Y. M. Nelson: Hello, Nerdy Romantics! This episode of Nerdy Romantics podcast will be all about Ironheart, the Marvel TV show currently on Disney Plus. I will say this right now, spoilers. Spoilers. Spoiler alert, we are going to spoil everything about this show. We might even spoil some things about Wakanda Forever.

I- who knows, but we’ve already spoiled Wakanda Forever. You can go back and listen to those episodes but definitely spoiler alert for this one.

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Y. M. Nelson: So, if you have watched Ironheart, please stay tuned. Join the discussion.

This is the Nerdy Romantics Podcast and I’m your host, YM Nelson.

Okay ladies, how are we today?

Marcie: good.

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[00:01:27] How we found the show and the controversy around that

Y. M. Nelson: Awesome. Awesome, awesome. So today I have Marcie and Staci with me to talk about Ironheart, and what we’re going to start off talking about is how we found out about this show because y’all, there’s actually some controversy, a little bit about the amount of advertising that was done for this show. So, Marcie, I’m gonna start with you. How did you find out about the show?

Marcie: I probably found out because I’m a Disney plus subscriber, and so I think it came out in one of those little newsletter things I get in email. And then I think the other part must have been like word of mouth, us talking about it, because you’re right, I don’t, I didn’t see a lot in a lot of other places.

Y. M. Nelson: Yeah, Staci, how about you? How did you find out about this one?

Staci: I think it was mentioned sometime ago about, it might be one something. I think we mentioned like a, a year or so ago that we mentioned it, that we saw something about it. But like this year, like we was really, when Marcie mentioned about, I think on one of our texts, change or whatever, I think she may have mentioned about Ironheart, asking you about it.

Other than that, I hadn’t thought about it. ‘Cause I didn’t really see, I mean, I don’t have Disney plus newsletter or anything like that, so it was really gonna be, if I saw it on. Online somewhere at this point, and I did not really see anything. Now it’s still you talking about, ’cause your phones be listening to you and then it’d be like, oh, there it is, there is an Ironheart thing.

But other than that, I really, no, I mean I, we, I think we, we may have even mentioned it when we saw Wakanda, when we did, I think we did something about, oh, we talked about Wakanda forever and I think we mentioned that and that kind of thing. But the whole series about there’s gonna be a show and everything. I probably found out was it a month before it was supposed to come out, or even a few weeks, something like that. It wasn’t something I expected because I didn’t really think about it or see anything about it, any really major advertising about it.

Y. M. Nelson: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so that’s the, that’s the controversy is that there was no real advertising about this show. The fact that this show has a Black female main character is a, a real kind of a slap in the face in this current climate of ours that this had no, it had almost no of advertisement or any, anything kind of running up to when it aired.

Also, this is one of the few shows on Disney Plus that was not show week to week. I don’t know if y’all realize that. didn’t realize that until somebody pointed it out. Usually the other shows, especially like with the big ones that we kinda remember, like the WandaVision and Loki, they

Staci: they,

Y. M. Nelson: weak to weak.

Staci: yeah, they show typically what? Show the first two episodes and then after that it’s week to week.

Y. M. Nelson: Exactly,

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

Staci: Just realized they just put it out almost like Netflix used to do.

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

Staci: now,

Marcie: But I don’t, I don’t necessarily, I didn’t feel like that played into the racial part as much because two, it only had six episodes and it was dragging it out for longer than it needed to be. And also, to Staci’s point, the model of how anything is released has changed drastically over the last year or so.

So, it, it didn’t seem as odd to me. We’ve seen Stranger what’s the one, Stranger Things and like now that that’s the model,

Staci: yeah. Wednesday.

Marcie: make you wait Wednesday, like a few here, then we make you wait, then we get rest. That part didn’t necessarily trigger anything weird for me. Also, to be quite honest, I feel like that’s a Disney, I feel like the marketing in general is part of this new Disney mindset because if you think about Agatha All Along, unless you were a Disney subscriber or you had watched the first one, they didn’t do any real marketing for that one either until after it was out, honestly.

And so, I feel like once they got traction, they were like, oh, we should capitalize. But I don’t think, I don’t think they’re pushing the Marvel content in the same way that they used to.

And especially to be fair, I don’t think they’ve ever equitably pushed Disney Marvel content that is female lead driven. Captain Marvel didn’t get what it deserved either. And so, I think, I do think that that’s a failing of, of the Disney marketing model is that they put a lot of manpower and money behind the male driven movies and content, but they do not do the same for female driven.

And I don’t even know, I mean, I think that it was a double whammy in this case because it was both female driven and largely people of color. But in general. In general, the minute they had a female lead, I think Destiny was written.

Y. M. Nelson: Yeah, I, yeah, I agree. As far as female, as far as female driven, they, they, know, dogged it, you know, they dogged female led, Marvel shows and movies. I think they do it as well for racial, you know, any, anything that is a person of color kind of,

Marcie: Yeah. What was the one about the moon,

Y. M. Nelson: Moon Knight.

Marcie: Moon Knight that didn’t get pushed very much either.

Y. M. Nelson: pushed at all. And that was amazing.

Staci: Male, and that was male too.

Marcie: right. But it was, but it was, but it was people of color. Yep.

Y. M. Nelson: So that’s the thing.

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: what I’ve

Marcie: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: a lot of it not getting pushed,

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: You know, and these are in, is in phases four and phases five. you know, I agree. I think it is a failing of Disney. but we also know in this climate, it’s, it’s a failing of Disney big time.

And in the relief of, in the of what else is going on in this climate. They’re one of the ones that capitulate, which to me, it seems like, it seems like because of their programming, because Disney is Disney plus, it is Hulu, it’s a b, c, it’s Marvel, it’s Lucas Films, which is Star Wars. A lot of this programming is diverse representation and is garnering that au that audience, right? It, so you’re kind of shooting, shooting yourself in the foot when you don’t, when you really downplay things.

On the other side of this, there’s also controversy about CBS, but CBS is in the middle of a merger and trying to kowtow. That is also why I am announcing here, which all my newsletter subscribers, you already know this, so if you’re not a newsletter subscriber, you probably need to be one, but I will not be reviewing star Trek.

Strange New Worlds. Star Trek Academy is also coming out, and as much as I would love to talk about Admiral Kim, that has already been released, y’all, Admiral Harry Kim, as much as I would love to talk about that, I’m no longer a Paramount Plus subscriber and have not been for a couple of months now, ever since Resignation of Bill Owens from 60 Minutes. So yeah, we won’t be doing that here. Almost, you know, I almost felt kind of, should I do the same thing in the Marvel sense, but here I really feel like have the programming out

Marcie: out there, they’re not doing anything.

Y. M. Nelson: to promote the programming. I feel like part of what I want to do, at least, is promote the programming.

The other part about this that goes into the, how I found it kind of thing, is not that just there were posts on Threads talking about this is not getting any love, so we are going to let you know that Ironheart is coming out.

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[00:10:49] Rotten Tomatoes Review bombing

Y. M. Nelson: But there was also review bombing on Rotten Tomatoes. So, this was a review

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: it even came out by

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: on Rotten Tomatoes. And, I almost feel like because people were trying to grassroots promote it on social media, the social media incels then came and bombed it on Rotten Tomatoes.

I feel like that’s what happened. Now. That’s just the way I am seeing it.

Marcie: I don’t know, because I feel like the timing of those reviews was before I saw people trying to come back in and support it. But because I think it was because the media, I think it was ’cause the media had actually been favorable to it. And I think it wasn’t social media, it was at initially, the first few reviews of it from NPR from other things had been largely favorable.

And I think that’s what triggered a lot of the negative posts was not, and I think it was social media that kind of boomeranged around and tried to say, Hey, wait, this, this isn’t legit. The show isn’t even out yet. Or, I just watched the first two episodes and they were great. Like, I think that, I think social media was a response, but I think the initial period was actually after the first critical reviews when the critics got the preview and got to see it and said it was good.

That’s when we started to hear and see bad reviews or people’s talking about, a Black what the, the framing was and, and all of that. I think that part came after that. But I don’t think I saw social media really respond until after the review started to look really odd for a show that hadn’t actually been released yet.

Like, I was like, how do you even know yet?

Y. M. Nelson: Yeah. They didn’t.

Marcie: Like, how do how everybody didn’t get a preview? Like, how do you know, like why, how do, what do, how can you make a review about something that’s not out yet because it’s clear that you’re not in the critics group. So, I think that to me was the trigger.

And then I think after that, social media responded and said, we’re not gonna let this happen.

But I think a lot of it was people heard those initial reviews and were like, we’re, we don’t want it to succeed. So, let’s go ahead and tell people now that it’s terrible. But how, how do you know

Y. M. Nelson: Right.

Marcie: you can’t possibly have seen it yet? What? Yeah.

Y. M. Nelson: It. Exactly. Yeah. Just,

Marcie: It, it was frustrating to see, to see that, but it, it’s not surprising. We often, I think a lot of times we, we see that, especially across superhero driven or what were previously predominantly non-minority spaces. I think I, I’m, I’m used to seeing that reaction when someone is different than how they envisioned it in their heads when someone isn’t, I mean, we can look at Cynthia Revo and Josh Gad and Jesus Christ Superstar and be in an atypical role for one of those atypical person for one of those roles, and all the backlash from that.

I think it’s just this day and age, invites people who feel like they can be anonymous to be loud and to spam in a lot of places, and I think it’s just the noise that we’re gonna have to deal with because people have a lot of bravado when unlike us, they have to put their faces and their names behind their opinions.

It’s easy to, to bash people when you don’t, when you’re not gonna be held accountable because your, your screen name is 0 0 1 2 3 9 7. You know what I’m saying? It’s real easy to do that. But if you, if you’re held accountable to being who you say you are, and then putting that behind your opinions, it, it gets a little harder to, to, to do.

Y. M. Nelson: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I. Staci, you have anything to add?

Staci: Not really. ’cause I didn’t watch any of that. I mean, I know that they talked about it and all that, but when y’all said to watch it and like in two weeks I, and I did, I didn’t really pay attention to what people were gonna say about it. And probably ’cause I already knew that what they were gonna say about it, how, you know, how they handle Ms. Marvel how they handled those other shows I did and, and like I said, the climate, I knew that as soon as it, okay. Black female lead. It was going to have, there’s gonna be people who are gonna say something. So, I just didn’t go into looking into it. I was just gonna, like, when I watch it, I’m gonna be judging it from that. And there, and, and there it goes.

I’m not, and I mean, I understand they, I mean, as soon as they said they were gonna, they weren’t doing any, a lot of advertisements for it, I was like, yeah, I know why, because of the, they’re not gonna be doing, they’re not trying to put, put anything to the forefront that isn’t basically white male centric heroes.

They’re really not, they’re not doing that right now. And this climate, they’re, they are not really gonna be doing that. And I think what they have, they realize they put so much money behind it. Well, we gotta put it out. And they did. And it was a good product. But I do think that a lot of it was anything that would’ve come out, and it wasn’t white male centric.

It was going to get some, you know, get something, get negative reviews from a certain subset of people. And like what Marcie said about you know, when casting and all that for like roles that were not really Ironheart. I mean, when people said, oh, Ironheart this or that, there was already comic wasn’t like, they put her in, there was a comic and she’s Black in a comic.

It’s comic. I mean, it wasn’t like they even did different casting. That’s how it was.

Y. M. Nelson: Mm-hmm.

Staci: I’m so, so when people complain about, it’s like, it’s another comic, and it’s based on the comic.

Marcie: yep.

Y. M. Nelson: Right?

Staci: So, I just,

Y. M. Nelson: Yeah. And, and

Staci: and maybe it was happening because of the timeframe and I just wasn’t trying to, trying to just watch any of that or whatever.

I don’t know what was gonna, because I mean, I heard about it, but I didn’t go into detail ’cause I was like, I’m just watching it.

Marcie: Yeah. And

Staci: so, for me, I didn’t really try to concentrate on it. I mean, by then, by the point I saw it or heard about it, everything was done. So, like, if they hadn’t done any any advertise at this point, I mean, it’s coming out next week.

That’s, I, I only know about two weeks. I mean,

Y. M. Nelson: Right.

Staci: know, like,

Marcie: yeah.

Staci: just show me, just let me see how it goes. And that is where I’m kind of coming. That’s why I haven’t said a lot because I wasn’t paying to paying any attention to that. I was just like, when we’re gonna see it, when is this, when we’re doing this?

Let me see it. Because I have not,

Y. M. Nelson: right?

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[00:17:23] Are we “Marvel-ed out”?

Staci: I’ll be honest, for most Marvels, I’ve, I’ve Marveled out. I’m not really like, when it first would coming out, I was like, oh, lemme see the next Marvel. Now it’s like, okay, if it’s out, how easy for me to go and see it because I’ve not,

Y. M. Nelson: mm-hmm.

Staci: has not been like, oh, I wanna see a Marvel picture or a Marvel TV show.

I have not had a really drive to watch them like, you know. Back in the day, you know, back in the, the LA when it was the heyday. I like it was that long ago. But you know, you know,

Marcie: Yeah.

Y. M. Nelson: the pandemic was a

Staci: you know,

Y. M. Nelson: ago.

Staci: you know, it’s like after the,

Y. M. Nelson: The yesteryear,

Staci: I been paying as much attention and, you know, I,

Marcie: After the snap.

Staci: the Snap was like, that’s it. Haven’t been, you know, and like when they were doing Disney Plus and they started doing the TV shows, it’s like Vision

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

Staci: it was just was to me a decline and I didn’t care as much for ’em. Now some of ’em, you know, have gone up like, oh, I like this one, or I like that one. But for the most part it was like, well, if you go about what I like, it’ll be like WandaVision

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

Staci: and then Agatha All Along and then like Ironheart.

And now that might be Agatha, Ironheart and Wanda. But I mean, those, right now my top were my top three of the show shows. E Loki was good, but first season, but second season, I was like, nah, not I, none of them except for Wanda and Agatha. And then, well, Ironheart came out all at one time. I was anticipating the next episode,

Marcie: Mm, mm-hmm.

Staci: you know, I watch it, but I wasn’t like, oh my gosh, what’s the next episode?

I was like, I’ll watch it. You know, it’s on, it’s okay.

Marcie: Yeah. And I, and to be fair, I don’t watch trailers in because I don’t, I don’t want to. Sometimes I feel like the trailer’s the best part of the movie, and then sometimes I feel like the trailer, nothing in the trailer was in the movie. And neither way really lands well with me. So, I stopped watching trailers probably about two years ago.

And so, most of my perspective is retrospective, of course. ’cause I didn’t go digging. I didn’t look at any trailers. I didn’t look at anything until after I had started watching. But then I went back and did my research about all the controversy. But yeah, I, I try not to to view any trailers. It, it works to my, my benefit most of the time.

But there have been times where I did not realize what movie I was going to see till I was in it. It’s a 50 50 shot Sinners threw me off a little bit, but it’s ’cause I didn’t know anything about it. I just went in happy go lucky, and then halfway through was confused. But by and large I didn’t watch any of the trailers and I didn’t watch any of the YouTube videos or, or any of that until after I had started watching the series.

And I was feeling time waiting for the, the second three to come out. And then I looked to see what everybody was saying.

Y. M. Nelson: yeah, yeah. So, you know, with this one you know, since, you know, since Staci’s already said it, you know, Ironheart is one thing, actually, Staci, before we before we leave this topic, I think that a lot of the audience that came into came into Marvel comics via Marvel Cinematic Universe is feeling the same way that you’re feeling.

So, the part of the audience that’s, that’s into the comics, they’re waiting for the next comic thing, right? They’re there, they’re already fans. So those who, those of us who don’t read the comics,

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: kind of go into a couple of patterns here, right? A couple of us are. You know, going into the pattern of, okay, what do you got for me and how does this connect with this thing? Right? That’s me.

And then a lot more of the, the audience that are in it, just because of the MCU and just because, you know, we saw Robert Downey Jr. play Tony Stark. And, you know, we got, you know, hooked from that moment forward, a lot of us are like, who are the rest of these people?

Why do we

Marcie: Do we.

Y. M. Nelson: you know, watch this about them? Why? I mean, this is too many characters in my head. This is a lot going on, and you really have to compel that part of the audience with the story of things and with really good character portrayals. Like, I really want to see this again. Like, you know, WandaVision had a really good story going on, and you were like, where are they going with this kind of thing. I will say with Moon Knight, I, I loved Moon Knight, but I will add that I liked Moon Knight because I wanted to know where they were going with that story.

Staci: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: know, that dude was. You know, well, you know, he has mental disorders. So, you know, I, I really wanted to know what was the next thing. There was a mystery kind of there that pulled me in

Marcie: Never saw it,

Y. M. Nelson: oh

Staci: It was good. It was actually good. And I have to admit, when you added that, when you said that, I was like, okay, that’s one of the ones I really, I did enjoy. But

Y. M. Nelson: yeah.

Staci: again, and I, and that’s Marvel, but that’s not Marvel. Marvel. And I guess maybe part of the thing is that most of us when we got into Marvel was, you know, from the movies, but they were not, a lot of them weren’t like, Marvel’s a-list.

They’re going into less of the main characters that if you liked comic or even you didn’t like comics, you just knew about the comics a little bit. Okay. I knew, oh, Captain America heard him, you know, Ironman, you know, I, I mean, some of those things I’ve heard of, because I remember my cousin had the old Ironman figurine, so it was like the new one, like the old Looking Ironman kind of, you know, so I recognized what those were, even though I never really met, read the comics, but I knew Thor.

I mean, I knew that, but then once they started doing this other stuff, it’s like, , who are these people? So, you, for someone who not, who doesn’t read the comic, it has to really have a good story because I don’t have a history of that, you know, of those characters. So.

Marcie: Yeah.

Y. M. Nelson: think and. I think that is where a lot of the audience who started watching these things because of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, not because they were comic book fans, I think that’s where a lot of people are now that we’re in the multiverse, because most of these characters are characters that we have never seen before.

They haven’t been on live action things. They haven’t even really been in animation kind of things. These are characters that we’ve never really seen before.

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: you know, people know, the Incredible Hulk, you know, people know, like

Marcie: Yep.

Y. M. Nelson: Ironman, Thor, you know. And so, we were there for that. And too, there was like a connectedness, like, okay, I gotta see what happens next here. I gotta see what happens next here.

But right now, here where we have this connectedness, it’s like we’re, it, it’s a little bit of who are these people and why are we connecting, you

Marcie: I think at least, at least this one was easier because it was in Wakanda Forever, because I did have a, pretty current context of who she was. And so, I think that was helpful in having me watch this one and be like, oh, I know who this is. And so, I think that that was different about this one.

Like Moon Knight, no clue where that would be connected. But Ironheart, I did, I did understand because I had just seen her in in Wakanda Forever.

Staci: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: And then too, she’s also kind and she’s also a legacy character of Ironman, so in the comics.

Marcie: Mm-hmm. I don’t know comics though, so Cannon didn’t mean anything to me.

Y. M. Nelson: Yeah, in the comics. I’m going to educate y’all,

Marcie: Thank you.

Y. M. Nelson: Perry is not here. Shout out to Perry Shout, superhero Cinephiles. He is traveling.

So, in the comics, you know, she is actually working with, in her comics, she’s actually working with Tony Stark. know, Tony Stark is imbuing this knowledge and everything like that onto her, because he sees she’s a genius, all this kind of stuff. They’re working together. So, it’s a legacy in that regard.

Of course, here in the MCU, Tony Stark is no longer with us, and so way that we see her get that legacy is more, is because she has the fellowship, right at MIT, she’s got the Tony Stark Fellowship kind of thing.

But, to your point, Marcie, we’ve seen her in Wakanda Forever. So, we know directly what’s gonna happen because we’ve already kind of seen a, a little bit of her origin story happen there,

Marcie: Uhhuh.

Y. M. Nelson: The MCU point of view, and two, because she’s got this namesake of iron something we kind of have a little bit of, well we know a little bit kinda what she’s gonna do. She’s gonna have a suit and she’s gonna be real strong in that. So, we know a little something, right? We know a little something little.

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[00:27:15] Tech mixes with magic

Y. M. Nelson: But what I really liked here, and we’re getting into kind of the character portrayals is and that I like about this whole series, is the fact that it goes even a step further than, you know. technological, the, I mean, she’s already a genius, right? But then we get a magic element involved in it.

And so, I love where this is going. So that kind of brings in the whole, oh, where does she kind of fit in? Or, or where do some of the other characters kind of fit in magic wise?

So, then that brings in the whole Dr. Strange. That brings in the whole, I think surprise guest was mentioned in Agatha All Along,

Staci: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: Short mentioned in Agatha All Along. And so, we’re just kind of trying to figure out, you know, where all of this comes from. So, it’s like, it’s like we got Black girl genius, and then we got Black girl magic, literally.

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[00:28:17] Riri Williams is like all the other flawed superheroes

Y. M. Nelson: And I’m just kind of here for all of it, y’all. So, let’s get into this whole character portrayed. What did we think about Riri Williams, about her family, the characters that stood out? What did we think about that? Staci, any things that stood out for you character wise?

Staci: Well, I liked her character. She wasn’t, well, I was gonna say she wasn’t run-of-the-mill, but she was in a way run-of-the-mill. She was all the characters that we’ve seen, like it’s Tony Stark, but in a Black form and I think, ’cause okay, I didn’t watch a lot of stuff beforehand about negative reviews or negative things like that.

But once after I watch it, you know, the algorithm changed, it’s gonna show you stuff. And one of the things someone brought up, and it wasn’t, they were talking negative, they were mentioning kind of like, what I thought was that the qualities we see in her same qualities we saw in like Tony and other characters, but in her it was dealt as a negative.

I was like, you’re kind of right about that, because she knew her stuff, but she’s considered arrogant, you know, she, you know, some of the stuff that she knew and could do and well, well, lemme change that. I didn’t consider her arrogant. Those people who talked about her character talked about that and said that she was arrogant for, it’s like the same thing.

She knew her stuff. What’s the wrong with knowing your stuff and, and advocating for yourself and all that. But her character was that she was strong but soft of, and not soft. But I mean, she wasn’t invincible, which I like.

I mean it’s, you know, we have the strong Black woman. I mean, we’re gonna talk about themes and stuff, but it showed that. What the world was doing to her. What has did affect her on a, on a deep level.

And I do like the fact that they actually kind of mentioned what happens when people that are close to you die and how that affects you. You don’t, a lot of times you don’t really see that, or if that’s the whole thing of the show, it’s like how to, how to cope.

But you actually see that she’s living her life. But at the same time, those deaths in her family, with her, with, you know, I guess spoilers with her her best friend and her and her stepdad, and I really won’t call him stepdad ’cause he was like, really her dad, dad, but I mean her, her father and how that affected everyone around them and how she, and how they coped with it and coped with that loss.

And then later on when we see Natalie, which I guess I might be talking outta my turn, there are two. And how each one of those ca- main cha- have the main characters, how she responded to Natalie, how her mother responded to Natalie, and how Natalie’s brother responded to Natalie. And how all three of those people responded to her in three different ways.

And how they, you know, and it’s, I thought her character really had depth. It really wasn’t strong Black girl, Black girl magic, and, and you don’t go any deeper than that. I think she really had depth and meaning in that. We saw her struggle and I think she actually kinda hit the nail head.

I can be as smart as Tony, smart Tony Stark but I still don’t have that Tony Stark money to do the things I wanna do, which I think kind of hits home for a lot of us. We might, you know, we say pull up by your bootstraps, and it’s like, well it is kind of hard to do that when you don’t have the funds to buy boots.

So, it does, can make a difference. Yes, she was as smart as she can be, but that still did not mean it had money in her pocket from doing that.

Y. M. Nelson: Right, right.

Staci: and I’m sorry, I, I may have just.

Y. M. Nelson: No, it’s so, it’s totally fine. Staci’s totally fine what you’re saying. fine. Makes sense. And actually, yes, I mean a lot of this resonates. And for people who were saying the negative stuff in the beginning, didn’t even watch or listen to her commentary in the first episode.

’cause she said all this stuff in the first episode. She’s saying that in the very beginning. Marcie, what did you think about Riri her family? What is any character portrayals that stand out to you?

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[00:32:38] Riri Williams was annoying

Marcie: Well, I feel bad because Staci has really. Really swung for the, swung for the hills and painted this really great picture. But I, I was anti Riri Pro, Natalie Pro, her mama and pro most other people in the show. But I felt like in a, in a season of poor choices, she made everyone, and I didn’t see as much personal accountability as I have wanted to.

And I understand why Ezekiel was mad at her because every time she had a chance to do right, she did something else instead. And so, I get that people respond to grief differently and I get, and I like that they show the humanity. And don’t get me wrong, I, I like the show, but as a, as a character, she was not my favorite.

Natalie, was I preferred I, I just, I struggled with a lot of her choices, I struggled with, with a lot of her. The fact that her choices often put other people in danger and that it wasn’t just once, it was darn near everybody up to and including the last scene. So, I feel like that for me was something I struggled with as I watched the show.

Was was that, now, did that add some depth and some drama? Absolutely. Was there the concept of superhero, anti-hero, that whole thing, and who, who gets to be a hero? Yes. But also.

People didn’t like Tony Stark either. There’s a reason. And I think those the same traits that people didn’t like about Tony Stark, the ones I did not like about Riri either. I loved her mother, loved Natalie. Feel like the brother could have given a little bit more grace, but he did show up quite often.

Loved Zeke thought that was great. And I, I was really inspired by Anthony Ramos portrayal of Parker slash The Hood, and the depth that he showed in his character in that in that push pull between when he was The Hood

Y. M. Nelson: Mm-hmm.

Marcie: in the moments where you got to see who Parker was before and was evolving to become.

Cousin Joe. I enjoyed cousin Joe. I, I thought he was great too. So yeah, I think for me. I often was frustrated by Riri especially because in, in a lot of cases she was being offered wisdom and support. She just refused to take. And that made it a bit frustrating for me because at every turn there was a person standing there saying, “I’m trying to be here with you. Help let me help you.”

And she was like, “I gotta do this on my own.”

Said no one and got to the end and was like, “I couldn’t have done this by myself.” Exactly. Had we learned that in episode two because Joe might not have been incinerated,

Staci: And that might be why I like her, because I’m like, yeah, “I can do this on my own.”

Marcie: I was like, come on now. And, and, and you know what? And if, and if you, and if, and if that, and if that is proving to be true Staci, that’s one thing, but at every turn it was proven not to be true in such a way that assistance should have been taken. That’s my point.

It’s one thing if you say, I could do this on my own, and you, you look like you’ve been through it at the end, but you really did do it.

She didn’t really did do it. And every time she got to the point of failure and had to bring somebody in, she done, done jacked up their life. But it’s fine. Everybody’s fine. It’s fine.

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[00:36:13] N.A.T.A.L.I.E. – friend, foe, or Terminator?

Staci: okay. Like you said, Natalie, oh, go ahead. Sorry.

Y. M. Nelson: no, go ahead. Go

Staci: Well, I was gonna say Natalie, like you, like Natalie is like, and I found Natalie frightening, to be honest. Well, I mean, by frightening it’s because she’s supposed to be, probably ’cause of ai and I’ve been, you know, stuff about AI and stuff that’s been giving me like, oh goodness, if, if AI gets to the point where they’re doing that and then don’t have to listen to what you say. We better be start making friends with ai. ’cause obviously we’re gonna be in trouble.

And what I mean by frightening, I liked her character as in the actress that played her and that kind of thing, and the idea of a friend, like that kind of a thing. But at the same time, it was not, it wasn’t a per it’s, it was, it’s not supposed to be a person.

And I’m just thinking about how our AI is starting to act and starting to grow and starting to learn. And if we actually got to the point where AI could, well, not, not, it’s not even probably will be at some point where we’ll be smart, thus we’ll be able to do stuff. And I’m just, it just makes me, it’s not really, it’s more like me thinking the future of what AI can eventually be.

And I don’t, and we do a rosy picture of it in that kind of thing. But, you know, I’m thinking more the lines of, it’s gonna kill us just to, to get, you know, it is that kind of thing. I, I mean, so when I say frightened by, it’s not her character or anything like that, I’m just seeing, Natalie and then Jarvis and how that became Ultron, I mean, that kind of stuff and that kind of direction of all that stuff was going just kind of, it’s like, ooh, that’s, that could be later on down the line.

Don’t let her get a glitch and scare, you know, that kind of thing.

Y. M. Nelson: component of Natalie, not the Natalie person. Not the person, yeah.

Marcie: so, I don’t, I mean, even that didn’t bother me as much because I knew that it came from directly from her consciousness. And, and you know, from her, you said

Staci: You said she didn’t make, she made mistakes and all. You know what I’m saying?

Marcie: but also, she was, she was created by parts of re genius that she just didn’t realize she possessed at the moment.

So, I don’t, I didn’t, that didn’t bother me as much because re recreated her. I think that was the difference. And also, even then she had more emotional emotional intelligence than Riri did. So again, I don’t, it, it didn’t bother me at all because one of them needed to be the voice of reason. ’cause clearly by herself, she didn’t have one.

So, I was willing to deal with Natalie partially not being real because one of them had to be the voice of reason. And one of them had to say, look, little girl, this is a bad idea. And even then, when you are basically your conscience. In your face tells you this is a bad plan and you still don’t listen.

It was a lot, it was a lot for me. It was a lot for me because I don’t, I mean, here’s your sign was walking beside her and she still wouldn’t answer. I mean, I don’t know how many more times Natalie could have said, I don’t think this is a good idea.

Y. M. Nelson: Mm-hmm.

Marcie: think it’s gonna do what you think it’s gonna do.

I don’t, don’t you think you should ask someone, tell someone do something. Raise a red flag. Send a smoke signal. I, it really? Yep. It didn’t bother me at all because at least this version of AI was, was trying to keep the, the human on the right path.

Sure. That could have evolved into something else later, but it didn’t.

And so, I’m okay with it.

Y. M. Nelson: You know, what both of y’all have said is making me think now, you know, because because Natalie is basically a download of Riri’s brain. Remember she

Marcie: Exactly.

Y. M. Nelson: and

Marcie: what I’m saying.

Y. M. Nelson: if she had downloaded her conscious

Marcie: We’re gonna Oh, okay. Well,

Y. M. Nelson: she didn’t have her conscience. Instead, her conscience is outside and instead of recognizing this as, Hey, this is my, you know what part of it, the, your ego

Marcie: mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: you know, the part that kinda, reels you in,

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: you in, you

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: instead of her realizing, Hey, this is my common-sense part,

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: know of my brain.

She’s looking at it Staci’s saying as AI and

Marcie: Yep.

Y. M. Nelson: of her genius, and she’s

Marcie: Huh!

Y. M. Nelson: It over. I need to control this genius rather than seeing it as what it is, which is a download of her brain. It’s the common-sense part of her

Marcie: That’s my point. Exactly.

Y. M. Nelson: gotta inner conflict going on externally,

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: you know, so it’s like that’s what’s playing out there.

And,

Marcie: There was.

Y. M. Nelson: know, and I didn’t see that until y’all both

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

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[00:41:14] Has Riri changed since Wakanda Forever?

Y. M. Nelson: said these things. But Marcie, I wanted to ask you. Because I remember on Wakanda Forever, you were pro Riri.

Marcie: I was,

Y. M. Nelson: not pro Riri, she was like, women in stem, you know?

Marcie: so, here’s my, so

Y. M. Nelson: what, is there an evolution of thinking now that we see more of her?

What? What’s going

Marcie: I. So, I’m still, I’m still pro Riri in, in the long run I am in Riri’s behavior in this, in this period of, of, of time, clearly something has happened. I don’t know what the slant was, and it was really unclear as to what happened between the time of coming back from Wakanda and whatever. I would’ve imagined that she would’ve come back differently.

I don’t, it’s hard to tell the timeframe around when she lost her father and Natalie. I, it’s hard. I couldn’t exactly tell if that was before she got swooped up or right after. But clearly that has had some sort of impact. So, she is not the same Riri.

Clearly something has happened because her whole demeanor from the beginning of that to now, and I think that that’s, I don’t, it’s a spoiler and now I’m struggling with how to say it.

Y. M. Nelson: We already said, spoiler alert.

Marcie: So, there’s a part at the end when she’s in the diner with the dude

Y. M. Nelson: The dude.

Marcie: and he says, through no fault of your own, and I disagree.

Y. M. Nelson: Yes.

Marcie: a lot of things that were consequences of actions and behaviors that she was exhibiting that led to some of those things.

Y. M. Nelson: Yeah.

Marcie: Some of them were not malicious, but they were through fault of her own.

She did blow stuff up. She didn’t mean to, and it wasn’t malicious, but it was expensive. And there was a reason she got kicked outta MIT.

But the reason, the minute, the minute she started to think that also, and that is part of what bothered me was there was a lack of personal accountability almost all the way through from getting kicked outta MIT to being to losing the first suit to her decisions about how to get a second suit to, to incinerating cousin John, to leaving the peace and not telling him that the peace had been left and letting him get arrested to him, telling her, you are your own worst enemy.

And her not listening all the way through that it is not through no fault of her own, it is through a series of choices that she has consistently made while also not taking accountability and not listening to her conscience or Natalie or her mama or the, the little boy on the street or come on now.

And I think that the minute she sat down at that table and he said, “through no fault of her own your own.” And I looked at her face, I was like, she gonna fall because why would you not? Because this, this is somebody else who is saying, this is not your fault, this is not, you don’t have, this isn’t because of you when.

In retrospective. It’s all because of her. And I think that’s the part that I got frustrated by. And I say, that’s somebody who struggles, you know? And it looks at me like me. I’m the problem. Hey, there’s a song about it. I, Hey, it’s me. I am the problem. It is me. Nobody that, that’s song never played.

She never had a moment where she said, the reason we are here,

Y. M. Nelson: No kidding?

Marcie: not the reason, the reason I am here

Y. M. Nelson: Yeah.

Marcie: because of the choices I have made up until this point. And that’s the thing that I got frustrated by. And the minute I, the minute he said that, and I, and it panned over to her face, I was like, that’s the whole problem all the way through is, is in this one conversation.

This is the, the thing that’s frustrated me throughout this entire series is, is that it’s that that was, there wasn’t a whole lot of personal accountability for the choices that she made to get what she wanted. Because in each of those places, there was at least one counter opinion being brought to the table that said you could have done this differently.

And at no one of those, no matter how bad it was, no matter how horrible the situation ended up, it didn’t change anything about her perspective or her choices in the next round. I was like, come on now. Even, even. Every scientist by now would’ve done some sort of iterative, deductive reasoning and said, I got to change something.

’cause the outcome keeps looking pretty similar. And nowhere did I see that. And that was the part that frustrated me.

Y. M. Nelson: The scientific method was not in

Marcie: Not at all. You could be a genius. But, but also, I had to remind myself, she’s a kid. She was still very young and she was she was to Staci’s point, trying to do it on her own and trying to prove something to herself, to the world, to whoever. And I kept trying to have to ground myself in, in that part of it as well to try to get past it.

So, when I say anti Riri and it’s, it’s not that I, you know, it’s not that I don’t like her as a character in general. It’s just that I was very frustrated by her choices in this one.

And again, it doesn’t mean I didn’t like the show. It just means that when I looked at all of the characters and the way that a lot of the situations her friend turned in, got turned into a robot and, and.

Y. M. Nelson: got turned into a robot?

Marcie: Zeke

Y. M. Nelson: Oh!

Marcie: Joe. Joe slash Ezekiel. And when he said to her, I spent my whole life, and even then, he showed her grace.

I spent my whole life trying not to turn into this man, trying not to turn into my father. And it was you who made me turn. And now look at where I’m at. But still, I’m not gonna kill you, but you should probably.

And did she leave? Did she do anything? No. She still had to come and try to prove and try to get the thing and try to, you see what I’m saying? Like even then. And he said to her, I spent my life, and this is after he had told her that truth as Joe

Y. M. Nelson: Mm-hmm.

Marcie: said, I don’t want this life. She got him embroiled in his whole life.

And then when he came to her and when, and so when he said to her, rightfully, I just need you to know you and I are not done. I was like, good. Because somebody has to let some consequences happen here. Because clearly everybody’s like, oh, it’s just her grief. No, it’s not just her grief. This is not just grief.

And that’s why when she was sitting at that table, he knew it too. Thank you. Keep going.

Y. M. Nelson: Well about it, you know, we are not comic book people, but in the comics Yeah. It, it is Manifest destiny. He was gonna be a robot, anyway. Well, robot, he’s

Marcie: I mean, I see that, but in this.

Y. M. Nelson: this, but he, but it’s, it is a totally different way that that happens. And I agree she’s the reason here where she’s not the reason in the comics, but, you know, it’s a

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: thing. But but it’s so interesting to hear y’all’s perspective on Riri because I think I had a little bit of both perspectives

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: I’m gonna say. And I think part of it is because I kind of remember when I was 19, which is what she’s supposed to be 19 in this, I kind of remember when I was 19. That was, I did, you know, pretty much some of the worst stuff that I’ve done my whole life when I was 19 and

Marcie: Great.

Y. M. Nelson: to anybody else

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: for most of it,

Marcie: Yep.

Y. M. Nelson: consequences like, came to a head where it’s like, okay, I have got to like, you know, do the right thing here. so, it was frustrating

Marcie: frustrating to see

Y. M. Nelson: those and not pay attention to what other people were saying. And so, I felt that in the beginning when she’s making those choices.

And then I have to take, take a little bit of that back because I’m like, she’s also this hotheaded 19-year-old a genius complex, but not just with a genius complex. She’s act she’s an actual genius. So, she’s got a little bit of narcissism going on there a little bit. So., I get both sides of it.

And then the other part of it is too, like what Staci was saying about the grief part of it and how we see her move through grief and how that’s different and also brings depth to her character,

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: not just depth to her character, but it brings depth to the story.

So, it’s not just a, you know, how this girl became, the next Ironman, you know, it’s, the whole journey to that and why she wants to even do the suit in the first place. And she keeps saying, because I can.

But we know, and I think that’s, it episode five where she’s talking to her mother and she says, I want to protect you.

Where, where her

Marcie: Mm.

Y. M. Nelson: in the bubble.

Marcie: That was, was that four? I think that was four. Yeah.

Y. M. Nelson: is where the other people are in the bubble, which I want to talk

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: them too, but but yes, when she’s in the bubble and she really tells the reason why is

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: want to protect you. And I think her grief, in her grief and

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: the people that she’s lost the protectors of everything. She feels like because she’s smart enough that she

Marcie: she can.

Y. M. Nelson: everybody. So, she’s got that vibe going on, blinding her. So, I, I

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: I feel like she’s pretty co she’s a very complex character that I really liked watching. I’m, I’m not gonna lie, but she’s also frustrating to watch,

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: which is also why she is susceptible to the surprise guest at the end,

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: spoil because it’s already been spoiled on the internet.

And we already said spoil alert. But right now, you know, I think that’s

Marcie: That’s why.

Y. M. Nelson: is susceptible. She is susceptible and that is why he can

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: with what you said, Marcie, that is no fault of her own. He can really trigger that

Marcie: That because mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: she’s going

Marcie: gonna, yeah. She doesn’t even see that she’s doing that. She’s making bad choices. Right, right.

Y. M. Nelson: see it at all. She’s making bad choices.

Marcie: Yeah.

Y. M. Nelson: And, and I think too, that she thinks that she’s making good choices because she’s trying to see something else. She’s seeing through grief, she’s seeing what she wants to see in the end, which is, I wanna get this iron suit

Marcie: Right? Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: and do this and do that. Right? And and there’s not necessarily any major consequences for her. It’s always happening to other people. Y’all see that

Marcie: That’s what I’m saying, and maybe, and maybe that is the disconnect. Maybe that’s the disconnect, is that she doesn’t recognize the impact to other people

Staci: But how

Marcie: way that I could look at

Staci: actually do, I

Marcie: That’s what I’m saying. I could see it looking at all of them, but because she’s singular in her in, yeah. I mean, I get that point too.

Yeah.

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[00:53:25] Why the Ironheart is bad argument doesn’t work

Staci: I mean, because in WandaVision

Y. M. Nelson: she think,

Staci: she, she made hostage of a whole town. She didn’t feel any kind of, I mean, afterwards we didn’t talk about like, how does she, you know, about the effects of the people around her. A whole town was under her spell. We didn’t kind of go into detail on how that is. We just talked about like what happened later and what kind of PTSD those people had that I was living the life that I never knew before and, and I, and realized they were living it.

’cause they remembered that stuff once they were out of it. Or we talk about Tony Stark, he sold arms for the whole for years. It wasn’t just, oh, I just started doing this right after my dad died. He was old when he became Iron Man. He was not a young, so he killed, he basically sold arms to around the world to kill people.

When they had that whole thing, Tron and the whole city lifted up. How many people died when that city, you know, when they did all of that. It’s so, it’s not the first-time character who’s like that.

Y. M. Nelson: not. No,

Marcie: So, here’s another thing and, and I’ll say, I’ll say this and you guys have not seen Thunderbolts*, so maybe that’s a difference of opinion too, because in Thunderbolts* there’s a lot of introspection about that. And so, I’m, so that also is part of it as well. ’cause in, in Thunderbolts they, they start thinking about those things and the things that they’ve done in the name of whatever cause they were for.

Right? But even then, because I was looking at just, just Ironheart, I feel my feedback still stands. She was making bad decisions and some of them she could see ’cause her mother said to her when she took that thing to that shop, you could at least told me. So, I could have told them the real, before we walked in these people’s shop, we are black magic.

Y. M. Nelson: Mm-hmm.

Marcie: Like you could have told me that. So, it’s not that she doesn’t, she’s not aware of the consequences. She lived them and people have said to her, you coulda done this different. So again, nope, she knew.

Y. M. Nelson: So, with, with and actually, Staci, you bring up a good point, and Marcie, you bring up a good counterpoint. So, a, we are talking about Riri in the sense of Ironheart and her choices, and I agree that her choices are not good, but BI want to point out what you were saying because it’s also a lot of the negative social media feedback that had been going on about Riri that she is a criminal because she’s hanging out with these criminal elements.

She’s selling stuff. She’s, you, you know you know, doing this, you know, black market kinda deals or whatever so she can get money for her suit. She, you know, is, you know, arrogant and not thinking about the consequences of her actions, X, y, Z and saying that in a negative way.

Whereas Tony Stark did the exact same thing on a whole big scale, just like Marcie is saying, did the exact same thing. The whole reason why he ended up in the cave to make the suit

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: he gets captured by these people who he sold. They, they’re actually sitting there with his weapons.

Marcie: That’s true, too.

Y. M. Nelson: making the iron suit outta his own weapons that he sold these people that they done capture them with.

Marcie: Sure.

Y. M. Nelson: and you know, and that she, you know, she does all these other various and sundry things, but

Marcie: She does.

Y. M. Nelson: we have seen this. You are right. We have seen this and we have seen people do this thing. Already. I mean,

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: Antman is an actual criminal. Y’all,

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

Staci: was.

Y. M. Nelson: he was in jail and his,

Marcie: Mm-hmm. He was in mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: was he in jail, after he got outta jail, he went and stole the, he becomes Antman with.

He’s, you know, now granted, Pym wanted him to do

Marcie: do that.

Y. M. Nelson: know, ’cause he wanted him to be Antman, you know, he wanted him to be the successor, but,

Marcie: You know,

Y. M. Nelson: but

Marcie: but the A

Y. M. Nelson: Not only

Marcie: only

Y. M. Nelson: a criminal, he got his criminal folks together after he couldn’t hack it at the ice cream shop or wherever he was, he got his criminal gang together so they so some,

right? At least Riri didn’t get the, get the gang together. You know, the

Marcie: you know,

Y. M. Nelson: was already kind, the

Marcie: I mean

Y. M. Nelson: getting together

Marcie: sure.

Y. M. Nelson: The thing is, of these points are valid in this argument. Both points that you have are valid in this argument. Riri’s making some bad choices here in Ironheart. If we look at her in as, we look at this series as that she’s making some. Bad choices, which I think is what propels the whole, that that’s what propels the whole show. But

Marcie: Again.

Y. M. Nelson: time, it frustrates the heck out of, out of us who know better.

Marcie: Exactly. And I think that that’s the, I think to me, that is one of the pros of the Marvel universe is that you don’t have to, like every superhero to be invested in the story or the outcome. Right? So, I didn’t have to like her all the time to be invested in the, the story, and I could lean into some of the secondary characters and be like, oh, but I’m still here, you know, but I’m, I’m still rooting for it because of, you know.

Robotic Ezekiel or the, you know, the, the girl in the magic shop or whatever. So, I think that that’s the wonder of Marvel is that there is someone for everyone who’s watching. And so it wasn’t, I was frustrated with her, but it’s not the, it is not the thing that’s gonna make me pan the series. Right.

It’s just a thing that when you ask me about characters and, and character development is gonna be the one where she wasn’t necessarily the one that I was championing in the, in the story at that point. But I think that’s the wonder of Marvel is that there’s someone for all of us.

I mean, if you look at X-Men, there’s the same dynamic. Like if you look at any that, but I think that that’s the, the beauty of it is that we can all find something and or someone that we, that resonates with us.

Y. M. Nelson: We will continue this discussion on our next episode. Make sure you’re subscribed to Nerdy Romantics Podcast, wherever you get your podcasts and visit nerdyromanticspodcast.com to subscribe to our newsletter, where you can get show notes directly in your inbox. Thank you for listening.

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