What If... Happy Hogan Saved Christmas?

Here's an idea: let's remake a true holiday classic and put in one of the biggest superheroes to act as the lead. That's probably what Kevin Feige expected to hear when A. C. Bradley said that she wanted to pitch him a Christmas episode. It's obviously not known how that conversation went, but I can only imagine that Feige must have scratched his hat when she told him that Happy Hogan was going to be the lead. It's an amusing thought, but the amusement unfortunately wears off very quickly in an episode which shows that "Die Hard" and the MCU are better apart.

Is this a bad episode? No, it is certainly not a bad episode. However, given the smart idea it would have been easy to expect that the writing would be a little more clever. Take aside the idea of putting Happy Hogan, one of the less interesting characters of the MCU, in as the lead, but bringing back Justin Hammer in this manner could have been something very special, but is just kinda treated as a joke. Hammer is once again played by Sam Rockwell, who just loses himself in the fun of playing this maniac, and amidst all the Christmas quips, he gives this episode the soul and the fun that it needed. The macguffin is the most obvious idea anyone could have, and the use of it is also something that feels like it was thought of by a six-year-old, and the conclusion to the storyline is pretty much not existing. There's a faint joy in the episode, and it's difficult to not be entertained by a Christmas setting, but outside of the annual Christmas film reference, as well as the very funny joke involving the Avengers, it doesn't really use its setting that much, and why would they, when they can just do "Die Hard" and get some cheap thrills that way? It's nice to see Jon Favreau in his own little solo outing, but he is the least fascinating part of this episode, and gets lost in the mix of more entertaining guest stars like Rockwell, and even Kat Dennings.

"What If... Happy Hogan Saved Christmas" is a misleading title for an episode that is openly a ripoff of something better and way more entertaining. The episode isn't bad, it's just a missed opportunity in the spirit of Christmas, as it doesn't evoke any feelings of the holiday, nor offers anything interesting at all.

After such a great start in episode 1, What If...? Season 2 has gone very quickly downhill. Episode 2 was weak and rushed, this one was just weak. Even with such an interesting premise as "what if Die Hard was made by Marvel for the greater MCU?" it fails pretty hard.

There's some funny dialogue - maybe one or two lines of it - and VERY little changed from the mainline MCU - the established characters are all mostly the same as the ones we know from Earth-616/The Sacred Timeline - which makes for a quicker way to get into the story, but the story itself is NOT good. In ANY way.

Though we do get another, new-to-the-MCU, character that could prove interesting down the track. Maybe. But not likely, if I'm honest.

Imagine having all the infinite universes, with literally infinite possibilities (because that's what the multiverse is all about) and throwing all those possibilities away to show more of the same. That's exactly what this episode did.

Even with the possibilities of the infinite multiverse, the episode boils down to the Avengers saving the day once again.

Almost nothing in this new universe is really new, apart from one or two characters who wouldn't be there in the original universe - but who are still so poorly developed that they're not even captivating.

This episode, like so many other Marvel shows, was just more of the exhausting "more of the same"

Best episode of What If yet. Paying homage to one of the greatest action movies of all time with an excellent choice of Happy (Favreau) as the John McClain type character. So many great references, the action is fun and bringing back Sam Rockwell to play Hammer in place of Die Hard's Hans was a master stroke.

Admittedly, I was not a huge fan of the first season of the show. Outside of two episodes I unfortunately found the show to be kind of boring. This second season has been so much better so far. This episode makes me excited for the rest of the season. The first two episodes before this were pretty solid as well. Great job Marvel, we needed a hit.

Do they actually expect adults to watch these episodes and be invested? I've seen the first three and they are all nothing to write home about. The first season was way better and matured than what I've seen thus far from season 2.

I hope the rest of the season actually gets it right and stop heading down this comical direction. We want some real action, real stories, real consequences.

Do they actually expect adults to watch these episodes and be invested? I've seen the first three and they are all nothing to write home about. The first season was way better and matured than what I've seen thus far from season 2.

I hope the rest of the season actually gets it right and stop heading down this comical direction. We want some real action, real stories, real consequences.