'Captain America: Brave New World' Deep Dive
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Shipping to many countries worldwide. See details at 8sleep.com slash ringer. I was a wartime general. Now I'm a wartime president. Your inner circle's been compromised. Let me fix it. Watch yourself. You're not Steve Rogers. You're right. I'm not. Wait for it. Greetings.

And welcome to House of R, a Ringerverse podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Mallory Rubin and joining me today.

Carving out a few valuable moments before she has to head back to Bucky's latest congressional fundraiser, it is Joanna Robinson. Hello, my darling. I'm still there in my heart and my mind. I'm still at the fundraiser with Buck. I mean, who can blame you? He looked great. We are here, of course, as you can tell from the Bucky Barnes reference and our latest custom logo. John Richter. John Richter, my goodness. Wild stuff.

to discuss the newest Marvel movie, the newest MCU movie, Captain America Brave New World. But before we head to Celestial Island...

For treaty talks, for movie talks. A cool, refreshing breeze. It did look nice out there, I have to say. Some quick programming reminders. Here on the House of R, we will be back with you at the end of the week on Friday for our latest Yellow Jackets deep dive. We are breaking down Yellow Jackets here on House of R this season. If you heard us do it on Prestige TV last season and you're like, where are the pods? Great news, they're here. Yep. Join us in the wilderness. Join us in the pit.

But not the pit. No, not the pit. That's on Prestige. As are our White Lotus conversations. We are covering White Lotus this season with Bill over on the Prestige TV podcast on Sunday nights. Join us there. On the Ringerverse front, it's an exciting week because tomorrow, Tuesday, is the debut of RingerQuest.

Steve Allman could not have worked harder on this. The team could not have worked harder on this. The whole gang got together and we played D&D. Yeah. For many of us, it was the first time we'd ever played. It was hours of fun. The video is also, as I understand it, hours. Yeah.

of fun. We thought they were going to do a tight edit on that. Apparently not. You get all the, all the goodness. Yeah. Wednesday, the Midnight Boys, pew, pew, will be doing their Blackest Movies draft. Can't wait. That will shortly be appointment viewing and appointment listening. And then on Friday, Jomie is going to have a little treat

on the YouTube channel and on the Ringiverse feed for the Avatar The Last Airbender 20-year anniversary. Jomie's doing a little celebration video. So check that out. Joanna, how can everybody follow along? That's so cute because in our notes it just says Jomie Avatar 20th anniversary and my mind blinked and I was like, oh, the Jim Cameron movies. But now that I know that it's Avatar The Last Airbender, yeah, thrilled to be alive. I would have the decency to not mention that in front of you. Thank you. Given how you feel about that cinematic property. Thank you for your kindness. Listen,

Yeah. We've got a lot going on. Yes. And you mentioned all the videos. You can watch it on the Ringverse YouTube channel. You can watch it on Spotify. That's right. How thrilling. Wonderful. What a joy and a delight. I agree. You should follow the pod, perhaps, on any social media platform you so choose to frequent these days. That's up to you. You could email us. Do it. Hobbitsanddragons at gmail.com. We got some very enlightening emails after our

I'm going to say, I don't usually like to use this word, I'm going to say it, epic Romanticy episode that we recorded last week. People loved your art, Mallory. They loved your insights. We got a lot more recommendations of books to read, so great stuff from the Bad Babies in response to that. Mallory, 48 hours later, how are you feeling about the Romanticy episode that we recorded last week? Great. Honestly, can't wait to do it again. Highlight of your career? It was certainly, I'm relieved that I still have a career, at least as far as we know today. Yeah.

But it was an absolute blast. Check it out if you haven't. If you've never watched A House of R, that is definitely, that's the one to watch. Joanna. Valerie. The last programming reminder, it's the same one as always. It's the Friendly Neighborhood spoiler warning. It's actually a lot of stuff today. Obviously, anything that happened in the newest Captain America movie, we're going to talk about today. Any prior Cap film, fair game. Any prior Avengers movie, fair game. Eternals.

Incredible Hulk. Anything that's ever happened in the Marvel Cinematic Universe could, in theory, come up today. Some Marvel comics canon could come up today. So, if it's something that happened that has a bearing on what happens in this film, it could come up today. Okay. Joe, these cherry blossoms are not going to look at themselves.

It is time to pod. It is time for the opening snapshot. This episode is brought to you by cars.com. Whether you're buying your first set of wheels, upgrading to fit your growing family, or looking for something to have a little fun with on the weekends, visit cars.com and explore the possibilities. Up to 50,000 cars are added daily. So wherever life takes you, there's a car for it on cars.com. Find your next possibility on cars.com. Where to next?

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We're on the brink of war. I can't trust anyone. Nothing about this feels right. Captain America, you ever ask yourself who's playing who? Joanna. Tim Blake Nelson, my guy. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, is the leader your guy? No, I didn't say the leader is my guy. I said Tim Blake Nelson is my guy. Good distinction. I suspect that'll come up again today. Okay.

We're going to spend a little bit more time than usual in the opening snapshot because there are a lot of big picture matters to discuss before we dive into some of the character particulars, which we will do in a little bit. Let's talk about opening weekend. We are recording on Monday, so we're a few days into the release of Brave New World. Box office. Not bad. Not bad. At the time of our recording, these numbers sometimes change and are updated across a Monday. We're in the morning here.

100 million domestic, 92 international, 192 globally for opening weekend. The critical and fan response. Rotten Tomatoes, 51% among critics, 80% among audience members. Metacritic, 42, checking in at the worst mark ever in the history of the MCU. CinemaScore,

Also the worst. B minus. Yeah, CinemaScore being the one where they ask people when they're leaving the theater what they thought of the movie. So what do you make of that particular brew of critical fan response and box office reception? And also just like

Pairing that, those data points with your anecdotal experience when you saw the movie at your screening. Like, what was the theater like? What have you been hearing from people in your lives? Do you feel, the gap that we're seeing there, I will say, between like the critical reception and the fan reception, I am not feeling in my life. I have yet to have a person in my life tell me they liked the movie.

So I am slightly surprised by this and I'm wondering if like you have had a different experience or a similar one. Incredibly muted reception in the screening and when I went to see the movie on Saturday in LA this weekend. What's your, what's your, I think we're

I think worst... Clock in of the reception bin. I think worst ever cinema score is very telling because even though it's B minus and 80 that matches on Rotten Tomatoes, that's still the lowest that a Marvel movie has seen. Even things that we like to hold up as, you know, big flopperoos for Marvel, you know? So like...

I have not talked to anyone personally who's really liked this movie. I have seen across various social media platforms, listeners of our show or the Ringerverse who had a fun, fine time at the movies. And like, there's nothing wrong with fun, fine time at the movies. No, certainly not. That's great. Love a fun, fine time at the movies. I think the problem with something like this property is not only is it a Marvel property, but it's a Captain America movie inside of a Marvel property. And the bar for that is just like,

incredibly high. Yes. My favorite MCU franchise, your favorite MCU franchise, many people's favorite. Exactly. And so even though, you know, as we heard in the clips already, Sam is taking over for Steve, this is not a Steve Rogers movie. It has that barrier of sort of like expectations around it. So I think that, yeah, my screening that I went to was incredibly muted. Everyone I've

Like all the Marvel fans in my life felt like it was a disappointment to them. And but if it's a fun, fine time, the movies, that's not the end of the world. I just think we've come to expect so much more from Marvel at its best.

Because this to me felt more like a Sony movie, you know, like just a messier property. And we'll talk about sort of like the edit. Way less fun than a bad Sony movie, though, which I think is damning. Yes. Yes. Not as fun as a bad Sony movie. Yeah. And it's missing two hallmarks, I would say, of Marvel at its best and the Captain America franchise at its best, which is like wit, charm and heart. Right.

I think the disparity we're seeing between the critical consensus and the fan consensus is not as wide as it often is in these like sort of for the fans, like this movement of the fandom to be like, you critics don't know what you're talking about. Yeah. This is actually closer, I think, than some of those gaps are. So I don't know. It's not great for Marvel, but like when I walked into the studio this morning, Steve was like,

Were mom and dad fighting? Because Van and I had a very lengthy sort of discussion on the group chat about what this box office meant. Mom and dad are not fighting. Mom and dad are fine. But I think that what it means in a larger context, I think Van and I disagreed on some things but agree with one thing, which is that it's not as bad as it could have been for Marvel. Oh, sure. They knew. Like, everyone knew. Yeah.

This was not going to go well. The signs have been there for a very long time. Yeah. And, you know, you have a question. You have this question later, but like this does not diminish my anticipation for Thunderbolts and Fantastic Four. This has always been when we did our hype draft. Like we we've known that this was probably not going to go very well. And I think similar to the Echo binge jump on Hulu last year, they were just sort of like, let's keep our heads down and do this. Right. And see if we can just sort of like get through this. Yeah.

And then if Thunderbolts hits and Daredevil hits and Fantastic Four hits, then people won't – like this won't sink us. Yeah. Is I think how they're approaching this. I feel similarly. I –

I did not enjoy this movie, and I think the movie really failed Anthony Mackie, a performer I love, and Sam Wilson, a character I love. I similarly, though, am not feeling a diminishment of my not only just like overall confidence because we've been having a little bit of a, oh, is the MCU back experience, but like my enthusiasm specifically for those releases that you just listed, the pending releases, you know, Daredevil, Thunderbolts and Fantastic Four, like

are high on our high meter like not just oh well maybe they'll be good like these are things we're really looking forward to and nothing about this sapped my enthusiasm for that I will say it was like I listening to big pick I I think the question that was posed there which I am obviously uh distilling and summarizing thoughtful discussion listen to it in full was on some level like

Okay, sure, we're excited about the things to come, but how is it possible for something to go this wrong? Yeah, yeah. And I think that's valid. Like, I do think that's a valid question because, and let's talk a little bit about, let's provide some of that context. Sure. We're going to talk about some of the many, many, many, many properties that are...

somewhere between valuable or imperative viewing before you get here. But let's actually just talk about the reshoots and the what happened here question. Then we'll hit the what do you need to have caught up on before watching this movie, and then we'll get to some of the character arcs in the film. So...

Joanna, we've talked about this a lot before over our many pods over the years. There is nothing particularly new or unique about an MCU property requiring a reshoot. As you have noted, they are routine. They are planned for. They are a part of the process. However, it did seem like even by that standard of what is typical as these were happening in real time, as they were being reported on in real time, that something atypical was going on

with this movie in terms of the level of reworking that was required. You literally wrote the best-selling book on how the MCU was built, so there's no one better to provide this context about maybe what went wrong here. For me, I'll say, like, one of the things that I found most disorienting about watching the movie, and even then the stretches where...

two characters who I really like watching in a scene together, say Isaiah and Sam or Isaiah and Joaquin or, excuse me, Joaquin and Sam or Bucky and Sam. Yeah. A stretch where maybe the action is fun. The fact that the movie felt so palpably, so clearly like it had been hacked apart and then cobbled back together was just like a...

disorienting viewing experience. It was kind of impossible not to watch it thinking about, okay, well, some of this is because we know a character like Sidewinder, John Carlos Stanton's performance was added in later in the process.

Your mind starts to race and wonder why, what were they accounting for? Is it because they had to cut out certain other members of the Serpent Society who didn't end up making the final movie, who we know were in earlier versions of it, because that wasn't working? Is it because they needed to account for what I thought was just genuinely, like, all-time bad stuff with the leader? Like, one of the worst Marvel villains ever.

In a movie that I can remember, I would say, like, in the running for the least compelling. Yeah. So, okay, you need to put a character like Sidewinder into T.

give us something to focus on other than the leader. However, then it's only three scenes and the leader is still in the movie a ton. It's like, if you know you have a problem, correct more fully than that. Or then you have stretches where you, like, it just looked like, and I, like, I don't mean to sound like an asshole. Like, people work super, a lot of people work super hard on these movies. And there's some stuff that looks great. Some stuff looks great. I thought, I thought the Celestial Island fight looked really cool. Yeah. But, like,

When Sam is making his speech to Red Hulk at the end of the movie, it has rarely been clearer that somebody is standing in front of a green screen of a prior shoot redoing a take. It's like they took a Windows background and said, like, execute cherry blossoms and then just, like, made Anthony Mackie stand in front of that. Yeah. It's not good. So I can tell you what happened here.

Enlighten us and illuminate us. How did we get to this point? I can tell you what happened here in contrast to what happened with what's going on with the Thunderbolts in Fantastic Four. Daredevil, to a certain degree, is in a similar boat as this movie in terms of the fact that they shot a bunch. Drastically reworked. They're reconsidering it. They're reworking it. So time will tell whether or not we'll be able to see those things.

as much as we see them in this movie, we're very hopeful that we won't. And Daredevil has the advantage. I would say that Sam Wilson has not yet been the main character of a great thing, whereas Charlie Cox's Daredevil has. And so there's like just a bit more goodwill, you know, coming into that experience. For Thunderbolts and Fantastic Four, let's think about the production of these movies. This movie...

The director was hired in 2022. They went into production early 2023. Early 2023, they still don't know that Quantumania is going to be as big of a disappointment as it is. They don't know that the Marvels are going to be as big of a disappointment as it was. And they are still swimming in –

endless Disney Plus properties that they're trying to juggle at the same time. And so this is, this was Marvel trying to put this movie together somewhat, not hastily, but like,

trying to coast off of Falcon and the Winter Soldier. You know, they announced that this movie was happening right when we got the Falcon and the Winter Soldier finale. Malcolm Spellman, who was, you know, the head writer ostensibly on that TV show, is a credited writer on this, along with several other people accredited writer on this film. Never a good sign when you see that many people in the screenplay by and story by. So many people accredited. So they're making this film in...

In the morass of Marvel chaos when they are overwhelmed and swamped and when Quantumania crashed and burned the way that it did. Yeah. Marvel was able to make the case to Disney, we need to do less. Right? And so that's where we get this like massive slowdown in production. We get just one Marvel movie last year in Deadpool and Wolverine. Right. You know, we get

the drip of Agatha. We get the drip of Daredevil. Like the Disney plus shows are slowing down. Right. And they're just sort of like, we need to do less. Bob Iger comes back and Bob Iger's like, we're going to do less. Once again, pretending he's not the one who in the first place said do more. Right. We're going to do less and we're going to do it better. And so when you get to stuff like Thunderbolts, which was delayed until after the writer's strike and fantastic four, this is in the do less Marvel era. And so for those films, um,

Even though they're all coming out in the same year, Captain America was like reshoot, reshoot, reshoot. Those other films were being made in a time when they had more resources of attention to devote to them. And so for things like Guardians 3 and Daredevil Wolverine, which felt like a bit of an outlier because James Gunn is his own thing and Deadpool Wolverine with Ryan Reynolds, et cetera, et cetera, is its own thing.

Thunderbolts in Fantastic Four will be the real test of like new slowdown Marvel. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can we do this? So that's sort of my assessment of what happened here and why it does not diminish my enthusiasm for these other things. That's...

incredibly useful and important context over not just the last few months, but the last few years to keep in mind. And I like thinking of it now as almost like the... It's the inverse of the way we talked about Guardians 3, right? Where that was like, well...

No matter how good it is, it can only tell us so much. It can only indicate so much about the confidence that we should have and the sureness of the path we're on. And this is like a little bit of, at least we can hope, the opposite where it is the product of a moment in time and a lot of the different things that were happening. It doesn't necessarily mean that those same things are going to damn the properties to come. I think, yeah, and I think it's just a...

It's a show of Marvel's – I mean, Marvel was overwhelmed because they were given this edict to create so much content. So that's its own thing. But there was also a hubris of like, we've done so well for so long, we can't fail. And this is really a case of running before you can walk with Sam Wilson. I think they just like charged ahead. And especially as we'll talk about this movie later.

A bafflingly faint echo of one of their most successful movies. Okay, so let's hit that. Let's talk about some of the many, many, many, many, many, many properties that...

But what's wild, I agree, many, many, many, many properties are like in the brew here, right? Yes, in the brew.

And in fact, it might serve you who didn't because there's a new guy playing Thunderbolt Ross and you don't have to have seen this TV show in order to understand what's going on here. Did they do that successfully? I don't think so, but that's what they were trying to do. I agree. A very odd combination of...

Have you seen something that came out literally in the year the MCU started? Because it's going to be the single most important thing. And hey, by the way, if you missed the six episode television series in which the star of this movie starred and went on a journey.

A meaningful, thematically rich journey from Falcon to Captain America will catch you up in three sentences. That's a bizarre incongruity. I mean, here's a real problem for that for me. And this is just something I'm going to hit again and again, I think, throughout this is like Winter Soldier, our shared favorite, has at the heart of it,

incredible emotional connections for Steve across multiple people. One of those people is Sam Wilson, who he meets inside that very movie. He meets inside that very movie and it is instantly an important, profound relationship. Sam's a counselor. They're soldiers together. All of this stuff is really important and connected.

And inside the context of a film where there's the Bucky-Steve thing, which is, you know, the most important relationship to me in all of Marvel Cinematic Universe. And where Steve and Nat fuck on the side of the road. Sure. Headcanon. Headcanon. And I love that for you. And by headcanon, we are referring, of course, to... Okay, Karen. Yep. Knee deep in the passenger seat. So...

Joaquin Torres. Danny Ramirez, who was like quite charismatic. Incredibly charismatic performer. You know, I really like him. Yeah, me too. And I'm really excited that he's in The Last of Us. Yeah, same. That we're supposed to already understand their relationship because we met him in Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Right. But they just are not doing the same caliber of work to make that relationship feel important, profound, meaningful.

Do you know what I mean? Absolutely. Yeah. Let's talk about the Winter Soldier thing just for another second here. Of course. So this movie opens with a different styling of the Marvel wordmark, the Marvel opening. We're not only invoking the, you know, flashing light that's going to end up being

Central to the plot mechanic of mind control, phones on the fritz. I was like, this is a tough movie for airdrop. A friend of mine was watching this last night in the theater and he had the theater all to himself. So he was just texting me through the movie, which like he tries to do sometimes. And I usually tell him, don't text me during a movie because I hate that. But he was like, there's no one in my theater. So I was like, go to town. And he was like, he's like, they really need to stop advertising iPhones. And I was like, press pause on that take. Yeah.

Yeah, we'll see what happens. Not the best film for just phones, I would say. Not even a flip phone? Well, I have a note. Okay, actually, can I quickly get this nitpick off? Because everything we just talked about, and then we'll get back to Winter Soldier and the other properties, promise. Everything that we just talked about, like, okay, the reshoots and the filming with entirely new characters after initially concluding production, etc.,

Those are big things. All of the context that you provided was incredibly illuminating. None of that, though, will account for just the sloppiness of like little details inside of the movie that I thought consistently undermined it. Like the flip phone was an example to me. Now, maybe I sound like an idiot and there's a great explanation for this. They're on the run, Joaquin and Sam.

They're going to Camp Echo One. It is established in a conversation between other characters that they are off the grid. They've ditched their smartphones. They have ditched their smartphones. Bruce says that. Yes. We get burner phones. We get flip phones. Cute, fun little moment where Joaquin is like playing a game. He's like, you must have played this all the time because Sam's old. I chuckled. But then he gets the news about the shootout at the prison. How? Yeah.

He doesn't have a smartphone. Yeah. Nobody has that number. It's a burner. Yeah. Like, how is that information reaching them? Correct. That kind of stuff is just so distracting and takes you out completely. Even if you wanted to give yourself over fully to the film, it's like, you can't. Another example of this is, like, the president of the United States. Yeah. Can't believe we've gone this long without mentioning Harrison Ford. Don't worry, we'll get to him. Is in a subterranean bunker because of...

An assumed terrorist attack, an assassination attempt, a threat against his life. Yeah. A bunker, a security bunker. Kicks everybody out of the room to have the conversation with Sam. Ruth stays in. And we cut out to Leila and everybody else who's out there. And you can just hear. You can hear the conversation.

Why is that not a soundproof room? Like little things like that. Why kick people out if they're just going to be able to hear the conversation anyway? Right? Little things like that really bugged me. And there were a lot of things like that. It was, it felt sloppy. Yeah. Okay. Back to the prior canon. So there's another Captain America movie that we'll get to in a second that's most important in terms of

Character history, but without question, as you noted already, the Captain America film that this movie is trying to emulate the most is our favorite MCU film, the best MCU film, Winter Soldier.

Spy thriller there, political thriller here, that history between characters, the street-level aspect, this question of can you trust or must you mistrust those in power? That is not a comparison that this movie should be inviting. It is not. It reminds me of the conversations we had around Gladiator 2, where we were like, why? They're only making themselves look worse by...

by doing the beats of the original film to have, you know, a, a, a camp Lehigh esque sort of foray to have this cold open action sequence. I mean, that's fairly standard for Marvel, but still to have a black widow here, to have a Falcon here, to have Harrison trying to do the car, the car. Oh, I'm here. Someone who's here stopping your car. Exactly. Yes. Yes. The, the, the car attack, um,

The two of them on the road in the car. Do you think that they fucked on the way to? I hope so. I would love that for them. Okay, great. And the aerial, you know, battle over water and Harrison Ford in sort of the Robert Redford position. Yeah. And even again, Apple, because they are dropping in the Apple store. We've chatted a lot about.

how in those early phases of the MCU in the Infinity Saga, one of the great strokes of genius from Feige and the Brass was the genre specificity across films. And no, you can't point to any franchise inside of the MCU that does a better job of showing how powerful that could be than the Cap franchise, right? And so I was like really, really excited about

You were trying to keep me in check, but I was like... Sorry. No, I was really excited by the trailers because they were giving me... Yeah. Intentionally, obviously, that we know you loved Winter Soldier and we're gonna do the thriller thing. We know you love it when Harrison Ford is a gruff president, action president. We know you love it when Harrison Ford is in clear and present danger. You've watched Air Force One in clear and present danger and Patriot Games. Yeah.

Patriot Games and Clear Present Danger are great fucking movies. Don't ask me to think about those movies before seeing this. What are you doing? Captain America Civil War. I would say that this is the most crucial of the prior Cap films to actually see before this, of the Cap films, because of the history between Sam and Thunderbolt Ross, or as I used to always refer to him on Binge, that fucker Thunderbolt Ross. Still painful for me that the greatest love of my life, Harrison Ford, is playing my least favorite Marvel character.

But everything with the Sokovia Accords, which of course comes up many times in this film, this question of just what power, what ability to act unilaterally and make decisions should enhanced individuals, should superheroes have, how do heroes interact with a government apparatus? Obviously part of the power of the Steve Rogers, uh,

arc in general across Winter Soldier and Civil War and beyond is that the guy literally called Captain America is the one who questions the establishment and challenges the body that he was a part of. And so for that idea to be present here, and Sam was...

Part of, as he reminds Ross and viewers here, right? Part of the group with Steve. Wanda up on the raft. With Wanda that ended up in the raft that went on the run with Nat, of course. And so that is like really crucial before we get here. Obviously, Avengers Endgame. Were you mad that Sam showed up and Harrison Ford didn't go, the futurist, the futurist is here. He knows all.

Sorry. Clint. What do we think Clint's up to these days? Spending time with his family on the farm. Avengers Endgame. This is, of course, when old man Steve gave Sam the shield. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier television program, which has come up a couple times today. I think certainly thematically, this is the most important. This is Sam's show. It is the most important prior canon in terms of

what it means for Sam and to Sam as a black man and a black hero to become Captain America and to carry the shield. That's what that show was largely about. That's what that show was about. But they stripped the racial identity aspect out of this movie, I would say, you know, almost completely. There are the lines we already heard, you know, the famous one from the trailer, like, you're not Steve Rogers. There's an implication there. And I don't mind these things being subtle at all. There is, you know, that there are racial implications to all of this.

But Falcon and the Winter Soldier, for all of its many flaws, was really adamant and engaging. Had an incredibly clear point of view. Yeah, exactly. And I feel like that has just been like...

they just put a pillow on top of it for this movie. I think it feels like to make it more palatable. And there are meta aspects of this movie that I actually really loved. Whenever we see Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson say, Steve made the wrong choice or I'll never be him or it shouldn't have been me. Like, how can you not think about this actor sort of struggling to find his footing, not as an actor, but just sort of like,

the place of prominence that Chris Evans and Steve Rogers held in the Marvel universe. And Sam had a show that was a mixed bag. And this film that is, you know, was besieged by all of these rumors and speculation before it even premiered. And so watching Anthony Mackie, again, a performer I really like sort of say like, did they make a mistake in picking me? Like,

that got to me emotionally. And, you know, and especially like inside a scene with Sebastian Stan as Bucky, who like a lot of people wanted to be the new Captain America. Like I thought that stuff was really good. I just really, I thought it was frankly kind of cowardly for them to tone down the racial aspect of his character

struggle inside of this movie as represented by Isaiah to a certain degree. But like still, once again, it's just like just a much more muted version of that. I think part of it too, is that the movie more just the movie start to finish more broadly. It's politics are muddled. And so, you know, you have a scene like the final scene where Isaiah,

Sam and Joaquin are talking about the burden of responsibility, the burden of power, the burden of having a seat at the table when everybody who doesn't and wants one is watching you. Every scene and conversation between Isaiah and Sam, but... And I agree, the Sam-Bucky scene was easily one of the highlights of the movie. And...

I thought that that line from Bucky, like,

Steve gave them something to believe in, but you give them something to aspire to was like a moment where you feel that heart, not only the history between the characters and how the depth of that history, their shared experiences, their connection to each other, their connection to the same other people fuels the truth of that and makes it so much more important than if somebody who doesn't have that history with Sam says that to him. I thought that was really beautiful. And, and also again, very thematically rich, but,

But just like then beyond that, what are we actually supposed to take? And some of this, I think, is just difficult. I don't expect everybody watching the movie to feel this way about it, obviously. Yeah. But I found it difficult to separate watching this movie from our current political climate and the moment in time in which we are watching the movie and found it...

sort of strange that Sam, a character we have seen in the past, challenge misguided authority. Yeah. Actually be one of the voices who was courageous enough to say, I don't think you're right and I don't trust you, routinely saying in this movie and trying to convince characters like Isaiah, no, it's important for me to stand next to Thunderbolt Ross. Even though this guy has been responsible for monstrous crimes. Now, I think you could say,

The movie is taking pains to stress the importance in a difficult political moment of unity and trying to align together, period, as the Rothschilds say. And I think certainly if you're going to try to take a character...

like Thunderbolt Ross and make the idea of change not just about the pending Red Hulk transformation, but this question of can somebody who you did not align with or agree with politically, morally, socially, philosophically, almost existentially, be someone you talk yourself into working with for the good of the country? Those are interesting ideas, but they weren't interrogated. They're really interesting ideas, but you need to really grapple with them in full in order to explore them in a way that...

It gets lost in the question of can a leopard change its spots? Like, can you change? Can you be a better person? There is this, like, redemption arc for Thunderbolt Ross that we're supposed to be rooting for that, like, Sam is actively rooting for. And I'm like, I don't, I'm like, like them bringing in Liv Tyler to play Betty Ross is...

aced up in the right direction but just way too sparingly used as this motivation for him yeah and i'm going hard the other way on the betty thing which i'm sort of like you hate that betty's here i agree i agree with like it's been too long i was gonna hit this later when we got to to hulk but let's just do it here like i may i have been one of the people for a long time who's like

How hard is it to bring Betty back? Yeah. Where is Liv Tyler? Like, why is Betty not in the MCU? This is absurd. She's making the leftovers, baby. It's true. This was just too Martha to me. No, no, no. The way it's executed is bad. But also, like, I don't care. This kind of gets back to the opening point you were making about whether the movie, independent of what we know about the characters outside of it, is able to...

compel us inside of these relationships. I think you and I are actually agreeing. I think we're actually agreeing. I don't care about Thunderbolt Ross and Betty. You don't, but a better movie could have made you care. Yeah. If they started at the beginning with like, this is the main source of, I mean, they mention it a bit in like a newscast, but like, you know how the newscast is like- They're always talking about people's boyfriends on the news. Bruce Banner is fine. X. But like, a better movie- Yeah.

with less time can make you care about the connection between these characters. It's like, you know, we talked about this all the time when we talked about the best of Marvel. We were talking about this idea of like Feige fix it, Feige wrapping his arms around properties that didn't work. And if you have stuff in movies where you're like, all of a sudden I care about Thor the Dark World or all of a sudden I care about this. Always cared about Thor the Dark World. I mean, it's just you...

always cared about Thor the Dark Lord. And Chris Eccleston caring about that movie. Actually, nope. Chris doesn't care about that movie. It's just you. That's one of the great things about the last couple days is like all the people rewatching, they're trying to power rank the bottom. Yeah, the bottom. And it's like,

Was Thor the Dark Knight that bad? No, it is bad. Don't lose your heads about this. Okay, so... But, like, in a better movie, you can make us care about that. So I think it's a good idea, poorly executed. That's what I would say. We are also in the era of Harrison Ford. Have I mentioned he's the greatest love of my life and my favorite person in the world? He's working a ton. And there is a through line across many of his roles right now of, like...

older gentleman still got it still looks great looking back and reflecting on the relationships that he did not prize enough at the time like bad dad Harrison Ford this is central to his character on shrinking a character I love watching shout out Paul uh

This is present in 1923. This is very present in Dial of Destiny. This is like kind of the thing Harrison Ford is interested in doing right now. I think there's he's porting his life into his work right now. That seems clear, right? He's talked about this a little bit in interviews, but also like but but I'm what I'm the reason I mentioned that is because I'm actually like.

I'm here for that. I'm pretty compelled by watching him be like, this is a relationship I wish I had cared about. I know. I can't believe I got to watch Harrison Ford ride a peloton in this movie. That was great. How did you feel about when he had to show up shirtless in front of the cherry blossoms at the end and he was so clearly trying to give us hero torso? I thought he looked fucking great, as I always think. I was also going to say this for later, but let me just say now because we are on the...

Harrison Ford standing there shirtless at the end after transforming back into a man face. It is unforgivable.

You know what I'm going to say. I do know what you're going to say. It is unforgivable, Joanna. Unforgivable that Red Hulk's pants stayed on because he is not. This is his first transformation. How old is Harrison Ford? I believe 82. You want 82-year-old Harrison Ford to hang dong in a Marvel movie. Yes. Of course I want that. Do you want a Red Hulk? Yes. We've got Red Hulk. Give us Red Hulk. It is...

It is indefensible and illogical that his pants sit on because he's not Bruce Banner many transformations in preparing for this moment by wearing super baggy loose trousers to give him enough room to transform. Of course I agree with you. And he's not comics Hulk with his magic purple undie shorts that expand him. He should have shown.

The red Hulk. Do you want him just like knocking out groves of cherry blossom trees with his like red Hulk dong? We've got the tree trunks and we should have gotten a tree trunk. That's what you wanted. You know I'm right. Okay. So you wanted this like the X rated Marvel. Marvel went R. Now they need to give you X. Exactly. Is what you're saying. Yeah. Okay. That's what I'm saying. Do you disagree? We're waiting. We're waiting.

Here's another problem. We're just going out of order. Yeah, it's fine. I think this is fine. This is fine. Yeah. We'll talk about things as they come up. Red Hulk. Yeah. Yeah. Should we just stick with Red Hulk for a minute here? A pretty great special effect. That's fine. His face, they really made his face look like Harrison Ford. The face is great. Yeah. Here's the crucial problem with this, and it's not just, as you noted in our notes, Yeah.

Why premise the trailer around Red Hulk and then wait until the very end of the movie to give him to us? But more than that, I agree with that. More than that, I would say the movie is couched almost as like a mystery. What's going on with Ross? Let's get down to the root of it. And all of us watching at home, even if you hadn't picked up a comic in your life, Rims,

You saw a trailer and you're like, well, he's a Hulk. Well, he's trying not to be a Hulk because he's a Hulk. He's a Hulk. He doesn't know he's a Hulk, but he's a Hulk. Like that's, it was preposterous to make this movie a mystery around that when like that was the key. And I can understand. How could you not put that into your trailer? You want to get people into the- I completely understand that, but then you can't make it- Don't make it a mystery in the movie. The very end of your movie. And don't make us wait till the very end to see him transform and only do it once. I thought this was-

And not in a good way. I'm actually really. Not in the way that. Yes, exactly. The Red Hulk would have been. I'm really perplexed by this. Hulkito. But probably not Ito, right? I don't think so. Okay. No. Okay. I don't think so. No Ito whether or not he's transformed. No. No. Okay. Let's go back to some of the other properties that are meaningful precursors to this. Actually, on the Falcon Winter Soldier front quickly before we move on from that.

The Midnight Boys for years have been having a debate about whether, forget whether you love the shows, whether you enjoy watching them, whether you're compelled to watch them, whether the shows are actually essential before you see a film. And sadly, I think this was a victory for the you don't need to watch them camp because they sum up in just a few sentences that

what is Isaiah's backstory? How do Sam and Isaiah know each other? How do Sam and Joaquin know each other? Where did Sam get his armor? Why is it featuring vibranium? I'm thrilled to say the sentence, Jomie is right. That fills me with joy, but- Makes me sad. Not that he's right, but that he's right about this. No, but I think it was not the intention for that to be the case, but they have had to pivot to that

Now that they've heard from so many people, it feels like homework, it feels like homework, it feels like homework. They're like, shit, we can't make it so hard to feel like you can just stroll into a Captain America movie and watch him punch a Red Hulk. And so, like, wait. So, like, I think when you had something like WandaVision into Multiverse of Madness, that's essential. Right.

Or else you're not understanding what's happening with Wanda in that movie. And I think that was the earlier idea that it would just flow from TV show, you know, or, you know, to watch...

Kamala Khan, like all of that stuff, like that felt a bit more essential. And now they're just like, we can't do that anymore. We have to take the sort of Netflix to MCU approach where it's like, this is, this is, uh, these are the street level TV shows. And then these are the big movie moments, you know, because when we're going to have, um,

you know, get the bishop show up in Young Avengers. Like, is that going to be a TV show or that's going to be a movie? We're still, like, unsure. But, you know, that feels like something we need to have known. But they're going to try to make it so it doesn't feel that way. So is Jomie right now? Yes. Love you, Jomie. I'm glad that's true for you. But I don't think that was the original plan. I certainly don't think it was the intention, but it sucks that it's where we are. And, like, I worry that it then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy where, like...

once you start to concede that people are not watching or feel like they're behind, then it's like no matter how you recalibrate the volume and maybe what feels like it should be a show versus a movie and how these things relate to each other, it's like, oh, we'll just, yeah, no, we'll be able to like paper it over in a few lines. Flip side, I would say it opens up the door for wilder, weirder experimentation.

on TV when you get something like Agatha all along which doesn't need to you know people are like oh is Agatha going to show up in Fantastic Four or something like that and like she could but like I kind of like that that story is going to you know continue on into Vision Quest and that's where that story is going to live or like I like the idea that we've seen the end of Loki's story and we don't need to pull Loki back into the MCU we could just keep that in like the sort of TV space

Yeah. So he's sitting there, hands on the branches, watching everything just like the leader. Yeah.

But like something like Werewolf by Night, which is an experimentation that we really, really liked. Like I just like the idea of Marvel can play in those waters without feeling like it has to connect everything because connecting everything just became too burdensome. Yeah, I agree with that. So a little bit more intent about what belongs where and how to make all of those things feel still part of a connected universe, but also like...

We have planets in a solar system. We're not exclusively thinking about the shuttles between them. On the Falcon Front timeline, we do see on, I mean, we have that line from Sam about how he's been trying to get tourists to shut up for three years. So there's some math there. But we also get the date, April 2027, on that.

the celestial island invite and so we are set in time definitively it's never gone wrong for Marvel before when they put a very specific date on a piece of paper in a movie it's never gone wrong before okay this will be fine Ant-Man remember how Shang-Chi was a thing

I like that movie. Oh, I like that movie too. Yeah. That was just the most egregious, I think, sort of date thing where they sort of re-altered a date inside of the movie. That was my first time in a crowded room of people again. Oh. Yeah. But like, also, that feels like it happened a million years ago and we have not seen that character since. I had a similar, this movie was after Shang-Chi, but I had a similar response to like looking at the date for Eternals.

That was a long time ago. That movie came out in 2021? I don't think I would have said that. No. That is... Boy. Ant-Man you really just need for the bits because Torres loves Ant-Man. It annoys Sam because Sam and Scott. Good stuff. Yeah.

Black Widow, the thing to know about that is red dust, freeing the widows from the Red Room. Mind control, not sure if you've heard Joe, mind control is a thing in this movie and it takes everybody an incredibly long time to figure it out. Eternals, our guy, your guy, team it.

My favorite. Halted, thwarted, celestial. I think about them all the time. This was a funny, like, are we ever going to see, are they ever going to acknowledge? Why have we had so many MCU properties where no one acknowledges that there's a celestial, like, made birth and then frozen in the Indian Ocean? And that was a good and reasonable question. And of all the, like, let's kind of go and close the loop on this thing, this was one of the more... We're not closing the loop. We're opening the loop.

Exactly. One of the more seamless ways to do that while then in classic MCU fashion saying we can't just say we're done with it. We have to say. Yeah. Adamantium. They're mining for adamantium inside obviously the wah, wah, wah, wah, wah X-Men bat signal in a major, major way. I think even da, da, da,

When we're seeing the different uses of adamantium, the human skeleton under medical. Let's talk about X-Men. Why not? Shall we? Sure. Okay. Does this tell you then that we're going to see an origin story?

For Logan, because the way they're talking about adamantium here. Yeah. Or do you ascribe to, you know, having seen Beast at the end of the Marvels or whatever, that like this idea that we are going to have the mutants enter the space via incursion from other worlds? Yeah.

I don't know yet that anyone has satisfactorily answered the question of like, if the X-Men were here all along, how will they explain it? So I still lean multiverse, but... We did get that little riff when Kamala and her, inside of her must-watch show, you know, was towering up. I love that show. I... On the multiverse front,

You want to talk about the singer right now? Can we? Yeah, let's do it.

I don't say this lately, but I thought this was insulting. Genuinely insulting, the stinger of this movie. I have rarely seen you so salty. We haven't talked about this movie yet, so I just have... I was just taking your temperature reading the notes that you put together. When I got to that, I was like, oh, that was bad, bad. So there's no mid-credits. We wait for the post-credits. To be clear, waiting around and then having a meh stinger is not the insulting part. I actually love when you wait around and then they fuck with you and do a bit. I think that's great. Very charming.

This is actually, I think, connected to what you were saying a few minutes ago about Red Hulk and why make it a mystery. I think this movie consistently made the mistake of confusing what people in the movie know and what we as the audience know. And thinking that those two things have the same impact or import. Yeah. So...

The characters in the movie don't yet know that Thunderbolt Ross is going to become Red Hulk, but we do. And so it's a completely inert examination of trying to figure out what's happening with the pills and, oh my God, what's got... We know. We literally know. Can he change enough to not have a temper tantrum? Everybody sitting in the theater, everybody knows. So I had a similar reaction to...

Building toward the post-credit being a scene in the raft with Sam and the leader and... The others. The multiverse.

It's like, we fucking know. We're two phases into the multiverse saga. Yeah. The final note of your movie can't be, oh my God, we're in the multiverse and we're about to introduce you to characters from other worlds. First of all, it's just very odd that nobody is talking. I know the Avengers are not a thing right now. That's a part of this movie. Thunderbolt Ross would like and would not like Sam to reform the Avengers. Okay.

No, at no point has any word of the multiverse reached Sam. First of all, that's weird. But second of all, even if that's true, even if we can accept that that's true, Sam Wilson learning about the multiverse is not interesting to us because we know about the multiverse. So I just thought that was such a lame idea.

And a misread of what would be interesting to us. Okay, so before this movie came out, someone who's inside of the, does not work at Marvel Disney, but inside the industry was like, my prediction is they're going to put Doom as the stinger, Robert Downey Jr. as Doom as the stinger to get people's butts in seats for a movie that people don't seem that excited to see. Which is not, you know, and so if people come out of this movie and they're like, oh my God, our first look at Robert Downey Jr. is Doom. Right, then everyone would go see it. Do you think that would have been the move? No. No.

No. Not that. Yeah. No, I just think something... So what's the move? I don't know. I'm thrilled to say it's not my responsibility to make these movies. But what if it's a stump speech from Bucky? Yeah, yeah. I mean, something that played more directly into like the next thing. Into Thunderbolts, yeah. You know, like the era where we saw Thor's hammer and that got us excited for the thing that was next. Yeah. Was the great era of the Marvel singer. I do think we need to do next time, though.

Yeah. Because, yeah, we're so... Take us to the fundraiser, which takes us into Thunderbolts. Yeah, exactly. We're so burnt out on...

Charlize Theron is here. Harry Styles is here, etc., etc., plotting out to movies that we may or may not ever see in our lifetime. And so, yeah, I agree with you. I think it should have been next time on and we get some sort of Bucky thing. Or if you're going to do this and it's going to be the leader talking about the multiverse, you have to give us something specific inside of it. Like something. Yeah.

he's got to be doodling in his own shit on the walls of the raft, like the Fantastic Four logo. Something. He's got to draw the Baxter building. Like, there's got to be something more than this. There just has to be. Speaking of the leader. You know what I bet they wish they could have said? Yeah. Steve Rogers is coming back and Chris Evans is like, no. Oh, Chris Evans.

the leader, was in a movie called The Incredible Hulk. And inarguably, this is the most important precursor to this film, which I just think is a shock. This movie came out in 2008. It was retconned to be set in 2011. Ross, the Hulk Hunter, Gamma,

Betty, Samuel Stearns, the leader. The decimation of Harlem. Yes. This, if you had to say you can only pick one thing that was like, this was a spinoff and a continuation of. I mean, my instinct going into the movie would have been, of course, that thing would be Falcon and the Winter Soldier or Civil War or Endgame. And I think if you had to pick one thing, you would pick this, which is just one.

It just didn't have like, again, wrapping your arms around a property that didn't work and sort of bringing it into the MCU a la Thor the Dark World inside of Endgame, etc. That works if the thing you're doing is so rock solid that you can afford to use the juice that you have on this property to rehab something shaky that came before it. Yeah. Do you want to just talk about the leader here? Sure. I'm just saying that like,

This Captain America movie had too much to do on its own to bear the burden and responsibility of bringing Hulk stuff into continuity. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yes, we had had Thunderbolt Ross previously, but to bring Betty in, then to bring genuinely my guy, genuinely my guy, Tim Blake Nelson, absolute, not an abomination, but an abomination. Not a capital A abomination, but an abomination. So,

Tim Blake Nelson is the best. Yeah, he's great. He's the best. Oh, Brother Rotho, wonderful. Watchmen. Big film in the Rubin household. Incredible. Oh, Brother Rotho is like one of my top five favorite movies of all time. Like, I love Tim Blake Nelson. That's one of my dad's favorite movies. I would love to talk to your dad about... He thought you was a toad. Like, great stuff. Okay, Tim Blake Nelson, the best. Oh, man. This is...

Not only one of the worst, worst characters, poorly written, but

Worst character design. Horrible. We have seen. Horrible. Yeah. Outside of, I don't know what, the Green Lantern. You know what I mean? Like, what were we thinking at all with this? I'm so confused. Let's just go right into our character dives. Okay. We'll talk about the leader. We're going totally out of order now, but it's fine. We're hitting the natural segues when they pop up. Okay. Sorry. No, I don't know. So let's talk a little bit more about Samuel Stern's leader. I agree this looked

just utterly confounding, doesn't actually look like the comic book leader of

At all. Do you think Tim Blake Nelson sat in that makeup chair? Because it looked like all practical makeup and not special effects. Do you think he sat in that makeup chair and was like, I've made a huge mistake? I don't know. I think he was probably like, I mean, maybe. Or do you think he was like, I've been waiting for this. Or do you think he was like, I wowed them in Watchmen with a reflective mask on my face the whole movie, the whole series. All of the above. I don't know. I feel like. I can do this.

This is not dissimilar to the Betty thing where... So I actually think Incredible Hulk is slightly better than it's given credit for being. I agree. Like, when I watch that movie, I am not like, how is this not considered a top 15 MCU movie or anything like that? But I'm like, this is an enjoyable movie to watch. We got Blonsky back. We were all the better for it. We wanted Betty. She-Hulk, a great show. She-Hulk ruled. We wanted Betty.

People did. I don't want to ignore this fact or pretend like this is not the case. People did want the leader to come back. That has been a thing for a long time in MCU fandom. So the fact, the core, I want to make this distinction because the core, like you're saying, impulse to return to this overreaction

like still open story terrain that had not fully been mined is like not the problem. It's as you're saying, execution, the success of it, and also just like, did it fit and make sense here? And that with the leader was like something that I just could not stop bumping on. It's not just that we're like, okay, you know, are we going to get like intelligentsia and all the comics? No, of course. Like the MCU adapts and adjusts all the time. That's fine. For all the reasons we talked about earlier,

With like they're trying to do Winter Soldier, the political thriller, grounded, etc. Okay. Like right away the leader doesn't make sense in this movie. Immediately. In terms of the story they're trying to tell. Yeah. There's an incongruity there that I think would have been very, very difficult even with the best version of the character which we did not get to overcome. Yeah.

The leader as a character who's facing off against Red Hulk, a Hulk foe, of course.

medicine and hubris gone wrong. Body horror. Like all of that. That's a major complaint that people have with this movie is that it feels like a Hulk movie, which is not surprising because Marvel has been trying to smuggle Hulk movies because they don't have the rights. But why do it here? They don't have the rights to make a Hulk movie. Right? So they've made Hulk without, you know, Universal has the rights is a whole complicated thing. I did write a book about it. Um,

They can't make a solo Hulk movie. Hulk is market tested. Yeah. The most popular outside of Iron Man. Absolutely. You know, Spider-Man, blah, blah, blah. Hulk is such a popular character. And so they've been trying to figure out ways to make Hulk movies that are not Hulk movies. So you get, you know, he's in a Thor movie or like, you know, he's in the Avengers movies, but that's not. He's a friend from work. He doesn't say Hulk in it. It's not, it's not Planet Hulk the movie. Right.

It's allegedly a Thor movie, so you can get away with putting all the Hulk in there. You can have She-Hulk, which is a TV show. Like, that's its own other thing. You could have Red Hulk here. This is...

The arc of this movie is not Sam's. What did Sam learn on his journey here? The arc of this movie is Ross's. And so it's a Red Hulk movie. And I agree with you. It's like, because I mean, I do that here. I think they thought Sam Wilson is Captain America was weak. Yeah.

As a character. And that's their fault, not the character in the comics or the performer's fault. That's their fault. And so they're like, let's bolster it up by something that is a surefire hit, which is Hulk stuff. People love Hulk stuff. So we'll just make it a hybrid Hulk cap movie. And those are unlike Thor and Hulk on a planet that.

far, far away, those are not two great tastes that go great together. They just aren't. And so I think they thought it would make everything stronger to put Hulk in this. And in fact, it just makes everything feel more chaotic. Yeah, I think that's a great point. And I think there's like also this is a matter of like compounding exponentially, maybe an original sin, because I think for all of those reasons,

Red Hulk and Thunderbolt Ross are totally defensible to me and actually make sense.

Ross and Steve butted heads. Ross and Sam butted heads. The question of what Sam's philosophy and worldview for himself internally and then what he conveys to the people closest to him, Isaiah, Torres, to the world at large about how he interrogates or ceases to engage with the people he does not agree with.

Ross is actually a great figure for that. And then everything that Hulk has always stood for and Red Hulk with Ross has always stood for is like pretty potent. None of that actually makes the leader a compelling presence in a Sam Captain America movie because that's where you tip from Ross makes sense and Red Hulk makes sense into the leader makes sense in a Ross Red Hulk movie.

And that's not what this should be. So we've swung past the bounds of reason there into something that we can't contain. And then it's just a bad version of the character. And it looked weird. I mean, we love to talk about one of our favorite things to talk about across these properties is the villain who has a point. Genuinely, what are we supposed to think when the leader says,

Sorry, the buyer says, like, I'm the hero. I'm the hero. What are we supposed to make of that in this movie? That was such a terrible moment because I'm like, I don't know if this comes from a scene that was cut. Yeah. Yes. Because I think there's a lot of leader stuff that was cut, obviously, because we added a whole different other villain in reshoots. Right. There's a lot of Ruth stuff that was cut out of this movie also. And so you get these moments for them that are wholly unearned.

Like, I can understand why you would want to keep that line because I'm sure in some version of this movie, it really hit on something that you were working on, but I think they cut it out. And so then it just sounds, you just feel like, what? Right. Me? I'm the hero. Right. What? And it's kind of, and then again, it's compounded, I think, because he's calling Ross a monster, but the movie isn't. The movie is not presenting Ross as a monster. It's presenting Ross as a man who is

determined to pursue his own redemption through personal ties, which again could be interesting if done more effectively. What about the probabilities stuff? Like just the idea of the leader as a character who sees the probabilities and has potentially been in the shadows of the MCU for 16, 17 years? I don't want it. Well, once again, that's very like Hydra has been manipulating history since, you know, since the Red Skull, you know? Yeah. Tell everybody what you texted me.

What did I text you? Where was our guy, Arno? Oh, yeah. Where was Zola? Probably hanging out with our star. Zola? They went to Echo and there was all this like derelict equipment, but no AI Zola. And that was just like a real problem for me. It was a real problem for me. You longed for him. Your yearning tendrils were searching and seeking for AI Zola. We've mentioned Isaiah a couple of times. And I want to say, columnly innocent. Yeah.

He's just sensational as always. He's wonderful in this movie. Isaiah is far and away the best part of this movie. And in terms of like what I was saying, what I was accusing the movie earlier of, which is not giving us an emotional enough connection, my emotions were so wrapped up in you better get Isaiah out of jail right fucking now. Yeah, that was agonizing. That...

And he works. The movie could have stood more of him. I understand putting him in jail is like sort of the propulsive, this is what we have to do. We have to solve this so that we can exonerate him so that we can get him out. That makes sense to me sort of in a storytelling front. But just in terms of like the emotional richness of your movie. I agree. You should have used much more Isaiah. I agree. I agree completely. I think it's also connected still to the leader because Isaiah,

part of this actually like part of what I thought undermined the character is that he's supposed to be the guy who sees the probabilities and can outsmart everybody and knows where things are going and what's going to happen before they do so so I beg of you to do a bug cut please if only we could see the probabilities of knowing where the fucking bug was going to go I think this is just a piece of dust actually now I'm mistaking because you were like just like a cat a cat with a

piece of yarn. That was so funny. I don't know for continuity exactly where my hands were, but probably doing something like this. Resuming. The leader is banking on Sam going back for Isaiah. Yeah. And part of what is cool about

for Sam in this movie is that he is able to outsmart the leader multiple times, right? He is able to see the way he's being played, figure out what the leader is expecting him to do and then do something else. The leader has a couple moments in the movie where he goes, because he's so enraged that Sam Wilson has outsmarted him. I'm so disappointed that this is a fairly accurate impression. That's so disappointing to me.

Tim Blake Nelson, I love you. So that's impressive on the Sam front and makes us like awed by Sam. He's solving the case, but it undermines the leader if the whole thing is that he's supposed to be the guy who sees everything and he's got like the, all the yarn, right? Here's the skeleton of the better movie, right? Julia Sona, who's the, you know, director of the film, who's great and like,

When you hear him talk about this movie and you hear him talk about his inspirations for this movie, like, I want to see that movie. This is not that movie, but whatever the movie was in his mind and all of the very sophisticated references that he had, like, I would have loved to have seen that movie. It got lost in all the rest of this. But he was talking about how much he loves the idea of the leader as a villain for Sam because the leader is all...

someone who is all brain forward as a foil for Sam. Brain forward like the actual ripples of brain matter. He didn't

The interview that I read did not have him sort of following up on that. But when I was thinking about that, I was like, yeah, because Sam is the heart. Sam is the emotionally intelligent character. We met him. He is a counselor. He has been able to talk to Steve and other people about sort of like their emotions. And he is like in a very physician heal thyself, like in need of his own counseling sort of moment, which is what Bucky is able to do for him inside of this movie a bit. But the idea of like the head versus the heart,

That's fun and compelling. Like, what can outsmart the brain is, like, the emotional intuition and his empathy for Ross. He's like, I see you as a man just trying to be better. Like, conceptually, that's interesting to me. In execution, they didn't get there. Yeah. No, I think that's a fascinating observation. And I agree. Like, Sam's ability from those first interactions with Steve –

your bed feels like a marshmallow to like, well, what makes you happy and how quickly he is able to. And with Sam, I do think like part of what's, what makes him a wonderful character is that the heart and the mind work in lockstep with him because he is thoughtful and he is considerate and he takes the time. And this is something not a lot of people do, especially superheroes. He takes the time to learn about other people. And he,

he genuinely tries to understand the thing that they might want or need. So, yeah, I think I really like what you're saying to then take that out of the interpersonal realm into, like, well, why would... Because he is still bringing his counselor heart to, obviously, it's present there at the end with...

the appeal he makes to the negotiation. Yeah. It's there when he's talking to Joaquin at the end, but to also deploy that toward the leader paired with his intellect and his discerning assessment of the facts on the ground. And also then like the empathy and like, you can see how a version of that scene in the, in Echo one, which like,

If you're going to Camp Echo 1, like, it should be fucking awesome. It should be awesome. Those doors slam shut and the guards who walk by in the exactly timed sequence don't hear them. What? It was... That was bizarre. Sigh.

Why did they not hear the doors? I just don't understand. Anyway, and for him to walk around that room and not only look for clues and intel and grab the Ross folder and piece together everything that happened with the heart and be ready to go and interrogate the president and demand answers from him because he's actually looking for those clues. He's in Detective Sam mode, but also then to think, well, why would Samuel Stearns be doing these things and what has happened to him? That would have been interesting. Yeah.

It's not really what we got, though. Not what we got. And that's unfortunate. Anything else? You know, we were chatting about Isaiah. Let's go through some of Sam's relationships. We've covered a lot of this already. But on the Sam-Isaiah front, what else that we have not mentioned do we want to talk about here? I thought his physicality was really good. Like, sorry, you were asking about relationships, and I'm like, let's talk about physicality. But, like, you know, Carl Lumley, as this sort of, like, hulking figure. Yeah.

believable in like the boxing gym training sequence to me believable in the sort of like running away yeah uh you know being chased sequence to me like this is a big guy and to think about him as in his youth with the super soldier serum yeah to think about you know we didn't talk specifically you have them here in the doc you didn't talk specifically about the comic book yeah let's hit on let's hit some of the comics but like truth red white and black yeah fantastic run

Which is one of the best comic book runs that Marvel has ever done. Yeah. To the point where like I was so disappointed in Falcon and Winter Soldier that we didn't get more of that. I thought we were going to get like a ton of flashback sort of stuff and like

honestly they should have just done an isaiah like centric story like on its own that would have been amazing but that um the robert morales cal baker truth red white and black just just watching him in a way that i don't think we got fully in falcon the witcher soldier just like his powerful builds um but then it highlights other problems you have this in the notes elsewhere but they're like

the power scaling issue inside of this movie. I had this issue with Falcon and the Winter Soldier too. This is not a show that you and I covered together. But when Sam Wilson picks up the shield without the super soldier serum and is able to fling it around the same way that Steve did, that was so weird to me. And I feel like they don't know how to do cap shield choreography without...

that super soldier serum edge. So we're not seeing him like really just be a guy fighting. He's got this tech, he's got whatever. And even in the moments where they are trying to highlight that like he and this new Falcon are just guys. Steve has a bit of a corner on the, I can do this all day kind of like scrappy mentality. They haven't given Sam his version of that in a way that really works. Anyway, I wandered off the point, but like,

Yeah. Do you want to talk about the other comic book influences or what do you want to know? No, let's stick on that. I think on the serum front...

This was very central, obviously, to the television show and certainly is present across this movie, like, reminding us that Sam has not taken the serum, that Sam is not a super soldier in terms of what is coursing through his blood. And so, yeah, like, something like the training sequence at the gym with Isaiah and Sam, not only is it that nice shorthand to show us that, like, you know, their relationship gets off in the television show to a rocky start. Like, they have to work toward this place. And...

The great distinction in the nature of their power and what skills Sam uses to still be able to get that flag, I thought was really interesting and cool. I got a kick out of the moment at the end where Sam was like, Bucky is full of shit. I should have taken care of him. That was amusing. Genuinely the laugh of the movie for me. Very funny. Because it's like, Steve.

Isaiah, Buck, John Walker, the Flag Smashers, et cetera, et cetera. And that's the other thing, of course, with Thunderbolt Ross that does make sense to put him in a Captain America movie. His pursuit of the serum and the power of the serum, that obviously all connects. But certainly Isaiah, again, we would both really recommend checking out the comics if you haven't.

This was not his choice. This was not a thing he chose for himself. And so it's a horrible thing. And one of the things that I thought was really interesting as an idea inside of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier was Zemo, a lot of this is about Carly, Zemo kept hammering in the show this idea that you cannot separate super soldiers and the serum.

from supremacy and supremacist ideals. Yeah. And, you know, he's saying this, like, not just to Sam, but to Bucky. Yeah. Who also, again, did not choose to take the serum, right? Winter Soldier. Have you heard of it? And two congressmen. What an arc. Um...

And, you know, everything that we see then with John Walker and what unfolds in that film, which will be interesting to carry into Thunderbolts, like, the choice that Sam makes to not scoop up one of those vials when they're busting up the power broker's lab in Madripoor, like, tells us something important about Sam. And so I liked being reminded of that in this movie. And I...

I'm glad that we got not only the comedy of that, but also just the, you know, the reminders that this is something that makes Sam distinct. As is the case, though, across the film, I thought, like, something that could be a strength and at times was a strength then still got kind of sucked into the spiral that was happening elsewhere in the film because then I'm like, well...

But logically then, Kevlar weave aside in the conversation with Sidewinder or not. He can't fight a Hulk. Right. Well, that... It took him five minutes to beat Copperhead at the church in the beginning of the movie, but he's hanging with Red Hulk at the end. That just doesn't make sense. It just doesn't make sense. But also, practically...

why is he never in his suit? Like, why is he never geared up? And I know that he's like, yeah, this axe didn't kill me because I'm wearing Mithril, like, basically. Okay? But... Well, can I ask a question? He doesn't have the serum, so it doesn't make sense. I will say this. I only watched... I did not watch this movie twice. I only watched it once. My memory is that he wears the...

wildly unpopular white suit right at the beginning and then switches. No cowl though, so it was an immediate improvement. Yeah, but then switches to Copperhead slices it. Yeah. In the blue. Switches to the blue. I just thought that was funny when they were like, no, we're sticking by our white. No, we're not. Don't worry. No one liked it. I know there was a five month time jump, but this is three years after the, it's just like a long time to stay with it. Yeah. That was that bad. Another Isaiah moment that I just,

and found like so touching. When Falcon and the Winter Soldier, he speaks very, it's very emotional when he's sharing with Sam about his wife, about Faith and how she died when he was wrongfully imprisoned by his government for decades on end. And when he wore...

The wedding suit. And when they're arresting him, I'm going to cry. When they're arresting him and he's like, watch my suit. And then when Ruth brings him the dry clean suit, that's the kind of shit. There's beautiful stuff here. That's the kind of shit that is like, that's Captain America to me. You know what I mean? And I'm just like, I've never gotten emotional over dry cleaning before, but I definitely did when she showed up with his clean suit. I was just like, oh man. I know. That was just lovely. And I thought also the...

And that's just, that's tiny. That's three tiny beats inside of a movie. And that's what I'm saying is like, when you're thinking that way, you know, emotionally. Yes. When crafting a story, that's three tiny beats that has us tearing up here. Yeah. They could have easily done it with Betty and Thunderbolt Ross. No question. Usually.

They try. They're like, have you seen the cherry blossoms? I do love a cherry blossom. I also. Being from the mid-Atlantic, yeah. I was going to say, in San Francisco, there's a beautiful cherry blossom festival in Japan town every year. And I got really excited when they were, when he was negotiating with the Japanese leader and there were cherry blossoms everywhere. I was like, oh, cherry blossoms. And I didn't put it together. Of course, in D.C., we're going to come back to the cherry blossoms. Of course. Yeah.

But like, there's just, I don't know. I really wanted this to be better. I know. It is like seeing that there are these beautiful moments, it makes the failure to nurture them and support them and tend them in full even more disappointing. Yeah.

I also did, I found the, the, the rapport between Isaiah and Joaquin to be like very cute. The pulling off, again, not, yeah, it's because we need to introduce the phone as like a plot element, which was whatever, but just the pulling the plastic off. It's like, I just, you know, I wanted,

And like, what's airdrop? That was all really cute. Speaking of Joaquin. You called him in our notes a fanboy and it made me think a lot about Kamala or Scott. You know what I mean? We love it inside of the MCU when a hero gets like, Captain America, thanks for thanking me. He's like, I know you. Oh, man. Taurus is just so excited, you know? And it is...

We have the history between them from the television show. And in terms of Sam's arc and his evolution to go from being a partner for Steve to a guy who now has his partner in Torres was like an effect is an effective way to show us the evolution of his character, the passage of time, the fact that he has assumed a different mantle and then is ready to pass his mantle of Falcon on to somebody else. And I think also, like you said, just Danny Ramirez is fantastic.

quite a charming performer. What did you make of the like overall sort of shtick though with him in the movie? Did it, was it ever effective for you? Always effective? Never effective? Did it kind of vary? I thought he always sort of like bumped up the energy of a scene. Yeah.

This movie, I think its biggest crime is how often I found it to be very boring. Yes, quite a boring movie. And just like dull. And so he was always like bringing a little bit of zest. Yes. Which I appreciated. What didn't work for you? No, I...

I also appreciated the injection of levity and charm and just kind of like wonder. Yeah. You know, like a little bit of a spirit of wonder and awe because the things that are happening are extraordinary. Yeah. And actually part of what, I think part of the risk of a cinematic universe that has grown this big and gone on for this long, like part of what you risk courting is mistaking the astonishing for the mundane and the routine. Mm-hmm.

And like it should, you should actually have a character like Torres, like the new Falcon who even a few years into his relationship with Sam is like,

holy shit. We did it. Yeah. And like, you know, the fact that they're in this kind of like very sterile, generic layer or whatever. But like when he saw the leader's head and he was like, damn, I was like, we need that. We need more energy. When they go to Echo and they, and he has to sort of manually break the door open. Yes. Were you hoping that he was saying, he would say, I'm counting on you, red, white, and blue in an Air Force One reference? Yeah.

I was re-listening to our Harrison Ford screen drafts episode. And I had forgotten that I vetoed you on Air Force One when I found out that it was one of Trump's favorite movies. And I was just like, veto, we're done here.

There were plenty of other wonderful Harrison Ford films to consider, so it was totally fine. What did you think about Sam, given that this question of will Sam restart the Avengers is something that Sam is thinking about inside of the movie? What did the relationship between Sam and Joaquin tell you about how Sam thinks about

training somebody or like the burden of not just being a hero but being a leader yeah because he obviously like early on he's like you're not ready for this right yeah he is I think charmed by how eager Joaquin is to get out into the field when Joaquin is participating in the Jackal Whiskey mind control fight out in Celestial Island and he is not actually as

as prepared as he should be has not received and does not until he's in his hospital bed the like this is how you're this is how like momentum works when you're in the wings surfing on a missile was not ready to surf I thought Sam surfing a missile was cool you know and I did like a lot of the action like I thought the way that Sam Sam's cap but he still got his falcon wings and the way that they incorporated the wings and flight into the physicality of his action sequences I thought was

was pretty cool and interesting visually to watch. But like, you know, when Sam is sitting there in the hospital bed at the end and he's like, it's time to give you a lesson now. And also I'm going to like invite you to be in the Avengers, which seemed a little bit quick to me. But what did their relationship tell you about how Sam thinks about like his particular responsibility and making sure everybody else is also ready for the fight that awaits? Because part of what he voices to Bucky is like, this is much bigger than me. Like this is a lot to carry. Yeah. Steve thwarted two alien invasions, you know, all that sort of stuff. I'm a little worried.

Because I'm worried that this movie, like, sets him up to be a leader of Avengers. And I worry that Marvel, Disney is never going to let him be the leader of the Avengers. Not because he's a black Captain America and we can't have that. But more like that character hasn't hit the way that they wanted him to. Right. And so...

you know, to, if let's say Thunderbolts hits or Fantastic Four hits and in a new iteration of the Avengers, we have different options for leadership. Like, I don't think it's going to be Sam Wilson. I don't know. And so that, that like his whole arc inside of this film as, as flimsy as it was, I worry is not going to,

pay out in the future of the franchise. Yeah. I'm curious how much they're still assessing. I mean, Avengers Doomsday is not that far away. It's just not that far away. So they have a lot to figure out very quickly. On the Thunderbolts front, we've already talked about how much we both enjoyed that Bucky Sam scene. Is there anything else you want to say about it, about that Bucky cameo, about James Buchanan Barnes?

Running for Congress. Despite being the Winter Soldier and having publicly executed over years. And I would point you to our current political climate. Sure, but I don't think Bucky's a guy who would be leaning into that. That's the difference. I think we're going to have to see what his motivation is for doing this because it's unclear right now. Yeah. It's very interesting. But perhaps if you have enough...

of stubble on your jaw. He looked just so great. He looked so great. Boy, I mean, he always looked great, but he really looked great. Speaking of looking great, we've hit a lot of the Red Hulk, Thunderbolt, Ross stuff, but Harrison Ford looked great. I'm not sure if I've said that yet. What did you think of this performance from Harrison Ford as Thunderbolt, Ross, Red Hulk in phase five of the MCU? What did you think?

I liked what he has said in interviews about like the idea of picking up the mantle from William Hurt. Like, I think there's like a personal degree to that of like, this is an actor I respected and I am sort of,

you know, honoring his legacy by taking over this role. Yeah. If that were not the case, it would really seem to me like someone was holding Harrison Ford hostage to make him make this movie. Or that he has severe gambling debts or like those little death trap planes of his are not going to buy themselves. I liked when Amanda sent a big picture. She's like, aviation is just like a really expensive option.

I'm just like, I don't know why. Oh, man. Otherwise. I mean, he's always been our franchise king. He's always been our IP king. Obviously, his tortured relationship to being in those movies has, I think, slightly evolved in his recent years. But, yeah, this was like...

I don't know. I had a lot of dissonance with this, where on the one hand, I thought this was kind of, I say this with a lot of love for him, kind of consistent, actually, with a certain tone of his recent performances. Again, that kind of contemplative, reflective, I'm looking back at my mistakes from earlier years. But yeah, just like, we have to give Harrison Ford one of the true, all-time genuine greats

We've just got to give him more, folks, than this. Counterpoint. He could do less. Be in fewer things? Yeah. You love him in Shrinking. That's great. Does he need to be in a Paramount Plus show and a Marvel movie and everything else? Yes. And until you watch 1923, don't you dare ask that question. You're going to have to trade me. You know, I still haven't seen the Landman finale. What? What?

I got you kind of did when during the Super Bowl, they did an ad. Actually, I was going to make a joke about how they did an ad during the Super Bowl. That was basically like, do you like being able to have your baby in a hospital? Oil. That's kind of the Landman finale, sort of. And it was also around a lot of global dreads. What else on the on the Ross front? We've talked about Betty. We've talked about the history between Ross and Sam. Anything you want to say about Prime Minister Ozaki?

What a thrill for Shogun Hive. Great. Oh, my God. Talk about handsome. Very handsome. Love him. Not a very interesting part for a very good actor. Yeah. But very handsome. Would be nice to give him a little bit more to work with here. Let's see. What else? Gamma pills. Root. Leader. Oh, red lollipop for Hulk. You think CR would have been like, just give this guy some zines. Zins. Zins. What are they called? Zins.

Fouches. Sins. Call them zines next time you see them. You into the zine scene? I know Chris really likes them and sometimes I send him articles about it. Zines? Zines? My favorite M. Night Shyamalan movie is Zines. I'll send Chris articles sometimes and he's like, I've read it. It's like when you send me a TikTok and I'm like, I've seen the reel. So anything else on the Sidewinder front before we get to Ruth? Yeah.

I just thought this was a bizarre waste of the Serpent Society when this was not the Serpent Society at all. It's just like, dude who is involved in a plot and wants to be paid for it. That's what Seth Volker and Sidewinder did in this movie. It just feels like the vestigial remains of a different movie. Very annoying. Do you think we'll see more? Will Sidewinder be back? No. Okay. It's hard to argue. Ruth, why was this character in this movie?

Because they wanted a widow. They wanted a... So that's really because we just like we got to hit every, we get every parallel Winter Soldier that we possibly can. Yeah. That's just, that's just very tough. But they severely cut back her role. Yes. They cut Rosa Salazar out of this movie. The actress Rosa Salazar out of this movie. And the character of Agent Taylor is... This was also so weird. Sharon Carter.

It's our Sharon Carter parallel and she's just hardly used. That actress was really fun. She was so funny in the Mindy Project. Like that actress can be great. And this is like a meaningful character in Sam's comics canon. And it's just like a nothing, absolute nothing nonsense. Yeah, this was all very weird. I thought with Ruth it's like, okay, because Sam and Layla have history in a relationship, maybe the movie, the filmmakers think like,

Well, because there's a personal connection there, that can't be, even though she's Ross's secret service agent, that can't be the person who's like in Ross's camp who says, actually,

Sam and Joaquin are right because she'd be predisposed to think that. So we need someone who was initially impartial and Ruth can achieve that. And obviously they're, you know, updating the canon to shift from changing the comics canon to make her a widow in the film. But just like not. I thought this was a genuinely terrible performance. And I...

Think Shera Haas has been good in other things. And this was just like a really a real mismatch of a performer and a property. I did like the physicality of her, though, because like she's so tiny. And so like watching her fight was kind of was fun. Yeah.

But this was a miss. I just thought the movie was so crowded, considering how short it is. This was part of what contributed to the sense of really being heavily edited and reworked. Yeah. When you remove the credits, it's like an hour and 45-minute movie. You've got three villains with Red Hulk, Leader, and Sidewinder. And then you have all of these heroes or swing votes. This is Spider-Man 3. Like, what are we doing?

What are we doing? Just too many characters. And so Ruth was a real like, we just have too many people. But again, they like majorly cut her out, I think because she wasn't working. And once again, this is not against the actress who is the star of Unorthodox and was quite good in that. So like, it's not about the actress. It's about the way the role is written or the match of her energy and Marvel or whatever it is just didn't work. And so they had to like,

They cut her way back. This is a strange casting misfire from Marvel, which usually doesn't make errors like this. So, yeah. Should we do some Easter eggs before we go? Let's do it. There were actually quite a few fun ones. Any favorites, Jo? I think the Ross mustache. Yeah. It was pretty great. It was genuinely good stuff. It was pretty great. In the largely misguided, you know, opening stretch of newsreel, montage, catch-up footage, the like. Yeah.

That's the thumbnail, guys. Similar to the White Lotus thumbnail from last night. But angry Thunderbolt Ross, like having a conniption with his mustache. And then also we get the mustache in some of the family photos, the Photoshopped photos, which is also delightful. I think my favorite is Mr. Blue, which is the Trigger song. Mm-hmm.

Mr. Blue was, of course, the codename in that was Stearns' codename in Incredible Hulk, Mr. Green, Mr. Blue. So that was fun. I liked that. You know, actually, on the photo front in the Sam Joaquin hangout office space, I did get I did have a little pang in my heart when we saw the photo of Sam and Riley.

Like, I really liked that that was there. I felt glad that that was there. And, you know, Sam's original wingman. There's also a picture of his sister and the family boat. And we have, like, a lot of different things in the space there. But it was great. It was great to see Riley. I liked that. Given that this is essentially a Hulk movie, would it have pleased you if, as had been rumored, Amadeus Cho had been in this movie? So the speculation, the answer is yes, it would have pleased me. He is currently in

if anyone's watching the animated series, Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, he is in that. Yeah. The speculation is that he's the pill guy, right? That he's Dunphy's pill guy. That's who Dunphy has. Dunphy Demolition Man, Dennis, looking into the pills. So that would be, that would have been the Amadeus Cho role. And do you think that you would have seen him on the other side of the phone at some point if they were going to do that? Were they going to introduce him? Unless they're going full like White Lotus, you just have to. So,

suss out whose voice it is on the other end. That's a preview for next week's White Lotus. Exciting. Yeah, that would have been fun. I like Amadeus Cho. I love Amadeus Cho. Yeah, me too. Roxxon Bleach. Sure. Always great to get a Roxxon. I thought when you were going to say Hulk, like Thunderclap. Thunderclap is great. Also some Sonic Cannons.

What did you think? You're a big sports fan. What did you think of all the Miami gear? We got some, some hurricanes gear, some heat gear. You were clocking all of that. I saw a commercial.

While watching SNL 50 last night. Yeah. I very rarely watch commercials, but I was forced to while watching SNL 50. Yeah. And there's a whole Duke UNC joke commercial. And I was like, because I'm watching White Lotus. There you go. Now I understand why this is such a big deal. And I felt very educated. You're the best. I love this journey for you. Will you watch a Duke UNC game? No. No. Why would I? But I like to know.

And now I know. I love that. I love that for you. Okay. Any other favorite Easter eggs? No. All right. Anything else that you'd like to say about this movie? I wish it had been better than it was. It wasn't as bad as it might have been.

I'm still really excited for Daredevil and Thunderbolts and Fantastic Four. Same. And I'm excited to see Sam and more stuff. Like, I just, this, Sam really deserves, Sam deserves more than this. He did, and I was so confused when they announced this movie right off the end of Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which, again, I did not think was very successful.

They're like, and now we're making a cat movie. And I was like, I wanted them to take more time to figure out what they were doing with Sam. Even though that was like many years ago, I still wanted them to like, I would have loved to have seen Sam and other things before we got this movie. This just felt like the wrong time or a misguided effort to...

re-reintroduce him as Captain America. I think, like, for me, with the show...

With the obvious, notable, and important caveat of the finale, which was a really bad episode of television, my issues with Falcon and the Winter Soldier, the show, are not Sam-centric. They're like everything with the Flag Smashers and the Power Broker and how convoluted and naughty the plot got with that stuff. I thought generally, like, Sam and Bucky and Sam and Isaiah in that show were... Actually, I really enjoyed all of that. So, um...

And I think that show is – I think will rise in estimation actually in comparison to this movie, which is maybe faint praise. But – I mean, yeah, that's something that – I mean, I think you rewatched it and Steve was like, I rewatched Falcon with a Shoulder. Like, we were too hard on him. Like, were we? But let's – how does – what does it do to you watching that movie knowing that Rhodey is a Skrull? Watching that show knowing that Rhodey is a Skrull, that whole show? I mean, you know, I just –

I just can't. I still just can't get over all. I mean, he's only has a couple scenes, but like I did have, I did have a secret invasion thought while watching this. Cause it's like, you know, there's just no acknowledgement of like who Ross beat. Like, is it, is it president Ritson? Like, we don't know, but I think they're just pretending that Ritson did not exist and that secret invasion did not happen. And that's fine. And probably good. Here's my final. Yeah.

stance on this? Is it about Turkish delight and Zemo? Captain America, colon, Brave New World, colon, better than Secret Invasion. Planet Dude!

Okay. Thank yous. Thank you to our holiday crew here today, Steve Allman and John Richter. Just the best. Yeah. We have been in this very room with these two people for so many hours over the last three days. One of the true low points for all of us was parting ways at like 7 p.m. on Friday, Valentine's Day, and asking if we needed to move stuff, and John saying, nope, the next people back in this room...

It's us. It's us. On President's Day. It's us, guys. And here we are. So thank you to Steve and John. They're the best. Thank you, as always, to Arjuna Ramgopal, legend icon, Jomi Adeneron on the socials, crushing it. Next up for us, Yellow Jacket, season three, episode three on Friday. White Lotus over on Prestige. You're covering Severance over on Prestige as well. And you're doing double Lotus on Prestige. Until next time, Joanna.

Just remember, if there's one thing you can take with you, it's this. Lose the mustache or lose the election.