This week’s new episode of Marvel’s What If…? is undoubtedly the most devastating of the entire series so far. It deals with Doctor Strange losing Christine Palmer in his infamous car accident, rather than the use of his hands, and diving deep into dark magic in order to try and get her back. This Strange’s tale is a sad one, and it only gets more tragic as the episode goes on, culminating in an ending most fans likely won’t soon forget.
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The Doctor Strange episode also features a heavy role for the Watcher, voiced by Jeffrey Wright. The character, who narrates the whole series, has told fans numerous times that he doesn’t interfere with the events of the multiverse, and he put that standard to the test in this episode. Like many of the fans watching What If…?, Wright says he was actually “rocked” by the deep and emotional story of the show’s latest installment.
“Strange’s dilemma is such a timeless one,” Wright told EW after the episode’s debut. “And when I saw this episode for the first time, I guess that timelessness was very timely for me. It just rocked me. It hit me pretty close to home. We all, at times, have tried to reverse circumstances and undo events, or at least we all, at times, have wished we were able to trace our steps backward and try to undo events that have not turned out as we might have desired they turned out the first time. The framing of that temptation for him was really well conceived of in this episode, and I just found myself sinking further and further into this hopelessly tragic abyss with Strange as it unfolded —for reasons that I won’t go into detail about.”
Because the story of Doctor Strange is harder to watch than others on What If…?, people have taken to calling the episode the darkest of the series. Wright doesn’t see it that way. It’s emotional, sure, but tragedy is something that we all deal with.
“I use the term dark differently than some. I just saw it as tragic,” the actor explained. “I don’t know if that’s dark, tragedy is something that we will all experience. There’s something deeply human and emotional about it for me. Yes, he’s tortured by this loss and desperate and full of hubris and lost, but for me it just seems so perfectly human. So I think I describe it more in those terms than it being dark. It’s just filled with pathos. And for that reason I really empathize with that journey. I found myself, like The Watcher, there with him.”
What did you think of the latest episode of Marvel’s What If…? Let us know in the comments!
