Thor: Love and Thunder (or: Ragnarok Harder)


Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tessa Thompson, Taika Waititi (giving himself an increasingly large role, of course), Christian Bale and with appearances by Russell Crow, Jaimie Alexander, Idris Elba, Kat Dennings, Stellan Skarsgaard and basically all of the Guardians of the Galaxy.

It hasn't been that long and yet I feel like this is gonna be rusty. So we're going to ease back into it with a couple abbreviated recaps for "Love and Thunder" and "The Incredible Hulk". And I'm gonna do them in that order so I can go right into "She Hulk" after, which may or may not be a full recap depending on how successful this getting back into it thing is.
Chrissy: Or you could just do a recap of Love and Thunder and embrace the fact that it will be messy.
Diandra: No. I already kind of regret doing a full recap of Ragnarok. Wasting a little less time on Ragnarok Part II: Rock Harder might make up for it.

ETA: Can we take a moment to appreciate the name I used for the file on this one? Because Thunderhulk sounds pretty awesome, actually.

We'll start with the one the dudebros were all waiting with baited breath for until they realized it was...uh...[checks notes] actually the story from the comics about Jane Foster becoming Thor. Suddenly they noticed everything I was complaining about with Ragnarok and convinced themselves that it was different somehow and Taika had lost his touch...or something...between movies. They went from declaring he should run the entire MCU and direct all the movies to petitioning to keep him FAR AWAY from Star Wars. None of this is the least bit surprising, mind. At least not to me. It's just...really unsatisfying considering their complete lack of self awareness or memory or shame.

It begins with Gorr, whose origin story needs to be told very rapidly because these movies aren't allowed to be much over two hours anymore, I guess. (This is also why a whole half hour was cut from "Multiverse of Madness" and might have impacted the story telling if you were wondering). Basically, he struggles to keep his beloved daughter alive in a desert environment, then stumbles into an isolated paradise with his planet's version of Apollo or Ra or...I don't know who the Norse sun god is. He babbles about faith and eternal rewards for loyal subjects on a dying world and the sun god laughs and exposits that they have killed the previous owner of the necrosword and were in the middle of celebrating when he wandered in. He says the guy threatened his empire. Gorr points out that he doesn't really have much of an empire since all his worshippers are dead. The sun god thinks they are easily replaced and unimportant peons. "Suffering for your gods is your only purpose," he sneers while Gorr cries. "There's nothing for you after death."
Chrissy: Christian Bale can be forgiven for thinking he was in a completely different movie.
Emilio: Though to be fair...doesn't he always?

A disembodied voice hisses at Gorr to kill all the gods in the name of vengeance and magics the necrosword into his hand. Because we're NOT WASTING TIME ON THE EXPOSITION HERE. And once he's finished killing all the gods, he will go to Eternity. He starts with his own sun god, who stays alive just long enough to exposit that the sword itself has "chosen" and therefore "cursed" him.

After the title cards accompanied by an electric guitar version of Michael Giacchino's theme that's kind of pretty plays, Korg rushes us through some more exposition in the form of a story he's telling to the kids of whatever Asgard is now. The legend of the space viking. To the tune of Enya. Boy meets girl. Boy...loses girl maybe? As well as his brother, his parents, his brother, several friends, his brother again and half his people and his entire planet. And then he got fat to smother the pain. But then he and his Earth friends fought a big purple giant...oh, we're not going to mention that part? Uh...why? Okay, fine. Instead, Korg says he joined up with the Guardians of the Galaxy and lost all the weight so he'd be hot again. But we acknowledge that that didn't fix the depression that caused the weight gain in the first place by having him cry on Quill while they're playing a game and just stare into space, distracted while all the Guardians fight some sort of lagoon creatures.
Chrissy: Did he seriously just ride Stormbreaker like it's a broomstick from Harry Potter?
Diandra: Uh...yeah. I wasn't going to mention that, but...
Emilio: Maybe it vibrates like that stupid toy version they made briefly?
Diandra: Way to make it worse, Emilio.
Emilio: Sorry.
Diandra: No, you're not.
Emilio: No, I'm really not.

We sort of stumble into a war already in progress where the King of whatever world this is explains that evil muppets (what? That's what it looks like) have taken over their temple because SOMEBODY killed their gods. Thor summons all the lightning and slaughters the whole muppet army single handedly, destroying the temple in the process.
Chrissy: Yeah, one of these days people are going to realize that the superheroes cause just as much damage as they prevent.
Diandra: If not more.
Anyway, the people thank Thor for ridding them of the muppets by gifting him with a couple giant goats that scream constantly. Because obviously they believe in revenge through comedy. This will not at all be annoying. But hey, remember when I said he rode a chariot pulled by giant space goats in the comics? Guess it makes sense that Taika would find a way to make that ridiculous thing a reality. The Guardians escape back into their own trilogy. After a questionable foray into Christmas specials that I will NOT BE RECAPPING AND THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING MY SANITY ON THIS.

Meanwhile, Jane, who we haven't seen since Dark World, is being treated for some sort of stage four cancer, which she hasn't told anyone she has other than Darcy, who is probably just returning from the whole WandaVision thing? I don't know. What even are timelines anymore? We learn later that it's probably the same cancer her mother died of. Jane is impatient with the disease's insistence on interfering with her work, but all we see of that is her testing her own blood and consulting with Selvig on whether the chemo is working or not. It isn't. She stumbles on something in a Viking history book about Mjolnir miraculously giving it's user vitality and visits New Asgard where King Valkyrie seems very bored with her new duties ("meetings that could have been Raven mail") and they've kind of turned the town into a tourist trap.

And to answer our (completely joking) question from Ragnarok about whether Matt Damon made it off Asgard before it blew...apparently ALL the actors in that play did and are still doing plays so we have a reenactment of Odin's death scene inflicted on us with Melissa McCarthy joining as Hela. And yeah, the only living person who could possibly have told anyone about this exchange is Thor, but let's assume he told Korg or something.
Chrissy: You know you're probably putting more thought into this than Taika, right?
Diandra: I doubt that's a difficult feat.
Apparently "Matt" and "Hemsworth the First" [ETA: Luke, his name is Luke. I knew that and totally didn't write that as a placeholder until I could look it up while editing] write the plays themselves, which I guess explains why they are identically terrible because we see them briefly in a later scene offering to start on a new one.

Anyway, Mjolnir is one of the tourist attractions because I guess somebody gathered all the broken bits off the cliff after the siblings fucked off to Asgard. And it responds to Jane when she approaches it. She later explains that she sought it out because she heard it calling to her, not because she was hoping for some sort of magical space Viking miracle. Although...also that, I guess.

Thor and Korg reunite with the other long forgotten female of this franchise: Sif, who has been tracking Gorr, minted as the God Butcher since who knows how long.

They return to Earth to find him already attacking New Asgard with some sort of spider creatures. Jane shows up with a pieced together Mjolnir, which has a cute new ability to fracture and take out multiple enemies at once before piecing itself back together in her hand. Thor is, of course, upset that Mjolnir is snubbing him in favor of its new mommy. There's a little montage of scenes supposedly taking place in the brief time they were dating that suggest this is happening because he told the hammer to protect her for him, which became encoded the same way Odin's "be they worthy" clause did. The montage turns serious as Thor contemplates their differences and her mortality and they start fighting and being generally unhappy until she breaks up in a Jane Doe letter.

Anyway, because this movie would be EVEN SHORTER if Gorr wasn't inexplicably unable to kill Thor on the first try, he fails and retreats. But not before kidnapping all the children in New Asgard. Thor tries to make some sort of inspiring speech about how he will find them and blasts a hole in the ceiling of their meeting hall on exit, which Valkyrie sneers he's going to pay for. For reasons of time, apparently, we don't see his efforts, which fail and send him back with a singed cape. He finally exposits that the necrosword is an ancient god killing weapon that corrupts whoever uses it. Which, as Valkyrie summarizes, makes Gorr a "cursed shadow zombie kidnapper". Luckily, one of the kids is Heimdall's son, who has inherited the all-seeing magic eyes ability and is able to communicate with them. And because Heimdall was able to get Thor to see what he did, Thor is able to vision port to where the children are being held. He clumsily assures them they will find them, but hey, at least if they die they'll end up in Valhalla. Sigh. Then he figures out they are in the Shadow Realm and he and Valkyrie decide to propel the plot forward by getting reinforcement from Omnipotence City, which is where the gods all hang out. Because it isn't just the Norse gods that exist in the Marvel universe. No. Like that one episode of "Star Trek", ALL the gods are beings from other worlds.
Chrissy: [grumble] Back to "Star Trek" references I see.
Emilio: Did we ever leave?

Thor lists a few from various mythologies, ending with Zeus, who is the oldest and basically the leader of all of them. Which makes perfect sense, really.

They travel through space on a retrofitted Viking ship formerly used for tour groups, pulled by the goats along the bifrost that is projected by Stormbreaker. Look, just...go with it, okay?

So here's where I should probably mention something that will likely be a thing in future recaps. In the past year I have been working to understand where, exactly, on the asexuality spectrum I fall. I think the label might be heteroromantic or sapiosexual or something. I mention this because when we got to the scene that was in all the previews of Zeus - played with scenery chewing glee by Russell Crowe - realizes who Thor is and magically removes his disguise (and all the rest of his clothing), Emilio and I had something like the following exchange.
Diandra: And of course, all the females get the vapors or some bullshit. This is why the dudebros think these movies cater to women.
Emilio: [trying to be understanding and sensitive] Yeah, but it doesn't even work on all women. Not all women find that attractive, and not just the ones who are gay, right?
Diandra: I'm asexual, Emilio. I'm not dead.
Chrissy: Wait, so that whole thing about you not even seeming to notice whenever Doctor Strange takes his shirt off ISN'T explained by this?
Diandra: Well...partly I just get a kick out of seeing how perplexed you get by that. But no, in general guys removing their clothing doesn't do much for me. Unless they are two of the three Chrises in this franchise. Or Brad Pitt. And even then I am probably more likely to drool over them when they are dressed a particular way than if they are naked.

[Fun fact: Tom Hiddleston's character skinny dips for a scene of "The Essex Serpent" and it did nothing for me. But one episode later, he wears a particularly flattering shirt and says something suggestive and I had to splash cold water on my face. I cannot predict what will do it for me but I know it is somehow dissociated entirely from sex and nudity.]

More on this when we get to "She Hulk". I'm sure.

Anyway, efforts to enlist the help of other gods don't go well because most of them are of the mind that they should only be concerned for their own people and not cross mythology streams so they don't have to help the Asgardians. Also, they are confident they are safe in the city with all the other gods. And that Gorr will never successfully kill ALL of them and/or reach Eternity. Which Valkyrie finally explains (halfway through the movie) isn't a "where" so much as it is a "who" at the center of the universe that grants the wish of the first person to reach it. Apparently nobody told Thanos that this was an option. Thor, et al, have to fight their way out, which results in Zeus killing Korg with his thunderbolt weapon and Thor responding by killing Zeus. And then it turns out Korg didn't die so much as become a disembodied face from now on because "the only part of a Kronan that's alive is his mouth." Which sounds like a really weird self own on Taika's part, but sure. Also, Valkyrie steals the Thunderbolt.

Hey, remember that argument that I cited somewhere during "Ragnarok" wherein someone claimed the problem with the first two Thor movies was that they appealed too much to the female audience? Well, I saw someone argue that the only reason "Love and Thunder" actually made more money than "Ragnarok" is because of all the women eager to see Chris Hemsworth's naked ass. So I am officially relegating this stupid argument that we obviously can't win no matter WHAT back to the pile of shitty ass opinions it came from.

Did I mention that Thor talks to Stormbreaker like it's a jealous lover? Yeah. It's creepy. Also there are animals in space now. They only show dolphins, but presumably there's at least one whale that will in the future serve as home to whatever is left of London.
Emilio: Was that just London or all of England?
Diandra: Whatever Elizabeth X presided over, yeah.
Chrissy: ..............
Emilio: "Doctor Who."
Chrissy: Jesus, even in an abbreviated version of a recap, you manage to reference both "Star Trek" AND "Doctor Who."
Diandra: Just one of my many talents.

Thor decides to try to rekindle with Jane...presumably now that she's a Viking demigod or whatever, but that's just masking the cancer that's killing her, not curing it permanently and yes, this is basically the rules established in the comics. It turns out, fanboys who claim they want the movies to look like the comics usually don't actually read the comics. Which is the only way I can explain them pointing to a Spider Man movie based on a comic they hated and an almost entirely original Avengers movie as "the best" and anything that is totally comics accurate but centered on a woman or anyone of color as "the worst".
Chrissy: So white guys who are racist and sexist. You can say it.
Diandra: Some of them yes. But it's possible some of them have just internalized the idea that the comics are FOR THEM and get upset whenever something doesn't cater to them as they are accustomed. Sort of like Boomers and their constant grumbling about every other generation after them every time anyone acknowledges they are no longer the majority. They can't accept what I once saw Roger Ebert acknowledge: "there is an audience for this movie and it isn't me."
Emilio: No, because they're too used to being the center of attention. They've been spoiled.
Diandra: That is the abbreviated version, yes. Anyway, there are women who spew the same garbage as the fanboys because they seem to have internalized the idea that male centered stories are "normal" and female centered are "forced" and terrible, even when they are THE SAME STORY. Which is why they somehow labor under the delusion that "Ragnarok" was amazing while this is terrible. Literally, show me how they are that significantly different. I'll wait.

By the way, I recently tried to read the latest comic they are convinced MUST be made into a future MCU movie. It involves characters and storylines not introduced, so I'm not sure what sort of fanfiction they have in their heads about what the comic is actually about, but it's probably wrong. At any rate, within the first few pages it refers to the "Thors" and "Thor Corp", which if you listened to these self proclaimed fans is one of the issues they took with this plot: that Thor is his NAME and not a title that just anyone can use so they obviously aren't actually READING these things.
Chrissy: This is great. We get all the ranting and tangents with hardly any actual recap of the action on screen. Good choice, Diandra.
Diandra: [wipes spittle] Sorry, but in my defense, I knew full well this thing was going to be all ranting no matter WHAT we did.

So Jane realizes that Gorr needs Stormbreaker to get into the gates of Eternity and sends it flying far away from the Shadow World, which gives Gorr an excuse to not kill them I guess because he needs them to call it back. Also, he maybe kind of feels sympathy for Jane because he too is dying and dependent on a weapon to forestall the inevitable. Or something. Also, he soliloquys at Thor about his beloved daughter who perhaps mercifully died so she wouldn't have to live in a world run by corrupt gods. Then he gets him to summon Stormbreaker by threatening to kill Jane. And there's a fight sequence between Gorr and all the creatures he can summon with the sword and Thor, Jane and Valkyrie wielding Stormbreaker, Mjolnir and Thunderbolt respectively. It ends with Gorr stabbing Valkyrie. Luckily with the Thunderbolt, so she doesn't immediately die. But Gorr does manage to get Stormbreaker before they can all escape back to New Asgard.

One thing that may be getting lost in the editing of this movie might be a better explanation of how this whole Mjolnir curing cancer but also killing Jane thing works. In the comics, it is clearly stated that turning her into a Thor is sort of like hitting a reset button. The cancer is gone, but...so is the chemo because ALL toxins are removed. Every time she picks up the hammer, she screws any chance of treatment actually working in order to temporarily be cancer free. So when she puts Mjolnir down, the cancer comes back with a vengeance. She can't just constantly wield it and she can't ignore it because Asgard needs their defender and in that line of comics Thor Odinson has lost his power entirely. Here, it's just interpreted as the hammer "draining all of your strength" and depleting her ability to fight the cancer. Somehow.
Chrissy: At the risk of sending you off on ANOTHER rant about the 616 universe thing...isn't that because the MCU isn't the same as the comics universe and they have to adjust storylines to changes already made?
Diandra: Yes. Like I said, in the comics, Odinson didn't have his powers because the hammer chose her and Stormbreaker wasn't replacing it. Here, she isn't obligated to pick it up because she is the only one who can wield it. Also, Tony Stark and Loki are still alive, the latter of which is acting as Sorcerer Supreme and Doctor Strange is a veterinarian with a talking dog (who is called in at one point to consult with Jane)[Doctor Strange, not the dog]. And nobody (except Loki) knows Jane and Mighty Thor are the same person. THESE ARE NOT SMALL CHANGES.

Anyway, Thor begs Jane not to try to help because he can't stand the idea that he would be the reason she dies. She agrees reluctantly and makes him promise to come back for her because they are back together for the time being. Valkyrie can't go with him either because she's still recovering from the stabbing. But she tells him all he has to do is destroy the sword that is keeping Gorr alive.

So with Zeus' thunderbolt as his only remaining weapon, he finds Gorr and all the children at the gates of Eternity, which are in a statue of either Kang or Galactus. Probably Kang because...not the comics. He saves the kids from a falling statue of something I vaguely recognize from "The Eternals", but since I really didn't understand that whole robot immortal retcon bullshit plot and I don't care to...I don't know what it's called. Then he uses Thunderbolt to transform the kids into a child army with whatever they can find on the ground imbued with his powers. They are fine, of course, because movie logic, but once Thor starts losing to Gorr, Mjolnir appears hovering beside Jane's bed and she arrives like an avenging angel on Valkyrie's horse just before Gorr can stab Thor with the necrosword. She fights Gorr while Thor recovers Stormbreaker and gives it to Heimdall's son to continue in his father's footsteps and activate the bifrost bridge home. Together, the Thors manage to shatter the sword and trap the broken pieces in the cobbled together Mjolnir, which Jane smashes.

But Gorr staggers through the gate of Eternity anyway and they all end up in there and what is it with Marvel and the afterlife involving a lot of water? Thor finally tries to just reason with Gorr that he wasn't going on a god killing rampage for reasons of revenge or anything, but out of a misguided attempt to find love. "Because that's all any of us want."
Chrissy: [makes a loud, wet farting noise with her mouth]
Diandra: Yeah, I didn't say this movie was BETTER than "Ragnarok". Like many sequels, it overplays the same notes that worked with its audience the first time until it stops working and everyone regrets demanding more.

Thor says he gives up and Gorr has "won" because he would rather spend his last minutes with Jane than fighting him. He tells Gorr to "choose love" and make his wish to the Genie of Eternity bringing his daughter back. Gorr watches him cradle Jane's dying body in an echo of him with his daughter and starts coming around but hesitates as he is dying and she would be abandoned immediately until Jane assures him that won't happen. So he uses his wish to resurrect Wonder Woman's boyfriend and...oops, sorry. In totally related news, I think I just realized why the rabid hatred of this movie sounded so familiar. And for what it's worth, I didn't think that movie was as bad as the fanboys claimed either. Nor do I think the first "Wonder Woman" was as good as they retroactively insisted. But I digress.
Emilio: Would it even be one of your recaps if you didn't?
Diandra: That was completely uncalled for. True, but uncalled for.
Chrissy: But as long as we're digressing, isn't the problem with "Wonder Woman 84" basically the same as it is for "Captain Marvel"? Which is what you said earlier about female centered movies or more specifically movies that call the dudebros out on their bullshit? Because there's a whole character getting revenge on men treating her like a sex object once she gains discount Catwoman powers.
Diandra: Yeah. This is also going to be brought up again in "She Hulk", so since it applies there more than here maybe we should stick a pin in that for now.

Father and daughter mirror Thor and Jane and everybody says I love you before Jane fades into gold dust like the Asgardians apparently do when they die in something written by Taika Waititi. Gorr makes Thor promise to protect his "love" before he dies because I guess she doesn't have a name. But it all kind of makes sense when Korg finishes the children's story about The Mighty Thor, whose sacrifice saved them all and was honored with a statue on the cliffs of New Asgard. Valkyrie taught the returned children self-defense, except Heimdalson who Sif taught personally (nice of her to rejoin the franchise for such a small part).

Oh, and Korg is gay now, which is a thing that is tacked on in the last five minutes weirdly. They did also make Valkyrie's bisexuality a little clearer in this movie, by the way. Whether or not this contributed to the dudebro hatred I'm not sure, but since they were already being banned in all the countries where homosexuality is illegal, fuck it. Might as well. The dudebros who think they are the primary fan base are probably madder about the representation than anyone from those countries anyway.

Thor is left playing Daddy to Gorr's resurrected daughter, who I only realized this belatedly in the movie is played by Chris' actual daughter, mostly because she has the same accent that keeps slipping out of him in the last couple movies. As they run to "protect" some aliens from attackers, Korg concludes that the Space Viking and the girl born from Eternity with god powers are their protectors, known to most people as Love and Thunder. At least that part makes sense. Sigh.

The mid credit scene involves Zeus, who is apparently still alive, bemoaning the fact that people don't believe in the gods anymore. People worship superheroes and treat the gods like a "joke".
Chrissy: Well, in all fairness, that ridiculous Italian accent and tutu don't really inspire anyone to take YOU in particular seriously.
It turns out he is talking to the just now introduced Hercules, who he tasks with killing Thor.
Pictured: Not at all a Joke

After the credits, Jane arrives at the gates of Valhalla and is met by Heimdall, who thanks her for looking after his kid down there and welcomes her to the land of the gods.

Chrissy: Hey, did you notice Michael Giacchino did the music for this one too?
Diandra: Well, that explains why it sounded more like "Doctor Strange" than "Multiverse of Madness" did.
Chrissy: Why didn't they get him to do "Ragnarok"?
Diandra: I'm gonna go with "because that one was supposed to sound like the soundtrack for an 80s video game." And this one isn't all that noticeable since it leans so heavily on the Guns and Roses song they used in the preview.
Emilio: It's Guns N' Roses.
Diandra: That's what I said.
Emilio: ............no, it isn't.

---

The Incredible Hulk (or: Almost the End of the MCU Right Here)


Starring: Edward Norton, Liv Tyler, Tim Roth, William Hurt and with a brief appearance by a guy who would go on to become a teacher at Peter Parker's school.

So apparently one of the things about Marvel selling off some of its characters in the 90s is that they realized we really don't need to see origin stories of those characters. Or maybe that's just a modern comic book movie thing because the last Batman movie did it too. Basically, it seems like someone decided that we were just as sick of watching Bruce Banner get his Hulk powers as we were Peter getting bitten by a spider and failing to save Uncle Ben or Bruce Wayne falling down a well and watching his parents die. So this movie does a speed run through it with Edward Norton's Bruce being a subject in an experiment much like Steve Rogers, Hulking out and nearly killing his girlfriend played by (ugh, I forgot this part) Liv Tyler. He nearly kills her, but she is saved by her dad, Thunderbolt Ross, who until recently was the only actor from this movie who continued on in the franchise. (I am referring to Eli Roth's recent reappearance which prompted me to revisit this movie, of course, not the fact that William Hurt died and is going to be replaced by Harrison Ford).

Hulk apparently disappears and is hunted by the military, led by Thunderbolt. And at one point we see screens about Thunderbolt acquiring Stark Industries weapons and getting memos from Nick Fury like...people really thought this wasn't part of the MCU? Or was that just the wishful thinking of nerds who really didn't want to have to add it to their rewatch roster?
Chrissy: Asks the person determined to ignore that "The Eternals" is a thing.
Diandra: I am not recapping that even briefly for fear that I would lapse into a coma.

So Bruce runs away to the place in Brazil where Natasha went to retrieve him in "The Avengers" and works with a fitness trainer on controlling his emotions. He has a watch that monitors his heart rate and beeps alarmingly like a bomb is about to go off if it gets too high. He works in some sort of factory that bottles soda and seems to act as their tech support. He nicks himself while fixing a machine and drips blood into a bottle, which he tries and fails to stop from going through. He also stops a skeevy guy from molesting a pretty girl with the threat that they shouldn't make him hungry because "you won't like me when I'm hungry" because it turns out he doesn't speak Portuguese very well.
Emilio: Hey, it would work if this was a Snickers commercial.

He gets a flower in the post from a Mr. Blue (and he is Mr. Green, naturally) that will supposedly cure him.
Diandra: So...Dr. Manhattan?
Chrissy: Wrong comics universe.
Emilio: Beast/Hank McCoy would be more likely, but they definitely didn't have the X-Men in the MCU yet.
Diandra: Oh. Right.

He makes an extract out of the flower and tests a drop of his blood, which actually has patches of green on the red blood cells under a microscope. It briefly removes the green, but it just comes back with a vengeance. Mr. Blue tells him to just send a blood sample and he'll keep trying. He claims to have found a possible cure just before the shit hits the fan.

The tainted soda ends up in Stan Lee's fridge.
Chrissy: Aww. I miss the cameos.
Thunderbolt is notified about the incident, but we don't actually find out what happened to whatever character Stan's playing in this particular movie. Instead, Thunderbolt starts putting together a team to track down Bruce via the plant in Brazil, led by Emil Blonsky, a Russian born Englishman in the Royal Marines. Emil is told that Bruce is a fugitive who stole military secrets and killed like...half a dozen people, so don't try to take him conscious. Except Bruce figures it out and escapes before they raid his place and Emil proves he is a bad guy by casually shooting a dog like a fucking psycho.

There's a really long chase that the skeevy would be rapist from a couple paragraphs ago gets involved in for some reason and Bruce doesn't hulk out until they have him cornered and one of the rapists' goons gets in the way of the tranq dart. Once he's the Hulk, his skin is impenetrable, so he escapes and all the military guys including Emil are introduced to what happens when Bruce gets angry before he runs away and wakes up naked in Guatemala.
Chrissy: Which isn't as fun as it sounds.
Diandra: Somehow I knew you would say that.

So he reenters the states via long walk through Mexico. Like all the other refugees Trump and his ilk were having fits about. But he's white, so of course he doesn't run into any problems.
Chrissy: Why are we going into politics again?
Diandra: [splutters and points at screen]

While he's doing that Thunderbolt exposits to Emil about the super soldier program the MCU technically hadn't gotten to yet. Unfortunately, I can't go into too much detail because of course this is where the DVD decides to give out. Yes, I am using a DVD to do these recaps. Which in this particular case is the only option because like all the Spider Man movies it isn't on Disney+ and for the same reason. One thing I should note is that this is the second time I've had problems with this movie and the reason I didn't think it would happen again is that I bought a different copy since the first time. Which explains the following conversation that happened upon this one giving out in pretty much the same manner.
Diandra: Jesus, is EVERY copy of this movie horrible?
Emilio: Yes.
Chrissy: I mean...given that it's always the same movie?
Diandra: I wasn't trying to comment on the quality or anything here, but okay. Let's just skip ahead and hope it doesn't matter.

Bruce makes it all the way to Virginia, where he finds Elizabeth (Betty) Ross at a University where she works. Except he finds her with her new boyfriend, Phil Dunphy. So he goes to Stanley's dinner where he has already befriended the owner apparently and is able to crash.
Diandra: I'm starting to think I should have done this recap before I got to "What If".
Chrissy: Meh. These are minor references. Emil's introduction is the important part here. But why did we not think this was important before "Avengers"?
Diandra: Because nobody did. Even though it obviously ties in at the beginning and end and with the continuation of William Hurt's character in the series...everyone tried to ignore it.
Chrissy: And just accepted that Bruce was dropped in with no introduction at all when the other five had gotten full introductions first?
Diandra: Well, they did that with Spider-Man and Black Panther too: introducing them in the middle of a team up movie. But those guys went on to get whole independent trilogies, so.
Emilio: So this would be more like if Black Widow got dropped into the series and didn't get her own trilogy?
Diandra: Yeah, I see what you did there.

He sneaks into the University lab disguised as a pizza delivery guy and discovers that any evidence of him even being there, much less a voluntary lab rat for a questionable human experiment, has been erased from the computers. Which he notifies Mr. Blue of. Without that "data", Mr. Blue claims he can't do anything. Luckily, Betty spots him at about this point and ditches Phil so she can smuggle Bruce into her house where she hid the drive containing the files. Bruce tells her her dad is after him and is only interested in replicating the shit in his blood (so he can inject himself and turn into Red Hulk...er...maybe?) But for now he'll just settle on using the super soldier serum experiment on Emil.

So the big turning point (revisited in "What If" with Mark Ruffalo) happens in a glass bridge between buildings that Thunderbolt's men lock Bruce into. He Hulk smashes his way out and picks through military guys until he comes face to face with Emil, who is now able to fight back, but not mutate. Hulk chases him toward some guys who use a couple sonic canons on him. This really only slows him down though. And because Hulk is basically some sort of variant of the King Kong trope, Betty sort of gets through to him and he protects her from getting caught in the crossfire. Which Phil sees so he can yell at Thunderbolt about HIM being the one who almost got her killed and the only reason she's still alive is because the giant green killing machine he's trying to destroy saved her. At least they assume she's alive, even if Hulk dragged her off to a cave somewhere so she can bond first with him and then, when he calms down, Bruce. Also, we get a scene where they start having sex, but he stops when his heart monitor starts going crazy for fear that he will hulk out if he gets "too excited".
Emilio: That will DEFINITELY be mentioned at some point during "She Hulk".
Diandra: Yeah. Looking forward to it. [/sarcasm]

Emil was slammed into a tree somewhere during that fight and not only lives, but heals rapidly because...super soldier.

So Mr. Blue is disappointingly just some rando nerd, who Bruce and Betty go to to further the plot. I mean...check on the potential cure. He tries something that seems to work and also vomits up a stream of science words to explain how Bruce didn't just die of radiation poisoning long ago. Like anyone was questioning the logic of a comic book movie at this point. Also he reveals that he's been generating a whole blood bank worth of Bruce's blood for experimentation and possible miracle treatments he thinks they could get out of it.
Chrissy: Because that never goes hideously wrong.
Blue says it's okay because they have the antidote now and Bruce says what we've been saying is the problem with government/military types having any of the power and tech in these stories: that they don't give a shit and will just weaponize it.
Chrissy: I mean...people will find a way to weaponize literally any scientific discovery. Just ask Einstein.
Diandra: Yeah, and that was the problem inherent with the Mutant Registration Act (can we call it that now? Still no?) Yes, accountability would be a good thing, but if the government knows everyone that can be classified as a weapon, then they can USE THEM AS WEAPONS.

Emil "rescues" Betty, knocks Bruce unconscious to be delivered on a platter to Thunderbolt and demands Mr. Blue turn him into a giant monster like Hulk, which Blue suggests could mix with the Super Soldier serum to make an "abomination" in the most ham fisted naming ceremony of this series.

Thunderbolt realizes the mistake he's made when Abomination starts doing a reenactment of Godzilla in New York. Bruce suggests they use him as a weapon since that's clearly what they wanted all along and jumps out of the helicopter they were using for transport. We do that moment of 'he's not gonna change this time and he's totally dead' fake out like we did in Ragnarok before the big monster fight.
Chrissy: Oh, look, it's Godzilla VS Kong.
Diandra: ............basically, yeah.
Emilio: Remember that joke you made about Hulka Hunka Burnin' Fudge being code for a sex act involving "beating it into the ground."
Diandra: Not until just now I didn't, thanks. I assume you mention this now because he's literally beating Abomination into the ground?
Chrissy: It's what happens when he gets too excited.
Diandra: [very heavy sigh] [rubs forehead] Let's just move on, shall we?

They destroy a whole city block and a bunch of cars and start in on a nearby building before Thunderbolt orders the choppers' gunner to give "the green one" some back up. Abomination attacks the helicopter and Hulk tries to stop him but they just end up doing a controlled crash on top of Abomination. Of course that only slows him down, but when the helicopter wreckage starts to blow, Hulk uses some sort of thunderclap move that blows the fireball away from Thunderbolt and Betty still inside. He holds off Abomination while father and daughter make their slow escape like...run, you goddamn morons. Do you have LITERALLY ANY SENSE OF SELF PRESERVATION?! Betty stops him before he kills Abomination (if that's even possible) and he roars and tosses the semi conscious body at Thunderbolt's feet. Then he runs off, apparently all the way to a cabin in the middle of nowhere in British Columbia where he meditates and generally goes back to what he was doing at the beginning of the movie. But there's a suggestion that he might be learning to control his abilities, beginning the trend of all his character development happening off screen between movies.

And then BEFORE WE EVEN GET TO THE CREDITS we have a scene of Tony meeting Thunderbolt in a bar. Tony snots that they put that whole super soldier program "on ice" (ha ha) for a REASON and "hardware" is so much more reliable. Anyway, he wants to talk about the team he and Fury are putting together now.
Chrissy: Basically the same scene as the post credit one in Iron Man but with different people.
Diandra: Yeah, it's redundant and possibly just there to catch the people who didn't wait until after the credits that time because this was all new and nobody knew if it could successfully be converted into a series or not.
Emilio: Which is why everyone thought it could be skipped. Also why you skipped basically all of Iron Man and the first Captain America and Thor.
Diandra: Because they were only loosely tied together? Yeah. But I had to go back once they decided to so fully tie them back in. You know, I wonder if the people who confidently declare "Dark World" the worst MCU movie even remember this one exists.
Chrissy: I think they hated that for reasons that have nothing to do with the actual quality of the movie.
Diandra: Yeah, probably. And I guess considering they were a few years from CGI advancements that would make it possible for Hulk and Banner to be played by the same actor...this one's not...okay, we'll talk about the CGI when we get to "She Hulk", but shiny CGI doesn't make up for a clunky script and the leading romantic interest being played so woodenly.
Chrissy: So Hulk was entirely CGI?
Diandra: With voice provided by Lou Ferrigno to tie it back to the original, yeah.
Emilio: Nice.

Chrissy: So are you ready for "She Hulk"?
Diandra: I don't know if I'm ever ready for any of these. Seriously, I REALLY underestimated the time commitment I was making going into this series.
Emilio: Do you need Chrissy to bring alcohol?
Chrissy: You say that like I wasn't planning on doing it anyway.
Diandra: Right. I just remembered why I keep inviting you two to do these. I would never have gotten this far without you keeping me entertained.
Chrissy: Think that would help you get through "The Eternals"?
Diandra: Don't push your luck.