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.
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.
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.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2021-10-06T22:43:17Z
[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.