What If…? 's penultimate episode of its first season is doing what it always should’ve done from the start, make things matter.
I know the whole point of the “What If?” comics were to give one-shot inconsequential answers to fun questions, but for a series set in the MCU, it just needs to do more. Marvel, especially now, wouldn’t and shouldn’t market and spend buckets of money to get some of its biggest talents in the booth for something that doesn’t matter to the overall direction of the multimedia series.
This episode follows the events set in motion at the beginning of Avengers: Age of Ultron, with Tony Stark (Mick Wingert) creating Ultron (Ross Marquand) and Vision who merge into one. This situation quickly gets to be too much for the Avengers to handle, leading to the end of the world and possibly the end of many more. Ultron eventually discovers the sanctuary of The Watcher (Jeffrey Wright), leading to a long-awaited multiversal battle.
This all sounds great on paper, and that’s probably because it is. If this episode is any indication, the finale should be just as good, if not better. I feel it walks the line between entertainment factor and consequence better than most of the previous episodes, possibly because of the writer confirming what the finale was in recent weeks, and also because the audience is finally seeing The Watcher do something outside of narrating and commentating..
The Watcher in the comics also mainly watched from afar, almost never interacting with the actual characters, but he still had moments when he’d come down to Earth and attend major events in person. It always felt like a big deal then and it feels like a big deal now, more because of the near-weekly tease of him finally intervening. Even now, when he does intervene, it still isn’t by choice, it’s because of Ultron forcing his hand. I wish this wasn’t the case, it makes The Watcher seem much weaker, both in will and in body, than he actually is.
Due to The Watcher being so prevalent this week, Jeffrey Wright finally gets a chance to do more with the character. It’s truly amazing what can be done when giving the central character more than a line or two at the beginning and end of every episode, maybe Marvel has finally learned that. Wright does a fantastic job this week, embodying an anxiety-ridden Watcher with ease. Every line feels like he’s thinking out loud, contemplating if he should finally break his oath of nonintervention.
I should also add that Ross Marquand does a great job at portraying Ultron’s pure power and ironic bloodlust for peace, it’s great stuff. He’s somewhat doing an impression of James Spader’s version of the character, but he does his own thing the majority of the time. This works because this is such an obviously different version of the character and also because fans don’t really have an attachment to Spader’s original portrayal as Avengers: Age of Ultron is widely seen as the worst Avengers film, and one of the worst MCU films altogether.
The remaining cast is made up of returning replacement actors for characters like Natasha Romanoff (Lake Bell), Steve Rogers (Josh Keaton), Tony Stark and Carol Danvers (Alexandra Daniels). Daniels returns to play Danvers and again, just like last week, is more likable than Brie Larson’s portrayal, even with limited screen time. The rest of those actors are either fine or not worth mentioning. Jeremy Renner is back as Hawkeye and they somehow managed to make his Avengers: Endgame haircut even worse this time around. His acting is fine, it always has been, but it’s also never been great because let’s be real, it’s Jeremy Renner.
I wish I could say the animation is on another level this week, it’s not. Some of the shots are a bit wonky and look strange, while others look amazing and iconic right off the bat. The fight scenes are exciting and extremely well animated and the dialogue scenes are as stilted as they are every week. I know they’re like that because of budgetary and time restrictions, but it’s really distracting to jump from well-choreographed action to characters standing around, and only really moving their mouths. I love this art style, it’s beautiful, but it also really doesn’t do itself any favors with how hard it seems for the animators to get a good lip sync to every week.
Is this the best episode of What If…?, probably not.
Is it a bad episode of What If…?, not by a long shot.
The episode is fun, gives fans some slick visual nods to characters who haven’t appeared yet in the MCU and finally makes itself matter. While the third and fourth episodes are the peak of what this series can do from a storytelling perspective, this episode looks to be the start of something special that will be continued into next week’s season finale. It seems like it’s only a matter of time, space and reality before everything comes together.
