MCUniverse - What If... - S2 Review + Echo Preview

[00:00:00] Welcome to the MCUniverse. We are the Lorehounds, your guides to the multiverse and beyond. I'm David. I'm John. And I'm Alicia. And we're your guides to the watchers' many worlds. Today, we're not only going to talk you through season two of Marvel's What If...

[00:00:38] But we're also going to talk about what you need to know to prep for the next Marvel show, Echo, dropping all five episodes on Disney Plus this week. John and I will be doing this storytime style again, walking David and all of you through

[00:00:52] season two of What If... one episode at a time, everything that happened and how it all came together. And then I'll fill you in on everything you need to remember for Echo, which we'd also love to hear your thoughts about.

[00:01:03] Email your feedback to mcu at the lorehounds dot com or head over to our website at the lorehounds dot com and use the contact form or record us a voicemail. For ad free versions of this and all of our podcasts, check us out at patreon dot com

[00:01:17] slash the lorehounds for as little as three bucks a month. And you can support us and you can even get a whole year subscription for a very affordable prices. So I'll share more about

[00:01:30] that as well as programming notes for our upcoming schedule at the end of the podcast. Also, we'd be forever grateful if you could help us get more ears tuned into the Lorehounds

[00:01:41] MC universe. All you need to do is drop us a five star rating and review wherever you're listening. Apple podcast is especially helpful. And even if it's a few quick words, we read them all

[00:01:51] and the reviews mean a lot to us. And before we get started, just a quick spoiler warning. We'll of course be spoiling all what if episodes to date, but spoilers for the rest of the MCU and the Marvel Comics are also on the table.

[00:02:06] John, Alicia, happy new year. Good to see you guys. I've got a flurking in my lap. I've got snow falling outside. Wow. So not a bad day to jump on the mic with you guys. How are you both

[00:02:19] doing? Alicia, how was your holidays? Yeah, holidays are good. Got recovering from a little sickness. So sorry if I sound a little stuffy, but it was nice spending time with with my family.

[00:02:31] Although I did lose, have an incident with my ears on the way back, lost my hearing. It's slowed down my ability to edit audio. So apologies to everyone for some delays on the wool shift dust side. No apologies. No apologies.

[00:02:48] That's rough. I mean, given that we're in the, in the process, in the business of producing audio, it's got to kind of rough when you, when you're not able to hear. I'm back at like 70% hearing. So I'm watching movies again, recording with you guys again.

[00:03:04] Nice. John, how are you? How are you guys? How was your holidays? Yeah. Happy new year to everyone. I'm doing good. It's January and I'm looking forward to April. What's in April? Getting past the snow and winter storms and all of that stuff.

[00:03:23] I keep, we keep trying to get you and your family up. I don't think we're going to meet you up before. No, it might happen this, this, this summer. So yeah. Yeah. In the summer.

[00:03:37] Too funny. Awesome. Okay. Well, we've got some Marvel news that we wanted to catch up on and then we're going to get into our what if a recaps and then excitedly we're going to talk about echo.

[00:03:50] So that's pretty exciting stuff. Alicia, did you, Alicia and John, both, you guys got some news items you wanted to walk through? We've got some developments since we last recorded. Yeah. Well, right, right after we recorded it came through that Jonathan Majors is officially

[00:04:06] fired, but we might have a new Kang. What do you think, John, of Coleman Domingo as a potential new Kang coming in? I like him. I think he's a great actor. He's a great actor.

[00:04:17] I think he would be a great Kang. If they go that direction, I cannot be upset about it. I think he's really good. The stuff that he did on fear of the walking dead, he's in resting that's playing

[00:04:30] right now. Yeah. I was just watching that. Reston's from my hometown. Sorry. Oh, wow. That's pretty cool. So yeah, he, I like, I like Coleman Domingo a lot as an actor and I think he'll do great in

[00:04:42] the role. He has the gravitas needed. He has the heaviness that's needed for it to play that type of villain. And, and also, you know, he has the nuances I think that could be really, really

[00:04:56] well done. Because it's especially interesting to see him as Rustin because Rustin, it famously had a high pitched voice. And so you see Coleman Domingo is doing this voice and he's really

[00:05:07] pulling it off. Like if you hadn't seen him anywhere else, you would think this was his voice and his mannerisms and this performance above anything else I've seen him in so far really convinces me that he can play a dozen different kinks. Definitely. Definitely. I haven't seen him

[00:05:22] in anything beyond fear of the walking dead and I really enjoyed him there. I think he would bring a really different energy for Kang. I mean, what's his name had kind of a crazy energy and a sort of

[00:05:36] a mad borderline madness that he was bringing where I just, like I said, I don't know Coleman Domingo from beyond fear of the walking dead, but in that his gravity was so palpable on screen. And

[00:05:52] so it could, you know, I don't know what he's going to bring to the role if, you know, assuming he takes it, but it'll be fun to see him to play with the role and see where he can take it where

[00:06:01] we haven't seen it before. Yeah. Since he's older, you know, he could be, he's like a Kang from the future who's lived through some things. That'd be interesting. Right. That would be really.

[00:06:13] Yeah. I'm for it. I think he's, I really think he's good at it. So we can have our own little, what if a episode here? What if that would be great? What if we cast Omar C? Sorry, I'm done.

[00:06:27] He's also in the color purple. Yeah, that's true. Right now. But yeah, yeah. I keep waiting for John to drop recast to Challah. Don't worry about it. It's going to happen. They are going to have to recast century though, because due to all the delays,

[00:06:46] Steven Yuen has dropped out. Yep. So I mean, I know that role for a long time, but like, okay, we, I, we didn't get even get to see a minute. So fine. Who's next?

[00:07:01] Right. That's exactly how I feel about it. I thought he would have been a great addition to play the role of Bob, but yeah, he didn't play the role. So it's okay. Let's,

[00:07:14] let's go on and move on to the next. Yeah. Do you think that this all of this stuff, do you, do you, how confident are you guys both feeling about Marvel finding its footing post 2023,

[00:07:32] sort of the year that, that Marvel seemed to crash and burn? Not really, but sort of right. Like the plane is on fire a little bit. I mean, I have one major, one major complaint.

[00:07:45] Everybody who's listening knows what that is. And a couple of movies that kind of whiffed a little bit for me, namely, you know, The Last Ant-Man and Thor movies. And other than that,

[00:07:55] like, for me, it's still been as good as ever. Like, I think what if we're, which we're about to talk about was a miles above season one of what if. So I think they're in a good place. I

[00:08:08] think that it's popular to talk about Marvel and overall superhero fatigue, but I'm personally not feeling it. What about you, John? I'm not feeling the fatigue. Um, the thing that I'm worried about is that in their responses, the fatigue conversation

[00:08:26] about having less is more. I don't necessarily agree with that mode of thinking. Um, less could be more depending on what the less is. Um, I think going into 24, there is a dearth of programming, movies, TV shows that, excuse me, that can really move people to the screen

[00:08:59] because some of the characters that we want to see, um, we're waiting to see them. I think going forward, you have to give the people what they want. I firmly mean, there has to be a balance though, because sometimes they've caused like,

[00:09:20] look at the star Wars sequel trilogy when they gave the people what they want. They broke the trilogy. They did. Yeah. But this is not that. Yeah. Be careful. It doesn't become that I'm

[00:09:32] saying. I know. Yeah. I agree with you, but that's why, that's why I say that the dearth of the programming could be an issue because we're getting what? Five, six things this year,

[00:09:47] three or four of them, three or four of them are animated. Um, two movies that are not MCU movies proper, right? Yeah. Three. Yeah. We've got three Sony movies and one MCU movie. Yeah.

[00:10:01] Right. Um, so I'm interested to see how people react to the films because a lot of the characters in the film outside of Deadpool, I don't think, um, and even Deadpool has a very, uh, strong vocal fan base, but not necessarily, I don't think across MCU titles. Um,

[00:10:28] I don't see Deadpool as an MCU, uh, you know, in an Avengers adjacent thing. I mean, and again, right. I'm the, I'm the MCU fan that's on the periphery, right? I'm, I'm lightweight fan representing that part of the audience. And for me, I've never seen. You're correct. You're

[00:10:47] correct because he was never MCU until now because he was Fox. Yeah. Right. Okay. Yeah. Deadpool three is going to be like, it's called, people are calling it Deadpool kills the Fox universe. Okay. But, but we have madam web and then, oh wait, God almighty. Okay.

[00:11:11] Tony's the only one that held on to God onto their side of the Marvel pie. Yeah. Right. And that was, that has to do with sometimes absorbed. Right. That has to do with like deals.

[00:11:20] Like you had a licensed deal and if you didn't produce a certain amount of things, the same in the Lord of the Rings, Disney bought Fox. Oh, okay. Well, there you go. Yeah. So they absorbed

[00:11:30] it that way. So yeah, so I'm just, I'm just a little bit worried that what we're actually going to get is not going to be sufficient. That's, that's my, my whole thing gives people

[00:11:44] breather. I'm looking at a show tracker. So that's one of our, our Patreon benefits is I have this custom built show tracker that looks at all the shows across the year and we can look at them by

[00:11:56] time and I can sort by genre on platform. So I can look up quite easily all the MCU stuff and I'm showing echo, madam web, Deadpool three, venom three, iron heart, X-Men 97, Agatha and

[00:12:11] Marvel zombies. So X-Men 97, Marvel zombies. And all of those are up in the air mostly. Exactly. That's what I was just going to say. Yeah. They're certainly going to do in like, yeah. In the fall of next year, Halloween, you know?

[00:12:24] Right. Right. And Marvel zombies is animated. X-Men 97 is animated. Iron heart. We don't know. And we've got eyes of Wakanda. We've got the Spider-Man cartoon, uh, the new, Oh, do I know? I don't. Is eyes of Wakanda is not this year though. It's supposed to be this year.

[00:12:41] Allegedly. Allegedly. But we don't know about any of this. Yeah. All right. So I have to add that to the list. All right. And we don't know. We don't know about iron heart for instance, uh, if that's really gonna. There's a lot of reshuffling.

[00:12:55] So really it's just echo is the big, uh, show title and a lot of people are- And then Agatha at the end of the year. Yeah. Right. And that's even thinner on, I don't want to say, how do I want to say this? I think people

[00:13:09] less, well, I don't know. Maybe, maybe there isn't. I think Agatha is hugely hyped. That's what that one's- Really? Bigger than echo. Way more. Yeah. Wow. Interesting. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Although I'm super excited for echo and I think people are going to get excited for echo,

[00:13:24] especially seeing how it's very like Netflix reborn. Right. Right. So, um, and then I did have a question cause I know we're going to talk about echo at the end of the podcast after the break and we're going to get into it. We're going to do our

[00:13:40] sort of context, what you need to know to, to watch it. Um, but what's up with Madam Web? That's a Sony, right? Yeah. Okay. And that's the next movie that's coming out. That's coming in February. February. That's part of the spider verse, but not the animated kind.

[00:13:57] Right. Okay. And then Venom 3, which is in November, all the way out in November. Right. And Craven the Hunter, allegedly. Oh, I forgot about Craven. Yeah. I have Craven on my list, but I just don't have it tagged as a-

[00:14:11] Yeah. I don't think we have it cause it was moved. It was supposed to be this fall. Now shrug. Was it? Oh, was it? They, um, Yeah, they moved it. They moved it. It was supposed to be fall 23. Yeah. Right. I remember that.

[00:14:25] They kicked it out sometime in 24 supposedly. Okay. Oh boy. Uh, let's see. I gotta make some notes here. Craven and uh, trying to keep my track here list updated. I would feel the thing is I would feel more confident if there were some tent pole

[00:14:47] characters coming to screen. There are no temple characters coming to screen. No. Right. But yeah, except that Deadpool 3 is like, people are calling it maybe the biggest movie up with June 2, the biggest movie of the year overall, because it's going to bring back

[00:15:04] all of these Fox characters, including all of the iconic X-Men characters and maybe introduce some of them to the main MCU. I hope you're right. I hope that's what we do. I've seen the set photos. We know-

[00:15:17] No, I've seen the, yeah, I've seen the set photos too, but those set photos, you know, a lot of times the movie is not what we, not what we expected it to be. Right. Yeah. And I'm fearful because I've, I watched the two Deadpool movies.

[00:15:36] You know, you guys already know, I'm not a big fan of, of the Ryan Reynolds Deadpool. They did what they had to do. I think they were, they were cool movies. I don't think they were great movies, especially in how they, the second one and how they

[00:15:53] handled, you know, the characters that they did bring in. Um, so yeah, I'm skeptical. I am very skeptical about this three being an end, a proper end to, you know, the Fox MCU Marvel foray calling it, you know, Deadpool kills the Fox Marvel universe.

[00:16:15] That's a high expectation. I hope it's true. I want it to be true in a way that, you know, things have not been true before. Yeah. I mean, was also could be like, you know, where we had Spider-Man no way home. And then,

[00:16:31] so we're bringing back the old, um, Spider-Man's spiders men from the previous incarnations, but doesn't kill them off. It kind of just opens the door more for which I was happy with. So no, I was happy with that. Definitely. I didn't, they didn't need to go.

[00:16:47] So I have no reason to, I have no reason to be too skeptical about Deadpool at this point, especially considering we know they're investing since it's the only movie on the proper MCU

[00:16:58] calendar, you know, the Sony stuff aside, which is the same thing. Um, it's going to get. All the attention. Okay. Okay. What are we going to do for coverage for Madam web? Are we going

[00:17:11] to talk about that? Is that fall outside of the MCU podcast remit or is that inside? Is that in the inner periphery of our, our boundaries? I think we could do a quick one shot.

[00:17:22] Yeah. Okay. Madam web. Definitely. I would like to do that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's part of the spider verse we've been talking about. Okay, cool. And then we'll, we're definitely doing echo. Uh, and Agatha is definitely on, on our schedule. Yes.

[00:17:36] I don't know if you guys can, what's that? That better be weekly releases. Nice. It would be nice. And, um, I think for, uh, Craven, you guys are going to have to work on me a little bit. I don't

[00:17:50] know if you're going to give me a great, I'll probably see Deadpool just because I would probably see Deadpool just because it is a model style. That one is MCU. Right. Officially. Yeah.

[00:18:02] Right. Yeah, for sure. But I meant just in terms of, uh, like if I, if, if I weren't doing this, would I go see Deadpool? Probably, maybe, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's an high entertainment value, right? It's supposed to be a high entertainment value character, you know,

[00:18:17] zany action on, on scene and on screen and all that. Okay, cool. All right. Well, uh, anything else that we should talk about or should we start getting into our, what if hot takes our spoiler?

[00:18:29] Yeah, definitely. The last thing I want to say is Feige recast. There it is. You heard, you heard it's time to do it. It's okay to do it. Recast T'Challa when I have, you know, a list actors

[00:18:50] saying, yes, I always envisioned that my character will be played by other actors to give them a chance. So yes, Feige, I'm talking to you directly recast T'Challa. There is no reason that we should

[00:19:12] have to suffer without T'Challa in the MCU. It's high time. This is 2024. It's a new year, new attitude. Feige do the right thing because we have a whole bunch of characters who have been

[00:19:31] recast. Margot Robey just came out and said, Hey, it would be really cool if someone else played Harley. Well, Lady Gaga is going to do it. Lady Gaga is playing Harley in an Elseworlds tale.

[00:19:48] Right. But still the actress who most people, the actor who most people have pinned as Harley just said, it's okay. I actually want other people to play the character. Yeah. And, um, Zoe Zaldana said it also about Gamora.

[00:20:08] Why are we stuck not having T'Challa in the MCU? This is really a sticking point for me. Um, I will beat the drum as loudly as I possibly can. It is unfair to the multitude of black actors in Hollywood who would be bringing all sorts of

[00:20:33] gravitas to this character and also giving people a shot to shine. This is ridiculous. There is no reason that T'Challa should not be recast. Do you have a fan cast? The, a favorite fan casting?

[00:20:50] I know. I don't, I don't know. Yeah. I just want the guy in the suit and even if he's not in the suit, it's okay. You know why it's okay. Because in the comics there was a run where he was not

[00:21:05] in the suit and it's okay. And we'd love to run where his sister was the black Panther and he had other adventures because he's T'Challa. I mean, if you want to get all multiversal

[00:21:19] about it, it's possible. It's fine. Right. Yeah. And the reality of the universe and primary world reality, our reality is here is that stuff happens and we don't, how many Batmans have there been?

[00:21:34] Dear Lord. Right. Come on. It's, it's not that hard. So anyways, yeah. Batman, I think it probably must have the number one, uh, number one in terms of the number of actors who've played that role.

[00:21:49] Right. That's, I've had to suffer through three Spiderman, three Peter Parkers in 20 years, three Peter Parkers. Yeah. And you're telling me I can't get a second T'Challa? I think there's one coming, I think, but maybe the calls for recasting will move it up from

[00:22:11] earlier than Secret Wars. With Jonathan Major's situation too, I mean, that should be a clear signal as well. So anyway, maybe we should get on. It's done. Drum is beaten. Uh, so let's get on with our season two spoiler-free,

[00:22:31] uh, hot takes I watched. I was able to get through six of nine of these. So I, Wow. Pretty good. Wow. Uh, I have definite favorite favorites. I didn't realize until afterwards that some of these are

[00:22:46] specific homages to other science fiction titles or just movie titles in general. When I was watching, uh, episode one, what if Nebula joined the Nova Corps at some point? I was like, wait,

[00:22:58] this is Blade Runner. And then later on, apparently like that's the case. It's actually Blade Runner. They're a Blade Runner, uh, uh, tonality, right? Tone. Right. Yeah. And they took some specific shots even.

[00:23:10] It totally took some specific shots. So that one I enjoyed, I enjoyed, uh, Kahori and those are the two that I would say that I really had a good time with the other ones. It was really just the

[00:23:25] switch out the one character. It had the tone for me switch out the one character, keep the plot, uh, as is. And I think for me, the Nebula and that's episode one and episode, uh, six Kahori

[00:23:40] I found that, um, those seem to be the most, to me, the most, um, in a unique, you know, uh, things, not, not just a, uh, change X character and see what happens. The two I didn't watch were eight

[00:23:54] and nine. I haven't got around to it because we just got access to a bunch of screener material for shows that were coming up. And so I'm trying to get ahead. So John and I can get ahead when we

[00:24:04] start covering things like true detective and a couple of other shows. Um, so that sort of got in my way of, of completing the series, but I really enjoyed, um, uh, episode six, even though I had

[00:24:16] some head scratching moments. I haven't seen seven. I did. I watched that was Hela found the 10 rings. Yeah. That was interesting. It didn't, didn't grab me, uh, as much. That was your favorite show. Right.

[00:24:32] I think so. Yeah, no, I think it's a good one. It was a lot of people's favorite. Yeah. Yeah. I think I'm torn. I'm torn. Um, the nebula episode, I really thought was really cool.

[00:24:47] Yeah. Um, it was really well done. It was super interesting. I love the visuals about it. I love the story as well. You don't like this. Yeah. I, I, I really enjoyed that. Um,

[00:24:59] Kauhara's episode, man, that was, there was something that took me out of it, but didn't take me out of it. So then that made me angry. We're going to get into that. It made me angry.

[00:25:11] You know, not, not Bruce Banner angry, but it makes me angry. Um, but overall it was one of my favorite episodes of the two seasons that they've done. Yeah. Um, the Hela episode,

[00:25:28] Hela episode was also just, I, I really love how they portrayed that story. Um, and it opens up, there's a specific moment that really calls back to something in a comic book. That's not even Heller

[00:25:46] that made it, um, really cool for me. And we'll talk about it when, once we get to that episode. Um, but yeah, I, I overall, I thought this, I thought I enjoyed this season more than I enjoyed

[00:25:59] the season one. Is it just me? I mean, I know, sorry, Alicia, I know we're going to get into your hot take, but I just had a quick question. Was it just me or is the animation, the style of

[00:26:10] the animation had me like, Hmm, is this, do I like this animation? I don't know animation well enough to be really a connoisseur. So they're using, they're using a game engine, um, which I, you

[00:26:24] know, it's, it's a, it really has mixed reviews. The art style animation itself. I fall on the side of really liking it, but you're definitely not the only person who's like, I don't know how

[00:26:33] I feel about this. Right? Yeah. Sometimes the faces were a little strange, certain features on a face would be over exaggerated in some way. And sometimes the motion, I can kind of see the,

[00:26:44] the video gameiness of it. I didn't realize it was that at the time, but now that you say that I could kind of see where that is. It didn't take me out of any of the episodes, but it was something

[00:26:54] that I did notice. And I, like I said, I didn't know how I felt about it. Yeah. Um, yeah, overall, I like the art style. I especially liked the stills and the animation doesn't bother me. Um,

[00:27:07] but yeah, overall I liked the season a lot. I thought there was, there were episodes. I definitely liked more than other episodes. I didn't consider any of them bad. It's just, I was most excited by also, yeah, the, the nebula episode, the Kohori episode, the, um, uh, the

[00:27:24] Hella episode. And I mean, it just, yeah, that, that end run was just banger, banger, banger. No, okay. That's good. My personal favorite. And I know I'm probably unique for this, but I loved episode eight, which was the 1602 one, uh, which is, um,

[00:27:40] which is, yeah, we'll talk about it more, but it's, uh, based on the Neil Gaiman comic run. And I just, my history, even though that one is way worse on the history than the Kohori one,

[00:27:54] we'll talk about it. I still enjoyed it. It was a good time. When I, uh, messaged you guys some, at some point in the break, I said, what are the ones that I should absolutely watch,

[00:28:09] uh, before we got on the podcast? And obviously I got, uh, I, I failed on, on two, but it was basically five through nine, I think is what you guys said. Yeah. We said we really liked one and

[00:28:18] five through nine is important for the story. Right. Yeah. Cool. Um, any other, uh, broad spoiler-free thoughts before we take a break and then get into specifics? No, no, just if,

[00:28:32] if you're thinking whether or not you should watch it, just, you know, put on an episode every once in a while, it's a fun time and it does all they're building a cool it's they're building

[00:28:43] like its own universe within the MC universe of multiverse within the multiverse situation here with a new stable of characters that I'm really growing attached to. So yeah, very cool. Definitely. Yeah. And if you want our, uh, spoiler free, well, we do spoiler-free hot takes,

[00:28:58] and then we get into each episode, just like we're going to do same format here, uh, for season one. Yeah, you can, you can go through and we can, we can talk about that. And then

[00:29:07] in this case, we're going to go, um, episode by episode and break it down a little bit, but first let's take a quick break. And we're back. Okay. Let's start doing our episode by episode, uh, breakdown, Alicia,

[00:29:38] as always, thank you so much. We appreciate all your efforts, um, at giving us a great structure to work these through. Uh, yes. And I have to thank Wikipedia for helping me with the recaps.

[00:29:54] It's a lot of work. So awesome. So we're going to do this. Um, I think you guys are going to trade off one by one. We'll do a little synopsis and then we'll talk about any specific details that

[00:30:04] we found that are important for the story or things that we liked about the, uh, the episodes. So, uh, who's kicking us off? Uh, yeah, I will. So overall the head writer of the season was again,

[00:30:15] AC Bradley. And so we talked about her a bit more last episode. If you're curious, um, she's the head writer and producer on both seasons and also works on Ms. Marvel and the director again, uh,

[00:30:26] was Brian Andrews. And we're still waiting to hear about his Marvel zombies. Um, animation was done by flying bark, sorry, flying bark productions, stellar creative lab and SDFX studios with Scott Wright and Steven Frank. That name will come back serving as head of animation. Uh, so question

[00:30:47] about Marvel zombies. I think that's the one that came out of season one. That's actually getting its own spinoff, right? Like they're actually going to develop it as a thing. Yes. I mean,

[00:30:59] we don't know if it's tied to the season one episode, but it seems probably, but we don't know much about it. It was supposed to be coming in 2024. Now I haven't heard anything further,

[00:31:10] so I'm not holding my breath. Right. Well, when it happens, it'll happen, right? Fair enough. Cool. Maybe they'll surprise us like with the Wakanda show. Right. Um, yeah. So, uh, we start

[00:31:23] with episode one. What if nebula joined the Nova Corps? And this was directed by Steven Frank. So that's, that, um, that's the head of animation that I talked about for both seasons and writer

[00:31:34] Matthew Chauncey, who we also talked about last, uh, last season was one of the major writers. And the change in this episode is that Ronan, the accuser successfully rebelled against Thanos and became the biggest baddie in the, in the universe. And when, um, nebula, she ends up being

[00:31:51] cast out lands on Zandar and she's given a second chance by Nova prime, um, to have her life in the Nova Corps there. So five years after this happens, Zandar has been sealed off from the universe to

[00:32:05] protect itself from Ronan's forces and nebula discovers Yondu's body. And she gets bullied by some Nova Corps douches and Nova prime orders her to investigate the murder off the record. Nebula learns that Yondu found the codes to open the planetary shield, thus allowing Ronan in. And

[00:32:22] she enlists the help of imprisoned Cree soldier Yon-Rogg to infiltrate the Nova Corps mainframe and destroy them. Yon-Rogg betrays her revealing that he and Nova prime planned to give up Zandar to Ronan and they try to kill her, but nebula, nebula survives. And she enlists the help of

[00:32:40] Howard, the duck who's a casino owner and his gang Groot, Meek and Korg to stop Nova prime. And during their fight, nebula reveals that she actually realized Nova prime's defection when she assigned the mission to her. She realized that something was off there. So she altered the code

[00:32:57] so that the shield would open, but then close again, smashing Ronan ship, the Darkaster, just as he was entering Zandar, thus destroying the ship and killing Ronan and Nova prime learning this fight tries to escape, but falls to her death and the shield reopens. The sun shines

[00:33:15] and nebula prepares to continue defending her new home planet. So you, David, you said this was probably, it sounds like maybe your favorite. Second favorites. I think is my, is my favorite

[00:33:28] for sure. Um, I enjoyed this one. Oh, um, just before I give my thoughts to note to self, whenever my boss comes to me and tells me to do something off the record,

[00:33:43] make sure that you know what's going on. You got yourself protected. So props to Nova for seeing through the, uh, the ruse there. And I liked that twist that, you know, uh, she actually

[00:33:55] had figured it out. So I thought that was cool. I thought the visuals were great. Once I got, uh, I over the fact that, Hey, you know what? This is, this is very blade runner. Like what's

[00:34:06] going on? I'm like, actually it looks really cool. And then later when I obviously learned officially that it's, it's, you know, it's supposed to be that way. I appreciated it a

[00:34:14] little bit more, but I think what I liked most was it's dark tone. Um, I like the fact that we've got that we can go there. We're going to go there with echo. It seems like, you know, let's,

[00:34:28] let's do this. Let's go MCU after dark, right? Let's, let's deal with some more difficult things or darker toned things as part of the menu of, of options and stories that we have. And so I,

[00:34:43] for one really appreciated that. And I, and I again thought it was a innovative storyline within the what if universe rather than just swapping one character for the other. Like this felt like a

[00:34:56] wholly new storyline, you know, like they took the basis, but then they took it really far rather than just an incremental change. So, um, yeah, it was a lot of fun. Totally agree. Um, yeah.

[00:35:11] And the dark tone was visual as well. So I really did like that, um, that they moved through the shadows, you know, alleyways and no crawl spaces. I just really love that tonality visually. Um,

[00:35:31] and the story itself was, was like you said, David was kind of different with the shield, you know, keeping them locked inside for what was it? Five years. Like you can imagine what that

[00:35:44] would do to, um, to a society, you know, that, that regularly is base fairing, right? Like you can travel off planet and go do things and they don't see the three sons, right. And to be stuck

[00:36:00] in this darkness for five years, knowing that if you do see the light that, you know, it's probably going to be the end of you. That's really, I thought that was a really cool concept. Yeah. Kind of inverting the whole light versus dark.

[00:36:16] Yeah. Like the dark is saving you right now. You know what I mean? And if there's any glimmer of light that shines, man, that's it. It's over. Um, so I thought that was really cool

[00:36:29] of them in the way that they presented the story. I, and it, it was, I like, you know, Nebula, I've always liked her character. I liked her character in MCU movies. Um,

[00:36:43] and it's good to see her get something of her own. Um, yeah, yeah. She can stand on her own and have a story, you know, revolve around her. Um, I thought it was really, was really good.

[00:36:58] Yeah. Yeah. Apparently they made this episode just because they like Karen Gillum so much. I like working with her. So they just wanted Nebula to have her own story. I like that. I like to hear that. That is awesome. And, uh, yeah, go ahead.

[00:37:14] Oh, so say, and I also have to point out that she was ID'd in this as an Omega class cyborg. Now we know we normally like when I hear Omega class, I think storm is an Omega class mutant, which means

[00:37:28] a goddess basically. So that means Nebula is pretty fricking badass. Powerful. Yeah. Yeah. I also, I love the blade runner-ness. I love the film noir-ness that apparently they were intentionally mimicking their favorite eighties movie movies throughout the season. So we see

[00:37:45] that come back in a few different episodes. Um, I love that she summons Yondu's arrow with like a hologram recording of him and just seeing her use it was awesome. I want more of this Nebula.

[00:37:58] Like every time I see a different Nebula, I'm like, I want more of this Nebula. This was a really competent Nebula rather than just an angry sister, you know, sibling Nebula, which I thought was a significant character change. Cause a lot of times it's just her

[00:38:14] in opposition to, um, Gamora, uh, where this is, yeah, like you were saying she's on her own, she's competent. Not only I would say she's more hard boiled than noir, but that's like splitting

[00:38:26] hairs. Um, Well, I think they did a lot of specific, I mean, Blade Runner is very film noir as it is, but they did a lot of specific film noir tropes. Like this is the one episode where the main character takes over narrating from the watcher.

[00:38:40] Right. That's true. True. But I'm thinking hard, she's more hard boiled in that she knows the terrain, she knows the systems of power and then is able to navigate through those where a lot of times with noir, the primary, uh, protagonist doesn't under there's something that

[00:39:00] they don't understand. There's a mystery that's revealed that shocks them. And then whether they survive or not through the noir is, is a different question. Um, but she was very hard boiled and

[00:39:11] it, I just liked it. Her being away from the sibling rivalry part of it and just being a person on her own. And that was, uh, uh, to learn more about her character. So yeah.

[00:39:23] Yeah. Um, as far as the mystery, I'm not sure I completely buy why or, you know, that Nova prime and the rest would betray their planets and she was run inside. That was the one thing that fell

[00:39:35] a little flat for me, but I love that except for Nova prime and groups. I love that everyone else was played by the live action actors. Um, and that's the case for most of most of the characters

[00:39:47] this season. So it's really incredible cast in a Corg is in everything. It seems like that guy is like, you should be in everything. I love cork. I was wondering, I'm like, I like to see you

[00:40:02] redemption arc. Do I like cork? And then I'm like, yeah, I think I Corg is growing on me even more because he's so constant. He's such a constant. And we also see there, they sort of putting in

[00:40:17] these, what if episodes, all the cosmic characters together. So we also see Drax in the background. So apparently the other would be guardians are trapped here. The prison that was floating in space and the guardians movie is actually on the ground and that's where they get the young

[00:40:30] rogue out of. Um, but yeah, we got our, our man Garth and Saul, he was like the right-hand man of Nova prime. He was a hero in the MCU. He died fighting Ronan and here he's head douche. So that's a downgrade for his character.

[00:40:51] Did you think, and I know this is comes from the comics, but John, did you think like the Zendarian world mind, it's looking a lot like the Cree supreme intelligence. Um, it just made me think about this. There are similarities between the Cree and the Zendarians.

[00:41:05] Like they're both military people who kind of have like a computer deciding things for them, but then it, except for this, what if where Nova prime and co, you know, take a heel turn, it turns them out in different ways. I find that interesting.

[00:41:21] Yeah. Um, I, I've not been a fan of how the Nova core has been portrayed in the MCU because they don't do the things that are in the comic. Um, specifically as it relates to, uh,

[00:41:37] what you just said, the world mind, um, and how it powers the Nova core. Um, so the world mind is, is, is a supercomputer, but it also, it has a, what's called a Nova force

[00:41:52] that it imbues the core members with. So they're able to fly out in space basically, um, and become enhanced, um, persons. So they don't really do that in the MCU. And I think that bit of fantasy

[00:42:11] is kind of needed. I, you know, it's, it's highbrow and it's, you know, like, Oh, what kind of, you know, magic stuff is this, you know, flying in the, in outer space. But I, I'm a fan

[00:42:24] of that sort of magic stuff flying in outer space. So I'm missing that part of what the MCU can do. And, um, and there's a particular arc that the Nova core is destroyed, just like it was destroyed

[00:42:40] in the MCU. But the powers of the core of the world mind infused with one Nova and you have the world mind and Richard writer, that's the Nova, um, who are basically the Nova core. And

[00:42:57] it's, um, I think they, they need to do more with that and they've already destroyed the supreme intelligence. So that's out. Um, so I don't know where, where they go with all of this stuff that they've,

[00:43:11] Well, I mean, I guess that's what, what if is for also is for these, where they took a different way where people might be missing certain things from the comics. They can come back.

[00:43:19] Yeah, definitely. Like I would love to see Richard writer in the Nova core, um, proper. Um, well there was supposed to be that Nova one shot and you know, God knows what's happening with that obviously. But, uh, I do wonder if that's still lingering somewhere, if there's

[00:43:33] ideas about that. Right. So we'll see. Yeah. Um, yeah. And also just the fact that the, that Zandar was presumed destroyed by Thanos in the MCU does make me feel more protective of the planet in this short. So when you see like the

[00:43:49] shield go up, you're like, yeah, Oh, you need this shield so you don't get blown up. But then also this is a planet that has the three sons. And so it's always like a beautiful day there and now

[00:43:59] they're plunged into darkness. And what does that do with, you know, I struggle even just in the winter with the short days. Like what does that do when you're completely cut off from three sons?

[00:44:08] Um, and I think there's just a lot of nice philosophical underpinnings in there. Like, well, here we have the heartbreak where Nebula was of course betrayed by Thanos, always adoptive daddy, but here she's also betrayed by adoptive mommy. So it's a bit.

[00:44:25] But then you have at the end that happy ending where like when it opens up and we have the sun, if we open ourselves to new possibilities, they seem to be suggesting we face risk,

[00:44:35] but it's also the only way to really thrive for things to grow and things to develop. I didn't even think about that. That's a good point. Yeah. That's a good point.

[00:44:45] Um, I have a question for you guys. So I think of this as kind of like the only truly standalone, or at least is a truly standalone episode this season. Is this what you want to expect? What

[00:44:57] if to be, or do you like also having the interconnected episodes that we get later? Jean, I want it to be this. I wanted to be standalone stories that don't necessarily connect to one another. I think there's a, um, the idea that the MCU has like this,

[00:45:15] you know, overarching story that's being told by individual, you know, stories, right? I just want this to be what it is. This is a story that we're telling in this universe. Boom.

[00:45:33] Next. But I see that I don't have a problem with the multiverse aspect of the, what if right? Bring all the heroes together. If it's done well, if it's done well, but I really think that

[00:45:50] standalone stories, when I first heard about what is coming to the screen, that's the first thing that I thought was like, okay, these are going to be, you know, stories that don't really matter

[00:46:00] to the overall, you know, plot of whatever else is coming to the MCU. Um, that they connected them in season one and they're doing so in season two. It doesn't take me out of it, but I would

[00:46:14] prefer it to be just those one-offs. I thought that that's what it was going to be, of course, when we first heard about the show. Um, but I'm finding myself and I,

[00:46:27] I appreciate, I enjoy, I loved this episode. I love that it's its own thing and it ends where it ends and we don't really need it to continue all the whole, I want to see more of that nebula,

[00:46:35] but that's, that's my problem is I. I'm like, yeah, give me a good fresh standalone story. And then if I like it, I want to see more of it. And I find myself always drawn into

[00:46:46] like these interconnected worlds. And this is why I keep getting like sucked into the IP, Marvel and, and like a song of ice and fire. And, you know, yeah, I have to go along with the, uh, interest in having more standalone diverge further and

[00:47:05] further from the source material. I guess I'm not as big of an MCU head that I want to know, Oh, what if it was Peter Parker instead of, um, you know, uh, uh, Black Widow that did this thing

[00:47:17] and everything else sort of played out similarly. That doesn't excite me as much as take an existing character, put them in a radically different situation than from what I knew. And then show me more about that character. What show me more, let me learn more about that

[00:47:36] character's motivations and reasons for the way that they do things in these different circumstances. That for me is fresh storytelling. That's for me in it more entertaining than just the, the minor variation, uh, plot styles. All right. Should we move on to episode two?

[00:47:55] Sounds like a good idea. Yeah. So, um, episode number two, what if Peter Quill attacked earth mightiest heroes? I don't know why I got stuck with Peter Quill episode. Oh, sorry. It wasn't on purpose. New year, same junk. Alicia is blushing. Oh, that's a sub stick.

[00:48:19] I know, but cause it, cause you, you trapped. Oh yeah. It was, I mean, I also trapped him with a glory episode. Well, the thing is I keep giving him also my favorite episodes, but it just works out better to do things. So yeah, like you got

[00:48:33] this doctor strange one last episode, you get six and eight this season. All right. Um, okay. So this is directed by Brian Andrews and the writer is Matthew Chauncey. The change yondu delivered Peter Quill to his father ego in 1988 instead of keeping him,

[00:48:52] allowing ego to tap into Peter's power and take control. Just that sentence is just so think about it. No, gave him to his father instead of keeping him, which is actually what happened. It's a very different yondu.

[00:49:06] Man, even does the yondu that we know keeping the kid, Lord have mercy. Okay. Six months later, after ravaging several worlds, Quill returns to earth and response director of shield, Peggy Carter and scientific advisor, Howard Stark recruit Bill Foster, King T'Chaka of Wakanda,

[00:49:26] Bucky Barnes, Dr. Wendy Lawson, and a reluctant Hank Pym who brings his daughter hope along after a scuffle on Coney Island, the team lock up with the help with help from Thor. As the team discusses their next move, young hope trees, Quill who travels to Missouri

[00:49:43] as the Chaka Foster and Thor helps shield hold ego back Pym and Lawson find quote, visiting his mother's grave. A sympathetic Pym convinces him to stand against his father. Bucky in his winter soldier mode, prepares to assassinate Quill until stocks remind him of

[00:50:01] his best friend, Steve Rogers. As Eagle overwhelms the heroes and tries to take back the seed, he plans to use take over earth. Pym and Quill arrived just in time to stop him with the latter

[00:50:13] using the seed to destroy eagles avatar. The team minus Barnes celebrates their victory before setting out to confront Eagle himself. Fin. Alicia? Yeah, so I know this episode, a lot of people really liked it. I medium liked it. I liked it

[00:50:32] well enough. It was the middle of the pack for me in a strong season, but I thought it was really fun to see a new but familiar team in a time period we haven't really gotten to see yet.

[00:50:43] I always love, always loved more Peggy Carter, which you know, what if is obviously a lot for that, but I have to give another plug for the only two season long series Agent Carter on

[00:50:56] available on Disney plus, we get to see more of her and Stark Howard Stark, you know, Tony's father's dynamic. So I think that's all fun. And yeah, I kind of love this young hope and Peter bestie lineup. So again, like I'm like, this was great, great standalone episode,

[00:51:17] give me more. What did you think? This Peter quill wasn't that bad. You know, little kid Peter clothes is definitely better than adult Peter clothes. Yeah, that's where I'm at with that. So that was cool. I really liked seeing Bill

[00:51:41] Foster back in superhero form. sidebar, Marvel comic, bring back Bill Foster. He's been dead way too long. Bring him back. Finn. So yeah, I thought this was a really cool. It was cool. I like that

[00:52:01] he gets to explore his power set in a way that he doesn't really do in the movies. You get to see just how powerful that you know, quote could be could become. And like you said, this grouping

[00:52:14] of heroes that we've never really seen before I thought was was really nice to have to Chaka is always welcome in his Black Panther, you know, outfit was really cool. So yeah, I just thought

[00:52:30] that was cool for me. It was fine. It was nothing that I'm like, Oh, you have to watch it. But if you watch it, I think you'll enjoy it. Yeah. Yeah, David, you didn't watch this one, right?

[00:52:42] I did, but it didn't. Or I started to watch it. Maybe I think maybe I dropped out halfway. It didn't grab me and I know I was just banging the drum about giving me more

[00:52:54] innovative storytelling. And this one sounded like if I remember right, it was a little bit of an innovative storytelling. So maybe I just wasn't I don't know, I just didn't get invested in this in

[00:53:05] this plot for whatever reason. So I kind of a null response to it. Neither good nor bad. Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of like nostalgia factor. And I think and why a lot of people like it because

[00:53:19] yeah, so we again, we had all the original cast back except for Wendy Lawson. And of course, they aged down Peter and Hope. And Wendy Lawson is Marvell from Captain Marvel, the role played by Scrooge Weaver. And then of course, yes, you brought up we get Bill Foster

[00:53:34] back who's he's giant man or black Goliath in the comics and he's Hank Pym's old partner. So they work together inside size changing technology. So that's why like, you know, he can get big as Hank

[00:53:45] Pym gets small. And he's played by Laurence Fishburne. And we last saw him as Ghosts protector slash guardian and Ant-Man and the Wasp. So we know Ghost will be back in Thunderbolts. Maybe Laurence Fishburne will too?

[00:53:59] I don't know. But I don't want him back if he's not giant. Yeah, I mean, I hope that they would. That you know, maybe Ghost goes to him for help. And he's like, Well, okay, let me break out this whole technology.

[00:54:12] Yeah, I don't I don't want Bill Foster in the MCU if he's not going to be a hero. Yeah, fair. No, he was he was he was wasted in Ant-Man and the Wasp.

[00:54:21] Total waste of a character. Yeah, I don't need that. I don't want that. I don't need it. So yeah. So yeah. Yeah, just to set this in the timeline. So this is one year after Janet Van Dyne disappeared into

[00:54:33] the quantum realm and three years before Winter Soldier kills Howard Stark. So they're here, they are side by side. I wonder if that happens in this universe too. And yeah, this is also while obviously Wendy Lawson is working on Project Pegasus, which is where SHIELD, NASA and the

[00:54:49] US government works together to study the Tesseract. I loved the reference to T'Chaka's father, Azuri, that he fought with Cap in the comics, and they said he gifted the vibranium for Captain America's

[00:55:01] SHIELD. Yeah. And they reference him being lost in the Arctic. What did you think of the more serious Thor this episode? He was neither here nor there for me. Quite honestly. Like, I think

[00:55:16] he was just filler. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I guess. I think it was something for them to play off of, you know, and getting to Peter. Like, oh, we have to stop Thor from doing this bad thing that

[00:55:30] we don't want him to do or whatever. But yeah, I don't think he was really, I don't think he was integral to the story. And didn't feel like he needed to be there. You know what I mean?

[00:55:42] Yeah. Well, I guess. Yeah. I mean, so they said that Quill destroyed Asgard and the other realms, and that's why he was there. And I guess that's why he was more serious. But I felt like it was

[00:55:53] sort of a giving that to the fans who have been complaining that Thor's too jokey in the MCU. I didn't even think about that. That's, that's, well, if that's the case, that was a fail. I mean, I don't have any strong feelings about Thor.

[00:56:10] Yeah. You got a serious Thor, but it didn't move the needle one way or the other, you know? So. Um, but it's worth noting that Ego the planet survives in this universe. So like, it's gotta,

[00:56:23] can't be too hard for him to grow a new avatar. Uh, I did like, I, it looks like Peter though, gets to keep his celestial powers in this universe. Yeah. Yeah. We got that team up at the end. Do you want to see more of this team?

[00:56:36] No, I don't need to go back to this universe. Yeah. I mean, I liked, I feel like the team up was the most exciting thing for me that I want to see more of the team more than I wanted to see necessarily the rest of the episode.

[00:56:53] Yeah. I can see that. I can see that. If that makes sense. It does. It makes sense to me. But the way that they, the story played out is there's really, yeah. It's like, for me, I feel like I got this story out of them. Okay, cool.

[00:57:08] I don't, I'm not clamoring to see more of these characters, um, interact with one another or interact with the greater MCU proper. Okay. Okay. Did we change your thoughts at all on this episode, David? Hmm. I don't think so. Better or worse?

[00:57:31] I don't think so. Maybe John's, um, John's, uh, attitudes towards Peter Quill have infected me beyond my realization. Yes. Cool. All right. At least Peter Quill didn't do the dumb thing with Thanos, so I like him. Right. Yeah.

[00:57:48] I did watch this next one, episode three, uh, and it was a bit of a head scratcher, but it was fine. So. Yeah. It's, uh. I think you're up, Alicia. Yeah. It's called What If Happy Hogan Saved Christmas? Or as I like to call it,

[00:58:02] What If Happy Hogan Did a Die Hard? Yeah, basically. It's directed by Brian Andrews, written by AC Bradley and Matthew Chauncey, get co-credits. And the change is an Avengers holiday party goes awry in a plot suspiciously like Die Hard. Um,

[00:58:19] so on Christmas Eve, Happy Hogan is assigned to oversee security at Avengers Tower for the annual holiday party. When Justin Hammer and his henchmen, Sergi and Rusty break out of prison and assault the tower, trying to steal Tony Stark's technology and a sample of Bruce Banner's

[00:58:35] blood while attempting to save the blood sample, Hogan accidentally injects himself with it, causing him to gradually transform into a purple Hulk-like monster, the freak, while retaining his intelligence. While, uh, with the Avengers busy and Stark's AI Jarvis down for

[00:58:51] maintenance, Hogan enlists the help of eternal intern Darcy Lewis, who tries to find a new AI to reboot the tower's security systems. However, she is taken hostage by Hammer's group, who hijacked the Iron Legion and Stark's Hulkbuster armor. Once his transformation is complete,

[00:59:08] Hogan destroys the Legion and defeats Hammer, but not before the Avengers mistake him as the enemy and attempt to fight him before turning to help him. While Hammer is taken back into custody, the Avengers praise Hogan for his efforts and resume their Christmas party.

[00:59:23] So, yeah, you are not a huge fan, David? It was just, uh, it was very on the nose for the diehard thing. There is some of that silly humor. What's the name of the assistant? Darcy. Darcy, right. Yeah. And Darcy was from the very first Thor movie, right?

[00:59:45] Yeah. And she was in WandaVision also. Okay. Right. She comes back in Thor stuff a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Just that style of humor is not my personal favorite. So it was kind of like,

[00:59:57] I did like the lightheartedness of it and it was kind of silly and low stakes and it's not game changing. It was just one of those, hey, let's have a party and cause some mayhem and see

[01:00:12] what happens. So I enjoyed that aspect of it and I didn't mind the diehardness of it so much. I guess if I, I don't know, that's a good question. Cause I didn't know either for episode one or

[01:00:24] this one that these were specific homages and I don't know if that would have helped me going into it or not. Um, but yeah, it was fine. I mean, yeah, I enjoyed it. It was entertaining and that was about it. What'd you think, Shawn?

[01:00:36] I liked it. I thought it was cool. The reason why I liked it, I liked seeing Happy Hogan as you know, I liked seeing him super powered and, and, you know, taking on this role that he's only

[01:00:48] watched before. Right. And everything that we've seen him, he's been adjacent to the heroics, the superpowered heroics, I should say. And it was cool to see, you know, a sort of every person,

[01:01:04] get these powers and jump into action using them, um, and try to navigate them. And then, you know, to convince people, uh, I'm actually the good guy here, you know, because of the way he looked. Um, so it was, Yeah, that was a nice little twist.

[01:01:21] It wasn't bad. Yeah. So I, that was my favorite part of it. Just seeing happy, um, become this super powered person like this. I would, I would like to see more of him. I don't need to see the entire crew,

[01:01:36] but more stories around, you know, happy in this universe, you know, potentially being, you know, out there fighting, um, supervillains or crime or whatever. Yeah. I think that would be interesting for me to watch. So I enjoyed it specifically because of the portrayal of Happy Hogan.

[01:01:55] It was interesting. They gave him in the episode eight and the 1602 universe, they gave him the same powers. Like, so presumably that means then there are other universes where he, yeah. Um, yeah, I mean, this wasn't, this was one of my less favorite

[01:02:13] episodes of the season, um, toward the bottom of my rankings, but overall I liked the season. So I didn't, I didn't hate it by any means whatsoever. I thought it was fine. It was fun. It was,

[01:02:22] you know, I made sure I made my family watch it with me on Christmas. So I was in the mood. Um, it was probably the most shat upon episode in the fandom overall, but yeah, I'm surprised about because like die hard. Like, come on.

[01:02:39] Yeah, it was fun. It was a lighthearted one that didn't have any stakes really. Yeah. It really make you think anything you do. You weren't, I wasn't certainly going to take it

[01:02:48] seriously beyond that. It was a what if I think it, I think for me now that we're talking about it in this real time moment, in terms of what I expect, what if to be this pretty much hit

[01:03:01] it's a center of the target. This is, you know, I kind of agree with that. Yeah. You know, um, whereas like some, when we go to quality or something like that, that has much bigger

[01:03:11] stakes and that's telling a much more impactful story, I think in a lot of reasons. But I think that goes back to what I said earlier about, you know, people having the expectation of

[01:03:21] the interconnectedness to, to all Marvel stories, right? Like how does this fit into the overall structure, the overall plot, the overall, you know, uh, phase of where we're going to, right?

[01:03:34] How do we get from A to Z and where does that fit in? Where does this story fit in on that timeline to get us from A to Z? And, you know, the stories don't have to be that. And, you know,

[01:03:49] you don't have to, there's no real start or end to comic book stories, right? There are events that happen in comics, you know, but the events are always happening in comics. There's always something going on in comic, you know, and, and you don't, yeah, it's just difficult

[01:04:13] for me to, to, to be like, Hey, you know, where does this fit into the overall narrative? I don't need everything to be connected. Um, and I think that's where a lot of people have issues because

[01:04:28] they don't feel like things are being connected enough. Um, and then, you know, once they, they start to get that sort of, you know, Oh, I have to watch this in order to understand that,

[01:04:43] right. That's what the connectivity is. Right. So you can't complain about it not being connected enough and then complain about it being too connected. Yeah. Right. I mean, I think they, they walk the line well enough, but of course I prefer the connectivity. So yeah,

[01:05:00] yeah. That's fine. That's cool. You know, I'm not, I'm not on either side of the aisle here. Um, um, bipartisan on this issue. Right. So, but it's really, you know, telling to me that people complain about what we've heard over the last year, two years about Marvel fatigue.

[01:05:24] That's been one of the main issues, right? People saying, Oh, I have to watch something in order to understand this. And then I don't want to watch anything else in order to understand this.

[01:05:35] Right. And it's really, you know, is that a real thing or is it something that is being you know, propagated by a very small minority of say right now. I think a lot of the angry takes

[01:05:48] are exactly the latter, you know, being propagated by a small vocal minority. Right. Right. Um, but yeah, this is like, there are the connections here if you look for them.

[01:05:58] And I think that that's what Marvel is at its best is, you know, it's, it's a movie or a TV show you should be able to watch on its own and it should provide you with just enough context that you need

[01:06:09] that you don't need to rewatch something else. But then like the comics, if you like a certain character, like go back and watch that character's origin and etc. Yeah, definitely. Definitely.

[01:06:21] Yeah. And I, so this is set on the timeline just before the age of Ultron. And that explains why we have this lineup of Avengers and why Tony has that technology. We've got all the original cast

[01:06:31] back except for Tony and Black Widow are the same voices as who did them in season one, Mike Wingert and Lake Bell. And we also have Josh Keaton stepping in for Steve Rogers. And that's

[01:06:42] true throughout the season. Yeah, there's a lot of we get, we get a Kat Dennings back as Darcy and I love Darcy personally, like Darcy, I want to be my best friend. But there's a yeah, sometimes the humor here didn't necessarily feel as well meshed as it did

[01:07:03] in say, WandaVision. I think that was really Darcy at her best. Or maybe the first Thor too. And yeah, there's I just have lots of questions like what is she studying? How does her program

[01:07:14] work? How old is she? But I don't necessarily need that to be clarified. I love that she calls Happy Puffin two because Bernard from accounting is Puffin one. And this is actually the second reference we've gotten to Bernard from accounting. Bernard from accounting.

[01:07:31] Yeah, because Black Widow wanted to set up Peggy with him in with her. And who is this Bernard? In season one. Yeah, I hope he turns up at some point. And I loved also that nobody wanted the Hawkeye action figures. Hawkeye got a lot of slights this

[01:07:47] episode which is- He did. That's true. That's true. I didn't think about that. That is true. 50% off, right? Yeah, 50%. Even his kids didn't want it. Yeah, I mean, there's, there's a lot of fun things like why is Natasha dresses a ballerina when she

[01:08:06] doesn't have ballet training? I guess it's just fun. She was on a mission. I love the Easter eggs, like the new AI is Werner. It's a Werner Herzog reference, which is so random. Are you a fan of his films, David?

[01:08:21] I am. I don't know how to say this. I admire, I appreciate Werner Herzog. He just wrote a new book. I forget the title of it. It's like, and God is angry and against man. I don't know. It's

[01:08:35] something that's really provocative title. And I heard a number of interviews with him as he was promoting his book and it sounded really interesting because he had a really wild life,

[01:08:48] the way he grew up in the ashes of World War II and his filmmaking career. So I appreciate his voice and I appreciate his take. I thought they were going to go, what's the name of the AI that Hydra had? The guy with the glasses. Oh, Zola. Yeah.

[01:09:08] When I first heard the Werner Herzog voice, I was like, oh my God, why would they bring back Zola? It's ridiculous of all the ones, but then it was Werner Herzog. Why does Tony even have him?

[01:09:17] Exactly. So it was fun. It was like having Werner Herzog in Mandalorian for the first couple of episodes. Yeah. It was a random reference, but, and they gave him like that nihilistic sort of characteristic tone. It's just some fun Easter eggs in Happy's phone. I love that they

[01:09:38] had the names of the creators and writers, A. Bradley, M. Chauncey, S. Lee as for Stanley, and then a bunch of like Fury Hill, a bunch of the Avengers, government people like Thunderbolt Ross, Darcy of course. And then random ones like Christine Everhart was Tony's reporter,

[01:09:57] news reporter hookup. And Harley Keener is the kid from Iron Man 3. These are all in Happy's phone. So I love these little details in these episodes. We won't go through many of them, but it's fun.

[01:10:09] The book title for Herzog's book, by the way, is Every Man For Himself and God Against All. So it has a very nihilistic, but the thing is he's not nihilistic himself. He's very positive in his outlooks and things. He's just as a brutal pragmatism.

[01:10:26] I would not have known that. Okay. Yeah. So really, really interesting. Cool. And then next up we had the silliest episode of them all, in my opinion. Episode four, What If Iron Man Crashed Into The Grand Mask? Director is Brian Andrews and

[01:10:44] written by AC Bradley. The change, Tony destroys the Chitauri mothership above New York City in 2012, like in the events of the Avengers first movie, but he doesn't make it back through the portal to New York City before it closes, instead falling through space and landing on Sakaar.

[01:11:01] After agreeing to stay for one drink, Tony is trapped on Sakaar by his ruler, the Grandmaster. Stark interferes in a death race to save one of the racers, Korg, and encounters Gamora, who is set by Thanos to kill Stark for stopping the Chitauri before the Grandmaster's chief

[01:11:16] enforcer, Topaz, imprisons the pair. Upon learning Gamora's purpose in vowing to stop the Grandmaster, Stark escapes, recruits Korg and Valkyrie, builds a new Iron Man suit, and challenges the Grandmaster to a race for the title of Sakaar's ruler. Though the Grandmaster tries to cheat,

[01:11:36] Stark ultimately wins, and Valkyrie defeats Topaz, sending the melting stick flying until it hits the Grandmaster, melting him into a puddle of goo. As Valkyrie is crowned King of Sakaar, Stark convinces Gamora to forge her own path. They leave together, and the episode ends with them

[01:11:56] leaping to kill Thanos. Alicia, what did you think? Uh, yeah. So this was a missing episode from last season. It was delayed due to COVID, and I'd been waiting for this one, because it explains how Gamora and Tony ended up together

[01:12:15] with Thanos in Thanos's Infinity Gauntlet. But then I was kind of disappointed at the end. I was like, well, where does she get the Stone Crusher? Because she just suddenly had the Stone Crusher in the season finale of last season. But anyway, overall, it was my least

[01:12:29] favorite of the season, but I still enjoyed it reasonably enough. Jeff Goldblum was always fun, and I thought it was probably the funniest episode overall, especially Korg. David, you didn't watch this one, right? I think I... Maybe it was this one that I

[01:12:46] stopped halfway through. There's my response right there. That's everything you need to know. Okay. Okay. What do you think, Sean? Um, I thought it was funny. I thought Goldblum and Korg were the stars of this episode. Maybe I need to go back and just watch Korg.

[01:13:07] Yeah. Yeah. Just, you know, I think that they're hilarious. And I love Jeff Goldblum's portrayal of Grandmaster. I think it's one of my favorite in the entire MCU. But yeah, other than that,

[01:13:23] yeah. It's a fun... If you enjoyed the movie Death Race, then you possibly will enjoy this. Yeah. This was the Mad Max episode, they called it. Definitely. Oh, really? I guess I didn't pick up on that aspect of it.

[01:13:37] When I watch it again, it's because I want to laugh with Korg and the Grandmaster. Yeah. Yeah. That's the reason that this exists to me. It's just fun. They must have had a blast in the studio voicing these characters. That's how I felt.

[01:13:59] Yeah. Yeah. It feels like it's supposed to be like an empowering Gamora story, but she seemed like... Not really. Yeah. It was the, like you said, the characters I'm really watching for, the Grandmaster and Korg, and then Tony feels like the star, and then Gamora's,

[01:14:14] you know, best supporting actress. Yeah. Yeah. It would have been better if she got the Nebula treatment for this episode. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But yeah, it wasn't... Again, it's because Zoe Saldana has already left the MCU. It was all original cast again, except Tony and Gamora. So... Yeah.

[01:14:37] I mean, I think Cynthia McWilliams did a nice job, but it's not the same thing where they're like, oh, Karen Gillum, we love you. We want to give you a Nebula episode.

[01:14:48] It was... It's interesting though that this is kind of like a real what if, because there was a rumor at the time when Avengers came out that Tony originally wasn't going to fall back to Earth

[01:15:00] in that movie, but he was going to go off and join the Guardians of the Galaxy, like in the comics. Oh wow, I didn't know that. So this is kind of how maybe it could have been something like this. This is set

[01:15:11] five years before Thor Ragnarok, when we come to this planet, but we see a lot of the background characters are already here. So it's cool to line those up and see how those are transferred

[01:15:20] to animation. And yeah, I'm still waiting for the Grandmaster, Jeff Goldblum and the Collector, Benicio Del Toro, are confirmed brothers. I really want to see them together in a what if, next season please.

[01:15:35] That would be fun, because those two guys playing off of each other would be, I think, hilarious. Yeah, I agree. And I loved the nickname Metal Mojo Man. That's my new name for him. I have to point out though, so I've been watching, thanks to Deadeye Jedi Bob,

[01:15:55] I've been re-watching the old Spider-Man animated series, or sorry, the old X-Men animated series also. And in the X-Men animated series, there's the Mojo, which makes people fight for entertainment and... Game World. Intergalactic Cable. Yeah.

[01:16:13] Yeah, Game World. So it's a character, it's like a big casino. And like you said, in the show notes, you wrote down it's like a cable network, which is actually what it is in the comic books. Yeah, well, so Intergalactic Cable is a Morty reference, but yeah.

[01:16:32] And so that's really cool. Yeah. More X-Men adjacent things. Yeah. Well, I think we're shifting that direction. Yeah. I can't remember where I was hearing something about that, but some folks were

[01:16:46] talking about, is the Avengers stuff kind of, eh, now it's a little bit washed. We've got a lot of that, and is a pivot to something like X-Men going to be the exciting new direction? And is

[01:17:03] that going to really sort of reignite interest in the superhero genre? And I don't disagree with that take. I don't know about the backside on the Avengers of it, but certainly if they brought X-Men forward. Well, I think there's legal stuff, which- Interesting. I mean, it's-

[01:17:21] Sure, for whatever reason. It's always been the plan to have the next phase be the X-Men phase. Great. I think people are ready. And I don't think, I hope they don't kowtow and just move the X-Men up and they just build toward it properly. People get too impatient.

[01:17:38] It's true. The market does get impatient. And I think- But at the same time, I think it's an exciting, I think there's a strong desire for the... I don't think that's a controversial statement to say people are excited for X-Men.

[01:17:53] No, no, no. No, I love the X-Men. That was my entry into Marvel. Right. And this is what you guys are talking about. This is the reason why I call BS on the Marvel fatigue. Because- Got it. Okay. When you look at a wider set of titles-

[01:18:10] Of what's coming. That's a good point. These movies, I would place a large wager are going to do very well. Got it. Between the X-Men, Fantastic Four, people have been waiting 20 years- Yes. To get these characters done in a way that makes them really, really happy.

[01:18:35] And I don't think that these movies that are coming up with these characters that people have been waiting for are going to engender this conversation about fatigue of superheroes. If anything, they're going to launch a new burgeoning superhero craze. And I just call BS on the fatigue conversation.

[01:19:01] Got it. Yeah. So yeah, speaking of people who must be tired. So we've got Grandmaster who's immortal and apparently still alive as a puddle. Although the melty stick kills Thanos. The question is though, is it always his birthday? Yes. It's 27th birthday.

[01:19:24] Yes. Every day is his birthday. Every day is his birthday. I love it. All right. So then we get into the... We actually pick up with an interconnected story. We pick up right where we left off last season with What If Captain Carter Fought the Hydra Stomper

[01:19:40] directed by Brian Andrews and written by AC Bradley. So this is continuing from the post credit scene of season one. And this is the first official sequel in the world of a very first...

[01:19:51] Yeah, in the world of the very first What If episode. And Captain Peggy Carter and Natasha Romanoff find Steve Rogers inside the Hydra Stomper armor aboard the ship they were raiding, but he attacks them. And a briefing with Nick Fury leads Romanoff to deduce that Rogers,

[01:20:07] who went missing in 1953 was captured and brainwashed by the Red Room. Carter and Romanoff help Brock Rumlaw protect Bucky Barnes from Rogers before incapacitating him and traveling to a secret hideout in Scotland where they learn the suit is keeping Rogers alive,

[01:20:23] though each activation reduces his chances of survival. Rogers offers to help Carter dismantle the Red Room in the hopes of finding a cure and takes her and Romanoff to a former KGB site that

[01:20:35] looks like a creepy take on a town in middle America run by automatons. However, the group is ambushed by these drones and black widow assassins, which are controlled by the Red Room's leader, Melina Vostokoff, who reactivates Rogers' brainwashing. And while Romanoff holds

[01:20:54] off Vostokoff's forces, Peggy connects with Steve again, and he sacrifices himself to destroy the Red Room, but not before Natasha uses her grappling hook to tie Melina to Rogers' suit so that she's killed in the resulting explosion as well. As Carter tries to find Rogers, not believing that

[01:21:15] he could be dead, a portal suddenly takes her to a Renaissance-themed universe, surprising even the Watcher, and there she encounters its variants of Fury and Wanda Maximoff, aka Wanda Merlin, and she calls out to her friend, the Watcher, for help. So what do you think of this episode,

[01:21:33] Sean? I liked it. This is, um, yeah, so after five, uh, after episode four, three, and two, this is, this was like, oh, yeah, okay, I'm in this, I'm in this right now. Um, the town that

[01:21:54] they, that they went to, the, the replica, you know, America, Americana, you know, middle America town that they found themselves in with the automatons and it, that, that was just so cool.

[01:22:08] Creepy, yeah. Yeah, it was so, so very creepy. Um, I just like the entire tone of the episode. The one thing was that Steve, when outside of the suit, right, when you see his face,

[01:22:25] I just wasn't convinced of his villainy. I couldn't, I couldn't see his face and think, oh gosh, this guy's going to, you know, like totally, you know, kill people. I just didn't

[01:22:42] get that vibe from, from his eyes. I don't know. But when he put the mask up, I was totally invested in the character being evil, but when they showed his face, I wasn't, maybe that was,

[01:22:56] I don't know. I just, yeah, I thought he was interesting, but not in the way that Bucky was interesting in the MCU. Like, I didn't think that his brainwashing angle instead of the Bucky brainwashing angle, I didn't, I didn't enjoy it as much as the Bucky brainwashing. Um,

[01:23:19] but the fight scenes I thought were really cool. Uh, Black Widow and Peggy's, you know, banter and they're just the way that they play off each other, I think was really cool. Um, yeah, I really enjoyed this. I enjoyed it. Yeah. What'd you think David?

[01:23:42] Um, this was another meh for me. Um, I think maybe I just not as invested, um, with the characters, but it was fine. I watched it mostly without looking away at my phone too many times.

[01:23:56] Well, that's a, that's a win. Yeah. That's a win for me. I got interested when the other assassins showed up, uh, all of Natasha's sisters, quote unquote. I was into that.

[01:24:13] And, uh, I thought that the red room thing, it really reminded me of, um, what was that called? What was the AI or not the AI, but was the big ship platform in the creator called? Oh, um, it's not the Sentinel. It's like the,

[01:24:31] something like that. Yeah. Anyway, that, that sort of thing is, you know, is hovering menace. So yeah. And then it was very independence day at the end when, uh, they go, uh, when he goes up

[01:24:42] into it, um, you know, if you remember the end of end spoilers for independence day, Oh man, we swallowing independence day? Yeah. When he flies his jet up into the, the, the people have only had like 30 years to see it.

[01:24:55] I know exactly. Uh, and yeah, so it was, it was fine. I did. I thought that the whole captain Carter making moon dog eyes at, uh, Steve Rogers got a little,

[01:25:09] I was like, okay, I got it. You like him, you know? Uh, and then the sort of love triumphs all, you know, love was able to get Steve Rogers to break his programming or what have you. It's kind

[01:25:20] of like, it was fine. You know, it didn't, it didn't take me too far, but yeah, I think the, the ending fight scenes, uh, were with, with the other assassins that that's where I got interested.

[01:25:31] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They, I am more invested in captain Carter and basically everyone else except this version of Steve Rogers. And I don't know if it's because like he's stuck in the suit

[01:25:43] or whatever, but I've just, yeah. Um, I'm, I was more invested in her and black widow, which I was wondering what it was like a little jealous at times of, you know, it felt that way. It felt

[01:25:55] that way. And I think they, they definitely made it feel that way because they would cut, they would cut to her face at certain points, you know, like she would have like a bewildered look on her

[01:26:09] when Peggy was talking about Steve. So definitely I think they intended it to feel that way. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I thought it was really nice to see Malina back and I love Rachel Weiss.

[01:26:20] Always happy to see her, but it was sad to see her like this without her redemption arc. Um, I do, I did like this, like a lot of the story aspects better than the black widow movie,

[01:26:31] which he was riffing off of a lot, but I do have questions like, does Yelena exist in this universe? Apparently there's no red guardian because they did, they modeled him after cap. And so after this, yeah, there's, um, instead I want to see that captain Carter movie musical.

[01:26:47] That would be funny. Although at first I want to see the entire Marvel's movie musical. That's my recast T'Challa. Um, yeah, there was, there was some fun playing with the, with the what if-ness with the alternate

[01:27:06] timelines. So we have Brock Rumlow. So since, um, since Steve and Bucky knocked out Hydra going into the fifties, Brock Rumlow is not a Hydra spy and shield. So he gets to be a good guy in this one

[01:27:19] instead of becoming crossbones. And, um, there was, of course we have captain Carter instead of captain America at the battle of New York in 2012, but then also the wasp is there. So apparently the wasp was originally going to be in the Avengers movie,

[01:27:36] but Feige told Whedon to replace that character with black widow instead. So that's a cool callback. Yeah. And then of course, yeah, Bucky takes the place of, of Pierce who's played by Robert Redford because now Bucky has aged like a normal person. So he's

[01:27:52] like the old government dude. And I have to wonder who's going to bring, I don't think Steve's dead. I'm wondering who's going to bring him back. Is it going to be Peggy's or going to be Bucky

[01:28:00] to bring him back to himself? Yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't need Steve. No, I don't. I don't. No, I don't. I don't need this version of Steve, but I hope he's not. I hope he,

[01:28:15] I hope you're wrong that he's, that he is. I know he's not, but I kind of hope that they change plans. Yeah. Yeah. And I have to say, sorry, go ahead. No, I was just about to say,

[01:28:27] just go ahead with the, you know, Natasha and Peggy love stories. Yeah, no, I'm, I was more into that. I was also more into Peggy with the other Steve that we'll see in episode eight. That one too, yeah. They could do that too. Absolutely. Although they're,

[01:28:41] at least she and Natasha are in the same universe, but, um, I know long, long time by Linda Ronstadt has been Steven has been Peggy and Steve's song before it was Bill and Frank song from the last

[01:28:56] of us. But now I can't, I have, I associated with that more like, sorry, I did it better with that song. Yeah. So episode six, what if Kahare reshaped the world directed by Brian Andrews,

[01:29:08] right. Written by Ryan little, Ryan little started as a production assistant working his way up through Marvel to story coordinator and editor. This is the first main writing credit couldn't find, um, can't find cultural background. What drove him to specifically want to tell a Mohawk

[01:29:27] story, the change searcher does Ragnarok a few centuries early destroying Asgard and the Tesseract crash lands in a lake in the Alisha. Uh, how Dennis Sone, they, so it's the confederacy and pre-colonial 15th century later upstate New York, giving the lake magical properties

[01:29:49] after numerous members of the tribe disappear into the lake never to return. It becomes known as the forbidden lake in the late 15th century, young Mohawk siblings, Kahare and Wata. Did I say that correctly? Yes. Are hunted by Spanish conquistadors who ransacked their village

[01:30:06] in search of the fountain of youth while hiding inside a cave. Wata is captured and Kahare is shot causing her to fall in the forbidden lake and into another dimension where she is nursed back to health by fellow Mohawk people. A villager named Atarat explains that the missing

[01:30:27] tribes people were teleported to the sky world where they gained powers in immortality, but were unable to return home. As Kahare familiarizes herself with her newfound powers and learns she's the best at them. The conquistadors enter the lake, believing it to be the fountain

[01:30:43] and invade the sky world. Kahare stops them and forces the portal from the sky to the ground and returns home. She and the villagers defeat the conquistadors, rescue her people and later force

[01:30:55] Queen Isabella to make peace. Soon after, Doctor Strange emerges from a separate portal and approaches Kahare. David? I thought that this was my favorite episode. It seemed fresh. It seemed innovative in a number of

[01:31:11] ways. The whole idea with the tesseract, using the tesseract and then throwing it into this lake, I didn't see that. And then when the conquistadors showed up, I didn't think that, you know, I didn't

[01:31:23] realize, oh, you know, they're going after the fountain of youth kind of thing. I thought that was a cool motivation for them rolling in that, those historical, I don't know what little bits and

[01:31:36] pieces from real world history. I got the most feels from this episode in terms of an emotional response. And I think it was just a very simple thing of overcoming an invasion, invaders and

[01:31:55] rallying people to fight for a just cause. So I think that worked. I thought that the, I mean, they really made the conquistadors as bad guys, like, you know, very mono, flat, you know, fine.

[01:32:12] And then with Queen Isabella, they really, I'm not saying that the Spanish shouldn't in this instance be hung out to dry, but they really simplified a lot of complex stuff in terms of historical currents and tides. I'm not talking about morality. I'm just talking about

[01:32:29] how history went down, which is fine. It's a cartoon. But I did scratch my head because when I did some light Googling, I didn't think that the Mohawk nation was anywhere near the Atlantic seaboard. So I don't know where these conquistador ships were coming into if they were

[01:32:47] in the Great Lakes. But again, doesn't matter. You know, it's like- But this is before colonialization, before the Eastern tribes were pushed to the Great Lakes region, they were- Okay. Were they on the coast? Eastern woodland tribes. Yeah. So this is upstate New York.

[01:33:02] Okay. All right. So then, so my, you know, my quote unquote, my own research failed me there. But yeah, I just didn't understand that aspect of the history. So all of, none of that took me out

[01:33:15] of it. None of that caused me a problem, you know, or what have you, but it was, it was a really enjoyable episode. And I don't know if they're, they have plans for K'kwore as a new superhero

[01:33:28] within the storylines or what they're going to do, but I don't know anything about where this character came from and where they're going. And I thought that was exciting for me. Okay. Alicia, what did you think? I'm going to wait till last. You go, Sean. Oh, okay.

[01:33:45] Yeah. So this is like my, you know, it's between this episode and the next episode as my favorite, right? So it's really hard to parse for me. I was really angry at the conquistadors being in

[01:34:02] this episode. And even though I was angry, I still loved it. I still loved it because historically it didn't make sense for me to have Spanish speaking peoples interact with this tribe of indigenous peoples, right? They just fake, what I call them a fake Ponce de Leon looking

[01:34:26] for the fountain of youth. That's not here, right? Right. Maybe that's what I was bumping up against, right? I was like, wait, this doesn't, but it's a cartoon. So Yeah, it's a cartoon, but you know, still if they did all of this work to capture,

[01:34:42] you know, the cultural, what am I looking for? What's the word? Accuracies or the, yeah, the portrayal, a portrayal that was, that's representative and not simplify oversimplify. Yes. Yes. Then the invaders should have been French. Okay. Or at the very least, you know, English, early English, Dutch, something.

[01:35:06] The Dutch were their allies, but yeah. But that's who they should have been interacting with, right? Instead of the Spanish speaking, you know, instead of the conquistadors. That's the only thing that really bothered me about this

[01:35:18] episode. It would have been cool to see her, you know, confront, you know, Louis the 14th instead of the Bella. I think it was Louis, it might've been Louis great-great grandfather who

[01:35:30] was, you know, king of France at the time. Right. But still just, it didn't take me out, but it upped at me. I really loved the, this episode for how it treated the interactions between the people who found the Tesseract and how the Tesseract made them.

[01:35:54] This is a totally different view on how to react to the cosmic that we've received from the MCU. Like they interacted with this power source in a way that we haven't seen before. Right.

[01:36:11] It wasn't centralized to one person. It was shared and it was, it was something that imbued them with power, right? They consumed it in an imbued them with power. This is a departure from how we've seen like the stones or, or anything else in the MCU that,

[01:36:34] that deals with, you know, other worldly powers. I thought that was really, really cool to watch because it gives you a different viewpoint, a different frame of thinking of how, you know,

[01:36:49] we see things like, you know, how we deal with nature in a way that is completely different to how another group of people's deal with nature. You sent us something in, in, in our chat. The Mohawk creation story. Yeah. The creation.

[01:37:10] I'm sorry. I didn't get a chance to look at that yet. Which was really illuminating for me because it, you know, I've not had that experience of reading or of hearing that story. Right. And to see how they, they pulled in the sky world, the water

[01:37:27] and all of these, you know, signifiers and, and put them into the story that we got in what if with their own little twist on it. Right. Was really great. It was really awesome to see

[01:37:45] given that background. Once I read it and I'm like, Oh, it opened up even a new avenue for me to appreciate what they actually did in this story. So this was really, this yeah. I can't say enough good things about it. Actually.

[01:38:04] Yeah. As far as I, you know, I thought a lot about the historical problem with the Spanish showing up when it should have been the French. And I was wondering at first, like, well, of course it's

[01:38:15] a different universe. It happens differently. So is it just easier to make this Spanish conquistadors baddies in this case and in film stereotype terms, but then again, pray, which by the way, excellent movie, everyone should watch it. But it's about the Comanche who are,

[01:38:32] and their enemies are these French trappers until something worse comes along. Right. And it's so yeah, they, you can do it, but then I was thinking, well, maybe also they want

[01:38:43] to link the quest for the fountain of youth to this creation myth, because, you know, in a lot of, it's in a lot of Native American storytelling and especially creation myths, waters are portals

[01:38:56] between words, worlds. And so it does seem like the in-universe reason for the Spanish coming this far North rather than they obviously actually in our world came much further South is that there

[01:39:09] were rumors of this special lake and the legend of it reached Spanish ears. And so that's when they thought, well, this is, it is the fountain of youth because the people who fall within it

[01:39:20] don't age. But of course it's never exactly what you think it's going to be. So I'm happy to accept it for that. And for those reasons, I really like that they made a huge effort. Disney has done this

[01:39:36] with Prey, with this, with Echo, working very closely with specific tribes to bring their specific mythology to life. So in this case, Little and Andrews, this is quoting Wikipedia here, Little and Andrews worked for four years with members of the Mohawk nation, such as historian

[01:39:52] Doug George, who provided insight into the history of the Akweneas, sorry, Akweneasasnee region, which is upstate New York today. And the Mohawk language expert, Cecilia King to create Cohorti's look and world to ensure the cultural authenticity of the episode. So it's funny. So the

[01:40:15] Mohawks are from the same region as my tribe, the Potawatomi originally were also Eastern woodlands, although they were enemies. And so I know some things about them. Like I knew when I saw this

[01:40:29] story, I was like, okay, I bet that their creation myth is similar. It's going to involve these water portals. And so that's enough to be able to look it up. But then I don't know that much about the

[01:40:40] language. So I thought when listening to this, I was like, wow, Mohawk is a lot less monotone than Potawatomi language. But it turns out that they actually did that on purpose. They made it, they gave it more inflection to make it sound more auditorially interesting, quote unquote.

[01:40:55] Ah, interesting. Yeah. And as far as the mustache twirling conquistadors, I think maybe Isabella got a little bit of an unfair shake because she apparently punished or wanted to punish Christopher Columbus for his slaving ways. And so maybe she's not as bad as she was portrayed here. But

[01:41:15] I think from this story is told from the perspective of Cohorti and her people, and from her perspective, they are, yeah, they are the bad guys. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, this was one of my favorite episodes. I love the way they incorporated

[01:41:29] the myth, loved the vibes, want to see more of this character. And I love that they didn't, I love they didn't wimp out and do this episode in English. Yeah. Yeah. I thought that was interesting as well. Yeah. That was great. That was great.

[01:41:41] Yeah. And I like the fact that they're not monoculturizing different Native American tribes. That they did the work to understand which particular story that they're telling. Yeah. And Cohorti was played by Devery Jacobs, who I still, the fact that I haven't watched

[01:42:00] Reservation Dogs yet is a big miss, I think. But a lot of people want to see her as a live action Cohorti and I'm in full support of that. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. David, were you saying you watch Reservation Dogs or is that, was that?

[01:42:14] I am in the, yeah, my spouse and I are watching it now. It was, I missed out on the running of it in real time and a lot of, it ended up a lot of top 10 lists. And so,

[01:42:28] we finished season one and have started season two. It's really great. I would put it in the same category of shows as like Atlanta and The Bear where there's doing a lot of interesting

[01:42:39] storytelling and having fun with it, but also having a lot of real stuff that we human beings deal with and putting it out there in an interesting way. And yeah, it's really good. It's really good.

[01:42:54] No, it's near the top of my list of shows I have to remedy. They need, like people are like, there's going to be a dearth of shows because of the strike. I'm like, good. Give me time to catch up.

[01:43:06] I'm sorry, but I'm tracking all this stuff on the show checker. There is not a dearth of shows. No, no, no. I already got the screeners for Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Yeah, yeah. We got the screeners. We got, yeah, True Detective. I mean,

[01:43:18] yeah, it's a lot of stuff. Severance. House of the Dragon. Yeah. So, but yeah, I love that just the way they incorporated and made it references to a lot of Native American ideas that were familiar to me, like to people coming from clay. Kohori

[01:43:35] was identified as Wolf Clan, which I'm jealous of. I'm Korean clan. And I love that just the general idea that they get their power via the land. So, it comes from the Tesseract. That's the

[01:43:48] Marvel twist, but it's a very core idea to Native American culture that they're picking up the power by living on and loving the lands and its beings. And yeah. Yeah. Really good stuff. Really good stuff.

[01:44:01] And we've got another afterlife world to add to the Marvel mix. Speaking of which, so episode seven, What if Hela Found the Ten Rings? Directed by Brian Andrews, written by Matthew Chauncey. So, the change is instead of banishing Hela to hell where she,

[01:44:16] when she won't stop conquesting, Odin instead strips her of her powers and banishes to earth like he did to Thor in the Thor movie. And she lands in medieval China. Odin destroys Mjolnir

[01:44:29] just like she did to Thor's Mjolnir. And instead he gives Hela's crown an enchantment and says, In medieval China, Hela is confronted by the armies of Xu Wenwu, bearer of the Ten Rings, nearly a millennium before he would fall in love and have a son named

[01:44:53] Shang-Chi. Hela attempts to retrieve her crown but fails due to the lack of mercy thing. And Wenwu keeps Hela alive, trying to recruit her to his army and maybe his bed until she escapes

[01:45:06] after failing to steal his Ten Rings. She's guided by a Hunden who looks a lot like Morris to the realm of Talo where she convinces their leader Zha Yi to let her join their cause. Zha Yi

[01:45:20] teaches Hela martial arts after she recognizes her true desire not to conquest, is not to conquest, but to get freedom from control. After Heimdall reports his failure to locate Hela back to Odin, Odin visits earth to battle Wenwu in retaliation and Hela joins Wenwu in fighting against Odin,

[01:45:38] ultimately winning but sparing her father, thus regaining her worthiness to wield her crown. Odin recognizes Hela's growth and passes Asgard's throne to her. Hela unites the armies of Asgard and Wenwu's Ten Rings organization and embarks on a journey to ensure freedom across the nine realms

[01:45:55] and beyond, coming to the rescue of Gamora's people as Thanos attacks them. So we see baby Gamora gets a different fate in this universe. Jean-Maur, your thoughts? Yeah, again, this is one

[01:46:07] of my favorite episodes between this and six. I love the portrayal of Hela. I think her arc to worthiness was done much better than Thor's personally. I really enjoyed her arc to fighting

[01:46:25] her worthiness was really great to see. There are a host of tonal things that just made sense to me with her character and I love that instead of locking her or putting her out of history,

[01:46:47] that Odin actually sent her out, cast her out of Asgard to figure this shit out. There's this moment at the end of the episode where Hela is transformed into white, right? Yeah. And as the goddess of death, she's always in black signifying what she does, who she is.

[01:47:19] And now she's been transformed into this bringer of life basically because she's saving people instead of taking them to the underworld. This calls back to a comic and I want to say 2014, 2015, a comic run for the ultimate that's written by Al Ewing where basically the team of the

[01:47:43] ultimate, they transformed Galactus. Galactus is the devourer of worlds, right? They transformed Galactus into Galactus, the life bringer. And he becomes instead of someone who feeds off worlds and kills them, he creates them. And that's how he derives his energy from. That call back to that

[01:48:13] comic, if it's not a call back to the comic, I'll be shocked. But having her transform in that way made me think of that comic and that was one of the best comic book runs of, I would say,

[01:48:32] the last 10, 15 years written by Al Ewing. It was really, really, really cool for me to see. I like this episode a lot. I thought, again, the hella art was hella done. It was great

[01:48:50] and it was really cool to see this play out without Thor, without Loki, without any of these characters that we think of when we think of Asgard. Yeah. I have questions though about, so Thor is not born yet in this, but obviously he was born

[01:49:10] by medieval times because the Norse were worshipping him before that. So I'm going with, it took a hella long time to fall through space. That's my explanation. Yeah. Yeah. What did you think, David?

[01:49:25] Um, yeah, again, it wasn't one that grabbed me. So, not characters that I'm invested in and so yeah, not much to say. Okay. I mean, yeah, so I thought it was one of the best of the season also. I know a lot of people

[01:49:39] feel that way about this one. I love the mashup of worlds, believable character development, real psychology at work here. In real psychology, they find that the carrot is more effective than the stick. So second chances work better than punishment, which we won't get into prison systems

[01:49:56] in the US, but I liked, we have more of the underworld references coming together. My one question though is, is Odin racist? Because he was perfectly happy to give the Tesseract to Norwegians, but the Chinese can't have the 10 rings and like what happened to this whole mercy

[01:50:12] thing in the final battle? Yeah. Odin's a little racist. Yeah. But speaking of racist times, what happened to the Avengers in 1602? Man. Okay. What is Avengers Assembled in 1602? Directed by Brian Andrews, written by A.C.

[01:50:29] Bradley and Ryan Little. The change, Captain Carter's pulled through a portal to a universe where the Avengers live through the Renaissance. After arriving in a Renaissance-themed universe, Captain Carter agrees to help Wanda Merlin and Sir Nicholas Fury stop an impending incursion.

[01:50:47] She saves Prince Loki from being pulled into a tear, but fails to save Queen Hela. So is hunted by Sir Harold the Happy Hogan under the new King Thor's orders. Carter learns the incursion is

[01:51:00] occurring due to the presence of the Forerunner. Another time, this place individual and locates Tony Stark who can make a device to identify the Forerunner using the Time Stone in Thor's scepter. He points her toward outlaws Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes, and Scott Lang to help steal it.

[01:51:17] Carter finds the group, but they are ambushed by Hogan. Carter gives herself up before freeing herself and amassed Bruce Banner. They meet with Stark and join Rogers' group in infiltrating Thor's court. With Wanda's help, the group retrieves the Time Stone for Stark's device, which identifies

[01:51:32] Rogers as the Forerunner who had inadvertently created the temporal anomaly while battling Thanos. Carter bids farewell to Rogers and returns him to his universe, preventing the incursion before she is met by Supreme Strange. Yeah, so like I said, this was my favorite

[01:51:51] episode of the season, but I love this era of history. And I have to admit, you know, there's more fudging of history here than all the rest of the episodes combined. Because we've got

[01:52:01] like Robin Hood's A Few Centuries Too Late. We've got The Man in the Iron Mask and like The Wrong, I'm not even sure what continent they're on, to be honest. Yeah, yeah. And it's- And Geo.

[01:52:12] Yeah, it's funny because it is based on the Neil Gaiman comic, but that comic is really rooted in history. So there, it's about the death of Queen Elizabeth, and then King James takes over, who's

[01:52:27] the person who, you know, by inheriting the throne, he united Scotland and England. But in the comic, he hates what they call the witch breed, which are like the mutants and the magical people. And so

[01:52:41] that's the source of all this. But then you do also find spoiler alert for the comics, there's a Native American character who is suspiciously white, and it turns out that he's Steve Rogers,

[01:52:52] displaced in time, sent back. And so it is basically the same story. But this is playing a lot looser with history, mostly different characters. Wanda's kind of a villain in the comic book version. And here she's definitely more on the hero side, which I didn't mind at all.

[01:53:11] But despite all that, yeah, I loved it. I love the fun and the vibes. So who would you think, Sean? It was cool. I thought it was fun. I thought it was lighthearted. I thought it was,

[01:53:21] I didn't feel like the stakes were incredibly high, even though they were dealing with the incursion. Just didn't feel like world ending to me, for whatever reason. It felt a lot more about the characters on the ground than just overarching, like, oh, the fate of the world

[01:53:39] is at hand here. I thought it, I liked seeing these characters played in a different way. Again, Happy Hogan wasn't very happy in this, but he was great. I thought his villain,

[01:53:54] I don't even know if we could call him a villain, but still his portrayal was really cool in this. I thought his story was fun. I thought he brought, for me, a lot of levity to the story overall,

[01:54:08] when he showed up twirling his mustache and really being a different version of what we know. Yeah, I think it wasn't my favorite episode, but I enjoyed it. Yeah, I love that Tom Hiddleston got to do some Shakespeare.

[01:54:27] And Hamlet's obviously an appropriate one for Loki. We talked a lot about that play in our Beacon 23 breakdowns because it's relevant to that TV show on Worship Test. And I love that the reference to the incursions, Peggy talks about needing to unstick the world. So we're

[01:54:46] finally getting more acknowledgement of the incursion situation. And now that Peggy and the Watcher are apparently just like best friends chatting throughout the episode. Yes. We'll see where it takes us. To people who want things to be connected, well, here you go.

[01:55:02] Okay. So then we get to the finale, which picks up right where this left off. This one's directed by Brian Andrews, written by Matthew Chauncey. And Strange Supreme, he takes Captain Carter to his sanctum infinitum, where he reveals that he has been capturing universe killers to atone for

[01:55:21] his sins and asks for her help in capturing an escaped variant who fled to a universe where Hydra used the Tesseract to destroy the world. Carter agrees and encounters Cohorti, who reveals that Strange has been capturing variants to feed to the Forge, a magical machine he built

[01:55:39] to resurrect his lost universe. As Strange attempts to kill Cohorti, Carter frees his captives, allowing her and Cohorti to escape. Amidst the chaos, the pair encounter Black Panther Killmonger, who Cohorti just sends away and takes his armor for Captain Carter to wear. And while the pair

[01:55:57] battle Strange at the Forge, the variants who are falling into the Forge start throwing their weapons to Carter. I like the Mjolnir and Hela's crown and yeah, just the shield. Odin's spear. Yeah, the spear. Yeah. And Strange, he's taken over by his demonic self. And though Carter

[01:56:22] separates them as the Forge collapses, Strange is aware enough to sacrifice himself and his demonic counterpart into it. And the Watcher returns Cohorti home, bringing Carter to Strange's restored universe to show her that Strange succeeded in resurrecting Christine Palmer

[01:56:39] finally, though he can never be reborn into this world. Carter asks the Watcher to show her the multiverse before taking her home and they visit Loki's Yggdrasil Tree of Life. Yes, and I thought that was a great final shot. Just awesome. You know, you see the connecting

[01:57:01] to Loki and just really, really great. That was so yeah, I can't say enough about how I enjoyed that last shot like this, my screensaver. It's really, really well done. The part that I liked

[01:57:17] about this was Strange not being in control because he it wasn't strange. I feel I feel it was all the entities that he, you know, it right. So that were actually in control of what he was

[01:57:34] doing. So the idea that he could control all of these evil demonic forces, these magical creatures that he, you know, took in into his very soul in order to become this all powerful person

[01:57:50] and that he can control it forever. That never felt right to me. And to see him lose control and for those entities to come out and say, no, no, no, no, we're running this shit. That was really great for me. I thought that was really well done.

[01:58:07] Yeah. I strange to me was, was the best part of this episode. Hmm. I, for me, I didn't love this episode as much as the last season finale or as much as the

[01:58:20] episode for you know, when Strange Supreme was born episode, it didn't have, it was a bit messier and didn't have the same like emotional nuances, those episodes, but I did, I did quite like it.

[01:58:32] And one of the things I loved most is that they took the two characters, the quote unquote Marvel bros are most likely to complain about this season and they just double down on it. Actually, these are the two women. Yes. We're going to shave everything.

[01:58:45] Who are saving the day. Yeah. Yeah. I actually, they got me with a twist that it was Kohori who was sending them after because I had already heard that zombie Wanda was going to show up in

[01:58:54] this episode. So I thought that that's who she was going to find in the forest. And of course we see some of those briefly later. So yeah, that twist worked for me. I loved the wall of universe killers. It was just like Easter egg wall.

[01:59:05] I definitely walked through them all. Yeah, that was cool to watch. But I want to see Evil Rocket and Cowboy Loki. Cowboy Loki. I think it's yeah, I'm glad we got the Loki and Watcher relationship kind of answered or at least addressed. And Is it though?

[01:59:24] I mean, we saw, yeah, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, I mean, we saw, yeah, they're kind of on the same playing field in a way, although Watcher gets to walk around and Loki has to sit in his chair.

[01:59:37] Yeah. I don't know. I don't know about that. We're not going to nerd off right now, but I don't know about that. To be continued. But I like, they seem to be differentiating heroes, like the caps,

[01:59:50] you know, the always do right types and the strangers and Wandas who might end up hurting people to get what they want, which to be honest, those are kind of the more interesting characters to me. Absolutely. Absolutely.

[02:00:01] Yeah. And I hope this is the beginning of more cohorty. That's yeah. Yeah. That goes without saying. That goes without saying. Definitely a watch for folks out there who are on the fence about this series. So episode nine, definitely it's a watch.

[02:00:19] If just to get to the end shot. If only that. If only. Yeah. I mean, if you just want this story five through nine, but it's worth, yeah. Don't skip one and don't skip the rest. Cool. All right. Good job guys. That was a lot to cover.

[02:00:38] That was. A lot of great content. I'm going to have to definitely go check nine because yeah, I forgot about the fact that Strange shows up at the end with Kohori and says,

[02:00:45] I've been looking for you. So I gotta put that on my list to catch up on. So are they going for a season three? Is that been confirmed? Yes. It's being made now. Yeah. Oh wow. Okay.

[02:00:58] And they already released a new scene because this, it was from an episode that was going to be this season, but is being pushed to next season. So there's a scene out there of you see

[02:01:07] like probably somewhere in the seventies or something Red Guardian and Bucky on the road in like route 56 style on a road trip. And they're stopped by, it seems like it's Bill Foster, Laurence Fishburne's character. And a new character Ranger Morales played by America

[02:01:25] Ferreira. So yeah, we've got that and at least eight other episodes coming at some point dot, dot, dot. Hopefully we'll also get that if Wanda grew up watching musicals episode. Well, maybe if they're using this game engine, as you said, for the animation in terms of writing

[02:01:41] and on that side, it's not well going to animation, I guess is what I'm trying to say is not that hard as it would be with other styles of animation. So maybe fingers crossed, we see this next year.

[02:01:55] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I think next year is realistic because they've already, because it was already green lit and they've already been working on it. They, you know, they've had some time to do that.

[02:02:06] It's just nice when, I mean, I don't mean to be complaining about all this stuff, but it is nice when seasons aren't two or three years out from the previous season. Yeah. Yeah. As soon as there's a little bit of regularity.

[02:02:16] That's been a terrible trend of recent years. Yeah. Yeah. It's tough. Yeah. Especially if you have big names attached to a project. And the backlog with VFX artists and animators. Exactly. Yeah. We have to treat these with knowledge of work.

[02:02:30] I think AC Bradley is not coming back for a season. No. Okay. No. Yeah. I think she, she's out for season. Okay. Okay. Well, yeah, that could, I mean, it could be interesting to have new voices and hopefully we'll have some of the others for continuity. Yeah.

[02:02:47] All right. Well, we'll look forward to a season three. So let's take a quick break. And then when we come back, let's get into our preview for Echo. And we're back. Okay. Let's talk about the upcoming show on Disney plus five episodes,

[02:03:22] all to drop at once Echo. And it looks like they're talking December 9th, possibly 10th. They're playing one of those silly games with the actual release. January, January, January. January. Yeah. I say December. Oh, sorry. January. Here. Why does it say? New year, new year, new year. Hello.

[02:03:41] 2024, 2024, January. 2023. That's right. Be here on the mic now. Not a Google doc. So. Yeah. I'm guessing that means like the evening of the ninth for the U S which means for most of the world, the 10th. Yeah.

[02:03:58] So the second trailer dropped, Alicia, you posted that. And then you also posted a video that they put up talking about the background for Echo and how they're working with Native American tribes on, or I tried the Choctaw tribe on this one specifically. And after

[02:04:21] watching that second trailer, I was running around the house. I was like screaming. I was like, Oh my God, this looks so good. And I had to check myself because I think the last time I got really excited by a trailer, he had a dumpster fire. Wow. So.

[02:04:38] This is not that, this is not that. I am still hyped for this show. I'm really excited. So let's talk about who Echo is, the character and what it is that we need to know going into this season. So let's, let's who's, who's leading us off on this.

[02:04:54] Yeah. So because daredevil will appear in the series, but only very occasionally people don't get like, you know, it's going to be the daredevil show. Yeah. He's got one coming. But it'll probably be around like the beginning and the end. So, and we also, we got in the

[02:05:09] trailer, we got clips of Fisk from the daredevil Netflix show. So does that make this show canon? I don't know. It is definitely canon. It's canon. So Echo, we, we met in Hawkeye Christmas special last year in 2022, not 23. She is the adoptive

[02:05:33] daughter of Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin. She becomes his enemy because she finds out that he had her father killed. That's pretty much the motivation for this. That's the motivation for

[02:05:50] the, for the, for the series. You, you raised me. You told me that you were close and loving with my father. You call me your niece, we're family. And I find out that you were the one who orchestrated

[02:06:06] the murder of my father. That's the state. That's where we're at with this series. And what do we need to know about Fisk? Because it sounds like he's going to be a pretty important part of the storyline here.

[02:06:19] So a short recap, Fisk, Wilson Fisk is from the Netflix Daredevil universe. This is still that person. He's that character. In the Netflix series, Fisk was the main villain for much of the

[02:06:33] series. One of the biggest crime bosses in New York city. He ruled Hell's Kitchen putting him into conflict with Matt Murdock, Daredevil. Fisk is portrayed as brutal, cunning, murderous. He's evil, head bashing, exactly. He's even able to trick Frank Castle, the punisher

[02:06:54] to go against Daredevil. We also see that he is someone who was played by the demons of his childhood, a childhood where we saw him actually kill his father with a hammer after watching

[02:07:04] his father physically assaulted. But then we also see him as a loving and caring person, especially when it comes to Vanessa, Mariana, the woman that he falls in love with. Daredevil is finally able to defeat him. Fisk threatens to reveal his secret identity if Daredevil doesn't

[02:07:21] kill him. Daredevil says, if you don't do what I want you to do, then I'm going to let the authorities know that Vanessa played a role in a murder that happened during the scene.

[02:07:35] He stays silent and gets arrested all to probably protect Vanessa. Then we see him again. He shows up in Hawkeye. Fisk is out of prison. He has rebuilt his criminal empire during the blip. He didn't get blip, obviously. So he's here in all his kingpin glory. He's commanding,

[02:07:55] he's in charge, and he's manipulating everything and everyone around New York City. He seems to have put his past behind him of being a little unsure of himself at times. This is making him really formidable, really dangerous. Eleanor Bishop is Kate Bishop's

[02:08:14] mother who becomes Hawkeye in the series. It's working for him because of a debt that's owed by her husband in case of deceased father. He attempts to kill Elodore when she reneges on

[02:08:26] their deal, which leads Kate to becoming Hawkeye by donning the mask and taking out her bow and arrows to try to take down the kingpin with help from Clint Barton. This is where we also meet Maya

[02:08:40] Lopez, Echo, who is Fisk's niece as her father was a trusted employee of the kingpin who got murdered. We find out along with Maya that it was Fisk who had her father killed. She swears

[02:08:55] vengeance, which leads us to the new Disney Plus series, Echo. And she shoots him in the eye. Oh, yes, that's right. I forgot about that. So in the comics, Echo is a mutant. She's part of the X-Men, New Mutants, X-Men stories. She is Native American. But vaguely.

[02:09:22] In the comics, vaguely. Yes. Yeah, they give her two tribes, but no like- No really, no grounding. She's like Cheyenne and anyway. Exactly. In this series, she's Chepto, I believe? Mm-hmm. Yeah? Yeah. Okay, so they fully lean into her being Native American with everything that

[02:09:47] we fully expect to see. The care that was taken in Kahari, we expect to see that in this series. Yeah, it seems like even more so. Yeah. And also the same with her deaf identity because she's also deaf. And so- Yes, yes. Thank you for doing that.

[02:10:03] They did a lot of the camera work around that as well to make sure that the sign language gets worked in. And I know like in the comics, her powers are kind of more Taskmaster-esque. Yeah, they are. She can copy anything.

[02:10:18] Sorry, my camera's doing things in the background. Lurking alert. Yeah. So yeah, she's copying everything, anything. And in this case, I know they've changed it that she is getting specific powers from specific ancestors. And as the different powers activate,

[02:10:35] she'll have like different tattoos will form on her face. Interesting. So it's going to be interesting to see. Yeah. I know I'm excited because it's like Netflix for born. We've got like this gritty realism going on. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it.

[02:10:51] David, you are as well? You like the groundedness? Yeah, yeah. 100% hyped for this. I like the actor. I like the Fisk character. I don't know much about that. I mean, what we know about Echo is what we know about Echo. And I'm excited to see

[02:11:12] them try a different style and a different tone of storytelling. And then add in my appreciation for the fact that they're doing the work to ground the production storytelling in the things that are important to respect and acknowledge people. I think I strayed into some YouTube

[02:11:37] territory, and this one has got the Marvel bros all up in their shit. And I'm here for that. Oh boy. Oh boy. I'm like, go ahead. Popcorn in the microwave. Exactly. So I'm excited to see a different kind of storytelling. I'm excited to see

[02:11:56] a wider perspective on the universe. I'm excited to see the way that we tell storytelling, the way that they actually tell the story. They're innovating around that. And so just the whole thing, I am 100% super enthusiastic to see where they take us with

[02:12:17] this one. And I'm just hoping, I'm just hoping, hoping, hoping it's going to be as exciting as the trailers are making me feel. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. And again, because it's the Fisk taken from Daredevil universe. It's not real, right.

[02:12:31] Yeah. And it's the same character. This is giving me hope. It's giving me hope that we get to see Luke Cage, Jessica Jones come to the MCU proper at some point. Maybe even in the Daredevil series. I don't know. Just give me something.

[02:12:48] At least give me Karen and Froggy. Yeah, bring Karen and Froggy back. But just if you were a fan of those shows, this gives you hope that you get to see some of these characters, even if they're portrayed by new actors. No.

[02:13:03] But you get to see these characters. Yeah. No, I mean, this has got to be a film. So far we've got the two biggest characters from Daredevil back in there, same actors. I can see them recasting Luke, quite honestly. I can't see them recasting Jessica at this point.

[02:13:20] Yeah, no, they're not going to recast Jessica. But I think that they- Not at this point. There was thoughts about maybe recasting Luke because of the whole, like, they're like, oh, we don't want to do the Iron Fist the way it was. And you know, those two-

[02:13:32] We should do that too. We'll see. Those two are so tied together. But I mean, minor spoiler alerts, Iron Fist ends in a very satisfying way for people who don't want the white savior thing. They fix that at the end of

[02:13:45] the series so they can pick right up where they left that off and that would make a lot of people happy. Cool. We'll see. Fingers crossed. So what's our coverage plans? This is a five episode drop. They all drop at once, yeah.

[02:14:00] Yeah. And I think it's coming on Hulu actually, not Disney. I don't know. Both. I think it's both. The merging is going to happen. I think it's both. Yeah, I think they're doing both. Yeah. I'm getting a lot of Hulu push.

[02:14:09] Yeah, because it is a gritty rated R series and I think they're testing because they're going to- I mean, it's the same service over here outside the US. In fact, I don't think it's going to be a tile. I think because when I'm looking at some of the

[02:14:21] deals, I was looking at subscription renewals. They're really leaning forward with Hulu and Hulu Live and then Disney as an add on. And so it's interesting what they're going to do. But yeah, I think they're going to keep it. So. Okay. Here it's a tile called stars.

[02:14:41] Right, right. So we're scheduled for what? I think- For the next- The 13th. Next Saturday is our- we're going to record. So we've got to binge all five shows in a couple

[02:14:55] of days to try to get recording out on- recording done on the weekend and then get a podcast into your feeds around like the 15th or 16th of January. Yeah, it's on Disney Plus. I just pulled it up on my desk. Okay. All right. Fair enough.

[02:15:11] Because I saw something where they were saying set your Hulu filter to mature. Okay. You know, like turning the mature content thing on Hulu. So I think they're going both directions. Yeah. Probably AB tested a little bit. Okay.

[02:15:26] So yeah, we're going to do that and I think we're excited for it. So- Yes, we are. Yes, we are. Given the length of time and the realities of life, I'm just going to speed us through our quick

[02:15:38] outro. Alicia, do you have anything immediately coming on? We'll shift dust. I know you've got other plans. Next up is the wrap up for Beacon 23 season one. Cool. And yeah. Okay.

[02:15:51] And then we're jumping into Dune and Shift is the next- Shift and Dust are the next books in the Silent Book Club. Okay, awesome. I can't wait to hear the Beacon 23 stuff. Yeah. I got questions.

[02:16:04] We've recorded the wrap up. I just lost about a week or so of editing time due to hearing problems. So getting back on that now. Okay, all right. Yeah. All right. So properly Howard movie review there on a little break. Anthony's a bit busy with some

[02:16:16] stuff, but he's still doing this auction, this fantasy draft auction thing or no fantasy draft for House of the Dragon on his Bukulu channel. Even though I think he's a little bit of a pause

[02:16:29] there because of work related stuff. However, as soon as we get a date for Severance, we are going to be covering that week to week episode to episode with Steve and Anthony from properly

[02:16:43] Howard movie review. So go find that feed. There's a link in the show notes or just search Severance lore hounds and you should be able to find it. For the lore hounds main, we are going to be covering

[02:16:54] true detective night country, which is the fourth season of this show. Even though it is an anthology series, you don't need to have watched one through three to appreciate this. I have already seen

[02:17:06] episode one. We got access to screeners. I'm not going to say anything. I can't say anything except watch the show when it comes out because it's good. I did a rewatch of season one recently. I

[02:17:18] binged. What is that? How many episodes is it? Eight or nine episodes in like a three day period. So it kind of like broke my brain a little bit, but it's so good that series. And so I'll be

[02:17:30] watching for any tie-ins that cross the series, but otherwise you should be able to watch season four all by yourself. And that should be good. Otherwise we've got on the star Wars film fest.

[02:17:42] We're going to come up on rogue one. That's going to be exciting. We just published a Silmarillion story. Earthsea book Nook will be back in February, and then we're going to be tracking

[02:17:53] some different shows in the future. We're looking at masters of the air. We're looking at Mr. And Mrs. Smith. We're looking at constellation. That's an Apple TV show. So we've got a number of things

[02:18:07] that we're keeping our eyes on. So stay tuned. Apple keys coming with the sci-fi stuff. Yep. That one is going to be interesting. That is with Jonathan Banks and Numi Rapace, who was in the girl with the tattoo. And it seems like a mystery box, sort of,

[02:18:28] maybe push it in the direction of silo in some regards. If you're a Patreon subscriber, check the show tracker and you can find information about that show quite easily. Otherwise to our

[02:18:40] Loremaster patrons who go to support all of our operations and help us take care of all of our co-hosts as well. Samartian, Mark H, Michael G, Michelle E, David W, Brian P, Nick W, S C, Peter O

[02:18:54] H, Bettina W, Adam S, Nancy M, Dove 71, Brian 8063, Frederick H, Sarah L, Garrah C, Eric F, Matthew M, Sarah M, DJ Miwa, Andra B, Kwong U, Jedi Jedi Bob, Nathan T, Alex V, Aaron T, Sub Zero,

[02:19:12] Aaron K, Dawn V and last but never least, Adrian. Thank you all so very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We are going to jump and we'll see you on Echo in about a week. Thank you, Alicia. Thank you,

[02:19:27] Sean. Happy New Year. Happy New Year. I was going to a little late, but I won't do that to people. Okay. Thanks.