Falcon and Winter Soldier - Ep. 5 - A Million Fuzzy Ideas (Patreon)

There are things I always like in this show. A moment. An image. A funny interaction. Heck, this episode had a whole sequence where Sam and Bucky just worked on a boat and bickered and my friend called it BOAT BOYS and I was like “YES, this is all I want of this show!” And all of that is true. But here’s the thing.

This is also the first episode that made me feel like I was truly losing my mind.

No, it wasn’t throwing surreal imagery at us or trying to upend our sense of what’s happening. Instead, it was making me feel crazy about the ordering of the narrative in all these non-obvious ways. Like how it kept sliding into different scenes with a barely a sense of cause and effect, especially climactic or (what’s supposed to be) climactic ones. It’s part of the way I’m always on my heels, with this show. And today I was constantly like, “oh I guess the show is here now?” And once an event occurred, every scene felt like it was trying to explain the gravitas of what just happened, post script. Just as everything is about someone sliding into place the narrative needs them to be and trying to justify it. But if you actually look, you’ll see how actual conflict is really going on. Seriously, you ever notice that no one is actually arguing in this show? Everyone just talks in platitudes AT each other. Worse, I feel like a different writer is making a different show every week and not in the fun diverging way, but in the way where this show cannot make up it’s mind about what kind of show it is / what the dynamics are / and how it wants to come off.

I mean, this episode is ostensibly “a reset” episode, but not in a way that feels organic in any way shape or form. Because it only get gets there by REALLY SUDDENLY “resolving” two prior plot-lines in the first couple scene. After last week’s shield murder you’re like “oh this will obviously crest into more drama with all these plot-lines converging,” but against expectation or any build-up whatsoever, Sam and Bucky immediately take out Coptain Americop (thank you Rei for the name!) right in the very first scene. Then, Bucky immediately goes and finds Zemo instantly gives him to Wakandans. End conflicts, I guess! And yeah, I know theres technically more in store with these plots, I’m just talking about how immediate it feels after all the build-up and how hollow those resolutions feel coming right at the top. It just felt like it had to rush the reset.

Even then, the key to making that reset work is actually doing the work of character catharsis that comes within them. Again, it’s fun when Bucky and Sam build a boat! Rally, it is! But everything about this episode is ostensibly supposed to be about building to SAM’S BIG MOMENT! This is the very catharsis of the show. The moment he’s going to take up the mantle of the shield and be the person he needs to be. But unfortunately, that also means we are hitting the wall with the fact that the show has no idea what it’s really after. It’s got a million fuzzy ideas but lacking one good clear one. Throughout the show, Sam has conversation after conversation about the shield and what captain America means. Racism. Patriotism. Xenophobia. Borders. The military. It’s a show that’s smart enough to know that all these things ARE a part of the conversation. But no idea how to synthesize them into a sticking point of character conflict, specifically with Sam himself. Because it has no idea how to dramatize them in an emotional journey for sam’s character arc, particularly his own wants and needs. Which is why Sam becoming New Cap, despite being what we obviously want, feels so obligatory and meaningless.

Because there is no personality change between the man who gave the shield up…

… And the man now taking it.

Sam has only ben placed in this position because the narrative was finally ready to let him. And the truth is that’s who Sam’s been the entire show. A passenger in his own story, one who is driving nothing. So, sure, he’s going to put on a cool suit next episode (way to be withholding, show!) and fight and win the day and I’ll probably like it and stuff. But for a show whose one job was to show me the meaningful journey of how Sam Wilson was going to be the next Captain America, it never actually engaged the choice beyond the circumstantial conversations that happen around it… And that kind of sucks.

Especially because Anthony Mackie is so damn good.

RANDOM THOUGHTS!

-When Sam’s buddy from episode one showed up with tracking information on Karli, I was like “oh yeah, that guy!”

-I liked the way the opening fight with Walker ended, but I couldn’t help feel how little urgency there was in the fight’s build-up? Also, saying weird shit like, “you made a mistake” when he straight up murdered someone??? It’s just part of how this show makes me feel insane. The emotional feelings rarely track right from scene to scene.

-Once again, I reeeeeeally feel like they completely fucked up the set-up with Walker. When he screams “I am Captain America!” and talks about how hard it is, I just don’t believe it. We never saw what was hard. Same goes for when he said “you built me!” We never saw him taking ANY orders or how they built him at. It never got dramatized. And if that’s the point? You need to underline his error. I don’t get what corrupted him or why he was corrupted in the first place. I simply don’t believe his journey. And if the point is that his plights ARE all in his head, you need to show that, too.

-Re: Karli, staying underground: “she’s really really good at this thing” / Me: “is she?” This is the sort of unforgivable version of “telling not showing” because you are also telling me something that is counterintuitive to what we actually see. I mean, she’s supposed to be super underground or whatever and THEY LITERALLY GO BACK TO THE REFUGEE SPOT WHERE THEIR PEOPLE WERE, HOW ARE THERE NOT A MILLION EYES ON THAT? This isn’t even about logic, but dramatization. This is the kind of choice where you really are insulting your audience, I’m sorry.

-Julia Louis Dreyfus!?!?!?!?!??!?! Well, that was weird! Also she is playing a character who is clearly in a different show, but the thing is I think I’d rather watch that show than this hyper serious one? What do I know. I just hope they keep letting her have fun. And clearly that’s not just a one-off.

-Speaking of telling not showing and using placeholder characters, when JLD referred to Walkers significant other as “this firecracker” I nearly lost it. Because they have literally never shown us her personality beyond silent, supportive, dutiful partner and this goes so far beyond the “tell don’t show” problem that I just kinda was not having it.

-It’s really weird when a freaking Marvel show can afford a montage with the actor and uses audio clips over boat footage????? That’s a B-movie trick!

-Good line: Sam: “Why didn’t you use your arm?” / Bucky: “I don’t always think of it immediately, I’m right handed.”

-Bucky and Sam’s sister is the only plot-line I care about now.

-Battlestar - When Walker says “there was nobody like him,” I wish this is something we understood BEFORE. Because we got nothing like that. Some people even outright suggested that his one-dimensionality of his character was part of the point - but honestly I think this scene just highlights that it WAS the thing instead of a criticism. Because the show never seems to know how to actually hang a hat on the criticisms it’s making. Walker didn’t treat him like a partner, he treated him like a sidekick, so what is this scene actually about? Is it about his hypocrisy or just understand his headspace? I never know because the show is always alternating with morality back and forth at a moments notice and never puts a stamp on the fact he’s lying to them or if he even knows or WHAT. I’m always asking “what is this scene actually after?” and I never know. It’s just way too comfortable being fuzzy.

-Buckys apology feels weird, no? Like after setting up stuff in the therapy scene, it’s now about the shield being “closest thing I had to a family” and I genuinely don’t get how this is a closing part of their arc based on what’s been established already??? We’re just constantly given new ideas and being told to take them at their word instead of being part of dramatized arcs.

-That being said, there were the two bits of little nuggets that I liked a lot (and wish were expanded upon). First, “it doesn’t matter what Steve thought” because he’s right, it doesn’t. And the second, “you weren’t amending / you were avenging.” Now I wish both those ideas were actually dramatized beyond that!

-Part of what also makes me feel crazy: Sam gets an entire montage at him going from sucky to the shield to being good with it and I’m like “wait, why did we just see him being reasonably good at throwing and catching it IN THE SCENE PRIOR with Bucky?” I’m sorry but the ordering of information in those show is just bonkers. It wants different things at seemingly a moments notice?

-I’ll wait until it finishes to a proper comparison, but it’s sort of interesting to think how the “week to week” operation of this show feels so much different from Wandavision. Because that show was cryptic and purposefully obtuse. It was designed to invite your conjecture and guesswork all before revealing it’s secret plan which was pretty muddled. It was a show that succeed through hiding. Meanwhile, on the surface, Falco and Winty wants to be straightforward and dramatic, but it’s also muddled. Which means its flaws are just more on the surface, at least in the way it suffers from that singular focus of really and truly knowing what it’s after and what it wants you to feel. As I said, it’s not worth having a million fuzzy ideas.

Unless you have one good clear one.

<3HULK