cover of episode Our Top 10 ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’ Moments—10 Years Later

Our Top 10 ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’ Moments—10 Years Later

2024/4/5
logo of podcast House of R

House of R

AI Deep Dive AI Chapters Transcript
People
J
Joanna Robinson
M
Mallory Rubin
Topics
Mallory Rubin: 本片是MCU中不可或缺的一部分,它巩固了观众对史蒂夫·罗杰斯的喜爱,并通过精彩的动作场面和引人入胜的剧情,展现了超级英雄电影的魅力。同时,本片也探讨了政府的阴谋和腐败,以及超级英雄在面对这些挑战时的抉择。 Joanna Robinson: 本片是一部经久耐看的佳作,其魅力随着时间的推移而不断提升。它不仅在动作设计和剧情方面达到了很高的水准,更重要的是,它深刻地刻画了人物之间的关系,特别是史蒂夫·罗杰斯与巴基·巴恩斯之间的友谊,以及史蒂夫与娜塔莎·罗曼诺夫之间的暧昧情愫。这些情感的表达,让这部电影超越了单纯的动作片,而成为一部具有深度和情感共鸣的佳作。

Deep Dive

Chapters

Shownotes Transcript

Translations:
中文

Hey, can I talk to you? Over 25 years ago, on September 29th, 1998, we watched a brainy girl with curly hair drop everything to follow a guy she only kind of knew all the way to college. And so began Felicity. My name is Juliette Littman, and I'm a Felicity superfan.

Join me, Amanda Foreman, who you may know better as Megan, the roommate, and Greg Grunberg, who you may also know as Sean Blundberg, as the three of us revisit our favorite moments from the show and talk to the people who helped shape it. Listen now to Dear Felicity on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Apple Card is the perfect cash back rewards credit card. Earn up to 3% daily cash back on every purchase every day. Then grow it at 4.40% annual percentage yield when you open a savings account with Apple Card. Visit apple.co slash card calculator to see how much you can earn.

Apple Card subject to credit approval. Savings available to Apple Card owners subject to eligibility. Savings accounts provided by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, member FDIC. Terms apply. This episode is brought to you by Yahoo Fantasy Football, who's been dominating fantasy football since forever. Football season almost here.

And listen, you can never, ever, ever be in too many fantasy leagues. I'm living proof. I've been playing fantasy football, I think since 1991. Is that possible? Well, Yahoo. I mean, imagine back in the day, we used to have to mail stat sheets to each other. That's how we found out whether we won or lost the week. Now, 2024, you have the newly redesigned Yahoo fantasy app. It's smarter, faster, more fun to use.

Such easy features. You can set your winning lineup faster every week. You can get advice and analysis from the best fantasy football experts. And with Yahoo, there's another reason to join a league. A chance at cold, hard cash. Go to yahoosports.com slash the ringer.

Someone will win $1 million. All you have to do is play in a private Yahoo Fantasy League and enter the sweepstakes by September 5th. Enter now at yahoosports.com slash TheRinger. No purchase necessary. Open in all 50 U.S. states and D.C. for ages 18 plus. End September 5th, 2024. See official rules at yahoosports.com slash TheRinger. Records. Confirmed. Before we get started, does anyone want to get out?

Greetings, and welcome to House of R, a Ringerverse podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Mallory Rubin, and it is my absolute pleasure to invite you, not only back to this super safe shield helicarrier, but also to House of R's newish podcast feed. Joining me today, because I'm

Mission! It's my favorite century shaper, Joanna Robinson. What's up, babies? Here we are on this safe and sound secure podcast. Nothing's safer in the air than a helicarrier, and I'm so delighted to be here with you, Molly Rubin. What an absolute thrill this is to gather today.

I was going to say on the 10-year anniversary. Listen, one day after the 10-year anniversary. Pretty close. Close enough. Pretty close. Of our shared favorite MCU movie, Captain America, The Winter Soldier. We are going to, in honor of this 10th anniversary...

countdown our 10 favorite moments from this movie. As usual, we're going to surprise each other with our moments picks. We're going to count down 10 to 1. And so if one of us has the same thing in a higher spot, we'll wait and talk about it there. But Joanna, before we clarify for Carlos and Isaiah, both of whom are here with us today, because you're on Zoom and I'm in a studio. What? Wild times. Before we clarify,

that it's not just a flyby, we've got to mingle! Some quick programming reminders over on the Ringerverse.

Double Midnight Boys this week. Don't forget. You're sitting there. You've got your ringer-verse feet open. You already listened, maybe, to yesterday's Midnight Boys episode. Invincible Season 2 finale. Shogun. The latest X-Men 97 episode. Guess what? You will have, at day's end, another Midnight Boys pew-pew episode waiting for you. Instant reaction to Monkey Man. Joanna and I will be back with you multiple times next week, as usual. And we will tell you what we're talking about at that time. Ha ha ha!

Joe, how can people follow along? Oh, gosh. I'm so pleased that you asked me this question on this. The highest of holy days, a celebration of Captain America, Winter Soldier. Listen, here's my recommendation. Why don't you follow the pod? That's just first. Great idea. Just my first instinct. Follow the ringer verse. Follow House of R. Just so you're subscribed, you make sure you catch everything that's happening. Also, you could also, in addition, just as a fail safe.

Follow us on social, on Facebook, on Instagram, on Twitter, on TikTok. You know, if you want to listen to us come out of a device the way that Emile Zola comes out of a device in this film, you got to get on the socials in order to make that happen. That's what I have to say about that. Last but not least.

hobbitsanddragons at gmail.com. This isn't a really male-heavy episode of the podcast we're doing in Top 10 Moments, but I do have one or two emails I'm going to smuggle in here from our listeners, our bad babies, who had things to say about Stephen Buck. So we will be doing that. And so, yeah, thoughts or feelings about this. Mailbag episode that we have coming up. Anything else that's going on? X-Men, et cetera, et cetera. hobbitsanddragons at gmail.com.

Beautiful. Last programming reminder, it's the Friendly Neighborhood spoiler warning. Today's podcast will, of course, feature ample plot details and particulars from the movie that we are here to talk about today, but also from all of the Captain America movies, from all of the Avengers movies, really from the entire Infinity Saga. If it's ever happened in the MCU, it's in the mix today. It could come up. Also, if you're a fan of the MCU, you know what I mean.

some Marvel Comics canning could come up. So it's the usual spoiler warning on the MCU front. Okay, Joe, if you want to say something snappy now would be a good time. Let's pod. Joe.

Usually before we dive into the meat of a pod, we like to do a little opening snapshot. It's a little bit hard to do that today because we don't want to talk too much about the movie before we get into our picks and then reveal our picks. We don't want to tip too many of our picks to each other. But very, very, very quickly.

Without spoiling your list, is there anything that you want to toss out there as a table setter to indicate what it is that you love so much about this movie or even just to tell us what this movie means to you? If you want to save all the reasons why for counting down, you're welcome to. Anything you want to share as a table setter? Yeah, I would just say that I really enjoyed and liked...

A lot of the Marvel movies that – the MCU movies that came before Winter Soldier, but Winter Soldier is where I like locked in to my just like emotional investment all the way in on the MCU. Came from this movie. Came from what this movie does to cement our affections for Steve Rogers.

a kind of character that I don't usually find myself caring that much about, but like would die for by the end of this movie. And then just from like a larger, like a larger lens MCU sort of perspective, I will say that the team that comes together here and MCU fans know this, but the team that comes together here in the Russo brothers as directors in Marcus and McFeely as screenwriters and a lot of other people that are involved from like fight choreography on down the list, like,

create the spine of the MCU going forward. We go forward to Civil War and then Infinity War and Endgame and it's this like little mini studio of a team that goes from those films to those films to those films that the joy of Marvel in many ways, especially like I would say the Iron Man movies is what's someone else's take on Tony at this moment? Like that's a really fun thing that the MCU did here and there and everywhere but

Locking in Marcus McFeely being with Steve Rogers from the beginning from first Avengers, and then just like locking in on this character and elevating him to the level of Tony Stark. And so then it becomes Tony and Steve as the core, the twin cores of the MCU. Um, this movie adding the Russo brothers to that, uh, brew, um, is, is,

It gives this really steady scaffolding for the Infinity Saga, which is a long arc of a storytelling approach that you and I have spent a lot of time thinking about, potting about, writing about, wondering about, admiring, et cetera. And I just think it doesn't work if you don't lock this into place the way they did. I love it.

Really hard to overstate the impact of Marcus and McFeely and the Russo brothers on our shared Infinity Saga experience. Feige plucking the Russos out of the sitcom, experimental sitcom life, saying this person

paintball episode of Community is so awe-inspiring. You must make a street-level action spy thriller in the MCU is like one of my favorite things to point to when we think back on and it's we are just in such a different

moment in our shared MCU experience right now that it's actually really nice to steep ourselves in this period of genius once again. This was a popular movie. This was a successful movie. I have a vivid memory of seeing this movie for the first time in the theater and just like having the absolute time of my life. This is my favorite Marvel movie. I sometimes go back and forth between like the exact order of my top five, but this is always at one or two. And

The Captain America franchise is my favorite standalone character franchise. This is another opinion that we share. And there are so many different reasons that this movie not only...

walloped us upon first viewing but has stood the test of time no matter how many times we revisit it and actually I think just becomes an even more rewarding and enriching experience when you go back to it after having concluded Endgame and the Infinity Saga it's just a wonderful wonderful movie to return to for Cap but also for all of these relationships you know I

I don't know how much time we'll have today to get into this aspect of the film. And so I do feel a moral obligation to just note quickly the Beltway aspect of this experience. I mean, Joe, we get a BWI shout out. We get a crab cake shout out.

Potomac is mentioned. A smuggle. An early smuggle. I think we're going to talk a lot about the importance of genre variants inside of the Captain America franchise of the MCU. A lot about the tone and vibe of this film. A lot about the themes of this film. A lot about the relationships at the heart of this film. But I had to...

I had to just mention crab cakes while I could. Don't worry. I'll be talking about musical theater a little later on. So we're all on brand. We're all on brand. Okay. Last question before we dive in. Do you have a prediction? How many of our 10 moments will overlap? I think at least six would be my guess. Yeah. I think we have to set the over under at six and then take the over or the under. And I'm going to take the over. It might be the over. Okay.

Carlos, who's handling the clips for us today, did let us know that there are some instances where we've maybe picked different moments from the same scene. So there might be like some gray area here and there, but I think we're probably gonna be pretty well aligned. And I would be surprised if our top four...

was... We have to agree on these four. Maybe not in quite this order, but I think this is true. Interesting. It's really good that we can't see Kralos' face right now because I don't want to know. I don't want to know. We cannot. I feel, I will say, as close to certain as I've ever felt doing a Top Moments Countdown with you that we will have the same number one. I just feel sure that I'm actually...

I'm expecting some slot variants, but I think we'll have a lot of topical overlap. We will see, though. We will see. Okay. Should we dive in? Should we start counting down? Let's do it. Okay, Joanna Robinson, what is your 10th favorite moment from Winter Soldier? See, bottom of the list is where you get to be kind of like loose and a little weird, right? So, Carlos, can we play this clip right now?

Batroc's on the move. Circle back to Romulo and protect the hostages. Natasha. Loosely, Batroc the Leaper as an incredible, iconic mini-boss. Like, just an early fight that we get right here at the start of the movie. And I just...

The fight choreography in this movie is on a completely different level. I think the only thing that comes close to it in the MCU is Civil War. And it's no coincidence then that James Young, who's the fight choreographer on this film, is also the fight choreographer on Civil War. And so we'll talk about all of that. But Georges St-Pierre, who plays Batroc the Leaper, Georges is a...

wild person, but he is like an athlete. And like, so watching him do this, um,

And he tweaked some of the moves, this like the big, like what he calls the Superman punch, which is like one of his signature moves. He added that in. So there was that kind of tweaking. Sam Hargrave, who is Chris Evans' stunt double, just doing an incredible job. Chris doing a lot of the stuff himself as well. So just like an early, incredible, fast-paced, you don't know what's happening fight between just two guys kicking the shit out of each other. Yeah.

I love Batroc the Leaper. Are you a big UFC fan? You watch a lot of MMA in real life? I think you know the answer to that question. GSB a big part of your viewing experience in general? So I'm thrilled that this is on your list because...

I will take you behind the curtain and say I originally had this at number nine and then removed it from my list. Because I was out of spots. I needed to make a change. And I'm like, I just have to believe that Joe has this on there. And I could count on it still being a part of the pod and make a change. Always one of the fun parts of our secret moments reveals is when we anticipate the other person having something that we then make the decision to leave off of our list. This is just an incredible fight sequence. The whole Lemurian Star action sequence is wonderful.

The, I thought you were more than just a shield challenge and cap in responding in French to say, let's see, taking off the helmet, latching the shield onto his back and then flip face kicking Batroc is absolutely wonderful. I mean, the action, when we talk about genre variants and we talk about this movie as a spy thriller and inspired by 70s spy thrillers and political thrillers. Yeah, yeah. The, the,

fact that this is also an expert modern action movie is like never far removed from that. Like there's genre variants inside of the film as well. And like whether it's Nat removing her face cover Her Mission Impossible Did I step on your moment? Yeah. Like there's a Mission Impossible energy all of the car chases the fight like this etc. It's uh

It's an action-packed, fast-paced thriller. This isn't my last, like, obviously not my last action scene on my list. Yes, I should hope not. Like, obviously. I should hope not. But I was surprised by how many I felt like I needed to put on the list. This was one of the hardest things. Yeah, I'm usually like a character, emotional conversation kind of person. But the fight choreography in this movie, and I know that they tailored...

the style of each of the fighters, like to the character, like they were so invested in character and fusion in the style of the fight and stuff like that. It's so character based and it is so integral to why this movie is not just like fun, but every scene is doing mold is doing multiple things. And so you're learning something about character that,

And you're having just like a really fucking great time watching two incredibly athletic people kick each other. Yeah, exactly. Where does this cap suit, the stealth suit,

rate for you. Is this your fave? No, it's number two. Like, suits? Same. Of the Captain America suits. I would say this is the most popular Captain America suit. But my... See, I think this... I have a, I think, slightly controversial opinion on this, which is that the Infinity War suit is my favorite in part because he's not wearing...

He's not wearing the helmet, and so you can see his gorgeous long hair and just astonishingly perfect beard. The suit is clearly the best in Infinity War. I think the reason it's a controversial pick is because he doesn't have the iconic shield with him, of course, right? He's got the...

the two forearm split shields with him in that movie. And so I think in some people's minds, that's like ineligible for consideration, but it is my favorite. This would be my second favorite. Yeah, I was going to say the nomad look is my favorite. It's simply wonderful. How do you? Okay, great pick. What a way to start us off. That's a selection from early in the film, Jo. And my number 10 also comes from very early in the movie. Carlos, is it safe to play

My pick for number 10. You must miss the good old days, huh? Wow. Things aren't so bad. Food's a lot better. We used to boil everything. No polio's good. Internet, so helpful. Been reading that a lot, trying to catch up. Marvin Gaye, 1972, Trouble Man soundtrack. Everything you missed jammed into one album. I'll put it on the list.

Okay, so my pick here is the man out of time makes a to-do list. Yeah. Is that safe to talk about here? 100%. Okay, fantastic. Obviously, I'm smuggling in the on your left meet cute, which maybe is something we should put a pin in. Yeah, let's put a pin in that. More to do with your pick? Okay, we'll put a pin in that part of it. The

Man out of time idea is one of the things we love most about Steve Rogers, about Captain America, absolutely.

as a character in comics, as a character in the MCU. And to see the way that that idea is given form literally in a piece of paper in Cap's hands here is just brilliant to me. I always love not only freeze-framing and running down the bullet points, but then thinking about how in different markets across the world there were different specific items on his list. It's such a great little movie-making flair. Obviously,

Steve is first confronting what it means to be no longer a capsicle, awoken from the ice, suddenly in a modern world at the very, very end of First Adventure and then, of course, in

the Avengers, but this is the first full movie inside of his standalone character franchise where he's really grappling with this in front of our eyes. He goes to the Smithsonian a couple scenes after the Sam meeting and the soundbite we just heard. He's incognito, right? He's got the classic, you put a logo-less hat on, nobody knows who you are, except that adorable little kid who shares the sweet little wink, shush moment with Cap. And

The idea that Captain America is a person in the present day and a history lesson all at the same time is so compelling. He's a superhero in a superhero moment, in a superhero era, but he's also a myth. He's a legend. He's a person you read about when you go to the Smithsonian. And the list of all the things he missed, hearing him say internet's so helpful, is

It just kills me. We return to this idea. We get the little moment later in the Zola Lair when Nat quotes war games and says it's from a movie. I've seen it. I know. I know. I love this bit. And the actual list is just amazing to me every time. I love Lucy, parentheses, television. Moon landing. Berlin Wall, parentheses, up.

Steve Jobs, for instance, Apple. Disco, Thai food, Star Wars slash Trek, and Star Wars is crossed out, which means the first thing he tackled was Star Wars. And honestly, that feels right. Steve Rogers, come on, House of R.

Nirvana parentheses band Rocky parentheses Rocky 2 question mark and then of course he adds Trouble Man and then Trouble Man is what Sam is playing in his hospital room at the end all of this connecting to the on your left portals moment in Endgame it's just wonderful it's like the

perfect opening note for where we find this character at the beginning of this film, at this moment in his life, trying to acclimate and figure out his place, not just in S.H.I.E.L.D., not just in an army and the government that he used to want so desperately to fight for and now isn't sure, but in society and culture. Like, what does it mean to be a man at a time? And this is, like, funny and humorous, but also, I think, kind of profound, and I love it!

That's my 10th pick. I love that. The idea of the man out of time concept, which was what they wanted to do in the first Captain America movie, which is why Jon Favreau got hired over to Marvel in the first place because he had done Elf, which is like a quasi man out of North Pole, man out of time story. So they're like, let's have you do Captain America. It'll be similar. And then they decided to make that a historical installment.

and brought in Joe Johnson for that. But like, so that's a reason why Jon Favreau got involved in the MCU in the first place. But I love that they saved it for this one. And what I really love, there's this quote from, by the way, just really quickly, Marcus and McFeely, their meet cute was at UC Davis, which is where I went to college. So I love that about them. I know, and they're in the fiction writing program there. But this is a quote from, I think, I believe it is Marcus who said this about the Man Out of Time concept.

We knew we didn't want to do like the grandpa story of, oh my God, I'm in the future. What are these buttons? What do they do? He's the most adaptive man on the planet. His brain's been juiced. So he's not going to be baffled for very long by your iPhone. So you have all those ideas first and then you're like, no, those are stupid. So like to exactly your point, the idea that like, yeah, I'm on top of, yeah, I've already seen Star Wars. Yeah, I've seen war games. Like I have my list. I'm working on it. I know how iPhones work.

So it's not quite like the SNL sketch of like the caveman lawyer who's like, I'm frightened by your modern technology. So it's like Man Out of Time, but slightly off kilter of the sort of worn out version of that trope, which I really love that too, that they're like, we don't want to do something you've seen a million times before. Yeah, it's a great pick. Perfect. Love to hear Sam. What do you have at number nine?

Number nine. Most of the intelligence community doesn't believe he exists. The ones that do call him the Winter Soldier. He's credited with over two dozen assassinations in the last 50 years. So he's a ghost story. Five years ago, I was escorting a nuclear engineer out of Iran. Somebody shot out my tires near Odessa. We lost control, went straight over a cliff. I pulled us out, but the Winter Soldier was there. I was covering my engineer, so he shot him straight through me.

Soviet slug. No rifling. Bye-bye bikinis. Yeah, I bet you look terrible in them.

All right. There's a lot of, there's so many good Nat and Steve interactions, obviously, but Bye Bye Bikinis is like up there. This is best, what this was labeled on my list is Bye Bye Bikinis because this is, again, to the point of all the scenes are doing multiple things. This is a really good example. There's a couple major exposition downloads in this movie. Again, we will probably talk about

Zola eventually, but maybe, maybe not. But the idea that like Nat here has to give us a little Winter Soldier exposition and in doing so they're having them do it, but they're having them do it in like close quarters and

sexy murmuring. The way that they're framed is it's like largely profiled two-shot of them, like slightly canted angle. So you're getting that sort of like parallax view, Three Days of the Condor, like 70s conspiracy thriller influence. And the fact that Natasha knows

How to push all of his buttons, how to make him, how to fluster him. He has the physical advantage over her. He has like shoved her against the wall, out of the hallway, shoved her against the wall. He's looming over her, but she just like flusters, she just has to show a little hip bone and is like flustered the shit out of...

Poor Steve Rogers, our poor Boy Scout. And so, yeah, so it's exposition, it's framing, it's sexual tension. It's the way that they specifically paired Chris Evans with Scarlett Johansson. They had worked with each other before, so they had longstanding friendship chemistry. They have other chemistry in this movie. You could not have found a more perfect

combination for Steve. And the fact that, like, it was supposed to be Clint and Nat, and then it just wound up being Nat makes it so... With love and respect to Clint, so much better that it's, like, largely a Nat and Steve and Sam, like, eventually, like, the trio. But, like, that...

Nat and Steve on the run, the various, the like born identity, the mall sequence, the like, did they just fuck the part that you may bring up later? Like all of that. I will certainly be returning to that. Yeah.

You know, it is literally one of my five favorite things to talk about in the history of the MCU. I think it's like in the top two, at least. No comment. No comment. So, yeah, I just love the how they're always Marcus McFeely and the Roosters are always trying to get every scene to do five different things at once. Just a sensational pick. I will be returning to Natasha and Steve.

Certainly. But because of the proximity of the pick you made, I will just note that Steve Rogers, a character I love and respect and adore, hiding the thumb drive behind just one pack. Like we gotta do better than that. Nat found it, but I mean, just a couple of kids at the hospital for a visit.

could have wanted gum. What then? But is Hubba Bubba really your first choice? It might be. It could be. Literally one of like two notes I have on the entire movie.

I'm serious. I think it would have been really funny if he had picked like a really hated vending machine item. Yeah, he should have put it behind. Like the granola bar or something. I mean, yeah, I do love the granola bar, but you're not really going for it in a vending machine. You're right. Yeah, that would have been a good pick. You're in the hospital. You want some comfort something, you know? You need like a Funyun or a Flamin' Hot Cheeto or perhaps some Hubba Bubba. Peanut M&M. That moment and...

And Bucky just not following Fury in the hole. He completely improbably and shockingly cuts through the car, the reinforced car. And Roadway are my only two notes on the film. Otherwise, a perfect movie that I love. Ten out of ten. Two notes. Ten out of ten. Two notes. My ninth moment. Carlos, is this safe to play?

For once, we're way ahead of the curve. By holding a gun to everyone on Earth and calling it protection. You know, I read those SSR files. Greatest Generation? You guys did some nasty stuff. Yeah, we compromised. Sometimes in ways that made us not sleep so well. But we did it so that people could be free. This isn't freedom. This is fear. This is, of course, Nick Fury attempting to assuage Steve Rogers, soothe the bubbling tension between them,

repair their trust issues by showing him yeah Project Insight Cap is already quite on edge at the start of this movie a lot of trust issues after the events of the Avengers a lot of them lots hmm

I'm getting a little tired of being Fury's janitor. This is something we hear Steve say about Fury early in the film. Then to Fury, when he walks into his office, you just can't stop yourself from lying, can you? This is like the opening note for their relationship in the movie. And so we get this elevator ride down into the... ...

I love that you're warming up your hot tea. I'm getting ready for hot tea. It's close. Gotta start workshopping the bits. We get this story from Nick Fury about his grandfather, and then we get this reveal of Project Insight of these helicarriers. Now, the...

Moment in time. This movie comes out in 2014. It's set in 2014. America in the 2000s, right? What the world was like and what this movie is examining about paranoia, about this impulse for governments to prejudge this thing. We hear Zola voice this idea later in the Camp Lehigh. Zola Lair. That

Hydra had to bide its time waiting for humanity to be willing and ready to trade their freedom for security. That is where we find our characters in the film. And I love this for a couple reasons. I think this is like for a Marvel movie, a bold thing to be

engaging with in a good and cool and important way. But the genius of it is that it's the Captain America character who's doing it, right? The fact that Cap is a fugitive in two of his three movies and really an outsider in all three of them is...

I think my single favorite thing about the franchise and why they're such powerful and incredible movies, he is the one, of course, in Civil War, who will say...

no to working inside of the system and to build toward the point where we're simultaneously like bowled over by the surprise of which side Tony and Cap each take but also perfectly prepared for why each of them would make that decision can't happen without something like this right it just can't and Cap is the one inside of this movie who says to Fury you

It's not just about taking down Hydra. Like, we have to take down S.H.I.E.L.D. because the rot is no longer something you could just cut out. It's everywhere. It's a fully invasive thing. And the super soldier being the guy who is not just content even though he could with his powers, with his ability, do it on his own, being the one who's always thinking about how do we make— I love that, like, but that's what makes it an army thing.

conversation that Cap and Fury have. Like, he's always thinking about what it actually means to be a part of an army, to be a part of a team, and what that team then needs to be fighting for. I'm certain this idea will come up in a few more of our moments, but...

So Project Insight, seeing that this is what S.H.I.E.L.D. is building, that this is the thing that Fury thinks will actually maybe win him over rather than repelling him, is such a crucial pivot point, not only inside of the movie, but for the entire Steve Rogers arc in the MCU.

were going to neutralize a lot of threats before they even happened. I thought the punishment usually came after the crime. We can't afford to wait that long. Like, this is like an intense and serious thing. And when Fury tells Cap,

that he has to get with the program, start seeing the world the way it is, not the way that he wants it to be. There are so many different characters across the MCU who have a version of that conversation with Steve, and he has to be the guy who responds to it by saying, I can't accept that. I can't act that way. I'm actually not capable of that. And then we as the viewers have to find that not positive,

like Pollyanna-ish and naive, but utterly aspirational and the thing that we want to invest in rooting for and watching and believing in. Very difficult balance to strike. I think that, I love this pick. I think that one of my favorite things that Marcus and Muffili talk about when they talk about

this aspect of Steve is that they get this directly from the comics. This isn't like a reconfiguration of Steve Rogers from the comics. This is something that the comics themselves had to address when in the 1960s, Marvel is like, how do we have a character running around with like a literal like American flag on his costume when America feels like it's burning? Like, how does that not seem stupid? And so what it becomes is that

Steve then becomes the person looking at the system, looking at America, not a blindly patriotic, like, you know, unquestioning sort of person, but someone who interrogates power and the systems, even as he originally represented the ideal of something. And what I love and what Nick Fury says in the clip that you chose here is like,

you know, if Steve's like, let's make America great again. And Nick Fury's like, was it ever fucking great? Are you kidding me? Like, like you guys did some pretty sick shit. And, um, this idea, this man out of time idea with Steve Rogers, this idea that like he, you know, they like everyone who works on Steve Rogers, uh,

as a character, be it the Rooster Brothers or Marcus McFeely or Kevin Feige, refer to him as like a Gary Cooper type figure, this sort of like monolith who doesn't move. You know, you move. No, you move. Yeah, no, you move. Everything moves around him. He doesn't move. And so he is...

enshrined in these ideals of an earlier time that actually weren't even the ideals of the earlier time. They were just the ideals of him, skinny Steve Rogers, who could do this all day sort of thing. Paying attention to things, it's how we show love. I love you.

You have to ask the question. You have to interrogate. Yeah, exactly. No, you move, obviously from a different movie, but why not, since you quoted it, just take a second here to reflect on the fact that in the third Captain America movie, Captain America kisses.

Sharon Carter, who shares that wisdom, voicing the ideals of Peggy Carter, his great love. Just the second worst thing that happens around Sharon Carter at the MCU. For a while it was the worst thing and now it's the second worst thing. Knocked out of the top spot. My power broker. I'll come back to that. Oh man. All right, Joe, what do you have at eight? Want some milk? The timetable has moved. Our window is limited. Two targets, level six. They already cost me Zola.

I want confirmed death in 10 hours. Sorry, Mr. Pierce, I forgot my phone. Oh, Renata. I wish you would have knocked. Alexander Pierce kills Renata is genuinely my number eight pick, and here's why. This is honestly an incredible pick. The reason the clip is a little long is I also need to get my milk takes off, which is like, it is absolutely...

foul and disgusting, I think, in general to have milk at night. But also, like, he pours like a half inch of milk. It's the most psychotic thing you could do with dairy is what Alexander Pierce does with this glass of milk. He literally just splashes it into a tall glass. Like, at least get a smaller glass. What are we even doing here? When was the last time you had a glass of

Outside of like we've baked some cookies, go to the store and get some milk so that we can have with the cookies. Yeah, without a baked good. Yeah, I mean, frankly, even with a baked good, but without a baked good. As an adult human, when was the last time you had a glass of milk? As an adult human, if we're making like freshly baked chocolate chip cookies, I will enjoy a glass of milk. But other than that, no. You don't just use it as an excuse for another coffee? I know your fucked up rules about it.

cutting out caffeine at a certain point in the afternoon never mind I retract the question I'm also like I also just like both despise and envy people who can just drink straight dairy because he seems like he's drinking just like full fat like milk and I'm just like do you have no issues with lactose anyway that's not really why we're here why we're really here is

is to talk about the banality of evil in this movie. Because the fact that Alexander Pierce is... I would say that lactose does still fit under that umbrella. Yeah, the banality of evil. The contrast between Alexander Pierce as a villain versus someone like Red Skull, this cartoonish villain

you know, is red, but in the moral sense, black and white, evil, Nazi, mustache twirling if he had a mustache figure. Versus the bureaucracy. If his face hadn't melted off and he could still grow a mustache, yeah. Versus the bureaucracy of Alexander Pierce. The way that Pierce views himself as a hero in all of this is,

And that's why the whole Renata thing really gets to me because he's just sort of like, oh, Renata, I wish you had knocked, you know, and I'd have to kill you. And it's just sort of like, it's so blasé. It's so like, oh, I like you. It's hard to find good help these days. You know, he's also like playing out the string of like, well, who's going to clean up then now that I've killed you? Oh, he's got a whole team, you know, he's got a wet works team. It's fine. But, um...

Good villains think they're the hero of the story, and it's something that Marcus McFeely and the Russos will take and infuse. I mean, the most complicated version is Civil War, but then when they create Thanos, they're still thinking about a villain who thinks he's the hero of the story. And then casting Robert Redford, obviously, is the biggest...

I think the biggest casting get in all of the MCU. That's how I feel about Robert Redford in this movie. Astonishing. Also, like, this is a phase two movie. Yeah. Like...

We think of the moment in time and that condor connection, like taking such a central figure from the films that inspired the tone of the movie and plucking him and putting him right there at the heart of it. And then making him the villain when he was like, you know, in his younger years, the hero. And I think that there's this story that I've heard multiple versions of that like basically like Nate Moore stops like –

it's either the Rooster Brothers or Mark Musafeli, I can't remember, in the hallways of Marvel. It's like, we're going after someone from that genre of movie that you guys are like pastiching here. And they're like, no. And he's like, yeah.

And so they like, they rewrote the character for Redford and then they rewrote again once they cast him because they like to tell the story about how he was like, you see, you have three, you know, because Redford himself is a consummate director and all of that sort of stuff. And he's like, he's like, you see, you have three lines here. I only need one and I'll do the rest of my face. I'll do the rest with my face.

Joe, and what a face it is. What a face it is. That's how I prefer to podcast. I really just like go for one sentence, then I just do the rest of my face. And that works really well in a podcasting medium. Yeah, yeah. As you know, Robert Redford directed my favorite movie.

Ordinary People. I was going to say Ordinary People. I don't know if Ordinary People is your favorite movie or is it your favorite divorce movie? It's your favorite movie. I mean, one and the same, given the role that divorce movies play in my life. It's certainly one of my favorite movies. Many times in my life, I would have said it was my favorite movie. I absolutely love that movie. It's a masterpiece. Beautiful. Devastating. Fury...

saying of Pierce. He said peace wasn't an achievement. It was a responsibility. See, it's stuff like this that gives me trust issues. Part of what I love about Pierce is not only everything that you just beautifully outlined, but then the layers of the shattered trust and the deception.

And the paranoia. His relationship with Fury. We've got Pierce and Fury. We've got Fury and Steve. We've got Fury and Nat. We've got Nat and she. Like, everybody has their tether to this noxious, festering carcass of an institution that is seeking to warp and control the entirety of the human experience. And this guy in a suit is...

standing in your office pretending to be your friend and I think like you're actually like you're saying worse believing he is your friend telling Fury basically well like you're the one who inspired me to be this way is so fucked up and harrowing sick

And have you seen what he does with a glass of milk? Terrible. Oh, man. Yeah, well, you mentioned Thanos. You think that's Pierce's version of balanced as all things should be, just making sure he gets that necessary diet? Just one inch of milk. Calcium? Per night. Another great pick. Okay, that brings us to my number eight, I believe. When I first joined S.H.I.E.L.D., I thought I was going straight. But I guess I just traded in the KGB for Hydra.

I thought I knew his lies I was telling, but I guess I can't tell the difference anymore. So, initially... Uh-huh. I mean, again, it's like, we're trying not to spoil our list.

We have already just said, I have more Nat stuff coming later. And initially, I had kind of bundled and smuggled all Nat-centric material into that one pick. But this is actually what I ended up pulling out to knock off our guy, Bad Track the Leaper, because this just felt like a separate and distinct thing to me that I wanted to talk about with you. And that I think, like...

I've always enjoyed in the movie, but not only after Endgame, but after the Black Widow movie. Yes. And everything that we have been through with Natasha, like, really stands out to me in a heightened way on a rewatch. Like, what so much of this movie is about Steve Rogers and his emotional experience, his intellectual experience. Yeah.

His philosophical experience. But there's, like, all of that is present here in a way for Nat 2. And the number of different characters in this movie who have a really rich full text and who give us, like, who we get to access different parts of their journey and their life, even though it's not their movie, is, like, one of the things that's most impressive to me about the film. So we can start with, like, something like Nat. We watch Nat watch Fury twice.

And the heaviest air quotes possible here, dying. Nick, I wonder why everyone has trust issues. Good God, man. And the way that she's like repeatedly whispering to herself, don't do this to me, Nick. Don't do this to me, Nick. And like what it means for Natasha to confront losing someone like Nick Fury. And then in a much bigger way, what it means for Natasha to have to confront

losing the sense of the thing that she latched onto to rebuild her entire life around. Right? So that's my pick. That idea is like Natasha wrestling with the loss of the thing that she latched her new life onto. And...

I love that you picked that bikini moment because part of what I enjoy about that sequence is how Steve is hearing her talk and describing what she's saying as a ghost story. But that idea of the ghost for Natasha is so interesting to me, the haunted aspect of so many of these moments and stories. And having to process the Hydra reveal from...

our guy, my guy and yours, and certainly Howard Stark's. I'm so on. We go to the camp Lehigh time ice scene in Endgame. Genuinely one of my favorite scenes in the history of the MCU. And there's that moment where Stark is like, so I'm like, if we could just...

We could just have a do-over on a couple of these choices, folks. Incredible stuff. So it's this key moment for Nat, what she's saying to Steve here after they have learned the truth, they've made it back to Sam's. And we'll be returning to that in another context later. The newly, not only what Nat is confronting here, right?

But then in tandem with that, this like newly forged trust between Natasha and Steve, her asking him in this really vulnerable, candid moment, if it was the other way around and it was down to me to save your life and you be honest with me, would you trust me to do it? And he says, I would now. And then like we think about like something like the peanut butter sandwich moment, right?

An endgame. Yeah. And how, like, you can't have something like that if you don't have this here and you don't get that moment with Nat and Steve if she doesn't have to confront whether she moved from what she thought was a lie into truth and found out it was just a different lie. Like, the layers there are...

It's riveting. Riveting. And that's the rich reward of this, you know, Infinity Saga arc of the MCU is like, you know...

Marvel hates when you call their film franchise television, but it is like television. You are invested long-term in these relationships and they, you're rewarded again and again and again. And this, the fact that this film interacts with relationships from the first Captain America movie in Peggy and Bucky, et cetera, you know, but then like pitches forward. And so on the rewatch, we've already mentioned this a couple of times, like on the rewatch, you know,

Certain moments are infused with so much more meaning that it makes the movie that was already so special to us that much more impactful. That's when you feel the joy and beauty of a connected universe rather than just like the weight and the shambles. Yeah, exactly. Oh, man. Okay, Jo, you're up with your seventh moment. Not really. We actually don't have a ton of overlap yet. Number seven. Can we play this, Carlos? Notcherson. Stevenant.

born 1918. Romanov Natalia Alyanovna, born 1984. It's some kind of recording. I am not a recording, Fraulein. I may not be the man I was when the captain took me prisoner in 1945, but I am. You know this thing? Arnim Zola was a German scientist who worked for the Red Skull.

He's been dead for years. First correction, I am Swiss. Second, look around you. I have never been more alive. Just shout out. Shout out.

To Jason Concepcion for making me just love this character all the more. I am Swiss. I am Swiss. Did Jay's impression of Zola say I am Swiss? That's why I had to include that part. Because also, I mean, like, Jason's impression is so good. But also, like, just the fact that he's like, he's like, firstly, I'm Swiss. Okay. Okay.

I might be ones and zeros, but also I'm Swiss. Okay, let's just get it straight. Let's don't get it mixed up. Okay, this is another... Love Zola. Love this sequence. Everyone who made this film talks about how many times various people tried to get this sequence taken out of the movie. Because you and I love this movie, and we love absolutely gonzo comic movies as well. But Winter Soldier is a favorite of a lot of people who...

don't really like comic book movies and are just sort of like, oh, but I like that Winter Soldier one because it feels like the most grounded, the most street level, blah, blah. It's related to genre films from the 70s that I'm familiar with. I can see the film history pedigree or whatever. What I love about this moment, and then they're like, the people who were trying to get rid of this sequence were basically saying like,

this kind of blows up that whole grounded aspect when you've got a ghost in the machine who is insisting he's Swiss. Um, and,

What I love about the Russo brothers and Marcus Fili are like, let's not be afraid or embarrassed to make a comic book movie. We're making a comic book movie. We like comic books. We're not embarrassed to do that. So we're going to do this. We're going to let Toby Jones completely wild out while he's doing this. Just slashing stuff. Just slathering on the Swiss chocolate and the cuckoo clocks and all the stuff into his accent. And then like,

And then again, this is another exposition moment. We have a huge exposition info dump here. Yeah. And it's entertaining. It's baffling. And it's a wonderful moment of this great, you know, the Natasha clip that you just played is part of the aftermath of that, but also just like,

this great unmooring for Steve Rogers. Um, you know, and, and we'll have other unmooring moments in this, but this is, this is one where it's like, here's everything you thought was true. Guess what? It's not these things, these institutions that you thought you believed in. Guess what? Bullshit. So, um,

Yeah, Zola. I felt like Zola had to be here. Is seven high for Zola? I don't know, but he's there. I was counting on Zola making the cut for you. The scene did not make the cut for me, but it does inform and influence a lot of other scenes. Great pick. Okay. Carlos, can we hear my seventh moment? Seriously, you could do whatever you want to do. What makes you happy?

I think about this moment all the time. This is Steve visiting Sam at the VA. What makes you happy? I don't know. Like, you talk about a grounded movie and a human movie inside of a superhero universe. Like, I don't know that there's anything more human than that. What makes you happy? I don't know. And for a character who, again, like, we could...

just think of in less deft hands and less interesting and nuanced stories across comics canon and film canon, think of as the ideal, like the guy who got it all. That's so rarely, almost never, what a Steve Rogers story is interested in examining. And that is crucial.

This is also just, I think, a beautiful scene, not just from the Steve perspective, but in a great Sam movie, like nailing the Sam intro, especially in a story that is so rooted around the deep and abiding and defining friendship between Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes.

You have to introduce Sam Wilson into the story where we are like ready to embrace him, not only in the MCU, but in Steve Rogers' inner circle in life without it feeling like a threat to Bucky. And of course, that ends up being like one of the great successes of the MCU, too, like a moment in Civil War where it's like, can you move your seat up? No. And then we build toward those two getting their own television show together because Sam and Bucky had such fun and interesting chemistry and such a fun and interesting dynamic together. Yeah.

But to learn more about Sam, too, right? To learn about Riley. To hear him say that after losing Riley, like, I had a really hard time finding a reason. And...

Each experience and the context for why they feel that way is distinct and specific to them, but they're both having a, I had a really hard time finding a reason or like knowing how to channel that reason or make sense of how my reason fits into the space that I now inhabit and the people who are around me shared experience. And

There's charm. There's wit and humor. I love when Sam is like ultimate fighting. Just a great idea off the top of my head, which is just a wonderful little moment as well. But like Sam asks a question here that Steve is not ready to like forget answer. Not really ready to even ask himself until the end of his journey in the Infinity Saga. And

We build then toward... Tried some of that life Tony was telling me to get. And we know how much it means that he gave himself permission to be happy. Like, it's just beautiful. And so...

this little moment, like, not only do we think about this, this moment with Sam here, when we see Steve in Endgame leading support groups, right? And we know that watching Sam in this context helped inspire him to spend his time that way. But, like, this is a crucial, crucial part of him deciding to go back to be with Peggy, to find her. And so I love it and I cherish it. And I think it's beautiful. That's my seventh pick. I love that. I think that...

To your earlier point and to your point here, like, this is surprising how much of an ensemble film this is when you watch it closely. Like, that there is room for Nick and Natasha and Sam and Sharon and, like, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, before you get to Stephen Bucky, like, is astounding. And I think a big part of that is not just...

The way the script is crafted and how Marcus McFeely are so good with character relationships, but also the Russo brothers are so good, given their experience in television, dealing with a sprawling cast, be it Arrested Development or Community, they know how to give attention to everyone, give weight to everyone. And so then when later they're doing Civil War, where they have to give so many people a room and then even more Infinity War, et cetera, like the fact that they're able... Infinity War is just...

astounding like how that works at all and Thor Guardians pairing is like I still think one of the master strokes of the entire MCU it's just unbelievable not making anything feel out of whack so let's give Sam these like you know giving Sam his backstory giving Sam his moments giving Sam um his victories I think is such a key part of this movie I love that you picked this moment great pick

My number six might be one of those that's like slightly off center of one of your picks. Carlos, is that true? Yes. So I'm going to call an audible here and play Mal's clip first for number six and then yours. Oh, so we both have it at six? Yes. Oh, great. Attention all S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. This is Steve Rogers. You've heard a lot about me over the last few days. Some of you were even ordered to hunt me down. But I think it's time you know the truth. S.H.I.E.L.D. is not what we thought it was. It's been taken over by HYDRA.

Alexander Pierce is their leader. The Strike and InSight crew are Hydra as well. I don't know how many more. But I know they're in the building. They could be standing right next to you. They almost have what they want. Absolute control. They shot Nick Fury. And it won't end there. If you launch those helicarriers today, Hydra will be able to kill anyone that stands in their way. Unless we stop them. I know I'm asking a lot. The price of freedom is high. It always has been. And it's a price I'm willing to pay. And if I'm the only one, then so be it.

but I'm willing to bet I'm not. Did you write that down first? Or was it off the top of your head? The price of freedom speech. Iconic moment. Do you want to hear mine? Let's hear yours. Okay, Kralith. I'm not going to launch those ships. Captain's orders. Move away from your station. Like he said. Captain's orders. You picked the wrong side, agent. Depends on where you're standing.

All right. Beautiful. Before I get my Sharon Carter agenda off, why don't you talk about the Price of Freedom speech? You know, we got to hear Rumlow there for a second. So let me just say, in a movie starring some of the hottest people alive, Chris Evans, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Scarlett Johansson, shout out now and always one of my greatest loves, Frank Carrillo, who played Hart Chassop on Guiding Light.

I picked the Cap speech after our heroes infiltrate Shield HQ because of the substance of what he's saying and everything we have talked about today. Staring the truth in the face, cutting out the rot, etc. Making a hard call, asking a hard question. But really, I picked it because I stay on a Cap speech now and always. It's just they always land...

This is in our minds when we are watching one of the best moments in the entire MCU, the Endgame speech. This is the fight of our lives and we're going to win whatever it takes. We even get like a little version of Sam's. Did you write that down first or was it off the top of your head when Rocket says he's pretty good and Scott says right? Like I just always love not only the fact that we get like true

treatise after treatise on the nature of belief and conviction from Steve Rogers, but then we get to see that the people around him in the story are reacting to what they hear the same way that we are at home. It's awe-inspiring. It is amazing. And I'm so glad that you picked your moment because one of the things I love about this is that he inspires this poor fucker to just, like, with Romulo holding a gun to his head, and I have to presume his own piss, like, pulling at his feet

He's consumed by terror for him to say no. Like, I'm not going to do what you said. I am going to do what Captain America is inspiring me to believe is possible because that is, like, the heart of who Captain America is, right? Makes me think always back to, like, one of my other favorite moments from First Avenger, Erskine, that this is why you were chosen, right? Good becomes great. And, like...

what is inside of Steve that actually truly it's not the super serum the super soldier serum it's that the super soldier serum unlocked the thing inside of him that was already special and you get to feel that and see that in a moment like this and you get to see the way other people around him feel and see that and then what it inspires them to do and I love that I just love it Aaron Hemelstein who plays specialist Cameron Klein the aforementioned piss soaked um shield employee who stands up um

I love this moment. Steve Rogers as a leader of men or gender neutral leader of men is so important to me. It's in that sort of like coach Eric Taylor vein of like you understand why people would follow him into battle. This speech, everything that he does. And so when you have...

Poor specialist Cameron Klein, like stand up and him reminding us of skinny Steve. Like he reminds us of the Steve we very first met. Jump on the dummy grenade. Have him have that moment of just sort of like, no, I'm outmatched. I like, there is no way I am winning here, but I have to stand up for what's right. And I've been infected by Steve Rogers, like optimism. Yeah.

And, like, stirring leadership is incredible to me. And then Sharon Carter steps in. And Sharon Carter, Emily Vang, I love...

Call her Kate or Agent 13 or whatever you want to call her in this movie. Sharon Carter. I love Sharon Carter in this movie. And I think diminishing returns after this movie, starting with them trying to force her into a love interest role in Civil War and then the absolute travesty that is the power broker storyline. Yeah.

The fact that Sharon Carter, Captain's orders, like she's, she has become a believer. She was sent to spy on him and she's become a believer. And it just makes, you know, there's so many things that we can look back on, you

You know, you mentioned the endgame speech. There's so many moments to come even that like are informed by things that come after it. This is one of those few that I'm just like, this is why this moment is why I will never believe a that Steve Rogers would abandon Sharon Carter and be that she would become the power broker. I still don't believe it. It's incredibly difficult to process and except rages me to this day that they thought they could get away with that.

character assassination of two people at once. Hated it. And so Sharon, Sharon's standing up here. Also important to note that a key, key part of this movie that we haven't really fully addressed yet is the

Not only is Steve Rogers an inspiring leader, but pretty much like almost everyone wants to fuck him. That's an important part of this movie. Sharon Carter is no exception. One of our listeners, Jeremy, wrote in to ask, is this the horniest Marvel movie? Do you want to save that for your later segment or do you want to talk about that here? Yeah, let's save it for a moment I have coming up. But I think I will say...

it is easily, without question, the sexiest Marvel movie. I don't really think it's particularly close. No, I agree. And I think it's also the horniest. Yeah, I agree. I can't wait to talk about why. 100%. Great question. Great email. Love our listeners. Love the bad babies. That's a great one. Great stuff. All right. Oh, man. Fabulous pick. Cap, what a character. Has to confront the fact that the thing he sacrificed his life for, like, survived his bravery.

And then he still just does it again. Like, he really can do it all day, Joe. It's just wild. Great stuff. All day. All right, we're getting to the top five. I presume we have more overlap coming. Let's find out. What is your fifth pick? Bucky? Who the hell is Bucky?

Great news. This is also my number five. Okay, great. I have a second clip paired with my, my first clip was Bucky. Who the hell is Bucky? And then I have a second clip to pair with it. I love that we had the same, in essence, same scene for five, six and five. It's happening. We knew it would. All right, let's hear the second clip that I had selected. Then we'll talk about it all together. I know your work has been a gift to mankind. You shaped the century and I need you to do it one more time. Society is at a tipping point between order and chaos.

Tomorrow morning, we're gonna give it a push. But if you don't do your part, I can't do mine. And Hydra can't give the world the freedom it deserves. But I knew him. It's so sad. It's a hard... Honestly...

Our listener, Lizin, who has a chunk of an email I'll read later, but she has a line in her email where she says, Alexander Pierce backhands Bucky the same way I used to hit a fax machine to get it to work. Tough fucking stuff. The reason that my...

clip is as long as it is is i wanted to get like a bit of the the score in because the winter soldier score the shrieking score for bucky uh is incredible and then you know you can hear the arm winding up and deploying and then also in that sequence he grabs the shield it's a lot that's going on and then you get the like bucky who the hell is bucky um

I was going to Amanda wrote in to say that who the hell is Bucky line is such a devastating moment. It breaks my heart every single time. But a set of scenes a little later shatters my heart into a million pieces after Steve's. Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky line. He's heartbroken that Bucky doesn't know who he is. And the next scene, Bucky is insistent that he knows the man on the bridge before being wiped. So Amanda is in like encapsulating both of those picks. But.

this okay so this is not this is also not the last fight scene I'll have on the list certainly not nor the last Bucky moment I suspect no but it is

Incredible. The fight sequence that happens here where we get Sam and Nat and Steve all doing their best against the Winter Soldier here before, you know, and then we get the reveal. But, like, this street fight from the overpass down into the street, everyone...

bringing in their particular style. Nat gets a, one of her classic like widow throw, like thigh leap around the neck moments, incredible stuff. We've got the knife flip moment from Bucky, which is absolutely iconic. James Young, who I mentioned, who is the fight choreographer on this film, uh,

also doubled, uh, he was also this, this double for, um, Bucky. And so he, he says, he claims this might be apocryphal. He claims Bucky grabbing the shield was his idea. Um,

And he says because he knows, he knew that in the comics, like, Bucky would become, I feel like everyone has tried to take credit for this. So, like, I'm a little skeptical. The only thing that makes me dubious about this is that we get the first version of this in First Avenger on the train when Bucky gets to hold the shield. Totally. Yeah, totally.

We've seen a version of it, for sure. No, and he says that, like, in the interviews that I've read with him, he says, like, you know, it happens in the train sequence. It's always iconic, though. Every time Bucky has that shield in his hands. People lose their fucking mind when it happens.

And then just, like, that reveal, even though, like, even though 99% of us knew that that was Bucky, I'm sure there's, like, a few people, a few, like, you know, sweet summer children who go in not knowing that's Bucky. And then when the mask gets knocked off, they're like, holy shit, he went goth. He dyed his hair. But it's such this, it's just such an unmooring moment for Steve. And again, this is, like, one of those, like, something I so, like,

Like ironclad knew to be true. My best friend died. And it's no, my best friend was tortured and tormented and turned into the very enemy we thought he sacrificed himself to fight and protect the world from. The star-crossed lovers, fighters, Steve and Bucky relationship is so important to me.

I do have some questions about how it all wraps up, but here now in this movie, it is one of the best things that Marvel has ever done. Couldn't agree more. We'll talk about that more. Could not agree more. I mean, what happens when your best pal becomes your opponent because of the very force that you were seeking to eliminate, and then also you realize that he is alive and did not, in fact, die when you watched him fall? Yeah.

front of you into the abyss. I love one of the MCU interview quotes that I think I've referenced most often on ringer pods over the years is from Joe Russo from a 2014 Washington Post interview with Emily R about the Steve Bucky dynamic inside of this movie through the lens of the Winter Soldier. Um,

The hero's only defined by the strength of a villain. And this is an incredible villain because he can emotionally undermine the hero. Simple, clear, perfection. And that first encounter, like the little tease we get after, Foxtrot down, I'm in pursuit. And the shield catch and then the brief eye contact is,

And we're not really at a moment of revelation, but we're setting the stage for it like so deliciously. Everything about the actual fight choreography that you outlined, I mean, it's just, it's absolutely like gobsmacking. The dragging of the knife across the side of the mask, like my favorite. I just absolutely love that part of it. The knee to the chest, the knee jump to the chest that Steve does. Fantastic stuff. And then you have like the,

the literal nature of Steve Rogers staring the truth in the face after Bucky's mask comes off. And, you know, one of the things, you mentioned Jay's whole impression. One of the things that Jason used to mention the most during the Captain America pods for Benjamin Marvel was like the comics, the longtime comics truism, right? About no one staying dead except Jason.

Uncle Ben and Bucky Barnes and Jason Todd. And then like that's not true anymore after the iconic Ed Brubaker Winter Soldier run in 05. And so like it's this seminal thing in comics canon and in the MCU and to like nail it in both spots is really hard to do.

And the fact that it's a moment of revelation for both characters and, like, hits us equally hard for both of them is one of my favorite things about it. And that's why I picked that second clip as well. Because, like, going back to that reset lab...

where they're about to put Bucky's brain back into a blender to borrow some of the MC's poetry. And we see that Bucky is like trying to make sense of his own mind. We see a flash of Zola. We see a flash of the snow. We see a flash. Put him on ice. And him not answering the mission report

It's like, first of all, just an incredible setup for Civil War, right? But to see the way that he is like seeking to understand the man on the bridge, who was he? And he just sounds like so anguished and so pained as he is trying to puzzle out his own life. Yeah. And that'll come back in another moment that we will talk about later, I have no doubt. But like, but I knew him. There's this like...

desperation, this need to understand and this fear that he is unable to. And then we just get to really glimpse head on like the hideous nature of what they are doing to him. Like one of the favorite things that I love about the Bucky Barnes character over the MCU is that we have these moments where Tony will say to him in Civil War, like, do you even remember them? Like, do you remember my parents? And Bucky says, I remember all of them.

him, right? Like we have to confront the nature of the memory wipes, but also that he is carrying this with him when Steve will tell Bucky later, like, it's not your fault. And Bucky says, yeah, but like, I still did it. Like the way that that is something he carries with him forever, even after he is repaired and brought back into his own true full sense of self is such an essential part of the character. And so like,

We hear then wipe him and start over and have to then think about how many times this has happened to him over the course of his life, but also understand that this is different and distinct because he's staring at Steve Rogers. He's staring at his childhood best friend. And then on top of it all, on top of all of the emotion and all of the memory and all of the questions of identity, we get some of the

best ab heaving in the history of cinema. I mean, he bites down on that mouth guard and there's abs. How quickly and loudly I agreed with that, but yes, I agree with you. Just a very important moment. Okay, Jo, that takes us to your number four. I know you have this, but you have it higher. You're alive. You came back. You came back.

Okay, by your frantic gesticulating, Mallory, it seems like this is our shared number four. This is our shared number four. I picked a different clip, but same scene. Carlos, you want to play that too? The world has changed. None of us can go back. All we can do is our best. And sometimes the best that we can do is to start over.

It's been so long. All right. I uncontrollably weep when I watch this scene, and there's a couple reasons why. The wholesome goodness of Steve and his heart, his...

faithful attachment to Peggy, which is as important to me as his attachment to Bucky. And we might talk about those three in a future episode that we have planned coming up on the feed. Yeah. A little endgame anniversary content coming. That's not what I was thinking. I was thinking that we might be doing a thruple episode. Oh, yeah. We have multiple.

coming up. I would put these three on the list. Great stuff. The steadfast, good-hearted, loyal,

you know, soldier that is Steve Rogers, the way in which she is the only person he thinks before he understands about what's going on with Bucky, who remembers who he was, who knew him before he was a fossil, an icon, a museum exhibit, all that sort of stuff. And, you know, the clip that you played, I'm really glad you played it because like, she's giving such like good, wonderful advice to him. And then,

She vanishes, right? And she forgets him. And they have to start from scratch. And he, of course, plays along because that is the kind thing to do. But the anguish on his face, again, to your question earlier, how many times, you know, the echo of Bucky getting his memory wiped and Peggy obviously on this sort of like...

reset cycle, how painful that is for Steve to be forgotten or to have to play along with this or watch someone he loves so much fade away. And also, it's so important for someone like Steve Rogers, who is so...

strong and smart and good and handsome. For us, the audience, we need to constantly be reminded about the anguish and the pain and the hell that he has gone through so that he becomes someone that we want to root for. It is why we meet him as Skinny Steve. That is important.

But, like, the people who make these Marvel movies are constantly aware that they're giving us these, like, you know, these various, like, paragons of strength and intelligence and morality. And it's like, you don't want that person to be boring or you don't want us, the audience, to resent all the gifts that they have. And so you need to show us all the things that their gifts have cost them. And his...

you know, quasi-immortality in this scenario has cost him this. And, you know, we'll talk about Endgame at some point in the future in terms of, like, how that all wraps up. But here, we feel that loss so acutely. And you do it inside of a character. You do it inside of a character. See, this is very intentional. They really wanted to show us the hell that Steve Rogers has been through, and they did it with...

an emotional love scene with Peggy Carter in her hospital bed.

So good. It's perfect. Time, the passage of time, love, sense of self, all of it. I love your point about, like, reminding us of who he was before because one of my favorite little touches is in the aforementioned time heist in Endgame back to Camp Lehigh when he sees into her office and he sees the picture that she, what picture does she have of him on her desk? It's Skinny Steve. Yeah. Because that's the heart of who he is still after all the muscles and the abs. So those are also special and important. Yeah.

Also, when she says, you're alive, you came back, that's, again, an echo of what he then experiences with Bucky. You're alive. You came back. Right. Someone you thought you had to say goodbye to being in front of you again, but in a very complicated fashion. I just love the scene. And it's on the heels of, like, he goes to visit her on the heels of seeing the footage of her.

speaking about him at the museum exhibit, right? At the Smithsonian. And she's saying in that film, he saved over a thousand men, including the man who would become my husband, as it turned out. Even after he died, Steve was still changing my life. Now, to this day, I don't want to talk about it. We're not going to get into it. We have to at least remark upon the fact that

That, the fact that the photos of her family in the hospital do not feature a husband, only the kids, and the fact that the brain trust of Marcus Muffini and the Russo brothers do not agree and have the same position on whether it was Steve all the time or whether we're in an offshoot timeline because of Endgame. We're not going to talk about it now, but we have to remark upon the fact that this scene is a crucial part of fueling that discussion for a decade now. A decade.

I actually never tire of talking about it. I loved it. But like, okay, back to the emotion and the heart of it. When he's looking at those photos and then turns to her and she says, I have lived a life. Like it destroys me because, and this is another thing that is like perfect when we encounter it for the first time and then just utterly destroy.

magical when we return to it after watching them dance at the end of Endgame and knowing that he went back and that they got to live a life together. And independent, genuinely, of where you land on the world. Did they live a life together here the whole time or what? It's in this moment

Steve is thinking of, he's genuinely like happy for her, right? And glad that she lived a full life and also devastated to see her in this current state. And also like, of course, he and we are thinking of the fact that he was deprived, at least in the context of this movie when we first see it, of sharing that with her.

And that's why I picked the soundbite, the world has changed and none of us can go back. Because he gets to. Until you do. He gets to. And so I think we chat a lot, not just with the MCU, but with genre stories about how one of the things you always, when a movie or a show or a character is in your hands, have to think about is maintaining the stakes. Yeah.

And so to be able to actually have Steve go back and for them to live that life together and also preserve the heartache and despair and longing, the yearning tendrils in this moment here, not only is nothing lost, not only is this moment not in any way sapped or diminished, it's heightened. It's enhanced by the choice that he will make because we know what it means for him to have built up

the courage to, like, allow himself to do that again, to give himself that permission to, like, be happy, like we were talking about earlier. And it's just, like, it's just a beautiful and very sad scene. The look on his face when she says, you're alive, and, like, he has to confront what is happening to her is just... It's...

it is so, so, so heartbreaking. And one of the things about Peggy is like, she's always present for Steve in these movies, even when she's not literally present in the scene and on the screen or even alive anymore. Like later in this movie, when Nat and Steve are at Camp Lehigh and Nat sees Steve looking at Peggy's picture on the wall and like asks like, who is that? He doesn't, he like can't bring himself to,

to speak right he can't bring himself to answer and we can like feel the weight of why or we talked about the the no you move like the impact of how she is shaping his life even after she's gone and that's one of the things i love about the scene too is that he's there because he's lost and like peggy is one of the only people not only who knew him before but who he trusts like he tells her that the fact that you that i know you founded shield is like the reason i stay 100 percent

And, like, he's looking to her for guidance because he's so unsure of how to navigate his life. It's, like, just devastating. It's such a bitter twist of the knife that he's like, you built this, and then we find out about the rot at the center of this thing that Peggy Carter built. It's horrible. Also, we should say, this is just, like, a huge moment of...

in digital effects in the MCU because to have, to get to have Hayley Atwell in

Part of this performance that involves her, an older woman, and Lola, I believe it's Lola VFX, doing some blending and stuff like that, makes it that much more impactful. They could have hired a woman who looks like her. But this is... When you watch it now, you're like, okay, I can...

Okay. But when we first saw it 10 years ago, I was like, holy shit. Like, holy shit. And that, you know, it would build on that and build on that to give us like, you know, various digitally DH people. But then like Thanos is like, you know, comes sort of directly from this kind of face mapping performance. So yeah. Great stuff. Wonderful. All right. Do we have the same number three? Before we get started, does anyone want to get out?

All right. So you're number three? Okay. I think our number two is different than our number one is going to be the same. I think that's what's going on. Okay. That's the case. Does anyone want to get out? Take us through it. The iconic fabled elevator fight. The iconic, we redubbed this line, moment where it originally says, does anyone want to get off? And if you just look at it without the sound on or the captions, you can see that that's what Chris Evans is saying. Does anyone want to get off? And they're like, and then someone in the screening was like, oh.

phrasing and they changed it. Because everyone would say, uh, Cap, I mean, if you're offering. Something that I love about, okay, there's two, two things I love about this scene. One is the like, um, again, to invoke like Brian De Palma, the building of the tension, um,

Where we're just like, we wait and we wait as more and more people get on and we watch. Again, this is why does anyone want to get off? Would have been perfect. Because you're like Frank Pirlo. I would like to see it.

So the tension building is one thing. Another thing that I love is, um, I don't think this made it into the final version of the MCU book that, um, New York times bestselling author of MCU, the reign of Marvel studios that we wrote, but Gita Silva, who's one of the, uh, stunt fighters in this scene. And he also, he doubled for, uh, Chadwick Boseman later as black Panther, but, um,

They were on the floor for so long. He's like, I fell asleep. He fell asleep on the floor of the elevator. They just had to be down there for so long. Okay. This is, I think, this is...

It's between, to me, it is between this and the tarmac scene in Civil War as the top MCU fight scene. And actually, this might be number one for me because it has to do with, again, character, right? I can do this all day. Like, yes, he's got super soldier serum, but there's so many guys in that elevator and they have so many prods and things to zap him with.

Constantly zapping him with cattle props. And magnetic stuff. Special handcuffs. The creativity. Special handcuffs also would have worked with... Does anyone get a heart? I'm sorry. No, Captain America, colon special handcuffs, is the one shot of phrasing intended that you will be writing later. But like, okay.

Like, do you think he took those and used them later for someone? I hope so. Yeah. Yeah. I got these when the tension built in the shaft. Yeah. Yeah. And I said, does anyone want to get off? And then a bunch of sweaty men. Okay. Anyway, listen, the point is the creativity of this fight.

Like the limitations, because there's, you know, you have stuff like Endgame where there's just a million different characters and a million different combinations and a million different cool things that can happen. And the digital effects are going crazy and all sorts of stuff like that. But the fact that you, I mean, this is just...

Not just like a top fight scene in the MCU, top fight scene in all of cinema, the elevator fight scene in Winter Soldier. And it's just people at the fucking top of their craft being really creative in a really cramped space. The fact that the action is like clean and legible, which is often hard to do. And later in the MCU, I would argue that they lose track of that sometimes. But here in this cramped space where you're like fighting to get

like the right angle um i'm sorry yeah we were supposed to move beyond the phrasing stuff and you're talking about getting the right angle and cramped spaces that's just for you it's a love letter to you mallory i love you and then there's also this is also part of the ongoing we've talked about this a lot i think more with thor and like thor ragnarok this idea of like when you strip everything away from a character okay indeed yeah uh-huh

What do they have left? You know, you take Thor's hammer and his costume and his hair and like, blah, blah, what do you have left? And like, this is the stripping bear of Steve Rogers. And this is part of it is like, here are all his co-workers. It's not personal. Well, it feels personal. It feels personal. These are all his co-workers turning on him. And it's just like another thing that he does not have to protect himself. Yes.

And over to you, Mallory Rubin. I think you honestly covered all of it. This is just a perfect movie moment. You nailed it. It's a perfect movie moment. Rumlow attempting to make tactical small talk when he enters the elevator is like quietly one of my favorite parts of this. Like, some fibers on the roof! Really good.

Absolutely kills me. Rumlow is pretty underrated in the MCU. I wish that we got more Rumlow. I mean, obviously we get more after this, but like before we get to the crossbones of it, it's just very special. The choreography of this tight space fight that you outlined is obviously like the thing that makes it legendary. That overhead shot of the kick of the shield up into his hands was

The thing, like, on that mounting tension front that I love so much is, like, tracking Cap's observational prowess. Yes. The way that he begins to sense that something is amiss. And, like, this scene is on the heels of, basically, he refuses the alliance with Pierce. Pierce makes this big, very, like, Balon Skull-esque. You got it, Terrence?

Sometimes his speech, right? Cap's like, this is not really my vibe. Nick Fury told me not to trust anyone. I'm going to go. So, you know, he's primed already, but he notices.

dude's hand on his gun. He notices the beads of sweat trickling down a temple. He notices, he notices, he notices. And the way that we can watch that observational power and understand the depth of his, it's not just that Captain America is strong, like all of these different attributes that make him such a capable defender and protector and investigator.

It's so deftly on display here. Yes. In every single respect. It's just absolutely awesome. This is impersonal into the ceiling slam of Rumlow into it kind of feels personal. It's just... And then that overhead shot of the collection of bodies around him. Simply astonishing stuff. Including a napping Gita Silva. We hope you enjoyed catching those Zs. Absolutely fabulous. I thought that might be your number two. I thought I might be...

I thought I might have it lower, but here we are with a shared number three. And I think you're right. I think we're going to have different number two picks and then the same number one. So, Joe, what is your number two? On your left. Uh-huh. On my left. Got it. Don't say it. Don't you say it. On your left. Come on! Need a medic?

You're earlier alluded to on your left meet cute moment. Wonderful. What a fun thing to listen to the little pitter patter of their feet as they go. This is became even before the callback in Endgame. This became this very special catchphrase in the MCU on your left. And then it just becomes all

I mean, the on your left moment in Avengers Endgame reduces me to absolute rubble. Just absolute torrents of tears. And so then you go back and you watch this and you feel the origin of the Sam and Steve bond. And just the way the power of film or television, repeated lines, callbacks, references, blah, blah, that can just...

circle back and forth on each other to infuse each other with meaning. I just think On Your Left is so powerful for everything that it holds. And it's very simple origins here in this moment where we're hearing the patriotic bassoon music behind them in the pre-dawn DC moments. And

I also love the Sam-Steve relationship, which you already have talked about a couple times here. But the way in which he's not in awe of him, he's not hero-worshiping him. He's treating him like a person immediately. That he's not like, oh my God, I am so honored to be laughed by Steve Rogers. He's like, you motherfuck—you know, like, fuck you, dude. Um.

And so then they're just like guys being bros and bros being guys from the start. And that's such an important foundation because...

Steve Rogers doesn't want to be a museum exhibit. He doesn't want to be a fossil. He wants, you know, he wants to be a guy. And Sam offers that to him right away. And I love their meet cute. I love this moment. It's a very, very important MCU moment. Yeah. I love it. It's a great pick. A portal of a different sort. Beautiful. Wonderful. All right. You know, you know what my number two is. Very horny. All right. I have a question for you, which you do not have to answer.

I feel like if you don't answer it, though, you're kind of answering it, you know? What? Was that your first kiss since 1945? That bad, huh? I didn't say that. Well, it kind of sounds like that's what you're saying. No, I didn't. I just wondered how much practice you've had. You don't need practice. Everybody needs practice. It was not my first kiss since 1945. I'm 95. I'm not dead. I'm 95. I'm not dead might be my single favorite moment in the history of the MCU, even though it's not my number one pick today. This is just...

absolute perfection to me. And I will use it as an excuse for an orgy of smuggles about whether Nat and Cap fucked in this movie off screen, which I love talking about and will never tire of discussing. This is, per your email prompt earlier, definitely the sexiest movie in the MCU. The chemistry between Nat and Steve is

is impossible to contain. And so the fact that they lean in and this flirtation is such a consistent part of this entire film, but despite the running bit, like not actually in a way that leads us to believe that they will hook up. They did. It's just, I just love, this is my head cannon. And, and perhaps there's, but, um, the, the,

The, like, line of inquiry about Steve's dating life from that through the movie just kills me. It's so good every time. You do anything fun Saturday night? Well, all the guys from my barbershop go.

are dead so no not really the barbershop quartet line is so good I love when she like she just continues when she drops out of the sky of the parachute and she just continues the conversation on a stroll like off the parachute drop it's so good secure the engine room then find me a date I'm multitasking

It's just incredible. And then, like, we get to the Apple store. We get to the mall sequence. Shout out DC Pearson. Just incredible. I have the exact same glasses. Wow, you guys are practically twins. Wonderful. And then, of course, this stretch where Nat tells Steve they're going to use PDA because PDA makes people uncomfortable. They're going to use this as a way to go undetected. So the kiss on the escalator.

As Rumlow says, snake the upper levels, work down. This is just beautiful. This is wonderful. You're a special person. Thank you. Thank you, Joe. After the kiss, you still uncomfortable? That's not exactly the word I would use, Steve Rogers says. Is he a justice-throbbing boner? And they move on in their time-sensitive mission.

Into the car ride that is just one of the most important stretches in the history of cinema.

Movie stars being hot and effortlessly generating chemistry together is not, you know, new or so rare. But this stretch, the soundbite we heard into the, like, so, you know, no one's special. No, it's hard to find somebody with the same, like, shared life experience. And then into a conversation, like, kind of of substance about trust, right? And that's a tough way to live. Like,

it's a sexy scene, it's electric, but it's also actually, all jokes aside, genuinely important character moment for both of them. And you then spend years of your life discussing with your friends whether they pulled over and fucked on the side of the road before they arrived at Camp Lehigh, which I would like to think that they did. But here's the great news, Jo, even if they didn't, I know that wasn't the last opportunity. I know that's not the moment where you think they fucked. It was not the last opportunity because they make their way to Sam Wilson's house.

They are in the same room tidying up. Nat is sitting on a bed. Steve is in the bathroom, toweling off. Now, my question to you is, what are they toweling off from? Is it from the dust and rubble? The missile attack on Zola's lair? Oh!

it from whatever they've been up to it's Sam Wilson's spare bedroom it's a question I've posed before and it's a question I will never stop posing and thanks to She-Hulk we know Cap not a virgin right that's that's according to Bruce I don't know that that's it's true not a virgin we was fucking up a storm on the USO tour and no that's let's be accurate at least

Steve Rogers is not a virgin. He lost his virginity to a girl in 1943 on the USO tour. That's not fucking up a storm. Fucking up a storm. Had sex with one girl, but I also just don't think he did that. When Sam offers them breakfast, they're like, yeah.

We need some replenishing calories. Let's do it. Let's do it. And then they just never stop talking about it. They never stop with flirting. They are interrogating Jasper Sitwell, dropping him off of a roof and still making time for this exchange. Oh, wait, what about the girl from accounting? Laura? Lisa? Lillian? Lip piercing, right? Yeah, she's cute. Yeah, I'm not ready for that.

Sensational. It's sensational. I am more willing to believe that they've fucked when they were on the run in the Nomad era than I am willing to believe that they had sex in this movie. I think Peggy Carter's in the ground and then he has sex with him. That's what I think. Peggy Carter is in the ground. He kisses a known relative. Kisses her niece.

And then goes and finally fucks Nat. Okay. I like this. I like it. Glad we workshopped that together. This is a compromise. This is my compromise to you. That they fucked but it wasn't in this movie. It was later. I could do this all day. Okay. Because we now have to get to the actual horniest most romantic moment of this movie. Our share number one. Carlos, will you please play this? Your name is

Oh my fucking god. This is just...

Oh my God. Overwhelming. So much like on your left. I'm with you to the end of the line. Incredible. Like, you know, again, Marcus McFeely, like pulling their own lines again and again throughout the spine of the MCU. That is the Captain America saga into the, uh, infinity war end game double feature. Um,

I loved this line that we got in this email from our listener, Liz and who says, Bucky is ultimately a damaged damsel in distress. He's also the sleeping beauty awoken by true love's kiss with the marriage vow. I'm with you till the end of the line. Liz. Yes. Thank you. Um, Oh my God, Bucky and Steve are so important to me and are so incredible in this moment. Um,

you know, this is the best thing Sebastian Stan has ever done. And I like him in general, but this is just like, this is it. This is the, this is the peak. And this is the stuff, not only Lionel, but everyone agrees. This is the stuff. And listen, this dynamic, this I'm with you no matter what, till the end of the line, then finish it. Cause I'm with you till the end of the line. This is the, this,

The core strength of Cap, his undying loyalty to Bucky, that becomes his flaw in Civil War and becomes the central conflict that fuels Civil War. And that's why it's so satisfying. This trilogy of films and the Bucky-Steve dynamic through all three is so incredibly satisfying. I can't even begin to talk about

How they then really fucking sideline Stephen Bucky for the rest of the franchise. It is... I am indignant about it, actually. But this is so important. And it's just like, you know, we did a whole episode on enemies to lovers. This is like best friends to enemies to...

best friends with a tinge of lovers. Like it's all in there. It's just like the juiciest, most Shakespearean, most soap opera, most fan fiction, most AO3, most everything inside of an extremely macho, the helicarrier is crashing once again movie about the way in which our government lies to us. Like this is- Gotta swap those server blades. Yeah. The full, this is everything you could ever want in a movie moment.

It's perfection. I had absolutely no doubt this would be our shared number one. I think it would rank quite highly if we did a list of just moments across the MCU, period. It's perfection. And one of the things that I love so much about it is earlier.

When they're prepping to try to thwart Project Insight, and Steve is thinking back to his memories of Bucky, and he thinks back to this moment after he buried his mother, and Bucky invites Steve to live with him. And you get all this shorthand in that scene for just how...

how well they know each other. Steve's looking for his key. He can't find it. Bucky kicks over the rock where he knows it's waiting. Those little glimpses. And we've spent time with him in a prior movie before, but still those little moments that just reinforce this is a person who has been with you every minute of your life before you found yourself in this spot and in this way. And he says, what does Steve say in that memory? Thank you, Buck, but I can get by on my own. And Bucky's response to that, which sets up this then climactic moment

sensational moment is the thing is you don't have to. You don't have to. I'm with you to the end of the line, pal. And it always makes me cry in that memory we glimpse and then it just makes me like...

Weep when Steve says it back to him here and knows that that will be the thing, hopes that that will be the thing that reaches Bucky, that unlocks it. I mean, Steve has been shot multiple times. The helicarrier is crumbling around them. He drops, he refuses. He is willing to die in this moment. He drops his shield.

He is refusing to save himself to escape this wreck because it is the most important thing that he has left to try to reach Bucky, to try to repair this thing. And the, again, pairing in this film, like, it's so expertly balanced throughout that, of course, it's not a surprise that they nail it in the climactic showdown, but...

the fight choreography, the tension of the action. Are they going to save it in time? We're cutting back and forth. Rumlow fighting Sam. Is the helicopter going to reach the right floor? Like there's so much happening at this point in the movie. And yet there is like

all the space in the world for the substance of this shared experience and this effort to, like, no matter literally what is happening around you, try to save the person who matters the most to you in the world. The look on Bucky's face when he hears Steve say this, like, the way that Sebastian Stan's eyes go wide, it's just, man, it's just absolutely...

incredible. Again, this is like Civil War bleeding back in to inform this, but I love that this is the healing opposite of longing, rusted 17 day break furnace. You know, like these are the activating words to like bring him back to himself. And it's just, I love this movie. Bucky Barnes, ready to comply. Beautiful. Beautiful. Okay, we did it.

Run through if everyone needs a refresher very quickly. Rapid fire. What was your 10 through 1? Let's hear it. Recap. Um.

Yeah, very rapidly because I have it right in front of me and it's all good. Okay, we've got number 10, Batrack the Leaper. Number nine, Bye Bye Bikinis. Number eight, Pierce Kills Renata and Drinks an Inch of Milk. Number seven, Zola is Swiss and Don't You Forget It. Number six, Sharon Carter Pre-Character Assassination. Number five, Steve and Bucky Fight in the Street. Number four, Peggy. It's been so,

long. Number three, elevator fight. Number two, on your left. And number one, you were my mission. I love it. Mine. Number 10, man out of time makes a to-do list. Number nine, Fury shows capped Project Insight. Number eight, Matt wrestles with loss. Number seven, Steve visits Sam at the VA. Six, Steve Rogers makes a speech. Five,

Cap learns that Bucky is alive. Bucky learns that he's Bucky. Four, Steve visits Peggy at the hospital. Three, does anyone want to get out? Slash off. Off. Two, Nat and Cap maybe fuck on the road and then again in Sam's home. Number one. He's with him till the end of the line. Beautiful. We did it. Full experience this was. What a great movie. Great movie. Absolute joy to revisit.

Had a blast. Marvel, make movies like this again. Just an idea. Just a thought. I like it. I like it. All right. That's a wrap on today's podcast. I do already have our first correction, and it is that we are Swiss.

Thank you. Time for thank yous. Thank you to Carlos Chiriboga for producing this episode. Thank you to Isaiah Blakely for helping to produce this episode here in person today.

Arjuna Ramgopal for his additional production work on this episode and Jomia Deneron for his work on the social for this episode. Remember, head back into the ringerverse today for another Midnight Boys Pew Pew episode. Instant reaction coming on Monkey Man. Joe and I will be back with you here in the House of R at the top of next week. Until then, remember, I do what she does, just slower.