‘What If…? – Season 2’ Episode Four Recap: “What If…Iron Man Crashed Into the Grandmaster?”

Warning: the following article contains spoilers for episode four of What If…? – Season 2. 

Perhaps it would’ve been more fitting for the Christmas-themed episode to be released on the 25th because today’s episode of What If…? – Season 2 certainly isn’t very festive. However, it’s currently the best season thus far, blending high-stakes thrills with actual ramifications for the timeline this episode visits. 

Today’s episode has one minor shift in the sacred timeline that changes the entire course of the MCU, with Tony Stark (Mick Wingert) failing to return to Earth after destroying the Chitauri at the end of The Avengers. With the portal closed, Stark travels through space and time and crash-lands into Sakaar, where he meets The Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum). 

The Grandmaster has been hosting the Sakaar Grand Prix and wants Stark to be his guest during the race. However, he wants to find the quickest way back to Earth and return home. But The Grandmaster has more than one trick up his sleeve and forces Stark to remain on the planet. Suffice it to say the race doesn’t go well, and Stark attempts to escape by suiting up. Still, it malfunctions and crashes into the middle of the track, where Korg (Taika Waititi) and Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) try to take down The Grandmaster’s champion. 

During a foot chase, the champion is viciously killed by Gamora (Cynthia McWilliams), who arrives in Sakaar. After the Chitauri has been destroyed, Thanos (Josh Brolin) asks Gamora to track down Stark and bring it to him, which is what she hopes to do, but she soon has a change of heart after she learns of what her father did to Earth during the events of The Avengers. And that’s where the story shifts into a far more interesting territory than the permutations shown in the first three episodes of the current season. 

Stark challenges The Grandmaster to a race for complete control of Sakaar, which he accepts. But, as we know, The Grandmaster has more than one trick up his sleeve and attempts to rig the race to his benefit, with the track filled with an array of traps in a vain desire to crash all of the cars except for his. The racing sequences are arguably some of the best action this show has seen, a deft, visually potent mix of Rollerball and The Wachowskis’ reinvention of Speed Racer. 

There’s lots of inventiveness in how director Bryan Andrews creates the Sakaar Grand Prix and has fun with how the racecars are designed and how they adapt to an ever-unpredictable environment. The climactic race, in particular, is loads of fun to watch and reminded me of the glory days of Marvel when Taika Watiti made his MCU debut in Thor: Ragnarok and infused loads of pop into his action scenes, only for him to regress to risible-looking, unfinished action in Thor: Love and Thunder. 

Waititi himself is as funny as Korg, with material that has seemingly improved from this season’s first episode to now. Wingert also seems more comfortable voicing Stark than in previous episodes, finally nailing the spirit of Robert Downey Jr’s portrayal of the character by dialing down on the vocal expressions and making him more grounded. It’s still imperfect, but a massive improvement over yesterday’s episode. Goldblum also makes a welcomed return to the MCU, bringing the same energy he did on Thor: Ragnarok, which in turn marked one of his greatest performances as The Grandmaster. 

But the most exciting part of the episode happens at its tail end, where Gamora has that change of heart and brings Stark to Thanos…to kill him with Topaz’s (Rachel House) stick, thereby preventing the events of Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame from happening. However, Stark has died in each of the timelines The Watcher (Jeffrey Wright) has presented in the show so far, which means he’ll inadvertently sacrifice himself in another battle. It’s too bad we won’t see how that has affected his journey here, but it’s interesting to realize how one slight shift can change the course of the MCU forever. So far, What If…? hasn’t fully lived up to that potential. Today’s episode finally reminded us what the show is about. 

The fourth episode of What If…? – Season 2 is now available to stream on Disney+.