[Analysis & Review] The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Episode 6 [Impressions & Easter Eggs]
Hello!
This time I’m going to write about The Falcon and the Winter Soldier episode 6, which dropped on Friday 23 April — the points worth flagging, the theories, and on top of that my predictions for where all of this goes next.
In this post I’ll write up, briefly, the things that caught my eye on the first watch and the Easter eggs, and then go into the theories.
Spoilers ahead
The WandaVision episode reviews, from back when it aired, are here!
Click the image below for The Falcon and the Winter Soldier episode reviews!
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.
This time I shot in Tachikawa.
I made a video too
Nothing to do with films or shows at all, but I went to the Hiroshi Yoshida exhibition and the Kashiwa Sato exhibition the other day, so I tried turning that into a video.
Episode 6, “One World, One People”
Sam’s new suit
Sam’s suit is insanely coooooooool!!! That was my reaction!!!! Right after the reveal he walks into a room lit red, though, which struck me as a bit of a waste lol lol
Versatile mechanical functions like an Iron Man suit, the mobility above all — it looks like he can fight perfectly well even without the super soldier serum, which was great lol
Or rather, maybe what Captain America really needs is noble leadership? Ahh, that fired me up!
Mercury vapour
Sharon setting off a mercury vapour bomb to stop the Flag Smashers’ vehicles properly put me off lol
First time I saw it I thought, ah, isn’t Sharon a seriously dangerous person?
John’s choice
Johnnnnnnnn!!!! I cried
That scene where John has to pick between the civilians in danger and revenge for Lemar fired me right up!
John does still have a hero’s heart in him after all! The bit where he throws away the shield, the symbol of his fixation on Captain America — I shouted at that one. I cried, I cried
Ahh, John Walker is such a great character, I think!
The Power Broker
Sharon was the Power Broker after all. I cried
I’d thought maybe she was secretly a S.W.O.R.D. agent, and that Batroc was really there to wipe out the Flag Smashers — but no, she had plainly just fallen to the dark side… and her goal is world domination on top of that… Looks like she’ll be doing things on a much bigger scale from here.
If Cap and Peggy Carter found out about all this they’d surely be terribly sad… that hurts
Karli’s death
Ending with the enemy dead after all means Sam still has a long way to go… Not managing to subdue her and take her alive before she died was a failure, I think. She’ll probably end up deified, too. But as long as Sharon was there, there’s surely no way she was ever letting Karli out alive.
Sam’s speech
Sam’s fiery speech is the thing that makes Sam Captain America.
It is idealistic talk, sure, but it made me think that’s exactly how a hero should be. The effort to get as close to the ideal as possible is a thing nobody should forget.
Zemo and wiping out the super soldier serum
When the surviving Flag Smashers get taken into custody I thought, ah, these ones come back as villains later — but I never predicted the old butler would be the one to clean it all up lol
The reason Zemo treats the super soldier serum as dangerous is, I think, the god complex that comes from a person’s own qualities being amplified — so Isaiah and Bucky don’t look like targets. Zemo has already come to terms with Bucky in particular. The problem is John Walker. John has slipped up once already, so Zemo looks like he’d want him dead.
Will he turn up in something like Black Panther 2 or Captain America 4 later on? He’s a great character, so my hopes are high.
U.S. Agent
I’d assumed John falls to the dark side and exits in episode 6, but instead he becomes U.S. Agent exactly as in the comics.
A Captain America who can kill as well, presumably.
Does he go off the rails again from here, or… What looks likely is something like a choice between America and the individual. Or rather — Val puts together something like the Dark Avengers and he joins it, but then it feels like he’d betray them, saying this isn’t what he wanted to do at all!
Apologising to Yori and the others
Sam told Bucky in episode 5 to do things that genuinely help people, and as a result it seems he’s been telling the truth to the bereaved families of everyone he killed. And the notebook has a proper line drawn through Zemo’s name lol
Also, checking properly on whether Yori is getting back on his feet — Bucky really does carry everything himself. I cried
Isaiah, saved
Clearing the injustice done to Isaiah, the man erased from history, was lovely. On the other hand, whether villains come after the super soldier serum sleeping in his blood later on is a little worrying.
Sharon wins
And it turns out Sharon, the Power Broker herself, gets her access to classified information and the rest restored through a pardon, and apparently she intends to use it to sell information and so on into the underworld.
Ahh, that got me, this one… Sharon… In Captain America 4 there could well be a story that starts with Batroc’s autopsy pointing to Sharon, or with her being exposed through the routes she trades information along. Or maybe a season 2 miraculously gets planned? Ahh, what a good cliffhanger.
After watching episode 6
What’s next for Sharon, and Captain America 4
『#キャプテン・アメリカ 4』就任の「ファルコン＆ウィンター・ソルジャー」脚本家、「直接聞くまで信じない」と関与否定！
https://t.co/FAsYMxnYBW#アンソニー・マッキー も企画を知ったのは食料品店🛒
「何も聞いてません」。#ファルコン #ウィンター・ソルジャー #アンソニーマッキー— THE RIVER (@the_river_jp) April 28, 2021
Looks like a fourth Captain America film has fairly genuinely got moving!!
Is the enemy Sharon and her lot? Or a new Hydra or something?
There’s also a show planned in the MCU where Tony’s best friend Rhodey deals with a criminal organisation using Tony Stark’s suits. It looks quite possible that Sharon, the Power Broker, is behind weapons crime like that too.
And there’s the possibility that Sharon is actually a Skrull in disguise… maybe? Perhaps?
Val
Does Val’s line here mean there are a lot of people who are delighted the Flag Smashers have been wiped out? Maybe?
Secret Invasion
The Valentina who turned up in this show is absolutely going to be the way into Secret Invasion, I think!
First, let me explain what Secret Invasion is.
Secret Invasion is
A major crossover from 2008. An important story that went on to shape the Marvel world for several years afterwards.
The Skrull Empire’s invasion of Earth, prepared over a very long time, begins all at once, and war with the heroes breaks out.
The shapeshifting Skrulls had already swapped themselves in for a great many heroes before the invasion started.
With no way of knowing who to trust, the heroes are pushed to the brink.https://www33.atwiki.jp/studentx/pages/421.html
So as for what part Valentina plays in Secret Invasion: after the comics storyline called Secret War, a Skrull disguised as Valentina was spying on Nick Fury in order to learn a pile of secrets. But Fury got suspicious and killed that Valentina, and because the body reverted to its true form — a green-skinned Skrull — Fury realised that important figures all over the world had been quietly swapped out for Skrulls one by one.
Secret Invasion has also been officially announced as being in production.
Taking all of that into account, the odds that the Valentina who appeared in episodes 5 and 6 is a Skrull look very high, and maybe the show version of Secret Invasion opens with Fury killing Valentina and realising the Skrulls are invading?
And if the Skrulls used their shapeshifting to imitate the friends who have left us — Iron Man and Captain America especially — and throw everyone off, that would be even hotter!!
The second Falcon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJYjdX2EjmA
Torres, appearing for the first time in this show, is in the comics the one who takes on the name of the second Falcon from Sam after Sam takes on the name of Captain America.
He received the broken wings from Sam in episode 5, so it looks like he’ll turn up as the second Falcon from here on!
Loki is next
Next up is Loki, from 11 June 2021!! Looks like the Living Tribunal shows up, so it feels like the scale of the MCU is about to blow wide open all at once!! And a season 2 seems to be confirmed as well, so I’m looking forward to it!
[Bonus] The Living Tribunal
Background
The Living Tribunal has been given omnipotent power by the omnipotent being the One-Above-All, in order to guard and maintain the harmony of the main continuity (Earth-616), of divergent universes (What If and so on) and pocket universes (Earth X and so on), of the whole multiverse, and of the past, the future, reality and parallel worlds.
The Living Tribunal appears on Earth as needed, monitoring the actions of other cosmic beings, judging whether they will affect the universe as a whole, and handing down its verdict.
Appearance
For convenience the Living Tribunal manifests in a human-like form with three faces. Only one of the faces can be seen in full, the second only partly, and the remaining one is completely hidden by cloth. The three faces represent equity, necessity and vengeance respectively.
Powers and abilities
The Living Tribunal has infinite cosmic power, is omniscient and omnipotent, and holds the authority to govern the Marvel Universe absolutely, second only to the One-Above-All. Should it choose to, it has enough power to wipe out the entire multiverse in an instant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_Tribunal
So the Living Tribunal is a being with three faces, something like an arbiter of the universe.
Loki is digging into time, so it looks like it’ll show up.
Loki reviews are here
Either way, plenty of people should get to skip doctoring and shredding paperwork