One of the challenges in writing serialized seasons of a TV show is whether or not you write it as several episodes of a show that tell a single story or if you write it as a single story that’s broken up every 45 minutes or so. A challenge in releasing it is that sometimes a show works better released all at once with the implication that it should be marathoned all in a row, rather than the more traditional episode-a-week model.
I have the feeling that The Falcon and the Winter Soldier was written to be marathoned. But, much like Star Trek: Discovery’s first season, which was almost definitely written for marathon-viewing, this show is being released weekly. This gives us an opening episode that sets everything up nicely—but that’s also all it does.
“New World Order,” the premiere episode of FWS, is 40 minutes of really good television, which is only a problem insofar as the episode is 50 minutes long. In order to get to those 40 minutes, we have to sit through a ten-minute action sequence that does a great deal to show how big a budget the show has and almost nothing to advance the plot. It does show that Falcon is going on missions for the government that require a level of plausible deniability, in this case rescuing an Air Force captain from Georges Batroc (Georges St-Pierre, reprising his MCU version of longtime Captain America villain Batroc the Leaper, last seen in Captain America: The Winter Soldier). But that could’ve been accomplished in a much shorter scene, and with a lot fewer absurdities. (Why didn’t he fly through the helicopter and grab the captain at the beginning of the sequence where he chased the helicopters through the canyons instead of the end? Where did Batroc get all those helicopters? How did that flight suit carry the weight of an additional person? Where’d those canyons come from when it was entirely flat desert prior to that?)
Once we dispense with that, however, the episode gets much much better. Both Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes are trying to move forward with their post-Thanos lives (the series explicitly takes place six months after Avengers: Endgame). In Wilson’s case, it involves reconnecting with his family; in Barnes’s case, it means seeing a therapist and making amends for his actions as the Winter Soldier.
Wilson’s backstory—already significantly changed from the comics’ version—is revealed here. He grew up on a boat in Louisiana. His sister Sarah (phenomenally played with exhausted frustration by Adepero Oduye) is trying to keep the family business afloat, and that means selling the boat. Wilson isn’t happy about that, and Sarah isn’t happy about him sticking his nose into things and rehashing arguments that Sarah already tried and rejected during the five years that Wilson (and half of humanity) was blipped by Thanos.
Anthony Mackie and Oduye have excellent sibling chemistry, and I like how Sarah is not particularly willing to humor Wilson as he tries to play hero, but finally lets him try to help her even though she knows it won’t work. In the post-blip world, banks are overloaded with loan requests, and Wilson’s belief that their bank will help them out—more to the point, help him out because he’s an Avenger—proves false.
Malcolm Spellman’s script does a nice job of threading the needle here, as the fact that the Wilsons are black is very obviously a factor in why they’re rejected for the loan, for all that it’s couched in the changed reality of the post-blip world. But it’s done subtly, mainly through Sarah’s resigned frustration. Wilson is angry about it, but it’s obvious that his sister already burned through that anger, and just needs her brother to catch up.
(While I like this aspect of the plot from a storytelling perspective, from a world-building perspective, it has a flaw: why doesn’t Wilson just call Pepper Potts and ask the head of Stark Enterprises to co-sign the loan?)
Meanwhile, Barnes’ side of the episode involves making amends. The Winter Soldier has been pardoned, but with caveats. He has to see a therapist and he has to make those aforementioned amends within the confines of the law. The therapy scenes with Barnes and Amy Aquino’s Dr. Raynor are some of the episode’s best stuff, as Raynor takes precisely none of Barnes’ shit, which is good, because he dishes out quite a bit of it. Aquino is, as always, brilliant in the role, and I hope we get to see more of her as the series goes on.
The form of Barnes’ amends is an issue for him. Some are easy: he works with the feds to bring down a corrupt senator whom the Winter Soldier helped put in place on Hydra’s behalf. But others are harder. Via a nightmare that Barnes refuses to talk to Raynor about (or even admit he had), we learn that he killed an innocent bystander who witnessed one of his assassinations. He has befriended the victim’s father over the course of the last six months (they have regular lunches), but has yet to find a way to properly make amends to him, or even admit who he is.
Then, of course, there’s the issue of Cap’s shield. In Endgame, Wilson told the elderly, time-displaced Steve Rogers that the shield felt like it belonged to someone else. That feeling is powerful enough for Wilson to reject Rogers’ bequeathing the shield to him, and instead donate it to the Smithsonian. The press conference he gives (which includes a welcome surprise cameo by Don Cheadle’s Jim Rhodes) is quite touching, though I keep thinking that he’s dishonoring Rogers’ memory by not doing what he asked. However, a government official (that’s literally how he’s credited, “Government Official,” played by Alphie Hyorth) tells Wilson he “did the right thing.”
The punchline is at the episode’s end: that same official gives a press conference announcing that there’s a new Captain America, and he introduces a white guy named John Walker in the red-white-and-blue outfit and carrying the shield that Rogers gave to Wilson. Wyatt Russell, the son of Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn, plays Walker, and he’s got his Dad’s jaw, which is perfect for the role. And of course, it was the “right thing” for the black guy to give up the shield, not because it really still belongs to Rogers, as Wilson said in his press conference, but because it enables the government to give it to a white dude. The anger and sense of betrayal on Mackie’s face in the closing moments absolutely nails it.
Both Barnes and Wilson are trying to figure out how to live their lives in the titular new world order. When Raynor tells Barnes that he’s free now, he plaintively and frustratedly asks, “To do what?” And Wilson’s attempts to reconnect with his family is nowhere near as successful as he’d like, especially since Sarah has to constantly remind him that he’s the one who went off and joined the military, leaving her to run the family business alone after their parents died, and it’s a bit late in the game for him to be trying to be the responsible brother.
Just as with WandaVision, FWS is providing the opportunity to flesh out a couple of characters who’ve gotten very little development in their film appearances. And whatever development they did get in the movies has been more about how they relate to Steve Rogers. So it’s good to start to get a feel for who they are, though the spectre of Captain America hangs over them both. Certainly both Mackie and Sebastian Stan are more than up to the task, as one of the reasons why the characters are so compelling despite that lack of development is due to these two actors’ superlative charisma.
Still, it’s frustrating to have all this setup. Let’s hope at least one or two things start paying off next week.
Odds and ends
- The only part of Sam Wilson’s backstory they kept from the comics is that his sister is named Sarah. The four-color version is a social worker from Harlem who never entered the military, and also has an affinity for birds. I’m actually fine with transplanting him to New Orleans, as even this native New Yorker thinks that the Marvel Universe is a little too heavy on the Big Apple.
- Related to that, FWS continues the MCU’s internationalism, as we have scenes in Tunisia and Switzerland, as well as New York, D.C., and NOLA.
- The current status quo of the Winter Soldier in the comics is also that he’s been pardoned, but is working it off, as it were. He’s on call to go on missions for the U.S. government.
- Besides Batroc, we have another antagonist of Captain America’s from the comics, though it’s an organization instead of a person: the Flag Smashers. Both the comics character and the TV organization are about getting rid of borders and the oppression of national rule. Flag-Smasher in the comics is named Karl Morgenthau, and Erin Kellyman is credited in this episode as playing a character named Karli Morgenthau (all the Flag Smashers we saw in this episode wore masks, and Kellyman was obviously one of them, since her face wasn’t seen at any point in the episode that I noticed).
- The Flag Smashers were uncovered by Lieutenant Joaquin Torres, who serves as Wilson’s intel officer in the opening sequence, and who I really thought was going to get killed by the Flag Smashers in Switzerland. Glad they didn’t redshirt him, as Danny Ramirez plays him with a nerdy charm.
- The cameo by Jim Rhodes, a.k.a. War Machine, is a nice surprise, as Don Cheadle wasn’t mentioned in any of the show’s publicity as appearing. Makes you wonder if any other Avengers might turn up.
- Speaking of that, neither Emily VanCamp’s Sharon Carter nor Daniel Brühl’s Helmut Zemo are in this opening episode. I have a sneaking suspicion that Zemo will be connected to the Flag Smashers…
- John Walker was the first person to be Captain America not named Steve Rogers after his revival in modern times by the Avengers. Chafing under the government trying to exert greater control over Cap, Rogers quit being Cap and handed the uniform and shield over to the government. They then assigned Walker—who was a hero called the Super-Patriot—to the role. This story played out in Cap’s comic as written by the late Mark Gruenwald from 1986-1989.
Keith R.A. DeCandido provided a guide to the history of Falcon and the Winter Soldier in the comics earlier this week. In addition to reviews of FWS, his Star Trek: Voyager Rewatch appears every Monday and Thursday. His takes on the MCU films can be found in his “4-Color to 35-Millimeter: The Great Superhero Movie Rewatch” that started on this site in 2017.
The cameo by Jim Rhodes, a.k.a. War Machine, is a nice surprise, as Don Cheadle wasn’t mentioned in any of the show’s publicity as appearing. Makes you wonder if any other Avengers might turn up.
Actually, I think Cheadle revealed he would be appearing about a month ago.
Anyway, I hope we get more Rhodey/Sam scenes.
There’s a dynamic there I wish they’d had more room to explore in the films: They’re both USAF veterans, but Sam was the enlisted grunt while Rhodey’s the career officer. The closest we got was their section of the Accord argument at the beginning of Civil War.
“The therapy scenes with Barnes and Amy Aquino’s Dr. Raynor are some of the episode’s best stuff”
So THAT’s who that was. I couldn’t place her face, but her sardonic, Sahara-dry delivery was definitely pickling at the back of my memory. I do very much hope she’s a recurring character.
Where’d those canyons come from when it was entirely flat desert prior to that?
I lived in southwest Utah for the 90’s, and that’s kind of how canyons are. Nice flat desert and suddenly, boom, big ditch. If you ever get a chance to go to the Toroweap Overlook of the Grand Canyon it’s like that. You drive 2 hours down a jeep trail, park, walk up to the edge, and it’s 3000 feet straight the heck down.
You’ll want to read this National Park Service page on Toroweap.
The credits were fun to watch, Sharon and Zemo’s faces show up so I’m guessing once they show up in the show their names will appear.
Completely different animal from WandaVision and I liked that since Marvel and cookie cutter go hand-in-hand a lot.
Henry Jackman’s score was enjoyable.
It’ll be interesting to see if the MCU’s version of Joaquin Torres ends up following the path of his comics counterpart…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_(comics)#Joaquin_Torres
For all that people were saying WandaVision was about ‘grief’, it’s shocking to me how much more believable I found the pain and grief here. It’s not surprising to me that Sam Wilson doesn’t call on wealthy friends to solve his problems–he’s still grappling with redefining who he is to his family and himself. Meanwhile Bucky knows that just because you ‘didn’t mean it’ doesn’t make what you did go away, or that you can necessarily live with it.
It’ll be interesting to see if the MCU’s version of Joaquin Torres ends up following the path of his comics counterpart.
Yeah, I was also wondering if this was just a fun Easter Egg or if they’re quietly setting up the second Falcon.
A very promising opening, as it goes forward the only problem I foresee is that as good an actor as Anthony Mackie is Sebastian Stan is in my opinion even better and usually a more compelling screen presence, Sam’s character has got to be written very well as the series progresses as this deserves very much to be his story.
My other (technical) problem with the opening — after Falcon took the door off of the hijacked cargo plane and entered it, the interior of the aircraft seemed entirely too calm? Like, no wind or noise or anything that I noticed?
(And those fallen stone columns made me wonder if they were doing the chase scene in Beggar’s Canyon …)
Still, I’ll be watching more, although I wonder if even on the weekly schedule it wouldn’t have been better-served by a two-episode opening drop.
“John Walker was the first person to be Captain America not named Steve Rogers after his revival in modern times by the Avengers.”
Does loveable lunkhead Roscoe Simmons not count? He tried to fill the role during the period when Steve was using his Nomad identity. The Falcon took him under his wing (heh), and he was killed by the Red Skull.
I didn’t read a single interaction in this episode as racial at all. If Sam had taken up the shield, they wouldn’t have made him give it up to a white guy.
Why didn’t he fly through the helicopter and grab the captain at the beginning of the sequence where he chased the helicopters through the canyons instead of the end?
His HUD flashes a “thruster malfunction” warning that, conveniently, is resolved just before they reach the border (which seemed to be rather more than 20 seconds after the 20 second warning is given, but that’s a different issue). Apparently he has enough power to maneuver aggressively, but not enough for the snatch and grab.
I agree that the sequence is longer than necessary. What I take from it is that Sam has no problem with using lethal force on behalf of the US government. Which makes sense, given his military background.
I am left wondering about the financial arrangements for the (ex?) Avengers. One might think that leaving powered folks (including, in this case, one who presumably still has a relatively high level of security clearance) financially vulnerable might not be an entirely wise plan.
@12 That’s nice.
However, anyone who’s black knew for damn sure that the loan was being denied because he and his sister were black. Being an Avenger is the sort of thing a bank officer can use his judgement on.
My big takeaway from the opening sequence is that the use of Batroc puts a point on 6 months of Sam’s falconing.
It’s a parallel to the opening of Winter Soldier where Steve’s been working with Shield for six months. Cap takes the Leaper apart with ease. Georges is a peak human mercenary, but is just clearly outmatched by Super-Soldier.
Falcon didn’t have a Black Widow-led team backing him up, and going wing to wingsuit was a fair fight. It’s why he does feel up to the task of carrying the shield
I’ve only read that first paragraph about the weekly vs. binge-watching factor behind this show. It’s a good thing I’m still way behind on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D and Agent Carter. I’m finishing them off and rewatching the movies before jumping to the Disney+ MCU TV offerings (haven’t yet seen Wandavision either). Until then, I’m staying well, well, well away from spoilers.
By the time I catch up, I’ll be able to watch these in one swoop.
I agreed that the opening sequence was very…Marvel-y, for lack of a better term. And in a way it was all the things I kind of assumed this show would be and why I was nowhere near as excited for it as I was for WandaVision. But at one point I said to the laptop “Now this is podracing” and haring the commentary in my head ;)
That said the character work is great, and in some ways I think both of these shows are going to be about adjusting to the grief/trauma of the movie events in different ways.
I think Erin Kellyman might have been who was handing out the masks; I thought I recognized her hair. I only know her from Solo but I really, really liked her in that. In some ways she’s playing a similar (if not a bit more sinister, depending on point of view) character, it seems.
Is Sam a part of or not of the armed.forces? He seems to he, since he’s involved in sensitive operations. But wouldn’t he get a salary from that? And veteran’s benefits? Wouldn’t the bank see his income as a soldier or armed officer? Not very big, but basically guaranteed for the future, even if nothing was paid while he was snapped. I’m not an American, so I don’t know how it works there, but wouldn’t his income be guaranteed and the bank consider him safe for a loan, even if not of the size he wanted?
I thought it was a solid start. It didn’t tell a complete story, but neither did the old movie serials, and having a cliffhanger ending isn’t bad when you know you just have a week to wait for the next episode.
I liked the big action sequence. A bit of alarums and excursions at the beginning of the play always helps engage the audience.
I was pleased to see Batroc back, and see him escape. He is one of my favorite Cap opponents in the comics, and I am looking forward to seeing more of him. The Flag Smasher group looks like a good adversary, and it was interesting how they tied its rise to the post-blip world.
Sam’s reconnecting with his sister gave more depth to his character, and also helped set up the post-blip Marvel world. And Bucky’s rootlessness and ennui was captured well by his psychology sessions, and awkward interaction with the young bartender.
One other thing I wanted to add is that one of the things that stood out to me and I thought was a very well acted moment was the total look of terror/vulnerability on the bystander’s face before Bucky shot him.
Yeah, I could have done without the intro sequence (I know it looks cool, but missiles do not work like that and it annoys me every time I see it). I do love it when they get a show gets siblings right, and I think they absolutely nailed it here; if I didn’t know any better, I could definitely believe they are actually brother and sister. I do sort of have to agree with #12 in that I didn’t really read anything as racial. If the bank scene was meant to imply something of that nature, they sort of undermined themselves by providing what sounded like perfectly sensible (from the bank’s point of view at least) reasons to deny a loan. The closing scene of Mackie’s expression also didn’t scan as that to me. In his Smithsonian speech, he says
“We need new heroes… Symbols are nothing without the women and men that give them meaning. And this thing.. I don’t know if there’s ever been a greater symbol. But it’s more about the man who propped it up. And he’s gone … We honor Steve’s legacy, but also, we look to the future.”
It sounds like he’s saying that symbols are more about the people behind them than the symbol itself, and now that the person behind Captain America is gone, that symbol should be retired, and the way cleared for new heroes, new symbols to be created that reflect the needs of the times. In light of this, I think his reaction at the announcement of a ‘new’ Captain America is outrage at the fact that they just replaced his friend. There was only one Captain America, and it was Steve Rogers. To hand that off to another person, like a coat to be worn or discarded as needed, is a deep misunderstanding of the relationship between the symbol and the one who bears it, and I think that’s what Wilson is reacting to. If there is going to be a ‘new’ Captain America, I would think it would need to be approached with a bit more necessity and respect than “the Department of Defense, after likely countless meetings on who to choose and the exact political and international implications of that choice, has decided that this poor fellow will probably follow orders and stay in our back pocket out of sight when not needed”.
@19 I think Sam is a…contractor. He mentions government contracts in his talk with the bank. (Which also means proof of income suitable for loans. Which makes the bank refusal straight up racism).
@12: I didn’t read a single interaction in this episode as racial at all. If Sam had taken up the shield, they wouldn’t have made him give it up to a white guy.
If they (the government? whoever Sam handed the shield over to) were looking for a new Captain America, Sam was the extremely obvious choice. And yet it’s clear from the episode that not only did they not offer the job to him, they didn’t even tell him they were planning to replace Cap. Sam thought he was handing over the shield to be displayed in the museum in Steve’s memory, because he felt like no one, including himself, could fill Steve’s shoes. I doubt he would have given up the shield if he’d known they were just going to pass it to some random guy.
The racial implications seem kind of inescapably obvious. A lot of the time no one is going to actually come out and say “we’re not going to give you a loan because you’re black” or “we would rather have a white guy as Captain America”. They’ll give other reasons. That doesn’t mean that racial bias is not at work in the situation.
@12 I got the impression that Sam had been “asked” to return the shield and give the speech by the government, ostensibly so it could go in the museum as a monument to his friend. Then the scene a the end was him realising they’d lied to him so that they could create a new Captain America, and the only reason I can think of not to give that mantle to a literal Avenger (and Steve’s designated successor) was because they wanted the new Cap to be white.
And the only reason that the loan was denied was obviously racial. He’s an Avenger, he’s got government employment and the “you don’t have any finances for the last five years” was weak as hell.
Outside of the “US Government screws the Black man” thing, I really liked this episode. I was thinking whoever did the music nailed the Henry Jackman style from Winter Soldier and Civil War, so while I wasn’t surprised to see his name in the credits, it does show me that Marvel are committed to all aspects of the production value and not just blowing it all on special effects and actions scenes.
@19 Loan decisions in America are pretty complicated and opaque, usually in a way that disadvantages Black Americans. Even if the bank guy considers Sam’s government contracts, and in the scene he blows right past them, the five years of missing income increase the risk in the bank’s eyes. Also, the location of the business matters. The business is considered higher risk if its located in an area with greater poverty. To overlook risk, the bank would look at other assets owned by the borrowers. The boat’s in bad shape and the house is already heavily leveraged.
Where race enters into this is that Black borrowers are more likely to be impacted by all of the above. Because of the country’s long history of systemic racism, White borrowers are more likely to have inherited assets or live in wealthier neighborhoods, so lenders are more likely to issue loans in spite of risk factors like five years of missing income. This is aside from the fact that lenders are simply less likely to offer loans to borrowers of color, and often offer worse terms. Bank guy says that things have tightened up, and that’s perfectly reasonable. But Black people are usually the ones who get squeezed out when that happens.
We’ve even seen this within the wider MCU. Pre-blip, Ant-Man is able to start a business while he’s literally under house arrest. I don’t remember if a loan is explicitly mentioned, but it seems unlikely he and his crew had the resources to by their van and gear out of pocket before they landed any gigs.
Sam and Sarah don’t get the loan because of their race, even if bank guy’s thought process in the moment wasn’t “I am not going to issue this loan because these people are Black.” The fact that he first mistook Sam for a football player and then repeatedly asks Sam to put on a performance for a selfie do not paint bank guy in a positive light, either.
Marvel’s “Ultimate” alternate universe that ran in comics for several years had a Sam Wilson, Falcon, maybe more like this MCU version.
https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Samuel_Wilson_(Earth-1610)
I think I remember Nick Fury saying that asking the Ultimate universe Iron Man to carry out a mission involved over 100 ground support crew, though this might include masseuse and sommelier. (I think Ultimate Tony Stark doesn’t give up booze, possibly ever.) Dr Wilson can do similar work on his own.
It would seem like post-blip would be a great time to invest in a fishing boat. There are suddenly twice as many mouths to feed and (literally) twice as many fish in the sea.
Why, if Thanos was trying to curtail overpopulation, would he zap fish as well?
@30 I think with less fishing, it’s reasonable to assume fish population will rebound, not that Thanos necessarily zapped the fish.
And I’m just going to say, with government contracts in hand (not to mention being a friggin’ AVENGER), five years of missing income is not quite as heavy a question mark in any rational credit system.
The racial implications seem kind of inescapably obvious. A lot of the time no one is going to actually come out and say “we’re not going to give you a loan because you’re black” or “we would rather have a white guy as Captain America”. They’ll give other reasons. That doesn’t mean that racial bias is not at work in the situation.
Yeah, that was present in Nick Spencer’s run with Sam-as-Cap (and I think it may have been in Rick Remender’s too). A lot of public/government opposition was ostensibly due to the belief that only Steve should be Cap, or clashes with Sam’s personal politics (which were more open and critical than Steve was willing to be).
But, really, even though characters and civilians kept denying it, it was clear there was blatant racial bias in play.
We’ve even seen this within the wider MCU. Pre-blip, Ant-Man is able to start a business while he’s literally under house arrest. I don’t remember if a loan is explicitly mentioned, but it seems unlikely he and his crew had the resources to by their van and gear out of pocket before they landed any gigs.
Yeah, I’ve always wondered where exactly Scott and company got that seed money for their business. I wonder if came from Hank and Hope as compensation for dragging him into the events of the first Ant-Man . It would add additional context to their fury at his actions during Civil War.
One thing that occurs to me is that Steve Rogers really left a questionable legacy to Sam. Steve never really resolved what the relationship between Captain America and the United States of America. Cap started as a soldier in World War II, but Steve became disillusioned with playing that role. He only took up the shield again as basically a last stand against an apocalypse. So who is Captain America even supposed to be now? The show is going to try to address that. Given the past of the MCU, I’m not sure I’ll love the answer.
It also occurs to me how many juicy legal, political, and ethical questions just get totally ignored by the movies. How does Tony Stark even legally justify having a private drone army that may outgun every military on earth (the second amendment??) How much of the fear of governments in Civil War was about the uncontrolled power of superheroes, as opposed to fear of threats to their own legitimacy (for example, there are probably more than a few authoritarian states that are U.N. members that would dread having Captain America or worse Thor deciding to side with democratic reform movements.)
And like, what can of worms was opened when it became obvious that fully sapient A.I. like Vision and Ultron exist? Or wasn’t opened, since it seems like the U.S. at least treats the Vision as a piece of military hardware. Which is totally believable, but are there A.I. rights movements now?
(I don’t really expect the MCU is ever going to address any of these questions.)
I definitely got the impression race was at least indirectly considered to be a factor. When the loan officer says how ‘things have tightened up’, she kind of sardonically says that things always seem to tighten around ‘us’, to which the loan officer kind goes ‘woah, woah, it’s not like that’ or something like that, which I definitely got the impression was meant to be about race.
but I think Zodda @27 has it right in that the loan officer was probably not consciously denying the loan in his mind because he was black, but due to the other systemic factors tend to impact people of color more often.
My only criticism of the flying scene is that, given the speed Sam accelerates at, and given the small amount of reaction mass his rocket pack has room for, that rocket exhaust must be moving at (off the top of my head) about a bazillion MPH.
I also liked how he used his wings as shields. In the MCU, did his government issue wings get replaced by Wakandan tech? Using vibranium?
I don’t see how you can view what happened with the shield as anything but racial, when the government official tells Sam he’s “doing the right thing” after his press conference saying that the shield is Steve Rogers and it should be in a museum to honor him and that someone shouldn’t take up the mantle, and then that exact same official holds a press conference unveiling the new white guy as Captain America.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Thanks for everyone who answered me!
So now I understand that the loan denial scene was mainly about how racism works in the US. Still, I feel it’s unrealistic. I know complaining about realism in a show about superheroes is kind of nitpicky, but the realism of everyday life is what makes the unrealistic battles and space travels work, otherwise the show loses relatability to the audience.
Compare this scene of loan denial with the loan denial scene in Spiderman 2. That scene worked because the movie showed that:
Spiderman had a secret identity
Peter felt guilty about exploiting his superpowers to get money after Uncle Ben died. It was the first thing he thought to do with his super powers, but he stopped doing that after Ben died.
Peter couldn’t get or maintain a good job because he had to spend half of his time fighting crime as a masked superhero. So the only work he could get was delivering pizzas or freelance photographer, which don’t pay well. And being a superhero affected those jobs negatively as well.
Now, with Sam
Sam is famous. Not the level of recognition of Iron Man, Thor, Hulk or Captain America (people in the street stopped these guys in previous movies), but a little above Ant-Man. People recognize him with enough hints.
Sam is exploiting his powers / set of skills. It’s his paying job to be a super soldier in missions for the US government.
He’s good at it. The first thing we see in the series is him doing something that only a few people besides him could do. Saving a hostage while flying and fighting helicopters in a canyon seems difficult. And he gets compliments from the people he work with, including senior officers, like Rhodes.
So why isn’t Sam getting well paid? The show is kind of making the point that he doesn’t have the money to maintain the family boat, so he needs a loan, and is denied it. Why does he need a loan? The boat looks cheap. Cheap boats are still kind of expensive for the average salary, but (this is the important one) IS SAM RECEIVING A NORMAL WAGE OR A BIG WAGE?
Sam apparently works for the military as a private contractor. From the news that I read, this actually pays more than working for the military as an officer. The average Navy SEAL makes 54,000 USD a year, but the guys with the skill to kill Bin Landen were paid 6 figures. And when they go to a private military company, like Blackwater, they get paid more (some get paid 250,000 USD a year). Sam is his own company, there’s no boss getting a cut of his paycheck. And he’s doing something only maybe 5 other people in the world can do, tops. Why is he struggling for money? Is it because he has to pay for all the Falcon gear by himself? No, because the show says that the military / Stark Company kind of do it for him. Is it because he wants to be paid low because he’s patriotic? So the problem is kind of self inflicted. I don’t think the US government would deny if he asked to be paid more. Who else is the US going to go for when they want to rescue someone from Batroc? Sam is very hard to replace, someone who can defeat aliens and super soldiers and go one to one with War Machine (as seen in Civil War) is a very hard thing to come by. And the US government seems to like his work, going from compliments Rhodes and the other guy made. Finally, the boat doesn’t look that expensive. I think the US government would accept paying 500,000 USD in advance or as a bonus for work well done in rescuing that guy from the beginning of the episode, and Sam could get to keep his family’s boat.
The show is going for a “protagonist suffers from the same problems as normal people, like the viewers” but forgot to make it seem realistic, since the protagonist doesn’t work like a normal person.
I think other people have covered the racial thing better than I could. But I just want to say to the person that thought it seemed subtle: That’s because racism often IS subtle. It’s often not going to hit you over the head with a burning cross while wearing a white mask. It has many tactics. A lot of time even the people who are being racist don’t even realize they are being racist.
Another thing I wanted to point out about the bank interaction was him asking if Tony just paid them a lot of money under the table as Avengers. It reminded me of when cops pull over black people and ask whose car it is, if they’re borrowing a friends car, etc.
As much as I’m not the greatest fan of action sequences and this one was not really an exception, I think it was good and interesting as far as action sequences go. Like if I actually like all the Marvel action sequences, maybe I’d like this one. I liked the face cam stuff. And even if they took some liberties with the wing suits, I still really loved the fact that they used the wing suits, because I remain fascinated by them in real life.
But man, one episode of this show and we already got way more character development for these two than all the movies prior to this. I guess it’s like Wandavision in that way; that it took two characters from the movies that were kind of sides that didn’t have their own origin movies and just showed up in other movies next to the big guys, and made them into favorite characters in their own right. Bucky in particular I was always a little bored by in the movies. But here, his story hits pretty hard.
One thing I’m also wondering is what exactly is the real Steve’s status at this point? Before the series started I’d heard rumors that the first episode would feature his funeral, confirming that Old!Cap had conveniently kicked the bucket in the months since Endgame. But the scene turned out to be a ceremony to put Cap’s shield in the museum, not a funeral. So is Steve dead or alive? And what is the official, public story on what became of him? I notice that Sam only said that Cap was not in a secret base on the moon. He did not say that Cap was actually dead.
Not to deny that the bank is deciding the loan application on race, but to me, a “contractor” is someone that you pay when you need work done that you can’t put your regular employees on, and if today there isn’t any work like that happening, you don’t pay them. So it isn’t reliable income.
Also, objectively, Sam is pretty likely to go out and get killed one day. The government stops paying him then, too, and I don’t think he’ll get life insurance, either, to pay off debts. Not if you’re basically trying to get killed.
He could pivot and rent out the wings to rich extreme sports enthusiasts, but then you probably, inevitably, get Dell Rusk or Wade Wilson borrowing them and not coming back. I claim a minor bonus if this does happen in the show. Unless it already happened in the movies, which I haven’t fully attended to.
but I think Zodda @27 has it right in that the loan officer was probably not consciously denying the loan in his mind because he was black, but due to the other systemic factors tend to impact people of color more often.
In the end, it doesn’t matter if it’s intentional or not; impact outweighs intent.
ETA: By the way…folks are aware that the writing staff is majority Black on this show? Have no doubt that this scene was deliberate or that the racial implications actually exist.
@41 – regarding his money/assets, the other thing I wonder about is what happened to his assets during the blip. I have a decent nest egg built up, but if I blipped, and then came back…would that still be there? What would have happened to my bank accounts, my 401k, my IRA, etc in the interim? If my husband was still alive perhaps it would have gone to him as he’d still have access to my bank account (although seeing as how some insurance companies have ‘acts of God’ and ‘acts of War’ as excuses to not pay out, I could also see things crumbling during the blip so much that that things like my 401k or life insurance policy just…disappear.). And then when I come back, what happens? And if they DID pay out a life insurance policy…would I have to pay it back because I’m not actually dead?
So while I do think a lot of the racial commentary IS apt, I also can see how financial institutions in general have a whole lot of shit to untangle right now.
Regarding Sam though, I’d like to think the military would have some type of death benefits for him if he DID die, but apparently not. Then again, I’m still not totally clear on if he’s actually officially a part of the military, especially as he says he’s just a contractor, and since he didn’t want to sign the Accords, he might also not want to be ‘owned’ by them.
But man, one episode of this show and we already got way more character development for these two than all the movies prior to this. I guess it’s like Wandavision in that way; that it took two characters from the movies that were kind of sides that didn’t have their own origin movies and just showed up in other movies next to the big guys, and made them into favorite characters in their own right. Bucky in particular I was always a little bored by in the movies. But here, his story hits pretty hard.
Yeah, the Phase Four shows are not unlike a spinoff mini-series or limited run maxi-series in the comics. It’s the perfect venue to showcase the characters who wouldn’t be able to sustain a ongoing monthly book or feature film (at least from the perspective of the bean counters).
One thing I’m also wondering is what exactly is the real Steve’s status at this point? Before the series started I’d heard rumors that the first episode would feature his funeral, confirming that Old!Cap had conveniently kicked the bucket in the months since Endgame. But the scene turned out to be a ceremony to put Cap’s shield in the museum, not a funeral. So is Steve dead or alive? And what is the official, public story on what became of him? I notice that Sam only said that Cap was not in a secret base on the moon. He did not say that Cap was actually dead.
Yeah, they really need to address it, otherwise it’s gonna be the star-spangled elephant in the corner.
@45 – since you addressed me, it got me thinking, but I also have been rambling on in my head about things like algorithms and what the financial situation of the world must look like right now.
I agree with your main point, but in trying to think of a solution, I would say that it does matter, in some sense (although maybe not to the victim – I don’t mean to minimize that), because intentional vs unintentional racism (for lack of a better term) are separate issues that are going to require separate approaches in how they are tackled.
When I was growing up, it was basically seen as enough to teach kids ‘don’t be racist’ and ‘color doesn’t matter’ and to imagine some type of post-racial colorblind society as the ideal and that we had basically achieved that because we didn’t have the KKK running around in plain sight (generally speaking). Clearly, there’s more to racism than just people who go around thinking they are part of some superior race or go out of their way to harass minorities.
And from a morality standpoint, intent absolutely matters, although it unfortunately also means people are much more defensive about what they didn’t intend, which means it’s harder to effect change. Most people don’t think they are (and probably aren’t) equivalent to a guy burning crosses on their neighbor’s lawn. It doesn’t mean they aren’t causing harm, but they are still different from a person who actively wishes harm on other people.
But at any rate, that was the point I was trying to make – this guy is (as far as we know) is not some secret KKK member who denied a loan because he saw a Black man come in, and if you just look at the literal reasons he gives, they are reasonable, so a superficial read of the situation would not seem racist. But looking at the subtext (and, as you say, part of that is that the writers are Black), that is where you see it, and my point is that just because he’s not “consciously” thinking that (and I don’t think anybody was saying he was) it was almost certainly a factor. He also seems to think he’s entitled to selfies which I think also has some implications.
Somewhat related – I wonder too how much of the loan process is automated nowadays; do they just run your numbers through an algorithm? But even that has pitfalls. I work in medical software and one of our algorithms had to do with appointment scheduling and no-shows, etc…long story short some of our algorithms, it turned out, were resulting in people from certain communities (usually minorities) not getting scheduled for appointments because they flagged things as no show ‘risks’ that disproportionately impact those communities. So we had to tweak that and also start focusing on things to help make the care more accessible (ie, does this person have certain social determinants of health that make seeking care difficult, do they have transportation issues, can we integrate with rideshare programs to offer rides, etc). There have been other studies about algorithms used in health care (and other fields) to assess risk that have been shown to have similar biases.
The software developer in me says, ‘well, if that’s what the data shows, that’s what the data shows; they are objectively a higher risk because of x, y, z’. But that’s also kind of a sad way to look at the world (although I understand that, to a point, risk assessment is a thing) and the goal is to dig in WHY it is the way it is and how to reduce those disparities in the first place. Not to mention that the decisions to include x, y, z in your algorithm and weight them in a certain way are themselves potentially subjective decisions.
But of course that still leaves us with the immediate need of the person who is sitting in front of you right now; it IS very possible he’s just less willing to ‘take a chance’ on a Black person – even if he’s an Avenger – than a white person with the exact same risk score. It may also be simultaneously true that the bank is less solvent than it was 5 years ago. The amount of people in the world just doubled, but did the amount of money (I have no idea how economics works and it’s all black magic to me)? So what’s the answer? I truly don’t know.
But I also wonder how the flag smashers are going to come into this and the idea that things were better during the blip. Were things more equitable? Or are they just edgy nihilists? ;)
In a way this whole discussion is also somewhat reminiscent of Wanda’s culpability – how much of a pass does she get because she didn’t do it on purpose? Does that erase the trauma the citizens of Westview went through? Is she an out and out villain? What kind of atonement can she make? Likewise Bucky is dealing with his own guilt for things that weren’t under his control; how much will that matter to Yori?
(One also wonders what the dynamic between Bucky and Wanda would be – both of them are struggling with some similar baggage and the loss of somebody very close to them, but Bucky’s trauma stems from being mind controlled, whereas Wanda is somebody who ended up controlling a bunch of peoples’ minds).
What exactly happened during ‘the blip’ is certainly one of those things that just has to get glossed over in terms of returning to a new normal. Losing fifty percent of your population is the kind of thing that could easily cause systemic collapses in politics, finance, and business. Endgame at least hinted that that might have been the case. There must be countless people who are homeless and jobless after returning. I certainly don’t find it a hard to believe that financial institutions would not be eager to lend out money to many of these people, even if they were ‘respectable’ enough before they disappeared, much less return assets that might have already been redistributed.
The question of Sam turning to Stark Industries or someone else for help raises a lot of unanswered questions too. Stark no doubt covered the costs of ‘The Avengers’, but it seems unlikely that Tony Stark or Pepper Potts is stepping in to finance peoples’ personal lives. It never really seemed like Sam was friends with Tony in such a way that he would ask for that kind of help either.
But if he was and he did, what would it really say if Sam Wilson would turn to rich friends for help overcoming racism in the financial industry, when no one else really can? Is that something that someone we assume is going to take on the mantle of Captain America would do?
Rayamano @@@@@ 41: I think the US government would accept paying 500,000 USD in advance or as a bonus for work well done in rescuing that guy from the beginning of the episode
First, someone would have to suggest this — in a highly hierarchical organization (the US military).
Then it would have be passed a long way up the line for approval.
Then it would be denied, because there is no slush fund for individual contractors; the US military deals with corporations like Xe (formerly Blackwater), and is probably having fits over dealing with an individual at all.
And even if he got a massive bonus, it’s not what a bank calls “income”; income is a regular stream over a period of time. All the banks I’ve dealt with would ask why Sam doesn’t just spend his bonus instead of looking for a loan, even if he were white.
Lisamarie @@@@@ 46: in Massachusetts, I periodically see a publication of a huge list of assets the state has taken after the banks admitted the assets were inactive; I don’t know how long the banks have to wait — but that’s when people just don’t keep in touch with a bank. In five years of ~known absence, there’s plenty of time for vultures to say these people are never coming back and the money should be “distributed”.
OTOH, note that the whole snapture-and-recovery is so unbelievable that a writer could handwave just about anything; if you randomly remove half of the population, most of the tech would fail for a shortage of people to keep it going, which would leave a ruin for first-worlders to come back to when they’re un-snapped. (And that doesn’t mention how many people died permanently because trucks were suddenly driverless, or planes lost both pilots, or …)
@47: He’s chilling at a secret base on the moon with Uatu and Nick Fury
I’m surprised there haven’t been more comments about Sam being a jerk to his sister. He left home and joined the Air Force then when he got out he didn’t come home and help but ran a support group in DC. Then became the Falcon. Then he was snapped. So he left when he was barely an adult and has been gone, at a guess, over 10 years? And she has presumably been there all along and knows their business and how “our bank” as Sam calls it, has probably been screwing them the whole time. Then he hits her by stating the boat is one-half his! Has he been helping the business? No! Has been helping paying the bills? Not while he was snapped at least. I hope this is addressed!
The big problem with the end of this episode is that it was never made clear what Captain America stands for in the modern world. During WW2, he was a vector for propaganda, his image entirely belonged to the army, even though he took to the mask and made this identity his own until he was choosing his own missions. Then we saw throughout Agent Carter and through the museum scenes in Winter Soldier and Civil War that the army had reappropriated his image. After the Chitauri invasion, the public knew that Cap was alive. But how much did they know about his role? How much would they publicise what appears to be secret missions (I mean, an Avenger operation always requires so much damage control that some of them must have been well known, but the military side of things probably tried to cover up as much as possible). What we’ve seen of Steve Rogers’ public image is not much more than that PSA in Spider-man: Homecoming. I haven’t seen any sign that Captain America’s public image is anything but what the military wants it to be. So while the use of the shield itself is tasteless, I don’t see why they wouldn’t do whatever they want with a symbol that has always been more theirs than Rogers’.
@41, 46: Sam’s case is frustrating, since we know nothing of his life between Civil War and Infinity War. Were his assets frozen when he went rogue? Did he have anything to bequeath his sister when he was dusted? And more generally, how did the economy deal with the Snap and the Blip? Half of humanity must have been considered dead: lots of people saw the others getting dusted, so it’s clearly not a case of missing persons (except in the case of Scott Lang as it happened). Then as everybody reappeared at the same time, it’s clear that this situation cannot be dealt with as a case by case basis, and that anyone who comes to the authorities during the next month claiming to be one of the missing people would have a very small burden of proof to overcome to be regain their legal identity. So at that point, what happened to their assets? Were the missing interests refunded? Did Stark forgive the people on Steve’s team as thanks for their involvement in the fight against Thanos? Considering his survivor’s guilt, it’s hard to think he wouldn’t have made sure their families all got the money they would have been owed had the heroes remained Avengers.
Good episode, but not wonderful. I really enjoyed the aerial battle, I thought it was one of the best air sequences I’ve seen on superhero adaptations. And Russell totally sells it in that frame as Walker. Looking forward to the rest of the show, as it seemed from the trailers, it’s very “Winter Soldier” (the movie), and that is my favorite MCU film.
I am a bit disappointed that just as they turned social worker and activist Sam Wilson into a military man, they did the same with Joaquín Torres, who in the comics is a “dreamer”, helping other immigrant kids. The MCU’s glorification of the military sometimes grates me. And the “MCU’s internationalism” that you mention, krad, consists of the US military operating ilegally in other countries.
@1 – Mr. Magic: Do we really know that Sam is an enlisted grunt? Have we ever been told what his rank was? I don’t think just any grunt would get to fly a Falcon suit.
@12 – JasonD: I think you’re being a bit naive. Even if the US government position in the MCU is not racially-motivated, you have to know that there are plenty of people in the country that would not want a black Captain America. Same for the loan.
@13 – Keith: I liked the sequence, but it was a bit too lethal for my taste. I know Sam was military, and that this is a military operation… but it’s still supposed to be a superhero show. Again, the excessive militarization of the MCU.
@19 – Ryamano: He’s not currently a member of the military, but he’s working with them as a contractor. He has income, but not for five years before the previous six months. That’s not considered enough by the bank. I don’t think it’s a matter of being from the US or not… banks are notorious for grasping at anything in order to deny you loans.
@22 – Ravencorp: The announcement of a new Cap is a problem for Sam both because he doesn’t want Steve replaced, but also because if they wanted to do so, they should have told him, instead of going through the whole pantomime of putting the shield on display. Additionally, the racial issue can also be a factor, since he might feel that they could have asked him to be the new Cap, but they obviously went with a caucasian, blond-looking (even if you can’t see his hair) man. The symbolism is inequivocal.
@26 – TheMongoose: I loved how the music was very Bond-esque.
@28 – Robert Carnegie: The MCU borrows a lot from Ultimate Marvel, not only aesthetically, but also thematically and in how it adapts the original characters. The heavy militarization of the Avengers and surrounding characters is something from the UM comics.
@46 – Lisamarie: That is exactly what being a contractor means, they’re not really part of the military. They’re external personnel contracted for specific jobs. They might get long contracts, or steady work, but they’re not guaranteed work as an actual government employee.
@52 – Charles: Sam is definitely being an a**hole to his sister. I think that is made pretty obvious by his sisters’ reactions, and anyone with a bit of sense can notice he’s being a jerk. Then again, a lot of people are blissfully oblivious to the racial issues at play in the show, so…
@52: I don’t think he’s been entirely absent that whole time (aside from the blip). The people on the dock, including the kids, are happy to see him, but not particularly surprised. He and Sarah have had conversations about the boat many times before. My sense was that he was in regular contact prior to the snap, but I don’t think we know one way or the other. Do we even know when their parents died? If I remember correctly, they were still alive when he left to join the Air Force.
It’s true that Sarah has been running things day-to-day, and he certainly wasn’t there during the blip. He’s trying to reconnect and trying to help. He doesn’t fully appreciate what she has been through. He is not fully listening to what she is telling him. But that seems like a relatively normal (or at least common) relationship between adult siblings, especially in the context of a disagreement over how to deal with a family legacy. I did not see Sam’s behaviour as particularly out of line.
@43- Did we ever settle on which timeline Cap lived out his life in? I’ve been assuming that when he returned to dance with Sharon it branched off an alternate timeline, in which case he presumably returned there after popping back to OTL to hand over the shield.
As much as I would like my super-hero escapist fantasies to ignore real world problems, race is certainly meant to be a factor in both the bank loan and the government’s choice of he next Captain America. However, I am hopeful that at least in the case of the choice of the next Cap, that wasn’t the driving factor. As others have said before in this thread, Steve Rogers post deep freeze, was never 100% on board with the governments and agencies he worked with. Even in WW2, he disobeyed orders and rescued Bucky–he’s always done what he felt was the right thing to do, not necessarily what the Army, Shield, or the U.N. told him what to do.
I think the U.S. government wants a Captain America they can control and they had deep suspicions that Sam was never going to be that man. Couple that with while we the viewers know that Sam has been a constant hero next to Steve and Natasha for a long time, his exposure as a hero to the world is relatively small. The bank manager just thought he looked familiar after all. So even more than Sam being the “wrong color”, he was simply the wrong man to the government. I suspect we’ll get some spin like this form the government cronies in later episodes.
As for the loan, yes it was heavily implied that race was a factor. And yes, I agree that Sam could simply ask Pepper for the money and of course she would have given him enough money to buy a fleet of boats without question. It’s really not hard to imagine a scenario where Pepper and Happy would sit down with a list of Avengers in front of them and not make sure that everyone as accounted for, but that’s not the story we are being told.
What seems more implausible is that the loan officer, having realized who Sam is, wouldn’t immediately go back tot he bank managers and have them green light the loan. It is implied that almost qualify for the loan as is, and probably would have if they were white, There is no way that even a second trier Avenger wouldn’t edge them over. America does have plenty of racism, but we love our celebrities and heroes. Any bank would would love to have the bragging rights of working with an Avenger.
What really struck me upon viewing this episode is how much of a downer Marvel has become. I loved WandaVision, but it was pretty depressing. So far The Falcon and the Winter Soldier seems determined to be just as bleak.
But I do appreciate seeing glimpses of just how painful an existence like Bucky’s would be. I mean cry all you want for Steve or Natasha or Wanda, but I’m pretty sure that none of them has had such a craptacular life as poor Bucky. Aside from cosplaying for a stint as Jesus in Wakanda, the guy has had nothing but awful for 70 years.
His awkward date was the highlight of the episode for me though, so much fun!
@57 – templar: It’s not like superhero comics haven’t had loads and loads of real world issues since the 1930s…
I really was looking forward to this new series & I ended up really enjoying it. Did think the opening scene went a little long but was still fun to see Sam Wilson take center stage & I liked his interaction with his intel liaison – my family & I kept waiting for him to be ‘red-shirted’ throughout the episode!
I liked the episodic feel to it; but I guess I am old school that way as I enjoy the old ‘tune in next week, same Bat-time, same Bat-channel!’ build-up. I don’t need to binge watch everything- and as I haven’t watched the newest Star Trek series, I can’t speak to that show’s season 1 issues.
This show, and WandaVision, definitely demonstrate how there are things that can be done better, story-wise, on the small screen as opposed to the big screen. Also thought the writing was top-notch for both Sam & Bucky. I thoroughly enjoyed their interactions within their respective circles as they deal with the post-blip reality they helped bring about.
As to the implied racism Sam & Sarah dealt with at the bank, well the newsmagazine 2020 did an expose years ago in Chicago where they sent in identical candidates looking for mortgages – grades, careers, marital status, income, etc…
The only difference in the candidates was the color of their skin. The non-white applicants were denied at a far greater frequency than the white applicants. Just ’cause businesses/banks/bars/restaurants/etc… no longer post signs such as ‘No Coloreds’ or ‘I.N.N.A.’ doesn’t mean that mentality doesn’t exist.
Going to be interesting to see if this new new Captain America will be a good soldier or a good man. I feel that the former will outweigh the latter and I hope they handle that well/deftly. Superheroes do need oversight & need to be reportable to some authority. Just don’t think the US government, as seen in the MCU, is that agency.
As it stands, however, this is the golden age for us superhero/comic book fanboys/girls, no?
Kato
@59, I agree and it’s not a bad thing at all and I’m sure they show would be pretty shallow if they didn’t take on these issues. Sometimes I just want to pretend to be in a world with other problems.
@60 – Kato: I have a podcast, and every time we review a comic book show, we chant our mantra: WHAT A TIME TO BE A NERD.
@48 This is a lovely write up examining the issues here. I wasn’t calling you out (and I think you realize it), because we all agree that the impact needs to be taken seriously. And I quite agree that the solutions will vary because of intent…but the important thing is to deal with the impact.
I had to stop watching just before the bank scene (because my internal pain meter, which was already getting into the red zone, knew it would go into overload if I watched it). So, while my bet is that Same was refused because of racism, I can’t give an authoritative opinion. It just seemed the likely way the story would go.
That said:
1) Being an Avenger was a paying job at one point in the comics. I don’t know if it still is, but it would make a lot of sense.
2) Normally, in the real world, I think it would be better PR for the bank to give a loan to a certified, world saving hero than to turn him down, especially if it’s a consolidation loan rather than a truly new loan. It’s about making arrangements for a person to be better able to pay of existing debt (that is already being paid) than creating new debt (but banking is not my thing, so I could be wrong on that).
3) On the other hand, if we’re diving into the real world, the economy must be in shambles. It fell apart five years ago. I’m guessing everyone from insurance agencies to government aid programs weren’t able to pay survivors the way they were supposed to. Every business on the planet lost half its customers and lost, on average, half the people who kept things running, losses that created chaos regardless of the lowered need for output. And, getting back to banks, half the people paying mortgages vanished.
Assuming they go that under control, now, it’s in chaos again. Where survivor benefits were paid, do they now need to be paid back? If the bank handed over your life savings to your next of kin, does the bank need to pay you back? If someone inherited your house and has been paying the mortgage, does someone owe them that money? Is it you or the bank? This is not a season for lending.
But, I’m guessing the economic problems in this world aren’t going to be as bad as they’d be in reality. This story’s focus is more on the aftermath as Sam and Bucky are dealing with it rather than how the world economy may be impacting them.
A question that I haven’t seen answered anywhere AFAIK:
Can just about anyone be Captain America if they just have the shield? The entire point of the Captain America movie was that Steve Rogers wasn’t even an average guy, but a very much below average guy (physically, if not morally), who was made into a super-soldier who then got a special shield.
If anyone who isn’t a super-soldier can become Captain America with just the shield, what was the point of Steve becoming a super-soldier to start with? He was already morally superior, viz the grenade incident and later being able to wield Mjölnir (which didn’t have to do with his physical strength), if moral strength is the prerequisite for becoming Captain America and wielding the shield.
In other words, is Captain America the shield or the person behind the shield?
Not really happy to see one of our heroes begin his series by operating extrajudicially on Tunisian soil (although real world Tunisia actually signed an agreement with the US Army, so what do I know) and contributing to blowing up a natural landmark in the process, especially since he seemed quite happy being a guidance counsellor when he was first introduced. That scene could have been given a bit more depth if they’d hinted that he couldn’t find any other work after the Avengers disbanded and had to fall back on the military to help his family.
And one thing that wasn’t quite obvious to me was if Bucky already knew that the old man was the father of the guy he killed during that mission. At first it felt like he befriended the man for that reason as part of his therapy, but then he seemed genuinely surprised by the shrine?
@49: what would it really say if Sam Wilson would turn to rich friends for help overcoming racism in the financial industry, when no one else really can?
That would make him quite relatable, in my opinion, as people should turn to their friends rather than to impersonal profit-based businesses in their time of need. Heck, Pepper wouldn’t even have to actually give him the money, she could just vouch for him with the bank.
Honestly the whole idea that the Avengers weren’t paid anything for an extremely high risk job and that there wasn’t even some relief package ready for their families in case of their death/MIA is extremely ludicrous. Not getting any money for your work doesn’t make you super partes, it makes you vulnerable to the whims of your employer, whether that be Stark or the US Government. Even worse, Sam can only be the Falcon if he can afford to repair and fuel his nifty wings and drone – cut off that supply and he’s just a guy, and if he has no money of his own, that means he can only be the Falcon for someone else (or stop being a superhero the moment he damages a wing).
Honestly it feels a bit like they’re trying to pick up some of the social commentary from Luke Cage by tackling it onto Sam, but the characters live in two wholly different worlds and (at least from this side of the pond) it doesn’t ring quite true.
One thing I’ve always wondered is why the Falcon seems to be unique. From his introduction, I thought he was part of an entire team of paratroopers who trained with the wings. I guess the Sam could have had the wings rebuilt since then by Wakandans or Stark, and no longer relies on US military hardware, but why do they need him for missions? Don’t they have entire teams of flying soldiers by now?
@65 – Peeter: Steve became a super soldier to fight Nazis, because being morally exemplar wasn’t enough for that. Anybody can be a super soldier with the serum, anybody can wield the shield (lawfully or ethically, or not), not anybody can be CAPTAIN AMERICA.
@66 – Atrus: Sam being a superhero isn’t just because of the tech, but because he has the skills and the will to do the right thing. He’s the kind of guy that wouldn’t stop if he lost the wings.
@65 Can anyone be Captain America?
I think in the MCU there isn’t a procedure or government document that lays out requirements to be Captain America. In the first Captain America movie, the entire intent was to make an army of super soldiers and when they couldn’t do that, they made a walking commercial out of him. His turning into a hero was driven by Steve Rogers. I am assuming that the new Captain America is driven by the same propaganda mindset. They don’t want a hero (especially one who disobeys orders, violates treaties, and decides which causes to support or not). They want another walking commercial.
At least, that is my assumption.
@66 Avengers pay
I can see no one going through the effort of paying the avengers. Look at the way we treat veterans or 9/11 survivors. It is a constant battle to get adequate care and support and those groups didn’t have a billionaire paying for room and board and equipment and training, etc. While Stark was around, he could pay those expenses easily. Or maybe SHIELD before him. Now who picks up the tab? Was there an appropriations bill in congress? Is it a tax-payer responsibility? Are the Avengers an American entity?
Theoretically the Sokovia Accords, which were meant to establish the conditions under which superheroes could act, should have been the first step towards either folding them into existing institutions (I don’t know if the World Security Council is still around after Winter Soldier) or building a new one around them, but in practice I’m not sure we ever see Tony, as head of the (non-secret) Avengers and apparently qualified to sponsor independently acting heroes like Spider-Man, actually have to report to anyone.
Part of the complexity of Sam’s case in particular is that he, Steve and Natasha spent the last several years on the run from the UN and the US. He probably wasn’t paid anything in all that time, they were presumably supported by sympathetic people and groups, but he even said they weren’t staying in luxury hotels during that time. So does he have any real income for the last 8 years or so to show?
The overly long action sequence we got at the beginning of the episode was created, I think, to remind casual Marvel viewers that Sam is a legitimate super hero. He hasn’t has that many moments to shine since his debut in Winter Soldier. Either he’s been over shadowed by Cap (as in Infinity War), or has been been tossed around to built up another hero’s fighting prowess Ant Man in Ant Man, or Spider Man in Civil War.
@70 Which is the essential thrust of Tony’s character in Civil War. Of course Tony is in the tank for signing the Sokovia Accords. His super-power of ‘billionaire genius philanthropist playboy’ means that he can hang up on Ross whenever he wants to. He’s all for there being structure and rules, because who’s gonna force him to play by them? Iron Man 2 opens with him telling the gov’t that he’s privatized world peace and they can go suck it.
The clearest example we get is in Spider-Man Homecoming, where Tony passes along Peter’s intel about the black market alien weapons to the FBI and is nearby enough as Iron Man to step in if they needed backup.
The biggest thing is post-Sokovia Accords, Iron Man is the only active Official Avenger. James Rhodes is in physio and Vision quietly quit after shooting him and moved to Europe to try to make it work with Wanda.
Who can and who should be Captain America? I am pretty sure that question will be the heart and soul of this series.
@65: Versions vary and I don’t know what applies in the MCU, but I think in the original comics telling, the super-soldier treatment just made Steve Rogers into a peak normal human. Basically an Olympic athlete with great reflexes, or a Marine (okay, maybe not), but not magic or anything.
Another page here has been reading Terry Pratchett’s fantasy novel, “Guards! Guards!” Spoilers… the city is attacked by a dragon. Luckily, a hero appears, and confronts the dragon, and it disappears. Hurrah!
All is not as it seems, and when the dragon comes back, it goes differently.
I’m kind of seeing that coming for… can I call him Captain Ersatz, is that inappropriate or taken?
@62MaGnUs, I love that!
Kato
ISTM that bypassing Sam is not just racism; he was on the anti-government side in the civil war, which means that making him a super-soldier is the last thing the government wants to do. It will be interesting to see how long it takes Captain Chin to start thinking for himself — if he ever does; the process of selecting him may have prioritized obedience over a capacity for ethics, with a pretty face being chosen out of those most inclined to follow orders. (I can even see them picking someone who followed stupid orders and got himself hurt rather than find a better way to a goal.)
In the MCU, ISTM that the real shield (the discus, not the original highway-sign-shaped thing used at USO shows and bond rallies) is a tool; it may be good for symbolism, but AFAICT it is less useful without serum and practice than (e.g.) any of the gimmicks on Batman’s utility belt (some of which at least have radios, built-in power supplies, etc.) for anything other than hiding behind. (Going cross-universes: is it as useful as a towel?) If I’ve missed an instance in the MCU (rather than all the decades of print), I’m sure someone will speak up.
chip137: Nah, even in the comics, the shield is just a tool–a symbol, at most. Mind you, it’s a really durable and useful tool, with a nice sharp edge and strength enough to absorb massive impacts and break down really thick doors and walls and what-not . . . but Captain America doesn’t need it in order to be Captain America, really. I do remember some references in the comics to the shield-wielder needing to be Really Strong and Agile and to have extraordinary Hand-Eye Coordination for the tool be used most effectively–but that’s a different issue. In other words, it’s an easy tool to misuse, or to use badly–and I’m personally betting that that’s why Captain Ersatz (I do love that name) also has a gun: he may not have had time to practice with the shield, or he and his handlers may have realized already that he just isn’t ever going to be Steve-Rogers-level skilled with it, or something like that.
The gun is also a sign that he’s more of a soldier, more of an aggressor than a defender, as carrying only a shield signifies protection, even if it’s used offensively.
Okay, let me start by saying the thing at the bank certainly appeared to be racist to me.
I’m not totally sold on the Captain America thing being racist… unless it was explicitly made racist when it happened (however it happened) in the comic books.
When it comes to Captain America and the US Government, I’m not sure that race was (although I’ll probably be proven wrong through the series) the primary factor – I think controllability was. The USG wanted a Captain America they could control. Falcon was on Cap’s side against the Sokovia Accords, after all.
And as far as it goes, Falcon with Cap’s shield puts them down a superhero. With the way it played out, they get to keep Falcon, and get a Captain America back. In Government math, which tends not to compute feelings, that works. What shade his skin color is is either incidental… or he’s white because Steve Rogers was white, and people are used to a white Captain America. Never rule out “comfort zone” in evaluating decision-making.
When John Walker was made Captain America in the comics (late 80s), race was not a factor, because they were replacing Steve Rogers directly. However, race was a factor much more recently when Falcon took over and multiple in-universe organizations and factions, including government officials, opposed him being Cap, mostly for being black, but also for his overt progressive politics.
I’m betting it will not be an overt reason in the TV show, but racism is a factor in choosing a white, blond man to be the government’s Captain America. That “comfort zone” you mention comes from racism.
Keeping Falcon as a hero and making another Cap is not a reason. They could have just asked Falcon to be Cap (he was already working with the military) and give him a military sidekick.