Answer: a heartbreaking tragedy of Shakespearean proportions known as “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
SPOILERS AHEAD
After the Marvel Logo and opening titles, we begin with the Watcher overlooking New York as he introduces this episode’s theme: “We have watched how one moment, one choice, can ripple across space and time, giving birth to new stories, heroes, whole universes. But what if it’s the wrong choice? What if the best of intentions has very strange consequences?”
Doctor Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) arrives in his black Lamborghini to pick up fellow Doctor Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams). In this universe they seem to have managed to maintain their romantic relationship and are on their way to an award dinner held in Strange’s honour after successfully performing a “radical hemispherectomy” (a surgery where half the brain is removed or disconnected from its other half— essentially split in two—and is very difficult to perform successfully, two things that foreshadow what happens later). The accident occurs in a slightly different way from the way it did in the film, Strange trying to overtake a semi and nearly colliding with an oncoming car, avoiding it only to be rear ended from behind. The wreck itself is recreated from the film frame by frame, landing in exactly the same position, teetering in the water. Strange comes to and finds that Christine did not survive the crash, framed in the shattered back windshield which resembles a broken heart.
In this universe, Stephen Strange didn’t lose the use of his hands but the love of his life. We then cut to Christine’s funeral, where the Watcher tells us that, in his grief, he wandered the world in search of answers and found the Mystic Arts. From here we get a quick recap/retelling of the Doctor Strange film, with emphasis on a couple of key scenes: Strange’s discovery of the Eye of Agamotto and its ability to manipulate time (as it holds the Time Stone), including another frame by frame recreation of him using it on an apple (instead of Mordo however, it’s Wong (Benedict Wong) and the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton) who warn him that tinkering with time can weaken the fabric of the universe, giving him a much less furious telling-off, which may contribute to how things pan out) and his confrontation with Dormamu (the scene that launched a thousand memes). But despite becoming the Sorcerer Supreme, Strange still can’t let go of the past.
We find him, on the two year anniversary of Christine’s death, sitting alone in the Sanctum, drowning his sorrows in whiskey and contemplating the Eye. Wong goes to put the kettle on for some tea and suggests that Strange join him before he does something ‘reckless.’ Unfortunately, this seems to act as an invitation and Strange uses the Eye to reverse time and go back to the night of the accident. What follows is a time-loop montage of how much the universe has it out for Christine (also, look out for a little “blink and you may miss it cameo” from the Watcher in the reflection of Stephen’ car door): overtake the semi properly? Rear-ended anyway and death. Take a different route? Death by truck. Make it to the dinner (somehow)? Death by heart attack. Go out for pizza instead? Enter random armed robber and death. Stand her up? Her building catches fire and she dies anyway (reporter Christine Everhart from Iron Man & Iron Man 2 makes a small cameo during this part, Leslie Bibb returning to voice her). Even swapping places in the car with her—after Strange’s increasing despair makes Christine think he’s had too much to drink and she decides to drive instead, Strange effectively sacrificing himself so she can live by sitting in the passenger side—doesn’t work.
After this last failure, Strange crawls from the wreck and unleashes a heartwrenching scream at the heavens (Cumberbatch gives a brilliantly nuanced and heartbreakingly emotional performance throughout—no phoning it in here). Then a portal opens and the Ancient One arrives, as at this point in the timeline she is still alive. She sadly informs him that nothing can be done to save Christine because her death is an Absolute Point in time (another rule added to the MCU’s time-travel logic; think Doctor Who’s “some points are in flux others are fixed” rule as it’s very similar) : her death sent on him on his journey to become Sorcerer Supreme, if he didn’t become the Sorcerer Supreme he’d never defeat Dormammu or become guardian of the Eye of Agamotto, and the world wouldn’t have been saved. If Strange erases her death he risks erasing the universe. Strange argues that she taught him that nothing is impossible and that he only requires more power. The Ancient One pleads with Stephen to stop torturing himself with false hope, that this path only leads to darkness and the end of this reality and if he continues down it she will be forced to stop him. Strange answers that she’d have to find him first, so before he can use the Eye again, she hits him with a powerful blast of magic.
Strange seems to survive whatever she did to him relatively unscathed however, finding himself in a jungle forest, and is happened upon by a stranger dressed like a master of the Mystic Arts. The unspeaking master leads him to the lost library of Cagliostro (obviously before it was lost). We learn that the fellow sorcerer’s name is O’Bengh (Ike Amadi), librarian for the books of Cagliostro (fun fact: Strange says to him ‘please tell you’re not Cagliostro’—in the comics, he is) and is apparently fine with Strange searching through them to find a way to do something that could endanger reality. Strange then finds the same book on time manipulation that Kaecilius would go on to steal from the Kamar-Taj library, even turning to same page with the Dark Dimension symbol on it that Kaecilius tore out. Changing a fixed point in time requires an enormous amount of power and the only way to gain it is through the ‘absorption of other beings.’ So he starts out by summoning what looks to be a variant of the tentacle monster from episode 1 (if so, it’s not having a good time). He tries to negotiate with it but apparently mystic beings that aren’t Dormammu don’t bargain and he gets thrown around for his trouble. O’Bengh tells him that their powers aren’t meant for man and also warns him: ‘there is a fine line between devotion and delusion. Love can break more than your heart. It can shatter your mind.’
Of course Strange takes the wrong lesson from this and decides he’ll take their powers by force. What follows is something that wouldn’t be out of place in a horror film, with Strange a number of beautifully animated but increasingly demonic looking mystic beings, briefly taking on some of their physical aspects as he does so, starting with a gnome and ending with a monkey/bat monster (he does get a cool new cloak out of it though). This last one exhausts Strange and, as he recovers, for the first time the Watcher comments on events not as a narrator but as a character. He comments that Strange is going down the wrong path and that he could intervene by warning him, but that the fate of his universe isn’t worth risking the safety of all the others. He also doubts that Strange would listen to him if he did, but as he says this, Strange turns around, having either sensed or heard him, and asks who’s there (so maybe if Uatu if had tried Strange might’ve listened). Then it’s back to monster absorbing and more blink and you’ll miss it body horror as time is shown to pass outside. Finally, the last creature Strange summons is the tentacle monster from earlier, slicing off said appendages and absorbing them (it’s really not having a good time).
When Strange goes to find O’Bengh, he finds he’s now a very old man on the verge of death, as Strange used magic to stay frozen in time for centuries while he absorbed all those mystic beings. He goes to use the Eye of Agamotto, his first instinct to reverse time so O’Bengh can live (showing that while he have lost his morality he hasn’t lost his humanity), but O’Bengh stops him, saying that even in their world—the world of the Mystic Arts— death is a part of the plan. Strange replies that he can’t accept that (really summing up his problem). O’Bengh acknowledges this but says that maybe the “other” Strange will. It seems that O’Bengh let Strange proceed, despite the risks, because he is only ‘one half of himself and therefore cannot reach full power.
The Watcher then reveals that there’s another Doctor Strange within this universe. We then return to the Sanctum Sanctorum, but this time Strange decides he’s had enough ‘living in the past’ for one evening and follows Wong instead. The next morning he leaves the Sanctum, only to find that everything around him is melting away into inky cosmic sludge. After understandably questioning what on earth was in that whiskey last night, a portal opens and the Ancient One appears again, a more see-through version of her this time as she’s dead by this point (‘a psychic impression sent through a splinter of reality…just think of me as an echo’). She tells Stephen that it’s he who’s causing this and revealed what happened: when the Strange who used the Eye to try and save Christine used it again to travel into the past, she was unable to follow, so she drew on the power of the Dark Dimension to split Stephen in two, allowing for two of his possible timelines to exist within the same universe. Anyone else’s brain hurt yet? Basically it seems that branch timelines can co-exist within the same universe, but the more there are the less stable that universe is. She explains that if the other Strange succeeds in reversing an Absolute Point, the resulting temporal paradox will destroy their reality (very Doctor Who), and that the only sorcerer strong enough to defeat Doctor Strange is…well, Doctor Strange.
Back inside the Sanctum, Strange and Wong (also now in the process of melting away) are setting up a spell. Wong asks Strange if he wants to stop his “evil twin”, as wasn’t he in love with Christine? Strange replies that he thinks he has to, to save Wong if nothing else. Wong finishes the spell—a ‘heavy duty protection spell’— and places it upon Strange. The other Strange finds them as the floor opens up underneath Stephen and he falls through (somewhere there is a Loki indulging in a moment of schadenfreude similar to the one he had in Ragnarok when the Hulk threw Thor around) as Wong calls good luck after him.
Strange lands in a summoning circle in the middle of a cavernous, dark empty space. Strange Supreme then reveals himself (and the fact that he apparently hasn’t been getting much sleep lately, the pale skin and eyebags making him look like he wouldn’t be out of place in a Dracula look-alike contest—not helped by the fact that his shadow sometimes morphs other appendages and he occasionally speaks with the ‘voice-of-the-legion’). They have a rather tense conversation, Strange Supreme pleading with Good Strange to help him save Christine, Good Strange telling him that all his efforts have led to is reality breaking.
Strange Supreme takes Good Strange back to the scene of the crash. He explains that, split apart, their powers are diluted but if they become whole they can save her. Good Strange tries to get through to his other self: ‘the Ancient One warned us. If we save Cristine, we destroy the world… This isn’t love… This is arrogance. This is our need to fix everything.’ But it seems that Strange Supreme won’t listen to his better half and they fight, seeming pretty evenly matched at first but Strange Supreme gains the upper hand, slowly chipping away at Good Strange’s protection spell. The two Cloaks of Levitation even get in on the act, Good Strange’s cloak sadly sacrificing itself to save him. Good Strange fires a powerful magic at Strange Supreme, which seems to only leave behind a small ball of light. While distracted, Strange Supreme pulls Good Strange into his own shadow, where he attempts to trick him with an illusion of Christine. Good Strange sees through it and Strange Supreme punches him back to reality and then punches away the rest of the protection spell. Strange Supreme is victorious and he absorbs Good Strange.
He activates the Eye of Agamotto and the time-stone turns red (red being associated in the MCU with reality-bending, chaos magic) and turning Strange into a monstrous chimera of all the beings he absorbed. He revives Christine only for her to be terrified by his new form and by reality collapsing around them. Speaking of which, Christine begins to melt away and Strange returns to his human form as the entities leave his body. They’re reduced to a small piece of land floating in the air as Strange uses his magic to desperately try and keep reality from collapsing in on them. He calls out to the Watcher (who we see clearly in physical form for the first time and they’ve done a good job of making him resemble Jefferey Wright), admitting that he was wrong and that the world shouldn’t have to suffer for his arrogance and pleads with him for help. The Watcher merely replies that Strange was warned and that if he could undo this and punish Strange instead he would, but that Strange, more than anyone, should know that meddling with time only leads to more destruction, before returning to astral form and leaving. Strange dolefully cries out that he didn’t mean for this to happen, but it’s too late and reality collapses, condensing down to a small purple crystal. Inside, Strange holds Christine as she melts away, tearfully apologising. Like in WandaVision (let’s face it: this whole episode is “Stephen does a Wanda” with a much bleaker outcome), Christine’s face is the last part of her to fade away, as she asks: ‘Stephen, what did you do?’ Strange breaks down, his sobs and apologies echoing through an empty reality, as the Watcher ends with: ‘one life, one choice, one moment, can destroy the entire universe.’
Now can whoever is cutting up onions please stop.
