Falcon and the Winter Soldier: How the World Turns

The falcon has always been a favorite of mine.  As a kid, I was drawn to characters with wings.  When my friends and I played superheroes, the Falcon was one of the characters I would often pretend I was.  I have really enjoyed Anthony Mackie and how he has fleshed out this character.  I really didn’t know anything about The Winter Soldier before the movies, but have come to appreciate the character and what Sabastian Stan has brought to the role.

As the second series on Disney+ that is directly linked to the characters from the movies, comparison to the first series, WandaVision is bound to happen.  The thing is, these are two completely different types of shows.  WandaVision was a more fanciful tale about love and loss and magic.  Falcon and the Winter Soldier is a spy adventure tale whose characters have superpowers.  Comparing them is fruitless and fans will have their favorites.  I, personally, loved WandaVision, but I am enjoying Falcon and the Winter Soldier.  Other’s I know, their feelings are reversed.  To each their own.

To review the plot, the World is trying to adjust to half the population coming back after being blipped out of existence.  For five years, the World had to come together to survive.  Borders that once kept people out, had to welcome in anyone they could.  To an extent, Thanos was right, although his means to get there was wrong, but adjusting to the loss of so many people, made the Earth a better place.  Then in and instant, all of that went away.  How do you house, clothes and feed so many people, when you have compensated for there loss over the last half decade.  Many people are placed into refugee camps.  Supplies are scarce, and the Global Repatriation Council (GRC) are trying to cope, but failing. A group of terrorist (or revolutionaries, depending on your view) are fighting to bring the world back to how it was during those five years, and they don’t care who gets hurt or who dies.  They also have gotten their hands on a revamp of the Super Soldier Serum that had created Captain America.  So Sam and Bucky reluctantly have to join forces to battle terrorists with powers.  At the end of End Game, Steve Rogers passes the mantle of Captain America over to Sam Wilson, but at the beginning of the series, Sam doesn’t feel comfortable taking the shield.  The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is the story of how Sam finds the courage to step into the role, and how Bucky learns to atone for the pain he caused when he was under the control of Hydra.

Episodes 3 and 4 bring in some familiar faces.  First we are reunited to Baron Zemo, whose knowledge and hatred of anything Super Soldier-ish is vital to finding those responsible for the current terrorist attacks.  With the help of Bucky, Zemo joins the team as an end to a means.  Which seems to be a theme in this show.  Does the end destination justify the path you took to get there?  Zemo represents this.  He killed King T’Chaka of Wakanda in Civil War, and the Wakandan’s have not forgotten that.  Does his help justify the pain this could cause?  Zemo adds some intrigue, tension and unexpected humor.

We also get to see what happen to Sharon Carter after she helped Capatain America and the Falcon during Civil War.  Like Sam Wilson and Steve Rogers, she went on the run, but unlike them, she did not get a pardon after Avengers: End Game.  Her appearance will not disappoint fans and calling her fight scenes “Kick Ass” is an understatement.  She definitely takes after her Grand Aunt, Peggy.

Episode 5 switches gears a little.  Reeling from the end of episode 4, Falcon and The Winter Soldier are sidelined by the government, which gives our main characters time to process what the world is like now, and for Sam Wilson, it forces him to face some dark truths.  The episode is touching and sincere.  Up to this point, the two leads have been butting heads, and this shows them becoming friends.  The episode also addresses racial tensions, and what it would mean for a black man to become Captain America.  Which leads us the final episode, where it looks like we get to see Sam suited up in the stars and stripes.

One of the great things about these new Disney+ series is we get to see some of the minor characters from the movies.  So often we don’t get to see what happens to these people, and some of them have great stories to be told as well.  I also love that they are exploring the effects of the blip on the world.  We often don’t think about the ramifications of events like the reversal of the “Blip”.   We cheer on the return of so many heroes, but all too often forget that the world had adjusted and now millions of people who had been gone, suddenly return.  WandaVision really showed us how  some of the people that returned couldn’t really cope.  I see The Falcon and the Winter Soldier showing us how the world is coping.

The series is very well thought out and produced.  The performances are top notch and the storyline has the right mixture of intrigue, social commentary, adventure and humor.