[Editor's note: The following contains spoilers through the Season 1 finale of Marvel's What If...?, "What If... The Watcher Broke His Oath?"]
Marvel's What If...? was full of surprises, especially as the Disney+ animated anthology series revealed, in its final two episodes, that it wasn't technically an anthology series after all. Featuring Jeffrey Wright as The Watcher, each episode depicted an alternate reality for our favorite MCU heroes, with many of them gathering together at the end for one climatic cross-universe battle against an Infinity Stone-enhanced Ultron (Ross Marquand).
In a Zoom interview, Collider got to ask head writer A.C. Bradley and director Bryan Andrews all about this season and beyond: Where the surprise appearance of a previously unknown Gamora in the finale came from, what inspired the Darcy Lewis/Howard the Duck romance, and whether Season 2 will really be more of a true anthology. But also...
Collider: I want to start off by asking about something where I really want to understand the why of it — specifically, why did you keep killing Tony Stark?
BRADLEY: We didn't. Please let me explain this, because I've gotten hate mail about this. As someone who absolutely loves Tony Stark and talks about the first time she saw Iron Man being a transformative experience, originally earlier in the season there was an episode slated that was much more "Party Thor" in tone — comedic, happy, fun, interesting, heartfelt, all the adjectives — about Tony on Sakaar, which also featured Gamora.
However, due to COVID and the pandemic being the absolute pandemic, one of our animation companies was hit very hard, and production on the episode had to be pushed to Season 2. I'm so excited for everyone to see that episode in the second season, because it does show a different side of Tony than we were able to show in the other episodes. And him being one of my favorite characters, it was actually one of my favorite absolute episodes to write. However, I will say, given all the tragedy and upheaval we've been through in the past two years, pushing an episode is absolutely nothing and totally understood doing it, and we hope that seeing Gamora served as a teaser for the next season.
Well, I'm so sorry you've been getting blowback from it. I actually just thought it was kind of a fun running gag — like, "oh, how will they kill Tony this week?"
BRADLEY: I know.
ANDREWS: Right. It's turned into that. It wasn't necessarily intended to be that. There was like 30 episodes that were shown to Kevin, and I think some other ones that may have had some Tony stuff that was also pretty cool and on the ball where he's not dying. But the ones that happened to be chosen... There were ones that focus on him, which is the really cool, fun one that's next season. There's another one, the Killmonger one, where he's in it but it's a little bit of a tragedy for him because he's not the Tony that we know; it's the Tony that never learns his lesson, that never went into the cave. Right? That's pure douche Tony that still gets in trouble.
But then there were ancillary things where he maybe touches on for a moment, and once those episodes were chosen I think that it just didn't fully register as, oh, look what happened here. It just was just a natural, organic thing because those moments weren't the crux of the whole of the story. Right? And in some of those you've got other characters dying. It's just that he got a little bit more screen time for being "oops-ed," I guess, for lack of a better term. But yeah, it wasn't any malicious intent. It wasn't an anti-Tony thing. We all love Tony, and it's just a coincidence in a way.
So to clarify, the Gamora universe that we see in the season finale, that's basically you teasing that universe.
BRADLEY: You will see Gamora's universe in Season 2, and you'll see how her and Tony came to interact, because they don't interact in the MCU whatsoever, if I'm not mistaken. Just seeing those two characters rub off on each other. Both had very difficult in different ways childhoods. Both had very overbearing fathers. And seeing how that affected both of them is going to be a lot of fun.
ANDREWS: It will answer, why is Gamora?
BRADLEY: Yes.
Looking back over the season at this point, do you have a favorite pairing of characters that we would never have normally expected to see in the MCU? The one that comes to mind first.
ANDREWS: There's a lot.
BRADLEY: I just have to say that when it comes to two characters hanging out, Peggy and Natasha. Having two strong, kick-ass women working as partners and as a team, not in conflict with each other, not in competition with each other, but basically being like "we got this shit" together was a blast. I really hope I get to write them in future episodes.
ANDREWS: Yeah. They're awesome together. There's great pairings. I love how people are pointing out the pairings that they never knew they needed, but now they want them all the time. I love that. And it's just throughout the episodes that people gravitate towards. And even most recently, Tony and Gamora, I had no idea I needed that in my life but now I have to have it all the time. So I think it's great. It's the nature of the anthology series that there's different flavors for everyone, and the... Nat and Peggy is fantastic, but seeing Clint and Natasha truly be that buddy pair that, we get a sense there in the movies but we never really get to see them do that shit, but now we get to really see it. That was awesome, and the audience has responded. I think there's a number of these match-ups that seem pretty exciting, so who knows.
BRADLEY: We should probably mention Darcy and Howard.
ANDREWS: Oh, yes.
Yeah, where did that come from?
BRADLEY: That kind of came from... When you're making an animation show and you do temp voices called scratch voices, where you put the storyboards and the rough voices against to see how everything plays before you get in Hayley Atwell and Kat Dennings and all the MCU actors... I can't act, but if you give me a beer I do a very good Darcy Lewis.
ANDREWS: It's true.
BRADLEY: Because it turns out drunk A.C. and Darcy are kind of the same. So my original scratch was recorded in the edit bay after a couple of shots of whiskey with the crew. And I also love Howard the Duck. I also have a slight crush on Seth Green, because we all watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer as teenagers. And so that came from a bunch of running jokes in both the script, in the edit bay, with some alcohol, with is really how the Darcy/Howard relationship sprang anyway.
ANDREWS: Yeah, it just came a bit organically, too, because even when we were doing Party Thor and the universe comes, we're just like, "Yeah, of course Howard's going to be there. Of course. It's Vegas. He's in this suit. He has a martini, and he's in Vegas for sure." Right? And then the combo of the two, then each little thing, it was... it's just meant to be. It just came, and it's perfect, so the fact that audiences are responding to that makes us really happy because we've loved that forever and haven't been able to talk about to anybody, and now we can say, "Isn't that amazing?" They just seem made for each other. I don't know why. It's great. We love it.
I read that Season 2 will be a bit more of a true anthology — how do you feel about the way that Season 1 started as an anthology and then ended up becoming kind of a much more complete narrative?
BRADLEY: We knew it was never going to be a full, full anthology.
ANDREWS: Right.
BRADLEY: It was always going to tie together. We wanted the audience to experience it along with the Watcher, because the Watcher starts out watching, literally, these worlds, but they become more and more important to him. He needs to save them, and that's when he goes back and plucks all his favorites and kind of picks his team in a way. So we knew that going into the first episode, that that was going to happen. We were able to plan, but we didn't want to give up the secret. So I apologize for misleading audiences a bit in our first round of press interviews, but I hope they appreciate it now.
ANDREWS: Yeah. We wanted it to be fun. We can't just come out and say, "Don't worry, it's going to tie together in the end." That's no fun at all, because then you don't get those cool moments when the Watcher realizes that shit is hitting the fan and he needs to do something about it and people are like, "Oh my gosh, this is happening." So yeah, man. We've got to be cagey sometimes. Surprise is good. Otherwise-
It is far from the first lie told during a round of Marvel press, and it won't be the last, I'm sure.
ANDREWS: Yes.
But that being said, will Season 2 really hold to the anthology?
ANDREWS: We have to wait and see for Season 2, but Season 2 does feature new characters, new stories, new worlds. We get to play more with Phase Four, especially Black Widow and Shang-Chi, so yeah, the anthology format is not gone, because the Watcher's got a lot of stories he needs to check up on and talk about and show us.
To wrap up, I just want to confirm that Captain Carter will be back in some form in Season 2.
BRADLEY: The post-credit scene was definitely a promise.
ANDREWS: Yeah.
BRADLEY: I hope she is. I hope she is. I don't know how much... I love writing her. I'll write her to the end of time.
ANDREWS: Yeah. She's cool.
And as my last question, really quick, do you have a vision in your mind if the Watcher would ever appear in live-action?
ANDREWS: It would be cool. We don't know. But it would be awesome. One can hope. I hope. I think that would be fantastic to see that happen. Or any number of these multiverse characters popping up somehow. I think that would be so amazing. But I don't know. I have no idea.
Marvel's What If...? Season 1 is streaming now on Disney+.