Falcon and The Winter Soldier (spoilers)

[Werthead]

1 hour ago, karaddin said:

Bolded - which gag was that?

Sam's cover name being Conrad Mack, which I took to be a nod towards  Anthony Mackie's real name (though I don't think anyone actually called him Mackie).

Quote

Is this an indication that in story T’Challa has died and Shuri is sending a catch team for Zemo?oba

I don't think so. F&TWS started shooting in September 2019 and concluded in February 2020, six months before Chadwick Boseman sadly passed away. In fact, I've seen some theorising he could show up (since he was filming his last couple of appearances shortly after that point and could have fitted in a cameo), although that seems unlikely, plus I think they'd have announced it respectfully since it could appear to be a gimmick not to do that.

I think they will have to acknowledge that T'Challa is no longer in the MCU, but they don't really have to until Black Panther II, and they won't really be able to mention it until Ms. Marvel and Hawkeye at the earliest (as they started production after his passing).

[Werthead]

I knew that moment was going to launch a thousand gifs.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

27 minutes ago, Werthead said:

I knew that moment was going to launch a thousand gifs.

He dances like me...

[Denvek]

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

The Power Broker better turn out to be Howard the Duck though, unless they were hinting it was actually Sharon herself.

Either she is, and Zemo figured it out early enough to shoot the doctor before he could blurt it out to Sam and Bucky, or it's Zemo himself.

Was the car Zemo got the mask from meant to be Red Skull's car from the first Cap film? It looked familiar.

[Maltaran]

They were certainly hinting very strongly it was Sharon

[Jaxom 1974]

If it isn't Sharon, she's the PB number two...personally, I think Zemo is still involved somehow...

Did not expect Wakanda coming into this. And though T'Challa had turned Zemo over, I suspect once he escaped, he became fair game. Was the Dora who met Bucky the same one who was in Civil War and confronted Black Widow before the fight in Germany?

Why was the gate at the GRC facility marked with a giant "X" that looked like an X-Men logo?

And they gave a nice Easter Egg to Wolverine's old Madripoor haunt with the Princess Bar...

Why is this show only six episodes...??? It's been soooo good. Even when it's a little off (random phone call), it still raises it's bar.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

50 minutes ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

If it isn't Sharon, she's the PB number two...personally, I think Zemo is still involved somehow...

Did not expect Wakanda coming into this. And though T'Challa had turned Zemo over, I suspect once he escaped, he became fair game. Was the Dora who met Bucky the same one who was in Civil War and confronted Black Widow before the fight in Germany?

Why was the gate at the GRC facility marked with a giant "X" that looked like an X-Men logo?

And they gave a nice Easter Egg to Wolverine's old Madripoor haunt with the Princess Bar...

Why is this show only six episodes...??? It's been soooo good. Even when it's a little off (random phone call), it still raises it's bar.

I thought I recognized “the Princess Bar”.  

[DaveSumm]

Huh, seems everyone liked this episode but I thought it was a bit weak. It had a kinda Bond film logic to it, we need to go here to this cool looking city to talk to X so that leads us to Y ... didn’t really grab me. And more than a few stupid scenes as mentioned: the phone call (what the fuck was Sam’s plan there?), the shittest ever prison escape (provoke a fight, I’ll do literally all the rest), the whole Smiling Tiger thing didn’t really have a point did it? Sam never had to actually act any differently, it just existed for a snake drink and a dumb phone call. Sharon takes on a dozen armed guys while Bucky ... looks menacing? With two other guys who could be helping Sharon? And either I missed what was supposed to be a joke or it was just a bit crap: the club scene where they stood there for a few minutes, and then Sharon said ‘OK let’s go’. Was that supposed to be inverting the expectation that they’d get into trouble? It didn’t really land for me.

I did enjoy Walker’s scene where he acts very un-Cap like. It’s gonna make for a great scene when Sam and Bucky knock him out and take his shield.

Unrelated observation: this was supposed to air first, before WandaVision. And it’s a fair bet Loki will have a scene where Tesseract-stealing Loki has literally just stolen the Tesseract. Which means Far From Home - tFatWS - WandaVision - Loki, all go backwards in time. 8 months post un-blip, 6 months, a week, just before.

[DMC]

Yeah to join the chorus, I was waiting the whole time for Sharon to double cross them (e.g. when the cargo container was empty).  Kinda consider it confirmed at the end when she says "we got a big problem, actually a couple of them..."

[Werthead]

1 hour ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

Did not expect Wakanda coming into this. And though T'Challa had turned Zemo over, I suspect once he escaped, he became fair game. Was the Dora who met Bucky the same one who was in Civil War and confronted Black Widow before the fight in Germany?

She's Ayo, so yes, she's the one who confronted Black Widow.

[john]

6 hours ago, Werthead said:

Sam having to explain to Zemo and Bucky where Riga is was a bit weird though.

Heh, yeah, I noticed that. Didn’t explain it very well either, it’s a city near the Baltic Sea? Yes, extremely near in fact.

I have to say I thought it was quite a weak episode too. It seemed to depart from the relative realism of the Captain American movies and the previous two episodes and introduce more silliness. Also the comparatively weaker writing was on display. The phone call, plus extreme heavy exposition in basically anything Karli says. And the Sharon thing makes no sense, why one earth would Steve forget about her, she’s one of his main allies.

[RumHam]

11 hours ago, red snow said:

 

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They also seem to be making out he wasn't a fan of hydra's ideals. And there's a weird batman vibe going on with his butler and millionaire status. Hopefully this is positioning the character for Thunderbolts - a villain still but not a Nazi.

 

He was never hydra in the MCU. He was just a Sokovian special forces soldier.

It's a bit weird that he apparently killed scientists when they got close to re-created the super soldier serum. I thought he only began to hate powered people when the avengers fought Ultron and his family was killed. Then he started plotting to take down the avengers. Then he was in jail until now. 

[Rhom]

25 minutes ago, RumHam said:

He was never hydra in the MCU. He was just a Sokovian special forces soldier.

It's a bit weird that he apparently killed scientists when they got close to re-created the super soldier serum. I thought he only began to hate powered people when the avengers fought Ultron and his family was killed. Then he started plotting to take down the avengers. Then he was in jail until now. 

Wonder how he would feel about Wanda?  Fellow Sokovian refugee... but also a super.

[briantw]

Zemo is rich like Batman but he dresses like Bane. 

[mormont]

Yeah, this was acceptable but nothing to write home about. Very much characters being railroaded by the plot: if it was a tabletop RPG session the players would be rolling their eyes at the GM, as he directs them from location to location and has his NPCs do all the cool stuff. A few funny lines from Bucky and Sam don't make up for making them passengers in this entire episode. John and Lemar get a couple of 'hey, don't forget these guys are in the series too' scenes that could just as well be cut. And Karli gets the obligatory random murder scene for a villain that was getting too sympathetic, a move that the MCU has pulled out a few times.

For a series with only six episodes, this felt like it should have done more.

[williamjm]

5 hours ago, Maltaran said:

They were certainly hinting very strongly it was Sharon

If so then I'm wondering what her motivation is behind helping them? Maybe hoping that they take down the Flagsmashers and she could then retrieve the remaining serum in the aftermath, but if that's the plan then why the line about "we have two new problems"? I also can't imagine the Power Broker wants the Doctor killed since if he made the serum once he could do it again given time.

Obviously she's up to something but I wondered if she's not really in exile but working for her old employers at the CIA?

[HokieStone]

I'm hoping Sharon's lying about her story (either because she's undercover for SHIELD or some other agency, or because for some other reason she went shady) - because her story as told doesn't make any sense.  Why would she still be a wanted fugitive, since Steve and everyone else were obviously pardoned after Infinity War.

[JGP]

Bad episode.

 

edit: not very generous, but meh. For one brief moment, however, I was all Madripoor? And wondered if we’d see an eye patched Wolverine cameo lol

[williamjm]

1 hour ago, HokieStone said:

I'm hoping Sharon's lying about her story (either because she's undercover for SHIELD or some other agency, or because for some other reason she went shady) - because her story as told doesn't make any sense.  Why would she still be a wanted fugitive, since Steve and everyone else were obviously pardoned after Infinity War.

While I agree her story is clearly not true (or not entirely true) presumably Sam and Bucky are pardoned because they fought Thanos and saved half the Universe, Sharon wasn't involved in that battle.

[Rhom]

27 minutes ago, williamjm said:

While I agree her story is clearly not true (or not entirely true) presumably Sam and Bucky are pardoned because they fought Thanos and saved half the Universe, Sharon wasn't involved in that battle.

The only named character of all the MCU to not show up in that battle!