‘Thunderbolts*’ Is Marvel’s Return to Form. Is It Too Late?

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Thunderbolts’ Is Marvel’s Return to Form. Is It Too Late?"*

The Big Picture episode released on May 2, 2025, delves into Marvel’s latest film, Thunderbolts, exploring its reception, thematic depth, and its place within the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Hosts Sean Fennessy and Amanda Dobbins, joined by guest Mallory Rubin, engage in a comprehensive discussion that balances critical analysis with enthusiastic fandom.

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1. Introduction to Thunderbolts

Sean Fennessy opens the conversation by setting the stage for a discussion about Thunderbolts, highlighting its significance as the concluding film of Phase Five and a potential turning point for Marvel as it transitions into Phase Six.

Notable Quote:

Sean Fennessy [07:22]: "Thunderbolts comes to us with, I think, modest anticipation, but a sort of buoyant optimism."

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2. Cast and Crew Insights

The hosts commend the film's unique approach to casting and crew selection, noting the involvement of talents typically not associated with mainstream Marvel productions.

• Director and Writers: Jake Schreier, known for Beef, and writers Eric Pearson and Joanna Callo bring a fresh perspective.
• Cinematography: Andrew Droz Palermo's work adds a distinct visual flair.
• Notable Cast: Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, Wyatt Russell, Olga Kurylenko, Lewis Pullman, Geraldine Viswanathan, David Harbour, Hannah John-Kamen, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus are highlighted for their performances.

Notable Quote:

Sean Fennessy [06:58]: "They leaned into the fact that the guy who edited this movie edited Minari."

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3. Plot and Thematic Analysis

Mallory Rubin provides an in-depth analysis of the film’s core themes, particularly the metaphor of depression embodied by the antagonist, the Void. The discussion emphasizes how Thunderbolts uses its narrative to explore loneliness and the quest for fellowship among a group of rejects.

Notable Quote:

Mallory Rubin [09:02]: "The film is about whether people who have no fellowship can find it with each other, and their shared loneliness is the common ground."

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4. Character Dynamics and Performances

The chemistry among the cast, especially between Florence Pugh (Yelena) and David Harbour (Bob/Sentry), is a focal point. The hosts praise their interactions, comedic timing, and the emotional depth they bring to their roles.

• Florence Pugh as Yelena: Recognized for her strong performance and emotional resonance.
• Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes: Discussed as a seasoned character bringing depth and continuity from previous MCU appearances.
• Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Valentina: Mixed reviews were shared regarding her casting and performance, with some feeling her comedic background clashed with the film's dramatic elements.

Notable Quotes:

Amanda Dobbins [10:28]: "I didn't dislike it. I think that's progress."

Sean Fennessy [39:21]: "I don't think Julia Louis-Dreyfus is good in these movies. It feels like you're watching a TV show when you're watching her."

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5. Visual and Special Effects

The hosts commend the film's use of practical effects and real locations, contrasting it with the heavy reliance on CGI in recent Marvel productions. The depiction of the Void and the transformation of Bob into the Void are noted for their visual metaphor representing internal struggles.

Notable Quote:

Amanda Dobbins [12:00]: "The void effect was awesome. They used more practical effects, which made a huge difference."

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6. Comparison with Previous MCU Films

Thunderbolts is contrasted with other MCU entries, particularly highlighting its thematic maturity and cohesive storytelling compared to the perceived decline in quality of recent films. The discussion touches on how Black Widow and Falcon and the Winter Soldier set the stage for Thunderbolts.

Notable Quote:

Sean Fennessy [13:00]: "If we had seen Black Widow, you’d say this movie reminds me of that movie. It was very competently made."

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7. Multiverse and Future Phases

The conversation shifts to the implications of Thunderbolts within the broader MCU multiverse saga. The introduction of the Fantastic Four is discussed as a critical test for Marvel’s future storytelling and franchise integration.

Notable Quote:

Mallory Rubin [32:40]: "The test for that is still, I think this isn't the test for that. I think the test is going to be Fantastic Four."

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8. Post-Credits and Future Teasers

The hosts appreciate the significance of the mid-credits and post-credits scenes, which seamlessly set up upcoming films like the Fantastic Four, ensuring continuity and excitement for future MCU projects.

Notable Quote:

Sean Fennessy [73:32]: "It was like a lot of synergy and PowerPointy brand activation to me."

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9. Final Thoughts and MCU’s Evolution

In wrapping up, the hosts reflect on whether Marvel can regain its former glory and appeal to both dedicated fans and general audiences. They express optimism tied to the strengths of Thunderbolts and anticipation for upcoming MCU installments.

Notable Quote:

Mallory Rubin [87:34]: "Sharing it with my friends, genuinely, not to be too corny about it. It's exciting to have a Marvel that people are not actively dreading discussing with each other."

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Conclusion

Thunderbolts is portrayed as a refreshing and thematically rich addition to the MCU, balancing character development with action and setting the stage for future narratives. The hosts conclude with a positive outlook, appreciating the film's ability to engage both seasoned fans and newcomers alike.

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Sean Fennessy]

Look, it's not that confusing. I'm Rob Harvilla, host of the podcast 60 Songs that Explain the 90s. Except we did 120 songs and now we're back with the 2000s.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I refuse to say aughts.

[Sean Fennessy]

2000 to 2009. The Strokes, Rihanna, JLo, Kanye. Sure. And now the show is called 60 Songs that Explain the 90s. Colon, the 2000s. Wow, that's too long a title for me to say anything else right now, Just trust me. That's 60 songs that explain the 90s. Cole in the 2000s preference, preferably on Spotify. This episode is brought to you by the Wells Fargo Active Cash Credit Card. This is an ad for the Active Cash credit card from Wells Fargo. That's a mouthful, but that's because it packs a lot in. Earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases with it, big or small. So whether it's buying tickets to the game with your mom or grabbing a coffee with your dog, earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases made with it. Say it with me. The Active Cash credit card from Wells Fargo. Learn more@wells Fargo.com ActiveCash Terms apply.

[Mallory Rubin]

Season 1 of Andor had critics calling it the best Star wars series yet. Season two of the Emmy nominated series is now streaming on Disney. Follow Cassian Andor as he embarks on a path from a rebel to a hero. Starring Diego Luna. And from creator Tony Gilroy, writer of Michael Clayton and the Born Identity. Season two of Andor is now streaming only on Disney plus.

[Sean Fennessy]

I'm Sean Fennessy.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I'm Amanda Dobbins.

[Sean Fennessy]

And this is the big picture, a conversation show about thunderbolts.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Woo.

[Sean Fennessy]

Mallory Rubin is here. Long awaited return. When was the last time you were here? Complete unknown.

[Mallory Rubin]

Take Dylan. Yeah, I think so.

[Amanda Dobbins]

But the last time the three of us were together was Harrison Ford and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.

[Mallory Rubin]

Wow.

[Sean Fennessy]

So is that the last time we potted together?

[Amanda Dobbins]

I believe so.

[Sean Fennessy]

Whoa.

[Mallory Rubin]

Holy shit.

[Sean Fennessy]

Summer of 2023. That's a long time ago.

[Mallory Rubin]

Too long, I would say.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I think so. Well, you know, Mallory and I took you to task for some of your opinions, so it seems like you didn't want to revisit that.

[Mallory Rubin]

We did the same for his takes on Quantumania, which the three of us also shared together because Sean was very pro.

[Sean Fennessy]

I was mid pro.

[Mallory Rubin]

Very pro.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I was like open to it, I guess. Quantumania is more recent, right? Than dial.

[Mallory Rubin]

No, I think dialogue similar time.

[Sean Fennessy]

They're in the same era. It is an elegant segue though, because.

[Mallory Rubin]

Quantumania, which Was Quantumania was February of 2023.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. A film that was more or less rejected, despite being framed as a significant and important part of the Marvel story. I thought was just fine, but most people didn't like it. Most people haven't liked Marvel movies in quite a while, obviously. Mal, a lot of what you do on House of R is tracking the progress, or lack thereof, of Marvel storytelling. It's been a rocky road last couple of years. Thunderbolts comes to us with, I think, modest anticipation, but a sort of buoyant optimism, I would say. Does that seem accurate? At least? I've been projecting that towards you.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And I would say that the community at large seems optimistic for Thunderbolts and then downright ravenous for Fantastic Four, which is another Marvel sort of. What phase are we in now?

[Mallory Rubin]

Well, this is the conclusion of Phase five. Thunderbolts is the last film of Phase Five, and we will be heading into Phase six. But we're in the Multiverse saga, right?

[Amanda Dobbins]

And we're like, things are changing, right? You know, we're on the precipice, and these are two important films, both for Marvel's business propositions and also, as I gather, for the Marvel fandom and the story and the future of the many humans in the many multiverses. I had it.

[Mallory Rubin]

I had it.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Honestly, though, she nailed it. I was there. She nailed it. And then I was like, oh, you.

[Sean Fennessy]

Weren'T making any faces or being weird. And then all of a sudden, you just.

[Mallory Rubin]

One multiverse and lots of. Lots of universes inside of one multiverse.

[Sean Fennessy]

I find myself here on this podcast talking so sincerely.

[Mallory Rubin]

I'd like to ask Amanda a question.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay.

[Mallory Rubin]

How many MCU movies do you think there have been? What number was thunderbolts?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay. 32.

[Mallory Rubin]

Really close.

[Sean Fennessy]

Pretty close.

[Mallory Rubin]

36.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay. Oh, interesting.

[Mallory Rubin]

That's a lot.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Mallory Rubin]

We've been doing this together for a while. I have seen almost all of them. You've probably seen all of them.

[Amanda Dobbins]

No, I haven't seen the Doctor Strange movies. I don't know. I missed the first one. I just. I don't know what happened.

[Mallory Rubin]

You would have so many takes on the sling ring you have got to watch.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And then I saw a preview for the second one.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And I Learned that Rachel McAdams was in it, which was pretty exciting. But I was on leave for the second one because I think I saw the preview at Spider man no Way Home. Was that the good one?

[Mallory Rubin]

I think all the Spider man ones are good.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Well, it was the.

[Mallory Rubin]

But yes, yes, yes.

[Amanda Dobbins]

The Spider Man No Way Home, which we saw together, remember?

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, we also potted on that together. One of my favorite big pic memories because Sean and I were honestly talking for quite a while about Matt Murdock, and you said to us, what the fuck is wrong with you? There are three spider men in this movie.

[Amanda Dobbins]

You did bury that lead, or we're.

[Sean Fennessy]

Just trying to make a podcast.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Sure. But I think I did that. That was a sensation of a movie, made a lot of money. We all three enjoyed it. And I think what we liked about it was that all the spider men were there together and nostalgia. And then you guys were talking about some guy who's a lawyer.

[Sean Fennessy]

He's a lawyer and a superhero who's actually in the news in 2025 because Daredevil is back on Disney. And you know, this conversation may seem like a side road to Thunderbolts, but in fact, I think what it is is like 10 years of friendship in Los Angeles going to see Marvel movies.

[Mallory Rubin]

Exactly.

[Sean Fennessy]

I've seen a lot of these movies together over the years. I've certainly gone through quite a journey with my fandom of Marvel and this kind of storytelling. And I would love to love these movies. You know, that's really where my heart is. Even when they're absolutely terrible, I'm not happy that they're terrible, but I think you got to call a spade a spade. And the last five or six I just don't think have been very strong. And I'm not going to get on this podcast and tell you that Thunderbolts is the best movie of the year because I don't think that it is, but it's in the right direction. That was my take on it. So the movie is directed by Jake Schreier, who has not really directed anything quite like this. The most recent big project he was associated with was Beef, the award winning, fantastic Netflix, which is a great show. It's written by Eric Pearson and Joanna Callo, who is also one of the co showrunners of the Bear. It's cinematography by Andrew Droz Palermo. I'm saying these names because all of these names are not names you typically hear when you see a Marvel movie. This is something that you're doing.

[Mallory Rubin]

The A24.

[Sean Fennessy]

They did settle some credits. They leaned into the fact that, you know, the guy who edited this movie edited Minari. That's not something you might expect. I'm not saying that this movie is like that, but we'll get into it. In addition to that, the cast is full of some familiar faces, but also some I guess more respected names than you necessarily see at the front of some of these movies. In particular, Florence Pugh and recent Academy Award nominee Sebastian. Stan Wyatt Russell is in this film. Olga Kirilenko, Lewis Pullman, Geraldine Viswanathan, David Harbour, Hannah John Kamen and Julia Louis Dreyfus. Thunderbolts. Who are the Thunderbolts? Like, what is this crew relative to the canon that you know and understand better than anybody? And who are they in these movies? Cause they are a little bit different.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, I would say, like, that was one of my big questions heading into this, actually, was how pertinent would the comics canon be? Because in addition to, hey, look at all of these people associated with your favorite, like, letterbox film, bro Classics, who are making this movie. It's going to be different. Like, come cinephiles and rejoice. It had an asterisk at the end of the title the entire time. And so there was. When are we doing spoilers?

[Sean Fennessy]

Not yet.

[Mallory Rubin]

Okay, I will, like, not get into that, but I will say there was, like, pretty rampant speculation the entire time about what that might signal, what that might mean. Is that an indication that this is, like, not necessarily the. The Baron Zemo Forge? Like, it was never going to be that. At this point in the mcu, though, Zemo's like, you know, he's out there. He's kicking Daniel Brul's character.

[Sean Fennessy]

Oh, Baron Zemo.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Where from what film?

[Sean Fennessy]

Captain America. The Winter Soldier.

[Mallory Rubin]

Civil War.

[Sean Fennessy]

Civil War.

[Mallory Rubin]

And then more recently, the Falcon and the Winter Soldier television show.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes.

[Mallory Rubin]

Which is one of the properties in.

[Amanda Dobbins]

TV work good for Daniel.

[Mallory Rubin]

You probably saw the clip of him dancing.

[Amanda Dobbins]

No, but that's okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

You didn't see that series. That's also the origins of the Wyatt Russell character in this film.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

I mean, there are a lot of things that are important to have seen before this, but in some ways, I would say the Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Black Widow are like the most important prior Marvel MCU canon, which.

[Sean Fennessy]

Is one of the two.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yes, I have.

[Mallory Rubin]

Interesting. So what you need to know, honestly, in terms of the comics history, you know, the group Forges to fill the space that the Avengers have left. Right. There are many different leaders and many different formations. This is often the case with the comics canon team up. I would say, really the only thing you need to know, though, is what you head into the movie knowing and then very quickly have reinforced, which is this is like a ragtag group of rejects who have not found their place either, because it has actively been. They have been deprived of that fellowship with other people, maybe they have actively lost somebody. Like Yelena has lost Natasha. Yelena also rejected the Red Room and broke free of the Black Widow mind control. Everybody has their version of that. And we'll obviously talk about the characters more as we go. And so that's the question the film is. Is based on, is like, can people who have no fellowship find. Find it with each other? Can the thing they have in common be their loneliness? And the answer is yes. And I thought it was beautiful. I really liked the movie. It was fun. I was. So I had really high hopes for the movie, but I. I was really pleasantly surprised. I thought they pulled it off. And it was exactly what I wanted this kind of movie with this group of characters at this time in the MCU to be. I thought it was a real breath of fresh air, tonally. And I'm excited to see how these characters function in the wider multiversal saga moving forward.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay, so the exuberant superfan.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. Loved it.

[Sean Fennessy]

The longtime but increasingly cynical fan.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

And the general skeptic.

[Mallory Rubin]

But I have not been high on a lot of recent MCU movies, so that's part of why I'm so relieved.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Skeptic. And also the ignorant participant in this willfully ignorant.

[Sean Fennessy]

Mal. Loved it. I liked it. Yes. What did you think?

[Amanda Dobbins]

I didn't dislike it. I think that's progress.

[Mallory Rubin]

Pretty good.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I look at it honestly. I did.

[Mallory Rubin]

I heard you chuckle a few times.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Well, now. So that is one thing. I would say it took almost an hour. And I would say that the first 45 minutes felt very, very creaky in terms of exposition and the number of threads that they have to put together.

[Sean Fennessy]

Setting the table for the story.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And to their credit, I have not seen Falcon and Winter Soldier. And I did follow what was going on. They did, you know, kind of through brute force or like brute exposition, make it clear to me. And another thing I'll say for this movie is that I often go into these films and I'm just like, I literally. I didn't know what happened. I didn't know what was happening when it started, and I have no idea what's happening when it finished. And this was. This was coherent. Like, this explained to me who these people were, the stakes of the story, the powers of everyone, like beginning, middle and end. Who am I rooting for? Are they going to figure it out together? Are they going to find chemistry? Which. Kind of rocky for the first 45 minutes, but then David Harbour shows up.

[Mallory Rubin]

But in a way that's incorporated into the text of the story.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And so it makes sense, I have to say. Like, I thought it looked genuinely good. Yeah. Which, you know, the void effect was awesome. I wish. But also, they just, like, they, like, filmed sequences outside in real life. They used more practical effects. Like, I have some notes for Florence Pew's stunt doubles wig. But, like, if that's. It was tough, but, like, if that's the level I of. Of note, I have, as opposed to. Why does this look like, you know, video game vomit for 60% of the movie, then that makes a huge difference. And I like, you know, I feel cringy giving that Note, given the A24 trailer, you know, because I'm like, oh, that's what they want to see.

[Sean Fennessy]

They set us up for that.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. It's annoying, but, like, it does. It looks so much better. The storytelling is much clearer and more straightforward. Florence Pugh connect. So suddenly she's crying on the street. She and David Harbour have a few scenes where I'm like, I don't know why you gotta do this in a Marvel movie, but I. It's a real movie scene. They're actually an actual really good.

[Sean Fennessy]

I totally agree.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I would say it's maybe not my flavor for the first hour, but, you know, as everyone say, or any of these movies, your flavor. And, like, except for when the spider mans point at each other or Andrew Garfield saves the day, not really. So I think it's pretty good. It's way better than the last 15 Marvel movies I've seen.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. I mean, we're now 13 movies removed from no Way Home, so that's a long time. It's been five and a half years, basically, since that movie. And there have been some that I have liked. Like, it's interesting that Black Widow is relevant to this conversation, because Black Widow, I think, is not that bad. And if we had seen Black Widow.

[Amanda Dobbins]

On a big screen, I mean, knowing.

[Sean Fennessy]

What was coming, no question you'd say, like, this, that. That this movie reminds me of that movie in that that movie was very competently made. It felt like it was a part of the history of Marvel in a clear way. It felt like it was shot in the real world. It had a dose of humor. It had some new characters that you were introduced to and got connected to. Incredibly strong performers. Rachel Weisz and Florence Pugh and people who like. Yeah. And David harbor overqualified for this kind of work, so to speak. So. But there's been a lot of bad stuff, and Brave New World is extremely flawed and messy. The Thing is, this movie isn't messy. You don't really feel the scenes and the storytelling the way that you have in the last few years. So I'm more or less very tidy. I struggled with the first 45 minutes myself. I thought actually the humor was actually very weak and forced. And then weirdly, somehow in the middle of the movie, they kind of like, maybe it is just David Harbour showed up.

[Amanda Dobbins]

It is. For me, it was when they're in the car and he's like, spoilers, I guess. But he's retelling a story about Yelena's childhood. And I didn't laugh at the story the first time, but then when he told me, I just started laughing, and.

[Sean Fennessy]

It was very funny. He's just very funny in these movies.

[Amanda Dobbins]

You know, he's the best. But it does, like, the Wyatt Russell character kind of snaps in. There was. And I. And I understand to Mallory, as Malorie said, they are supposed to be at odds and they're not supposed to click, but, you know, they're fighting. And their allergy to each other was not funny to me for a little while. And then Harbour shows up and they become a team. And then I chuckled from time to time.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah, I think we're on the same page about that. I'm not sure how much further we can go before we start getting into spoilers.

[Mallory Rubin]

I will say I think I was higher on the maybe tonal vibe and just sensibility of the first stretch than you guys were. And I think some of that is assessing the energy among the cast in a vacuum. And some of it is just, again, that larger. Like hearing what you're saying about how do we consider a Marvel movie inside of the larger tapestry of Marvel movies? And I think the Black Widow is a very different movie, but I think the comparisons you're drawing are really interesting because that's the first movie of Phase four, which means it's the first movie of this new era. Now, of course, Far From Home is technically after Endgame, right. There was another movie, but the Infinity Saga ends. We move on to this new thing. And for the beginning of Phase four, for much of Phase four, we're in this era of. We're filling in the world. What's the blip? How are we passing the mantles? But that movie took place earlier in the timeline. Natasha was gone, and then we went backwards. And I think people were like, wait, but what's next?

[Sean Fennessy]

It's like a Retconned period piece.

[Mallory Rubin]

What's next? And now if you just rewatch that movie without being in that very kind of urgent, what is the future of the MCU after Endgame Headspace. It's like, this is a pretty fun movie to watch.

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, we might have even talked about it, how if they had just released that movie in 2016, it would have just been another one of those solid B Marvel movies where you're like, I'm glad I went. It was good. On to the next one.

[Mallory Rubin]

And, like, I. A lot of what I love about that movie is present here. I think the Yelena Alexi relationship is just genuinely magical. Like, Florence Pugh and David Harbour are great together. One of my single favorite things in any Marvel movie ever, I swear, is when they sing American Pie together. It's honestly, like, beautiful and incredibly moving. But also, Yelena is like a, you know, a witty, but kind of like a little bit of a dickhead, a little bit of an asshole. You know, she's got that line for Natasha about, like, you're a total poser. Why do you always do the pose? And then you see her do the pose and you see her do the pose in this movie. So I think I'm inclined, especially in Yelena's, with Yelena's character, to, like, that energy and, like, she, I think, just works so well with everyone around her. I thought for, like, John Walker, easing him into the rhythm of zippy zinger trading and swapping was, like, a little bit tougher. And, like, I just. I, I.

[Sean Fennessy]

The.

[Mallory Rubin]

The question for me heading in was, like, am I gonna care about a character like Ghost returning? Okay. Taskmaster, they say is in the movie, but is in basically no individual marketing material. Like, are we gonna have any real Taskmaster? Should I care? Etc. So I was just like, oh, Right away, the. The sequence with, like, shit, I needed that face. You know, like, this is pretty amusing. I'm entertained, and I want to see how they work their way forward together.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, even that sequence. Because I. I liked Black Widow and another. Since I don't care what happens after Avengers Endgame in the same way that you do, I just came to it and I was like, well, this is.

[Mallory Rubin]

Sort of like, I liked it at.

[Amanda Dobbins]

The time of a kitschy, you know, spy thriller, right. And starring people. And I also thought that Florence Pugh just absolutely stole that movie from Scarlett Johansson, which is just kind of funny to watch. But even there, it's because she's playing in opposition to Scarlett Johansson. And until David Harbour shows up in this movie, she is kind of a loner, which is a major theme of the Movie as. As we will discuss, but she doesn't have anyone to bounce off of. And so that opening scene where she's just talking to herself and the one liners even fall a little flat because there's no other energy.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. I think that it takes a long time to bring these people together because we know that a critical figure in the story, of course, is Valentina Allegra de Fontaine.

[Mallory Rubin]

You gotta get the duh in there. She's gonna. She's a real stickler for it.

[Sean Fennessy]

Who is a contessa and also the director of the CIA. Correct. And she is undergoing an inquiry from the Senate about her activities as the Director of the CIA. And this is what has led to her being forced to clean up all the loose ends from her time running this shadowy organization. And so that leads to all of these operatives that have been working for her being drawn together and with the intent of being killed. And this is the thing that obviously ultimately unites them. I think going forward in terms of the conversation. If you haven't seen Thunderbolts and you want to see Thunderbolts, we will be spoiling the movie. Thunderbolts henceforth. I wouldn't say this is on the level of an endgame in terms of things that happen and dramatic consequences. So you definitely could listen to this conversation and not feel like your entire next five years of Marvel has been destroyed for you. But there is an introduction of a character that I'm curious about his significance long term. And there's an interesting sliding door is related to this character. So once they find themselves in the middle of this vault that they have been drawn into by Val, who's played by Julia Louis Dreyfus.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

We see Ghost is there, we see Taskmaster is there, we see Yelena is there. We seent is there. They're all brought together and they've been all sort of assigned to kill one another.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

And so we see this pretty cool, I thought, action set piece, battle where we see them kind of like all using their power. And Ghost in particular, who's like a character I have no relationship to whatsoever, just visually is very cool. And I think the way the character's deployed is really neat. And then a guy falls out of a crate, and it's Lewis Pullman, and he's wearing some hospital scrubs and he's like, how did I get here? I don't even. Where is this. Where was this bunker located?

[Amanda Dobbins]

At the bottom of. Topographically, it was a little confusing how they present it, but it looks like the American West Yeah, the American West.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right. And it's in a canyon that they describe as the bottom.

[Mallory Rubin]

It's like Val's Area 51, basically, you know, so her private experiments.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Incredibly beautiful. Again. Thank you.

[Mallory Rubin]

It was lovely.

[Sean Fennessy]

It was a real place. They clearly, when they're driving in the desert, they're in a real place. Yes, I totally agree. There's no more green screen. No more fudgeing volume. Like, please stop making movies like that. Please, I'm begging you. Bob falls out. You know, if you knew. If you. I don't know how much you knew about the marketing. Like, I knew Bob was the Century.

[Mallory Rubin]

Oh, yeah. And before he was recast, it was very apparent that Sentry was gonna be in this movie.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes. It was literally announced. It was originally Steven Yeun.

[Mallory Rubin]

Steven Yeun.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Oh, I remember that. He did.

[Mallory Rubin]

Who would have been fantastic.

[Amanda Dobbins]

He would have been interesting flavor on this movie.

[Sean Fennessy]

He would have been so good because he has. He is so much turmoil as an actor that maybe. I actually thought Lewis Pullman was quite good in this movie.

[Mallory Rubin]

I agree. I thought he was good.

[Sean Fennessy]

He brings a different energy than Steven Yeun. So anyway, it was announced that Steven Yeun was gonna play the Century, who's a very famous character, complicated character. And that just got my engagement up, introducing him into the. Into the movie. Because the whole time now I felt myself feeling like, okay, what are they going to do with him? What are they going to do with. What are they going to do with him? Not everyone will have that feeling if you don't know who this character is or why they're necessarily important to the story.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Century with an S. Yes. I was hearing Century all. All movie.

[Mallory Rubin]

How about when they kept showing the belt buckle with a giant S on it?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Well, I thought that was a G and a C, so. And I don't know if she was for. But totally fair. Maybe they got to work on that logo some more.

[Mallory Rubin]

It's a good note.

[Sean Fennessy]

It is a good note.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I think he's golden. So I think. I thought it was Golden Century.

[Mallory Rubin]

It's a good note for the marketing department.

[Sean Fennessy]

Honestly, the reason that that character, before they put the merch out really piqued my interest. Aside from him just being a cool superhero character, is that the director of this movie, Jake Schreier, is really good at complicated, sad, depressive people. Like, that's what Robot and Frank and Paper Towns and Beef. Like, these are stories about people who are, like, basically deeply depressed and don't know how to confront their depression. And I assume that's why he was hired to make this movie so that when the actors are talking to each other, he can make those scenes work effectively. Yeah. And I. Pretty much. From that point on, by the. From the moment that they escape the vault. Yeah, I was pretty much in.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

And pretty much along for the ride the whole way it's revealed, I think, that the film had maybe even a little bit more depth than I was expecting thematically, and it does something that I'd not totally seen before. Is Sentry like, a meaningful character to you?

[Mallory Rubin]

Oh, yeah. I. I was thrilled that Sentry was finally joining the mcu. I think if you polled a lot of MCU fans and said, like, which character? It's just is like the decade and a half long absence of inexplicable to you at this point, Sentry would be high on a lot of lists. And I think in part because of what, you know, what we see in the movie, which is. It's. You're getting two characters for the price of one. Right. You're getting. I mean, you're getting Robert Reynolds again, Bob, Bobby, but you're getting the century, and you're getting the Void. You're getting a superhero and a super villain in one person. And not only does that give you a lot of thematic richness to mine the duality inside of us all, it gives you a lot to work with from a plot perspective inside of the movie. Now, I think one of the questions from the trail, because the Void is very clearly present in the marketing, I would say it was less clear, actually, how much Sentry we were gonna see.

[Sean Fennessy]

There's a big set piece moment with Sentry that I was like, this is. This is a superhero movie. This is a good superhero movie.

[Amanda Dobbins]

When he's in the costume of all.

[Mallory Rubin]

The sins that Val commits. Let's just get this out of the way now. She commits a lot. Her ledger is dripping and soaked with red. To borrow something that Yelena and Natasha have heard a lot over the years. Do you use people and then try to kill them? Yes. Do you conduct secret programs and experiments to make your own super weapon? Yes. You buy Avengers Tower, you buy Stark Tower, and then you make it the Watchtower for your heinous acts? No.

[Sean Fennessy]

Why is that so problematic to you?

[Mallory Rubin]

Because it's the. The home of the Avengers. When she's standing there at the bar, I'm like, this is where Tony Stark stood. Like, how dare she?

[Sean Fennessy]

This offends you? I don't know. It's kind of natural.

[Mallory Rubin]

No, it's great, right? I Love it. It's like she is so obviously trying to fill this vacuum in the way that suits her best. And to simultaneously, like, paper over and rebrand this space that, like, people associate with something so sacred both inside of the universe and then for us at home as viewers, I thought was, like, really smart.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Can I ask some real estate questions? So I did recognize the building. She mentions at some point that construction is only, like, 60% done because they shut it down. Was that renovation?

[Mallory Rubin]

A lot of talk about the drywall. Yeah, yeah, a lot of talk about drywall.

[Amanda Dobbins]

That joke, like, fell flat for me, because there were also a lot of.

[Mallory Rubin]

Arm, much like the drywall, then fell flat on the citizens of New York.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yes. So was that, like, a renovation, or.

[Mallory Rubin]

Was Avengers Tower a lot of destruction in New York? You know, throughout the mcu.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Oh, right.

[Sean Fennessy]

So nice little reference to the Chitauri.

[Mallory Rubin]

A lot of Chitauri Easter eggs throughout the movie. Sure you do. Alien race invasion in Avengers.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I remember the names of the aliens.

[Sean Fennessy]

Tataria. It's a memorable name.

[Mallory Rubin]

I agree.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's one of the most successful films of all time. In fact, you and I saw it on the same day, and we hung out afterwards. Remember that? An origin story on the big picture.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Oh, the Avengers. Not the Avengers. Sorry. Okay. I mean, guys, that was, like.

[Mallory Rubin]

It was long ago.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I watched literally 15. There's a kebab scene in there.

[Sean Fennessy]

Shawarma.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Shawarma, sure. Okay. Well, there you go. I remember that.

[Sean Fennessy]

Close.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

What were we talking about?

[Mallory Rubin]

Century. Sorry. Yeah, we switched to real estate corner on you. Century.

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, Stark Tower is interesting because obviously this film, in many ways, is about the creation of a new super team that will play a significant role in theory. I'm not actually sure if this is going to end up being a signature team in Marvel. And we could talk about that at the end of the pod.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

But, you know, Valentina realizes at a certain point that she needs to have more control over the world. And one of the only ways to do that is to have a superhero of her own. And that there's this huge vacuum. She literally says this before Congress. And Wendell Pierce, who is a congressman, one of two significant former cast members of the Wire who appear in this film, in addition to Chris Bauer in a very thankless role as. What is his name? Holt.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, I believe it's Holt.

[Sean Fennessy]

Holt, a military man, but I'm prepped for Lethal. Who meets an absolutely grisly end as he crashes in a helicopter.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Well, does he? I guess we can talk about the Void's. Powers later.

[Sean Fennessy]

Oh, okay. Good point.

[Mallory Rubin]

Right. Huh.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Look who's paying attention now.

[Mallory Rubin]

But then if you're restored and the vessel you were in had, like, exploded.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Well, I put a pin in it.

[Sean Fennessy]

Science corner is a common. Science corner is a common. Anyhow, she knows she needs to harness a superpower. She doesn't realize that she's harnessing an uncontrollable superpower by making the Sentry.

[Mallory Rubin]

She also harnessed anything.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

It was a failed project throughout the trash.

[Sean Fennessy]

What do you think about her lack of attention to detail and reliance on Geraldine Viswanathan's character throughout this film?

[Amanda Dobbins]

I did feel like. I know that we girl bosses are supposed to outsource. You know, we're supposed to delegate.

[Mallory Rubin]

I love to promote. I love to promote women. Great, great iconic moment in the contestas.

[Sean Fennessy]

Really can have it all, including an assistant who does their job for them.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I did think that she was outsourcing, like, maybe a little too. Too many kill seasons.

[Sean Fennessy]

High level work. Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And also, they're just leaving a paper trail or a digital TR that I had some real questions about.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes. Yelena was able to scoop up a lot of key documents with relative ease. I was. I will say two things. One, Val not paying attention to the details, to the. To the point that she doesn't even realize her experiment, Project Century, has been successful is, to me, like, that tracks perfectly. Right. And is, I think, very much in keeping with the hubris that we see across other governing bodies through the long history of the mcu, SHIELD or otherwise. People are in America. Yeah, exactly. People are pursuing some sort of nefarious end.

[Sean Fennessy]

The.

[Mallory Rubin]

The. The grip power above all. And they don't really care how that happens, who it hurts, or what even it looks like. The thing I felt much more keenly was that Mel was pulled to the light out of a void of a different sort by just Bucky Barnes being hot. And I would like to say who.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Among us it was among us. And God bless them for allowing some sexual tension into one of these movies. When they show up in front of the Avengers sign or whatever at the museum, you're just like, oh, we're doing this now. Great.

[Mallory Rubin]

My God, the hair length, the beard washing, the vibranium arm in the dishwasher, the chili getting everywhere. Take the tank top off, too, while we're at it. You know, it's really the only thing.

[Amanda Dobbins]

They let him do.

[Sean Fennessy]

So the note that I made about Sebastian Stan's performance in this film is that he's barely even trying, but blowing almost Everybody else off the screen, because somewhere along the way, Sebastian Stan just got the kwan. Like, I don't even know what happened here. Like, obviously he had a great 2024. He was in two really interesting films, Academy Award nominated.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

And some of it is just the erosion of star power throughout the MCU that he has risen above. But this is the second MCU movie in a row now where when he shows up, you're like, oh, it's James Dean. Which it didn't used to feel that way when he showed up in films. He was always a fan favorite and he's great and he's been in a lot of really good movies. But this is a cut above. Obviously, he's. He and Florence Pugh are on equal footing in terms of their star power and, like, what they bring to a movie. But I was impressed by how little he even has to do in this movie and how much he still is able to kind of like, get your applause moments, get your, like, whoa sequences. You know, he gets.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Well, he gets. He gets one that is very effective and very funny, but also definitely felt like, edited in. Like, hey, we need like a Bucky moment.

[Sean Fennessy]

You mean the driving sequence?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, I mean the Mad Max sequence, which is like, you know, and some of it is like they're using that landscape which, like, again, thank God. But it's. You almost expect like the guy on the guitar to come out and be.

[Sean Fennessy]

Like, do for you.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, exactly. It's really sick and it's cool, but it. And I. I mean, it's important that he shows up at some point, but it doesn't. It's not really necessary other than they're like, I guess we got to do something with this guy.

[Mallory Rubin]

So I, I have, I guess, a slightly different take on it, which is like, I. I thought this was actually quite deft and deliberate in a really smart deployment of a character who has become. And a performer who has become one of the single greatest through lines in the entire MCU. Like Bucky Barnes debuts in the First Avenger, which came out in 2011. He has been in so many movies, he's been the co star of a standalone television series. Like, he is one of the heartbeats of the story to this point and people are deeply, deeply invested in him. Now, that could be true of a lot of characters in a lot of movies, but it's a. I would say, even though there is, like, I think, quickly forged in very sincere, deep and abiding affection for Yelena. I think people love Yelena. I think Red Guardian has a lot of fans. These are really new characters. Yeah. Like, Bucky is just a different thing from the rest of the characters who have been, you know, Ghost, you know, Ant man and the Wasp. Like, that movie's pretty old at this point. That was a while ago.

[Sean Fennessy]

She's never been in any of the movies, right?

[Mallory Rubin]

No, he. He. He debuted in Falcon and the Winter Soldier as well. And, like, so did Val. Val was in Black Widow. But the. You know, Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Black Widow were similar timelines. And then Wakanda Forever. But, like, again, those are all very recent. We're talking about the last few years. So you're right.

[Sean Fennessy]

He's got the longest legacy.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. And so he's not only, like, he is suddenly the elder statesman. That's just, like, a wild thing for the guy who used to be the sidekick to Captain America. Like, it's an incredible. And, you know, I think especially for a character where a lot of the connection that fans have to him and of course, his relationship with Steve is like, I'm with you till the end of the line. That's like, what Bucky represents in the mcu. So for him to feel a little bit apart and outside of the rest of the group, I think is intentional and actually necessary because it's a meaningful thing for him to decide to do it again with different people.

[Sean Fennessy]

Right. That's a good point. He's also an elected official and also former.

[Mallory Rubin]

That part is still very weird to me.

[Sean Fennessy]

He's a former Soviet asset.

[Mallory Rubin]

He's a HYDRA super soldier who is now in the House of Representatives, which, like, actually, I guess that tracks completely. But, like, that's good point.

[Sean Fennessy]

Coming from.

[Amanda Dobbins]

In Red Hulk. What was that movie?

[Sean Fennessy]

Actually, it was not called Red Hulk.

[Amanda Dobbins]

What was it called?

[Sean Fennessy]

It was called Captain America, Brave New World.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay, great. He was campaigning. Right. And he took some time to, like, give.

[Mallory Rubin]

He did.

[Sean Fennessy]

In a desperate act of reshooting by the Marvel Corporation to wedge Bucky into the film.

[Mallory Rubin]

And that was the best scene, of.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Course, track his political progress. So in the.

[Mallory Rubin]

Do you have opinions on his political platform?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Well, I didn't know that he was. I've forgotten. He was a super soldier.

[Sean Fennessy]

Damn. A Republican. I mean, he's representing Brooklyn, obviously, so presumably he's. He's blue. Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

Hmm.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I mean, not so sure.

[Mallory Rubin]

Independent.

[Sean Fennessy]

Red. Like Red Skull.

[Mallory Rubin]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

Come on. He's standing next to AOC casting votes.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Mallory Rubin]

I hope so. That would be great.

[Sean Fennessy]

That's actually an interesting question. If they could. If they would, of course, never be so bold as to reveal the political affiliations of any of their superheroes. Let's talk a little bit more about Florence Pugh.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay?

[Mallory Rubin]

Please.

[Sean Fennessy]

This is a weird time for her to be coming. One of the centerpieces of the mcu, because the MCU has gotten a lot less cool. It's become a lot more clear in the public eye that it's maybe not as there's not as much approval for the like, well, I just got to do this to kind of elevate, you know, my status and make movies that make a lot of money and make a lot of money myself. Like, the Bloom is kind of off the rose on this methodology. She got involved in this five or six years ago, probably when she signed on to do Black Widow. And she has been now, I think, wisely pivoted into one of the key forward facing parts in this world. And she really carries this movie on her shoulders.

[Mallory Rubin]

She's fantastic.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah, she's excellent. Yelena is a great character.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

I think a lot of her scenes are very well written and her, as you said, her and David Harbour have terrific chemistry and they're very funny and they're very touching. And honestly, there's like a girl dad moment in this movie where I was like, this is real. Like, this is real. Which is so stupid to say, but it's very effective.

[Mallory Rubin]

Even just the fact that he has the soccer picture from their fake life in Ohio is like, so sweet because it was real to them guys, the bond.

[Sean Fennessy]

And so it really plays to her strength of, like, she's often a flinty young woman who's defiant and independent, but has this deep reservoir of pain and whatever she's pushing down. We see this. You've not seen the film We Live In Time, but I would say she is using a very similar skill set in this movie that she uses in We Live in Time, which was a kind of a modest hit last fall for a 24. It is a little bit hard to imagine 10 years of Yelena and Florence Pugh in the MCU. Now, I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing, but when I look at every other project that she's ever done, it feels pretty far afield from what she's interested in.

[Mallory Rubin]

You think it's hard to imagine that, like, like her being Downey Jr now because of her being interested in it for that long or the character making sense in the MCU for that long or all of the above, we don't.

[Sean Fennessy]

Get a lot of, like, under 35 young women who Are like, that's the future of movies to me, you know.

[Mallory Rubin]

Right.

[Sean Fennessy]

And so I'm not. And this movie is pretty good, as I said. But for her to be kind of dragooned into Yelena through Phase nine just makes me a little queasy.

[Mallory Rubin]

Interesting. I think, too. So even I'm gonna assume you did not watch the Disney television series Hawkeye.

[Amanda Dobbins]

No. Hailee Steinfeld.

[Mallory Rubin]

Correct.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Is also in that.

[Mallory Rubin]

This is why I bring it up.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And listen, I guess I gotta go back now because I'm buying in on Haley.

[Sean Fennessy]

She's back. She should just be her character from Sinners in the mcu, though. That would be.

[Mallory Rubin]

Some of. That show was actually quite good. There's a great dog in it. His name's not Lucky.

[Sean Fennessy]

I thought it was okay.

[Mallory Rubin]

As usual. They. They lost it. Episode five, six episodes too long. But yeah, it was only six episodes. So that means you thought it should have been zero episodes. But the reason I bring it up is because when Yelena shows up. Spoilers for Hawkeye. Midway through, she's there on an assignment from Val, pursuing Clint. Kind of like a. Again, as Val tends to do with these assets falsely led on a revenge tour. She's seeking to take people and, like, recycle them for her purposes. But the scenes between Yelena and Kate Bishop, the Hailee Steinfeld character, the new Hawkeye, are incredible, electric. And one of the questions for MCU fans coming out of Hawkeye was, is this the beating heart of the Young Avengers? And I think it's really interesting that Yelena has been pulled out of that. Clearly, Yelena is not going to the Young Avengers. That's happening with Kamala Khan. Yeah. And Kate Bishop and a different set of characters. And Yelena has been. Is in the.

[Sean Fennessy]

Aren't Kate New Avengers? Aren't really Steinfeld and Florence Pugh the same age, though.

[Mallory Rubin]

That's why it's interesting. It's like, I think some of it is about the character.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right.

[Mallory Rubin]

And who the character makes sense with. Maybe in some of these different permutations. But, like, I don't know. That's obviously not going to be. It doesn't mean that Yelena won't appear in any Young Avengers properties. And who the fuck knows if they're even doing Young Avengers? I mean, they keep teasing it. Obviously, we got some tantalizing Stingers, but being the star of Thunderbolts and then having the Thunderbolts rebranded as New Avengers with a Z, Great stuff. And then having the post credits be just a setup for Doomsday, which obviously Like, Yelena is going to be a meaningful part of.

[Sean Fennessy]

Seems like she's going to be a really good character.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, it's really notable.

[Sean Fennessy]

It is. I'm mixed on it. It's not that she can't make other movies in the meantime. She certainly can. But this really dragged down Chris Evans career for 10 years. And I liked him as Captain America, and I liked when he was in those movies, but I was like, you kind of just frittered away, like, a long part of your career. So it's cool that she's having this moment, and it's cool that they're making maybe. I don't know if they realize that she should be a centerpiece of these movies at a certain point, and they repositioned her into this slot. But it does then take us away from some other Florence Pugharts.

[Amanda Dobbins]

It was okay for ScarJo. She made it work.

[Sean Fennessy]

She did.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And she still worked with interesting people and made good movies and had Oscar nominations. And, you know, now she's just in a different giant franchise because everybody needs money.

[Sean Fennessy]

She's hunting dinosaurs.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Are you excited about Rebirth?

[Mallory Rubin]

Not as excited as CR is, but his passion is my passion, so I think I'll absorb some of it via osmosis.

[Sean Fennessy]

You know, I do want to shift back to the void in a minute, but before we do that, can I just make a note? I don't really think Julia Louis Dreyfus is good in these movies, and I think she's a little miscast as Val.

[Mallory Rubin]

Tell us why. I think this is a hot, genuinely hot take.

[Sean Fennessy]

I. I mean, she looks like Valentina, but this is unkind. But she's a TV actor, and it feels like you're watching a TV show when you're watching her. It doesn't feel like you're watching a movie.

[Mallory Rubin]

What do you mean?

[Sean Fennessy]

Her comic timing.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Extremely rude to the Nicole Hollifcenter film. Enough said. So take it back.

[Sean Fennessy]

I'm a huge fan of that film. I'm also a fan of youf Hurt My Feelings, which came out a couple of years ago. But I wouldn't describe Julie. Julie Louis Dreyfus as a great film actor. I think she has a sensibility that is, like, very quippy and very quick. That is all about repartee. Now, that is obviously a component of Marvel, but this is a movie, I think, with a big, dynamic, emotional story in it, and she's a part of that story. And whenever she's participating in it, I feel like she's in the sitcom version of the movie. And A lot of the other actors are in the real version of the movie, and it kind of threw me off my game.

[Amanda Dobbins]

She's doing Veep, and, like, I mean, it's hard. She's. She's dressed beautifully, by the way. I liked the suits very much.

[Sean Fennessy]

No beef with Julia Louis Dreggis at large as a longtime Seinfeld fan.

[Amanda Dobbins]

But, you know, it is, like, professional woman. Like, professional ambitious woman playing ambition and all of these tropes, like, four laughs. And it's, like, different kind of laughs and slightly less sophisticated. But I know what you're saying. Yeah, I thought that was more about the kind of tonal divisions of the movie because it. There's. It's very quippy and that it is also, you know, about depression, so. And, like, recreates everyone's depression at. For extended periods of time. Susie is just in, like, the funny half. I think she does a good job at the funny half, but the mishmash doesn't totally add up.

[Sean Fennessy]

I guess you could make the case that we do get this. So Bob's character has this ability when he makes human, when he makes physical contact with a character, to draw them back to a traumatic moment in their life, to a critical moment in their life that informs a lot of the pain that they feel all the time. Almost every character in the movie gets to have a moment like this with Bob where we see something critical to their life. She gets one of these moments. And so we see something that is how we see that her father has been murdered when she was a young girl. We get a little bit of context around maybe why she seeks to control power the way that she. She does.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

But then you cut back to Julia Louis Dreyfus, and she's kind of like, making a face and darting out of the room the moment she has to deal with this. And I'm like, they're not even giving us any opportunity to get invested in whatever this character is supposed to be about.

[Mallory Rubin]

I responded to it the opposite way, which is like, I'm like, val's not a character. That glimpse into her trauma didn't resonate with me because I don't think the movie is sincerely interested in informing us about her motivation. It's like, she is where she is, and she behaves the way she does. And it's not a study in actually, her path to that. It's a study in, like, the manifestation then, of her intention. And so I think her being, like, a glib, myopic avoid of a different sort, somebody who is seeking to Absorb and suck and subsume everybody into her own orbit because the thing that she desires is control. I think the way that she's engaged in conversation and certainly the performance is like, this is how I deflect and how I make my way through the world. And I'm smarter than you and I see something more clearly than you and like I'm going to make sure that the you understand. The only thing of value you provide to my life is this cup of coffee. I really like that. And I think at least the projects that she's been in so far, maybe with the exception of Wakanda Forever, where while I was genuinely interested in the romantic history between JLD and Martin Freeman, Martin Freeman's Everett Ross, one of the just great reveals in the history of cinema. You're sort of like, wait, what is this doing in this movie? But when she comes in in Falcon and the Winter Soldier, she's like, John Walker, you were Captain America for a minute and you were disgraced. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna use your pain with a couple quick one liners and then my own agenda, like it, it works. And the fact that she's like using humor in that classic JLD way, I think allows you to understand how she moves through halls of power. So I, I've really liked the way that she's been used in the mcu. I think that if she were in like, I don't know, any number of other MCU properties, like, it probably wouldn't make any sense, but the ones that she's been in so far, like, it actually has worked. I mean, you could see her in like the Guardians movies, you could see her in a Deadpool movie, you could see her in Ragnarok.

[Sean Fennessy]

I think it's because of her theoretical emotional importance of the movie. Like she is the agent of power. Literally, she is the true villain of the movie. And yeah, I mean, we don't really know why.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I'm okay with that. Like, like the, you know, finality of power and the, and if anything, I, you know, I, I don't need to know about her trauma, respectfully. And so like the flashback of it being like, well, you know, that was upsetting. And I thought all of those flashbacks like, were pretty restrained and effective and she, her face recoils for a second. But like, I, you know, I didn't need to know anymore.

[Sean Fennessy]

I think I'm not maybe not asking for like a one hour exploration of Val's pain. I think it's more just because of performer. Like some actors can Pull this off without having to have that scene. And I. And I.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Again, I don't want to disparage Thanos's pain. Sorry. Yeah, sorry. For giving it to.

[Mallory Rubin]

Destruction of the homeworld planet has been. Yeah. The pursuit of balance. Impartial balance.

[Amanda Dobbins]

But so his home planet kind of.

[Sean Fennessy]

Has OCD a little bit too.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay, but that's the inciting incident. Like his home planet blew up. Well, did he blow it up?

[Mallory Rubin]

There's a. Do you recall the showdown where Peter gets very upset and then everything. When they're trying to take the gauntlet off, everything kind of goes to shit.

[Amanda Dobbins]

But that's okay.

[Mallory Rubin]

I was gonna bring up the setting. And then what? We see the destruction, but it's not. Okay. Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right before the snap.

[Mallory Rubin]

Correct.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. Okay. So there we go.

[Sean Fennessy]

Should revisit it. I don't think those movies are good.

[Mallory Rubin]

They're great. Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Okay. Let's go back to Lewis Pullman.

[Mallory Rubin]

So he was great.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I agree.

[Sean Fennessy]

You liked him?

[Mallory Rubin]

Oh, yeah. I thought he was fantastic.

[Sean Fennessy]

This is Bill Pullman's son. He went from being someone I'd never heard of. He does.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. He's a good. He's a good use case for, like. Here's what it was like in the 90s where a guy like this could be for at least six years, the most important person at the movie. So, like, he was the president and he was marrying Sandra Bullock and also like Bill Pullman.

[Amanda Dobbins]

So Lewis Pullman and then Jack Quaid, son of. Is like. And who. And who does look like Dennis Quaid, but also looks so much like Meg Ryan. And so all they're just the. You know, the 90s are back. And the facial expressions and the emotions. And I do feel like some of his emotions and some of the. Like, the. His acting looking so much like Bill Pullman definitely affected me because I was thinking about Sleepless in Seattle or while you were sleeping or Independence Day as he was being like, sometimes I have a hard time.

[Sean Fennessy]

That's what it was like for our parents to watch Michael Douglas get insanely famous in the 70s and 80s. Having known Kirk Douglas before that, I mean.

[Mallory Rubin]

But he looks exactly like him.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

Like, it is a different energy, though.

[Sean Fennessy]

He has a different vibe, especially the.

[Mallory Rubin]

Middle part of his face. I know, it's uncanny.

[Sean Fennessy]

I saw Bill Pullman in person, Gladiator 2 screening earlier this year, and it was thrilling for me. I was like, he is my childhood in many ways. He looked great. Very handsome fellow.

[Mallory Rubin]

Find him.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Big fan.

[Mallory Rubin]

Quite dream.

[Sean Fennessy]

I believe he owns a winery now. A vineyard.

[Mallory Rubin]

That seems right.

[Sean Fennessy]

Seems like he's doing it right. Anyway. His son is a really good actor and it's hard to take parts like this and imbue them with any sense of emotionality. This is a complicated part. Bob was a drug addict and a lost person who found his way to Malaysia looking to disconnect from the world and finds himself the subject of this scientific test. And I guess he's injected with some sort of serum.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes, exactly.

[Sean Fennessy]

And it transforms him into an all powerful person. He doesn't quite realize the extent of his powers. We know he's going to have them. But he has that very cool moment where he sort of explodes into the sky after drawing attention away from the other thunderbolts in the first half of the film. Very quickly. I think maybe just like a little too quickly, he goes from being a guy trying to figure it out to the most powerful superhero in the universe. You felt like that was a little bit of a leap there.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, that was the middle of the century sequence.

[Sean Fennessy]

I guess he's a commander has passed or something.

[Amanda Dobbins]

You've already watched him, you know, face off against like the entire Val's entire army and, you know, be shot like 80,000 times and then like ascend, you know, into the sky. Like, he's so powerful.

[Mallory Rubin]

I think the thing that fell fast was the control.

[Sean Fennessy]

You're right.

[Mallory Rubin]

The mastery of all of his different abilities. Because like shooting. Yeah. The hail of bullets falling, helpfully removing the lower part of his.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. Revealed his abs for you.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I also clocked those. And I was like, oh, I see. Kyogre.

[Mallory Rubin]

Well placed bullets.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Very helpful.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. From like then, you know, I shoot up and I shoot down and I crash and they collect me in a box to. Holy shit. I can make like a glass of water heat up and explode into. I can with calm and confidence and complain complete poise, handle every single one of you. And anything you might do was like a matter of a scene and a half.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. He was like the Ohtani of superheroes. Very quickly I was like, we've never seen this.

[Mallory Rubin]

And there was time for some hair dye as well.

[Sean Fennessy]

What'd you think of the blonde?

[Mallory Rubin]

I thought they did a great job of talking about the hair in the movie.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, it was funny. I liked it.

[Sean Fennessy]

He. God. What is the name of the lead villain in the Boys? He's giving that Homelander. Homelander. There's a lot of Homelander.

[Mallory Rubin]

He didn't drink any breast milk, though.

[Sean Fennessy]

Is that something Homelander does?

[Mallory Rubin]

Oh, yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Not caught up on the Boys it is, is it?

[Amanda Dobbins]

How's he sourcing it?

[Mallory Rubin]

All sorts of ways. Fresh from the teat when he can. Also in a private store, a refrigeration unit full of bottles. Any way he can get it.

[Amanda Dobbins]

So is he like, well, what's the mechanism of stealing it? Like, is he stealing the supply? Is he attacking people? Like, does he have.

[Mallory Rubin]

He had a number of different providers over the course of the evening. Five now seasons of the boys number.

[Sean Fennessy]

Of fell off I think after season two. Although I like that show, I have.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Nothing bad to say about that. He's not just like sneaking into people's freezers at night and grabbing the okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

He is like a Superman level power though, like similar to the century where you're like, this is the most powerful person on this planet.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes.

[Sean Fennessy]

But he's also an absolute demon, like a horrendous person.

[Mallory Rubin]

Bad guy. Homelander. Bad guy.

[Sean Fennessy]

This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn. When you release a movie, the first thing you want to do is make sure people know about it. And even more importantly, you want to make sure that people who like the genre know it's out. Because horror fans are more likely to go see new horror movies. Disney fans will go see new Disney movies. Rom com fans will go see new rom com movies. Targeting the right audience is key when it comes to marketing. If you're selling expensive new kitchen appliances, you probably want to sell to people who actually like to cook, not people who rely on food delivery services for every meal. And that's the tricky part, making sure your message gets to the right people. You have to use the right tools. If you're in B2B marketing, that means using LinkedIn ads. LinkedIn has a network of over 130 million decision makers. And the targeting tools to make sure you're connecting with the right ones. You can target your buyers by job title, industry, company role, seniority, skills or company revenue. So you can stop wasting your time and budget on the wrong people. LinkedIn will even give you a hundred dollar credit on your next campaign. So you can try it yourself. Just go to LinkedIn.com TheBigPicture that's LinkedIn.com TheBigPicture Terms and conditions apply only on LinkedIn ads. Sentry realizes his incredible powers. We have this great fight sequence in the middle of the movie where all five thunderbolts get their asses hit.

[Mallory Rubin]

That was very good.

[Sean Fennessy]

In a very tight, tidy way. And then it becomes clear that Bob realizes he's stronger than he knows and Val realizes he's too Powerful and too self aware. The kill switch is engaged by Mel after he nearly kills Val.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yep.

[Sean Fennessy]

He dies and is reborn as the void, the darkness that lives inside of Bob. So here's what I wrote down. Cause this is the reason that this movie ultimately works for me. There's a big obvious metaphor at the center of the film that is also its core theme, that is also its villain. And I don't know if I've ever seen that before. Now obviously it's a comic book movie and so the bounds of our imagination can go anywhere. But using all three of those things in one package to tell your story at a time when people are more aware of and confronting their own general depression than ever before. This is just something that people talk about every day now. And the entire character is oriented around this idea of not slipping into this feeling. I don't know if it's sophisticated, but it is deeper than I think a lot of what these movies are about or at least can like thematically reach. Like I listening to you all the time. You have an amazing ability to locate what the story represents and what it's trying to do. I don't always agree necessarily with like, I'm not in agreement with how it gets to that place or if it gets to that place. But you are so good on theme. This was a rare case where I was like, the theme is very strong and clear and clearly communicated and it didn't feel phony. And I'm so sick of trauma as the basis for so many horror movies. This was a rare case where I thought, I don't know if earned is the right word.

[Amanda Dobbins]

But it worked, it developed it and I agree with you. And as a person who didn't know anything about this character or the exposition, so had to have all of the pieces in place, explained to me so that I could understand the central theme. But you get it. It's.

[Sean Fennessy]

It.

[Amanda Dobbins]

It is straightforward but also not too heavy handed. You know, even. Even they are doing like the. The villains orig, you know, the villain's trauma, her origin story. But it's quick and if like you don't really care about it, it's gone in two seconds.

[Sean Fennessy]

Right.

[Amanda Dobbins]

So I. It's. There's something about it just being so like dead on where they're not trying to hide it in that many other things. Because the void like just is depression. Like that is the. That that is the character. So they just go with it. Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Really not trying to make you think it's like this is what it is.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And they, but they don't try to overcomplicate it.

[Sean Fennessy]

Right.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And I think that is smart and that makes it more effective.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, I think the movie's like very self assured in what it's trying to examine and convey, you know. And so like, I think you guys are right that it is there in a clear and palpable way, but not then in a heavy handed alienating one, which is actually quite a difficult balance to pull off. I think again, a character like Valentina, part of the reason that she is in opposition to our heroes and our anti heroes, whatever we want to call them, is not just because she's seeking to use them, but because she is uninterested ultimately in looking inward in a way that all of the other characters eventually work themselves to a place of being able to do. And crucially, of course, in a team up movie, in a found family movie, helping each other do. Like guys, the climax of the movie is literally a group hug. Honest, like for real, like they all go and wrap their arms around Bob, which is a great climbing up the tower. And there is, there is a, there is a, a version of this movie where that is like so corny and so like eye roll inducing. And it just wasn't. I was like, wow, this is actually like quite touching. And I'm invested in these, these people as individuals, but also now as a group. And that happened quite quickly. I mean, I think in this inside of the film, like just not a lot of time passes and you have to believe that that bond could forge. I think it's helpful when some of the characters already have history with each other like Bucky and John do or like Elena and Alexi do, because you can have that conversation like the one that Alexia and Yelena have and you know, there's more like depth of shared experience and awareness. But ultimately I thought the, the, the, the pairing that crackled the most and that kind of you have to opt into and give a shit about is Yelena and Bob. Yeah, like that's what the movie hinges on, is you, you caring that they are going to decide to care more about each other than the things around them.

[Sean Fennessy]

It only works, I think because of that conversation between Alexi and Yelena outside after they've been defeated by the sentry.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

And she's talking about this sense of like aloneness and purposelessness. And I think a feeling many people can relate to, which is sort of like some days are good, a lot of days are bad. And when a day is bad, totally. Like what is the point of everything. And that's the same thing that Bob is dealing with. And when Lexi talks to her about it makes her feel more whole.

[Mallory Rubin]

Like the light, you're dim, you're brighter.

[Sean Fennessy]

And here's the little girl I knew. I was like, damn, this is good writing.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, it is.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Why you want to be a goalie?

[Mallory Rubin]

They base it. The goalie part was great. They be. She did the Star Lord, we're losers. Like people who have lost things, you know. Speech from Guardians. That's like, such a tried and true recipe. But to do it in a way that still felt fresh here, or maybe less fresh and more just like, specific to these characters, I thought was impressive. Quick shout out while we're talking about that sequence on the street for the passerby, the woman who just like, like, what's going on with these people? She walked by the house.

[Sean Fennessy]

That is what would happen in New York, you know?

[Mallory Rubin]

I love that. That was a great little touch. I thought that was really, really funny. Did you guys feel that? The actual maze of trauma traps was like, did you want more? I thought the Bucky coming in and being like, well, yeah, you know, I've had a calm, chill, cool, normal life. So, like, it was fine for me. It was great. And we don't need to see Bucky's memories because we know what they are. But did you wish we saw more?

[Sean Fennessy]

I think I'm glad we didn't spend too much time in that because this is the most Nolan inflected MCU movie I can think of. And that was very Inception, that final sequence. And as you guys know, I have some issues with Inception. I think it was just psychological enough to not have to worry about the logic of it. And if I start spending a little bit too much time thinking about what they did or how Alexei found his way to where, you know what I mean? Like, the mechanics of it were kind of iffy, but it was done well enough that I understood what they were trying to do, which is basically get us to that lab so that we could, Bob and Yelena could meet and she could make him whole again. She could say, it's not your fault, basically.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right. I think I was so relieved that the climactic final battle, dream whatever sequence in a Marvel movie was once somewhat grounded in the real world and, you know, filmed on sets at least as opposed to on green screens and was, you know, recognizable things. And, like, I'll give them credit, you know, like one of the memories was like a, you know, an abusive dad and a bad Childhood and, you know. And then one was meth chicken. Right. Meth chicken. Which was like. They weren't. They weren't too corny. They were, like, recognizable, and they didn't dwell on them, so. But just the actual execution of this being, like, not CGI slop for, like, you know, and a bunch of ants was a huge relief.

[Mallory Rubin]

She loves the ants, and she brings them up a lot.

[Sean Fennessy]

Mentioned them multiple times.

[Mallory Rubin]

It's not even the first time this week that she has mentioned the ants.

[Sean Fennessy]

No idea that it's all happening in the quantum realm, but she knows that there were ants.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I did. It's okay. I did, until I saw this movie, think that the Void was the quantum realm.

[Mallory Rubin]

You know what? We worked through it together. Something you're saying right now makes me think of another thing that I think the movie does very well. Use Yolina's trip into the Void as an example. You actually could understand everything important about that character if you never saw Black Widow.

[Sean Fennessy]

Agreed.

[Mallory Rubin]

And I think the mcu, when it struggles, really struggles with that specifically, is how much homework did somebody have to do before they. Now I'm like, a completionist. I want people to watch all of this, but I don't think they should be ignorant, expected to have to watch all of it. And if you didn't see Black Widow and you didn't see Hawkeye, you would understand that Yelena was turned into a child assassin and forced to commit atrocities against other people.

[Sean Fennessy]

That's because you've got a lot of characters who don't know each other, so they have to introduce each other at a certain point. Red Guardian is sitting in the passenger seat of a car, and he's talking to Bucky, and he's like, you and I are the same. We're both super soldiers. I got the knockoff Soviet serum. Like, he's literally explaining his origin story, but in a humorous way that moves quickly. And you don't. It's not this overweening mythology. It is just, I'm a guy. Here's what I do. I'm a lady, here's what I do.

[Mallory Rubin]

You also, crucially, learn not to drink what's in the Big Gulp.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

Also important.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's pretty gross piss. Are we sure that's what it was?

[Mallory Rubin]

What do you think it is, Jizz?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Let's. Yeah. Just.

[Sean Fennessy]

This is not the rewatchables for. Jesus Christ. You asked the question. I did.

[Amanda Dobbins]

So that was my second guess, too. So what did you think we were gonna say?

[Sean Fennessy]

Let's talk about the Void? The character I thought this might be a good time for Science Corner. I assume you have some questions.

[Mallory Rubin]

I have been waiting all week.

[Amanda Dobbins]

That's the Science Corner music. But I hope we play the real one.

[Mallory Rubin]

Welcome to Amanda Dobbins Science Corner.

[Amanda Dobbins]

So is he disappearing people or is he. What happens to their physical matter? Is a question that I would have once you get voided. Because we see. And I actually, again, I really liked the execution in the movie, which was, you know, it was computer, but instead of it just things, it kind of got like stamped out.

[Sean Fennessy]

Like shadowed out.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah, Shadowed out. And that was something that you could do, like, fairly, like easily and elegantly within the spectrum of the visuals.

[Sean Fennessy]

And I think also visually it fit the metaphor, which is like the encroaching darkness of life blots you out.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And then they also, when the sentry becomes the void and shows up over the city of New York, it's like he is just dark Superman, which is what you're supposed to understand. And even I, a superhero dummy, got like. Like it was effectively visually communicated to me.

[Sean Fennessy]

What happens if Superman was super depressed?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right. Well, which, like, isn't he, though? Because don't you think being Superman. Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right.

[Sean Fennessy]

We're gonna find out. July 11th.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Great.

[Mallory Rubin]

Can't wait. There's, you know, a dog and a dog.

[Sean Fennessy]

Can't wait.

[Mallory Rubin]

Dog in that movie. Not a dog in this movie.

[Sean Fennessy]

My podcasting life right here. I love it.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Mallory in Vegas.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

James Gunn.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Talked for, I am not kidding, 20 minutes about his dog and what his dog did, including eating an eight thousand dollar laptop, which he thought would be a relatable anecdote.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And then I think it is how this. This dog inspired the other dog that's.

[Mallory Rubin]

In the movie Crypto. Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I was wearing heels and I had gone to the bathroom and I had to run back because I didn't want to miss Superman because I know everyone cares about it.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And so. So I was just like standing, waiting for him to stop talking about his dog, and my feet started hurt and it was just. It was interminable. Mallory, I think it sounds.

[Mallory Rubin]

I'm not sure if you are aware how much of James Gunn's Instagram content is about his cat, but I find it riveting.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Mallory Rubin]

To follow. Well, I believe the hashtag he uses is Emily Monster or something like that for the cat who is named Emily and I believe behaves monstrously.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay. Anyway, the void turns things black and so, but so when he's the Void, he's still. He has like, Bob Or Lewis Pullman, like, outlet silhouette. Right. You know, he is Bob Pullman shaped, but he's the Bob Pullman.

[Sean Fennessy]

Lewis Pullman.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Lewis Pullman, Bob.

[Sean Fennessy]

Bob Pullman is his grandfather.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Bob's also his Top Gun maverick character. So it's pretty stressful for me and exciting. But he is. Okay. So the void is Bob shaped.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's like sitting with Carl Sagan when you get into one of these sequences, it's just amazing.

[Amanda Dobbins]

But when he kind of. Keep going.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yep. Like James gone. Keep going.

[Sean Fennessy]

Just don't stop.

[Mallory Rubin]

Keep going.

[Amanda Dobbins]

He disappears. Everyone, including the little girl, which was the one, like, gasp.

[Mallory Rubin]

Genuine gasp.

[Sean Fennessy]

Fabulous scene.

[Amanda Dobbins]

But so these people are just gone. What was once matter is no longer matter.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay. It is snap reminiscent. There is darkness there, but the darkness does not take the shape of the people. It's not even really three dimensional, I would say.

[Mallory Rubin]

Right. It's like a brushstroke through your life.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right. And so then when the void goes away, they're all returned to their places. But Mallory asks an important point about Holt on the helicopter because he's there, and then he gets voided and the helicopter keeps flying.

[Mallory Rubin]

Now, I think the MCU invites us to ask this question because this is. I. I don't think we can overstate how much time people have spent talking about it, asking about it, and then the MCU answering it with, what happened when you. After the snap, if you. If you were part of the blip and you came back? Well, what if someone had moved into your apartment? Or what if the thing that you were sitting in or standing in wasn't there having sex? This is why.

[Amanda Dobbins]

You know.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

This is why.

[Sean Fennessy]

This is not pseudo science.

[Mallory Rubin]

She's the real one.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Science is this. Well, what is the canonical answer to this?

[Mallory Rubin]

That. Well, if the person you were fucking, if Thanos had also snapped that person, you would both go back to the same moment.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay.

[Mallory Rubin]

But be great.

[Sean Fennessy]

Be a little jarring.

[Mallory Rubin]

I mean. Sure. Also, it's, like, not as jarring as it would be in the person you.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Were fucking hanging at the same moment in time. Because, like, what if you're, like, in a public.

[Mallory Rubin]

I have it in present day.

[Sean Fennessy]

But does the erection hold?

[Mallory Rubin]

Well, so this is part of what they've. Well, they haven't answered that, but, like.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right.

[Sean Fennessy]

Kevin Feige, if you're watching, if I was snapped mid coitus.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

And I was gone for how many.

[Mallory Rubin]

Years were they gone?

[Sean Fennessy]

Five years. And I returned.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Would my erection hold? I challenge you, Kevin Feige.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

Can you just clip Sean saying, would my erection hold? And make sure we have that for Instagram and TikTok. Thanks. But there was a lot of explanation about how Hulk, when he was bringing people back, had an incredible amount of control over. So I think part of what you'd have to confront is that Bruce Banner was, like, thinking about your dick.

[Sean Fennessy]

Could be worse, I guess. I don't know. Worse things I've heard.

[Mallory Rubin]

Because he's like, should Sean come back, like, at full mast?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Oh, because a lot of calculations. In charge of all of it.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Interest.

[Sean Fennessy]

So he's largely responsible for bringing this all back.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Oh, he was. And so he could you decide.

[Sean Fennessy]

Been snapped or. Or exist inside of a world that was a snap.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Definitely snap.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. Of course. That's an easy one. You want to spend five years.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I mean, I guess the answer.

[Mallory Rubin]

If you get to share a peanut butter sandwich with Steve Rogers and Natasha and talk about your grief, talk about how much you miss the Mets.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah, sure.

[Mallory Rubin]

Which happened.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I mean, Joe Russo did that one because, I mean, what happens. The kids, you know, that's like the real.

[Sean Fennessy]

Like, I mean, if my family was snapped, I would want to be snapped.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right?

[Sean Fennessy]

If my family was not snapped, we could hang out, figure it out.

[Mallory Rubin]

But the world is broken.

[Amanda Dobbins]

But yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. What if you got snapped out mid pod?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Okay, okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

Do I keep going? Do I finish with my thoughts?

[Amanda Dobbins]

We didn't go back to it. So you get voided. Yeah, which I do. Like, pretty much every episode. At some point, you know, it's like you start talking about chicken Jockey, and I'm just like, fuck, can we add those effects in chat?

[Sean Fennessy]

How do we get that shadow effect in? Can we, like, visual. Can we get. Call ILM and just get you shadowed out mid monologue.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Wanted a buzzer. Like, anytime things go really bad, you all just hit the buzzer, and then I void out, and then I can come back once you stop your bullshit. Okay, so you get voided.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

And then you come back.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

But do you return to the. Is it. Is it snap rules or are there is.

[Sean Fennessy]

Who are you asking?

[Mallory Rubin]

I mean, that kid. The kid was, like, just there on the sidewalk. Yeah. You know, so whole, like. I guess there's no helicopter to go back into because that was actually destroyed. So does he just go into the middle of the sky and then fall?

[Amanda Dobbins]

I mean, I guess we have to hope so. Now.

[Mallory Rubin]

It didn't get very far. Like, we cover Manhattan. We blanket Manhattan. That's a lot of people. But this isn't, like, half of the universe. Like, with Thanos. So it's a little bit more control.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's like a thousand people. I guess it's like ultimately a million people when the whole city goes black.

[Mallory Rubin]

But I mean, isn't it like 8 million?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right, but like, where does that matter go? You know, is another important question.

[Mallory Rubin]

Where does it go?

[Sean Fennessy]

Or do we think into Void?

[Mallory Rubin]

Well, the Void, I mean, Marvel is just a collection of various different dimensions and pocket universes at the end of the day.

[Sean Fennessy]

Well put.

[Mallory Rubin]

You know, so part of the journey of this one was moving into your own, but the Void is memory, and then each other's.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Your pain. Is their pain or another dimension?

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, why not both?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Well, I'm asking the questions here.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, I mean, the Void is a character as a person, is part of Bob's essence, and also is bringing people into these trauma prisons, you know, and then our characters on their journey to found family moved through their own individual pain into each other's pain. Because that was the message of the movie, that only together could they. Could they pull themselves out of that beautiful, beautiful stuff. Do you think the kid who took a shit in the middle of the field, I mean, that was Ohio. So she probably. She didn't enter the Void. But if she had, what would her trauma vision have been? Would it have been when she had diarrhea in the middle of a soccer game?

[Amanda Dobbins]

Well, I see that's the thing. Was it an accident?

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, they thought she intentionally. Well, like, just like drop trial was like this. We haven't won a game. I'm taking a. In the middle of the field, closer.

[Amanda Dobbins]

To Potter potty training, you know, but it's just like someone. You got to poop. You got to poop.

[Mallory Rubin]

Oh, I see. I thought this was like. I got the sense that this was like, you know, a pre game chili dog gone awry in the middle of the match.

[Sean Fennessy]

No, I haven't given it a lot.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Of thought, but I think also like the way, the way that they. She's a joke. I did think there was like a dropping trial aspect instead of an accident, you know, which. And if you're getting. If you're dropping trou, then there's intentionality, you know, Right. As we've learned from the toddlers in our lives.

[Sean Fennessy]

Circle us back to Valentina's press conference at the end of the film.

[Mallory Rubin]

That was great when she walked and she just come right through here.

[Sean Fennessy]

They walk through the curtain.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I need to let you guys know that. So I googled validation. Valentina's watch, you know, because I had.

[Mallory Rubin]

This is Your number one, she's wearing a Cartier.

[Amanda Dobbins]

But I was like, I haven't really seen it in rose gold that often. It obviously is available, but now I have it up and like, Cartier has been just like, the AI chatbots have been messaging me for 30 minutes, being like, would you like to buy this $40,000 watch?

[Sean Fennessy]

How many have you bought? During the recording of this podcast, Valentina very deftly introduces these characters as the New Avengers at the end of this movie. And then there's a great moment when Yelena steps up and whispers in her ear, we own you now. Which is what I whisper to Amanda after every episode. And, you know, this crew has taken the place seemingly of the Avengers, but I feel like actually of Guardians of the Galaxy. Like, my take on this is that they are like, still, no question, kind of the second or third team, but they're a really likable team. Yes. Hands raised.

[Amanda Dobbins]

At some point, there was speculation we're on a podcast.

[Mallory Rubin]

You have a microphone.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Well, I just. I didn't want you to get too far away from the naming and the reveal because there was a lot of speculation.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Am I. Am I misremembering that the speculation was that they would be the Dark Avengers?

[Sean Fennessy]

Well, I picked that up from you guys.

[Mallory Rubin]

That was okay. That was definitely out there. But I think Avengers was also very.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I was mad because I thought it was. I thought it was a Dark Avengers lock. And I was like, new Avengers. That seems lame. That's like new Coke.

[Sean Fennessy]

I think there is a little bit of truth to that, and that is revealed once we get into the Stingers. The first mid credits works. We'll see how they handle it in the future. One of the challenges, I think, of this movie is that it is very delicately on this tightrope between arch post Whedon quippery and sincere at times, even thoughtful drama. And I'm not sure what these other movies that are coming are going to be. And that's a very complicated thing, whether or not they're going to be able to meet that. And the New Avengers post credits Stinger, which is actually like a real Stinger of consequence. That's. The other thing is, like, I just feel like every Stinger for the last five years has just not been about or meant anything to where the story is going. Yeah, this one actually does. It literally is connecting to the next film.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes.

[Sean Fennessy]

It skips ahead 14 months.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

We learn via Yelena complaining that Sam Wilson has trademarked the name Avengers.

[Mallory Rubin]

Great stuff.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. And so they need to Find a way to counteract this trademark infringement that they are engaged in, even though they are working out of Stark Tower and that they are ostensibly the real Avengers. And then they get like some sort of signal that there's a ship, an extra dimensional ship entering their atmosphere.

[Mallory Rubin]

Fantastic Four.

[Sean Fennessy]

We see the Fantastic Four rocket ship. Do you care about this?

[Mallory Rubin]

I did that the whole drive home. And Adam was like, please stop. I was like, not until July 25th.

[Sean Fennessy]

It set us up quite nicely for the next two and a half months.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I mean, it felt very brand integrated in a way. They also. We saw this movie in imax, which was great. And they had a special IMAX countdown that was a Fantastic Four IMAX countdown.

[Mallory Rubin]

I had a minute where I was like, are we about to see a special preview of Fantastic Four? Which was not what happened.

[Amanda Dobbins]

That would have been great. It's. It was a little suspicious. Yeah. It was like a lot of synergy and PowerPointy brand activation to me.

[Sean Fennessy]

I did appreciate that. It was not here's a character you may or may not meet in the next 12 years. It was like, this is the next movie. So it actually, just from a timeline perspective, I was like, all right, 14 months. That's the time when the Fantastic Four, in whatever universe they're in, when they find their way to our universe or the universe of this movie, that's when it's going to be. So it was like not nothing.

[Mallory Rubin]

I thought the mid credits with the Wheaties box at the grocery store with Alexi was just very charming and funny and I love him. And I just think David Harper should be in everything. That's pretty much my take.

[Sean Fennessy]

He's really your type.

[Mallory Rubin]

Oh, my. Fastball down the middle.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

Oh, my God. I mean, Hopper in Stranger Things, I think is like one of the sexiest characters in the history.

[Amanda Dobbins]

When your heart resembles David Ross, the.

[Sean Fennessy]

Bigger the belly, the better.

[Amanda Dobbins]

You know, it's just.

[Sean Fennessy]

Just love them.

[Mallory Rubin]

The melding of a few things that are of consequence in the post credits. One, Alexi coming out in basically an F1 racing suit with the Z. Like I got around the copyright by putting a Z at the end of Avengers. And also just a little touch of all of the sponsors on this, like an Xbox. This is very funny. We learned something important, which is like Bob is powered down, right? That is, I think, a crucial. And again to your point, very like not in a bad way. But you. Do you understand the formula of the mcu? They have to explain that a character who has been clearly established as unbelievably powerful, when Doom comes into the mix, will not be using those powers. Right. So that will be a part of the story is like, how do we power Sentry up?

[Sean Fennessy]

I mean, of course that he won't be using those powers.

[Mallory Rubin]

No. But that that'll be part of it is like, when do. How do we power him up? We need you, bud. We need you to face Duke.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's just a great idea for most powerful hero to also be the most powerful villain.

[Mallory Rubin]

Exactly. So that I thought was great. And then like the bringing the, you know, showing us the Fantastic Four ship. Wonderful. I think the timeline point you make is interesting. Like, anecdotally, I think a thing I have heard, even amid the Fantastic Four excitement from a lot of people who are superhero movie fans is like.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Well.

[Mallory Rubin]

We know, like, we know they got to make it into the other continuity. And we know we're doing Doomsday. We know we're doing Secret Wars. So, like, like, does it take anything away from Fantastic Four first steps to just assume that they're exiting at the end? I don't really feel that way about it, but I wonder if this. I do wonder if actually anyone will bump on that aspect of the Stinger. To me, it was just like euphoria and I think a much better example of how to give us more detailed specificity and like, clarity about a thing we know, which is like, all of these continuities are melding. Incursions are coming. We know what we're headed toward. The, The. The Stinger in Brave New World, which was the leader being like multiverse, as you know, I thought was just actively, like, insulting. It's like we're two phases into the multiverse saga. Like, yeah, this was really fun. It was an exciting endnote for the movie. It's an exciting way into the next one. And it's much more like in keeping actually with showing us Thor's hammer before Thor, it's like, this is actually the next thing. And also then the bigger thing. It's not only like a little wink to the next individual story, but also the larger team up to come. So I thought that was great. Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

And it's one more reason why I was like, this is kind of a 2013 Marvel movie, which was a time when I was totally at peace with 2.3 of them coming out per year and enjoying them sometimes, but very rarely being angered by them. So, As I said, 13 movies since far From Home and since, frankly, since COVID Yeah, this is the second, second best one or the best one maybe the third best one. Not. Not a Guardians 3 fan.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. I love. I. I love no way Home and Guardians 3.

[Sean Fennessy]

Those would be the two that I.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Think no Way Home is, I think better. In my opinion, it has higher highs.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

As a movie on the whole, I think Thunderbolt is more consistent, especially through the final hour. But the, the excitement of no Way Home is kind of unmatched. Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

I mean, incredible. Those are the top three for me in phases four and five. I'll probably have to see Thunderbolts a second time before setting my order there. I really love no Way Home and I really love Guardians 3. I just, I mean, the rocket stuff in Guardians 3, I just like, I could cry right now thinking about it. I loved it. It was great.

[Sean Fennessy]

Did you cry right in Amanda's face while you.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I mean, I'm glad that he's okay. I don't believe in animal cruelty, so that's a twist. You know, brave take.

[Sean Fennessy]

Interesting.

[Mallory Rubin]

Didn't want to hear James Gunn talk about his dog, but draws the line at active animal cruelty.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. Basically, you guys, you do your thing and I'll do mine.

[Sean Fennessy]

Thank you for your service.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

My somewhat tongue in cheek, but also not question in the title of this episode is, is it too late that the feeling that I mentioned of the bloom being off the rose, that these movies are now only for super fans, that the normal movie fan who likes to go to blockbusters but who has lost a sense of the continuity hasn't watched the TV shows. Movie fans not going back 2, 3, 4 times to see these movies. Is it too late? Can this be completely revived and taken us back to a place that More Looks like 2014, 15, 16? What do you think?

[Amanda Dobbins]

I don't think so, but I don't think that. Well, I'm sure Disney shareholders won't be pleased with the new adjustment, but I think it can get to a new medium ground where the people who are fans of this, which is really sizable because. Right. That's the other thing. An entire generation of kids, including your sister Sean, grew up being obsessed with these movies, learned to go to the movies because of these movies. I think movies, non Marvel movies are now experiencing the downstream effect of kids being trained to go at least for a big event movie. So they'll keep going. And that's a sizable amount of people. I don't know if it's gonna be the most important thing culturally. Like in the same way, with respect that like House of Dragon, which has tons of viewers and is like a really big deal, is still, it's not really a Game of Thrones level, just like in terms of cultural import, but like it's doing great and everybody but me watches it. And you know, I think that's a very good comparison. So, so, and like I. And I think that that's a good outcome for basically everyone except for, you know, capitalism and the corporate interests involved in this.

[Sean Fennessy]

But it's a smaller piece of the pie for Disney.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, I think the comp ultimately to like people liking this, it doing well and most crucially of all, people being like characters I didn't think I gave a shit about. I've come to care about both in a way that will lead me to the theater to see it and then to invest in what they do moving forward. The comps are much more like Guardians or Ant man or honestly even like something like Ragnarok, though Thor was very established by that point. Then the Spider man movies or obviously any of the Avengers movies. It's just Thunderbolts was never going to be that despite being the Hammer film at the end of a phase and despite being a big team up movie. It's just like that's not the tier that this film's playing in. So to your core question, the test for that is still, I think this isn't the test for that. I think that if Thunderbolts generates enthusiasm, that's just a win. The test is going to be Fantastic Four. The test is going to be Doomsday and Secret wars. And of course the test ultimately is X Men for is it sustainable beyond.

[Sean Fennessy]

But see to me, X Men, they can't, they won't, it won't get screwed up. I think that they still have a chance to even if they fuck up the Avengers Doomsday movie.

[Amanda Dobbins]

So the X Men will come again after the X Men probably at the.

[Sean Fennessy]

End of Secret wars would be my guess.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Right. Because they had.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, I think that'll just be like the focus of the next phase. But I mean, yeah, we've got a lot of X Men presence already obviously at this point.

[Sean Fennessy]

But yes, I think we'll probably see all of the Fox X Men blipped out in some way in Doomsday and whoever some of the new X Men will be in Secret wars would be my guess. But I people, you know, I'm gonna be like 50 years old when that movie comes out and I'm still gonna be like, I want to know who the new X Men are, which characters did they choose, what era? You know, like I just, I care. Like I'm just invested. Chris and I have talked about, like, we're getting old and we're still like, X Men is still the only thing that matters ultimately. And Kevin Feige knows that, and he knows that he can prey upon that. And also the fact that when you're nine and you meet the X Men for the first time, you're like, this is fucking magic. This is great stuff. So even if the next three or four years are not ultimately that successful, this is a good sign. It is a smaller movie. It's tracking for $70 million right now. I would say that's an under suggestion. To me. It feels more like, like 85, 95, maybe even 100. Yeah. Which would. Which would be a big success.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

I think if it's. If it underperforms 70. Flashing red light.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, but this should have such strong word of mouth. Right?

[Sean Fennessy]

I think we'll have.

[Mallory Rubin]

The reviews are going to be good.

[Sean Fennessy]

We're in a different time, don't you think?

[Amanda Dobbins]

I feel like even just my anecdotal word of mouth today.

[Mallory Rubin]

Positive.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

But like, my critic friends are like, this movie's good.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah. But like, it's not bad.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, certainly not.

[Amanda Dobbins]

It's not bad. It's not a disaster. And even parts of it were positive.

[Sean Fennessy]

Except the other thing that we were not have been counting on a few months ago, but that has obviously happened, is you've got the two biggest movies of the year are in theaters right now, so people are more likely to be in theaters. Well, the three biggest movies of the year are in theaters.

[Mallory Rubin]

Thank you.

[Sean Fennessy]

Are you just high on the hog right now with that?

[Mallory Rubin]

I mean, as you know, it's one of the most important movies in my life as you. But you didn't go. I couldn't go last weekend. I was on. Honestly despondent. But as I told you and Chris last night and have mentioned on ringerpods before, it is the movie Titanic is second just to restore our bond. Before I say the thing I'm gonna say next, it is the movie I have seen in theaters more than any other movie in my entire life.

[Amanda Dobbins]

How many times.

[Mallory Rubin]

Can we ever trust our own memory? Who knows? My recollection is that I saw Revenge of the Sith seven times in movie.

[Sean Fennessy]

Theaters, like at its initial release.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Same movie theater or different movie theaters?

[Mallory Rubin]

Different theaters. Okay, different theaters. But I couldn't get. I fucking couldn't get enough. Mustafar could not get enough. And I still can't.

[Sean Fennessy]

I rewatched it this week. I don't know. I don't Know if there's time.

[Mallory Rubin]

You are the chosen one.

[Sean Fennessy]

I love that final sequence.

[Amanda Dobbins]

It's great.

[Sean Fennessy]

So much of it is so bad. I mean, so anytime Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman are in a scene together, it is a bomb. It is one of some of the worst.

[Mallory Rubin]

I'll invite you to revisit Clones.

[Sean Fennessy]

That's worse.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

Attack of the Clones. That stuff is also bad. And yet there's some fights that I really enjoy.

[Mallory Rubin]

Sure. Prequel kids. You know, it's a really good part.

[Amanda Dobbins]

In the account 2 where Ben Affleck's character is playing with the lightsaber.

[Mallory Rubin]

Was listening to Chris and Andy talk about this. Driving in. I was listening to Chris and Andy driving in today talking about this. Oh, yeah, because they were talking about Star Wars, Starf Fighter, and, like, how that's actually kind of an inspired name for a movie. And Chris was like, they should just call one Star Wars Lightsaber.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Or.

[Mallory Rubin]

Actually, Andy said that, and Chris was.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Like, I would go.

[Mallory Rubin]

And then they talked about the account.

[Sean Fennessy]

Do you think Starf Fighter is a good title? No, it's the word. Star is already in Star Wars.

[Mallory Rubin]

This is like, a show I really love is Rings of Power, as you know. But the Lord of the Rings, the Rings of Power is too many repeating words for me.

[Sean Fennessy]

Learned at the feet of great journalists and editors that like.

[Amanda Dobbins]

So it's Star Wars. Colon, Starfighter.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yes.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Who's in Star. Who's the starfighter?

[Sean Fennessy]

Ryan Gosling.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Oh, that movie is.

[Mallory Rubin]

He's just gonna be in Star Wars. He's just gonna be in space. He's gonna be in space for the next few years because he's also doing Project Hail Mary. Wonderful.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Oh, my God.

[Mallory Rubin]

Which is. I'm thrilled.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I can't tell you Love that book. How excited I was. You're gonna like Project Hail Mary. No, I know. Like, they cold opened with it after, and it was. I'd had several cocktails, and then suddenly there was Ryan Gosling, and I was just like.

[Mallory Rubin]

I sent him so many texts about it. And you had to actually at one point say to me, this movie doesn't come out for two years. Like, the implications. Please stop texting.

[Sean Fennessy]

It was. It's January 2026, not 2027, right?

[Amanda Dobbins]

It is.

[Sean Fennessy]

No, January 2026. 26.

[Mallory Rubin]

26.

[Sean Fennessy]

January or summer. I think it's January.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I would have said that. Right? March. But Project Hail Mary movie. This is great podcasting. When we start googling March 20th. Yeah, I was right.

[Sean Fennessy]

One year.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

One year away.

[Mallory Rubin]

I can't fucking wait.

[Sean Fennessy]

It was unusual in the presentation at Cinemacon to open your presentation with a movie that's.

[Amanda Dobbins]

They had several movies. This is Amazon, that don't come out till next year. And then one movie that we all thought was totally made up about Hugh Jackman and sheep.

[Mallory Rubin]

Oh, exciting.

[Sean Fennessy]

Yeah. You can imagine what happens in that movie. He solves a crime. Any. What did you think happened? What did you think I meant?

[Mallory Rubin]

No, I answered your Big Gulp question.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I won't be making the same mistake again.

[Sean Fennessy]

Any closing thoughts on Thunderbolts? You liked it?

[Mallory Rubin]

I had a lot of fun. I just. I don't know. I'm like.

[Sean Fennessy]

It's refreshing to not be mad about a Marvel movie.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. I care about the MCU deeply, and I love comic book movies, and I love the characters and I love the story, and I'm so invested in this connected universe at this point in my life. But, like, the thing I love most about it is sharing it with my friends, genuinely, not to be too corny about it. So it's like. It is actually exciting to have a Marvel that people are, like, not actively dreading discussing with each other. That's really just a wonderful thing.

[Sean Fennessy]

Six months ago, I was like, I know. I want Mal to be on the Thunderbolts episode. And it worked out just as I envisioned. I was like, let's not have an angry hand wringing. Like, oh, this again. I'm so sick of doing those pods, even though they gotta do it when the movie isn't good.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessy]

How do you feel?

[Amanda Dobbins]

It felt nice to go home and be asked how the movie was and be like, not bad. And I say that about Marvel movies and also just about our movie. Not bad.

[Mallory Rubin]

And here's a link to a. Watch out. I would like for Christmas this year.

[Amanda Dobbins]

No, I'm a Tank Girl. I just. I. Yeah, I can't do. Listen. Yeah. As I said, I thought it was a little too on trend for that character. That's okay. I liked the suit.

[Sean Fennessy]

We know Val is very presentational.

[Amanda Dobbins]

You know, it was a rough Q1, you know, for movies and for life.

[Sean Fennessy]

Fully come out of it.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Exactly.

[Sean Fennessy]

But it's like, we got a good.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Marvel movie sitting there in Vegas on April 1st. Just being like, we're like, we're struggling. I was strong. I feel.

[Sean Fennessy]

I was distraught. I was like, what happened in my beautiful movies? I was like, this sucks. And now I feel good. I don't know if I feel great, but I feel good. Yeah. All right, great. Well, Mel, thank you.

[Mallory Rubin]

Thank you.

[Sean Fennessy]

Where can we find you?

[Mallory Rubin]

Hey, check out House of R. We're doing deep dives right now on two of the best television shows that exist. The Last of Us and Andor we're covering them at the same time. Well, they're airing three episodes a week. Week. So you are rapidly behind. As of tonight, you will be six hours behind.

[Amanda Dobbins]

That's it's their hour long.

[Mallory Rubin]

They're an hour long. They were a little bit short. There were some more episodes last year that were in the 40s.

[Amanda Dobbins]

The last season. I can't because we got. I gotta watch 45. Paul Newman cannot recommend it highly enough.

[Mallory Rubin]

I love great television show.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I really like what I saw. And then I had big pick work to do and then Zach went ahead and so now I'm just.

[Mallory Rubin]

I'm gonna to get to move it up your list. I'm gonna send you a link to a video. The title which is 1 hour of Mon Mothma Dancing. Okay, I'm gonna send that to you. It will spoil something.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I'll watch it.

[Mallory Rubin]

But it will also.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I'm open to it. Tony Gilroy for life.

[Mallory Rubin]

You know, spark your enthusiasm. Yeah, Gilroy. What a time to be the watch.

[Sean Fennessy]

Thank you for being you.

[Mallory Rubin]

Thanks for being you.

[Sean Fennessy]

Thanks for being on the pod. Thanks to Jack Sanders for being him, the producer of this episode. Thanks to Amanda for all of your wonderful insights.

[Amanda Dobbins]

Science Corner was great today. It was.

[Sean Fennessy]

We will be back next week on the show. What are we doing? Oh my gosh.

[Amanda Dobbins]

35 over 35.

[Mallory Rubin]

35 over 35. That's one of my favorite episodes of the year.

[Sean Fennessy]

We have not done a movie star ranking for people older than 35 in two years. So the National Research Group has done whatever the fuck they do and given us yet another.

[Amanda Dobbins]

We did a summer movie star preview on jam session.

[Sean Fennessy]

Very cool. Yeah.

[Amanda Dobbins]

I'm gonna be honest. Not a lot of movie stars in the firmament. But that's okay.

[Sean Fennessy]

Not ideal. Nevertheless, we will be doing it here on Tuesday. We'll see you then.