The Falcon and the Winter Soldier 2021

Series Review

I'm tired.

Maybe I'm too critical, or perhaps I should give up on the MCU? The MCU fatigue is real this time, and it's getting old. No, this series isn't bad, and neither was WandaVision. But with each new MCU release, the more I'm pushed to the brink. I used to love this franchise, can you believe it? I loved all the movies, and I gave my money to the box office as reluctantly as any other MCU stan. Now, I'm tired. I'm tired of the same old stories, with their important messages, but poor storytelling.

Falcon begins by giving up the shield to the Smithsonian (museum), unknowingly handing the Captain America mantle to Walker. After Walker snaps, he reconsiders his decision. So, he talks to Isaiah Bradley (a black Super Soldier who the government rejected as Captain America), who tells him he won't make it, and becomes Captain America soon after. Was there any revelation here? What did Sam learn? He just went through a training montage, and then he was ready. What a relatable challenge that he went through that I can apply to real life! I just gotta ignore the haters, ya'll!

In some of these movies, the "character arcs" go like this: I want to do this, I face opposition, the opposition turns out to be wrong because..., I'm right, and I win. No one learns anything; all it says is that you're always right, and people who tell you otherwise are wrong. That's an empowering message, but has Marvel's writers stopped to consider that their audience might be the villains instead of the heroes; what if they're the opposition, and they're just wrong, instead of the heroes who are always right?

But this show does a lot I admire; a darker, grittier tone, better action (than some recent stuff), important themes and attempts at character arcs/development. Whew, I'm still tired, though.

As Cosmonaut Marcus writes,

"It was whatever." — Cosmonaut Marcus (https://twitter.com/CosmonautMarcus/status/1385534378239987712)

SCORE: 6/10

Why would a beat cop fail to recognize Sam Wilson literally one of the most famous people on the planet?
Why did Sam need to apply for a bank loan when a single phone call to Pepper Potts would have provided all the money he could ever need?
Why is Selena Meyer in this show, and why does she talk like a 14-year-old with ADHD?
Why did Sam waste time fighting Batroc during a ticking clock hostage situation when he could literally fly right out of there?
Why do the flag smashers put on masks to fight people that have already seen their faces?
Why did the Wakanda's take Zemo to the raft rather than Wakanda itself to face justice for murdering their king?
How can Sam survive a high impact collision with solid steel pipes and lift an armoured truck weighing at least 10 tonnes despite not being a super soldier?
Why does Sam struggle to use Captain America's shield during his training montage despite using it proficiently in his conversation with bucky just minutes earlier?
Why does Marvel keep trying to make Sharon Carter happen?
How are three lightly built women outfitted only with spears, able to subdue a cybernetically enhanced super-soldier with decades of combat experience, a highly trained special forces operative and one of the avengers all at the same time?
Clearly, these questions are meaningless, and if you find yourself asking them, you need to check your privilege and do better.
If this is any indication of where the MCU plans to go in terms of writing quality and social activism, then combined with a year-long gap between movie releases and an absolutely sterling lineup of phase 4 films that everyone's excited about (LMAO), I just can't see this going wrong.

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is like cheap sausage: mass produced soulless industrial waste in order to milk the last possible drops of profit from a rapidly drying milking cow. The production value is up there and stunts are good, but the story, the characters, their motivations and actions are nonsensical, illogical and frustratingly naïve.

One of my biggest annoyances was that the main antagonist lacked all credibility as a villain, but worse, was utterly insufferable. It's understandable that a series revolving around "sidekicks" doesn't have magical alien invasion level threats or iconic arch-nemesises right off the bat but super soldier serum injected Merida and her band of steroid junkie hippies as well as a side of a prickly French mercenary would have been laughable had they at least been funny.

The forced cliché of reluctant partnership blossoming into bromance proved to be one of the more tolerable aspects of the show.

A big plot point of the show are the economic hardships that Sam/Falcon (and by proxy, his family, as well as African Americans overall) are faced with. He has some of the world's most powerful people, literally and figuratively, in his phone contacts, access to priceless tech, takes on sensitive military contracts "on the regular" but can't pay for repairs on his family's shrimping(?) ship or even an afternoon coffee in a country with far lower cost of living than in his own. How did he expect to pay interest if a bank did grant him his loan?

He at first refused the shield partly because it had been that of his late comrade, whose shoes were too big to fill and over whose death he was still emotional over, and partly because he was black. After a self righteous murderous super-Aryan (blue eyed caucasian with super soldier serum - whose best friend was black in spite of the Aryan and racist rhetoric in the show and obvious mirroring of values with the black main character) disgraces himself and the shield that he suddenly decides he'll be cap'n after all in spite of being black. To add importance to his being a black Captain America, a disillusioned black super soldier from Steve Rogers's time, who, rather than praised as a hero, was of course horrifically wronged by the US government of the time, is introduced and says stuff in the vein of: "They'll never let one of us blacks be Captain America!".

Black Captain America. Available now on Disney+.

I binge-watched the series, but gave my thoughts a few days to percolate. And just to be clear: I don't know any of the comics, just the MCU. And I'm sorry, this turns out to be quite long. ;)

I was looking forward to seeing more of Bucky and his journey towards redemption (if only in his own perception)... and while there was some good stuff about that, we didn't actually see it come full-circle. Not showing that last conversation, especially Bucky being confronted with that old man's emotions, possible anger, is a cop-out. Just as much as it was a cop-out never to have any mention or scene with Bucky and Tony after Siberia, just that ridicoulous letter by Steve (granted, we had a small Thanos- and larger snap-issue to deal with, and they couldn't exactly hug it out like Tony and Peter did during the battle... still...).

However, by the end I enjoyed having Bucky smile more, flirt more, interact with other people more, and more genuinely than in the first episode, and form a firm friendship with Sam. There's still much work to be done (as expected after 70 years of brainwashing, torture etc), so I feel it's right that the "Winter Soldier" part's kept in the title - after all, for him to be the White Wolf we'll have to actually see him interact more than in a teaser and a couple of scenes with the Wakandans. The flashback to the testing of whether the programme was broken (and I definitely had the impression that this was the final test after all the work Shuri and the Dora put into deprogramming him, not him being put back into WS-mode and the Dora telling/ordering him to be free) was well done. Definitely one of the finer moments of this series.

On to the Falcon/Captain America part: First of all, so far I was not a Sam-fan. I thought him a spineless follower. He had a job as counselor, and still he leaves everything behind after one meeting with Steve and not actually knowing what's going on. And I honestly despised his role in Civil War. As a military man he should know that there has to be accountability and a chain of command, that you can't just cross borders on a whim. That's what he, Rhodey and Bucky should know much better than Steve who performed as dancing monkey, never fought in an actual unit and disobeyed orders and rules left and right (until they just gave him his own unit and let him be).

However, I liked his transition into taking up the shield. I especially liked that he never once thought of juicing himself up - or that he has to in order to pick up the shield. He went back to his roots, let his perceptions be turned upside down in meeting Bradley, and then came to a decision and trained to achieve his goal. I also enjoyed that TPTB went back to his training as a counselor: with Bucky, with Karli. And yes, Captain America will have to use his fists and the shield occasionally - but the difference (to Walker... and to Steve in a way) is that fighting can't be the first solution, it has to be the last.

Although I thought the final speech rather preachy and cringe-worthy (saying "do better" in far too many ways and far too long-winded), I'm looking forward to seeing more here: an ordinary human-being taking up the shield, a black one at that... he'll have to fight to be heard, to overcome prejudice, a fight that can't be fought with fists. I know it's Marvel, it's supposed to be action, not so much dialogue, but I really hope TPTB won't just go back to business as usual.

Walker and the flag-smashers:

Well, Walker was a good soldier, but he's ambitious... and he had certain expectations, one being that he never thought he'd be challenged as Captain America. It was pretty clear where and how he'd end up. That the black best friend had to be the red shirt wasn't exactly necessary, but that he lied about killing the one who actually killed him, said much about his character. To me it's not quite clear when he exactly used the serum because quite honestly, killing that flag-smasher wasn't brought on by the serum. It remains to be seen what his role in the future'll be (and what the agenda of Louis-Dreyfus' character is)... adversarial?

Seeing him kill in cold blood (hot rage whatever) reminded me of Siberia, Steve pretty much holding the shield in the same way over Tony (who definitely expected the shield to his head at that moment). I wonder if that similarity was coincidence or should highlight that Steve still had control over himself whereas Walker did not...

The idea of the flag-smashers is an interesting one (and the underlying issue of displaced people just as important as the BLM), and I regret that Karli and that movement devolved from their original moral high ground into killing, kidnapping etc. It would have been interesting to see Karli react had the group broken up due to her decisions, not just uttered weak dissent. Was she already by the first conversation with Sam so far gone or could he have reached her (if not for Walker's interference) and maybe prevented further violence? I hope that the underlying issue of the now displaced people will be addressed in the future!

Karli reminded me of Wanda, to be honest - but whereas Karli at least had some higher goal (and devolved then), Wanda's was only to take her revenge. But both were treated as "kids" (despite Wanda's being in her mid-twenties)... but that doesn't mean not having to face consequences for your actions. (And we know from WandaVision that she at least still has no regrets about joining Hydra and manipulating other minds...)

Sharon and Zemo:

Honestly, I couldn't care less about Sharon. She was a minor character in 2 movies, a possible love-interest... nothing more. But it would be interesting exactly what role she played in Civil War: Was she even genuinely helping Steve? Let's not forget, there are easier ways to kill someone than in close quarters, especially someone with super-powers. I'd have sent a sniper to eliminate Bucky if there was really a kill-order back in Bucharest. Even later, if she wanted to help she'd have offered to open a way to communicate and not returned Sam and Steve's weapons. She's a manipulator, she was that back in the movies from the beginning posing as Steve's neighbour, she's so now. So, my investment in her is negligible - I find her uninteresting, and I'd rather see her gone sooner than later (or at least revealed as the villain to Bucky and Sam).

Zemo on the other hand made some good points. And while I understand where the Wakandans were coming from, I'd have expected him to end up in some Wakandan prison, not on the Raft. Why there? He's not a superhuman, after all, and presumably spent the last 7 years in that German prison without any problems. The problem was Bucky in this case. Is the raft now an official supermax-prison? I'd love to see more of him in the future!

But again, I can see his points: Power corrupts, the serum corrupts... and worshipping Steve's memory doesn't change the fact that he was far from flawless: stubborn, self-righteous, distrustful and full of his own so-called moral superiority. That doesn't make him a bad human-being. But he was human, and not perfect (and not only by those not-perfect blue eyes). He was wrong sometimes just as much as everyone else. Maybe what's been missing for me in all the talk about him is that Steve wasn't an icon, he was a human-being making rash decisions which his friends should know, even if they'd rather think about the good times.

Overall:

I really enjoyed this series, the various issues it raises in a serious manner - and I can only hope that this will continue and not just be pushed to the side in order to get back to more action now that the personal conflicts of the protagonists are more or less resolved.

When they casted a guy with a punchable face to be the "new" Captain America, I knew he was going to have a villainous streak in him. It still didn't make sense how John Walker was able to fight off Super Soldiers before he took the serum though. But honestly, I'm not sure how I feel about The Falcon becoming the next Captain America either. I don't think Steve's decision to hand him the shield was made reasonable, because I still don't understand the why of it. If anything, it would've made more sense for Bucky to earn the title after everything he'd been through and atoned for. Or maybe, I simply couldn't care less about Sam Wilson lol. He's just such a dry, uninteresting character.

And let's not forget the antagonists in this series—The Flag Smashers... I mean, really? One look at them and I knew I wouldn't be able to take them seriously. The cause of their fight wasn't sold well. Also, what are they planning to do with Sharon Carter's character? She felt wronged, so obviously the only course to take is to turn villainous now too, right? :rolling_eyes:

The only part in this entire series that was worth watching was the arc about Isaiah Bradley. I cried on those parts.