Despite some inventive action, The Falcon And The Winter Soldier premiere is stuck in the past
TV Reviews Falcon
The first episode of The Falcon And The Winter Soldier often feels like frustrating prologue. However, it’s necessary to give both characters the space to breathe in their own plotlines, especially now that their mutual connection—Steve Rogers—is missing.
Fans of Captain America: The Winter Soldier will notice this missing link the most. The first episode, “New World Order,” reads as a redux of the movie, only without Cap (though Sam’s cocky demeanor as he dives from the plane recalls the “Was he wearing a parachute?” moment). The premiere starts with Sam Wilson going on a lone mission to take back a captured Army captain from the same opening villain from The Winter Soldier: Georges Batroc, a French pirate who has conveniently moved from ships to planes. The ensuing action sequence is surprisingly inventive, reminiscent of scenes from Top Gun, except everyone is flying solo in wingsuits (!) rather than in planes.
Sam’s not exactly alone—Joaquin Torres (Danny Ramirez) is his support staff on the ground, warning him not to fly into Libyan airspace. “Is that a problem?” Sam says. “Yeah, it’s a problem! A big problem,” says Torres, his voice almost cracking. Is that a first in the MCU, where the military not only acknowledges but jokes about national sovereignty and other countries’ agency? I’m sure someone will point out otherwise in the comments, but outside of Black Panther and Wakanda, the Avengers have tended to do what they want when it comes to other nations.
Sam manages to save the captain just outside of Libyan airspace, using a helicopter trick not unlike the one Nick Fury used to save him in The Winter Soldier. Later, he meets with Torres in Tunisia, who tells him about an online terrorist group called The Flag-Smashers, who reject international borders and also believe that the world was better during the Blip. Torres doesn’t dive deeper into how those two ideologies match, and it’s strange that they’re immediately conflated. Hopefully that connection is either negated or better explained in future episodes, because I’m not sure what a lack of national borders has to do with ridding the world of half its population. Wouldn’t they be more inclined to agree with national borders, as a way to keep more people out of certain nations? Wouldn’t they be considered the “Thanos Was Right” group? Perhaps that’s a little too real—I’m sure those groups actually do exist.
Speaking of too real, Bucky is struggling with his nightmares and personal demons in therapy. He’s having similar problems as Steve in TWS, where he has no friends and no grasp of how to make any in his old age of 106. Worse, he has decades of terrible, disturbing images in his head from his time spent under the mind control of Hydra. He’s been made to see a therapist as part of pardon—the first for a superhero in the MCU (outside of fan fiction, of course). It also seems like the first time an MCU character has been given such a clear and straightforward path towards redemption——even if it comes from the government—especially compared to the mess following the Sokovia Accords. Black Widow’s fate after the events of TWS, in which she released information about her past, was left relatively murky and independent of government intervention. Even Ant-Man, who actually went through the criminal justice system, didn’t get that much freedom when attempting to redeem himself (and he wasn’t a covert assassin for years like Bucky). Could the MCU be making a case for more restorative justice?
Bucky tells his therapist Dr. Raynor (Amy Aquino) of his attempts to make amends and working to follow the three rules they’ve set for how to do so, which he navigates mostly through loopholes and self-loathing. Raynor feels like an institutional replacement for the dearly departed Black Widow, who attempted to ply Cap open with a sly coyness. But where Natasha was unable to set Steve up with anyone (not Lillian or even his neighbor, “the nurse”), Bucky’s friend Yori (Ken Takamoto) does get him to go on a date with the hostess of the sushi restaurant they visit. Unfortunately, he leaves in the middle of the date, which is honestly very sweet, mostly out of his guilt over having killed Yori’s son, the innocent bystander from Bucky’s flashback/nightmare. While he’s been crossing off people on his “amends” list in a notebook similar to the one where Cap listed references he had to check out, he knows he can’t make up for what he did to Yori’s son.
In another part of the show that hits hard, Sam tries to help his sister Sarah (Adepero Oguye) get a loan from the bank in order to save their parents’ house and boat in Delacroix, Louisiana. Even as he attempts to explain to the loan officer that he was Blipped for the past five years, that does nothing to win the man’s sympathy. The bank employee just talks about what has changed in the past five years and rejects their loan application.
After such a high-flying reintroduction, series creator Malcolm Spellman, who wrote “New World Order,” brings Sam crashing back down to Earth. It’s particularly dismaying since Sam also tries to use his multiple government contracts as leverage. Learning that there’s no legislation to protect people who were blipped and help them navigate the world they’ve turned to is a particularly frustrating moment to watch during the still-ongoing pandemic. In real life, we’ve watched governments leave people in the lurch, and it looks like TFTWS, rather than indulge in some fantasy, is aiming to capture those systemic failures.
When Sam and Sarah debrief after their meeting, she homes in on what she believes is the actual problem: racism and perhaps a bit of class discrimination. She lashes out at Sam for giving her hope, which is quite painful after five years spent trying to keep everything together. But at the same time, who can blame Sam? How is he supposed to know how terrible the world was in his absence? According to the timeline of events, he only just returned a few months ago, so he’s got a lot of catching up to do.
Throughout the premiere, the absence of Cap looms over both characters: Bucky feels even more alone than Cap did before he knew Bucky was alive, while Sam has to walk through this world as independent Cap did. Both have moments where they look away from the people they’re talking to, or side-step other’s attempts to connect with them, not unlike Cap did before he found the two of them. There’s little indication that they have been able to keep a relationship going, besides Bucky ignoring Sam’s texts. It’s a surprisingly tender detail that will be relatable to anyone who’s ignored the texts of someone attempting to show care, or anyone whose had their texts ignored by someone who they know is in pain. It probably doesn’t help that both Sam and Bucky probably know that Sam sends those texts more out of the nostalgia behind their original connection with Cap, rather than an actual friendship between the two.
But as we see in the premiere, Captain America’s absence is felt by many more people than just Sam and Bucky. Not long after Sam saves the day in/above Libya, he flies back to Washington D.C. to hold a press conference at the Smithsonian (more TWS vibes) during which he returns Cap’s vibranium shield to the government. Later, he and Rhodey meet up, and Rhodey seems to suggest Sam could do more in terms of being a superhero and protecting the world. Sam demurs, but unfortunately, the government disagrees—“New World Order” ends with a press conference to introduce a new Captain America, complete with shield. They show his face only at the last moment, but his identity is unknown to us*—for now.
Like Wandavision, the episodes feel like the comics one would pick up weekly from the store, reading hungrily and impatiently for the next issue. The premiere ends abruptly; not on a cliffhanger, but before the real thrust of the story can even begin. “New World Order” feels bogged down by exposition and setup of a (so far) seemingly throwaway plot, but at least the character moments feel true and fleshed out. There’s enough here that I’d be willing to hear more about their individual plotlines, but both seem remarkably hopeless alone. The extensive borrowing of tone, plot, and characterization from The Winter Soldier at least make a lot of sense for these characters—and it helps that the movie was much stronger on its own than most of the Avengers movies.
What makes me most hopeful about this show is that the best parts of the Avengers movies were often the character dynamics, especially the new ones that would emerge when characters that had barely met became intertwined. Rhodey and Nebula bonding over their disabilities was one such dynamic; Sam and Bucky’s antagonism but matching world-weariness and bafflement at the sheer number of Avengers was another. Their dynamic was a delightful and funny surprise. I’m hoping the next episode reunites these two charactersas quickly as possible, because when they’re together, sparks fly—and not just off each other’s metal armor.
Stray observations
- *: Comics readers and/or readers of our preview know who’s behind that mask.
- People who liked the original Captain America: The Winter Soldier soundtrack by Henry Jackman will recognize multiple motifs from the movie, including the Marvin Gaye-esque Trouble Man music as Sam makes his way to his sister’s restaurant.
- Was I the only one that winced when Bucky’s date brought out Battleship as a video game?
- At first I thought maybe Bucky’s friend was Jim Morita, the Japanese American member of Cap’s old squad. I wonder if we’ll ever learn what happened to those characters.
- I didn’t delve too deep into Torres’ storyline because I felt like next week would give us some information on the confusing sequence in Switzerland. Any theories, commenters?
323 Comments
Re: Stray Observations – – We don’t know what Jim Morita got up to after the first Cap film but we do know that his grandson is Peter Parker’s Principal (both are played by Kenneth Choi).
Also, the name of the new Captain America is on one of the posters in the credit sequence.More interesting is that the word Powerbroker shows up as another background image. Captain America readers may know the character as someone who dishes out superpowers via a risky biological enhancement procedure to various goons and henchmen. This may e plain where the hulking Flag Smasher who beat Torres up got his enhanced strength from.
Also seen in the credits sequence: what appears to be the magic words for controlling Bucky which made me let out an “uggggggggghhh” I’d been saving up for the whole episode
More interesting is that the word Powerbroker shows up as another background image. Captain America readers may know the character as someone who dishes out superpowers via a risky biological enhancement procedure to various goons and henchmen. This may be where the hulking Flag Smasher who beat Torres up got his enhanced strength from.I like you and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Also Tripp from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. said that his grand father was one of the Howling Commandos. Sadly we never had it confirmed which one it was. Gabe Jones was the obvious choice, but I’d have liked the randomness of it being Dum Dum.
he is dead, a deleted scene from the first Avengers movie, has Steve getting a file from Shield with information on people like Peggy, Bucky, and the howling commandos, the scene shows Morita with the words “deceased” written on the bottom of his file, you can watch the scene under extras on Disney Plus it’s called like “man out of time” (it also includes a cameo by Stan Lee) sorry to crush that theory, it would be cool if they showed Bucky hanging out with or talking to his former team mates, especially now that Cap is dead.
thank you for sharing this! I think I might’ve seen that a while ago but I didn’t know Disney+ had extras you’d usually find on DVDs.
They’ve got some but not all of them, unfortunately. And it differs from movie to movie. Some have a lot of extras, others, not so many.
They’d be all over 100, so yeah, very unlikely that any would have lived, and the 101st kept putting themselves in harms way after the War ended, so their life expectancies were even shorter. Bucky only lived this long because he was on ice for most of it. And Cap only lived to 112 because he’s a super soldier with a metabolism so high he can’t get drunk.
tbf deleted scenes don’t crush theories, only stuff that’s actually included does
Hell, it shouldn’t be any surprise that he’s dead in the first place, since he’d be at least as old as Bucky (and if memory serves he was probably at least a few years older). There aren’t a lot of 106-year-olds around even in the MCU.
That’s true!!
What was confusing about the Switzerland sequence? Torres had said he’d keep tabs on the Flag Smashers online presence, which led him to an apparent flash mob to cover a bank heist. I was only half paying attention through the sequence and it made sense.Side note: Was that the first MCU face-stomping?
Well, Ant-Man stomped on the entirety of Black Dwarf in the big Endgame fight, so it might be the first face-only stomping?
It was more that he talked about the ideology of the Flag Smashers and then it ended with a simple bank heist with the same “everyone wearing masks” bit that’s been seen in lots of random superhero shows. I’m not saying terrorist organizations aren’t robbing banks, I was just confused as to the connection.
Fair enough. Upon further thought I think I expected something more substantial when the guards ran out than, “They’ve got the money!”
Fair enough. Upon further thought I think I expected something more substantial when the guards ran out than, “They’ve got the money!”So did Torres.
We don’t know who’s money it was, and what it will fund. This is the first episode, not the first act. Not everything will be explained in the first 30 minutes.
It seems like this is most people’s biggest complaint/hiccup in enjoyment. That Marvel figured out how to filter their comic book stories thru the TV medium correctly. Now they can make a mini series/single season show rather than 13 one hour mini-movies. The data flow is different, and so many people’s minds are not used to it. I think it is causing discomfort as people have to learn/relearn how to consume a story.
I don’t think the reviewer even meant this as a critique, just pointing out that its hard to comment on what happened because we still don’t know a lot.Also, the concept of a serialized TV show is not new to most contemporary audiences…
Most contemporary audiences still expect the Netflix dump for non prestige television. Reading the complaints about WandaVision showed how quickly people have become unaccustomed to waiting for answers from a half hour streaming program.
Interesting take. On the one hand, it’s TV. Usually when this kind of organization is introduced on a TV show, we get a stronger sense of the ideology or even a greater sense of how much of a threat they are. I was left with no idea about either. Luckily the character elements made up for that in this episode, so it was still entertaining, but I’m left wondering worrying that a boring, hollow plot will overtake that in the next episode. On the one hand I agree with you, as this kind of storytelling does remind me of how frustrated I’d get with the first issue of every comic book I’ve ever read, which is why I usually go for the complete story issues. And usually, I’d be grandly rewarded for my patience — it would turn out that what I thought was poor plot management in the beginning was hiding something more complex.It’s hard to tell how much is on purpose!
Thanks. Plus after the DC insurection, isn’t it just as realistic that this isn’t a strongly unified group, but a bunch people ranging from mildly inconvenienced to actually hurt by the blip and following a charismatic leader? The masks are just that in the comic book world, no one is foolish enough to commit major crimes and broadcast them without a mask.You could be right that this is just another organization created to drive plot rather than provide any real substance or social critique. SWORD didn’t do much but drive the plot of WandaVision. But they weren’t the story of WandaVision, so I don’t mind if they are pushed aside knowing I’ll probably see them later and get more depth.Good article, and thanks for the engagement.
Its only confusing if you expect immediate answers to everything that happens.
my ADHD and I agree with you sir
Another ideological inconsistency I struggled with in this premiere. The show spends a lot of time trying to make us think that Banks are Bad for not extending Sam a loan, but then after the Flag-Smasher’s already-muddled intro, it tries to prove their villainy by… robbing a Bank?? Also, the first scene surrounded Lt. Torres’ (justified) worry about overstepping their jurisdiction while over borders, but then saw him running a covert mission abroad/attempt to arrest someone with no authority, and its played off as fine/heroic. Might be a problem moving forward if this show, clearly modeled off of the political thriller style of CA:TWS, has incomprehensible politics.
I was not impressed with this review. For want of a better word, it’s just lacking.
Weird that a show that seems to be going for finally discussing racism in the MCU precedes it by Sam essentially saying that things that make some people’s lives better will always make other people’s lives worse, which is literally the bullshit spewed by white supremacists justifying their belief that treating nonwhites like humans will hurt white people.
I don’t think that’s an accident; as the difference in reactions between Sam and Sarah show us after the bank scene, his time in the service might have put some blinders on him when it comes to systemic issues.
I sure hope they get into it from that angle, because yikes. Between that and the very “hey y’all be scared of Antifa!” feel of the Flag Smashers, I’m not sure how to feel about where this is going.
That’s fair (and the “world without borders whaaaaa” line also made me grimace). Perhaps this is me being optimistic, but it’s possible that Sam getting that sort of bigger-picture understanding will be woven into his (hopefully) accepting the Cap mantle. You could argue that perhaps Rhodey was leaning on him to do so because he saw the arrival of John Walker coming.
My current theory is that Sam’s going to end up the new Cap while Torres becomes the new Falcon.
The fact that nobody has mentioned that maybe Earth might want to think about uniting in a universe where it’s established that there are literally THOUSANDS of unified planets is bonkers.
Yeah, that’s kind of a feature of the comic counterpart rather than a bug. Apparently Gruenwald intended for the character to be the anti-nationalist equivalent to the Red Skull. Of course, it’s kind of fucked up that they equivocate a character who’s basically an anarchist with a fucking Nazi and make him a terrorist.The whole issue where he first appears reads like it was written by Aaron Sorkin.
Oh for sure, but it’s shitty to give into the nonsense that Antifa are some boogeyman.
(Always appreciate the quick panels!)
Damn, flag-smasher is based
I got a crisp twenty says the Flag Smashers are basically in league with whoever is behind the new Cap.
Hard to believe that a Black man who’s spent time in the military would be blind to racism, systemic or otherwise.
He’s talking in reference to the Flag Smashers, saying that their lives got worse when everyone else’s got better. He’s definitely not intended to be speaking about them sympathetically. And white people are often “hurt” by affirmative action/other practices, in that their positions of superiority and higher quality of life are threatened. In some cases, its okay to make other people’s lives worse if those people are already on top of the world and others are being treated like shit.
That line did kind of bug me though. That kind of zero sum, lifting others up hurts me thinking, is something white nationalists talk about IRL. And in a macro sense, its not even true – lifting people out of poverty and making society more equal *does* make everyone’s lives better in the long run. Having the bad guys want no borders is also kind of…strange? like is that such an evil goal? I’m hoping we’ll see some nuance there in the coming eps
Yeaaah I did not interpret it that way at all, more that he was saying those on top often do it at every one else’s expense. It also should be noted that the majority of the writers room for this show were black, apparently.
How’s he wrong? You’re looking at it wrong.
There’s different ways to interpret that line imo. Any systemic change is going to have negative effects on some people and positive effects on others, especially in the short term. Eliminating half the population did, and bringing that half back did as well.Reminds me of Cap’s line about the dolphins in Endgame, which was kind of saying the same thing.
I know it’s a fruitless endeavor to try and find the logic behind conspiracy theories, but why the moon? What do they think he’s doing up there?
It’s probably just a reference to the comics, where the old white Nick Fury went to the moon and became The Watcher for a while.
I did not know this. (rushes to Wikipedia…)
watching over everyone.
Just a guess but I imagine that because you have things like the “Fake Moon Landing” nonsense it’s easy to apply to another conspiracy.
I’ll be honest, I was kind of expecting that to turn into a full-blown jab at Inhumans. “What are you thinking, that there’s some secret city on the moon for people with superpowers? Because that would be really stupid.”
Wow. I completely forgot that show existed! Thanks?
Nah that’s just Uatu. He likes to watch. But I can understand why they’d get the two mixed up. The resemblance is uncanny…
Nick Fury was the Man on the Wall though, wasn’t he based on the Moon at the time?
Oh I know Nick Fury’s taken up Uatu’s role as The Unseen. I was just being silly.
I mean do any conspiracy theorists really need to make sense?
I suspect its motivated by the same (probably outdated now) theories that Elvis was an alien who went back home after his death or that Tupac is living on the lam in Cuba.
The Earth’s been invaded by aliens. Killer robots picked up a whole city and try to drop it onto the planet to wipe out all life on the planet. A bunch of heroes fought each other at an airport, one of whom turned into a giant. Half of the planet’s population (along with half of life in the whole universe) disappeared for 5 years. Pretty much anything is fucking possible in the MCU.
I’m assuming he’s helping land the GME rockets from the apes at r/wallstreetbets.
Te Justice League Watchtower is on the moon. Maybe DC comics exist in the MCU.
It is a mix of things from real world conspiracies about the moon landing being fake to nazis having a secret moon base to comic references from the Inhumans living on the moon, Oatu the Watcher living on the moon, Nick Fury living on the moon after taking over for Oatu, and some of the X-Men have a house on the moon (basically Cyclops, Jean, Wolverine, and I think a few others are all in one big open relationship).
It reminded me of how people in the HBO Watchmen treated Dr. Manhattan on Mars and made me want this to have “Call Captain America on the moon” booths.
I mean, Nick Fury really is in space right now, so.
Well if you’re old and decrepit a low gravity environment would probably be a great place to live.
I think this first episode was okay. Not bad and not spectacular either. Tonally this could easily be the first hour of a Winter Soldier sequel, which isn’t a bad thing.I’m not sure following in the footsteps of the (initially at least) left field WandaVision is such a good thing. The puzzlebox aspect of that show made it feel different to the standard MCU fare. It’ll be interesting to see how Zemo fits into all of this and how close to comic book version of deranged Johnny Walker we get. Granted Johnny only lost the plot when his parents got killed.
Hopefully, we’ll get some sense early of his agency in all this. Is he just a good soldier who does as he’s told, or does he have his own ideas about what Captain America should mean?That wink, though….that was extremely punchable.
Yeah, I spotted the wink. He looked just like the football playing school bully
Walker is alright. He’s no Jeffrey Mace.
This was supposed to be broadcast first out of the two shows, before covid messed up filming schedules.
One thing to keep in mind is that this show was intended to come first, but the relative ease of finishing Wandavision under COVID restrictions meant the order got switched.
I think I’d rather have a show that starts as a big dumb comic movie and turns into a puzzlebox at the end than vice versa (not that I think that’s where this is going, particularly).
Music that sounds like Marvin Gaye?Uhoh they better be careful before they get sued and have to pull episodes.
I don’t really get the headline or the score for this ep. I thought it was pretty fantastic. Some truly great character work, and very exciting to see the show diving straight into what I hoped it would – the idea of Sam, as a black man in America, potential taking on the shield and mantle and what that means. I sort of figured marvel would be less…idn, direct about it? That reveal at the end hit hard in an ‘of f*cking course, america’ kind of way. Action was great, camera work throughout was great (loved the super close eye shots during therapy). It’s an opener so of course it’s going to be context and exposition heavy, but it has made me super excited for the rest
I agree. I found it all pretty interesting and I think the stuff with Bucky was especially well done. I also liked the solemn tone, as if the opening action was just to get you hooked and then they could begin telling a more in-depth story about the characters and the larger world. I’m sure there will be plenty of action to come, but I’m digging the other stuff.
When they revealed NuCap at the end, I got super mad, like almost “Seeing a Trump as Captain America poster” mad. That’s SAM’S shield, Steve gave it to HIM, man!
I heard he’s not what he seems. I hope so because that is the worst casting I’ve seen in a long time. Nothing against Wyatt personally, but come on.
the headline makes not a ton of sense especially because we haven’t spent a ton of time with Falcon and Bucky on their own, so it’s nice to get to know them and their struggles.
Absolutely agree. I thought this was a great setup to whatever happens. My only concern is that they’re only doing six episodes, so they’re going to have to hustle once they get going.Personally, I think the reviewer maybe leans a little too heavily into comparisons with the Winter Soldier film, and should focus on the show as a unique entity.
Such a great way to end an episode. My gf yelled “Who the fuck is that?!” Exactly.
I appreciate how hard the MCU is leaning in on the Blip for story inspiration. Something that huge would affect everyone everywhere and maybe bringing them back that way (5 years later) was a bad idea.
its a sci fi concept that has practically endless story potential. The leftovers is three seasons long with a blip-like event as the inciting incident, and they didn’t have a huge a menagerie of super heroes to write in to their stories, just a couple normal traumatized families!
Yep. My main criticism of Infinity War was feeling like it wasn’t going to matter. (and Far From Home joking about it didn’t help). But they are taking pains to let the after effects truly permeate throughout the MCU. Now if only they didn’t call it “The Blip…”
But they are taking pains to let the after effects truly permeate throughout the MCU.Those after-effects are pretty superficial, though. So far we’ve been told how different the world is without being shown much of it. For example, none of the storylines shown so far would be out of place in a Blip-less world.
I mentioned this elsewhere but we gotta talk about the…interesting choice of having the Flag-Smashers being the supposed primary antagonists of the series. As the character was originally created, Flag-Smasher was to anti-patriotism what the Red Skull was the Nazis. This came out of the Cold War, where anti-nationalism and anti-patriotism were basically synonymous, so in Gruenwald’s eye it made sense for the guy who wanted nations without boarders to be a terrorist.
It’s not like that political ideology has never been associated with terrorism (pretty much all of them have at some point, apart from pacifism).
As I’ve mentioned above, I’m certain the Flag Smashers are a front, and we have an Iron Man 3 situation here.
Or at the least, Zemo is manipulating them somehow.
my queer self keeps reading fag smashers every time and I am like yay we finally gonna get a gay superhero to stand up to them!
“No more people paying for meals and temporary housing, get them the hell out!” -Nations without boarders stance
There’s a line from the first Captain America film, where Red Skull says he’s seen the future, and it’s a world without flags. I wonder if this series will make anything of that? I can definitely see a “world without borders” stance being problematic if it ends up going down the path of, “All culture should merge into one, which conveniently happens to be a white, English speaking one.”
Oh yeah the prevailing view from Twitter is that new Cap looks like Carl Fredricksen
New Cap looks like he rides the short bus.
omg this is perfect
“We’re gonna rescue these hostages with no rap music or flash dancing!”
I think it’s a perfect choice, looks nothing like cap, a cheap imitation with a bad costume disrespecting his legacy and touching his shield.
What more could we ask of a perfect heel?
I KNEW he looked familiar!
“I’m not sure what a lack of national borders has to do with ridding the world of half its population.”I just figured countries would all have to help each other a lot more after everyone lost half the people in charge of their economy, infrastructure, and whatever else.
The opening action scene went from pretty badass to surprisingly dull once it became a CG fest where the helicopters and even the canyon walls all had a plastic texture.I have to wonder if it would be as easy to get real drone shots for cinematography and then insert CG at appropriate angles so its not glaringly obvious when it shifts.
Yeah. Once they dove into the canyon and yet the wing suits just kept flying and flying and flying I thought it started to get a little ridiculous. It was also never clear to me how many bad guys there were. It seemed like more kept appearing on the plane and in suits.
Yeah on the wing suits. Those things don’t generate thrust, they just glide. You need a parachute to land.
Perhaps, but let’s appreciate this in context. Television action shows tend to be pretty cheap, so I’d be hard-pressed to find ANY series not named Game of Thrones with the luxury of this level of CG.
Pretty impressive for what they’re working with- and what we’re used to, on the small screen.
Mandalorian implements CG better so far.And I’m not saying the CG wasn’t passable for TV land. It’s perfectly suitable. But it didn’t need to be shot in the way that it feels like a videogame. If you know your vfx budget is not on the level of an MCU movie, that’s fine, but there are ways to shoot it that makes the disparity less glaring
I think my big issue with this show is that neither of these guys have actual superpowers. Sam Wilson is a really good pilot with a vibranium shield he doesn’t know how to use, and Bucky Barnes is a really good solider with a vibranium arm. Between that and the terrorist bad guy plot this feels like it’s going to be a slightly sunnier retread of the Netflix Punisher show.
I thought Bucky took some version of the Super Soldier Serum so that he was almost as strong and fast as Cap.Anyway, I think it looked great. The character development (Sam vs. the System/Bucky’s redemption arc) is what I’m all in for. Can’t wait for episode 2.
Nope. Steve was the only one who got the serum. Bucky’s powers are strictly from his bionic arm.
Not to be all “nuh-uh” but that’s incorrect. When Cap rescues Bucky from Hydra in the first movie, he’s already been experimented on, though he’s not sure what that was all about. In The Winter Soldier we find out that he survived falling off a cliff and being frozen after that, and he’s also clearly a match for Cap in hand-to-hand combat even not counting the arm. Then, in the flashbacks in Civil War (which also shows him being superhumanly athletic, not just having a strong arm), we see that Bucky was just one of half a dozen evil pseudo-Caps that all had super-soldier powers.
Honestly, I had forgotten all about that. It’s been a while since I last saw the first Captain America film. Thanks!
It’s funny that people make their own assessment when it was explained before. Bucky is slightly inferior super soldier. Also, the irony is that Bart is saying that “they” don’t have superpowers when one does and the other obviously doesn’t, but when you say that about Batman, DC fanboys lose their mind lol
No, Bucky was experimented upon by Zola before Cap rescued him in The First Avenger. This is basic Phase One info available for years now.
Not true. Bucky got Zola’s version of the super soldier serum and was one of the few people to survive it. Plus other physical enhancements over the years. Hence why he could go toe to toe with Cap, jump huge distances and toss people around like rag dolls in Civil War. Plus he has a vibranium arm. That’s the point of Winter Soldier program. To replicate Cap’s abilities. The flashbacks in Civil War even show one of the frozen Winter Soldiers going from scrawny to super buff after the treatment and then them all easily annihilating a bunch of regular humans with their enhanced strength.
Dude’s a hundred years old, he’s got super *something*.
Well, that’s from the deep freeze. But I agree, he had a straight up UFC fight with Steve Rogers in Winter Soldier & completely held his own. You can’t do that with one bionic arm.
Bucky wasn’t frozen though, he was alive and kicking the whole time as the winter soldier. Even if he was frozen, you’d have to be super *something* to survive being frozen for decades.
He absolutely was frozen between missions. Agreed re: the superpowers though.
oh ok, you know I just remembered I have no idea what I’m talking about when it comes to winter soldier lore lol
Thanks, I didn’t know that. I was remembering him showing up in Endgame and firing a rifle while everybody else is flying/shooting magic/shooting lasers.
To be fair he also wielded a talking raccoon with a machine gun like a pro too
Bucky does have superpowers now, I believe; he’s got HYDRA’s version of the serum.
Correction: he used to have super strength, then a temptress cut his hair, which robbed him of his strength, and then she handed him over to the Philistines.
But he does look much, much better with the haircut.
Making women ovulating (not to talk about what the new haircut can do to a few men) isn’t an actual superpower.
Grammar and context not withstanding… that is a bizarre comment even by the low standards here🙄
I keep waiting for someone to lecture these superheroes about the stupidity of long hair in a fight the same way Edna Mode went on a rant about capes.
“NO MULLETS!”
Correct. Bucky was made into a super-soldier shortly after he was captured by HYDRA in WW2 (and also brainwashed and repeatedly put into stasis), which is why he was so effective as the Winter Soldier. (Evidently he survived the fall in the Alps because of the previous experimentation that had been done to him by Zola.)
Not true. Bucky got Zola’s version of the super soldier serum and was one of the few people to survive it. Plus other physical enhancements over the years. Hence why he could go toe to toe with Cap and toss people around like rag dolls in Civil War. Plus he has a vibranium arm.
“Bucky got Zola’s version of the super soldier serum and was one of the few people to survive it.”Right. That’s one of the plot points in Civil War as well — Bucky has flashbacks to all the other enhanced soldiers that HYDRA and Zola created, who possessed super strength but went insane, and the whole reason Steve and Bucky go to Siberia is because they believe Zemo is about to revive those soldiers from cryo (only to discover Zemo killed them all). But yeah, Bucky is enhanced.As for Sam, he’s not enhanced himself, but he does have the benefit of a super-suit. His original military grade Falcon wings were upgraded with Stark technology (and Redwing is a Stark AI-controlled drone), so he’s not just using common weaponry to fight with.
Bucky’s enhanced – just not as well as Steve was.
So I take it you won’t be going to see Black Widow then?(I’m not trying to sound accusatory or imply anything, I personally probably won’t)
Honestly, I probably won’t either. I like Scarlett Johannsen alright, but even beyond the lack of powers I don’t think there’s enough to her story that hasn’t already been covered to make a movie seem worthwhile. Her arc was already finished up nicely across the other films.
In the comics, at least, Sam has power over birds (he’s able to see through their eyes and command them in a limited range). He’s sort of the Aquaman of the skies.
Lol watch Civil War again and tell me Bucky doesn’t have powers. Dude was outrunning cars.
I’m going to be “that guy” and point out plenty of the Avengers don’t have “actual superpowers”. Tony Stark inherited a major military contractor and had a very good degree from MIT. Scott Lang has access to impressive Pym-tech. Hawkeye and Black Widow don’t have superpowers – they’re just extremely good at spy-shit.
Tony Stark didn’t have superpowers either
Well, Bucky does have abilities thanks to HYDRA’s less good version of the Cap serum… but I get your point.
Wanted more snootiness from Batroc
I wanted more leaping.
It ain’t Batroc without the gonzo accent and the totally ego-driven amorality, anyway.
No matter how snooty they made him, he’ll never be as fantastically French a villain as Bomb Voyage.“Monsieur Incroyable!”
Is it just me, or does MCU’s Batroc look like a beefier Macklemore?
Jesus, I will never be able to unsee that resemblance now.
Felt like the beginning of a movie, like others said. I imagine, unlike WandaVision, this one was designed with binging in mind. Not a bad thing, mind. It’s just it felt like it ended abruptly.That said, I liked a lot of what we got. We got a lot, and it hit more than it missed. Loved the Bucky scenes, especially, and everything to do with NOLA. Falcon’s initial action sequence was superb. Lotta murders, tho.
This felt like a superior version of the premier episode of The Defenders. It was all table-setting, but it was table-setting done very well. It’s also clear why this series was supposed to come out first, followed by WandaVision, and I can’t help but wonder what the reactions would be if the series’ premier order remained as intended. We get a solid sense of the state of the MCU post-Endgame, and it’s familiarity is very grounding compared to all the new people and concepts dropped in WV’s first few episodes.Who’s the president in the MCU? Matthew Ellis has to be termed out by now.
Yup. Ellis’s earliest appearance was in Iron Man 3, set at Christmas 2012; he would’ve just won reelection. His latest appearance was in WHiH season 2, set in spring 2016; he was about to become a lame duck.IIRC, to make all the MCU presidential references fit together, Obama beat Dubya in 2004, then lost to Ellis in 2008, who then served 2 terms & was succeeded by Trump.
Is that a first in the MCU, where the military not only acknowledges but jokes about national sovereignty and other countries’ agency? I’m sure someone will point out otherwise in the comments, but outside of Black Panther and Wakanda, the Avengers have tended to do what they want when it comes to other nations. I don’t believe the Avengers ever officially worked for the military, save for War Machine. They worked with SHIELD at first obviously and the only oversight that secret spy group ever had was from the “council”, who were basically all offed or revealed as secret Hydra members circa Winter Soldier.
After that they seemed to operate independently until the Lagos incident.
Exactly. This job was military not Avengers stuff. I don’t get how one would not pick that up.
Well, it seems Falcon wasn’t paid for it or briefed on rules of engagement before the mission, so it’s not at all clear what the deal was. If it was simply a question of the Accords, it would’ve been easy to say so given that Sam had previously been arrested in violation.
Especially since Sam explicitly states in the episode that he’s been working with the Air Force for the past 6 months.
Pretty sure SHIELD is a military entity? I always read it as part of the DoD.
SHIELD was founded in the US, but was considered an “extragovernmental organization” under the authority of the World Security Council.
The US military/DoD actually pulled out of providing funding for Avengers 1 because they couldn’t figure out who was answering to who in the government/military/SHIELD dynamic, so I think it’s extragovernmental.
SHIELD is supposed to be a multigovernmental agency (at one point it was the military arm of the UN!), but presumably whatever funds the US kicks in as a member comes from the defense budget
As someone whose been on the other side of the desk man did that bank scene annoy me. Now don’t get me wrong I know exactly what it was doing there and what it was aiming to accomplish. I get it. Thing is though it’s also really dumb. There’s no logical reason why Sam hasn’t got serious income behind him unless we’re chalking up yet another reason why Tony Stark was an asshole, and that he was apparently not getting paid by the airforce post-blip either.
If you don’t have a solid means to repay a loan, then you don’t get a loan, and that’s should be the case no matter the colour of your skin (obviously this is talking face-to-face bogstandard everyday retail banks, above that different rules may apply). That’s not usually the individual banker’s call unless they’re seriously scummy and willing to fudge things, and plunge those who can’t make the repayments into even worse straights, and yes I’ve worked in the past with people who were just that scummy and blase about causing such financial harm to meet their targets to the point of adding on thousands of pounds worth of insurance the customer wouldn’t even be able to claim as they didn’t have a job to lose in the first place.
Also did get called rascist to my face while I was there and before I got an office of my own at a different bank. Wasn’t a loan, wasn’t my fault, but man from her point of view it must have looked fucking awful due to a colleague not following the same correct procedure as I was for a white guy in a business suit. Wasn’t a loan but a very large cash withdrawal. Policy was to count the notes by hand due to the deliveries frequently being short leading to complaints when we didn’t check, so there I was with my manager doing that for thousands and thousands as she got more and more agitated. Before you point out the obvious, yes we offered to do this away from the long queue in a private office that she refused. Then just at the next counter another colleague just handed over an equally large sum with barely more than a good day. Neither me or my manager was happy to put it lightly after that cause man it made us look like the absolutely fucking worst and the resulting meltdown from the customer was really pretty justified.
Really glad I’m well out of that and doing something entirely different these days.
Later, he meets with Torres in Tunisia, who tells him about an online terrorist group called The Flag-Smashers, who reject international borders and also believe that the world was better during the Blip. Torres doesn’t dive deeper into how those two ideologies match, and it’s strange that they’re immediately conflated.I do imagine they’re going to explore this more, since they’re shaping up to be a major antagonistic force, but if I had to guess as to why those two mesh is that……well, it makes sense that international tension would go down a whole lot in the wake of the Snap. It was a huge, traumatic event, largely shared by everyone, with no real chance for any catharsis. And because there was so much loss of life, well, it did ease things up a lot in a lot of ways (I mean, getting rid of half of the population would do wonders for the Los Angeles housing market!).The global supply chain would’ve been sundered, and even a couple years later some nations would still be working to put it all back together, but that feeling of shared trauma might cause nations to be more willing to help each other out with that. Add in the right few world leaders getting removed from play, and yeah, I can see things feeling more unified in a strange way.It should also be noted that the comparison is between “years after the Snap when things have reached a point of stability” and “a few months after the Blip when the barely stabilized systems just got delivered another huge shock”. It also seems like the first time an MCU character has been given such a clear and straightforward path towards redemption——even if it comes from the government—especially compared to the mess following the Sokovia Accords.The thing we need to keep in mind here is that Bucky has zero culpability for his actions as Hydra’s assassin. He was explicitly brainwashed and mind controlled. It makes all the sense that he would feel guilt for what he did during that period, but morally speaking, he has absolutely nothing to atone for.It’s a character element that I really do love, don’t get me wrong, but also why it’s not really applicable to other characters’ journeys. The indoctrination used on other characters was… well, softer. Less “literally actual mind control including secret Manchurian Candidate programming”, so its important that the show establish early on that governments aren’t seeking to get vengeance on him, the whole “pardon is conditional based on you getting therapy” is probably just as much a “…uh, lets make sure this supersoldier isn’t going to lose his shit” as anything.
That boat is absolutely not going to exist by the end of this series. I don’t know if it will be intentionally sacrificed by Sam or not, but with how much time he spent fighting for it I will be shocked if it survives. It might as well be called the S.S. I’m Retiring in Two Weeks.
MENDOZA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“Is that a first in the MCU, where the military not only acknowledges but jokes about national sovereignty and other countries’ agency? I’m sure someone will point out otherwise in the comments, but outside of Black Panther and Wakanda, the Avengers have tended to do what they want when it comes to other nations.”It’sa pretty big plot point in Civil War. The Avengers are in Lagos without permission, and that’s the whole point Ross makes when he tells them they created an international incident and need governmental oversight.
Thank you. I was hoping someone would point that out. The *whole point* plok t-point that triggers “Civil War” was that nations felt The Avengers were operating without any oversight and quick to cross any international borders without consequence. That was why the Sokovia Accords were drafted – because The Avengers were US-based but regularly ignoring other countries’ sovereignty.No shade to the recapper, but that’s a pretty significant point to forget. I’d think (hope?) someone recapping an MCU show would be a bit more familiar with its world-building. Especially since it’s such a crucial piece of it.
Yeah, I was a little surprised it was overlooked. It was a major element of the film! And it’s especially relevant since Falcon & The Winter Soldier looks to be a direct sequel to the latter two Captain America films — it’s picking up characters (Sharon Carter, Zemo) and plot points (the responsibility of holding the shield, Bucky’s culpability, and the aforementioned sovereignty question) from those films.
I’m thinking it’s in particular a sequel to The Winter Soldier with a continuation of it’s homage of Cold War thrillers. The title of the show immediately reminds me of the spy film ‘The Falcon and The Snowman’, there’s a lot of globe-trotting and hanging out in street cafes and I can see the Flag-Smashers turning out as some kind of modern-day equivalent of the Red Brigade, Baader-Meinhof Group etc.
You mean they didn’t pick the name haphazardly?
It’s one hell of a long game they’ve been playing
I do remember that! I meant more specifically that I’ve never seen them actually follow through with the Sokovia Accords on screen, I guess. Like no one has been like, “No, don’t have a giant fight in Lagos, Nigeria! That’s not cool!” But I think that’s also because I don’t think we’ve seen any other such international fights since those the Sokovia Accords movies anyway. So in this instance, I was surprised it actually factored into the storytelling, where it was a specific warning to the character, and re-emphasized. But of course, Torres also tries to arrest someone in Switzerland, so….though that seems to be more of a dumb moment on his part.
I meant more specifically that I’ve never seen them actually follow through with the Sokovia Accords on screen, I guess. Like no one has been like, “No, don’t have a giant fight in Lagos, Nigeria! That’s not cool!”In Ant Man 2, Ant Man was put under house arrest specifically for violating the Sokovia Accords in Germany.
Sorry to be nitpicky, but it’s such a good scene!
Don’t be sorry, appreciate the nitpickiness! I 100% saw this movie but clearly the pandemic has turned my brain into a sieve
He NAILS that speech. One of the biggest LOLs in the MCU.
Three years probation, eh? That must’ve been a difficult couple of minutes for him.
I do remember that! I meant more specifically that I’ve never seen them actually follow through with the Sokovia Accords on screen, I guess. True – then again, we’re talking about a world where everyone seemed… uh, implausibly quick to get over Tony Stark and Bruce Banner taking alien AI technology they had no read understanding of and reverse engineering it into a snarky kill-bot that killed thousands of Sokovians and turned their capital city into a smouldering crater while trying to exterminate the human race.
Torres was not under the Sokovia Accords, he is not the comic book version of the character, at least not yet. He is just a military guy who made a move he should not have (he even acknowledged he was unclear on the jurisdiction). Doing what he did in that situation did not make much sense to me, but as a violation of norms and procedures we have on “our Earth” not the MCU in specific.
That’s fair. “I meant more specifically that I’ve never seen them actually follow through with the Sokovia Accords on screen, I guess. Like no one has been like, ‘No, don’t have a giant fight in Lagos, Nigeria! That’s not cool!’”So, I would still say we kinda do, but I agree with you that we don’t really see more international fights subjected to the Accords afterwards.The timeline (which I’m so solid on since we were recently forced to rewatch the entire series by our nine year old) was:- big fight in Sokovia, city gets destroyed, world governments get very mad- big fight in Lagos, a block is destroyed by Wanda, world governments say that was the last straw- Ross tells the Avengers their acting without regards for international borders will no longer be tolerated, they can either sign the Accords or retire- in Vienna for the signing of the Accords, T’chaka is killed, then Falcon and Cap start a big fight with T’challa over Bucky; Ross is infuriated by this, tells them they’ve created another international scene- after the Berlin airport fight, asa consequence for violating sovereignty, Wanda and Sam are imprisoned in the Raft but get freed by Cap; Hawkeye is allowed to serve out house arrest with his family, and Scott is allowed to live under house arrest as well. When we next see Scott, he spends the whole movie trying to not get caught for breaking house arrest. – We don’t see Cap, Wanda, Sam, or Hawkeye again until Thanos attacks. When Ross sees them, he tells Rhodey to arrest them because they’re still in violation. But the next fight they have (as you noted earlier) is in Wakanda, where the king welcomed them in.
But the next fight they have (as you noted earlier) is in Wakanda, where the king welcomed them in.After which point the Snap happens, and presumably everyone stops giving a shit about the Sokovia Accords for the next five years.
Presumably! I think everyone had to have much bigger things to worry about at that point.I do wonder if Marvel will eventually make some stuff set during the snap. The start of Endgame made it clear there were still threats ongoing then, so that seems like fertile material for storytelling. But the longer time goes on, the less likely it seems they’ll dive into it.
The Blip period is inherently grim, due to everyone coping with the trauma of the Snap as well as the trauma caused by Snap side-effects (e.g. systems like hospitals, businesses, government agencies, etc. having to recover from half their people disappearing), and that makes me think the MCU is unlikely to set a full story during that period, but I bet we’re going to get a lot of flashbacks and references to it over the next couple years’ worth of MCU stories. (My favorite so far is how Peter Parker’s teacher in Far From Home brings up that his wife faked disappearing in the Snap and ran off with some other guy.)
I’m expecting lots of flashbacks to his Snap days in the Hawkeye show. Not sure which of the other upcoming movies/shows are likely to feature that time much. Maybe Ms. Marvel — Khan’s whole backstory is being a fangirl of the Avengers, so I can see setting part of her story during the time period where most of the Avengers are dead or retired.
Wasn’t Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 6 set a year after the Snapocalypse?
To the best of my recollection, the Snap was never acknowledged in the show. None of the characters were snapped (which is not impossible, but statistically very unlikely), there was never any mention of the Snap or of anyone disappearing, and so on. The assumption most folks seemed to have was that they were just pretending the show was in another timeline, which was entirely plausible what with the time-travel stuff in season 5. Synchronizing the production with the Infinity War cliffhanger would have been difficult at best, not to mention that they either would have had to have some characters snap out of existence (which would kind of be a problem for a show where they’re, like, the main characters) or come up with some explanation for why they didn’t get snapped, but then they’d still have to deal with the fact that the Snap happened, and that might overwhelm whatever story they were trying to tell.
Yup. The AoS showrunners were in the unenviable position of having to write a story that took place after Infinity War but also didn’t spoil the fact that the Snapture lasted 5 years, because ABC was jerking them around by refusing to commit to a season premiere date, so they couldn’t know for sure if any or all of the season would air before Endgame came out. They did the best they could in that circumstance, by simply setting the story a year later so it would make sense that folks would at least be doing some other things, & keeping SHIELD busy with a new weirdness so they wouldn’t need to comment on the Snapture situation.
That’s a separate continuity, though.
The more the MCU explores the Snap, the more I’m concerned that it was such a HUGE in-universe event that the overarching story will never be able to move past it. Like, pre-Snap they could tell a lighthearted heist story about a guy who can shrink himself. Now they’re kind of stuck in a position where, even when they want to tell lighthearted stories, they have to address this unimaginable trauma that would have altered every aspect of daily life for years and created wounds that can never heal.The Snap and the aftermath of reversing it kind of breezed by in a couple of movies that were so packed with characters and plot, the Snap itself didn’t get a lot of room to sink in. But now we’re getting entire TV series about just how bad the Snap must have been and how all of the characters are struggling to cope with its aftermath. Banks aren’t handing out loans to people who were snapped, because they weren’t working for five years? That’s horrifying! But as you dig into the implications of things like that, it seems like the MCU can never be about anything else.
as you dig into the implications of things like that, it seems like the MCU can never be about anything else.Which is why I’m pretty wary of the Snap in the first place. The world they live in now should bear little resemblance to ours, and I don’t see Marvel being bold enough to actually go there.
Appreciate this extensive timeline!
But of course, Torres also tries to arrest someone in Switzerland, so….though that seems to be more of a dumb moment on his part.That was one of the best moments in the episode, when Torres says he’s not sure how the international law or jurisdiction works but he has to at least try to arrest the crook.
Well, something being stupid and kind of adorable and funny are not mutually exclusive! He definitely had some amazing line readings in this episode
Absolutely! He was the best thing in the episode, and considering the company he’s in, that’s a high compliment.
Sam isn’t working as an Avenger here. This is a US miltary resuce mission, not a “superhero” one. It wouldn’t be an Avenger ignoring national sovereignty, but the US invading a country’s airspace and pretty much an act of war.
So is Sam a government contractor? He sure isn’t active-duty.And if he is government contractor, then it doesn’t make any sense that he’d let his family business go under.
The intro struck me as the kind of stuff Sam did when he was in the USAF before we meet him in CA: TWS. The wing suit was Air Force property. Cap & Widow “borrowed” it for Sam so they could threaten Jasper Sitwell.
I think the thinking of the Flag Smashers is that during those 5 years, the world had to (mostly) all come and work together to survive. Now that the missing half of the population is back, everyone wants to return to “normal,” which means back to the old rivalries and distrust of each other, and self-serving ideas.
Yeah, I don’t have a problem imagining that people whose goal was a variation on “overturn the structure of human society as it’s existed during the entire modern era”, and whose plan for achieving this consisted of unilateral violent action, would also think that any drastic blow to the status quo was equally good. There are already people who have no problem making the accelerationist argument that even though fascists are terrible, letting fascists take over and completely fuck things up is actually a positive thing because it’ll shake people up and show them why [pick your favorite political philosophy] is actually the only way.
However, I think they (and the guy in the comics) are pretty bad at naming things. Smashing a flag is not very effective, it just wads up.
Reminds me of Tsukasa’s perspective in Dr. Stone. The old world wasn’t that great, so why are we trying to go back to that?
Yeah, I figure that’s the idea. It reminds me a little of how a lot has changed with regards to COVID, and has made people say, “Hey, some of these changes have been for the better, and the old system kind of sucked, maybe ‘normal’ isn’t what we should be going for?”
I can’t stand reviews of pilot episodes that gripe about exposition and setup. Maybe critiquing isn’t the job for you if you don’t understand the necessity of those things to story development.
Lol, the Asian woman’s line about there not being a name for a parents who lose a child, is lifted word for word from Six Feet Under s01e06, when Brenda says the exact same line after hearing about the death of a 6yrs.i need a life.
Brenda could emotionally destroy any of these superheroes. I’d love her as the villain.
I love this comment
THANK YOU. That’s one of my favorite lines from SFU, that thoroughly annoyed me.
It’s a pithy statement that’s been made in media several times.
Something very similar was said on Downton Abbey.
It’s not original to Six Feet Under either. It’s a statement that’s been around for awhile. Also its only partially true. There’s no word in English, but several languages do have a word for parents who’ve lost a child.
Those same lines were used in an ati-drug commercial in the 90s in my country. That scene gave me childhood flashbacks
Yeah I remember that as well. Thank heavens Bucky wasn’t himself then, it’ll be new to him.
These MCU TV shows seem set to raise the bar for what action TV looks like, effects-wise.Solid start. Bucky, especially, was seriously neglected in the movies in favour of making the Captain America sequels about other Avengers characters, so it’s nice to see Sebastian Stan finally get some real material to work with.
Plus he’s a smokeshow, more time the better with him. I hope he has old locks in a little zip lock baggie and his therapist has them.
Agree on him being a smokeshow, disagree on the locks. He looks great with short hair.
Sebastian Stan was delightful in this first ep. The guy can act; it’s gonna be fun watching him flex a little as the co-lead for this show.
I assume Sam is more respective of international borders because he’s working not as an Avenger but as a military contractor.
Well, Falcon was doing a mission for another country and not working as a Avenger. So I imagine that borders do matter when you are not surrounded by superheroes trying to save the world.
“I wonder if we’ll ever learn what happened to those characters.”Most of the team Steve fought with in the first Captain America show up in an episode of Agent Carter. And one of the characters from an early season of Agents of Shield is the grandson of one of those men.
“… outside of Black Panther and Wakanda, the Avengers have tended to do what they want when it comes to other nations.” As far as I can remember, yes, up until the Lagos mission in Civil War. And look what happened there.Largely agree with much of what you said in this review. Not a bad opener, but felt kind of slow. The stuff with Sam and Sarah was excellent though. Bit disappointed that Zemo didn’t appear, but there’s always next week. Also a shame that Erin Kellyman’s first appearance was a masked blink-and-you-miss-it (only recognisable by her trademark ginger afro); she’s an astonishingly good actress and I can’t wait for her to take a bigger role.Thanks for mentioning the Rhodey/Nebula conversation from Endgame; in a film full of standout moments, that was a particularly sweet one.
Jim Morita’s grandson is Peter Parker’s principal.https://marvelcinematicuniverse.fandom.com/wiki/Morita
Batroc’s glider suit reminded me of this:https://images.app.goo.gl/mUCxfzy1J8c9Pc8s8
Falcon trying to be a superhero while also having money problems, now he knows how Spider-Man, Daredevil, and Luke Cage feel.
Facts
The comics did a good run with Falcon becoming the new Cap when Steve lost the super soldier serum. He had to deal with racism and a bunch of Caps enemies teaming up against him.
Not the most awe inspiring first episode. I have always found the MCU Bucky a bit of a bore. The introduction of Falcon, who I always loved in the comics, in Winter Soldier was one of my favorite parts of that movie, and I found the introduction of Joaquin Torres, a character of whom I know nothing, the most interesting part of the first episode.
Wyatt Russel’s beardless face adorned with a stupid grin also gives me hope that there might be some fun ahead.
Joaquin Torres becomes The Falcon for a while in the comics, while Sam is Captain America. He was experimented on and is literally a bird mutant. I doubt they’ll go that route but if this series ends up with Sam taking on the mantle of Captain America I wouldn’t be shocked if Torres becomes the new Falcon through the use of Sam’s suit.
Thanks for the info. I’d say your thinking is sound.
thought it was a great episode, I’ve been really curious about what life is like after the blip and I think it ties into the effects of trauma that was explored on an individual level with Wanda. I don’t understand the bank loan stuff or how Stark never provided financially for everyone but I honestly am terrible with money so maybe that’s just me.
Falcon was on Cap’s team at the Airport battle. Tony ain’t payin for him. Rhodey and Peter Parker are good tho.
dang, he needs to do some onlyfans with those wings on. and only those wings.
Although Sam was part of the Stark-funded Avengers between Age of Ultron and Civil War, so he must have gotten at least a few Stark-sized paychecks.
I can honestly believe that the money never crossed Tony Stark’s mind. He was much more concerned with shiny things than people. It wouldn’t occur to him that volunteering as an Avenger might cause financial issues. He probably would have set up a salary or pension if asked, but Sam doesn’t strike me as the type to bring it up.
So, do I get it right ? This is to the MCU movies what Magnum Force is to Dirty Harry ? “Hey come back, you people from the other aisle, we didn’t mean to offend you, we’re on your side too” ? Build-the-wall, freedom-fries edition ?
It seemed pretty clearly liberal to me. Sam’s whole story is tied to race, both implicitly and explicitly. The new Captain America seems to be a nationalist villain and/or stooge. The only thing all that politically ambiguous is the Flag-Smashers group. Anarchist terrorists are wildly overplayed when the far-right’s usually the real threat. But we know almost nothing about them or their function in the story. And even if they end up being a bit sigh-worthy, I don’t think the show about a Black guy dealing with racism after inheriting an American symbol is meant to appeal to the Trump crowd.
There is zero chance that a show building up to the emergence of a black Captain America is doing what you’re describing.
I thought this was very solid. Looking forward to Sam and Bucky teaming up; I love the focus on individual struggles post-Endgame, so the Sam stuff in particular is great.
Wait SAM IS BROKE? THE FUCK?!?!?! No endorsement deals? God damn bro nearly made me stop watching the show I was so pissed off. They didnt even go with the armageddon “1 million and no taxes for me and my family”? Jesus Christ
I agree so much on this! To be honest it reminds me a bit of how Black veterans didn’t get the same benefits as white ones when it came to the GI Bill: https://daily.jstor.org/the-inequality-hidden-within-the-race-neutral-g-i-bill/
Which I think was intentional.Also, we are seeing how the second string Avengers make it thru the day. Sam, Wanda, and Bucky all get left hanging. They’re the strays. The black man, the woman, and the disabled. But the 4 core white guys are fine, or dead and heroes. No one else has to wake up the next morning, alone, and get a paycheck.These shows have subtly been the dark side of teamwork and heroism.And now that I think about it, why the f##k didn’t Cap take Bucky with him back to the past?
Because Bucky needs to make amends in the here & now. Hiding out in the 1940s won’t undo what he did.
If Bucky really wanted to make amends, why didn’t he just turn himself in the moment he left Wakanda, confess to all the murders he committed and insist on a public trial where he inteded to mount a diminished responsibility defense? Apart, of course, from the RW fact that The Winter Solider cooling his heels in a supermax cell between visits from his lawyer would make rather dull television. 🙂
I mean that’s pretty much it. Bucky getting the electric chair or spending life in jail isn’t doing anyone any good. He’s clearly working for the government and as one of the only enhanced humans in the world he has an opportunity to make the world better after decades of making it worse.
Fair point – I would have found it more dramatically interesting, though, if Bucky had been presented with more of a Suicide Squad-esque deal with the devil than a straight up pardon: As Black Widow liked to put it, you know you have a lot of red ink on your ledger. Distasteful as it may be, this is how you start erasing it. Or you can spend the rest of your life on The Raft. Your call – and if you run again, nobody will hide you. Not Wakanda. Not Steve Rogers.
presented with more of a Suicide Squad-esque dealThunderbolts: “You rang”?
The main reason Bucky went to Wakanda was because Cap believed that was the only safe place that had the tech to undo all the mind control he suffered. This is alluded to when his shrink mentions something to the effect of, you have your mind back now.
Is this Superhero’s Anonymous? If Steve didn’t at least offer then that is kinda messed up.
Indeed, and it’s a pretty standard comic book trope that superheroes don’t generally have to worry about paying the bills because they’re at least second-generation plutocrats (Tony Stark, Bruce Wayne), literal royalty (T’Challa, Aquaman), shouldn’t be doing this shit on a school night anyway (Spider-Man) or have well-paid job where they can conveniently vanish and aren’t expected to do much actual work (Clark Kent).
Actually Peter Parker had to deal with money issues fairly early on in those 60s comic book issues. From the start, Stan Lee and/or Steve Ditko wanted a superhero that juggled everyday crises while duking it out with villains.
Yeah, “money concerns” was one of the things that defined Marvel comics.I’m not opposed to them exploring the topic. They should. But Sam really doesn’t seem like the character to do it with.
I take issue with the suggestion that Clark’s job as a journalist isn’t “actual work,” but super-speed typing makes it a lot easier for him to meet his deadlines than, say, Peter Parker. There’s no spider-skill that translates to super-fast picture developing.
As someone who makes his living as a freelance writer and used to be a journalist, I know it’s real work. But trust me on this, Clark Kent would also be a serious ethical black spot considering how many stories he’s filed under a pseudonym where he’s the only source — but curiously, they’re always good enough that he doesn’t get fired for vanishing off the face of the Earth for considerable lengths of time.
There was an AV Club article a while back on an issue of Superman where Clark “comes out” (as super) to Perry White. What I found ridiculous was White walks over to him and hugs him. The writer was trying to draw a parallel to coming out of the closet, but seriously, White’s first words would likely have been “you’re fired.”
1) It is very strange that Tony the multibillionaire didn’t have some sort of Avengers Fund that Happy and Pepper couldn’t work with to prevent the exact situation that Sam finds himself in.2) Although it is very on brand for Tony that the ones you mentioned that got left hanging are the remnants of Steve’s Secret Avengers team that was on the run. For instance, I don’t think Rhodey finds himself in the same precarious personal financial situation that Sam is in. Bruce is in a different situation altogether – Smart Hulk is not only an A-list celebrity, but his skills, knowledge and experience would command income that he could dictate at his own terms.3) As to Steve: he never had much use for money that wasn’t plowed right back into resources for whichever hero effort he was involved with at the moment. I think probably one of his blind spots was that he never thought to think that the people who fought with him had different perspectives on money and finances than his own. 4) As to why Cap didn’t take Bucky – probably Bucky didn’t want to go. Like, what if Cap outlined what he was gonna try before he went on his Infinity Stone Returnapalooza, and Bucky wasn’t interested? Obviously Bucky was the only one not surprised that Cap didn’t immediately jump back. He has enough trauma and disorientation from jumping around time periods in his cryo-freeze existence for 70 years that Quantum Realm travel between realities is likely not his cup of tea.
I think probably one of his blind spots was that he never thought to think that the people who fought with him had different perspectives on money and finances than his own.That seems a little out of character for the Steve Rogers we meet in the MCU, though, hosting support groups during the blip. And when he meets Scott Lang in Germany, he seems sympathetic to what Lang is risking.Steve has never been blind to the concerns of others, even if he doesn’t personally share them.
TBH I wonder if he asked and Bucky was scared to go and see himself again.
Huh. Maybe. Not being able to stop himself may have been harder than having to live with the guilt of what was already done.
Bucky couldn’t have gone back to the past and let it all unfold as it originally did. I find it hard to believe that Cap did, and I’m 100% sure Bucky would have been compelled to stop his past self. Timeline be damned.
I kinda came to the same conclusion down thread.Geat minds…
“And now that I think about it, why the f##k didn’t Cap take Bucky with him back to the past?”Pretty sure Endgame said that they only had enough Pym Particles for 1 person (Cap) to make 6 trips into various time periods to return the 6 gems, and then 1 trip back to the present. Not enough particles for both Cap and Bucky to do all those trips, even if they wouldn’t use the last batch to come back to the present.
How is that relevant to this at all?
Yeah, it’s not like Sam was one of the super famous Avengers either. If Thor or Tony Stark had walked into that bank they would have been recognized instantly. Other second-stringers like Wasp and Rhodey are either independently wealthy or have been in the military long enough that they’ve made a comfortable living. Sam is in a genuinely tough spot.
It makes no sense that Stark wouldn’t have left him any money in a will, or if not that Potts couldn’t throw a few bucks his way. Or that he wouldn’t be making serious money as a government contractor doing all his crazy secret missions. Or do a commercial. Or get a book deal. There’s got to be so many ways an Avenger could make money in this world.
Yeah, it’s really lazy writing.
Or that he wouldn’t be making serious money as a government contractor doing all his crazy secret missions.Bingo. Seriously, are they saying that Sam is doing all that for fun? That he wouldn’t at least try to leverage it for money if his family business is in danger of going under?
To be honest, i think that’s one of the better revelations of this episode. I know a lot of people will be invested in the super hero stuff, showing him flying through the air and stopping bad guys. But that grim and realistic part about their personal lives, the reality that Stark only paid for the toys and nothing else, I like that because it makes Sam’s character more realistic.
Cap was a man from another time, just a solider helping to save lives, and nearly invincible to do it all.
Sam is a real man, from our time having to deal with everything as a normal human. His plate is a lot heavier.
As I’ve had time to cool down I’ve realized that its not really Tony’s fault. He was probably paying for everything while working together. Then Sam joined Cap’s side, the side that beat Tony’s ass and protected the dude who killed his parents. So Sam was a fugitive then he got blipped out of existence.
I’m really just shocked hes doing govt contracts with high tech gear and is still broke, not to mention no endorsements.
You could also make an argument that Tony’s inaction was just as important as his involvement with the Avengers. Tony was happy to pay for all the expenses as Avengers, and if they ever wanted to return to a life of normalcy they could without feeling obligated to the team or Tony to stay with them.
It’s troublesome that Sam has to deal with these things after all he’s accomplished to save THE UNIVERSE.
But then again, if this government is willing to disrespect him by giving the shield over to a fake, then Sam is probably going to start seeing the government and those favors he’s been doing for them in a whole different light.
I’m really just shocked hes doing govt contracts with high tech gear and is still brokeThat’s what doesn’t make any sense.I think his sister might be right. Sam is the asshole who likes to strut and lecture but won’t actually help. 😉
That’s exactly what I was thinking. Why is Sam on this high horse yet simultaneously somehow hasn’t leveraged his incredible amount of fame for wealth that he can use to do good? He’s kind of an asshole lol.
I really doubt that’s what they were going for, but it sure is what came through.
Does it actually make things more “realistic,” though? I agree that it makes Sam feel more like an everyman…but he’s not. He’s a world famous superhero, and as people pointed out above, there are plenty of things he could do to get quite wealthy (like shooting some commercials). It actually felt like they were sacrificing realism in-universe in order to make a point about the struggles that real people go through. It’s a conversation worth having, but it did kind of take me out of the story because “not being able to get cash” is not a logical problem for Sam.
The realism that i mentioned wasn’t simply for being turned down from a bank loan, it’s the manifestation of various issues while also holding down a position widely known as an Avenger.
The MCU films did a very good job of focusing on story and themes, so a great many details were left out to simplify the characters and make the stories easier to follow (Where the Fuq did cap go for those two years after Endgame? And no razor was around? And I’m still fairly sure Tony Stark is republican).
It’s the reason why Miles Morales is a better Spider-man than Peter Parker: the burden of responsibility is far more sympathetic and relatable than a white fantasy character created in the 60’s who has the luxury of quitting whenever he feels like it. Miles can’t quit being himself.
I think a big part is what ivanz said above. Sam was on the wrong side of the Tony/Steve split. They were not on the best of terms when Infinity War happened – then the blip. Not surprising Tony did not want to put someone who rejected the Sokovia Acc0rds on the payroll or in the will.
I think that was also the last part of maturity that Tony still had to learn that Sam already accepted: sacrifice. Tony wanted to save everyone and keep everything together, but not understanding that sacrifices were necessary and almost unavoidable. That was what defined Cap, what allowed him to pick up Mjolnir, and Sam knew it as well.
Tony may have thought that punishing his teammates was the right thing to do, but ultimately it was just him avoiding the inevitable.
Reminds me of Buffy having to make money since vampire slaying doesn’t actually pay.
Sam getting an endorsement deal would turn him into this guy:
Honestly, it kind has notes of the Matt Fraction Hawkeye series. The view of a superhero’s life as an everyman was really interesting.
I am unreasonably angry at Tony Stark for not putting the supes on his payroll. “Unreasonably” b/c I do realize this is fiction.
Not trying to be mean, but you lost credibility when you said Batroc was a french pirate when it was clearly explained in Winter Soldier that he is Algerian.
spoilerstotally
cool first episode. great introductory action sequence. I have been watching this on repeat. What is the college pennant on Sam’s bedroom wall? Hmm.glad to see a
character from recent years’ comics.. intriguing to see Sam’s family
dynamic (and a new geographic setting.. Louisiana instead of Harlem, NYC. I wonder if it was purely for storytelling purposes or the film incentive tax credits that Louisiana offers. Either way, intriguing). the hint of the new villains
(and Batroc comes back).. and of course at the end of the
episode.. uh-oh.. heh.. (sidebar: someday, it would be cool if Sam and Jim Rhodes could meet a surviving Tuskegee Airman. it would
be a nice way to pass the torch..
Systemic obstacles to black people finding business loans, check.Sam’s sister says she’s a widow. No word on if it happened before or after the Snap/Blip. I just know that when it happened, anybody inside a vehicle where the driver/pilot was snapped, or in the path of said vehicle was immediately at risk of crashing/death/maiming. THAT in particular is one aspect that the returning people would not have fixed.
I also thought that Sam’s elderly friend might be Jim Morita at first, but, not remembering his last name, I had to watch the sequence a second time.I also note that this episode premieres in the aftermath of the terrible events in Atlanta. Pure coincidence of course, but it was vaguely off-putting to see an Asian-American character to be casually murdered, and at first it isn’t clear what the context is (flashback during Bucky’s assassin days)
“she homes in on what she believes is the actual problem”
Thank you for not saying “hones in”. Not sure when people started conflating “to hone” & “to home in”, but it bugs the shit out of me. Every. Time.
[File under: “My Lawn, Get Offa”]
“Is that a first in the MCU, where the military not only acknowledges but jokes about national sovereignty and other countries’ agency?”The military in the MCU tends to be respectful of borders. It was a plot point way back in the first Iron Man. It’s one of the key differences between them and the Avengers, since the Avengers dgaf. It’s also one of the many gripes that led to the creation of the Sokovia Accords.
I just can’t buy that Sam is hurting for money or would have trouble getting a loan. For one, he’s a celebrity (as evidenced by some random dude in Tunisia asking for a photo) and he could easily capitalize on that to make money, two, the stereotypical bank doesn’t give out a loan to someone doesn’t really fit into reality where banks have caused a financial crisis and may cause another by giving out super risky loans that they can charge higher interest on.It’s lazy writing to me. And it took away from what was largely otherwise a pretty good episode.
Sam being broke is bonkers. Beyond all the obvious reasons that the character should have access to money on his own, he personally knows like, the most wealthy person on the planet. Hey Pepper, mind paying for some renos on my family boat?
Uh, Sam and half the worlds population just blinked back into existence 3 months ago, creating massive chaos, after 5 years of complete devastation. I don’t think banks would be using the same lending criteria as our real world. Sam also may have some celebrity status, but that doesn’t just grant you money. You still have to work, and doesn’t seem like Sam wants to start doing commercials or reality TV.
He is working. He’s contracting for the Air Force. Unfortunately all those contracts are classified.
But they’re also very lucrative. Which is why that whole plot is silly.
Exactly. He might not be able to disclose that income.
That might be a valid point if the MCU was trying to show how much people returning was impacting society and the economy, but they haven’t really done that. They can’t have it both ways…they can’t show society basically back to normal except for when the story calls for it not to be. That’s what I meant by lazy writing.
What? Have you watched WandaVision or this premiere. The world isn’t anywhere near back to normal. That’s the point. It’s mentioned continuously.
Yes I’ve watched everything Marvel. Wandavision touches on the blip and then return briefly in the fourth episode and then talks about it now and again but largely shows a stable country and people back to their normal jobs. This episode starts with Falcon on an overseas government assignment so his life also appears to be back to some semblance of normal, which is doubly impressive for him given before the blip he had been a fugitive with Captain America.If you watch the actual scenes, you see people going about their business like everything is normal again. The only time you hear about the impact of the blip is when the plot needs you to. The world itself doesn’t seem or feel different at all though.
If you watch the actual scenes, you see people going about their business like everything is normal again. The only time you hear about the impact of the blip is when the plot needs you to. The world itself doesn’t seem or feel different at all though.
They can’t have it both ways…they can’t show society basically back to normal except for when the story calls for it not to be. That’s what I meant by lazy writing.It sure is.I’d rather they just ignore the blip entirely, if this is all they’re going to do with it. Just say “it’s shocking how easily we went back to normal” and never mention it again.
Sam also may have some celebrity status, but that doesn’t just grant you money. You still have to work, and doesn’t seem like Sam wants to start doing commercials or reality TV.He’s a private contractor who’s been working with the Air Force for the past six months. Moreover, he’s irreplaceable and essential to their operations.It doesn’t make any sense that he’d be broke.
The whole “Flag-Smashers” thing feels poorly thought out. A group of antagonists who are basically extreme anti-nationalists is actually a really fascinating idea, especially in a world where the most beloved hero is a guy named after a country. But the show so far has no idea what to do with the concept, and the Blip connection feels extremely forced.
I worry that this concept is going to fall victim to one of my least favorite genre fiction tropes, a formula which pops up annoyingly often:
1) Political activist group surfaces that opposes the hero, but their ideals don’t seem all that evil and they might actually have a good point! Will the hero be forced to rethink their own mortality?2) NOPE, because then it turns out that the leader of the group is a straight-up bad guy who doesn’t even believe in the group’s agenda and was just using them the whole time. Now the hero can beat them up without moral conflict!3) Afterward the group vanishes from the plot completely and the issue they were formed to address is never mentioned again.Basically, please don’t let this show turn into Legend of Korra Season One.(In the comics, Flag-Smasher is just one guy, an enemy of Captain America who wants to abolish all nations and create a unified world. And despite his name, Cap isn’t completely closed to this idea, but Flag-Smasher tries to accomplish his goal by murdering people so he’s got to be stopped. He hasn’t made many comic appearances, probably because it’s hard to write him without making him either a strawman or a mouthpiece for the writer’s beliefs. He was killed off in 2006 and, incredibly, remains dead to this day!His costume is black and white to avoid displaying any nation’s colors. Also, he is Swiss, because they’re neutral. The subtle writing you demand!)
It’s a good trope when done well. The problem is sticking the landing. Amon was interesting for most of season one until the end. HBO’s Watchmen had this problem too. The Seventh Calvary, and their recruitment of Looking Glass, totally dropped by the finale, where the villains just become super basic
I think the problem with WATCHMEN was Lindelöf wrote it, and that guy has some life-long vendetta against satisfying endings.
Zapp Branigan tried to warn us of the danger of Neutrals.
Clearly the Flag-Smashers’ true motivation is their lust for gold.
FYI, while Sam was playing around as being the new Cap in the comics Joaquin Torres was introduced as kind of HIS replacement and became the new Falcon as Sam’s sidekick for a while.
He was actually a teen who got kidnapped with a bunch of other immigrants at the border (he was there to leave food and supplies to them) by the Sons of the Serpent and he was experimented on by an “evil scientist” (Karl Malus) using DNA from Sam’s own falcon Redwing which made him half manhalf falcon mutate until he was rescued by Sam.
today he mostly hangs around with Ms. Marvel’s Champions team. (I kinda doubt they will do the whole mutation thing on this mostly grounded show)
Kind of a shame the MCU is content with keeping Batroc as generic mercenery #4, since in the comics he’s one of the more fun B-list Cap villains (though he IS a bit of a French caricature)
I think there was some middle ground to be found here.
In my day there was a lot of “Zut alors! Eet ees Batroc zee leaper!”, which I imagine you would never see now.
So it definitely seems like this show is going to be the bridge to Sam fully taking on the mantle of Captain America that Steve wanted for him, with Bucky in the “put aside the Ranger” Gandalf role (I don’t think that line in the preview was a coincidence). He’ll have to overcome this lame, probably corrupt nu-Cap, I’m guessing this whole Terrorists Without Borders thing is a Mandarin-style red herring.
I have absolutely zero desire to watch any MCU product which thinks it is somehow positioned to tackle racism. Especially since the discussion of RL racism simply can’t co-exist in a setting with malevolent, sentient aliens and still make sense.
What a ho-hum experience after WV really played with the format of TV as part of its storytelling. This just felt like the first act of a spin off movie nobody seems excited to be in. The acting was done well, effects were nice, I just felt no reason to return for episode 2.
Somewhat surprised that the article is being quiet over Wyatt Russell. Sure, if you know the comics, you know who he is, but it also says in the credits who Wyatt is playing.I really enjoyed this episode (certainly a bit more than the reviewer), but it felt more like Marvel’s idea of how to do the MCU on TV. Compare that to WandaVision, which felt like what a Marvel TV show can do on the small screen that it couldn’t do as a movie. But I still really like the ideas it introduces (race and class post-Blip, rehabilitation for super-powered people, where the hell superheroes get their salary from, etc.).
The end credits should be the opening credits. Love the music and graphic designs
What I couldn’t help seeing:
The premiere starts with Sam Wilson going on a lone mission to take back
a captured Army captain from the same opening villain from The Winter Soldier: Georges Batroc, a French pirate who has conveniently moved from ships to planes.For the record, councilman, he’s Algerian. I can draw a map if it’ll help.
An Algerian with an outrageously Quebecois accent.
Later, he meets with Torres in Tunisia, who tells him about an online terrorist group called The Flag-Smashers, who reject international borders and also believe that the world was better during the Blip. Torres doesn’t dive deeper into how those two ideologies match, and it’s strange that they’re immediately conflated.My guess is that it comes down to “Thanos was right, and humanity should have used the opportunity to completely reshape world politics.”
Agree the show didn’t exactly go into depth on the Flag Smashers, but you answered your own question while pointing out the systemic failures of our governments to aid citizens in crisis. Presumably their stance is that the failures during the blip laid those systemic issues bare, and that the world would be better banding together. That they preferred the blip time might seem counterintuitive but if I’m inferring I’d guess either it was easier for them to find converts then, or maybe the world actually did band together more only to return to form as soon as Hulk Snapped.
It’s an interesting ethos though. Taking an idea that isn’t inherently invalid (Earth moved beyond national governments in, say, the Star Trek universe for example) but twisting it enough to be worth stopping is usually pretty fertile ground for good vs. evil stories, and definitely has been for the best MCU villains.
This is an interesting idea…and somehow even more painful and depressing than I could’ve ever conceived for an MCU show. Maybe it’s just too close to the present for me…
Honestly having a hard time understanding why all people realizing they’re being shafted is somehow a “bad guy.”
Kind of a Tuvok from Korra problem.
Theoretically that would make sense, but they don’t exactly say as much in show. To me, that would be kind of an annoying motivation, since they’re 100% right, but because they choose to be evil and violent for no reason, the heroes have to defeat them.
Bucky’s friend Yori (Ken Takamoto) does get him to go on a date with the hostess of the sushi restaurant they visit.
I read this as “hotness of the sushi restaurant.” Clearly projecting. In any case, out of the whole episode her personally popped the most. I really liked her, and I don’t even think she had a name.
She’s in the credits as “Leah”.
Am I the first nerd to point out that the Torres character is in reference to this guy in the comics:The short version: An evil scientist captures him and fuses his DNA with Redwing’s (in the comics, Redwing is an actual falcon who shares a telepathic connection with Sam*), which turns him into a human/falcon hybrid with working wings. Sam (who took up the Cap title for a span in the comics) rescues him, yet is unable to revert him back to human form (for convoluted reasons). He gets into the whole superheroing gig and takes the Falcon name for himself.*(Part of me wishes they had kept that bit from the comics—it’s a little goofy but it’s more interesting that another piece of Stark tech—but I guess that ship sailed some time ago)I doubt they are going to go that route with this character. I suppose he could get his own flight-suit, but that’s probably a way off, if it happens at all.
Even through the mask, you can tell the actor playing the new Cap is the son of Kurt Russell. I expect at some point in the series he’ll try to cut a beer bottle in half with a machete.
If only there were some way to have him meet Peter Quill.
It seems pretty obvious why those ideologies would pop up. When there is a massive depopulating event, the survivors tend to gain far more leverage as labor, and countries with militaries in disarray and half the workers as before would likely have a lot more to gain from more porous borders. It also stands to reason that if you suddenly had work and income opportunities that you never had before, a house you could never have afforded before, etc, and then suddenly your blipped boss comes back and suddenly you’re back in your old situation, you’d probably be pretty resentful.
My husband died suddenly some 20 years ago. I imagine that the un-snap would be like my dreams, years later.
In those dreams I’m thrilled that he’s alive again, but there are so many questions (and I didn’t even remarry):
– How am I going to explain that his job is gone?
– How do I tell him I sold the car he had so carefully selected?
– Worst of all, how do I justify selling his massive model train collection because we needed money for college tuition? The kids were just kids when he died.
And that’s the crux of these new plot points. To those who weren’t snapped, their loved ones died. Their survivors moved on.
But then loved ones came back.
I’m sorry for your loss. Thank you for sharing…it makes the Snap feel even more surreal.
That’s rough Mrs. R, sorry for your loss. I struggle with similar thoughts with some of my family. You always want them back, but then the life you had when they were in it, clashes with the life you have now. It’s a weird feeling, almost…embarrassing to think about, like “Sorry, but I mean you weren’t here.” I thought about how strange it would be to see my little sister after the un-snap. She’s six years younger than me, once I came out of it, we’d be the same age. The fact that so many people in your life would change, and you would stay basically the same would be so disorientating for everyone involved. I mean I have other younger siblings, suddenly their older brother wouldn’t be that much older.
This was so powerful. Thank you for this
Something else we need to talk about: All those plates of seafood soaking through their paper takeout dishes while they get cold sitting exposed in the back of a pickup truck during the bank appointment, after getting full of dust during the drive into town from the house. If you’re not cooking on-site, you need to transport the food in something that will keep it clean & warm, & then plate it up after you arrive (& deliver it right away, not after spending an hour in the bank).Is that a first in the MCU, where the military not only acknowledges but jokes about national sovereignty and other countries’ agency?Military, yes.
Government, no. Episode 3 of AoS had Team Coulson sneaking into Malta without permission to rescue a kidnapped agent after the Maltese government refused to do it themselves or sanction SHIELD presence.the Avengers have tended to do what they want when it comes to other nations.The difference is that this is a US Air Force mission, not an Avengers mission.Torres doesn’t dive deeper into how those two ideologies match, and it’s strange that they’re immediately conflated.The implication I got: Torres was saying that the Flag-Smashers use the much more palatable “no borders” philosophy for recruitment (he specified that as the part people would support), since the “Thanos was right” philosophy has a minimum 50% chance of immediately turning off a potential new member.Could the MCU be making a case for more restorative justice?Bucky has a defense that Natasha & Scott didn’t: Literal full-tilt brainwashing. Natasha was indoctrinated, but didn’t actually have her brain physically sabotaged. Scott acted entirely of his own free will, both in his original attack on VistaCorp & in Germany.Was I the only one that winced when Bucky’s date brought out Battleship as a video game?…She didn’t. It was the normal version with the pegs. We see them playing it in the very next part of the scene.Any theories, commenters?Torres showed up at what he thought was a recruitment event to get more intel. They handed out masks to make everyone who showed up appear complicit in their robbery, scaring the cops into thinking they had greater numbers & setting off panic from their confused “recruits” to aid in their escape.
The opening sequence was fantastic. Maybe it was too good because I found the rest pretty dull, full of clumsy expository dialogue and some subpar acting. I’m frankly getting tired of TV shows that stretch out scenes and plots by delaying beats and adding filler to get to 8-10 episodes instead of making every episode satisfying in its own right. I know people are going to binge the whole thing and that’s what they are banking on, but the best shows do both, making satisfying episodes that feel like whole stories while building to a larger conclusion. You can walk and chew gum at the same time.
I keep seeing that they didnt say who the new Captain America was at the end of this episode. But in the credits there are shots of a poster that says something like Cap is Back! along with the name John Walker. I can’t be the only one who noticed that?
Especially after the innovative story-telling of Wandavision, this just feels hollow. The going-through-the-motions sibling conflict scenes between Sam and his sister were killing me.
Torres doesn’t dive deeper into how those two ideologies match, and it’s strange that they’re immediately conflated. Hopefully that connection is either negated or better explained in future episodes, because I’m not sure what a lack of national borders has to do with ridding the world of half its population. They’re terrorists, so don’t try looking for logic in their motivations. They all use some high-minded, fancy sounding reason for what they do, when it’s just a flimsy excuse for mayhem and violence.
Sebastian Stan was so good here. I love the expression he makes after claiming the gloves he wears are for poor circulation; it’s like he’s thinking, “That was your best idea?”I can’t wait to see Zemo. I’ve been looking forward to his reintroduction since it was announced.
I don’t think bringing up the Libyan airspace was actually acknowledging other countries’ sovereignty, since if the villain was able to escape to Libya just a few meters away on a technicality, wouldn’t that be a bad thing?
It wasn’t just that the villain was about to escape to Libya. They had kidnapped that American pilot. Sam’s primary goal here was to rescue that guy, not to capture Batroc.
im sure this is elsewhere, but Morita’s Howling Commando lived a happy life by all accounts, got married, and his grandson is the principal at Peter Parker’s high school. I really just need Dum Dum Dugan to be in cryofreeze somewhere cuz… Obvious reasons