A responsibility to history
What They Say:
Sam Wilson, Bucky Barnes, Baron Zemo, John Walker, and Karli Morgenthau must all deal with the fallout from their actions.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
After an action-packed and frenetic episode, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier slows things down and gives the characters a moment to pause and reflect.
In the previous episode, John Walker (I’ll never call him Captain America) killed one of Karli’s Flagsmashers with Cap’s shield after Karli accidentally killed Lemar (a.k.a. Battlestar). Episode six takes place mere minutes after the incident, with Walker running to an abandoned warehouse in a train yard, trying to come to grips with the death of his best friend and how he reacted to it. It’s a key moment that defines Walker’s character perhaps even more than the murder. Here he has a chance to consider what he did and figure out what it means and what he can do about it. This could have spurred him to do the noble, correct thing and turn himself in and admit that he’s been in over his head. Instead, he retreats into justifications and excuses and rage. This is the mindset Sam and Buck find him in when they confront him. Not surprisingly, it doesn’t go well.
Walker destroys Sam’s Falcon suit in the fight, but Sam and Buck do manage to get the shield away from him. From there, they go their separate ways. Sam visits Isaiah Bradley, the Black man who had been one of the initial test subjects for the super-soldier serum, who had been jailed by his own government and experimented on. The conversation the two have is full of pain and anger and touches on the horrific treatment of Black men by the United States government. At one point, Isaiah flat-out says that no self-respecting Black man would carry that shield. This hits Sam hard, and he returns to his home to help his sister fix up the old family boat to sell it.
Bucky, meanwhile, goes to take in (or maybe take out) Zemo, finding him at the Sokovian memorial. The two talk, and Zemo tries to convince Bucky that the only way to stop Karli is by killing her. For a moment, it seems like Buck is going to take Zemo’s advice, only not in the way it was intended, as he holds a gun to the villain’s head. He pulls the trigger, but the gun only clicks. It was empty. The Dora Milaje arrive at that moment and take Zemo away for the Raft. Ayo, being kind, tells Buck to stay away from Wakanda for a while. Buck listens, but he also asks her for one more favor—something he has no real right to ask, but I’ll get to that in a minute.
Walker arrives back in the United States to attend a formal hearing where he is stripped of his title of Captain America and given an “other than honorable discharge.” Walker, furious, tells the committee that he is what they made him, and, honestly, he has a point. While it doesn’t absolve him of his murder, he also is the weapon the military crafted and now just thrown away. While his entitlement isn’t justified, his anger at that moment is.
This just sets Walker up for his eventual full villain turn. After the trial, he’s approached by Madam Hydra (played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus of all people), who gives him a pep talk and tells him that she’ll be in touch. This makes me wonder if we’re going to get a different sort of Captain Hydra somewhere in a future MCU movie or series, but that’s just speculation at the moment.
Walker also visits Lemar’s family, and the scene is awkward to say the least. Lemar was never a fully realized character. His function was to serve as Walker’s sidekick. He propped the man up, gave him the pep talks he needed, and that was about it. He had no real history or fears or motivations of his own, and that translates to this scene, because all Lemar’s mother talks about is how proud Lemar was of Walker, and how much it meant to him that Walker became the new Captain America. It’s done to help push Walker down the road to becoming the anti-Cap, but in an episode that focuses so much on race relations in the United States, it’s an odd narrative choice. Even in death, this Black man exists to facilitate Walker’s journey, and that problematic, to say the least.
While all of this happens, Karli makes her final moves to take down the GRC and make the world listen to the Flagsmashers. As Zemo predicted, she’s fully radicalized now, and she’s creating a grassroots army. Of all the characters, she gets the least screen time and development, but given that the previous episode did so much brick laying to get us to understand who she is, where she was coming from, and why she’s doing what she’s doing, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
I think this might be the strongest episode to date. It took the time to slow down and reflect, without feeling like this was a filler episode before the big climax. It allows the characters to deal with their own inner conflict. Sam struggles with the legacy that Steve left him, and the blood that was metaphorically and literally on that shield. He also struggles with what the legacy means to him as a Black American. Bucky struggles with the sins of his past and scars that they left. Walker struggles with his actions and the knowledge that he just wasn’t good enough for maybe the first time in his life. It’s good, solid character work that leads well into the final episode coming up, but there are some problems.
Before it aired, the buzz about the show was that this was going to be Blacker. That it would dive into race relations in the MCU—something that’s never really been touched upon. I was excited about that, not only because it would add texture and nuance to the story and characters, but also because it’s a conversation the MCU has needed to have for quite some time now. I think there were good intentions behind this show, but the results have been pretty sporadic, at best. The theme of race doesn’t run through every episode, and when it does show up, it’s often rather surface level. We only get one conversation with Isaiah where he dives into his past and the horrible wrongs the government did to him, and that’s it. It creates a subtext that occasionally bubbles to the surface, such as when Buck says “Steve and I didn’t realize what it would mean to give that shield to a Black man” (or something to that effect), but if you’re going to go to this place, go all the way. To use the Redtails or the Tuskegee Experiments as a way to add the weight of history to your fantasy tale, and do nothing else with them, is insulting. These aren’t just facts that you can use as a narrative shorthand, these were real events and people who were treated worse than animals by their own country.
There’s also the issue of how many of the white characters interact with the Black characters. Bucky betrayed the Wakandans. He might as well have spit in their faces when he released Zemo, and then he has the gall to ask Ayo for two favors—more time to use Zemo before they took him back, and a suit for Sam. The way he uses them after they already did so much for him is terrible, and the text doesn’t even call him out on it. Ayo still acts kindly towards him, even though she every reason not to, and she even helps give Sam a new suit. One could argue that the second request is different since it’s for Sam and not Buck, but he’s still the one to ask them, and he’s the one who delivers it, not the Wakandans, positioning him as the one who is doing Sam the favor. Not a good look.
And then there’s Walker, whose best friend and wife are both Black, and who serve no role in the story other than to support him. The Black people in Walker’s life, right down to Lemar’s parents, only exist to support him and move him along in his journey. Now, this might be interesting if he were ever called out on it, if the text made it clear that Walker—and by extension the very society in which he lives and operates—view Black people as nothing more than props in the story of white people, but that’s never clear, nor do I think it’s intended. For a show that’s trying to be about race, it makes some odd, almost blind, choices that hurt the integrity of the story and what the writers are trying to do with it.
We should also add Zemo to this equation—not because of how he acts towards people of color, but his very existence in the show. At no time does the show justify his escape attempt. Every step in the investigation could have been done without him through other resources. Sure, he gave them the lead about Madripoor, but you know who else could have? Any intelligence agent worth their salt. Hell, you could have Sam or Buck say that they know Sharon is in Madripoor, and they go to her because she might be able to scrounge up a lead.
Or just talk to the Wakandans! I find it hard to believe that Wakanda wouldn’t have an interest in keeping the super soldier serum out of the hands of radicalized civilians, especially not after what happened when Killmonger almost took over. Time and again, Wakanda has proven itself to be more advanced and capable than most of the rest of the world. Have Buck contact Ayo and ask for help. That would give us more Florence Kasumba—which is always a good thing—and would allow for a different point of view in the whole discussion of race. How would Ayo see the legacy of Captain America? Would she support Sam in taking up the shield, or would she urge him to forge his own path? This could have provided a great storytelling opportunity that would allow for a more nuanced discussion about race.
It could be that I’m asking too much for a superhero spy thriller. I do that sometimes. However, this is a subject that the show itself broached, so, for me, that makes it fair game. Again, I think that this has good intentions, but the execution is pretty lackluster.
In Summary: B
After all that, it might seem like I don’t enjoy the show. Quite the contrary, I’m having a good time. The actors are fantastic, the action is exciting, and the story is engaging enough. The issue I have is that it touches on very real topics regarding race, but does so in a facile manner so far, and in doing that, it shirks its responsibility in treating these real historical events and real contemporary problems in the sophisticated manner they deserve.
Dr. J gives this a…
Content Grade: B
