The Falcon and the Winter Soldier released its second episode today, and the show has begun to take shape a little clearer. We're introduced to John Walker, who has been chosen by the government as the new Captain America. He's not a super-soldier, but he is an elite, well-trained special ops officer. When we first see him, he's in the locker room at his old high school, there to appear for the first time as Captain America in his hometown and have an interview on Good Morning America.
And while his face seemed so punchable in his first appearance last episode, here he seems to be a good guy - he's humble and overcome with the weight of his new role, and trying his best to live up to the legacy to which he's been added.
John Walker's background is classic Americana - he was the captain of the football team in what we could probably assume is a suburban town. But it's that "all-American" archetype that I think the show wants to explore and maybe kind of pick at a bit: there are subtleties here. He's a blonde-haired white guy who is being enthusiastically celebrated by an ethnically diverse crowd. It's not enough to set off alarms - he seems to be worthy of the celebration - but looks a bit easier to achieve for someone like John than it would be for someone like Sam. Later in the episode, things get a lot less subtle about the racial aspect in all of this.
While the first episode kept our protagonists separated, this time we see them teaming up for a mission in a way that suggests that this is pretty normal. Sam's going after the Flag-Smashers, who seem to be stealing some supply of vaccines, and Bucky tags along. Following the two trucks taking the shipment, they attack with the goal of rescuing the person they believe is a hostage, but is actually the leader, Karli Morgenthau, a red-headed young woman who is clearly the gender-flipped version of the comic character, Karl of the same last name. Bucky's assumption that she's a hostage gets him kicked out of the moving truck. The fight does not go well because Sam and Bucky learn that all the Flag-Smashers are actually super-soldiers who can kick their asses.
And then, literally out of the blue, the new Captain America and his buddy Lemar (aka, we later learn, Battlestar) show up to help. But while John's pretty good with the shield, two regular-sauce soldiers aren't enough to turn the tide, and the mission's a failure.
When Sam doubts that these people could be super soldiers, given that Erskine's formula was lost, Bucky takes him to Baltimore to meet Isaiah, a man sent to try to take him down in his Winter Soldier days in Korea. For Isaiah, the experience is nothing but dug-up trauma - not because of Bucky (Isaiah kicked his butt,) but because Isaiah was a super-soldier and his reward for his work to be locked away and tested and experimented on for 30 years. Isaiah was an actual heir to Steve Rogers' legacy, but was treated totally differently. And Isaiah just so happens to be black.
In case that point didn't hit, when Sam and Bucky argue about this, and, you know, all the other issues they're having, some cops show up and see a black guy and a white guy shouting at each other and, of course, assume that the black guy's giving the white guy trouble.
The cops stop only when they realize that Sam's an Avenger, and apologize profusely, but it's a moment that is all too real in America, when police have an assumption of wrongdoing and guilt when they see a black person on the street. Ironically, once they realize who they're talking to, it's Bucky who gets arrested for missing one of his court-mandated therapy sessions. But Bucky is gently taken into the back of the cruiser in a way that you suspect would be unlikely had they arrested Sam.
Bucky's therapist shows up when Bucky's let out of jail, but it turns out the actual person to spring him was John Walker, who is exercising his authority as Captain America to pull some strings. Again, it looks like he's doing the right thing, but more and more, he seems to be getting drunk off the power of his position.
Bucky's therapist nevertheless pulls Bucky in for a session, and dragoons Sam in, giving them what amounts to couples' therapy. And this is when Bucky articulates clearest the problem they have between them: Sam's rejection of the shield and the role of Captain America felt to him like a rejection of Steve's judgment. Bucky's hope for rehabilitation and redemption was tied up in Steve's judgment of him, and therefore if Steve was wrong about Sam, he could have been wrong about Bucky as well.
But Sam still thinks he made the right call. And while it's not stated explicitly, it's clear that Sam's experience of America is fundamentally different. As a black man, the doors that were open to Steve and are now open to John Walker are closed, or at least they're a lot more stuck. He felt, not unreasonably, that the country wouldn't necessarily be able to unite behind a black guy with that shield. And, I suspect, in a way, he didn't want to be defined as Steve's successor.
For now, without Steve in their lives anymore (though I wonder what old Steve is up to these days) their relationship (which was always contentious) struggles to find a solid bonding agent. Ironically, John Walker might be just the thing, because both of them clearly cannot stand the idea of this upstart so readily claiming Steve's legacy without ever even really knowing the guy.
Our protagonists are maybe starting to consider it, but the show demonstrates something that I'd really hoped they would: the Flag-Smashers are not bad guys. Indeed, the vaccines they steal are (if I understood correctly) being brought to refugee camps for people who were displaced by the Blip. There's a bit of rhetoric in which they talk about how the government agencies tasked with returning things to normal have focused primarily on the people who came back, rather than those who never left. As we learned in Wandavision, half the universe is now dealing with a profound trauma that lasted five years, while the other half experienced the blip/snap/whatever you want to call it as if it was just a weird sensation that spanned only seconds, and some subsequent disorientation when they woke up five years in the future. At the very least, when they arrive at a safehouse, the (German, I think) host heaps praise on them, happy to aid the cause.
And the way we see them behave suggests that these are not mustache-twirling villains: they avoid lethal violence when they can, check in on one another when one is hurt (such as when John Walker shoots one of them,) and one of their number sacrifices himself to stop the forces of the "Power Broker" from getting to them as they load up a plane with the medicine.
And, frankly, while they're portrayed as being bizarrely attached to the depressing 5 years between the snaps, their mantra - One Earth, One People - is a pretty noble one.
Nationalism is a complex subject. But when you have a hero called Captain America, you've opened the door to discuss it. Captain America was first written when the biggest threat to the world was the Nazis. The Nazis, and the broader fascist movement, were defined by ultra-nationalism. They were focused on the promotion of the nation and its "volk," (the German word for "people," and where we get "folk" from) above all else. Nation, then was defined along ethnic, and to an extent linguistic and religious lines. The Nazis claimed to be providing for "true Germans" and thus antagonized those in Germany who were "not true Germans," most notably Jews (though also other ethnic groups such as the Romani and Slavs,) making the claim that these "aliens" were a parasitic drain on the Volk's resources and wellbeing. The "socialist" suffix to the National-Socialists was basically a promise that once they got rid of all the "undesirables," the state would then provide prosperity to the "true Germans." And, as we know, this led to some of the greatest horrors in living memory.
America, though, has always been a diverse place, and throughout our history, there's been a debate (one that sometimes gets violent) over who gets to call themselves "true Americans." At its best, America is an unusual country in which ethnicity, religion, and other "racial" identifiers are set aside, and instead the shared belief in democracy, equality, and freedom is what actually defines "true Americans." But that definition is by no means uncontested within our country, and there are those who place other values ahead of them.
Captain America was written by Jewish writers when Europe was descending into a fascist hellscape. And America, to Jewish-Americans, has long represented a (relatively) safe place for Jews to be accepted as full citizens, "true Americans" in ways that other countries never treated them. America, to people like them, represents a place where any human being can feel a sense of belonging and respect.
Steve Rogers, despite being a white man (and probably vaguely Christian in religious identity,) represented that ideal of America - the all-welcoming America in which there is no reason a black man like Sam Wilson couldn't embody what the country represents, and no reason that he shouldn't be accepted and celebrated just as much as Steve was.
But, if that American ideal were truly achieved, and it became a place where anyone who believed in these values could be counted as a true representative of this culture, why should that be limited to one geographical area?
The Flag-Smashers haven't given us, like, a full thesis statement, but for anyone who has experienced alienation or oppression, the notion of a world without borders, without flags (and yes, I know Red Skull used those terms in his villain speech - something I think was a little weird for a Nazi to say, though I guess it was his trying to demonstrate that he was transcending narrow Nazi ideology) is actually quite appealing.
If we truly were One Earth, One People, then no one would be an "alien" outsider (well, except actual space aliens, which are a thing in the MCU, but let's set that aside.)
America might represent some lofty ideals that inspired a character like Steve Rogers, but it certainly hasn't always lived up to them. Consider, for example, how desperate people travel from abroad to come here and have the opportunity that America represents, and how many are stopped at the borders and turned away - not because there's a lack of space or resources (immigrants tend to generate prosperity for the country) but just because they're "foreign" because of the lottery of birth.
One People on One Earth would mean that no one was a foreigner.
So, you know, I think I could get behind a group trying to bring about that vision.
Steve might be opposed to them, but probably for more complex reasons - he believes in an America that represents the high ideals - democracy, equality, and freedom - and wishes to preserve those ideals and not allow a world of tyrants, disparity, and shackles ruin them. But one gets the sense that he'd be able to recognize the nobility in the Flag Smasher's cause, and perhaps try to find a way to work toward their ideals without losing his own.
But John Walker, I don't think, understands such nuances. Already, we seem him representing one of America's less admirable traits - the ability to butt into things and throw our weight around without necessarily understanding the situation. He spies on Falcon to follow them to the mission with the trucks and then he busts Bucky out of his punishment for missing his court-mandated therapy by brazenly pulling his new rank.
In both cases, he thinks he's helping, but his head is also inflating and an alarming rate.
Plot-wise, Bucky recognizes that, if these are super-soldiers, he's got to go talk to Zemo - the guy who knew the most about the Winter Soldier program and the efforts to duplicate Erskine's successes with Steve Rogers.
While it doesn't have the puzzle-box mysteries of Wandavision, I'm excited to see the show approaching these deep themes about what America, Patriotism, Nationalism, and such represent. I think that's necessary when making a story about Captain America without coming off as jingoistic or dumb.
