"Infinity War"

Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Josh Brolin, Scarlett Johansson, 
Don Cheadle, Peter Dinklage, Mark Ruffalo, Elizabeth Olsen, 
Chadwick Boseman, Danai Gurira, Letitia Wright, Zoe Saldana, 
Karen Gillian, Pom Klementieff, Paul Bettany, Anthony Mackie, 
Dave Bautista, The Voices of Vin Diesel and Bradley Cooper, 
Sebastian Stan, Gwyneth Paltrow, Benicio Del Toro, Idris Elba 
(briefly), William Hurt, Terry Notary, Carrie Coon, Michael 
Shaw, Three Chrises, Three Toms, Two Benedicts and a Partridge 
in a Pear Tree.

With appearances by a lot of other people. I'm already tired 
after typing all that. What do you want from me?


Before I begin, I should probably explain why Chrissy voiced 
concerned during the last recap about going into this one after 
"the way I reacted" when I first saw this movie. A few years 
ago - before even the disaster that was 2016 - I sank into a 
pit of depression when I became convinced (not all that 
unjustifiably, it seems) that the human race is headed for 
extinction. For someone prone to anxiety and depression, this 
is not something that can be brushed off easily and I have 
basically been struggling with it ever since. Needless to say, 
watching a movie about a comic book villain who is basically 
expanding the concept of Dan Brown's "Inferno" to a universal 
scale was triggering. And I don't use that word lightly. I mean 
it gave me actual alternating fits of panic and depression for 
the rest of the weekend, exacerbated by shit that was happening 
in the news and in my personal life and the lives of my 
immediate circle of friends and family at the time. But if 
"Endgame" is anything to go by, I have probably developed a 
sort of immunity to it by now.
   Chrissy: Plus there's the fact that neither of us was 
    there with you at the end of this one to try to talk 
    you down from the ledge.
   Emilio: Whereas I was there for "Endgame" and we were 
    both exhausted from moving boxes all day.
   Diandra: There is that. Also, I was probably more pissed 
    off by what was going on in the news than depressed by 
    that point.

Anyway. I will try to keep this thing from getting too dark - 
and having Chrissy and Emilio here will help - but... well...it 
IS dark. On the other hand, "Endgame" is darker, so...at some 
point we will probably be looking for some lighter fare to 
recap for relief. 
   Chrissy: Which is ironic because that's the reason we  
    started recapping these movies in the first place.
   Emilio: Is it? I forgot why you started doing these.
   Diandra: We were doing season four of both "Torchwood" 
    (soul sucking) and "Sherlock" (maddening) and needed to 
    do something FUN.
   Emilio: Ah. So that's why you were asking if we should 
    do "Deadpool"?
   Diandra: That is one of the options, yes.
   Chrissy: I don't know why you have any other options, 
    honestly.
   Diandra: Because other choices include backtracking to 
    more fun installments of this series and doing RDJs 
    "Sherlock Holmes" movies. 
   Chrissy: ............okay, I might have to think about 
    that.

We begin with the usual bright fanfare of the Marvel title card 
being removed in favor of a frantic distress call from the ship 
containing the survivors of Ragnarok. This effectively sets the 
tone for the movie, which, as we just noted, is dark. The voice 
making the distress call belongs to the director of the first 
"Thor" movie: Kenneth Branaugh. He says they are under assault 
- this verified by screaming in the background - and their 
engines and life support systems are failing. He begs for help 
from ANY ship that might be within range of "22 jump points out 
of Asgard". He stresses that they are not a war vessel and they 
are full of civilians. Whole families. 

Inside the ship, an alien creature is stepping over piles of 
dead bodies, babbling that they are being "saved" by "the Great 
Titan" and their sacrifices are contributing to the cause of 
bringing the universal scales into balance. He walks past 
another alien, who is stabbing one of the people on the ground 
that was apparently still moving. Then he passes Loki, who 
glares at him and turns to the aforementioned Titan: Thanos. 
Who we have briefly seen a couple times before in mid/post 
credit scenes, both before and after they switched actors 
playing him. He turns and rambles about failure and losing and 
how he understands the fear. He picks up one of the bodies, 
which turns out to be a still living Thor. He keeps talking 
about the futility of trying to fight destiny while the camera 
switches angles so we can see his men - and one woman - are 
surrounding Loki, the woman aiming a weapon at his head.

He drops Thor on the ground and holds up his other hand to show 
the Infinity Gauntlet with a glowing purple stone. Which...I 
thought the soul stone was purple.
   Emilio: Nope. This is the power stone. From the first 
    "Guardians of the Galaxy".
   Chrissy: Which she didn't recap.
   Diandra: I thought that one was...actually, I don't know 
    what color I thought it was. And I think looking up 
    what all the stones are supposed to do and where they 
    are found in the comics just messed up my understanding 
    even more because absolutely none of them are the same 
    color in this movie that they are in the comics.
   Emilio: Yeah, but the soul stone was never purple. 
   Diandra: Look, I'm trying, okay?

Thor mutters that Thanos talks too much. Thanos ignores him and 
offers Loki a choice: "the Tesseract or your brother's head." 
Loki is like 'meh...I never really liked him.' Thanos presses 
the glowing stone to Thor's temple and watches Loki twitch and 
try to ignore Thor screaming in agony. Loki caves and yells at 
him to stop. Thor gasps that neither of them HAS the Tesseract 
anymore as it was destroyed along with Asgard. Loki sighs and 
holds out his hand, the Tesseract appearing out of thin air on 
his palm. "You really are the worst, brother," Thor grumbles.
   Chrissy: I mean...you just did something incredibly 
   stupid and gave a cosmic terrorist exactly what he wants 
   just to save my life there, but... honestly I'm more 
   pissed that you stole the thing.

Loki looks him in the eye and says "I assure you brother, the 
sun will shine on us again" which...considering we still aren't 
really sure what that means is either a misdirect or means 
nothing at all. Thanos sneers that he's being overly 
optimistic. He also calls him an Asgardian. Loki hesitates and 
says "for one thing...I'm not Asgardian. And for 
another.........we have a Hulk." This whole chunk of dialogue 
seems to have been structured entirely around doing a callback 
to the first "Avengers", but it mostly works and it is only the 
first time this sort of thing will happen, so... Loki dives at 
Thor, shoving him out of the way, the Tesseract disappearing 
who the hell knows where as Hulk tackles Thanos.

One of Thanos' minions makes a move to go help break up the CGI 
giant fight, but the preachy one - okay, his name is Ebony Maw 
and I am officially done pretending we don't know the names of 
every single character in this movie already because this recap 
will be long enough as it is - stops him. "Let him have his 
fun." Considering at this point Thanos is pinned to a wall with 
Hulk's hands wrapped around his neck, I'm not sure "fun" is the 
most accurate description, but...okay. 
   Chrissy: I mean, it has the POTENTIAL of a good time...
   Diandra: You would think so, wouldn't you?
   Chrissy: Sweetie, I'm PAID to think so.
Thanos pries himself free and they fight for another minute 
before Thanos slams Hulk into the ground. Apparently not being 
discouraged by this, Thor charges Thanos, whacking him with a 
chunk of metal and Thanos turns to him like 'oh, I thought I 
felt a breeze just now'. He kicks Thor across the deck and 
Ebony Maw magics some pieces of wreckage around him as 
impromptu bondage gear.
   Chrissy: Look, I know everybody thinks they know how 
   this stuff works thanks to E.L. James' horrible book, 
   but there are RULES.

Heimdall looks up at Thor from his place among the bodies, 
probably internally grumbles about still having to act as the 
only functioning member of Asgardian government even while he's 
DYING, chokes a plea to the allfathers to let the "dark magic 
flow through me one last time" and blasts Hulk out of the ship 
via rainbow bridge. Thanos grabs a spear from his nearest 
minion and stabs Heimdall in the chest. Thor screams and 
Heimdall goes limp. "You're going to die for that," Thor vows 
and Ebony Maw realizes he neglected to give him a gag and 
corrects the mistake. Then he retrieves the Tesseract from 
wherever it was dropped during all this and hands it to Thanos 
with a formal bow and a bunch of babbling about how fucking 
awesome Thanos is and how no other being has ever been able to 
wield TWO whole infinity stones and he is a GOD.
   Chrissy: Forget it. You're still not in the will.

Thanos crushes the Tesseract housing the space stone and holds 
it close to the gauntlet, where it suctions itself to the spot 
beside the power stone. There's a blast of energy and he groans 
and generally looks like he's having an orgasm. Then he 
recovers and orders his "children" to go find the other two 
stones hidden on Earth and bring them to him on Titan. Loki 
crawls out of wherever he was hiding like 'hold up...did you 
say Earth?' He offers his services as a guide since he has had 
some experience with that part of the universe. Thanos is like 
'yeah, I sent you there to get one of those stones already. 
This one. Which you not only didn't bring me, you LOST the 
other one I gave you.' Loki is like 'eh, whatever. It still 
counts as experience.'
   Emilio: He's totally the guy who puts the project he 
   spearheaded that turned into a total disaster and 
   bankrupted the company on his resume.

Loki glances at Thor pointedly as he formally declares his 
loyalty to Thanos, referring to himself as Odinson, the 
rightful king of Jotunheim. A knife appears in his hand, 
concealed along his arm. And then he makes the single stupidest 
move he's probably made in this whole series and just lunges at 
Thanos with the sword. Thanos does something to freeze him in 
place well short of the mark and smirks at him like 
'......really? That's really the best you can do? No wonder you 
couldn't even handle the invasion of Earth.' Thanos twists the 
knife out of his hand easily and grabs him by the neck, lifting 
him several feet off the ground. Loki struggles and turns 
purple and chokes that Thanos "will never be a god". Thanos 
just smirks and squeezes his hand with a godawful snapping 
noise. Thor wails behind his gag. Thanos drops Loki's lifeless 
body in front of him and says clunkily "no resurrections this 
time." Then he does something with the gauntlet to cause the 
whole ship to catch fire and he and his minions to disappear 
into a portal. 

Thor's makeshift manacles drop away and he collapses on Loki's 
chest and for those of you counting continuity errors: Tom's 
eyes are now open when they were closed a few seconds ago. 
Probably because they realized it would be worse this way.
   Chrissy: Inadvertently giving fanfiction writers an 
    added excuse to deny his death.
   Emilio: Not that they needed another. He died in two of 
    the three "Thor" movies already.
   Diandra: Which is what makes that line about no 
    resurrections so clunky as it's only real purpose is to 
    allow the writers to talk directly to the audience. 
    "Nope! We're not doing that this time! Really! He's 
    really dead this time!"

We cut to the outside of the ship and pan away as it explodes 
spectacularly.
   Chrissy: And thus endeth Tom's part in this movie, even 
    though he would be present throughout all the press 
    tour stuff for the movie before he was apparently 
    kidnapped by an Asian woman and forced to play his 
    character in Diandra's "Sherlock" story.
   Emilio: Wait, when was this?
   Diandra: Yeah, even though I've never heard it described 
    quite that way, I know exactly what you're talking 
    about. I'll send you the link Emilio.

Hulk, still caught in the beam of bifrost, zips past the sun 
and the moon and enters the Earth's atmosphere, conveniently 
rocketing toward Manhattan.

177A Bleecker Street. Stephen Strange is bemoaning the fact 
that Wong doesn't have ANY money. Wong bullshits that 
"attachment to the material is detachment from the spiritual". 
Stephen says he'll pass that message to the guys at the deli 
and see if they can make him a "metaphysical ham on rye". Their 
bickering is interrupted when Heimdall's private Hulk beam 
crashes through the ceiling and destroys the staircase behind 
them. Stephen's cloak flies to his shoulders and they both look 
down into the newly formed crater to find Hulk most of the way 
back into his Bruce form. "Thanos is coming," Bruce gasps. 
Stephen - who told Thor in his last appearance that he keeps a 
list of all the beings who pose a possible threat to Earth - 
frowns and says "who?" And we go to the title card accompanied 
by the Avengers fanfare while we contemplate whether that was 
an inconsistency between writers or not.
   Chrissy: Maybe just an acknowledgement that "Ragnarok" 
    was off in its own little bubble and anything that was 
    said during the course of it can be basically ignored?
   Diandra: It's probably more than just "Ragnarok", but 
    yes. We did realize while we were recapping it that it 
    can totally be skipped if you're just following the 
    main Avengers thread that lead here.
   Emilio: Well...but then you wouldn't know why Thor 
    doesn't have his hammer and can shoot lightning.
   Diandra: Meh. Do we really need a whole backstory for 
    that?
   Emilio: Maybe not.

We come back on the New York skyline viewed from one of the 
parks. Tony and Pepper are apparently on the cooldown phase of 
their jog, walking and talking about a dream he had. He says 
think of it as one of those dreams where you feel like you have 
to pee and you wake up realizing that you really DO have to 
pee. Well, last night he dreamt they had a kid that they named 
after her "eccentric uncle Morgan" and it was so REAL. Pepper 
is like 'so naturally, you assumed when you woke up that it 
meant I was really pregnant.'
   Chrissy: Well, actually, I thought it meant *I* was 
   pregnant, but then I remembered that the Omegaverse 
   isn't real.
She says no, she isn't pregnant. And "if you wanted to have a 
kid, you wouldn't have done that". She taps the arc reactor on 
his chest. I'm not sure how the end of that sentence logically 
follows the beginning of it, but okay. He says he's glad she 
brought the thing up because the writers have some exposition 
about it that they need to unload here. It's no longer keeping 
him alive. It's just a housing unit for nanoparticles. She says 
the point is he doesn't NEED it. He says no, but he's trying to 
protect them and their future children that they will 
DEFINITELY BE HAVING, right? "just in case there's a monster in 
the closet".

She expresses a wish to have a normal boyfriend...I 
think...which, I mean...she would if they were following the 
comics where she was with Happy and apparently there's a nod to 
that in "Iron Man 3" that I totally missed.
   Chrissy: Yeah, this is going to be interesting now that 
    you've been doing all that research on the comic book 
    canon. Your knowledge base has totally shifted.
   Diandra: So has yours. I mean, since you started 
    watching Doctor Who when Jodie Whitaker became the 
    Doctor you might actually start getting some of the 
    references Emilio and I make.
   Emilio: You don't even get some of the references I make 
    because you only started watching with the reboot.
   Diandra: Yeah, well.

Tony thinks there should be "no more surprises" for them. Ever. 
He promises. On cue, a portal opens and Stephen marches out in 
his full sorcerer outfit and orders Tony to come with him.
   Chrissy: Son of a...
Tony and Pepper both gape at him in shock. "Oh, uh... 
congratulations on the wedding, by the way," he adds in 
Pepper's direction. Tony is like 'back up a minute...who the 
fuck are you?' Stephen says they need his help and the fate of 
the universe is at stake. Tony is still reluctant to go with 
this weirdo who appeared out of nowhere to ruin his day, so 
Bruce has to come through the still open portal to convince 
him. By hugging him and crying on him and generally looking 
traumatized.

So we cut right to Tony sitting on a couch in the Sanctum while 
Wong does a whole multimedia presentation about the infinity 
stones. To summarize: six "elemental crystals" that control 
"essential aspects" of existence were created at the moment of 
the big bang and scattered across the developing universe. 
Stephen chimes in to identify them as space, reality, power, 
soul, mind and time. This last one isn't part of Wong's 
presentation so he just opens the Eye of Agamotto hanging from 
his neck to reveal the real thing. Tony is like 
'.........okay....and who is this guy you said we're fighting?' 
Bruce says his name is Thanos and he is a "plague" that attacks 
planets and wipes out half of their population. Oh, and he sent 
Loki to attack New York. He has two of the stones: power and 
space, which makes him the strongest being in the universe 
already. And he's shooting for all six, obviously.

Tony ambles over to a giant urn at the base of the stairs and 
hangs onto it while he casually stretches the muscles in his 
legs because hey, y'all interrupted him in the middle of a 
workout. Stephen continues Bruce's argument: if Thanos gets all 
the stones, he could destroy life on a universal scale and WHY 
ARE YOU LEANING ON THAT ARTIFACT?! One end of his cloak reaches 
up and swats Tony. Tony staggers and turns to face Stephen like 
'EXCUSE ME?!'
   Chrissy: I mean, that was kind of hot actually, but you 
    could at least buy me dinner first. And, you know, not 
    do that in front of other people.
   Diandra: Oh, please. You're an attention whore and we 
    all know it.
   Emilio: [clapping eagerly] Here we go! This is what I 
    came to this recap for. Watching you two roleplay 
    bickering Sherlocks.
Tony looks him up and down for a beat, then says he's going to 
"allow" that like he has a choice and does a sassy little sniff 
in Stephen's direction before turning back to Bruce. 

He points to the Eye of Agomotto and asks why they don't just 
shove it down the garbage disposal to make sure Thanos doesn't 
get it. Stephen says uh, no. We won't be doing that. Wong adds 
that they swore an oath to PROTECT it with their lives. "And I 
swore off dairy," Tony non-sequitrs. "But then Ben and Jerry's 
named a flavor after me." Yeah, Stephen mutters. "Stark Raving 
Hazelnuts...a bit chalky." Tony looks at him like 'so this is 
how it's going to be is it?'
   Chrissy: Look, I know people like your Sherlock better 
    than mine, but you're in my house now and you need to 
    start showing me a little respect.
   Diandra: Yeah, sure. I mean, I was nominated for an 
    Oscar, but...
   Chrissy: So was I. Twice.
   Diandra: Oh, right. Well, as long as we're going down 
    this road, I also have an Emmy and a BAFTA.
   Chrissy: I have a BAFTA, a SAGA and two Golden Globes.
   Diandra: Wait...you have a BAFTA?
   Chrissy: Yeah, well, just the one. I was only nominated 
    once. You've been nominated, what, six years in a row? 
    You must have more than one, right?
   Diandra: ............................I hate you so much.

Wong pipes up that their favorite of the Avengers flavors is 
Hunk of Hulk of Burning Fudge. "That's a thing?" Bruce yips. 
   Emilio: Did he just refer to himself in the plural or...
   Diandra: No, he just likes to talk about us like we're a 
    married couple or something. I've asked him to stop.
   Chrissy: Also, he may have been referring to something 
    other than ice cream, actually. [pause] Because, see, 
    it's totally a code name for a kinky sex act.
   Diandra: Yes, we got it, Chris. You don't have to beat 
    it into the ground.
   Chrissy: Oh, so you're familiar with it.

Tony is like BACK TO THE POINT, which in case you couldn't 
understand because I'm really shitty at making analogies 
apparently is that things change. Stephen says no, breaking 
their oath to protect the time stone isn't like Tony changing 
his mind about dairy because an ice cream company named a 
flavor after him. He thinks this stone in particular may be 
their best weapon against Thanos. Tony argues that it could 
also be Thanos' best weapon against them then if he does get 
hold of it. Stephen says only if they don't do their "jobs". 
Tony asks what his "job" is anyway "besides making balloon 
animals." And because he is about to use a word I object to 
here, I'm going to go ahead and change it to a word Benedict 
apparently objects to but I don't. "Protecting your reality, 
bitch."
   Emilio: Wait...I use the word [bitch] all the time.
   Diandra: Uh-huh. 
   Emilio: Have you...always hated it?
   Diandra: Yes. But I'm used to basically everyone around 
    me casually tossing it around. The two words are 
    equally offensive. Which is to say neither is actually 
    offensive universally but can be used in an offensive 
    context and Benedict seems to be one of those people 
    who doesn't get that telling women to stop using this 
    word in any context is about on par with telling the 
    LGBT community to stop using the word queer.
   Chrissy: Well, there's a rant I didn't expect.
   Diandra: Sorry. I just...keep thinking about that "X-
    Files" fan who used the handle Doggett's Bitch and how 
    Robert Patrick mentioned her in an interview once 
    without ever shaming her for her choice of label and I 
    wonder when fandom got to be so exhausting.
   Chrissy: I'm afraid if we go into that we'll be here 
    long after the credits on this movie are rolling.
   Diandra: Probably.

Bruce is like 'um...guys? Could you maybe save the dick 
measuring contest for some other time here?'
   Chrissy: No.
   Diandra: No.
He argues that at least they know where this particular stone 
is and that it is safe. But Vision is out there somewhere with 
the mind stone so maybe they should focus on finding him right 
now. Tony says right, um..."two weeks ago Vision turned off his 
transponder. He's offline." Bruce is like 'really? You lost 
ANOTHER bot?' Tony says he didn't LOSE him and he's not really 
a "bot" anymore. He's "evolving". Stephen asks who could find 
Vision then. Tony groans, mutters "shit" and says Steve Rogers, 
probably. "Oh, great," Stephen grumbles. Because he has been 
off on a garbage planet playing gladiator for the past two 
years, Bruce doesn't understand why Tony doesn't just call 
Steve.
   Emilio: That's the other reason Ragnarok was kind of 
    important.
   Diandra: Kind of. Although you probably don't need to 
    know where he's been, exactly, since Ultron.

Tony is like 'oh, right...you haven't heard that the Avengers 
broke up.'
   Chrissy: But apparently this magician I just met has, 
    which might mean he's stalking me.
   Diandra: Oh, please. I track actual threats, not your 
    soap opera.
   Emilio: So why did you not know who Thanos is?
   Diandra: ............shut up.
Bruce splutters "broke up? What...like a band? Like the 
Beatles?"
   Chrissy: No, more like a very messy divorce.
Tony says he and Steve had a major falling out and they're no 
longer on speaking terms. Bruce says he needs to get over it 
fast then because Thanos is coming and Thor is gone and THEY 
NEED ALL THE HEROES THEY CAN GET. Tony walks a few feet away 
and pulls out the phone that Steve sent him at the end of 
"Civil War" and hesitates. Before he can dial, there's a 
rumbling noise outside and the ground shakes a little like a 
very mild earthquake. He turns to Stephen, whose hair is 
blowing in a random breeze suddenly, and asks if he's doing 
that. Stephen is like 'uh...no.' There's some distant crashing 
and stuff blows past the Hulk-sized hole in the ceiling. They 
all turn toward the front door, where they can see people 
running out on the street, accompanied by screaming.

Tony marches out into the chaos and moves in the direction 
everybody is running from, pausing to help a woman who trips 
and direct Wong and Bruce to help a guy who runs his car into a 
lamppost. He puts on a pair of glasses that connect to his AI 
and asks Friday what is going on. She's not sure yet. He calls 
back to Stephen that he may want to hide that time stone about 
now. Stephen argues that he may need to USE it. They step into 
an intersection where a giant alien ship is hovering, humming. 
We pan out to see that it is circular and large enough to cover 
about three blocks of Manhattan.

On the other side of town, Peter Parker is on the school bus. 
The hairs on his arm stand up suddenly (apparently this is what 
spideysense looks like in this universe) and he turns to look 
through the window at the giant donut shaped ship hovering in 
the distance. Immediately understanding the significance, he 
gets Ned's attention and whispers that he needs a distraction. 
Ned looks out the window at the ship and yelps "holy shit, 
we're all gonna die!"
   Emilio: Thanks, Ned. Glad to know I can count on you in 
   an emergency.
While the rest of the kids all head for the back of the bus to 
gawk at the spaceship, Peter pulls his web bracelet out of his 
backpack and slings himself out of another window on the other 
side. The bus driver - Stan Lee - yells at the kids to SIT 
DOWN. Jesus. You'd think they'd never seen a spaceship before. 
Peter puts his mask on and flings off the bus as it's going 
over the bridge, swinging to shore in the direction of the 
ship.

Tony is shouting instructions to Friday to evacuate the area 
and call first responders, who should really be on their way 
anyway given the amazing response time of emergency personnel 
in New York City. Stephen makes a series of gestures and throws 
an invisible wave or something at the ship, which seems to 
clear dust and debris out with a massive whoosh that can be 
seen from a distance. Everything goes quiet and Tony looks back 
at Stephen, who puts his hands down and winks at him. Tony kind 
of looks away with a little smirk like a blushing schoolgirl or 
something. I seriously don't know how to describe that.
   Chrissy: Is anyone else kind of turned on right now? 
    Because I'm seriously questioning my sexuality and 
    rethinking that engagement here.
   Emilio: Didn't we talk in the last recap about how in 
    the comics it's canon that Tony is bisexual?
   Diandra: Yeah, but why would he cheat on Pepper like 
    that?
   Emilio: I feel like there's an obvious joke here about 
    "getting some Strange on the side".
   Chrissy: And it's not cheating if Pepper is totally 
    aware of it and comfortable being in an open 
    relationship. Maybe there's a fanfiction writer who 
    could write that story.
   Diandra: Are these recaps just opportunities for you to 
    create new plot bunnies these days?
   Emilio: Could you find a way to work Loki into that 
    scenario?
   Diandra: Don't help her, Emilio.
   Emilio: Or, I guess...since he's dead...didn't you say 
    something about being able to cross over that vampire 
    movie Tom Hiddleston did since vampires are part of the 
    Marvelverse and seem to be connected to Doctor Strange?
   Chrissy: YES! I love it! Doctor Strange discovers 
    vampires are real and two of them happen to look like 
    Loki and the Ancient One!
   Emilio: I mean, they are bringing Blade into the MCU 
    now...
   Diandra: They're also sending Doctor Strange into the 
    multiverse with Wanda, so why can't he just find a 
    universe where Loki is still alive and WHY AM I FALLING 
    FOR THIS AGAIN? 
   Chrissy: Or are Blade and Adam in another universe? I 
    wonder if that would make a good threesome.
   Diandra: Stop! I hate you both. 

A beam comes down in the middle of the street, leaving Ebony 
Maw and Corvus Glaive or possibly Cull Obsidian. I'm not really 
sure which is which. 
   Emilio: Pretty sure it's Cull. 
Ebony Maw launches into another sermon about how they should 
rejoice at the fact that they are about to be sacrificed to the 
cause by the children of Thanos which will finally give purpose 
to their meaningless lives. Before he can finish, Tony cuts in 
like 'yeah, um...listen Jim Jones...you can turn around and go 
back to whatever rock you crawled out from under because we're 
not buying what you're selling.' Ebony Maw turns to Stephen - 
acknowledging him as the "stonekeeper" - and asking if this 
chattering monkey is his spokesman. Stephen says no, but...what 
he said. He does a move I've seen referred to as bang bang 
whoosh and shields form in both hands. Wong mirrors him on the 
other side of Tony. Tony says yeah, so "get lost, Squidward!"

Ebony Maw sighs heavily and orders Cull Obsidian to bring the 
stone to him because this is getting tedious. As Cull is 
stomping toward them, Tony mutters to Bruce that now would be a 
good time for Hulk to make an appearance. Bruce is like 'yeah, 
I guess I don't really have a choice here.' He grunts and his 
neck briefly turns green but stops. Tony is like 'great! I'm so 
glad you're here!' Bruce mutters at him to shut up so he can 
concentrate and strains like he's constipated. Tony realizes 
something is wrong and asks where Bruce's "guy" is. Bruce says 
they've been "having a thing" lately. He strains harder and 
Stephen looks over like 'what the hell are you doing over 
there?' "Dude, you're embarrassing me in front of the wizards," 
Tony mutters.
   Chrissy: And I think the tall one might be starting to 
    like me. 
   Diandra: In your dreams.
   Chrissy: Yeah, probably.
Bruce apologizes for his sudden inability to perform and Tony 
is like 'it's okay, it happens to all of us guys eventually. 
Just go hide behind the snarky wizard with one name over 
there.'

Tony steps toward the advancing alien behemoth and pulls some 
ripcords on his workout clothes, then taps the housing unit on 
his chest. The nanobots swarm out, forming his iron man suit 
around him as he walks and he meets Cull halfway, holding up a 
shield as the alien swings a giant axe. Pieces of his suit fly 
off to form some sort of drone things flanking him and he 
blasts Cull back down the street toward Ebony Maw, who just 
deflects him off to the side with a wave of his hand. The drone 
things reattach to the rest of his suit and Bruce yelps "where 
did that come from?" Tony turns to him like 'oh, you like it? 
Yeah, I made a nanotech version of the suit that isn't totally 
exactly like something that exists on the other side of the 
world already.'
   Chrissy: Doesn't it make my ass look great? You didn't 
    happen to catch whether Stephen was checking me out, 
    did you? 
   Diandra: He wasn't.
   Chrissy: Damnit.
   Emilio: He's lying. He totally was.
Ebony Maw does something to blast Tony into the sky. Wong 
starts advancing toward him while Stephen turns to Bruce and 
says if his green friend won't be joining them he should 
probably leave. He forms a portal to the nearest park and Bruce 
falls through it on his ass, followed by the back half of a 
taxi.

Stephen starts forming a complex pattern in the air in front of 
him and points it at Ebony Maw, but then Tony flies back right 
through it, messing it up.
   Diandra: So that's how it's gonna be, is it?
   Chrissy: YOU WERE TAKING TOO LONG.
Tony lands and throws a van at Maw, which Maw casually slices 
in half before it can reach him. Tony tells Stephen to get the 
stone out of here. Stephen growls that it's staying with him. 
   Chrissy: Not too good with logical conclusions, are you?
   Diandra: Not too good with taking orders from cocky 
    little pissants. 
   Chrissy: Takes one to know one.
   Emilio: Well, except for the "little" part.
   Chrissy: Hey, you stay out of it!

Tony says yep, that's what he was getting at. "Bye!" He takes 
off, flying toward Maw as bits of building crash all around, 
blocking the street. Then some sort of arm thing crashes him 
through the buildings all the way to the park Bruce landed in. 
He skids to a stop against a tree. Bruce runs up and asks if 
he's okay and how they're doing. Tony is like 'oh, we're doing 
just peachy...say, you wouldn't happen to have worked things 
out with the angry green giant in the last couple minutes, 
would you?' Cull Obsidian blasts into the park and lurches at 
Tony and Bruce has to dodge a tree that gets knocked over. 
Bruce starts whimpering and begging Hulk to come out, slapping 
himself in the face and Hulk briefly takes over his face to 
yell 'no, fuck you!'

We rejoin the actual battle going on nearby in what we can now 
see, by the giant arch, is Washington Square Park. Tony is 
getting thrown around and just as Cull swings his hammer/axe 
thing to finish him off, Peter arrives to block the blow. 
"What's up, Mr. Stark," he asks casually. Tony asks where the 
hell he came from. Peter says he was on a class field trip to 
MoMA. Cull flings him aside and he swings back, continuing to 
prod Tony for details about the current situation. "Uh, he's 
from space," Tony says as they both fend off Cull. "He came 
here to steal a necklace from a wizard." They manage to work 
together to bring a taxi down on Cull's head.

Meanwhile, Ebony Maw levitates a shit ton of bricks, breaks 
them into shards and sends them flying at the two sorcerers who 
are now alone in the middle of the street. They both open 
portals that the shards fly into. Maw levitates another taxi, 
but doesn't get a chance to do anything with it because Wong 
does something that looks like ricocheting one of the brick 
shards back at him. Annoyed, he blasts the nearby fire hydrant, 
blasting Wong down the street. Stephen makes a lasso and 
catches Ebony Maw, probably second guessing this plan a second 
too late as Maw slams into him and they both go flying into the 
nearest building. 

Maw pins him to the wall upside down, forming bricks around him 
to hold him and taunts that he's adorable and children must 
love his little magic show. He reaches for the amulet and yelps 
as he's burned. Stephen says yeah...how do you like that little 
spell? Maw growls that he'll just have to kill him then. He 
flings Stephen to the ground. Stephen bounces and activates the 
time stone, but before he can do anything with it, tentacles 
appear around his arms, yanking his hands down to his sides. 
The stone deactivates and the tentacles wrap all around him, 
creeping all the way up to his neck. He grunts that removing 
the spell won't be any easier if he's dead. Maw hisses that 
he'll only WISH he were dead and chokes him unconscious. 
   Chrissy: I would just like to point out that Diandra 
    here sent me a gif of this moment of Stephen being 
    strangled by tentacles with a note that went something 
    like 'guess all those fics about Stephen being fucked 
    by tentacle monster aliens aren't that farfetched.'
   Diandra: That's because I’m not sure what sort of look 
    Benedict was going for there, but it comes across as 
    disturbingly orgasmic.
   Emilio: She sent me that too. Also, links to one of 
    those stories and another one where Stephen is being 
    spanked by Tony.
   Chrissy: Pffft. That one's clearly backwards.
   Diandra: Yeah, well, unless Stephen is using some sort 
    of implement, he's not going to be the one doing the 
    spanking, is he?
   Emilio: Where were we before we went on this detour?
   Diandra: I don't know, but I'm pretty sure this is    
    Chrissy's fault.
   Emilio: Yeah, it usually is if BDSM is involved.
   Chrissy: I would apologize, but...well, I'm not sorry.

Then he levitates the chunk of asphalt that Stephen falls on 
and starts carrying it away. The cloak wiggles Stephen free and 
flies him in the other direction.

Tony and Peter look up as Stephen's unconscious body flies 
through their current battle against Cull (who has recovered 
from the taxi thing I guess), followed by Maw surfing on a 
chunk of asphalt.
   Chrissy: Do you sometimes look back at the things you've 
    had to describe since you started recapping these 
    movies and wonder what the hell you were thinking 
    getting into this insanity?
   Diandra: Yes. Often.
Tony yells to Peter that that's the wizard he was talking about 
and GO GET HIM. Peter's like 'YES SIR!' and slings into the 
chase. Maw starts throwing things in his path to try to shake 
him...like a billboard and streetlights. The cloak snags on one 
of the streetlights and the forward momentum causes Stephen to 
go shooting right out of it. Peter catches him with a web 
before he can splatter to the pavement and tries to sling away, 
but Stephen is caught in a transport beam from the hovering 
ship and Peter is beamed up right along with him. He relays 
this to Tony, who is like 'please hold...I'm kind of busy being 
thrown around by a giant'. 

Cull pins him with some sort of electrified beam and goes to 
finish him off with some sort of leaping sword plunge move when 
a portal forms over Tony and he winds up in Siberia or 
something. Cull turns to see Wong still holding the portal open 
for some reason, Bruce standing beside him gawking, and takes a 
flying leap toward them. Wong closes the portal, slicing off 
Cull's hand.
   Emilio: Hey, there's a neat thing those portals can do. 
    Too bad Stephen is apparently unaware of it since he 
    won't think to use it on Thanos later to get the 
    gauntlet off him.
   Diandra: Yeah, the writers of this series aren't too 
    good with Chekov's Principle.

Tony shakes off the stuff that was pinning him and announces 
that Wong is totally invited to his wedding.
   Emilio: Well, of course he is. He's going to be 
   Stephen's best man. Oh, wait...your wedding to Pepper. 
   Right.
Then he jets off after the ship Stephen and Peter were smuggled 
onto. Except for some reason Peter is still just clinging to 
the outside of it while Maw is shuttling Stephen inside. Tony 
orders Friday to "unlock 17A" and what looks like a missile 
takes off from the Avengers building and heads in their 
direction. Tony tells Peter to let go so he can catch him. 
Peter yelps that he told him to save the wizard! 
   Chrissy: Yeah, well, you're not exactly doing a great 
   job of that, are you?

Peter starts gasping for air and takes his mask off. Tony says 
that's because they're climbing way too high and running out of 
air and pretty soon they will be exiting the atmosphere where 
there is no air so they should probably do something quick 
here. Peter finally lets go as he starts to pass out. The 
"missile" Tony launched zooms past him and hits Peter in the 
back, forming a Spider-Man version of Tony's nanosuit around 
him. He revives as he slams into a different part of the ship 
and notes that it smells like a new car inside the suit. Tony 
is like 'nice, right? Bye bye.' A parachute activates out of 
the back of Peter's suit and rips him back toward Earth while 
he whines "oh, come ON!"

Tony cuts a hole in the side of the ship and climbs in. Friday 
announces that he's getting a call from Miss Potts and then 
just connects it before he can say anything. Pepper asks if 
he's okay and what is going on.
   Chrissy: Yeah, I'm fine, I'm just rescuing my new 
   boyfriend from an alien. By the way, how do you feel  
   about open marriages?
The helmet part of his suit retreats as he says he's fine. 
Everything's fine. But they're definitely going to have to 
cancel those dinner reservations because he might not make it 
back in time. She's like 'you're on the ship that's leaving 
Earth, aren't you? Son of a...' He apologizes. "Come back here, 
Tony," she says. "I swear to God, come back here right now!"
   Chrissy: Okay, honey, I know I usually do this so you 
    have an excuse to put on that sexy leather outfit and 
    spank me, but...
   Diandra: Thanks for that headcanon.
   Emilio: Well, it kind of goes with that image of Stephen 
    in a French maid outfit in that one fanfic you were 
    talking about.
   Chrissy: Wait...what now?
   Diandra: I have no idea what he's talking about.
   Emilio: I'll send you the link.
Her voice starts breaking up and Friday announces that they're 
losing signal and then her voice starts breaking up too and 
everything goes to static.

Outside, Peter is still clinging to the hull. He climbs up into 
an opening, looks down at the Earth and mutters that he should 
have stayed on the bus.

Maw takes the controls and pushes the ship deep into space.

Back on Earth, Bruce picks up the Cap phone Tony abandoned and 
blows debris off it. The number is still displaying. A portal 
back to the New York sanctum appears near him, Wong stepping 
inside it. Bruce asks where he's going. Wong says SOMEONE has 
to guard the sanctum and clunkily asks Bruce what he's going to 
do. Bruce holds up the phone and says he needs to make a call.
   Chrissy: Did we ever establish who plays Cap?
   Diandra: Was I not doing it before?
   Chrissy: You're Steve AND Stephen? Both of whom Tony 
    lusts aft- You know what? That makes sense. 
   Emilio: Hey, both of my guys are named Peter. It kind of 
    makes it less confusing, actually.

Speaking of both Peters... We go out to space (which is 
actually unhelpfully identified as just "space" by the chyron) 
while a song from the 80s plays across the soundtrack, so 
obviously this is the part where the Guardians make an 
entrance. Inside the ship that is zipping along at warp speed, 
Peter is doing an elaborate lip sync. Gamora is doing a less 
passionate lip sync. Drax is fast asleep in what looks like a 
copilot chair and Rocket is yawning dramatically. "Why are we 
doing this again," Rocket exposits. Gamora says it's a distress 
call and for all they know the person who sent it could be 
dying. Rocket is like '.........and we care because?' Peter 
says because they're nice like that. And also because whoever 
they save might reward them for being so nice.
   Emilio: More importantly.
   Diandra: Clearly.
Gamora tries to chastise him, but Drax wakes up and says if 
they don't get a reward from the guy they are being nice enough 
to save they can just take his ship. Gamora looks at them like 
'why am I with you slimeballs?' She glares at Peter, who makes 
a face like 'I don't really mean it, honey.'
   Emilio: I mean, I totally do mean it, but I know that if 
   I ever want to get into your pants I have to at least 
   pretend I'm a good person.

Mantis announces that they're reaching the source of the 
distress signal and they all go quiet, which amplifies the 
beeping coming from the video game teenaged Groot is playing. 
Peter tells him to put that away. "I don't want to tell you 
again." "I am Grooooot," Groot says in a tone that is instantly 
recognizable to any parent of teenagers and the rest of the 
Guardians chastise him for that language. Rocket threatens to 
smash the video game if he doesn't knock it off.

The ship suddenly pops into a clearing and they all gawk at the 
debris field that used to be the Asgardian ship. Everyone but 
Rocket is horrified at the sight of bodies floating around amid 
the remains of the ship. Rocket is just pissed that they're not 
getting a payday. And then Thor lands on their windows and 
opens his one eye.

We cut right to them dropping him on a table inside. Peter asks 
how the hell this "dude" can possibly still be alive. Drax 
introduces one of the themes of this movie by correcting Peter 
that this isn't a DUDE, this is a MAN. And just to clarify, 
Peter is a dude. This guy is a "handsome, muscular man".
   Chrissy: So Drax is also bisexual or does Thor just have 
    that effect on everyone?
   Diandra: I mean, Jesus, dude, he hasn't even taken his 
    shirt off yet. 
Peter is like 'but...I'm handsome and muscular too!' Rocket 
asks who he thinks he's kidding. "You're one sandwich away from 
fat." Peter tries to laugh this off, but Drax seriously notes 
that he really has been putting on weight lately. Peter turns 
to Gamora for help, but she's too busy inspecting Thor to 
notice.

Mantis reads Thor's emotions and says he's anxious, angry, 
grieving and feeling a lot of guilt. Drax, still stuck on his 
new crush, mutters that Thor looks like the lovechild of a 
pirate and an angel. Peter says that's it: he's getting a 
Bowflex and some dumbbells. Gamora picks up Thor's arm, 
stroking it and noting that his muscles are like "cotati metal 
fibers". Peter is like 'okay, can you stop feeling up the 
unconscious guy who is TOTALLY NOT HOTTER THAN ME?' She drops 
his arm and Peter orders Mantis to wake him up. She puts a hand 
on his forehead and whispers "wake". Thor jolts upright with a 
roar and staggers several feet away before regaining his senses 
and looking back at the weird group of beings wielding various 
weapons in case he tries anything.

Sometime later, Gamora is performing a monologue/exposition 
dump about Thanos while Thor is huddled under a blanket eating 
soup. His whole goal in life for as long as she's known him is 
to "bring balance to the universe" by wiping out half of life. 
He used to settle for doing it one planet at a time (Drax 
interjects here that his planet has already been hit), but he's 
figured out he can do it much more efficiently if he has all 
the infinity stones. Thor mutters that she knows an awful lot 
about Thanos. Drax says yeah, well...she's his daughter. Thor 
jumps up and looms over her, snarling that her father killed 
his brother.
   Chrissy: And at this point you actually still cared. 
    Which makes the fact that you didn't seem to even 
    remember having a brother in "Endgame" weird.
   Diandra: Yeah, we'll get to that eventually.
Peter leaps to her defense, which is to say he babbles that 
technically he's just her stepfather and she hates him just as 
much as Thor does while not physically going anywhere near 
Thor, likely because he knows he couldn't win that fight. But 
Thor just puts a hand on Gamora's shoulder and commiserates 
about shitty family stuff because he hasn't moaned about his 
father springing the whole "half-sister" thing on him in a 
while and wait, what the fuck? Half sister? When the shit did 
anybody imply that she wasn't a full blood relative?

Okay. I'm just going to give up all hope of any of this ever 
making sense.
   Chrissy: Just now?

So long story short: daddy imprisoned her in Hel and she broke 
free and stabbed Thor in the eye and he had to kill her. 
   Chrissy: Well...technically Loki killed her and your eye 
   had nothing to do with it and she destroyed your whole 
   planet. But yeah, I guess you got the gist of it.
Peter glares at his hand on Gamora's shoulder like HOW DARE YOU 
and - now that he's sure Thor won't get violent - wedges 
himself between them. He says not that it's a competition, but 
his father killed his mother and he had to kill his father who 
WAS a planet and that has to be worse than killing a sister, 
right?
   Emilio: I mean, I assume we're competing for whose life 
   best resembles a Greek tragedy, right?
"Plus I came out with both my eyes," Peter concludes like 'so 
there, pretty boy.'

Thor isn’t listening. He's staring at the spoon he's using to 
eat his soup and thinking about how he needs a new hammer. He 
lurches over to a pod and starts punching random numbers into 
the panel beside it. Rocket asks what the hell he's doing. 
"Taking your pod." Peter clears his throat and, in an affected 
voice several octaves lower than his own, says not today, sir. 
Rocket blinks at him and asks why he's doing that with his 
voice. Peter, still doing the voice, says he's not doing 
anything. Drax says he's clearly trying to imitate the "god 
man" and it's weird. Thor gets in Peter's face and asks if he's 
mocking him. Peter repeats exactly the same words in an 
impression of Thor and then tries to claim that THOR is 
actually impersonating HIM.
   Chrissy: Hey, you know a lot of songs. Do you know "If I 
    Had a Hammer"?
   Emilio: No, but I know how to use a hammer.
   Chrissy: ..............oh, you mean...well. My hammer is 
    bigger than yours.

Gamora snaps at them to knock it off and Thor whines that Peter 
started it. She says they need to get back on script and stop 
Thanos, and the first step is figuring out where he's going 
next. "Nowhere," Thor grumbles. Mantis argues he must be going 
SOMEWHERE. Peter kicks back into his regular voice and says no, 
KNOwhere. As in the place. Where they've been. "It sucks."
   Chrissy: Yeah, well, Missouri isn't all that great 
    either.
   Diandra: Is that where Peter is from?
   Emilio: It was in the recap I did with you. Yes.
   Chrissy: Like doing recaps with an amnesiac, isn't it 
    Emilio?

Gamora asks why Thanos would go to Knowhere. Thor says that's 
where the Reality stone has been kept for years by a man called 
The Collector. Peter says they know who that guy is and "only 
an idiot would give that man a stone". Um...and how did he get 
the power stone again? Gamora asks why Thanos wouldn't go for 
one of the other stones. Thor says because there are six. He 
stole the power stone last week when he decimated Xandar and he 
just took the space stone from his brother when he attacked 
their ship and killed half of the surviving half of Asgard. The 
time and mind stone are safely on Earth with the Avengers (as 
far as he knows). Peter stops him to ask who the Avengers are. 
Thor says they're Earth's mightiest heroes. "Like Kevin Bacon," 
Mantis asks. Thor frowns and says he doesn't know who exactly 
is on the team anymore because he's been away for a while, but 
yeah, maybe.
   Chrissy: How does he know literally any of this?
   Diandra: Plot convenience.
   Emilio: They did say he was trying to track them for 
    those two years at the beginning of "Ragnarok".
   Diandra: So it's just the Xandar thing that's baffling 
    because he was probably on Sakaar while that was 
    happening?
   Emilio: Oh, I wasn't arguing that this isn't a 
    convenient and obvious info dump. I'm just saying they 
    did actually put him in a position where he might know 
    more than the rest of them.

No one knows where the soul stone is, so the reality stone is 
probably his next logical choice. The camera focuses on Gamora 
as he's talking about the soul stone and a sudden shift in the 
music blatantly highlights her change in expression. She sighs 
and says they have to go to Knowhere then. Thor says no, HE has 
to go to Nidavellir. Drax accuses him of just making up names 
for places now. Rocket recognizes it though: it's legendary for 
making the most awesome weapons in the galaxy. Thor says the 
"rabbit" is clearly the most intelligent of all of them. Rocket 
is like 'thank you and please take me with you, but also what 
the fuck is a rabbit?' Thor just continues that he needs Eitri 
the Dwarf to make him a weapon.
   Chrissy: Because you see, my sister broke my favorite 
    one and have I mentioned that yet?
   Diandra: You mean your half sister. 
   Chrissy: What? You think I forgot how, exactly, she is 
    related to me since the last movie because they were 
    written by completely different people who didn't all 
    get the same memo? 
   Emilio: Apparently.

Thor turns to Rocket, notes that he must be the captain and 
invites him to join him on his noble quest. Rocket is like 
'fuck yeah.' Peter belatedly says um...I'm the captain?
   Chrissy: That's what we let you think.
He yelps that this is HIS ship and if they think they're just 
going to commandeer part of it..."what kind of weapon are we 
talkin' about here?" Thor says one that will kill Thanos. Peter 
suggests they should all have a weapon like that. Thor scoffs 
that none of them would be strong enough to wield it. 
Physically or mentally. They would go crazy and be crushed. "Is 
it weird that I wanna do it even more now," Rocket asks.
   Emilio: Probably no weirder than having truck nuts.

Gamora is like IF I COULD BREAK UP THIS PISSING CONTEST, if 
Thanos does get to Knowhere and finds the third stone, he will 
already be too powerful for them to stop. Thor says he's 
ALREADY too powerful to stop, so... Rocket says they can 
compromise: he and Groot will go with the Pirate Angel while 
the rest of them - who he collectively refers to as morons - go 
play keepaway with the reality stone. Peter sneers at Rocket 
that he's only going with Thor because he's afraid of Thanos. 
Rocket is like 'I'm rubber and you're glue, so there.' The 
weirdest revival of the Three Musketeers gets in the pod, Thor 
formally wishes the "morons" luck like he doesn't understand 
what that word means and they take off.

Okay. While I have no problem with the pairing of Vision and 
Scarlet Witch, these next couple scenes are just...baffling and 
awkwardly shoehorned in to establish them as a couple so I'm 
just going to avoid going into too much detail for all of our 
sanities. Vision is now inexplicably human looking aside from 
the fact that the stone in his forehead is lighting up 
occasionally and causing some sort of pain. He says it seems to 
be "speaking" to him, but he has no idea what it's saying. They 
are parting after having spent the night in a hotel room 
somewhere in Scotland because they both have to "get back" and 
he promised Tony he'd check in or...something. Also, he claims 
they've been having this affair for two years despite the fact 
that that would suggest they were already together since 
"Ultron". This was the point at which we paused the disc so we 
could look up how long it has been in this universe since 
"Civil War" and discovered that a whole year was apparently 
wedged in between that movie and "Black Panther". Or rather 
sometime between the beginning of "Black Panther" when they 
said it had been a week since "Civil War" and the end of it. 
Basically, the writers fucked up the timeline something major. 

Editing note: In mostly skipping these scenes I have removed 
the one bit of commentary from us that went with them. It was 
an incredibly lewd comment from Chrissy after Vision asked 
Wanda to get a reading from the mind stone and she said "I only 
feel you". You're welcome.

They are interrupted when a television in a bar they paused in 
front of shows footage of the ship hovering over New York and 
the ensuing destruction. He decides this is what the stone was 
warning him about. The newscaster throws up a picture of Tony, 
accompanied by the headline that he is missing. She thinks 
maybe he should stay here after all. He starts to argue, but a 
spear suddenly bursts from his chest out of nowhere. He morphs 
into his former android appearance and Corvus Glaive appears on 
the other end of the spear. So...he has powers of invisibility? 
Corvus flings Vision aside and snarls at Wanda. She starts 
building up a ball of energy but is interrupted by Proxima 
Midnight appearing behind her and blasting her through some 
nearby windows. The two children of Thanos pin Vision to the 
ground and Corvus uses his spear to try to pry the stone out of 
his forehead. Wanda recovers and blasts them both down the 
street, then lifts Vision psychically and flings them both over 
some buildings and into a nearby courtyard.

She helps him stagger out onto the street while he babbles that 
the blade he was stabbed with somehow stopped him from 
"phasing", which isn't supposed to be possible. She tries to 
mend the gaping wound with her magic while he continues that 
his systems are failing and they should really have just stayed 
in bed. Corvus reaches around the corner suddenly, grabs Vision 
and they fly off, fighting in mid-air. Proxima is right behind 
him and she and Wanda launch into battle.

Corvus threatens to kill Wanda if Vision doesn't give them the 
stone. Vision blasts him with energy from the stone instead. We 
cut back and forth between the two ongoing battles until Corvus 
gets Vision pinned and tries to cut the stone out again. Wanda 
hears him screaming, throws Proxima through a burning car 
across the street and flies up to rescue him. As she's flying 
him away...again... Proxima hits them with a blast from a 
weapon and they fall through the roof of what looks like an 
abandoned train station.
   Chrissy: You know, I don't remember if the fight against 
    Thanos at the end of this was actually MORE ridiculous 
    and never-ending, but I'm finding it kind of hard to 
    believe it could possibly have been at the moment.
   Diandra: You mean at the end of this movie or the end of 
    "Endgame"?
   Chrissy: Oh, dear god. These are going to be very long 
    recaps.

Vision begs her to just leave him and save herself. Because 
even though he somehow found that burst of energy two minutes 
ago, his systems are still going through catastrophic failure. 
The two minions drop into the station and Wanda turns to face 
them and defend her secret boyfriend of one...er...two years.
   Chrissy: Didn't "Doctor Strange" take place somewhere 
    around the same time as "Civil War"? Maybe that battle 
    with Dormammu fucked up the timeline?
   Diandra: Stop trying to make it make sense.
   Emilio: I thought "Doctor Strange" took place at the 
    same time as "Winter Soldier". Or before because SHIELD 
    already knew about him.
   Chrissy: Okay, um...so part of it took place then and 
    part of it during "Civil War"? It covered several 
    years, right?
   Diandra: Seriously, we're not even at the point where 
    they discovered time travel and the timeline is already 
    an incomprehensible mess. Just...give up. Accept that 
    the writers don't know what the fuck they're doing.

Okay, so apparently the train station isn't abandoned because a 
train goes by at that moment and Proxima's attention turns to a 
shadowy figure that suddenly appears on the other side of the 
track. When the train finishes passing, she throws her spear at 
it. The man catches it and steps out of the shadows to heroic 
fanfare on the soundtrack. It is Steve. And he is accompanied 
by a furry rodent that is firmly attached to the lower half of 
his face. While everyone is distracted staring at him, Sam 
flies in and kicks over both minions. Natasha, who apparently 
went through the same crisis as Steve, resulting in her hair 
being suddenly very short and blonde, slides in. Steve throws 
Proxima's spear to her and she stabs Corvus with it, throwing 
it back so Steve can fend off a recovered Proxima. The two mid-
life-crisis Avengers double team Proxima for a bit before Sam 
flies in and just kicks her over next to Corvus and aims guns 
at their heads. Natasha says they don't WANT to kill them, 
but... Proxima is like 'yeah, good luck with that' and they 
beam up to the waiting ship - her spear ripping right out of 
Steve's hands behind them. The ship is either identical to the 
one that already left with Tony, Stephen and Peter on board or 
this is another continuity error. At this point, I'm not really 
sure I should give the writers the benefit of the doubt. 

Sam helps Vision up and he and Wanda support him as he thanks 
Steve and only Steve apparently. Anyone wondering how those 
racist, sexist fans managed to cut down "Endgame" to half its 
runtime by eliminating all men of color and strong women and 
still manage to have a coherent movie: this is how.

They get to the quinjet this little band of refugees from 
"Civil War" managed to acquire and as they are taking off, 
Natasha asks Wanda what the hell happened to NOT TAKING 
CHANCES. Wanda apologizes and says they just wanted time. So 
apparently they're operating some underground version of the 
Avengers.

Cut to a black screen. There's screaming in the background and 
crying in the foreground. A woman shushes the crier and we 
finally get a closeup of a little girl with green skin, huddled 
in this (also green skinned) woman's arms. They are in some 
sort of small space while a battle rages outside. They scream 
as a bomb goes off nearby and an alien we don't really see 
clearly bashes down the door.

Outside, Thanos' ship (the one that intercepted the Asgardians) 
is hovering in the sky, the circular ship hovering near it, and 
those metal dragon creatures from the first Avengers movie are 
flying around. Ebony Maw can be heard giving one of his sermons 
somewhere while the rest of Thanos' army is slaughtering the 
green-skinned residents of this planet. The child is dragged in 
front of Thanos, who calls her "little one" and asks her name. 
Of course she is Gamora. Thanos instantly decides he likes her 
fighting spirit and takes her in, pausing just away from the 
ongoing genocide to show her a double sided blade he keeps on 
him and ramble about how it represents the need for BALANCE.
   Chrissy: And this is why I need to kill everyone on your 
    planet. Except you because I like you. Any questions?
   Diandra: I would say yes, but I've read about Thanos' 
    childhood and I feel like that answered everything.
   Chrissy: Really?
   Emilio: His mother tried to kill him. That's when he met 
    Death, who told him the universe wasn't "balanced".
   Chrissy: Oh, awesome. Another franchise where the 
    villains all have mommy issues.
   Diandra: Or in the case of the Asgardian villains: daddy 
    issues.
   Emilio: Except they're skipping Thanos' whole backstory 
    in the movies, so...
   Diandra: So it makes even less sense.
   Emilio: Basically.

He keeps her focused on the knife while the rest of his 
"children" mow down all of her people a couple yards away. Then 
we morph to present day, where Gamora is absently fiddling with 
that same knife when Peter wanders over to ask if she knows if 
some grenades are filled with gas or something that will blow 
off his junk if he were to, say, hang them off his belt.
   Chrissy: Yes, I know the answer to your question, but 
   I'm not telling you because that would take all the fun   
   out of it.
She doesn't have time for his bullshit (not that she ever did 
really) and says she needs a favor from him. Because they are 
obviously going to intercept Thanos at some point here and if 
the plan - whatever it is - goes wrong and Thanos gets hold of 
her she's going to need Peter to kill her. Peter splutters. 
Gamora explains that she has information he doesn't and if he 
gets it out of her it will jeopardize the universe. He asks 
what she could possibly know that's so important. She can't 
tell him unless he really wants to die. He asks a question I'm 
pretty sure many people have been asking the writers since this 
and "Endgame": "why does somebody always have to die in this 
scenario?" She makes him swear on his mother that he will honor 
her wishes, then kisses him.

This little moment is interrupted by loud crunching noises. 
They turn to see Drax standing on the other side of the room, 
eating a bag of chips. Peter makes a face and asks how long 
he's been standing there. Drax says an hour. He's practicing 
standing so still that he actually becomes invisible. "Watch," 
he says before slowly bringing another chip to his mouth. Peter 
is like 'dude...we can see you.' Drax says no, they can't. He 
is definitely invisible. This is Mantis' cue to enter with a 
cheerful "hi, Drax!" He crumples the bag, mutters "damn it," 
and storms off to sulk.

Knowhere. Which looks like a giant robot skull hovering in 
space. The Guardian's ship flies through its eyeball and lands 
near what looks like a lab set left over from an 80s sci-fi.
   Emilio: Basically all of the Guardians movies look like 
    80s sci-fi.
   Diandra: Which is how we know where we are.
They sneak up on Thanos arguing with the Collector (Benicio Del 
Torro's character from the one I didn't recap) that he KNOWS 
the guy would sell out his own brother (Jeff Goldblum from one 
I did) just to add to his collection. "I know you have the 
reality stone, Tivan." Gamora creeps close enough to see Thanos 
stepping on Tivan's chest while he spews cheesy bad guy lines 
about how he should talk to spare himself more pain. Tivan 
insists he already sold it. Thanos says nah, he would never 
part with something that valuable. Tivan says he didn't know 
what it was. Thanos is like 'oh, so you're using the idiot 
defense. Cool. Try again.'

The Guardians are huddled out of sight, but now that Drax can 
see Thanos, he identifies him as the man who killed his wife 
and daughter (when he attacked his planet) and pulls a knife 
from his boot. 
   Chrissy: Yeah, trust me. Knives aren't enough.
Peter frantically tries to get him to wait until they have eyes 
on the stone so they can get it first. Drax is like 'fuck that. 
REVENGE IS MINE!' Mantis sneaks up behind him and puts him to 
sleep before he can charge and they all duck when his body hits 
the floor with a loud clang.

Thanos flings the Collector into some sort of cryopod and 
starts marching in their direction. Peter tries to salvage his 
plan by pulling his gun and telling the women to go to the 
right. Before he can get to the part about him going left, 
Gamora just blows past him - on his left - and runs at Thanos, 
swinging her sword. Thanos catches it and snaps it in two. She 
rams the broken end into his throat, then pulls out the double 
sided dagger and stabs him in the chest. He gags and gurgles 
and looks at the knife in his chest as she backs up and leaves 
it there. He clutches the neck wound that is gushing blood and 
asks "why you, daughter?" He collapses to the ground and she 
drops the broken sword and sobs.
   Chrissy: This is how the whole Thanos plot should have 
    ended, honestly.
   Diandra: Except with Nebula instead of Gamora. Or with 
    them working together. Either way would have made more  
    dramatic sense. 

Peter is like 'wait...does that mean it's over already?'
   Emilio: Shortest MCU movie ever! Wait...no, that can't 
   be right.
The Collector starts clapping crazily. And then Thanos' voice 
comes from nowhere like the voice of God to ask why Gamora is 
crying. Then he says basically that this was a test because 
while he believed she still cared, he couldn't really be sure. 
His body disappears, as does the Collector and a wave goes over 
the whole "lab" until everything is either destroyed or 
actively on fire. Thanos re-appears, totally unharmed and 
babbling about how disappointing reality can be. He waves the 
gauntlet to show the red reality stone alongside the other two 
as he smarms that reality can be whatever he wants it to be 
now. Gamora snarls that he obviously knew she was coming. He 
says yep, and they need to have a chat.

She reaches for the broken sword, but he grabs her and holds 
her up like a shield against the rest of the Guardians. Drax, 
conscious again, charges. Thanos blasts him with the reality 
stone and his body divides into a bunch of chunks and falls in 
a pile. He spots Mantis behind Drax and hits her, turning her 
into some sort of spiralized streamer.
   Chrissy: Yeah, we're clearly just having fun with the 
    effects now. 
   Diandra: Only now?
Peter comes out in the open waving his gun and demands that 
Thanos let her go. Also, he calls him Grimace. Because I guess 
Tony isn't the only one who does nicknames. Thanos is like 
'this is your boyfriend, isn't it? Daddy doesn't approve.' 
Peter says no, he's the "Titan killing long-term booty call."
   Chrissy: Just kill him. Go for it. Nobody will miss him.

Gamora tries to get Peter's attention as he rambles about how 
he's going to "blow that nutsack of a chin right off your 
face". She just says "not him" and Peter remembers what she 
made him promise, like, a few hours ago. He hesitates a long 
minute before re-aiming the gun at her. Thanos sighs that she 
expects too much from this HUMAN and taunts Peter to do it, 
shoving Gamora closer. Peter flinches, but after they say I 
love you to each other again he manages to screw up the courage 
to pull the trigger in her face. Bubbles come out of the barrel 
and float into the air. The gun disappears from his hand and he 
gapes like 'well, fuck.' "I like him," Thanos announces before 
portaling himself and Gamora away, which apparently 
automatically returns Mantis and Drax to their normal states.

Avengers plaza. Thunderbolt Ross is growling at Rhodey via 
holographic call because apparently this is who Vision and 
Wanda are supposed to be "checking in" to and their trace cut 
out somewhere in Edinburgh. "On a stolen quinjet with four of 
the world's most wanted criminals," Ross adds. Rhodey snaps 
that they're only "criminals" because that's what THEY are 
insisting on calling them. Ross is like 'yeah, we're not 
rehashing the entire registry debate again.' Rhodey says yeah, 
well, if it wasn't for the Accords, Vision wouldn't have run 
off with the world's second most powerful sorcerer, would he?
   Chrissy: Second?
   Diandra: Yeah, I'm going off an article I saw. #1 was 
    Doctor Strange, #2 was Scarlet Witch. But that was the 
    comics, so...
   Chrissy: She's not even alive in the comics at this 
    point, is she?
   Diandra: Oh, right. Now I remember this conversation in 
    "Civil War". No, but they had to wedge the whole Vision 
    and Wanda subplot into these movies, so...

Ross gets in Rhodey's face and reminds him that HE signed the 
agreement. Rhodey says yeah, and he's been paying for it ever 
since. And then Steve and Natasha march in, Vision and Wanda in 
tow, the former still draped over Sam and Steve is like 'yo, 
whatsup Mr. Secretary?' Ross is like 'I suppose you think that 
just because shit is going down and we're desperate that we're 
just going to forgive you for going against our bullshit in the 
last movie?' Steve says uh...no, but without Tony you need me 
and you know it. So are you going to let me do my fucking job 
or am I going to have to go through you? Ross glowers, turns to 
Rhodey and orders him to arrest these people. Rhodey is like 
'yeah, sure, I'll get right on that.' He swipes Ross away, 
ending the call, mutters that he's totally going to be court 
marshaled for this and welcomes Steve and Natasha home. He 
notes that those last couple years must have been rough because 
they look like hell. 
   Chrissy: Yeah, well, it wouldn't have been so bad if we 
   hadn't fallen into a time warp and lost a year basically 
   immediately after we escaped that prison.
Bruce kind of wanders in from the other room and awkwardly says 
he thinks they look pretty great, actually. Oh, and hi. 
Apparently the writers are continuing with this Bruce/Natasha 
subplot nobody asked for. Sam immediately becomes my new 
favorite character by noting how awkward things just became in 
here.

And we flash to after the rogue team has filled Rhodey in on 
the details of the attack. Rhodey says so obviously those two 
dark elf creatures intend to come back and finish the job. 
Bruce asks where Hawkeye is because they're going to need all 
hands on deck. Natasha says nope, we're only calling him and 
Ant-Man if we are absolutely desperate enough to scrape the 
bottom of the barrel for superheroes. Maybe in the next movie. 
Except it comes out as something about them making a deal to 
spare their families and being on house arrest. Bruce, who has 
been gone for probably three years now with all the changing 
timelines and has just heard that Tony hitched a ride on a 
spaceship to save two people he's never heard of, is like 
THERE'S AN ANT-MAN AND A SPIDER-MAN? We cut briefly to Rhodey 
sort of nodding his head like 'yeah, man, it's fucking crazy. 
Just go with it and be glad they haven't written Squirrel Girl 
in yet.'

Bruce is like whatever. Fine. "Thanos has the biggest army in 
the universe and he is not gonna stop until he...he 
gets...Vision's stone."
   Chrissy: He delivers that line like he just realized 
   halfway through it how ridiculous it sounds.
Natasha decides this means their mission is protecting it. 
Vision says no, they should destroy it.
   Chrissy: So basically the opposite of what we just went 
    through with the time stone.
   Diandra: Yeah, I think the writers are trying to find 
    reasons the stones can't be destroyed yet and it's not 
    really working.
   Chrissy: Is the deal that they CAN'T be destroyed at all 
    in the comics?
   Emilio: They are. Loki uses copies of them from Soul 
    World to destroy the originals.
   Chrissy: Okay, I have...so many more questions now, but 
    I'm gonna save them for later so Diandra can get back 
    to the recap.
   Diandra: Thank you. More important than whether or not 
    it is POSSIBLE to destroy them: they aren't destroyed. 
    But the writers wanted to up the ante in the movies and 
    make it so they can't just keep using the gauntlet over 
    and over without consequences and this is one of the 
    things they had to do as a result and it ends up being 
    obvious that they're inventing reasons why nobody can 
    just destroy one of the stones to stop Thanos.
   Chrissy: That's what I thought.

Vision rambles what was probably almost verbatim the debate 
going on in the writers' room about how the stone could be 
destroyed. He thinks if it is exposed to a powerful enough 
source of energy - preferably something close to it's own 
energy signature - "it's molecular integrity could fail". 
   Emilio: Something just like it huh? So...a copy?
   Diandra: No, not that. That's not convoluted enough.
It doesn't matter because Wanda objects to this plan on the 
grounds that anything that destroys the stone would have to 
destroy Vision as well. Also because they've apparently both 
concluded that the best source of energy powerful enough to 
destroy the stone comes from her. Because of course the only 
way they can defeat such a powerful enemy is if one of them is 
killed by the person who would least want to kill them. Don't 
question it.
   Chrissy: I feel like you're going to be saying that a 
    lot through both this movie and "Endgame".
   Diandra: [sob]

Steve says nope. No deal. We don't play the game of voluntary 
sacrifice. Vision asks how many millions he saved when he 
crashed kamikaze style into the Antarctic and how is this 
scenario all that different? Bruce vomits up something about 
how Vision is more than just an android powered by a stone now 
and they might be able to remove it without killing him. I 
mean...you could have just pointed out that it's different when 
you have to involve someone else in your suicide, but whatever. 
This is obviously leading toward the realization that Steve 
knows someone who might be able to remove the stone. The Black 
Panther drums play across the soundtrack and we smash to...

Wakanda as the full heroic fanfare plays. Okoye tells T'Challa 
that they've alerted the king's guard, the Dora Milaje and 
whatever is left of the Border Tribe after that battle a year 
ago. Er...two years. Oh, who the hell knows anymore? T'Challa 
thinks they should also inform the Jabari because "M'Baku likes 
a good fight."
   Chrissy: Also because we trust them more than the Border 
   Tribe to be on our side.
Okoye nods to something off camera and asks what about "this 
one". T'Challa says that one is probably "tired of war. But the 
White Wolf has rested long enough." They arrive at a hut and 
one of his men puts a metal case down on a haystack and opens 
it. Bucky wanders over to look inside, finding a fancy new 
metal arm. "Where's the fight," he asks dully. T'Challa says 
it's on its way.

But first we have to revisit some of the other dozen plotlines 
we have going here. Fun fact: back when I was writing a "Lost" 
fic that wove through parts of canon, I drove myself insane 
drawing diagrams to place the dozen or so characters I needed 
to know the location of at any given moment and how any 
differences in those locations might alter events in canon. You 
can imagine how thrilled I was to realize that for my ongoing 
MCU story I had to do the same thing but with at least a dozen 
more characters and even more possible locations.
   Chrissy: Plus, instead of keeping track of two babies 
    and who was moving them between locations you have six 
    infinity stones.
   Emilio: And that's why we both had about five days worth 
    of hysterical texts from you while you tried to sort it 
    all out.
   Diandra: Yeah. Sorry about that.
   Chrissy: We're used to it by now. 
   Emilio: I'm pretty sure this is when you asked if I 
    would visit you after you are committed and I said I 
    wouldn't have to because we would be booking our rooms 
    together.
   Diandra: Right. 
   Chrissy: And then she sent me a truly creepy listing for 
    a swimsuit with Thanos' face all over it, presumably so 
    I would beat you both there and plan the welcoming 
    party.
   Diandra: I thought the listings for "Loki" prostate 
    massagers made up for that.
   Chrissy: Is that what you thought you were doing when 
    you sent those pictures? Thanks for doing that while I 
    was at work by the way.
   Emilio: Oh, that's nothing. You should see the fan art 
    she sent me once while I was at work.
   Diandra: I just want to thank you both for still being 
    friends with me.

Somewhere in space. Stephen wakes up suspended mostly face 
down, surrounded by needles poised to turn him into a human 
pincushion. Ebony Maw - who has apparently been just standing 
there waiting for him to wake up for however many hours it's 
been since they left Earth - is like 'so as I was saying about 
you wishing for death...' He says in all the years of playing 
lackey to Thanos, he has yet to fail him and he would consider 
having to turn over the time stone with an annoying human still 
attached a failure, so. One of the needles starts drilling into 
Stephen's cheek and he makes gagging noises.

On a catwalk above, Stephen's cloak finds Tony and taps him on 
the shoulder, startling him. Tony blinks at it like 'what the 
fuck is going on with my life?'
   Chrissy: Oh, so now you want to be friends?
Peter drops down beside Tony just then like 'um...so...hi. 
Don't be mad.' Tony splutters and they start having a pretty 
standard I TOLD YOU TO WAIT IN THE CAR GODDAMN IT style 
argument while the cloak hovers and twitches like 'why am I 
always working with idiots?' And then Peter goes sailing over 
the edge with "it's kinda your fault that I'm here" and the 
cloak stiffens like 'dude, I'm just a piece of sentient fabric 
that can't talk but even I know that was the WRONG THING TO 
SAY.' 
   Chrissy: Also, there's the YOU DID NOT JUST SAY THAT YOU 
   LITTLE SHIT look on Tony's face.

Peter takes it back immediately, but...well...nothing he can do 
about it now. Tony upbraids him for not thinking things through 
and walking headlong into a clearly dangerous situation they 
may not walk out of again. Peter insists he DID think it 
through in a sense that he decided he needed to join this fight 
because "you can't be a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man if 
there's no neighborhood." Tony stares and Peter admits that 
didn't really make sense "but you know what I'm trying to say." 
Tony stares into space like he really just CAN'T DEAL WITH THIS 
RIGHT NOW and decides fuck it. He shows Peter the torture scene 
going on beneath them and asks if he has any ideas for how to 
get the wizard out of that. Peter ums and ahs and then asks 
"did you ever see this really old movie 'Aliens'?"
   Chrissy: Yeah, remind me of how young you are. That 
   makes me feel so much better.

Meanwhile, Maw is driving, like, three needles into Stephen and 
Stephen is starting to scream. Maw - doing his best 
impersonation of a Bond villain - purrs that these needles were 
designed for microsurgery and any of them could do fatal damage 
at any second except obviously that would defeat the purpose so 
he's just going to keep torturing Stephen until he hands over 
the stone. His little speech is cut short though when Tony 
appears behind him. Maw is like 'you do realize I could kill 
your friend here by twitching my fingers, right?' Tony shrugs 
and says he's not his friend, but...professional courtesy. Or 
something. Maw stalks toward him, levitating large chunks of 
metal and mocking Tony for thinking he could actually win this 
fight. Tony is like 'well, I have the advantage of not playing 
fair.' He blasts a hole in the hull of the ship and Maw gets 
sucked out along with his makeshift weapons and Stephen. The 
cloak tries to catch Stephen, but can't hold on. Peter flies 
after him, catching him with a web as he's being sucked through 
the hole, then catching himself with spider legs that suddenly 
pop out of his suit and clamp onto the hull. "Yes! Wait...what 
are those," he yelps. Deciding he can figure that out when he's 
not dangling someone in the vacuum of space, he uses the legs 
to wrench himself back into the ship and both he and Stephen go 
tumbling across the floor while Tony patches the hole with some 
sort of liquid metal spray from his suit.

While Stephen is presumably catching his breath, getting his 
heart rate back to a normal range and verifying that he hasn't 
actually shit his pants or anything embarrassing, Peter tries 
to introduce himself to the cloak, which gives him the cold 
shoulder.
   Emilio: Fine. Next time I'll just let him fly out into 
   space.

Stephen, already fully recovered apparently, staggers over to 
Tony and insists they need to turn around. Tony is like '...and 
you're welcome. Asshole.' Stephen says no, he doesn't 
understand, they NEED TO PROTECT THE STONE.
   Chrissy: Or, you know, you could have taken my 
   suggestion and destroyed it. Remind me why we didn't do 
   that again?
Tony is like 'no, seriously, not even a thank you? Is your 
mother still alive? Because I'd like to have a conversation 
with her about your manners.' Stephen is like 'yeah, thanks for 
nearly getting me killed by shooting me into space. Jerk.'
   Chrissy: You know what? Clearly she didn't teach you 
    anything, so I'm just going to have to do that myself. 
    Come here.
   Diandra: What are you going to do, spank me?
   Chrissy: [stares]
   Diandra: .........oh.
   Emilio: Yep. Just like that fic.

Stephen accuses Tony of being the one with the ego here and 
Tony says he should have stayed out of this LIKE I TOLD YOU TO 
AT LEAST TWICE YOU DICK.
   Emilio: Should I...be leaving or...
   Chrissy: Stay out of this!
"Unlike everyone else in your life, I don't work for you," 
Stephen sneers. 'AND BECAUSE YOU DIDN'T LISTEN WE'RE IN A 
FLYING DONUT ON OUR WAY TO A MEETING WITH A PSYCHOTIC PURPLE 
ALIEN,' Tony finishes. "With no backup." Peter pipes up that he 
technically counts as backup and Tony snaps at him to shut up 
because the grownups are talking here.
   Emilio: Is that what you call it? Because usually when 
    people "talk" like this in the movies it leads to them 
    either trying to kill each other or kissing.
   Chrissy: Anybody ever tell you you watch too many 
    movies?
   Emilio: All the time, yes.
   Diandra: I honestly can't tell when we're being 
    ourselves and when we're roleplaying anymore and it's 
    starting to freak me out a little.
   Chrissy: Speaking of role playing, what's this I hear 
    about you in a French maid's outfit?
   Diandra: [grumbling]

Stephen asks who this kid is to him anyway. Peter realizes he 
hasn't introduced himself and holds out his hand. "I'm Peter, 
by the way." Stephen just growls "Doctor Strange" while 
completely ignoring the outstretched hand. "Oh, you're using 
our made-up names," Peter says. "Um...I'm Spider-Man then."
   Emilio: And what kind of stupid name is that anyway? 
Stephen just gives him a mildly dirty look and turns back to 
Tony, who is looking at what passes for a command center on the 
ship and noting that it is on autopilot. Stephen asks if they 
can take back control and fly it home. Tony non-answers that 
he's not sure that's a good idea. Because he knows exactly what 
Tony is thinking, Stephen snarls that they are NOT bringing the 
time stone to Thanos.
   Chrissy: Actually, I was still thinking about that 
    French maid thing.
   Diandra: Quit it.
   Chrissy: I can't! It's too distracting!

Tony gets all up in Stephen's face and rants about how Thanos 
has been inside his head for SIX YEARS and he understands just 
fine, actually. He just thinks maybe it would be better if they 
take the fight to his turf this time and take him by surprise. 
"Do you concur?"
   Chrissy: I'm sorry, I was distracted by all the sudden 
    spike in homoeroticism going on here. What was the 
    question? Oh, wait...I'm Tony.
   Diandra: That's okay, I was too busy wondering if Robert 
    Downey Jr. is standing on a box or Benedict Cumberbatch 
    is standing in a hole because they can NOT be that 
    close in height.
   Chrissy: That's what you're thinking about right now? 
    Really?
   Emilio: Well, since Robert started the MCU, I'm guessing 
    he got to decide, so Benedict is probably standing in a 
    hole.
   Chrissy: Jesus, work with me here, people.
   Diandra: Okay, fine. Ahem. I'm really trying to see 
    things from your perspective here, but, well, I'm 
    already standing in a ditch. Do I need to crouch down 
    some more?
   Chrissy: Okay, let's just call that payback for the 
    BAFTA crack, shall we?

Stephen sighs and says FINE, Tony wins. As usual. But if 
anything happens to Tony or the kid, then screw the hypocratic 
oath he will totally let them die before he lets Thanos get the 
stone. Tony says yeah, sure. He pats Stephen on the chest and 
adds "we're straight."
   Emilio: Sure, you keep telling yourself that.
Tony taps Peter on both shoulders as he passes him and 
announces that he is officially an Avenger. Peter does a little 
'I'm going to play it cool but I'm totally bursting with 
excitement on the inside' act while the Avengers theme plays 
the scene out.

Can I just point out an interview IMDb posted when this movie 
came out? The interviewer asked the MCU cast to describe their 
favorite moment from the series. Most of them described 
something they were actually involved with. But when they asked 
Tom Holland and Benedict Cumberbatch (who are always together 
because I guess Tom needs a chaperone/British interpreter), Tom 
described a scene from "Iron Man 3" where his movie dad Robert 
Downey Jr. has a particularly meaningful character moment and 
Benedict described a scene from the first "Thor" where his BFF 
Tom Hiddleston is scream crying at Sir Anthony Hopkins. I don't 
know where I was going with this detour. I just wanted to point 
that out.

I guess there are multiple versions of this donut ship after 
all because we see another one dock with the main ship that 
attacked the Asgardians in space. And then we zoom into some 
part of it where Thanos is bringing Gamora some sort of...soup 
or something. She takes the bowl, looks at him like 'really?' 
and slings it at the giant throne behind her. "I always hated 
that chair," she growls. He says yeah, but he had hoped it 
would be hers one day anyway. Is he...actually royalty on his 
planet?
   Emilio: Sort of?
She just keeps hissing that she hated everything about this 
place and her life when she was living in it. He sighs that she 
told him that before. All the time. For twenty years. She's 
like 'yeah, that's what happens when you basically kidnap 
someone'. He argues that he saved her. From...his own mass 
genocide?
   Chrissy: I could have killed you to with my HUGE 
    arsenal, but I didn't!
   Diandra: I guess it's been a while since I've reminded 
    you to stop making references to Putin's favorite 
    useful idiot. Stop it.

She says they were HAPPY before he came along and MURDERED 
THEM. He argues that they were on the brink of collapse and 
fighting over dwindling resources. The children of the 
survivors are living in a much better world now that there's 
plenty to go around. Also, there's less pollution and global 
warming is no longer a thing. And that world would not be the 
way it is if he hadn't forced them to sacrifice half their 
population to do it. Because the universe and its resources are 
finite and "if life is left unchecked, life will cease to 
exist. It needs correction." She screams that he doesn't know 
that. He says he's the only one who seems to know that...or the 
only one crazy enough to act on it like this anyway. He reminds 
her that she once fought by his side, so she must have 
understood at some point. "Everything I hate about myself you 
taught me," she says. He just sort of smiles and says that's 
what made her "the fiercest woman in the galaxy." 
That's...quite a flex. He says that's why he entrusted the 
finding of the soul stone to her. She gets a LOOK and is like 
'yeah. That. Too bad I failed. Because I totally did.' He sighs 
and says he knows she found it and lied to him about it.

He takes her to a room where Nebula is suspended in mid-air, 
twitching and gasping, parts of her suspended several inches 
from where they are supposed to be. Gamora runs over to her and 
begs Thanos to stop this. He exposits that she snuck aboard the 
ship "some time ago" (because I guess we've learned our lesson 
about giving specifics of time) and tried to kill him. She 
almost succeeded. Almost. He demonstrates what he has been 
doing to her since then, making a fist with the gauntlet. 
Nebula screams as she comes apart a little more. Gamora cries 
and begs him to stop because she swears she really didn't find 
the stone. He nods at one of his guards, who pushes a button 
that forces Nebula to start playing back a memory from her data 
banks, projecting a holographic image of Gamora assuring Nebula 
that Thanos will never get all the stones because she burned 
the map to the soul stone. Thanos muses that the fact that he 
never taught her to lie must explain why she's so shitty at it. 
He holds up his hand pointedly again and asks her where the 
soul stone is. Nebula shakes her head at her, then starts 
screaming as he makes a fist and she starts pulling apart 
again. Gamora cries and flinches and manages to hold out for 
about ten seconds before yelling "Vormir!"
   Chrissy: Reinforcing the parallels between this set of 
    siblings and the Asgardian princes...
   Diandra: Except kind of backwards, yeah.

Thanos relaxes his fist and Nebula snaps back to where she was 
when they entered the room. Gamora walks over and strokes her 
cheek as she repeats that the soul stone is on the planet 
Vormir.

Back with Thor and the most heavily CGId members of the 
Guardians. "I am Groot," Groot whines. Rocket tells him to use 
the cup as a makeshift urinal. He...he urinates? He's a TREE. 
   Emilio: Maybe it's more like oozing sap?
   Diandra: So when Peter was complaining about him getting 
    sap all over his room at the end of the last movie...
   Emilio: Right. That would probably be the human 
    equivalent of a completely different fluid.
   Diandra: Oh, god, that's worse.
   Chrissy: Well, he IS a teenage boy.
   Diandra: Ew.

"I am GROOOOOOOT," Groot insists. Thor pipes up that he can 
empty the cup out into space and fill it again then. Rocket is 
like 'hang on...you speak his language too?' Instead of using 
the totally cannon explanation that all Asgardians (and similar 
deity species) have the gift of Allspeak, Thor spews some 
nonsense about it being an elective class on Asgard. I 
just............really? Now that we've established he can 
respond to Groot just as easily as Rocket, he answers the next 
"I am Groot" by assuring him that they'll know when they're 
close to Nidavellir because the forge is powered by a neutron 
star and those things are basically giant discoballs of death.
   Emilio: Thank you. Now I know what I want the name of my 
   rock band to be.
He reminds us again that this is where his hammer was forged 
and moons about it some more like...this is really what he 
misses most, isn't it? Not his parents or his brother or any of 
the other HALF OF THE POPULATION OF HIS PLANET that died, but 
the fucking hammer.

Rocket sighs, puts the ship on autopilot and goes back to talk 
to him in the most awkward, manly fashion possible. "So, dead 
brother, huh? Yeah, that could be annoying."
   Chrissy: Truly, your compassion is breathtaking.
Thor doesn't really register this as lacking in tact though 
because, as he immediately notes, Loki has actually been dead 
before. He came back to life before, but since the writers seem 
to have decided they hate him, they're determined to keep him 
dead this time. Rocket plays catch up, making him illustrate 
just how lonely he is: no family left and his best friend was 
Heimdall, who is also now dead. Rocket asks if he's sure he's 
really up to this whole "kill Thanos" mission. Thor thinks 
actually the mixture of rage, regret and desire for vengeance 
are all pretty awesome motivators. "They really clear the 
mind."
   Chrissy: Not that that was difficult in your case.
   Diandra: Hey.

Thor insists he can best the strongest genocidal maniac in the 
universe. "He's never fought me." Rocket points out that yes, 
he has and he wiped the floor with him, killed his brother and 
best friend in front of him and blew up his ship. "Well, he's 
never fought me twice!" And this time Thor will be armed with a 
shiny new hammer. He says he's 1,500 years old and he's killed 
a LOT of enemies and Thanos is just the latest in the long 
line. "I'm only alive because fate wants me alive." It WANTS 
him to succeed in killing Thanos. Rocket is like okay, 
but...you could be wrong. Thor sighs and says he doesn't have 
anything left to lose. He sniffles, wipes away a manful tear 
and walks away while Rocket grumbles that HE still has a lot to 
lose. He follows Thor, pulling what is presumably the false eye 
he got in "Guardians 2" out of his bag and offering it to him. 
Except he says he got it because "some jerk lost a bet with me 
on Contraxia". Thor says he gave him his EYE? Rocket says he 
gave him money and he snuck into his room later that night to 
steal the eye just for shits and giggles. 
   Emilio: So he either has two fake eyes he stole from two 
    different places or he's lying because this makes a 
    better story.
   Diandra: Or the writers forgot how he got it and 
    couldn't be bothered to look it up because this sounded 
    better. Which is most likely.

Thor takes off his eyepatch and shoves the eye right in while 
Rocket cringes and mutters that he probably should have washed 
it first considering the orifice he had to sneak it out of 
Contraxia in. Thor blinks and pounds the side of his face to 
try to get the fake eye to focus, complaining that it doesn't 
seem to be working because everything is dark. Rocket says 
that's not the eye. They've arrived. They fly past what looks 
like a later attempt at the Death Star surrounded by giant 
metal rings and Thor notes that the star has "gone out" and the 
rings are "frozen". 

They land inside one of the rings and walk out into an 
abandoned wasteland. This is odd as Thor notes that the forge 
has been running continuously for centuries. Rocket points and 
asks if the gauntlet Thanos has looks anything like that one 
over there. 
   Chrissy: Yes, it also looks like the one that was in the 
    vault on Asgard. 
   Diandra: Pretty sure they've either forgotten about that 
    or they just threw it in there as a throwaway joke.
Thor panics and orders them to go back to the pod just before a 
"dwarf", a race that is apparently giant sized in this 
universe, appears behind him and smashes him into the nearest 
wall. The Dwarf is, of course, Peter Dinklage. He kicks aside 
the Guardians and charges at Thor again. Thor calls his name: 
Eitri and Eitri freezes as he recognizes him. Thor asks what 
happened. Eitri moans that the Asgardians were supposed to 
protect them. Thor says Asgard was destroyed and asks what he 
did with that glove over there. Eitri slumps to the ground and 
exposits that there used to be 300 Dwarves living on this ring 
and he tried to keep them safe by doing what "he" wanted: 
forging a device capable of harnessing the power of the stones.
   Chrissy: Oh, you mean that needs to be specially made? 
    You can't just...say...cobble together a copy out of 
    spare machine parts on Earth?
   Diandra: Sigh.
But of course he killed everyone anyway. Because he's a psycho. 
But he left Eitri alive with some sort of damage that makes 
using his hands impossible because "your life is yours, but 
your hands are mine alone."

Thor argues that this isn't about his hands because everything 
he ever designed still lives in his head. I'm... not sure that 
was actually the point of that story, but okay. He says all 
hope is not lost because together they can kill Thanos.

Back to Nebula. A guard is piecing her back together while she 
is still suspended. When he comes around in front of her, she 
breaks his neck. She drags her still partly detached leg behind 
her as she hobbles over to a console and contacts Mantis. "I 
need you to meet me on Titan."

Somewhere above Titan, the flying donut with the three 
Earthlings on board is hurtling alarmingly at the ground. Tony 
realizes that the autopilot doesn't include autolanding and 
scrambles for the controls, ordering Peter to put his hand in 
one of the steering gimbals while he takes the other. "This was 
made for one big guy, so we gotta move at the same time." So 
how are his other minions supposed to fly his...you know what? 
Fuck it. They steer into a carefully controlled crash while 
Tony and Peter's suits form around them and Stephen makes a 
giant shield around the whole cockpit. The ship breaks into a 
bunch of pieces and what is left of the part they are in skids 
to a stop, somehow mostly upright. Stephen deactivates the 
shield and reaches to help Tony up, asking if he's okay.
   Chrissy: Uh, no. No, you were the only one NOT wearing 
    armor when we smashed into a PLANET and yet somehow I 
    seem to have been thrown to the ground with enough 
    force to stun me and you...what...mussed your hair a 
    little?
   Diandra: Hey, do you not see these bruises and scratches 
    on my face?
   Chrissy: Pretty sure most of that was there before. But 
    even if it wasn't...seriously? That's it?

Tony pats Stephen on the arm and says he owes him one. Peter 
drops from the ceiling and says uh...guys? "Let me just say, if 
aliens wind up implanting eggs in my chest or something and I 
eat one of you, I'm sorry."
   Chrissy: Hey, if anybody's going to be eating anybody 
    here...
   Diandra: Please don't finish that sentence.
   Emilio: No, please do! I want to know which way around 
    that was going to go.
   Diandra: Oh, I think we all know which way it would go.
   Chrissy: Waaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiit a minute. What is that 
    supposed to mean?
   Diandra: You know what it means. 

Tony holds up a Dad Finger and says he doesn't want another 
goddamn pop culture reference out of him for the rest of this 
trip. Peter says no, he's trying to warn them that something is 
headed their way. Presumably his spideysense can feel it. One 
of the little grenades the other Peter was threatening to hang 
from his belt rolls between them and goes off, sending them all 
flying.
   Chrissy: Okay, so are we switching to last names for 
    those two or are we going to have to call them Big 
    Peter and Little Peter?
   Diandra: Ugh. Definitely not referring to Quill as Big 
    Peter.
   Chrissy: Who said that's the order I meant?
   Diandra: Ha. No, I can start calling him Quill. I'm 
    interested to see how we're going to tell which one 
    Emilio is playing at any given moment though.
   Emilio: Hey, we've already been through recaps of both 
    of you arguing with yourself because you were 
    roleplaying both characters on screen. 
   Diandra: True.

The Guardians come through the door, Quill wearing his face 
mask and Drax screaming "Thanos" and throwing a machete at 
Stephen. Stephen blocks it with a shield and his cloak wraps 
itself around Drax's face. Quill and Tony fly around blasting 
at each other until Quill manages to attach Tony to the nearest 
piece of wreckage via some sort of magnet. And Peter is 
scrabbling frantically away from Mantis, squealing "don't put 
your eggs in me!" He shoots webs on her and Quill swoops in and 
kicks him over. Peter tries to run and Quill shoots a lasso 
around him. Drax is yelling "die, blanket of death!" while 
completely failing to loosen the cloak's hold at all. Tony 
dislodges himself and hovers over Drax while the cloak lets go. 
Stephen comes around the corner and Quill grabs Peter and holds 
a gun to his head, ordering everyone to just "chill the eff 
out!" He turns off his mask, gives Tony his best attempt at a 
threatening glare and asks "where is Gamora?" Tony, aiming his 
blaster at Peter and disengaging his helmet, snarks "I'll do 
you one better: WHO is Gamora?" Drax, whose main purpose is 
basically comic relief, yells from the floor "I'll do YOU one 
better. Why is Gamora?"
   Emilio: Just ignore him. He was dropped on his head as a 
    child. 
   Diandra: Repeatedly.

We get a brief shot of Stephen looking between them like 
'seriously, what am I doing here?' Quill points the gun at 
Peter's head and says if they don't tell him where she is, 
he'll kill the "freak". Tony turns the other arm of his suit 
into a canon and points it in Drax's face, saying you kill 
mine, I'll kill yours. Drax urges Quill to do it because he can 
take it. No he can't, say Mantis and Stephen almost 
simultaneously. Quill blusters that that's okay because he can 
kill all three of them and beat the information out of Thanos 
himself. Stephen is like 'wait... what?' "All right, let me ask 
you this one time: what master do you serve?"
   Chrissy: You, sir! .........sorry, reflex.
   Diandra: [splutters incoherently]

In a truly baffling line, Chris Pratt sneers "what master do I 
serve? What am I supposed to say, Jesus?"
   Chrissy: Clunk.
   Diandra: Yeah, I would say nobody would be surprised if 
    he did, but apparently there were a lot of people who 
    only realized what we already knew very recently.
Tony purses his lips as he realizes Quill is from Earth and 
asks what the fuck he thinks he's doing here. "So you're not 
with Thanos," Peter asks in a tiny voice. Quill drops his gun 
with a repulsed face and asks who the hell they are. Peter 
drops his mask and says they're the Avengers. Mantis pipes up 
that those are the people Thor told them about. Tony perks up 
and asks how they know Thor. Quill spews some macho bullshit 
about how he needed them to save him and he's not even that 
good looking.
   Emilio: I also assume he has a very small penis and is 
   terrible with the ladies.
Stephen asks where Thor is now.

In answer, we go back to Nividalas.
   Chrissy: That's not...oh, god, she's doing the Tanja 
    Tsarovska thing again.
   Emilio: Who?
   Chrissy: Right. You probably know it as the thing she 
    did during "The Hobbit" with Benedict Cumberbatch.
   Diandra: Who? No, I'm doing the thing where I refuse to 
    look up that damn scrabble tile name every single time 
    I have to type it.
   Chrissy: What was the name of the bad guy's planet in 
    the second Thor movie? The place where Loki died?
   Diandra: Svartala'chaim.
   Chrissy: ..........what was the bad guy's name?
   Diandra: The Ninth Doctor.
   Chrissy: Yeah, I guess that checks out.

The group watches as some mechanical arms lower a slab of metal 
onto a platform. Rocket says so..."we're gonna hit him with a 
brick?" Eitri says no, that's just the mold for the king's 
weapon: designed to be the greatest on Asgard. "In theory, it 
could even summon the Bifrost." Oh, how convenient given that 
the previous summoner of the Bifrost is dead. Thor asks what 
it's called. Eitri says Stormbreaker, but to make it they'd 
need to restart the forge and "reawaken the heart of the dying 
star". This little side trek now well established, we go back 
to the A plot.

Quill asks what the hell happened to the dead planet they're 
on. According to some little doohickey he's checking it is 
eight degrees off axis and it's gravity is wonky. To 
illustrate, the camera shows some bits of metal hovering in the 
sky behind them despite the fact that they are all on the 
ground. Well, most of them. Mantis is bouncing up and down in 
the distance behind Tony while he repeats his argument about 
meeting Thanos here being advantageous. Also, Stephen is 
hovering in lotus position, but he's wearing the cloak so that 
probably has nothing to do with the planet's gravity. Tony 
tells Quill his plan is to draw Thanos in and get the gauntlet 
off him. Drax yawns loudly and Tony is like OH I'M SORRY, AM I 
BORING YOU? Drax is like nah, "I stopped listening after you 
said 'we need a plan'." Tony waves him off because "Mr. Clean 
is on his own page." Quill thinks it's just that he and Mantis 
aren't so good at winging it. Peter asks what they do and 
Mantis snarls "kick names, take ass!"
   Chrissy: Oof, I just...I have nothing to say to that.
   Diandra: That's a first.

Tony just stares at them like 'oh, dear god, I'm working with a 
bunch of morons and we're all going to die.'
   Chrissy: This is karma for that whole blow out with 
   Steve, isn't it? This is what I'm left with. A kid, a 
   bunch of second tier wierdos and a magical jerk who 
   hates me.
He sighs heavily and asks them to just...please...get over here 
and listen. They NEED to be working together on this because 
"if all we come at him with is a plucky attitude..." Quill 
interrupts to tell him to not call them plucky because "we 
don't know what it means." Also, he likes the plan except it 
sucks so he's going to do the planning from now on.
   Chrissy: Okay, I know we're desperate right now and we 
   can use all the help we can get in this fight, but as 
   soon as it's finished I'm going to murder you and I'm 
   pretty sure nobody will stop me. Especially if I get my 
   new potential boyfriend over there to distract your 
   friends with magic tricks.

Drax brings up the fact that Quill tried to defeat the bad guy 
in their first movie by challenging him to a dance-off, 
blissfully unaware of how stupid that is. Peter is like 
wait...like..."Footloose"? Quill's eyes light up like 'hey, 
somebody around here gets my pop culture references!' He asks 
if that's still considered the greatest movie in history. Peter 
is like um...nobody ever considered it that. Ever. Tony is like 
WHY ARE YOU ENCOURAGING FLASH GORDON?
   Emilio: Sorry, the pop culture references are just a 
    reflex.
   Chrissy: Oh, I see why Peter is the perfect character 
    for Emilio to roleplay now.
Diandra: Yep.

Quill says he will take that Flash Gordon comparison there as a 
compliment. Oh, and "I'm half human. So that 50% of me that's 
stupid? That's 100% you."
   Chrissy: That's cute how you think it's only 50%.
Before they can argue anymore, Mantis interrupts to ask if it's 
normal that Tony's friend is doing that. They all look at 
Stephen, who has the green rings of the activated time stone 
around his arm and is jerking his head around weirdly like he's 
moving in fast forward mode. Tony goes over to catch him as he 
snaps out of it and falls to the ground. He says he went 
forward in time to see all the possible future outcomes of the 
battle with Thanos. Quill asks how many he saw. 14,000,605. 
Tony asks how many scenarios ended with them wining. Because it 
is a comic book universe, of course he only saw one.
   Chrissy: We were lovers in several of those universes, 
    though.
   Emilio: And actors playing the same character in one 
    really weird universe where a reality TV star is 
    President.
   Diandra: Pffffttt. That one's clearly the least 
    believable. [cries]

Thanos and Gamora materialize on Vormir, which looks just as 
dark and bleak as The Dark World. Thanos makes vague threats 
toward Nebula again if it turns out the stone isn't where 
Garmoa said it would be. Then they climb up a cliff and are 
greeted by a shadowy figure who greets them by name. Thanos 
notes the oddity of that, but he just says "it's my curse to 
know all who journey here." Fair warning, he says: the soul 
stone "extracts a terrible price." Thanos is confident in his 
readiness. The Death Eater is like 'yeah, that's what they all 
think.' He comes into the light a little so we can recognize 
his face as the bad guy from the first Captain America movie 
(except only sort of since he isn't Hugo Weaving). "We are all 
wrong," he says.
   Chrissy: Yet another thing "The Simpsons" correctly 
    predicted.
   Diandra: The part where Red Skull makes a surprise 
    reappearance? Yeah. 

They all climb further toward a set of towers on the edge of 
the cliff as Thanos asks some more questions of Red 
Skull...er...the undead spirit of Red Skull? I'm not really 
sure how this works. Undead Red says he once sought out the 
infinity stones too. He got hold of one and it "cast me out, 
banished me here. Guiding others to a treasure I cannot 
possess." Uh...........what?
   Chrissy: It makes sense if we say it does. Shut up. Stop 
   thinking.
He points them to the edge of the cliff and says "what you seek 
lies in front of you. As does what you fear." Gamora doesn't 
understand. Undead Red says the soul stone is special. "To 
ensure that whoever possesses it understands its power, the 
stone demands a sacrifice." Specifically, the person who 
possess it has to give up whatever they love most because hey, 
a soul in exchange for a soul makes sense, right?
   Chrissy: Yeah, that sounds comic booky enough.
   Diandra: That's the thing though: this is not at all how 
    the soul stone works in the comics. Like Emilio said: 
    there's a whole other world inside it. But I guess this 
    way makes Thanos more interesting, and obtaining this 
    one stone harder, so that's probably why they changed 
    it.
   Chrissy: That or they just liked the idea of fridging 
    two of their best female characters for dramatic 
    purposes.
   Diandra: Or that.

So since this part is pretty painful, I'll kind of skim over 
some of the details. I will DEFINITELY be doing this again in 
"Endgame". If I manage to get up the nerve to recap "Endgame", 
because I'm starting to doubt I can.

Gamora laughs and gives a little speech about how she always 
wished for the day when karma bitchslapped Thanos. "You kill 
and you torture and you call it mercy. The universe has judged 
you. You asked it for a prize and it told you no." She is 
assuming he has hit a wall, of course, because he is such a 
monster he couldn't possibly love anything or anyone. Then she 
slowly realizes that he's crying, but not because she's right. 
She backs away as he starts toward her, hissing that this is 
ridiculous, he doesn't LOVE her. He says he cannot ignore his 
destiny, even to save her. She grabs the double blade knife 
that is now on his belt and tries to stab herself, but it turns 
into soap bubbles. He apologizes, grabs her by the wrist and 
flings her - crying - from the edge of the cliff while mournful 
music plays. Light shoots from the towers into the clouds. 
Thanos squeezes his eyes shut...

And then he's waking up floating in a shallow pool of water, 
the orange/yellow stone clutched in his hand.

Sam is flying the...let's call them Resistance Avengers... team 
to Wakanda. He expresses concern when Steve gives him a 
trajectory that goes right at a mountain, but trusts that he 
knows what he's doing. The plane goes through the shield and 
arrives at the part of the border where Everett crashed.

T'Challa and his guard are headed to the landing pad to meet 
them. Okoye grumbles that when he announced his intent to open 
the borders of Wakanda, this isn't exactly what she had in 
mind. He playfully asks what she was expecting. She says 
hosting the Olympics and maybe putting up a Starbucks.
   Chrissy: Wait, you don't already have those?
As they are exiting the plane, Bruce asks Rhodey if they're 
supposed to bow to T'Challa or something. Rhodey says of course 
they are. He's royalty. Then he asks what the hell Bruce thinks 
he's doing when he tries it. Because your first mistake was 
trusting Rhodey, I guess. Steve shakes T'Challa's hand. Natasha 
asks how they're doing on defense. T'Challa says they have the 
Kingsguard, the Border Tribe, the Dora Milaje and this one 
white guy with a bionic arm that they've been keeping on ice 
for Steve. Steve hugs him manfully and asks how he's doing. He 
says not bad "for the end of the world."

In the lab, Shuri scans Vision with her kimyo beads and 
identifies the stone has having a "polymorphic" structure. 
Bruce, impressed by her tech, says yes, they had to attach the 
neurons non-sequentially. She asks why they didn't just 
reprogram the synapses to work collectively.
   Chrissy: Because he and Tony have a collective 
    intelligence that still comes short of yours.
   Diandra: That would be the correct answer, yes. And boy, 
    do the dudebros hate that the smartest and most 
    powerful superheroes in this universe are both women - 
    one of them black to boot. 
Shuri sighs and says she's sure they did their best. You know, 
considering.
   Chrissy: I have seven PhDs! Even though that's not how 
   PhDs work in the real world and saying something like 
   that as proof of how smart a character is just proves 
   the writers are idiots.

Wanda, uninterested in this debate, asks if Shuri can remove 
it. Shuri says she can, but there are over two trillion neurons 
she's going to have to untangle, or... whatever...and one 
mistake could cause catastrophic failure. So it will take time 
to do it. Steve asks how long she needs. She says as much as 
they can get. Okoye's beads bleat at just that moment and she 
pulls up a hologram of the entire planet and reads that 
something has entered the atmosphere.

That something is a couple pods ejected from one of Thanos' 
donut ships right over Wakanda. 

Outside, Sam watches the pods approach and informs Steve that 
they have a 'situation'.

The first pod hits the dome over Wakanda and explodes. Bucky 
looks up at the flaming wreckage sliding down the dome and 
mutters "god, I love this place." Rhodey says yeah, well, they 
shouldn't celebrate yet because several more pods are landing 
outside the dome.

The people inside see this happening from Shuri's lab windows. 
Vision concludes that they're too late and they should destroy 
the stone now. T'Challa says no, they can hold them off. Steve 
agrees and - for the benefit of the audience - repeats the plan 
to Wanda: as soon as Shuri has it out, Wanda should destroy it. 
T'Challa is shouting orders to evacuate the city and mount 
their defenses and ends with "and get this man a shield", 
pointing to Steve.

Nindavardalos. Rocket is criticizing Thor's plan to get the 
enormous rings rotating again using the pod and a rope. Thor is 
like 'nah, it'll work because, see...' and his slings the pod 
in circles until it lifts him and shouts at Rocket to fire the 
engines. Rocket does and drags Thor across one whole ring until 
he manages to get a foothold and somehow this makes the ice 
keeping the rings from rotating break loose. Eitri watches from 
the forge as the rings align and the star...fires up? I'm 
really not sure what sort of crazy ass sci-fi bullshit this 
whole rig operates on. Thor jumps onto the pod, points to the 
glowing orb and excitedly tells Rocket that THAT is Nidavellir. 
Oh, right. That's what it's called.
   Chrissy: You'll forget again in two scenes.
   Diandra: Bold of you to think it will take that long.

The rings all line up and the star fires through the hole on 
one side into the forge. And then something breaks and the 
whole thing powers down again. Eitri grumbles that the 
mechanism is "crippled". The opening between the star and the 
forge is closed so he can't heat the metal to make the weapon. 
Thor asks how long he needs to heat the metal. Eitri says a few 
minutes. Or longer. Maybe. Who knows? Thor announces that he'll 
hold the ring open so he can do it. Eitri is like 'dude...I 
know you REALLY want a new godkiller, but that would kill you.' 
Thor is like 'THIS IS MY HERO MOMENT. I HAVE TO DO THIS.' 
   Chrissy: I'm starting to see why you bypassed this whole 
    side quest in your fic.
   Diandra: Well, it still happened. Sort of. It just 
    didn't need to be a big thing.

Back on Earth, the new Avengers team is heading out to meet the 
advancing army, with Bruce in Tony's Hulkbuster suit burbling 
about how awesome it is to basically be the Hulk, but...not. 
Then he trips over a rock and plows face first into the ground 
and Okoye looks back at him with an expression like 
'ugh...these people are useless.'

Rhodey announces that he can see two "heat signatures" coming 
through the trees. Sure enough, we see Proxima Midnight and 
Cull Obsidian approaching from the trees that caught fire when 
they torpedoed their ships into them. The Wakandans all form 
ranks on the other side of the barrier. T'Challa approaches 
M'Baku, leading his men in a chant and thanks him for backing 
them up. M'Baku is like 'are you kidding? You think I would let 
a little tribal thing keep me from defending all of Wakanda 
from some alien motherfuckers? Pffffftttttt.'

The two children of Thanos reach the dome and Proxima tests the 
shield a little with her sword. Steve, Natasha and T'Challa 
meet them from the inside. Natasha tauntingly asks what 
happened to that other guy they were fighting before. Proxima 
is like 'yeah...he's dead and I will get my revenge by 
murdering you, you bitch. And we're getting that infinity 
stone, by the way.' Steve and T'Challa are like 'I really don't 
fucking think so, but go ahead and try. That will be fun.' 
Proxima gestures and the ships start pulling up again with a 
dull rumbling. The three humans return to the collected forces 
and Bucky jokingly asks Steve if they agreed to surrender by 
any chance.

The ships drop millions of creatures that look like giant 
insects on meth to the ground and they swarm toward the dome, 
smashing against it and straining to get through, some of them 
losing limbs that manage to just poke through. One gets his 
whole upper body through before the shield reforms and slices 
him in two. Okoye points out for the slower audience members 
that they are actually killing themselves to try to penetrate 
the shield. A few manage to break through entirely and charge. 
The Wakandans form their blanket shields and everyone who is 
armed starts shooting. Sam flies overhead, activating drones to 
cover more ground. Rhodey warns him to back up before flying 
along the border and just firebombing the ground. The ones that 
manage to get through that mostly intact are now on fire. Bruce 
warns that some of the creatures on the outside of the shield 
are starting to run along it. He says if they get behind them 
they will basically be able to get to Vision around this line 
of defense they have created only on this one side of the dome. 
Steve takes this to mean they need to make sure the bad guys 
stay on THIS SIDE of the dome. T'Challa concludes that they 
need to open the dome, but only in this one place to control 
where they come in. He gives the order to whoever is 
controlling the dome and she basically asks if he's lost his 
mind. "This will be the end of Wakanda," M'Baku grumbles. "Then 
it will be the noblest ending in history," Okoye says.
   Chrissy: Well, that's one way to spin the fact that the 
   SECOND you agreed to reveal yourselves to the rest of 
   the world the white people sucked you into their 
   suicidal battle.

T'Challa yells "Wakanda Forever," and leads the charge toward 
the battle, shouting the order to open the gate as they get 
close. He and Steve - being obviously the fastest - are the 
first to meet the horde funneling in. And we get about five 
minutes of a giant battle scene that was still somehow not big 
enough. T'Challa asks Shuri for a progress report and she snaps 
that she has barely STARTED getting the stone out. She is 
manipulating a hologram suspended over Vision's head, 
occasionally piercing the area around the stone with lasers.

Nillawafer. Thor is praying to the Allfathers for strength for 
what he is about to do. Eitri is like 'you know you're 
volunteering to let the neutron star basically blast you full 
force, right?' "It'll kill you." "Only if I die," Thor replies. 
Eitri is like 'uh...yeah, that's what I just said, you suicidal 
moron.' Thor is like 'too late, I'm already committed.' He 
grabs the levers on either side of the broken opening and 
strains to pull them down, opening the aperture and letting the 
beam through to the forge again. Eitri watches the metal melt 
while we watch Thor's face melt. When it's ready, Eitri pushes 
a wheel so the metal pours into the mold. Thor passes out and 
the beam cuts off as he falls through into the forge ring. 
Groot finally looks up from his video game as Rocket rushes 
over to see if he's still alive.

Eitri breaks the axe out of the mold, but can't seem to find 
the handle for it. He asks Groot to help him find it and Groot 
is like FINALLY, I GET A CHANCE TO DO SOMETHING IN THIS MOVIE. 
He grows some branches from one of his arms to wrap around the 
axe head and then chops it off at his forearm. Thor's hand 
twitches and the axe levitates and starts sparking.
   Chrissy: I think you skipped the part where they 
    suggested that Thor was dying from that little stunt 
    and having the axe would somehow revive him.
   Diandra: Yes, I did. Because it is stupid.

We rejoin the battle on Earth, still in progress. The alien 
creatures look kind of like...Venom? Crossed with that alien 
from "Alien"? Anyway, a couple of them are playing tug-of-war 
with T'Challa and Cull whacks Rhodey out of the sky with his 
own version of Stormbreaker. Steve is...holding his own, 
somehow. Several of the aliens swarm over Hulkbuster Bruce and 
take him down. He yelps that there are just too many of them. 

And then something that looks like the bifrost transport beam 
touches down in the middle of the battlefield and Stormbreaker 
comes shooting out, whacking all the aliens off of T'Challa, 
Rhodey, Steve and Bruce before boomeranging back to Thor, who 
steps out of the beam to heroic music, Rocket clinging to his 
back and Groot standing next to him, his hand already regrown. 
Bruce flips up his faceplate and laughingly tells Thanos' army 
that they are totally screwed now. Thor charges at the enemy 
army, yelling "bring me Thanos!"
   Chrissy: You know...seeing this again, knowing how this 
    is going to turn out...
   Diandra: Disappointing, isn't it?
   Chrissy: Yeah, I guess that would be the word. Whole lot 
    of buildup for...not much.
   Emilio: Well, that moment where he sparks and slams the 
    ground and downs a few dozen aliens was pretty cool, at 
    least.

Titan. Thanos steps out of some sort of smoke portal and looks 
at the crashed ship that was supposed to be carrying Ebony Maw. 
Stephen, perched on top of a bunch of rubble, is like 'oh, YOU 
must be the guy who wanted to see me. Hi.' Thanos grumbles that 
Maw must be dead then.
   Chrissy: Yeah, but don't let this guy take any credit 
    for it. He was the damsel in distress who needed saving 
    from your goon.
   Diandra: I could have let that crash kill you, you know.
Thanos is like 'eh, at least he got the stone here. Even if I 
have to take it off you myself.' Stephen is like 'good luck 
with that. I'm the Master of the Mystic Arts.'
   Chrissy: [very loud snort followed by muffled laughter]
   Diandra: You know, just once it would be nice if you 
    took me seriously.
   Chrissy: Yeah, but you make that SO DIFFICULT. 

We get quick establishing shots of both of the Peters hovering 
nearby as Thanos asks where Stephen thinks he is. Stephen 
"guesses" it was once his home world. Thanos says 'yep' and 
uses the reality stone to change the landscape so Stephen can 
see what it looked like before it became a barren wasteland. He 
rambles about how it was like all the other planets with too 
many mouths to feed and not enough resources and nobody wanted 
to listen to his "solution" to the looming threat of 
extinction. In fact, they called him crazy. But joke was on 
them. He brings the landscape back to its present post-
extinction state. Stephen sneers that he's a prophet. Hell bent 
on murdering trillions of beings. Thanos argues that if he gets 
all the stones, those people would just simply cease to exist 
once he snaps his fingers, so it would be merciful compared to 
what the people on this planet went through. 

[ETA: I have to pause to add a little bit of a rant here. I 
hate that the word "trigger" is getting overused to the point 
of being rendered meaningless by fandom these days. Most of the 
time, what people who use it mean to say is "I don't like this" 
or "I think this is problematic". This right here? This is a 
trigger for me. As in, I just realized this was the scene where 
I began to slide into a depression I didn't surface from for 
several days after I saw this movie in the theater. I realized 
it because it happened again when I did this recap. I mention 
this here because I feel like when I say I'm not sure I can do 
these recaps anymore it sounds like I'm being petulant or 
something. I literally don't think I can keep testing my mental 
health by deliberately watching something that sends me into a 
tailspin of hopeless despair. Anyway. Don't be surprised if my 
recapping efforts are less than stellar for the rest of this 
recap.]

Stephen prompts him to explain what he would do once he 
accomplished this. Thanos says he could "rest" and "watch the 
sun rise on a grateful universe." Stephen is like 
'yeah............not gonna happen.' He forms magic shields and 
then just stands there while Tony drops a massive rock on 
Thanos' head from above.

Tony brags at Quill that that was easy. Quill mutters that all 
he did was piss him off and runs in, activating his face mask. 
The rock levitates into the air, revealing a - yes - angry 
Thanos, who roars and somehow turns the fragments of rock into 
bats that fly in all directions. Peter slings past him, 
splattering a web on his face and Drax slices at his legs as he 
dives past. Stephen portals himself into the fray and forms 
some sort of magic sword that Thanos manages to rip right out 
of his hands within seconds before kicking him away. Quill, 
still running, jumps onto "steps" Stephen throws under him, 
leaping over Thanos and planting a bomb on his back. Quill 
lands, flips Thanos the bird and falls backward through a 
portal Stephen opens back to...somewhere.

Apparently all the bomb does is stun him though. Stephen 
whispers at the cloak to make sure Thanos doesn't close his 
fist and it flies over to wrap around his hand. Stephen then 
forms a bunch of appearing and disappearing portals around 
Thanos that Peter jumps through, blindsiding Thanos a few times 
before Thanos finally grabs him out of the air and slams him to 
the ground like WILL YOU KNOCK IT OFF YOU GODDAMN MOSQUITO!
   Emilio: Technically spiders eat mosquitos.
Thanos flings Peter at Stephen, knocking them both down. He 
rips the cloak from his hand, but before he can do anything 
Tony reappears to blast the shit out of the ground around him. 
Thanos somehow collects the resulting fireball with the 
gauntlet and turns it on Tony like a flamethrower. Peter 
recovers and webs Thanos' gauntlet hand. Thanos shakes him off 
easily again. 

And then something that looks like a rocket plows into Thanos. 
He digs himself out of this rubble as Nebula leaps over him, 
brandishing a sword. "You should have killed me," she growls. 
He snarls that that would have been a waste of parts. She gets 
a few blows in before he smacks her away. Stephen throws magic 
whips around his gauntlet hand and holds on while the others 
manage to pin him down. Tony grabs the gauntlet, Drax and Peter 
restrain him and Stephen opens a portal over his head so Mantis 
can drop right onto his shoulders before transferring his magic 
whips to Thanos' other hand.
   Chrissy: You know, if we get out of this alive, I have 
    some ideas for more fun uses for those things.
   Diandra: Is that all you think about?
   Chrissy: Usually.

Mantis struggles to put Thanos into a sort of trance and yelps 
at Tony to be quick because she can't hold him for long. Tony 
yells at Peter to come help him and they struggle to pull the 
gauntlet off him.
   Chrissy: This would be a whole lot easier if we could 
    just cut his arm off above the gauntlet somehow. 
    Like... I don't know...maybe with a portal?
   Diandra: Sorry, Wong is inexplicably the only one of us 
    who learned that particular skill. 

And then Quill reappears and everything goes to hell in a 
handbasket. He swaggers up in front of the sedated Thanos, 
taunts that he thought this would be more difficult and brags 
that this was all his idea.
   Chrissy: You know, in "Ragnarok" Bruce and Thor were 
    having some sort of minor disagreement over who the 
    strongest Avenger is, but I think we can ALL agree that 
    Quill is the stupidest.
   Emilio: Most Annoying?
   Diandra: Yeah, that too. Is he really even an Avenger 
    though? The Guardians are their own thing.
   Emilio: So are the sorcerers, which is why Dr. Strange 
    wouldn't have been in "Civil War" even if he'd had 
    mystical abilities then.

Quill gets in Thanos' face and demands to know where Gamora is. 
Thanos just mutters "my Gamora" and Mantis announces that she's 
getting a wave of "anguish" off him. Quill sneers "good" and 
Mantis is like no, he's...mourning. Nebula is the only one of 
the Guardians who understands what that means, so she spells it 
out for Peter: he took her to Vormir to get the soul stone and 
came back with only the stone. Recognizing where this is 
headed, Tony starts pleading with Quill to not lose it right 
now because they are SO CLOSE. But of course because this is 
yet another way the writers can play keep away a little longer, 
he doesn't. He starts yelling at Thanos and, when Thanos admits 
that he did kill Gamora, starts whaling on him, dislodging 
Mantis. Tony pulls Quill off him and Thanos wakes up just as 
Peter ALMOST has the gauntlet off, snatching it back and 
flinging Mantis off him. Peter runs off to catch her while 
Thanos kicks Drax away and flings Stephen in the opposite 
direction. Quill, Drax and Nebula regroup and try to rush him 
and he knocks them over before they can get two feet. Tony 
flies at him and gets a couple blows in before Thanos uses the 
gauntlet to break up one of the moons overhead and send all the 
pieces hurtling to the surface.
   Chrissy: In case you had forgotten, yes, this movie is 
   based on a comic book series.

Back in Wakanda, Shuri is still carefully extracting the stone 
from Vision while a full special effects budget blowing battle 
sequence is going on outside. There is a particularly 
ridiculous moment when Bucky picks up Rocket with the hand not 
holding his weapon and spins around, both of them firing.
   Chrissy: I like to imagine when they filmed this he was 
    actually waving a stuffed raccoon at the guys in motion 
    capture suits.
   Diandra: Yeah, basically 99% of being in one of these 
    movies involves being able to keep a straight face no 
    matter how ridiculous it gets.
When Bucky drops Rocket, he asks how much he'd charge for that 
arm.

Elsewhere on the battlefield, Steve finds Thor in a clearing. 
They have the following conversation. 
   Steve: New haircut?
   Thor: I notice you've copied my beard.
Thor introduces Steve to his new friend Tree, who has just 
skewered three aliens at once with one of his arms. "I AM 
GROOT," Groot snarls, which probably translates to "DEATH TO 
ALIEN SCUM!" or something, but of course Steve just responds by 
earnestly introducing himself as Steve Rogers. 

A lot of rumbling and trees falling outside the dome precedes a 
giant multi wheeled monstrosity surfacing inside the dome - and 
seemingly disrupting the whole thing - before just plowing 
across the field. T'Challa orders everybody to fall back. 
Rhodey and Sam are coordinating in the air and Sam is shooting 
at one of the wheel things. And then before the wheels can cut 
down both Natasha and Okoye at once, Wanda drops in front of 
them, blasts the whole monstrosity into the air and brings it 
down on the approaching aliens. Natasha blinks at her and Okoye 
demands to know why this badass hasn't been helping them from 
the beginning down here.
   Chrissy: Because the writers like to use her as little 
   as possible.

Proxima has the actual answer from somewhere nearby. When she 
sees Wanda, she alerts Corvus that Vision's guard dog has left 
the building and he has a clear shot at the stone now. Corvus 
grunts, already most of the way into Shuri's lab, and takes out 
a guard right behind her. Shuri keeps working frantically while 
guards try to take him down, but has to give up, turning off 
all the lasers and display and taking up her own gauntlets to 
join the fight. She gets a couple blasts in before being kicked 
through a window into a lower level of the building along with 
one of the Dora Milaje. This is the last we will see of her 
until probably the next "Black Panther" movie. Sigh.

[ETA: I just realized that I'm identifying this Child of Thanos 
as the same guy who apparently died trying to get the mind 
stone in Scotland. Since I clearly have no idea who either of 
them is then, I will not be correcting this]

Vision comes out of nowhere and tackles Corvus through an 
exterior window, sliding down the building and into the trees 
at the edge of the battlefield. Sam spots this from wherever he 
is flying and alerts everyone that there's a "situation". Steve 
calls for somebody to back Vision up. Bruce heads that way. 
Wanda tries, but is knocked over by Proxima, who wastes time 
gloating over her like a good little villain. Specifically, she 
says both Wanda and Vision will die alone because this is set 
up for a line that actually works much better in this movie 
than it will in "Endgame" despite nobody seeming to remember 
it. "She's not alone," Natasha announces before she and Okoye 
leap on Proxima.

We check in with Vision again for a moment as Cull arrives and 
smashes him around a little. And then Bruce touches down in his 
Hulkbuster armor. Cull grabs him and slings him over to a 
picturesque waterfall to serve as backdrop to their fight. 
Bruce desperately tries to summon the Hulk again. His face 
morphs just long enough for Hulk to say "NO!" again and he 
yells "oh, screw you, you big green asshole!" This motivates 
him, even after Cull manages to rip a whole arm off his suit. 
Somehow he recovers it, attaches it to Cull's arm and turns on 
the blaster to send Cull shooting off into the air and 
exploding overhead and Jesus, what the hell did I just type?
   Chrissy: You really have no idea how to describe any of 
    this anymore, do you?
   Diandra: Not a clue.

Back to the epic girlfight. They are literally fighting in a 
trench and duck as one of the wheels goes shooting over the 
trench at one point.

Oh, wait. No, we're back with Vision. Corvus spears Vision and 
pauses long enough to taunt that he's no more of a threat than 
any HUMAN before letting him fall to the forest floor. And then 
Steve comes barreling from nowhere to tackle Corvus and shout 
at Vision to retreat.

Girlfight. Proxima gets Natasha pinned despite repeatedly 
losing her weapons. She goes to stab her with a new sword drawn 
from nowhere when Wanda uses a blast of energy to throw her 
into the air in the path of an oncoming wheel. Natasha, now 
covered in blue blood, mutters at Wanda that that was "really 
gross."
   Chrissy: Do you have ANY idea how difficult it is to get 
    brain matter stains out of this outfit? Because I DO 
    ACTUALLY AND I WAS REALLY HOPING I WOULDN'T HAVE TO DO 
    IT AGAIN.
   Diandra: Thank you. That makes that throwaway line so 
    much more awesome.

Steve relieves Corvus of his weapon - a spear - but Corvus 
still pins him to the ground. He is strangling Steve when his 
own spear comes bursting out of his chest and Vision uses it to 
lift him right off the ground before tossing him aside. Burst 
of energy having been used up, Vision then just collapses. 
Steve reminds him that he told him to RUN, but Vision throws 
their earlier conversation back in his face: "we don't trade 
lives, captain."

Back on Titan, Peter is dodging chunks of moon falling from the 
sky, carrying an unconscious Mantis. He catches Drax and Quill, 
also flying through the air unconscious, babbling "got you. Got 
you. Sorry, I can't remember anybody's names!"
   Emilio: There's too many people in this movie! 
   Diandra: Ahem. Yeah.


Elsewhere, Stephen swaggers toward Thanos like 'I've come to 
bargain!' He performs a new trick, blasting energy into the 
rock at his feet so it ricochets into Thanos. As Thanos is 
flying backward, he sends a beam of energy back to Stephen, who 
forms a wall of mirror universe in front of him to block it and 
send it back. Thanos gathers the now balled up energy and spins 
it back like they're playing some demented game of cosmic catch 
and Stephen stops it finally by forming a shield that somehow 
blasts the ball into a flock of magical butterflies. And I just 
re-read that last sentence and am wondering what the fuck I was 
ever thinking getting into recapping these movies. And we're 
not done yet. Stephen floats into the air and raises his hands 
over his head while replicating, giving him the appearance of a 
human Ganesha. He drops his hands and all the replicated 
versions of him fly off, surrounding Thanos.
   Chrissy: And this is when all the people who just ate 
    pot brownies start tripping.
   Emilio: You think they just started now?

All the replicated Stephens throw light magic whips around 
Thanos. Thanos - after a brief struggle - closes his fist and 
sends a blast of energy from the gauntlet through the web. All 
the copies of Stephen pop out of existence and Thanos drags the 
remaining real one to him and holds him up with a hand wrapped 
around his throat.
   Chrissy: What do you suppose it is about you that this 
    is becoming the go to method of subduing you?
   Diandra: Pretty sure it's not me. Dormammu was pretty 
    heavily biased toward stabbing. You seem to be the one 
    with a strangling fetish.
Thanos notes that it's interesting how he never once used the 
time stone while he was demonstrating his magical repertoire 
there. He rips the Eye of Agomotto from Stephen's neck and 
crushes it, letting the stone-less pile fall to the ground. 
Then he flings Stephen over onto some rocks, where he passes 
out.

Something flies into Thanos' hand, attaching itself to the 
gauntlet. It's red and shiny, so of course it came off of 
Tony's suit or something. He drops down in front of Thanos and 
snarls "you throw another moon at me and I'm gonna lose it." 
Thanos recognizes him by name, which...I don't know why we're 
just doing this now, but okay. Tony is surprised, but Thanos 
says "you're not the only one cursed with knowledge."
   Chrissy: So...does that mean he saw the future too? 
    Or...
   Diandra: I'm not sure I can address that theory without 
    it turning into a whole thing about what sort of time 
    travel is possible in the MCU and whether this 
    contradicts everything that will be in "Endgame". 
    Before "Endgame" went and contradicted itself in the 
    eleventh hour.

Tony launches tiny rockets from his suit and Thanos growls, 
clearly growing frustrated at how TEDIOUS THESE HUMANS ARE 
BEING just before they hit him. This does fuck all because, of 
course, as is becoming increasingly clear, Thanos cannot be 
killed. Tony pounds him into a wall of rocks a couple times 
before Thanos rips his "helmet" off. The nanites reform it 
before Thanos can punch him down. Thanos removes the doohickey 
Tony attached to the gauntlet - which was apparently rendering 
it useless - and sends a blast of energy at Tony. Tony forms a 
shield and hides behind it in a mirror of Stephen fighting 
Dormammu. Then he somehow pins Thanos' gauntlet hand to the 
ground and punches him. Thanos fingers the cut Tony put on his 
face and notes that that was a LOT of effort he just put into 
drawing a relatively little amount of blood.
   Emilio: Do you bleed?
   Diandra: Thank you for putting an image of Henry Cavill 
    in my head there.

Thanos knocks him to the ground and punches him repeatedly. 
Tony sends blasts from both hands into the gauntlet and Thanos 
just calmly walks up to him and clocks him with it. Tony's 
suit, struggling to keep up with reforming itself, starts 
malfunctioning and leaving giant uncovered spots and no helmet. 
Tony manages to get it to form a short sword and tries to stab 
Thanos, but this doesn't work any better than it did when 
anyone else has tried it. Thanos rips the sword from him and 
stabs HIM with it. Tony falls to his knees and Thanos puts his 
gauntlet hand on his head and condescendingly says Tony has his 
respect. And hey, just a reminder that half of humanity will 
still be alive after Thanos wins, so... "I hope they remember 
you." He backs up and gets ready to blast Tony with the 
gauntlet. This is when Stephen regains consciousness and yelps 
for him to stop. He looks at Stephen like 'god, you people just 
will not die, will you?' Stephen, slumped against some 
wreckage, promises to give Thanos the stone if he will spare 
Tony.
   Chrissy: Awww. I knew you were just bullshitting when 
    you said you would let me and the kid die earlier. You 
    really do love me.
   Diandra: No, I'm just afraid if he kills you you'll 
    become a martyr. People might start actually 
    worshipping you or something. 
   Chrissy: .........................my Watson is better 
    than your Watson.

Thanos turns the gauntlet on Stephen and growls at him to not 
try anything stupid. Tony pleads for Stephen to stop, but 
Stephen produces the time stone in mid air the same way Loki 
did the tesseract.
   Chrissy: Ah. Now I understand why you had Stephen and 
    Loki teaching each other stuff in your fic.
   Diandra: I thought it was a better explanation for how 
    they keep mirroring each other than "the writers are 
    just repeating themselves and assume all magical beings 
    have the same repertoire." Yeah.
Thanos holds out his non-gauntlet hand and Stephen flings the 
stone through the air toward him. It suctions to the spot over 
his thumb and he looks at the one remaining spot over the back 
of his hand and exposits "one to go." He forms a portal and 
leaves just as Quill comes running up, yelling and firing 
blindly in his general direction and splattering to the ground 
like a particularly stupid golden retriever when Thanos 
disappears. 

Tony uses some sort of...something on what's left of his suit 
to patch up his wound and looks at Stephen like 'what the 
actual fuck, dude?' Stephen just cryptically says "we're in the 
endgame now."

Back on Earth, the Wakandans are slaughtering the alien things 
and Thor is destroying the ships they came in on. Wanda lands 
beside Vision just before the stone emits a high pitch ringing 
or something that only he seems to hear and which causes pain. 
"He's here," he pants. Luckily, Steve, Natasha, Okoye, T'Challa 
and Bruce are all in the same place now as Thanos' portal 
appears. Thanos steps out to ridiculously ominous music and 
Bruce (probably unnecessarily) identifies him for Steve. Steve 
activates his new panther shields and runs at Thanos. Bruce 
does the same and gets there first, but Thanos somehow makes 
him go astral briefly or something so he passes right through 
him, then welds him into a nearby stone wall. He picks up Steve 
with a burst of energy and sends him flying. T'Challa jumps at 
him and Thanos just catches him mid-air by the neck in what is 
quickly becoming his signature move. Sam flies up shooting and 
seems to just plow right into the ground without Thanos even 
having to touch him.
   Emilio: I think he might have deactivated his wings, but 
    yeah. Badass as he might be, he's about as useful as 
    Hawkeye.
   Diandra: I'd say he's more on level with Widow. Badass 
    military, but without the superstrength (that Widow was 
    supposed to have by the way).
   Chrissy: Yeah, they really neutered her.
   Diandra: Well, what did you expect when they decided 
    their main audience was white males who are threatened 
    by strong women? They only decided they could do 
    Captain Marvel when "Wonder Woman" blew up and they 
    realized female leads actually CAN turn a profit. And 
    their white male audience still LOST IT'S SHIT before 
    the movie could even go into production, tried to tank 
    the ratings before it opened and generally complained 
    at every damn opportunity. 

A few feet away, Vision begs Wanda to finish it now because 
those guys are NOT going to be able to stop Thanos. She needs 
to destroy the stone now before it's too late. Of course, she 
is resistant, so this goes back and forth for a bit until her 
lip is quivering and she starts to cry. "It's all right," he 
says. "You could never hurt me. I just feel you." Which...is 
such a strange callback. She sobs as she starts sending a blast 
of energy into the stone in his forehead. 

Mournful music continues as Rhodey joins in the futile effort 
to hold Thanos back and Thanos crumples his suit around him. 
Bucky and Okoye run up, shooting and throwing a spear 
respectively, and get blasted back. Natasha gets buried under a 
bunch of chunks of ground that just come up around her. Groot 
tries to wrap him in branches and we don't see what Thanos does 
to him. Steve slides back into the fray and gets a few punches 
in and manages to hold off Thanos' gauntlet hand long enough 
that Thanos clearly registers how strong he is before he just 
punches him unconscious with the other hand.

Wanda is still blasting the mind stone. She lets go with one 
hand so she can hold Thanos back with a separate blast. This 
goes on for several full minutes before Vision says "it's all 
right. I love you." And he and the stone just explode, the 
shockwave going all the way back to the castle tower.

Thanos sighs and purrs that he totally understands what Wanda 
is going through right now. Wanda snarls at him to go fuck 
himself. Thanos sort of pets her hair and babbles about how 
he's lost more than they will ever know today.
   Chrissy: Somewhere there's a variation wherein she 
    becomes one of his "children".
   Diandra: Why? She's already Magneto's daughter.
   Chrissy: Wait...what?
   Emilio: Yep. Which means Quicksilver is his son.
   Chrissy: ...............so basically this is another way 
    in which the split between Avengers and X-Men has 
    screwed us out of a much more awesome story is what 
    you're saying.
   Diandra: Basically.

Thanos steps over her, activates his newly acquired time stone 
and rewinds the last couple minutes until Vision appears, 
unexploded. Wanda screams and Thanos knocks her back before 
performing his signature move: lifting Vision up by the neck 
with his gauntlet hand. He rips the mind stone right out with 
his other hand and Vision goes limp as his forehead caves in in 
a burst of circuitry sparks.

Thanos tosses his body aside and places the last stone in the 
gauntlet, screaming as energy dances up his arm. It stabilizes 
just before he is hit by a blast of lightning. He tries to 
blast at Thor as he's coming in for a landing and 
Thor...um...blocks it with Stormbreaker as he's throwing it. I 
guess. Thanos goes down on one knee, the axe imbedded in his 
chest. Thor lands in front of him and takes a moment to remind 
him of the beginning of the movie where he swore he'd kill 
Thanos. Thanos is like 'learn all your moves from Bond 
villains, do you?' Thor drives the axe deeper into his chest 
and he screams and goes kind of limp. Then he grunts between 
labored breaths "you should have...you..." Once he has Thor 
convinced he's won, he revives a little and growls "you should 
have gone for the head." He holds up the gauntlet and snaps.

He is transported to a world with an orangish sky, sans 
gauntlet or gaping chest wound. The ground is all covered in a 
thin layer of water, like the place he woke up in with the soul 
stone, and the only feature is an Asian style arch. Little 
Gamora is standing beneath it. This is soul world, which Gamora 
is now ruler of and which he has now been sucked into by...oh, 
right, that's the comics. It doesn't work like that in these 
movies. My bad.
   Chrissy: Is this...what you're doing in your fic?
   Diandra: Maybe. I just had a revelation that might 
    slightly alter how the fic ends though.
   Chrissy: What, just now?
   Diandra: Let's just say I'm now thinking of how I might 
    incorporate ideas from that last season of Torchwood.
   Emilio: Well, I think it might be official. These recaps 
    have broken her brain.
   Chrissy: Can you break something that never really 
    worked in the first place?
   Diandra: Hey!

Gamora turns around and asks if he did it then. He says yes 
almost without moving his mouth at all. She asks what it cost. 
"Everything," he says sadly. She looks like she's going to 
start crying and we snap back to the real world where the 
gauntlet is smoking and charred, along with part of Thanos' 
arm. Thor asks "what did you do," like this hasn't been 
detailed many times over by now. Thanos raises the glove again 
with a wince and shoots himself through a portal, Stormbreaker 
just falling to the ground where he was, the blade covered in 
purple blood.

Steve staggers up and asks what happened to Thanos. And while 
most people (who are not me) claim they don't hear the musical 
score of movies, it is really noticeable when it is suddenly 
absent. This entire sequence is just dialogue and sound 
effects. Bucky staggers toward Steve, calling his name and 
becomes the first casualty of the snap as his body - metal arm 
included - just crumbles and hits the ground as a pile of dust. 
Steve falls to his knees and touches the spot where Bucky just 
was in confused horror.

Out on the battlefield, Wakandans are all crumbling mid-step as 
well around M'Baku. A plane falls right out of the sky and 
crashes.
   Chrissy: Everett was piloting it.
   Diandra: No. That's a terrible fanwank.

T'Challa finds Okoye on the forest floor and urges her to get 
up because "this is no place to die!" He starts to help her up, 
but she falls back down again as he turns to dust.
   Chrissy: I wouldn't call that dust. It looks kind of 
    like burnt paper. Which kind of makes sense if you 
    think of how we are carbon based.
   Diandra: I guess...but I'm just going to keep calling it 
    dust because it makes more sense in writing.

"I am Groot," Groot gurgles as he turns to dust in front of 
Rocket. The script writer who insists there are actual 
translations of his lines - given to Vin Diesel so he can 
properly inflect it - says that the translation of that 
particular line was "Dad?" Given that Rocket understands him 
perfectly...that really fucking sucks.

Wanda - huddled over Vision's body - starts dissolving feet 
first. Her grieving expression melts into relief by the time 
her head disappears.
 
Sam crumbles one second before Rhodey enters the frame calling 
for him. We see Okoye starting to cry for a moment as Rhodey 
continues calling Sam from nearby.

Titan. Apparently everybody has just been sitting around 
stupidly for the last few minutes since Thanos left. Peter is 
just now helping Tony up as the Guardians approach. Mantis 
announces that something is happening a second before she turns 
to dust and blows past a startled Quill. Drax has enough time 
to register that he's disintegrating and say "Quill?" Quill 
looks at Tony, starts hyperventilating, then stops and just 
says "oh, man" before dissolving too. Stephen calls Tony's 
name, apologetically says "there was no other way" and 
dissolves.
   Emilio: And he joins Everett in Soul World where they 
    instantly get the feeling they know each other from 
    somewhere even though they've never met.
   Diandra: No. Stop with the prompts.
   Chrissy: Yeah, she hasn't written JohnLock in years. I 
    doubt she could carry that into the MCU.
   Emilio: I never said it was a NEW story prompt.
   Diandra: .............goddamn it, that might actually 
    work.

And now for the worst one. Peter staggers toward Tony, moaning 
"I don't feel so good". He staggers and falls into Tony and 
cries "I don't wanna go," repeatedly as Tony bears him to the 
ground. Then he calms a little, says "I'm sorry" and turns to 
dust. 
   Chrissy: And all the people who read Tom Holland's "I 
    was blown away" tweet regarding the end of the movie 
    collectively groaned.
   Diandra: And the executives at Marvel were just glad 
    that wasn't really a spoiler.

"He did it," Nebula concludes needlessly before making an 
awkward attempt to comfort Tony as he sits and cries.

Steve crouches over Vision's body. Natasha, Bruce, Thor, Rhodey 
and Rocket all gather in the frame. Rhodey asks what "this" is. 
"What the hell is happening?" Everyone just hangs their head in 
defeat and Steve mutters "oh, God."

Somewhere in a remote, beautiful wilderness, Thanos staggers to 
the opening of a thatch hut and sits, watching nature and 
breathing in the fresh air. He smiles. And we go to credits.

There is only one post-credit scene this time and it's a short 
one. Fury and Maria Hill are driving through Manhattan 
discussing whether or not they have any news from Tony and the 
"multiple bogeys" spotted over Wakanda with an energy signal 
ten times the one they got when that ship arrived in New York. 
An SUV suddenly spins wildly out of control and into their 
path. They hit it, but they are going slowly so they're 
probably barely even bruised. They get out. Maria approaches 
the driver window. Fury asks if they're okay. She says the car 
is empty. This might be explainable if it was self driving, but 
at that moment a helicopter in the distance does a similar 
uncontrolled spin, smashing into a building. People start 
running and screaming and Fury orders Hill to call in a Code 
Red. Before she can do anything, she turns to dust. 

Fury backs away from the spot where she was and darts for the 
car, pulling an electronic device from a bag on the back. He 
manages to type something into it before his arm starts to 
dissolve. And of course, his last word as he crumbles to dust 
is "motherf-" The device drops to the pavement. It is an old 
pager, beeping as it sends his message. We zoom in on it and 
Captain Marvel's emblem appears in the little window.
   Chrissy: Yep. The men have all failed. Time to call in 
    the big guns.
   Diandra: So she can be mostly absent and not really do 
    much when she does show up. Yeah.
   Chrissy: I'm trying to take annoyances one at a time 
    these days. 
   Diandra: We never did agree on what we would recap in 
    order to recover from this.
   Emilio: I like the idea of going back and doing some of 
    the movies in this series you skipped.
   Chrissy: Dude. I had a chance to finally get her to do 
    "The Night Manager". 
   Diandra: That wasn't one of the original choices. Okay, 
    we're doing "Iron Man" then.
   Chrissy: [pouts]