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FATWS ep 2 thoughts
- John Walker -- at first I was vaguely intrigued -- they made sure he had poc friends, that he's shown as a guy who wants to do his best to live up to the concept of Captain America! Who is uncomfortable with the celebrity/dancing monkey aspect of Cap! I was like "oh, maybe this will allow them to explore what Captain America actually means with more nuance than 'this is the anti-Cap', that maybe the commentary here is that there is a fundamental tension between what the government and societal expectations on what Captain America should be, and the personal and aspirational aspect of whoever is carrying the shield." But then after those initial 10 minutes, he just turns into a generic guy who represents institutional government action, in a "you're with us or against us" sort of way, who gets Bucky out of his therapy sessions because he's "too useful of an asset". UGH
- Isaiah Bradley YUSSSSS!!! I love him, I love that he got to express his pain, just, YES. I'm torn between wanting to see him show up in episode 5 or 6 with a crucial assist, and wanting to let him continue living in peace.
- Flag Smashers -- UGH. None of their stuff make any sense. How does "One World, One People" and a desire to create a world without nations translate to "let's blow stuff up and take down the international organization that's dedicated to reintegrating half the world's population"? Wouldn't it make more sense for them to try to attack nationalist organizations? Or maybe *help* with the reintegration of people? And since when is "stealing vaccines to give to people in refugee camps" (a) helping the people who lived through the Blip and (b) marked as Evil Terrorist Activity? (When Firefly did it, it was totally good!) Just... Marvel, please be consistent kthx. (Though tbh Marvel has shown itself to be really bad at this sort of stuff -- it tends to start with "look these are the good/bad guys" and then say "therefore whatever they do is good/bad."
- There were some great character moments! I loved Bucky confessing to Sam that he's worried that if Steve's wrong about Sam, then he might be wrong about Bucky. SebStan did some great microexpressions there, and just ... the thought of Bucky anchoring his own sense of self on Steve's faith in him is :chefkiss: and allows me to imagine that Steve is really just retired and off-world for a bit. I loved Isaiah Bradley saying to Bucky that you don't get to wake up and decide to be a different person, and in a way call out the privilege of being able to do that.
- Honestly, there's parts of this that feel like what I hoped Cap3 would be about -- the idea of the legacy of Captain America, all the people who have been Cap, and Bucky getting to deal with his trauma. It's also been really good that Sam is getting to be a character in his own right.
- I'd already seen a lot of the scenes in this episode because of the preview clips, but they were sufficiently different given the context that it makes me pretty intrigued about what's going to happen next. What role will Zemo actually play? What about that dude who copies all the Avengers' moves and has, like, a baby cap shield?
4 more weeks!
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Seb's acting in the therapy scene really was exquisite. And Mackie is just fab throughout.
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Also, I know I'm biased, but I curled my lip at John Walker's deliberate having of POC friends. I've been someone's Special Black Friend and that's what that looked like to me.
Also BUCKY LANDED ON TOP OF SAM IN A FIELD.
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Yeah, I was definitely side-eyeing the swift introduction of two poc friends in the first 2 minutes of John Walker's intro, but then he started having some personality and I was like "maybeeeee those friends will be interesting characters of their own right?" and then of course 5 minutes later Marvel was like "nevermind." BLEH
And yes, some lovely SamBucky shipping moments! Bucky skipping his court-mandated appointment to jump out of a plane after Sam!
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I dunno. One of my issues with Marvel movies is them being based on batshit comics that often make no sense (unlike your ones!). So far TFATWS feels like that - too much illogical comic book shit, which CATFA was remarkably free from if you set aside the magical muscles. I mean Madripoor was "colorful fantasy setting" horseshit, and the Flag Smashers are a mess, so I worry that there'll be too little real stuff in TFATWS, just superficial comic book nonsense and Sam and Bucky played too much for laughs.
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mmmm yeah I'm not a big fan of episode 3, and there's definitely a lot of comic book shenanigans in it. I was more intrigued when the ideas that they were exploring were more along the lines of "What is Steve's legacy?" and "Who should be Captain America?", but episode 3 was just plot plot plot and Civil War callbacks. (But at least Okoye showed up!)
And yeah, the Flag Smashers stuff is such a mess. And they can't quite figure out whether they want to be a buddy cop movie or a political thriller.
But hey, at least getting D+ now means that you can cancel in less than a month!