What If…? “What If… Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands?” Review

Season 1 Episode 4 “What if Doctor Strange lost his heart and not his hands.”

What I Liked?

1. The episode begins slightly different from how Doctor Strange’s movie began, with Strange driving on the curved road although this time, Christine was with him. While this opening scene was slightly different from the main timelines movie, Strange did crash his car, although instead of losing his hands, some would say he lost a bigger part of him, Christine.

2. Now from here on out, this version of Doctor Strange would go on a search for something meaningful, some answers in the mystical realm. This version of Strange pretty much travels down a similar path as the main timeline Strange, just for a different reason, when we get caught up just after his movie, he’s always replaying that night, and then this is when he decides to do something, go back and change it, everything he tries, always results in Christine dying, this is causing Strange to spiral even deeper.

3. This next point I absolutely loved because we got to see the return (in some way) of the Ancient One who comes to Strange in his time of need and explains that trying to save her is a lost cause because, in this timeline, Christine’s death is an “absolute point” meaning that it doesn’t matter how many times he tries, she will always die, and that continuing this path will lead to darkness, Strange doesn’t listen and goes into the past to learn how to break an Absolute point.

4. This next point left me with some questions, in the scene where Doctor Strange is attempting to gain more mystical power, he noticed that he was being watched by someone when he asked “hello, who’s there”, was this simply because of the tiny amount of mystical power or could he know he was there anyway? So many questions for this scene.

5. the fourth point was pretty much expanded one later in the episode towards the end, Doctor Strange Supreme managed to save Christine, however, as a result of his own doing, the entire universe was being destroyed and he turned into a monster which freaked out Christine but the dark energy began to take over her, which lead to Doctor Strange begging The Watcher for help in which he denied.

What I Disliked?

Absolutely nothing to report.

Favorite Moment

My favorite moment was definitely seeing a broken down version of Strange willingly taking evil mystical creatures energy just to gain more power, seeing him slowly become corrupted and kept himself in a frozen time state for decades just taking away power from different creatures, which eventually leads into a flashback of the Ancient One splitting strange into two bodies and eventually the two Strange’s fighting each other.

Standout Character

I think the episode forced me to give it to Doctor Strange and he was the main focus but this episode just proved how powerful he is as a character.

The Verdict

Overall, this was the darkest, emotional, heartbreaking, and oftentimes most beautifully shot episode of What If…? thus far into the season. I was amazed at everything that this episode gave me. This episode also delivered a great 30 minutes character development for the character of Doctor Strange and it was captured perfectly.

Rating: 10/10

Photo: What If…? Season 1 Episode 4.