FADE IN:

EXT. STREET

BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH is picking up RACHEL McADAMS for a FANCY NIGHT OUT.

JEFFREY WRIGHT

Yeah, this time we’re doing Doctor Strange. Remember how in the movie, Rachel turned Benedict down for a date? Well WHAT IF... she DIDN’T?

(pause)

Look we’re going somewhere with this, I promise.

BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

I love you so much, Rachel! You’re the love of my life!

RACHEL MCADAMS

Really? Because at this point of the movie, we were more at a light flirtatious phase.

BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Yes I know, but if my love for you is going to be motivating me to rip the entire goddamn universe to shreds, I kinda need to already be crazy head-over-heels in love with you already, since in five seconds you’ll-

They are RUN OFF THE ROAD by the RECKLESS SPEEDING CAR OF DESTINY, and RACHEL DIES!

JEFFREY WRIGHT

Yes, this time Benedict lost Rachel instead of his hands! And then he wound up studying sorcery at Kamar-Taj anyway, because instead of stumbling over the place while trying to research potential treatments for his damaged hands, he found it while trying to research... how to bring people back from the dead, I guess? Sure. That’s something that ultra-rational skeptic Stephen Strange would have done. Whatever.

(shrugs)

Anyway, after that the movie Doctor Strange happened pretty much beat-for-beat. Kaecilius steals the book, The Ancient One gets dead, Dormammu I’ve come to bargain, the whole schmear. But don’t worry, we won’t make you watch the whole thing like with Captain Carter.

INT. SANCTUM SANCTORUM

BENEDICT, now the SORCEROR SUPREME, is WALLOWING in GRIEF.

BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

I still miss Rachel! Maybe I should go against the basic policy of Infinity War and acknowledge that the Time Stone can be used to fix things...

BENEDICT WONG

“No, that would be bad!” is going to be the gist of my line, as it is with about half of my lines across this franchise.

BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Nuts to you! I’m going to use the stone to instantly quantum leap into a chosen moment in my past, which is a thing the stone can do all of a sudden!

He zaps himself back into the PAST and drives RACHEL towards the PLACE again.

BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

But this time, I won’t briefly veer into another lane and put us in the path of an oncoming truck. Yesss, I saved her!

RACHEL MCADAMS

...Okay, what about the random speeding car zooming up behind us, which was the actual thing that killed me?

BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

The what now?

They get SMASHED and RACHEL DIES AGAIN. BENEDICT once again REWINDS TIME.

BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Okay, I’ll just take a different route!

(smashed by truck)

(TIME TRAVEL)

Orrr we could get a cab!

(cab explodes)

(TIME TRAVEL)

Fuck it, let’s skip the thing and just grab pizza.

(pizza is made of cobras)

(TIME TRAVEL)

What if I just never went near her?

(Rachel hit by comet)

(TIME TRAVEL)

WHAT IF WE HUNG OUT IN AN EMPTY PADDED ROOM IN AN UNDERGROUND BUNKER SHIELDED WITH VIBRANIUM.

(Rachel spontaneously combusts)

OKAY WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK!!!

Suddenly an ENERGY BALL materializes and spits out TILDA SWINTON.

TILDA SWINTON

Sorry Benedict, but since Rachel’s death is the thing that made you turn magic and beat Dormammu, now it’s an ironclad fact of the universe which can’t be changed no matter what you do. Probably should have dropped by and mentioned it sooner so you didn’t have to watch her croak so many times.

BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

But wait, what if there was some other way for me to get motivated to learn magic? Like, say if I just messed up my hands-

TILDA SWINTON

NOPE WOULDN’T WORK I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT RACHEL’S DEATH IS THE ONLY WAY.

BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Or, here’s a thought: I could just do it. You know? Save Rachel, keep living this timeline, then when the time comes to stop Dormammu, I could just fucking stop Dormammu. Or, screw it, just stop Kaecilius when he comes for the book! On the day he shows up I could gather all the other sorcerers and we could bumrush him, he and his goons would go down in seconds! You wouldn’t even have to die!

TILDA SWINTON

No! Dead Rachel always and forever! It’s the only way this episode can work - er, that this universe can exist!

BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

WELL FUCK YOU, PENIS-BRAIN OVERRIDE, I’M DOING IT EVEN IF IT DESTROYS YOUR PRECIOUS LITTLE “ENTIRE UNIVERSE”! Nothing must stop the epic and eternal love story between me and the character everybody cares about and remembers...

(pause)

(discreetly checks crib notes taped to sleeve)

...Rachel McAdams!

He ZAPS HIMSELF ELSEWHERE.

EXT. ANCIENT LIBRARY

BENEDICT finds himself outside a GIANT TEMPLE THING.

BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Aha, it has no door, to keep out the muggles, clever. I’ll just create a portal inside, using the sling ring I’m visibly not wearing!

He heads in and meets TEMPLE GUARDIAN IKE AMADI.

IKE AMADI

This is a library that belonged to a famous ancient wizard, who hardcore Marvel nerds will realize is probably me. It contains extremely forbidden magical knowledge, too dangerous for the library at Kamar-Taj.

(pause)

Keep in mind that the library at Kamar-Taj included a spell for sacrificing the whole universe to a pan-dimensional torture god, so what we have here must be the REALLY hard shit.

BENEDICT starts searching the LIBRARY for a MAKE-RACHEL-NOT-DEAD SPELL.

BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Ah, here we go! It says here that the key to changing an unchangeable point in the timeline is pretty much to just do it, you simply need enough magical power. Kind of a Tim Taylor solution, but fuck it, I’ll just get more powerful by eating fifty thousand demons.

IKE AMADI

I’m sorry, what?

BENEDICT summons a DEMON and then EATS IT. Then he summons another DEMON and EATS IT. Then he summons another DEMON and EATS IT. He continues to do this for LITERAL DECADES. Just standing in front of a DEMON PORTAL and eating every DEMON that pops out of it like the world’s most FUCKED-UP game of WHACK-A-MOLE, ALL DAY, EVERY DAY, for like FORTY OR FIFTY YEARS.

BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

This is amazing. Honestly the entire episode could have just been this and I would have been happy.

(sucks dragon into his face hole)

INT. SANCTUM SANCTORUM

Meanwhile, several scenes ago...

BENEDICT WONG

“No, that would be bad!” is going to be the gist of my line, as it is with about half of my lines across this franchise.

BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Yeah, you’re right, that’d be a really stupid thing to do, wouldn’t it? I mean I nearly broke the spacetime continuum once by rewinding an apple two minutes, I’d have to be a REAL fucking moron to try bringing my girlfriend back from the dead, ha!

Then GHOST TILDA appears!

BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Tilda?! You’ve become a Force ghost!

TILDA SWINTON

No, I’m just a sentient memory deliberately left behind on Earth to advise you - oh yeah, you’re right, I guess I’m a Force ghost. Anyway, you need to stop the evil and crazy version of yourself from destroying the universe! I split you into two different versions of yourself, see, so that both timelines exist in the one universe, and you can fight yourself.

BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Great, the MCU started up multiple timelines like five minutes ago and we’re already making it incomprehensibly complicated.

TILDA SWINTON

Either way, you’re the only one who can stop you!

BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Sure, who better to defeat a version of me that’s spent half a lifetime absorbing demons and becoming the most powerful entity in the cosmos, than a version of me who only heard about magic a few weeks ago?

TILDA SWINTON

Well, uh, the other Benedict can cover you in protective runes to give you a leg-up. They’re impervious to the most powerful magical curse, yet surprisingly vulnerable to getting punched.

BENEDICT is teleported to the BOSS FIGHT.

EXT. DISSOLVING CITY

BENEDICT goes to confront MALEDICT.

BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

You have to stop this! It will only end in destruction of the whole timeline! Like seriously, there’s not even ambiguity here, the whole world has already started dissolving into smoke and you haven’t even done the thing yet. I mean, what exactly is your plan?

MALEDICT CUMBERBATCH

It’ll be fine! Rachel and I will be so happy together drifting in the timeless, spaceless nothing where the universe used to be. You should help me! Divided we’re still not strong enough to change the past, but together we can save Rachel!

BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Wait, are you telling me that me confronting you gives you the one thing you need to destroy reality? For fuck’s sake Tilda, why are all your plans so terrible.

They have a big WIZARD DUEL, which MALEDICT WINS! He brings RACHEL back to life.

MALEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Welcome back, dear! You were just dead! But now you’re back, in this rapidly-melting hellscape, with me who currently looks like three Cthulhus in a trenchcoat pretending to be your boyfriend! Isn’t this great? Honey? Please stop screaming.

But then the UNIVERSE, which before was merely DISINTEGRATING, now CONTINUES TO DISINTEGRATE!

MALEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Fuck, what an unforeseeable turn of events!!

(creates force field)

Uh, don’t worry Rachel, this twenty-foot-square Fabergé egg might not be the most exciting place to spend the rest of our lives, but at least it’ll keep the disintegration out!

RACHEL MCADAMS

(disintegrating anyway)

Yeah, bang-up job, hon. Oh but of course you’re arbitrarily fine, THAT’S fair.

MALEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Fuck fuck fuck, I’m even worse at this than Orpheus! Hey Jeffrey, little help?

JEFFREY WRIGHT

Uh, who me? I’m just the narrator! Don’t go getting all meta on us, we’ll have enough of that shit once Deadpool gets here.

MALEDICT CUMBERBATCH

C’monnnn, I know I continuously, knowingly put others at risk for my own gain, but now I thought maybe I could leverage the very risk I put everybody in to avoid facing any consequences for my actions? It works when banks do it!

JEFFREY WRIGHT

No way man, my whole deal is just uselessly sitting back and watching shit go down, I don’t actually DO things. And I never will! So go fuck yourself! Boy, I’m glad I’ll never have to eat these words, no sir. Anyway, resume narrator mode!

(V.O.)

So now you know what would have happened if Rachel had gone on a date with Benedict: she would have died horribly like a hundred times, he would have turned into an insane evil monster, and the whole universe would have boiled away into smoke and been lost forever.

MALEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Not a Strange/Christine shipper, I take it.

JEFFREY WRIGHT

COME ON WE ALL KNOW HE SHOULD BE WITH WONG.

END.