The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Episode 6: One World, One People

I dunno. I liked The Falcon Captain America and the Winter Soldier overall, especially the previous episode, but I didn’t care for some of this season finale. A few of the storytelling choices were weird this season and this episode brought those into focus.

 

I did like Sam Wilson officially taking on the role of Captain America, with a new costume and wings that look pretty much exactly as they did in the comics. USAgent also looks very much like he did in the comics. I liked everything with Isaiah Bradley and am glad he finally got a place of honor.

 

And so Sharon Carter is actually the mysterious Power Broker. I don’t remember much about the character from the comics, but he wasn’t Carter, who was presumed dead at the time. I vaguely remember the Power Broker from issues of The Thing in the ‘80s. He gave Sharon Ventura, Ben Grimm’s girlfriend, her own Thing powers, making her all orange and rocky. Ventura had taken over the codename of Ms. Marvel from Carol Danvers, who at the time was known as Binary and in space with the Starjammers. Now that Carol is Captain Marvel, the teenage Kamala Khan has taken over as Ms. Marvel. So Ms. Marvel is another name in Marvel that’s been passed around.

 

What does it mean that Marvel is shading heroic women like Agatha Harkness, the Scarlet Witch and Sharon Carter into villainy? Meanwhile, Zemo, who is a rat bastard in the comics, gets the funny meme of dancing in a club. I know it’s more nuanced than that, particularly with Agatha, so it’s not as simple as a face–heel turn. I also know I need to separate the comics from the MCU. But the creators of these TV shows know the comics as well as I do and they made a choice to give some of the women darker shadings and the men lighter shadings. Why is that? (I do kind of like the more ruthless Sharon Carter, but of course, I was a fan of Revenge.)

 

So I thought the Falcon’s confrontation with the Global Repatriation Council was kind of goofy. How convenient that cameras captured it all and everyone on the globe could watch it live. It reminded me of The Naked Gun when Leslie Nielsen professed his love before the Jumbotron and all the cameras at the baseball game, and everyone saw it, and their hearts all melted.

 

The characterization of the Flag Smashers and the GRC was mismanaged. We’re supposed to believe that the GRC is this nefarious organization but all we really see of them is a meeting at the Big Table under the Big Monitor, like Dr. Strangelove. The only way they really handled their mission was from some exposition, when it would have been better to show all that instead of tell.

 

In contrast, we’re not supposed to call the Flag Smashers terrorists, but they did use terror to achieve their mission, and that’s the definition of terrorism. Both sides were bad. We’re supposed to sympathize with the Flag Smashers when the show mostly showed all the awful things they did, like trap some of the GRC in a burning vehicle, murder Battlestar and acknowledge that his life didn’t matter, and blow up a hospital. Then Karli Morgenthau gets this hero edit when she dies with the sad music and the lighting. Sorry, I didn’t really care about this woman after she crossed several bright moral lines. I’m sure she just had a heart of gold and meant well but if she wanted to win over hearts and minds, none of those intentions will mean shit when people find out what she and her colleagues did. And asking Sam if he ever fought for anything greater than himself? He did help defeat Thanos and save the world. So there’s that. I just couldn’t be bothered with Karli.

 

It had some pacing problems but I did like the show and am happy to see Sam come into his own.