What If? (1×09) What If… The Watcher Broke His Oath? Review

For our review of the last episode of What If?, click here.

So the first season of What If? is now over. Taking perhaps not big enough swings in telling alternate versions of stories with MCU characters, it would be interesting to see how it would handle its finale after the cliffhanger that ended last week’s episode as The Watcher and Doctor Strange teamed up to try and deal with the current threat of Ultron but it was clear that they couldn’t do it alone. Meanwhile, it was clear that these episodes/stories were connected and to that point, this episode worked that angle and tied up some though not all of those stories while a delayed episode from this season as a result of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, was felt here. Maybe this will continue going into next season, however, this episode was more interested in the standard big team-up climax and tying it all in a convenient bow. That being said, the episode wasn’t without its moments.

The episode started with The Watcher plucking several key characters out of their own universes, saving some from precarious situations, including Captain Carter, T’Challa, Killmonger, Thor, and Gamora (Cynthia Kaye McWilliams). Regarding the latter, she was definitely part of that delayed episode as it implied a story between her and Tony Stark coming off the destruction of Thanos and looking to destroy the Infinity Stones of their universe. It would certainly be odd to see this story play out after the fact but it still makes for a glaring hole here. Back to this episode, the plan for the Guardians of the Multiverse was to separate Ultron from the Infinity Stones. From there, it was all about the team learning to work together though their own quirks and motivations also sometimes got in the way.

Ending up in the universe from last week’s episode where Ultron came from and Black Widow remained, the excitement ramped up as it saw the true potential of what this team could do, However, defeating Ultron would be easier said than done. That was until the arrow containing the consciousness of Arnim Zola was used to infect him and ultimately take Ultron down. With him out of the picture, if left an opening for Killmonger to take the Infinity Stones which only got him trapped in a pocket dimension with Zola/Ultron. As far as the others were concerned, they went back to their own universes except for Black Widow who was returned to the universe where the Avengers were killed and it could not have come at a better time for the others there.

The Watcher has a heart after all. While wherever The Guardians of the Multiverse goes from here remains to be seen but the fact that the series is cannon may mean that we will see them again, animated or otherwise, the Watcher included. Though there are surely more universes and more stories to tell, the format will surely be different therefore that evolution is definitely the most intriguing part of the announced season two.

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Keith Noakes

The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.