So far this season of What if has been (in my opinion) building up to Christmas, which is why so many of the episodes so far have been lighthearted and overtly silly in many ways but like I said in many of them, the silliness was a part of the point the episode was making, episode 2 was trying to highlight the silliness of Hollywood.
Episode 3 was trying to create a buddy cop dynamic and show explicitly how silly the differences we fight over are, because ultimately we are in some form just out for ourselves.
Episode 1 was not really silly, unless you are one of the people who think Gundam Battles are inherently silly, in which case, I do not like you, we are not friends.
Episode 4 was lighthearted because it was a Christmas Episode.
But it is like I have been saying this season is the final season, everything is over after this, which I sometimes wonder why, but then I believe I found my answer in some videos I watched for research and recreation, I do just watch videos sometimes.
What if as a premise needs to fit a universe and all the interesting concepts that come with it into one episode at max an appearance in another episode.
The story can continue, like Captain Carter's story began in what if Peggy carter became the first avenger, continued in what if Captain Carter fought the Hydra stomper and continued in What if... 1982.
But there is the problem, Marvel 1602 is a much larger story, and it had to be condensed in one episode, every episode has to have a What if...? associated to it, and that What if...? has to be answered by the end, otherwise what is the point?
Marvel Zombies is a whole other thing as well, and they were going to create a separate project for that, but then.... Idk what happened, maybe it will still come out.
So exploring else-world stories does have a better way to do it.
Including this else-world story.
The concept of an Earth destroyed by the Emergence, and ruled over by Mysterio as a post Apocalyptic hell-scape is something I would love to explore, how did he rise to this power, how deep does the Iron Federation go, and maybe we will.
The idea of this being the only time we will see this world is... not the best.
And sure we can go deeper into this world separately, like they were planning for Marvel Zombies, but the very concept of What if, makes it so they go through the main story beats quickly, in order to answer the Question What if...?
So a lot of Story potential is lost.
That being said, this episode is amazing, really, specifically in terms of what it set out to do.
That being setting up Riri Williams as a Character and why the Watcher finally decided to get involved.
You see another thing that has been constantly been built up is the Watchers oath, and how it has been constantly stripped down until he can no longer bear to hold it.
We began, in What if...? Episode 4, where Strange Supreme grew powerful enough to see and talk to him directly, and asked him to help in preventing the destruction of his universe, for anyone who did not know it before hand, this was when they learnt of the Watcher's Oath to only watch.
But this oath later did come to bite him in the ass, as Ultron infinite gained power enough to break through the walls of the universe, and so he had to ask for help from the very man he refused to help.
And then had to gather help from around the Multiverse in order to stop this threat.
Also he was kind of responsible for it, because, he wouldn't shut up, but then again, why would he expect Ultron to see him?
Oh right, because this has happened before, Characters that gain enough power and have an empty enough mind specifically in the dying moments of their universe can see him, I mean that's what Strange supreme did.
You done Fucked up Uatu.
Then he is directly Challenged by Captain Carter about his no interference policy and sees the benefits and the Harms of it.
And now here he is, at the end of god knows how many times of seeing the same shit over and over again where he sees a world die in a totally preventable way.
So now that his world view has been challenged repeatedly, and he sees something that he agrees he can't stand, what does he do?
He interferes, he has done it before, what's the worst that could happen?
Not much but actually a lot, because now three other Watchers are after his ass.
You see the rule about no interference is really putting duct tape over a complex issue, the issue being, someone with that level of Power has to be very careful about how they use it, to use it willy nilly is obviously a bad idea, as seen in Strange supreme's episode, But to not use it at all and reserve yourself to only Watching is another bad idea.
So you are saying you will continue to let every bad thing happen just because.
But what is bad enough? Who can be the Judge of that, well the Watcher apparently, he does have the gift of Foresight, which he doesn't really use in situations where things go multiversal, which is why Ultron caught him off guard otherwise if he had experience he might have not Narrated and while Ultron would still have been able to see him, he would not have, because, he wasn't there... anyways.
The Watcher needs to gain experience and that unfortunately means things will have to get messy before they get better, The "only Watch" Oath is a paper thin way to stop this problem pre-emptively.
Some would argue therefore such power shouldn't be with one individual, and I would agree, but unfortunately Power Dynamics are a result of an Asymmetric distribution of Resources and that is going to happen, the only place where everything is Symmetric is either in extremely high chaos or extremely high order, you know Low and High Entropy States.
And both are kind of not great.
So the Watcher is here, and the only thing he can really do about his power is be aware of it, share it and use it wisely, but that is not going to happen smoothly because while he has changed, his colleagues, the other Watchers remain steadfast in their beliefs.
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