Off Panel is back.

Cody plays Josh an unreleased snippet from "Still Life in Motion" — 
the title track he's been trying to write for six months. They both 
get unexpectedly emotional.

This week: no one rings the bell when it's over. Josh walks into an 
empty house after his separation and realizes he never got to say 
goodbye. A group therapy farewell ritual teaches him what a real 
goodbye actually looks like. A former pastor he never got closure 
with. His daughter about to leave for Scotland and what it means to 
do the grief work before someone goes — not after.

Also: Josh becomes a band dad. Six-foot-two, 240 pounds, walks 
into a locked school building like he belongs there, retrieves the 
mallets, and gets to feel his cape flapping. Cody played a Meta Quest 
at the World Cup and has still not recovered. Dr. Mario was a pharma 
conspiracy. Mel Brooks is apparently still alive and making Spaceballs 2.

Plus: three ideas for what comes after the Countdown ends. A Discord 
poll is coming. Tell us which one you want first.

Unscripted. Unedited.

00:00:00 Still Life in Motion
00:05:00 No One Rings the Bell
00:11:00 The Next Project
00:13:00 Shoe Store Nostalgia
00:25:00 Splash Pages
00:32:00 What Comes After the Countdown

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Scott Derrickson walked off this film. Sam Raimi walked in. The result is the most visually distinctive MCU film of Phase Four — and the most tonally confused.

This week Cody and Josh work through Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness — the film Cody refuses to ever watch again, the sequel to a movie that was never made, and the one where the "uh huh / mm mm" moment broke him completely.

Along the way:

• Derrickson wanted psychological horror, Marvel wanted spectacle — then they hired Sam Raimi, director of Evil Dead, which still doesn't fully make sense
• The Illuminati were hyped for years and killed because they were collectively stupid, not because Wanda was that powerful
• The "uh huh / mm mm" exchange: Cody's personal line in the sand for the worst moment in the MCU
• Strange making Christine's wedding entirely about himself: Classic Stephen
• Josh's case that Reed Richards, Tony Stark, Stephen Strange, and Victor Von Doom all suffer from the same disease — they each believe only they can hold the knife
• The lunchbox theory: Strange thinks Wanda wants to be a good guy again. She just wants her family. He's projecting.
• The Wanda cocoon question: could she have survived the collapse of Wundagore?
• The film tried to be a horror movie, a multiverse epic, AND a Disney Channel show simultaneously — and did none of them well

Plus: Josh on representational vs. presentational theater, the "Go back to hell!" moment, the bunny hop into the Dark Dimension, and why the musical notes fight scene might be the single most embarrassing sequence in MCU history.

00:00:00 Opening Comments

00:02:31 Origin Story

00:08:17 The Pull List

00:13:09 Spark & Fizzle

00:36:21 The Gutter

00:55:22 The Legacy

00:58:04 The Stinger

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The most successful Spider-Man film ever made at the time. $1.9 billion worldwide. 
The sixth highest-grossing film in cinema history. Released during an 
active Omicron wave. And it still broke records.

This week Cody and Josh work through Spider-Man: No Way Home — the 
film that gave three generations of Spider-Man audiences exactly what 
they wanted, at the same time, in the same room.

Along the way:

- Tom Holland blew the secret. Garfield denied it for a year. Then 
  Holland opened his mouth and it was over.
- Willem Dafoe's laugh in the apartment fight was unscripted. Tom 
  Holland said it felt like he was punching an actual demon.
- Doctor Strange vs. Peter Parker: "You know what's cooler than 
  magic? Math."
- The three Spider-Men in one room aren't fan service — they're a 
  complete map of grief. Maguire's Peter has survived it. Garfield's 
  Peter is still in it. Holland's Peter is just entering it.
- The sacrifice isn't death. It's erasure. Peter chooses to disappear 
  quietly from every life that mattered to him so the people he loves 
  can be safe. That's harder than dying.
- Strange and Peter both made bigger sacrifices than Tony. Josh makes 
  the case.
- Josh can't finish Spider-Man movies anymore since watching Brand 
  New Day. He tells us why.
- "With great power, there must also come great responsibility." May 
  corrects the line to its comic-accurate version. And then has to 
  die because of it. Both things are intentional.

Plus Cody has never hated an MCU movie more than Multiverse of 
Madness and refuses to watch it again — which makes next week 
very interesting.

00:00:00 Opening Comments
00:04:04 Origin Story
00:09:40 The Pull List
00:23:00 Spark & Fizzle
00:29:57 The Gutter
00:43:40 The Legacy
00:47:47 The Stinger

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Cody liked Eternals the first time. He likes it less now. Josh didn't 
like it. He likes it more now. They recorded this the same week Brand 
New Day came out and Wonder Man season 2 got canceled, which tells 
you something about where Marvel has been and where it's going.

This week Cody and Josh work through Eternals — the most ambitious 
Phase Four film, the lowest-reviewed MCU film at the time of release, 
and the one that quietly asked the biggest questions of any Marvel 
movie before or since.

Along the way:

- Both of them changed their minds rewatching it — in opposite 
  directions
- Josh on why homophobia is the aberrant behavior: every other species 
  on Earth experiences homosexuality, humans are the only ones with a 
  problem with it
- The first three words of the film are "In the beginning." Josh: 
  "Oh shit, we just opened the Bible."
- The Celestials felt incomprehensibly vast in 2021. Watching in 2026 
  with Doom on the horizon — they feel modest
- Was Thanos right? Josh makes the severe mercy case: killing half of 
  all life stopped the Celestials from destroying the rest
- Sprite is thousands of years old and trapped in the body of a child 
  in love with a man. The film handles it carefully. The discomfort 
  is real.
- Are the Eternals alive? A discussion that somehow becomes a 
  conversation about Claude, AI consciousness, and whether self-
  preservation instinct is the same as a soul
- Josh's gut microbiome analogy for the Tiamut emergence situation 
  that is either the most insightful or most chaotic thing in the 
  episode — possibly both
- Kingo just walked out. He still believed in Arishem. He just didn't 
  want to fight about it.
- Mahershala Ali's Blade was canceled. He found out the same way 
  everyone else did.

00:00:00 Opening Comments
00:07:31 Origin Story
00:19:53 The Pull List
00:26:22 Spark & Fizzle
00:38:35 The Gutter
01:11:08 The Legacy
01:13:22 The Stinger

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Off Panel is back.

Before they recorded the Quantumania episode, Cody played Josh an unreleased snippet from his new album. They both got unexpectedly emotional.

This week: the record that’s been two years in the making finally has a title track. Why no one rings the bell when it’s over. Josh’s daughter is leaving for Scotland and he’s already doing the grief work. The time a group therapy goodbye ritual taught Josh what a real goodbye actually sounds like. A former pastor he never got to say “that was fucked up” to. Cody played a Meta Quest at the World Cup and has not recovered. Josh became a band dad for the first time and got to feel his cape flapping.

Plus: three ideas for what comes after the Countdown — music and storytelling, video games from Atari to VR, or a classic Oscar winners run. A Discord poll is incoming. Cody is over Scott Lang. And Mel Brooks is apparently still alive.

Unscripted. Unedited.

00:00:00 Cold Open

00:00:17 Still Life in Motion

00:05:37 Goodbyes and Grief

00:11:00 What Comes Next

00:17:00 The Meta Quest

00:25:09 Splash Pages

00:32:30 The Next Series

00:39:00 Sign Off

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A few weeks into Phase Four — and Marvel is doing something it's never 
done before. An Asian-led story. Real martial arts choreography. A 
villain who isn't really a villain. And the actual Mandarin, finally, 
13 years after the Ten Rings first showed up in a cave in Afghanistan.

This week Cody and Josh work through Shang-Chi and the Legend of the 
Ten Rings — the movie with the best fight choreography in Phase Four 
and the most wasted villain in MCU history.

Along the way:

- Jackie Chan was the fight choreographer. Cody drops this mid-episode. 
  Josh has a moment.
- The bus fight scene is both the best and worst thing in the film — 
  and it happens within the same minute
- Katie Chen got exactly one archery lesson before she saved the world. 
  "You were driving cars three days ago."
- Wenwu isn't a villain. He's an addict. Josh maps his entire arc onto 
  AA's hidden bottle theory — and it tracks perfectly
- The Lord of the Rings parallel nobody talks about: a ring that stops 
  you from aging, that's never enough, that costs you everything the 
  moment you put it down
- Josh connects Wenwu to Shiva the Destroyer — the Hindu deity who 
  destroys not out of evil but to make way for creation
- Code switching as Shang-Chi's real superpower
- We killed one Mandarin. Then we killed another. Come on, man.

Plus: Cody's irrational hatred of She-Hulk, Wonder Man getting canceled 
the same week as Brand New Day, Trevor Slattery's triumphant return, 
and the Trevor-and-Morris dynamic that almost steals the entire film.

00:00:00 Opening Comments
00:04:47 Origin Story
00:14:40 The Pull List
00:25:34 Spark & Fizzle
00:44:36 The Gutter
00:59:23 The Legacy
01:01:00 The Stinger

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The first film of Phase Four — and the strangest way to start one. 
Tony Stark is dead. Natasha Romanoff is dead. And Marvel gives us a 
Natasha Romanoff movie.

This week Cody and Josh work through Black Widow — a film set before 
Endgame, released two years after it, about a character we've already 
watched die. The real question becomes: who is this movie actually for?

Along the way:

- Josh watched the entire movie and missed the stinger because his 
  kids distracted him with five minutes left — and then tried to play 
  along on air
- Marvel's ongoing failure to deliver a strong female superhero lead: 
  Black Widow, Captain Marvel, The Marvels — and why Thunderbolts 
  finally got it right
- The Red Room as institutional abuse: trafficked children, surgical 
  alteration without consent, and why this is the MCU's most honest 
  engagement with that subject
- Josh looks like Red Guardian and he knows it
- The "Fast and Furious Physics" fizzle — 15 minutes of consecutive 
  physics violations in the third act
- The olfactory nerve plot hole Josh absolutely cannot let go of
- Yelena wearing white, Natasha wearing black — and why the anti-hero 
  is actually the more internally resolved character
- Cody's argument that Natasha still hasn't gotten her movie

Plus: the $288 million CGI that was apparently optional, "There is a 
right way to say tomato, motherfucker," and why Thunderbolts was the 
sequel this film was quietly building toward the whole time.

00:00:00 Opening Comments
00:11:00 Origin Story
00:21:00 The Pull List
00:40:00 Spark & Fizzle
00:54:00 The Gutter
01:02:00 The Legacy
01:05:00 The Stinger

Welcome to the Wonderkin

Welcome to the Wonderkin

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Off Panel is back. No structure, no plan, no movie to discuss. 
Just Cody and Josh with the mic on before the main show.

This week: 

- ChatGPT apparently knows who Josh is by description alone. 

- Cody's mom couldn't vote in a Florida primary. 

- Calvary Chapel of Chattanooga handed out pre-filled ballots from a church stage. 

- Josh explains the actual difference between  communism, democratic socialism, and social democracy — and why the person you think is fighting socialism is the one creating it. 

- Cody reveals the album he's been quietly building for years.  

- Josh is two weeks from sending his daughter to Scotland for two years. 

And they both land on the same thing at the end: middle age isn't a crisis, it's just the part where you finally start saying goodbye to the right things.

Also: feet pics, woke country, grape juice vs. 20-year wine, and a Socrates story about wheat that is more useful than it has any right to be.

Unscripted. Unedited.

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This is the final film of Phase Three — and it feels like one. The 
fireworks are over. Tony Stark is gone. And Spider-Man has to figure 
out who he is in a world that won't give him a minute to grieve.

This week Cody and Josh work through Spider-Man: Far From Home — the 
film Josh couldn't finish. Twice. For the same reason he can't watch 
Home Alone as a parent anymore.

Along the way:

- Josh catalogues every adult failing Peter in this film: May, Happy, 
  Fury, Hill, his teachers, and then Mysterio arriving with a fake 
  mentorship
- Cody gets emotional every time he watches Peter build a suit with 
  Happy on the plane — not because of the scene itself, but because 
  of who he was the first time he saw it
- Andrew Garfield was the only Spider-Man who actually moved like a 
  spider — and the drone chase scene is where Holland finally captures 
  that quality
- Josh's fizzle vs. Cody's counter-argument on Mysterio's villain 
  reveal scene
- Peter handing over Edith and accidentally creating his own villain — 
  just like Tony always did

Plus Spain winning the World Cup, Cody tearing up listening to the 
Saudi fans chant in the stadium, watching Paranormal Activity alone in 
a haunted theater at 2AM, and why phase four was always going to be a 
harder sell.

00:00:00 Opening Comments
00:06:47 Origin Story
00:11:00 The Pull List
00:25:00 Spark & Fizzle
00:37:23 The Gutter
00:41:06 The Legacy
00:43:22 The Stinger

Welcome to the Wonderkin

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Some stories don't just entertain you. They find you at the right moment and show you something you needed to see.

Avengers: Endgame came out in April 2019. Josh had been fired from his job the month before. He'd already lost his church, his career, and nearly his marriage. He was watching the heroes lose — and somehow it helped.

This week Cody and Josh work through the film that closed 22 films and 11 years. And they find more in it than they expected.

Along the way:

- Josh's personal 2019 — fired, life collapsing, walking into a theater that felt like hallowed ground
- Why the three people who show up at Tony's death are not random: Rhodey = where we started, Peter = where we're going, Pepper = the one I love
- "I am Iron Man" was completely improvised — and it had to be that specific line in the end to tie off the improvised line 21 films before.
- Captain America is kind of an asshole if you actually think through the time travel rules
- The Korg rock-paper-scissors joke Taika Waititi hid across ALL of Thor: Ragnarok that nobody caught
- Doctor Strange looking at 14 million futures — but what if "we" win doesn't mean the Avengers? Josh's Doom theory
- The Howard Stark elevator scene and what Tony's reaction might mean about Victor Von Doom
- Tony finally laying on the wire — and what Cap got wrong about him in Avengers 1

Plus: the Endgame Encore re-release and what a Doom post-credits scene could look like, why Fat Thor is retroactively worse after Love and Thunder, and why Cody hates Captain Marvel even more than you thought.

New episodes every Wednesday at 5AM.

Welcome to the Wonderkin

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