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The latest episode of What If…? is called ‘What If… Thor Were an Only Child?’ and it is (until the last moment) the most absurd and silly of the season so far. The divergence mentioned is in fact the actual one, that Odin doesn’t adopt Loki and instead returns him to the frost giants. Thus without their sibling rivalry, Thor grows up completely without responsibility and even without the arrogance that got him kicked out of Asgard last time — however it also follows that Odin returning Loki probably kept them and the frost giants from fighting, which was the big point of contention in the first Thor movie.
The episode has nearly all of the legit Thor cast, including even Jeff Goldblum and Taika Watiti for a line or two. We get non-original voice actors instead playing Frigga and Carol Danvers, both of whom have quite a bit of dialogue in the episode — and neither sounds entirely right. Things start when Jane and Darcy note a mysterious alien energy and believe (correctly as it turns out) that it’s the start of an alien invasion.
It is, but not in a cruel way — instead it’s Thor the ‘party prince’, as the Watcher snarks in his little backstory about Loki, and Thor brings with him all of the various space people we’ve seen throughout the different movies. This leads to some fun jokes (like Darcy and Seth Green’s Howard the Duck getting married in Vegas) and some not so funny ones — I mean seeing the Skrulls all imitate Thor was ‘cute’ but not particularly funny.
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After Thor and Jane hook up, we get a particularly zany version of SHIELD, with Coulson talking about the ‘party atmosphere’ spreading through the world like it’s a scientific phenomenon, or Rumlow pouting that they never get to launch nukes. Much of the episode is an extended fight sequence between the arriving Captain Marvel and Thor, with such light comedic touches as getting knocked between countries that literally show the names on the map.
That’s fun enough, but I could take or leave everyone shouting party pooper at Carol, which seemed a little too juvenile. Jane and Darcy solve the problem that’s apparently going to be solved with nukes by ‘reversing the polarity’ on Thor’s arrival magic to send a message to Heimdall (no Idris here, as he says nothing) and then to Frigga.
I could’ve stood watching more of that hasty cleanup sequence, which was pretty zany too — but cute. And after it all, Thor even returns to try and court Jane — while the Watcher says they’ll live happily ever after — and then quite bizarrely, says ‘Wait, what?’ Which is quite unusual, as he’s never been surprised by anything before.
We see the arrival of a kind of evil Ultron, a Vision with the Infinity Gems — certainly it’s the kind of thing setting up something else later, because everyone here was so silly and anodyne, you wonder if Thanos too is partying somewhere.
But overall, I’m mixed on the episode — some I did enjoy but it felt a little too ridiculous, even when compared to the heavily dark episodes the last few weeks. It’s like the balance went a bit too far in the other direction, but at the very least, I’m glad to see Jeffrey Wright’s role get expanded more and more — he’s too good of an actor to waste in small roles.
New episodes of What If…? stream Wednesdays on Disney Plus.
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