What If...?: What If... Zombies?

September 8, 2021 1:53 AM - Season 1, Episode 5

A zombie infestation at the Pacific Northwest before Thanos could even begin his conquest.
posted by cendawanita (66 comments total)

ok, my bad for missing the exclamation point, and not fully communicating the 'what in the train to busan nonsense?!' of this episode's pitch.

sebastian stan had one line reading that made me howl though.
posted by cendawanita at 1:54 AM on September 8, 2021

The Scarlet Lich!
posted by yonega at 2:05 AM on September 8, 2021 [9 favorites]

Hated this episode, but I knew I would.

I hated the Marvel Zombies fad in the 90s. Still hate it.

Hated the fact that mindless zombies were able to use powers in sophisticated ways.

The whole point of zombies is they're ZOMBIES

They don't know how to use magic spells, or power armor, or shrink/grow using the Pym tech, which is how Pym bit Cap, and so on

Hated the dumb ant man jokes.

Hated the senseless way that Vision killed himself for no reason.

Easily the worst episode yet, by a colossal margin
posted by Fleebnork at 5:20 AM on September 8, 2021 [12 favorites]

Also hated it for all the reasons Fleebnork said. And the head thing. And Vision feeding people to Wanda. I'm still kinda like "giant....zombie...?"

Why the depressing shit? Why "The Avengers become superpowered zombies?" Why did someone think that'd be awesome to watch?

This was only slightly less depressing than the Doctor Strange episode, and I say that only because a few folks were left alive...AND THEN OH YEAH, THERE'S ZOMBIE THANOS AND HIS FUCKING GAUNTLET.

Hated this. I only watched it because I can't get back to sleep. Maybe I'll just read the synopsis of the rest of the episodes and see if they sound any less terrible.
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:11 AM on September 8, 2021

Why the depressing shit? Why "The Avengers become superpowered zombies?" Why did someone think that'd be awesome to watch?

"Depressing shit" was the basis for a lot of the "What If" comics stories. They had, like, Jean Gray from X-Men going evil and destroying the whole Universe or the Skrulls secretly invading Earth or Vision taking control of humanity and running things as a fascist dictator or Wolverine becoming a vampire or Peter Parker continuing to mutate uncontrollably until he turns into a "Brundlefly" kind of spider/human hybrid monster. But, they also had things like "What if Iron Man had somehow gotten trapped in Camelot" or "What if Peter Parker decided to become a pro wrestler instead of a superhero" or "What if the Avengers were so good they defeated everyone and had to retire".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:37 AM on September 8, 2021 [8 favorites]

Sorry, hit "post" too soon - I'm assuming the stories were chosen to be a bit of a mix of "upbeat" and "downers" - "Zombie Avengers" may have been depressing, but "Starlord T'challa" wasn't, right? - while avoiding any of the really weird shit.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:39 AM on September 8, 2021 [1 favorite]

This felt like a rote, cliché version of better zombie stories which I also hated.

Also, this show needs to use their budget a little more wisely and hire Andrea Romano, or someone else who can actually direct voice actors. This is making the DCAU look even better in retrospect.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 7:48 AM on September 8, 2021 [4 favorites]

This is twice in three episodes that Hank Pym has managed to wipe out the Avengers.

I wonder of the 14,000,605 outcomes that Strange looked at, if maybe nine million of them were that asshole Pym screwing things up again.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:51 AM on September 8, 2021 [20 favorites]

I thought this was a hoot, but I think it's in part a matter of expectations; as a fan of (at least the first three or four) Marvel Zombies series I wasn't expecting more than a superficial Romero homage.

I was hoping that when they got the signal from New Jersey it would finally be time for Arnim Zola to actually do something.

And yes, the need for better voice direction is real. I'm overall glad they went with the movie stars just because it means we get this last bit of Chadwick Boseman, but when they hit production on season 2 something's got to change.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 7:56 AM on September 8, 2021 [6 favorites]

Also, I wasn't sure because I still haven't seen Civil War, but according to bigger nerds than I this episode marks the first explicit reference to Ben Parker in the MCU.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 7:58 AM on September 8, 2021 [1 favorite]

I hated the whole idea of Marvel Zombies--it struck me at the time as the crassest sort of bandwagon-jumping, and still does--but I didn't hate this. Scott Lang in a Futurama-type head jar was funny, but Okoye telling him not to cry because he'd fog up his jar was hilarious. Tons of good lines here, and Hope going giant and just stepping on zombies was kind of awesome.

And even zombie Thanos may not be the end of things; not only might the Mind Stone be able to control him as it did the other zombies, but one thing that I've always wondered about the Mind Stone is whether or not it should be able to make its bearer the smartest person in the universe. Shuri uses it to figure out how to make an Infinity Gauntlet that can be used without killing the user, she restores the Earth to pre-zombiness, the Blip doesn't happen, Bob's your uncle.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:28 AM on September 8, 2021 [2 favorites]

Ooh, I just had a really interesting thought about a season-long story arc they could do -

Adapting the whole run of Neil Gaiman's Marvel 1602 series, where the premise is "what if the various Avengers showed up in 1602". So you get Dr. Stephen Strange as the personal physician to Queen Elizabeth and Sir Nicholas Fury and his young assistant Peter Parquagh are keeping watch on the London docks and stuff.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:31 AM on September 8, 2021 [9 favorites]

I hated everything about this except seeing Hawkeye go down in the background during one of the zombie attacks.

Every time I think I cannot hate on the MCU Hawkeye any more, something bad happens to him and I get a surge of glee.

Hawkeye is the WORST.
posted by Faintdreams at 8:31 AM on September 8, 2021 [12 favorites]

I don't care for this genre, but Marvel Zombies is a big enough sub-franchise that there was going to have to be at least one episode about it. If only we could also get the Spider-Ham universe—What if… the MCU was made up of cartoon animals?— as a palate cleanser (with guest star alligator Loki). At leat the Mojo-verse is pure X-Men so we won't get one of my other unfavorite alternate settings that will not just go away already.

In the original comics, the infected retained most of their intellect as long as they were well fed. The hungrier they get, the more they revert. (A running, er, "joke", was that Zombie!Peter had originally tried to protect May and Mary Jane and then inevitably reverted at the wrong time and ate them. Every time he eats, he regains his faculties and has a fresh breakdown over it and the other zombies are so done with his whining.) This is why the supers are so much smarter than the shambling mobs; their powers allow them to feed more regularly. The thing with keeping someone alive and eating them piece by piece wasn't Vision and T'Challa (I forget which it actually was) and the zombie scientist doing it was specifically eating just enough of the prisoner to have the intelligence left to try to find a cure. I suppose in this version Vision has been doling out bits of T'Challa to Wanda to keep her contained?

I do feel bad for MCU Peter in this episode that his genre-savviness failed him at the last and he did not realize that the coded transmission promising safety is almost always a trap.
posted by Karmakaze at 8:51 AM on September 8, 2021 [3 favorites]

Oh and the Cloak of Levitation aka Dr Strange's Cape

Was the MVP again this episode.

Didn't hate that.
posted by Faintdreams at 9:26 AM on September 8, 2021 [12 favorites]

Scott Lang as a head inna jar was pretty great, though it does rob him of the ability to do card tricks. Also I don't wanna think about Cassie.

Not a fan of zombie stuff, but like Karmakaze mentioned, this was too big of an alt universe not to do.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 10:01 AM on September 8, 2021 [1 favorite]

As an historical note: the expression "Marvel zombie" was around in the comics world for years before there was a comic book series, referring to uncritical fans of Marvel comics.
posted by SPrintF at 10:08 AM on September 8, 2021 [3 favorites]

As an historical note: the expression "Marvel zombie" was around in the comics world for years before there was a comic book series, referring to uncritical fans of Marvel comics.

That's who will love this episode. "So meta" as the kids say these days.
posted by Fleebnork at 10:25 AM on September 8, 2021 [1 favorite]

There's been shots from this show with Peter Parker wearing Dr. Strange's cape, I hope that's not just a reference to this episode where he wears it briefly.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 10:25 AM on September 8, 2021

Yeah, I was hoping for Doctor Parker.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:16 AM on September 8, 2021

Another thing I've noticed thanks to these What If episodes is... not really a lot has happened in the MCU. They've intentionally built their world around Thanos and the Infinity Stones and the Snap/Blip, but as a result the list of events we've seen in the MCU that don't tie indirectly or directly into that story is pretty short. On top of that, this series has already mined a lot of those events.

I think this is part of the problem lots of folks are having with this series. It's hard to be really inventive when you're limited by the amount of material the MCU has presented. I doubt we're going to see new ground broken on this series like "What If... the X-Men existed?" because bringing the formerly Fox-owned half of Marvel or any of the Marvel we haven't seen yet into the MCU is going to be a big deal that isn't going to show up first in a cartoon. So we just get "What if a character was another character?" and "What if this thing happened during the limited number of events that are canon in the MCU?"

Honestly Doctor Strange's story has been the most interesting to me so far because it's entirely self-contained and unrelated to almost everything else we've seen in the MCU, and it had the problem of Doctor Strange being almost entirely unrelated to almost everything else we've seen in the MCU.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 11:54 AM on September 8, 2021 [4 favorites]

I think that you also have to count the "The Avengers All Die" episode, because Hope never worked for Fury or SHIELD AFAWK; that, and Hank Pym going on a rampage, are completely new.

Speaking of what's happened in the MCU, though, I'm wondering if they can use anything from the Netflix shows.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:16 PM on September 8, 2021 [1 favorite]

Man I just hate zombies as a concept so, so much. Skipping this episode. Thanks for summing up the relevant plot points.
posted by emjaybee at 12:40 PM on September 8, 2021 [2 favorites]

I didn't hate it. I kinda loved it actually. And of course they use their powers. Would be boring otherwise...
posted by Pendragon at 1:43 PM on September 8, 2021 [3 favorites]

I was over zombies, like, years ago, and the zombieverse stories the comics have done mostly bore me, with a few minor exceptions. And I've always been weary of Marvel's obsession with Peter Parker, he's always been one of the least interesting characters to me, so I would have loved more survivors who weren't Spider-Man. That whole mutilating T'Challa to feed Wanda thing was fuckin' grim and reminded me way too much of the grotesque plot point on the series The Shield that made me drop the show. They just cannot let go of their favorite fascist Thanos, can they? Ugh.

Anyway, at least I got to see Bucky with the good hair and hear Sebastian Stan, Chadwick Boseman, and Danai Gurira (you'd think they would have given her a break from the damn zombies!) again.
posted by kitten kaboodle at 3:52 PM on September 8, 2021 [1 favorite]

What the fuck did I just watch?!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:29 PM on September 8, 2021 [5 favorites]

I've never understood the whole fascination with zombies so this was probably my least favourite of the series so far. I also thought the whole shtick of "What If?" was going to be the impact of specific choices. In this one, things were the same except that Janet had contracted zombie-itis. Oh well. On to next week.
posted by synecdoche at 5:48 PM on September 8, 2021 [2 favorites]

I can handle a zombie episode fine, but this didn't make a lot of sense as a story, and just kind of coasting on the appeal of getting to kill off a bunch of characters isn't a good way to spend the show's creative capital. But it's fine, feels disposable and the whole premise I think makes it supposed to feel that way.
posted by skewed at 7:26 PM on September 8, 2021 [1 favorite]

I’ve loved every episode of What If so far, but this one left me fairly cold. (Not a pun, Scott Lang’s endlessly nattering head! You shut up!)

1. The tone was wildly uneven. I love zom-coms like Shaun of the Dead and Zombieland, but the way they were trying to make this both the jokiest episode of WI and simultaneously the most tragic did not work for me. Peter’s video guide and Scott’s logorrhea were grating and did not jibe with their characters as we know them, Aunt May’s truism about smiling aside.

2. Every previous episode hinges on a decision, usually seemingly insignificant, that cascades into terrible unforeseen results. Which makes it tragic. The What If here was more like, “yeah, sure, a zombie virus from the quantum realm, why not?”

3. A great part of Disney+ MCU shows is getting to see characters you haven’t gotten to see much of getting a moment in the spotlight. This episode repeated so many characters from WandaVision, Falcon and Winter Soldier, and previous What If episodes that I wished they’d come up with a different ragtag team.

4. Despite that, the characters still acted in ways that made little sense, like Bucky calling Steve “Cap” while shooting him, Sharon Carter being in the US and not an expat in Madripoor, or everything Vision did. (Even the Vision from the Tom King “The Visions” series wouldn’t have done that.)

4. I liked the surprise ending of Thanos in Wakanda because partway through I thought they had just abandoned the Endgame thread. But then I got annoyed that Thanos was in Wakanda, since he only landed there in Endgame because that’s where Vision was. Commenters on the AV Club are backfilling this with “He went to Wakanda because that’s the last enclave of fresh meat” (as opposed to literally any other world Thanos can fly to that doesn’t have the zombie virus) or “He used the Time Stone to predict that the survivors were taking the Mind Stone to Wakanda” (as opposed to Thanos just fucking going to where the Infinity Stones are and taking them, as he did all throughout Infinity War and Endgame).

The episode did have lots of good bits, and i enjoyed watching it, but I was surprised it didn’t reach even my low bar of satisfaction.
posted by ejs at 8:48 PM on September 8, 2021 [3 favorites]

I liked it! The other What-Ifs have generally been a bit tame, I liked the way it took the chance to go totally batshit. (Though it would have been nice to have some consistency over how long it takes to be zombified and how coordinated a zombie can be). And Happy going "blam! blam!" was perfect.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 1:26 AM on September 9, 2021

I didnt mind this episode; assuming you are going to do a zombies episode, and they tend to be popular, the mostly goofy tone was fine.

That said I dont think it fully succeded as a piece pf goofy shlock fiction. Making that kind of material work can actually be pretty hard when you have characters murdering their best friends, and Bucky not caring about murdering Falcon made him seem like a sociopath rather than a lovable rogue
posted by Cannon Fodder at 1:30 AM on September 9, 2021 [3 favorites]

So, I've mentioned this elsewhere in Fanfare (link goes to a comment with indirect spoilers for a Star Trek: Picard Season 1 Episode), but when my household gathers on the couch to watch things sometimes there's a chain of handholding during the intense parts. My cat Hennessey has noticed this and will sometimes try to include himself.

The Zombies! episode prompted some handholding, and Hennessey hopped up on the couch and started furiously grooming at my Wife's and my hands. (Since cats in a cat colony will sometimes use social grooming to comfort each other, we figured he was trying to calm us down.)

However a few minutes into being on the couch with us, he'd seen what was going on in the show and curled up tight, hiding his face in my Wife's leg. When we tried to coax him out from hiding, he'd just let out a little mew-cry and bury his face in deeper. So after the episode was done we gave him lots of hugs and some cat treats, and established a new household rule: "No zombie media when Hennessey's around".
posted by radwolf76 at 3:07 AM on September 9, 2021 [12 favorites]

Fascinating reactions. What If has been pretty meh to me but this one was exactly what I wanted. I am not a comic book guy so I have zero knowledge of the comic book runs and am just here for the experience. I can see how this whole series is a specific type of pandering and it has been pretty annoying but this one got me. It feels like the first R rated Marvel? I mean, no swearing but it was gruesome. It also has a better send-off for BP than the entire episode dedicated to him.

The creators of this show are sort of hellbent on showing that Ant-Man/Wasp are actual. honest. to. god. superheroes. that can easily go toe-to-toe with Hulk and Strange. This is an interesting twist because in the MCU they are sort of the jokey part of the Avengers. Hawkeye is a far less a useful Avenger than Ant-man but he gets so much more screentime. Kang supposedly makes his true villain appearance with them and not in Strange 2 and so now we have a more concrete representation of how and why even he cannot just roll over them.
posted by M Edward at 6:25 AM on September 9, 2021 [2 favorites]

Black Panther: "In my culture, death is not the end."

Me: "...*sob*..."

I'm not really a huge MCU fan, so I'm either surprised or totally not surprised at all that I'm enjoying this show when evidently many others are not. I was eager to see this one; I'm a horror guy, for one thing, and for another, I couldn't see how they were going to make this all that nasty and keep it PG. I didn't quite expect the Treehouse of Horror episode they served up here, but I enjoyed it. (Danai Gurira in particular was a stroke of genius.)

I guess the combination of animation and a breezy 30-minute format kept me from taking the show very seriously. It all just felt like a romp to me. The Vision's turn to evil felt less like something that sprang naturally from his character than just the kind of "darkest timeline" twist you expect from something like this (see also Hank Pym's turn to evil a few episodes ago). Although I suppose one could argue he and Wanda just have the crazy kind of love that turns one partner into a sociopathic monster when faced with the loss of the other (see also nine hours of WandaVision).

I don't have strong feelings one way or the other about the art style, but I do like the way they'll incorporate The Watcher into the backgrounds. It's very reminiscent of the old comics.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:38 AM on September 9, 2021 [3 favorites]

Hennessey is a very good boy and next time he gets to choose what you watch.
posted by Servo5678 at 6:45 AM on September 9, 2021 [7 favorites]

The creators of this show are sort of hellbent on showing that Ant-Man/Wasp are actual. honest. to. god. superheroes. that can easily go toe-to-toe with Hulk and Strange. This is an interesting twist because in the MCU they are sort of the jokey part of the Avengers.

Wasp is never really jokey; Ant-Man kind of plays off that. And even his jokiness takes on a serious edge in Endgame when he conceives of the time heist and keeps pushing it even though people are still having a hard time taking him seriously. Scott Lang is as responsible as anyone, and probably more so, for saving half the people in the universe. That's a joke the size of Eternity.

And, speaking of Endgame, when Captain America was running that support group, would that count as Rogerian therapy? Thanks, I'll be here all week.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:20 AM on September 9, 2021 [3 favorites]

It feels like the first R rated Marvel?

It's certainly rather gruesome compared to the rest of the MCU, but over the years Marvel's been more than the MCU. The Dolph Lundgren / Louis Gossett Jr. film, The Punisher from 1989 wasn't originally submitted to the MPAA because plans to release it in US theaters fell through, but when they finally did send it in for a rating, it got an R.

The Blade Trilogy was also all rated R, and had content even more extreme than this episode of What If?.

Both Deadpool films were R rated and held the title of the highest grossing movies with that rating until DC's The Joker displaced them. (Note that's not highest grossing R rated comic book movies, that's just highest grossing R rated movies period. It was a pretty big deal when the first Deadpool movie took that spot from The Passion of the Christ.)

And in the X-Men franchise, Logan also earned an R rating. So that's seven adaptations of Marvel Comics to have hit R rating prior to What If? Zombies!.

--------------------

Hennessey is a very good boy and next time he gets to choose what you watch.

It's Star Trek: Lower Decks night in the household tonight, which is one of his favorites. He's meowed once or twice when Dr. T'Ana is on the screen doing cat-like things.
posted by radwolf76 at 7:25 AM on September 9, 2021 [8 favorites]

Not saying it was bad, because I think it was done well enough for what it is. Most of the gags landed for me, at least.

It's definitely my least-favorite MCU thing and I would 100% skip any further installments of the zombie stuff. Even if the season wrapped with some big culminating crossover centered on the zombie stuff, I think I'd skip.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 10:10 AM on September 9, 2021 [1 favorite]

I guess I meant the first R rated MCU property on Disney Plus.

I mean they made Hamilton edit out language but totally okay to chop (redacted) in half with a shield. I thought I was watching Harley Quinn on HBOmax for a minute.
posted by M Edward at 10:44 AM on September 9, 2021

I guess I meant the first R rated MCU property on Disney Plus.

Probably, though probably more accurate to say TV-MA, which would be the television series equivalent.
posted by radwolf76 at 11:02 AM on September 9, 2021

I didn't much care for it. Did I miss something? My husband and I couldn't figure out why they drove to Grand Central to get a train instead of just driving to NJ. Was it to be underground so they would avoid zombie hordes?

I can't believe Vision would act like the way he did--it seems very unlike him, the one who was worthy to pick up Thor's hammer. I think he would be more likely to try and put Wanda out of her misery in a kind way. Yeah, he said she was too strong, but eh, I don't buy it.

T'Challa and Okoye were my favorite parts of the episode for Wakanda Forever, and Happy for his great sound effects. And I did like the Futurama head jar gag, but Scott was really annoying.
posted by ceejaytee at 12:14 PM on September 9, 2021 [1 favorite]

The creators of this show are sort of hellbent on showing that Ant-Man/Wasp are actual. honest. to. god. superheroes. that can easily go toe-to-toe with Hulk and Strange.

I did like that the solution to zombie!Carter was basically Reddit's theory about how Ant-Man would defeat Thanos in Endgame.
posted by hanov3r at 1:22 PM on September 9, 2021

The train was one thing that didn’t bug me. Manhattan is hard to get out of. One can imagine that the bridges and tunnels would be jam packed full of abandoned cars and zombies.
posted by bq at 2:02 PM on September 9, 2021 [1 favorite]

Bucky's line "I should feel sad but I don't" really sums up the whole episode.
posted by JDHarper at 4:27 PM on September 9, 2021 [5 favorites]

I guess I’m just not as sophisticated as y’all, because I enjoyed it. I’ve enjoyed all of the episodes so far. Maybe it’s because I don’t feel the need to take any of them particularly seriously. I’ve always enjoyed the MCU best when it’s clearly aware of its own ridiculosity even as it fully commits to said ridiculosity, and “What If” is nothing but that.

I recognize that Metafilter’s ~*brand*~ is grumpy cynical everything-sucks, because God forbid anyone ever genuinely enjoy anything. It’s extremely culturally Gen X. But then I always was the dorky kid who was too earnest about things.

I mean, I have thoughts about plot holes, or beats that didn’t land emotionally, but like… I don’t know why I thought it’d be a good idea to come here thinking I’d find other people who actually enjoyed a thing. That was genuinely stupid.
posted by snowmentality at 5:46 PM on September 9, 2021 [10 favorites]

But then I always was the dorky kid who was too earnest about things.

Me too. I guess I just like liking things.
posted by LooseFilter at 5:54 PM on September 9, 2021 [2 favorites]

and Bucky not caring about murdering Falcon made him seem like a sociopath rather than a lovable rogue

This one hit me weird also, but on reflection is works really well as a What If situation. Because Sam and Bucky never got to be friends in this universe, so yeah, they kinda hated each other, having never had time to bond.

So not cookout or boat building, just professional co-workers that barely get along.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:45 PM on September 9, 2021 [4 favorites]

I've enjoyed every episode so far, because when I was a kid in the 70's and 80's buying comics, including What If, I could only wish there were good cartoons on TV that had superheroes. I got a similar thrill from the Justice League/jlu series, and got into Young Justice for the first few seasons. Agents of Shield, Legends of Tomorrow, watched those for a season or two as well.

Now that I think on it, there is just so much superhero comics content now, so that young vrak got what he wanted perhaps. Sure some of it is terrible in one way or another, and people like different stuff. I agree some of the uncanny valley animation style can be jarring. On the other hand the voice work can be really really good.

See you next week.
posted by vrakatar at 9:46 PM on September 9, 2021 [2 favorites]

I mean, I came into it wanting to like it! I liked the first four episodes pretty well. But this suffered so badly from Joss Whedon's Disease (where every character will shoehorn in a one liner regardless of the character's personality or circumstances) but without Joss Whedon's skill for actually writing a funny one liner. Bucky Barnes cuts his best friend in half with his own shield and quips about it being the end of the line (because he's on a train you see, so it is funny).

I love a ridiculous premise, but the fun for me is seeing the characters react in character to the ridiculous twist. Couldn't do that this episode; maybe next time.

I did like seeing The Hulk wading into a horde of zombies and big The Wasp doing the same. So not wholly irredeemable.

Metafilter can have a tiresome everything sucks affect, sure. But I think this episode genuinely sucked. YMMV.
posted by JDHarper at 9:52 PM on September 9, 2021 [5 favorites]

Bucky saying "Guess that's the end of the line" isn't about them being on a train. It's a callback to something Steve and Bucky used to say to each other, "I'm with you, till the end of the line." It was some variation on that line that finally broke through Bucky's conditioning at the end of Captain America and the Winter Soldier.

I mean, it's also a little bit about them being on a train, but mostly it's the other thing.
posted by wabbittwax at 4:28 AM on September 10, 2021 [6 favorites]

Ah, thanks! It's been a while since I've seen the first two Captain America movies and I had forgotten all about that line. That fixes the most egregiously out of character moment for me at least.
posted by JDHarper at 6:17 AM on September 10, 2021 [1 favorite]

We skipped this one after watching it for a couple minutes and realizing what the premise was. Maybe it's the pandemic, maybe it's the past ten years of pop culture; whatever it is, I've had more than my fill of zombies for the foreseeable future.
posted by jordemort at 10:24 AM on September 10, 2021 [3 favorites]

I mostly enjoyed this one. It wasn't deep or meaningful, it was just brainless (so to speak) fun. Plenty of laugh-out-loud moments.

Honestly I didn't think it was as dark as the "Dr. Strange tries a new diet" episode.

But it wasn't great that literally none of the women (of which there were several for once) survived to the end of the episode. Okoye should have made it, dammit.

And Bucky's slow walk toward Wanda while firing a pistol, instead of just trying to cover the retreat while also retreating, didn't exactly come off tactical genius or brave heroism, just throwing himself away because the plot demanded another sacrifice.
posted by Foosnark at 11:59 AM on September 10, 2021

Surprisingly gory! I continue to enjoy these for the excellent animated action sequences (standout moments with Okoye, Bucky fighting Cap, and the cape trying to save Banner) as well as the opportunity to see different heroes interact - Peter and Hope had some great chemistry in this one. Maybe a small moment but I appreciated that despite the goofy tone they kept the gravitas around important character relationships, like Peter reacting to Happy's death and Scott reacting to Hope's.

The Wandavision role reversal stuff with Vision was compelling in theory but wasn't given enough time, shame.

Hated the senseless way that Vision killed himself for no reason.

They needed the mind stone for the cure but he couldn't bring himself to abandon Wanda, right? So he opted to die alongside her instead. But yeah for real, how many times do we need to watch Vision die. : (
posted by Emily's Fist at 9:45 AM on September 11, 2021

I don’t think the android worthy of lifting Mjolnir would have been feeding his undead girlfriend pieces of other heroes, to say nothing of committing suicide.

One of the many things I think the episode did wrong in the name of having a zombie episode.
posted by Fleebnork at 3:48 PM on September 11, 2021 [4 favorites]

I don’t think the android worthy of lifting Mjolnir would have ...

I'm guessing he didn't lift Mjolnir in that timeline.
posted by Foosnark at 5:35 AM on September 13, 2021 [1 favorite]

Hawkeye is the WORST.

Hawkeye trailer.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 6:34 AM on September 13, 2021 [4 favorites]

Hawkeye is great, it's Hawkguy I'm not so fond of
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 9:13 AM on September 13, 2021 [1 favorite]

I just realized something.

Did the episode ever address WHY Ant-Man was just a head in a jar?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:49 AM on September 13, 2021

Nope. At the beginning of the episode you seem him get attacked. Later, he's a head in a jar. There was brief mention that Vision helped/cured him.
posted by Fleebnork at 4:52 AM on September 14, 2021

Did the episode ever address WHY Ant-Man was just a head in a jar?

No, but I'm assuming Vision fed his cured body to Wanda. Not sure why he kept him around, though, maybe he needed the company.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 12:07 PM on September 14, 2021 [1 favorite]

I see what they were doing with Vision, a VisionWanda spin on grief, what would he do if he was the one who lost her? He is at both an android who knows all and also an emotional toddler. In a way I think by having him be the Vision he is here undermines the episode, because of the meta connection to WandaVision we, the audience, might have been more interested in how the hell he got to where he is than how Parker and the Sad Bunch got to him.
posted by M Edward at 3:57 PM on September 14, 2021

I recognize that Metafilter’s ~*brand*~ is grumpy cynical everything-sucks, because God forbid anyone ever genuinely enjoy anything.

I resent the accusation that I'm watching What If just to complain about it!

...That's what I watch The Walking Dead for.
posted by ejs at 6:19 PM on September 14, 2021 [2 favorites]

Wasn't Ant-Man decapitated as a zombie? I thought that's what had happened, although obviously it doesn't explain how Vision could keep him alive as a head in a jar. Other than it's a Futurama joke. And really, this episode did seem about that deep.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 7:41 PM on September 14, 2021 [1 favorite]

I do feel bad for MCU Peter in this episode that his genre-savviness failed him at the last

That happened like three times though. They say not to wear short sleeves, and Bruce never changes! They lost Happy because they split up, and then they split up on the train (and at the base)! They tell Hope to hang on and not give up, then she has to do a heroic sacrifice anyway! Maybe she could’ve gotten cured if she had made it to the base.

What a bunch of mishaps.
posted by Apocryphon at 10:54 PM on September 14, 2021 [1 favorite]

Zombies are really, really not my thing and I did not particularly enjoy this either. T'Challa's little bit at the end about death gave me Big Feels though and for that I'm glad I watched it.
(I had a similar reaction to Thor and Frigga in Endgame. Actually, that still kills me.)
Happy was good, Okoye was great, but the dissonance involved in Vision doing.. any and all of that is so wtf that I sincerely don't know what they were thinking.
posted by ApathyGirl at 10:39 AM on September 28, 2021 [1 favorite]