[7.1/10] Pick an ending, am I right? First it’s having to remove the soul stone from Mega-Ultron. Then it’s removing all the stones. Then it’s getting them in the infinity smasher. Then it’s using Hawkeye’s Zola arrow on Ultron. Then it’s Zola and Killmonger having an uber showdown. Then it’s Cosmic Dr. Strange trapping them in a pocket universe. Then it’s The Watcher having planned it all this way from the beginning.
It’s a little exhausting, making it feel like we didn’t really build to any of this, but rather, it just happened by fiat. The best you can say is that The Watcher picked these folks knowing the progression and so saw the parts they would play, but it’s not especially clear how and why this was the necessary path or that these were the necessary people to walk it.
(As an aside, why Gamora? I know there was one episode of What If? that didn’t get made because of COVID and other timing constraints. Was it hers?)
Still, some of the interactions are fun. Thor-as-Sterling-Archer is still a hoot, and his happy-go-lucky dopeyness around the other “Guardians of the Multiverse” made me laugh. I also loved the bond between Captain Carter and Black Widow. Captain America: The Winter Soldier is one of the MCU’s better films, and I wouldn’t want to trade it, but this finale definitely made me want to see more adventures of Peggy and Natasha as a team.
And there’s some solid emotional stuff here. Cosmic Strange getting a little redemption after his early mishap is a nice beat. The stinger with Captain Carter getting to see her lost love again much as Steve did is a nice touch too. And I like Black Widow returning to the Avengers-less timeline from episode 3, finding a new home and place to belong, with that being the abiding moral of the series. The overall themes and character beats work well.
It’s just the big climactic battle -- which in fairness, is most of the episode -- that falls flat for me. There’s some cool visual moments, mostly in the way of Cosmic Dr. Strange channeling the dark forces with some multicolored splendor and turns into a tentacle monster. For the most part, though, it’s just a bunch of undifferentiated fireworks and fisticuffs without even the imaginative fun of The Watcher and Ultron’s smash-tour through the multiverse. It wasn’t bad by any means, but nothing we haven’t seen before, without any new twists or wrinkles to set it apart despite the advantages of working in an animated medium.
Overall, I still enjoyed What If? quite a bit as an entertaining lark. The anthology format is a good one for a comic book universe, and several of the remixes were inventive and clever. It’s just the attempt to put them all together, and leave several of the stories unfinished so that they could be concluded in the grand finale, that I’d count as a misfire.
That was satisfying!!
Brilliant use of every single thing ever created by the MCU, We are The Watchers and We loved it!!!
Don’t forget to watch the small post credit scene!...
So having all six stones at once kills Tony Stark but killmonger can take them and use them without a single side effect? Come on man
Viva las Vegas! Cute wordplay. ;)
Cutting out Gamora's episode this season when she was still part of the finale was a bad (okay yeah, a sad one since it was because of COVID delays) choice. I'm guessing / pretty sure it's the episode that was pushed to Season 2, but still. Now we know she and Tony will be allies in the end (and judging by the leaks, they weren't in the beginning of their episode).
That fight scene was badass! (Although I do agree, it was almost too easy, but at this point, I was so sick of Ultron as a villain overall that I just wanted it to be over.) When they "beat" him around the halfway mark, I knew there was no way they were done, it was stressing me out. Glad Nat found a new home; I was just wishing that that would happen to her; I was confused for a second and didn't recognize that she was sent to the Avengers Assassinated verse.
After the previous episode, I wasn't sure that it would all tie together in a satisfying end, but they pulled it off.
A perfect ending to an interesting series. My favorite character throughout the series has been The Watcher, would love to see him in a live action too.
Really liked the season finale, it was really well put. The only "plot hole" is that at any time did Ultron tried to use the power of all the gems at the same time (maybe only in the last battle); but to be fair, it felt really close to the battle against Thanos in Infinity War (although he had 4 stones only at the time). It was a nice connection between all episodes, and the post-credits scene made me smile a lot (don't know why). Really well made, a solid 8 for me
Not sure if overall What If...? is my favorite MCU series, but this is definitely my fav finale of them. It ties to past episodes and ups the scale without losing much of the charm that some of the best earlier stand-alone episodes have. Plus, the story strands of Peggy and Natasha turn out pretty affecting (and the latter's convo with The Watcher such a meta comment about telling and watching these MCU stories over the past decade).
imagine frat bro thor helping you save the universe
It was fun, but fell just a little bit short of being great. Definitely among the better episodes of this season, though.
This episode highlights just how bad episode 7 (the Thor one) was, though. Why the hell would The Watcher choose this Thor over any other? Makes zero sense. If anything, you'd pick the Captain Marvel from that episode. Also, why did we get saddled with that episode instead of having one about this Gamora and the Infinity Crusher? That sounds like a better way to spend time.
Well, that was fun. I herd they're doing a season 2. Maybe they can get the horror inspired Man-spider that they wanted to do in season 1 lol.
Some incredible imagery and action sequences aren't enough to save the finale of What If...? from becoming a mostly, and shockingly, dull affair outside of the spectacle. Most of the show's lingering problems came to bite it in the ass in the finale - short runtimes, lack of development, and a needless insistence to connect to the wider MCU pantheon rather then stand on it's own as fun, you know, "WHAT IFS?". It's times like these where I really start to see the criticisms of the wider MCU phenomenon and agree with them, especially since What If...? takes these potentially cool ideas and some great animation and instead asks "Ok but what if character met character early???" which just isn't interesting to me.
Still, as a spectacle, it's hard to go wrong here. I always the more cosmic stuff in the comics and so far this show has been the best representation of that side, particularly when Doctor Strange and Infinity Ultron are duking it out. The actual climax is a bit undercooked but it's at least a clever Chevkov's Gun that makes sense in the larger scale and the actual resolution for certain characters like Supreme Strange and Captain Carter are solid (less so for ones like Star-Lord T'Challa whose potential continuation gets wasted early). Overall a mixed bag of a finale.
So, what we learned is that without Strange everyone would be pretty fucked.
Compared to last episode that one was definitely an improvement and it was fun to see all these different versions of characters working together and play each other off, yet the pacing again didn’t allow for much of a satisfying payoff.
I‘m also still not sure I like it that the episodes connected in the end instead of being just fun standalone adventures.
Also, how weird was it to make Gamora such a big part of the episode when she didn’t even have an episode to herself? Why not Peter from the Zombie Apocalypse instead? For plot convenience?
But whatever. It was a solid finale to a rather uneven show.
Well, the season ended on a high note compared to episodes previous to it I suppose, but overall my takeaway from the series is "Yeah, it's a cartoon alright." I probably had too high of hopes for it, the What If concept is really fun, and they had most of the big actors, so it seemed like it could be something special. It isn't bad or anything, but it also isn't what I was hoping it'd be and the need to throw in constant gags makes it feel more suited to children then Marvel's aging audience.
Also, Gamora felt entirely out of place here, obviously that episode shouldn't have been cut, but now just throwing it in Season 2 would also be redundant since you see how it ends.
Oh okay I see what they did there! Guardians of the multiverse! I like that. Maybe we could even get a live action with Peggy, Killmonger and others.
And I’m intrigued by they mentioning every universe’s infinity stones are slightly different!
Also we are owed the Gamora Thanos episode.
After a very hit-and-miss season, this finale was nearly flawless and redeems even the poorer episodes. (Okay, maybe not that Dumb Thor one.) An unexpected coming-together of previous episodes gives us action on a cosmic scale never seen before in the MCU, including action moments that put your most over-the-top anime face-offs to shame. Really neat stuff.
Great episode. The fact that all episodes where “connected” makes this episode a great ending of this season (idk if there is going to be more). Its the best one? Nope. It works and even considering some contradictions, like Ultron not using the full power of the Stones, limited by the short length of the episodes, it’s a satisfactory ending.
Well that PAYED OFF, BIG TIME!! While I haven't been a big fan of the show overall, they certainly STUCK THE LANDING PERFECTLY. What an EPICCCC ending!
That was a great wrap up to what I think has been a good MCU series overall. What If? was always one of my favourite titles to read because of a lot it's outlandish stories pushing the boundaries. The rest of what I want to say contains spoilers so I'll hide that for those reading this that haven't seen it yet. Btw though if you haven't watched it yet and are reading this, get off Trakt and go watch this great finale lol!
I was so pleased with the team the Watcher picked for this ensemble episode, especially Captain Carter, Killmonger, T'Challa Star Lord and dark Dr Strange. I would love to see more of Captain Carter as I think she's quite take on the super soldier role and could have some interesting story lines. Would be good to see her in the live action MCU. Back to this episode, Dr Strange was brilliant in his role for the team and it was great to see him unleashed against Multiverse killer Ultron. Killmonger of course saw an opportunity for more power and predictably grabbed it this becoming part of the problem at the end. This was foreseen though by the Watcher and proved to be a necessary part of his plan succeeding. Final point, it was nice to have T'Challa (in voice) one last time.
IMO this episode holds up with last week's one which was my favourite of the season. A great job done of emulating a great Marvel comic and hopefully we will be getting a season two like I've read somewhere.
Episode rating an easy 9/10 for me.
It definitely was a fun episode, but I feel like there's so many "because plot" elements. Why wouldn't Ultron use all of the stones to his advantage? Why, when there are infinite realities, would The Watcher choose characters like an inexperienced Thor that just likes to party
310 mins, guys for real?
I really thought for a second we were gonna get Black Widow back in the 'main' universe. Gutted!
Also high key shipping her and Peggy. No regrets!
Well, so that was the "epic finale we were promised". It's okay, I guess. I think this episode would've been more interesting in a slightly longer format. I'll go into specifics:
First of all, I must say I was really excited to get to see Spider-Man once more, but nope, he doesn't appear anywhere, so that's a bummer. That aside, every character seems like they accept this reality waaay too quickly. Also, I get why they couldn't be wasting too much time since they're dealing with a multiversal threat, but I really liked the bits where they talk to each other and get to know the differences with their timelines, but they're too few and it ends up feeling unrealistic they wouldn't be more interested on that sort of stuff. Also, as has already been pointed out in another review, Ultron feels extremely nerfed. He has every infinity stone and goes down way too easily. Another thing that bothered me, didn't The Watcher know about Killmonger being a betrayer? Really?
Anyways, I wasn't really so engaged with this series so even though I think this episode has some flaws, it's a "satisfying" end, even though I really wanted this to be an anthology series instead of gratifying people with the modern "everything has to be connected with everything else" mentality. At the end of the day, it's just a Marvel series, so well, time to move on.
Every time the story involves Strange, the stones, the multiverse or "out of this world" powers, there are plot holes every damn second. Those are my least favorite stories. Every episode in this season I enjoyed but not the last two.
That was entertaining, but also a bit disappointing.
It's mainly the fight against Ultron, and despite the OP Strange protection spell (and its attacks that are definitely the coolest part) which might account for a slightly longest survival, there is no way such a pitiful team would have managed anything. And so it's clearly visible that Ultron is fighting like a sub-par version, let a alone having Vision's body and all the Stones.
Why's this Gamora out of nowhere ?
Same as his episode, I hardly see what frat boy Thor is bringing here, compared to literally any other version of him, or the Captain Marvels that kept appearing in the other episodes.
The long series of pseudo twists is meh. I mean, you know Zola is going to do bad things, and you know Killmonger is a villain and was selected and brought here despite that. You can't expect different.
Nice touch on Natasha being brought back to the world where the Avengers died though, making this one link with all other episodes.
Did any of you guys commenting even read these comics back in the day?
There were soooo many cool stories that could of been told, but instead we just get more agenda BS.
Terrible series.....the end!
The Watcher: "Thor Odinson, Crown Prince of Asgard."
[Thor screaming]
The Watcher: "You've been chosen."
Gamora: "You're done."
Gamora: "Of course, the crusher was designed to destroy the stones on my world, not his."
I was hyped for this series when I saw the trailer for it. I love the concept of alternate universes in fiction, and I was aware of the Marvel comic series for years before they decided to make the show. There were moments in this I should have enjoyed, I should have liked (like Captain Carter is still my fav thing about this series) but I just... didn't. It felt so underwhelming by the end, and I'm still at a loss for why. At least the animation was excellent throughout???
Well, now THAT'S how a finale should be done!
Shout by ragreynoldsVIP 7BlockedParentSpoilers2021-10-06T12:05:03Z
A good final episode, but really hard to take the fight with Ultron seriously. He had all the stones but didn't even really use them? He literally has the power to just stop/reverse time. He's an insanely smart AI, yet somehow he doesn't even think to create some sort of timeloop like Strange has in the past? That's literally just one of the stones, he had all of them! Seems really absurd that this team were able to do anything at all to Ultron, especially considering that the Watcher couldn't even beat him.