"Ant Man and the Wasp"

Starring: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Douglas, Michael 
Pena, Laurence Fishburne, Hannah John-Kamen, Michelle Pfeiffer


I had just made plans to do this and the Captain Marvel recap 
with Chrissy when the Coronavirus pandemic put everything 
including our jobs on hold. I debated for a while whether I 
even could write a recap in light of everything that was 
happening. But after a long discussion with Chrissy and Jodie 
Whitaker's Doctor Who video encouraging people to "tell jokes, 
especially the bad ones" I decided 'yeah, I can do this.' I 
doubt I will be able to do "Endgame" now. I doubt I can even 
watch that movie again at this point. But we will cross that 
bridge when we come to it. For now, I figured Chrissy and I 
could adapt and do a watch party via Skype. We made it a hard 
rule that we would not let current events into these recaps. 
Which means that while Captain Marvel will definitely still be 
full of feminist ranting, that will be it. No Trump. No virus. 
Period. These would be pure distraction and entertainment.

We did our best.



Previously in the MCU: a purple giant snuffed out half the 
universe.

Previously in this particular corner of the MCU: Scott Lang 
trained to become one of the cheesiest superheroes in the 
Marvel roster, taking the mantle from Michael Douglas' Hank 
Pym, one of the few aging A-Listers NOT playing a villain in 
these movies. 
   Chrissy: Which is kind of weird because didn't you say 
    he was the one who built Ultron in the comics?
   Diandra: Yeah, but that makes him a Frankenstein whose 
    creation turned out badly, not actively a genocidal 
    maniac who knew full well what he was doing.
He mentioned during the movie that his wife Janet Van Dyne 
fought beside him in her own suit as The Wasp, but she was lost 
when she went into the Quantum Realm, becoming impossible to 
recover. In the post-credit scene, he gifted their daughter - 
Hope - with a Wasp suit.

We open on a flashback to the last day Hope saw her mother. A 
preteen stumbles on de-aged versions of Michael Douglas and 
Michelle Pfeiffer getting ready to leave and giving 
instructions to the maid. Janet apologetically explains that 
they have to go on a last minute "business trip" and Rose will 
be watching her for a few days. Her nickname for her daughter 
is "jellybean". Young Hope whines that she doesn't want them to 
go and Janet placates her by insisting it will be boring and 
awful. Hank says in voice over that he wished they had just 
stayed, but it was a matter of life or death.

We flash ahead to Ant Man Hank and Wasp Janet landing on some 
sort of grating surrounding a missile that is already 
launching. Janet exposits that they have to stop it and they 
swing onto it as it takes off. Hank's voice over explains that 
they needed to get inside the missile to disarm it, but the 
casing was too dense for them to laser through. Janet looks up 
at the city they are approaching as Hank VO says the only way 
they could do it was to shrink small enough to fit between the 
molecules, but they knew it wasn't possible to come back after 
going that small. Ant Hank tries to do it, but the thing on his 
belt that regulates the size of the suit breaks at just that 
moment. So Janet says "tell Hope I love her" and shrinks down 
to molecule size. The missile sparks and goes dead, plunging 
into the water before it can reach the city. Voice Over Hank 
tells Hope her mother sacrificed herself in order to save 
thousands of lives. And because Hope is an adult now, he can 
tell her that her mother is almost certainly alone and scared 
and lost to them forever. At least I hope he didn't phrase it 
quite like that back when it happened. Hank returned a single 
father and they mourned her loss. 

And we snap to the present as he skips to the part where Scott 
showed up on their doorstep like an unwanted pet and in the 
course of his hero's journey somehow managed to go into the 
Quantum Realm and find his way back to his own daughter. So now 
Hank is wondering if Janet is still alive in there somewhere 
and if they could find a way to bring her back. He unrolls a 
blueprint for a machine he says they were working on long ago. 
It is labeled "Quantum Tunnel".

Title sequence. I don't know if this was true on the last movie 
too and I didn't notice it, but the "io" in Marvel Studios has 
changed to a "10" in honor of the 10 years of the MCU. 
Otherwise, it's back to normal after "Infinity War". Thank god.

Chryon says we are now in "present day", which...we already 
were before the title card, weren't we? Scott's voice announces 
"we're in" and he turns on a flashlight and asks somebody 
behind him for a map. The unseen person hands it to him, which 
he glances at, nods and declares they are "close". The person 
behind him turns out to be his daughter Cassie. He asks if 
she's ready for this because "once we're inside, you show any 
hesitation or fear, we're done." She insists she eats fear for 
breakfast and they crawl through the dark to the kind of music 
Michael Giacchino might write for "The Incredibles". They come 
upon the giant face of an ant, which Scott claims is Anton, who 
is super helpful and will show them the way. He dramatically 
asks Anton which way they are supposed to go...twice, which is 
supposed to be the cue for his buddy Luis to do something from 
outside the box fort occupying the better part of the room. 
Luis runs to pull a string and "Anton's" leg points around the 
corner with a loud creaking noise.

They round the corner as Scott continues this little drama, 
announcing that the ants have burrowed into the tech facility. 
There are red strings criss crossing the path in front of them, 
running through holes in the cardboard. These are, of course, 
supposed to look like lasers that they have to navigate. They 
crawl past them - with her being more successful than he is, 
naturally - and reach a "secret vault". Cassie puts on a giant 
eyeball that was probably part of a Halloween thing and they 
pretend it's a contact lens that fools a retinal scan (mounted 
on an empty Cheerios box) to let them in to the room with the 
treasure. The treasure being some old trophy of Scott's. She 
asks if she can take it to show and tell. He says no, it's too 
important to ever leave the house since it's the best birthday 
present she ever got him. "I'm so touched you think I'm the 
world's greatest grandma." She exposits that it was the only 
one they had at the store. He says it makes him want to knit 
her a sweater.
   Chrissy: You know...in some ways he's almost a kid-
    friendly version of Deadpool.
   Diandra: Yeah, that's kind of a stretch there.

Luis sticks his head in and she shrieks that the "fuzz" is 
here. He ignores her and launches into a discussion with Scott 
about how there are way too many security cameras in this 
building he has the schematics of on his laptop. Scott thinks 
it's fine and reminds Luis that he is the security expert of 
their business. Luis says yeah, but he's running the company 
and he's afraid if they overshoot the quote this guy is going 
to take his business elsewhere. 
   Diandra: You know what I just realized? I have 
    absolutely no clue what it is Scott does for a living.
   Chrissy: Pretty sure he was a criminal who went 
    straight. Maybe that should have been part of your 
    "previouslies"
   Diandra: Wasn't really a detail I found relevant enough 
    to remember the first time around and I don't remember 
    it being all that significant here either.

Also irrelevant: the several lines of debate here about whether 
the expression is "land this bird" or "land the fish" that ends 
with Luis presenting a hypothetical throw down between a hawk 
and a fish that crawled out of the water. Scott tells him not 
to worry, they will land it. Whatever it is.

An alarm goes off and Cassie starts crawling back through the 
tunnels, yelling about how they should go before the po-po 
comes back. Scott is beginning to wonder how she knows slang 
terms like "fuzz" and "po-po" and - one would hope - 
questioning his choice of babysitters. They escape down a 
cardboard slide constructed from the attic down every flight of 
stairs straight to the outside of the house, dumping them on 
the lawn by the fence. Luis sticks his head out the window to 
announce that he's headed to the office and he's sorry about 
that little freak out just now. He's fine. Aside from the heart 
palpitations and the sweatiness, but that's probably the line 
of blow he did about an hour ago. Or...you know...whatever. 
Don't do drugs, kids!

Something on the fence starts beeping and Scott realizes that 
his leg went right through the fence along with the tracker on 
that ankle, which is also beeping and flashing.

So the next thing we see is FBI guys crawling all over the 
house because apparently they REALLY take house arrest 
seriously in his universe. Or, I guess, because they REALLY 
don't trust Scott. Scott whines to an agent named Woo that he 
only has three days left on his sentence and WHY would he try 
some lame escape that only got him, like, a few inches past his 
property line before coming right back. Woo says the rules say 
if he trips the alarm they have to search the entire house and 
he's all about following the rules TO THE LETTER. Scott points 
out that it was an ACCIDENT and he was just trying to entertain 
his ten year old daughter without leaving the house, which 
ISN'T EASY. He demonstrates just how desperate he's gotten to 
find modes of entertainment by producing a card out of thin 
air. Yes, he has resorted to TEACHING HIMSELF TO DO MAGIC 
TRICKS in a universe where there are people with actual magical 
abilities. Cassie asks why they can't just leave her daddy 
alone. Woo condescends to her, saying this must all seem like 
confusing grown up stuff and she should think of it like her 
school that has RULES she needs to follow. Daddy had rules he 
was supposed to follow too and he broke them.
   Chrissy: Ahem, yeah. And we all know that it is 
    important to follow all the rules even if they were 
    created for reasons that clearly only benefit the 
    people who made them in the first place. Like...oh... 
    women can't vote or gay people can't marry.
   Diandra: Or mutants must join a registry and basically 
    be used as government weapons because there's no way 
    that could go wrong.

Woo goes off his analogy to breaking school rules and rambles a 
bunch of exposition at her about how Scott made a plea deal 
with Homeland Security and the German government so he could 
return to the US and serve two years of house arrest and three 
years' probation in lieu of being thrown into a secret 
underwater supermax for rogue mutants. Part of that agreement 
involves not doing any sort of unauthorized activities or using 
technologies or contacting anyone else who violated the Sokovia 
agreements. He finishes with "okay, sweetie?" while she stares 
at him blankly. Scott sarcastically notes that he's great with 
kids. Woo doesn't get sarcasm, though, and cheerfully notes 
that he's a youth pastor. Oy. 

Woo says so, regarding that last part about associating with 
other supers...you haven't spoken to Hank Pym or Hope Van Dyne 
lately, have you? He says it's only a matter of time before 
they catch them too because the fact that he was using their 
technology means they are technically in violation of the 
Sokovia accords too. And if that doesn't nicely illustrate just 
how draconian those fucking things are... And of course if he 
contacts them he will violate his agreement and wind up 
spending the next 20 years in prison. Scott is like 
yessssss...I know...dick.

Cassie tries to help by claiming he couldn't talk to Hank or 
Hope if he wanted to because they hate him. "Thanks, peanut," 
Scott says cheerfully. Woo looks around and asks Scott in a 
whisper how he did that card trick he just did a few minutes 
ago. Judy Greer - AKA Cassie's mom Maggie - interrupts Scott's 
ponderings of whether this guy is for real by yelling at the 
agents loudly that they can't just SHOW UP WHENEVER like this. 
Her boyfriend/husband/whoever follows behind her like 
'uh...yeah, they can. They don't even need a warrant and you 
should probably stop aggravating them.'

Maggie is there to pick up Cassie, obviously, so we just skip 
right to her hugging dad goodbye. Maggie and the boyfriend also 
hug Scott goodbye and wish him luck on his last three days and 
tell him they are proud of him and I forgot how well adjusted 
this corner of the MCU is.
   Chrissy: It's like a palate cleanser after "Infinity 
    War".
   Diandra: I thought that was "Deadpool 2".
   Chrissy: No, "Deadpool 2" is the sugary, chocolate covered 
confection you gorge on after the palate cleanser.
Cassie says she had a fun weekend and Scott vows to make next 
weekend even better once he can leave the house. He says 
they'll eat so much ice cream she'll never stop puking.
   Chrissy: Which sounds fun until you actually try it.
He "pukes" up a bunch of cards because this was really just an 
excuse to try one of the tricks he learned. 

So after Cassie leaves, the song from "The Patridge Family" 
starts playing and we get a montage of him trying to figure out 
how he's going to keep himself entertained for the next three 
days. He plays drums, bowls with one of those plastic toy 
bowling sets (badly), learns some more magic, does some karaoke 
of the very song that's playing over the montage, has a good 
cry reading "The Fault In Our Stars", makes some tiny paper 
cranes, plays with the Nerf basketball hoop in a hallway, 
futzes with the plans Luis was working on earlier and probably 
has a moment like Peter did in "Homecoming" where he realizes 
it's only been, like, three hours.
 
He wraps a plastic bag around the foot with the ankle monitor 
and takes a bath, apparently falling asleep and dreaming about 
that time he went into the quantum realm. Something flitters 
around him and we can sort of see the Wasp suit while Hank 
repeats the part about Janet being lost in there in an echo-y 
voice. And then he's walking through the Van Dyne house, 
spluttering in confusion as Janet's voice seems to come from 
somewhere around him. She's playing hide and seek with Hope. 
She finds her in a wardrobe because I guess Hope never learned 
the lesson C.S. Lewis kept harping on about not hiding in 
closed cupboards. Then she turns to look at a mirror and Scott 
mutters "what the hell" as it becomes obvious he's actually 
seeing this through HER eyes. She looks startled by her 
reflection and Scott wakes up like he was having a nightmare.
   Chrissy: A nightmare wherein he was Catwoman.
   Diandra: Yeah, it could have been worse. 

He retrieves a phone from a hiding spot in the wall and calls 
Hank. He gets a voicemail and begins his message by noting that 
it's been so long since they last talked that he's not really 
sure this is still his number. So basically, what he said to 
Woo was true. He rambles about how he just dreamt he was back 
in the quantum realm and he's pretty sure he saw Janet. 
And...like...possessed her somehow. "But not in a weird way or 
anything."
   Chrissy: I mean, she wasn't wearing a leather suit and 
    holding a whip, but...
   Diandra: Are you still talking about Catwoman or...
   Chrissy: Let's say yes.
He hears what he's saying and apologizes for bothering Hank 
and, like, everything else he should be sorry about. Then he 
hangs up and breaks the phone in half.

Scott is watching, of all things, "Animal House" and eating a 
bowl of cereal when there's a buzzing noise, the vague wing 
fluttering effect and something hits his neck. He ignores it, 
goes to have another bite of cereal and falls over unconscious.

He wakes up strapped into the passenger seat of a car and 
blinks stupidly at Hope behind the wheel. He asks if he's 
dreaming again. She asks if it was a dream or a memory of 
actually seeing her mom in the quantum realm in a tone that 
clearly indicates her level of annoyance with him is pushing 
close to nuclear. He has no idea. Then he wakes up a little 
more and realizes he's in a car well outside of the house and 
tries to open the door. Hope says he can't open the door while 
the system is engaged. A giant eyeball appears outside his 
window and he yelps. It is a pigeon. Because they are ant size. 
Another pigeon ambles over and starts pecking on the car 
curiously. They are both chased off by a garbage truck that 
drives over the car.

Hope starts driving again and tells Scott to relax because the 
FBI has no idea he left the house. He looks down at his leg and 
the pale band of skin where the tracker used to be. 

At home, a human-sized ant is on the couch, the tracker around 
one of its legs, eating a box of Fruit Loops. And that's not a 
figure of speech. He's eating the actual box.
   Chrissy: This wing of the MCU is also, like, an 
    experiment in making things that would normally be 
    found in horror movies fun.
   Diandra: Yep. We don't see what he's watching, so I'm 
    going to go ahead and headcannon that it's "The Fly".
   Chrissy: Jeff Goldblum's version?
   Diandra: Probably. No, wait...can Jeff Goldblum exist in 
    this universe?
   Chrissy: Might want to save that debate for later when 
    the whole multiverse thing officially comes into 
    effect.
   Diandra: You think I'm still going to be writing these 
    things then?
   Chrissy: Or when we do "Deadpool".
   Diandra: Let's shoot for that. 
Luis wanders in for some reason and nearly has a heart attack. 
And then, because he has the intelligence of a rutabaga, he 
calls Scott's name like 'is that you, buddy?'

Hope says the ant is "programmed" to replicate Scott's normal 
routine. Nine hours in bed, five hours in front of the TV and 
two whole hours in the bathroom for reasons nobody wants to 
hypothesize about. Scott asks how they would know what his 
"normal routine" looks like. She says they keep tabs on 
"security threats".
   Chrissy: Like SHIELD and Doctor Strange and probably 
   everybody else in this universe.
He apologizes for the Germany thing, but "they just showed up" 
and Cap needed help. Hope is like 'since when do you refer to 
Captain America by nickname?'
   Chrissy: I mean...it feels kind of weird to refer to a  
   guy formally after you've felt up his man boobs, but...

Scott fumbles around a bit, muttering about how they're kind of 
friends...or maybe just acquaintances and whatever I'M SORRY. 
"I didn't think I'd get caught." Uh. Yeah. Saying that after 
saying you're sorry kind of negates the apology, dude. She 
snaps that he didn't think about a LOT of things. Well, duh. 
Have you met him? Scott sobers and asks how Hank is doing. She 
says well, they're on the run and his house is gone, so...NOT 
GREAT. But she's not looking for an apology. They need whatever 
is in his head. She parks in front of a building and the car 
blows back up to normal size. 

She enters the code at the front door and they enter what looks 
like an abandoned building straight out of some post-
apocalyptic movie. He assumes this is where they are living now 
and offers to help or give her money or something. She laughs 
it off and they step out of the elevator into an enormous high-
tech lab with ants acting as worker drones. Scott nearly trips 
over one carrying a piece of equipment and gawps at more of 
them working on a machine positioned at the entrance of a 
tunnel that was totally ripped from "The Time Tunnel". Hank 
emerges from the tunnel and Scott tries to apologize to him to, 
but Hank cuts him off. He asks his daughter if they can get 
started. 

She launches into an exposition about how they've been building 
this tunnel to the quantum realm while he was fucking 
everything up by getting into a fight with Iron Man. They think 
her mother is still in there somewhere, but they don't know 
where, exactly. They think he can help them locate her so they 
can use the machine to retrieve her. Hank adds that they 
powered up the tunnel last night for the first time and it 
overloaded and shut down immediately. But five minutes later 
Scott called rambling about seeing Janet in a dream. Hank is 
working on the theory that while Scott was in the quantum 
realm, he and Janet became... entangled. Scott is like 'I 
didn't touch her! I swear!' Hank sighs like 'no, not that kind 
of entanglement, stupid.' Hope clarifies that they think she 
put a message in his head somehow that got triggered by them 
opening the tunnel. Scott is like wait...........what? Y'all 
realize how crazy this sounds, right? Hank snaps that it's not 
as crazy as running off to Germany to fight the Avengers. He 
asks if Scott was telling the truth about destroying the suit 
he took with him. Scott says yes and Hank whines about how he 
destroyed his life's work. Scott is like 'they made me!' Hank 
is like 'and this is why we're pissed that you did any of it.'

Scott says okay, again, SORRY and it was probably nothing 
because he doesn't actually remember seeing her in the quantum 
realm. He just had a random dream about her playing hide and 
seek with a little girl. Hank and Hope both stop moving and 
stare at him. Hope asks where the girl was hiding. In a 
wardrobe? Scott says no, it was more like a tall dresser or 
something. Hank sighs that that IS a wardrobe. Scott is like 
'it is?' Hope prods him for details, giving a description of 
the wardrobe, and confirms that it's where she hid every time 
they played hide and seek. Scott notes that she obviously 
wasn't very good at the game, but Hope and Hank are too busy 
grinning at each other and hugging because this confirms Janet 
is alive and trying to communicate. They launch into action, 
talking about getting "that part" that somebody named Burch 
has. Scott follows them in a cloud of confusion.

As they are exiting the building, Hope exposits that they need 
a part that will stop the tunnel from overloading. She pulls a 
duffel bag full of Scott's clothing from the backseat of the 
truck and tosses it at him with instructions to change. Hank 
presses a button to shrink the truck, then switches it with a 
van he pulls from a container full of shrunken vehicles. Scott 
repeats the fear that he won't be home when the feds come to 
take his ankle monitor off and they will send him right back to 
the underwater supermax. Hope assures him they'll have him home 
in a few hours. Heading off the obvious questions why they 
can't just wait a few days until his house arrest is over and 
he can go wherever he wants, she says the entanglement won't 
last.
   Chrissy: Which...really doesn't make sense and is 
    probably just thrown in to give the plot urgency.
   Diandra: Yeah, there'll be a lot more of that in 
    "Endgame", when they totally change how Pym particles 
    work for convenience of plot.

Scott says fine, but asks if he can wait in the lab for them. 
In answer, Hank pushes a button on his magic remote and the 
whole building shrinks, a startled pigeon flying away. Hank 
pulls a handle out of it and wheels it to the van like a 
carryon bag. As they are driving away, a brief human shape 
flickers in the middle of the road, watching them.

They park the van in a garage and Hope goes into the building 
while the boys watch the security cameras. A guy who has 
probably made a career out of playing slimeballs greets her as 
Susan and launches into a spiel about how this restaurant in a 
hotel lobby is locally sourced and farm fresh, sustainable and 
has a French name so it sounds fancy. He doesn't say that last 
part, exactly, but that's usually the reason. She's like 'yeah, 
whatever. Here's the money. You have the component?' 

In the van, Scott asks who this guy is for the benefit of the 
audience, mostly, although the fact that he's trying to sort of 
woo Hope is probably fueling a bit of jealousy. Hanks says he's 
that Burch guy they were talking about and he traffics black 
market tech, so he's basically been supplying them with all the 
parts for the Time Tunnel. Scott tries a couple times to snag 
an Altoid from a tin and Hank moves the tin away and slaps his 
hand.

Back in the restaurant, Burch is rambling about how he has a 
source at the FBI who says her name isn't really Susan. In 
fact, the source has told him exactly who she and her 
"associate" father are. Hope sits and asks what he wants, 
exactly. He rambles about relationships and trust and how 
SHIELD and HYDRA don't even exist anymore and does she think he 
doesn't know what she's been building with all the stuff he's 
getting for her? He says forget nanotech, AI and 
"cryptocurrency": he smells money in this and he wants a cut. 
He's arranged some potential buyers for her lab and the bidding 
starts at one billion. Hope says she and her father aren't 
planning on starting a business here. Burch slides the 
component onto the bench beside him and out of her reach and 
says either they do this or their "relationship" is over. She 
shrugs and starts to leave with the money she agreed to pay 
him, but he takes that too. "Let's call it compensation for my 
injured feelings."
   Chrissy: And what compensation will you require when I 
   kick your balls up into the back of your throat?

She sighs and says this would all be so much easier on everyone 
if he would give her the component. He's like 
'um...........no.' So she calmly walks away in a manner that 
makes it obvious he hasn't really won here. Hank verifies this 
from the van as Scott asks what they're supposed to do now and 
Hank tells him to just watch.

Burch is walking toward the front door with an entourage when 
something buzzes into the guy in front, knocking him over. In 
the van, Scott yelps that Hank gave Hope WINGS? He has to run 
everywhere, but she can FLY?!

Hope returns to normal size for a moment, taking out a couple 
more guards, then shrinks again and buzzes another into a 
table. She plays a little more back and forth with the shrink 
ray as she picks off guards while Burch retreats. When the 
guards pull guns and surround her, she shrinks and flies up 
into the ceiling and they stupidly shoot the enormous 
chandelier while she darts between strings of glass. 

Burch hands the bag of money to one of his thugs and sends him 
into the kitchen. Hope zips down through the glass and pins a 
guard to the counter. He freezes for a moment, staring at her 
like 'eep!', then runs for the back door. She chucks a nearby 
salt shaker across the room and zaps it with whatever they 
probably used to enlarge the ant playing Scott right now, 
blocking the door. The guy runs right into it and knocks 
himself cold.

Another goon enters the kitchen, takes one look at the chaos, 
picks up a large knife and slings it toward Hope. She shrinks, 
but he keeps picking up and slinging more knives so she can run 
along the blades before leaping to the pot on the stove and 
landing on the handle, flipping it onto him. Another goon grabs 
a meat tenderizer and starts playing whack a mole with her. She 
runs and dodges and blinds him by puncturing a bag of flour, 
then ignites a burner to set another guy's arm on fire. She 
expands again and finishes them all off before taking the bag 
of money and dumping it on the table Burch retreated to as she 
swaggers past, device in her other hand.

In the van, Scott is still fixated on the fact that she has 
WINGS and BLASTERS and he's really hoping those were features 
Hank just couldn't do yet back when he was building Scott's 
suit. Hank just says "no, I did" and they stare at each other 
silently.

Before Hope can leave, a figure in a white suit appears like a 
fracturing hologram and runs toward her. They have a CGI fight 
where one keeps jolting between normal and miniature and the 
other appears and disappears entirely. Hope asks if Hank is 
seeing this thing. He just yells at her to get out of there. 
Before she can, the ghost reappears and they fight some more. 
Scott starts to run out the van door to help 
her...somehow...and Hank stops him so he can pull out the Ant 
Man suit, which he shrunk like all the cars and stores in the 
Altoid tin Scott kept trying to grab. He warns that it's still 
a "work in progress".

Inside, Scott rides a flying ant into the frey, expanding and 
blocking a punch from the ghost before kicking it in the crotch 
on the assumption that it is a man and this is the quickest way 
to disable him. The ghost disappears and Hank reports that he 
can't see anything from out in the van either, but something 
cuts him off.

We switch to inside the van, where the ghost has put a 
warbling, insubstantial hand through his neck. A woman's voice 
demands he give her the shrunken lab right now or else. 

Scott and Hope arrive back at the van to find a traumatized 
Hank who growls that "he" got the lab. So even he is assuming 
she's a man. 
   Chrissy: I think the voice was layered and filtered 
    through a modulator, so you probably just heard the 
    female notes because you already know the Ghost is a 
    woman.
   Diandra: So they're all assuming she's a man because 
    that's the default?
   Chrissy: Probably.

As they're driving away, Hank says they need to find a place to 
settle and regroup and find where the lab went. Scott offers 
his house since he's supposed to be there anyway and any minute 
Woo could walk in... Hank is like 'yeah, so you can see why 
that's a terrible idea, right?' Scott asks if they can use HIS 
house then. Hank just gives him a look and he apologizes. He 
says there's only one other place he can think of then and Hank 
yells "no" repeatedly.

So the next scene starts with Luis making them coffee and 
gushing about how "Mr. Pym" actually turned to him in his "hour 
of need". Hank bites his tongue and probably mentally writes 
Scott out of his will. A Russian guy sets a grocery store boxed 
pastry in front of the Pyms and Luis chastising him for buying 
fancy stuff like that because they have to keep their food 
budget down.
   Chrissy: Can't you just get a box of cheap ass calorie 
   bomb donuts like normal people?
The token black guy asks what they're supposed to have for 
breakfast. Luis points to the oatmeal packets by the coffee 
pot. Russian says those shitty organic things taste like sand 
and he considers the idea of even touching them an insult. The 
Pyms are looking at each other through this inane conversation 
like 'are we really this desperate?' Scott finally cuts in as 
Luis is insisting they try some brown sugar and cinnamon like 
CAN WE FOCUS HERE? Then he gets distracted when he notices the 
tiny "desk" (really a folding table) wedged in the corner with 
his name scotch taped to it. Luis is like 'yeah, you weren't 
here when we were claiming our desks, so we stuck you with the 
shittiest one we could find.' Scott yelps that he wasn't there 
because he was under HOUSE ARREST and, what, they fished a 
"desk" out of the dumpster or something? Hank looks at Hope 
like 'please tell me you're not serious about this guy. You 
could do so much better.'

Hope tries to cut in and Scott immediately redirects like 'and 
as I was saying, we need to FOCUS here and find that lab.' Luis 
babbles something about how he's heard stories about this 
"crazy creepy cat" who can walk through walls getting to them. 
Like, you know, a ghost. Russian guy pipes up that it sounds 
like Baba Yaga to him. You know, the witch. Black guy says they 
don't find someone like that, they are found BY someone like 
that. Luis is like 'what kind of genius doesn't put a lojack on 
his super important mini lab anyway?' Hank says he did and it 
was disabled because whoever stole it isn't an amateur. 

Hope, desperate to propel the plot forward in some way, notes 
that they also looked like they were "phasing". Hank explains 
for the rest of the idiots that she means "quantum phasing" 
wherein an object cycles rapidly through matter states. Scott 
plays the standard idiot 'oh, yeah, I knew that' card. Hope 
suggests modifying a quantum spectrometer and tracking the 
radiation the lab puts out that way. Hank thinks that would 
work if they could access his equipment...which is all in the 
lab. Scott asks if there's anywhere else they could get their 
hands on that sort of equipment. Hank sighs and says they could 
ask Bill Foster. An old colleague he had at SHIELD. 
Unfortunately they had a falling out years ago and haven't 
really spoken since. Scott and Hope think it's worth a shot.

At an dilapidated house somewhere, Ghost sets the lab down on a 
table and takes off the mask. SHE then takes off the rest of 
the suit and staggers, phasing rapidly and looking like she's 
been through hell and back toward a glass chamber in the middle 
of what looks like her own lab. She lays on the cot in the 
chamber as it powers up and surrounds her with gold light.

University. Scott, Hope and Hank walk through the gates dressed 
in "disguises" that instantly make them stand out. Mainly, 
sunglasses, baseball hats...you know, stuff that might make 
people wonder if they're terrorists. Scott basically points out 
how awful the disguises are himself while grumbling that this 
is a REALLY bad idea. 

Inside a classroom hall, Morpheus (AKA Bill Foster) is giving a 
lecture about relationships between particles and stability. He 
says if a quantum system were perfectly isolated, it would 
divide into separate states of matter and they would all form 
their own entanglements. Or something like that. 
   Chrissy: Science-y words science-y words reverse 
    polarity quantum entanglement.
   Diandra: Yeah, I don't look to Hollywood writers for 
    actual science. Especially ones that don't understand 
    how PhDs work.
Scott and the Pyms sneak into the back of the auditorium as he 
is translating that last part as meaning that the matter would 
exist both in and out of phase "with multiple parallel 
realities". He instantly spots Hank and wraps the lecture up 
quickly.

In his office, having obviously already been filled in on some 
stuff, Bill declares that Scott is "linked" to Janet via Posner 
molecules in the quantum state or something sufficiently smart 
sounding. Scott briefly channels exasperated scientists 
watching these movies by asking if they just put the word 
"quantum" in front of everything. Hope is like SO ABOUT THE 
LAB. Bill apologizes that he doesn't have the sort of equipment 
Hank was hoping he might. Hank mutters that this is a waste of 
time and tries to get the kids to leave. Bill sneers at him for 
being condescending when he's on the run from the FBI "because 
you had to grow to a size that finally fit your ego." Because 
he doesn't realize it was Scott in Germany during the Civil 
War, not Hank. Hank points out the mistake and Bill looks at 
Scott curiously, noting that increasing size like that must 
have been a HUGE drain on energy. Scott says yeah, he slept for 
three days straight. Bill then exposits that he used to be 
Hank's partner on a project called Goliath, so he has first 
hand knowledge that "the only thing more tiring than going that 
big is putting up with Hank's bullshit." Scott laughs, then 
catches the death glare Hank is shooting at him and sobers. He 
and Bill compare the sizes they managed to achieve like boys in 
a locker room.
   Chrissy: Or at a urinal in the men's room. 
   Diandra: That is usually a lot more subtle.

Hope is like CAN WE STOP WITH THE DICK MEASURING ALREADY AND 
FOCUS? Missing lab? Hello? Bill expresses snarky surprise that 
the brilliant Hank Pym hasn't figured out how to locate the lab 
already. They have a little passive aggressive spat over 
whether Bill left their project years ago or Hank fired him.
   Chrissy: Probably both in separate realities.
   Diandra: And in ANOTHER reality, he was the first victim 
    of Ultron. 
   Chrissy: Is this reality Universe 616, aka the comics?
   Diandra: Yes.
Bill keeps talking about how awful Hank is to work with while 
Hank looks like he's sucking a lemon. Tempermental, stubborn, 
pushed everyone away...
   Chrissy: This is about me stealing your girlfriend 
   again, isn't it?

Bill says Janet was the only one who could stand to be around 
him, which she obviously paid for eventually. Hope and Scott 
jump in to stop Hank from throttling him. Hope starts pleading 
with Bill to be reasonable because she's just trying to save 
her mother here. Scott, meanwhile, hears voices outside and 
looks out the window to find Woo and a couple other agents 
questioning people. He assumes the jig is up and they're here 
to arrest him. Hank pulls up some sort of CCTV feed on his 
phone and tells Scott to relax because if it were about him 
they would have gone to his house and there's nobody there but 
the ant body double, currently playing drums. Before Scott can 
yelp about them having cameras in his HOUSE Hope starts herding 
them out the door. Bill calls after them some science-y mumbo 
jumbo instructions on how they could rig a tracker without the 
equipment they came looking for. Hope thanks him.

Probably minutes later, the agents are in Bill's office and Woo 
is insisting that campus police gave them a positive ID for 
both Hank and Hope. Bill is like 'yeah, well, they must've been 
mistaken. I haven't talked to that asshole in three decades. 
Did I mention we hate each other?'

In the van, Hank is ranting about how Bill never had any good 
ideas in his entire career, but HE is the one with the problem. 
Hope is just rolling her eyes and waiting for him to finish so 
she can ask if his defractor thing idea would work though. Hank 
grumbles yeah, sure, except he took out the defractors the last 
time he upgraded the suits, so... Scott hesitantly asks if all 
this means they could use an old suit to track down the lab. 
Hank is like yeah, but we destroyed them. Scott is like 'um...I 
know I was SUPPOSED to do that and I said I did it, like, a 
couple hours ago, but...' He defends himself when Hank starts 
yelling by claiming he couldn't bring himself to destroy Hank's 
life's work, so he shrunk it down and mailed it to Luis. Where 
it is totally safe.

Cut right to Scott, still in the van, having a whispered 
conversation with Luis on his cell phone. Luis says the trophy 
it was apparently hidden in isn't in Cassie's room where it's 
supposed to be and Scott realizes she took it to show and tell. 
He gets off the phone and says "well, the good news is I know 
where it is". And we cut away before Hank can blow a gasket.

Cassie's elementary school. Scott and Hope fly down the halls 
(Scott having to ride a flying ant like a horse again), while 
Scott banters about how everything usually looks smaller when 
you go back into a school as an adult. Something zaps him and 
he falls. Amazingly, she had nothing to do with it as she tells 
her dad the regulator isn't working. Scott, now about a foot 
tall, asks just how much of a work in progress this suit is. 
The bell rings and he runs into a storage closet before anyone 
notices him. He fusses with the regulator some more and 
accidently goes giant sized, damaging the ceiling with his 
head.
   Chrissy: But don't worry, his head is probably fine.
   Diandra: Yeah, I have no doubt he's taken worse blows.

He asks Hope if she could maybe stop laughing and help him out 
here.
   Chrissy: I could, but...
She increases to normal size and climbs onto his lap to reach 
the regulator in his belt. She opens the...buckle, I 
guess...looks at the sparking wires and tells Hank the sizing 
coils aren't working. She pokes at it a bit and something 
sparks and Scott yelps like 'could you not play with 
electricity that close to my crotch?!'
   Chrissy: Hey, some guys like that.
   Diandra: ..................I walked right into that. 
    Sorry, readers.

She futzes some more, closes the buckle and Scott shrinks back 
to normal size. They have a moment where they're standing face 
to face and it looks like they might kiss and then suddenly he 
shrinks down again to maybe three feet tall. Hope bends over 
and taunts "if only Cap could see you now."
   Chrissy: Oh, he knew he was scrapping the bottom of the 
   barrel.
Scott spots the lost and found bin nearby and we cut to him 
sneaking out wearing some kid's lost hoodie. A teacher spots 
his retreating back and asks for a hall pass. He runs and the 
teacher, in true form, is like 'whatever, I'm not paid enough 
to care that much.'

He finds the right classroom, currently empty, and Wasp just 
hovers next to him throwing giggling encouragements while he 
tries to reach Cassie's backpack in a top cubby. He glares at 
her and she blows up to human size to pull it down. He fishes 
out the trophy and takes the suit out of the false bottom. Hope 
puts the bag back, shrinks and they run for it.

Hope gets to the van first, of course, and they wait while 
Scott climbs down the stairs in front of the building and 
struggles to heave himself into the van. "Hiya, champ, how was 
school today," Hank says brightly. Scott is like 'yeah, yeah, 
fuck you. Can you fix this?' Hank asks if he wants a juice box 
and some string cheese. Scott is like 'well, yeah, actually, I 
would.'

They pull over somewhere and Hank works on making Scott's old 
suit act as a tracker. He's not too hopeful, but something 
immediately begins pinging on his laptop and a map pops up with 
a triangulating location. They go to the abandoned house 
looking exactly like something out of a horror movie with 
wolves howling in the distance and Scott just nods and says 
"this seems right."

As Scott and Hope are suiting up, he makes a comment on the 
fact that this is the second time they team up for a mission 
just today. She says yeah, which is why it was so weird how 
after all that time working and training together and "other 
stuffing" together he just fucked off to Germany without even 
giving her a heads up.
   Chrissy: Okay, two things. First: other stuffing? I 
    just...no. Second: did he actually have a choice? I 
    feel like Sam probably just shoved him in a van with 
    the promise of schnitzel or something and he went along 
    with it because hey, Captain America.
   Diandra: I don't think they ever said exactly how he 
    ended up on the team, so that sounds as good an 
    explanation as any. And you know there was a theory 
    about Ant-Man killing Thanos by flying up his butt and 
    expanding, right?
   Chrissy: ............why are you bringing this up now?
   Diandra: I'm pretty sure it had something to do with 
    what you said but I don't remember how anymore.
   Chrissy: [warily] Other stuffing?
   Diandra: Oh, that's right. I was wondering what sort of 
    kinky ass shit they might be doing with the suits. 
   Chrissy: Sigh.

He asks if she would have gone with him if he'd asked. She's 
not sure (probably not once she found out it was a bitch fight 
between Iron Man and Captain America), but she's confident that 
if she had, he never would have gotten himself caught. She puts 
on her helmet, reduces, and flies away. Soft romantic music 
plays and Scott smiles. And then Hank turns around and asks if 
Scott can stop thinking about banging his daughter long enough 
to focus on the mission here.
   Chrissy: Probably can't make any promises if she's going 
   to be such a badass. 
He says yes, shrinks and hops on his flying ant horse. I can't 
believe I'm actually typing this shit.
   Chrissy: Hey, we've already done, what, a dozen of these 
   things so far? This is hardly even the craziest one.

Hope asks what took him so long when he catches up to her. He 
jokes that he was coming up with a name for his horse ant and, 
because he's a dad with lame humor, he came up with Ulysses S 
Gr-ant. Hope is like 'if I agree that that's funny will you 
agree to never make that joke again?' From the van, Hank 
complains that he's not getting anything on the monitors 
because something inside the house is creating electronic 
disturbance. 

They fly past the Ghost suit and Scott startles. Hope points 
out that it has to be just the empty suit because it's stable. 
Also, because there's a lady in that giant tank right over 
there. They fly over for a closer look at her and Scott wonders 
if the suit is what gives her the ability to go through walls. 
Hope doesn’t care. She just wants to get the lab and go. They 
find it sitting on the table where Ghost left it and increase 
to normal size. And in the second it took to do that, 
apparently Ghost woke up because Hope looks over to find the 
tank empty. She starts to say "oh shit", but is interrupted by 
Ghost appearing behind them and knocking them both unconscious. 

Scott wakes up first to discover that all three of them are in 
the house now and tied to chairs. He tries to call to the 
others and Ghost appears to say they can't hear him. She 
introduces herself as Ava. He's like okay, um...guess that 
blows my theory about the suit giving you those powers since 
you're phasing right now. She says no, the suit helps her 
control the phasing. She says it's supposed to help with the 
pain too, but... Scott asks if she's just going to reach into 
his chest and crush his heart or something. She giggles and 
says he's funny.
   Chrissy: In small doses. It wears thin after a while.
   Diandra: A while being, like, an hour or less.
She says no, she won't hurt him unless he does something stupid 
and forces her hand because she needs what's in his head.
   Chrissy: Oh, honey, you must be very desperate.

Her hands start phasing as she goes to touch him and she sighs 
and says they should wake up the others and "get this over 
with". She does this by kicking their chairs, which somehow 
works immediately. Hope snaps when she notices the roughed up 
Hank next to her and snarls at Ava to never touch him again if 
she knows what's good for her. Scott is like 'I'm here too, by 
the way.' Ava sneers back that she's actually being very gentle 
with daddy dearest "all things considered." Hank has no idea 
what the hell she's talking about. Bill comes around the corner 
from another part of the house suddenly and explains that she's 
"another casualty of Hank Pym's ego". Scott and Hope splutter a 
bit, but Hank just glares while Ava exposits that her dad was 
Elias Starr, one of Hank's colleagues at SHIELD working on 
quantum research. Until they had a disagreement and Hank had 
him fired and discredited. Elias continued working, but in his 
desperation to prove himself took too many risks and wound up 
building a device that failed spectacularly. 

We see a flashback of him evacuating his warehouse laboratory 
as a machine that looks kind of like the Time Tunnel Hank and 
Hope have been working on starts flashing and pulsing crazily. 
Little Ava and her mom are there for some reason and start 
running, but Ava doesn't want to leave him. She turns and runs 
right into the room with him, trailed by her mother, as the 
machine explodes and destroys the entire warehouse. Sometime 
later, firemen are searching the burning remains of the 
building and find her crouched over her parents dead bodies. 
But when one of the firemen tries to pick her up his hands go 
right through her. Ava's voice over says it's called "molecular 
disequilibrium". Basically her body is being torn apart at a 
cellular level and stitched back together on an endless loop.

Bill takes over to explain how he factors into this. He was 
called about a quantum anomaly in Argentina (where Elias had 
his lab, apparently). We get a flashback of a CGI deaged Larry 
Fishburne visiting Ava in some sort of facility, giving her a 
teddy bear and patiently encouraging her to keep trying to take 
it until her hands solidify enough to actually grip it. Ava 
says Bill tried to keep her safe from SHIELD, which just wanted 
to use her as a weapon, but basically failed. On the plus side, 
though, they built the suit so she could control the phasing. 
They promised to cure her if she did what they asked, but of 
course she was much more valuable to them in her Ghost state, 
so...that didn't happen. But then SHIELD collapsed, so Bill 
built the chamber to "slow her decay" and has been watching 
over her ever since. 

Scott's phone starts buzzing with an obnoxious quacking noise. 
Bill hesitates a moment, then continues, ignoring it. He says 
Ava really wanted to kill Hank, but he encouraged her to keep 
an eye on him instead. And when she discovered he was building 
a quantum tunnel... The phone quacks again. Bill stops to look 
at it again, then continues that she also found out about Scott 
and the message Janet planted in his head and....QUACK QUACK 
QUACK. He snaps and goes to pick up the phone. It's a 911 text 
from Cassie. Scott yelps that he needs to text her back and 
while Bill is lecturing him for not appreciating the gravity of 
the situation here, the video chat app starts ringing. Bill 
sighs and answers the call, holding the phone to Scott's face. 
He asks if she's okay and what the emergency is. "I can't find 
my soccer shoes," she says. He stares at the screen like 'are 
you fucking kidding me? We need to have a long talk about what 
constitutes an emergency sometime when I'm not TIED TO A CHAIR 
AND LISTENING TO A BAD GUY SOLILOQUY.'

Mom grabs the phone and asks if Scott can just walk the phone 
around the house because she's pretty sure they're there. He 
says he can't do that right now. She asks why and he proves he 
is the worst liar in the world by saying he's sick.
   Chrissy: Well, he could be on the toilet.
   Diandra: Thanks for that little mental image, Chris.
Mom just says fine, look around later and call her back. He 
agrees to do that and they all - including the new 
husband/boyfriend - wish him a speedy recovery from this 
mystery illness before Bill hangs up. Bill tosses the phone 
back with the others and probably takes a moment to remind 
himself that they need Scott alive. Hank tries to appeal to 
Ava, offering to help her. Bill snaps that she doesn't need his 
help because Bill can save her. Janet is the key. She has been 
in the quantum realm for thirty years absorbing quantum energy 
that they can extract. So...that was only maybe two days for 
her, right? Oh, wait...right. It was a whole thirty years 
because the MCU is nothing if not inconsistent.
   Chrissy: Hey, it took them a whole two movies to screw 
   up their internal logic, that's like...almost a year.

Hank asks if he's insane. Does he seriously think he can 
extract energy from Janet and use it to repair Ava? "That would 
rip Janet apart." Bill doesn't think that's a certainty, so 
it's worth trying. And if Scott won't cooperate and give him 
Janet's location when they fire up the Time Tunnel, he'll turn 
him in to the FBI. He uses one of their shrink thingies on the 
chamber and starts to take it and the shrunken lab away, but 
Hank starts raving about how they will kill Janet and then 
starts groaning and squirming and muttering about pills. Hope 
yelps that he needs his pills for his heart. They're in the 
Altoid tin. Bill and Ava hesitate while Hope sobs and coaches 
Hank to breathe and Scott yells at them to HELP HIM. Bill 
reaches for the tin and the minute he opens it a half a dozen 
ants spring out and blow up to human size. One of the ants cuts 
the trio's ties with its claws while the others go after Bill 
and Ava, holding them off while the heroes make off with the 
lab.

Once they're back in the lab, Hank rants that Bill is lying to 
that girl because Elias was a traitor who stole his plans and 
HIS plan would have wrecked the whole system. Hope tries to 
calm him down and tells him to go reprogram the machine while 
she puts the component they got from that jerk in and the panel 
powers up. She notes that after all this preparation, she still 
doesn't feel like she's ready for this. Scott suggests you 
can't really prepare for going subatomic because it sort of 
"melts your mind".
   Chrissy: And thank you in advance for not suggesting the 
   damage has already been done in my particular case.
She says she was referring to the part where she might see her 
mother again, actually. "What if she's a completely different 
person?"
   Chrissy: Well, thanks to the time dilation Scott noted 
    in "Endgame", it's probably only been maybe a day or 
    two for her, right? Right?
   Diandra: Ahem. Yeah. 

Hope is concerned that her mother has forgotten about her in 
her time in the quantum realm because obviously none of the 
writers is a mother. Scott is pretty sure he couldn't have 
forgotten about his daughter while he was in prison no matter 
how long he was there and he assures Hope that her mom is 
DEFINITELY thinking about her and driven to be reunited with 
her. Hope thanks him for the reassurance and the moment is cut 
short when his phone rings.

It's Luis because of course it is. He says they have a problem 
with the plans he's working on because there's supposed to be 
motion sensor lights on the building. Scott is like 
uh...yeah...he's been kind of...busy. Can he deal with this 
tomorrow? Luis says he's meeting with the client first thing in 
the morning, so...no. He needs Scott RIGHT NOW. He says the 
plans are on the laptop, so he'll just bring them to him if 
Scott tells him where he is now. 

So then we have a seemingly unnecessary scene of Luis 
confirming that Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum are ready for the 
big meeting tomorrow before setting off to find Scott. He asks 
if they washed the van and then chews them out for getting the 
complete package including an undercarriage wash that they 
don't need because they are in California, not Minnesota. Burch 
appears suddenly to confirm that the undercarriage thing is 
totally a scam for people in states that don't need to spread 
salt on the roads every winter. Luis is like 'um...hi?' Burch 
says an "associate" of his at the FBI said Luis was an 
associate of Scott Lang, who is an associate of Hank Pym who 
has a magical shrinking lab that he'd really like to get his 
hands on. Luis tries to play dumb, which...I mean...he is, 
but... Burch goes full Bond villain and threatens to sic his 
friend who is an expert in getting information out of people 
via drugs. Luis is like 'dude...you mean he's gonna use truth 
serum?' The henchman bristles that truth serum doesn't actually 
exist outside of movies. They have a little argument about the 
fact that what he uses does basically the same thing, so who 
cares? And we cut away before they can kill these idiots.

Back in the crumbling mansion, Bill notes that the chamber and 
suit are barely helping Ava anymore and they REALLY need to get 
the lab back. She asks him how much time she has left, exactly. 
He shrugs and says maybe a couple weeks. Ava says they'll just 
have to force them to bring the lab back then. The young idiot 
has a daughter, right? Bill is like no, I've been lenient so 
far, but I draw the line at taking people's children hostage. 
She snaps that she is fading into NOTHING and he promised he 
would fix her and he needs the lab to do that. Bill says yes, 
he will help her, but not if she threatens Scott's kid. Ava 
says fine, she'll just have to explore other options then and 
walks away.

Henchman has Luis tied to a chair and is injecting him with 
the...let's just call it truth serum. Burch, still trying to 
maintain the image that he is a badass villain here, asks him 
where Scott Lang is. Luis vomits up a whole stream of 
exposition that proves Burch probably didn't need any sort of 
chemical inducement to get the moron to talk. He takes Burch 
through the entirety of his friendship with Scott, starting 
with meeting him when they were both in prison. "You put a dime 
in him, you gotta let the whole song play out," Tweedle Dee 
says like 'hahahaha...I could have warned you earlier, but it's 
more fun to watch you suffer now.' So Luis goes on a chaotic 
romp through Scott being released from prison, starting a thing 
with Hope and then "trash[ing] an airport with Captain America" 
and pissing her off and ending up on house arrest but, like, 
they're back together now and the company is days away from 
going out of business and... His idiot employees are like 
'what's this now?' Luis is like oh, um...yeah...basically 
they're broke and this project they're trying to do is the only 
thing that can save them now. Sorry to break it to you like 
this.

Burch tries to lead him back toward the original question he 
wanted answered like a stressed out trainer trying to corral a 
hyper puppy. Luis says Scott is "in a tricky spot, emotionally 
speaking." Burch is like 'where is he PHYSICALLY located, 
numbnuts?' "Oh," says the most useless character in this whole 
universe. "The woods." Ava appears next to Burch at that moment 
like 'is he now?' and they all scream like little girls and the 
Russian guy shrieks about Baba Yaga. She stands over Luis 
menacingly and prompts him to give more details about which 
"woods" the lab is in. Luis yips which woods they are exactly 
off the panoramic highway and she stomps out while the Russian 
guy whimpers a nursery rhyme to ward off Baba Yaga or 
something.

Burch and his men emerge from the building to find Ava has 
shredded the tires on their SUV. Burch whines a lament that she 
might get to the tech first and he'll never get hold of it 
then. His torturer goon asks what he wants to do now then. He 
shrugs that it would be easier to steal it from the feds, so... 
He calls an agent he knows to give him the location of Scott, 
Hope and Hank.

The agent goes to talk to Woo about a "lead".

Back at the lab in the woods, Hank and Hope are punching 
buttons on a panel and the Time Tunnel starts whirring to life. 
Hope reminds Scott to tell them immediately if he gets any 
messages from Janet when the tunnel opens. Hank flips a final 
switch and the tunnel starts spinning. Hope gets excited that 
the plan worked. And then it starts powering down again and 
Hope and Hank start arguing about what is causing it to go 
wrong. Scott, meanwhile, is cocking his head like a dog that 
just heard something in the distance. He blinks, looks around 
at his surroundings and runs over to start punching buttons on 
the machine himself. Hank and Hope try to stop him, but he 
shrugs them off and - in an affected feminine voice - 
apologizes that he needs to fix the algorithm and doesn't know 
how much time he has. To make sure we get what's going on, he 
adds that he's had plenty of time to think about how to get 
this thing to work in the 30 years he's been "down here". 

Hank figures it out first, looking him up and down and calling 
"Janet?" Janet wearing Scott's body takes a moment - despite 
just saying she didn't know how much time she had - to smile at 
him, stroke his face and say "hi, honey." Then s/he turns to 
Hope to repeat the gesture while calling her "Jellybean". 
ScottJanet goes back to typing and muttering about how this is 
not exactly the reunion she imagined, but... S/he taps one last 
button and steps back and the machine starts turning again. 
S/he runs to a laptop closer to the tunnel and starts tapping 
on that frantically. Hank and Hope follow. Hank is bewildered, 
but Hope is starting to figure it out. She says it wasn't a 
"message" Janet put in Scott's head - it was an antenna or 
beacon. ScottJanet says she is so proud of her baby girl. Hank 
is like okay, just...tell us where you are so we can find you. 
S/he says something about probability fields and needing him to 
follow her voice. Despite being in a room populated only with 
brilliant scientists, Hope explains in layman terms that this 
is just like tracing a call to a location. Sure. Hank starts 
working on that while Hope watches chunks of machinery spin, 
including what looks like a dial ripped off an oven and a paper 
clip, both blown up to ridiculous sizes. Hank and ScottJanet 
bicker a little over the frequencies he's using and s/he smiles 
and makes goo goo eyes at him and reaches to hold his hand.
   Chrissy: Well, you're no Matt Damon, kid, but I'd probably 
let you have a ride.
   Diandra: And you are definitely no Liberace, Hank.
   Chrissy: Oh, you actually got that reference.
   Diandra: Yes, I did. 

They all watch as all the spinning panels seem to settle and a 
location dot pings. ScottJanet says they have to find her at 
those exact coordinates "in the wasteland beyond the quantum 
void." Which, yes, is as dangerous as it sounds, particularly 
on one's sanity. "Time and space work very differently down 
here."
   Chrissy: Yes, and the rules are subject to the whims of 
    Hollywood writers.
   Diandra: It's been thirty ye...hours! Or maybe days! 
    We're not really sure!
S/he says they have two hours before the probability fields 
next shift and they lose the lock on her location and it could 
be another century until they align again. Oh, sure. Whatever, 
writers. 

Hope insists they will find her and ScottJanet kisses her 
forehead and smiles. Then Janet's consciousness obviously 
leaves and Scott blinks at her stupidly and curses that he's 
not getting ANYTHING and this clearly isn't working and hey, 
what are we doing in here now and why am I holding Hank's hand?

We skip over the part where he possibly is weirded out by all 
the flirting he must have done with his girlfriend's dad to the 
part where he's preparing Hope for the experience of going 
atomic. She insists she'll be fine. He is interrupted by his 
phone ringing. It's Luis, warning him that both the Feds and 
that crazy Ghost lady are coming for him and by the way he's 
still got truth serum remnants in his blood and has he ever 
mentioned how much he hates the way Scott loads the dishwasher? 
'So, in conclusion, go home because the feds are probably 
headed there right now and WHO PUTS THE PLATES IN THE TOP 
RACK?!'
   Chrissy: Being friends with this guy must be so 
    exhausting.
   Diandra: Yeah, but in fairness, I'm sure being friends 
    with Scott isn't much better.

Scott hangs up and apologetically tells Hank and Hope that they 
have to leave now because Ghost is coming, probably followed by 
the feds. Hank asks how they could possibly know where they 
are. Scott is like 'um...I told Luis?' Hank looks at Hope like 
'you should have let me kill him when I had the chance.' They 
run back to the machines to power them down and Scott asks if 
he can use the suit because he kind of needs to get back to his 
place before the feds get there. He offers to meet them 
wherever they plan to be after that and Hope tells him not to 
bother and just...get lost. He slinks away, suits up and rides 
the flying ant horse back to the house.

The ex, Cassie and the new daddy are at the house, looking for 
those shoes Cassie so urgently needed. Cassie runs up to her 
room while the adults search the main part of the house and 
boggle at how messy Scott is, as illustrated for the audience 
by dirt and pieces of an indoor plant all over the floor.

Cassie peeks into the bathroom and finds a giant ant sitting in 
a bubble bath. She just smiles at it.
   Chrissy: Anton!

The feds bust right into the house and start crawling all over 
it while mom and the new husband/boyfriend yelp in protest. One 
lady notes that the ankle monitor says Scott is in the 
bathroom, which Woo expresses doubts about as he goes to check 
out what it's reading. He runs into Cassie, who briefly blocks 
his path, insisting that daddy is really really really "sick". 
He puked and everything! Woo keeps trying to get past her 
without physically shoving her and finally just does it anyway.

By the time he reaches the top of the stairs, Scott steps out 
of the bathroom to the sound of the toilet flushing and acts 
surprised to see him. He says he's been very sick and ducks 
right back behind the door, making retching noises.

Meanwhile, Hank and Hope exit the lab and Hank shrinks the 
building down...revealing a bunch of armed agents behind it. A 
couple more cars pull up behind them and an agent announces 
that they are under arrest.

Back at the house, Woo gets a tech to verify that the monitor 
hasn't been tampered with. 
   Chrissy: He does get how the whole shrink and grow tech 
    works, right? That Scott can get out of the thing by 
    literally shrinking his entire body and doesn't have to 
    break it in any way?
   Diandra: Meh. Debatable. 
The female agent sticks her head back in to announce that they 
have Hank and Hope in custody. Woo cheers this success, then 
apologizes for his insensitivity doing that right in front of 
Scott. But...you know..."I just really needed a win."
   Chrissy: Eat a bag of dicks, Woo.
They leave with Woo calling happily over his shoulder that 
he'll be back when Scott's sentence is up and he's sorry he 
doubted him.

In the woods, the agent who just arrested them watches as 
father and daughter are put in a police car, then steals the 
shrunken lab out of the back of the FBI van and puts it in his 
trunk. Before he can even close it though, Ghost shows up and 
phases her hand through his chest. He falls over, probably 
dead, and she runs off with the lab. The agents near the car 
Hank and Hope are in relay this information back really quickly 
so they can be filled in before the car leaves. Like...that was 
staged pretty weirdly, but okay.

Cassie stomps up the stairs to find Scott sitting in the attic 
room. He thanks her for covering for him. Well, she is your 
daughter. She plops next to him and asks how long he's been 
doing the ant-man thing again. He says not long and apologizes 
for lying and risking everything like that because it was 
stupid. "Trying to help people isn't dumb," she says.
   Chrissy: Aww. How old is she? Because she might make a 
    good future girlfriend for Spider-Man.
   Diandra: Considering she's about to age five years while 
    he isn't? Yeah, that might actually work. Except, you 
    know...MJ.
   Chrissy: Meh. Wouldn't be the first time they don't 
    follow the comics.
   Diandra: This is true.

Cassie suggests he just needs somebody to watch his back. He 
grumbles that "she" has made it clear she doesn't want that. 
Cassie is like 'wait...who are you thinking now?' Scott blinks 
and asks who she meant. Cassie is like 'duh...me!' Scott kind 
of chuckles and Cassie gets offended that he's laughing at the 
idea. He melts a little and says that while she would be an 
amazing partner, letting her do it would make him a horrible, 
horrible parent. Cassie grumbles an ascent and suggests he 
should go help Hope now then. Scott doesn't know how to do that 
now without hurting Cassie. Cassie expresses her faith in his 
ability to do anything. "You are the world's greatest grandma."

Meanwhile, in an interrogation room, an agent handcuffs Hank 
and Hope to a table and announces that Woo will be with them in 
about an hour. Hank yelps that they don't have an HOUR and the 
agent just laughs and saunters away. Once he's out of eyesight, 
Hope spits a hairpin and starts picking the lock on her cuffs. 
Hank gets misty eyed at this demonstration that she is a chip 
off the old block. She picks both of their cuffs and produces a 
shrink chip thingy and offers to shrink one of the walls of the 
room so they can escape. Hank isn't so sure about that because 
he thinks it could collapse the ceiling. The best alternative 
is just running, but there's no way they could get past all the 
dozens of armed agents unnoticed. So apparently they go back to 
the idea of shrinking the wall and go to brace themselves 
against the opposite wall first. But before they can do 
anything, her wasp suit appears on the table and they notice 
the entire army of ants swarming around by the light above it. 
Hope calls Scott's name and he replies through the coms from 
out in the parking garage that they need to get out of there 
and go find that lab. Hank is like 'I only see one suit. So 
you're just going to leave me behind?' An FBI jacket and hat 
and sun glasses appear on the table in response. 

So Hank just walks out with Hope in Wasp form hovering at his 
shoulder and nobody asks any questions. The van expands on the 
road in front of the door with Scott behind the wheel. They 
pile in and Scott awkwardly flirts with Hope a bit before Hank 
reminds him that they should be DRIVING RIGHT NOW BEFORE THEY 
FIGURE IT OUT AND START SHOOTING. 

As they pull away, Burch's favorite torturer alerts him to the 
situation from several cars back.

Meanwhile, at the FBI, Woo is alerted to the fact that Hank and 
Hope have disappeared somehow and taken all their confiscated 
equipment with them.

And now, some time down the road, Hank gives Scott a somewhat 
sheepish thank you. Scott recognizes this gesture for what it 
is and acknowledges it, then moves on immediately to business, 
asking how they're going to find the lab. Hank says after the 
last time they "lost" it, he put a new sort of...tracker on it. 
Scott and Hope look up as this cues a swarm of flying ants or 
bees or something to form an arrow overhead just in front of 
the van for them to follow. They follow it until they find the 
building in a deserted industrial area somewhere.

Inside the lab, Ava is asking Bill if the quantum tunnel is 
ready yet. He says yes, they can begin the extraction process, 
but warns her that this could be dangerous. She snaps that they 
can't exactly WAIT until it's safer or anything because she's 
DYING. She needs to do it NOW.

Outside, Hank confirms that they haven't fired up the quantum 
tunnel yet according to his energy readings. But Hope is also 
anxious to get the show on the road before Janet's location 
shifts. Scott starts rambling about how his pap-pap was big on 
making lists and they should make a list of all the stuff they 
have to do like break into that lab, get rid of Foster and the 
Ghost, fight Ghost...wait, should that part come before kicking 
her out?
   Chrissy: The fact that Cap actually recruited this guy 
    onto his team to go to war against The Powers That Be 
    is looking increasingly like desperation on his part.
   Diandra: Tony took all the best ones and left him with 
    the rejects. 
   Chrissy: Just like one of the cool kids.

Hank is like 'if you'll shut up for a minute...I'm going to 
offer myself as tribute because if anything happens to me at 
least you two can protect the tunnel.' And then because I guess 
he can sense when things are becoming serious, Luis pulls up 
beside them and yells "whasssssssup!" like...what year is it? 
The three just stare at him blankly and then Scott 
apologetically says he called the yutz in as backup. Because 
he's been so helpful so far.

So we go right to enacting the plan. Scott goes into a nearby 
building to act as lookout and Hope waits in the van with Luis.
   Chrissy: Which has an equal chance of driving her insane 
   or getting her nominated for sainthood.
Luis rambles about how awesome her suit is and how he wishes he 
had one - even one with minimal powers. Uh...that one has 
minimal powers, dude. Or he would even take one that grants no 
powers at all, whatever. Sorry, WHY exactly did Scott want to 
include this guy in the mission again?
   Chrissy: The audience loves him because he's a 
   relateable dope who provides comic relief?

Inside, Bill fires up the time...sorry QUANTUM tunnel, which 
immediately shuts down again after encountering the same glitch 
the team found when they tried it. Or not because Bill peaks 
under the table to see ants crawling all over the panels, 
disconnecting wires. Ghost realizes this means the team is 
nearby and puts on her suit, following the trail of ants right 
out the (closed) door.

Meanwhile, Bill is surrounded by some giant sized ants. He 
mutters "not this again" and calls to Hank like 'come on, 
buddy, let's talk about this!' Hank is retrieving a suit from 
deeper in the lab while the ants distract him. Then he goes to 
talk to Bill while wearing everything but the helmet. Bill 
pleads that he just wanted to save Ava and can't Hank 
understand that? Hank says yeah, they can work on a cure when 
he gets back, he promises. Bill is okay with this, actually, 
and wishes him luck. The ants herd him into the elevator while 
Hank climbs into the little two seater that's supposed to go 
through the tunnel and seriously this entire set was made by a 
Time Tunnel fan.

Hope announces that Hank is in and asks if Scott can see Ghost 
anywhere. He says no a half a second before she appears behind 
him and slams his head into the window, then kicks him through 
a wall. He tries to activate his suit, but it's glitching. She 
snarls at him to call off his ant army and starts marching 
menacingly toward him. He just runs away.

The tunnel is spinning and the pod approaches it. Hank starts 
giving a speech to Hope that starts with "in case I don't make 
it" and she stops him immediately because she refuses to accept 
that she might lose him too. So he just says he loves her. He 
flips a switch and the pod is sucked into the tunnel, shrinking 
as it goes. Hope says "now" and the ant that took the remote 
for the lab from Bill bites down, pressing the button to shrink 
the building.

Ghost has just caught up to Scott and started kicking his ass 
when she sees the lab shrink outside the nearest window. Luis 
pulls up and grabs it and the still amplified ant toddles up 
and drops the remote on top of the lab while the rest still 
surround Bill, who apparently just got clear. Scott is like 
'yeah, it turns out learning magic wasn't that much of a waste 
of time after all because it taught me the value of 
misdirection!' His suit finally starts working again (or maybe 
it always worked and that was part of the distraction) and he 
shrinks before she can really beat the hell out of him. He hops 
on his flying ant and zips off to meet Hope and Luis at 
whatever location they agreed on.

Except the van is intercepted by Burch at just that moment. 
Hope sighs, grumbles and throws the van into reverse. She tells 
Luis to hang on before she spins it around and they launch into 
a chase. Because we needed a car chase through the streets of 
San Francisco, I guess. When a van tries to run her off the 
road, Hope briefly shrinks the entire van so it crashes into 
some parked cars instead. Then she does it on the next van so 
it drives right over them. Luis looks up at the now giant van 
over them and notes how filthy the undercarriage is because 
people in California don't clean them. Because he is the human 
equivalent of a cocker spaniel.
   Chrissy: I'd say more like a Chihuahua or a Pomeranian. 
   Something yappy and annoying.
Hope expands their van again, sending the other one flying into 
a downward sloping side street.

Scott flies overhead and asks what Hope is doing driving AWAY 
from the meet point. Keep up, Scott. Then he realizes she is 
taking them toward Lombard Street, which for some reason 
doesn't have a lineup of cars waiting to drive down it. She 
drives at it full tilt and shrinks just as she crosses the 
intersection. The first car slams into the wall of the first 
curve. The van behind it slams into IT and flips over, hitting 
just behind the miniaturized van. Luis screams "OH MY GOD WE'RE 
GONNA DIE!" and Hope just calmly navigates the falling bricks, 
chunks of asphalt and pieces of destroyed vehicles.

Hank's pod reaches the cellular level and the automated 
guidance system announces it has lost the signal. Hank grumbles 
and throws some switches to recalibrate it. Then he gawks at a 
tardigrades floating among the cells outside the pod, looking 
and sounding basically like really ugly whales with feet. And 
then the tardigrades notice the pod and surround it and he 
starts getting nervous. The computer announces the signal is 
back and he zips the pod away before it can be swallowed by a 
water bear or something.

Scott apparently flies into the van through the grill or an 
open window or something, expanding to appear suddenly in the 
back seat. Hope is like 'okay, you can drive then' and suddenly 
gets up, forcing Scott to dive for the driver's seat. She opens 
the back door, suit helmet on, and starts firing at the minions 
who escaped the mess back there because they are on motorcycle. 
She is firing shrink blasts, so basically their bikes are 
disappearing right from under them. At one point, she misses 
and hits a parked car Stan Lee was just about to get into. 
"Well, the 60s were fun, but now I'm paying for it," he 
mutters.
   Chrissy: Oh, I thought we were denying those rumors.

Ghost appears suddenly and leaps through a passing car to knock 
one of the minions off his bike, stealing it and joining the 
fray. 

Hope finds Luis' Hello Kitty pez dispenser on the floor of the 
van (yes, I just realized I never mentioned he had a Hello 
Kitty pez dispenser and no, I'm not going back and adding it) 
and chucks it at one of the bikers, doing the same trick she 
did with the salt shaker back in the restaurant kitchen. The 
first biker manages to duck the giant plastic candy dispenser, 
but the second isn't so lucky. Both fall off their bikes and 
cause a massive pile up. 

Scott sees Ghost pull up beside them and calls back to Hope. 
When he looks back, the bike is falling over empty and Ghost is 
thumping around on the roof of the van. She morphs through the 
windshield, kicking Hope straight out the back. Hope manages to 
shrink as she's falling so she doesn't actually hit the ground. 
Ghost grabs the shrunken lab from Luis and opens the side door, 
jumping onto a passing flatbed truck and shoving the driver 
out. Scott and Luis crash into a parked car. Hope has recovered 
and locked on to Ghost. She dives into the cab, piercing the 
metal like a bullet, and expands. 
   Chrissy: I feel like this was a step in the process of 
    acclimating the heavily dudebro audience to the idea of 
    female superheroes. First increase the badass level of 
    the female characters by making one who is basically a 
    dude with boobs who happily plays alongside the 
    established male like they're in a buddy cop movie. 
    Then have a female who mostly runs circles around her 
    established male counterpart. Then we can have the 
    female be the full on lead with an already established 
    secondary badass.
   Diandra: And then because that obviously was too much 
    for them, we'll totally neuter and sideline her in the 
    next movie after hinting that she was the only one 
    strong enough to defeat Thanos. Yes.

Scott leaps from the van and shrinks, riding his ant horse 
after the flatbed. Luis is like 'hey, dude, you forgot about 
me!'
   Chrissy: No. No, we didn't.

Scott arrives just as Hope shrinks herself to duck a blow. He 
lands on the windshield wiper outside and gloats "we've got you 
now, Ava!" Ava just turns on the wipers and continues to fight 
with Hope while Scott clings to the moving, fluid spitting 
wiper blade. The wiper fluid finally shorts out his shitty size 
controller and he turns into a giant, clinging to the hood. The 
women freeze, startled, and he punches through the windshield 
and Ava's Ghost mask. Hope jumps out the window with the 
shrunken lab, landing on the flatbed. Ava recovers, jams a 
toolbox against the gas pedal and morphs through the back of 
the cab onto the flatbed.

Scott's controller shorts again, turning him regular size. He 
falls off the hood, but manages to grab onto the side mirror. 
But before he can swing himself up into the cab, Burch's truck 
rams the flatbed from behind, sending Hope crashing into the 
windshield and Ava flying to the ground. Burch leans out the 
window and catches the lab, shouting in victory. Hope rolls off 
the truck and it peels off. Hope announces the situation to 
whoever is still on the other end of the comms at this point, 
shrinks and takes off after the truck. You know, as much as I 
generally love these movies, I can see the point of the people 
who complain that they are just never ending fight and/or chase 
sequences that get old.

Scott's suit shorts again and he goes giant, grabbing the front 
of the flatbed and planting his feet on the road, forcing the 
thing to grind to a halt. He reaches through the window and 
knocks the toolbox from the pedal, then hops on the flatbed and 
pushes it back onto the street like a giant scooter while Hope 
yelps demands that he hurry up in his ear.

Meanwhile, Hank's pod is still travelling at what looks like 
warp speed and the automated voice announces that he is 
reaching the "quantum void" before he suddenly slows to 
coasting speed in empty space. He flips some switches and 
pushes a really big button, flying through what looks like a 
wall of crystal, smashing into something like a coral reef and 
landing on what passes for ground here. The entire landscape 
around the pod appears to be phasing similarly to the way Ava 
is.

Luis, still in the van, realizes that the remote they need to 
shrink and expand the lab is still on the floor where it fell 
off at some point during the initial struggle. He asks if they 
need it. Hope says yes, bring it to them. He doesn't know how 
because the van won't start apparently. Scott directs him to 
look in the Hot Wheels case behind the seat, where all their 
other shrunken vehicles are stored. He naturally chooses a 
flashy thing with flames painted on the sides.

Burch, having just realized the remote is missing too, arrives 
at the scene just as the van shrinks, revealing the sports car, 
which zips past them. A couple cars full of goons give chase 
and he plays with the shrink and expand feature while sailing 
over the steep inclines of San Francisco like they're 
recreating the sequence in Bullit. Which is appropriate, 
really, because I remember that movie boring the hell out of me 
and I'm GETTING THERE with this one the longer this scene goes 
on.

Hope flies through a window into one of the cars chasing him, 
announces her presence with a bright "hi!" and knocks them all 
unconscious. Luis admires how badass she is. As the car careens 
into a bike rental rack on the sidewalk, she flies into Luis' 
car.

Scott scooters up to Burch's SUV and Burch looks up at him like 
'.......what the actual fuck?'
   Chrissy: Enjoy it, Scott. It's probably the only time 
    you will have people express genuine awe about how big 
    you are.
   Diandra: [snort to cover a giggle] Ouch.
One of the goons in the back tries to shoot Scott and Scott 
flicks the gun away before kicking the SUV. Burch flees the 
crashed SUV through a doorway. Scott chases him, but gets 
caught on the doorway. He tries to get his controller working 
again while Burch emerges on the next street right in front of 
Fisherman's Wharf. 

Scott runs around to cut him off, asking the shrieking people 
if they've seen a "southern gentleman carrying a building" 
anywhere.
   Chrissy: Considering San Francisco has arguably the 
    highest concentration of Asians in the United States... 
    I'm pretty sure this is the realization of all the 
    horror movies they grew up watching.
   Diandra: GOJIRA!!! Yeah.
A ship horn blares and Scott spots Burch standing on the back 
of it as it pulls away from the dock. Because he is comic book 
villain level stupid and WANTS to be spotted.

Scott frantically jabs at his controller until he finally 
shrinks to ant size. He calls the flying ant horse, which 
almost reaches him before a seagull snaps it up for a light 
snack. The next four ant horses are met with the same fate. 
"Murderers," Scott growls.
   Chrissy: Why...didn't you just stay giant size and wade 
    out to the boat?
   Diandra: Shh...no thinking. This is a comic book movie.
And then one finally makes it and he dubs it Ant-Onio Banderas 
and then immediately has to bail into the water before it is 
also snapped up by a gull.

The boat Burch hopped is, of course, a whale watching ferry. 
The guide starts giving his spiel while Burch calls "Uzman" to 
meet him in three hours. The guide sees a massive splash off 
the side of the ferry and directs everyone's attention to a 
possible whale. Of course it is actually Scott, who emerges 
from the water in giant form off the port side and apologizes 
to all the terrified whale watchers before reaching to pluck 
the lab from Burch's hands and just knocking him over with a 
poke in the chest.
   Chrissy: Seriously, why didn't you just do this?
   Diandra: I'm gonna go with the same reason Doctor 
    Strange didn't just use a portal to cut off Thanos' 
    gauntlet hand on Titan. Because [vague exasperated 
    gestures] Marvel.

Meanwhile in the Quantum Realm, Hank is suited up and trying to 
locate Janet. He reaches the signal's ground zero - a sort of 
clearing that seems entirely empty. There are echoes of 
children laughing and memories of things both Hope and Scott 
said to him at some point including Hope as a little girl 
asking where Mommy is. He screams as he seems to be overwhelmed 
by it and falls to his knees. And then the screen goes dark and 
he's suddenly back in the old house with a clock ticking loudly 
in the background. He follows the sound of young Hope calling 
to him and finds her as an adult standing in the middle of the 
room demanding to know why he hasn't found mom yet. Scott 
appears behind him and notes that he looks a little lost. Then 
Bill appears opposite HIM to menace "still think you have all 
the answers, Hank?" Yep, it's like a fun nightmare sequence. 
And then a figure that looks vaguely grim reaperish appears at 
the end of the hall and walks toward him. He backs up, phasing 
the way Ghost is. And then the figure touches his temples and 
he stabilizes and returns to that spot in the quantum realm. 
The figure removes her hood and mask and yeah, it's Janet. With 
white hair. Because whatever, time must have worked differently 
in the quantum realm for her than everyone else. They have 
their sweet little reunion where they kiss and romantic music 
swells.
   Chrissy: Among other things, possibly.
   Diandra: Ew. Don't.

He apologizes that it took so long to find her. She doesn't 
care because he did eventually and they can go home now. As 
they're making their way back to the pod, he asks how she did 
that thing she did with her hands to stabilize his energy. She 
non-answers that being down here so long changed her. She 
adapted. Possibly evolved. The automated voice of the pod's 
guidance system announces that she can't find the coordinates 
for the lab and they should NOT ascend. He says yeah, um...so I 
should probably warn you about what's happening up there right 
now...

Scott is staggering to shore, mumbling that he got the lab and 
telling the gawkers filming him to move.

Woo sees a news report about this back at the FBI and makes 
angry faces before storming out to go arrest him, presumably. 

Scott sets the lab on the dock, where it skitters after the 
fleeing crowd on its luggage wheels. He mutters that the air 
feels "chunky". Hope and Luis arrive at the scene, with Hope 
muttering that he's "too big"
   Chrissy: A-
   Diandra: YES, WE KNOW. Another thing he has never heard 
    before and never will again.
She gets out of the car and runs for him as he mutters that 
he's just gonna sleep for five minutes and falls back in the 
water, creating a wave that splashes everyone who didn't flee 
the docks. Hope orders Luis to get the lab while she gets Scott 
before his air runs out. She flies out over the bay, shrinking, 
then going back to normal size as she dives beneath the 
surface.

Before Luis can get to the lab, Ghost appears, kicking him down 
and taking the remote from him, hitting the button to expand it 
to full size right there on the street and possibly crushing a 
few people. She, of course, morphs right through it.

In the quantum realm, the automated voice announces that the 
lab is back to full scale and they can begin their ascent. 

On the floor of the bay, Hope tries to wake Scott up, then 
tries to press the button to shrink him herself. When that 
doesn't work, she opens the panel on his belt and fixes it like 
she did last time this happened. He shrinks and she loses him 
for a minute. Then we cut to her emerging from the water, full 
normal size, carrying ant-size Scott in her palm.
   Chrissy: And this is where the dudebros really lost 
    their shit because SHE got to rescue HIM.
   Diandra: Yep. Best part of the whole movie, really.
He wakes up normal sized on the dock with her hovering over 
him, blinking stupidly. She kisses him, relieved.

Luis is wandering around the expanded lab, trying to call Scott 
and Hope, when Burch and a couple of his guys find him. Sigh. 
Can we end this already? Burch asks where the remote is. Luis 
is like 'I don't know, in there somewhere.' The goons go to 
shoot him, but Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dumber appear suddenly 
to taze them unconscious.

Bill arrives and runs into the building looking for Ava. He 
begs her to stop this because people are getting hurt. She's 
like 'yeah, well, I've been hurting MY WHOLE LIFE so boo 
fucking hoo.' Bill is starting to worry that Hank is right 
about this extraction process killing Janet. Ava of course 
doesn't care about Janet. He points out that Janet is brilliant 
and she may be able to HELP Ava. Ava snarls at him and lunges 
for her sealed chamber positioned by the quantum tunnel, 
throwing him bodily when he tries to stop her. She locks 
herself in and the chamber somehow begins siphoning energy from 
the tunnel or...something. Inside, Janet starts gasping and 
phasing.

Hope and Scott arrive and Hope exposits that Ghost has already 
started the extraction. She lunges for the controls while Scott 
powers down the device linking the chamber to the tunnel. Ava 
screams and begins fighting him and Hope. This results in a 
sequence that must have been a nightmare to coordinate wherein 
she is alternately fighting one or the other while they shrink 
and expand and she is phasing the entire time.

Hope winds up on the track as the pod appears, headed right 
toward her. Scott expands so he can swipe her off it before it 
mows her down. The pod crashes into Ava (mostly), knocking her 
aside and falling half off the track as it comes to a halt. 
Janet steps out and staggers into Hope's arms. They cry and 
Hope makes her promise she won't take any more last minute 
business trips. Hank staggers out of the pod like 'I'm fine, by 
the way! Don't worry about me!' Ha. Hope runs over to hug him 
and Scott and Janet have a slightly awkward 'nice to meet you 
even though technically we've already been inside each other's 
heads' moment.
   Chrissy: Thank you for adding the word "heads" there.
   Diandra: Ucgh.

Ghost starts getting up and Scott and Hope move to take care of 
it, but Janet waves them back. She approaches Ava slowly, hands 
out in a non threatening gesture. She says she can feel Ava's 
pain and apologizes and says she thinks she can help. She 
touches Ava's face and her hands glow. As happened with Hank, 
Ava slowly stabilizes until Janet is able to step away. Scott 
asks Hank if he knew she could do that. Bill watches from 
nearby as Ava realizes she is solid again and cries. And then 
Luis bursts in, yelping that the cops are on their way. "Like, 
all of them." 

Outside, cops arrive, waving guns. Tweedle Dum and Tweedle 
Dumber stall them, pointing out the bad guys they subdued for 
them. Burch's goons helpfully say that they traffic stolen 
technology and have totally murdered lots of people and Burch 
has committed several health code violations in his restaurant 
he uses as a front for this operation and isn't truth serum 
awesome?

Woo's SUV pulls up to a giant ant suit just standing against a 
building like Scott is playing hide and seek very badly. Woo 
calls up that it's over and he lost. While he's talking to the 
unmoving suit, Scott runs down a nearby street in his 
underwear. When Woo demands that he shrink, the suit does, but 
not before deflating a little with the squeal of escaping air 
so Woo knows it was empty. The Wasp flies in and retrieves the 
ant size empty suit while the agents pile back into the 
vehicles and the lab in the distance shrinks.

Hope reunites with her parents at the dock and they all pile 
into Luis' more obnoxious van - presumably the one his guys 
came in - with the shrunken lab and Scott's empty suit.

Bill and Ava duck down a side street. She tells him to leave 
her because he hasn't done anything, but she is definitely 
getting taken into custody now. He insists he won't leave her 
and she hugs him tearfully.

Woo arrives at Scott's house with three other cars and more 
agents than is probably necessary, kicking down the door and 
storming up the stairs. Scott is playing drums, headphones on, 
like he's been doing this for a while and is completely 
oblivious to the world. He looks up at them, takes off his 
headphones and asks if the two years are up yet.

The obviously annoyed tech guy checks his ankle monitor again 
while Scott asks what it's like on the outside, you know, since 
he hasn't been out of the house in two years. "Are food trucks 
still a thing?"
   Chrissy: Ahem.
   Diandra: Yeah, I'm not...no. We're not going there.
   Chrissy: It'll be a total distraction, you said. There 
    won't be anything that could possibly make us think 
    about what is going on right now, you said.
   Diandra: Sorry. Let's just move on and pretend it didn't 
    happen. Like the writers do anytime they hit an 
    inconsistency with the logic of this universe.

Woo tries to salvage his ego by smarming that Scott may have 
gotten away with it this time, but "I'll be seeing you again." 
He goes to walk away, but Scott is like 'uh...when? Where? Was 
that a threat or something?' Woo lamely tries to rescue it by 
babbling that he'll be there next time Scott does something 
"bad" like his whole exit wasn't just ruined. Scott is like 
'oh, I thought you were offering an invitation to a party or 
dinner or something. Which would be weird.' Woo kind of 
hesitates and asks if he WANTS to go to dinner or something 
sometime, then reverses direction when he realizes this is a 
bad idea. He slinks out, leaving some of his dignity behind.

And then the Partidge Family theme plays again as we begin the 
wrap up montage with Scott going to Cassie's mom's house to 
pick her up and getting a hug from both the ex and the new 
husband/boyfriend again.

Luis' company is suddenly flooded with business now that their 
faces are all on the news, including the account he spent the 
whole movie trying to get.

Hank and Janet retreat to a beach somewhere and he expands a 
miniaturized house right there on the shoreline. 
   Chrissy: Is...is that the house from "Up"?
   Diandra: Honestly? I wouldn't be surprised. I also 
    wouldn't be surprised if there was a reference to "The 
    Incredibles" somewhere that I missed.

Scott, Hope and Cassie are watching some cheesy old horror 
movie about giant ants at a drive in theater. Because of 
course. Hope asks Cassie what she wants to be when she grows 
up. She earnestly says she wants to help people like her daddy.
   Chrissy: Except, you know, I'd be better and more 
   competent at it because let's face it: he is the weakest 
   member of the Avengers.
Then she blurts out that she already offered to be his partner, 
but he said he'd rather have Hope. Hope smiles at him all doe 
eyed. And then a giant moth mercifully lands on the windshield, 
distracting them and we get a little comedy act wherein it 
bangs around on top of the car getting dust everywhere. And 
then the camera pulls back and we see the drive in theater is 
actually just their shrunken car fleet in front of his laptop 
in the back yard.

And smash to credits.

Mid-credit scene. The Pym-Van Dyne clan are setting up the 
Quantum Tunnel in the back of Luis' van. Hank is bemoaning the 
fact that he used to be a well respected scientist and now he's 
doing this shit.
   Chrissy: Oh, whatever Michael. I mean Hank.
Janet reminds him that he wanted to make the tunnel smaller, 
so... Scott, behind the wheel, accidentally hits the horn which 
plays "La Cucaracha". He apologizes and hits the switch to 
power up the tunnel instead. Hope hands him a device and since 
he's the only one wearing a suit he is obviously the only one 
going on this mission. Apparently he's collecting "quantum 
healing particles". Janet warns him to steer clear of the 
tardigrade fields because they may look like cuddly water bears 
but they will, in fact, eat him. "And don't get sucked into a 
time vortex."
   Chrissy: Whoops. Excuse the writers while they drop 
   random plot points we might need later. If they remember 
   them.

Hope takes her place beside her parents and starts the 
countdown. At one, she flips the switch and Scott is sucked 
into the tunnel. Hank calls to him through comms and, after a 
moment, he responds and they all sigh with relief.
   Chrissy: Whew. Good thing he believed us when we assured 
    him this would work because we really weren't sure 
    until just now.
   Diandra: I mean, you'd think he would have gotten 
    suspicious when we slipped that one time and called it 
    Operation Canary in the Coal Mine in front of him, but 
    it turns out he really is an idiot.

In the quantum realm, Scott opens the device, sucking a bunch 
of quantum particles into it, closes it and announces that he's 
ready to beam back up. Hope starts counting down again, but is 
suddenly overtaken by static after "three". Scott laughs that 
that's very funny and tells them to quit screwing around and 
get him out of here.

Up in the world, three clouds of dust settle in front of the 
controls while Scott's voice calls their names cluelessly. In 
case anyone was still wondering where these characters were 
during "Infinity War".

After the credits we get a few more shots of the sets we've 
been seeing all movie, except nobody is in them so we don't 
know who survived the snap, if anyone. In the post apocalyptic 
wasteland that has suddenly become Scott's house, a giant ant 
plays his drum set. The line that follows the credits assuring 
people that Ant-Man and Wasp will return ends with a question 
mark.

   Chrissy: Okay, so have we made a decision about whether 
    we want to actually do "Endgame" or not?
   Diandra: We still have to do "Captain Marvel".
   Chrissy: So you're stalling for more time is what you're 
    saying.
   Diandra: Basically.
   Chrissy: I would rag you for that, but...fuck it. Bring 
    on the badass female superhero.