It's no Cat's Don't Dance but it's got it's charm.
Last time on What If…? for
the first time ever, a man got therapy and made everything worse. In this
alternate universe Bruce Banner and Sam Wilson met outside of hero work, became
friends and Sam tried to help Bruce with therapy. This seemed to work, until
Bruce transformed into the Hulk by accident. He fled his friend and tried to
expunge the Hulk from him. Instead, he created a whole new Hulk Monster dubbed
Apex that grew to Kaiju size and reproduced asexually. The Avengers took it on
with giant Hulk Buster Mech, the original team being killed but the second-generation
Avengers led by Sam Wilson’s Captain America to stop them. Ten years later Apex
returned with a much larger army and prepared to attack. Sam went to Bruce for
help and while he refused to help himself he gave Sam something that should
give him an edge. That edge was the Mighty Avengers Protocol that took the separate
Hulk Buster units and transformed into a Megazord. They handled the lesser
Gamma Beasts, but Apex was too powerful. Bruce came in on a nuclear bomber that
he’d been living in, and used the atomic bomb on it to supercharge himself and
transform into a Hulk-zilla. Hulk-zilla fought Apex, nearly lost, but was saved
by Sam firing a rocket punch at Apex. Hulk-zilla killed Apex, taking its place
as leader of the Gamma Beasts. It looked like Hulk-zilla might rampage, but Sam
talked him down and Hulk-zilla led the Gamma Beasts to his island home. Enough recap.
Let’s get to it.
Ep 20: What If… Agatha Harkness Went To Hollywood?
Our latest What If…? begins
with a black and white movie narrated by Uatu of course. Before anything else
were the Celestials, the ancient cosmic entities gathered and bowed down before
a staircase to the heavens and outcomes Agatha Harkness, giving a speech about
how this cosmic power heralds her rebirth! She tries to make something happen,
but nothing does, and the director, Howard Stark calls to reset the scene. Uata
adds context, saying that in this timeline Agatha discovered that the Earth had
a developing Celestial inside it and wants to absorb its power to make herself
into a god. But due to the Quid Pro Quo of Magic, to do something that big, you
need a ritual of equal size. So, she went to Hollywood in the hopes the film
could lead to a big enough symbolic ritual to siphon away the power. Howard
Stark, a young entrepreneur and easily distracted when excited, was happy to pay
the bill. He seems to be under the impression that Agatha’s magic is all
effects built into the camera. Oy, how dumb can a smart guy be? Anyway, she
says her spell isn’t working… in the scene, so they may need to redo the blocking.
Howard calls for his assistant, the original Jarvis, who says that he doesn’t
want to completely redo the third act again as he’s written scripts for it 5
times. Howard says they’ll do it a hundred times if they must, to get it right.
Jarvis complains about adding more explosions and action set pieces, which
gives Agatha the idea that they need more star power to make this work. Howard
is excited by this idea and asks who could be the foil for Agatha Harkness, who
could she steal the show from? Jarvis is less than enthused about more actors,
but when he sarcastically says they should make the set bigger and add more
dancers, both Agatha and Howard are into it. Man should know not to be
sarcastic in front of his boss. Howard suggests they get one of the heavyweights
of the era, Humphry Bogart, Clark Gable, and says that Cary Grant owes him a
favor, but Agatha has another idea. She thinks there only one actor that can
match her… Kingo!
I guess I didn’t realize how big
Bollywood was during the Golden Age of Film if that man already has name
recognition.
Kingo rolls up in a limo to the set
in the Stark Picture’s Lot. Kingo is impressed by what they have on hand.
Jarvis and Howard welcome him in and Kingo claims that he has been preparing for
this role his entire life. He makes a few more veiled comments that sound like
excitement for the project… until you realize who he’s talking about and it’s
clear that he wants to fight-fight Agatha Harkness. They prepare the big
musical number for their movie “Galactic Queen.” Kingo is brought in on a tower
of people and proceeds to dance. After his big dance number, Agatha comes in decked
out in white and lights. An epic and anachronistic group dance battle begins,
Agatha’s showgirl tap vs. Kingo’s Bollywood moves. As they dance, Agatha tells
him that he was the missing ingredient for her big plan. He makes it clear that
he knows what’s really going on and that he’s here to stop her. She claims that
it’s the Eternals that want to destroy the world, but Kingo tells her she’s got
no idea of the powers she’s messing with. The dance number gets more elaborate,
but Kingo gets bored and decides it’s time to break up this party. He whips out
his energy blasting hands and starts shooting at Agatha, who keeps dancing
around his attacks. Jarvis is clearly freaked out by going off the script
again, with energy blasts, but Howard says to keep filming. Agatha is
unimpressed by his finger pistols. He shoots at her, where it’s reveals she’s
got Thena’s energy weapons. She also has Gilgamesh’s gauntlets, Icarus’s
eyebeams and all the other Eternal’s powers. She smacks Kingo around with his friends
weapons before getting him at energy pike point, but Howard calls cut and
congradulates them on their acting. He really thought they were trying to kill
each other up there. He tells the cast to come to his house for the wrap party,
Jarvis giving them the directions that it’s the house above the Hollywood sign
that, quote, “Will make you question the decency of Capitalism.”
When alone, Kingo warns her that if
she tries to kill him, he’s got dozens of heart wrenching monologues to use
against her. She tells him to not be so dramatic, and he asks how he could not
be when she’s killed his friends and stolen their powers. Agatha reveals that
the Eternals are all still alive, they’re just… in storage right now, in the
creature workshop. She claims to be the hero of this piece, that she’s going to
drain the power from the Celestial incubating in the Earth’s core, but she
needs his help to do it. Its revealed that in this universe, Kingo was chosen
to be the Prime Eternal at some point in the past by Arishem the Judge, their
maker-king, and that he takes that responsibility seriously. Agatha doesn’t buy
that he was won over by being given top billing on a doomed planet. She thinks that
because Kingo lived as a human, he’ll be willing to deal with her to save them.
He’s charmed by her flattery, but says he won’t betray Arishem or the mission
he’s devoted eons to. Then Agatha says he’ll get a three picture deal with Howard
Stark and he’s in, provided he’s given an absurd amount of control of his
movies and gets to dabble in weird arthouse stuff, and just be kind of a goober
on film. And Agatha has to bring back his friends. They shake hands, and
immediately are pulled into a vision. Yeah, I guess Arishem doesn’t have anything
else to do besides monitor his Eternals. He tells Kingo that he is coming and
he’ll pay for betraying Arishem. Kingo freaks out a little at this, saying that
it’ll take the power of another Celestial to hold Arishem off, which excites
Agatha.
We cut to the party and Agatha and
Kingo bursting in on Howard, saying that they have the third act done and need
to do it now, immediately, right this second. Jarvis informs them that’ll be
impossible because after the sixth rewrite of the third act they had to strike
the set. Kingo and Agatha brainstorm for a minute before suggesting using Griffith
Observatory to do their final act. Jarvis asks how he could possibly get
permits for that this late at night, but Howard says for the movie that he’ll just
buy the damn thing. He tells Jarvis to get everyone into their cars and move,
but Kingo suggests using his ride. He summons the Eternal’s wedge shape ship.
Howard is impressed by it, saying that Agatha surprised him as he pegged her
for a witch. Agatha says she is a witch, and that Kingo’s a space man. To which
he corrects her and says he’s more of a space robot. Howard is excited by all
this information being confirmed for him. Turns out he knew the whole time, but
figured he’d save a ton of money on production by using actual magic. Okay, he
very much his is son’s father. He says he’ll do whatever they need to finish
the movie, but he wants a look under Kingo’s hood when finished as he senses
patent potential. Kingo agrees.
We cut to deep space as Arishem
travels at high speed via wormhole towards Earth. He’s visibly pissed despite not
having a face.
Agatha, Kingo, Jarvis and Howard
rush to get everything ready in time. They see Arishem head towards the planet
and the prepare the ritual. They have Kingo tied up and hanging within the
magic circle. He comments that it’s giving major magic sacrifice vibes. Agatha
activates the spell, draining Kingo’s power into herself. Once she’s at maximum
strength, she blasts down into the planet and rains Tiamat’s power out of the
developing Celestial. She blasts everyone out of the room as she ascends to
near godlike power. As she towers above creation, everyone Marvels, even Jarvis
saying this is the greatest footage ever shot. Arishem arrives and calls her a Heretic
and will be judged as such. The two cosmic giants start punching. Agatha blasts
at Arishem, him dodging around her attacks, only to be revealed that her
attacks were a feign, to create a binding spell. Once he was bound, she starts
draining Arishem as well, sucking up all his powers until she explodes. On Earth,
Kingo checks with Jarvis to make sure he got all of that. Agatha then reveals
she did all of this to get phenomenal cosmic power. Jarvis asks Kingo to do
something, as he’s sure that he’s worked with difficult actors before. Kingo
says that all actors are difficult because they bare their souls… which gives
him an idea. He broadcasts into her mind and asks her to not do this, as the
real magic, the real mark she can make on the world is in movies. He says that
they’re a lot alike and that really, Agatha doesn’t need that power, she was just
looking for the right collaborator. This… works. Huh.
The Cosmic Queen is a big hit,
Howard Stark claims that war is dead and that pictures are the future, and
Agatha and Kingo are loving the attention. As they head in, Kingo warns that
Ajax and the other Eternals are extremely concerned that killing two Celestials
has made them enemy number one of the others. Agatha says not to worry as they
thrive under the attention. Uatu does the wrap up speech, saying anything is
possible in the movies, even a happy ending. Just before three more Celestials
appear in the night sky, and he adds “but who doesn’t love a cliffhanger?”
I’ll just start by saying that this
is the style of What If…? story that I like best, two or more characters
that never and quite frankly could never meet and interact with each
other getting to do that and see what happens. It was nice to see Kumail Nanjiani
as Kingo again, as he felt criminally under utilized in The Eternals and
that franchise being on indefinite hiatus means they probably won’t be
correcting that in a sequel any time soon. The dance fight between him and
Kathryn Hahn’s Agatha was pretty good. Both in the literal and figurative sense.
Agatha having the ability to drain the other Eternals into uselessness feels a
little out of left field, but I can buy that 1. Their energy is compatible with
her since she could siphon Tiamat’s power, and 2. That they have just such
immense reserves of power she couldn’t drain them completely (at least not
quickly) so 3. It gave her a bargaining chip with Kingo. Agatha’s after the
power of a being that forges stars, she can be patient and not stuff herself on
appetizers. Dominic Cooper was great, as always, as Howard Stark. This version
seems to be a bit more… manic than he’s been in other stories but I can buy
that he was high on… lots of stuff in this universe. I also liked James D’Arcy
as Jarvis. The trope of “butler that tells it like it is” is one of my
favorites, and he got a lot of good zings in. The final battle was a little
rushed for me, as I just don’t buy Arishem the Judge being so slow witted that
he couldn’t see the “I’m pretending to miss but what I’m aiming at is behind
you” thing. The being is big T Trillions of years old, he’s seen that trick
before. All I’m saying. And Kingo getting Agatha to come down because being a
movie star is enough is… silly but I can understand why they went with that
angle. And I’ll be honest, the choice between using immense godlike power or
getting to hang out with Kumal, I’m picking Kumal. The man just seems
delightful. So yeah, decent episode again, and a fun combination of characters.
Tomorrow we’re going to see what happens when two Russian assets that don’t
objectively suck work together. See you then, have a good night!
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/118747962/
Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social
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