Well, and that's exactly the sort of weird decision that keeps women on the sidelines, right? Did we really need Hawkeye to stage a dramatic (and narratively a little inexplicable) reappearance when Agent 13 was geared up and ready to go? It's not like she would have been especially more out of place in that fight…

I thought it was really good, maybe the best the MCU has offered so far (and certainly the best of the big franchise-spanning films). But where are all the women? I feel like the film did its best in some ways with the gender issues intrinsic to the franchise/universe/genre, insofar as the women who were present were…

He's got all that beach muscle, he might as well use it for something.

Generally the question isn't whether they intended it in hindsight, but at the time. It's not really relevant whether they even remember now, if it can be shown that they meant to do it then. That's just a question of fact. Whether they should be locked up is, yeah, a little trickier.

Not to go all law school, but no. Given the truth as we (the viewers) understand it, Bucky is not criminally responsible for what he did. He was in an automatistic state and was therefore not acting voluntarily. Nor can he be said to have intended the consequences of his actions. Voluntariness and intentionality (or…

Particularly when you're a person who deals with problems by blowing them up a lot of the time, right? I kinda thought that must be part of Zemo's plan - confronting him with the information if possible in circumstances where there'd be no time to cool off and nobody to intervene. If Zemo had just emailed Stark the…

I really liked the touch of him killing the other five Winter Soldiers. Definitely not a normal move for a comic book villain.

Yeah, plus the whole unfounded accusation that she'd taken part in some terrible eastern European massacre (when it turns out she was stationed in some other part of the world entirely) is therefore implied to have been her brother instead. Or at least that's what I took away. Maybe Agents of Shield will take a crack…

In 1996 or so, for preference.

At this rate it'll be a part of the 2024 GOP platform that the Earth is flat, orbited by the sun, and you have to give Hebrew slaves their freedom after 6 years.

Some people prefer the pneumatic hammer. And it has its place in many others' sex lives. Just saying.

Well and building on the point downthread, just because something isn't traumatizing doesn't mean that it wasn't abusive. Young Dan may have been unethically exploited (and it's hard to see an older man's decision to sleep with a 14 year old as justifiable in almost any circumstances) but in ways that didn't cause him…

I think this is a good sum up of the problem. Retrospectively it can be (relatively) clear that nobody got hurt. Great. But prospectively it's risky as fuck and something that ethical people should not embark upon. If you're 35 don't date someone who's 16.

Netflix just really thinks you need to get a handle on this Helter Skelter business.

I dunno. If I found out that both future me and alternate universe me were with the same person and apparently happy, I'd probably be inclined to at least give it a go? Like, that's more external indication than one normally gets that a particular relationship might work out.

By your viewing history they could tell that you were a lost cause. Also, that you should maybe think about a career change one of these years because you're probably just going to get more and more unhappy as you move up through the department, and that you should think about getting that mole on your shoulder…

Also, no. It has not.

Except Daniel Radcliffe.

Agreed again. "Humanizing" isn't necessarily making sympathetic, but putting his actions and motivations (and underlying issues) in context. We understand Pike better after this episode. I do suspect the purpose of that is to make it a little more palatable in the episodes to come where he will be something other than…

Yeah, there's some irony, I think, in Polis at that moment being exactly what Pike expected, but it certainly didn't read to me as an attempt to justify his irrational hatred.