Falcon and the Winter Soldier episodes IV-VI
Created by Malcolm Spellman and Directed by Kari Skogland
Welcome back for part II, I hope everyone will excuse me if I just jump right into things. Let's start with the plot.
So in the second half of the series, we're confronted with Sam wrestling with unpleasant revelations and things have gone south alarmingly quickly. He makes an attempt to talk Karli down peacefully, which honestly considering she's a grieving teenager who's not entirely in a rational state I feel was the right call. This of course was ruined by everyone's least favorite Captain America so far, John Walker. Karma was swift to repay Walker, both via the death of his best friend Lamar, aka Battlestar (I know this is a ridiculous name but Battlestar was actually a comic book character because the 80s were weird) and him publicly murdering a man who was trying to surrender. Part of this is fueled by the fact that Walker stole and took some serum but most of it was him. We should remember that the serum only magnifies what's already there, and what's in Walker is about 3 tons of unprocessed trauma in a 1-ton bag plus a small mountain of aggression and insecurity all wrapped together in a lack of support or even vague concern.
I know I talked a lot about Walker last time but again I don't hate the guy. He had no business being there, displayed a lot of unearned privilege (which I dare to think may be a metaphor) in his conduct, and deserved the punishment he got and more but I don't hate him. Walker honestly does want to do good things, he wants to be a hero. That said, he's simply not ready for the weight that's been thrust on his shoulders. Hell! Steve Rogers wasn't ready for that weight! It took him at least a year serving with good men to learn what he needed and even then, there's a good argument that he didn't grow into his role until Winter Soldier. Steve also had the howling commandos, Peggy Carter, and later the Avengers with him. There's a damn reason we always see Steve operating in a group because a man operating on his own with this weight on his shoulders would go mad. Another big thing is Walker is very focused on external validation - He wants people to acknowledge him, to accept and praise him. Steve however pretty much ran on internal validation... Not that he didn't want people to praise and accept him, but as long as he had his own self-respect he didn't need that praise and acceptance. This is what made Steve so dangerous to the powerful. Walker, however, does need it. This is what makes Walker so easy for “Val” (a mystery woman with ties to darker parts of our government) to recruit him after his fall from grace. The fact that Walker is sympathetic but still so hateable makes me tip my hat to Spellman and the other writers.
The scene of Walker haphazardly wandering around the city in a daze with Captain America's shield stained in the blood is incredibly well-shot and will stay with me for a long time. Especially when tied in with the revelations of Isaiah Bradley to Sam of the experiments done on black men after Steve disappeared to recreate a super soldier, and how he was jailed and outright tortured. Isaiah also serves as a good stand-in for America's long, shameful treatment of African Americans as the white-dominated government had no trouble treating African Americans as expendable, whether through denying them their rights through the law or through things like the Tuskegee experiments. The fact that Isaiah is angry and bitter is frankly justified and even a patriot like myself can't argue with his rejection of the nation that has used and abused him as if he wasn't even a human being. While Isaiah and his torment is fiction, what he stands for is very much historical fact and something that white America is only now really starting to grapple with. I say white America because black America has had really no choice but to grapple with these sins every generation, usually while suffering fresh wrongs in the bargain. I do not say this to demand guilt - Wallowing in guilt would make us feel more righteous but accomplishes very little. Instead of that, we need to confront what's been done, what is being done, and ask how we're going to do better and what we can do to help with healing. I would argue that our first step has to be to stop inflicting fresh injuries which unfortunately looks to be a massive struggle at this time. That Spellman can address much of this through metaphor and through Sam's situation is a solid example of good writing and craft I think and honestly makes me feel pretty good about his taking over the next Captain America movie.
With everything in ruins, Sam retreats to what he can fix. In this case, his parent's boat and his family life with his sister. To do this, Sam demonstrates some of that soft power I mentioned by calling forth aid from his community by reminding people of everything his parents had done. Even Bucky comes back and Sam is able to invoke his training in dealing with traumatized veterans to get Bucky to finally do the work he needs to do to turn the page on the Winter Soldier and try to start becoming Bucky Barnes... But I'll talk about him in another space. When he finds out Karli's end game, which is brought about in turn by an announcement that the multi-government international agency that runs the displaced camps is voting over whether or not to start sending people back to their nation of origin. To be clear, this is a discussion about people who moved to different countries after the snap when half the world's population disappeared. With the disappeared returned, things got awkward. I'll be honest and say the idea that there's a single multinational authority able to make a one size fits all decision is the most unbelievable part of the story. Yes, even more than the super-soldier serum. I don't see the United States or Russia for example willing to have this kind of policy dictated from outside. Nor do I see the European Union and the People's Republic of China having remotely the same idea of how to deal with imported workers. But I'll let it rest. What I do find interesting is how reasonable the people in power are presented, the people meeting to vote are deeply divided on this issue and haven't reached their decision (I am willing to bet that they never would have either leaving each nation to decide for themselves honestly). However Karli moves before any kind of final action can really be decided, trying to kidnap the entire voting council to force some kind of settlement. Throughout the final act, Karli is shown as a young woman who is reacting to her entire world falling apart around her and it's hard not to feel some sympathy here. Sam for example refuses to fight her but he isn't going to let her commit kidnapping either and what follows is a confrontation between a teenager desperate for something to strike out against to express her loss, pain, and rage and an adult just as desperate to keep her from hurting anyone and to help her. Karli wants the simple emotional catharsis of beating the crap out of someone she can blame for her trouble. Sam wants to help her out of this hole she's dug for herself and show her a better way forward. This shows that Karli is an antagonist but in a real way isn't a villain, she is honestly trying to help people, she's just doing it in a crap way. Villainy is more of an honor held by Baron Zemo and Sharon Carter in this story and frankly, they win in this story as both of them achieve their objectives.
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier tells a story about power, how governments and powerful people can destroy or save lives with the smallest action. It reminds us that we need to be mindful of that and it doesn't take an angry purple alien with the power of a god to wreck and upend the lives of hundreds of millions if not more innocent people. It's also a story about symbols and the ownership of those symbols - for example,who owns Captain America Shield? Who has the right to decide who carries it? What I like about the story is it makes the strong argument that the government has no right to these symbols but leaves it open as to who should be making these decisions, if anyone. Because the series leaves the field open to answers from the audience I think it avoids getting too preachy but at the same time, I'll admit that there is a sermon here, especially in the last episode as Sam gets some things off his chest when confronting said powerful government figures. I think we can give Sam that one though. I'm giving Falcon and the Winter Soldier an A and a recommendation. Go take a look, I think you won't regret it.
(Temporary editor’s post-script: The lack of comments on the past two reviews has been largely due to the fact that my exposure to the MCU has been limited at best. I’ve seen… maybe 30% of the films, with most of that being distributed at the front end (pre-Avengers). I’ve heard of the Thanos snap via Twitter osmosis but all I know about it is that Spider-man was like “ugh I don’t feel so good” before exploding into CGI triangles like he was in that one Dire Straits music video that Weird Al parodied in UHF. Similarly, 49.99999% of all other life experienced the same - The remainder, presumably, getting money for nothing and chicks for free. But… all those snap folks are back now? Also, that all the fictional properties merge together into a massive shared multiverse and the spinoff films will keep coming at a relentless pace until either the universe tears itself apart or the copyright is allowed to lapse on “Steamboat Willy.” I can’t help but feel the former will happen before the latter. I mean, we haven’t even seen the X-men universe integrated into the Avengers cocktail. Synergy goals for the 2030s, I suppose - CGI is improving at a geometric rate whereas Hugh Jackman’s aging is mundanely linear.
In some ways I’m jealous of Marvel fans; my formative preteen years were spent reading the Sonic the Hedgehog comic, laboring under the arbitrary and fanatical reign of Ken Penders. The mind reels in horror at the concept of a shared cinematic universe drawn from that specific Katamari junk sphere. Still, one wonders how much longer the current model of filmmaking will last, and what might come next - Could someone in 1955 have anticipated the new wave and the era of the director-driven film? What will be the reaction to the current IPocene epoch?)
I hope everyone enjoyed this review. This series was voted on by our ever-wise patrons, if you like a vote on upcoming reviews, theme months and whether or not the video experiments continue, join us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads Speaking of our experiments with audio/visual formats, there will be two videos going up this weekend with further thoughts on Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Next week, Blind Man’s Bluff, stories of submarine espionage during the Cold War! I hope you join us and until then, stay safe and Keep Reading!
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