Endgame

[tardis_stowaway]

So, I saw Endgame on Friday night.  There were a lot of things the film did well, and many things that satisfied me.  However, the things I found unsatisfying were major, and they’re what sticks in my mind the most.  Spoilers ahead under the cut.

 

Let’s talk about my biggest problem: Steve’s ending. Look, I know that as a Steve/Bucky shipper, I wouldn’t have been 100% satisfied with anything that the corporate overlords were realistically going to release. I know that they needed to write Steve Rogers out of active Captain duty because Chris Evans wanted his life back. But even taking those things into account, I feel that what happened is a unnecessarily poor ending for Steve’s arc across all these movies.

Ever since he woke up in the 21st century, Steve has been battling depression and loneliness. (Arguably it began well before that: we don’t get a sense that he had a ton of close connections other than Bucky before the war, and the little punk picking fights in alleys wasn’t exactly well-adjusted.) The thing is, for all the new challenges he’s had to face, he’s made so much progress in connecting to his unchosen new life since the days of destroying punching bags in an empty gym.  He’s known the Avengers for years longer than he knew Peggy or the Howlies. Sam and Nat in particular are close friends. Bucky–the man he allowed to beat him to the brink of death in CATWS in hopes of sparking a memory return, the man for whom he tossed aside the shield and became an international fugitive, the man he said he’d be with to the end of the line–is alive in the 21st century. Even within this film, we saw him balanced enough to lead support groups to help others. (Apparently everyone losing half their world is what it took to get Steve more stable about having lost all of his.) Had Steve returned promptly at the end of the movie, he would probably have always carried some of his sadness and have some difficulty connecting, but he would have lived a good life alongside his Avenging family, even if he’d chosen to pass on the shield. Part of the Depression Experience is that you never get it to vanish permanently, but you can recover enough that it’s not the boss of you any more. I think Steve was on track for that.

Instead, what we saw was that he severed every single connection he’s made to the 21st century to literally go live in the past. Endgame forced him to focus on the loss and didn’t let him see what he’d gained.  It wasn’t at all satisfying as a viewer, and I don’t think it’s the decision the Steve Rogers we’ve come to know would make at this point.

The thing is, despite all the Steve/Bucky fic I read, I do also really like Steve/Peggy. Maybe I could have been more forgiving of all the problems in Steve’s arc if Endgame treated Peggy well, but it didn’t. Peggy’s role in this movie  fails the Sexy Lamp Test. She is the object of Steve’s desire, as shown rather literally through Steve’s mooning over the picture in the compass. He sees her through the glass in 1970, but if I recall correctly we couldn’t hear a word she said. We know through the picture on her desk that the lingering affection isn’t entirely one-sided, but that’s about it in terms of her participation.  That sucks, given how much agency she has in every other onscreen appearance (outside of the vision in AoU). I hate that this ending devalues at the least and possibly fully erases all that we saw in Agent Carter, where Peggy built her own power, kicked an awful lot of ass, moved past her grief for Steve, and found new love. Steve knew that she lived a long, rich life without him, including that (according to the video in the Smithsonian exhibit) she married. Steven “self sacrifice and respect for women” Rogers wouldn’t interfere with all that for his own happiness. And even leaving aside the disruption to the timestream (because frankly this movie’s time travel rules confused the heck out of me), his presence as famous Captain America in Peggy’s life could interfere with her getting taken seriously in her career.

Meanwhile, if Steve went back to spend his life with Peggy, then he has to know that at that exact moment Bucky is in HYDRA’s hands being tortured and brainwashed.  Anyone who thinks Steve could just stand aside and let that happen to Bucky for decades has a fundamentally different understanding of his character than I do.  The only way I can accept the ending is by headcanoning that he DOES rescue Bucky, who in the final scene is sitting just offscreen as Steve and Peggy dance, ready to cut in as part of a happy OT3. This is a very pleasant headcanon. However, it seems like way too much interfering with the timestream, but as stated I don’t really understand the rules for interfering with the past in this movie. Was it supposed to be that interfering with the past create an alternate reality? In that case, how does Steve end up back in his original reality as an old man? As I recall, he didn’t reappear in the machine but instead was spotted sitting on a bench. I took that to indicate that he’d been living continuously all that time and snuck up to the lake to be there to meet Sam and Bucky, because he’s dramatic like that. Even ignoring the timestream mess, a potential headcanon doesn’t excuse how little weight Endgame gave to the relationship that has been the driving force in so many of Steve’s decisions since he first disobeyed orders on a suicide mission into HYDRA territory on the off chance that Bucky might still be alive. I know Endgame couldn't have canonized my ship, but it didn't have to go no homo as hard as it did.  

This has gotten long enough that I’ll make a separate post with my other thoughts about Endgame. However, let me close with two of the only things I did like about Steve’s ending:

-Falcon!Cap is go!  Yay Sam!

-When Steve reappears as a very old man, wearing a typically old man sort of outfit, it looks pretty much like what he’s always worn off-duty. Bless your fashion-challenged heart, Steve Rogers.  <3 <3 <3