 Falcon and the Winter Soldier. This show has been freaking amazing. I have loved it from episode one and if you saw my reaction video to that episode then you'll kind of know how I felt about the show for the most part. I thought it was really really good. There were a couple points that I personally had a few issues with but that comes down to more personal tastes in what I like to see from films and movies and shows and all that kind of thing. So Falcon and the Winter Soldier obviously follows the story of Bucky and Sam after the events of Avengers Endgame. I think it's about six months or so after the events of Endgame with both of them basically trying to figure out how they want to proceed. Sam himself decides to give up the shield and give it to the Smithsonian because he believes it to be the right thing to do that Cap's legacy doesn't need to be carried on, more specifically that he can't carry it on. That he and pretty much no one is worthy of carrying on the title of Captain America and that he shouldn't. Of course episode one ends with John Walker getting the shield. The show then continues from there with Bucky and Sam trying to stop the Flag Smashers while both working through their personal issues that they've been having. Bucky is trying to get past his time as the Winter Soldier and Sam honestly coming to grips with his place as the replacement to Captain America. And I thought it worked really really well for that. The show is just a hell of a lot of fun. John was honestly a really really fun villain and I will get to him later. I think they effed up with what they did with his character in the final episode. That is just personal. But I'm gonna get back to him later. But yeah, honestly the show is for the most part driven in my opinion by Bucky and Sam's relationship and how we see it change and evolve. In the first couple of episodes they're just straight up antagonistic towards each other. They don't get along. They can work together because they're used to this kind of thing, they're both soldiers, but they don't like each other. Bucky feels that Sam didn't do the right thing by giving over the shield. He believes that it is Sam's duty to carry on the legacy of Captain America because Steve specifically chose him. I also completely forgot about the line where Bucky says that if Steve was wrong about Sam then he was wrong about him. Bucky personally believes that if Steve was wrong about who he was as a person who Sam was and carrying on the legacy then he was wrong about Bucky being able to get redeemed and I personally thought that was really powerful. It's also really really cool how they have it so that Bucky doesn't understand the struggles that Steve's going through because he wouldn't, he just wouldn't. I wouldn't understand if I was in Bucky's position either. Like I've touched on before, Sam does not feel worthy to carry the shield. And in fact, he personally believes that no one else is worthy to carry that shield because Steve was such a good and righteous person that no one else will ever be able to live up to that and Sam doesn't think that he can live up to that. Even going so far as to say in episode 2 that he believed giving up the shield was the right thing to do and that Steve and Bucky would probably never understand where he's coming from. And honestly, it was probably right. Steve and Bucky could never understand exactly where he was coming from. But from there, I just, I loved how the relationship evolved to them becoming legitimate friends because by the final episode we see them legitimately hanging out. They're still antagonistic towards each other but it feels like a genuine friendship because hell, I have friends that I'm antagonistic with. It's a hell of a lot of fun personally. The interactions they have with Zemo is also a hell of a lot of fun. Zemo, I liked they gave a little bit more nuance to his character with his whole thing being that he just doesn't want super soldiers in the world because he thinks that's a really, really bad spot. With Zemo effectively finding new purpose in stopping this new batch of super soldiers because he believes that there shouldn't be super soldiers on the planet and that the only good one was Steve. Zemo even states that his personal opinion is that anyone who willingly takes that super soldier serum holds the ideals of a supremacist except for Steve Rogers. But no one else can be Steve Rogers, can they? Honestly, I personally like that line. How do I describe how I feel about that line? Because I think it's a very poignant line. But at the same time, I don't necessarily agree with it. However, I do kind of agree with it and it's very confusing all my feelings about this because on the one hand you have Carly who goes kind of into a more downward spiral as the show continues where she becomes more and more violent and more willing to just straight up kill people to get her message across, which is a bad thing. It's a very, very bad thing. But then you also have a character like John who directly took the serum so that he could feel superior to others. Specifically people who aren't super soldiers. After he got his ass handed to him by the dormalage, which is freaking awesome. Part of me agrees with Zemo and part of me doesn't. It's a very, very weird thought process that I have about that line. And I do want to touch on the finale very, very quickly. And just warning, I will be going into spoilers for the finale, specifically. Just in case you haven't seen that by the time this goes up, just warning you that is going to be this right here. Certain reveals I didn't personally like. Sharon Carter, for example, being the power broker. And yes, they had been setting that up literally from the first time we hear about the power broker and meet Sharon. The reason I wasn't a huge fan of it is just because how the reveal felt. The reveal did not feel natural to me personally. It felt like it went, oh, by the way, here you go. Here's the power broker. And I was just like, really? Okay, what the fuck? That was just how I felt about it. And I know that my thought process does not make sense because it barely makes sense to me. Freaking ADHD ramble brain. Yeah, just Sharon's reveal felt very forced. And it very much felt like, oh, by the way, here's the actual villain behind the scenes of the entire thing. Hey, hey, hey. And I just, I don't like that. And I think Marvel does it a little bit too often. And it bothers me because they did it with Agatha in WandaVision. And I didn't like it there either. Though to be fair, Sharon wasn't the main antagonist villain. So there was that little bit. Another thing I personally did not like them doing very much was the whole John Walker saves the truck scene because it adds nothing to the show. I'm not saying that John can't have some sort of redemption arc to be a little more sympathetic later down the line. But it didn't necessarily need to be in this show. John, in all honesty, I feel like should have failed in that moment. He should have gone after Carly because that's what John's entire story has always been. Him trying to do the right thing and failing because he fails to understand what the right thing to do is. So him dropping his homemade shield to go and save the truck as opposed to go after Carly felt very forced in the, oh, by the way, we're redeeming him thing because John doesn't feel redeemed to me. By the way, that goes against almost exactly what we see him do in episode five. After killing the guy and then, you know, getting his ass kicked out of the military, he then apparently stole the Captain America outfit. I actually don't know. He could have been given the Captain America outfit and it could have been straight up his. I honestly don't know how that worked because they don't explain if the suit is his or if it is America's. Either way, if he stole the Captain America suit, he then stole it with a bullshit shield that he made himself and went to fight people, got his ass curb stomped and then decided to try and save people, which is what he should have been doing from the beginning. But, and then the end, he doesn't get in trouble for like appropriating the mantle of Captain America. Like he was straight up kicked out of that mantle and he's in front of the senator who kicked him out and he doesn't get reprimanded or in trouble at all. And it's so confusing to me but something I really, really did like about this was Isaiah and Spucky at the very end. Spucky coming to terms with who he is and making, trying to make amends and apologizing to Mori felt freaking awesome. And it made me really sad and happy. And then Isaiah at the very end cause Sam actually got Isaiah Bradley's name put into the Captain America Memorial. That made me so freaking happy and I was so glad for him. It was just so much fun. Also, I just want to touch on Sam's costume real quick cause his new Captain America outfit looks freaking amazing. And it translated really, really well from the comics to the show. That's all I have to say about it. The costume looks awesome. And now I want to touch on the themes of this show. The themes of Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Which are 100% racism and how race is dealt with in this country. If you disagree with that, we did not watch the same show. Sorry for blasting the microphone out there for a second but the show is 100% dealing with race and how that has affected this country. Literally one of the main themes of the show is that part of the reason Sam doesn't want to take up the mantle is because he doesn't know how America will view a black Captain America. The show makes it apparent that it is about this from episode one. The bank scene in episode one where they're trying to get a loan and they can't for pretty much no reason despite the fact that Sam in all likelihood has the legitimate financial backings that he needs to be able to get that loan. The end of episode one when they bring out another blonde haired blue-eyed white dude to be Captain America. John Walker's entrance onto that field in the beginning of episode two, 100% has themes of racial bull crap in there. It is legitimately made evident through the entire series that is dealing with race and racial relations. Hell, there is a scene where Sam gets profiled because Bucky did something that legitimately pissed him off. If you can watch this show and not think it is about race and racism and how that affects the way this country works, you are just flat out wrong. And I also don't know that I am necessarily the best person to speak on this. The show is 100% dealing with race and racial relations. Isaiah Bradley is probably the biggest example of this because of his entire backstory, which is kept pretty much the same from the comics. He was experimented on by the government because they thought that black people were much more expendable in the 1940s. It is a thing, I hate that that is a thing, but it's a thing, don't flay me for it. Also that is the explicit reason given in the series. And then when they were willing to blow up a POW camp to prevent their secrets from getting out, so Isaiah went in of his own volition and got them all the hell out and got locked in prison for 30 years for saving his comrades. Mind you, Steve did the same thing in the first Avenger and got commended for it. So yeah, this show deals with racism and how race is viewed throughout this country as a whole. And again, I do not feel that I am the best to speak on this about the minute details because I wouldn't be able to recognize them as you can clearly tell with my skin tone. I just suggest looking up some other people who have studied this a little bit more and would be able to speak on it a little bit better if you want to know more about the whole racial themes of the series as a whole, because again, not the best to speak on it. The overall, I thought the show did a really, really good job of touching on the subject of race and how it's been handled throughout American history because yeah, we do not have the best track record of that shit, like at all, ever. Anywho, but just to quickly recap, the show does a freaking phenomenal job of telling the story that it wants to tell the racial themes of injustice and inequality and all that stuff, I think are a fantastic job. Zemo's a hell of a lot of fun. Him getting arrested by the Dormilage was awesome. Don't understand why he's in the raft at the end of the episode, though that could be explained away later. John Walker's awesome. I'm really excited to see him come back as US agent in later projects because he's still alive. Bucky and Sam's friendship, I am super stoked to see evolve from here. This show is just so much fun. For me, on a whole, this show rolls a solid 17. Extremely entertaining, extremely rewatchable if you want that, and I think it has really good themes that we could all learn from through watching the show and understanding the themes that it is trying to tell us. On the whole, that's my thoughts on the show. I really enjoyed it. If you did or didn't, let me know in the comments down below. That's all I have for now, guys. If you do wanna follow me on any of my social medias, my links to my Twitter and Instagram are going to be in the description down below as always, but I hope that you all have a fantastic day, and as always, peace out, guys.