#welcome to the mcu denzel

[tllgrrl]

Take my money now, please.

Right Now.

[crowdvscritic]

round up // MARCH + APRIL 21

March and April were a whirlwind of vaccines and awards shows! A full year after we starting staying at home, the end of this weird chapter in recent history seems like it might finally be coming to a close, and this pop culture awards season—typically a time full of fun and glamour—captured our moment weirdly well. (Emphasis on the weird.) This month’s recommendations is filled with more Critic Picks than usual, so without further delay, let’s dive right in...

March + April Crowd-Pleasers

Double Feature — 2018 Action Thrillers: Bad Times at the El Royale + Den of Thieves

In Bad Times at the El Royale (Crowd: 9/10, // Critic: 8/10), Jeff Bridges, Cynthia Erivo, Jon Hamm, Chris Hemsworth, and Dakota Johnson are staying at a motel on the California-Nevada state line full of money, murder, and mystery. In Den of Thieves (Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 6.5/10), Gerard Butler takes on some of the best bank robbers in the world. Whether you like your action with a dose of mystery or the thrills of plot twists, these will fit the bill.

Double Feature — ‘80s Comedies: Caddyshack (1980) + Splash (1984)

In the mood for pure silliness? Take your pick between a mermaid and a gopher! Five years before The Little Mermaid, Tom Hanks fell for Daryl Hannah’s blonde hair and scaly tail, and John Candy was his goofy brother in Splash (Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 7/10). And four years before Ghostbusters, Bill Murray was the goof on a golf course full of funny people like Chevy Chase, Rodney Dangerfield, and Ted Knight in Caddyshack (Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 6.5/10).

Double Feature — 1980s Coming-of-Age Films Starring Corey Feldman, Kiefer Sutherland, and Challenging Brother Relationships That Influenced Stranger Things: Stand by Me (1986) + The Lost Boys (1987)

Believe it or not, I had no idea these two ‘80s classics had so much in common when I chose to watch them back-to-back. In Rob Reiner’s adaptation of Stephen King’s Stand by Me (Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 9/10), four kids (Feldman, Jerry O’Connell, River Phoenix, and Wil Wheaton) are following train tracks to find a missing body. In The Lost Boys (Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 7/10), Corey Haim and Jason Patric move to a small California town and discover it’s full of ‘80s movie star cameos and…vampires? One is a thoughtful coming-of-age story and one is just bonkers, but both are a great time.

Spaceman by Nick Jonas (2021)

My love for the Jonas Brothers is well-documented, so instead of going down the rabbit hole I started digging at 15, I’ll talk about how Nick Jonas’s latest solo album will likely appeal to a wider audience than just the fans of the brothers’ bombastic pop records. It’s full of catchy tunes you’ll play on repeat and an R&B-influenced album experience about the loneliness we’ve experienced in the last year and how we try to make long-term relationships work.

Ted Lasso (2020- )

I love stories about nice people crushing cruelty and cynicism with relentless kindness, and Ted Lasso (Jason Sudeikis) is the warmest, most dedicated leader this side of Leslie Knope. Be sure to catch up on these witty and sweet 10 episodes before season 2 drops later this summer.

Double Feature — Tony Scott Action Flicks: Enemy of the State (1998) + The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009)

Tony Scott’s movies have got explosions and excitement in spades. I love a good man-on-the-run movie, and in Enemy of the State (Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 8/10), Will Smith is running through the streets of D.C. after getting evidence of a politician’s (Jon Voight) part in a murder. I also love a tense story set in a confined space, which is what Denzel Washington is dealing with in The Taking of Pelham 123 (Crowd: 9.5/10 // Critic: 7/10) after a hammy John Travolta takes a New York subway train hostage.

Double Feature — Baseball Movies: The Natural (1984) + Trouble With the Curve (2012)

Sue me—I love baseball movies. Robert Redford plays a fictional all-time great in the early days of the MLB in The Natural (Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 9/10), and Clint Eastwood plays a fictional all-time great scout in his late career in Trouble With the Curve (Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 7.5/10). If you love baseball or actors like Amy Adams, Glenn Close, Robert Duvall, and Justin Timberlake, these movies are just right here waiting for you.

Nate Bargatze: The Greatest Average American (2021)

Sue me—I enjoy Netflix standup comedy specials that are safe enough to watch with your whole family. That’s exactly the crowd I laughed with over Easter weekend, and while the trailer captures Bargatze’s relaxed vibe, it doesn’t capture how funny he really is.

The Mighty Ducks (1992)

I thought somewhere in my childhood I’d seen at least one of The Mighty Ducks movies, but after watching all three, I think my memories must’ve come from previews on the VHS tapes for other Disney movies I watched over and over again. The original still holds up as an grown-ups, which is why even my parents got sucked in to this family movie while just passing through the living room. Bonus for ‘80s movies lovers: Emilio Estevez is basically continuing Andrew Clark’s story from The Breakfast Club as an adult. Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 6.5/10

Double Feature — New, Dumb Action on Streaming: Godzilla vs. Kong + Thunder Force (2021)

If you want something intelligent, go ahead and skip to the next recommendation, but if you’re looking for something stupid fun, these are ready for you on HBO Max and Netflix. Thunder Force (Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 6/10) follows Melissa McCarthy and Octavia Spencer as they train to become superheroes who take on superhuman sociopaths wreaking havoc on Chicago, and alongside Jason Bateman, they do it with a lot of laughs. Godzilla vs. Kong (Crowd: 9.5/10 // Critic: 5/10) is, um, exactly what it sounds like, so I’ll skip a plot summary and just say it’s exactly what you want from this kind of movie. #TeamKong

3:10 to Yuma (2007)

All you need to know is Russell Crowe is an outlaw, and Christian Bale is the guy who’s got to get him on the train to prison. I also watched the 1957 version, which is also a solid watch if you love classic Westerns. Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 8/10

Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021)

Marvel’s newest series isn’t nearly as inventive as WandaVision, and it may not land every beat, but it’s worth a watch for the fun new gadgets, Sebastian Stan’s dry joke delivery, and its exploration into themes of what makes a hero and what governments owe their citizens. It’s a pretty satisfying entry in the MCU canon, but I’d also recommend re-watching Captain America: Winter Soldier and Civil War—the canon is getting expansive, and it’s getting trickier every year to keep up with all the backstory.

March + April Critic Picks

Best of 2020 Picks

As per usual, the months leading up to the Oscars becomes a binge period for potential Oscar nominees. In March and April, I watched many of the films that made my Top 20 of 2020, including Boys State, The Father, Judas and the Black Messiah, Let Them All Talk, Minari, Nomadland, On the Rocks, One Night in Miami…, Promising Young Woman, Soul, and Sound of Metal. You can read how I ranked them on my list for ZekeFilm, plus reviews of The Father, Minari, Promising Young Woman, and Soul.

Bonus: If you loved On the Rocks, don’t miss this feature and beautiful photography starring Sofia Coppola, Kirsten Dunst, Elle Fanning, and Rashida Jones for W Magazine. 

Stranger Than Fiction (2006)

What would you do if you started hearing a voice who narrated your every thought and move? If you’re Will Ferrell, you’ll seek out a literary professor (Dustin Hoffman), fall in love (with Maggie Gyllenhaal), and track down the voice (Emma Thompson) who’s making ominous predictions about your future. Stranger Than Fiction is funny thought-provoking, and an unusual but welcome role for Ferrell. Crowd: 9.5/10 // Critic: 9/10

All the Royal Family News

Speaking of stranger than fiction, it’s been a busy few months for the Royal Family. We’ve celebrated 95th birthday of Queen Elizabeth, the 3rd birthday of Prince Louis, and the 10th anniversary of Will and Kate’s marriage. We also lost Prince Philip, and we watched the drama of Harry and Meaghan’s interview with Oprah. No matter what happens to their Crown, I don’t think we’ll ever get over our fascination with the Windsor family. A few pieces worth reading from the last few months:

“In Meghan and Harry’s Interview, Two TV Worlds Collided,” Vulture.com

“The Queen’s Man: Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, Dies,” TIME.com

“Obituary: HRH The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh,” BBC.com

Goodfellas (1990)

One of my film opinions that makes me feel like a phony is that Martin Scorsese just isn’t my cup of tea. He’s brilliant, but his films tend to be long and dark, two qualities that are never my first choice…and somehow Goodfellas still worked for me? Maybe it was the TV edit graciously toning down the violence or maybe it was that Ray Liotta and Joe Pesci were firing on all cylinders, but for some reason this ‘90s classic didn’t suck the joy out of my evening like Scorsese often does. (Bonus: For a Martin Scorsese/Robert De Niro I don’t really recommend, head to the last section of this Round Up.)

Fearless (Taylor’s Version) (2021)

Her voice has only matured, so Taylor Swift revisiting her old albums is like upgrading a blast to the past. Plus, the six new tracks make me feel like 15 crushing on that boy in Spanish class again, and her Grammys performance (just before her third Album of the Year win) was magical and folklore-tastic.

Double Feature — ‘60s Action Classics: The Guns of Navarone (1961) + Planet of the Apes (1968)

The Guns of Navarone (Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 8.5/10) follows Gregory Peck and David Niven as they destroy Nazi weapons in the Mediterranean. Planet of the Apes (Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 8.5/10) follows Charlton Heston as he attempts to escape from, well, a planet full of apes. The pacing of ‘60s films doesn’t always hold up, but that’s not the case with this pair. Both are still full of suspense, and you can’t go wrong hanging with casts like these.

Let Him Go (2020)

Kevin Costner and Diane Lane play a farming couple who unexpectedly help raise a boy who lost his biological father—sound familiar? But instead of a superhero origin story, they’re part of a thrilling Western with performances nuanced (Costner and Lane) and showy (Lesley Manville). If I’d watched this before completing my Best of 2020 piece, it likely would’ve been on my list. Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 8.5/10

The Oscars

I’m a ride-or-die fan of the Academy Awards, but I’ll admit even I found this year’s ceremony odd. Instead of focusing on what wasn’t so hot, I’ll recommend a few moments you don’t want to miss:

Emerald Fennell giving a shout-out to Saved by the Bell

Daniel Kaluuya acknowledging his parents’ sex life during his acceptance speech (??)

Yuh-Jung Yoon flirting with Brad Pitt and acknowledging she’s just “luckier” than her fellow nominees

Glenn Close dancing to…”Da Butt”?

You can also read about the historic wins and nominations from this year’s Oscar class and why the Golden Globes were an even stranger production weeks earlier.

Trailer-palooza!

Movies are on their way back, y’all! I’m counting down the days until I can get back to a theatre, and even if some of these movies are duds, I’m planning to see all of them on a big screen if possible:

Those Who Wish Me Dead (May 14)

Cruella (May 28)

In the Heights (June 11)

Space Jam 2 (July 16)

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (September 3)

West Side Story (December 10)

Also in March + April…

To add to the Oscars love, you can listen to a conversation about what we learn about family, community, and society in some of the year’s biggest nominees on the Uncommon Voices podcast. I join regular hosts Michael and Kenneth in this episode, and I recommend all of their thoughtful discussions on their “What’s Streaming” episodes.

I’ve previously recommended the Do You Like Apples weekly newsletter, so I’m proud to share I contributed twice in March! I wrote about Love and Basketball, directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood, and one of my all-time favorite Julia Roberts rom-coms, Notting Hill. (I also tied to win their Oscars pool, but I suppose that’s less exciting for you than me.)

It was a busy couple of months on SO IT’S A SHOW! New logo, new email list, new Instagram, and a host of new episodes about a flop of a Madonna flick, a Swedish children’s TV show, an urban legend turned into a horror movie, one of the best films about journalism ever, and a Martin Scorsese movie about a real boxer.

Most of what I wrote for ZekeFilm in March and April was mentioned in Best of 2020 recommendations…except for The Nest, a film that couldn’t figure out what genre it wanted to be.

Photo credits: Nick Jonas, Royal Family. All others IMDb.com.

[placetobenation]

Welcome to PTBN Pop! Flick Pics! Each month, Russell makes his picks for the best (and not best) way to spend your hard-earned dollar at the movies. Be it action, superhero, sci-fi, comedy, drama, horror, romance, etc., he’ll direct you to what’s likely to be the best time at your local theater.

July 2018 is looking a little sparse, isn’t it? This used to be THE month for the biggest summer flicks. Now they all seem to drop in April-June and November-December. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t something worth seeing.

  July 6

Ant-Man & The Wasp – Marvel Studios already pulled off a multi-billion dollar haul this year with Black Panther and Avengers: Infinity War, so any profit this one turns is going to be pure gravy. That said, this one looks genuinely better than the first. Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly are back in the title roles from the previous film, with Lilly donning her own shrinking suit complete with wings and blasters. Michael Douglas is back as Hank Pym along with new cast members Lawrence Fishburne as Dr. Bill Foster and Michelle Pfeiffer as Janet van Dyne (aka, the original Wasp). The villain Ghost is already more compelling in the two-minute trailers than Yellow Jacket was over the course of two hours in the first film, so that’s a big step up. An all-star cast and some crazy shrinking and expanding action set pieces make this one another must-see MCU flick.

  July 13

Skyscraper – I know, I know… it’s a blatant Die Hard rip-off… but, that building is WAY bigger! All kidding aside, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is proving to be Hollywood’s most bankable star at the moment. Seriously, the only flop he’s had was Baywatch, but he shrugged that off pretty fast and landed another hit in Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. This one looks to be playing it straight, going for tense thrills and big action. The plot is definitely as thin as the air at the top of that tower, but if you’re looking to turn your brain off for a couple of hours and watch a muscle-bound behemoth kick ass, here you go. Something about him also being a veteran who lost his leg in a mission gone wrong and his family being trapped in this tower when terrorist take it over…

  Eighth Grade – Independent Coming-of-Age movies seem to be a dime a dozen these days, but this one looks to tackle the subject of childhood anxiety in a way most others tend to gloss over. Writer/director Bo Burnham has received massive amounts of praise for this film about a young girl’s last week of eighth grade and her struggle with identity. The commentary on the adults in these kids’ lives trying so hard to relate to them and making the problems worse will hopefully be handled better than simply saying “parents just don’t understand.” But it’s clear from the trailers that these adults are as desperate to hold onto youth as the kids are to be seen and heard. The social anxieties of moving from middle school to high school are on full display and this looks to have a new crop of incredibly talented child actors. A welcomed trend considering how bad things got in the late 90s and early 00s.

  July 20

The Equalizer 2 – Denzel Washington is back for another round of revenge-flick goodness. And this time… it’s personal! Alright, when is it not? Plot-wise, who cares all that much? We came here to see one of the best crack skulls and shoot a lot of bad guys. If this one’s trailers are any indication, there’s plenty of that to go around. Fast-paced, well-choreographed action scenes and Denzel’s trademarked silent glare and 1,000-megawatt smile are sure to keep you glued to the screen. That he’s back with his Training Day director Antoine Fuqua doesn’t hurt, either. Obviously, this one isn’t going for that Oscar, but that doesn’t mean you won’t still have a good time watching Denzel kick ass.

  July 27

Pick of the Month

Mission: Impossible Fallout – Tom Cruise might not be the bankable star he once was, but the Mission: Impossible franchise has been on a real tear since JJ Abrams’ production company Bad Robot took the reins for M:I III. Since then we’ve gotten the game-changing Ghost Protocol and the heart-pounding Rouge Nation. As plots go, it’s about what you’d expect with Ethan Hunt and his team once again being hunted by his own government while chasing down a shadow player who’s actually responsible for the bad things happening. This time around, though, Cruise is joined by new-comers Henry Cavill (with full, non-CGI face and mustache) and the incomparable Angela Bassett. Big action set pieces and lots of practical effects are what set this franchise apart from many of its contemporaries. Oh, and Cruise still doing mind-boggling and insane stunt work, especially for a guy in his mid-50s! This cast has been electric together for years and they’ve found a formula for these movies that just works. Well worth seeing on the biggest screen possible.

  Skip of the Month

Teen Titans GO! To The Movies – Look, I get it. It’s aimed at kids who love that show. And likely, your kids (if you have them) are going to beg you to go. If the trailers are any indication, it may lean into making fun of the current crop of superhero films. That’s all well and good. But not worth sitting through the rest of the painfully dumb drivel sure to populate the rest of the movie. Wait for the YouTube clips or its inevitable inclusion on the DC Universe streaming app. Better yet, stay home with the kid and que up some great classic DC cartoons such as Batman: The Animated series (Amazon Prime), Superman: The Animated Series (Amazon Prime) or any number of the excellent DC Animated films now available on Hulu.

[popculty]

Represent Spoiler Special: Wakanda Forever!

Weekly-ish transcriptions of Slate’s Represent podcast for the deaf and hard of hearing. This is a labor of love. Please share!

First up, we’ve got a spoiler-filled, all-black roundtable discussion of Black Panther. Enjoy!

[The following podcast contains explicit language.]

Aisha Harris: Hello, and welcome to another Slate Spoiler Special. I’m Aisha Harris, Slate culture writer and host of Represent, and this week we’re spoiling Black Panther.

T’Challa: Shuri!

Shuri: Brother!

T’Challa: Turn on the train on the bottom track.

Shuri: The stabilizers will deactivate your suit! You won’t have protection!

T’Challa: Neither will he.

Shuri: Okay!

[gadget beeps]

AH: Here to talk with me about the film are Slate’s chief political correspondent, Jamelle Bouie – Hello, Jamelle.

Jamelle Bouie: Hi, Aisha.

AH: And Represent producer – my producer – Veralyn Williams. Hello, Veralyn.

Veralyn Williams: Hey, girl, hey! [both laugh]

AH: Okay. So, this is probably the most anticipated cultural event for black people of the year. [Veralyn laughs] It’s a big frickin’ deal. And before we even get into spoiling it, I would love to just hear ya’lls’ initial thoughts. Now, I know that Jamelle and Veralyn, you saw it more recently than I did. It’s been more than a week since I’ve seen it, so I’m still basking in the glow of everything, but it’s not as fresh in my mind as it is for you, so Veralyn, why don’t we start with you.

VW: I went in very excited, but I was also trying to remind myself not to go in with too high of expectations. I was a little nervous about being disappointed. And I can honestly say that, if possible, it exceeded my expectations. And I’m sitting here like, “We’re cool critics, we shouldn’t be excited about things.” But this movie was… It was so beautiful. The storyline stayed with me the whole time. I’m not a huge superhero fan because I sometimes feel like there’s a lot of kicking and screaming and action stuff and not enough dialogue, but it didn’t disappoint on that level. And you know, I’m Sierra Leonian-American, and it tackled deep issues that I wasn’t expecting from a superhero film.

AH: Mm-hmm. What about you, Jamelle?

JB: I was also very enthusiastic about it. Upon leaving the theater, I’ve been thinking a lot about it because I’ve been writing about it for Slate, but also just my own kind of trying to absorb what I witnessed. And the two things that stand out the most to me about the movie are that I don’t think I’ve seen a world this fully-realized on screen, at least not in a superhero movie, ever. I think I’ve seen the vast majority of films in this genre of superhero movies, and there’s just nothing like Wakanda. And the visual style and the fact that it lives and breathes like every other character in the movie – That to me is just really striking. The second thing is just how political this movie is. I was not expecting that whatsoever. Most superhero movies deal either not in ideas at all, or they deal with ideas in this very sort of high-conceptual way, like the Nolan Batman movies. But I feel like Black Panther is actually dealing with concrete political ideas in a provocative way. And I’ll be very interested to see how mainstream movie-going audiences react to them.

AH: Yeah. The politics are something we can definitely get into to. I was also struck by that, and I walked away from it thinking, “There are gonna be some white people who are not gonna be happy with this movie.” [laughs]

VW: Were there any white women, besides the one that dies right at the top? In the whole film? I don’t think so.

AH: [laughs] Uhhh, no…And there were only really two prominent white guys involved--

VW: The villain and the token, which usually is reserved for the people of color.

AH: Right! Right. So, this was very much unlike other superhero movies, I think. Jamelle, you are definitely, I think out of all of us, the one who’s most aware of these things, but it does seem like this was definitely a case where they went into a completely different world. I think maybe the Thor movies are also similar to that, where they’re like in a completely different world, and it’s not all necessarily taking place here in America. And there’s no real crossover with the other Marvel movies, it just kind of stands on its own, so I really appreciated that.

JB: The Thor movies also take place in a fantastical place of Asgard, the Guardians of the Galaxy movies take place in outer space. But Asgard feels very sterile in those movies and the Guardians of the Galaxy films are taking place in sterile landscapes. It’s a very contained, closed world, and thinking to other franchises as well, there really is nothing like the scope of Wakanda. Every time Wakanda is on screen, something’s happening in every little corner on the frame. The closest comparison point I have for it is the first Star Wars movie, in terms of a cinematic world that feels completely lived in.

AH: By that you mean, A New Hope, not…

JB: Right. [laughs] I do not mean the prequels.

AH: Or The Force Awakens.

JB: No.

AH: So, let’s actually just get into the nitty-gritty of what’s happening here and what exactly Wakanda is and what it means. As someone who has not seen any of the Captain America movies, this is my first introduction to Black Panther the character--

VW: Same.

AH: --on screen at all. Because Chadwick Boseman popped up in, is it the last Avengers?

JB: It was the last Captain America movie - Captain America: Civil War.

AH: Right. So, I feel safe saying that even if you’re not familiar with it, it does a good job of setting things up – I think to some extent, to its detriment; That was one of my issues with it, was that it felt like it took a while to get into the beginning of it. Let’s actually just start off with where it begins, and Jamelle, I will volley that over to you, since you are familiar with Black Panther the comic and how that translates from there to the screen.

JB: Right. So the movie begins with sort of a quick pre-history of Wakanda. Wakanda is a central African nation, very tiny. Sometime in the distant past a meteor that was made of a fictional material called vibranium hits the location where Wakanda is, and the tribes that are in that location – all but one tribe, the Jabari, which pops up a plot point in the movie – join together to build a civilization centered around this metal. This metal basically is magic in the Marvel Universe. It is virtually indestructible, it can become all different kinds of other materials, it can be woven into materials, and it sort of has special properties that the Wakandans have basically figured out over the course of thousands of years. They’ve been using it and studying it. It’s worth noting that in the context of the Marvel Universe, Captain America’s shield, which is also a strangely magical creation, is made of vibranium.

VW: I thought about that. And so the white superhero’s secret weapon was made from stolen vibranium? Is that brought up in any way in Captain America, that it’s from Wakanda?

JB: I think it’s touched on in the first Captain America, or maybe Iron Man 2…It’s a very minor point in one of the earlier movies, and this hasn’t really been addressed in the MCU, but in the comic books it is canon that yeah, during the second World War, some vibranium was stolen from Wakanda, and that’s what became Captain America’s shield. Anyway, the very beginning of the movie rushes through “this is what Wakanda is,” “this is what the Black Panther is.” He’s the protector of Wakanda,  he gets his powers from a special herb that represents the panther god. And after that quick prehistory we are dropped in Oakland, California in 1992, and that’s where the film really takes off.

AH: Right, and we have our first glimpse of one of the many stars in this movie, and that is Sterling K. Brown playing King T’Chaka’s brother. And it seems he is doing something illegal with another character…

VW: This is in the midst of maybe the Rodney King riot era? Am I correct in making that assumption, Jamelle?

AH: Well, 1992…

JB: Right, it’s not in LA--

VW: It’s in Oakland.

JB: It’s quite a ways away, but that’s the atmosphere, yeah.

VW: It seems clear that he is a Black Power revolutionary of some sort. So there’s a knock on the door and the other guy that’s with him looks out the peephole and says--

AH: “Yo, there’s two Grace Jones-looking chicks outside.”

VW: [laughs] One of many beautiful lines.

AH: And so of course N’Jobu is like, “You better not make them knock twice.” And they open the door and in come these beautiful black women wearing African garb--

VW: Designed by the one and only Ruth Carter, who’s been on the show.

AH: Who’s been on Represent, yes. And they enter with T’Chaka and T’Chaka is upset because N’Jobu has been going behind his back, and this is what I wasn’t very clear about, what exactly he was trying to do…

VW: My understanding is that he is the inside person that got the vibranium stolen. He was how they figured out how to steal the vibranium from Wakanda.

JB: He was in Oakland as basically one of Wakanda’s emissary spies, keeping an eye on things and reporting back to Wakanda because Wakanda’s cloistered away from the world.

AH: And this is the first time we see something that we see throughout the movie, which is people revealing that they are actually Wakandan, because there is some confusion or deceptiveness sometimes happening. So [N’Jobu] and the other characters will peel back their bottom lip to reveal a glowing code, which indicates that they are Wakandan. And it turns out that [N’Jobu’s] friend is also Wakandan and had actually been spying on N’Jobu for T’Chaka. Then what happens?

VW: Then he’s like, “You betrayed us. We’re going to take you back so you can face whoever to get your judgment.” And N’Jobu goes to kill Forest Whitaker’s…What’s his name?

JB: The actor is Denzel Whitaker.

AH: Is that his son?

JB: Yeah, it’s Forest Whitaker’s son.

VW: Whaaaaaat?!

AH: I thought they looked alike! I was like, “That is really good casting!” So anyway, Denzel Whitaker’s character has been spying on N’Jobu, Sterling K. Brown’s character.

VW: So he goes to kill the person who’s been spying on him and T’Chaka is not having it and ends up killing his own brother. And then he leaves him there.

JB: Two things should be noted. The first is that [N’Jobu] hadn’t just helped someone steal some vibranium, but the thief – a character named Ulysses Klaue – ended up killing a bunch of Wakandans in the course of that, so [N’Jobu] helped assist a really horrendous terrorism. And the second thing is that witnessing the Wakandan ship arrive in Oakland is a little boy, who is revealed to be [N’Jobu’s] son.

AH: So that takes us to only the first ten minutes of this movie. [all laugh] So let’s keep going. We cut to then the present day…

JB: We’re in Wakanda, or not quite Wakanda, but in a Wakandan aircraft carrying T’Challa, Black Panther, played by Chadwick Boseman and his general, the chief of the royal guard played by Danai Gurira, who stars in The Walking Dead. They’re on some kind of mission – T’Challa is trying to contact and retrieve a spy, Nakia, played by Lupita Nyong’o, who herself is in the midst of a mission, what looks like trying to save some women from human trafficking. And what ensues is the first taste of action in the movie. The Black Panther drops down from the ship, startles the convoy of soldiers, and together with Nakia they save these women, stop these soldiers, and Nakia is brought on the ship where she is informed that T’Chaka, T’Challa’s father, the king, has died (which was the inciting incident of Captain America: Civil War), and that T’Challa is about to perform the ceremony that will elevate him to the throne of Wakanda.

AH: Yeah, a lot happens. We have T’Challa returning to Wakanda with Okoye and Nakia, and they’re being greeted by the wonderful Angela Bassett, who is playing his mother, and they are also greeted by his sister—

VW: Shuri, played by Letitia Wright, who is new and was such a breath of fresh air.

JB: Oh, she’s delightful.

AH: She stole basically this entire movie. She’s kind of the very spunky, very smart sister. She’s the tech wizard, she’s designing all the weapons, she designed the suit for her brother…

VW: She says, “Just because something is good doesn’t mean you can’t make it better,” and I was just like, “That is a word.”

AH: She’s just so delightful and it’s great to see that banter with the two of them. The other thing we should talk about is the romance between Nakia and Black Panther. We also see in this scene that they’ve had a thing in the past, and there might be a thing happening again, but we never really find out exactly tore them apart before.

VW: I think this is the first rumblings of the political tension. She wants to be out there doing good, helping other Africans outside of Wakanda, whereas T’Challa was the heir to the throne, and is now King, and way more concerned about Wakanda and making sure that where they live is taken care of.

JB: Can I just add real quickly that in the lead-up to this we see these great aerial vistas of Wakanda, we see the Wakandan countryside, we see the city…

VW: We see baskets! You know, the African baskets that you see in every African market today, which is so cool to see.

JB: Right, but what is so crazy about this movie is that it’s not just a superhero movie, but you could easily spin it off into like an African Game of Thrones, because this sparks the period where we’re meeting various members of the royal court. When T’Challa takes part in the ceremony where he becomes king we are introduced to this wide range of characters from every region of Wakanda, and each one of them is someone who I would happily watch a movie about.

AH: Now that T’Chaka has passed, [T’Challa] is going to be heir to the throne, but before he becomes the heir we have to see if he’s going to be challenged by someone else from either their tribe or from other tribes. And it’s really, really beautiful the way it’s set up: It’s on a cliff that’s kind of encaved, and you see all the families, the different tribes, different garbs, different colors, different markings on their bodies depending on what tribe they’re from. They spend a decent amount of time in this moment, and it’s the Jabari tribe from the mountains that actually challenges Black Panther, and watching that scene I was like, ”How is this movie rated PG-13?” Because it was very brutal.

JB: Yeah, I have my criticisms of some of the action of this movie, especially towards the end, but this fight scene is brutal and intimate and I was legitimately a bit disturbed throughout at how genuinely threatened T’Challa felt in the midst of it.

AH: Yeah, I feel like it was a bit much for me. I usually am totally fine with these types of action sequences, but I think part of it is just that usually when we see violence it’s high-tech weapons, it’s guns, it’s blah blah blah, but with this, it was fists and spears, and you’re seeing things go into bodies, and pounding heads on ground. I don’t watch Game of Thrones, but I imagine this is kind of what Game of Thrones is like. It felt very Game of Thrones-y in terms of the type of violence we were witnessing.

VW: I think there was also something about the value of life, you know, something about the way they were fighting made you see that every hit, every punch, every thrust was for a purpose, whereas in other action movies, someone gets shot and then they die and you move on. It kind of lessens that person’s value in the world, and there was something about the way that they were fighting that made me acknowledge that if someone were to die, it would be through a purpose-driven motive and – spoiler! – he doesn’t die, he almost kills the Jabari challenger, but he spares him.

JB: Two quick thoughts: First, my friends, the thing you are describing is the wonderful thing about good action choreography.

VW: [laughs] I know. I know.

JB: Truly good action choreography isn’t just showing fighting. It’s showing character, helping advance plot and story. We learn something about both T’Challa and M’Baku through the fight, and you don’t really see that very often in these kinds of movies. The second thing I want to say is that M’Baku is kind of an infamous character in Black Panther –  More in the comic books, and especially in the original issues in the 60s. He was a character called Man-Ape, which is as--

VW: --Er?

JB: [laughs] –iffy…

AH: Well, in the movie they’re also like gorillas, essentially.

VW: Oh yeah, they’re like, “Hoo hoo hoo hoo!” Like, that’s their chant, right?

JB: What I really admire about the movie is that they were able to take this character who, in its original form is kind of racist, and actually not just transform him, but make him and his tribe part of this coherent world. And while they seem threatening, are fundamentally part of it and not some sort of weird character. Because I could easily imagine it in much lesser hands being disastrous.

AH: So he spares M’Baku’s life and Black Panther is now the King. And I guess we’re at a point where we get the sort of weaving in of Michael B. Jordan’s character.

VW: The very good-looking Michael B. Jordan.

AH: Yes, yes. Wearing those beautiful glasses. Michael B. Jordan’s character is Erik Killmonger. He helps steel vibranium from a museum in London, and soon Okoye I think is alerted?

JB: The Wakandan royal court is informed that vibranium has been found out in the world and that it’s in the possession of Klaue, their old nemesis. And here is when we get a bit of conflict with them in court. One of the members of the court played by Daniel Kaluuya, a close friend of T’Challa, his family died in the terrorist attack perpetrated by Klaue years back. He agrees that T’Challa should don the Black Panther garb and go after Klaue, and he says to him, “You need to either kill him or bring him back for justice. There is no other choice here.” That’s our next big action set piece, which takes place in Busan, South Korea.

AH: I love this montage. I thought it was really, really great. And again, it’s so rare to see movies where white people are just in the background. But you have these African people going to South Korea, and the way they interact… Nakia knows her way around because she obviously gets out more than the others do, and so she actually knows where Klaue is gonna be. It’s not a speakeasy per se, but it’s sort of a secret. You have to know the code or know the woman at the front who‘s selling fish. It’s a market outside and inside it’s a giant Casino Royale deal, and this is where the exchange is supposed to go down between Klaue and the person who is going to buy the vibranium. It felt very James Bond-y because they’re all communicating with each other via comms and just like, “I have eyes on him, twelve o’clock.”

VW: And here’s where we meet our other token white person, Everett K. Ross played by Martin Freeman, who is a CIA agent from the United States. And he’s the person who is buying the vibranium from Klaue, and immediately he recognizes T’Challa when he walks in and he’s like, “What are you doing here?” Jamelle, do they meet in a different series? I get the feeling that he knew that he was Black Panther.

JB: Yes. Captain America: Civil War, which came out in 2016, is kind of the prequel for this movie in a lot of ways. I actually recommend watching it you haven’t. It’s pretty good, I think a top-tier Marvel movie. And there’s sort of three plot lines in the movie, and the B plot is about T’Challa and Black Panther hunting down the Winter Soldier, who he believes killed his father. And so in all that, Martin Freeman’s character is introduced in that film, and that’s how they meet. That’s the backstory there.

VW: That’s good to know.

AH: So Everett’s not happy that Black Panther is there, he’s blown up his spot. Eventually what happens is Klaue shows up, he has the vibranium in a suitcase, he makes a weird crack – Oh, he walks in with four or five other people, these big hulking guys, and Everett says to him, “What are you releasing a mix tape or something?” I loved that part. And then the deal does not go as planned. We get an intense shootout  between Nakia and Okoye and Black Panther, which turns into a giant chase scene that I also thought was really well played.

VW: Highly entertaining.

AH: Yes, there were multiple cars happening. You had Okoye and Nakia in one car, Black Panther was sort of jumping from car to car...

VW: No, he was in a car that was being controlled by his sister in Wakanda.

AH: Oh, right! That’s probably worth explaining, how Shuri is in Wakanda and she was remote controlling a car, and so he was in the car alongside her. And so a chase ensues between them that I thought was just really well done.

JB: Car chases are really hard to do. A lot of them are poorly edited and you don’t get a sense of motion and who’s where and what they’re doing, but I thought this was a very competently-directed car chase, and it was a great showcase for everyone. You saw what Klaue could do, you got a taste of Black Panther’s agility and strength – There’s a great moment where the car he is on is about to run into a wreck and he jumps to the side of the car and uses his strength and weight to give it a sharp cut left to keep on with the chase.

AH: It reminded me sort of sailing a boat, in a way. I don’t know why, but I thought of Moana.

VW: You would think of a Disney movie.

AH: Well, look, this is a Disney movie too. [all laugh] Anyway.

JB: And Okoye has some really great moments too, using her spear.

AH: Planting that spear in the ground…Yeah, it was great.

JB: After the chase they’re able to stop Klaue. T’Challa is about to kill him right there but there are people watching, so he takes him to a CIA holding cell where Everett interrogates him to get a handle on what’s going on. I actually really love the scene because it’s where Everett realizes that what he believes about Wakanda isn’t quite right.

VW: It was so interesting because the idea that he believed it is, to me, kind of sign-posting of sorts, because he’s like, “There is no way what you’re saying is true. [Wakanda] is one of the poorest countries.” To me, he represented America.

AH: The thing he keeps saying is, “You’re a third-world country.” That’s what everyone thinks of course, and I think that because T’Chaka has done such a good job keeping it from most people – That’s his whole MO, is we don’t want other people to know what we even have. It’s very isolationist policy, in my reading. Is that wrong, Jamelle?

JB: I think that’s absolutely right.

VW: But I think the possibility of it…

JB: Veralyn, I think you’re right too.

AH: Yeah, I think it goes both ways.

JB: It’s not just a reflection of how well T’Chaka has been able to conceal Wakanda’s wealth and power, but that Everett Ross is incredulous. It’s not just that they’re a third-world country but that they’re a third-world African country, and I think that subtext is clearly there.

AH: After we have this exchange between Black Panther and Everett, where he is surprised that vibranium could even exist or that Wakanda would be able to harvest it at all, Klaue gets busted out of his cell by Killmonger and his cronies. As he escapes, Black Panther sees the necklace he’s wearing, [with his grandfather’s ring on it]. So all the sudden, he thinks it could be two things: it could be either something’s amiss – this guy’s actually a Wakandan – or he stole it from someone else. And eventually Killmonger winds up killing Klaue.

VW: When T’Challa sees the ring, he goes to confront Forrest Whitaker’s character (Zuri) and is like, “Tell me the truth,” and he says, “I promised never speak of what happened with your father,” and T’Challa’s like, “I am your king!” And he essentially makes him tell him the story of how T’Challa’s father kills his brother and abandons Killmonger, his son.

JB: So Killmonger is T’Challa’s cousin.

VW: Yes. I guess we realized that with the ring, but the reality of it happens to T’Challa at the same time that Killmonger brings Klaue’s body to Wakanda and is like, “I did something that your king couldn’t. I’ve brought Klaue here, dead, and now I’m going to challenge and I’m going to claim my seat at the throne. At first everyone was like, “Whatever, get outta here,” and then he’s like, “Ask me who I am.” For me, there were a lot of notes of African norms and tradition. Like, who hasn’t heard a Nigerian say, “Do you know who I am?” Just this idea of “I am the such-and-such” there, and what I recognize as African mannerisms throughout that blew my mind. And finally, one of the members of the High Council asks him right before he gets thrown out, and he just rattles off all the names of who he is.

AH: And then they’re all bewildered and probably my favorite line of the whole thing: Angela Bassett is like, “I can’t believe this!” and she’s making a face, and Michael B. Jordan is like, “Hi, auntie.” That moment is just… He said “auntie,” that is so black! [all laugh] So then we get another fight scene, this time with Killmonger fighting T’Challa, only this time it’s more brutal because we know this backstory. Not that with [M’Baku] it wasn’t also a life or death situation, but we have all this backstory that we didn’t necessarily have with M’Baku. We get the Jabari backstory a little bit later, but this scene was also brutal, and essentially what happens is that Black Panther loses.

VW: Here Killmonger is saying, “I have been in America, living as a black American, having to navigate this white structure and learning their ways…I had to navigate all these struggles, and here you are in Wakanda with all your fancy equipment and fancy technology and you’re doing nothing for people who are us that are out there. So this fight is almost the tension of that conversation, which I’ve thought about throughout my life, because growing up as a black-presenting girl in the Bronx, and not feeling necessarily Sierra Leonian enough and not feeling black enough – This fight I felt represented my fight.

JB: I’m a regular American black person.

VW: You black! [laughs]

JB: But the last African in my family was brought here in like the 1830s, or before that actually because the slave trade was over by then… the American slave trade anyway. I said earlier that this is a provocative movie and this is what I mean, because I feel like in the conversation leading up to the film, lots of conversations about Wakanda, lots of conversation about the idea of what Wakanda means to people of African descent (black Americans or otherwise) – This uncolonized, technologically advanced, powerful nation. But the film I think very smartly brings up the other side, which is Killmonger’s point that if this existed, where the hell have they been? Why have they abandon the African diaspora? Why have they allowed countless people to suffer and die under racist oppression? And Killmonger’s argument to T’Challa and the Wakandan court is that you are wrong, you are immoral, and if I become king, I will use this country’s power to right that wrong. And the other side of that is almost a genocidal thing – He wants to wipe out everyone else and dominate and rule over the planet. He says at one point, “The sun will never set on the Wakandan Empire,” which is directly taken from “the sun never set on the British Empire,” but watching it, I was like, “You know, is he wrong?” [laughs]

AH: Yeah, I saw him as sort of like a mirror of Nakia, in terms of they both have the same goals, in a way, of “We need to be helping other nations and other people who look like us because they need us and we can’t just keep pretending that there aren’t all these problems out there.” But then he goes and takes it in just the wrong direction. He’s basically the Azalea Banks of this movie. He says things that make a lot of sense, but then he goes about it all the wrong way, or wraps it up in this rhetoric that borders on Hotep, and even if you agree with him it’s kind of uncomfortable to watch because you’re kind of like, “You just want to watch the world burn.” You can understand why he wants to, because there’s a personal aspect to him literally being abandoned, but…

VW: There’s also the whole idea that if Wakanda had opened up their doors to help other African nations or other people around the diaspora, would they be Wakanda? And that was something I was thinking a lot about when Everett comes to Wakanda to be healed because he gets shot, and the first thing Shuri says when she sees him is something like, “Hello, colonizer.” I’m reading Yaa Gyasi’s book Homecoming that gets into what happened at the Gold Coast during slavery. What role Africans played in it and how the British pitted different tribes against each other and got them to essentially sell their people into slavery. And so there’s this question of what happened: Why is it that African countries are some of the richest and well-resourced countries in the world, and what happened? Colonizers came in and did their thing.

AH: I guess to Jamelle’s point about it being provocative, we obviously see Black Panther wrestling with this, and in many ways he knows Killmonger’s right. And by the end of the movie, he offers to give him vibranium and help him now that he’s weakened and basically dying. And I thought this was a very clunky line of dialogue, but Killmonger says something about his ancestors on ships.

JB: It’s a very clunky line.

VW: I found it effective. I don’t know.

AH: I did not. I kind of laughed. [all laugh] But I get it. What I liked about it is that it takes elements of both. By the end of the movie, we can understand T’Challa’s hesitance to embrace what Nakia and Killmonger have wanted, which is to go out there, because again, yes, once they open themselves up you do you have people trying to come in. But at the same time, they’re actually going to take some of what [Killmonger] said and apply it to what they’re doing.

VW: Okay, this was my one beef with the film: The solution is community centers? That’s the solution? I did kinda feel a certain way about that because with all your power and all your vibranium, your solution is opening up centers around the country?

AH: Well, what would you want? They’re not just going to go and give them a handout of vibranium and say, “Do what you want to do.”

VW: I don’t know… What do you think, Jamelle?

JB: I mean, thinking in terms of the characters, what Nakia wants is sort of a humanitarian Wakanda. What Killmonger wants is an activist, almost neocon Wakanda. And T’Challa seems not quite splitting the difference, definitely going in Nakia’s direction but he’s also Black Panther, so presumably he’ll be working in world affairs that way. But I think the conclusion he comes to is that the best thing that Wakanda can do is go to – because they set up the center in Oakland – go to those places where black people are suffering and try to provide them with the tools and resources to advance without violence. That seems like a fair split, in terms of finding an equilibrium here.

AH: Yeah, it also seems like this is a theme that comes up a lot in a lot of black movies – This idea of the upwardly-mobile black people who made it and what they owe to the hood or the community. I mean, I guess every piece of literature, movie or even music when it comes to black identity…I’m gonna plug myself, but I just wrote a piece about this movie I discovered that we actually mentioned in our episode on Friday, Abar, The First Black Superman. It’s a blaxploitation flick that came out in 1977, and the basic crux of the story is a doctor who moves into a white neighborhood being coerced by Abar, who is a sort of Black Panther figure and leader of this revolution that’s sort of like the Black Panthers. And he’s like, “You need to come back to the ghetto and contribute to your brothers and sisters. You can’t live here. You need to live there.” And I was kinda surprised to see that same strain in a Marvel movie. Even Wonder Woman I feel like didn’t dig that deeply into its feminist aspects. It was feminist in the way that it did things, but not as overtly, and, dare I say, it sometimes did feel a little preachy. I guess I agree with you that the ending [of Black Panther] felt a little after-school special, Veralyn.

JB: I see where they’re going with this, because part of Killmonger’s grievance was specifically about living under white supremacy: “I am a Wakandan who grew up under white supremacy and you owe something to black people who grew up under white supremacy.” And that’s where T’Challa’s uncle died. I mean, I see why they do it in Oakland. But I want to say real quickly, black people aren’t the only people who are going to be watching this movie. This is going to be a huge movie, and the fact that we can all agree it’s good adds to the fact that this will be a huge movie. Probably the majority of audiences are going to be white and the extent to which the film doesn’t really condemn Killmonger’s basic premise, or grants him his premise and says, “You’re going too far,” but doesn’t really dispute that yes, Wakandans do owe something to the rest of the world that suffers from racism. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything that pointed in this kind of blockbuster before, something that’s directly challenging its audience.

AH: I agree. I do think to some extent that pointed nature, for the majority of non-black people who will see this movie, I think the fact that we do have one good “white” character really tempers that and helps make that seem not as pointed, or at least balances it out for a lot of white audiences. Had that character not been there, had this been a Get Out situation (Spoiler if you haven’t seen Get Out, but come on, it’s been a year now) where none of the white people are good… I think that it helps that we have someone who’s literally flying shit.

VW: Yeah, he’s putting himself on the line. He’s sacrificing himself.

JB: Can I say, I think the movie copped out by not having him die during that scene.

AH: Yeah.

VW: Yeah, that would’ve been powerful. And symbolic in a lot of ways.

AH: Yes, because the people of color are always dying in these things.

VW: They’re always sacrificing their lives for everyone else.

AH: That almost happened in The Last Jedi, but it didn’t, thankfully.

JB: Right, but having a character be incredulous about Wakanda then come to realize what it is and then come to feel that he ought to defend it, not out of any glory but for the good of the Wakandans, and then having him die in the process of that – I think that would’ve been good, story-wise, but of course the reason why he’s not dead is that the Marvel movies, for this next phase, need a kind of bland-ish audience viewpoint character to carry through the various franchises. In the previous movies it was Agent Coulson but he died in The Avengers, so Everett Ross is the new version of this character who kind of touches each franchise and acts as a bit of connective tissue between them.

VW: And I feel like we’d be doing an injustice if we don’t mention how on-point all the black women were in this film. I went to go see it with Marissa Martinelli, Represent’s social media assistant (whoop, whoop!) and I was like, “Why are black women always on the right side of history?” [laughs]

JB: I mean, just to add to that I’m using the word “first” a lot because there are a lot of firsts in this movie. This is the first of these superhero movies, not just Marvel but across the genre, where women aren’t just a major part of the story and plot but who drive the story and plot. They are central characters whose actions have weight on what happens going forward. This is as much Lupita’s movie as Chadwick Boseman’s movie or Michael B. Jordan’s movie. And Wonder Woman is really the only other movie that you can say that for.

AH: And she was amongst a bunch of men.

JB: Half the speaking cast are black women.

AH: Yeah. Well, I feel like there is obviously so much more we could have talked about…I think we got into the politics. We could’ve talked about this being a black American movie in many ways…

VW: Mm-hmm. Yeah, is Lupita the only African actor?

AH: No, no. Danai [Gurira] is…

JB: Danai, Daniel Kaluuya is African.

VW: He’s British, but he’s African. Well, I mean, everyone’s African, but… [laughs] Can I ask you two, as black Americans, how do you feel about the argument that Africans sold my ancestors into slavery?

JB: First of all, just as a matter of historical record, the initial trading in the 17th century and early 18th century did involve African tribesmen selling defeated enemies to the Portuguese, to the French, to the British, and to whomever. But by the time you get to the heyday of the slave trade in the late 18th century, that’s straight-up theft. It’s raids and that kind of thing. For me, slavery is bad, obviously, but I’m not sure one should hold those African tribal leaders in West Africa responsible for the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

AH: Well, yeah. Also, many cultures in different places outside of Africa also had slaves. They weren’t doing it based on race. Like you said, it was, “These are my enemies I have defeated.” Not that it was good, by any means, but it wasn’t insidious in the way that it was when it came down to the caste system and race and all that stuff.

JB: Slavery has existed through all continents, through all times, but racial caste chattel slavery is an American innovation. You encounter a lot of “what-aboutism” from people who are like, “Well, slavery wasn’t that bad…”

AH: I know.

VW: Oh, god.

JB: So the idea that there ought to be equal responsibility just doesn’t track with me. We should be accurate about the history that yes, African tribes sold other Africans into slavery, but that was distinct from what happened in the United States.

AH: Yeah, so I don’t have any hard feelings towards Africans, [laughs] to sum up your question.

JB: To be honest, the only hard feelings I ever have is towards people who denigrate black Americans.

AH: Yes, that’s when it becomes a problem.

VW: We are definitely going to link to this documentary that I sent you both called Bound: Africans vs. African Americans because I think it does a good job talking about it from both sides of the coin. I’ve heard from family members, “Veralyn, don’t behave like those black Americans.” I have also heard it from my black American friends that don’t know that I’m African saying really messed up things about other Africans around me.

AH: Yeah, that’s a whole other conversation. [both laugh] Anyway, thanks for listening.

VW: I hope you’re fully spoiled!

AH: Thank you, Jamelle, for joining us.

JB: My pleasure.

AH: And thank you, Veralyn.

VW: Of course.

AH: And thanks everyone else for listening. Please subscribe to the Slate Spoiler Special podcast feed, and if you like the show, please rate and review it in the Apple podcast store or wherever you get your podcasts. If you have suggestions for movies or TV shows we should spoil, or if you have any other feedback you’d like to share, please send it to spoilers@slate.com, and for more Black Panther coverage (of which we have done a lot) check out Represent at Slate.com/represent. Our producers are Daniel Schrader and Veralyn Williams. For Jamelle and Veralyn, I’m Aisha Harris. Thanks for listening.

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