Falcon and the Winter Soldier takes place roughly six months after the events of Avengers Endgame. We follow Sam and Bucky as they adjust to life after the blip. It’s a better Pilot than the dude hijacking the plane and it makes for an awesome opening that is gonna have myself and every other Marvel maniac gripped for the next six weeks.
Throughout this post, we’re gonna be breaking down the story, easter eggs, things you missed and how the story and characters compare to the comics to give our fan theories on why everyone is Mephisto.
Returning The Shield
Now we start off with Sam ironing his shirt for what we discover is an event at the Smithsonian which involves him handing his shield over to the Captain America exhibit. You may remember that this exhibit first appeared in Captain America The Winter Soldier and both Steve and Bucky ventured out to it during the film.
Sam places the shield back into the brown bag that Steve gave him, metaphorically symbolising how he has returned it to the place that it came from. Over the top of the scene, we hear dialogue from Endgame in which Steve asked how Sam felt. He replied with ‘like it’s someone else’s and this line is clearly a driving force for the character’s actions as he very much feels like he can’t live up to the mantle.
Sam’s Struggles
Now though we only get brief glimpses of his room this does help to paint out his mind state.
Often in TV shows and films, the way people’s houses are kept can signal what’s going on with them mentally. Sam’s room is a bit messy which completely juxtaposes the appearance that he is trying to give off with the suit. This could showcase that he’s trying to present to the world that things are good when really he’s struggling with things. Bit of a reach yeah, however, we can compare this room to what we see the Avengers living in at the HQ and this feels a lot more like Sam is in tough times which is confirmed later on with the banker.
And he’s a right bloody banker.
The Avengers, including Sam, were instrumental in saving the universe and though the thank you’s that they receive are great, it’s clear that the character isn’t being showered with riches so still struggles with keeping a roof over his head.
Soldier Sam
Now, this is likely why he had to re-enlist in the Air Force. In The Winter Soldier, we learned that Sam was part of a para-rescue unit.
However, after his wingman (pun intended) died, he turned to helping veterans with PTSD. Sam has returned to active duty and we watch as he tackles a group known as the LAF who have hijacked a plane.
Batroc
They are led by Batroc the leaper who you will probably remember from The Winter Soldier. He’s gone from hijacking boats to hijacking planes and it’s an awesome action scene to kick start the series. The character appears in Purple and Yellow similar to how he did in the Winter Soldier and these are the colours that the character typically tends to don.
Now Batroc is a french native who joined the foreign legion where he was trained in combat before he became an intelligence officer in the french secret service.
Credited with 36 kill missions, he was an incredible asset to the french government but when he realised his skills could be used for profit the character became a mercenary. Wanted by the FBI, SAS, and Interpol he gained a big reputation which is when he caught the eyes or rather eye of Nick Fury. Fury paid the character to hijack a vessel at the start of The Winter Soldier and using this as cover Natasha was able to sneak in and carry a classified mission to uncover secrets about Project Insight.
He’s an expert in hand-to-hand combat and though he’s had his butt handed to him by both Cap and his sidekick, I definitely think he will be back in the series.
Religious Imagery
Now another reach here but the officer tells Sam that the op has to be subtle and Sam then falls backwards out of the plane in a Christ-like pose.
This kind of imagery is present in a lot of Superhero films and we’re at a point where even Zack Snyder is memeing on himself for all his callbacks to Christ. I dunno if they were making fun of the motif here but it’s quite funny having this play immediately after saying how things should be kept subtle.
Meeting Torres & Comic Inspo
Now it’s during this scene that we’re introduced to First Lieutenant Torres who you may recognise as a big player in the graphic novel run Sam Wilson: Captain America. In the work, Torres was captured by a group known as the Serpent Society and he was experimented on. Made into a half-man half falcon hybrid the character ended up becoming somewhat of a sidekick to Sam throughout the run.
That book was kickstarted with an elderly Captain America giving the Shield to Sam and he had to deal with how unpopular this was whilst also making his own way. During it, he fought US Agent, The Flag-Smasher and teamed up with Bucky so it does seem to be a basis for this adaptation.
I think they will probably take maybe some elements of that and ground it a lot more with Torres potentially becoming the new Falcon when Sam eventually becomes Captain America….which yeah will probably be how the show ends.
Redwing
We see this grounded aesthetic applied to a lot of the MCU aspects such as Sam and the bird Redwing who can actually telepathically communicate in the comics. As always in this continuity, Sam controls the machine through an in-ear link up but it’s important to see how these things are set up in the comics and how they are carried across.
Now Redwing is also important because you know who else has a Redwing….Mephisto.
Imma do one of them as a video.
No, but we learn that Redwing has been outfitted with the latest Stark Technology and actually see some of Iron Man’s weapons being used on the bird including a laser which is used to cut through the door of the plane. This laser was used in Infinity War for Stark to cut a hole in Ebony Maw’s ship.
Shield Symbolism
It’s an incredible action scene in which we see Sam using the wings like a shield themselves and this is a very important characteristic for Captain America to have. In the book that the series is based on they even have a whole bit about how Cap chose his symbol to be a shield rather than a gun as he wanted to be seen as a defender instead of a conquerer. Though subtle it does show that Sam has what it takes to be Cap even though he may not believe it himself.
First Mission
After taking to the skies we watch as Sam has an aerial dogfight with some helicopters as he tries to retrieve the contact from Batroc’s men. In our trailer breakdown for the show, we did say that these jumpsuits looked very similar to ones used by Hydra but after watching the episode I’m not sure whether they’re involved or not.
Yup, Wandavision has officially killed my need to do fan theories.
They are still out there as we last saw them taking Cross’ Pym particles in Ant-Man but it’s likely just that the imagery looks similar rather than them being linked to the events.
Sam saves the contact before they hit the Libyan border and we join him and Torres in Tunisia where the pair discuss the villains of the piece, The Flag-Smashers.
Introducing the Flag-Smashers
These guys are a sort of Flash mob that similar to the LAF is taking advantage of all the chaos caused by the Blip. Now in the comics, this wasn’t a group, instead it was a single man who went under the moniker. Flag-Smasher believed that Nationalism was a real problem in the world and thus he had a vendetta against Captain America who was, of course, the symbol of an entire country. In Sam Wilson: Captain America we actually come across an LMD version of the character at one point and he goes off on a monologue about how all the borders should be open across the world as this will truly provide people with freedom instead of making them have to bend to the will of Governments. As mentioned he was averse to Nationalism because he believed that it always led to Fascism and Fascism always led to war. Thus in his mind by stopping humanity from going down this path he was saving several lives here.
They sort of pay lip service to the bit about the borders with Torres explaining the motives of the group but one of the major things that aren’t in the comics that he brings up is that they think life was better in the blip.
As Sam states, if something gets good for one group it usually gets worse for another and it sort of got me thinking about the economy in the blip itself. Say you were a factory worker at Amazon, if the board members and middle management all got dusted then chances are you’d get promoted to something quite high up. You’d get more money and could have a better standard of living which could be the sort of thing that Torres is referring to.
Because the snap also was just 50% of the planet and not 50% of certain areas, there may have been some countries that lost a lot of their population whereas others didn’t and the talk of borders could have meant that they opened up a lot more so people had free travel.
Flag-Smashers Powers
We’ve never really seen the inner workings of what happened during the blip but something that’s interesting with the Flag-Smashers that we see is that they have superhuman abilities. This could either be because they’re super soldiers themselves, mutants or even Skrulls. Personally, I’m leaning more in with the first theory as that’s obviously tied to Captain America but let me know below what you think.
In Wandavision we watched as Hayward tried to resurrect the Vision in order to provide the planet with a defence system and it is possible that the Flag-Smashers were experimented on for this very reason. Flag-Smasher on the whole tended to just be a normal guy with a skillset better than Liam Neesons but it looks like they’ve changed stuff up here.
Explaining Steve’s Disappearance
Now another interesting aspect is that Captain America has disappeared. A lot of people myself included believed that the show may start with Sam and Bucky faking his death so that he could lie in peace but it is known that the character is alive.
One of the fan theories is that he’s hidden away on the moon but as we all know he’s actually President Of The United States. Now moon bases have appeared in the comics and one of them is even one that the Watchers used to spy on earth. However, the idea of him being hidden away in space could be a nod to the Avengers game in which he was placed on an orbiting satellite.
What I think happened though ties back to the way that the Russo’s described the ending of Endgame. Though this contradicts what the writers have put out, The Russo’s said that when Cap went back in time to have a life with Peggy he actually created a branched timeline where they pair lived together.
At the end of the movie he then journeyed back into the main one and handed Sam the shield. If that is the case then the guy probably just jumped back to his one and that’s why there’s no trace of him.
The writers said he was always Peggy’s husband though but yeah we still don’t know.
The New Captain America
Sam returns the shield to the Smithsonian which the Government thank him for and we also get Rhodey stopping by too. Now I know the phrase ‘Luke Skywalker’ level cameo has been banded about a lot but yeah, even though it wasn’t that level it was nice to see him pop up here as he’s one of my favourite characters in the MCU.
Now we learn at the end of the episode that the Government wanted the shield so that they could appoint their own Captain America namely John Walker played by Wyatt Russel. This Cosplay Cap in the comics is a character known as US Agent who from time to time has walked the line between being a hero and villain.
I’ll talk about this more later on but because of the way that the government official says to Sam it was the right thing to do, I kinda feel like they might have put pressure on him to hand over the shield. You don’t just make a Captain America overnight and he was likely put through testing phases along with the other applicants so I feel like this has been in the making for a long time.
Sam clearly regrets his decision realising he gave up the mantle and there’s an awesome scene in the Smithsonian where he and Rhodey discuss the shield and what it means.
Sam Doesn’t Feel Worthy
There’s a great bit of symbolism here where we see a poster of Steve with ‘I want you’ written on the top of it and Sam stands directly in front of it. Because of the way it’s lined up Steve is pointing directly to Sam saying he wants him to become Cap but Sam just doesn’t feel like he’s a worthy replacement.
There is further Symbolism when Sam stands in front of the shield but he’s slightly off centre showing that he doesn’t quite align with it yet. This iconography was too used in Into The Spider-Verse with Miles not having his face lined up with the mask before it was when he was ready.
The Winter Soldier
Cut to one of the Winter Soldier’s missions a year ago and we see as he takes out a VIP and all of his security team. Though this is a flashback it does feel like a nod to the comic book run as in that the first time we see the Winter Soldier he’s doing something similar. Like that moment in the book, we don’t quite know the time period that this scene takes place and it feels like it’s put there to make us think Bucky may have turned to the Darkseid.
#HailSnydra.
However whereas in that it was shown to be just, here it’s a flashback.
Adjusting to Life
Because the Winter Soldier needed to remain a myth he also murders someone who’s a witness to the mission and we later learn that this is the son of a man that Bucky has been trying to make amends with.
In fact, the entire arc he goes on in this episode seems to be him trying to right the wrongs of the past. We join him in therapy with a character that we know from the Trailers will be returning.
Bucky has trouble adjusting because of his life as the Winter Soldier. In real-world terms, this phrase actually means someone who just goes from War to War which, because of his hibernation, he became.
Bucky journied to a Senator that was a Hydra Pawn and someone that continued to abuse her power even after they fell. Bucky beat up one of her hired assassins and then stated that he’d changed before handing over info to the authorities so that they could arrest her.
Now this scene in which we see a Man and Woman in a car, felt very similar in set-up and the way it was shot to the murder of the Starks which was also by the hands of Bucky. Whereas in that he killed Howard before moving on to Maria, here he just hits the guy in the face and leans in the window to tell the Senator that he’s changed.
Another interesting aspect that we learn in this scene is that Bucky is truly alone. He hasn’t texted anyone and doesn’t really have a social life. I think this series will be setting him up with a relationship and that he will start actually dating people.
We then jump to his home in Brooklyn which of course he and Steve lived in as kids. He breaks up another fight involving a trash can in an alley. He also says he hasn’t danced since 1943 which is of course something that was mirrored in Steve.
Now the father’s story about his son is heartbreaking because he says he will never know what happened to his son. Bucky doesn’t tell him this episode but I think a big moment will come in the season when he finally does.
Sam Returns Home
Jump to Louisiana to see Sam going home. Anthony Mackie is actually from Louisiana so this is a cool little tie into him. We learn his parents are called Paul (great name) and Darlene and also meet his sister and nephews. His nephews were teased in a recent Xbox Ad I think, I dunno I never have time to play games anymore. We learn that their parents Shrimping business is hanging on by a thread that’s only being kept afloat by his sister Sarah.
Righting Wrongs
Bucky chats up a lady and she says that he sounds like his dad, probably because the lad is 106 love. He also says he wears a glove because of poor circulation, more like no circulation…having that.
The pair play battleships and a drinking game which involves telling the truth. Bucky pretty much paints out that he has no family and we see the guilt get too much for him which makes him almost confess the murder.
However, he doesn’t and just pays for lunch and we see that Nakashima is the first name on his list, showing how highly he views righting this wrong.
Flag-Smasher’s Mission
In Switzerland, we see the attack by the Flag-Smashers in which they steal some unknown objects. At the location, people are handed out Flagsmasher masks and then told to Renn which is Run in Swiss. See whilst New Rockstars are translating Latin…we’re over here…over here translating Renn to Run.
All the people running about and causing chaos allows the Flag-Smashers to escape in the chaos and one easily beats up Torres before making off into the night.
Financial Issues
At the bank, though Falcon is seen as a hero and celebrity it doesn’t mean much when it comes to money and his loan request is rejected because there’s no credit history due to the snap. You think the bank would take that into account but the character leaves without getting anything other than a selfie.
Also, licence plates as per usual could have significance to them. The one we see in this scene says 184 which is an issue of Captain America and The Falcon in which the Red Skull returns and holds America hostage. There’s also a bit where the names of the producers appear on screen for the names of the blipped and this includes Victoria Alonso who has headed up many Marvel Projects.
Sam, refusing to sell their parent’s legacy returns to the boat to try and start it but it doesn’t work. Also, we see a little bird in a globe on the dash. Bird easter eggs, we got.
Torres sends him a video of the Flag-Smashers and we then get the crushing news announcement that there is a new Captain America which ends the episode.
Who exactly is this?
Well, as mentioned earlier this is John Walker the new Captain America.
US Agent was first introduced in the comics as the Supervillain Super-Patriot, Walker was a counter to Captain America and he was set up as a way to embody patriotism in opposition to the hero.
Whereas Cap showed off the good aspects of American Patriotism, Walker showed off the bad bits and this put the pair at odds with one another. He did kinda go back and forth as a hero and villain over the years and currently, he stands as someone who’s mainly a good guy.
Now at one point when Steve quit as Cap, he stepped into his shoes but wasn’t really that well received. Think of Azrael in the Batman Knightfall and you sort of get the idea.
Taking over the role it helped to better define what Captain America truly meant by showing what it shouldn’t mean and this will likely be carried across to the series.
I feel like Walker will initially appear in a positive light and end up attending parades and so on but he will have a more sinister side to him and will eventually go toe to toe with Sam.
In the Comics, namely Sam Wilson: Captain America he’s actually hired by Captain America to fight Sam and the pair face off against one another in a big action scene.
Now Cap did this because…look it was a weird time when things like him saying Hail Hydra, you know the stuff, all that was about and yeah it was a weird one.
The point is though that this was sanctioned by a government figurehead and Agent actually refused to fight Sam until Cap stepped in and told him to do it. I think at some point Walker might be reluctant to take on Sam but the Government may push him into doing this because it makes them look bad.
Review
I am very excited for the future and on the whole, I absolutely loved the first episode. Having the Snyder Cut and this release back to back has made this for an amazing week and both are great comic book entries.
Whereas I was a bit unsure on Wandavision in the first two episodes, here I’m completely onboard. The acting is superb, the production quality is amazing and this really feels like a film that not only has amazing moments of action but also the necessary human drama that you should be getting from conflicted characters.
I really didn’t think there would be many fan theories that we could make with this show but my mind’s already racing over what could happen next, where Steve is and what’s going on with the Flag-Smashers. Though Zemo is absent for now, going forward he will obviously be a big player as will Sharon Carter. I think it’s a testament to how good this episode is as well in that neither Bucky nor Sam have actually met yet and the latter will likely go to the former asking for help which I think will also be a great moment.
Overall this is a brilliant first entry and we now know from the director that the series will be setting up three more MCU stories. I’m guessing that there are Armor Wars, Secret Invasion and potentially Ms Marvel but we will of course have to see.
A big plot line involving a virus was apparently reworked in the wake of the pandemic so who knows, that may even be terrigen myst and we could be getting the Inhumans at some point.
I dunno yeah, I’m gonna stop it with the fan theories but what an absolutely incredible way to bring us back into the MCU with a bang. Even though it’s just been one empty week apart from Wandavision that wait felt so long and I’m glad that we have some more amazing content like this to tide us over until May which…hopefully is when Black Widow releases.
Fingers crossed yeah.
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