"this episode isn't good because it focuses more on the characters" that's the point
Why would you need to turn political on this. This episode was a pain to watch. Just paving the way for a black captain America with the focus on being black and not the qualities Steve Rogers showed to the whole world. It's not about being a great human being, but just about the colour of the skin. Allied with a psycho, fallen to disgrace white captain America just didn't captivate me. The worst episode so far.
On a side note, small parts of character building were pleasing to watch
One of the most boring episodes of Marvel studios..Absolute filler
probably one of the worst Episodes i ever watched. the Plot with the boat and money issues is nothing but riddiculous
Probably one of the best episodes so far. Character development is what the mcu needs right now from these shows, not an hour long fight scene. Anyone that calls this filler doesn't know what filler is.
At first there was too much John Walker and then there wasn’t any JW and the world was happy again. I liked that we finally got to see Fucky’s dynamic develop and interact, without any outside factors interfering, instead of overwhelming us with JW.
And oh wow Julia! She looks evil and exquisite, can’t wait to see more of her!
Bucky: Whatever happened with Walker, it wasn't your fault. I get it. It's just that shield's the closest thing I've got left to a family. So when you retired it, it made me feel like I had nothing left. Made me question everything: you, Steve, me. You know, I've got his, uh, I've got his book. And, uh, I just figured if it worked for him, then it'd work for me.
Sam: I understand, man. But Steve is gone. And this might be a surprise, but it doesn't matter what Steve thought. You gotta stop looking to other people to tell you who you are. Let me ask you. You still having those nightmares?
Bucky: All the time. It means I remember. It means a part of me is still there. Which means a part of the Winter Soldier is still in me.
Sam; You up for a little tough love? You want to climb out of the hell you're in, do the work. Do it.
Bucky: I've been making amends.
Sam: Nah. You weren't amending; you were avenging. You were stopping all the wrongdoers you enabled as the Winter Soldier because you thought it would bring you closure. You go to these people and say sorry because you think it'll make you feel better, right? But you gotta make them feel better. You gotta go to them and be of service. I'm sure there's at least one person in that book who needs closure about something, and you're the only person who can give it to 'em.
Bucky: Probably a dozen.
Sam: That's cool. Start with one.
This is so boring !!! 1/10 !!!
It's better than the earlier ones, but it's still got some issues. Look, this show makes me tired, so I'll mention some things quickly because I just want to get to the end of this thing.
SCORE: 6/10
I Cannot be arsed to watch this anymore. I don't care what happens to Captain America. Marvel movies are great, TV shows not so much.
Wholesome bonding episode. Still can't take Marvel property seriously on any serious subject - e.g. race - and it is no different here as the writing is pretty heavy-handed and for the most part not even dramatized, only expound on. For Marvel dealing with drama means two characters talking about it therapy style and articulating their thoughts and feelings, instead of, you know, writing creative situations that incorporate those themes. Still enjoyable because I enjoy Bucky and Sam (and Zemo when he was in the picture) a whole lot though.
Goodness, the amount of racism in this show is crazy, especially this episode. So much indoctrination.
Not as good as the other ones, but probably cause it was much longer and there were really a lot of "nothing going on" moments. Anyway, the chapter was good, the relation beetween bucky and sam growing stronger, John looking for revenge and being kind of recluted? by that woman, and finally the anticipation of a final battle. Really hoping to see the last chapter mostly because im dying to see john as US agent and Sam as cap.
Recently I've been reading all of these articles saying "we're [x] many episodes into The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and I still don't know who the villain is". And I think that's kind of what is great, but also seems a bit thick for anyone to think.
Villainy has easily been Marvel's biggest issue in the MCU. You need to look no further than when they pull it off correctly: Killmonger and (to a much, much lesser extent) Thanos. What is great about how the series works is that it's clearly taking more of a Killmonger approach to antagonism. It goes through the motions of how radicalization can be rooted in a desire for positive change through questionable methods. In Black Panther, this was the MO. It was the arc of T'Challa to understand that his monarchy need not be defined by forsaking others. Here, it's using a similar technique to create another sense of tragedy. For as much as Karli's methods are straight up wrong, her ideals aren't.
All of this has been used as a bait and switch--one that a lot of us probably saw coming. Because antagonism really isn't that simple here. Karli is definitely one antagonist, but I think thematically Walker has been the villain the entire time because he actually opposes the protagonists on a thematic and moral level. It's villainy of his own making. I love this classification: there's radicalization from external factors (Karli, nearly backed into terrorism) and there's self-made villainy. A golden-boy suddenly faced with his own failures, entirely of his own doing, unable to accept that he could be wrong because he's always been put on a pedestal. It's Rittenhouse, it's Chauvin, it's Zimmerman. The antagonism here takes abstract forms because the fight isn't always external. To back up real threats it's better to have some meat on the bones. Sure, Thanos was terrifying because we saw him succeed and commit genocide, but here the evil is abstract. I'll contradict myself here: yes Walker is making himself into a villain, but it's based on morality supported by American culture. It's terrifying here because it's real. And we see it all the time. Hell, it's on trial at this moment.
Edit after finishing the season: oof I whiffed some of my predictions here.
I’m always feeling like the episode went too fast. The end credits kinda surprise me again. I’m not talking about the pacing of the show. It is great. So great that every episode feels like it’s gone in like 15 minutes. I loved Wanda Vision but it didn’t do that. Am I the only one?
best episode so far imo
Felt like some parts have been left out. Just my sensation. Good but I expected more.
Finally a cool episode. It cant be only recycled action all over the place.
Each episode, it is getting better and better. :thumbs up:
And you all, who want to see actions, it is already blended beautifully in the episodes. Or watch some youtube channels just have only the action scenes ;)
They should have never started this series with Falcon being perfectly fine killing his enemies and Torrres cheering during all of it. If they never intended to address it.
Themes and conflict with Walker became muddy for no good reason.
It's ok series overall. It's just could have being way cleaner.
Talk talk talk talk, empty episode.
Haters: Marvel is all action and no story. There's no substance.
Haters now: Ugggh why is marvel spending so much time on story I came to see falcon and winter soldier kicking ass!
Beautiful, pointed without being heavy-handed, and full of all that lovely character development I love. Also: NOT ONE TRAINING MONTAGE BUT TWO MONTAGES. TRAINING AND BUDDY BUILDING. /chefs kiss
"They will never let a black man be Captain America".
The scene between Isaiah Bradley and Sam Wilson is quite possibly one of the MCU's best scenes they've ever done, and an easy contender for one of the best scenes in any superhero property. It hits hard in a way that's timely considering events over the past couple of years, and even then the words he says ring uncomfortably true. Things HAVEN'T changed and that's the saddening thing about it all. So it's all the more inspiring when Sam does go to take up the mantle once and for all, albeit probably under different circumstances.
And that's just the tip of the iceberg here in terms of the good stuff. John Walker is a hell of a villain, and the opening fight is brutal, bloody, and one of Marvel's most raw fistfights in terms of pure visceral action, and it's fantastic. Bucky's development reaches a new direction with the idea that he is more then simply a vessel for killing, and his talk with Sam showcases Stan and Mackie's great chemistry. And of course, in a surprise role, Julia Louis-Dreyfus steals her scene with ease - though considering her talents that was to be expected. The best episode of the show yet, and with one more left to go I'm excited to see how they stick the landing here.
[7.4/10] I don’t know what to do with this episode. It starts out with one hell of a fight scene. It includes one of the best-acted scenes in the whole MCU. It sets up Falcon to assume the role of Captain America, or at least accept the shield and everything it means, good and bad. Those are all good things! This one digs deep. It touches on nerves. I like that.
But it also devolves into a lot of speeches and montages, and both veer toward the cheesy. This show has tonal issues sometimes, vacillating between hard-edged, down-to-earth discussions of racism and geopolitics, with 1980s action movie beats and wacky comic book stuff. It’s not always a natural mix, and that becomes particularly tricky here.
Still, the good stuff is very good, particularly Isaiah Bradley’s monologue about what was done to him and his brethren when he was Captain America. His tale of punishment and experimentation is haunting. The show earns his rejection of his country, his rejection of the shield, his desire to stay unknown lest he be killed for daring to call it all into question with his very existence. Carl Lumbly says the depths of his despair and disillusionment over there, making Bradley’s experience the negative image of Steve’s.
When Steve went behind enemy lines to save his captured comrades, he was recognized as a hero. When Isaiah did, he was turned into a prisoner himself, robbed of his autonomy, bodily and otherwise. There’s shades of Tuskegee and mass incarceration that shades his story with reality, and it’s ghastly enough, his declaration that no black man ought carry that mantle, that you legitimately question whether Sam should just give it up.
Frankly, it’s a bill that “Truth” doesn’t fully pay. Sam’s contrary path is basically just “I have to stand up and keep fighting.” And I get that, but it’s a cliché and a truism, which doesn’t do much to sell him disregarding the truth bombs that Mr. Bradley laid on him. I know this is a superhero show, and by the final act, the good guy has to don a suit and punch away the bad guys. But still, for all the triumph and catharsis the show wants to pack into Sam finally accepting the role of Captain America, this episode undercuts that with Isaiah’s pretty damn good reasons for him not too.
It doesn’t help that a lot of the build to that moment is pretty corny. The whole “calling all our friends in to help fix mom & dad’s boat” bit is such a cliché. The fixin’ it up montage is right of a 1980s popcorn movie. The same goes for Sam’s training montage, which wouldn’t feel out of place in a Rocky film. It should be momentous when Sam takes up the shield and accepts himself as the new Cap, or at least Steve’s worthy successor. But instead, the show dresses it up in tropes and leaves it feeling more stock than it should.
The one strong idea at the core of this is that Sam wants to hold onto the history of his community. The show never fully vocalizes that as his reason for accepting the shield anew, which is weird because it spells out most other things in dialogue, but it at least adds some emotional ballast to he and Sara’s decision to hang onto their family boat. (No pun intended.)
Some of that on-the-nose speechifying comes when Sam tells Bucky that if he wants to heal, he has to serve the people he’s hurt, not just avenge. (It’s worth noting that John Walker wants to avenge rather than help people heal, just another brick in the wall for why he was a poor choice to be Cap.) That too is a pretty tired old chestnut, and the attempts to make Sam and Bucky feel like buddies here isn’t as good as it’s been in some prior episodes, but it’s the right answer. Presumably Bucky will talk to his elderly friend whom we met in the first episode, deal with the fallout, and be back in time to help punch the people who need punching in the finish.
Much of this episode plays like piece-moving and taking stock before that sort of big confrontation. Normally I like that sort of thing. But the quieter and more personal moments here just aren’t as effective as they’ve been in other episodes (Isiaih Bradley’s speech notwithstanding.) There’s some cool table-setting with Bucky turning Zemo over to the Wakandans, Sam getting a new set of wings, a return appearance from Batroc, and the Flag Smashers being ready to move on New York City and the GRC. Still, the more intimate interludes meant to draw out the motivations and character development for the folks who’ll eat at that table aren’t as successful.
That said, there’s some interesting material with John Walker in this one. I have to admit, while the threeway fight between Falcon, Winter Soldier, and Fake Cap was cool (shades of Civil War), I was puzzled by where it led. I like the titular duo taking the shield back from John, but why was this the last straw?
It’s particularly puzzling that killing one of the Flag Smashers gets Walker stripped of his title and discharged by the government. Wouldn’t they want him to take out the Flag Smashers? Steve definitely killed people during WWII and beyond. Sam killed people in the first episode of this show! I can see why Sam would take issue with John killing a member of Karli’s crew in anger, but why would the feds? The best you can say is that maybe it’s because he did it in public, something that Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s character (!?) seems to intimate.
(As an aside, is she supposed to be the Power Broker, maybe? Apparently there’s some chatter that she could be Madame Hydra, which doesn’t contradict her also being the Power Broker.)
But maybe it’s just because I recently rewatched Apocalypse Now, but there’s something strangely (and, credit where its due, at least partly deliberately) hypocritical about the government sending Walker on these missions and then turning their back on him when he does what they’ve trained him to do. To be frank, I’m not sure what they’re doing with Walker anymore, where they want the audience’s sympathies to lie, but I suppose that’s a feature, not a bug. His homemade Captain America shield (I guess he minored in metallurgy?) presage a bitter brute with an axe to grind, one who will no doubt cause trouble whenever Sam and Bucky end up facing the Flag Smashers.
Overall, this is one of those big mixed bag episodes, with some truly fantastic and thought-provoking material on the one hand, and some material that feels like it could be in any and every superhero show there is. I don’t know quite how to balance it out in the final tally, but there’s a lot to love and a lot to vaguely roll your eyes at.
I was missing the action this week, but this was a good episode for character development and setting up what's to come.
This was a better episode, but still lacks consistency and smart writting. It does bring a lot of closure to the characters, but does it in a way that everything we ever see is closure from closure to closure, and it kind of fails to connect every scene together, especially the main talk between Sam and Bucky.
I think Isaiah's scene is the most powerful in this series, and maybe in the MCU. But, of course, it leads to Falcon accepting being Captain America, and not what could've been a more ballsier development for him.
Great opening fight. Anyone throwing the episode a one is just a whiner. The music from Civil War final fight being used is great too.
Definitely not just a filler episode. Since it is all about Walker heading towards the Darkside more.
Though things do slow down too much after the beginning.
Filler? This episode has more character development than all the previous ones! Man, you people really want action for 50 minutes? Also, I'm not surprise white people don't like when characters talk about race. It makes them uncomfortable. Same reaction to this week's episode of This Is Us. sigh
Funny how most people think this is boring filler stuff, or even dislike the whole show, while I do like it more and more.
For me it seems this is the first time that Marvel puts substance over effects. There is an actually story involved instead of just knitting together CGI shots. Of course there is an agenda in all of this, there is no denying that. But I don't see this as a bad thing.
And I'm looking very much forward to the final episode now.
I did not go into the second last episode thinking my emotions would be all over the place, but it made me go through a whirlwind of emotions. I got goosebumps from watching this episode.
It’s a perfect episode; while it may seem slow placed, a lot goes on, and there’s a lot of character development at play. I felt like I was watching a different show at times because there would be wholesome family vibes and not superhero vibes, and I'm not complaining; I enjoyed it.
The ending left me wanting more, and I can’t wait for the last episode.
PS- don't miss the mid-credit scene; it's fantastic.
Best episode so far. The first episode was the boring version of superheroes doing everyday things; this one is that done right. The fight scene at the beginning is probably my favourite scene of the entire show at this point, and while it takes some time to slow down after the craziness of the last episode, you can tell that stuff will go down in the final episode.
Wow seems like Selina Meyer is Madame Hydra. That's one hell of a promotion :speak_no_evil:
Weakest episode of the series so far unfortunately
in this weeks episode
Sam and Bucky fix a boat
What a gasbag filler of an episode?! I really went into the series expecting action on a grand scale, especially considering the huge budget. But then we get this. These are the same guys who were a part of the Avengers who were fighting Thanos and I was blown away seeing endgame, and now we get this whimper. Sorry but this gets worst with every episode for me considering the high expectations and the terrific opening fight sequence in the first episode. The plot is stretched so thin with some seemingly useless side quests. And then towards the end, some corny life lessons shared by the Falcon and Bucky while tossing that Frisbee around..... Sorry if this feels like a rant but I expected more, just my opinion....
Edit: Also who is the villain again? At least I hope there is a good boss level fight sequence in the last episode...
Ahhhhhh i’m so happy they are not shying away from the tough conversations on what it means to be Captain America in this decade. I love symbolism in storytelling and there’s no stronger symbol than that shield, and the way they have used it as a vehicle and representative of the different American identities (good and (really) bad) has been incredible.
Steve Rogers, John Walker, Sam Wilson and Isaiah Bradley all represent sides of the US that co-exist, and John Walker being the effective Captain America for most of this show isn’t accidental - he’s the side of America that’s most present and salient right now (in the world off the screen), but ending the show with Sam Wilson carrying that shield - and going through all the issues that that might bring up - is as powerful a message as any - one of hope and of what the US should aspire to be. Steve Rogers is no longer enough, Steve Rogers is the American Dream - Isaiah Bradley the American Reality - and Sam Wilson is both. This show, and all of Captain America’s storyline, is about so much more than just men in spandex and they’ve done a fantastic job taking it even further here. Glad Marvel is still delivering after so many years, makes me proud to be a fan!
This episode is a total result of coivd 19 restrictions, just garbage
Why do writers always make actors speak French when they clearly cannot?! I'm a French native speaker and I had to read the English subtitles to understand what they were saying!
Let me get this straight: Sam and Bucky just got upset about John Walker killing a terrorist.
Didn’t this entire show start with Sam throwing terrorists out of planes left and right?
The writing in this show is just laughable.
Everything happens because the writers want it to happen.
Like literally nothing, and I mean nothing, feels earned or logical.
Shout by MadhackBlockedParent2022-05-06T01:43:18Z
Great episode. Good character development. The scene between Isaiah and Sam was the best part, really amazing stuff.