#like as far as i have seen the evidence for 'merrick's trying to make super soldiers' is...'the usmc has merrick products in its med tent.

[farragoofnotes]

Merrick’s actual plan: A rebuttal.

God. Okay. Fine.

I've been so reluctant to make this post because I absolutely hate to waste a single moment on Dudley Pharmerrick. But I’m getting tired of the ‘they’re trying to make super soldiers’ take I’ve been seeing around more and more. So this is my attempt to stop that from becoming uncontested Fanon.

Because Andy's healing abilities are not what he's interested in.

I’ve said it before, that he’s an absolutely uninteresting villain. He’s one-note, he’s static. He tells us, and also a crowd of medical industry investors, what he wants right off the bat: It’s money. He just wants money. “Investment drives my enthusiasm” is such an excellent line, they’re really shouting from the rooftops “this guy is a rich douchebag and that’s all you need to know about him.”

And like, yeah, sure, it’s not only money. He’s very into himself: His company’s named after himself, presumably so he can do that Avengers 2012  "he wants a monument built to the skies with his name plastered on it” thing. He boasts about being the youngest ceo in pharma in what sounds like the tail end of a tantrum over not making a 30 under 30 list, he dresses to fit in among the upper echelon of the Silicon Valley. He has that line about ‘what my products can do.’ (Yeah because you definitely had literally anything to do with the science side of things). He wants to be King Lear, except he forgets that it’s a tragedy, and Lear inevitably dies.

But he doesn’t have Lear’s fatal flaw. Like, yes he’s arrogant, but that’s not what kills him. What kills him is greed.

And like! I know! I absolutely know that isn’t interesting. It’s just basic plot comprehension: Copley says he probably can get Dudley one of the immortals with whom to do whatever poking and prodding for samples he likes, and Dudley rejects it.

Right there, in the limo, he seals his fate. The gang had literally just finished a year apart on hiatus, and Andy was quitting again. With Booker to assure them (via his Incomparable Tech Genius, which is actually just his Lying) that the video hadn’t spread any further, they would’ve thought they’d stopped up the leak with Copley’s death and gone their separate ways again. Booker could’ve been strapped to a table for months with no one the wiser

Instead, Dudley demands "all." Later he explains that if they’re walking around, his competitors can get those same samples, make those same leaps, ending his dominion over the whole market.

And that's the key, I think. He desperately wants this monopoly, to be the only one able to offer this product and the only one able to reap the profits.

He says his cancer drug, put on the market last quarter, has already saved hundreds of thousands of lives. Yeah, right. Cancers are too different from each other for him to have gotten a broad hitting drug that is lifesaving, and when you start breaking them down by type there just aren’t enough cases to save that many people in 3-6 months. Like I realize that none of this is particularly feasible biotechnobabble, but still.

Made him hundreds of thousands of “quid” though? I absolutely believe it. I'd be surprised it isn't millions, but I will bow to the expertise of the person who made that one post about ‘you paid for testing on over .25 million ACTUAL MICE? you paid for ALL THAT? you didn’t use EMBRYOS or something you got them to full mouse stage!?’ to accept that maybe they had to make up for that expenditure first.

So with this as evidence, we can go with the assumption the movie is pushing: That this dude cares about the financial bottom line, not hyping himself up on the amount of good that he’s doing for people.

And let’s focus on how he talks about Andy.

Dudley, at the start of the scene where the private force acquires Andy and Booker, is above it all. He’s got what he wants, which means there’s no reason to think about it. He’s literally standing over Copley and Andy on the floor, over Booker being forced to crouch by his captors.

It’s not until Booker tells him that Andy’s not immortal anymore, that it’s gone, that Dudley gets interested. He wants a closer look, he gets down on her level. He starts thinking, asking questions: “Now, how old are you?” “Between Sudan and now, something’s changed. Find out what.”

Copley tells him that the testing might kill her now and not only does he say “we don’t stop,” but he also tells his pet doctor “keep her alive at all costs.”

All costs, from a man obsessed with money. All costs, from a man who doesn’t take risks without investment first.

Later, when the worldshattering news that there is a new immortal on the stage breaks, the seventh one in all of human history as far as we know, we get absolutely nothing from him. Nothing about “we have to capture her too!” Nothing about the scientific discoveries to be made with a brand new immortal to compare to the older ones.

No, he’s focused entirely on Andy. “You selfish, little bitch,” he says in a low voice, gun pointed right at her which makes clear that it’s not Nile he’s addressing here. And then he raises his voice for “I will kill her!” which means he’s addressing anyone other than Andy: He sees Nile, but he doesn’t know who else might be around. And then he’s back to Andy.

“All the lives you could save,” he tells her, when she literally can’t. There is nothing he can get from her now that will help him. The immortality is gone. There is nothing that separates her from him anymore. Nile is the one he should be saying that too, Nile the one he should be trying to convince.

But Andy is the one he thinks is “priceless.” Andy, who is merely mortal.

What is Dudley after here?

Monopoly.

Vertical, this time, and over absolutely everyone.

He wants to be producing immortality and its end. He wants to be the disease and its treatment.

It’s the metaphorical apex, the logical end result for Big Pharma conceptually: He wants to get every single person in the world literally paying him to stay alive.

Because if they don’t, he can dole out their deaths whenever he so chooses.

And in my opinion, that’s so much worse than super soldiers.

#the old guard #steven merrick #tog #tog meta #is that a tag people are actually looking at? who knows. whatever. #that's the post; now i'm gonna babble in the tags. #like as far as i have seen the evidence for 'merrick's trying to make super soldiers' is...'the usmc has merrick products in its med tent. #biotech; troops; CLEARLY IT'S SUPER SOLDIERS.' #bah humbug to that; personally. #the us military is very strict about its contracts; about who's allowed to use its technology. #if they went down the super soldier route; merrick would have to tie itself to ONE nation's government; ONE nation's military. #they're a private company! they don't want that! by selling MEDICAL tech instead they aren't bound that way. their customer base expands. #with immortality and also its antidote; they can make the entire world their cash cow. #dudley's gonna go for that every single time. #the other thing is. copley gets booker on board saying 'if they can figure out what causes immortality; maybe they can figure out how to cu #...cure it!' #he hasn't talked to DUDLEY about it. NOTHING OF THE SORT is on his radar until he sees andy. i doubt copley's even told him about lykon. be #...because 'ending immortality' is not actually one of copley's goals. he's using booker here; bless his oblivious heart. #anyway. love that dudley would rather kill andy than let any of his competitors get her; even if they get the other immortals. #hate that i have spent any time whatsoever thinking about dudley pharmerrick.