Scarlet Witch Archives - The Wide Screen

October 7, 2021

Agatha Harkness Is Getting A Series? Say No More, I’m Sold

What would any good sitcom be without a spin-off series or two? I Love Lucy had The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, The Mary Tyler Moore Show had Lou Grant, Rhoda, and Phyllis, Full House had Fuller House, Roseanne has The Conners, and so on. It’s only right that Marvel’s WandaVision, a quirky twist on classic sitcoms with macabre undertones, should live on through a spin-off focused on a fan-favorite supporting character, seeing as everybody behind-the-scenes seems pretty adamant that the original series won’t and was never planned to get a second season.

And it would be hard to name a WandaVision character more deserving of their own spin-off series than “Agnes”, a.k.a. immortal evil sorceress Agatha Harkness. Wanda herself is already going to be a major part of Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness, and it’s high time she got her own movie anyway; White Vision might return in Armor Wars, and he’s frankly not interesting enough to carry his own series; Monica Rambeau will co-star in The Marvels and she’ll probably be in Secret Invasion. But until today, Marvel’s future plans for Agatha Harkness were rather unclear.

Now, Variety and other Hollywood trades are reporting that Kathryn Hahn will return to reprise the role in a Disney+ series. WandaVision head writer Jac Schaeffer will write and executive produce the series, which is being tentatively described as a “dark comedy” – befitting of Hahn’s high camp performance, and the character’s flair for extravagance. What’s more, Hahn has finalized a deal to appear in other MCU movies and series’ as Agatha Harkness. Although there’s no word on where and when exactly that would happen, the decision to give her a spin-off series suggests that Agatha will play a pivotal role going forward.

The main question on everyone’s minds is whether the spin-off will be set before or after the events of WandaVision. A historical prequel could help fill in the gaps in our knowledge regarding Agatha Harkness’ long and presumably eventful backstory, and would be a perfect opportunity to introduce more characters from the mystic side of Marvel Comics. The one flashback to Agatha’s dark past in WandaVision could be the show’s starting-point – on the run from Salem in 1693 after massacring her entire coven of witches in her quest to accumulate more power, we could see her form the community of New Salem in modern-day Colorado as a haven for other maverick sorcerers like her.

Alternatively, the series could take place after WandaVision. Agatha Harkness failed in her attempt to steal Wanda’s chaos magic, and Wanda trapped her in Westview, laying a curse on her so that Agatha alone of all the town’s residents is still stuck in a sitcom-inspired fantasy, being remotely brainwashed by Wanda to think and act like the 1950’s-era comedic relief character she first pretended to be. That being said, we know that the curse isn’t foolproof – Vision realized that he was living in a simulation, and a witch of Agatha’s power and prestige shouldn’t take too long to figure it out either.

Personally, I think it will be a bit of both. Trapped in Westview all by herself (Agatha All Alone?) but painfully self-aware, Agatha will have plenty of time to reminisce on better days, allowing us to transition seamlessly into flashbacks before the series becomes too much like a rip-off of WandaVision‘s unique premise. By the end of the series, something – or someone – from her past will pop up in Westview, giving Agatha the means to escape. What happens then is anyone’s guess, but personally I think the sorceress would make a great fit with whatever team of Dark Avengers or Thunderbolts is being assembled by Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, as the evil version of Scarlet Witch that Agatha so desperately wants to be.

There’s also a Fantastic Four connection in Agatha Harkness’ comics history that can’t be ignored, given that the superhero team will be entering the MCU soon(ish). Agatha was employed by Reed Richards and Sue Storm to be a nanny for their son Franklin, a decision which went about as well as you’d expect. Long story short, the Fantastic Four persuade her to help them out on multiple occasions, usually when Franklin’s reality-warping powers are involved. She never stops being an antihero, but her desire to meld Franklin into a more powerful hero gives her an accidental emotional conflict that could be very interesting onscreen.

And of course, the Fantastic Four are still in Agatha’s near-but-not-quite-near-enough-to-worry-about-yet future. For the moment, she’s still bad to the bone, and that’s the Agatha Harkness we all want to see front and center in her spin-off series. Leaving aside Loki, because Loki has always been more of a trickster and a con-man than a straight-up villain, Agatha will be the first Marvel villain to star in a solo property, and I hope she’s not instantly redeemed because Disney needs her to be a lead now.

Before I finish, there’s one more thing we need to talk about – Mephisto. Now I know that all our theories about him were disproven in the WandaVision finale, but that’s because ultimately Mephisto had no place in Wanda’s story, and that made sense. An Agatha show, on the other hand, ought to have plenty of space to organically introduce the character without overshadowing anyone else, and with a really good veteran comedic actor in the role he’d be an excellent foil for Kathryn Hahn’s wicked sass and dark humor.

So what’s your reaction to this news, and which characters and actors do you want to fill out the cast alongside Hahn? Share your own thoughts, theories, and opinions, in the comments below!

October 6, 2021

“What If…?” Episode 9 – A Hollow And Hectic Finale

**SPOILERS FOR WHAT IF…? AHEAD!**

Marvel Studios has churned out three live-action series’ for Disney+ this year, and it didn’t take them long to match or frequently surpass the quality of many of their movies. What If…?, on the other hand, has had scattered moments and two full episodes that I’d rank right up there alongside the best of WandaVision, The Falcon And The Winter Soldier, and Loki, but if this series is going to be a multi-season commitment for Marvel’s fledgling animation department (and it’s intended to be), then it’s going to need a little more work.

Leaving aside the fact that some episodes could be better described as mashups of two or more Marvel movies than actual “what if…?” scenarios, or the occasionally awkward facial animations and voice acting, What If…?‘s most consistent issue is that almost every episode is trying to squeeze an entire movie’s worth of plot and character development into the span of about twenty-five minutes, a good amount of which is often credits. This problem doesn’t necessarily have to be solved by making every episode forty to fifty minutes long, either. More focused writing would do wonders for What If…?.

For instance, this season finale didn’t need to be almost entirely an action sequence pitting the newly-formed “Guardians of the Multiverse” against Ultron (voiced by Ross Marquand), for several reasons. Firstly and probably most importantly, because it’s largely pointless. The Watcher (voiced by Jeffrey Wright)’s plan to defeat Ultron doesn’t actually rely on fighting him for a prolonged period of time, so this sequence feels like a waste of screentime that could have been better spent formulating a more efficient plan; perhaps one that would have given The Watcher something to do in this episode after how active he was last week.

And the longer this pointless sequence drags on, the more it robs Ultron of all the fear and awe he commanded in last week’s episode. Wielding all six Infinity Stones and possessed of reflexes and mental capacities beyond human comprehension, Ultron was capable of devouring entire galaxies last week – the only opponent who should logically stand a chance against him in battle for very long, out of this line-up at least, is Doctor Strange Supreme (Benedict Cumberbatch). I love seeing underdog characters use their unique skills to bring down an enemy twice their size, like when Star-Lord (Chadwick Boseman) gracefully snatches an Infinity Stone from Ultron’s collection using his “sticky fingers” technique, but Ultron is already depowered even before that, and it makes the whole battle less interesting.

The stakes are also surprisingly low for a series that’s so far been almost sadistic when it comes to killing off our favorite characters. For a moment, I hoped that Party Thor (Chris Hemsworth) at least would get to go out in a blaze of glory, after having served his only real purpose – unwitting bait for Ultron. But in fact, nobody dies. Technically not even Ultron, although it’s hard to describe what really happens to him: his body, or rather Vision’s body, gets taken over by the mind of Arnim Zola (Toby Jones), and his armor gets transferred to Erik Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan), who wants to use it to conquer the universe with the Infinity Stones, and both of them get locked up in a pocket dimension for all eternity, fighting over the Stones.

The Killmonger twist is one of many plot beats and character moments in this episode that required more time to develop organically. The entire build-up to Killmonger’s betrayal is one or two shots of him silently staring at an Ultron droid’s helmet. Similarly, Captain Carter (Hayley Atwell) sees one photo of Steve Rogers and suddenly wants to leave her timeline to go back and live with him. She ultimately decides against it, which I’m choosing to interpret as a jab at Steve’s out-of-character ending in Avengers: Endgame, but the whole scene feels too rushed to make this conflict or its resolution particularly interesting.

This feeling that we’re racing against the clock is compounded by another problem: none of the Guardians of the Multiverse actually know each other prior to this episode, and we don’t know them all that well – heck, this is our first time even meeting Gamora (voiced by Cynthia McWilliams), Destroyer of Thanos, because for some reason her individual episode got moved to season two – so they’re building relationships entirely from scratch, and without even so much as a common understanding of the universe to unite them.

The episode could have played on the radical differences between them to build bonds or create rifts and divisions, but this is an idea we only see realized through Captain Carter’s relationships with the two Black Widows (both voiced by Lake Bell). In her own timeline, their flirty banter is identical to that of Steve Rogers and Black Widow – which would be a lot more surprising and refreshing if it didn’t feel like What If…?‘s Captain Carter is literally just a reskin of Captain America. When she meets the haggard Black Widow of last week’s episode, she tells her things about herself that this timeline’s Widow wouldn’t have told a soul, proving her trustworthiness and unintentionally revealing that she and Widow are closer than Steve and Widow.

But that’s it. Other interactions, which could have been just as emotional if not more so, are ignored completely. Killmonger seeing T’Challa alive after murdering him in episode six should have been a humbling moment for him. Gamora talking about killing her timeline’s Thanos could have caused a clash with T’Challa, who successfully persuaded his timeline’s Thanos to see the error of his ways. And although zombie Wanda Maximoff shows up to fight Ultron and seems briefly confused by something, it would have been nice – and even more heartbreaking – to have explicit confirmation that she recognized her beloved Vision’s face on the android’s body.

Nonetheless, What If…? aims for an unearned heartfelt tone in its final minutes, as the Guardians go their separate ways. Obviously, the two endings that most fans will be talking about for weeks to come are Captain Carter’s and Doctor Strange Supreme’s: in a mid-credits scene, the former discovers the derelict HYDRA Stomper suit from episode one and is informed that someone is inside, setting up a Winter Soldier-type storyline for season two, while the latter is put in charge of protecting the pocket dimension where Zola and Killmonger are being kept, establishing him as The Watcher’s right-hand man and a being of infinitely more power than he could ever have obtained on his own. But neither ending really moved me.

What did tug at my heartstrings was Black Widow being given a second chance by The Watcher, being dropped into the timeline that lost its Black Widow back in episode three, and helping Captain America and Captain Marvel take down Loki (Tom Hiddleston), even though I thought somebody ought to have warned her that Hawkeye, Thor, and Bruce Banner had also died in that timeline. What did break my heart was seeing T’Challa fly off to save the galaxy once again, this time with Peter Quill (voiced by Brian T. Delaney) by his side, and knowing now that Marvel wanted to give the character his own spin-off series.

These characters, even their alternate versions, are what we fall in love with, they’re why we watch, and my only hope for season two of What If…? is that Marvel gives them the space and time to really shine.

Episode Rating: 6.5/10

September 8, 2021

“What If…?” Episode 5 Gives Us The Wasp We Always Deserved

**SPOILERS FOR WHAT IF…? AHEAD!**

If any consistent throughline has emerged in Marvel’s What If…?, it’s that the Ant-Man films are more important than you think. The animated anthology series hasn’t always been kind to the franchise, necessarily – Hank Pym turning into a serial killer and Janet Van Dyne unleashing a zombie virus on the earth could both be considered character regressions – but ironically, these dark twists on what has always been considered the most lighthearted subdivision of the Marvel Cinematic Universe might finally get people to go back and rewatch the Ant-Man films.

And with Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania shaping up to be an Avengers-level crossover event, that’s a perfectly reasonable ulterior motive for What If…? to have. Now we just have to hope that under Peyton Reed’s usually lackluster direction, Quantumania can handle its core cast of characters as well as What If…? does in only thirty minutes. For me, as a fan of Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) especially, I’m gonna be honest: What If…?, more so than either of the Ant-Man films or Endgame, finally gave us the Hope Van Dyne we were promised when she first suited up as the Wasp, and the Hope Van Dyne we deserved.

Being a fan of Hope Van Dyne isn’t easy. Even with so much comics history to draw from in her case, the MCU has never really had a clear idea of what to do with her character or how to realize her full potential – something which the Civil War debacle made very clear. In case you missed it, the Russo Brothers were initially going to work the Wasp reveal into their script for Civil War, including her alongside Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) in the iconic airport battle. And it probably would have been awesome.

But Peyton Reed wasn’t too keen on that idea, because he wanted to introduce the Wasp and define the tone of her action sequences. He got his way, the Russo Brothers relented, and Wasp waited until Ant-Man And The Wasp for her next appearance…which was massively underwhelming, because – surprise, surprise – Peyton Reed is kind of terrible at directing action. And by the time the Russo Brothers finally did get to work with Wasp, they had too many characters on their plate to do anything substantial with her, so she got relegated to a background role in Endgame.

Basically, it’s a mess. But here, in What If…?, Hope Van Dyne is given pride of place in a story that revolves around her, and Lilly proves herself thoroughly up to the task of carrying the episode on her vocal performance. The Nexus Event of this week’s alternate timeline spins out of Ant-Man And The Wasp, with Hope’s mother Janet becoming the host body for a zombie virus that Hope accidentally unleashes upon the world when she brings Janet back from the Quantum Realm (don’t even get me started on Janet’s characterization – or lack thereof – in the MCU thus far). Hope’s grief and guilt drive her to lead the search for a cure, and it’s her brave self-sacrifice that ensures the survival of…well, hope.

This episode is filled with sacrifices, some a little more necessary than others. I was genuinely moved when Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) charged into the zombie horde, going head-to-head with the zombie version of Wanda Maximoff in a fight that actually seemed pretty evenly matched…at least long enough for the remnants of the Avengers to escape Camp Lehigh with a cure for the zombie virus. It was one of the few moments since the very first Avengers movie where Banner’s dignity and heroism have been fully visible. And then on the other hand you have Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) running at Wanda with a tiny pistol and getting catapulted into the stratosphere. The confidence, the total lack of braincells…an all-around himbo, even in death. We stan.

And that’s a big part of what makes What If…? so fun. The stakes are high, and characters die! They also die pretty horribly most of the time, especially in this episode, which is a nice change from how Marvel superheroes usually go, with a few aesthetically-pleasing facial scars and a bruise or two. This adds another layer to the suspense because nobody wants to see their favorite superhero devoured by zombies or worse, transformed into one – although Wanda fans will support her no matter what, and I appreciate that energy (she does cut quite a striking figure as she levitates above the battlefield, her telekinetic abilities still intact but fused with insatiable hunger).

And there’s just something so precious and romantic and not-at-all terrifying about the fact that Vision (Paul Bettany) has been keeping zombie Wanda alive this whole time by feeding her human captives to preserve her strength while working on a cure for her using the Mind Stone embedded in his head. Couple goals, am I right? But of course, there’s no timeline in the Multiverse where Vision doesn’t die tragically, so here he rips the Mind Stone out of his own skull and hands it over to the Avengers as atonement for his actions: which, to be fair, are probably the most villainous that we’ve ever seen from a Marvel hero. Wanda cradles his lifeless body, raising the question of whether zombies can feel emotion, and more importantly, what would a zombie WandaVision look like?

Whether or not Vision’s sacrifice was worth it is left a mystery. The Avengers – or rather, T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman), Peter Parker (voiced by Hudson Thames), Scott Lang’s disembodied head in a glass jar, and Doctor Strange’s levitating cloak – fly off to Wakanda with the Mind Stone and a new sense of purpose, but just before the credits roll it’s revealed that Thanos himself has become a victim of the zombies. Missing only the Mind Stone to complete his Infinity Gauntlet, Thanos sets his sights on Wakanda…and of course, the episode ends there.

What If…? has utilized this type of ending several times now, and assuming the series doesn’t have plans to return to these storylines at some point, I like the idea of offering fans a chance to write their own endings. Every week, this series hands the fanfic authors of the world another opportunity to expand upon the Marvel Multiverse in their own way, and that’s genius. This episode was already full of fanfic tropes, from unexpectedly wonderful crossovers (the payoff to that Baba Yaga gag in Ant-Man And The Wasp…*chef’s kiss*) to a scene of Bucky Barnes showering (although let’s be honest, most fanfics would leave out the Disney-mandated strategically-placed steam).

As of this writing, I am still waiting for that zombie WandaVision AU. Do not make me write this myself.

Episode Rating: 8.9/10

September 6, 2021

“What If…?” Episode 4 Goes Fully Dark, And It’s Marvelous

**SPOILERS FOR WHAT IF…? AHEAD!**

Although What If…? hasn’t ignited the same level of heated discourse or enthusiastic speculation as any of Marvel’s live-action Disney+ series’ (a sad testament to the fact that animation is still viewed by many fans as somehow inherently less canon), last Wednesday’s episode had become the subject of intense scrutiny after it became widely known that it would focus on the character of Doctor Stephen Strange…specifically, a dark and twisted version of him who goes by the title of Doctor Strange Supreme (Benedict Cumberbatch).

This was largely because, coming off the first trailer for Spider-Man: No Way Home, one of many theories given for Marvel’s inconsistent characterization of Strange was that the Master of Mystic Arts had somehow been replaced by an evil doppelgänger from the Multiverse (or by Mephisto; yep, we’re doing that again). It’s a good theory: as a Doctor Strange fan baffled by some of his actions in the No Way Home trailer, I really like it. And then lo and behold, here comes What If…? with an entire episode built upon that very concept.

Now having seen the episode in question…yeah, I’m pretty sure this is another WandaVision situation where we played ourselves. I still love the evil Doctor Strange theory, mind you, and I’m not writing it off until we see how Doctor Strange Supreme’s character arc continues across What If…? season one, but I don’t know if there’s any real connection to No Way Home. And that’s okay, because like the WandaVision finale, What If…? episode four is great storytelling first and foremost.

Some of that is perhaps attributable to length: this episode is the longest of the four by a minute or two, and it enjoys a steady pacing that feels urgent without becoming frantic. But what sets it apart from the rest of What If…?, and elevates it to a place alongside WandaVision and the most sophisticated episodes of Loki and The Falcon And The Winter Soldier, is the mature tone it’s able to capture. The episode earns and owns its darkest moments with a forcefulness that was once severely lacking from the franchise, and a sensitivity that evolves from WandaVision‘s nuanced handling of discussions about death and grief.

Usually, it’s Star Wars that’s not afraid to get bleak and depressing, even in their animated shows aimed (at least initially) at kids. But watching Doctor Strange Supreme lose his sanity, his soul, his loved ones, and ultimately his entire universe in a desperate attempt to cheat death that ends with him trapped in the crystallized remnants of what was once a timeline, begging What If…?‘s dispassionate narrator The Watcher (voiced by Jeffrey Wright) for mercy, demonstrates quite powerfully that having an anthology of self-contained short stories in which to explore risky ideas can only be a good thing creatively.

The episode doesn’t even wait that long to go fully dark. The Nexus Event that kicks off Doctor Strange Supreme’s alternate timeline is the death of his girlfriend, Doctor Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams), in the first few minutes. It’s admittedly an odd change, given that it relies so heavily on a chemistry between the two that was…never really there in Doctor Strange, but in this timeline apparently Strange really loves Palmer. The two surgeons are therefore on their way to a romantic dinner date when Strange’s car goes flying off a cliff – but in this timeline, Strange is miraculously unscathed and Palmer dies.

At first, this change doesn’t appear to have major ramifications: Doctor Strange still becomes a sorcerer and fights Dormammu (and somehow still survives that astral plane battle in the hospital where Christine saved his life in the original movie). It’s only when he gets his hands on the Time Stone that things take a turn for the worse, as Strange tries to revisit the moment of Palmer’s death and reverse it, only to discover that no matter what he changes in the past, all he does is weaken the integrity of his own universe. Christine still dies, over and over and over again.

And at a certain point, it starts to get really uncomfortable. Christine dies multiple times in the car crash, even when Strange has her drive. She dies of food poisoning the one time they actually make it to their destination. She gets shot dead in a pizza parlor when Strange picks a different location for their date. She dies in a random fire the one time he tries to abandon her for her own sake. It’s a lot, honestly. And maybe if Christine were actually a three-dimensional character, it wouldn’t be so questionable, but neither live-action nor animation did a very good job of fleshing out her personality and interests.

The problem only grows exponentially worse when the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton) explains that Christine has to die…in order for Strange to become a sorcerer. It’s a textbook example of “fridging” – killing a female character solely to motivate a male character. There’s no attempt to subvert this trope, or even to comment on it. If anything, it only opens a frightening new can of worms because the Ancient One suggests that the universe itself needs Christine to die for Strange to rise. The Nexus Event caused by her death is referred to as an Absolute Point in Time that cannot be changed or undone without destroying the universe, and it’s left somewhat unclear why that is.

Because if the whole point of Christine dying is to make sure Strange becomes a sorcerer, then it really shouldn’t matter how he gets to that point – just like it doesn’t seem to matter how Christine dies, only that she does die. I can totally get behind the idea that Doctor Strange is such a powerful mystic force that he (or some version of him) needs to exist in every universe and timeline; I don’t fully understand why his journey need be written in stone, especially since we know that other universes don’t require Christine’s death. Doesn’t that also throw out everything Sylvie and Loki did in the name of restoring free will to the Multiverse?

Interestingly, if Doctor Strange is so powerful that his universe literally balances upon him, that suggests he could be one of the MCU’s “Nexus Beings”, a group of characters in the comics who are considered the cornerstones of their respective timelines. Doctor Strange hasn’t been portrayed as a Nexus Being in the comics, but What If…? indicates that his power and influence puts him right up there alongside Kang the Conqueror, Vision, and the Scarlet Witch, all of whom are Nexus Beings in the comics and most likely in the MCU as well.

On that note, What If…? just might answer the burning question of what Scarlet Witch will be up to when we next meet her, in Doctor Strange And The Multiverse Of Madness. You’ll remember that Wanda Maximoff’s transformation into the Scarlet Witch during the WandaVision finale required her to absorb a large part of Agatha Harkness’ own magic and life-force into herself, weakening Agatha to the point of exhaustion. At the time, it seemed like a fairly simple way to incapacitate the witch. But What If…? reveals that power absorption has side effects, both good and bad. Mostly bad.

In the latest episode, Doctor Strange Supreme’s mission to bring back Christine leads him to the lost library of the ancient sorcerer Cagliostro, who was apparently one of the few people capable of undoing an Absolute Point in Time…but only by absorbing the powers of even greater mystical entities. Strange’s attempts to master this technique are not without some success (he gains the power he seeks, even if ultimately his universe implodes before he can spend more than a few moments with the resurrected Christine), but the experience transforms him into a horrible monster as he takes on the attributes of each creature he absorbs into his body: whether that’s a dragon, or the tentacled beast from episode one, or something that looks an awful lot like Mephisto.

It wasn’t until I rewatched the episode that I noticed the similarities to how Wanda’s first attempt at absorption also transformed her, albeit into a high-fashion sorceress rather than a grotesque demon. And that’s when I realized: if anyone in the main MCU timeline has reason to want to reverse an Absolute Point in Time, it’s Wanda. With the power she could gain from harvesting magical and cosmic forces far greater than herself, she could permanently undo the pain she’s experienced, and that her makeshift family suffered. She could even bring back her twin sons, whose voices she heard crying out to her in the WandaVision post-credits scene.

But first, she’d have to absorb a couple more beings – or perhaps, entire timelines and universes full of them. Good thing there’s an entire Multiverse gourmet buffet to choose from now, am I right? Maybe the demons and dark forces we once thought would be manipulating Wanda really ought to watch their backs because she could be coming to devour them. Though of course, the more powerful that Wanda grows, the more other entities will want to absorb her in turn…entities like, say, Mephisto. The possibilities are endlessly exciting, and I love how the MCU’s mystical side is developing its own complex ecosystem and food-chain.

Doctor Strange Supreme’s journey in What If…?, however, acts as a cautionary tale for anyone trying to obtain that kind of ultimate power. Consumed in his personal agenda, he neglects his duties to his universe and allows it to rot and die. He does bring back Christine, but she returns only to witness the end of all things as Strange Supreme’s timeline finally collapses, leaving him trapped in a purple orb. Strange Supreme will likely return in What If…?, but it’s still unclear how he’ll be rescued from his prison, or who would want to do so anyway. My best guess is that at some point, The Watcher will finally break his no-interference policy to save the Multiverse from an interdimensional threat, bringing several timelines together so that a new team of Avengers can form.

But for now, we leave Strange Supreme right where he deserves to be – and with the tone and atmosphere of What If…? altered irrevocably by his tragic ending, I can’t wait to see what dark and ominous tale of suspense comes next.

Episode Rating: 9.5/10