Wonder Man 1x01/1x02 Full Reaction!
Added 2026-01-29 18:59:40 +0000 UTC
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Honestly wasn't going to watch this one - a bit jaded on MCU stuff these days. But your reaction tipped the balance and I'm glad I did. Ben is so good in it. Wild to get a Coronation Street (longest running UK TV soap) reference in the MCU!
LatePaul
2026-01-30 12:35:20 +0000 UTCSimilar thing of never having heard of the character. Went into this with the barest bones of knowing what to expect. Avoided trailers, though a few ads did play on the tv. Now you mention it, Marvel didn’t really get as loud about this like how they did for WandaVision five years ago. The thought of MCU projects all being the same, formulaic though some of them admittedly are the thought has been bullshit since the earlier days. The general uniform look is there, yet there are the clear differences in certain projects, such as this one. Like the Defenders era shows, they are designed to clearly fit the shared universe, yet they all have their own distinct feel and vibe. Yahya has been getting a good track record. Fair on not getting a full read on Simon right away. More Trevor is great. Just love that they actually have Ben back just again feeling like he’s channeling Dudley Moore with this, and now here, with a surprising amount of emotion and pathos. I concede that the Mandarin rug pull was a shock, but once it wore off, there was cackling as my brother and I loved that part of the film and character, so no need to say the Buzz Lightyear line here. Midnight Cowboy is good. In terms of bizarre outsider movies, I’m more partial to Scarecrow myself, but Midnight Cowboy is excellent. And here it gives you another chance to plug Darling. Get a laugh how our minds both went to Michael Dorsey, presumably. Never a bad time for a Seinfeld reference such as the one you went with. Shared excitement with Trevor reaching out to help, which then causes the heart to sink when the reveal happens. Again, completely get and understand the decision to never touch alcohol or drugs. There was, as I’ve said, concern how drinking would affect meds I was still on when I was approaching twenty-one. One benefit to my growth hormone medicine is the aversion to needles makes you not want to try hard drugs. That is a valid counter to Trevor’s career move with the Mandarin seeming preferable to being known for the Gaiman property. Damage Control guy is back to being a complete dick, meaning his seeming the reasonable one was purely optics, which tracks. It does at least make clear that Trevor is not being deceitful by choice, though we still dread the liar revealed trope as that’s nearly always terrible. Inevitable that we both gush over Joey Pants. Man’s always a treasure. Love it how we both want to defend him even when he’s playing an asshole version of himself. Fantastic how we both singled out the Baby’s Day Out of it all. And good for him that he’s still proud of it. I’ve presently seen as far as the next two episodes; get to the rest within the next few days. Already one of the biggest highlights is the connection Jess has with this. Makes it a great shared experience, and we are all looking forward to what’s ahead.
Thomas Corp
2026-01-30 02:09:10 +0000 UTCOne more callback, Simon walks past the Chinese theater that Trevor helped blow up. Apparently Hawkgirl dropped Ghurkos so hard he changed universes. And he's spot on about The Fly, so I look forward to seeing just what else he has planned for this movie. Baby's Day Out is one of the movies where no matter how bad you think it is , you watch Ebert's negative review and say "Dude, what the hell are you talking about?"
Ryan
2026-01-30 01:37:08 +0000 UTCI went into this one totally blind. I never heard of the character, no idea what his power is, and it didn't seem possible but Disney seems to have put even less effort into marketing this show than they did for Ironheart so I never caught any trailers. And so far, I'm really digging it. Most of all, all you people who have spent years complaining that every MCU project is the same are going to be doing a lot of embarrassed mumbling over this one. Yahya's quietly built up quite a bench of comic book characters with Black Manta, Dr. Manhattan, and now this, and it speaks very well to him that they all feel so different. Yet the show still feels like it's keeping him a bit at arm's length, after two episodes still giving us just the vaguest idea of what his power is, because we have the already established Trevor Slattery to really act as our identification figure. And Ben Kingsley has clearly always been having a ball here, signing onto a brief one joke role only to be brought back a decade plus later to fill him out into a real character. And right from the start, my response to anyone who hated him was "You are a sad, strange little man, and you have my pity." His being such a passionate fan of Midnight Cowboy endears him to me even more, as even years before I saw it I grew to love it as this bizarre outsider movie that somehow managed to become a beloved mainstream classic and win Best Picture (plus the absolute best editing I've ever seen in a movie, which is the first thing I point people towards when they ask what exactly the job is). And one big unexpected highlight of spending the last year filling in the gaps of the Oscar winners I've seen was Schlessinger's earlier film Darling, an even more savage and shameless piece of outsider art. Hard to believe he ended with a lame mom movie starring Madonna. The one big thing we do get of Simon is how seriously he takes the work, and it's nice to see the show make no bones about how destructive this is. The reference I was planning on was taken, so I guess I'll go with he's the kind of guy who'd turn "These pretzels are making me thirsty" into a guy with no money and no woman who's parking cars for a living. And it's genuinely exciting to see Trevor reach out to help, which just makes it more painful when he ties up the light bulb cord. At least his sobriety seems to be genuine; I decided shortly before turning 21 that I'd never touch it in the first place because I didn't trust myself not to go to the worst place with it, especially with my OCD making it even easier to be a habit. Although if he thinks being known as the Mandarin is bad for his career, right now his son is best known as a Neil Gaiman character, so who really has it worse? Next episode we're reintroduced to Damage Control Agent whose name I've never bothered to remember, and I kind of get the feeling they never really figured out what to do with him now that he's back in this role after being positioned as more reasonable compared to his partner in Ms. Marvel. But it's also made more clear that Trevor doesn't really want to be doing this and feels a real friendship with Simon, but we all know the whole truth is coming out eventually and it's going to be painful. But the real star of the episode is Joe Pantoliano, and I'll admit, even with him deliberately playing himself as a smug ass, I still feel such an instant connection to him that I wanted to defend him when Simon finally speaks up. The whole scene is something of a counterpart to the Sopranos episode where Ben and Lauren Bacall play themselves as clueless rich tools, so it's neat to see him in Christopher's role this time. Though my favorite part is Joe is apparently especially proud of Baby's Day Out, which kind of feels like it's playing off his connection to the Chucky running gag that over years of Jennifer Tilly playing herself, literally the only part of her career that ever gets mentioned is Bound. I wasn't at all expecting you to get to this one so soon, so I put off watching a bit and these are the only episodes I've seen so far. Very unexpected to see you feel this kind of connection to it, which is going to make the rest a lot more fun.
Ryan
2026-01-30 01:27:11 +0000 UTCGood strategy in place. Starting this show, I go through some big tonal whiplash as I’ve been powering through the Defenders MCU shows. Presently at season two of Iron Fist, and I have season three of Jessica Jones after that. On the initial night, I got as far as the first half of Wonder Man. I’ve not yet finished, so I’ll get to that soon enough. The heart of the show is Simon. Him and Trevor. I knew in advance that Trevor would be in this, same as you. Much though my brother and I are not unsympathetic to people being pissed off about the Iron Man 3 rug pull, we’re of a similar mind as you are with loving Ben as Trevor as it’s ungodly hilarious. See that Ben’s still channeling the Dudley Moore energy as Trevor, albeit a bit more mellowed out than it was in Iron Man 3. Trevor, incidentally, is a perfect representation of how you expressed the OCD fixation of worry about forgetting shit. It has actually been about a decade since I last saw Iron Man 3, though I’m catching all the call backs like the mentions of Lear in Croydon. Trickier still is you’re expected to remember the short that was only available on the one Thor blu-ray prior to Disney+. Finally saw Shang-chi to prepare for this, which, by the way, I pity reactors and audiences who missed the Abomination of it all when that first came out; can see the fans being rude in response on that one. We established quickly what kind of actor Simon is. His agent sounds quite frustrated by his antics, implying that this is a trend for him. No doubt she’s still mad about getting him a job in a commercial where he played a tomato for thirty seconds, and they went half a day over budget because he wouldn’t sit down. Give Simon this: the hustle is there, as you put it. To address the look on your face during the vocal warmups, that’s all real; we do it all the time. His girlfriend moves out, though I quip, “Well, at least she left the posters.” He gets invested in the Wonder Man reboot. The original film feels like Turboman starring Reb Brown. Ah, good memories of going to see a movie with Dad. Love how they sell this as the headline news that it is as it feels like if, for example, Kieślowski was still alive, and it’s announced that he’s directing a superhero movie. This feels like that with shades of Herzog for seasoning. He and Trevor strike up a good bond. I really now want to see the film with Trevor, Glenda Jackson, and the sea turtles; sounds like a hot ticket. Hear ya on wanting to get more invested in the blossoming bestie relationship, and it’s hampered by how we’re bracing ourselves for the liar revealed trope. You hear the voice on the phone and just think, “Oh, Christ, not that prick again!” A thought that was said assuming that it was in fact the prick I was thinking of upon hearing him speak. I conceded the possibility that it may have been a different prick who happened to have a similar voice. And the second episode confirmed that I was right in my initial surmise. Adored the Joey Pants cameo. Heard he was going to be in this, but I didn’t know that he was going to be Adam Westing himself. Loved everything about that. I goddamn pissed myself seeing the Baby’s Day Out posters hung up in his house. My brother and I have said much the same thing about how there are times when eating steak, that you have the famous scene with Joey Pants on the brain. And yes, the fact that Morpheus says that to Cypher, the humor of that does not go unnoticed. I found I got angry with Simon when he yells at Joey Pants. I snapped, “Pump your breaks, Sir, that man’s a national treasure.” and him shitting on Baby’s Day Out made me get even more defensive; it’s a fun movie. Not perfect, flawed, sure, but great fun. I have great investment in everyone in that scene. Now to talk about how we both went through some shit in this show. We both had a journey. The show points out how Simon’s methods sort of undermine his efforts to be a more successful actor. Yeah, the sad thing is neither of us can judge the overthinking and detailed backstories and pondering motivations and what not. You generally keep it all inside. Some directors don’t mind to a point. Others do. There are times where you get something in your head and you ad-lib, try it in a take, or rehearsal, just to get it out of your system. And either the director doesn’t like it, you apologize and move on, or they like it and leave it in. All that, and other scenes of this such as his intensity, which in my case is partially down to one curse of being an Aries, honestly it starts feeling like personal attacks as I feel very called out. You mention not being sure if you feel seen or exposed, makes me say, “That’s me as well. You feel the same way? Good, so I’m not alone on this one, thank Christ.” How you kept mentioning that kept getting me good. We both go through things with this one. Reminds me how Anthony Hopkins once spoke of how he runs through his lines over two hundred times; a shared autistic/OCD trait to be sure. We concur on trying hard not to inconvenience people. Particularly when it concerns blocking scenes. I know you’ve spoken of a dancing background. Same basic principle where stuff’s blocked out for a reason and you don’t want to fuck with that. I likewise feel Trevor’s scenes too. For instance, his own acting approaches, and we agree on his texting etiquette. It’s a vicious cycle. I’m with Trevor about texting sentence fragments. I also feel how Simon says about seeing the original film too many times. Both Sir Christopher Lee and Frank Langella spoke about how when taking on Dracula, one big hurdle was to not emulate or imitate Bela and figure out how to make it their own, so I get it. I’ve spoken before about doing the theatre work in school. This is as triggering as it was for you. Viscerally hear you on when dealing with the OCD, people yelling at you, “Just be normal!” doesn’t help, at all. The goddamn autism exacerbates this to an obscene degree. Yes, as you say, you don’t just let the beast run free, yet you don’t try to force yourself not to have it. Learning to live with it and managing it are the ways to go, though it is difficult. You speak of the years that the OCD ran your life. There are the years when it’s bad. Five years ago it fueled the oppressive grief something awful. And no, it never does go away. You don’t need to open up about shit if you don’t want to. Supposing you did, you would have my complete sympathy, empathy, and understanding, Jess. Really cannot improve on anything you said, though I’ve added to it with my own feelings and experience. We both observe that it is difficult to open up about that shit. It is very brave of you to have done so with what you did open up about. Appreciate it, Jess. And thanks for the terrific reaction, and post-episode thoughts both.
Thomas Corp
2026-01-29 20:26:10 +0000 UTC
