‘What If…? – Season 3’ Episode Seven Recap: “What If…the Watcher Disappeared?”

Warning: The following article contains spoilers for episode seven of What If…? – Season 3. 

I’m a sucker for episodes that alternate their title sequence in response to the show’s events. In the case of What If…? – Season 3, The Eminence (Jason Isaacs) has now taken control of the Observational Plane and explains to The Watcher (Jeffrey Wright), and, inadvertently, us, how the choice of interfering in Captain Carter’s (Hayley Atwell) timeline has brought about massive consequences for the sanctity of the multiverse. This leads to him narrating over the music-less, black-and-white opening credits of the Stephan Franck-directed penultimate episode set to bring the entire series full circle. 

That’s about the only scene we get with him, but Isaacs presents the character with a terrifying enough presence that The Watcher seems right to fear him. In the last episode, part of the Multiversal shards spilled over into a timeline, which is, predictably, where Captain Carter and her team consisting of a grown-up Byrdie (Natasha Lyonne), Kahhori (Devery Jacobs), and Storm (Alison Sealy-Smith, playing an Asgardian variant of her X-Men ‘97 character) are. As they help Nebula (Karen Gillan), Groot (Fred Tatasciore), and Korg (Taika Waititi) fight off an interdimensional creature from destroying their timeline, the shards land right on their feet. 

The episode mainly focuses on the team coming up with a plan to help The Watcher, leading them to try and get to him on their own by synthesizing parts of the shard with a teleporter made out of Kang’s Time Chair. The villain is nowhere to be found, and one suspects that Carter’s team has been busy conveniently getting rid of him and his variants, which would explain, inside the universe, why he is no longer the franchise’s “big bad.” (I still, however, don’t think Robert Downey Jr. coming back as Doctor Doom is a good idea under any circumstance, a simple recast would’ve sufficed) 

Their first two attempts fail miserably, which gives Kahhori the idea that they should perhaps request help from a variant of Infinity Ultron (Ross Marquand), the universe-destroying villain whom the Guardians of the Multiverse fought in the first season finale. While Byrdie and Storm don’t think it’s a particularly good idea, Carter decides to meet him anyway and request his help. However, she is kidnapped by The Eminence in a relatively brutal fight between the two. Ultron, on the other hand, resolves to help her when he figures out what’s going on and has had time to ponder on the consequences of killing everyone in his timeline, realizing that no peace can be attained without living human beings populating the planets of the universe. 

When our three remaining heroes arrive at Ultron, they think he killed Carter, leading to a fight. However, he quickly subdues them and explains what happened. After they realize Ultron is on the team’s side, he joins them in the fight and absorbs the shard in himself, knowing it will give them enough power to reach The Watcher.

What happens next?

Well, as the title card says, to be continued…

The seventh episode of What If…? – Season 3 is now available to stream on Disney+.