Piece of crap episode.

The Dirty Sock said:

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Piece of crap episode.

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Wow. You convinced me with that reasoned and well-thought out argument.

I liked the series, but it wasn't great.

I think there was a plot of a global virus that screwed things up somewhat after it got removed and made the flag smashers very bland.

It could have used a little more runtime to add depth or transition to some elements.

Falcon as Captain America is pretty cool.

Bucky and Zemo were really well done character wise, Sam was solid. I think more depth or flashbacks with Walker could have helped him not be just generic crazy guy.

And I knew I was right about the Power Broker!

There is an end credits scene if you missed it.

I just finished watching the finale and ... Huh.

The story had... lots of issues. Sharon Carter going evil was never explained and made little sense. The GRC wasn't well developed and made little sense. The flagsmashers final plan wasn't well explained and made little sense. I wonder if the rumors of an abandoned virus subplot are true, because removing that would cause a lot of holes and could explain some of this. But if that's not the case, I'm not at all confident in the director and writer on this helming anything else for marvel.

That said, there were things I really liked. I loved Isaiah Bradley being the voice of Sam's doubts. I loved Sam's growth and struggle. I loved the Winter soldier's story of regret and atonement. I loved that they showed the healthy impact mental health professionals can have. I really enjoyed Zemo's presence (though him just going back to jail no problemo was a head scratcher). And I really enjoyed the line they walked with John Walker. Marvel is full of people who make being good look easy. Walker's story showed, no, it's not easy. Sometimes we f up, but that doesn't make us bad.

The more I think of it, the less Sharon as PB makes any sense. She kills her own lieutenant to rescue Sam/Bucky/Zemo, then takes them to her serum guru who gets killed (and she kills a bunch of her goons 1 on 1 to do so).

Zemo knows of the PB by reputation, which he probably didn't learn a ton about while in prison. People in Madripoor seemed to recognize him. So he knew of PB before Sharon was there to be PB because she was still a do-gooder at the time.

The only way this makes sense is if she's a Skrull or something, or if this is some kind of Mass Effect Shadow Broker situation where no one learned the old identity and she was able to usurp it and carry on the business without anyone knowing there'd been a change in leadership.

Either way - sloppy as hell. Worse than the Flag Smashers, the more I think of it.

Fightin TX Aggie said:

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Yet later, in Sam's speech, he says that millions will immediately hate him just because he's a black man as Captain America.

Who are these haters??

Sure, there are random racists all over the country, but they're relics of the past. Dinosaurs. Not big scary ones either. Like slow mud crawling dinosaurs that would have a hard time biting you and are dying out.

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I don't really think Sam was referring to racists as the people who hate him for being Captain America. I think he was referencing folks like Isaiah and his sister, who feel on certain levels that "America" has passed them by. It even cut to their reactions while watching his speech on tv.

I've heard on many videos that Marvel had to do some serious reshoots that messed a little with the flow.

Apparently, there was an entire subplot of the GRC trying to unleash a virus on the refugee population to thin them out and cause a scare among the rest of the world. This would have made the GRC a much more sinister organization and deepened the reasoning that the Flag Smashers had for wanting to destroy them. This whole subplot had to be completely scrapped when COVID hit. This would explain the Flag Smashers hijacking the transports carrying vaccines as they wanted to distribute them to the ones who were being exposed. Notice the whole vaccine thing was never mentioned after the second episode.

I still don't think this would have made me hate Karli any less, though.

When Sam says "I'm Captain America" and every subsequent mention of Captain America I was really hoping to hear Negasonic Teenage Warhead say "Trainee" but I guess this isn't Deadpool 2.

I've been watching this series and I keep asking myself why. Especially after this last episode just this constant lecturing and idea that white people are just the most hateful awful people and we can't stand black people doing anything. It is such a tired bull**** narrative.

And then they're actually defending terrorists? Terrorist doesn't necessarily mean someone from Iran with a bomb it can be people like BLM and domestic terrorists. And I'm sitting here watching Captain America defend a girl who killed innocent people and basically became like the people she claimed she was trying to fight? We're supposed to feel some kind of sympathy for her? I think it's just a veiled attempt to feel sympathy for BLM and antifa.

Sure innocent people are gonna die but they did it for a good reason.

And that poor me crap at the end about "we built this country, bled for it, i'm not gonna let anybody tell me I can't fight for it, not after what everybody before me went through"

Yeah a lot of people of all colors went through a lot of **** to get this country separated from England and get over here. And yes black people and sadly slavery was a big part of that but again this constant attitude of all white people hate us they just want to see us fail and I'm gonna suffer so much trying to be a black captain America is just more false narrative.

Just unreal.

The crap some of you glean from stuff like this will never cease to amaze me. Just the most reductive bullsh*t.

Zemo's butler

Sam's speech and most of his character building were the best parts of the show.

This was hardly a white people are bad narrative.

And they wrote Karli poorly but I think Sam did a damn good job explaining their motivations more so than the rest of their actions the entire show. Both sides are doing messed up **** and you can't label one side as good and one side as bad. It's all about perspective.

I feel like you missed like most of the show.

We saw Sam's doubts and fears reflected in Isaiah Bradley, then later on Sam has a conversation with his sister where he literally says how he can't let that affect him and he's not going down that path. A kid calls him Black Falcon and he says he's Captain America. Bucky is lovingly embraced as part of Sam's family.

We've talked about how the Flag Smashers might have been more relatable had the original plot been intact. The show does get a bit political, but it's diving much more into ideas of immigration during the Blip, reflecting that there's two sides to every conflict, and that the people making these decisions are often very disconnected from the people they're affecting.

I'd like to think a lot of that is something that people on both sides of the political aisle could agree with.

Yeah I think that line is more about labeling than defending a terrorist. You call them terrorists and now you don't have to listen to them. They call you terrorist for forcefully relocating them, and the cycle continues.

There are a lot of scenarios in the world where people need to stop and talk and see both sides. Race relations is a big one, but in this case it had a second meaning as well with the GRC and FS.

Most likely true.

I haven't missed any of the shows.

And I've understood everything I've heard them say.

I don't need you to explain anything to me or that I "missed "anything. I can assure you I did not.

I understand life to know that people of all races in colors suffer in life, have things go against them. That doesn't mean anybody gets to resort to terrorism or killing people because they don't agree with people politically. And I certainly do not need said people to be glorified as being misunderstood.

We will have to agree to disagree.

Cap's new uniform needs a little work...