It seemed like the eighth episode of What If…? was getting derivative of itself. We’ve seen this story before. Avengers are in a bad place because they lost a previous battle to an unspeakable evil. This time it’s Natasha/Black Widow and Clint/Hawkeye. They’re fighting off the evil Ultron bots that we know from Age of Ultron. This is the same Ultron that showed up at the end of the last episode, so they’re not saving that tease for Season Two, we’re getting it now. The first part of this story is definitely good, but it feels a lot like the same tone and story as the Marvel Zombies episode.

At around the halfway mark though, the story switches. There are breadcrumbs of what could happen throughout. The Watcher gets involved and almost breaks his oath to guide Clint and Natasha to the right file. They happen to find it without his help, so that tease is left on the table. Then we see Ultron becomes aware of the multiverse and The Watcher. It’s a frightening thought that in this infinite realm of universes, that Ultron could destroy all life ever known. With the power of the Infinity Stones and his mind, it would be easy.

That is, until we get to the scene we were slightly robbed of in Avengers: Endgame. Ultron shows up on Xandar, and Captain Marvel is ready to greet him. Just when it seems like she has the upper hand, he blows up the planet and takes her with it. It’s a truly sad moment of the episode, because she’s really the greatest hero that our universe has in the MCU. So seeing her go, is definitely a blow.

The Rest Of The Story And Where This One Makes Up Ground On Every Other Episode

The episodes of What If…? where we get the Watcher interacting with the episode and not just watching are the best ones. Whether that’s our Doctor Strange themed episode or this one. It’s a real treat seeing a being as old, powerful, and wise as The Watcher interact with our favorite characters. His battle with Ultron across the multiverse was breathtaking. Simply breathtaking. It’s a testament to the power of Ultron that he can defeat a being like The Watcher. It was one of the coolest fights in all the MCU.

It ends up that Clint and Natasha’s quest to stop Ultron from the root is postponed until the next episode because Ultron’s main body is out fighting The Watcher. The Watcher is defeated handily by Ultron and he’s forced into retreat. Where does he go? He goes to the infinite void that Doctor Strange created in his episode. In a moment that was as emotional and interesting as any other in the MCU, The Watcher decides to break his oath. It gave me goosebumps.

Somehow they’re forged an animated show that provides similar levels of emotion to the MCU movies and also gives us action that we’d likely never see in a movie. Where are we headed from here? Are we getting the What If…? Multiversal Avengers? Let’s hope so. We were left off on that tease from Party Thor about Ultron’s arrival. If he’s not defeated, then he can help. Captain Carter was a big-time favorite, she could help defeat this Supreme Ultron. We’ll have to find out in the finale next week.

What If… Ultron Won

This episode might have started off slow and derivative of other episodes in the series, but it gave us a satisfying second half and sets us up for a huge finale episode. This is one of the better episodes of the series and it’ll be interesting to see how they tie everything together after the tease at the end of this episode.

For more on Marvel, make sure to check back to That Hashtag Show.