The Falcon and Winter Soldier series premiered and it was one of the most anticipated shows of the past couple of months. And it lived up to its’ hype.
Falcon does a Captain America
Falcon was given the shield of Captain America at the end of Avengers: Endgame as Steve Rogers felt that he should have it and saw Sam as the new Captain America. However Sam felt like he wasn’t worthy of it and returned the shield to the Pentagon where it was put on display in the museum of Captain America. Falcon and War Machine, a cameo by Don Cheadle, had a chat and Falcon again expressed that he didn’t feel worthy of the shield.
Sam’s first mission was akin to Captain America: Winter Soldier’s opening scene. A lot of combat in small spaces and a french-speaking dude. The kind of action that sets precedent for the rest of the show. We have now been properly introduced to the action part of the show. And it did not disappoint at all. So many air acrobatics that it made my head spin big time.
But then reality kicked in when Sam visits his sister. Financial woes for both his widowed sister and him. Sam’s sister tries to sell the boat which has been in their family for generations and has taken up the maximum amount of loans.
So Sam comes up with a plan to exploit his fame as an Avenger and as The Falcon to take out another loan. However the bank would have none of it since Sam can’t show his credit statements of the past five years since he was “dead” through the blip that happened when Thanos snapped his fingers. And the information that he used to convince the bank manager for the loan was outdated.
So this just shows that superhero or not you are still an ordinary citizen that needs to make ends meet. Just when you think that Tony Stark’s legacy would help with a superhero funds or something you find out that Sam’s pretty much as broke as his sister.
The best parts of the scenes with his sister were the parts where the guilt trips his sister put on Sam. Like Sam leaving abroad to fight the good fight while sister sister blamed him for having to deal with her parents and life in Louisiana.
Sam does not have a good reply to that and I am pretty sure that this will be expanded upon in the rest of the episodes. It will show us more about Sam turning out the way he is. Which is not a bad thing at all. I am pretty curious to see how this plotline flesh out.
The Winter Soldier
Bucky Barnes seems fine at first glance, however he is dealing with serious trauma’s. Sure, he was deprogrammed from all the stuff the Russians did to him in the movies during his time in Wakanda but they never taught him how to deal with the murders he committed during his black ops.
I am actually surprised that the memory flashbacks were THAT vivid when I watched them. And I even thought that Bucky was out and about on a mission for SHIELD before figuring out that it was about making amends. Bucky is making amends for the people he has killed.
So he hangs out with an older Asian man who’s son he has killed because he was the witness to the murder of several people. They go to a bar and the older man sets Bucky up with a date with the bartender. Bucky goes to the date and is actually very gallant bringing her flowers.
When she starts getting personal Bucky’s trauma’s are triggered and he runs away from the date visiting the old man in his apartment. He tries to tell him what happened to his son and the role he played in the death of his son. However Bucky just can’t bring himself to do it and instead gives him the money he owes for the lunch they had earlier that day.
This just shows how broken Bucky is despite the therapy he has had and the deprogramming in Wakanda. This is going to bring up major issues when Bucky and Falcon will team up.
The Flag-Smasher
The speculation is that the unknown assailant who robbed a bank in Berlin is actually The Flag-Smasher. The Flag-Smasher is a foe who frequently featured in the comics of Captain America but over the years has also shown up in The Punisher, Moon Knight, Ghost Rider, Runaways, Liberteens and Deadpool.
He was created by Mark Gruenwald to be the next Red Skull but where Red Skull represented the Nazi’s, The Flag-Smashers are very anti-patriotic hence the name Flag-Smasher. They pretty much want to wipe the flag off Captain America.
I think they picked the best enemy you could choose from. Why? This will trigger both Bucky and Falcon’s sense of duty and what it means to be a patriot. And that’s pretty much the part I am looking forward to. Because the two of them together with a sense of inner peace will be unbeatable.
The future episodes
The future is bright for Falcon and Winter Soldier. We have already got confirmations that Agent 13 a.k.a. Sharon Carter will be there. Baron Zemo is making an uncanny return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and more actors are coming to the show: Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan, Emily VanCamp, Wyatt Russell, Noah Mills, Carl Lumbly and Daniel Brühl.
Wyatt Russel we saw at the end of the first episode where he dons the shield and tunic of Captain America. He will play US Agent. For the longest time it was speculated that US Agent will be portrayed by John Cena but he of course has obligations in the DC Extended Universe. Which is too bad because I really like John Cena, BUT Wyatt Russel is going to do a great job I am sure. Marvel has never let down when it comes to their casting and Wyatt Russel won’t be an exception to that.
So what else can we expect? I am hoping for a darker storyline that is just as dark as the Ed Brubaker era of Captain America for Winter Soldier but also the Rick Remender era when Falcon first became Captain America.
“I’ve been having a lot of fun writing Sam. It’s a completely different attitude. The fact that he’s not a soldier shifts things up a bit. Sam’s not going to be Steve. Steve can be very rigid. That can be kind of joyless at times, whereas Sam is absolutely not that.”
“While Sam shares many of Steve’s beliefs in a general sense, he’s also a very different person with a very different background,” adds editor Tom Brevoort, “He didn’t grow up in the 1930s, he’s a modern day man in touch with the problems of the 21st Century. For most of his professional life, Sam has worked as a social worker, so he’s seen the worst of urban society up close, and how crime, poverty, lack of social structure and opportunity can affect the community. So he’s got perhaps a greater focus on the plight of the common man, and perhaps a greater empathy for the underprivileged than maybe even Steve himself. He’s also not a military man, so he’s more apt to be instinctively skeptical of any situation that calls for just following orders. Sam, like Steve, will be led by his personal morality and beliefs as to what is right and what is wrong—and where his beliefs may differ in their shading from those of the previous Cap are where the interesting stories will be found.” Said Rick Remender back when he was writing the Captain America series in 2014.
With that in mind, Marvel has a great new hit show that is released just after WandaVision. The future is looking up with high quality TV shows like Falcon and The Winter Soldier and I hope they will continue down this path.
