and I’m not complaining.). The Watcher’s surprise and terror paired with Perfect Ultron’s insatiable, relentless programming raised the stakes in a way that I wasn’t asking for but will certainly take. And shout out to the sad Perfect Ultron we see once he’s destroyed everything in his path and realizes he no longer has any purpose. I actually almost felt bad for him for a second there.
In retrospect, I should have paid more attention to The Watcher’s weird behavior and shift in attitude at the top of the episode. He begins by saying this world, like so many others, faces total destruction. But “this one,” he says, “really breaks my heart.” Okay, that’s a little too emotionally attached for an omniscient, passive observer figure to say, but I shrugged it off. Maybe it breaks his heart because he can’t or won’t do anything about it. Now I see that this was the beginning of the end of his impartiality. I should have also known because any non-intervention clause set up in a world, like Star Trek’s prime directive, which forbids intervention into the affairs of less advanced civilizations, exists to be bent and broken. It creates a necessary tension for galaxy questing heroes — or, in the case of The Watcher and I assume The Eternals, all powerful cosmic beings — to nobly decide that the rules do not apply to them because they must help those in need. The logical conclusion of this is, unfortunately, imperialism, but I can’t get into that without completely derailing this review.
My gullible disposition aside, what does this mean for next week? I’d like to remind us (myself included) that there’s only one more episode left this season, so I can’t expect too much. On the other hand, Kevin Feige has already confirmed that there will be a season 2, which means that this season could end on a cliffhanger and continue as early as next year. We may get a multiverse-saving adventure with Evil Doctor Strange and The Watcher that resolves neatly next episode, or this might plug into the rest of Phase 4 in some way, which means that the multiverse will remain broken until next season.
I’m wondering, though, how this is all going to fit together. [LOKI SPOILER ahead!] The multiverse breaks open when Sylvie kills the Kang variant maintaining The Sacred Timeline at the end of Loki, and something crazy must happen either as a result of “Doctor Strange” trying to help Tom Holland’s Peter Parker in the Spider-Man: No Way Home trailer or because the multiverse is already broken. So could Marvel really pile another multiversal transgression on top of all that? Or is this an event that will precede the events I just mentioned? And what’s The Watcher’s relationship to Kang? Are they both operating simultaneously? Who would have more control over the multiverse? Will Evil Doctor Strange show up in the live action films at some point? I have so many questions.
For the record, I would have been completely happy with this show sticking to its initial anthology format. I didn’t need it to directly feed into Phase 4, even though it was getting a little frustrating, as I mentioned last week, that each episode leading up to this seemed to be a meta-narrative advertisement for some future installment of the MCU. But now that we’ve crashed the multiverse, I say, LET’S GO.