Erin Watches: What If� season 3
Just finished watching this season, and had a whole postâs worth of thoughts, because wow, an incredible mixed bag. Some of the biggest quality whiplash Iâve ever seen in a Marvel thing.
One of the strengths of âWhat Ifsâ is the ability to throw together new groups of characters who didnât get to interact in canon, right? To dig into whole new dynamics that wouldnât have fit into the main storyline, to explore and have fun with them.
Well, some of those are amazing. Episode 2 features Agatha Harkness as a Golden Age of Hollywood actress, while Kingo was already a Bollywood star. Theyâre both sassy divas who love playing to a crowd, they egg each other on and fight via magical dance-off, every moment is gold. I laughed so hard.
On the other end of the spectrum, episode 6 features versions of Shang-Chi and Kate Bishop who were born into the 1872 Old WestâŠand thereâs just nothing to it?
If you like classic Westerns, it could work for you just based on the tropes, but for the charactersâŠI donât know why itâs these two and not anybody else. I donât know why theyâre buddies with each other. They donât have interesting 1872 versions of their canon powers or specialties. (Why are you doing Old West Hawkeye if youâre not going to come up with Old West trick arrows??)
(Conspiracy theory: this was originally written to be about Shang-Chi and Katy Chen. Katy couldâve done generic archery when the plot called for it, and the dialogue couldâve gotten all kinds of material based the friendship dynamic. Then someone made the writers swap in Kate â maybe because sheâs a more popular character? â even though nobody ever figured out âwhat fun dynamic they could have insteadâ or âwhy this other friendship would be compelling to watchâ.)
The other great ones are episode 3 (the Red Guardian invites himself on a team-up accidental-friendship road trip with the Winter Soldier) and episode 4 (follow-up to the earlier Party Thor episode, Darcy and Howard the Duck are still married, and various Cosmic MCU characters are trying to kidnap their newborn egg).
Episode 1 is really half-and-half. The good part is a friendship between Bruce Banner and Sam Wilson, which actually has some thought put into it! Sam also leads a new Avengers team-up thatâs almost completely âwhy are these people here, other than some executive wanted to put their names in the credits?â Moon Knight is in it, and I kinda wish they hadnât bothered, thatâs how bad it is!
Listen, the MCU characters who should have the most deeply-personal reaction to âBruce desperately trying to avoid getting triggered into Hulking-outâ are Marc Spector and Bucky Barnes. The writers put both of them in this episode. And then didnât do anything with that. Why?
(I opened the episode to look for a screencap, saw Monica Rambeau, and realized I had 100% forgotten Monica was in this episode. Thatâs how much character-specific stuff she has to do.)
Episode 5 focuses on Riri Williams, so it might be better if Ironheart was released before this (as planned) and we all had more investment in Riri Williams? Then again, it might not. Episodes 7-8 involve a team-up of characters who mostly arenât in the mainline MCU (one is Peggy Carter, but two are What If originals, and oneâs from the X-Men). I feel like I donât know enough about Storm to have strong feelings about whether she was wasted here or not. Any Storm fans want to weigh in?
âŠBasically, the only episodes Iâd recommend watching are 2, 3, and 4. Maybe 1 if you especially like Sam and/or Bruce, maybe 7-8 if you like cross-universal team-ups and Watcher-related worldbuilding.
(And, Marvel, if youâre giving Oscar Isaac a tiny role in the big Avengers team-up moviesâŠplease give him something better to do than this.)
#Marvel #MoonKnight
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