"Black Panther" Starring: Chadwick Boseman, Letitia Wright, Michael B. Jordan, Danai Gurira, Lupita Nyong'o, Winston Duke, Daniel Kaluuya, Martin Freeman, Angela Bassett, Sterling K. Brown, Forest Whitaker, Andy Serkis, John Kani Considering how eager I was to get to this movie when I was halfway through "Ragnarok" and regretting my life choices, it took me a while to actually get around to this recap. I've been really busy. And so have Chrissy and Emilio, making coordinating a time to recap difficult. We may have to divide and conquer for future movies. Chrissy: Oh, so can I skip "Infinity War" and just do, say, "Ant Man and The Wasp"? Diandra: No. We need you on that one. Chrissy: Damnit. We begin with a little boy with an American accent demanding his father - who has an African accent - tell him "the story of home" before the screen even lights up. Dad immediately launches into a folktale with all the pacing and drama of a seasoned storyteller. The screen comes alive with an image of a rock hurtling toward the distant Earth as he says that millions of years ago a meteorite made of vibranium, "the strongest substance in the universe" touched down almost smack in the middle of the African continent. We see a computer rendering of a blue thing hitting the ground and spreading what looks like electrical current to all the flora as Dad fast forwards right to the humans discovering the site and its surrounding magical qualities while the computer rendering continues to provide visuals similar to what we saw in "GoTG2" but with digital sand. Five tribes laid joint claim to settle on the land and called it Wakanda. Of course, human nature being what it is, they proceeded to spend several generations fighting each other over it until one shaman had a vision of "the panther goddess Bast." She led him to a "heart-shaped herb" that granted him superhuman strength and speed if he ate it. And because this was one of the plants affected by the vibranium, that wasn't just a crazy trip. Chrissy: Her American cousin tried to do the same thing with the native tribes over there, but it just made them THINK they had superpowers. And gave them the munchies. Diandra: Who is Bast's Native American cousin? Chrissy: I don't know. You know more about Native mythology than I do. The shaman became a king and the first Black Panther, a title granted to the protector of Wakanda. Four of the five tribes accepted the new king's rule. The Jabari's said 'fuck that' and retreated into the mountains. Buildings start growing up through the ground in the simulation as Dad progresses to the modern era where Wakanda is the most technologically advanced society on Earth and they watched as the rest of the world went through war after war and white men kidnapped people from neighboring countries and shipped them off into slavery. Understandably, they isolated themselves from the insanity, cloaking the entirety of Wakanda with their advanced shield technology, partly so the world wouldn't find out about vibranium and turn it into a weapon. The kid asks if they are still hiding and why. To answer, we jump to Oakland California in 1992 where some kids are playing basketball late at night with a cobbled together basket (a plastic crate nailed to a piece of plywood). Inside what looks like the same apartment building that would prompt him to run for local office, Randall Pearson is planning a robbery with a younger man who nods in a manner of someone who really doesn't understand what's going on but is pretending to anyway. Randall hears a noise out in the hall and they scramble to hide their arsenal before somebody bangs on the door. Chrissy: Can you stop calling him Randall? Randall is too much of a boy scout to be confused with someone hiding machine guns in a secret closet. Emilio: Besides, he's one of those guys who's in everything right now, so we know his real name. Okay, fine. The kid looks through the peephole and tells Sterling that there are a couple "Grace Jones looking chicks" holding spears standing outside. Sterling says he should open it then because "they won't knock again." The kid opens the door and two bald women in African tribal dress enter. One demands - in Xhosa - to know who Sterling is. Sterling - in English - identifies himself as Prince N'Jobu. The lady - still in Xhosa - orders him to prove his identity. He turns his lower lip inside out to show what looks like a brand that is bright blue by his gum line. Satisfied, the women bang their spears on the ground. The lights go off and when they come back on, a man in the Black Panther outfit is standing between them. Sterling instinctively bows to his king and the kid belatedly follows at his prodding. The King - who we can probably assume from earlier movies is T'Chaka - orders the kid to leave. In English. Sterling says no, he trusts the kid. It's fine. "With your permission, King T'Chaka," he adds in a bit of exposition for the people who couldn't work that out. T'Chaka says fine and takes his panther head off, handing it to one of the women before greeting his baby brother in a much less formal manner, hugging him and appraising his surroundings. He notes that N'Jobu looks "strong" and N'Jobu instinctively responds with "glory to Bast, I am in good health." He asks how "home" is. T'Chaka is like yeeeeaaaaaaaahhhhhh, that's why I'm here. "There has been an attack." He projects a hologram from some device on his wrist, showing a picture of Gollum's human incarnation. Chrissy: Don't make us do this again. He was in "Captain America 2". ...showing a picture of "Ulysses Klaue", who he says stole a quarter ton of vibranium and escaped by setting off a bomb at the border. Since he knew exactly where the vibranium was and how to get it, it's obvious he had someone on the inside. N'Jobu, stone faced, asks why T'Chaka is here, exactly. T'Chaka says he wanted to see N'Jobu's eyes as he explained why he would betray his country like that. N'Jobu is like 'what? I didn't do it!' T'Chaka turns to the kid and prompts him to introduce himself. The kid suddenly switches accents and says he is Zuri, son of Badu and pulls out his lower lip to show his own neon blue tattoo. N'Jobu spells out for the slower audience members that Zuri was a SPY who lied to him for a long time. T'Chaka barks at him to stand down and asks if he was really naïve enough to believe he was the only spy sent to America. Emilio: Well, no, but I thought maybe you would spread them out a little, not send one to spy on the other one. Zuri produces one of the stolen tubes of vibranium and T'Chaka says N'Jobu will have to return to Wakanda where the Council will decide how he will pay for his crimes. Down on the street, the kids playing ball notice some lights through the dense cloud cover as the ship that brought T'Chaka takes off. And we smash to the Marvel title sequence instead of the usual card for the specific movie. Present. T'Challa is watching a news piece about Wakanda mourning the death of their beloved monarch T'Chaka in the terrorist attack of a few movies ago. Or, apparently, a week ago. So...how many days was the Civil War? The newsreporter lady notes that the terrorist - Bucky - has been apprehended, then rambles about how Wakanda is a poor country with an "impenetrable rainforest", but they refuse to have anything to do with anyone else and they won't accept help from guilt ridden white people. I'm paraphrasing. Chrissy: I'd call it reading between the lines. Whatever. Anyway, they show a generic image of an African lady carrying something on her head and a child and then the newslady says the monarchy is expected to be passed to the oldest of T'Chaka's two children, which...is only different from literally every other monarchy if you assume that - like the Asgardians, apparently - the sex of the eldest child is unimportant. Somewhere across the room, my favorite badass from "The Walking Dead" is sitting campstyle in front of a screen. She announces that they are "coming up on them". Chrissy: What's her name again? Diandra: Okoye. Chrissy: You know what I meant. Diandra: Danai Gurira. Emilio: What's this about now? Chrissy: D here used to think her name was Sonequa Martin Green. Diandra: They were both on "The Walking Dead" and I apparently never looked up names on IMDb to realize I had the wrong name attached to Michonne. I don't know why I thought that was her name. Emilio: So who did you think Danai Gurira was? Diandra: I don't think I ever really thought about it. I identified everybody by their character's name unless I knew them from something else before The Walking Dead - like Andrew Lincoln and that chick from "Prison Break" Sarah something. Chrissy: Huh. Diandra: I also had the names of the two actors in "The Time Tunnel" backwards in my head until, like, the last half dozen episodes if that helps. Chrissy: It doesn't, but it's not surprising. Emilio: The time what? Chrissy: It's like the precursor to "Quantum Leap", but with more hoyay. Emilio: Ah. So exactly her sort of show. Chrissy: Yep. So, if I were to ask you who the guy was who played Fandral in the last "Thor" movie... Diandra: Who's Fandral? Chrissy: Yeah, that checks out. Sambisa Forest, Nigeria, says the chyron as we cut to an outdoor shot as the plane they are on sheds its cloaking mechanism. There is a convoy on the road below that they are following. T'Challa goes over to a 3D display that looks just like what was used for the rendering of the history of Wakanda, except now it is showing the convoy below. He picks up one of the trucks and sweeps away the roof of the cargo compartment, showing a heat signature of a human inside. Okoye gets up and grabs a nearby spear. He says she doesn't need that - he can handle this alone. She looks incredulous, but puts it down. He exposits that he will get Nakia out as quickly as he can. Okoye hands him what looks like some chunky beads and says "just don't freeze when you see her." He scoffs that he NEVER freezes. He puts his panther mask on, crosses his arms over his chest and drops right out of the plane because he was apparently standing on the trap door. On the way down, he throws some spinning disks at the caravan, perfectly landing one each on the hoods of the vehicles. The engines go dead instantly and they careen their dead cars into trees and each other as they slow to a stop. The militia men get out and the leader demands to know what the hell just happened. He finds one of the disks, but can't remove it. He orders them to get into defense positions. The truck T'Challa identified as the target has a few women in headscarves crowded into the back. A couple men break away to search the bushes and find a dog barking in the general direction of a tree. They sweep their flashlights up to the tree and...yeah, Black Panther is crouched on a branch. Chrissy: Because of course the dog chased the cat up a tree. Get it? Diandra: No, it's too subtle. I'm so glad you pointed that out. [/sarcastic voice] Back out on the road, the leader is like 'well, did you find anything?' While he's waiting for an answer that will never come, Nakia creeps her way toward the front of the cargo compartment and peaks out. One of the guys who went to search the bushes comes flying out into one of the trucks, putting a massive dent in it. The soldiers start panicking and firing randomly into the bushes, but T'Challa is already behind them. He jumps onto the bed of a truck and flings one of the soldiers back into the woods, then jumps down and ninjas his way through a few more. Nakia takes this as her cue to bash the soldier nearest her. When he's down to the last two soldiers, T'Challa demonstrates two of the abilities the dad at the beginning was attributing to the Black Panther. He rips the door off a truck and flings it at one guy casually, then walks directly at one shooting at him point blank, wondering why the bullets are just bouncing off. Nakia stops him before he hurts this one, saying the soldier is just a kid who was also kidnapped by those thugs. She takes off the burkha they apparently forced her to wear and tosses it aside. T'Challa is immediately dazzled by the sight of her bare arms and what is visible above her low cut top, apparently as he starts stammering that he uh...wanted to... Whatever he was going to say is cut off by a soldier that was apparently hiding shoving one of the other captured women into the clearing, announcing that he will shoot her. Okoye drops out of nowhere, slams the gun from his hands and spears him without breaking a sweat. "You froze," she accuses as she swaggers toward T'Challa. I would like to present this as Exhibit A in the argument for why she is my favorite character in this entire universe. Also, possibly Exhibit B. Chrissy: Don't you think that's a bit premature? We haven't even met Captain Marvel yet. Diandra: Captain Marvel is a close second. T'Challa, clearly knowing better than to argue with her because he is a good boy, just takes off his helmet and turns to Nakia, who asks what the hell he's doing here RUINING HER MISSION. He says since she's been out of touch for a while she doesn't know that T'Chaka is dead and he is about to ascend to the throne. He wants her at the crowning ceremony. Or...whatever. We'll get to that soon enough. She nods and goes to give the other women some parting words, asking them to make sure the kid gets to his family and keep themselves safe. I am briefly distracted by the fact that from this angle, Okoye's nipple appears to be poking through her uniform. Emilio: Interesting. Usually I'm the one getting distracted by details like that. Diandra: Well, I mean...she's a warrior. Shouldn't she have more armor? More Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman and less everybody else's Wonder Woman? Chrissy: T'Challa's "armor" looks like a wet suit. Maybe it's just deceptive? Diandra: T'Challa's armor comes from a magical panther goddess. The suit is just decoration. Emilio: Well...decoration with vibranium claws and lined with more vibranium. Nakia finishes and scoots away. Okoye stands in front of them menacingly and growls that they will "speak nothing of this day". Then she smiles and walks away while they laugh quietly and thank them. It is morning by the time the ship gets back to Wakanda. We follow them through the wilderness and farmland and then T'Challa exposits that "this never gets old" right before they fly directly at a mountain past the shield hiding the city from the rest of the world. Epic music threaded with African drums plays and yes, they totally deserved that best music Oscar. The ship lands in a main square where the eternally unaging Angela Basset and a young newcomer are waiting, flanked by guards dressed like Okoye. Emilio: Yeah, I see what you mean about the uniform. Diandra: Right? Nakia bows to the Queen Mother and Princess and offers sympathy for their loss. Queen Ramonda says they are glad to have Nakia home safe. Okoye orders the guard beside them to help her prepare for the "river ceremony". The guard says "yes, General" in a voice that is probably smokier and more suggestive than it needed to be. T'Challa watches Nakia follow the guard away. Princess Shuri smirks and asks Okoye if he froze. "Like an antelope in headlights," Okoye confirms, smirking. "Are you finished," T'Challa asks. She cocks her head in amusement and marches the other guards away. And I'm going to pause here to note that this is one of the things I love about this movie: the fact that it has genuinely strong women and men who respect them. There will be many more examples of this throughout this movie and this is why I have seen people cite this as not only the first movie in this series to represent black people, it was also the first to represent women. T'Challa turns to Shuri and expresses surprise that she came to see him off before their big day. She says nah, she's just here for the EMP beads because she developed a software update for them. He says no, they don't need updating. They worked "perfectly". She sighs and reminds him that just because something works doesn't mean it can't be improved upon. Spoken like a techie. He rolls his eyes but hands over the beads, calling after her retreating back that he can't wait to see what sort of "updates" she has made to her ceremonial dress. She flips him the bird without turning around. Chrissy: And this is why most normal siblings identified with them. Unlike the two of you who apparently had more traumatic upbringings. Emilio: Nah, I think the fact that I had a sister who tormented me is pretty normal. Kind of worried about Diandra though. Diandra: Oh, it's not my sister that's the problem. She is just as damaged by our mother's perfectionism as I am. It's just that she kills herself trying to please her and I recognized that as a pointless exercise long ago and stopped trying. By the way, Shuri is wearing a shirt with a symbol that looks a lot like the Green Lantern symbol or a Greek letter or something, but it is actually a symbol from an African language meaning strength. Again...this movie is awesome. Ramonda chastises her without even looking because of course she has eyes in the back of her head. Shuri drops her hand and apologizes. Ramonda then turns to T'Challa and gives a few standard platitudes: that T'Chaka is with them and she knows he would be as proud as she is because they spoke of the day when he would become king often. We cut to London, which the chyron identifies in case we couldn't recognize Big Ben front and center. We close in on the "great museum" where Michael B. Jordan is standing in front of some African masks in an exhibit. A blonde lady carrying a cup of coffee stalks up and asks if she can help him. He says he was told she was the expert on these artifacts here. She says yeah, sort of and guzzles her coffee. He points to one and asks where it's from. She identifies it as being from the 19th century Bobo Ashanti tribe in what is today Ghana. He points to another and she says it's from the 16th century Edo people of Benin. He moves over to another display case with an ancient pickaxe, which she identifies as being from the same place as the last mask, but several centuries older and the Fula tribe. She grunts and looks uncomfortable, holding her stomach in the universal symbol of indigestion. He says no, actually, this one might have been taken from Benin by some British soldiers, but it was originally from Wakanda. And it's made of vibranium and he is happy to take it off their hands. She boggles and says uh...this is a museum, not a gallery and the artifacts aren’t for sale. He says that's fine because he was planning on taking it the same way her ancestors took all the stuff in this exhibit. She starts gagging a little as she asks him to leave the museum now and he notes that the security guards have been watching him since she arrived, but nobody seemed concerned about what she was drinking. She stares at the coffee cup in horror and collapses as some guards try to lead him away. He plays concerned bystander and yells for somebody to get a doctor. A lady in the cafeteria spots the stretcher being wheeled into the exhibit and takes it as her cue to go on "break". When the gurney reaches the curator, we focus on the face of one of the "medics" just long enough to verify that it is Klaue before they both pull guns and start shooting guards. Klaue leaves one standing and tells him he can go as long as he doesn't tell anybody anything, then shoots him in the back of the head once he starts running because he is a psycho. Michael is like dude...what the fuck did you do that for? Klaue says it's better to have the crime scene more "spread out" so they look like amateurs. Chrissy: Also, did you miss the part where he is clearly an unhinged loon? The lady from the cafeteria is apparently their tech as she is walking away from the building watching security footage of them on her phone while the video in the security station is playing totally innocuous other footage. Klaue places the palm of his prosthetic hand against the glass and creates a soundwave or vibration or something that shatters it. He grabs the axe and does the same thing to the head of it to knock off all the accumulated gunk, revealing an impossibly shiny blade. He sniffs it like a bloodhound and giddily announces that Michael is going to be rich. Michael says yeah, well, he should know that the Wakandans will definitely show up when he goes to sell that. Klaue thinks he can take them. He notices Michael staring at a mask and asks if that's also vibranium. Michael says nah, he just likes it and takes it from the pedestal. Outside, Klaue and the other "medic" wheel Michael on the gurney into the back of an ambulance where cafeteria lady - his girlfriend - immediately makes out with him. Back in Wakanda, some awesome drum music plays as we follow the royal family and their guards and whoever else is involved with the ceremony dancing on barges floating down the river. The soldiers bang their spears on the floor of the barges, activating what looks like giant ancient drain plugs that redirect the flow of water over the falls they are approaching. And then they are all on a ledge halfway down the falls when T'Challa's ship deposits him, shirtless and carrying a shield. Observers are on little balcony type ledges all the way up to the top of the "falls". Forest Whittaker is standing on the staging area in ceremonial robes because of course Forest Whittaker is here. He's the new Hugo Weaving: collecting roles in major franchises. He begins the ceremony by announcing that he, Zuri, son of Badu presents them Prince T'Challa, AKA, the Black Panther. Oh, so he's the guy who betrayed N'Jobu. Okay. That'll probably be an important detail. Chrissy: Oh, look, the guy from "Get Out" is here. Diandra: Is that why he looks familiar? I've kind of forgotten most of that movie. Zuri holds up a bowl and announces that they will now strip T'Challa of the Black Panther's powers. He feeds T'Challa the liquid in the bowl and the observers gyrate in rhythm to the drums while he groans and gags a little. T'Challa nods and stands again and - after praising the ancestors - Zuri officially becomes the exposition fairy for purposes of this particular ritual. He explains that any tribe can put forward a challenger to fight T'Challa for the throne. Not necessarily to the death. They will accept forfeit. The tribal leaders all announce whether or not they have a challenger. The tribes are Merchant, Border, River, and Mining. Zuri then asks if there's anyone of royal blood who wants to challenge. Shuri raises her hand and announces that her corset is really uncomfortable and she would appreciate it if they would get on with it so they can all go home. Chrissy: And this is why we love her. And then some men grunting war chants come out of a cave. For the benefit of the audience, Shuri asks her mother if they are Jabari. The leader steps in front of T'Challa and removes his mask. Zuri identifies him as M'Baku and asks what the hell he's doing here. M'Baku is like 'what, you think I would miss a chance to challenge the royal family?' He gives a little speech to the crowd about how they have been watching from the mountains and they are NOT happy with the way things have been run lately. Particularly the fact that all their technology is in the hands of a teenager who rebels at traditions. And the fact that prince T'Challa couldn't keep his father safe from some random white terrorist. He starts to formally challenge T'Challa, but T'Challa interrupts him before he can finish like 'yeah, you just made vague threats at my sister and suggested I am a pussy who got my father killed. I am DEFINITELY fighting you.' So Zuri slips a panther mask on T'Challa and M'Baku gets a mask of what looks like an enraged ape. The musicians of the group start up the drums again. M'Baku calls to the Jabari and T'Challa calls to the Dora Milaje, which is the signal for their warriors to come down and form a semi-circle at the perimeter of the fight area, spears pointed inward, their purpose apparently to keep the fighters from straying too far from the cliff. Zuri announces the official beginning of the challenge and M'Baku and T'Challa launch into battle. After a few minutes, M'Baku manages to relieve T'Challa of his weapon, shield and mask and screams "where is your god now?" T'Challa manages to duck under M'Baku's spear and punch him several times. And then M'Baku does a move that pins T'Challa to him bodily and headbutts him in the face a couple times. He takes a moment to point out to the observers that T'Challa is nothing without the suit and special powers and therefore not fit to be their leader. Emilio: Similar to the theme of "Homecoming". Diandra: Yep. Funny how these comic book stories all start looking the same after a while. Queen mum yells "show him who you are" and T'Challa smashes M'Baku's mask off his face. M'Baku roars and stabs him with his spear. Very close to his heart. T'Challa yelps, but then snarls that he is the son of King T'Chaka, rips the spear out of his chest and M'Baku's hands and wrestles him to the ground just at the edge of the cliff. He yells at M'Baku to give up so he doesn't have to kill him, but M'Baku claims he would rather die. Chrissy: You'd rather asphyxiate with his legs wrapped around your neck? Emilio: [cough choke] T'Challa tries the angle that his people need him to LIVE and, after a few more seconds of gagging, M'Baku taps out. The observers cheer and Zuri puts a probably panther tooth necklace around T'Challa's neck, declaring him king and Black Panther. T'Challa faces the cheering crowd, crosses his arms over his chest and shouts "Wakanda forever!" [ETA: So I guess we've just totally forgotten about the fact that T'Challa said during "Civil War" that the Black Panther and the king don't have to be the same person and he already was the Black Panther when his father was still king? Okay, cool.] Nightfall. In the second part of the ritual, women pick a glowing purple flower, crush it in a bowl and hand it to Zuri. T'Challa lays in a pile of sand. Zuri pours the contents of the bowl into T'Challa's mouth, announcing that the "heart shaped herb" will restore his Black Panther powers and take him to the Ancestral Plane. T'Challa cringes and groans and purple light spreads beneath his skin. Zuri calls T'Chaka to come to his son and we get a couple flashes of young T'Chaka touching T'Challa's cheek and then old T'Chaka doing it again at the conference where he died. The kids that are gathered start shoveling the sand over T'Challa and we get another flash of the bomb going off while he's diving toward his father at the podium, then cradling his father's body in the middle of the wreckage, then putting on his father's ring. All of these images from "Civil War". The kids shovel sand over his face and we switch to him sitting up in the dreamlike Ancestral Plane. Chrissy: Or, you know, the Underworld. Emilio: Purgatory? Diandra: Yeah, basically it's some sort of near death experience. He looks around at the African plain dotted only by the occasional tree and focuses on the largest tree right in front of him where panthers are crouched in all the branches. Chrissy: And then they plug their tails into the roots of the tree and whoops wrong franchise. Diandra: I'm not sure that technically qualifies as a franchise until the second movie actually comes out, but I applaud your effort. He approaches the tree cautiously and one of the panthers jumps down and turns into T'Chaka. Which presumably means the rest are incarnations of previous Black Panthers/kings of Wakanda. Chrissy: You know, between this and the fighting each other ceremony I'm getting shades of "Hunger Games". Diandra: No. Although that might make that werewolf or whatever they were plot point from "Hunger Games" seem less ridiculous. Father and son embrace and T'Challa tries not to cry and fails. He kneels, clutching dad's hand and whispers "I'm sorry" because he really does believe he should have been able to save T'Chaka. T'Chaka tells him to knock that off and stand up because he is a king now. They switch to Xhosa as T'Challa voices his concern that he is not ready to be a king. T'Chaka thinks that's ridiculous because he's been preparing to ascend to the throne his whole life. Emilio: Is anyone else expecting one of the other panthers to start talking in James Earl Jones' voice? Diandra: And we have a winner on movie references that actually make sense. Chrissy: Oh, come on! Anyone can do the obvious ones! T'Challa rephrases that he is not ready to move on and let T'Chaka go. T'Chaka takes this as a failure on his part because a good father prepares his children for the inevitability of his death. Tell that to the majority of Americans who shelter their children from ever having to deal with any death at all, creating teenagers who can't even cope with the death of fictional characters. Emilio: This is about all those fanfiction debates on Tumblr, isn't it? Diandra: Partly. Also the fact that you can't even say the word "death" around my sister's students without them falling apart. Also some of the more ridiculous reviews I saw of "Infinity War". Chrissy: All of which points to the fact that there is at least one entire generation of children who has been sheltered from anything in life that might be upsetting and are now triggered by everything. T'Challa backpedals and says T'Chaka has never failed him, so... He squares his shoulders and asks how he can best protect Wakanda because he wants to be a great king. "Just like you." T'Chaka admits it will be a struggle and he should make sure he surrounds himself with people he can trust. He finishes by declaring that T'Challa is a good man with a good heart and that will make it all the harder for him to be a good king. Which is a much deeper and better philosophy of leadership than I can recall being previously stated in this series if I remember our discussions of what makes a "good king" correctly. Zuri pulls T'Challa out of the sand pit suddenly, instructing him to breathe. T'Challa gasps that his father was there and smiles. And we cut to T'Challa and Nakia walking through an outdoor market, pretending to be regular people despite the two Dora Milaji clearly following them. She says she came to honor his father and support him, but she can't stay here. Because the cause she is fighting for outside of the sheltered city is too important. And oh, yeah, that cause has broadened from saving women from trafficking to saving all the poor people in general because when T'Challa asks what Wakanda could do to help she suggests sharing their wealth. Provide aid, technology and refuge for everyone who needs it. Which...the only thing really preventing that before was the fact that they were sheltered from the outside world, right? So if they follow through on opening their doors and coming out of hiding, that would logically be part of it. Except she sort of handicaps this argument by ending with "other countries do it. We could do it better." T'Challa points out that they haven't actually officially opened their doors yet anyway and argues that if the world found out what they had they could lose their "way of life". Nakia thinks they can provide for those in need AND protect themselves. "If you were not so stubborn, you would make a great queen," T'Challa says. Chrissy: Oh, because Ramonda is a demure wallflower, I suppose? Diandra: Yeah, if they wanted one of those they shouldn't have cast Angela Bassett. Nakia is like 'being stubborn is exactly what would make me a great queen and check your sexism, bud, or you ain't ever getting any of this.' T'Challa seems to have been goading her to admitting that she would want the role because he jumps at this like 'aha! So you DO want to be Queen!' and she backpedals to add 'you know, if I wanted to be queen, that is.' Outside the walls of the city...or maybe at the edge of them...T'Challa crouches beside a rhinoceros pen and asks the farmer if this glorious creature is still growing. The farmer feeds the rhino an apple as he confirms that it is. Oh, the farmer is the guy from "Get Out". Which explains why the closed captioner actually bothers with his name. It's W'Kabi. W'Kabi is like 'so.............you and Nakia..........?' T'Challa groans and relays Nakia's thoughts about Wakanda doing more for their neighbors. W'Kabi says if they let the refugees in, they'll bring their problems with them and Wakanda would be "like everywhere else." Chrissy: And it's not like they're people or anything. Diandra: Yeah, let's not bring Herr Twitler into this. That being said, if T'Challa wants to order him and the men to go forth into the world to do some cleaning up, he's totally down with that. T'Challa translates this as getting involved in fights with the warlords controlling some of those countries, which is not something Wakanda does. The Kimoyo beaded bracelets they are both wearing start buzzing and W'Kabi jokes that they must be in trouble. They put their hands together and a sand hologram of Okoye springs from their palms. She addresses them as (formally) her King and (not so formally) her lover and says they'll never guess who just popped up on their radar. Back at the palace, Okoye explains to the gathered royalty and tribal leaders that a Wakandan artifact was stolen from a British museum yesterday. She is projecting a sand holographic image of the axe, which turns to Klaue's face as she continues that this asshole who has stolen from them before is planning to sell it to an American in South Korea tomorrow night. T'Challa grumbles that they've been chasing this guy for thirty years and his father considers not catching him one of his biggest failures, so...he would really like to bring him in to stand trial. The tribal leaders argue about whether they need some bullshit like this right now, with W'Kabi and Okoye arguing that they can't pass up the opportunity to make him pay. W'Kabi offers to go with T'Challa so they can capture him together. Chrissy: Actually, his exact words are "take him down", which suggests he's not interested in the trial T'Challa is offering. T'Challa says no, he needs W'Kabi to stay and protect the border. W'Kabi says fine, but if he cannot bring him in he needs to kill him right then and there. T'Challa carefully vows to bring him back, avoiding his first mistake as king promising to kill an enemy without trial. Four ships dock beside what looks like a tower in the middle of nowhere on top of a hill. We dive down into the structure to find it is some sort of office/lab. Shuri greets T'Challa with a sarcastic bow and formal "my king". He tells her to knock it off and they do a little handshake/Wakanda forever salute combo. Is this really what normal sibling relationships look like? Emilio: Supposedly. Chrissy: Seriously, I worry about you two. Diandra: You're an only child, Chris. Chrissy: So? Diandra: So you don't have a frame of reference for what constitutes normal sibling relationships. Arguably, neither do Emilio and I, but this definitely looks alien to us. As they descend into her lab, Shuri says she has already sent a car ahead for him for the mission. She asks who he is taking with him on the mission. He says Okoye........and Nakia. Shuri asks if taking his ex on this mission is really a good idea. Oh, they were already a couple once? I thought they were still in the flirting courtship stage. That changes things. T'Challa says they'll be fine and they'll have Shuri on call in case they need backup. This appeases her and she moves on to show him the stuff she's been working on. She hands him a little case of "communication devices" for the mission that she says have unlimited range and audio surveillance. Then she shows him the update to the Kimoyo beads she's been working on. They will now interface directly with her "sand table". Chrissy: And they will need updating every single time you go to use them or they will just stop working. Diandra: I feel like these are probably better than Apple products. T'Challa moves to the next table and asks what she has over here and she's like 'oh, yeah, that reminds me, WHY ARE YOU WEARING SANDALS IN MY LAB SO EVERYONE CAN GET A GOOD LOOK AT YOUR NASTY FEET?!' He says 'what? They're old school Royal.' She takes what looks like a couple insoles off the table and sets them in front of him, inviting him to step on them. He takes off the sandals and steps on them. They instantly form boots around his feet. She says they're fully automated "like the old American movie Baba used to watch" and fully sound absorbent. He stomps his foot a couple times with no noise to verify this and she gleefully reveals her name for them: sneakers. He blinks and she says you know, because you sneak...never mind. I forgot you don't get my humor. She takes him to the final piece: a new suit. There are three mannequins lined up. One has the suit he has been using, the other two seem to have just the panther claw necklace on their naked chests. She mocks the "functional but old" tech of his current one that requires him to take time to put on a helmet while people are shooting at him. He notes that the one with the gold necklace is nice, but kind of flashy. He turns to the plainer silver one and she waves her Kimyo beads behind his ear before instructing him to activate it. Apparently it works telepathically or something because the suit just spills out of the necklace and forms itself without him saying anything like Tony's upgraded nanotech suit in "Infinity War", which, of course, means that Shuri came up with the design first and Tony will definitely be jealous of her if they ever meet. [ETA: yeah, apparently that wasn't a problem]. Shuri tells him to hit the suit. He says what, anywhere? and kicks it in the chest. The dummy goes flying across the lab and she chastises him for doing it too hard. He tells her she should have been more specific as she scrambles to bring it back and suggests maybe it isn't strong enough if he could...he realizes the spot he kicked has some purple in the grooves now. She says yeah, that's why I had you do that. "The nanites absorb the kinetic energy and hold it in place for redistribution," she explains. She prompts him to hit it again in the same spot and backs up, pulling up a recording screen on her bead communicator thing. Not being an idiot, he asks why she's recording this. She "innocently" says it's for research purposes. He sighs and kicks the suit, getting thrown backward across the lab by a blast of energy. Shuri laughs and he tells her to delete that video. Chrissy: Aw, hell no. That shit's going on YouTube. Busan, South Korea. Some rap song I don't know and don't care to (though I like Snoop Dogg as a person if not a singer) plays for a mercifully brief time. Fun fact: the soundtrack (from and inspired by) for this movie is basically full of songs like this, very few of which were actually in the movie. The SCORE, however, is awesome. Okoye, Nakia and T'Challa climb from the car all dressed up and fine looking. Although Okoye's wig looks a bit off. Chrissy: Is it? I’m sorry, I was distracted by the metal bands covering her lower arms. Diandra: Yeah, she obviously can only give up so much of her armor. Not that she needs it. She prays to Bast that this mission is over fast so she can get this stupid rug off her head. Nakia says it looks nice though. Obvious lie is obvious. And then Nakia just walks right up to a street seller and greets her by name in Korean. The Korean lady, Sophia, glares at Okoye and T'Challa and asks Nakia who the hell they are. Nakia says they're some friends with "deep pockets" from Kenya and they're cool. Sophia makes a sneering comment about them all making trouble, then slowly smiles and nods at a guy behind her. The three Wakandans go through the door he's guarding, which has a security gate positioned on the other side. An inside door is opened for them and they step into a casino. They stand at a balcony overlooking the tables and T'Challa tells them to spread out and look for Klaue's buyer. Their idea of spreading out involves Okoye staying up in the balcony and Nakia taking T'Challa's arm and waltzing right down to the main floor with him. But that's okay because he wants to talk about how she knows that woman out there. Because he speaks Korean too apparently and wants to know what sort of "trouble" she was referring to. Nakia says nah, it was just some messy business with some ivory traders. He asks if there will be any "trouble" tonight. She shrugs and says it depends. "Can we please focus," schoolteacher Okoye snips. "Thank you." I seriously love her so much. Nakia and T'Challa part ways, the former heading to the bar and the latter getting some chips. They all scan the room and after only a few seconds Nakia spots three Americans. Anyone who thinks it isn't possible for foreigners to so easily spot Americans in a crowd is probably exactly the sort of American who is easily spotted in a crowd. Okoye spots a couple more Americans and T'Challa spots a sixth. Of course, his is the easiest because it is Everett Ross, who we all met (briefly) during Civil War. T'Challa exposits that this American might make this mission a bit more complicated because he's CIA. Everett catches his eye and looks wary. T'Challa goes right up to the dice table he is crouched over and greets him with the assumption that he is one who is here to meet Klaue. Everett is like 'yeah, nice try. I'm not telling you what my mission is. Now go away.' T'Challa reminds him that he's the one who caught Zemo. Who? Chrissy: I knew it! I told you she wouldn't remember who that is. Diandra: Oh, Zeljko! Emilio: And she managed to give him ANOTHER name. Chrissy: Yeah, that's the guy from "Madame Secretary", sweetie. Everett snottily reminds T'Challa that he has kept it a secret that the leader of Wakanda is running around in a "bulletproof cat suit" playing superhero so they're even. Chrissy: Yeah, it's not the suit that's bulletpr- you know what? Never mind. T'Challa is like 'yeah, you don't intimidate me, cracker.' He leaves Everett with an assurance that he WILL be leaving this casino with Klaue. The guy running the table rolls the dice and Everett realizes T'Challa won with the chips he put down to justify his standing at the table. Stan Lee slides over and grabs T'Challa's winnings for "safekeeping". Everett is like 'uh...yeah...sure...do I know you from somewhere?' Then he shrugs and leaves the table, announcing into his coat sleeve that the King of Wakanda is in the house and they should make sure he doesn't leave with Klaue. He sidles up to T'Challa at another table and makes a hypothetical argument that he might or might not be here to find a guy linked to the sale of stolen vibranium from the Sokovia disaster and he can work out a deal with T'Challa about it AFTER the deal that may or may not be happening. Chrissy: Yep. Definitely CIA. T'Challa says uh...no. Klaue arrives outside and kisses Sophia on the cheek as he blows right past her to the door. He and every guy who follows him in sets off the metal detectors and nobody gives a shit. The Wakandan women spot them and start moving into position. Okoye notes what the blaring alarms have already told us: they are definitely armed even though weapons aren't supposed to be allowed inside. Klaue swaggers up to Everett who is like 'nice to see you without the motion capture suit. Did you bring the precious?' Chrissy: Aaaaaaaand there it is. Emilio: It was inevitable. Diandra: Yeah, even Martin repeated the social media joke dubbing them the "Tolkein white guys" of the movie. Chrissy: If we had Doctor Strange here too we could complete the set. Emilio: And you could really complete it if you changed "guys" to "people" and included The Wasp. Diandra: Okay, yes to Emilio's suggestion, but I'm afraid Chrissy's would just be complicated by the other thing they were in together. Chrissy: Yeah, that's a whole other crossover that we will definitely be discussing later. Actually, Everett notes that he brought an awful lot of people with him and Klaue creepily rubs his shoulder and tells him not to worry because "I can do a deal with you all by myself." Chrissy: Well, hello, unexpected hoyay. Diandra: Rape whistle. RAPE WHISTLE. Meanwhile, Okoye notes that six more big, burly guys just walked in and this is clearly a set up. Klaue, still touching Everett, leans in to whisper "you got the diamonds?" in his ear. Everett, making a mental note of which spot to scrub extra hard in the shower later, squirms away. Nakia gets twitchy. T'Challa orders her to stand down because they "can't afford a shootout." Everett asks if he has the vibranium. Klaue makes a big show of unzipping his fly and reaching into his pants. Chrissy: For the last time, I don't care how impressive you think it is, it is physically impossible for it to be as hard as vibranium. He pulls out a bag labeled "fragile" and smacks it on the nearest table. Emilio: Yeah, I'm not touching that. Nakia starts moving. Okoye hisses at her to stand down. One of Klaue's men notices her and two of them go to grab her. She decides the hell with this, tosses her wig at one of them, pulls a spear from nowhere and downs them both like the badass she is. But the real brawl doesn't begin until she throws one of them over the balcony and he lands on a table behind Everett. Everett produces a bulletproof briefcase from the same nowhere Okoye pulled her spear probably and uses it as a shield, he and Nakia both lift guns from whoever they can get them from and Okoye takes out every bad guy on the upper level with her spear before sliding down the banister of the staircase to join the rest of them. Seriously, I think I might have a girl crush on her. Chrissy: You think? You're practically openly lusting after her at this point! Diandra: Well, you know how everyone who isn't on the extreme pole of the sexuality spectrum has at least one person they would make an exception to their general rule for? I may have found one of mine. Emilio: Okoye or Danai? Diandra: I'm not sure yet. T'Challa stops punching out bad guys with his super strength when he notices Klaue sneaking up the stairs. He leaps up right over the railing because fuck stairs. Klaue tries to shoot him, but he's out of bullets. Not that it would matter. He drops the gun and raises his hands like he's surrendering. He has the artifact in his real hand. His fake one activates as he's rambling about how much T'Challa looks like his father. T'Challa grabs the cash box nearby and uses it as a shield. It explodes with one shot from Klaue's arm cannon, sending T'Challa flying back down to the main level, followed by a cloud of money. Klaue thinks this is "awesome" and laughs like an adrenaline fueled teenager as his goons shuttle him out into a car. Okoye and Nakia run out after them, Nakia asking if they're really just leaving T'Challa behind. Okoye growls that he can catch up and flings one of those hacking chips onto the hood of the nearest car so they can jack it. T'Challa staggers out of the casino, calling to Shuri. A car activates and a hologram of it appears in Shuri's lab. "Yes," she giggles as an AI announces that the remote driving system has been activated. She climbs in and then hesitates, asking which side of the road they drive on in Korea. T'Challa yells at her to just DRIVE DAMNIT. She floors it and the actual car bursts out onto the street behind T'Challa. His suit activates, covering him, and he does a backflip, landing on the hood in a superhero crouch. Klaue orders his men to split up. Okoye and Nakia follow one group, T'Challa and Shuri the other. We briefly see that Nakia is driving the car barefoot, presumably having lost whatever impractical bullshit shoes she was wearing with that dress sometime in the fight. All the crazy driving going on quickly causes a pile up at an intersection, blocking T'Challa and Shuri's path. T'Challa tells her to keep driving even though there doesn't seem to be a clear path, then tips the car over on two wheels, scrapping his suit's claws on the road to swerve them around crashed cars. He surfs the hood of the car for a second before launching onto the truck in front, ripping open the roof and flinging goons right out. Shuri bumps over one of the goons and asks what the hell that was. T'Challa tells her not to worry about it. Chrissy: Technically it's not vehicular manslaughter if he was a dangerous criminal actively trying to kill you. Diandra: Isn't that just...self defense? Emilio: Nobody worries about stuff like that in the MCU. Diandra: Yes they do. They just had a whole civil war over it. Emilio: Okay, they don't worry CONSISTENTLY about it. T'Challa returns to Shuri's car as the truck crashes into another parked car and flips. Meanwhile, Okoye is calmly watching the men in the truck in front of them firing hundreds of rounds at them, which just bounce right off and musing on how very PRIMITIVE men are. Chrissy: And yet they think they're superior. Klaue points out the stupidity of what they are doing because the car is made of vibranium. Okoye gets a LOOK. She tells Nakia to keep driving and climbs out of the passenger window, stabbing her spear through the roof, activating something in her shoes and crouching in a similar position to T'Challa's, glaring daggers at the men who think they're so powerful because they have big noisy guns. Then she throws her spear into their back window, all the way through the windshield where it sticks in the ground and causes the car to behave exactly as if it rammed a tree. Nakia whoops and Okoye grins victorious. Klaue sees this in the rearview mirror and mutters "shit". Damn right. You're about to get beaten by a woman. Stick your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye. Shuri reminds T'Challa that his suit has been building energy this whole time they've been shooting at him. It is entirely lined with purple now. He tells her to just keep driving and we switch to an interior of the goons' truck as a semi passes between them and T'Challa seems to disappear. Once the driver asks the requisite stupid goon question of 'hey, where did he go?' T'Challa drops from the semi onto their hood and makes brief eye contact before discharging the energy from his suit into the car. And now we get the money shot that was guaranteed to go in the previews: T'Challa doing a slow motion backflip off the truck and back onto Shuri's car as the truck spins end over end. Chrissy: Not quite a full revolution, but he stuck the landing. 9 out of 10. Diandra: What are you, the Russian judge? Meanwhile, Okoye and Nakia are closing in on Klaue's truck, Okoye surfing the roof easily over several bumps in the road. Klaue decides he's had enough of this cat and mouse business and climbs out his passenger window, blasting the car with his arm cannon as it comes over a hill. It blasts to pieces and Okoye catches her spear midair and lands on the overturned hood, riding it to a stop at a crosswalk. Nakia arrives beside her much less impressively, still riding the driver's seat and clutching the steering wheel. A wheel bounces comically past them as they look at each other like '.......well.' And then a truck pulls up and Everett calls "hop in" from the driver's seat. They do slowly, eyeing him warily and completely ignoring his plea to put the spear in the trunk first. Chrissy: Oh, you want me to put my big ass phallic object in your trunk? Why am I not surprised? Diandra: Thanks for that image. Chrissy: Isn't that what I'm here for? Diandra: Hey, if my roleplaying is bleeding over into these movies, shouldn't you be playing Everett? Chrissy: Good point. Allow me to rephrase. Yes, please, put your big shiny spear in my back end, doctor. I mean...badass warrior lady. Diandra: Of course you would ship him with Doctor Strange. Emilio: Who would be the dominant one in that relationship, I wonder? Diandra: Okoye. Wait...what relationship? Chrissy: Either way the answer is "not Everett". T'Challa orders Shuri to drive faster. She snaps that this thing has a top speed, you know. They catch up to Klaue, who blasts this car with his arm cannon as well. The hologram around Shuri disappears and she falls on the floor of her lab. T'Challa manages to land on the side of the nearest building, run across it and fling himself right onto Klaue's truck, ripping off one of the wheels and falling free as it careens to a stop. Klaue falls out of the truck, still clutching the artifact in his real hand and stands to face T'Challa, charging up his arm cannon. He blasts T'Challa in the shoulder. It just rolls right off him and he rips Klaue's fake arm right off. Emilio: You could say he dis-arms him. Diandra: I could, but then YOU'RE here for the lame dad jokes, so... T'Challa demands to know where the "murderer" got a weapon like that. Klaue spews colonizing white superiority bullshit about how they are savages who don't deserve to have weaponry like that. Chrissy: Because you might use it on us. Diandra: Exactly. T'Challa slams him against the truck and Klaue makes a big show for the gathering crowd of whimpering and begging for mercy. T'Challa unsheathes his claws, but Okoye and Nakia arrive before he can take a swipe, Okoye warning him in Xhosa that people are watching and they're starting to film this on their phones. And we're in some sort of office somewhere. Klaue's fake arm is sitting on a desk and Klaue's other arm is cuffed to a chair, to which he is also duct taped. He chortles at the two way mirror nearby, insisting he can see whoever is on the other side and making kissy faces. Chrissy: You know, you had said once that he was being pigeonholed as the go to guy for CGI characters after Gollum, but I think he was actually pigeonholed as unhinged loons. Diandra: It's just that he does it so CONVINCINGLY. On the other side of the glass, Everett is suggesting he and T'Challa play good cop, bad cop on Klaue. Or rather...both T'Challa and Okoye would be playing whichever one he isn't. Okoye interrupts, switching to Xhosa to insist that they do NOT let this assclown speak to Klaue alone. Everett looks back and forth between the Wakandans as they eye him like a piece of meat they're about to slaughter. T'Challa says it's probably better to just let him talk to Klaue for five minutes instead of making a scene here. Then he switches to English and tells Everett he can go ahead and question Klaue and after that they will be taking him back to Wakanda. Everett splutters that they can't just take a guy who is in his custody even if he does like T'Challa for reasons that must have been cut for time somewhere. Chrissy: He handed him Bucky on a silver platter. Diandra: Well, yeah, but did they even really interact with each other? Chrissy: This was, like, three movies ago. Diandra: ...........so........... Emilio: Not really. Chrissy: Don't help her! Then he makes the mistake of slapping T'Challa on the chest while he's reminding him that he's doing them a favor by letting them even be in this room. Okoye snaps to attention and looks at T'Challa's chest like 'oh, you did NOT just do that.' Then she calmly tells T'Challa in Xhosa that if this cracker ass touches her king again, she will impale him on the desk behind them. Chrissy: Considering that conversation we were having earlier, what makes you think he wouldn't enjoy that? Everett squints at her and asks T'Challa if she speaks English. "When she wants to," Okoye spits and then she just kind of smiles at him like 'you just try me.' Everett shakes it off and says he's going to go talk to Klaue first. T'Challa claps a hand on his shoulder and thanks him for his help in Busan. Everett snottily tells Okoye that this is what diplomacy looks like. Chrissy: It's also what being a shitty CIA agent who can't tell when someone is obviously planting a bug looks like. Diandra: Mostly that, yes. Everett goes into the room with Klaue, who is singing "What Is Love" very loudly with flagrant disregard for keys. Everett just sits down and looks at his watch like 'yeah, I'm just gonna let you get this out of your system.' Klaue tries to appeal to his whiteness by saying he shouldn't trust those Wakandans. Everett says he doesn't trust anybody. CIA, remember? Now let's talk about that canon in your prosthetic arm and where you obtained a weapon like that. Klaue says it's just an old mining tool he tinkered with. "But I can get you one if you like." Everett says nah, he just wants the name of his supplier. Klaue says oh, well, he's right outside. You can just ask him yourself. So the arm is Wakandan? Yep, Klaue says cheerfully. He asks if Everett really knows anything about Wakanda - like the fact that what they see officially on the news is just a front for the golden city of El Dorado, which is not actually in South America as explorers used to believe. Highly technologically advanced thanks to it being on top of the biggest store of vibranium on Earth. They call it "isipo", which means "the gift". Everett recognizes this as the strongest metal on Earth - what Cap's shield is made from. Klaue says it is far more versatile: they use it to power everything and sew it right into their clothing. They have weapons made from it that "make my arm canon look like a leaf blower." Everett says whatever, we both know Wakanda is a third world dirt pile and he stole all the vibranium they had. Klaue laughs and says he just took a little piece of it. Also, you're a sucker. They've been using it for a thousand years and still have a shit ton of it. He invites Everett to ask his buddy out there what his suit and claws are made of. Outside, some of Klaue's people are tracking some sort of chip in his fake arm to their location. We know they are Klaue's men because the music is suddenly very tense. Inside, Everett marches out of the interrogation room and demands to know why T'Challa's father told the UN that Klaue stole all the vibranium. T'Challa asks if he really is going to take the word of an arms dealer strapped to a chair. Yeah, you're actually lying here, so you're not exactly on the moral high ground. The bad guy van pulls up outside and Michael B. Jordan (hi, remember him?) jumps out of the back. Nakia, apparently sensing a disturbance in the force or something, goes over to the security guard watching the outside cameras. There doesn't seem to be anything there, but we see Michael and the goons driving the van attaching explosives to a wall. She bursts into the room where Everett and T'Challa are arguing and says something is going on outside. Before she can really finish her sentence, the wall beside Klaue is blasted away. Michael steps through and sprays gunfire through the window into the main room while the other two carry Klaue away, still strapped to the chair and whooping like a lunatic. Then he throws in a grenade, which T'Challa flops on top of after activating his suit, absorbing the energy of the blast. Then he runs after the fleeing bad guys until Michael blasts something in his face that knocks him over and makes his ears ring. He just catches sight of a ring hanging around Michael's neck as the van drives away. He goes back inside to find a bunch of people crouched over Everett, who is shaking and groaning. Nakia says he jumped in front of her and took a bullet to his spine and she doesn't think he's going to make it. T'Challa asks her to hand him one of her Kimoyo beads. She plucks one from her bracelet and he plugs it into the bullet hole, explaining it will stabilize him for now because apparently they are more than just communication devices. Everett gurgles and passes out. Chrissy: Tell...Doctor Strange...ack! Diandra: Really invested in that ship, aren't you? Chrissy: Well, honestly, I ship Stephen with several people. Loki, Tony, Loki AND Tony, Thor, Mordo, Everett, the cloak... Diandra: The cloak AND Loki? Chrissy: And Tony, yes. Why not? Emilio: I can think of a couple reasons. Chrissy: Speaking of Tony, I just remembered that there is actual canon evidence that he would totally be down for that pegging suggestion earlier. Diandra: This is about that scene where he had sex with Gamora, isn't it? Chrissy: The one you sent me because you knew I would like it? Yeah. Diandra: Yeah, you're welcome. T'Challa promises one of the other agents that if they let the Wakandans take Everett, they can save him. In the plane, on the way to Wakanda, Okoye summarizes that they went to South Korea to capture Klaue and after they failed to do that, brought home an American intelligence officer and how the hell are they supposed to explain bringing him past the border? Nakia argues that he took a bullet for her. Okoye is like 'yeah...and?' She argues that if he recovers he will just report back to his country, as is his duty. She reminds T'Challa that it is HIS duty to protect the country and its people and he snaps at her that he doesn't need the reminder. But he can't sit back and let someone die if they know full well they can save him. Shuri greets them as they're taking Everett's gurney down to her lab and gushes that T'Challa brought her "another white boy" to fix. Those who stayed after the credits of "The Winter Soldier" can guess who the other one is, but there will be confirmation of that in the post credit scene of this movie. In the lab, she pulls a 3D image of the section of his spine around the wound into the air, the damaged vertebra highlighted red. She announces that he will live. Then her beads chirp and she reads a message that W'Kabi is here. T'Challa runs off to deal with that, meeting him just above the operating theater...or whatever it is. W'Kabi demands to know what's going on and where Klaue is. He tries to peek over the edge to see into the theater below and T'Challa says yeah, um...he's not down there. Sorry. We didn't get him. W'Kabi grumbles that his father did nothing in the 30 years he was in power and he was hoping T'Challa would be different. He stalks away after practically oozing disappointment in T'Challa's direction. Oh, pbbbbtttt. It's not like he didn't try to catch him. Also, he's NOT going to just kill him like you want. The van pulls into an airplane graveyard and everybody jumps out. Michael, obviously mid conversation, asks Klaue if he usually sells goods to the CIA. Klaue, eyes on his phone, says nah, he sells to whoever pays him the most. He promises to lay low when he gets to Joburg and make sure they get their money. Michael says he's not concerned about the money. As they're climbing into the only working plane, he asks Klaue to drop them off in Wakanda. Klaue scoffs that he doesn't really want to go there. Michael says yeah, actually, then he suddenly pulls a gun and shoots both one of the lackeys who was driving the van and the one who was waiting for them with the plane. Klaue grabs the other van lackey to use as a shield, putting a gun to her head. The woman finally gives Michael a name (an hour into the movie), stammering "I'm sorry Erik." He says nah, it's okay and shoots her. Klaue flees, hiding behind a broken plane. Erik follows and they have a shootout that lasts only a few seconds because Klaue is clearly a terrible shot. Erik kicks his gun away and stands over him. Klaue insists on banging his old racist drum again, saying Erik really doesn't want to go to Wakanda because they are "savages". He points to a burn on his neck and says this is what they do to people like them. Erik says yeah, cool story. He pulls up his sleeve to show Klaue that it is littered with little bumps underneath the skin. He says each one marks a kill. Klaue says that doesn't matter, he'll still be an outsider who can't just walk through the gates of Wakanda... Erik pulls down his lower lip to show the Wakanda tattoo. Klaue laughs at the fact that he mistook Erik for American and Erik shoots him again. Back to Wakanda. T'Challa goes to some sort of underground temple where a bunch of farmers are tending to the glowing purple flowers of invincibility herb. He kicks the farmers out so he can talk to Zuri alone. Zuri is like 'so...how'd the mission go?' T'Challa wants to talk about uncle N'Jobu, aka Sterling, who his father told him had "disappeared" because the guy who helped Klaue escape was wearing a ring identical to the one T'Challa has - the one he was given by his grandfather - and he would like some answers. "Some truths are too much to bear," Zuri says. Emilio: You can't handle the truth! Diandra: ...would be the alternate way of putting that, yes. T'Challa presses and Zuri says he promised the king he would talk about it. "I am your king now," T'Challa shouts. Also, you know, the man you made that promise to is dead. Zuri sighs and bends to tend to some flowers so he doesn't have to look T'Challa in the eyes as he starts the story of how his uncle was sent to America and he was sent to spy on him. But T'Chaka didn't know that while he was in America N'Jobu fell in love with an American woman and had a child. He also was radicalized by the shit happening over there. We snap back to the 80s, where N'Jobu is mid-rant about how he couldn't just stand by and OBSERVE anymore. "Their leaders have been assassinated. Communities flooded with drugs and weapons. They are overly policed and incarcerated. All over the planet our people suffer because they don't have the tools to fight back." He goes on to make the argument for why every ruling class has fought to keep such tools from the people they subjugate: they could overthrow every ruler in every country if they had weapons made with vibranium. Of course, N'Jobu's thoughts run to imperialism though: after all the current leaders are overthrown, all those countries could fall in line under Wakandan rule. But it would be okay because they would rule them properly. Chrissy: He realizes the white people who kidnapped Africans and took over their countries and sold them firearms used similar justifications, right? Diandra: I think this might be closer to the argument for overthrowing dictators that we've been using recently? We can do it the right way and we are justified in taking over by force because they are currently being ruled by a piece of shit despot and this has nothing to do with the fact that they have oil. Anyway. Sorry about that. Back to the present, Zuri says N'Jobu knew T'Chaka wouldn't go along with this idea (duh), so he just went ahead and betrayed them, helping Klaue steal the vibranium. T'Challa starts reeling back from Zuri, sensing where this is headed. In the 80s, T'Chaka hands the canister of vibranium to his men and orders N'Jobu to return home and explain himself to the council. N'Jobu pulls out a gun and T'Chaka responds instantly, stabbing him, then having an emotional moment as he registers that he just killed his brother, a fact that Zuri points out in voice over for the slower members of the audience. Zuri claims N'Jobu pulled the gun to kill him and T'Chaka saved him, but it happened kind of fast so we mostly have his word on that. Present. T'Challa asks what happened to the child N'Jobu had with the American. Zuri says they left him there because. He was the kid watching the ship take off from the basketball court. "We had to maintain the lie," Zuri finishes. We don't see how T'Challa responds to this. We just go to Erik dragging Klaue's corpse up to M'Baku's village and dropping it at his feet like 'here's a present for you!' Shuri is futzing with some sort of equipment when Everett wakes up. Chrissy: That's weird. I was just dreaming that I was talking to Doctor Strange, but he was a dragon and he was wearing a deerstalker hat. Diandra: You came to this recap prepared with that one, didn't you? Chrissy: Maybe. He blinks at his surroundings, feels for the bullet he was pretty sure was just lodged in his spine and staggers off the table. He storms toward Shuri, demanding to know where the hell he is and she calls him a colonizer and chastises him for startling her. Thinking this is evidence that she doesn't know his name, he reminds her of it. She's like 'yeah, um...I read your file and I'm going to regurgitate a couple facts for the benefit of the audience because the fact that you used to be an air force pilot might be important later.' He says uh...yeah...so..."is this Wakanda?" Chrissy: No, it's purgatory. Surprise, you're dead! Emilio: Don't go into the jungle alone, especially if you hear a lot of clanking and howling. Diandra: Dude. The island wasn't purgatory. Shuri snarks that it's Kansas, actually and he deflates a little and reevaluates which of his questions are important enough to continue directing them at a smart ass teenager. He asks how long he was out. A day. He says that's impossible because bullet wounds don't just magically heal like his seems to have done. She says it wasn't magic, it was technology. She says her brother will return soon and he is not to touch anything. The Exposition Fairy appears and shoves him in the direction of the window where he gawks at the bullet trains zipping along delicate looking tracks outside. He asks if that's magnetic levitation they're operating by. He says he's seen it before, but never running this efficiently. The Exposition Fairy prods him some more and he asks what the light things are along the edges of the tracks. She says they're sonic stabilizers because vibranium can't travel at that speed safely. She came up with this system that temporarily deactivates it. Everett says so there's vibranium on all those trains? She says it's all around them and it's what she used to heal him by the way. Sensing that they are finished laying out important plot points, Shuri's communication thingy bleeps. A sand hologram of Okoye leaps from her palm and demands to know where T'Challa is because he turned his beads off. Shuri points out that she is not her brother's keeper. Okoye snaps that a man just showed up at their border claiming he killed Klaue and W'Kabi is taking him into the palace so this is kind of important. Shuri pulls up an image of the visitor - Erik - on a screen and asks if he's an outsider. Okoye says he's Wakandan. Everett, recovering from his shock over his surroundings, says um...actually, that man is one of ours. It turns out T'Challa is perched on a cliff with Nakia, looking around at the pretty scenery while he broods about the fact that his father killed his own brother and left his nephew to fend for himself and how very GREEK TRAGEDY of him. Nakia is like uh...yeah...so you're basically just now coming to the realization late in life that your dad wasn't a perfect superhero then? He was human. So are you. T'Challa argues that what his father did may have ultimately been worse than N'Jobu's betrayal because we all know what happens to kids in comic book universes whose parents are murdered at a young age. Nakia insists he can't let his father's problems haunt HIM. "YOU get to decide what kind of king you are going to be." Shuri interrupts them to call T'Challa back to her lab NOW. Back in the lab, Everett gives T'Challa the backstory on Erik. His last name is Stevens and he graduated from Annapolis and MIT before joining the military and becoming part of a SEAL team that went to Afghanistan, where he basically became a black American Sniper, killing like he was trying for a high score in a video game. Which is how he got the nickname "Killmonger". And I guess, to paraphrase Jessica Jones, Murdercorpse was already taken. He joined some sort of "ghost unit" that can drop off the grid entirely to commit their assassinations. They can take down a whole government. Which is totally a skill you want the son of a guy who was talking about violently overthrowing all the governments so they can come under Wakandan rule to have. Shuri adds that he has a "War Dog" tattoo, but they don't have any record of him. Presumably that’s what they call the glowing blue thing on their lip, but I’m pretty sure this is the first time somebody has named it. So we're back in the throne room as W'Kabi escorts Erik in. T'Challa orders him in Xhosa to speak. W'Kabi translates. Erik is like 'yo, what up dog? I just rained justice down on that cracker that stole from y'all,' or, you know, words to that effect to establish that he is American. He makes sure to note that he was just doing what T'Challa failed to. T'Challa leaps from the throne and gets up in his face, grumbling that the only reason he isn't killing Erik right now is because he knows who he is. So Erik should just cut the bullshit and tell him what he came here for. Erik says he wants the throne. The tribal leaders all laugh. Erik says no, for real though and spews an argument similar to his dad's: that Wakanda could liberate all the black people all over the world. Emilio: You can really tell which Marvel stories were written in which decade. Captain America was the 40s. Black Panther was the 60s. Diandra: That weird villain who looks like David Bowie was in the 70s. Emilio: Actually, I think that was the 80s, but yeah. T'Challa asks what sort of "tools" Erik thinks Wakanda can provide to the cause of worldwide civil rights. Erik says vibranium. Duh. T'Challa says they will not declare war on the world. They are not vigilantes acting on behalf of everyone who has been wronged everywhere. Except maybe W'Kabi over there, but he doesn't speak for them. They take care of their own. Erik takes issue with that statement, noting that all human life started on the African continent. Chrissy: Not if you ask an Asian, it didn't. T'Challa says yeah, well, he isn't the king of the HUMAN RACE, like Erik seems to think he should be. He has a responsibility to the people of Wakanda and to make sure that the vibranium they have spent centuries protecting doesn't fall into the hands of a warmonger like him. Ramonda pipes up that they've heard enough from this man and T'Challa should dismiss him now with an official rejection of his request. Erik says he's not "requesting" anything and tries to prompt T'Challa to tell these people who he is. T'Challa orders his guards to take Erik away, but before they can Erik shouts that he is N'Jakada, son of prince N'Jobu and T'Chaka murdered his father. Ramonda jumps up yelling about filthy lies. W'Kabi says no, actually, he's right and holds up a ring he took off Erik. "Hey, auntie," Erik sneers. Now that he has everybody's attention, he's like 'so, as you can see, I have just as much right to the throne as this guy so I'd like to challenge him.' Ramonda and one of the other tribe leaders argue about whether he does, in fact, have the right to do that. The tribe leader with one of those terrifying plates stretching his lower lip argues that the ceremony takes weeks to prepare. Erik says nah, they don't need to gather everybody. He could throw down right now if somebody took the shackles off him. Chrissy: Yeah, that sounds like a testosterone stupid American. 'He has superpowers that make him bulletproof, but I can take 'im!' T'Challa accepts Erik's challenge. So we go right back to the Cliffside with just the leaders and royal family as witnesses. Shuri scoffs that Erik thinks he can beat T'Challa and notes that he should have just shown up last time. Zuri gives T'Challa the potion to strip his powers again. This constant back and forth can't be good for him. Nakia shows up belatedly and Okoye asks her where Everett is. Nakia says she locked him in the office, which he is probably not at all happy about. T'Challa gives Erik one last chance to back out of this. Erik is like 'fuck no. I've been wanting to do this for a LONG time. Also, you know those bumps on my arm signifying kills? It turns out if I take my shirt off I have enough of them to make my whole torso look like a weirdly shaped Lego.' Chrissy: A weirdly shaped Lego from a set of African deities. Diandra: Or a sculpture made from very textured marble? Emilio: Oh boy...am I going to have to hose you girls down? Diandra: Nah, I can appreciate beauty even when it isn't my type. Emilio: What does Idris Elba have that this guy doesn't? Diandra: A voice that could melt butter. Chrissy: There is that. However, I would still volunteer to feel those bumps...with my face...you know, for science. Diandra: Okay, now you're just being creepy. T'Challa looks at Zuri like 'well, I tried' and Zuri announces the start of the challenge. The fight goes on for, like, twenty minutes. Erik takes a slice to the face and gets knocked onto his back. He responds by knocking T'Challa onto his back and giving him a slice to the inner right thigh, the left arm and another one right across his abdomen. And then it all goes to hell as Erik spears T'Challa and yes I am fully aware of how that sounded. Chrissy: You could at least have given me a fighting chance there. Everyone starts worrying when Erik knocks T'Challa down and he doesn't get right back up. Erik takes a second to say "this is for my father" before swinging a blade to finish T'Challa off. Zuri intervenes suddenly to knock the spear from his hands, looking at him like 'are you crazy, motherfucker?' The whole royal family yelps at Zuri to stop, but he ignores them and tells Erik that HE is the reason N'Jobu is dead, so if he's looking for someone to get vengeance on... Erik is like 'okay then' and spears Zuri. T'Challa screams in horror as Zuri falls face first in the pool of water. Then he lunges blindly at Erik, who just calmly steps back and loudly asks the Wakandans if this is really their king. T'Challa takes a couple more swings and Erik knocks him down again, continuing his rant about what kind of weak ass leader they have. One of Okoye's women asks if there's anything they can do about this. Okoye's lips quivers. And then Erik hauls T'Challa over his shoulders and throws him right over the waterfall while his mother and sister scream. Nakia, being experienced with this sort of violent takeover in other countries probably, grabs Ramonda and Shuri and drags them away while one of the tribe leaders reluctantly puts the toothed necklace on Erik. Night. Nakia finds Okoye in the palace and they hug. Okoye asks if the queen mother and princess are safe. Nakia tries to take her to them. Okoye protests that she can't because...you know...duty. Nakia yelps that she can't possibly be accepting this lunatic as their king now. Okoye points out that he has royal blood and he won the ritual battle, so...it's kind of her job. Nakia begs Okoye to help her overthrow him because she is the best warrior Wakanda has. Damn right she is. She is also, unfortunately, a soldier who takes her sworn duty to the king - whoever he may be - seriously, and she yells as much in Nakia's face. Then we get a little exchange that is increasingly meaningful to American audiences: Nakia: I loved him. I love my country too. Okoye: Then you serve your country. Nakia: No. I SAVE my country. Nakia storms off and apparently finally remembers to free Everett from the office she locked him in. She throws a bundle at him and announces that the king is dead and he should come with her if he wants to live. Chrissy: Yeah, no, if anybody here is a terminator it's Okoye. Inside, whoever is left to perform the ritual to give Erik panther powers begins. Outside, queen mum and Shuri are huddled together, mourning the loss of ANOTHER family member and the fact that they couldn't even bury him when Nakia and Everett stumble on them. Ramonda, who hasn't met Everett yet, draws a weapon and demands to know who he is. Nakia says he's a friend of T'Challa's and he saved her life in South Korea. Ramonda relaxes a little but doesn't stand down. She asks about Okoye. Nakia says yeah...she and the Dora Milaje won't be helping them. I guess the Ancestral Plane works differently depending on the person, because Erik flashes back to that moment when he saw the ship leaving from the basketball court. He runs back up to the apartment and cradles his father's dead body, sobbing. Then the girls back in the ritual room cover his face with sand and he is outside the apartment door again, but this time as an adult. The body is now gone. He removes the secret panel in the wall and pulls a book from the shelf inside. It is a journal written alternately in Wakandan and English and containing a map with coordinates. A chain with a ring on it falls out and he puts it on. N'Jobu appears instantly to chastise him for going through his shit and he turns back into his child self. N'Jobu lets him squirm for a moment before smirking and asking what he found then. Erik says it's about N'Jobu's home. N'Jobu falters slightly and says he gave Erik a key because he hoped he might see it one day, but now he fears he may still not be welcome. Erik indicates his lip tattoo in case anyone in the audience was unclear about the sort of key they're talking about. He doesn't understand why he wouldn't be welcome just because he wants to take over the country and invade Poland...whoops...I mean...whatever the neighboring African country is. N'Jobu, finally acknowledging that this isn't actually a memory, asks why Erik isn't crying for him. Erik just shrugs and says "everybody dies. It's just life around here." Chrissy: Well, also, he's a boy in a hyper macho country where BOYS AREN'T ALLOWED TO CRY. N'Jobu tears up and notes that he should have taken Erik back to Wakanda a long time ago. Erik switches back to his adult self and wipes away a tear that has fallen down his cheek in wanton defiance of his words. He suggests it isn't N'Jobu that had the problem when he defected from Wakanda, but Wakanda itself. Then he wakes up in the sand pit and comes up ready for a fight. Nakia crawls through a tunnel into the underground ceremony stage/herb farm just as Erik is looking at all the crops and asking if that's all of the herb they have. The lady who performed the ceremony on him says they always keep some ready for the next king. Predictably, the idea that there could be another king pisses Erik off so he orders the crop destroyed. The lady protests and he grabs her by the neck and barks at her to DO WHAT HE SAYS. Chrissy: Yeah, I'm seriously concerned about the people who kept insisting this character was in the right. Diandra: Concerned, but not surprised. Emilio: He just wants to Make Wakanda Great Again! [collective shudder] Nakia manages to pluck one of the plants before the terrified farmers set fire to the crop. Erik swaggers to the throne room sometime later, sits and starts giving his speech about all the black people being oppressed and ill equipped to revolt and Wakanda doing nothing about it to the very uncomfortable room. He notes that they already have spies in every country, so they're already well infiltrated. They can send weapons out to all those people so they can arm all the oppressed black people and really mount a revolution. Okoye finally seems to start questioning her loyalty when he stresses that they will be violently overthrowing all the rulers and murdering them and their children and anyone foolish enough to try to fight back. "It's time they know the truth about us! We're warriors!" Chrissy: Um...no. You are a genocidal maniac. Diandra: Probably radicalized by his time in America where guns are easier to obtain than healthcare and an education. "The world's gonna start over, and this time we're on top," he declares. Chrissy: And here we are again with the repeating thread of comic book villains. "The sun will never set on the Wakandan empire," he finishes before taking his perch again. Okoye is like 'okay, so if you're finished with that little tantrum CAESAR...' Emilio: Would Napoleon be more appropriate? Diandra: Eh. Minor distinction. She says they owe their longevity to the fact that they only fight when they absolutely have to. They are the African equivalent of Switzerland. W'Kabi - who has honestly been pushing in this direction from the beginning if we're being honest - argues that the world is changing and they need to decide if they are going to eat or be eaten. Chrissy: I...think you missed a step in that metaphor. Out in the mountains, Everett is prodded into Exposition Fairy service again, asking Nakia where they are going. She says they're going to Jabariland with the heart-shaped herb that grants the powers of the Black Panther. Ramonda says she really doesn't like this plan because they might create an even bigger monster with M'Baku. We see they are headed right for a cave, the rock around which has been carved into an intricate monkey mask exactly like the one M'Baku was wearing to fight T'Challa. Ramonda thinks Nakia should drink the herb. Chrissy: Or, you know, you could give it to Shuri back there. Diandra: Fun fact: that is actually canon. But as awesome as this movie is for women, this is a line they will not even debate crossing. Emilio: Maybe because she's just a teenager? Diandra: I would jump at that alternative explanation, but...Spider-Man. Emilio: Right. So it's probably just plot convenience because if they had thought of Shuri in the first place they wouldn't be here where T'Challa is. Diandra: Dude. You're getting ahead of the plot. Nakia argues that she's just a spy and she doesn't have a whole army waiting in the wings to follow her like M'Baku does. Ramonda reluctantly agrees. They get all of five steps closer to the cave before members of said potential army surround them. They are escorted to the Jabari village's equivalent of a royal palace, which is just, like, a floor and ceiling covering the rock with no walls so you get an excellent view of the sheer cliffs all around that M'Baku can throw people over if they displease him. At least that's what I'm picturing. The group is dumped in front of his throne. Ramonda begins that her son was murdered. M'Baku notes that if the odds were fair it wasn't really a murder, was it? Chrissy: I mean, they did have to realize that this method of choosing a king would backfire on them one day. Emilio: It isn't supposed to be how they choose a king, is it? Just the Black Panther? Didn't they say that in "Civil War"? Diandra: [sarcastic] What? You mean these movies are inconsistent about plot points? I'll have to go back and check on that later. [ETA: Emilio is right] Everett starts to explain that the new king is really a U.S. citizen, but M'Baku and his men grunt at him angrily until he stops talking because FUCK YOU WHITE MAN. "One more word and I will feed you to my children," M'Baku growls. Everett swallows. M'Baku lets him stew a couple beats longer, then snorts that he's kidding of course, because they're vegetarians. He laughs. Nobody else does. Emilio: Nobody on the screen. The audience is a different story. Diandra: Yeah, Winston Duke has a great sense of comedic timing. Nakia is like 'fuck this, let's get to the point, shall we?' She holds out the glowing purple herb. She says he is the only one who can help them defeat the outsider who took the throne. M'Baku looks stunned. Then he tells them to follow him and marches out of the "palace". In a similar "room" apparently used for healing they find T'Challa laying on a square cut out of the floor packed with snow. M'Baku says one of their fishermen found him by the river, barely alive and he's been in a coma ever since. The snow is basically keeping him preserved. Shuri yelps that they need to get him to her lab so she can fix him. M'Baku says he'll die if they move him. Luckily, they have a better, obvious solution: give him the herb. Ramonda crushes it in a conveniently placed bowl and performs a quick version of the ritual before pouring it down his throat. They cover him in snow. On the Ancestral Plane, T'Chaka is now joined by a dozen other people as he tells T'Challa that it's time for him to come home. T'Challa is like 'fuck happy reunions, I want an explanation for what happened to Erik!' T'Chaka kind of shrugs it off as a choice between a traitor's child and the people of Wakanda. T'Challa shouts that they were wrong to hide from the world. "We let the fear of our discovery stop us from doing what is right." In conclusion, he needs to go back and stop Erik, the "monster of our own making". He needs to unfuck the mess. He wakes up in the healing hut and the women all sob and embrace him. Back in the Jabari throne room. The next morning if the light is anything to go by. Nakia fills T'Challa in on the current situation. When she gets to the part about him burning the herb crop, Everett says this all tracks with his training. His covert ops unit destabilized governments when they were at their most vulnerable: during transitions of power. By the time anyone realized what they were doing they already had control of the entire government and military. Shuri adds that he has their vibranium and weapons made thereof too and T'Challa re- states that he is in perfect position to enact his plan to arm revolutions all over the world. He tells Nakia to get his family out of Wakanda safely. Ramonda is like 'fuck that noise.' Shuri adds that there won't be a safe place anywhere if Erik enacts his plan, so they might as well stay and fight. She gives T'Challa the Panther necklace suit and she and Nakia pledge to help him fight. Everett pipes up that he will too and shrugs that they need all the help they can get when they give him some side eye. This inspiring moment is interrupted by M'Baku yawning loudly from his throne and asking if they're done with this sappy bullshit. And just like that, we are all endeared to him. T'Challa sighs and asks for a moment alone with M'Baku. Everyone else files out of the room. T'Challa thanks him for doing this. M'Baku says 'meh, I owed you one.' T'Challa asks if his mother at least can still stay here until the dust settles. M'Baku promises to keep her safe. T'Challa hints that he could really use an army about now and M'Baku says yeah, you could but no I'm not offering my people to fight your battles. Chrissy: So basically...if Wakanda is Switzerland, Jabariland is France. Diandra: Sure, if Jabariland previously joined Wakanda in a fight they tried to discourage Wakanda from entering in the first place and once Wakanda figured out they couldn't win it they retreated and left Jabariland on their own. Chrissy: So Wakanda is America in that analogy? Diandra: Yes. Chrissy: Just checking. Diandra: Except I'm pretty sure Wakanda won't react by mocking the Jabari's as being cowards. T'Challa argues that this involves the Jabari anyway. M'Baku snorts that NOW he wants their help when they've been ignored by the royals for centuries. T'Challa says he cannot apologize for previous administrations, but... hey...this guy has to be a mutual enemy because there's no way he won't overthrow you next, right? M'Baku stubbornly insists they won't help. We finally see the back side of the cliff the palace is situated next to. It is carved into a roaring panther crouched over the tunnel. We fly into the tunnel and up to the landing pad where W'Kabi is overseeing the loading of the planes. He tells Erik that the mission is on schedule and they're coming up against a little resistance from their operatives on the grounds of FUCK YOU ARE YOU INSANE?! but London, New York and Hong Kong are waiting eagerly. Chrissy: That can't be a coincidence that it's the same places they put the sanctums. Diandra: Yes it can. Because it's ALWAYS THOSE THREE PLACES. Erik shrugs and says they'll start there then and the others will come around to their way of thinking eventually. Then, for the benefit of the audience, he identifies the spear-shaped weapon he pulls from a pile as being a sonic cannon that cannot be flagged by metal detectors and is powerful enough to stop a tank. He chortles that there are thousands of weapons just like it in those planes that are starting to take off. And then the plane just overhead suddenly explodes and falls out of the sky. T'Challa, in full Black Panther suit, climbs up onto the flaming wreckage and glares at Erik while heroic brass plays across the soundtrack. He shouts Erik's original African name and Erik just grins and says yeah? "Whassup?" T'Challa says since he didn't yield the fight and Erik obviously failed to kill him...he is not really king. Erik says nah, "that challenge shit is over with" and orders the footsoldiers around him to keep going with the plan. A couple more planes take off despite that little demonstration just now and T'Challa mutters "Shuri, now!" Shuri, Nakia and Everett are just arriving at her lab, so there will be a slight delay. Erik orders W'Kabi to kill T'Challa. W'Kabi looks at him like 'what now?' Okoye pleads to him for reason because obviously the challenge was not completed and this guy doesn't have the authority they thought he did. W'Kabi decides his main character trait is being a turncoat though and orders his tribe to attack T'Challa. Okoye and the rest of the Dora Milaje turn on Erik, who pulls weapons as his own panther suit forms around him for the first time. It has the gold trim T'Challa deemed too flashy, naturally. Okoye gives commands to most of the Dora Milaje to go help T'Challa because she and, like, three other guards can take care of this poser. W'Kabi's men put up some sort of force field shields with their blankets, which T'Challa jumps right over, slamming the ground with his built up suit energy to create a shockwave that knocks them all over. Then he grabs a discarded spear and throws it at a hovering plane. It takes a couple shots at him as it is crashing. Massive brawl. T'Challa, after kicking him several yards, pleads for W'Kabi to stop this insanity. Instead, W'Kabi climbs onto a rock and blows a horn, which is the signal to call his massive armor-wearing rhinos to charge onto the battlefield. He jumps on one's back, riding it around as it flings people aside. In Shuri's lab, Shuri and Nakia arm themselves with weapons as she explains to Everett that they will take control of the Royal Talon. Everett is like 'okay, cool...and I will do what?' Chrissy: Just...sit over there and look pretty. You know, the standard role of the token female. Diandra: [high fives Chrissy] Actually, she puts some Kimyo beads on his wrist and says he'll be flying the plane. Chrissy: Oh...right...I was a pilot? Okay, that explains why you made sure to mention that before. She sticks a comm behind his ear and says she'll guide him through it. Don't worry, she assures him, "it's just like riding a hoverbike." She turns her back while he registers that and yelps "wait, you guys have hoverbikes?!" She gets Nakia to take a Dora Milaje uniform, wishes Everett luck and runs out of the lab while Everett calls 'yeah, okay, I mean, I have NO FUCKING CLUE WHAT I'M SUPPOSED TO DO HERE, but sure.' Nakia calls over her shoulder that they're counting on him and he just stares like '..........fuck.' Back outside, Erik has gotten hold of one of the soldiers and uses her as a shield between him and the other three. Then he just slashes her throat, totally throwing out whatever leverage he might have had there, but not before she says "Wakanda Forever!" Okoye screams in outrage and the remaining three redouble their attack. Chrissy: Okay, can I just point out that literally the only thing that makes that any different than the scene with Valkyrie watching another valkyrie die in front of her is that we were told (outside of actual screen time) that Valkyrie is bisexual? Diandra: Huh. And all we know about Okoye's sexuality is that she called W'Kabi "my love". Emilio: Which is still more than we got for Valkyrie. Diandra: I feel like that goes back to Marvel being terrified of rattling the dudebros too much. It's why they dragged their feet so much when it came to a standalone about a female superhero. And their trepidation was totally validated when those dudebros drove down the ratings and tried to claim they had strayed too far despite the fact that it is the most faithful to the original comics of any of the movies so far. Chrissy: That recap is going to be one long feminist rage fest, isn't it? Diandra: Probably. Nakia and Shuri emerge from the building, Nakia armed with circular weapons and Shuri's hands covered with the Wakanda version of Iron Man's blasters which have awesome panther heads on the end the blasts shoot out of. She blasts away the nearest guards and throws one of those remote control things onto the nearby plane. A hologram of the plane appears in her lab right next to Everett while the voice announces that the remote pilot system is activated. He gapes while Shuri says in his ear that she adapted it to American style so it will look more familiar. He basically shrugs, jumps into the chair and the plane takes off. This is when she finally explains what his part of the mission is: hunt down those planes that just left with vibranium weapons before they cross the border out of Wakanda. T'Challa manages to tackle one of the rhinos to the ground because of course he can do that with his bare hands. Okoye and her soldiers trap Erik between swords and try to remove the Black Panther necklace. Unfortunately, his suit is designed exactly like T'Challa's and is turning yellow with stored energy. He releases it with a blast that sends them flying all the way out to the main battlefield. Nakia sees this, shouts "Wakanda Forever" and runs at him, throwing one of her weapons, which he just jumps over. Shuri starts blasting at him. And just at that moment, Everett announces that he's coming up on the planes and asks what he's supposed to do. Chrissy: JESUS FUCKING CHRIST IF I HAD KNOWN YOU NEEDED THIS MUCH HANDHOLDING... "Shoot them down, genius," she yells, still blasting at the advancing lunatic. Chrissy: And at that moment, we are all Shuri. Diandra: I think every woman can relate to Shuri in that moment. Chrissy: Yeah. Having to do five things at once and hold the entire plan together and know that if this all goes well she will STILL not get half the credit she deserves. Diandra: Although that last part may only be true in the western world because all indications so far in this movie is that Wakanda actually respects women. Everett shoots down the cargo plane, which crashes into the water just at the edge of the city and the smaller planes that surrounded it pull u-turns and start firing at him. T'Challa is doing some awesome ninja moves on the battlefield when a rhino headbutts him several football fields away, skittering into a rock. His suit doesn't seem to know what it should be doing with all this building energy. Nakia attacks Erik from behind like a hell demon, slashing furiously and relieving him of his weapons. Shuri blasts him from the other side. Somehow he manages to get a swipe with his claws at Nakia and throw her from the tower platform. Shuri sends a sustained blast that seems to start stripping away his panther suit. Before she can finish him off though, he gets hold of one of the blasters and shorts it, which seems to cause a short in the other one. T'Challa recovers in time to see W'Kabi and his tribe descend on him, slashing at him like berserkers. He sees Erik hovering over Shuri in the distance, discharges his suit energy to send W'Kabi's men flying in every direction and runs to help her. Erik is poised to stab Shuri, who gets in a snarl that Erik will never be a "true king" before T'Challa tackles Erik right off the platform and down the insane gap in the middle of the tower. They fall for an insanely long time, getting in a few punches along the way, until they land on one of the train tracks the writers made sure to point out several scenes ago. Chrissy: More importantly, they made sure Shuri explained how they work. Emilio: Chekov's Gun! They fight, leaping off the stabilizer things on the edge of the track and detonating energy blasts from their suits. And then T'Challa looks at the stabilizers and asks Shuri to turn on the train. Shuri points out that the stabilizers will deactivate his suit. He says yeah, and it will deactivate Erik's too. Just do it! Luckily, she can do this remotely. She fusses with one of the beads on her wrist and a train goes ripping down the track toward T'Challa and Erik. T'Challa knocks Erik to one side of the track and plasters himself to the other as the train passes between them. Erik looks down and realizes his suit is starting to disappear. Realizing what T'Challa just did, he blusters that he doesn't NEED a suit to kill him. Chrissy: Oh, sure. You say that now. Diandra: As you said earlier, this is very American tough guy. The train is so quiet that they can talk to each other just fine from either side of it as it is still zipping by and barely have to raise their voices. Erik rants that T'Challa's reign is over and he's just delaying the inevitable. T'Challa points out that Erik's divide and conquer strategy will just turn them into the very people he hates. Erik doesn't see any problem with using his enemy's own strategies against them. Emilio: Except for the part where it makes you just as evil as they are. Diandra: Which is exactly the problem. T'Challa says as much, warning that he will destroy Wakanda and the whole world along with it. "The world took everything away from me," Erik shouts. "Everything I ever loved!" Chrissy: Villain reasoning 101: I am angry with the world, therefore I will destroy everything in a fit of righteous rage. He keeps raving about how he's going to hunt down everyone who so much as hints at loyalty to T'Challa, but really, it's not like we needed further proof that he is beyond reasoning. The train finally passes, their suits reactivate and they launch at each other. Nakia and Shuri regroup at the bottom of the hill, verify that they are fine aside from some minor injuries and rejoin the battle. Meanwhile, Everett is trying to recreate the aerial battle sequences from "Star Wars". He manages to evade one of his pursuers, but informs Shuri - who has OTHER SHIT SHE NEEDS TO BE DEALING WITH THAT DOESN'T INVOLVE EXPLAINING TO AN AIR FORCE PILOT WHAT HE'S SUPPOSED TO DO IF THE ENEMY IS SHOOTING AT HIM - that there are still two on his ass. There's a distant explosion, the ship sort of wobbles and the automated voice informs him that the lab is under attack and the hologram is being deactivated. The scene outside disappears, replaced by another ship - possibly the one he lost track of - hovering outside the lab window, trying to shoot out the glass. Shuri yells at him to get out of there. Everett's training finally kicks in and he asks the computer how much time he has. The voice says the glass wall the plane is shooting at is at 50%. He nods and orders it to resume simulation then. Outside, Shuri, Okoye, Nakia and another Dora Milaje soldier are trapped in a circle of blanket shields. From outside the circle, W'Kabi, sitting on the back of a rhino, calls for them to surrender. Before they can tell him where he can shove it or we find out if he actually thinks he can neutralize them, M'Baku and his men (and apparently a few women) arrive and start kicking the shit out of them, quickly joined by the freed Wakandan women. And back to the dueling monarchs. Another train comes through, interrupting their latest throwdown. Erik finds one of his weapons again as it passes and they get right back into it. The automated voice tells Everett that the glass outside is now at 15%. And he's still just fucking around with evasive maneuvers. One of the pursuers launches some sort of electrified anchors into his ship and another voice announces critical weapons failure. The ships hit the brakes, pulling him up short and he yelps to Shuri that the last ship is almost at the border, but they've thrown some sort of lasso around him and he can't get to it. Mid-battle outside, she instructs him to cross his arms over his chest. He does and the beads on his wrist light up, there's a sound of something powering up and the voice announces "sonic overload initiated". At her word, he uncrosses his arms forcefully and a blast of energy radiates outward, blowing up the restraining ships. His ship goes dead, falling out of the sky, rebooting one second before it crashes into the ground. Now running out of time and no longer having any weapons he decides 'fuck it', flies right INTO the cargo plane just as it reaches the border, creating a giant fireball and crashes to the floor of the lab as the hologram disappears. He yelps at Shuri that they did it and runs just as the ship outside successfully shatters the windows. Outside, the battle is still raging. W'Kabi, still perched on top of his rhino, glares daggers at M'Baku cutting a swath through his army of traitors and starts the rhino charging. Okoye steps between M'Baku and the charging tank and it just stops running and licks her face like 'mommy?' Emilio: Okay, that was awesome. Diandra: He knows better than to mess with her. He's a good boy. W'Kabi rolls his eyes and gets down. Okoye orders him to drop his weapon. He cocks his head at her and asks if she would really kill her "love". She says yeah, if it comes down to a choice between her country and his stupid traitor ass and points a spear in his face. Hey, you know, if anything happens to the royal family in the next movie, they should really make her queen. Chrissy: Anything like...both siblings and their mom suddenly turning into dust? Diandra: I mean...for example...either way, she will always be MY queen. W'Kabi pulls his sword, then pauses to look at the battle raging all around while sad African music plays. He throws the sword down and kneels. His men nearby slowly follow suit. Battle of the kings. Erik is doing some neat tricks flipping his dagger around. They are both on the same side of the next passing train and they wrestle over the dagger before Erik pushes him to the edge of the platform. T'Challa manages to knock the dagger into the air and we follow it as it spins in slow motion, the train finishing its pass and their suits barely starting to reform before T'Challa catches the dagger and stabs Erik in the chest, officially ending the fight. Erik sags and looks around, muttering that his father always told him how beautiful Wakanda was and he would show him one day. He coughs and chokes about a kid from Oakland believing in fairy tales like that and breaks down in tears. T'Challa clenches his jaw, lifts him up and drags him to the elevator. They come out of the tunnel in the cliff with the panther carved over the entrance and T'Challa lets him fall back down so he can see the beautiful landscape illuminated by the sunset. Erik gasps and splutters that it really is beautiful. T'Challa kneels beside him and suggests maybe they could still save him from that fatal looking wound. Which, I mean...if Everett is not only alive, but running around operating remote planes, yes you probably could. Erik says nah, he doesn't want to be saved just to spend the rest of his life in jail for the shit he just pulled. "Just bury me in the ocean with my ancestors that jumped from the ships 'cause they knew that death was better than bondage." Okay, while this is a great and powerful line... a) if they died they couldn't have been your ancestors, b) your father was from Wakanda - possibly the only country in Africa that managed to remain untouched by white people and c) I'm pretty sure most of the people you're referring to didn't actually jump. They were thrown. Chrissy: Yeah, this is one of those "when you have a choice between legend and fact, print the legend" scenarios. Diandra: I'm pretty sure that's not how the quote goes, but sure. Chrissy: Really? The Queen of mixed clichés and metaphors is challenging my memory? Anyway. Erik removes the dagger from his chest and collapses. T'Challa arranges his hands on his chest while a man sings a mournful African song on the soundtrack. Day. We see several snapshots of life returning to normal in Wakanda, both inside and outside the visual shield. T'Challa and Nakia are sitting watching people mill around the market. T'Challa thanks Nakia for saving him, his family and the whole country. She says no, it was her duty to fight for what she loves. She starts to say something else, but T'Challa just leans in and kisses her. At her startled look, he starts backing away warily with the excuse that he almost died and... She kisses him. He revisits the discussion about her staying in Wakanda and says he knows a way she can do that AND fulfill her broader mission. They kiss, the music swells and we pan away to the pretty Wakanda skyline... ...which turns into the jerry rigged basketball hoop child Erik and his friends were using. Projecting forward in time, there is now an actual hoop on the court and a new generation of kids is playing basketball with it. At the edge of the court, T'Challa and Shuri are looking at the apartment building where Erik lived. Shuri scolds T'Challa for tricking her into coming here. She says when he said he was going to "California", she was picturing Disneyland or Coachella or something. What is THIS place? T'Challa says it's where their father killed their uncle. She squints at a sign on the building warning people to stay away and notes that they're tearing the place down. He says not anymore because he bought it, along with the buildings on either side of it to turn them into the first Wakandan International Outreach Center. This is a job offer, basically. He's already appointed Nakia for the social part of the program and he'd like Shuri to do the science and information stuff. He presses one of his beads and their ship sheds its invisibility cloak and lands on the court, the kids all chattering excitedly, including one who looks a lot like young Erik. Shuri goes over to talk to the kids and the one that looks like Erik breaks away to talk to T'Challa. "Who are you," he asks, all wide-eyed. The camera focuses on T'Challa, who takes a breath and...we smash to credits, with graphics in that same digital black sand style. Mid-credits, we go to the United Nations building in Vienna as T'Challa and Nakia enter, flanked by Okoye and another guard. This leads to a scene (that was probably cut when it was decided this would no longer be the end of the movie but a mid- credit scene) where they run into Everett, who tries to warn T'Challa against what he's about to do. "What you have is going to scare a lot of people in there and they're going to come after you." "Yes," T'Challa says. "But I will no longer rule out of fear. Not ours or anyone else's." Everett acknowledges that he knew T'Challa would say something like that and promises to try to keep people off his back. Then, when they part, Everett tries to wish him luck in halting Xhosa, making all four of them (even Okoye) smile because what he actually says, according to the chyron is "good luck and many shoelaces." Chrissy: I'm glad you liked my potato! T'Challa laughs, says close enough and thanks him in Xhosa. T'Challa gets behind a podium amid flashing cameras and introduces himself as T'Challa, son of T'Chaka, the new king of Wakanda. He basically continues what his father was interrupted doing: announcing that they are coming out of hiding and joining the rest of the world. Chrissy: A move you will immediately regret. Diandra: Yeah... "Now more than ever, the illusions of division threaten our very existence. We all know the truth. More connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis, the wise build bridges while the foolish build barriers." Emilio: Gee, I wonder who that is directed at... Diandra: [sob] "We must find a way to look after one another as if we were one single tribe." One white guy in the delegation notes that "with respect", he doesn't see what a bunch of farmers have to offer the world. The Wakandans and Everett, sitting at the back of the theater, all smirk knowingly and we smash back to credits with trumpet fanfare that turns into the main theme, which sounds enough like A-Ha's "Take On Me" that I can no longer unhear that. And to give you an idea of the timeframe for when we did this recap, all three of us booed and hissed when the Georgia Film logo appeared at the end of the credits. Post-credits, we see some kids with painted faces hovering over the camera in a hut like we're seeing from the perspective of somebody waking up. They flee at a rustling sound, running right out to Shuri, who asks if they're teasing that man again. Bucky, wrapped in an African robe, comes out of the hut and the kids run away, chanting "white wolf". Shuri greets him and asks how he's doing. He thanks her and she invites him to come with her because he has much more he has to learn. And thus endeth the best movie of this series to date. Although the dudebros are working hard to convince us otherwise and coax the franchise back to safer ground for white men. Chrissy: Considering the way you reacted to watching "Infinity War" the first time, should we take a break and do something more fun first? Diandra: I feel like "Infinity War" will be easier than "Endgame". Especially if I have the two of you to banter with. Emilio: Yeah, I'm looking forward to the Tony/Strange throwdown. But didn't we talk about going back and doing "Iron Man" at some point? Diandra: If by "we" you mean you. But I guess since I've been researching the comic book canon a lot lately for my fic it might be nice to backtrack and remind ourselves of where this whole thing started. I'm not doing "Iron Man 2" though. Chrissy: Hell no. We're looking for fun, not boredom. But we are definitely doing "Thor". Diandra: Why do I get the feeling this was all actually your idea and you finally figured out you could get me to agree to it if Emilio presented it to me? Chrissy: Who me? I have no idea what you're talking about [flashes a blatant thumbs up at Emilio]. Diandra: Yeah, I thought so. We'll start with "Iron Man" and see where it goes.