"What If...?" Episode 1 - Captain Carter
by Mike Lunsford, Editor-In-Chief of the Great Geek Refuge
Warning! Spoilers In Bound!
When it comes to digital content to watch, the Disney/Marvel team have put together a very impressive resumé. Their line up since the beginning of the 2021 has been dynamite, starting with WandaVision then followed up by The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and most recently Loki. Their most recent release, What If…? debuted Wednesday, August 11th and is their first animated foray in the MCU. However, don’t let the animation be a detractor of any sort: What If…? is doing something ambitious but is also going to be a really fun series if the first installment is any indication.
Let’s discuss the framework of these alternate realities. Uatu the Watcher (Jeffery Wright, Casino Royale) acts as our guide through the multiverse. Thanks to Loki and Sylvie, the “sacred timeline” is no longer the only version of events. There are countless possibilities, endless variables that can give us different outcomes to stories we have grown to know and love. The first episode is titled “Captain Carter.”
We begin in the familiar setting of that secret lab in Brooklyn as Dr. Erskine, Agent Carter, Howard Stark and Colonel Phillips prepare to turn skinny, sickly Steve Rogers into a super soldier. The big what if of this episode happens as the Hydra spy sets his bomb and it goes off before the experiment begins, throwing the room into chaos, killing Doctor Erskine. They try to stop the spy but he manages to kill Colonel Phillips and shoots Steve. Peggy subdues the spy but Howard Stark warns them “if we don’t do the super soldier process, we’ll lose our chance!” With Steve out of commission because of his gunshot wound, Peggy bravely steps into the machine.
Peggy is SWOLE
With Phillips gone, in steps John Flynn (Bradley Whitford, West Wing) who tells Agent Carter that she will not be going on any missions. “Women don’t fight on the front lines, they might break a nail.” We immediately hate him both because
He’s a sexist P.O.S.
Bradley Whitford is an excellent actor and is great at making you hate him
While Peggy wastes away being unused, a recovering Steve keeps her company. One of the aspects of this episode I really liked was that we saw there are certain things that are constants across the multiverse. In the original timeline, I was never sure if Peggy was really attracted to Steve before the serum. The rippling muscles, the dashing good looks…would she still have loved him had he stayed the skinny kid from Brooklyn? Now that she has the super soldier serum coursing through her veins and he is now a wounded, skinny kid from Brooklyn the answer is yes. The fact that the attraction wasn’t just because of the serum was a heart-warming facet of this story.
Another constant across all timelines is that Johan Schmidt is a Nazi scumbag. He still attacks that town in Norway to get his hands on the Tesseract and has some nefarious plans for it. Howard Stark, Peggy Carter and Steve Rogers try to convince Colonel Flynn to let them stop the Red Skull’s attack. He blows it off, saying that the Nazis won’t even figure out how to use the battery before the war is over. In typical heroes-defying-the-orders-of-butthole-commanding-officers, they head to Germany to stop Red Skull and retrieve the Tesseract.
The action scenes in the episode were especially awesome. Sure, they’re animated as opposed to live-action, but the same frenetic feel and vibes of The First Avenger exist in this version as well. Peggy shows up in Berlin, and in an awesome visual, she makes her stand against the Hydra agents in front of Brandenburg Gate, no longer Agent Carter…now she’s CAPTAIN CARTER.
“I can do this all day, chaps.”
Peggy wrecks house. She beats these Hydra agents down and swipes the Tesseract from Arnim Zola. She brings it back to HQ and Howard Stark loses his mind at the possibilities of this “endless battery.” However, there isn’t much time for celebration as Captain Carter has another mission: rescue the 107th Division who had been captured by Hydra. That’s right, Bucky and the Howling Commandos are prisoners! Peggy does what she does, showing up and smashing a hole through the Hydra lines, rescuing the whole unit. The Hydra counterattack proves to be formidable so Captain Carter calls for air support. Over the radio is heard “ROGERS! Get in there!” and we see this:
OH SNAP IT’S THE MARK 1!!! Oh, my bad, I mean the STEVE 1!
Steve Rogers shows up in an armored suit that is powered by the Tesseract and stomps a mudhole in Hydra and walks it dry. Wait…that’s the wrong Steve. But stomp, hmmmm, that’s a good name. The Howling Commandos dub the armored Goliath “The Hydra Stomper.” We get a totally sweet big-band-fueled montage of the Captain Carter and the Howling Commandos Featuring the Hydra Stomper kicking Hydra/Nazi butt all over Europe.
This episode has echoes of the original story. There are things that are very similar to the original events, but with a twist. The new story is still interesting because you’re not entirely sure what’s going to happen next…but familiar enough because you’re pretty sure what’s coming. I love a series that challenges you, that has surprises around the corner, that will keep you guessing throughout. This first episode of What If…? is NOT that at all. It’s comfort food with a twist. It’s like the first time you try a different style of pizza. Say you’re a NY pizza kind of person and you try Chicago deep dish one day on a whim. It’s still pizza, but different and tasty! You can literally like both and it takes nothing away from the other. You knew there would be sauce, cheese, some kind of crust and it would be served hot. That’s "Captain Carter” in a nut shell: it’s still pizza, just a little different that what you’re used to.
Back to the story.
We know that ol’ Red Skull will have some dirty tricks up his sleeve, but we’re not 100% sure what he has planned. The infamous train scene now has Steve Rogers: Hydra Stomper seemingly getting blown up and is MIA. Their secret weapon is now gone, the Tesseract lost, whatever will they do? Peggy squeezes Arnim Zola’s big head and gets all his secrets: The Red Skull is holed up in a castle and hopes to open a gateway that will either ensure a Hydra victory…or destroy the world. Our team attack the castle and find that Steve and the Hydra Stomper suit are not gone, merely held captive. Things look grim for our heroes though as the Red Skull, now in all his skull-y goodness now that he’s removed that pesky human mask, opens a portal and out pops a giant multi-tentacled thing that if left to it’s own devices, will grow large enough to consume all of Europe! In a bit of just desserts, as Red Skull is crowing “you’re too late Captain Carter!” He gets snatched by the giant monstrosity and crushed.
Seeing Super-Fascist crushed by a giant squid is a bit more satisfying than having him become the guardian of the Soul Stone. Only good fascist is a dead one however you slice it!
Giant squid, exponentially growing, humanity in danger, what will our heroes do? Peggy gets Howard Stark to the portal machine who reverses the polarity to turn this squid-blower portal into a squid-sucker and in flies Steve and the Howling Commandos! Peggy and Steve have a brief verbal reunion and they get to work pushing the beast back to its dimension. Steve exhausts the limited fuel of the Hydra Smasher and Peggy sacrifices herself pushing the beast back through the portal, promising to meet Steve for a dance lesson on Saturday. She disappears into the rift never to be seen again….until 70 years later when Nick Fury and Hawkeye are standing in front of a similar looking portal machine that opens
Out tumbles Captain Carter, covered in squid ink, ready to keep fighting, not a day older than when she entered the portal. Fury informs her that the war is over and it’s been 70 years. You can hear the pain in her voice: the same level of loss Steve felt when he was thawed after his sacrifice. The echo was similar, the sacrifice nearly identical and both heroes,Captain America and Captain Carter, end up feeling the full brunt of duty and honor over everything else, even themselves.
I loved every minute of What If…? Episode 1 - Captain Carter. The action scenes were fun and fast paced, the story was both familiar and new and it showed that a hero is a hero regardless the circumstance. Peggy stepped up to be the champion the Allies needed to win the war and Steve, even without the serum proved to be just as fearless and heroic as his sacred timeline variant.
Take a look at the trailer for Episode 2 - What if T’Challa became Star Lord?