With Captain Carter (Hayley Atwell) and The Watcher (Jeffrey Wright) captured, The Eminence (Jason Isaacs) might believe he’s won. However, a superteam of Kahhori (Devery Jacobs), Thunder God Storm (Alison Sealy-Smith), Byrdie The Duck (Natasha Lyonne), and Infinity Ultron are not letting their friends die without a fight. “What If…What If?” serves as the finale for the Marvel Animation show. With plenty of spectacle and heart, it’s a fitting farewell, even if the series still has plenty of gas in the tank.
In the past, The Watcher looks out over the Universe and all of existence. He asks The Eminence how anyone can take it all in, but The Eminence states that he’s ready. For the position, The Watcher will have to sacrifice everything — even his name. However, The Eminence believes no disciple or trainee has ever been more ready for this duty or this sacrifice. When The Watcher says he’ll take the oath, he’s granted the powers by The Eminence. Before they separate, The Watcher asks what the point of simply observing is, but The Eminence thinks he will discover the answer in time.
Instead, in the current timeline, The Eminence calls The Watcher a heretic. The Watcher has defiled the order by giving their secrets to mortals, including Captain Carter and Stephen Strange Supreme. The Watcher defends his choices, saying that guiding the timeline helps to expand the number of universes they can watch. The Eminence brings the conversation back to Captain Carter, pulling her into this realm of existence to The Watcher’s surprise. They call the mortals insignificant, but The Watcher tells them each hero matters to him. Believing this, according to the Eminence, is his true failure.
When Peggy tells The Watcher he must continue to fight, The Eminence realizes he must kill her. Before he does, Infinity Ultron flies into The Fifth Dimension, freeing The Watcher and Captain Carter. Byrdie flies the ship into the dimension, and Ultron tells the rescuees to leave. He will hold off the Eminence while the others escape. As he does, Byrdie realizes there’s no place in the Multiverse to hide from The Eminence, so she takes the ship between the dimensional plane (thanks to Ultron’s upgrades). They realize Strange Supreme’s universe might be their best place to hide, as his soul is entwined in that universe.
The Eminence kills Infinity Ultron despite his massive power. With The Executioner (Darin De Paul) and The Incarnate (DC Douglas), The Eminence arrives on Byrdie’s ship. They destroy it and launch the heroes onto a planet outside of Strange’s universe. The Watcher continues to defy his fellow watchers, especially when they attack his friends.
Overmatched, the Watcher comes up with an idea to save his friends — have them take the oath. With no other options, they agree, and an explosion of power occurs. Soon, The Eminence, The Executioner, and The Incarnate find themselves facing five Watchers instead of one. Decked out with new blue and gold suits, the heroes have become wildly powerful. No longer accepting that he is “no one,” The Watcher reclaims his name: Uatu.
The two sides clash, releasing incredible power into the multiverse. Entire planets are destroyed as the sides do battle, but eventually, Uatu and the heroes gain the upper hand. When the Watchers refuse to yield, Uatu tells his allies to stop. However, the three Watchers use this opportunity to create a super-being that starts to erase every version of every universe where the heroes existed.
Refusing to accept her friends deaths, Captain Carter uses every ounce of her power to gain a foothold. She restores her power despite her atoms being torn apart. Uatu asks Peggy what she is doing, and she responds that she will not lose any friends. She launches herself into the Watchers, causing another massive explosion.
When Uatu awakes, he realizes that Peggy is gone, but the other heroes are still alive. The Eminence also stands, telling Uatu that Carter’s sacrifice was for nothing. However, when he tries to finish off Uatu, The Eminence is powerless. Uatu reveals they are in the universe Strange Supreme created. Here, Strange has power, and The Watchers do not.
The Eminence believes that Uatu has brought him here to kill the other Watchers. However, Uatu tells The Eminence he hopes to teach the other Watchers about the multiverse. He tells his old order that they can use this universe to learn new ways. Together, they watch the sunrise.
In the Fifth Dimension, Uatu, Byrdie, Storm, and Kahhori mourn Captain Peggy Carter. For the first time, he believes he’s being watched over. Together they ask if there is a world beyond this one. Uatu believes there are too many worlds and possibilities to consider it an end, but instead, that we should continue to ponder the question — “What If…?”
Is “What If… What If?” worth watching?
In many ways, “What If… What If?” is indebted to the Jack Kirby psychedelic era in the 1970s. It’s as if the Doctor Strange comics from this period burst to life, and it’s a wonder to behold some of the color combinations. The only thing more inspiring to look at in What If…? are the sequences zapped of color. The animation creates the textured feel of the black-and-white scenes from Thor: Love & Thunder or Dune: Part II. It’s a stunning sequence and one that only further highlights the creativity in What If...?‘s animation never went away.
Yet even with all the visual flair, the What If…? storylines for Captain Peggy Carter and Uatu that are the most important. Not only does Carter find a beautiful ending for her journey, saving her friends and making the sacrifices needed, but Uatu regains his power. Together, the two characters have grown immensely over three seasons of What If…?, and it’s a wonder to behold them doing it one last time.
While Marvel Animation has more shows in the pipeline, it’s going to be hard to replace What If...? After all, the series gave them a blank slate to play around in the MCU while still bringing back most of the vocal talent in the process. Even so, we’re excited to see where they go from here. While What If…? says goodbye on a high note, we hope to see it again in the future. It seems like an excellent possibility, and one we should welcome.
They saved the best episode of What If…? for last. The series concludes on a visually spectacular high-note, with some of the best fight sequences in the MCU to date. It’s also a heartfelt farewell to the three-season series.
