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[DISCUSSION] [SPOILERS] What If...? S03E05 “What If… the Emergence Destroyed the Earth?”
(self.marvelstudios)
I was hoping to see more of the Eternals and Tiamut from this, and the opening scene had me thinking that they maybe might have uploaded the wrong episode by mistake. I got major Agents of SHIELD season 5 vibes throughout. White Vision had no lines this episode, correct? There’s no one listed for the role in the credits so I wonder if it was a creative choice or if they couldn’t get a good voice actor.
Given what we know of Earth-199999’s timeline, more context as to what happened such that Beck would get control over Stark Industries would have been helpful; I suppose this universe’s Emergence must have taken place during Far From Home and allowed Mysterio to get away with tricking Spider-Man into trusting him with the E.D.I.T.H. glasses? Although I don’t know why Ying Nan would have left Ta Lo, which would be safe from the Emergence, or why Beck would have become super old and resembling Baron Harkonnen/Sheev Palpatine so soon. I know this is overthinking the story, but you can’t ask a comic book hero fan to not overthink the fictional universe.
Uatu kept baiting us by saying that Riri was going to lose as she repeatedly came close to peril, and then it all felt a bit undercut when all she needed to win was to be told to “Use the Force, Luke” and just believe in herself. Uatu is too impulsive for his job and I expect he’ll interfere again next episode and get the boot, but I’m curious as to how the series will recoup the status quo and reinstate him.
I think it’d be interesting to see another episode in which Uatu believes an outcome to be absolute and turns away to not witness the ending, but instead the outcome changes because he is not observing it. It wouldn’t be like with Season 1’s Ultron in which Uatu’s narration causes interference, but merely his onlooking. The Quantum Realm would be a fitting setting for the observer effect to apply to, and we’ve only seen in it a flashback in What If… Zombies?!, so the logic there could play out differently from the other realms we’ve seen.