After episode 1 you could be forgiven for thinking this would be a rehash of Guardians of the Galaxy. In many ways, Captain Carter followed the same arc as Steve Rogers so it wouldn’t be a big surprise if T’Challa followed after Peter Quill.

Except T’Challa doesn’t follow Peter Quill’s journey and, fascinatingly, the really major differences happen off screen in the first few minutes of the episode. The coda here is a question asked by The Watcher in the introduction – does nature or nurture guide who we are and the show has some surprisingly complex points to make on this question. While superficially less substantial than episode 1 it is, I think, much meatier if you stop to think about what it’s really saying.

However, I want to start somewhere else – with Chadwick Boseman. This episode is a eulogy for a man, an actor, an inspiration for many, many people and it tells us, the viewer, and Chadwick directly exactly what kind of person the writers, the animators, everyone, thought of him. They loved him and, if you take nothing else from this episode, understand that every single second of its runtime is telling a story which talks about how the people who knew him thought of him and how this is them reaching out with one last goodbye message. A recorded message from T’Chaka to a lost T’Challa hits like a freight train. I can’t think of a more fitting tribute for the public realm than a show which tells us what a force for good its central hero was.

T’Challa arrives in the show as a force for change. There’s a time skip moments after T’Challa is picked up by Yondu to an adult Star-Lord and it’s glorious. T’Challa is charming, funny and decisive but most of all, he’s good. I love anti-heroes but sometimes having someone who changes the world because they’re full of a sense of how wonderful things are and how brilliant people can be if only given the chance is the kind of role model I can really stan.

This is T’Challa’s arc – how he changed the galaxy around him because he was full of love. There are heists, arch enemies who’ve become friends (Thanos in particular is a work of genius in this episode) and it does feel like this is seen through a properly different lens in a way episode 1 didn’t quite manage.

The real depth of this episode though is not in how it loves Chadwick Boseman or how it channels goodness as a force for change, it’s in how it frames T’Challa’s actions, particularly in counterpoint to the Star-Lord we know from Guardians of the Galaxy.

Peter Quill is an orphan, he comes from a poor background (even if he had a large extended family given the establishing scenes in the film) and arrived with the Ravagers at a time when all he knew was anger and grief and loss. In that sense his impact on the Ravagers is limited because, in many ways, he is one of them before he even arrives, a Lost Boy to Yondu’s Peter Pan.

T’Challa is a royal; secure, educated, trained to lead and given a moral compass by a father who lived his principles in public and in private. The difference in the nurture Peter and T’Challa received couldn’t be starker.

Peter does good in the film – but a crucial part of his story is a coming of age, a finding out who he is and what it means to be a solid kind of person rather than one who changes their shape in an attempt to fit in. You can trace this thematically directly to his upbringing and the trauma he suffered as a child.

T’Challa arrives at Yondu’s side already knowing who he is and what he wants. It’s unselfconscious but no less concrete for that and his certainty, his upbringing, change everything. Suddenly Yondu understands there’s more than survival, than running, than resisting purely by remaining alive – he sees the world can be changed, in small ways, in big ways, by determining to act with love and compassion towards all those around you.

T’Challa as Star-Lord is famous and revered by friend and foe alike, not because he asks if people have heard of him but because of what he’s done. He makes it feel effortless but through that openness made me want to be like him.

The biggest beneficiary of that from our perspective? Thanos. I’ll avoid spoilers here but suffice to say T’Challa’s arc is to change the world around him.

The show doesn’t suggest Peter is weak nor a failure, what it proposes is that if one had the same upbringing as T’Challa then just look at how that could impact the world positively. It’s neither prescriptivist (good upbringing = good person, bad upbringing = bad person) nor is it chaotic or boundaryless – it is simply saying that given the best chances the best outcomes become that much more possible. It rejects the idea that anyone is born bad, that people are inherently evil. It’s also not saying that we’re inherently good. The show carefully suggests that given the chance we are all capable of greatness and sometimes all we need is for the road to be laid out in front of us. It’s a humane cry for stability, love and equality all wrapped up in 30 minutes of high octane action and never feels on point or preachy.

The show also has quite a lot to say about fathers. There are several fathers in this episode and they are all significant – even down to a cameo right at the end which transforms everything else that happens in the previous thirty minutes. Fathers make the difference to everyone here. Nebula, Peter, T’Challa, Drax – the list goes on.

I don’t say this to do down mothers – not at all – but if there’s one thing boys are often said to lack it is good male role models while growing up. This episode is concerned to show the difference those role models can make. It is deeply concerned about representation – not simply because T’Challa is Wakandan but also because we see fathers acting positively – with emotion and love, with longing, openly and without cynicism and even being willing to change on behalf of and because of their children. I could watch good fathers being good fathers all day long.

Just in its goodness this episode is subversive. In its focus on changing the world for the better it is subversive. In its love for Boseman it delivered me a farewell which tightened my throat with sorrow. Honestly, I’m not sure I can go back and watch Guardians of the Galaxy without wishing I was watching this instead.

If the remaining seven episodes can deliver more of this quality we’ve got a good autumn ahead of us.

Rating? 10 types of changing the world out of 10.

Stewart Hotston