It’s the finale of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and Sam Wilson is about a give a speech. Spoilers ahead!
For what may be the only time in television history, a show has changed its title in mid-episode. Because while it’s still billed as The Falcon and the Winter Soldier at first, at the end just before the credits, it’s billed as Captain America and the Winter Soldier. For that matter, when the captioning needs to indicate that Sam Wilson is speaking, he’s not identified as “SAM” or “FALCON,” but as “CAPTAIN AMERICA.”
Which is pretty danged fantastic.
One of the hallmarks of the comic book version of Captain America is that he tends to give a speech at the drop of a hat. Indeed, many of Cap’s greatest moments in the comics have been his speeches. To give just three great examples, there’s the passionate lecture he gives to both sides of a riot that breaks out between neo-Nazis and a group of Jewish protestors in Captain America #275 by J.M. DeMatteis & Mike Zeck (1982); the brilliant discourse on patriotism and how America is a work-in-progress and the dangers of blind patriotism in What If…? #44 by Peter B. Gillis & Sal Buscema (1984); and the magnificent “no, you move” speech he gave to Peter Parker in The Amazing Spider-Man #537 by J. Michael Straczynski & Ron Garney (2007).
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The MCU version played by Chris Evans didn’t really have that tendency. He was much pithier—”I don’t like bullies,” “I can do this all day,” “Whatever it takes,” “This isn’t freedom, this is fear.” He’s the sound-bite Cap. Tellingly, when the “no, you move” speech was spoken in the MCU, it wasn’t Cap’s speech, it was Peggy Carter’s.
The first time we see Sam Wilson in “One World, One People,” he’s wearing the new flight suit that he got from Wakanda, via Bucky Barnes last week, and it’s a star-spangled version of it. (It also looks almost exactly like the comic-book version that Sam Wilson wore when he took over as Cap for a while.) Plus, he’s carrying the shield. He then very publicly, in front of huge crowds of New Yorkers, saves the lives of the GRC committee that was about to vote on resetting borders and resettling people who have been taken hostage by the Flag-Smashers to stop them from having that vote.
This entire episode is Sam’s coming-out party as Captain America, and it’s not just that he saves lives, but it’s what he says to the GRC at the end, in front of eighty billion cameras both from the press and on people’s smartphones, that changes things. Because wars end when people sit down and talk to each other, and that’s how this particular war ends.
I especially love what Cap says to the GRC: They have the same power as a mad god who can wipe out half the population, and how they use that power will send a message to the rest of the world. It’s easy to dismiss the Flag-Smashers by calling them terrorists. It’s easy to trivialize what the people are going through by calling them refugees. And those labels obscure the reality: The Flag-Smashers have massive support all over the world. Hell, they have people inside the GRC, inside the military, inside the police, which is how they were able to kidnap the committee in the first place.
There’s a third term that Cap mentions: “thug.” Nobody was using that term on the show, really, but it’s one that is often applied to people of color who are deemed “suspicious” or “scary,” usually right before a police officer shoots them for wearing a hoodie or taking their phone out of their pocket, and you know that the use of it was incredibly deliberate here.
Right now, today, it’s incredibly important to the people watching the show that Captain America be a black man. In fact, that this episode that establishes Sam as Cap aired the same week as the verdict in the George Floyd trial is a rather bittersweet bit of serendipity. For every step forward, there’s a step back. We elect a person of color president and then we elect a candidate supported by white supremacists as his successor.
Sam Wilson wears this dichotomy on his sleeve (or wings, I guess?). He comes out and says that he knows that his wearing the suit and carrying the shield will piss off a lot of people. But—as he says to Isaiah Bradley in one of the episode’s many denouements—African-Americans built this country, bled for it, and he’s not going to stop fighting for it.
There’s another great Steve Rogers speech from the comics that applies here, one he gave in Captain America #332 by Mark Gruenwald & Tom Morgan (1987) right before he gave up being Cap and John Walker took over: “I cannot represent the American government; the President does that. I must represent the American people. I represent the American Dream, the freedom to strive to become all that you dream of being.”
John Walker’s version of Captain America represented the American government, and he did it very poorly. Sam Wilson’s version follows in Rogers’s footsteps of representing the American ideal—which is often very far from the American reality, but that makes it all the more important to fight for it. Rogers’s line in Avengers: Endgame—”whatever it takes”—was his hallmark. He stood against corruption, stood for people standing up for themselves rather than relying on people in power, so much so that he took S.H.I.E.L.D. down in Captain America: The Winter Soldier and broke the Avengers rather than be constrained by the Sokovia Accords in Captain America: Civil War.
Now Sam gets to pick up that fight. America has always been a work in progress, and indeed the user manual is designed to be adjusted and changed and fixed—the most important part of the U.S. Constitution is the capability to amend it. Cap knows it’s gonna be a hard row to hoe, but he’s gonna hoe it anyhow.
This storyline is also a work in progress. While it’s the last episode of the season (and, probably, the last episode of a TV show that will have the title The Falcon and the Winter Soldier), it’s nowhere near the end of the story, and the episode acknowledges that. Yes, the Flag-Smashers are broken (most of them are dead, many killed by a mysterious old white guy in a car who blows up the prison truck they’re in, though at least one is still alive), but they have a huge number of people on their side. Sure, the GRC has decided not to reset the borders and displace people, but one thing the nameless Senator was right about is that this is a very complicated problem with no easy solutions.
Another denouement in this episode full of them sees Bucky finally telling Yori the truth about how his son died—which ends their weekly lunches together, obviously. And then when Sam goes home to Louisiana to celebrate with his family, Bucky’s there, too. (My favorite visual of the whole episode is when Sarah’s kids are hanging off Bucky’s left arm.) Bucky also gives Dr. Raynor his notebook with all the names crossed off, and a thank you. And while Bucky’s arc pales (sorry) in comparison to Sam’s and doesn’t get anywhere near the same screen time, it is completed nicely. I’m totally okay with the white guy taking a back seat to the black guy for a change (even if the black guy won’t move his seat forward).
Walker’s ending is a bit anticlimactic for him but fitting: He tries to be Captain America with his new shield, which doesn’t work all that well and gets broken. He also tries to save the truck full of hostages from falling off a building and fails—it’s left to Sam to do it successfully. Instead, he winds up as the U.S. Agent (just like he does in the comics—it’s even the same outfit!), and still working for Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, though in what capacity remains unclear.
What brought a tear to my eye, though, was Sam going to talk to Isaiah. Isaiah still gives Sam shit, and still thinks he’s wasting his time, but appreciates that he’s making the effort. What finally gets Isaiah to stop being a (justifiably) cranky old man is when Sam takes him to the same Captain America exhibit at the Smithsonian that we first saw in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and shows him the newly installed Isaiah Bradley display. Because Captain America fights for the truth.
Odds and ends
- In the least surprising development, we learn that Sharon Carter is, in fact, the Power Broker. In a slightly surprising development, she manages to keep that fact from Cap and Bucky thanks to the Flag-Smashers being conveniently killed. And, because Captain America also keeps his promises, Carter gets the pardon that Sam promised her several episodes ago, so she’s now got an in with the government—which, as the mid-credits scene informs us, means the Power Broker has a lot more power to broker. I suspect that there may be a second season of this show (or first season of Captain America and the Winter Soldier) that puts Carter front and center as the bad guy.
- Ah, Batroc, we hardly knew thee. Batroc the Leaper is one of Captain America’s sillier villains, introduced in Tales of Suspense #75 by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby (1966) with a comedy French accent. Still, he has endured (with varying levels of comedy French accents depending on who’s writing him), and they made him a weapons dealer with savate skills in the MCU, showing up here and in The Winter Soldier. But he’s taken out by Carter when he tries to extort her for more money in exchange for keeping her being the Power Broker secret. Sucks to be him.
- The U.S. Agent outfit that Walker is given by the Contessa is not only the same as the one he wears in the comics, but it’s one that started out life as Steve Rogers’s. After he gave up being Cap in the aforementioned Captain America #332, he wound up back in costume as “The Captain” five issues later. At the end of #350 by Gruenwald & Kieron Dwyer (1989), Rogers took the star-spangled costume back from Walker, and then four issues later, Walker debuted as the U.S. Agent in the same costume that Rogers wore as The Captain.
- Rumor has it that Julia Louis-Dreyfuss is also appearing in Black Widow as the Contessa. Of course, that movie was originally supposed to come out before this show debuted, but the recent apocalypse has continued to screw with release schedules, so we’ll have to wait until July for more hints regarding what the Contessa is doing. One rumor is that she’s forming the Thunderbolts. Originally created as a long con by Baron Zemo during the “Heroes Reborn” era when the Avengers and Fantastic Four were believed killed (in truth they were shunted to a parallel Earth where they were written and drawn by creators who had left Marvel years earlier to form Image Comics—long story), they were villains pretending to be heroes in order to take over the world. They failed at that, but for some of them, pretending to be heroes led to them becoming actual heroes. The team has had various incarnations over the years, and both U.S. Agent and Black Widow have been part of the team…
- Redwing’s back! After being destroyed in “The Star-Spangled Man,” the new red-white-and-blue suit has a new Redwing drone. While I still miss Sam Wilson having an actual bird as a familiar—the red bird has been his companion since he was introduced back in the late 1960s—I’m glad he’s got his favorite toy back. (The scene in Civil War where he tries to get the Black Widow to thank Redwing is a classic.)
- Overall, this series has had its ups and downs, but it’s ultimately a good meditation on race relations (done through the larger-than-life lens of a world of superheroes and that also went through the Blip). Like WandaVision before it, it explores two characters who got short shrift in the movies, and moves them forward in interesting ways. And also like WandaVision, it has the storytelling space to explore consequences in a way that the movies just don’t have time for. It’s not a coincidence that the fallout from the Sokovia Accords was better explored in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. than it was in any of the movies, and likewise that the fallout from Thanos’s dusting half of the population and the Hulk’s restoration of same is being better explored in these first two Disney+ series. Looking forward to seeing what’s next for Bucky, for Carter, for the Contessa, for the U.S. Agent, for the people of the world trying to find their way post-Blip, and most especially for the brand-new Captain America.
Keith R.A. DeCandido also does the Star Trek: Voyager Rewatch every Monday and Thursday. His takes on the MCU films can be found in his “4-Color to 35-Millimeter: The Great Superhero Movie Rewatch” that started on this site in 2017.
That was actually Baron Zemo’s old butler, making one last appearance to carry out his boss’s wishes.
(in other words, the butler did it! )
The first time we see Sam Wilson in “One World, One People,” he’s wearing the new flight suit that he got from Wakanda, via Bucky Barnes last week, and it’s a star-spangled version of it. (It also looks almost exactly like the comic-book version that Sam Wilson wore when he took over as Cap for a while.)
Yeah, I’d imagine Carlos Pacheo’s having a good day.
The show pretty faithfully adapted his design for live-action.
Just a note the old man was zemo’s butler. That means that he still has resources
pjmoyer261: Aha! Thank you! I should’ve recognized him………
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I’m totally okay with the white guy taking a back seat to the black guy for a change (even if the black guy won’t move his seat forward).
I loved that clip. In one of the earlier episodes where they jump into a car and Bucky was sitting on the shotgun seat, Sam commented something like ‘You are not going to move that seat forward, are you?’ And Bucky replying ‘Nope…’
I loved that.
On the rest of the episode, I want to watch it again before commenting more. Overall, I did like this though.
So it ended better than I thought it might have; unlike Wanda-Vision I didn’t cringe multiple times during the ending! I feel like the show is pulling its punches by focusing too much on the how rather than the why, which is undermining what Sam is speechifying about. Karli, in the end, is fairly pathetic as an antagonist–both ineffective in her tactics, and too incoherent in her ideology to be much of a foil to Sam.
The Wilson-Walker dichotomy also falls flat; it’s fine to say that Captain America represents its ideals vs. U.S. Agent who represents the government, but the show still soft pedals Walker’s flaws (and thereby America’s flaws) and lets him land on the side of ‘heroes’, for now at least. The differences between the two come down to their tactics rather than what they actually want, and the show takes care to insulate Walker from even a hint of racism.
At this point I’m assuming Sharon is a Skrull and they’re just table setting for Secret Invasion. She’s a character we don’t know anything about, so her betrayal doesn’t mean much.
I’m guessing that Sharon’s true eye color is green.
*sinister music*
“The differences between the two come down to their tactics rather than what they actually want, and the show takes care to insulate Walker from even a hint of racism.”
Yeah, Walker’s line that went something like “Battlestar’s life mattered” in response to Karli only wanting to hurt “people that mattered” made me do a double take, because if you would have asked me who got to almost say the words “black lives matter” I would not have guessed him.
I love the one tweak to Walker’s costume other than the color–the fact that the helmet actually fits!
The other exciting thing about finally seeing Sam in the costume is knowing this isn’t gonna be like during Rick Remender and Nick Spencer’s runs (or when the mantle was Bucky’s during Ed Brubaker’s tenure).
In those instances, we knew it was, as Stan Lee famously once put it, the illusion of change. We knew it wasn’t gonna last, that the status quo would re-assert itself, and Steve Rogers would eventually become Captain America again.
But as I’ve said before, the joy of the MCU is that it doesn’t have to worry about resetting that status quo like in the comics.
Sam is Captain America and that won’t be changing anytime soon and I love it.
Anybody else very confused by Sharon’s very brief Mission Impossible-style mask scene? She shows up in some high-tech mask, immediately removes it, and says “Nobody is looking for me here.” Soooo…what was the point of the mask?
I enjoyed the show, and I really liked the last episode. As pointed out, just like in “WandaVision”, there were themes and concepts and ideas and attitudes that got really interesting treatment and commentary, I think.
The one thing I did not like was Sharon’s arc – I am not comic books-savy, so no idea what she was like in there, but that did not feel like the Sharon in the previous movies. It would be interesting, however, if Colin’s suggestion @6 was true and it really was a Skrull …
I thought there was no redemption for Walker for me after he was ready to kill Sam last episode until Bucky intervened, but I found myself to be actually for him today. He felt like a guy who sincerely wished to do well for everybody and suddenly found himself in over his head too quick, but now got to take the backseat and do better.
And I really liked Zemo’s satisfaction when he heard what his butler had done. (pjmoyer261@261, I laughed out loud at your last comment!) The man must really love his baron.
I also laughed out loud when Sam first came to view in his new suit, remembering well the discussion from last week. It was great to see him like that, and every scene with him was just perfect. He really is special :) I especially liked that he remained Sam through and through – trying to help Karli instead of just killing her right till the end, and then speaking out for what he believed in. Just beautiful. And then he topped it with showing Isaiah his display – I really had tears in my eye then.
And then of course there’s Bucky, my 3rd-4th favourite character in the whole MCU. I got serious Wolverine vibes with him flying off that motorcycle. And I really love that he got to find some peace, “finishing the book”. Yes, he was in Sam’s shadow today, but there is no envy, it played out beautifully, and his arc in this series was tied up very satisfactorily, IMO. And I adored to see him having fun with Sam’s family in the end, and just being buddies with Sam. Though I am a bit disappointed that the new series is “Captain America and the Winter Soldier”, not “Captain America and the White Wolf”. Let him leave the Winter Soldier behind. Whichever the name, I hope we will see it return.
Anyways, that was my two cents :) Now a few months’ worth of wait, and then we can buckle up to Loki’s mischiefs!
The one thing I did not like was Sharon’s arc – I am not comic books-savy, so no idea what she was like in there, but that did not feel like the Sharon in the previous movies. It would be interesting, however, if Colin’s suggestion @6 was true and it really was a Skrull …
No, this is most definitely a different take on Sharon and I have mixed feelings about it.
Assuming it isn’t a Skrull…I suppose you could argue Sharon’s turn to the Dark Side does play into the show’s themes of trying (and failing) to live up to the Captain America legacy.
Sharon followed in Peggy’s footsteps and the family business and became loyal to Steve. But unlike her Aunt, she got burned by that association (the events of the Accords and half a decade on the run) and it’s left her as the anti-Peggy Carter.
This final episode was a bit disappointing. They doubled down on “Karli has gone bonkers and the Flag Smashers are terrorists” angle, although that was a given, seeing the previous episodes. And I like that Sam stepped into the Captain America role at last, and that he did tell the politicians that they never stop to consider the why people like Karli do what they do, and to expect more if they kept on their course of action (it is a beautiful speech)… but that kind of people don’t change with a stern talk from someone they see as a grunt (regardless of his skin color).
And the “black man reclaiming the American symbol” is not done by Sam siding and saving the downtrodden (among them, African Americans), but by him saving rich, powerful people. Then, he finishes his inspiring speech, and jumps to attention when a white cop, or whatever he is, calls on him. And, to make matters worse, he gets that statue in the museum for Bradley. Isaiah should have punched him unconscious right then and there! What good is a fucking statue going to do now, after he was tortured for 30 years and his wife died without him?
Don’t get me wrong, again, I like Sam as Cap, and I like what it can do (as it did in comics) for people that can look up to him. But the how… well, it disappointed me a bit. Bucky did alright, even though this episode wasn’t really about him. Ah, I hope Sam can get protection for his family, because he just painted a ginormous target on their backs.
On other matters, I know Sam is using a new set of wings, but besides a couple of moves (anchoring himself in concrete to stop a super soldier punch with the shield, etc), he seems to have lost of of his jetpack+wings aided moves. The fight with Batroc, and then with Karli, are pretty sad. And Karli pointing a gun at him is supposed to make us fear for his life? When we know he can just put his vibranium wings in front of him?
Then don’t get me started on Sharon actually being the Power Broker. I sure hope she’s an evil skrull and this ties into Secret Invasion… or else, it makes no sense with her character.
Last thing I have in my mind is that I liked what they did with Walker… he’s not a BAD guy (beyond, you know, being a soldier for a country that considers itself the world police). He’s just unhinged, and he believes he’s doing the right thing. The comic book Walker has been semi-rehabilitated, I hope they can do the same for this one. But Val, you gave him a new costume and not a new shield? I was surprised his crappy homemade one lasted as long as it did against four super soldiers.
Anyway, looking forward to the next season of Captain America and the Winter Soldier, but this season could have ended much better. Don’t ask me how exactly, because I don’t get paid to write it and I should be doing stuff for college or work. :)
@krad – Walker did not represent the US government poorly. He acted exactly like the US government has acted for decades in its own soil, and abroad. Supporting and encouraging military coups in South America and other parts of the world, oppressing non-whites in their own country, murdering civilians around the world in the name of stopping terrorism. A ot of people here will pile on me for saying this, but it’s not just me saying it, it’s documented. I do not blame the people of the United States of America, but their government has acted as a bully and murderer for decades, if not longer.
Hey, Cap has TWO Redwings now!
212 – Celebrinnen: “Captain America and James” doesn’t quite have the same ring. Bucky is no longer that Winter Soldier, but he might want to carry the name as penance.
@11 the same type of mask was used in Captain America: Winter Soldier, so I felt like it’s use was more of a callback to that movie than anything else. I imagine she needed it to get into the country as well, but she probably could have ditched the mask sooner and spared us the scene.
@12 I agree that the new Sharon Carter doesn’t really fit with what I thought of her from the movies… but ah well. I suppose if she was on the run ever since Civil War, like Steve, Bucky, Wanda, Natasha, et al were… and they never attempted to reach out to her to see how she was doing, I could see her getting jaded by that… that’s a pretty terrible way for Steve to show his thanks for recovering his gear and helping him save Bucky. Maybe we’ll get more insight into that time and those decisions as the shows/movies go on.
I personally felt hugely betrayed when there was no post-credits scene. Come ON. I have been waiting six weeks to see Steve’s secret moon base. There would have been a Skrull disguised as Steve or something. How could they let us down like that??
John Walker is trying to be like Steve Rogers, but he keeps getting the steps out of order. He’s supposed to START by fighting a bunch of guys with a garbage can lid, THEN get super soldier serum, THEN become a celebrity, THEN tragically lose his best friend, THEN be disgraced in the eyes of the government, THEN grow a beard.
In all seriousness, I found it a little hard to believe that Bradley would be that happy about them putting him in the Smithsonian exhibit. Like he said last episode, “Those stars and stripes don’t mean nothing good to me.” They locked him up and experimented on him for 30 years, and then they make a heroic statue out of him? It would probably just feel like an insult. I think I might have found it more believable if after their talk, Sam invites him to go see the exhibit, and he says no thanks, but his grandson wants to see it and goes with Sam.
Great series. I loved it. I am not a huge fan of Sharon’s heel turn, but that’s a minor quibble. Having Zemo’s butler kill the last of the Flagsmashers means that Zemo’s mission to wipe out super soldiers is almost complete. Only two remain: Bucky and U.S.Agent.
Good stuff all around. Time for a rewatch.
Bobby
@17 – Bobby: Zemo already said he’s not killing Bucky. And super soldiers will keep popping up.
Not only does Sharon Carter’s turn not fit with what (very little) we knew about her before, it doesn’t fit with anything going on in this series. By process of elimination she had to be the Power Broker, but there’s no real payoff to the Power Broker stuff at all–it has nothing to do with anything else going on in the show, and no one else is aware of it. I suppose that could just be setup for Season 2, but it feels unlikely that they would be let even a minor hero do a true heel turn (look at how they treated Walker), and a lot more likely that this is all a fakeout.
Bobby @17, and he said he has decided not to kill Bucky (to Bucky’s “relief”, LOL), so …
Edit: ah, @18 beat me to it. That’s what you get for not refreshing between reading the comments and replying …
Well, heh, that didn’t take long…
A very good series comes to an end with a very good episode, my earlier fears that Bucky may overshadow Sam thankfully didn’t come to pass and we quite rightly got Sams story out front and centre, This Captain America is definitely the hero we need right here right now.
My one real gripe is that Karli’s denouement was not as powerful as it should have been, the first half of this series her character was the standout for me but I feel she was left to rather trickle away to a pretty standard end for the “bad guy” This was poor service for the superb Erin Kellyman, the one consolation being her performances should elevate her standing to obtain some great roles going forward.
If I was going to rate this series out of 10 I’d give a strong 7 ( as opposed to giving Wandavision a 9) But the main thing is the MCU is working as TV series’ and that is good news for everyone.
If I was going to rate this series out of 10 I’d give a strong 7 ( as opposed to giving Wandavision a 9) But the main thing is the MCU is working as TV series’ and that is good news for everyone.
Absolutely. The interlinked streaming shows and films definitely are one of the hallmarks and foundations of the post-Infinity Saga era.
So far, yeah, it’s definitely working — but it’s perhaps unsurprising given Feige and company now have over a decade of experience under their belts doing this kind of coordination.
This was sorta….meh for me. Can’t help feeling let down, particularly after such a strong episode 5.
I think that had a lot to do with the sputtering firecracker of the Karli plot, Such a promising character just devolved in a mishmash of supervillain moments that really didn’t make a whole lot of sense.
I did like Sam’s speech, though. And John Walker’s fate seems…right. He’s not Captain America…but he IS a proper avatar for America as it really is (a mixture of good and bad, and not nearly good enough to live up to his ideals).
I would have liked a far grayer Power Broker, though….
So I love everything about Sam’s new suit except the headpiece, which I think looks stupid, especially with his ears sticking out. I mean, if nothing else, how does the magic talky comms gear even stay in his ears now? Although Bucky hears him fine without anything so maybe they’re implants or something. And he never had anything as Falcon anyway. Still, it’s gotta hurt taking that thing off. And be cold.
On the other hand, it’s clearly an excellent version of the same thing from the comics, so it isn’t their fault.
Karli gets short shrift, but I feel more bad for her other flag smashers – none of them really wanted to be doing any of this, and are clearly scared of her. Definitely a good example of normal people way outside their comfort zone. I did love the abuse of their app to take them down at the end. Not sure I like their ending, but Zemo was a villain, so of course so is his butler. Firmly sticking to their principles.
Isaiah got what he deserved – recognition of his deeds, and a statue that is far enough from his current appearance that he’s still safe. And his boy was clearly getting inspired to do something going forward. I also loved the little actions like moving the tree around effortlessly while talking.
I think the big successof Sam’s speech wasn’t what it did to the politicians who got saved – they would write him off in a heartbeat as an idealist – but the entire sequence is being live-streamed everywhere as breaking news. That gave his speech ever so much more reach, and the many governments that make up the GRC will be well aware of the optics of acting against someone who in the public eye was (a) an Avenger so already semi-famous, and (b) has clearly reclaimed the sullied mantle of Captain America in an extremely heroic and public fashion.
Thanks to those who pointed out it was Zemo’s butler who assassinated the Flag Smasher super soldiers. I was wondering if it was a reappearance of an elderly Red Skull or something that would be confirmed in the post credits scenes.
I was sorry that Batroc died, as I always liked the character in the comics. But I have to admit, the MCU Batroc was rather dull and humorless, none of the panache and je ne sais quoi of the character in the comics that made him so compelling.
I always had a crush on Sharon in the comics, so I was uncomfortable buying her as the Power Broker. But given what she went through in the MCU, I suppose the turn makes sense (and I like the Skrull/Secret Invasion idea people have speculated on). (FYI, I think that high tech disguise she was wearing was actually something from the Agents of SHIELD show.)
By the way, that “no you move/plant yourself like a tree” speech was actually Cap quoting Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain, something Straczynski made clear in the comic, but often gets forgotten. No wonder it is so eloquent.
I though the series as a whole was a bit uneven in pacing at times, as was the finale, but in the end, I was very satisfied. I thought the journey of Sam to becoming Captain America was very compelling, and even moving. The action scenes were very exciting. This TV miniseries format is working very well for Marvel, allowing more attention to character development than the movies do. Mackie did a great job, and gave a good inspirational speech.
It was just announced that there will be a Captain America 4 movie, with Mackie starring, so someone amongst the Marvel powers-that-be must have been happy with the series (I think the release on the movie was timed so it wouldn’t spoil the big reveal of Sam as Cap, which was great). Big screen, here we come!
Just a note that in the end credits just before the final Sharon scene, the title of the show is listed as “Captain America and the Winter Soldier” (I thought it was worth mentioning because you allude to the need for a title change if there were to be another season).
Does it bug anyone else that we never got a final actor credit after “With Daniel Brühl”? Usually there’s an “And xxx” credit there. Instead we just have the empty screen. I really thought they were going to spring a big character on us in the last ep. Maybe they’re saving it for season 2? Oh well.
So far, the MCU is doing great on the small screen, love how much deeper they can dive into stories and give them room to breathe. I think I’d still rate WandaVision over FaWS, but it was still a good series. So happy to finally see Sam in the Stars and Stripes. Bring on Loki!
Sharon is the Power Broker, who spends the bulk of this series sending minions after the Flag Smashers to get get her super soldier serum back.
Sharon is also the helpful soul who takes a known anti-supremacist fanatic to meet the only man who can make the Power Broker’s super soldier serum, thereby occasioning his highly predictable demise.
I am open to the possibility that this makes any sense at all, but I can’t yet see how.
I found this one pretty solid, although not spectacular, and as a whole I preferred WandaVision, but I kind of knew that going in. But, I did enjoy this show a lot more than I thought I would.
I found the fight scenes hard to follow so most of the beginning was kind of a blur to me. I’ll throw in my agreement that I’m kind of mixed on the Sharon Carter reveal (I had a feeling she was the PB but I was hoping for a Fury-related reveal), I don’t totally love what they did with Karli but parts of it were satisfying (I found it interesting she said she wanted to ‘change’ the world instead of control it like Sharon, but…did she? How was she actually changing things?) and I loved Bucky’s whole denouement.
I personally liked Walker’s development and that a flawed person can still try to find the right path (although Val’s game is unclear…but man I love the actress so much).
My husband also was really hoping for an end credit scene on the moon to show a secret base with Nick Fury and Steve Rogers or something like that, lol. Also: is the other Flag Smasher still around, I wonder?
@31: Wasn’t that where Don Cheadle went
@17 Bobby Nash… ah, a wrestling fan of culture, I see.
I was really happy with this episode and the show as a whole, but it wasn’t without its issues. And I think almost all of the show’s shortcomings could have been shored up if they have used the first 3 episodes more efficiently.
Both the Flagsmashers and the GRC suffer from a lack of exposition. With the Flagsmashers, they tried to split the difference between making them villainous and sympathetic, and the result is that they aren’t either one in any compelling way. Similarly, the GRC is so vaguely defined that we never really SEE what they are doing so wrong, other than being an ineffective bureaucracy. They could have shown some underhanded dealings, hidden agendas, etc to really hammer home that this organization isn’t actually trying to help.
I’ve seen people online calling Sam’s speech cringey and preachy, and I’ll agree that is preachy, but in the right way. In that classic, comic book, hero monologue way that I really enjoyed. My only complaint is that I think it was too long of a scene. I think with some tighter writing they could have shaved some time off and still said all the same stuff.
And they could have given that time to Bucky’s making amends scene, which I wish had been maybe a minute longer.
The scene with Isaiah at the Smithsonian was touching, but felt a little out of character for me. He flat out told Sam that he didn’t want his story told, and while he softened to Sam a bit after seeing him in action, Isaiah still seemed skeptical about how successful Sam will be. So I expected more anger to mixed in with his gratitude in that museum scene.
Overall, despite some failings, I think the show succeeded in the most important way, and that was with Sam and Bucky’s stories. Seeing Sam in the suit felt right, and I can’t wait to see more of it.
Josh K: Um, did you read the whole review? I mentioned that in the second paragraph…….
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
The more I think about it, the more I’m bugged by Sharon Carter as this particular Power Broker.
There’s no nuance to it. There’s nothing interesting to play off here; it’s straight up villain territory, painted in shades of evil and amorality. Which is an odd contrast to the more nuanced and complex motives (though botched sometimes) given to Zemo, Karli and Walker.
There’s just power and money lust displayed here. Which is kinda boring.
13. Mr. Magic and others
I would not consider Sharon Carter being the Power Broker as her having turned to the Dark Side. I see her more as a grey character.
And that is not really inconsistent with her character. In the movies she showed disloyalty to the agency and country she worked for by helping Captain America. The fact that Cap is our hero and that maybe she did the right thing there changes nothing about that.
I think this series has suffered a bit from trying to pack too much in, so it hasn’t had enough room to deal with all of the threads it has raised. But now that it seems likely that it will not be a one-off, perhaps that was intentional – just setting things up for future seasons.
Perhaps that explains why the end title is Captain America and the Winter Soldier, not Captain America and White Wolf (or something else). Notebooks aside, it’s not likely that Bucky has shrugged off his trauma quite that easily. So maybe he will get the focus next time, and get a chance to grow into a new identity, like Sam has.
I am a bit surprised how annoyed I am at the Sharon/Power Broker thing. I didn’t think I had all that much invested in Sharon as a character, but it still seems sad to have her moved squarely into the villain camp. The Skrull theory makes sense, but I personally am not all that excited about another “imposters among us” story line.
John Walker’s story is definitely incomplete as well. I liked the way this episode shows him hesitating and confused, not just another bland rage monster.
Isaiah’s reaction to the Smithsonian display was rather inconsistent with his prior rant about how he’s only still alive because he has been forgotten. But it’s true to the MCU style to not let those kinds of details get in the way of an emotional beat, especially in a denouement.
I am a bit surprised how annoyed I am at the Sharon/Power Broker thing. I didn’t think I had all that much invested in Sharon as a character, but it still seems sad to have her moved squarely into the villain camp.
I’ve just been frustrated with the MCU iteration of Sharon since the second Captain America film.
She’s such a crucial part of Steve’s supporting cast in the comics, but that got lost between using Peggy as his loved interest and much of Sharon’s role in the original Winter Soldier storyline begin given instead to Nat — which, to be fair, I’ll concede was a necessary evil of the adaptation.
So I was hoping this would be a chance for her to finally reclaim some of the spotlight and, again, I’m really torn on the Power Broker development. I wish they weren’t going down this route, but I am curious if it’s tied to Secret Invasion.
I’ve seen people online calling Sam’s speech cringey and preachy, and I’ll agree that is preachy, but in the right way. In that classic, comic book, hero monologue way that I really enjoyed. My only complaint is that I think it was too long of a scene. I think with some tighter righting they could have shaved some time off and still said all the same stuff.
It definitely could’ve been trimmed here and there, but it also felt authentic. It felt like Sam trying to channel Steve’s essence while also still feeling very distinctly Sam.
@32, I take it that Sharon/Power Broker was trying to play both sides against the middle in an effort to get the twenty or so ampules of the Super Soldier serum back from the Flag Smashers, but badly misjudged Zemo’s status as a loose cannon. Since she’s usually more competent than that, this is perhaps evidence for the “Secret Invasion” replacement theory. Or maybe she just had an off day. Stay tuned, folks.
@40, Since Isaiah Bradley is officially deceased, I’ve always assumed that he’s been living under the radar using an assumed name for the last thirty or so years. A statue of his presumed dead younger self isn’t likely to blow his cover, but does assure that the cautionary tale of how he and his fellow involuntary test subjects were treated doesn’t vanish into history’s mists. (Now how Sam was able to dig up enough hard evidence to convince the Smithsonian to put up that display despite the cover-up is another question,but the Tuskegee Experiment was eventually made public, so there is real world historical precedent. Maybe the affair wasn’t as deeply buried as Isaiah thought.)
And kudos to the writers of both series for making the planetary trauma of the blip a perfect metaphor for the planetary trauma of the pandemic. The MCU seems to have dodged CV-19, (Patient Zero probably got dusted before eating that fatal bowl of bat soup) but they didn’t trade up.
Speaking of the blip, one thing no one seems to have thought much about is the non-snapture casualty count in the immediate wake of the dusting. Those aircraft seen crashing in the post-credit scene of Infinity War presumably still had half the passengers aboard–and those deaths wouldn’t have been undone by the Banner snap. Multiply by the number of driverless cars, etc careening into each other with helpless passengers aboard…
I consider the 2019 Watchman TV series a masterpiece, able to depict the racial tensions in the USA through the magnifying glass of comics.
Captain America/The Falcon and the Winter Soldier tried to channel the same feelings, but falls short in my opinion. I kept on feeling a tonal dissonance up until the end credits.
5 out of 10 for me
Comics Cap is pretty much the poster boy of making speeches that tightrope over cringe and creepy…and I don’t have a problem with Sam-MCU going that direction. And…being a black Captain America means, to me, that he HAS to go in that direction, drawing upon the legacy of MLK, James Baldwin and Malcom X. No doubt he will get plenty of hate in the MCU and our universe for doing that.
I think the MCU John Walker got a somewhat happy ending, which blunts his tragedy arc. I feel that’s because he’s a supporting character; if he were a main character, it would be inevitable that he plough on toward a much darker end point. On the other hand, it’s a bit truer to the dynamic of Sam as America’s ideals, and John as America more like it really is: flawed, with some serious defects, but capable of living up to some of what he believes in. That makes the MCU Walker as a more likable character than the 616 Walker.
Ultimately this series raises some serious questions, but stays safely in the middle (which is not surprising for a product from a huge, multi-billion dollar incarnation of American capitalism).
On the other hand, it’s a bit truer to the dynamic of Sam as America’s ideals, and John as America more like it really is: flawed, with some serious defects, but capable of living up to some of what he believes in. That makes the MCU Walker as a more likable character than the 616 Walker.
That’s actually a really good summation of this version of Walker.
It stays true to the essence of the character while perfectly updating him for the 2020s.
Anyway, if Val is indeed going down the Thunderbolts route as we’ve theorized, it’ll be interesting to see how that redemption arc plays out for Walker. The whole point of Thunderbolts was the villains realizing they actually liked doing heroism. That’s a perfect fit for Walker.
Thanks to those who pointed out it was Zemo’s butler who assassinated the Flag Smasher super soldiers. I was wondering if it was a reappearance of an elderly Red Skull or something that would be confirmed in the post credits scenes.
Speaking of the Red Skull, I keep wondering whether or not we’ll ever see Sinthea Schmidt in the post-Infinity Saga (especially now with Captain America 4).
On the one hand, I’m sick of HYDRA and feel that narrative vein’s been more than tapped out at this stage of the game.
On the other hand, there is potential in pitting Sam against that aspect of Steve’s legacy and of the struggle between their ‘fathers’, for lack of a better word, carrying on over into the next generation. And with the Far Right resurgence globally, it’d be topical.
I would like to see the MCU acknowledge the hydra as a nazi organization. It’s weird that they’ve kept it vague like that.
Agents of SHIELD was quite frank about it. There was a scene where Ward tried to rationalize his membership in Hydra and claim that they weren’t Nazis, and Daisy would have none of it, saying quite bluntly that they were.
Although the first Captain America movie did establish that the Red Skull broke Hydra away from the Nazis because he had his own independent objectives. IIRC, there are laws in Germany against depicting Nazi symbols in entertainment, which gives internationally released productions an incentive to avoid focusing on Nazis. They also didn’t want to put out movie tie-in toys with swastikas on them.
I found the finale to be much like the series as a whole: slow, predictable, unsubtle, and trying to cram in too many things at once. I’m not saying there has to be a surprise twist every five minutes, but I also should not be able to watch six episodes of a TV series with both eyes on my phone and yet not miss a beat (except when Zemo is on screen because man, Daniel Bruhl knows how to steal the scene). The only part that took me by surprise was that they killed off Batroc: I thought they’d try to get more mileage out of that character.
Part of me really feels that this series should have been set in America, not the whole world, because really… the whole world is sidelined. American characters act on foreign soil with impunity without any precise authority; Sam, the American hero with the stars and stripes, gets to speak for refugees from all over the world – but none of the Flag Smashers or actual refugees is allowed to; the GRC itself feels less New United Nations and more like a big US World Supremacy, since all we see of it is a US Senator and a meeting place in New York.
I wonder if fan reactions would have been different if, instead of breaking national borders, the Flag Smashers had been about breaking the state border in the US of A…
Most of all, as an Italian guy who was a new adult when the Cermis massacre happened, seeing Walker be swept under the rug without a trial for a cold-blooded murder (which he keeps lying about) hit a little too close to home – especially since he’s then being given a new costume for playing armed vigilante. I know it was bound to happen for comic book reasons, but the idea of that character becoming an anti-hero and/or getting a redemption arc in a future series or movie? Barf.
Also: is the other Flag Smasher still around, I wonder?
Not in prison, I bet. Probably being poked and prodded in some lab, just like Isiah Bradley.
BTW….some chatter about reviving the old title for what become Captain America: Civil War…..Captain America: The Serpent Society.
That might be VERY appropriate for this Cap….if they make it Sons of the Serpent Society….
@32: Sharon is the Power Broker, who spends the bulk of this series sending minions after the Flag Smashers to get get her super soldier serum back.
Sharon is also the helpful soul who takes a known anti-supremacist fanatic to meet the only man who can make the Power Broker’s super soldier serum, thereby occasioning his highly predictable demise.
I am open to the possibility that this makes any sense at all, but I can’t yet see how.
Is it possible we so both the real Sharon and also a Skrull!Sharon in the course of the series? The real one led them to the serum-maker, the Skrull one is the Power Broker, went to New York, and merely adopted the Sharon face because it was convenient. Implies if she’s now back to working for the .gov she has to liquidate the original, but that shouldn’t be *too* hard. She’s in hiding anyway, so nobody is going to miss her.
@47 Preach, Atrus!
For what it’s worth, what worked was Sam’s journey and Bucky’s quest and Sara’s struggle and Zemo just being Zemo and Wakandan cameo and Walker’s arc.
What doesn’t work was Sharon being OOC and Flagsmashers’ supposed goals and treatment. I wish they didn’t Killmongerfy Karli.
@28 Mayhem – I bet he’s got induction headphones built into the helmet. Something like these.
Other folks have expressed my general feelings about the show fairly well, so I will confine myself to the observation that I am offended on behalf of Bucky that the show thinks any of these brand-new super soldier fools could take him in a fight.
I really doubt there is any Skrull involvement in this series.
As for this show, I liked it. But basically this is an Origin story for Sam being the next Captain America in the upcoming stage in the MCU. And I am perfectly fine with that, because Steve handing Sam the shield at the end of Endgame was not enough for me to go and accept Sam as the next Captain.
This show also filled in some gaps considering the Blip and its effects on society. The Flag smashers did have a valid point, but they totally screwed up in the way they went at it.
I really, really hope they don’t go with ‘she’s a Skrull’! To me that seems to kind of undermine the twist – either own what you are doing to your character, or don’t, but the whole back door of ‘it was a Skrull all along’ just to me makes it hard to get invested in anything (unless there have been seeded hints to give that plausibility).
I really, really hope they don’t go with ‘she’s a Skrull’! To me that seems to kind of undermine the twist – either own what you are doing to your character, or don’t, but the whole back door of ‘it was a Skrull all along’ just to me makes it hard to get invested in anything (unless there have been seeded hints to give that plausibility).
If there are hints, then we won’t start seeing them until at least Armor Wars. Given the Black Market aspects, it’s very likely the Power Broker’s influence will be felt there as Rhodey tries to hunt down and save Tony’s technological legacy.
On the subject of whether Sharon is a Skrull, my issue with adapting Secret Invasion is what’s the impetus?
In the original storyline, the Skrulls targeted Earth for revenge (for past humiliations) and because a fundamentalist bloc seized power after Throneworld’s destruction and felt Earth was theirs by decree of their holy text.
But with how much the MCU has diverged, and with the world building of Captain Marvel, what’s the catalyst? I can buy there being different Skrull factions, but why the interest in Earth now? Is it because of Thanos and how much of an impact Earth has had on universal affairs within the last decade?
Don’t the Sharon Carter being evil revelation, but (shrug) Could be a skrull.
wrt whether Bradley should accept being in the Smithsonian:
Public declarations matter. People over a certain age may remember veterans’ groups being up in arms about the 50th-anniversary exhibit of “Enola Gay” spending some time on Japanese casualties rather than focusing solely on USian heroics; Bradley, like George Floyd, may never get justice (a word with many definitions), but making the history clear is a step in undercutting the people who try to sweep the history of “others” under the rug. The MCU producers couldn’t have foreseen that this episode would have a pair of real-world parallels: in mid-week the UK admitted that it had failed to give proper honors to Black and “Asian” deaths in its forces in WWI, and at the end of the work week Biden formally declared the deaths of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire was genocide. (People do learn; today’s NYT reports the unfavorable answers to a reactionary Utahan who was complaining that Disney World wasn’t as fun after it got rid of some mid-century racism and later sexism.) An exhibit can’t erase the decades of hurt, but it can remind people of behavior we shouldn’t repeat. There’s a Jacques Brel song in which a statue wishes that children would not look on the lies engraved on its pedestal; children can see the truths attached to the Bradley statue, and maybe do better than their ancestors.
I think that it was telegraphed pretty clearly that Sharon Carter was Mephisto all along.
You now, to avoid confusion with the 2014 movie Captain America and the Winter Soldier, they could’ve changed the end credits to Captain America and the White Wolf. It would’ve shown that both Sam and Bucky changed during the show and moved on.
Talking about moving on, I know this is a Marvel show, but there was no full pay-off in the Bucky scene with Yori. He tells that he murdered his son and why, but we never see the rest of the scene, Yori’s reaction to Bucky (which was probably not well) we jump to something else. I guess these scenes can’t get too emotional or complex, at the cost of making people feel bad at the end of the movie / series.
A bit belatedly, is it okay if I ask mods for correction of a typo / misuse by the OP? In the comment “gonna be a hard road to hoe” the word road ought to have been row.*
Meanwhile, count me in as another who is Looking forward to seeing what’s next for Bucky, for Carter, for the Contessa, for the U.S. Agent, for the people of the world trying to find their way post-Blip, and most especially for the brand-new Captain America.
*(unless there’s some pun intended that I just didn’t “get”)
Has it ever been explained, or does anyone know, how Sam controls his wings? Is it linked somehow to his mind?
@61 – Fixed, thanks.
It was good ending. Sam/Captain America was great. His speech was great. And while the series got a little heavy-handed with racial topics at times, the series ultimately threaded that needle pretty well. Considering how difficult it is to address racial issues at all, that’s saying something. Although I’m not sure how Sam got that statue up in the Smithsonian so quickly!
Walker’s semi-redemption was good. At one point he clearly chose to save the hostages rather than pursue his revenge on Karli, and that’s exactly what a hero should do. Yes, the hostages were saved in the end by Captain America, but they would have died if Walker hadn’t gotten there first. And while I know its’ right from the comics–US Agent is a terrible super hero name.
Unfortunately Julia Louis-Dreyfus will always be Elaine to me. It works for me as well as if they cast Jerry Seinfeld as Ultron.
Sharon’s heel turn does feel wrong. I’m sure the actress is happy to play a villain–it’s much more fun I’m sure. But it doesn’t feel earned. I suspect that a lot of the problem is that Sharon was supposed to be Cap’s final love interest in the films, but the MCU didn’t realize just how good Haley Atwell was as Peggy Carter and how much audiences wanted them to be ultimately be reunited. So ultimately there just wasn’t a good place for poor Sharon.
My wife was annoyed that Bucky was still carrying the Winter Soldier name by the end of the series, and yeah we need to see Bucky get a new title as he is no longer a brainwashed assassin. My son found the best meme of the night with the new tile being “Captain America and the Brother-In-Law”. Now that would have been a GREAT ending!
Like everyone else posting here, I feel that the Flag Smashers weren’t much in the way of interesting villains. Karli was less sympathetic as the series moved on, and all her sidekicks could do was look uncomfortable. I was hoping that they would ultimately turn on her, but instead it was, “Sure let’s light the hostages on fire!”
I was also annoyed were it was another case of the villains’ plans executing perfectly. Getting a bunch of wanted foreign terrorists into a heavily guarded facility can’t be that easy. It happens all the time in comics, but still…
The actions scenes were fun, but our heroes seemed to have an excessively tough time with it. Bucky and Walker are trained soldiers–the best of the best–whereas the Flag Smashers all seem to be civilians with no formal training. Trained super soldiers should best un-trained ones. Walker was set upon by multiple flag smashers so in his case it could be excused, but Bucky should have dominated in any one-on-one with a Flag Smasher. Bucky was able to hold his own with Steve, he has 70 years of assassin muscle memory, he’s the frickin’ Winter Soldier! To quote our president, “Come on Man!”
Likewise Captain America was having all sorts of difficulties with that one helicopter. Didn’t we see Falcon take on multiple similar threats in the first episode? But here one guy with a machine gun (who was also flying the helicopter) gave him all sorts of trouble. Aside from his face, isn’t he wearing a vibranium suit like Black Panther’s at this point? Isn’t he bullet proof?
These are minor criticisms by the way, I liked the episode.
@65 – yeah, you’ve hit on a few of my nitpicks. I know Karli had a ton of grassroots support, but apparently we’re supposed to believe that had people in all levels of security/police, etc?
And, on one hand, they show her compatriots making token protests but have no problem attacking Walker when he’s literally trying to stop a truck from going over a cliff and not attacking them in any way whatsoever.
@60 – Ryamano: It makes no sense for Bucky to take the White Wolf codename, unless he were acting as a Wakandan agent, which he is not.
@65 – templar: Getting the Flag Smashers into the GRC facility was easy because the FS have supporters everywhere, they show it and outright say it on the show.
@26: So far, yeah, it’s definitely working — but it’s perhaps unsurprising given Feige and company now have over a decade of experience under their belts doing this kind of coordination.
I feel like that is more than a decade. A *lot* of the folks at Marvel Studios got a start at Marvel *Comics* and their experience in managing long form story telling where you need to both encourage art from your writers, pencillers, inkers (or writers, directors, producers) while also ensuring that the needed sockets for other projects are properly handled really shows. Rather than handing the MCU over to an auteur like Zack Snyder and walking away, Marvel Studios retained the kind of control that ensures perhaps less “greatness”, but also mitigates any great disasters.
And as a result, more independant filmakers like Edgar Wright left. But then Marvel Studios discovered that they could hand over movies to folks like Ryan Coogler, or Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, with a statement that might as well be, “You make the story and characters sing, and if you’re weak on CGI and stunts, don’t worry, we have your back.”
I think that’s why the MCU does better generally than the DCEU, but the DCEU has more passionate acolytes.
@64: Yes there were some STRONG, “Hey. Your sister’s (or friend/associate/work collegue/part’s) really cool,” vibes coming coming off of both Bucky and Sarah in their scenes together.
I strongly suspect that, while Walker may think he is on the road to redemption, and still has a flag costume, he is being duped by Val. If US Agent is sanctioned and approved by anyone in the US government, I bet it will be rogue factions with totalitarian aspirations.
I do not have a problem with Sharon as the Power Broker.
She was essentially betrayed by the U.S. Government, which continued to treat her as a fugitive whereas Steve (and eventually Sam and Bucky upon their return) was not.
If you recall in an earlier episode, Zemo makes a statement that we tend to put heroes on pedestals. Steve Rogers was and continues to be very much put on a pedestal. As good a man as Steve was (is?), he is still very much human and makes mistakes, no matter how much we want to admit or not. He made a mistake by not seeing to Sharon’s reinstatement during or after the five-year gap of the Blip.
@67-MaGnUs: yeah I know, it just seems unlikely. The Flag Smashers seem pretty new at the whole infiltrate all levels of government and security perfectly thing. They aren’t Hydra no matter the level of grassroots support. But my complaint is more so directed at the Trope in general than this particular instance. I realize that if half the Flag Smashers hadn’t made it into New York City, let alone the GRC meeting there wouldn’t be much of a finale. I just get tired of the super-complicated-bad guy-plan going off without a hitch until the heroes show up.
I strongly suspect that, while Walker may think he is on the road to redemption, and still has a flag costume, he is being duped by Val. If US Agent is sanctioned and approved by anyone in the US government, I bet it will be rogue factions with totalitarian aspirations.
Absolutely. And the sad irony is that he’ll be so determined to atone that he’ll miss any obvious clues until it’s too late.
The best villains, or at least my favorite, are the ones who think they’re the hero of the story.
I don’t get the argument that Sharon being the Power Broker is “out of character” for her. I think people have built a persona for her in their own headcanon, but if you look at her actual contribution in the MCU prior to this, there isn’t really much of a character built there.
What I’m saying is, if you were someone who hadn’t seen any MCU movies and I told you that Sharon Carter seems like a good guy but she’s playing the system for her own benefit, none of the scenes she’s in would seem out of character for that statement. Let’s break them down, pretending that she was the Power Broker all along, from the shadows:
1. Winter Soldier: Spying on/guarding Captain America for SHIELD. Seems heroic, but if I told you “she’s just doing her job with SHIELD so she can get access to secrets/tech” it would still fit.
2. Winter Soldier: Taking a stand against HYDRA during the climax. Seems heroic, but what were her real options there? Sure she could have cowered and just done what she was told, but she’s smart enough to know that the jig is up – it’s either going to be SHIELD or HYDRA going forward. And since she’s not with HYDRA, she knows she won’t be trusted with any secrets (and she might just be killed) so the natural choice, even if she wasn’t heroic, is to try to take HYDRA down.
3. Winter Soldier: Joining the CIA after the collapse of SHIELD. Again, something that the Power Broker would do to be able to stay on top of secrets etc.
4. Civil War: Working with the joint terrorism task force in Berlin. Working her way up to more and more sensitive information, possibly new tech as well.
5. Civil War: Speaking at Peggy’s funeral. No brainer here, it is her aunt. The “No, you move” speech isn’t even hers, it’s Peggy’s. There’s arguably nothing heroic about it.
6: Civil War: Letting Steve and Sam listen in on the Bucky interrogation. This is arguably the most “out of character” thing for her to do so far if she was secretly self-serving, because the risk (of being caught sharing that info with them) / reward (gaining more of Steve and Sam’s trust) doesn’t seem very high. But if you look at it, she just hit one button on the phone, she could lie and say that one of them did it or whatever. And it wouldn’t really be a big offense.
7: Civil War: Fighting Bucky alongside Tony and Natasha. This one’s tough because she probably *could* have found some way to stay out of the danger, but it might have caused suspicion.
8: Civil War: Getting the shield and wingsuit to Steve and Sam. Definitely the riskiest/most heroic move on her part if she was already the Power Broker. But maybe she was hoping for a lead on super soldier serum and figured that Bucky being free was the best way to get her hands on some, somehow.
So even discounting the Blip and all the terrible things that happened to her, nothing she does in the MCU *has* to be considered “out of character” if she was the Power Broker even back then!
To be clear, I don’t think Sharon *was* a self-serving pre-Power-Broker during the MCU movies. It was just a thought experiment to see if her BECOMING the PB was really such a stretch. Considering what little we know of her character/background from the limited scenes she has in the MCU, and also considering how other “semi-heroic” characters (Hayward from Wandavision, for example) were changed by the difficult 5 years post-Blip…
Not to mention Sharon was on the run for 2 or 3 years prior to the Blip due to her aiding Cap/Bucky/Sam?
Yeah, not really hard to buy her going a bit rogue and deciding to look out for number 1.
@69 @73
Yeah, Walker in a lot of ways >IS< Captain America….it’s just that it’s the America of our reality rather than the America of our ideals. And that’s actually a better way to leave him than the comics version.
I thought the show started great but ended with a whimper. Story arcs were either muddled (Karli) or half-finished (Bucky) or ended dumbly (Walker) or were wasted (Batroc), and the commentary got in the way of the story.
I’m a big fan of Julia Louis-Dreyfus, but she’s miscast in the role of the Italian Contessa Fontaine. Someone like Monica Bellucci would be perfect. The films have been ambiguous about Sharon Carter’s good/bad status, so that could’ve gone either way, and her being the Power Broker is fine. Making her a Skrull diminishes the stakes, though, so I hope they avoid that.
An example of the commentary getting in the way of the story was Sara and Sam’s money issues. That makes no sense in a world where Stark Industries is the equivalent of Apple and Raytheon combined. Each Avenger could be paid a million dollars a year and the cumulative effect on the Stark accounts would be less than a rounding error. Tony casually tossed out that BARF cost over half a billion dollars. Drop some coin on heroes who’ve saved the world a half-dozen times, Pepper.
The Isaiah Bradley stuff was the highlight of the series for me, and the one instance where it was strong all the way through. The intro of his grandson paves the way for Patriot of the Young Avengers, and Sam’s speech about building the country and fighting for it will resonate with young Eli. Easily the best part of the show.
Sam’s speech to the GRC was good, too, and Mackie crushed it, but it felt shoehorned into an episode that was trying to do too many things at once. Almost like they were surprise-canceled and had to cram it all in.
Plus some weird things happened like Sam choosing to take a corpse to the ambulance rather than the still alive but gutshot Sharon. And Walker’s redemption was too quick and easy. I would’ve cut Walker out of the finale entirely, moving his post-credits scene from episode 5 to episode 6, teeing up Capt. America 4. That leaves more time for Bucky’s redemption arc.
Bigger issue: I still don’t get why Karli chose the path she did. I know what her goal was, since it was stated repeatedly, but blowing people up? Eh?
I think it would’ve been much more interesting if she killed some of the GRC folks and then the people who replaced them were of the same mind, or perhaps even more hardline. Then they could draw parallels with Hydra, the whole “cut off one head and two more take its place” thing, except with democracy that’s been overtaken by greed/extremists/status quo folks (take your pick). That would’ve supported both the themes of the show and tied it back into Bucky’s story.
Having her and Bucky point that out would’ve helped land the changing of minds after Sam’s speech, because it comes at it from multiple angles.
Oh well, they can’t all be homeruns. Looking for to Loki