Thunderbolts Movie Reveals First Look at Bucky's Trauma Room (Photos)

Warning - This article contains spoilers for Marvel's Thunderbolts*.

Observant fans have pointed out that the contents of Bucky Barnes' (Sebastian Stan) trauma room in Thunderbolts may have been in the film all along. To stop The Void/Sentry (Lewis Pullman) in the finale of Thunderbolts*, the team has to enter his consciousness, which forces the heroes to face their demons. Most of the time is spent in Bob and Yelena's (Florence Pugh) rooms during these sequences, although a sneaky Easter egg may also reveal Bucky's room.

As pointed out by a fan on Twitter, when Bucky breaks through the wall to enter Bob's trauma room, the contents of the room he was exiting can briefly be seen in the background. The imagery seems to match that of the HYDRA facility from Captain America: The Winter Soldier, with the dim lighting and metal railings identifiable. 

The Thunderbolts team members had to break into Bob's trauma room by escaping from their own, so wherever Bucky is exiting from is very likely one of his own shame rooms. The HYDRA facility would be a fitting room for Bucky, seeing as some of his most traumatic days would definitely have occured at the place he was held captive, tortured, and brainwashed into becoming the Winter Soldier.

Thunderbolts* director Jake Schreier told Variety that there were once plans to see all the characters' traumas, with the finale becoming "an escape through all their shame rooms," but this was ultimately limited to prioritize Bob's character:

"Yeah, we tried. There was a time when the finale became an escape through all of their shame rooms, and I think that would have been very fun. But something Joanna [Calo] really spoke up for was needing to have a Big Bad moment before they got out of the Void. And if it’s going to lead to the heart of the Void, then it felt like it was more important to take a journey through Bob’s shame rooms — as much as I am very sad not to have gotten to get in every character’s past."

Thunderbolts* is in cinemas now and stars Stan as Bucky, alongside Florence Pugh, David Harbour, Hannah John-Kamen, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, and Wyatt Russell. The movie is the final installment in Phase 5 of the MCU.

Will Thunderbolts Ever Reveal the Other Characters' Trauma Rooms?

While Bucky's and his fellow Thunderbolts members' trauma rooms were ultimately cut from the movie's finale, Schreier did reveal to Variety some of their ideas for each room.

The director shared that they had "a lot of different" ideas for Bucky's rooms but wanted it to be "less than the expected idea." This led to them writing something about a shameful moment for Bucky "in Boy Scout camp," which was scrapped:

"We had a lot of different Bucky ones. We always wanted to do something a little less than the expected idea. There’s some very obvious things for Bucky, but I think at one point, Joanna had written something around some shameful moment in Boy Scout camp. But I don’t know that that would have really been the right path for it."

Schreier added that they "got pretty far" into developing the sequence with the additional shame rooms, and even had animatics and storyboards drawn up. Given that these scenes were seemingly never filmed for the other characters, resorting to the "expected idea" (i.e., the HYDRA facility) for the quick background glimpse of Bucky's trauma room in the final cut makes sense. 

The team was able to help Bob face his trauma, resulting in The Void lying dormant for now. But with Pullman and his fellow Thunderbolts (who go by a different name now) confirmed for an Avengers: Doomsday role, it might not be the last time fans see the trauma rooms in action.