*Spoilers.*
I’ve talked about Jack and I’ve talked about Elsa, so now it’s time to look at the two of them together. Considering that Werewolf by Night is less than an hour long and they go into the special not yet having met each other, the connection that grows between these two in that time is impressive.
Elsa and Jack have incredibly different temperaments, which immediately makes for a compelling combo. Elsa comes into the monster-hunting contest with a huge chip on her shoulder and a job to do. She’s pissed that she has to prove herself to win something that she feels should’ve been hers by rights, and she’s prepared to kill to get what she wants. By contrast, Jack doesn’t care about the contest at all. When they first run into each other on the grounds of Bloodstone Manor, Jack suggests that, rather than duke it out and show their prowess, they just pretend they haven’t seen each other and go their separate ways. Hearing this attitude amid the dog-eat-dog environment of the competition stuns Elsa, and she’s entirely unable to figure out what to make of Jack.
He continues to perplex and surprise her. The next time their paths cross, he’s friendly to her and tries to be helpful, offering to assist her in tending an injury she received from another hunter. This is so unlike the other hunters, who spill blood freely, and Elsa doesn’t know whether Jack is dumb, soft, or perhaps something more.
She’s spiky and guarded. He’s warm and inviting. She’s highly competent and lethal. He doesn’t quite know what he’s doing, but the last thing he wants to do is hurt anyone. He reaches out but she’s untrusting, he wants to work together but she’s a lone wolf. She’s a monster hunter. And he’s a monster.
But despite all these major differences between them, something clicks. Maybe it’s because Jack’s relentless openness wears Elsa down, maybe it’s because she’s not as hard-edged as she purports to be. Somehow, they start working together, Elsa helping Jack free Ted (the captured monster they’re supposed to be hunting) in exchange for the Bloodstone. And even when it comes out that Jack is a werewolf and Elsa is ready to paint him as a creature and a traitor, he gets her to still see his humanity. When Verussa forces him to turn, he’s able to hold onto a shred of his memory of Elsa, which protects her during the attack.
By the end of the special, they’ve parted ways—Jack, human again, is waking to a post-werewolf hangover while Elsa has claimed the Bloodstone and her ancestral home once and for all. But see, this is why we need more Werewolf by Night in the MCU (I’ve noticed that my Werewolf by Night posts, like my Moon Knight posts, tend to end with a pitch for more. I’m okay with that.)
Where do Jack and Elsa go from here, separately and (hopefully) together? How will they run into each other again? Has meeting Jack (and Ted) changed Elsa’s attitude toward monsters? What will she do with the Bloodstone now that she finally has it? Will we ever learn about the one other person Jack was able to remember in his werewolf form? Inquiring minds very much want to know, and I’ll gladly take any further specials/series/movies/whatever that the MCU wants to give us.
No comments:
Post a Comment