Why Rhodey Is 'Circumspect' About Captain Marvel In Avengers: Endgame

Avengers: Endgame Don Cheadle James Rhodes Rhodey War Machine Marvel

If you watched that full Avengers: Endgame scene with the big Thanos plan, you probably noticed a few things: 1) Thor likes to pop bread rolls like candy, and 2) James "Rhodey" Rhodes/War Machine was not immediately sold on "new girl" Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel.

Rhodey got to be the one to ask Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) the pressing question of where the hell she's been this whole time. Don Cheadle said his character is certainly wary of this stranger comin' in hot with bold plans:

Absolutely. Well, you never know who’s going to turn. He’s saying, "We’ve been putting in all this work, and we’ve lost people that are close to us and you don’t even know these people. Yeah, you’re going to come in and tell us how we’re supposed to do this now." There’s a fair bit of … I don’t know if suspicion is the word, but he’s definitely circumspect about who this new person is and why should they listen to her.

Fair enough. As Don Cheadle suggested to EW, it would be weird if they just immediately started following this stranger without testing her mettle. But we know Captain Marvel is up to that challenge, and she's already been shown in other trailer shots to be part of the team that heads out to get the Thanos job done.

Here's how that sneak peek scene played out, showing the initial tension in the room between Rhodey -- although he was probably speaking for all of them -- and Carol:

James "Rhodey" Rhodes/War Machine: He's still got the stones so...Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel: So let's get em, use them to bring everyone back.Bruce Banner/The Hulk: Just like that?Steve Rogers/Captain America: Yeah, just like that.Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow: Even if there's a small chance that we can undo this, I mean we owe it to everyone who's not in this room to try.Bruce: If we do this, how do we know it's gonna end any differently than it did before?Carol: Because before you didn't have me.Rhodey: Hey, new girl? Everybody in this room is about that superhero life. And if you don't mind my asking, where the hell have you been all this time?Carol: There are a lot of other planets in the universe, and unfortunately they didn't have you guys.

That's when Thor took a bread break and tested Carol, in his way, ultimately saying of her: "I like this one."

Captain Marvel has a healthy ego, but no ego is healthier than Thor's, so it should be interesting to see them together in more scenes. She fed their egos with her answer, basically saying this planet was already covered so they didn't need her help -- until now.

In other trailer shots, Rhodey is also shown heading off into space -- apparently for the first time -- with Captain Marvel and the surviving Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy. Despite appearing to have a big presence in the movie, Don Cheadle doesn't seem to know too much more than The Rest Of Us about how Avengers: Endgame will play out. At least, that's what he told EW:

Yeah, you just sort of get your part, and some explanation about what came before, and what goes after and kind of how things fit in. But it was still a pretty malleable process while we were shooting it, you know? We knew that things were going to be changing, even after they told us what it was going to be.

Don Cheadle said "they" -- presumably directors Joe and Anthony Russo -- would tell them this sequence would fold into that one, but they may change it and get rid of this whole other sequence. So the final three hour-plus runtime may include some surprises for the actors themselves, if certain scenes did or did not make the final cut.

We know the Russos have embraced misdirection in trailers, including scenes that will not be in the final cut of the movie, like that infamous running shot that never happened on screen in Avengers: Infinity War.

So expect just about anything when Avengers 4 opens April 26. I'm guessing you have tickets by now, since the movie has broken every kind of pre-sales record. Here's everything we know so far about Endgame, which is just one of many movies worth following through our 2019 movie release schedule.

Gina grew up in Massachusetts and California in her own version of The Parent Trap. She went to three different middle schools, four high schools, and three universities -- including half a year in Perth, Western Australia. She currently lives in a small town in Maine, the kind Stephen King regularly sets terrible things in, so this may be the last you hear from her.

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