Season 1, Episode 8
Date of release: September 29, 2021 (Disney Plus)
Written by: Matthew Chauncey
Directed by: Bryan Andrews
”The entire multiverse at your fingertips, and you spent all your time up there? Wow. Isn't this more fun than just watching? And to be honest, a lot less creepy on your part.”
The Watcher is monologuing his way through his diaries, unaware that Ultron is developing a sense of the multiverse. I always thought the Watcher knows all, but in this very moment, he did not know what was happening, for the first time in the show's run, and possibly even in the Watcher's existence. Which is kind of clever, in a storytelling sense, as the anthology series turns into a serialized action show that does not reboot when the next episode begins, but continues on. After all, the multiverse is in anger and needs saving, and the Watcher needed to be a Nick Fury-type character for that story arc.
So, in this universe, Tony Stark created an artificial intelligence so dangerous that it killed the entire universe, and then made its way to kill the entire multiverse. That thing inside the Mind Stone was really that strong to be like that, and Tony and Bruce Banner (who also worked on the Ultron A.I., at least in the known MCU, back in AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON) were really this smart to create a lifeform that was out to kill every other lifeform? Hm, maybe this episode should stand as an example of what is going to happen when we, as humans, continue to develop artificial intelligence, although I am wondering how much of a difference there is between fictional A.I. (like Skynet, or, in this case, Ultron) and real-life large language models that create intelligence for ease of use for the public. There is a story behind that idea: have a fictional A.I. that we know from films face off against our own A.I. in the form of combined knowledge that exists on the internet.
So, were Natasha and Clint the last two survivors of the world? I feel like this was a part that was totally missing from the episode. And if not, it would have been a neat idea to portray a never-ending battle between Ultron's sentinels and the last remaining humans. But I guess that idea has already been worked on in 2014's X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST, or would be too reminiscent of the Terminator franchise. Still, it feels weird that the two super spies would be the last people on Earth, essentially fighting for nothing.
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| Even after the end of the world, Natasha still has her superhero pose down. |
