Streaming Saturday #13: The Falcon Has Landed

Welcome, back! (He said as much to himself as to his audience)

Another Streaming Saturday is upon us, as is a new MCU/Disney+ series in The Falcon & the Winter Soldier. 

As with WandaVision before it, FWS will be dropping new episodes every Friday at midnight, so if you haven't seen it yet, go see it before you start reading what follows, because a SPOILER Warning! is now in effect.

The pilot (shame and props to Marvel Studios for not making an Air Force pun here) is instead titled "New World Order," and follows the events of Endgame, with Sam Wilson (the titular Falcon, played by Anthony Mackie) packing up his idol's star-spangled vibranium pizza tray to return it to the government so they can retire it to the Smithsonian.

We then cut to a...subsequent? Previous? Future?...mission of his in a fictional county next door to Libya. I forget the name of it, but it's one of those countries that Marvel came up with so they wouldn't have to explain to the censors why American superheroes are at war with Algeria or something, and its landscape is basically the canyon they used for the dogfight in Independence Day if it was one of the wastelands from Dragon Ball Z. Batroc is back, after getting his leaping ass kicked in the opening scene of the other MCU entry that ends with The Winter Soldier. Things do not change for him here.

When he is warned not to let on that America is acting over foreign airspace and to be subtle, Sam fires up his one-of-a-kind, red, white, and blue, cybernetic bird suit and promptly Jesus-dives out the cargo bay of his drop plane in a clearly non-American display of subtlety. But it's okay because cool dogfight choreography and the French bad guys don't get to do French bad things because they get French-fried. Did I mention the awesome dogfight choreography and explosions?

Elsewhere, Bucky Barnes (played by Sebastian Stan) is likewise doing something badass and chronologically confusing, until

"Bucky!"

We then find out that he is seeing a therapist for his PTSD, using spycraft to make amends for his Winter Soldier past (with mixed results), making a distracted attempt at romance with a local bartender, and discovering a strained kinship with the father of one of his victims.

Meanwhile, Sam is having better luck in the friendship department, keeping in touch with an old Air Force buddy (Joaquin Torres; the second Falcon in the comics, played by Top Gun: Maverick's Danny Ramirez), reconnecting with his sister, Sarah (Adepero Oduye, Widows), and attending the donation ceremony with Rhodey (Don Cheadle). But things aren't all hugs and heroics: issues of celebrity and service versus race complicate financial matters for the Wilson family, Torres is savagely beaten by a potentially enhanced member of the globalist terror group called the Flag-Smashers (inspired by the Marvel Comics villain of the same name, as well as the Marvel Comics' fictional terrorist group, U.L.T.I.M.A.T.U.M.) and Sam finds out later that the government lied to him about retiring Captain America's shield, instead appointing John Walker (played by an awkward, uncomfortable-looking Wyatt Russell, this character is also known as U.S. Agent in the comics. He's basically a more severely domestic, fanatically patriotic version of Captain America) to replace the deceased (?) Steve Rogers as the new symbol of America.

This presents many possibilities for the series addressing events like January 6, 2021 and the consequences of fanaticism in general by juxtaposing the radically globalist Flag-Smashers with the radically domestic U.S. Agent. But I have another theory that might play out instead. Consider the implications of John Walker being not just U.S. Agent, but a double agent. It isn't true to the comics--not that that has stopped the MCU from going in unfaithful directions before--but what if it turns out that U.S. Agent is also the Flag-Smasher? It was the first thought that popped into my head when he was revealed at the end of the episode, anyway.

But there is a bit of a wrinkle to consider: Helmut Zemo (The Alienist star Daniel Bruhl) has been confirmed to make a return after his defeat in Civil War, so it's just as likely that U.S. Agent and the Smashers will end up being orchestrated at odds with one another by Zemo himself (a known strategist) in another bid for revenge against the world that took everything from him.

Also confirmed to appear in Falcon and the Winter Soldier is Sharon Carter, a.k.a. Agent 13 (The Resident star Emily VanCamp, reprising her role from the Captain America sequels), but we'll have to wait and see how she fits into the plot of the series going forward.

Some have said that WandaVision set this series up for failure by being too speculation-hungry and high in concept, but Falcon and the Winter Soldier isn't about that. True, it follows the theme of characters coping with trauma and the tragic, unprecedented state of its world, but it doesn't need to pander or mimic what came before it to be successful. Just as individual people are different, so are the nature and scope of their worldviews and adversities. That isn't to say that all worldviews should be given credence (I refer again to January 6 and the tragic, unprecedented state of our own world as it has been for the past year), but WandaVision and FWS should not both be judged by the metric that made the former so good and so widely discussed. They should instead be judged on their ability to capture the essence of "the Marvel thing" in what ever way each series can best do so. So don't pass on Falcon and the Winter Soldier because it isn't WandaVision, enjoy it because you enjoyed the Captain America films and you want more of the same. And as always, if you try it and don't like it, that's cause for conversation, too.

So remember to leave a like and comment below, and I will see you Saturday for more Streaming.

Ticketmaster,

out.