There are only two episodes left in Marvel’s animated anthology series What If…?, and one of the multiverse’s most disgruntled employees is finally getting reprimanded by upper management. In the third-to-last episode of the series, Uatu, better known as The Watcher, was visited by three other Watchers—The Eminence, The Incarnate, and The Executioner—to answer for his multiversal infractions.
In the latest episode of What If…? Uatu guides us through an alternate reality where Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld) and Shang-Chi (Simu Liu) are cowboys chasing The Hood (Meng’er Zhang) in the Wild West in order to find his sister. Along the way, they run into Kwai Jun-Fan (Allen Deng). While trying to escape capture on top of a moving train, Jun-Fan is moments away from being thrown off the train until Uatu intervenes by knocking the bad guys to the ground after insinuating that a tragic end for the young boy happens in other timelines. This is typical superhero altruism until you realize the one rule that makes a being a Watcher.
As a Watcher, Uatu swore an oath to only observe the stories of the multiverse but never interfere. Unfortunately for Uatu, he cares a little too much. The first season finale was entitled “What if…The Watcher broke his oath?” and it saw him assemble a team of superheroes known as the Guardians of the Multiverse in order to take out Ultron. The reason Uatu decided to interfere is because Ultron had gained a multiversal-level consciousness in the previous episode, smashing through the barrier that separates Uatu from the multiverse and proceeding to whoop his ass.
In this season alone he broke his oath saving Jun-Fan, and in the preceding episode he willed Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne) to not succumb to the tragic fate he’s watched her fall victim to over and over again when battling Mysterio (Alejandro Saab). While he didn’t materially interfere, even speaking encouraging words was enough for the three other Watchers to get fed up with Uatu’s frequent infractions. In the latest episode, they stop playing games, and The Eminence pins Uatu against his dimensional barrier after sternly informing him, “We can longer let your interferences go unanswered.”
It’s always fun when we get to see the full extent of the powers of multiversal deities. Unfortunately, with only a few episodes left in the entire What If…? series, we can only hope we get two episodes full of multiversal mayhem.
