Thunderbolts* Ending Explained: What’s Inside the Void?

Before we begin, if you haven’t already seen the film, just back off, because this is going to be one spoiler-filled explainer, but we may miss something if you are lucky. So, Thunderbolts*, or shall we say, The New Avengers (you see what we mean?). Jake Schreier made his directorial debut in 2012 with Robot & Frank, and now he has done his Marvel Cinematic Universe debut with a bunch of ragtag characters who will take you on an emotional roller coaster ride. But with this film, the MCU might have gotten its strongest character to date, Sentry, aka Void, aka Bob, played by Lewis Pullman.

While it has been made clear earlier that the film puts an emphasis on mental health, you’ll feel it when you finally sit in the theater. Every single member of the team has a past with which they are dealing. They have no place, no purpose. But by the end of the movie, they have them both. But it takes a good fight with whom we shall call Marvel’s equivalent of Superman, who controls a shadow realm. So we will now see what is inside it and how, after every member of the team stepped into this shadow dimension, they managed to get out, saving the civilian alongside them.

How Did Bob End Up in That Facility?

Before we get to this shadow dimension in Thunderbolts*, we have to understand Bob. You see, he was among the test subjects handpicked for an experiment as a part of Project Sentry that was supposed to make them better. What was common among these subjects was that they were all going through something in their lives and were, kind of, depressed. They all were promised that their lives would become better. However, only Bob survived the initiative.

When Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), U.S. Agent (Wyatt Russell), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), and Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko) are sent to a secret facility by Valentina (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), they learn that they were sent to kill each other. After piecing together the events, they realize that the facility is an incinerator and that Val trapped them to kill them. That is when they meet Bob, who has no memory of how he got there.

Now they try to come up with a plan and climb up a chimney in there (you are going to love this scene), after Bob suggests it. But Valentina is keeping tabs on the group with her assistant Mel (Geraldine Viswanathan) and shows up with an entire army to kill them. But before that, she realized that Bob is the test subject who survived, as all the other test subjects of the experiment were sent to be incinerated there, and he didn’t even have a scratch.

How Did Bob Become Sentry, and Then the Void, in Thunderbolts*?

After this confrontation, Walker (U.S. Agent), Yelena, Bob, and Ghost manage to get into a vehicle (Taskmaster died almost instantly in there); some soldiers stop them, and now Walker isn’t really proving a helping hand in getting past them. But then Bob, whom they were thinking of as a civilian, gets outside the vehicle and does something courageous. He starts firing to divert the soldiers’ attention. The plan works, and all the soldiers gather together, aiming at him. And after a few tense seconds, they start firing at him.

At first, it seems he died, and the other three leave, thinking he did this so they can leave. But then he stands up again, again, without a scratch, and takes his first flight above the clouds, though he isn’t really in control and has an explosive fall. Valentina collects his indestructible body the next day and takes it to the Avengers Tower, which she has bought and turned into the Watchtower. Now the three yet-to-become Thunderbolts are found by Bucky (Sebastian Stan) alongside Red Guardian (David Harbour), and now they give Valentina a visit, and she then presents them with a new version of Bob after she has manipulated him, Sentry.

Now Sentry fights the new band of ragtags and Bucky Barnes, who is a congressman now, in Thunderbolts*. However, Bob’s alter ego is stronger than all the Avengers put together, so they retreat, and then Senty has a conversation with Val, who is trying to own him. But things go south for her as well, as he thinks he is stronger than a god because she implied he is stronger than the Avengers combined together, and the Avengers had a god on the team, Thor.

So he grabs her by the neck, and just when he is about to kill her, Mel uses a kill switch to incapacitate him. However, that was a bad decision, as it triggers the emergence of Sentry’s dark alter ego, and the people of New York are presented with the Void, who is about to pull them into the shadow dimension.

What is the Shadow Dimension in Thunderbolts*?

If the fans remember from one of the Thunderbolts* trailers, there’s a scene where New York City is being devoured by darkness. This is the shadow dimension we are seeing from outside. It is nothing but Bob’s mind; you can think of it as the physical manifestation of his depression controlled by the Void. Whoever comes in contact with it is consumed by it, becoming a shadow when seen from outside, but they are in a different dimension inside, living their mental traumas with Void feeding on these negative emotions.

There are hints about this when the audience first meets Bob, as whoever he touches is taken into a different dimension where they are living their worst memories. It’s the Red Room training for Yelena, his relationship with his wife for Walker, and her father’s death for Valentina.

When Void finally confronts everyone outside, the Thunderbolts try to bring everyone off the street, but Yelena chooses to stay behind and voluntarily enters the shadow dimension to save Bob, as she believes he’s still in there. There’s been a romantic spark between them since they first shared a conversation about mental health in that facility.

How did Yelena (And Everyone in it) Escape the Shadow Dimension?

And it all boils down to this. She is in the shadow dimension now, or we can just call it the Void’s lair. There, she relives her worst memories from the past, especially the one where little Anya is killed. These memories are like rooms, and she tries to run away from this room but finds a wall blocking her way. However, she manages to break the wall and enters a different memory where several girls are reloading guns. Yelena was the fastest among them and was called to leave her chair, after which the rest were given a painful beating with a whip, which the fans will feel, just like Yelena did.

After the series of these nightmares, she finally ends up finding Bob, who is just sitting on a floorboard in a wooden room, like an innocent kid, smiling. This scene is sort of similar to The Electric State scene where Michelle meets Christopher in his mind via a big VR headset. With him, Yelena sees his past, where he had to deal with his abusive father as a child.

However, it seems like his dark alter ego is triggered by this and starts a small whirlwind to get the upper hand. He did get successful in it, but then the rest of the members showed up inside the shadow dimension as they’d chosen to step in it like Yelena did. That’ll take you to the time when the Order arrives in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix to save the kids from the Death Eaters.

Finally, everyone is transported to a new region, or level, or call it whatever you want to call it, in the shadow realm. From the wooden room, they now find themselves in a laboratory, which is the same place where the film begins, where everything begins, where Bob first entered the experiment. There, they all find Void, and now it’s time for the final confrontation.

Void’s biggest weapon in Thunderbolts* turns out to be his ability to convince Bob that no one cares about him and he is alone. In a way, the ‘Bob personality’ is suppressed, and the ‘Void personality’ is there, as we see it from the outside. Bob confronts him in anger as Void keeps telling him the same thing while taking a beating from him. But that’s the plan, as Bob beating him is a nod to the fact that somewhere deep inside him, Bob believes that what Void says is true (it’s not).

But then Yelena, who was trapped against a wall by the evil alter ego, escapes with some help, thanks to Red Guardian’s strength, and hugs Bob from behind. One by one, all the Thunderbolts do the same, assuring him that he is not alone, vanishing Void for good. The shadow dimension that consumed New York City and its residents vanishes, and everyone comes back to the real world. Interestingly, Bob has no idea what kind of ungodly hell he just wreaked upon people.

Moments after all of this is over, Valentina is trying to escape, and the Thunderbolts calmly chase her as they are sure of exposing her now. But the twist comes as they pass through an opening of a downed vehicle that Valentina chose to escape, just to find an entire press standing in front of them on the other side, which she has arranged.

In her final move, Val turns the tables as she presents them as The New Avengers before they can expose her. Genius! Not really, as now they own her.

For more Thumb Wars Films and TV coverage, here’s all about the Thunderbolts* post-credits scene, or you can read about the Death of a Unicorn ending. Otherwise, follow Thumb Wars on X, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram to keep up with the latest news, reviews, and interviews!

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