What If…?: Episode 5-What If… Zombies?! Review (Spoilers)

I thought that episode 5 of What If…? was great. The episode was directed by Bryan Andrews and was written by Matthew Chauncey. The episode features great direction and writing, great performances, great animation, great editing, great music, great themes.

Uatu guides us to another place in the Multiverse, this time to an alternate version of “Avengers: Infiniy War” and “Ant-Man and the Wasp”. Bruce Banner was able to escape so he can warn The Avengers of Thanos’ arrival on Earth. When he crash lands on Doctor Strange’s Sanctum Santorum, he finds no one there. When Banner goes outside, New York has been mysteriously deserted. Thanos’ Black Order members Ebony Maw (Tom Vaughan-Lawlor and Cull Obsidian arrive to search for the planet’s Infinity Stones. Banner attempts to turn into the Hulk, but Hulk refuses. Suddenly, Tony/Stark/Iron Man, Doctor Strange, and Wong appear and kill them both. At first Banner is relieved, but when he sees that they’re brutally killing them to the point that they’re eating their flesh, he realizes that something’s not right. He then sees the three clearly and is horrified that they’ve become zombies. Strange’s Cloak of Levitation kills the three zombies as well as the zombified Ebony Maw and Cull Obsidian. The Cloak takes Banner away from the site. Uatu explains to us that when Hank Pym entered the Quantum Realm to rescue and bring back his wife, Janet Van Dyne, he sees that the Realm has somehow infected her brain to the point that she became a zombie. Janet bites Hank Pym and is thus turned into a zombie. When the zombified married couple return to Earth, they attacked and zombie died Scott Lang/Ant Man (Paul Rudd) while their daughter, Hope Van Dyne/Wasp (Evangeline Lilly) managed to escape. In San Fransisco, most of the Avengers and T’Challa/Black Panther attempt to stop the zombie invasion. However the zombies attack and turn the Avengers into zombies while T’Challa was taken away. The Cloak takes Banner to a group of survivors. The survivors consist of Hope, Peter Parker/Spider-Man (Hudson Thames), Okoye (Danai Gurira) of the Dora Milage, Bucky Barnes, Sharon Carter (Emily VanCamp), Tony Stark’s friend, chauffeur, and guard, Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau), and Scott’s friend and heist member Kurt (David Dastmalchian). Together they go to Grand Central Station in order to go to an abandoned S.H.I.E.L.D. base where T’Challa’s signal was activated. At the station, they split up. Happy gets captured and turned in to zombie by a zombified Clint Barton/Hawkeye who injures Sharon Carter. Zombie Sam Wilson/Falcon attacks Bucky and Okoye. Sharon kills Zombie Happy and escaping from Zombie Hawkeye while Okoye saves Bucky by killing Zombie Falcon.. Parker manages to get a train to start running while the Cloak saves him from a group of zombies. Every survivor is reunited and they board the train. During the travel, Zombie Steve Rogers/Captain America attacks and turns Sharon into a zombie. Bucky arrives and kills Zombie Steve Rogers and takes his shield. Hope arrives as well and shrinks herself and is inside Zombie Sharon’s mouth. Hope expands which kills Zombie Sharon. The others arrive and are shocked to see that Hope has a fresh cut on her arm. Hope is slowly turning into a zombie. The train’s power runs out, but they are close to the base, the problem is that they have pass through a huge zombie horde. Hope decides to sacrifice herself by growing large and taking the survivors to the base safely. Hope then passes out. The survivors are confronted by Vision (Paul Bethany) who is using the Mind Stone to hold off the horde. Vision tells them that he has found a way to cure the zombie infection by using the Mind Stone to rework the brains of the infected. As proof of this, he reveals to them the living head of a cured Scott Lang who is inside a jar. They need to send a strong signal for the Mind Stone to reach the infected and Wakanda is the place to do it. Bucky searches around the place and he finds T’Challa still alive and is missing a leg. The survivors find out that there were other who were inside the base prior to Vision’s appearance. Once Bucky and T’Challa reunite with the others, Vision tells them all of his intentions. He lured survivors as well as taking T’Challa to the base in order to feed his love, Wanda Maximoff who also turned into a zombie. Zombie Wanda appears and kills Kurt. Vision helps them escape, but Zombie Wanda kills Okoye. Vision sacrifices himself by giving the Mind Stone to the survivors, but this however lets the zombie horde to move into the base. Bucky buys the survivors some time by attacking Zombie Wanda which results in her killing him. The survivors find an active Quinjet. Banner decides to buy Parker, T’Challa, and Lang more time by attacking the zombies and Zombie Wanda as the Hulk who now chooses to appear. The survivors fly away, but are momentarily stopped by Hope who has now fully turned into a zombie. With more power, the survivors manage to fly away from Zombie Hope’s grasp and they now fly to T’Challa’s kingdom of Wakanda. Meanwhile in Wakanda, a zombie horde are attempting to attack the kingdom. The horde is being led by Zombie Thanos who wields the Infinity Gauntlet that now contains 5 of the 6 Infinity Stones.

The episode deals with themes such as friendship, family, survival, death, loss, teamwork, consequences, hope, staying positive, desolation, infections, a way to reverse the infections, war, trust, betrayal, second chances, remembrance, avenging. I highly recommend this episode.

10/10