What If…? Episode 4: Ending Explained The Collapse Of The Multiverse What Next
What If is available on Disney Plus! If you want to know when Episode 4 will be released, read on! Episode 1 started off perfectly, allowing us to familiarize ourselves with this multiverse world, but once we get to Episode 4, no luck. Episode 4 asks the question “What if… Doctor Strange lost his heart instead of his hands?” and the answer is rather dire. The Wrinkle in Time is a bigger change than having Peggy Carter stay in the room during Steve Rogers’ scheduled intervention or even Yondu’s men picking up the wrong child, a life is lost in this alternate reality.
Doctor Strange loses the love of his life, Christine Palmer, in a car crash that takes away the use of his hands in the world as we know it. This leads to the most terrible ending we’ve seen so far in What If…? We tell you all about episode 4 of What If on Disney Plus!
Explanation Of The End Of Episode 4 Of What If…?
Towards the end of episode 4 of What If…?, The Ancient One reveals that she split Strange into two halves in an attempt to prevent him from destroying the universe. She is said to have used immense dark power to effectively channel two of her potential timelines into the same universe, thus limiting the power of the evil Strange. It’s a confusing idea, as the MCU has already spent a lot of time explaining that any nexus event causes new branches in the timeline.
The only real explanation for the coexistence of two variants of Strange in the same universe is the general invocation of dark magic, too convenient and questionable a twist, but sufficient to explain it for the purposes of the series.
Everything is dealt with quickly, but it seems that no matter how many creatures Doctor Strange absorbed, he couldn’t reach his true potential without first recovering the part of himself that was divided. This makes sense since, as Sorcerer Supreme, Doctor Strange is the person who has the most direct control over the magical energy of Earth.
But when he is split in two, it is impossible for him to have full control, as his other self could effectively cancel out his own mystical influence. Therefore it is only after the evil Strange absorbs the other Strange that he is finally able to bring Christine back.
The Collapse Of The Multiverse
Even before the two Doctor Strange merged at the end of episode 4 of What If…?, the universe has already started to collapse. The very fabric of reality seems to slowly vaporize in response to the interference of the evil Strange. Unfortunately, the episode doesn’t offer much explanation as to the why and how of this collapse.
The basic idea is that universes are built around absolute points. Changing any one of these absolute points is like dismantling the skeleton, causing the entire universe to collapse. Evil Strange triggers the apocalypse simply by reaching enough power to freeze time, but the universe doesn’t completely shut down before it reabsorbs its other self.
Since Christine survives in the original MCU timeline, it’s clear that the absolute points are only such in separate timelines. Other universes would have other absolute points that define their own nature, presumably by creating a distinction between the different branches of the multiverse. As Marvel continues to flesh out the rules for the MCU’s multiverse and alternate timelines, the way it operates can continue to be somewhat confusing.
