Frigga
Endgame features two of the heroes going back in time and reconnecting with a parent. One was Tony meeting a young Howard Stark and while it was good to see the character again, it wasn’t a total surprise. For one, we’d heard reports that John Slattery was appearing in the film and it makes sense for Tony to reconnect with his father, thereby finally resolving his daddy issues.
If Thor was going to go through something similar, though, you’d expect it to involve Odin, as Anthony Hopkins has always been the more prominent of the hero’s parents. As it happens, though, the revisitation of Thor: The Dark World means that the God of Thunder gets to encounter his mother Frigga (Rene Russo) one more time, shortly before she’s destined to be killed by a Dark Elf.
Frigga’s always been under-utilized, so it was a stroke of genius to bring her back and mine so much emotion from her and Thor’s relationship. Who knew you could make something out of the set-up of the underwhelming Dark World?
Red Skull
Fans of the original (ugly) face of HYDRA were overjoyed when Red Skull made a shock appearance in Infinity War, revealed as the guardian of the Soul Stone on Vormir. It was the first time we’d seen the iconic villain since The First Avenger seven years earlier. We hoped he wouldn’t be a stranger now that he’d come back once, but we didn’t expect him to return so soon in Endgame. And especially not in a mirrored version of his previous cameo.
When Hawkeye and Black Widow travel to Vormir to collect the Soul Stone, Red Skull features in pretty much the same capacity as he did in IW, explaining the rules of the Stone. He even repeats many of the same lines.
To tell you the truth though, this second appearance of a great foe like Johann Schmidt as a mere mouthpiece for the Infinity Stones felt like a bit of a waste. However, now that he’s shown up in two more movies there’s every chance he could return to Earth and become the power-mad maniac we all know and love in the future. How about having him face off against Sam Wilson’s Cap?