"Captain Marvel"

Starring: Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, Jude Law, Ben 
Mendohlson, Annette Benning, Lashana Lynch 

As mentioned in the first paragraph of the "Ant Man and the 
Wasp" recap, Chrissy and I are doing both of these via socially 
distant Skype conference (plus some follow up text 
conversations). We decided we would ban any references to 
current events, particularly our incompetent leadership and the 
pandemic forcing us to do the recaps this way, but that doesn't 
mean this recap will be entirely an escape from reality as we 
will DEFINITELY be discussing sexism and fandom in this one.

 
As a tribute to Stan Lee, all the images in the opening Marvel 
title in this first movie released after his death were changed 
from shots of characters in the MCU to pictures - moving and 
static - of him. Some are from his cameos, some are just from 
behind the scenes stuff. The fanfare ends with the screen going 
black and the words "thank you Stan" in the middle of the 
screen.
   Chrissy: This makes those dudebros who evoked him to 
    decry the direction the series is going even bigger 
    jackholes.
   Diandra: That and the fact that they basically got what 
    they wanted with "Endgame" and STILL managed to bitch 
    about it. Yeah, I'm sick of misogynist dicks deciding 
    which Marvel movies I should and shouldn't like. Same 
    goes for the ones using flimsy arguments to mask their 
    racism/sexism when they attack the 13th Doctor or the 
    newest Star Wars trilogy.
   Chrissy: You realize the movie hasn't even started yet, 
    right?
   Diandra: Yeah, sorry. 

We open on dust settling on the ground. Then on Brie Larson's 
face. She is laying on said ground and there is blue fluid 
coming out of her left nostril. She sits up and looks at her 
hand, which is covered in more blue fluid. She looks around at 
what appears to be an active war zone. Annette Benning is 
standing in the middle of it, aiming a gun somewhere off 
screen. Some sort of alien creature comes out of the chaos 
further back and points what looks like a ray gun and we snap 
to Brie laying in a bed, waking up from this dream. Or is it?

She clenches her fist and glowing lights dance over it before 
fading, a disc on her neck seemingly lighting up in sync with 
it. Yes, she will be one of the characters who begins the movie 
already in possession of her powers. I saw a lot of people 
complain about that specifically, to which I say: Thor. Also 
Black Panther. The window on the far wall goes clear like the 
ones in Stark Tower back when that existed and she looks out at 
a totally alien futuristic cityscape. The Chyron identifies 
this as Hala, the capital of Kree civilization.

She goes to bang on the door of another room. Jude Law answers, 
dressed in a robe and whines that it is WAY too early for her 
to be calling. She says she can't sleep. He says there are 
these things they can take to induce sleep. She says yeah, but 
she doesn't actually WANT to sleep. He concludes that she's 
having the dreams again. She nods and invites him to a sparring 
session.

So we skip right to that. Specifically to the part where he 
knocks her on her ass and she gets back up claiming she slipped 
just as he went to hit her so technically that wasn't a point. 
He decides this is a good time to ask for more details about 
the dream. Between punches and kicks she says it was just the 
same old dream - nothing interesting. He bends her arm behind 
her back and growls that she should really let go of the past 
because it's causing doubt, which is a weakness. 
   Chrissy: Stop being all girly with your feeling of 
    normal human emotions! Geez.
   Diandra: Yep, say hello to the premise of this entire 
    movie.

She - now identified by the captions as Vers - reminds him that 
she has amnesia and therefore doesn't really remember anything 
about her past. He throws her to the ground a couple times 
until she gets pissed and her fist starts glowing. He orders 
her to control that, then tells her if that happens again she's 
have to "commune with the Supreme Intelligence." Because 
"there's nothing more dangerous to a warrior than emotion."
   Chrissy: Ah, the standard male argument that powerful 
    people must be unfeeling "manly" robots and women are 
    genetically less capable of doing this.
   Diandra: Something like that. Because we've all 
    forgotten that ancient warriors were far more respected 
    if they cried about their kills later because that 
    meant that they weren't complete psychopaths who would 
    just as easily kill their own men because they were 
    unfeeling monsters.

Vers, bless her, chuckles at this, which causes him to double 
down on his lecture as he resumes the attack. Humor is a 
distraction and anger helps the enemy. He punches her down 
again and she sends him flying across the room with a blast of 
energy from her fist. The closed captioner identifies him 
finally as Yon-Rogg because everyone in this movie is going to 
have a ridiculous name. He glares at her and she makes a face 
like '........whoopsie?'
   Chrissy: But hey, I win.
   Diandra: And it was totally worth that threat of having 
    to commune with the Supreme Intelligence, which, 
    honestly, doesn't sound all that bad.

So as they're shuttling along in some sort of train car through 
the kind of busy futuristic city that always looks like it was 
based on Tokyo, a voice announces that it has been 120 days 
since the last Skrull attack. Vers asks if anybody has ever 
really seen the Supreme Intelligence. Yon-Rogg exposits that no 
one can look upon it in its "true form" and it appears to them 
as their subconscious chooses to represent it. "So it's sacred. 
It's personal" and no Kree ever talks about what they see.
   Chrissy: Yeah, yeah, it's the life force we call 
   God/Yaweh/Allah/whatever.
She scoffs in the general direction of that rule and asks who 
he really sees. His brother? His father? His former commander?
   Chrissy: Actually, I see this cocky bastard I'm told is 
    one of the founding members of a group called the 
    Avengers on Earth. Except I see him wearing 19th 
    century clothing and speaking with a British accent.
   Diandra: And there it is.

She goads him to admit that he really sees her and he smirks 
and says her efforts to change the subject are not going to 
work. She holds up her fists and asks what the point is of 
giving her these powers if they don't want her USING them?
   Chrissy: You could probably work out the reasoning right 
   here, but then that would cut the whole movie short.
He says he DOES want her to use them, but the Supreme 
Intelligence charged him with the responsibility of teaching 
her how first. She argues that she DOES know that already. He 
says no, otherwise she could take him without having to resort 
to them. She needs to learn to control her impulses and be one 
with the force. Or something. "Be the best version of 
yourself."

The Supreme Intelligence - identified by the chyron as the AI 
leader of Kree civilization - resides in what looks like a 
temple with an entrance emblazoned with an eight point star. 
Vers steps onto a panel in the floor that seems to turn into 
liquid tendrils that come up over her. When they reach her 
forhead she closes her eyes and opens them to a sort of dream 
world with a blurry skyline in the distance and a shallow pool 
of water in front of her. The water coalesces in a shimmery 
column of light and Annette Benning steps out, dressed in the 
green/black/silver Kree uniform. She says Vers' commander 
insists she is fit to serve, but she still struggles with her 
emotions and her past. A holographic Earth appears to one side 
as she continues to exposit that Vers was a victim of the 
Skrull expansion that has been threatening civilization for 
centuries. Basically, they are a sci-fi standard: aliens who 
invade and impersonate the people on the planet until they have 
effectively taken over. See: any version of "Invasion of the 
Body Snatchers". The alien from her memory steps forward and 
disappears as he fires his weapon. The Supreme notes that she 
has SOME memory of it, but not a lot.

Vers blinks and says the Supreme is supposed to take the form 
of whoever the Kree most admires, but she doesn't remember who 
this woman is supposed to be because everything is just...gone. 
The Supreme suggests she think of it as a possible mercy 
sparing her from some sort of emotional pain. This should make 
putting the needs of the people above her own easier because, 
again, emotion is the enemy of any good soldier. Supreme says 
they've given her a gift. Vers raises her glowing fist in 
response, the disc on her neck glowing in tandem, and says she 
wants to serve. Supreme says she needs to "master herself" then 
because that which is given can also be taken away. As a 
demonstration of this, the disc goes dark and the glowing 
around her fist disappears. Then she decides that's enough 
exposition and announces that Vers has a mission.

So she boards a ship with Djimon Honsou, Gemma Chan and two 
other guys all dressed in Kree uniforms. They theorize about 
what this is about because it must be "big". Probably another 
Skrull attack. Gemma asks if a Skrull has ever "simmed" Djimon. 
Djimon, identified as Korath, says once and it was "deeply 
disturbing". 
   Chrissy: Wait...you said "simmed" or "stimmed"?
   Diandra: Trust you to go there.
   Chrissy: That's what you invite me to these recaps for, 
    isn't it?
Vers asks why and he elaborates that his "mortal enemy" was 
suddenly wearing his face. "Maybe if you were more attractive 
then it would be less disturbing" she snarks. He's like 'haha, 
you really think you're cute, don't you?' One of the other guys 
says it actually is kind of funny because in reality he is very 
handsome. You know, "objectively speaking".
   Chrissy: I'm sorry, what was that? I couldn't hear you 
   with your face buried in his ass.

Pon-Farr boards the ship suddenly and snaps at Vers for 
smiling.
   Chrissy: WOAH, who?
   Diandra: Yeah, I already forgot his name.
   Chrissy: And that was what you went with instead?!
   Diandra: Yes?
   Chrissy: Not Rogg? Or Yon? Or Jude? Or Watson? You went 
    with the Vulcan mating cycle that became a fan fiction 
    trope.
   Diandra: .............yes. But thank you for reminding 
    me what his name is there.
Yon-Rogg taps a panel on the arm of his suit and shoots a 
holographic display into the center of the ship as he explains 
that this is a search and rescue mission to retrieve their guy 
Soh-Larr. Really with the names here? His cover was blown when 
the Skrulls invaded the border planet Torfa. Yon-Rogg gestures 
and the image changes to Ben Mendolshon, who he identifies as 
the Skrull general Talos. Talos has already sent units to 
neutralize Solar and they need to beat them there so he doesn't 
give up all the intelligence he's been gathering.

The "Accusers" are going to bomb a Skrull stronghold, which 
should provide enough distraction for them go get in and 
retrieve him before they even know what hit them. They are not 
to interfere with the Torfans. At all. Don't even think about 
it. Focus on the mission. If fate wills it, they will all "join 
the Collective", which...is an interesting euphemism for dying. 
The ship takes off and goes through those honeycomb portholes 
"jump points" in the sky that we saw in the Guardians movies.

They come out at Torfa and the other ships in their fleet start 
firing missiles at the ground where that stronghold is I guess. 
Their ship does a nosedive into water and they all come 
shooting out wearing creepy looking suits that have Mohawks and 
cover the entire upper half of their faces. They emerge on 
shore and the waterproof shield on their suits disappears. Yon-
Rogg orders Att-Lass and Minn-Erva (neither of which I would 
have spelled like that if it weren't for the subtitles) to go 
to high ground. They run up to hide among the rocks and Minn-
Erva spots some locals in a valley below around a campfire. 
Except their comm link is getting garbled, so Yon-Rogg is just 
hearing gibberish and static.

Vers, Yon, Korath and the other guy track the beacon signal of 
their target to a temple. Vers wants to go in, but Yon makes 
her hold back because there's only one way in and out of there 
and it would be way too easy to ambush them. The guy whose name 
hasn't been given yet is now dubbed Bron-Char by the captioner, 
which...really? How did they decide the names of these 
characters anyway? Vers volunteers to go alone. Yon says no 
ABSOLUTELY NOT. Then he grumbles a plan that basically sounds 
like they'll all just go in and be REALLY careful.

Atlas and Minerva spot a group of locals just near the place 
the rest of the group are headed, but can't warn them. The rest 
of the group creep into the temple and try to fend off the 
locals while Vers goes straight ahead. Up in the hills, Minerva 
gets one of the locals in her sights and gets ready to shoot, 
but Atlas stops her at the last minute. Apparently the reason 
they are jumpy is they think they are probably actually 
Skrulls. Atlas says he found a couple locals that had starved 
to death and there was no indication of any Skrulls, so they're 
okay.
   Chrissy: Yes, that's not suspicious AT ALL.
Minerva looks back through her sights as a figure morphing into 
Atlas appears down on the ground.
   Diandra: So yeah, it turns out they are really bad at 
   this.
She grapples for a bit with the version next to her, shoots him 
and he turns into a green skinned Skrull when he hits the 
ground.

Vers finds the target and glances at the blinking display on 
her arm before saying "HGX-78." Apparently this is a code as 
the man who hobbles out of the shadows fires back "TRT79-VVX6."

Meanwhile, Minerva shoots some of the "locals" surrounding the 
team and they turn into Skrulls. The rest of them decide 'well, 
fuck it then' and revert back to Skrull form, snarling and 
charging at the group. The team raise their shields, activate 
armor and start firing and slinging them around.

Inside, Vers gets a frantic message from Yon that they're being 
ambushed by Skrulls. The guy they were rescuing doesn't give 
her a chance to react before hitting her with a stun gun.

Outside, the fighting continues until a ship comes out of 
nowhere and blasts...something in the middle of the space where 
they're fighting. Yon screams at them to retreat to their ship 
and tries to call Vers.

Vers is still recovering from the stun. The hostage turns into 
Talos himself. She asks how he knew the correct code through 
grunts. He says he'll tell her his secret after she tells him 
hers and zaps her again, knocking her out.

So now we're going to get what looks like the DVD commentary of 
her memories, as Talos and another Skrull discuss what they are 
seeing while she is in some sort of twilight state, watching 
herself sauntering around an air force base in an homage to 
"Top Gun". Lashana Lynch, also dressed as a pilot sidles up to 
her and asks where her head is at. 
   Chrissy: The need for speed! Oh, wait...what was the 
    question?
   Diandra: Exactly.
They have a cocky little exchange about showing the boys how 
it's supposed to be done that ends in "higher, further, faster 
baby!" And then they get in the planes and her friend briefly 
turns into some sort of alien and Talos grumbles that this 
isn't right and orders them to go back further.

We kaleidoscope back to a circus tent. More specifically, the 
track next to it where a bunch of kids are racing go-carts. 
Some guy drives next to a girl who is clearly supposed to be 
Carol (we all know her name isn't Vers, right?) and yells at 
her to slow down because she's going too fast. As if to prove 
his point, she goes shooting off the track and crashes. Talos 
starts questioning who the hell this is and what they're 
looking at when the older brother from "Jericho" storms up and 
yells about what the HELL she thinks she's doing and she 
DOESN'T BELONG HERE.
   Chrissy: A sight that is instantly familiar to any girl 
    who attempted to do "boy" things growing up.
   Diandra: Or play sports. Or go into a profession men 
    think women shouldn't be in. Or, like, simply existing 
    in "men's" spaces.

The other voice agrees that they went back too far and, after 
little Carol snarls that the guy let HIM drive, so why can't 
she? the image snaps to her as an adult again. She is climbing 
a rope at what is obviously the military academy and a group of 
men on the ground are, naturally, continuing to chant that she 
DOESN'T BELONG HERE. She swings determinedly from her rope to 
the next one, doesn't get a firm hold and crashes to the 
ground. The memories start shifting rapidly and getting mixed 
up as a string of men tell her she'll never make it, she 
doesn't belong and she'll just get herself killed because she's 
just a stupid little girl who can't possibly do the things men 
can do because she's just a stupid, emotional FEMALE. I might 
be elaborating slightly, but this is the gist. 
   Chrissy: Basically, this is the difference between this 
    movie and "Wonder Woman". This is also written by women 
    and therefore isn't just a usual macho bullshit comic 
    book movie with feminist window dressing.
   Diandra: That's a perfect description of my problem with 
    "Ragnarok" and "Endgame", actually. They try to make up 
    for the fact that the rest of the movie is testosterone 
    laden dudebro catnip by throwing in, like, one scene of 
    women being badass (but still hot and appealing to the 
    male gaze) and it's REALLY obvious.

One of the smirking assholes telling her she doesn't belong 
asks if she knows "why they call it a cockpit".
   Chrissy: Because they usually use it for containing 
   dicks like you?
Instead of hearing his no doubt sexist answer to his own 
question, we cut to Carol singing karaoke with Lashana and then 
to some kid telling a different young version of Carol a fable 
about Alouette. And then she is relaying the same fable to what 
is obviously Lashana's daughter before Lashana calls them in 
for dinner.

The voice announces that he's figured it out and we snap back 
to the airfield where an orange cat rubs up against legs that 
could conceivably pass for Brie Larson's. Annette Benning 
appears and notes that "Goose" likes her, which is kind of 
weird because she doesn't normally warm up to people that 
quickly. They have a little idle small talk wherein neither 
says the other's name and Talos yelps as Annette goes to leave 
that that's "her" and they need to get her back. Annette 
appears behind Carol and they have the same conversation all 
over again while Talos asks if they can zoom in on her shirt 
because he can't quite read it. Annette appears behind Carol 
and they start over a third time while Carol looks confused. 
Talos tells her to focus and look down and Carol does, zeroing 
in on the patch on Annette's jacket identifying her as Dr. 
Wendy Lawson of Pegasus. Talos says that's her all right and 
starts asking his minion for a location while Carol asks warily 
if Wendy can hear that voice too.
   Chrissy: The voice that says all men are pigs and 
   deserve to be shot in the dick? Yeah, I try to ignore 
   it. I mean...what voice?

Minion says he has the location and Talos tells him to track 
Lawson until they find the "energy signature". The image snaps 
to the dream Carol was having at the beginning of the movie of 
Wendy standing among burning wreckage. The Skrull appears and 
aims a weapon and Talos orders his man to rewind a bit.

We snap to presumably before the crash Carol woke up in. They 
are in a craft that looks like a normal plane, but is hovering 
just outside Earth's atmosphere like a space shuttle. He gets 
Carol to look at the coordinates on the dash, but she can't 
focus her eyes and she ejects from the plane before Talos can 
get anything.

And then Carol is waking up in the contraption they have her 
hooked up to while Talos argues about what went wrong and how 
they can get her back. The contraption is holding her upside 
down by her hands and feet and there are some sort of beams 
touching her temples.

Talos asks if they have anything they can act on. One of his 
men says all they got was that Lawson was last seen somewhere 
on the planet "C-53". Talos snaps at them to go deeper then 
because "Lawson is our link to that light-speed engine! And 
everything we're after!"
   Chrissy: Thank you, Exposition Fairy.
Carol feigns still being under while some gremlin looking 
creature creeps closer and taps her forehead curiously. The guy 
at the monitor says that seems to have done something and asks 
him to do it again.
   Chrissy: Now try moving her arm to the left. No, your 
    left, not hers. Maybe try some tinfoil?
   Diandra: We are too young to be able to make that joke.
   Chrissy: And yet you know exactly what I'm talking 
    about, don't you?
   Diandra: Yes and I'm not sure what that says about me.
   Chrissy: It probably reinforces your insistence that you 
    don't really qualify as a Millennial. 

And then the part of the contraption restraining her hands 
glows red and snaps free and she decks the creature before 
smashing herself free of the leg restraints and dropping to the 
ground in a fighting stance. One of the Skrull aims a weapon at 
her and Talos slaps it down, yelling "not yet" and then just 
stands there while she knocks out all of the men with her still 
metal encased fists. She slams Talos onto the control panel, 
aims one fist in his face and demands to know what he did to 
her. "What did you put in my head?" He says he didn't PUT 
anything there. He was just searching for information. She says 
no, those are not her memories. He laughs and says it's like 
having a bad trip, isn't it? "They really did a number on you." 
She snaps at him to knock it off and tell her what he wants. He 
snarls in frustration and says fine, they're trying to locate 
Dr. Lawson and her light-speed engine. Carol insists she 
doesn't know any Dr. Lawson. Talos is like 'okay, but those are 
your memories so you MUST HAVE.'

Some men arrive to provide Talos with backup before they can 
argue any further and she has to fight her way out, throwing 
Talos at a couple of them and just chucking another at the 
wall. She runs through some hallways and tries to blast a 
couple approaching Skrulls with the same energy she used on Kal 
El...
   Chrissy: Oy. Just call him Watson, would you?
   Diandra: I feel like that would just be confusing.
   Chrissy: Right. It makes so much more sense if you just 
    change his name every few paragraphs. 
Anyway. She tries to blast a couple of Skrulls with the same 
energy coming out of her fists that she used on Kal Dum...
   Chrissy: What is that a reference to now?
   Diandra: Wasn't that a place in Lord of the Rings?
   Chrissy: You mean Khazad-Dum?
   Diandra: How do you remember that?
   Chrissy: I don't have the memory of an 80 year old who 
    suffered repeated head trauma in her youth.
   Diandra: [grumble] Okay, well, I'm done with names that 
    are references to other things now.
...but it just dies inside the metal things still encasing her 
hands. 

She tries to smash her metal gloves away as she's running and 
throwing Skrulls around. They finally trap her from both sides 
and she asks cockily if they happen to know how she can get the 
gloves off. Then she runs at one of the sets and starts 
punching them out with them, imitating one guy's battle yell 
mockingly before decking him. When she has downed all the guys 
on both sides, she looks around, shrugs and starts running 
again. She's barefoot, by the way.
   Chrissy: And Quentin Tarantino didn't even have anything 
    to do with this movie.
   Diandra: Which is for the best because Taika Waiti is 
    twisted and morbid enough for this universe.
This proves to her advantage briefly as she somehow uses her 
footprint to open a door via security panel. Except there's 
another Skrull on the other side of the door and he stalls her 
while two others zap her with cattle prods. 

She blasts repeatedly at them from the floor, then sends an 
overload of energy into the metal "gloves" until they come 
flying off, knocking the guards backward. She looks at her 
freed hands, claps delightedly and turns to face some more 
Skrulls. Except they are already backing away in terror because 
the wall she was just firing at is cracking. They flee just 
before it breaks and she is sucked through the hole into space 
with whoever didn't run fast enough. She activates her Mohawk 
suit and uses an energy blast to shoot back into the ship.

She runs past the room she woke up in, sees two of those 
gremlin creatures watching the screen playing her memories 
still and turns back. They stand aside as she grabs her boots 
and blasts the screen as that jerk is talking about cockpits 
again.
   Chrissy: Well, now we'll never know what the punchline 
    was.
   Diandra: For the best, really.

She comes to the bay where all the escape pods are and sees a 
bunch of Skrulls fleeing the ship. She commandeers one of the 
pods, booting the guy who was in it and has almost gotten it to 
take off when Talos arrives and shoots at the controls. She 
blasts him back and ejects the pod, smiling like an adrenaline 
junkie as she pilots it away from the mothership and down to 
the planet below. When it hits the atmosphere, the damaged 
controls start sparking and the whole pod starts cracking 
apart. The bottom falls out and she falls right out and down to 
the surface. This is when we realize the planet is Earth (or, 
as the chyron identifies it: Planet C-53, Terran Homeworld) and 
she has just crashed through the roof of a Blockbuster. It is 
night, so it's deserted and only really lit by outside street 
lights. As she's getting her bearings, a car drives by outside 
and she blasts at the flash of light, completely obliterating 
Arnold Schwarzenegger's head from the "True Lies" stand up in 
front of the window.
   Chrissy: The writer has some definite opinions about 
   California politics.

She walks down one of the rows while she tries - and fails - to 
contact Starforce Command and I have seen so many of the movies 
on the shelf behind her that I recognize most of the covers, so 
bear with me for a minute while I try to narrow down a 
timeframe by identifying them. Junior (1994), Maverick (1994), 
Legends of the Fall (1994), Lethal Weapon (1987), In the Line 
of Fire (1993), Just Cause (1995), Jumpin' Jack Flash (1986), 
First Knight (1995), Hook (1991), To Live and Die in LA (1985). 
So either it's at least 1995 and they haven't updated the 
standup to a more recent movie than "True Lies" or it's 1994 
and the props department didn't check the dates on a couple of 
those. 
   Chrissy: Impressive. I notice the very first one you  
    identified is basically mpreg, which I guess explains a 
    lot. 
   Diandra: Yeah, I uh...saw it back in the 90s. A few 
    times. And I'm not exactly an Arnold Schwarzenegger 
    fan.

She picks up a copy of The Right Stuff (1983) curiously, then 
steps through the hole she blasted in the window, casually 
brushing dust and debris from her shoulders. She strolls up to 
a security guard sitting in a car in the parking lot and knocks 
on the window. He blinks at her stupidly and slowly rolls down 
the window. The sounds of Salt n Peppa singing "What a Man" 
spill out. "Hi! I'm Vers. Kree Starforce. Is this C-53," she 
asks in the casual way one would ask for directions to the 
nearest highway. He just stares and she taps her arm and asks 
if her universal translator isn't working. He squeaks that he 
understands fine. She asks if he's in charge of security for 
this "district". He says um...sure, but the movie theater has 
their own security guy. She brushes this off and asks where she 
can find some "communications equipment". He thinks about this 
for a minute and points to the Radio Shack at the end of the 
strip mall.

Morning. Talos and a few other Skrulls walk out of the ocean 
they landed in. Talos scans the nearby surfers for someone to 
steal the identity of. The rest of his team follow his lead and 
imitate the rest of the all-female surfing party. One of them 
chooses the same woman as Talos and he snaps at him like 'back 
off, this one's mine! I called dibs!'

Carol has rigged a payphone to patch to her suit's 
communications. She futzes with it until she gets a faint 
signal from Krou'Ton.
   Chrissy: [snort] So now we're just going to misspell 
    words that sound funny?
   Diandra: Actually, that was my favorite result from a 
    Klingon name generator.
   Chrissy: Seriously? Oh, please tell me that is an actual 
    name one of the Star Treks used for a Klingon warrior 
    at some point and also that his commander was named 
    Cae'Sar.
"Verify CTC-39," he says. "GRXV-1600," she spits back 
instantly, then snarkily adds "and I'm fine, thank you for 
asking." She asks what happened. He says there was a Skrull 
ambush and asks if she found Soh'Larr. She says yeah, but it 
wasn't him, it was Talos. And he knew Soh'Larr's code. 
Nun'Chuck says those codes are buried in the subconscious and 
they couldn't possibly... Carol is like 'did I mention they 
hooked me up to a giant machine that could read my brain? Yeah, 
I'm pretty sure they could have used it to get a code.'
   Chrissy: But they didn't do that with me! I swear! 
   Diandra: Yeah, although it would be pretty stupid for 
    one of them to explain to the enemy exactly how they 
    circumvented their security.

Anyway. She's on planet C-53, where the Skrulls are headed 
looking for a woman named Lawson, who happens to be the woman 
from her memories/dreams. Turns out she's a scientist who may 
have broken the code for light-speed tech, so she needs to get 
to her first or the Skrulls will have access to whole new 
galaxies. Car'Van asks how close C-53 is.
   Chrissy: What, are you just naming different types of 
    vehicles now?
   Diandra: Work with me here.
   Chrissy: [sigh] Okay, crazy lady.
Atlas says the nearest jump is 22 hours away.
   Chrissy: Oh, sure. You remember HIS name though.
   Diandra: Shh!
Gol'Goth orders Carol to stay where she is, keep her comms open 
and wait for them.
   Chrissy: Isn't Golgoth a completely different comic book 
    character?
   Diandra: He is? Oops.
   Chrissy: I mean...either that or it's the name of a 
    band.
   Diandra: That would make kind of a cool band name, 
    actually.

The connection breaks and the automated lady informs Carol that 
her call requires a long-distance access code.
   Chrissy: Also, a shitload more quarters.

On the ship, Korath notes that if the Skrulls already got to 
Carol, she's probably been compromised. "She's stronger than 
you think," says Ach'Tung.
   Chrissy: Gesundheit. 
The lost Viking warrior asks if Minnerva has ever been to C-53. 
She sighs that she has. Once. "It's a real shithole."

A couple police cars and a plain sedan arrive in front of the 
Blockbuster. Agent Coulson climbs out of the sedan and 
questions the security guard. He looks like his face has been 
botoxed. The guard silently points to Carol in the phone booth, 
still trying to get her wrist computer working. A voice 
emanates from it to announce that she has activated a beacon 
just before a heavily CGId Samuel L. Jackson knocks on the 
window to ask if she knows anything about that hole in the roof 
of the Blockbuster back there.
   Chrissy: That is simultaneously exactly what he looked 
    like in the 90s and a terrifying android copy of what 
    he looked like in the 90s.
   Diandra: Yeah, the de-ageing has come a long way since 
    people were making fun of that one scene in "X-Men 3", 
    but it's still not great.

Fury says the description they got from witnesses is that a 
woman who looks like she's dressed for a game of laser tag is 
responsible. He looks pointedly at her suit. Carol says yeah, 
sure, she went that way. She points behind him and starts 
walking away. Fury steps in her path and flashes his badge, 
saying he'd like to ask some questions and maybe explain how 
returning movies after hours is SUPPOSED to work.
   Chrissy: Oh, you mean cannonballing through the ceiling 
   and then smashing your way back out through a window 
   isn't good enough? No wonder these places are going out 
   of business in a couple decades.
He asks her for ID. She recites the same intro she gave the 
security guard and says they don't carry little paper cards. 
She tries to leave again and he stalls by asking how long she 
plans on staying in town.
   Chrissy: You have a signal you can give your guys to 
   have someone call the paddy wagon?
She assures him she'll leave once she has tracked down the 
Skrulls infiltrating the planet.
   Chrissy: Here, I've got this device here and I'm gonna 
   need you to blow into it...
She explains to a laughing Fury that they are shapeshifters who 
can alter their DNA to imitate any form of life. Fury is like 
'okay...cool...cool... and how do we know YOU aren't a 
shapeshifter now?' She congratulates him on "finally" asking a 
relevant question. He's like 'okay, smartass, enough of this' 
and waves at the nearest officer to cuff her. 

This is when one of Talos' surf party appear on the roof and 
take a shot at Carol. She shoves Fury out of the line of fire 
and shoots back, blowing a chunk out of the building. She runs 
off after the Skrull as he flees and Fury and Coulson scramble 
to follow in the sedan. 

Carol chases the Skrull still dressed like a surfer all the way 
to the tram station. He just calmly gets on the train before 
the doors close. She jumps onto the back of the train as it's 
leaving. Fury drives under the tracks, sees this and alerts all 
units that the suspect is on the northbound train.

Carol punches her way into the train through the window and 
walks through the first car, searching the very startled 
passengers for the Skrull. Stan Lee is sitting in one of the 
seats, holding a script for "Mallrats" and reciting the line 
"trust me, true believer." She pulls the script back from his 
face a bit and smiles a little at the adorable old fart.
   Chrissy: If you're trying to keep track of what all 
    these cameo appearances might mean beyond little 
    breaking-the-fourth-wall in-jokes... good luck figuring 
    this one out.
   Diandra: I think I saw something about this meaning he's 
    a god or something? Which...wasn't he a Watcher in that 
    last Guardians?
   Chrissy: Oh, right. I forgot that wasn't just a thing 
    from "Fringe". Wasn't there a comic where they explain   
    who they are to Doctor Strange after teleporting him 
    the moon or something?
   Diandra: Yeah, but that was Neil Gaiman's alt-history 
    comic, so aside from providing some backstory on that 
    species, I don't think it counts.
   Chrissy: Well, the nice thing about the Marvel 'verse is 
    that it is a multiverse, so basically anything can be 
    considered canon. 

She starts going through the next car and stops in front of a 
little old lady in glasses. The little old lady smiles up at 
her and she punches her in the face, knocking the glasses right 
off. While everyone else in the car is gasping with shock and 
trying to figure out if they should do something, the lady 
glares at Carol and leaps up into a spin kick, knocking her 
across the car. They throw each other around a bit until a 
couple guys manage to restrain Carol. For about a minute. The 
Skrull in the old lady skin suit escapes to the next car, 
leaving behind some glowing purple thing. Carol breaks free of 
the guys, picks it up, and marches on to the next car. 

The Skrull has already gone through the whole car and is 
outside, half back in his original form. He transforms into a 
copy of a very startled man behind Carol's shoulder and leaps 
onto the top of the train.

So now we get a fight sequence worthy of any male-led action 
hero movie where the protagonist and antagonist throw each 
other around and do a whole lot of damage. Fury and Coulson try 
to keep up with the train from nearby roads and try to cut them 
off at the next station. As the train approaches a tunnel (yes, 
we all know what that is usually a euphemism for), Carol blasts 
a hole in the roof and dives back inside.

And then Coulson's voice comes over the radio in the car asking 
why everybody left him back at the Blockbuster and Fury 
realizes he's got an imposter with him. The Skrull wearing 
Coulson's face pulls a gun and they grapple, the car swerving 
all over the road. Fury ends it by deliberately slamming the 
passenger side of the car into a bus.

Meanwhile, the train arrives at the next station and Carol 
follows what she thinks is the Skrull as he looks like that guy 
he was last imitating from the back. When he turns around 
though she realizes it isn't him and he has disappeared into a 
whole crowd of people.

Fury regains consciousness and sees the possibly now deceased 
Skrull reverted back to his original alien form. He scrambles 
from the car and throws his jacket back over the Skrull's face 
before waving a badge at onlookers and saying this is official 
SHIELD activity and they should stay back.
   Chrissy: Which...kind of runs contrary to Coulson using 
    the full name in "Iron Man" like nobody had realized 
    they could make an acronym of it yet.
   Diandra: What, you expect the writers to remember 
    something they wrote, like, ten years ago when they had 
    no idea there would eventually be another movie that 
    would come before that one in the timeline and fuck up 
    their continuity when they couldn't even do that now 
    for major plot points between movies that are only a 
    year apart? Pfffftttt.

Carol finds a quiet corner somewhere to consult her wrist 
computer. It seems to glitch and show her images from her 
memory of Dr. Lawson, including the Pegasus name tag and an 
image of her air force friend - who I will now call Maria for 
the same reasons I'm calling "Vers" Carol - next to the sign 
for the bar they were singing karaoke in before shorting out 
entirely.

So she uses one of the many pre-Google search engines that 
existed in the 90s to try to identify Pegasus and, when that 
doesn't seem to go anywhere, Pancho's bar. She types via the 
painstakingly slow two finger method I have seen described as 
"hunt and peck" or "the biblical method (seek and ye shall 
find)". A second after the results come up, a little window 
pops up announcing she has been disconnected from the Internet. 
Ah, yes. This brings back memories. At least it gave her a name 
of the bar before crapping out, so she has something to look 
for.

She's out in the parking lot consulting a map when a dick on a 
motorcycle decides to try to make a pass, revving his engine, 
complimenting her "scuba suit" and when she continues to ignore 
him playing the old 'why don't you lighten up and give us a 
smile' line.
   Chrissy: Which made the whole dudebro complaint that she 
    wasn't smiling on the movie poster particularly 
    relevant.
   Diandra: Yep. I love how people started noting that like 
    'holy crap, you predicted that response!' and the women 
    involved with the movie were like 'uh...we didn't 
    predict shit. Guys have been doing this to us for a 
    LONG time.'
She continues to ignore him, which he of course takes as a 
personal affront and mutters "freak" under his breath before 
parking and going in one of the shops. She takes a leather 
jacket from one of the nearby mannequins and drives off with 
the bike he stupidly left his keys in, instantly becoming a 
hero to every woman who has grown tired of putting up with this 
sort of shit from men and a man-hating lesbian bitch to the 
sort of men who don't understand why we hate having to put up 
with their shit.

In a morgue, a medical examiner is working on the Skrull who 
posed as Coulson. He tells Fury and another agent that he can't 
really determine WHAT sort of chemical base this thing has, but 
he knows it's not carbon like Earthlings. Fury is like 'so 
basically he's not from Earth, right?' He's holding an ice pack 
to his eye in one of the many moments in this movie where the 
writers will tease us with the possible explanation of what 
happened to his eye. This one would probably have made more 
sense than the real answer, but whatever. We'll get to that 
later. For now, he takes the ice pack off to reveal a nasty 
scrape along his eyebrow still oozing blood and a perfectly 
intact eyeball. The other agent is like 'this thing really 
looked like Coulson?' Fury says he had his voice and 
everything. And the woman said there were more where he came 
from: that they were "infiltrating". Of course, he didn't 
believe her until his partner turned out to be one of them. 
He's working on tracking her, starting with following a lead on 
a stolen motorcycle. She should be able to tell them what these 
things are and what they want and how to get rid of them. The 
guy Fury has no way of verifying isn't a Skrull warns Fury to 
go alone because obviously they can't trust anyone. Although 
the fact that they both peek curiously under the sheet at what 
the Skrull has between his legs is very human male. But yeah, 
once Fury leaves he whispers to the body a vow to finish what 
they started, his voice slipping totally into Talos'.

Because the soundtrack is all female artists, Carol is zipping 
down the highway on her stolen bike to the tune of Garbage 
"Only Happy When It Rains". She pulls up to Pancho's and as she 
enters we get another reminder that it is, in fact, the 90s as 
we see the Nine Inch Nails logo emblazoned on the t-shirt she 
changed into. She lets her newly recovered memories overlay the 
bar as she looks around, seeing herself playing an arcade game 
and eating and singing karaoke with Maria. She wanders over to 
look at some pictures of air force planes decorating one wall 
and asks the bartender when he appears where one of them was 
taken. He has no clue. She asks where Pegasus is. This is 
Fury's cue to interrupt that that's classified information, as 
is basically everything about her. He shoots the bartender a 
look and the guy shrugs and leaves them alone.

Fury notes her change in clothing and says the grunge style 
really suits her. She asks if he's had a rough day. He says 
nah, just your average alien landing followed by a car chase 
and an alien autopsy. No biggie.
   Chrissy: The next couple decades are gonna be a doozy 
   though.
She zeroes in on the fact that he did, in fact, see one of the 
aliens. He says yeah, he never believed in them before, 
but...that was definitely not a Halloween prank. She's like 'if 
you've seen what they can do then you'll understand why I need 
to verify your identity.' He asks if she needs a cheek swab or 
a urine sample or something. She says that wouldn't prove 
anything because the Skrulls can mimic the DNA. He asks if she 
wants his AOL password. She's like '...whatever that is'. No, 
apparently the Skrulls can only access recent memories, so she 
needs to interrogate him about older stuff. 

They sit and she runs down all the usual security questions 
like where he was born (Huntsville Alabama) and the name of his 
first pet (Mr. Snoofers). Wait...really?
   Chrissy: That's adorable.
   Diandra: I feel like other kids whose parents let them 
    name their pets were far more creative than I was. 
   Chrissy: I'm sure you weren't the only one to name your 
    dog after a Disney character.
   Diandra: Yeah, but that Disney character was a DOG. 
    Like...I didn't even have enough imagination to think 
    outside that box. 
   Chrissy: You act like most kids don't come up with names 
    like "Mr. Wiskers" for a cat.
   Diandra: Yeah, that's probably true. 
She asks what his first job was. He gives her a succession of 
jobs out of high school: military, where he rose to the rank of 
Colonel, spy in the cold war and he's been a desk jockey for 
the last six years, trying to anticipate where the next enemies 
of the state might come from. He admits he never considered 
they might come from outside the planet.

She asks him to give her something so bizarre a Skrull couldn't 
fabricate it. Which is pretty broad. He thinks for a second and 
says he can't eat toast that has been cut diagonally. Like he 
has a weird phobia about triangle shaped bread or something. 
She smirks and he concludes she didn't really need that one. 
She says nah, not really, but it was cute. He says okay, 
smartass, now it's your turn to prove you're not a Skrull. She 
just fires a bolt of energy from her fist into the jukebox, 
destroying it. He frowns and asks how that's supposed to prove 
anything to him. She says Skrulls can't produce photon blasts 
like that. And since he doesn't really know anything about 
either Skrull or Kree physiology, he'll probably just have to 
take her word on that.

Getting back to the original subject, she notes that he must 
have a high security clearance, so he probably knows where 
Pegasus is.

And we cut to a car driving down a winding mountain road while 
TLC sings about chasing waterfalls. Fury recaps what she has 
told him so far: that the Skrulls are a race of alien that 
"sim" other species in order to take over planets. And she is a 
Kree, which is a race of noble warriors. He asks what the 
Skrulls want with Lawson. Carol says they believe she developed 
a light speed engine. Fury is like 'huh...doesn't even rank 
among the craziest thing you've said so far'. So what is it she 
is doing then? Carol says she's trying to stop the Skrulls 
before they become too powerful to be stopped. He sighs and 
says war is a universal language and he can spot a "rogue 
soldier." He knows this is personal for her. 

But before he can press her any more, they arrive at a gate. A 
voice orders him through a control box to turn around. He 
identifies himself as a SHIELD agent and, upon prompting, 
places his thumb on the monitor to scan his print. She repeats 
the full name he just recited (Nicholas Joseph Fury) and he 
says nobody calls him anything but Fury. If they know what's 
good for them.
   Chrissy: It's just Fury. Like Beyonce. Oh, whoops, 
   nobody knows who that is yet. Uh...Prince? Madonna? 
   Cher? Bono? 
Carol thinks this is ridiculous and asks what his mother calls 
him. He says Fury because the truth is probably embarrassing. 
She asks what his kids call him. He says if he has any, they 
will call him Fury too.
   Chrissy: It will be one of the things they can discuss 
   with their future therapists.

They drive into the facility and straight into a mountain 
tunnel as the chyron identifies this as Project Pegasus (a 
joint project of NASA and the US Air Force). As Carol emerges 
from the car, Fury realizes she is dressed in typical 90s 
grunge fashion, complete with an extra shirt tied around her 
waist. I don't know why this was a thing, but I know I spent 
approximately all of high school with a sweater or overshirt 
wrapped around my waist because I was constantly putting it on 
and taking it off all day long and watching work-out videos 
convinced me it was totally fashionable.
   Chrissy: And for a double whamy: Carol's wraparound is 
    plaid, which was also a thing in the 90s for some 
    reason.
   Diandra: We all collectively decided that the lumberjack 
    look was sexy? I don't remember having a lot of plaid. 
    Jeans and t-shirts and a black raincoat that really 
    made me stand out after Columbine, though...
   Chrissy: I don't remember caring at all about what other 
    people were wearing. Sometimes I was mistaken for the 
    substitute teacher.
   Diandra: Well, you did spend, like, a year wearing black 
    leather boots with a two inch heel, which, in hindsight 
    explains a lot.

Anyway. Fury thinks this outfit makes her look like "somebody's 
disaffected niece." He hands her a baseball hat with the SHIELD 
logo and makes her ditch the flannel.
   Chrissy: Hey, at least her jeans don't have holes in 
   them.
A security guard flanked by a couple armed men asks if he can 
help them. Fury gives him his badge and Carol says they're 
looking for a woman named Lawson. Fury hurries to add that 
Lawson is a doctor and her first name is Wendy. The guard 
stares at them silently for a minute, then tells them to follow 
him.

They end up in a windowless office, waiting for someone. Fury 
grumbles something about them not sending a "welcome wagon" and 
tries his thumb on the panel next to the door. It won't open. 
Then he pulls out his "communicator": a pager. A shiny new two-
way one that was cutting edge technology in those days when 
cell phones were basically glorified walkie talkies.
   Chrissy: Ah, yes. The good old days when you weren't 
    expected to be constantly reachable unless you were 
    somebody really important like a heart surgeon.
   Diandra: You're still basically unreachable.
   Chrissy: Yeah, but now there's an *expectation*.

Carol asks who he's paging. He says his mother. The screen says 
"detained with target. Need backup."
   Chrissy: I actually kind of like the idea that his 
    mother really is some badass agent who he calls for 
    backup.
   Diandra: Like Irina Derevko?
   Chrissy: Okay, first of all...holy fuck, no. Second... 
    you have probably already forgotten Jude Law's 
    character's name again, but you can instantly recall 
    the full names of characters from shows that went off 
    the air more than a decade ago?
   Diandra: It's not that I can't remember anything. I just 
    have a very selective memory.
   Chrissy: No kidding. Who is Doctor Strange's girlfriend 
    again?
   Diandra: Clea.
   Chrissy: That's not what.......you know what? Never 
    mind.

Carol tries her own thumbprint on the door, which naturally 
doesn't work. Fury gets the idea to lift a print from his ID - 
which the guard touched - with a piece of scotch tape and use 
that to open the door. She acknowledges that that was kind of 
impressive and he chortles "you should see what I can do with a 
paper clip!"

They go down into the basement where they find some endless 
looking hallways in all directions. A marmalade cat makes a 
beeline for them and Fury instantly turns into a big ball of 
adorable mush, squatting to pet the kitty and gushing "look at 
you! Aren't you the cutest little thing?" in that tone animal 
lovers always fall into when addressing all things cute and 
furry. 
   Chrissy: Who's a good boy? Yes, you are! Yes, you are!
   Diandra: I feel like this is the sort of thing that a 
    dog would respond to, but would make most cats run in 
    the other direction like 'oh, HELL no!' But I'm willing 
    to overlook that because Fury getting all soft and 
    squishy over a cat is adorable and makes me love him a 
    thousand times more than I already did.

He checks the tag on the cat's collar, which the cat seems to 
think is a fun game and bats at his hand a bit. Kitty's name is 
Goose, because we are changing all the "Star Wars" references 
to "Top Gun" references. Carol is like 'if you're done playing 
with the kitty, can we get back to the reason we're here?' Fury 
tells Goose he'll be back and goes to join her at the door 
she's standing by, seeing it has another fingerprint lock. He 
goes to pull out the tape he used on the last door, but before 
he can do anything with it she just blasts the entire knob off. 
He blinks at it and asks why she just sat back and watched him 
mess around with scotch tape to lift a fingerprint when she 
could have done THAT before. "I didn't want to steal your 
thunder," she says.
   Chrissy: We have to let men have their wins every once 
   in a while. It makes them feel good about themselves.

Inside is an archival storage warehouse with motion activated 
lights. Carol goes right to the dossier on Lawson like she knew 
exactly where it would be. Goose watches from the end of the 
row while they go through the files. Carol finds the plans for 
the light speed engine rubber stamped "project terminated". 
Fury suggests maybe they terminated the project when they found 
out Lawson was crazy and holds up a journal full of funny 
looking notes going in all directions. Carol identifies the 
writing as Kree glyphs, giving Fury his apparently first lesson 
in the understanding that just because he doesn't understand 
what something says doesn't mean it isn't perfectly legible and 
coherent to someone else. The part about Lawson being Kree is 
surprising though. Fury says well, they still won't be able to 
find her because the next file in the folder says she died when 
a plane she was taking on an authorized test flight crashed. 
And she took another pilot with her, so.... yeah. "They're 
covering up a billion dollar mistake." He hands her some photos 
showing the scene, including the exploded light speed engine. 
She flips through them asking when the crash happened. He says 
six years ago in 1989. So yes, it is 1995 and there were no 
anachronisms in that Blockbuster. Carol asks who the pilot was. 
Fury says the majority of the file was redacted, but there's 
testimony from the last person who saw them alive: a woman 
named Maria Rambeaux. Carol doesn't see the picture Fury is 
looking at, which is clearly the friend from her memories, but 
she recognizes the crash site from her dream about Lawson, so 
she probably already realizes she was the pilot.

Fury's pager goes off and he goes to make a call or something. 
Carol grabs the folder he was going through and finds a picture 
of Wendy and Maria talking to a male pilot. In the background, 
Carol is climbing into one of the planes. She gasps as she has 
a flashback where Lawson is lecturing her and Maria that "this 
isn't about fighting wars. It's about ending them." Then 
there's a brief flash of her crashing on the lakeshore in the 
picture.

She goes out to make a call too, filling in Kog'War on the 
whole Lawson dying in a plane crash on Earth thing. He says 
yeah, he just got a mission report from C-53/Earth, most of 
which he doesn't have the clearance to tell her about. But he 
can say that Lawson was an undercover Kree operative named Mar-
Vell. If you're keeping track of how many things changed 
between the comics and the movies: this is basically the 
biggest change of the whole story. That Carol Danvers got her 
powers from a woman named Mar-Vell as compared to a man named 
Mar-Vell. That's....literally it. In other words, shitheads who 
insisted they changed the gender of Captain Marvel: no, they 
didn't. This is Carol Danvers' story and always has been. They 
just changed the dude who died and bequeathed her his powers to 
a woman. Which, I mean...compared to what they did to the whole 
Ultron story line is SO INSIGNIFICANT.

Anyway. Mar-Vell was experimenting with some new technology to 
build an energy core she hoped could help them win the war.

Meanwhile, Fury is meeting the agent he doesn't realize is 
Talos mimicking his agent up in the loading bay. He says she's 
cooperating fully with the investigation. The agent insists he 
speak to her alone. They get in the elevator together and the 
agent praises "Nicholas" for his good work. Fury frowns at him 
like 'who the fuck now?'

Carol asks if the mission report says anything about her. 
Vam'Pyr snorts like 'why would you have anything to do with 
it?'
   Chrissy: I thought vampires weren't part of the MCU yet.
   Diandra: As far as we know.
Carol says Mar-Vell is the one she sees in her dreams and when 
she visits the Supreme Intelligence and she's pretty sure it's 
because she knew her on Earth back when she was Lawson. Af-lack 
tries to brush this all off as some sort of Skrull simulation 
or something and orders her to focus on her training. "Remember 
your enemy. It could be you. Do not let your emotions override 
your judgment."

In the elevator, Fury tells the agent Carol is on sublevel six, 
but he'll get off on five just in case she decides to try to 
escape. "Do a pincer move. Like we did in Havana." Talos in his 
human meat suit is like 'yes! Havana! I remember that!' Fury 
looks at him sideways.

Ack'Bar tells Carol to turn on her beacon so he can find her.
   Chrissy: You keep claiming you're not good with Star 
    Wars references, but you managed to call up the name of 
    the character famous for the "IT'S A TRAP" meme?
   Diandra: Is he? Huh.
He promises they will solve this thing together.
   Chrissy: Honestly, I think I'd rather have Sherlock 
    helping me. Isn't he around here somewhere?
   Diandra: Nah, he's too busy flirting with a neurotic 
    lawyer. I mean taking over daddy's company. Sorry.
   Chrissy: So you do remember doing that Ally McBeal 
    recap?
   Diandra: I've tried to forget.

Talos arrives at the level Fury sent him to and looks around 
the completely empty computer room while he slowly registers 
he's been had.

Fury is searching for Carol in the storage stacks when a light 
goes on at the end of the room. By the time the whole group of 
agents rounds the corner, he has dived for cover.

Carol just misses Coulson and a female agent who is not Hill in 
the stairwell, but is within earshot as the woman says Fury is 
colluding with the alien target and they both need to be taken 
dead or alive. Carol stops, obviously having been ready to flee 
and ditch Fury, makes a "son of a BITCH" face and turns on her 
heel to go rescue him.

In the storage room, Fury throws a film canister to set off 
some lights for the agents to chase, then goes the other way, 
running right into Talos, who is using his own voice again. 
They battle a little and Fury takes Talos' gun, tries to shoot 
it, realizes it's not loaded and just lobs it at his head. They 
go back to a fist fight, where Fury realizes he is seriously 
over his head because Skrulls have superstrength about a second 
before being thrown into the shelving units twice. He lays on 
the floor groaning and probably thinking he's getting too old 
for this shit...
   Chrissy: Different guy.
   Diandra: You think Danny Glover is the only one allowed 
    to say that?

Talos picks up the agents' glasses from the floor and notes 
that he doesn't really need them, but they complete the look, 
so... He puts them on and is immediately blasted back by a 
photon blast from Carol, just coming to her new buddy's rescue. 
She blasts a hole in the ceiling and somehow vaults them both 
up to the next level where she berates him for calling in to 
the home office while they're running. He's like 'yeah, sorry, 
that was stupid. I'm new to this.'

They run into Coulson in the stairwell and he and Fury stare at 
each other for a minute before Coulson lowers his gun. The 
woman he was with calls down to see if he's found them yet. He 
says nope, all clear, and Fury smiles as they back through the 
door.
   Chrissy: And thus marks the beginning of a beautiful 
   friendship. Or...something.

They get to an airplane hanger that would one day house all the 
helicarriers, I think, and zip tie the door handles behind 
them. Then Carol holds out her hand expectantly. Fury doesn't 
see it, so she swats his arm to get his attention. "Your 
communicator," she demands. "You obviously can't be trusted 
with it." He hands it to her and they run deeper into the room 
as the agents break down the door and fan out.

Carol spots a thing that looks like a squat sort of jet plane 
and directs Fury to it. He asks as they get seated inside if 
she knows how to fly it. She's like 'eh...probably.' She powers 
it up and flies right out of the bay while the agents and Talos 
- in his human meat suit - shoot after them.

And then, as they're shooting straight up into the air and 
getting plastered to their seats by gravity, they hear a 
plaintive meow and realize Goose has followed them right onto 
the plane somehow. He is plastered to some crates in the back 
and looking alarmed. Carol levels off the plane and he trots up 
and crawls into her lap. She's like 'nope, not happening' and 
plops him on the dash, where he purrs and acts cute to 
encourage Fury to gush about what a good kitty he is. 

Carol sighs and hands Fury the folder with the picture clipped 
to it, calling his attention to her in the background. She says 
she arrived on Hala with no memory, very close to death some 
six years ago. Fury concludes that she thinks she might be the 
pilot that went down with Lawson. She's not sure, but the last 
person who saw Lawson alive probably knows. Which Fury already 
noted was Maria Rambeaux. So now that they know their 
destination...Carol asks about that agent who let them go. Fury 
says yeah, that was Coulson. He's new, so "guess he doesn't 
hate me yet." But all joking aside, he seems to have good 
instincts, which he trusts enough to ignore orders that don't 
make sense. It's a very human trait. Carol says yeah, but she 
gets in trouble for doing it. Fury isn't surprised considering 
she rescued the guy who practically handed her over to the 
Skrulls. "I won't tell your boss if you don't tell mine," she 
says and they both laugh.

Somewhere in space, Kan'Del gets a call from Ronan - one of the 
characters from the first "Guardians of the Galaxy" whose 
purpose in this universe I have completely forgotten along with 
almost everything else about that movie. Ronan says the 
"accusers" completed their mission, but the whole operation was 
a failure thanks to Sna'Fu and his team.
   Chrissy: Sna'Fu. Not to be confused with his brother 
    Fu'Bar.
   Diandra: Yeah, although they are twins, so...
Sna'Fu says yeah, well, it turns out it was a trap designed to 
lure in Vers so she could be kidnapped. Ronan offers to take 
care of the terrorist threat himself. Ko'don is like 'yeah, no, 
we can handle this without bombing them out of existence, 
thanks.' Ronan insists that any small group of Skrulls is a 
threat to the Kree. Kang is like yeah, well, we lost them and 
we'll let you know if we find them again.
   Chrissy: Isn't Kang the name of one of the aliens on The 
    Simpsons?
   Diandra: Probably.
Ronan makes one last impotent threat to swoop in if they can't 
take care of it themselves and hangs up. Qua'lon orders Atlas 
to continue heading for C-53.

Maria is out in an open air hanger behind a southern plantation 
house in Louisiana, working on a plane while "You Gotta Be" 
plays from a stereo. Carol wanders up and announces that she's 
looking for a Maria Rambeaux. Maria freezes and her daughter, 
who was playing around inside the plane, runs out to excitedly 
greet "auntie Carol". "I knew it! Everyone said you were dead," 
she yelps as she hugs a very startled Carol. She realizes 
something is wrong as she looks up at Carol's blank stare.

Inside the house, skipping over all the exposition Carol and 
possibly Fury filled them in on, Maria announces "that is the 
craziest shit I've ever heard." The daughter - okay, can I just 
call her Monica? Cool - is like 'yeah, like green skinned shape 
shifting aliens are real.' Fury pointedly says yes, she's 
right. There is no such thing. He looks pointedly at Carol as 
he adds "because if there were, we would want to keep that to 
OURSELVES." Carol just shrugs and goes over to boil the kettle 
sitting on the stove in seconds using the glowing energy from 
her hand. Monica thinks that's neat and wants to see some more 
tricks. Carol says maybe later and Monica quickly redirects to 
fetching the stuff Carol left with them and she kept because 
she didn't believe Carol was really dead. Carol unsubtly chases 
Fury from the room by suggesting he go help Monica with that. 
Then she sits at the kitchen table across from Maria.

Maria asks if she really doesn't remember anything. Carol says 
she sees flashes, but she's not sure how much of it is real. 
Right now, she wants to remember that morning of the crash. 
Maria says Carol came banging on her door at dawn...as 
usual...so they could test Lawson's planes because the Air 
Force wouldn't let them do much else. Because women, of course. 
And Carol being an adrenaline junkie insisted on racing their 
cars to the airfield first, which Maria insists she would have 
totally beaten her ass if Carol hadn't cheated by taking a 
shortcut. They have a little argument about whether shortcuts 
actually constitute cheating because Carol doesn't like rules 
and Maria kind of sighs like 'yeah, it's you all right.'

Maria is like anyway...when they got to the hangar, Lawson was 
agitated and rambling about having to save some lives and 
trying to fly the plane herself. This triggers a memory for 
Carol of her response: if there were lives on the line, she 
would fly the plane herself. Maria is like 'yep, because you 
jumped at the opportunity to be a big hero.' Of course now the 
whole context is apparently not what she thought because Carol 
is saying she was an alien. "I know this must be hard for you," 
Carol begins. Maria is like 'oh, what, the alien thing? Nah. 
The hard part was losing my best friend six years ago on a top 
secret mission and then finding out she was out there somewhere 
the whole time while the Air Force pretended she was dead. None 
of which I would even know about if she hadn't come swaning 
back, calling herself Vers and showing off her ability to shoot 
heat blasts from her hands like some sort of mutant. I 
mean...is there a support group for that, or...'

Monica interrupts by calling them to come look at the stuff she 
and Fury found. She has a bankers box full of stuff on the 
dining room table. Fury steps back so she can show Carol a 
picture from Halloween where she is dressed like Amelia 
Erhardt. Monica, not Carol. The next picture is of her and her 
dad at what looks like the race track from her memory. Monica 
says she didn't have a good relationship with her parents and 
that's why "mom said we became your real family." The next 
picture is the three of them on Christmas, unwrapping presents. 
The next is of Carol when she was a child, seemingly also 
dressed like Amelia Erhardt. We kind of fast forward through 
the next few pictures of Carol's life as Monica lays them all 
on the table. Then she realizes she forgot to get Carol's 
jacket, which Maria doesn't let her wear anymore because she 
spilled ketchup on it. Carol picks up a partial dog tag that 
says "Carol Dan" and Maria explains that she was told it was 
all that survived the crash.

Someone knocks at the front door. Maria goes to answer, but 
Carol tells her not to. Maria says she can see it's just her 
neighbor. Carol is like 'yeah, that's what you think.' Fury 
stands to the side with his gun ready while Carol answers with 
a harsh "what do you want?" While he's spluttering, Maria 
appears behind her and apologetically introduces her to "Tom". 
Tom reaches to shake Carol's hand and she accepts, but zaps him 
a little with a tiny energy spark. Tom thinks it's just really 
nasty static and asks in the most folksy southern way possible 
if he can bring his boys over to look at the plane parked out 
by the road. "You're really working overtime to sell this one, 
aren't you, Talos," Carol sneers. Maria says this isn't a good 
time and apologetically closes the door while Carol continues 
to glare daggers at him.

And then the real Talos appears in the room behind them and 
chastises Carol for being mean to the neighbors. "You never 
know when you're going to need to borrow some sugar," he smarms 
before calmly slurping a soda he got from a gas station or 
something.
   Chrissy: You know, if I were a Ben Mendohlson fangirl, 
   that would probably be swoon worthy.
Fury aims his gun and Carol's hands start to light up. 

Maria looks out the nearest window to see someone that looks 
exactly like her with her daughter outside. Talos says yeah, 
about that...they won't hurt the girl, he promises. At 
least...as long as they don't kill him right now, in which case 
all bets are probably off because that would make things really 
complicated. Fury sneers a threat to "complicate" his brains 
all over the wall behind him. Talos is like yeah, sorry about 
that whole thing earlier at the SHIELD facility, but I'm not 
trying to pull a fast one now. Carol asks what the Skrull out 
there playing Maria is about then. Talos stammers that he had 
to take SOME precautions after watching what she's capable of. 
"I saw you crush twenty of my best men with your hands bound. I 
just wanna talk." Carol is like 'is that what you call 
stringing me up by my ankles and poking around in my brain?' He 
says yeah, sorry about that too. He didn't know who she was 
then. "I have an audio recording from Pegasus of your voice 
from a plane crash six years ago, on a device I believe you 
call a 'black box'." 

This gets Maria's attention. She says she was told the black 
box was destroyed. She asks how HE came to have it. Realizing 
she still isn't getting how the whole Skrull sim thing works, 
he snots that he has a "special skill" that can get him in 
places he's not supposed to be. He makes the mistake of calling 
her "young lady" in the middle of that patronizing monologue 
and she threatens to put her foot "in a place it's not supposed 
to be" if he does it again.
   Chrissy: And this is why she and Carol are friends.
Talos sighs and says he just needs Carol's help decoding 
coordinates here. If she could just hear him out, "I can assure 
you it will be worth your while." Carol agrees so long as that 
guy outside stops simming her friend. He says yeah, sure. 

And then Goose appears and rubs against his leg and he jumps 
practically out of his skin. Carol picks Goose up and holds him 
out at arm's length, pointed toward Talos like 'oh, are you 
afraid of this thing?' Talos backs away in fear and says that 
thing is NOT a cat. It's a flerken. Before he can go into any 
more detail, Monica appears in the doorway, confused by this 
tableau and the fact that the "mom" who just escorted her in 
has shapeshifted into a Skrull.

So they go out to the garage out back and Monica pouts that 
Maria is making her sit on a bench outside while the adults 
talk. She accepts a disc from Talos' buddy and pops it in the 
computer. And then they all have to wait while the disc slowly 
loads because haha 90s tech. When it finally starts playing, 
Lawson is reciting a series of coordinates she says is the 
location of her lab. Carol's voice expresses confusion and then 
alarm as SOMETHING appears in front of them despite not showing 
on the radar. We focus on Carol's face and smash into flashback 
as Lawson yells at Carol to fly. They are hovering at about the 
same altitude as the International Space Station and there are 
laser blasts firing past the windows. Carol asks who the hell 
that is and Lawson unhelpfully says they are the "bad guys".

Carol flies down into the clouds, the enemy ship on her tail, 
and asks what the HELL those bad guys want anyway. Lawson says 
they're after her and her "work" and expresses remorse at 
bringing Carol into all of this. Carol performs some slick 
evasive maneuvers and gets behind the enemy ship. The ship just 
starts firing its guns backward. She tries to evade, but a shot 
clips one of the wings and the plane starts spiraling. She 
yells at Lawson to bail out, but apparently neither of them has 
time to actually eject so she just tries to do a controlled 
crash onto the beach from the photos.

Carol climbs out and goes to help Lawson, becoming confused 
when she sees the blue blood coming from a cut on Lawson's 
face. Lawson tries to laugh it off and asks how her hair is. 
She redirects back to the mission Carol doesn't really know 
anything about, babbling that she needs to destroy "it" before 
"they" arrive while Carol helps her out of the wreck. She 
staggers and falls over. "You remember what I said about our 
work here," she prompts. "What it's for?" Carol confusedly 
recites that it is supposed to end all wars. Lawson says yeah, 
but she wasn't referring to wars just on Earth. Also, her name 
isn't Lawson. It's Mar-Vell. And she's from a planet called 
Hala. Carol, a little bit of normal human red blood trickling 
from her nostril, laughs that she would say that was crazy if 
they hadn't just gotten shot down by a spaceship and, you know, 
if she wasn't still looking at the blue blood on her face.

Mar-Vell says she spent half her life fighting a "shameful" war 
and insists Carol run now and remember the coordinates she gave 
her. "You gotta save 'em without me." Carol has no idea what 
she's talking about. Mar-Vell just pulls out a big ass gun and 
mutters that she needs to blow the engine on the plane before 
"they" find it. But before she can, a shot comes out of nowhere 
and knocks her down. Carol grabs her gun and points it at the 
approaching figure. It is Tef'Lon.
   Chrissy: Qua'Lon was better.
   Diandra: Yeah, but this is tougher.
   Chrissy: [heavy sigh]

He says he doesn't want to hurt her, but he needs the energy 
core. She bluffs (probably) that rescue is coming for them and 
he'll be surrounded in two minutes. He shrugs and says in that 
case... he points his own gun at her. She says wait and points 
her gun at the engine Mar-Vell was aiming at, asking if this is 
the energy core he's referring to. She shoots it before he can 
stop her and gets blasted. Her skin glows and her eyes briefly 
look like Thor's do now when he summons lightning. In the wake 
of the explosion, she lays unconscious, sparks fizzling around 
her.

Minerva appears and notes that she is still "moving" and offers 
to shoot her. Ko'Dak orders her to stand down. He approaches 
Carol and exposits that she absorbed the energy of the core she 
just obliterated. Ergo, they need to take her with them now. He 
finds the half of the dog tag that matches what Monica had and 
assumes her name is Vers.

Back in the "present", Carol is having a moment. She storms out 
of the shed, everyone else trailing behind her. She rants about 
how everything she thought she knew turns out to have been a 
lie. Talos says yes, now she understands. Because the truth is 
her Kree higher up killed Mar-Vell once she realized "she was 
on the wrong side of an unjust war." Carol defaults back to her 
programmed line that the Skrulls are terrorists who murder 
innocents. "I saw the ruins on Torfa." Talos snaps that the 
Accusers are the ones responsible for those ruins. The Skrulls 
were hiding out there as refugees, which they have been since 
they tried to resist Kree rule and got their planet destroyed 
in the process.
   Chrissy: And there's where the former homages to "Star 
   Wars" found their real resonance.

So coming around to the reason Talos is here now: he's hoping 
Carol can take over the mission Mar-Vell started and prevent 
what is left of their colony from being crushed by the Kree. 
She found a core that could power a light-speed ship that they 
could use to escape and find a new planet safely out of reach. 
If she can just help them find it... Maria pipes up that Lawson 
always told them their goal was not to fight wars but to end 
them. Carol says well, it doesn't matter because she destroyed 
the core. Talos says no, she destroyed the engine of the plane. 
The core was never actually there, it was powering the engine 
remotely, from the coordinates Lawson gave her. Carol, still 
not really adjusting to this new reality, says the Skrulls will 
just use the core to destroy them. Talos sighs and tries again: 
both of them have lost so much at the hands of the Kree. She 
just didn't know it until now. "Can't you see it? You're not 
one of them." She snaps that he doesn't know who she is 
because, hell, SHE doesn't even know who she is. 

Maria takes this as her cue to step in and tell her she is 
Carol Danvers, her best friend who supported her as a single 
mother with a career at a time when fucking nobody was 
supportive of such a thing, and that's without even taking into 
account the fact that the career she has is particularly 
unwelcoming of any sort of women.
   Chrissy: We were coming off an administration that 
    actually accused an actress of damaging society by 
    playing a working single mother.
   Diandra: Of course, this was coming from an idiot who 
    went on to misspell potato in front of a group of 
    school children, so...
   Chrissy: God...remember when he was the dumbest member 
    of the GOP? And now they've got morons who think 
    windmills will slow the spin of the Earth and cause ' 
    cancer.
   Diandra: Yes, the plot by the GOP to dumb down the 
    population has been wildly successful.

Ahem. Anyway. Maria says Carol is smart and funny and strong 
and a GIANT PAIN IN HER ASS and she was definitely the woman on 
that black box helping Lawson do the right thing, whatever that 
may have been. Carol cries and they hug. 

Sometime later, Talos admits he doesn't really deserve her 
trust, but she was the only lead they had on Mar-Vell because 
her energy signature matched the core. He repeats that he just 
wants her help decoding the coordinates to the lab. She says 
they're not coordinates, which is why they can't figure them 
out. They're state vectors. "For orbital positioning and 
velocity," Fury adds around a mouthful of sandwich. Maria 
chimes in that the lab is not on Earth. Carol suggests they use 
the position Mar-Vell gave six years ago to track the course 
and figure out where in orbit it would be now. Talos looks at 
his friend hovering in the corner like 'really? We're being 
outsmarted by an amnesiac and her Earth friend? WHY DID WE 
NEVER FIGURE THIS OUT?' Carol says D'Jon will find her sooner 
or later, so they should move fast if they want to beat him to 
it.
   Chrissy: Did you seriously just make a name out of a 
    brand of mustard?
   Diandra: Klingon name generator.
   Chrissy: I'm starting to think the guy who programmed 
    that thing was just hungry.
Talos' buddy, who he identifies as his "science guy", offers to 
tweak that plane of hers so it can travel in space.

While he's out back doing that, Carol tries to get Maria to act 
as her copilot. Maria is like 'uh...I have a child that would 
be instantly orphaned if anything happened to me. No.' As 
Monica is in the room, she tries to interject that she's 
totally fine because grandma and grandpa can take her. Maria 
says no, it's too dangerous. Monica points out that the job she 
used to have testing out new aerospace equipment was dangerous 
and that didn't stop her. Maria thinks there's a fairly 
significant difference between testing new equipment and 
leaving Earth's atmosphere in a craft not designed for such 
travel with the expectation of encountering hostile, 
technologically advanced aliens. Monica is like 'right, so you 
have to do it because it's going to be so cool!' And then 
Monica goes for the jugular: "I just think you should consider 
what kind of example you're setting for your daughter." Carol 
laughs and gives Monica a thumbs up. Maria gives her the stink 
eye.
   Chrissy: Oh, she's gonna be fun when she hits her teen 
    years.
   Diandra: It's the trade off for raising a good feminist.

So Maria's parents come to collect their granddaughter or maybe 
just stay with her. While she's going to greet them, Monica 
sits on the front steps. Carol, in her Kree suit, sits beside 
her and dubs her Lieutenant Trouble - the toughest kid ever. 
Monica smiles at the nickname Carol now remembers. Carol notes 
the flight jacket Monica is still clutching and encourages her 
to keep holding onto it until she comes back. Then she asks if 
Monica can help her change the colors on her suit because 
obviously she can't keep wearing Kree colors. She activates a 
panel on her forearm and demonstrates by drawing her finger 
along it, changing the suit to a dark blue and gold color 
scheme. Monica is impressed and copies the movements, changing 
the blue to dark red and immediately muttering "no."
   Chrissy: Yeah, I think Tony Stark might take issue with 
   you copying the red and gold thing.

She scrolls through a few more options: black and gold, black 
and glow in the dark neon ("definitely not" she rightly 
declares), grey and green. And then Carol points to Monica's 
red US Air Force shirt with blue and yellow logo and suggests 
she try that "since we're on the same team". Monica easily 
finds the familiar combination of red and blue with gold 
accents that is Captain Marvel's classic costume and high fives 
Carol while heroic fanfare plays.

Ko'Jack arrives somewhere in the swamps of Louisianna.
   Chrissy: Kojack is bald.
   Diandra: Do I look like I care?
Apparently Carol gave him these coordinates to meet. She is 
waiting in a little shack and snarkily asks what took him so 
long. "I'm fine. Thanks for asking," he snarks back.
   Chrissy: I would like to submit this as Exhibit A in the 
    argument that Jude Law really does make the best Doctor 
    Watson.
   Diandra: I already agreed to recap that, Chris. You 
    don't need to drop your totally unsubtle hints.

She starts reciting a security code and he interrupts that they 
aren't using codes because it turns out that system doesn't 
work as well as they thought it did. No kidding. "Who do I see 
when I commune with the Supreme Intelligence?" She says I 
dunno, whoever you most admire and respect, so...you? He asks 
what her earliest memory is of Hala. She says the 
"transfusion". He asks whose blood they transfused her with. 
She hesitates and he hits her with his blaster. He hovers over 
her like 'nice try, Skrull. The answer is mine, obviously.' 
"Carol" morphs into Talos' science expert. Go'nad asks what 
they did with her. Then he realizes she KNOWS everything now 
and shoots the science guy again before calling Ronan and 
requesting help because "Skrulls have invaded C-53".

Carol and Maria are flying the newly retrofitted plane. Fury is 
in the back, cooing to Goose sitting in his lap. Talos is there 
too and he nervously tells Fury he REALLY shouldn't be doing 
that with that thing. Fury is like yeah, he's still not sure 
about Talos and as long as Goose freaks him out "I'm gonna keep 
giving him all the love and hugs that he needs." Goose purrs 
loudly in agreement. Maria decides now is a good time to get 
some backstory and asks if Talos can just change into anything. 
Talos says he has to see it first. She asks if all Skrulls can 
do it. He says yes, but it takes practice and "dare I say it, 
talent, to do it well." Fury asks if he can change into a cat. 
"What's a cat," Talos asks dumbly. Maria asks if he can turn 
into a filing cabinet. Talos is like 'huh...why...what?' Fury 
offers him a fifty if he'll turn himself into a Venus Flytrap. 
Talos is like '..............what the hell is with the 
creatures on this planet?'
   Chrissy: Yeah, sorry.

Carol is like BACK TO THE MISSION and flips a switch that 
powers the engine that will fly them in space, tilting the 
plane straight up. The plane wobbles a bit. Fury asks if this 
is normal "space turbulence". Carol says yes, but Talos meets 
his eyes and slowly shakes his head. They break free of Earth 
gravity and Carol's hair floats, Maria's glasses levitate off 
the dash and Goose mewls as he spins in the air before clinging 
to Fury's arm. Carol flips a switch and some sort of gravity 
control is enabled. Talos gets out of his seat to come look 
through the windshield, muttering that it HAS to be here. Fury 
asks if the thing he's looking for is in front of or behind all 
that nothing out there. Carol pulls up something on her forearm 
panel and a voice announces "decloaking activated". An enormous 
ship appears right in front of them, which the chyron 
identifies as Mar-Vell's lab (Kree imperial cruiser). They fly 
into the docking area.

Talos leads them deeper into the ship, picking up a baseball 
someone abandoned in a hallway. They reach a large room that 
has pinball machines, arcade games and a foosball table. Goose 
jumps up on a stool and stares at a glowing blue cube suspended 
between some pieces of machinery. He paws at it exactly as you 
would expect a cat to behave with a shiny object. Maria asks if 
that's the core. Carol says it must be and according to Mar-
Vell's notes, it is called a Tesseract. Uh huh. It's the space 
stone. A thing that can fold space and allow the user to travel 
from any point to any other point. Yep. 
   Chrissy: And the fact that Goose is so fascinated with 
   it proves what we've known all along really, Loki's 
   spirit animal is a cat.

Carol picks up the Tesseract and tosses it in the air a couple 
times. Maria is looking at Mar-Vell's desk, covered in notes, a 
Rubix cube, a Koosh ball, some troll dolls and a Fonzie lunch 
box. Because 90s, man. She picks up the lunch box and holds it 
open for Carol to place the Tesseract in it. Meanwhile, Fury 
calls their attention to the fact that there's a coffee cup 
sitting on the desk that is still steaming. Because the place 
isn't as abandoned as it looks. Talos stands in the middle of 
the floor making foghorn noises. The doors at the edges of the 
room open and Skrulls tentatively step in. One female runs up 
to hug him, then turns to gesture to a child that it's safe to 
come out. The woman says Mar-Vell told them not to send a 
signal for anything because they would alert the Kree, so 
they've been kind of...drifting for years. Then she notices 
Carol's little group of humans and starts to panic. Talos 
assures her Carol is a friend and won't harm them. Carol comes 
closer and apologizes for...everything. Talos assures her that 
this is one of the things about war: it's ugly and nobody is 
above it. But she is with them now and she can help reunite 
others who have been separated from their families like he was.

One of the children toddles up to Carol and leads her over to 
the Space Invaders pinball machine, pointing proudly to the 
high score blinking on the display. Fury is like 'sure...when 
you have six years to play a game, of course you're going to 
have some insanely high scores.'

And then the Kree army arrives, led by Rey'Kyavick.
   Chrissy: ...............are you fucking serious?
   Diandra: What?
   Chrissy: If you're going to use Icelandic names, you 
    could at least have started with the volcanos.
   Diandra: Ooo, good idea.
Báröar'bunga is clutching Goose by the scruff of the neck and 
tosses him to the ground while the rest of the team surrounds 
them, guns drawn. He sneers at her alterered uniform and 
bemoans the fact they got into her head and POISONED her. Talos 
pleads that these are obviously not soldiers they are waving 
guns at and offers himself in exchange for the other Skrulls. 
Ask'ja asks if they'll hand over the core too. Carol sneers 
that he LIED to her. He argues that he made her into the best 
version of herself. Her hand starts sparking. He says yeah, by 
the way: what was given to her can totally be taken away again. 
The chip in her neck goes dead and she charges at him in a 
rage. He knocks her out, but not before letting her see his men 
rounding up the Skrulls and taking the lunchbox from Maria.

She wakes up in the realm of the Supreme Intelligence. A record 
is playing the one song with a male voice on the soundtrack and 
Mar-Vell is sitting at a desk. Except... obviously it's not 
really her, so I suppose I should call her the SI. She looks up 
and notes that Carol's time on C-53 seems to have done wonders 
for her memory. She is wearing the leather flight jacket, which 
she notes is "killer". As is that music. Carol hisses at her to 
let her out of this place. SI says nope, not a chance. "If you 
hurt them, I will burn you to the ground." SI asks what she's 
going to use to do that since they gave her her powers. Carol 
says THEY didn't do shit. Her powers came from her proximity to 
an exploding warp engine. SI is like yeah, well...you never had 
any clue how to use or control them though, have you? Carol's 
hand glows and she lurches at SI. SI just raises a finger and 
she yelps and falls back.

Meanwhile, on the ship, Atlas scans Goose and identifies him as 
a Flerken, putting a little muzzle on his face to neutralize 
the threat. Fury notes that it's a CAT and they're treating it 
like Hannibal Lecter. Atlas scans him next and identifies his 
threat level as "low to none". 
   Chrissy: Yeah, you think.
"That thing's clearly busted," he grumbles at a smirking Maria. 
Minerva orders the men to put the flerken on their ship and 
just eject the rest of them into space.

SI holds up the Tesseract and praises Carol for ensuring the 
threat of the shapeshifters will be officially neutralized. 
Carol is like 'yeah, I no longer believe that propaganda the 
Kree have been feeding me. You just want to destroy them 
because they won't submit to your authority.' SI is like 'well, 
that's some thanks after we took you in like an injured baby 
bird.' Carol doesn't think taking her away from her home planet 
and everyone she loved and cared about is such a commendable 
thing. She tries to punch SI and her fist goes right through 
her face before she gets flung into a wall that she sticks to 
like it's fly paper. SI cocks her head at her and condescends 
that she's so adorable when she gets all righteously angry and 
shit. Carol melts through the wall and hovers on the other side 
while SI rambles about all they did for her and projects her 
memories on the "wall". The memories all have that same theme 
of her needing to stay down and quit fighting after she falls 
trying to do things she was told she couldn't. It keeps banging 
the note about her being WEAK. "Without us, you're only human," 
SI finishes as Carol crashes to solid ground.

Carol stares in the general direction of the camera, away from 
SI as a realization obviously comes to her. "You're right," she 
murmurs. "I'm only human." She flashes on the ending of all 
those memories of her falling: a montage of her climbing back 
to her feet over and over, ending with her getting up in the 
Supreme Intelligence's realm in the present. Because we may not 
have physical strength, but humans are RESILLIENT. And 
stubborn. 
   Chrissy: And she can do this all day.
   Diandra: And there's that nice parallel too, yes.
SI says she was reborn on Hala as Vers. Carol looks at the 
broken half of a dogtag Kra'fla got that name from and growls 
"my name is Carol." Her hands light up and she starts marching 
toward SI. Sensing this is not going well, SI sends a blast of 
energy at her to stop her. She just keeps marching, grunting as 
she fights against the resistance.

Kneeling on an apparently mobile SI interface surrounded by 
Kree guards on the floating lab, Carol's hands start glowing 
and the lights in the room start flickering. Djimon (yes, I 
forgot his character's name too now) exposits that she's trying 
to break free of their hold. 

The lights all over the ship flicker and apparently the cuffs 
on Fury and Maria are powered by electricity too because they 
just fall off and they beat the shit out of the guards. The 
electric pen they put the Skrulls into starts to fail. The 
realm of the Supreme Intelligence - or rather whatever twilight 
state the Kree suspended Carol in - starts cracking apart. SI 
stops blasting energy as everything starts crumbling around 
them. "I've been fighting with one arm tied behind my back," 
Carol says. She reaches for the thing on her neck, ripping it 
out. SI's face falters. Carol asks what happens if she sets 
herself free. The disc pings to the ground, setting off an 
explosion that obliterates the dream realm entirely.

Back in reality, the energy spreads all over her body and she 
levitates into the air, the chains binding her to the SI realm 
falling off. She opens glowing eyes, emits a blast of energy 
that flings all the guys in the room into the walls, grabs the 
lunchbox with the Tesseract and runs.

She seems to arrive in the part of the ship where Fury and 
Maria are by phasing herself right through a closed door. "You 
know you're glowing, right," is all Fury can think of to say. 
She says she'll explain later and opens the lunchbox, 
instructing him to take the Tesseract, but leave the box.
   Chrissy: Which is arguably more valuable.
Fury, who is cradling the apparently dangerous flerken he just 
removed the muzzle from, yelps that he is NOT touching that 
thing. She snarkily offers to get him an oven mitt. And this is 
when Goose finally decides to demonstrate his true nature. 
Tentacles shoot out of his mouth like there's an enormous squid 
somehow crammed inside his tiny furry body, scoop up the 
Tesseract and retreat into the hell demon disguised as a kitty. 
Fury drops him like WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?! and Goose turns 
around, looks up at him in confusion and then calmly starts 
washing himself and purring.

Carol tells the dazed Maria to take the quadjet and leave with 
the Skrulls. And the flerken. She stalks past Fury, still 
staring at Goose in horror, and calls back that she'll buy them 
time. Fury cautiously warns Goose that he's about to pick him 
up again and, after doing so, warns he is trusting that the 
little tentacle monster will not eat him.
   Chrissy: I feel like this is a thing all cat owners can 
    relate to.
   Diandra: Except they know their cat will, in fact, eat 
    them when they die. So actually they would modify that 
    to 'please make sure I am ACTUALLY dead before you 
    start chewing on me.'
   Chrissy: So, my understanding of flerkens is that they 
    basically function the same way as a TARDIS.
   Diandra: I think so, which makes the fact that I almost 
    called the Tesseract the TARDIS a few paragraphs ago 
    seem not quite so out of left field.
   Chrissy: Uh-huh. So where I was going with that thought 
    was...what is the crossover potential here? Who was the 
    Doctor in the 90s?
   Diandra: Er...might want to shoot for any time one of 
    the current set of Doctors traveled back to the 90s 
    instead.
   Chrissy: That bad?
   Diandra: I never saw it, but from what I've seen even 
    die hard lovers of the original series are cool with 
    skipping right over number eight.

Carol waits for her former team of Kree on a catwalk. She 
casually swings the lunchbox from her fingers and offers to arm 
wrestle one of them for the Tesseract. Jol'nir sighs that he 
used to think she was funny. Everyone aims weapons at her. She 
just powers up her fist and punches the catwalk, destroying it 
and knocking them all over.

Maria and Fury are stopped in a hallway by some armed goons. 
Maria shoots at them, but runs out of amo after only a few 
shots. As the goons close in on them, Fury raises the hand not 
holding Goose up in surrender. Goose does the tentacle monster 
thing again, slamming the goons against the walls a few times 
to tenderize them or something and then sucking them down and 
meowing like 'you're welcome.' "Good kitty," Fury says, 
scratching him behind the ears. 

And now we get a sequence of Carol wiping the floor with the 
Kree one by one to the tune of No Doubt's "I'm Just a Girl". 
   Chrissy: And notice how she doesn't have to show any 
    skin at all while being just as badass as the male 
    superheroes? 
   Diandra: Yeah, basically every whiny argument the 
    dudebros make against this movie only reinforces the 
    fact that it's doing everything right. It makes 
    whatever representation fans insisted was in any other 
    movie (except "Black Panther") that came before it in 
    the series look pitiful by comparison. 
   Chrissy: Hell, it makes "Wonder Woman" look pitiful by 
    comparison. 
   Diandra: I wouldn't say pitiful, really. Just...falling 
    short. I heard a podcast describe this movie as the 
    true feminist superhero movie that "Wonder Woman" was 
    too tentative to fully realize. I still think "Black 
    Panther" was the best movie in this series, but this 
    one probably comes in a close second.

At one pause, Carol asks Minerva if her knowing about who Carol 
really was all along is the reason they never got along. 
Minerva says no, she just never liked Carol. She fires the gun 
she apparently grabbed off the floor at Carol, which turns out 
to be a Nerf gun and not the blaster she was obviously 
expecting, and gets hit with a massive blast of energy. Atlas 
pins her to the ground and growls "don't make me do this." She 
just says "okay" and fires a blast of energy that knocks him 
off and sends her rocketing into the air. Ha.

Some more goons corner Fury and Maria. Apparently the ones 
escorting the Skrulls, who hang back behind them. Fury holds 
Goose in front of him like 'eat tentacles, motherfuckers!' 
Goose does nothing. Fury tries to prompt him and Goose just 
looks back at him like 'what? I don't do commands! Why do you 
think I took the form of a cat?' Fury drops him and he rubs 
against one of the goons legs, purring.
   Chrissy: The unreliable loyalties being another reason 
   he took the form of a cat.
One of the goons picks up Goose and holds him at arms' length. 
He orders the other guy to take these humans with them too so 
they can blast all of them out into space. Then he gets close 
to Fury and mutters "play it cool. Just like Havana." 

Carol picks up the lunchbox from the rubble. A pile behind her 
suddenly levitates into the air as Kra'Fla recovers and jumps 
back into the fight. He levitates her and all the rubble 
surrounding her as well and then flies over and punches her.

In the hangar, the guard who is obviously really a shapeshifted 
Talos tells Fury to follow his lead, then warns the woman 
behind him escorting a child (who might be his wife and 
daughter) to cover her eyes. Once he has a clear shot, he takes 
out the other guards and herds everyone onto the quinjet.

Eyjafjallajokull pins Carol to a wall briefly. 
   Chrissy: Geshundheit.
Apparently having determined that it is time to end this 
nonsense, she blasts him back, then casually drops the lunchbox 
so it falls open to reveal nothing but a matching thermos 
inside. He compliments her on the whole diversion ploy. She 
smart asses that she really thought she put the Tesseract in 
there and whoopsie daisy, her bad. He sends a blast in her 
direction and runs off. Cinque and someone else I can't quite 
make out appear suddenly to head her off.
   Chrissy: See, you'll use other actors' more famous 
    characters in place of the names you can't remember, 
    but not Jude's?
   Diandra: Okay, fine. If it will make you happy.

Talos morphs back into himself as Maria is getting the quinjet 
ready to take off. Just before the doors close, though, he gets 
hit by a blast from a gun as Dumbledore arrives.
   Chrissy: ..............I guess I had that coming.

Carol finally knocks down the guys fighting her and is able to 
give chase again.

Maria takes off, shooting her way past the other plane blocking 
the exit from the hangar. Alfie orders Minnerva to go after 
them.
   Chrissy: Sigh.
   Diandra: What
   Chrissy: Nothing.

Fury verifies that, while Talos was definitely wounded, he's 
probably going to make it. Maria sees the ship Minnerva took to 
chase them on the radar as they're entering Earth's atmosphere.

Vassili hops in his own space jet just as Carol catches up to 
him and leaps on the windshield. He takes off anyway with her 
clinging to the outside, her suit coming up over her head 
belatedly. She tries to punch out the window as they enter 
Earth's atmosphere themselves and he blasts her away. She 
tumbles freely toward the ground for a while and then goes 
still, channeling her energy until her eyes glow again.

Meanwhile, Maria and Minnerva are totally reenacting some tie 
fighter sequences in some canyons. It ends when Maria gets in 
front of her and blasts her ship out of the sky, flying 
victoriously through the wreckage. Fury cheers excitedly and 
fist bumps her. And that's when Sky Captain arrives and blasts 
a chunk out of her wing.
   Chrissy: You are going to run out of other names in his 
   filmography eventually. You know that, right?
And then Carol zips in, punching his plane until it goes into a 
death spiral and doing a couple aerial maneuvers while whooping 
like WHEE THIS IS SO AWESOME I AM SUPERWOMAN! She's quite 
possibly the most relatable of all the Avengers is what I'm 
saying.

This is when Ronan arrives, three giant ships popping out of 
the nearest portal to hover over the Earth. They launch several 
warheads.

Dickie Greenleaf staggers out of the wreckage of his jet and 
looks up at the massive firework display in the sky as Carol 
gets hold of the first missile and throws it back toward the 
others so they all detonate each other long before actually 
reaching Earth.

Ronan sees this and mutters that that can't be right because C-
53 doesn't have an anti-missile defense system that advanced. 
Their camera zooms in on Carol flying through the fireball 
toward them and he blinks and orders them to take her down. 
Several fighter jets are launched, which she picks off about as 
efficiently as she was taking down bad guys on solid ground, 
shouting "WOOO" as she blasts through them and then flying 
straight through one of the main ships lengthwise so the whole 
thing just implodes. She flies over to the ship Ronan is in and 
hovers in front of the window, pounding her fist into her hand 
to create a massive energy burst like 'that all you got, you 
pussy?' Ronan is like 'ummmmm...retreat.' Except to maintain 
the illusion that she didn't just beat him like a drum he makes 
sure to vow that they will return for the weapon later. His 
right hand man is like 'you mean the Tesseract?' Ronan says no, 
her, and they disappear through the portals again.

Carol returns to Earth where Maguire is like 'okay, are you 
finished with whatever that was now? You ready?' They face off 
like they're in a western and then after a beat he puts his gun 
away and says he's so proud of her. No, really, of all the 
rookies he's trained she's come the furthest. But he still 
doesn't think she can control her emotions long enough to take 
him down. "I always told you you'd be ready the day you can 
knock me down as yourself." He puts up his fists and tells her 
to turn off the "light show" and prove that she can do it 
without... She blasts him into the side of a mountain before he 
can finish the sentence. 

She swaggers over as he's peeling himself off the ground and 
says she doesn't have to prove shit to him, actually. She 
reaches out like she's going to help him up and instead drags 
him over to the jet, programming it with the coordinates for 
Hala and dumping him in the driver's seat. He mumbles that he 
can't just go back empty handed. She says that's why she's 
sending him with a message. "Tell the Supreme Intelligence that 
I'm coming to end it. The war. The lies. All of it." He 
grumbles that she can't do this and she just slams the hatch 
closed and blasts the engine so the ship lurches away. And 
while the writers of this series may have failed in the eyes of 
all the fans who demanded they work in a "no shit, Sherlock" 
somewhere in the dialogue, I would present this as an argument 
that they did manage to work in the official rebuttal to that 
phrase in a way. "Fuck you, Watson."
   Chrissy: [slow, very sarcastic clap] 
   Diandra: Thank you. I've been working on that one for a 
    while.
   Chrissy: Oh, that much is very obvious.

Now that they are safe, Fury is cooing at "Goosey" again and 
getting in his face in a way that any cat owner can recognize 
as inviting the same risks as a game of Russian Roulette. After 
about a minute, Goose is like 'okay, you asked for it' and 
claws him in the face. "Mother Flerken," he shouts, 
which...yeah, you knew that line was coming. Admit it. Maria 
asks if he's okay. He says it's just a scratch. Talos is like 
'no...no it isn't you stupid Earthling.'

So Carol, Maria, Monica, Fury and Talos and his family all sit 
around Maria's dining room table. Fury offers to get Maria a 
job with SHIELD after seeing her badass flying skills out 
there. She says she'll think about it, then asks how his eye is 
doing. It is swollen shut with claw marks above and below, but 
he swears it's doing better. Then he exposits that Talos can 
finish recovering from that wound here, but he will eventually 
need new identities for him and his family. Talos offers to go 
back to being Fury's boss. He says he kind of enjoyed that one 
because he has some pretty blue eyes. Carol, staring into space 
thinking, says she'll help them find a home. Because, you know, 
that's what Mar-Vell was trying to do and she would want her to 
finish the job, right? Monica realizes this means they're not 
staying and whines an objection. Maria says it's okay, her Aunt 
Carol is right. They need their own place. "I'll be back before 
you know it," Carol promises. Which...unless her next solo 
movie takes place sometime between 1995 and Thanos snapping 
half the universe out of existence is going to prove to be a 
lie.
   Chrissy: Did they say she hadn't been back since? I 
    forget.
   Diandra: I think so, but I'm not going back to check.

Sometime later, Carol and Fury are doing dishes when Carol 
decides it's a good time to give Fury all the instructions. She 
says he should keep the Tesseract on Earth. 
   Chrissy: Yeah, we'll try, but when that purple giant who 
   is no doubt already plotting how he's going to get all 
   the infinity stones comes calling...
Fury asks if she's sure that's what Marvel would want her to 
do. She corrects his pronunciation: it's Mar-VELL. Two words. 
Fury thinks Marvel sounds better.
   Chrissy: Kiss ass.
He compares it to the Marvelettes and sings a few bars of "Mr. 
Postman". She's like 'never heard of them or that song before, 
but by all means keep singing because it amuses me.'

He goes back to the dishes and she pulls his pager from her 
pocket. It now has her logo on the screen. She says she 
upgraded it so it can contact her at least across "a couple 
galaxies." But she makes him promise he will only use it for 
emergencies. He scoffs that she thinks he's going to crank call 
her. But hey, seriously, if she's ever passing through again 
she should call him. 

Monica brings Carol's jacket out to her where she and Maria are 
standing on the front lawn. She says they managed to get the 
ketchup stain out. Carol puts it on and hugs her. Then she and 
Maria stare at each other silently for a minute before Carol 
admits that it's really hard for her to say goodbye to them. 
Even though she didn't even remember them until, like, two days 
ago. They hug and Maria smiles sadly and says "go on." Carol 
nods, gets a running start and takes off. Monica watches her 
shoot into the night sky with an enormous grin.

Carol meets up with the ship the Skrulls are on, hovering over 
the Earth. Talos nods at her. She looks down at the planet one 
more time wistfully, then blasts off into space, the Skrull 
ship following.

In the morning, Fury - a metal patch taped over his eye - is 
slowly typing a report on a computer in his office, outlining 
an idea for "The Protector Initiative". A group of people best 
qualified to defend Earth from any threats. 
   Chrissy: Only took him a little over twenty years to 
    come up with a better name. 
   Diandra: And an alien invasion he apparently didn't deem 
    enough of an emergency to call Carol to enact.
Coulson enters and hands him a box of glass eyes to try out. 
While he's contemplating the choices, Coulson asks if it's true 
that the Kree burned his eye out because he refused to hand 
over the Tesseract. 
   Chrissy: Ahem. Yes. That is the story we're going with. 
   Yes.
Fury growls that he will neither confirm or deny that. Mostly 
because that just convinces them it's true.

Coulson notes that they haven't located the Tesseract yet. Fury 
isn't worried. It'll turn up eventually. He looks at Goose, who 
is perched in a kitty bed beside his desk. Then he launches 
into a spiel about the Tesseract not being the end of this 
thing. They don't know what else is out there. "And our one-
woman security force had a prior commitment on the other side 
of the universe." He says they can't rely on SHIELD alone to 
protect them. They need to find more. "Weapons," Coulson asks. 
"Heroes," Fury shoots back.
   Chrissy: Well, Tina Turner would argue that you don't 
    need any more of those.
   Diandra: Thanks for getting that song stuck in my head 
    now.
Coulson is surprised that Fury thinks they can find 
another...uh...mutated person like her. Yeah, just wait a 
couple years and everyone will find out about Professor 
Xavier's school for oh, we're not doing that in this universe 
still? Never mind.
   Chrissy: We will find out that vampires are a real thing 
    and then promptly forget about it for a couple decades.
   Diandra: And at least three guys will have to go through 
    a whole origin story in Brooklyn about being bitten by 
    a radioactive spider, which we will also promptly 
    forget about.

Coulson leaves and Fury opens what must be the file for Carol. 
He holds up an old Air Force picture of her beside her plane 
and zeroes in on the name printed on the side. "Captain Carol 
'Avenger' Danvers".
   Chrissy: I stand corrected.
   Diandra: But considering they're about to forget that 
    "SHIELD" is a perfectly good acronym until about the 
    same time Fury actually puts the initiative in play...I 
    guess we can just chalk any inconsistencies with any of 
    this as being a hazard that comes with trying to 
    backfill details a decade after the fact.
He looks at the document on the computer screen again, deletes 
the word "protector" and we switch to a shot of his face as he 
types in a different word. Silvestri's Avengers theme plays us 
into the credits.

After the standard credits to the tune of another rock song by 
a woman's group, we return to a close up of the pager, clutched 
in a metal gripper thing, displaying the symbol. It beeps three 
times and goes dark.

Somewhere nearby, Steve is staring sullenly at a screen showing 
a running total of people missing after the Snap, globally and 
by country. "This is a nightmare," he mumbles to Natasha, 
standing beside him, her hair still blonde so obviously this 
isn't long after the fact. Natasha moans that her nightmares 
aren't usually this bad. Rhodey ducks his head in the room to 
tell them that "that thing" suddenly stopped doing "whatever 
the hell it was doing." Oh, come on. You're old enough to 
remember pagers.

They go into what is probably the lab where the pager is and 
find Bruce, who gives the more scientific explanation of 
"whatever signal it was sending finally crapped out." It is 
behind some glass like it might have been rigged to explode or 
something. Steve asks if they didn't bypass the battery. Rhodey 
says yeah, it's still getting power, but it stopped anyway. 
Steve suggests they reboot it and try sending again. 
   Chrissy: Nice how the guy who was born long before 
   computers has already mastered the concept of "did you 
   try turning it off and turning it back on again?" 
Bruce argues that they don't even know what it's for or what 
it's doing. Natasha says Fury knew and that's enough for her, 
so he should just try what Steve said. "I want to know who's on 
the other end of that thing." She turns around and runs 
straight into Carol. "Where's Fury," Carol asks with probably 
an inflection Brie Larson wouldn't have used had she known 
anything about the context for this scene at the time it was 
filmed. One of the hazards of working for Marvel. Everybody 
made fun of Gwenyth Paltrow for not realizing she was in the 
second Spider-Man movie, but probably none of the other actors 
in this franchise were surprised.

And after the credits we get a shot of Nick Fury's empty desk. 
Nothing happens for several seconds and then Goose jumps up, 
horks the Tesseract right onto his blotter and then licks his 
paw daintily.
   Chrissy: Really hope he's not planning on randomly 
    coughing up any other things he may have swallowed.
   Diandra: And you think it's bad when your cat just 
    coughs up a wad of partially digested fur.
   Chrissy: Actually, no. Knowing what it is like to 
    accidentally step on a hairball left lying in the 
    middle of the floor, I think I can confidently say that 
    no alien entity he could possibly vomit out could 
    possibly be worse.

   Diandra: Hey, we managed to get through two whole recaps 
    without any temptation to discuss current events. Go 
    us!
   Chrissy: And I suppose we should discuss whether we are 
    brave enough to tackle Endgame now.
   Diandra: Yeah. There are generally two camps regarding 
    consumption of post apocalyptic content right now. 
    Either you can use it to "work through" some stuff, or 
    you avoid the shit out of it so it doesn't trigger a 
    fit of depression. I'm inclined to stick to the second 
    camp. Maybe I can handle it later, but right now...I'm 
    really not sure I can.
   Chrissy: Yeah, and considering the feeling I got just 
    now when Steve and Natasha were looking at the 
    worldwide damage report, I'm not exactly eager to try 
    either, I think.
   Diandra: On the other hand...maybe if we took it in 
    chunks of thirty minutes or less, broken up by 
    something else...
   Chrissy: "Night Manager"?
   Diandra: How did I know you would suggest that? I was 
    thinking something less serious though, like 
    "Deadpool".
   Chrissy: Or "Sherlock Holmes"? 
   Diandra: Or the other thing you keep hinting I should 
    do, yes.
   Chrissy: Hey, you suggested that at some point and now 
    that Jude Law is also in the Marvel Universe I feel 
    like that could be fun. Especially if we fall back on 
    the roleplaying we established with "Sherlock".
   Diandra: You think you can remember that I'M the one 
    roleplaying Robert Downey Jr. this time?
   Chrissy: No, but that just adds to the entertainment
    potential.
   Diandra: I do like the irony that we began recapping 
    Marvel movies to escape one version of Sherlock Holmes 
    only to wind up trying to escape Marvel movies by 
    recapping another version of Sherlock Holmes.
   Chrissy: Well, now we have to do it.
   Diandra: Yes, I think we do. Meet you there?
   Chrissy: Fuck yes.