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I want to tell you my secret now.

I see this.

Silent trade in paper!

No, I am the father.

Oh, Rushburn. what's in the box?

You blew it up.

Damn you all the hell.

Hello and welcome to another Slate spoiler special.

I'm Dana Stevens, Slate's movie critic, and today I am joined by Karen Hahn, a staff writer at Slate, to talk about Black Widow, the long-awaited, in fact, because of the pandemic, over a year-awaited next installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Hey, Karen, thanks for joining me.

Thank you for having me back.

So excited to

spoil this with you. I feel like this is the biggest movie that we've spoiled together so far.

That's probably true, because this is probably the biggest movie or one of them that's been

released in theaters since you've been at Slate, right? I mean, since you essentially joined right

during pandemic times.

Yeah, which is still crazy to think about.

Yep, and now the world is reopening.

And this, to me, feels like one of the first big signs of that.

I mean, just as a movie critic, it's sort of like the movie world hasn't started yet until a Marvel movie has opened.

And that has its good and its bad sides and was very surprised to see myself not unscrolling my usual Marxist screed about, you know, these movies all being the same, but actually finding some enjoyment in it. So before we get started, I just wanted to ask, do you have any of that feeling too? Like Woohoo, Summers here, a superhero movie? I don't think as much as you,

...