This post contains major spoilers for Marvel’s “Thunderbolts.”
“Thunderbolts*” is in theaters now, putting Phase 5 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the rearview mirror. It was not without its casualties though, even though the MCU has a tough time committing to death (Just look at how many times Tom Hiddleston’s Loki has died only to return once again.) However, one death in this particular movie seems pretty definitive and permanent — and it was heavily predicted by fans ahead of the release.
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Spoilers lie ahead so anyone who has not seen the movie would do well to turn back now. You’ve been warned.
As many had guessed, Olga Kurylenko’s Taskmaster dies very early on in director Jake Schreier’s contribution to the MCU. This was heavily predicted when the trailers for “Thunderbolts*” hardly featured any scenes with Taskmaster at all. What’s particularly wild about it though is that the death is very sudden, cold, quick, and just sort of happens. The movie moves on without Kurylenko’s Antonia Dreykov.
Some might have thought that Taskmaster would die and provide some emotional resonance or that the death would at least have some meaning. “Thunderbolts*” may have a lot on its mind, but this character’s death is essentially meaningless. She gets mere moments of screen time and gets shot in the head by Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) during the first fight scene at the warehouse as Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) was trying to clean up her loose ends by having her rogue agents kill one another.
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Taskmaster is the only one to die, with Ghost, Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), John Walker (Wyatt Russell), and Bob (Lewis Pullman) just moving on, though Yelena does have a brief conversation about her later in the movie. Even so, Ghost doesn’t seem to feel the least bit bad about killin gher, and that was that. It’s frankly pretty jarring. Whether it was the right move to make is a matter of personal opinion, but it’s certainly uncommon for the MCU.
Someone had to die in Thunderbolts*, and Taskmaster drew the short straw
Though not an apples-to-apples situation, for all intents and purposes, “Thunderbolts*” was essentially Marvel’s answer to DC’s “Suicide Squad,” dating back to the team’s first appearance in the comics in 1997. It’s a team of reformed bad guys/anti-heroes, for the most part. This isn’t “The Avengers.” It’s bad people — or at least people willing to operate in the grey — coming together to do something good. It’s not the norm for them. These people are killers, so some killing was bound to happen.
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For this movie to even sort of live up to its name, someone had to die. Taskmaster just drew the short straw in that regard. Even everyone who was killed by Sentry/The Void in the third act was brought back by the living members of the team, like a quick New York version of Thanos’ dusting. Taskmaster wasn’t so lucky. As for why it had to be her? That’s something the filmmakers would have to weigh in on, but for what it’s worth, Taskmaster wasn’t exactly a beloved villain when she debuted in “Black Widow.”
This brings an unceremonious end to Kurylenko’s time in the MCU. Quite a few fans didn’t dig the take on the character in “Black Widow,” and there was no redemption (heck, hardly any screen time) in this movie. What’s worse is that Kurylenko didn’t even seemingly have that much to do in “Black Widow” either.
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“I wish I could say it was all me throughout,” the actress said in an interview with /Film in 2021, regarding her turn in “Black Widow” as Taskmaster. “That’s unfortunately not the truth, because Taskmaster has very, very complicated fight scenes and some incredible skills that I just unfortunately couldn’t do, and I had to be dubbed by stunt doubles. But yeah, believe me — would I have liked to do it? I would. If they had told me before, ‘Olga, we’re going to take months and we’re going to train you so you actually can do it.’ I would have said yes.”
Meanwhile, just about everyone else from this movie is going to be returning in next year’s “Avengers: Doomsday,” which makes a great deal of sense given the ending. Unfortunately, Taskmaster was blown to smithereens and won’t be participating in anything. Pour one out.
“Thunderbolts*” is in theaters now.
