Pete Wright:
Welcome to the Marvel Movie Minute, a weekly podcast in which we assemble to explore the films of the Marvel Cinematic Universe five minutes at a time. In this hard nine season we’re looking at Captain America: The Winter Soldier. I’m Pete Wright.

Kyle Olson:
I’m Kyle Olson.

Matthew Fox:
I’m the second baseman for the New York Mets, Matthew Fox.

Pete Wright:
Today we’re talking about minutes 126 through 130, which begins with the end of our graveside confidential and ends with the reveal of the horrifying miracle that is twins.

All right, everybody. Here we are. This is it. And Kyle, you did not get a chance to weigh in on last week’s conversation.

Kyle Olson:
I did not. I say, which of you did the dramatic reenactment of Ezekiel 25:17?

Pete Wright:
Well, we did go into that for sure.

Matthew Fox:
We went into the theology and the biblical historicity of it.

Pete Wright:
And that’s true.

Kyle Olson:
Oh, very nice.

Matthew Fox:
Both of us being whiter than white bread, we did not go into a dramatic rendition, particularly of the Samuel Jackson Pulp Fiction version.

Kyle Olson:
Yeah, the Tarantinoized version.

Pete Wright:
The path of the righteous man.

Kyle Olson:
That’s right. That’s what we see on Nick Fury’s grave.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. Do you have any commentary about Nick Fury torching his own cabana?

Kyle Olson:
I really did like that whole sequence. We’re sort of now, as we come into this one, we’ve sort of ended that whole Trouble Man thing, and in the eyes of everybody, here’s where everybody’s at and what they’re doing.

I love the fact that Maria Hill went to Stark.

Pete Wright:
Yeah, right.

Kyle Olson:
That she — I was like, that’s interesting.

Pete Wright:
Well, she didn’t get the job.

Kyle Olson:
Yeah. And then, you know, we see —

Pete Wright:
We decided she was ill-qualified for the job.

Kyle Olson:
And Sharon going to join the CIA. I think we know that things take a turn for her.

Pete Wright:
Yeah.

Kyle Olson:
But at this point, we still have Natasha still trying to make that love connection happen. So yeah, I like the real direct visual metaphor of him burning the past. It was like getting rid of all of the old and starting something new. I love that sequence so much that it kind of annoys me that there’s a little bunch of threads there that they just never did anything with.

Pete Wright:
Yeah.

Kyle Olson:
Like at all. I’m like, ooh, wow, this is really like —

Pete Wright:
Yeah.

Kyle Olson:
We’re starting over fresh, all new. Everybody has new opportunities, new things. And then all of it kind of just goes away, and Ultron shows up, and it’s like all these branches get snipped.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. So we are continuing that conversation briefly between the boys, who pretty much say, no, no, Nick, we don’t want to work for you anymore right now.

Matthew Fox:
Mm-hmm.

Pete Wright:
We’re taking a break. We’re on a break. And then we get a bit with Natasha, who — there’s a weird bit of blocking here, you guys. I don’t love how this is blocked. Fury walks away and doesn’t acknowledge that Natasha is walking into scene, and they’re in the same frame.

Kyle Olson:
Mm-hmm, yeah.

Pete Wright:
And they don’t even wave, salute, acknowledge, head nod, nothing. That’s a weird move.

Kyle Olson:
Yeah, this is one of those — I watched the whole video on this, that the world doesn’t exist if it’s outside the frame thing. And they say that once you become aware of it, it’s that glass shattering thing from How I Met Your Mother.

Pete Wright:
Yeah.

Kyle Olson:
You can’t un-see it.

Pete Wright:
Yep.

Kyle Olson:
You watch Jurassic Park and somehow a T-Rex sneaks up on them because it’s out of frame, and then it leaps in. We have previously established that the ground shakes when it walks, and yet somehow it sneaks into the building.

Matthew Fox:
Yeah.

Pete Wright:
Yeah.

Kyle Olson:
So it’s that same thing of, he could see — it’s a cemetery. It is notoriously flat. You could see her coming from a very long distance away, but suddenly he —

Pete Wright:
Yeah. And they’re twenty feet apart, tops.

Kyle Olson:
— snaps out of frame, disappears, and then suddenly she’s there.

Pete Wright:
Yeah.

Kyle Olson:
Yeah, it is a little weird.

Matthew Fox:
So I’m gonna offer an in-story reason why I think it makes sense.

Kyle Olson:
Mm-hmm.

Matthew Fox:
We spent a lot of time talking about all the conflicted loyalties of how people feel about the testimony that Natasha gave. And clearly Natasha — there’s a line where Steve asks, you’re not going with him? And she’s like, no, no, no, no.

Kyle Olson:
Yeah.

Matthew Fox:
What I took that as — I didn’t take it as a blocking thing. I took it as a clear sign that she has 100% left team Fury.

Kyle Olson:
Mm, mm-hmm.

Matthew Fox:
Not just physically walking with him. This was his baby, and he’s probably the one who had the most responsibility for missing the fact that Hydra took over his organization. And I think there’s some bruised ego there, but also a real desire of, I want to try and rebuild stuff. I don’t want to be out of this game.

And we see him show up in Agents of SHIELD, we see him come back in Avengers stuff. He’s not just going to Jamaica to have a vacation.

Kyle Olson:
He’s going home to his wife.

Matthew Fox:
I have questions. I have questions about that. But I imagine that there’s a lot of tension between him and Natasha at this moment because of her testimony, and because —

Kyle Olson:
Yeah.

Matthew Fox:
He may have had an idea of, here’s how we can maybe save SHIELD, and she was like, no, I’m gonna burn it all down on national television. And so to me, for those two characters to not want to interact, and her to be kind of there but a few steps back, because she’s kind of trying to respect the inner circle and stepping up when he steps away — I do think that makes sense. Whether or not the writers were actually that smart, or the choreography of the scene was just weird, I have no idea. But I think there’s a possibility that it’s not bad blocking, it’s an intentional story beat that maybe should have been a little more emphasized.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. I’ll allow the retcon.

Kyle Olson:
I think it was probably scheduling. It was probably scheduling.

Matthew Fox:
Yeah.

Kyle Olson:
It’s probably they couldn’t be there at the same time.

Matthew Fox:
Also possible.

Pete Wright:
So we get this little bit. I don’t think there’s a whole lot in subtext that they’re dealing with here. She does warn him — well, you disagree.

Kyle Olson:
Wow. I disagree. I disagree because, like we talked about before, you two are firmly like, there is no romantic thing here. But I think the kiss goodbye is the end of that possibility that it was Steve and Natasha. And I think this brings us back to the scene in the truck, too. I really think she was actually putting out a thing of, this could be a thing that happens, and he shut it down there too. And this is the final closure on that moment. Because there is a genuine sort of back and forth thing in there, the way they have it set up. Okay, well, it’s the relationship that never happened. It was the crush that never was resolved. It’s just like, okay, now we’re just gonna be professionals. And because she doesn’t kiss Sam, who risked just as much and was just as much of a hero.

Matthew Fox:
You have me fully convinced on that. I very strongly got that vibe from this scene, because think about the reasons we talked about before — a lot of it had to do with SHIELD.

Kyle Olson:
Yeah.

Matthew Fox:
Her wanting him to have a SHIELD agent close to him who is monitoring him. That’s now off the table. Her wanting to have him a little bit more under control, or not a concern in that way. That’s now off the table. What I’ll even say is, on the ship, I don’t think she had any romantic feelings for him.

I think she developed some over the course of this movie, and that’s also tied in a lot to her identity and her knowledge of herself and all that. And she wants to walk away from all of this. And she also — yeah, he is carrying a little bit of a torch there. He’s America’s ass.

Kyle Olson:
Mm-hmm.

Matthew Fox:
It’s torchworthy. Clearly, I think she doesn’t have a problem being partners with male partners. I don’t think there’s a shred of connection there with her and Hawkeye, and that’s fine, and there shouldn’t be.

Kyle Olson:
Okay. All right.

Matthew Fox:
But yeah, I think there’s some level of, do me a favor, because I want you to be my Hawkeye. I want you to be a Hawkeye.

I want to be able to have an uncomplicated relationship. And I don’t even broaden it to say — it might well be because she has some feelings and she wants to be able to cut them off. She’s also a woman who has gone through her life being hit on by the men who she’s supposed to have professional relationships with, Tony Stark being a very big example.

Kyle Olson:
Yeah.

Matthew Fox:
And I don’t think she thinks he’s Tony Stark, but I could see her being like, I just don’t want to spend this time with — Hawkeye, Clint has his wife, so I know he’s not a concern.

Pete Wright:
[unclear]

Matthew Fox:
I don’t want to be around single guys this much.

Kyle Olson:
Mm-hmm.

Matthew Fox:
Like, go have a happy relationship.

Kyle Olson:
Yeah.

Matthew Fox:
Whatever.

Kyle Olson:
Yeah.

Pete Wright:
I’m gonna let you both have that, but I will confirm —

Kyle Olson:
And I think she brings it to an end. I think that’s sort of that whole arc thing.

Pete Wright:
She, yeah.

Kyle Olson:
This is basically where it stops. I don’t see it as her holding a torch through the rest of her life.

Pete Wright:
Yeah, that whole angle is written out of their relationship going forward.

Kyle Olson:
Yeah. Yeah.

Pete Wright:
It’s really soft-pedaled in the movie. I don’t think she kissed Sam because she just met Sam the other day. Like, she just met him. But I do think — I mean —

Matthew Fox:
I’ve kissed people I just met, you prude. What are you, Gen Z? All right, sorry, go on.

Pete Wright:
I’ll let you have it. I’m fine with that existing in the world. It still feels pretty soft-pedaled in the movie to me. I guess you guys are just more romantic than I am.

Kyle Olson:
Yeah, true. Well, I don’t know. Maybe. I mean, this portrayal of Black Widow is always one of my favorites in the MCU and stuff too.

Pete Wright:
Yeah.

Matthew Fox:
Right.

Kyle Olson:
The way they have her. And I feel like if I was ever contracted to write a novel, it would be where she goes from this to Ultron. Because now she has chosen the superhero life.

Matthew Fox:
Right.

Kyle Olson:
She’s now in the pilot.

Pete Wright:
Yeah.

Kyle Olson:
All her secrets are out.

And the next time we see her, she’s full in, you know, in the snow, flying in, in the big shot of all that. I was like, yeah, but what? It seems like there’s a whole thing that happens between those two, and that story never gets told, unfortunately, and now never will.

Pete Wright:
Yeah.

Matthew Fox:
I mean, I will say also, as a counterpoint, and Pete, where I have some sympathy — and it’s funny because we’re having these longer conversations about formats and things like that.

Pete Wright:
[unclear]

Matthew Fox:
When we examine movies in this granular detail, we’re gonna find things that the creators may be like, where the fuck did you get that?

Pete Wright:
Yeah.

Matthew Fox:
That was not my intent, you know?

Pete Wright:
Right.

Matthew Fox:
The more you look, the more you’re gonna find things. Human brains love connections.

Pete Wright:
Oh yeah.

Matthew Fox:
And I don’t think I would have thought of any of this if we watched the whole movie in one day.

Kyle Olson:
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Matthew Fox:
But I think when we’re looking at this granularly — particularly today, when really we have maybe two minutes to analyze and three minutes of credits, I gotta find something to talk about. And so Natasha having that line —

Kyle Olson:
Oh, I actually have a lot of stuff coming up here, so —

Matthew Fox:
I definitely was like, why would Natasha say that?

Okay, let me think about this more. Because especially if Natasha knows who Sharon Carter is, particularly the significance of the last name Carter —

Kyle Olson:
Mm-hmm.

Matthew Fox:
Then this is diabolical. And I want to check Natasha’s AO3 file, because she’s got some tags in there. But beyond that, yeah.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. All right.

Kyle Olson:
Yeah. But then she exits to have her own adventures, and before she does, gives —

Pete Wright:
Yeah.

Kyle Olson:
— Steve a file, and it looks like it was specifically maybe a KGB file about the Winter Soldier. And so it opens up and he sees Bucky’s thing, and then Bucky in the ice. So now he has a lot more information to go on.

Pete Wright:
Yeah.

Kyle Olson:
And then we have this setup for that. And I love the fact that now we have Steve being the iconoclast, being alone even in a crowd — now he has a partner again, just like he did before. And now they’re off on the next mission.

I love the fact that the last line of the movie is, when do we start?

Pete Wright:
Yeah. Yep. That’s it. The fact that this movie gives us the performance trio that eventually — we have Sam and Steve, then we have Sam and Bucky, and we have Steve and Bucky, like that whole trio.

Kyle Olson:
Mm-hmm.

Pete Wright:
It’s perfect in every combination. And I absolutely agree. “When do we start” is the start of this era of these heroes.

Matthew Fox:
And bringing in a perspective that I think may not get talked about on here, or that at least I feel responsible to represent. This moment launches a huge part of the fan fiction community in terms of these movies, because —

Kyle Olson:
Mm-hmm.

Pete Wright:
Yeah.

Matthew Fox:
For a long time, Marvel was one of the dominant fan fiction things. One of the main conflicts was, are you shipping Steve with Bucky, or are you shipping Steve with Sam? And there’s all sorts of levels to that in terms of race and class and how you see all that.

Kyle Olson:
You think?

Matthew Fox:
But it is so well set up.

Pete Wright:
[unclear]

Matthew Fox:
Not that this particular thing was intended, but the idea of Steve looking for this person who’s so important to him in his past, and building a relationship with someone who’s so important to him right now.

Pete Wright:
[unclear]

Matthew Fox:
And if the genders are different, that is a love triangle with huge glowing flags around it. And so it does not at all surprise me that that’s how it came to be seen by a big portion of the queer part of the fandom.

Pete Wright:
Yeah, and it is incredibly magnetic, right?

Matthew Fox:
Yeah.

Kyle Olson:
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Pete Wright:
Because they’re all so handsome.

Matthew Fox:
Yeah.

Pete Wright:
How do you even sit down to write your fan fiction?

Kyle Olson:
Uh-huh.

Pete Wright:
How do you even start?

Matthew Fox:
I mean, the polyamorous people had a lot of fun with it, but that’s —

Pete Wright:
A lot of fun, yeah.

Matthew Fox:
But yeah, and I think even just the way it’s shot — Sam is behind him, but he turns to look at him, looking right at the camera. Everything about it — I think it is one of the best closing lines to a movie we see in the MCU.

Pete Wright:
Yeah, I do too.

Kyle Olson:
Yeah, this is where the MCU is at the peak, where you’re just like, give me the next one now.

Pete Wright:
Yeah.

Kyle Olson:
I want to see what happens next. I want to see where they go from here.

Pete Wright:
Here’s what’s so interesting. We go from this, obviously directed by the Russos, and then we have our credits. And I want to talk a bit about the credits. Kyle, I don’t know, is this where you have the brunt of your material?

Kyle Olson:
I do. I have some stuff here. So this whole sequence was created by Erin Sarofsky from her group called Sarofsky Corp. She was hired by Marvel specifically to do this. We’ll have a link in the show notes — she had a big interview with a website called artofthetitle.com where they talked about this, and she broke down all the stuff that went into this, including the document that Marvel sent them before, while the movie was being shot, for them to start working on it beforehand. So they actually put a bunch of stuff in there, but they still kept a bunch of secrets. So it’s really interesting to go through.

But she talked about how her group were influenced by Saul Bass, which is pretty obvious, I think, for everybody who knows this stuff, and Jim Steranko, who did a bunch of Marvel comics, but specifically a bunch of Nick Fury comics.

Pete Wright:
Yeah.

Kyle Olson:
And then they actually got David Mack involved in this as well, who is still a predominant comic artist. But check the show notes, it’s a really good interview with her, and just another thing of a fan getting to actually do this really cool thing. And from this, her company goes on to do a bunch of these title sequences, including Guardians and a bunch of other stuff down the line. And then even crosses the line and did ones for Superman. So they’re still out there doing good stuff.

Pete Wright:
Yeah.

Kyle Olson:
So yeah, I love this. What a nice sort of blast of energy here at the end, as we finish this big epic thing and now we have this Henry Jackman score come up and these really cool images for everyone. Yeah, it’s a great way to sort of end where you think more things would start.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. One of the things that came out of that piece that I think is so wonderful is hearing how they did the stereoscopic 3D bits, and that the entire credit sequence was simultaneously built in 2D and stereoscopic 3D. So the 3D team is animating every shot twice. And they built it around the Chris Evans card. They wanted his chest to come out into negative space just enough, and then they meter depth for everything that follows against that chest depth. And it just looks great. It looks great across the board, whatever format you’re in, but I do enjoy putting on the old headset and watching it in 3D. It’s quite an experience.

So, really cool. And that gets us to — I don’t have any specific names that we need to pull out, because mostly we’re getting to new director territory.

Kyle Olson:
That’s right. The post-credit scene was not directed by the Russos at all. It was directed by Joss Whedon.

Pete Wright:
Yeah.

Matthew Fox:
Oh, interesting.

Pete Wright:
It feels Whedon. You can feel it immediately. Did you feel it at all?

Kyle Olson:
Yeah.

Pete Wright:
Yeah, I stopped myself. I almost said it and I stopped.

Kyle Olson:
Yeah. Even in the theater, I remember seeing this and I was like, oh yeah.

Pete Wright:
Yeah.

Kyle Olson:
Someone who studied Buffy and Angel chapter and verse, I was like, oh yeah.

Pete Wright:
Yep.

Kyle Olson:
So as soon as it comes on, I’m like, yeah.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. Yep.

Kyle Olson:
Not even dialogue-wise, but even just the visual style, I was like, yeah, I can see it.

Pete Wright:
So let’s break down what we’re seeing here, because this is obviously a big transition and a fairly significant introduction that we get at the end of this.

Kyle Olson:
Yeah, so first thing we see is Henry Goodman as Dr. List. He is originally from Whitechapel, London, UK. 114 credits on IMDb, including The Saint and Mary Reilly. Plus he appeared in a film with one of TruStory FM’s own extended family of hosts.

Pete Wright:
Oh, outstanding.

Kyle Olson:
Pete, do you know what movie it might have been?

Pete Wright:
I don’t. I don’t.

Kyle Olson:
He was in Private Parts with our own Mandy Fabian.

Pete Wright:
Who is it? Mandy Fabian, that’s so good.

Kyle Olson:
Yeah.

Pete Wright:
Oh, that’s so good.

Kyle Olson:
And so he eventually will reprise this role on Agents of SHIELD.

Pete Wright:
Okay.

Kyle Olson:
So he goes from this, does a run on Agents of SHIELD, several episodes, and then shows up again in Avengers: Age of Ultron. And then opposite him is Baron Wolfgang von Strucker.

First appearance in Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos #5 in November of 1963, created by Stan Lee and Jack “the King” Kirby.

Pete Wright:
Okay.

Kyle Olson:
He has a long, long, wild history. In that one he just shows up as a typical sort of Nazi. And there’s a whole — his first introduction is, he challenges Nick Fury to a fist fight and then poisons him, and then Nick Fury gets knocked out, and then they take pictures of him standing over Nick Fury, and then they send pictures out to all the papers of like, look, your champion has been got. And then by the end, Nick Fury — they have a rematch, and he doesn’t drink the poison toast wine, and then —

Pete Wright:
He has learned.

Kyle Olson:
— beats him soundly. But yeah, then he gets wilder and stranger.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. And that one screenshot.

Kyle Olson:
He is the person who actually created Hydra. He came up with the name.

He also created AIM and the Secret Empire. He loved creating secret organizations.

Pete Wright:
Wow.

Kyle Olson:
Some of them did not last very long. But he actually was much more of a prominent figure coming back in all the Nick Fury stuff than even Red Skull was. And he’s just a guy. He’s also involved with the Satan Claw.

Pete Wright:
Yeah.

Kyle Olson:
It gets really, really wild in those things. And then he was in World War II, was resurrected, and has come back multiple times in different bodies, and all kinds of stuff.

So yeah, just reading through his Wikipedia entry was a wild ride.

Pete Wright:
So it feels very much like this scene is the close of Hydra. It feels very much like, okay, there are people who are continuing Hydra’s work. We’re starting our new secret organization. That’s what it feels like.

Kyle Olson:
Yeah, yeah.

Pete Wright:
He’s pitching. And moving on. And he’s moving on because we’re entering a new era for Marvel.

Kyle Olson:
Yeah, sure.

Pete Wright:
Effectively the era of the powered people. What do you call it? You call it something, right?

Kyle Olson:
What, maybe an age of miracles?

Pete Wright:
That’s the one. Okay, we’re in the age of miracles.

Kyle Olson:
Yeah, because we see that they’ve been experimenting with something, and it’s Loki’s staff!

Pete Wright:
Yeah.

Matthew Fox:
Before we jump to that though, I just want to say one other moment of the importance, I think, of those two characters. We talked a lot about the second one, but the first one, the Baron — I don’t know how much you guys were involved in this, but I was at this point very involved in the Agents of SHIELD world, and dove very deeply into the Netflix MCU that was going to start only a year after this with Daredevil. And we had never seen this level of integration between a set of movies and a TV show.

And it really kind of — I think it’s so common now that it’s hard to remember just how groundbreaking that was and how exciting that was. And I think there were some good connections between the two, although they kind of started getting a little wonky for a while towards the end. But I think it also led to a lot of hope when the Netflix MCU came out and was so good, that we would get those characters coming back into the MCU. That of course never happened, and now is sort of happening with this new version of it. That’s a whole other story.

But I think in terms of the history of the MCU, that moment of him being in this, and not only him being in SHIELD, but then a lot of SHIELD being about what is Hydra, and this constant search for the Russian nesting doll, and to only get to open the next one and see what’s under it.

Kyle Olson:
All right.

Matthew Fox:
I think it becomes really important for that show and that history.

Pete Wright:
Yeah.

Kyle Olson:
Yeah, because all the stuff he talks about of like, oh, there’s a bunch of Hydra guys doing a bunch of Hydra stuff — it’s like, oh yeah, that’s what Agents of SHIELD dealt with for like the next two or three seasons.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. I like how he gets to be dismissive in the mid-credits scene of the show.

Kyle Olson:
Uh-huh.

Pete Wright:
It just feels so on brand for Marvel at this point.

Kyle Olson:
Yeah.

Matthew Fox:
Yeah.

Kyle Olson:
I should also say he is played by Thomas Kretschmann from East Germany, has 144 credits on IMDb, including King Kong, Wanted, Blade II, and Cars 2.

Pete Wright:
Who did he play in Cars 2?

Kyle Olson:
Played Professor Z.

Pete Wright:
I don’t remember that.

Kyle Olson:
Okay.

Pete Wright:
I don’t have any memory of that.

Kyle Olson:
Well, the less we think about Cars 2, probably the better for everyone.

Pete Wright:
Yeah, probably.

Kyle Olson:
But yeah, meanwhile, then there’s, from the Avengers movie, there is Loki’s staff back. And there’s something about the stone that’s in there. It’s something in the back of my mind. Yeah, oh well.

Matthew Fox:
Tessa. Tessa something.

Kyle Olson:
We’ll get to that later. No. It’s right on the top of my mind, but I can’t think of it.

Okay. We’ll figure it out later on.

Pete Wright:
We will, and we will talk most specifically about who’s in the cages.

Kyle Olson:
That’s right. Because I do like the — this is probably a Joss Whedon line, which is, the dead will be buried so deep their ghosts won’t be able to find them.

Pete Wright:
Yeah, yeah.

Kyle Olson:
Oh yeah, come on. I mean, the guy’s problematic, but he’s a good writer, unfortunately.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. Oh man.

Kyle Olson:
But yes, then they turn and we see the twins. And I don’t think — it was already filming, so that was the thing, but I don’t think any of us expected to see these two characters show up at the end of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, because there is Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, the Maximoff twins, Wanda and Pietro. I remember in the theater, just everybody being like, oh, man, this is how they make their debut. Like, oh my gosh.

Pete Wright:
Yeah, so give us the background, the comic background, on the Maximoff twins.

Kyle Olson:
No.

Pete Wright:
Okay.

Kyle Olson:
Honestly, that’s better left for Age of Ultron.

Matthew Fox:
Yeah.

Pete Wright:
Okay.

Kyle Olson:
I feel like it’s sort of a disservice, as this is their cameo. I can say they’re played by Elizabeth Olsen and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, better known to the world as Kraven the Hunter. But I think we’ll leave the deeper dive for that show.

Pete Wright:
That was mean, Kyle.

Matthew Fox:
Well, I will just say I think it was an incredibly effective scene. Because it sounds like for people who knew those characters, it was great. I had no idea who they were, but I rushed — I was super — like, there have been times where you do reveals like that and they’re either so heavy handed that the people who know them well are like, whatever, or you do it where it’s so obscure that the people who don’t know are like, well, that was pointless.

Kyle Olson:
Yeah.

Pete Wright:
Yeah, we’re talking about —

Matthew Fox:
It was perfectly done in a way that made me want to rush home. And ironically, I remember talking to people who are in that world — this is about when I’m starting into podcasting myself. A lot of MCU podcasts or Marvel podcasts or comics podcasts saw a jump, because they would do episodes on, hey, do you want to know who those two characters were at the end?

Kyle Olson:
Yeah, yeah.

Matthew Fox:
And I started going to a lot of those podcasts specifically to help me understand, or like the find-the-Easter-eggs websites. I think this kind of helped kick off that sort of cottage industry of, let’s help you understand all the stuff in the movie that you may have missed.

Pete Wright:
It is delightful to see them playing twins here, especially because they had already shot Godzilla together, which came out —

Matthew Fox:
Okay.

Kyle Olson:
Yeah.

Pete Wright:
— six weeks after this movie, where they played husband and wife.

Kyle Olson:
As husband and wife, right? Yeah.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. So obviously friendly, and at least one of them would become a real anchor in this era of the films.

Kyle Olson:
Mm-hmm. Almost an Anchor Being? No, not quite that far.

Pete Wright:
See, I see what you’re doing. I see what you’re doing right there. So that’s them. We’re not going to talk about them anymore, because there is an embargo.

Kyle Olson:
No.

Pete Wright:
There’s apparently an Ultron-shaped embargo.

Kyle Olson:
That’s right. But it does seem like she at least has some sort of a dark hold on her at this point. But yeah, we’ll see.

Pete Wright:
Yeah.

Kyle Olson:
We’ll see how that goes.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. So the interesting thing about this — it’s a similar situation to Sony and Marvel. There is an overlap between Marvel Studios and Fox at this point, and Marvel could use these characters provided nobody would ever utter the word mutant and nobody hinted about Magneto.

Kyle Olson:
Mm, mm-hmm.

Pete Wright:
And then Fox could still use them in X-Men, but not connect them at all to the Avengers. So that’s why they’re the volunteers, that’s why they’re the survivors, because we’re pretending an entire universe doesn’t exist.

Kyle Olson:
Yeah.

Pete Wright:
Because somehow it’s either terrible that we pretend universes don’t exist, or it’s worse when they do.

Matthew Fox:
Right.

Pete Wright:
That’s where we are at this point.

Kyle Olson:
Yeah.

Matthew Fox:
And I will say — and yes, I’m being the wokest one here, but just because I think it’s interesting in terms of the way these histories develop — this is when I think some of the people who are going to become critical of the MCU start taking notice, for representation reasons. Because Wanda being the daughter — the twins being the children of Magneto is interesting for a number of reasons. Most of them just the story itself. But I think it also means they are Jewish characters, and by some understandings of her history, also Romani characters, that I don’t quite understand, but that’s a whole other thing.

Kyle Olson:
Well, there’s also a genetically altered cow that gets involved in this, so it’s weird.

Matthew Fox:
[unclear] yeah, exactly.

Pete Wright:
But the cow is Jewish too, so it’s okay.

Kyle Olson:
Oh, okay. Well then that’s fine.

Matthew Fox:
But the point being, I think the fact that Wanda is never made canonically Jewish or Romani is definitely a thing that’s gonna come up and be noticed by people going forward. So it’s one of those weird — we’re starting to get into when we start taking only parts of a character, and parts we can’t think about. I don’t think anyone would be being actively like, oh, we can’t make her Jewish or whatever. But I think it just didn’t occur to people how much this character meant to certain communities that then aren’t gonna see those things that cross over.

Pete Wright:
That marks the end of this sequence. There’s nothing more horrifying than a miracle.

Kyle Olson:
Miracle, that’s right.

Pete Wright:
Yeah.

Kyle Olson:
And Elizabeth Olsen already has it, the hands and the magic and all that.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. And poor Aaron Taylor-Johnson just throwing himself into the wall.

Kyle Olson:
Uh-huh. Running into walls. Yeah.

Pete Wright:
It’s terrible.

Matthew Fox:
Okay.

Pete Wright:
It definitely — I mean, it is an interesting stylistic —

Kyle Olson:
But in a Kick-Ass way.

Pete Wright:
Yes. So —

Kyle Olson:
See, just another reference.

Pete Wright:
Again, again, that was really — it was.

Kyle Olson:
Right under the wire. Right under the wire.

Pete Wright:
You got it under the wire. That’s the truth. We’re at the end of our sequence, and we have now just credits, and one more teeny tiny bit of Bucky time that is yet to come. But for now, I believe, unless we have anything else urgent to talk about, I think we’ve reached the end.

Kyle Olson:
I think we can bring this penultimate episode to an end.

Pete Wright:
I’m just trying to think if there was a joke in there that I missed. There have been so many of them that now I just — now everything you say, yeah.

Kyle Olson:
No, I mean, I could probably spin it out into Ultimate, but I don’t think we’re gonna go that far.

Matthew Fox:
I mean, I think he’s just making a reference to my son Penn, who I cannot go hold until you two chuckleheads shut up.

Pete Wright:
Penn-ultimate.

Kyle Olson:
Because if you ever want to — if you have a crippling comics addiction and you want to stop it, I would find out about the Ultimate versions of Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, because that’ll make you stop reading comics.

Matthew Fox:
So, like —

Pete Wright:
Okay, okay, okay. Hey, everybody —

Kyle Olson:
It’s pretty terrible.

Pete Wright:
Wow, okay.

Kyle Olson:
Yeah.

Pete Wright:
Homework. I had no idea.

Kyle Olson:
No, that’s the opposite. It’s the opposite of homework.

Pete Wright:
It’s not what I heard.

Kyle Olson:
This is like the to-avoid.

Pete Wright:
I heard I’m gonna read it and hate myself and do a little self-loathing.

Kyle Olson:
Yeah.

Pete Wright:
I’ll probably hate you a little bit.

Kyle Olson:
Yeah. Maybe, yeah.

Pete Wright:
Yeah, okay, good.

Matthew Fox:
Any therapists want to come up with this remote?

Kyle Olson:
But you know —

Pete Wright:
Hey, thank you everybody for hanging out with us as we bring this season to a close. We sure appreciate your time and your attention. Find out everything you need to find out about the show at MarvelMovieMinute.com. You can learn about us as the hosts. Links to all of our properties are in the show notes. We gotta let Matthew go hold Penn. There’s a whole Penn thing going on. And Kyle obviously has more secrets he’s in a very big hurry to keep. On behalf of Kyle Olson and Matthew Fox, I’m Pete Wright, and we’ll see you next week.

Kyle Olson:
Enough said.

Matthew Fox:
The New York Mets have the best record in baseball since the trade deadline.