"Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol 2" Starring: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Kurt Russell, Dave Bautista, Pom Klementieff, Karen Gillian, Michael Rooker, Elizabeth Debicki, The Voice of Bradley Cooper, the helium enhanced voice of Vin Disel and cameo appearances by Rocky and The Hoff. Okay, so since the Doctor Strange recap, I did a poll on Twitter to decide which Tom Hiddleston movie Chrissy and I should recap next to make up for ditching her when Emilio and I did Kong. Once I promised I would do the winner of that poll (the moody vampire one), she decided that it was only fair that she does that INSTEAD of this recap, which she said she wasn't really looking forward to anyway. I offered to skip it and just go to Spider-Man, but she said, and I quote, "nah, I'm sure Emilio will be willing to help you out." Emilio: So basically she stuck you with me. Diandra: Actually, I think she stuck YOU with ME. Well. Here goes nothing. Because these movies have a mixtape soundtrack instead of just the standard score, we open with "Brandy, You're a Fine Girl" played over a pan of very ugly Midwestern landscape. The chyron identifies it as Missouri, Earth in 1980. We close on a boat of a convertible driving down the road with a long-haired Kurt Russell driving and a somewhat longer-haired woman singing (badly) with the music and bopping in the passenger seat, standing so the wind can blow her hair. They pull into a Dairy Queen. Ha. Emilio: Can we take a moment to appreciate how much Kurt Russell really does look like he did in the 80s? Diandra: Yeah, the technology Marvel uses to artificially de-age keeps improving with each movie. Of course, making him look late twenties is probably easier than making Robert Downey Jr. look... what... nineteen? And then we cut right to him taking her into the woods while she giggles and asks where they're going. Like...this is usually a prelude to women being murdered, but...okay. He shows her a funny looking egg thing sitting on the ground in a clearing. It's translucent and its center is glowing. She declares it "beautiful". And while he might look like his old 80s self, his voice gives him away as his current, gruffer self as he talks about not knowing if it would take to Earth soil but soon it will be "everywhere". Oh, yeah, that's reassuring. Emilio: Well, everywhere around this particular city. Big dome just appearing from nowhere. It'll probably cut at least one cow in half. Diandra: Huh. I forgot that's how the show changed the origin of the dome. Emilio: I might be wrong. I only saw, like, three episodes. Diandra: No, that sounds familiar. And I think butterflies were involved for some reason. That's probably when I quit because I realized it was going to be nothing like the book. In a very southern accent the twit admits she has no idea what he's talking about, but he sure is purdy. He declares his adoration for her, being sure to note her name as Meredith Quill. She marvels that she has fallen in love with a "spaceman". Which is probably an improvement over the space cadets she had to choose from back home. Emilio: [makes rimshot noise] They kiss and we pan down to the "egg", which we can see actually looks more like a closed flower, and inside it where electrical currents are illuminating primitive cell structures. 34 years later. Pretty shot of a planet that appears to have at least a dozen other planets and moons clustered WAY TOO CLOSE to it. This is identified as The Sovereign, with a bunch of unreadable letters and numbers jumbled beneath the chyron. On the surface of the futuristic planet, we land on a platform surrounded by a bunch of firey globe...things. The other Chris of the franchise - Peter "Star Lord" Quill (aka, Meredith's son) - stands on the edge of the platform with a clunky, beeping device in his hand. "Show time, a-holes," he sing- songs. "It will be here any minute." The device appears to be a jerry rigged game boy from his childhood because everything in this corner of the series is 80s nostalgia. Behind him, Gamora - Thanos' green skinned daughter - cocks a comically large gun. He blinks and whines that he thought her "thing" was a sword. Emilio: Ahem. Diandra: Yeah, just get out your insecurities that she has a bigger metaphorical dick than your real one now, Peter. She exposits that they're here to "stop an interdimensional beast from feeding on those batteries". She nods at the glowing things at the center of the platform and asks if he really thought she planned to stop it with a SWORD. He grumbles about guns being HIS thing, but fine. "I guess we're both doing guns now." Gamora ignores his little tantrum and asks why Drax isn't wearing one of Rocket's "aero-rigs". The perpetually shirtless Drax grumbles that it "hurts" because he has sensitive nipples. Rocket laughs hysterically and mocks him for this, which he will probably never stop doing now. Drax asks what HE'S doing with that speaker thing he's working on. Rocket says he's just finishing up. He thought they could listen to some tunes while they work. Drax is like 'yeah...nice priorities there.' Rocket points out that this is, of course, Peter's idea. Peter says no, it isn't. Rocket says oh, sure. You're siding with Drax. He gives Peter an obvious wink that he probably thinks is subtle. Drax points out that he can CLEARLY SEE THAT. Rocket apparently didn't realize he was using the eye turned toward Drax. A tiny lizard nearby makes screeching noises and Baby Groot - who grew from a sprout they managed to save after Groot blew himself up in the first movie - growls and knocks it over. A second lizard turns toward him and he punches it. They run away and he turns to the team and says the only words he can defiantly. "I AM GROOT!" "They were NOT looking at you funny," Rocket retorts. There's a flash in the sky and a giant...squid? I think?... flies out of the clouds and lands on the platform. Drax pulls two daggers (because apparently pointy objects are still his thing), screams and runs at it. Everyone else follows close behind. Except NewGroot, who we focus on while the fight goes on in the background. He plugs in the speakers Rocket was working on and the credits start to the tune of "Mr. Blue Sky". He dances to the song while explosions happen and things fly through the background. A tentacle slams the ground just behind him. He is oblivious. Peter lands beside him, fires back at the flailing squid and staggers upright. He notices NewGroot and yells his name before getting smacked off camera by a tentacle. NewGroot keeps dancing past Drax being repeatedly slammed into the ground. Gamora stops shooting long enough to yell at him to GET OUT OF THE WAY before he's hurt. She powers up her jet pack and flies back into the fray. More dancing. Credits still rolling. Peter and Rocket are flying through the background. Drax falls near Baby Groot. Baby Groot freezes and waits for him to get up and rejoin the fight, then goes back to dancing. He stops dancing as a firebug flies past and starts chasing it like a distracted kitten. When he catches it, he tries to eat it. Rocket lands and tries to yank it from him, yelling "spit it out" like an exasperated parent. Rocket flies off and BG turns his attention to a hideous alien rat and chases it, climbing on and riding it like a horse through the chaos. It bucks him and he lands right back where he started near the speakers. He gets up, dusts himself off and goes right back to dancing like nothing just happened until Drax is dropped on the speaker, cutting off the music. BG slaps at him angrily. Now that we're focused on the actual action here, Drax stands and faces the writhing creature. He announces that its skin is too thick to be pierced from the outside, so he must cut through from the inside. Gamora is like 'wait... what?!' She screams as he runs toward the creature and dives right into its open mouth. Peter punches a button to fold away his helmet and asks what the HELL Drax thinks he's doing. Gamora starts to repeat what Drax said before his little kamikaze act. Peter interrupts that that makes no sense. Gamora is like 'yeah, I TRIED to stop him.' Peter mansplains that skin is the same thickness on the inside as on the outside. She's like 'yeah, I KNOW.' Quick shot of Drax getting all stabby inside the creature that is maybe getting a bit of a stomachache from it. Comedy! Outside, Peter says there's a cut on its neck and calls to Rocket to help get the "giant sea monkey" to look up so Gamora can get a clear shot. They fly around its head, shooting. Gamora gets her sight locked on the wound, then realizes she's out of bullets. She tosses the gun aside and unsheathes her sword. She runs toward the creature, leaping off one of its tentacles, driving the sword into the wound and falling to the ground slowly, ripping the entire underside of the thing open. Disgusting yellow fluid oozes out. She lands in a hero pose and the thing writhes a few more seconds before collapsing, oozing even more. Drax bursts from the newly cut seam in an approximation of a horror movie birth. He laughs and declares that he has single handedly destroyed the creature. Everyone looks at him like 'yeeeeeaaaaaahhhhhh'. Baby Groot throws something at him. Emilio: And nobody tells him that what he did accomplished nothing. Diandra: Probably nobody has the heart to tell him. The big dummy. So the team is hovering around the "batteries". Peter collapses the rest of his armor into something cell phone sized and Drax is moping ooze from his chest. He asks what these things are called again. Peter says anulax batteries. Drax says right. "Harbulary batteries." Peter, pulling on a coat, points out that that doesn't even sound CLOSE to what he said. But whatever. He exposits that they're worth thousands of units each, which is why the Sovereign hired them to protect them. The Sovereign they are headed to speak to right now. And they should watch what they say around these people because they're easily offended and quick with the death penalty. A gold woman on a gold throne thanks the Guardians for risking their lives for this mission because lord knows they couldn't possibly have expected such sacrifice from their own. She explains apropos of nothing that every Sovereign citizen is designed by the community and their DNA is carefully controlled and clinical. Emilio: Like a Nazi eugenics wet dream. Peter jokes that he prefers to make offspring the old fashioned way. The woman...apparently named Ayesha...suggests maybe one day he can give her a "history lesson in the archaic ways of our ancestors. For academic purposes." Emilio: Maybe with some hands on demonstrations to make sure it really SINKS IN. [makes crude gesture] Right? Diandra: Yeah, apparently there are a LOT of women who would jump at that opportunity. I am not one of them. Peter says well, yeah, sure. Anything in the name of science! He starts to say it would be enlightening or fun or something but catches Gamora looking at him and reverses direction quickly to declare it "repulsive" and something he would totally not be into. Gamora rolls her eyes and redirects back to the point. Ayesha's people promised an exchange for their services, so the faster they get their payment the faster they can be out of the Sovereign's hair. A couple guards bring out a prisoner. It is Nebula - Gamora's half cyborg adopted sister. Emilio: Amy Pond! Diandra: Okay, doing this recap with you instead of Chrissy has some potential. Nebula glares daggers at Gamora and Peter awkwardly sing-songs "family reunion! Yay!" Gamora sneers that Nebula is only worth as much as the bounty they're willing to pay for her on Xandar. Ayesha says yeah, well...she was caught trying to steal the batteries, so...they were probably just going to put her to death and they really don't care what Gamora does with her. Gamora manhandles Nebula out of the room as Peter formally thanks the "high priestess Ayesha" and bows. Before he can leave, Ayesha asks a non sequitr in an obvious nod to the coming plot of this movie. What is Peter's heritage? He says his mother was from Earth. She points out that that he's leaving out the other part of the equation there. "He ain't from Missouri," Peter jokes. "That's all I know." Ayesha says she can sense the unorthodox genealogy in him. He's some sort of hybrid. This is why I felt confident I could skip the first movie, by the way. They're basically going to recap everything in this one. Emilio: Probably could have skipped this one too. Diandra: I could, but that would probably have made introducing everybody and catching up in Infinity War harder. Rocket pipes up suddenly that he was told the people of Sovereign are "conceited douchebags". "But that isn't true at all," he says, doing the terrible, obvious wink thing at Peter again. The Sovereigns stiffen and gasp and Rocket realizes he's using the wrong eye again. Yeah, that was the problem there. "I'm sorry, that was meant to be behind your back," he adds as Drax lifts him by his flack jacket and carries him away. They aren't fully out the door before Drax mutters that Rocket is lucky they didn't kill him and Rocket opens his pack to show some stolen batteries. Drax laughs boisterously. On the ship, a cassette labeled "awesome mix vol 2" plays "Lake Shore". Peter takes his shirt off because apparently Hemsworth isn't the only Chris required to have at least one shirtless scene per movie in this franchise and puts on an apparently entirely recognizable uniform of a Japanese anime shirt. Emilio: Wow. That did nothing for you, did it? Diandra: Nope. Emilio: So I guess I have a partial answer if I were to ask who you would fuck, marry or kill of the Chrises. Diandra: Hemsworth, Evans and Pratt. In that order. Emilio: Wow. You didn't even need to think about that. He looks at Gamora undoing Nebula's restraints and rhetorically asks who that lady thinks she is asking about his father like that. Gamora is like 'right, because you're sensitive about that subject.' Peter bristles that he isn't SENSITIVE. He doesn't KNOW anything. Also, sorry if it looked like he was flirting with Ayesha. He totally wasn't. She's not mad at him about it, is she? Gamora shrugs and says she doesn't care if he was flirting or not. Emilio: She's mad. She's VERY mad. She walks away, Nebula trailing behind her and Drax appears suddenly at his elbow to tell him that he's wasting his time pining after Gamora. Peter nearly has a heart attack. Drax ignores him. "There are two types of beings in the universe. Those who dance and those who do not." Wow, that's deep man. He starts a story about how he met his "beloved" at a war rally while Peter groans softly and wishes he could get out of this. Drax barrels on about how everybody else was "flailing about" except for his Ovette and that's how he knew she was the one. She wouldn't even tap her foot to the most melodic song in the world. "One might assume she was dead." Peter "agrees" that the ability to emulate a corpse sounds totally hot. Drax says yeah, it really engorged his nether regions. Emilio: STOP WITH THE SEXY TALK! Peter is like 'okay, please stop talking!' He says he's in the dancer group and Gamora is not. Drax pats his shoulder and says he just needs to find a woman who is "pathetic" like him. Over with the alien sisters, Nebula announces that she is hungry and asks Gamora to hand her some of the yaro root in that bowl over there. Gamora refuses on the grounds that A) it isn't ripe yet and B) she hates her. She attaches Nebula's restraints to what looks like a periscope tube. Nebula is like 'oh, so you're going to claim the moral high ground after leaving me in that prison and taking the Infinity stone for yourself?' She vows to murder Gamora once she is free of her shackles. Gamora says actually she's going to spend the rest of her life in a prison on Xandar, so she may want to save up some of those revenge fantasies because they will be fueling her will to live soon enough. An alarm goes off, interrupting them, and Peter notes that they have a Sovereign fleet coming up behind them. Gamora asks why. Drax says it probably has to do with retrieving the batteries Rocket stole. Rocket is like 'hey, THANKS BUDDY!' Drax is like '*coughcough* I mean, uh...no, he didn't steal batteries. I didn't see anything. I don't know what this is about!' The Sovereigns start shooting and Peter dodges the blasts before yelling at Rocket. Rocket is like 'oh, come on. You saw how that lady was talking to us like she's better than us.' Peter is like 'oh, so you're just teaching her a lesson in humility. How altruistic. Too bad the Sovereign didn't see it that way and are trying to kill us right now.' Rocket is like 'see? You get it!' "I WAS BEING SARCASTIC," Peter yells. Rocket screeches that he's supposed to use a SARCASTIC voice when he's being sarcastic so he doesn't make people look foolish. Gamora asks if they could please save the bickering for AFTER the "massive space battle." Ships appear in front of them and Rocket, only because he is an alien with entirely different references, fails to yell 'yippie ki-yay, motherfucker!' before blasting away on the guns. Gamora punctures his bubble of victory a little by pointing out that those are just remotely piloted drones, so he's not actually taking any bad guys down. To reinforce this, we go to what looks like a glorified arcade where Sovereigns are operating the controls at stations that are actually making the same noises arcade machines used to. Emilio: Which one is Ender? Diandra: I understood that reference. Emilio: Did you see the movie though, or did you just read the book? Diandra: Oh...right...there was a movie. Emilio: Yes, and Harrison Ford was in it. Diandra: Ugh. Well, now I have to see it. Ayesha is with a guy she identifies as "Admiral". She demands to know what is taking them so long. He exposits that the batteries are highly combustible and could destroy their entire fleet, so...you know... Ayesha snarls that all she cares about is the heresy these nitwits have committed by stealing from them after they were hired to defend them against an attack. Admiral shrugs and picks up the intercom, announcing that everyone operating the drones should stop playing with them and just shoot to kill. The Guardians' ship is rocked by a blast and Peter asks what the nearest habitable planet is. Gamora taps furiously on a screen and pulls up a file on "Berhert". She says it's only one "jump" away, but the access point is 47 clicks off. I can't figure out if this is a reference or not because...Zoe Saldana is Uhura, who I'm pretty sure serves this exact same function on the Enterprise in the Star Trek movies directed by JJ Abrams and 47 is one of the numbers JJ was obsessed with back when he was doing that with TV shows. But I just realized I had to really work hard for that connection, so it's probably nothing. Emilio: Hey, if it's occurred to you, it's probably occurred to somebody else. Diandra: I love how you enable my insanity. Oh, and the access point is on the other side of a quantum asteroid field. Peter is like 'yeah, sure, I'm a cocky SOB with a death wish' and steers into a field where asteroids are popping randomly in and out of existence. Drax clunkily notes that to make it through that field he'd have to be "the greatest pilot in the universe." Oh, don't stroke his ego. Peter smirks and starts to say it's a good thing he is then, but Rocket finishes the sentence because of course they're in a perpetual war over which of them is the bigger badass. They start twirling and diving through the field and Rocket demands to know what Peter thinks he's doing over there. Peter brags that he's been piloting this ship since he was ten. Rocket is like yeah, well, I was literally DESIGNED to do shit like this! Emilio: And Gamora is like 'neither of you are getting into my pants with this.' Rocket is like 'speaking of beds...I'm totally gonna put a deuce in your pillowcase tonight, Quill'. Peter snarls that if Rocket poops in his pillow, he will SHAVE him. Rocket is like 'did I say it would be mine? I'll get it from Drax.' Drax laughs loudly and declares that he has "famously huge" poops. Emilio: That's not...um... Diandra: Yes, in case you weren't aware, this is the most juvenile wing of the MCU. Gamora grumbles that they're about to die and the last thing she's going to hear is a discussion of Drax's bowel movements. Something hits the ship and a section of the hull near Nebula blasts into space. They go into a tailspin and NewGroot pinballs around the cabin. Peter taps a few buttons to make a patch appear over the hole and Nebula hits the floor, screaming "idiots!" Rocket grumbles that this is what they get for letting Peter fly the ship. Gamora throws something at him and points out that they still have a Sovereign ship on their tail. At the arcade, everyone is gathering around the one guy still operating. Peter announces that their weapons are down. Gamora announces that they have twenty clicks to the jump. Drax hands Baby Groot to her and she puts him on her shoulder and tells him to hold on. Nebula is reaching for the spilled yaro root when Drax kicks it away, declaring it still not ripe. He attaches a cable to his belt and grabs a disk from a wall labeled "spacesuits for emergency only", under which somebody has written "or for fun". He attaches it to his back and it expands a see through "suit" around him. There's a little back and forth between the Sovereign's cheering the remaining remote fighter pilot on and the Guardian ship being rocked by explosions while Gamora recites distances to the jump. And then Drax closes an airlock, grabs a gun and flings himself out into space, grunting when he is stopped short by the cable. "DIE, SPACESHIP," he yells, blowing the drone with one blast. The Sovereigns groan in disappointment at the game over screen and one declares that the only guy to get that far through an impossible minefield "sucks". Because there are dicks on all planets, apparently. And then apparently they all return to their stations because as the Guardian ship emerges from the asteroid field, the fleet closes in on them again, shooting from both directions. The team just stares, panicked, as windows start to crack. And then all the drones suddenly explode at once. Ayesha and the Admiral boggle as all the arcade controls wink out and she demands to know who the HELL did that. Rocket asks what that shiny thing floating in space in front of them is. Peter is too busy trying to control the ship to notice. Gamora screams "one click!" The shiny thing sails past them and a guy standing on top of it like it's a jet ski waves at Rocket. Nobody else sees anything. Peter steers through the "jump", which is like an octagonal window in space, and the ship catches fire on the other side. Gamora notices that Drax is still being dragged behind them by umbilical cord and runs to catch the anchor as it breaks from the wall of the ship along with everything else that is detaching and flying out. She catches the side of the hatch opening and yells as she strains to hold on to Drax. Peter looks at the video screen showing this in alarm, then at Baby Groot sitting in her seat eating candies like he's munching popcorn at the movies. Peter yells at him to put a seatbelt on. Emilio: You can't tell me what to do! You're not my dad! Diandra: Isn't he? I mean...his biological dad died giving birth to him, basically. Emilio: That's an interesting way to describe it. Diandra: Well...I mean...okay, so he was destroyed protecting the rest of the group and they replanted a tiny sprig that was unharmed and it grew into NewBabyGroot. And now I've forgotten what my point was. Emilio: So have I. Diandra: Let's move on. Emilio: Please. The ship nosedives into a forest of the planet Berhert, mowing down several trees and slamming Drax into several more before coming to a stop. After a beat, the right wing falls off and several birds scatter, shrieking in alarm. Drax gets up, laughing like 'yeah! That ride was SICK!' Sometime later, Gamora is screaming at Peter about how he destroyed her ship. She ends her rant with the accusation that either of the idiot pilots could have flown the ship JUST FINE "if you had flown with what's between your ears instead of what's between your legs". Peter awkwardly tells Drax and Nebula that if what's between his legs had a hand on it, he definitely could have landed the ship with it. Emilio: Mostly because women would be too terrified to have sex with him so he wouldn't have to constantly be thinking about trying to convince them to. Diandra: Yeah, I just...ugh. Why are guys like this Emilio? Emilio: I don't know. As you and Christine pointed out, I don't have one of those, so my identity and attractiveness to women has never been dependent on it. Gamora is like CAN'T YOU TURN OFF THE SARCASTIC BULLSHIT FOR A SECOND? WE ALMOST DIED! Peter is like 'it's not my fault Rocket stole batteries and pissed the Sovereign off!' Which is...true, actually, but not really an excuse for his behavior since. Rocket asks what the hell they're even talking about this for. Is ANYBODY going to focus on the fact that some little guy riding a space jet ski just saved us by blowing up 50 ships at once? Drax asks how "little" he's talking. Rocket holds his fingers an inch apart and acknowledges that he's probably bigger up close. Peter calls him a stupid raccoon for barely understanding how eyesight and depth perception works. Rocket yells at him to STOP CALLING HIM A RACCOON. Peter apologizes that he went too far with that one. What he meant to call him was "trash panda". Rocket looks confused and asks if that's better than a raccoon. Peter giggles and says it's WAAAAAY worse. Emilio: I don't know, it sounds cooler. Diandra: Doesn't it? Rocket launches at Peter, but their fight is interrupted when Nebula notices a ship landing, obviously having followed them through the jump. She demands Gamora take her shackles off finally. Gamora is like 'nah, I'll take my chances'. Nebula keeps arguing, promising she won't attack Gamora the second she's free. Peter notes that for an evil super villain, she's a terrible liar. Nah, she was only the villain in the first movie. Because they are basically the female version of Thor and Loki. Emilio: Oh, is this why you were asking which siblings of the MCU I most related to before we started this? Diandra: Well...I saw a thing on Tumblr that said T'challa and Suri's relationship was the most relatable of the MCU and I thought "gee, how nice that you people all get along so well with your siblings because I think the ones trying to kill each other are more reflective of my experiences." Emilio: Yeah, mine too. Obviously, since I told you my sister is Thor and I'm Loki. Diandra: Yeah, well...that's part of why I assumed when I took that "which character are you" quiz I would get Loki or Nebula or some villain I never heard of, but APPARENTLY NOT. Emilio: Well, but that's a different thing. That's just which character are you in general. And if your current fics are any indication, you really are Sherlock/Doctor Strange and you really want to fuck Tom Hiddleston. Diandra: You needed to read my fics to work that out? Emilio: Not really. Diandra: So you didn't get Loki on the general character quiz either? Emilio: Nope. I got Star Lord. Diandra: [snort] Yeah, that will definitely be a thing at some point in this recap. The ship, which is obviously the jet ski Rocket saw, lands. The "door" evaporates and Kurt Russel steps out with a woman of Asian descent made up to look like she has antennae growing from her forehead. Kurt marvels that he finally found "you" after all these years. Peter asks who the hell he is. Kurt is like 'you mean you can't recognize your own father despite these "rugged good looks" and arrogant, pompous attitude? My name is Ego, by the way. Because of course it is.' Meanwhile, on the planet Contraxia...which sounds like a drug you should ask your doctor about. Emilio: Do you experience frequent Daddy Issues and uncontrollable fits of snark? Diandra: Well, apparently you do, Star Lord. Emilio: I'm going to regret telling you that, aren't I? Diandra: Only because if you recap something with me and Chrissy I'm totally going to out you like you did me when you told her I was Doctor Strange. Emilio: Well, that might make the Infinity War recap interesting. You should have her take the quiz. Find out which one she is. Diandra: Doesn't matter. No matter what the result is, she will play Tony. Emilio: Really? I would think Loki. Diandra: No, we would probably fight over Loki. And she would probably win because FrostIron has been a thing way longer than...we don't even have a name for it. FrostStrange? Emilio: Why can't you just call them the Sorcerers? Diandra: Hmm... We focus on a downtown area that looks like a mixture of Times Square and Tokyo where a couple women with plastic-y orange skin are catching snowflakes on their tongues. At least I hope it's snow. The men are perfectly human looking for some reason. We go inside a brothel for a cameo appearance by NO! NOT HOWARD THE DUCK AGAIN! JESUS, MARVEL STOP THIS! In a room with several of those orange skinned women, Yondu is putting on his pants. One of the orange skinned "women" taps a control panel on the side of her head and powers down. A guy outside yells at him to come down. So he does and meets Sylvester Stallone, who he greets as Stakar. Stakar looks at him like he's a smear of dog shit on his boot, mumbles something about this place being "disreputable" and swaggers away. A lady tries to stop him and he growls that there are 100 "Ravager" factions and by serving THAT ONE, this business has just lost the other 99. Yondu boils over like a tea kettle, smashes a glass on a nearby table and yells that he doesn't give a damn what some ageing former boxer thinks of him. Space Rocky is like 'then why are you chasing me to say this?' Yondu is like 'so you will LISTEN TO ME WHEN I'M YELLING AT YOU.' They get up in each other's faces and Stakar yells that Yondu betrayed the code that says Ravagers don't "deal in kids". Yondu yelps that he didn't know what was going on. Stakar says he didn't WANT to know because he was getting rich off it. Um...aren't you guys basically space pirates? Don't you do this with everything? Emilio: Yeah, but there's a code. Diandra: Ah, yes. Honor among thieves. Yondu points to the flame logo on his jacket and says he is ONE of them and he demands "a seat at the table". Space Pirate Rocky rambles about how he will never "hear the horns of freedom" when he dies. Um...sure. That makes sense. Also, the "colors of ogord" will not flash over his grave. Then he plays the "this is hurting me more than you" card and claims he takes no pleasure in exiling Yondu. He stomps off again, his lackeys following. Over at the pleasure palace, one of the groups watching this exchange discusses the events of the past movie for anyone needing catching up. Peter betrayed them, Yondu let him go. "We followed him because he was the one who wasn't afraid to do what needed to be done. Seems he's goin' soft." Another guy with a Scottish accent snaps at him to be careful what he says about their captain. And then Ayesha shows up randomly, walking daintily along a carpet some servants are rolling out in front of her. There's a moment where the carpet roller gets stuck and she just stands there sniffing in annoyance, the majestic music dying while the servant fixes it. Yondu waits impatiently until the carpet ends a few feet in front of him. Ayesha greets him by his full name of Yondu Udonta and says she has a proposition for him. Back with the main team, Ego is explaining that he hired Yondu to retrieve Peter after his mother died. He has no idea why Yondu just ran off with him. Peter sneers that he was a skinny little kid so Yondu just saw him as a tool he could use to get into small spaces. Ego shrugs and says ANYWAY, he's been trying to track him down ever since. Drax, confused by all of this, pipes up that he thought Yondu was Peter's father. Were you at all listening just now? Peter blinks at him like 'you really thought I was genetically related to that guy?' "You look exactly alike," Drax says defensively in the passive racist way of someone who cannot tell people apart when they are of a different race. Emilio: As compared to you, who can't tell people apart no matter what race they are. Diandra: Is this about the Amy Adams thing again? Emilio: Rachel McAdams. Diandra: Whoever. Emilio: Yeah. Rocket is like 'what the fuck do you mean they look exactly alike? One of them is Smurf blue!' Peter is like 'no, Yondu is not my dad. He abducted me, taught me to fight in a way I'm pretty sure qualifies as child abuse and threatened to eat me if I misbehaved.' Ego practically chokes on whatever he's eating like 'he WHAT?! Jackass.' Gamora brings them all back to the most important question: how did Ego find them now after all these years? Ego rambles about how he lives out past the last restaurant at the edge of the universe... Emilio: What were you saying before about always coming back to Hitchhiker? Diandra: Yeah. ...but even there they've heard the legends of the man named Star Lord. He offers to take them to this distant outpost right now. All of them. Even the "triangle-faced monkey". Rocket growls like he'd rather go back to trash panda, actually, then self-consciously feels his face. Ego says he can explain Peter's "special heritage" there and finally be the father he always wanted to be. For a second it looks like he might be getting emotional, then he says "excuse me. Gotta take a whiz" and wanders off into the woods. Peter and Gamora look at each other and Peter mutters that he's not buying this. Gamora thinks for a second, then offers to take a walk. They disappear. While everybody else is waiting for Ego to return, the pixie he came with introduces herself to Drax as Mantis and smiles creepily. He asks what she's doing with her face. She says she hears smiling is the key to making people like you. He says well, she's doing it wrong then. Her face falls and she simpers that she was raised alone on Ego's planet and doesn't really understand how social interactions work. Then she looks at Rocket and asks if she can pet the puppy. If you're not particularly attached to the idea of continuing to have two intact hands, sure. Drax looks at her like 'seriously?' and she adds that the puppy is "adorable". Drax smirks and tells her to go for it. She tries to stroke Rocket's head and he predictably tries to bite her. She screams. Drax laughs. Congratulations, guys, you have successfully introduced her to the concept of bullying. Or, as Drax calls it "practical joking". Mantis' goes from traumatized to laughing along with him because she's basically a child out in the world for the first time. Meanwhile, Peter is ranting about how Ego thinks he can just show up after all these years and be welcomed into the family or something. He thinks this could be a trap. "The Kree purists. The Ravagers. They all want us dead." Gamora says yes, but what was that story he told her about "Zardu Hasselfrau"? Peter blinks and asks what she's talking about. Gamora is like 'that guy you told me about that owned a magic boat.' Somehow Peter understands that she means "David Hasselhoff" and "talking car". Gamora is like yeah, whatever. Why does the car talk? "To help him fight crimes," Peter says like that makes perfect sense. Gamora shrugs and continues that he told her he carried a picture of the guy around and told all the other kids that he was his dad and he was out of town. "Shooting Knight Rider or touring with his band in Germany," Peter mutters. "I told you that when I was drunk. Why are you bringing it up now?" She says because she loved that story. He grumbles that he HATES it because it just reminds him of how much he missed having a father like all the other kids in his apparently all- nuclear-family school. Gamora claims her point is that this man might be his Hasselhoff. And "if he ends up being evil, we'll just kill him." Oh, well. Pfffffttttt. She looks down and realizes she has grabbed his hands while she was talking. She takes a step back and folds her arms like 'er...yeah...um...so how about that sports team you like?' Cut to Nebula screaming that they're leaving her with the "fox". Gamora sighs and tells Rocket to shoot her if she does anything suspicious. Or...whatever. Rocket grumbles unhappily. Gamora bends down to BabyGroot, stroking his face where something like a tear (probably sap) is forming and assuring him they'll only be gone a couple days. They should be back before Rocket finishes fixing the ship. Inside the ship, Drax is asking what happens if the Sovereign come. Peter blusters that the Sovereign can't possibly know where they are. Drax mutters that he's not happy about splitting the team. Peter jokes that he's being "an old woman". "Because I'm wise," Drax asks. Peter doesn't answer because really, anything he says here would just make him look like an even bigger dick. Speaking of which, Rocket pipes up as Peter passes him that he hopes daddy isn't QUITE as big a dick. Peter asks if Rocket is trying to make everyone hate him. Uh...you think we're not going to take Rocket's side here? Peter, Gamora and Drax swagger toward Ego's ship in slow motion while Fleetwood Mac's "The Chain" plays. On the ship, Peter watches Mantis place her hand over Ego's forehead while he lies in a berth and do something that puts him to sleep. Peter pulls the photo he apparently still has out and looks back and forth between Ego and fluffy haired 80s Hasselhoff. We get a shot of the egg like ship flying through space at warp speed to transition through time a little and then go back to Peter, Drax and Mantis all sitting in a little meeting area. Peter asks if he can ask Mantis a "personal question". She's like 'a what? Nobody ever asks me personal questions and after that joke where your dog tried to bite me I'm afraid of being led into another trap.' He asks what her antennae are for. Drax blurts that they have a bet riding on her answer and Peter whines that he's not supposed to TELL HER THAT. Gamora wanders over as Drax is explaining his theory is that the antennae feel when doorways she's about to go through are too low and prevent her from "being decapitated". Emilio: Doorways are made of blades where he comes from. Diandra: Or they're always going through them at REALLY high speeds. Peter says if it is "anything other than you specifically not being decapitated by a doorway, I win." I don't know what's sadder here, the fact that Drax is clearly an easy mark for betting against or the fact that Peter obviously has no compunctions about taking advantage of that. She says well, they have nothing to do with feeling doorways, but she's not completely sure what they do. She thinks they have to do with her empathic abilities. Gamora, currently acting as audience surrogate for some reason, asks what those are. Mantis explains that she can feel what somebody else is feeling by touching them. Peter asks if she can read minds. She says no, that’s telepathy. She offers to demonstrate and touches Peter's hand. The tips of her antenna glow. She smiles and announces that he feels love. He stammers that he always feels a generalized feeling of love for everybody and everything. She's like no, I can tell the difference between general love and romantic love, doofus. You totally want to fuck Gamora. He tries to yank back from her, yelping that no, he doesn't. This was a bad idea. He's sorry he asked. Drax looks back and forth between Peter and Gamora and laughs, pointing at Peter and declaring that Mantis just told everybody his "deepest, darkest secret" and he must be SO embarrassed. Er...no, I'm sure the Hasselhoff thing was his deepest, darkest secret. Also, any residual angst from his mom dying and being kidnapped by a blue space pirate and forced into child labor, but he already told you that one. Drax tells Mantis to do him next and she touches him while he's still laughing and starts laughing along with him, both of them pointing at Peter. Peter grumbles about how much this sucks and avoids meeting Gamora's eyes. Mantis, still giggling, goes to touch Gamora, who grabs her hand and threatens to break her jaw. Mantis backs off, looking like a kicked puppy. She says anyway...her ability works both ways. She can manipulate other's emotions to a certain degree. She can calm someone who is sad, or make a stubborn person compliant, but it doesn't last all that long. Mostly she uses it to help her "master" sleep because otherwise he spends all night lying awake thinking about his "progeny". Peter gets a look like 'aww...really?' Emilio: Yeah, because he's the only kid the guy has in the universe. Diandra: I think you're getting ahead of the plot. Emilio: Am I? Drax, the ever eager child, asks Mantis to do one of those tricks on him. She touches his forehead, says "sleep" and he falls backward, snoring loudly. Nobody worries about how they will wake him up now or if this will wear off naturally. Berheart has four moons, apparently, and all of them are full. Music is playing from somewhere in the ruined ship. What looks like ALL the Ravagers we just saw on Contraxia descend on the campsite, one of them casually eating a spider along the way. Then that same guy steps on some sort of trigger in the forest floor and freezes. Panels in the nearby trees open and darts fly out, hitting them and knocking them out instantly. One shoots his riffle as he goes down, alerting the remaining team to their presence. Rocket is already up in the trees, waiting for the ones who manage to escape the knock out darts. A branch snaps and the Ravagers spot him and he spends a few minutes darting between tress to avoid gunfire. Then he pushes a remote switch to trigger some sort of energy bomb in a clearing and a couple dozen more Ravagers are thrown into the air screaming. Apparently the advantage to these bombs is that they don't expend themselves the way normal bombs do, so he is able to keep blasting them into the air repeatedly like they're on a faulty trampoline. When he gets bored of playing with that group, he moves to the next one, jumping on them and slapping little red dots on their faces, then pushing a button on his watch to electrify the dots. Everyone seemingly knocked out, he jumps down to the ground. Then two of the Ravagers he missed close in on him, sneering clichéd lines about him not being so tough without his toys. Emilio: Because you would still be tough without those penis compensators you call guns. Diandra: Penis compensators? I like that. I'm going to use that from now on. Rocket just jumps on one guy and starts punching. He flips across the clearing to the other one just as he's dumb enough to blast the first guy while aiming at Rocket and punches him too until he falls over unconscious. Then a loud whistle tears through the woods and an arrow zips around a few trees and stops dead right in front of Rocket's face. It's owner - Yondu - comes out of the woods with just as many Ravagers as Rocket just dispatched behind him. They greet each other tersely as "rat" and "blue idiot", which shows a bit of a lack in creativity on both of their parts, but I guess not everyone can have the gift of snarky names that Tony has. Yondu exposits that this gold lady with a "high opinion of herself" has hired him and his buddies here to bring in Rocket's merry band of Guardians so she can kill them. Meanwhile, at the campsite, Nebula is trying to convince Baby Groot to free her because Rocket can't take on that many enemies alone. I apparently forgot that she is missing a hand and has what looks like an arcade game claw in its place. Emilio: I'm sure Chrissy would point out that there are MANY things you have forgotten about this series. Diandra: Yeah, well, she's not here so ppppppbbbbbbbbttttttttt. Back in the clearing, Yondu is rambling about how easy it was to follow them because he put a tracker on their ship during the war in Xandar and blah blah Bond villain. Rocket is like FINE, just...promise you won't hurt Groot and I'll hand the batteries I stole over. Because we ALL know that's what you're really here for. Yondu chuckles and admits that his promises mean nothing, or he'd actually hand them over to the gold lady. One of the other guys is like 'wait...what? We're not?' Yondu says they'll take the batteries because they're worth, like a quarter million of whatever currency is used by interstellar beings. The guy who just spoke up points out that the priestess offered them a whole million and "a quarter is only a third of that." Another dumbbell corrects him that a quarter is 25 units, which isn't even enough to buy a pair of boots. Yondu is like 'I work with idiots.' He yells that the point is that they can't kill the Guardians of the Galaxy or they'll have all of Nova Corp on their asses. One guy whines that Yondu keeps protecting Peter despite being betrayed by him and it's like he doesn't even CARE about the rest of them and HOW DOES HE THINK THAT MAKES THEM FEEL? The first guy is like 'okay, weepy crap aside, he's right about Yondu having a weakness here and we should totally mutiny his ass.' Everybody starts pointing guns at everybody else - mostly at Yondu, but obviously they're not the brightest bulbs, so... - and Yondu calls his arrow back to hover at his shoulder. Rocket yells that there must be a peaceful way to resolve this. "Or even a violent one where I'm standing over there," he adds, pointing outside the clearing. Yondu goes to whistle and the Mohawk fin thing blows off his head suddenly. Sparks shoot out of his head and he falls over like a puppet with its strings cut. Everyone turns to see Nebula with a blaster. She blasts Rocket back. The Ravagers all look at her like 'I guess this makes you our new leader, person we've never met.' She tries for a cool entrance, purring "hello boys" and taking a bite of the root she's been trying to get her hands on for several scenes. Then she spits it out immediately and mutters that they were right: it isn't ripe. The pod ship arrives at a planet that the chyron doesn't identify, so until further notice let's call it Herpanorheacrabs. Ask your doctor if you have symptoms and you suspect that weird guy you had sex with recently might be from another planet. Oh, oops, never mind. It was just delayed by a cutaway of Peter listening to George Harrison for some reason. The chyron identifies it as "Ego's Planet". So...in my defense that's still not really a name. The ship lands in a park surrounded by full grown versions of that structure he was showing Peter's mom in the woods and a chunk of the ship that looks like it might be a bridge just pops out, all of them riding it. Peter, gawping at their surroundings, marvels that Ego has his own PLANET. Ego shrugs and says it's no bigger than the Earth's moon. Emilio: Size isn't everything. Except to me. I am a total size queen. Diandra: I'm starting to wonder how I have survived... what...three recaps with both you AND Chrissy so far? Emilio: If I had to guess, it's because you love us and we entertain you. Drax praises him for his humility and declares that he is also "extraordinarily humble." Anyone wanna introduce this guy to the concept of irony? They float past some giant soap bubbles and Drax pokes one and laughs as it breaks into dozens more in rainbow colors. They arrive at a central looking building and the bridge forms a walkway to dump them in front of a fountain. Gamora notes that he owns an entire planet and can destroy two dozen ships while standing on top of a space jet ski WITHOUT A SUIT and wait a minute...did Rocket actually give this kind of details? Like...off camera or something? Ego is like yeeeeaaaaaaahhhhhh, he's what's known as a "Celestial". Peter stops short and notes that Celestials are, like...Gods, right? Ego shrugs and says "small g". You know, like Thor. Except not because Asgardians are a completely different species from a different part of the galaxy and we don't associate with them. Peter just gapes at him and for half a second I fear this is going to turn preachy, but it turns out that despite the similarities Chris Pratt is not actually Kirk Cameron. Emilio: Those guys are nothing alike. Diandra: If you say so. Admittedly, I only spent, like, a minute looking at Chris Pratt's Twitter feed, but it was enough to tell me that he was the kind of person I would lump into a category with Jehovah's Witnesses as people I back slowly away from once the topic of religion comes up. Which is almost always because they LOVE talking about Jesus. He walks them into the building which is, if possible, gaudier than the Vatican. They walk past a pod that has a brain floating in it. Or...I mean...hopefully a model of one. Ego exposits that he's not sure where he came from, exactly, but... The "brain" flickers to life as a multimedia presentation kind of like the stuff that was in the Captain America exhibit at the Smithsonian. He says the first thing he remembers is being "adrift in the cosmos utterly and entirely alone". He learned to control the matter around him over millions of years to form a planet. Then he evolved. But he wasn't happy with just BEING. He needed some sort of purpose. And did he mention he was really lonely? Because he really wanted to find evidence that he wasn't alone in the entire universe. One of the pods materializes an 80s era Kurt Russell mannequin as he says he created a biological form for himself - how he IMAGINED life should look, which for some reason is exactly as it looks on Earth. Drax asks if he remembered to make himself a penis. Peter and Gamora both chastise him for his inappropriate questions. Drax points out that a "planet" can hardly copulate with an earth woman to make Peter over here. Peter groans and says he REALLY doesn't want to hear about how his parents made him. Drax frowns and says his father told the story of impregnating his mother every winter solstice and it was BEAUTIFUL and humans are weird prudes. Ego is like 'well, if you still wanted an answer to that, yes, I have a quite impressive penis.' Peter groans and visibly tries to scrub the mental picture of this guy fucking his mother from his mind. Ego notes that his pain receptors and digestive systems are pretty impressive too, considering he never needed them before. He wanted to have the full experience of being human...before he set out from his planet in search of the planet that has such creatures. The multimedia display shows a small girl with purplish skin, so apparently he did find other planets before Earth. Peter clears his throat and asks if they can skip ahead to the part where Ego met his mother. He smiles and moves to another pod, which shows 80s Kurt doll embracing a mannequin version of Meredith. He says she was the one he first experienced love with. Emilio: So he was a virgin. Diandra: And as far as he knew, so was she. Emilio: Ouch. He says he called her his "river lilly". The pod rotates and the image changes to one where she's pregnant. Peter stares at this like '.............mommy?' Ego says he searched for the baby she had that Yondu ran away with and he figured he'd found him when he heard a story about an Earth man who managed to hold an Infinity Stone in his bare hand without dying. Peter - possibly finally finding rational thought again - asks why he left Meredith if he loved her so much. Emilio: Because once he figured out this method of creating life, he decided to see if it worked on other planets. Diandra: Again, let's not get ahead of ourselves. Meanwhile, on the Ravagers' ship...which looks about exactly as you'd expect a futuristic pirate ship to look like if your expectations were formed by movies like "Waterworld"...Yondu is slumped in a chair, semi catatonic. Everyone is running amok around him and they throw a guy in an airlock seemingly just for thinking he was the boss of them. They cheerfully shoot him out into space where he freezes and dies, joining a distressingly large number of other bodies floating in the vicinity. Fittingly, this is about the point where Emilio and I took a break in recapping so we could watch "Infinity War". I say fittingly because, in hindsight, this should have been a signal that the series was getting dark. The guy who protested the idea of NOT handing over the Guardians hovers over Yondu and sneers that it's HIS fault that those men are dying because HE led them down the "wrong path". Because it wasn't just "Doctor Strange" that featured zealots, apparently. He starts punching Yondu, adding that he is weak and stupid and probably has a pencil dick. Okay, maybe not that last part. He turns to the crowd and bellows about it being time for the Ravagers to "rise to glory" again under a new leadership. He raises his fists in the air and declares "TASERFACE!" The Ravagers cheer and behind him Rocket laughs. All other noise stops and Taserface turns to glare at him. Rocket snickers a halfass apology and says really? That's his name? Like...for real? Does he like, shoot tasers from his face or something? Taserface proudly declares it "metaphorical" and claims it strikes fear into the hearts of anyone who hears it. Rocket is like, yeah, sure...that's why I'm laughing. I'm terrified. The rest of the Ravagers kind of murmur like 'yeah, sure...uh- huh...we'll let you believe that, big guy.' Taserface is like 'whatever...moving along'. He pulls a dagger and holds it to Yondu's throat. Rocket is still snorting with laughter and it distracts him. He asks what the hell the trash panda is still laughing at. Rocket says he just keeps "imagining you waking up in the morning, sir, looking in the mirror and then in all seriousness saying to yourself 'you know what would be a really kick ass name? Taserface!'" The Ravagers all squirm uncomfortably, trying to keep in sympathetic giggles as Rocket asks what his second choice was. "Scrotum hat?" Everyone snaps and starts laughing. Taserface snarls that he's had a change of plan. They're killing the raccoon first. Rocket taunts that dying would be preferable to "living a moronic shitbag who thinks Taserface is a cool name." Nebula, hovering at the edge of the crowd, announces that they've done enough killing today. Taserface glares at her and growls that he always heard she was the biggest sadist in the galaxy. She says yeah, well, her daddy isn't supporting her little side projects anymore so she'd rather hand him over to the Sovereign priestess and get paid. Also, Yondu has several bounties on him, so they can cash in to that as well. Taserface snarls and starts menacing toward her. She reminds that she is more dangerous than an "old man" and a "talking woodland beast" and demands 10% of the profits. And a couple other things... We cut right to her trying on a new prosthetic hand to illustrate one of the "things". One of the math challenged guys from earlier asks if she really thinks the Kree will execute Yondu. She says they're "merciful" so they would make it quick and painless. He shrugs and directs her to a ship in the hangar that he claims is their best and already has Ego's planet programmed into its navigation system. He promises they'll wire her the 10% cut once they get their payment. Sure. Then he asks what she's going to do with that money. She starts rambling about her childhood with Gamora and how their "father" would make them spar against each other and every time Gamora won he would replace a piece of Nebula with a piece of machinery to try to improve her. But she still was never able to beat Gamora and that's why she is mostly machine now. So she's going to murder Gamora and then "buy a warship with every conceivable instrument of death. I will hunt my father like a dog and I will tear him apart slowly, piece by piece until he knows some semblance of the profound and unceasing pain I know every single day." The Ravager just stares at her like 'oooooooooookaaaaaaaaaay. I'm sorry I asked.' Emilio: Marvel sibling relationships: making us feel better about our family dysfunctions since 1939. Diandra: Except both of us are seeing our own sibling relationships reflected in these characters. Emilio: Well, I was seeing Thor and Loki. At least they're not QUITE this bad. I'm kind of worried about you now if you think you're Nebula. Ravager says he was kind of thinking something more along the lines of a pretty necklace, but... She glares at him like ONLY IF I CAN CHOKE YOU WITH IT. He pats her awkwardly on the shoulder, squeaks "anyways...happy trails" and runs off. Ego's planet. Ego and Peter are standing in front of a giant statue of Meredith. Peter mutters that she always said his dad came from the stars, but...you know...she died of brain cancer so everybody just figured she'd gone loopy. He says he really wants to believe all of this, but he can't understand why Ego left such a wonderful woman to die alone. Ego groans that he didn't WANT to, but if he doesn't regularly return to his planet and the "light within it", this body he took will die. Peter is like okay, well...but why didn't you come back after you did that? Why did you send that jolly blue pirate to get me? Ego screams that he could bear the thought of going back to an Earth that didn't have Meredith in it. Peter, unaffected, screams back that he had to WATCH HER DIE, so, you know, Ego can take his manpain and shove it. Ego goes quiet and pulls the cliché that he's made MANY mistakes over millennia, but "you're not one of them." He begs Peter to give him another chance because she would want that. Now that Peter has shut up, he adds that he has so much he wants to teach him about this planet and the "light" within it, which is a part of Peter. Peter doesn't understand, so Ego takes his hands and directs him to hold them up in front of him. He takes a step back and directs him to close his eyes and concentrate and focus on the center of the planet. Sparks shoot between Peter's hands and Ego yelps excitedly. Peter, startled, asks what the hell that was. Ego tells him to relax and concentrate. The sparks form again, but this time they stay suspended between his hands. Ego directs Peter to "shape" the energy. Peter forms it into a ball and gets weepy eyed as Ego declares that he is "home". He tosses the energy ball to Ego, who crushes it flat, reforms it and tosses it back. Ego backs away and they throw it back and forth a couple more times while sappy music plays. Yes, we are seriously watching a father son reunion that involves using magic to play catch. No, I don't know what we're doing here either. Over on the palace steps, Drax asks Mantis how she ended up on this weird ass planet. She says Ego found her when she was in her larva state - abandoned on her home planet. He raised her. Just like...you know...Odin did with Loki and Thanos did with both Gamora and Nebula. Drax concludes that she's more of a pet and wonders aloud why Ego would want such an ugly pet because people usually want things that are CUTE. Dude. She's like 'wait...I'm ugly?' He says she's horrifying, but assures her that's a good thing because ugly people can be assured they are loved for who they are on the INSIDE. "Beautiful people never know who to trust." Mmmkay. Nice chat. He mercifully redirects to noting that the pools in front of the castle remind him of the "forgotten lakes" he took his daughter to on his home planet. He says she was like Mantis. She logically thinks this means she was ugly, but he says she was "innocent". Mantis hesitates, then touches his arm and cries. She rallies and turns to him, announcing that she has something she MUST tell him. The door opens behind them before she can and Gamora stumbles out and looks at them suspiciously, asking what is going on here. "This gross bug lady is my new friend," Drax announces. Mantis happily adds that she's learning all about how she is an ugly pet. Gamora snaps at Drax. Drax is like 'but she IS!' Gamora asks Mantis to show them where they are staying. We cut to them following Mantis across the gardens. Gamora asks why there are no other beings on this planet. Mantis says the planet IS Ego and "a dog wouldn't invite a flea to live on his back." Gamora notes that he doesn't consider Mantis a flea. She says he does, but she has a "purpose". Gamora is like 'whatever...what were you about to say earlier when I interrupted you?' Mantis looks back and forth between them and squeaks "nothing". Space pirate ship. The Ravagers toss Yondu and Rocket in a cage together and Taserface announce that they'll deliver them to the Kree in the morning and neither of them should last long after that. It's cute how you actually think you're intimidating. A guy waves the birdcage they're keeping Baby Groot in at Taserface as he's stomping away and asks if he can smash the "plant" here with a rock. Taserface says "no, Jeff, it's too adorable to kill." Back in the cell, Rocket is grumbling about how Yondu's "employees" are a real piece of work. Yondu blurts that he was a Kree battle slave for 20 years. It was the life Stakar freed him from. Wow. Really? He says Stakar gave him a place in the Ravagers and told him he just needed to keep to the code. Which catches us up to that little spat on Contraxia. He grumbles that he was young and stupid and greedy and compares it to Rocket stealing the batteries. Rocket blames Drax for that. Even though he had no idea what Rocket was doing. Yondu just keeps talking about how he and the other captains aren't so different from Rocket's friends. They were like family to him. And he figures he deserves this now because he betrayed them by breaking the code. Rocket calls him a drama queen and says HE doesn't deserve this, so...you know...he's getting out of here. Yondu finally thinks to ask what happened to Peter. Rocket says he went off with his biological father, another guy with a dumb name. Yondu chuckles and Rocket notes that the warm fuzzy feeling he had for half a second there was ruined by "those disgusting ass teeth". Yondu asks if he's a professional asshole or still practicing. Rocket is like yeah...so why didn't you hand Peter over to Ego anyway? Yondu verifies Peter's story that he was skinny and able to squeeze into tight places. Rocket says "uh-huh" like he doesn't really believe that. Yondu says ANYWAY, he has an idea for how they can get out of their cell, but they're gonna need the plant baby to do it. Elsewhere on the ship, the Ravagers are apparently putting Baby Groot in some sort of a costume so they can watch in amusement as he struggles to get out of it. They pour beer on him and he growls angrily and charges at them and is repeatedly kicked. Emilio: Looks like the Marvel equivalent of dogfighting. Diandra: Except without any actual opponent. So he shuffles sadly to Rocket and Yondu's cell, pissing Rocket off that those ingrates OBVIOUSLY did something to him. Beer is still dripping from him. Yondu says he can help them get out of the cell, he just needs to bring them something. "In the captain's quarters, there's a prototype fin - that thing I wore on my head." Baby Groot nods. Yondu says he can find it in the drawer by the bunk and it's red. Baby Groot kind of stares blankly, then runs off. He comes back with a pair of briefs, which he holds up proudly. Yondu is like um...yeah...well...that IS mine, but... Rocket grumbles that he didn't think Baby Groot understood his directions. He suggests explaining more carefully. You know, like he's explaining to a small child. Yondu repeats slowly that it is a PROTOTYPE FIN. And we cut to Baby Groot bringing them a squealing rat like creature. Rocket says no, not an Orloni, a FIN. Yondu suggests Rocket explain it and see if that works any better. So Baby Groot brings back an eyeball in some sort of nest. Yondu says no, that belongs to a guy named Vorker and he takes it out when he sleeps. It moves and flickers. Baby Groot goes to try again and Rocket tells him to leave the eye. That might be useful in a future movie. Next, BG drags an entire desk in front of the cell. An exasperated Rocket holds his hands a foot apart and says they told him it was only THIS BIG. Emilio: Yeah, but when guys try to guess the size of things they always round up. And then they're blinking in horror as BG presents them with a severed thumb. Or toe. Something. "Tell me you guys have a refrigerator somewhere with a bunch of severed human toes," Rocket says. Yondu just shakes his head and Rocket says they are never speaking of this again. Yondu takes a flame logo from his pocket and says the drawer the fin is in has this symbol on it. He hands it to BG, who slowly holds it up like 'is this it?' Rocket explains that he thinks they want him to wear it like a hat. Yondu splutters that that isn't even CLOSE to what he said. "I am Groot," BG says, which Rocket translates as relief because he really hates hats. He keeps rambling about hats that make it look like somebody has a weird shaped head (through translator Rocket because, of course, he's just repeating "I am Groot" in different tones) until Yondu snaps that this ISN'T AN IMPORTANT CONVERSATION RIGHT NOW. So Baby Groot finally finds the drawer with the matching symbol on it (right next to a sleeping Taserface) and grows his branch arms to open it. The red fin is sitting right on top of a pile of other junk. So, of course, he grabs a tin of candy next to it. The Ravager who gave Nebula a ship appears to tell him that that isn't what he's looking for. Emilio: How long was he watching him carry stuff to the cells before he finally decided to speak up? Diandra: Hey, free entertainment, man. So since he is apparently one of the important characters here, I had to go look up his name. It's Kraglin and he is played by the guy who always does the stand-ins for Rocket. And I am clearly in over my head recapping these movies. Kraglin throws the red fin through the bars at Yondu's feet and says he never meant to go full mutiny. And those guys have killed all his friends now, so... Yondu easily recognizes this change of heart and tells him to "get the third quadrant ready for release". Kraglin sets BG down on the bars and beats his chest in that solidarity gesture. He goes to leave, but Rocket holds him up to ask if he has any copies of Peter's music on the ship anywhere. Why...what... A speaker system squeaks to life and starts blasting Jay and the Americans "Come a Little Bit Closer" all over the ship. The guards go into the cell just as Rocket gets the fin attached to Yondu's head. Yondu whistles and his arrow blasts through a wall, through both guards and into his hand. Taserface wakes up, realizes the fin is gone and sounds an alarm. And we have a musical montage of Yondu and the non-humanoid Guardians swaggering through the ship, whistle propelled arrow mowing down Ravagers in their path. Baby Groot chases after one screaming, growing his arms to wrap around the guy's legs and rip him right off a walkway. Yondu reaches the surveillance center...or whatever...and uses the screens showing various areas around the ship to guide the arrow remotely. Diandra: You know, I took a class once where a student described Desperate Housewives as disturbing because they did dark themes while playing bright "circus" music on the soundtrack. I wonder what she would think of this movie playing happy 80s music over mass slaughter. Emilio: She definitely should not see the Kingsman movies. Diandra: Hell no. Rocket joins Yondu and picks off anybody who gets within range of them with a gun in each hand. The scene ends with Yondu igniting the arrow in flame and using it to create an explosion behind Taserface, engulfing him and Rocket being like 'okay, I know that probably felt great, but you do realize you just critically damaged the ship and we're all gonna die, right?' Yondu shrugs and says "not the WHOLE ship". Taserface, smoking but still alive, activates a view screen. A Sovereign appears, demanding to know who DARES summon her. Taserface says he's sending her the coordinates for Yondu's ship. "I only ask one thing. That the high priestess tell him the name of the man what sealed his fate. Taserface!" The Sovereign snorts and bursts into squealing laughter. Kraglin successfully disconnects the quadrant of the ship Yondu instructed him to. The chunk with the Guardians, Yondu and him breaks away while the rest of the ship explodes. Rocket announces that their destination is Ego and Yondu yelps that they can't just do 700 fucking jumps because their mammal bodies aren't equipped to handle more than 50. Their faces warp and they all scream. And we're back on planet Ego with the soundtrack switching to Sam Cooke "Bring it On Home to Me". Peter is standing on a balcony, surveilling what could one day become his kingdom. Gamora is off to the side trying to hail Rocket on a comm. Peter decides to test something and sidles up to her. She asks what he thinks he's doing. "Dance with me," he offers. She groans. He points out that SAM COOKE is playing and he was the greatest Earth singer of all time, so...he snatches the comm from her hands and tosses it on an ornate chair. He pulls her to a clear spot on the floor and they start swaying. He spins her and she gracefully spins back and gives him a tiny smile. He scoffs that Drax thinks she isn't a dancer. "If you ever tell anyone about this, I will kill you," she answers sweetly. You know...I may not be sold on Chris Pratt, but Zoe is awesome and Gamora at least makes these movies for me. Clueless oaf is like 'yeah, sure...uh-huh...so when are you gonna admit you have a thing for me?' He likens them to Sam and Diane from "Cheers". You know: that TV cliché where a guy and girl like each other but never do anything about it because "Moonlighting" curse. Wait...why didn't he say Maddie and David? Emilio: "Cheers" was bigger and better known. "Moonlighting" just gave us the terminology. She says there is no such unspoken thing and it's all in his head. He says of course she would say that because if she acknowledged it it would no longer be unspoken and she would be a liar. "So by not saying it you are telling the truth and admitting that there is." Spoken like someone who has spent a lifetime perfecting the art of bullshit. She groans and pulls away from him, grumbling that they should really be talking about this place and how it doesn’t feel right. He yelps that SHE'S the one who encouraged him to come here. Gamora says Mantis is clearly afraid of something. Peter gets his hackles up and rants that this man is his father and this place is a freaking paradise and WHY IS SHE TRYING TO TAKE IT AWAY FROM HIM? Emilio: Dude. You're obviously well versed in pop culture. You don't recognize the warning signs of dystopia when you see it? She reminds him that he had family on Earth too and he never wants to go there. He reminds her that his mother DIED on Earth. Gamora yells that at least Earth is REAL. This place is a fantasy wet dream. He whines that this is just as real and he's only HALF human. She says yeah, and she's worried about that half. The argument turns instantly childish as he accuses her of just being jealous that he is part god and that makes him stronger than her. She points out that he's just as insufferable as he always was, so AT LEAST HE'LL ALWAYS HAVE THAT. She says she's going to try to get a signal and call Rocket again. Peter yelps that "Cheers" isn't the right analogy after all. "This is whatever the show is where one person is willing to open themselves up to new possibility and the other person is a jerk who doesn't trust anybody." Emilio: So...life. He keeps ranting that such a show wouldn't exist because it would get NO detectible ratings. She finally loses it and yells that she doesn't even know what "Cheers" is or what the fuck he's rambling about. "I finally found my family, don't you understand that?" She gets quiet and says she thought he already HAD found his family. Then she storms off, leaving him to sulk and think about what he just said. She is sitting in the middle of a field, sulking, when a ship appears and dives toward her, shooting. She runs until she falls over a small cliff while Nebula - screaming angrily behind the wheel - clips the ledge, then turns around and comes at her again. Gamora runs into a cave and Nebula just flies right in after her, continuing to fire as the wings rip off and the ship finally crashes. Gamora finds a conveniently placed, comically large gun and shoulders it while Nebula is struggling to free herself of her seat. Gamora shoots until the ship falls out of view and fireballs. She peeks over the newly formed ledge and finds Nebula screaming in the middle of the wreckage. Apparently having a sudden change of heart, she goes down to drag her from the wreckage before it bursts entirely into flame. They crawl upright, Gamora panting and Nebula realigning her machine parts ghoulishly. And then Nebula launches at her and pins her down. "Are you kidding me," Gamora yells and throws Nebula from her. They grapple a bit and the fight ends when Nebula is possibly just short of strangling Gamora to death and instead throws her down and declares "I win". Gamora, coughing and wheezing, says that is hardly a victory when she needed to be rescued from a downed ship. Nebula is like 'and it's my fault you were dumb enough to not just let me die?' Gamora is like 'and WHAT DO YOU CALL WHAT YOU JUST DID?' Also, did you really fly halfway across the universe just to try to win in a fight against me? Seriously? No, she flew across the universe to kill you and apparently just realized she couldn't go through with it. They bicker back and forth until Nebula accuses Gamora of always wanting to win when all she wanted was "a sister". Gamora blinks and sits quietly while Nebula says Gamora was all she had. "Thanos pulled my eye from my head and my brain from my skull and my arm from my body because of you." And on that lovely note, we switch to Peter's music player playing "Brandy, You're a Fine Girl". He is still in that room Gamora left him in, laying on a couch in the dark. Ego wanders in and asks if he's okay, noting that his "girl" seemed pretty pissed at him when she stomped off earlier. Then he changes the subject immediately to the song that's playing, which happened to be one of Meredith's favorites. Peter knew that, of course. Ego declares it one Earth's greatest pieces of music, which...uh...how narrow was the range of Earth music you listened to? Ego says the two of them are like the sailor in the song - visitors bringing gifts from "far away". The "gifts" being Peter for Meredith and "freedom" for Gamora. He keeps rambling about how the sailor in the song loves the girl, but the call of the sea is too strong and history calls on great men and they cannot concern themselves with the simple pleasures of mortal life. Peter is like 'uh...but I am mortal?' Ego says no, he isn't. As long as the planet they're on continues, they cannot die. Emilio: Ignore the giant caveat there. Peter is like 'wait, so I can spend the rest of forever in this paradise building shit from light or even create a whole NEW planet where I am a god?' Ego is like 'well...yeah, but it might take a few million years of practice to get THAT far.' Peter announces his plans to build 800 foot statues of Pac-Man, Skeletor and Heather Locklear. And then he'll make some REALLY "weird shit". Emilio: Like one of Heather Locklear wearing a strap on and banging Alyssa Milano. Diandra: ...............dude. Ego is like okay, but you know it's not all fun and games, right? With power comes responsibility and "only we can remake the universe." Well...unless somebody were to gather all the Infinity Stones and use them to fuck up all of reality or something, but that won't happen, right? He holds out his hand and conjures what looks like a white flame in his fingers. Peter mimics the gesture and creates an identical flame. Mantis hovers outside the door, looking scared. Mantis runs to find Drax, shaking him out of a dead sleep and frantically saying they need to talk. He looks at her and deadpans that he prefers his women with more meat on their bones. Emilio: Yeah, me too. They taste better. Diandra: I honestly don't know if you meant that as a creepy cannibal thing or... Emilio: [smirks] Diandra: I'm getting flashbacks of that "Sherlock" recap where you kept joking about Eurus eating people. Emilio: Mmm-hmm. Remind me to tell you my favorite cannibal joke later. Mantis is confused. Drax says he was TRYING to let her down easily with the whole 'you're a disgusting pet bug' thing, but imagining being with her in a sexual way actually makes him gag. He makes gagging noises to prove this. She says that's not what she came in here for and she doesn't even like "the type of thing you are". He gets more offended than he has any right to be after the things he's said about her. She says whatever, the POINT IS Ego has gotten what he was after and now they're in danger because she didn't tell them about it sooner. Suddenly it is morning and Ego is going back to the backstory egg pod presentation exhibit with Peter in tow, rambling about how he needs to readjust his way of processing life and his surroundings. "Everything is temporary. We are forever." Oh, look, it's the standard immortal argument for not forming attachments to anything or anybody coming from the guy who claims a mortal woman who died young was the love of his life. Peter asks if eternity gets boring after a while. Ego says not if he has a PURPOSE. He reminds Peter of the part where he said he set out to find life in the galaxy and says he neglected to mention the part where he found it disappointing and discovered his true purpose had nothing to do with seeking out other life. He taps Peter's forehead and Peter's eyes go milky and turn to galaxies and he murmurs that he can see eternity. Meanwhile, the sisters have crawled up to the mouth of the cave again and find just beneath it - which they didn't notice earlier when they were busy trying to kill each other - a massive grave of skeletons. "We need to get off this planet," Nebula says. The refugees from the space pirate ship are still pinging around through space jumps, screaming, their faces warping. They skim one planet over the heads of a group of Observers (the large headed, milky eyed alien race that serves basically exactly the same purpose as the similarly named but ultimately disappointing time travelers in "Fringe"). Stan Lee is sitting with them, wearing a space suit. He watches the partial ship disappear through a portal and continues the story he started before he was "so rudely interrupted" about the time he was a Fed Ex man, establishing the theory that he has been playing the same character throughout all the little cameos in all of these movies. The ship finally stops jumping and Yondu and Rocket hit the floor. Baby Groot vomits green fluid. Yondu asks what the HELL Rocket thinks he's doing. Rocket says the way Yondu was talking about this Ego guy he figured he was REALLY dangerous so they're here to save Peter. Yondu is like WHAT THE HELL DO WE NEED TO DO THAT FOR? "For honor? For love?" Rocket says hell no, he just wants to prove he's better than Peter. "I can lord this over him forever!" Emilio: Well, as long as you have a good reason. Yondu laughs and says Rocket can't fool him. "You play like you're the meanest and the hardest, but actually you're the most scared of all." He steals shit he doesn't need and pushes away the very people willing to put up with his crap "because just a little bit of love reminds you how big and empty that hole inside you actually is." Emilio: Nice to see you using those pop psychology lessons. Rocket yells at him to shut up. Yondu continues that the mad scientists that created him didn't give any more of a flip about him than Yondu's parents did when they sold him into slavery. "I know who you are, boy, because you're me!" They stare at each other for a beat like 'well...that was awkward.' Then Yondu grumbles that they should really go fight that planet then. Rocket is like 'okay, cool! Yeah! Wait...did you say fight a planet?' Mantis is talking to Drax when Gamora storms in and slams her against the nearest wall, demanding to know who they are and what is going on around here and who those bodies in the caves belonged to. Mantis' antennae glow and she gasps that Gamora is "scared". Gamora blinks and drops her. Drax says she's too late because Mantis already told him everything anyway. Back with the demigods. Ego's multimedia display pops up several more planets and he proudly declares this his purpose and Peter's legacy. He calls it "The Expansion". Emilio: Wasn't there an episode of Doctor Who where Davros did something a lot like this? Diandra: Who? Emilio: And didn't you recap it? Diandra: Er...oh, he was the half Dalek guy, right? Emilio: You've already forgotten everything, haven't you? Diandra: No, not EVERYTHING. Anyway. He says he has spent thousands of years "implanting" thousands of "extensions" of himself on thousands of worlds. One of the eggs shows 80s Kurt planting one of those flower things he showed Meredith in the ground of a planet. He says this is his way of fulfilling the one true purpose in life: growing and spreading. Well...that's a biological impulse, yes. Life forms further their DNA and ensure existence by either becoming immortal or replicating. All of the planets in the display are overtaken by glowing blue and Ego dreamily notes that eventually everything in the universe will be him. Except he is only one Celestial and he can't quite accomplish such a big task by himself. Which is why he needed another...say...a child. We've been cutting back and forth between Ego and Peter and Mantis/Gamora/Drax for the past few minutes, but I haven't been recapping it that way. However, the reason for the back and forth is made clear now as Mantis reveals that the bodies in the cave are all Ego's children and the music clangs dramatically. Ego is sort of getting to this. He says he attempted to graft his DNA onto many species in an attempt to create a being that could help him achieve his expansionist goal. He had Yondu bring some of the resulting children to him, which was a breach of Ravager code, but he paid him well for it and promised he wouldn't hurt the kids. He says that was technically true as they never felt the death blow after they all proved they didn't carry the Celestial god genes. Peter's eyes are still milky and galaxy like, so he's pretty placid about this whole monologue and he smiles dopily as Ego says he's the only one who has a connection to the "light". Gamora snarls that they need to find Peter and get off this planet. Mantis says it's probably too late because if Ego is running on schedule he'll have wooed Peter to the dark side by now. Nebula suggests they just leave then. Gamora snaps that Peter is their FRIEND and they're not abandoning him. Nebula grumbles that they don't exactly look like the greatest group of friends what with the constant YELLING at each other. Drax says no, they're not friends. They're FAMILY. And they're not leaving anyone behind. "Except maybe you," he adds, looking at Nebula. Ego has finished his soliloquy, shouting that he is finally not alone in the universe. Peter is starting to look a little less drugged. He says but...his friends... Ego brushes aside this moment of humanity and says they are CELESTIALS who are beyond such attachments. Peter is like okay, but...weren't you talking about how you were SO in love with mom? Ego says yeah, he did and sighs about how she knew the lyrics to every song that came on the radio and he went back to Earth three times to see her. He claims he would have gone back a fourth time, but he figured if he did he would never leave and that would kind of ruin his Expansion plans. He really feels bad about putting that tumor in her brain though. Peter's eyes clear immediately like 'wait...what? You killed mommy?' Emilio: You'll notice there's a continuing theme with this series of heroes having dead mothers they need to avenge, meaning that the acquisition of Marvel by Disney shouldn't make any noticeable difference at all. Diandra: Thank you, Professor Taylor. Ego starts to explain that that probably sounds bad, but... Peter just pulls out two blasters and empties them repeatedly into Ego. Ego staggers and large chunks of him blow off and are slowly regrown by blue light. When Peter stops shooting he squares up and asks just who the hell this little shit thinks he is now. He briefly morphs into David Hasselhoff as he rants about how he tried so HARD to accommodate Peter and even tried to take a form that would suit him and THIS IS PETER'S IDEA OF GRATITUDE? He conjures a spike of light and stabs Peter and rants that he'll just have to spend the next thousand years or so as a living battery and maybe THAT WILL TEACH HIM SOME MANNERS. Gamora finally gets through to Rocket, who tells her to keep the transmitter on so he can find her. He says they're in an old piece of construction equipment Yondu once used to break into a bank. Gamora is like 'yeah, whatever, Ego is insane.' Rocket is like 'oh, really? How long did it take you to work that out?' Kraglin drops a pod ship that flies down to Ego's planet which...actually has his face on it. Scowling like a wrathful god. Sweet dreams, kids! Ego takes the walkman off Peter's belt and hits play. It's still on "Brandy". The batteries are starting to run out. Peter gasps and flails weakly a little and starts crying. Ego crushes the walkman one-handed and steps back so the light spear can really go to town, light blasting from every orifice in Peter's face. Emilio: Does this technically count as tentacle porn? Diandra: Ew. Thank you for making me see it that way now. The whole palace lights up, blinding the rest of the team running toward it, and tendrils of light flow down Ego into the center of the planet. On Earth, the plant he put out in the woods behind the Dairy Queen parking lot activates and explodes into a giant slime monster that overtakes the building. Or something like that. It's giving me flashbacks of recapping "Evolution". Emilio: Oh, you remember that but not an episode of Doctor Who you did a year or two ago? Diandra: I REMEMBER THE HALF DALEK PERSON. I just didn't remember his name. The alien lava creature...or whatever...keeps growing and eating things in its path. And then Rocket and Yondu's ship blasts through the window behind Ego and Drax kicks down the front door to let the rest of the team in. The ship does a nosedive right into Ego, smearing him into the floor. The light spearing Peter evaporates and he crashes to the ground. On Earth, the alien lava stops chasing the terrified people and turns to rock. The door of the pod opens and Baby Groot waves at the team. Drax yells at "dumber, smaller Groot" to get out of the way and barrels into the ship. Baby Groot starts punching his arm angrily. Gamora helps Peter up and grumbles that she TOLD him something was wrong with this place. He's like 'yeah, great. You're resorting to "I told you so"s. I ALMOST DIED JUST NOW.' But yeah, thanks for coming back for me. You are totally the Diane to my Sam. She's like 'fuck you, we're not doing this right now!!!' Inside the ship, Drax asks what the hell Rocket is doing because they had this totally under control and he just came crashing in and could have killed them. Emilio: Right. And you totally killed that tentacle monster at the beginning of the movie all by yourself. Rocket thinks this is a funny way of saying thank you. Mantis pipes up that the thing they just squished is only an extension of Ego and he'll be back any minute. Peter, being dragged onto the ship by Gamora, sees Nebula waiting and asks what "Smurfette" is doing here. She growls that she's just hitching a ride home. Rocket, just noticing her, screeches that that whacko tried to kill him. She says actually, she saved him and he's welcome. Tendrils of light shoot out from under the ship and start wrapping around it. Drax asks how they kill a Celestial. Emilio: Well, you need to find the chosen one and then open a portal to another universe so you can find the source of sin and destroy it. Diandra: ...................... Emilio: Weren't you talking about The Golden Compass in the last recap? Diandra: Oh. Is that what that book was about? Emilio: Fantasy really isn't your thing, is it? Diandra: Nope. Peter suggests they find his "center". Brain, soul, whatever it's called. Mantis knows what he means and says they can find it in the caverns. Oh, not all the way down at the core? How convenient. Peter gets to the drivers' seat just as Yondu is taking off again. He's surprised to see him. They don't get far off the ground before the tendrils grab on and whap them back to the ground. Peter sits in the copilot seat and notes that he should probably be grateful he was small and good for thieving because if he wasn't Yondu would have handed him over to this lunatic. Yondu yells that he's an idiot if he still thinks THAT'S the reason he kept him. Peter snaps that that's what Yondu TOLD him was the reason. Yondu says no, he figured out what was happening to all the other kids and he couldn't do it. Peter reminds him of the threats to eat him and Yondu is like 'COME ON, DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND HUMOR?!' "You people have issues," Rocket calmly notes. Peter says no shit he has issues, that sparkly creature just starting to reform in front of their ship and roar like a hell demon is his father. They get the ship free and fly right through Ego and out another window in the palace. They start diving over the side of the cliff and Yondu asks why the hell they're going DOWN instead of UP. Peter says Ego wants to "eradicate the universe as we know it", so they can't leave until they kill him. Rocket flips a switch and some lasers blast through the rock below them, clearing a path right into the caverns. Emilio: I imagine this is the part where Christine would say something about typical men just forcing their way in. Diandra: Yeah, probably. But she's not here so you really don't have to point out the Freudian implications of these repeated scenes of ships plowing into tunnels. Emilio: Oh, but I do. Peter yells "woo-hoo" excitedly as they plow ahead, blasting anything in their path. No, Emilio. Don't say it. Rocket asks if they're saving the galaxy again then because he thinks they can increase their contract prices if they prove they can do this TWICE. Peter marvels that THIS is what he's thinking about right now. And how long have you known him? Rocket says no, of course he's worried about all the plants and the animals on the planets they're saving. Peter asks what about the people. Rocket becomes my spirit animal when he says "meh". Kraglin is sitting all by himself in the partial ship in orbit, eating and listening to Peter's music when Sovereign ships start popping out of space jumps up ahead. Ayesha exposits to her army that the batteries have been detected below the surface of this planet. Sigh. Kraglin tries to contact Yondu, but their communications are just out of range. Yondu asks why Ego wants Peter anyway. Peter says he needs his "genetic connection to the light" to destroy the universe. He says he's been trying to teach Peter how to harness that power. Yondu asks if he was successful. Peter shrugs and says he made a ball. Yondu is less than impressed. Peter says he thought as hard as he could. Yeah, and I bet it was painful. Emilio: Hey! Diandra: Oh, right. I forgot you're Peter. This is not a trait you share with him. Yondu says he doesn't control his arrow with his MIND. They arrive at a large cavern suddenly, a wall sheering off the side of the pod so the team can see all the rocky synapses suspended in the middle. Mantis points to one and says it's the core, but they should hurry because it won't take him long to find them. Rocket centers all the lasers and blasts a steady stream into the core. Peter exposits for no particular reason that if they can reach the center they can kill Ego. Yes, thank you for continuing to play the role of audience surrogate, Peter. Emilio: Mantis is actually supposed to be part human too. They changed her so Peter would be the only human on the team and therefore a sort of audience surrogate. Diandra: Yet another thing they changed from the comics. I honestly don't know why certain groups of fans yell at people who don't know the comics at this point. Like this isn't going to be totally different anyway. Oh, that obscure pro wrestler is playing a character from the comics? Awesome. I assume that means Wolverine will be in this movie. The comm suddenly comes back to life and Kraglin calls for Yondu again. When Yondu responds he says "hey, uh...remember that Ayesha chick? Uh..." Before he can explain, the drones appear and they have to abandon their efforts to drill into Ego's core to engage in a space battle. And I'm going to pretend I didn't just lose Emilio at the words "drill into Ego's core." Emilio: [peals of laughter, punctuated by snorting] Drax, Gamora and Mantis are thrown from the pod and land on the surface of a neural connector. Or whatever. Rocket announces that the lasers have been damaged and runs to get a detonator from his pack. They don't have the explosives to go with it, but they have the batteries Ayesha is after. Peter asks if it's enough to kill Ego. Rocket is like maybe, but you should probably worry about what happens AFTER that. Or maybe we should have been worrying about that all along. Because the entire planet will definitely explode then. He says he'll rig a timer and they'll just have to get out fast. They strap on jet packs, Peter activates his helmet, Baby Groot grabs onto Rocket and they vault out of the pod. The walls near Mantis, Gamora and Drax start crumbling and cracking with beams of light. Mantis whimpers that Ego is coming. Drax reminds her that she can make him sleep. She says only when he wants her to because he's too powerful otherwise. Drax says possibly the cheesiest line of the movie: "you don't have to believe in yourself, because I believe in you!" Emilio: [raspberry farting noise] The lights on the wall form into a face and roar, sending out a flood of more light. Mantis drives her hand into the nearest crack and yells "SLEEP". The light puffs out. In the silence that follows, Drax laughs and admits to Gamora that he didn't think she would actually be able to do that given how "weak and skinny" she is. Mantis doesn't really register this as she's still holding Ego at bay. She whimpers that she doesn't know how long she'll be able to keep him down. Peter and Rocket are standing at the mouth of a...synapse, I guess. Rocket announces that because the metal is thicker than they probably anticipated, the bomb will only work if they put it right on Ego's core, which is through those tiny openings along the tunnel they're on the edge of which they couldn't possibly fit through. Peter is like 'ummm...' and looks pointedly at Baby Groot. Rocket grumbles and reluctantly carries Baby Groot deeper into the tunnel while Peter jumps out to fight the Sovereign. Except getting Baby Groot to plant the bomb is about as easy as getting him to bring Yondu his fin prototype. Rocket points to the detonator switches and buttons, explaining that he needs to flick these two switches to activate it and then push the button closest to the switches and get the hell out before it goes off in five minutes. If he had stopped here, this MIGHT have worked. Instead, he stresses that Baby Groot should NOT under ANY circumstances push the other button right next to the one he needs to push because that will make the bomb explode immediately and kill everybody. Baby Groot stares at him stupidly. Rocket prompts him to repeat back what he just said. "I am Groot. I am Groot," Baby Groot says and Rocket nods encouragingly. "I am Groot," BG finishes, pointing at the wrong button. Rocket yelps that that's the button that will KILL everybody and prompts him to try again. Baby Groot repeats exactly the same thing, pointing to the same button and Rocket's voice goes up a few octaves in frustration. He asks Baby Groot to point to the button he's supposed to push. Baby Groot points to the wrong one again. Rocket starts shrieking. Peter sticks his head in to tell Rocket he's making Baby Groot nervous. Rocket asks if Peter - or anybody - has some tape he can put over the "death button" so Baby Groot doesn't KILL THEM ALL. Peter offers to check and we extend this little comedy act as he replaces his helmet and flies out of view so we just hear the following. Peter: Yo, Yondu! Do you ha- [explosion noise] ow...do you have any tape? [loud explosion] owhohoho [long groan] Gamora! Do you have any tape? Tape! No never mind. [laser blast] Ow! Drax! Do you have any tape? Yes, scotch tape would work! Then why did you ask me if scotch tape would work, if you don't have any? Emilio: Well, that's one way to waste a couple minutes of screen time. Peter comes back and says nobody has any. Rocket asks if he tried Nebula. Peter hesitates before saying yes so Rocket accuses him of lying. Peter says she was sitting right next to Yondu when he asked him and Rocket has stolen batteries and an atom bomb in his backpack so why doesn't HE have tape? Baby Groot sighs and takes the detonator while Rocket is distracted with this argument, toddling off down the tunnel while Rocket yells about how he has to do EVERYTHING around here. He turns back at the same second Baby Groot jumps down one of the holes too small for anybody else to fit through and mutters "we're all gonna die." Emilio: Yes, but that won't come until much later. Diandra: Shhhhhhhh... Yondu and Nebula are still in the pod, which gets blasted by the Sovereign. Yondu yells about their thrusters being out as the ship spins out of control. Nebula sighs, opens up her machine arm and plugs something from the ship into it. Yondu apparently understands exactly what she's planning immediately and starts redirecting the lasers all over the ship's surface. Peter jumps into the back of the ship just as they are surrounded. One of the pods with Ayesha's face on a video screen hovers in front and her voice purrs that it might come as solace to the Guardians that their deaths will serve as a warning to anybody else who thinks about messing with the Sovereign in the future. They start blasting away. Yondu warns Nebula that it's going to hurt when he flips the switch on what she's doing over there. She smirks and says "promises promises". Emilio: I think you may have needed Chrissy to field that one. Diandra: I can probably guess what she would say and I'm actually glad she's not here to say it. Yondu flips the switch and sparks surround Nebula. All the lasers fire at full blast, turning the ship into a spinning ball of death rays that takes out all the surrounding Sovereign drones. Back in the Ender's Game pavilion, Ayesha screams angrily as all the consoles flash game over messages. Something lands in the pod and Peter yelps that their ship is gonna blow. Yondu whistles and then we cut to Gamora watching from the ground as the ship fireballs, screaming Peter's name in horror. Because I guess we have time to squeeze another couple clichés into this movie. Nebula lands in front of her and they both look up as Peter and Yondu float down, Peter with a jetpack and Yondu holding his arrow. Peter laughs and tells Yondu he looks like Mary Poppins. Yondu asks if "he" is cool. Peter kind of sobers a little and says yes. Yes, he's cool. There's a cheesy surround shot of the team as they gather. Mantis still holding off Ego and Gamora and Peter sharing a Significant Look and Rocket flying up and doing his best to look bad ass. The dramatic hero music is cut off as something whacks into Mantis, knocking her out of frame. Comedy! Ego flares to life again and everything starts wobbling. Drax picks up Mantis, declaring she's been knocked unconscious. Baby Groot is winding through tunnels, following one that has a bright light at the end of it. Which seems like a brilliant plan. Peter asks how long they have before the bomb goes off. Rocket says well, if Baby Groot doesn't fuck it up and kill them all any second now...six minutes. Yondu calls Kraglin for an extraction in five minutes. Peter says somebody needs to get to the surface to meet him and it should probably be Drax and Mantis since she's draped in his arms. He attaches one of their portable suits to Drax's back and Drax yells "ow, my nipples!" before being shot upward. Emilio: As possible last words go...I guess it could be worse. Diandra: Yeah, it could have been...say..."did we lose?" Ahem. The ledge the rest of them are standing on starts disintegrating and Gamora tumbles over the side into a void. Nebula dives after her and catches her, grabbing on to the nearest chunk of rock and then flinging her up on top of it. The wall that was beginning to form a face earlier succeeds this time and Ego booms that this can't be what Peter wants and what kind of father would he be if he forced him to make this sort of choice? Yondu fends off what looks like a tentacle rock monster with his arrow. Er...an extension of Ego. Probably. Whatever. Emilio: Hopefully it was a hand. Diandra: Ugh. Ego sends a whole bunch more light and rock tentacles after all the remaining fighters and Yondu keeps the arrow running. Rocket attaches some sort of dot tech to the ones around him and forms a ball around himself, which the tentacles bat around like a kitten with a ball of string. He pushes a button that detonates the dots, protected inside his ball. He drops to the ground near Peter, both of them with guns. Ego booms that soon he and Peter will be "all there is" so it would probably be for the best if he stopped pissing him off. I'm actually not paraphrasing there. Peter shoots at the tentacles and gets swatted down, his mask knocked off his face. Kraglin comes in for a landing on the planet surface. Gamora looks up at the crack way above her and her sister that light is pouring down from and says they need to get to the surface. Nebula looks at the columns of rock suddenly pushing past them upward and peeks over the ledge of the platform they are on. Gamora follows her gaze and they look at each other and take a flying leap onto the next one that comes past. Drax reaches the surface and runs toward the ship, hesitating as tentacles come up around it. The tentacles drag the whole ship sideways toward Drax, forcing him to run back. And then Kraglin gets the thrusters engaged and plays a little tug of war. Gamora and Nebula ride the universe's craziest elevator straight into the side of the cliff a few meters from the surface. They die instantly. Just kidding. Haha. They can't die. Emilio: Well... Diandra: Shut up. Ego comes strolling out of a crumbling rock face toward Peter in his humanoid light alien form, forming a skeleton and skin as he walks. Peter looks around to see Yondu and Rocket consumed by rock. On the surface, Drax starts sinking into the ground like it is suddenly made of quicksand. He manages to hold Mantis up away from the earth as it covers him. Gamora and Nebula are wrapped in tentacles before they can climb to the surface. Emilio: I think I saw a porno that looked a lot like this once. Diandra: Yeah, I was going to say fanfic. Baby Groot whimpers as the tunnel he's in starts closing around him. Emilio: Yep, I definitely saw this one. Diandra: Fanfic or porno? Emilio: Aren't they the same thing sometimes? Diandra: Although that analogy kind of makes the part where he starts doing a baby cry more disturbing. Emilio: ...........sorry, I keep expecting Chrissy to reply. Diandra: Me too. [ETA: I sent a transcript of our conversation to Chrissy later. Her response was "yeah, some men do that. That's usually when I get out the ball gag."] Ego repeats his need for help in the whole remaking the universe plan and illustrates his point by stabbing Peter with a light tentacle again. Emilio: So as someone who originally got a degree to become a school psychologist...what would you say to this repeated penetration obsession Ego has? Diandra: Well, technically I didn't actually finish the degree since I didn't get the licensure, first. Second...no, I'm too creeped out by the incest to finish that thought. Ego keeps rambling about this being Peter's PURPOSE in the universe while he is stabbed with several more tentacles until he goes limp. Ugh. That just sounds awful now. Thanks, Emilio. Emilio: You're welcome. Light flows up into the core. On Earth the alien lava comes to life and starts flowing again, forcing the idiots who came to gawk at it and take pictures to run screaming, along with the poor police officers who tried to keep them back. On some other futuristic looking planet, the same thing is happening, but without stupid rubberneckers. We see more planets while Ego continues his rant about Peter resisting his destiny. The yellow skinned people from Contraxia, Observers, lizard rats and possibly Vulcans or Dark Elves run from the alien lava. "What greater meaning can life possibly have to offer," Ego finishes clunkily. Yondu, still somehow being overtaken by the rock flow, reminds Peter of the thing about not using his head to fly his arrow before the rocks cover his face. Oof. I'm starting to understand why this was less liked than the first movie. Except I don't remember the first one being much better, so... Peter looks at his biological dad attacking Yondu and has flashbacks of his mom, Yondu and all the members of his team. He clenches his fists and a swirl of rock forms around him. Light travels from him into the ground under Ego. Ego looks down, confused. "You shouldn't'a killed my mom and squished my Walkman," says the king of fucked up priorities. Because those are equally punishable by death. Fleetwood Mac's "The Chain" starts up again as Peter breaks free from the tentacles and flies into Ego, bashing him repeatedly with a rock. The rocks fall away from the Guardians and the flow on all the planets stops again. You know, the people on those planets can't possibly have any idea what just caused that. What do you suppose are the odds on the people on Earth blaming the Avengers? The walls closing around Groot relax again and he turns to find the large glowing brain right behind him. Rocket flies to the mouth of one of the tunnels and yells that they need him to hurry up while Peter has Ego distracted. Baby Groot places the trigger on the membrane keeping the brain suspended, flips the switches, goes to press the wrong button, hesitates and pushes the right one. The timer starts ticking down from five as he runs away. Drax tosses Mantis onto the ship and then runs up to the bridge, leaving her in the loading bay. Ego and Peter are still flying through the underground tunnels, fighting. Rocket flies over to Yondu and reminds him the whole place is about to blow. Yondu is like 'what are you standing here telling me that for? Get to the ship!' Rocket says he's not leaving without Peter. Yondu says he needs to worry about the "twig" right now. Rocket tries again, claiming he won't leave without Yondu. Yondu gives a little speech about how he hasn't done anything right ever in his life and he needs to DO SOMETHING now, but...let's face it, he could have just blown a raspberry and pointed out the ridiculousness of any of them other than Peter giving a rip about him. Rocket sighs and pulls two devices from his belt. One is one of those portable space suits, the other is an "aerorig". He apologizes that he only has one of each to give Yondu. Yondu takes them and nods meaningfully. Baby Groot says "I am Groot", which Rocket translates as "Welcome to the frickin' Guardians of the Galaxy. Only he didn't use 'frickin'." Then he flies away, muttering that they are going to need to have a TALK about his language later. Emilio: Hopefully before you meet Captain America because he really doesn't like that kind of language. Diandra: Not that he would actually understand it. Emilio: No. Peter and Ego are still throwing each other around, body slamming into rock walls. At one point they launch at each other and gather rocks around themselves as they're flying through the air. Ego's rocks just form a layer of rock around him. Peter's form a giant Pac Man. Because of course. They collide and rocks fly everywhere. They crash to the nearest surface, destroying a synapse bridge along the way. Emilio; You're not even bothering with the descriptions anymore, are you? Diandra: Yeah, in hindsight...it's probably not Doctor Strange I should have been worried about when it comes to crazy effects. Gamora and Nebula have reached the ship and Gamora is crouched over Mantis when Rocket flies in. Gamora immediately demands to know where Peter is. Rocket won't meet her eyes and just stares sullenly at the timer matching the one on the bomb, now ticking down the last minute. Baby Groot points back at the gaping hole in the ground they came out of. Gamora announces that she's not leaving without him, grabs a gun and goes to march out the bay doors. Rocket zaps her with a taser and apologizes as she passes out and hits the deck. "I can only afford to lose one friend today." He yells for Kraglin to take off. Drax, beside Kraglin, asks if Peter is back yet. Emilio: Hope you have another charge in that taser strong enough to take down an elephant. Ego and Peter are still fighting and the timer is within thirty seconds of detonation. Ego yelps that they need to stop it. "You are a god. If you kill me...you'll be just like everybody else." Peter doesn't see a problem with that. The timer hits zero and the core explodes. Ego crumbles to dust right in Peter's hands. Peter watches as the spark of energy in his hands generated from the planet fizzles and looks at everything crumbling and exploding around him like 'well, I guess this is it then.' And then Yondu swoops by and picks him up, zipping to the surface ahead of a fireball. "He may have been your father, boy," he says as they continue straight up. "But he wasn't your daddy." Peter gives him big dopey eyes and says nothing as Yondu continues that he's sorry he didn't do anything right and he was damn lucky to have a son like Peter even if he was stolen. He puts the space suit on Peter and activates it. "What," Peter belatedly says as they escape the planet's atmosphere into space. Peter looks back at the crumbling planet and then at Yondu holding his breath and still determinedly flying in one direction. "What are you doing," Peter yelps. "You can't!" The aero whatever runs out just then and they sputter to a stop. Peter frantically tries to take off his suit as ice crystals start forming on Yondu, screaming as he realizes he can't. Yondu cups his face and kind of pats his cheek before going limp, his eyes clouding over and Peter wails. And then we cut right to the team placing flowers and trinkets around Yondu's body on a gurney. Peter tells everyone the story he told Gamora about pretending David Hasselhoff was his dad when he was a kid. When everyone kind of looks at each other in confusion he explains that that's a singer/actor from Earth and he's really famous. Emilio: Mostly in Germany these days. Diandra: Or, if we're counting his singing career... ever. He rambles about how Yondu may not have had a talking car or the voice of an angel, but he had a flying arrow and his whistle. And, you know, they both went on a lot of adventures and fought robots had sex with hot women and what was my point? I'm pretty sure I had one. Oh, yeah...turns out my dad basically was David Hasselhoff. Dude? Next time we're killing you too so you don't have to do another eulogy like this. Emilio: Oh, man... Diandra: It is going to take so long for that joke to pay off. Gamora pats his arm and he cries. "What I'm trying to say here is...sometimes that thing you're searching for your whole life...it's right there by your side all along." Uh-huh. Nebula - hovering in the background - kind of slinks out. Gamora follows her. She catches her in the bowels of the partial ship somewhere and rambles about how they were kids and she was just as concerned with living one day to the next and their psycho father was forcing her to fight her sister and she never considered what he was doing to Nebula when she lost. So now she's trying to "make it right". "There are little girls like you across the universe who are in danger. You can stay with us and help them." Nebula thinks killing Thanos would be a good start on that front. Gamora isn't sure that's actually possible. Emilio: You'd better hope it is. Nebula goes to stomp off, but Gamora stops her and pulls her into a hug, vowing that Nebula will always be her sister. Nebula slowly, awkwardly kind of half hugs her back, then yanks away and stomps off. Instead of shooting him back into space as most sci-fis would, Yondu's gurney is slid into an incinerator along with all the trinkets and things they "buried" him with. Everyone disperses, but Kraglin holds Peter back to give him something Yondu was holding for him. Because he always knew Peter would be back one day. He found it in a "junker shop". It's a Zune, which Kraglin claims is what everybody on Earth is using instead of Walkman's these days. Emilio: That's not Earth. And they're worshipping them. Diandra: Didn't we already talk about that Simpsons episode in one of these recaps? Emilio: Maybe. I don't think I was helping you with that one. Peter is impressed that it can hold three hundred songs. Yeah. Wait'll you see the music players people on Earth are actually using. I have playlists longer than that. Peter gives Kraglin Yondu's arrow, which Rocket brought back in pieces after that battle and managed to reassemble. He thinks Yondu would have wanted Kraglin to have it. Um...why wouldn't he have wanted YOU to you know what? I don't care anymore. Is this movie almost over? So Peter is sitting on his bed playing with his new toy when Baby Groot crawls up. He is just queuing up Cat Stevens' "Father and Son". Emilio: At least it's not "Cats in the Cradle". Diandra: Ahem. Yeah. Baby Groot climbs right into Peter's lap and holds his hands out for one of the earbuds so he can listen. Peter kind of cups his back as he listens and looks weepy. Gamora watches Nebula take off in...some sort of ship. Rocket is the first to notice the ships appearing around them. He explains that he sent word to Yondu's old Ravager buddies about what he did. The rest of the Guardians stumble in and look out the main window at the dozens of ships floating around them. Peter declares it a "Ravager funeral". They shoot what looks like fireworks from the sides of the ships. On one of the ships, a second in command tells Stakar that Yondu didn't let them down after all. Clunk. "No, he did not, son," growls space Rocky. Clunkity clunk. They thump their chests in a Ravager salute. As do the captains of two other ships - Ving Rhames and Michelle Yeoh in the most overcast cameo appearances of the movie. Rocket pointedly notes that Yondu didn't successfully chase his friends away even though he was always mean and he stole batteries he didn't need and whoops, did I say batteries? I mean, um...other...stuff... Peter - not quite as dense as he seems - says no, of course that would never chase away real friends. Baby Groot, who has been crawling from one shoulder to another, falls asleep on Drax. Peter and Gamora wrap arms around each other. Mantis notes that the fireworks are "beautiful" and Drax finally tells her she is too. "On the inside." Emilio: Baby steps. We cut to black, but before the credits even officially launch, we go back to Kraglin practicing with the arrow. He makes it levitate, fly in a couple chaotic circles and crash into a wall. Then he finally gets it to fly into an adjacent hall and Drax screams in pain. He backs slowly away and hopes nobody remembers whose arrow it is now apparently. And then after the main chunk of credits, we go to Stakar's ship for more clunky dialogue. He talks about what a shame it is that it took a tragedy to bring them all together, but he thinks Yondu would be proud to know they reunited the band. He is talking to the captain group with Ving Rhames and Michelle Yeoh and other assorted creatures and a disembodied head. Emilio: ...that looks disturbingly like a Cyberman. He cocks a gun and says "let's steal some shit." By the way, the actual credits have several in jokes not related to the cut scenes. Such as pictures of characters being defaced and doodles that appear to have been done by Star Lord and random lines of text changed to "I am Groot". Meanwhile, on Sovereign...planet. Do we know what the name of the planet is or just the people? Emilio: It's called The Sovereign and you noted that at the beginning of the recap. Diandra: Damnit. A servant girl tells a harried looking High Priestess Ayesha that the council is waiting for her. Ayesha grumbles that they're probably pissed she wasted their resources, but once they see what she just created they'll calm down. The servant cocks her head at a fancy looking chamber and asks if it's a new type of birthing pod. Ayesha says it's the next step in their evolution and it will ensure their ability to destroy the Guardians of the Galaxy. She says she is calling it "Adam". It's not quite clear whether she's talking about the pod itself or the being inside it, but let's assume it is the latter and Adam Warlock is going to be officially introduced and help kill Thanos. Emilio: Nebula killed Thanos in the comics. Adam Warlock led the good guys in the Infinity War that came after. Diandra: Right. Except the Sovereigns were never in the comics at all and Ayesha and Adam were both human experiments or something so obviously the MCU isn't following all that closely to canon. Emilio: Eh...they're mostly following. And there's a David Hasselhoff song on the soundtrack. The lyrics appear to have been written from the perspective of Star Lord and question the wisdom of bringing a baby into battle, but use the excuse of "my daddy was a pirate". Also, the backup singers keep repeating "Zardu Hasselfrau". Because this part of the MCU is just all in jokes. Some indeterminate time later, Peter enters NewGroot's room. NewGroot is now a teenager, so...how fast does this species grow? Peter yells at NewGroot that he needs to clean up his room because it is being overtaken by leaves and roots and shit. "I am Grooooot," NewGroot sasses. Peter - supposedly the adult here - replies "I am NOT boring. YOU'RE boring." Emilio: Being an adult is boring. Might as well learn that now. He goes on a parent rant about NewGroot playing that mind- numbing game all day and making Peter trip over his vines and IF YOU KEEP MAKING THAT FACE IT WILL FREEZE LIKE THAT. NewGroot sasses again and Peter mutters that now he knows how Yondu felt. And then we are forced to look at that terrifying image of Howard the Duck again. Seriously, is it any wonder these are my least favorite movies of the MCU? The end note assures viewers that no raccoons or tree creatures were harmed in the making of the movie, but no promises can be made about their handlers. After this, David Hasselhoff appears to intone "just remember, in these times of hardship: We. Are. Groot." He makes it sound like a threat. Stan Lee is still on that Observer planet. The Observers have decided they have had enough of his rambling story and walk away from him. He whines that they were supposed to give him a lift home. To...whatever planet he's from. Emilio: Venus? Diandra: I thought that's where women came from. Emilio: Well........I have always wondered about him. Okay, well. That was...something. Next up: the fifteenth Spider-Man movie in as many years (okay, slight exaggeration...probably). We'll see if Chrissy will come back for that one. Emilio: If she doesn't, I'll do it. As long as I can compare it to Toby's Spider-Man series. Diandra: Oh, we will definitely be talking about the repeated rebooting Marvel has been doing with this one. Emilio: Okay, then I'm definitely there.