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Sam and Bucky head to Madripoor with Baron Zemo in tow as we recap The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Episode 3, “Power Broker.” With Zemo on the team, it’s off to Low Town to find clues about who gave the Flag Smashers the Super Soldier Serum… Leading to a reunion with Sharon Carter, a.k.a. Agent 13. But that’s just the beginning, as things go predictably wrong, and things start exploding. And meanwhile, John Walker is one step behind…
From that surprise cameo by Ayo from Black Panther to Smiling Tiger to whether Madripoor is teeing up the X-Men, we break down all the Falcon and the Winter Soldier Easter eggs and comic book references in Episode 3.
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Full Episode Transcript
Alex: Welcome to MarvelVision, a podcast about Marvel the MCU and Falcon and Winter Soldier. I’m Alex.
Justin: I’m Justin.
Pete: I’m Pete. Zalben, this is your ep, buddy, huh? You excited?
Alex: Number-one Baron Zemo-
Pete: To see your dad on screen?
Alex: … fan over here. My time has finally come. My ship has come in. We’re going to be talking about Power Broker, the third episode of the series. Now, requisite spoiler warning here. If you haven’t watched the episode, go watch it. I’m sure you woke up at 3:00 AM just as we all did-
Justin: Just like us.
Alex: … and we’ve been talking about it nonstop for the past couple of hours-
Pete: Nonstop.
Alex: … just really breaking down, heavily scripting this show. So we are ready to go.
Justin: I like to get up at like 3:02 to really let it marinate a little bit for those first couple minutes and then press play, you know?
Pete: Wow.
Alex: Yes. 100 percent, and also, I like to just sort of fairly let people have the chance to watch it. So that’s why I-
Pete: [crosstalk 00:01:03].
Justin: Exactly. Before I start shouting spoilers on Twitter, I wait until 3:02.
Pete: Super nice of you guys.
Justin: Of course, Alex, you scream first when you press play on it, right?
Alex: Every time for every show-
Justin: Dope.
Alex: … even when it’s just on broadcast-
Pete: [crosstalk 00:01:16].
Alex: … [crosstalk 00:01:16]. I’m first.
Justin: At Broadway performances, you’re like “First. Yeah. I love this.”
Alex: So in this episode, just to give you the broad strokes, this picks up right where we left off pretty much in-
Pete: 53 minutes.
Alex: Left off in episode two as Sam and Bucky have gone to visit Zemo in prison to get information on the Power Broker. They don’t know about the Power Broker yet, but find out about the Power Broker, find out how the Flag-Smashers got the Super Soldier Serum and what’s going on with that. He has researched that over the years. So they think he’s going to be a good source, but of course, as we suspected the last episode of this podcast, they end up actually breaking Zemo out of jail and teaming up with him-
Justin: We called it.
Alex: … in a hilarious buddy comedy, and they head to none other than Madripoor, which is a very important location for-
Justin: I love this.
Alex: … X-Men fans. I’m sure we’ll get into this a bit. That’s where they meet Sharon Carter, who’s been hanging out there. They get into a big action scuffle there, find out more about the Super Soldier Serum, head on the next chapter of their journey, while in the background, John Walker and Battlestar are hot on their heels and just getting hotter on their heels as we go, and when we leave off, they’ve gone to investigate the next lead, and enter Wakanda. That’s where we leave off at the end there. So lots to talk about in this episode.
Pete: Hey-oh.
Justin: Hey-oh.
Alex: I’m curious. I think we’ve talked about this a little bit, and I know Pete’s going to yell at me because he never likes anything negative to be said. So I’ll caveat this with I continue to have fun watching this series. I enjoy part of this, but I’m still not 100 percent sure what’s going on with the characters necessarily and the themes. It’s starting to feel much more muddled to me episode by episode-
Pete: You’ve only got-
Alex: … while-
Pete: … three more eps left.
Alex: Sure, and it might all wrap up. That’s why I’m holding off for the moment on making any broad judgments, but I definitely felt, too, with this episode, a lot of it was setting up plot but not focusing on the part that I’m most interested in personally, which is Sam and his battle for the shield.
Pete: Dora Milaje.
Alex: That was only very tangentially touched on, and it feels like a lot of the themes in the episode are not touching on that either. They’re there to service the super soldier plot. What’s your guys’ takeaway? Are you feeling the same way? Or you completely disagree?
Pete: No, no. First off, first off-
Alex: Pete, I know.
Pete: … go fuck yourself.
Alex: Wait. Pete, just to frame up for anybody who’s new to this podcast, Pete knows that if I say anything bad about Marvel movies or TV shows, that’s it. They’re not going to make any more.
Justin: Yep. They’re shutting it down.
Pete: All right. So-
Justin: Atlanta? They shut it down.
Pete: So first off, no. That is not my point. My point is all you’ve been doing is being like “Man, I can’t wait for Zemo. Oh, man. Just give me a Zemo ep. Where’s my god damn Zemo ep?” You get a whole Zemo ep. Zemo dances. Zemo puts on the mask. You don’t know if he’s going to put on the mask, but then he woops ass with the mask on then takes it off and being all cool. You get to see his rides. You get to see his style. All you get is Zemo in this ep, and then you have the balls to turn around and go “Muddled. I want to know about the characters.” Shut the fuck up.
Justin: Yeah. Yeah.
Pete: Eat your popcorn and enjoy the ride, because you’re getting-
Alex: Eat your popcorn?
Justin: Eat your popcorn.
Pete: You’re getting exactly what you fucking wanted.
Alex: Yeah. I mean, hold on. I’ll tell you what I do, Pete, because a lot of people on the podcast don’t necessarily know this, and you know this, of course. That’s why you brought it up. Because we watch these episodes first thing in the morning, I’ll set the popcorn maker on a timer the night before.
Justin: Oh, so smart.
Pete: Because you’re smart. Because you’re smart.
Alex: So I wake up to those sweet, sweet sounds of … and if I don’t get there in two and a half minutes, I’m screwed. That’s burnt popcorn, baby.
Justin: Yeah, and of course you-
Pete: Oh, man. Nothing worse than that.
Justin: You purchased one of those Coke machines where it’s just a bunch of buttons and you can get any flavor of soda.
Alex: Freestyle? Yeah.
Justin: Freestyle.
Alex: Absolutely.
Justin: You got one of those in the house. You hired an usher there, who’s like “Hey, man. Feet off the seats. Enough of that.”
Pete: Yeah. He says-
Alex: Yeah. I hired-
Pete: Can I see your tickets?
Alex: I was like “Listen. I want a surprisingly aggressive usher,” and they’re out of work right now. So I’m just helping the community.
Pete: Surprisingly-
Justin: Flashlight in your face.
Pete: … aggressive.
Justin: Obviously, and for those of you that don’t know, Pete is Alex’s father, and Alex wanted Zemo for his birthday, and then Pete got it for him, and clearly it wasn’t enough for Alex.
Pete: It was enough. You know, do you know how long I had to stand in line to get that Zemo for you? They were almost out.
Alex: I appreciate it.
Pete: I had to fight off a little-
Alex: They gave you the vaccine at the same time though, right?
Pete: Yeah.
Alex: Free.
Justin: I hear you, Alex, on your complaints or your issues, because I agree in that we set up … In the first episode when the characters were separate, when Falcon and Winter Soldier were separate from each other and everyone was separate, we got to see a little bit of like “Oh, I see …” They put some items on the table. We got Winter Soldier’s trauma that he’s trying to fix. We got Sam-
Pete: [crosstalk 00:06:04].
Justin: … dealing with the post-blip struggles, struggles being a black person in America, all that stuff [inaudible 00:06:12], like identity, legacy, filling that stuff in. We got all that on the table.
Pete: Trying to get loans.
Justin: Yeah. Then second episode, there was a little bit less of that and a little bit more plot. In this episode, they were like “Plot time. We can’t deal with that …” They talk about race a little bit, but it feels very … It’s not touching on it in the right [crosstalk 00:06:31].
Alex: It’s mostly Zemo telling Sam how to feel as a black man, which is weird.
Justin: Very weird and uncomfortable, legitimately, and maybe that was purposeful, but I think it feels weird in the absence of furthering those themes they set out in the first episode. So I definitely hear that. On the Pete front, the Zemo … I was surprised this episode focused so much on Zemo, and I liked that. He is an interesting character, and again, it further confuses the good-guy-bad-guy narrative of this series, and I think it-
Pete: Especially the way that Zemo talks about things. It’s all very matter of fact, and he even is on the side of Falcon, but Falcon was like “Okay. All right. It’s weird that you’re saying that, but yeah> I agree with you.” There was some fun moments there. You really got to see a lighter side to a very villainous character, and I thought Zalben would just be a pig in shit in this episode, loving all the different sides of Zemo that we’re spending time with, but then … All he does is talk about “I can’t wait for Zems. I’m a fucking Zem head.”
Alex: I’ll keep complaining if you want. This is-
Pete: I just can’t-
Alex: Two other things that I was frustrated about with Zemo, who I still like, and I think Daniel Bruhl is great, and I appreciate the fact that everybody loves him dancing up in the club … Two things on different sides. Love Baron Zemo in the comics. He’s an … Yes. Doing the fist pump. Love it. In the comics, he’s a great villain.
Pete: He was moved by the music.
Alex: He’s a great villain. I love him in the comics. Obviously, problematic because of his Nazi background. They don’t have that in the show, and they don’t have it in the MCU, and certainly it’s better for it, but this is something that they kind of … not exactly sneak in there, but fit in there with the MCU continuity, which makes sense. I have no problems with it, but mentioning that he’s a baron, like he was in the comics, makes it weird to me retroactively for Civil War, and mind you, this might be head canon a little bit, but because he could have been royalty, but what we knew from Civil War is that he lived just outside of Sokovia. They thought they’d be safe during Avengers: Age of Ultron. They were not. He blamed the Avengers and proceeded to take them down and win by the end of Civil War.
Alex: So that’s a huge deal, but I think the part of it, the thing that makes it so powerful in Civil War is that, relatively speaking, he is a regular guy and a regular citizen of Sokovia, as far as we know, who is doing it, and it makes it that much stronger that his hate, his thirst for revenge pushed him so hard to take down the world’s most powerful super team. Here, we find out he’s a baron, very rich, has his own plane and tons of resources.
Pete: Man of the people just walking in the streets being like “Sup?” Like “Oh, Zemo’s back on the scene. What’s up?”
Alex: Divorced from anything else, it’s fun to watch. Again, I want to keep emphasizing this. I am having fun watching the show, but there are-
Pete: You fucking better.
Alex: … these little things that happen like that that I’m like “I don’t know that that adds as much to the MCU as I would have liked,” and the other thing … The mask is fun. It was only there because Daniel Bruhl was not going to do that action sequence. That was the only reason they-
Justin: Wow. Alex really-
Pete: Oh, you shut your mouth. You shut your mouth.
Justin: … really pulled the curtain back.
Alex: The mask is the most-
Pete: Come on.
Alex: … crucial part of his character, like how Mary Jane’s hair has to be red or Captain America needs to be blonde. These are all the crucial parts of these characters-
Justin: Wow.
Alex: … that need to be held on to.
Justin: What?
Pete: Oh, no. What are you doing right now?
Alex: I’m being very weird.
Pete: Who are you? You’re a fucking monster with this bullshit. That is just-
Justin: I will say, outside of your production problem with the mask, the fact that he … In this episode, Falcon and Winter Soldier, as they’re heroes characters, don’t appear. They’re doing some espionage stuff, they’re shooting guns, but Zemo’s the one that gets to be the super hero, quote-unquote. He gets to put on the mask and help them out of a bad situation. I thought that was super interesting and odd to me.
Pete: It was crazy how quickly Zemo was just fucking running shit. It was all-
Justin: Once that fur collar-
Pete: … Zemo’s idea, plans.
Justin: Once that fur collar pops, Zemo’s gone.
Pete: Fucking, this was definitely some kind of crossover between Zoolander and Zemo. It was so meta, but-
Justin: Ooh, Zemolander.
Alex: Zemolander.
Pete: … [crosstalk 00:10:40] like “Do you know what you’re doing?” but the Blue Steel comes through in the end. I thought it was weird but also just fun, like the-
Alex: Wait. Hold on. Before we move on too far, I just want to throw this out there. What is this? A museum for Ant-Man?
Justin: Okay. Okay.
Pete: Oh, wow. Wow. Okay.
Justin: Okay.
Pete: All right.
Justin: See, your Zoolander comparison, I don’t quite understand, but I’ll take it. I feel like Zemo’s sort of the Joe Pesci here.
Pete: Oh, wow. Interesting.
Justin: He’s just-
Alex: Of Lethal Weapon?
Justin: Yes. Yes.
Alex: Oh, okay.
Pete: Of Lethal Weapon.
Alex: Not My Cousin Vinny.
Justin: Yeah. He’s sort of the My Cousin Vinny.
Alex: Yeah.
Justin: The two yutes.
Alex: And Marisa Tomei is like the Aunt May.
Pete: From Goodfellas.
Justin: [inaudible 00:11:20] hundred percent. Yes.
Pete: I just thought it was interesting. Instead of Zemo just being an awful person, awful character, they really went out of their way to show Zemo in a different light, and it was very different from what … Because it started with him using the code words against Winter Soldier just to throw it in his face, but then it was like “Oh, I don’t need these words. I can play him like a fiddle regardless,” gets him to break him out, and Winter Soldier talking to Falcon, just being like “Yeah. So you know, hypothetically, let’s say we started a prison riot. Oh, yeah. Zemo’s here. Okay. Just-“
Justin: I liked it. That felt very Ocean’s 11-
Pete: So fun.
Justin: … style, like “Oh, the plan? It’s already been done. Here he is.”
Pete: Yeah. It’s been done.
Justin: Very much Marvel movie making, the fact that Winter Soldier was like “Yeah. Let’s break him out. He’s on our team now.” It’s like “That’s a quick decision, bro.”
Pete: Yeah. That was a very quick-
Alex: Well, particularly because in retrospect, as we find out later in the episode, they go to Madripoor to get this information, but who’s running Madripoor? It’s Sharon Carter. So I guess she’s off the grid. I guess Madripoor is this secret place, but it does feel like the sort of things that the US government probably knows she’s there but can’t extradite here. So they could have said “Hey. You don’t have to break Zemo out of prison. Just go to Sharon.”
Justin: Just go to Sharon. Exactly.
Alex: Cut out the middle man.
Pete: Yeah. Sharon’s running shit, man. This episode was like “You guys having fun? You playing games? I’m fucking running shit while you guys are running around doing whatever. This whole city bows to me.”
Alex: Now, while we’re talking about this, before we move on, and this is definitely getting way deep into the X-Men speculation well, but Sharon Carter, Agent 13, has been heavily linked often with Captain America, with Wolverine. There’s this great … I think it’s an X-Men issue, where it’s Wolverine, Black Widow, and Captain America teaming up in Madripoor, which is super fun.
Justin: It’s like X-Men 180, I want to say, 181.
Alex: Yeah, which this feels like a little bit of a nod in that direction, was all I wanted to say.
Justin: I mean, just having Madripoor there … It feels like a whole new area of the Marvel universe is unlocked. So much stuff happens in Madripoor. I thought they did a good job showing Madripoor for what it is, this always night time place where there’s just crime, criminals running loose.
Pete: They made a joke about New York not being able to hang with Madripoor. I was like “Oh, man. Shot’s fired.”
Justin: If we just get a quick shot, I want someone to either find it or Photoshop Hugh Jackman wearing an eye patch in the back of one of these Madripoor bar fights.
Alex: I’m sure it is already all over the internet by this point.
Justin: Let’s see it.
Pete: But speaking … Oh. Go ahead. Finish your thought.
Justin: I was going to say, what do we feel like Zemo being established as the Jay Leno of the Marvel Cinematic Universe?
Alex: Oh. Having so many cars?
Justin: A hundred percent.
Pete: So many cars, like-
Alex: Or apologizing for his past racism? Which one?
Justin: I guess, technically both. News. Topical. Or maybe Jay Leno’s the Baron Zemo of our universe.
Pete: Oh, yeah.
Justin: Think about that.
Pete: I mean, I did appreciate when he reached into a car and then saw the purple mask. The hesitation, the kind of awe of it was a fun little moment there, and I thought that was cool.
Justin: Plus, the segment of Baron walking, where he walked around and asked tourists dumb questions, I thought was really, really pointed.
Alex: Very funny. Very provocative, is what I would say.
Justin: It’s so provocative.
Pete: Someone brought up Ocean’s whatever here. They did have that moment where-
Alex: I’m sorry. The second half of that title is not hard to remember.
Justin: Arguably easier.
Pete: Well, I don’t know if it’s 11, 12-
Alex: Oh, okay.
Pete: … 13, whichever one was the one where the actress was playing herself and it got real meta. That’s part with Sam was a little weird, where he was Smiling Tiger. It was fun to watch him do that shot, but I felt like we did a lot of work just to make him do a snake baby shot.
Justin: Snake baby? A lot of bars have snakes underneath. You just got to ask for the right cocktail-
Pete: For the usual?
Justin: … and I’m a bartender, former bartender. So I know. I always had to-
Pete: I wasn’t insulting your-
Justin: When you set up your bar, you restock the bottles, cut your limes and lemons, feed the snake a rat so the snake stays alive so can eventually cut it open for venom.
Pete: Right.
Alex: They did that in Cheers, right? Every time Norm would come in, they’d just pull the snake out from the bar-
Pete: Norm.
Justin: Yeah.
Alex: … cut it open, and serve it to him.
Justin: Yeah. That was a Woody thing. He was always like “Mr. Peterson-“
Pete: So Justin-
Justin: “… here’s your shot of snake …”
Alex: Snake baby.
Pete: So because you’re such a bartender, how good is a snake baby shot? Is it delicious? Is it-
Justin: It’s really good. Some people like just your straight up Tequila, salt. Some people like a lemon drop. The real drinkers-
Alex: Just to honestly check, it’s not a snake baby, right? It’s the venom glands that they were cutting out?
Justin: I’m assuming it was venom.
Alex: Okay.
Justin: We didn’t get an anatomy lesson on the snake, but snake babies are solid, while that was liquid. So that’s where I would say the difference is.
Pete: I don’t know. It’s tough to tell, man. The angle that they were showing the shot glass … It looked like a little snake baby was in there.
Justin: [crosstalk 00:16:31] eat the worm?
Alex: Yeah. Probably that’s a deleted scene. They’ll put that up next week or something, like “Just to be clear, this is a snake baby I’m serving you.”
Justin: Drink like Zemo drinks. Have a snake baby.
Pete: Oh, man, and then Zemo’s like “Don’t you fucking break right now. We’re all in this. You die with the lie.”
Alex: They were so sneaky in that bar, whispering to each other very loudly-
Pete: Yeah. Oh, man.
Alex: … about what was going on.
Justin: Yeah. No one could-
Pete: Don’t blow this. Hey. What did that guy just say? Nothing. Don’t speak English, right? Okay.
Justin: Sam drank that shot like a champ. He smelled it. Like a real pro, he smelled it, touched his chin with it, looked at it a couple times, then finally … I was like “Man, this guy knows how to blend it.”
Pete: I’m glad that we got to stop and fight about how good Marvin Gaye is, because I think it’s important. Marvin Gaye is unbelievable, and I don’t care what time period you’re from. You got to stop and appreciate it.
Alex: I do want to mention, because we’ve been bouncing around this a little bit, some of the dialogue in the past couple episodes … Just purposely, I think, action movie style is kind of clunky and whatever, but Anthony Mackie is doing the most with absolutely everything. Even if it’s a clunky joke, he makes it work, and I think that’s great.
Justin: I agree with you. Yeah, because it is … I mean, this does feel like … We hold our TV dialogue to a higher standard than movie dialogue, I think, because it’s a show we’re watching at home. It’s something we’re sifting through a little bit, while movies, we’re like “I’m going to get on this ride and see where it ends.” So I do think-
Pete: Yeah. You buy popcorn for movies.
Justin: Right. Or you have your personal popcorn popper there.
Alex: Yes. My usher does it for me in the morning, but however you get your popcorn, that’s not the point.
Pete: Right.
Justin: Your usher was the same guy that was Baron’s pilot and champagne deliverer.
Alex: That guy loves Baron Zemo way more than I do.
Pete: Oh, wow.
Justin: That guy was the oldest person I think I’ve ever seen, and he was piloting that plane?
Pete: Come on.
Alex: I think so.
Pete: Oh, come on.
Alex: I think that’s what they revealed later on.
Pete: You’ve seen Big Trouble in Little China. Come on. That guy was so much older.
Justin: That’s true, but this guy … I don’t know. I thought it was such a funny casting choice, and the way the guy was sort of goofy. He was giggling it up with Zemo.
Pete: Yeah. He’s like “Ha-ha. We’re old and racist. Ha-ha-ha-ha.”
Justin: Totally.
Alex: Well, he’s not though. That’s the thing is Baron Zemo is not exactly racist. Meanwhile, John Walker, who we haven’t really talked about yet, definitely delving into the real bad side. He’s going off the deep end real quick here.
Justin: Yeah. I feel like seeing his anger right at the top of the episode … I was like “Aha. Now we’re going in that direction,” and it was interesting how much work they put into making him sort of a regular guy in the last episode, and in this, they were immediately like “Nope. He’s a dick. Later.”
Alex: He was also so close in that scene where he breaks into where the Flag-Smashers were and confronts the guy. He says “Don’t you know who I am?” right?
Justin: Yeah.
Alex: Which-
Pete: Yeah. He does.
Alex: It wasn’t that, but there’s a very famous scene, if you’ve ever seen it, in the Ultimates where Captain America points at his head and says “Do you think this A stands for France?” and it felt like had the same energy. I almost thought he was going to say that in there, but obviously he did not.
Justin: Yeah.
Alex: What else should we talk about? There’s a ton of action sequences.
Pete: I did really appreciate the spit in the face that the fake Captain America got. I thought that was well earned and deserved, but yeah. I agree with you. The action sequences were amazing. It was great to see Aaron Carter … or Sharon Carter just wooping some [crosstalk 00:19:58].
Alex: Yep. Aaron Carter. Stick with it.
Justin: You said it. You have to commit. Make it make sense.
Pete: Yeah. There was some music. There was some dancing, and then Aaron Carter punched a bunch of people in the face. No. I think that I really enjoyed the whole … We’re getting swarmed here, and then she got to beat up some people and then run inside and join the action. So I thought that was great, and it was also … It was just a lot of fun fight sequences in between stuff. That was very much appreciated.
Alex: Well, this is taking a step back to what we were talking about earlier, but in terms of Sharon and Madripoor as a whole and spending so much time on it, it really did feel like there was a lot of thought put into making this Marvel’s next big location. Maybe not the same level of world building as Wakanda, because that was insane and over the top in terms of what they did there in that movie, incredible, but it gave a very similar feeling to me in terms of you got this, you got Hightown, you got Lowtown, here’s Madripoor, this is what it looks like, here’s how you get in, here’s how it works, that it’s clearly the sort of thing that they wanted to establish so that they can potentially bring back down the road.
Justin: Yeah. They definitely put it on the map in a very real way. It’s not like in movies where they’re just like … Even Sokovia. That’s on the map, but it was like “Hey. This is a place we’re doing now and then we’re not going to do really again.” There’s talk about it a little bit, but this, it feels like they’re sort of forward casting Madripoor. They’re writing it down for us so that we can take it and go home with it, which I think is great. I’m excited about Madripoor as a location, and not even just X-Men speculation stuff. So many heroes and villains in the comics run through Madripoor.
Pete: Yep.
Alex: Just setting up a place like that where you can have villains mention “Oh, we got to get out of here. We got to get to Madripoor,” like you’re saying. It doesn’t need to be “And then Wolverine’s in the background.” It could just be a place. That said, two little Easter eggs here. We get the Brass Monkey bar and the Princess Bar. Princess Bar is a place that I believe Wolverine did hang out at quite a bit when he would go to Madripoor as Patch. Brass Monkey, meanwhile, is just another bar in-
Pete: The Funky Monkey.
Justin: That’s right.
Alex: … in Madripoor. So there you go. Couple of other Easter eggs while we’re touching on stuff that I wrote down. The Smiling Tiger is a completely different character in the comics, Conrad Mack. He’s a New Warriors character. So I don’t know if you know him, Justin.
Justin: Yes, but he sort of came to more prominence after the mid-’90s run, I believe, but yeah.
Alex: Yeah, but totally different. It’s just using the name. That’s it. Dr. Wilfred Nagel, who is the doctor who-
Pete: I was calling him Dr. Bagel.
Justin: Oh, cool. Let me ask you, Pete. What do you want to do with that? Should we-
Pete: Well, it just is very plain. He’s a plain bagel, and I’m glad they shot him. I didn’t like him in the beginning. I didn’t like him … Dead, he was a little bit better, but-
Justin: He was better dead? You hate plain bagels.
Pete: Yeah. There’s nothing worse.
Justin: There’s nothing worse.
Pete: You got to do so much work to get it nice.
Alex: He is directly from Truth: Red, White & Black, which is the same place that Isaiah comes from last episode, Isaiah Bradley, and yeah. He basically serves the same function there. He was the one, in case you couldn’t figure it out, though you probably can … He was the one who was mining Isaiah’s blood in the show. He reproduced the super soldier formula after … So he wasn’t really a genius or anything, but the other interesting detail, before I get into other things that I jotted down, is we don’t find out who the Power Broker is. We speculated about this a little bit.
Pete: Yeah. It’s the title of the episode, and we don’t even get to meet the Power Broker. Talked about a little bit, but that’s it.
Alex: That feels like a thing, right? Because-
Justin: Yeah.
Alex: … last episode, we speculated that maybe the Power Broker is the United States government. Maybe the Power Broker was something else, not what we were expecting, but at least based on this episode, it does seem like the Power Broker is somebody and potentially somebody we’re going to meet down the road in this series.
Pete: I would hope so, all the talk about the person.
Justin: Lot of talk about the Power Broker. I thought for sure, and maybe it’s someone we already know or something like that.
Alex: Is it Sharon? It could be Sharon, right?
Pete: It’s probably Sharon. Yeah. I would-
Justin: It’d be weird if they didn’t reveal that this episode-
Alex: Yes.
Justin: … right?
Alex: Yeah.
Justin: I don’t know, and on the other thing of things I was surprised, like you were just describing Isaiah Bradley as where the serum came from, I was surprised they didn’t make that connection explicit. It was sort of like … Right? It was like-
Alex: I feel like they’re weirdly underplaying all the Truth stuff in the show. Granted, there have only been two things so far, but to your point, both of them … They’re a big deal for continuity, for Marvel Comics, for what the show could say about certain things, and at least right now, and granted, we’re only half way through the series, it doesn’t feel like they’re hitting it quite as hard as they could.
Justin: I feel like we’re going to get a big … I hope they’re underplaying it so that they can give us a reveal later that-
Pete: That’s what I’m hoping.
Justin: … Isaiah comes back and has a heroic moment-
Pete: Yeah. That would be-
Justin: … or something like that, because they included him in the previously-on for sure, and then the fact that it wasn’t explicitly referenced when they were talking about the serum … I was just surprised that it was like “Hey. If you’re listening, you’ll get this, but if you’re not, you might miss it.”
Pete: Yeah. I’m really hoping for a better use of that, because if that’s all we get, it’s going to be kind of super sad, but I did … It was an interesting story that Dr. Bagel was talking about, where it was like “I was right in the middle of 20 vials of this huge discovery, and then I got turned to dust and was like ‘Aw,'” and then he’s like “Five years later, and it’s not even funded, and I don’t even know what’s going on.” I was like “Man, Dr. Bagel-“
Justin: Dr. Bagel.
Pete: “… you should probably get shot now.”
Justin: Yeah.
Alex: I liked that.
Justin: I did too.
Alex: I thought that was a nice speech.
Justin: Smart. Yeah, and I like this secret shipping container lab, I thought was cool. Alex, you must have loved the Lost-ian introduction to the lab. It was very-
Alex: So cool. I was like “Who is it? Is it Desmond? Is Desmond the doctor? What’s going on? Where is Desmond?” and that’s the big question that I think the series is going to answer going forward. Where’s Desmond?
Justin: It’s not Penny’s boat, I think is one thing we can-
Alex: We can establish that.
Justin: We can establish that.
Pete: Well, this is fun. I’m getting all these references [crosstalk 00:26:18].
Alex: Let’s talk about the cliffhanger at the end as Bucky follows those little Wakanda balls around the corner and discovers Ayo from Black Panther, from-
Pete: Dora Milaje, baby. Come on.
Alex: Yep. From … That was so loud. From Infinity War. I assume she was in Endgame, because everybody was in Endgame. Played by Florence Kasumba. This is great. I like this. I loved the streams of the Black Panther theme sneaking in there at the end. Super fun twist.
Justin: I agree. It’s great. I was very surprised that they went that way, and I like … We got a mention earlier on in the … or I guess, last episode, about Bucky, as his time in Wakanda was important, and the fact that we get this, I’m like “Yes. This is great.” Really weaving the continuity together in a way that I didn’t expect them to do.
Pete: Yeah. It was great because Bucky was like “We’re not going to be the only …” Zemo just appears. Wakanda’s not going to not do anything. So the reveal of “I’m here for Zemo,” and I knew it was only a matter … It was just so great.
Justin: Again, throwing another wrench in their plan, where it’s like Zemo, bad guy, but they need him, so they keep bringing him around. He is helping them. Wakanda, good guys. We want Zemo. Well, we can’t give you Zemo. Then they’re all, again, in this miasma of who’s right, who’s wrong.
Pete: We’ve got three more eps to kind of wrap up all these threads, which I’m nervous about.
Justin: I mean, I agree with you a little bit because it’s like you got to start … They keep opening it up, and they got to start closing it up.
Pete: Yeah. It keeps getting bigger and bigger. Yeah. Keeps getting bigger and bigger, and it’s like “No, no, no, no. Go the other way.”
Justin: But I do think, if this series has movies structure to it, it makes sense that now it’s still a little bit open, and then next episode we’re going to start to get some bad things happening and things starting to come together a little bit.
Pete: Do you think we’ll have two more Zemo dance breaks before the end of this whole thing being over? How many more-
Alex: The next episode is just Zemo’s dance hour.
Justin: Yep.
Pete: Oh.
Justin: Yeah. There’s no-
Pete: That’s going to be worth it.
Justin: … very little story. It’s just a lot of … It’s sort of like MTV’s The Grind from back in the ’90s, but with Zemo.
Pete: That’s a very-
Justin: Zemo’s going to be the Eric Nies.
Pete: Nobody’s getting that ref, dude. I love it. I love it.
Alex: Here. I’ll update it a little bit. He’s going to do masks-off dance-off.
Pete: Whoa.
Justin: Nice. Wow.
Alex: You guys remember Pants-Off Dance-Off?
Justin: Yes. Good.
Alex: Also very good.
Pete: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Justin: That was on Fuse, a lesser known network.
Alex: Fuse. Yes. Yes. Oh, I do want to bring up the Flag-Smashers. We haven’t really talked about them yet, because they have this nice through line throughout the episode. My takeaway-
Pete: Yeah. Karli.
Alex: My big takeaway here is that they seem like they’re on the side of right, but clearly, Karli is starting to go too far. Was that your takeaway as well?
Pete: Yeah.
Justin: Yeah, and they do a nice thing where we get to know her even more. We get to know what she wanted to be. We see her softer side, and then-
Pete: Yeah. She wanted to be a teacher.
Justin: She wanted to be a teacher, and then the next scene with her, she’s like “Hey. We got to go hard here, or else.”
Pete: Well, I mean, the other person was right. They needed some time for her to mourn. I think she’s using her anger in ways that is not helpful, and she’s got to mourn and have some time, and then hopefully she can be a better person, but that was like “Oh, no. Karli, no. Karli, why. Karli, oh.”
Alex: I do wonder if we’re going to get some sort of conversation down the line between Zemo and Karli, and what that would mean, whether it’ll bring Karli further over the edge or potentially Zemo bringing her back in some way, I-
Pete: Can Zemo teach her to dance?
Justin: Yep.
Alex: Yes. That’s the big question.
Justin: I would throw out … Yeah. I feel like we’re going to get a Nobody Puts Baby in a Corner moment between Karli and Zemo.
Pete: Oh, yeah.
Justin: Zemo, of course, is the baby.
Alex: Yep.
Pete: Yeah. We all know.
Justin: We all know what I’m talking about.
Pete: Yeah. The dancing baby.
Justin: Honestly, what if Zemo joins … Could he potentially be convinced to join the Flag-Smashers?
Pete: Will Zemo figure out about TikTok and really take his dancing to a whole other level?
Alex: These are all very good questions that we’re definitely going to follow equally going forward throughout this podcast.
Justin: A hundred percent. Okay. Let’s just recap sort of what Pete’s big takeaways from the episode. Fuck Dr. Bagel.
Pete: Okay. Cool. Right.
Justin: When will Zemo dance again? And I’m mad at Alex because he didn’t enjoy his birthday present.
Pete: Also, bread crumbs are free, but the bakery costs money.
Alex: Very true.
Justin: There we are. That’s the ravings of a mad man. That’s all the time we have. [inaudible 00:30:41].
Alex: Two other quick things. There are a bunch of names thrown out in this episode. One, Selby, the person that they meet at the bar. There is a character in the comics named Selby who’s a part of the Mutant Liberation Front, but it’s an entirely different character. So I don’t think that’s the reference there. More likely, it’s Dee Selby, who is a sound editor who’s worked on a bunch of Marvel projects. Or it could just be a character named Selby, and that’s pretty much it. But the other one that I thought was super funny, just because we talked about it in the first episode, is Bucky’s notebook, because I remember we had a conversation about people plumbing for Easter eggs and saying “Okay. It’s interesting that Bucky wrote in his notebook, because also Steve wrote in his notebook,” and in episode three, we found out they’re the same notebook.
Justin: Yeah.
Pete: Yeah.
Justin: There it is.
Alex: There you go.
Pete: Just one [crosstalk 00:31:28]-
Alex: Turns out, it was an actual Easter egg, and I apologize to anybody I made fun of about that.
Pete: Ooh, you should.
Justin: I’ll tell you what. Being so close to Easter, the Easter eggs really seem so much more important.
Alex: So much sweeter.
Pete: Aww.
Justin: You can taste the chocolate.
Alex: Before we wrap up here, what is on your Vision Board for the next episode, Justin?
Justin: Like I said, sort of starting to put all of these characters in a direction, as opposed to that we’ve sort of just seen them pop, and they’re here opening up the story more. I want to start to see them really close it up. Who’s going to fight? Who are the good guys? Who are the bad guys? Maybe there aren’t any and it’s just these characters making hard decisions, and honestly, we didn’t see any sort of Falcon-ing here in this episode. I’m ready to see some more Falcon.
Alex: Yeah. To that point, on my Vision Board, I want to see more of Sam and Bucky. All of these other elements are distracting from the core Lethal Weapon nature of-
Justin: You hate Zemo. You get too much Pesci.
Alex: That’s the thing. Don’t throw him in the middle. Don’t have him popping over their heads like he does on the poster. You guys know what I’m talking about, listening, and also you, Justin and Pete. Everybody remembers the classic poster from Lethal Weapon 3, I want to say.
Justin: Of course. We definitely know the number of the movies.
Pete: Three and a half or something? Yeah.
Alex: But I want to see more concentration on them. I feel like they’re getting a little lost in the middle of everything so that when they do come together and when they do fight, in a funny way, it’s surprising, but I want to see that more consistently. Pete, what about you? What’s on your Vision Board?
Pete: Well, speaking of fighting in a funny way, I did love how the prison fight started, and as the guy jumped over the table, you saw he had a lower-back tattoo. I thought that was really funny. But I think, moving forward, we-
Justin: You want to see more of that tattoo.
Pete: No. I just thought it was hysterical that there was a quote-unquote tramp stamp on the back of that dude’s thing. That was really funny. All right. Moving forward, Sharon and Dora Milaje. That’s all I need, and we can just forget all these other threads and other stuff that’s going on in this TV show and just focus on that, and I’d be super happy.
Alex: All right. Sounds good. If you’d like to support our show, patreon.com/comicbookclub. Also, we do a live show every Tuesday night at 7:00 PM to Crowdcast and YouTube. Come hang out. We would love to chat with you about Falcon and Winter Soldier. Socially, @MarvelVisionPod on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. iTunes, Android, Spotify, Stitcher, or the app of your choice to subscribe and listen to the show. On iTunes in particular, leave us a comment and rate us. We would really appreciate it. On YouTube at ComicBookClub. Comicbookclublive.com for this podcast and more. Until next time, you’re marvelous.
