Falcon & Winter Soldier -- SPOILER THREAD

[LadyTevar]

And Sharon's a confirmed villain now right? Ordering up Batroc to help Karli, wondering what her end game is.

Either she's setting Batroc and Karli to fail, or she's been the PowerBroker all this time.

[LadyTevar]

Things I really liked --
SAM BEING A COUNSELOR. He gave the words straight to Bucky, no pussy-footing around. Good, solid advice that could take Bucky to the next level of forgiving himself. Also, that training montage had to take a few months. He didn't get that good in just a week or two.

ZEMO staring down the gun, wanting Bucky to do it... and the click of empty clip. The resignation as Ayo shows up, but still keeping his demeanor and cool. "Ladies...." So, he'll be on The Raft for the next few years, and Bucky has been politely warned not to come back to Wakanda 'for a time'.

ISAIAH. His story has been the biggest one, imho. I think the serum worked so well on him because in the beginning he was A Good Man, like Steve. Now... now he's hurt, angry, and rightfully bitter. They used him and his squadmates. They stole 30yrs of his life, told his wife he died just so they could keep him hidden for medical torture, and then she dies before he can ever see her again.
I think the worse part about his story is that it's not Hollywood. It's bits and pieces of real history. The Redtails. The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiments. HeLa cells. Hell, my brother says the military still "vaccinates" troops with things and don't tell them what or why. Racism is rooted deep in the US military and government.

[LadyTevar]

Called it- Walker was defeated by Bucky and Sam teaming up, the only surprise was that it happened at the start instead of the end. Any word which organisation recruited Walker after he was kicked out of the military?

Contessa Valentina Allegra de la Fontaine
In the comics, she worked for "Leviathan", SHIELD (Russian Sleeper Agent all the while), and was secretly Madame Hydra before she betrayed Hydra to Leviathan and started a sect-war between them. Like most SHIELD agents, she is well-trained in military spec-ops, but otherwise vanilla human.
Interestingly, she was Nick Fury's lover for a time, and also SHIELD Dept Director just prior to The Secret War.

So, MCU? no clue. She could be Hydra. She could be SHIELD. She could be a player in the upcoming Secret War.

[Elheru Aran]

She was also a Skrull agent during Secret Invasion. That plus the post credit scene of Wandavision have a lot of people thinking that might be coming up.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

I'll save you time, there weren't. THis was the first one.


And personally, as a welder, I wanna see Walker use that shield and have it fall apart on him cause those welds he was making looked like absolute utter birdshit.

Oh fuck yeah, and we're all waiting for the look on Walker's face when his second-rate shield fails just like he did.

And, for those NOT in the Military, what they did to Walker, stripping medals and rank? that's common according to my brother. Stripping ALL BENEFITS? That's major fuckup. Walker can't go to the VA, can't get insurance, can't get retirement, can't get JackSHIT of the stuff due a US Veteran. My brother stopped the show just to point that out. Which means no treatment for the very big, obvious Psychotic Break he had in the shed before Sam and Bucky broke his elbow to get the shield away.
(Yeah, I winced seeing that: Arms should NOT bend backwards!!!)

What was telling about that was that this particular serum does not confer any sort of healing factor since Walker had his arm in a sling for the rest of the episode and only stopped wearing it for the post-credits scene which as already discussed would be months down the line.

More like third rate- his new shield isn't going to be made of vibranium so it won't have any of the special properties the original does.

[Crazedwraith]

What was telling about that was that this particular serum does not confer any sort of healing factor since Walker had his arm in a sling for the rest of the episode and only stopped wearing it for the post-credits scene which as already discussed would be months down the line.

Err... what? When did we establish that?

I don't see anything suggesting much of a time skip

[Batman]

I think he's extrapolating from the fact that it's a post-credits scene which unsurprisingly happens past Sam's shield training montage which likely covered a good bit of time so it would presumably happen sometime after that but there is indeed nothing in the episode explicitly saying so

[Elheru Aran]

If I had to guess-- the montage covers at least a month, possibly two, given Sam exercising and becoming more agile/athletic-- that takes a while. Repairing the boat took probably about a week or more, but that was at the start of things IIRC.

It's not impossible that the super-soldier serum *does* incorporate some kind of healing factor, just not as powerful as Cap's or Bucky's, of course. Possibly the healing factor is more powerful with larger doses of serum, or Vita-Rays make the difference. Certainly it seems like only one dose doesn't give as much augmentation as what Steve got, as all the people who got doses of serum don't appear significantly more muscular or healthier than they already were. To return to the healing factor thing, it's not impossible that it helped Walker recover from a broken elbow within a month or two versus several months of healing and therapy for an unagumented human.

[FaxModem1]

So, we have confirmation that the GRC was putting people(around 20 million) into camps, and the only reason that they haven't already done forced relocation is due to 'funding and optics'.

That kind of reduces my sympathy when the Flag Smashers do whatever they're going to do in episode 6.

[Tsyroc]

IIRC Walker got an Other than Honorable Discharge. From what I understand he should be able to petition to get that changed at some point in the future. It gets a little confusing because there are a number of discharges between Honorable and Dishonorable. General under honorable conditions, Bad Conduct (Big Chicken Dinner) Discharge etc... I think in the future he might not have too much trouble getting it to general and maybe reclaiming some benefits. I would think a lawyer could argue his mental state at the time he killed the Flagsmasher so he might be able to get completely reinstated based on that and his past history. I don't know if he'd ever be in the mental state to want to attempt such a thing but it should be possible.

In the comics Walker, at various times, has had some mental issues but I'm wondering if they are taking it further in this show. The 1950s had a Commie Busting Cap who had a version of the super solder serum that made him stronger than Steve Rogers but made him batshit crazy. He also had a steel shield that broke when he fought the original cap. Also, in the comics the Power Broker's serum made people about as strong as Spiderman, so a lot stronger than OG Cap. Walker doesn't seem that strong on his serum but he did seem stronger than Bucky. He did start off at an extremely high fitness level so that could be a contributing variable.

Of course it's ridiculous that the show had Walker have 3 Medals of Honor. One would have been enough. Two is stretching credibility but three fits bad comic book writing to a T. It's like something from a 90s Image Comic character from one of Liefeld's books. It's been more than 100 years since anyone was awarded the medal twice so the double award would have still been a huge deal.

[Lost Soal]

IIRC Walker got an Other than Honorable Discharge. From what I understand he should be able to petition to get that changed at some point in the future. It gets a little confusing because there are a number of discharges between Honorable and Dishonorable. General under honorable conditions, Bad Conduct (Big Chicken Dinner) Discharge etc... I think in the future he might not have too much trouble getting it to general and maybe reclaiming some benefits. I would think a lawyer could argue his mental state at the time he killed the Flagsmasher so he might be able to get completely reinstated based on that and his past history. I don't know if he'd ever be in the mental state to want to attempt such a thing but it should be possible.

This is a world where Zemo is sentenced and contained under the conditions meant to contain "enhanced" individuals because the Sokovia accords have apparently defined "enhanced" as anyone with some form of combat training. In other words, this only gets undone if its politically expedient and the law means nothing.

[Crazedwraith]

IIRC Walker got an Other than Honorable Discharge. From what I understand he should be able to petition to get that changed at some point in the future. It gets a little confusing because there are a number of discharges between Honorable and Dishonorable. General under honorable conditions, Bad Conduct (Big Chicken Dinner) Discharge etc... I think in the future he might not have too much trouble getting it to general and maybe reclaiming some benefits. I would think a lawyer could argue his mental state at the time he killed the Flagsmasher so he might be able to get completely reinstated based on that and his past history. I don't know if he'd ever be in the mental state to want to attempt such a thing but it should be possible.

This is a world where Zemo is sentenced and contained under the conditions meant to contain "enhanced" individuals because the Sokovia accords have apparently defined "enhanced" as anyone with some form of combat training. In other words, this only gets undone if its politically expedient and the law means nothing.

So like reality then! *da-dum-dum-tsh*

At the end of Civil War he was put in Barnes' cell which was overkill (and another strike against the pro-reg side) but by the time of this show he was in a much more normal prison. Then taken to the Raft. There can't be that many enhanced though in the MCU that the Raft is enchanced only. As you point out, other than Wanda, none of Cap's teams are enchanced, they just have equipment. They all got through in there, it's like a super-duper-max prison rather than an enhanced one.

[Gandalf]

Perhaps it can be considered a prison not so much for imprisoning law breaking superpeople, although it does have that function, but rather for protecting the superpeople class from people who pose annoyances or threats to them. Team Cap didn't have a lot of powers aside from their ability to stymie Tony Stark's agenda.

Fight the superpeople, go to superGitmo.

[Crazedwraith]

Perhaps it can be considered a prison not so much for imprisoning law breaking superpeople, although it does have that function, but rather for protecting the superpeople class from people who pose annoyances or threats to them. Team Cap didn't have a lot of powers aside from their ability to stymie Tony Stark's agenda.

Fight the superpeople, go to superGitmo.

It was less Tony Stark's agenda and more the US Govenment/Ross's imo.

[Rogue 9]

I caught up with the series over the weekend. What got me was that apparently the Dora Milaje can just check people into the Raft. The bit about jurisdiction cracked me up, because Walker had a lot of nerve talking about jurisdiction when he was an American agent in Germany. (In fact I wouldn't bet against that being what prompted Ayo's reply, as opposed to the Dora Milaje actually thinking they have legal jurisdiction; she knows that Walker has just as little as she does.)

And what is it with Marvel and having international bodies (with low membership, to boot) able to pass binding "legislation?" The GRC being assholes quite aside (and until the "Patch Act" debate it was questionable whether they actually were; the Flagsmashers hit a warehouse full of goods, but I guarantee they don't know a damn thing about logistics and that was probably intended for distribution to several camps, not just theirs), from whence do they get their authority? The MCU obviously isn't to the world government stage because the United States, Germany, etc are still going concerns and the United States military (at least) is still around (though one wonders where they were when Thanos was invading Earth), so who are these schmucks and who put them in charge of anything?

As for the Flagsmashers, fuck 'em. Lest we forget, their ideology is essentially "it was better when half the population was dead so we could squat." Anyone who thinks Thanos was right can die in a fire. Nobody's hands are clean in this mess.

[Elheru Aran]

Well, just saw today that they are making a Secret Invasion series on D+. Guess that answers where some of the hints that have been dropped lately are going.

[Tsyroc]

As for the Flagsmashers, fuck 'em. Lest we forget, their ideology is essentially "it was better when half the population was dead so we could squat." Anyone who thinks Thanos was right can die in a fire. Nobody's hands are clean in this mess.

I agree.

It did get me thinking about the aftermath of the Black Plague in Europe where the number of deaths allowed some people to move right into worthwhile properties. More importantly it increased the value of workers and gave them more leverage against the landholding classes. Presumably this wouldn't be the same post snap since Thanos should have been egalitarian in who he disappeared based on his story about his proposal on Titan.

[Tsyroc]

So like reality then! *da-dum-dum-tsh*

At the end of Civil War he was put in Barnes' cell which was overkill (and another strike against the pro-reg side) but by the time of this show he was in a much more normal prison. Then taken to the Raft. There can't be that many enhanced though in the MCU that the Raft is enchanced only. As you point out, other than Wanda, none of Cap's teams are enchanced, they just have equipment. They all got through in there, it's like a super-duper-max prison rather than an enhanced one.
[/quote]

Well, more "comic book writing". Not quite as bad as the 3 Medals or Honor but along the same lines.

IIRC, I forget the name of the prison but in Marvel Comics there was a prison that the Beast and Wolverine ended up in that nullified their powers but it also contained a lot of non-powered super villains. Those who had exceptional fighting skills were the big swinging dicks of the prison. One of those was Batroc. Wolverine was given something to deal with his "adamantium poisoning" and wore some kind of things on his hands to prevent him from popping his claws. What was extra BS was that the Beast couldn't fight for shit when depowered. I don't think the Raft ever had anyone who didn't have powers in it. Personally, I always liked The Vault more but that place pretty much got shit canned after the graphic novel with the big jail break.

I keep trying to remember where the MCU Abomination is supposedly kept? Someplace where they keep him frozen I think. That's definitely a guy you probably want to keep under wraps. Although, I think he might make the Thunderbolts if they go forward with that as a film. It make more sense to include Blonsky (hopefully looking more like his comic self) than to go with Rulk.... at least at first.

[Grand Moff Yenchin]

I don't think the Raft ever had anyone who didn't have powers in it. Personally, I always liked The Vault more but that place pretty much got shit canned after the graphic novel with the big jail break.

Wanda was locked in with some gadget (or it was just her arms binded) seemingly implying that her powers were locked

[Gandalf]

Also Jessica's superpowered friend from season two of Jessica Jones I think was sent there.

It was less Tony Stark's agenda and more the US Govenment/Ross's imo.

It starts from them, but the film certainly turns that initiative into the Stark Show soon afterwards, considering how he seems to start offering clemency on his own volition to people if they sign on to his side.

[Crazedwraith]

So the finale... Mixed feelings. The episode certainly sold me on Sam as Captain America, but I didn’t need much convincing there. The bit with Isaiah and the changed titles certainly worked for me. Bucky’s bit was... technically wrapped up.

John Walker did not got a proper end to his arc from the way it was built up. The obsession bit was just sort of dropped. Is he just supposed to have immediately realised he was in the wrong with he saw Sam!Cap?

Karli and Batroc seemed anti-climatic and hopefully they are saving Madame Hydra and Sharon as a villain for the next mini-series or something?

The extensive use of bad guys doing the dirty work was not something I liked either. Though by my count there’s one Flag-smasher, the one Sam threw in the river unaccounted for?


They can talk to the talk, but I think the real walk the walk, is the keep using Sam!Cap in a big way in other projects as Steve’s proper replacement.

[Crazedwraith]

Also Jessica's superpowered friend from season two of Jessica Jones I think was sent there.

It was less Tony Stark's agenda and more the US Govenment/Ross's imo.

It starts from them, but the film certainly turns that initiative into the Stark Show soon afterwards, considering how he seems to start offering clemency on his own volition to people if they sign on to his side.

He does but he's still subservient to Ross. He certainly takes Ross' pressure to bring Cap in seriously. And it was Ross's idea not Tony's to keep people in the Raft.

Of course, you're right in the sense that once Tony stops playing ball at the end, the Accords lose much of their teeth. they need willing superpeople to keep the other superpeople in line.

[GuppyShark]

The Raft is still better than the comics version of the shitshow that was Civil War. Reed Richards created a space Gitmo in the "Negative Zone", ffs.

[Elheru Aran]

They comment that they have 'eyes on' the one that went into the river, and Sam flies off, so presumably he rounded up that one.

Overall it's okay. I felt like it wrapped things up a little *too* neatly. I kind of feel like making Sharon the Power Broker was a little too obvious and kind of cheapens the character to some extent. No more faithful SHIELD agent. Just another villain now, going full circle back into HYDRA mode, only this time she's making a choice to be the bad guy.

Steve would be disappointed.

[LadyTevar]

They comment that they have 'eyes on' the one that went into the river, and Sam flies off, so presumably he rounded up that one.

Overall it's okay. I felt like it wrapped things up a little *too* neatly. I kind of feel like making Sharon the Power Broker was a little too obvious and kind of cheapens the character to some extent. No more faithful SHIELD agent. Just another villain now, going full circle back into HYDRA mode, only this time she's making a choice to be the bad guy.

Steve would be disappointed.

If there's Skrull involved, who says it's really Sharon?