If they keep the Ross character around I hope he moves to the diplomatic service or becomes his own agent, questioning everything he thought he knew and the good of what he's done.
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But as much as I thought Martin Freeman's performance was fine and there were good things in his interpretation of the character, I would also be happy if we never saw him again, if it's going to be ace fighter pilot turned heroic CIA operative.
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He was introduced in the comics to be a POV-onramp for skeptical white audiences into the world of Wakanda and I think the movie more than adequately demonstrated that this isn't necessary. We didn't *need* him to believe in it.
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So a few people have had different takes on Ross than this, and here's where I come down: We never hear him say it was *wrong* for the CIA to have trained and used Killmonger. He claims ownership of him but not responsibility for him.https://twitter.com/AlexandraErin/status/1302603237690945537 …
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With Everett Ross being such a fundamentally decent guy and obviously not liking what Erik is doing in Wakanda (and to the rest of the world), it's easy enough to read into it that he's having a Come-to-Jesus moment about what he and his agency have done...
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...but if you're already on board with or open to the idea that what the US has been doing in places like Afghanistan are good or necessary then the message is that what Killmonger did for "us" was fine, it's when he did his own thing that it became bad.
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And even if his core of decency and self-sacrifice are at odds with his CIA role... it's the Jake Peralta problem. Showing the good guy who's a cop and whose goodness is separate from his copness is still suggesting you can be good and be a cop.
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He's not a major viewpoint in the movie so his moral dilemmas aren't centered (nor should they be!) so we don't know, when he refuses to bail out and risks his life, if he's thinking, "The CIA created this, so it's up to me to stop it." or just "Can't let bad guys blitz America."
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And the thing is... I don't want a Black Panther movie that centers Everett Ross and goes deep into his feelings. So I would prefer they either drop/downgrade his part in any future Wakanda movies, or show us his progress as an external thing that doesn't require explanation.
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I.e., he's now at the state department, in the diplomatic corps, or is a US liaison to the new Wakandan cultural outreach centers.
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TL;DR - the decent and heroic CIA agent is still what I suppose we might as well call "coupaganda", even if the decency and heroism are treated as a separate thing from the CIA operative part.
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End of conversation
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