Variety has been talking to the cast and crew of Marvel’s latest endeavour, Ironheart, about the show’s explosive final episode and how it has shocked and delighted fans worldwide with its big twist.

***SPOILERS AHEAD FOR IRONHEART BELOW – YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED***

***SPOILER WARNING AGAIN***

In the series’ final episode, Riri (Dominique Thorne) faces off against Parker Robbins, aka The Hood (Anthony Ramos) and sees her having to use her mechanics and her brain to defeat him and his magic cloak and powers. Dormammu, he of 2016’s Doctor Strange, is seen as the entity who has bestowed Robbins his powers, but it is the long-awaited debut of Mephisto, played by Sacha Baron Cohen, who is behind it all.

After the battle, Riri thinks she is meeting Dormammu, the only person in a local pizza parlour, but he is Mephisto, and wants to help Riri bring back her best friend, Natalie. Arguably the most powerful supervillain in all of Marvel lore, fans can finally say he has arrived, after much speculation that the character was going to appear in both WandaVision and Agatha All Along.

For the cast, though, they didn’t find out about the twist until quite late.

“I learned in the midst of our shooting,” Thorne told Variety “, So, by the time they gave me the correct name in the script, it was like ‘Whoa, the Reddit guy! The guy from all the rumours. He’s in this show? OK, y’all are serious!’”

“The true Marvel fans know that Marvel always has a plan… So, to know that they’ve chosen to introduce him here with Riri Williams, with Parker Robbins, it’s strategic and it has a place in the larger storytelling and in the larger twists and turns that this phase will continue to unveil. And it is just a joy to get a seat on that ride.” she added.

Executive producer and Black Panther direct Ryan Coogler expressed his excitement of having Mephisto in the show, saying:

“I just absolutely love that we’re not meeting him in ‘WandaVision’ or ‘Agatha [All Along].’ You’re meeting him through this stressed-out, young Black genius. When you watch the show, it’s like, ‘Oh, that was how you always were gonna meet him.’ It wasn’t gonna be in ‘Loki.’ That’s the trickster; that’s how he works. That’s where he’s gonna be: in a pizza shop in Chicago, like, where you would absolutely never expect him.”

Head writer Chinaka Hodge talked about the collaboration with Marvel on the show, adding:  “I could tell the story about process, and you would know how benevolent Kevin Feige is… But I will say that it was a collaborative effort, where we all landed on Mephisto together, but there was one of us in the room who led us there, and I’m eternally grateful for him leading us that direction.”

“Because Mephisto is a shape-shifter. And this is purely speculation, but I would love to see a version where Sacha does Mephisto a couple of iterations, and then maybe Meryl Streep is in the role in the future. You never know where Mephisto can be hiding, because one of his powers in the comic book is literally changing his form. Introducing him in the MCU is a really powerful tool, because it’s a key to open many doors.”

Asked if there will be any crossovers from Ironheart to Black Panther 3, which Coogler is directing, he said:

“I don’t know jack shit,” 

Ironheart is now streaming on Disney+.

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