[Analysis & Review] The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Episode 2 [Easter Eggs & Theories]
Hello!
Today I’m writing about The Falcon and the Winter Soldier episode 2, which dropped on Friday 26 March — the points worth flagging, the theories, and predictions for where all of this goes next.
In this post I’ll write up, briefly, everything that caught my eye on the first watch and the Easter eggs, and then get into the theories.
Spoilers ahead
The WandaVision episode reviews from the previous run are here!
For The Falcon and the Winter Soldier episode reviews, click the image below!
Contents
What I’ve been into lately
I’ve started photographing Hot Toys figures for fun recently. Camera is a ZV-1, shooting RAW and editing in Lightroom.
What I shot this time was
- Hot Toys Television Masterpiece, The Mandalorian, The Mandalorian & The Child, 1/6 scale figure
That one.
Hot Toys really is the good stuff.
The quality is absurdly high, and I’ve got about six of them now.
I made a video as well
Nothing whatsoever to do with films or TV, but I went to the Hiroshi Yoshida exhibition and the Kashiwa Sato exhibition the other day, so I turned that into a video.
Episode 2, “The Star-Spangled Man”
John Walker
He calls himself “Super-Patriot,” meaning an ultra-patriot, so the impression you get is that John Walker is a superhero with a strong loyalty to his country, much like Captain America — but apparently he is the exact opposite of Steve.
Steve, overflowing with a sense of justice and always trying to do the right thing, only cooperates with the government when it lines up with his own ideology; John, by contrast, is a character who will do whatever the government orders even if it goes against his own morals. So it seems fair to say John is a superhero you can trust less than Steve.
https://eiga-board.com/posts/3359?p=1
The identity of the new Captain America turned out to be a man called John Walker. In the comics, unlike Steve, he seems to be an ultra-patriot who puts America first. And after retiring as Captain America he apparently becomes a hero called U.S. Agent.
I could sort of feel that excessive sense of justice in the show too. Though in the comics he doesn’t turn villain? Or he did and then came back to the side of good, something like that, it seems.
John Walker’s record
At first I thought “who on earth is this guy,” but then you hear his record and it’s no joke.
That shield-throwing scene made me think of Steve and gave me a bit of a jolt too lol
The Big Three
Androids, aliens, wizards
Sam suddenly comes out with the Big Three and I wondered what it was going to be, and it turned out to be the usual line-up of enemy types lol
Funny that it’s “androids” rather than just machines.
Also, Bucky reading a first edition of The Hobbit made me laugh. And listening to the announcement of the new Captain America while sitting on the floor hugging his knees, and battling to swat Redwing away with his hand — nice to get a comic side of him
Ever jumped on a grenade?
Bucky asking John whether he’s ever jumped on a grenade is a reference to that famous exchange in the first Captain America film, the one where Steve proved he had exactly what a hero is made of
The Global Repatriation Council
The Global Repatriation Council is an agency that supports the people who were turned into refugees by the return — restoring citizenship, social security, healthcare and so on for the people who came back with the snap
Battlestar / Lemar Hoskins
The one who turns up as John’s partner is Lemar Hoskins. Basically the Falcon position relative to Cap lol
When he first appeared the knock-off-Falcon energy was off the charts lol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYbLGRcAbq4
The Lemar Hoskins who appears in the show is John’s partner in the comics as well.
Maybe he’ll end up making peace with Bucky and Sam?
Karli Morgenthau
At a glance she looks like an ordinary girl, but she’s a super soldier who has (probably) been given the super soldier serum, and she’s the boss of the Flag Smashers. In the comics the character was a man called Karl Morgenthau
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPXH2KvbUCM&t=10s
Every one of these characters turns out to have a comics original, but they’re never quite that character as written, so working out what they become in the MCU is exactly the sort of thing I enjoy~
Their argument was “those of us who survived the five years should get better protection than the people who came back.” And you can more or less see what they’re getting at, which makes it a difficult one. Though the terrorism is a bit much lol
Sharon branded a traitor
Sharon, Peggy Carter’s grand-niece, having become a traitor to her country is a shock… Well, she did let Cap and the others get away in Civil War, so there was no avoiding it…
She has an outlaw feel about her in the trailer as well, and at this point there’s no telling whether she’s friend or foe.
Isaiah
So he is another Captain America, one who was erased from society.
Bucky was worried that if his existence became public knowledge, criminals and the government would come after the secret of his abilities, so he kept it from Steve as well — but Bucky was furious that the existence of a Black super soldier had been kept hidden for decades
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VI7Vv4D4w6s
The MCU’s version of Isaiah looks like it’s based on Isaiah Bradley from the comics.
He’s a super soldier created during WW2 in order to make a new Captain America. There’s a sad background to it too: around 300 Black soldiers were used as test subjects at the time, and only a handful survived.
And even though Isaiah served with distinction himself, he was put through terrible things, including seventeen years in prison.
Bucky and Sam
Why did you let the shield go?
Steve believed in you
and put everything he hoped for into handing you that shield
It’s Steve’s symbol and his legacy
Maybe you and Steve can’t understand it
but I believed it was right
Accept it
The scene in the session with Dr. Raynor where the two of them throw their feelings at each other was pretty good
Bucky’s care for Steve and Sam’s choice both feel real, and it puts a fresh polish on what makes these characters appealing
Zemo appears
Zemo finally appears! He was outside in the trailer, so he’ll presumably break out of prison in episode 3
Will the Flag Smashers come to rescue him? Zemo seems to know a lot about the super soldier serum too, so there’s every chance of it
In the comics he’s a HYDRA scientist in a purple mask (details here), but in Civil War he was a former spy, near enough an ordinary civilian. Looking forward to what sort of role he takes on in this show
After finishing episode 2
Denying that wizards exist
Bucky flatly declaring that there’s no such thing as a wizard caught my attention. Does that mean he doesn’t know about the whole run of events in WandaVision (Wanda in particular)?
Curious how Wanda is being treated by the public right now
Number withheld
“Thieves. I will find you and kill you”
Probably something like the Flag Smashers having stolen the super soldier serum from this mystery figure?
Given that Zemo is in prison at the moment and can’t be reached, could the person who sent this message be Sharon Carter?
What’s next for John Walker and co.
Late in episode 2 he pulls a seriously frightening face and threatens Bucky and Sam with “stay out of our way”
At this rate they could well end up as enemies
In the comics the two of them are enhanced by Power Broker Inc., and John becomes the hero U.S. Agent while Lemar becomes Battlestar. On Power Broker Inc., see below ↓
A company founded by Curtiss Jackson. It enhances ordinary humans and grants them abilities, then takes a percentage of the income they earn using those abilities as its fee.
Its main clients are superhuman wrestling. The augmentation is carried out mainly by Dr. Karl Malus. The process involves a great deal of danger and can result in the subject’s death or unintended mutation. There was also a period when it used a highly addictive drug under the pretence of stabilising the subject’s abilities, in order to keep the payments coming in.
After Curtiss’s death, an unidentified second Power Broker took over the existing operation while also branching out in new directions, such as investing in Hench, an app for hiring villains.
https://w.atwiki.jp/studentx/pages/1306.html
So, predicting how it goes in the show: the two of them have no superpowers, and I think fixating on that leads them to inject themselves with the Flag Smashers’ super soldier serum and become villains, or possibly heroes.
The world they saved
This show really drove home that the world they saved in Endgame is still riddled with poverty, discrimination and violence…
Well, Thanos’s aim was to stop resources running dry, so maybe the world that got halved by the snap actually had no poverty in it lol
Anyway, the counterargument to what the Flag Smashers are saying, and whether Sam and Bucky carry on as heroes from here — those are the things I want to keep an eye on
So many Captain Americas
All sorts of Captain Americas turn up in the comics. This show has already given us U.S. Agent and Battlestar and the Isaiah version of Captain America, so it looks like plenty more Captain Americas are on the way
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLjEgKGORmM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlZZZmHUF6c
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeDhqQQ4kfc
Episode 3
Episode 3 is here!
[Analysis & Review] The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Episode 6 [Impressions & Easter Eggs]
The first in US history to be awarded the Medal of Honor three times
Carried out missions in counter-terrorism, hostage rescue and more
In physical testing at MIT he recorded off-the-charts numbers in every category