“Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier”

Starring: Chris Evans, Anthony Mackie, Samuel Fucking L 
Jackson, Sebastian Stan, Robert Redford, Scarlet Johanson, 
Colbie Smulders


Okay, so as I recall this one was pretty dull and overstuffed 
with exposition. I’ll do my best, but I reserve the right to 
skip large chunks of this and possibly quit if I’m in danger of 
lapsing into a coma.
   Chrissy: We could have just skipped this and done 
    "Guardians of the Galaxy" instead.
   Diandra: No. We couldn’t. I can recap that movie in one 
    paragraph. In fact, that’s exactly what I plan to do 
    when I’m done with this one.
   Chrissy: Oh, is that the reason? Because I thought the 
    reason was that you would rather be bored while looking 
    at pretty guys than watch some insane bullshit again.
   Diandra: Don’t you throw my exact words back in my face.
   Chrissy: You know, some girls find Chris Pratt hot too.
   Diandra: Yeah, well I’m not one of them. I don’t trust 
    people who are so publicly loud about their religion. 
   Chrissy: YOU don’t trust him? How nervous do you think 
    he made us Jews when he was erecting giant crucifixes 
    on Easter?
   Diandra: Yeah, so we’re agreed that we’d rather just 
    stick to the other two Chrises of the MCU for now, 
    right?
   Chrissy: Yeah, sure.

Dawn in DC. Anthony Mackie is jogging slowly around the 
Potomac. Steve races past him at a dead sprint, calling “on 
your left” as he passes. Further down the path, he does it 
again. Mackie grumbles ‘yeah, yeah, on my left. I hate you.’ 
Steve goes to pass him again as they cross in front of the 
Lincoln memorial and Mackie snarls “don’t you say it” then is 
like FUCK YOU I AM NEVER DOING THIS WITH YOU AGAIN when Steve 
passes with a casual “on your left”. He’s not even out of 
breath. Mackie tries to pick up speed as they circle the 
reflecting pool, then grunts and slows to a stop as he pulls a 
muscle or something. He is sitting under a tree when Steve 
circles back to ask if he’s okay. “Dude, you just ran, like, 
thirteen miles in thirty minutes,” Mackie pants. Steve blusters 
that he got a late start. Mackie says oh, sure, well in that 
case you should definitely take another lap. Steve asks what 
unit Mackie is with. He says he WAS with pararescue, but now he 
works at the VA. He introduces himself as Sam Wilson. Steve 
introduces himself and Sam is like ‘yeah, no shit. Pretty sure 
everybody knows who Captain America is now.’

Steve is like ‘yeah, okay. Good talk. I’m going to go do about 
a thousand pushups and maybe rescue some puppies.’ He starts to 
walk away and Sam calls “it’s your bed, isn’t it?”
   Chrissy: Dude, we seriously JUST met.
He clarifies that Steve probably finds his bed too soft after 
getting used to sleeping on the ground in the field. Steve 
confirms that he feels like he might sink right through to the 
floor and asks how long Sam was deployed. Sam says two tours. 
In a completely different part of the world than Steve was 
fighting in. Then he notes that Steve must miss the “good old 
days” that all the old farts of his generation are always 
yapping about. Steve is like ‘eh...you have better food, 
Internet and no Polio, so I’m not so eager to claim my era was 
better.’ “Marvin Gaye, 1972, Trouble Man soundtrack,” Sam says 
seemingly apropos of nothing. He claims it covers everything 
Steve missed in one musical burst. Steve adds it to a list he 
keeps in a little notepad that includes “I Love Lucy”, “Star 
Wars”, the moon landing, the Berlin Wall, Nirvana and Steve 
Jobs. His phone rings and he looks at a screen that would be 
more appropriate for a large bank of computers at mission 
control. A message says extraction is “imminent” and he should 
wait at the curb. This is alarmingly followed by a smiley face.

Steve shakes Sam’s hand and thanks him for the run “if that’s 
what you want to call running.” Sam looks at him like ‘really? 
You want to whip ‘em out and measure them right now, white 
boy?’ Steve just grins and Sam says Steve can stop by the VA 
anytime so he can show off for the girl at the front desk by 
saying Captain America is his running buddy. A fancy ass sports 
car pulls up to the curb and Natasha calls out the window that 
she’s looking for the Smithsonian because she’s supposed to 
pick up a fossil. Steve’s like ‘haha, good one. I’m laughing on 
the inside.’ He gets in the car and she rips out onto the 
street while Sam wonders how the fuck some guys get all the 
luck in the universe because this guy is ripped AND has a hot 
girlfriend with a sports car as far as he can tell.

So we cut right to both Steve and Natasha on a military plane 
somewhere over the Indian Ocean. The mission leader is saying 
their “target” is a satellite launch platform that was hijacked 
by pirates an hour and a half ago. Steve asks if they have any 
demands.
   Chrissy: Yeah, rum and that the former captain calls one 
    of THEIR guys captain now.
   Diandra: That reference is an alarming blend of drunken 
    Disney silliness and serious drama.
Mission leader says they want a billion and a half. Because the 
platform belongs to SHIELD and they figure they could ask for 
the moon if they wanted. Steve mutters that the ship is 
trespassing then and he’s tired of acting as Fury’s “janitor”.

Mission leader is like ANYWAY, there is a French guy leading 
the pirates. Apparently, the character – Bartoc - is some minor 
character in the Marvel verse (which contains approximately a 
bajillion characters) and he is played by a Canadian MMA 
fighter that only people who watch MMA fighting would 
recognize. As was noted in a comment section I saw somewhere 
full of people throwing his name around: the only people who 
know who he is are the only ones who would even care but they 
will INSIST on telling you who he is every chance they get for 
some reason. For everybody else, all you need to know is that 
he is a bad ass who has killed a lot of people and is on an 
INTERPOL watch list. As a bonus, there is also this one agent 
on the ship that you will only recognize if you watch “Agents 
of SHIELD”. Which...apparently the crossover audience between 
the movies and the TV shows is REALLY low.

And then suddenly Steve is giving commands to Natasha and the 
mission leader regarding who will be doing what when they land.

As they’re gearing up, Natasha asks if Steve did anything fun 
Saturday night. He says the guys from his barbershop quartet 
are all dead, so no.
   Chrissy: She said FUN.
Natasha suggests he ask Kristen in Statistics out sometime. He 
says yeah, um...no. She asks if he’s shy or scared. He says 
he’s “busy” and jumps out of the plane. One guy asks if he was 
wearing a parachute just now. Another guy is like um...nope.

Cap dives into the water feet first and climbs up the anchor 
chain onto the ship. He runs around knocking guys out on the 
main deck with his shield, his fists and a couple guys he just 
kicks right over the side. This goes on for, like, ten minutes 
until the mission leader parachutes in to take out the last guy 
like the lamest cavalry ever. 

The rest of the team lands on the ship and Natasha continues 
the conversation about what Steve does in his spare time by 
asking about the pretty nurse that lives across the hall in his 
building. “Secure the engine room, then find me a date,” he 
says without looking at her. She points out that she is 
perfectly capable of thinking about two things at once. It’s 
called multi-tasking.

Inside, the pirates are speaking to each other in Canadian 
French. It’s the usual terrorist dialogue. ‘They think we’re 
just messing around, so we’ll have to start killing people to 
prove we’re serious’ followed by random menacing of hostages. 
You know. Like every hostage situation in every movie ever.

Up on the bridge, the “actor” who should probably stick to 
wrestling, is sitting in the captain’s chair, sulking in the 
general direction of the bow, reminding his second in command 
that they need the ship ready to move the SECOND they get their 
demands. Second in command calls somebody downstairs, who is 
taken down by Natasha the second he gets off the phone. As are 
all the other guys in the general vicinity.

Meanwhile, the pirates are explaining to the hostages that 
there is a bomb on the ship, but the trigger is on another ship 
full of prisoners...nah, just kidding. They’re making impotent 
threats like ‘stop looking at me or I’ll rearrange your face’ 
and complaining about how long this is taking.

The team all get into position and wait for Natasha to take out 
a half a dozen more guys. Steve gives the countdown and the 
agents all charge into the room guns blazing.

Up on the bridge, second in command loses contact with the men 
just before Steve blasts through the window shield first. 

So the rest of the team are extracting the hostages while Steve 
chases this Bartoc guy who is apparently also a gymnast judging 
by the five minute fight scene wherein he does as many 
backflips as he lands actual blows on Steve. They pause and 
Bartoc taunts – in French – that he thought Captain America was 
more than a shield. Steve demonstrates that he is actually a 
poor representative of the average American by responding to 
this like he actually understands French. He puts his shield on 
his back and takes off his mask and says “on va voir” with a 
pretty decent accent.
   Chrissy: Well, you’ve seen the memes saying his suit 
    actually looks more like the Puerto Rican flag than the 
    American one?
   Diandra: So technically American, but not the 
    monolingual uneducated American stereotype?
   Chrissy: Yeah, something like that.

They fight again and Steve demonstrates an ability to copy the 
moves of his enemy by downing him with a gymnastic flip kick. 
Then Bartoc starts to get up again and Steve just tackles him 
through a door and punches him out. Natasha looks up from a 
computer in the room he just brought the fight into like ‘hey, 
fancy meeting you here.’ Steve asks what the hell she’s doing.
   Chrissy: Updating your Tinder profile. I couldn’t figure 
    out how to add the barbershop quartet thing while still 
    making you sound attractive to women, so I just said 
    you’re up for Karaoke. 
   Diandra: How does that help?
   Chrissy: You’re right. Better change it to “used to be 
    the lead singer of a band.” Girls like guys who can 
    sing, but “Glee club” says “I’m not actually into 
    girls” and “barber shop quartet” says “I’m an old 
    pervert using a stock photo of an underwear model to 
    pick up chicks.”
She says she’s backing up the hard drive, which is something he 
should learn if he’s going to be using computers now. He looks 
up at the monitors at the front of the room mirroring her 
screen and concludes that she’s saving SHIELD intel. She’s like 
‘yep. Thanks for taking care of that hostage situation without 
me.’ She finishes and pulls the flash drive. And then Bartoc 
suddenly jumps up, throws a grenade at them and flees the room. 
Steve bounces the grenade off his shield, grabs Natasha with 
one arm and smashes them through a window into the next room as 
the grenade goes off.

We cut to the “Triskelion”, a giant three-prong phallus that 
apparently serves as headquarters of SHEILD.
   Chrissy: They modeled it after Nick Fury.
   Diandra: Well, that’s only fair since he’s their 
    director. Although, shouldn’t it be black?
   Chrissy: Too expensive. And cliché.
Steve marches into Fury’s office and demands to know why he 
lied AGAIN. Fury quickly says he didn’t. He just didn’t find it 
necessary for Steve to know about Natasha’s mission which was 
completely separate. Steve snots that those hostages could have 
DIED. Fury snaps that he sent the best soldier in the history 
of this country to safeguard AGAINST that happening. “Soldiers 
trust each other,” Steve argues. “That’s what makes it an army. 
Not a bunch of guys running around shooting guns.”
   Chrissy: Um...yeah, you might want to add “NRA” to that 
   search list, Steve.

Fury stands up, glares at him and says the last time he trusted 
someone he lost an eye. That shuts Steve up. Fury says he 
figured Steve wouldn’t be “comfortable” with the questionable 
ethics of Natasha’s mission. Whereas she wouldn’t bat an eye. 
Steve tries to fall back on the argument that he can’t be 
mission leader if members of his team are going off on separate 
missions he doesn’t know about. Fury says it’s called 
“compartmentalization” and it prevents people from giving away 
secrets because the right hand really doesn’t know what the 
left hand is doing. And to prove to Steve that he’s a nice guy, 
he’s going to share info on a top secret project he doesn’t 
have clearance for with him.

Fury takes Steve into an elevator and orders the computer 
system to take them to the room where they run Project Insight. 
The computer balks at Steve being allowed in since he doesn’t 
have clearance and Fury has to override it. On the awkward ride 
down, Steve notes that they used to have music in elevators. 
Yeah, it wasn’t that long ago. Some probably still do. Fury is 
like yeah, and my granddaddy used to personally do the job that 
annoying computer voice just did. He tells him a little story 
about how granddad used to walk home with the tips he made in a 
paper bag, cheerfully greeting the people he passed along the 
way. Until the neighborhood went to shit and he started 
carrying a gun along with his tips. Basically, this is where 
Fury gets his inherent distrust of people from. Of course, his 
weapon of choice is a bit bigger.
   Chrissy: Naturally.

Steve gapes out the glass elevator at the helicarriers with 
ginormous guns poking from their hulls being loaded with 
stealth fighter planes in the hanger. Fury says THIS is Project 
Insight. Three giant fighter planes carrying smaller fighter 
planes synched to a satellite network. They are designed with 
engines that ensure they can perpetually fly around the planet. 
Steve asks if that’s one of Tony’s designs. Fury says kind of. 
He had some input after getting “a close-up look” at the old 
turbines. Translation: when you didn’t push the button fast 
enough and let him get sucked under the propeller in “The 
Avengers”.

Fury keeps listing the specs on the weapons. The guns can take 
out 1,000 enemies (or whoever) a minute and the satellites can 
locate terrorists by reading their DNA before they even come 
out of their cave. He says they can neutralize threats before 
they even happen. Steve notes that the punishment usually comes 
AFTER the crime.
   Chrissy: Well, unless you’re in that Tom Cruise movie 
   with the woman who can see the future.
Fury says after the New York thing, he convinced the Security 
Council they needed to really step up their game on threat 
analysis. Steve is like ‘so you amassed enough weaponry to wipe 
out all of Earth and claim you’re doing it to protect people.’
   Chrissy: Seriously, dude, you might want to look into 
   the NRA.

Fury gets up in Steve’s face and notes that the Greatest 
Generation did some pretty nasty shit during the war. Steve 
says yes, but that was DIFFERENT. “This isn’t freedom. This is 
fear.” Fury argues that SHIELD can’t afford the luxury of 
taking an idealized view of the world. They have to deal with 
reality. And it’s about time Steve quit this boy scout bullshit 
and got with the program. Steve is like ‘yeaaaaaaahhhh, I don’t 
think so.’ He saunters away...

...and hops on his motorcycle and goes to the Smithsonian, 
wandering through an exhibit devoted to him. It is narrated by 
Gary Sinise because I guess they couldn’t afford Tom Hanks. A 
little kid wearing one of those blue shirts with the shield on 
it stares at him and he makes a “shh” gesture. He comes to a 
display of mannequins wearing the uniforms of his unit as Gary 
explains that their mission was to take out the rogue Nazi 
science division known as HYDRA. Steve turns to a picture of 
Bucky Barnes, who Gary identifies as his best friend since 
childhood. Is this narration supposed to be coming through some 
sort of self-guided tour handset? Because it’s very poorly 
paced. There’s some footage of Steve and Bucky laughing 
together as Gary intones that Bucky was the only member of the 
team to sacrifice his life to their mission. Steve makes sad 
faces.
   Chrissy: I never had the chance to tell him how much I 
   loved him!

He moves to a video of an interview with Peggy Carter talking 
about how Steve fought through a blizzard to save some men 
trapped behind a blockade and blah blah hero. Oh, and he saved 
the man she eventually married. Or, you know, settled for since 
Steve wasn’t in the picture anymore.

This inspires him to go visit the elderly Peggy in the 
hospital. Or hospice. He marvels at all the pictures she has on 
her bedside table of various family members. She says yes, 
she’s lived a full life. She just wishes he could have been 
there. He grumbles that he has always wanted to do what was 
right, but these days he’s not really sure what that is 
anymore. He thought he could just throw himself back in as a 
soldier for the cause, but everything is so DIFFERENT. Peggy 
basically snorts and calls him a drama queen. 
   Chrissy: And this is why she got her own spin off show. 
   Diandra: Except it didn’t last.
   Chrissy: Yeah, well...doesn’t make her less awesome.
She says he saved the world after the rest of them screwed it 
up. Steve says no, SHE did. She helped found SHIELD.
   Exposition fairy: Are we done here? Can I go yet?
   Diandra: No, we’re going to need you later for a major 
    information dump.
   Exposition fairy: [groans]

Peggy spews some “profound” nonsense at Steve about doing the 
best they can and sometimes having to start over to do that. 
And then she coughs and proves that she seems to have developed 
Alzheimer’s by looking at him like she just realized he’s here 
and alive all these years later. Steve is like yeah, um...you 
still owe me a dance, woman. He makes a sad face again.
   Chrissy: And the one I DO get a chance to say “I love 
    you” to WON’T EVEN REMEMBER IT.
   Diandra: So we’re going with the bisexual Captain 
    America theory.
   Chrissy: I think it’s pretty widely accepted, yes. Same 
    as Wonder Woman. Who should totally have teamed up with 
    Peggy in a crossover because that would have been 
    awesome.

Fury’s office. Fury tries to access some files on a flash drive 
and is repeatedly thwarted because the data is supposedly 
sealed by...um... Nicholas Fury. He seems just as confused by 
this as anyone.

Meanwhile, in another office, a guy is raving about Fury’s 
“failure” being unacceptable via holographic phone or 
something. He is a member of the council. Three other council 
members join the argument and discuss whether a French pirate 
hijacking a supposedly secure SHEILD vessel in broad daylight 
constitutes a breach in security. Robert Redford, who is pacing 
the room, pipes up that the guy was Algeian, actually. Yeah, 
that distinction is meaningless in certain parts of France. 
Councilman Charles Widmore is like ‘haha, you’re funny Pierce.’ 
Pierce says he’s not trying to be funny, he just thinks maybe 
they shouldn’t be getting so upset about ONE boat in an entire 
fleet. A woman comes up to whisper in Pierce’s ear and he ends 
the meeting abruptly.

He goes into the next room to find Fury waiting. Apparently 
they are in the same building, but he pointedly notes that it 
takes a hijacking for Fury to decide to visit him. Fury says 
yeah, well...he needs him to call a vote to delay Project 
Insight. Because something is off and it’s probably nothing but 
he needs more time to be sure of that before they put three 
giant superweapons in the sky. Pierce sighs and says sure, but 
Fury has to get Iron Man to come to his niece’s birthday party. 
And he doesn’t mean just flying by overhead. He has to come 
down and mingle a little. Fury is like ‘yeah sure. I can do 
that.’
   Chrissy: I mean, he’ll be pissed as hell and complain 
   about it for fucking ever, but...

Steve wanders into some sort of former soldiers with PTSD 
support group. The meeting is being led by Sam. It wraps up and 
Steve goes to talk to Sam as everybody else leaves. Steve asks 
if Sam lost somebody. Sam says yeah, he lost his wingman while 
flying a night mission. Routine mission, but an RPG got him. 
And since Sam couldn’t do a thing to stop it it kind of wrecked 
his sense of purpose. Steve asks if he’s at least happy to be 
back in the “real world”. Sam says yeah, well, he’s not taking 
orders from people anymore so yes. He asks if Steve is thinking 
of getting out too. Steve doesn’t know because he doesn’t know 
what he could do with himself if he wasn’t a soldier. Sam says 
he could do anything that makes him happy and suggests he 
figure out what that might be.

Fury is driving a super fancy car with a voice activation 
system. The system announces that it has activated voice 
encryption and Fury orders it to open line 0405. This turns out 
to be Hill’s contact. Her face appears on a part of the 
windshield that apparently doubles as a computer screen. He 
says he needs Hill to come to DC. “Deep shadow conditions.”
   Chrissy: You know, if you’re looking for a name for your 
   sex tape...
He stops at an intersection as she hangs up. A cop car pulls up 
beside him and the two white officers stare at him. He grumbles 
in annoyance about the state of cop/black people relations in 
this country. The cop car starts moving through the 
intersection. As Fury goes to do the same another cop car t-
bones him. The first car backs into him and two more cop cars 
appear to surround the SUV on all sides. The car’s computer 
notes that Fury has gotten a broken arm from the impact and 
suggests giving him an anesthetic. Fury reaches for it in the 
glove compartment as a SWAT team arrives. The computer notes 
that according to the DC metro police, there are no units in 
this area.

The rent-a-cops and fake SWAT officers open fire on the SUV. 
Fury orders the car to get him out of here. It’s like 
‘ah...nope. Systems not working.’ The SWAT guys bring out what 
looks like a bazooka and set it up right outside the driver’s 
window. It turns out to be a battering ram. Fury climbs into 
the passenger seat and waits for the computer to reboot 
whatever system is going to get him out of this mess. The ram 
slams into the car and the computer announces that it will 
deploy countermeasures. Fury is like ‘the fuck you will!’ The 
computer is like ‘I really think countermeasures would be a 
good idea right now’ and Fury barks at it to WAIT. After two 
more hits of the battering ram he yells “now!” and a machine 
gun bursts from the center console just before the driver 
window shatters entirely. He blasts the hell out of the fake 
officers and sends one car flipping onto another. The computer 
is like ‘okay, we’re ready now.’ He orders full acceleration 
and keeps firing out the window as the car drives itself around 
the barricade. He orders it to take off. It says it can’t 
because the flight systems are damaged. He says fine, activate 
guidance cameras. He jumps back in the driver’s seat and this 
scene officially turns into a chase. 

He orders the computer to contact Hill again. It says 
communications are damaged too. Fury asks what the fuck ISN’T 
damaged. It cheerfully says the air conditioning is fully 
operational. Fury gets a look like ‘Jesus Fucking Christ on a 
bicycle, why does nothing ever go right?’.
   Chrissy: I thought that was his normal look.
   Diandra: Yeah, well.
He darts through traffic, at least two cop cars following. The 
computer calmly tells him that there is traffic ahead. Fury is 
like ‘yeah, thanks, just find me an alternate route RIGHT NOW.’ 
The computer notes that traffic is completely stopped on 
Roosevelt Bridge, but 17th should be clear. What the hell kind 
of guidance system gives directions like this?

Fury starts hitting cars deliberately to cause pile-ups, 
trapping the cars following him in the wreckage. Then he gets 
stopped and one of the guys comes out of the car to shoot at 
him with a big ass machine gun. Because you recognize the bad 
guys far easier when they show a flagrant disregard for 
bystanders. Fury manages to knock over a couple of the guys and 
break through to a clear road. The chase continues for a while. 
One of the guys in a cop car starts shooting through the window 
and Fury crashes into him so he’s leaning halfway through the 
SUV, still shooting. He punches the guy, then slams on the 
brakes before an intersection so that car and the one starting 
to come up on the other side are t-boned by a semi.

And then he comes to a street where a man wearing black is just 
standing in the middle of the road, waiting for him. The man 
shoots a little metal disc at the SUV, which attaches to the 
bottom and detonates, flipping the car while he casually steps 
out of its path. It slides to a stop and Fury groans and fires 
up what looks like a small welding torch as the man approaches 
the car. By the time the man gets there and rips a door right 
off, Fury is gone and there is a hole carved in the dash.

Sometime later...I guess...Steve gets back to his apartment and 
we see the cute nurse across the hall he and Natasha were 
talking about. It is Emily VanCamp who, depending on the sort 
of TV you watch is either that chick from “Everwood” or that 
chick from “Brothers & Sisters”. 
   Chrissy: Or those two chicks from “Revenge”.
   Diandra: No, nobody remembers that show.
She is holding a basket of laundry because she is having 
problems with her machine and headed for the communal one in 
the basement. After a little awkward small talk, Steve offers 
to let her use his instead. He says it would be cheaper since 
it would just cost her a cup of coffee. She gets a look like 
‘oh...no thank you’ and gives an excuse about already having a 
load in the machine in the basement and her nursing scrubs are 
REALLY nasty after she spent time in the infectious disease 
ward...
   Chrissy: This brush off is far too complicated. Whatever 
   happened to “I have a boyfriend” or “I’m not into guys”?

Emily points out that he left his stereo running when he left 
this morning before she skips down the stairs. He looks 
confused and creeps closer to the door behind which some old 
big band music is, in fact, playing. So he goes around and 
climbs through the window, holding his shield at ready in case 
whoever broke in wants to attack him. It’s Fury, slouched in a 
chair in the corner. He grumbles that his wife kicked him out. 
Steve – and probably most of the audience – is like 
‘wait...you’re married? Really? You found somebody who is 
willing to put up with the bullshit that is your job?’ Steve 
goes to turn on the light, but Fury waves at him, turns it back 
off, and shows him his phone screen where he has typed “ears 
everywhere”. He apologizes that he had nowhere else to crash 
tonight and types “SHIELD compromised”. Steve, catching on now, 
asks how many people know about his “wife” then. Fury types 
“you and me” and says “just my friends” out loud. Steve is like 
‘awww...I love you too man’. 

And then there’s an explosion and shots come through the wall 
behind Fury, knocking him over. Steve drags him into the 
kitchen. Fury hands him a flash drive and coughs “don’t trust 
anyone”. To test this immediately, Emily breaks down the front 
door, gun in hand, and tells Steve that she is Agent 13 with 
SHIELD SS and she was assigned to protect him. She bends over 
Fury, checks his pulse, and announces into her walkie that 
“Foxtrot” is down and she needs a medic. The dispatcher asks if 
she has a location on the shooter. Steve sees movement in the 
building across the street and says she can tell them he’s on 
it. He jumps through his window, all the way across to the 
other building and runs through a series of hallways, blasting 
through every doorway in his path. He jumps out a window on the 
other side and onto the roof of the next building, chasing the 
same man who flipped Fury’s car. He throws his shield at him. 
The man turns and catches the shield one-handed, launching it 
back at Steve and disappearing while he’s distracted with the 
thought of how the FUCK anyone could have done that.

Natasha arrives at the hospital and meets Steve outside the 
operating theater where doctors are removing the bullets from 
Fury. She asks if he’s going to make it, then demands to know 
more about the shooter in a way that makes it clear she intends 
to TAKE THAT GUY OUT. Steve says he has a metal arm. And he’s 
STRONG. Hill appears to add that the bullets are untraceable. 
Natasha is like ‘Soviet made bullets’ and Hill is like ‘yeah, 
actually, how did you know?’ Fury crashes and the doctors go 
through the routine of trying to revive him and then giving up 
and calling time of death. Natasha keeps muttering “don’t do 
this to me, Nick” and tries not to cry. Which is basically the 
equivalent of a complete emotional meltdown for a Russian. 

They actually get some time with Fury’s body before Hill has to 
claim it. Because that will convince the people who know that 
people die all the damn time in this universe that he’s really 
dead. An agent comes to bring Steve back to SHIELD. He somehow 
(off screen) manages to hide the flash drive Fury gave him in a 
vending machine before going with them.

Steve arrives to talk to Pierce in full Captain America 
costume. Pierce takes a moment to note that his dad served in 
the 101st Airborne, which...is that the only division Hollywood 
knows? I know they are the Band of Brothers, but it seems like 
somehow more people than could possibly be connected to it are 
in stories like this. Like, my grandfather was stationed at an 
Air Force base in England during the war and he never even met 
any of those guys. What I’m saying is: there are a LOT of 
military divisions. Anyway. Pierce shows Steve a picture of him 
and Fury and tells some backstory about how they know each 
other that is probably not important because of course it will 
all turn out to be bullshit when he is revealed as the traitor.
   Chrissy: Well. Guess you’re not even bothering with 
    spoiler warnings, huh?
   Diandra: As was pointed out in the abridged script: 
    aging Hollywood A-listers always play the secret bad 
    guys, so...does it qualify as a spoiler if everyone 
    expects it? Because in that case, here’s another one: 
    Fury is actually not dead.
   Chrissy: You’re bored with this movie already, aren’t 
    you?
   Diandra: Yeah, basically. Should I just skip ahead to 
    the part where they reveal that the mysterious guy with 
    the bionic arm is Bucky?
   Chrissy: Uh, no, I think that wasn’t until nearly the 
    end of the movie.
   Diandra: ...................so?

Anyway, the upshot of Pierce’s story is that Fury disobeyed a 
direct order and carried out an unauthorized military operation 
on foreign soil. Because nobody tells Samuel L Fucking Jackson 
what to do. But he saved a bunch of people’s lives, including 
Pierce’s daughter, so he got a promotion instead of getting his 
ass canned. Pierce asks if Steve knows why Fury was in his 
apartment. Steve lies that he doesn’t know, but admits he knew 
the apartment was bugged because Fury told him. Pierce says 
yeah, um...that’s because HE’S the one who bugged it. Pierce 
turns on a screen on the wall to show Steve an interrogation in 
progress of nobody’s favorite Franco-Algerian-Canadian pirate 
Bartoc. Steve asks if he’s a suspect in this, despite the video 
clearly showing he has two perfectly normal, non-metal arms. 
Pierce says it’s more complicated. Bartoc was hired anonymously 
to attack that ship and paid with money wired through seventeen 
accounts ending in an account belonging to a guy who died six 
years ago. The really weird part is his address seems to be 
right next door to where Fury’s mother used to live. Steve is 
like ‘wait...Fury hired pirates to attack a SHIELD vessel?’ 
Pierce says yeah, as a cover up for his plan to steal and sell 
classified intelligence information and Fury died because the 
whole thing went tits up. Steve scoffs at the idea that Fury 
would have been doing such a thing and says if Pierce really 
knew him, he’d know that is bullshit. Pierce says yes, 
actually. He took a seat on that Council because Fury asked him 
to. Because they both knew that sometimes in order to remake 
the world, you have to tear down the old one. Why do I get the 
feeling this movie is more complicated than something based on 
a comic book has any right to be?

Anyway. Pierce asks again why Fury was in Steve’s apartment, 
bearing in mind that they both know he was up to something. 
Steve says sorry, but Fury’s last words to him were “don’t 
trust anybody”. He starts to leave. Pierce calls after him that 
he WILL find out who murdered his friend and why and anyone who 
tries to stand in his way will “regret it”.

So back at the giant SHIELD three-pronged phallus...Steve gets 
in an elevator with some other guys including the mission 
leader from the rescue-hostages-from-pirates mission. And I 
guess I should finally look up the guy’s name since he plays a 
more prominent role than I remembered. It’s Rumlow. He asks if 
Steve wants him to get a tac team ready while they’re waiting 
for the forensics on whatever was found on that roof where 
TotallyNotBucky left him. Steve is like ‘no, we can wait until 
they get an actual result’.  Then he realizes something is off 
with the other guys in the elevator. The elevator stops and a 
bunch more guys in suits get on. Then it stops again and some 
thuggish looking guys get on. They all position themselves 
around Steve. Steve sighs and announces that he’s giving anyone 
who wants out of this an opportunity to get off before it gets 
real. The other occupants all attack at once. The “suits” have 
swoopy, high-tech magnetic restraints disguised as briefcase 
handles and manage to trap one of Steve’s hands to the wall of 
the elevator.
   Chrissy: I could totally use a set of those.
   Diandra: How about the glorified cattle prod Rumlow just 
    used on him?
   Chrissy: Eh. I’ve got something like that already.
 
Steve naturally manages to fight them all off one-handed, pull 
his arm free, and fight some more. Once all of them are on the 
ground unconscious, he opens the door of the elevator and is 
met by an entire SWAT team ordering him to drop his shield and 
put his hands in the air. Instead, he uses the shield to slice 
through the now-exposed cables controlling the glass elevator, 
sending it careening down several dozen flights, finds more 
SWAT approaching on that level and just gives up and jumps 
through the other side into another part of the building. 

And now we play a little game called “how much bullshit are we 
willing to go through to try to stop this guy?” Security tries 
to close the gates to the garage, but Steve drives his 
motorcycle through at the last second. They put out spikes at 
the end of the bridge and fly one of their planes over his 
head, yelling at him through a speaker to STOP ALREADY. The 
plane starts shooting and he dodges the bullets, flings his 
shield into a wing and then jumps on the plane to retrieve it, 
taking it down with a few more blows and then landing back on 
the bridge. 

And then we just cut to some guy named Sitwell giving orders to 
basically take control of everything in the entire city in 
order to locate Steve. Especially anything that can work as 
surveillance. Agent 13 asks why they’re hunting Captain 
America, exactly. Pierce announces his presence in the room by 
saying Steve lied and has information about Nick Fury’s death, 
that’s why. 

Steve goes back to the hospital to retrieve the drive and finds 
it gone from the totally safe hiding spot behind packs of gum. 
Natasha appears, snapping bubble gum like ‘you are so lucky I 
was here first’. Steve shoves her into a nearby room and they 
play a couple rounds of “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me 
yours”. She asks why the hell Fury gave him the drive. He asks 
where it is and what is on it. She says she has no idea because 
she doesn’t actually know everything. He says she knew Fury 
hired the pirates, didn’t she? She blinks like ‘well, I do now’ 
and says that makes sense. One thing she DOES know is who 
killed Fury. The agencies that will even acknowledge his 
existence call him the Winter Soldier and credit him with 
dozens of assassinations over the last 50 years. She might 
dismiss it if she hadn’t seen him when she was trying to 
extract an Iranian via Ukraine. She even has a scar from where 
he assassinated the guy she was with by shooting through her 
side. Same kind of bullets they got from Fury. Long story 
short...
   Chrissy: Too late.
...she tried to go after him, but it’s impossible because as 
far as the vast majority of intelligence agencies are 
concerned, he doesn’t exist. She hands Steve the flash drive 
and he grumbles that they’ll just have to see what this 
supposedly dead man wants.

Pierce is arguing with the council about whether or not Fury is 
a traitor. The council cites evidence like hiring pirates to 
attack a SHIELD ship and delaying Project Insight because he 
knew it would expose the traitorous things he was doing. Pierce 
melodramatically offers to resign over this. They say no, they 
don’t need to discuss that right now. But they are activating 
Project Insight.

Steve and Natasha, dressed in hoodies, go to the mall and 
directly into an Apple store to open the drive on one of the 
floor models. Natasha explains that it has a homing device on 
it that will locate them IMMEDIATELY upon using it and SHIELD 
will descend on them in minutes. I know the logic here is that 
they can get lost in the mall crowd and the Apple store is just 
product placement, but I like to think they’re luring SHIELD to 
the Apple store itself because fuck Apple. Natasha marvels that 
the drive is super protected by some sort of AI that writes 
counter commands as fast as she can write commands. But she can 
run a SHIELD program that traces the source somehow on this 
store demo laptop. Proving that this store doesn’t function 
like any other store in Earth reality, an employee comes around 
just now to ask if they need help. Natasha claims her fiancé 
here was just helping her choose honeymoon destinations. Steve 
is like ‘yeah! We’re getting married! We’re totally a young 
couple in love!’ He’s a terrible spy is what I’m saying, yes. 
The employee leans over and sees the satellite tracking 
software blinking on “New Jersey”. He backs away slowly from 
the obviously crazy people. Well, actually there’s more to it 
than that, but I don’t care.

SHIELD arrives just as the name of the city in New Jersey 
flashes on the screen. Steve rips out the drive and they run 
for it, doing a less intimate variation on the ‘kiss and they 
won’t recognize us’ cliché to get past the agents swarming. 
This is Natasha’s idea, of course. Steve’s idea was to just 
fight their way out. Then they have to actually kiss while 
they’re on an escalator to get past Rumlow because, as Natasha 
reasons, PDAs make people uncomfortable enough to look away. 
Um...not really. As literally every teenager trying to get 
attention has figured out, it makes people stare. Steve agrees 
with this assessment though, as it would make HIM 
uncomfortable. Once they’re a safe distance and she stops 
sticking her tongue down his throat she asks if he’s “still 
uncomfortable”. He says um...actually...
   Chrissy: Can we stop a second while I take off my jacket 
   and carry it awkwardly in front of my crotch? 

So they steal a car and drive to Jersey. Along the way, Natasha 
asks if that was his first kiss since 1945. “That bad, huh,” he 
asks.
   Chrissy: Well, I mean, if you were still a human 
   popsicle it would be understandable...
She protests that she was just wondering how much practice he’s 
had.
   Chrissy: And with what gender.
He says no, if she must know, it wasn’t his first since ’45. He 
may be 90 years old, but he can still get him some.
   Chrissy: Gee, thanks for that mental image, grandpa.

She’s still stuck on finding him a date because she presses 
that he doesn’t have anyone “special” then? He says it’s kind 
of difficult to find shared experiences with anybody.
   Chrissy: I would just like to point out that you have 
    spent every scene with Sam so far in this movie 
    establishing that you have shared experiences.
   Diandra: Sam has been establishing that. Steve not so 
    much. Although now that you mention it...they would 
    make an awesome couple. Or...as awesome as a 
    supersoldier and a poor man’s version of Batman could 
    hope to be.

Natasha, of course, suggests he think about not telling the 
truth to everyone all the time. Steve thinks it’s hard to trust 
somebody when you don’t know who they are. Natasha somewhat 
flirtatiously asks who HE wants her to be. He says he wants her 
to be a friend. This is going to make her defection to Team 
Iron Man even more awkward and baffling.
   Chrissy: Well...not if you know that the Civil War 
    wasn’t about Captain America VS Iron Man so much as it 
    was about the Mutant Registry that the MCU isn’t 
    allowed to refer to because they sold the X-Men off to 
    Sony.
   Diandra: We’re getting way ahead of ourselves here, 
    aren’t we?
Actually, she just says he’s clearly in the wrong line of 
business.

They arrive at a boarded up Army base that looks deserted and 
Natasha confirms that these are the coordinates she got from 
that trace. Steve is like yeah, um...I’ve been here before. 
They walk around among the rundown buildings as Steve adds that 
he was trained here. He has flashbacks of his drill sergeant 
yelling at his scrawny pre-super soldier self. Natasha says 
well, she’s not getting any heat signatures or radio waves or 
any signs of life whatsoever, so they must have been using a 
scrambler or rerouter or something. Steve is like yeah, or...it 
could be that munitions storage bunker that is too close to the 
barracks to have met Army regulations.

They break in and find an old SHIELD operations center with 
pictures hanging of Tony’s dad, Peggy and Captain Jack 
Harkness. Just kidding about that last one. But wouldn’t that 
be an awesome crossover?
   Chrissy: I’d be all over that.
   Diandra: So would he.

Steve notices that some shelves nearby slide back to reveal a 
secret compartment and wonders why an already secret office 
would need an extra secret office. The secret office turns out 
to be underground and full of Cold War era computing equipment. 
Natasha scoffs that something so ancient could possibly be the 
source of their signal, but notices that there is a flash drive 
hub on the desk. She plugs Fury’s drive in and all the 
machinery wakes up. Because you can totally get a several gig 
flash drive to read on a machine that probably couldn’t even 
handle megs. An electronic voice asks if the system should be 
initiated. Natasha is like ‘yeah, why not?’ and types “yes” and 
the return key on a dust covered keyboard and both the question 
and her answer appear on an old monochrome green DOS command 
screen. She grins and asks “do you want to play a game?” Then 
she remembers Steve is shit at pop culture and starts to 
explain but he says he saw the movie. Um...a cult 80s movie? 
You haven’t gotten to the Berlin Wall yet, but you’ve seen 
“WarGames”?
   Chrissy: There is an outside chance he thinks she means 
    “Saw”.
   Diandra: That’s...worse.

A camera moves between them and a German accented voice 
identifies them by name and birth date. Natasha dismisses this 
as some sort of weird recording. The voice answers that it is 
NOT, although he’s not really in the same shape as he was when 
Steve took him prisoner in 1945. A black and white picture of 
Toby Jones appears on another screen and Steve identifies him 
as Arnim Zola: one of the scientists who worked for head Nazi 
bad guy Agent Smith from the first movie.
   Chrissy: If you’re going to mix franchise references, 
    you could at least refer to Toby as Claudius 
    Templesmith.
   Diandra: No, I try to reference that series as little as 
    possible.
   Chrissy: Well, you could go with Dobby, but I think 
    that’s just his voice.
   Diandra: He was Dobby?
   Chrissy: Or the character he’s playing on the other 
    thing we’re recapping: Culverton Smith.
   Diandra: We’re recapping this to AVOID “Sherlock”, so 
    no. Let’s just assume all the Nazi characters can be 
    referred to as “hey it’s that guy”.

Anyway, Dream Lord explains that he had his consciousness 
uploaded to this supercomputer in the 1970s after he found out 
he was dying. Yeah, sure. Clearly this universe doesn’t 
understand how computers work and what their limits are.
   Chrissy: Of all the things about this universe that 
    require suspension of disbelief, you’re drawing this 
    line in the sand?
   Diandra: No, not really. Yeah, come to think of it, it’s 
    probably the least insane thing about this universe, so 
    whatever.
Natasha confirms that, like many outfits in the US, SHIELD 
recruited certain German scientists they thought might still be 
useful. Zola is like ‘yeah, I’m Swiss, but whatever. Obviously 
I wasn’t a good Swiss citizen if I joined the war effort.’

Steve thinks HYDRA died with Agent Elrond V Aberline.
   Chrissy: Wait...what the...
Zola is like ‘ha! Good one. Because big evil organizations 
always disband entirely when their supreme leader is gone. Bet 
you think the Nazis would have just disbanded if only Hitler 
had been killed sooner too.’ Zola yammers about how HYDRA was 
grounded in the belief that humans couldn’t be trusted with 
freedom and the war taught them that if they didn’t want a 
major fight the humans have to be convinced to surrender it 
willingly. So after the war, NewHydra became a sort of shadow 
operation within the newly formed SHIELD. Basically they are 
the reason the world has been in a near constant state of war 
ever since. Natasha says that can’t be right because SHIELD 
would have stopped them. Zola says yep, they tried. A few 
times. He flashes an article about Tony’s father being killed 
in an “accident” and Nick Fury’s picture to demonstrate how 
they dealt with any interference in their master plan 
to...trick...people... into fighting each other...or something. 
Really, do we need an outside party instigating violence 
between countries/tribes/whatever? Because really, the only 
reason the last century or so seems more violent than any other 
period in human history is we have more advanced technology and 
have developed war into an art form. He says humanity is 
clearly ready to sacrifice freedom for security now, as 
evidenced by all the surveillance and tracking shit and the 
very existence of the NSA. So, you know...the bad guys 
ultimately won. Which is what some of us have been saying since 
9/11.

Steve gets angry and punches the main monitor, shorting it out. 
Zola’s face just appears on another monitor and keeps talking 
about an algorithm he wrote for Project Insight. Natasha takes 
the obvious bait and asks what the algorithm does. Zola is like 
‘brilliant question, but I’m tired of entertaining this 
exposition dump so I’m just going to kill you now.’ The door 
behind them slams shut and Steve throws his shield at it 
impotently. Natasha gets an alert on her phone that a ballistic 
missile is on its way toward them. Steve asks who the hell is 
sending it. SHIELD. Zola is like ‘yeah, when you put in the 
flash drive you triggered that. I’ve just been keeping you busy 
with this whole revealing the entirety of my plan thing. Like a 
good supervillain.’ Steve opens a large grate in the floor, 
grabs Natasha and jumps in, shielding them from the debris of 
THE ENTIRE BUILDING BEING BLOWN APART AND CRUMBLING DOWN ON 
THEM with his shield. Yeah, I know. He digs them out and 
carries Natasha to safety before the agents can swarm the 
rubble. 

Pierce residence. Pierce goes to get a glass of milk and finds 
the Winter Soldier sitting at his kitchen table. He manages not 
to shit his pants and says “the timetable has moved. Our window 
is limited.” Bucky (I know they haven’t said that’s who it is 
yet, but I don’t feel like playing this game anymore) just 
stares at him, so he adds that they have two “level six” 
targets that have already cost him that miracle supercomputer 
AI that somehow runs on ancient technology. He wants them dead 
in the next ten hours. Pierce’s housekeeper comes into the 
kitchen suddenly to find her phone and stares at Bucky. Pierce 
bemoans the fact that she didn’t knock before stumbling into 
this secret meeting, takes Bucky’s gun and shoots her.

Morning. Sam finishes his run around the mall and is just going 
to slug some orange juice right out of the container when Steve 
and Natasha show up looking for a place to hide. “Everyone we 
know is trying to kill us,” Natasha says. Sam looks at them for 
a beat and is like ‘yeah, sure. Come on in.’
   Chrissy: Want some orange juice? I haven’t contaminated 
    it with my saliva yet.
   Diandra: You might want to stay away from the milk 
    though.

After they’ve gotten cleaned up, Steve joins Natasha in the 
bedroom to talk. No, that is not a euphemism.
   Chrissy: There has to be a fanfic somewhere where the 
    rush of not dying leads to some hot shower sex though.
   Diandra: I wouldn’t be surprised if it was from Sam’s 
    point of view, watching through a crack in the door. 
Natasha says when she joined SHIELD she thought she was “going 
straight”, but now she finds out she’s basically been working 
for undercover Nazis. She can’t keep all the lies straight 
anymore. She says she owes him though.
   Chrissy: If you and Iron Man ever get into a fight with 
   each other I will totally take your si- oh, wait.
He brushes it off, but she’s like ‘no, if our positions were 
reversed and you had to depend on me to save your ass, would 
you actually count on me to do it?’ He says yes, which just 
goes to show he puts way too much faith in people. Sam sticks 
his head in the room to announce that he made breakfast if 
they’re interested. 

So they continue their conversation out in the kitchen. Natasha 
asks who could possibly have the authority to launch a missile. 
Steve says Pierce. But he can’t be working alone. Natasha 
points out that Sitwell was on that ship with them. Steve 
concludes that this means they have to find a way to kidnap a 
SHIELD officer. Sam offers to do it for them and hands Steve a 
file on a mission he did once for pararescue that Natasha 
remembers was so dangerous they couldn’t use helicopters. The 
folder (which says “FALCON” across the front) outlines what 
they DID use, but we don’t see what it is yet. Steve marvels at 
Sam’s choice of words when he told Steve what he did – never 
using the word “pilot” and just letting Steve assume it. Steve 
protests the idea of dragging Sam back into a fight. Sam says 
yeah, well...Captain America needs my help.
   Chrissy: Can you imagine the amount of tail I can get if 
   I bring THAT up?
Steve asks where they can find one of “these”, waving the 
folder. Sam says Fort Meade. Behind several layers of security 
and a big steel wall. Natasha shrugs like ‘eh...child’s play.’

Sitwell is meeting with a senator, played by Gary Shandling. 
Because why not?
   Chrissy: I can think of a few reasons.
Senator Shandling is making a hasty exit because he has a hot 
date with a woman half his age tonight. He gives Sitwell a hug 
and whispers “hail Hydra” in his ear. Subtle. He leaves just 
before Sitwell’s phone rings. The phone says it’s Pierce, but 
it turns out to actually be Sam, calling from a café less than 
a block away. Sam says Sitwell is going to calmly go around the 
corner and get in the gray car or the person behind the red dot 
that just appeared on his sternum is going to shoot.

So, kidnapping taken care of really easily, they take Sitwell 
to a roof where Steve demands he tell them all about Zola’s 
algorithm. Sitwell is like hahahahawho? What? Steve asks what 
he was doing on that pirated ship. You know, when he broke away 
from the rest of the group. Sitwell says he was sea sick. Steve 
backs him all the way to the edge of the roof, Natasha hovering 
beside him. Sitwell looks over the side and asks if Steve is 
threatening to push him off. Because that doesn’t really sound 
like something he’d do. Steve says no, he wouldn’t. But the 
crazy Russian next to him would. He steps aside and she kicks 
Sitwell screaming over the edge. As the screams fade, she 
suggests setting Steve up with that cute chick with the lip 
piercing from accounting. Steve is like ‘eh...no.’ And then 
Sitwell’s screams get louder again as Sam, dressed in his 
Falcon outfit, flies him back up onto the roof. He lands and 
the “wings” fold themselves back into what looks like a metal 
backpack. Sitwell is like OKAY OKAY AS LONG AS EVERYBODY AGREES 
TO IGNORE THE FACT THAT I JUST SHIT MY PANTS. He says Zola’s 
algorithm chooses targets for Project Insight. Steve asks what 
it targets specifically. Sitwell is like ‘uh...whoever we 
decide.’ “You. A tv anchor in Cairo. The under secretary of 
defense. A high school valedictorian in Iowa City. Bruce 
Banner. Steven Strange. Anyone who is a threat to HYDRA now or 
in the future.” I love how they suddenly decided they have to 
name drop Doctor Strange in every movie to make up for the fact 
that he hasn’t actually been part of the action yet. Yeah, he’s 
here! Really! We promise! 

Steve lights on the word “future” and asks how it could 
possibly know who WILL be a threat.
   Chrissy: They’re called precogs...
Sitwell laughs and reminds him that all the information on 
everybody is online these days. The algorithm can basically 
read behavior patterns and predict how people will react to 
future events. Then it’s up to the hellicariers of Project 
Insight to remove any threats.
   Chrissy: Seriously, just go watch “Minority Report”. 
   We’ll wait.
Except, you know, it doesn’t do selective targeting, so it 
would take out millions of people at once. 

So we cut to Sam driving them all down a freeway. Natasha notes 
that they’re cutting it a little close here since Insight is 
scheduled to launch in 16 hours. Steve says yes, but they can 
use Sitwell to get in without having to bypass a bunch of 
security, so that should save time. Sitwell is like I’M SITTING 
RIGHT HERE and that plan SUCKS. Before he can protest any 
further though, his window suddenly breaks and he is yanked out 
and flung in front of a semi on the other side of the freeway. 
His presence on their roof announced (though not really 
explained), Bucky starts shooting through it randomly into the 
interior. 

Sam slams on the breaks, pitching him to the ground where he 
just bounces and skids to a stop. A Hummer slams into their 
rear end, forcing them forward again and Bucky flips back up 
onto the roof. He punches through the windshield and rips the 
steering wheel right off the column, then jumps onto the Hummer 
while it sends the car careening out of control. Steve manages 
to get both Natasha and Sam curled on top of the passenger 
door, which he separates from the car and uses as a 
shield/surfboard until they can skid to a stop. The guys in the 
Hummer come out and one hands Bucky a bazooka. He blasts Steve, 
sending him flying into a bus on an intersecting freeway. Then 
the rest of them focus on gunning down the humans hiding behind 
stopped cars. 

This goes on for a while. Natasha manages to get away by 
jumping off a bridge and using a grappling hook to swing down 
to a lower road. She sees the bad guys’ shadows grouping, 
waiting for her to get within sight range again and manages to 
start firing at them first before running again. Bucky tells 
the guy next to him he’ll get her if they focus on “him”, then 
gives chase.

By “him”, he of course meant Steve. Because who cares about the 
sidekick guy with the metal wings anyway? Several guys rappel 
onto the lower freeway and open fire on the rolled over bus, 
which thankfully everybody but Steve seems to have fled. Steve 
jumps from the window, recovers his shield and just sits there 
apparently waiting for them to run out of bullets. Sam, 
meanwhile, disarms another agent up top and starts picking guys 
off while Steve slowly makes his way forward, knocking out one 
guy himself by just slamming him into a car.

Bucky is a couple blocks or so away, leaving chaos in his wake, 
when he hears Natasha seemingly reporting status on a walkie. 
He sends a bomb rolling in the direction of her voice and winds 
up blowing up her phone, which is playing a recording, just 
before she jumps him from behind. She holds her own for a few 
blows, then tosses some sort of disc that shorts out his metal 
arm somehow before running again. He gets a shot to her 
shoulder and manages to corner her...sort of...and then Steve 
runs up and distracts him. They fight for a while, Bucky 
running through bullets trying to shoot through the shield even 
though he should know that doesn’t work by now. And then 
somehow Bucky gets the shield and chucks it into a van. They 
resort to hand to knife combat for, like, twenty minutes until 
Steve gets his shield back and manages to knock Bucky’s face 
mask off. There’s a long pause while Steve recognizes him and 
calls his name. Bucky is like ‘sorry, I don’t know anyone by 
that name’ and pulls a gun from somewhere. Before he can shoot, 
Sam does a flyby and knocks him over. Bucky apparently decides 
he’s had enough of this shit and shoots a nearby car, making it 
explode to cover his escape.

And then the SHIELD agents...maybe...arrive and arrest all 
three heroes.

In the paddy wagon, Steve is telling Sam and Natasha about how 
he KNOWS this Winter Soldier from the army, but the guy didn’t 
even recognize him.
   Chrissy: I mean, I know guys are bad at remembering one 
    night stands, but really. 
   Diandra: One night stands?
   Chrissy: Well...maybe quick handjobs under the blankets 
    while no one is looking.
   Diandra: It’s the “one” part I was objecting to, 
    actually. You think it only happened once?
Sam asks how it could possibly be him since that was 70 years 
ago. Well, the obvious answer is that HYDRA super soldiered a 
guy just like SHIELD did to Steve, isn’t it? And then froze him 
for the same amount of time so they could battle each other 
once Steve was reactivated and yeah I can see how far-fetched 
that sounds. Steve says Bucky’s unit was captured in ’43 and 
Zola experimented on them. Which, he exposits, is how he was 
able to survive the fall from a train he took in the first 
movie that everybody assumed killed him. Er...yeah. Sure.

Natasha notices he’s kicking himself and reassures him that 
none of what apparently happened to Bucky is his fault. Steve 
just angsts that “even when I had nothing I had Bucky.”
   Chrissy: He completed me! I lost my virginity to him!
Sam suddenly notices the wound in Natasha’s shoulder and tells 
the nearest agent that she needs medical attention before she 
bleeds out. The agent responds by knocking out the other agent 
guarding them and taking off their helmet. It’s Hill, grumbling 
about how goddamn uncomfortable these storm trooper wannabe 
helmets are. Then she asks Steve who the hell this new guy is 
anyway.

Hill smuggles them out the same way Fury got out of the car (by 
lasering a hole in the floor, apparently) and takes them to 
what looks like a dam where they have some secret operations 
set up in the control center. She informs their doctor that 
Natasha will need blood because she’s lost a shit load, but 
“she’ll want to see him first”. So they take her to where Fury 
is laying in a hospital bed, recovering. Because OF COURSE HE’S 
STILL ALIVE. He looks up at them and mutters “about damn time.” 
Because of course he does. 

The doctor winds up having to work on Natasha’s shoulder while 
she sits beside the bed so Fury can give all the gathered 
heroes a rundown of the injuries he’s been recovering from, 
which would have killed a lesser mortal.
   Chrissy: He *is* mortal.
   Diandra: I said “lesser”. 
The writers forget that they were making Natasha a more badass 
Sydney Bristow and have her ask how the hell Fury could still 
be here if his heart stopped. He explains how tetrodetoxin 
works by REALLY slowing down the heart. He says Bruce created 
it to try to reduce stress, but it didn’t really work on him. 
Steve is like ‘that’s nice, but why couldn’t you have just TOLD 
US what your plan was?’ Hill says because it had to look 
CREDIBLE. Duh. Fury adds that they stopped trying to kill him 
once they believed he was already dead. And, you know, there’s 
the whole not knowing who can be trusted thing.

HYDRAs lair. Or something. Some “doctors” are repairing Bucky’s 
damaged arm. Bucky has a flashback of falling from the train 
while Steve screams his name and coming to to Zola hovering 
over him, smarming that the “procedure” has already begun. And 
then we cringe away as a doctor starts sawing his arm off and 
flash forward to him strangling the same doctor with his new 
metal hand. And then yes, they froze him for some reason. He 
lashes out and the guards turn guns on him. 

They hold him until Pierce can come talk to him. Pierce stands 
a safe distance and demands a mission report. Bucky just stares 
into space. Pierce creeps closer and backhands Bucky across the 
face. Bucky shakes it off like Pierce hit a reset button and 
asks who that man on the bridge was.
   Chrissy: God, you’d think putting your dick inside a 
    person would make them more likely to remember you...
   Diandra: What makes you think Steve was on top?
   Chrissy: Come on. 
Pierce lies that he just met him this week while he was working 
another assignment. Bucky is like ‘no, I don’t think that was 
it...also, who was that pudgy guy in the big glasses and funny 
accent?’ Pierce sits and explains how Bucky is going to help 
them with the plan Zola was describing earlier, only he makes 
it sound all noble and patriotic. 
   Chrissy: Like a good military recruiter. 
   Diandra: Join the army, meet new people and kill them. I 
    mean, protect your fellow citizens back home. Yeah, 
    that sounds better.
Basically he says they will be making order out of chaos.
   Chrissy: Making sure the trains run on time?

Bucky is like ‘cool story bro. Seriously, how do I know that 
guy?’ Pierce sighs and orders the doctors to “prep him”. They 
protest that he’s been out of cryo for too long. Pierce doesn’t 
care. Wipe his memory and start over.
   Chrissy: I don’t understand why they didn’t just skip 
    right to Terminators.
   Diandra: Or Cybermen. Although, those still have human 
    brains, so...Cylons?
   Chrissy: Basically, they had enough advanced technology 
    to upload Zola’s consciousness to a supercomputer, but 
    they couldn’t just create an army of robots.
   Diandra: Well, that would have been FAR too easy.
The doctors strap Bucky to the chair, clamp a machine to his 
head and he screams as it starts sparking. Yeah, a robot would 
be so much easier.

Meanwhile, Fury is sneering at a picture of Pierce. He says 
this is a man who once declined a Nobel Peace Prize, claiming 
peace wasn’t an “achievement” but a “responsibility”. Yeah, 
well, Loki claimed he was giving humans freedom by enslaving 
the planet. What I’m saying is, he has the right idea, he’s 
just going about it in completely the wrong way.
   Chrissy: Freedom is slavery. War is peace. Wait, didn’t 
    I do this in the Avengers recap too?
   Diandra: Yeah, and it still applies.
Fury concludes that THIS kind of shit is why he has trust 
issues. They have to stop the launch of Project Insight, but he 
can’t contact the Council anymore. He and Hill lay out a plan 
to get into the helicarriers before they are fully weaponized 
and replace some “targeting blades”. They have to make the 
switch on all three or it won’t work. And they have to presume 
that everyone working on the ship is a member of HYDRA and 
therefore hostile.

Steve says awesome. And then once they take down the 
helicarriers, they can dismantle the rest of SHIELD. Because 
when you find that the crate has a few rotten apples in it, 
it’s best to just throw out all the crates. Or is that a bad 
analogy? Fury is like ‘you think I faked my death and called 
this secret meeting in a cave in a dam because I didn’t know 
HYDRA had infiltrated SHIELD?’ Hill argues that Steve is right 
to want to destroy it and start over. Fury is like ‘fine. Fuck 
it. Steve is in charge now.’

Sometime later, Steve has a flashback of Bucky apologizing to 
his pre-supersoldier self for not going to his mom’s funeral. 
Bucky seems to be offering to keep him company for the night. 
“We can put the couch cushions on the floor like when we were 
kids. All you gotta do is shine my shoes, maybe take out the 
trash.”
   Chrissy: Yeah, the cushions are to pad your knees. Do 
    you need me to explain what “shine my shoes” is a 
    euphemism for?
   Diandra: No, but the taking out the trash part kind of 
    worries me.
Steve says no thanks, he can “get by” on his own.
   Chrissy: [opens mouth]
   Diandra: Yes, we ALL KNOW WHAT THAT ONE MEANS.
Bucky says that might be true, but he doesn’t HAVE to. He 
squeezes Steve’s shoulder and vows to stick with him to the 
end.
   Chrissy: At least unless I nearly die and somebody turns 
   me into a lame half-cyborg and we’re both frozen until 
   the turn of the next century. Then I make no promises.

Sam appears and, knowing exactly what Steve is thinking about, 
says yeah, that guy is totally going to be there, but whoever 
he USED to be isn’t who he is now. And who he is now isn’t “the 
kind you save. He’s the kind you stop.” Steve admits that he 
isn’t sure he can do that. Oh, but you can destroy ALL of 
SHIELD. Sam reminds Steve that the guy doesn’t remember him at 
all. Steve ominously says “he will.”
   Chrissy: I plan to take my pants off. There’s no way he 
    won’t remember the little Captain.
   Diandra: Little?
   Chrissy: Figuratively speaking.

Back at the museum exhibit on Captain America, Stan Lee, 
dressed in a security guard outfit, stops in front of a display 
where one of the mannequins is now naked, hiding his “little” 
Captain behind a poor representation of Steve’s shield. Stan 
groans that he is SO fired.

In the SHIELD hangar with the helicarriers, a voice loudly 
announces that they are in the final stages of the launch 
sequence. People are scrambling around. Pierce greets the other 
members of the council who were flown in for the occasion. A 
guard brings them a briefcase with what looks like four flash 
drives. Pierce explains the facility is biometrically 
controlled and on a possibly unrelated note, these devices will 
give them unrestricted access. They clip them to their lapels 
like name tags.

Some guys monitoring the satellite, apparently, get a sudden 
burst of feedback on their coms and all remove them at the same 
time. One guy goes to check on it and is met by Captain 
America, flanked by pistol wielding Hill and Falcon.

In the council room, Pierce is giving a speech about how they 
have finally arrived at this moment and the world should be 
grateful to them. They barely begin drinking their celebratory 
champagne before Steve comes over the PA to announce that 
SHIELD has been taken over by HYDRA and their leader is 
Alexander Pierce. Pierce shrugs at the baffled councilmen like 
‘eh, what can you expect from a crazy superhero?’ Steve 
continues that they shot Nick Fury and are thisclose to getting 
full control. If the carriers launch, they will be able to kill 
anyone who gets in their way of world domination. Or whatever. 
Basically, this is a call to arms for anyone who is not already 
a HYDRA mole to help stop them.

Agents come into the council room. The Indian guy is like ‘oh, 
good, you can arrest this traitor.’ An agent pulls a gun on HIM 
instead. Because duh, dummy.

Rumlow marches into the control room and orders one guy to step 
up the launch sequence to now. Yeah, because that’s totally 
something that can be done. The guy shakily says no, he can’t 
do that. Rumlow points a gun at his head and tells him to back 
away from the station then. Agent 13 pulls her own gun on HIM 
and immediately everybody is pointing guns at everybody.
   Chrissy: ‘murica.
Rumlow looks at all the loyal SHIELD agents and slowly drops 
his gun. Then he pulls a knife and disarms Agent 13. Everybody 
starts shooting. He ducks down to type the apparently easy 
command into a computer, then runs away, still shooting.

The bay doors above the helicarriers start opening and anyone 
who threatens to close them again is shot by HYDRA agents.

From inside somewhere, Hill announces to the boys that they’re 
launching. The boys run out and fight their way onto the 
launching ships.

Pierce looks at the chaos going on out on the ships, sighs and 
turns to the council to pontificate. He poses a hypothetical 
scenario wherein Pakistan marched right into India and took 
Indian guy’s daughters to a stadium to be executed. Well, that 
would make them kind of like the French government/police who 
rounded up all those Jewish children and shipped them off to 
the Nazis, wouldn’t it? Which side of that war was HYDRA on 
again? Pierce suggests that they could prevent such a thing 
from happening with Project Insight.
   Chrissy: Or, you know...do exactly what I just said 
   Pakistan might possibly do TO Pakistan first because 
   what are ethics?
Indian guy says no and dramatically smashes his champagne glass 
on the floor. Pierce takes a gun from one of his agents. Before 
he can do anything with it, Councilwoman Jenny Aguter suddenly 
kicks him out of the way, tosses some sort of stun chip at 
Pierce and disables all the other agents. Once everyone is 
down, she points a gun at Pierce, disables the apparently 
holographic mask and takes off her wig. Because of course it’s 
Natasha.

There’s a sequence of Sam flying around, dodging bombers and 
firing pistols with both hands. And then Steve running around 
hitting, kicking and bashing bad guys with his shield. Hill 
announces that they have eight minutes till the carriers reach 
altitude. Cap is like ‘yeah, we’re DOING OUR BEST.’

Natasha gets the Asian guy to hold Pierce at gunpoint while she 
futzes around on a computer. Widmore asks what she’s doing. 
Pierce says she’s probably disabling security and blabbing 
their secret project all over the Internet. He tries to 
convince her this is a bad idea for her personally because it 
will declassify HER past. She hesitates for a second, but keeps 
typing.

Steve gets into carrier one and replaces the targeting blade.

Falcon is still dodging a bomber plane. He manages to lead some 
of his shots right to the barrier around the control center, 
blasting a hole that he can just fly right in. He replaces the 
second targeting blade and swan dives right back off the ship.

And then Bucky arrives and starts taking out the good guys on 
the ground. He commandeers a plane and flies out to the 
ascending helicarriers.

Pierce informs Natasha that she has reached a point in their 
security that requires two highest-level creds to bypass. She 
says she knows, which is why that helicopter is currently 
landing outside. Fury steps out of the helicopter and marches 
through the door, striking a pose like ‘that’s right, bitch, 
I’m back!’ 
   Chrissy: Somebody ask for a big, swinging dick? No? 
   Well, you got one anyway.
He and Pierce sort of glare at each other and Pierce asks “did 
you get my flowers?”
   Chrissy: Yeah, too bad they died or I would have brought 
   them to SHOVE UP YOUR ASS.

Pierce says no, really, he’s happy to see him. Sorry about the 
whole marking him for death thing. No hard feelings. It was 
just business. Fury sneers that he was PROTECTING people, 
not...whatever the hell Pierce is doing. Pierce claims they 
share a common enemy. “Disorder. War. It’s just a matter of 
time before a dirty bomb goes off in Moscow or an EMP fries 
Chicago.” He thinks diplomacy doesn’t work and he points to 
their shared mission years ago as an example: Fury just did 
“what needed to be done”. He thinks if he takes out 20 million 
people he can make life better for the rest of the billions in 
the world. Fury is like ‘yeah...I don’t think so.’ He drags 
Pierce to the retinal scanner. Pierce, flailing, babbles that 
they would have wiped Fury’s information and clearance codes 
from the system by now. Fury says yeah, probably, but... he 
pulls off his eye patch and lets the scanner read his milky, 
scarred eye. Somehow this works.

Steve announces that he needs Sam to give him a “ride”. Sam 
says yeah, sure, just tell me when you’re ready. Steve is like 
‘two minutes ago’ and flings himself from his carrier. Sam 
manages to catch him before he splatters on the ground, drags 
him to the third carrier and grumbles that he’s “a lot heavier 
than you look”. “I had a big breakfast,” Steve jokes.
   Chrissy: And I washed it down with the tears of my 
    enemies.
   Diandra: No, that’s Natasha. Steve would wash it down 
    with fresh mountain stream water delivered in the 
    talons of a bald eagle or something.
And then Bucky shows up and body checks Steve right over the 
side of the carrier. Sam goes to fly after him and Bucky 
catches him by a wing. Sam opens fire and Bucky does a little 
gymnast routine to dodge the bullets before hooking one of 
Sam’s wings and bringing him down, pulling the wing right off. 
Then he kicks him over the side too. Sam ejects the second wing 
and deploys an emergency parachute. 

After he lands, Sam asks if Steve is okay. He says he’s out 
because Bucky pulled his wings off like a sadistic child with a 
fly and without them he has nothing. Steve is climbing back up 
the side of the carrier. He says he can take it from here. 
Because of course he can. Sigh.

In the SHIELD building, alarms are going off and everybody is 
running around. Rumlow is taking out agents when he gets the 
message that Council has been “breeched” and Black Widow is 
involved. He heads in that direction. Hill sees this on her 
monitors and calls Falcon like ‘I found a way you can still be 
useful’.

Steve and Bucky meet at the control area where the last blade 
needs to go. Steve begs Bucky to “don’t make me do this.’ Bucky 
just stares, so they launch into a fight. Steve manages to go 
halfway through the steps of changing the blade while they’re 
fighting before dropping the replacement and knocking it over 
the side of the carrier.

Natasha announces that the breech/data upload to the Internet 
is complete. The devices Pierce had the councilmen wear all 
explode because of course that was probably the only thing they 
were designed to do all along. Pierce threatens to blow 
Natasha’s too if she doesn’t put the gun down. Fury also has a 
gun pointed at him, but this makes him stand down with an 
expression that totally says ‘no! Not my baby girl!’
   Chrissy: Aw...he is the father she never had.
   Diandra: Considering who we’re talking about, I wouldn’t 
    be surprised if she killed her real father.
   Chrissy: Nope. Not surprised at all.

And the fight is still going on. Bucky manages to stab Steve in 
the shoulder. Steve manages to break Bucky’s non-metal arm and 
trap him in a chokehold until he passes out. He recovers the 
targeting blade and runs back to the control...center...thing. 

Falcon intercepts Rumlow and they fight. Rumlow spews some bad 
line about how HYDRA doesn’t take prisoners and order comes 
through pain and dude, you’re working for Nazis. Sam becomes 
all of us as he grumbles “man, shut the hell up.”
   Chrissy: My favorite is still Tony, the king of sass, 
    but Sam comes in a close second.
   Diandra: I thought your favorite was Loki.
   Chrissy: That’s a completely different ranking.

Now that Pierce has some sort of control again, he asks his men 
how much time they have until the system is online. Some guy on 
the radio says they have slightly more than a minute left and 
they’re already lowering weapons. And targeting...who? Captain 
America and the other two people in the room you’re standing 
in?

Steve is AAAAALLLmost back at the platform to change the last 
blade when Bucky wakes up and shoots him in the leg. Steve 
keeps going, wobbling and dragging himself toward the panel and 
just before he can insert the blade, Bucky shoots him again in 
the abdomen. He slumps to the ground.

So the ships reach targeting altitude and come online. They 
start running Zola’s algorithm and satellite footage identifies 
thousands of targets in DC alone. It identifies thousands more 
all up the eastern seaboard until it reaches “saturation”. They 
announce that they will begin firing in three...two...one...and 
Steve gets the blade in just as they’re hitting the button and 
the screen shorts and all targets disappear. 

Hill orders Steve to get off the ship as the number of targets 
goes from hundreds of thousands to three. All the helicarrier’s 
guns turn to point at each other. Steve orders Hill to fire 
now. Even if she will most likely kill him despite him 
surviving that bombing of Zola’s bunker earlier and could 
probably withstand anything short of a nuclear blast. The ships 
start blasting away at each other and Bucky screams, alerting 
Steve to the fact that he has become trapped under a piece of 
the ship.

Pierce grumbles about what a waste the destruction going on 
outside the windows is and orders Natasha to come with him 
because she’s his ticket out of this mess. Fury just looks at 
the firefight outside and sniffles because Steve is the son he 
never had too. Natasha surreptitiously attaches one of her 
shock disc things to the bomb and triggers it, knocking herself 
out, but also shorting the bomb. Fury turns and shoots Pierce 
right through one of the many glass walls in the building and 
runs to shake Natasha awake. “Ow,” she grumbles. “Those really 
do sting.”

Outside, the helicarriers are starting to fall out of the sky, 
two of them smashing into each other.
   Chrissy: The special effects guys were all popping 
    boners over this.
   Diandra: And Michael Bay. And Jerry Bruckheimer.

“Hail HYDRA,” Pierce gasps as one of the carriers slams back 
into the bay, falling to pieces and splashing water everywhere. 
He stops moving.

Steve and Bucky are on the one ship still sort of standing, of 
course. Except it is falling in the direction of the SHIELD 
building, so I guess it’s a good thing the plan was to destroy 
SHIELD and start over. It crashes right into the room where Sam 
and Rumlow were fighting, but Sam sees it in enough time to 
start running. He yells that he REALLY hopes they have that 
helicopter in the air right now and directs them to the floor 
and side of the building he’s headed for. Fury and Natasha are, 
in fact, in the helicopter Fury rode in on and arrive just as 
Sam flings himself through a window. Fury tilts the chopper 
sideways and he goes sailing through the open door and almost 
all the way out the other side before Natasha catches him. Sam 
screams that he said he was on the 41st floor, damnit! Fury is 
like yeah, sure, because that’s painted in big numbers on the 
side of the building. Also, YOU’RE WELCOME. Natasha calls to 
Hill to ask where Steve is and the chopper flies right past 
him, prying Bucky free. Bucky shows his gratitude by punching 
him.
   Chrissy: Yeah, well, he always was an ungrateful little 
    jerk.
   Diandra: He never ONCE offered to shine MY shoes or take 
    out MY trash.

Steve tries to reason with him. Hey, come on man! You know me! 
We’ve known each other forever! We know things about each other 
we would never tell ANYONE else.
   Chrissy: Like I know how you cry after a really good 
    orgasm.
   Diandra: Yeah, good idea Steve. That’ll make him stop 
    hitting you. 
Steve recites his full name as James Buchanan Barnes 
which...really? What was his mother’s second choice? Thomas 
Jefferson Barnes? Abraham Lincoln Barnes?
   Chrissy: Yeah, either of those would have been better, 
    actually. Who names their child after one of the worst 
    presidents ever?
   Diandra: I don’t know. Ask anyone in the future named 
    Donald.

Steve takes off his mask and drops his shield right off the 
ship, saying he will not fight his friend.
   Chrissy: ...anymore.
   Diandra: Yeah, try to forget about the fact that I just 
    broke your arm over my knee like a broomstick.
Bucky tackles Steve and punches him nearly unconscious, saying 
this is his MISSION, damnit. Then he hesitates and Steve is 
like ‘well? Finish it then.’
   Chrissy: You always were terrible at finishing me off.
   Diandra: Oh, now you want to bring this up? NOW?
He does a callback to that earlier memory by vowing to stay 
with Bucky to the “end of the line”. Bucky stares at him while 
sad music plays.
   Chrissy: And then they kiss.

And then the part of the carrier that Steve is on falls apart 
and Steve falls into the water, unconscious. The ship explodes 
completely. And then a hand reaches for him and Bucky drags him 
to shore and just wanders away.
   Chrissy: Such a wasted opportunity there to have Bucky 
    hovering over Cap while he wakes up and saying “I 
    remember!”
   Diandra: We fooled around on some couch cushions and 
    then you took out my trash!

In a secure wing of a hospital, Sam sits beside Steve’s bed, 
playing a Marvin Gaye song on his iPhone (trademark).
   Chrissy: Unfortunately, it is not “Let’s Get it On.”
No, of course it’s from that soundtrack he was talking about 
earlier.
   Diandra: You are just determined to get him laid, aren’t 
    you?
   Chrissy: Uh...yeah? 
When Steve wakes up he looks over at him and mumbles “on your 
left.” Sam looks at him and smiles like ‘yeah, I missed you 
too, asshole.’
   Chrissy: And then they kiss.
   Diandra: Stop it.
   Chrissy: No.

We get a little montage to establish where everybody winds up. 
Agent 13 is training on a CIA gun range and she is REALLY good 
at shooting targets. Hill is seemingly interviewing for a job 
at Stark Industries. Senator Gary Shandling gets shoved into 
the back of a black SUV by a couple FBI agents. Rumlow is 
apparently still sort of alive and being rushed into triage 
somewhere. Because we really can’t kill any named characters in 
this series. 

Natasha is being debriefed by a committee. A general asks why 
they haven’t heard anything from Steve Rogers. She snots that 
she thinks the wreckage surrounding what’s left of that three 
pronged phallic building makes his point for him. The General 
bristles and asks how they’re supposed to maintain security now 
that their “intelligence apparatus” has been destroyed. Natasha 
is like ‘riiiiight, because the former Nazi group that 
infiltrated SHIELD was providing you with “intelligence”.’ 
Special Agent Clayton Webb suddenly pipes up that SOME PEOPLE 
think, given Widow’s history, that she belongs in prison. She 
sighs and says they’re not really going to put ANY of them in 
prison. “Because you need us. Yes, the world is a vulnerable 
place. And yes, we help make it that way. But we’re also the 
ones best qualified to defend it.” 
   Chrissy: Or, failing that, Avenge it.
   Diandra: Huh. Where have we heard that before, I 
    wonder...
She storms out of the hearing.

Somewhere, Nick Fury takes off his eye patch, dons a pair of 
sunglasses and a hoodie and sets fire to his lair. Or whatever 
it is. And is probably immediately arrested and shot by the 
first police officer he happens to cross paths with because 
BLACK MAN IN A HOODIE WITH SUNGLASSES!

No, actually he meets Steve and Sam in a graveyard. In front of 
a gravestone marked “Col. Nicholas J. Fury”. He commiserates a 
little with Steve, who says he’ll get used to the whole being 
declared dead thing. Fury says uh-huh, so we’ve been going 
through HYDRAs data and it turns out not all of them are gone 
yet. Which is exactly what Zola tried to tell you. He offers to 
take Steve to Europe with him tonight for...a thing...that 
might or might not be related. Steve says nah, there’s 
something he has to do here. Fury offers to take Sam instead 
because they could “use a man of your abilities.” Um...he 
doesn’t have any. I mean...I think the Falcon of the comics has 
the ability to control birds, but that puts him in league with 
Ant-Man and Squirrel Girl.
   Chrissy: Actually, Ant-Man has the ability to change his 
   physical size and Squirrel Girl has teeth that are 
   basically like Wolverine’s claws, so...his ability to 
   communicate with birds puts him in league with your 
   average Disney princess.
Sam says nah, he’s a soldier, not a spy. Damnit, Jim! Sorry. 
Fury shrugs, shakes both their hands and says if anybody comes 
looking for him, they should direct them to this headstone 
right here. Natasha shows up just then to say they should be 
flattered because that’s as close to a “thank you” as Fury is 
capable of.

Steve pulls her aside and notes that she’s not going with Fury 
either, but she’s not staying here, is she? She says nah, she 
blew all the covers she had so she needs to go invent some new 
ones. Could take a while. A LONG while. Or it could take until 
the next “Avengers” movie which is, what, six months? She hands 
him a file that she got for him by calling in some favors from 
Russia and asks him to PLEASE consider calling that nurse 
because he needs to get laid. He’s like ‘yeah, um...she’s not a 
nurse. Did you not realize this?’ She shrugs and says she’s 
nice anyway. She kisses Steve’s cheek, warns him to be 
“careful” and leaves. Steve opens the folder to find a picture 
of frozen Bucky clipped to the inside, along with a picture of 
him as Steve knew him in the war. Sam wanders over, peeks over 
his shoulder and concludes Steve is planning on going after 
him.
   Chrissy: END OF THE LINE, Sam. He is my soul mate! 
Steve says Sam doesn’t have to help him. Sam says yeah, sure. 
“When do we start?”

And we smash to credits.

Mid-credit scene. A guy in a trench coat tells another guy that 
it’s “over” because Fury has released everything to the public. 
He identifies the man as Herr Strucker and says if they find 
out what they’re working on here for HYDRA... Strucker snorts 
that HYDRA and SHIELD are basically historic artifacts. They 
have something worth far more than anybody knows. He steps over 
to a control center area with a table in the center holding 
what looks like an updated version of the spear Loki was using 
in “The Avengers”. He says there are other facilities all 
around the world still continuing the work of HYDRA. “We’ll 
feed them to Captain America and his colorful friends.” 
Basically, it will provide a nice distraction. They wander over 
to some holding cells with “the twins”. In one cell, Elizabeth 
Olson is levitating some blocks. In the other, Aaron Taylor 
Johnson is pinging off the walls blurrily. Ah. Forgot Scarlet 
Witch and Quicksilver were introduced here. Strucker waxes 
philosophical that this is not the age of heroes, but the age 
of “miracles” and “there’s nothing more horrifying than a 
miracle.” Scarlet Witch smashes one of her blocks and we go 
back to credits.

After the credits, we see Bucky wandering through the Captain 
America exhibit, staring at a panel about best friend “Bucky” 
while ominous music plays.

So as I said, we’re going to skip “Guardians of the Galaxy”. I 
can summarize the plot as follows. A merry band consisting of a 
human kidnapped by a space pirate, the green skinned rebel 
daughter of Thanos, a raccoon/alien hybrid, an alien who was 
actually a mutated human in the comics and an Ent with a 
severely limited vocabulary team up to defeat Legolas’ dad and 
capture one of the Infinity Stones the Hunger Games reject from 
the “Thor” end credit scene was collecting. There’s a romantic 
side plot and a side plot involving Gamora’s sister Amy Pond 
going to the dark side, but both of those will be explored more 
in the second movie. As will the realization at the very end 
that Star Lord is actually not fully human. 
   Chrissy: Huh. There really wasn’t much to that movie, 
    was there?
   Diandra: Nope. All exposition. There wasn't even 
    anything in the end credit scene. It was just an 
    appearance by Howard the Duck. Which is why I felt 
    confident we could skip it.
   Chrissy: I thought you just didn’t want to try to 
    describe the insane visuals in a recap.
   Diandra: If that was the case, I would be skipping 
    “Doctor Strange” too.
   Chrissy: So are we doing GoTG2 then?
   Diandra: ..........we’ll cross that bridge when we come 
    to it.