Matthew Fox: Welcome back to the Marvel Movie Minute, a weekly podcast where we assemble to explore the films of the Marvel Cinematic Universe five minutes at a time. In this, our ninth season, we’re looking at Captain America: The Winter Soldier. I’m Matthew Fox.
Pete Wright: I’m Pete Wright.
Kyle Olson: I’m Kyle Olson.
Rob Kubasko: And I’m Rob Kubasko.
Matthew Fox: And today we’re talking about minutes 36 through 40, which begins with Steve and Nick discussing the rules of hospitality, and ends with Steve and Natasha wondering if Nick is, in the words of Miracle Max, really dead or only mostly dead.
Pete Wright: And I don’t know what you’re doing.
Matthew Fox: Let’s start out with what I like to call the wife gambit, where they’re questioning each other’s ideas of hospitality. Did you sneak in? I didn’t give you a key. You wouldn’t have to give me a key. And he says, “My wife threw me out.” And Steve says, “I didn’t think you were married.” Now, is Steve just really bad at spycraft? Steve doesn’t pick up on what’s happening here at first, despite all the sneakiness? Because if people are listening, that’s a good way to give it away.
Pete Wright: So what’s the deal? Was Fury — what’s Fury’s marriage deal?
Kyle Olson: Do we really want to get into that?
Pete Wright: Well, just a little bit, I think.
Matthew Fox: I mean, I think he’s married to his work, in the MCU at least.
Pete Wright: Well he is, but then there was a Secret Wars thing.
Rob Kubasko: Well…
Kyle Olson: Actually, I think at the time the intention was no, he’s not married, and he was doing that as sort of another vocal thing — like, hey, something’s not right here, Steve. But now, canonically, he is married, and was at this point. Nick Fury is at this point married to a Skrull.
Pete Wright: Okay.
Rob Kubasko: Yes.
Pete Wright: Yes.
Matthew Fox: In what spare time?
Pete Wright: Outstanding.
Kyle Olson: Yeah, he has her in a little Skrull shack somewhere out in a nondescript location. She’d live her own life and they see each other on occasion.
Pete Wright: Yeah. Skrull shack, baby.
Matthew Fox: Skrull shack, baby. Skrull shack.
Rob Kubasko: I hope the B-52s are recording that one right now.
Pete Wright: Yeah. Okay. So this ends up becoming one of the giant MCU throwaway lines.
Kyle Olson: Yes. Another one of these “boy, I wish this question had ever been answered” things.
Pete Wright: Okay. Yeah.
Matthew Fox: But she doesn’t come to see his body when — okay.
Kyle Olson: Nope.
Matthew Fox: We’re just not gonna ask questions.
Kyle Olson: Nope. Or she’s there the whole time. She’s just made herself look like one of the doctors, because Skrulls are shapeshifters.
Rob Kubasko: Yes. We’re gonna talk about that. We’ll get into that.
Pete Wright: Oh, good.
Matthew Fox: So Nick Fury turns out the lights, and then he holds up his phone — somehow he was able to set it to like gigantic text — and it says “Ears everywhere.” And I just love Steve’s look of disappointment.
Pete Wright: I think that’s going to be like the level.
Matthew Fox: To me, this is one more of those moments where Steve is like, I’m not in the military, I’m in the spy agency.
Kyle Olson: Like, you bugged my apartment? Really? Come on.
Pete Wright: The apartment is bugged and we’re still in singsong mode. These guys have now worked together long enough to know that when you transition into spy mode and start showing phone text, you’re officially in work mode and we’re not really talking about wives anymore. Then we have, I mean, there are a couple of lines. They do their thing — “just my friends.” And then we’re out of spycraft mode. Are we friends? Are we really? Is that what we are, Nick?
Kyle Olson: He’s already bleeding.
Pete Wright: I know.
Kyle Olson: Is this the time for a relationship check?
Pete Wright: Who in this conversation is being a little bitch? Because one of them is being a little bitch.
Kyle Olson: Wow.
Pete Wright: Rob, you had your finger ready to waggle.
Rob Kubasko: That’s not the last time that word’s going to be used in this episode. I will just say this: the whole point of him having the words on the phone is to not identify himself.
Pete Wright: Yeah.
Rob Kubasko: And Cap has now said “Nick” twice in the conversation. It’s over.
Pete Wright: Well, it’s okay that they’re talking to each other. They just can’t talk about work stuff.
Rob Kubasko: But isn’t it — if you’re Nick, wouldn’t the first thing on the screen be “stop, don’t talk”? Because he’s been identified. The moment he talks, if they’re listening, they know his voice. He’s not obscuring it in any way. There should have been another way to do this. Granted, it’s heading to what’s going to be the operative moment in the scene, but —
Matthew Fox: I’m gonna defend Steve a bit, and Nick, because I think they could voice identify, and Nick — Samuel Jackson has a very distinctive voice, and thus so does Nick Fury. Steve saying “Hello, Bob” is not gonna fool anyone. They can tell it’s Nick Fury.
Rob Kubasko: Right. Or even turning the light on and then turning it right back off again.
Matthew Fox: Right.
Kyle Olson: Mm-hmm.
Rob Kubasko: It just seems awkwardly clumsy for people who are playing spycraft.
Matthew Fox: But if they just stopped talking and started talking by text, that would be just as suspicious. That was my only point.
Kyle Olson: I think Nick knows that they’re gonna know he’s there, because they are listening. There’s an agent not ten feet away. So I think it’s more that he doesn’t want anyone listening in to know that Steve has been tipped off to the fact that they’ve been compromised. It’s fine that he’s there and they’re talking about stuff, but they’re not talking about the elephant that’s trying to sit on Nick. He’s trying to get Steve in on it — hey, there’s a conspiracy, there’s something going on, and you need to be involved — without letting the people who are listening know that Steve is now on the case.
Pete Wright: Right.
Kyle Olson: That’s my take on it.
Rob Kubasko: Unless — and Nick so carefully tucking himself into the corner of the room — he certainly wouldn’t just stand up and put himself in the line of sight of the window —
Pete Wright: Oh no, we have nothing.
Rob Kubasko: Unless that was his plan.
Pete Wright: Was that his plan to begin with? To let himself be taken out? And how do you orchestrate that with your enemy?
Kyle Olson: I think his take was that he knew his time was limited — an older gentleman in terms of superheroes running around, already having several bullet wounds and a fractured everything. He knew he wasn’t gonna, sports metaphor, take the ball all the way down the field. He has to hand it off now. So I think this is his way of getting it there, knowing in one way or another he was gonna be off the field.
Pete Wright: For a little while — because at this point, do you think he knew he had a plan to come back?
Kyle Olson: I would hope so. I guess we’ll talk about that in upcoming minutes.
Pete Wright: Yeah, in later minutes. Okay. I’ll shut up about that in particular.
Kyle Olson: Pin it for later.
Pete Wright: Pinning, pinning. Can we transition to the actual shot? Are we done with the bitchy preamble?
Matthew Fox: I will say I applaud the Winter Soldier for his dramatic timing.
Pete Wright: Yeah, it’s perfect.
Kyle Olson: Yes.
Matthew Fox: Are we assuming that he’s listening in? Because then maybe it’s the discussion of who Steve is friends with that triggers him to shoot — there could be a whole thing there. But even so, it’s great dramatic timing.
Kyle Olson: Well, one thing we know about the Winter Soldier is he is kind of a drama queen.
Matthew Fox: Yes. He is the Anakin of this universe.
Kyle Olson: Yeah.
Matthew Fox: That is unquestionable.
Kyle Olson: He’s very efficient, but also he knows when to find his moments.
Pete Wright: Here’s my question.
Rob Kubasko: Not the last Anakin reference in this episode.
Kyle Olson: Oh, nice.
Pete Wright: Rob, you and the footnotes, I love it. Here’s my question for you three. Reportedly, the Russos did not want the Winter Soldier in this sequence at all — involved in the assassination of Nick Fury.
Kyle Olson: Oh.
Pete Wright: Why? I’m so glad you asked.
Kyle Olson: [laughter] Hey Pete, why?
Pete Wright: Because — yes, Kyle, head of the class. Their position was that the first major mission we have for the Winter Soldier, he fails. He does not take out Nick Fury.
Matthew Fox: Hmm.
Pete Wright: He fails the objective. Does that make him any less of a threat because he failed on his first mission? And apparently it was the production team behind the film who came back and said, no, no, we’ve got to have the Winter Soldier in here. We need to introduce this kind of action — an “in pursuit” kind of chase — immediately. This feels like the time to do it. And eventually the Russos said okay. So I would like your take on whether or not you can see a portion of this movie where this happens without the Winter Soldier to start the freight train of action to come.
Matthew Fox: I’m gonna say I think the Russos are wrong. Because the way it’s set up, we don’t know that the Winter Soldier failed. We’ll get to whether we believe it by the time we get to the end of these minutes, but certainly to an average fan, the clear indication is that the Winter Soldier succeeded in his mission. By the time you learn that Nick Fury lived, you’ve had so many other instances of seeing how efficient the Winter Soldier is. I don’t think it clicks.
Pete Wright: Okay.
Matthew Fox: It definitely did click now. I was watching this going, huh — Natasha said the Winter Soldier never fails, and he’s now failed twice. But watching it the first time, we find out Nick Fury is alive after so much on behalf of the Winter Soldier. I don’t think anyone in the audience was thinking, oh, I thought the Winter Soldier was cool, but if he didn’t actually kill Nick Fury, then no, he’s a failure.
Pete Wright: And I think you can make the case that the Winter Soldier probably thought he succeeded.
Kyle Olson: Hmm.
Matthew Fox: Yeah.
Pete Wright: Because Nick Fury, to everybody, dies.
Kyle Olson: Interesting. Yeah. I think the wounding was part of the plan. I really think he intentionally hurt him in this situation, as he hurt him on the highway, for that exact reason — a hurt Nick Fury requires a lot of attention and people. Everyone’s at the bedside, and when they’re at the bedside, they’re not out pursuing anything. You put them in a hospital bed and suddenly you have Natasha there, and they’re all there. That means they’re not out hunting down clues and looking for people.
Pete Wright: Interesting.
Kyle Olson: If you kill him, then you’ve put Captain America and Black Widow on a path of vengeance with nothing standing in their way. But a hurt Nick Fury — all resources sort of flock to him.
Pete Wright: Okay.
Matthew Fox: But isn’t the point that Nick Fury’s gonna tell them things, and he’s gonna give them that disc —
Kyle Olson: At this point they’re just killing time, because everything goes live in like twelve hours.
Pete Wright: The point is that we’re trying to cover five minutes.
Kyle Olson: So they really are just — after that point, Project Insight is gonna clean up all of this.
Pete Wright: Yeah.
Matthew Fox: Okay.
Pete Wright: Yeah. That’s a good point.
Kyle Olson: I mean, it’s a take. I don’t know if it’s the take.
Matthew Fox: I will say I have a take in a minute or two that would be drastically different if it was not the Winter Soldier making this assassination attempt.
Pete Wright: Okay.
Kyle Olson: But I see the Russos’ point. Because you kind of want to establish — but also when you establish a guy as the best assassin in the world, you can’t have him just assassinating everyone, because that’s a real short movie.
Pete Wright: Yeah, right. It’s a real short movie. And you have to get to the climactic fight between Captain America and the Winter Soldier much more quickly, and they needed to burn some minutes.
Kyle Olson: Yes.
Matthew Fox: Right.
Pete Wright: No matter the case, I think it sets up an awesome chase. Even though short, we get an iconic action beat.
Matthew Fox: Can I ask a question before we get to that chase?
Pete Wright: Yeah.
Matthew Fox: Once again, insurance rates in Washington, D.C. — just for cars, businesses, buildings, whatever. So, “Kate.” Yes, “Kate” said to Steve, “I think your stereo’s on, I’m going downstairs to check on the laundry,” and then maybe two minutes later the shot goes off and Kate breaks right in. And we’ll talk about what she says, being Agent 13, in a second.
Pete Wright: We’re talking about Sharon, right?
Kyle Olson: Sharon, yeah. Sharon Carter.
Pete Wright: Sharon Carter?
Matthew Fox: Sharon — why do I have her as Kate?
Pete Wright: Yeah.
Matthew Fox: Oh no — because doesn’t Steve know her as Kate?
Kyle Olson: Is that her cover identity?
Pete Wright: Oh, that’s a great question.
Matthew Fox: I think that’s her cover name. Because he doesn’t know she’s Sharon yet.
Pete Wright: Okay, you’re right.
Rob Kubasko: Yeah.
Pete Wright: You’re right. Okay.
Matthew Fox: So I didn’t write down the wrong name.
Pete Wright: You did good work.
Matthew Fox: Was she just hanging out the whole time? Did she not go down to the dryer? If she’s down in the basement, I don’t know if she hears the shot and immediately knows where it hit.
Pete Wright: I don’t think you can go with that.
Matthew Fox: I don’t think she gets there that fast.
Kyle Olson: She’s in communication with them somehow. I’d imagine that as soon as Nick started talking, they were like, Agent 13, get to Captain America. She dropped the laundry and went there. So somewhere, just like the power converters at Tosche Station, there’s a discarded pile of laundry still sitting there.
Matthew Fox: Okay.
Kyle Olson: Is that too deep of a reference?
Pete Wright: That laundry strewn down the stairs.
Rob Kubasko: I don’t think there was any laundry. I think she was in her room the whole time.
Matthew Fox: I think what I’m getting confused on is who’s talking to who and who’s part of which plan. I wouldn’t be thinking that the people who are listening in are also talking to Kate, but maybe they would be.
Pete Wright: And then we get the introduction of her as Agent 13, SHIELD Special Service.
Kyle Olson: Mm-hmm.
Pete Wright: So now there’s a special service. We have a new rank, you guys. There’s a new unit.
Kyle Olson: Or division or whatever. It’s like this is the secret service of SHIELD, I guess.
Pete Wright: Yeah. I thought SHIELD was already the special service.
Kyle Olson: And does Captain America need a bodyguard? Hmm.
Pete Wright: Yeah, really?
Matthew Fox: He’s really bad at spycraft. He might need the bodyguard.
Kyle Olson: This is true. Maybe it’s just like she’s going around going, “You’re supposed to be undercover.”
Pete Wright: When you think about it, his entire training was on stage in a song-and-dance show, so maybe it’s all right. He doesn’t know undercover stuff. He kind of wears it on his shield.
Matthew Fox: I make a joke about that, but I actually think this is a brilliant way of establishing something. When we last saw Cap, he was on a battlefield. He understands how you handle things on a battlefield, but in his mind he’s not on a battlefield. He’s in peacetime. There’s a transition between the two.
Pete Wright: Yeah.
Matthew Fox: And I think the point is that people like Sharon and Nick realize: no, we’re spies, we’re always on the battlefield, and he doesn’t get that yet. And that’s why he does need a bodyguard.
Pete Wright: Someone to tell the others when Steve is acting like a public servant and not a spy.
Kyle Olson: Mm-hmm.
Pete Wright: That’s kind of a big transformation. That’s kind of a big deal, because everybody knows him.
Kyle Olson: Right. He is one of the big celebrities in the world.
Pete Wright: Everybody knows him. There is a deleted scene where STRIKE is tracking him, and they track him to a duffel bag in a gym where people are playing pickup basketball, and then it cuts to Steve trying to blend in. He looks to be about six-eight as they’re filming him, and he’s wearing a hoodie with the hood up, and that completely disguises him. And we actually do see that when he goes back to the hospital in the next few minutes. So, him undercover is a legit question.
Matthew Fox: I’d like to see him try to set a pick and someone bounce about eight feet off of him.
Pete Wright: Yeah, right.
Rob Kubasko: Don’t you think, though, when she comes in — when she busts in — in the back of his head he’s like, I used to know a woman that had that quiet confidence and precision. He’s about to be surprised.
Kyle Olson: Yeah, that’s true.
Pete Wright: Yeah.
Kyle Olson: He did seem legitimately surprised, though.
Pete Wright: Yeah.
Matthew Fox: I have to hold to the idea that there is no part of him connecting her to his long-lost love, because otherwise the kiss just gets so much worse.
Rob Kubasko: Oh no. Yeah, no.
Kyle Olson: Yeah.
Pete Wright: Yeah.
Matthew Fox: But we’ll get to that in a couple of movies.
Rob Kubasko: Yeah.
Kyle Olson: And we also learn from her that Nick Fury’s call sign is Foxtrot. I assume it’s because F in the NATO phonetic alphabet is Foxtrot — F for Fury.
Matthew Fox: Right.
Kyle Olson: So I guess he didn’t get stuck with Flamingo, which is a good thing.
Pete Wright: Although that would have been cute.
Matthew Fox: C.J. Craig has that code name. No one else can have it. So, okay, here’s my question about the chase scene. If you guys want, we can talk about the cinematography of the pinball and him bouncing off the walls.
Kyle Olson: I do love the bull-in-a-china-shop quality of — when Steve Rogers wants to get somewhere, nothing is going to stop him.
Pete Wright: Yeah. He’ll just go.
Matthew Fox: I think this was actually an office building. But putting all that aside, we get to the rooftop.
Kyle Olson: Yeah.
Matthew Fox: And I Zapruder-filmed this thing because I wanted to make sure my theory was correct. The Winter Soldier is running toward the ledge. Steve throws the shield at him. A couple of things to remember: Steve has no idea this person has superpowers of any kind. The person is like one step away from the ledge when he throws it.
Pete Wright: Yeah.
Matthew Fox: The laws of physics say that if someone is running in a direction and you hit them very hard with something, you’re going to push them further in that direction — or as I say, off that direction. Did Steve try to murder? Is Steve realizing he’s on a battlefield? In theory, you don’t shoot a suspect while they’re running away. And the main point is, don’t you want to ask him questions? If you knock him off the roof and he falls twelve stories to his death, you’re not asking him any questions.
Pete Wright: I don’t think so. I think Steve saw Lemurian Star red. How many people did Steve kill on the Lemurian Star in the beginning? I think he just saw this guy assassinate his now-we-think-we’re-friends buddy Fury. I think he was just in action mode, movie mode. He was just gonna end this guy. He was obviously an enemy of the state.
Kyle Olson: I’ll take both sides of this. One: I think Steve is skilled enough that he could have been aiming to knock the guy down without murdering him.
Matthew Fox: He’s on the ledge. Down is off.
Kyle Olson: But if you hit him in the middle of the back, you could drop him. Hit him in the knee or wherever, and it drops him.
Matthew Fox: There is no down.
Kyle Olson: The second point: people can still give you answers when they’re paralyzed.
Pete Wright: Because if you look at where he catches it — he catches it at shoulder level. C6, C7. He would have been broken.
Kyle Olson: So if you hit him right there, boom — still answers questions, can’t fight back.
Rob Kubasko: I also think Steve, noticing things, realized he was dealing with something other than a normal guy. Just based on how fast this guy moved, what he’s already experienced. And by the way, we’re not gonna quickly go over the scene through the hallways of smashing through the building, because I just want to make sure we have this connection. You know how I’ve been saying this movie is an homage to the nineties? This is the moment of the movie where it becomes an homage to the two-thousands, because it’s Juggernaut, bitch.
Kyle Olson: Oh yeah.
Rob Kubasko: That is an homage to the Juggernaut going through walls in X-Men: The Last Stand from 2006.
Pete Wright: Yeah.
Kyle Olson: There’s gotta be a supercut out there of every time he hits something with the meme sound effect.
Rob Kubasko: There is absolutely a connection to that. But I will just say — no, I think Steve understands he’s dealing with something more than the average bear.
Kyle Olson: Even speed-wise, depends on the bear.
Rob Kubasko: So I have no issues with him.
Matthew Fox: Yeah, but even a bear is gonna die if it falls off that ledge.
Pete Wright: Yeah, but you have to be on the ledge side.
Rob Kubasko: I think he just knows. And he’s like, there’s no mercy here.
Matthew Fox: Okay.
Pete Wright: Yeah. I think he is witnessing the capabilities of this unknown foe. He’s obviously got some super in him. And maybe he really thinks a hit to the back of the neck is gonna be fine.
Matthew Fox: Certainly possible.
Pete Wright: I do want to say there is a bit of great anxiety for me when Steve runs up to the edge of the building himself and stops cold on the ledge from roughly full speed. I have a tough time with that because every time I see it, I’m like, well, this time he’s gonna go over. This time he’s not gonna stop. I don’t care for it.
Kyle Olson: And we can’t skip past the iconic shot.
Pete Wright: Yeah.
Kyle Olson: Steve throws the shield, the Winter Soldier turns around and grabs it and stops it in midair.
Pete Wright: So good.
Matthew Fox: Yeah.
Kyle Olson: That’s in all the trailers, all the highlight reels — the greatest moments of the film, it’s always one of the shots in there. I think it’s even in the Marvel logo. And then he immediately throws it back, and when Steve catches it, it slides him back. So he knows he got hit with almost equal force to what he threw. And you can see for a second:
Pete Wright: Yeah.
Kyle Olson: Oh, that’s never happened before.
Pete Wright: Yeah, right.
Matthew Fox: Yeah.
Pete Wright: And is it interesting that the Winter Soldier doesn’t stay to duke it out?
Kyle Olson: Yeah, that’s not a mission.
Pete Wright: Not his mission, I guess.
Matthew Fox: Well, the Winter Soldier is reminded of the rules of war, which is that if you’re chasing someone and then they drop vertically down, you’re not allowed to chase them.
Kyle Olson: Yeah.
Pete Wright: Yeah, that’s right.
Rob Kubasko: Right, right.
Kyle Olson: That’s how Nick Fury gets away. That’s a nineties action movie rule. You disappear over the edge, you’re gone.
Pete Wright: Yeah.
Matthew Fox: And as you said, Pete, he stops dead. He could have just jumped too.
Pete Wright: Yeah, but then he would have vanished.
Kyle Olson: Yeah.
Pete Wright: Okay, so then we’re in the hospital. I don’t know if it’s even really stunt casting, but the doctor who pronounces the time of death — Dr. Fine, credited as Gozzi Agbo — is Joe Russo. That’s fun. I don’t know if that’s fun.
Kyle Olson: Oh yeah.
Pete Wright: Apparently it’s not as fun to you guys as it was to me.
Matthew Fox: It’s the bottom of the ninth for the match. I had to pause it. Nothing is fun!
Kyle Olson: It’s nice that they always find a way to give themselves at least one line.
Pete Wright: Yeah.
Kyle Olson: When you give yourself an entire scene in a movie, hmm.
Pete Wright: Yes.
Kyle Olson: But we’ll talk about that in the future.
Pete Wright: We’ll talk about that in about ten movies.
Matthew Fox: Yeah. Look, Tarantino told some good jokes too.
Rob Kubasko: So in this whole hospital scene — when Padme dies —
Kyle Olson: Yeah.
Rob Kubasko: Did you not realize on this viewing, this is an absolute homage to Padme dying in Episode Three? The music, the shots, the lighting.
Kyle Olson: Okay.
Rob Kubasko: I was literally sitting here going, what am I watching? What movie am I watching?
Pete Wright: That’s funny.
Rob Kubasko: It’s uncanny.
Kyle Olson: Wow. Okay.
Matthew Fox: I’m starting to question your use of the word “homage.”
Rob Kubasko: No, it is. It’s absolutely — 2005. Now we’re in the two-thousands. That’s what this movie keeps delivering.
Pete Wright: I feel like Padme and Nick Fury’s whole vibe is a little bit different.
Rob Kubasko: I mean, a little bit.
Pete Wright: But I do see it.
Matthew Fox: I don’t see a droid anywhere.
Rob Kubasko: One was pregnant.
Pete Wright: I do see it.
Matthew Fox: Also, Nick dies of a reasonable reason. He doesn’t die of movie star disease.
Kyle Olson: He wasn’t coughing at all at the start of the movie.
Pete Wright: Apparently — and I can’t verify this, but apparently the music cues in this sequence, and this is not what the tracks are actually titled in the official score, but the music cues for this sequence were, quote, “Don’t Do This to Me, Nick” and “Somebody Murdered My Friend.” Those are the two sort of needle drops over the sequence, which may influence your take on the film. I think everybody was in on the joke. Those are chosen by Henry Jackman. That’s intentional. I couldn’t sing them to you, but I know they were appropriate to the scene.
Kyle Olson: I do love the shot through the glass of Steve, and then Natasha steps in, and it’s like, oh, and now it’s the two of them watching. And you can see — this is maybe the most emotional we’ve seen Natasha, other than when she was about to be murdered by the Hulk. She’s affected. And that’s enough. And then Hill steps in. And it’s like, oh man — the three of them standing there together.
Pete Wright: Yeah.
Matthew Fox: Mm-hmm. It hit really hard.
Kyle Olson: They could have just cut to the three of them standing there, but the one, two, three — yeah, that really got me.
Pete Wright: Yeah.
Rob Kubasko: You gotta have Yoda. You gotta have Obi-Wan. You gotta have Leia’s stepdad.
Matthew Fox: But see, Rob, this only works if — they’re in Washington. So does this mean they should go into the Senate and start throwing desks at each other?
Rob Kubasko: I’m just saying —
Kyle Olson: Or murdering children?
Matthew Fox: Younglings.
Pete Wright: Ouch.
Kyle Olson: Don’t call them kids, because if they’re Younglings, they had it coming.
Rob Kubasko: Oh boy.
Pete Wright: Okay.
Rob Kubasko: I tried to find some prop direction on this ridiculous USB stick that we get the best view of.
Kyle Olson: Oh yeah.
Pete Wright: Yes.
Rob Kubasko: Nothing.
Kyle Olson: Yeah. It’s one of a kind.
Rob Kubasko: It looks like it was an old multi-tool that they stuck a USB and a SHIELD thumbprint scanner on the side of, and that’s it.
Pete Wright: God, that’s good. Yeah.
Rob Kubasko: Yeah.
Pete Wright: Is this a Stark USB drive?
Kyle Olson: No, I think we decided it wasn’t.
Pete Wright: You think it’s SHIELD?
Kyle Olson: Yeah.
Pete Wright: Yeah.
Matthew Fox: Yeah.
Pete Wright: All right. Hm.
Kyle Olson: We get back to some spycraft stuff because they start comparing notes, watching what happened. They ask Steve who this was, and he says, “He’s fast, strong, has a metal arm.” And there’s just a twinge with Natasha.
Matthew Fox: Yeah.
Pete Wright: Yeah.
Kyle Olson: She already has a suspicion of what this is, but this is not the time she’s gonna say what she suspects. And then Hill — “there’s no rifling on the bullet.”
Pete Wright: Yeah.
Kyle Olson: So I looked that up. Rifling is the term for helical grooves machined into the internal structure of a firearm’s barrel for imparting a spin to the projectile to improve its aerodynamic stability and accuracy. Apparently you can match up individual bullets to individual guns by the rifling, but the Winter Soldier has removed all that, so there’s no fingerprint on the bullets to know it came from a specific gun that’s on record.
Matthew Fox: Which is quite a claim — and maybe this is intentional, or maybe it just sounded cool, so who cares — but the rifling is what allows accuracy. When you take rifling out, what you have is a musket. And those are incredibly imprecise.
Kyle Olson: Yeah, smooth bore, as I looked it up.
Matthew Fox: He is literally firing a musket. And if the idea is that he can hit a target at that range with a musket, that’s an incredible claim.
Kyle Olson: Yeah.
Pete Wright: Yeah.
Matthew Fox: It’s also getting into the physics of the shield, but he’s the Winter Soldier, so I guess it makes sense. My eyebrow definitely quirked at “there’s no rifling” — and I went, then how does the aiming part work?
Pete Wright: God, I love the idea of going back to that.
Kyle Olson: They’re just pulling out musket balls and — poink.
Pete Wright: Exactly. You go into the Russian lab where he’s getting reprogrammed and on the wall are just a series of blunderbusses.
Kyle Olson: Choose your weapon, Winter Soldier.
Pete Wright: Yeah, right.
Matthew Fox: I love it.
Pete Wright: That delights me.
Matthew Fox: I have a couple of questions about the Nick Fury death — Miracle Max style. I’ve always wondered, how in the world did he get these doctors so quickly in on this plan? And it seems like if he was planning to go to Steve Rogers’ place in order to be shot and make this happen, then some time passed, because the first attack is at daytime and this is at nighttime.
Kyle Olson: Mm-hmm.
Matthew Fox: Help me make sense of the timeline. Do the doctors realize what he’s doing? They have to be faking something, right?
Pete Wright: One of them, I think Dr. Fine does. I think that’s the sort of canonical idea.
Kyle Olson: But not Dr. Howard and Dr. Fine.
Pete Wright: Dr. Fine is. That’s Russo.
Kyle Olson: Just me? Okay. Somebody out there listening to this is laughing right now.
Pete Wright: Oh no.
Matthew Fox: It was on the tip of my tongue. Okay, okay —
Kyle Olson: And they are over forty.
Rob Kubasko: No Shemp? Is that a Three Stooges joke?
Kyle Olson: It was a Three Stooges joke, yes.
Rob Kubasko: Got it.
Pete Wright: All right.
Kyle Olson: All right.
Matthew Fox: Just to further that tangent, Rob, because you appreciate these — Paul and I were talking about baseball on a podcast where we were also going to talk about Star Wars, and I mentioned a star player for the Mets named Bobochet.
Pete Wright: Yeah.
Matthew Fox: At which point Paul went, “Bobochet? Where?”
Kyle Olson: Where?
Matthew Fox: Okay, Pete, you can have your podcast back.
Pete Wright: I don’t know what we’re talking about right now.
Rob Kubasko: Oh boy.
Kyle Olson: Rob, do you ever get the feeling there are like two shows going on at the same time?
Matthew Fox: Look, if you all keep not doing work, I have to drive the bus. And if I keep driving it off a hill, then maybe someone else will step up.
Kyle Olson: Okay, so the conspiracy. This has always been a thing, because we know now — spoilers — he’s not dead. So at this point, is he dead and then something brings him back? Is it something like Project Tahiti, a refined version of that? Or did he have this contingency in mind — we go to this hospital, these people are activated, some of the doctors are Nick Fury’s personal secret operatives? Or are they all Skrulls?
Pete Wright: Oh God, you hope.
Kyle Olson: This has never really been explained. What are your fan theories? How did he pull this off? Because he’s dead. He’s like in state. They’re standing over his body. It’s not a Hollywood thing of “oh, it’s off screen.” No, they’re standing right there.
Matthew Fox: My theory had always been — because one of the things established at this point is that Nick doesn’t trust anybody, except maybe Steve Rogers. All the things you’re talking about, Kyle, involve some level of trusting a doctor or trusting other medical professionals. I think in my head it had always been that he takes some SHIELD drug that mimics the effects of death or something. It doesn’t seem to make sense that he would have this conspiracy pre-arranged.
Matthew Fox: Mr. Wright, you in the back row?
Kyle Olson: [laughter]
Pete Wright: According to the Marvel Cinematic Universe Wiki, and I present this verbatim because I need you to respond to it.
Kyle Olson: Go ahead.
Pete Wright: “Doctor Fine and other colleagues performed emergency surgery on Nick Fury after he was shot by the Winter Soldier, but pronounced him dead. Dr. Fine was aware that Fury took Tetrodotoxin-B to slow his heart rate, and traveled with him to his secret base to finish the surgery. Later, when Black Widow was also shot by the Winter Soldier, he treated her wound in the SHIELD dam facility. As Fury talked to Romanoff listing the injuries the doctor had treated, the doctor commented that Fury also had a collapsed lung.”
Kyle Olson: I feel like I remember a deleted scene where he’s in the base. So yes.
Pete Wright: Things are coming into focus.
Kyle Olson: Okay. So not only is it actually the director playing the doctor, but the doctor was in on it the whole time.
Pete Wright: In on it the whole time.
Rob Kubasko: And who developed the serum? Dr. Bruce Banner. Of course he did.
Kyle Olson: Sure. He’s got plenty of time.
Rob Kubasko: Of course.
Kyle Olson: It was while he was in Brazil. He was also doing a little side project.
Rob Kubasko: Yes. He was putting it into the soda factory he was working in.
Kyle Olson: Right.
Rob Kubasko: And there it was.
Pete Wright: Yeah. A soda factory in Brazil.
Kyle Olson: Yeah.
Matthew Fox: No.
Kyle Olson: Pingo Doce everywhere.
Matthew Fox: Watching this movie for the first time — am I the only one who believed that Fury was dead?
Pete Wright: Oh my gosh.
Kyle Olson: No. I actually believed he was dead.
Pete Wright: I think I was really mad. I believed he was dead because I thought that’s just something they would do. And then I got really mad and thought, they’ve just screwed up the entire future. And now — I take it back. I’m okay. I’ve managed to regain my chill.
Kyle Olson: But in the theater you were angry, you’re like, Russo!
Pete Wright: In my theater I was angry. I was so mad. Rob, you seem to be shaking your head. You believed he was alive the whole time?
Rob Kubasko: Oh no, I’m just laughing. I’m enjoying it.
Pete Wright: Oh, you’re just along for the ride.
Rob Kubasko: We’re good. Just along for the ride.
Kyle Olson: But yeah — at this point, are we under the assumption that all three of them believe Nick is dead? Because we’re gonna find out that one of them is involved in the conspiracy later, but is Hill already in on the deception?
Matthew Fox: That was the other thing I was wondering. I was thinking a lot about Natasha and Hill and the various roles they play in regard to Nick. Natasha has obviously worked very directly with him and has a lot of personal loyalty toward him. But Hill is the one who has actually been most directly with Nick Fury. You’d think that Nick would be like, well, if there’s anyone I can trust who isn’t part of whatever this terrible thing is — he doesn’t yet know it’s Hydra — it’s not Hill. So there’s part of me that wonders, is there a plot reason why Steve goes on these adventures with Natasha and not Hill?
Pete Wright: Yeah.
Matthew Fox: And that’s not just the fact that Scarlett Johansson is a much more popular actress at this point than Cobie Smulders is.
Kyle Olson: I think because Black Widow’s a superhero and Maria Hill is, you know, an agent. There’s this weird gray area of powers we could get into. The Winter Soldier has quote-unquote powers — he’s been augmented beyond just the arm. And we know from Natasha’s Red Room training she also has something, but they’ve never really said what that means. Is she superhuman, or just highly talented? We don’t really know. But we know that Hill is in good physical shape — no more than anyone her age would be. So if you’re going on this kind of mission, you want to bring the quarterback along.
Pete Wright: Yeah.
Matthew Fox: Yeah, and Hill at this point is more — she does love the admin work with Nick as well.
Kyle Olson: Yes.
Matthew Fox: So yeah, okay, that makes sense.
Kyle Olson: I still would not want to face off against her either. Even a low-level SHIELD agent is still way more than what I’d be capable of.
Pete Wright: The bar is Danny Pudi and above, we’re sunk.
Kyle Olson: Danny Pudi could take me out in a second.
Pete Wright: Is that the bar? The bar is Danny Pudi and above, we’re sunk.
Kyle Olson: I think so. Yeah.
Pete Wright: I’m not even as capable a guy in the chair as Danny Pudi is.
Kyle Olson: Right, exactly.
Pete Wright: Right. Yeah, all right.
Matthew Fox: If you live in the chair, you get good in the chair.
Kyle Olson: You may sit in the chair, but I was born in it.
Pete Wright: All right.
Matthew Fox: I use a wheelchair, for those in the audience who don’t understand what I’m talking about.
Pete Wright: Did we —
Kyle Olson: No, there it is. Too far. It’s too far.
Matthew Fox: Alright, land the plane, Pete. Land the plane.
Pete Wright: Did we cover it? Let’s put a fork in it.
Kyle Olson: Rest in peace, Nick Fury. Nicholas J. Fury.
Pete Wright: Yeah. We hardly knew ye. And now we get to move on to see what happens when the sidekicks get upset. That’s what we’re gonna do.
Kyle Olson: Hell hath no fury — like in Natasha’s court.
Pete Wright: Ha! Okay. Thank you everybody for hanging out with us. I don’t know what kind of a bus ride this was that we took together, but some things came out of it. We’re glad to still be doing this show and getting into the real meat of Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
Don’t forget, if you head over to MarvelMovieMinute.com, you can see what it takes to become a supporting member. We sure would love your support to keep the train on the tracks. It’s easy to do. You can join us for live streams, hang out with us, join us in the Discord and chat with us. Just know you’re helping the show continue to thrive as we march forward in the MCU. Thank you everybody for your time and attention.
On behalf of Rob Kubasko and Kyle Olson and Matthew Fox — who has their hand up, so I have to stop my outro. Was there another pitch to tell us about?
Matthew Fox: Yeah. We are clearly very Star Wars minded at the moment with the many tangents we had. Next week is the start of Maul: Shadow Lord, a new animated show about one of the greatest villains slash sympathetic heroes slash romantic partners of Obi-Wan — entirely in his mind and on the world of fanfiction. All these things are happening. This is going to be a great show on Disney Plus, and we’re getting episode-by-episode coverage of it on the Star Wars Generations podcast. Pete Wright is going to appear on an episode soon. He doesn’t know it yet, but he has volunteered. I’ll actually ask Kyle and Rob if they’re going to be on, but certainly it’s going to be a great time. We’re going to be covering it — myself and Aaron, and anyone else who wants to come by. Maul: Shadow Lord. Star Wars Generations Podcast.
Kyle Olson: And never forget: Craft and Chaos. We will not be discussing Maul: Shadow Lord. For those of you who are not interested in that and are interested in how do you make art when the world is on fire, check that podcast out, because you’ll hear Pete and I talking about that.
Matthew Fox: You could have me out as a guest. I could make art about Maul: Shadow Lord.
Pete Wright: Okay. All right. Everybody stop. All right. Thank you again, everybody — MarvelMovieMinute.com. All the other things are coming. We love you very much. Call your mothers.
Kyle Olson: Enough said.
Rob Kubasko: Bye.
