The Falcon and The Winter Soldier Review: The Star-Spangled Man (Season 1 Episode 2)

The Falcon and The Winter Soldier Season 1 Episode 2, “The Star-Spangled Man,” is a tribute to everything Steve Rogers is not and that betrayal has us understandably angry.

It is infuriating to watch John Walker benefit from a legacy he hasn’t earned. But to look away from this series as it challenges what Captain America can be in the wrong hands would be to miss out on fascinating storytelling.

It seems The Falcon and The Winter Soldier understands the mission a little too well, especially when it comes to disservice. But no fake captain can outshine Marvel’s two most reluctant co-workers — not when they’re this dysfunctional!

Reunited And It Feels So Good:

The fact that Team Cap’s reunion involves Bucky angry power-walking towards Sam while shouting “you shouldn’t have given up the shield” speaks to the wonderfully loud dynamic these two men share.

The on-screen rapport between Mackie and Stan truly is something special. Their bickering continues to be a highlight and demonstrates an organic dialogue that goes beyond the usual action-movie banter.

It’s relentless and sporadic, filling entire scenes with meaningless quips because no one gets to have the last word even if it means alerting the bad guys to their location.

The show continues to poke fun at Bucky’s traumatic past by forcing him to jump out of a plane without a parachute. Bucky isn’t a fan of free-falling (a reasonable fear) and he yells the entire way down. It’s a great way to parallel Steve and Buck’s experience as super-soldiers while reminding us Bucky was the responsible one.

It’s redundant to get into why Bucky and Sam clutching each other for support as they roll down a hill is important to this episode’s success. After all, Bucky refusing to remove himself from atop Sam until they finish bickering is crucial to the plot.

Not My Captain America:

John Walker represents the best this episode has to offer and the worst. He is a story catalyst and a good one at that. Marvel wants us angry and Wyatt Russell brings the perfect amount of cockiness and ignorance to the role to tarnish Captain America’s legacy without making it into a cartoon mockery.

Falcon and The Winter Soldier isn’t backing down from this insufferable storyline to please us.

On the contrary, the show forces us to sit with him for a large chunk of the episode in hopes our anger is enough to evoke a different kind of appreciation for the storytelling. But the show isn’t going as far as to paint Walker as a hero so much as a privilege check.

That opening scene in Walker’s high school isn’t just meant to humanize him and provide meaningful backstory. No, it’s a demonstration that Walker’s white male privilege will always be a qualification and a justification for his actions.

If he really understood what it meant to hold the shield he would have never taken it in the first place, and he wouldn’t be doing prime-time interviews.

Walker has never been the little guy or the underdog, yet the government tells him being a soldier is enough. This is a dangerous ideology The First Avenger struck down and it’s infuriating to see Marvel use Cap’s origin story against us like this.

This introduction to Walker weaponizes the propaganda Steve detested and forces us to watch a new captain walk out to a version of the “Star-Spangled Man” score. It’s followed by a gut-wrenching blow as we are forced to watch Bucky’s horrified reaction play out across Stan’s face in real-time.

Thankfully, we do get justification for our feelings when Walker, who swears he’s the image of patriotism, threatens Bucky and Sam to stay out of his way. It’s imperative to show the ugliness of people like Walker when their privilege is questioned.

As this episode cruelly demonstrates, Walker’s unlikeability is a powerful tool. But continue to force him on the audience and allow Fake Cap to take up space that should go to Sam, and that anger we’re feeling for the plot could just as easily turn to spite for the show.

Falcon and The Winter Soldier has knowingly created a Captain America problem and if this series isn’t careful, John Walker could be its downfall.

Couples Therapy:

Therapy is the gift that keeps on giving for The Falcon and The Winter Soldier as we see Bucky’s therapist take things one step further with couples therapy. No not co-workers therapy, it’s straight-up called couples therapy and it is glorious.

There’s a lot of grunting and reluctant sharing between Bucky and Sam that we could never have prepared for. The two refuse to give in to each other, which quickly escalates a perfectly heterosexual soul-gazing exercise into an intense staring contest.

This show couldn’t have given us a better piece of fan fiction if it tried. Bucky and Sam push this session to its limits with relentless banter, and I have to think this scene is at least 50% improved by Mackie and Stan because the running commentary feels too organic.

The touching of legs and other parts is unbearably funny, and it spirals into Bucky’s most vulnerable dialogue yet as he tells Sam (with a perfectly unnecessary voice crack) he worries he let Steve down. Unfortunately, for a scene that gives us everything we desire, it breaks our hearts by closing the book on future sessions.

Isaiah Bradley:

We get a crucial history lesson on super-soldiers with the appearance of Isaiah Bradley, the Black Captain America who was erased from history. The injustice of locking Isaiah up for treason is pushed further by Sam’s racist encounter when cops confront him outside the man’s house.

It’s heartbreaking to watch Mackie sift through reactions as Sam realizes the deadly assassin next to him who is credited with over 2 dozen kills isn’t the problem. The defeat that seeps into Sam’s features when he realizes his privilege as Falcon is the only thing standing between him and the back of that cop car is palpable.

Mackie continues to portray these difficult emotions without the help of dialogue and it is in his silence that this injustice hurts the most.

These scenes refuse us the luxury of overlooking the danger people of colour will continue to face if systemic racism goes unchecked. It’s uncomfortable, but if you don’t see a place for this kind of conversation in a Captain America series then you have missed the importance of his legacy.

Falcon and The Winter Soldier succeeds with this longer format by focusing on Sam and Bucky first, and the fight second. But in attempting to tell a cinamtic story spanning multiple countries and organizations, the show is bursting at the seams with content that doesn’t always fit together cohesively.

There have to be repercussions for trying to fit twelve movies’ worth of conflict into a six-episode mini-series. We see hints of that with this episode, and with the rushed reunion between Sam and Bucky.

These two demonstrate the road to freedom is no easy path but as long as you walk it with a friend you reluctantly get along with, success will always be close.

Theories & Other Thoughts:

• BUCKY DID THE FAST RUN!
• Having the score from the highway fight scene in The Winter Soldier play when Bucky is getting his butt kicked on the truck is so savage.
• Sam had that sorcerer/wizard debate locked and loaded.
• Can we meet more people who fought The Winter Soldier and lived to talk about it? Isaiah casually mentioning how he whooped Bucky’s ass in 1951 is the best.
• Hello Elijah Bradley! The Young Avengers squad is coming together nicely.
• Sam’s reaction to Bucky’s White Wolf code-name is appropriate, it’s ridiculous!
• The Flag Smashers have the potential to be complex villains, but I need to see more before committing to their world without borders thing.

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New episodes of The Falcon and The Winter Soldier air Fridays on Disney+.

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