What If…?: What’s hidden in plain sight in episode 7

Part of the humor from What If…?‘s seventh episode came from all those visual gags and strange visitors who kept showing up during Thor’s global party.

Believe or not, while a number of critics – including your most humble writer – enjoyed the seventh episode of What If…?, there were a few critics who did not. Granted, people have different definitions of what they consider to be funny. People are also entitled to have healthy disagreements. Perhaps the folks who didn’t like “What If… Thor Were an Only Child?” expected something a little more serious, considering how most What If…? tales usually end with everybody dying like the Doctor Strange episode (which was very good) of the Disney Plus show. But without a doubt, the Thor whom we see in this episode would’ve called out those negative critics as being nothing but a bunch of “party poopers.”

Those that did get a laugh or two out “What If…Thor Were an Only Child?” probably did so because they got a lot of the references that were sprinkled throughout. Some of them were dialogue callbacks to previous movies (Thor telling Jane she’s “tiny” like did when he first met the Avengers), inside jokes (Darcy assuming Captain Marvel was going to be a dude), and visual gags. This also means that this episode meant you had to be more than a little familiar with the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Fortunately, readers, that’s why you’re humble writer is here. I’ll be pointing you towards those Easter Eggs, references, and subtext that you may have overlooked while laughing yourself silly. (That also means there’s going to be some What If…? SPOILERS, of course). Even you understood why you were laughing, you may still have had quite a number of questions in the back of your mind. Such as…

Where’s Professor Selvig?

I’m sure for most of you readers, it’s been more than a hot minute since you watched 2011’s Thor. Turns out seeing that movie is crucial when it comes to “What If…Thor Was an Only Child?” Because when the episode begins, it looks as though it’s recreating the opening prologue of Thor. There’s the white van in the New Mexico desert under a starlit sky. There’s Dr. Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) and her intern, Darcy Lewis (Kat Dennings), waiting for something to happen as they monitor for astrological phenomenon.

However, there is one person who isn’t with them, and that person is Professor Erik Selvig. We know he still exists in this timeline since Jane calls him for help in this very episode. Despite that, the character is still a complete no show; there’s not even a different voice actor substituting for Stellan Skarsgård. Since the creators of What If…? are very meticulous about their MCU lore, it’s doubtful his absence was any sort of mistake. Instead, this may very well be our first indication that we’re in a different universe. Because we need to remember one important, crucial fact: none of the events from Thor happened in this timeline.

One clue we get from the episode is that Jane alerts S.H.I.E.L.D. when she sees the Bifrost bridge streak towards the Las Vegas area. This is already a significant change from the original movie as Jane, Darcy, and Selvig weren’t contracted by S.H.I.E.L.D. at that time. It was only during Thor’s post-credit scene in which Selvig is hired by Nick Fury to study the Tesseract. Another clue is that Odin falls into the Odinsleep at the beginning of this episode, something which occurred around the Thor‘s midpoint. That means everything that occurs in this episode takes place afterwards. 

What can we determine from this? It appears that Professor Selvig still went to S.H.I.E.L.D. to study the Tesseract. Since this reality also has a Loki (Tom Hiddleston) growing up as a Frost Giant, that also means he’s not influencing Selvig like he did in Avengers. This would also explain why Jane and Darcy have a line to S.H.I.E.L.D., too, since their colleague would be working for them at this time. That potentially clears up one discrepancy. But there is another in this episode of What If..?…