Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Speaker 1: I tell you my secret now. I see. Charlotte.
Speaker 2: Great. Greatest people. No, I am the. Oh.
Speaker 1: What’s in the box?
Speaker 2: Yo, my God.
Speaker 1: You’re down here all day.
Dana Stevens: Hello and welcome to another Slate spoiler special. I’m Dana Stevens, Slate’s movie critic, and today I’m joined by Slate associate writer Nadira Goffe. Hey, Nadira.
Speaker 4: Hey, Dana. How are you?
Dana Stevens: Very well. Nice to talk to you for the first time under your new title, Associate Writer at Slate. So congrats on that.
Speaker 4: Thank you. Thank you.
Dana Stevens: Today we’re going to be spoiling Black Panther Wakanda Forever, The sequel to the 2018 Black Panther, also directed by Ryan Coogler, who made the first movie. And Nadira, I think you were not yet at Slate in 2018. I’m pretty sure you weren’t. So I don’t know how you feel about the first Black Panther and how excited you were for this one. I am on record as being someone who’s pretty marvel skeptical in general, especially with this later phase of Marvel. I feel like they’re really, really pushing it with the constant spewing of content. But I will say that I was excited for this movie and to see what Ryan Coogler did with this franchise, especially with the challenge of having lost the Black Panther himself, Chadwick Boseman in the intervening four years since the last film. So before we get into this one, I wanted to hear, you know, just in general what your disposition was toward Marvel, toward Black Panther and how you walked into this movie.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I’m a bit of a marvel apologist. I love Marvel movies, even though I understand and agree with most of the criticisms against them and what people say their shortcomings are when it comes to Black Panther specifically. That was without a doubt one of my favorite Marvel movies since the very, very first Iron Man and the first Thor and the first Captain America and all of those earlier Marvel films. And I think I saw the first Black Panther in the theater 3 to 4 times.
Speaker 4: I think it was just a really beautiful film in addition to being a really good film. And I think the sense of representation that I felt as a black woman and that I know a lot of my friends and family felt was really important and really quite amazing, honestly, to sit in the theater and watch the first Black Panther and feel like this is a movie that was made for you and for your community. And so I was really, really excited to see the second one, especially given. The passing of the late Chadwick Boseman, and I did really enjoy this movie. I don’t think it’s as good as the first one, and I’m really excited to talk about why, but overall, I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Dana Stevens: Yeah, I mean, remembering how kind of historic the first Black Panther felt, there was something especially coming in the middle of the Trump administration. And you know, it just at that moment in our own reckoning with our racial history that that movie felt so powerful. I mean, obviously, I’m not coming from, you know, the community that feels represented by it, but I could feel the power of that representation and the utopia of it, which I think is something I wanted to start with in talking about this movie, because something that this movie does that most Marvel movies don’t.
Dana Stevens: And I think this has to do with, you know, representation and with what Ryan Coogler is trying to do with the franchise is that it imagines this Afro utopia in Wakanda. And this is really especially since Chadwick Boseman is gone, a movie about Wakanda as much as it’s about any one character there, right? It’s about imagining that space and that state and the kind of futuristic beauty of that place. And so I wanted to maybe start there because I think one of the strongest parts of this movie is its opening and the time that it spends in the culture of Wakanda, so that we get to know a bit more about the country than we did in the first movie.
Dana Stevens: But before we even get to that, I want to talk about my favorite moment possibly in this movie, which is before the credits even roll. I was so moved by the pre credits. I don’t know what you would call this, but the Marvel tag, you know, the moment where the Marvel logo appears at the beginning of the movie, which historically is generally this rundown of all the heroes. Right. I know. You know, the thing I’m talking about, there’s this sort of comic book looking, you know, flipbook style animation where usually you see, oh, it’s Captain America and it’s the Hulk and it’s this and that. But all we see in this particular logo run up is Chadwick Boseman in, you know, images from the first movie and, you know, maybe some stills. I’m not I’m not sure where they’re pulling all of those images from, but it’s almost like a memorial montage of him. And and it was just very solemn and very beautifully done and made it really clear that this movie in part was going to be an act of mourning, which I think is the strongest part of this movie.
Dana Stevens: I think when it tries to be an action movie and to bring in all these different characters and to further the franchise in all these brand appropriate ways, it gets really overstuffed and kind of boring toward the end, and we’ll get into that. But I think as a portrait of a community in mourning, which is of course Wakanda at the beginning of this movie, but is also all of the fans who are mourning Chadwick Boseman. It succeeds beautifully.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I completely agree. Interestingly, this movie actually starts off the very, very first thing we see is a very harried and distraught Shuri trying to save T’Challa obviously off screen for very obvious reasons. And so Shuri is in her lab trying to synthesize this heart shaped palm in order to save T’Challa, who is on his deathbed dying from an undisclosed illness. It obviously doesn’t work. And there’s a following funeral scene that is grandiose and beautiful and musical and alive and just full of love and grief at the same time.
Speaker 4: And then that’s when Marvel just sort of quiets everything down with this opening logo montage, if you will. Again, I also don’t know exactly what to call it, but it’s this really stark moment of silence following this sort of really musical, grandiose funeral scene that I think is this really beautiful one two punch of just mourning, you know, just grief. I think this is really the sort of last straw for fans of Chadwick Boseman to say goodbye. And I think that they wanted to start the movie out with that notion and with that sentiment. And I think that that was definitely the right way to go. Because when you go to this movie and you sit in the theater, the first thing you’re thinking is, well, how are they going to handle this? You know, how are they going to talk about this? How are they going to deal with this hole that they have in this cast and in this legacy? And they just do it right off the bat. They do it beautifully. And I also did definitely shed a tear, too.
Dana Stevens: Yeah, it’s very immediate race, right? I mean, the very, very first thing we experience is basically the panic of Shuri T’Challa sister as she’s aware that he’s dying. You know, I mean we and obviously as you say, he’s off stage, but we are present at the moment of, of his death in a way. And so it starts off the movie with this shock, you know, even though we’ve already in real life had that experience, it’s almost like Coogler’s re-enacting it for us at the top of the movie. And I agree, the funeral scene is one of the strong points of the movie. It’s not a strong point of the movie that it strong point comes in its first, you know, 10 minutes. But that scene is glorious and is a great example of what I was saying about establishing Wakanda as a place and as a culture and establishing the fact that for the most part, this is going to be a movie about mourning and about women in mourning, specifically about the Queen Raimondo, played by Angela Bassett and Letitia Wright’s Shuri mother and daughter, mourning together their lost loved one.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I agree. I mean, I think after this initial part of the movie and we’re definitely going to get into it there, there’s just quite a bit of politics and action and. For the world building that sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t. But I do just want to agree for a second, just in case we don’t have time to fully flesh it out that I really, really love how much this movie is about motherhood more than almost anything else. I think that that was a really smart direction to take it to for its emotional beats. You know, we all lost Chadwick. It was really, really sad to lose him and to lose what he would mean to the franchise. But I think grounding this movie in a sense of responsibility and in a sense of mothership and motherhood, I think was really, really smart and really, really touching.
Dana Stevens: I totally agree.
Dana Stevens: All right. So let’s get into the global politics part of the movie, which is, you know, where the villain comes in, although the villain takes a while to join this movie because as we begin, we’re exploring, I think kind of interestingly at the beginning, this this power vacuum that has been left by the death of T’Challa, the Black Panther. Right. So Wakanda is now King less Queen Raimunda. His mother has ascended to the throne. And we see her at this international political meeting. And there’s just something so funny about that world meeting up with the world of Wakanda, right where she walks in in this incredible regal garb and sits down to answer questions about vibranium.
Dana Stevens: Because in keeping with this in general, with Black Panther being a series about colonialism and about the effects of colonialism, there is now a fight around the world about what’s going to happen with Vibranium this super element that, as far as we know, exists only under the ground of Wakanda, and that has made Wakanda into the spectacularly advanced nation that it is. And essentially the international community is trying now to get its hands on Vibranium they’re even secretly trying to mind what they think is an underwater source of Iranian. And Queen Ramona just lays down the law and says no vibranium is ours.
Speaker 4: Yeah. At the end of the first movie, it’s T’Challa who opens the world up to the reality of Wakanda, which is that Wakanda is not this poor nation, as they had so assumed that were condos actually sitting on this wealthy surplus of Vibranium this very, very special metal, as I guess we could maybe call it. And so since his passing, there was a promise that he made that just wasn’t fulfilled, which was that he would use the Vibranium to sort of help, I guess, the betterment of the member states of the U.N..
Speaker 4: I don’t know. It was sort of unclear. But now these, of course, greedy, powerful countries as we are supposed to take them as, which is, you know, in my personal opinion, very accurate, are now pilfering other places, looking for Vibranium. And it’s leading to all sorts of international conflicts, whether it be French mercenaries trying to steal it or covert operations by Navy SEALs trying to look for it underneath the Atlantic Ocean.
Dana Stevens: Right. And as we’re about to find out, as the sort of action portion of the movie begins, there is more of a brain in the world besides that, beneath the ground of Wakanda.
Dana Stevens: But let’s take a quick break for a word from our sponsor and we’ll get back to that part of the story. If you enjoyed this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get an ad free experience across the network. They also get exclusive content on many shows. And of course, you’ll be supporting the important work we do here at Slate and at the spoiler special sign up today at Slate.com slash spoiler plus. To help support our work.
Dana Stevens: All right. So Nadira, we’re back with Wakanda forever. Let’s get into what I consider act two of the movie, which is the entry of the villain. Every Marvel movie, of course, needs its charismatic villain. We can talk about whether this particular villain is charismatic or not, but of course, I don’t think there’s maybe any Marvel movie that had a more charismatic villain than the first Black Panther, right? The Michael Jordan character Killmonger, who, as we will see, does get a short, not quite cameo, but a short moment in this movie later on. However, he is not the main villain because, of course, he has departed this world. So do you want to introduce us to the bad guy? It will kind of forever.
Speaker 4: Sure. So this film’s bad guy is named for who shows up in a very interesting I don’t know if I’d call it spectacular, but interesting way. So as I mentioned before, there’s a sort of Navy SEALs operation, this U.S. operation, to look for more vibranium using the only vibranium detector that exists in the world. They locate some vibranium underneath the Atlantic Ocean as the Navy SEALs are trying to mine this vibranium. They are attacked by what at first appears to be sirens. Use a siren song to get all of the crew members on deck to commit mass suicide, which then seems to be blue skinned warriors once they get out of the ocean and start climbing the ship.
Speaker 4: And then as all of this sort of mayhem is happening and the blue skinned warriors are attacking the Navy SEALs and the government officials, we see Namor, who hasn’t yet said his name or hasn’t yet revealed anything about himself. But all we know is he is a part of this group of people. He does not have blue skin. He has wings on his ankles that help him fly. And we see him menacingly lift up above the rest of the like murder people warrior blue skin siren group whose name we don’t know yet as the rest of the Navy SEALs are trying to get away.
Dana Stevens: Right. So we suddenly have this this new culture introduced, not new, I guess, to the comic universe, but new to the cinematic Marvel universe of more people, blue skinned avatar. Like, we don’t exactly know what their story is, but we’re completely unaware of where they come from or what their game is. Up until Queen Raimunda has asked her daughter to burn her mourning garments, which Shuri is resisting doing. She’s having trouble letting go of her brother in that way. And then suddenly they are surprised by the arrival of this winged marine God in their midst. He wants them to track down the scientist who has made this vibranium detector so that they can protect the Vibranium that apparently also exists in their underwater kingdom of Taloqan.
Speaker 4: So hesitant about this sort of challenge from no more than the Taliban people, but unsure about another way to handle it. Queen Raimunda does tell Okoya that they need to find this scientist, and so they reach out to Martin Freeman, who makes his return to these Marvel films as CIA agent Everett Ross, who tells them that the person who actually made this vibranium detector, the only one in the world, is actually just a kid. A student at MIT named Riri Williams, a.k.a. Ironheart in the comics. I don’t know if this character will be showing up in the future. I hope so. She was a lot of fun. And so Okoya and Shuri go on this adventure to try and get Riri to go back to Wakanda to protect her from Namor who surely will kill her since she’s the only one in the world who knows how to make this vibranium detector.
Dana Stevens: Right? So now it becomes these three women who are on the run from this entire army of more people. And the first big fight that we get is that big encounter on the bridge, Right?
Speaker 4: So Queen Amanda was very hesitant to let Shuri go on this mission to the U.S. to get Riri Williams. And when Okoye is bested and Shuri is kidnapped, Angela Bassett as Queen Amanda has this really, really emotionally stirring scene where she explains to the whole council that she has to take strict action against Okoye, who she advised against taking Shuri along with her on this mission. Because at this point, you know, she’s lost her entire family. She’s the queen of a very important country, very powerful country, and she has no one to sort of stand with, no one in her family left and she really wants Shuri back and she doesn’t trust Okoye to get the job done.
Speaker 4: And so this is also where we see the reintroduction of Nakia, Lupita Nyong’o, US character, who we find out has been out of Wakanda for six years since all of the actions and Endgame where everyone banded together to defeat Thanos. She didn’t even return for T’challa’s funeral, and so it’s a surprise to see her now. This is the first time we get to see her in this movie. And she’s explaining all of this while Queen Raimondo is asking Nakia to go to Taloqan and for. Shreve, Sheree and Riri because she has just kicked out of the Dermalogica.
Dana Stevens: Right. So that’s just the moment of recruitment. And I would argue in terms of pacing comes a little late in the movie. I mean, we’re just so thrilled to see Lupita again. And she’s I think as in most movie, she’s in one of the high points of the movie. I wish she had entered a little earlier and gotten more to do. But when she does get something to do, as you say, it’s important. She’s sent solo to the underwater kingdom of Taloqan to fetch the two hostages.
Dana Stevens: So do you want to talk about the extraction process and that portion of the movie?
Speaker 4: Sure. So it’s actually really simple. You know, after Nakia is hired by Queen Raimunda. Well, hired is maybe I don’t know if that’s what it is, but after she’s recruited by Queen Raimunda to retrieve Shuri and Riri, Nakia goes to Mexico to try and find a sort of entrance point towards this underwater world of telecon. Needless to say, after a whole bunch of really fun secret spy moments where we see her speak different languages and have different costumes and all of this stuff, she finds the underwater location. Upon retrieving Shuri and Riri, she fatally wounds Italian guard, which then sets off this declaration of war.
Dana Stevens: Yeah, and that’s a crazy moment in the movie because up until then, to the extent that there’s been a villain, the villain has been the international attempt to colonize and own all of the world’s vibranium, Right? And then suddenly this moment, somebody who we thought was an ally seeking help, Nomura, the underwater king, becomes this fierce warrior who now wants to wage war upon Wakanda, a big shift in the energy for the second half of the movie.
Dana Stevens: But it does give a chance for the second Black Panther to emerge. And this is a moment that I think could have been and in it some moments is amazing. But it kind of gets thrown away by the end of the movie, which is that Shuri herself, the sister of T’Challa, decides to take over the identity of the Black Panther. And then there’s this great kind of science montage or, you know, whatever the bar of the Marvel version of a science montage of, you know, her suit being created and suits being created for her fellow soon to be superheroes Ironheart, which becomes the identity of the Riri Williams character. And I don’t know if there’s a superhero identity for deny Guerrero’s character. Do you? Did you catch that?
Speaker 4: No, I don’t think so. I think. Okay. Just gets reinstated in the dermatology. So an important sort of intermediary thing that happens here is that after Nakia ends up killing one of the token guards upon extracting Shuri and Riri from the underwater realm, Namor launches this sort of half step war where he basically causes a lot of destruction. He infiltrates Wakanda all for the purpose of killing Queen Raimunda.
Speaker 4: So, Angela Bassett, this character, Queen Raimunda, is now dead and it leaves Shuri with not only the mantle of the Black Panther to be worried about or to consider, but also with the mantle of the throne. You know, with she’s the next remaining heir of the throne and now also grieving the loss of her mother in addition to her brother.
Speaker 4: And so it is after this loss and after retrieving some magical fibers from the world of Taloqan that resemble the sort of magical powers of the heart-shaped herb that Sherry’s able to accurately synthesize a new heart-shaped herb, which is something that she couldn’t do at the beginning of the movie to save her own brother and then ingested herself to become the Black Panther.
Dana Stevens: All right, so we’re moving into the last act of Black Panther Wakanda forever now. And I think we should take another break for a word from our sponsor. So Nadira. This movie is 2 hours and 40 minutes plus long and we cannot talk about it for that long. But tell me what you think in the last act, it will kind of forever are the things that that we need to get covered. I mean, for one thing, we have to talk about the appearance of Killmonger and how Michael B Jordan makes this surprise and I thought kind of electrifying appearance. And it actually happens right at the moment that we have just left off the moment that Shuri is transforming herself into the Black Panther.
Speaker 4: Right. So if you’ll remember from the first movie Becoming the Black Panther, it comes along with this entire ritual where you in just the heart-shaped herb, you are put to sleep, you are buried, and then you wake up in the ancestral plane and when you’re awake in the ancestral plane, you get to have some sort of council with your ancestors. And ideally you would see an ancestor who you most wanted to talk to or who had the most pressing advice to give to you. And surprise, surprise, sure is, of course, expecting to see her mother, Queen Raimondo. But instead we get this really, as you said, electrifying presence of Killmonger who shows up in the ancestral plane and basically tells Shuri that she is like him in the sense that she’s willing to do what needs to be done to enact vengeance instead of this sort of moral high ground. That has been the standard for Marvel movies almost as a whole. But for Black Panthers especially.
Dana Stevens: Right. I think he even says, Killmonger says. And that in that scene of of the the vision that T’Challa was too noble right. He says that Black Panther was too noble and he needed to do what needed to be done. That, of course, was the whole dialectic of the first Black Panther, right, is what is the correct way to affect change And the idea that, you know, you have to sort of choose between noble behavior and a moral getting it done. That was that was Killmonger, his method. So, again, I think if this had happened a little earlier in the movie, it could have been a really great character inflection point for for his character, because what she she is essentially being sort of tempted to the dark side by Killmonger, but because the movie has so much to pack in, that happens so quickly, we barely get a chance to process it as an audience. And by the time she wakes up from that vision, suddenly she is this power hungry, you know, completely different kind of leader than she was when she went into the vision.
Speaker 4: Right. So a few things happen after this. Okoye is brought back into the fold after the death of Queen Amanda. So she’s back as a part of the Dora M.J. They also they being sure and really figure out a way to weaken Namor. They realize that he’s been taking oxygen both from the air and from water or something like that. And so he’s twice as powerful. So they work together to build this chamber that will essentially dry him out and prevent him from getting oxygen from at least water and the ocean. And so they figure out a way to weaken him.
Speaker 4: They also have this really touching scene between and Baku, who we haven’t mentioned yet, played by Winston Duke. He becomes the sort of main ear or counsel to Shuri once she’s left as heir to the throne, which leads in Baku to warn Shuri against killing Namor because he’s referred to by his people as the feathered serpent. God. And if you kill a God, it’s very unlikely that the people who worship that God will ever forgive you and it will be a life long, eternal war. And so He warns her against killing Namor if it comes down to it. But because of her previous conversation with Killmonger, she’s definitely more on the warpath.
Dana Stevens: Right? And it’s funny to see in Baku, who played, you know, more or less the opposite role in council scenes in the first Black Panther Becoming the Peacemaker. Also, just a shout out to Winston Duke, who’s so funny in such a scene stealer. Absolutely love him in everything. But it’s, I think, pretty well known that the the action unit of of Marvel movies is completely separate from the other directors. So this is a sort of moment when the action unit seems to have stepped in and directed this entire shipboard sequence. That is the grand battle between the nation of Taloqan and the war Condon’s. And to me, that whole scene, I just felt like we’ve already seen a lot of battles in this movie. We know what the stakes are. It just seemed I just kept feeling that it was a waste of screen time and resources to have like that huge of a CGI boat battle at the end of this movie.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I agree. Especially when the first battle scene, the one where Queen Amanda ends up dying, is really compelling. You know, in that first battle scene, we get to see water basically wipe away and destroy lots of Wakanda and lots of the villages and the towns. And we get to see these heroes trying to save innocent women and children and innocent villagers. And we get to see Queen Amanda have this really, really amazing sort of final stand. And I think all of that was much more compelling than what is supposed to be this final, even greater, even bigger battle. And so I was just hedging my time a little bit and hedging my bets on like, okay, well, how is this going to end? You know, completely agree.
Dana Stevens: That’s a moment when you feel like. This had to be inserted so that, you know, people that are the true hardcore Marvel fans get to see their heroes in suits coming to save the day. And it’s somewhat generic, but it does end in a moment that’s more personal. That brings back some of the real feeling of the stakes of war, the way that that first battle scene in Wakanda does. And that is when Shuri kind of spirits no more away the dried out no more. She’s attempting to dry out even more to this kind of desert like space where they have their final hand-to-hand combat. Yeah.
Speaker 4: So as they’re fighting, it has the obvious sort of back and forth of who’s winning, who’s losing. Shuri ends up getting the best of no more since he is truly trying out. And it’s in this moment that Queen Amanda comes to her in a sort of vision and says, Show him who you are. And instead of killing him at the last moment, she encourages him to basically make a truce to yield. And she promises that they will protect the Taliban and people as much as they can, since they are another community who has vibranium and who is at risk. And in turn, he will start basically trying to kill the entire surface world. And he agrees. And that’s sort of how the conflict ends. And it leads the end of the movie to sort of set up all the aftermath.
Dana Stevens: There then is a truce. And so we’re somewhere back to where we were at the beginning of the movie where except that there is one more vibranium possessing nation in the world. But as far as I know, the telecon nation is still not known to the wider world at the end of the movie, correct?
Speaker 4: Correct. Throughout the entire movie, a big part of what was putting pressure on Wakanda was that international countries and officials and intelligence were blaming Wakanda for all of the things that were actually the Taliban people’s fault. And so they were getting extra pressure to sort of defend themselves and say that we didn’t kill all of these Navy SEAL officers and we didn’t do all of this stuff. And so Talon does remain a secret to the rest of the world.
Dana Stevens: Right. And that seems, again, like it’s a set up for some future movie where, you know, if if the Taliban people come back, they get to maybe enter the wider world and emerge as some kind of player in that conflict. I want to mention this movie doesn’t have a stinger proper. This is good service journalism for those who don’t want to sit through the credits if they don’t have to. There’s no stinger at the end of the credits. There’s only the promise the Black Panther will return. But right before the credits, there is a moment that involves Nakia, Lupita Nyong’o, US character and Shuri that I wanted to talk about because I found it really disappointing. I mean, as long as we’re spoiling. I was really bummed after an entire movie, as we’ve said, about female mourning and about, you know, motherhood and queendom, that we have this depressing re-emergence of primogeniture at the end because Shuri travels to Are they in Haiti at the end? Is that where she goes to see her?
Speaker 4: Yes, they are. In Haiti. Yeah. Wait. So I actually think some important context for this is that everyone’s wondering who’s going to be the next Black Panther. And of course it’s Shuri. But it’s also very important to note that Shuri says yes to being Black Panther, but says no to the throne. So in Baku is the one who ends up challenging to become the next king of Wakanda. Of course, there’s no one to challenge him, right? And so it’s believed or hinted at that in Baku will become king while Shuri remains as the Black Panther. But then she does go to Haiti to visit Nakia. And that’s where we get the sort of mid-credits reveal.
Dana Stevens: So she is accepted the kind of war waging part of being the Black Panther, but not the kingship part. And Barkow seems to be moving, as you say, unchallenged into that position, leaving her free to kind of wander the world. And one of the first things she does as she was invited in an earlier scene by by Nakia Lupita’s character, is to go to Haiti and visit her. And so there’s this scene recalling the earlier scene of them burning the morning garments in Wakanda.
Dana Stevens: Right. She is now burning the mourning garments, presumably for her mother, sitting by herself, a kind of pensive moment when Nakia shows up with a little boy who turns out to be surprise, the son of T’Challa. I guess he’s about ten years old or so. Right? Which would make sense for the time passage in the universe. And, you know, obviously, there is this sort of idea that the the Black Panther suit will eventually pass on to him. I don’t know. I found this moment really depressing. As I said after this movie, I thought had a very profound commitment to its female heroines and the idea that, you know, the crown could pass just as well to a woman as a man. I mean, if you’ve got to make it about the next generation, why not have her have a little girl?
Speaker 4: I think if we hadn’t I mean, obviously, this is kind of useless to say because we did. But I think that a lot of things would be different in terms of succession if the film didn’t have to deal with the loss of Chadwick Boseman. And I think this very last mid-credits scene is maybe a way for them to sort of continue that legacy of Chadwick as well, specifically. And so in that way, I understood why it had to be a boy, but I also didn’t fully understand why. What good or use that information was doing for us now. Like, are we supposed to look out for this character in the future? Is this character going to just sort of stay on the sidelines and try and live his best life? I’m not sure. I wasn’t really sure what to make of it. I found it slightly moving, but I found it more so confusing and opening up of a lot of questions than I did anything else.
Dana Stevens: Well, Nadira, We were promised that the Black Panther will return when he or she does. Will you come and spoil the next movie with me as well?
Speaker 4: Gladly.
Dana Stevens: So thanks so much for coming in to spoil. It was a lot of fun. And thanks to you listeners to please subscribe to the Slate Spoiler special podcast Feed. And if you like this show, remember to read it and review it in the Apple Podcast Store or wherever you get your podcasts. And of course, if you have suggestions for movies or TV shows you think we should spoil in the future or any other feedback to share, you can send it to spoilers at Slate.com. Our producer today is Kristy Taiwo Mack. Angela. Alicia montgomery is the vice president of Audio at Slate for Nadira Goffe. I’m Dana Stevens. Thanks so much for listening and we’ll talk to you soon.
