House of R - ‘Thunderbolts*’ Deep Dive

Episode Date: May 2, 2025

It’s time to enter the void as Mal and Jo return to break down the latest entry in the MCU! They discuss each character getting their moment to shine, share their thoughts on the action sequences, and get into the effects this has on the larger universe. (00:00) Intro (03:50) Opening Snapshot (09:29) Critical/Audience Reaction (15:44) Is Marvel Back? (36:02) Deep (Medium) Dive (53:22) The Vault Fight Sequence (01:00:23) Thoughts on Taskmaster (01:06:50) Inside Yelena’s Memory (01:12:16) Another Iconic MCU Elevator Scene (01:23:56) Congressman Bucky Barnes? (01:49:38) The Battle of One Block of New York (01:57:26) Mid- and Post-Credit Scenes Hosts: Mallory Rubin and Joanna Robinson Producers: John Richter and Mike Wargon Social: Jomi Adeniran Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is brought to by Paramount Plus. Beth and Rip are back in a new series. Dutton Ranch. Kelly Riley and Colehous are returned, and this time they're taking on Texas. As Beth and Rip build a future together, peace will have to wait as they face corruption, danger, and a ruthless rival ranch, willing to protect its secrets at all costs. Legacy is a beautiful thing, but only if it survives.

Dutton Ranch starring Colehouser, Kelly Riley, Annette Benning and Ed Harris, now streaming on Paramount Plus. This episode is brought to you by Borris Head. What if we told you the taste of deep fried turkey is now available at your local deli? Well, Borishead just did that. Bursting with flavor, perfectly seasoned with that indulgent taste that usually means pointing your whole day around it. Presenting the Friars turkey breast only from Borishead.

The backyard tradition now available behind the counter. Visit your local deli today. Discover the craftmanship behind every bite. Borershead committed to craft since 1905. Hello. Welcome back to House of R. Joanna Robinson and joining me today, the number one person I would

pick for a life or death escape room adventure. It's Mallory Rubin. Cucumber, cucumber, cucumber. Hello. We're here today. Talk to you about a little film called Thunderbolts.

It is Friday morning as we're recording this. Mallory and I have seen this movie twice this week. Yes. Among many other things that we have done this week. So if our energy today is a little unhinged, that is why. Mallory, how are you feeling? I'm delighted to be here with you. Thrill, beyond measure.

To talk about a movie that I loved. And I will preview for you and for the bad babies like that most of my takes and most of my conversation starters are going to be about Alexi's DoorDash habits and Alexi's retelling of the previously established canon from Yelena about the girl who took a shit at midfield. Put respect on her name. It's Mindy. Spoiler for Mindy's length. Yeah, sorry to put that out there before we issued our spoiler warning. Top stuff. Quick programming reminders. So in addition to our ongoing usual Last of Us and or cadence that we have both been doing on the Ring reverse feed as well as our feed. We've got the Midnight's boys covering

the Last of Us. We've got Button Mash covering the Last of Us. We're covering The Last of Us. The Boys and this pot are also covering Andor three episodes a week. What could go possibly wrong? I'm having the time of my life talking about Laston of the same time. The content is good.

And then there's great movie. The boys covering Thunderbolts on their feed. We're covering Thunderbolts here. And then also next week, the Midnight Boys to have an interview with the director of this film, Jake Shrier. So there's like a little special interview special coming next week from the boys. So you might want to check that out. Molly Rubin.

Yes, ma'am. It's a lot of delicious, delicious content from us. How can folks make sure they consume it all? Going to keep it simple. Follow the pods. Follow House of R. Follow the Ringiverse on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. Guess what?

You can watch, watch with your eyes. And we look. little John Walker hat or helmet, whatever you want to call it. Exactly. You do. You can watch full episodes, full video episodes of House of R and Midnight Boys PooPew on Spotify or on the Ringerverse YouTube channel. So subscribe to that as well.

While you're at it, follow the Ringerverse on the social media platform of your choosing and send us an email. The inbox is always open. Hobbits and Dragons at gmail.com. Your Last of Us and or emails have been incredible. Keep them coming. Back to you in the studio, Joe. Spoiler warning today.

Anything in the MCU? Correct. Including the Disney Plus shows. Yes. And anything that's ever happened in any comic book ever. Right? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. We're not going to go too deep on the comic book front, I will just say today, because the Thunderbolts as they exist in the cinema, they're not just a passing resemblance to the Thunderbolts as they exist on the page. So we'll talk about some of those connections a little bit, but mostly we're focusing on the film today. Let's go now to our opening stuff. All right.

So I just want to run down the talent behind this particular Marvel endeavor. Yes. Directed by Jake Schreier, who did, Robot and Frank, a great film that I love and also the TV show beef that Mallory and I really enjoy. So that is somebody think about when you think about some of the themes on display here. Yes. Screenplay by Eric Pearson, who is Marvel's kind of go-to cleanup guy these days. And then Joanna Callow, who you may know from BoJack Horseman and the Bear. So if you're like, hey, this has a lot to do with mental health. That's because Joanna, no relation is like incredibly good

at those stories. Story by Eric Pearson, pretty much. by Kevin Faggy. You might have heard of him. And I just want to shout out, I got so excited when I saw that the stunt coordinator on this film is Heidi Moneymaker, who was a stunt coordinator on Echo, has done this, but started out as Scarlett Johansson's stunt double. And so, like, the way in which Heidi has sort of, like, moved up the ranks at Marvel is always, like, really excited me. I think she's incredibly cool. And I thought the fight stuff in this movie was really, really good. So I was just, like, really excited to see her credit. Closing credit. Opening weekend.

Often we do these on Monday. We're not doing this on a Monday. I know. Are you ready to project? Are you ready to forecast? That's not my particular talent. I don't do math. But this is recently been established in the list of things we're not. Mathematicians formally made it. So I was told there would be no math. But box office, we don't know. But deadline, off to a good start, according to them, the Thursday night draw. You had trouble finding a. for your Thursday night screening in Los Angeles, right? Yeah. Now, listen, in typical fashion, because we all went to screenings on Monday. Press screening on Monday.

Press screening on Monday. Delightful. And then, you know, want to see the movie again before recording with you, obviously. And I can't claim that I checked the old Fandango app more than an hour before I intended to step out the door. So that might have something to do with it. But even so, you know, looking for an opening night, Thursday night. here in the old city of Los Angeles, it was hard to find a seat, which was cool. And then I went to what ended up being a sold-out showing. Like, every fucking seat was full and people were having

the time of their lives. That's great. I really wish it was a really fun room. I'm kind of, I want to see it again with the full room. I'm really grateful to my local theater was showing a seven o'clock Thursday so I could walk like 15 minutes to the theater to watch the movie. last night. But the theater in my town is not known for being robustly attended. And so there was like eight people in my screen. There's no reflection on the Thunderbolts just like no one ever goes to the movies in this town except for me, I guess.

I don't know why that movie theater is still open. It's like just for me, basically. As you know, I have a great affection for going to basically empty showings. I love a like 11 a.m. Saturday morning movie where I can expect to see no more than seven other human beings. But this was also nice. I have to say, other than the person two seats away who was sniffling the entire time. Other than that, because then my anxiety about getting sick kicks in.

And I had a very robust. We're doing great on our face already here. A very robust set of snacks with me. I did almost text you because I saw a bag of high chew in the, which had caught my eye in a way. I never had before now that I have such a love for them. But no, I went chicken tenders, popcorn, cherry vanilla Coke, bottle of water, red vines. And I had quite a stomachache when I got home, but also it was all delicious and a great part of the experience. When you told me this, when you told us this morning, you were feeling lightheaded and like not well before you got on this podcast. Do you think it's because it didn't occur to me that it might have anything to do with that. I also then did have more high chew when I got home.

Cool. Because as you know, I've recently procured 17 flavors. No free ads. No, no free ads. No, no free ads. But Mallory is like running on 85% high chew these days. No, I thought I thought the lightheadedness was just the. the total lack of sleep and IV drip of coffee that I'm running on. Couldn't help without enough water. But it might have had something to do with all of the salt and sugar that I've recently ingested. I mean, I think it has a big thing to do with Huff and Rido? I love, I love you having a full movie experience. I love that for you.

I will just say that like when it comes to something like a new Marvel movie that people are actually excited about or a new Star Wars film that people are excited, I like to go see it with a full crowd. You're going into the time machine for us. I would always go see when we were still really excited about Star Wars. I just remember going to see the press screening and then wanting to immediately go opening night because I wanted to get the opening night crowd experience as well. Maybe we'll actually get to do it with the Star Wars movie next year. Maybe it'll happen. Stay on the calendar. We'll be back, baby. I will just say, like, for the eight people that were in the theater with me, you'll hear me throughout this outline that we have here today, say, like people were cheering for this or people were laughing. I have an eight person sample. But I always want to like know what are people,

how are they responding to this? And I think I really like this movie. I liked it both times that I saw it. Same. I think I would like it even more if I saw it with a group of people who were sort of like whooping and clapping and laughing and having a good time. The critical response is good. It's good in a way that it hasn't really been for a while for Marvel.

So some good scores, both audience and critical scores on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic. Cinema score, not available yet. That will be available next week. So your theater is having a great time. My theater, again, small sample, having a good time. What about like sort of anecdotally in the water? What about like the larger conversation around Thunderbolts?

How has that been registering with you? Quite positive. People we work with, people we're friends with. You were the big TikTok. talking about it, right? Married to or related to? Yeah, joined, uh, joined Sean and Amanda on the big pick. Everyone liked the movie. Dobbo liked the movie. That's wonderful. I know. Wow. I know. It was great. An incredible science corner with Amanda Dobbins coming everybody's way on Big Pick. Just some amazing questions about how matter transfers in and out of the point.

Tune in for that. Wonderful stuff. Spoiler, we didn't come to any conclusion. but the questions were asked, and that's what matters. Okay. Yeah, everybody's, I think I have yet to encounter directly somebody in my life who did not enjoy the movie. Now, of course, there are varying degrees. I think that, you know, one of the things that I think in general, independent of Thunderbolts, just the MCU viewing public in the post-endgame multiverse saga era has the, like, tendency to do is assess everything through the lens of, especially at the end. into phase five here.

Is this the thing that saves Marvel? And like one of my, we talked about this on Big Pick. One of my contentions is like, this is never supposed to be that movie. So I don't think that's the lens through which we're going to talk about it. But like, it's still such an injection of positivity. And like, I know you, you took a bold swing this week and you put your power rankings up on Twitter. That went really well for me.

Yeah. I would have expected any other outcome. come. But I'll, you know, I'll say, phases four and five, I'm going to, like, reserve the right to cement my ranking until the end of this saga, but without question, I have a top three, and Thunderbolts is in it. It's Thunderbolts, Guardians three, and No Way Home. I know you and I have a differing opinion on whether the Spidey movies should be ranked. I think they're MCU can and and thus should be in the ranking. But, you know, so this, this is one of my three favorite movies of this saga. And I have a...

I don't think the fact that it's that the comps are more to me like either guardians in terms of both the heading into the theater to sit down, will people care about these characters? But also the kind of like quirk and quip and like particular flavor and sensibility

and flare of it or even like something like Ant Man, right? Where again that question of is anyone going to go see Ant Man and then they did? And it's like, whoa, what can't Marvel do? Like the comps to me are much more like that than we're heading in into Doomsday and Fantastic Four,

and those are going to be the things that we compare to Endgame and Infinity War. So I think that whatever lens you're looking, you're looking at it through, though, it was really fun and I think quite successfully executed. And the highest praise I can give it, in addition to the performances, the pace, is just the completely

and utterly assured sense of self. This movie had such a clear vision for what it was trying to do and then did it really well in terms of the theme, in terms of the ideas, in terms of the energy and the calibration and dynamics between the characters. I just really, really enjoyed it.

I'm excited to keep watching it. I think that, let me say keep watching it. Like it's a TV show. Watch it again. Just keep it on loop. Keep watching it. I can't wait to watch it again and keep watching it. I hadn't heard any dissenting.

Like, I didn't like this opinions. Now, I read a couple reviews from pals of mine who, because I was curious, it has like an 85% of a lot of time. I was like, oh, okay, who gave it a bad review? And so I was sort of like reading. through their reviews. And I think sort of their consensus to a certain degree was, from people I respected admire was sort of like we're grading,

people who are extolling the virtues are grating it on a curve. And I'm like, possibly, quite possibly. It's like Marvel has felt so shaky for so long. We've been watching, you know, we just got done talking about Daredevil, thinking about Brave New World and thinking about all the ways in which they had to like remake and reform those stories in order to give us something like something legible. Yeah. And to your point, there's just none of that in this movie.

This just feels like a movie that they wrote and probably did some reshoots on because there's always reshoots in Marvel, but nothing like too extensive or wild. The biggest sort of trouble sign you heard from behind the scenes on this is that they did a couple of recasting maneuver. I-Oad DeBerry was supposed to be in the role as Val's assistant and Stephen Young was supposed to be in the Lewis Pullman Bob role. And like there are moments where I can really see the ways in which those roles were kind of written, perhaps for those specific actors. No question. But I thought this cast did an amazing job. And I think Lewis Pullman especially was a stand. I mean, I love Stephen Young.

I'm a huge Stephen Young fan. And so like I would have loved to have seen him this role. But I thought Lewis Pullman was like, I think my second favorite part of this movie after freaking Yelaine Blame. Lova, which was, you know, Florence Pugh, every single moment I thought with her was amazing. So, so I understand, like, what I've said is the best Marvel movie I'd ever seen. Never, no. But I do think it stands with, like, Ant Man, the first Ant Man, you mentioned. I was talking to our colleague Kai Grady early this morning.

I was like, it reminds me of, like, you know, the first Captain America movie, the first Thor movie where it's just sort of like, this is a movie. Guess what it's a movie? we made a movie and we understand how to make movies. That's what it felt like. And for Marvel for a while, it's just felt so rickety in that regard. But in terms of that, like, yeah, when the credits rolled on my press screening, the people in front of us were like, the first thing I heard was we're back, baby,

which is just sort of like the number one refrain, you keep hearing from people around. And someone was like, everyone has slums, everyone has misses, it's fine. Like, it was, you know, we're back, Marvel's back. I just don't know that those are the stakes I want to put on every. single thing that we're watching. I agree. And I think things serve different functions. It was really important for Deadpool and Wolverine to perform enormously at the box

office and it did. It's really important for Thunderbolts to feel stabilizing right before we launched something new like the Fantastic Four, which it did. You know, and so there's just like these functions that it served, it was important for Brave New World to not feel like, you know, they didn't at all know what they were doing. And then, like, you know, they put together a movie at the end of the day with that film. We had our notes and questions about it. But like, so I wouldn't say I'm not, I'm always hesitant to say like, we're back or this is or it's over with something like this.

Like history is long. There's a lot of stories to tell. I'm not saying that like this feeling solid means everything going forward will feel perfect and solid under our feet. But it makes me really optimistic for Fantastic Four. And given that I have been, I bought it. early on Thunderbolts. Yeah, I feel a little vindicated. I feel pretty good about that.

Flex. Flex on them. Fugging flex on them, Joe. Yeah, I think the grading on the curve goes both ways, right? And I think that a lot of the movies that Marvel has put out in the last few years

have genuinely been disappointing in subpar. That is clearly, inarguably true. We've got a lot of podcasts about that that people can catch up on. So I'm not debating or diminishing that. That's a fact.

Right. But it's also true that if everything is viewed through the lens of the end of the infinity saga versus the restart of a new phase, it's like a different, it's a different way of just processing even what the experience of each film is like intended to be. I think that ultimately like to the we're back, are we back aspect of this? I'm with you. I think there are two buckets inside of that. Ultimately, in terms of the question of, like, the Marvel machine and the, dude, this is the 36 MCU movie.

Yeah. 36 MCU movies. Say it with me, 36. That's a fuck load of movies. I've enjoyed watching them all to varying degrees. But, like, the question of whether the Marvel machine can churn in perpetuity and can constantly simultaneously extend and

evolve with the connective tissue of a thing we cared about already, while also introducing new elements and new variables and new ripples and

new central figures and be the central force in pop culture and go on forever is a question that this movie is not going to answer. That's like

fantastic for doomsday, Secret Wars, and ultimately at the end of the day, X-Men. That's what answers that question,

right? Is can they keep it going in the way that they had it going before. But like to your point, the just like confidence that you can head into a theater and sit down and know you have two hours and six minutes of fun ahead of you and of like a movie you're going to enjoy talking about with your pals. And something that I think of all the different aspects of the secret sauce of Marvel over the decade and a half plus now that they've been making movies is like the ability, maybe you went in with like a lifelong devotion to a given character step, but maybe you didn't and then they

made you care anyway. And then one of the things that I was really thinking of coming out of this movie is that like, we talked about this on Big Pick, but like I'm so excited as my fellow Bucky enthusiasts to talk about it with you. Like, Bucky Barnes is just like the great through line of our lives now as moviegoers. It's incredible, you know? And the fact that that character is such a constant in so many different ways. Like I remain grateful that that that. I remain grateful that that's a thing we get to experience in different forms. Are there dips and peaks along the way, of course? Yes.

The other, I agree with a lot of what you said. And I think that I don't think we're ever going to go back to Endgame. I've said that a million times. And I think that that's just okay. Like, I think we should just let that go. It's never going to be what Endgame was. That was like a once in a lifetime, once in a century sort of culmination of a lot of different factors. Our culture was different at the time.

It doesn't seem that long ago, but like it was a whole pandemic and a lot of other things ago. So like we're just not going to be there again, I think. But can we be in a place to your point where we can just be like it's going to be fun to go to this Marvel movie? We won't feel pain about it. I mean, I struggled, as you know, I struggled through Daredevil quite recently. And it's just sort of like I want to be excited about talking about these things. And I'm excited to talk about this. I think also what it did.

There's two other things I want to sort of hit in a big picture way. One is the themes that it's deciding to tackle in terms of like Marvel discovering like sort of what it can and can't talk about. Like the biggest laugh in both of my theaters was a line about meth. Yeah. When Tony Stark first debuted in the MCU, they initially thought they might do the demon in the bottle story from the comics. Then they're like, no, we can't do that. We want to make this like family friendly. Yeah.

Elena Bilova is like dealing with, you know, alcoholism in this movie. It has a lot to say about mental health. So there's like a darkness and maturity that goes beyond the like grim dark DCU take on it. That's just sort of like, hey, man, this is like we got the woman who works on Bojack Horseman and we got the people who worked on beef and the bear and all this sort of stuff. Like, yeah, the whole A24 like joke. But like, but but we're not wasting. We're not taking, we're not wasting them. We're actually engaging with these,

with these ideas. And then also the absolutely phenomenal character rehab on John Walker and Ava slash ghost. You know what I mean? Like these are two characters when they announced the lineup and I got really excited because I was like Elena and Bucky.

That's all I needed to see and I was really excited. People are like, Taskmaster. I mean RIP Taskmaster. We'll talk. put that a second, but like, Ghost, John Walker. That's sort of the point of Thunderbolts, right? Is that, you know, you take these anti-heroes and you put them on a team and stuff like that. But, like, I still need to care.

I don't need to, like, think they're Steve Rogers, but I need to care about their emotional well-being. And, like, John Walker to a much deeper degree than Ghost, but still, but still, like, Ghost is the least served by this movie. But it was still, like, she. She was so charming and fun and dry and like, I want to see more of her. Yeah. They better give her a better wig than they gave her in the post-credit sequence of this movie. I have some questions for you about the hair changes in the stinger. Yeah.

But we're on the right track. And that's really exciting to me. So had a great time with it. I co-sign all of it. I think the themes at the center of this, the not only the examination of mental health and depression, but the, you know, like, found family, obviously something we love to talk about

across various stories. And I think, like, the way that the movie both really subtly through either introspection or conversation, I think the obviously best, the most like notable and high profile examples in the movie are the Yelena Alexi conversation and relationship, and then the Yelena Bob conversations and relationship. but it managed to merge and meld those moments with, and this is genre at its finest, right, action sequences that lean into and heighten the theme. The fact that the void, the trip through the void, the journey through the void at the end,

is not only everybody working through their personal trauma prisons and painful memories, but working through their own pain to get to a place where they can then do that together, like that unity of self and community and found family, I thought was lovely. The climax of the movie is a group hug. There's a version of that that just is like corny and dad. And I honestly thought it was lovely. Like I really, and I think in general, the movie, like, it was really frenetic. I mean, it takes place over in a good way.

Like, it takes place over a very short span of time. the action sequences are actually quite long. Like the elevator, the shaft, escape from the vault, especially. It's just a huge swat of the movie in terms of the total runtime. I didn't like take out a stopwatch or anything. That's what John and Mike are here for. Synchronized watches. When I was putting through my notes, I was just sort of like, I have so much that's

vaults elevator escape from the compound. And I was like, but that's because it's, I don't know, half the movie essentially. Yeah. And it all work together. It's important because it's foundation of the team. You know what I mean? Exactly. All of that.

Yeah. I do want to shout out, you know, a question that someone asked me, I think on Blue Sky was about, you know, they had heard that this movie was something of like an everything everywhere all at once rip off or leaning too heavily on some themes explored to BoJack Horseman or there's one specific episode of Harley Quinn that where you're, everyone individually is going through their memories of their trauma before they can come together and fight trauma together. You know, like that, that does exist, but has existed in other mediums before as well. It's not like new, new, new. Right. And I would say, yes, I would say it's drawing. I would say I can feel the DNA of everything everywhere all at once in here. But like it has some other things on its mind.

And it doesn't feel like it's just a marble wash on top of the Best Picture winner or, you know, lifting directly from animated or genre television that we like. It's all these things. And when you take characters like Elena Belova, who we haven't spent a ton of it. of time with or Bucky Barnes who we have spent a lot of time with and bring them in and make their traumas believably anchored to stuff we've already seen from them. I think that is an important. We're telling an ongoing story and I think that's done really well. So, great. On the ongoing story in front. Yes. Really quickly. We have a lot of, someone asked me, what do I have to have seen in order to understand what's going on here? And we'll note this as we go, but there's a lot of

moments inside of this movie where they're recapping things about each other via traded insults or congressional testimony. Like there's a lot of recap available for you inside of this. But some, so do you have to have seen what's come before? It would be helpful to have seen, I think most of all, Falcon, the Winter Soldier, and Black Widow. Yes, those would be the two things that I would say would be most helpful. But Elena, Black Widow and Hawkeye, Bucky, everything, but also.

Falcon the Winter Soldier, his Brave New World appearance, John Walker, Falcon the Winter Soldier, Ava, Ant Man of the Wasp, Taskmaster, Black Widow, Wakanda, Forever, and the Brave New World to understand what she's talking about, or the trailers, a bright red superhuman monster the president has turned into. But yeah, one TV show and one movie are the most crucial sort of DNA for this. And that feels slightly freer than some of the- the other multiverse saga installments that we've been seen. Yeah. It was interesting to talk to Sean and Amanda about this because I think obviously there's variance inside of any listenership and viewership, but I think that's probably a more germane question for the big pickheads than for the house for heads. Like, oh my God, how much homework is there.

And I think, you know, yeah, obviously our position on this is always going to be, well, yeah, you know, you check it out. Watch it all. Watch it all. And this is part of the fun. The continuity, but it's part of the joy. but I do think undeniably it has become prohibitive for certain people to feel like it's possible to keep up with the MCU, especially in the Disney Plus era of television, the ballooning of the television slate. So that's not a commentary on whether those things are good or worth people's time.

I think it's just true that there are folks out there who are like, I don't know if I'm going to be able to sit down and have a feel for how these characters got here. I think Thunderbolts did one of the better jobs that I can remember. Certainly in the deeper stages of the MCU of if you have seen it all, like I agree with you. There were a couple moments where you're like, well, there's the line to catch people up on thing X. And if you know like you're clocking it. But I still didn't feel like, okay, well, I watched all that stuff. Why are we wasting all of this time rehashing a thing I know?

It never tipped that far to me. And I think if you did not come to the movie with the prior. Falcon Winter Soldier and Black Widow knowledge or, you know, Ant Man or any of the other things like The Ant Man of the Wasp, you'd be okay. I think you'd be able to hang. And I think that some of that is because of the way that the movie catches you up on necessary plot beats, but mostly because it is so rooted in making sure you understand who the characters are. Just like who they are. You know, why are they in this place, like emotionally? What are the relationships and the losses, whether that's John Walker. has lost his family. His wife has left him and taken their kid. Whether that is the Elena mourning Natasha, her sister, and the crumbling of this family unit. Now, if you've watched Black Widow, you come to that with a deeper understanding, certainly of the fact that even before that, she has confronted, wait, did I lose the idea of that? Was that even real? And so there's a richness. It was real for me. There's a richness there, of course, that I found rewarding. But yeah,

You can hang with this for sure if you haven't seen all that other stuff. I think it's been a while since that's felt true. On the comics front, similarly, you don't need to have read any comics at all to understand this. But there's some sentry stuff that I think is helpful and informative and some Thunderbolt stuff that's fun. You know, or U.S. agent. So I don't, should I have like a little list here, but I don't know that it's like, Yeah, it doesn't be reading less. Yeah.

Century Reborn, Paul Jenkins and John Ramita Jr. And Century Jeff Lemire and Kim Hacinto. The idea of Century Bob slash Century slash The Void and this idea of this character who, in his origin, we meet as this sort of middle-aged man who like has erased the idea of Century from everyone's head. Yep. And is chasing the mystery. of who the void is, who is the supervillain the void, and then discovering that the super villain the void who has wreaked havoc in the past is himself is a really interesting concept. This idea of Century then becomes a problematic figure inside of comics because similar to Vision

or Superman, he's way overpowered. So how do you have him around? And so there are ways in which they have, you know, injured him or, you know, injured him or, you you know, his fear of the void keeps him in check, sort of where we find Bob at the end of this. At the end of the same area. Or similarly, there's this idea of memory in Century, which I think is the only comic comic information that I think might help better inform. Because when Bob says, I can't remember what happens. And we do have a couple moments inside of this where Atlanta's like, hey, I thought you said you couldn't remember, but you do. There is this question based on comic

of knowledge of how much is he telling the truth when he says he can't remember and how much is he how much is this like something he is isolated inside of his own memory and how much of it is just sort of like he can't face it so he says he can't remember that's something to think about and wonder about when you think about someone like Bob um widowmaker's red guardian the elana balova devon grayson and michel benedini is just like a really fun alexie and yelena comic that if you want to get more of their dynamic you can read um absolutely favorite together. I just think it's incredible. Thunderbolts,

colon, winter soldiers, Kurt Bucig, Jim Zub, Mark Bagley, Shauna Zoxi, and John Malin. This is when Bucky takes over his leadership of Thunderbolts, which is not traditionally who leads Thunderbolts in the comics, but if you want to think about like, bucking leadership, and what I love about this movie, we'll talk about this a little bit more later, is it actually doesn't tell

who the leader of the Thunderbolts is at the end of the day? What is your impression that it is the Yelena and Bucky co-lead? Is Yelena the leader, but Bucky's sort of leading from behind? Yeah. I got more of the latter sense, like that he's kind of mentoring her, but let it, but that, like, giving the, you know, the one she's trying, you know, using Siri basically to like, feel at the jet. Yeah, get the fantastic ship up. And he's like, well, this is like kind of the thing you need to say. And obviously, I think a lot of what's fun to talk about there is Bucky's particular relationship to leadership.

Leadership, but also just like this is a massive thing for Bucky to be in a new team, a new dynamic with new people in his life after like, you know, the formative relationships in his life are gone. And then Sam, a person he carries that through with is like, I'm copyrighting this. We're on opposite teams, which is a fun thing heading into the next stage of Avengers movies, obviously. But yeah, I think, like, Yelina's the head and Bucky's, like, advisor, vice president, kind of a vibe. I a little bit wonder. I don't want to dip my toe too much in this, but like, I a little bit wonder if they didn't make it so explicit because of... So they can decide, like, later? They can decide later, but all the, like, really disappointingly, disappointing reaction to, like, women taking the four in the Marvel universe and the way in which people have.

been like weird and toxic about it, but if you do like a team up movie, this is Yelena Belovas movie. This movie could be called Yelena and you wouldn't be incorrect. But like it's, it's presented as an ensemble movie and it is to, uh, in many ways. And then like leadership is ambiguous at the end. It's not like Yelena is the leader of the Thunderbolts. And so you can't have people say like, I can't believe they had a woman. Right. You know what I mean? Like they're just sort of sidestepping that entirely. And I wouldn't blame them. A proud tradition of like,

well, yeah, there's the quote quote leader, but also like, you know, aren't Cap and Tony kind of like in charge in their own way, even though whenever somebody asks a question, Tony's going to be like he's in charge. Great point. Thunderbolts,

Kurt music and Mark Bagley, Thunderbolts Warren Ellis and Mike Deodado. It's like so exciting when they don't name them with subtitles. So you're like, which run? But there's just like a couple runs in terms of like, U.S. Asian, like, U.S. Asian specifically on the, on the team up, or, um, the circumstances under which they come together, or, uh, is Century a character that they're engaging with and stuff like that is, is something you think about. Uh, U.S. Agent, colon American zealot, one of my favorite comic book titles of all time. Chris Her Priest and Stefano Lendini. And then the new Avengers, Brian Michael Bendis and David Finch that will take us into the end of this film, the new Avengers. So, uh, that's, that's,

just some things to think about as we go through. Anything else you want to talk about before we get into our, what I'm calling our medium dive of this movie? No, let's do it. Let's do it. Let's dip a toe into the void. Before Mallory gets to talk about her husband, Alexi, if only. We start with Yelena Blava, Yelena all alone. Yes. And we meet her in a way worse place than we met her, quipping her way through Hawkeye, right? She's on a mixed mission. She's in full fix, Kaleen, that is an Andor reference. Depresso mode, right? She's, like, she's usually quite stylish.

We're used to her sort of complicated braids. But she's got unwashed hair, no makeup, slouchy hoodie. Real podcaster vibe coming off of Yolena Belov and I say, stay off her corner, Elena. Do your own thing, okay? Exactly. No saracha or mac and cheese either. So, disappointing.

Notable. She's monologing about her own wee over this action set piece. in a way that I really love. I thought this was great. We get this hallway fight. We get her like parachuting in. We get all this stuff. And then the reveal that she is saying all of this to a guy that she has is holding

hostage. She's like, hey, you're not listening. Like so really funny, really good. Laurence Pew, entire movie star, really just killing it right off the bad here. Pew Hive thriving as always. I thought this was such a charm, even though it's heavy. Yeah. Thematically, right from the jump, such a winning and charming opening stretch for the movie and really a good embodiment of that blend of introspection, thematic richness, and entertaining comedy and action.

When the doctor comes out, I was, like, cackling it when he shot himself in the face. I just, I found this genuinely very amusing. right away. I was like, we're, we're going to be good. This is going to be good. You guys never know how to shoot. She's like yada, yada, yada. You're making great advances, blah, blah, blah. He gives us a hint about the century program, he mentioned. When you watch it back, maybe you notice it the first time, but for me, when I watch it back through, you get the shadows, the void shadows on the wall that we see again inside of Bob's head at the end of the episode, at the end of the movie. So, yeah. Yelena, too busy ripping off one liners to clock that,

She's busy saving guinea pigs. She saves the guinea pig. That was very sweet. But she saves the guinea pig. I did enjoy how the guinea pig worked his way into much of the end credits. Yes. Like the different illustrations of the team and at the little top of the boat, good stuff. Well, what she says, she says, emptiness, started when my sister died, something bigger of void.

And she'll say it, you know, she'll have that exchange later with Bob. But does Yelina kind of creep? the villain of this movie, in a way. Listen, you know, it's worth noting that Alexi is very interested in discussing branding and merchandising. And Yelena's like, this isn't a conversation about merchandising. And yet, she has a natural attitude and a gift for it. Capital V void T.M.

Created by Yolina Belova. All right. Speaking of Alexi, we go from Yelina alone to Alexi all alone. Mallory, take it away. I'm just going to give this over to you. Joanna. I have never felt more seen, known, understood, and sexually drawn toward a character. Then in this opening glimpse of Alexi, House of our listeners, long-time listeners will know my feelings about David Harper.

anyone who's like, what the hell is going on here? Check the tape. Sitting on his couch, watching TV of himself. Tape of himself. You don't listen. I would rather die. You don't like sit and listen back to old podcasts. That sounds like.

I would rather die than do that. But sitting on the couch in his underwear, the doorbell rings. And he's like, I. I said leave on porch. That is just like every night for me personally. And then when you later shows up, we learn that he is one block from Baltimore. She's like, isn't this Baltimore? It's like Baltimore's one block over. Now, what I need to know, what I need some follow-up insight on, is he watching the O's or is he watching the Nats? Now, I think I know the answer. He's probably watching the Nationals, but I wonder if we could swing them. I wonder if we could swing him to the Baltimore Orioles. He loves a lovable loser. I have a really bad news. I think he's watching hockey.

Well, that just makes me more certain that he's probably watching the Nats because Baltimore doesn't have an NHL team. D.C. does. So if he's watching the caps, he's probably, like, also watching the commanders and the Nats. I'm not giving up. I think we can get Alexi over to the Ravens and the O's. I think he'd really enjoy the food offerings. at Camden Yards, he would love some boobs barbecue.

It's all possible in the multiverse. Here's what's really important. And I hope we never forget this. Representation matters. And Mallory, I'm so glad to see you reflected. Thank you. At long last. And a film character.

Thank you. I just love the David Harper, Alexei performance. I think it is so funny and charming. And also then we get this happened in Black Widow. It happened in this movie. We're laughing. We're chuckling. We're amused.

And then suddenly we get this jolt, this emotional wallop in a scene between him and Yelina. Like the conversation out on the street in this movie, the American Pie singing in Black Widow, like, they are fanastic together. And he is great in the role. My memory is that we like, did we cry through talking about American Pie? We didn't. We weren't even working together yet. We weren't even colleagues then. But I think that was what we knew.

It's like our origin story is just crying through American Pie. when talking about the Black Widow film. Okay. Yelena Alexi have not spoken in a year. Yeah. But you can tell something is off with her. And it's not just the unwashed hair. He says, the light inside you is dim,

even by Eastern European standards. It's got a big laugh from once again the eight people in my theater. Sold out crowd here in L.A. also. Yeah. Loved it. It ended uproar. Yeah, very amusing. And then we get the introduction of the Thunderbolts soccer team photo.

Now, the Thunderbolts are named after Thunderbolts. Ronald Ross inside of the comic space, Mallory Rubin. How do you feel about this little switcheroo here? I thought this was so inspired. Yeah, I agree. Particularly because at the end of the day, as many people speculated because of the asterisk and the title of the movie, the name is a placeholder, right? Like, it's by the end of the film, they're rebranded as the new Avengers,

and presumably they will be the new Avengers moving forward until they are all absorbed into the same team to fight Doctor Dune. Yeah, Avengers with the Z. Honestly, an iconic moment from Alexi in The Stinger, great stuff. So because, as you noted, the group is different in many respects from the comic, various versions of the Thunderbolts across Comics canon, but different in many key respects, one of the similarities is this like, the Avengers have left some space behind. There's some void, right?

but also more importantly, even than that, this idea of like the characters who need some sort of like rehab, right? The rejects, the losers, a villain or anti-hero, who's going to try to be heroic, etc. But because they're not going to remain the Thunderbolts moving forward, rooting the origin of that name in something so specific and small and personal felt so right to me inside of a movie where everybody's individual history and emotional experiences is part of how they end up opening up to a each other and deciding not to move beyond. We were sent here to kill each other, but we're going to team up. We're going to form a team. I loved it. And then because we are fans of the film Black Widow, like, you know, that time in Ohio

for Natasha and Yelena and Alexia and Molina was like, we only glimpsed it for a bit, but it has such a bearing on who those people are. And like, I love the idea of this moment in their life that was ultimately like, you know, it's the MCUs, the Americans, right? this cover and this ruse, but through that they found something real. It's very parallel to like what ends up happening in this movie. So I really loved it. Also, it led to the story about Mindy taking a shit on the field. So like, what's to complain about really? Poor Mindy. Mindy never got past that ever in her life. They used her about it forever. I asked Sean and Amanda this. Did she do it on,

was it, did she have an accident? Like, did she shit her pants? Or did she like, did she, was she making a point? Did she do it on purpose? What's your read on this? I think she shit her pants on the I think she had to, like, move out of state and start to go by Melinda instead of Mindy. Like, I think that's what happened for poor Mindy. I also love this. Routing the name, taking the name Thunderbolt away from Thunderbolt Ross. Yeah. Who we last saw a movie that did not really work.

And is, without question, a sinister force. It's the same way that Valentina is, right? And make it, this is such like. a Guardians of the Galaxy moment. Like a kid's soccer team, bad news bears of soccer is what's naming this team here. That's that's very MCU to me.

Totally. And like they didn't win a game. We learned that too, which is a great little detail. Like they couldn't fucking win a game. Yeah. What a perfect inspiration for our lovable losers here. I also love as like as Yolina is like not ready to make full connection with

Alexi yet, she does absorb something. from when he's talking about Natasha and talking about this idea of being a public-facing hero, she calls Valentina and she's like, I'm, I don't want to do this anymore. I'm ready. You know, and Valentina says something snarky about like, oh, you're ready for, Yulina Bluva's ready for her close up. But it's like, she's like, no, I'm ready. I'm ready to accept that I can do something more. She's not, she hasn't done all the mental health work that she needs. But that brings us to what I'm, a section I'm calling Valentina. a girl boss.

Yeah. She loves to promote women. She loves to promote women. As you know. So funny. That killed me. Yeah. That was, I think one of my two favorite val lines, the other being don't gas

know. Please don't gas for work. There's also just like a moment. At the fundraiser, there's a moment when Mel is like, it's a silent moment and Mel is like saying something. And Val gives her such a Selena Meyer, like, stop talking look. Yeah. Such a like Amy shut up look from Veepe.

Okay, so at her congressional hearing, Valentina has paired her existent white streak in her hair with smart white suit for the full Tulsi Gabbard. She's looking identical to good old Tulsi Gabbard. I actually think this was filmed before. Absolutely definitely film before. But as was the case with VEP, they have sort of predicted something. And so it makes this interesting little resonant moment. course we are dealing more closely with some other things we've heard around the Trump administration,

which is the idea of divestiture. I definitely pronounce that correctly. And like, how much are you still associated with the corporation that you used to be? How much are you still profiting? How much are, is being the director of the CIA directly profitable for you in one sense or another? And Val reminds us of recent MCU events. She's like, have you seen Brave New World? The president, turned into a red Hulk. Yeah. But she did not chime in on Dongdeme. Which is so disappointing.

First of all, we've been waiting, obviously, since our pod. But I would expect Val to have an opinion. Yeah. I would. Let's call her. We know how she feels about opinions from this movie, you know? We don't know who the president is now. And also, I have ongoing timeline questions.

Because of the 14 months later. Yeah. Yeah. I have a lot of questions. And then she mentions she alludes to Wakanda for it. She's like, remember how I was in Wakanda forever? And maybe shouldn't have been, but I was in that movie. Just wanted to remind you that I was in that movie. Anything you want to say about Val and Mel and the disposal of evidence and anything like that before we go to the vault where we'll be for a while?

You know, like you said, the parallels to our current political. reality, like right down to the, I'm unimpeachable line harrowing, obviously. JLD, you know, imbueing this with her signature satirical comedy and flair, helpful. I, we'll talk about this later, obviously, but just the, like, stitching in of Bucky as a presence in this political theater, but, like, such an uncomfortable presence. He doesn't know. This is not the space he knows how to navigate. It was like an interesting thread. through that as well. But yeah, you know,

just like the general air of I don't have time for you attempting to hold me to account. I'm not going to take this series. So we get like the beat of anxiety when they leave the hearing and Dow's like shit, you know. But she's just going to, you know, whether it's a human being or a piece of paper or any other evidence of wrongdoing

believes that she can literally incinerate it, press a button on an iPad and walk away. And to the point where she's not even aware that one of her experiments made it through, like that lack of care and attention to detail and kind of casual, not only the lust for power, but lack of interest in any of the particular ramifications of pursuing it established effectively early. And obviously has been since the beginning. I think, you know, this is another one where whether or not you've seen the prior shows and movies coming into it. I think they hit this clearly early, but like, you know, Val is the one when John Walker is going through his hearing and has to hand over the shield and is stripped of the mantle of Captain America who's like, don't, no worries.

U.S. agent. How does it sound? Val is the one when, when Yelena is at fucking Natasha's grave morning who shows up with a picture of Clint Barton and an assignment. So this idea that she is taking people. who have lost something and then weaponizing and leveraging and using the absence of something in their lives to turn them into tools. It's like, especially because so many of these characters Bucky with Hydra, Yelina with the Red Room, et cetera, have been a weapon or a tool of somebody else

and then had to break through that mind control. Like a lot of the early parts of the movie are comedic, but there is this heavy note. And this is part of what Yelina is, of course, expressing to Alexi, too, of like, I kind of just wound up in a different version of that. same thing where someone else is asking me to go clean up their mess and I don't really want to. So like, we understand Val's role in the world quite clearly based on all of that. Politically and personal. I love that. I always, I would also add that like Val has has found people at rock bottom and offered

them, you know, a rope to hell. But also has gas lit them. Yes. Because they're all like, what else are we good for? What else is available to? to us. We do shitty things. We kill people and then we get killed as sort of like Yulina summarizes later. Like that's just who we are and that's all we can be. And this is sort of the theme of the Thunderbolt's comic idea and into the movie idea is like, who says? It's a lot of what we talked about with Loki.

Who says you have to be this thing? You can be this other thing. And together you can sort of validate each other and figure out like, hey man, all of them are so sure that each other are going to, are going to abandon them, right? They're so sure that Ava's abandoned them. She's so sure that John's abandoned them. They're sure again that I did like that they at least called it out when Ava rolls up in the truck and he's like, oh, back again a second time. I was like, yeah, okay, we got it.

Like they're going to show up for each other. But like even that, like, even when they show up to like haul that piece of concrete up all together off of John Walker at the end, like it's still, it still matters. Someone else has showed up for them and that person is not looking to profit financially. off of them. Yes. Okay. So we go now to a vault

that's a mile underground, a bunker. And if you feel seen in this movie by Alexi sitting in his boxers ordering DoorDash, I feel seen by the fact that when Yelana gets to the vault,

one of the first things she sees are some paperwork century paperwork conveniently strewn about on top of a crate, including a very detailed Yes.

Wig watch with Valentina TM sort of moment. You were the first person I thought of unsurprisingly. Thank you so much. We don't understand

the full invocation until later we see Bob show up with the ill-advised sun-kissed version of his hair. But all of the various hairstyle options

that are out there for Century cracked me up. Great stuff. I loved. or when, after many mentions of the hair and they're like, well, it's not really about the hair. And then Val's like, you keep bringing up there. Very amusing.

Very amusing. I feel like Val is aware of Steve Rogers' little blonde wiglet. And she's like, we want to return to that little blonde wiglet space in all of our hearts. So here's the math. Elanis target is ghost. Ghost is after taskmaster. taskmasters after John and John is after Elina. Fun little circle. And what

we get here is first of all from from Taskmaster, Tonya in her only moment of FaceTime and only line in the movie. Literally one line. Reminds us, reminds the audience that she and Yolena know each other. Right?

She's just like, I'm not here for you. Right. Which is like important information as Yelena figures out what's going on. But also just a moment of like, hey, sit down. Like I don't even want I don't want to fight you at all. Like we have this, we've had this shared trauma. Like,

let's not get into it. Um, and then task masters, uh, soon off the board. What follows is like one of several very cool fights. Yeah. We already got the cool,

uh, Yelena introduction. But here we have just one of my favorite things that you can have in a superhero story. They did it so well in like the, the tarmac fight in civil war. Yes. Um,

when you, when you, are a stunt coordinator and you sit down and you think about your various power sets. And granted, later, Yelena is like, what, we all just punch and shoot? Like, you know, they're not like, they're not wildly outside the box these power sets, but they're still significant. There's a shield at play. There's what can ghost to as she phases in and out of things. There's what can taskmaster do as she sort of starts to mimic your fighting style. And then there's Yelena who's our like P-O-V and all of this. So I just thought this was so

slick. The way a throne knife could just sort of bounce around from all four characters and wind up back at Yelena's throat. I mean, I just thought, I thought this was brilliant. What did this do for you? I loved three things about this. One, everything you just outlined, the kind of just rhythm and choreography of the fight, two, what that then primes us for with the eventual the entire group versus Century Showdown in, that should be fucking. and ashamed of herself for buying Star Tower. Outrageous to buy a Vendorstower and turn it into Watchtower. I thought of you immediately.

I thought of you most of all. How dare she stand where Tony Stark's done. When Mel and Bucky are standing in front of the A, I was thinking about you especially. Yes. But like, you know, we're watching how everybody here is ready to act and counteract. And there is this kind of, you know, they each have different skills and abilities. and proficiencies, they are in some ways well matched against each other. And then kind of you can think about how they would turn that rhythm into our case of team.

And so then when you see how just instantly and utterly outclass they are by century, like it feels, I think, even more keen. And then the third thing is, would not stop thinking watching this about what Valentina actually thought was going to happen here. I'm like, okay, wait, we know it's going to be an incinerator. So is her plan just whoever's standing last gets burned alive, anyway? Or did she actually think that this would be the combat battle? I've sent my assassins after each other version of like lovers managing to climax at the same time as everyone getting

the kill shot off at just the right moment? Like this is just a classic now what the fuck are you doing here? Which I also again loved because it's very fitting. This is just not. I mean, yes, Washington bite is so fun as a plan. I feel like as soon as they step in. Valley got some notes. The incinerators should just go. Like, don't bother to make them fight each other. Just torch immediately. Why are we waiting?

We're waiting and we gave them opportunity. And like what she says to Mel, and we'll say throughout the movie in terms of them being losers, blah, blah, is like, there's no way they could work together, right? They're all they're all fuckups and loners and all this sort of stuff like that. And I want to, I have a whole little John Walker section that I will get to later. But I will say, U.S. agent. I really

I love Wyatt Russell. I love Wyatt Russell. I really struggled with John Walker and Falcon the Winter Soldier in terms of like, I understood that we weren't supposed to like him or be excited that he was taking over the shield. But I just really struggled with the way in which they calibrated that the way they deployed him. I thought he was used so well in this movie. But even when he, even at first, even before we're like talking to each other and and and quipping and stuff. like that. Just watching him fight with the shield was really his like shitty,

imitating, fakey shield that he made. The way he reloaded his like, like drop the clip out of his gun, I thought was really slick. Like I thought all this worked really, really well. It will forever bug me. And this is more of a falcon problem than it is anything else. But Sam fights almost the exact same way that these super soldiers do. I just don't understand. And if you're going to make it a big deal that Sam took the Super Soldier serum, did not take the Super Soldier serum, like, as a stance. Right. But he can fight with the shield the exact same way that Super Soldiers can. Like, I don't, I'll never get it.

And that's all I'd say about that. I was going to say, well, the serum allows John to jump really far up the elevator shaft and then fall on his ass and embarrass himself. but at the end of the day, Falcons got wings. You know, Cap has wings and kept the wings. How surprised we're, okay, so like the taskmaster thing. Yeah. It felt so clear to those of us who do this for a living and watch all the trailers that Taskmaster had been like edited into a number of shots in the trailer.

And even down to the card that they put up at our press screening beforehand and it's just sort of like the team and that is like, taskmaster. Yeah. sort of just like over over someone's shoulder. So it was so clear that she was going to die early and that, you know, they had sort of tried to cover that by showing her in a bunch of, a bunch of position she clearly wasn't in.

I didn't think it was going to be so early. What was your take on this? Yeah, same. I think it was apparent from the, also just the app, like the flip side to editing into the trailers and stuff is it the absence in much of the marketing material. like every, I feel like I don't have an actual tallyer, but I want to say, like, it felt to me that, like, one out of every five, you know, Instagram or Twitter posts about the movie, they'd be like,

oh, yeah, like, I got like, pretend taskmasters in this movie, but the other ones, there was just, like, no mention of Taskmaster. Um, so it's, yeah, and I think that's fine, both because, like, it set the stakes early for, like, what they were there to actually do and what could happen and what Val's goal was and also because like frankly now could this have changed the way like you know some of the other characters as you know to ghost etc um we did not have a deep investment in after airman and the wasp and you're like oh bad i care more now that's fun and cool could we have gotten there with taskmaster maybe but i don't know that we needed to um so i didn't mind this i'm glad that they went through the pains of updating the entire suit

despite the fact that this was going to be 47 seconds of screen time. I'm glad that Taskmaster got a new mask and a fresh look. You know, so much of like the design of the suit and Black Widow, I feel like now, you know, was like, we don't want you to know where there's a woman in there. You know? So like, because it was obviously the Dracom's daughter identity was like one of the reveals in the movie.

So yeah, I have, I did not miss Taskmaster after she was gone. I'd be lying if I said I did. But one line was, I would have taken the over on one line. I will say, for all we roll our eyes, Valentina, when she's like, you know, I love promoting women. Yeah. Of her, I guess, four-person, deadly assassin squad, three of them are women and her assistance a woman. So, like, I will take her in his word.

Well, now two are women, because one is dead. And Bob enters vomiting. And this is how we hear him wretching before we see him. Yes. And here he comes in his gym jams because John Walker opened up the sarcophagus by tossing his shield around inside of this vaults. And here we go. We get this exchange. Again, this is one of many we get in sort of recapping who these people are when John's like taskmaster destroyed half of Budapest. Yes. They call him dime store Captain America. But he was like, I was official for like two seconds. And then they've mentioned the worst thing that happens. in Falcon the Winter Soldier, which is John Walker murdering someone in the middle of the street

with the shield and slashing it with blood and it is one of the worst things I've ever seen on anything. Good stuff when John's reply to that was Define innocent. Wild. John and Ghost are scavenging items

off of Taskmaster's dead body. I thought that was honestly a great touch. I loved that. And Bob... She would want me to have them. Yeah. Bob claims she think he doesn't, well, we get these light sort of Yelena I knew her moments.

Yes. Throughout they don't like, they don't make you feel like you have to have watched Black Widow, but like her just slightly different attachment to this character is notable and I really like. Bob claims that he doesn't remember how he got there. And then we get the countdown starts. John hilariously is like, maybe it's the clock that tells me when they're going to pick me up. Honestly. Incredible.

Really good. And you're like, John, you're like, John, you're a hoot and a holler. And then he wound me deeply by yelling on your left when he bashes open this control panel, which is for some reason, I didn't really understand

the explanation for why I was inside the room, but whatever. Yeah. That's like, yeah. John Walker, keep on your left. out of your mouth. Exactly. Valentina finds some different fucking real estate. I know that's the whole point. She's like the optics.

And John Walker, you don't get to say on your left. Sorry, you don't. Dime store cap, you don't. We get, as the incinerator is heating up and Ghost has left the room and we're not sure she's going to come back to rescue them, we get the first of several moments of Yelena Belova closing her eyes and just sort of accepting what's going to happen to her. by my count and I could have missed one, but like we get three. We get this one here, the incinerator.

We get the one she does right before she steps into the void. And then we get one at the end, the very end before the stinger, right after it's like, they're the new Avengers. And she's like, here we go. And what I really like about those three moments is like the first time it happens, it really is her being like here, it's the end. Well, that's it. I was feeling really depressed and now it's over.

Okay. So when we watch her step into the void, a lot of us already knew that she's going to be an Adventist show. So we're not like that worried about it. But she's doing the same face. And for her, it's like, here I go into this thing. I don't know what's going to happen. But I feel like I can help and I'm going to do this thing.

Yes, I can try. But both Alexi and maybe some people in the audience are like, oh, did she once again try to end everything for herself? Right. And then to do it again in this other moment of like stepping into. a new adventure. I also do I don't, this might as well be the void. I don't know what this thing is being a new Avenger going forward. I'll step into this as well. I just really liked those three beats throughout the video. Yeah, I love that. Love it. Are you looking for support in your weight

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Zepound contains terseptide and should not be used with other terseptide containing products or any GLP1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if Zepound is safe and effective for use in children. Don't share needles or pens or reuse needles. Don't take if allergic to it, or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer, or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop Zepbound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction.

Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia if you're nursing, pregnant, plan to be, or taking birth control pills. Taking Zepbound with a sulfonal urea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-99-9 or visit zepbounds.lily.com. This episode is brought to by Whole Foods Market. Spring is here, so celebrate it with fresh,

juicy, seasonal produce and some very tasty limited-time flavors. New Whole Foods, Market Peach, Apricot, Rose, Italian soda. Perfect for a picnic or brunch. As is, their trending mango, Yuzu chantilly cake. But if you're on the go, new 365 strawberry pretzels make a great sweet snack. That sounds delicious. Get savings with yellow sale signs storewide and everyday low prices on 365 brand items. Enjoy the fresh flavors of spring. Save at Whole Foods Market. I know we spent a lot of time this week in our Andar pod talking about cereal and Dendra, but I'm potentially more problematic ship. And it's Yelina Molova and Bob.

I'm in, I'm in completely. I'm really into it. Yeah. I'm really into it. They get blown out of the vault and oops. Oh my God. Somehow their hands get tangled up together on the ground. Wonderful stuff.

Oh, no. And Yelina goes inside of a memory. How did you enjoy this part? I thought that Yelina and Bob were incredible together throughout the movie and I'm deeply invested in their relationship and want them to be together. What does Bob? What does Bob ask when he wakes up in the wash tower? Yelina. Where's Yelena?

What does Elena ask as soon as she gets to the wash tower? Where's Bob? Bob. Yeah. Wonderful stuff. In terms of the actual just like first trip we take and we'll get John's glimpse soon. But the first glimpse coming through Yelena's eyes fitting for so many reasons. has been the character already to express this idea of the void,

the way that that depression feels like it consumes you, but also to understand very quickly what is going to be happening in this space that people are going to be taken back, ported back to, and then trapped in a formative defining source of remorse, shame, trauma. For Yelena, you know, one of the great moments in Black Widow is when Natasha and Yelena free Alexi from the prison and he's so thrilled to see them and they're like, fuck off.

And he's recounting where he's like, was your life so bad? Like, Natasha, you're an Avenger. Yelina, you are the best child assassin ever. Like, obviously much of Black Widow is about the horror of that and free, you know, using the red dust to free themselves. But to actually see something this specific,

this other child, the idea of the first test being luring another young girl out into the wilderness so that she could be killed, very like unsullied, coded, right? You have to kill, you're going to kill the baby, you're going to kill the dog, you know, this is how like we prove that you're ready. Hard, just horrifying. So it tells us a lot about her history. And I thought that like, you noted this in our outline. And I was really moved by this too. the way that she across these memories, she's watching. And then, of course, adult Yelena has to relive it too. And even though nothing can change the fact that this has happened, her impulse is still to shield to cover and protect her younger self from having to like relive this,

especially once we realize it's a loop. So I thought this was like very effective. And then, of course, there's the added little jolt of her turning and seeing Bob. And you're like, oh, shit. Not only because you're starting to understand the power and the nature of his power, but also because part of what's happening here is not just that the void is taking people and trapping people and obliterating people. It's that he's seeing them, right? He's seeing the worst thing that has happened in their lives. Val is so shaken by this. John's shaken by this.

They're all shaken by this. But Val is like the most unsettled we've ever seen her by the fact that he can yeah. And like, and he's a character who says to her in that same scene, like you don't get to know that. I didn't tell, I didn't say you can know that about his dad. So like, but he knows that this is like a violation. Later, when Yelina's like, show us the worst of the worst. It's like, take us your new friends and show us the very worst thing. Yep. And we'll show you that we still care about you. Right. And in terms of like that bid for intimacy, um, to have your shame exposed in that way. And also for this memory for Yelena to specifically be about to your point of betrayal of a friend inside of this.

story that is so much about how hard it is for these extremely damaged people to form new bonds and new friendships. I wonder why it's hard for Yelena because, you know, this is how she started. Yolena breaks up the fight between Bob and John. All time delivery from Lewis Pullman as Bob of you said you're Captain America. You're an asshole. Like it's very good. There were a lot of really funny moments in the movie, but that might have been my favorite. It's hard to pick, but that was just, I thought, incredible. And yeah, I also, like you said earlier, I really adore Stephen Union. And I think he would have been a fantastic century.

But I agree. I thought Lewis Pullman was, like, incredible. And this was one of the many beats of Bob that we were able to understand right away. I just thought this was, like, great. Great. They share this moment, Yelina and Bob share this moment off to the side. and after she says we swing our tiny dicks, it was fun. They shared this moment off to the side.

And again, there's just this kindred understanding. I see you. She says the word void again. She perhaps gives him some ideas. It's not great. But yeah, Florence Pugh's delivery of you shove it way down. That's how you deal with it. Really good.

Mallory, we're back in the elevator. Another iconic elevator scene for the MCU. This was, I thought, actually perfect. Who's wet? I ran hot. It's a mile up, a mile of crab walking themselves up the elevator shaft. I love the moment when they like pause sort of not even halfway to look down how far they've come and how far they have to go.

Give us this is a real sense of what they've accomplished here, how much time it actually took them to get all the way up, you know, give give Valentina time to scramble the jets and get all the forces assembled outside. I thought this was wonderful. Bob throughout goes to this sort of like, it's better if I'm just like, if I just stay down here, it's better if I just make things worse. You know, it's like all, all these indicators are coming for us that Bob is in this in this headspace, this very fragile headspace.

And hearing him say here specifically Because they get to the top They realize, wait, we don't know What, oh God, I'm like how I'm going to get to the actual door leads to a lot of John Walker comedy Because he's like, I made a tax-neill decision to secure my own safety And that help the team great stuff. But that really sad, really sad moment where Bob is like, I always make things worse.

And then we see later when we're witnessing above through the cracks in the floorboard The memory with his parents. that that was like... But it's not just like his parents. It's his mom. He's defending his mom. Yeah. And his mom's like, you just make this worse.

Yeah. And like so that feeling of utter hopelessness and helplessness, like not only to be under the threat that they were under from his father, but like, wait, I tried to help somebody and they told me that was bad. And then side by side with that, there's this like emerging as he and Yelena become this sort of like unlikely fighting duo, there's this sort of like, I actually think I can't help. I think I can help. I'm, I think I'm better.

And I think I'm hiding a crazy six-pack under these baggy jim jams. Wonderful stuff. And also I can fly. I can help. I can do a lot of things. Yeah. And I mean, this is why this character is so interesting. And I think why this was such a successful introduction in the MCU and presentation, like that duality inside of Bob, you know, the century and the void.

Yeah. The superhero and the super villain. When is their bleed between them? and when do those aspects of yourself really feel like they are at odds with each other and that one of them is trying to claim the other? I thought the movie did a great job of establishing that. And so

perfect for this story about these people who were told they were villains, can they be heroes? Can they be both? Somehow. There's also very specific mental health language around Bob when he describes even before the trials, going back to being a kid, he had essentially

manic depressive episodes, right? He says, high than a big low and then my memory just goes blank. I did something bad. Right. So, um, we're about to see exactly this in super powered form at the end when he's like, he's to Valentina. He's like, I'm a god. Guess what? Why? You can't even touch me. Why would you, why would I listen to you? Why can you tell me what you do? I'm a literal god. And then one little kill switch moment and he's like in, you know, it could happen to any of us. And then he's in the void. Um, anything you want to say about sort of their escape from the compound here. I will say from my part, I loved all the action and fight in this movie.

I could have taken so much more of Yelena and Bob fire hose tied to each other fighting back to back. I thought it was like such a great concept. And then the fire hose sort of like just fell on them very quickly. I loved that too. Bob getting a gun in his hands and just missing his. his target completely shooting at their feet so that they dance apologizing and then grabbing a gas mask and having a flop down his face is me playing the last of us part too. Like this is every I was like, oh my God. The sports are here.

I put my mask on. I've got so much ammo because I'm playing on light, but I can't hit any of my targets. Help. I love that. And I also love that like later when he grabs the gun. to like be a distraction. Yes. His like real Ian Malcolm

with a flare moment. He's firing the gun in the air and he still has no control over and his arm is just like sort of wobbling all over the place while he does it. He gets shot. He gets shot a lot. Yeah.

This is an important moment in the history of cinema. Much like Padme Amadella who had her shirt converted to a crop top. Oh my God. By our rogue claw

in attack of the clones all of a sudden his shirt exposes his abs and you're like oh Bob okay listen Yelina will say else our eat shit Valentina and we would like to say here on the record on House of Art eat shit John

Walker for your fucking slanderous indictment of Bob's physical fitness I hope he looked in the rear of mirror and saw those abs yeah because John's like you missed it looks like you skipped arms legs. In chest day or whatever.

It's like, what about Abday? John. It's important that they all clock Valentina's there on their way out. And Yelina is, when she thinks Bob is dead, she's devastated because they are in love and destined to be together. And that is really important. I agree. But she says that was her.

She did that to him to test on someone like that. It's inhuman. And then I'm talking about taskmaster. She's like, she had a tough life. She killed a lot of people. Then she got killed. Like this is just sort of like, Yelena who can extend like when they think that John Walker has abandoned them in the fight inside of the bunker. And Yelina's in the same breath that she says, every man for himself yanks Bob out of the way and is like stand behind me.

So she's got this like protector leadership innately in her. something that she can't see inside of herself at all. And later when Alexi is like, you know, she talks about how she's at the bottom of the barrel. We'll talk about that scene more. And he's just sort of like, you light up a room when you walk into it. And I don't see those other parts of you. And that's why you need you need me here to reflect those other qualities in you, you know? I, I loved all of these moments with Yelena and the movie. I thought to that she killed a lot of people and then she got killed that next line, just like all of us one day. That kind a fatalistic. I know how the rest of my life is going to go. It's a question of when and how,

which bullet is it that gets me? But like, I know my fate. And to be, for part of the journey to be counteracting, that sense of inevitability to, like, embrace the fact that there's another path forward and her future could be different. And that part of the way to figure out how that could be so is to, like, find other people to your point who she can give that to as well. it's just so lovely. I thought, I mean, like you said, we'll talk about that. Alexi, Yulina's seen later, but the goalie moment. I'm just like, I'm going to cry.

This is so beautiful. Also made me think of Van from Yellow Jackets. I also love her like, so I didn't have to run as much. Great stuff. That was probably part of why. Forrest Pute is incredible. Okay. Mallory, how much did your heart beat out of your chest when you heard a honking in the distance?

and the cavalry is here in the shape of Alexi's tactical beast is what he calls this limo. Protecting you from boring evening indeed. This was a thrill. He's here. I did have a question. I didn't really like clock the whole thing until the second time. But the first time I was like, Val got in that limo. But then he later says, like, I was driving a different limo and I came back home.

I got this one. I was like, no way Val gets inside of that clap trap. On our way back from something. Let us power rank the things that Alexi says when he picks up the newly minted thunderbolts in his limo. Great. He calls John Walker's second coming of Captain America. He says, yes, ghosts. When you reappear, does sometimes thing not pop up in a right place?

We know why he's asking. He says, your team of scrappy antikeros. Oh, very good. He says I-I-CAP, when John Walker tells him to do something. Wonderful. He is like, wants to make sure he, everyone knows who sponsors the Thunderbolts, that it's Dimitri's elite industrial lighting and electronics. Shane, he did not have that kind of money.

He is genuinely enraged that Yelena thinks Shane was the sponsor. Inriched. Shane. Something about the Wheaties box. And what else do you want to add to the list, urban? To me, there's an easy way. Yeah. Because he drove Al as you noted, heard what was a foot, immediately got the tactical beast and drove

across the country. He has some commentary on Oklahoma, how flat it is. Where are we? Do we know? So the first time I saw it, I wasn't sure. I think it's Utah because there was a lot of Utah stuff at the end in the credits. So I think it's Utah. Whether that's where it's supposed to be or just Roseville, I have No idea. But because he drove a long distance, it didn't stop. It didn't stop. He has some guidance for the group.

Yeah. And it is, don't drink the big gulp, which we then pan do. And it is just chagamon, full of piss. But it's got a straw in it, right? And it's just rolling around. John Walker's face, ghost face. in that moment. This was just absolute perfection to me. I thought this was incredible. And Yelena is like, you know, the thing that we heard in Black Widow, the thing that we heard in their

first conversation here. And then later, it's like later again in their heart to heart. Like, she actually does miss him and want him in her life, but she's so embarrassed by him when he's there. And that's the best. And we really understand why here. Exactly. I just loved it. Don't drink the big whole nothing you can do about that. Alexi flips the switch, Pony by Genuine starts playing and smoke starts like feeding into the back and Yelina asks quite appropriately Who are you driving in this thing?

Remarkable stuff and then he's like past them vodka They're all like it's not the time Well as an avid last of us player Surely you knew that a Molotov cocktail was in your future Wonderful stuff Youelina sticks her entire body At the window which is one of my favorite action moves That anyone ever does in a car chase

To fire a shot one of these armored vehicles and it explodes and she just sort of is like, it's very, it reminded me of Indiana Jones in the Last Crusade when that librarian stamps the book and there's this like the huge sound of Indy trying to like break

a part of Florida and he's like looking at his stamps, she's like looking at her gun so she thinks it's her but it's not her and that brings us to someone we have not talked enough about yet Bucky Barnes before we can get into this intro which is one of the most important things

that has ever happened in cinema. Yeah. Yes. We need to rewind quickly and talk about Bucky Barnes, shit, congressman. I have to say, there was so much, like, hewn cry when it was announced that, like, when it became apparent that Bucky was going to be a congressman inside of this movie, we learned some information about it, A Brave New World, et cetera, et cetera. I love that he's terrible at it.

Like, this isn't a great use of this. Bucky Barnes cannot give an interview. No. Oh, no. Cannot read a packet. Cannot eat a chili dog. No, but I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful for that.

We had to lose some wires because of that. Suck it on chili dogs and then spilling it all over your crisp white shirt just so that we can see you at a tank top is a great move. And then I love him at the party when he's like doing all his cloak and dagger stuff. And Congressman Gary, who we have not talked about yet, great Wendell Berry performance is like, we don't do this. Text me. Read the package. You don't have to like find the spot in the party where the two cameras can't see us. Yeah.

What are you doing? I really did. I do have questions still about why do the Bucky Congressman thing at all. But like I do like that he is simultaneously trying to pursue a different life. He's very reluctant to, you know, like fall. back in to the old habits and the old way and he wants to be. He doesn't track phones anymore, Mallory. He doesn't track phones.

Like, I can, but I'd rather not. I don't do that anymore. He wants to try, we've been talking about this on Andor, like, what does it look like to operate inside of the halls of power versus outside of him? He wants to give it a go, right, inside of the halls of power. And then find out it's like not for him. I like all of that. But it feels to me like a more successful version of Matt Murdoch being like maybe I could

just be a lawyer. You know what I mean? Maybe I can just be a congressman. Bucky, you can't. No, no you can't buck. He does do a okay job recruiting Mel here, but it's still quite clumsy. He's like, if you want to maybe let me know about any secret hidden evidence, she is luring them there, but I get, but she's also being converted by the Bucky charm in some way.

Listen, the easiest thing to sell us on. and the entire movie is that someone would be like, Bucky Barnes, you want me to call you? Bucky Barnes, you want me to feed you Intel? Bucky Barnes, you want me to Laura, like, get you into a building where the drywall is not yet complete, plenty of room to roll around. I'm in.

I'm in. That's an easy sell. I thought that Bucky, using the dishwasher to clean the vibranium arm, was a nice encapsulation. I really wish that happened. I know that had another trailer. I agree. Nice encapsulation of,

the winter soldier trying to inhabit this more routine domestic space. The kindergarten moment with Mel was, I don't know if there was just like more evidence for Bucky Barnes bookworm after the Tolkien mentioned in Falcon and the Winter Soldier. I like, you know, I like the, but Bucky is a, you know, an existentialist, like in the tracks for me. I believe that. Okay. So he's bad at most of this. I did think so the two moments where I was like these are clearly for the other actors who are going to play this role is when we get to the meth addicted spinning chicken sign spinning chicken I have to imagine that they were thinking about Stephen Yin in sorry to bother you where he spins a sign for like 15% of that movie and he is phenomenal at it and then when Mel when he hands her his business card and she says what is are you giving you?

giving me your trash. That was such an Iowa Debrary line to me. So those are the only two moments where I was like slightly missing those people. But Bucky Barnes, bad at being a congressman, bad at eating a chili dog, all these other things. Incredible at an entrance. And I have to tell you that both times when I watched this movie, the first time I watched it with my pal at the press screening, the second time it was just me in the back of the theater is taking notes like a creep. I blast my hands. together with glee and joy. I gasped, I sighed when Bucky shows up on the motorcycle.

Yeah. With the, like, with the sunglasses, the leather. Wonderful. It wasn't, it wasn't just like yada, yada, yada, yada, winter soldier. I love the winter soldier. But it was also just like the action movie of the 90s vibe of this entrance. The gun is up. We've seen the winter soldier hold the gun this way.

but like with the shades and the leather it was so Arnold Schwarzenegger and Terminator 2 it was so Lorenzo Llamas and Renegate like it was so 90s coated to me in a way that just like felt just like a care package wrapped up just for me and it's like

this was life change this is life altering when he's like throwing the explosives and everything's blowing up but when he pulls the cable wraps it around and then unbelievable hunches it down into the ground in order to like pull up the last armored truck.

Astonishing stuff. I lost my mind. Tell me how it landed for you. I mean, look, like, sometimes the mission of this podcast is to spend three to four hours parsing the subtlety and the nuance at the heart of the literary tale. And sometimes the mission of this podcast is to talk about how hot Bucky Martins is. We can be both. Both things are true. This was so effortlessly cool.

And that's important because the journey of the Thunderbolts forging is not just the castoffs in the vault deciding to team up. Bucky is there's a lot of like parallelism and there are a lot of shared through lines and beats. But also like Bucky Barnes is Bucky Barnes. And he was Steve Rogers best friend and he was the winter soldier and he was there for all of it. And like it's actually important to see how cool he is. when everybody else is in the limo with bottles of piss rolling around the floor and music, they can't figure out how to turn off. Like, for us to see the commonalities and the distinctions, I thought this was a great way to establish this.

And he just looked truly wonderful. Why Russell as John Walker, when he's like looking at the back of the window, he's like, Bucky's here. He knows Bucky, right? They were in Falcon Winter Soldier together. Yeah, they've been through it. like we ended that show on good terms and bucky's like but then you did stuff after that show you made your choices john but um when he sees his bucky and he's like yay and then he sees that bucky has thrown

the explosive at their car it's just like oh shit and then the beast just like right it's so it's so such a stretch limo giant burgundy stretch limo just like flipping uh incredible almost as long as john walker's very long and he's happy to tell you it's very long very long very big very long okay is a little long. Speaking of John Walker, I do just want to take a moment. I sort of like skipped some of the other John Walker moments because I want to do them all at once.

But like his mind palace memory does a lot of work for us in terms of, it's like a great device to sort of help us understand where he is what's going on. We had some classic weaponized incompetence from him. Oh, fine. You just do it if you don't like the way that I am completely neglecting our child. But there's also just like what I love about John Walker in this movie. is he's a punch, like,

Yelena and Ava are just constantly making fun of him in a way that is very fun. So he is a punchline. But then he's also, like, quite competent elsewhere when Yelena's plan with the, with the lights doesn't work. And Bob's like, I think Walter was right.

She's like, it's Walker. Yeah, that's great. You know. Too many variables. He shows up, he fucks up, but like he shows up when he like, finds them food in the desert, you know, and he's like providing, like, there are ways. So he's not just like, let's make fun of John Walker, which we also do.

But like, he also shows up, does a good job. And I am deeply obsessed with the little look that he and Yelena share when Bucky reveals in a somewhat clumsy line, but Bucky reveals that his wife and his son left him that they don't talk about it. He just because Wyatt Russell is just sort of like, like, what are you going to do? I was trying to save face, you know, like, look. Yeah. Yeah. I thought he was amazing in the movie and I did not anticipate. I did not anticipate a moment where I care this much about John Walker,

kind of period. Full stop. Yeah. So that is a sincere achievement. I think a lot of it was how he played off of the other characters. I think to that point about the pairing of the constant ribbing and insulting with the competence. Like we even get that, we hear actually, Yelina even say that later, right?

When she's like, because, you know, part of the Alexi charm is that he has, going back to Black Widow, this like deep fictional history in his mind of how similar in Captain America are. And so, you know, that great moment, Yelena's like, the difference is that like he knows what he's doing, like he's actually good at this. And there's that little moment where you see John's face and he's like, oh, my God, the gratitude that he is expressing that somebody thinks he's worth a damn. I thought like in the

And even like again There were always these pairings of the insult Is actually tethered to something real Like I loved when Ava was like We get it longer You were in the military But those skills come into play right And I thought in his

In his shame palace memory Obviously there's everything with his wife and his kid But the thing that got me the most was like What is he looking at on his phone? He's sitting there doom scrolling He's reading an article about the fall of a hero like how nobody has ever experienced it like this

the path that he was on a shield that he should not have had and should not have taken but then like you know this character is confronting the fact that his because of the choices he made to be clear but like his life fell apart and to have gone to that high and then plummeted to this low very quickly

they capture the state that you would be in if that had happened to you And I, yeah, I just thought it was, it was great, really great. I also in that limo fight, there's a moment when ghost goes out and then they have, they have the same frequency that stops her in the vault and throws her back. And he just like, hauls her in off the trunk of the limo and just sort of like, again, to your point that the way that the action helps tell the story at the same time as everything else. Yeah.

Like, and Lamar, you know, was his best friend and his partner. Like, this is actually somebody who wants to work with other people. Yeah. You know, he sought out Sam and Bucky and was like, let's team up. And they were like, rightly like, fuck off. But, you know, he's not inherently opposed to the idea of a unit. He just has to work his way back to that point. On the comedy front, long gone, obviously great.

The discussion of the hat. The hat. Do you like the hat? Oh, you mean the helmet? Like, pretty cool, right? Oh, well, what matters is like, do you like it? Pretty cool. That was, do you like the head?

So good. Do you think that's why John is wearing a beret later? no question. Though he also while wearing the beret and they're like, who's the real Avengers? And he's like, well, judging by what they're saying about us in the memes, he's not us. He's still reading the comments.

John, stay out of the comments, man. Don't do it. Okay. We also get on the way Alexi and Bucky are like talking about like what kind of super soldier serum did you get? Incredible. Regular hydra. But there's this question of leadership.

to the point of like who's leading the show, you know, like, Yeah, we can co-lead. We can co-lead is funny, but he's sort of like, okay, what's your plan? You know, Mr. Super Soldier. And then smash cut to them crashing into the building because Bucky is good at some things. He gives them a sort of inspirational speech when he has them all tied up. But like, I don't know. Like, you know, I will say I love Bucky.

It was a religious experience to see him show up on the motorcycle. Cool. He's not, he's on an arc, but it is not the most meaningful arc that we've seen Bucky on, I think. Sure. High Bar to meet, certainly. But yeah. So that's why it feels. It feels so much like Yelena's movie. Because like, and Bob's, I would say that Bucky is not the second lead in this movie. I think it's like Yelina and then Bob. And then maybe John Walker and then Bucky. But like Sebastian Stan is at this point. Oscar-nominated star and, to your point, a mainstay of the MCU, that it sort of like feels like he should be the co-lead of this movie, but he's not, you know? Why didn't you mention Alexi and the top five people who were most important in the movie? Number one on my call sheet, folks. It's, uh, he's number four.

Oh, God. I have a quick question for you. Yeah. Does this Pashthita make Val look nurturing? It's remarkable stuff. Remarkable stuff. I, you know, as we mentioned, Bob wakes up, his first question is about Yelina. But Val is trying to like, Val is doing a great job emotionally manipulating him.

She doesn't know what she's dealing with, obviously. She has terrible taste and blonde highlights. I think the outfit is gaudy. But she knows how to bait him with, she comes in with the sort of like the logo design, the buckle design for a century and his eyes immediately zero in it. He's got these delusions of grandeur. at these insecurities and she's just poking at all of them in a really quick and efficient way. She says you're perfect.

Everybody else in his life is told him that is nothing. You don't get it. They don't get it. They're criminals. They're dishonest. You know, they don't get it. I do. I understand you.

Yes, she is a paragon of virtue. Mel may have been in high school when the battle of New York happens. That doesn't mean she hasn't seen Captain America the first adventure. She reminds us when you put a serum in someone likes to, Rogers, you get Captain America, but you do it to someone this unstable. She's like, have you heard of Erskine? Can I, can I tell you the good word about how we enhance the good and the bad? Like one of the most famous lines in the history of the MCU from Erskine, you know, good becomes great, bad becomes worse, meth chicken becomes the void. It's been there from the

beginning, always. Put it on the merch, Molly Reuben, meth chicken becomes the void. that should be the tagline. If they release this movie, I heard a rumor that they might. If they re-release this movie as New Avengers, can the tagline be meth chicken becomes the book? Same color scheme, you know? The yellow. Yeah.

I did find a scene between Mel and Val when she's talking about being a good girl and she says the line, like, righteousness without power is just an opinion. All of that felt really weirdly clunky to me. I didn't really understand. The only place it felt like it had in the movie was to give some tension as to whether or not that Mel would come help her at the end and then she does. Right. I don't know. Yeah.

That takes us to wigwatch TM with Century TM. Listen, Bob comes walking down the stairs. We got that great fight in the lobby. Like, that was for nothing. That's undercut by Val on the intercom as you mentioned. Bob makes his entry. I left the door unlocked. Great stuff.

Bob makes his entry. Mallory is still seething over the fact that Val is. is standing where Tony Stark stood and talking about how she's... It's not even just the building on the floor. She's at the bar. It is an outrage and a scandal.

Dare she. Yeah, I guess it doesn't do val any favors, I would say, to be standing right at the bar because when she is lobbying these insults like Junior Varsity Captain America, I'm like, Tony Stark would have done better. Who is this old Santa?

Very good. Was Tony Worthy? Yeah. How do you feel about this Congress? It's not point breaker. It's not. You need to be more specific with your insult. When she says, Congressman Barnes, less than half a term, yikes.

Is your sense that Bucky officially quit and we missed it? No. Or is he going to die in this room? Or the fact that he is showing up in leather and blowing up things means that there's no way he can continue being a congressman? That, I think. The last one. No, I guess it's probably also for Val the second one. Like, you're not making it out.

So that's a wrap. Could be all of it. Could be all of it. Yeah. But I don't think he formally quit. I don't think it would occur to him. Honestly. Maybe he scrolled some message on the packet in the chili.

Like, oh, I quit. I'm out. In Chile? My two weeks. Anything you want to say about Val presents Bob here. The wig is bad, I think. it's intentionally supposed to look stupid, so I'm not upset about it. Everyone's talking about the hair.

Yelena is quite concerned, making emotional bids. When Val says he's stronger than a team of Avengers, but together, John Walker sort of squares his shoulders. And then we get this fight. Two things. One, the way that Century emerged, the way that Bob as the century walked down those stairs, simultaneously so uncomfortable and so proud. Like getting to Peacock and getting to be like, this is like, for the first time ever,

everyone has cause and reason to look at and adore me. And also it feels weird and both of those things are true. The way that he moved in the suit, the way that he then talks about the hair. I was really like, this, this reminds me of, this is like how I felt at my wedding where I'm like, I got to put on a dress, I'm like, This feels right and normal.

The fight itself, I thought, was awesome. Just incredible. It is the kind of like perfectly executed superhero comic book movie shorthand where you understand the relative power of the people who were engaging in combat with each other. And then it had that extra degree of specificity in how they were embarrassed, how they were mortified. it's not just that he annihilates them he hits Bucky in the face with his own fucking Vibranium arm

I thought that was on the one hand I thought that was so like so good like so good and the way that like Ghost then picks up the arm and the guys then pick up Bucky and carry him out like this is like the final moment Bucky takes off his jacket and he's like I'm fucking Bucky Barnes

I'm gonna take care of this and then absolutely not on his ass immediately all of it would have hit a bit better for me if we hadn't seen the like de-arming in Falcon and Winter Soldier, which was such a shocking moment. Yeah. True. And I'm like, I feel like I kind of just saw this before. Good point. Good point.

We did get the tacoing of the shield. The top-wing of the shield was outstanding. I wish she had been a little gentler on Yelena so that I could continue swimming and sighing. Though at least he only slammed her into the ceiling, he didn't like throw her out the window the way he did Red Guardian. He's like, all right, get off, get off, but not like, you know, Taco and Shield. And then he did the Henry Cavillus Superman, I can see you moving fast around me, ghost grab thing, which was all very, very good. Then Bob Revoltz, and they pull the kill switch moment, and then they walk away, and I just, just really bothered me. Why would Val and Mel just walk away from this person who we've already seen get up from a hail?

of bullets. Yeah. I agree. I think this is actually like kind of, it does tip into being sort of inexplicable and indefensible. Like, you should just be more careful and more on top of your shit when the stakes are this high in the story. You being that, like that character. Yeah. I guess the other thing, the other, the counter argument would be it is very consistent with like her arrogance. Her lack of care and arrogance. Yeah. It's just like, all right, well, we had the switch and he's done. So someone else will now come in and clean out my trash. Like, that's what I do. I ask other people to come in and clean up my trash. I don't wait around to do it myself. So the fact that that kind of hubris undid her yet again, I think is fitting. But it is like, oh my God, you're not just

going to like, wait. Wait, check. Two and a half minutes. Check. What? We watch him slowly turn into the void. Downstairs the thunderbolts are falling apart. Yelena has like run away and he's slowly turning into the void. I thought the void effect just overall was incredible. I loved it. You see some dimensionality to the darkness and also just the gleam of his eyeballs. I just thought it was like really, really well done. I also love the effect of like zapping out the people turning them into the sort of thing, which is different from the Thanos snap. Yes.

Importantly. Okay. So Yelina has like run away from the rest of after insulting everyone. Everyone's sort of just like walking away. We're not a team, I guess, blah, blah. She didn't do this is like her version of the Peter Quill like Guardians Loser's speech, except the crucial added ingredient of the passers by on the streets of New York and were like, what the hell are you guys talking about? I loved that.

Create a little details. There's like just one of the biggest laughs in my kids really close. People were cracking off both times. I saw the movie at that woman. It was just like so funny. And they're across the street from Grand Central Station, right? I think that's where they were. Anyway, so she runs across the street.

And Alexi follows her. and Malie Rubin, do you want to sing American Pie to me or what do you want to do in this moment? Bye. I just thought the scene was beautiful. Like, we've obviously talked about a lot of what they say to each other,

but I thought this was lovely in both directions. Like, the hurt and the pain and this sense of, like, despair. Really just, like, despair. that Yelina is expressing here. And the way that Alexi, who has, like, loved her, but not been present, the way that she needed him to be can be for her in this moment. You know, there's a lot of, like, he uses the dim and the light language, the brightness, a lot throughout the movie, and that, like, he can not only be a little bit of a spark

of brightness for her, but help her see that that is already there inside of her and that she has given that to other people was just lovely. And they're just both wonderful performers and they're wonderful together. And I thought it was, it was. Really great. Really great scene. The other thing about Florence Pugh in this is like, Florence Pue is a huge star and a huge star who's like wanted by the highest level

of filmmakers that are, everyone wants Florence Pugh in their movie. Slightly earlier in her career, she signed on to be in the MCU. The MCU is not as cool as it once was. I think that's why Stephen Young and I.O. Deverey were like, we're out of here. Like, so she's in this movie and she's giving it every,

ounce of what she has. She's not embarrassed to be in this movie. She's like, I'm going to make it real. Totally. When she's like, Daddy, I'm so alone. She's giving as much to that as I've seen her give to any dramatic performance that she's ever given. And that is what is so important inside of films like this is like the quips are great. The action's great. But we've talked about this from the very beginning. You have to care about the emotional well-being of these characters in order to invest in the heightened wild world that you're watching here. and she absolutely crushes it. Alexi, when I look at you, I don't see your mistakes.

This is why we need each other. When I look at you, I don't see her mistakes. It was just a beautiful. Oh, my God. Beautiful line. And as she says here and in every trailer, okay, that was pretty good. But it was. It was. It was.

It's also, this is why the American Pie stuff in Black Widow got me so much. But he is such a goofball, right? And such a dipshit that, when these like really earnest, heartfelt moments come out, they're like even more impactful than they would be from somebody who was like consistently very sincere and thoughtful. That's just great. What I love about this formation of the new Avengers is it's like it's all just like a jankier version of our original Avengers. So we get instead of the Battle of New York, we get like the Battle of this one block of New York.

We're in Avengers Tower, but it's like half built. Like all this stuff is just like shabbier and shaggier than, uh, than the original flavor. They're all teaming up to stop one really heavy piece of drywall instead of the Chitari army. And the Chari Army has mentioned multiple times in the movie as a frame of reference. But they really flipped that piece of concrete, right? They sure did. Alexi tossing Elena, uh, similar to the way that like my dad used to toss us in the pool. I don't know if your dad ever or like anyone ever did that whole pool toss move.

And then the way that Bucky shoulders the car out of the way, incredible stuff. Wonderful. The light bulb that goes off of her Val's head when she sees people clap for them for the Thunderbolts and she's like, I. There was an idea. And I can make money out. Oh, God. And then Red Guardian saves this little girl only to have her vanish. Tell me about how that played in your theater.

Genuine gasp from the crowd. A Val might say don't gasp at work, but you can gasp. at the movies, folks. It was like, oh shit. This is everybody there is about to be sucked into the void. This is what's happening. This is the risk. And of course, you know, to do that with a little kid, it's not only like we've seen

this horrible Yelena memory, but just in general, that's going to incite that response from the audience when you see this like sweet little child who has been saved and you briefly think it's okay. And then they're wiped out of existence by the brushstroke of the void. So that was effective and very, uh, very intense and impactful as a movie-going experience, as was seeing, you know, Alexi's response when Yelena then walks in. Like, this was just, like, kind of nonstop action and intensity

and emotional response from the characters in this whole sequence. It was great. Is there any part of you that wishes you didn't know that Lewis Pullman was going to be in Avengers Doom Day, which was revealed to us via the back of a chair in promo? Because here's what I'll say. the calculus, I don't do Beth, the calculus that the storytelling calculus that my brain is doing is like when that little girl

disappeared, I was like, there's literally no way this can be permanent because if his character is responsible for disappearing a little girl, then there's no way that we can enjoy that. Even if he's just like, I'm just Bob now, there's no way we can enjoy that character going for it. Now, to be clear, I am,

multiple people did die. That helicopter crashed into a crane that crashed into a building. So even if we unsnapped everyone who went into the void, people definitely died as a result of what Bob did and then he's just hanging out

with our heroes. Our heroes have killed a lot of people. So, you know. Right, exactly. They've all had to work through having been the source of the harm that befell others. I didn't mind knowing that

I don't, I mean, the MCU has many times before brought a character we thought would be around for a while. And then you're like, oh, this was for one movie. Weird. But it didn't occur to me that that can happen with Century. It's just too big of a character who people for too long have been like,

when are you going to get Century into the MCU? So I, I, and I think especially with Doomsday, like, you kind of need Century to, like, be a part of what's going to happen. That's why the Stinger, like, oh, yeah, we're depowered for now so that we can power up again at the right moment. But, like, would you be wholly surprised if Adam Warlock never shows up in another Marvel movie? No, but I think that feels a little different given the gun guardians of it all. It's, like, hard for me almost to separate how those characters now feel like they're in a different, like, existence than every other character.

Yeah, I mean, it has happened before, but yeah, I, uh, anyway, I didn't mind none. It didn't take anything away for me. Here we go. We're almost done. We go into a big maze of interconnected shame rooms. We mentioned the moment where Elena puts her hands over her younger self. I thought that was so beautiful. I thought the moment where she fights her drunken self in the bathroom was really, really good.

We get some real, like, sun's getting real low energy from Yelena when dealing with Bob in the attic here. Not the only Hulk comp, right? Because the way that Bob talks about himself later in the stinger, when he's like, oh, like, he's basically like the other guy, like, you know, which is just. that's a whole banner thing. I also really loved the costume on Bob here. I didn't notice it until the second time around, but he's dressed in like a blue sweatshirt, brown cords and sneakers.

And it's very much like what a kid, you know, he's in his like kid mode. And it's what a kid would wear, but like in an adult version. It's not like he's in clothes. You're like, those are children's clothes,

but like you could see those like on a kiddo. Yeah. And he's like sitting in the attic with the, like cross leg. Yeah. Yeah. I was also like this is just like what I wear now, what I play with now. It's also what Mallory Rubin looks like on a daily basis is true.

Do love a pair of cords. The Thunderbol's breakthrough to defend them from this evil room. Guardian rips open. He says evil pillow. But the big lap of course is when it's like, was that okay for you? And Bucky says, oh, I'm fine. I am a great past. So I'm totally fine.

Wonderful stuff. Really good. There was never any doubt that they were all going to show up for each other. But I still, I still kind of. agree with you that like the way that the whole team so I really liked this I will just relate to you my friend who's out with me who also really liked it she was like she's like it takes a whole team of superheroes to get one man to go to therapy was her assessment of this moment I was like it's so much about Yelena's mental health too that I'm just like unwilling to really stay in that

space but yeah they're kind of all on that they're all on that journey together um but yeah we we we talk Bob down. I like that it wasn't punch yourself clean. Like might equals right has been the case often in the MCU. And I like that this is like that's actually not the way to go here. Yeah. That's how you're going to become the yeah. Yeah, the other guy too. Yeah, I liked that a lot as well. Very good. Um, my whole theater lost it all eight people. No, but at the press door too, which was, which was bigger when Bob says I was on meth. And I, I was just thinking about like, I'm not doing the concern trolling of like, who is this movie for, which I do sometimes.

But I do wonder if people are going to bring their, I mean, I, what did I say? Oh, sinners. I was watching sinners and like, someone brought their small child to this. And I was like, okay. All right. So like, are kids going to see thunderbolts? Probably. And be like, what's meth?

Well, you got to learn sometime. And you got to say about the press, the press conference. moment that we get at the end of the second. This was just like vintage chef's kiss val to me, you know, like she knows that they're going to be angry and they're going to pursue her. And so to leave them through the curtain right into a press conference that they have to just stop still and let her claim her false victory. I thought that was very amusing, very good. I also love that Bob, again, I have questions about what Bob remembers and what he doesn't, but Yulina's like you're sticking with us because we don't know how stable you are. But Bob just like

cheerfully applauding for them. Lina giving him this like double take. I'm like, that was good. Good stuff. And then we get double stingers. I thought both of these were great. All right.

Well, both of them were starring your favorite character. Exactly. The mid credits, the Wheaties thing at the store, you know, we've got, well, we first, sorry, we take me through the various media clippings before we even get, because we kind of have a bonus, right? Yeah. Before we even get to the mid credits. We get not my bend. No. I do have a question. It's Friday. I have not seen any news about this. How I feel about this, I'll be honest with you, how I feel about this will depend on whether or not this art was AI. And I couldn't tell and I will be bothered if it was. But I will say that all the media stuff of like not my Avengers, nope. B Avengers instead of A Avengers. Reminded the B Avengers is one of my favorites because it reminded me of like this headline that came. And we talk about this all the time. This headline that came out of the first Antioa Comic Con when they announced the last.

lineup for the Avengers and it was Captain America and it was Ironman and it was Thor and, you know, I think it was a variety. It was like, oh, the B list is making the Avengers because those, they were not big stars of the Marvel universe until the MCU made the big stars. So here we are back again. The B list, the B Avengers. David Brooks, I like them, sent me to the moon. Incredible stuff. Genuinely, so funny. Did you ride on a lot? on Bob to get to the moon? Imagine. Tell me about the Wheaties moment.

He was in his like, that was hopper mode, right? They pulled him off the set of things. That's the thing. This is a thing. Like, obviously he wants, you know, he has many moments earlier in the movie where he's like, you know, the point of this is fame and fortune. So, like, obviously very amusing to see, mentioned the Wheaties back because he wants the merch to see him like just pushing this back to cereal on this like poor woman who's

just trying to get her groceries and go home and she doesn't even like know who she is, who he is or give a shit, great stuff. But the hopper mustache being back is like the thing that requires mention. And now we have and we can move on to the post credit stinger, which I thought was great. Really, really good. It's been 14 months. Again, I have some BBY questions. We've got a beret.

We've got a bad wig on ghost. Again, justice for ghosts. Bucky's hair also very like, everyone had to blow out before. the scene. And I get it. They're the new Avengers now. Well, yeah, Elena's hair is rootier and brassier, which I really, really liked. I thought that was actually really, really good. It's what her hair would have looked like if it had just grown out. Alexi has a beard again, but it's a smaller beard. And he says stuff like, what to savor at the bottom of baby seal? The custom, I just, I said on Big Pick, this reminded me of like an F1 driver

shoot. Like, you know, this is like a racing suit. It couldn't be more Mallory. right down to all of the sponsors. Sleeved tied Xbox. This was incredible. And, you know, we're hearing this discussion of like, well, there's this issue because Sam, who didn't want to get the Avengers back together in the first place is now like, the new who? Yeah. Yeah. Copyright that shit, right?

This is my name, my team, my group. We hear, I did think it was interesting that little quick mention that Bucky was like I did try to talk to him. It didn't go well. Given their relationship and the importance of it. it. And Alexei just strolling out and saying, I solved it. And we zoom in on the Z at the end of Avengers. I thought was hysterical and very dumb in a way that I loved. I also thought on the comedy right here. I already mentioned Bob saying, like, I did the dishes, which was hysterical to me. And it is important that we learn, you know, before Doomsday that he is like currently powered down because obviously

he'll have to power up at a key moment. But the thing that absolutely killed. me in this sequence was talking about space and John's like, oh, okay. Perhaps space is enormous. The look on Yelena's face. Like, there are 14 months into being the new Avengers and Yelena is still like, you are a moron. And I can't believe I have to inhabit the same space as you, but also you're my teammate and we're going to figure it out.

She's like outer space, you idiot. I just loved. And then we get that little, yeah, Bucky kind of like shadow mentoring Yelena, who's actually issuing the orders. And they booted up, Joe. Another to mention a ship is that. It is exciting. I simply don't know what to do with this.

It's taking me back to the Acolyte moment. Acolyte. The Horns on the score. The Fantastic Four Horns on the score is like really exciting to me. I will say the one thing that was missing for when Bucky shows up on the motorcycle was the Winter Soldier screen score. I would have killed for that. That would have been amazing. Oh, man.

That would be great. The Fantastic Four logo, and that is the only sort of connected, major connective tissue we have going forward. And it is, it is, I will, here's what I'll say, this is what I like most about the Stinger. As opposed to so many of the Stingers that we've seen in so many of the Marvel movies recently. I'm like, I know that this is going to lead into something that I'm sure. is coming. Yes.

Not just the Fantastic Four movie, but I know that the Thunderbolts are going to be in Doomsday. And it's not like I'm never going to see this team again. They made this team and I'm never going to see them again. That's not happening. So like, you know, the New Avengers and Bob. And Bob. Big laugh.

We'll return. And Bob. Bob just reading his book in the corner with his milkshake. Loved it. Do you think he dooredash that milkshake? Great question. I'm sure. Great question.

Hard to leave it at the porch when you're on like flora. I don't know. Very high. They're very high. You don't do math. Okay. They're in the penthouse. I know that. That's it for Thunderbol. A really fun, fine time at the movies that, like, I had a great time with, had some, like, had some things on its mind, had some emotionality to it. May me invest in this team going forward. Maybe want more. I hope they give, like, it's sort of reminded me of like, hmm, almost mantis. I don't know. I'm trying to think of the cop for ghost in terms of like, I think she did, they gave her very little. She did a great job with it. And I would like them to give her even more. That's probably not going to happen in something like a vendor's doom's day where there's no room for anything. But like. Unlikely. Give goes a little bit more to do, and I would be excited to see it. Anything else you want to say?

Just remember, don't drink the big gulp. That's my party reminder. Drink the Bob milkshake instead. We'll be back for The Last of Us on Monday. So four already. Our second to last and our pod next week. Also make sure to tune into the Midnight Boys chat with Jake Shrier. I'm excited to hear how that goes.

and thanks so much to our rag tag team. Yeah. Mike Wagon is here. Thank you so much. John Richter's here. Thank you so much. And we'll, our dinner, and pal on the feed in general,

we'll join me a dinner around on the social. Our whole team. We'll see you soon. Bye. Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is California's number one entertainment destination for today's superstars. Catch the Jonas Brothers return.

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