**** SPOILERS AHEAD ****
Episode 4 of Marvel’s What If…? focuses on Doctor Strange and how dark he could have become.
Y’all know I thought last week’s episode (the murder one) was a bit lackluster, and I was real worried for a minute that I would be saying the same for this week’s episode as well. I’m not a huge fan of Doctor Strange at all, and this episode started very slow, but it picked up enough that by the end I was fully invested.
The whole episode is based around what would happen if Doctor Strange had Christine in his car when the accident happened, and she died. It’s definitely not a great thing for our marvel hero, and he reacts…well…badly. The idea of an absolute fixed point of time is hard for him to swallow and causes him to spiral into madness. For a fairly melancholy theory, there were a few moments of lightness, most notably the whole “Sorcerer Armani” title, and I might be odd but the montage where he was receiving the demons into his body was pretty amusing to me. Also, what is up with Marvel and tentacle monsters? (chuckles)
The absolute best part of this episode was the library. I literally went slack jawed at the image and would have gladly spent most of the episode there, but sadly that wasn’t in the cards. Then my second favorite part was the music during the big battle between the two alternate Doctor Strange’s. The music was so perfect for that fight and it did it’s job for sure. As a viewer the music had me leaning forward excited to see and hear what would come next.
An aspect of this episode that I found very interesting was it was the first time The Watcher interacted with one of the characters in his alternate universes. It was heartbreaking, the way it ended, no matter how logical The Watcher’s argument for not interfering was.
“love can break more than a heart, it can shatter your mind” – a piece of advice from a librarian, one that I think we could all do to remember
