Given I just finished Season 1...I definitely think Falcon & The Winter Soldier deserves a Season 2 on Disney Plus but then again you can easily tie Season 1 into Captain America Brave New World and Thunderbolts but with those 2 MCU productions happening one after the other, do we even get a Season 2 of this show?

Loved it, should have watched it ages ago lol gave a lot of the same vibes as winter soldier and a little bit of the boys with how John was handled which was great

They went into so much more detail with Bucky and Sam it was very much appreciated

Was so glad when Karli was killed, she was alright at first but didn't like the character that much by the end, going to far but that was the character arc TBF, the actress was damn good

Also a good twist reveal of the Power Broker

10/10 loved the directing also

John Walker deserved to be beaten down by the Dora for disrespecting them by touching Ayo’s shoulder… but the Dora throw a spear at his head when entering the room and apparently he’s not allowed to be upset over that. Double standards indeed.

Can someone explain how anyone managed to get behind this antagonist?

• Wooden acting
• One face through the one show
• One tone
• 14 year old physicality
• Has this unconfident look all the time yet somehow a leader

What even is casting?

I wanted to know more about bucky barnes and found this video! It is so good and funny! The YouTuber is definitely a fan

https://youtu.be/VUVbV_yzJfY

During a recent rewatch, I noticed that Bucky had Zemo on his “to make amends list”. Why? I can’t recall Bucky doing anything bad to Zemo. In fact, it was the other way around. Zemo used the words to control Bucky and as a result people got hurt. So why did Bucky feel he had to make amends to Semo?

this has been on my mind for a while:

TFATWS could have been a show that hammered home the "next generation" theme really well.

For this, the show would probably have to be redone from the start, but I feel like a lot could still be done if they bend the whole thing a bit.

The headcanon that went on in mine for a while is one where, in addition to Sam and Bucky, a team made out of the younger characters introduced to us forms, with the two of them functioning as half their mentors, half representation of the previous generation that can learn something from them too.

First things first:

hate to say it, but the story could have done without Zemo. He was fun, but they really changed the character, and I prefer the original - the everyguy soldier who faced and really caused problems for the superheroes with nothing but his mind and called them out on the consequences of their actions. And to me, the show would have had a lot more weight by only introducing Karli, John Walker and Sharon Carter as countering the heroes, because each of them can give a pretty solid story for why they became this way, and it all relates back directly to the consequences of other people's actions. If anything, MARVEL missed out on producing some anti-heroes and one villian who keep the audience at the edge of their seat and, most of all, don't swerve.

So here are the changes I would have made:

Karli - doesn't bomb the building in Vilnius or threaten Sam's family - and the plot around what happens to Lemar is changed too. Now, while in a one-on-one fight with him, he is severely injured and nearly dies, leading John to lose it and kill Karli's friend - it still makes sense that he would react this way since it has been established his actions while serving in the militairy still weigh on him. I even once had a plot in mind where, right after this scene, she is kidnapped by SWORD and replaced with a Skrull - then even her character breach would make sense since for someone from this species, after all that's been done to them, to lash out against the opression they know she is fighting more agressively while still maintaining the facade of being the same person. The other option would be that, in this series of events, Karli, after a different kind of battle, maybe even one against Sharon and her forces directly who try to pin the blame on the Flagsmashers for an act of terrorism (aka giving people an excuse to announce them the enemy, something according to her, everyone is waiting for), is the only survivor of her team who Sharon killed without mercy - maybe even with a snide remark that Karli should have either stayed down or with her, and making fun of her trying to change things. It would then be interesting to see her fire back that she will not stop, and Sam and Bucky letting her leave, maybe even preventing John Walker from going after her

John Walker - now his struggle beings when Lemar is wounded and briefly thought dead - John spends the next episode visiting him in the hospital, where he is in a coma. It would also be interesting to see the SWORD personell responsible maybe working with the US and other governments militairy and hiding him away in a secret base, telling John that he has passed so he will hunt Karli down for them - which would be juicy because they would be taking advantage of his mental state that the war created to do their dirty work. The story would continue in season 2 in which he still has been fired and recruited again, but now eventually hunts Karli down - but in this scenario, they never spoke in person and the whole scene before their one-on-one fight never happened. He watches her from a distance, seeing her supporting the other refugees and, most importantly, playing with the present children, which moves him as he is about to become a father soon (let's go for the trad family agle for now, there's eventually more too). He still tries to push himself, but realizes that he can't go ahead and try to kill her - because what for? The US militairy has never been as good to him as they claimed, it broke him in fact, and now he's supposed to kill a poor teenage girl who wanted to make a change? Because they said so? Even "doing it for Lemar" doesn't work anymore because through a conversation with Sam trying to talk sense into him at some point, he recognizes that Lemar died or was injured in service, and that Karli didn't mean to kill him - and that revenge doesn't change anything. Perhaps, as he watches her, he even remembers a spirited, idealistic young man he might have been at some point before going to war ... so, as she picks up on someone's eyes on her, he has left. I also see his arc as him learning to overcome who the militairy and maybe even society expected him to be and opening up, expressing his feelings and thoughts on his own terms - first to Sam, Bucky and his wife, and eventually Lemar as they reunite.

For Lemar and Olivia, his wife, I can actually see two subplots as well emerging - Lemar aka Battlestar could probably provide some insight into SWORD's current plans when it comes to Super Soldiers (chances are he escaped at some point, after being healed with super serum - what would be juicy in this scenario would be him being sent after Eli Bradley with threats to his family if he talks to anyone or asks for help ... I wonder if Sam and Bucky could do something now, being a veteran councelor and a super soldier with a past ... and it would be interesting to see how the group works together to rescue both him and Eli, or how both of them contribute on their own to that. Teamwork, right? Going to Olivia, idk, I just really want the new group to be a band of five ... and why should she get excluded? And it would be a very interesting plot twist if, suffering a terrible injury before giving birth, she somehow was given or gave herself the super serum to survive ... leading the baby to inherit the powers via her body and the group knowing that they'll once be in as much danger as Eli.

My fav plot would be: after John turns away from killing Karli the first time, someone lures her to his house and stages an attack on it, providing footage of her being close (although he is becoming suspicious already) - she manages to get Olivia out of the burning building and uses one of her last viles of serum to save her. When John and her reunite, he is shocked to hear that she carries this burden now too, but she tells him that maybe it's time she got the chance to protect him in reverse too. Also, roll him asking Karli why she saved her, with latter replying "Because that's just what one does. I couldn't leave her there - and I'm not your enemy, Walker. I never wanted to be." ... "Guess not."

Eli Bradley - he is actually a character from the comics just like Lemar aka Battlestar, and I think it's no coincedence that he was included in the show. I think the writers might go for an arc where it's revealed that the super serum powers of his grandfather were passed onto him too, which Isiah is determined to hide to protect him from the government. However, it is eventually revealed - in this scenario, it would have been interesting to see not just Sam and Bucky, but also Karli and John showing up to protect him - this could be a first instance of the latter two being on the same page, in that they can't let him be captured and forced to become a soldier, not to mention that they won't let him be experimented on like his grandfather was. This could be a lenghthy plot, even for the current canon of the show ... it's everyone coming together and standing up to the militairy and SWORD. It's difficult to characterize him as of now, since he barely gets any lines in season 1, but I can see him become an established member of the group eventually.

However, that's Karli, Olivia, John, Lemar and Eli - aka a group of super soldiers that now join Sam and Bucky, being the group leaders and more or less mentors of the group - more or less because each of the members is an adult in their own way, with own ideas and valid points. Maybe they will be approached by the Thunderbolts, but for now, they're just this team. Named "Five Stars" maybe? It's kinda cheesy, but I like it - also, if MARVEL wanted to go "new america" with them, it could be something they would choose.

Sometimes I wonder if they still could do a full reboot by claiming either multiverse or timeline changes stuff

Thank you very much for reading :)

Edit: Karli, Olivia, Lemar, Eli, John - K.O.L.E.J. aka "College" - lol I'm keeping this ^^

It was a SamBucky one shot collection set sometime around the show. One of the later chapters was about Sam and Bucky getting pets that acted like the other. There was a good amount of whump chapters.

I apparently didn't bookmark it and my subscriptions are far to many to be helpful.

Great show 2 of my favorite characters in Marvel especially in the MCU... I really hope Bucky is not just a cameo in New World Order. He's so important to the character and the mythos. Plus the dynamic between him and Sam is just great.

Of course there are some things that I didn't enjoy and some things that were absolutely ridiculous but that's to be expected. It's one of the better pieces of media from Phase 4.

My one real bad gripe about the show is the fact that Sam carries out Karli who is dead as a doornail instead of his friend Sharon Carter who was shot in the stomach halfway through the last episode. Not to mention the fact that she most likely saved his life.

I missed this when the show first aired because I was stuck watching Disney Plus on my phone but now that I'm actually watching them on a TV I'm picking up all sorts of stuff that I missed from all different shows. Either way I think it's utterly ridiculous and yeah it was a total mistake. It's actually laughable when you watch it...

Yeah I tagged this with a spoiler I don't want to receive a permanent ban but the show's been out for years now... Just saying anyone that's reading a discussion about the shows plot on this subreddit is spoiling themselves.

Update to previous post.

I recently rewatched the series in order to rank the episodes by personal enjoyment, and here's what I got.

1. The Star-Spangled Man
2. The Power Broker
3. Truth
4. New World Order
5. The Whole World Is Watching
6. One World, One People

I thought this series was great—with some underdevelopment of Karli—until the last episode, which featured so many unearned payoff moments for every character except Sam. I kept asking, “Why wasn’t this depicted?”

Take the scene with Walker choosing to save the hostages rather than pursue Karli. Where did that come from? We hadn't seen him struggle with those sides of himself at all—all the talk of him having a heroic past is more talked-about than shown. Might've been nice to have a few pure hero scenes to show how important helping people is to him. And, on the other side, the emotional stakes could have been heightened SO EASILY. Instead of having Walker lie to Lamar’s parents about who the real killer was, have him promise that he’ll hunt down the real killer! Once he does that, his choice between saving people and fulfilling his promise has much more resonance and feels like a much more complicated choice.

Or Bucky's arc. Bucky’s story centers on his regret over actions he performed as the Winter Soldier, and there were excellent early scenes with the elderly man who he had befriended. Bucky is terrified of how the man will react to the truth. But all we see is Bucky start his confession. We don’t really see any reaction at all. In the next scene, the man is laughing while eating lunch. Yes, the sin Bucky stressed over was murder, but Bucky also deceived the man (for months? years?) while developing a relationship with him. The actual consequences of that deception are a strange thing to “yada yada yada.”

If Disney didn’t want to do a pandemic storyline (as was, per a popular YouTube theory, originally scripted, hence Karli’s friend’s death), it still would’ve been nice to depict how the forced relocation had affected those who weren’t snapped—show squatters during the snap moving in to abandoned houses; their quality of life generally improving; and then, five years later, them being kicked out and placed in camps. You could even show Karli as an even younger child experiencing these changes, making the character a lot more sympathetic. It could've been kinda cool to slowly reveal Karl's backstory; have initial flashbacks be happy and make the watcher wonder how Karli turned out the way she did, and then reveal that she was one of the people forcibly relocated.

Finally, I might be in the minority on this, but I definitely needed more set up to justify the whole “Carter is the power broker” thing. Frankly, I think finding out that she was still exiled was itself confusing—you’re telling me Steve Rogers came back to the present, presumably having lived a lifetime where he was her uncle, and then was like “eh I’ll let whoever handle that when they get around to it”? And everyone was pardoned except her? But the bigger problem is that, while the arc of the story works, not enough of it is shown. Like with Walker's heroism, we only hear how Sharon has had it rough. It's barely alluded to. That's not enough for a “hero-to-villain” storyline. What was her life like in exile? Why does she hate Sam, specifically? (Seeing as she hired the French guy presumably just to kill Sam.) And if she hates Sam so much, why did she save him TWICE?

I think the show was, overall, too afraid to take its eyes off the leads. I really think it could’ve benefitted from an episode on Karli and an episode on Sharon. Almost all the necessary ingredients were here, but their development was too often either merely spoken about or skipped over. It felt like seeing a really interesting movie’s opening, then fast forwarding to the payoff scenes, which surprised me, since I thought WandaVision, overall, did a great job being patient and slowly building up conflict.

That said, Sam’s arc was handled really well. It is a pet peeve of mine when characters give monologues in “conversation” scenes. (I would have rather him stand at a podium, for example, where at least a monologue is more realistic!) I also think a little bit more could’ve been done with both Sam’s reaction to Isaiah’s story and Isaiah’s reaction to Sam taking up the mantle of Captain America (the show really quickly skips from “Isaiah tells Sam how inhumanely he was treated for being a hero” to Sam’s sister being like “Psh! Don’t listen to that Isaiah! You really gonna let him get in your head???” ... I mean, yes?) Still, overall, those are quibbles. Sam’s arc was the best thing about the show, and the fact that they even had an Isaiah storyline was incredible.

For The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, there have been a few reviews from those who have seen it online, and with them came tons of critizisms on differing aspects of the show - and while I could go on quiet a bit about them too, I want to talk about Karli Morgenthau and her cause, the Flagsmashers - in particular how the writers of MARVEL have completely and utterly failed them.

Disguised ideas

The Flagsmashers are introduced to us as dangerous, but well-meaning anti-heroes, marginalized activists who want to help those who have been displaced and put in need by the Blip - they also want the world administrations to not entirely abandon the structures and senses of community established after the Snap. If you wrote the story from their perspective, it would be close to a YA novel - a group of teenagers and refugees who get super powers and use them to help others against a world that is about to abandon and disregard them.

On the paper, it seems the heroes are set up to eventually find a common ground with them - realizing that the people they want to help can be better supported if they team up and find a solution outside of their current plans.

But that is not what happens.

In fact, what happens is completely disconnected from how the Flagsmashers are introduced.

As Honest Trailers put it “Don’t worry, they’ll kill just enough people to qualify as villians (without having joined the militairy and by that, by MCU standards, having a license to - I could go on too about MARVELs relationship with the US army, but that would take too long).

Getting back to topic - the point where Karli Morgenthau, without the apporval of her very much shocked team, blows up a building full of unarmed soldiers, and claims it to be justified, is dramatized as the turning point for her character, the point where this good-hearted activist turns to violence to proove her point.

It is also incredibly hamfisted into the story. Karli turns evil within the blink of an eye, and it feels that way.

Furthermore, if we look at moments where the directors seem to rub into our faces that this was bound to happen, guys... aka the moments where she puts on a weirdly displaced smile before fighting someone physically ... we see that even Erin Kellyman can’t make sense of it, no matter how much she tries.

Karli, the way she is portrayed between these scenes, is not enjoying violence. She‘s not enjoying having power over others just because she can - in fact, it’s this very concept she is fighting.

An moving onto her team - they are shocked, but keep going along with her ideas - and the plot punishes them for this behaviour, first by humiliating them (at least that’s what it felt like when Bucky and John Walker stopped and belittled them like unruly teenagers caught spraying) and then by having Zemo kill them, followed by zero mention shock from any of the heroes. Bravo.

Ultimately, the writers perpetuate several pretty concerning ideas - Karli falls victim to a trope we’ll discuss in a moment, and the overall message seems to be (and we’ve seen this before as well) that even someone with good ideas and a valid point can’t be trusted, because they'll eventually turn to violence just because they can and think others will too - this reeks of telling us we should not support people who protest for very much needed changes when it comes to very urgent problems, because you can’t trust them.

And I have a feeling that the next season of TFAWS isn’t really going to adress the people whom Karli and her friends tried to help. Because Sam asked world governments to do better publicly, and so they will ... right?

Karli could have told him better - and oddly, so could we.

Insensitive treatment of real-life parallels

The parallels to present day discussions such as the refugee crisis and protests against different kinds of injustice and opression across the world in this series are pretty clear - but I want to specifically talk about how the show seems to draw some lines (and yes that pun is intended) concerning the comparsion between Karli Morgenthau and probably the currently most present teenage activist, Greta Thunberg.

Again, the fact that they have a young, female character who is leading a cause, not afraid to bend the rules to face the adults isn’t the problem - it’s the progress she makes the MCU is implying.

Because - correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t see Greta or any present day teenage activist resorting to violence or even mentioning that they would.

Like I said, Karli’s fall came completely out of nowhere. And while, of course, it’s just a show, real people don’t act like fictional characters - it’s still rude, and not even subtely, to write this. In particular, it paints activists and refugees as potential full-on villians, no matter how noble their cause initially seems.

Going back to what Karli could have told Sam - let’s talk about him.

On YouTube, a reviewer has critizised that Sam trying to be a centrist is kind of an odd choice - especially considering his main inner conflict of how he, as a black man, can represent a country which has wronged his people massively in the past and continues to do so in the present. He’s still working for this countries very controversial militairy and tries to talk Karli out of her plans (until her message reaches him in the end) - going so far as to call her a surpremacist “because she thinks she knows better”.

But what does he mean exactly?

It kind of sounded like he was saying her perception of what world governments and big cooperations involved were going to, or, more specifically, not going to do for the people she was trying to help was wrong.

...

Looking at our world, any news headline, any report from anyone who has been failed by first-world governmentship ... is. she. wrong???

I can’t speak for everyone, but I, just as one example, can personally tell you that the country I live in (Germany) has openly and publicly been failing to reach the goals it wanted to fight climate change for several years.

Greta did her best to wake up the world, but the governments don’t make anything close to the necessairy progress - and if you do even the slightest research on how they “plan” to achieve it, it just gets worse, at least in Germany.

And that’s just one example. I could go on and on about roughly 20 situations in the USA.

So - Karli isn’t a surpremacist, Sam, she‘s just tired of all the bs. She’s tired of politicians making empty promises and resources being kept from those in need. She wants to make a change herself when noone else will.

Even superheroes often fall into the trap of not bettering the world, but retaining the status quo. And if we look at the end of this show - not much changes. Sam will try, but - like I said, the victims of the Blip aren’t going to see much change.

The Swerve

This term was first coined by Tom Frome online as to describe a situation where a villian becomes too relatable, so they do something violent and usually out of character to remind the audience that they are the enemy.

For Karli, her swerve begins with the bombing in Vilnius, and she begins to frequently excert violence from then on.

In another review I’ve linked below, it was also brought up that Karli’s actions don’t match what she says. She’s verbally and often very appearently concerned for the situation of innocent people, but then switches to random violence, cheerful smiles before a fight and threatening Sam’s family over the phone with no explanation that was given to us.

The character seems to be composed of two sides that don’t match and don’t communicate - a violent hooligan and an empathetic activist. I kind of get the feeling the writers wanted her to be first and to hell with her ideas, but decided to include them anyway to a level that confuses one over who she becomes when she stops talking.

I’m kind of baffled how a team of writers as well-payed as the ones at MARVEL can produce this, but I digress. It may also have something to do with an info online when the show came out about a rewrite made to the script that changed a global pandemic as the main conflict (and the Flag Smashers actually stealing a van full of vaccines for those in need in the beginning) - maybe Karli was changed too?

Either way, her “character development” doesn’t work. The one that might have would have been one in which she doesn’t swerve, eventually begins to trust Sam and carries out the final battle alongside him and the others, perhaps against Zemo and the Power Broker.

But the writers also had to justify, and make it not to tragic for the audience, that Karli ultimately dies. Because it feels to me like they had no interest in carrying on with her as a character.

Wasted potential

By the end of the show, the people Karli and her friends tried to help are still in the same situation - Sam told world governments to do better, but are we to assume this had a lasting effect?

The show and her had a certain potential to continually adress what effects and consequences both the Snap and the Blip had on the world, and how people continue to deal and struggle with it.

It could have included Karli as a sort of, yes, Robin Hood, a kind of rogue hero of the people who shows up constantly across the world and uses her powers to help those in need. Here we could have had development, aka that she turns away from “smashing flags”, but not from trying to make governments aware of what needs to be done and occasionally pirating resources before making a getaway.

This show could have intervined her development with that of John Walker and his wife, maybe Eli Bradley, Isiah’s grandson (I still suspect he’ll become a character with some degree of inherited super serum powers in season 2), a revived (Agents of Shield did that) or how about not killed Lemar Hoskins, and have them team up with Sam and Bucky ...

As you can see, the series had tons of potential, but they went too big too fast and wasted 3 seasons of material in one. Also, I still suspect MARVEL wasn’t really interested in anyone but the main protagonists and John Walker. Plus - I’m not saying they did Karli dirty because she’s a girl, but the show divides the few female characters it has into family members and criminals.

Anyway, I think this essay is long enough now - last but not least:

What a waste of a perfectly fine Erin Kellyman! Looking foward to see her in the Willow series - hope they do her justice with the script this time :)

Thank you very much for reading :)

Links to other reviews of the show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6W-bLVjF16k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tQ6_b6cePE

On a rewatch, I’m really confused about Sharon’s actions. I’m wondering if someone can help put the pieces together for me, or if they forgot that they were going to reveal Sharon as the Power Broker down the stretch…

Couldn’t she have called off all the mercenaries that she fights while Sam, Bucky, and Zemo are in Nagel’s lab?

In fact, why does she put them on to Nagel at all when he’s such an asset for her?! If she wants to put the trio on Karli’s tail to get revenge for the theft of the serum, she could have feed them the info and keep her scientist out of danger. In episode four on the phone to Sam, she says “the power broker is pissed that Nagel is dead.” Like no shit, but SHE did that.

Seems like she also could have avoided murdering a bunch of folks while covering Sam and Bucky earlier in Madripoor.

I just think there were easier ways to nab a pardon, and that a scientist who could make the serum is worth more than revenge on Karli and a possible pardon.

Hello! I was wondering if anyone wanted to rp Winterfalcon with me? I'd be Sam preferably. I have a plot and starter ready, if anyone is interested just comment on here or pm me. The plot is based during Endgame then goes into The Falcon and The Winter Soldier.