This article contains spoilers for episode 4 of What If…?
Although this week’s episode of What If..? had some pretty cool visuals and intense action scenes, the overall concept was less than perfect. The battle between two different versions of Doctor Strange was definitely something to see, but "Dark Strange" was motivated by a classic comic mistake – fridging.
Fridging is when a character is killed off for no other reason besides motivating the hero’s actions. Fridging has a long history in the superhero industry and the term was actually invented after an issue of the Green Lantern comic series was released. In the comic, Green Lantern’s girlfriend was murdered by the villain, only to be shoved into a refrigerator shortly after her death. More often than not female characters are the prime victims of fridging, which has led a lot of people to see it in a sexist light.
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One fairly recent example of fridging is Vanessa’s death during Deadpool 2, because her murder is what encouraged Wade Wilson to join the X-Men and try to be a better man. The only reason Vanessa died was so that Wade’s character had an excuse to grow, taking all the focus away from the woman’s suffering to instead focus on the man’s development.
That’s not to say Deadpool 2 is a bad movie. In fact, one of the MCU’s biggest films, Avengers: Infinity War, used fridging when Thanos sacrificed Gamora to obtain the Soul Stone. The only purpose her death served was to keep Thanos’ plan moving along and show viewers that he couldn’t be all bad if he was capable of loving his adoptive daughter. Just like Vanessa, the focus was pulled away from Gamora’s suffering at the hands of the Titan and in favor of showcasing the male character’s journey. Although the use of fridging was a bit of a cop out, both of these films were still pretty great.
Episode 4 of What If…? began by killing off Strange’s love interest, Christine Palmer. Fridging her is what sparked the existence of two Stranges in a single universe and was the sole reason "Dark Strange'' was even created. Out of all the directions Marvel could have taken this episode, killing Strange’s girlfriend was perhaps the most overdone and boring of these choices.
Using Christine as the motive for Strange’s battle against himself also cheapens her character drastically. It makes her only purpose in the universe to die so that someone else can be great, which the Sorcerer Supreme made very clear. In a way, Christine’s life was belittled the same way Loki’s was when the TVA told him his reason for existence is to build heroes out of others.
Character death is supposed to mean something, but fridging is an easy way for writers to continue a hero’s story without taking the time to do any real character development. Using grief as the sole driving force behind furthering a character’s journey can be considered lazy writing.
Not to mention, a decent chunk of episode 4 is spent by showing all the ways in which Strange tried to save Christine’s life, only to fail each and every time. That plotline is pretty reminiscent of what happened in the actual Doctor Strange film. Fans saw Strange enter an endless time loop with Dormammu in the original movie, and even though he died multiple different ways, the outcome was always the same. Strange would lose his life, just like Christine repeatedly lost hers in the most recent What If…? episode.
The concept of reliving the same events more than once isn’t just familiar to Strange. Popular movies like Groundhog Day and Before I Fall tell stories about characters stuck in time loops. There’s an episode of Supernatural where the Winchester brothers are forced to repeat the same. Even one of Disney's old kid shows, Wizards of Waverly Place, found a way to incorporate time loops when the characters used their magic to score a perfect first kiss. Between the fridging and overuse of time travel tropes, Strange’s What If…? story feels tired and overworked.
The episode could have been centered around bigger "what ifs," like what if Doctor Strange found two ways to stop Thanos instead of one, or what if he had never given up the Time Stone. Both of these topics would have had a much bigger impact on fans, because they could have answered questions like whether or not Tony Stark would have died in Avengers: Endgame if there was another way out.
It’s unreasonable to expect that everything Marvel puts out there is going to be great. Some projects are simply better than others. The What If…? series as a whole has been a fun exploration of all the possibilities that could exist within the MCU, but Strange’s story definitely wasn’t the most compelling episode to have been released thus far.
New episodes of What If…? are streaming Wednesdays on Disney Plus.
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