Main cast: Anthony Mackie (Sam Wilson/Falcon), Sebastian Stan (Bucky Barnes/Winter Solder), Wyatt Russell (John Walker), Erin Kellyman (Karli Morgenthau), Daniel Brühl (Baron Zemo), Emily VanCamp (Sharon Carter), Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Valentina Allegra de Fontaine), Carl Lumbly (Isaiah Bradley), Danny Ramirez (Joaquin Torres), Georges St-Pierre (Georges Batroc), and Amy Aquino (Dr Christina Raynor)
Director: Kari Skogland
Why is it suddenly an issue that a black man like Sam will never be Captain America? Was this ever an issue in past MCU movies? Were the Falcon and War Machine ever ostracized by the other heroes? No. If anything, these characters were sidelined, and that was an issue with the script of those movies and everyone else involved in them. There is nothing in the MCU setting that ever suggested that a black man can never be in a leadership role. If we wanted to get all meta, in the comics, Storm and Monica Rambeau—both strong and powerful black women—led their own team of superheroes, and no one in that setting bats an eyelid.
No, this is only an issue because this show was filmed and made during a time when Hollywood decided to pay lip service to everything BLM and POC and what not, and so they decided to pander and introduce real world issues into show without caring whether doing so breaks continuity in the process. Hence, even when the super soldiers are on the loose, Sam’s main concern is how a black man is oppressed in his country, and yet, the only extent of his action to right this oppression is to deliver a Twitter-tier rant full of meaningless buzzwords. All talk, no action, in other words. One World, One People is just full of cringe-inducing bad writing.
Speaking of action, this show naturally wraps things up in its trademark lethargic, boring finale that suggests very strongly that whoever choreographed the action scenes may want to consider doing something else next time, maybe setting up scenes of traffic or something. John Walker is wasted, Bucky is wasted, Sam is reduced into a superficial agitprop solely because of his skin color, and poor Carl Lumbly’s character is reduced to being a prop in Sam’s lip service one-man show to the woke crowd.
Of course, all of Bucky’s and Sam’s issues are magically resolved by the end of the day through the power of hugs and lip service affirmative action, so that they can go back to being one-liner machines in whatever movies they show up in next.
Anyway, that’s a wrap for The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and it’s a wrap in every “Wrap this up and throw it into an incinerator!” sense of the word. Every character is either wasted or served only as a pointless advertisement for whatever Disney+ spin-off that may or may not come to fruition, and there is nothing that I can take home from this show. It was as if the people behind this show had only one idea for it—let’s have Sam be the MCU BLM poster boy that goes REEEEEEE at everyone in the end, so that the audience can all stand up and clap for Falcon Einstein!—and meanders around killing time in every episode so to lead up to that point.
Worst of all, this horrible treatment of the social issues it claims to champion only trivializes those issues in question. Sam has powerful wings, access to the top powers of the world, a good life with a family and a nice house, and yet, he’s acting like he’s a poster boy for the oppressed. Bitch, please—instead of scowling and posturing, go run for President and make changes; do something because, unlike those that are genuinely oppressed, he has the power to make changes if he pleases.
Ah, but that’s Disney after all. This is a company that fires its low-level employees while promising its upper management big bonuses, in the process making said low-level employees attend “progressive classes” that teach them to have a less capitalistic mindset—which is to say, these smelly great unwashed employees need to value money less, so that they won’t get mad when they continue to be paid poorly while the top brasses rake in the profits. There is nothing more fake than woke activism sold by billionaires and millionaires that never practice the crap they are selling, and it’s a shame that this show is one of the many victims of Hollywood’s need to peddle fake activism to the public it clearly disdains.
