The first (?) season of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier concludes with an epic fight in New York City as we recap “One World, One People.” With the Karli and The Flag-Smashers attempting to kidnap the GRC, it’s up to Sam to put on his new Captain America suit and save the day. Meanwhile, Bucky has some amending of his own to do, Sharon Carter pulls off her mask, literally and figuratively, and John Walker reaches a crossroads. Let’s break down all the Easter eggs, future MCU teases (is US Agent a villain, or a hero?) and much more from the finale of Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
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Full Episode Transcript
Alex: (music) Welcome to MarvelVision, a podcast about Marvel, the MCU at Captain America, Winter Soldier.
Justin: Oh, big change, that’s right.
Alex: There we go. We are going to be talking about the episode that just dropped, the finale of Falcon and the Winter Soldier, as it was originally called. I’m Alex.
Justin: I’m Justin.
Pete: I’m Pete.
Alex: And this is the final episode of the show. As far as we know, One World, One People is the name of the episode. It’s episode six. Now, there’s some teases here, which I’m sure we’ll get to by the end of the episode, for potentially some sort of season two. We’ll certainly talk about that. Also, requisite spoiler warning right at the top here. If you haven’t watched the episode, go watch it. We’re going to jump around, spoil everything, talk about teases, talk about Easter eggs, all the big events that went on here. But let’s start it off with a big fight. And by a big fight, I mean-
Justin: Between us? The three of us?
Alex: Oh, definitely. Yes, because I’m going to talk about the show as a whole. All six episodes, how you felt about it, how you think it panned out. I think we’ve certainly had some differences of opinion about how successful or not the show is. But now that it’s in the rear view mirror, we can look at it as a whole. Pete, why don’t you start off?
Pete: Oh, great. Thank you so much.
Justin: Great choice of who to start of.
Pete: Yeah. It was clear from the beginning what their statement was: We’re going to try to make a bigger movie. It’s just going to be a movie chopped up. It’s going to be action. And it’s going to be great characters.
Alex: And not to interrupt, but everybody loves a salad, but everybody loves a chopped salad more so… Go on.
Justin: Yes. That’s the analogy I think people want. And in that way, just a really quick follow up on the metaphor here, I think Bucky’s like a tomato chopped up. And I think in that way, Falcon Winter Soldier’s like a cucumber all chopped up. And then you got your blue cheese, that’s your Karli, sort of funky. Maybe go [crosstalk 00:01:59].
Pete: Oh, I don’t know. All right. First off, all salad-
Alex: Zemo’s your [crosstalk 00:02:03]. You’re like, whoa, what are these doing here? But I like them.
Justin: Zemo’s like a craisin.
Pete: Anyways, I think that salad metaphors aside, I like a chop salad-
Alex: Hot on the mic, Pete. Hot on the mic.
Pete: I like a chopped salad or regulation salad. Either way. But I think that this was great. I think this was exactly what I wanted it to be. I wanted to see more of these characters. I wanted to dive into how they’re doing, what their status is, how they’re dealing with all the things happening in the Marvel MCU right now. And I think that’s what we got. And we got a lot of great statements about race, a lot about struggle, about what are we all doing here, trusting people with power, certain mantles that we put people on. I thought this did a really cool job of talking about that. Maybe not the best way or whatever, but it was, I thought, done well through the characters. I very much enjoyed this particular episode, had a ton of oh shit moments, a ton of moments that I rewound to watched again. Yes, I’m old. I said rewind. So I just-
Alex: You’re watching this on VHS, right?
Pete: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course.
Justin: Yeah. Sorry, Alex. I actually watch it digitally, record it on a VCR I found out in the street, and then I send a courier over to Pete’s house with the VHS tape.
Alex: Oh, nice.
Pete: Yeah. I like to have the fuzzy line going all the time. It makes me feel safe.
Justin: I add the fuzzy line in post just so it’s there.
Pete: Get that V hold going. Yeah. I had the best time. I thought it was-
Justin: Of my life. I had the best day of my life.
Pete: No. I thought it was really a lot of great action. A lot of interesting stuff. But yeah, that whole Sharon Carter stuff was crazy.
Alex: That’s an entirely different thing that I think we need to chat about, because I personally have some issues with it. But Justin, what about you? What was your take on the series as a whole?
Justin: As a whole, I love the swings they took in the series. They put a lot of stuff on the table. Great action sequences. The aerial work in this at first and final episode was wild. Just so much-
Alex: Helicopter stuff.
Justin: The helicopter stuff, to the point where I was like, don’t do this now. Go land. The thing where he’s like, get ready to take over flying the helicopter, lady I met over text. And he throws… I was like, go land. Make him land. This is the most dangerous way to do it.
Pete: It was such a great… And that lady stepped up huge. She was fantastic.
Alex: She did. My main thought during that scene was, ah, helicopters, this old enemy back again.
Justin: Is that true? He taught a helicopter a lesson with that shield and his wing cage at a point as well. I loved the themes that ended up on the table in this series. I do think this final episode was confusing, and did not really land all the planes they had in the air from an air traffic control storytelling perspective.
Justin: I feel like all of the plot changes and reshoots where the most apparent in this final episode. When all the threads were coming together it was like, wait, why is everyone acting this certain way? Why is Bucky suddenly needing to talk to Karli on the phone? And they have some sort of tête-à-tête relationship. Sam and Karli talking made a little bit more sense, but he really takes up her side in this in a way that I didn’t quite expect at the end.
Justin: I thought the Isaiah Bradley stuff, wow. We didn’t get a ton of it throughout the season. I thought the way it ended here was great. I thought that was really a sweet ending. And I mean, Sam and Bucky, I thought they ended up… The last little montage of them back on the boat was great.
Pete: Two bros looking at the sunset. It was nice.
Justin: It’s sweet. And they are a good partnership, I think. At the very core of the series, having them together more going forward in what I think will be another season for this show, I think is great. And I just want to see more of them together rather than being a little bit at odds and working separately.
Pete: Yeah.
Alex: Now, it sounds like I’m probably going to be the most negative of the three of us. Pete, before you jump in and yell at me, I just want to remind you I only interrupted you several times to make jokes about salad, so let me speak my piece. Okay?
Pete: Oh, sure, crouton. Whatever you need.
Alex: I know listening-
Pete: I hope you’re wearing your flippy floppies because you’re going to get wet.
Alex: But you actually called me the crouton, the best part of the salad.
Pete: Oh, wow.
Justin: Not universally accepted [crosstalk 00:06:48], Alex.
Alex: What are you talking about? Usually I get a salad, I throw out whenever those green things are there and I just keep those delicious croutons.
Justin: Yeah. You should try toe salad. You’re going to lose your mind over it.
Pete: What about the chicken? Where’s the chicken?
Alex: Never heard of it, but it sounds nice.
Justin: For those of you listening, of course, you know that we’ve been calling Alex crouton for years.
Alex: I thought overall there was probably a good two and a half hour movie somewhere in this six hour long television show, is my take on it. There were parts that I really liked. Like you were saying, I think a lot of the action scenes were very good. Kari Skogland is great at directing action. I’m excited to see what she does going forward from here. Whether she comes back for a second season or just other stuff with Marvel, I think she’s more than proved herself as an able MCU director. So that should be pretty neat to follow. I do think there were a lot of emotional moments, particularly in this last episode that I thought were very nice.
Pete: Oh, yeah. I got choked up.
Alex: But I also think a lot of the messaging, and I think you touched on this, Justin, was clunkily handled. I think it’s worth saying. The things that they were saying were worth saying and worth putting out there. I don’t think they’re without merit, but the way they were said was blunt and not as finessed as potentially they could have been. They weren’t as nuanced as they could have been. I think potentially a better writing staff-
Justin: Whoa.
Alex: … more judicious editing-
Justin: Take it easy, stale piece of bread.
Alex: They could have done a more nuance job with it, specifically when it comes to the race stuff. And we’ve been talking about this all along, that these are all conversations worth having, and I’m glad that they are in the show and I’m glad people are talking about them. I’m glad they mean something to the people that they mean something to, but they could have been better stated and executed across the board, including this last episode where Sam gave a five minute speech to a bunch of senators and they were like, “You got it, dude. Sounds good.” Which everything of the speech… I’m glad Sam gave a big speech there. That’s good. He’s proven-
Justin: Yeah. He’s been dealing with a lot of stuff, and how is he going to handle it? And if he was Cap, what would he say? And we got to see that. We got his monologue. His Captain America monologue. It was great.
Alex: Absolutely. Well, what I’m saying here is I understand the utility of having that speech. I think Anthony Mackie did an admirable job doing it. He’s going to be a great Captain America going forward. But the results of it, the framing of it, that a bunch of senators are standing on the street and they’re like, “Oh, well, we didn’t really think about that,” and then they completely reverse position, is ludicrous. It just is. It needs extra beat there.
Justin: Well, this is a reality.
Alex: It needs an extra beat. It needs somebody… And I don’t know if they didn’t have time or the setups or something like that, but just something of… Even we were publicly shamed and public opinion is turned against us, we need to go this other direction, versus them hanging their heads in shame and going, “All right, you can catch America for five minutes. I get what you’re saying. Sounds good.”
Justin: Especially because we see the senator at the end-
Pete: Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa. No, no, no. First off, back up your fucking truck there. All right. You don’t respect him. He hasn’t just been Captain America from five minutes, alright? He’s been Falcon for a long time. All right. So you can’t just say, oh, whatever new guy. He’s not fucking new, all right?
Alex: Your argument that he’s been Falcon for a long time does not contradict my argument that he’s been Captain America for five minutes, because he has, because it’s literally been… He was in New Orleans. The GRC was attacked.
Pete: It’s longer than five minutes. It might be-
Alex: He was in New Orleans, the GRC was attacked. He opened up a suitcase, somehow put it on and flew to New York in 20 minutes, which was very impressive. So I was wrong. It wasn’t five minutes. It’s been at least 20 minutes to half an hour.
Pete: Yeah, exactly.
Alex: Sorry, Pete.
Pete: Thank you. Thank you very much. But I think your undertone is fucking bullshit, because it’s like, “Ugh, it wasn’t done in a proper way.”
Alex: Dude, that’s my overtone. Okay. Sorry. My fault.
Pete: But my point still stands that, yeah, you can pick apart, but at least we’re having this new messaging. We’re having difficult discussions. Maybe they’re clunky, maybe they’re not right, but putting stuff out there like this is important.
Alex: I said the same thing.
Pete: And especially coming from the [crosstalk 00:10:57].
Alex: We’re agreeing about this.
Justin: I was going to say, Alex said the same thing.
Pete: You said it a little bit more douchy than I’m saying it. So I’m trying to help.
Alex: You’re saying it more angry that I’m saying it.
Justin: You are, certainly. Yeah. I guess Alex is saying it and you’re yelling at it and I don’t know which is better for discourse.
Alex: Welcome to the internet.
Justin: Yeah.
Alex: Exactly.
Justin: But I mean, I agree. I do think because this-
Pete: You agree that it was longer than five minutes, right?
Justin: I said, I agree. I wish we were able to see him flying from all the way from the south up to the big meeting at the GRC. Just a long episode of him flying.
Alex: Yeah. That would have upgraded it from a C plus overall to a B by this at the very least.
Justin: There you go. Yeah. I agree with you, Alex. I think having the senators, at least seeing the cameras bearing down on them, just want the extra shot of that, where you’re like, oh, that’s why they made their change. And I think in general, a lot of context and underlying rationale would have helped this series as a whole, especially this last episode. We don’t know what changes were made in the script after they shot because of coronavirus and all that. But the stuff with Karli and the Flag-Smashers especially.
Justin: And it makes sense. If their whole reason for being and reason for committing their crimes changed in the reshoots, of course it’s going to be hard to understand. And it was in this episode. It just was incomprehensible. It’s made the GRC those super bad guys, and all of our heroes were in the middle. The fact that Walker comes back, no questions asked, and is just fighting with Bucky.
Alex: Oh, that was awful.
Justin: And then he just is like… He gets a little salute and a how to do, and then he’s back out in the world. It was like, wait, what? He was the bad guy.
Alex: That was wild. The John Walker stuff, I understand why he ends up in this position. As a comic book fan, I’m happy to see him in the US Agents suit, him working for Val, Julia Louis Dreyfus, very fun in that whole scene. I even appreciated the little tease there that things are about to get weird. Obviously, we’re heading towards some sort of Thunderbolts like Suicide Squad situation where they’re going to be going into insane mysteries.
Justin: Or a Marvel, Seinfeld reunion, I think is really what she’s talking about.
Alex: Yeah. Who would Jerry Seinfeld be in the Marvel cinematic universe? And why would it be-
Justin: Is it M.O.D.O.K?
Alex: M.O.D.O.K, yes.
Justin: That makes a lot of sense.
Alex: Yeah.
Justin: Shrinkage.
Alex: Too large. Largeage.
Justin: Large head.
Alex: Large head. I need to get back to the John Walker of it all, though. I agree with you that it felt like they were making plot decisions for a lot of these things rather than character decisions that followed up on the things that we’ve seen before. I guess that’s getting to a lot of my issues with these things.
Alex: This is my big issue with Sharon Carter, where particularly at the end of the episode, it’s… Putting Sharon Carter in the position… And I know we’re jumping all over the place here, but I do think it’s tied into this discussion of how they’re thinking about plot in the series first, rather than necessarily what makes sense for the characters. Revealing her as the power broker, we suspected that pretty much from her first appearance, right? We threw that out on the podcast. So that’s not a huge surprise. But at the end, her saying, “I’m going to sell out the US government,” did sell all their secrets. Making her a legit villain in the Marvel universe betrays everything that we’ve known about her character so far, including what we’ve seen with her in the series.
Alex: Mind you, I think a good thing for Emily VanCamp as an actress, it’s much more in her wheelhouse. So next time we see her ruling over Madripoor as a double agent, great. But it doesn’t make sense. It’s moving her from one place to another place on the chess board, and it just doesn’t work in terms of the lead-up. I don’t see how that-
Justin: And we got no understanding why she did it. She just is like, “I’m bad now,” without any… What’s in it for her? Why… Right? Throughout the whole series there’s no reason.
Pete: It was talked about that she was just shunned and brushed aside. She was struggling to figure out her deal, and she turned to the dark side. And then when she got the keys back, she was like, “You don’t know who I am. I’m going to fucking tear you down.” So I thought that that was an interesting arc and crazy for that character, but interesting.
Alex: Do you think at all though, and I’ve certainly seen this a lot online people talking about this, I certainly felt this way, that calling her Agent Carter and then her turning out to be bad is also just shitty to all the Agent Carter fans? People really love Peggy Carter-
Pete: Oh, yeah. She’s amazing.
Alex: … and using that name in that way, I’m surprised that you like this, Pete, because I think you’d be like, get her name out of your mouth, basically.
Pete: Yeah, I can understand what you’re saying, but I just think that this is such an interesting twist that I didn’t see coming that I’m like, oh. But yeah, Peggy Carter, that’s a whole separate thing. That whole moment where it’s nice to have the Carter name. I was like, oh, this is painful. But, also very interesting and something I didn’t see happening. As someone who’s read a lot of comic books and seen a lot of storylines. This is new of it all, I guess, surprised me in a way that kept me from being angry.
Justin: Also interesting that that Senator, who was the GRC Senator, he’s the one who pardons Sharon Carter. I was like, this guy, he was just taught a lesson. And then he’s like, “And Sharon, you’re free.” I was like, wait, why the same guy?
Alex: Did you have this guy for a day? What’s going on?
Justin: There are other senators, right?
Alex: Yeah.
Justin: I love that he had a line in the scene-
Alex: Bring back the helicopter, Senator. She’s the real winner.
Justin: Yeah. Even her, have her do it. She was a hero, at least at one point in the episode.
Alex: Yeah. And she’s the Senator of helicopters, which is a very powerful voting block.
Justin: Yeah. I hope to someday move to helicopter. They have a lot of great perks in that state. That Senator though has the line, “You have no idea how complicated the situation is,” when Sam’s talking. And I was like, that speaks for this entire episode. That could be the plot. That could be the writer talking about what’s going on in this show.
Alex: You’re going to jump on me about this as well, Pete, but I think this is one of the things about the MCU that I think people will complain about a lot. I don’t think it’s always true, but it’s superhero movies so they’re not necessarily going to really, really dig below the surface and rip things up and destroy things in a certain way. I do think we’ve gotten that occasionally from some of the TV shows. I’d call Luke Cage season one, I think, is probably more successful exploration of race. Jessica Jones, season one, more successful exploration of rape culture. And those are both things that really drove into it.
Alex: I don’t know that you can do that on the Marvel studio side of things. They can touch on it. They got as deep as they could for what they can do, but it felt like… I don’t know. Again, I know I threw the writing staff under the bus and that’s not fair.
Justin: Yeah, it’s not.
Alex: I don’t know if it was notes from the studio. I don’t know if it was them not being able to go all the way or whatever it was. Regardless, it all came off very surfacey a lot of the time. The emotional moments with Isaiah worked because Carl Lumbly is awesome. He’s great. He is so good as Isaiah, and he makes you feel things as an actor. But there also was a lot of wonky back and forth in terms of his arc to the point where, in this episode Sam’s like, “Man, you’ve got no sense of humor,” right after he laughed about something, where I was like, what is going on with these lines? What is happening here? But I don’t know.
Pete: I think there’s something going on in your life that’s making you overly critical of something that is supposed to bring joy and fun into your life.
Justin: Maybe it’s your life as a critic is making you more critical, Alex.
Alex: I don’t know.
Pete: I’m a little worried about you. Parse that apart and write an essay about it.
Justin: Well, maybe you should go and hug your kids or something, feel a little bit better.
Alex: No, I don’t have any time. We have to tape podcasts.
Pete: Yeah. Whose fault is that?
Justin: Critical podcast. Pete, I think you need to be more critical. Why don’t you go criticize your kids?
Alex: Criticize my kids, actually.
Justin: Oh, that’s fun.
Pete: Don’t invite me to do that.
Justin: And Pete, I would love [crosstalk 00:19:20].
Alex: Yeah. I would love to do that. Don’t do that to me.
Justin: “Hey, it’s Pete. Can I talk to Crouton’s kids?” The little croutons out there.
Pete: Put the baco bits on the phone. I got to talk to them. But enough of this negative Nancy bullshit. Let’s talk about some of the moving, amazing action sequences. There are so many oh shit moments. The first time we got to see Captain America in the new Captain America suit, unbelievable. I literally wrote, oh shit, three times.
Justin: Three times?
Pete: It was so powerful, so cool to see. Oh man, you want to talk about… And throwing the shield out first? Ah, just ah. Just so well done.
Justin: But Pete, in Pennsylvania, you’re only allowed to write oh shit twice in a row.
Pete: Yeah. [crosstalk 00:20:11].
Alex: I love that, too. I thought that moment was perfect. They know that needs to be iconic, and they completely nailed it. What did you think about the moment later on when he’s fighting and one of the guys says, “Yeah, go black Falcon.” Funny call back to earlier in the series.
Pete: Right, right, right.
Alex: And the other guy turns directly to camera and says, “No, that’s Captain America.”
Pete: “No, it’s Captain America.” Yeah. I felt that. I was like, he’s right.
Alex: Oh, you like that?
Pete: And he’s talking to me. Yeah, I like that.
Justin: Careful, Alex.
Pete: Sometimes you got to turn the cheese up a little bit, man. Come on, dude. Don’t take yourself so seriously. Sometimes you got to have the guy looking directly at you and says, “No, that’s Captain America.” Do you see what we’re doing? That’s Captain America, Pete LePage.
Justin: I will say, [crosstalk 00:20:48].
Pete: Do you feel this?
Justin: Very much on the nose. The amount of time they let that guy pause, pause, and then say his line. I was like, at least do this quickly. You know how cheesy it is. But I got to say, I agree that arrival at the top of the episode was cool. I love that they kept that Captain America has those wings now. I think we talked about that last episode whether or not they would do that. So I was psyched they did it.
Justin: And the fact that they jumped right into jokes on the arrival. I think that helped them earn the cheesy side when the first arrival they were like, “Captain America, I thought he was on the moon.” And then Sam’s right into Batroc with some baguette French mockery. That kep it in the grounded area so later they could be like, give us the-
Pete: Yeah, literally they could be like au revoir.
Alex: Just to talk about the costume for a second. This is straight out of the comics. This is exactly the redesign from all new Captain America. And I love that they kept it almost exactly and put it on screen because it’s a great looking costume. It looks good on Anthony Mackie. Like you were saying, having the mix of the wings and the shield and the way that he uses it is super fun. That scene right after the helicopter crash where he gets on the bridge and he blocks the guy. And then he flies off.
Pete: Yeah, he wraps his wings and the shield is the top part to protect it all.
Alex: Right. Great stuff.
Pete: It was so awesome. It was so cool.
Alex: It was very awesome. Now I want to go back to-
Pete: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Before you start shitting, please let’s just stay in this moment a little bit longer. So then when he’s flying for the helicopter move of the pilot, he first does a spin move, throws the shield, that cracks open the door, and then he flies through, perfectly grabs the pilot out. That was bananas fun. Bananas.
Alex: So let’s talk about Bucky.
Justin: Let’s get to some more bananas fun.
Pete: But no, come on, seriously. The shield work was so… To see him handle the shield like that. How about the part where, after all the shit goes down, the truck, and he throws the shield, takes out all the bad guys at once? They were really hyping up the superhero moments. When he is holding Karli and flies down, that is a superhero shot.
Alex: Another very subtle moment that seemed to suggest to me, and I don’t know if you guys got this, that he’s like an angel bringing her down.
Pete: Oh my God.
Alex: Did you see that imagery as well? I don’t know if anybody caught that.
Justin: America’s angel.
Pete: America’s angel. That’s right. That’s America’s ass right there.
Alex: I was thinking Victoria’s Secret angel, but whatever [crosstalk 00:23:28].
Justin: Oh, interesting. Strong choice. Both are equally valid. I thought that the shield work was great.
Pete: Thank you.
Justin: If nothing else, on the positive side, you can walk away… When they flash the title at the end of the episode, Captain America and The Winter Soldier, I think that is 100%, he earned all of it. The action… Just as good, if not more interesting and unique, than the original Captain America in the movie. So that at least was well done. They knew to get that 100% right.
Alex: Yeah. And I think they did. I think this series was about Sam’s journey, which is great. And I think they did a good job overall with that. I think Anthony Mackie sold the architecture, he sold the emotions of it. Like I was saying earlier, even though I wasn’t 100% sold on his speech to the senators, I think Anthony Mackie did what he needed to do from an acting perspective there. And he’s Captain America going forward in the MCU. That is the status quo.
Pete: Hell yeah. Damn right.
Alex: The thing that fell to the side, though, was Bucky and Bucky’s arc, which got second… He has second billing, so I guess it kind of makes sense.
Pete: Yeah, we complained about it.
Alex: Bucky, in particular, got very lost among everything else that was going on with Karli, with Zemo, with even the shields got arguably a better arc, I think, than Bucky did. I liked him apologizing to the guy at the end, but-
Pete: Dude, I fucking straight up started crying when he starts knocking on the old dude’s door. I was already too emotional.
Alex: I’m glad you liked that.
Pete: The fact that he manned up, or whatever, I don’t want to be sexist, he realized… He listened to… Sam was like, “You need to do the work. You need to fucking tell that guy what happened to his son.” And he does it. And I was like, yo Buck, you could have gotten a little easier on yourself and painted a better picture. He was just straight facts like, “Yo, I killed him. I had to. Good luck with your life. I’m out.” I was like, damn, Bucky. That was cold. But I was crying as soon as he started knocking on the door and he finally told them the truth. They started that and then walked away from it, and I’m so happy that we got it at the end to give us that closure.,
Alex: I guess my slight disappointment… And I’m glad you felt all of that. I’m glad you liked that. I think they hit it so much harder in the first episode in terms of Bucky’s trauma and how he was dealing with it and trying to deal with it, but in between everything else that’s going on I do think a lot of that got lost. They came back to it here in the last episode, but I needed more of it strung along. Bucky kept walking away from everything and doing his own thing, and often disappearing for whole chunks of time. While they were focusing on Sam, it felt like, maybe this is my incorrect expectation, but going into the show that they would be getting equal billing. They did not.
Pete: Yeah.
Justin: It makes sense-
Pete: I agree. Its your weird expectation. That’s not the way it was set out.
Alex: Okay.
Justin: And we talked before the show started about how it was them vying for the shield or competing for it even in some ways. And that was not at all on the table from the jump. I think that did inherently put Bucky in the second position. But I agree with you, Alex. I would have liked to see more of what this journey is. Or maybe Bucky even prioritizing his list above the actual super heroics that they had to do to save the world from the Flag-Smashers. And him learning the lesson… This book is over. There’s stuff you have to deal with in your own head, but that’s crimes that were committed and he needs to pick up the pieces, but he can live in his moment and really achieve stuff with Sam now. I feel like that would have at least been a lesson for him to learn. In this series he didn’t really learn much, he just made the choice to amend rather than avenge, to use their language.
Pete: I disagree. I think he learned to open up a little bit more to let people in. But also, this show isn’t about Bucky. This is about Captain America picking up the shield and becoming Captain America.
Alex: He is literally half of the title. [crosstalk 00:27:41]
Pete: Well, guess what? It’s the second half. All right. This isn’t about Bucky right now. Okay. This is about a bigger thing. This is about somebody picking up the mantle of Captain America and it happened to be a black person. And how great is that? Okay. So the Bucky stuff can take a back seat for a minute while we deal with this.
Justin: Of course. No one’s saying… I think that’s fine if the way they told the story, but it made for Bucky not having a full story for this. I think there’s a way to tell two stories at the same time and give focus on Sam’s journey. But the way the series started was like, here are these two people. The first episode was split in half basically between the two of them. And so my expectation was like, oh, we’re going to see these two stories. And they were like, actually, no, you’re going to see this story-
Pete: You’re going to see a lot of Zemo dancing. You’re going to see a real asshole guy who shouldn’t have the shield have the shield for a little bit. And then we’re going to see him hang out for a little while and try his helmet on. And he has hard time with helmets. It’s very clear.
Alex: Yes. Yeah. I think we’re actually in agreement here and you’re just giving us a hard time, Pete.
Justin: There it is.
Alex: Couple of other things. We did touch on Isaiah’s arc. What’d you think about the scene in the museum where he gets [crosstalk 00:28:58] statue?
Justin: I thought that was great. What a nice way. I didn’t see it coming. They established the museum right at the very beginning. And we had that scene with Don Cheadle walking with Sam through there. To come back to that with Isaiah and having his own exhibit there, I thought was a really smart great way, emotional way to bring that story to a close.
Pete: Yeah, I agree.
Alex: I wish we had seen War Machine in there again and he just had never left. He was just there for weeks.
Pete: What are you doing in there?
Justin: He steps out behind the-
Pete: This museum is confusing. [crosstalk 00:29:29].
Alex: [crosstalk 00:29:29] all up in time. Look what I did.
Pete: This is like a maze. “I’m War Machine not Navigation Machine. Someone help me.”
Alex: Before we start to wrap up here, any other notes either on the episode or the series?
Justin: Just jumping back on Sharon Carter real quick. The fact that she kills Karli also was fucked up. You didn’t talk about that. Especially when you learn that she’s the power broker and she has a reason to kill. That’s premeditated murder from a, quote unquote, hero.
Alex: Well, this gets into something that we talked about in the last couple of episodes, particularly with John Walker, is the show’s very weird morality when it comes to killing people. And honestly, this is an issue that I’ve had with a lot of MCU movies, particularly the Captain America movies, where he’s just straight up killing people with guns.
Alex: I get it. That’s part of war. I understand it. But there really is a very fuzzy line here between John Walker killing a on the run criminal, and then Falcon and Bucky usually doing the same thing, and also Sharon Carter doing the same thing. And it’s not in a murky, oh isn’t this interesting, morality way. But it’s just hard to suss out what we’re supposed to think is right, and what we’re supposed to think is wrong, because they haven’t made that delineation there.
Justin: Especially for a show that is saying, “Hey, America, look at your actions when it comes to race and this certain set of things, some politics.” And then it’s like, “But don’t look at your actions where it’s justified killing versus unjustified killing.” Where it’s like, oh no, we just do that however it suits the story, I guess. It was a blind spot, I feel like, in the show, to your point.
Alex: Well, particularly also because John Walker kills somebody and goes crazy. He tries to kill Falcon and Bucky. And then he saves one truck, like we were talking about earlier. And everybody’s like, “You’re okay.” And then he claps him on the back at one point.
Justin: He only almost saves the truck.
Pete: Right.
Alex: Yeah.
Pete: Yeah. Well, he tried to save the truck.
Alex: Right. I don’t know. Pete, any final thoughts before we start to wrap up here?
Pete: Yeah. I feel like it was fun to see Zemo reading. That was a nice shot. I think it was super important. But I do like the fact that they confirmed in the show that Zemo was behind the truck blowing up at the end there.
Alex: Well, technically that was his butler who did it. The Butler did it.
Justin: The butler did it.
Pete: Well, yeah, but the butler was working on orders from the Zemes.
Justin: Was he?
Pete: Yeah.
Justin: I don’t know.
Pete: Yeah. And then just the Isaiah moment at the end where he was just like, “Black Captain America.” And he was like, “Damn right.” I was like, oh, worth it. The whole season’s worth it.
Alex: That was good. And also on that note. I liked Elijah in this scene as well. They’re clearly setting him up for Patriot and young Avengers down the road. He seems charming. He seems fun. I’m excited to see more of him.
Pete: Yeah. The line like, “Someone’s got to teach you some manners.” I mean, that’s just saying, hey, we’re going to be exploring this later.
Alex: Yeah. All right. Before we start to wrap up, we should do a vision board though. And for the vision board, maybe there’s going to be… We actually don’t know what’s going to happen at this point that we’re taping with Bucky, with Captain America, with any of these characters going forward. Certainly, we’ve had plenty of speculation that Val is going to be leading the Thunderbolts. We’re probably going to see more of her in Black Widow coming out in a couple of months now. So we’ll probably have a better idea of what’s happening there. But what is on your vision board going forward, either for the series? Do you want to see a second season? Or Bucky and Captain America separately? What do you want to see next for them? Justin?
Justin: Yeah. My prediction, I feel like everyone’s like, “Thunderbolts movie.” And I think, that to me seems less likely. I feel like it’s harder to jump these characters. Who’s going to lead that movie? Zemo, from just a billing standpoint? John Walker? I don’t know. To me, it’s Captain America and The Winter Soldier season two is the Thunderbolt season.
Alex: Interesting.
Justin: We see that come together. I mean, it makes a lot of sense just from a normal TD standpoint. If this weren’t an MCU show, we’d be like, oh, they’re setting up John Walker to be a future problem for Bucky and Sam to deal with. It’s just the fact that we’re an MCU brain. We’re like, okay, now they’re going to jump over here and they’re going to be over here. But really it makes so much sense to be like, Sam and Bucky have to come back together to deal with John Walker and the Thunderbolts who are a team of heroes, but they are suspicious of them out of the gate. So that’s my prediction.
Alex: Pete, you have anything on your vision board?
Pete: Yeah. I’m excited for hopefully a season two where we’re going to get a Sharon Carter, Val showdown. And the only person who can stop him is a Senator who knows how to fly a helicopter. Yeah! Come on.
Justin: Yeah. Chopper Senator.
Pete: Yeah. I agree a little bit what JT says, and I want more of Cap and Bucky hanging out and being on the same page. And it would be nice to see how they team up and how they work together.
Justin: Bucky and Sam’s sister? What do you think?
Pete: Oh yeah, definitely.
Alex: They definitely spend a lot of time at the shrimp boil at the end.
Justin: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Pete: [crosstalk 00:35:04] shrimp boil.
Alex: We’ll see what happens. I really like that idea of taking this. You’re absolutely right that in no way did my brain go towards, oh, this is the second season of the series.
Justin: It’s true, but our brain is poisoned, our MCU brain.
Alex: But on the flip side, I almost… From an optic standpoint, I want to see them give Sam as Captain America the same level of treatment they gave Steve as Captain America. So I want to see a solo Sam Captain America movie.
Pete: I want to see three of them.
Alex: Even though these shows are huge, they’re getting an insane amount of viewers every single episode, there’s still the niche that a movie lives in. And it feels bigger than these Disney Plus TV shows. I would like to see that happen. I also want to see… I know I mentioned this earlier, but I love that line from Val where she says, “Things are about to get weird.” I want to see somebody actually take it super weird. Have the Thunderbolts going up against the craziest shit possible, rather than doing it in this series that feels a little more grounded, feels a little more straightforward in terms of a second season. But I’ll also watch whatever. Literally whatever.
Justin: Great answer. And a couple of quick shout outs in this episode that I didn’t say before. Love that whoever designed the GRC room was able to put in some very intense emergency lighting and screen work there. And a lot of Batroc. We’re going to see more of him. He was sure left a lot in this episode.
Alex: He got shot and died, right? Sharon killed Batroc?
Justin: Did he die?
Alex: Probably not.
Justin: Did he?
Alex: I don’t know. We’ll see what happens. All right, folks. That is it for our Captain America and The Winter Soldier portion of the podcast. Now we are going to be back on June 11th talking about Loki when that series comes back.
Justin: Yes.
Alex: But in the break we’re not going to stop doing episodes. We’re going to start doing-
Pete: Wait, we’re not?
Alex: We’re not, Pete. Surprise.
Pete: No. Oh.
Alex: We’re going to start doing a Phase One rewatch of the MCU movies, one a week. It times out perfectly with Phase One.
Justin: What are the odds of that? It’s meant to be.
Pete: Wait. Do we get to go back in time and be the younger versions of ourselves reviewing these things? Or are we doing it now [crosstalk 00:37:11]?
Alex: A bunch of young guns reviewing them. No, we’re going to, we’re going to come at them from the perspective of watching them now, what they mean now that we have 23, 25 Marvel movies under our belt.
Pete: Wow. What a world.
Alex: Something like that. So we’re going to be starting off with Ironman next week, and then going forward with everybody’s favorite, The Incredible Hulk. We’ll do all of the Phase One movies, leading into Loki.
Pete: And we should mention that you picked these because if we were in charge it’ll be basically Blade.
Alex: Yes. I picked the first six Marvel movies in order.
Pete: Blade, motherfucker. Where’s Blade?
Alex: It’s very carefully curated. Blade is not an MCU movie.
Pete: Yes, it is. It counts.
Alex: Why are you erasing Mahershala Ali, Pete?
Justin: Yeah, Pete. Don’t you try to fucking play that shit.
Alex: That’s really interesting.
Justin: Choose your favorite Blade, Pete. Choose your favorite Blade.
Pete: There’s only one so far, motherfuckers.
Alex: I should mention as well that we’re going to have some special guests as we go through every episode of the show. So that should be fun to get some different perspectives there. [crosstalk 00:38:05] If you want to watch along start with an Ironman next week, going through the Avengers, leading into Loki. What did you want to say, Justin?
Justin: We’re going to do a special live Blade podcast. You just have to go to Pete’s apartment in Philadelphia, because he’s always screaming about it.
Alex: Yeah, and bring a bag of croutons. He loves that.
Pete: Oh, they’re the worst.
Alex: If you’d like to support our podcast, patreon.com/comicbookclub. Also, we do a live show every Tuesday at 7:00 PM to Crowdcast and to YouTube. Come hang out. We would love to chat with you about everything MCU. ITunes, Android, Spotify, Stitcher, or the app of your choice to subscribe, listen, and follow @MarvelVisionPod on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Comicbookclublive.com for this podcast and many more. Until next time, stay marvelous.
Justin: We out, crouton. Let’s see it.
