Thunderbolts* and Mental Illness

There's actually a third podcast that's gonna be starting soon focused on the idea of parenting with myself and to veteran parents Mandy Caplan and Pete Wright, both of the True Story family of podcasts. But I am going to be taking a hiatus for a while because there's a

lot to do to get ready. There's a lot of cooking we want to do, there's a lot of getting the house ready we want to do, and it's just a lot to try and take on while also trying to not only record an episode a week, most episodes a week, but also edit them and all that kind of stuff. So this will probably be the last episode we put out for a while. The hiatus is going to be through June and July, possibly into August. Baby comes middle to late July and we will kind of

see where things are. But by August or if nothing else. September, we will return hit the ground running, So please stay subscribed, please stay liked, and all that, and of course please sending us feedback on stuff that comes out over the summer that you want us to talk about. If nothing else, there's a movie about some fantastic people. Is it three people? Is it five people?

choose who is a hero. And that's kind of really the depth of the things we're going to talk about, because, as I've mentioned in the past, I think that there are sometimes where superhero media can engage with mental illness and do it very well and sometimes when it does

it very badly. And so, Jessica, I'm just gonna start by asking you, my first thought walking out of the movie was, did they really just tell me that a sad white boy loner who is so emo that he's hurting everyone around him just needed the pretty girl to hug him and it would make him okay?

of this movie is Yolena. Like it is, it's an ensemble film, but she is the protagonist. It is her story, it is her journey. It is her mental health that is being explored word the most thoroughly. Literally, the opening scene is her monologuing about how depressed she is. And if it were if it were Bob's story, then yes, I think I would agree with your reading of it. But it's not. He is a supporting character who functions

to illuminate her story. The other thing that I think really saves it is that their relationship is not romantic. There is no romantic dynamic between them. I'm sure some people came out of it and wanted them to kiss, but I don't think that was the intent of the filmmakers, and it wasn't the read that I got if it was a romantic dynamic again, I would be like, that

was kind of gross. But my takeaway from the movie was not, oh, this poor sad white man who hurts everyone around him just needs somebody to hug him and tell him he's never done anything wrong ever in his life, but that we need each other, we need community, we need connection, and if we are depressed, we need to turn to the people in our lives and ask for help. Because Bob is not the only one who needs that.

Every single character in the movie needs that. And I have specific scenes if you want me to go through them.

to too much detail. So, as you said, we start with Yolena, the character who was really introduced to us in the Black Widow movie as Natasha's sister, and who also really came into her own in the Hawkeye series, a series that is not great, but introduced two of my favorite female characters right now. Her an Echo, which I think is really awesome.

morality of them. She's kind of thinking about how how she shouldn't be thinking about that she wants to kind of lose herself, and that she doesn't really feel any purpose because she doesn't feel like she's making the world better. She just feels like she's doing these things in half

of someone else. And we interspersed that with people are starting to do congressional hearings about what Val is up to, including a new congressman from a guest New York because that's where I think he's from Brooklyn.

high jinks and can the group work together? Yes, the group can work together and they all survive, but they're all now being hunted by Thou and okay, no they don't all survive. That is correct. One. Uh, we saw the movie here. I saw a couple of weeks ago, and I didn't have the best experience seeing it. One of them task Master, who I guess is the character they never really figured out what to do with just flat up dies which.

attempting to make what they have made in Bob. And we get to a situation where Bob feels like he's been abandoned by the group and Vow is the one person who can talk to him, and she kind of convinces him to become this hero that she describes as a century, which I've now come to understand is s e n T s e n t r e Y or heavy for a century. I thought it was mister century century think they were hitting.

name or anything for a really long time. So I'm like vaguely familiar with the character from the comics, but it took me, I think, until he not quite put on the costume but pretty close to that for me to be like, oh, they're saying Century. So I do think that they were buttsing it in their playing a little bit. I think they might have been doing that on purpose, Okay, or I just can't hear, which is also a true statement.

and they've probably changed the multiple times. The important thing is that in the comics, originally he suffers from a disassociated personality. It's disorder, so like Century and Void are different aspects of his personality. I do believe that like at times, they do have strong relationships to his depression,

bringing some of this aspect out. And when he was introduced in the Marvel comics, it was actually originally like a story similar to Spider Man No Way Home, the most recent one, and I think that's why they didn't go with that story because it was too similar, where they the Illuminati, Doctor Strange, iron Man, et cetera, used like a Doctor Strange spell to make the world forget about Century and the Void, and as a consequence, like Bob Reynolds also forgets and he has these dreams, these

vivid dreams where he's like, I had a dream that I was flying, I had a dream that I was a hero. Right, Well, they're memories that are actually manifesting, and so like, there's this journey of him rediscovering himself as century and then unfortunately rediscovering the Void.

think that change happened about ten years ago. But just for anyone who's not quite quite understanding that we're talking about, you know. And there again we have a character who has that and is having dreams about things that his other personalities have done at some point in time, or that that he has done another point in time.

he wanted them not to fight. He wanted them to kind of recognize how great he is. And he has this kind of like super happy like everything is great. And then when they fight him and he realizes that not only are they against him, but also that Val was using him and lying to him, he has what I think a lot of us can recognize as a depressive crash. And the words are never spoken, but I think this is and Jessica, let me know where you would put it. I mean, I'm not a training therapist.

I don't think you are either, but it feels like it is much more evocative in this of bipolar, manic, depressive things like that or cerly at least deep depression than it is d id.

the world, the only one, the only nature character. I would say, we don't necessarily see it for as ghosts, but it's an easy extrapolation to make. But with most of those characters, I would say, Okay, what they've got going on is depression, and with I mean some of them also we know have PTSD, but they're managing it.

Like Bucky probably has more than just depression going on, but Bob clearly has additional mental health struggles, including, like explicitly stated in the movie, problems with addiction on top of the depression. That is sort of the baseline for every character in this film.

really is. Where Alexi is also masking, but much more poorly. Like his his show of everything is great and I'm fine is much more transparent. Elene is not bothering Walker is awesome. I think it's it's actually really interesting that all of the men are masking and only Elaine is like this is it? This is how I feel?

used so broadly. And as I said, I'm not a licensed therapist, I did have some of that training, and I want to kind of give a little bit of a breakdown as it was explained to me by both professors and my own therapists, of just some of the different terms we can use that that there is because I think people often hear the word depressed and don't

know what means, and that there is. There is situational depression, which is a bad thing has happened to you and you are feeling really down about it, but presumably you will get back up and and that is often what the The analogy that was used for me was you're in a hole and there's a ladder and you just haven't figured out you have you're not ready to climb back up the ladder. Then there is like long term depression, which is you know you are down at that hole.

There may be a ladder, but you're having trouble seeing it. You need help remembering to like use the latter, et cetera. And then chronic medical depression. I mean, all of them

are medical to some extent. But and this is where like medical intervention becomes more important medication and things like that, which is where you're in the hole and there is no letter and you need to construct the latter to some extent, and I mean going to all the difference of like you know, with therapy versus medication, all that kind of stuff. But yeah, I think the movie does a really good job of showing lots of people at

lost in different stages. And I don't want to say, like which one is it which, but all of them are dealing with just the general fucked upitness of the world in general, but also of their particular worlds. You know, all of them were people who thought they would be heroes to some extent or another, and they are not, and they're not being treated as such, and they're being perceived as such, and they're in a lot of ways

really wrestling with who they are. And I do think you're right, Jessica, that a lot of what you know, the the what makes them come together. Is there is the idea of community and the idea that like each of them feels alone in their own way, and it finds that in the company of each other that they're not alone, that everyone is in their own shame room, but that they don't have to be they can be together and come out of it together.

I be happy? And he says, I was happiest when I was a public superhero and she's like, Okay, let

me try that. Like she's not in it for the glory, and I don't think it for I don't think it's ego for all of the characters, and I don't think it's ego even for the characters where it is ego, I don't think that's the primary driver because the thing that we're like, the climax has them bob as the void basically like nothing's all of them into or he's nothing people away, which, by the way, the special effects in this movie are great, like the effects that they

have for the void, the way that they've animated him and CGI is really cool, and the way that people are erased is like genuinely frightening.

when you failed or were at your lowest. Like Yolena repeatedly sees herself as a trainee in the Red Room luring a friend a little girl. She is a little girl, her friend is a little girl to be murdered, and she sees this over and over and over again. And there's actually a great line when they all make it. All the other characters make it through to Yolena and Bob, and she's like, are you guys okay? And Bucky's like, well,

I had a great life, so I'm doing fine. But like, they're very much plagued by the things that they've done and the things that they have not done. And I think that's important to note because again that question of like, is this a movie about, oh this poor sad man, or is it a movie about supporting one another? And I think the fact that they do take responsibility for their own wrongs is really key to what side of the coin the movie lands on.

and my own depression, that felt very, very real. You know, there was a period of time when I was trying to crawl out of depression at the when it was at its worst, when I started listening to podcasts in part because I needed to always have voices talking to me because or else, you know, not the voices in my head in a literal schizophrenic way, but just in terms of like my brain without active input would start remembering and would immediately take me back to those things.

And that is something that happens in depression. And I thought all that was brilliant. I will say I had a very different response to the Special Effects. I laughed out loud because I did think it was so manipulative and bad and like, come on, how lazy is the writing here? But I'm really glad it worked for others. I think what I meant by the hero thing and maybe, actually, I'm gonna say it again, I think, actually, you're right, and I think you've got me to see the hero

thing in a different way. It's not that they all want to be heroes. It's that again, in a way, they're self medicating of they don't have the self validation that humans need, and that they don't also have the validation of their immediate friends and family and loved ones, and as happens a lot myself very much included, and I've had to be careful with this podcast not to be doing this, but there I think Alexiascally and Walker they're

seeking it from strangers. You know a lot of people who you think about that person who is just seeking the cheers of the crowd while alienating all the people close to them. That's very much a depressive trait and can be linked to narcissism, but can just be depression of you're craving that validation that you don't get from yourself,

and you're craving it from strangers. And it can be you know, serial friendships, serial relationships, or trying to get ten thousand likes, because if you just get a thousand more likes, maybe your mother will stop braiding you for the thing that she braided you about twenty years ago that you can't forget, you know. And I do think that you write they capture that very well and have you'll Lena doesn't have that the way the others do, and I think that's really interesting how that plays out.

in the movie. It's when they're escaping this like death trap that Valentina has sent them all into and they there is an elevator shaft, but there's no elevator and there's no ladder, so how do they get out of it? And it's Bob actually who comes up with the idea that they all link arms and press like back to back. There's four of them at this point, It's Yolena, Bob, Walker,

and Ghost. They link arms, they back up and then they like walk up the walls bracing against each other, and like the metaphor could not be any more blatant, like how do you get out of this? You have to lean on each other, Like it's it's really extremely explicit, and it's I mean, this is not the first movie to use that as a metaphor for teamworking connection and like being a better person by making friends. The Umperor's

New Groove does it beautifully. And it's only when they get to the top and Walker just he needs to be the hero because they when they get to the top, they're like, wait, now, how do we get to the doorway? And Walker decides that he's going to like do this big hero moment and he's gonna jump for the doorway and he almost kills everybody else because he's thinking as an individual instead of how they support each other and

like coming up with a collective plan. So yeah, the movie is really really unsubtle, like how do you get out of the hole? Julian on each other?

Bob in Avenger's Tower and now they're back on the street and he like takes that I think a helicopter and it's causing all these building parts to fall down onto the street and so they're like protecting civilians, which was a very funny scene for me to watch because I used to walk down that exact block every single day, twice a day to go to work, and like, if you're in the MCU, maybe don't ever go to Midtown

ever because it's not safe. But there's this moment where I think it's Alexei who some there's like a huge slab wall and it's falling over and it's about to land on a civilian, and Alexei, who is a super soldier like goes and catches the wall and is holding it up, but he can't. He's not strong enough to hold it indefinitely, and he's not strong enough to push it back. And this civilian is just like hanging out and not running.

And when they do flip the wall over and not only does it work, but then all the civilians start applauding.

to teamwork, they'll just insult each other. And you know, they it allows you to have the visual, which is more important in movie language anyway, without it becoming belabored or cheesy because they they undercut it with the sarcastic remark, right, you know.

they don't know what to do. Elena says extremely cruel things to every single member of the Thunderbolts and walks away from them, and Alexi catches up with her and is like, I'm sorry, I wasn't there for you, like and like states the pain that they are both in and they're like both crying and it's a really nice scene and it is what gives her the Like, again, you hit the low point at the end of act two, and then you have that moment where you rally emotionally

so you can go in and fight the bad guy in act three, which is exactly what happens. Because she had that moment with Alexi, she has the emotional fortitude to go into the darkness and try to share what she has just gotten with somebody else.

Like that's the first time we see the flashback of Yolene as a child, luring her friend into a trap, and so he touches Walker, and earlier in the movie, Walker was bragging about how he has the best life out of any of them because he has a wife and a kid and like his life is complete and they're all losers. So Bob touches him, and we see a flashback of Walker sitting in his house. He's right next to the crib. The baby is screaming, and his wife is like, can you can you do something? Can

you help? Can you you know, like calling from the other room, John, can you do something? And he's just staring into space, like just totally checked out, ignoring his crying child, ignoring his wife who is begging for help. And she finally walks into the room, picks up the baby and is like what is wrong with you and walks out, And later we learn that she's actually left him, like they're separated, right, And this this could be a scene that's like, oh, poor Walker, like his wife is

such a bitch, but it's not. This is a memory that's laden with profound shame for him because he is failing as a husband and father, because he is failing in domestic responsibilities. He is not comforting his child, and he is not helping his wife. And the movie has sympathy for him, like he's it's clearly not because he doesn't care. He's clearly depressed. And the movie I felt like that it managed to have sympathy for his depression without excusing his failure to again be reliable in a

domestic sphere. And I think that that really is saying something against that sort of toxic masculinity idea.

Alexis trying to is acknowledging that he was a shitty father and is trying to do better as someone who's two months away from becoming a parent and had an

abusive father. This is all hitting really close to home, and I remember, Yeah, I was sobbing during that scene because it's one thing actually that they've drilled into us in a couple of baby classes and books that I've been reading, is like, no matter what you do, sometimes your baby's gonna cry and there's little, really nothing you can do to stop it, and that you're going to

feel like a failure. And I'm sitting here thinking about, Yeah, for someone like John Walker who can stop bullets, who can is so much more powerful than anyone else, the idea that even he sometimes can't stop a baby from crying, and would go into that kind of fugue state un thus stop trying instead of like continuing to show the baby love and affection and doing what you do until it does stop crying on its own for whatever reason or with what you're doing. It hits really hard, for sure.

Here's the so, I think you all have talked me out of some of the toxic masculinity stuff that I was seeing it, and I admit I think I am.

You know, it's kind of like some of the conversations we've had in earlier podcasts about Burrier Gaze or fridging, where the problem with these tropes is that things that kind of look like it or rhyme with the trope, it's easy to see them as the trope and react badly to that as well because of that, And I I would admit that for me, I hear what you're saying about Elena, it did feel like it made Bob's emotional journey the focus and everyone else have to deal

with to sort of subsume their emotional feelings for Bob's emotional feelings. I didn't I didn't love that, but I agree with you it's nowhere near as bad as I first thought it was.

she's monologuing about her depression. And we basically the Void shows up like we have regular Bob and then the Void shows up and he is like using telekinesis to like hurl bits of the lab at the rest of the team. So they're all pinned against the wall. I think Walker maybe has like something stuck through his shoulder.

Like they're pretty injured by it and they can't move, they can't intervene, and so Bob is like fighting the void and he gets the upper hand and he's like on top of the void, punching him over and over and over again, and you can see the blackness of the void is creeping up over Bob, and I think it's Bucky who's like, this is wrong, which was another point that I really appreciated, Like, the solution is not violence. The violence does not solve the problem in this movie.

he pushes harder against it. And takes all of the weight so that she can slip out, which is yet another moment of teamwork, right, so she can run to Bob and like she pulls, like she's not running to hug him. She's running to pull him off of the void, which turns into a hug. She's like pinning his arms so he stops doing this. It is also a hug, absolutely, and then the metal kind of loosens its grip and everybody else can run forward and like jump into the hug too.

are very praising of it. And I want to be clear, like the experience that some people have had with this, including myself, of it not ringing true, does not negate the fact that it rings true for many people. And as I said, even for me, many parts did ring true. There's a great article on how the movie is apparently an expression of CBT cognitive behavioral therapy, something I haven't been through, but I know it's really saved a lot

of lives. But there's an article in Polygon called Thunderbolts, Big Depression metaphor hit me hard, mostly for the wrong reasons. What Marvel Studio's latest gets right and wrong about living with depression. It's by Tasha Robinson, and she talks about having depression and how this movie hit her, and I just want to read a couple parts of it because it really was effective, and it's talking about all the things that the movie gets right and says, but it

misses one big issue with depression. The aspect of the movie that most made me shrink in my seat in the theater, the sense of shame that comes with needing this kind of help and with putting this much weight and demand on other people. There's a comforting fantasy in the idea that even though everyone in Thunderbolts is navigating major traumas of their own, they're all capable of temporarily setting aside their own issues to focus on comforting and

supporting Bob. Granted they don't have much choice, given that he's encompassing the world in nightmarish darkness. Still, the film frames that group hug as an act of caring and empathy, not desperation or grudging heroic obligation. He has easy ability to absor the orb of that comfort when it comes, though, to take on Yo Lana's message of companionship as a real fix for his loneliness, and to do it without embarrassment.

To me, that felt harder to believe than MCU. Multiverses are magic and almost toxic itself and its lack of weight or complexity. I've been through this kind of crisis myself, facing my own mental health struggles, or trying to help friends navigate theirs. And shame is often a major factor, both as an oncoming part of the larger weight of depression and in moments like these where long simmering melancholy reaches a boiling point. It's hard to accept help, it's

hard to admit problems. The societal view of depression holds that everyone should be strong, independent, and self contained, and that should be embarrassing to demand other people's time, attention, or love. And I mean stop, stop, stop reading it, and I don't want to kind of let her words speak. But one thing she goes on to talk is that it was really frustrating that at the end Bob has no memory of this because he kind of therefore escapes the sense of like, wait a minute, when everyone else

was going through their own stuff. Not only but I kind of like started hurting everyone to the point that they had to stop dealing with their stuff and help me with mine. And for me, that felt very, very real of the sense of like, and it's part of the shame spiral and the way you know, our brains lie to us in depression or the kinds of mental illness, because the reality is your friends are glad to help you.

The people in the movie are happy to help Bob, They want to help Bob, they want to help each other. But it just felt like the phrase alone in a crowd is one that I really related to a lot in the midst of my worst depression of like, yes, I had all these friends around me who loved me, who wanted to take care of me, but it didn't help at all. It just continued the shame spiral downwards. And so I think that's the only part of it that I think still continues to ring false to me.

Is and hero Artica I think is great and I want to I'll put it in the show notes. I want to kind of put it to you all of kind of your perspective on that of the like this can. And I think for some people depression is absolutely helped by having lots of people like people come to them with love and affection and caring. But that sometimes that can actually backfire or or that that that that can uh not, it doesn't always ring true the way it does in this movie.

what's going on with me. And it's definitely something that I very much struggled with and have historically struggled with. And I do think it is something again like shame is a huge emotion in this film. It's something that it hammers home repeatedly. I will say, you know, I don't think it's like the minute the characters are offered a helping hand, they immediately accept it like it's a

two hour movie. And I think that that is the journey from being unable to make those connections, Like they don't like each other at the beginning, they can't get along. That is part of the journey being able to accept that help and to like they Yes, they literally lean on each other towards the beginning of the movie, but they cannot emotionally lean on each other until the end. But I also think, like I mean, even right in the movie, they depict multiple experiences of depression and none

of them are exactly the same. And I just I think it's when you're telling a story about something that is so so loaded and so personal and so difficult. It's not going to work for everybody. It's not going to work for everybody's experience. And I often find media depictions of depression. I very rarely connect with them. I

very rarely see my own experience reflected in them. And I remember, I mean this was like ten years ago now, but I remember once reading a review of the Mark Wade Run on Daredevil, which is about Daredevil struggling with depression and masking, and somebody was reviewing it and said, like,

that's what I do to mask my depression. I smile like a good little extrovert, and like, to this day, the phrase good little extrovert like gets the water works going for me in a way that, again, you know, the sort of typical depiction of here's this person who can't get out of bed, right doesn't. So I think

I don't. I don't think this movie can be everything to any to everyone, And I I think it's that's fair, very worthwhile to say, like, this didn't work for me because this is my experience, because that's the only way that we can understand each other.

the villain. I would have liked a more believable or at least in some tiny way relatable villain we get. I think someone who twirls a mustache even more so than Emperor Palpatine. Neither one of them have mustaches, but you get my point.

think that's exactly what we want to see. And a lot of what this podcast is about is saying, how can you have things that have fun action scenes and quippy dialogue and a lot of humor. Though I didn't think this movie is a funny as a lot of other people, but that's putting aside, but like, how about that and still deal with with serious issues.

like we need to keep the IP going. We need to like put out our requisite number of Marvel products in this year. We made this thing by committee based on who is under contract, and it's like it just here, it is. It came out of sausage factory and so to see a movie that is about something and is trying to say something, even if it's something it's saying doesn't necessarily work for everyone. I think really is is a reason for that, like surprise pleasure of oh oh wait.

I liked this, this, this, I connected with this, which was also how I felt about Agatha all along, which I thought was like a shameless money grab, like we're really doing a TV show about a song from a different TV show, And then it really had something to say and I found it very moving.

fall on this? Having having heard this discussion, what's kind of your thoughts on movies like this that are that are not meant to be, like, you know, two hour Navel gazing explorations of our deepest, darkest mental demons, but then are wrestling with such hard issues amongst the fight scenes and the quips and the fun stuff.

comics version of him. And I think part of it is a conceit that you have to depower him until the next crisis, right, it's like the whole Superman problem, And it's like if you have the Century as part of the Avengers, like, wouldn't he just solve everything immediately? So I think you have to like depower him and sit him on the bench in this form. So it's like an unfortunate product of like what you have to do with this character, like between movies.

the writers. She's a writer on The Bear, which is just like a multi Emmy winning show and deals with a lot of you know, similar issues of like people under pressure and like how they react to that and then the other on the other side. Jake Schreier, the director Hit. One of his last projects was Beef, which

is a Netflix show. I actually went and watched the first episode just to see what it was like, like tonally, and it really struck me that Beef is a show where, like the two main characters are going through some some kind of depressive episode and it's leading to them acting out in ways that are you know, not not good for them. And to bring bring all that together in a superhero movie is kind of stunning, and I would not have expected it from the MCU, like even a

year ago. Right, Yeah, So it sounds to me like this is the like the best representation or the best exploration of depression in the MCU, which is a low bar, probably like Iron Man three, right or that was a little bit more PTSD, but but similar tone. It's a low bar, but they they set the bar further, is what it sounds like. They move the bar.

general while accomplishing then is a positive step forward. And the fact that like they it seems like they let the creators like tell the story for the most part that they wanted to tell, and there are elements where they have to set up the next movie in the next movie obviously, but I'm actually shocked, so, like I mean, the the big spoilery thing about the Asterisk is that at the end they are introduced as the New Avengers by Valve right right, And I'm shocked that that is

the conclusion just from a from a franchise standpoint, because they've been setting up, you know, Sam Wilson's supposed to be putting the New Avengers together. They've had teasers about Miss Marvel and Kate Bishops being the young Avengers, and

this just came out of nowhere. It's like, Oh, they're the Avengers and and and and to give these characters that mantle in this moment in the franchise history is kind of stunning to me and says something about the trust that they put in these performers.

the Avengers team. But I think I think the idea is that in universe the term Avengers is now being in conflict, not that the MCU itself is sort of in a meta way saying these characters are the Avengers.

does an awful lot with it. And with Tony you.

So yeah, I agree that it's controversial, but I'm just saying that I to me, this hasn't set the new bar, but I'd say it rises to the bar that a couple of others have hit that a lot do not come close to.

I do wind I did wind up loving it, though, but I think even if I hadn't, I was really glad that it tried something. And I think that's kind of what I feel about this is I think this

was like, let's try something. I think it failed to try it, but I think I'm much happier having it try and for me fail and for a lot of other people succeed, then for them to just give us another soulas you know, by the Numbers kind of thing that has nothing to say and it's just an excuse for big, shiny things, and you know, the newest actor to be in the tight Suit whatever it is.

could totally have seen him as this role. I've seen some concept art where they give him the blonde hair because that's like a very key part of century like the power of a thousand suns or whatever, a million maybe, and so like his hair is like golden blonde. Like what I wanted to see is Steve in you like with the blonde diet here. I don't know, maybe we could change that part, but I would have enjoyed that a lot to see him in this role.

social media. And so in that context, for me, asking me to think that all the characters should care about a straight, white CIS guy, and maybe he's not straight or cis, but but that's certainly I we portrayed so far that his emotional problem should be the thing that everyone has to focus on. It just hit me wrong, and so I would have loved to see that difference.

But I think, you know, I'm willing to step back and say, that's probably me reading too much of my feelings about the rest of the world onto this movie, because yeah, all people's feelings do deserve attention and care and things like that. It doesn't mean that Bob shouldn't. It's just that to me, it's not the high priority that I think the movie made it.

and then has the crash. And then once I realized that because I having watched it, I had no idea that Void's century was a thing, And when coming out of it, I was like, oh, okay, there's this longer thing, so plugging you Lane into it wouldn't quite make sense. But yeah, that's that's kind of where the question came from, and that that's.

It would not be like just a case of like that climax is different like that, among other things, we'd have to introduce the idea that Elena has been subjected to intrusive medical experiments, which I don't don't really want to introduce here, ye, or like you know, you can, like there are other ways you could, you know, if you're totally decoupling the whole narrative of Bob Sentry Void, then you can find other ways, some other mcguffin that triggers her turning into the void. But for me, I

still go ahead, go ahead. I still think it remains her movie the whole way through. I do not think I did not watch that movie and feel like it became Bob's movie, Like, among other things, in that climax, we go through three different memories of Yolena's that are like horrible traumatic memories. We glimpse part of Bob's through a crack in the floor, like we don't we don't

get his story because this isn't his story. And I to me, there's two halves to Yolena's journey and or to her to her being able to start healing, and the first half of that is Alexi reaching out to her, and the second half of that is her reaching out to someone else, and they are equally im important. Like I think the fact that she chooses to do this is I don't think it's about him. I think it's

about what she needs. And I can see that coming off as like it's really important for women to be nurturing or something, but that is that's just that's not the read I had on it. Like, I do think that her deliberately forging that connection is crucial to her character development in her narrative. So I do think it would be interesting to see a movie where Yolena becomes

a cosmic being. I support her in those right, those journeys, but I don't think it would I don't know that it would be a worst movie, but I don't think but I don't personally feel like I need that version.

for a while. I'm going to keep recording episodes and part what we want to do is have a backlog because right now, a lot of times when I record an episode, I then have to turn it around in twenty four hours and I'm trying to That's just not possible right now, and it's going to be even more impossible when I I'm trying very hard not to be the father John Walker. So yeah, so we will keep getting feedback. Let us know what you think all the

informations in the show notes. Rieki Jessica, thank you both so much for being a part of this to our listeners, Thank you so much.