Thunderbolts*: What Happens When Trauma Gets Superpowers?

<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Popcorn Psychology, the podcast where we watch blockbuster
<v Speaker 1>movies and psychoanalyze them. My name is Brittany Brownfield and
<v Speaker 1>I'm a child therapist and I'm joined by Ben Stover,
<v Speaker 1>individual therapist, Hannah Espinoza, marriage and family therapists. We're all
<v Speaker 1>licensed clinical professional counselors also known as therapists, who practice
<v Speaker 1>out of Chicago. Even though we are licensed mental health professionals,
<v Speaker 1>this podcast is purely for entertainment purposes and to fulfill
<v Speaker 1>our love of dissecting pop culture and all forms.
<v Speaker 2>Please remember that, even though we are all licensed therapists,
<v Speaker 2>we aren't your therapist.
<v Speaker 1>If you are struggling with mental health symptoms, please find
<v Speaker 1>a local mental health provider. Sometimes there's a movie so
<v Speaker 1>good that we have to record it right away. Thunderbolts
<v Speaker 1>is that kind of movie so huge spoiler alert if
<v Speaker 1>you haven't seen it yet. We will be discussing our
<v Speaker 1>favorite parts of the movie along with our normal treatment
<v Speaker 1>and final thoughts. The plot of the movie is after
<v Speaker 1>finding themselves ensnared in a death trap, an unconventional team
<v Speaker 1>but manti heroes must go on a dangerous mission that
<v Speaker 1>will force them to confront the darkest corners of their past.
<v Speaker 1>And I guess we should put a caveat here that
<v Speaker 1>we are really going to try to only talk about
<v Speaker 1>this movie in the context of Thunderbolts, and what I
<v Speaker 1>mean by that is them see You is huge. We're
<v Speaker 1>not I'm definitely not keeping up with it. So we're
<v Speaker 1>gonna talking about all the characters as they see in
<v Speaker 1>this as we see them in this movie, just in case.
<v Speaker 1>I don't know. I guess I'm getting I'm hedging our bets,
<v Speaker 1>which is not gonna happen.
<v Speaker 2>But this movie was specifically created with the idea in
<v Speaker 2>mind that people shouldn't have to be doing homework anymore.
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, in order to watch a film. That's what
<v Speaker 2>Figi said. It was like, we need to start making
<v Speaker 2>films so people don't have to do homework to watch them.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, which is true. Actually, I can commend the movie
<v Speaker 1>for this off the top, because I am not an
<v Speaker 1>ant Man movie watcher. It's just not for me. I've
<v Speaker 1>seen the first movie once and then I don't think
<v Speaker 1>I've seen any of the others. If I have, I
<v Speaker 1>don't recall. So even like thinking about the ghost character,
<v Speaker 1>I didn't need to like remember who she was from
<v Speaker 1>those movies to watch this one. So you're exactly right. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>so I Ffiggie pulled it off.
<v Speaker 2>After a period of very much not pulling it off.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I wasn't gonna watch the Secret Invasion to watch
<v Speaker 1>this movie. I did not watch Secret Invasion. I also
<v Speaker 1>did not watch Secret Invasion.
<v Speaker 2>There was a great many things that started to feel
<v Speaker 2>very tedious. Yeah, and this movie reset a timeline yet
<v Speaker 2>again that very much needed to be reset. And this
<v Speaker 2>movie was exactly what it needed to be, not a
<v Speaker 2>thing more or less.
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, this movie was a breath afresh. So this
<v Speaker 1>movie definitely felt like the punch in the arm that
<v Speaker 1>the Marvel universe needed. And why we particularly want to
<v Speaker 1>talk about this movie is because this movie is about
<v Speaker 1>mental health. You could argue that the villain of the
<v Speaker 1>movie is a mental health I would agree with that.
<v Speaker 1>I feel like a part of the reason why we
<v Speaker 1>wanted to do this film so much is because it
<v Speaker 1>does it so beautifully as well, which is what I
<v Speaker 1>feel like we just don't often get. I know that
<v Speaker 1>we've talked in the past about a lot of different
<v Speaker 1>Marvel movies and how they often are able to do
<v Speaker 1>a good job of showing mental health. But this one
<v Speaker 1>felt particularly poignant in a little bit different way than
<v Speaker 1>I feel like it normally it normally hits, and I
<v Speaker 1>think that was a really, like you said, truly just
<v Speaker 1>nice to see something a little bit different, but something
<v Speaker 1>that was focused on a real experience that people have. Yeah, So,
<v Speaker 1>like you said, we're going to more group this episode
<v Speaker 1>by character, which is kind of the point of the
<v Speaker 1>movie itself. It's about about a gaggle of misfit toys
<v Speaker 1>that come together to try to play nice with each other,
<v Speaker 1>because as the movie starts, they're actually being plotted against
<v Speaker 1>each other. Yes, by Valentina. I know, she makes a
<v Speaker 1>point of her last name. Oh it's a really long name.
<v Speaker 1>I don't recall d something or other. Yea, yeah, something
<v Speaker 1>like that, de la Fontaine, not Fonteine, right, as she says,
<v Speaker 1>right of course, yes, yeah, But she's basically like a
<v Speaker 1>corrupt politician question mark.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, she's a cabinet member or forman, a cabinet member.
<v Speaker 1>Right, and she is trying to clean up her mess,
<v Speaker 1>and part of her mess is all these little assassins
<v Speaker 1>that she's collected, which is basically all the characters they
<v Speaker 1>named with the exception of Bucky.
<v Speaker 2>Correct who is now a congressman.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. So, I guess we'll get into that in a
<v Speaker 1>little bit, But first we wanted to talk about Alexa
<v Speaker 1>and Yolena. As you Lena is, I would consider her
<v Speaker 1>the main character of this ensemble cast. Yes, I would
<v Speaker 1>agree with that absolutely. Yeah. So the movie starts with
<v Speaker 1>Yolena just basically monologuing about how she's a depressive episode.
<v Speaker 1>And as you pointed out, Hannah, when we watch it
<v Speaker 1>the first time, she is going about her life like
<v Speaker 1>she's going to work in sweatpants, which I didn't even
<v Speaker 1>think about but is such a good detail, and demonstrating
<v Speaker 1>that she is someone who is going through the motions.
<v Speaker 1>She doesn't care about what she does anymore, she doesn't
<v Speaker 1>feel like worked up by what she does anymore. And
<v Speaker 1>even though she is doing it's kind of comical. Actually,
<v Speaker 1>even though she's doing assassin work, she looks bored. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>I feel like she looks I think you hit the
<v Speaker 1>nail on the head, Like she looks like she's not
<v Speaker 1>interested in in any of it. She's not engaged in
<v Speaker 1>any of it. She's literally going through the motions. When
<v Speaker 1>people experience depressive episodes, a lot of time that is
<v Speaker 1>a big part of their experience of not finding joy,
<v Speaker 1>not founding meaning and different things in their life. And
<v Speaker 1>so I think that's definitely where we see Yelena in
<v Speaker 1>the opening of the film, and just in general, her
<v Speaker 1>attitude throughout the beginning of the film is very She
<v Speaker 1>very much is in that depressive episode. Well she is.
<v Speaker 2>She's actively monologuing about how she's not getting anything at
<v Speaker 2>all from what she's doing. She's just mah, you're gonna
<v Speaker 2>do the thing now, and I'm gonna do the thing
<v Speaker 2>and then you're gonna try that thing and it's gonna
<v Speaker 2>go bad, and yeah why. And she's actively questioning the
<v Speaker 2>meaning of her life, yeah, which is not just a
<v Speaker 2>depressive episode, but she's having an existential crisis.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. And also she's doing the same thing she's been doing.
<v Speaker 1>You know, she's been stuck in this identity where when
<v Speaker 1>she was brainwashed, she was doing the same thing she's
<v Speaker 1>doing now, just for different team. Basically, Yeah, it's just
<v Speaker 1>a different boss. So she's never what it is. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>So she's never really figured out who she is. She
<v Speaker 1>kind of just went right from being a black widow
<v Speaker 1>to being another version of a black widow for the
<v Speaker 1>American government instead of the Russian government, but not even
<v Speaker 1>the real government, a shadow government.
<v Speaker 2>Shadow aspect, Yeah, totally. That leads to her feeling like
<v Speaker 2>a shadow of herself, just a what am I?
<v Speaker 1>Who am I? Do I have an actual identity? Or
<v Speaker 1>am I just this m and she's I mean she
<v Speaker 1>calls it a void, which obviously plays into the bigger
<v Speaker 1>story later, but she refers to her depression as a void.
<v Speaker 1>And why I really feel for her too, is how
<v Speaker 1>lonely she is. I think that's something you notice with
<v Speaker 1>her right off the bat. She's by herself, she's talking
<v Speaker 1>to a guy. She has tied up about how she's feeling.
<v Speaker 1>And also I assume because the nature of her work
<v Speaker 1>isolates her too, like she has so many secrets, not
<v Speaker 1>just about her past, which obviously, as we see later
<v Speaker 1>in the movie, is really sitting inside of her infestering,
<v Speaker 1>but also her life is a secret. Her past is
<v Speaker 1>a secret, so it creates this isolating factor that would
<v Speaker 1>only exacerbate, if not cause itself, the depression she's feeling.
<v Speaker 1>Absolutely a big part of experiencing a depressive episode is
<v Speaker 1>being very lonely and feeling very disconnected and really and
<v Speaker 1>also not really having the motivation to be connected to
<v Speaker 1>anyone either because it feels like it's too hard, because
<v Speaker 1>everything feels so exhausting when you're in that state. Well,
<v Speaker 1>and also for her, how would she start, Well, she
<v Speaker 1>has this pseudo childhood that gets blown to fucking smotherings,
<v Speaker 1>then she gets raised in a military situation, and then
<v Speaker 1>she just gets thrown into the world, and then the
<v Speaker 1>only lifeline she has too a functioning world is her
<v Speaker 1>sister who died. And we also don't even think about
<v Speaker 1>the fact that she was in the BLib too. Oh God,
<v Speaker 1>So she's like so removed from the world period in
<v Speaker 1>so many ways.
<v Speaker 2>Which tends to create a question about which version of
<v Speaker 2>me is real? Oh yeah, but she's struggling with should
<v Speaker 2>I have died? There are a lot of people who
<v Speaker 2>go through things like she's gone through in reality without
<v Speaker 2>the magic of a BLib that will question am I
<v Speaker 2>supposed to be here? Am I actually here? Did I
<v Speaker 2>die in the war? Did I die in the fire?
<v Speaker 2>Did I die in x y Z the car crash?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, which is why she ends up at fucking Alexei's house,
<v Speaker 1>her fake dad's house, just trying to feel something I
<v Speaker 1>think that she really feels like it kind of reminds
<v Speaker 1>me of Thor in an endgame, Yes, an endgame, when
<v Speaker 1>we see Thor needing to have somebody who knew him
<v Speaker 1>from before to help him remember who he was, which
<v Speaker 1>is when he ran into his mom and that whole
<v Speaker 1>time thing that happens. And so what I feel like
<v Speaker 1>for Yelena is that this is the only person that
<v Speaker 1>she knows. This is the only person that knew her
<v Speaker 1>as a kid and just knew her in a different
<v Speaker 1>context basically, And it makes a lot of sense to
<v Speaker 1>me that she goes to Alexi even though she kind
<v Speaker 1>of doesn't know how to ask for what she needs initially,
<v Speaker 1>and she's really just showing up, I think, to see
<v Speaker 1>if anything happens. Well, I think she's just trying to
<v Speaker 1>find a parent, the way that we're all trying to
<v Speaker 1>find a parent in different ways, no matter how old
<v Speaker 1>we are. And her closest parent is this deadbeat piece
<v Speaker 1>of shits who is I mean, I don't feel bad
<v Speaker 1>saying that, because that's how he's portrayed. Like literally, how
<v Speaker 1>he's introducing this movie is robe open boxer shorts eating
<v Speaker 1>I can't even remember what garbage she was eating watching
<v Speaker 1>old videos He's basically watched. He's basically a guy watching
<v Speaker 1>old football footage from when he was in the NFL.
<v Speaker 1>He's Uncle Rico And he's the closest I was sinking
<v Speaker 1>the same thing, Ben, And she's the closest thing she
<v Speaker 1>has to a parent who is greg and white lotus.
<v Speaker 1>And I I get why she keeps going back to him,
<v Speaker 1>you know, because she needs something that feels like you're saying,
<v Speaker 1>of the feels real, and she needs someone to care
<v Speaker 1>about her. And you can't. You can't get rid of
<v Speaker 1>that within yourself, none of us can. Yeah, And I
<v Speaker 1>feel like she needs she really wants someone to tell
<v Speaker 1>her what to do, which is also something that people
<v Speaker 1>feel when they're experiencing a depressive episode like this, is
<v Speaker 1>that they don't because they feel so overwhelmed all the time.
<v Speaker 1>They don't. They just have a really hard time being
<v Speaker 1>able to follow through with things or being able to
<v Speaker 1>do things, and having somebody tell them what to do
<v Speaker 1>just feels so it's just something that they're grasping at
<v Speaker 1>because they're so overwhelmed, but also confused. Well with her, especially,
<v Speaker 1>she was not raised to have an individual identity she
<v Speaker 1>was raised to be obedient and compliant, a be good soldier.
<v Speaker 1>So of course she would want that because she was
<v Speaker 1>never encouraged to be herself, I mean not even to
<v Speaker 1>be yourself, Like she wasn't encouraged to have a self
<v Speaker 1>at all. And so of course she's wandering around that
<v Speaker 1>the world is an adult feeling a purposeless empty How
<v Speaker 1>much is the depression, how much of it is like
<v Speaker 1>not having a sense of self one in both? I
<v Speaker 1>mean it's a clusterfuck. And so she's going to the
<v Speaker 1>fucking idiot and he doesn't even know who he is
<v Speaker 1>either his red guardian who he is? I really, I
<v Speaker 1>know it would have been trued to his character. But
<v Speaker 1>when she asks him, like she asked him something onlines
<v Speaker 1>when they earned that house in the beginning scene of
<v Speaker 1>like when did you feel like yourself? Or when did
<v Speaker 1>you feel good? And I wish he would have said,
<v Speaker 1>but I know this would just movie magic. This isn't
<v Speaker 1>a real answer. I wish she would have said, when
<v Speaker 1>I've pretended to be your dad, But I know that
<v Speaker 1>wasn't the rural answer because he was so psyched when
<v Speaker 1>they got out of a situation black Widow. So if
<v Speaker 1>that had been his answer, it would have been definitely bullshit.
<v Speaker 1>But I'm like, you couldn't have pulled that out of
<v Speaker 1>your ass and gave that to her. But he doesn't
<v Speaker 1>know how to do that for her at all.
<v Speaker 2>Because he's an actual soldier whereas she's an assassin, and
<v Speaker 2>the difference in the training between the two. Even her
<v Speaker 2>entire function is to disappear into whatever she's told to do,
<v Speaker 2>whatever her mission is, and by whatever means necessary, whatever
<v Speaker 2>deception necessary. He, on the other hand, was the Captain
<v Speaker 2>America of the USSR, so his goal was to be
<v Speaker 2>out in front and restore himself to the sense of
<v Speaker 2>glory and importance and purpose that he gained from being
<v Speaker 2>a figurehead, whereas she was supposed to be invisible.
<v Speaker 1>I actually think it's more that he was her dad
<v Speaker 1>and she was never his child, because he was an
<v Speaker 1>adult when they did that yeah undercover stuff, so he
<v Speaker 1>always knew she's not really my kid. I'm playing this
<v Speaker 1>stupid part for a while until I can go back
<v Speaker 1>to being the Red Guardian and have all the glory.
<v Speaker 1>And like she says in the Black Widow movie when
<v Speaker 1>they're having that fight at the table and she gets pissed,
<v Speaker 1>and she says, you were my mother. She's going to
<v Speaker 1>him wanting her dad, and as they talk more in
<v Speaker 1>that kind of fight ish touching moment they have in
<v Speaker 1>the street later in the movie, mm hmm, Yeah, she's
<v Speaker 1>looking for her dad, and unfortunately he doesn't really get
<v Speaker 1>that until she explicitly says, I was looking. I'm looking
<v Speaker 1>for my dad. I've been looking for my dad. Where
<v Speaker 1>the fuck have you been? And he says, I didn't
<v Speaker 1>think you wanted me, which I read I think you
<v Speaker 1>and I have different opinions. On his hand, we do.
<v Speaker 1>I read that in a more uh generous way, and
<v Speaker 1>that I read that as he he is not he
<v Speaker 1>I think he has low self esteem. But where am
<v Speaker 1>I going with this is I don't I think he
<v Speaker 1>meant like, I really didn't think that I would be
<v Speaker 1>the person you would want to come for you. Because
<v Speaker 1>she makes a big point in like the Blackwood movie
<v Speaker 1>of like I fucking hate you. She punches in the
<v Speaker 1>face like she does a lot in that movie to
<v Speaker 1>tell him to go fuck himself, So I can see
<v Speaker 1>where he would think like the last thing she wants
<v Speaker 1>to do is deal with me, like she doesn't like me,
<v Speaker 1>and I don't think he's emotionally sophisticated enough to get
<v Speaker 1>to the more parental inference level, which is that she
<v Speaker 1>doesn't want me, she's just mad at me. Yeah, And
<v Speaker 1>I looked at it more as of course he didn't
<v Speaker 1>think about what Elena wanted because he sucks well. And
<v Speaker 1>you kind of read well, you read that he didn't
<v Speaker 1>want I didn't think you wanted me, lying is like,
<v Speaker 1>if it's not about him, then he's not thinking about
<v Speaker 1>it at all. Yeah, And I read it more from
<v Speaker 1>maybe because David Harbor is such a good actor and
<v Speaker 1>I think of him as like Chief Hopper with his
<v Speaker 1>other is. I read it more as like, I really
<v Speaker 1>didn't think you wanted me to be the person with you.
<v Speaker 2>I saw it the way Brittany sees it, just.
<v Speaker 1>Because the other tones of that conversation is he does
<v Speaker 1>seem very surprised and emotional that she's so emotional, Like,
<v Speaker 1>I really don't think he realized how much he means
<v Speaker 1>to her in that context. I think he locked it away.
<v Speaker 2>I think it meant a lot to all of them,
<v Speaker 2>and that even though they were playing family on TV
<v Speaker 2>and were on a mission and doing all this stuff,
<v Speaker 2>that they formed very real bonds and became dependent on
<v Speaker 2>each other, and all of their bonds were more real
<v Speaker 2>than they ever felt or acknowledged because they weren't supposed to. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>and that they limited it within themselves and kind of
<v Speaker 2>fractured it off. But when they got into these periods
<v Speaker 2>of being lost and empty and their old identities no
<v Speaker 2>longer meaning a damn thing, which means all this pain
<v Speaker 2>that they're going through doesn't have anywhere to connect to.
<v Speaker 2>Now they're searching for the only thing that ever was real,
<v Speaker 2>which was each other.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, because he still does have that photo of him
<v Speaker 1>coaching her team. It's just so fucked up to do
<v Speaker 1>that to a kid, to put him in this position,
<v Speaker 1>to put both of this position when you really think
<v Speaker 1>about the fact that they were like in pee wee
<v Speaker 1>they were in like pee wee leagues where he was
<v Speaker 1>coaching them. Like can you imagine that she thought he
<v Speaker 1>was her dad until she was six years old? Like
<v Speaker 1>that's crazy work. So that means he is her dude? Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>he is her dad truly. Truly. I don't know. I
<v Speaker 1>don't give Alexi that he has the ability to have
<v Speaker 1>that much fucking insight, But uh, maybe I don't think
<v Speaker 1>what you two are saying is necessarily wrong in any way.
<v Speaker 1>I just he just doesn't seem like he gets it.
<v Speaker 1>I think by the second conversation he does, But the
<v Speaker 1>first one really felt like he was really still it
<v Speaker 1>was still all about him. Well, yeah, he's definitely a narcissist. Yes,
<v Speaker 1>I don't think you can argue about that. Yeah, like that,
<v Speaker 1>he's still talking about himself when Yealinge is there talking
<v Speaker 1>to him in the beginning of the movie, He's like,
<v Speaker 1>can I be on the team too? Look at this
<v Speaker 1>stupid fucking limo service I'm doing, Like he wants to
<v Speaker 1>be the hero. The fact that he takes all that
<v Speaker 1>time to drive out there way after the fact and
<v Speaker 1>is so loud and yelling. I do love that when
<v Speaker 1>she's like embarrassed, like her dad's picking her up from
<v Speaker 1>school and she's like, shut the fuck up. But he
<v Speaker 1>is limited by his narcissism, and so yeah, it becomes
<v Speaker 1>that situation when they have that argument on the street
<v Speaker 1>where she has to spell it the fuck out for
<v Speaker 1>him for him to finally be like, oh okay. Which
<v Speaker 1>is frustrating about having a parent like him in real
<v Speaker 1>life is having to be so so so concrete and
<v Speaker 1>direct about what you need from them, and you can't
<v Speaker 1>just rely on them to understand.
<v Speaker 2>I think he gets there when he starts talking to
<v Speaker 2>her on the street, when people are disappearing into the
<v Speaker 2>shadow realm, her tears are real that Okay, that was
<v Speaker 2>really good.
<v Speaker 1>You're dying to do this accent the whole time. He
<v Speaker 1>can do many eccents. This is one of them.
<v Speaker 2>It's a terrible, but it will come out. I think
<v Speaker 2>really she really was touched by what he said, and
<v Speaker 2>it was clear that he was letting that out of
<v Speaker 2>whatever compartment he had been keeping it in, that their
<v Speaker 2>connection is real, and the feelings that they had depending
<v Speaker 2>on each other and doing all those things weren't just
<v Speaker 2>for pretend. They were real, and even if they started
<v Speaker 2>his pretend, they became real and became treasured memories. And
<v Speaker 2>him letting that out really activates Selena into becoming a
<v Speaker 2>more engaged, trusting version of herself. She becomes the light
<v Speaker 2>in the story at that point.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, like trusting her intuition to go into the void again.
<v Speaker 1>I think one of the things that I wanted to
<v Speaker 1>point out about the conversation they have in the street
<v Speaker 1>is that a lot of times when we are able
<v Speaker 1>to be vulnerable with someone, a lot of times they
<v Speaker 1>are able to be vulnerable back. I'm not saying pick
<v Speaker 1>the person who you have the most disconnection from and
<v Speaker 1>try it with them. What I am saying is trying
<v Speaker 1>to do it with people that you feel comfortable with.
<v Speaker 1>It is clear that she feels comfortable with being vulnerable,
<v Speaker 1>even though she I think kind of has to push
<v Speaker 1>herself to really get all of that out. That she
<v Speaker 1>is able in that moment to be vulnerable. She is
<v Speaker 1>able to ask for what she needs and say what
<v Speaker 1>she needs, and I think that pulls at him of
<v Speaker 1>those real parts that I think you are right about Ben,
<v Speaker 1>that he had, you know, kind of tucked away of
<v Speaker 1>like I'm not supposed to feel this. It's not supposed
<v Speaker 1>to be like this. Yeah, the conversation I have on
<v Speaker 1>the street, I think is the conversation she maybe was
<v Speaker 1>trying to have, maybe had the intention to have when
<v Speaker 1>she visited him in the very beginning, but it would
<v Speaker 1>have been too hard to do it.
<v Speaker 2>Then she did also show up out of nowhere. To
<v Speaker 2>be fair, he was in the midst of feeling all
<v Speaker 2>his own feelings and stuck in his mess. Was that
<v Speaker 2>what she was looking for, what she got in the
<v Speaker 2>street when she showed up, of course, it was could
<v Speaker 2>he have possibly delivered that at that moment, I don't
<v Speaker 2>think so.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. And she was also kind of non intentionally testing him,
<v Speaker 1>like she brought up a few times, you haven't called
<v Speaker 1>me and over a year we haven't seen each other.
<v Speaker 1>You haven't reached out to me since Natasha died, Like
<v Speaker 1>there was a part of her that was keeping obviously
<v Speaker 1>keeping track of that. So when she shows up out
<v Speaker 1>of nowhere for her, it's not nowhere because she's like,
<v Speaker 1>I've been waiting, like, motherfucker, I guess I have to
<v Speaker 1>come to you to talk to you, and you should
<v Speaker 1>be ready to talk to me. I think, is what's
<v Speaker 1>the child in her? I think is having that thought.
<v Speaker 1>I don't think consciously, but she brings up many times
<v Speaker 1>like we haven't seen each other in a while and
<v Speaker 1>called while care about me. Basically is what she keeps
<v Speaker 1>saying to him, and he is not hearing it.
<v Speaker 2>No, he's not. I'm not saying he didn't fail. I'm
<v Speaker 2>just saying there was no chance he was going to pass.
<v Speaker 1>Oh no, and he was. He was locked up in
<v Speaker 1>his whole his own imagery stuff because he's trying to
<v Speaker 1>clean his place, uf he's trying to look like he's
<v Speaker 1>trying to look like less of a piece of shit
<v Speaker 1>when she rolls upon his house. So he's also locked
<v Speaker 1>in trying to uphold the version of himself. He's always
<v Speaker 1>trying to uphold this like shiny cool guy version of himself.
<v Speaker 1>So her also showing up when he is in his
<v Speaker 1>active trash heap of an apartment is putting him on
<v Speaker 1>his back feet. And so in this one when they
<v Speaker 1>find on the street too, even th there's a lot
<v Speaker 1>of chaos going on. He's also been a superhero and
<v Speaker 1>so he's wearing a red Guardian outfit like he's feeling himself.
<v Speaker 1>And so I think he's finally able to have this
<v Speaker 1>conversation with her because he's feeling good and grounded.
<v Speaker 2>And getting what he needed, yeah, from his own identity.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, it's important to recognize one of the things
<v Speaker 2>this script did beautifully was put out for us that
<v Speaker 2>people want to give you the best version of themselves.
<v Speaker 2>They want to care for your knees. They really do,
<v Speaker 2>but when there are barriers preventing them from doing so,
<v Speaker 2>it is harder or impossible and having some empathy and
<v Speaker 2>understanding that giving people the opportunity to get in a
<v Speaker 2>position to give you what you need makes it go
<v Speaker 2>a lot better.
<v Speaker 1>And I think for you, Elena, I could see from
<v Speaker 1>her perspective too, because they already have that exchange in
<v Speaker 1>Black Widow where she tells him you are everything to me,
<v Speaker 1>And so I could also see her sitting in her
<v Speaker 1>apartment being like, I've told him he means everything to me,
<v Speaker 1>and he's still not calling me. He's the kind of
<v Speaker 1>parent that if I was working with her as a client,
<v Speaker 1>I would ask her like, are you are you caught
<v Speaker 1>up in who he actually is? Are you caught up
<v Speaker 1>and who you want him to be or the kind
<v Speaker 1>of dad you want to have? And so you're like
<v Speaker 1>putting this idea of him around him, but that's not
<v Speaker 1>actually him. So you just keep breaking your own heart,
<v Speaker 1>like he's not the dad you had in Ohio. He's
<v Speaker 1>not that guy, and to keep expecting him to be
<v Speaker 1>that guy is hurting you. You have to acknowledge the
<v Speaker 1>person he is. That's not to let him off the hook,
<v Speaker 1>but it's just so that she can stop putting herself
<v Speaker 1>in that position of why isn't he calling me? Why
<v Speaker 1>am I? Why am I not worth calling? Why doesn't
<v Speaker 1>the last faux family member I have give a shit
<v Speaker 1>about me?
<v Speaker 2>Because the world doesn't give a shit about him, which
<v Speaker 2>was how he was socialized to have meaning, and that's
<v Speaker 2>where having empathy for it. No, we're not excusing it
<v Speaker 2>or not excusing his failure. But if you cannot understand
<v Speaker 2>that every single human is their own dynamic, complex web
<v Speaker 2>of identity and all the things that happened to them
<v Speaker 2>to form it, voluntary or not, you are missing the
<v Speaker 2>point and you can never get your need met by
<v Speaker 2>that person. You have to see them in the context
<v Speaker 2>that they are in presently versus the one that they
<v Speaker 2>were in when you knew them or whenever, you know,
<v Speaker 2>for her, going back to that Ohio version of him
<v Speaker 2>that was never.
<v Speaker 1>Real, like she needs to grieve that dad.
<v Speaker 2>But also keep from it what was real Like there's.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, but I mean like grieve that idea she might
<v Speaker 1>be holding on to so that she can actually see
<v Speaker 1>the sort of dad that's still in front of her.
<v Speaker 2>But also understand his flaws and how they got there,
<v Speaker 2>because you do if you're going to have an ongoing
<v Speaker 2>relationship with someone you have to create space for them
<v Speaker 2>to be imperfect because they are. We cannot live in
<v Speaker 2>this space that I fear social media is trying to
<v Speaker 2>create for us where people are either this perfect being
<v Speaker 2>that's always everything, or their shit and we should cut
<v Speaker 2>them out.
<v Speaker 1>It's not real.
<v Speaker 2>But where people need to be looking at is that
<v Speaker 2>people do have flaws, They do make mistakes, and we
<v Speaker 2>have to create space and understanding and empathy for them
<v Speaker 2>while also still holding our own boundaries. And sometimes we
<v Speaker 2>can hold empathic space for somebody away from us, it
<v Speaker 2>no longer get access.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, she needs to read Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents,
<v Speaker 1>So I feel like that would really help her with Alexi,
<v Speaker 1>which talks about this stuff that you're bringing up, which
<v Speaker 1>is if you are choosing to have this person remain
<v Speaker 1>in your life, then you need to figure out what
<v Speaker 1>your objectives are when you're around them that have to
<v Speaker 1>do with what you have control over. Correct not changing
<v Speaker 1>their mind, not making them magically different person where they
<v Speaker 1>just go, oh, yeah, you know what, you were always right?
<v Speaker 1>You know, you have to figure out, like what's what's
<v Speaker 1>the level of acceptance of who they are that I
<v Speaker 1>can deal with? And if I can't then I have
<v Speaker 1>to stop waiting for him to call or dropping by
<v Speaker 1>his place. And I don't think that she's at a
<v Speaker 1>place where she can and should. I mean, I think
<v Speaker 1>what's going to be interesting now going forward is that
<v Speaker 1>they now work together. That's a mess. I'd be like
<v Speaker 1>if I was a therapist, to be like, oh, now
<v Speaker 1>you guys gonna be working together? How's that going? Yikes?
<v Speaker 2>Avengers with a Z, That's how that's going.
<v Speaker 1>He's just being such like an Eastern European dad, which maybe,
<v Speaker 1>honestly in some ways is healing for her that he's
<v Speaker 1>being such an embarrassing.
<v Speaker 2>Dad nice like I mean sort of days being a
<v Speaker 2>middle aged bro in attraction.
<v Speaker 1>He's a douche. We can just say it. He is
<v Speaker 1>a douche. He's putting z's on things. He is putting
<v Speaker 1>behavior that's like in a good place when they do
<v Speaker 1>a little checklists on that TV show about like what
<v Speaker 1>gets you into the bad place? And one of them
<v Speaker 1>is having vanity license plates. The other one would be
<v Speaker 1>have you ever put a Z on something where there
<v Speaker 1>should be? In us? Is there anything else that we
<v Speaker 1>want to say about Alexi and Yelena? You should take
<v Speaker 1>a break here. So the next person that we're going
<v Speaker 1>to talk about is one of our faves, Bucky Barnes.
<v Speaker 1>Yay barn to see his handsome face back on the
<v Speaker 1>screen playing one of my favorite characters. Also says a
<v Speaker 1>lot about how fucking Looney Tunes the world is right now.
<v Speaker 1>That honestly, like ten years ago, if you've been like,
<v Speaker 1>he's going to be a congressman, that's crazy, But now
<v Speaker 1>I'm like, you know what, why not? Yeah, an ex assassin,
<v Speaker 1>military public assassin becomes a congressman.
<v Speaker 3>Sure.
<v Speaker 1>I really love that. How we're introduced to him as
<v Speaker 1>a congressman is he has to give that snippet in
<v Speaker 1>that interview. He gets that mic shoved in his face
<v Speaker 1>and he is not good at it. And I liked that,
<v Speaker 1>Like it would have felt fake if he was all
<v Speaker 1>of a sudden, like charismatic and well spoken and like articulate.
<v Speaker 1>He ain't. And I like that it seems like he's
<v Speaker 1>learned like five words that you're supposed to use, Like
<v Speaker 1>he's had some media training where they're like, just use
<v Speaker 1>the words on this list, and those are the only
<v Speaker 1>words he uses, and they're like, you don't have to
<v Speaker 1>use just the words on the list, and he's like, what,
<v Speaker 1>well it's concerning I do like that he's I agree
<v Speaker 1>with you. Clearly, this is new. Clearly he is trying
<v Speaker 1>to figure out how to do this in a different way.
<v Speaker 1>But I also really enjoyed that there were some parts
<v Speaker 1>of the opening of the film where his old tactics
<v Speaker 1>and old behaviors he can he in some ways can't
<v Speaker 1>escape them, and I think that's very, very realistic. I
<v Speaker 1>think that made me feel like, I'm really glad that
<v Speaker 1>they're showing that even though he's done so much work
<v Speaker 1>and he's healed in so many different ways, and he's
<v Speaker 1>still he still has to learn how to how to
<v Speaker 1>engage in the world in a different way. And that's
<v Speaker 1>not something that he's had a lot of experience with.
<v Speaker 1>Not in this way, yeah, not in the light. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>Bucky has always been a shadow operative since World War Two.
<v Speaker 2>He joined World War two and got onto special ops
<v Speaker 2>type teams doing special ops type shit where he's out
<v Speaker 2>doing secret stuff with the Secret Squirrel Club that the
<v Speaker 2>government doesn't talk about, and then he got caught and
<v Speaker 2>turned into a way worse version of that.
<v Speaker 1>Of the most Secret Squirrel, the most.
<v Speaker 2>Squirrel that there ever was for the wrong government.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, for like many many, many, many decades, really.
<v Speaker 2>Really complicated stuff for him to work through and to
<v Speaker 2>feel resourced in this world where Tony probably would have
<v Speaker 2>been better, even Steve wasn't good at this.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, Pepper would have been a good congress person. Pepper
<v Speaker 1>would have been great. Yeah, Pepper would have been great.
<v Speaker 1>She would have been reading those packets, baby, she'd have notes.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, Yeah, Tony would be good at the interviews. Pepper
<v Speaker 2>would be good at like the actual job.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, Yeah, Tony would be putting those packets into whatever
<v Speaker 1>version of jet Chat GBT he uses or has created
<v Speaker 1>himself to tell him what he's supposed to know. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>while he's doing something else.
<v Speaker 2>And he still would do it whatever way, because we
<v Speaker 2>saw that go through when he went I'm iron Man.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, but I really like that the movie, like you
<v Speaker 1>were saying, Hannah, it's really he's really well written in
<v Speaker 1>it would have also felt unfair to his character development,
<v Speaker 1>similar to as of what we do not speak black
<v Speaker 1>Widow not black Widow, Scarlet Witch and how they fucked
<v Speaker 1>her shit up from WandaVision to the next movie that
<v Speaker 1>she was in Multiverse of Badness. Yeah, rude, whereas this
<v Speaker 1>one could have done that. Yeah, because when you watch
<v Speaker 1>the trailer, you're like he was in therapy, trying to
<v Speaker 1>be a human being period in the Falcon Winter Soldier,
<v Speaker 1>and now he's a congressman. How I do like that
<v Speaker 1>in the movie, he's not very good at it. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>like they decided that optically, someone decided they were gonna
<v Speaker 1>run him as a congressman, and he got the votes.
<v Speaker 1>But he is not really good at it. He doesn't
<v Speaker 1>know how to do it very well. And like you
<v Speaker 1>were saying, Hannah, he's trying to do the Winter Soldier stuff. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>he's trying to find an in with Mel. He tells,
<v Speaker 1>I do like when he pulls that congressman over the
<v Speaker 1>side of the congress, is like, what the fuck? Like
<v Speaker 1>he's trying to make other the other congress guy like
<v Speaker 1>an avenger with him or something, and the other guy's like,
<v Speaker 1>this is the real world, guy, like send me, catch
<v Speaker 1>me in the corner, catch me in the corner to
<v Speaker 1>be like, I got Mel. She's tactile. Tactile, He's like,
<v Speaker 1>what And I do like that. It shows this like
<v Speaker 1>awkward moment where Bucky is trying to communicate with him
<v Speaker 1>the way that he would with like Steve or Sam
<v Speaker 1>or anyone on that team, how they would deal with
<v Speaker 1>someone like thou, which is they The movie does show
<v Speaker 1>like if that was happening in the real world, he
<v Speaker 1>would look bonkers. And that's when the Congressman responds to him,
<v Speaker 1>is that she's like, the fuck are you talking about?
<v Speaker 1>What are you? What are you talking about? What we're
<v Speaker 1>gonna infiltrate via the assistance, like read the package, bitch,
<v Speaker 1>send me an email, and I'll see you in the
<v Speaker 1>fucking hearing. And Bucky's like, that's not good enough.
<v Speaker 2>Bucky is struggling with trying to be someone isn't. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>Bucky is someone who belongs in the Secret Squirrel Club
<v Speaker 2>doing the real shit, but he also even does that
<v Speaker 2>as kind of an outsider, as the guy that kind
<v Speaker 2>of comes in and does the thing.
<v Speaker 1>Well. He is, as we called him, I think in
<v Speaker 1>one of our last episodes or past episodes, he is
<v Speaker 1>like the stepchild in every situation he's in kind of yep.
<v Speaker 2>But where he's struggling is because now he knows so
<v Speaker 2>much more.
<v Speaker 1>Everything.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that this bullshit that's happening right in front of
<v Speaker 2>him is how the bullshit happens, how all of it happens,
<v Speaker 2>and whatever she's doing is really bad and it's going
<v Speaker 2>to go so bad and it's going to stack bad
<v Speaker 2>upon bad upon bad, and we need to actually do
<v Speaker 2>something about it. Not this decorum bullshit. You can read
<v Speaker 2>all the package you want.
<v Speaker 1>It's yeah, he's not used to the galacial speed that
<v Speaker 1>going through the system. Is well also because he knows
<v Speaker 1>that that's not the actual shit and that she's mocking it. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>m hmm, she's mocking it. Yeah, totally, totally.
<v Speaker 2>These people will sit in committee meetings and say whatever
<v Speaker 2>you want and play the game and deflect and defend
<v Speaker 2>and go, h miss de la la Fontaine.
<v Speaker 1>Were you here at this day? Well, how do you
<v Speaker 1>define date? And how do you find here? Not endless nonsense, truly,
<v Speaker 1>it's just all distraction. But I do think this movie,
<v Speaker 1>what do you guys think of him now being able
<v Speaker 1>to be the de facto leader of something? I know
<v Speaker 1>when because it's like he does get the like we've
<v Speaker 1>talked about corrective experiences like him coming in on the
<v Speaker 1>motorcycle and blowing up the tanks and getting the thunderbolts
<v Speaker 1>even though he's getting them initially for evidence against val
<v Speaker 1>It's allowing him to use his skills as the Winter
<v Speaker 1>Soldier without having to be the Winter Soldier, and getting
<v Speaker 1>to use them in a more heroic way on his
<v Speaker 1>own in some ways, on his own terms, because even
<v Speaker 1>all this stuff with like endgame and stuff, it was
<v Speaker 1>still kind of like happening to him. Yeah, and this
<v Speaker 1>seems like the first time that we've seen in these
<v Speaker 1>movies where he's choosing to go after something.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, he resigned his role in Congress to go
<v Speaker 2>do that.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Oh yeah, I didn't know that. Well, I guess
<v Speaker 1>I assumed I didn't. I don't think he can come
<v Speaker 1>back from that behavior.
<v Speaker 2>I guess that there's dialogue Valentina says like, wow, congressman,
<v Speaker 2>you her like you made it a month before you
<v Speaker 2>resigned or whatever, Like.
<v Speaker 1>Oh, I think she just I thought she said you
<v Speaker 1>made it a month before fucking it all up. Like
<v Speaker 1>I thought she was just saying, oh, you're here, well
<v Speaker 1>your career is done now.
<v Speaker 2>No, she put in the dialogue that he resigned. Okay,
<v Speaker 2>something along in those science But yeah, she had that
<v Speaker 2>air of your fucking it all up because it's her
<v Speaker 2>world and she's you idiot.
<v Speaker 1>You had to literally do nothing. You got a golden
<v Speaker 1>ticket to like you can't play the game.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, no, you're playing the wrong game. And I'm going
<v Speaker 2>to beat you at this game. And of course she
<v Speaker 2>does for now. But Bucky stepping back into that as
<v Speaker 2>a corrective experience of being able to be the leader
<v Speaker 2>he always was going to be now that he was,
<v Speaker 2>I'm sure he was the neighborhood leader and Bucky getting
<v Speaker 2>the chance to be that guy instead of this assassin
<v Speaker 2>villain and back to this guy that was taken from
<v Speaker 2>him after war was missing an action and god brainwashed,
<v Speaker 2>but he used to be who he always was and
<v Speaker 2>do that on his terms, Like you're saying, yes, that's
<v Speaker 2>a corrective experience, and I think we will see him thrive.
<v Speaker 1>It is interesting that he grows his hair back out,
<v Speaker 1>which is probably fan service. That does feel like fan
<v Speaker 1>service to me, Yeah, because I feel like him cutting
<v Speaker 1>his hair short and fucking the Winter Soldier and keeping
<v Speaker 1>it short is him more like reclaiming himself post Winter Soldier.
<v Speaker 1>But maybe he liked the long hair and he wanted
<v Speaker 1>to have it back on his own terms. I don't know,
<v Speaker 1>who knows.
<v Speaker 2>Maybe yeah, But I like that we get to see
<v Speaker 2>him step up. He was never gonna be the paladin.
<v Speaker 2>He's never gonna be the white Knight. That's not his role.
<v Speaker 2>He's not the face. He's not the one who's committed
<v Speaker 2>to the cause and is That was Steve Buck He's
<v Speaker 2>the one who knows the things. He's the reluctant leader,
<v Speaker 2>like I know the area.
<v Speaker 1>He's he's an antihero, he's a ranger. Yeah, he's not
<v Speaker 1>the one given speeches. No, yeah, yeah, No, that was
<v Speaker 1>stage was Steve. It was always Steve. Steve loved to
<v Speaker 1>speak with his hand and on his hips.
<v Speaker 2>But he's trying to be Steve in honor what Steve.
<v Speaker 1>Asked of him. Yeah, that's true.
<v Speaker 2>When he lets that go and his acts like Bucky,
<v Speaker 2>he escapes out of his existential crisis seeing going, this
<v Speaker 2>is not my jam.
<v Speaker 1>I don't know what to do with this. I can't
<v Speaker 1>create any change of this.
<v Speaker 2>When he says, fuck it, I'm getting on my motorcycle
<v Speaker 2>and going and fucking stuff up and saving these fucking idiots. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>and just solving his problem. I'm not doing this bullshit.
<v Speaker 2>This is bullshit. I've seen this before.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, he needs a compromise because Yeah, him sitting in
<v Speaker 1>the hearing in the beginning and trying to take deep
<v Speaker 1>breaths because he's so frustrated and Nancy. It's like he
<v Speaker 1>went from like one hundred to zero and he needed
<v Speaker 1>to find a more realistic compromise, which I guess he
<v Speaker 1>kind of does in this movie. I feel like he does.
<v Speaker 1>I feel like he's very I feel like we see
<v Speaker 1>him be very comfortable and very sure of himself in
<v Speaker 1>a different way than I feel like we've seen him well.
<v Speaker 1>I think as we see in the post credit scene
<v Speaker 1>when they're like the official Avengers ish copyrighted right, because
<v Speaker 1>Yolena becomes sort of the de facto leader, but he
<v Speaker 1>is sort of mentoring her when she's trying to make
<v Speaker 1>a decision. He's will put it on the screen like
<v Speaker 1>he's like gently guiding her on how to do stuff.
<v Speaker 1>But he's still letting her do it, like he's not
<v Speaker 1>taking it over from her, which is nice. Yeah, because
<v Speaker 1>I don't think he needs that either. He's someone who's
<v Speaker 1>gone through a lot of shit. He's not like Alexi
<v Speaker 1>where his personality is wrapped up in how great he is. Yeah, No,
<v Speaker 1>he's her, Oh that's true.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, they're more like he understands her probably better than
<v Speaker 2>anyone there, because they're pretty similar.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, I mean, definitely true. I mean something we
<v Speaker 1>didn't talk about with Elena is like a big part
<v Speaker 1>of her stuff is not sheer remembers of a horrible
<v Speaker 1>thing she's done. Which also he has the same experience too.
<v Speaker 1>They both remember every bad thing they've done. Yeah, as assassins.
<v Speaker 1>As it turns out, we don't tend to forget a
<v Speaker 1>whole lot. I don't think I have anything else to
<v Speaker 1>say about Bucky anyone else. Nope, sounds like we should
<v Speaker 1>take a break here. We'll come back and talk about
<v Speaker 1>John Walker. So part of the reason why I put
<v Speaker 1>John Walker on the list was just because I just
<v Speaker 1>wanted to touch on the fact that he's still in it.
<v Speaker 1>He's still kind of in his shit. He is still
<v Speaker 1>not really being honest with people around him about what
<v Speaker 1>his life is like. He is kind of still stuck
<v Speaker 1>in this. I have all the answers, I have all
<v Speaker 1>the strength. I can just do it myself. Yeah, he
<v Speaker 1>is so in his ego. Yeah, that's the chill way
<v Speaker 1>to put it. But not like even a narciss stick away.
<v Speaker 1>He's just his ego has him by the neck where well, one,
<v Speaker 1>I guess I just want to say I love how
<v Speaker 1>they portray him in this movie in that it's like
<v Speaker 1>some guy you knew from college got the serum. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>like just like an amplified version of that guy. You
<v Speaker 1>know'd be like that guy. And when I say, Ego
<v Speaker 1>is killing him, like the flashback, well this is not flashback,
<v Speaker 1>but the void scene he has is he's supposed to
<v Speaker 1>be watching his kid and he can't get off his
<v Speaker 1>phone looking at think pieces about him. He is stuck.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, he is similar to Bucky in that he is
<v Speaker 2>used to just getting in there and doing the stuff
<v Speaker 2>and being the best and being the most skilled.
<v Speaker 1>But he's now entered a world where he can't ever
<v Speaker 1>be any of that.
<v Speaker 2>And he's got the serum now which helps him be
<v Speaker 2>some of that, but he has not learned to not
<v Speaker 2>be a douche.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I mean he You're right, like he I'm sure
<v Speaker 1>was golden star boy. I mean that's why he got
<v Speaker 1>chosen right to be Captain America. Absolutely was the Golden Boy,
<v Speaker 1>and he fucked up so fucking royally. I don't know
<v Speaker 1>how you can do it worse than decapitating a person
<v Speaker 1>with the shield in broad fucking daylight. Yeah, in front
<v Speaker 1>of a bajillion people, and then get fucked over by
<v Speaker 1>the organization. Like that speech he gives in the show
<v Speaker 1>when he has to go testify or whatever. He's in it.
<v Speaker 1>It's been a while since I've watched it. He's in
<v Speaker 1>his like uniform. Yeah, he's like, you fucking do this
<v Speaker 1>to me. He's not wrong. It's like the guy that
<v Speaker 1>peaked in the high school got the serum, and so
<v Speaker 1>that part just gets amplified.
<v Speaker 2>It's that energy multiplied by Yeah, went to West Point,
<v Speaker 2>which is among the hardest colleges to get into in
<v Speaker 2>the nation, became an officer, and is he is a
<v Speaker 2>metal of honor?
<v Speaker 1>Right, Yeah, because he's wearing that and you're talking sure, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>I'm sure.
<v Speaker 2>Not only did he do all the things in high school,
<v Speaker 2>but he kept doing that.
<v Speaker 1>He just kept succeeding. He kept succeeding it like the
<v Speaker 1>hardest wall and then fell off a cliff and then drowned.
<v Speaker 2>Well, because he ventured into the realm of gods.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, he he got too big for his breeches
<v Speaker 1>and then he took this serum.
<v Speaker 2>He well, he wasn't too big for his breeches. The
<v Speaker 2>problem was he they wanted him to join these gods. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>that's true, where he could compete in the realm of
<v Speaker 2>mortals as a you know, god among men and Achilles type, right. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>but then all of a sudden he's up against Thor
<v Speaker 2>or Steve.
<v Speaker 1>Which we do see in real life when someone is
<v Speaker 1>really popular or successful in a small version of whatever
<v Speaker 1>they're doing, like they fish, little pawnshit.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that's where he's at because he's become the big
<v Speaker 2>fish in each of these ponds that he's been. He's
<v Speaker 2>always been too big for something until he started venturing
<v Speaker 2>into this realm of the Avengers where these people are
<v Speaker 2>boosted to levels that he can't compete with. So he
<v Speaker 2>gets so jealous and angry and stuck that all his
<v Speaker 2>trauma from all the things that he dealt with start
<v Speaker 2>impacting him, and his ability to regulate, a control and
<v Speaker 2>be that completely restricted, focused person he is got taken
<v Speaker 2>from him, ripped, and now he has no armor to
<v Speaker 2>deal with all his wounds.
<v Speaker 1>Bad combo. And then I'm sure the stuff with his
<v Speaker 1>home life, well, when he's stuck, like we said, but
<v Speaker 1>also to have had a kid at that moment, you
<v Speaker 1>know what I mean, where he's just not available, and
<v Speaker 1>then she probably just wants him to show up as
<v Speaker 1>a partner, and I'm sure he wants understanding from her
<v Speaker 1>about where he's at, but there's not time or room
<v Speaker 1>for that because they just had a kid. So it's
<v Speaker 1>this horrible situation.
<v Speaker 2>Right, And the thing that is usually true about that
<v Speaker 2>guy is that he's usually kind of a prick m hmm.
<v Speaker 2>And Walker is clearly ugh an intolerable, self aggrandizing prick.
<v Speaker 2>But now others aren't seeing him that way, in the
<v Speaker 2>way that he's used to seeing them and used to
<v Speaker 2>running his shit, and now none of it works. So
<v Speaker 2>it becomes his deep seated need for that to work again,
<v Speaker 2>and he just keeps trying to prove it. Prove it,
<v Speaker 2>prove it, prove it, prove it, prove it by going, fine,
<v Speaker 2>I can't trust any of you, none of you will
<v Speaker 2>get it done. I'll just do it myself and fuck
<v Speaker 2>it all up.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, he can't shut the fuck he can't. Oh my god,
<v Speaker 1>Like when they're in that tower, well, well no, when
<v Speaker 1>they're in the elevator shaft and he does that thing
<v Speaker 1>that could have killed them, But he's like, but it
<v Speaker 1>we're done, it's like up. But that's such a good
<v Speaker 1>example of that. Oh that'd be the high school guy. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>see it worked out, it was fine, the big deal.
<v Speaker 1>But did you die? Yeah, exactly. Something that I wrote
<v Speaker 1>down about about John is that he can't be honest
<v Speaker 1>with himself yet. Oh hell no, he's not in a
<v Speaker 1>place where that's even something that he can think about.
<v Speaker 1>He's so stuck in the narrative that's been created about
<v Speaker 1>him to the world that he can't He just can't
<v Speaker 1>fucking see out. And so a person like him can't
<v Speaker 1>get help because they won't admit getting to themselves that
<v Speaker 1>they need help. Yeah. Like John Walker would have to
<v Speaker 1>be mandated to.
<v Speaker 2>Treatment and he still wouldn't be honest, and he still.
<v Speaker 1>Wouldn't be honest. He'd be like, so you're telling that
<v Speaker 1>your wife? Well, I mean, I mean it's just finally
<v Speaker 1>like he would just like Spinner, like you would just
<v Speaker 1>be chasing him around. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>I think the only one who really clocks him is Ava,
<v Speaker 2>and just because she does not give off fuck who
<v Speaker 2>he is.
<v Speaker 1>He hates when he's in that scene in the beginning
<v Speaker 1>when he's trying to be like the big Biggahona in
<v Speaker 1>the room when they're trying to escape, and like Ava
<v Speaker 1>and Yolena like just laugh in his face.
<v Speaker 2>Ohyeba particularly doesn't give a fuck because she's British and
<v Speaker 2>she can literally walk through walls. Can she just does
<v Speaker 2>not care about anything that he's saying, Like whatever you're
<v Speaker 2>talking about, I I don't.
<v Speaker 1>Have time for him, Like is that gonna help us
<v Speaker 1>get out of here? No, so shut up. Even that moment,
<v Speaker 1>that kind of odd moment in the movie where he
<v Speaker 1>points out this cactus they can eat. It's a weird moment,
<v Speaker 1>but I could I see that though from this as
<v Speaker 1>we're talking about him, like that is a moment where
<v Speaker 1>the story is showing us like he has to show
<v Speaker 1>his worth all the time. Yeah I know this thing,
<v Speaker 1>Yeah you can eat it. Aren't you happy? Aren't like
<v Speaker 1>you're welcome? Then he has to immediately correct one of
<v Speaker 1>them right after about doctor Phil. It's like, shut up up.
<v Speaker 1>He cannot shut the book up. And it's so interesting
<v Speaker 1>how once they find out that his wife and his
<v Speaker 1>kid left him, that that takes all the wind out
<v Speaker 1>of his sails, and like he stops, he kind of
<v Speaker 1>stops being a prick he stops being much of anything. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>he kind of just shuts the fuck down and is like, Okay,
<v Speaker 1>well now everyone knows like my dirty secret, and I
<v Speaker 1>can't really live in the reality where that's true.
<v Speaker 2>Right, Because John is the Pelatin. He's the Pelatin. He's
<v Speaker 2>the white Knight who's committed. And he fell.
<v Speaker 1>He fell.
<v Speaker 2>He is now an oath breaker. He broke the promises
<v Speaker 2>in the most public way. He became this symbol. He
<v Speaker 2>became everything.
<v Speaker 1>Like, that's his worst namemare is the think pieces he's reading.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, truly, And why he struggles so hard is because
<v Speaker 2>his identity is formed around being the opposite of that.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. And he lost his best friend, his wife's left him,
<v Speaker 1>his best friend's dead. Yeah, that's also true. He is
<v Speaker 1>nothing grounding star or something wasn't his battle star.
<v Speaker 2>It's an interesting dynamic to watch.
<v Speaker 1>John is.
<v Speaker 2>Closest to Alexi for but.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, totally, yeah, at vastly different points of acceptance
<v Speaker 1>of it, because Alexi's government like crumbled. Well, here's the thing.
<v Speaker 1>Steve is an anomaly. Steve is this shiny miracle person, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>who just happens to be innately good. And the serum
<v Speaker 1>makes me even better, Whereas I think Walker and Alexi
<v Speaker 1>are what an actual real life version of Captain America is. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>like a shiny guy who's too wrapped up in being
<v Speaker 1>shiny and doesn't know how to be anyone but shiny.
<v Speaker 2>But will eventually fail because the demands are too great. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>and the things that are propping you up the world
<v Speaker 2>will find a way to crack them and knock them
<v Speaker 2>out from under you. Only Steve could have stood up
<v Speaker 2>through that, because that's why he's Steve, and you can
<v Speaker 2>give a.
<v Speaker 1>Shit about that stuff, Like during like the nomad years,
<v Speaker 1>he went off the grid, yeah and did his own thing,
<v Speaker 1>Like he's not worried about how he's perceived. The way
<v Speaker 1>that these two guys are driven by the way they're perceived, right,
<v Speaker 1>which also is probably just a side effect or consequence
<v Speaker 1>of the fact that, like, Steve was a little guy,
<v Speaker 1>you know, a puny little guy before he got the serum,
<v Speaker 1>so his identity had nothing to do with that.
<v Speaker 2>Stuff, correct, Whereas Walker was quick to tell us that
<v Speaker 2>he was a three time All American quarterback.
<v Speaker 1>Whatever he was. They start all telling stories from their childhoods.
<v Speaker 1>They're like, oh, okay, so we're all telling each other
<v Speaker 1>about the sports who played his kids, which I thought
<v Speaker 1>was such a good retort. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>Same, But it's clear where his identity. He is very
<v Speaker 2>much a fallen palette and that's what he is, Like
<v Speaker 2>I was all of these things and I want it
<v Speaker 2>all back, and it's it's gone. Whereas you know, you
<v Speaker 2>look at all the anger and things that he shows.
<v Speaker 2>You see Alexei who is just embraced that he's your
<v Speaker 2>barbarian FYI that he just goes, Yeah, I just get
<v Speaker 2>really mad and start breaking shit. That's my thing. Once
<v Speaker 2>we hit that point that it's time for that to happen,
<v Speaker 2>I'm your man, Like you need somebody to do the
<v Speaker 2>dumb strong thing, got it in a tracksuit.
<v Speaker 1>What I love about this movie is how well written
<v Speaker 1>all the characters are and realistic because at the end
<v Speaker 1>of the movie, he's still this guy. Yeah, like when
<v Speaker 1>he's then we're in that barret. I can't remember exactly
<v Speaker 1>what it says, but he still said something where I
<v Speaker 1>was like, shut the fuck up, Like he's still that
<v Speaker 1>guy that if you were bopping around the Adventures Tower
<v Speaker 1>and he was the only one in the room, I'd
<v Speaker 1>be like, oh before he noticed me and then they'll
<v Speaker 1>come back later, right, he is your best fighter.
<v Speaker 2>He is your best fighter, there's no question.
<v Speaker 1>But I'm trying to hear him talk.
<v Speaker 2>He has no charisma, and he keeps trying to have
<v Speaker 2>the charisma and be like, Oh.
<v Speaker 1>There's nothing worse than a guy who thinks he's charming
<v Speaker 1>who isn't, especially if they're conventionally attractive. Oh, and it
<v Speaker 1>is kind of why A Russell plays him so well. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>he really does. And I'm like, I wonder if his
<v Speaker 1>experience as being Kurt Russell's son, being around probably guys
<v Speaker 1>like this his whole life, and just being this guy
<v Speaker 1>like too. He's so good at being this guy that
<v Speaker 1>I want to punch him in the Free book. It's
<v Speaker 1>like he's it's so well done. Here's a professional hockey player.
<v Speaker 1>Oh okay, there you go. So yes, oh yeah, before
<v Speaker 1>he got injured and then he became an actor. So
<v Speaker 1>so he's been around a lot of this guy. He's
<v Speaker 1>been this guy. Yeah, that's true.
<v Speaker 2>I almost guarantee he's been this guy, except that he
<v Speaker 2>had some substantial Hollywood pull to have another career. But
<v Speaker 2>the number of guys that he's channeling that would have
<v Speaker 2>been that guy that.
<v Speaker 1>Make the NHL.
<v Speaker 2>It's a perfect casting because guys that make it to
<v Speaker 2>that point are all that guy somewhere. You think about
<v Speaker 2>the odds of making it to be one of twenty
<v Speaker 2>guys on thirty teams out of all those people whose
<v Speaker 2>parents have been pushing them and going to all those tournaments,
<v Speaker 2>and there's one kid that keeps beating everybody's ass. But
<v Speaker 2>now everybody on the team is that kid, and there's
<v Speaker 2>still guys who are better than you. That's what pro
<v Speaker 2>sports is. These kids who have been kicking everybody's ass
<v Speaker 2>everywhere up and down the field or the ice or
<v Speaker 2>whatever for years, all of a sudden get smaller and
<v Speaker 2>smaller and smaller groups. So they suddenly realize like, oh
<v Speaker 2>there's some very very big fish here, and oh shit,
<v Speaker 2>those in football a cal him like the welcome to
<v Speaker 2>the NFL moment, like oh, I've been I'm an All
<v Speaker 2>American in college and then here comes the all pro
<v Speaker 2>the best of the best, that just kicks the living
<v Speaker 2>shit out of them in the first play, and they.
<v Speaker 1>Go, what just happened?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's he would have seen that. Why Russell would
<v Speaker 2>have seen that, because he lived it. He was that
<v Speaker 2>guy to make it to that room with those guys
<v Speaker 2>and still got his ass beat and then got hurt
<v Speaker 2>and lost it. Think about what that it would all
<v Speaker 2>mean and how well that works itself into John Walker. Yeah, truly,
<v Speaker 2>because now you can't play.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that's a whole other that's a whole other ball.
<v Speaker 1>If we're going to wax, Yeah for sure. But a
<v Speaker 1>guy like Walker, when it comes to therapy and getting
<v Speaker 1>out of this stuck place like truly his own worst enemy,
<v Speaker 1>because what he needs to acknowledge is what's the hardest
<v Speaker 1>for him to admit. It's like he's stuck at the
<v Speaker 1>start point.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, the thing he has to acknowledge first is that
<v Speaker 2>he's fallible.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, yes, yes, the end, And that's that's all I not.
<v Speaker 1>That's tough stuff. It is because I think Alexi knows
<v Speaker 1>he's a piece of shit, yeah, and probably would say
<v Speaker 1>every once in a while, I know a piece of shit,
<v Speaker 1>you know what I mean? But I think Walker would
<v Speaker 1>be like, I'm not a pizzait until his like head exploded. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>basically airs heart all the rest.
<v Speaker 2>You just keep sucking and fucking out all the plans
<v Speaker 2>that I would have You guys didn't fuck up everything
<v Speaker 2>that I did, it'd be fine.
<v Speaker 1>He's the kind of guy, well you can't get drunk anymore.
<v Speaker 1>He's got the serum because he's the kind of guy
<v Speaker 1>that would get ship faced on like Thanksgiving Eve and
<v Speaker 1>be like, I know him, a piece of shit, my
<v Speaker 1>wife looking eats me like and then he'd finally have feelings,
<v Speaker 1>but the next day he'd be like, I blacked outlaws
<v Speaker 1>and I brough. I don't even know what we're talking about. Yeah, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>anything more I want to say about I don't think so.
<v Speaker 1>I think that's it. I think we should take another
<v Speaker 1>break here. And now we're going to very briefly talk
<v Speaker 1>about the character known as Ghost, but her real name
<v Speaker 1>is Ava. Mostly just what I wanted to say about
<v Speaker 1>her is I barely remember her from the other movie
<v Speaker 1>she was in the character, and I think one of
<v Speaker 1>the reasons why she fits in the group is because
<v Speaker 1>she's had some very similar experiences to Bucky, Elena, and
<v Speaker 1>maybe even kind of John.
<v Speaker 3>Well.
<v Speaker 1>She's in the situation where the people that we're supposed
<v Speaker 1>to because her dad, right, the people that were supposed
<v Speaker 1>to take care of her. I know her a little
<v Speaker 1>about her story, but people are supposed to take care
<v Speaker 1>of her are the ones who experimented on her.
<v Speaker 2>You'd have to watch the I think second least popular
<v Speaker 2>movies she I think she was only an ant man
<v Speaker 2>in The Wasp.
<v Speaker 1>Oh, I don't think I saw that one, which I
<v Speaker 1>don't know who she is.
<v Speaker 2>I don't think she's this movie. I don't even think
<v Speaker 2>she was in Quantum Mania. Oh, okay, because Yellowjacket was
<v Speaker 2>the villain in the first one.
<v Speaker 1>Haven't seen that one either. Yeah, Man and man it's funny.
<v Speaker 1>It's yeah, I don't find it Aman that funny. Me
<v Speaker 1>neither A man's funny. I was surprised. Amen's not for me.
<v Speaker 1>That's a better way to say. I probably it's it's
<v Speaker 1>Paul Rudd being Paul Rudd. Yeah. So mostly, just what
<v Speaker 1>I wanted to say is that she fits in the
<v Speaker 1>group easily because she's had similar experiences. And that's a
<v Speaker 1>part of why, even though she seems like a weird
<v Speaker 1>character to bring in in some ways that I think
<v Speaker 1>it works that she gets it and I think she's
<v Speaker 1>someone that'll keep fitting into the story too. Yeah, as
<v Speaker 1>part of the Avengers, I'm interested to see where she'll
<v Speaker 1>go and develop as a character. I'm glad we touch
<v Speaker 1>upon her. But yeah, she is a character that just
<v Speaker 1>kind of plays the tough in a lot of ways. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>And so we don't get a lot of introspection into her, Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>even though she is in the whole movie.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, she's She's the one who's acknowledging fully how fucking
<v Speaker 2>weird her life is and how different she is, and
<v Speaker 2>is sort of something I think the others start to
<v Speaker 2>look up to. She's embracing what makes her so strange
<v Speaker 2>because she needs her suit to keep herself, like her
<v Speaker 2>entire body together, Otherwise her cells will break apart and
<v Speaker 2>she'll just dissipate into nothing. That's kind of her curse.
<v Speaker 2>That suit that she's in keeps her body together. Something
<v Speaker 2>went wrong with her the pin particles for her. So
<v Speaker 2>if she loses that suit, that's why the sound destabilizes
<v Speaker 2>her so much, because it, yess not good.
<v Speaker 3>Yes.
<v Speaker 2>So she's simultaneously the most comfortable with herself and the
<v Speaker 2>most vulnerable.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, which also I think could be a metaphor for
<v Speaker 1>the fact that she's also the only person of color
<v Speaker 1>right on the team, Yeah, which I think could. I
<v Speaker 1>don't know if that means anything in the casting or
<v Speaker 1>the storytelling, but that she's the least relying on them,
<v Speaker 1>she's the most like, I'm gonna do my own thing,
<v Speaker 1>and you're right, like she's the most guarded. Understandably so,
<v Speaker 1>and also because yeah, she is the strangest in terms
<v Speaker 1>of her abilities, Like she can't really hide them the
<v Speaker 1>way that everyone else could. She can't pass as a
<v Speaker 1>regular person.
<v Speaker 2>Nope, but she can be invisible.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, which is so. I mean, I'm glad they all
<v Speaker 1>have each other. Now, I know me too.
<v Speaker 2>You have the opportunity to dunk on that, Brittany. Oh no,
<v Speaker 2>you're going through like recognizing you have an actor of color. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>who can be invisible vanish?
<v Speaker 1>Oh, to take the metaphor further in that, the only
<v Speaker 1>way she's safest is to go unnoticed. Oh oh okay,
<v Speaker 1>it makes sense. That makes sense. Like that's the closest
<v Speaker 1>she can get to passing is become invisible. Yeah, and
<v Speaker 1>stay off the radar. Yeah. Thanks.
<v Speaker 2>But the more she owns herself, the more the serious
<v Speaker 2>problems she can solve.
<v Speaker 1>They would be dead. Oh yeah, many times over. She
<v Speaker 1>really comes and clutch multiple times, which is telling. I think,
<v Speaker 1>not to be corny, but we all want to be
<v Speaker 1>part of a community and so she finally gets this
<v Speaker 1>opportunity to be part of a team, and even though
<v Speaker 1>she wants to pretend like she doesn't want to do that, she.
<v Speaker 3>Keeps showing up she could when she could have.
<v Speaker 1>Just saved her own self, and luckily she doesn't. Luckily
<v Speaker 1>she doesn't get punished for that. With Walker, Yeah, she
<v Speaker 1>raised a lot of pranks on him. That's what I
<v Speaker 1>would do if I was her, I was invisible with
<v Speaker 1>that turnaround. I mean, there's no way with her character that.
<v Speaker 2>At some point he goes to the bathroom and she
<v Speaker 2>just pops up, and it's like wow, even more disappointing
<v Speaker 2>someone like him.
<v Speaker 1>What you do is you move his toothbrush all the time.
<v Speaker 1>You don't do anything to it, but you move it
<v Speaker 1>a lot, so you can't ever trust it, you know,
<v Speaker 1>small things. Just watched him, he'll know he's like slowly
<v Speaker 1>going insane. Yeah, Brush, I think she's too forward for it.
<v Speaker 1>I think she would want him to know was her pick.
<v Speaker 2>That's true, but she also is very dedicated, and she
<v Speaker 2>does go against her instincts to disappear and keeps showing
<v Speaker 2>back up at great risk to herself.
<v Speaker 1>Just pretty impressive.
<v Speaker 2>She must be committed and feeling something for make her
<v Speaker 2>do that, because she could have just hopped in that
<v Speaker 2>truck and been like deuces, drove the truck thirty feet
<v Speaker 2>to where people weren't looking anymore, hopped out and turn
<v Speaker 2>a visible disappear.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, gone into the night, because what this movie is
<v Speaker 1>really about is a bunch of lonely people.
<v Speaker 2>Finding a family. Yeah, because humans are pack animals.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, so I guess on that note, we can take
<v Speaker 1>another break here and talk about Bob. All right, So
<v Speaker 1>Bob slash the century century Void Central three all three,
<v Speaker 1>all three, I would say, our boy Bob, which we
<v Speaker 1>haven't even referenced Bob yet, which is kind of wild
<v Speaker 1>because he is the main antagonist. Ish, Yeah, Valentina is
<v Speaker 1>the main antagonist. But yeah, like Bob is just I mean,
<v Speaker 1>I guess he is bipolar disorder. They do have the
<v Speaker 1>job of the movie I think of never officially giving
<v Speaker 1>him any diagnosis, maybe out of caution, but they describe bipolar.
<v Speaker 1>They do describe bipolar. But I think that he has
<v Speaker 1>complex PTSD mm hmm with psychotic features.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, and he formed some pretty significant parts.
<v Speaker 1>Well yeah, he definitely dissociates. Like they do make a
<v Speaker 1>point of he loses time for his things.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I don't think they Yes, they correct. They reference
<v Speaker 2>things that could very well point to a polar disorder,
<v Speaker 2>with being dichotomous and having kind of different versions of himself.
<v Speaker 2>But I think the more we learn about his history,
<v Speaker 2>the more it makes sense that we're looking at complex
<v Speaker 2>PTSD or dissociative identity disorder, then we're looking at bipolar disorder.
<v Speaker 1>He may have both. I think the only thing that
<v Speaker 1>makes me still think about bipolar is the delusions of
<v Speaker 1>grandeur that gets talked about pretty on the nose.
<v Speaker 2>I think he has more than one or diagnostic thing
<v Speaker 2>going on. Something is causing those delusions of grandeur. But
<v Speaker 2>also we see quite clearly that he would have had
<v Speaker 2>to create alternate worlds to survive the one he was in,
<v Speaker 2>much like Moonnight does.
<v Speaker 3>And even though that was a bit flawed, hugely flawed,
<v Speaker 3>hugely anyway, go on looking.
<v Speaker 2>At the uh looking at there. The diagnosive picture of
<v Speaker 2>Bob is that it's I think it's deliberately unclear.
<v Speaker 1>As to what it is. I think they did that
<v Speaker 1>on purpose.
<v Speaker 2>Because they don't want to stigmatize something that's real. But yes,
<v Speaker 2>you see this investment in an identity of version that
<v Speaker 2>just wants to be good enough. He just wants to
<v Speaker 2>be happy, and he takes to that like he does
<v Speaker 2>a drug.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, because I guess we can say like Bob's introduced
<v Speaker 1>as just a regular guy ish who's down on his
<v Speaker 1>luck or has had really trouble being a functioning adult
<v Speaker 1>due to mental health symptoms at which lead to drug.
<v Speaker 2>But the deeper we go, the more we learn the
<v Speaker 2>layers and depths of his trauma and that those things
<v Speaker 2>were formed by things hurting him, yes, and him perpetually
<v Speaker 2>not having his needs met, which, to Hannah's point, is
<v Speaker 2>house hep just deforms. I don't think bipolar would remotely
<v Speaker 2>cover it alone. Is it there and depicted?
<v Speaker 1>Sure?
<v Speaker 2>But I would take some serious convincing.
<v Speaker 1>To believe in that one. Yeah, because they think they
<v Speaker 1>do that thing we've talked about on the show many times,
<v Speaker 1>which is they give him kind of he gets kind
<v Speaker 1>of like mental health soup diagnosings, like symptoms where they
<v Speaker 1>talk about high highs and low lows and illusion of grandeur,
<v Speaker 1>but then also dissociation and this trauma piece. It's this
<v Speaker 1>kind of yeah, like a gaggle of symptoms where if
<v Speaker 1>he's like a real life person. He'd be someone that
<v Speaker 1>you'd have to like work with for a while to
<v Speaker 1>kind of get real sense of like what's happening where
<v Speaker 1>and from what? Yeah?
<v Speaker 2>Right, And working with people's cphisd is like that, because
<v Speaker 2>what it was is attachment trauma that formed by their
<v Speaker 2>knees not getting met repeatedly, which led to the drug
<v Speaker 2>use to escape the feelings created by the chronic abuse
<v Speaker 2>and feeling of being trapped and stuck, which led to
<v Speaker 2>more traumatic experiences, which led to more negative self identity,
<v Speaker 2>which leads to more parts forming to tolerate them, but
<v Speaker 2>the other parts that formed in the first place still existing,
<v Speaker 2>and eventually they collide and crash, and this person feels
<v Speaker 2>like they let themselves down all the time and don't
<v Speaker 2>even trust themselves. Working with someone like Bob, you're gonna
<v Speaker 2>get that. And it was acted beautifully.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. And then also with considering the fact that he
<v Speaker 1>was doing drugs like meth, which are not a joke,
<v Speaker 1>that would also influence your diagnostic assessment of him him
<v Speaker 1>Like when he's talking about this mood stuff, how much
<v Speaker 1>is this correlating to substance use? What is he actually
<v Speaker 1>experiencing when he's clean, has he been clean long enough
<v Speaker 1>to know, like, is his mood happening regardless of substance
<v Speaker 1>use or in like correlation with substance use, Like it's
<v Speaker 1>a lot of stuff you have, Yeah, yeah, like a
<v Speaker 1>lot of stuff you'd have to peace out.
<v Speaker 2>It takes a long time to get a clear diagnostic
<v Speaker 2>picture and something.
<v Speaker 1>Like Bob, Yeah, for sure, because of the presentation, it's
<v Speaker 1>so layered. It's just a layered experience, and depending on
<v Speaker 1>whatever his symptoms are at the time, is kind of
<v Speaker 1>what you have to go with until you find out
<v Speaker 1>more about him. He's until he's able to open up
<v Speaker 1>more doors for you, which could take some time, and
<v Speaker 1>you never know what's room you're going to get. Yeah, well,
<v Speaker 1>if him is also this x factor of being a
<v Speaker 1>labrata that's given these crazy powers and how much I
<v Speaker 1>don't even know how much that could eventually be influencing
<v Speaker 1>his psychology too, like his literal brain immensely truly, and
<v Speaker 1>how it might be blowing up these characteristics of what
<v Speaker 1>he's doing, which obviously does because that's the point of
<v Speaker 1>this movie, yes, is that he brings everybody into the
<v Speaker 1>how his brain's been pieced.
<v Speaker 2>Up when you can't factor out Valentina correctly clocking him.
<v Speaker 1>Ugh, she's such she's so disgusting. Buckle up, kids, I'm
<v Speaker 1>about to use this word. She is such a cunt.
<v Speaker 1>And I don't use that word a lot professionally, truly.
<v Speaker 1>But the scene, maybe that's not the DSM being a cunt.
<v Speaker 1>Maybe for Valentino we would create it. But the scene
<v Speaker 1>where she is putting on that shawl or thing so
<v Speaker 1>that she can look more maternal, so she can fuck
<v Speaker 1>with him. Oh, never been so pissed off at a
<v Speaker 1>character in one of these movies.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, Yeah, that's where you get the ick, because she
<v Speaker 2>knew exactly what to do to bring sentry out of him.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>I don't think she knew about the void, no, but
<v Speaker 2>she knew she had either wimpy little like I'm just bob,
<v Speaker 2>I'm here, which isn't that useful to her, but a
<v Speaker 2>good boy that now, that's very useful, A good boy
<v Speaker 2>who's a god, very very useful.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and her and her hubris to think that she
<v Speaker 1>could contain that, and that if she couldn't, she could
<v Speaker 1>easily neuter it.
<v Speaker 2>Of course, because she's Amanda Waller. This is a very
<v Speaker 2>very obvious Marvel rip of I mean, they do it
<v Speaker 2>to each other all the time, but this is a
<v Speaker 2>very obvious Marvel rip of Suicide Squad.
<v Speaker 1>Better than those movies, way better. Those movies are absolute garbage.
<v Speaker 1>The second one hilarious. I'm not a James Gun. I'm
<v Speaker 1>not a James Gun Gurley. Yeah, so yeah, it was
<v Speaker 1>neither of was this is what I wanted Suicide Squad
<v Speaker 1>to be. Yeah, this movie.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and when you encounter them, that's typically what they are,
<v Speaker 2>not this emotionally intelligent. But it's way way better than
<v Speaker 2>that bag of fucking garbage that was the first one.
<v Speaker 1>We won't discuss that as that is.
<v Speaker 2>In the wrong universe for the moment. Yeah enough, the
<v Speaker 2>Batsman universe as it were. Ye, but that one was
<v Speaker 2>pure trash. The second one was mostly the lampoon the
<v Speaker 2>living fuck out of the first one. Mm hmm, And
<v Speaker 2>it was much better. But then it was randomly a
<v Speaker 2>Kaiju movie, which is where it lost me of going
<v Speaker 2>like why. I think the answer to it was because, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>where this one was on a set mission the whole
<v Speaker 2>time to be an emotionally intelligent film and tell a
<v Speaker 2>story that corrects a bunch of bullshit in a narrative.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, really well, in opposition to what you just said,
<v Speaker 1>a Kaiju movie, this movie is purposely small, right. The villain,
<v Speaker 1>the quote unquote villain is like small in context, and
<v Speaker 1>the way that it gets resolved is like a very grounded,
<v Speaker 1>contained thing. There isn't a goofy villain starfish or like
<v Speaker 1>even in that New Captain America, that dude with that
<v Speaker 1>brain head. Yeah, you know what I mean, Like, there
<v Speaker 1>wasn't anything like that. Like even the way that void
<v Speaker 1>is shown was so cool and eerie. Yeah, just being
<v Speaker 1>like blackness, like true nothingness, except for like his eyes
<v Speaker 1>and some names his teeth. Yeah, because really what the
<v Speaker 1>void is a shame and hopelessness. It is like depression
<v Speaker 1>personified and just sucking up everything, which is the how
<v Speaker 1>the like we were saying in the beginning, Yolena talks
<v Speaker 1>about the void and that's how she describes the depression
<v Speaker 1>that she's going through as a result of her trauma.
<v Speaker 1>And then she links up with Bob, that's what they
<v Speaker 1>have in common, that's where she finds connection with him.
<v Speaker 1>And so this is just also a personification of what
<v Speaker 1>if your sad as the lowest point became literally your
<v Speaker 1>not only your identity, but a like super villain. What
<v Speaker 1>if it was empowered? What if it won? And how
<v Speaker 1>it and the idea that it just pulls everyone in
<v Speaker 1>is when we talk about like suicidality, that what's the
<v Speaker 1>point of being here, Let's just go away and why
<v Speaker 1>are we even trying? Just like true hopelessness, and also
<v Speaker 1>may be feeling like doing everybody a favor by just
<v Speaker 1>push pushing them out of existence and not realizing that.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, obviously they weren't push out of existence. They
<v Speaker 1>were blasted into his void space to live all the
<v Speaker 1>worst memories out. But it truly is like mental health personified.
<v Speaker 2>Which is what made it so incredibly powerful and effective,
<v Speaker 2>is that we all know we all have rooms inside
<v Speaker 2>of our heads where things live, and some of them
<v Speaker 2>we have access to and some of them we do not.
<v Speaker 2>But there are things that can come forth into the
<v Speaker 2>world and find them for you.
<v Speaker 1>Well, what did you guys think about the Rooms? I
<v Speaker 1>thought the rooms were such a cool visualization of trauma.
<v Speaker 1>I really thought that it was a very good example
<v Speaker 1>of what people who have a lot of trauma experience.
<v Speaker 1>It's often replaying the worst moments of their life. It
<v Speaker 1>is often experiencing the same scenario. It is often a
<v Speaker 1>recurring nightmare that they've had for most of their life
<v Speaker 1>in some kind of way. And so I really felt
<v Speaker 1>like the way that they showed how all of the
<v Speaker 1>energy in each room was kind of set up really
<v Speaker 1>shows that that's really what it feels like for people
<v Speaker 1>who have experienced that many traumatic things. And so I
<v Speaker 1>thought it was a really beautiful way to show not
<v Speaker 1>only what someone's experience can be like, but also how
<v Speaker 1>there's just a door that just opens and now you're
<v Speaker 1>in it and people can get and that's a part
<v Speaker 1>of why people lose time and experience dissociative identity disorder.
<v Speaker 1>That's a part of why people are so disconnected from
<v Speaker 1>themselves or whatever the case might be. Like, I thought
<v Speaker 1>it did a really good job of showing also how
<v Speaker 1>real and how vivid those traumatic experiences are, Yeah, if
<v Speaker 1>that makes sense. And we see it most with Yolena
<v Speaker 1>because she's the one that actually she's the one that
<v Speaker 1>we follow even more than Bob, Yeah, through those memories
<v Speaker 1>and how she is trying to do something sweet, which
<v Speaker 1>is be compassionate to her younger self, like the scene
<v Speaker 1>where she holds her younger self's ears. I really love
<v Speaker 1>that scene and how much she's thinking about, like, I
<v Speaker 1>don't want you'd have to go through. This is such
<v Speaker 1>a therapeutic, yeah, thing that she does taking care of
<v Speaker 1>your little self, which.
<v Speaker 2>Is really beautifully done. And I think the only thing
<v Speaker 2>I would build on to where Hannah was going with
<v Speaker 2>this because it's all right, is that the idea of
<v Speaker 2>there being a what EMDR calls a touchstone. All the
<v Speaker 2>rooms for Bob connect back to that floor beneath Bob
<v Speaker 2>says sometimes aren't so bad. Yeah, but that one memory
<v Speaker 2>is trying to break through in the dining room or
<v Speaker 2>living room, whatever it is. But yeah, yeah, that one,
<v Speaker 2>that's the one, that's the one.
<v Speaker 1>Well, you can see where it forms a lot of
<v Speaker 1>his core beliefs about himself, like where his mom says
<v Speaker 1>you're not a hero, Like no, his dad says you're
<v Speaker 1>not a hero, and then his mom says, you just
<v Speaker 1>make things worse. Yes, when he tries to protect her.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, correct, And watching that spill over into everything, and
<v Speaker 2>even moments where he has glimmers that are the opposite
<v Speaker 2>of that that help him feel like he can do things.
<v Speaker 2>He still operates with the fear underneath that that he
<v Speaker 2>in fact just makes it worse that he is helpless
<v Speaker 2>and he makes it worse. He's not a hero, he's garbage.
<v Speaker 2>That he formed that whole thing, and everything ties back
<v Speaker 2>to that no matter what, because that was real and
<v Speaker 2>you can't convince him that it wasn't real because it was.
<v Speaker 2>And understanding that that is what a touchstone is. That
<v Speaker 2>is its power, that it sits in there, and no
<v Speaker 2>matter what you do, every fear you have is rooted
<v Speaker 2>in that because that's the real fear, which.
<v Speaker 1>Is then makes sense when you think back on the
<v Speaker 1>first scenes of the movie, before we know really anything
<v Speaker 1>about him, how he keeps volunteering to be left behind
<v Speaker 1>and like I'll just get in the way. You should
<v Speaker 1>just leave me, because when we're introduced with his character,
<v Speaker 1>there's nothing we know yet about him where we'd be like,
<v Speaker 1>why would you just like volunteer to get fucked over?
<v Speaker 1>But now that we know, like watching the movie like
<v Speaker 1>a second time, you get all this insight into like, oh,
<v Speaker 1>because this is this is where his core beliefs are
<v Speaker 1>just coming up to the front, and not just his
<v Speaker 1>core beliefs.
<v Speaker 2>A proven validated experience by many things, proving it correct
<v Speaker 2>because the filter he has on it ties back to that.
<v Speaker 2>So it's the way he sees it. It's that plus awful.
<v Speaker 2>It's really really powerful.
<v Speaker 1>And then unfortunately, in this situation, Yolena keeps validating that
<v Speaker 1>belief because she won't let him help and she's like,
<v Speaker 1>just stay behind me, I'll take care of you, don't
<v Speaker 1>get involved, don't make it worse. And so she's unfortunately
<v Speaker 1>playing into this thing he already feels, even though she's
<v Speaker 1>coming from it. I mean, that's a great example of
<v Speaker 1>how she is communicating something different than what he's probably
<v Speaker 1>hearing because she's just doing that to take care of him.
<v Speaker 1>But also but also is showing how what I really
<v Speaker 1>appreciate about it is that it's also showing how people
<v Speaker 1>can be triggered by activated by so many different things.
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, and that even though you may think that
<v Speaker 1>you're doing something helpful, just like the way John Walker
<v Speaker 1>calls him Bobby, Like, I know, John Walker is just
<v Speaker 1>being an asshole, right because that's we already talked about him,
<v Speaker 1>But that being called that name is a trigger for
<v Speaker 1>him experiencing what you just brought up that I already
<v Speaker 1>forgot somehow helplessness. No, I don't know what it was,
<v Speaker 1>forget it, just that people are triggered by all different
<v Speaker 1>kinds of things. And I think they did a really
<v Speaker 1>good job of showing of us kind of after we
<v Speaker 1>see the core memory that is the time that he
<v Speaker 1>experienced the biggest trauma, I think makes a lot of
<v Speaker 1>I lost my train of thought. I don't know what
<v Speaker 1>the fuck I was trying to say. No, I think
<v Speaker 1>what you're saying is well, Walker triggers him a lot too,
<v Speaker 1>I think also because he has about the energy. But
<v Speaker 1>I feel like it just what I really want to
<v Speaker 1>point out is that you don't really understand how often
<v Speaker 1>people can be activated and really having a little bit
<v Speaker 1>more awareness about how we talk to people and approach them,
<v Speaker 1>and there's so many, so many people have experienced so
<v Speaker 1>much trauma in general. Having some awareness from this film
<v Speaker 1>of seeing how just by being whoever, this guy is
<v Speaker 1>being triggered in multiple ways throughout this throughout the film,
<v Speaker 1>and it makes sense that we see the most angry
<v Speaker 1>version of him in the beginning of the movie in
<v Speaker 1>reaction to John, like John's the only one he kind
<v Speaker 1>of cops an attitude with. Yeah, because John is probably
<v Speaker 1>reminds a lot of his dad. Yeah, and so he's
<v Speaker 1>the only one where he's like, you're a dick and
<v Speaker 1>then like picks a fight with him. Probably what you
<v Speaker 1>could argue is that like the protective part of him. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>you know, because in a lot of ways, you could
<v Speaker 1>argue that the void is that part that thinks it
<v Speaker 1>is helping Bob by keeping his foot on his neck.
<v Speaker 2>It's helping him by not letting him expose himself to pain,
<v Speaker 2>by thinking he's anything more than the voice.
<v Speaker 1>Keep yourself in a box, and you will be miserable,
<v Speaker 1>but safe, things will not get worse. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>It's not there to keep him safe. It's there to
<v Speaker 2>prevent things from getting worse.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. So when I watched movie the first time, I
<v Speaker 1>was nervous because it was doing a pretty good job
<v Speaker 1>up to that point that Bob was going to beat
<v Speaker 1>the bad guy was by literally beating him to death.
<v Speaker 1>And I really loved that the movie didn't end that way,
<v Speaker 1>that it actually went the opposite direction, which is because
<v Speaker 1>as a therapist watching it, I was like, no, no, no,
<v Speaker 1>you can't beat this part of you into submission. You
<v Speaker 1>cannot approach this part of you with hate and anger
<v Speaker 1>and violence, because that is also you. You have to
<v Speaker 1>approach that part of you with love and or let
<v Speaker 1>that part go.
<v Speaker 2>Same reason Batman can't kill the Joker.
<v Speaker 1>Swudzie loves him so much.
<v Speaker 2>Kiss Kiss, Kiss, But it's it was beautifully done that
<v Speaker 2>showing that he can't win that way. He can't because
<v Speaker 2>by proving that he's a piece of shit yep, just
<v Speaker 2>like his dad. Ye, then he proves the Void was
<v Speaker 2>right the whole time, which is why he starts turning
<v Speaker 2>dark and thus completely colorless. As he's beating that, it's
<v Speaker 2>taking him over by going see I told you.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, Like we're repeating the cycle, and and how that
<v Speaker 1>just adds to the shame and it creates that stuck place.
<v Speaker 2>The Void tries to tempt him into being self validating.
<v Speaker 2>I am right, You're a piece of shit. Stop fighting
<v Speaker 2>against it. Just accept it, and things will be better
<v Speaker 2>because they'll be consistent. You'll just be the consistency of shit,
<v Speaker 2>which is what you always were.
<v Speaker 1>I feel like a part of such a big part
<v Speaker 1>of healing from trauma is someone witnessing your pain and
<v Speaker 1>validating and understanding. And I feel like what was so
<v Speaker 1>beautiful about the way that they defeated the void was
<v Speaker 1>by allowing the person to experience the pain that they
<v Speaker 1>needed to and by witnessing it. And that is such
<v Speaker 1>a big part of healing from trauma and such a
<v Speaker 1>real part of healing from trauma. And I felt like
<v Speaker 1>they did such a beautiful job showing that even though
<v Speaker 1>it's really really hard and can be really intense, that
<v Speaker 1>we can get through those experiences well. And also that
<v Speaker 1>even though your void is what's gotten into us into
<v Speaker 1>this mess, we're not punishing you for that. Yeah, Like,
<v Speaker 1>we're not trying to kill Bob so that we can
<v Speaker 1>kill the void. We're embracing literally Bob, so that we
<v Speaker 1>disempower the void, and we let him cry it out
<v Speaker 1>well being held by his friends. We don't reject him
<v Speaker 1>when we were the truth. Yeah, exactly.
<v Speaker 2>We hold you through it and say you are not
<v Speaker 2>that we understand. Look at all the things that made
<v Speaker 2>that happen, that was not you by yourself. Yeah, you
<v Speaker 2>hold some piece of that, but we recognize all the
<v Speaker 2>rest of it in content text that it can't have
<v Speaker 2>been just you being a failure, being a piece of shit,
<v Speaker 2>being something bad that deserves to be bad and beheld
<v Speaker 2>as bad.
<v Speaker 1>Forever.
<v Speaker 2>Elena is the light in this it is the light
<v Speaker 2>that casts out the darkness. It's literally the Martin Luther
<v Speaker 2>King speech. Yeah, activated darkness can't drive out darkness. Only
<v Speaker 2>light can do that. That was the point of Elena
<v Speaker 2>in that scene, to be the light. She is the cleric.
<v Speaker 2>She is the one who is showing love and acceptance,
<v Speaker 2>witnessing the pain but then welcoming him in through it.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. I think it's was a good storytelling too. I mean,
<v Speaker 1>I'm not surprised that Elena was the first one to
<v Speaker 1>hold him because that's been the narrative we've been following
<v Speaker 1>through the movie. I do think it's really cool that
<v Speaker 1>Bucky was the second because, as we were saying, like
<v Speaker 1>Bucky and Yolena, I think are the ones who can
<v Speaker 1>find the most connection to Bob and the void and
<v Speaker 1>that they have also been bad, like done bad things
<v Speaker 1>and want to be forgiven for having done bad things
<v Speaker 1>when they were in a bad situation, and so I
<v Speaker 1>think they are the most able to recognize that it
<v Speaker 1>is happening. And I think the ones that are still
<v Speaker 1>a little farther behind, like Walker and Alexi, they can
<v Speaker 1>get on board because everyone else is doing it, But
<v Speaker 1>I don't know if they would have been the ones
<v Speaker 1>to be able to see to do that. If it
<v Speaker 1>was just the two of them, I think they might
<v Speaker 1>have adopted a little bit too much of the yeah,
<v Speaker 1>we should ground and pound the void like. I think
<v Speaker 1>it's a good sign of like who's of where everyone's
<v Speaker 1>progresses on their journey, of like figuring themselves out.
<v Speaker 2>I think all of that is true, and it makes
<v Speaker 2>me realize that the story we don't have yet as
<v Speaker 2>we were mapping this all out, is who's the foil
<v Speaker 2>to Bob or the complete part to Bob? And by
<v Speaker 2>definition here it has to be Ava. Ava is fractured
<v Speaker 2>and separated from herself, trying to keep herself whole. Bob
<v Speaker 2>is the opposite. He's trying to keep himself fractured. Alexi
<v Speaker 2>and Walker our two little peas in a pod, Bucky
<v Speaker 2>and Yolena.
<v Speaker 1>The two peas, our.
<v Speaker 2>Two little peas in a pod. That means we have
<v Speaker 2>two left out.
<v Speaker 1>It'll be interesting if where they take that in the
<v Speaker 1>next movie.
<v Speaker 2>I'm gonna go ahead and bet my bottom dollar that
<v Speaker 2>she was deliberately kept a little on the outside of this,
<v Speaker 2>because that's what's going to happen in the next one.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, she also has a Bob haircut symbolism in the
<v Speaker 1>aftergross she did also true, and that's also something I
<v Speaker 1>did like a lot too, is that when we're seeing
<v Speaker 1>them like a year later, a little over a year later,
<v Speaker 1>fourteen months, what they said that Bob is still healing.
<v Speaker 1>He is just concentrating on being well, and they're letting
<v Speaker 1>him just concentrate on being well. He just does. He's
<v Speaker 1>just self caring. He just says the dishes, he's doing
<v Speaker 1>his ad ls mm hmmm, and he's reading in the
<v Speaker 1>corner looking out the window in a robe and I
<v Speaker 1>love that. And it's a year over a year later
<v Speaker 1>and he's still doing that. Like, That's something I don't
<v Speaker 1>think we would have seen in an earlier movie of
<v Speaker 1>this kind. Definitely not There would have been more of
<v Speaker 1>a magical like now can be I don't know, super Bob. Yeah, yeah, totally,
<v Speaker 1>especially over a year later.
<v Speaker 2>Come on, you mean like thor four that steaming pile of.
<v Speaker 1>Garbage of which we do not speak, Yeah, yeah, I
<v Speaker 1>think that's really hard at it. Yeah, yeah, but I
<v Speaker 1>think this is a way more realistic version, which is
<v Speaker 1>going to take a long time. Before if Bob can
<v Speaker 1>ever be a superhero because it requires him, Like he
<v Speaker 1>was saying, I have to figure out how to manage
<v Speaker 1>my parts that get activated when I do this stuff.
<v Speaker 1>And he's practicing like humility around that instead of shame,
<v Speaker 1>and it is gonna take time.
<v Speaker 2>You're right, that takes time and healing and self care
<v Speaker 2>and deliberate.
<v Speaker 1>Uh uh.
<v Speaker 2>If I open that box, they both come out.
<v Speaker 1>I think a lot of that must do with the
<v Speaker 1>influence of Yolena and Bucky. I'm sure they're the ones
<v Speaker 1>that are like, Bob's fine. Well. I think Lena even
<v Speaker 1>kind of says that it's fine over there. Don't worry
<v Speaker 1>about him. Yeah, he doesn't need to do anything, whereas
<v Speaker 1>I feel like, well, we do see that with Alexi
<v Speaker 1>and stuff, like they would start pushing him to do
<v Speaker 1>before he could because they're not as emotionally keyed in.
<v Speaker 2>Oh, Walker and Alexi would have him activate.
<v Speaker 1>They'd be like living through him, especially Walker, m we're
<v Speaker 1>gonna be pussy. Come on, it's been like a year.
<v Speaker 1>You'll be fine. Let's just try one vish to see
<v Speaker 1>what happens. That's exactly, and I think Elena and Bucky
<v Speaker 1>they both know like this when you're actually doing it,
<v Speaker 1>it's a long time between knowing what's going on and
<v Speaker 1>actually feeling healed enough from what's going on to be
<v Speaker 1>able to put yourself back in situations that are going
<v Speaker 1>to be really difficult for you. Yeah, because also Bob
<v Speaker 1>doesn't have the experience that Bucky and Elina have of
<v Speaker 1>like living in both those worlds, like he was a
<v Speaker 1>regular shmegular person with a lot of stuff. Yeah, so
<v Speaker 1>he doesn't know how to switch gears either the way
<v Speaker 1>that they do, where they can kind of still do
<v Speaker 1>the same shit while also trying to like heal themselves.
<v Speaker 1>But even that's not necessarily true because Bucky took himself
<v Speaker 1>out of it. Like the all Fouk of the Wentres
<v Speaker 1>Soldier is about is him taking himself out of the
<v Speaker 1>game doing the thing Bob is kind of doing, which
<v Speaker 1>is like just going to be in my apartment, go
<v Speaker 1>to the same bar down the street, have dinner with
<v Speaker 1>that guy, old guy I know, and try to stay
<v Speaker 1>out of trouble and go therapy.
<v Speaker 2>When Steve and Tony had their big fight and had
<v Speaker 2>all this stuff, Civil War is about the Registry and
<v Speaker 2>all that Bucky fucked off and went to a con.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that's true. What he's had many moments of like
<v Speaker 1>going off the grid and having downtime, and so I
<v Speaker 1>think he can recognize the important of that. And I
<v Speaker 1>think Elena respects it too obviously. Yeah. Yeah, she sees
<v Speaker 1>herself in Bob totally hard, totally I think we all do. Yeah. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>well treatment after a break? What about Bob? What about Bob?
<v Speaker 1>I can't fuck that movie is like the secret mascot.
<v Speaker 1>We have tried to do it for two years, and
<v Speaker 1>it's also the movie we talked about since we started
<v Speaker 1>this podcast. It's like our little mascot that we just
<v Speaker 1>will never do. Basically our very last episode about Bob.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah maybe maybe so I'll go first for treatment. So
<v Speaker 1>when I was thinking about treatment, of course, I was
<v Speaker 1>thinking about working with Alexi and Elena. There's a couple.
<v Speaker 1>There's two different things I would want to do with them.
<v Speaker 1>So one thing would be really talking to them about
<v Speaker 1>what kind of relationship they want to have going forward.
<v Speaker 1>Do they want to continue to have like a father
<v Speaker 1>daughter relationship? Do they especially if they're going to be
<v Speaker 1>working together, Like what kind of relationship are we looking
<v Speaker 1>at here for both of them? Because I think they've
<v Speaker 1>never gotten to choose what kind of relationship they were
<v Speaker 1>going to have with each other, and I think it
<v Speaker 1>would be very important to help them come to that conclusion.
<v Speaker 1>I think the other thing that would be really important
<v Speaker 1>to do with them is doing some like in session
<v Speaker 1>in the present time, some kind of activity where they
<v Speaker 1>have to rely on each other. In terms of communication.
<v Speaker 1>There's all different ways to do that. I have a
<v Speaker 1>couple of different things. One example is showing someone a
<v Speaker 1>piece of paper where there is a line errow going
<v Speaker 1>right and an errow going left, and one person having
<v Speaker 1>to describe to the other person where the arrows are
<v Speaker 1>on the paper and what direction they're going in without
<v Speaker 1>I can't remember exactly actually now that i'm thinking of it. Fuck,
<v Speaker 1>and just to see how to or their communication is
<v Speaker 1>so one person will take a turn one time, and
<v Speaker 1>then they'll switch and the other person will have to
<v Speaker 1>do it, and then they'll be able to see how
<v Speaker 1>hard it is to communicate something. And that's how we
<v Speaker 1>help people learn about communication. What it helps is helps
<v Speaker 1>them both knowing that I wish you would have said this,
<v Speaker 1>I wish you would have clarified this. I wish you
<v Speaker 1>would have given more descriptive information, like it's a way
<v Speaker 1>to really simply show how important it is to really
<v Speaker 1>understand what a person is saying to us and to
<v Speaker 1>be able to get it. And so I think that's
<v Speaker 1>something that'd be really helpful for them to learn. So
<v Speaker 1>that's what I would do with Alexi and the Yolena.
<v Speaker 1>I guess if I worked with Yolena, and I think
<v Speaker 1>she's actually getting this with the Avengers. That she's doing
<v Speaker 1>is that she clearly is someone that is very isolated
<v Speaker 1>and bloss when she has people that she can take
<v Speaker 1>care of, and which could also be a product of,
<v Speaker 1>if nothing else, when she was a black widow, she
<v Speaker 1>was always around other peers doing stuff, working together, So
<v Speaker 1>she might be ironically like, being this alone might be
<v Speaker 1>not what she's used to and bad for her. I mean,
<v Speaker 1>it's bad for anybody, but I wonder for her if
<v Speaker 1>she's used to being part of a group and being
<v Speaker 1>so alone working alone, even though quote unquote's better for her,
<v Speaker 1>it also might be tremendously lonely, which I guess is
<v Speaker 1>something I didn't think of till now. Obviously why she's
<v Speaker 1>going over and barking up le X Street. But anyway,
<v Speaker 1>so with Elena. Let's say if she didn't join the Avengers,
<v Speaker 1>Let's say that she just got out of it but
<v Speaker 1>was still spend a lot of time alone and wanted
<v Speaker 1>to work with me. She's someone that if I thought
<v Speaker 1>she was stable enough to like not cause problems into
<v Speaker 1>personal with other people, I might recommend her to do
<v Speaker 1>community work, to maybe be like a big brother big
<v Speaker 1>sister kind of thing, or to I don't know, teach
<v Speaker 1>a self defense class, like do something where she can
<v Speaker 1>be around other people, maybe put her skills in a
<v Speaker 1>different way, like reframing her strengths in a way that
<v Speaker 1>feels positive and good, like I said, like mentoring other people. Like,
<v Speaker 1>She's someone that I'd be like, Well, tell me what
<v Speaker 1>it was like to be black widow. Are there things
<v Speaker 1>that you miss? And then are are there different ways
<v Speaker 1>to do those same things in a healthy, empowering way
<v Speaker 1>where you are choosing to engage in those skills and
<v Speaker 1>engage in those environments. And I do that with people
<v Speaker 1>like I've worked with people where a lot of their
<v Speaker 1>identity is like fighting their parents, for example, and then
<v Speaker 1>their parents no longer in their life, and they have
<v Speaker 1>all this like restless agro energy and I'm like, put
<v Speaker 1>that into social justice, go to a protest, you know,
<v Speaker 1>figure out what you care about, and try to think
<v Speaker 1>of those parts of you as skills that you can
<v Speaker 1>put in a different way. So I think she would
<v Speaker 1>be someone that could do really well with that. Also,
<v Speaker 1>it helps build self esteem obviously to do something esteemable.
<v Speaker 1>So helping other people I think would help her feel
<v Speaker 1>good about herself and feel connected to other people. And
<v Speaker 1>she's because she's obviously, as we even see more with
<v Speaker 1>like the Hawkeye Show, she's someone that likes to banter,
<v Speaker 1>she likes to quip like, she is looking for connection,
<v Speaker 1>she's looking for siblings. And so if she didn't have
<v Speaker 1>the Avengers, I think that I would want her to
<v Speaker 1>do something like that but low risk too. Like I
<v Speaker 1>think if I was a therapist, I wouldn't love the
<v Speaker 1>Avengers thing because it's so high risk and so high stakes.
<v Speaker 1>I'd be like, Oh, I love that you're feeling, you know,
<v Speaker 1>maybe more empowered or maybe more positive about this stuff
<v Speaker 1>and you get to be a good guy, which she
<v Speaker 1>talks about in the beginning of the movie. And I
<v Speaker 1>wish this was more like local self defense or the
<v Speaker 1>Neighborhood Watch or something like not something where you feel
<v Speaker 1>like I could I could fuck up really badly. And
<v Speaker 1>then also I wouldn't love that she's necessarily doing with
<v Speaker 1>her dad, like I'd want it to be her own
<v Speaker 1>thing that she can kind of create a new community
<v Speaker 1>around of people that maybe didn't know her before, so
<v Speaker 1>she can kind of be who she wants to be
<v Speaker 1>and figure that out too, because that's a big part
<v Speaker 1>of like when she talks about black Widow, I've never
<v Speaker 1>bought clothes for myself before, and so finding ways for
<v Speaker 1>her to expand that in the world. So that's what
<v Speaker 1>I would do with Elena.
<v Speaker 2>She guess leaves me and probably the surprise of no one,
<v Speaker 2>Bob is pretty much with the universe finds for me
<v Speaker 2>as a client pretty routinely.
<v Speaker 1>Working with Bob would be.
<v Speaker 2>Just absolutely the right call of all these characters, because Bucky,
<v Speaker 2>he's already done quite a bit and probably doesn't need
<v Speaker 2>the degree of stuff that we do. He's already done it.
<v Speaker 2>But Bob is early in his journey. Bob is somebody who,
<v Speaker 2>though may benefit from something like EMDR right now, he
<v Speaker 2>does not have adequate coping skills and resources and trust
<v Speaker 2>in himself that I would follow that path just yet.
<v Speaker 2>I think I'd be doing a lot of what we
<v Speaker 2>refer to as resource building, which is what he is
<v Speaker 2>doing at the end of this film, and why the
<v Speaker 2>people that have been there and done that are like
<v Speaker 2>Bob's fine. Bob is doing what Bob needs to do.
<v Speaker 2>Bob is starting to realize, and what I would be
<v Speaker 2>guiding him through is that we're going to be reinforcing
<v Speaker 2>this idea that you can be enough just hanging out,
<v Speaker 2>that you're helpful, and you don't have to have a supersuit.
<v Speaker 2>You don't have to be the Golden Boy to be enough.
<v Speaker 2>And if right now doing the dishes and kind of
<v Speaker 2>being a positive energy is enough and that feels good
<v Speaker 2>to you, then we're gonna go ahead and sit in
<v Speaker 2>that space and feel like enough for once being around heroes,
<v Speaker 2>even though we all know that that's a really complicated thing,
<v Speaker 2>because when some shit's going to go down and he's like, no,
<v Speaker 2>I'm gonna make it worse, that's going to start reinforcing
<v Speaker 2>the bad narratives. But with someone like Bob working the
<v Speaker 2>ideas that come from somatic experiencing in of recognizing that
<v Speaker 2>it's not just about the negative thoughts it's not just
<v Speaker 2>about the bad beliefs he has about himself that are
<v Speaker 2>clearly tied to these bad experiences. It's the body activation
<v Speaker 2>that comes along with it. When you activate one of
<v Speaker 2>those old memories that Bob tends to dissociate into that
<v Speaker 2>we see constantly trying to break through into every other
<v Speaker 2>room in the void. Is because those things still feel
<v Speaker 2>like an active threat.
<v Speaker 1>Our mind doesn't have any use for time.
<v Speaker 2>When our right brain is activated, when our survival system
<v Speaker 2>is activated, there's no relevance to time because the threat
<v Speaker 2>is still present. If you don't survive the threat, you
<v Speaker 2>don't survive there's a tiger in your house. It's going
<v Speaker 2>to eat you, or it's not. You live, you die.
<v Speaker 2>That's it.
<v Speaker 1>So it doesn't matter how long it is.
<v Speaker 2>As long as your body can activate a memory where
<v Speaker 2>the tiger is still there, it's still going to think
<v Speaker 2>it needs to respond to the tiger. And that's what
<v Speaker 2>Bob is going through. And helping Bob go through constant
<v Speaker 2>deactivation and awareness of what's going on in his body
<v Speaker 2>when he perceives the tiger present, is what phase of
<v Speaker 2>treatment he's in right now where we need to build
<v Speaker 2>that recognition, that awareness and ways to deactivate it without
<v Speaker 2>necessarily flooding him with all the bad memories and trying
<v Speaker 2>to work through that. He needs resources to know he
<v Speaker 2>can deactivate it before we're going to try to teach
<v Speaker 2>him to flood and deactivate working with Bob. Bob Scott
<v Speaker 2>years and years and years of work to do. But
<v Speaker 2>a competent therapist won't just be like, hey, Bob, we're
<v Speaker 2>going to kick open the door to that thing you've
<v Speaker 2>been trying to keep partitioned off for yourself so you
<v Speaker 2>don't destroy the entire world. A person who's going to
<v Speaker 2>be a competent therapist first, person like that is going
<v Speaker 2>to recognize that the darkness is that bad and he
<v Speaker 2>may in fact blow up the entire world. So let's
<v Speaker 2>go ahead and respect the protective walls he put around
<v Speaker 2>that and help him realize he doesn't need them anymore.
<v Speaker 2>He may have needed him before, but he doesn't need
<v Speaker 2>them anymore, and let's help him believe that so that
<v Speaker 2>he doesn't.
<v Speaker 1>That's what I do. Bob, all right, we'll take our
<v Speaker 1>last break care and be back with final thoughts. Final thoughts, guys,
<v Speaker 1>we all have the same final thoughts. We loved it
<v Speaker 1>loved it, loved it, loved it, Gotta watch it more. Oh,
<v Speaker 1>this is gonna be my new Winter Soldier watch Like,
<v Speaker 1>oh yeah, I watch over and over again.
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, yeah, this is perfection.
<v Speaker 1>It's really well written. Even now I was talking about it,
<v Speaker 1>it's making me appreciate the script more and how things
<v Speaker 1>line up in the beginning pay out in the end. Like,
<v Speaker 1>it's a really well contained script. I wonder who wrote it.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know, whoever did, did a fucking awesome job.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, three therapists give it three thumbs up. Up. Watching it,
<v Speaker 1>there was really nothing that I saw on the screen
<v Speaker 1>that put me off in terms of like, ooh, that
<v Speaker 1>wouldn't really be other than the kind of like the
<v Speaker 1>diagnostic soup that is Bob. But as we were saying,
<v Speaker 1>like that could that is a way that sometimes people
<v Speaker 1>show up though with his complicated of a background.
<v Speaker 2>Absolutely absolutely all day, I don't know, nothing put me off.
<v Speaker 2>Watching this made me really excited to watch The Fantastic Four.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I was like, well, like, it really made me
<v Speaker 1>feel like Marvel movies used to make me feel, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>which is pumped. Yeah, yeah, and I want to watch
<v Speaker 1>this again.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, I think by allowing Ryan Reynolds to troll them
<v Speaker 2>and say, hey, you kept trying this multiverse thing, nobody
<v Speaker 2>liked it. Fucking stop that they admitted it, and then
<v Speaker 2>they did this movie of like, yeah, you're right, though,
<v Speaker 2>we're still gonna do it multiverse thing, but we're gonna
<v Speaker 2>stop sucking it up because here come the Fantastic Four
<v Speaker 2>from the sixties into rocket Ship.
<v Speaker 1>Well, this isn't more in. It's kind of the way
<v Speaker 1>that like the Spider Verse does it, which is if
<v Speaker 1>you're gonna do multiverses, like do like this is interesting,
<v Speaker 1>like just like really different styles, really different vibes, right,
<v Speaker 1>instead of just like I don't know, just making it
<v Speaker 1>complicated but not fun.
<v Speaker 2>I'm king, but I'm not king, but I'm king. You're like,
<v Speaker 2>all right, you have to.
<v Speaker 1>Make it like stylistically interesting and exciting and surprising.
<v Speaker 2>And able to make it differentiate.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, because what feels exciting about the Fantastic Four movie
<v Speaker 1>is it looks so fucking different. It's like the Jetsons. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>like it looks cool. I'm like, oh, that's finally, I mean,
<v Speaker 1>and that's why I'm like one of the few people
<v Speaker 1>that liked Eternals because I was like this looks different.
<v Speaker 1>This feels different than Marvel movies have been looking and feeling,
<v Speaker 1>and so that's why I liked it, And so I'm
<v Speaker 1>glad that it seems like they're starting to go that
<v Speaker 1>direction again of like letting like letting people play with
<v Speaker 1>this content, like the fact that everyone who made this
<v Speaker 1>movie is like an A twenty four person, like the cinematographers,
<v Speaker 1>the editors, the composer, the director, like the writer. Actually
<v Speaker 1>the writing director is the same writer director as Beef,
<v Speaker 1>which is also a good show on Netflix if anyone
<v Speaker 1>hasn't watched it yet. And that's a very different vibe
<v Speaker 1>than someone I would pick to do like a Marvel movie.
<v Speaker 1>And I think they really came in and brought that
<v Speaker 1>vibe to this movie.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, sometimes letting someone come in with a weird vibe
<v Speaker 2>on something works really really well.
<v Speaker 1>Which is why thor Ragnrock worked really well before it
<v Speaker 1>went too far and went so far in the other
<v Speaker 1>direction that like came back on itself. Yeah yeah, four
<v Speaker 1>was yeah, but three D he was brilliant. Yeah yeah,
<v Speaker 1>but this movie really, like I loved, like I said,
<v Speaker 1>I loved how that the power of friendship. Yeah, it's
<v Speaker 1>how we won. Yeah, and that it wasn't just like
<v Speaker 1>a lesser movie would have just had like Bob defeat
<v Speaker 1>the void by submission instead of like, no, baby, you
<v Speaker 1>just gotta cry it out. Yeah, all your friends right,
<v Speaker 1>or Bob would have killed yeah and then been like
<v Speaker 1>ha ha I finally dominated.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah said, now we have this super complicated dynamic where
<v Speaker 2>they all know but it for survival they must.
<v Speaker 1>Well, now it's like Chekov's gun, Bob over there waiting
<v Speaker 1>to see if he gets fired, and a point any
<v Speaker 1>other final thoughts, No, no, you should probably cut half
<v Speaker 1>of those. I liked it all right. Well, if you
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