Captain America: Brave New World ending explained: The Leader's success and how he is now the key to understand the multiverse

The MCU Phase Five is ending, and after Captain America: Brave New World's release, we have three more projects to go. Before these arrive, the Julius Onah-directed Captain America: Brave New World has given us a hint of new threats that are undoubtedly coming from the other worlds our heroes aren't aware of.

The film has set the foundation for the grand finale of the Multiverse Saga but before it does that, Samuel Sterns (Tim Blake Nelson), or the Leader, is seen winning the game by destroying Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross's (Harrison Ford) reputation and pulling him into the prison alongside himself.

Later, he also reveals to Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) about the upcoming threat he addresses as "the others" that the world needs to prepare for. Interestingly, the lifeless Tiamut, who was turned into a giant sculpture of adamantium in The Eternals, might end up giving the world something for protection — shields, weapons, or whatever is best for the time the real threat arrives.

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Disclaimer: Mild spoilers from the film will follow but we'll try to keep it tight.

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The Leader orchestrated everything in Captain America: Brave New World

The POTUS dreams are over for Thaddeus Ross in Captain America: Brave New World, as he is now somewhere in the middle of the ocean, inside the Raft, which Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) described as the "Supermax floating ocean pokey." It is the same place where Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen), Sam Wilson, Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner), and others were kept after the battle in Civil War (2016).

In the latest MCU movie, Ross has kept the Leader in a secret confinement but it is really the Leader who is leading the game. There are a couple of things he has been doing, providing him with a cure for his terminal illness and working on a treaty around adamantium (finally it is here in the MCU).

It is later revealed in Captain America: Brave New World that the medicine is actually gamma-irradiated pills, which eventually lead to Ross' transformation into Red Hulk. And then there's Serpent Society, a group of mercenaries whom the Leader hired to disrupt the international treaty by framing Ross as someone betraying Japan by stealing their reserves of adamantium.

As Ross is now fiery and raging as Red Hulk, adamant about destroying everything in his way, Sam Wilson confronts him and leads him to a cherry blossom garden in order to pacify him and turn him back to Thaddues (now not so Thunderbolt) Ross. Following this, he is eventually sent to the Raft by the end of Captain America: Brave New World.

The Leader knows of 'the others' that others don't know

Captain America: Brave New World might not be mesmerizing to the audience, but it significantly takes things forward with Samuel Sterns hinting at the multiversal threat in the movie.

After the film has ended, we see Sam Wilson visiting the Leader, who is also confined in the Raft. There, we get to know that the man has been doing a great deal of homework, which may come in handy when the multiversal threats arrive in the MCU. He says:

"We share the same world, don't we? This world you would die to save. It's coming. I've seen it in the probabilities, seen it plain as day. All you heroes protecting this world, do you think you're the only ones? Do you think this is the only world? We'll see what happens when you have to protect this place from the others."

In all honesty, this is a chilling notion to think about. There are a couple of possibilities: These entities are evil and want to destroy others, or these entities are just heroes we've seen in the MCU and will do whatever it takes to save themselves. Either way, the Sacred Timeline has been compromised.

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Also Read: Is there a post-credits scene in Captain America: Brave New World? Details explored