‘What If…? – Season 3’ Episode Eight Recap: “What If… What If?”

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

After seven episodes exploring multiple possibilities, What If…? – Season 3 culminates with…a whimper. I should’ve seen this coming, but the episode barely has anything noteworthy, storytelling-wise, and gives its central character, The Watcher (Jeffrey Wright), whose real name is Uatu, a rather underwhelming and forgettable conclusion. 

We do get a flashback to his time accepting an oath to watch the fifth dimension from The Eminence (Jason Isaacs). Uatu wonders why he should stand and watch these alternate realities without interference. The Eminence doesn’t want to give him an easy answer and instead tells him it will eventually arrive if he observes the timelines. Cut to the present, where he now stands trial in front of The Eminence, The Incarnate (D.C. Douglas), and The Executioner (Darin De Paul), who all accuse The Watcher of repeatedly meddling with things he shouldn’t, in not only saving Captain Carter (Hayley Atwell), but Riri Williams, Jun-Fan, Nick Fury, Reed Richards and…Madisynn. 

The Watcher’s interferences seem far more regular than shown to us, so the council now believes they have no choice but to kill him and Peggy, who The Eminence also captured in yesterday’s episode. As they are about to do so, Byrdie’s (Natasha Lyonne) ship crashes into the Fifth Dimension, with Infinity Ultron (Ross Marquand) sacrificing himself to save both The Watcher and Carter. With Kahhori (Devery Jacobs) and Storm (Alison Sealy-Smith), the heroes attempt to travel to Strange Supreme’s world but are caught by the council of Watchers, who crash their ship to an abandoned planet. 

A big battle ensues, and it’s a terrifically shot – and animated – action setpiece. The movements are fluid, the animation is expressive, and the superhero kinetics are exciting enough. In one such scene, the Eminence holds Mjolnir as if it’s nothing, but he can’t break it with his hand. That’s a relatively funny gag since Hela was able to break it in Thor: Ragnarok. During the first half of the fight, the heroes don’t have the upper hand, and their powers can’t match how strong the three Watchers are.

However, Uatu makes the team swear the same oath he did to become a Watcher, and they are granted the same powers as him. The fight becomes more exciting visually, leading The Eminence, The Executioner, and The Incarnate to merge themselves and attempt to erase everyone’s existence. However, they did not expect Carter to retaliate, which she does, by sacrificing herself to ensure everyone else (and their alternate selves) lives.

Peggy’s last act teleports everyone to Strange Supereme’s universe, where The Eminence no longer has power anymore. Uatu successfully convinces the council to learn how he now perceives the world by watching over this universe, whilst he brings Kahhori, Byride, and Storm as their new “Watchers” to observe the Multiverse, with lots of interfering likely happening now that they no longer have any ‘shackles’ on this concept. 

It’s a relatively decent conclusion. It’s not terrible or inspiring, but it gets the job done. However, what comes next is possibly the most audience-insulting moment of having spent now twenty-six episodes watching frivolous alternate possibilities rather than cool stuff. In a final montage, we see more endless possibilities featuring Ghost Rider as a samurai, Riri Williams as The Punisher, Comic Accurate Deadpool, Star-Lord with Shang-Chi’s Powers, Hulk as Doctor Strange, Kamala Khan as The Wasp, and Blade as Moon Knight (adding insult to injury, Blade looks like Mahershala Ali, whose live-action MCU feature remains still in limbo, while Wesley Snipes got the last laugh in Deadpool & Wolverine)

While we will see the latter in the upcoming Marvel Zombies, this ending tag makes Marvel say, “Wow, look at all these awesome characters we could’ve brought to life instead of going with What If Darcy was pregnant with Howard the Duck’s egg? A question no one would actually like to know the answer to!” (Granted, the episode was the most surprisingly emotional of the bunch, but still!). 

When you ask a comic-book fan, “What if The Ghost Rider was a Samurai?” their eyes immediately light up with excitement. I, too, would like to see this happen, and it would genuinely be a fun introduction to the character that we’ve been longing to see in the ‘proper’ MCU for ages. Unfortunately, most of What If…? has amounted to one or two great concepts, while the others treated questions we didn’t ask nor wanted to see visualized. And when one observes all of the ‘endless possibilities’ that could’ve been treated instead of what we ultimately got, it’s pretty easy to tell you once again that What If…? remains Marvel’s biggest-ever wasted opportunity at doing something interesting, but never bringing it to its fullest potential. 

Hopefully, we will see some of these characters come to life one way or another. As it stands,  however, it’s hard not to think this entire series was nothing but a waste of high-profile talent, storytelling, and, reference intended, time…

All episodes of What If…? – Season 3 are now available to stream on Disney+.