Does the world become better again when it returned to normal?
This is the theme being examined by The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
When Disney+ first announced the MCU TV series, I was sceptical and excited at the same time. I mean, we can deal with MCU stuff in the theatre but what kind of story are they going to tell in a TV series?
WandaVision successfully presented a different side of Wanda Maximoff. We finally witnessed and went through her grieving process together. Those were questions we have had for a long time in the MCU. Hence, I was so glad that I finally saw the MCU gave her the proper coverage and exploration, so we can understand and empathise this character a lot more.
With The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, it was in a similar premise but in a different way. Wanda Maximoff was dealing with the grief that she buried over the years from the death of her parents, Pietro and then Vision, which then exploded beyond her capacity leading to the Westview Hex Incident. For The Flacon and the Winter Soldier, we look at two different aspects – displacement and replacement.
Sam Wilson, aka Falcon seemed to have found his purpose with casual work with the Air Force, never recovered from the displacement caused by the Blip (aka Thanos’ Snap). He struggled to rebuild his relationship with his sister Sarah, found out that being an Avenger meant literally nothing in this new rebuilt world, and lost direction as who he is apart from an occasional Avenger on government’s missions. However, as a post-trauma counsellor himself, he managed his emotion a lot better despite the expanding void and emptiness inside – which led him to give up the shield to the government, triggering the next series of events.
As for James Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier, he was completely lost as his old world got replaced by the new. He no longer has Steve Rogers to depend on, he is alone in New York, he is going through counselling to understand how to fit into this world while dealing with the old ones he might or might not have helped destroyed. His mental state was clear when he told the counsellor, ‘I went from fight to fight over the last 75 years, I had a short period of peace in Wakanda, now I do not know what I should do’. The term freedom is now a complete stranger to him, for someone who never had any since that dramatic fall over 75 years ago. Finding a purpose in a world he doesn’t know is harder for him than Steve Rogers, for he did not have SHIELD or Nick Fury to guide him. In fact, he had no one now, but the guilt that resides inside him.
Anyone familiar with the comics will kind of know what’s coming with the storyline of the new Captain America John Walker. However, for me the most interesting part of the series so far is not all the actions and fight scenes (which were great), but the close examination of Sam and Bucky, after they came back to this world, which was supposed to be back to normal.
However, is this a normal world anymore? A lot of time we said someone did a bad thing for a good purpose. In this post-Blip world, people were once again divided after everyone returned from the events of Avengers: Endgame. We had a little bit of a sneak peak in Spiderman: Far From Home and WandaVision. But they were just bubbles. In The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, the odds and the conflicts were on full display from a micro to a macro level. The Flag Smashers’ will to deconstruct the world so that it could go back those five years when everyone was helping each other to rebuild was understandable. However, just like the Blip, John Walker’s Captain America and Zemo, good intentions did not always lead to good circumstances. I think this was really flashed out with all the events in the last four episodes of The Falcon and the Winter Solder. Let us take a row call for this:
Zemo killed a lot of people because of his believe that superheroes or humans are supremacists that would eventually become the suppression and oppression forces of the world
John Walker devolved into a raging beast simply because of his desire to be Steve Rogers, whom he looked up to since he was a kid
Karli Morgenthau killed a lot of innocent people because of her wish to build a better world (as Sam told her, she is not building a better world, just a different one, which was spot on)
Sharon Carter was on the run and cut off from her family simply because she believed in Steve Rogers and his cause (which she now questioned her loyalty to anyone after seeking refuge in Madripoor)
Sam Wilson gave up the shield, ending up falling into the trap of manipulation by the US Government to create a new Captain America
Everyone was trying to do the right thing, but nothing ended up right in the end.
However, what highlighted here strongly was that all these people were trying to do the right thing by themselves, not with others. As such, individual good wills clashed and collateral damages ensured.
How the series would end is yet to be seen, but The Falcon and the Winter Soldier did take a bold move in its direction – that is to investigate what it meant to say ‘I am doing the right thing’. In this new yet old world, not everyone will be on the same ground or the same level, but as long as these characters and these people do not work together, catastrophe is ensured.
