Falcon and Winter Solider - Ep 4 - Red, White, and Blood (Patreon)

So here’s a blip thing I cannot stop thinking about.

If 50% of the worlds population disappeared then that means about 50% of the worlds couples were broken up, too (I know the math might be more random than that / there would be lots of cases of both people lost, I’m just generalizing). And the point is there would tons of long-term couples would have broken up, too. And losing the person you are in a meaningful relationship would be absolutely devastating. But with five years? That time would include so, so much grieving, changing, and coming to terms with the loss. Maybe enough time to start over. To build a new relationship. To find hope. Then suddenly 5 years later the lost person just popped back up and… What? Everything’s great now? That just wouldn’t be the experience for most people. The sheer size and scale of the EMOTIONAL displacement, let alone logistical, is just so much to think about. Specifically how many families torn apart and tried to be frankenstein-ed together with the blip. This would be the entire world’s experience. And it would be so utterly traumatic for just about everyone involved, let alone fundamentally alter every single thing about society…

And so for the millionth time, I can’t help but think about how much the MCU doesn’t play with the simple reality of this choice. So far it’s seemed like people were just on pause for 5 years and now delighted for them to be back, or go back to their jobs with existing infrastructures, or even the way Spider-Man: Far From Home just turned it into a joke of “now he’s my older brother, that’s weird!” (which still rankles me). It’s just this knot at the center of everything and it keeps leading to that paradox - you can’t ignore the reality of it - yet the more you try to dig into it - the more you have to deal with the complexity of it - and the complexity of it just asks more questions in turn.

So even even though Falcon and the Winter Soldier is finally giving attention to the Blip in a meaningful way, I’m not sure complexity is where its shining, either.

Which is not say it’s a disaster. In fact, I can often feel what the show is aiming for and like a lot of those intentions. But I keep feeling like I’m getting stuck in scenes - not only on the execution of things, but fundamental understandings of approach. For instance, at this point I honestly still don’t get what Karli’s whole deal is. Yes, I know what she *tells* me. I know the world was better for her pre-blip-back. I know she’s blaming the system. I know she felt alone. I know she’s now lost people who took care of her. I know what she wants. And I know she’s willing to kill innocent people to get it. But there’s still this raw nugget of personhood - I.E. the human reason for that core drive - that still feels missing. It’s WHY HER? And it’s so important because this is what provides the psychological profile of what turns someone like her into the kind of person that would go this far. What truly radicalized her? Does the show even want to say, or rush past? Sure, Zemo can dismiss the need for concern and just say she’s “too far gone,” but that’s not how our viewing works. We need the nugget. And you can tell the show knows it, too. Not just because Sam keeps trying to reach her, but because the show keeps having her *explain* her philosophy over and over and over again, as it will do the trick.

I’ve said this before, but any time you see argument-as-philsophical-back-and-forth be this repetitive it’s because they’re stuck. You can see the dialogue itself is looking for answers instead of having the answer and hitting it dramatically. And so much of the political philosophy being talked about is sooooo generalized. What is Karli’s actual philosophy anyway? It’s a little bit anarchist, a little bit anti-corporate, a little bit communist, and we know it’s broadly supposed to be about “no borders,” but it actually keeps losing me on the count of meaningful specificity, mostly because Sam’s counterpoints keep oscillating between the preachings of non-violence and vague middle of the road-ism. His retorts often are lines like, “super soldiers cannot be allowed to exist” / “isn’t that how gods talk?” and I more furrow my brow on the god-complex nod instead of saying touché. Because, yes, there’s a lovely way that specific portrayals can tap into the universal of those many ideas. But when you constantly trying to shove universal ideas into a specific portrayal, that’s when you get into trouble. Because it utterly fails to realize that if they just SHOWED us one clear dramatic moment that got at her motive from the start, then they wouldn’t keep getting caught in trying to explain it. It would do all the talking for you.

Which stinks, because these scenes should all work like gang-busters.

And instead only some of them do.

To look at it broadly, there’s a reason most action stories rely on simplicity. It makes motives and rooting interests clear so that you can be really invested in all that them there fighting! But this doesn’t inherently mean that complexity is the enemy of tension. Complexity can great because it creates many different clear strands of empathy that can play against each other (think the early fighting scene in Fury Road w/ Max, Furiosa, Nux, and the other women by the side of the tanker before the eventual team-ups). This allows you to turn the multiple tensions into spinning plates of action - and to the show’s credit, the scene where Ayo comes after Cap and yet Buck stops from actual murder, is an example of this done well! But other than that, so many little moments languished because it can’t decide where it wants the tension to lie. Like the moment where Karli makes a threat to her sister, but when Falcon comes in she totally walks it back? Once again, she tries to explain, but where’s the line of tension supposed to be? It also confuses her characterization because Karli says “I would never hurt her” and yet she just bombed a bunch of innocent people. But at least when it comes to overall tension, the episode finally finds a good one…

Because really, this is all about “the moment” where Walker goes dark.

Even at the beginning of the episode I noted how plainly SINISTER new cap looks sometimes, specifically with the lighting of the episode. And to its credit, this is the episode where we get the biggest peak into Walker’s harmful psychology. I like the thin-skinned-ness of “don’t patronize me” and undercurrent of jealousy with “this is all really easy for you, isn’t it?” Which so quickly give way to feelings of emasculation. Which is something doubled down on after he loses to Ayo and Wakandans, because he mopes, “they weren’t even super soldiers.” Now, I could very well be wrong or mishandling this interpretation so please feel free to say so below - but it this not so subtle hint that Walker seems *especially* emasculated by the idea of losing a fight to black women? Something that plays not into some overtly outward malicious racism, but the brand of racism where he still wants to the alpha / star of the show? Like when he tells Sam he wants him to be his wingman? I still have questions about Battlestar’s role in all this (which I’ll address in the notes section) - but I’m very curious what people who can speak to this much better think of this element of the portrayal.

Meanwhile, some parts of Walker’s dark journey get a little wonky - like when Battlestar says “you make right decisions in heat of battle” and I’m like uhhhhhh, we have very big demonstration that he doesn’t. It’s just that we know Walker needs to be led to the false notion that he is right to embrace more power. To him, being the toughest, bravest, alpha boy is what feels right. But if that’s the case? I can’t help but go back to his intro scenes in episode two and wonder how much they missed this in terms of set-up. Because yes, we want to see how he’s changed. And yes, I get that he is feeling pressure to fill Cap’s shoes. But there’s this small and subtle part we’re missing in terms of the seed for his arc of. Because while I wholly buy the singular motivated of his taking the serum after his loss to Ayo, I’m still missing that insitigating nugget (which puts him in good company with Karli).

I know this may seem not as important, but it’s literally the most important thing about writing. With a characters introductory scenes your most important job is to set-up the moments of transcendence. You subtly create the thing the audience most wants or most fears will happen - often through characterizing personal stakes and psychology. And it’s what makes those eventual moments of transcendence sing. Like the powerful moment of Crappy Cap losing it. Sure, Walker wants Karli in vengeance, but he kills a teacher instead… horrifically… bloodily… and in front of the cameras of the world. There he stands, the utter symbol of the violence from American imperialism - complete with literal blood on the shield. And for whatever I wish it seeded better, I am happy that Falcon and the Winter Solider had the courage to go here - and appreciate that this episode still got the audience where we need to go. Which perhaps teaches us a valuable lesson above all others…

Never underestimate the power of a final image.

RANDOM THOUGHTS!

-Who doesn’t love a “Wakanda" title card?

-The reveal of Ayo being the one to train Winty to resist the programing is a really amazing bit character work. It not only gives her a chance to shine, it’s just solid motivational work. Really. For it’s one of those things that seem obvious move but it’s pure functionalism that makes so much of their personal stakes of their scenes work here. Also the scene itself is captures something deeply important about Winty’s psychology. She tells him “you are free…” but he’s only free of the control of his demons - not free of the terrifying memories that haunt him (even just writing that tapped into some traumatic shit for me, oof).

-As Zemo sat there drinking as Cap and Ayo fought, I thought 1) now that’s how you create fan favorites and 2) This is sort of gets at one of the complex things about villain team-ups and how weirdly strange this is. Cause the unspoken rule of team-ups is that the new bad guy has to be WORSE then the bad in question (like when GI Joe and Cobra teamed up to fight drugs!), which is why the Karli being the villain thing feels so weird to me. She’s so human and not worse so again, the rooting dynamics just feel so wishy-washy on the whole. And since it’s so lackadaisical, Iit also misses the tension of how “Hannibal Lecter advises” dynamics.

-Like seriously, they are being REALLY loosy goosy with Zemo. How many times are they going to not watch him and how many fucking times in a single episode is he going to slink away when fighting ensues?????? Y’all you only get to play that move once not thrice. Because that is really, really, really cheap y’al..

-Okay I’m still fixating on the blip and the only reason they chose 5 years instead of 1 (which still totally would have got the point across without so much logical damage - hell it would BETTER explain people being stuck in grief) is because they needed Ironman to have a daughter who was of a certain age so she could talk and so that he would have something to give up… it’s just one of those things where the smallness of the “why” behind the construction really hits me - and how much of the consequences have to come from it.

-RE: Flagsmashers - this isn’t the kind of show where you can have a phone say the“world wide reach of this group is growing” and not show that somehow with the characters / their lives / new recruits.

-Best lines: 1) “My Titi” I died at them not knowing what that meant 2) “Those are our friends” / “The avengers, not the nazis” and 3) “What’s with all the knives?

-Re: lack of dramatization - Why does Karli keep having philosophical pep talks with random side characters who we’ve never met before? Gotta say that establishing this bad group’s dynamics is reaaaaaaally mishandled / missed opportunity. Coulda been handled off the bat with one scene, too. This show’s constantly trying to catch up to its intro problems, isn’t it? But what narrative isn’t, I guess.

-Love me secret crypt hiding spot.

-So Zemo gets this great quote of “the desire to become a superhuman cannot be separated from supremacist ideals” and it’s very easy to be like “oh hey, I agree with Zemo!” But I can’t help but feel like there’s something missing about his characterization, too. Like, he talks about his family being killed, but he’s also talks about being a Baron and fabulous dinners and parties, etc. so there’s this rich / elitist streak thing going on, but what are they underlining here? And what REALLY bothers him about super humans? Is it that take away from his perceived power of being rich? is this a weird batman thing? What’s really going on in that brain? Why?

-When the dude mentioned that his father was a WW2 resistance fighter, it made me think about how true that isn’t for so many now. Growing up, my grandparents were that generation but they’ve long since passed. And now when kids now talk about their grandparents they’re usually talking about people my parents age w/ the boomers. And I can’t help it, but it’s still SO weird for me to not think ww2 = everyone’s grandparents… Sorry, I an old.

-PS - when Crappy Cap started egotistically fighting the Dora Milaje I’ve never so wanted a group of people to beat the crap out of someone in my entire life. Now, that’s good simple rooting interest!

-Turkish Delight! Like most people who read those Narnia books, it makes it sound like the best thing ever, but I remember it being bad. It’s bad, right?

-So this may seem little nitpicky, but I want to talk about that shot focusing on the water dripping as Battlestar is tied up. It’s right in the foreground and they cut to it multiple times. I remember being like, “oh, is that’s gonna be gas and he’s gonna getting burned or exploded?” But no it’s just a weird shot that is focusing on something for no reason. Worse, Battlestar ends up pulling out a knife and getting out of there on his own. I mean not everything has to be a Chekov’s gun, but for a show with set-up / pay-off problems it feels emblematic of everything. To go one futher, there’s no real difference to him getting captured, given that his death just happens in the middle of a fist fight with him running in. It doesn’t even feel like a bait switch, but instead just a heat of action thing. As always, my question is why?

-Also, a note on when fights stop in the middle for character’s death, it’s this subtly hard thing to pull off. Because you HAVE to honor death dramatically, right? But having the whole fight stop just sort of undercuts the tension of what you were trying to create in the first place (and keep creating). Like two seconds ago everyone was coming at each other with knives and suddenly they’re surprised someone’s dead? Besides, it would actually adds to tension and heartbreak if Walkers trying to check on him AND defend himself - plus I think it would best add to his anger and thrust us with momentum into the next haunting scene. I understand this isn’t a REAL problem, but just food for thought about how we usually come at these kinds of death scenes and what can make them impactful beyond sad music clues and slower motion.

-With that, I was thinking about how this episode had the same motivation / baseline tension problems as last week’s episode - and yup, it’s same writer dude. But again, it’s impossible to saying TV writing is any one singular voice, so I don’t mean it like that, just noting the habit. And I’m curious to see what happens with changes in voice for the next couple eps.

-So. RIP Battlestar (who I keep accidentally calling “Battleflag” because 1) there’s already a character called flag-smasher and 2) because I partied as a youngin’ in 1998 and must respect the Lo Fidelity All Stars) But really it got me thinking about… who is this guy, anyway? We see a lot of him pep-talking / see how he feels about CAP - and I get the point is that Cap is all about being Alpha, but… how does Battlestar really feel about this? What’s his interiority? Was there ever some part of his experience that makes him anything OTHER than the person who obliges Walker? And if that was the thematic point - how could the show actually highlight and criticize that nature of the portrayal? Again, feels like a missed opportunity here.

-Lastly we come to the important line, “there has never been a another Steve Rogers, has there?” Which is a sentiment that people have been echoing in these movies for a decade and half now. But what does it mean, really? Who was Steve Rogers? It’s something I keep thinking about because I felt his characterization in The First Avenger was note perfect - and even much of Winter Solider captured the complications of his modernization. But for Civil War and through the rest of the series, I felt like they kept losing those notions to get lost in the action itself. Sure, he was still a model of decency, but there was so much possibility that got lost as he focused endlessly on purely saving Bucky (who was basically Helen of Troy in the larger MCU). So what would he mean, really? Who is Captain America of today?

To it’s credit, I feel like Falcon and the Winter Soldier is genuinely interested in answering that question. To my worry, I’m still not sure it has a lock on a solid answer…

But at least it knows who he’s NOT.

…

……. Walker. I’m saying it’s not Walker.

<3HULK