Streaming Saturday #16: The World Is Watching

Well, damn.

I'm sorry, Ticketholders. But that's all I have to say about how this week's episode of Falcon and the Winter Soldier ended.

I watched it on my lunch break at work yesterday, so I had to finish my shift with that image haunting me.

If you've been watching the series, you know exactly what I'm talking about, and...damn. Just...damn.

I don't think it's right to be chipper and ask for your patronage here, so you know what to do. SPOILER Warning! Let's get through this....

"The World is Watching" in this episode, and what they end up watching, I will do my best to not spoil, even with the above warning in effect. I will just say that everything I said in previous posts about "the new Captain America" and the Flag-Smashers comes to a head here.There is a plot unfolding with regards to Bucky's and Zemo's past with Wakanda (following the previous episode's ending), but this episode is mainly about the Captain America way of doing things versus the John Walker way of doing things: strategy versus force, words versus weapons, trust versus paranoia, acting against fear versus acting out of fear. By adhering to the former list, Sam is able to approach an understanding and a sort of mutual respect with Karli Morgenthau, but in operating on the latter, Walker repeatedly undermines his efforts and ultimately devolves into January 6th personified: a terrifying embarrassment, emblematic of the worst that America has to offer. And the results were all the more disturbing because Marvel felt the need to resort to a "Blacks in Refrigerators" moment to catalyze Walker's inevitable downfall.

Believe it or not, the most humanizing moments of the episode (aside from the sympathetic rivalry between Sam and Karli, which had a lot of its own subtext and context to speak of) came from Zemo. When he isn't releasing the Zemo Cut on the dance floor or being moustache-twirlingly evil because a given scene is experiencing a ham shortage and more people needs a good shootin', Zemo shows something of a strong moral character for a villain. He's nice to children (even if it starts with the creepiest folk song interpretation since Dexter's English-language cover of "Frere Jacues"), despises supremacist idealism--albeit to a fault--and has a grudging respect for his enemies' unflinching convictions...as long as they align with his own in some way. In this way, Zemo stands as yet another facet of the anti-Walker archetype: the calm radical. When facing opposition, he first uses finesse to get what he wants, rather than force. When presented with the vials of stolen Super Soldier serum, he destroys them, where Walker is so fearful of human opponents who are stronger and more skilled than himself (getting his ass handed to him by the Wakandan all-female guard, for example), not to mention the serum-enhanced Flag-Smashers, that he uses a vial of it to become "more [himself]," which, as predicted, is not a good thing. And then, damn. The world was watching.

I must also add that the fight choreography in this episode, whether it be the aforementioned "Walk-anda" brawl, the damn-inciting battle with the Flag-Smashers, or any of the little skirmishes in between, there is some real creativity on display here (especially with regards to Sam's use of the Falcon suit in grounded combat). It still isn't on the level of the first episode's dogfight or the truck-top melee in the second episode in terms of budget or spectacle (some of the CGI is pretty obvious this time, too), but it's a lot cooler and more brutal-looking than last episode's fight in the "hall of Maersk." And it made me feel things that not even a well-timed "damn" could do justice.

With that, I will bring this post to a close and bid you to return for next week's Streaming Saturday.

Ticketmaster,

Damn!