Aside from No Time To Die‘s atrocious ending, I don’t think the rest of the movie was exactly set up for success, starting with the bizarre decision to have Bond take a new love interest on holiday just a stone’s throw from his former lover’s grave. As I’ve stated many times, Madeleine Swann should have met her maker at the beginning, giving Daniel Craig’s Bond a cold, revenge-fueled send-off rather than include a scene in the movie of him making breakfast for a child that absolutely nobody asked for.

The movie could have opened with a seemingly idyllic Bond and Swann vacation, interspersed with Louis Armstrong’s “We Have All The Time In The World” to establish the nostalgic tone, rather than awkwardly shoehorning the song into the finale as Madeleine drives off into the sunset (seemingly happy???) with Mathilde in a government-issued, modified Aston Martin DB5. Instead, kill off Madeleine, erase Mathilde from the equation entirely, and bring Paloma into the story much earlier as an assist from Felix Leiter and the CIA.

Sure, Paloma is a rookie, but that makes her even more fun to watch as she learns on the job, kicks considerable ass, and becomes a potential love interest for a reluctant Bond trying to bounce back from his latest heartbreak. Paloma should absolutely hold her own without overpowering or outshining Bond, still having her single spectacular fight scene in that stunning dress providing just enough of a showcase to make her memorable. That would give No Time To Die a cleaner emotional engine, a more familiar Bond/Bond girl dynamic, and, most importantly, a beginning that actually feels worthy of the movie’s title.