Sam Wilson I think has a sudden serious appreciation for what Icarus went through.
Last time on The Falcon and the
Winter Soldier, the Wakandan Dora Milaje got involved with the Flag Smasher
situation. Ayo, who helped Bucky remove HYDRA’s programing, gives the 8 hours
to finish their work and then they’ll escort Zemo to the Raft prison. They were
able to track down the Flag Smashers and Sam tried to talk to Karli, but their
dialogue was interrupted by Walker who is more interested in punishing Karli. In
the short scuffle that followed, Zemo destroys most of the Super Soldier Serum
vials she had, save one. Walker got that last vial and took the serum off screen.
The Flag Smashers tried to distract Sam and bucky long enough to execute
Walker, but they got wise to it and they tried to save him. In the resulting battle,
Walker’s best friend and partner Lemar Hoskins aka Battlestar had his neck
snapped by Karli. In a blind rage, Walker hunted down and beat one of the Flag
Smashers to death with the Shield and on camera. Well, damn. Enough preamble,
let’s get to it.
I think we all knew this fight was going to happen
sooner or later.
The episode begins with Walker
running from the scene where he killed the Flag Smasher, bloody Shield still in
hand. He ends up remembering the scene, lines that Hoskins told him, and his
death. He mutters to himself and screams that nobody listened to him. Sam and Bucky
find him kneeling before the Shield. He stands up and says time to go to work.
He tries to keep going business as usual, but the others aren’t having it. Sam
tries to convince him to give them the Shield and surrender, but he’s not having
it. He tells them that that they don’t want to do this, but Bucky is more honest
and says, yeah, we do.
A brawl breaks out between them. Walker
now enhanced with the Super Soldier Serum puts up a solid fight against Bucky
and Sam. He’s had enough practice with the Shield to be a force to be reconned
with. The entire time he’s saying things that make him seem unstable, like
asking Bucky why he’s making Walker do this and chastising Sam for not working
with him. He’s able to disable Bucky by hitting in against a power box and mildly
electrocuting him. He gets Sam on the ground and literally rips his wings off,
announcing “I am Captain America!” He raises the shield up to bash Sam’s brains
in, but Bucky tackles him. They continue to brawl, with Bucky getting Walker up
against a wall, and Sam grabbing him and using his jetpack to pull the Shield
from him. They end up breaking Walker’s arm to do it. He keeps trying to fight,
though, claiming “It’s mine. He’s only stopped when Bucky swings him like a bat
and Sam jumps with the Shield and uses the Jetpack to collide with him,
knocking him out. Bucky gets up first and drops the Shield in front of Sam
before walking away. Sam get’s up and smears the blood off of the Shield as
best he can.
After the fight, Sam tells Bucky
(and us) that the GRC is raiding the camps where Karli has been staying but she’s
in the wind. They’re going to keep looking but he’s clearly not optimistic.
Torres joins them and Bucky wanders off. Sam asks if he’s off to take care of Zemo
but he doesn’t say. Sam asks about what happens next. Torres says the higher
ups are cutting them out, in part because of “Captain America” killing someone
on camera. Torres thinks Karli is impossible to fight right now, as she has a
lot of experience hiding and a lot of folks helping her. Sam takes the Shield,
but leaves his broken wings with Torres, telling him to keep them. Ooo, I’ll
get back to this later.
Got to give him props for holding his temper back
enough to not shatter the podium he was at.
Back in Washington, John Walker is stripped
of his rank and position as Captain America. When he feels like the Senators
aren’t even considering his side of the situation, he gets visibly agitated and
shouts at them. “I live my life by your Mandates!” He’s given an “other than
honorable discharge,” stripping of his rank and benefits. He claims that they
built him, and that he is Captain America. He walks out as he gets sentences,
and told that the needs to return the Shield as soon as possible. After, his
wife advices him to take it one step at a time, see Lemar’s parents and build
from there. They’re interrupted by Elaine… I mean Valentina Allegra de
Fontaine. Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine. She’s a bit of an eccentric
that encourages Walker. She tells him that he did the right thing and claims
that he’s attractive to certain people. He tells him to pick up the phone when
she calls before walking off. The card she leaves them with is blank. No, I don’t
get it either.
The Flag Smashers make it home to
find hit abandoned. They seem shocked that there were consequences to helping
people the government has labeled Terrorists. Karli says their movement is
ready and they’re not going to stop unless we make them.
Meanwhile, Bucky finds Zemo visiting
the Memorial to Ultron’s attack on Sokovia in Sokovia. Zemo warns that Karli is
radicalized beyond saving. He urges Bucky to use his training and kill her
because Sam won’t be able to do it. Bucky says they’re going to do it their own
way. He has a gun and points it at Zemo. Zemo nods, but it turns out the gun is
empty. Bucky drops the bullets all dramatic like. The Dora Milaje walk in and
take Zemo into custody. Zemo says that he crossed his name off of Bucky’s list
before being taken away. Ayo says they’re taking him to the Raft and that the White
Wolf should be scarce in Wakanda for a while. He has one more favor to ask.
Sam get's a lesson that should be taught in conjunction
with the exploits of Captain Steven Rogers.
Sam returns to Baltimore. Eli tells him that Isaiah is in the backyard and that he’ll be watching. In the back, Isaiah is watering his plants. Sam wants to understand things, wants to understand what went wrong with Isaiah and the government. He claims he used to be like Sam, but that naivety died when he saw his fellow Black soldiers fight and die for this country only to come back to crosses burning on their lawns. Sam asks why he let it happened, why he didn’t become the next Captain. Isaiah takes him inside and shows him his history. His wife died while he was in jail, he never saw any letters she sent him, and he knows she was told he died. He explains he was one of several soldiers that were shot up with the Serum in secret. They went on missions, did good work, despite only Isaiah having a stable version of it. Eventually, some of his friends were captured, and he heard the brass talking about bombing the POW camp to hide the evidence. Isaiah busted out and saved his men. They eventually died on other missions. For 30 years, they experimented on Isaiah to figure out why the serum worked. Eventually, a nurse took pity on him and faked reports to declare him dead. She also gave him the letters from Faith, his wife. Sam wants to tell somebody; he thinks the world is different. Isaiah wants to stay dead; he doesn’t have faith that things have changed. He claims that they will never let a Black man will ever be Captain America, and no self-respecting Black man would ever want to be. Sam leaves with the Shield, calling Sarah and saying he’s coming home.
This was actually one of the cutes Bucky moments
in his whole time in the MCU.
Sam and his nephews untangle the nets
and relaxes for a bit. His nephews tell him that Sarah actually can’t sell the
boat, as Mr. Dinh the prospective buyer said that the boat was too messed up.
Sarah says she didn’t tell him right away because of how sad he looked after
coming home, and he admits he’s still processing what Isaiah told him. Sam
promises that he will fix the boat. In part to help his family, and in part because
he has nothing to do while waiting for a lead or the government to call him
back in. He hears Sarah making lunches for some of her boy’s school friends,
saying she does it because the other boy’s father is a drunk (not in so many
words but it’s implied) and that the boys are too stubborn to ask for help. He
muses that Sarah is just like their mom, trying to help the whole world. This triggers
a lightbulb moment for Sam. His folks were also always helping others, and he
decides to try to call in those favors. The whole town turns out to help them
fix the boat, and even Bucky shows up to help lift a heavy engine block. Well,
actually he was just there to drop off his “favor” from the Wakandans. He ends
up helping Sam fix a steaming hose. There’s a funny line where Sam asks why used
a wrench and not his cyborg arm, to which Bucky shrugs and says he doesn’t
always think about it immediately because he’s right-handed. It’s kind of cute.
He sticks around to help, and Sam rather awkwardly sees him and Sarah flirt
before the fix it montage begins. During the montage, they discuss Karli. Sam
doesn’t think she’s going to stop but he has Torres looking for her, and Bucky
says that Zemo says that there’s only one way to stop her. Sam has Bucky stay
the night, on the condition that he doesn’t flirt with Sarah again.
Meanwhile, Walker explains to the
Hoskins, Lemar’s parents and sister, what happened. He lies a bit and says that
the guy he beat to death was the one that killed him. They thank him for
avenging their son and try to make him feel better about the whole thing. He’s
clearly still heartbroken about the death. He says he’s sorry one last time
before leaving. He walks by one of his Cap is Back posters.
In Madripoor, Sharon calls up
Batroc and tells the Frenchman she ahs a job for him. He yells at her in French
for a bit, before she promises to pay him double this time. That’s ominous.
Good to see these two back in a good place together.
Bucky wakes up to Sarah’s boy’s
playing with the Shield for a bit. He gets up and goes to the docks where he
finds Sam working on the boat’s water pump. They get to working on it again,
largely in silence. A good bro moment. Sarah joins them and scolds him for
working on the pump when she told him specifically that was not the problem.
They walk off and lets her work on it. Back at the house, Sam tied some mats to
trees and practices tossing the Shield. He says that the history of the Shield
is complicated. Bucky tells him that he nor Steve really understood what Steve
was asking when he gave the Shield to a Black man and apologizes for not
thinking about it. Sam accepts it. Bucky admits that the Shield is the closest
thing to family he’s got left and so it messed him up to hear Sam tried to
retire it. He explains that he’s using Steve’s book to try to find himself. Sam
tells him in the end, it doesn’t matter what Steve thought and he needs to stop
looking to other people to tell him who he is. Sam tells him some tough love,
that he needs to do the work to climb out of the metaphorical hole. He hasn’t
been making amends, he’s been Avenging. That stopping the evil he enabled won’t
make him feel better. “Go to them and be of service.” Bucky admits that there
are probably a dozen folks that he could give closure to, and Sam tells him to
start with one. They have a bro moment where they pretend to still have
friction as Bucky heads out.
Later, Sam goes to paint over their
parent’s names on the side of the boat, when Sarah stops him. After fixing it,
she just can’t let it go. Sam equates the boat as their history and that is
something that they can’t let go of. He admits to thinking that Sarah thought
he’s been running, but she corrects him, saying that he’s never run from
anything. While he definitely still empathizes with Isaiah Bradley, he resolves
to make the pain and sacrifice mean something. We then get a training montage
off Sam working out and training with the Shield until he’s mastered hurling
the Shield, leaping around and catching it just like Steve used to.
Meanwhile, the Flag Smashers link
up with Batroc. He’s their back up for their big play. It’s revealed they have
a large group of supporters in New York to stop the GRC vote. Batroc isn’t interested
in their movement, he’s only here to kill the Falcon. Karli promises that he
will as she gathers her forces.
That night, Sam is watching the
news about the GRC and the Patch act they’re voting on to relocate refugees
back to their countries of origin. Torres calls him and reveals that during
their time in Europe, Sam had gathered data on the Flag Smashers wireless movement.
Revealed that they’re in New York City.
At the GRC vote, the delegates are
debating the vote when the Flag Smashers begin their attack. They shut down the
system and make the lights turn red.
Time for Sam Wilson to suit up.
Sam meanwhile, opens up the
Wakandan case and has a look what’s inside. He takes a breath just as the
credits roll. You damn teases.
We’re shown a post credit scene of
Walker making a copy of the Shield in his garage, assumedly with some of the
metal from his medals worked in. It’s not expressly stated, but that’s how Walker’s
Shield in the comics was made.
I really liked the opening fight of
this episode. Seeing Sam and Bucky going full force against Walker was great. I
liked that while they are definitely more experience, with the Super Soldier
serum, Walker is a solid match for the two of them. The bit where Bucky is
down, Sam is down and Walker literally rips his wings off was a particularly
intense moment. I’ve always thought that being a tech-based hero leads itself
to more interesting stories, as they’re powers can be taken away rather easily
but that very concept is terrifying and why I myself would much rather get powers
via a lab accident or something that cant’ be taken from me so easily. The
fixing up the boat and training montages were a nice bit of breathing room for
a series that had been going at close to breakneck speed for a while now. I
especially liked Bucky and Sam’s moments in this one, they feel like they’re bros
again. Oh, and Torres getting the wings. Why is that cool? As it turns out, Joaquin
Torres took up the mantle of the Falcon after Sam Wilson became Captain America.
In the comics he has some weird powers from being experimented on by Karl Malus,
whom was doing genetic experiments for the Serpent Society. He turned Torres
into a bird-themed Vampire… yes, that might be the weirdest sentence I’ve ever written.
I assume the DNA experiments are being dropped from this version and Torres is
going to fix up Sam’s wings and be a normal flying man like Sam is in this
continuity. Obviously, Sharon is in some shady stuff as she supplied the Flag
Smashers with a high-level mercenary like Batroc, but we’ll get into that next time.
Oh, and I’ll end by mentioning that last scene of Walker forging a fake Shield
was fairly chilling. Makes it seem like he’s going in guns blazing next time.
But more on that later. Have a good night, everyone.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/50568331
Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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