Speaker 1: Warning.
Speaker 2: This podcast contains spoilers for the finale of Miss Marvel,
Speaker 2: for the finale of Boys season three, and for all
Speaker 2: of The Stranger Things season four, So be warned. If
Speaker 2: you haven't watched any of that stuff, please watch it
Speaker 2: and come back because it's a fun episode and I
Speaker 2: think you'll like it, but we don't want to spoil you.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 2: My name is Jason Sepsi, and welcome ext to a
Speaker 2: Vision the Crooked podcast where.
Speaker 1: We dive all the way down to the.
Speaker 2: Upside down, crawling up the ladder and then falling down
Speaker 2: as gravity reverses it to your favorite shows, movies, comics
Speaker 2: of pop culture. Today's episode, we're gonna such Stranger Things
Speaker 2: and the previously on we're gonna go to the airlock
Speaker 2: where we're gonna talk about Boys, the Bowl Please season three,
Speaker 2: and the Ms Marvel finale. And also we're going to
Speaker 2: take a victory lap. Who am I going to take
Speaker 2: a victory lap with? I'm going to take a victory
Speaker 2: lap right now with the Comics Encyclopedia, the number one
Speaker 2: comics talker. She's writing, she's writing for outlets, she's writing
Speaker 2: her own comics. She's a creator, a producer, and an
Speaker 2: all around genius of nerd stuff. Please welcome to the stage,
Speaker 2: Rosie Night.
Speaker 3: Hello. Wow to be introduced like that by the Jason conception, imagine.
Speaker 1: Imagine who could have dream? Rosie? How are you?
Speaker 3: I'm good, I'm happy to be a a wild day
Speaker 3: with that MS Marvel finale coming, my god, like that,
Speaker 3: and then nobody was expecting it. And we just coming
Speaker 3: off the boys and we are the things.
Speaker 1: We get into that we write.
Speaker 3: We need to make t shots, you know, like a
Speaker 3: the Magni. I was right, and now we will get
Speaker 3: into that.
Speaker 1: But first let's get into Stranger Things.
Speaker 2: Okay, Stranger Things season four, Uh, creative of course by
Speaker 2: the the Duffer Brothers, starring Winoda Ryder, David Harbor, Milly,
Speaker 2: Bobby Brown, the the incredible Stretchable Finn Wolf Hart Got Madrazo,
Speaker 2: my good friend Dustin, I love him so much, and
Speaker 2: of course the rest of them, including Myahawk, jo Keery,
Speaker 2: Charlie Heaton, Sadie Sink Hope you're doing well, Max. Uh,
Speaker 2: No recap to speak of, but let's just you know,
Speaker 2: our good friends. They faced off against Vecna from different
Speaker 2: locations Nevada, Russia over in Hawkins.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: And they did it.
Speaker 2: They it was a multi part plan to lure Vecna
Speaker 2: into Max's memories. UH eleven chipped in, of course over
Speaker 2: in Russia, our buddies chipped in by when Joyce realized, hey,
Speaker 2: hive Mind, I recognize those monsters. We can help them
Speaker 2: by we can help them weaken the enemy, because if
Speaker 2: we hurt these hive mind creatures, it.
Speaker 1: Will it will hurt everything. And it was fantastic.
Speaker 2: And I'll tell you as I was rewatching it this weekend,
Speaker 2: I the thing part of what why I liked it
Speaker 2: so much is seasons one, two.
Speaker 1: Three are good.
Speaker 2: I really I like them as well, but especially in
Speaker 2: the early seasons I'm not gonna say they felt disposable,
Speaker 2: but it felt like it was, you know, it was
Speaker 2: so nostalgia based and call that based that I was
Speaker 2: like that, it felt like what is here that is
Speaker 2: just of this show and what.
Speaker 1: The answer was the characters.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Now in season four we've gotten to the point
Speaker 2: where the nostalgia you know, we had these great moments
Speaker 2: as in this like extended fight against Vekna that was
Speaker 2: like operatic. It was operatic in the sense that, like everybody,
Speaker 2: every emotional moment, whether it's Joyce and Hopper, you know,
Speaker 2: Hopper finally like telling Joys like how he feels and
Speaker 2: kissing her with a mouth that hasn't been brushed.
Speaker 3: In as.
Speaker 2: Because he's been in like in a prison, eating like
Speaker 2: bed bugs and maggots and who lost those what It's like,
Speaker 2: it's these moments where these characters who were always great
Speaker 2: get to like create these mini loops of nostalgia from
Speaker 2: within the very own series. And that's on top of
Speaker 2: the nostalgia of all the callbacks to the pop culture
Speaker 2: references and things that were happening at the time and
Speaker 2: like and you know, like uh, textures from from Nightmare
Speaker 2: on ELM Street, h Spielberg stuff, Yeah, all that stuff.
Speaker 2: And then on top of that the nostalgia of, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm getting to hang out with these characters that I
Speaker 2: legitimately think are great, and we're getting all these emotional
Speaker 2: payoffs of them finally like just coming clean with each
Speaker 2: other about how they feel. And then on top of
Speaker 2: all of that, after four seasons, we now have, as
Speaker 2: we said in previous episodes, like a real world that
Speaker 2: has rules that we kind of know the shape of it,
Speaker 2: just like just like Joyce being like, oh, Hi've bind
Speaker 2: like as a callback, setting up a.
Speaker 1: Rule of the world so we know how it works.
Speaker 2: All of that stuff is great, like all the popa
Speaker 2: reveals all like the the mind Flayer flesh out. All
Speaker 2: that stuff is just great and I really had a
Speaker 2: great time.
Speaker 1: Oh my, sorry about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that Saul super regis a sawl just
Speaker 3: pop something. And the thing that I think is a
Speaker 3: really good point the characters have a history now, like
Speaker 3: we know them, we care about them. It's about the
Speaker 3: world building has grown alongside them. But something else that
Speaker 3: you said that really spoke to me. I definitely agree.
Speaker 3: Like seasons one into a cal but season three was
Speaker 3: where I felt like the characters started to be on
Speaker 3: journeys that I really really cared about, like Max and
Speaker 3: Eleven having that friendships kind of building in the mall
Speaker 3: and everything. I felt like that was really great from
Speaker 3: that season. I loved Daker Montgomery as Max's brother. I
Speaker 3: feel that was such a great inclusion and that really
Speaker 3: added these emotional stakes. To me. It did something that
Speaker 3: I think we're going to talk about with the boys
Speaker 3: a lot this season. It did something that I think
Speaker 3: the best versions of these shows can do using sci
Speaker 3: fi and horror as a space to explore trauma because
Speaker 3: so many of the reasons that we're drawn to horror
Speaker 3: and we're onto these grotesque, gory things, whether it's classic
Speaker 3: eighties style like Nightmare on Elm Street or like if
Speaker 3: we're into really really bleak like Hostel style gore, Like
Speaker 3: a lot of it comes from a place of wanting
Speaker 3: to explore that stuff safely. So I think it's really
Speaker 3: cool when these shows take the time to do that.
Speaker 3: And obviously that's what Vecna's playing on here is like
Speaker 3: the notion of trauma, and then how do you beat
Speaker 3: that is by healing, is by personal journey, is by
Speaker 3: coming clean, you know, and we get really cool moments here.
Speaker 3: I wrote a really fun piece at Nerdict about putting
Speaker 3: each of the characters into like a D and D class,
Speaker 3: and I did so much research, and like, one of
Speaker 3: the ones that I felt like is really strong here
Speaker 3: is is Nancy as the fighter, Because yeah, she might
Speaker 3: not be like a main stage but every time she's
Speaker 3: there and you need her, she is there with that
Speaker 3: shotgun shooting Vecner, I.
Speaker 2: Love nothing more in any show, story book, whatever. Then
Speaker 2: gearing up for the final fight, I just love that
Speaker 2: shit like Monster Squad as a great one of those
Speaker 2: home alone Like there's there's so many great Commando there's
Speaker 2: great versions of this. And I'll tell you what man
Speaker 2: Stranger things with Nancy pumping that shotgun and buying it, like.
Speaker 1: At the store buying it, that.
Speaker 2: Was an absolutely like top level gear up scene.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was just like so excited, you know what
Speaker 3: you actually speak to something I think is part of
Speaker 3: why season four has been received this way, right, A
Speaker 3: lot of the stuff that happens in this season feels
Speaker 3: like they are earning and adding to the tropes and
Speaker 3: the cannon rather than just doing a trope because you've
Speaker 3: seen it elsewhere. Like you said that gearing up scene,
Speaker 3: people are gonna put that alongside famous gearing up scenes.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 3: They didn't just do it because other movies do it,
Speaker 3: and I think as well, like I have just because
Speaker 3: this is this has been like my entire timeline for
Speaker 3: the last like since the show dropped. I mean, I've
Speaker 3: never seen a character come in and gain the absolute
Speaker 3: obsessive fandom of Eddie Munson Joe Quinn as Eddie.
Speaker 2: Talk to Joe, talk to Dojak about it, right, Like
Speaker 2: I mean that dojah.
Speaker 3: Please look at him without the wig. It's not the
Speaker 3: same Eddie.
Speaker 2: Eddie, he's a good looking guye did you see the
Speaker 2: video of him really playing Master of PoCA.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he played. He played guitar, and they asked him
Speaker 3: that when he was one of the things they asked
Speaker 3: him when he did the show, you know. And and
Speaker 3: to me to see that character represented something that I
Speaker 3: think has been at the fringes of Stranger Things for
Speaker 3: a really long time, but in this series hit on
Speaker 3: in a really really deep way, which is that notion
Speaker 3: of being othered and being the outsider.
Speaker 1: It's all these outsiders that yeah.
Speaker 3: And Eddie brings them together in this way that is
Speaker 3: completely selfless. And when you first meet him, you're like, okay,
Speaker 3: it's the aies, he likes Metallica, Like is he a jock?
Speaker 3: But then he has a do o back patch, so
Speaker 3: I was like, he's probably a good guy. And then
Speaker 3: but like he's actually this incredibly generous soul who's kind
Speaker 3: of constantly fighting against the evil of Hawkins, which is
Speaker 3: not just about the upside down, it's also about people's perceptions.
Speaker 3: It's about this satanic panic kind of stuff. So I
Speaker 3: think they did so much interesting stuff here, and also
Speaker 3: I know nothing should ever be like just to set
Speaker 3: up the next season, but this does set up some
Speaker 3: really interesting stuff with Will and Eleven that to me,
Speaker 3: I feel like was like hinted at from the first season.
Speaker 3: But I feel like we might really get to see
Speaker 3: come to fruition in the next season. So I'm I
Speaker 3: would be most happy to see to see those two
Speaker 3: have a little team up.
Speaker 2: I love the the like the little miniarc of Mike
Speaker 2: being like, yeah, you know Eleven, you know obviously, you know,
Speaker 2: like we're with We've been through so much together and
Speaker 2: I like you so much, and then she's like love whatever, love,
Speaker 2: and then like.
Speaker 3: I can't even write it on the floor.
Speaker 1: I can't even write it on the floor.
Speaker 2: And then finally, like he he pays it off while
Speaker 2: everybody else is paying it off, and you get that
Speaker 2: wonderful moment where he admits how he feels, you know,
Speaker 2: he still feels that way.
Speaker 3: You know, shouting out your little buddy. I think something
Speaker 3: that's been really cool as well is to see Dustin
Speaker 3: essentially go from like the comedy relief to being the
Speaker 3: true leader of the party. Yeah, like that his his
Speaker 3: pop culture knowledge and references. That is now his armory.
Speaker 3: It's kind of like us. It's like that's what he
Speaker 3: can pull from to know stuff. He doesn't drop it
Speaker 3: to be cool. He that is how he solves mysteries.
Speaker 3: That's how he solves problems. You know, he's the inventor,
Speaker 3: the artificer. I thought I have always loved Dustin, but
Speaker 3: I was very happy for that journey and I'm really
Speaker 3: excited to see that because Mike used to be the
Speaker 3: kind of like, you know, go to leader. But I
Speaker 3: would say Dustin is really that.
Speaker 1: I loved him.
Speaker 2: I loved him, you know in the uh Luwer Away,
Speaker 2: the demo bats mission with Master Puppets and eighty Months
Speaker 2: and on Guitar Light like rip to my guy of
Speaker 2: how like delight there's fucking demons like around. We could
Speaker 2: die at any moment, and he's just like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is he and he's like this is sick,
Speaker 1: this is sick. That was just absolutely delightful.
Speaker 2: And I'll just say like I was a little bit
Speaker 2: as so as a as a reformed guitar player myself
Speaker 2: who went through a pretty heavy metallica phase uh and
Speaker 2: used to hang out with metal heads. The big thing
Speaker 2: as I'm sure Eddiemunson would tell you. With metal is
Speaker 2: it's all downstrokes that right hand picking technique. You know,
Speaker 2: your hand, you know, moves up and down right, So
Speaker 2: like the more efficient way to like do like a
Speaker 2: is to go you know down up, down, down, you
Speaker 2: know like that. But in Metal, that's wrong. Metal is
Speaker 2: all downstrokes. Metal is all like punching down on the
Speaker 2: ground again and again and again. And I was a
Speaker 2: little disappointed that no like reporter, no journalist was like,
Speaker 2: so okay, Joseph Quinn, great incredible video of you playing
Speaker 2: Master Pubs. Are you doing all downstrokes as you were
Speaker 2: supposed to do?
Speaker 3: Joseph Quinn, please send Johns's on a postcard that straight vision.
Speaker 3: We want to know. Come on here and show us.
Speaker 3: Was it all downstrokes? We need to know that people
Speaker 3: want to know.
Speaker 2: Setting up for season five, which hopefully will not be
Speaker 2: spoiled by Legos this time.
Speaker 1: We can dream.
Speaker 2: Well, I just we should say so that's the Doffer
Speaker 2: Brothers were a little miffed because some plot stuff from
Speaker 2: season four was spoiled by Lego, which joined the club like.
Speaker 1: It happens to Star Wars.
Speaker 2: Strange, fantastic beast stock are strange, many many properties have
Speaker 2: been spoiled by legos. But I am ben what's gonna
Speaker 2: happen with Max. All of that stuff like going like eleven,
Speaker 2: uh searching like.
Speaker 1: Her mind is going to be a big part of it.
Speaker 3: And I think that as well, Like the I think
Speaker 3: so from the outset, if we look at the D
Speaker 3: and D stuff, which has always been really key to this,
Speaker 3: Like you know, Will, I think was always their wizard
Speaker 3: right and Eleven was a more generic like magic user
Speaker 3: was how Mike saw her, but she's obviously a mage.
Speaker 3: I think the end with Will's like connection to Vector Veckner,
Speaker 3: I actually think we might see him kind of take
Speaker 3: on like a good Hannibal reference, but like a Will
Speaker 3: Graham like m Path style superhero. Well, he can hunt
Speaker 3: down Vecna, he can team up to l and get
Speaker 3: to have his.
Speaker 1: For those of you hero moment for those of.
Speaker 2: Us, that's a reference to Will Graham from the Thomas
Speaker 2: Harris Silence of the Lamb's novel Red Dragon is the
Speaker 2: one from and then adapted later by Michael Mann and
Speaker 2: Manhunter and then later became a series.
Speaker 1: And Will Graham is just.
Speaker 2: He's a fascinating character, because basically the whole thing with
Speaker 2: him is he understands what drives a serial killer so
Speaker 2: well because as Lecter is always kind of like teasing him,
Speaker 2: he almost he's like an inch away from me, like
Speaker 2: he could almost be one. And that dynamic with Will,
Speaker 2: I think would be so amazing.
Speaker 3: He's the ulti outsider and he can start to feel
Speaker 3: it and that it can take advantage of those manipulations.
Speaker 3: And I would just say, like, if you haven't watched
Speaker 3: the the if you can believe it was on NBC,
Speaker 3: you'll never believe. It doesn't make sense. So it's so grotesque,
Speaker 3: so brilliant, But that really explores that notion of of
Speaker 3: of being an EmPATH to the point where it's like
Speaker 3: a superhero and a curse and how it can be manipulated.
Speaker 3: And I feel like they will be very smart to
Speaker 3: bring in this element.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that that's right on. I just need
Speaker 2: them to get Will a better haircut.
Speaker 1: We can't just commit yeah, yeah, let's just commit to it. Please.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, no, it's so true. Did you see
Speaker 3: that There was a really really hilarious meme and it
Speaker 3: was like how could It was like somebody had posted
Speaker 3: like how could Mike not see Will crying? And then
Speaker 3: they were like, oh they could see, and it's just
Speaker 3: the thumb with a bowl cut. Oh please, we need
Speaker 3: the Joyce than the Joyce Special. Please.
Speaker 2: One more thing I want to shout out is my
Speaker 2: friend Heidi was said this to She's like, I realized
Speaker 2: like the last like three episodes that I just had
Speaker 2: my fist clench the whole time, Like particularly the uh
Speaker 2: Chapter eight Papa episode when Eleven went, you know, Papa's
Speaker 2: running and the sniper is from the helicopters like shooting
Speaker 2: at him, and Eleven is like shaking the helicopter with
Speaker 2: her powers trying to throw That was as visually like
Speaker 2: stunning as anything I've seen in a while.
Speaker 1: I was just like, this.
Speaker 2: Looks great, Like I felt like I was watching this
Speaker 2: on a big screen. Like some of the action sequence
Speaker 2: in this were just so great.
Speaker 3: It's actually nice to see where that thirty million dollars
Speaker 3: an episode went, you know, aside from cast which like
Speaker 3: pay those kids, because something definitely more.
Speaker 1: Who has more leverage than these fucking kids? Right now?
Speaker 1: You got five? What are you gonna do? Say, say Dustin?
Speaker 1: Dustin died off screen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like he's gone up to space, you know, like
Speaker 3: that's the episode. But it's definitely one of those things
Speaker 3: where like the other thing that this show has always
Speaker 3: done really great from the beginning, which I think is
Speaker 3: why targets people like me and you because this is
Speaker 3: one of our favorite things. Found family, kids, yagtag group,
Speaker 3: who you care about, who you would die for? This
Speaker 3: does that, Umbrella Academy does that. We're about to get
Speaker 3: into how Miss Marvel really leans into that this episodeisode,
Speaker 3: Like I love those stories. It goes back to the
Speaker 3: X Men, which has always been one of the most
Speaker 3: important touch points for this show. You know. The first
Speaker 3: episode of this season is called The hall Fire Club,
Speaker 3: a big you know, X Men reference, even though it
Speaker 3: has historical resonance outside of that, it's also what D
Speaker 3: and D Club is called. So it I just think
Speaker 3: like there's so much in just those relationships that can
Speaker 3: carry it, and that's kind of where the heart of
Speaker 3: the show is.
Speaker 2: We were talking about we were talking about the the
Speaker 2: the Norwegian movie Worst Person in the World before we
Speaker 2: hit record, and I was saying what I liked about
Speaker 2: it was that it was less a plot driven movie
Speaker 2: and more a movie in which everything turns on how
Speaker 2: well the main character is fleshed out, and it's like
Speaker 2: we've hit that. For me, Stranger Things has hit that
Speaker 2: point where it's just like you just know who these
Speaker 2: people are and it's so great to spend time with them.
Speaker 2: I will say, here's my one. It's not even a disappointment. Lucas, man,
Speaker 2: you gotta have hands.
Speaker 1: How are you your ass? He won the fight. He
Speaker 1: did win the fight.
Speaker 3: I will say, though, bro, in terms of happened and
Speaker 3: in terms of that very aspect of the characters, I
Speaker 3: would love to see them bring in some writers who
Speaker 3: can really do justice to Lucas and Erica next season.
Speaker 3: That would be like my big gat. I also say,
Speaker 3: like resurrect Eddie. I think that that that's what the
Speaker 3: people want.
Speaker 1: I could bring him back and spooky ship.
Speaker 4: Like, that's what the people want, man, they're giving you
Speaker 4: free that And next time Lucas gets to fight like
Speaker 4: a like a dickhead jock who's been a piece of
Speaker 4: ship for the entire season.
Speaker 2: Instead of like, instead of making it like a like
Speaker 2: a back and forth he saw battle. How about is
Speaker 2: Lucas just pummels the guy's face and then eventually that
Speaker 2: guy's body gets destroyed.
Speaker 3: But I'm telling you.
Speaker 2: Like, this is why just watch Lucas stop this guy
Speaker 2: for five weeks.
Speaker 3: That's the next step in this idea of like, look,
Speaker 3: people are racist, and there are ways of showing that
Speaker 3: and the dangers of it and how terrible it is.
Speaker 3: But you know what, everyone has seen. Everyone's seen black
Speaker 3: people being victims of racism. Everyone's gotten to see the
Speaker 3: horrors of that. Can we just see somebody stumping out
Speaker 3: a racist I would love to see it. That's the
Speaker 3: next step.
Speaker 2: I don't like there have been some critiques some of like, oh,
Speaker 2: we're not exploring small town racism, bah blah b buh Okay.
Speaker 2: I get it, Like that's that is an absolutely important
Speaker 2: thing to explore and to show at times. But I
Speaker 2: also like again, like and I don't want to speak
Speaker 2: for anybody, I'm speaking for myself, Like just from my
Speaker 2: personal experience that I can, I can interact with those ideas.
Speaker 1: With that history, with stories like that, there's a million choices.
Speaker 2: I really appreciate the fact that when I'm with my
Speaker 2: friends from Hawkins, it's just the reality of this world
Speaker 2: and it's and not to say disconnected from the real world.
Speaker 2: But it's a different It's a more heightened pop culture
Speaker 2: inflected version of that world in which we can just
Speaker 2: like enjoy this plot. And I would have enjoyed Lucas
Speaker 2: playing a little bit more if Lucas would have not struggled.
Speaker 2: My god, Lucas, you gotta Getty before season Deva is.
Speaker 3: From that that power that this has of getting to
Speaker 3: be distanced. Lucas doesn't get that freedom. But I'm really
Speaker 3: hoping Lucas and Max want to see it, Eleven want
Speaker 3: to see it. Like there's things I want for these characters.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm now a step and Eddie shipper, but
Speaker 3: I like the Steve and Nancy stuff that they hinted at.
Speaker 3: Come on, you're telling me, in any world, anyone's gonna
Speaker 3: go out with Jonathan instead of Steve. I think that's
Speaker 3: the same way Will Will has a crush on Mike. No,
Speaker 3: you would have a crush on Steve Stephen.
Speaker 1: Everyone would have a crush on one.
Speaker 3: That is a character for the Ages like that is
Speaker 3: there was one thing from the beginning to now that
Speaker 3: has always been consistently great. It is a character of
Speaker 3: Steve going from the jockish, bully, popular kid to becoming
Speaker 3: his caretaker leader, who who he respected. Even in these
Speaker 3: moments of telling Nancy how he felt it was all
Speaker 3: about her boundaries. This is how I feel. I don't
Speaker 3: want you to feel that way, but I need you
Speaker 3: to know.
Speaker 1: I know I did wrong, absolutely so much. Steve.
Speaker 3: Yes, Steve's having a great time. Jonathan. I got to say,
Speaker 3: next season.
Speaker 2: I thought there was a second there where I thought
Speaker 2: Steve was about to get topped off in the upside down.
Speaker 2: I thought it was I thought it was about I
Speaker 2: thought I thought it was about.
Speaker 1: To go down. I'm talent. I'm telling you and listen,
Speaker 1: has it ever happened before?
Speaker 2: Let's make history, folks, Steve Nancy Like, next time we're
Speaker 2: down there, let's make history.
Speaker 3: That's all I happened. There was a moment, the feeling
Speaker 3: like it isn't that you can put up. You could
Speaker 3: put a warning beforehand.
Speaker 1: Was watching this show? Okay, up next the airlock.
Speaker 2: We're stepping out on the airlock to talk about the
Speaker 2: Boys and Miss Marvel. First up season three of the Boys.
Speaker 2: The season three finale Instant White Hot Wild, written by
Speaker 2: Log and Richie and David Reid, directed by Sarah Boyd.
Speaker 1: Here we go.
Speaker 2: Homelander lands at the farmhouse where his soup son Ryan Butcher,
Speaker 2: has been hiding under the care of Boys founder and
Speaker 2: former Payback Team member and former CIA director Grace Moult.
Speaker 3: Generally evil woman.
Speaker 1: She's done a.
Speaker 2: Lot of bad shit and she's trying to make up
Speaker 2: for it, and she's not doing a great job.
Speaker 1: She's doing a bad joke.
Speaker 2: Homelanders like, I just want to talk. When is Wendy
Speaker 2: ever believe that.
Speaker 1: From this guy? Anyway?
Speaker 2: This is Homelander. Grace and Ryan are terrified, clearly Homelander.
Speaker 2: It reacts with the iconic and stereotypical Homelander simmering rage.
Speaker 2: When Ryan refers to Malory as Aunt Grace, He's like, aunt,
Speaker 2: okay whatever. Aunt Grace is like reaching for her cell phone, Homelander,
Speaker 2: where this superhero?
Speaker 1: Here's it? He's like, don't even fucking do it.
Speaker 2: Ryan asks Homelander in a really actually like whenever this
Speaker 2: show gets heartfelt, it's crazy.
Speaker 1: But Ryan is really.
Speaker 2: The touchstone for a real emotion in this show, and
Speaker 2: he's like, Hey, you know, are you mad at me
Speaker 2: for you know the thing where I burned Stormfront? The
Speaker 2: woman you love, the Nazi woman you love into like
Speaker 2: a little stump person with it was like melted face.
Speaker 2: And also my mom died in that incident or.
Speaker 1: It was mortally wounded. It was tough. Are you mad
Speaker 1: at me for that? And Homelander's like, no, no, of
Speaker 1: course not absolutely not.
Speaker 2: Was I was I still masturbating to that stump Nazi.
Speaker 1: Earlier in the season. I was.
Speaker 2: But I'm not mad about that I killed. I'm Homelander,
Speaker 2: and you know what, I kill people all the time
Speaker 2: by accident.
Speaker 1: It's really not a big deal.
Speaker 2: I killed the whole passenger plane sort of by accident
Speaker 2: once because I lasered through the pilot's skull and destroyed
Speaker 2: the uh, the insurance panel. So that happens, And so
Speaker 2: I'm not mad at you. And they embrace and they
Speaker 2: fly off outside HQ pro Starlight protesters fired up by Starlights.
Speaker 1: Social media leaks.
Speaker 2: A lot of social media meeks in these finales, yes, lot,
Speaker 2: it's a lot of it. Are squaring up against pro
Speaker 2: Homelander protesters. Meanwhile inside the building, the Deep and Ashley
Speaker 2: are like.
Speaker 1: What the fuck do we do?
Speaker 2: Uh? The AG the the Attorney General General is coming here. Uh,
Speaker 2: she's got a search warrant.
Speaker 1: And when did man.
Speaker 2: You know it's serious when the Attorney General is coming
Speaker 2: in person.
Speaker 1: Yeah, uh, because I.
Speaker 2: Take video because of a TikTok video saying that Mave
Speaker 2: is not really in rehab, she is imprisoned in Vought HQ.
Speaker 2: So they're like, what do we do. Here's what they do.
Speaker 2: They spray some kind of sedative into mave cell and
Speaker 2: they're going to get her out of there. Meanwhile, Hughing
Speaker 2: and Butcher have their own concern. Soldier boy. Of course,
Speaker 2: we've seen that this guy is suffering from a mighty,
Speaker 2: mighty mighty case of PTSD, which is not an excuse
Speaker 2: for what a terrible person he is, but he is
Speaker 2: suffering from that. He's and now he's having to deal
Speaker 2: with the prospect of murdering his the issue of his body, Homelander,
Speaker 2: his son Homelander, and so he's kind of self medicating
Speaker 2: as he's off to do with with whiskey. And then
Speaker 2: there's of course the issue of the fact that Hughey
Speaker 2: and Butcher could die at literally any second because they've
Speaker 2: been taking the temporary v and Hugh he's like bleeding
Speaker 2: black shit out of his ear.
Speaker 3: Yeah right, he told you something like absolutely this was
Speaker 3: a terrible idea, Quei.
Speaker 2: Any times Starlight says, iying, just listen, because she's right
Speaker 2: one hundred percent of the time.
Speaker 3: I will say this is a great I feel like
Speaker 3: the the use of ving this the temp V and
Speaker 3: this show has been a really really great U microcosm
Speaker 3: for how thoughtfully the boys hand or stuff because they don't.
Speaker 3: They didn't use it to be like this is about addiction.
Speaker 3: They used it to be about this is about toxic masculinity.
Speaker 3: This is about an obsession with power.
Speaker 1: And I think it's about power.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's exactly so good and it's and they even
Speaker 3: have a great moment where Starlight says to Qui, She's like,
Speaker 3: I thought this was the drugs, but actually it's you,
Speaker 3: and it's it really is a very thoughtful, like forward
Speaker 3: thinking use of addiction to tell a story that's really
Speaker 3: about something else.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because really the central critique of The Boys, if
Speaker 2: you could say there is one, is what would happen
Speaker 2: if people had ultimate power, superhero level power, and then
Speaker 2: the people who oppose them have to take the position
Speaker 2: that power must be limited. So what happens when those
Speaker 2: people begin to dabble.
Speaker 1: In unlimited power?
Speaker 2: And I and that's been a super super interesting driver
Speaker 2: a lot of the a lot of the story this season. Butcher,
Speaker 2: of course, uh is just like he's cannonballing straight ahead.
Speaker 2: He does not care about any of this stuff. He's like, uh,
Speaker 2: you know what we need to do. We to go,
Speaker 2: we to go get Mostly we'll as Huie telepull us
Speaker 2: to the bad guys and we'll take and after we
Speaker 2: tight the lee, we'll kill.
Speaker 1: Noir and that's it. We'll kill Helm and then we're finished.
Speaker 2: A lot uh, and soldier boys like whatever, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: go drink more whisky tonight. Vought paramilitaries take the sedated
Speaker 2: mave across town.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: So the AG can't find her, but of course, maybe
Speaker 2: is a fucking superhero. Folks, you think she hasn't been
Speaker 2: through shit like this before? She wakes up, sheet run
Speaker 2: the car. She's wonder woman, and what do you just think?
Speaker 2: You gotta dose her again?
Speaker 3: I can't do its in Jurassic Weld. You got to
Speaker 3: keep them, got to keep them comped up.
Speaker 2: Man, she can go toe to toe with Homelander and
Speaker 2: you're just once, yeah, what are you doing? She wakes up,
Speaker 2: she kills that one and fucking escapes frenchyet over at
Speaker 2: mm's house comes to MM and is like, uh, hey,
Speaker 2: I know what we can do to take down Soldier Boy.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: Now that we lost the previous sedative, we can use
Speaker 2: the neurotoxin novachuk, which is a real life poison which
Speaker 2: the Russians have often used to take care of troublesome dissidence.
Speaker 2: There's only one dose on the Eastern seaboard, and so
Speaker 2: they're going to try and get it. MM the moral
Speaker 2: heart of the boys, And I would actually say, if
Speaker 2: there is a hero on the Boys, it is MM.
Speaker 2: Mother's milk is the hero of the story, the moral center,
Speaker 2: the beating heart, the one character who is always keeping
Speaker 2: insight like what they are there to do and what
Speaker 2: and what they are fighting about, and keeping those lines
Speaker 2: clearly drawn.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was really funny. I had a moment when
Speaker 3: I was watching it and I was like, EMMM doesn't
Speaker 3: have powers, And then I remember that the whole notion
Speaker 3: of the boys is none of them have powers, and
Speaker 3: they hate soups, but they've gone so far down this
Speaker 3: rabbit hole of temporary v and experiments and stuff that
Speaker 3: is it's easy to forget that. But he is not
Speaker 3: only is he like a moral center. But what I
Speaker 3: really love about him is it's not some pure botanical
Speaker 3: He is like a great guy, and he is someone
Speaker 3: who is very human in a way a lot of
Speaker 3: the other characters have lost, and he is the one
Speaker 3: who when Starlight says to him like, no, we need
Speaker 3: to do something good, he is the only one who
Speaker 3: will listen. He is the only one who remembers that
Speaker 3: it's true she can't go to anyone else and get
Speaker 3: that help. He is the helper, He is the care
Speaker 3: I mean even this episode shows it really well, we'll
Speaker 3: get into it in a minute, but even in his
Speaker 3: personal life, he makes mistakes, but he makes up for
Speaker 3: them in a way, and he.
Speaker 2: Feels bad about them like a lot of our other heroes.
Speaker 2: MM in this case, right now, in this scene, he's
Speaker 2: feeling bad because he punched his daughter's stepfather, who is
Speaker 2: a homelander loving fascist and deserved it, but still.
Speaker 1: Don't want to do that. Yeah, you don't want to
Speaker 1: do that in front of your daughter. I get it.
Speaker 2: He feels bad for losing control. Frenchie tells MM, like,
Speaker 2: you're the best human being I know. Just the respect
Speaker 2: that French she shows to him is.
Speaker 1: Really great here.
Speaker 2: Uh. And then and then he's like, listen, you just
Speaker 2: have to tell your daughter the truth about your family history.
Speaker 2: Your family was murdered by soldier boy, et cetera.
Speaker 1: And also get back on the lix of pro man
Speaker 1: I love and Kamika.
Speaker 3: That's like a I love them.
Speaker 2: Back at Vaught, Ashley in the deep find Homelander in
Speaker 2: his suite watching n NC news. Uh, just watching a
Speaker 2: report about Vaught stock prices which are in the toilet.
Speaker 2: Is the result of Starlight's various social media missives and
Speaker 2: her most recent post, in which she secrets taped Homelander
Speaker 2: going on one of his trademark psychotics creeds, which, let
Speaker 2: me just say, they should have released the airplane tape. Originally,
Speaker 2: this was like an actually crucial mistake that the boys
Speaker 2: did when when Homeland was like, I'll kill a million people,
Speaker 2: I call your bluff. Because here's the thing. If as
Speaker 2: the champions of limited power, the Boy's backup is people,
Speaker 2: it's public opinion, and they just needed to they should
Speaker 2: have released the video.
Speaker 1: But that's neither here.
Speaker 3: No, no, no no. But I think that's really I think
Speaker 3: you raised an interesting point because I wonder if the
Speaker 3: notion of it is like you see over these three
Speaker 3: seasons as like the boys going from this tiny enclave
Speaker 3: of like violent men to like spreading out and understanding
Speaker 3: more about like community and bringing in different voices, and
Speaker 3: maybe they like needed to have that journey. But obviously, yeah,
Speaker 3: that's one of those I call it like a walking
Speaker 3: dead thing. That's like my walking dead thing is where
Speaker 3: like you can you could have done something five episodes
Speaker 3: or a season ago. I'm been in the same place,
Speaker 3: but you have to do the journey to get that.
Speaker 3: So this to me is smacks of that.
Speaker 2: I love this season, but there are notes of that throughout. Yeah,
Speaker 2: this episode will continue. Ashley and the Deep are absolutely
Speaker 2: shitting themselves because they now have to break the news
Speaker 2: to an already pissed Homelander that may have escaped, and
Speaker 2: it's it is one hundred percent more Ashley's than the Deeps,
Speaker 2: but it's their fault. Homelander here is this, and he's
Speaker 2: about to fucking blow his top and maybe kill one
Speaker 2: or both of them. Only when Black Noir prodigal son
Speaker 2: Black Noir returns, he's of course been on the run,
Speaker 2: and Ashley in the Deep clear out clearly relieved. Noir
Speaker 2: Show's Homelander a note that says soldier boy will come
Speaker 2: we kill and then they embrace at a gas station somewhere.
Speaker 2: Butcher socks Hughey, knocking him out so Hughie can't make
Speaker 2: more v and come on the mission with them, he'd
Speaker 2: Homelander then gets back to the car or Soldier Boar
Speaker 2: wakes up.
Speaker 1: And says, where's the congosler.
Speaker 2: Christ And he was like, you know what, you were right.
Speaker 2: He was a coward. He ran for it and he
Speaker 2: less and now we're gonna do it. All sells, aren't
Speaker 2: we uh? And so s B is like, great, we'll
Speaker 2: go back to sleep. A Tran arrives at his brother
Speaker 2: Nathan's house. Nathan and now without the use of his
Speaker 2: legs because of the attack by Blue Hawk, which is
Speaker 2: essentially a train's fault, Nathan isn't doing great. Nathan is
Speaker 2: surprised to see him, and a Train is like, hey,
Speaker 2: I'm alive. After the events of herogasm, I got a
Speaker 2: brand new heart. He does leave out the part where
Speaker 2: it's Blue Hawk's heart.
Speaker 3: Such an absolutely evil move by votes pr Pass and
Speaker 3: she just did that to funk with him, like yeah,
Speaker 3: come on, it's it's very cruel, it's very it's almost
Speaker 3: like very like Arie Indiana, like you get the Hall
Speaker 3: and will it make you? But I mean I will
Speaker 3: also say as well, like we'll get into this later.
Speaker 3: But something this season just does so well that all
Speaker 3: the seasons have done well, but this is the extra
Speaker 3: version of it. Is like this is just so searingly
Speaker 3: real about how these corporations work and that relationship with
Speaker 3: a tran I think is is very, very very key
Speaker 3: for good way that these heroes are like token eyes
Speaker 3: then and utilized as tools.
Speaker 2: Someone on Twitter and I forget who and I apologize
Speaker 2: to them for not getting their tag but said that
Speaker 2: paraphrasing now, But it's like The Boys wields its satire
Speaker 2: like Paul Verhoven, like RoboCop, like where it's just absolutely
Speaker 2: bashing you in the face with the second Stashap Troopers.
Speaker 2: That's what's great about the Boys. There's nothing subtle about
Speaker 2: the Boys. They're still like there is a character named Stormfront,
Speaker 2: I mean.
Speaker 3: This season and they did and some people they didn't
Speaker 3: realize she was a Nazi. But like this season as well,
Speaker 3: you introduced the legend, you know, the stan Lee character
Speaker 3: by play by Paul Riser, and they literally have words
Speaker 3: of him. He literally sits there and has a scene
Speaker 3: where he talks about how he sat there making up
Speaker 3: myths and earned millions. Like they're not afraid to just
Speaker 3: be real. They you know, at one point, Soldier Boy says,
Speaker 3: you know, shut up or I'll slap you, like Connery,
Speaker 3: Like they're just like and then you get the stuff
Speaker 3: with when they're talking about Disney or Warner Brothers and
Speaker 3: and the kind of notion of how these superheroes are
Speaker 3: wielded almost like a modern god pantheon. It's it's very
Speaker 3: very funny. But you're right, the vere Hooven, Yeah, Jacob.
Speaker 2: Jacob Jacob Hall. This was Jacob har from.
Speaker 3: The vere Hoven. Is such a good call because like
Speaker 3: when Starship you know, he's maybe my favorite director, but
Speaker 3: definitely one of them. And when Starship Troopers came out,
Speaker 3: you know, that was a movie that was widely misunderstood
Speaker 3: by critics who were like, oh, he's making this horrific
Speaker 3: pro military, pro America movie, and it's actually just an
Speaker 3: incredibly grotesque satire of those very things and the boys.
Speaker 3: If you watched it, you could be like, oh, is
Speaker 3: this like, are we supposed to like them?
Speaker 2: But I mean, all the all the Homelander fans suddenly
Speaker 2: that was this season was like, oh wait, he's the
Speaker 2: dead guy.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And I think Eric Kripkey does a really good
Speaker 3: job of balancing that constant on that constant knife edge
Speaker 3: of well, we're making entertainment and you're choosing to watch it,
Speaker 3: and the entertainment we're making is also the thing we're
Speaker 3: critiquing constantly. That's really hard to do, and I think
Speaker 3: they do a really good job in this season. This
Speaker 3: season did a better job than any other season.
Speaker 2: Free so a Triann tries to reconcile with his brother,
Speaker 2: but but Nate doesn't want to hear it. He's angry
Speaker 2: because a Trian rather than bringing blue Hawk to justice,
Speaker 2: which actually, listen, I wanted to see blue Hawk dead too.
Speaker 2: But I think for actual act for what Nate want,
Speaker 2: which is actual change in the community, someone needs to
Speaker 2: pay a price in the in the legal system to
Speaker 2: actually change things.
Speaker 1: And now that's been taken from them because.
Speaker 2: Held accountable in the light of of the courts, so
Speaker 2: everybody can see it didn't happen because his brother killed him.
Speaker 2: A train initially tries to lie like a soldier boy
Speaker 2: did it, but Nate knows it's not true. And then
Speaker 2: they fight and Nate falls out of his chair and
Speaker 2: that's it for that relationship. Starlight picks Huey up from
Speaker 2: the gas station. She is super mad because he has
Speaker 2: been lying for a long time about taking vee and stuff,
Speaker 2: and Starlight, realizing that Butcher has not as he promised
Speaker 2: to do, told Hueye that that one more dose of
Speaker 2: combat he could kill him, tells him and Huey realizes
Speaker 2: then that Butcher punched him to save his life. He
Speaker 2: has some further realizations about just like what moral strength is,
Speaker 2: and he apologizes to Starlight for everything.
Speaker 1: She's like, fucking told you, uh, And.
Speaker 2: Then star gets a phone call from mave Mayve is
Speaker 2: it m ms hue and mm give a star and
Speaker 2: Mavee some privacy may have credit Starlight's social media campaign
Speaker 2: with giving her the opportunity to escape, but she's also like,
Speaker 2: why don't you just fucking like a real superhero just
Speaker 2: fucking bust me out?
Speaker 1: What is that?
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, Camiko uh can't stand to see Frenchy abusing himself
Speaker 2: the way he is, you know, totally depressed about like
Speaker 2: the way that his past has come up and he's
Speaker 2: been re traumatized by things that have happened in his
Speaker 2: past and his past failures, and he's storting lines and
Speaker 2: generally acting like he doesn't care about life anymore. Uh
Speaker 2: but Camiko, and you're absolutely right, this is like I
Speaker 2: nothing can happen to them. No, that's I'll protect them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, real riot like their job.
Speaker 1: Nothing can happen to that.
Speaker 3: And they did. They did a much better job of
Speaker 3: this season as well. I think of of giving Kimiko
Speaker 3: a space to eliza feelings and her relationships with people
Speaker 3: and stuff and in multiple inventive ways. So I really
Speaker 3: love to see this, and I love the way that
Speaker 3: for Kamika was like I didn't think I could ever be,
Speaker 3: you know better, but you saw something in me and
Speaker 3: and don't give up because I see it in you.
Speaker 2: I think that's really powerful and the just an incredible
Speaker 2: performance all around by Karen Fukarhar unbelievable.
Speaker 3: She dores so many episodes in this season. When I
Speaker 3: was watching and rewatching for the for the prep where
Speaker 3: I was just like, oh, fuck, but you.
Speaker 2: Are with with with facial expressions, with gesture, with posture,
Speaker 2: and she's just so fucking good.
Speaker 1: She's great. Uh.
Speaker 2: Mavee is freaking out after learning that Soldier Boy is
Speaker 2: Tom Landers Dad.
Speaker 1: Undistudable, Yeah, understandable.
Speaker 2: Starlight, meanwhile, is like on the phone to Vaught trying
Speaker 2: to raise the alarm so several thousand people at tower
Speaker 2: don't die. She leaves a message on the answering machine.
Speaker 2: The boys plus star may have come up with a plan. Okay,
Speaker 2: we're gonna go take down so Boy and save Butcher.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Hugh is like, we're save Butcher too. He's like, good,
Speaker 2: he saved my life mms.
Speaker 1: And so sure. He's pretty sure that that Butcher has.
Speaker 2: Gone all the way bad because of all the compound
Speaker 2: v he is taking. But Hughey says, listen really deep down,
Speaker 2: like I mean deep, like all deep, Yeah, like all
Speaker 2: the way down.
Speaker 1: I think there's still so good.
Speaker 2: And then he says the thing that I think is
Speaker 2: kind of the central ethos of the stand that this
Speaker 2: show is taking, which is we save everyone even if
Speaker 2: they don't deserve it, especially if they don't deserve it,
Speaker 2: which I think raises an interesting moral quandary which I've
Speaker 2: been thinking about, which I'm now going to ask you
Speaker 2: about now. Yes, So I think that unlimited power is
Speaker 2: of course terrible. Superhero power is.
Speaker 1: Of course bad, and that it should be critiqued and
Speaker 1: should be fought against.
Speaker 2: And if you're going to power yourself up, as as
Speaker 2: our friends do here, it should be done very very carefully,
Speaker 2: with a lot of a lot of oversight. But the
Speaker 2: thing I was and I respect mm's stance and I
Speaker 2: agree with it most of the time. The thing I
Speaker 2: was thinking of in the context of our.
Speaker 1: Broader world is.
Speaker 2: When are you talking about power to win or are
Speaker 2: you or are you talking about meeting structural power with
Speaker 2: structure power? What I mean is this, if one side
Speaker 2: is using power to win, at what point do you
Speaker 2: decide the game? The rules of the game have now
Speaker 2: been so warped that you have to meet that power
Speaker 2: with power in order to balance things. And I think
Speaker 2: that that is a very seductive question, and everybody thinks
Speaker 2: that they know the right answer, and usually what happens
Speaker 2: is you pick up the scepter of power.
Speaker 1: And you are wrong or you go too far.
Speaker 2: But I also think that it's a it's a it's
Speaker 2: a thing that needs to be thought about in debated
Speaker 2: because if the other side has all the superheroes, and they.
Speaker 1: Are empowering and upholding like a despotic fascist system.
Speaker 2: And the only way to bring them down is to
Speaker 2: power yourself up for a little while.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you have to seriously consider doing it.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's the Boys, It's the it's the Boys
Speaker 3: asking the ultimate superhero question. It's the Magnio argument versus
Speaker 3: the Childs Xavier argument. It's the notion of do you
Speaker 3: meet power and violence with power and violence, or do
Speaker 3: you try and take the higher ground and protect everyone. Well,
Speaker 3: I really actually like about the way that The Boys
Speaker 3: is presenting it is it's not this notion of kind
Speaker 3: of a lot of times this gets pulled down to
Speaker 3: almost like a non violence versus violence and non power
Speaker 3: versus power. Here, it's more like we're gonna do what
Speaker 3: needs to be done and try and reek as little
Speaker 3: damage as possible, which I actually think is a pretty
Speaker 3: radical That's like a very realistic yet radical notion where
Speaker 3: it's like you have to do something terrible to stop
Speaker 3: you have to do something terrible to respond to him,
Speaker 3: but and all you can do is think how many
Speaker 3: people can we save and how can we cause as
Speaker 3: little damage? Collateral damage as possible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that part of it is I found myself thinking
Speaker 2: of that.
Speaker 3: Very interesting question a lot.
Speaker 2: Over at Boys HQ and the Flat Iron, Soldier Word
Speaker 2: Butcher chatting about dads, and it turns out they both
Speaker 2: had really bad ones. Butcher recks his phone rather than
Speaker 2: pick up a call from Grace Mallory. We learned that
Speaker 2: Soldier Boy's dad was a complete piece of shit that,
Speaker 2: even after Soldier Word became the superhero's dad was like,
Speaker 2: you cheated, you took a shortcut. This is Cly resonating
Speaker 2: with Butcher, whose dad, as we have seen in the flashbacks,
Speaker 2: was also like a real, real, real piece of shit. Troublingly,
Speaker 2: Soldier Boy then says I always wanted to have kids.
Speaker 1: I think I'd be a better.
Speaker 2: Father than my dad, which triggers Butcher to be like,
Speaker 2: you know, hey, he's no your son. Demind him to
Speaker 2: replace you. You didn't rise him truth bombs. But listen,
Speaker 2: Soldier Boy. Is he looking for that emotionalkitch? We don't know,
Speaker 2: and it's unclear whether Butcher and Soldier Boys still have
Speaker 2: a deal. Over at Vought Home, later finds Noir sharpening
Speaker 2: his katana. He asks, Noir, uh, like a Soldier Boy.
Speaker 2: What was what was he like that? Nora scribbles Homie
Speaker 2: then asks Noir the key question, did you as Soldier
Speaker 2: Boy's former teammate on Payback? No that And by the way,
Speaker 2: I can see you because I have ExtraVision, I can
Speaker 2: see your face under that fucking mask.
Speaker 1: Did you know he was my dad? And Norah's like yeah, uh.
Speaker 2: They embrace, and then Homelander disembowels Noir, tears his guts out,
Speaker 2: and Noir dies as his cartoon friends keep him company
Speaker 2: throughout his final moments.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think again, do we think is dead or no?
Speaker 3: Generally I've kind of felt like he was near immortal
Speaker 3: slash very good at healing in a Wolverine or Deadpool
Speaker 3: star way in the past. This seemed pretty brutal and fine.
Speaker 3: That's where everywhere I also, I have to say, like
Speaker 3: this is to me, Noir's arc on this this season
Speaker 3: has is a is proof of how inventive and thoughtful
Speaker 3: the team behind this is because the using his this
Speaker 3: is a character who is essentially faceless, emotionless in the experience.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and is a clone of Homeless.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, And and and here is kind of like
Speaker 3: that we only experienced so far in the show. Up
Speaker 3: until this point, we've only really experienced his experiences through
Speaker 3: other people's perceptions of them. And by adding this PTSD
Speaker 3: imaginary friend to loocinogenic aspect of these animated characters, which one,
Speaker 3: by the way, beautifully animated and Amazon's animation unbelievable, two,
Speaker 3: it made his death have so much weight. It felt
Speaker 3: really sad.
Speaker 1: It felt really sad because it sucks, and he sucks.
Speaker 3: He absolutely sucks. But you learn about his PTSD, you
Speaker 3: learn about there's another thing, like we were saying, I
Speaker 3: was saying about stranger things, and I think The Boys
Speaker 3: does it in a way way more expansive and deep way.
Speaker 3: This whole season is about these cycles of abuse and
Speaker 3: cycles of trauma. The government is abusing these superheroes by
Speaker 3: raising them. You know, Homelander was raised to be this
Speaker 3: fascist Nazi piece of shit. Now does that mean he
Speaker 3: could have changed a long way? Of course it does.
Speaker 3: Does he constantly make terrible choices? Yes, but we get
Speaker 3: to see you with his son as well, Like these
Speaker 3: cycles continue until you break them. And this show has
Speaker 3: done such a good job of just being really empathetic
Speaker 3: to everyone, both good and bad and giving everyone a
Speaker 3: kind of humanity. And it's so funny because if you
Speaker 3: were like, yeah, there's a character who wears a mask
Speaker 3: and he's kind of like a Deadpool esque Batman character,
Speaker 3: and then he started seeing all these animated characters and
Speaker 3: it was really emotional. People will be like, what the
Speaker 3: fuck are you talking about, But when you actually watch it,
Speaker 3: when it hits, it hits, and then when he dies,
Speaker 3: you're like, oh, I care because it's not the first
Speaker 3: time he died, and the other times I was.
Speaker 2: Like, eh, do I catch what I think is part
Speaker 2: of I love what you said, because I think part
Speaker 2: of what our heroes in this show do really well
Speaker 2: is give each other the opportunity to like take the
Speaker 2: off rint before they pass on their trauma to someone else.
Speaker 1: Before they act on it.
Speaker 2: Act on that trauma as a way to take back
Speaker 2: agency because something bad was done to them. Therefore I
Speaker 2: can do something bad to somebody else. I'm taking back control.
Speaker 2: This is the way the world works. But all of
Speaker 2: our heroes, the way they talk to each other, the
Speaker 2: way they suggest. You know that a character you know
Speaker 2: talk to janis this French She says to mm as starlight.
Speaker 2: You know the way Starlight comes clean and talks to Huge.
Speaker 2: They're all giving each other these opportunities to like get
Speaker 2: out of take the off ramp, yes the cycle before
Speaker 2: they pass on the bad stuff.
Speaker 3: I love that, and I'm very excited to see how
Speaker 3: that kind of manifests for Butcher in the next season, because,
Speaker 3: like he has these huge moments this season, especially when
Speaker 3: he has that whole flashback to Lenny and his childhood
Speaker 3: and the mistakes he made, and for the first time
Speaker 3: he sees them. At every point when he is watching
Speaker 3: that happen, he's saying, no, do something different, don't do that,
Speaker 3: do this, He's already learning it. But the question but
Speaker 3: then in that even after that experience, he couldn't just
Speaker 3: be truthful to Huey face to face. It had to
Speaker 3: he had to do it in some weird, convoluted way
Speaker 3: that he turned to violence to push him away in order.
Speaker 2: That You're right, just the fact that he is like
Speaker 2: engaging with those memories in a.
Speaker 3: Way, why he blaming himself.
Speaker 2: He's he's actually taking for the first time seemingly in
Speaker 2: his life, taking taking stock and processing those events and
Speaker 2: finding out how they power him. Listen, Like, like for
Speaker 2: anybody who's been to therapy. What happens you start talking
Speaker 2: about shit, like the earliest stuff. It's that's always where
Speaker 2: you go. You go for me anyway, you end up
Speaker 2: going back to stuff from your kid and what that's
Speaker 2: like the root of who everyone is, It's all comes
Speaker 2: from there, Like, uh, all the feelings of like not
Speaker 2: being accepted and being traumatized, it all comes from there.
Speaker 2: And because that's the time in your life when you
Speaker 2: just had no power, you no agency, uh, and you
Speaker 2: were looking for it and you were looking for signals
Speaker 2: about how to wield it. And so yeah, I loved
Speaker 2: It'll be really interesting to see where Butcher goes next.
Speaker 3: He's never going to be a classical hero. That's not
Speaker 3: where he is, that's not what the show is. But
Speaker 3: I'm interested to see what his you know, traditional classical
Speaker 3: heroes journey is now that he's coming to terms with that,
Speaker 3: and how it manifests itself in the next season.
Speaker 2: Back at the Flat Iron, the boys find Butcher. He's
Speaker 2: about to take some v MM gets in his face.
Speaker 2: Hue pulls them away. They try in this moment to talk,
Speaker 2: but you're into being like actual heroes for once, Like,
Speaker 2: think about all the people that are in that tower
Speaker 2: of thousands of people, there's janitors. It's just like normal
Speaker 2: people going about their work. We need to stop Soldier Boy.
Speaker 2: Uh maybe is like Dewey and she takes the novachuck.
Speaker 2: She throws it twenty.
Speaker 1: Miles out the fucking window.
Speaker 3: Sorry to whoever that yes, it went into.
Speaker 1: Yeah, They're like, oh, look at this, a little Starlight.
Speaker 2: Perfew and then they're dead. Homelander needs to die, she says,
Speaker 2: whatever it takes. Starlight is pissed, but then Soldier Boy
Speaker 2: shows up and they all make everybody get in the safe.
Speaker 2: At Vought, the Deep, a Train and Ashley are listening
Speaker 2: to Starlight's voicemail. The Deep is like, uh, should we
Speaker 2: should we do like an analysis to make sure it's
Speaker 2: really her? And also should we evacuate a home? Layers like, no,
Speaker 2: we stay in Project Strength. When the Deep lays out
Speaker 2: his plan, you Nora's bait for Soldier Boy, Homelander drops
Speaker 2: Norah's head just to help on the table, and then
Speaker 2: Uh proceeds to tear into his teammates for being not
Speaker 2: up to the standards of Homelander. He's like, you guys
Speaker 2: fucking suck. He decides to teach them a lesson. He's like, Deep, Uh,
Speaker 2: if if he wants to help, uh, here's what you do.
Speaker 2: Anything whispers in his ear, and whatever it was he
Speaker 2: said was clearly bad because the Deep very reluctantly agrees
Speaker 2: to do whatever he says. Then he tells Ashley take
Speaker 2: off your wig.
Speaker 1: Here we learned that.
Speaker 2: Ashley has has like a no hair.
Speaker 3: I'm interested in this because like I can't, I can't
Speaker 3: help but think, look, we have a character hair soldier
Speaker 3: boy who's radioactive, right, that's very Doctor Manhattan. To then
Speaker 3: have somebody who's in that realm losing their hair, maybe
Speaker 3: being sick, maybe having cancer, I think that that is
Speaker 3: going to become He does it to to shame her,
Speaker 3: because he's to shame because he's misogynistic, but I think
Speaker 3: it is going to lead to a bigger.
Speaker 2: I've been We've been waiting, We've been waiting for now
Speaker 2: three seasons for the turn from Ashley, and like maybe
Speaker 2: it's in sight, but we're not quite clear if it is.
Speaker 2: And then finally a Trane is like, how dare you
Speaker 2: kill pop Club? Remember when you did that back in
Speaker 2: season one? A fellow sloop and then he says noir
Speaker 2: was worth more than all of you put together. Uh.
Speaker 2: And what was the thing that Homelander whispered to the deep?
Speaker 2: It was for the deep to kill Lamar Bishop aka
Speaker 2: Dakota Bob's.
Speaker 1: Vice presidential candidate.
Speaker 2: Who and he does them by drowning him in his
Speaker 2: pool by I guess, waiting in the pool, which is
Speaker 2: the weirdest way to do it.
Speaker 3: It's like he had to like sit at the bottom
Speaker 3: like he was because he can breathe under the wall.
Speaker 3: I had to show off he has really had Truly
Speaker 3: what an oarc?
Speaker 1: What an arc? From that guy?
Speaker 2: Starlight punches our friend's way out of the safe. They
Speaker 2: of course need more nerve gas and Frenchy figures it out.
Speaker 2: He's like, hey, guess what, there is a lab that
Speaker 2: has everything we need. It's inaught tower. Okay, So they
Speaker 2: come up with a plan. Frenchie will cook up the
Speaker 2: nerve agent while everybody else fights Homelander and Soldier Boy. Uh.
Speaker 2: And on the way out the door, Huey finds like
Speaker 2: under the couch another spare vial of some of that
Speaker 2: temporary view. Butcher Mave and Soldier Boy find Homelander watching
Speaker 2: old World War two footage.
Speaker 1: Of Soldier Boy. Oh Dad.
Speaker 2: Homelander then tells everybody that Nor's Dwett, that Noir is dead,
Speaker 2: and then he is just like, hey, Dad, can we
Speaker 2: just like reconnect?
Speaker 1: Can we just like team up? Like no one could
Speaker 1: stop us if we team up? Like uh?
Speaker 2: And then Butcher alarmed to get it. This is like, Hi,
Speaker 2: this zeal Son. Don't lose folk Soka, you didn't rise him.
Speaker 2: Then Homelander brings out it's a very tough moment, terrible.
Speaker 1: He's add into the annual.
Speaker 2: Homelander wants them to be one big, weird, murderous, genocidal
Speaker 2: fascist superhero family, and Soldier Boy luckily, weirdly luckily, Soldier
Speaker 2: Boy is a complete piece of shit, and much like
Speaker 2: Homelander is, is triggered by any.
Speaker 1: Kind of vulnerability or weakness.
Speaker 2: This is the toxic masculinity of which you spoke right.
Speaker 2: The way that society imprints on men to treat weakness
Speaker 2: or any kind of show of vulnerability.
Speaker 1: Is attack it. And this is what Soldier Boy does
Speaker 1: in this moment.
Speaker 2: He's like, you're such a fucking sniveling pussy star for
Speaker 2: attention and then they fight, which very again, very very
Speaker 2: lucky for Butcher and our heroes that Soldier Boy is
Speaker 2: so toxic because if not, they might have teamed up
Speaker 2: and become a family.
Speaker 1: It's kill everybody.
Speaker 3: It's really interesting as well, because like we've had this
Speaker 3: journey for Hue this season with the temp V where
Speaker 3: he is essentially living out his toxic masculinity fantasies where
Speaker 3: suddenly he's able to be the strong man and the
Speaker 3: man who can do all the things that his girlfriend
Speaker 3: can't do. And and he's seeing this kind of beautiful
Speaker 3: to him, this kind of like you know, Garden of Ambrosia,
Speaker 3: where he can be everything he's always been told he
Speaker 3: can be. But at the same time he's been hanging
Speaker 3: around Soldier Boy. He's just an absolute piece of shit.
Speaker 3: And like there's a line where he is like everything
Speaker 3: you say is gross, and I'm like please, son, Like
Speaker 3: he this is the lesson, Like this is what you are.
Speaker 3: This is the end game. You know, we were talking
Speaker 3: today before on preper about end games, like where do
Speaker 3: you end up if you follow that path? That is
Speaker 3: the ultimate version of it. So yeah, Also, I just
Speaker 3: had to say Jensen acles he was ready for this role.
Speaker 3: He is just like he is so happy to not
Speaker 3: be on TV.
Speaker 2: He's exploded from the soap opera world, from the CW world,
Speaker 2: and he is just fucking doing it.
Speaker 1: Man, he's great good.
Speaker 3: He is so good in this role.
Speaker 2: Uh, it's almost like this is gonna be this is
Speaker 2: not quite the comparison we're kind of. It reminds me
Speaker 2: of the first time I saw John Hamm and Madman.
Speaker 1: Where I was like, where the fuck is this guy?
Speaker 2: Like do they just have like handsome good actors, like
Speaker 2: in a warehouse somewhere where there.
Speaker 3: Was absolutely deep, like gut wrenching acting, And Jensen just
Speaker 3: like commits so deeply and he makes the character so unlikable,
Speaker 3: which is his power as an actor. You're not also
Speaker 3: Jensen being unlikable. You're watching this, You're watching I mean,
Speaker 3: this is it's the most basic take, right, but this
Speaker 3: is the truth. You are basically watching, like this is
Speaker 3: what I would be like if Captain America existed. It
Speaker 3: absolutely is.
Speaker 2: And the thing that makes it not obviously again this
Speaker 2: is it's not a subtle performance. But the thing that
Speaker 2: I love about what Accles does here is he makes
Speaker 2: Soldier boy so like marinated in his own like his
Speaker 2: own like self hatred of him, you know, like his
Speaker 2: own toxic self hatred and PTSD is this.
Speaker 1: Intense stew that he just.
Speaker 2: Can't deal with in any other way other than smoking
Speaker 2: a lot of weed and drinking a lot of whiskey
Speaker 2: and then occasionally literally blowing up.
Speaker 3: In a so that I think is like the realist ship, right,
Speaker 3: is not just this notion of self medication, which for
Speaker 3: a lot of people can be the only way that
Speaker 3: you can treat yourself. But also this is a great
Speaker 3: example of the boys doing the most all version of
Speaker 3: an analogy. Yeah, the notion of his PTSD is that
Speaker 3: when he gets triggered, he literally explodes.
Speaker 1: It's a literal exclusion.
Speaker 3: It's not a violent it's not so but it works.
Speaker 3: And it's really really especially because they even have like
Speaker 3: a Geiger counter to measure how radioactive he is to
Speaker 3: see if he's gonna go off. But no one at
Speaker 3: any point does a good job of like trying to
Speaker 3: comfort him or stop it. It's more like even they
Speaker 3: just see him as a weapon. It's very interesting stuff.
Speaker 2: Ryan gets knocked out and then Homelander goes to tend
Speaker 2: to him, so our friends grab him and Soldier Boy
Speaker 2: lines him up to do the hero gasm on him.
Speaker 1: And depower him.
Speaker 2: But then Butcher is like, Ryan's gonna get zap too,
Speaker 2: and he feels bad about it. So now it's Butcher
Speaker 2: versus Soldier Boy and May versus Homelander with starlight and
Speaker 2: MM thrown in for some good measure, and we get
Speaker 2: some truly like movie level super action. It's it's like,
Speaker 2: it's just great superhero action, great great, great superhero action,
Speaker 2: which the show is delivered all absolute season. Now, I
Speaker 2: will say, small note, I think there's a great like
Speaker 2: device that's at play here, and you see it a
Speaker 2: lot in suspense movies, suspense books, where it's like, uh,
Speaker 2: it's like every time our heroes get the thing that
Speaker 2: they want in their grasp, it gets pulled away, It
Speaker 2: gets pulled away, it gets pulled away.
Speaker 1: I will say it's a little it flirted with a little.
Speaker 2: Too, like just blast Homelander already, like it was a little.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was a little the walking Dead thing, there's
Speaker 1: a little.
Speaker 3: There's a little moment earlier this season as well where
Speaker 3: Soldier Boy and uh, Butcher and Hue do get to
Speaker 3: the point where they could have just killed him, but
Speaker 3: Butcher and Butcher and hue having a little like you go, no,
Speaker 3: you go, and I'm like, they just kill.
Speaker 1: Just kill killing babe.
Speaker 3: There's lots of just killing babe moments.
Speaker 1: That is an absolutely minor. It's very.
Speaker 3: You're like, I love the characters, so I'm okay with
Speaker 3: chill him with them, but also just kill him ill again.
Speaker 1: I just want to acknowledge that.
Speaker 2: Huey gets on the PA he's in the security room
Speaker 2: and he calls trying evacuation, so everybody's all the civilians
Speaker 2: are leaving. Meanwhile, French, she is cooking up the nerve
Speaker 2: agent as Comiko to the dancing to the tune of
Speaker 2: Maniac from Flash Dance French. He finishes making the nerve agent,
Speaker 2: but then he gets shot in the ankle. Upstairs, Homelander
Speaker 2: pops out Mavee's eye. Terrible Soldier Boy gets the best
Speaker 2: of Butcher, Comiko and MM and the security room.
Speaker 1: Huie sees this. He sees the danger.
Speaker 2: He's about to take the vial of v but instead
Speaker 2: he turns up the lights in the studio to their
Speaker 2: highest level. Starlight gets super super powered up to levels
Speaker 2: we have never seen before, and she hits Soldier Boy
Speaker 2: with all that she has doesn't knock him out, but
Speaker 2: it stuns him and it's a big hit. Camiko and
Speaker 2: Starlight hold him as mother's milk slips that nova chuck
Speaker 2: in halo over Soldier Boy's mouth.
Speaker 1: He says, from my family, he's breathing it in.
Speaker 2: But Soldier Boy is super pissed. He's powering up to
Speaker 2: blast off. And then Mave, after stebbing Homelander in the ear,
Speaker 2: sees all of this and very very very regretfully understands
Speaker 2: that she has to be the hero.
Speaker 1: Now, she has to do something.
Speaker 2: So she's like, fuck, I guess I gotta, I gotta,
Speaker 2: I gotta do it. I gotta be wonder woman. She
Speaker 2: tackles Soldier Boy clear of the building, and Soldier Boy
Speaker 2: detonates in the air, wrecking the outside of Vaught. But
Speaker 2: it's fine and killing Mave, we think, But everyone else
Speaker 2: is okay, including Homelander. Fuck, this guy is still up
Speaker 2: and going.
Speaker 1: There's my guy. I can't believe this guy is. He's
Speaker 1: not even sprat. He's a termination. He's going to.
Speaker 2: He did take like a letter opener to the neck.
Speaker 2: But like, this guy is still going. He confronts Butcher,
Speaker 2: who's like raw in come but Ryan is like, Dad,
Speaker 2: let's go, and he means Homelander.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately he means Homelander.
Speaker 2: But Ray, he's a he's a cut any but no,
Speaker 2: Ryan definitely wants to go with Homelander and then they
Speaker 2: just leave and Butcher's brain then starts bleeding black shit.
Speaker 1: And he passes.
Speaker 3: Sorry.
Speaker 2: Fast forward, we watch a Vaught news piece on h
Speaker 2: on Mave ri ip May the whole world is turning
Speaker 2: out uh to celebrate the life of Mave. Butcher in
Speaker 2: the hospital learns that the v damage is terminal and
Speaker 2: he has maybe eighteen months. MM tells Janine about his
Speaker 2: and his family's past, including the deaths of many of
Speaker 2: the family at the hands of Soldier Boy. He tells
Speaker 2: her how he's fighting just like her granddad did, to
Speaker 2: get justice. We learned that Mave is alive.
Speaker 1: Fantastic.
Speaker 2: I was very very happy about this. She lost her eye, Yes,
Speaker 2: she did lose her powers also, but she survived and
Speaker 2: now she's just gonna lay low on a farm somewhere
Speaker 2: with Elena and they're gonna go off.
Speaker 1: They're gonna live a great life. Over at Vought. Ashley
Speaker 1: and Anika UH see the security footage that may have survived.
Speaker 2: They see MM and the rest like picking her up
Speaker 2: and putting her in the van and spearing her away
Speaker 2: on the security camera.
Speaker 1: And as she's like a race that shit, they erase
Speaker 1: it immediately.
Speaker 3: The ton is it coming?
Speaker 1: Is coming? They erase it is.
Speaker 3: She sick of it.
Speaker 2: Grace Mallory, back in power, oversees the return of her
Speaker 2: former teammates Soldier Boys his body to Stasi's containment. Sleep well,
Speaker 2: dear Prince Soldier Boy. The Deep watches Cassandra.
Speaker 1: His X on TV announcing the the.
Speaker 2: Very fast publication of her tell all. I guess she
Speaker 2: must have been writing. You're absolutely right she was writing
Speaker 2: it while she was with him of her new tell
Speaker 2: all in Too Deep, My journey to Freedom to Choose
Speaker 2: being the number two's of course, about her leaving a
Speaker 2: toxic relationship with her squid fucking soup ex boyfriend. The
Speaker 2: Deep at the Flatirn Starlight throws her starlight costume away.
Speaker 2: Doesn't double bag it and tie and double knotted as
Speaker 2: she as MM, who is ocd about cleanliness, would wish
Speaker 2: her to do. But of course they're welcoming her to
Speaker 2: the boys as wonderful.
Speaker 1: She is part of the.
Speaker 2: Team now, but then newsflash, the TV is announcing that
Speaker 2: guess who, Victoria Newman is replacing Lamar's Dakota Bob's new
Speaker 2: vice presidential candidate. That's right, Victoria Newman, who can pop
Speaker 2: people's skulls. Though no one knows it, it will now
Speaker 2: be one popped skull away from the highest the highest
Speaker 2: throne of power in the land.
Speaker 1: That bitch definitely has gotta go elsewhere.
Speaker 2: Homelander introduces Ryan to his and stormfronts right wing supporters
Speaker 2: at the protest that seems to be always going on
Speaker 2: outside Vought. When a counter protester throws a drink at Ryan,
Speaker 2: Homelander just lasers the guy's head off in the in
Speaker 2: the broad daylight, in front of everybody. Yeah, and Janine's
Speaker 2: stepdad is there and he's like, I love it, And
Speaker 2: then Ryan smiles and season is over.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: What Wow?
Speaker 1: Season?
Speaker 3: If you didn't know who Homelander is meant to be,
Speaker 3: they made that I could shoot someone in the street
Speaker 3: and people would still vote for me.
Speaker 1: They made it.
Speaker 3: It's right there, bab he literally blows up a guy's head,
Speaker 3: and Todd and everyone else is.
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, this is great love that I knew. I
Speaker 1: think the.
Speaker 3: Ryan thing is a really good choice because it's just realistic.
Speaker 3: That's what happens. When your dad is a fascist, You're
Speaker 3: probably going to become a fascist, and if you go
Speaker 3: out of it, it will be later. And I think
Speaker 3: that there was a moment. I'm a softy in some ways,
Speaker 3: even though I love like action and stuff. So there
Speaker 3: was a moment at the end of season two where
Speaker 3: I loved the idea of Butcher being there for Ryan
Speaker 3: and that being a way of him showing his love
Speaker 3: for Becka. But the reality was he was shipped to Becca,
Speaker 3: he was shipped to die, and he basically abandoned Ryan
Speaker 3: and allowed Homeline.
Speaker 1: As Ryan extreame don't leave, Yeah.
Speaker 3: And he's like bye, and he left up with Grace
Speaker 3: and then he opened up this space for for Homelander.
Speaker 3: So I think it will be really interesting. I think
Speaker 3: we haven't really seen a soup with a sidekick yet,
Speaker 3: so I'm very excited to see the Robin Batman Homeland
Speaker 3: Ryan thing that they'll obviously do next season.
Speaker 2: Can't wait for a season four coming next year. Miss
Speaker 2: Marvel Finale episode six No Normal teleplay by Will done A. C.
Speaker 2: Bradley and Matthew Chauncey story by Will Done, directed by
Speaker 2: a deal in Billal We open on Jersey City agents
Speaker 2: Diver and Berry of the Department of Damage Control or
Speaker 2: examining the wreckage outside the Circle K Bruno's apartment, obviously
Speaker 2: above that this is what happens when the wrong people
Speaker 2: get powers. Diver says absolutely.
Speaker 1: Absolutely about absolutely.
Speaker 2: Absolutely letting us know that the Department of Damage Control
Speaker 2: is gonna be a part of the Sentinel program eventually
Speaker 2: all of these people who very very clearly don't like
Speaker 2: Howard for or at least she is she is for sure,
Speaker 2: and well, listen, I think what they were signaling two
Speaker 2: episodes ago when the Clandestines were were being put in
Speaker 2: prison but then the guards just started being really physical and.
Speaker 1: Abusive towards them, is letting us know.
Speaker 2: That this is an entire This department is staffed with
Speaker 2: people who feel this way, and we're headed that way.
Speaker 3: I think that that. I think this episode is really
Speaker 3: interesting in that way because we see a distinct extremism
Speaker 3: from Sadie Diva, which is not surprising because she's been
Speaker 3: going that way. But then are the DODC agent who
Speaker 3: he met in No Way home. He takes a ton
Speaker 3: against that. I'm very interested to see if we'll get
Speaker 3: some kind of split.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that that is well, we'll get there,
Speaker 2: but I think that that is going to happen. Notably,
Speaker 2: Deaver says that she wants whoever this powered person is
Speaker 2: that they haven't caught but they're looking for. She wants
Speaker 2: him brought in and studied. Sounds like the Sentinel does. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: Bruno and Comrade are on the Path train and they're
Speaker 2: headed for Manhattan. The plan is to transfer there and
Speaker 2: then to head upstate, which I'll just say a in
Speaker 2: an episode filled with Easter eggs about mutants and the
Speaker 2: X men heading up state felt like it means something.
Speaker 2: But listen, and there's a teenager who can't control his
Speaker 2: powers and he's thinking about heading up state.
Speaker 1: That's just like an X that's so many experts.
Speaker 3: And I'll tell you this, So loo watch this episode
Speaker 3: with this in mind. Compared it to the other episodes.
Speaker 3: Not only is the camera moment and that's like part
Speaker 3: of the story. We have Agent Divas starting talking about
Speaker 3: experimenting on people. That screams Weapon X. It screams that
Speaker 3: they could need genetics for the drones that will inevitably
Speaker 3: become the Sentinels, as Jason so rightly pointed out last week.
Speaker 3: And the other thing is this looks different. This episode
Speaker 3: opens with these huge, sweeping shots of the New York
Speaker 3: skyline and these towering images of the Statue of Liberty,
Speaker 3: and then we go swiftly onto the train and it's
Speaker 3: all very urban. It looks like it looks like a
Speaker 3: zero S X Men movie. It evokes that exact thing.
Speaker 3: It's letting you know where you are, it's it's placing
Speaker 3: you in the mindset of that. And that continues throughout
Speaker 3: this episode, not just thematically but also like literally, as
Speaker 3: we'll get into.
Speaker 2: Back at the can Household, Kamala tells her family that
Speaker 2: she has superpowers.
Speaker 1: She is the super hero.
Speaker 2: The family reaction is very proud and very positive, which
Speaker 2: is wonderful, although and fairly so, and understandably so, Uniba
Speaker 2: and Usuf are worried about the danger inherent.
Speaker 1: In a superhero life.
Speaker 2: Nakia calls Kamala, learns about the destruction of the show
Speaker 2: k and that Bruno is missing. She rushes upstairs trying
Speaker 2: to call Bruno. She's in a panic, but then Munia
Speaker 2: enters and Rosie prediction comes true.
Speaker 1: Her mom made her a suit. Oh it's so great,
Speaker 1: take a victory lap night.
Speaker 3: We're just this is our most predictive series in one project.
Speaker 3: And the thing I love about this is they made
Speaker 3: the suit so narratively intertwined with the show and what
Speaker 3: was important about the show and what worked about the
Speaker 3: show an intergenerational story about family acceptance. It also does
Speaker 3: something that contradicts one of my worst but also I
Speaker 3: understand most necessary tropes in superhero comics. For a long time,
Speaker 3: I felt like, over this one hundred year history of superheroes,
Speaker 3: so much of what the heroes and the people that
Speaker 3: we look up to do is predicated on lying. They
Speaker 3: have to lie about their secret identity, They have to
Speaker 3: put their family. Spider Man, how many times is aren't
Speaker 3: May in the hospital because of him in his secret identity?
Speaker 3: You know, Batman, even Clark Kent Superman's had that problem
Speaker 3: at times. Like but what I love about this is
Speaker 3: that contradicts this and in a way that it's not
Speaker 3: only oh, my family are know about it, but they're
Speaker 3: proud of me, and they're actually co conspirators. And her
Speaker 3: mumble made her this gorgeous costume, classic superhiotrope as well.
Speaker 3: This costume looks too legit.
Speaker 2: My neighbor is a great seems stressed, but like this
Speaker 2: is the other thing, a stark level costume. Not to keep,
Speaker 2: not to not to bring it back to the X
Speaker 2: Men as we're going to do multiple We're.
Speaker 3: Going to bring.
Speaker 2: Acceptance, acceptance and community is that's the key to an
Speaker 2: X Men mutant story, and that's what this whole show
Speaker 2: and then and in particular this episode is about, is
Speaker 2: we are co conspirators because we're a community.
Speaker 3: I totally agree. And also something that I think they
Speaker 3: did really cheekily here that I'd love to know if
Speaker 3: it was purposeful as well, because I feel like this
Speaker 3: whole episode they basically got to write an X Men's story,
Speaker 3: which is really fun. But they also the whole show
Speaker 3: is about found family. But that's not just family. Who
Speaker 3: isn't your family. It's about like finding your family again,
Speaker 3: which I think is really cheeky because found family is
Speaker 3: the heart of why we all love the X Men
Speaker 3: so much. So there's just so much good stuff here.
Speaker 3: I love that the costume now includes the red Dagger scarf,
Speaker 3: you know that kind of hint about the connection between
Speaker 3: the Red Dagger and the Clandestine and a collaboration in
Speaker 3: their future, which we'll see more of later this episode
Speaker 3: I needed. I love predictions, but this if Manieba after
Speaker 3: them showing she's a brilliant seems to just showing her
Speaker 3: punky roots and all that. If she hadn't made that costume,
Speaker 3: I would have been actually pissed. Usually I'm like, my
Speaker 3: predictions are wrong, I don't care, but this one meant
Speaker 3: a lot and the moment is so well live it.
Speaker 3: The actress who plays Maniever is so spectacular and obviously
Speaker 3: imman Bellani is just so wonderful. So they just that
Speaker 3: delivered and the costume is stunning. Jamie mckelvey's brilliant costume
Speaker 3: design just brought to life on screen.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: Bruno and Comrade arrive at the mosque. Naki's like, what
Speaker 2: are you doing here, and they're like, mosques are suppose
Speaker 2: he place as a refuge And then one of the
Speaker 2: funniest lines of the entire show, this is a mosque
Speaker 2: in America very much? Do you don't understand that this
Speaker 2: will not be respected as a place of refuge. Nakia
Speaker 2: then suggests that they head to the high school because
Speaker 2: it's Saturday, no one's gonna be there.
Speaker 1: Damage Control and Agent.
Speaker 2: Diva enter the mosque and they're looking for that high
Speaker 2: level threat that is Comrade Shakob Dollah stands up for
Speaker 2: his flock ably, but of course Diva and her goons
Speaker 2: are gonna search anyway. The chic while that's going on,
Speaker 2: is already escorting Bruno and Comrade out the back door
Speaker 2: to an alley where Kamala finds him.
Speaker 1: No time for catchups, however, I just.
Speaker 3: Want to say really important moment there, which is where
Speaker 3: we get another X Men moment where she Gabdullah says,
Speaker 3: you know, just because he's being peaceful, he's he's meeting
Speaker 3: them as friends. He offers them cookies. Agent Diva once
Speaker 3: again doesn't take off her shoes, disrespectful, racist bitch like
Speaker 3: she is just the worst. But he still comes to
Speaker 3: her with cookies. He comes to her with friendship. And
Speaker 3: you know, the kids want to know why, and he says,
Speaker 3: just because they make you their enemy, it doesn't mean
Speaker 3: you have to make them yours. That's your Charles Xavier moment,
Speaker 3: right that just because they hate and fear us doesn't
Speaker 3: mean we shouldn't protect them, doesn't mean, we shouldn't come
Speaker 3: with peace.
Speaker 1: And that was when I realized.
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, this is this is textures.
Speaker 1: They really are.
Speaker 3: This is text going for it.
Speaker 1: And it is early X.
Speaker 2: Men too, because I will one thing that I think
Speaker 2: in the mid two thousands to now that X Men
Speaker 2: stories have done really well is is radicalized in a
Speaker 2: way that felt earned. We can get in later when
Speaker 2: we talk about the X Men.
Speaker 1: But at a certain point.
Speaker 2: When you've been engaging with the Charles Xavier philosophy for
Speaker 2: that long and all you were met and all you
Speaker 2: are met with is jen literal genocide like twenty million
Speaker 2: dead on Genosha, constant genocide, you have to ask, at
Speaker 2: what point is it enough? We're not there yet, but
Speaker 2: it's uh. I love what Shakob Dilla said there, and
Speaker 2: thank you for bringing that up.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: Kamala finds Bruno and Camraan in the alley and they
Speaker 2: all get away just before the sirens find them. Kamala
Speaker 2: calls Kareem. It's like, listen, I have a friend. He
Speaker 2: is a clandestine I'm sorry about that. I know you
Speaker 2: don't like them, but we got to I have to
Speaker 2: get him out of here. And he's like, Okay, I
Speaker 2: know someone who can get him out, get him to
Speaker 2: the harbor at midnight. Very mysterious, but hello, Kareem, he's
Speaker 2: bought some secret connections. We need to know more about this.
Speaker 2: Our friends then break into the school where they meet Nokia,
Speaker 2: who's definitely pissed because Kamala didn't tell her about the
Speaker 2: powers and the bangle and stuff. Kamala apologizes, but there's
Speaker 2: no time to apologize because damage.
Speaker 1: Control is outside. Pause here. I think, damage control, how.
Speaker 2: Are they following him? How did how are they one
Speaker 2: step behind camera all the time. I think they've developed,
Speaker 2: as the Sentinels in the comics, they have this technology.
Speaker 2: They have developed somehow a way to target onto a
Speaker 2: power signature and to follow it.
Speaker 1: It's obviously at very early.
Speaker 2: Days, it's not super refined, but they've figured out a
Speaker 2: way to do it.
Speaker 3: I agree, it's essentially in the MCU world right. There
Speaker 3: is only so much fantastical stuff, and we're getting a
Speaker 3: lot more into it. But I definitely think you could
Speaker 3: do something like power signatures, heat signatures. There's a radioactivity
Speaker 3: because the waves of power. It's not genetic mutation yet,
Speaker 3: that's not what they're sensing. But they are sensing powered stuff.
Speaker 3: And I was I just want to say, like when yeah,
Speaker 3: the high choosing the high school, that is another X
Speaker 3: Men moment, you X school and you know that is
Speaker 3: something where as we'll see that there is no way
Speaker 3: that it cannot evoke, especially the X Men comics, but
Speaker 3: especially those Zeros X Men movies where the d O
Speaker 3: d C are coming through these halls. So you've got
Speaker 3: these military people in these school halls. It feels like
Speaker 3: an X Men movie. They they know what they're doing
Speaker 3: and there's a great moment where as.
Speaker 2: The even the way they're geared up, well we'll get
Speaker 2: to this, but like even the way they're geared up,
Speaker 2: you're absolutely right, this is X two X Men United exactly, exactly.
Speaker 3: Totally they have They have a moment that comes up
Speaker 3: like just in one minute, which we would which is
Speaker 3: just so throwaway, is like they what are they using
Speaker 3: to prepare for this fight? Right in the high school
Speaker 3: and they choose softballs, and the X Men playing softball
Speaker 3: is like one.
Speaker 1: Of the beloved t's an absolutely touchdown.
Speaker 3: Technically they in the Clemont stuff, you know, it's baseball,
Speaker 3: and throughout comics it kind of has changed between the two.
Speaker 3: But you know that that was when I was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 3: they know no. I was like, they're not doing this.
Speaker 3: You're literally using softballs in your part, Like this is
Speaker 3: a thing that you're doing, and you know that you're
Speaker 3: essentially letting these kids, Bruno, Nokia, you know, Cameron soon
Speaker 3: to be joined by Kamala's brother. You're letting them have
Speaker 3: the X Men moment, and I just love that.
Speaker 2: Kamala tries to get Bruno and Nakia to leave, but
Speaker 2: before they even talk about that, Zoe shows up. She's like,
Speaker 2: I was in the theater of filming tiktoks because of
Speaker 2: the lighting. Babe, get a ring, light ring.
Speaker 1: They're very, very cheap.
Speaker 2: She wants to be a part of this big fight
Speaker 2: mission and you know what, why not?
Speaker 1: Sure?
Speaker 2: Actually she has an important role to play. Everyone is
Speaker 2: staying put, including Kamala's brother Amir shows up, and so
Speaker 2: it's time for the big plan. And here it is
Speaker 2: distract damage control so comrade can get the safety. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: Zoe will leverage her social media file to put out
Speaker 2: a call to action to the community to get eyes
Speaker 2: here so people can see what's happening, so damage control
Speaker 2: can't just go like full like kill the mutants or
Speaker 2: capture the mutants so they can well capture the powered people.
Speaker 2: We'll just call it an individual and enhanced individuals so
Speaker 2: that they can study them. By the way, you know,
Speaker 2: just want to mention love the.
Speaker 1: Use of the.
Speaker 2: The Circular Star Wars and New Hope Stun ray.
Speaker 1: That's what.
Speaker 2: You know, established in nineteen seventy seven. This is what
Speaker 2: the stun looks like. It's that little hollow, smoke ring
Speaker 2: circle that goes out and hits people. Okay, outside Divers
Speaker 2: on the phone with Agent Cleary, Damage Control is ready
Speaker 2: for a siege.
Speaker 1: They're outside the school.
Speaker 2: They're getting ready to charge in, and Cleary is like,
Speaker 2: are you fucking crazy? Even yeah, you're gonna tack kids
Speaker 2: in a school. Don't do this, like stand down absolutely
Speaker 2: right now. I want to hear you say it. And
Speaker 2: Dever's like, yep, standing, yeah, you got it, hangs up
Speaker 2: and goes Nope, call additional units.
Speaker 1: We're going in.
Speaker 2: Uh now our heroes for our friends. Their plan works.
Speaker 2: There's only a few hiccups.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: One hiccup is Kamala and Comrade almost kiss, and then Bruno's.
Speaker 3: In the classic The X Mans.
Speaker 1: Trigle, gotta have that love. Trigle love love a love
Speaker 1: triangle between enhanced the individuals. Uh uh.
Speaker 2: And then the other little wrinkle is Comrade figures out
Speaker 2: that his mom is dead and that uh and that
Speaker 2: Kamala has been hiding this from him. And then naturally,
Speaker 2: because he learns this, he's already not in control of
Speaker 2: his powers, but then he just takes all the safeguards
Speaker 2: off and we it's kind of cool because we get
Speaker 2: to see what Commrad could really do. He pulls all
Speaker 2: the lockers down on the damage.
Speaker 1: Control goons, but and then.
Speaker 2: He steps out of the high school doors and faces
Speaker 2: down damage control. This is Magneto at the police station,
Speaker 2: is the first, That's what it is.
Speaker 3: And also he has his this is his Magneo moment,
Speaker 3: you know, and Zoe.
Speaker 1: Has Zoe has gone.
Speaker 3: He's gone, right, but like, and Zoe's called all these
Speaker 3: people via her social media and they're all outside watching
Speaker 3: very Spider Man two on the train. Right. The public
Speaker 3: is here, The public is in support, but for Cameron,
Speaker 3: it's too heartbreaking and and it's very interesting because they
Speaker 3: get to have Kamala and Cameron get to have this.
Speaker 3: Eric and Charles moment, it is very Eric.
Speaker 1: Where is that?
Speaker 3: Kamala realizes that what Cameron needs she cannot give him.
Speaker 3: But what she can do is give him a chance
Speaker 3: to leave. This is not the right choice. Don't become
Speaker 3: this danger, don't become the thing that they want you
Speaker 3: to be. And if you can't do that, just go
Speaker 3: and I'll let you go. And I was like, wow,
Speaker 3: it's Charles and Eric, baby, it.
Speaker 1: Is in miniature is Charles and Eric. Uh?
Speaker 2: So Cam faces down damage troll, Kamala uh protects him.
Speaker 1: This is all.
Speaker 2: Witnessed by the crowds, who Zoe called Kamalavin like is able.
Speaker 2: She has just been practicing enough, working at it enough,
Speaker 2: has hit that emotional level into and intellectual level and
Speaker 2: physical level where she's she unlocks like the final level
Speaker 2: of her powers and we can see everything she can do.
Speaker 1: She's got the two in big in hand.
Speaker 2: She's punching Comvi's across the fucking She's giant, She's giant manning.
Speaker 1: She's like bullets are bouncing off her.
Speaker 2: She's catching the hum vy that that Comraon accidentally through
Speaker 2: at like the entire community.
Speaker 1: She saves all their lives. And then, as you said,
Speaker 1: they have that.
Speaker 2: At Eric and Charles moment, she puts this like shield
Speaker 2: of light around them and then they have it out.
Speaker 2: They have that talk and and she is like fine,
Speaker 2: punches a hole in the ground as like just crawl
Speaker 2: through there, escape to the harbor.
Speaker 4: Go.
Speaker 2: Damage Control tries to arrest Kamala, but the entire neighborhood
Speaker 2: stands in between them and just crazy Dear. They deer
Speaker 2: est her, and then Kamala escapes. Cleary calls Dever and
Speaker 2: he is fucking heated. He relieves her of command. The
Speaker 2: question is, well, let's let's finish this.
Speaker 1: There's no glow. He relieves her a command.
Speaker 2: Later, all of Jersey City is buzzing about the historic
Speaker 2: events and they all got to witness it. And and
Speaker 2: not only that, but they have their very own superheroes
Speaker 2: protecting they are. And as Spider Man does Manhattan, as
Speaker 2: Daredevil does else kitchen.
Speaker 1: This is so great.
Speaker 2: They got their own superhero. Kamala in her room, posing
Speaker 2: in her suit as one would naturally do if one
Speaker 2: was a superhero. She talks to her dad and they
Speaker 2: talk about just life and her journey, and he says,
Speaker 2: you know what Kamala means. It means kind of means
Speaker 2: Marvel sort of, you're like our miss Marvel and the
Speaker 2: name is coined.
Speaker 1: It's a wonderful moment.
Speaker 3: Love that.
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, Cam makes it to Karachi where Kareem gives him
Speaker 2: a little head nod and takes him in. And then
Speaker 2: we fast forward. One week later, Brunio and Knakia pull
Speaker 2: up in com Run's whip, his sports car, which I
Speaker 2: have to say, who's paying the insurance?
Speaker 1: There's a lot of questions about that. Can you just
Speaker 1: keep doing?
Speaker 2: Can you just keep driving this car? I understand did
Speaker 2: he sign over the title and everything? Anyway, I'm not
Speaker 2: gonna worry about it. Bruno has big news. He has
Speaker 2: been studying Kamala's biological makeup and also her powers, and
Speaker 2: he says.
Speaker 1: You know what, your geets are a little different.
Speaker 2: It's almost like you've undergone a mutation. Burning man. The
Speaker 2: fact that they threw that in there, it almost felt
Speaker 2: too much about it.
Speaker 1: Honestly, they want to.
Speaker 3: They had to do it because the truth they had
Speaker 3: to tell you. You've heard, We've heard the term mutation
Speaker 3: in the MCU before and.
Speaker 1: You're like, ooh, but this one.
Speaker 3: They were like X men. They were like, right, now
Speaker 3: the plan will we see it for see? Who knows?
Speaker 3: But the plan right now, she is a mutant. This
Speaker 3: is X Men. She is an X Men style muntant.
Speaker 3: And you that is how powerful that theme is that
Speaker 3: you can put that there and everyone's like, oh shit,
Speaker 3: she's an x Like, this is X Men, the X
Speaker 3: Men in the MCU and you started it.
Speaker 2: Here as old King Mike on Instagram DMed me, uh,
Speaker 2: he dm me, he dm me that the meme picture
Speaker 2: of the guy who was you know, outside is Hater's
Speaker 2: funeral and he said how the X Men undressed as
Speaker 2: they watched the final nail go in the in Humans coffin. Yes,
Speaker 2: it is true, irony that the character who in the
Speaker 2: comics was created because Marvel was looking for a way
Speaker 2: to have X Men that they owned as their own IP.
Speaker 1: To put in the movies and it was gonna be
Speaker 1: the Inhumans.
Speaker 2: To now have that character in the in the TV
Speaker 2: and film property side now be revealed to be a
Speaker 2: mutant is just crazy, unbelievable shit.
Speaker 3: Especially because like Kamala, everyone's assumption was she just was
Speaker 3: a mutant because that is how people in the comics
Speaker 3: get their powers. But then it ended up being that
Speaker 3: she got her powers through terogenesis, she made her an inhuman,
Speaker 3: the most famous in human arguably ever honestly and the
Speaker 3: most well known because of past successful The comic was
Speaker 3: the very funny thing is it put her in this
Speaker 3: very hilarious group of characters like Spider Man, like Falcon,
Speaker 3: where it's like they were almost a mutant. But then
Speaker 3: it revealed that they all at times they almost made
Speaker 3: the mutes. So this feels very full circle.
Speaker 1: Though I'm still talking to those birds.
Speaker 3: Now, you know, I'm saying in the comics they never
Speaker 3: really they never really bds.
Speaker 1: Is that a secondary mutation?
Speaker 3: So I have a I have a theory.
Speaker 2: Well, let's go let's do the Oh, okay, okay, let's
Speaker 2: go through the stinger and then and then we could
Speaker 2: dive into it. So Stinger, Kamala's in her bedroom when
Speaker 2: the Bengal starts acting weird, She's suddenly thrown through her
Speaker 2: closet door, crashing into the closet, and then when she
Speaker 2: comes out, it's not Kamala, it's Carol Danvers. They have
Speaker 2: switched places in the universe somehow, and we can only
Speaker 2: assume that Kamala is somewhere where Carol just was what
Speaker 2: is going on? And then we're done, and then it says, uh,
Speaker 2: miss Marvel will appear, will be back again in the Marvels. Okay,
Speaker 2: let's talk about everything. First of all, let's just say
Speaker 2: we were right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we were right, we were right.
Speaker 1: We read about about this story, which yes.
Speaker 3: Me, okay, I'll explain this thinger. So, so this is
Speaker 3: very funny because I think it is a very interesting
Speaker 3: choice because I think for maybe fifty or sixty percent
Speaker 3: of people who watched it, they were like, oh, maybe
Speaker 3: Kamala shape shifted into Carol. That's a comic book powers
Speaker 3: They were like, maybe that was weird, why did it happen?
Speaker 3: But if you are a comics reader of a certain age,
Speaker 3: or you have read a lot of old comic books,
Speaker 3: you were immediately like, oh my god, they just Rick
Speaker 3: Jones us Jones. Now, who is Rick Jones mass. Rick
Speaker 3: Jones is like the Marvel's perennial sidekick. He is very
Speaker 3: much maligned. He began as a Hulk sidekick. He's been
Speaker 3: a sidekick to Captain America, where he was essentially.
Speaker 1: Captain America by pretending to be Bucky.
Speaker 2: Let's just say that in the comics. So the origin
Speaker 2: story of Rick Jones is the reason that Bruce Banner
Speaker 2: is the hok is because Rick Jones is a fucking
Speaker 2: moron and he wandered into wandered into like a Gamma
Speaker 2: bomb experiment site and was just like hey, and so
Speaker 2: Bruce Banner had run out and like tackle him into
Speaker 2: like a ditch so he wouldn't get it radiated. And
Speaker 2: that's how Bruce Bayner got I radiated.
Speaker 1: And at some point.
Speaker 3: Someone was like, oh, yeah, we should like make him
Speaker 3: like a superhero. He's gonna from this team, the Team Brigade.
Speaker 3: You know, he's gonna be an accessible kid hero and
Speaker 3: and kind of throughout comics he's been. He's been in
Speaker 3: that role for many many characters beginning he's.
Speaker 1: A bomb and he was a rock star.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and he's always just a really generic dude. That's
Speaker 3: like the funniest thing. And it's like he is just
Speaker 3: a perennial that guy in London. We would call him
Speaker 3: a side man. Yeah, it's like so it's like it's
Speaker 3: really funny. But the reason he is relevant here is
Speaker 3: that in the original Captain Marvel comics, Marvel Marvel was
Speaker 3: given the Naga Bands which we were right. We did
Speaker 3: predict that the Negga bands may be the Bangles, maybe
Speaker 3: a representation of them. Remember we saw the bangle first
Speaker 3: come off a blue skinned arm, which implies they were Cree.
Speaker 3: Captain Marvel was given the Nagga bands. When he and
Speaker 3: Rick Jones wore the Negga bands, they could switch places. Yes,
Speaker 3: Rick Jones essentially became Captain Marvel's Earth alter ego, and
Speaker 3: when he tapped the Negga bands, Captain Marvel would take
Speaker 3: his place. Now, whenever one of them was not on Earth,
Speaker 3: the other one was stuck Nega bands in the negative zone.
Speaker 3: It is very interesting to then see that here because
Speaker 3: that is essentially what we just saw happen to Kamala.
Speaker 3: The big question is, as we have briefly mentioned before
Speaker 3: in Marvel, we have not met the negative zone. The
Speaker 3: negative zone is an important Fantastic four location. There are
Speaker 3: a lot of connections that could be made. Yeah, what
Speaker 3: we have met is the quantum realm, and there is
Speaker 3: a version, a later version of the bands that are
Speaker 3: the quantum bands. So which one is it gonna be?
Speaker 3: That's kind of the big question. But that's that's the
Speaker 3: Rick jonesiness of it all and that is all.
Speaker 2: So let let me add it well before we go there,
Speaker 2: let me add another wrinkle to this, another X Men
Speaker 2: style wrinkle in the comics UH Rogue, famous X Men.
Speaker 2: Who's whose power is that she touches someone and then
Speaker 2: she takes their memories And if she touches.
Speaker 1: A powered she touches a music power, she steals.
Speaker 2: Their powers for a time, and for a time because
Speaker 2: she had come into contact with Carol Danvers, Captain Marvel, UH,
Speaker 2: Captain Marvel's psyche became embedded in Rogue and would occasionally
Speaker 2: come out at different times and it would be Carol Danvers,
Speaker 2: where am I?
Speaker 1: What?
Speaker 3: What?
Speaker 1: Body? Man?
Speaker 3: What?
Speaker 2: Was?
Speaker 1: Are they?
Speaker 2: Are they not just Rick joinsing Kamala? But are they
Speaker 2: roguing Kamala?
Speaker 3: Are they roguing?
Speaker 1: Are they roguing Kamala? And Captain Marvel.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to work out, like Saul just put Freaky Friday,
Speaker 3: So I'm basically saying like I'm trying to work out
Speaker 3: what the purpose of this choice is. It definitely seems
Speaker 3: like it's setting up the Marvels, right. Carol has to
Speaker 3: find where this young girl went missing or get back
Speaker 3: to where she was, so she enlists Monica, and obviously
Speaker 3: they're gonna have to get over that beef that Monica
Speaker 3: understandably has with her for like constantly just breezing on Earth.
Speaker 3: But what I think is really interesting is we definitely
Speaker 3: know one thing. Carol was off Earth and nobody knew
Speaker 3: where she was. That is a recurring talking point in
Speaker 3: this season where people like, where's Captain Marvel? Why does
Speaker 3: nobody know? We assumed she would just being her usual
Speaker 3: off in the universe, leaving everyone by themselvesself, But obviously
Speaker 3: she was trapped in this place, and in some way
Speaker 3: it's connected to the band, or the band called Carol
Speaker 3: back because of her connection to the Cree. It is unbelievable.
Speaker 3: I've always ever since they did introduce Carol into the MCU,
Speaker 3: I've wanted them to do the rogue stuff. I hope
Speaker 3: that if it happens, that is another addition of rogue
Speaker 3: coming in. Maybe they need rogue to separate the two
Speaker 3: of them or something. But seeing as we only have
Speaker 3: one bangle, I think the Marvels is going to continue
Speaker 3: our art to fact trend and we're going to have
Speaker 3: to see Carol seeking out that other bangle to kind
Speaker 3: of get control of this. Now what I really want
Speaker 3: to know because this could be very fun. I have
Speaker 3: to say, yeah, this I'm hoping whatever the Marvels is
Speaker 3: is a little bit of a recontextualization of Captain Marvel
Speaker 3: in the way they did with Thor and with Doctor Strange.
Speaker 3: Because I loved this end with Brie Larsen. There was
Speaker 3: so much more humor in it than Carol's been allowed
Speaker 3: to have before, and it was very kind of wacky,
Speaker 3: and her costume was badass. So I would, yeah, I'd
Speaker 3: be very happy to see where this is going to go.
Speaker 3: And I really want to know if Caroly and Kamala
Speaker 3: will be able to communicate because Rick James Jones and
Speaker 3: Captain Marvel they can communicate when one of them is
Speaker 3: in the negative zone. So it will be really fun
Speaker 3: to see if that's something they bring in. And also
Speaker 3: another thing, this is kind of more serious narrative, but
Speaker 3: like I wonder if because now Caroly and Kamala are
Speaker 3: so connected, I wonder if they'll follow the comic book
Speaker 3: ark that they took, where Kamala comes to that realization
Speaker 3: that Carol is not necessarily the hero on a pedestal.
Speaker 2: That she and it's different. Yeah, there's a different. I mean, listen,
Speaker 2: Carol is Carol. Carol in the comics has taken the
Speaker 2: side that I would prefer her not to take. I
Speaker 2: can come multiple multiple times across the history of the
Speaker 2: Marvel she's on the wrong side of both civil wars.
Speaker 1: Like I love her, but she she she's a cop.
Speaker 2: She's just she's a space cop. She's a space cop.
Speaker 2: I don't want to see who she votes for. Let's
Speaker 2: just put it that way with Carol, who again I love.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about you know what we've talked so many
Speaker 2: times about how how are they going to bring the
Speaker 2: X Men?
Speaker 1: How are they going to do it?
Speaker 2: First of all, let's just say that what this shows us,
Speaker 2: and what WandaVision showed us as well, is that mutants
Speaker 2: are here. Whatever however they do it, they've already laid.
Speaker 1: The groundwork for mutants are already here.
Speaker 2: Now, what we didn't know and what we said in
Speaker 2: the past was super important track to be laid to
Speaker 2: eventually introduce these mutants is we need to get to
Speaker 2: a place where powered people are hated and feared or else.
Speaker 2: Why even have the X Men? They're just like superheroes,
Speaker 2: Like everyone we've we're getting there now. Ye yeah, we're
Speaker 2: the way that Deaver acts the way they exactly department, which,
Speaker 2: by the way, is hilarious because Department of Damage Control
Speaker 2: is just like the fucking Keystone Cops and the car exactly.
Speaker 3: So this is this is the thing I'm really interested in.
Speaker 3: So I think that two routes that Diva could go.
Speaker 3: I think that we will either see her essentially go
Speaker 3: to Sword and steal some kind of technology from DODC
Speaker 3: and take it there and create what the sentinels are
Speaker 3: because we saw the big size mechs, we saw something
Speaker 3: like that, So I feel like that could happen, or
Speaker 3: a really interesting route, which is another incredibly important thing
Speaker 3: to have in an x Men story. I wonder if
Speaker 3: she doesn't necessarily continue her route as a agent, but
Speaker 3: she becomes the x Men hate the pat that enhanced
Speaker 3: individual hating politician. That's such a key part of the
Speaker 3: x Men law, and I could definitely see her running
Speaker 3: on a platform. It's very easy to stoke mass violence
Speaker 3: and mass fear and mass confusion when you have a
Speaker 3: huge political platform. So I think that could be another
Speaker 3: route where we go on this escalated version and then
Speaker 3: once she is in power, she can take over DODC
Speaker 3: or she can create it. Even by the way stream version.
Speaker 2: What a great platform for Armor Wars for roady O
Speaker 2: to be like, they're using my friend's technology to hunt
Speaker 2: people down.
Speaker 1: That's what they're using it for. I have to stop this. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's awesome, that's great.
Speaker 2: And by the way, and so I think the X
Speaker 2: Men are around somewhere. I agree as we said, as
Speaker 2: we said last episode, like it would be no problem
Speaker 2: for Charles using his powers of Magneto with the abilities
Speaker 2: he has to just hide the whole school from everybody.
Speaker 3: If Kamala exists as she does and is her only
Speaker 3: interactions with Damage Control have been when she manifests her
Speaker 3: powers in a very public way. There is no reason
Speaker 3: that other people who a mutants might not have been around.
Speaker 3: And it's actually very narratively easy to explain it. You
Speaker 3: have these big government backed superheroes. You don't need to
Speaker 3: go out there, you don't need to put yourself in
Speaker 3: that risk. Captain America exists, the Avengers exist. That is gone.
Speaker 3: Now there is a new or there is a new
Speaker 3: generation of heroes. There is a potential that a more
Speaker 3: responsible adult in that situation at Charles or maybe even
Speaker 3: a magneto on the other side of things or a storm.
Speaker 3: You know, that's one of them. She's one of the
Speaker 3: most perennially popular characters and has been the head teacher.
Speaker 3: I think that we could see a world where they're
Speaker 3: gonna come out of that hiding to help these young people.
Speaker 2: Well, I think that the cool thing is that we've
Speaker 2: gotten to a place where it is actually the anti powered,
Speaker 2: the anti enhanced individual kind of like feeling makes a
Speaker 2: lot of sense because the previous people who had powers,
Speaker 2: everybody knew who they were.
Speaker 1: There were no.
Speaker 2: Spider Man is the first character who had a secret identity.
Speaker 1: Nobody knew who he was.
Speaker 2: But crucially, Tony Stark co signed for this person. So
Speaker 2: it seemed like, you know, you could see how the
Speaker 2: general public Okay, well Tony's that's just fine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's okay.
Speaker 2: But but Deaver nailed it. This is what happens when
Speaker 2: the wrong people get powers, and and that is the
Speaker 2: dynamic that's going to be at play now that mutants
Speaker 2: are starting to come to the Foe. Now, now we
Speaker 2: mentioned that clearly Damage Control has some kind of technology
Speaker 2: where they can track powers, they can hone in you know,
Speaker 2: in a very very primitive way on a power signature
Speaker 2: comrades in this case, and follow that person. They're going
Speaker 2: to hone that I think right, And I already mentioned
Speaker 2: my crazy theory that that Arnhem Sola's like algorithm is
Speaker 2: going to be a part of this process.
Speaker 1: That's actually really small. I think it makes sense.
Speaker 2: We know what they knew about doctor Strom way back
Speaker 2: in the day.
Speaker 3: Look, you know what the history of real world has
Speaker 3: told us. Yeah, any government does not have a problem
Speaker 3: with using Nazi technology or Nazi a film's science. That
Speaker 3: has been the history of.
Speaker 1: Many whoever has done the best tech. It's exactly care
Speaker 1: I like who you are.
Speaker 3: I do not believe that d O DC wouldn't have
Speaker 3: Shield tech because they care about er that is that
Speaker 3: that is gonna be what I think.
Speaker 2: I am like what we've again, we've been like, how
Speaker 2: do they do it?
Speaker 1: How do they do it?
Speaker 2: I think that there's a world where as I mentioned
Speaker 2: last episode, they have this technology where they can track powers.
Speaker 2: They had that Hydra algorithm that Shield had that allowed
Speaker 2: them to kind of like crunch numbers and figure out
Speaker 2: who's going to be a threat. They combine those two things.
Speaker 2: They turn on the computer one day and they just
Speaker 2: see like some mansion in upstate New York is just
Speaker 2: all lit up with power. What and so Diver or
Speaker 2: whoever happens to be in control of this program at
Speaker 2: that point in time, just says, you know what, send
Speaker 2: in the upgraded drone and that gives us, gives us
Speaker 2: our entree to the X Men. It's just like a
Speaker 2: a classic the Sentinels are at the mansion fight between
Speaker 2: the X Men and the Sentinels.
Speaker 3: You know, we know how much X Men the animated
Speaker 3: series is impacting this at this point with the theme
Speaker 3: with the show coming out, you know, maybe they'll have
Speaker 3: them at the mall classic style, you know, I mean
Speaker 3: the classic fight where you find the Jubilee, you find
Speaker 3: the more rare at kids. I feel like there is
Speaker 3: a lot of scope. We have been thinking about this
Speaker 3: a lot because we love the X Men shock spoiler
Speaker 3: a lot, but like, I'm so impressed by how casually
Speaker 3: and easily they made it seem absolutely possible.
Speaker 2: Now Here's my question is, are have Charles and have
Speaker 2: Charles and Magneto split yet in this in where we
Speaker 2: are post end game, post blit, all this stuff is
Speaker 2: for like, are they still together or did they split? Because,
Speaker 2: as someone on Twitter replied to me, you could very
Speaker 2: easily see Magneto saying, well, look, look who they accept
Speaker 2: who has powers? These normal people, they accept them, but
Speaker 2: if we were to come out, they would hate us.
Speaker 2: So we should just the power people are here and
Speaker 2: they're taking the spot that we should have as Homo superior.
Speaker 2: We should just reveal ourselves. And I could see that being,
Speaker 2: if not the break, the kind of philosophical argument that
Speaker 2: starts the break, whether or not they've actually split up.
Speaker 3: So I still think this is the biggest question because
Speaker 3: we are, you know, so far away from World War
Speaker 3: two now, but Magneto's origin is absolutely vital. So I
Speaker 3: will be very interested to see in my because of
Speaker 3: the stories I enjoy. I think I love to see
Speaker 3: a contemporary Charles and Eric, but we are in the
Speaker 3: realm of multi versus old timelines, et cetera. Time travel.
Speaker 3: Maybe there is the way that you can still have that.
Speaker 3: Maybe they're just slightly younger, Maybe they have a you know,
Speaker 3: we've seen Wolverine. He's a character, never really agent.
Speaker 2: Eric is a they can make Eric a grandchild of
Speaker 2: another way they could do it too. But I do
Speaker 2: think listen, if the again the Zola theory is all mine,
Speaker 2: it's no, this is it's crackpot.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, like you could.
Speaker 2: See if if they maintain Eric having that lineage Jewish
Speaker 2: superhero survivor of the Holocaust or children child of survivors,
Speaker 2: where he'd like, go, look.
Speaker 1: All their all their technology is.
Speaker 2: Nazi anyway, Their main security international security apparatus was like
Speaker 2: ninety five percent Nazis. Their Captain America was powered up
Speaker 2: and was supported by active.
Speaker 1: Nazis work for active Nazis.
Speaker 2: Didn't know, but still, yeah, I think that's we need
Speaker 2: to do something about this, Okay.
Speaker 3: So then I think the funniest thing is it is
Speaker 3: like very wild to be talking about this where next
Speaker 3: week we will both be in San Diego Comic Con
Speaker 3: and we will buy two weeks probably have an idea
Speaker 3: of where this is all going, because I feel like
Speaker 3: bringing in the term mutation playing the X Men team,
Speaker 3: We're probably going to get at least a title reveal
Speaker 3: or a release date for an X Men project at
Speaker 3: San Diego, maybe casting for the Fantastic Four that seems
Speaker 3: a little bit closer. So I'm very interested to see
Speaker 3: how much more that will lay out, because I think
Speaker 3: you make a really great point, and like, look, we
Speaker 3: are both Marvel stands, Like we remember the world the
Speaker 3: four Marvel studios, and we remember the desolate times of
Speaker 3: the nineties and the like Captain America movies and stuff.
Speaker 3: As much as I love them, it'sah it, we are big.
Speaker 3: We have a lot of love for these franchises. But
Speaker 3: there's probably never been a more pivotal moment since they
Speaker 3: chose to make Iron Man and they cast Robert Downey Jr.
Speaker 3: And they ended the movie with him saying I am
Speaker 3: iron Man, and they took that near bankruptcy inducing deal
Speaker 3: to put that movie up. There's probably never been an
Speaker 3: as pivotal moment since then as there is now of
Speaker 3: them getting this right, because if you don't get the
Speaker 3: X Men and or the Fantastic Four right, you're probably
Speaker 3: gonna that the road of the MCU is going to change.
Speaker 3: So I feel like it's I'm so excited, and for me,
Speaker 3: this is a great way to start with a young Also,
Speaker 3: this is very very in the weeds, but I do
Speaker 3: think it's very cute and I think it's intentional. In
Speaker 3: the comics Cininically thanks to Chris Claremont's X Memoran Our
Speaker 3: favor X Memoran, Jean Gray aka Marvel Girl, is Charles
Speaker 3: Xavier's first student. I love that in the MCU there
Speaker 3: is a world where Miss Marvel is his first student.
Speaker 3: I think there are parallels here that they're trying to
Speaker 3: make that would be really lovely and would hark back
Speaker 3: to the past of the X Men while also doing
Speaker 3: something new.
Speaker 1: I cannot wait.
Speaker 2: I cannot wait for the X Men to finally make
Speaker 2: their appearance. I And to your point, it's obviously like
Speaker 2: a huge, huge, huge step for the for Marvel to
Speaker 2: introduce the first family, the Fantastic Four and of course
Speaker 2: the X Men, who's been the flagship heroes for you know,
Speaker 2: maybe not the last ten years, but certainly the previous
Speaker 2: thirty five to forty, so it's going to be a
Speaker 2: huge deal. I'm weirdly more worried about the Fantastic Four intro,
Speaker 2: of course, though that's a class movie, because I think
Speaker 2: because I think that they've really like every To your point,
Speaker 2: this entire the finale of Miss Marvel was like an
Speaker 2: X Men story, and if and how hard they went
Speaker 2: into the Outsider no thiss, the the creating your own community,
Speaker 2: the like just embracing who you are despite the fact
Speaker 2: that like society is going to shun you if they
Speaker 2: do that, that like, if they commit to it, that
Speaker 2: this hard. When they introduce the X Men, it's all
Speaker 2: gonna be fine. I can't wait to see what happens.
Speaker 3: Yeah, unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Well that's it for us.
Speaker 2: It's a big thank you to Rosie Knight for joining
Speaker 2: us on X ray Vision.
Speaker 1: Rosie plugs plugs, plugs, plugs, plugs. Blug buh buh buh
Speaker 1: bu bu bub blub blug. Hey, well, do you got
Speaker 1: a plug?
Speaker 3: I got things to plug so you can stop putting
Speaker 3: things in your diary for cool uh events for the
Speaker 3: Godzilla signing, So I'm gonna be signing Godzilla Versus Batcher
Speaker 3: with Mark Martinez, who did an brilliant cover for that
Speaker 3: at Nostalgia Comics, So you'll be able to see us
Speaker 3: there on the release day, which is going to be Wednesday,
Speaker 3: the third of August, and then on on Saturday, the
Speaker 3: sixth of August, we will be at Pulp Fiction, which
Speaker 3: is my local comic shop in Long Beach, doing a
Speaker 3: massive Godzilla Day with a ton of cool artists. Oliver
Speaker 3: will be there, the amazing artist. We will have a
Speaker 3: bunch of local artists from the inc and Dral. We'll
Speaker 3: have my friend Brenda Chieves, an incredible cover artist Fi DW.
Speaker 3: It's just going to be really fun and that will
Speaker 3: be really cool. And next week I'll be doing a
Speaker 3: lot of stuff at San Diego, so you will be
Speaker 3: able to see there live vicariously through me. There, Jason,
Speaker 3: you will also be there.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, we're gonna be there.
Speaker 2: X Ray Vision has a new YouTube home that takeline
Speaker 2: channels now dedicated all things Extra Vision, so check that
Speaker 2: out for recaps, primers, etc. Also, we have a discord.
Speaker 2: Check the show notes for the link to our discord.
Speaker 2: Please join love to have you there for.
Speaker 1: Next week's episode.
Speaker 2: We're going to be at Comic Con, as we said,
Speaker 2: and we're going to do this really we've decided this
Speaker 2: whol thing. It's twenty twenty two, which means it's forty
Speaker 2: years since the summer of nineteen eighty two when a
Speaker 2: million million cool movies came out.
Speaker 1: We've got to poll up now that will be running.
Speaker 2: Up to next week, where you can choose. You can
Speaker 2: vote on which of the many, many, many great movies
Speaker 2: of nineteen eighty two. You want to hear us cover
Speaker 2: from Comic Con next week, so check that out. The
Speaker 2: voting process has already begun. Check out the Uncultured page
Speaker 2: on social.
Speaker 1: Media and vote. Your vote is your voice.
Speaker 2: Please vote, then tune in July twenty second to find
Speaker 2: out which film is chosen and which we talk about.
Speaker 2: Don't forget five stars. Wherever you get your podcast, rate
Speaker 2: and review us. If you want to review us, give
Speaker 2: us the five stars.
Speaker 1: We love it. X ray Vision is a Crooked Media production.
Speaker 2: The show is produced by Chris Lord and Salrubin. The
Speaker 2: show is executive produced by myself and Sandy Gerhard are
Speaker 2: editing and sound designers by Vascillis Fatopoulos. Dylon Villanueva and
Speaker 2: Matt Degroup provide video production support. Alex Rella for handle
Speaker 2: social Media. Thank you Brian Vasquez for a see music,
Speaker 2: See you next time. Bye bye mm hmm