"Iron Man"

Chrissy: Can I just say that the way your copy of this 
 movie identifies itself is hilarious? IRON_MAN_DOM. Sure.
Diandra: While we're at it, can I say that I misread the 
 rating/warning to include "brief suggestion of content"?
Chrissy: Ha! Well, that kind of highlights the assumptions 
 people made about these movies in the beginning.
Diandra: In the beginning? Did you miss the whole Martin 
 Scorsese debacle?
Chrissy: Point. I did honestly try to avoid that insanity 
 though.
Diandra: Yeah, the fact that I endured days of "Martin 
 Scorsese is an old white dude with bad taste who makes 
 shitty movies" takes is probably what drove me to take 
 several steps back from fandom. (Well, that and Star Wars 
 fans, but if I get into that we'll never start this 
 recap). I mean, not that I'm a big fan of his, but you 
 can't seriously expect to make an objective comparison 
 between "Raging Bull" and these fluff pieces based on 
 comic books.
Chrissy: What was that gross analogy you made several 
 recaps back? That you forget the plot of these after you 
 see them because they are "Chinese food for the brain"?
Diandra: Yeah, maybe candy would have been a better 
 analogy. Pretty, sugar coated junk food for the brain.

You know? I kind of miss the old title card without the 
fanfare.

We open on the desert with mountains in the background. A 
convoy drives along a road in the distance and the chyron 
identifies this as Afghanistan. There's no year, but going by 
the AC/DC song blaring from the boom box on the floor of one of 
the jeeps, it's probably the 90s. A couple soldiers eye Tony 
Stark, who is dressed exactly as you'd expect a rich asshole to 
be dressed here: inappropriately. He has a glass of scotch or 
something in one hand. He babbles that they're being way too 
serious here and he feels like they're taking him to some sort 
of court martial or they're going to just pull over at some 
point and "snuff" him or... something.

The woman driving the jeep explains that he just intimidates 
her colleagues here and he is surprised to realize that one of 
them is a woman. Then he babbles that he would apologize for 
not realizing that before, but isn't the goal of equality 
supposed to be that he can't tell the difference between men 
and women? If you think the goal of racial equality is that you 
can't "see color" then yes. And stop talking. He tries to 
diffuse the awkwardness by flirting a little. 

The guy in the jump seat turns to ask him a question. That 
question being whether or not it's true that he "went 12 for 12 
with last year's Maxim cover model".
   Chrissy: Well, that's one way to establish the whole 
   playboy thing within a minute of dialogue.
He says he had a scheduling conflict with March, but December 
was twins, so... The other guy asks if he can take a picture 
with him and hands a camera to the guy in front. For another 
time reference, Tony warns the guy to not put it on his MySpace 
page. He also tells him not to flash any gang signs when the 
kid flashes a peace sign, then says he's kidding when the kid 
looks flustered.

Before the guy can take the picture, there is an explosion on 
the road in front of the jeep. They stop and the soldiers start 
shouting at each other while Tony frantically asks what's going 
on. Uh, I'm going to go with somebody hit a mine. You're in a 
war zone. The guy in front yells at the one who wanted his 
picture taken to stay with Tony and he and the woman get out 
and are basically immediately killed. The kid gets out too and 
Tony yelps for him to at least give him a gun or something. The 
kid tells him to stay put, turns his back on him and is 
immediately mowed down by approximately twenty five rounds. 
Tony staggers from the jeep and runs for cover behind the 
nearest rock. He starts dialing something frantically into his 
cell phone, but is interrupted by a bomb landing beside him. It 
is clearly labeled "Stark Industries". He gets up, but the bomb 
is already going off and the explosion knocks him flat. Blood 
starts blooming from all the shrapnel wounds on his torso and 
he loses consciousness...

...waking up in a cave somewhere surrounded by armed Taliban, 
one of them pointing a camera in his face.

Smash to the movie title card. 
   Chrissy: I forgot how fast the setup was on this. It's 
   not even 5 minutes in.

Las Vegas, 36 hours earlier.
   Chrissy: Ah. Well. That explains it.
   Diandra: Yes, the old "x days earlier" plot construction 
    that allows the writer to lead with the action sequence 
    before getting to the less exciting exposition.

We are in a dining hall where a multimedia presentation 
probably written by Tony himself is playing. The narrator 
gushes about Tony and how very BRILLIANT he has always been 
from the time he was a child, building electronics while normal 
children were in preschool being scolded for trying to eat 
paste. There's a brief picture of his father Howard, who seems 
to be played by neither Dominic Cooper nor John Slattery. 
There's some photoshopped magazine covers that seem to feature 
actual pictures of Robert Downey Jr. One of them has a headline 
questioning whether the arc reactor will solve the energy 
crisis, so...apparently he invented it when he was six. He 
graduated from MIT at 17, just before his parents died 
tragically and Howard's friend Obediah Stane (played here by a 
bald Jeff Bridges) took over the company until Tony turned 21 
and apparently automatically became CEO. We see Obediah in the 
audience applauding so apparently he had no aspirations to 
continue heading the company himself and was perfectly fine 
with this temporary arrangement. I'm sure.

So because Stark Industries was already into weapons 
manufacturing, Tony basically just upgraded them to building 
better, smarter weapons. The narrator insists this ensured 
"freedom" and protected America, which I guess means this 
presentation was put together by somebody in the military, 
actually. The video ends and a spotlight shines on the stage 
where Terrence Howard is standing behind a podium that says 
"Caesar's Palace". Oh, right. Rhodey was played by a completely 
different actor in those days.
   Chrissy: So was The Hulk.
   Diandra: Yeah, which was the next movie in the series. 
    These were the days before they signed actors up for 
    multiples movies at once. No, scratch that. These were 
    the days before they KNEW there would be multiple 
    movies they would need the actors to sign up for.
He is wearing a uniform with medals pinned all over it. He 
exposits that he is a liaison to Stark Industries and friend to 
Tony and has therefore been privileged to work with His Nibs 
directly. This is all a lead in to presenting Tony with an 
Apogee award, except he is not present to accept it. Obediah 
gets up to accept it in his place, which James is grateful for 
as he probably makes a mental note to give Tony hell for 
skipping the ceremony to bang a couple hookers in the hotel or 
something. Just a wild guess there.

Obediah gives a generic acceptance speech that he imagines Tony 
would give if he were here and had recently had a personality 
transplant. "The best thing about Tony is also the worst 
thing," he adds. "He's always working." Which is, of course, 
the cue to show what he's actually doing at the moment which 
turns out to be shooting craps surrounded by pretty women, at 
least one of which he is obviously planning to have sex with 
later. Rhodey crashes in on him to say 'WHY AM I NOT SURPRISED 
TO FIND YOU HERE?' Tony expresses surprise that "they rope[d] 
you into this." Rhodey says no, they just convinced him Tony 
would be especially honored if he was the one presenting the 
award. Tony says of course he would. When is that again? Rhodey 
is like 'I have it right here. Would you like me to hand it to 
you or just shove it up your ass?'
   Chrissy: Yeah, I'm thinking that's not actually all that 
   easy a choice for Tony.

Tony apologizes and Rhodey is like 'nah, I should have expected 
this.' Tony hands the award to the bimbo, then places a new bet 
and invites her to blow on the dice in his hand for luck. Then 
he invites Rhodey to blow on them too, which leads to this 
hilarious exchange:
   Rhodey: I don't blow on a man's dice.
   Tony: Come on, honey bear!
   Chrissy: Okay, first of all...isn't that the pet name   
    Deadpool was using for one of the X-Force guys? And 
    second...you say you don't, but...
Rhodey swats his hand, knocking the dice across the table where 
they land in snake eyes. Tony pouts and Rhodey is like 'yeah, 
that's what you get, bitch.'

On his way out the door of the casino, Tony hands his award to 
a guy dressed like Caesar with the quote "render unto Caesar 
that which is Caesar's." The guy blinks after him like 'what am 
I supposed to do with this?'
   Chrissy: Ask Rhodey.

Happy, who also happens to be the director of this movie, is 
opening the door to the limo for Tony when a woman runs up 
announcing herself as Christine Everhart from Vanity Fair. She 
wants to ask him a couple questions. "She's cute?" Tony mutters 
under his breath at Happy. Happy says yeah, she's not bad and 
Tony turns to greet her because yeah...he's a pig who will only 
talk to women he finds attractive. She begins by noting that he 
has been called "the da Vinci of our time" and asks what he 
thinks of that label. He thinks it's ridiculous since he 
doesn't paint. She says okay, how about the other nickname: 
"The Merchant of Death"? Her dumb blonde smile disappears. "Let 
me guess," Tony says "Berkley?" She says Brown and shoves her 
recorder closer to his face. "It's an imperfect world, but it's 
the only one we've got," he spins. "I guarantee you the day 
weapons are no longer needed to keep the peace I'll start 
making bricks and beams for baby hospitals." She asks how often 
he's rehearsed that answer. He says every night in front of a 
mirror.
   Chrissy: This is the part where my reflection usually 
   notes what a noble and handsome man I am.

Then he propositions her because of course he does. He doesn't 
have an off switch yet. She says she just wants him to give her 
an honest answer. He says fine. His dad's philosophy was "peace 
means having a bigger stick than the other guy."
   Chrissy: I'm still trying to figure out whether he meant 
   that literally or if it was just a euphemism for 
   "penis".
Christine sneers that that's rich coming from the guy selling 
the "sticks". He says nah, his dad helped defeat the Nazis. So 
did J.R.R Tolkein and Roald Dahl. Doesn't mean they weren't 
also racist pieces of shit who would probably love this new 
breed of Nazi we have in the United States today. But because 
people tend to use this as an argument ender that proves a 
person's morality forever he says most people would declare his 
dad a national hero. Christine says yeah...and a war profiteer. 
Tony starts losing his cool and takes off his sunglasses to 
illustrate that he is SERIOUS now as he asks if she's planning 
on reporting the millions of people saved by their advancements 
in medical technology or fed with "intelli-crops" because that 
was all paid for with military funding. 

Her lips twitch and she asks if he ever loses sleep. He invites 
her to find out for herself. And we cut right to them falling 
into bed together because apparently this works for him.

At 7am the next morning, the lights in the bedroom come on 
where Christine is sprawled on the bed alone and fast asleep. 
Jarvis announces the time, weather and surfing conditions 
because this is back when Jarvis was still just a disembodied 
voice. The nighttime view outside the window turns to day and 
she stumbles toward it, blinking as we pan out over the 
McMansion built into a cliff in Malibu.

She puts on underwear and a shirt and wanders around the house 
looking for Tony. She barely touches a panel on the wall 
curiously and an alarm blares and Jarvis announces that she 
isn't authorized to access that. Pepper appears behind her, 
dressed in a business suit, and explains that Jarvis controls 
the whole house. She hands Christine her clothes in a dry 
cleaning bag and says there's a car waiting for her out front.
   Chrissy: I imagine they have done this routine a few 
   times, so they've already warned the driver that he 
   doesn't need to pay this one.
Christine recognizes Pepper Potts - Tony Stark's assistant - 
and snottily notes that after "all these years" she's still 
picking up Tony's dry cleaning. Pepper blinks at her like 'I 
would claw your eyes out, but this floor was just cleaned, 
so...' and says she does whatever Tony needs her to do 
"including occasionally taking out the trash." So, you 
know...if you could put some pants on maybe I could get on with 
that?

Tony is fiddling with an old car in his workshop with Jarvis 
assisting when Pepper comes in, phone pressed to her ear. She 
tells the person on the other end that she'll try again right 
now and keep them posted, then tells Tony that he's supposed to 
be on the other side of the world right now. Tony's like 
'eh...so how did kicking my latest floozy out go?' She says 
seriously, he was supposed to be on a plane an hour and a half 
ago. He points out that the plane can wait for him, seeing as 
he owns it. She says whatever, she needs to get him going and 
she needs to ask him about a couple things first. He's still 
rambling about the plane, but she has obviously already learned 
to ignore half of what he says. She says they have another 
buyer for the Jackson Pollock and they need to know how badly 
he wants it. He asks if it's a good representation of his 
"Spring Period". She says that's not a thing. The Springs was 
where he lived. But whatever it is, it's overpriced. This 
apparently convinces him he needs it and should definitely buy 
it then. She smiles like someone who understands making a 
career out of selling wealthy people overpriced bullshit nobody 
needs.

The other question is about a commencement speech he's supposed 
to give at MIT. He says that's not until June and why is she 
bugging him about it now? She says because MIT is bugging her 
and she's just going to say yes then and oh, can he sign this? 
He circles back to asking why she's in such a hurry to get rid 
of him, because I guess the fact that he's supposed to be at 
something he agreed to go to and he's late isn't a good enough 
reason. She says fine, she has plans for her birthday. He says 
oh, right. It's your birthday. I totally knew that already. She 
says yeah, funny how it's the exact same day every year and yet 
you are surprised every time.
   Chrissy: But his birthday is a national holiday, I bet.
   Diandra: Of course.
He tells her to get herself something nice. She says she 
already did.
   Chrissy: Although I wouldn't really use the word "nice" 
    considering the things I plan to have him do to me 
    later.
   Diandra: So she bought herself a male escort?
   Chrissy: Something like that.

So Tony drives a fancy ass sports car like a bat out of hell to 
the private airfield where his jet is waiting. A guy in another 
car is right behind him, apparently with him. James is waiting 
at the top of the gangplank and asks what the fuck dude? You 
were supposed to be here three hours ago? Tony says he "got 
caught doing a piece for Vanity Fair."
   Chrissy: You like my wording there? I came up with it 
   this morning in the shower while I was counting the 
   scratches and bruises.
Tony runs past him onto the plane like 'whatever, let's go!' 

Sometime later, Tony asks "sour patch" what he's sulkily 
reading over on the other side of the table.
   Chrissy: Come on, you know you can't stay mad at me, 
    sugar bear!
   Diandra: THAT is the nickname Deadpool used.
   Chrissy: Yeah, I just remembered that.
Stewardesses keep interjecting in their little lover's spat to 
bring Tony things and James is seriously sounding like a long 
suffering wife here. I'm not mad. I love you. It's just that 
sometimes I want to hold a pillow over your face until you stop 
struggling. "You don't respect yourself, so I know you don't 
respect me."
   Chrissy: Is this about that time I fell asleep before 
   you were finished? Because I'd had a really long day!

James says no, he knows he's just the babysitter, so when Tony 
needs a diaper change "just let me know and I'll get you a 
bottle." You don't actually have kids, do you? This reminds 
Tony that somebody should start heating up the sake. James says 
what? No, we're WORKING. You can't be DRINKING right now.
   Chrissy: Please. I do my best work when I'm drinking.
   Diandra: Yeah, I'm starting to see how this role play 
    really suits you.
   Chrissy: I will take that as a compliment.
Tony says they can't have sashimi without sake, so... James 
grumbles that Tony is "constitutionally incapable" of being a 
mature adult. Tony says come on, it's just a "nightcap".
   Chrissy: Lord knows I won't convince you to join the 
   Mile High Club with me if you're sober.
The stewardess brings over the sake and starts pouring and 
James says he will NOT be having any because he's working.

Sometime later, they are slouched against each other and Tony 
has a glass of what looks like champagne while James is holding 
what looks like the rest of the bottle of champagne.
   Chrissy: So did you bring the lube or did Pepper put it 
   in one of my bags?
Actually, Tony is a bit distracted from whatever James is 
drunkenly ranting about by the stewardesses who are dancing 
around a pole in the middle of the plane.
   Chrissy: Hey, I'm up for an orgy if everybody else is.
   Emilio: Title of your sex tape?
   Diandra: Oh, hey, you're here! We started without you.
   Emilio: I see that. And Chrissy is obviously fully 
    immersed in her character already. Which one are you?
   Diandra: Haven't really figured it out yet. Probably 
    whoever Tony is talking to at any given moment.

Morning. Afghanistan. Tony swaggers off the plane like he isn't 
hung over and greets a general who exposits that they are 
looking forward to his weapons presentation.
   Emilio: You okay there? You're kind of limping.
   Chrissy: Nah, it's not that bad. The key is to do some 
    stretches beforehand. And I don't just mean the ones 
    for the legs. Rhodey is very well endow....haha I mean, 
    I was totally banging the hookers. 
   Diandra: Nice save there, Wonder Boy.

We go right to the weapons presentation/propaganda shoot. Tony 
starts by asking if it's better to be respected or feared.
   Diandra: What are Things You Talk About With Your 
    Therapist for $1,000.
   Chrissy: BUT ENOUGH ABOUT MY DAD.
   Emilio: Well, that took an unexpected dark turn.
He says they don't have to choose - they can have both. He 
introduces the "crown jewel of the Stark Industries Freedom 
Line", a missile system incorporating their latest and greatest 
tech for guidance. "They say the best weapon is the one you 
don't have to fire. I respectfully disagree. I prefer the 
weapon you only have to fire once. That's how dad did it, 
that's how America does it. And it's worked out pretty well so 
far."
   Chrissy: Is it really any wonder it was so easy to take 
    Cap's side of the Civil War?
   Diandra: Pfuh. You know, I get that Tony's story is one 
    of redemption - how he started basically in line with 
    the bad guys and has been trying to get better since 
    (up to the point of actually saving the entire 
    universe), but I feel like there are a lot of people 
    who have forgotten just how unlikeable he was before he 
    nearly died.
   Emilio: He and Doctor Strange have similar origin 
    stories. Arrogant asshole nearly dies, gets a 
    conscience, becomes a superhero.
   Chrissy: Which is why having them meet in "Infinity War" 
    was so fun.
   Diandra: Yeah, they do like their repeating storylines, 
    don't they?

He gestures and one of the nearby rockets launches, blowing 
apart into several smaller pieces mid-air and raining down in a 
line in front of the mountains in the distance in a series of 
explosions to punctuate his final statement that it is called 
the Jericho. The concussive wave from the explosion nearly 
knocks him over and blows the hats off the nearest soldiers. 
Then he saunters over to a portable refrigerated bar, gets an 
already poured drink and toasts "peace".

His phone buzzes...I guess...and he answers, holding up his 
phone so we can see that it is a video call from Stane. Who is 
calling from his bed and quite possibly naked. Certainly 
shirtless. "Obie, what are you doing up," he asks like this 
sort of call is totally normal.
   Emilio: I had a dream about you and - long story short - 
    I needed to see your face.
   Chrissy: Are you touching yourself right now?
   Emilio: Well...I'm already "up", so...
"Obie" actually says he couldn't sleep until he found out how 
the deal went. Tony says it went great and it's looking like 
Christmas will be coming early.
   Emilio: Oh, good, "presents" to unwrap. 
   Chrissy: [at the same time] Yeah, that won't be the only 
    thing coming early.
   Diandra: This is going to be a very long, creepy recap, 
    isn't it?

Obie praises Tony and calls him "my boy" and says he'll see him 
tomorrow. 
   Emilio: Or, actually, in my dreams once I go to sleep 
   here.
Tony asks why Obie isn't wearing the pajamas he bought him.
   Chrissy: Or...like...literally any pajamas you pervert. 
   Are you even wearing, like, boxers or anything down 
   there?
Obie doesn't answer. He just says good night and hangs up. 

Tony gets in the military jeep from the opening scene. Rhodey 
runs over to it and Tony tells him to get in the other one back 
there so he doesn't harsh his buzz or something because he is 
dubbing this Humvee the "funvee". Rhodey just says "nice job" 
through a clenched jaw and they part with a promise to meet up 
back at the base.

And now that we're basically caught up, we fast forward to the 
part where everything went to hell when the jeep in front of 
the convoy exploded and then straight through some shady ass 
surgery where the doctor is using chloroform to knock Tony out.

He wakes up and grossly rips the tube out of his nose and 
knocks over a dish on the table next to him. He sees a bottle 
sitting behind it and goes to grab it but is stopped short by 
the wires leading under his shirt. The doctor, who is calmly 
shaving in a nearby mirror, ominously tells him "I wouldn't do 
that if I were you." Tony looks at the car battery the wires 
are attached to and follows them with increasing horror to the 
hunk of metal embedded in his chest, hidden beneath the shirt 
and bandages. 

And then we fast forward to him sitting up on the bed, asking 
the doctor (who is now cooking over a fire) what the FUCK he 
did. The doctor says he saved his life and he's welcome. He 
removed as much shrapnel as he could, but there was a LOT he 
couldn't remove and it was headed for his atrial septum. He 
hands Tony a vial with some of the shrapnel he could remove. He 
says they called people with wounds like the one Tony came in 
with The Walking Dead in his village because it usually takes 
about a week for the shrapnel they can't retrieve to reach 
vital organs and kill the person.
   Chrissy: And then the corpse starts lumbering around and 
    trying to eat people.
   Diandra: No, not that kind of Walking Dead.
   Emilio: Ooo, I have a crossover idea...
   Diandra: NO!
Tony interrupts to ask what this thing in his chest is. Doc 
says it's an electromagnet powered by that car battery and it's 
there to keep the shrapnel away from his heart.
   Chrissy: Where the fuck did you even get your medical 
    degree?
   Emilio: Do they have those at Trump University? 

Tony zips up his hoodie and glares at the camera in the corner 
of the room. The doctor notices and says "that's right. Smile!"
   Chrissy: And now we know why you probably don't have a 
   license to practice in an actual hospital. And why I 
   feel sticky.
Doc Creepy says he and Tony actually met once at a technical 
conference in Bern. Tony says he doesn't remember. Doc Creepy 
says that's not surprising as he was so drunk he could barely 
stand.
   Emilio: Also, I may have slipped a roofie into your 
    drink.
   Diandra: Why are you always jumping in to play the 
    creepy ones?
   Emilio: Because someone has to?
He says somehow, despite the inebriation, Tony was able to give 
a lecture on integrated circuits.

Someone yells from the other side of a steel door and the 
doctor hisses at Tony to stand up. He tugs him away from the 
cot and tells him to just follow his lead and put his hands on 
his head. A guy enters flanked by two other heavily armed guys 
and rambles in unsubtitled Arabic with a heavily accented "Tony 
Stark" in the middle of it. The doctor translates that he's 
welcoming Tony as "the most famous mass murderer in the history 
of America." Never heard of the Trail of Tears, huh? The 
terrorist says it's an honor and he would like Tony to build 
the missile he demonstrated for the Americans for him. Tony is 
like 'uh...is he nuts? Fuck no.'

So we skip to the terrorists playing How Long Can You Hold Your 
Breath with Tony in a tank of water. Then we skip to them 
escorting him to an area where they stash all the Stark 
Industries weapons they've collected. The head terrorist tells 
Tony through the doctor that they have everything he needs to 
construct the Jericho missile, they just need him to make a 
list of what, exactly, he will need so he can start working 
immediately. He will set him free when he's finished. Tony 
smiles, shakes the guy's hand with the hand not holding the car 
battery hooked up to his chest and says "no, he won't." The 
doctor agrees, but also smiles and nods at the terrorist to 
show that he is on the same page.

That night, the doctor tells Tony that while he's sure his 
people are looking for him, there's no hope of them finding him 
in the mountains. Oh, and that arsenal they've built out there? 
"That is your legacy, Stark. Your life's work, in the hands of 
those murderers. Is that how you want to go out?"
   Chrissy: Subtle. 
   Diandra: Considering he probably should have died from 
    that bullshit surgery you did and wouldn't have even 
    known any of this...
   Chrissy: Except for the part where this is exactly what 
    that reporter was saying and he just deluded himself 
    into thinking he was only arming the good guys.
The doctor asks if he's finally going to do something about 
this. Tony finally asks why he should bother since those guys 
will probably just kill both of them anyway. And even if they 
don't kill him, he'll probably die in a week or so because 
there's no way this bullshit implant is going to keep him alive 
to build an entire decade-long franchise. The doctor is like 
'as I said...your legacy.' Tony is like 'yeah, okay.' And we 
cut to him directing workers to build a workshop with the 
doctor translating.

Day again. As he's taking apart one of the missiles, Tony asks 
who these people are, exactly. The doctor says they call 
themselves the Ten Rings and they are loyal customers of his, 
whether he knew that or not. We sort of fast-forward through 
Tony taking various things apart while the Ten Rings guys watch 
the camera feed. At one point, the doctor offers to help to 
make it go more efficiently and Tony just ignores him. Then he 
actually does help when it comes to pouring molten metal into a 
mold because he has steadier hands. "Why do you think you're 
still alive?"
   Chrissy: Honestly, a shitload of luck, a Marvel contract 
   and, given what doing this movie did to my career, a 
   pact with the devil. 
Tony finally asks what the doctor's name is. It's Yinsen.

When it's cooled, Tony pops out the ring they made and we jog 
through him creating some sort of circular device out of it 
with wires and lights that power up if he connects them to the 
car battery. Yinsen finally notes that this isn't looking like 
part of the Jericho missile. Tony says nope. It's a mini 
version of the arc reactor he has powering the factory back 
home and it's to replace the car battery he's lugging around. 
Yinsen asks how much power it generates. Tony spits a number 
and Yinsen says yes, that would keep his heart going long after 
he's dead of old age. "Or something big for fifteen minutes," 
Tony says ominously. He shows Yinsen a diagram of what looks 
like a giant robot, instantly recognizable to anyone familiar 
with Iron Man as a crude 1.0 version of his suit. He says this 
is what is going to get them out of this hellhole.

We see Yinsen install the reactor in his chest via the camera 
footage.

And then they're playing Backgammon and Tony casually notes 
that he doesn't know where Yinsen is from. Yinsen says a small 
town called Gulmira. Tony asks if he has a family. Yes and he 
will definitely be seeing them when he leaves this place.
   Chrissy: Oh, please don't tell me you have a picture of 
    them in your wallet that you want to show me.
   Diandra: I don't think it matters, the cliché applies no 
    matter what.
Yinsen asks if Tony has family. Uh...no. Not for a while.

Sometime later, the leader peeks through the hole in the door 
and is satisfied to see the two of them working on something 
that involves soldering sparks. But when they look at the 
camera feed, they can't figure out why what they're working on 
looks nothing like the pictures they have of the missile. 
Another guy - obviously not the brains of the operation - 
suggests it is modified and they are looking at the picture 
upside down.

At some point, one of the guys who actually has some 
intelligence notices Tony testing a piece on his leg for range 
of motion and they burst into the room to ask just what the 
fuck he's doing here. Apparently the smart one is the actual 
leader, not the one they've been dealing with so far. And he 
speaks English. In fact, he speaks supervillain English, which 
involves rambling speeches about history and philosophy or 
whatever bullshit the writers majored in. He rambles about 
weapons of war in the times of Ghengis Khan and the Romans and 
ends with the fact that the most powerful people in this area 
these days have Stark weaponry. Then he switches to a different 
language to speak to Yinsen about how he let him live and he is 
really letting him down now. Yinsen says it's a very complex 
machine he's building and they're TRYING. 

Leader has his men force Yinsen to the ground, picks a flaming 
hot coal out of the fire and orders him to open his mouth. And 
even though this is not in English, the fact that Tony asks 
"what does he want" here makes him seem particularly clueless. 
He forces Yinsen's head onto an anvil and demands he tell him 
the truth. Yinsen says they're building Jericho. Tony finally 
gets the idea that he's upset they're not moving faster and 
tries to intervene, getting approximately two dozen guns 
pointed at him. But this makes the leader pause, so Tony argues 
that he needs the guy because he's been a good assistant. 
Leader drops the coal near Yinsen's face and says they have 
until tomorrow.
   Chrissy: If this were a cable series, that would have 
    gone very differently.
   Diandra: Yes. Thankfully, it isn't.

And we get another montage of Tony doing an impression of a 
blacksmith, hammering pieces of metal that are obviously pieces 
of armor. Yinsen helps him put it on and test his range of 
motion while making him repeat "41 steps straight ahead, then 
16 steps from the door, fork right 33 steps, turn right."

Leader goes to check the security cameras, which show only 
Yinsen because Tony is hidden behind an overturned table while 
they're doing this. He orders a guy to go check that out. The 
guard interprets this as shouting angry demands through the 
peephole in the door. Tony hisses at Yinsen to say something to 
the guy. Yinsen says he would if he spoke Hungarian, which is 
what that guy is speaking. We pan down to see something 
attached to the inside of the door before the Hungarian orders 
another guard to open it. It is a bomb that blows them and the 
door backward.

Leader sees this a second before the screen for that camera 
goes static. Everyone starts shouting and scrambling.

Yinsen looks at the hole where the door used to be and says 
'yep, that worked.' Tony is like 'see, I told you I know how to 
blow stuff up.'
   Emilio: Up? Oh. I might have misunderstood then.
   Chrissy: Well, he can do that too. He has a lot of 
    talents.
   Diandra: I'm surprised neither of you suggested he tell 
    the Hungarian he was almost finished jerking Tony off a 
    minute ago.
   Chrissy: Well...I wasn't thinking about that then, but 
    NOW I AM THANK YOU.
Yinsen looks back down and says he just has to finish this. 
"Initialize the power sequence," Tony instructs.
   Chrissy: You know, you have some really weird 
    euphemisms, buddy.
   Diandra: Okay, you don't get extra credit for this now. 
    Settle down.

Yinsen turns to a computer keyboard while Tony instructs him to 
hit F11 and tell him when he sees a progress bar.
   Emilio: I just see a picture of an orchid with an arrow 
    pointing at the little nub thing between the petals.
   Diandra: ................dude.
   Chrissy: [high fives Emilio]

Once the progress bar is up, Tony talks Yinsen through punching 
some more keys. After Yinsen does this, Tony orders him to 
"come over here and button me up."
   Chrissy: We can clean up that mess later. 
   Diandra: [Sigh]
Yinsen starts tightening bolts on the armor suit while the 
shouting voices of more approaching guards get closer. Tony 
tells him to just do every other bolt. "Nothing pretty, just 
get it done."
   Emilio: Jarvis can probably tell you exactly how many 
    times he's used that line before.
   Diandra: I swear, if you two don't let me finish this 
    scene I will TURN THIS RECAP AROUND.
   Emilio: Really? And do what?
   Diandra: .............
   Chrissy: Weren't expecting a response to that, were you?
   Diandra: GO TO YOUR ROOM YOUNG LADY.
   Chrissy: I'm sorry, no. The correct answer was "The 
    Night Manager." I assume we will get to that before 
    we're old and grey, right?
   Diandra: We all know you just want me to recap that so 
    you can drool over Tom Hiddleston.
   Chrissy: What's your point?

Yinsen checks the progress bar on the screen and mutters that 
they need more time. Tony is like 'what do you think you're 
doing?' Yinsen says he's going to buy him some time and runs to 
grab the gun from the nearest fallen guard, shooting randomly 
and running into the tunnel while Tony yelps at him to just 
STICK TO THE PLAN DAMNIT WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU'RE 
DOING? Then he glares at the progress bar, which seems to have 
actually gone backwards in the last three seconds.

Yinsen manages to chase a couple guys all the way through the 
tunnel until he runs right into Leader and the rest of the 
goons.

The progress bar reaches 100% and every light in the room 
except the computer goes dark while a machine whirs to life. A 
group of guys reaches the lab a second later and sends one guy 
ahead to check it out. The guy wanders around a little, 
stumbles on the spot where Tony was hiding and gets thrown 
across the room. The shots are very carefully angled so we 
haven't seen exactly what the suit looks like yet. The rest of 
the guys start shooting from the doorway and what looks like a 
giant metal robot knight stomps over and throws them around, 
knocking them all out easily. Tony stops long enough for the 
camera to linger over the ugly, cobbled together version of the 
Iron Man suit, and then he starts marching down the tunnel, 
bullets bouncing off the suit as he tosses guards aside.

Some guards manage to close a door in front of him, trapping 
one of their own on the other side because fuck that guy. The 
guy screams and bangs on the door while Tony barrels down on 
him, then stops screaming as we switch to the view from the 
outside of the door while Tony punches right through it. As 
he's taking out a few more guys, Tony gets his arm caught on a 
soft rock. One guy takes the opportunity as he's trying to 
dislodge it to sneak up and shoot him point blank. Of course, 
he aims for the head so it just ricochets right off the helmet 
and hits him.

Tony comes to the end of the cave tunnel and finds Yinsen 
somehow still alive, barely. Yinsen shouts a warning just 
before the waiting Leader fires a bazooka. Luckily, Leader is a 
terrible shot. Tony ducks and fires back with a rocket strapped 
to his arm. He also basically misses, but the flying debris 
knocks Leader flat anyway. Tony crouches by Yinsen as much as 
he can in that big clunky tin can and flips up his faceplate. 
He repeats that they have to stick to the plan and come on now, 
get up. He needs to go see his family. Yinsen says that's 
exactly what he's doing because his family is dead. He assures 
Tony that everything is fine and this was really how he figured 
the plan would go all along. Tony slumps and thanks Yinsen for 
saving his ass. Yinsen begs him to not waste his life after all 
this effort. Make it count. If this dialogue sounds familiar, 
it's because it's almost exactly the same as Tom Hanks' final 
scene in Saving Private Ryan.
   Emilio: I'm sure that's not the ONLY war movie that has 
    almost that exact same scene.
   Diandra: Probably not. But the only other thing 
    springing to my mind at the moment is Ronald Regan's 
    "win one for the Gipper" scene and I'll be DAMNED.

Outside, about a dozen guys have guns trained on the mouth of 
the cave. Tony stomps into view and they all open fire. He just 
waits until they stop and is like 'are you done? Okay, noted 
and here's my response.' Both arms of his suit turn into 
flamethrowers and after he's sent all the bad guys scattering 
he sets fire to all their accumulated Stark Industries 
weaponry. Snipers keep shooting at him from a distance and some 
of the bullets start hitting in places that actually do damage 
to the suit. He staggers and is surrounded by flames. Then he 
finally fires up the jet pack and flies out, followed by a 
fireball as the stockpile blows. Except this suit isn't built 
for distance flying and he screams as it sputters and dies and 
sends him crashing into the nearest dune. He shakes off the 
broken remnants of the suit and groans "not bad."

And then we get a minute of him wandering through the desert 
with a shirt wrapped around his head until some helicopters 
find him. At which point he just drops to his knees and waits 
for Rhodey to come running out of one of the choppers and 
snarkily ask how that "funvee" ride went then.
   Chrissy: I know you're just being a dick because you 
   missed me and you're relieved I'm not dead, but...fuck 
   you.
Tony just smiles dopily and Rhodey squats beside him and says 
"next time you ride with me, okay?"
   Chrissy: Sorry, that last blast kind of screwed up my 
    hearing. What was that word between "ride" and "me"?
   Emilio: I didn't hear anything.
   Chrissy: Thought so.
Tony just silently collapses into his arms.
   Chrissy: I'd say he swoons.

Happy and Pepper are there to greet the returning Air Force 
plane. Rhodey helps Tony down to the tarmac, clutching the hand 
not in a sling. Some paramedics wheel a gurney over and Tony 
grumbles at Rhodey to get rid of them. Then he cockily notes 
that Pepper has been crying and asks if that was for him. She 
blusters that nah, she's just thrilled she doesn't have to try 
to find a new job because man, that would be a bitch in this 
economy. They get in the limo and Pepper asks Happy to take 
them to the hospital. Tony says no, they're not doing that and 
he and Pepper argue for a bit. Tony says after three months in 
captivity there are only two things he really wants at the 
moment: a cheeseburger and...he hesitates long enough for 
Pepper to fill in her assumption of what he wants, then acts 
offended and says no, he just wants her to call a press 
conference.
   Chrissy: Well, okay. Three things, but I'm guessing 
    since Gamora and I never meet in this particular 
    universe and YOU are probably not willing to recreate 
    that scene where she nailed my ass with a strap-on...
   Diandra: How would you know if you never asked?
   Chrissy: .......................would you?
   Diandra: No.

The car pulls up to a crowd in front of the Stark building and 
Tony has just enough time to wipe cheeseburger residue from his 
mouth before Obediah wraps him in a bear hug. Obediah notes 
that they were SUPPOSED to meet at the hospital. Tony says he's 
fine and reaches into a product placed Burger King bag offered 
by Happy for another cheeseburger. Obediah asks if he can get 
one of those. Tony says there's only one left and "I need it."

He finishes the burger before he reaches a room crowded with 
reporters. Agent Coulson (I forgot how many characters were 
introduced this early) sidles up to Pepper and asks to speak to 
her. He introduces himself, says he's with Strategic Homeland 
Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division and yes, they 
are working on coming up with a better name. 
   Chrissy: Is that really what SHIELD stands for?
   Emilio: Yep.
Pepper says they've already been approached by all the acronym 
agencies and he says no, they're something else.
   Chrissy: Yeah, we haven't figured out that we can use an 
   acronym yet.
He says they need to talk to Tony about the circumstances 
surrounding his escape. Pepper says she'll make an appointment.

Somebody announces that the press conference is about to start 
and Obediah is standing at the podium looking baffled at Tony, 
who has decided to sit in front of the podium, leaning back 
against it. He asks if everyone would be okay with sitting down 
for this. He pulls another burger from somewhere and the 
reporters kind of look at each other like 
'oooooookkkkaaaaaaayyyyy.' They all sit on the floor. Obediah 
sits next to Tony on the stage. Rhodey arrives and asks Pepper 
what the hell is going on here.
   Emilio: Ask your boyfriend.
   Chrissy: Nah, he doesn't tell me anyth- uh [cough cough] 
    I mean...who?

Tony notes how good it is to see Obediah again around a 
mouthful of burger.
   Chrissy: Especially now that you have your clothes on. 
   Seriously, what was up with that booty call while I was 
   working, dude?
Obediah thinks that's sweet until Tony just blurts that he 
never got a chance to say goodbye to his father. And he has 
some questions he really would like to have asked him now about 
what the company does. Did he have any moral conflicts? Any 
doubts about the direction they were headed? He says he saw 
Americans being killed by the weapons he designed to protect 
them and realized suddenly that he is part of "a system that is 
comfortable with zero accountability."
   Chrissy: And this is where his position in Civil War 
    really makes sense.
   Diandra: Yes, because he mistook control for 
    accountability. Or was trusting enough to think a 
    mutant registry wouldn't lead to anything bad. Which is 
    why Captain America's position makes sense because OF 
    COURSE the guy who saw first-hand where registries of 
    people can lead would resist doing it again. Muslim 
    registry, anyone? Whatever the hell registry Michele 
    Bachmann was arguing for to identify liberal 
    politicians as "anti-American"? 
   Chrissy: Okay, we're doing the fun MCU movies now. We 
    can go back to ranting on the next movie.

He starts taking questions, the first one just being what 
exactly happened over there. He rambles that he realized he had 
more to offer the world than building things that go boom. So 
he's shutting down the weapons manufacturing portion of Stark 
Industries. The reporters all start shouting at once, drowning 
out his continuing statement about figuring out what the future 
of the company is going to be. Obediah pushes him from the 
stage like 'hahahahaha...ignore him. He's had a very traumatic 
experience. He doesn't know what he's saying.' We morph into 
the next scene as he's telling reporters that they're going to 
have a little "internal discussion" before he gives them a 
follow-up report.

Obediah follows Tony to a warehouse or something that has what 
looks like a full sized version of the arc reactor and, around 
a mouthful of cigar, snarks "well, THAT went well." He asks how 
much Tony thinks their stock is going to tank after that little 
performance he just gave. Tony is like 'uh...a lot? And I don't 
care.' Obediah starts a lecture about how they are a weapons 
manufacturer and Tony interrupts that he doesn't want the 
company legacy to be dead bodies. Or his name given that it is 
printed on the side of the building and all the bombs and what 
if some innocent person who is nearly killed by one of those 
grows up to have superpowers and has spent their whole life 
thinking of me as a villain? I mean...hypothetically. Obediah 
argues that what they are doing is preventing the world from 
"falling into chaos". Tony says that's not what it looked like 
from Afghanistan. Obediah sighs and asks what he expects them 
to do instead. Tony thinks they should revisit the arc reactor. 
Obediah waves at the big version and scoffs that it's just a 
"publicity stunt" that they only built to "shut the hippies 
up". Tony says well, it turns out it works better than they 
thought. Obediah keeps ranting about how it's a dead-end 
technology that they always knew wasn't cost effective and they 
haven't had any breakthroughs on it in decades. Tony squints at 
him, says he has a lousy poker face and asks who told him. 
Rhodey or Pepper? Obediah says it doesn't matter and demands 
Tony show it to him.
   Chrissy: Which, really, it's obvious he just wants Tony 
   to take his shirt off.

Tony concludes it was probably Rhodey and makes a show of 
taking off his sling and unbuttoning his shirt while looking 
around furtively.
   Chrissy: God, this reminds me of how I got this job in 
    the first place... Any minute now you're going to tell 
    me how pretty my mouth is and how much prettier it 
    would be wrapped around your-
   Diandra: OKAY, THAT'S ENOUGH OF THAT NOW.
Obediah looks at the glowing reactor, grins and reaches to 
button up Tony's shirt again.
   Chrissy: And this is the part where you said if I talked 
   you would just tell everyone *I* seduced *you*...
Tony insists the reactor really works. Obediah throws an arm 
around his shoulders and says "listen to me, Tony...we're a 
team. Do you understand? There's nothing we can't do if we 
stick together. Like your father and I."
   Chrissy: Yep. Biggest thing dad neglected to do was tell 
    me what else I was inheriting along with the company.
   Diandra: Yeesh. What was that you said about this being 
    one of the fun movies?
   Emilio: Mostly. It's just the subtext that's kinda maybe 
    dark.

Tony apologizes for not giving him a heads up before making 
that announcement. Obediah says yeah, "no more of this 'ready, 
fire, aim' business."
   Chrissy: Good, so you'll give me a warning first next 
    time so I can pull back?
   Diandra: Ugh.
Tony recognizes this as his dad's credo. Obediah says Tony 
needs to trust him to handle this because "we're going to have 
to play a whole different kind of ball now."
   Chrissy: And we're losing some of this protective gear 
    because you're a big boy now and you can handle it.
   Diandra: Oh, jesus. I don't even want to know where 
    you're going with that euphemism now.
We end the scene (thank god) with Obediah making Tony promise 
to lay low for a while.

Stark tower. Pepper is watching that cable TV idiot who used to 
give financial advice VERY LOUDLY and accompanied by a lot of 
radio jockey noises. He's yelling about dropping Stark 
Industries stock because HINDENBERG SHATTERING GLASS SCREAMING 
NOISES. If I remember correctly, this guy was run out on a 
rail, so...
   Chrissy: Well, that's what you get for messing with Tony 
    Stark.
   Diandra: I...meant the real guy, Chris. Like, in real 
    life.
   Chrissy: ........and?
   Diandra: Okay, never mind.
Pepper cringes as the guy makes bad analogies by breaking 
things in his studio and raving about what kind of weapons 
company would stop making weapons.

Tony's voice suddenly drifts from her tablet, asking how big 
her hands are and if she can come down to the lab because he 
needs her.
   Chrissy: And yes, those two things are related, but I 
    promise it's not what you think.
   Diandra: Is it sex related?
   Chrissy: ............okay, it might be what you think.
   Diandra: Tell me you did not lose another vibrator and 
    you need me to go after it.
   Chrissy: No, I learned my lesson, thanks. Won't be doing 
    that a fourth time.
[editing note: one of the things about these recaps being in 
written format is that it looks like we're totally doing 
exchanges like this deadpan. In reality, I was turning beet 
red, Chrissy was struggling to keep a straight face before 
delivering that last line and Emilio spent the entire exchange 
laughing so hard he started wheezing]

She goes down to the lab to find him laying on an exam-type 
table with his shirt off.
   Chrissy: Well, that's better than I expected. I thought 
   you'd have your pants off.
He asks her to show him her hands. She holds them up and he 
notes that they are, indeed small. Good. Could she help him 
here for a second? She is too distracted by the thing in his 
chest to be alarmed. She asks if that's what's keeping him 
alive. He says not really: it's now an "antique". He's 
upgrading to the better, longer lasting model glowing in his 
hand but he discovered a small wire under the "antique" that's 
causing a short... He yanks the entire thing from his chest and 
hands it to her while she splutters in alarm. He says after she 
puts that on the table behind her, he needs her to reach inside 
the casing and pull the wire. Gently. She hesitates, asking if 
it's safe. 
   Chrissy: Oh, come on, you're acting like this is the 
   first time I've asked you to put your hand inside me.
He says yeah, it'll be fine. "It's just like Operation. Just 
don't let it touch the socket wall or it goes beep." She 
doesn't get the reference. He says never mind. Just be gentle.
   Emilio: That's not what you said last time.
   Diandra: I would think it was, actually.

She starts to reach into the cavity, hisses and pulls her hand 
back, saying she's not qualified to be doing this sort of 
thing. He reassures her that she is the most "capable, 
qualified, trustworthy" person he's ever met.
   Chrissy: Which is usually the sort of thing I say when I 
   want someone to let *me* put something inside *them*, so 
   I hope you appreciate the irony here.
When she still hesitates, he makes puppy eyes at her until she 
caves. She reaches in and squeals in disgust as there's a 
squelching noise. She says there's PUSS in there. He says no, 
it's just plasma discharge from the reactor. She whines that it 
smells. He's like 'yeah, okay, suck it up, princess.'

She gets the wire and starts pulling her hand back while he 
reminds her not to touch it to the sides, getting cut off as 
she clearly does and there is a loud buzzing noise and he 
yells. She whimpers an apology and her hand emerges with the 
wire. He realizes the folly in not giving her full instructions 
BEFORE she actually starts doing something when he starts to 
tell her to be careful she doesn't pull the magnet on the end 
WITH the wire barely a second before the magnet pops right out 
and drips "plasma discharge" everywhere. Alarms go off. She 
starts to put it back in and he yelps at her not to. She 
fumbles around, flustered and asks what's happening now. He 
says oh, it's fine, he's just...going into cardiac arrest 
because she yanked the whole thing out like she was pulling a 
fish from the river, but it's FINE.
   Chrissy: I have a feeling he and my mother would get 
    along really well.
   Diandra: I thought I remembered hearing someone talk 
    exactly like this.

He says no, it'll be fine. He hands her the new reactor and 
says she just needs to jam it inside him now.
   Chrissy: Again...
   Diandra: Yes, we know. Not the first time you've said 
    that.
   Emilio: Although it kind of contradicts the "be gentle" 
    thing.
   Chrissy: Oh, we're WAY past that now.
She reaches in with the wire first, which he tells her to 
attach to the "baseplate". She clicks it in, no longer 
squeamish and there's a zapping noise and he shouts again and 
goes kind of limp. "Was that so hard," he asks as she screws 
the arc into place. "That was fun, right?"
   Chrissy: I just realized how this whole exchange is so 
    familiar to me...
   Diandra: What, the part where he's screaming or the part 
    where never mind, I'm sorry I even started that 
    question.
   Chrissy: Well, however it was going to end, I'm pretty 
    sure the answer was "yes".

She asks if he's okay. He says yeah, it's fine and laughs at 
the frantic look on her face. She sort of laughs too and says 
yeah, don't ever ask me to do something like that again. EVER. 
He turns serious suddenly and says "I don't have anyone but 
you." They stare at each other for a long beat and then 
awkwardly move on like that didn't happen.
   Chrissy: You wouldn't be open to the idea of dating for, 
   like, ten years, getting married, having a baby and then 
   becoming a widow when I inevitably die fighting one of 
   the many, many, many villains I'm about to face? I 
   promise I will figure out a way to get you superpowers 
   eventually that everyone will immediately forget about.
She asks what she should do with the old reactor. He says eh, 
just destroy it. She pouts that he doesn't want to keep it for 
the sake of nostalgia. He says no, he doesn't do nostalgia.
   Chrissy: Well, I do, but only if she asks nicely.
She walks away with the reactor while he's ordering one of his 
robots to clean his desk of all that crap like the picture of 
him and his dad.

At the airfield, Rhodey is talking to a bunch of cadets about 
the future of air combat and how some people think it lies with 
unmanned crafts but robots still have nothing on humans. Tony 
crashes his speech to ask if they could have pilots without the 
planes then. He shakes hands with a couple of the cadets and 
invites them to ask Rhodey about spring break of 1987. Rhodey 
tries to head him off, but he adds "that lovely lady you woke 
up with...what was his name?"
   Emilio: Tony.
   Chrissy: No, I said 87. That was a completely different 
    time.
Rhodey tells him to quit it because these guys will actually 
believe that bullshit story.
   Chrissy: Sure. Totally bullshit. Never happened. 
   [exaggerated wink]
Rhodey dismisses the cadets so he can talk to Tony and 
expresses surprise that he's up and walking around already.
   Chrissy: Well, I mean, it's still really sore, but the 
   problem isn't so much WALKING as it is SITTING.
Tony says he's working on "something big" and he wants Rhodey 
to be a part of it. Rhodey is like 'oh, good, you're walking 
back that whole press conference thing?' Tony is like um...no? 
This isn't a military project. Rhodey is like 'how 'bout you 
take a little more time off and come see me when you're you 
again?'

Sometime later, back at his bachelor pad, Tony is fiddling with 
a funky looking keyboard and asks if Jarvis is "up". "For you, 
sir, always," Jarvis responds immediately.
   Chrissy: Ha. Right, I programmed you that way. So, if 
   you had a body, what would you be wearing right now?
Tony instructs him to open a new project called Mark Two.
   Emilio: You'd like me to find a pair of twins to play 
    the part of clones named Mark?
   Chrissy: What? No, I...well, okay, now I want that too.
Jarvis asks if he should save it to the Stark Industries 
database. Tony says he's not sure he can trust anyone just yet, 
so no. He doesn't want this getting into the wrong hands. He 
brings a 3D version of his plans for his suit onto a 
holographic pad and starts manipulating it, throwing pieces 
into a virtual trashcan in the corner of the desk.

Meanwhile, in the desert, the terrorist cell digs the remnants 
of Tony's first suit out of the sand dunes. The leader...whose 
name I guess I should finally look up... Raza? Anyway, he now 
has a big ugly scar covering half of his skull.

And we get another sequence of Tony building a suit, except 
this time he's in his lab and he keeps noting that the robot - 
Dum-E - is a terrible assistant that he should probably have 
relegated to a trash heap long ago. Then we see through a 
camcorder as he tests the boots he's finished, ordering Dum-E 
to stand by in case there's a fire he needs to put out. He 
announces that he's starting slow - at 10% thrust - and 
activates the hand controls. A blast from the boots sends him 
flying upside down into the wall above the lab. He hits the 
ground behind the tool carts and Dum-E immediately sprays him 
with a fire extinguisher. Yep, the Iron Man movies in this 
series are all about the physical comedy and it's brilliant.

We go back to a montage of him designing the arm of the suit 
next. He's fitting it to his actual arm when Pepper comes down 
to the lab with a package. She asks if he even heard her 
buzzing the intercom just now. Obediah is upstairs. Tony 
distractedly says he'll be up in a minute and holds up the arm, 
palm out. She grumbles that she thought he said he wasn't 
making weapons anymore. He says this is a flight stabilizer. 
   Chrissy: But yeah, obviously there will be weapons built 
   into the suit eventually.
He assures her it is "completely harmless", then sends a blast 
from it in the direction of some shelving, blowing everything 
off it and sending him careening backward. "I didn't expect 
that," he groans from the floor off camera.

Upstairs, he finds Obediah playing the piano, a glass 
of...something perched on top of it. He asks how "it" went. 
Obediah doesn't answer. Tony says that bad, huh? He grabs a 
slice of pizza from a box Obediah apparently brought and jams 
it in his mouth while Obediah says it would have gone BETTER if 
he had graced...whatever meeting or thing they're talking about 
with his presence. Tony says he's laying low, like Obediah told 
him he should. Obediah finally clarifies for the benefit of the 
audience that he didn't mean he should skip BOARD OF DIRECTORS 
meetings. Anyway. The board has decided that Tony is clearly 
suffering from PTSD and for that reason they want to lock him 
out. Tony splutters that if this is about the stocks dipping 40 
points, they KNEW...Pepper corrects that it was actually just 
over 56 points and Tony snaps that it doesn't MATTER how much 
the stocks dipped because he has controlling interest in the 
company. Obediah says yeah, but this is a democracy and the 
board has decided that this new direction he's taking the 
company in isn't in their best interest. Tony is like 'oh, so 
they have objections to me taking responsibility?'
   Chrissy: If it hurts their profit margin? Yes.

Tony realizes neither Obediah nor Pepper are backing him up 
here, so he announces that he's going back to his lab. Obediah 
stops him and says he's TRYING, but Tony needs to give him 
something that will convince them. He suggests having their 
engineers come up with specs for the thing in his chest. Tony 
says no, absolutely not and stomps off. Obediah asks if he can 
at least come down to the lab to see what he's working on. 
Nope!

We snap right to "day 11" of Tony testing a piece of his new 
suit. "For lack of a better option, Dum-E is still on fire 
safety," he says, adding that if it gets overzealous and sprays 
him when he's not actually on fire, "I'm donating you to a city 
college." Dum-E bleats indignantly. He says he's going to start 
at 1% thrust. Hopefully. Blasters ignite under his feet and at 
his hands and he hovers a couple feet above the ground for a 
few seconds. When he comes back down he tells Dum-E not to keep 
breathing down his neck because it's making him anxious. He 
tries again at 2.5% thrust and tries to control his movements 
around the lab, lurching around clumsily and making yelping 
noises when he gets too close to things he doesn't want 
blasted. "Could be worse," he says at one point. "We're fine!" 
He comes in for a rough landing and Dum-E aims the nozzle at 
him like NOW? CAN I NOW? He yells "no" and it wilts like a 
chastised puppy.

Encouraged that it's going in the right direction, we go right 
to him building the rest of the suit and hooking it up to 
Jarvis. We pan around him while Jarvis is running checks and 
testing all the moving parts. It looks basically like the most 
recognizable version of his suit, but it's all silver. Then he 
asks Jarvis to check the weather and air traffic and Jarvis 
balks that he thinks he's going to try actually FLYING this 
thing before he's had a chance to check everything thoroughly. 
"Sometimes you've gotta run before you can walk," Tony says.
   Chrissy: I'm sorry, why was the military willing to work 
   with someone who is so cavalier with all safety 
   precautions again? 

He blasts himself out of the lab and flies out over the bay to 
a soundtrack that totally sounds ripped off a video game, 
testing his visuals by zooming in on some very surprised kids 
riding a ferris wheel.
He starts flying straight up while asking Jarvis what the 
altitude record for this sort of thing is. Jarvis says 85,000 
feet. Tony wants to try to break that record, because of course 
he does. A few hundred feet later, Jarvis informs him that 
there is an alarming buildup of ice. We see ice forming on the 
outside of the suit and circuits start popping before the whole 
suit just goes dead and he starts falling out of the sky, 
yelping at Jarvis to deploy flaps and do something to break up 
the ice. 
   Emilio: Oh, you mean the ice that wouldn't be there if 
    you had listened and not tried to do your own thing?
   Chrissy: How else am I supposed to establish that I 
    laugh in the face of danger?

The suit comes back online seconds before he splatters onto the 
freeway and he nearly causes an accident with his sudden 
jetting across lanes in front of confused drivers. He flies 
back to the mansion, now mostly comfortable with operating the 
suit, and hovers over the landing pad unsteadily for a few 
seconds before just killing the power and crashing right 
through the ceiling, the grand piano, the floor and landing on 
one of his cars, which immediately starts blaring an alarm. 
Dum-E, hovering right next to the car is like 'ARE YOU ON FIRE 
NOW?! I HEAR AN ALARM YOU MUST BE ON FIRE' and sprays him.

Sometime later, when he's icing the giant bruise on his head, 
he notices a package on his desk from Pepper. It's the old arc 
reactor he told her to throw, mounted in a glass case and 
encircled with a ring that has the inscription "proof that Tony 
Stark has a heart". He smiles.

Meanwhile, in Afghanistan the terrorists have pieced together 
the original suit Tony constructed. Raza is glowering at it and 
smoking and all the shots in this scene are VERY comic book.

Back to Tony tweaking his new design and working on this 
problem of ice forming if he flies too high. Jarvis suggests 
they improve the exosystems if he plans on visiting other 
planets. Tony spews a bunch of engineering jargon, some of 
which might be gibberish and sends Jarvis off to work on it. A 
television in the background is tuned to a network broadcasting 
a firefighter charity benefit he's apparently funding. He asks 
Jarvis why he wasn't invited to that. The reporter is just 
getting to the part where she explains that Tony himself isn't 
at the event because nobody has seen him since that press 
conference debacle and the word is that he's bedridden and has 
severe PTSD. Or possibly bedridden WITH PTSD. He smirks as she 
finishes that nobody expects him to make an appearance. Jarvis 
finishes rendering the new design. It is all gold colored. Tony 
asks if that's maybe a bit ostentatious. "What was I thinking," 
Jarvis says sarcastically. "You're usually so discreet."
   Chrissy: Keep that up and I'll send you to the same 
    college I send Dum-E.
   Diandra: Nah. He likes them sassy.

One of his cars catches his eye. A black oldie with red 
interior and flames painted on the sides. He asks if Jarvis can 
throw some red in. "Yes, that should help you keep a low 
profile," Jarvis snarks.
   Chrissy: I forgot how much I miss Jarvis.
   Diandra: Yeah. Vision was fun for about one movie, but 
    the novelty wore off fast. And Friday isn't nearly as 
    acerbic.
Jarvis changes some of the gold to red until the render looks 
like the Iron Man we recognize and Tony tells him to go ahead 
and make it.

While Jarvis is working on that, he goes roaring off in a 
blatantly product placed Audi.
   Chrissy: I'm expecting either Matthew McConaughey to 
    start rambling about...something or Ben Kingsley, Mark 
    Strong and Tom Hiddleston to appear cackling about 
    British villains.
   Diandra: I'm gonna have to go with the second one since 
    two of those guys are in this series. As villains 
    fighting Iron Man.
   Emilio: The other one is in a couple DC movies.
   Diandra: ..........as a villain?
   Emilio: As two different villains.
   Diandra: Oy.
   Chrissy: Wasn't he the villain in one of RDJs Sherlock 
    Holmes movies too?
   Diandra: The first one that wasn't Moriarty? Yeah, 
    that's right. But we're not typecasting.

Of course, he's headed to that charity event just to prove 
everybody wrong. Obediah is in the middle of explaining to a 
reporter that weapons manufacturing is really only PART of what 
Stark Industries does when the press is distracted by Tony's 
arrival. Tony pats an old guy with a woman on each arm on the 
shoulder as he passes, saying "you look great, Hef." It is, of 
course, Stan Lee. Possibly playing Hugh Heffner, or possibly 
Tony just decided that was a perfect nickname for whoever he 
is. It's not really clear. Obediah greets Tony like 'hey, 
um...you're here! That's totally great and I'm not at all 
afraid you're going to fuck something up!' "Listen," he mutters 
low enough for the reporters to not hear. "Take it slow, all 
right? I think I've got the board right where we want them."
   Chrissy: Ahem.
   Diandra: [sigh] Yes, what?
   Chrissy: Oh, nothing much. Just wanted to say PHRASING.

Tony heads right to the bar and orders a drink. Coulson is 
already there and takes the opportunity to introduce himself, 
including the long winded version of the name of his 
organization because they still haven't figured out they can 
use acronyms for some reason. He says he knows this is probably 
not the best time, but "I need to debrief you."
   Chrissy: Get in line, pal. I'm booked until next Friday. 
Coulson keeps talking, but Tony has stopped listening as he has 
spotted Pepper in the crowd, wearing full evening regalia. He 
agrees to whatever meeting Coulson wants to schedule and 
excuses himself to go talk to his assistant.

Pepper is surprised to see him and they have a little banter 
while Tony gushes about how amazing she looks in that dress 
which was a present from him, so it's probably one of the 
things she bought herself. He asks if she wants to dance. She 
says no, actually, and he totally ignores her and drags her 
over to the dance floor, belatedly asking if he's making her 
uncomfortable or something when she looks around furtively. She 
says well, now that you mention it, I'm dancing with my BOSS in 
front of EVERYBODY in a backless dress and I forgot to put on 
deodorant so yeah. There's THAT. He says nah, she looks great 
and smells wonderful. By the way, what is that scent? Goop? He 
offers to fire her if that would help. She snorts that he would 
never get along without her. He thinks he could last a week. 
She asks what his social security number is. He thinks about it 
for a minute and says "five". He says he has her to remember 
the other eight numbers for him.
   Chrissy: I know I'm just proving your point here. I 
   really only have the one setting and it's 'charm the 
   hell out of her until she forgets whatever objections 
   she had to this to begin with.'

They go quiet for a bit before he offers to go outside and get 
some air and she jumps at it. Outside, she grumbles that that 
was WEIRD and what was he thinking?! He tells her she's losing 
"objectivity" and it was just a dance. She rambles that he 
doesn't get it because everybody knows how he is with women and 
if they see one of his employees with him they're going to make 
certain assumptions about intent. And then there's a moment 
where they lean in really close like they're going to kiss but 
neither of them is really sure that's what they want to be 
doing here. She stops and announces that she needs a drink. He 
goes to get it for her as she recites her order of a very dry 
martini with "at least three olives".

At the bar he orders two of the same thing, but "make one of 
them dirty."
   Chrissy: I like everything dirty. Speaking of which, 
    I'll probably be back for at least two more of these in 
    the hopes that if I loosen her up a bit she won't make 
    a scene when I ask how she feels about wearing a strap 
    on a bossing me around for a change.
   Diandra: She doesn't...need a strap on for that. I think 
    we can all agree that when it comes to any future 
    bedroom activities she will definitely be the boss of 
    him in just about any scenario.
   Emilio: Unless either Cap or Strange is involved too.
   Diandra: So help me, if you bring up the French maid 
    thing again...

The reporter from the beginning of the movie finds him at the 
bar and snarls that he has a "lot of nerve" showing his face 
here considering the "latest atrocity" his company is involved 
in. She says she ALMOST believed him back there. He notes that 
he's been kind of busy these last few weeks what with being 
HELD HOSTAGE BY TERRORISTS. She hands him some pictures of a 
town called Gulmira and asks if this looks like accountability. 
Yes, that is the same town Yinsin was from. He flips through 
pictures of bodies and terrorists moving weapons labeled Stark 
Industries. He asks when the pictures were taken. Yesterday. He 
says he never approved it, but obviously the company is just 
going around him now on the assumption that this is just some 
phase he's going through and Obediah can bring him to heel. He 
says he is NOT his company and goes marching outside to talk to 
Obediah about this.

Obediah, smiling for the cameras, mutters at him to not be a 
naïve idiot and by the way, he was the one who filed the 
injunction to lock him out of the board. You know, to protect 
him from himself. He saunters away, leaving Tony standing 
forlornly on the steps of the building while Pepper presumably 
wonders what the hell happened to him because it can't possibly 
be taking this long to get a DRINK.

Cut to him watching news footage of refugees being driven out 
of Gulmira by warlords who have basically bombed it into a 
fresh shithole. Tony watches this painfully unsubtle broadcast 
angrily while futzing with his suit arm. Raza appears briefly 
in the footage from the war zone because of course the group 
attacking them is the Ten Rings. Tony calmly tries the blaster 
he just tweaked and one of the fluorescent lights down the hall 
crashes down in a shower of sparks. He catches sight of his 
reflection in a glass door and blasts it too.
   Chrissy: Speaking of unsubtle...

And we jump ahead to him stepping onto a platform and letting 
the machinework build the finished suit around him.
   Chrissy: You know, I just realized how much trust this 
   involves when you consider guys can't always trust they 
   won't catch themselves in their zipper.

After we linger on the moment of the recognizable suit in its 
finished state, he just jets off across the ocean. He arrives 
in the middle of the real thing being shown on the television 
back home just as a man is being separated from his family and 
thrown with a bunch of other men lined up against a wall. The 
guy tries to resist and gets kicked and forced to his knees so 
they can shoot him in front of his screaming children. Tony 
lands right in front of the startled shooter and punches him 
into a wall. He blasts all the other lone soldiers holding guns 
and hesitates when he gets to the ones using the women and 
children as human shields. He turns off his blasters and we see 
little targets appear on their faces on his helmet display. 
Once he has them all sighted, guns peek out of his suit at his 
shoulders and take them all out. The rescued guy's son runs 
into his arms, but continues to watch Tony as he goes over to a 
building, slams his fist right through the wall and drags out 
the guy who was shouting orders at all the other men. He drops 
him in front of the families he was just separating and 
threatening, announces he's all theirs and flies off.
   Chrissy: I know we all hate it when someone brings 
    current events into these, but...
   Diandra: Yes, I can see the parallels.

He is flying over the mountains, locating the Jericho missiles, 
when somebody shoots him out of the sky. He crawls out of the 
crater, scratches all over his brand new suit, sidesteps a 
blast from a tank and calmly fires a rocket into the tank, 
blowing it up in a moment worthy of Michael Bay. A bunch of men 
who are apparently guarding the missiles start shooting at him. 
He hovers into the air above them and blasts the missiles, 
flying away ahead of the resulting fireball.

At Edwards Air Force Base, American military are watching what 
is going on on their satellite link and trying to figure out 
what the FUCK is happening because they never got clearance to 
go up against this cell that uses civilians as shields. One 
general asks if this is CIA. Another says the CIA is calling to 
find out if it's THEM. They verify that it isn't any other 
branch of the military either and scramble to try to identify 
the "bogey" flying around above the area. General #1 orders 
somebody to get Colonel Rhodes from "weapons development", 
which, uh...yep, he should be able to identify what that is all 
right.

Except Tony is finished and already flying back to New York by 
the time Rhodey arrives in the surveillance room and asks how 
the hell this thing could appear out of nowhere without radar 
picking it up. One guy at a computer says they got a TINY blip 
on radar because it's smaller than anything they would normally 
be looking for. They're thinking it's "an unmanned ariel 
vehicle". Everybody is looking to Rhodey, who isn't really sure 
what to make of it. He says he needs to make a call.

The line in Tony's suit starts ringing while he's still mid-
flight. The connection isn't totally clear what with Tony 
travelling at jet speed over the Atlantic and Tony keeps asking 
him to speak up. Rhodey asks what the hell all that racket on 
the line is. Tony says he's driving with the top down on his 
convertible. 
   Chrissy: It's REALLY windy today.
Rhodey is like 'whatever, we need your help because a weapons 
depot that just happens to be close to where you were being 
held captive was just blown up. Know anything about that?' Tony 
bullshits that that area is just lousy with terrorists and it 
sounds like somebody took care of the problem for them. Rhodey 
interrupts to ask why he sounds out of breath. Tony is like 
'um...I was just out jogging.' Rhodey is like 'and now you're 
driving in a wind tunnel?'
   Chrissy: Okay, fine. You got me. Crystal kind of has her 
    mouth full at the moment or she'd say hi...
   Diandra: Oh, COME ON.

Rhodey is like 'uh-huh...so to repeat: you know nothing about 
what just happened to that weapons facility, right?' Tony says 
nope just as one of the military guys gets a lock on the 
"bogey". Rhodey says good, because they're about to blow 
whatever was responsible out of the sky. Two jets appear behind 
Tony and he's like 'uh, gotta go' and zips sideways away from 
them suddenly. One of the guys in the control room gets in 
contact with one of the planes and asks if he can tell what the 
fuck that thing is. The bomber says nope, not a clue. And it's 
not responding to our efforts to contact it. General says he's 
clear to fire away then. The bomber does and Tony speeds up 
with a sonic boom to avoid the blast. The bombers try again and 
Tony deploys flares to intercept the missile this time. The 
bombers get closer and try shooting at him. He takes a few hits 
to the armor before ordering Jarvis to deploy flaps, causing 
him to stop suddenly as they go sailing past. The bombers - and 
everyone in the control room - lose visual contact. They 
conclude that they must have taken care of it.
   Emilio: Don't worry, in a few days the conspiracy blogs 
    will be all over possible explanations for what it was.
   Diandra: Blogs and this one annoying FBI guy...

Rhodey's phone rings and when he answers there is an even more 
breathless Tony on the line. Tony says yeah, so...actually the 
answer to your question earlier is yes, that was me. Rhodey 
snaps at him that this isn't a GAME he's playing here and he 
CANNOT send civilian "equipment" into a war zone. Tony says he 
didn't send equipment. He is wearing it. It's a suit.

The jets start turning back toward base when one guy notices 
Tony clinging to the bottom of the other guy's plane. He yelps 
for him to shake the barnacle off and the plane does a barrel 
roll until Tony slides free and goes flying right into the 
other plane's wing. The wing rips right off and the pilot 
starts yelping that he's been hit as he begins a death spiral. 
Rhodey stares at the monitors with an expression like 'oh, 
shit, what do I do?' The pilot ejects and realizes too late 
that he can't deploy his chute because it is jammed. Tony sees 
all this and takes off after the distressed pilot. The other 
pilot gets a visual again and the General orders him to take 
him out if he can. Rhodey is like waaaaaaait a minute. No, 
stop. Call them off. General snaps at him that whatever it is 
just took out one of their planes in a no fly zone and their 
pilot is headed for certain death and they're GOING TO SHOOT IT 
DOWN NOW.

Tony catches up to the pilot and forces his parachute to 
deploy. Apparently the fact that the pilot's death has been 
avoided convinces everybody else to stand down. Rhodey picks up 
the line again and tells Tony he owes him a plane now. Tony 
laughs and asks if Rhodey wants to see what he's been working 
on NOW. Rhodey thinks the less he knows about whatever this is 
the better. He asks what he should tell the press. Tony is like 
'don't you usually say it was a training exercise or a weather 
balloon or something?' Rhodey is like 'haha...no seriously.'

And we cut to Rhodey telling the press about a training 
exercise that resulted in an unfortunate accident with a 
military plane yesterday. Unrelated: they're not really sure 
what happened in Gulmira shortly before that, but the US 
Government was DEFINITELY NOT INVOLVED.
Chrissy: Yep. That'll convince 'em.

Tony's mansion. Pepper is headed down to the lab where Tony is 
yelping and Jarvis is mildly acknowledging that it is a "tight 
fit" and pointing out that the more he struggles, the more this 
is going to hurt.
   Chrissy: I KNOW! I WILL SAFEWORD WHEN I WANT YOU TO 
   STOP!
"Be gentle," Tony grunts. "This is my first time."
   Chrissy: Well, that's obviously a lie and we all know 
   it.

Pepper stands in the doorway, gaping at Tony standing 
precariously on one foot while machines try to remove the Iron 
Man suit from him without, like, ripping his actual arm off or 
something. She asks what, exactly, is going on here. He stares 
at her guiltily for a long beat before saying "let's face it: 
this is not the worst thing you've caught me doing."
   Chrissy: Which is exactly why she hesitated in the 
    doorway back there when she heard the noises coming 
    from the room.
   Emilio: How many fics do you suppose there are about 
    what the worst thing she caught him doing?
   Diandra: A few. Dozen.
   Chrissy: He has totally built at least one fuck machine.
   Emilio: Which he nicknamed "Cap".
She isn't amused, however, because she realizes that the armor 
the robots are removing has obvious bullet holes in it.

Afghanistan. Raza and his men meet a big black SUV as it pulls 
into their camp. Obediah steps out of it to ominous music and 
makes a show of eyeing the scars on Raza's face. Raza says 
yeah, that was your boy Stark's handiwork. Obediah snots that 
it wouldn't have happened if they had killed him when they were 
supposed to. Uh-huh. Yep. In case you were still clinging to 
the belief that he was pulling a double cross or something: he 
is definitely the bad guy. 
   Chrissy: This is why the introduction of former A-List 
    actors tends to set off alarm bells with anyone who has 
    seen more than one of these movies. From the beginning, 
    they have a history of turning out to be the bad guys.
   Emilio: Yep.
Raza is like yeah, well, maybe if you had better equipped us.

Raza takes Obediah into a tent to see the "weapon" they 
recovered: Tony's rudimentary suit. Raza understands this was 
only his first attempt and he has since perfected the design. 
"A man with a dozen of these could rule all of Asia." Yeah, so 
this is obviously an allusion to every time in human history 
that an invention that was NOT intended to kill people was 
turned into a death machine by people with less noble 
intensions i.e. Einstein and the atom bomb. Which really is the 
theme of the whole movie, but Stark Industries was already 
making devices intended to kill people. Tony just told himself 
it was okay because he was only arming the good guys.
   Chrissy: The old good guy with a gun argument.
   Diandra: Basically. 

Raza continues that Obediah still wants to take over the 
company from the golden boy, so they have a common enemy and 
therefore their business arrangement can continue. Basically, 
he will give Obediah the designs Tony left behind and hopes 
Obediah will use them to build him some armored suits. Obediah 
holds a device up to Raza's ear and it emits a buzzing sound. 
Raza winces and goes still. Obediah is like 'yeah...I think 
not.' He takes some plugs out of his ears and assures Raza the 
paralysis will only last fifteen minutes. He pats Raza on the 
head and leaves the tent, ordering his men outside to round up 
all the armor and "the rest of it". He swaggers past them as 
they mow down all of Raza's men.

Back in the car, he's ordering someone over the phone to set up 
"sector 16" under the original arc reactor in the warehouse for 
a top secret project involving their best engineers.

Pepper finds Tony in the lab futzing with the top half of the 
suit. He asks if she would mind doing an errand for him. He 
needs somebody to go hack into the mainframe at his office and 
pull all the shipping manifests. And no, apparently Jarvis 
can't just do this remotely because somebody needs to plug in a 
flash drive that will bypass whatever security is on the 
computer. He rambles some more about ghost drives and where she 
should look for the files. She's like...uh...okay? And why do 
you need this again? He says the company has been doing deals 
under the table and he plans to stop it, find the weapons and 
destroy them. She says no, there's a lot she would do for him, 
but not if he's back on this sabotage the company kick. He says 
this plan is ALL THERE IS right now. She says fine then and 
announces that she quits before throwing the flash drive back 
on the table and starting to stomp off. She halts when he 
points out that she had no problem helping him while he was 
creating chaos and destruction, but now that he's trying to 
help people he's hurt...this is where she draws the line? She 
says this isn't about principle: it's about the fact that he's 
going to get himself killed and she doesn't want to help that 
process along.
   Emilio: Very long term foreshadowing there.
He says he shouldn't even be alive NOW, so there must be a 
reason for that.
   Chrissy: Foreshadowing and probably recycling.

He assures her he isn't crazy: he finally UNDERSTANDS his 
purpose. "And I know in my heart that it's right." She sighs, 
takes the drive, tells him he's all she has too, and leaves. 
Nice call back to, like, a dozen scenes ago.

So we follow Pepper through a strangely empty office building 
to a giant office with floor to ceiling windows and entire sets 
of living room seating and a table and chairs in two corners. 
And what looks like a therapists couch with a light right on 
top of it.
   Chrissy: [cough cough] Yeah, sure. Therapy. 
   Emilio: She's very innocent, isn't she?
   Diandra: [sigh] Yes, I know what it would, in all  
    likelihood, be actually used for. Thanks.
   Chrissy: Bets on whether there's a mirror in the ceiling 
    right over that spot?
   Emilio: Oh, there definitely is.
   Diandra: Might also be designed to attach restraints at 
    the bottom.
   Chrissy and Emilio: [stare silently]
   Diandra: What? As long as we're going down this road 
    already, we might as well go all the way.
   Chrissy: ...........I have a new fic idea for you.
   Emilio: New?
   Diandra: STOP with the fic ideas! I've already had one 
    since the whole Pepper shoving her whole hand inside 
    Tony scene already.
   Chrissy: You what?
   Diandra: [grumbling] I'll tell you later.
   Chrissy: Yes, you absolutely will.

Anyway. Pepper wakes up the computer on his desk and plugs the 
flash drive he gave her into it. A blinking red pop up appears 
instantly, screaming about a security breach. Then a bunch of 
text scrolls by in a command window and the warning goes away 
along with the log in prompt that now says access has been 
granted. Whatever program Tony put on the drive runs 
automatically, searching for the ghost drive and then pulling 
up a bunch of folders and scrolling through the documents in 
each of them. When it gets to "Sector 16" and scrolls through 
the blueprints for the first suit, Pepper mutters "What are you 
up to, Obediah?"

The next folder has the hostage video we saw the terrorists 
filming at the beginning of the movie that was never mentioned 
again. Pepper runs it through some sort of super high tech 
translation program on the computer and a voice that actually 
sounds exactly like Raza layers over the guy speaking into the 
camera. "You did not tell us that the target you paid us to 
kill was the great Tony Stark," he says. "As you can see, 
Obediah Stane, your deception and lies will cost you dearly. 
The price to kill Tony Stark has just gone up."
   Chrissy: Well, how nice of them to wedge the name of the 
    person they're talking to right in the video like that 
    in case somebody other than Obediah ends up finding it.
   Diandra: Yeah. It's almost like they're villains in a 
    comic book.

The video stops and the files start copying over one second 
before Obediah appears in the doorway to the office and 
announces his presence by asking "What are we gonna do about 
this?" She stares at him, eyes darting occasionally back to the 
screen that's still copying files while he saunters over to a 
decanter at a wet bar and pours himself a glass. He says he 
knows what she's going through and pours her a glass as well. 
She slides a handy newspaper over the drive sticking out of the 
computer and switches the screen to screensaver while he comes 
around to hand her the glass. He looks at the screensaver of 
pictures of Tony's prized custom flame painted car and rambles 
about how happy he was to hear Tony had come back because it 
was like he had returned from the DEAD, but he never quite 
fully came back, did he?
   Chrissy: You think his PTSD is bad now? Pfft.

He claims it just BREAKS HIS HEART to see Tony like that. 
Pepper gulps and tries to bluster that Tony has been through a 
lot, but he'll be FINE. He stares and smacks his lips creepily 
a couple times and says she's a very "rare" woman
   Chrissy: I usually like them medium to well done.
   Diandra: Not THAT creepy.
   Chrissy: IT PUTS THE LOTION ON ITS SKIN.
   Diandra: Jesus.
He says Tony is lucky to have her. She thanks him and grabs the 
drive along with the newspaper before making a run for the 
door. She stops when he casually asks if that's today's paper 
she has there. He asks if he can have it because he hasn't done 
the crossword puzzle yet. She hands it to him and pretty much 
fails to look like she isn't terrified by him suddenly. She 
looks blatantly at the drive still in her hand as she finally 
walks away. He goes to turn on the computer, which announces 
that 100 files have completed downloading. Traitor.

Coulson is waiting for Pepper downstairs. He asks if she forgot 
they had an appointment. She's like 'oh, good, protection!' and 
says they're going to have it right now, but he has to follow 
her. She doesn't stop walking in the direction of the door and 
Obediah is now hovering at the second floor balcony above, 
staring down at them creepily.

Obediah storms into the warehouse where a bunch of guys in lab 
coats are working on the giant reactor. Most of them scatter 
except one who apologetically says they've had a little 
"hiccup" in the explorations he told them to do. It turns out 
the tech needed to power the suit they found in the cave 
doesn't technically exist. Obediah points to the reactor and 
says it's just a smaller version of THAT. The guy says that's 
just not possible. Obediah yells that if Tony Stark could do it 
in a cave with a box of scraps then they should damn well be 
able to do it with better equipment in a lab. The guy squeaks 
yeah, but..."I'm not Tony Stark."
   Chrissy: Kind of like "House" and almost all variants of 
    Sherlock Holmes, everything in the universe depends on 
    nobody being smart enough to solve problems except this 
    one guy.
   Diandra: You know what? That works so well as an analogy 
    that I'm going to let it go that you're clearly only 
    bringing it up to segue into a suggestion that we recap 
    RDJs "Sherlock Holmes" movies.
   Chrissy: Oh, well, I wasn't thinking about THAT, but now 
    that you mention it...

Stark mansion. Tony digs his ringing phone from under some 
pillows on the couch. It's Pepper. He answers and hears her 
voice for a split second before Obediah suddenly appears behind 
him, using that device he used on Raza to paralyze him and 
taking the phone from his hand. He tips Tony back onto the 
couch and waves the device in his face, asking if he remembers 
it. He rambles about what a shame it is that the government 
didn't see the usefulness of having something that induces 
short term paralysis and approve the design.
   Chrissy: And how many fics do we suppose there are about 
    other uses Tony may have found for that one?
   Diandra: I'm not sure I really want to find out.

He comes around to look Tony in the eye while he does the 
traditional comic book villain with diarrhea of the mouth 
soliloquy. He says he had concerns that when he ordered the hit 
on Tony he might be "killing the golden goose". Not that it 
stopped him. But lucky for him, Tony survived AND produced one 
last golden egg in the form of the device in his chest. Which 
Obediah removes via some sort of device right through Tony's 
shirt. He hovers over Tony menacingly, holding the arc still 
attached via wire between them, and asks if Tony thinks all his 
ideas really belong to him.
   Chrissy: Hey, remember when we were recapping that scene 
    in "Sherlock" that you said somebody described as "the 
    closest they can get to a rape scene and maintain a PG-
    13 rating?"
   Diandra: Gee, I wonder why you're bringing that up now?
   Chrissy: I'm just saying.

He reminds Tony that his father helped give them the atomic 
bomb and asks what kind of world they would be living in if he 
had been as selfish as his son. He rips the reactor totally 
from the socket and Tony gasps. Then Obediah sits beside him, 
arm around the back of the couch, gushing about how beautiful 
it is and how THIS is his legacy and it will power a whole new 
generation of weapons.
   Emilio: Yeah, there's definitely a human AU version of 
   this somewhere.
Obediah puts the reactor in a padded briefcase, rambling about 
how he wishes Tony could have seen the prototype he made and 
it's really too bad he had to involve Pepper in this whole mess 
because now he's going to have to kill her. Tony just watches 
him leave in paralyzed horror.

Pepper has already called Rhodey to tell him about the video 
she saw that proves Obediah called a hit on Tony. Rhodey 
doesn't understand why Obediah would do such a thing and asks 
where Tony is now. Pepper, calling from a parking garage where 
she is flanked by agents including Coulson, says Tony isn't 
answering his phone and Rhodey should really go over there and 
make sure he's okay. Then she announces she knows a "shortcut" 
and she and the agents all climb into vehicles.

Tony staggers out of the elevator into his lab, looking like 
death warmed over. He crawls over to the table where he has the 
old reactor Pepper had mounted in a case before collapsing and 
resigning himself to death. And then a robotic arm appears, 
handing him the reactor and Dum-E makes a plaintive whooping 
sound. Tony looks up at the robot that seems to be doing the 
equivalent of cocking its head and mutters "good boy."

Elsewhere, Obediah plugs the reactor into a version of Tony's 
original suit that is at least eight feet tall.

Rhodey arrives at the mansion and goes right down to the lab, 
where he finds Tony on the floor, surrounded by broken glass. 
He goes to help him up and Tony asks where Pepper is. Rhodey 
says she's fine since she's surrounded by five agents. Oh, and 
they are on their way to arrest Obediah. Tony is like 'you're 
gonna need a lot more agents'.

The agents and Pepper arrive at the lab with the reactor and 
Pepper uses her credentials to get in. She leads them to a 
bright yellow door with all sorts of "authorized personnel 
only" and "danger, keep out" signs plastered all around it and 
tries to open it, but her card won't unlock it. Coulson 
produces a little blinking device that he sticks to the lock. 
Pepper asks if that's going to pick the lock. He's like 
'uh...no...you might want to take cover and plug your ears.'

Inside, Obediah looks up as the lock blows. He runs over to his 
ironmonger. Or whatever this version of the suit is called.

Rhodey watches the suit form around Tony, gushing about how 
cool it is.
   Chrissy: Uh-huh. Be nice to me and I'll make you one. 
    You can even use it for, uh...personal activities, if 
    you know what I mean. Just make sure you take into 
    account the amount of weight it can take.
   Diandra: Does it count as a callback when you reference 
    a movie that came out AFTER this one?
   Emilio: Since that's the order you recapped them in, 
    yes.
He asks if Tony needs him to do anything. Tony tells him to 
keep the skies clear and takes off, making a hole in the 
ceiling for no particular reason.
   Chrissy: You act like I don't already have a history of 
   doing stupid things purely for show.
Rhodey looks at another partly finished suit hanging nearby, 
mutters "next time" and hops in one of the fancy ass cars, 
peeling out of the garage.

The agents enter some sort of underground area of the building 
full of steaming, hulking machinery and catwalks. They find a 
smaller version of the ironmonger suit sitting all by itself. 
"I thought it'd be bigger," Pepper notes.
   Chrissy: Don't worry, she always says that.
   Diandra: As far as you know, yes.
She turns to look at some wires hanging nearby, sparking. Like 
they were suddenly disconnected from something they were 
powering. The agents all scatter, looking for Obediah. And then 
Pepper wanders closer to a dark corner of the platform and the 
actual ironmonger comes online, eyes glowing as it towers over 
her.

She runs away, neglecting to warn the agents she passes about 
the monstrosity chasing her. Iron Obediah smashes them and 
continues after her until she ducks through a doorway too small 
for him.

Over New York, Tony asks how the chest piece on Mark I is 
holding up. Jarvis says the suit is at 48% power and not 
holding up at all because it was never designed for sustained 
flight. You moron. He's like 'yeah, cool, let me know if that 
changes.'

Pepper is exiting the building at a fast walk because has 
anyone ever actually TRIED running in heels? Tony comes over 
her com link and she babbles that Obediah has gone crazy and he 
built a suit and... Tony tells her to get out of there just 
before Iron Obediah bursts up right through the pavement behind 
her. He points an oversized machine gun on his arm right in her 
face (making her scream once, briefly and unconvincingly) and 
announces that her services are no longer required. Of course, 
before he can get his shot off, Tony arrives, knocking him back 
through the hole in the ground and out the other side of that 
underground part of the building into a street, causing 
multiple accidents.

One car, driven by a woman and full of children of course, 
brakes right in front of Obediah and he picks up the whole 
thing and holds it over his head while its passengers scream. 
Tony is like 'oh, come on, seriously? Put it down.' Obediah 
insists they're just collateral damage. Tony orders Jarvis to 
divert power to his chest and blasts a beam of energy from the 
arc, knocking Obediah back. He catches the car and Jarvis 
announces that power is now down to 19%. He manages to lower 
the car so the back wheels touch the road and the woman slams 
on the gas, taking off with Tony still attached to the front 
like a hood ornament. He falls under the car and gets dragged 
for a while before he can lift the back end off him. Just as 
they pass a sign for the Howard Stark Memorial Parkway.

Obediah catches up to him in a couple big leaps over stalled 
cars, grabs a motorcycle right out from under a guy and uses it 
to smack Tony into a bus. As a crowd gathers to watch in 
horror, he picks him up and slams him into the pavement a few 
times, stomps and kicks him while ranting about how he's been 
coddling him for 30 goddamn years and he BUILT this company and 
he thinks he's the boss now just because his name is Stark or 
something...
   Chrissy: Basically, he snapped.
   Diandra: A long time ago, probably.
He fires a missile into the bus and the fireball shoots Tony up 
into the air. As he's falling back though, he suddenly 
stabilizes and hovers even though he should have no power left 
in his suit at this point. Obediah looks up at him and chortles 
yeah, nice upgrades you made to the suit there, but mine are 
bigger. He activates the jets under his feet and takes off, 
looking exactly like a shuttle taking off from Cape Canavaral.

Tony asks Jarvis to take him to max altitude. Jarvis starts 
reciting the odds of him reaching that at his current 15% 
power. Tony snaps at him to just do it and takes off in front 
of Obediah. 

At the Air Force station, one of the grunts notes that that 
bogey just reappeared. General orders them to scramble the jets 
and contact the major. Rhodey hangs up the line as he goes to 
follow those orders and announces that this is just a training 
exercise and they should chill. The grunt is like 'uh....okay! 
Whatever you say, sir!'

Jarvis keeps mildly noting the decreasing suit power as they 
climb higher until Tony snaps at him to stop reading it and 
just leave it up on the screen because he can SEE IT. Obediah 
catches up and grabs him by the neck, chortling that his suit 
is superior to Tony's in every way. Tony is like 'oh, it is? So 
you must have solved the icing problem then.' Obediah is like 
'the what?' as ice is already forming on his suit. His monitor 
goes dead and he falls away, dropping back toward Earth like a 
rock...that is bound to cause damage when it lands, but we're 
not addressing things like that in this series yet. Tony 
hovers, victorious, for about two seconds before he starts 
falling too and Jarvis announces that he's just running on 
emergency backup power now.

He does a somewhat controlled fall to the ground and calls 
Pepper as he lands. He says he'll be "right there" as he's 
taking the suit off. And then, because comic book stories can 
never let the hero defeat the villain on the first try, Obediah 
appears behind him.
   Chrissy: Oy.

Tony gets his faceplate back on, but he's already removed one 
of his gauntlets so Obediah slams him backward before he can 
register why that blaster isn't working. He flies back and 
punches Obediah with the still gloved hand, which does fuck 
all. Obediah just grabs him and starts squeezing until the Iron 
Man suit starts sparking and announcing cascading system 
failures. Inside his suit, Obediah's face has taken on the look 
of a psycho watching with fascination as he slowly crushes a 
man to death. "Flares," Tony yelps and his suit starts sparking 
chaotically until Obediah drops him, losing visual instantly 
thanks to bright lights being flashed in his eyes. He chortles 
that Tony is very "clever" as he starts searching for him 
again.

From around a corner behind him, Tony starts whispering to 
Pepper that what he's doing isn't working and he needs her 
help. They need to overload the reactor. She's like 
'okay....and how are you planning to do that?' 
   Chrissy: It's a good thing you're pretty.
   Emilio: Hey, now.
He says SHE has to do it, obviously. He instructs her to open 
all the circuits on the central column. Then, on his 
instruction once he's clear of the roof that will blow off if 
this works as planned, she will hit the main bypass button. She 
gingerly makes her way back into the building, but once she 
reaches the wall of switches she starts yanking them with an 
urgency she hasn't really shown yet in this scene.

Meanwhile, Tony leaps on Obediah's back and starts ripping 
cords out of the suit at his neck. Obediah loses his visual 
display, but manages to yank Tony off and fling him across the 
roof. Tony's helmet is gone too now. Obediah opens the suit so 
it looks like one of those sentry things from "Avatar" and 
rambles about how he never had a "taste" for these things, but 
this suit is pretty damn awesome. He looks at Tony's helmet, 
still clenched in his armored hand, crushes it and flings it at 
Tony. Then he stomps toward him while he chortles about how 
Tony would have made his daddy proud.

Pepper finishes flipping switches and yelps that she's ready 
and Tony should get clear NOW. Tony is possibly no longer able 
to hear her without the helmet, but it doesn't matter because 
Obediah is shooting at him and he's trying to shield his 
exposed head with his still-covered arm. The glass ceiling he's 
standing on shatters, raining down on Pepper. He manages to 
catch a metal beam and hang on while Obediah taunts him about 
the irony of trying to rid the world of weapons and instead 
building the best one, which Obediah plans to use to kill him 
in just a moment when he's done posturing and giving Tony ample 
time to work up an escape plan like a good villain. Obediah 
shoots a missile that lands several yards away from Tony and 
grumbles that he missed because Tony ripped out his targeting 
system.
   Emilio: It's okay, you can still use it to make a whole 
   army of stormtroopers.

Tony yelps at Pepper to push the button. She says he told her 
not to until he was clear. Obediah shoots again, still way off, 
but getting warmer. Tony yells at Pepper to just HIT THE DAMN 
BUTTON. She shrieks that she will KILL him if she does. Before 
he can point out that he's dead either way, Obediah gets closer 
with his next blast and shakes his hold so he falls further 
over the edge. He yells at her to PUSH IT and she does, ducking 
away as sparks start flying. 

A blast of energy travels up from the reactor, blasting Tony 
into a corner of the roof and electrocuting Obediah before 
shooting up into the sky in a spectacular explosion that is 
about to become a pretty common sight in this universe. 
Obediah's body falls through the roof opening right into the 
reactor, which explodes, the fireball just missing Tony on its 
way out. He loses consciousness immediately, apparently, his 
reactor sparking and fizzling like it's struggling to come 
online. The screen goes black. And that's the end. Iron Man 
dies on his first outing and Hollywood scraps the idea of going 
any further with this franchise.
   Chrissy: Yeah, that joke might have worked better if we 
    had done these recaps in order.
   Diandra: No, probably not even then.

We come back to a press conference where Rhodey is talking 
about the "incident" at Stark Industries. The upshot: an 
unconfirmed prototype malfunction destroyed the arc reactor.
   Chrissy: Technically, I guess...

In another room, Pepper is fussing over Tony's facial scars, 
covering them with makeup while he reads a paper with a 
headline asking who "the iron man" is. He mutters that the name 
isn't quite right since the suit is gold-titanium alloy, but he 
likes the way it sounds. Coulson appears and hands him a 
notecard with his "alibi" on it. He wants him to say he was on 
a yacht while all this was going on, which they've generated a 
paper trail to prove if anyone claims otherwise including the 
sworn statements of 50 "guests". Tony doesn't understand why it 
couldn't have just been him and Pepper. Alone. All night. She 
gives him a look and he's like 'okay, fine. Nevermind.' He 
reads the statement he's supposed to give and notes that 
there's nothing about Obediah anywhere in it. Coulson says 
they're working on it. For now, he's officially on "vacation" 
until they can announce that the small airplane he used to 
travel to his destination crashed. Tony thinks the cover story 
is flimsy. Coulson is like 'just do it, pretty boy.' 

Pepper stops Coulson before he can leave to thank him again. He 
promises they will hear from his agency, now officially named 
SHIELD, soon. 

She helps Tony put his suit coat on while they banter about 
whether he is really Iron Man and if he was he would have a 
girlfriend who totally knew his secret identity, right? He says 
she would be proud of him even though she'd be a wreck thanks 
to the constant worry that he might die.
   Chrissy: Well, I hope you'll be happy with her because 
   I'm leaving you.
She just silently adjusts his suit while he rambles about how 
wildly conflicted she would be about the whole thing, but of 
course she would be crazy about him. He finally changes tactics 
and asks if she doesn't think about that night. You know...THAT 
night. She blinks and asks if he's referring to the night they 
danced and went up on the roof and then he went to get her a 
drink and disappeared and she had to find her own way home. 
Realizing he forgot about THAT part, he kind of gulps and gives 
a weak "mmm-hmm".
   Chrissy: Did I mention that girlfriend would be SO 
   understanding and forgive the fact that I'm a generally 
   shitty boyfriend?

She asks if that's all then and he mutters that yes, yes it is. 
Never mind. It was a stupid idea. He goes out to the same room 
they give all their press conferences from just as Rhodey is 
introducing him and warning the assembled press that he will 
NOT be taking any questions. Even if he says otherwise. We WILL 
cut off his mic if we have to. Tony gets behind the podium and 
jokes that he figures after what happened last time he spoke to 
the press, he'll stick to the cards this time. He barely starts 
reading a statement about speculations that he was involved in 
that mess at Stark Industries when a reporter interrupts to ask 
if they really think people are going to buy the bodyguard in 
the suit line they've been fed. He sneers that there's a 
difference between questioning the official story and making 
"wild accusations" and insinuations that he's some sort of 
superhero or something. She's like 'uh...I never said that, but 
go on, dummy, because CLEARLY YOU WANT TO TELL US SOMETHING.'

He stutters like 'did I just hear that in my head then? 
Oh...um...okay, well, obviously that would be ridiculous, 
right? I mean...Tony Stark as a superhero. Ha! As if! I mean, 
who would ever believe that somebody so screwed up could be...' 
Rhodey leans over and hisses in his ear that he should shut up 
and get back to the script. Tony is like right, okay. Um... He 
stares blankly at the cards in his hand for a few seconds, then 
just blurts "I am Iron Man." And we cut to credits as the 
members of the press all jump up and shout questions at the 
same time.
   Emilio: More importantly, before Rhodey can pull him off 
    that stage and chew him out.
   Chrissy: Chew? 
   Diandra: Oof.

And because they were doing end credit scenes before everybody 
knew there were going to be scenes after the credits, 
apparently, once all the final copyright stuff scrolls past 
we're back in Tony's mansion. He comes home sometime after the 
press conference to find Samuel L. Jackson hovering in the 
dark. And even though only the fans of the comic books could 
possibly have recognized Nick Fury back then, I'm not going to 
pretend we don't know who he is now. Apparently, Fury wasn't 
impressed by the press conference and wants to know if Tony 
thinks he's special or something. The only superhero in the 
world.
   Chrissy: Well, no. I mean, there were those mutants back 
    in the 70s...oh, we can't talk about them yet?
   Diandra: Or ever, apparently.

Anyway. No, Tony has joined an already existing elite club and 
Fury is the welcoming committee. 
   Chrissy: Drew the short straw, huh?
Fury steps out into the light so Tony can get a good look at 
him and his eye patch while he introduces himself as the 
director of SHIELD. "I'm here to talk to you about the Avenger 
Initiative."

Chrissy: You know, I was annoyed at your refusal to recap  
 this when we first started doing this series a couple 
 years ago, but it turns out it's actually more fun now 
 that we know where this all headed.
Diandra: That was the plan, actually.
Chrissy: No, it wasn't. 
Diandra: Okay, no. I just wanted to get to the fun part 
 without going through all the exposition.
Emilio: So you're not going to do any of the others you 
 skipped?
Diandra: No.
Chrissy: Oh, come on! I know "Captain America" was boring, 
 but you don't want to do "Thor"? We could potentially get 
 a lot of mileage out of the fact that Fandral is a 
 completely different person in that one.
Diandra: Who?
Chrissy: Oy.
Emilio: I think she called him Faromir in the last recap.
Chrissy: Right. And Volstagg was NotGimli. Okay, forget 
 that strategy. I've got a better one. There's a lot more 
 Tom Hiddleston and Idris Elba in the first "Thor".
Diandra: ..........................
Chrissy: Okay, fine. I will accept "The Night Manager" as 
 an alternate.
Diandra: Why do I feel like this entire conversation was 
 just a strategy to get me to agree to that?
Chrissy: Come on! You promised we would get to it 
 eventually!
Diandra: Yeah, well, first we have to get through the next 
 three Marvel movies. Then we'll talk.
Emilio: Five if you're still planning to do Deadpool.
Diandra: Right. Plus RDJs Sherlock Holmes movies.
Chrissy: [whines]
Diandra: Hey, YOU'RE the one who suggested it!
Chrissy: Fine. But can I play Sherlock this time?
Diandra: No.