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

[Kalbear]

41 minutes ago, john said:

Is it fair to say that no self respecting black man would want to be CA in its current capacity, as a stadium mounting, fist pumping, marching band leading entertainment icon? I doubt very much that’s going to be Sam’s version. There’s already going to be a significant compromise between the two perspectives.

But that's the gig too. Captain America is a supersoldier, and a war hero, and an entertainment icon. That's part of the thing - that by taking on that shield and that icon Sam represents all that too.  

Though I really doubt Isaiah's objection is about him being an entertainment icon; I think it's more about him representing the pinnacle of white nationalism in the US. 

[DMC]

3 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Yeah that’s the slightly jarring nature of those comments. Isaiah is telling us that the world isn’t ready for a black Captain America, but is that a meta comment? Is Isiah correct about that concerning this universe or is it just his opinion and bias?

If Disney is trying to make a point it seems a little flat given that it’s been obvious Sam will be the next cap for a while and there isn’t really any controversy about it. Most reaction I’ve seen is ‘yup, that makes sense’.

This seems like overthinking it.  Obviously, that's just, like, Isaiah's opinion man.  And that opinion makes perfect sense and is entirely understandable for the character to hold.  It doesn't mean Sam has to entirely agree with Isaiah and I don't think it really matters whether it's a "meta comment" or not - Isaiah's perspective makes sense in both the MCU universe and our own.  Hell, arguably even more in the latter considering the backlash of racial resentment that Obama's presidency incurred and what that animus grotesquely morphed into.

2 hours ago, polishgenius said:

I guess you could argue they wouldn't want to do it themselves but given their level of clearly personal investment in seeing him to justice, I ain't convinced.

Yeah I would have assumed they'd take him back to Wakanda.  I guess they really are becoming more internationally cooperative than I'd expect.  Maybe we'll get some more detail on that, but probably not.  Sure the next time they use Zemo he'll escape just as easily as last time.

2 hours ago, Karlbear said:

Yeah, I liked that too, even if it was a bit South Park.

Heh, I guess it is kinda like the episode where Stan tells Token "I get it now:  I don't get it."

2 hours ago, Karlbear said:

Still, I feel that Isaiah got short shrift here. That apparently the answer was that with all his sacrifices - 30 years in prison, effective solitary, medical experiments, erasure from the world - he should still just get right back up and fight again, and somehow Sam is better for doing that when he didn't. 

The latter is definitely not how I took it.  I don't think Sam thinks he's better than Isaiah and I don't think we're supposed to either, and I don't think anyone's expecting Isaiah to fight again.  Like I said above, Sam can respect his Isaiah's opinion - even think he's probably right - and doesn't have to agree entirely and/or abide by what Isaiah said.  As others mentioned, would Sam becoming the government-issue "Cap" be a betrayal of Isaiah's sacrifice?  Yeah, I think so.  But again, we'll see how it's actually portrayed. 

You seem to be suggesting it's a binary question (i.e. either Sam takes up the shield or doesn't) and I don't think it is.  Rather, it's how he takes up the shield, because he's obviously going to take up the shield.

As for giving Isaiah short shrift, eh, I guess maybe a little, but the conversation clearly had an impact on Sam and highlighted the episode.  Motivated him to go back to his family, get all weepy in the rain, focus on preserving his own history, get all introspective for awhile, and complete a Rocky montage.  As far as superhero films/shows go, that's pretty impactful.

[john]

1 hour ago, Karlbear said:

But that's the gig too. Captain America is a supersoldier, and a war hero, and an entertainment icon. That's part of the thing - that by taking on that shield and that icon Sam represents all that too.  

Though I really doubt Isaiah's objection is about him being an entertainment icon; I think it's more about him representing the pinnacle of white nationalism in the US. 

Well, yeah, but if Sam doesn’t do it that way (and he’s already missing the supersoldier criteria) it immediately diminishes the effect of that representation.

[Corvinus85]

I know that there are a lot of clues that Sharon is the Power Broker, but I'm wondering if she's not, but she's making a play to be the PB. If that's the case, they would have basically copied Liara's storyline from Mass Effect 2.

[karaddin]

@DMC I think you're on the money with the idea that Sam claiming it for himself, having received the blessing from Steve, is an extremely different thing from having it bestowed on him by the government.

[Jaxom 1974]

2 hours ago, Karlbear said:

But that's the gig too. Captain America is a supersoldier, and a war hero, and an entertainment icon. That's part of the thing - that by taking on that shield and that icon Sam represents all that too.  

Though I really doubt Isaiah's objection is about him being an entertainment icon; I think it's more about him representing the pinnacle of white nationalism in the US. 

Steve started as an entertainment icon, a novelty, in WWII, particularly as the government and army doesn't know what it has in Steve Rogers, in Captain America. It's jingoistic and terrible and when Steve rebels against that mandate and becomes something more, he grows beyond the simplistic army symbol and becomes something more.

This is carries over in Winter Soldier when he rejects SHIELD.

It carries over when he rejects the idea of the Accords.  

Steve Rogers as Captain America is not what the US government thinks Captain America is, as evidenced by how they present John Walker.  He'll, the idea of what Captain America means is part of the whole.point of the comic story that introduced Walker as Cap...

This whole show is an examination of what Captain America means.  Yeah, they've telegraphed what is going to happen with Sam in Endgame...yet it isn't that easy. As mentioned, the idea of Sam in the comics set people's hair on fire over it.  (They're all idiots, I think we can all agree.)

Contrasting that with what Isaiah Bradley dealt with?  What Captain America means to him? Contrasted to what it means to Sam?  What it means to John Walker? Against how Sam's nephews apparently see Cap as?  Versus again how Bucky sees Cap?  

And yeah. That's a lot of rambling...bsicly to state I think there are a lot m9re layers to this story...that it probably needs 8 episodes, not 6 to tell it...

13 minutes ago, karaddin said:

@DMC I tink you're on the money with the idea that Sam claiming it for himself, having received the blessing from Steve, is an extremely different thing from having it bestowed on him by the governmen

Agreed.  It is everything.  

[karaddin]

It's also saying that there's something beautiful and valuable in America which is emergent from the best of its people, of all races and other minority groups, and what they both see in it and want it to be which is entirely distinct from the complicated and frequently very tainted legacy of the US embodied by the actions of its government and those that steep themselves in patriotism. As a non-American who is deeply uncomfortable with the nationalism and patriotism we frequently see from Americans and the concept of American Exceptionalism generally, this idea is actually one I can be comfortable with. And as Jax says its entirely consistent with the character of Steve Rogers, a character I rolled my eyes at the idea of existing but who won me over through the various movies with his commitment to actual justice and morality rather than it being primarily about patriotism as I expected.

[DaveSumm]

4 hours ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

Steve started as an entertainment icon, a novelty, in WWII, particularly as the government and army doesn't know what it has in Steve Rogers, in Captain America. It's jingoistic and terrible and when Steve rebels against that mandate and becomes something more, he grows beyond the simplistic army symbol and becomes something more.

This is carries over in Winter Soldier when he rejects SHIELD.

It carries over when he rejects the idea of the Accords.  

Steve Rogers as Captain America is not what the US government thinks Captain America is, as evidenced by how they present John Walker.  He'll, the idea of what Captain America means is part of the whole.point of the comic story that introduced Walker as Cap...

This whole show is an examination of what Captain America means.  Yeah, they've telegraphed what is going to happen with Sam in Endgame...yet it isn't that easy. As mentioned, the idea of Sam in the comics set people's hair on fire over it.  (They're all idiots, I think we can all agree.)

Contrasting that with what Isaiah Bradley dealt with?  What Captain America means to him? Contrasted to what it means to Sam?  What it means to John Walker? Against how Sam's nephews apparently see Cap as?  Versus again how Bucky sees Cap?  

Totally agree. The show didn’t have time to really focus on it, but right from the moment the government conceived of replacing Cap they were trying to reclaim something that wasn’t theirs anymore. Steve’s entire arc is someone drifting away from authority, and he ended as a fugitive. They don’t own Cap, and as we learnt, they don’t own the shield. Walker is the embodiment of what’s wrong with that attempt, and Sam is reclaiming the mantle. It’s a rejection of the version of Captain America that Isaiah disdains; to not take it and allow the government to keep presenting that face would be the real betrayal.

 

[DaveSumm]

8 hours ago, mormont said:

I disagree that there's not much between a comics character and a real living emblem of America.

Marvel made Sam Cap in the comics a couple of years ago, yes. And my God, the endless whining about ZOMG how very dare Marvel insert their SJW-pandering politics into comics which as we all know are completely poltics-free escapism, particularly Captain America which has never featured any politics at all. It was all over the net, comics sites, Twitter, YouTube, the ComicsGaters would not shut up about it.

But as bad as that was, we only have to look at what happened when a black man became President...

Oh I’m certainly not claiming a lot of idiots wouldn’t get there knickers in a twist about it in the MCU as well. But Isaiah’s claim was that ‘they’d never make a black man Captain America’, when I think we could arguably ascribe the same general climate and political will to Disney (and Marvel comics) making Sam Cap, and to the fictional US government making a black man Cap. We do have black Captain America, and we did have a black President of the US. So I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that what made those things possible, and what them happen, couldn’t happen in the MCU. 

[mormont]

8 hours ago, Karlbear said:

It's not just Isaiah's desire to remain in hiding; Isaiah does not want black people to take up that shield because it is a betrayal of him and in his mind every other black man. And Sam is absolutely contradicting that viewpoint by taking up the shield. Imagine what Isaiah's reaction to seeing Sam as Cap would be. How angry he would be, how injust it is. 

Perhaps, but I'm struggling to see how that is in the conversation we were having. You said that the series seemed to be condemning Isaiah for not getting up and fighting again and saying that Sam was a better man for doing so. I'm saying that the message was that Isaiah had absolutely earned the right to do what he does and to feel the way he feels, but that what was right for Isaiah wasn't necessarily right for Sam.

Remember, one of the basic conflicts of this series is that when Sam did choose to retire the shield, because he couldn't fathom picking it up as a black man, he then had to deal with the fact that the US Government would not let it lie. Sam knows that, unlike Isaiah, he has a choice to make and must live with the consequences. Look at Sam's attitude to John in this series. Sam feels responsible for John's screw-ups because if Sam had kept the shield, John would never have had the chance to be Cap. Sam can't walk away from the role without feeling responsible for what happens next.

Now, as I say, I think how the final episode handles Sam's choice is critical and in any case, it would be presumptuous for me as a, not a black person and b, not a black American specifically, to say whether Isaiah or Sam is right here. And there's certainly some degree of trying to have it both ways in what they're doing. But I think that's more about trying to acknowledge that the issue is complex, and recognise the validity of Isaiah's views while not necessarily allowing those to dictate Sam's choice, than it is about setting Isaiah up as some sort of straw man, which seems to be your perception of that scene.

For me, this episode has gone some way to rescuing the series from the terrible previous episode, which I felt was tone deaf on some of the racial issues. The choice to kill Lemar as a way of triggering John's breakdown was way worse than anything in the Isaiah scenes. Lemar's entire story is in service to John's character arc, making it clear he was never more than a sidekick to the white lead, which is not great.

5 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

I know that there are a lot of clues that Sharon is the Power Broker, but I'm wondering if she's not, but she's making a play to be the PB. If that's the case, they would have basically copied Liara's storyline from Mass Effect 2.

At this point it has to be either Sharon or Val (the Contessa), but if it's the latter then Sharon is working for her, which I'd find perhaps more disappointing.

[DaveSumm]

Most of the episode was great which made me forget something that bugged me: was the idea that there are so many supporters of the flagsmashers, that the park happened to have loads? Or that they’d all met there? It all seemed a bit rushed and convenient, a park full of sympathisers = we can now infiltrate this massive organisation.

What the last two episodes needed to be doing was fleshing out these guys, as the concept could be fascinating; nationalism deteriorated during the blip and led to a renewed feeling of shared humanity? The identity of ‘survivor’ became more important than nationality? Sounds interesting, and I’d totally sympathise with someone fighting to retain that. But we haven’t seen it, we haven’t really seen the stakes, or what exactly the GRC are pushing to happen. 

[Jaxom 1974]

6 hours ago, mormont said:

 

For me, this episode has gone some way to rescuing the series from the terrible previous episode, which I felt was tone deaf on some of the racial issues. The choice to kill Lemar as a way of triggering John's breakdown was way worse than anything in the Isaiah scenes. Lemar's entire story is in service to John's character arc, making it clear he was never more than a sidekick to the white lead, which is not great.

 

It is bothersome in the way they used the character of Lemar. Particularly when you factor in his history in the comics and how Gruenwald was called out for being tone deaf to having a black man suit up as the sidekick Bucky to Walker's Captain America.  Gruenwald not only acknowledged what he'd done, which wasn't don't out of malice, but out of general ignorance of how he'd written the story, so he wrote it into the issues and Lemar went from being Bucky the sidekick to Battlestar the partner.  Would that they would have used a little more of that.

5 hours ago, DaveSumm said:

Most of the episode was great which made me forget something that bugged me: was the idea that there are so many supporters of the flagsmashers, that the park happened to have loads? Or that they’d all met there? It all seemed a bit rushed and convenient, a park full of sympathisers = we can now infiltrate this massive organisation.

What the last two episodes needed to be doing was fleshing out these guys, as the concept could be fascinating; nationalism deteriorated during the blip and led to a renewed feeling of shared humanity? The identity of ‘survivor’ became more important than nationality? Sounds interesting, and I’d totally sympathise with someone fighting to retain that. But we haven’t seen it, we haven’t really seen the stakes, or what exactly the GRC are pushing to happen. 

They did establish in the first episode that the Flag Smashers would gather like minded regular folk to a particular area and then "activate" them...

That being said, the group is an enigma still. And a bit of a problem.  At least in that Karli seems to be the overall leader, but she never seems more than a leader of a street gang (super powered or not). I realize the concept of these Flag Smashers, but they still seem to be living hand to mouth, not as an organized worldwide network that allows such ease of movement across the globe...

[JGP]

7 hours ago, mormont said:

At this point it has to be either Sharon or Val (the Contessa), but if it's the latter then Sharon is working for her, which I'd find perhaps more disappointing.

Agreed. It really doesn't parse with her character as established so far. On multiple occasions Sharon bent or broke the rules to stay true to values she holds higher than duty to country, or any oaths she may have taken as an agent. I was being flip when I speculated earlier that this Sharon could be a Skrull as a lead in to Secret Invasion, seems much more likely this is an in-the-open but undercover type situation.  

[sifth]

I know this is a common complaint with the MCU, but I wish this show had better villains. Walmart Cap and the other evil super soldiers are just boring to me and really do feel like more of the same "the villain is an evil clone of the hero" stuff, many of the MCU films seem to suffer from. Why is it so hard for the MCU to create a villain that's not a reflection of the hero in any way. Batman has dozens of villains that are in no way shape or form "evil Batman", so I know this can be done.

[Rhom]

18 minutes ago, sifth said:

I know this is a common complaint with the MCU, but I wish this show had better villains. Walmart Cap and the other evil super soldiers are just boring to me and really do feel like more of the same "the villain is an evil clone of the hero" stuff, many of the MCU films seem to suffer from. Why is it so hard for the MCU to create a villain that's not a reflection of the hero in any way. Batman has dozens of villains that are in no way shape or form "evil Batman", so I know this can be done.

I wanted to just dismiss your point and move on... but then I realized:

Iron Monger
Abomination
Whiplash/Justin Hammer
Red Skull
Whoever that dude was in IM3
Winter Soldier
Yellow Jacket
That dude in Captain Marvel

I’m sure there’s more... but off the top of my head it’s hard to remember much about the phase three stuff.  Says something when I feel like Thor has the most varied Rogue’s Gallery in the MCU...
 

 

[Heartofice]

25 minutes ago, sifth said:

I know this is a common complaint with the MCU, but I wish this show had better villains. Walmart Cap and the other evil super soldiers are just boring to me and really do feel like more of the same "the villain is an evil clone of the hero" stuff, many of the MCU films seem to suffer from. Why is it so hard for the MCU to create a villain that's not a reflection of the hero in any way. Batman has dozens of villains that are in no way shape or form "evil Batman", so I know this can be done.

I know that applies to some of the MCU, but not sure it’s true about this series. Zemo is probably the most watchable part of the show, John Walker isn’t really a villain but I really only engaged with the show properly when he was on screen, and Elaine from Seinfeld was great in that.. one scene.

John Walker being a substandard Cap is part of the point, the whole show is about who wears the shield. It makes sense to show a reflection of how the role could be mishandled.

Outside of that the other ‘villains’ haven’t been very inspiring. The flag smashers should have been an interesting concept but just feel like a bunch of bland teenagers from a CW show, and I switch off mentally when they turn up. 
 

I mean it’s not like Wandavision with their obviously bad man being obviously bad or cartoon witch. I get the argument applied to that show. Not sure it’s true here.

[sifth]

59 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

I know that applies to some of the MCU, but not sure it’s true about this series. Zemo is probably the most watchable part of the show, John Walker isn’t really a villain but I really only engaged with the show properly when he was on screen, and Elaine from Seinfeld was great in that.. one scene.

John Walker being a substandard Cap is part of the point, the whole show is about who wears the shield. It makes sense to show a reflection of how the role could be mishandled.

Outside of that the other ‘villains’ haven’t been very inspiring. The flag smashers should have been an interesting concept but just feel like a bunch of bland teenagers from a CW show, and I switch off mentally when they turn up. 
 

I mean it’s not like Wandavision with their obviously bad man being obviously bad or cartoon witch. I get the argument applied to that show. Not sure it’s true here.

Zemo is one of the best things about the show, but I'm not sure I'd call him a villain. He seems to be a very neutral character. It's pretty clear they're setting up John Walker to be a villain. I'd honestly be shocked if he doesn't try to kill Sam and Bucky next week.

WandaVision is sadly another example of the villain being a clone of the hero. Who does Wanda fight in the final..............an evil witch. Who does Vision fight in the final...............an evil Vision.

[briantw]

15 minutes ago, sifth said:

WandaVision is sadly another example of the villain being a clone of the hero. Who does Wanda fight in the final..............an evil witch. Who does Vision fight in the final...............an evil Vision.

At least they had a somewhat creative twist on the fight with evil Vision and it ended up being a conversation between the two where they logically worked things out.  I thought that was clever given the character.

[sifth]

16 minutes ago, briantw said:

At least they had a somewhat creative twist on the fight with evil Vision and it ended up being a conversation between the two where they logically worked things out.  I thought that was clever given the character.

Yea, that part was fun.

[TrueMetis]

Bout the only real exception I think is Doctor Strange and Dormammu. Which also had the added advantage of not being a conventional end fight.

But then IIRC didn't Benedict Cumberbatch do the motion capture work for that? So it does end up just being kind of Doctor Strange vs Doctor Strange.