Marvel Cinematic Universe, Phase 4 & Beyond (and a chance to change your vote)

potentially ruinous toward the whole idea of superheroes.

they've held up under this kind of penetrating analysis for 51 years so far

I didn't remember Zemo at all, nor most of the callback characters in these things. So much of these are just a blur to me and I've seen most of them twice at least! Thankfully my son pays more attention.

Yeah I guess this is where "haven't seen that many of the movies" comes in for me, I don't really know what's up with Zemo before this show

Zemo lived in Sokovia, which was the country Ultron tried to turn into an extinction-event asteroid in Avengers: Age of Ultron. He had moved his family out of the city because he figured they would be safer in the countryside (he was a Hydra agent in the city) but what ended up happening is that they were trapped on a falling rock and were killed as the excavation efforts focused on the main city. This drove him to be the primary antagonist in Civil War, where he used Bucky to set Captain America and Iron Man against each other in an attempt to destroy the Avengers in retaliation for killing his family. His primary motivation is to make sure superhuman s are stomped out so that they can’t kill any more families.

BTW - highly recommend watching those character recaps on Disney+ under the "Marvel Legends" series. They're not long, usually between 5-10 minutes. Even for diehard fans it does help you remember a lot of forgotten story details. In particular I couldn't remember what happened to Sharon Carter (basically, nothing since Civil War - but so long ago in real time/sheer number of Marvel movies!).

Wandavision would've been a little more enjoyable if I watched those beforehand, and I will definitely watch whatever they put out before Loki.

*Also lol at Zemo being a "typical" secret agent family man in CW to now having been super rich all along

Definitely seems a bit of retconning around Zemo in this

I do like the idea that Zemo was a bored trustafarian who has been progressively radicalized by his life experiences

It also explains how a random Hydra henchman had the capital to finance what he did in Civil War

I thought this episode was pretty good. Clearly nu-Cap (and iirc, someone did actually call him nu-Cap) is not long for this world. The question I guess is whether he dies a redeemed hero or villain.

My thoughts on The Falcon and the Winter Soldier are maybe best encapsulated by the line Bucky tosses out about how the macguffin lady died in
"Riga, a city near the Baltic Sea." Which presumes that these three superheroes and true citizens of the world are unfamiliar with the capital of Latvia? Or more to the point, that the audience is not, so let's throw this awkward bit of dialogue and likewise spoonfeed our viewers at every step so we don't lose them.

Also, Tuomas otm about Gruenwald; what a weird place to look for inspiration.

^^ that one really jumped out. see also "my grandfather or whoever was a ~world war two resistance fighter~"

u misspelled Latveria, so embarrassed 4 u

Deeply embarrassed that I was able to pull the name of the capital of Latveria up in my brain as soon as I saw your post but had to double check if Riga was Latvia or Albania.

Post credit scene this week

End training sequence for me pretty amped for the next episode

*got me

The percentage of painfully corny dialogue in this show just goes up and up. I feel like the people who write this are just not trying very hard and it bums me out, because the premise really does give them a lot to work with.

And when I say "not trying very hard" I don't just mean the words the actors are being made to say are hard to listen to, I mean there's very little attention paid to any kind of plot plausibility at this point. Like, Karli is now said to be "under under underground," laying so low nobody can possibly find her, and she's .... literally back at the same building where she just was and where dozens of people know that she's recently been? Together with every single one of her top lieutenants?

Sarah's boat was in such bad condition that "Mr. Dinh" realized it wasn't worth it to buy it, but all it needed was... a couple of dozen random people from the neighborhood with no special expertise in boat repair to hang out puttering with it for a day?

Personally I thought this episode hit hard — and always would, but this week underscored it.

yeah this was a good one

I'm with eephus (tonally, this can't find its stride) but JLD as madame hydra was inspired casting and woke me up.

sebastian stan’s resemblance to liam gallagher really struck me this episode for some reason

Sarah's boat was in such bad condition that "Mr. Dinh" realized it wasn't worth it to buy it, but all it needed was... a couple of dozen random people from the neighborhood with no special expertise in boat repair to hang out puttering with it for a day?

Why would you think people who live in a community where multiple people make their living as fishermen would have no expertise in fixing boats? Also, did you miss the narrative sequences where Sarah said she was trying to do everything herself and Sam had the idea of calling in favors from around the town after being reminded of how indebted most of the community was to their parents? We also don't know how much time passed while they were working on the boat; we don't know how long they had been working on it before Bucky showed up, we don't know how long Bucky stayed after he blew off his next-day flight, no specific time frame is given for that sequence of events.

I agree the Karli subplot is going south but you're picking on this for the sake of finding something to criticize.

yeah, they were doing the It's a Wonderful Life thing. had no problems with that

the Lumbly stuff was great and touching, in particular. Loved seeing JLD as Madame Hydra/the Power Broker, maybe? interesting to put kind of a "rest" episode (after the initial, Civil War-inversion fight) in preparation for the finale. good shield training montage, too.

not sure what the hell's up with Sharon Carter hiring Batroc to kill Sam though

I’ve been trying to torrent season 2 of Lodge 49 for about six months (with one seed!) and it’s suddenly finished downloading in a single evening. Perhaps some Wyatt Russell effect going on...

one of this things chief sins is how it got w. russell skinny and then let him do some bad acting

🌭🌭🌭🌭🌭🌭🌭🌭 pic.twitter.com/KGj9vF4ocX

— TGB (@twitersbadboy) April 18, 2021

yikes

I’m assuming that’s an autocorrect for “yoked”

redirect to juiceman thread

lol at getting him disgustingly jacked just as he's threatening to get canceled

Shang-Chi trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giWIr7U1deA

that looks lit

didn't know so many people didn't like Awkwafina, I love her

does my man fight w chinese guard dogs bc that's cool :)

Awkwafina is GREAT, I love her in everything she's in

Partial San Francisco setting = does he run into Ant-Man or...

i am still pissed that Kim's Convenience was cancelled (actually not metaphorically) but looking forward to seeing Simu Liu become a huge star.

it got cancelled?!? Liu looked like a superhero in that show for years already

https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/kims-convenience-concluding-1.5941254

having no closure with KC sucks

Shang Chi looks rad. What is Shang-Chi? Any relation to Iron Fist?

The reboot of Speed we've been waiting for

Character dates back to the actual Bruce Lee era, originally credited to Steve Englehart and Jim Starlin. He is literally the son of Fu Manchu. They play that down a bit these days.

Played down in the MCU to the extent that he is now the son of the Mandarin (like the apparently real one, not Ben Kingsley).

(Hence the ten rings, natch.)

Looking forward to this!

What's Kumail getting canceled for? I have been on a Twitter break for a bit, so all I knew was the 'roids accusation stuff. The cast of Silicon Valley is not doing well.

Actual goosebumps several times during that trailer. Stoked.

What's Kumail getting canceled for? I have been on a Twitter break for a bit, so all I knew was the 'roids accusation stuff. The cast of Silicon Valley is not doing well.

nothing specific yet but it seems inevitable

He’s pretty much the worst person I have ever worked with lmao

— Alice Wetterlund (@alicewetterlund) January 3, 2021

Okay, was curious. Sounds about like par for the course for the cast of that show, Jimmy O. Yang seems to be the notable exception (and hopefully Zach Woods too, though maybe I've missed something about him).