“Drop it! Drop it now! Who are you?” “Who, me? I am just an ordinary junker. But there is one name you may know me by.” Star-Lord takes off his helmet revealing the face underneath: T’Challa.

The Wednesday after episode one of What If…? started off the show with a bang, a new episode came out: “What If… T’Challa became a Star-Lord?”.

The episode started with a familiar scene from the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie. Star-Lord is seen stealing something, getting caught, and then fighting his way out with the help of his Centaurian sidekick, Yondu. Except this time, there is a flashback to when T’Challa was a young boy. Having recently escaped from his home, Wakanda, T’Challa was captured by Yondu’s men. Prince T’Challa agreed to go with Yondu to explore the world as a ravager. Twenty years later, T’Challa and his team discover that an underworld kingpin, The Collector, has possession of the Embers of Genesis -a nutrient rich substance that has the power to feed billions or terraform ecosystems. They go to steal it, and while T’Challa is looking, he learns that Yondu has lied to him about his home being destroyed. He found out that Wakanda never stopped looking for him. The team completes their mission, and T’Challa returns home to his family.

To me, this episode felt a lot clearer than the first one because the dialogue was more appropriately spaced out. By leaving adequate pauses in between lines the show feels more dynamic and real. It was also more creative and deviated from the original Guardians of The Galaxy by adding the Embers of Genesis and making Star-Lord a more peaceful guy. This episode also was more realistic on what would have happened if something was different, which the previous episode failed to do.

Despite all its successes, I thought this episode was lacking in action. There were not enough fight scenes in my opinion. This does make some sense because T’Challa was more of a pacifist compared to his canon counterpart, but I’m sure the most influential underworld character has a lot more security in his vaults.

So this episode was fantastic, in both the entertainment factor and the story development factor. The last performance of Chadwick Boseman in Marvel did a great job expressing what things would be like if it was T’Challa underneath the helmet of Star-Lord.