‘What If…?’ Season 2: What Was the Song That Hope Played to Peter Quill?

‘What If…’ Season 2 aired its second episode. Yesterday, we saw what would happen if Nebula joined Nova Corps, and it wasn’t pretty but with Ronan threatening to decimate Xandar and Nova Prime betraying the corps’ principles. In the second episode, we saw what would happen if Yondu never kept Peter Quill and instead decided to turn him over to his Celestial father, Ego. One song that Hope played to Peter had quite an impact on the story, and now we’re going to tell you exactly what song that was.

Ego disconnected Peter from his humanity

The origin story of Peter Quill in the MCU is rather straightforward. He was born as a hybrid between human and Celestial; Ego fell in love with his mother and had a child with her but knew he had to abandon her; otherwise, he would have given up on the Expansion, his life-long project that aimed to replace everything in the Universe with him.

To avoid attachments, Ego planted a brain tumor in Peter’s mother, and she died; Yondu was then hired to kidnap young Peter, but instead of delivering him to Ego, he kept him. This is what happened in mainline MCU, but not what happened in ‘What If…?’ Season 2.

In ‘What If…?’ Yondu never had a change of heart and delivered Peter straight to Ego. The first thing that Ego does is destroy Peter’s Walkman and replace it with an orb of pure energy, severing his connection to his mother and his humanity.

Music was always important to Peter

We know that music was always extremely important to Peter, especially 70s and 80s music, and he always had a Walkman with him that carried his mother’s favorite songs. Well, he didn’t have that walkman in ‘What If…?’ but he had something more important, the memories of his mother, which was nothing something that Ego could erase so easily.

When Peter descended on Earth, everybody thought that he was there to destroy the planet, but when young Hope Van Dyne befriended Peter, things got a lot clearer. Hope stole Han’s security card and danced her way to Peter’s Cell; she was listening to Corey Hart’s ‘Never Surrender.’ She reached Peter’s cell, and instead of seeing a monstrous alien, she saw a little boy.

Peter explained to Hope that what she was listening to was his mother’s favorite song, and he explained that he actually came back to Earth because he was born here in Missouri and that his father is actually to blame for all death and destruction.

Hope sets Peter free using Pym Particles and gives him her Walkman. He was on a bus to Missouri in no time before the Avengers could react. Hope agreed to help the Avengers with the situation regarding Peter and Ego, but only if they promised not to hurt him because he was a little boy, part human, just like the rest of them were.

Ant-Family proved crucial in Peter’s victory over his father

Peter visited his mother’s grave but once he was there, Winter Soldier found him first and was attempting to assassinate him with a sniper. Luckily, Ant-Man found him second. Ant-Man explained to young Peter that he was feeling almost as terrible as he was since he lost his wife and Hope lost his mother recently, but they had to move on. Peter agreed to help them deal with Ego, and with some chosen words from Howard Star, Bucky decided not to shoot Peter.

At the same time Ego was annihilating the Avengers in the Mojave desert, luckily Peter showed up on time and destroyed Ego with his own power, using the Celestial Seedling.

Ultimately, Peter was presumably adopted by Hank Pym, Mar-Vell can be seen introducing both Hope and Peter to Goose, her Flerken cat.

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