House of R - 'Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness' Deep Dive

Episode Date: May 10, 2022

It is time to punch a star-shaped hole through the multiverse and dive deep into the much-anticipated 'Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness' with Mal and Jo (09:07). They talk about the characters and broad connections this film makes to the MCU at large (45:04). They discuss the arc of Stephen Strange and who he takes along his journey (69:28), as well as the controversy surrounding Wanda (105:42), and so much more. Hosts: Mallory Rubin and Joanna Robinson Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Social: Jomi Adeniran Additional Production: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello reality TV fans. I'm Juliette Litman, and I want to tell you about our brand new Ringer reality TV podcast. On the feed right now, we are covering the Bachelor franchise of Amelia Weddemeier, the challenge with winner Johnny Bananas, Survivor with Survivor winner Tyson Apostle, and the Great British Bakeoff with my colleagues, Amelia and Kate Hallowell. Plus, Callie Curry and I pop on there sometimes talking about our best love shows. So follow the Ring of Reality TV podcast on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters.

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or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tramphia today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more, or visit Trimfair Radio.com. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and making a mess. You don't need WeatherTech floor liners in the summer, unless you hit the beach or go camping. Then you'd want a cargo liner. Or a road trip goes sideways, ketchup goes rogue, ice cream drips. Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those WeatherTech seat protectors.

So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer. You don't need WeatherTech unless you plan on doing summer. Visit weathertech.com today. Night, mean the same dream. Nightmare begins. Greetings. And welcome into the Ringerverse here on the Ringer podcast network. I'm Mallory Rubin, and it is my absolute pleasure to invite you not only to pizza

papas, but also to join us on the Ringer's Nexus podcast feed for all things fandom. Joining me today, now that she's finished telling me that my desecration of reality will not go Unpunished. It's my house of our Frimaki Taco host in this universe in every universe

across the multiverse. Joanna Robinson Malay Rubin, I missed you in every multiverse version. I missed you so much.

I missed you, Joe. I miss you in every universe. I love you in every universe. I love you in every universe.

Molly Rubin, I'm so thrilled you're back. Oh, thanks for a holding down the fort among an absolute deluge of content. My goodness. What a treat it was to listen to all the pods. It was a content incursion. We did our best in your absence.

Love hanging out with the Midnight Boys, I should say. Obviously, I love hanging out with the Midnight Boys. Have a great time with them. But I'm thrilled best that we get to go all the way in on Dr. Strange. So me too. I'm very excited for today's chat. I missed all of you terribly. We are, as you might be able to tell, here to dive deep into the newest MCU film, Dr. Strange and the multiverse of madness. But before we begin our dream walk, some quick programming reminders, as always. First, be sure to check out all of the other Dr. Strange coverage across the Ringer podcast network,

across theringer.com. What a great website. There's a lot of great stuff. The Midnight Boys have a fantastic instant reaction pot up. It's so fun. Just a wonderful listen. It's up on the feed. It's also up on YouTube if you're interested in watching along.

Check that out. If you want to see what Jomi's face looks like when he goes, it's not what I said. It's not what I said. Just treat yourself. Joy. Joe also joined Sean and Chris on the big pick for both a spoiler-free and a spoiler-filled breakdown of the film. And then on the site, we have pieces from Daniel Chin, Miles Surrey, Adam, name it and more. There's a staff exit survey, the whole, the whole suite of content. Check it all out.

And there's more. There's more coming after today. Normally, we answer your mailback questions here on the House of R. But with the mailback questions sure to come in from all different worlds, universes, continuities, realities, any reality within an internet connection, we knew that a house of midnight team up was in order. So House of R and the Midnight Boys are united. this Thursday for a crossover multiverse of madness mailbag. Send us your questions on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, you name it, anywhere.

We are going to be recording that on Wednesday, so get your questions in by Tuesday night, but the pod will hit your feed on Thursday. Follow all of that by following the pod on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. And of course, by following the Ring ofverse on our many social feeds. We're everywhere. And of course,

bear in mind. our friendly neighborhood, spoiler. Warning. Today's podcast will feature plot details from Dr. Strange in the multiverse of madness. The entire MCU run to date, shows and movies alike, and Marvel Comics canon.

It is all on the table. So proceed with more caution than Gargantos did when he let Eternal MCU MVP the cloak of levitation. cover his giant eye in what was sure to be a decisive moment. I do have to say, I mean, shout out to the motorcycle move. That was a pretty good, I mean, I'm team cloak, obviously.

But I was like, oh, he threw a motorcycle and then it pinned the cloak for a while. Yeah, that was a heart-wrenching moment. I don't like to see the cloak of levitation and distress. I love that cloak. I love that cloak. What about when it got a hole blown in? All right, we'll talk about it. It's fine.

Dismaying. dismaying. Okay, Joe, we we have so much to cover when it comes to this movie, but we are going to do a like literally one to two minute quick aside here before we dive into the film to hit some other nerd news to borrow some midnight boys barlance here. Mallory wasn't here for a lot of things that happened. So we're giving her her a minute on the clock. She could have more if she wanted, but she's restraining.

She's choosing to restrain herself so that we can talk about Dr. Strange. A minute on the clock to talk about the things she missed. So Mallory Rubin. Miss minutes herself, but you don't have to do the accent. Okay. Obi-One Canobey trailer.

I'm not even going to need a whole minute here, Joe. Let me just say this. The Obi-1-Kadobie trailer, thrilling. Loved it. Didn't, I thought the first trailer stronger overall, but the second one was also electric. The exchange between Obi-1 and Uncle Owen, like you trained his father.

Ooh. Rivening! I could not possibly be more excited for this show. Similarly, thought the House of the Dragon trailer, which you and Neil and Dave did a wonderful breakdown of here on the Ringarverse, was a really exciting and excellent trailer. I've enjoyed both of the House of the Dragon trailer so far. And with every passing day, I grow more and more eager to return to Westerosanou.

I really cannot wait for that show. I thought that the Moon Night finale, in conclusion, was quite disappointing and did not come close to living up to the highs of the rest of the season. That's it. Did I get in within a minute? Just a little over, but like really close. I'm really impressed. I just like really drew out the word. excited and thrilling a few times.

I need to be more efficient with my speech patterns. What about you, Joe? You have any nerd news you want to hit quickly before we dive in? Just really quickly. I want to express my pure elation at the casting news that broke over the weekend. I am a Doctor Who fan, old school Doctor Who fan, and I've been a little out on Who for the last couple seasons. And so we already knew that Russell T. Davies, who, who, who, ran the series when Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant,

like two of my favorite doctors were doing the show. And so he's coming back. And then they announced that Shuti Gatwa, who is this fantastic actor from Sex Education, plays Eric on Sex Education, will be the new doctor. I'm over the moon. I don't email from Juliet Lipman,

mostly because we did a sex education podcast together, but like Juliet, who does not fuck with nerd news, right? She's like, I don't care about Doctor Who, but I just thought I'd email you because I'm so excited for Eric. Is she going to watch the new Doctor Who? Do you get her to commit? I have not pressed her on it, but maybe we can get her on for like a, can you imagine Juliet in the Ring of Verse?

What a joy for us. That would be a true. An accomplishment, a true accomplishment. Well, if anyone can do it, it's shooty gosh, well, if you have much sex education, do get on the hype train. And Doctor Who is, I'm excited for the future. Awesome. Awesome.

Let's talk strange. Let's do it. Yes. Very quickly, because we will, of course, explore our feelings in considerably more depth as we, as we chat over the next couple of hours. I could just feel Steve through Zoom, gripping his keyboard in the arms of his chair and terror. Very quickly. Mm-hmm. big picture snapshot of your feelings about the film.

Did you enjoy this movie? Yeah, so you and I saw it twice. Yes. Each had a press screening, then each sort of with the gen pop again. And I think that watching it a second time, I was really able to, this is always the case,

I was really better able to enjoy the highs. And I've been, it's really genuinely taken me a week to process sort of the, the things that I'm a little hung up on. And I am really excited to talk to you about them. But overall, like, I really like this movie. It's not at the top of my Marvel list,

but it's like a solid adventure, I think, with some questionable plotting issues in the middle of it. How are you? It's just that little ranking note makes me think, you know, the end of phase four will have to do a big, a big overall MCU ranking check-in. My goodness. What a journey that will be.

It was hard enough at the end of the Infinity saga. Yes, I also saw the movie twice. I did not have the pleasure of seeing it at the L.A. screening with my Ringover's Pals, this is so often the case. But I was able to go. I was back home in Maryland last week in Baltimore for a family visit. And I was able to go to the Arundel Mills screening, which was not nearly as full as an L.A. screening.

So that was a different experience. but the chairs in the theater were recliners. So that's not really germane to my enjoyment of the movie, but it was nice. You went to San Francisco experience. I saw it in the IMAX at the Metro and San Francisco and there were like literally 15 people in this massive IMAX theater for no reason. Yeah, I had a similar headcount. I'd say there were about a dozen or so other people there.

And then I saw it. When I got back to L.A., Adam and I went to see it with the masses on opening weekend in Los Angeles. and what a treat that was. I did find myself thinking as I was reflecting because I had, you know, I think we always talk about this in every one of our movie pods, like how helpful it is to see the movie a second time. And I was worried that I would start to really sound like a broken record by making that point. But it does feel like maybe as germane with this movie as it has in quite some time because the piece is so relentless, the action packed, like the number of set pieces and action

sequence is the fact that we start in Meteorez. It's just a lot to take in the first time. And I think I was in a similar place after the first viewing where I enjoyed it quite a lot, but had some notes. And overall, that's still where I am. But I certainly had a easier time once I knew what the story beats were going to be reflecting processing. And there are some aspects of the film that I, like you, have been really spending a lot of time thinking about and trying to assess my own, at times, conflicted feelings on certainly have some notes. But over, Overall, I enjoyed the movie a lot. I think that we'll open, you know, with some of the big picture assessments before we dive into the character by character beats.

And those big picture questions about stakes, about the multiverse, etc., are some of the things that I'm really interested in discussing not only in terms of this movie, but in terms of the state of the MCU at large right now. One thing I really want to quickly say before we get into some stats is that listening to the Midnight Boys talk about their experience with it. it was really interesting to me because for some reason, and I don't know why, I completely missed the, like, massive hype train on this movie. I wasn't, like, expecting it to be this massive thing. I think that helped me a lot. That I didn't go in with, like, towering expectations. And so it didn't fall short of something, some movie that I had made up in my mind that it was supposed to be. That makes sense.

And there's nothing wrong with expectations because I certainly have those expectations about other movies. I just, for some reason, didn't get there with this movie. It might just be, as I said in the big picture. it might just be that Dr. Strange has never been like a huge character for me. So I was just sort of like, it's a Dr. Strange movie. Let's see. Let's see what happens, you know. You mentioned the stats.

Let's run through them quickly. And they are, of course, evolving in real time. These box office numbers are as of Monday morning. So we'll potentially have some out of date data here by the time you listen to this. But a gobsmacking. $187 million domestically. $265 million internationally. We are at $452 million globally for opening weekend.

But honest. How does that compare? You guys talked on Big Pick about where you thought the movie would net out and you expected it to be a big hit, and certainly it is. Are you surprised by those totals? No, it's right about where I thought it was going to be. And like, you know, the other stat we have here is that, second biggest opening in the pandemic,

that doesn't surprise me behind Spider-Man, right? And seventh biggest opening ever in MCU history, that sounds right to me. 11th biggest domestic opening ever is wild, because that means the MCU has like seven of the top 10 spots ever that just speaks to the MCU's supremacy. But, you know, yeah, Sean and Chris and I can have a whole conversation about like, what's going on with Marvel?

are we concerned about things? Blah, blah, blah. And then whenever Sean asks me, is this going to make money, my answer's always like, yeah, are you kidding? And tons of it. You know what I mean?

Of course it is. So that's just, you know, that's where we are. I don't see that changing anytime soon. Yeah, agreed. The quick check in here with Rotten Tomatoes,

as we always say, doesn't tell us everything. But, you know, sure. Let's take a quick peek. 75% critic score, 87% audience score. surprising there for you? The critic score is interesting to me, actually.

I'm a little surprised because the story questions, the questions that you and I have about story, I've read some very eloquent reviews digging in deeper. People felt stronger about it than I did, et cetera, and I completely understand that. I did think the critical community might get more excited about Sam Ramey, this venerated director getting to actually do some Sam Ramey stuff in the movie. Yeah. So it's a little lower than I would expect it, but I'm not, I didn't expect it to be in the highs, but it's just a little lower than I thought.

And the audience score is right around where I thought it might be. How about you? Yeah, I, I, you have a better feel, obviously, for the critical community there than I do. But I agree, I would have expected that to come in a tad higher, I guess, to the 80s, I would say. Yeah. Yeah, I guess to the Ramey point, I mean, I, at. perhaps that can cut both ways where maybe there's the anticipation that that will carry some sort of surge of positivity and enjoyment, which I think certainly it has in some respects, but also then the inverse of that is the moments in the film where if you were a viewer or a critic who is longing for that and excited about it, where you feel not only the absence of it, but the Marvel machine maybe thwarting it or inhibiting it, then that same factor that could have pulled up. your enjoyment is actually going to weigh it down because it's it's not there you feel the vacuum of it so

let's talk about ramey for a minute here the return the return of sam ramy not only to the superhero genre but to movie making after it had been a minute it had been a minute you and i would encourage anyone who's interested in a longer chat about ramee to listen to the last couple big pick episodes where there was a lot of excellent uh deeply knowledgeable discussion it's a quick snapshot for our listeners here today, Joe, your relationship to his filmography and his movies. It's so funny because I was so, I was so ready to talk about this in the big pick, and then I asked Chris, and then I forgot to give my own Ramey origin story. So thank you for asking me. Sam Ramey's, okay, like, I don't know what your friend group was like in high school, but

when I finally found, like, my correct friend group in high school, all we did, because I was friends with sort of the wrong people for a while and, like, trying to find my group. And all we did, the friend group that I eventually found, all we did was go to this one person's house and watch movies and or episodes of Highlander. That's like it. Or we would go to the theater. Every Friday we went to the movie theater or we would play pool or like, you know, but that was like movie. And then I had one. Are you a pool shark?

You'll have to find out. But like one of my friends in that group, Charlie Price, I'm just going to shout him out by name. Like, he kind of curated a lot of the movies that we watched, and he had, like, really fun, weird taste, which meant that, like, as an early teen, just like Adam, Adam Ney was talking about this on the Ramey podcast and Big Pick, like, we watched Evil Dead and Army of Darkness over and over again. We quoted Army of Darkness endlessly. I've seen that movie so many times. I love that movie, and that movie has so much in common with this movie. It's very surprising. And then I'm also a weird stealth, quick and the dead fan. Like, I love the Quick and the Dead, and I've seen that movie also about one million times.

So, like, I think it's more correct in a superhero movie conversation to talk about Sam Ramey and the Spider-Man films and how much they're instrumental in building the current, you know, world we live in. That's all true. But for me, it's like weird old school Ramey with the odd camera. angles and all that stuff. And to see so much of that in this movie just sent me over the moon. I was positively giddy. Mallory Rubin, what is your relationship with Sam Ramey? You know, I consider his crowning achievement to be the Kevin Koster baseball vehicle for love of the game. No, I'm kidding. Can you imagine if I actually thought that? Listen, I've talked to you about Koster before. I wouldn't be surprised.

That's that I've seen many times. Oh, boy. I have a... I have certainly done a rewatchable on that with Bill Simmons. You know, I love a Coster baseball movie, Joe. Me too. Obviously,

the Ramey Spider-Man trilogy is something that I consider. You and I've talked about this before. I think my personal affection for those movies is maybe lesser than it is for some Spider-Man fans. You know, I'm more partial to the MCU films.

But I obviously, like, revere those movies still, particularly Spider-Man 2, and the path that they blazed for so much of where we are today. So I consider those movies really inextricable from my cinematic experience, even though Toby McGuire's Peter Parker is not my favorite Parker. That doesn't really detract from the merit that I think those films hold, despite their, you know, their flaws. It'll not shock you, a person who knows me and my movie tastes fairly well. to hear that I have consumed next to none of Sam Ramey's

horror movies. So this has been an interesting experience for me because I, there's so much, rightfully, talk and appreciation and adulation for the horror master, not just a horror master, but somebody with this very specific sensibility and visual style and aesthetic and

filmmaking approach, porting that into this Marvel movie, which I am able to appreciate as a person watching this movie, but I don't have the personal connection to, oh, the Ash, Evil Dead, Easter eggs and callbacks and Army of Darkness, omages and influences that people who watch horror movies do because I am not a person who enjoys horror movies. And, in fact, I find them quite scary.

I was thinking of you the entire time. Like, when you and I, you and I saw the movie the first time around the same time, your screening started a little bit before mine. But I was just, like, thinking of you that whole time. I was like, oh, my God, what are they doing this to Mallory? Like, is Mallory watching this? But, like, you were able to hang with the horror of this movie. You went and saw it again.

Like, it was okay for you? I will say, like, I think objectively, irrefutably, this is the scariest Marvel movie. And there are images and sequences in this movie that are soaked in cinematic horror. I did not, and there are moments that I found scary and unsettling. I thought that the mirror dimension, mirror reflection, Wanda coming through the reflective surfaces sequence in Camertage, the flashes of an eyeball in a pool of water. Wanda coming out in a way that I now understand from all of the horror watchers on the internet is a callback to like a visual from the ring, a movie I can assure you, I have not nor ever will see. It's the ring plus it.

It's Pennywise plus the girl from ring, which is like two of the scariest references you can make. That was genuinely like upsetting to watch. I thought it was incredible movie baking, but really scary. Obviously, Wanda 616 Wanda, Dreamwalking into 838 Wanda.

And that like, you know, Chris talked about that, that like the, the killers in pursuit sequence of the tunnels. And I found that quite scary. But I don't know. I don't know how to explain it. I was trying to interrogate this a little bit because I really do not enjoy horror movies.

I did not find this prohibitively scary, even though I do think it was clearly the scariest movie. And I wondered if it was just the fact that I knew I was watching a Marvel movie and, like, knew there was ultimately going to be a limit. But maybe I've also just aged out of some of my trepidation and have not actually, like, put myself to the test in so many years. I would rather not personally. But I think also, like I've mentioned this before, but the Zubkine, and I've mentioned this

before, but the zombie genre in particular is, like, not one of the aspects of horror movie making that I find difficult to watch, actually. I kind of like zombie movies and zombie shows and things like that. So maybe it was just a little bit more in the realm. I find the, you know, there's an intruder in your home coming to kill you in your sleep, like, just did a little bit more. Chris' favorite thing, my least favorite thing. Yeah, I'm like, rewatching it.

obviously saying this is the scariest Marvel movie is is a low bar when it comes to horror movies in general when it comes to gore when it comes to all kinds of stuff you know blood blood dripping off of Peggy's shield is a horrifying image for a Marvel movie but you know child's play for people who are who really really love war um that being said there were two jump scares there's like a jump scare it's not even a jump scare because they're in when they're in that hallway and she's supposed to be behind one door and she comes around a corner. That was scary. Even though you're like, you're staring and you're like...

The slowed down raindrops in the building of the anticipation. Surely she's about to do something very scary. I know it's going to happen. But the soundtrack, we'll get to soundtrack in a second, but the soundtrack shrieks when she does it, right? And then also when she kills Xavier and she comes out of the red smoke. Again, even though your eye is on the prize, you're like, there's a cloud of red smoke. The Scarlet Witch is surely in there when she just snaps his neck and the soundtrack goes like, you know, you're just sort of like, oh, my God. Anyway.

Also, I mean, charred corpses and sliced bleeding faces. I, you know, if I were a young person who loved Marvel and watched this, I would probably be quite unsettled. I saw some small kiddos at my screening this weekend. I was very, I was like, okay, all right. There were a couple young, young kids in my weekend viewing as well, and they seemed to be having a great time. They're made of stronger stuff that I am, I guess.

On the horror front and the director front alike, Joe, can you give our listeners a quick recap of the director change, Scott Derrickson's exit from the film? Yeah. So Scott Derrickson, who was brought on to direct the first Doctor Strange, is a horror movie director. And his screenwriter on the first one, um, Cargill, Robert Cargill is, like, you know, they did like the sinister movies and stuff like that. So that's their vibe.

And so they did the first Doctor Strange and it was cosmic and mystic, but it wasn't really a horror. And then, you know, Fagie gives them the directive to say, like, we want to make our first scary Marvel movie. Like, that's what this is going to be. And then something happened that there were creative differences. And I cannot get a straight answer out of anyone as to what exactly those creative differences were. There was this rumor going around that Derksen and Cargill wanted to make it too scary, but

I've been told by reliable sources that that wasn't the case. So I don't know what the issue was. And we could talk later about some of Derekson's original plans. But, so they bring in Ramey, and they bring him in quickly. We talked about this in the big pick, right? Like, they hired him over

a weekend, essentially. This is Feigey leaning on an old relationship because he basically came up on the sets of Spider-Man as an assistant watching Sam Ramey do his thing. So they have a long-established relationship. Brings him in, brings in Michael Waldron from Loki to write the screenplay. Yeah, pulls him off Loki, basically. And Eric Martin had to cover Waldron once Waldron's off of Loki and Eric Martin is now

going to be the head writer on season two of Loki. So that's a nice little come up for him. But Ramey comes on to do this, even though he's done Spider-Man, he's not a huge Marvel MCU head, right? And so he said in an interview with Fandango that he had only seen Black Panther, Iron Man, Avengers, and Dr. Strange has still only seen those movies in making this. And then some of Wanda Vision. And that's it. But not all of Wanda Vision. Right.

some of the pertinent, someone gave him the like, the essential cut of Wanda Vision for him to understand what was going on here. And I'm curious what you think. I kind of think this is an advantage. I think it could cut both ways. I think it could be a disadvantage to not be immersed in the MCU.

But I actually think it could be an advantage because I do think that some of the stuff that I really love that felt really fresh in terms of style comes from not feeling behold into this institution, but being like, I'm Sam Ramey. Like, you call me in to do this. Yes, I made that terrible Oz movie,

and I kind of went into hiding for a long time after that. But, like, I'm Sam Ramey. So I'm going to get to do some fun stuff. So what, like, what do you think? Do you feel like a director needs to study every second of the MCU before they make an MCU movie or no? No, I agree with you that maybe there's something liberating about not feeling wholly bound to that.

And ultimately, one of the things that we know to be true about the Marvel machine is from Figeon down, there are going to be so many stakeholders and minders to ensure that the necessary canon cohesion elements are in place both in terms of like whatever has happened inside of a given franchise, Dr. Strange in this case, and Wanda's canon as well, and across where we are in phase four, where we are in the multiverse, et cetera, to ensure that things don't feel wholly disjointed or to connect. to the filmmaker's specific relationship to Marvel as opposed to where Marvel is overall.

I think that, so that part of it doesn't bother me. The part of it that's more like thinking face emoji territory for me is the Wanda vision album. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, there's the Rolling Stone interview. You can read that in full and he, it's not that he's like uninterested in watching Wanda Vizier. Or maybe he is, but I think we will talk about this

throughout the pod today, both in terms of where this movie was originally slotted and when it ended up coming out overall. And then, you know, I think specifically with with Wanda's arc and her journey inside of this film and how it relates to her prior canon, if these things are being reworked and crafted and forged out of order or in parallel, then you kind of have to wonder if that in any way inhibits the ability to craft an arc that feels like, like it's consistently moving forward in a way that, like, honors the character and obeys the logic of the universe and that story arc. And I think that would be true for any performer in that role as well. That's not like specific to Wanda. This would be true for anything in the MCU, right? If everything is taking shape at the same time and then airing in a different order, you're just kind of watching saying, when was all of this locked? Do we even know where all of these things fall? Not just when they were made and when they were supposed to come out, But how they are supposed to relate to each other inside of the universe.

Like, I think there's a really interesting timeline question here with phase four, where, not to get us off track too early here, but like if Wandavision is set three weeks after Endgame, right? Yeah. Which we know to be true. And Endgame is 2023, which we know to be true. And Spider-Man No Way Home takes place from fall through Christmas of 2024, which we know to be true.

And this movie takes place after No Way Home, which we know to be true, then this movie is sometime in 2025, which places it a couple years after endgame, which, and quite a long time after Wanda Vision, which then makes you think,

and I don't mean to jump ahead, we'll certainly circle back to this when we talk about Wanda later. That's a long time for Wanda to be alone. That's a long time for no one to go check on Wanda. I think we can just talk about this now, because, yeah, I was like, I really wanted to talk to you about this timeline

because you put, you, you're the one who put this in the notes. So I feel emboldened talk about this, which is like, the fact that the MCU worked for several movies to establish this connection between Clint Barton and Juana Maximoff. You know, they're connected from the beginning when we find them, right? And, like, so I tweeted something about, like, end game ends, you know, end game ends with all these vignettes of characters like Lakeside having these chats or whatever. And Wanda and Clint are bonding over the loss of vision and the loss of Natasha, right? Yes. And this is, of course, on the heels of everything that transpired between them and Ultron, et cetera. Yeah.

Exactly. And, you know, and Civil War when he comes and rescues her and, like, all, you know, they have all this time together. And so they're standing there and they're bonded. And then presumably he never talked to her again. And when I put this out on Twitter, I was like, this is Clint's biggest. said, like, forget the run. Don't forget the running stuff, but forget the run and stuff. Like, why did he never check in on Wanda?

And, like, a bunch of people are like, well, he was busy with his own family and blah, blah, but, like, if you, when you look at the timeline, it's not like this has been weeks since, you know, the hex went down. This has been a long time. And so the fact that, like, Clint or none of the other Avengers that are still alive, checked on her. And so it's like, it just feels like, and we, I think we, I talk about it. talked about this a little bit with Wanda Vision. It's just sort of like, are these Avengers

actually friends? Like, you know, and I understand logistically, in a really boring Hollywood logistics way, paying Jeremy Renner to come do this or paying this actor to come do this to cross over into that. You have to pick and choose what you're going to do. But the magic of the Marvel universe, and you and I definitely agree on this, is the investment that they put into their characters and the character relationships. And so when they just, kind of forget about those, it stands out. And so I just feel like there's just a lot of... Are you doing a kind of forgot about the iron fleet? I'm always doing... I picked up what you were putting down. I'm always doing kind of forgot about the iron fleet.

So, so I, like, that's just, that's an early... We have a lot, a lot to talk about. But that's just, like, it's a question. It's a timeline question. And to your earlier point about, does Sam Ramey need to have seen all of Wanda Vision? I mean, I think what's more important is Michael Waldron seeing all of Wanda Vision, which I think he did. And he also, you know, you and I both talked separately to Waldron when he was making, when Loki came out. And something that he said, and Jack Schaefer, who was the head writer in Wanda Vision said this too, is like, basically Loki and Wanda Vision were in, like, next to each other

in the, in the Marvel offices when they were developing the shows. And Waldron and Jack Schaefer developed this, like, really strong friendship while they were developing the shows. And so he told me that he was so anxious to get Wanda Wright off of Wanda Vision that he was checking in with Jack and talking to her about it. Whether or not he got there, you know, anyone listening is free to agree or disagree, but I do know that it was on his mind that this feel like a continuously flowing story. So that's a good news when you're creating an interconnected world.

But like in terms of the shuffling order and all of that, it's just tough and especially tough when you're trying to launch a multiverse story to have to tell it out of order so that we at home are like. Give listeners a quick recap, but can you give listeners a quick recap of the reshuffle that took place? Basically, because Derrickson left, they had to push back the production. They had to like start from scratch, right? And so Rainey and Waldron were going to try to crash a screenplay and get it up and get the movie up as soon as they could. But then COVID happens, right? And so Derrickson leave and then COVID happens.

So they're just in a long pause, which means they have more time to work on the screenplay. Great. But it just pushes this back. So Dr. Strange, the Multiverse of Madness is supposed to come out before Wanda Vision and before Spider-Man, No Way Home. And if you, when you try to do, I mean, my brain is a pretty different circumstance. It can get lost for hours trying to do the math on what the story, like, would Dr. Strait and the multiverse of Madness ended in a way originally where Wanda, who was always supposed to be part of the cast, but probably not initially the villain. In fact, we know that Derrickson probably wanted to do a different villain, right? So if she were an ally, let's say a strange, but something happens at the end, like, you know,

this movie ends with the third eye opening on Dr. Strange's forehead. Like, let's say something like that happens to Wanda, which leads her into creating the hex because she's been pre-corrupted by the dark hold, something like that. Like that could flow. And then Strange coming off of whatever happens in this movie is what, causes him to do something kind of reckless with Spider-Man and No Way Home. You know what I mean? Like that kind of flows a little better than some of the back and forth that we're seeing here.

And that was their intention. But, you know, like, can't fight COVID. You can't fight the fact that Sony is in control of when Spider-Man No Way Home comes out, not Marvel. So you just do your best to cut and paste it all together in a way. And it's largely coherent. But is it the ideal way they wanted to launch their concept of the multiverse? I don't think so. Right.

And I think we want to circle back when we're talking about the creative crafters of the film to talk about Danny Elthman and the music in a second. But maybe let's just hit the big multiverse, size, and scope question for a moment. Yeah. While we're already talking about that. You know, we've been talking about this across the ringerverse

for some time now with Loki. with what if, with Spider-Rinoid home, with what we know is coming, Kang and Quantummania, etc. When will we get a little bit more clarity about what the rules of the Marvel multiverse are and how the stories relate to each other? And as is, you know, often the case with Marvel,

sometimes that will happen inside of the stories and sometimes that will happen via interview and comment. And there was a pretty key comment. from Kevin Fahey on the red carpet, right? This was to IGN. He said, there's always a method to the madness, even in the multiverse. And for Marvel fans who know that Loki and Sylvie

did something at the end of that series, that sort of allowed all this to be possible. He who remains is gone. And that allowed a spell to go wrong in Spider-Man, No Way Home, which leads to the multiverse going quite mad in this. I think that there are still a lot of world-building, elements and actual rules of how the multiverse works that need to be established.

I personally am not only willing to be patient with that, but actually would prefer as unmooring as it can be on a film-by-film basis, that that be parceled out over time and not actually all dumped on us at once in one massive mythology download. because I, and I think, you know, mileage may vary on this as it does with so many things in this movie and across Marvel. I don't think that the multiverse is a short-term play for Marvel. I don't think this is just a phase four thing. I think that we're talking about, and I have, to be clear, no idea. And another thing that Kevin Feige has said recently is that they're heading into a Marvel retreat to plot out the next decade of Marvel movies.

So maybe they don't know yet either. My assumption has always been that much. much like the infinity saga spanned three phases, and we should say, like, the phases are longer now than they are. There were six movies in phase one of the MCU. There are 11 in phase four. We actually are talking about a different volume, and so maybe my read on this is off. Wouldn't be the first time, Joe. Would not be the first time. But I'm just assuming that the multiverse is going to play out over phases four, five, and maybe even six, and that, you know, we'll talk about Secret Wars later today. We are building toward Secret Wars or something like Secret Wars,

some sort of pocket reality battle world showdown of universes. And then he reset after that for whatever phases then to come. And there are so many things that not only can happen between now and then, but that have to happen between now and then. The Fantastic Four, we know we're getting that movie at the end of Phase 4. We had a big update, John Watts, not directing that film anymore. The X-Men, probably the thing we mention most as a, when's it coming? What will it look like?

other than maybe our guy, Mephisto. Well, seeing Professor X in this movie, like the mutants are here. They're in the MCU now. But then when do we actually get the explanation for how they come into our primary continuity? What does that story look like? And when does it happen?

Forging the new Avengers. Forging the Young Avengers. Like, there's so much to do. And so I, to your point from earlier and your point from Pick Pick about expectations, I did think, that this movie, I was expecting the movie to be bigger, I guess. And I agree with Charles's

point that if you're teasing, you know, the Illuminati and X, Y, and Z, there's just going to be an expectation level for fans. But I was not in any way disappointed that that wasn't the case. And in fact, found myself really appreciating that the movie felt a little more contained and standalone and smaller in scope, and that we explored the multiverse through the lens of a couple

characters. Like, not everything has to feel like an endgame level event. And I think actually the only way you get to something that feels like endgame is if you zero in at key moments in between on how these people are living their lives, right? You have to build it for years and years and years and years so that when you get just like a short scene of like, you know, Natasha tiredly eating a sandwich at her desk, like you have all this time with her to like understand what that means, you know? So I agree. I think it's a slow role. It's not a phase four role.

It's not all culminating in quantum media. You know, like, that's not, that can't be our Kang culmination, right? And so they have said that we shouldn't think of Jonathan Majors as Kang in the same way we thought of Thanos. They have said that. At the same time, I can't imagine that they're not doing like secret wars. Like, I can't imagine that that's not happening. and I can't imagine doing that without King, so we'll talk about all that in a second, I promise.

The other thing that I want to say about this expectation of a multiverse is, and I promise I'm not going to do it too often, but I think the love affair that a lot of filmgoers had with everything everywhere all at once, which was a fantastic multiverse story, and had wildly imaginative multiverse. And in this we get like the montage of various multiverses, which we'll talk about. But in reality, it's only like 2.5 universes, really, kind of.

Right, we're on 616. We're in 838. We're in Sinister Stranges, Incursion Impacted, Destroyed Universe. We're in the gap junction. But yes, the true, holy shit, look at this splendor. and awe and wonder is contained to a spectacular sequence that because it is so spectacular, you of course wish you could have spent more time with. And like, you know, Waldron comes from Rick and Morty and Rick and Morty has done all these like bananas off the walls, multiverse stuff, you know,

so like if people were expecting that we were going to get like long sequences in a world where everyone's blobs of paint or something like that, like that's not what this movie is and because they were trying to tell something a little bit more straightforward and coherent. But if you see, if you see in the paint universe, Joe, America taught us that and we needed to to build to the pizza popper. You need pizza balls. Post credits. If you don't have pizza balls, what are you going to do, right?

But, like, I think if people see madness and multiverse in a title, they're like, and they just saw everything everywhere all at once where people have hot dogs or fingers, they're like, okay, we're going bananas. And Marvel's like, no, we're not going to do that. We're going to show you some wild stuff, but it's not that wild. And so I think they couldn't have planned this. But that movie, even though far fewer people saw that movie, great movie, you should go see it, it casts a shadow over the conversation. I think that's fair. I don't think that's an

unfair comparison. No, I've got that. Absolutely. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable internet means everything for your business. And even this podcast, that's why I trust Spectrum Business to keep companies of all sizes connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, mobile services, plus 24-7 U.S.-based support. Millions of business owners already trust Spectrum business. So visit Spectrum.com slash business to learn more. Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. Speaking of connections inside of the MCU, were you surprised in any way by which MCU properties ended up feeling most connected to this movie? I wasn't surprised by anything,

but I think you have, I'm cheating because I've seen our notes, but I think you have something really smart to say about this. So I'm just going to let you cook on this. So I was surprised by Spider-Man No Way Home not being as connected to this movie as anticipated. I think some of that is probably

what you already outlined about the shifting order of releases. I think that some of that is the sticky murky can water be sticky, murky waters of the right share with Sony. Yeah, exactly.

and how often you can or even want to connect to that. And then some of it is, I think, just, well, we have some, if we are going to get more Spider-Man in the MCU, and I hope we are, we have some pretty big reveals coming about how that's all going to shake out. You know, there's a conversation about Spider-Man in this movie. We get some great butt web humor. But, of course, nobody says the words Peter Parker, right? Because nobody remembers Peter Parker. They only remember Spider-Man.

Yeah. So Stephen can't really talk about what happened there because there's a lot of the movie he doesn't remember. I think we agree that Wanda Vision is more so even than the previous Dr. Strange movie, though, of course, I think you should see the first Dr. Strange movie. If we're going to see the second Dr. Strange movie and you want to learn about the mystic arts and camaraderge, et cetera. The history between Stephen and Christine, your favorite MCU couple, as we'll be, as we'll be talking about, more later. They're not. Extreme, like, Ron Howard narrator voice,

they're not, Joanna's favorite MCU couple. Wanda Vision is absolutely essential. I think the most essential prior installment for this film. What if?

I have probably more thoughts in the connections between what if than we really have time to explore. I might hit on Strange Supreme a bit when we talk about the four versions of Dr. Strange that we did get in this movie because he was not actually one of them. I thought he might be and was hoping that he would be, but I still think there are some important parallels about what we learn about and what Stephen learns about his nature and his recurring tendencies across universes that is certainly germane. I think that plot-wise, what if was less essential. But I think that. the movie felt to me almost like the cinematic version of what if, and this connects to the, like, establishing the rules of the multiverse point, where so much of this was about confronting alternate versions of yourself from other realities and really interrogating who you are,

what is nature, what is nurture, why do you behave the way that you do? But of course, then that brings us to Loki, which we mentioned Michael Waldron already, screenwriter of this movie, showrunner of Loki. I think that even though Loki did not have the plot pre, as many plot prerequisite elements despite that Loki, Sylvie Feigey quote that I shared and everything we learn in Loki about the TVA and the sacred timeline and everything that happens at the end with He Who Remains and opening up the multiverse, shattering the sacred timeline. It was a little bit less of the plot prerequisites than I was expecting, but I think it is the key spiritual twin.

because Loki and Dr. Strange in the Multimverse of Madness are both about confronting these mirror versions of who you are and assessing when these aspects of your life and your personality and the choices that you may carry over and feel eternal what that tells you about who you are and when do you diverge? When do you do something different? And is that about somebody else in your life and the impact that they had on you?

Is that about an experience? Is it about any number of things? And so I certainly would recommend Loki, first of all, because I love it. But I think more so because that is the thing that I am most interested about for Phase 4 and the multiverse in general in MCU. I just love that idea, these characters confronting other versions of themselves and really trying to figure out why they do the things they do. Yeah. And I think, okay, so this is going to be my second shout out to everything everywhere all at once. Because, like, to now I'm going to be the one to zoom forward in our notes, but like it's not just Loki, as you've noted.

like the three Peters and no way home, better understanding themselves. What if having opportunities for that? I would say even Moon Night, even though it's not different multiverses, but it's different aspects of your personality, how do you understand, oh, I'm the good one,

I'm the bad one, I'm the this, I'm the that, you know, by being in communication with these other versions of yourself. This is who I could have been, if,

et cetera. And I think that's really smart. I do think for this movie, even though it's here, that's not real. Like, that's the best that this movie has to offer in terms of emotional core. And I think it's here. But I think this movie feels like it also needs to be, as you say, such a frenetic adventure that I'm not sure it has as much time as something like everything everywhere all at once, which is very much about that. Like that is, to your point, your excellent point, that is the key advantage of a.

a multiversal story is, what if I'm a Loki and I meet a Sylvie? And everything everywhere all at once, because its core intention is one relationship, a mother-daughter relationship, it just has a lot more emotional space for that. And that's okay because that's trying to be one movie and this is a Marvel movie, which also needs to introduce America Chavez and give us a hopefully coherent art. for Juan Maximoff and all these other things that it is trying to do all at once and give you the fan service of the Illuminati and give you all of this sort of stuff. So it's not drilled down in on that one thing. And when it is, that is the movie at its most, I think, thrilling, which is the final exchange between two strangers that we get in this movie.

That's some of my favorite stuff in the movie. So I agree with you that it is like a thematic through line of this phase along with trauma. But I guess I could have stood even more of it. But there's some great lines, you know, like from the beginning when Strange sees Christine at the wedding and he says, I wish I had been different is something that he says to her, right? Or like, you know, Xavier has a great line about like, you know, when Reed is basically like,

we can't trust him. No, it's probably Mordo. Mordo says we can't trust him. And he says, like, Xavier says, just because, you know, when Reed is basically, like, we can't trust him. And he says like, Zavir says, just because someone stumbles and loses their way, it doesn't mean their loss or ever. We'll see what kind of strange you are. Callback there. Like, yeah.

And it's just like, I agree with you. That's the meat here. It's just, is there enough meat on the zombie bone for this particular movie? And I would say sometimes yes and sometimes now, you know. Right. The question two of, you know, and Christine asks Stephen, we hear the Stevens talk about. this with each other and hearing Sinister Strange say, and I got back here and I wondered, I'm paraphrasing, of course, from memory, one of the distinctions of watching the movie in the

theater versus in home is we can't take copious notes as we like to. And I got home and I wondered why I lied. Like, I was so struck by that line and that moment and how really devastating that is. But again, that's like an area where Strange's arc can really connect to Wanda's arc and this assessment of what you were longing for and what you're missing. And then how that manifests. And part of that is about the people who are around you because Stephen doesn't just take that back with him and hold it inside of him. Like the way that the Strange Supreme from What If is just encased in the shell of the universe that he destroyed because he couldn't stop trying to eliminate the absolute point of Christine's death. I have some serious questions about absolute points after watching this. I will say I'm saved that for another pod maybe or maybe later today.

We'll see. probably another pod. But Stephen then asks Wong that and like has that kind of conversation with another person who he cares about so that that person, Wong, can get to reflect and ask himself that and share his thoughts with other people. The movie needs, it is absolutely at its best in those moments. And the movie and the franchise and the phase and the saga, they need. They need that. They're the anchoring mooring elements. And that connects, I think, to one of the other big picture questions that we wanted to hit on briefly, which is like this idea of stakes, because that is certainly something that people have been discussing in the week

of the movie. And Bug is just, Bug is active. Right. I want to. Don't be. I love it. I mean, it's thrilling for me to watch. It might be less thrilling for you with her tail in your mouth. I promise I'm listening to every word you say, but I'm not, I'm just going to. She's an enthusiastic participant and Bug loves the multiverse. That's one of the things I know to be true about Bug. the the the the the does any of this matter question is first of all not specific to this movie this is kind of a recurring theme across marvel across comic book stories right on the on the small screen the big screen the print of page all of it when you have things like incursions destructions of entire universes that's basically like plot aside it's going to exacerbate it when you introduce the illuminati who to be clear we will talk about much more later in our character deep dive we'll definitely spend more time on the Illuminati, but you introduced them all, only to brutally kill them mere moments later. There are going to be members of the viewing public who say, well, does any of this matter? Now, my feeling on this is, like, I thought the Illuminati introduction and immediate, immediate

disposal was incredible. I thought it ruled. I loved it. I thought it was like pretty bold. And to me, it's like exciting to think of all of the different things that the multiverse allows you to toy with and play with. I, as a person who, you know, often has to interrogate my own obsessive attachment when I, when I hear Yoda and Mace Window and others sharing words of caution, I never really

want to say goodbye to anyone, Joe. And so I loved getting to see Tony Stark multiple times in what if. because I miss Tony a lot. It was very painful to see Tony killed multiple times again in what if. That was hard. I like the fact that we can see our old friends again, that they can reenter the story in new and imaginative ways. Of course, I also recognize and acknowledge that you need to handle the story

deftly and responsibly so that you maintain the stakes. And this is what we were just talking about. I think the key there, as is always the case, is that if you establish the stakes on a human level, and you are invested in your character's growth and their journey, it will feel real and it will feel important, even if we are visiting with different versions of these people. And again, maybe the fact that they're meeting different versions of themselves

can actually enhance that. Like, I don't think the Infinity War snap thing is at all a one-to-one comp, so I won't claim that it is. But I just remember, I'm curious, like, how you felt about this at the time. I remember so much, like, well, we know these characters are going to come back, so there are no stakes conversation. And I certainly, like, respect that stance in an opinion. I just felt personally, you mentioned Nat and the sandwich.

It's like the impact that that had on the characters we loved was real. That was the thing that they experienced no matter what. So the fact that we knew those other characters were going to come back because the future of the MCU was built around them and their characters didn't, to me, diminish and certainly didn't erase the stakes because I think the stakes are about the relationships and the human. I think that really depends. I think it really depends.

I think that there are some circumstances. So when Infinity War ended, the only thing that upset me was Peter and Tony because of Tom Holland's performance. But otherwise I wasn't, I wasn't like, I wasn't sobbing in the theater because I was like, all these characters are coming back.

Like, I'm not upset about this. I was a blubbering mess. Yeah, I know. You and I are different people. I would say, ask Chris Ryan, who I saw this movie with and sat next to me, but he has no memory of seeing this movie with me, which is very painful.

I'm sorry. But like you, like, I love that you were blubbering mess, and then I was immediately in like, okay, but all these people are coming back mode. Like, this is an important distinction between the two of us. But I think that to your point, when we see Tony say, like, I lost the boy or Nat and all that stuff in endgame,

all that stuff and end game really works on me. And then so the moment when everyone comes back just feels, you know, like, Cap is so weary and so tired from the fight and everyone comes back, and that's a big emotional moment. So, like, it all matters. It all matters, Mallory, but I think that there are some things that, like, honestly, if in a couple years they do a battle world and Robert Donnie Jr. comes back because he found out that the world doesn't have a huge appetite for Dr. Do Little movies, like, okay, that will diminish. the death of Tony Stark for me

and the huge emotions we felt around the end of this era and someone hanging up their spurs. You know what I mean? And I won't be mad about it. But it does have a diminishing aspect on something like that. Walking out of this movie,

having conversations about what happens with Wanda and this movie, I was from the beginning. And Elizabeth Olson has since sort of said, I don't think Wanda is dead. From the beginning, I was like, she's not dead. This is someone who can alter the reality,

like the fabric of reality. I don't think she's dead. We had a big burst of red chaos magic right then. Worse case. Worst case. Like, worst case, we get another multiversal version of her. And that is a different person. It's not the person we've been spending all this time with.

So that does matter. But I'm not that stressed about it. I had a blast watching the Illuminati die because these were not characters that we spent a lot of time with at all. I love watching Captain Carter. fight. I love seeing Krasinski as Reed Richards. I think it's really fun, though people can debate. But I thought the opportunity to just shred them to bits and pieces is really fun. That is the fun of the what-if comics. It's the fun of, you know, I didn't love the what-if show as much as you did, but that's like the fun of the opportunity of the what-if show. And I put this on nose. It reminds me of there's that opening sequence. I think it's in the first Breaking Dawn. Maybe it's in Breaking Dawn part two, where the vampires, like, I'm not telling

anyone to watch Twilight. But I'm just saying I had the most fun at the sequence when all these main characters these two vampire teams tear into each other all these main characters

just die. Heads are flying, blah, blah, and then it turns out to be just like a vision someone had. But it is a blast to watch like just all your main characters

die in this ridiculous way knowing that it won't stay. So, I mean, I think there are certain emotional beats, the sacrifice that Tony makes, his daughter growing up without him, all that sort of stuff. Like that's the kind of thing where I'm like, I want that person to stay dead.

I'm sorry, I do. I agree with that. You know? Yeah, I totally agree with that. I think we're actually saying the same thing. It would be okay if we weren't. I love to fence with you, Tony Dalton style. If that exact Tony.

And this also, we should say, happens all the time in comic books. is like resurrected and brought back, I would have a hard time with that. I think that's something that Van said to me in a podcast episode like months ago or something like that when I was complaining about something like this. And he was like, Joanna, that's just comics. And I really, I've really tried to work on that, like, attitude of like, that's just comics, Joanna. It's okay. That's just comics, you know. It's true.

But sorry, you were saying. Well, no. But I think that it connects to what you were saying earlier about expectations because like we can acknowledge the way that comic books. storytelling tends to function, but also want and expect a level of nuance and consistent storytelling within that. I don't think those things should be mutually exclusive. I don't think they have to be inside of the multiverse. And so I think that's why I was saying I think we're actually maybe agreeing more than disagreeing on this point because, you know, if we stick with the Tony comp for a second, like if that exact version of Tony suddenly reappeared in Pepper and

Morgan's life, would it undo everything? No. Would it change the way we looked at endgame? Of course it would. Absolutely. Part of the journey is the end is like one of the most iconic moments in Marvel history for a reason. I think it's important for not only the characters, but us as viewers, to really internalize and accept that we move toward a conclusion, that the stories can be a part of our lives forever, but there is actually an endpoint on the specific journeys. past we travel with these specific versions of these specific people. If we got another version of Tony from Earth, 838 or Earth, anything else in battle world one day, I think that there would be a way to have fun with that and give us a little bit of that,

like, warm, a hug and embrace of the downy charm that by then we will just be missing so desperately without undoing our real impact. Yeah, yeah, I know. Me too, me too. I agree. The score. Before we move into the character, oh, thank you. Thank you for giving me. Let's chat about the music. Please. Okay. Let's just talk about it. You need to be like the firing musical notes as at me every like three words here. What color are my musical notes? Am I in the major key or the minor key? It's a good question. You pour some chaos magic colors

today. It's true. It's true. I'll fire some red I am. That's great. Well, first of all, I did get a little like through. out of every single musical Easter egg we got. I don't even know if you can call an Easter egg, but when we hear the Wandavision theme or the X-Man animation theme or the First Avenger Q, those aren't necessarily Danny Elfman decisions,

but that was just a really fun part of the score, right? But the music note fight, Alzheimer. Of which Danny Elthman is directly involved in is one of the best things I've ever seen in a Marvel movie. The Midnight Boys were also talking about this, and I just completely agree. This is like Looney Tunes, Chuck Lorry-like level of weirdness.

And it's like, and it comes right after Dr. Strange like, or no, right before Dr. Strange inhabits his own, like, dead corpse. And that's just, that's a stretch of the movie where I'm like, these rules, right? All of that stuff rules so much. But so the music no fight, the fun that Danny Elfman had, using like some Beethoven in there, but just like clashing these major minor chords, the plunk of the harp, the one last note. that sort of devastates everything. Like all of that's great.

But then there's other stuff throughout. Like when Wanda's in the mirror, trapped in the mirror universe, there's this like music box, like ballerina in a music box score that I really, really love. That was scary. Yeah.

Like rolling you into this false sense of calm when you know something terrible is about that. Terrifying. And when America and Stephen zoomed through all the different multiverses, there's different musical cues for every single multiverse there in. It's amazing. Like that. could have been absolute gobbledy good chaos, but instead it's just like really fun and an exciting

oral, oral way for you to understand where you are. And then last, it's certainly not least. It's this incredible decision he made to use this like wailing guitar cue for certain things. Like when Stephen harnesses all the ghouls into making himself a cloak of the damned, like an incredible thing. And then when the when the third eye opens at the end, it's just the sort of like a way, like moment. And I'm just like, yes, Danny Elfman. Thank you. We don't get scores.

I mean, we've had some incredible scores in Marvel movies. Obviously, like, Sylvesterie is a genius. A lot of stuff that, like, happened to Black Panther is amazing. But I think that Elfman on this, like, he was really having so much fun, which Danny Elfman is a genius and has done an amazing work in his career, obviously. But sometimes, like, composers who have been working so long can just sort of like turn in, start to turn in the same things, you know, and then you can tell that they, like, woke up and are having a lot of fun, like, Hans Zimmer and Dune or something like that, and you're just

sort of like, or Jekino and the Batman. And so I just think that we're in, like, a really good era for scores. And I wanted to make sure that Danny Elfman got his flowers from us. I love it. Yeah, the score is just so immersive in this movie. And it really is such a essential part of the moviegoing experience because it helps cement the feeling of the world. It connects a lot to what we were talking about with Ramey earlier where there's this specific flare and sensibility that the composer, Alphen in this case, is bringing to the movie. And I love that you mentioned the bits of score pulled from other installments

because it's a great way. You know, we talk a lot about cameos across Marvel, across Star Wars, like when are the connections just the thing that makes something home at the perfect frequency for you as a fan and when is it too much? Like, this was perfect. This is a great way to connect and stitch together. the threads that unite this movie with other aspects of existing canon while also doing something that feels so wholly original and specific to this film.

I loved it. I do feel compelled to mention one other musical note, a key one in this film. I'll be thinking about this for a while. And it was when Dr. Stephen Strange, verse 616, always ready with a zinger, said to read Richards, Mr. Fantastic. of the Fantastic Four. Didn't you guys chart in the 60s?

Iconic. It killed me. It was a good line. I will say that was the moment where I was in the most missing Robert Dyn Jr. and Tony because Stephen was trying to zing every single member of the Illuminati and I'm like, you're doing okay, Stephen.

Oh, man. But Downy would have just like demolished them. The down bar is almost too high to clear. And obviously, you know, we'll talk in a few minutes here, actually, when we go into our character deep dive and we're going to start with Dr. Stephen Strange himself. When we talk in a few minutes about the mentor role that's putting Stephen Stranges, that's obviously a direct sub for Downey in the role that he played in the franchise.

And there are certain things that it's almost just like unfair to ask somebody else to do because Robert Downey Jr. Stoney Stark is just one of the most like indelible aspects of the MCU in the last decade plus of our experience as moviegoers. I personally really like the cover batch performance as Dr. Strange in general. think you and I agree that Infinity War is just the peak because he's trading Barb's with Downey and the influence of those characters on each other is so palpable in those moments. I'm projecting your reality douchebag is just the best. Transport your senses with Solte Janado's limited edition perfume mist collection.

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and get after it. Can we start diving character-wise? We can. Let's dive into our character chat. Let's start with Strange.

Chat a bit about Wong, Christine, the cloak of levitation. But we will start, of course, with the four Stevens and this idea

that we have already been talking about a bit today, Stephen confronting himself. So we have 616, Dr. Strange, Our Dr. Strange, the character that we have spent time with,

not only in the 2016 Doctor Strange film, but across many ensuing Marvel properties. We have the strange we open the film with in this N Media Res, raucous gap junction, pursuit of the Book of Vichanti sequence. All of those terms will become clear to us over the course of the film.

They are not in the moment. He is Defender Strange, and he becomes zombie strange. This is the corpse that 616 Strange will walk into. Defender Strange very quickly, for anyone wondering, the reason that this is the term people are using, he is wearing his comics accurate outfit from the stretches of the canon

where Dr. Strange forms and works with the defenders, the group that you may have heard of. these a lot of like reluctant alliances inside of the defenders. But, you know, if you got to face a demon, Joe, you got to team up to face a demon. You got some name or you got some Hulk. You got some Silver Surfer. There's some moments of aid from Clea, who, of course, we will be talking about later when we get to the Stingers because Charlie Sterron is Clea. It's incredible stuff.

And I think this is a nice reminder for moviegoers, the Defender's costume here, of, of just the number of different groups that Dr. Strange has worked with across canon. And in this movie alone, we have, of course, the Masters of the Mystic Arts, the Avengers, a lot of lunchbox talk, right? The defenders,

the Illuminati. He is a man of many alliances and many singers. You want to know a fun fact about Wanda on the lunchbox? I was wondering if this was like a pointed reference, but I was like, yeah, there's been so much talk about the the female cast members of these movies not being on the merch.

And so I was just curious, idly curious. If you Google Avengers Lunchbox, how far down do you have to go to find one with Wanda on it? You have to go really far down to find a lunchbox with Wanda Maximoff on it. So I wish she, if he had said back on the lunchbox, I wish she would have said, back on the lunchbox, never on the lunchbox, buddy. But yeah, it's a good line. But I was just curious.

It's funny. We have, of course, 838, Dr. Strange, RIP. It's got this big old statue and this plaque about how he's earth's mightiest hero. And then we learn, of course, the truth tempted by the dark old. It's got those darkened fingertips and tickets toll. It's so sad because Stephen's like, see, we're not all bad. Then later we're like, oh. And the Illuminati as a result of their experience with their Stephen Strange, a member of their team who Black Bolt had to disintegrate with the power of his voice.

Put it in that one. We'll be going back to that. They don't trust this, Dr. Strange, when he shows up. Then there is sinister strange, incursion strange, from the annihilated world that suffered an incursion. these two universes blending together. There's some like a really amazing visuals in the sequence when 616 Strange and Christine visit Sinister Strange. You already mentioned how impactful some of those sequences are. So those are the four strangers. Can I talk really quickly about wig choices here? So like basically there's just like a corner on my face. Yeah, a couple options for, you know,

ponytail strange, obviously fantastic. Love to see a ponytail. But I thought actually sinister strange versus R Strange was the most interesting because, like, they actually matched the most in terms of facial hair and hair. It's just like... Sinister Strange had a very full goate. His goatee was a little fuller and longer, and then his hair was a little long. It's like, he was like our strange who had like let himself go a bit. And what that tells me, like his hair was just a little longer. And his goatee was just a little longer. And his eyebrows were like, pointier. So I'm like, does Stephen Strange? sculpt his eyebrows.

And this is a Stephen Strange who just hasn't been to the eyebrow waxer a little while. You think he's tweezing? You think he's going to a waxer or a threader? I think he's got a guy. I think he's got an eyebrow guy. That's what I think. You know, he doesn't have his own tie. He doesn't have the dexterity.

He doesn't have the dexterity to pluck himself. So I think he either goes to someone or yes, maybe let's the magic do it. But here's another fave of mine, of course, is accent corner, right? So my question is, given that there were so much. many strangers that, like, you know, four different strangers that we got to deal with in this, in this movie. Could not one of them have been British? I really would have liked a British strange just to let, like, Khammerbatch cook with his own

accent. Maybe they were like, that would be too strong. I've always just really felt. I wanted him to say later skaters? I've always really felt that Stephen Strange should be British. So I feel. Dormammu. All right.

Dormammu. Dormomu. I've come to bargain. Yeah. Oh, I love it. And, you know, as I already mentioned, Strange Supreme from What If was not in this movie, but definitely like a spiritual connection because we see the way that in that What If arc that Strange can really badly transgress.

We see how important Christina's him more so in, frankly, that episode than maybe elsewhere in the canon. And also, in terms of a corollary to other characters in Wanda's arc, just the perils of pursuing the thing that you have lost at any, at any cost at all. So Strange Confronting himself, we've discussed this a lot already. I thought that this was one of the more successful elements of the movie and is a key through line of Phase 4 so far, Loki, etc. The pairing of these more focused, introspective moments inside of the set pieces, the action, the race through the multiverse, I think we need them as that grounding force. And I think there are a lot of them across the movie, really, from start to finish.

You get that moment with Dr. West back. Nick West is back. Speaking of Whig Corner, uh-huh. Oh, my God. Yeah. Wow. Michael Stoolbarg rocking like a sassy suburban mom cut, I think, is what he's wearing to wedding here?

You think that's how he always styles his hair or is that the, is that the formal? Yeah, the formal look, exactly. Exactly. Exactly. I thought that interaction is really interesting because, like, you know, Strange is already sitting there feeling, like, bad about his personal life choices, right? Dr. West really rubs it in. He rubs that in, but he's also, like, questioning him professionally as well.

He's like, you know, because, you know, Stephen's like, well, at least I can take comfort in the fact that, you know, I saved the universe. And he's like, did you need to do it that way? Was that the best choice? I do think it's really interesting that apparently everyone knows what happened on Titan. I think that's interesting. Who's chronicling all of this? Who's informing the people?

Was there a documentary? I would like to know. I've always wondered about this. Do you think Star Lord was blogging about it? I don't know. Intergalactic TikTok, maybe. But I think that question of like, you know, because it's the question that Wanda asks essentially as well. Like that big move he makes of the Time Stone was that the only, we only have his word for it,

that that was the only move, you know. One in 14 million, baby. Yeah, I loved that exchange for a couple reasons. One, it is important to just have these, again, like specific, individual, human-focused reminders of what the cost of a given story mechanic are. I would definitely be the, I don't like to think about dead animals, dead cats, as you know, it's very upsetting to me, but I would be the person mentioning that first as well, just like Dr. West. But you see, and are reminded of the loss, the loss that everybody suffered. He blipped, we learn,

but also his brother, gone, his cats, gone, these ties and bonds that are incredibly meaningful part of his life, gone. And so for him to say, was that the way it had to be, is a thing that should happen? And actually, I think people questioning these heroes and not just saying, it's not like a quite a full-on who watches the watchman moment, but I do think we need these moments like this. I mean, so much, of course, of Captain America's Civil War hinges on the characters, the heroes debating this with each other, you know, who gets to decide who was right? And should that even be up to us all the time, right? It's a lot of power to wield. And so I loved it in that respect. And then as you noted, the way that that connects to the great, it doesn't seem

fair moment between Wanda and Strange. And we have a lot of corollaries between Wanda and Strange with the way that the other strangers have, in fact, transgressed badly, have in fact jeopardized the universe, have in fact succumbed to the dark hold. Even more so than it wasn't fair is like I had to blow a hole in the head of the man I loved and it meant nothing, you know, like. Right, that very specific tie between them of the Time Stone. That's why it's like it's personal.

Yeah, exactly. It's a great point. Like, this is what she had to do to protect an Infinity Stone. And Stephen just gave his up. And we can believe him. I choose to believe him that this is the only option going forward. But, like, if I'm Wanda, I'm maybe not like, really,

there was nothing else you could do. I had to kill the most important person to me and you just gave it up. Well, and it connects, too, to the, you know, the Christine line that we hear more than once from more than one Christine across the movie. You have to be the one holding this. knife. Like on the one hand, the one in 14 million moment is like a terrible, terrible burden for Dr. Strange as it would be for any character to have to be the one to make that decision, to have

to be the one on whose shoulders all of the fallout rests. I just have to shout out our friend of the pod, Michael Waldron, who we've already mentioned a few times, love is a dagger and Loki. You have to be the one holding the knife here. Our guy loves a knife slash dagger line. And guess what? They both worked. Great stuff. Let's ask him about. his knife fetish. No, I think also the other really cool opportunity, it's not just a really great visual, the way in which Strange inhabits his own body, his own zomified body. At the end, really fun visual allows for some really fun Sam Ramey, zombie, you know,

antics, really great stuff. But we opened the movie seeing Strange make one decision, which is to not trust America to be able to do this herself. trying to take her powers from her. Exactly. Fine, I'll just do it myself, so he takes the powers from her. So to see him then make, you know, classic movie making to see a different decision, you know, to show the character progression, face with the same decision, they make a different choice.

Classic, classic screenwriting. But to make that choice while wearing the dead skin of the strange who made the other choice, adds just like an extra layer of beauty to that, you know? I totally agree. He will literally shed the weight. of those prior limitations. And that kind of growth is a really, really, really meaningful thing. And we hear throughout the film, all of these characters telling Stephen that all of the

Stevens are the same, the Illuminati, that Wanda's not the threat. You are. And we know this because we have seen before the ways in which that is true, the ways in which you have failed and gone astray. and even he says this. Even he, a character often defined by ego, hubris, that is like fundamental to the first film, fears that aspect of himself,

as much as he connects his power and his sense of might and right to that. He also, on some level, knows that that's the thing he needs to move beyond. And the fact is, so much of the movie, hinges on the fact that he is not going to be the same. same. Now you do get the use of the dark hold. But like, and we, this is another thing. This is a recurring discussion point for us across the pods. When we talk about our guy, Steve Rogers,

the cap, the safest hands are still our own idea from Civil War. Like, only a few characters can get away with saying that. And we would not typically say that Dr. Strange is one of them, right? Because we don't necessarily always trust that the hubris will lead him to the right place, because we have seen the number of times where it hasn't been. And the fact that he has to confront that too in order to then move to a different place where he can help another character tap into that sense of inner purpose and belief is, I think, a really meaningful thing. I was trying to suss out for myself. What was the difference between Stephen's arc in the first Doctor Strange movie and his arc in this one? Because the first arc is so clearly about him

overcoming his ego, right? The Asian one says, like, this isn't about you. Like, that's the big move for Stephen in that movie. And on a, on a, on a, surface level, you could say it kind of feels like the same thing here, right? Like, he has to learn how to bow to Wong, and he has to learn to let America, like, you know, take the lead on the fight and all and stuff like that. And that's about ego. But I think if you dig in a couple layers deeper, this idea of control for him is not just what he discovers, I think, about himself is that it's, and it's explicit in his conversation with Christine at the end of this movie, that it is not about necessarily ego. It's about fear. Like, you know,

They're talking about relationships, right? I do want to care about someone. I want some to care about me, but it's scary. Like, this is terrifying for me. That loss of control. And I think that fear can be sourced to that, you know, speaking of confronting and confronting, why does our strange when he needs one thing for the other strange to recognize him?

And the one thing that maybe all the strangers shared across the multiverse is the death of his sister when he was younger and how he was not able to save her. This is an inciting traumatic incident incident for him, which is from the comics, that like put him on a path where he felt like, I can't let this happen again. I have to save everyone. And I have to be the one to do it. It has to be me. I can't feel a lost control. I can't feel responsible. I'm terrified because this person that I cared for died and it was my fault.

And so him overcoming that, the arrogance. is one level and then digging down into the source of the arrogance, which is fear in this horror movie, I think is another key level the films playing on. Incredibly well put, I completely agree. I always found it strange that, I guess I should say odd, instead of saying the character's name there.

I always found it odd that Donna was not in the first movie. Now, Scott Derrickson has talked about, so there's a deleted scene. there was a scene that was cut out of the film. And, you know, again, I'm paraphrasing, but he said in essence that it didn't fit the movie. And I always found that a little odd because of exactly what you just outlined. This is such a foundational part of who this character is.

There are a couple different moments in comics canon that connected Donna. There's an earlier injury when she is younger, the skating injury. And that puts Stephen down this path of medicine and healing and trying to learn how to fix. There's like, when your strength can also be one of your great sources of peril, like classic Jack Shepard. I was going to say, you have to fix you, Jack Shepard. Exactly, right? Some familiarity there for sure. And then there is the when she drowns later.

That's when she's a teenager. And I have a brother in the comics, too. There's this larger family unit. I love that dissonance inside of. Stephen Strange. I love the strange franchise. I love, you know, strange comics because I love magic and I love the mystic arts, and I love those elements of the story. Like, Marvel Magic is really cool and fun to me. That aspect of his character in particular is something that I was glad to see it highlighted here, and I'm eager to see, continue to, the films continue to explore,

because when so much of what makes you the superhero or the surgeon previously that you are is the certainty that you bring to every decision that you make, that unflinching ability to say, I know what needs to happen here, I know what we need to do. Well, sometimes you become the bad guy when that's your instinct. Often you become the bad guy when that's your instinct. And so what stops that or what humanizes a character

who so often is inclined in that direction? It's exactly what you just outlined. And I think of a moment like the Comertage sequence, at the beginning of this film when Wanda comes for America. Now, I've got some, like, you had one job notes for the Masters of the Mystic Arts, where it's like, I don't know, maybe just move America. Try to go somewhere else if you know Wanda's coming. I don't know.

Let's, like, workshop another game plan here. But that aside, I love that Stephen's instinct is not to try to challenge her alone. he knows actually that that would be a mistake. And that's real progress for him. And so the visuals of all of the sorcerers uniting, that shield only works, and it doesn't work for long, but it only works at all because they mount that defense together as one. And that's really an important part of his progression

for a character who was so defined by his fierce, fierce, go-it-alone pursuit, that he wound up with nothing other than that one watch, which was shattered as soon as he walked. walked into camarades, right? And it took him so long to be able to actually tap into the magic because he had to let go of those specific inhibitions. He had to make himself vulnerable and open himself up to something larger than himself. I love that. Dr. Strange's mentor. Let's chat about this for a second here. How is this working for you? I just don't think it's as good. I mean, so it's, as you, as we said before, Tony casts an unfair shadow over this, right? Downey is just like,

He looms. Charisma Fountain, right? But like, and I've seen Cumberbatch, I mentioned this in Big Pick, I've seen Cumberbatch do so many. It's similar to the Falcon and the Winter Soldier thing where Anthony Mackey and Sebastian Stan are so charismatic and fantastic in press tour. And Fagie cited that as like a reason why he thought their show could work. Your mileage may vary on whether or not that show works. But I think the lesson we're learning here is like not every. like press tour pairing equals like on perfect on screen pairing and it's like I like strange in

no way home but I don't think his thing with Peter is even close to Benedict's thing with Tom which is very cute actually um and I think a similar thing is happening here I mean it's fine it's fine it's just fine is what it is but it's not great I'm not walking away here thinking that like you know, if if something terrible would happen to America, Stephen would stumble out of a spaceship and say, like, I lost the girl, you know, and I would

cry. Like, that wouldn't happen. So if that's what they were going for, maybe it wasn't, but if that's what they were going for, didn't quite make the mark here. But I was trying to think of other, like, so I had a lot of young people joined the MCU recently, and we'll talk about that in a second. But, like, you know, it makes you think about Clint and Kate.

Or even like Natasha and I think Yelina's not as young as these other people, but I think Natasha maybe nailed this best with Yelena out of all of the options here. They obviously have history. But like I think Scarlett Johansson, the way that she played off of Flores Pugh's, like, exuberant young energy, even if Yelina is like technically older, she is sort of like mentally with these teens, emotionally with these teens. Yeah, that's the comp that I was thinking about. How about you?

Yeah. No, it's interesting. You know, I, I certainly don't mind Strange in Peter and I enjoyed Strange in America, but yeah, it's, it's, the, the, the Tony Peter relationship is like a very special part of the MCU to me. I think it's part of why. And I know this is not only not the case, actively not the case for some fans who are like, that's not the version of Spider-Man I want. He shouldn't be so connected to the Avengers. in this larger unit, right? And that's not personally how I feel about it, but I certainly respect that stance, which I know is the way that many people feel. I just loved their moments together. If you're nothing about the suit, then you shouldn't have it. Loved it. And so it's like, doesn't feel like a bar that anyone could clear. But yeah, the fact that Strange has been put in that position of trying to fill that role is so interesting. I think I agree ultimately with where the Midnight Boys landed on this on their pod, which is it feels less to me like even the Marvel stewards think that Stephen Strange should be the mentor

and more that it's a reflection of the growing stature that he has and import that he has overall to the slate of films and the leading charge that he's going to play in the stories moving forward. I love Marvel and I'm hopeful for the future, but I don't think Benedict Cumberbatch's Doctor Strange is remotely near the tent pole that Downey's Tony Stark was that you can put at the center. This is not the choice I would make to hang my franchise on. I think that this is one of the interesting things about the multiverse and just obviously like plenty of, I don't want to be like a dummy here. Plenty of characters are going to be involved in multiversal stories. the MCU and are in the comics, but the direction of the stories right now, it feels like the magic wielders, like, have to be central in a really meaningful way. And there's going to be so

much of the cosmic as well. So will our more, like, street-level heroes have a role to play? Of course. Like, we got to see Captain Carter and the Illuminati. That was awesome, right? But do you need somebody with a connection to the Dark Dimitamin? with history, with the Scarlet Witch and the Elder Gods, etc., who knows what a nexus event and a nexus being is to really be at the four? I guess you don't need it, but it might help, which is an interesting, that's an interesting place to be for sure. What also helps is when you have a really crackling romance in your stories,

and I'd like to talk to you for a few minutes and just clear out from Joe Isobal here about Stephen and Christine and how much of the story hinges on their relationship. Okay. So this is another moment of Mallory and Joanna are not the same, which is you loved the what-if episode that centered on Dr. Strange. I know you did. Oh, you didn't. No. So yes and no. I loved the ideas in the episode. I really did not like the let's fridge Christine time and time and time and time again so that our hero can go on a journey. I thought that was like, frankly, bizarre. The Fridge Olympics that is that episode. Really weird. It's truly strange. But Rachel Bich Adams is a tremendous actress.

We love her. She's an Oscar nominee. I think she's incredible. She's had charisma with some of our favorite actors, including your favorite Luke Kirby. You know, like, she's fantastic. Don't think she can't coverbatch have it. I don't think they've ever had it. And I think as bizarre as the use of Christine in the first Dr. Strange movie was,

which was like, let's cast Rachel McAdams. to do literally nothing in the first movie. It was even more bizarre here to pretend that they have some epic romance that we can hinge a lot of strangers pull, the temptation, all of that on. You can only access the gap junction by using the precious gift that she imparted to you.

Yeah, I mean, if it were, if it were, you know, cap, And Peggy, like, we get it, right? Even if it's Tony and Pep, we get it, right? And we don't quite get it here. They have this great line. I think either you put in the notes or I did. Like, I love you in every universe is an incredible line.

And I should be crying when someone says that the way that I'm crying when Cap goes down at the end of First Avenger. When you say, okay. You say it goes down. All right. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I'll save it for house.

No, you're up to apologize. The v. The universe continues. It's all content. Oh, God. But, yeah, it just, it's not here for Christine. And I like that she had more to do. And I liked her, like, kicky, powder blue, like, jumpsuit that she wore from her universe.

That's great. But I just, I didn't feel. And I think it's so important that that work because. as you've alluded to already, like, key part to making Wanda's thing feel less problematic. We're going to talk about that in a second is the idea of like, there but for the grace goes,

Stephen Strange. That in another universe, it was Stephen, not Wanda, that fell to the dark old, right? So the pull that he feels to Christine has to be the same as the pull that Wanda feels towards her boys.

And I just don't feel that. How do you feel about Christine and Stephen? Yeah, I do think that despite my issues with that aspect of the what-if episode, it helped for me further cement their tie, much more so than the first film did. Overall, I agree. If the fate of any universe is going to hinge on the connection that two people share, that connection needs to be undeniable. Undeniable for anybody watching that movie. And it doesn't always have to be romantic, of course. Like, the Avengers go to war with each other because of cap and buck.

Exactly. I'm with you to the end of the line. And like, you need to feel that. I mean, now listen, people who love each other fight. We're talking about a, this is the part where you leave, duo in terms of like one of the most memorable moments of their pretty limited screen time together. So I also felt really glad that that Christine had more to do in this movie. I think the fact that she's the one who is naming the universes, et cetera, was really,

cool. We got like a great moment of the different, the, the, again, this, what's similar, but different, right? The finger, the broken fingers and, and the pattern of, of those fractures, like, the role that she played in the movie, I was glad that she had more to do, but too much is hinging on, on that connection for, for sure. And also, like, part of it is that, and we'll talk about the stinger a little bit more later, I'm just like, oh, Clea's here. This is, like, the actual one true love. I wish comics wife. And, like, now that. they're going to be in a relationship. So to immediately, I think, signaled us that that's coming also kind of like diminishes it. Though I guess the flip side would be, hey, we all need to learn

to move on, which is. I actually think there was, there would have been like a really cool way to it's not fair for me in a Monday morning quarterback, a movie that I did not have to write. But like, there's a way to lean into that actually than to try to fight against it, which is if in this like conversation where Christine's like, it doesn't work for us, it's never going to work for us, all that sort of stuff. If she says stuff like, you don't love me, you love the idea of me or something like. If she said something like that where it's like strange does have this obsession of like, what am I missing in my life, blah, blah, and he fixates on Christine as like this grand miss opportunity because he doesn't have a life outside of his work and all this stuff like that.

And if she's like, we were never that, that was never us. You've just invented this thing in your head. Like, go find the real thing. That's a cool story, I think. And one that makes more sense with the existing chemistry that they have. I want to defend Charles along with you in this moment. So go for this Charles defense. Charles is 100% right about the incursion sex. This was also my read on it. 50% right. So on the Midnight Boys' right, Charles says his read was if you have two rough sex between two people from different multiverses.

I don't actually think that them having very intense sex would shatter the multiverse. I do think that there was some innuendo in Christine's comment. What an incursion that would be. Absolutely. with you. You and Charles and I are united than that. Would it literally destroy worlds? No. But yes. You think Dr. Strange uses the Mystic Arts in bed? He should. And maybe he's about to because Charlie's there on his ear. You got to up your game when Charlize is your teammate here. Speaking of the Mystic Arts. Yeah. A couple quick magic-centric notes here. Wong, as is the case in No Way Home, which was a surprise. in no way home, but continues here, is Sorcer Supreme?

We get this great. I loved in the book of Ashanti. I'm like, that's not real. Oh, no, yeah, it is. You learn all about it when you're sort of unbelievable. I loved those little moments, but we build toward. It's a custom. Right.

Yeah, I'm familiar with the custom, a custom that he refuses, that Strange refuses to observe, and we build toward the moment at the end where he does observe the custom. He does bow to Wong. And part of that is just one more step for them in their bond and their relationship. but also a recognition. Like when you think about just plotting and story mechanics, strange not being sorcerer supreme,

actually unlocks a lot of possibilities that tethering him to that role would perhaps inhibit. So I think it's kind of interesting that the MCU made that decision in that respect. But thematically, you know, Arjuna was making this point. I think it's a really strong one. It's strange coming to terms in one more way

with the fact that it's a... okay sometimes to not be the one holding the knife. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Was there a favorite bit of sorcery for you in the film? Favorite bit of magic? I definitely think it's the moment where Christine is like, buddy, you don't have to fight these ghouls. And then he makes himself a fancy cloak.

Their spirits use them. That was great. Out of dead guys. Yeah. The souls of the damned. Love to make wings out of souls of the damned. The souls of the damned were like their CG obviously. but it ties in very much with Ramey's obsession with like old school Ray Harryhausen,

stop motion, skeletal stuff. They're very much in that vein and especially like their little like jeering comments and their little voices, their little like scary comedy voices. Very, very Ramey. So good. How about you? Did you have a favorite bit of? I think it's a, that was probably my runner-off.

I think it's just the music fight, which we already talked about earlier. that was so great. I loved it. And especially like the color coding of the music fight in addition to just how cool it was getting the sinister strange using the purple magic

the dark dimension for his musical notes. That was probably my favorite. I have an important question for you. Yes. And I would like you to answer honestly if you can. Okay. Would you dream walk into your own corpse in a moment of extreme need?

100%. Yes. But just without reservation. You're cracking in the dark hole. You're like, I've got this in. Paperback, hardback. I've got it on my Kindle. I got the cliff notes.

Who needs the long form version? Especially if I'm Stephen Strange, who, to be clear, when he buried himself on the roof of a building said, I've buried worse. Some just, as Wong said, some real, like, code violations with that one. A city ordinance violations. But, like, and also just, I want to just. I want to just shout out Wong and Benedict Wong in general is like, what a cool hang. Such a great hang when he shows up in the first, the opening fight. I got so excited.

I think he's actually viking better with America than Stephen is, not just because he's a more personal person, but just like some of his line reads and stuff like that. It just like really, really worked. I'm a big fan. Do you think we will get Wong Academy instead of Strange Academy? Is that one of the directions that we might be heading in? Obviously, America, who will talk about, you know, shortly just. can't get the sling ring portal to open right away. Well, I, I don't know if you know this, but sling rings are...

Nightboy's corner flip right there with the head. Not easy to navigate. Yeah, yeah. I love it. I love it. Do you want to talk about your best friend, the cloak of levitation? I just want to say once more than I love the cloak. And I was, it was heartbroken to see the cloak sustained an injury.

I'm glad that Christine was able to patch up the cloak. What exactly transpired there who can say? But glad that the cloak was. repaired. I love to understand why that happened. Like, if there's a plot reason why that happened and it got cut or if they just want to sell new merch. And new merch means instead of the red cloak, you've got the red cloak with the blue patch. Like, oh, yo, you have regular strange, but do you have blue patch strange? Well, guess you that kind of stuff works on all the time. The sucker right here. I love you. I love you so much. Would you rather, Mallory Ribbon, would you rather the cloak of

Levitation or the rug from Aladdin? Oh, the cloak is levitation for sure. Wow. Okay. I mean, tough look for the carpet. Okay. Absolutely. The cloak as the pocket square in Strange's wedding fit just whipped out and swirled around him as he shows off and dives off the balcony.

Makes you think of like Tony, you know, the mark bracelets, like shooting down, falling into his own suit of armor and other Tony. Compe. Love it. You know who Cumberbatch has chemistry with? His cloak. It's a cloak. Oh, yeah. The line that I loved was, it's not a cape, it's a cloak because that's like a fun inside baseball marvel joke

of like the woman, the person who designed that cloak. When I interviewed her for the first movie, I was told by the Marvel Powers that B, do not call it a cape in front of her. She will be very mad. You must call it a cloak. So I feel like that was like a little

inside joke. Don't call it a cape, call it a cloak. Let's talk about Wanda and Billy and Tommy. Wanda Vision. Yeah. Wanda Maxmoff, Scarlet Witch, was, in fact, after much discussion and speculation heading into the movie, the primary villain of the film. I want to know everything about what you think about that and about how Wanda's story was handled in the movie. I'm curious before we dive into that. separate actually from our feelings about the actual execution of Wanda's story in the movie

and maybe it's impossible to separate, but just in a general sense, would you have preferred a, you know, quote-to-quote new villain like Nightmare or another character to be featured in the movie, or do you actually enjoy that, obviously, we get new characters in the movie with America Chavez, etc. enjoy spending more time with established characters. I think theoretically this is a great move and I think I talked about this

on the big pick as well where it's like when you're this deep into a series you have the opportunity to I mean like so Civil War is a different version of this but when you're like you're fighting each other

in Civil War that's more interesting than like Rando villain of the week of the movie you know when it's Loki and Thor like that matter

when it's Loki who shows up in Avengers after meeting him and Thor, that matters more than, bless her, Kate Blanchett showing up in Ragnarok. That matters less, you know? And so I think theoretically, it's a great idea to put an established character as a villain to give a villain turn to a character in general. You just need to be careful about the execution, and that's something that we're going to talk about.

But I think theoretically, I think it's a brilliant idea. What do you think? Yeah, I agree. I feel the same way about it. I think in general, every movie or show setting up and then discarding a new villain is not compelling when we're spending this much time watching these stories.

And I like our characters recurring and us getting to spend more time with them across the installments. But let's talk about it in a more specific fashion and less generally. The way that Wanda was deployed in the movie is certainly controversial. A lot of Wanda fans are very unhappy.

You are a long-time Wanda fan. I also love Wanda. You are a huge Wanda lover, though. You obviously loved Wanda Vision. So there are a lot of different aspects of this portrayal that we should dive into. Obviously, as we've talked about

across our many episodes together of Phase 4, the impact of trauma on our characters remains a central focus and a through line of phase four. That was the case in Wanda Vision. That is the case here as well. When we first meet Wanda, when Strange goes to find her, we are in this apple orchard.

And you put this in the notes, and I had this in my notes as well, this very overt Eve temptation imagery. Was this version of Wanda a natural, continuation to you of the Wanda Vision arc and Wanda's overall arc across the MCU? Or did this feel like a real leap, an unfortunate leap? Are you conflicted? Where are you with all of this? I'm conflicted. But again, I think, again, this is not fair for me to do. But I feel like I've solved, because I was trying to figure out, I'm like, I'm not as mad as some people are. I think there's a way to do this. And I just don't know that they did it the way that they needed to do it, but I'm not saying the whole, belongs in the trash. So I think the A problem for me and for a lot of people is, and you and I forget

what we were talking about. Maybe you'll remember, but this idea as like being a mother or not as like the driving. There was some other property where you and I brought this up as like a something you need to be careful around. You know what I mean? But this idea that one is I'm not a monster, I'm a mother. The emcee has already had this issue with the idea of motherhood as it pertains to Natasha and Ultron. When the storyline that Joss Whedon wrote

that Natasha was sterilized as part of her widow training is brought back in a really great way in the Black Widow film. But I think when she says to Banner, you're not the only monster on the team, a lot of women took that as this idea of like if you can't have children, that makes you a monster.

So for Wanda to say, I'm not a monster, I'm a mother, like to actively play with the same words again, it was a bizarre choice for me. For there to be Wanda, the woman driven to the brink, possessed by the dark hold, if you prefer, but driven to the brink over the loss of her kids, we're going to talk about comic lore and the kids in a second. but like, and then for every other version of Wanda to be happy with her kids and every other multiverse, to me puts a dangerous binary on this figure where we get this like saintly Madonna mother version of Wanda, and then we get this like horrifying monster version of Wanda. And my solve for this is Strange gets four different versions of himself.

Why not give us one more Wanda in this story who, does not have kids and is fine as like a thing for Wanda to confront in her journey. Her journey can still be the same. This can all still be part of her you know, you put someone in our nose this idea of like the dark hold and its impact on someone is a classic fantasy genre trope.

We think of Harry and the Locket. We think of Frodo in the Ring. But if you think of something like that, if you think about the Lockett or the Ring, different characters. characters react differently to that, right? Like, Ron can't handle even a second with the locket. Or Boromir and his relationship to the ring, what Boromir does. Do we blame Boromir? No, but we know that Boromir is made of, like, weaker stuff than Frodo, that Frodo can carry

the ring because of who he is. So it's not that the person, if someone is inhabited by one of these mystical artifacts, their own personality also comes into play. So I've heard some people who defend this storyline say, like, well, she was possessed by an evil book. So it's not really Wanda. I'm like, no, you can be possessed by one of these artifacts, but it still is bringing out something that's in you already. So we can't just say this isn't our Wanda. This is still Rwanda making these choices.

I don't know. What do you think about any and all of that? Boy, let me just start with the last point you made, which I think is important and something I've been thinking about as well. and I will just say broadly, I've been thinking about this a lot since I first saw the movie. And I, there are parts about Wanda's Ark

in this movie that don't sit right with me, and then there are parts that I think feel true to the character. And I do think that both of those things can be true at once, though I will in no way attempt to convince anybody else to feel that way. I think that people who are upset about this

and feel like this is not the version of Wanda that they want to see. That's completely valid. So it's not my intention to talk anybody out of that sincerely. And I think that the, I completely agree that the portrayal of motherhood as Wanda's great undoing, unmooring element in this reality is like a very fraught and dangerous idea. I thought that Vann made a really great point. We were talking about this in the group chat. he made this point on the pod that so often, I said I was going to start

with your last point, then I didn't. That's fine. It's probably going to go all over the place with this one. That so often fatherhood is presented

as this source of heroism and strength, why can we not get that here? You know, for Wanda and Motherhood, why could that not be like a grounding element

in our source for strength? I think that's an interesting point. And I think that, as you noted, rightly, the overall depiction across the history of the MCU is something that's a hard thing

not to think about. And so I think that that is definitely a choice and it's one that I'm, that specific element, definitely one that I am struggling with. I think that the, oh no, go ahead, go ahead. No, I mean, I just, I want to say that I'm not like,

I'm not wholly out in either. I think that there are things that, well, and as much credit as we want to give, Waldron, I also want to say that, like, in a big Marvel machine movie, it's never on one screenwriter decisions that are made here, right? This is never, they're beholden to a larger machine. So I think that the choices that were made here, that there were some obvious care put in here to make this not just, to show us a Stephen who is also corrupted by the dark hole, because he too has a love, whether or not we buy into that love, a love thing

that he's pursuing, something he was tempted by, I think is an effort to mitigate this idea that, like, this hysterical woman trope. And then when we talk about the hysterical woman trope, like, you know, men in stories, especially these genre stories that we love, don't usually, like, lose control of their faculties and go on murdering sprees. But does happen to a dark phoenix or a Dineris Targaryen. Or, you know, like, this is something that we see women. over and over again are involved in the storyline. So it's not, again, it's not that it's a verboten storyline. It's just like, I think a lot of people would agree

that the DeNaris Targaryen version of this story that happens in Thrones was not done well. Does that mean that I couldn't tolerate a version? Sorry, spoilers for the end of Game of Thrones folks. But is there, like, that I couldn't tolerate a version of Game of Thrones that ends with DeNaris of the villain? No. But it just needs to be done so carefully.

And I think it's interesting that... As you know, I agree with that. Yeah. And I think it's so interesting in a lot of these stories, especially like, so this is comics canon, right? Yeah.

That in Vision and the Scarlet Witch, 1986 comic, written by Steve Englehart and art by Richard Howell, like, want to give birth to twins. And then I'm going to bother Jomey by saying the word Mephisto.

Like, it turns out that her twins aren't real, that there are like shards of Mephisto, soul and he reabsorbs them. And then Agatha comes along and erases Wanda's mind, very violating to erase her memory of her children. Then Wanda remembers

that she has these children and lost them. And that's how we get House of Them. Something we talked about a lot with Wanda vision, this idea that Wanda changes all reality to get what she wants and needs. So this has existed in comics but canon, but as I said, it starts with

an 80s storyline into the early 2000, 2005, House of House of M. Brian Michael Bendis. These are stories written by men about women, as was Game of Thrones. And I'm just saying, if I'm doing this story, I would

hire a woman to consult on it. Just to make sure that I nail it. Do you know what I mean? What do you think? Well, I think also to your point about how prevalent some of these stories, beats can feel just across fantasy or genre storytelling, that is, of course, going to feel

exacerbated or heightened because we have comparatively so few women in central positions. Now, to be clear, if we had two, three, four times as many female characters who were in leading or really primary positions in the MCU to date, that doesn't mean that people wouldn't have the same questions or qualms about Wanda's arc in this film as some people do. Because in the context of Wanda's arc, those conversations would still be taking place. But maybe it doesn't feel quite as...

Like, it undoes quite as much overall in terms of the total fabric, right? The total constellation. of what we're working with. I think like, okay, so a few more, a few more thoughts and points. To your important point from earlier about the dark hold,

yes, it takes its toll, it exacts its toll. It is important that we see that happening with strange, other versions of strange as well. I really agree with you about that is an exaggerating element, but it cannot just be the excuse.

It can't be the full totality of the explanation because the character is still who the character is. And I don't think that the movie uses it totally as an excuse. And I think that's what forces us ultimately to contend with this and to grapple with it. This is, again, not a one-to-one. But you think about something like the, you know, the super soldier serum and the iconic Erskine line, like good becomes great, right? Bad becomes worse. Like, this is why you were chosen. And this is a through line across these stories as you, as you noted. Now, this is, this gets to, I think, like where I am a little bit at war with myself over the version of Wanda that we got in the movie. Because while I do have

real reservations about everything that we just talked about, it, it doesn't sit super well with me, that aspect of it. I don't think that this feels like it came out of nowhere. For Ronda's arc. Yeah, I wouldn't call this a character assassination. That's not what I would call this. I would call this a slightly fumbled execution on a story. So Elizabeth Olson gave this great interview to my pal Adam B. Very Over at Variety, where she was talking about her input in terms of making this feel like a continuation of the same arc, right?

This is on her mind. She fought, she pushed back on a lot of things. They changed some things to try to make this feel. like it flowed together. She says, I was nervous and conflicted because I hadn't finished Wanda vision yet, but we were almost finished. And I was like, oh, my God, how do I make this all work together? We got there.

I got there. And it became an amazing opportunity to have people be won over by this woman in Wanda vision and feel for her. And then, you know, manipulate them into this film where we get to be on her side and then feel conflicted themselves. I thought that was a great opportunity. Don't love the word manipulated when it comes to audiences, not a huge fan of that. But this idea, I think one of the main things she pushed back on was this idea of like,

vision is barely meant. We mentioned him. I think he's mentioned twice. She says, Viz had a theory about that. And then she says, I blew a hole in the man I, like the head of the man I loved. You know, those are the two vision mentions. It's bizarre to me that we don't, it's bizarre that we don't see vision in any of the other multiverse visions.

It's just Wanda and her kids that she invented. That's part of where I have to wonder, like, are they just, holding that back because the return of ship of Theseus white vision into a future installment like has to be saved for that future installment. I have no idea if that's the case. But that was that was what I couldn't stop thinking about that because his, yeah, his, his relative absence is something you feel keenly. And I think it to go back to that variety interview, she said something about like how she didn't want to repeat the same beats from Wanda Vision. So I wonder if it was her request that it not be about vision at all, that it be about the boys because she's felt like

what it already processed her vision feelings in the TV show, and she wants to be on a different path here. And again, to circle back, and then I will, sorry, give it back to you, but like, I don't know, please, continue. I don't think that you can't tell a story about a woman missing your kids or wanting to be a mother. I think that is a fine motivation for a story. Of course, absolutely.

I think that's a human, that's a condition for men and women. You know, like that is, that is a thing that people want in this world. It's not the only thing that people want, but it is a strong, strong human connection bond thing. Of course it is. Again, I think you just need to be careful. Yes. So I, of course agree with that.

And I think, so here's, here's like one of the push pulls at the heart of this, I think. Okay. Wanda, obviously a ton of this connects to Wanda vision specifically. but if we just look at Wanda's arc and everything we know about Wanda overall, Wanda's story and Wanda's life is a series of devastating losses, right? She loses her family in Sokobia. She loses her brother, Pietro, in the events of Ultron. She loses Vision more than once, right?

She has to suffer through Vision's death, multiple times in Infinity War and then in Wanda Vision she loses Vision, Billy and Tommy. She has that

line, one of the really beautiful and moving. I think this scene is remembered, of course, for the, for Vision's line,

what is grief, if not love, persevering. But before that, before that response, that line comes in response to Wanda saying this.

This is when they're sitting on the bed and they're watching TV and She's talking about the grief that has, like, defined her life. And she says, it's just like this wave crashing over me again and again. It knocks me down. And when I try to stand up, it just comes for me again.

And I can't. It's just going to drown me. Now, I think that is really emblematic because, on the one hand, a huge part of Wanda's journey in Wanda Vision is learning to process. that grief and find the hope at the end of it. That's vision's response, right? What is grief, if not love persevering? That's the beautiful heart-wrenching exchange that they have when they're saying goodbye to each other in the finale and thinking about not the fact that they're parting, but that idea that they might meet each other again, right? The other part of that, though,

is true. Like, I think that that is something we hold on to and put a lot of, like, real emotional investment in. It doesn't totally erase the fact that one of the for her and her perspective, one of the central defining through lines of her life is that she feels like she cannot escape the fact that she has lost and lost and lost again.

And so after Wanda Vision, of course, we want to see her continue to really embrace those lessons and accept and learn to work and move beyond and find strength in the meaning of the time that they did share together. I think there is something

like really tragic about that much pain and that much loneliness, I think there's also something tragic about a character who has, has to learn to come to grips with that time and time again and then succumb to it time and time again. And so like I think of something like, and again, I apologize, I'm sort of all over the place here, but I think of something like Wong's summation of the prophecy of the Scarlet Witch, you know, this being of unfathomable power. And the idea that the Scarlet Witch is prophesized to either rule or annihilate the cosmos.

And again, I think that's emblematic because Wanda's character is so often defined by extremes. And you can tell a really moving and smart and nuanced and compelling story in either direction. I think the risk comes if you're always yo-yoing the character in between those two poles. And so I think that's what a lot of people are struggling with, because Wanda Vision ends with what feels like this real step forward. She does say goodbye to Billy and Tommy and Vision, but I'm about to yo-yo myself here. She does say goodbye. She does recognize that she has to come to terms with letting go in order to move forward. And so it feels like this real regression on that progress in this movie.

I think that's true. I also think it's true, though, that one, the movie ultimately ends with Wanda saying she's going to learn about her magic. It learns with her sitting, it ends with her sitting with the dark hold, searching for her sons, hearing them call out to her from across the multiverse. And I think we were primed with moments like that. And with Agatha saying that saying that she had no idea what she had. had unleashed and didn't, et cetera, primed for a development like this.

And I also think that when Monica told Wanda that the residents of Westview would never understand what she had done for them, what she had sacrificed for them, that I and a lot of people, I think you included, thought that was fucking weird. and like an incredibly strange message at the end of that story because Wanda, yes, because as a result of her real grief and real trauma and real loneliness, but imprisoned a town, members of a town. And if you rewatch Wanda Vision, when Agatha, yes, Agatha is trying to manipulate Wanda, but when she awakens members of the town, Dottie and others, and they are imploring, begging Wanda to free them, to free their children. Like, it is, it is an act of horror that she is inflicting on those people. And so that's where, again, I say there's like a push-pull here because I do think that it is, it is consistent with her character to say that she is capable of those things. Mass murder, like that this scale is a different thing.

And that's where the dark-old exacerbation comes into play. But, and also, to your point, I mean, like, I don't, okay, a couple things. Number one, I don't think also when we met her in Ultron. she was manipulated into, but fighting on the side of Hydra. Yes, we've gone back. Yes, we've gone through these. Exactly. Yeah.

I went through this a lot and I, you know, you and I weren't podcasting together at the time, but I went through a lot of this conversation when what transpired with Jamie Lanister at the end of Thrones transpired, which is Jamie Lanister goes through all his character progression, and then he regresses a bit and goes back to his sister. And a lot of people were like, well, they just ruined Jamie Lanister's character. character arc. And I just really disagree. I know what you're going to say because I have such a memory of reading your article about this and being like, yes, you summed it up so perfectly. You said that is the tragedy of Jamie Lannister that he didn't think he deserved that. I just remember when

you wrote that and I was like, this is exactly it. Seriously, I have a memory of reading that piece of yours. Continue. Sorry. Well, I just think it's so human for us to backslide from our progressions. You know, we do that all the time. We're constantly backsliding. Especially again, if you're alone for years with nothing but your own... You forgot to visit you. Your own pain and your own longing. And so I think that, like, that can get frustrating narratively if we're just watching a character

circle a drain over and over and over again. That can get frustrating. But I think in a circumstance like this, a backslide like this does not... It doesn't ruin Wanda Vision for me. And it doesn't negate Wanda Vision for me. WandaVision's still my favorite Marvel show. I still care a lot about Wanda. I think it's a tragedy, what happened to her here.

I think this idea that, again, I don't know why the Avengers abandoned her the way that they did. But to be left alone with this evil book and to have your worst impulses brought out of you, you know, I still care a lot about it in route for Wanda. I do think that there's some weird touches like, I think I mentioned this in the Big Pick. There's this really weird ADR line. ADR is like when you do dialogue after where Strange says, like you did the right thing at the end of Westview. You did the right thing and that was never in doubt.

And then at the end of this movie, you know, Christine's like, she did the right thing. I'm like, this is weird. This is weird to me. But I, again, it's not a deal breaker for me. I know we spent a long time talking about it. I had some people mad about how long I spent talking about on the Big Pick, but I don't think I spent that long talking about it. It's a big deal. A lot of people really care. It's a huge deal. A lot of people are really invest in this character. As you mentioned, we've only had like two and a half female-fronted Marvel movies at all the end of the day, right? Black Widow, Captain Marvel and the Wasp, I guess. You know, and so, and Wanda Vision is the only like wholly female-fronted show.

that we've had and we spent all that time with her. People care about her. They're invested in her. This matters to people. For you and me, it is not a deal breaker for the movie, but I understand why it is a deal breaker for some people. Yeah. And again, for us, it's clearly on our minds and something that we're really wrestling with, I think, and will be for some time. And I think, like, the more times we see this movie and certainly where we see the story go from here, who knows how that will influence and alter. our perspective, because that was another thing I found myself thinking about. Like, I love the Jamie Lannister Comp and point you may because I was thinking back to another Wanda Vision exchange, which is Monica saying, you know, don't let him make you the villain and Wanda saying maybe I already am. And we don't want Wanda to feel that way. We don't want her to believe that's true. But for characters like Wanda and Jamie, there is an aspect of there's

always that seed of doubt, right? And when you don't have the love and the friendship and the the people around you who can remind you and help you really like, like, luxuriate in the positive experiences and aspects of your life, then it's hard not to get lost in a thought like that. And so I thought, you know, the moment in the movie, obviously a lot of the film hinges on this idea that Wanda has to confront this about herself inside of this movie. Wanda has to see herself as the villain and the way that that happens here. is that she sees herself through Billy and Tommy's eyes.

You know, the entire pursuit of her life with those children, 838, Billy and Tommy in this case, she's dreamwalking into 838, Wanda. When America opens the portal and she sees in a way that annihilating the sorcerers of camaraderge and hunting America and decimating the Illuminati did not impact her, that there's that great moment in Wanda Vision,

like so, so, so gut-wrenching where she says, boys, thanks for choosing me to be your mom. Oh, my God. Right? It's like so touching and sad. And to confront here what the inverse of that looks like,

them fearing her was like a really, like, heartbreaking and devastating thing to have to see. Will you allow me to one final Monday, morning screenplay quarterbacking of this, which is that, and this is something that a screenwriter, Powell of mine, who was talking to me about the movie, he came up with this idea. So I don't think he wants to be shut up, but I do want to credit him if he's listening, which is that he felt like, okay, you and I just, we're going to still fully talk about the Illamani, but like, you and I agree that it was like really fun. I, I've had a really fun time with the way they

dispatched the Illamini. I think there's one misopportunity, which is the use of Xavier. and we have Xavier go into Wanda's mind and visually stunning sequence where we see the Sikovian Rebel and we see nice mom Wanda trapped under some rubble and then we see the red smoke roll in. Gorgeous stunning.

Would not, if I have if I have Patrick Stewart in my team here. Would that not be an interesting opportunity for him to have an actual conversation with Wanda? Like Wanda, Wanda, not nice mom Wanda, but our Wanda, who is maybe also somewhere in there. Something that Steve said to me, coming out, our lovely producer, Steve, coming out in the movie, something that he was talking about was this idea of there's no modulation on Wanda in this movie. There's no moment where she's hesitating until the very end.

And maybe I think this could have, the story could have been served better. If anything, the opposite, she keeps insisting earlier that's just a reasonable version. Unrelenting, right? And so, like, I think some glimpses of a Wanda we better recognize in among this determined Terminator Wanda, I think would have made people feel like they were watching a character that they understood a bit better. I think that's true. Anyway, I think that's a really good point. And, you know, again, because you have so many moments that do call back to past moments with Wanda,

like where she gets inside the head of the sorcerer to bring down the shield, and that's a callback to her doing that to Agatha, to her doing that, of course, to all of the Avengers in Age of Ultron, etc. The choice to, I think this is another thing that I did not love for a couple reasons. The choice to bring down Mount Wondegore upon her. Quickly, you know, Mount Wondegore is like a key comics location, right? located in in Transia, home to the high evolutionary, the new man. Shout out Bova, a nursemaid, to Wanda and Pietro.

And Wanda and Piotro are born there in the comics. And Qasan is like imbues Wanda with his magic. There's this many, there's a constant through line of connections between Wanda and Kathan, chief among the elder gods, across the comics canon, going to the chamber where he has the original versions, of the spells that he crafted as he wrote, the Darkhold, the Book of the Damned. Wanda saying, this isn't a tomb, it's a throne,

calling back to Agatha saying that there was an entire chapter in the darkhold about the scarlet witch, the same visual etched into the stone that we saw in the book. Oh, that stuff's great. Wanda feeling like the only way, after again having this moment of clarity,

this awakening, I have aired. I have made a mistake. Last time I cast myself out into the wilderness. alone, and this time I'm going to bring down the embodiment of these sins upon me. Why? Like, why is that the place that Wanda has to be? Now, the other reason that I know that you and I agree about this, that it's just not, we just don't believe that that's the end for our 616, Wanda Maximoff, Scarlet Witch, nexus being of this continuity. I kept thinking about House of I'm really curious.

I know we're running so long, but I'm really curious for your take on this because it's another thing where I'm a little bit at war with myself. There's a part of me that feels like if they are

still heading toward House of M in some capacity, like Wanda really drastically rewriting reality, what's the equivalent inside of the MCU of No More Mutants? Then when we get there,

maybe the events that unfolded here feel like they were, while not, note for note perfect, certainly, a necessary wrong on that ladder. But...

I feel like... I was just like, is this movie the MCU's version of House of M in terms of that aspect of Wanda and meddling with reality? And like, the real issue, of course, is more would that just feel like yet another?

Wanda transgressed badly. Wanda came to terms with that the sin and the error of her ways. And then she has to like suffer another fall. Like that would just, wouldn't that just feel like we had done that too many times? I don't think they're doing, I think they feel like they already did House of M with Wanda Vision. So House of M, like, you know, this 2005 comic House of M or Wanda, as you say,

alters all, it gives everyone a happy ending so that she can have her happy ending and she's going to rewrite reality and then certain people wake up from under the spell and are like, hey, wait a minute, I'm Wolverine, et cetera. And then it ends with no more mutants because she blames her father, Magneto, by the the way, blames her father for everything. And she says, no more mutants and slowly like the mutants lose their power and die off. And we go from thousands and thousands of mutants in comics canon to just a handful. Honestly, no more mutants feels to me like Marvel publishing sort of clearing house to make mutants feel like rare and interesting again, rather than like we're choking on how

many mutants we've created in this world. Like they do that sometimes in the comics, right? They'll just sort of like clean the slate. Talk about. Secret Wars, et cetera, all this stuff. And so I don't think they're doing no more mutants. I don't think they're going to do that. I think the way that they're going to introduce mutants in is some multiversal stuff, which we'll get to. But I don't think they're doing as of them. So then what do you think is next for Wanda? I don't know. And I'm really worried, a reason that I'm worried is coming off of Wanda Vision, the word that really drove me bananas, and maybe history will prove me wrong in this. But the word that really drove me bananas

was people saying she needs to be punished. Where's her punishment? She needs to be punished. I hate that word related to her. Consequences of your actions, sure. That feels like a more reasonable thing. But I don't know how she comes back from this with the fandom, like how she comes back from all the murder that she's done in this movie with the fandom.

You know? Yeah. I don't know is the answer. It's going to have to be some major redemption arc, the likes of which we've never seen. Yeah, boy. Not to do too hard of a pivot here, but can I ask you just about dreamwalking

as a canon development here and how you felt about that? Were there any other big picture? Wand Division thoughts there? If the idea that like every time you dream, it's a different multiverse, it made me think of other dreams that we've seen in the MCU and people have pointed this out elsewhere,

but like Tony has this moment in infinity where he tells Pepper like I dreamed we had a kid and we named it more we named the kid Morgan you know so this idea that like maybe he was seeing just another version of himself another multiverse who had a kid named Morgan is why they did this you know um the only other dreams because I could think of are like the dreams that Wanda gives the Avengers in Ultron I don't think that really yeah I can stir those more like planted visions yeah I agree dreams interesting what do what do your your dreams is a very personal question. What do your dreams tell you, Joe, about your alternate selves and other realities? Anything you care to share on the pod? They're all worried about work. Me too. A lot of anxiety dreams

about work for me. Working anxiety dreams all the time. Absolutely. That's my answer to. My other answer is that my, you know, my alternate selves are having a lot more sex than I am. So good for them. Love this insight into your dream life. Love it for us. Oh, God. Oh, God. Billy and Tommy. Anything about Billy and Tommy's future in the MCU that we want to mention, obviously, in Wanda Vision? We got to see a little bit of the Wiccan and Speed power sets.

You know, we have talked a lot about Young Avengers across our Phase 4 pods. If Jomey were here, we'd bring him in for a second to talk about his Young Avengers agenda here. Wicked and Speed are certainly coming back into... the MC or Billy and Tommy are coming back to the MCU. Wiccan and Speed are going to be a part of the MCU in the future. And so that will be interesting to reconcile with what happens here. Again, we presume. I think they're planting a lot of you.

So Young Avengers, right, is also like House of M is 2005. Young Avengers kicks off in 2005 as well. Young Avengers founded by a version of Kang, Nathaniel Richards, who, Iron Lad, who travels in time because he does not want to become Kang. and he amasses this team of young fighters. Billy is an early member of the team, Tommy, eventually in the mix. America Chavez is a young Avenger at one point. We talked about all these people that we've met.

I think they're planting a lot of seeds and not all of them will necessarily bloom. I think Marvel is going to leave itself to be like, this character hit, this character didn't. This is going to be our Young Avengers team. But I definitely think it is without question that they're doing a Young Avengers team. And I think we are probably going to get speed and wicken. Because in the comics, essentially, like, Wanda's love, despite the fact that they are shards of Mephisto's soul, Wanda's love still, like, pulls them into fruition and then they're raised by, like, Normies. So they don't have her last name.

But I think we could just get, like, our A38, Billy and Tommy could, you know, come in, depending on how free and breezy we feel about multiversal crossovers in the future. Well, it might be risking some incursions then. I guess we have a... I don't know. Eyebrow waggle. Eyebrow waggle. Some risks there.

You mentioned America, Travis. Let's chat about America. A key new player in the MCU had a huge role in this movie. And she's a relatively recent comic invention in 2011 is when she came into the mix of this really cool book called Vengeance that I really recommend people to check out. I'm a big vengeance fan, Joe Casey's book. But like, all of her backstory, her powers, her lesbian identity, all of that really came about in 2013's Young Avengers. But I think you had a question for me about America's powers. What's important is that she can kick and punch holes in the multiverse.

Star-shaped holes. They're always star-shaped holes, right? So she can travel around the multiverse. And she, depending on which comic you read, she's got super strength super fast and she can also fly sometimes. So it really sort of depends what they want to do. And this movie, it seemed like she had some super strength. Like when she's wailing on Wanda, those punches seemed a little superpowered. Yeah.

Could almost broke through the containment vessel, that fish bowl of Christine's design, etc. Yeah. I thought this was like a really charming and compelling intro. It's an interesting, you know, balancing act where on the one hand, I thought it was like smart and helpful actually to have America, to have the character trying to figure out and learn her powers in tandem with the audience doing the same thing. Because I think, again, there's just like so much happening in the movie that if it's just like a sea of too much information at first, I think it could be like just, you know, overwhelming for. the audience, but I do think that for that same reason, because of how much is happening. And again, it's, it's the intro. It's step one. We'll learn more about the character over time. But I did feel a bit like, oh, it would be great to learn even more. Like, we get the very helpful memory lane tech on 838.

I don't want 838 tech scanning my brain and pulling my memories out of my mind. That's a no for me. That's a black mirror episode, no for me. Yeah. That was the thing for me is that other people can just see or like, yeah, tough intimate memory. That's,

I'm going to pass on that. But of course, it allows us to see this crucial moment in her backstory. Can I just, by the way, Joe, huge stretch we're in right now for bees. The bee here.

The bee in Bridgeton, season two. I was going to say, I didn't know if you were a Bridgeton watcher, yes. Oh, boy, am I. Yeah. I also thought about Bridgeton.

And, you know, our, Eric Voss, and who rock stars mentioned this in his video, but like, you can't not think then about the beekeeper in Wanda Vision. You and I talked about the bee imagery on Jack's mug in Hawkeye. A lot of bees, a lot of recurring bee themes anyway. What the hex is going on? Oh, boy. Hex wordplay. I love it. This power of being able to travel the multiverse, it definitely feels like one of the most relevant powers for the current. state of the MCU. That feels like MCU job security for American Chavez. What do you think?

How will we see when and where will we see America next? Great question. I mean, quantum mania is the earliest. I think we could see her next, right? February 2020, 23. Amazingly not that far away. Ooh. I mean, maybe she's going to show up one of the TV shows and maybe people already know

that she's going to show up one of the TV shows. And I'm just, I've been very good in not reading the spoilers. So I don't know. But yeah, what about you? Yeah, quantum mania seems like a good guess in the right spot. Who knows where we'll travel in Thor, though? I guess anything's possible in Thor. I mean, I know that Cassie Lang is already going to be in quantum mania, but like Paul Red plus kids?

Great stuff. Yeah. Yeah. You know what? That's a great call. Let's just slide Scott Lang into MCU dad mode. Yeah. Let's do it.

Why not? Did you have, we already talked about how much we enjoyed the visual splendor of. the rapid fire multiverse travel sequence montage. Did you have a favorite? 100%. It was the black and white steampunk dirigible world, mostly because I just like saying the word dirgible. And it also made me think that like maybe like Nicholas Cage's Spider-Man,

the noir, the noir, for sure. Might be lurking around any corner. I totally agree. I had the same thought. How about you? I loved the paint world, certainly, though, you know, as a, like America, my first move in any new universe would be to search out the pizza. So I would be concerned to end up in a universe where I had a hard time eating.

That would be tough. There was a similar sequence in What If, where we get to cut, rapid fire cut between, we're falling between all of these different universes. And one of the shots seemed to recur across What If and this, and this sequence here. And this is a popular theory on the internet. It has been since that stretch of what if. Are we seeing Mustafa from the Star Wars universe,

the lava planet? Now, I think it's very possible, maybe even probable, that this is a lava fire planet inside of Marvel canon like Muspelheim, realm of Sörder. That would make complete sense. But I just love the idea. idea that this could be Mustafa.

That makes me really happy. So that's my pick. That's what I'm going with. I love it. Illuminati. This is a real big movie of Brian Michael Bendis, honestly. Because Bendis created the Illuminati also in 2005. Like what was going?

What was in the water? The comics in 2005, I don't know. But in the New Avengers, he created the Illuminati. Something that's so interesting about the original makeup of the Illuminaity in the comics is that Brenda wanted to have like members that represent represented various factions of the Marvel universe. So if we think now about like Marvel Cosmic and Marvel Street Level and Marvel, you know, whatever the case may be. So the original lineup of the Illuminati, Iron Man, Black Bolt, Dr. Strange, Mr. Fantastic,

Namor, the Submariner, and Professor X. So you got like mutants. You've got Mystic Arts. You've got Iron Man who's just rich, you know, like all this sort of stuff going on. And they've done the Illuminati over the course The Comics Canada got up to a lot of stuff Like the exiled Hulk into outer space Because they're too much of a menace

Is what you're getting at Because they're responsible for the events of Planet Hulk and World Warhol Yeah amazing comic runs But some some real missteps from the Illuminati Also like you know how the Death Star destroys planets Well don't worry they had their own version of that called Salt Hammer that they created in Secret War. So, like, you know, when you talk about, like, who should govern the superheroes,

the secret cabal of, like, powerful. And, you know, it causes a big riff between Steve and Tony when Steve finds out that this exists and Tony was on it. And he's like, I'm sorry, you thought you could, like, pull all these cowboy rules and not talk to me, us about it. So that's the Illuminati. In comics canon, it's really fun that they're here. Here's, okay, mention spoilers.

Because I've heard feedback from the rigorverse listeners that they are like stressed if I have read spoilers. It does not bother me to not read spoilers, so I just like haven't been. But my curiosity did get the best of me when we heard Patrick Stewart's voice in the trailer. So the one thing I was spoiled on was the Illuminati lineup and also how quickly they would be exiting. Barring John Krasinski because that I think was a late edition. But I knew about the other members of the Illuminati lineup, and I knew that they weren't going to last long. And this is a case where I think the spoilers helped me

because I had no expectation other than this is going to be a fun moment to watch them show up and then leave. And a fun moment to show us how overpowered Wanda is. And I did not expect these Illuminati figures to go forward in the MCU at all. So, yeah, I mean, in the days leading up to the movie, they were just putting, again, Not Krasinski. That was a...

I had not... If that was out there, I certainly did not see it. I was shocked and I gasped aloud in the theater when I saw him as Reed Richards. I was genuine shock. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, you already mentioned, like, anyone who watched that Super Bowl trailer is, like, that's Patrick Stewart's voice. That's Professor X, right?

And Patrick Stewart did his best Andrew Garfield. No, I'm not in this movie press store, but, like, it wasn't hard to figure out. And then to the point where the final days before the movie, we hear Mordos say the Illuminati in one of the last spots that they put out. We see a hand on a glimpse of the yellow hovercraft. Now, is it enough of a shot to know for sure? No, but like, I don't know. They weren't even being that coy about it. Yeah, Captain Carter.

Captain Carter was in a TV spot. Yeah. Captain Marvel. So, and did we, you know, like, it's still, it's amazing to go beat by beat and say, oh, my God, Captain Carter is here in live action. Oh my God, Maria Rampo is Captain Marvel in this universe. Like, that's incredible. It makes you think of all these different interesting possibilities for what could unfold in the marvels, etc. It just seemed like a lock that Professor X was coming.

And again, they literally said the word, had more to say the words, The Illuminati will see you now in a trailer. All that said, I had no clue that Black Bolt was going to be in there. And I was like, holy shit, they gave handsome out. Hansman, as you prefer to be referred to here. another go after the ill-dumed inhumans run. Yeah, we've been talking a lot about Figey sort of wrapping his arms around all of the Marvel properties, right?

It is one thing to bring in Charlie Cox, enormously popular Charlie Cox, who plays Daredevil as Daredevil. That is one thing. But to be like we're going to, I mean, this is like bringing back Tim Roth or, you know, like other things from an Ill-Bagotten Hulk movie or to try to make the dark world your favorite movie,

you know, popular again, et cetera. You know, it's like, we're bringing the immortals in? Amazing. Amazing work. And, you know, part of the really incredible thing about having Black Bolt there, about having the inhumans in the movie is you get some of that, like, strange humor. You know, why does he have bad breath? Very funny.

But the real point of this entire sequence, you wow us, you shock us, we gasp aloud, we see all these characters, we see the Illuminati, the X-Men are in the MCU, the Fantastic Four here. Everybody, the internet's favorite dream casting, John Krasinski is actually Reed Richards. Let's circle back to that one in a minute. But, and then you just, you not only dispense of them,

they are brutally, brutally murdered. And so this, much like the Comertage sequence, though even in more extreme fashion here, there's a lot of Wanda power-scaling storytelling at Fold here where we see irrefutably and unmistakably the extent of Wanda's power. Wanda's one of the most powerful characters in Marvel, right? She's the most powerful. I mean in Marvel, like comics, right? And in the MCU, I think we agree, the most powerful character right now, certainly.

I want to know what you think the most shocking death was, and they were all shocking. Hing, but going full Neo-Mouthseal on Black Bolt and exploding his brain as he gives his gasp, his little shriek reflected inward onto his own brain was like, first of all, shockingly violent by MCU standards. I couldn't believe that was in an MCU movie. And you're just like, holy shit. Like, this is black bolt. Like, he just got annihilated in two seconds.

I can't remember if I talk to you about this, but like, a friend of the pod, Dave Gonzalez sent me a few weeks before the movie came out. The, like, the British ratings warning. And then it's like one of the things was like someone's head gets devastated. And so Dave and I spent a really long time trying to speculate whose head might get devastated. And I figured it might have been like one of the versions of Strange. What does have, and what does it mean to have your head? devastated. So I'm watching the movie and I'm like, when I see the like,

the stab rip an eyeball out of a squid monster thing, I'm like, oh, is that the devastating? I kept going, oh, is that the devastated head? And so when Black Bolt's head caved it, I was like, oh, no, that right there. That's a devastated head right there. Oh, my God. Just, yeah. Wild stuff. What did you, what did you think about Krasinski as Mr. Fantastic? Should he remain Mr. Fantastic? I think that would be totally fine on. I have been told by Mr. Fantastic fans that this was not really a version, Sean Fantasy agreed, not really what they think of when they think of Reed Richards. They think he's more of a dick than kindly bearded family man that we got in this movie.

So, but, you know, this is a variant, I suppose. I feel kind of agnostic about it. How do you feel about it? I think that it is genius to use him in this way and say, Internet, you got what you wanted. It's like a nice little moment of fan service. And we know, hey, we've got three Peter Parker's already. We've got legions of loki's.

If he remains Reed Richards, that's fine and good. And if he isn't, that will not be a problem at all because it is established that different actors could play the same character. And I just think it's clever. It's smart. Like you wink, you nod, and then you go and do your own thing. I actually do not think that the internet

should fancast Marvel movies in general. Like, I don't think that's how Marvel should make their movies. I don't think you should fan cast any movie. Yeah. To be clear, people can have fun on the internet talking about casting. But I don't think that's actually how Marvel should then make their casting decisions. And in general, they have pretty good instincts about who to cast. So we'll see.

I did, you mentioned Family Man. Like, I did love, of course, the, not only because it makes us think of you know, Sue and Franklin and Valeria, but of course, our guy Kang, who I was like, oh, no King in this movie. Interesting, but Nathaniel Richards, he's a descendant of the Richards line. So just thinking about the family, that was cool. I liked that.

I don't think that it's the hyperbolic to say that not really talking about the fact that the X-Men were if they introduced to the MCU, brought to the MCU in this movie, until like the three-hour mark of a podcast is one of the most shocking developments in Ring or, history. I think it is. But that just speaks to how much happened in this movie. Well, it's also the softest of launches. Nobody says the word, have they, no one has said the word mutants yet, right? No. So Xavier's here. Yes. He has mutant abilities.

We see him use them. He has his powers, yeah. But, you know, no one said it yet. And we have yet to see how that will spill into the world, our world. So just the perfect taste for now. And then again, still any number of possibilities for the future. sure. I mean, the animated series, the animated series reboot thing is coming. So that's the, the closest we have to X-Men is. So, yeah. Captain Carter, live action debut. Just a delight. Incredible. And I would like, I would like to contradict Van, who said, like, the most shocking thing about Captain Carter on the Midnight Boys. Absolutely not. Illegal, illegal opinion from Van. But I do think the fact that like the guys go out so quickly, so chumpily, right?

And Peggy lasts as long as she does with just like the shield and her, well, super-soldier serum, I suppose. Had to hang around long enough to get off the I can do this all dayline, Joe. And I think she did it really well. The blood in her mouth? I loved it. That is such a cheesy. That should have made me roll my eyes. I did it.

I loved it. I laughed it up. I loved it. Oh my God. A Steve Rogers callback uttered by Peggy Carter is your catnip right there. Oh, a dream.

What a dream. Oh, boy. We talked a little bit about seeing Maria as Captain Marvel. I thought that was really awesome and really cool. I will say that was the one death that I was like,

really? I think that the power set is too strong there for, I feel like, is it possible that 838 Maria is still alive? I don't know. No, she did the, like, the dramatic handfall.

That in movies means you're dead. Oh, God. How about our guy, Baron Carl Mordow? I have a lot of questions. The Midnight Boys went long on the lace front on his wig. So you can, if you want wig talk, you can go tune into the Midnight Boys for that. The big question is, like, where is our Earth Mordow? who was like such a big deal at the end of the first Dr. Strange movie and then he's just not in this movie.

Yeah. No more sorcerers. Banger. Elizabeth Olson said in that variety interview that she was supposed to kill more than was on the screen. She said, I had a hard time with it. These are human beings and Wanda's okay with ending their lives. There's some speculation and rumor around that like maybe Wanda was supposed to kill Mordo and R. world.

And I don't know. They just like, I just thought it was weird. His absence was weird. Also, this Mordo just like goes down a crevice, fights strange. Get some shots off. I hate a crevice. Get some shots off. And then just like, he just, he's the only one who lives with the Illuminati.

He just presumably still alive. So probably still down the crevice. So, yeah, Morda. A lot of questions. Well, maybe eight three, Morda will be back. Who knows if, if 616 Morda will be back. And there were stuff. I mean, you know, in the exchange between.

616 Stephen in 838 Morto, there was definitely like, there were a lot of interesting references to the history between the 616 versions of the characters. And I don't know. Maybe more has transpired. Stinger time? Anything else about the Illuminati you want to hit on? Do you want to see, I think we would like to see the Illuminati

come back into the MCU. Do you want this exact version of the group? Is there another version of the group you would have liked to see here? This is one of your prompts for us. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me play this game three hours into a podcast. So we need to end soon. Like, if you're Kevin Feigy and you're, like, making the, you're calling people up.

What is one person you would have put on the council that wasn't there? Namor. Easily. Now, I understand that there are, like, rights issues and complications there. And I hope one day we will see the Submariner in the MCU. But that would have been, that would have been awesome. I loved the rumor that was going around that it was going to be Tom Cruise's Iron Man. That would have been amazing and hilarious to me.

Yeah. But actually my favorite, and this, I didn't come up with this, but my favorite that someone said was Chris Evans as the human torch. I mean, that would be iconic. Wouldn't that be amazing? Yeah. That I would absolutely love. Yeah. That would be great. That would be special. That would be fucking amazing. Oh, God. I feel like, were we talking about that? Was that conversation we had? No.

I have that conversation with. Boy. I mean, like I said, I didn't come up with it. But I think that like... No, I'm trying to see like... And to see like Evans and Atwell, like, sitting next to each other. Oh, my God. So great.

So, so, so great. Clea. The movie ends. We get the third eye opening atop Stranger's head, the relic of his use of the dark hold. And then we get the mid-credit stinger. Sorry, that was the guitar. Different outfit he's got the scarf on now. The cloak is from pocket square to scarf.

So some time has passed since then. And here comes in her Thursday night football, Ravens Color Rush uniform best. Charlie Sterron as Clea. Stephen Strange, you caused an incursion, and we're going to fix it. unless you're afraid and he's like, never, let's go. And she opens up Gateway to the dark dimension.

We can clearly see this is the dark dimension. And I'm like, Dormammu, we've come to make a sequel. Let's go. So who is Clea? Who will Charlize be playing? This is a major, as we mentioned earlier, our prime love interest of strangers in the comics, his wife, in fact.

So reasonable to expect that that romantic relationship will unfold. But regardless, this is an immensely powerful, magical being, Dormammu's niece, half-feltine, part dark dimension being, become sorcerer supreme in the comics. So, as one does. So many interesting possibilities, what were your thoughts on this mid-credit stinger? Well, okay, so it's interesting that we're in this new phase of Marvel where they're like, hey, Harry Siles. is here. Hey, Charlizees is here. They're making casting announcements in post-credit stingers, right? That's interesting. I liked how it worked thematically, that the story wraps up with Christine being like, Face Your Fearous, Dr. Strange, he fixes the watch, the watch that feels like, you know, his personal

life was frozen. So the fact that it is tied into, as is pointing towards the future, is tied into the resolution of this storyline, you know, and she's like, are you, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the double meaning of like, are you afraid to go in the dark dimension? Are you afraid to meet me your future wife? No, I'm ready. Let's go. Oh, fuck, it's Charlize. Hell yeah. You know, so I, I, I, I liked it for that. Um, what about you? Yeah, I'm excited. This is a, you know, uh, like a, a, a major comics character arriving. I'm really intrigued to see where it goes. And I think it's cool, too, because, like,

this feels like a very strange canon introduction. And I think, like, how much of Stranges' future movies are about the mystic arts and Stranges world and how much is about connecting to this larger unspooling multiverse is kind of, like, a delicate balancing act. So I'm really, it wasn't, like, my favorite stinger of all time, certainly. A lot of amazing stingers And this was, you know, this was like fine But it's cool to get the character certainly

I will say the N-credits stinger Which is like a Captain America PSA You know So you waited all this time A lesson about patience kind of a joke That was definitely very amusing And of course, you know, Bruce Campbell In a Sam Ramey movie

Like this was like a wonderful and delightful thing I think Joe that there's a case we made That in the horror movie that we just saw this is the single scariest and most haunted idea. That poor pizza papa had to spend three weeks punching himself in the face, saturated in his own urine and feces, as people walked by and did nary a thing

to try to assist him. Follow point. As America says that she's devouring pizza, you don't know if her stomach works the same as your stomach. So we don't know, like maybe in this universe they don't need to ever go to the bathroom. They just reabsorb it. Yeah.

Maybe it all just magically goes to those rainbow clouds in the sky. Who knows? Got to fertilize all that fauna somehow in flora. Exactly. Where do you think all the fertilizer comes from? Oh, my God. Boy. Okay.

The egg hold. Easter egg basket time. There are so many. We've talked about some. There are too many to possibly. mention here. You have like one or two favorites that you want to shout out? Actually, one of my favorites is one that you spotted before me, so I'm going to let you do it. I don't know which one. Well, if you don't get to it, I'll go back to it. But I think actually the

classic horror, so like, I think Chris mentioned this on the big pick, but the fact, or maybe it was Sean, the fact that Wanda, she's chasing them down the hallway looks exactly like Jack Torrance, because she's limping, dragging a leg, looks like Jack Torrance. And then so, someone else mentioned because she's got blood down her face that she looks like Carrie. So I just like this idea that's like tapping on these like iconic horror, cinematic horror figures to give us a scary version of Wanda was was really fun. What do you think? Speaking of works of cinema.

Billion and Tommy are watching Snow White. That's a great one. Apple. More apples, exactly. You know, we haven't like we talked a bit today about like the gasps in the theater and seeing. because he is Reed Richards seeing. Yes. The Baxter Foundation.

The Baxter Foundation got such a... Huge gasp in my theater for Baxter Foundation. It was thrilling. Yeah. Baxter Foundation created... I think it's like... So Stanley, Jack Kirby, and I think it was 1961 is when the Baxter building

first pops up in the comics. And it's where the Fantastic Four like their base of operations. And the Baxter Foundation, I think it's in the like really bad Josh Trank movie that the Baxter Foundation is where like gifted scientific children

or go to work. But I think this idea of the Baxter building, this idea of the Fantastic Four. So like before you see Reed Richards, you hear Christine say Baxter Foundation. And so people are like, Oh, it's a Fantastic Four invention.

And then it's like, very cool. Richard is here. Great. Genuinely, genuinely great. That was really cool. What else? You know, we mentioned the Professor X Line Mirror from

is future past. Similarly, we get Defender Strange line to Peter and No Way Home echoed here. Grand Calculus of the multiverse your sacrifice, that whole idea. That was cool to hear again.

What else? I just wanted to shout out the Michael Waldron cameo that you noticed on that. So Screamwriter Michael Waldron shows up. I was going to mention that in another category.

Spoiler alert. Oh, okay. Let's save it. Let's save it then. Let's save it. Love it. Love it. Yeah, I couldn't help it.

Any other, we got obviously a lot of magical relics and spells. Always great to see the magic. Oh, you know what was the cool one? Seeing the Living Tribunal, the Three Heads of the Living Tribunal in the Multiversal Travel Sequence. That's where we're going to get the Living Tribunal in full form at some point, I think. I just suggest that if folks haven't seen Army of Darkness, you really might want to watch it because, like, it's got stuff. with like a book of it is spooky magical books and like skeleton armies and like a good girl turned into an evil witch and all like a lot of stuff that's in this movie is you know like waldron

and ramy as they're writing this like waldron definitely watched army of darkness as part of his studying it's really fun it's i like the idea that he's like let's do kind of let's kind of do loki again but through the army of darkness lens i love i love that as an approach to this so those are of the Easter eggs, I think. We did it. Secret Scroll. Okay. One of the funniest things I saw on socials is that someone asked, what's a secret scroll S-C-R-O-L-L. So I feel the need to remind folks what the secret scroll watch is, which is Skr-R-U-L-L-L is the green shape-shifting figures as played by,

let's say, the likes of Ben Mendelsohn and Captain Marvel. We know that a secret invasion show is coming, which is going to be all about the scrolls, have been. been here all along disguises some of your favorite characters. So Mallory and I liked you, pick a character from whatever we're watching. Have they been a scroll all along? I'm going to go for poor bruised Pizza Papa himself. Bruce Campbell. And Mallory, your pick?

My pick is Friend of the Pod screenwriter of this film Michael Waldron, who makes an incredible cameo on the balcony at Khrase. Dean's wedding, watching the showdown with not Schumegoroth. Not just, it seems, because of the naming rights issues, but actually because this is clearly not, this is not an old one. This is not an old one. This is Gardanthus. Notting along from the balcony.

Classic scroll move blending in, but right in the thick of action, Michael Waldron. You said in the group chat, you were like, the Waldron balcony cameo, and I didn't say what? because I was like, I don't want Mallory to know I didn't notice. And so when I saw it the second time, I was like, eyes peeled for the Waldron cameo. And there's another guy with a mustache in the balcony. I was like, oh, did, oh, did Mallory think this guy with a mustache was Michael Waldron? And then he pops out, literally from behind Rachel McAdams. He just sort of like, booms out and gives this like hilarious, like, oh my God, look to the street.

It's really funny. I got such a kick out of it. That's really good. It's really good. delight. Great stuff. Great stuff. Okay. No mailback today as a reminder. We will be doing a House of Midnight, Dr. Strange in the multiverse of madness mailbag team up that will be dropping on the feed on Thursday. Joe, any other thoughts? Close and thoughts? Final thoughts?

How could I possibly have more thoughts in my head about this movie? They just thanks to everyone who like hangs out with us for hours at a time talking about. Marvel. What a joy you all are, our listeners. We are so appreciative. Genuinely, such gratitude for the time. It's amazing. And Mallory, I'm so, I'm so delighted that you're back so that I get to talk to you about this stuff. It's such a treat for me. Same, pal. I really missed you last week. It was, my God, not getting to talk about an Obi-Woner, House of the Dragon trailer with you, a true source of pain for me. But it was a delight to listen. All right, friends. Just because a podcast,

stumbles beyond its runtime and loses its way. It doesn't mean it's lost forever. But it is still time to wrap today's episode. Thank you to our Masters of the Mystic Arts, Steve Allman for producing this episode. Arjuna Ramgapal for his additional production work on this episode. And Jomea Denneran for his work on the social for this episode. Please tune back in on Thursday for the House of Midnight Mailbag.

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