sweet mother goddess

YELENA BELOVA in THUNDERBOLTS* (2025) dir. Jake Schreier

When all you have left to hold on to is a green tactical vest, a tub of hair gel, and a stolen guinea pig.

Bonus:

Morning, Gus, my little one-finned wonder.

I think my biggest issue with the way that Bucky’s trauma was handled in FATWS was that it focused entirely on the bad things he did as the Winter Soldier and at no point brought up the torture and abuse he was subjected to during his 70+ years as a prisoner of war. Addressing Bucky’s feelings of guilt is fine. That’s something that previous movies established, and of course it’s a part of the healing process. The problem is that every single time we see or hear about Bucky’s time with Hydra, it only ever references the parts where the Winter Soldier did something bad.

CATWS and CACW both showed the Winter Soldier doing bad things, and CACW even touches on Bucky’s guilt over it. The difference is that they also made sure to show the abuse Bucky was subjected to (the bank vault scene in TWS and the opening scene of CW for example). So yes, we know that the Winter Soldier was a ruthless assassin, but we also know that Bucky was subjected to horrific torture and stripped of his agency in order to make the Winter Soldier be that way. FATWS just glosses over all of that. The only scene we get (and it’s a great scene, to be fair) that addresses the horror of Bucky’s treatment by Hydra is the flashback to him in Wakanda when the triggers are finally removed. But then that scene feels really out of place when the rest of the series presents Bucky’s past as though it was something he had some sort of active choice in. I mean, one of the main plot points of the show involves Super Soldier Serum, and yet never once is it acknowledged that Bucky’s serum was the result of non consensual experimentation being done on him. It’s a perfect opportunity to address the complex feelings Bucky must have about it and they just waste it.