powerful new character in the form of Lewis Pullman’s Sentry. It was the relatively rare post-“Endgame” Marvel Cinematic Universe movie to not deal with the multiverse, for the most part. It also featured one of the most cold-blooded and definitive deaths in the history of the MCU.
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Olga Kurylenko’s Taskmaster first appeared in 2021’s “Black Widow” and her return in “Thunderbolts” was a big part of the marketing from early on. However, as anyone who’s seen the movie now knows, she didn’t make it long. In the first act, Yelena Belova, John Walker, Ghost, and Taskmaster are sent by Val to an underground lab. Unbeknownst to any of them, they’re all supposed to kill each other in an attempt to tie up loose ends. Before they all realize this, Ghost shoots Taskmaster in the head.
There were no fake outs. There was no return. Taskmaster was definitely killed. Especially since everything in that room was later burned to ash. Director Jake Schreier spoke with the folks at GamesRadar about the decision, explaining why they did what they did. Here’s what he had to say about it:
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“Obviously, it’s a big decision. We felt like a movie like this needed something like that, where you’re like, ‘Okay, if they’ll do that, they could do anything,’ you know, and you don’t really know exactly where the thing is going to go. It needed a bit of shock or surprise.”
That reasoning makes sense. That death does make it clear the movie is willing to go to surprising places early on. Be that as it may, no other major characters bite the dust and none of that explains why it had to be Taskmaster, specifically. But it had to be someone.
