Marvel Cinematic Universe Discussion Thread (Spoilers)

Out of the Rafters at the Q said:

I'm loving the series so far. I'm enjoying it more than Wandavision. It's rooted in reality and continues the tradition of the first Cap movies where they took characters I didn't give a shit about and fleshed them out into the most compelling personalities in the MCU.

I'm surprised with how well Disney's handled topics that I would've expected them to avoid or ignore. Kudos to them on this series so far.

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I think the characters on this show are just more interesting. On WandaVision, so few characters actually had any agency because of the nature of what was happening. Most of them were just cogs in Wanda's machine and had no control over their actions. Which made sense, because that show was meant to explore Wanda's grief over the death of Vision and, up until it turned into a big dumb set-piece at the end, I thought it did a great job.

But this show is more meant to flesh out a couple of side characters who weren't important enough to get major screen time in the films but will become more important going forward, and I think the fifth episode in particular did a great job of that. It's not a big surprise to me that the best episodes of this series have been when the show takes the time to explore who these characters are rather than the episodes where they travel all around the world and get into fight scenes. This week's episode let both Mackie and Stan have some real character moments to show their acting range.

I also think that Isaiah had a line that elevated the whole production. "They will never let a black man be Captain America. And even if they did, no self-respecting black man would ever want to be." That's the type of writing that feels like it belongs in a different show, and I was honestly shocked it made it in there.

I just wish the show had been a bit more of episode five and a bit less of the previous several, outside of Zemo, of course, who has been uniformly great. Really looking forward to some Thunderbolts stuff later.

So we can conclude Sam is not a self-respecting black man, judging by what Isaiah said?

Chris said:

So we can conclude Sam is not a self-respecting black man, judging by what Isaiah said?

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I think the show pretty accurately summed up his feelings on the matter. He even says that, if he went through what Isaiah went through, he'd probably feel the same. But he didn't, and he sees that he can be an inspiration to black children as Captain America via his nephews. Bucky sees them playing with the shield and seems to come to a similar conclusion. Isaiah is rightfully bitter over what happened to him, but Sam has the chance to walk a different path in a different time.

Sam also saw what happened when he gave up the shield. They gave it to someone who wasn't worthy and it ended in blood. There was a line from Erskine, I assume from the first Captain America movie, that pretty accurately sums up what all this has been about. He said he didn't want a perfect soldier to take the serum, but a good man. John Walker is the perfect soldier, and the show goes out of its way to tell us that, but his personal flaws made him a failure when he took the serum and tried to wield the shield.

Something that came back to me tonight was a throw-away line by Zemo in Episode 3 or 4, that Sokovia in the aftermath of the catastrophe had been gobbled up by its neighbors. Not worth mentioning unless one is establishing the ill-intent of a future player.

Opening the door for Latveria?

Derek said:

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This looks freaking awesome.

I am 100% on board with a Patton Oswalt / Marvel sitcom joint.

Jack Brickman said:

I am 100% on board with a Patton Oswalt / Marvel sitcom joint.

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How is this real?

I watched it and I still believe it was just an Adult Swim commercial

Out of the Rafters at the Q said:

How is this real?

I watched it and I still believe it was just an Adult Swim commercial

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All I know is that the MCU needs more Patton Oswalt.

Also, love that Nathan Fillion is Wonder Man (again, sort of) and Jon Hamm is Iron Man.

Jack Brickman said:

All I know is that the MCU needs more Patton Oswalt.

Also, love that Nathan Fillion is Wonder Man (again, sort of) and Jon Hamm is Iron Man.

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We all need more Patton Oswalt.

I'm super happy how well he seems to be doing. Not many people come back from as bad of a place he was in when he lost his wife. I hope it's not just on the outside.

Finished Falcon and the Winter Soldier tonight. All in all, I found it really enjoyable, but it was far from flawless.

The main issue I have with this show is how heavy-handed the racial stuff was. There was just no nuance to it. It's so much less effective because of how in your face it is. Contrast it with, say, a movie like Jojo Rabbit, which tells the story of a kid coming to terms with the fact that all the hatred he's been taught is complete bullshit, but also never feels preachy. Jojo comes to the natural conclusion that he's been lied to over the course of the movie in a very natural way, and his journey is so much more satisfying and meaningful because of it.

I actually liked that they didn't go the obvious path with John Walker. It seemed like they were really setting him up to be the villain in the end, but when push came to shove he abandoned his knockoff shield to save civilians. The problem is that they did absolutely nothing to set his face turn up. He went from being a total asshole in episode five to being not so bad a guy in episode six. They desperately needed a scene with him expressing remorse for what he did in episode five, but we didn't get that. Instead, his turn seemed to come out of nowhere. Just add a scene of him questioning his previous actions with his wife, who was totally underutilized, and you've got a narrative arc that makes sense and is satisfying. Instead, he just seems bipolar.

I also disliked that Sam and Bucky are pretty much just cool with him in the final episode after their fight in episode five. Like, this dude straight up tried to murder Sam in the previous episode, and would have had Bucky not saved him at the last second. Give these guys a conversation where he apologizes, for fuck's sake. He had a built in excuse. He saw his best friend die and he snapped. That's forgivable, but he has to at least acknowledge it.

Bucky's story was also horribly glossed over in the final episode. One of the most interesting subplots was him making amends with the old Asian guy whose son he killed as the Winter Soldier, and yet that scene was thirty fucking seconds and cut out before we got to anything meaningful.

The show was very well-made, but so sloppily executed at times.

Agreed on all those points Jack. May I add, was I supposed to feel sorry for the douchey Flag Smashers? I... I didn’t ...

Chris said:

Agreed on all those points Jack. May I add, was I supposed to feel sorry for the douchey Flag Smashers? I... I didn’t ...

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Just to point out one instance of the heavy-handedness where I think it could have worked was the scene where Bucky and Sam have the argument and the cops show up (episode three-ish?). What they should have done was have Bucky and Sam get into a shoving match as the cops drove by. Then you could believably have the cops stop them and be somewhat racist toward the black man getting physical with the white man. Instead, they're just having a conversation that doesn't even seem particularly heated and the cops come out of nowhere and be dicks for no reason. If you have the two of them get physical right as the cops show up, that scene works. But as it stands, it feels over the top.

And yeah, the Flag Smashers weren't well characterized either.

At any rate, I love the idea behind this show...of what it means for a black man to take up the mantle of Captain America in a country that's still very racist. There's so much potential there. They just handled it really clumsily. It probably doesn't help that the MCU has literally never brought up any of these issues before, so it all seems very out of the blue.

I thought this was really good. My wife and I thought it was one of the more enjoyable MCU things--certainly better than Wandavision.

The way Disney tackled Sam's character, making him interesting and fully fleshed-out, while at the same time setting up future characters like John, the Power Broker and Val (JLD) was well done. I'm sure some people would have felt that the series was too preachy with the racial stuff, but honestly if you make it subtle you'd probably be criticized for "just glossing over it" or making it not that big of a deal. Coming to grips with a black Cap is a major, major issue and they really had to hit that nail hard, with a heavy hammer, to get it to sit right. I feel they did just that.

Sam as Cap is going to be something I genuinely look forward to, and coming into this series I thought he was lame and boring. It's what they did with the first Captain America movie, which I had super low expectations coming into because I didn't care for the character at all. The MCU just continues to churn out well-done pieces.

Out of the Rafters at the Q said:

I thought this was really good. My wife and I thought it was one of the more enjoyable MCU things--certainly better than Wandavision.

The way Disney tackled Sam's character, making him interesting and fully fleshed-out, while at the same time setting up future characters like John, the Power Broker and Val (JLD) was well done. I'm sure some people would have felt that the series was too preachy with the racial stuff, but honestly if you make it subtle you'd probably be criticized for "just glossing over it" or making it not that big of a deal. Coming to grips with a black Cap is a major, major issue and they really had to hit that nail hard, with a heavy hammer, to get it to sit right. I feel they did just that.

Sam as Cap is going to be something I genuinely look forward to, and coming into this series I thought he was lame and boring. It's what they did with the first Captain America movie, which I had super low expectations coming into because I didn't care for the character at all. The MCU just continues to churn out well-done pieces.

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The problem for me is that they set it up as "they'll never let a black man be Captain America." Then Sam decides to become Captain America and everyone is totally okay with it. The show keeps telling us how things are, but it never shows us. The way people react to Sam doesn't vibe with how we've been told people will react to him, and that, to me, is the big problem with how the show handles race. Sam says he can feel it in the crowd that some people aren't cool with him being Captain America, but we never fucking see it, and we need to see it for it to really hit home.

The show constantly talks about racism, but never shows us any racists.