What if…Howard the Duck got Hitched? review S3 E4

February 12, 2025 Jeffrey Lyles Clark Gregg, Disney's What If?, Howard the Duck, Josh Brolin, Kat Dennings, Samuel L. Jackson, Seth Green, What If?

What if…Howard the Duck got Hitched? is the latest winner for an award that seems to keep getting bestowed on a new selection seemingly every episode. What episode of What If…will be the worst installment of the season/series?

For as unwelcome as What if…Agatha Went to Hollywood? was in terms of telling a story that fans of the MCU actually wanted to see, it at least had some logic attached to it. Agatha was a fairly well received show on Disney+ and the MCU is all-in on making her the next Loki. An episode featuring a gag character and a tertiary supporting character that had outstayed her welcome long before Iron Man snapped his finger was just pointless.

There’s a point where it felt like this series stopped coming up with intriguing possibilities and just devised scenarios that amused head writer A.C. Bradley. Howard the Duck got Hitched feels like the best worst example of this trend as the season hits its halfway point.

Howard the Duck (Seth Green) makes a connection with Darcy (Kat Dennings) at one of Party Thor’s ragers. They quickly bond and get married. And now Darcy is pregnant delivering…an egg. That’s not at all ludicrous. At least not if you watched Howard the Duck’s live-action movie (available now on Amazon).

No, the silliness comes with this egg suddenly being the most coveted item in the galaxy from all of the lower-tier villains and a few main stars from the MCU. It seemed obvious that the crew realized Howard the Duck got Hitched would need some special oomph, so the episode is loaded with heavy hitters. Samuel L. Jackson, Clark Gregg, Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston and Josh Brolin all arrive to try and make this episode memorable.

Bringing in Thor: The Dark World’s Malekith, Doctor Strange’s Kaecilius, The Grandmaster, Laufey, Zeus and Loki certainly gave Howard the Duck got Hitched a Thor-villain heavy focus. Maybe if Party Thor was hanging with Howard and Darcy the episode could have worked on some level?

Instead, it’s just Howard and Darcy barely escaping all of these formidable forces and armies. There’s a pair of running jokes with varying degrees of success. One has Nick Fury calling Howard and Darcy “Mr. and Mrs. The Duck” and another seems like a meme with him saying “Fury Out!” before teleporting away. And his SHIELD agents are actually Skrulls, harkening to possibly the worst retcon of any decision in the MCU.

There’s a little musical rock n roll number that feels too much like an abandoned idea from an episode of Agatha All Along. It’s just an excess of singing that just doesn’t work for this season that already checked off big elaborate song and dance sequence off its Bingo card earlier. When exactly did the Marvel Cinematic Universe absorb the Pitch Perfect world as part of the Multiverse again?

It’s really not so much that Howard the Duck got Hitched is a bad idea. If Disney/Marvel decided that a Howard the Duck show would be fun this would be the kind of wacky and wild story that would fit just fine with it. In a series that frequently failed to find its way last season and has been even more inconsistent with its final outing, this is not an ideal choice. If anything, Howard the Duck got Hitched shows exactly why What if…? is done — the series has strayed too far from what made the first season so memorable and fun.

Howard the Duck got Hitched narks a new low point for What if…? but longtime fans of the character may find this a welcome departure from the norm of the MCU’s latest offerings. At least this episode is trying to be silly and quirky.