I don’t know about you, but this season if What If…? seems to be doing wonders more for the villains of the MCU than it has for the heroes. Granted, Happy Hogan went all Die Hard and Iron Man fought in an alien demolition derby, but the real headlines seem to be that Jude Law’s Yon-Rogg, Sam Rockwell’s Justin Hammer and Rachel Weisz’s Melina Vostokoff were drafted in from the vaults of the MCU to reprise roles that didn’t seem to be making a comeback anytime soon and episode 7 is no different.
When the episode titles for the second season were first released, I found myself natural gravitating towards some titles more than others and one of the ones that caught my eye the most was the episode that concerned itself with Hela and the Ten Rings. Not only would Thor: Ragnarok’s big bad be making a return, but she was still to be voiced by Cate Blanchett in a plot that would not only touch upon her origins, but give some much needed depth to one of Thor’s most powerful adversaries.
Hela yes.
Giving us a look at a backstory that was only hinted at during Thor: Ragnarok, we join events with the nine realms well and truly conquered, but with Odin more than ready to lay down Gungnir (his spear to all you non-Asgardian speakers out there) in the name of peace – however, far less prepared to take it down a notch is his daughter Hela, who had been trained from birth to be a conquer-happy war monger.
Weirdly surprised and displeased that his daughter – whom he raised to be the Goddess of freaking Death – is unable to just give up her bloodthirsty nature on a whim, Odin does what he usually does when one of his children defy him and knee jerks his way toward stripping them of their powers and banishing them from the kingdom. However, the big change here is that instead of imprisoning her in a limbo realm, Hela finds herself dumped on earth in the middle of medieval China sans her godhood and her weapons generating helmet and in fairly short order, she runs into to Xu Wenwu, ruler of the army known as the Ten Rings and wielder of the clutch of mystical bling that gives his kingdom its name.
At first, Wenwu, recognizing a kindred spirit, attempts to woo Hela, but after she escapes to the hidden realm of Ta Lo where she meets Jiayi who attempts to temper her bloodlust.
Meanwhile, noble Heimdall can’t help but notice that Hela has somehow gone beyond his sight, leading Odin to believe that she has been Spain by Wenwu and proving to be as maddeningly inconsistent as ever, the Allfather wages war on the Ten Rings as an act of vengeance. Can Hela discover mercy and halt this war before Odin causes yet more damage while under the guise of being a shitty dad?
After the wonders that the first season worked with Ultron, the fact that What If…? has now started focusing on villains means that it can now start retroactively start giving their rogues gallery roles that help be more than just a one-note, single serving villain. While Ultron finally became the all encompassing dreadnaught we all hoped he would be, Hela hugely benefits from having an episode (almost) all to herself as we get a hugely welcome glimpse at what exactly made her who she ultimately became – and that “what” is – surprise surprise – Odin.
Watching flashbacks of the Allfather tempering his daughter into a finely honed edge by chaining up her huge pet wolf, Fenris and essentially molding her like a genocidal piece of clay. The parenting methods of Odin have always been – shall we say – controversial, but this is the first real time we’ve fully seen what a impossible bastard he can really be as he expects the universe simy to just bend to him whims whenever the mood takes him. Not only does it give us plenty of insight into what a pre-Thor Odin was like, but the boss man of Asgard proves to be the perfect plot device to give the murdering Hela just enough empathy for us to unquestionably be on her side.
The set up as a whole is just literally the plot of the first Thor, but with the Mandarin acting as the Jane Foster role and it even switches out an enchanted Mjolnir for Hela’s helmet and has her trying in vain to lift it during a rain storm. However, we soon switch from borrowing liberally from Thor to just stealing wholesale from Shang-Chi, but while actual genuine suprises are scarce, the two movies actually fit together quite well and Hela’s transformation into a universe spanning force for good makes sense, even within the limited timeframe.
Unsurprisingly, the episode is the Cate Blanchett show as no one else save Idris Elba returns to voice their character (the odds of getting Tong Leung or Anthony Hopkins back were as predictably small as Ant-Man’s big toe), but she still attacks the role with relish as her villainous ego is slowly softened into something merely sardonic. In fact the whole episode manages to infuse her shamelessly dastardly character, who memorably once slaughtered the Warriors Three with a minimum of effort, with pathos that the jokey movie only hinted at and it’s this that proves to be the main selling point of the episode over the merge plots.
While the episode is great and thought provoking, the real triumph here is that if What If…? decides to focus fully on any more of the one-and-done villains that’s appeared since 2008, it totally can and even enrich them to boot.
Want an episode to bring back Lee Pace as Ronan the Accuser and alter his back story? It’s totally doable. Fancy spending some vital alone time with Baron Mordo or Aldrich Killian or even Makekith the Accursed, assuming the original actors (or even the uncanny mimicking of Ross Marquand) are up to the task, then only the imaginations of the writers will be our limitations.
Plus, as What If…? starts delving even further into the later phases, the whole mix n’ match nature of the show starts to get even more interesting as all the combinations get ever more complex. Still, there’s a noticable lack of Watcher, this episode and despite a rousing finish that seems Hela doing the whole Gandalf the White schtick and riding across the galaxy, righting wrongs with Wenwu and the Ten Rings by her side, I still can’t help but wonder what the overarching threat will be this season.
Good God(dess).
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