Editor’s note: The below contains spoilers for What If…? Season 2, Episode 9.
It just wouldn’t be aWhat If…?finale without a crossover event from previous episodes, would it? Season 1 brought us the “Guardians of the Multiverse,” withThe Watcher (Jeffrey Wright) stepping in to recruit a hero from nearly every previous episodeso they could join together and defeat Ultron (Ross Marquand). This time around, it’s less a question of pulling from every episode, and morea conclusion of the unofficialCaptain Carter (Hayley Atwell)trilogythat has been threaded throughout the season. After all, why would this be the only episode of the season to open with that full movie-style Marvel logo opening showing theWhat If…?versions of the characters?
What If…?
Based on the Marvel Comics series of the same name, this animated anthology looks at alternate timelines in the multiverse that would happen if specific moments in the MCU occurred differently.
What Is ‘What If…?’ Season 2 Episode 9 About?
The Watcher kicks things off by catching us up on Captain Carter, and how she came to be sitting in a tavern in 1602 London, a catch-up that would have been more effective if this were the first time we were hearing it this season. I’m not strictly opposed to the emphasis on Captain Carter. I was a huge fan ofAgent Carterwhen it was on the air, and I’m pretty invested in this version of Peggy’s quest for a happy ever after with some version of Steve Rogers. But there’s a bit of a tonal whiplash when the series veers between standalone, alternate takes on characters we know in new situations, and what is, in essence,The Captain Carter Show. This creates a sort ofmini, multiversal MCU within a show that, at least at the outset, didn’t seem like it wanted to be that.
In any case, the episode proper begins back in that 1602 pub, with Peggy having a drink with Strange Supreme (Benedict Cumberbatch), newly arrived from the future. Peggy asks him to take her back to her own time, and Strange is only too happy to do so. The Watcher reminds us this is the version of Stephen Strange that destroyed his own world in an attempt toprevent his love Christine Palmer from dying, and if there’s anyone we can trust to have only good, altruistic intentions at heart, it’s the man for whom enough was never enough. But The Watcher says the two of them must now band together to prevent yet another unprecedented threat, and while we can’t trust Strange, we can definitely trust The Watcher, right?
Strange takes Peggy to his Sanctum Infinatum, a palace-like structure empty save for the countless crystal orbs that line the walls, each containing a “universe-killer,“powerful beings that according to Strange were trying to destroy their own universes — Infinity Ultron, Thanos, Loki, the list goes on and on. Strange has made it his mission to travel to these respective universes and trap them in these crystals, saving the respective worlds from destruction, something he snidely remarks that the Watcher would never do. Apparently, he forgot how he and Peggy met in the first place.
But he didn’t just bring her here to show off the world’s most niche action-figure collection; he also needs her help. One of the dangerous beings he’s trapped has escaped, and he needs Peggy’s help to track them down. At first, Peggy refuses, saying The Watcher would not approve of their meddling in the multiverse — that is, until Strange reminds her that she didjustsave an alternate version of 1602 London, so maybe she doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on. With that inconvenient bit of evidence, Peggy agrees to help.
Just as Strange gives Peggy her original armor back and is about to send her through to where he last tracked the powerful being, Peggy wonders why he needs her help at all. He explains that Peggy is the element of surprise that will catch the mysterious “her” off guard. Peggy asks how she’ll know she’s found the “her” she’s looking for, and Strange replies with a very helpful “you’ll know.” Then again, superpowered beings don’t exactly blend in, so maybe he has a point there.
Peggy Carter Teams Up With Kahhori in ‘What If…? Season 2 Episode 9
Peggy heads through to the spot in South Dakota where Strange last saw the being, and finds a destroyed forest leading to a very different version of Mount Rushmore, with only Red Skull’s face carved into the mountainside. The Watcher finds Peggy there and tells her that in this universe, the bomb that went off during Project Rebirth — where, depending on the universe, either Peggy or Steve got the super solider serum — was bigger than expected, and killed both of them,allowing Hydra to use the Tesseract to win World War II. Peggy is resentful that The Watcher followed her here but doesn’t seem interested in actually helping her, and he scolds her for interfering in yet another world that is not her own. When she fires back that at least Strange is actually doing something, and not just narrating, The Watcher gets frustrated and leaves.
The powerful being makes herself known to Peggy pretty quickly, appearing only as a streak of Tesseract-blue light, and knocking Peggy directly on her ass. The being continues to give Peggy the runaround until Peggy lobs her shield at her, and the being catches it, standing still long enough for us to see the person Strange was trying to catch and imprison is…Kahhori (Devery Jacobs). It turns out that when he appeared to her at the end of her episode, it was less to recruit her for some sort of initiative, and more to imprison her. I guess Strange Supreme really wanted to make sure rampant European colonization was allowed to continue unfettered.
Kahhori correctly guesses that Peggy is there to help save the multiverse from her, at Strange’s request, then tells the captain that it is actually Strange who is the universe-killer. In a show of good faith, she returns Peggy’s shield to her, and suggests the two of them work together.Just as a tentative peace is struck, a light appears beneath them both and pulls them back into the Sanctum Infinatum. Strange is delighted Peggy found Kahhori so quickly and tries to encase her in crystal again. Kahhori frantically mentions “The Forge,” asking if Strange mentioned it to Peggy at all. Strange dismisses it all as a lie, a surefire way to know he’s hiding something, so Kahhori adds that Strange is not just gathering universe-killers, but heroes —to feed them all to “The Forge” and resurrect his own universe. Now that the truth is out there, Strange stops trying to deny it, and focuses his efforts on trapping Kahhori properly.
Peggy realizes he’s doing all this to save Christine, and Strange says that she, out of anyone, should understand what’s driving him, telling her she’d do the same for Steve. Peggy appears to actually weigh that option for a second, until she sees how much Strange is hurting Kahhori, and how far gone he is, then steps in and cuts off the flow of his magic. And it only took Kahhori asking her twice for help before she did! Well, at least she’s doing the right thing now. She tells Strange that she’d never do something like this for Steve, nor would Steve ever want her to,implying Christine would not like to know what Strange is attempting in order to bring her back. Strange doesn’t pick up on the subtext, and declares Kahhori’s death a small price to pay to get what he wants.
Peggy realizes she can’t stop him alone, but fortunately, she isn’treallyalone: she’s got all those crystalized heroes and villains to help her. Peggy throws her shield at the wall, taking a bunch of the proverbial action figures out of the original packaging, infuriating Strange. Now distracted with a room full of very angry superpowered beings, Peggy grabs Kahhori to get her the hell out of there anddestroy the Forge before he has a chance to use it.The two of them make it out of the single most chaotic fight scene Marvel has ever done, but stop dead in their tracks when faced with fog and an ominous red light. Wanda is here, but not just regular Wanda… Zombie Wanda, accompanied by a zombie army. The pair fight through the crowd and are nearly overwhelmed by the sheer number of zombies, until, as one, their eyes glow green. Hela (Cate Blanchett) has arrived to save the day. Sort of.
The zombies may not be trying to kill them anymore, but now Hela wants them both to kneel to her. Kahhori is just about ready to give Hela the Queen Isabella treatment, Goddess of Death or not, but is stopped when Surtur (Clancy Brown) arrives, and he and Hela fight each other instead. Peggy and Kahhori are running out of time to get to the Forge, especially as Strange begins to send people like Thanos after them. But even Thanos has nothing on a Killmonger armed with the Infinity Stones, whom Peggy remembers all too well from the fight to save the Multiverse. But she also realizes the solution is right in front of them and tells Kahhori thatin order to stop Strange, they’ll have to get the stones away from Killmonger. Kahhori embraces the task and blasts Killmonger away to the chaotic fray they left for Strange, leaving behind only the Infinity Stone-encrusted suit. Peggy touches the suit, and the six stones embed themselves into her armor.
Their victory is short-lived, as Kahhori hears Strange firing up The Force, a bright-purple, Mount Doom-looking contraption with a very dangerous-looking, guardrail-free walkway. By the time they get there, Strange is already waiting for them,unfazed by Peggy’s new Infinity Stone armor, since he helped defeat that armor once before. Peggy seems remarkably confident that this time it’ll be different becauseshe’sthe one in the suit, but then she proceeds to just throw her shield at him (this time with an Infinity-stone glow!). The pair of them split up as Strange sics a pair of dragons on them; Peggy takes on the beasts using her new armor while Kahhori focuses on destroying the Forge.
The fight certainly takes an interesting turn once Peggy gets the hang of her armor, and the two women get the hang of working together, though they don’t get any closer to stopping Strange completely. It’s hard to turn their attention to the Forge when Strange keeps throwing them for a loop. He takes Kahhori’s taunt about being outnumbered too seriously, and summons an entire army of Strange Supremes, which onlyinspires Peggy to do the same, and replicate herself and Kahhori.This doesn’t hold Strange off for long, as he turns all the duplicate women into butterflies, and forces Peggy into a flashback of the day she got the supersoldier serum.
She blinks and finds herself back in the lab, side by side with Steve (Josh Keaton), and very confused about whether this is really happening. She and Steve head down to the platform, where Dr. Erskine (Stanley Tucci) is preparing to give Steve the serum.Steve tells her that he loves her, and Peggy is forced to admit this is just a vision Strange is putting in her head. Peggy snaps out of it (by decking Strange) and he yanks everyone out of the fight in the main hall and tries to drop them in the forge. Kahhori attempts to stop him, and the pair yo-yo the characters in and out of the Forge. We’re in the homestretch now, and the sequence drags out for way too long as these two women fight valiantly to save Strange from his own sense of entitlement.
As everyone falls into the forge, they begin throwing their powerful weapons towards the women: Hela’s helmet, Thor’s hammer, Wenwu’s rings, which distracts Strange long enough for Kahhori to open portals beneath the falling heroes and villains, sending them all home as she can,including her friend Atahraks. The two of them don a combination of the weapons,now finally gaining the upper hand in the fight until Strange turns into a massive horned demon,who still seems to think he’ll just bring Christine back and none of this will give her pause at all. The Infinity Stones fall from Peggy’s armor, and Kahhori helps her fit them into a glove that she uses to literally punch the evil right out of Strange.
With Strange mostly returned to normal, Peggy asks him how they can stop the Forge from exploding, and Strange says he can’t help because his grief is too strong. Christine Palmer, what did you ever see in this man, really? I mean, he’s a surgeon, I’m sure he’s good with his hands, but he’s not so great at empathy or having perspective, is he? The evil doesn’t stay out of him for long, andhe once again turns into a demon, hauling Peggy into the pit, Balrog-style. Strange gets control just long enough to haul his demon self into the depths while leaving Peggy hanging on a ledge, but that doesn’t stop the Forge from apparently exploding.
‘What If…?’s Season 2 Finale Builds to a Strange Conclusion
Peggy once again blacks out and wakes somewhere new, this time in the crystal-like void where The Watcher does all his watching. He assures her that he pulled her out and sent Kahhori back home before the explosion. The two then venture into the universe Strange was trying to recreate. The Watcher tells Peggy that while he was successful in remaking it, he was never born into it, and thus will never get to see it. He also says that it wasPeggy’s belief in that one sliver of good in Strange that allowed the world to be recreated, since it was that side of him that managed it, and it was the side she never gave up on. The Watcher offers, at last, to take Peggy back to her universe, but she asks to take the scenic route back, curious to see what else the Multiverse has to offer, and the Watcher pulls her to a place that looks awfully likewhere we find Loki (Tom Hiddleston)at the end ofLokiSeason 2. I’d normally say this was just a cute nod, but given how this show has gone who knows? Maybe Loki and Captain Carter are getting their own spin-off inSeason 3.
It’s hard to really pinpoint how I feel about the season as a whole. The individual standalone episodes were great, and a lot of fun, and are really what makeWhat If…?so special. On the other hand, as a big Peggy Carter fan, I loved that she appeared so many times this season, and got a really interesting mini-arc, even if she still hasn’t gotten her happily ever after. I do think, though, that the two make for a strange combination.It’s hard to feel like the standalones matter as much as the others, when they don’t feed into the finale the season was apparently building to, the characters reduced to mere cameos. I understand the nature of most television necessarily means it has to build tosomething, but it’s frustrating when not all the episodes are considered building blocks for the finale. Fun as Season 2 was, I’d like to see Season 3 either fully commit to being a mini, animated MCU, or else return more fully to the standalone format we saw in Season 1. Given how it ends, though, the former feels more likely.
