What If…? Season 3 Episodes Ranked (w/Season Review)

What If…? Season 3 Episodes Ranked (w/Season Review)

The final season of What If…? has finished airing on Disney+. That means it’s time to stop and rank all EIGHT episodes of the show. Let’s get started!

• SEASON REVIEW: If you follow me on Twitter, I posted several mini reviews after every episode of the show. If you saw those, you know I was disappointed with several episodes. The season as a whole was a pretty big disappointment. First up, it struck me as weird that they would market this as the final season. It seems like the type of show that you could do multiple seasons every couple of years once we get new MCU movies. We’re getting Fantastic Four next year, we’re getting X-Men soon. It seems weird to end the show now when some important MCU characters will be joining every soon. It just struck me as weird that this would be the final season. Tied to that, I’m sort of glad they ended it with season three because it seemed like they ran out of ideas. As soon as we got episode four and we got Howard the Duck and Darcy Lewis becoming parents I realized they lost their way. Of all of the stories you could tell in the MCU. Why on Earth would you tell a story about Howard the Duck and Darcy Lewis having a child and going on vacation? One of the big ideas that everybody has had ever since season one. What if the other half of the universe got snapped. That’s such an obvious story that would be interesting and bring together several beloved MCU characters. But they don’t do that, instead we get Howard the Duck and Darcy Lewis as parents. On the flip side of that, they’ll give us ideas and episodes that on paper are interesting but in execution aren’t great. Eternals is one of the MCU’s more polarizing films. But there’s an idea in there that The Eternals aren’t allowed to intervene unless the Celestials give them permission. There’s an idea for this show of what if they didn’t listen and they helped anyway. They do that in this show and involve Kingo. On paper that should be very cool. But if we’re doing that idea, why isn't it a global threat? Set it during Infinity War and have our Eternals help defeat Thanos. But instead they set in Hollywood where Agatha defeats it. The other piece of wasted potential is they brought back several characters used in Phase 4, but they did nothing with them. Episode one you get both Shang-Chi and Moon Knight returning. That’s cool, I’m glad we’re getting more time with them but they do nothing with them. At least Shang-Chi gets his own episode later on. But Moon Knight is sort of just there for whatever reason, he feels wasted in this show. On multiple different levels, this season felt like wasted potential. When there’s so much wasted potential, it’s disappointing. I wish I could like this season more than I actually did, but it’s not good. 

8. What If…Howard the Duck Got Hitched? (Episode 4): I don’t even know what this episode was. This episode made me realize that they simply ran out of ideas going into this season. I saw people on Twitter describing this as the WTF episode of the show and that's so true. It felt like they threw every idea they had into this episode. The basic idea is Darcy Lewis giving birth to Howard the Duck’s baby. This leads to different fractions trying to get the baby because he’s the most powerful magical being in the universe. So they tie in The Grandmaster, Kaecilius is now The Collector, Yondu is trying to get the baby, Malektih shows up, we get a little bit of Thanos in there, and Loki trying to build a ski resort. It’s just the most random collection of ideas thrown in this episode and spitted out. I don’t even know what they were doing in this episode. Some of the humor in the episode was pretty dark. They make a joke about a couple's bungee jumping happening on Vomir. At one point, the Grandmaster attempts to kill the baby. There’s a lot of really dark stuff in this episode that I didn’t enjoy and I don’t think works. Another distracting element about the episode. Jeff Goldblum didn’t return to voice The Grandmaster. They got this impressionist that I follow on social media who does a really good impression of Goldblum. It’s a fun thing to do on social media. But it’s so obvious that it’s just an impression of Goldblum and not the real Goldblum. Easily, the weakest episode of the season. And one of the weakest episodes of the show. 

7. What If…Agatha Went to Hollywood? (Episode 2): This was such a frustrating episode. Because there’s ideas and moments in this episode that I really do like. But the overall execution of the episode wasn’t great. The idea of bringing back some of our Eternals sounded fun to me. Kingo played by Kumali Nanjiani is a fun character. He brings some nice moments of humor into this episode. Having the episode set in Hollywood was a nice surprise and had a more different energy to the entire thing. With all that said, this episode felt like wasted potential to me. Ever since Eternals came out, a big thing that people were saying is we should get an episode regarding them. They set up these rules of if they were to break the rules, then the Celestials would come to Earth and destroy them. That’s in this episode and that’s the big threat of the second half. This giant cosmic Agatha has to be one to stop it. I like that we explored that idea. I don’t like how it focused on this small group of people. I wish it was on a much larger scale. My idea would be to have this set during Infinity War. Where the Eternals help defeat Thanos. You have this epic scale to the entire thing that makes you feel the danger. When a Celestial comes to Earth in this episode and he’s just fighting Agatha it’s not as fun as it could have been. Maybe that’s a personal preference as to what I would want. I think it hurts the episode as a whole when it feels like wasted potential. 

6. What If…What If? (Episode 8): The final episode of the show didn’t go out on the best terms. I felt like this episode was a victim of season three as a whole. They had some great and interesting ideas. What if The Watcher helped our heroes stop the villains. We get The Watcher in action going against everything he stood for. That’s interesting and as the final episode of the show, that makes sense. The episode as a whole wasn’t great and I don’t get why they told the episode like this. Where it’s the final episode of the show and we’re focused on a small group of characters. Captain Carter has been an important character in this show. Makes sense as to why she’ll be here. We also have two original MCU characters that nobody remembers or cares about. And Storm, which is cool but they do nothing interesting with her. Doctor Strange was an important part of season one and two. It would have been cool if he was more involved with the finale. There’s so many ideas that they could have done with this episode but they didn’t. Beyond that, the fight between our heroes and the Evil Watchers isn’t exciting. Since Evil Watchers are so powerful they have to give all of our heroes these powers. It’s basically just a set of powerful heroes battling a set of powerful villains just shooting laser beams at each other. 

5. What If…The Hulk Fought the Mech Avengers? (Episode 1): I thought this was a good enough kick off to season three. I didn’t think this episode was great, nor did I think the episode was bad. I think this episode benefited by being an episode that you couldn’t do in live action. Some of the fun of having Hulk turning into a Godzilla type creature, it’s not something that you can do in live action. Even having our Avengers in mech suits to battle all of these creatures. It’s a fun thing to get away with doing in animation but it doesn’t translate the same to live action. Another thing that was kind of fun about this episode. I appreciate that we got more from Moon Knight and Shang-Chi. They were fun characters introduced years back but we haven’t gotten any of them since their initial appearance. Even though it’s in animation and they don’t have much to do. I just thought it was cool to see more of them in the MCU. I think what hurts this episode is that it has too much story for a 30 minute episode. I felt like they needed another 5-10 minutes and focus on the relationship between Bruce and Sam a bit more. It felt like they rushed over that part so we can have more fights with the mech Avengers in the back half. But I think they needed another 5-10 minutes at the beginning of the episode to make what happens in the back half have a bit more weight to it. 

4. What If…The Watcher Disappeared? (Episode 7): I wish I could have been higher up on this list. The idea of having Storm wielding Mijnoir was a cool image. When they announced that was happening I was very excited. I like how they tied elements from the Captain Carter episodes from season one and two into the plot of the episode. The season one finale is about The Guardians of the Multiverse stopping Ultron. They tie that into the mission that Captain Carter and Storm are on. Even a small thing of having The Eminence do the opening credits not The Watcher was a nice detail that added to the threat of these episodes. I think this episode as a whole is just very frustrating to me. It’s the type of frustrating that is so fixable. It’s very strange to me that this episode focuses on Byrdie, this original character in the MCU. She’s the daughter of Howard the Duck and Darcy Lewis. When you’re doing a show like this, I don’t get why she’s in here. They have Nebula in here for a bit, why not have Nebula play a bigger part in this episode. They chose not to do that and instead focus on this original character. It also struck me as weird that we didn’t get an episode that was focused on Storm getting Mijnoir in this season. That should have been the episode before this two part season finale, but they didn’t. This episode had the right ingredients to be good, but failed in the execution overall. 

3. What If…The Emergence Destroyed the Earth? (Episode 5): There’s a lot in this episode that I did enjoy, but a number of things that left me frustrated. On the positive, I think the idea of the episode is very interesting. It’s an idea that I’ve been wondering about ever since Eternals came out. Getting an episode that explores that idea is fun and interesting. They’re able to tie in different characters in this episode. I thought it was done in a way that made sense. Riri Williams, Ironheart was introduced in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and getting to spend more time with her was nice. We saw more of White Vision than we hadn’t seen since WandaVision. The character moments with The Watcher I thought worked. Every season we got to understand The Watcher. Here it was handled well where he’s helping Riri in the situation. But he knows that he’s going against his oath. The people working above The Watcher don’t trust him because of it. That was all of the positives about the episode. While I like the basic idea of the episode. I do wish we were exploring the idea on a much grander scale. You have some of our Avengers as a part of the episode. Maybe you find a way to tie it into Infinity War, the defeat of Thanos. That was the one frustrating element of the episode. Ironheart is a fun character, but I don’t know if she’s the right character to focus this episode around. 

2. What If…1872? (Episode 6): This episode felt like a classic episode of the show. Several of the episodes in season three felt very lazy. It felt like they were running out of ideas. I watched this episode and I thought it was just a solid and entertaining episode. They took two great characters introduced in Phase 4, Shang-Chi and Kate Bishop and told a western story with them. Sign me up. That sounds like fun. They tied in Shang-Chi’s culture and heritage into the plot of the episode. I liked that they tied in some of the lore from Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings into here. We’ve all been waiting for a sequel and more time with this character. Getting an episode of this show that’s focused on him was a big positive for me. We got more time with Sonny Burch from Ant-Man and the Wasp. If you’re looking for a gangster type character in The Old West, Burch is a fun one to throw in here. We get more time with The Watcher and his choices that lead into the two part finale. I just really appreciate that they don’t treat The Watcher as this one dimensional character. But this character has layers, he cares about what happens to these worlds. All around, I thought this episode was exactly what I felt like this show could do if they leaned into it. I’m happy with what they gave us in this episode. 

 

1. What If…The Red Guardian Stopped the Winter Soldier? (Episode 3): After some weaker first two episodes. Episode three felt like they used the what if scenario in a way that made sense and felt like they leaned into what this show is good at. They took this pivotal moment from the MCU when Bucky killed Tony’s parents. Added Red Guardian into the mix and turned it into a buddy cop adventure with the two of them. It has a little bit of a Thelma and Louise vibe to the entire thing. Even some scenes in the episode pay homage to that movie. Taking two characters with very different personalities is a lot of fun. We know that these characters are appearing in Thunderbolts* next year. It makes me more excited for that movie with some of their interactions in this episode. We get a little bit of the Winter Soldier lore in here that I just find super fascinating. And I feel those elements make Bucky this interesting and mysterious character. They tie in ideas from Iron Man and Ant-Man and the Wasp with having Obidiah Stane and Bill Foster show up in the episode. This episode felt like what this show could be used for. There’s one simple change made that can lead to other characters from different movies getting involved. There’s something fun about mixing Iron Man, Captain America: Civil War, Ant-Man and the Wasp, and Black Widow all into one episode.