What If…?: Every episode ranked from best to worst

3. What If…? Thor were an Only Child?

I was incredibly surprised to find I enjoyed myself as much as I did on this episode of What If…? It’s easily the silliest episode of the show, but I think that’s why I enjoyed it so much.

This was the one episode of What If…? that truly reveled in the fact the show was a cartoon. Every other episode took on a much more serious tone, but not this one.

The interesting thing is, there are some pretty important stakes in this episode too. It is hinted at throughout episode seven that if the people of Earth can’t get Thor and the rest of his alien cohorts to leave the planet, they’ll party so hard it will cause the destruction of the planet.

Getting Thor’s mother Frigga to be the catalyst as the one to get Thor to do what he is supposed to was an absolutely fantastic cartoon trope, and it fit in so well with the rest of the tone of the episode.

They even set up a possible storyline in the final scene of the episode by introducing Vision-Ultron. If they want to have an episode of What If…? involving Thor that is more serious in tone, they have the ground work to do so. It was an incredibly entertaining episode from start to finish.

2. What If…? Ultron Won

If “What If…? Thor was an Only Child” was the most cartoon-like of all of the episodes of What If…?, then you can make the argument “What if…? Ultron Won” is the most comic book like episode of the season. It had the huge universe shattering moments you won’t usually see throughout a movie or television show, but will often be explored in the pages of comic books.

The grand plan for What If..? was hinted at in the trailer for the series, but we didn’t receive the first real nod about what was going to culminate in the end of What If…? until the end of episode 7. But even the reveal of Ultron in Vision’s body at the end of episode 7 was nowhere near what the show pulled off in the penultimate episode of season 1.

This storyline takes us down the path of what might have happened had Ultron won in his battle with the Avengers by actually uploading himself into Vision’s body. In doing so, he became too powerful to stop, and the Avengers would not be able to defeat him before he wipes out all of life on Earth.

But where it gets interesting is when Ultron gets all of the Infinity stones from Thanos when The Mad Titan shows up in his attempt to claim the mind stone. In what might be the hardest part of the episode to believe, Ultron just sliced the Avengers: Infinity War villain in half, despite Thanos having five of the six Infinty Stones.

But Ultron doing so setup the fantastic battle between him and The Watcher because he could now see and hear what The Watcher was saying. It wasn’t enough for Ultron to decimate all life in his universe, he had to do it in every universe. This finally has The Watcher give up his position of not interfering and seeking out the help Doctor Strange from episode four and lead us into the season finale.