What If...? Season 3 Episode 4 recap: Howard the Duck and Darcy have a baby

What If...? Season 3 Episode 4 was supposed to be a lighthearted mid-season affair but turned out to have several dramatic showdowns. The fourth episode of What If...? Season 3 had a seemingly innocuous unhatched egg at the centre of the conflict. Dark forces including Thor, Dormammu, Yondu, and the Grandmaster, and even S.H.I.E.L.D, chased the egg all through the episode, and the reason is equally astounding.

During What If...? Season 3 Episode 4, it is revealed that Howard the Duck and Darcy the Duck have become parents, with Darcy giving birth to an egg. After the couple take the unhatched little egg home and try having a quiet moment singing a lullaby, they are visited by the Grandmaster's agent, who invites them onboard a luxury cruise. The duck couple is unaware that their baby was supposed to be eaten at the feast!

What If...? is a popular animated series that explores alternate reality timelines drawing on traditional Marvel canon. By virture of not being bound any particular canon, the show is free to explore alternate situations that could rise from the intersections of the main narrative threads, leading to entertaining and hilarious scenarios involving some of the most recognizable characters of Marvel. Here's everything that happened in the fourth episode of What If...? Season 3.

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What If...? season 3 episode 4: Howard and Darcy become duck parents

The fourth episode of the latest season of What If...? starts with the happy news of a baby duck being born to Howard and Darcy. A nurse at the hospital captures the happy moments using Howard's camcorder. Once they are home, Howard and Darcy try to adore their baby by singing a lullaby.

It is then that the Watcher makes an appearance, and says the baby is supposed to play a determining role in changing several lives. Asked to explain the rather foreboding statement, the Watcher refers to the seventh episode of the first season, when Howard and Darcy got hitched during Thor's raging party at Las Vegas. The Watcher adds that several of the extra-terrestrials that came down for the party never left Earth.

Howard and Darcy are then visited by Topaz, the grandmaster's bodyguard who invites them to a luxry cruise. The duck couple are obliged but upon visiting the cruise, Howard realizes to his horror that the Grandmaster plans to serve the unhatched egg to the guests. As Howard rescues his baby, Yondu appears out of nowhere and steals the egg, disappearaing into a wormhole.

Darcy then enlists the help of Director Fury and Agent Coulson of S.H.I.E.L.D to save her baby. Fury reveals the baby is a target is because they believe it to be a manifestation of the Cosmic Convergence. Yondu arrives at Knowhere to deliver the egg to the Collector, but the tables are then turned by Kaecillius.

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What If...? Season 3 Episode 4: Loki to the rescue

When Howard and Darcy reach Knowhere, they discover to their horror that Kaecillius is trying to sacrifice their baby in a ritual. As they try to rescue their baby and escape, Kaecillius summons Dormmamu and unleashes his power. Eventually Howard and Darcy flee to Jotunheim where Loki is in charge of a ski-resort that he has been building. Loki offers the couple refuge, but soon all hell is broken loose as even Thor is involved in the pursuit of the egg.

With their backs to the wall, Howard and Darcy seemed to have accepted their fate when the egg miraculously hatches and defeats all those who were on its trail.