MCUniverse - What If... - Season 1 Recap

[00:00:00] Welcome to the MCUniverse, where the Lorehounds are your guides to the multiverse and beyond. I'm David. I'm Jean. And I'm Alicia. And we're your guides to the many possibilities of the Marvel multiverse. Season 2 of Marvel's What If... will begin on December 22nd on Disney+.

[00:00:42] And we're going to talk about what to expect, the episode titles, a release schedule, and what characters are showing up. But first, Jean and I are going to have story time. We'll be walking David and anyone else who hasn't had time to watch Season 1 or who

[00:00:56] just needs a refresher through everything that happened, how it all came together, and which stories will be continued in the new season. We'd also love to hear your thoughts about What If... as we discuss the new season.

[00:01:09] Email your feedback to mcu at thelorehounds.com or head over to our website at thelorehounds.com and use the contact form or record us as voicemail. For ad-free versions of this and all of our podcasts, check us out at patreon.com slash the Lorehounds.

[00:01:25] I'll share more about our Patreon benefits as well as programming notes for the end of the year and the beginning of the new year at the end of the podcast. Also we'd be forever grateful if you could help us get more ears tuned into the Lorehounds MCUniverse.

[00:01:41] All you need to do is drop us a five star rating and review wherever you're listening. Apple Podcasts is especially helpful. And yeah, even if it's just a few quick words, we read all the reviews and they mean a lot to us.

[00:01:52] And before we get started, just a quick spoiler warning. We'll of course be spoiling all of the Marvel What If... Season 1 episodes and anything is on the table, including Marvel Comics. Jean, Alicia, good to see you guys.

[00:02:06] It's been a minute since we've all been together on the microphones after that triumphant Loki season finale. How are you guys feeling? At least we went out on a high. Yes, we did. That was... Unlike the previous one. I still got some feels from that show. Absolutely. Yeah.

[00:02:22] Definitely. Very good. Ranking high on the end of year top 10 list. Very high. Better make everybody's top 10 list. It made pretty high in the community rankings, which we will cover on our Patreon. Well, it's not Patreon exclusive because it's our present to everyone, but on our end of

[00:02:38] year top 10s, John and I will be doing a podcast where we cover our top 10s. But this year we also did a community draft where we put out a survey. Everyone was able to put in their shows from 10 to one, and then their bonus questions

[00:02:56] about guilty pleasures. Well, should pleasure be guilty? That's a good question somebody brought up. The biggest miss and the most anticipated shows. And we're going to make that data available. We're going to publish a little article, I think on our website.

[00:03:09] We got a cool visualization of the shows and how they rank and everything like that. And I will say that Loki made it much higher up the list than I was surprised. I am not surprised. No. John and I have been believers the whole time. Yes. That's right.

[00:03:27] Yes. Yes. Yes. And the show that shall not be named didn't show up at all. What? What? Yeah. Or did it? I don't remember if it did. Not even a guilty pleasure. There's no way. It's impossible. I would refuse to believe it.

[00:03:43] I looked through the guilty pleasures, by the way, and I think I had by far the most embarrassing one. So people are not being honest. I'll have to go back to the spreadsheet, judge up your title. Nobody else had any anticipations.

[00:03:56] Anyway, yeah, look for all of that stuff. Yeah. Yeah. It was a lot of fun pulling that together, and hopefully we'll be able to do that year on year. And that is a Patreon exclusive that those who are subscribers got to throw in their rankings.

[00:04:12] Before we get into our Marvel lineup for today, I wanted to give John a little space because I wanted to get his point of view on Leave the World Behind, which is the latest Sam S. Male movie, which is on Netflix.

[00:04:31] Brandon and I did a full podcast on that. We did a spoiler-free review on the front side, and then we take a break. And then the back half of the podcast is detailed conversations about plot themes and all that kind of stuff.

[00:04:46] Brandon and I both really enjoyed the movie, and I know John was interested. And so, John, you watched it the other day. I did. Spoiler-free, what did you think of the movie? Should people go see it or put it on Netflix? Yeah. You should stream it.

[00:05:02] I enjoyed it. I really did. Mashahera Ali is captivating on screen. He's incredible. Yeah. So, please, let's get this Blade movie going. That's the one. Let's get this going. But he is great on screen. I just think he brings a gravitas to situations that is just really engrossing.

[00:05:33] He's also charming at the same time of having gravity. Yes, yes. And he's likable and approachable, and there's an intimacy that you can establish, even though his presence is so powerful. Yeah. He would make a great Blade, just saying. Yeah. The campaign has already started.

[00:05:52] I mean, it's already won. Yeah, we already won. We just need to get it to go. Just get it on screen before he leaves. Yeah, let's go. Let's go before he loses interest. You know what I mean? Let's get this going.

[00:06:08] But the movie itself, I thought everyone who, all the characters were really well done. The plot itself, the ambiguity to it, I really liked. And yeah, I just thought that... Without spoilers, you really do feel what it might be like to be part of a bigger ongoing

[00:06:30] global event where you're... Have no idea. And you have no idea what's going on. You're cut off from information. In all of our other disaster movies, Mr. President, the asteroid is going to impact the Earth in 46 hours. And if we don't, all life will be extinguished.

[00:06:44] And we see the asteroid and we see all this stuff. In this, we're not. We're right down with the characters. Right. Trying to learn what's happening. Trying to understand what we're going through. And I thought it was just really captivating.

[00:06:58] I really enjoyed that aspect of it, of not knowing and being put in the situation with the characters that I'm watching on screen, of not understanding what's happening and trying to figure it all out.

[00:07:10] Trying to piece it together by the things that have happened in my own life. You know what I mean? Yeah. They're reflecting on what's going on and what's happened to them to lead up to this point, right?

[00:07:24] How can we figure out what's going on as it relates to our lives? And I thought it was really well done. I enjoyed it. I thought some of the conversations between characters was awesome. There was a lot of... There's a lot to the movie. There is a lot.

[00:07:41] It's not just a disaster flick. It's densely packed. There's race. There's class. There's family dynamics. There's global politics and economy. Sam Esmail is saying a lot in this movie. A lot of commentary.

[00:07:55] The one thing, the last thing I'll say about this as well is that there are themes in the movie that for a character that we don't fully understand. And I was okay with that because that's life.

[00:08:10] I have friends who are angry or sad or happy-go-lucky or whatever it may be. And I try to understand why they are the way that they are and I don't. Right, right. There's some stuff that you don't understand. Yeah.

[00:08:28] There's things that go on in people's lives that you don't know why they turn out the way that they are. And I think that's okay to have in a film, to have that, you know, to make it characters

[00:08:41] who are angry and we want to know why they're angry, but we just don't get the answer. I'm fine with that. I'm fine with that. I just thought it was a really, I enjoyed the movie, man.

[00:08:56] It's challenging in a way that it doesn't, it's not uncomfortable, but it leaves you questioning and it makes you think about things. And I definitely would like to see more of this world. Yeah. And Sam Esmail is such a director's director.

[00:09:09] He's such a, I've heard interviews with him and he's saying, you know, F plot, right? Like forget plot, TV and movies are visual mediums. So work towards the visual medium. So that's his statement on being a showrunner, writer, producer of, you know, visual stuff. And he executes that.

[00:09:29] And especially in this movie, the camera work, the way that they use the camera, the way that they signal weird, you know, things to you right off the bat, the way that they use the camera is telling you don't expect what you're normally going to expect from

[00:09:44] a movie that would fall into a disaster apocalypse, you know, storytelling. We're doing something different here. And he uses the camera to tell you that. And the way that they innovate with the camera movements, flipping things around, rotating

[00:09:58] overhead shots, all of this stuff was just visually, it was just an incredible feast. So yeah, highly, highly recommend going to see it. Yeah. I enjoy it. Check it out. Check out the pod with Brandon, the first 30 minutes or so are spoiler free.

[00:10:13] And then we start taking it apart from there. I know, Alicia, you were interested in checking it out. Yeah, I started it and it's intriguing. I need to finish it. Give it some space. Yeah, give it some space.

[00:10:28] I said I was comparing the cinematography to Saltburn and I was like, I just need to let Saltburn get out of my head, which for the record, yes, there's some gross scenes, but I liked that movie. Awesome. All right, cool. Well, thanks for indulging us on that.

[00:10:44] Yeah, it's just if you're into a certain kind of film, it doesn't even have to be into a certain kind of film, like see this film and let it affect you. Cool. All right, so let's start getting into some Marvel stuff.

[00:10:57] We have a voicemail from friend of the pod, Dork of the Ninjas. He had some feedback from Marvel's, you know, from the Marvel's movies back in the day. So let's play that and we'll use that to kick off our general Marvel news before

[00:11:14] we get into looking back on season one of What If. So here's Dork of the Ninjas. Hey guys, I just want to get my quick thoughts on the Marvels. Just wanted to say that I probably enjoyed this movie a lot more than a lot of people.

[00:11:29] I went in kind of expecting just a little bit of a fun time, not trying to think about too seriously. I honestly thought the flirt scene was hilarious, even though some people, I can understand why

[00:11:39] they think that's stupid, but I just loved watching the panic for so many people. Just how that went was silly. And of course, I actually enjoyed a little song and dance planet.

[00:11:53] I was aware of a lot of those two things coming in, but I like, okay, let's see what if this is stupid, like people are saying. And I was like, no, these are just silly. Like I did not expect a super serious thing. Time with a little movie.

[00:12:07] So I don't have to really enjoy how silly it could be at points. I very much enjoyed the action. I think it's probably some of my favorite action scenes in any of the MCU, just because

[00:12:16] it's a creative concept of like the switching and stuff like that when the powers get activated. So just watching them just react and see how that happens. Like the first major scene where that happens with the stuff happening at Ms. Marvel's house, then stuff with the space elevator.

[00:12:30] And then of course the stuff on the actual ship, just watching them react to what's happening and just see the panic that is happening is really fun to watch overall. But I liked the movie a lot.

[00:12:42] I don't think it's like top of the end Marvel, but like it fits firmly in the middle of the pack of okay, Marvel movies, not great, not awful. Okay. I've enjoyed watching it and I'll probably watch it again eventually.

[00:12:56] Like when it comes time to probably whenever they get into more action and stuff, because hey, we got X-Men in the MCU to a degree, because getting Kelsey Graber Beast back was really cool to see. But hopefully they don't mess that up, but we'll see.

[00:13:13] I expect them to at least handle some of that coming in pretty nicely. I honestly want to see if that Beast that we saw there was supposed to be Beast from the original Fox X-Men universe,

[00:13:28] or it was supposed to be Beast from the 1997 X-Men comic series, like TV series. Because it kind of looked like more like that to me. That's just a thought that I had, but that's all I got is one for right there.

[00:13:45] You guys have a good day and hopefully we'll get to talk to you for Echo when that comes out. Thanks, Michael. Appreciate you voicemailing in. Always like your takes. Send us more.

[00:13:57] I am, I think, in the same boat as him, and I was just thinking about would I rewatch this movie? I definitely want to rewatch the opening fight scene where they do the powers intertwining. I want to see that again, because that was a really fun romp.

[00:14:14] Jean, what are your thoughts? Are you going to be watching the movie? Yeah, I'm going to watch it more than once again. I'm going to rewatch it and I'm probably going to watch it after I rewatch it. I really like the movie, man.

[00:14:27] I just like the vibe of the movie. There was some really cool things, like I said in our review. I just like the Ms. Marvel and her family dynamics. I really enjoyed that.

[00:14:42] That's something that I want to see more of in these superhero movies to get away from the tropes of how I feel about the canon event. I like the movie and I thought it was a nice, fun movie.

[00:15:01] If it was out on streaming right now, I would watch it with my sisters and my nieces at my mom's house over the holidays. We would put it on to watch it all together. That's the type of film that we would all enjoy to watch together.

[00:15:20] So yeah, I'm going to watch it again multiple times. Yeah, Alicia? Yeah, I mean, definitely any MCU movie. I'm probably even going to rewatch Secret Invasion. No! Oh! You're on fire! No, no, no. Come on. That's a bridge too far. Now you're going to...

[00:15:41] I mean, yeah, because at some point when you're doing the full all the way through watch. But the point is, the Marvels is one I'm going to go out of my way to rewatch again. And I actually did bring it up with my family.

[00:15:54] It's a shame if it were out on streaming, I think that would be a great one for all of us to watch together. Now, my one major complaint is that I think they cut too much, especially of Aladna.

[00:16:06] And I just have to call Hollywood out in general for a minute right now because I have a pet peeve. Go ahead. The fact that they are trying to bury anything musical related as if there isn't a huge audience for that.

[00:16:19] So, for instance, movies like The Color Purple, like Wonka, you know, this movie where they cut out a bunch of the musical section because they say, well, our test audiences aren't enjoying the musical part.

[00:16:33] So we have to hide that it's a musical to trick them into seeing it. And I'm like, well, then that's how you get unhappy audiences when just appeal to the people who want that. Because we exist. We're here. We've always been here.

[00:16:46] Musicals have always had a strong place in cinematic history. And yeah, I feel like the way they're shying off of it is only hurting the film going experience. Right. You know, the worldwide numbers aren't bad. It's over 200 million. I think it's going to do great on streaming.

[00:17:06] I think the doomsayers are doomsaying a little too much. I think this was a solid movie and I think it kicks off this pivot for the Marvel Studios, which I guess brings us nicely into talking about some Marvel's or, you know, news, MCU news in general. Yeah.

[00:17:27] I don't know. I'm going into the next year's going into Echo. We're going to talk about that in a second. I'm bullish. I think we're going to be okay. I don't think this is the death knell. No.

[00:17:37] I think we're figuring out how to plug the holes and bail the water out of the ship and keep everything afloat. Agreed. All right. So first up, you know, yeah, go ahead. Yeah. I mean, but the naysayers are louder than ever.

[00:17:48] Like even yesterday, all Twitter, like Twitter of time was busy with a bunch of people saying that the Wheel of Time was going to be canceled if one specific relationship didn't work out. Okay. All right. Sure. All right. The Internet's going to get it.

[00:18:05] The Internet's going to get it. The Internet's going to get it. Yeah, exactly. Right. The Internet's are going to get it. But in speaking of naysayers, one thing that people were naysaying that doesn't seem to,

[00:18:15] you know, maybe we were speaking too soon is we know that the writer and director who were on the Kang Dynasty movie were moved to other projects. And so people are like, oh, it's canceled. Kang is canceled.

[00:18:30] But now we know that Michael Waldron, who is the creator of Loki and who wrote the Multiverse of Madness has been tapped to write the Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars. So this wasn't like a canceling of that storyline, but a shifting. Okay.

[00:18:45] And of course, yeah, recasting remains more than ever up in the air. Right. Yeah. Reassigning. I mean, no, no, I mean, recasting Kang, but we don't need to touch on that again. But it seems like it's going forward. We cast T'Challa while we're at it.

[00:19:01] We cast T'Challa while we're at it. Don't be afraid of it, right? You know, just if you got to do it, you got to do it. You've done it before. It's fine. Give me a new T'Challa. Yeah, we'll be fine. We'll be, we're big kids.

[00:19:13] We can handle it. We're big kids. We're big kids. We cast T'Challa. We're about to talk about T'Challa a lot. And weren't the filmer, whatever you want to call them, the principal directors of Loki also signed up to do some new stuff as well? Yeah.

[00:19:30] I thought I saw there. Yeah. So Benson and Moorhead, the directors of season two of Loki have been tapped to be the new directors of the Daredevil series. Oh, the reboot on, oh, that's great. Yeah. That's great.

[00:19:43] Maybe they'll bring a really nice, I think they'll bring a nice sensibility to that because that's got to be like gritty street level stuff, right? Like what we're seeing. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It should be, we know Daredevil's going to briefly show up in Echo.

[00:19:53] Well, let's talk about Echo really quick while we're here and then we can flick to Deadpool after we do that. A new trailer just dropped and I think both you guys have seen it. I just watched it before we got on the microphones. Wow.

[00:20:09] Is this Disney by night or what's up? Is this like- This is what Disney looks like in Europe. We don't have your Hulu. It was dark and violent and the ending shot was incredible. I was like, wait, no, wait, is that really what I think they're doing here?

[00:20:29] They're a cleanup crew? You know, like, wow. What did you guys think? I mean, for people who are looking for, you know, Wilson Fisk is obviously a main character in this and people who are looking for a continuation of the Netflix Daredevil, you know, gritty

[00:20:44] violence, here we go. That would be me. Yeah, Vincent, I can't ever pronounce his last name. D'Onofrio. D'Onofrio, thank you. He looks incredible. He was born to play this role. He's so perfect for it.

[00:20:59] Jean, are you hyped for Echo from what you're seeing in the trailer so far? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I hope they don't mess it up. That's always the caveat with a Marvel title. But no, but the early reviews are strong. The people who have seen it- Are they? Yeah.

[00:21:16] Are they saying really good things? And also just like how they lean into this, the Choctaw heritage that they've given her. Okay. Yeah. Some flashback or some parallels. It's supposed to be quite cool. Also how it affects her powers and just how it's woven into her story. Right.

[00:21:32] And like the whole deaf side of the story too and her relationship with Fisk. These are the things I'm hearing are just really making it a unique, powerful show. Okay. All right. The thing is, I think every show that Fisk has been in has been really good.

[00:21:49] I'm just saying, you know, every time Kingpin shows up in one of these Marvel shows, it's been a good story. So I'm excited to see it. It looks like it's going to be awesome. All right. So coverage plans, we are definitely going to cover it.

[00:22:06] And we talked earlier today about what we're going to do and I've already forgotten what it is. There's a lot. There's a lot. It drops on the 10th is the listed date for January 10th. Yeah.

[00:22:21] Literally yesterday said the 9th, but that's probably just in the US or the Americas. Okay. So that second week of January, middle of the week, we've got five episodes on a binge, which is interesting because Disney doesn't binge normally.

[00:22:35] So I wonder why they're going, maybe they're experimenting with it or who knows whatever. Disney is going to Disney and we're going to tentatively try to pick up full season binge coverage that weekend. So with recording times and editing times, look for it early sometime, maybe around the

[00:22:56] 15th, we'll be able to get a pod into your pod players as soon as we can, but we're super excited. So this is getting big time coverage. Yeah. We're going to preview it when we do our wrap up for season two of what if we're going to

[00:23:14] remind you of what you need to remember about Echo's story from, I mean, ostensibly this is a spotlight thing. You don't need to remember anything, but we're still going to remind you what happened with her in the Hawkeye show and things like that. Right? Yeah.

[00:23:28] That's one of the promises of the MCR MCU show is that we always set context before a comes out so that when you go going into it, you have a little bit of awareness. Okay, cool. Excited for that. Deadpool three. What's up with Deadpool?

[00:23:42] I mean, I think just we're seeing tons of set photos and things like that from both Deadpool three and the Agatha show, which it's don't shoot the messenger. It's changed its name again. Not again. Are you serious?

[00:23:56] I mean, maybe I don't know if the new one's been announced officially, but reports are that is going to be called Agatha all along, which frankly, that's the smartest one. You already have the theme song, like just plug and play.

[00:24:08] But yeah, this is title number four, if this is true. But what's been seen from the sets and also that Witches Road, you sort of, I don't know if it's going to be a special presentation or what they're going to end up calling that.

[00:24:22] But it's looking very promising, looking like a lot of fun. Like there might even be a little sprinkle of what's it called? The Halloween movie with Bette Midler. The witches or something. No, it's really you guys are going to be like, oh, hocus pocus. Oh, yeah.

[00:24:42] So it almost feels like it's got a little sprinkle of like hocus pocus in it. Like that's camp witchiness, which I love. I'm so excited about. We have to get Marilyn to watch this one too. And Deadpool 3, meanwhile, the cameo rumors. Oh, get real quick before Deadpool 3.

[00:24:59] Do we have a date for Agatha? It's probably going to be around fall of 2024. Yeah. All right. So later in the year. So we got time. Okay, cool. All right. Deadpool 3. Deadpool 3 is looking like it's going to be, people are calling it the no way home of the

[00:25:14] Fox universe. So the cameo list is rumors are running rampant, but it seems like they're going to bring back things like multiple daredevils and obviously the old X-Men cast. And it's sounding like it's going to be a crazy multiverse hopping adventure. Okay. All right.

[00:25:34] John is Deadpool one of your favorite characters? I was not a huge fan of that style. I'm not a wage fan. Okay. I'm not a wage fan. In comics or on screen. I know he's a phase of a lot of folks. Yeah, for sure. For me. Yeah.

[00:25:54] He's not one of my favorite characters at all. Ryan Reynolds tends to grate on me. So, you know, it's even worse with his portrayal. But I'm going to, I've seen the movies. I'm going to watch this movie, obviously. Right.

[00:26:14] I might even enjoy it more than the other two, because I'm hoping that is the end of it brings a finality to the entire, you know, Fox universe. People are calling it that. Deadpool kills the Fox universe. Yes. Yes. We'll see. We'll see. All right. Fair enough.

[00:26:36] What's next on our list here? At the what if season two launch events, they made a few announcements. So Marvel has officially we've talked previously about the Spider-Man freshman year and sophomore year animated shows that are supposed to come out in 2024. They changed it to friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.

[00:26:55] Fine. Maybe that means they want to go for longer. I don't know. And then the other one that was somewhat of a surprise. I mean, there's a lot of Wakanda things on the docket, but they've announced for 2024. I a new animated series called Eyes of Wakanda.

[00:27:11] And the official summary is throughout Wakandan history. Yes. Brave warriors have been tasked to travel the world, retrieving dangerous vibranium artifacts. This is their story. Does that intrigue you guys? I instantly thought of you guys when I saw this.

[00:27:25] It's going to be animated so they can do a lot more with the story. Right. And it could be a nice little procedural. And I think it's it stars the door Laje. Right. It's sort of, I think it centers around. Yeah.

[00:27:40] I don't know about maybe because they were working on, we thought they were doing like a midnight angel series, but then they kind of jammed part of that storyline into Black Panther 2, which, you know, the disservice to that storyline is what I object to most in Black Panther 2.

[00:27:54] So I don't know. I don't know. There was a lot of, they had a lot of ideas about what they were going to do about Wakanda because it's kind of one of the most exciting parts of the Marvel universe right now.

[00:28:03] And it's hard to say what's going to shake out. Joan is strangely silent on this topic. I mean, can we just cut to the chase? Let's just call it what it is. Recast T'Challa. That's all you need to do. The unavoidable issue.

[00:28:27] That's the whole, they're going around the obvious elephant in the room. I'm not saying this is not going to be good. I'm not saying that I won't possibly enjoy it. When I saw it, I'm just like, this is not what I want. It's not what I want.

[00:28:49] I don't want Wakanda without a Black Panther named T'Challa. Shuri's great. She was Black Panther in the comic books, but you know what happened in those comic books? T'Challa was still here doing other great shit. We don't have to have this one or the other.

[00:29:11] There's space to tell these stories and they're avoiding telling these stories because they're refusing to recast T'Challa. But if it does happen, there's no way they can do it in the story before Secret Wars.

[00:29:25] So I mean, I think there is a good chance in Secret Wars they might, especially because there are a lot of people like you who are like screaming this, like, come on, we want those stories.

[00:29:34] But I think I don't see how they could bring in a new T'Challa at this point before Secret Wars given, you know, without besmirching the sendoff that this T'Challa is. I don't think you besmirched the sendoff. But you can't just say that didn't happen.

[00:29:49] I think you can say that. Not saying, not erasing his death, not erasing his death. I totally get that. I'm not trying to erase Chadwick from the annals of the MCU. That would be totally ridiculous because the guy encapsulates the T'Challa in a way that's not even possible.

[00:30:12] That would be totally ridiculous because the guy encapsulated so much of what we wanted from that character. He was Black Panther, right? He's not the Black Panther. Right. I mean, I just, but I can see them bringing in a new T'Challa,

[00:30:30] a new adult T'Challa because we do have kid T'Challa. But I know, I know. I'm going to nerd off on this podcast right now. But I could see them bringing in someone at Secret Wars, but I don't know how they do it before that.

[00:30:47] I am of the firm belief that since we have the multiverse of madness, since we have America Chavez who's breaking through universes, since we have, you know, the watchers of the universe, we have the what if characters who have already established the multiverse.

[00:31:06] We have all of this evidence that there is more than one Marvel universe. Now we have Loki that is effectively telling us there are other branches, other universes there that he's keeping alive. Right. We have different Lokis. We have alligator Lokis.

[00:31:23] We have, you know, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a,

[00:31:32] So recasting the character before secret wars can happen. It should happen. It needs to happen. Yeah. I mean, let's, let's go, let's go. This is the, the, the idea that this singular character is not be played by

[00:31:51] someone else is a disservice to Chadwick and it's a disservice to the fans. the fans. It's not true. You would never hear we can't recast Superman. You would never hear we can't recast Batman. You would never hear we can't recast Iron Man. We can't

[00:32:09] recast Captain America which they're going to do, right? They're going to do these things. Thor will be recast. Right. Let's let's just the idea that we can't do it for this particular character is insulting and it makes no

[00:32:25] sense to me because Chadwick will always be on a pedestal. Mm hmm. Putting someone else in the title Black Panther doesn't take him off the pedestal. I mean, they, right. They are, they are, I'm looking at what if season two. So, I,

[00:32:47] for what if season two, I do wonder if we know T'Chaka's going to be in there. We know they're going to be picking up some storylines where T'Challa was present. I wonder if they have recast the voice at least which is step one, right? So,

[00:33:01] this means adult T'Challa still alive in the multiverse and all their multiple planes. Yeah. Right. Star Lord T'Challa and all that. Right. Right. So, I don't know. Yeah, they couldn't find a way to bring that over into live action. And

[00:33:14] from the story standpoint, this universe's T'Challa, it didn't, he didn't die because a bad guy killed him or, you know, something happened. It was just the start of the movie, we got to deal with the fact that, you know, he's not Chadwick

[00:33:27] anymore. Right. It doesn't impact the larger narrative structure. Right. In that way because there's nothing else connected to it. It was just sort of this little bottle thing that they just had to kind of deal with at the front side

[00:33:41] to get Shuri into position. And Shuri can still be a Black Panther. We just need a T'Challa character in the story, right? I mean, Shuri can still do it. Yeah. That's all I'm saying. I'm not taking Shuri out of the role because like I said, she

[00:33:56] was the Black Panther in the comics for a run and it was a great run. I liked her character. I like how she portrayed the character but I also like the dynamic that she had with her brother when he wasn't the holder of the mantle.

[00:34:12] Yeah. And he was off doing other really great stuff. You know, they were both doing great stuff in the service of Wakanda and of Earth. Right. Right. Yeah. Because we now have a larger play. Earth can be, you know, out in the universe

[00:34:27] doing other stuff. T'Challa just doesn't have to necessarily be on Earth within Wakanda. Right. Right. And in space. When I heard Eyes of Wakanda, that's the first thing I thought about was that they are, you know, trying desperately almost inexplicably not talking about the elephant in the room.

[00:34:49] Right. But I still will watch. Fair enough. All right, cool. I think that wraps us up for Marvel News of Import at this stage. We will as always keep our eyes and ears peeled and keep everyone posted as on each

[00:35:09] of our podcasts. But now let's turn our focus to what if season one. Alicia, you set up a structure for us again. Thank you so much always for your efforts in this regard to keep us organized and pointed. What is our setup for our what if

[00:35:31] season? Yeah. So just gonna set up the season quickly. What it is, how it came about, who made it, and then John and I are going to take turns, basically, episode by episode having storytime for you and anyone else who wants the recap, which I

[00:35:49] think is probably most people because even people have watched it. It's been a while. I have to say I watched a couple of the first episodes and it wasn't I had a hard time getting into it

[00:36:00] and maybe I could use your guys' help a little bit in terms of storytime, right? You know, I'll sit down in front of the fireplace with a warm glass of milk and let you guys bring me into the universe. I mean, it is a show. It's ostensibly an

[00:36:17] anthology show, although that's kind of not really true by the end. It is the episodes are uneven. There are some episodes are to some of the best storytelling that the MCU has done and some that are really like, what did you think of

[00:36:29] season one show? I yeah, I thought it was overall it was a good season. It was a good viewing. Some of the episodes were like you said, and the ones that I that I like, I think

[00:36:42] a lot of it does play on the interconnectedness of the MCU. So it's really is for the Marvel geeks and but it also sets up a lot of possibilities like bringing in a new adult to Chela. And how much do these have impact on the main

[00:36:58] storylines? Are they just sort of night? Are they literally just what if this happened? And it's just kind of fun because that it was born out of the comics, right? The comics are more disconnected than this. This is

[00:37:09] more connected. This does play into like, for instance, we saw Captain Carter is a star of the first episode of the first season and she'll be in the second season too. And we saw at least probably not the exact same version of her but we saw a

[00:37:22] version of her in in multiverse of madness. So it's really is these are this is a fuel for alternate universes that could cross over with the live action. Okay. And these so these came out of comics. So what's the origin story there?

[00:37:41] There are what if comics dating back, you know, 40 years, just telling different stories from a different perspective. This was the original multiverse, right? Because these comics were the watcher say, this is how it played out on your earth. But on another earth, this is how this story

[00:38:02] played out and what the consequences of the story playing out differently. So yeah, the what if comics serve as the original multiverse entries point for for comic book readers to envision the stories that they knew well, and then, you know, with a little change here, a little

[00:38:23] push there, what the story would be like, if those changes actually happened on their earth. And it was a fun way to play with the comics, right? Yeah, definitely. Definitely give you different, you know, switch up.

[00:38:36] It makes me think of like, you know, you were if you were a kid of an age and you had action figures and you had a Superman action figure with a Luke Skywalker action figure is like what if right, you know, what?

[00:38:49] Well, it's like Star Wars vision is sort of the Star Wars version of what if right, right? Yeah, sure. But so these episodes, though, they're not directly based on this any specific comics, but they are. They're based on

[00:39:03] right, you know, what if set within the MCU, so they each one is tied to pretty much a specific movie and then kind of branches from there. So you can think of these as like the timelines that the TVA would prune.

[00:39:16] Interesting. A question about the Watcher in Jeffrey Wright who plays the voice of the Watcher in most of what we see. That's got to be a sweet deal. He just gets paid for every once a while recording some audio. You could just do it in

[00:39:35] his closet, you know, and you know, it's all good. Do we know if we're ever going to see Jeffrey Wright as the Watcher in like more substantial. I feel like we will these ethereal voices. I feel like we will. I mean, yeah, I agree. And I'm

[00:39:51] sure he records in his studio before people at it. I know, I'm just kidding. He just shows up, right? Record some lines and then collects a check and then, hey, great, you know, that's awesome. So does the Watcher, but it's just the Watcher is just literally the Watcher.

[00:40:12] Well, we're going to be talking a lot about that. Normally. That's good. That's kind of the thrust of the season. Right. And the whole premise of the what if is that, right. So the series, just to mention some of the names behind it,

[00:40:25] was created by AC Bradley, who's one of the writers for the Trollhunter series and also the head writer and producer of, yes, seasons one and two of this, and also works on Miss Marvel. And the director is Brian Andrews, who was started

[00:40:40] out as a very prolific storyboard artist for working for decades with writing experience, and now is also the director of the Marvel Zombies, which is basically a spin-off of this season. Right. And that's coming. Marvel Zombies. Marvel Zombies is coming. And for speaking of the Watcher, so

[00:41:00] every, every episode starts with the same narration and I feel like it should be read in John's voice. All right. Well, let's take a quick break. And when we get back, we will get into doing a recap of season one. And we're

[00:41:17] going to go episode by episode. So we're going to do a little recap about it, talk about what's important, and then we'll move on to the next one. And we are back. Okay, let's get into our season one look back.

[00:41:52] We're going to look at every episode. We're going to have a little synopsis of the story, some of the production details, and then we're going to talk about what is important out of these individual contexts. So let's go.

[00:42:10] Time, space, reality. It's more than a linear path. It's a prism of endless possibilities where a single choice can branch out into infinite reality, creating alternate worlds from the one you know. I am the Watcher. I am your guide through these vast

[00:42:33] new realities. Follow me and ponder the question, what if? It sounds like different timelines equal different universes, but John and I won't launch into that debate again. But I'm curious if in the future, especially with what's going on with Loki, if they're going to clarify the distinction.

[00:42:53] Oh, it's clear to me. It's very clear to me. In episode four, like the ancient one says, she split the timeline, allowing two of your possible timelines to exist in one universe. So that's, yeah, it is. It's anyway, that's the most clarification that we get. There you go.

[00:43:12] But I love the way, speaking of the Watcher, that he's just often. So basically, as John and I are like doing our story times, you just imagine the Watcher, it just appears in the background in the sky over the action that's coming. And it's actually nice.

[00:43:27] Really, I love the art of this. I know not everyone feels the same, but I think there's some beautiful images in the show. Yes, I really love the animation. The animation was really great. I did always like seeing the way that they faded the Watcher in and

[00:43:39] out of a background scene. It's sort of like if it's a, you know, clouds or solar system or whatever, and then it slowly resolves or dissolves into a pattern that is the silhouette of the Watcher. Really clever use. I thought that visually was a lot of fun.

[00:43:55] If I could say one thing, people should take note of how they did it because in Loving Thunder, that would be the appropriate way to have portrayed eternity instead of what they did in that movie.

[00:44:13] So just a sidebar, quick note of my discontent for that film was part of the way they portrayed some of the cosmic entities that we want to see on screen. So the way they did the Watcher in this animation was really on point.

[00:44:30] Sounds good. All right, well, let's start with episode one. What if Captain Carter were the first Avenger? Yeah. So this episode was directed by Brian Andrews, who we talked about, and written by AC Bradley, the creator. And this is based on the

[00:44:47] Captain America, the first Avenger movie. And the change is that Peggy Carter and the others didn't leave to go into the observation room during Steve Rogers' super soldier procedure. So the undercover assassin Kruger attacked just as it was beginning, and Peggy had to jump in to undergo the

[00:45:03] procedure herself or all that super soldier serum would go to waste. So, you know, get your jammies ready. Get out your cereal. It's time for storytime. Here's a quick recap of everything that happened in this episode, the important points. So Peggy comes out of out of this capsule

[00:45:23] jacked, obviously, and the government, they're unsurprisingly upset that she's a woman. But she and scrawny Steve still sure like each other. There's talk of dancing, and Howard Stark, the brains of the government operations is also on her side. And Steve's bestie Bucky is also cool to Hydra.

[00:45:42] Hitler's supernatural science division has been busy in Norway stealing an intense power source known as the Tesseract. So Peggy as Captain Carter and her Union Jack shield go to take down a bunch of Nazis to take it from

[00:45:55] them and capture their scientist Zola. Howard uses a Tesseract to build the Hydra stomper for Steve. It's a Hulk sized Iron Man pre prototype. And while Peggy goes to rescue Bucky in the Howling Commandos, Hydra led by Red

[00:46:12] Skull betrays the rest of the Nazis talking about a true champion from beyond the stars. And in this version when Captain Carter and company take out the train they're on, it's Steve in the Hydra stomper who goes down with it

[00:46:25] instead of Bucky, which means they've lost the Tesseract too. So the rest of the heroes regroup to raid the Hydra stronghold just in time to watch giant tentacles reaching through an interdimensional portal crush the Red

[00:46:40] Skull. But Steve and the Hydra stomper are still intact and Peggy pushes the tentacles back through the gates promising Steve a dancing date Saturday night before she disappears to the other side. Nick Fury and Hawkeye later open

[00:46:53] that gate and Captain Carter and bits of tentacles come flying out. But Captain Carter has missed her date by 70 years. The Watcher closes his narration. The end. This is one of the ones that I watched and I think you know, the way

[00:47:10] that you're surmising it actually makes it a little bit more interesting than what I watched but then I'm wondering like yeah I'm missing context because I just I've seen this stuff but it just doesn't have that same wraparound

[00:47:24] importance to me I guess in some way. This is the one that was so most like the source material I think in terms of yeah. Okay yes yes it was a straight up you know Captain America first Avenger. Yeah okay all right so but you know I

[00:47:43] like the Peggy Carter character so I'm partial to to that character I really enjoyed her. Blanking on the actress's name or the actor's name. Haley Atwell. I really enjoy Haley Atwell's portrayal of that character so I was cool with the

[00:48:06] story playing out from a different perspective which is exactly what What If is. Yeah. That's what you're asking right? Yeah. Earlier David. So this would be. This one was really just a. This would be. The movie just a swap one character.

[00:48:21] Yes this would be exactly what you would get in one of the comics early on definitely like What If this happened instead of what you have read already. Exactly the same circumstances except for one critical thing that changes the

[00:48:37] outcome of everything. I think part of my lack of interest in this too was that I like the Captain America character especially Civil War Winter Soldier I love that arc. The origin story movie with his international band of badasses I just never got into that

[00:48:59] whole vibe of where he came from and how he got started. The Red Skull stuff is interesting, the origin of Hydra stuff is interesting but yeah as an overall story it's one of my

[00:49:09] lesser favorites. Yeah I'm not a World War II guy. Right. Watching those stories on screen I think has become repetitive and even in comic books it's the same to me like watching those

[00:49:22] stories so but it was fine for what it was. Sure. This wasn't one of my favorite ones of the season it was a fine way to start out it shows what the format is going for and this

[00:49:33] is one of the ones that we know is going to continue. There are some interesting consequences of this story like there's no Bucky Winter Soldier in this universe I guess somebody else is guarding the soul stone because Red Skull's done. Dead. But I still think some people

[00:49:50] you know Captain Carter obviously showed up in Multiverse of Madness in the universe it was labeled 838 but I think this must be a different Captain Carter because they wouldn't have us invest

[00:50:01] as much time in a version that Wanda was just going to slice in half with her own shield. Agreed. Yeah I'm wondering if it's going to be when they do cross over these characters with

[00:50:11] live action will it be like Spider-Verse where the animated characters are always animated or I'm just curious what they might do with that. Jean did you get Darkseid vibes for the introduction

[00:50:25] of the champion of Hydra? I didn't. I thought it was you know I very much got Elder God. Right yeah that's definitely what they're going for. Lovecraftian yeah it was totally

[00:50:39] Lovecraftian to me so I didn't see it as you know like what we got in what was the Injustice League the movie. Well that's what I was getting at. Darkseid vibe? Yeah I didn't get that but I

[00:50:54] definitely got the Lovecraftian theme with the tentacles coming out and. Yeah I got Lovecraft, Cthulhu from the tentacles. Yeah that's what they were going for but there's a lot of discussion about what this creature might be because a lot of people at first were like it's Shuma-Goroth

[00:51:14] but the rights they don't have the rights to that because I don't think so with a Conan universe and then we had another tentacle creature Gargantos in Multiverse of Madness but I

[00:51:24] don't think it's that either some people think it might be a version of Hive. Huh okay I thought it was what we're getting to at the end of the season. Right well I mean it is I think it's

[00:51:35] definitely the same creature we see show up back up in episode four with Doctor Strange. No I'm thinking the end of the season the final two episodes. Of what if? Of what if. Okay. I think

[00:51:50] when I first watched it back that's the vibe that I get that maybe he was talking about that character as being the savior. Hmm interesting okay okay. Like yeah that's what I got from it.

[00:52:04] Okay yeah so for if anyone wants more like of Haley Atwell as Peggy Carter in 616 or adjacent then I definitely recommend the one shot which is called Agent Carter but I also especially

[00:52:16] recommend the there's a two season series pretty short to watch. Not our one shot. Yeah the MCU one shot which is just a short film but the two season series Agent Carter is a lot of fun

[00:52:28] crosses over with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. All right so let's move on to episode two. Yes. What if T'Challa became a star lord? Director Brian Andrews, the writer was Matthew Chauncey who also worked on

[00:52:41] the Troll Hunter shows and contributed to Ms Marvel and Thor 4. So the change Yondu sent Kraglin to Earth to kidnap Peter Quill instead of going himself but Kraglin kidnapped T'Challa. They kept T'Challa and raised him. T'Challa is much much much more of a cool character than

[00:53:06] Peter Quill whatever could he. We shouldn't have let you read this I forgot about the Peter Quill hate. Oh my star lord my star lord where have you been all my life this is this is great oh bad.

[00:53:26] So this star lord is really cool he's like a space Robin Hood and the ravagers are his merry men. Like in Guardians Star-Lord was sent to steal the power stone but in this universe

[00:53:38] he used a dying um to jump start a dying star and save a world that's what he used it for because he said no treasure is worth the good that can be done with it. The ravagers party

[00:53:49] is in a space bar where Thanos shows up but he's not the Thanos that we know he's a really cool dude he's a good guy because Star-Lord talked him down from the whole you know this erased half of

[00:54:00] the universe thing. Drax is a bartender we meet Nebula who has some great hair and she's in a relationship with Star-Lord who she calls Cha-Cha. She wants his crew to help us steal the embers

[00:54:13] of Genesis a special cosmic dust that can be used to terraform planets from the collector's museum in nowhere. Nowhere is the big um celestial space head that's used as a base of operations for folks.

[00:54:27] The collector is now a warlord and he's basically uh one of the most powerful beings in this universe. During the heist T'Challa's necklace um unlocks the Wakandan flying craft a spaceship that the collector has collected um and then he learns that Yondu lied to him that Wakanda wasn't

[00:54:46] destroyed and T'Challa is torn. His father has been looking for him and unbeknownst to him he still has a family back on earth which puts this new family that he's you know found in in tenuous

[00:55:01] trouble. Nebula pays off a debt by betraying him but it was part of a triple cross planned with T'Challa who's helped by Howard the Duck and the collector's captive Karina who liked what he said

[00:55:16] about uh what T'Challa said about not knocking people up in cages. Ultimately it's the adoptive daddies who come to the rescue. Yondu stays to help T'Challa together locking the collector in one of his own cages and Thanos tries to sacrifice himself for Nebula who instead sacrifices the

[00:55:34] embers of Genesis just to be able to save him. As terraforming takes over nowhere Karina sicks the collector's other captives on him and Star-Lord and Yondu escape on the Wakandan ship traveling all

[00:55:48] the way back to earth back to Wakanda so that T'Challa could be reunited with his family. Meanwhile in Kansas Yondu failed to deliver Peter Quill to his father's celestial Ego. Ego went to earth and found himself greeting his son in a Dairy Queen. Ego's eyes flash white

[00:56:09] before the Watcher warns that this might spell the end of the world but that's for another day. Yeah this was definitely one of the the highlights of this season um that's what everyone

[00:56:20] seems to think and I agree uh yeah big characters we got a heist story we got humor we've got heart um was this one of the ones you watched David? I got maybe halfway through this I think because

[00:56:34] as you're reading the overview Jean I I was like oh I didn't watch some of this stuff I definitely watched the beginning of it and I remember I think one of the things that bounced

[00:56:44] me out a little bit was how closely they were adhering to the movie voices the actors of the movie the actors who played the characters in the movies they really tried to recreate

[00:56:58] well a lot of them are the same actors like like for instance Chadwick Boseman this was one of this was probably his final performance released after his death yeah really oh yes and Damon

[00:57:10] Hunsu yeah yeah yeah uh okay well I they were off enough that I thought they were replacement actors who are mimicking their voices so maybe I got tripped up in that sort of production detail so

[00:57:23] that's interesting okay all right well you know discovering my own I'm not bought into the storylines right so I'm we we know that when we're not into the story we we nitpick on on detail

[00:57:36] right so noticing that there so it sounds like it's a very complex story though triple crosses and paying off debts and it's definitely a high story it's definitely a high story um in

[00:57:49] in with an origin story um so both of those things they had to they had to accomplish a lot in however long the episode was um so they did a lot of background and they did a lot of you know

[00:58:03] seeding what's going to happen going forward uh in this episode yeah I mean this was one though it had a lot of heart too with the the father child storylines and uh and I the humor didn't always

[00:58:18] work for me in season one of what if but this is one of the episodes where I really did like I loved speaking of Jim and Hansu the whole Korath storyline where he ends up joining a team yeah and

[00:58:29] he can't stop complimenting star lord even when they're fighting he's like well yeah right so it was one of the best running gags you know um that that was kind of funny that whole uh fawning over

[00:58:43] star lord like what if star lord was star lord you know actually lived up to his his uh wanted reputation as opposed to earned I love Sean Godden so I love his craglin um and he was just going

[00:58:58] like full he was reminding me there's a tv show called future man which is like a stupid sci-fi tv show that I really recommend anyone who likes stupid sci-fi humor um but you know he's talking

[00:59:10] about uh well he's got two c holes and two ear holes and one eat hole so isn't he here isn't that the right one that's funny um and then of course his iconic line of ravager never fly solo

[00:59:24] which only to chalice's never fly solo only chalice says that but this was one of my favorite episodes um as it was from many folks um yeah really got into the fields because of Chadwick

[00:59:38] and um yeah and any star lord that is not the star lord is a better star okay um I do take some objection though to how quickly Thanos is just like forgiven you know nebula takes a little bit longer which makes sense because he did spend

[01:00:01] entire life torturing her like we can't just forget that um even if he's changed his mind about he's a terrible person absolutely and but he did lose his other so-called children they were all the collector's children now so he was fighting the ones who were assisting him in

[01:00:17] infinity war and yeah right right um yeah and of course I love that Howard the duck just keeps getting more attention like I'll take the spin off we need uh Steve and Anthony over here from

[01:00:32] properly Howard movie reviews Howard the duck sitting at a bar I mean you know having a drink what could be better than that right do we know is Howard the duck going to feature in any future

[01:00:47] is he going to get a spin-off or a standalone we haven't heard anything I don't know they at least are going to include him any anytime that the guardians of the galaxy show up he shows up

[01:01:00] right okay so fair enough along with the dog Cosmo yeah Cosmo yes Cosmo does appear so in this episode I think maybe yeah anyway I think it was at the end it was in the she yeah

[01:01:17] sorry yes yes correct okay uh episode three what if the world lost its mightiest heroes I did not this was not one of the best ones but here we go so it's directed by Brian

[01:01:32] Andrews and written by AC Bradley and Matthew Chauncey so basically all of these are a combination of those three people working on it um the change is that Hope Van Dyne the wasp

[01:01:44] has died and her dad Hank Pym the original Ant-Man played by Kirk Douglas has gone off the deep end and is now killing all of the Avengers but they don't know that at first

[01:01:56] so this is set back in the phase one timeline and we have Nick Fury trying to put together the Avengers team but a superhero serial killer is taking out those would-be Avengers one by one

[01:02:07] so um there's Black Widow she gives Tony Stark a shot to help him and ends up killing him and she's arrested and breaks out and then when Thor comes to steal back his hammer from Fury and Hawkeye

[01:02:22] Hawkeye's arrow is loosed against Hawkeye's will killing Thor and then Hawkeye's arrested and found dead in his cell and Black Widow goes to Betty Ross for help who tells her the damage

[01:02:34] was done by something very very small Nick Fury is furious and Loki shows up with an army of Chitauri and ice magic to avenge his brother just making everything worse elsewhere Natasha uses Bruce

[01:02:46] Banner as a face fake hostage and then he's shot by something that forces him to Hulk out until he explodes and Black Widow figures out who the killer really is after she catches him accessing

[01:02:58] the Avengers database via his dead daughter's name but the only message she can leave Fury before she herself is killed is it's all about hope luckily Fury's clever and he has a pager that can call

[01:03:11] Captain Marvel which he quickly puts away deciding to make a deal with Loki instead since Loki is currently local Fury goes to Hope Van Dyne's grave to confront Pym who's been shrinking himself tiny

[01:03:24] to kill the Avengers from the inside out and Pym says he blames SHIELD because Hope died on a mission and then Loki shows up and helps Fury capture Pym but then Loki decides to stay and take over Earth

[01:03:39] but hey there's world peace now Fury isn't really ready to give up and as the Watcher says that he believes in every universe that hope never dies Fury uncovers a block of ice within which we can

[01:03:51] see the shield of Captain America but when he welcomes back a captain over his shoulder it's Captain Marvel standing there this sounds like a actually an interesting storyline it's disappointing

[01:04:05] that you you say that it's one of the least uh well executed I guess I don't know it just didn't like hit what did you think Sean of this one um as soon as Thor got killed with a bow and arrow

[01:04:20] I said to myself this ain't it okay this ain't it because there's no there's no there there I don't care how de-powered he is he's still as guardian right right so a man-made bow and arrow unless it's tipped by you know vibranium adamantium and even then

[01:04:44] he still Thor would it would take more than that to kill him so that being the thing that killed Thor I said hell no they lost me a lot of people who's from it was the Hulk death that did it

[01:04:59] yeah I mean yeah I mean so Hank Pym he Hank does like frequently flirt with the dark side in the comics so it's not weird for him to be cast yeah he's a terrible character in the so it's not weird

[01:05:16] for him to be cast as a villain here and that's cool but um the motivation here seemed really weak so that's why I just kind of shrug at this episode um I agree too I agree too like she he's blaming

[01:05:29] shield for killing uh hope but he's not killing the people of shield yeah like like it doesn't make sense like if you blame shield why is Nick Fury still still alive because you want to you

[01:05:45] want to kill his what the other superheroes he doesn't even know these characters right but he doesn't even know he doesn't care about these people so what is that doing for him what you're

[01:05:56] killing his dream what what are you what's the motivation for killing Iron Man Thor Hulk Black Widow maybe Black Widow because she she and him have been working together for a while but there's

[01:06:09] no there's no really there's no there's there's nothing here that should make Fury sad you know what I mean like like if that's your if it's to punish the fury it's to punish shield then how are these random deaths at this moment because they're not a team yet

[01:06:31] they're not a team so how are these random deaths you know avenging your your daughter yeah I mean and I just want to point out that he says hope is killed on a mission outside Odessa

[01:06:45] so first of all this does make hope one of the first Avengers so I guess that's really the change she joins the Avengers a lot sooner but also it means that she was most likely killed

[01:06:54] by Bucky in Winter Soldier mode uh so and also it's the second death in his family after like in the movies that we saw he thinks his wife died uh in a previous mission so okay just saying that

[01:07:10] I completely agree with everything you're saying Jean but just to be clear I'm not saying that you're saying Jean but just saying those are that's the reasoning we're given at least

[01:07:20] it's I it doesn't add up it doesn't add up I hear it I see it and it's still weak as hell um fair enough I do like there's a few things I do like about it that um I I think that we don't

[01:07:36] have actual Robert Downey Jr or Scarlett Johansson reprising their roles in this one but I think that Mike Wingert and Lake Bell do a good job um I think it's cool that it points out how much of

[01:07:48] phase one took place over one week so Iron Man 2, Hulk, Thor, the Avengers, all this action was taking place in one week and it's it is cool to see how that's brought together um and I think

[01:08:01] there's some funny lines especially about Coulson and Clint Barton you know talking about Thor like talking about sniffing his hair and Coulson's password is Steve Steve Steve I heart Steve 0704 and although I wonder how can he be having this password about loving Steve if Steve

[01:08:24] is just being thawed out of a block of ice but anyway um and I also can you imagine if if Samuel L Jackson ever did like the Kung Fury sort of uh martial arts we saw Nick Fury doing in

[01:08:37] this episode all right all right I know I can't imagine doing it because he's not oh man the Nick Fury that I I yeah yeah not one of the strongest this was a big no for us the only

[01:08:57] interesting thing I would say about this episode is that it shows how you know potentially Ant-Man can do different things that you haven't seen in the MCU that's the only saving grace that I have

[01:09:10] about this episode that's it absolutely got it okay well let's uh put that one in the books and yeah this one is my favorite episode four you really okay episode four what if Dr. Strange

[01:09:25] lost his heart instead of his hand this is by directed by Brian Andrews written by A.C. Brad the change Christine Palmer joins Dr. Strange to speak at a conference instead of him going alone

[01:09:41] and when he crashes he doesn't just cripple his hands the accident also kills her Dr. Strange studies in Kamiatage has a darker even more with an even more obsessive server and obviously Wong

[01:09:56] and the Ancient One are concerned especially after he gets his time stone toy but he still faces off against Omamu becomes the source of Supreme and then has time on his hands try to

[01:10:07] fix the Christine problem using the time stone in the eye of Agamotto Strange really relives the car crash again and again losing her every single time the Ancient One shows up to try to stop him

[01:10:19] but he can't stop he can't accept that Christine's death is an absolute point in time unchangeable unmovable Strange jumps into the ancient past looking for the library of Cagliostro did I say

[01:10:34] that right? Cagliostro. The source of the eye of Agamotto there we go the source of the eye of Agamotto he wears around his neck manipulating time there the librarian Obeng gives him full run

[01:10:48] of the library where Steven reads that he can gain the power he needs by absorbing great beings he starts with a tentacle creature like the one we saw in episode one the champion of Hydra

[01:11:00] it's too much for him so he starts with smaller demons stepping himself up in power one entity at a time finally he takes the tentacles of the creature that bested him before Obeng is old and

[01:11:12] dying by this time but satisfied satisfied with his life he refuses to let Strange turn back time he tells Strange he is but half a man living half a life it turns out when Strange decided to

[01:11:25] desperately try to save Christine the Ancient One split the timeline creating another Strange who decided to let it go so that he can try to stop his own darker intentions if Dark Strange reverses the absolute point and saves Christine the paradox will destroy

[01:11:41] the universe the two Stranges confront each other and their shared universe is now bleeding away with their shared universe is now bleeding away Dr. Strange is convinced that if they can re-merge they will be strong enough to save her he started to look like the demons he's absorbed

[01:11:59] Gaunt corrupted with the aspects of a dragon a wolf a snake an elk tentacles sprouting from his back the Watcher wonders for the first time if he should intervene but he mustn't to protect all

[01:12:11] the other universes the darker side wins this epic fight reabsorbing his better half and tearing the fabric of his universe for one last moment with Christine but she's horrified by the monster she sees before her then she starts to leak away like everything else Strange sees the Watcher

[01:12:31] watching and begs him for help but the Watcher says I am not a god and neither are you he can't interfere then Christine is gone her last words Stephen what did you do and Strange Supreme is

[01:12:46] left alone curled up in regret in the small crystal bubble he created to save himself from the destruction of his world and his universe this is such oof that one sounds dramatic yeah it was and like the Christine death montage you know each time she dies a different

[01:13:07] way because then he tries to stop doing the car accidents and he's like well let's just go to dinner instead and then somebody accidentally shoots her and all this stuff and the music

[01:13:15] I have to shout out to the composer Laura Karperman the she made wildly different music for every episode but it all worked so well and this is this montage especially just really I can't watch

[01:13:28] it without tearing up um so yeah so if if I had a must watch list this would definitely be yes absolutely yeah and also you're gonna you'll hear in the fandom people referring to Strange Supreme

[01:13:42] and it's it's this version where like at one point he actually pulls through a bug and um he steals his cape and then sends the creature back because he said I draw the line of bugs but

[01:13:55] so he has this like Dracula escape so you can see Strange Supreme and he looks he looks darker and sometimes he looks demonesque yeah I think that one of the things too that I bounced off of of

[01:14:07] episode one and two was they really closely hewed to the original storyline and so I was like well I'm just re-watching the movie I do I want my time in this where this one sounds like it has

[01:14:21] some even though it's closely in on the story it has some really dramatic uh tension to it no it does it really does this was a great episode probably my favorite as well um and just to see

[01:14:36] you know though the what if version you know what if Strange did this this was this was a another direct call back to to my reading comics when I was a kid like you know what if the phoenix

[01:14:51] had not died you know what I mean like these thoughts these sorts of comics where it was just like man what we thought we knew and how we saw it happen so cool to watch it happen in a different

[01:15:10] right and this was that this was that yeah although so I guess he must not have not blipped in this universe if he became sorcerer supreme because that's why he didn't become

[01:15:20] sorcerer supreme in 636 because he blipped away so Wong got it um so I guess he stuck around but I keep thinking you know the ancient one says her death motivated you to become who you are

[01:15:33] and I'm like he's gonna be so mad when he meets 636 strange and finds out he just crushed his hands right all right ready for episode five so okay episode five uh this is the episode that launched

[01:15:47] a new spin-off what if zombies which is kind of a ridiculous title but not a sentence moving on um directed again by brian andrews written by matthew chauncey and the change is when hulk

[01:16:01] falls back to earth during the event of infinity war he finds a zombie apocalypse underway so nobody cares that thanos is coming because they're all undead tony and a couple other avengers show up to take out the children of thanos but then they turn on bruce because

[01:16:18] they're zombies though strange and wong are now zombies in this universe strangest cape the cloak of levitation is on bruce's side and helps him survive until the wasp shows up with a storm of bugs that devour the zombie avengers to bruce's disgust spider-man swoops down and picks

[01:16:36] him up swinging him up to their high up hideout in the city the other rooftop survivors are happy hogan ant-man's russian friend kurt bucky barnes sharon carter and general general okoye of the

[01:16:49] dora melange and we find out that the zombie plague was started by hank pym again when he went to the oh hey he's doing dirty when he went to the quantum realm to look for his wife she

[01:17:00] picked up a little brain-bending quantum virus which was then unleashed on humanity rip hank pym and scott lang rip humanity when the avengers came to help their zombification made everything super powered worse and there's another survival camp though at shield's old camp lehi in

[01:17:19] new jersey and they claim to have found a cure they so our crew goes to grand central new york city and when the zombie avengers show up and all hell breaks loose again we lose happy but the rest

[01:17:32] managed to hot wire train and get out of there there's like a second of chill time and then zombie cap is eating sharon and bucky and hope have to take him out but some of sharon's zombie guts

[01:17:44] leaked into a cut on hope's shoulder she she goes slow she fades slowly arguing with them to kill her while they argue they could they could be minutes from a cure but once she's gone we've got

[01:17:57] a zombie who can turn into a giant but not before she carries them in giant form over the zombie horde between their broken down train and camp lehi where the survivors notice the zombies don't even

[01:18:07] try to come inside they find vision there who says it's the mind stone that keeps them at bay he says he's been experimenting with its power as a cure and the chatty severed head of scott lang

[01:18:19] reveals himself as a positive outcome of those experiments and okoye says wakanda the last human sanctuary on earth has the technology to distribute this cure so vision isn't so enthusiastic though

[01:18:31] and when bucky finds a partially eaten to chala they find out the cat the camp is a trap laid by vision to feed his zombified scarlet witch bride her powers are too strong to be treated with the

[01:18:44] mind stone and she takes out kurt and okoye but vision helps the rest get out he pulls the mind stone out of his own head to give it to them killing himself because he can't leave wanda

[01:18:56] but he can't force himself to kill her either even zombified she's devastated over vision's death bucky stays behind to distract her giving the remainder a head start she bites bruce and he takes her on allowing partially eaten to chala peter parker and the cloak of ant-man head

[01:19:14] levitation to narrowly escape the grasp of zombie of giant zombie hope and head toward wakanda with the mind stone the hopeful cure to save this universe in the final shot we see the zombie

[01:19:26] hordes banging on the force field around wakanda led by a zombie thanos his infinity gauntlet contains every stone except the mind stone i mean it's zombies what could be better than that

[01:19:40] zombie superheroes and super villains this is a rick rollicking good time so i didn't need a plot i didn't need a plot i just needed i just needed zombies that's it i was in from inception so it

[01:19:54] was really cool to see uh yeah i liked it so should this go on my list uh of i mean depends how you feel about zombies i mean i think some of it's not one of my favorite of the season although

[01:20:06] i do like the zombie um premise but it's not one of my favorite just because some of the lines just land wrong to me like when okoye takes out zombie sam she's like oh that was your friend sorry about

[01:20:19] that and bucky's like oh i should be sad but i'm not i'm like uh i don't know yeah it says it's the cringe humor is my only problem then there are other lines that kind of make me laugh like when

[01:20:30] i'm happy gets zombified and he has the iron man glove he's still saying blam blam like he was saying before so it's a mixed bag for me okay yeah it's just it's just zombies man it's zombies

[01:20:44] you already down for zombies if you're down for some zombie action then yeah watch it if you're not you can skip it there's nothing that there's a lot of discussion do you think that uh spider-man

[01:20:55] and hope were flirting because it's a lot of people yeah and it feels a little weird because of the age gap i think yeah definitely definitely so i i think the comic um the marvel zombie comic

[01:21:08] did it better obviously but again this was uh yeah it was cool to watch and we find out um i think it's prime prime peter parker you know we have his earnestness with i don't think i can lose another

[01:21:20] friend today and we find out that basically he was saved from zombie fate because he turned down tony when he offered him the spot on the avengers in this in this universe in this universe uh he

[01:21:32] says my aunt may says or used to say so she's so yeah for our ap at may again yeah again another one so but yeah it was cool it was cool it was cool to see the zombies that's what i keep going back

[01:21:51] to again the plot of the of the story the storytelling the you know something like you said some of the the conversations and the lines fall flat none of that mattered to me because

[01:22:07] i i wanted to see more you know brains so it was cool um i love the kitchen intro videos that they do when they land on the rooftop it reminded me a little bit like miss marco yeah these are the

[01:22:22] rules to stay alive just a fun little aside yeah yeah yeah that was cool that was cool all right episode six what if killer monger rescued tony stark directed by brian andrews written by matthew chauncey the change when the military convoy tony stark is traveling

[01:22:41] within afghanistan during the events of iron man 2008 is attacked killer monger shows up and kill monger shows up and rescues him preventing him from being captured and thus preventing him from becoming iron man tony makes kill monger the chief security officer at stark

[01:23:00] industries instead of happy kill monger kill monger says he was on a deep cover deep undercover operation inside ten rings out obadiah stain as a traitor um getting him out of the way faster

[01:23:15] so then tony promotes kill monger to stain's old job coo pepper is skeptical she goes to rhodie for info on kill monger but his profile checks out he's deadly but he's clean other for other

[01:23:30] than the killing part which is okay with rhodie as long as it's done for the government pepper is still suspicious kill mongers got tony's ear who's eager to help him build combat drones when

[01:23:42] he shares his idea in the gundam design i like anime what uh uh yeah they just need my brain that's what he says i like that no yeah yeah i know um they just need vibranium uh pepper is

[01:23:58] again trying to be the voice of reason arguing they cannot hire an arms dealer ulysses claw to get it kill monger surprisingly agrees so they send rhodie at the go-between to buy black market

[01:24:11] dory malaji spear t'challa shows up as the black panther taking everyone out but rhodie and claw then kill monger shows up disabling and killing his cousin with a sonic taser and framing it on

[01:24:24] the dead rhodie taking back the black panther suit taking the black panther suit to go he and claw were in cahoots this was all a setup tony caught wind of what happened on security footage

[01:24:36] when he confronts kill monger kill monger kills him too not even finish not even the finished gundam bot can save him and since kill monger used the dory maladjie spear the wakandans get

[01:24:49] blamed framing it as an act of revenge for t'challa's death pepper and happy are looking at kill monger like he's more suspect than ever because like how was none of this captured on

[01:25:01] security camera general ross is on his side so kill monger gets his gundam arm that's i can't can't stop laughing when i say that um kill monger kills claw and carries his corpse into wakanda as

[01:25:16] a gift announcing his connection to the royal family he pretends to save them from his own robot army and thunderbolt ross is like whoa wakanda is real let's get rid of all of them

[01:25:27] they africans can't have all this power no no no that doesn't work out for him kill monger having proven himself in battle giving the heart-shaped herb to officially become the next black panther he and t'challa argue on the ancestral plane and tony is being cast as a

[01:25:45] martyr in general ross's new war on wakanda pepper is like i swear everyone around me has lost it but there's someone who shares her suspicions and desire to take down the man who took out the

[01:25:56] people they love a death chair squiggles around revealing t'challa's sister shuri then maybe yeah this one got a mixed reception but it was it was one of my favorites on the first watch and

[01:26:10] it's maybe middle upper middle of the pack for me this time i think it's a much more effective serial killer story than the hank pym one what did you think of it sean when you first saw it

[01:26:20] i didn't like it at first when i when i initially watched the episode i didn't like it uh uh i had i had issues with with kill monger just being able to to infiltrate tony's confidence so easily because at this moment in time tony is effectively still an

[01:26:42] alcoholic he he's not really in control of thought industries so i would think that they would have those other characters like happy and pepper who he would actually you know pay more attention to

[01:26:59] and how they feel about things then just completely say oh this is my new best friend because you saved my life right you know what i mean like there would be more of some sort of of um i don't

[01:27:12] want to say control but there will be it just it just didn't seem real to me or right to me that he placed all his trust in eric as soon as he did like it wasn't earned i feel like the plot and

[01:27:25] and that's one of the things in what if in general is you know their episodes are short and they pack a lot in uh and so the plot sometimes moves a little too quickly to be

[01:27:35] believable it's like uh yeah right like he effectively became his best friend he he pushed roadie to the side and i just don't think that's you know like true to those characters although he is he's douchier because he doesn't have that captivity experience so they communicate that with

[01:27:53] us you know that his time um being a prisoner and building that suit for himself uh made him more responsible yeah change them right right i i love though some of the some of the lines that kill

[01:28:08] monger gets well there's some interesting ideas like there's a kill monger says that roadie's wearing the uniform of his oppressors and roadie says gotta be part of the system to change it

[01:28:18] which is something i see coming back in marvel um both the comic books and the mcu over and over again and i think the the line when kill monger kills tony and he's like we're not fighting the

[01:28:32] same battles tony he regrets killing him but he's and um and tony's like what two gear-headed orphans trying to fight raya trying to do right by our fathers and kill monger responds the difference

[01:28:44] between you and me is that you can't see the difference between you and me and that i think that's an all-timer line yeah that's a good line yeah i mean that's fire it is it is the thing i

[01:28:56] would say for i think um the roadie perspective is that marvel has been shifting away from him being this you know super gung-ho pro you know usa type of character in the last few years um

[01:29:17] so that felt off to me as well because you know reading roadie for the last you know five ten years he hasn't been that right and you know he's first and foremost he's a superhero not an agent

[01:29:31] of the u.s like in the comic you know these this past decade so there's a big shift in his character development in the writing that wasn't reflected in this um in this show and that that

[01:29:47] kind of you know put me off as well kill mongers you know his story eric's story is is going to resonate whenever he shows up you know what i'm saying like he has one of the most compelling um

[01:30:01] raison d'etre that any villain yeah and right he has one i know and michael b jordan too fact that you can't uh that's also yeah this character is just gonna every time it's gonna hit yeah i

[01:30:12] agree yeah every time every time and you know like i said i didn't enjoy it on my first viewing but on my other viewings i i it grew on me especially the scene with him and t'challa

[01:30:27] on the ancestral plane right which which is you know the scene that he had with shuri and black panther 2 you know flipped you know what i mean so it was really uh that scene was was really well

[01:30:41] done it was really well done yeah so it doesn't rank highly as high it's in my top five but not my top yeah i feel like a lot of the backlash also was because people were upset uh with what

[01:30:53] if season one in general how often tony stark died um and there was a the idea that maybe they're trying to clear him out of as many uh realities as possible because you know

[01:31:04] uh robert downey jr is too expensive to have back until secret wars so we gotta have like one that comes back in secret wars but uh sorry in secret yes secret wars but i did like shuri

[01:31:17] ended this at the end mr stark was a genius but he was not the only genius and that really stuck with me this is obviously before wakanda forever came out and everything and i was like yeah that's

[01:31:26] shuri's one to watch right yeah yeah and you know and again these are the things that marvel has been hinting at and going towards expanding characters and and giving you new ideas and new ways to look

[01:31:42] at characters and you know definitely shuri has been portrayed on screen as uh you know super high genius level intellect in the mcu and it's you know being reflected across the board on all properties comics animation movies which is a good thing yeah yeah yeah the next episode

[01:32:01] is definitely for me one of the weaker ones but it's it's kind of fun in a rewatch i don't hate it it's episode seven what if thor were an only child and again directed by brian andrews written by ac

[01:32:15] bradley and the changes in this reality odin didn't adopt loki instead he returned the blue baby to the frost giants so thor grew up an only child yeah so we're set during the timeline of

[01:32:29] the thor movie and jane foster and our favorite sassy scientist darcy are studying an astronomical sorry marker are studying an astronomical anomaly similar to the start of thor but thor who shows up hasn't had that pesky brother loki there to worry about which actually pushed him into learning

[01:32:49] more responsibility we figure out through this story um thor's dad has just entered the odin sleep his mom is visiting her sister and he's decided to slip off to the most backwater planet he can

[01:33:02] think of somewhere heimdall will not be watching so he can throw a giant intergalactic rager so sif and the warriors three are in on it and the guest list is a who's who of the cosmic mcu

[01:33:15] we've got nebula drax korg the scrolls the game master even starter and the executioner but everybody's just here to have a good time jane however knows that the anomaly she and darcy were

[01:33:27] studying ended in a small planet being destroyed rip alpha star and she begins to worry about this party but thor assures her alpha star was really just more of an asteroid and on its way out

[01:33:39] anyway and also thor is like super hot and he's into jane uh so darcy gets stuck as wing woman with howard the duck declaring it not a date but several drunken hours later as the party spreads

[01:33:51] around the planet she's marrying him in a quickie elvis impersonator ceremony um the next morning jane wakes up it's a big party the next morning jane wakes up with a wicked hangover half-naked

[01:34:04] bodies sprawled all over the vegas suite she finds herself in and agent rumlow and maria hill are banging on the door um after a party accident the night before knocking on the door banging on the door with their fists

[01:34:20] i said it was a party no maria hill is not here to party uh after an accident landed fury in a coma maria is the acting director of shield and she needs jane to tell her about this anomaly she

[01:34:33] was studying maria reveals that this isn't earth's first alien rodeo and she breaks out the captain marvel beeper loki shows up to the party but he's a big blue frost giant and it turns out he and thor

[01:34:47] are besties in this reality brothers from another mother they call each other but before um before loki can help thor take things up a notch captain marvel shows up to poop on the party thor won't go

[01:34:59] so they fight around the world destroying things even more until thor eventually wins by pinning her under his hammer and maria is disappointed in carol she wants her to use her full power but

[01:35:10] carol says that could destroy the world and then maria kicks jane who keeps trying to protect thor and darcy who won't stop fangirling over carol out of the meeting maria gets carol to lead thor

[01:35:22] to the mojave desert to fight him they're readying some nukes as backup over agent colson's objections but but jane has a more effective plan one of darcy's offhand comments has given her the idea

[01:35:33] to call thor's mom she uses science to get in touch with heimdall who whisks her off to see frigga where jane tells her what's going on frigga astral projects to thor stepping in just as maria was

[01:35:46] going to set off the nukes and thor claims he only came to midgard or earth as the locals call it to study as part of a cultural exchange frigga says she's coming in person to see for herself

[01:35:57] and jane says she'll help thor sell his cover story if he cleans up the mess he made loki's immediately out on cleanup duty but thor manages to bully most of the rest into setting

[01:36:08] things right a little too right in the case of the formerly formerly leaning tower of pisa um so when frigga arrives the study group of as guardians she finds looks legit of course

[01:36:20] frigga doesn't buy it but captain marvel also shows up to sell the story so frigga lets let's it go and thor says jane wasn't cool to call his mom but she was right and he asks her on a date

[01:36:32] to a planet of unicorns all seems well until a portal opens and a bunch of ultron sentry drones pour through the end jeez this is that was a packed episode i'm having trouble keeping up

[01:36:48] with your read i mean it was also kind of the most frivolous of the bunch it was just like let's have a party episode where a bunch of crazy stuff happens so i kind of i don't hate it for

[01:36:57] that reason you know that's that's what i wanted to be right what did you think of it john right i like it okay my favorite yeah it's in my top five it was one of my favorite episodes

[01:37:09] i really liked um that was just fun you know a break you know from seriousness and and taking taking it no these stories taking themselves seriously you know and um and i like the the

[01:37:24] the aspect of what thor would be about loki as you know constantly by his side causing him to maybe become a better version of himself like he learns that lesson because of loki which you know

[01:37:38] ties in nicely with what we've seen from the loki um series as well right um so i you know from first watching it i thought it was cool i thought it was really funny um some really great

[01:37:52] spots and you know seeing thor just be like a what you could imagine uh the thunder god and the prince of asgard to be a spoiled brat basically you know what i mean and um come to

[01:38:08] to find out that frigga is a whole lot more powerful than we give her thor's mom right because he's scared shitless of what gonna happen if she finds out what he's been

[01:38:21] doing and it's a cool little you know side view side way to see these characters and i i just i i enjoyed it i liked it i it didn't take itself seriously at all and i think that was that was

[01:38:34] that was great i mean some a lot of the humor did not work for for me some of it did like this the stupid humor like um what was that boom did you boom i only boom in private that was funny yeah

[01:38:45] i only boomed but i've just they used some of my favorite female characters and i didn't enjoy the way they were characterized in this which again is some part of it's like there's the speeding over

[01:38:56] things but it's also like i don't know what are they doing with darcy marrying howard the duck um and then loki's like trying to pick up artist it's just but it was also kind of loki hard

[01:39:09] heartbreaking that frigga is not she's so important in the mcu to loki as his mother and in this she's he's like not my mother not my problem yes yes and and that uh uh the dynamic between

[01:39:23] the brothers i think you know what this is the what if you know what if these brothers were not you know by each other's sides what would they be you know and i think that that calls into

[01:39:37] question a real a lot of things especially in hindsight viewing it through the lens that i viewed loki the series yeah i i have one time i got really mad at thor and this was when he knocks

[01:39:49] down stonehenge and he's like oh no you're weird your weird rocks have fallen over and i was like get him carol sick he fixes it later so yeah i enjoyed that episode it was yeah it's a fun

[01:40:04] silly frivolous one yeah so should i put that on my list of things i should watch it depends if it sounds it doesn't need to be the first one yeah it's if it sounds appealing to you then go for it

[01:40:15] just know just know what you're going you're not missing anything by not watching it okay all right episode eight what if ultron won directed by brian andrews written by matthew chauncey this is part

[01:40:31] one of a part of a two-part story the change the avengers don't steal the vibranium body of ultron that he created for himself so vision is never born and ultron wins the age of ultron

[01:40:45] begins led by a more powerful ultron who looks but doesn't sound like the vision we know what happens we open on black widow and hawkeye now fitted with a robo arm fighting ultron's hordes

[01:40:59] in russia looking for the key to take ultron down black widow wants to take out satellite networks so ultron can't launch all the nukes in the world but ultron kills tony and it's too late total

[01:41:11] global devastation and ultron says at last peace then thanos walks through the portal with an almost full infinity gauntlet and ultron just slices him in half which was really cool now ultron ultra

[01:41:29] ultron has a new infinity stones studded suit of armor and he's aware that there are other worlds within his universe he decides he needs to save them all from themselves he takes out asgard the

[01:41:43] sovereign and the galaxy the guardians of the galaxy of the car with korg and the grandmaster ego zandar that and that's where captain marvel finally intervenes so he takes her out too

[01:41:57] and all the other planets in that sector it's done at last he declares but now without a purpose robo depression that's when he starts to hear the watcher narrating and he realizes there are

[01:42:13] more universes than his own the watcher panics from his viewing place between the planes of the different universes he says there is one last hope and we cut to black widow and hawkeye breaking

[01:42:25] into the kgb archives natasha is looking for an old ai not linked to the online world who can take down ultron's code the watcher sees zola's file and wants to nudge the box it's in but he can't

[01:42:39] intervene according to his own rules clint gives up but the black widow spots it in the very box he gave up on and then ultra bursts into the watchers plane and attacks him natasha and clint boot up

[01:42:53] zola catch him up and tell him that they'll destroy him the last zola copy if he doesn't help so he does they manage to capture one of ultron's sentries inserting zola's code and taking out his

[01:43:06] legs so he can't trade them as the centuries swarm the building clint tired of fighting sacrifices himself and natasha carries zola out but ultron's hive mind is out of range where zola can't reach it ultron is busy fighting the watcher punching him across universe after universe

[01:43:26] finally the watcher escapes him ultron lets him go with the words run watch it doesn't matter from here i can see everything no one can stop and the watcher defeated goes to the pocket universe

[01:43:41] where strange supreme is imprisoned after the events of episode four he asked strange for help and strange ask him if he's ready to break his oath definitely not the end

[01:43:59] so yeah david i would say that this and the last two episodes of this season this and the next one you should definitely put on your must watch list yeah okay got it eight and nine on the list and i

[01:44:13] just i love the apocalypse opening of this one we're with natasha and clint and this is actually my favorite version of hawkeye that i've ever seen so it kind of makes me want an animated hawkeye

[01:44:25] series okay um they could have some fun with that yeah i can see that happening i don't see why not because he was an agent he like cruised around did a lot of stuff you could do mission of the week

[01:44:37] well they could also do the ronin story but during the blip uh no okay um i love that so natasha finds uh the red guardian you know alexis was her dad the one who raised her kind of yeah but she

[01:44:57] finds his shield and she uses it for the rest of the episode and that was really cool i would like to see more of natasha in the shield this was really uh this was fun yeah this was fun this is

[01:45:12] what you know this is this is what you can do with animation that you can't do a live action and um this was so it was well done uh the action sequences were awesome when he you know when

[01:45:27] he slices when he slices thanos it's just there was so much discussion about that not everybody was happy about that because they were like well if it's that easy then what was you know

[01:45:39] what was the big deal oh the big no the big deal is that heroes don't kill that version of ultron didn't exist a big deal right that version of ultron doesn't exist and heroes don't kill

[01:45:52] so this this is a villain who has no compulsion about doing these things but so even if if we watched you know at the end of of what end game at the beginning of end game there's a lot of

[01:46:10] you know sadness when he decapitates you know thanos you know what i mean like heroes don't do those sorts of things so when people were like oh it was so easy and how could he have done that

[01:46:23] like well he did it because he had no compulsion against doing it yeah i it's rich of him that he blames the watcher for not intervening in the suffering of all those worlds and it's like

[01:46:34] you're the guy causing the suffering wherever you can like super rich right but yeah i love there's a one image in there where he almost becomes like galactus and takes a bite out of the galaxy

[01:46:46] there in like that's it i get those things you can do in animation that was really cool that you can't do in live action and and the scene where you're talking about the apocalypse with with um black widow and hawkeye when they're running on the rooftop just there's

[01:47:03] just so many great little things going on in this and yeah just the you know like the the robots the the ultrons climbing up after them right just yeah just really good stuff good stuff so definitely

[01:47:21] this is a this is a a watch thing yeah okay and it rolls i'm sorry and then it right into episode nine rolls right into episode nine what if the watcher broke his oath so directed by brian

[01:47:33] andrews right written by ac bradley the changes the watcher breaks his oath and so what happens is it picks up uh right after the event of episode eight and we go back to captain carter from

[01:47:47] episode one who's breaking into bart bartok's boat with her universe's version of black widow so not the black widow we saw a different black widow um and the watcher shows up in the sky and tells

[01:47:59] her she's been chosen we then switch to a view of drones attacking a dairy queen where ego is taking possession of his son peter quill and this is following on the events of episode two and then

[01:48:11] star lord star lord t'challa rescues quill and the watcher appears to tell t'challa he's been chosen a version of tony and gamora who will meet in season two of what if they're melting down an

[01:48:24] infinity gauntlet in the forge of uh etree the king of the dwarves and tony is ironically pitching his armor around the world idea or nay the galaxy when the watcher shows up to collect gamora

[01:48:37] survivor of sakaar he calls her destroyer of thanos and clarifies not eustarch um another dig at the tony fans and then he collects episode six killmonger justice pepper and shuri are charging

[01:48:52] into battle to take him down the next pick seems equally or even more unlikely party thor from episode seven pulled from his battle with the alter on drones who have infected his own universe

[01:49:05] and this motley crew they meet strange supreme in a replica of the pub where steve and peggy had their date in episode one and the watcher says that this team has the perfect combination

[01:49:15] of skills and experience that alone will triumph over the ultra ultron threat he dubs them the guardians of the multiverse their mission is to separate ultron's body from the infinity stones thor will provide a distraction gamora will use her infinity stone stroke stone destroying machine

[01:49:33] and the rest will fight the guardians have a toast strange delivers a terrible depressing speech to chalice much better at it and then thor shoots off a celebratory lightning which attracts the attention of ultron earlier than planned whoops strange loads them up with

[01:49:49] protection charms and the team gets into position working together t'challa manages to steal the soul stone from ultron strange who occasionally has trouble holding his human form unleashes some of his inner demons and then dumps a mountain of zombies from the zombie universe on top of ultron

[01:50:06] including zombie scarlet witch ultron takes her out and the planet they're on while the guardians escape to another universe ultron's own universe where they meet apocalypse black widow now the sole

[01:50:17] survivor on her planet she joins the team as ultron comes back to fight strange is in full demon form by now using every trick he knows and gamora uses a soul stone to power the stone eater and

[01:50:29] sick it on ultron seeming to destroy ultron but the crusher was designed to destroy the stones in gamora's world not this one so ultron rises again with all six stones back realizing strange

[01:50:42] is the one protecting the whole group he turns his attention to him black widow uses the distraction to load an arrow with a computer virus the zola code and just as strange is starting to flag in

[01:50:54] the fight against ultron black widow jumps off a roof top in a motorcycle shooting the arrow and captain carter jumps off another rooftop landing on ultron's neck pulling off his helmet

[01:51:06] so the arrow can pierce his eye zola is now inside ultron and takes over his body at which point killmonger steps out of the shadows to take ultron's armor with the stones for himself saying

[01:51:18] he wants to fix all their worlds the rest of the team is not on board so he readies to fight them but zola ultron wants the armor back so he must face him instead and as the two fight strange

[01:51:32] locks them in his pocket dimension prison zola ultron and killmonger perpetually fighting over the stones neither ever getting them and strange is left to watch over this pocket dimension the rest are sent back to their universes to the moment where they were picked up

[01:51:50] but apocalypse black widow doesn't really have a world to go back to so the watcher returns her to a world very like 636 in the throes of the plot of the avengers this world has lost their black

[01:52:01] widow and fury knows this is a different natasha but he accepts her now now it's the end except there's a credit scene where carter is back with her own black widow who has found the hydra stomper

[01:52:16] and there's someone inside natasha says with a smirk end of season god that is like i thought those previous ones were complex this was a longer episode than the others too but pulls together every single episode except for episode three which is kind of funny just

[01:52:35] completely ignores episode three every other episode including one that didn't even make it into the first season is there wild absolutely wild but watchable if i haven't watched all the

[01:52:47] yeah i mean just watch the one before it yeah right right but i mean with the crusher and the the crusher is you don't need you won't even see that episode until season two where the crusher

[01:52:58] comes from yeah okay right you don't need anything just watch um yeah so yeah which is funny because now we know how that episode with gamora um and the game master is going to end but whatever

[01:53:10] that's fine i'm still happy to see it it got delayed because of covet so wow okay that sounds like a a wild ride i definitely will check out eight and nine uh for before season two starts

[01:53:28] yeah definitely um yeah there's some conversation about uh about peggy's love life so we have black widow throughout it the episode once heard to move on from steve because he's long gone uh but of course bernard bernard bernard sorry from accounting doesn't sound very appealing

[01:53:48] which is you know kind of taking the those reverse lines from the captain america movie but then we have the question who's in the hydra stomper is it steve and then also in another point

[01:53:59] there's a conversation where strange says in my universe steve rogers received this the serum and carter's like oh now that would be a sight to see but there's also another uh ship going on

[01:54:11] so at one point peggy is trying to convince the apocalypse black widow to trust them and she says i know you your father is ivan your dad is alexi and you are the one woman i trust to have my six

[01:54:24] and out of that line a universe of shippers is born so it's all up in the air but whatever all right wow so i going back i would say watch eight nine and definitely and four

[01:54:39] um four for sure um and then two yeah yeah and any if anything else appeals to you watch it i mean they're all worth their short episodes you know so they're all worth a watch um yeah eight nine

[01:54:55] four and two got it yeah i'm hoping they eight nine four two five four two five okay oh the zombies um all right yeah that's i mean the zombies is just fun eight nine for sure and

[01:55:09] and two right is a good one too um okay yeah everything else is you know up to your discretion definitely like alicia said eight nine four okay yeah i hope in season two that they um

[01:55:23] that they clarify how some of the lore works together because some of the lore in this show seems to contradict other lore like does black widow being in a new world cause an incursion

[01:55:33] do infinity stones work outside the universe or not uh it's a lot of these questions up in the air but i think it's just yeah we shouldn't take this show too seriously and if you don't then

[01:55:43] it actually offers more than you expect yes agree agree with that cool anything else let's um no let's get into season two yeah let's take a break and then when we get back we'll do the season two

[01:56:00] and we're back okay after that amazing rundown of season one thank you alicia that was a lot of wordsmithing that you did that was incredible let's uh let's talk about our season two

[01:56:32] preview it's going to be released december 22nd and there's one episode a day every day through the 30th on disney plus and we've got a release of titles alicia is that right we we know every

[01:56:50] every time yeah and so this tells us what to expect also so we've got uh episode one is going to be what if nebula joined the nova corps and that's the one that i think we know the least

[01:57:01] about but i'm guessing that might turn john's head um episode two is what if peter quill attacked earth's mightiest heroes and that seems to probably follow on the storyline where we saw

[01:57:14] you know ego trying to take over his son and t'challa saving him so um episode three is what if happy hogan saved christmas and that's the die hard looking one that we keep seeing in the previews

[01:57:27] and that's gonna drop on christmas day um episode four is what if iron man crashed into the grand master that's the story where we'll find out how nebula ended up with that stone destroying machine

[01:57:40] um episode five is what if captain carter fought the hydra stomper so that picks right up where season one ends where they find the hydra stomper i'm really worried about the word fought in the

[01:57:50] title here um episode six is an interesting one because it's what if and so i'm gonna say this name the way that i think that it said we're gonna have to i don't speak mohawk i don't know this

[01:58:01] language so we're gonna have to have it um clarified for us but it's what if cohort reshaped the world and this features a brand new character invented for this show not in the comic uh comments

[01:58:14] comics or anything so yeah that's very intriguing um what if hella found the ten rings sounds like a ton of fun what if the avengers assembled in 1602 is uh pulling from the neil gaiman comics

[01:58:29] of yeah the 1602 comics so that's going to be interesting it's also going to feature a version of wanda they're calling merlin wanda and a bunch of avengers as the merry men apparently and then the final episode will be what if strange supreme intervened so that's obviously picking up

[01:58:47] where we left off all right so it's going to pull from the previous season definitely any of those stand out to you david um maybe that last one is interesting and maybe the avengers assembling in 1602 um i think those are and this reshaping the world could be interesting

[01:59:07] just because it's this new this whole new uh storyline or a whole new character yeah what about you john what are you most excited for the cohorte the hella and the strange yeah so episode

[01:59:22] 206 207 and 209 those are the ones that i'm most yeah yeah i think i'm feeling the same way um although i'm very interested to see how the others continue but yeah this i actually i started to read

[01:59:35] this neil gaiman line of the comics because i was just intrigued and the art style is really cool i don't know if i don't think they're not really they're keeping the art style consistent within

[01:59:44] the show but yeah they have but it should be a fun one and the actually the peter quill versus the avengers one i'm sorry that is not going to be a continuation of what we saw i guess because

[01:59:56] this is set in 1988 this one so we're gonna get 80s lineup of avengers including uh that's where we get to chaka right i don't think um to chaka is in the avengers no i mean in this version he is

[02:00:12] is not in his in this version apparently it's going to be hank pym uh bill foster who is like goliath laurence fishburne last seen in ant-man 2 uh we got king king king to chaka is the black

[02:00:26] panther at the time uh bucky barnes i guess is i but that's gonna be interesting because if he's a winter soldier how is he fighting i don't know we'll see uh wendy lawson is an interesting one

[02:00:36] so that's annette benning uh his character from captain marvel and she right is a version called star force in this and then uh thor and peggy's the director of shield at the time yeah interesting

[02:00:51] so yeah that's yeah that's interesting and then uh in the 1602 one the lineup is apparently um we've got steve rogers bucky barnes scott lang and the ant-man and there's going to be a

[02:01:03] blacksmith tony stark and purple hulk happy hogan so basically the premise of this one is like what if the avengers were just born 400 years earlier just for whatever weird freak of history right just because it's during the elizabethan era so we're talking like shakespeare times

[02:01:22] right that's gonna be wild yeah so yeah i'm coming yeah i'm still on board with six seven nine all right like if they would if they were to release all at once i would do six seven

[02:01:42] that's how that would be my view in order if they would you know like big drop right yeah cool so we're gonna i think we decided that we're gonna do just one big episode not dissimilar to how we did it today where we do a little recap and

[02:01:59] in our hot takes for the episodes that we watched and if i remember right we're going to try and record that we've got a we're going to take some vacation a little bit over the holidays

[02:02:12] and make sure that everybody gets a little bit of rest and visiting family i know everybody's got family plans and stuff like that so i think we're gonna get to record this episode on the

[02:02:23] sixth right and that's when we're going to do our echo recap our echo context setup yeah yeah yeah good sounds good okay anything else on what if or are we uh are we all set up season two i

[02:02:36] like season one and season two looks even better so bring it on okay yeah yeah hopeful feelings awesome well let's talk about our um upcoming programming schedule let's start with you alicia

[02:02:51] what have you got planned for the wool shift yeah so uh we've got coming out probably around the same time as this the uh holiday special so in the book club there's going to be the audio drama

[02:03:01] version of the greatest gift the story on which um it's a wonderful life is based and uh in the public feed luke and i did we had a really fun time talking about it's a wonderful life but also

[02:03:13] talking about a bunch of movies that were spun off of that so that was a really fun episode and we're going to okay cool little holiday little fun holiday and we're going to be um wrapping up

[02:03:25] the last two episodes of beacon 23 just dropped as we're recording so we're going to be uh doing that season wrap up and uh also the shift um episode for the book club is in editing now

[02:03:40] okay great and uh so far and then you just released a uh was it three four five right so now we were going to do six and seven and then eight but since they've dropped seven and eight together we're

[02:03:50] just going to do six seven and eight okay that sounds great and so far yeah i'm enjoying it i'm enjoying the season a lot um it's a really it's a character study and uh yeah and the main character

[02:04:03] is beacon 23 which is the title so that feels appropriate but okay that's interesting cool and dune yes and dune coverage will begin in earnest with basically almost weekly in january and february leading into the march 1st part two premiere in the theaters excellent trailer is out

[02:04:24] for the movie it looks interesting it looks amazing yeah i think villeneuve yeah and i've said this before i think he's really achieved the best look of the dune world so far but we're going

[02:04:37] to talk about uh david you're going to join us to talk about our love of the 84 lynch version too oh god it's glorious it's glorious in in all its flaws and hot hot dumpster fire mess and then the

[02:04:52] best possible way and i that's right and i did pick up that book the uh the oral history of of dune uh and i've been sort of paging through it it's so much information but i really i read some

[02:05:04] chapters about david lynch and how he as a director uh established and how the mess that the dune property the licensing was and all the iterations that it went through so it's a it's a

[02:05:18] fast fascinating take and we'll definitely talk about that book more when i'm on the podcast with you and luke which i am really looking forward to it's gonna be fun one i know that luke's really

[02:05:27] looking forward to that episode too because that was uh the episode that was the movie that he watched over and over growing up properly howard movie review is finished up with their last season

[02:05:38] of movie review so we'll see what they're going to get up to next year when they kick off a new season but until then if you're missing steve and anthony in your life check out the severance

[02:05:49] podcast this is going to be a joint podcast so we set up a whole separate feed just for that and you can find a link for that in the show notes also for will shift dust you can find a link for

[02:06:02] that in the show notes or just search for severance lore hounds and you will find it and we did that set up so that once season two starts steve anthony john and i the four of us

[02:06:18] are all going to cover it episode to episode week to week and so you'll have the season one recap that steve and anthony have done and they're just about finished with that they've been dropping every

[02:06:29] fridays and then you'll have that all available for you if you want to do a rewatch or if you're doing it now and then we'll roll right into season two we don't know when season two is going to come

[02:06:39] out they still haven't announced it but we are keeping our eyes for that date and we'll let everyone know once we once we also know um for the lore hounds ourselves we have our top 10 second breakfast podcast which will release to everybody on in and around christmas day

[02:06:59] we've got so much extra content that i think we're going to actually have to split this into two podcasts so we're gonna we had conversations with all of our co-hosts with john alicia brandon marylin anthony we talked about your top threes as well as the bonus questions

[02:07:16] and then we've got a special guest for our breakdown of the holiday movie that we chose which was falling for christmas which was a lindsey lohan vehicle that was supposed to be a

[02:07:31] sort of reboot her career anyway we have a friend named anna who writes a sub stack and she take does take down takedowns of holiday rom-coms and they're hilarious a lot of fun so we're

[02:07:44] invited her onto the podcast for that so i think we're going to package all those up into a into an episode and then we'll have our normal second breakfast podcast where john and i sort

[02:07:52] of talk a little bit about life but then we're going to do our big top 10 end of year reviews we've also just covered um on a one shot let's see we had napoleon that alicia and i you did

[02:08:05] we did uh brandon and i did a one shot on um leave the world behind the creators uh alicia oh yeah dr who we did and the creators coming out too yeah the creator which will drop on the 20th

[02:08:21] so whenever this podcast comes out uh december 20th we will release the podcast that we recorded way back in october november or something like that to coincide with that and then you guys just had

[02:08:32] a podcast yeah alicia you and john and uh friend of yours simon your who daddy uh your who your who i said who mentor yeah who mentor that's better your mentor hopefully that podcast yeah

[02:08:46] well that was a lot of fun and it was i was so glad that we had um someone who grew up there you know who could tell us about his experiences as a kid watching who and then i believe we have

[02:08:57] our final chapter of tehanu on our book nook series which is also uh awaiting editing and will be released so there's a ton more content coming out uh in december oh and uh rebel moon

[02:09:11] the three of us are going to cover rebel moon the new zack snyder boy the internet is a fire with the with the reviews so it's a zach snyder special i'm bringing an open mind so am i yes what was

[02:09:26] the las vegas zach snyder one that he did the zombie oh army of the dead i enjoyed it it was completely ridiculous but i actually had a fun time it was just goofy and you know i don't know

[02:09:38] so if rebel moon is anything like that in the sense of this is just zach snyder throwing buckets of paint at the wall i'm sure it's gonna be my time i saw i saw a review i posted on the

[02:09:49] discord this was just like uh it's too woke too many women uh too political i'm like sign me up all right awesome okay well i think this is gonna wrap it up for the mcu coverage for the year we

[02:10:08] won't have an mcu podcast until the new year um comes up with season two and uh echo preview or you know context setup episode that'll be in one episode and then we'll get right into echo um with

[02:10:22] the binge drop podcast so john and alicia it has been a very productive great year yes it has and um happy new year yeah happy new year to you yeah just remember the watchers always watching the lorehounds podcast is produced and published by the lorehounds

[02:10:41] you can send questions and feedback and voicemails at the lorehounds.com contact get early and ad free access to all lorehounds podcasts at patreon.com slash the lorehounds any opinions stated are ours personally and do not reflect the opinion of or belong to any employers or other entities