Falcon and The Winter Soldier: These Turkish Delights Have Violent Ends (Spoilers)

[Corvinus85]

Yes, it was a vey solid episode with good performances all around. I wish it had ended with Bucky going to see the old man from episode 1, instead of diverting back to the Flag Smashers plot. But I suppose that is reserved for the finale.

So is De La Fontaine the big character reveal? That is another character I had to look up. 

I kinda hate it when they say that Steve is gone. Did he die? It's only been 6 months since Endgame, right? He could conceivably still be alive. 

[Jaxom 1974]

2 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

It’s clear that Sharon is the Power-Broker, right?  Who the heck was JLD’s character?

Evidence mounts on Sharon, but I was holding out hope for something to indicate that there was something else going on with that...

That was about the last character I expected to show up with JLD...

Spoiler

Is she going to be former SHIELD, new SHIELD, or new Hydra, since that's where they took her in the comics...?

 

[JGP]

37 minutes ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

Evidence mounts on Sharon, but I was holding out hope for something to indicate that there was something else going on with that...

That was about the last character I expected to show up with JLD...

  Hide contents

Is she going to be former SHIELD, new SHIELD, or new Hydra, since that's where they took her in the comics...?

 

Would be a moment if the Sharon we've seen here is an oblique lead in to Secret Invasion and she's a Skrull. 

 

Spoiler

re: Madame Hydra, former Shield et new Hydra, I suspect.

Anywho, my favorite episode thus far. 

[Werthead]

2 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

I kinda hate it when they say that Steve is gone. Did he die? It's only been 6 months since Endgame, right? He could conceivably still be alive. 

I think he's effectively retired, and is living very quietly somewhere with absolutely no-one aware he's alive bar Sam and Bucky (who perhaps at least told Hulk that they'd received a message or something so he wouldn't keep looking).

[Denvek]

7 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

It’s clear that Sharon is the Power-Broker, right?

The only thing that could make it more clear would be someone explicitly saying it out loud.

Spoiler

I'm expecting Sam to end up saving Karli from Batroc's sudden-but-inevitable betrayal next week.

But given the Flag-Smashers' relationship with the Power Broker, who did Karli think she was talking to when she was hiring the guy?

[Maltaran]

Sharon?

[polishgenius]

32 minutes ago, Denvek said:

But given the Flag-Smashers' relationship with the Power Broker, who did Karli think she was talking to when she was hiring the guy?

 

I'm assuming he contacted them in some fashion (we know Power Broker has their numbers, though I assume she'd want to be a bit more subtle than that). Sharon got in touch with him and sent him their way to assassinate Karli under the guise of wanting to kill Sam, probably while framing her up for even more mass murder than she's actually intending to commit.

Anyway, yeah, good episode. The character stuff was top but also the fight at the beginning was the best one yet in part because it meant something.

[RumHam]

I assume the official story is that Steve Rogers died, but it's a bit weird because a lot of people saw him at Tony's funeral. So the story can't be that he died fighting Thanos. 

I'm guessing they don't want it getting out that there are alternate dimensions we can visit and anyone you lost could be sort of brought back like Gamora was. 

So they're definitely doing Thunderbolts right? Presumably Louis-Dreyfus's role in Black Widow will be to recruit Yelana and/or Taskmaster? There's really no reason for the Wakandans to take Zemo to The Raft other than so he's in Ross's custody for later. 

[mormont]

9 hours ago, Poobah said:

Probably the best episode since the opener. Totally agree with the above comments - this show is at its best IMO when it's actually taking the time to explore the characters and world, not finding some pretext for more generic superhero fights.

It got the fight out of the way early, which is a good approach if you ask me.

This one was written by a staff writer, I note, rather than the showrunner, who presumably claimed the finale. This was clearly a pause for breath before that finale, which is why it was given to a staff writer, but also why it gets time to do some reflective stuff. And an 80s style training montage. Someone re-cut that scene to Eye Of The Tiger, quick!

9 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

It’s clear that Sharon is the Power-Broker, right?  Who the heck was JLD’s character?

The Contessa used to date Nick Fury and be good, but I believe she did a heel turn recently.

[briantw]

Episode five made me realize that what this show should have been was Bucky and Sam running a moderately successful shrimping company by day and fighting bayou crime after dark.

Also, legitimately disappointed that Zemo wasn't a part of the boat-building montage.  Couldn't they have given him back to the Wakandans after that?

[ithanos]

51 minutes ago, RumHam said:

I assume the official story is that Steve Rogers died, but it's a bit weird because a lot of people saw him at Tony's funeral. So the story can't be that he died fighting Thanos. 

I'm guessing they don't want it getting out that there are alternate dimensions we can visit and anyone you lost could be sort of brought back like Gamora was. 

So they're definitely doing Thunderbolts right? Presumably Louis-Dreyfus's role in Black Widow will be to recruit Yelana and/or Taskmaster? There's really no reason for the Wakandans to take Zemo to The Raft other than so he's in Ross's custody for later. 

Bah of course, that Raft. My mind had gone blank when I heard it, and I thought - Wtf, Wakanda going Huckleberry Finn with their penal system?   

Thinking of Wakanda, I'm sure Sam will appreciate any gift from them. But in the back of his mind will be the thought of a backdoor reset they might put in. If it has wings I wouldn't fly anywhere near Wakandan airspace for fear of falling out of the sky.

[TrueMetis]

Excellent episode, clearly getting the action out of the way up front then focusing on characters is the way to go.

The Isaiah talk hit hard, damn it makes me sad they we'll probably never see him and Steve meet.

The scene where they're bouncing the shield and it switches who's catching it clearly means something right? Like the shield doesn't belong to either of them but both of them?

A thought occurred to me about the Flag Smashers. Most if not all of the politicians in charge would be those who weren't snapped yes? Meaning that the GRC is primarily an initiative of them. Seems to me the Flag Smashers may be looking at the 5 years with some rose coloured glasses. If things had really changed as much as they seem to have thought, then I can't really see the reaction to the blip being the same. (And of course the whole thing has never really been covered in the depth it really needs)

Wakandan Falcon suit is definitely in the box.

Sarah is cool, we should have seen more of her.

The training montage was a little weird. Like we didn't just see him catch the shield just fine, and didn't know that he was fit as fuck.

[DMC]

7 minutes ago, TrueMetis said:

The training montage was a little weird. Like we didn't just see him catch the shield just fine, and didn't know that he was fit as fuck.

 

[Kalbear]

The Isaiah thing bothers me a bit. Because he's right - and the show ends up painting him as a bitter disillusioned old man, and its cool that Sam is going to Just Keep Fighting.

Without changing anything about that symbol or what it means to him and to Isaiah. 

It was a great speech and a super surprising thing from Disney to do, but it was almost immediately undercut. 

[DMC]

1 hour ago, Karlbear said:

It was a great speech and a super surprising thing from Disney to do, but it was almost immediately undercut. 

My favorite aspect of the ep was Bucky apologizing to Sam for being a dick and recognizing that both he and Steve could never know what taking up the shield would mean to Sam.  And that was after the Isaiah scene.  So, we'll see.

[SpaceChampion]

7 hours ago, briantw said:

Episode five made me realize that what this show should have been was Bucky and Sam running a moderately successful shrimping company by day and fighting bayou crime after dark.

And then like Baywatch Nights starts dealing with spooky X-Files like cases, along with original Nick Fury, David Hasselhoff!

[mormont]

I'm in agreement with DMC here: if you watched that episode and thought the intent of the Isaiah scene was to paint his feelings as being bitter about how he was treated, you missed the point. Rather, Sam acknowledges his feelings as valid, and weighs them very carefully. Sam, at the beginning of the series, pretty much already shared those feelings, as I've pointed out before - and as Bucky acknowledges he and Steve should have realised all along.

The point of these series is to get the characters into place for their next film appearance, and the point of this particular one is to deal with the issues around having a black man take up the legacy of Captain America in a way that Endgame did not and could not do. Marvel want Sam to be Captain America, but this series is them acknowledging that having a black man take up that mantle is going to be different. It's going to be a burden. Some people will never accept him. Some people will look at him and think he's going along with the oppressor, and others will resent the idea that a black man can be a symbol of America.

So Marvel are having Sam acknowledge and to some extent share those feelings, but become Captain America despite them. Hence the scene with the kids -as someone pointed out upthread, I think, the idea of that is to contrast the Isaiah scene, show that to younger black people, a black Cap could be an inspiration, and that doesn't invalidate Isaiah's point, but it makes the struggle to be accepted worth fighting. Hence, also, Sam talking to Sarah and talking about how his response to racism has been 'I'll show them'.

I think there's at least a valid argument that Isaiah is right here and Sam is wrong, but not being a black American I can't ever judge that myself. But I can see what Marvel are trying to do: get Sam to be Cap without glossing over the complexity of that move.

[john]

I was totally on the journey, I agreed with Isaiah, then I thought maybe Bucky would take the shield because of how he was evolving with the situation, then I agreed with Sam. That’s good storytelling.

The episode still annoyed me in the first five minutes when Walker runs away to an empty warehouse and then has far too protracted a fight with two guys who should have beaten him handily.

[karaddin]

I interpreted it as the only thing Sam was truly disagreeing with Isiah on is that things can't improve and that's making the attempt to fight isn't worth it. And implicit in that is that for all the problems that remain, things have improved to the point that Sam can try, because I don't think it wants us to think Isiah failed, the deck was even more stacked against him.

I guess Sam is also disagreeing with "no self respecting black man would want to", but I take the thrust of that disagreement to be that he will do it by changing what it means to be something he can be proud of, and that can be an inspiration to black kids. He has the perspective that Isiah lacks of knowing Steve, that he was the real deal and that the shield can be imbued with that rather than just the false patriotic narrative.

[mormont]

I think it's next episode that makes or breaks this one and the choice to have Sam take up the shield, which I know is stating the obvious, but remains true.

It's worth pointing out also the briefcase. Whatever that is, the choice to have Wakandan resources be (presumably) empowering the Sam version of Captain America is not just a matter of a convenient plot McGuffin. It's symbolic. 

ETA - of course, there's an argument that since Cap's shield is vibranium, Wakandan resources always powered Captain America, but the provenance of that vibranium was never clear... where did Howard Stark get it? And how?