If the final season of What If…? has been missing anything so far, it’s been a sense of gravitas. Out of the previous four episodes, three have taken a decidedly comedic stance and while they’ve often aimed to have a somewhat poignant finish, it feels like the season has been missing some epically tangible stakes. Well, that’s all set to change with episode 5, that not only proves to be the second installment to heavily rely on a set up provided by the deeply underappreciated Eternals, but also is trying to fast track Riri Williams into the MCU while we still await her solo show, Ironheart.
Can a fledgling hero with only a single MCU appearance under her belt and an apocalyptic status quo delivered by Marvel Studio’s least loved entry finally deliver an episode with some real bite? It certainly helps if you have a worthy villain on hand and thankfully, episode 5 has a cracker at its “Beck” and call. It’s time to get mysterious…
Anyone who saw Eternals (or even episode 2 of this very season) will know that the Earth’s core was supposed to be the birth place of Tiamut, a new Celestial. But after that birth was thwarted by the Eternals, the world was saved from cataclysmic destruction and everything continued as they should – however, “things continuing as they should” isn’t exactly in What If…?’s wheelhouse and so a more grim than usual Watcher introduces us to a reality where Tiamut was born and Earth is now in pieces, with live still existing on the many busted fragments.
Rising up to fill the gargantuan power void was Quentin Beck, the illusion obsessed tech genius known as the villainous Mysterio, who first took over Stark Industries and then the fragmented world with help from new and improved, nanite-based illusions, a reprogrammed Vision and his army known as the Iron Federation.
Hoping to topple his grim regime, mechanical wunderkind, Riri Williams is scrounging for parts from the Power Broker, Sharon Williams, when she’s saved from an assault from the Iron Federation by the leaders of the Alliance who have been hoping to recruit her for a while. The Alliance is a rag tag group of freedom fighters led by the likes of Wong, Valkyrie, Okoye and Yin Nan who desperately hope that Riri’s skills with machines means that she can counter an attack by Beck’s synthezoid lapdog, Vision – but when she proves to actually be successful, it seems like hope is finally within reach.
However, one person who doesn’t seem reassured by this is the benevolent cosmic creeper known as the Watcher, who has watched this reality unfold many times before and has grown increasingly saddened by Riri’s constant failure once she hits upon the idea with merging her tech with Vision’s and becoming a human-synthezoid hybrid to take out Mysterio once and for all. But Quentin Beck isn’t known as the master of illustrations for nothing and if the Watcher chooses to interfere, the ramifications could prove to be costly.
After three days of Hollywood dance routines, super soldier buddy comedies and human/duck relations, it’s actually quite refreshing to once again delve back into the more depressing end of the What If…? pool, and while I personally quite enjoy it when the show gets silly, even I have to agree that it was long past due for the show to play it straight once again. However, thanks to some of the inspirations the writers have chosen to cherry pick, it feels like the episode has given itself something of an uphill battle when it comes to winning us over as the main aspects of the story all come from corners of the MCU that are either generally considered unloved or unfamiliar.
For a start, the choice of Riri Williams as a lead is an interesting one because thanks to the delays getting her Ironheart solo series made, the only time we’ve spent with the character on screen is literally her supporting role in the Black Panther sequel. Now, seeing as we’re watching an anthology series, introducing a “lesser known” character shouldn’t be an issue (What If…? even doubled down on it last season by introducing a new character, Kahhori) and when Ironheart is finally released, it should retroactively give this episode a little more oomph, but it does seem rather weird how much the episode relies on such eclectic choices.
Wong and Okoye are obviously well known of course, but the fact that Benedict Wong and Danai Gurira aren’t voicing them is a noticable shame (What If…? really has been spoiling us with voice actors for years now) and the choice of including Michelle Yeoh’s character from Shang Chi – obviously not voiced by Michelle Yeoh – just seems deliberately obscure. Even the more familiar choices prove to be a little contentious; though Tessa Thompson’s returns as Valkyrie and Emily VanCamp returns as Sharon Carter, Thor: Love And Thunder was hardly a Phase 4 high point and Sharon’s turn to crime in Falcon And The Winter Soldier was hardly one that sat well with the fans.
However, despite featuring a set up and characters that aren’t as readily embraced as, say, Captain America or Thor, The Emergence Destroyed The Earth actually manages to win through thanks to three major bonuses with the first being Williams herself.
Despite having limited time to make an impact in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Dominique Thorn got just enough time to breathe to get some character traits across that she can play with here – especially her fast-talking tirades as she works in high stress situations – and while we’re still yet to see her let entirely off the hook so we can get to know her better, it’s a good outing for the fledgling hero. Also giving the story weight is Jeffrey Wright’s Watcher who, to date, has been weirdly hands-off this season. However, as each season often ends with him eventually getting his hands dirty, it’s always a thrill to see him once again not mind his own beeswax and the results if this latest transgression will undoubtedly steer the rest of the season.
However, what really sells the episode is it’s villain and if you told me that the MCU would suddenly pluck a Spider-Man antagonist out of nowhere, made him a sci-fi despot and then sprinkled in a bunch of lore straight from the comics, I would have told you it only could have been an illusion. And yet here we are and while we aren’t graced with vocals by Jake Gyllenhaal (we can’t have everything, I suppose), it’s gratifying in in this age of Sony mismanagement, one Spidey villain can manage to soar to despicable greatness. The writers seem to agree as not only do they delve deep into comic history to give us his emaciated, Darth Vader-without-the-mask look from Kevin Smith’s Daredevil: Guardian Devil arc, but his trick of using illusions to lure Riri to accidently kill her friends is right out of Mark Millar’s Old Man Logan too.
Add to this the white Vision design from WandaVision, Riri cannibalising the synthezoid to become more than human and you have an episode that doesn’t really have the naturally ingrained likability factor that other episodes tend to employ when they use more openly beloved characters – and yet it manages to overcome it impressively.
With other, noticably pissed off Watchers waiting in the wings (with one of them being voiced by Jason Issac no less!), it’s time for What If…? to start wrapping things up once and for all; so watch this space, I guess…
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