20 Easter Eggs In What If...'s Doctor Strange Episode That Blew Our Mind

????WARNING: Spoilers ahead, this article is for people who are watching What If…? on Disney+. Do not read on unless you have watched “What If…? Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands?”.????

What If…? is showing no signs of slowing down. The show based on altered events of Marvel Cinematic Universe has become a fan favorite on Disney+. The most recent episode dealt with a rather eccentric plot where we saw Stephen Strange losing what he loved the most in his life, Dr. Christine Palmer.
Who knew that in an alternate universe Christine would accept Stephen’s offer to attend his event. Filled with innumerable Easter eggs, here’s all that we spotted in “What If…?” Episode 4

In the original Doctor Strange, Christine turned down Stephen’s request to attend his important event. Contrary to that, we see Christine joining him in this reality which leads to a whole new possibility.

The visuals of Stephen’s car that we get after his accident are mirrored shots from the original Doctor Strange

Even the scene where Stephen plays with time and manipulates the form of an apple is a scene pulled directly from the original Doctor Strange.

In one of the scenes where Stephen learns of Christine’s death on the news, you can spot Christine Everhart as the newscaster who was last seen in Iron Man and Iron Man 2.

The Ancient One explains what appears to be a very important piece of information for future MCU projects. The “absolute point in time,” which means that certain events can never be changed, even in other timelines.

In Spider–Man: No Way Home‘s trailer, Peter Parker’s cover getting blown could be an “absolute point in time” which is why we see the utter chaos of the multiverse happening.

In this episode, Stephen discovers the lost library of Cagliostro. We last heard of him when Stephen read one of his books in the original Doctor Strange.

O’Bengh, who we see guarding the Library of Cagliostro is a character pulled straight from the comics. He is infact Cagliostro in the comics and has even studied the Darkhold, the book Wanda currently has after WandaVision.

When Stephen is looking for the book on time manipulation, he flips past the records on transmutation, telekinesis, and teleportation. In the comics, Strange and Wanda Maximoff share all these powers.

On opening the time manipulation book, Stephen sees the symbol for time travel, which we previously saw in the original Doctor Strange when he was studying how to operate the Eye of Agamotto.

The first creature that Stephen encounters while trying to take control of power is a tentacle monster who we saw Captain Carter combating in What If…? Episode 1.

This could possibly be Shuma-Gorath who was a one-eyed, mythical, multiversal tentacle creature who often fought with Doctor Strange in the comics.

When the Tentacle monster tosses Stephen like a paper ball, O’Bengh tells him that “mystic beings do not bargain.” This could possibly be a nod to Stephen’s iconic bargain with Dormammu in Doctor Strange.

The Ancient One explains it to Stephen how there are two possible timelines occurring in one universe. The episode gave a lot of nods to the idea being followed in Spider-Man: No Way Home. It won’t be wrong to assume that it’s exactly how we would see old Spider-Man villains alongside Tom Holland’s Peter.

We get visuals of two different versions of Stephen living in one timeline. The dots join to the concept that we learned in the Spider-Man: No Way Home trailer.

Wong blows a ‘heavy-duty protection spell’ on Stephen which he refers to as “The Guardian Vishanti.” The Vishanti in the comics is a trio of beings who help the Sorcerer Supreme.

When Stephen is battling with his own evil self, he uses a magical lasso spell, which we saw Doctor Strange using in Avengers: Infinity War while fighting Thanos.

Evil Strange changes color and becomes red from green when he absorbs Stephen’s magic. In the MCU, the color red is symbolic of Chaos Magic which Wanda wields. Strange could possibly be channeling Chaos Magic here.

During the final minutes of the episode when Christine disappears, we get mirrored visuals of how Vision vanished during the WandaVision series finale.

Very similar to Wanda in WandaVision, Stephen can be seen enduring the five stages of grief — denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

Was there any other cool Easter egg that you found in the fourth episode of What If…? Share with us in the comment section below!

Catch the fifth episode of What If…? only on Disney+ on Wednesday, September 8th, at 12:01 a.m. PT and 3:01 a.m. ET

20 Easter Eggs In What If…’s Doctor Strange Episode That Blew Our Mind