[00:00:00] This is the Defenders Podcast on TV Podcast Industries. You're back talking about the third episode of Season 3 of What If, What If the Red Guardian stopped the Winter Soldier?

[00:00:09] No witnesses.

[00:00:10] No murder! The Red Guardian is Russia's greatest super spy. Anyone can kill, bang, bang, easy peasy, but I am the night! I am the wind! I am here and then vanish without a trace.

[00:00:25] No witnesses.

[00:00:27] Yes, witnesses. This way Stark runs back to his, capitally speaking, friends and warns them that the revolution is coming and he wears red and white and that you were here too, da?

[00:01:01] Welcome back fellow defenders to Defenders on TV Podcast Industries. We're talking about the third episode of Season 3 of What If, What If the Red Guardian stopped the Winter Soldier? I'm one of your hosts, Derek.

[00:01:12] Hello there fellow Defenders. I am your other host, John. Yes, What If the Red Guardian stopped the Winter Soldier?

[00:01:19] Mm-hmm.

[00:01:19] But teamed up.

[00:01:21] And then did a comedy, um...

[00:01:23] Bromance.

[00:01:24] Slash the team I always wanted.

[00:01:27] Absolutely, yeah, yeah. And we're going to see them in live action again.

[00:01:29] I know.

[00:01:30] Later on next year, I guess. We're still before New Year's at the moment.

[00:01:34] But in 2025, we're going to see the two of them together in Thunderbolts. I wonder will we see the two of them actually have conversations together or will they be separated?

[00:01:41] Like this one. I hope so.

[00:01:43] I hope so. It's a really fun episode.

[00:01:45] Definitely.

[00:01:46] Really good. And fellow Defenders, I hope you've been enjoying your holidays. We took a little bit of a break, as you know, between episodes two and episode three here, while we enjoyed some of the holidays with some families.

[00:01:54] So we had a great time, and we're going to be catching up over the next couple of days on the episodes of What If that have been released while we were gone.

[00:02:02] Indeed. But remember, fellow Defenders, pop on over to our website at tvpodcastindustries.com, where you can subscribe to any mysterious podcast player of your choice in the multiverse of podcast players, dare I say it.

[00:02:18] And of course, please send in your feedback to feedback at tvpodcastindustries.com or over in our Facebook group at facebook.com forward slash groups forward slash tvpodcastindustries.

[00:02:32] Derek, shall we start our spoiler-filled discussion with some of the episode details?

[00:02:39] Absolutely. Yep. Starting off, we have got the executive producers for this show, of course, are Matthew Chauncey, Brian Andrews and Brad Winterbaum, along with Kevin Feige.

[00:02:47] The head writer for this series of the show is Matthew Chauncey. But this episode was written by A.C. Bradley, the showrunner for the previous two seasons of the show, and originally was intended to be in season two.

[00:02:59] Very quickly after season two was released, this was the first clip that was released for season three, because it had already been completed.

[00:03:05] But I think they changed the total amount of episodes per season when they were originally being released, so that's why this was moved into season three.

[00:03:13] Very good.

[00:03:15] And this episode was directed once again by Brian Andrews, who we've mentioned a couple of times already this season.

[00:03:19] He is one of the executive producers of the show and does direct many of the episodes of the series of What If?

[00:03:24] But John, do you want to tell us what they gave us with your synopsis for this episode of What If? Season three, episode three, What If Red Guardian stopped Winter Soldier?

[00:03:32] Sure.

[00:03:33] In 1991, Alexei Shostakov and Bookie Barnes are sent to recover a case of Super Soldier Serum from Howard and Maria Stark.

[00:03:42] The Red Guardian prevents the Winter Soldier from killing them, and they only acquire one vial of the serum.

[00:03:48] With no extraction, the duo tracks a spy called The Rook to Las Vegas for alternative transportation, while evading a police officer, Ranger Morales, and a SHIELD unit led by Bill Foster.

[00:04:02] Dreykov secretly orders Bookie to kill Alexei, who has become a liability.

[00:04:06] In Las Vegas, Shostakov and Barnes discover that The Rook is Obadiah Steyn, who provided the Russians with the information about the serum in order to eliminate the Starks from the market.

[00:04:17] Steyn attacks a duo, but is killed by Barnes.

[00:04:20] As the authorities and a task force sent by the Red Room swarm the area, Barnes buys Alexei time to escape, who destroys the last vial of the serum.

[00:04:30] Some time later, Barnes is taken back to Hydra's base in Siberia, where he insists to Dreykov that The Red Guardian is dead.

[00:04:38] Meanwhile, Bill Foster approaches Shostakov and offers him a chance to help the United States once again.

[00:04:44] Twenty-one years later, Shostakov is fighting alongside the Avengers in the Battle of New York.

[00:04:51] Yes, he is.

[00:04:51] And looking pretty spiky for it for 21 years.

[00:04:55] Absolutely, yeah.

[00:04:56] Pretty impressive.

[00:04:56] Don't age, that one.

[00:04:57] I guess that's the super soldier serum working its way through his Red Guardian body.

[00:05:02] Yes, the Red Youthful Guardian.

[00:05:04] Exactly, exactly.

[00:05:06] Let's get into our top three points.

[00:05:07] As you know, we discuss these shows slightly differently than we discuss the other shows.

[00:05:11] We kick off first with, what if we had seen this before?

[00:05:15] What are the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies that inspired this episode or were they kicking off point for this episode or what was affected by it?

[00:05:22] This is pretty far-reaching overall.

[00:05:25] We did see the major scene that's taken here is in Captain America Civil War where Bucky killed Tony's parents.

[00:05:32] That scene is the major kind of switch, I guess.

[00:05:34] It's a big kick-off point for it.

[00:05:36] But loads more Marvel Cinematic Universe movies were impacted by that moment, I guess, in Civil War.

[00:05:43] One of the big ones really is going to be Iron Man as well because Obadiah Stain is in here and Obadiah Stain was the bad guy in the first Iron Man movie.

[00:05:50] He's the one that went up against Tony Stark in Iron Man 1.

[00:05:54] Yeah, so he's kind of getting his hand in much earlier.

[00:05:58] His sort of deception, his underhand dealings are kind of being at least shown up much earlier than the first Iron Man.

[00:06:07] I'm just saying he's behind the death of Tony's parents as well, which is quite a big changer.

[00:06:11] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:06:12] I think we have the Black Widow as well.

[00:06:14] We do have the Red Guardian arriving at the U.S. border saying he is Bob Toledo, this kind of undercover Russian agent in the U.S.

[00:06:25] Like we do see him in the Black Widow with his two children.

[00:06:30] The big difference here is that he's offered the job to go in as a data processor undercover, which would be with the family, with Black Widow herself, Natasha Romanoff and her sister and mother.

[00:06:41] Whereas here he turns down that job and jumps in to the U.S. to go undercover and take down Bucky, basically.

[00:06:48] Well, yes, it's a senior middle management mission.

[00:06:52] Yes, that's it.

[00:06:53] I do quite like the fact that there's this little bit of rivalry between him as the Red Guardian and the Winter Soldier,

[00:07:02] where these senior middle management missions don't seem to be quite as attractive to him as the go in, take out the capitalist pig, come back with the goodies, you know, kind of thing.

[00:07:16] So I kind of like that rivalry element.

[00:07:18] And so you see him going off grid effectively to make that change that we will come to in our second point.

[00:07:26] Yeah, it's kind of a one sided rivalry because Winter Soldier has absolutely no idea who Red Guardian is.

[00:07:30] No, exactly.

[00:07:30] He just gets awoken and given a mission, basically.

[00:07:33] But Alexei does seem to know all about the Winter Soldier.

[00:07:36] He says he's not even Russian.

[00:07:37] So, you know, how could he uphold the values of Mother Russia?

[00:07:41] But that's it.

[00:07:42] He's a hydra.

[00:07:43] It's a hydra base.

[00:07:44] It's what he calls a hydra lackey or something.

[00:07:46] Exactly.

[00:07:47] Exactly.

[00:07:47] So that's another element, of course, taken from Bucky's backstory, the Winter Soldier movie itself.

[00:07:54] You know, the idea that he is being controlled by the Russians.

[00:07:57] We hear a conversation between Drekhov and Karpov.

[00:08:00] Karpov being the one that had the books that was able to raise the Winter Soldier and send him on his mission.

[00:08:07] He's ready to comply and send him off on his mission.

[00:08:09] So that's quite a big thing as well.

[00:08:11] And it's not just the mission that Alexei decides not to go on, the one that we saw in Black Widow that's changed as well.

[00:08:17] There's also the entire movie, the Black Widow itself has changed quite significantly as well because we have Drekhov here, who's the one that sends Red Guardian on this mission, sends the Winter Soldier on his alternative mission as well.

[00:08:28] So that's all of Black Widow would be affected by this as well.

[00:08:33] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:08:33] But we do see the Red Guardian take a file off Drekhov's desk.

[00:08:39] We do.

[00:08:39] So he's being sent on a mission, but he completely deviates from mission.

[00:08:45] He is not supposed to be there with the Winter Soldier.

[00:08:48] He's trying to effectively, in a sense, take co-credit with the Winter Soldier for that.

[00:08:57] Plus, he has the additional file that is taken, which is telling him of Obadiah Stane or the Rook, the great Russian spy and informer, the Rook that will take down the capitalist system.

[00:09:14] So, yeah, there's that.

[00:09:16] There's also we have Bill Foster, who's from the S.H.I.E.L.D. Science Division here, coming in with a S.H.I.E.L.D. unit to sort of try and track them down, put that iron curtain, pardon the pun, around them so that they don't escape after the incident with the Stark family.

[00:09:36] And he showed up in Ant-Man and the Wasp.

[00:09:41] Yes.

[00:09:41] Played by Lawrence Fishman.

[00:09:42] Yeah, played by Lawrence Fishman.

[00:09:44] And, of course, has almost like Pym Tech as well, at least to go big, as he is the Goliath.

[00:09:51] Yes, he worked on that project with Hank Pym in Ant-Man and the Wasp as a member of S.H.I.E.L.D.

[00:09:55] We learned that he was part of S.H.I.E.L.D. at the time.

[00:09:57] So one of the things I do love about What If?

[00:09:59] When they choose to go back into a point in the past, they kind of do look around.

[00:10:03] The writers tend to look around and go, OK, who else would be alive and around in this period of time?

[00:10:09] And let's pick them up and bring them into the story.

[00:10:11] So bringing in Bill Foster, who we saw in that flashback to a younger version of himself as an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.,

[00:10:17] great moment to kind of go, OK, well, let's bring him into the show and he'd be the kind of main antagonist against these two guys

[00:10:24] who are having their buddy cop moment or a buddy villain moment, I guess, or the buddy cop moment in the episode.

[00:10:31] So that was kind of cool seeing him.

[00:10:33] Interestingly, we got a new character in here, Ranger Morales, in here, played by America Ferreira,

[00:10:38] who's probably most well known to us as being in Superstore and was also in Ugly Betty as well.

[00:10:44] And in Barbie as well.

[00:10:46] She was in Barbie, of course.

[00:10:47] More recently.

[00:10:47] Yeah, made that awesome speech in there that almost won the Oscar, which is really good.

[00:10:52] But it was so interesting to have an actress like this who's so well known.

[00:10:56] Again, you know, she's been in so many big shows and here voicing a character that's not from the Marvel comic books,

[00:11:04] may appear in Marvel comic books in some form.

[00:11:08] But according to the writers of the show, she is a newly formed character for this show.

[00:11:13] You may have seen a character called Ranger Morales in Marvel Comics, but it's not exactly the same character.

[00:11:18] No real inspiration taken from that character, according to the writers.

[00:11:21] So it was really interesting to hear her voice in there because it's a very distinctive voice that she has.

[00:11:26] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:11:27] We do have another movie in here as well.

[00:11:31] Not a Marvel one, but the great Thelma and Louise.

[00:11:35] We have the car jump into the Grand Canyon happening here.

[00:11:40] I love this moment with both it being the Red Guardian and the Winter Soldier instead of Thelma and Louise.

[00:11:46] And so I kind of just like the fact that that's referenced here for seemingly no reason other than they can.

[00:11:58] Well, absolutely.

[00:11:58] I like the idea that they actually can jump into the Grand Canyon, get out of the car and go on with their mission because they won't die on the impact of the car crashing into the Grand Canyon.

[00:12:07] It's like, oh, yeah, why not?

[00:12:09] Exactly.

[00:12:10] But it's really very good.

[00:12:12] Like, I did love this moment just because it's so iconic.

[00:12:16] It is.

[00:12:16] And I think the thing is, is that the voice acting in this was so, so good.

[00:12:21] Like, I just love Sebastian Stan and David Harbour.

[00:12:26] Absolutely.

[00:12:27] I don't know whether they were just doing it to a wall in the recording booth or whether they were both together.

[00:12:35] I don't think so.

[00:12:35] But they felt like there was a real chemistry there, even if it was at different times when they did their recordings rather than at the same time.

[00:12:42] So, I mean, in terms of having the onscreen double act here or bromance between the two of them in Thunderbolts, I'm really looking forward to that because whatever it was, it really worked for me.

[00:12:57] And they're sort of pitter patter.

[00:12:59] I mean, if they weren't in the room, then it was absolutely the script writers did a fantastic job of just nailing the back and forth between, you know, the serious Winter Soldier and the comedic side of the Red Guardian.

[00:13:17] And how then that softens the Winter Soldier.

[00:13:21] Yeah.

[00:13:22] I just was really well captured by the writers and the two voice actors.

[00:13:29] Absolutely.

[00:13:29] Yeah, that is such a great job.

[00:13:30] Really, really good fun.

[00:13:31] So let's move on to our second of our top three points.

[00:13:34] What is the small change?

[00:13:35] We kind of mentioned it a few times.

[00:13:36] Very simple because this time the Watcher calls it out very specifically.

[00:13:40] There is a moment in 1991 where the Winter Soldier killed Tony Stark's parents and stole the Super Soldier serum from the back of their car, changing the universe forever.

[00:13:52] The potential now of having loads of other Super Soldiers out there was available for the first time since Captain America was created.

[00:13:59] The death of Tony Stark's parents inspired him to go on his career and changed his path dramatically from that point onwards.

[00:14:08] But it's also the dramatic change of relationship that would have happened with Steve Rogers here as well.

[00:14:16] So the fact that it's not Bucky that has killed his parents or his parents aren't dead.

[00:14:22] Yeah.

[00:14:23] That knowing secret that Steve Rogers somehow understood, that's not there in the way of that relationship.

[00:14:33] Not to say that it would help, but it would certainly temper, I would think.

[00:14:40] Yes.

[00:14:41] Yes.

[00:14:41] So the plan in Civil War to break apart the Avengers by using this secret that they held or that Captain America held, that isn't there.

[00:14:50] That isn't a possibility now.

[00:14:52] So Baron Zemo, who used that secret to break apart Captain America and Iron Man, wouldn't have that anymore.

[00:14:59] So that wouldn't be as fractious a relationship, I guess, from that point onwards, which is quite interesting to think of.

[00:15:07] But the change itself is Alexei stepping in.

[00:15:09] And what I like about this, we heard Alexei and Black Widow talk about the fact that he fought Captain America in the 80s,

[00:15:15] which we all laughed about going, well, Captain America was on ice then.

[00:15:18] So he's obviously lying to try and boost his reputation, basically.

[00:15:22] But here we have him actually standing up to the Winter Soldier.

[00:15:24] So he has got a big moment, something that he didn't get in his actual history.

[00:15:29] He stands up to Winter Soldier, puts his shield in the way to block Tony's parents from being killed,

[00:15:36] and tells them he is the hero of Mother Russia, and he will not have death on his hands.

[00:15:43] He wants people to know that Mother Russia won't kill innocent bystanders, that he is a hero,

[00:15:49] but they will run away scared knowing that Mother Russia is coming for them,

[00:15:53] the great Mother land is coming for them kind of thing.

[00:15:55] Absolutely.

[00:15:56] But also, he destroys the last bag of the serum.

[00:16:00] So in terms of the program in Russia, at that base that we see Zemo go to,

[00:16:07] and where you have the showdown between Captain America and Iron Man from Civil War,

[00:16:13] that isn't going to be possible, because there is no serum that has made its way from the U.S. into Russia.

[00:16:21] And also, as we've discussed already, Obadiah's stain has effectively been killed by the Winter Soldier.

[00:16:29] So the original premise of Iron Man, at least in terms of the standoff between Tony Stark and Obadiah

[00:16:41] in their respective Iron Man suits, never happened.

[00:16:46] Exactly.

[00:16:46] Exactly, yeah.

[00:16:47] So Tony would live a lot safer life and would have his parents alive.

[00:16:51] So he'd be quite a different person, I'd say.

[00:16:52] Yeah, potentially.

[00:16:53] Certainly because you see that moment where he does it through sort of projection,

[00:16:58] where he's young Tony Stark with his mom and dad, and he's very close to his mom in comparison.

[00:17:05] Here, Maria is still alive.

[00:17:07] Yeah, exactly.

[00:17:07] And, you know, maybe that positive influence of his mother would make him calm down or be a bit calmer or different in some way.

[00:17:16] Yeah.

[00:17:16] So quite a few little changes from that.

[00:17:18] And overall, by the time we get to the end of the episode, the third part of our top three from the episode,

[00:17:23] what if the universe was changed forever?

[00:17:25] So what would be different about this particular part of the multiverse?

[00:17:29] Yes.

[00:17:30] Some of the things that are in there is Alexei's a member of the Avengers alongside Iron Man, Cap Hulk, Hawkeye, Thor, and Black Widows.

[00:17:37] That's quite a big change.

[00:17:39] Well, yeah.

[00:17:39] And the high school loses Coach Bob Toledo.

[00:17:43] It does.

[00:17:44] Yes, yes.

[00:17:45] And that proposition where he becomes a U.S. hero rather than just a hero of Mother Russia.

[00:17:51] Yeah.

[00:17:51] And we have effectively...

[00:17:54] Or the Avengers become more international.

[00:17:56] That could be the other way.

[00:17:57] Well, that is true.

[00:17:57] That is the other side of it, yeah.

[00:17:58] But the Winter Soldier is back in Russia and is being reconditioned.

[00:18:03] And so the whole Winter Soldier and Hydra element is still very much on the card.

[00:18:11] It's still intact.

[00:18:12] It's still intact.

[00:18:13] But he hasn't killed Tony's parents, as we said before.

[00:18:15] That means that he's not going to have that fractious relationship and have that secret to hide from Tony when he does eventually get deconditioned by Cap.

[00:18:24] In the episode itself, I think one of the other jumping off points that they took was from that deconditioning that Cap did by being a friend of Bucky.

[00:18:34] We see that through Alexei talking to Bucky.

[00:18:36] Exactly.

[00:18:37] There is a journey here in the sense that the Winter Soldier is given orders by Dreykov to kill the Red Guardian.

[00:18:45] And he doesn't do that because he realizes that their bosses in Dreykov and Hydra are as bad as the capitalist pigs that they're also trying to sort out in terms of Obadiah Stane, a.k.a. the Rook.

[00:19:02] So, you know, there is this kind of realization that you're either at the top or you're at the bottom or you're somewhere in the middle.

[00:19:10] If you're not at the top, you're taking orders.

[00:19:14] And you may not have any say of it, whether it's through the capitalist system or whether it's through a more authoritarian structure like Hydra or the Politburo of Communist Russia, you know, in that sense in the USSR in terms of the Red Room.

[00:19:31] Yeah.

[00:19:32] So, you know, all of this is a journey that you see the Winter Soldier go on.

[00:19:37] As you say, it's that it's him becoming gradually at ease and softening or thawing out, if you will, as he kind of connects with the Red Guardian.

[00:19:49] Yeah.

[00:19:50] Like I do.

[00:19:50] I love the moment at the burger joint where he said, like where you've got the Red Guardian trying to sort of, you know, thinks that the lady behind the counter is totally brainwashed by capitalism.

[00:20:03] That capitalism is foisting stuff upon her.

[00:20:06] You need to seize the means of production.

[00:20:09] Seize the nuggets.

[00:20:10] Yes.

[00:20:11] You know, and trying to liberate this, the server and it's like the Winter Soldier comes in is like you went so over the top.

[00:20:22] My safety protocols and for sort of blending in as he comes in with smooth talk with the burger server who's going to give him some free fries because of his charming talk.

[00:20:35] So I kind of really like that.

[00:20:38] Yeah.

[00:20:38] I like the fact you have the Red Guardian saying, you know, relax your eyes.

[00:20:43] Your eyes are so angry.

[00:20:44] Like the Winter Fox and he calls him the Winter Fox.

[00:20:47] Yes.

[00:20:48] Because he's also known as the White Wolf.

[00:20:49] So I was kind of taking it a bit like that.

[00:20:52] Yeah.

[00:20:52] Yeah.

[00:20:52] A new name from the Red Guardian.

[00:20:54] So, yeah, I just love that kind of the bromance back and forth.

[00:20:59] And I like the journey that they literally and metaphorically go on here.

[00:21:04] It's really good.

[00:21:05] So, yes, he is back.

[00:21:07] He is being reconditioned.

[00:21:08] But he may ultimately be changed forever even when pulled out of his stasis.

[00:21:16] I think so.

[00:21:17] Yeah, I think so as well.

[00:21:18] Either that or at least the conditioning has initially been broken by this friendship with Alexei.

[00:21:25] So the next time he gets freed, he may be easier to break down.

[00:21:29] It may be easier to break down for Cap America.

[00:21:31] So when he meets him in the future as well.

[00:21:33] So the one of the moment that I really did like as well.

[00:21:36] And we kind of mentioned it there.

[00:21:37] But the moment when Alexei kind of finds out that capitalism has seeped all the way into everything that he holds dear.

[00:21:43] I think is a great moment for the breaking of the Red Guardian as well.

[00:21:46] Yeah.

[00:21:46] He is so for the communist ways and so for Mother Russia in every moment up until that point.

[00:21:55] And then when he realizes actually the Red Room are also working for capitalists as well.

[00:22:00] Which was another realization in Black Widow as well.

[00:22:02] When he realizes that it's also a capitalist run organization.

[00:22:07] It's not about the true beliefs that he holds dear.

[00:22:11] It seems to pull the rug out from under him completely as well.

[00:22:15] So which is why he then sat in the US.

[00:22:16] He realizes that they're working with the capitalist pig.

[00:22:20] I love how Comrade Rook becomes a capitalist pig very quickly.

[00:22:24] It becomes a huge disappointment for the Red Guardian when he realizes he was simply tracing the information to Russia.

[00:22:33] So that he could get the Starks out of the way and effectively take over Stark Industries.

[00:22:40] Exactly.

[00:22:41] As we see him wanting to do in or at least take over the board in the first Iron Man movie with Obadiah Stane.

[00:22:50] So yeah.

[00:22:51] Yeah.

[00:22:51] I thought this was really, really good.

[00:22:53] Yeah.

[00:22:54] Yeah.

[00:22:54] So overall then I guess we ran through that pretty quickly as an episode.

[00:22:58] It was a fun episode.

[00:22:59] A lot of fun banter back and forth between these two actors.

[00:23:03] Really enjoyed it.

[00:23:04] But overall, John, do you defend season three, episode three?

[00:23:08] Absolutely.

[00:23:08] I really do defend this episode.

[00:23:10] Give it four and a half XZ nines out of five.

[00:23:14] Very good.

[00:23:15] Yeah.

[00:23:16] I just think that this is totally set by the performance of Bucky Barnes and Alexei Shostakov,

[00:23:26] a.k.a. Winter Soldier and the Red Guardian.

[00:23:29] I just loved their back and forth.

[00:23:31] I loved the chase across America by Bill Foster and the National Parks cop Ranger Morales.

[00:23:42] I thought that was really, really good.

[00:23:45] I loved the little nod to Thelma and Louise here.

[00:23:48] The Buddy Friends movie effectively.

[00:23:50] And, yeah, I just really, really enjoyed it.

[00:23:54] I just thought the writing was spot on.

[00:23:56] I thought the style, the tone of it was spot on.

[00:24:00] The voice acting was spot on.

[00:24:03] And, you know, nothing overly major here.

[00:24:07] But, you know, the journey that Winter Soldier goes on, you see that happening.

[00:24:13] You know, there's significant changes that you can connect back to the MCU with the prevention

[00:24:18] of the death of Howard and Maria Stark.

[00:24:20] But I think at its heart is this great Buddy movie between the Red Guardian and the Winter

[00:24:27] Soldier.

[00:24:27] Yeah.

[00:24:28] And I thought it was really, really good.

[00:24:29] So I give this four and a half XZ nines out of five.

[00:24:34] I found out what the XZ nine references is about.

[00:24:37] Go on.

[00:24:37] So Bucky has the XZ 10.

[00:24:39] Yeah.

[00:24:40] And Alexi says he only had the eight.

[00:24:42] Yeah.

[00:24:43] Where's the nine?

[00:24:43] Did they miss the nine?

[00:24:44] Apparently, when Apple did their iPhones, there was an iPhone 8 and then an iPhone X.

[00:24:48] They didn't have the iPhone 9 because they wanted to jump to the 10.

[00:24:50] So that's a little joke on iPhone.

[00:24:52] Very good.

[00:24:53] Very good.

[00:24:54] Derek, do you defend this episode of What If?

[00:24:58] What If the Red Guardian stopped the Winter Soldier?

[00:25:01] I really do.

[00:25:02] I thought this was a great fun episode.

[00:25:03] It was just a road movie for 25 minutes and ran through really quickly.

[00:25:09] It was really good fun.

[00:25:11] Liked the changes to the universe.

[00:25:12] Loved seeing Obadiah Stane for a minute.

[00:25:14] I was looking at him going, I don't know who that character is.

[00:25:17] Shaved head, beard, works for the Russians.

[00:25:21] Who's that character?

[00:25:22] And then eventually you kind of work it out who it is as it goes on.

[00:25:25] And eventually you learn who it is.

[00:25:27] Loved that idea.

[00:25:27] You know, taking in other things that were going on in the world around them with the things that were happening in Black Widow,

[00:25:35] the things that happened in Civil War, Anna and the Wasp, putting all those together into a big pot

[00:25:39] and hanging them on this central performance from David Harbour and Sebastian Stan.

[00:25:44] I think it's great.

[00:25:45] Hopefully, as a preview for Thunderbolt's asterisk that comes out later in 2025,

[00:25:52] I'm hoping that this is the kind of banter and fun that all the cast that are there,

[00:25:55] that's why they put that particular cast of people together.

[00:25:58] Hopefully this is what an indication of what we might see in that movie coming up.

[00:26:03] I just have a horrible feeling that we're going to have Bucky on one side and Alexia on the other.

[00:26:07] They won't have any moments in that movie together,

[00:26:09] which would be really unfortunate because they worked really well on screen here.

[00:26:12] We can only hope, huh?

[00:26:13] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:26:15] Good stuff.

[00:26:16] Let us move on to our multiversal messages, a.k.a. feedback.

[00:26:22] Yes, yes.

[00:26:23] First up, we got an email in from Coffee Vodka, of course, who said in his thoughts on this episode,

[00:26:27] he said,

[00:26:27] Greetings, fellow fugitive defenders.

[00:26:29] Whatever minor imperfections this may have had,

[00:26:32] they were easily covered by the over-the-top charm of David Harbour's performance.

[00:26:36] No one's ever said, I love it when a plan falls apart.

[00:26:38] But in this case, an exception can be made with the Red Guardian's fly in the ointment.

[00:26:42] And hilarious good intentions.

[00:26:44] A fairly solid frenemy-to-friend story with some nice surprising appearances.

[00:26:48] It was especially good to hear Lawrence Fishburne again and see his Goliath in action.

[00:26:53] As ever, all the acting and technical stuff was top-notch.

[00:26:56] Though, we're now three out of three on the whole journey, friends, and whatnot thing.

[00:27:02] Can't believe it.

[00:27:03] But I'm really looking forward to episode five for some world-ending pathos,

[00:27:07] a la what if Doctor Strange lost his heart instead of his hands.

[00:27:11] Four fastball specials, stained Publix pools, and tanked Tetris tries out of five.

[00:27:18] Peace and take care.

[00:27:19] Coffee Vodka.

[00:27:20] Thanks, Coffee Vodka.

[00:27:21] Oh, your fastball special.

[00:27:22] Yeah, I didn't mention that.

[00:27:23] The fastball special used to be a move that Wolverine and Hulk did together.

[00:27:27] In this case, it was the move that Red Guardian did, holding the shield and throwing Bucky up in the air to hit Goliath in the face.

[00:27:35] So that's like the fastball special.

[00:27:38] Very cool little touch there, Coffee Vodka.

[00:27:40] Excellent stuff.

[00:27:41] I completely agree with you, Coffee Vodka, around the charm of David Harbour's Red Guardian here.

[00:27:48] And I think, you know, the foil being Bucky Barnes and Sebastian Stan's Winter Soldier here.

[00:27:55] Yeah.

[00:27:56] Really good to see Laurence Fishburne back.

[00:27:59] I think he's only been in Ant-Man and the Wasp.

[00:28:02] So, yeah, it's good that he's got another routing.

[00:28:05] Absolutely.

[00:28:06] And I do wonder, given the name that is behind Ranger Morales,

[00:28:09] maybe there'll be some cameo for Ranger Morales in the future.

[00:28:14] Is there connection to another character?

[00:28:16] I don't know.

[00:28:17] That's the thing.

[00:28:17] Because of the name, you just think, oh, there might be.

[00:28:20] Well, I'll leave it to our next piece of feedback to speculate on that, John.

[00:28:24] Okay, then.

[00:28:25] Yes.

[00:28:26] Well, thank you very much, Coffee Vodka, for the feedback.

[00:28:28] And on to our Facebook feedback.

[00:28:30] First up, Heather Wallace, who says,

[00:28:33] They are really going hard with the friends we made along the way sentiment.

[00:28:37] Lead actors were all so good in this.

[00:28:40] I like that what if gives Sebastian Stan more scope for bookie versions.

[00:28:45] Was Ranger Morales the future mum of one Miles Morales?

[00:28:50] There you go.

[00:28:50] The end tag was fun with Alexei pushing Cap out of the way.

[00:28:54] But would the Avengers have formed in that universe?

[00:28:57] Tony would have had such a different life experience and may not have become Iron Man.

[00:29:03] His dad lived.

[00:29:04] He didn't inherit the company young.

[00:29:07] Obadiah died, so wasn't plotting to get rid of him.

[00:29:10] Would Natasha have diverged from the Red Room if she hadn't had the early experience of being in America as Alexei's fake child?

[00:29:17] Maybe her story would have continued on course with whoever was sent to take up the undercover data controller role Alexei turned down.

[00:29:27] That's senior data controller as Dreykov tries to sort of pump it up for the Red Guardian.

[00:29:37] Thanks so much for that, Heather.

[00:29:39] And that's a great spot that maybe, just maybe, Ranger Morales could be a live-action Miles Morales' mother.

[00:29:51] Never know.

[00:29:51] That'd be really cool.

[00:29:52] Yeah.

[00:29:53] Interesting stuff.

[00:29:55] Let's see how that one sort of pans out.

[00:29:58] And certainly, yeah, given the size of the actress involved there, you just wonder, is it sort of teasing something for the future?

[00:30:05] But I think as well, like, you're right here.

[00:30:08] There's a lot of changes that happen here.

[00:30:12] And they're big and maybe less big, you know?

[00:30:18] And I think they've really got a sense of it could really change the universe through subtle changes.

[00:30:28] Yeah, but I do kind of like the idea that the Avengers still formed in this universe, even without those things that could have impacted him, like Iron Man and his parents living, you know?

[00:30:39] Tony was fronting the company almost.

[00:30:43] There was still a board that he was reporting to.

[00:30:45] And he was going out and selling the weapons around the world and eventually ended off in that cave where he built the first Iron Man suit.

[00:30:50] And that all could still have happened, you know, just because his parents are dead doesn't necessarily mean that he may not have been the one that donned the Iron Man suit.

[00:30:59] And yeah, Natasha also has joined the Avengers, so she's obviously turned her back on the Red Room as well.

[00:31:03] But, you know, it's not necessary that it is only because of Alexei.

[00:31:07] So obviously somebody else provided that inspiration for her or helped her along the way.

[00:31:11] Alexei wasn't great to her in Black Widow.

[00:31:14] When we saw their relationship, it wasn't a great relationship.

[00:31:17] So by the time Natasha eventually returns to meet up with Alexei, they certainly don't have the best of relationships.

[00:31:24] So yeah, it's really interesting, I guess.

[00:31:27] It's almost like Destiny led these particular Avengers to come together.

[00:31:31] And now Alexei is one of them.

[00:31:33] Yeah, exactly.

[00:31:34] Which is interesting.

[00:31:35] Yeah, yeah.

[00:31:36] Great stuff.

[00:31:36] Thanks so much for that, Heather.

[00:31:37] Also on Facebook, we got a message in from Greg Schwamm, who says,

[00:31:41] This is my favorite of season three so far.

[00:31:43] Buddy comedy tropes are popular for a reason, because they're awesome.

[00:31:47] Really impressed with David Harbour's comedy.

[00:31:49] I know he's been good at it before, but the writing and the timing in this were phenomenal, in my opinion.

[00:31:54] And I really enjoyed seeing Red Guardian in his prime.

[00:31:57] It did kind of throw me when he showed up looking basically the same in 2012 in the Avengers caveat at the end,

[00:32:02] but I thought it was a good laugh.

[00:32:04] Sebastian Stan continues to kill it.

[00:32:06] I'm tending to enjoy this holiday season of What Ifs.

[00:32:08] It's too bad this is the last season of the show.

[00:32:10] So it's a nice holiday gift to get all of these episodes back to back.

[00:32:14] It is, isn't it?

[00:32:15] Yeah.

[00:32:15] Thanks, Greg, for that, for your feedback.

[00:32:17] It is nice to get them back to back.

[00:32:18] Again, I wouldn't have minded if it was a little bit of a break over Christmas.

[00:32:22] If it was maybe one every two days rather than one every single day.

[00:32:25] But that's purely because of podcasting.

[00:32:27] Absolutely.

[00:32:27] I think it's quite a nice little treat to have it on a daily basis over Christmas, as Greg says.

[00:32:35] But yeah, for a podcaster, it's a disaster.

[00:32:38] Certainly given it's Christmas season, so all the things take priority.

[00:32:43] And also because we're on actual holidays at the moment, the episodes release at 8 a.m.

[00:32:48] And I do feel the need to get up at 7.30 every morning to watch it.

[00:32:51] And I kind of want to sleep in once or twice.

[00:32:54] But totally with you, Greg, around how good this episode was.

[00:33:00] So yeah, thanks for the feedback.

[00:33:03] Also, Dr. Bob Phillips says,

[00:33:25] Thanks so much, Bob, for the feedback.

[00:33:27] Yep, really good little comic romp here.

[00:33:30] And well, yeah, the culmination episode.

[00:33:34] What is going to happen here?

[00:33:36] How is this all going to tie together?

[00:33:37] How will it tie together?

[00:33:40] Certainly given the next episode in episode four.

[00:33:46] Yeah, we've got Harry the Duck to come, don't we?

[00:33:48] We certainly do.

[00:33:50] Oh, well.

[00:33:51] Thanks, Dr. Bob.

[00:33:52] Yeah, thanks, Dr. Bob.

[00:33:53] Victor Van Doen says,

[00:33:54] This episode reminded me of planes, trains, and automobiles.

[00:33:57] Nice.

[00:33:58] Excellent.

[00:33:59] I guess that's all the traveling all across the country trying to get to Las Vegas

[00:34:02] with different forms of transport.

[00:34:04] And, of course, the buddy comedy element between these two characters.

[00:34:09] Great stuff.

[00:34:09] Thanks, Victor.

[00:34:10] Thanks, Victor.

[00:34:11] And finally, Paul Tenshi Lee says,

[00:34:13] I wonder if Harbour and Stan had the script before they saw the Thunderbolts script.

[00:34:17] It feels of a peace with the performances in the trailers,

[00:34:20] with Tony gone and Peter Parker erased from everyone's memory in 616,

[00:34:24] from missing a lead who's explicitly comedic.

[00:34:26] Ironically, the other character who I think has humor,

[00:34:28] but of the very dry variety, is Yelena.

[00:34:32] Absolutely.

[00:34:33] Yeah, so you're going to have all three of those characters,

[00:34:35] Yelena, Belova, The Red Guardian, and Winter Soldier,

[00:34:38] all coming up in Thunderbolts.

[00:34:39] Oh, it's going to be wonderful.

[00:34:41] Yeah.

[00:34:42] With all that dry humor in the house, absolutely.

[00:34:45] Absolutely.

[00:34:46] And the name of it is Thunderbolts Asterix,

[00:34:48] so maybe it's Thunderbolts versus the Winter Soldier, maybe,

[00:34:51] or something like that.

[00:34:52] Well, it could be.

[00:34:53] Certainly given the little glimpse at the trailer.

[00:34:56] It's certainly after them.

[00:34:57] He is.

[00:34:58] He is.

[00:34:58] So we'll see.

[00:34:59] Thanks so much, Paul, for the feedback.

[00:35:02] Yeah, I'm hoping for all that dry ice humor, for sure.

[00:35:07] Absolutely.

[00:35:08] Thanks, everybody, so much for your feedback,

[00:35:09] and thanks for listening along with us for episode three of season three of What If.

[00:35:15] We will be back, of course, with the next episode.

[00:35:18] Episode four, What If Howard the Duck Got Hitched?

[00:35:22] Are we looking forward to this one?

[00:35:24] I don't know.

[00:35:25] I just don't know.

[00:35:26] Yeah, I just don't know.

[00:35:27] We'll have to check it out,

[00:35:29] and we'll be back with our thoughts on the next episode.

[00:35:31] Thanks so much.

[00:35:31] We will talk to you again next time.

[00:35:33] Yeah, thanks so much, fellow defenders, for joining us.

[00:35:36] But until the next time, keep watching, keep listening,

[00:35:39] and keep defending.

[00:35:40] Bye.

[00:35:41] Bye.