The Falcon and the Winter Soldier S01E01-03 Review: The Sam and Bucky Show

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Season 1, Episodes 1-3

So the second entry to the Disney+ "Phase Four" of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is this show, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, originally intended to be the show that opens up Phase Four until the Coronavirus Pandemic forced them to shuffle shows around. With this show having more action scenes and WandaVision being more CGI-heavy and action-free, it's understandable. 

I was honestly wondering whether I was going to do this as a full seasonal review, or do it every two episodes or every three episodes... and there's only six of them, and I binge-watched the first three or four in a single sitting, so, again, like what I'll be doing for most superhero shows in this blog onwards, I'll try my best to talk about these shows in a more concise seasonal review.

Episode 1: New World Order

So the first episode, "New World Order"... it feels more like a recap and a showcase of the status quo. Which, considering it was supposed to open up Phase Four as the first Disney+ show after the theaters are closed... sort of makes sense. And since WandaVision took place in its own little bubble mostly, it kind of works? On the other hand, a good chunk of New World Order is kind of just pretty slow 'where are they now' showcases for Sam "Falcon" Wilson and James "Winter Soldier" Buchanan Barnes. 

And, don't get me wrong, the episode certainly opens up very strong. One of the prettiest action scenes I've seen on superhero TV! A brand-new wing-suit for Falcon that actually has wings that look like wings, and a white-and-red colour scheme! Redwing actually doing stuff! Batroc the Leaper is back, oh what, they didn't forget him? It's a bit role, but I like that this is giving us an opportunity to bring back some forgotten minor villains from the MCU. And the action scene itself is very, very cool, easily the action highlight of the series so far. 

But there's an interesting question. Wasn't Falcon supposed to be Captain America? Old Man Steve gave him the shield and everything. But no, we get to see that Sam donated Captain America's iconic shield to the Smithsonian museum. We get a brief cameo from Sam's buddy War Machine in a surprising cameo, and we through both the conversation with Rhodes and Sam's soldier fanboy Joaquin Torres, we get bits of the status quo after the Blip. And things haven't been quite right. In no small part due to the existence of an extremist group called the Flag-Smashers, who are set up to be the villains. They apparently want to bring the world back into the state it was during the Snap. There's a brief scene where Torres encounters them in Switzerland around two-thirds of the way through the episode, but it's honestly just setup. 

But for the most part, the show takes its time with building up Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes as real people -- I've gone on record on saying that these characters really feel like they have a story to them, but they are given so little chance to do anything in the movies. Bucky fares a bit better than Sam, but he also had to spend at least half of his on-screen time mind-controlled or in distress. And, sure, both Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan are really great fits for the characters and I really enjoyed anytime they come up on screen in the movies, but I also really felt like they could've done so much more. '

And more we got out of them for sure. Bucky is going to therapy with a fun therapist, Dr. Raynor. After jumping from one battle to the next, after jumping from being mind-controlled to being on the run to a superhero, he's free... but really, with nothing to do. It's the same problem that we've seen Steve Rogers face, but Steve at least almost always had the Avengers to fall back on, a cause or a fight or a mission. Poor Bucky doesn't have any of that anymore, and, as this episode reveals, he still remembers all the horrible murders he did as a Hydra goon. This episode shows a particularly chilling murder he did during his Winter Soldier persona. 

The episode also shows Bucky trying to make amends, slowly taking down the people he helped put in power, and being friends with the people around him. In perhaps the best scene in the series so far, Bucky's friend, the old Mr. Nakajima, goads Bucky into a date with the pretty sushi waitress. And things seem to be getting into something resembling normalcy for Bucky! Until the lady brings up how old Nakajima keeps mourning his son. And Nakajima's son? The non-combatant Bucky straight-up murdered under Hydra mind-control in the flashback. It's really, really hammering in just how broken poor Bucky must be feeling. And the sad part is, out of all the other MCU superheroes that are morally gray or are making amends Bucky's probably the one that's the most blameless, what with the whole mind-control thing. 

A bit less melodramatic and PTSD-heavy is Sam's side of the story. After the action scene and donating the shield, we get Sam's family situation, where he argues with his sister Sarah on whether they should sell their parents' boat-house in Louisiana. It's a pretty interesting plotline, and one that the actors make work. Sarah and Sam's dynamic are believable, and we get the fact that they've been suffering after the Blip. In another rather heavy moment, their attempt to get a loan from the bank went from the teller fanboying over meeting an Avenger straight into having no sympathy. It's not the main focus of the show like it was for Black Lightning or Luke Cage, but there's definitely a couple of moments where Sam and Sarah basically bring up the class/race discrimination going on, and I appreciate that. Sure, it's not quite as engaging as the Bucky PTSD/redemption storyline, but I do like that we're building up Sam Wilson a lot more as a character. 

I do like this opening episode. It's not just what huge villain that The Falcon and The Winter Soldier will have to take down next. In a way, it's more "Sam and Bucky" (which is also less of a mouthful to say), where we try to see what these two superheroes do after their partner, Captain America, has gone. The episode ends almost suddenly with the revelation that the U.S. government basically just handed off the shield straight into a brand-new Captain America, which is the huge bombshell that they're probably going to desecrate poor Steve's memory.

And... it's an interesting first episode for sure. If not for the excellent Falcon-vs-Batroc action scene and Torres's brief scuffle with the Flagsmashers, I'd call this a very slow opening. But honestly? It does function as a very effective recap and a buildup of what these two characters fight for. 

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Episode 2: The Star-Spangled Man

And then we jump straight into action. The Falcon-vs-Batroc scene of them zipping in and out of airplanes and helicopters in the first episode still tops this one... but barely. This scene's huge battle sequence has Falcon, Bucky, U.S. Agent New Cap and Battlestar fight against a group of super-powered Flag-Smashers on top of two moving trucks. It's nowhere as long as I thought it was when I first watched this episode, but it sure is a very, very exciting action scene for sure! As far as how it relates to the rest of the story... it's basically the opening salvo. We learn a bit more about the Flag-Smashers, how they are stealing resources from the post-Snap-formed Global Repatriation Council, and, well, how they're not just dudes with fancy masks but also Super-Soldiers. And, most importantly, it brings Sam and Bucky face-to-face with the pretender Captain America, John Walker. And his sidekick, who unabashedly calls himself Battlestar! I'm not sure why Bucky walked out of the jeep at that name; 'Battlestar' sounds so much cooler than 'Bucky'. 

The best part of the episode other than the action scene is easily the dynamic between Sam and Bucky. The show takes a full episode before putting these two in the same scene, and they're basically joined at the hip and they very easily make this show. Both the characters and the actors have a great 'angry brothers bickering' dynamic between them, and it's pretty fun! From them trying to one-up each other with Bucky's Leeroy Jenkins mentality during the raid to Falcon showing him up with Redwing (RIP Redwing, smashed by some jackass Flag-Smasher), it's a riot seeing them interact. The angry discussion about 'the Big Three', the revelation that Bucky read the Hobbit back in 1937, the angry discussion about wizards-vs-sorcerers (any D&D geek will agree with you) and that's just their first scene together. 

Jumping around the episode a bit, the episode ends with the two of them in a therapy session thanks to dr. Raynor, who quite literally forces them to face each other and admit their frustrations. There's an almost typical 'hey, look, you guys are like a married couple' joke that the show nimbly sidesteps by actually having them show their vulnerability somewhat -- Sam just wants people to admit that sometimes he can make the right decision, something that the audience knows is likely inspired by his and his sister's own arguments about selling their parent's house. While Bucky? Bucky telling Sam that if Cap was wrong about Sam, then maybe Cap was wrong about him being redeemable. Some really great stuff, and some really great acting from the two of them. Such great emotional moments in the show that I honestly don't even want to describe. Just like WandaVision, the dynamic between the two leads are truly what carries the show, and using the history of the MCU movies and the histories of these characters as a jumping point, we get a lot of strong character moments to make the smashy-smashy bits matter.

The other huge moment is the revelation that Bucky knew all along that Isaiah Bradley (CARL LUMBLY!) exists. Who's Isaiah Bradley? He's a black man who was another recipient of the Super Soldier serum, and one who Bucky fought as the Winter Soldier during the Korean War. Poor Isaiah, however, instead of being venerated as a hero, was put in prison for 30 years and experimented upon, and very understandably gets absolutely pissed off at the presence of Bucky in his house. 

As usual, Lumbly delivers in such an emotional scene, which, of course, strikes a huge chord with Sam. As if almost to make Sam's point for him, when Sam and Bucky gets into a verbal argument, a bunch of policemen show up to very rudely ask Sam -- the black man in the conversation -- what the problem is about. It's not until they recognize him as an Avenger that they back down and actually realize that it's Bucky that has an arrest warrant out for missing his government-mandated therapy sessions. Again, it's not subtle, but it's not beating the point over my head with a brick either. We don't exactly get any of the characters bemoaning that the replacement Captain America the government chose was a white guy, but the comparison is certainly there. 

(Also, to those slowly seeing these younger children built up, Isaiah's grandson Eli Bradley is most likely going to be built up as Patriot. He can hang out with Cassie Lang/Stature, Kate Bishop/Hawkeye, Wiccan and Speed!)

The antagonists... they're kind of there. The Flag-Smashers are mostly here as a setpiece, a group of super-soldiers with ambiguous motives at this point. We get to see the face of their leader, Karli Morgenthau, and we get snippets of what they seem to be planning, but it's not until the next episode that we really see what they're all about. The audience gets to see them be hailed as saviours by a bunch of random civilians who hail them as 'Robin Hood', and they're apparently bringing resources to people who need them. Their final scene in this episode ends with one of them sacrificing himself to buy Karli and the other Flag-Smashers time to escape, and it's treated as a heroic sacrifice.

More interestingly are the new Captain America, John Walker. Who I'll be alternately calling Walker or U.S. Agent, his comic-book superhero name. The episode actually opens up with Walker's propaganda press spiel, and... and at least he seems to be able to hold his own with that shield? The Flag-Smashers beat all the 'good guys' off of their trucks, and Walker seems to at least want to play nice with Sam and Bucky, but Sam quickly sees through the facade and the disarming sneer-smile to know that there's a layer of bullshit under that. Walker's sidekick Lemar "Battlestar" Hoskins seem to be on the up-and-up, though he's also kind of pretty happy to fully believe in the new Captain America. 

I really like John Walker's portrayal, by the way. His actor, Wyatt Russell (son of Kurt Russell!), channels an outwardly charismatic and somewhat rugged persona that I believe would, in-universe, be treated as the second coming of Steve Rogers by the public. But there's always an undercurrent of sneering edge under it... that doesn't quite come up yet, but I do like how the performance just teeters on him being likable but there's just something off. I like that balance. Sam and Bucky are united in their distaste for him, though Sam was willing to give Walker a chance right up until Walker basically says that having Cap's old wingmen around would 'legitimize' him. 

Ultimately, it's more or less set-up and getting the main characters in contact with each other. Oh, and we're bringing in our final piece of the puzzle... one Helmut Zemo!

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Episode 3: Power Broker

There's a lot for the comic book geek in me to like in this episode. They finally made Baron Zemo an actual Baron! He gets the silly-but-iconic sock mask from the comics! Someone remembers Sharon Carter exists in the MCU! MARDRIPOOR SHOWS UP! MARDRIPOOR! I am excited, because some of my fondest memories of reading old X-Men and Wolverine comics are stories set in Mardripoor. I certainly wouldn't expect the Sam-and-Bucky show to be the one to include one of the bigger X-Men settings as opposed to the Scarlet Witch show. But okay. 

Oh, and Daniel Bruhl is absolutely hilarious as the cast's token evil teammate. His dialogue is great while also fitting into what's established from Captain America: Civil War. There's a point where he's briefly shown dancing in a club -- I don't know anything about any memes that are hot these days, but if this isn't a meme yet, it should be. (EDIT: Ah, yes, Disney has released the Zemo Cut. Glorious.)

It's just that the episode itself is kind of... it's still entertaining, but it also feels like it could be better. Now, don't get me wrong -- Sam and Bucky are still entertaining, and tossing in Zemo just ups the banter by a whole lot. But there are a lot of parts in the episode where it really feels like we're just stalling for time. 

I'm also not entirely convinced why we need Baron Zemo specifically. Sure, he hates the super serum and I guess he would know who to go to, but I certainly wasn't convinced of Bucky's plan to break him out of the jail. There's a sequence where Bucky describes a plan as we see Zemo escaping from jail and eventually showing up in the garage that Sam and Bucky are discussing it in and... it's not bad, it's just kind of a bit too long? I don't know.

Zemo doesn't really give us too much to work with in Civil War beyond his hatred of superhumans and his desire to break the Avengers apart from the inside, so the storywriters certainly had an easier time basically recrafting his character from the ground up as long as it didn't contradict anything in Civil War. Which means he's a Baron now! And I guess Zemo's characterization is now basically someone who goes back and forth on how much he wants to help Sam and Bucky's cause. He just wants to destroy all super soldiers, and he just seems to delight in pushing Bucky's buttons. 

We get to Mardripoor, which is fancy and certainly a great set-piece (as disappointingly bereft of Asian characters in the scenes, admittedly), but ultimately it's just jumping from one newly-introduced lead to the next. Oh, Sam has to pretend to be 'Smiling Tiger' and drink a snakeblood cocktail. Bucky has to pretend to be a robotic Winter Soldier. There's a crime lord who gets killed mid-conversation as they're looking for a lead. Oh, and that scene where their cover gets blown because, uh, Sam forgot to set his phone call on airplane mode? There's an attempt at comedy there, but it's probably one that fell the most flat for me. There's also cryptic notes about "Power Broker", the title of the episode and some mysterious criminal overlord, but he/she doesn't actually make an appearance.

There's a shootout, and they get saved by Sharon Carter, a.k.a. Agent 13, a.k.a. that one character from Winter Soldier and Civil War that the entire writing team for the MCU completely forgot about. Even Steve Rogers, who, apparently, never bothered to check up on her? I like the meta-joke that the writers forgot about the character, but I really find it unrealistic that no one in-universe bothered to check up on her. Sharon's grown to become an illegal arts dealer in Mardripoor, and helps out heroes get to yet another newly-introduced scientist, who had been Blipped after making the super-soldier serum from Isaiah's blood, and has just had his work stolen by Karli. Oh, and Zemo kills him because he has no self-control. There's a huge shoot-out and explosions and stuff in the crate harbour... and then the team of Sam, Bucky and Zemo head off on their next lead. 

(Okay, Sharon's action scene was actually pretty damn cool, as is that shot of Zemo calmly blowing up a gas main while dressed with his full supervillain regalia)

And honestly, I can't say that I didn't get excited about it. I am! Sharon Carter! Baron Zemo! MARDRIPOOR! But we jump from one set-piece to the next so quickly, and I kind of feel like this episode is just going quickly through a checklists of things they want to cover before sending the trio off on to the next adventure. And sure, the main cast is entertaining, but I'm still not quite sure why they needed to spring Zemo out of prison.

We get a bit more establishment of the other factions. The Flag-Smashers are shown to be super-duper sympathetic, helping orphans and sick people and stuff, and Karli lost her mother figure. There's a couple of talk about how the government is evil and don't care about the people displaced by the Blip, but then Karli takes it a step further (to the horror of her long-haired lieutenant) by bombing the entire facility and killing the people inside. Okay, sure. Meanwhile, Walker and Hoskins are going around doing their own investigation on the Germany hideout from the previous episode, but are unsuccessful. We do get to see that Walker's a fair bit more violent when he doesn't need to, though so far his outbursts seem to be quelled by Hoskins. It's not too hard to see where this is going. 

The rather rushed feeling of this episode isn't helped, I think, by the fact that we zip around the new main character Zemo and major guest star Sharon so rapidly -- Sharon gets put back in her box in Mardripoor almost as soon as her character has just begun to form, because it doesn't look like we'll be seeing much more of her for the rest of the series. Zemo is at least fun, but, again, as much as I enjoy him, the episode does feel rushed in integrating him into the main cast. Instead, the final shot of the episode shows that the team is being tracked by Ayo of the Dora Milaje, who wants to take down Zemo. This episode is still pretty fun to watch, but I can't help but feel that it could be much better. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• Mardripoor appears! It's the fictional country and often stand-in for Singapore in the Marvel comics, and the setting of many Wolverine-related stories. The Princess Bar, Wolverine's hangout in the comics, is briefly seen. 
  
• Cameos from previous MCU movies: Winter Soldier, Falcon and War Machine all last showed up in Endgame. Baron Zemo and Sharon Carter were both last seen in Captain America: Civil War. Batroc the Leaper was the cold open antagonist in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Ayo is a recurring member of the Dora Milaje who made her first appearance in Civil War.
• Previous Movie Continuity Nods: (In addition to the plots of The Winter Soldier, Civil War, Infinity War and Endgame all being brought up in some way or another)
• Episode 1: Bucky mentions that his last date was in 1943, which would be the double date with Steve in The First Avenger. The Smithsonian Captain America exhibit shows Steve Rogers holding a car door as a shield, which he uses in his first battle against the Hydra assassin. Bucky's list of names includes H. Zemo.
• Episode 2: Bucky asks if Walker has ever jumped on a grenade before, which Steve Rogers famously did in The First Avenger. The shots of John Walker's training seems to be deliberately mirroring Steve's in The First Avenger, and Lemar calls him 'the Star-Spangled Man with a Plan'. We get a remix of that song from The First Avenger, too. Bucky's rarely-used Wakandan codename 'White Wolf', is briefly brought up. Tony Stark and Dr. Banner is mentioned briefly by Walker in his interview. 
• Episode 3: Zemo repeats the mind-control codes from Civil War. Red Skull and Dr. Erskine get brought up by Zemo. The 'move your seat up' conversation from Civil War gets a redo, as is the 'Trouble Man' discussion between Sam and Steve. 
• Baron Zemo and Batroc the Leaper both get new costumes that recall their comic-book counterpart's looks much closer. In a sense, Falcon's new wings also resemble the classic look of his superhero outfit as well. 
• Among the list of names on Bucky's list is 'A. Rostov', who in the comics is a KGB officer and supervillain named Red Barbarian.
• Among the exhibits in the Smithsonian is the real-life Captain America #1 comic book where Cap socks Hitler in the jaw. 
• Nagel's lab is in container 4261. In the comics, Earth-4261 is the reality that the Squadron Supreme (a.k.a. evil Justice League pastiche) hail from. 
• I haven't looked their comic book counterparts up yet, but a quick google search...
• John Walker is better known in the comics as the superhero U.S. Agent or the Super-Patriot, and has taken over the mantle of Captain America a couple of times.
• Battlestar/Lemar Hoskins is a friend of Walker in the comics and the fifth 'Bucky'.  
• Karli Morgenthau is a gender-flipped version of the comic version of the Flag-Smasher, Karl Morgenthau. Also, she's the leader of an organization instead of just a single enemy.
• Joaquin Torres is the second Falcon in the comics, being the sidekick to Sam Wilson when he became Captain America. 
• Isaiah Bradley is the second Captain America in the comics, also known as 'Black Captain America', who was another test subject created with the super-serum in WWII.
• Not named here, but the credits identify Isaiah's grandson as Eli Bradley, also known as the second Patriot.
• We haven't seen him/her yet, but the Power Broker in the comics is Curtiss Jackson, a supervillain with super strength who sets up an organization for villains.
• Smiling Tiger isn't seen physically, but he's a minor New Warriors villain and member of the Thunderbolts in the comics.