Marvel's What If...? - Season 2

In the second season of What If…? the Watcher again takes us to other universes where things happen slightly differently. Different choices, different situations, but still enough viewing pleasure. The principle of What If…? hasn't changed. In 9 new episodes, Marvel takes us through various storylines that are slightly different, but that still use the well-known (and sometimes less well-known) characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The stories are once again presented to us by the Watcher (Jeffrey Wright, Westworld), an alien being who travels through the multiverse and watches (in principle without intervening) important events as they happen.



This way, questions can be answered such as what would have happened if Hela (Cate Blanchett, Mrs. America) had found the ten rings, if the Avengers had been created in 1602 or if Nebula (Karen Gillan, Doctor Who) would have joined the Nova Corps. Many different elements from the MCU films are combined, with the most unlikely combinations sometimes resulting in the best episodes.

What If…? feels to me like a big playground for the writers.

The nice thing about this is that characters whose role in the MCU (as far as known) has already been played out can make their comeback in this series. There is also a little more screen time for characters who only have a relatively small role in the films. In addition, existing characters can also give a completely different interpretation to their role. For example, in the second season we see Captain Carter (Hayley Atwell, Agent Carter), Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch, Sherlock), Howard the Duck (Seth Green, Dads) and The Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum, The World According to Jeff Goldblum) pass by.

For me, the most striking episode was the episode 'What if… Kahhori reshaped the world?' in which we see the emergence of a hero for the first time who was developed specifically for the MCU and therefore does not have its origins in a previously published comic. As a young Mohawk woman, Kahhori (Devery Jacobs, Reservation Dogs) comes into contact with water contaminated by the Tesseract, which gives her special powers. During this episode it is the language of the Mohawk people that is spoken.

Even though the idea of ​​What If…? so it comes down to combining multiple elements from the MCU and we often see stories from different universes, there is indeed coherence in the episodes and even coherence between the first and second seasons. And that overarching storyline is well put together in my opinion.



What If…? feels to me like a big playground for the writers. Because they work with stand-alone stories from different universes, they have carte blanche in what they can come up with without having to immediately think about what the further consequences for the continuity of the MCU would be.

In my opinion, optimal use is being made of this. It's nice to see the characters from the MCU in different roles and to see certain characters return. I think it's very cool that the actors/actresses who played the role also provided the voices. But at the same time it makes me occasionally annoyed by the voices of the characters voiced by other actors, such as Steve Rogers and Tony Stark. They have often chosen voices that are very close to the original, but it still feels like a 'not quite' to me.

In my opinion, the level of the second season is even higher than the first season. There are still positive outliers between the episodes, such as 'What if… Kahhori reshaped the word?' and 'What if…The Avengers assembled in 1602?', but I didn't think there were any lesser episodes that I encountered in the first season (What If… Thor were an only child?) here.