I don’t care how they are handling Walker’s mental health.
I wouldn’t normally complain about that aspect in a Marvel flick, but the show brought it up more than once as a plot point, so I think it’s a fair complaint to bring up. Bucky’s mental health has come up more than once, same with Sam being a counselor for former military. Hell, Bucky’s counselor personally knows Walker and yet his mental health never comes up even after Hoskins is killed.
I’m not asking the writers to do a deep dive on Soldier mental health or anything and I know it’s a highly complicated subject, but only bringing it up for the protagonists and not the antagonist feels like a misstep IMO.
I was also pretty uncomfortable with Walker's interaction with Lamar's parents. His mom calling the extrajudicial beheading of the guy as justice for Lamar just... that whole scene felt very poorly done
I don't think that's poorly done, it's just a grieving parent reacting.
You could look at it as going back to the whole Nakajima thing, how losing a child is the worst thing. But whereas Bucky didn't have the courage to tell Yori what happened (for understandable reason, because the brainwashed version of himself was the murderer), Walker chooses to actively lie about what happened. Does he do it because he thinks it'll bring some sort of relief to Lemar's family, or because he can't admit to himself that what he did was wrong, or both? Is he using former as his justification for the latter?
Walker isn't in a place where he can admit to himself that he was wrong, so there's currently no path available for him towards healing. Bucky on the other hand fully admits that the things he was made to do were wrong and is actively trying to work on it, hard and painful as it is.
The show is, at least in my opinion, clearly depicting that there's something off with Walker ever since Lemar died and how he reacted to it, but he hasn't in any way acknowledged that himself. He needs to want help before he can get it.
I realize it's grieving parent, and that they were close to Walker and want to see the best in him. It still just felt off, tonally, and rushed. As if they just wanted to get the point across that he's trapping himself in a lie and an obligation, and just needed to check that character development box and move along in the story.
Honestly, Lemar's death also feels like a wasted opportunity to add complexity to things all around. It would be far more compelling if Lemar survived but was just paralyzed. Or, if that's too on the nose compared to Rhoades, is in a coma or something. Making the killing even more unjustified, but also adding judgement about that decision from his closest friend and additional reminder of his guilt to grapple with since he won't be getting free Stark tech to fix it.
One of my few complaints about The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is that despite the explicitly addressing race relations and its ugly history in the USA, they still killed the black friend. Lemar was setup as a really interesting counterpoint to John, and I don't think it was necessary to kill Lemar off to move the story forward.
But this is coming from one of the whitest guys you will ever meet, so maybe I'm reading too much into it.
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syndalisGetting ClassyOn the WallRegistered User, Loves Apple Productsregular
One of my few complaints about The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is that despite the explicitly addressing race relations and its ugly history in the USA, they still killed the black friend. Lemar was setup as a really interesting counterpoint to John, and I don't think it was necessary to kill Lemar off to move the story forward.
But this is coming from one of the whitest guys you will ever meet, so maybe I'm reading too much into it.
Could also be that Lamar died because Walker didn't listen to him in favor of believing in his right to run roughshod over the situation. Lamar died because of the arrogance of a juiced up white dude wrapped in the trappings of America who knew he had to be the hero of the story.
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Let's play Mario Kart or something...
One of my few complaints about The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is that despite the explicitly addressing race relations and its ugly history in the USA, they still killed the black friend. Lemar was setup as a really interesting counterpoint to John, and I don't think it was necessary to kill Lemar off to move the story forward.
But this is coming from one of the whitest guys you will ever meet, so maybe I'm reading too much into it.
Could also be that Lamar died because Walker didn't listen to him in favor of believing in his right to run roughshod over the situation. Lamar died because of the arrogance of a juiced up white dude wrapped in the trappings of America who knew he had to be the hero of the story.
That doesn't make it not a movie trope - the reason he died was to serve as a motivator for the white male who has the larger role in the story. It's a textbook example, and it's not even true to the source material. It's not the worst thing ever but it's worth noting.
One of my few complaints about The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is that despite the explicitly addressing race relations and its ugly history in the USA, they still killed the black friend. Lemar was setup as a really interesting counterpoint to John, and I don't think it was necessary to kill Lemar off to move the story forward.
But this is coming from one of the whitest guys you will ever meet, so maybe I'm reading too much into it.
Could also be that Lamar died because Walker didn't listen to him in favor of believing in his right to run roughshod over the situation. Lamar died because of the arrogance of a juiced up white dude wrapped in the trappings of America who knew he had to be the hero of the story.
That doesn't make it not a movie trope - the reason he died was to serve as a motivator for the white male who has the larger role in the story. It's a textbook example, and it's not even true to the source material. It's not the worst thing ever but it's worth noting.
Or Lamar was the thing that kept him good and without him he's a rudderless shit heel. If you look back, it's always Lamar's take that gives him direction and confidence, not his own.
One of my few complaints about The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is that despite the explicitly addressing race relations and its ugly history in the USA, they still killed the black friend. Lemar was setup as a really interesting counterpoint to John, and I don't think it was necessary to kill Lemar off to move the story forward.
But this is coming from one of the whitest guys you will ever meet, so maybe I'm reading too much into it.
Could also be that Lamar died because Walker didn't listen to him in favor of believing in his right to run roughshod over the situation. Lamar died because of the arrogance of a juiced up white dude wrapped in the trappings of America who knew he had to be the hero of the story.
That doesn't make it not a movie trope - the reason he died was to serve as a motivator for the white male who has the larger role in the story. It's a textbook example, and it's not even true to the source material. It's not the worst thing ever but it's worth noting.
It sucks that something that is worthwhile on it's own merits in the media it's presented in is also unavoidably tainted by the racism in the not so distant past.
I'm actually impressed with the amount that this show attempts legitimate commentary while scrubbing any explicit discussion of the modern problems it's trying to refer to. It's a strange sort of balancing act they're running making the show on one level what it actually wants to be about and then on another level what it needs to be about as a merchandisable Marvel Disney product.
Of course, paint me absolutely unsurprised that the direction they went with their antifa stand-in was horsehoe theory bullshit, but then so was the source material so at least they're being faithful.
Idk I don't buy that this extremist group is a stand in for the peaceful antifa movement. I think it's just trying to tackle issues of race which it's doing alright at, and then tackling the fallout of the snap and then unsnap. People complained when Spidey 2 joked about it, so then they take it seriously and delve into what it would mean, and then they get accused of idk what, not going far enough? It's disney, they were never gonna be completely on the nose with these things. But I appreciate the series offering a different perspective.
I mean, given the interactions between Sam and Karli that have been shown up to this point and what he's meant to represent within the narrative compared to what she is, I think it's pretty clear that the flagsmashers are meant to be transposed onto the concept of "scary violent protestors", who have a sympathetic goal but we can't condone because they do mean things like smash windows and set fire to buildings. Only because they need to escalate the group to make them a moral threat they of course have to make her callously kill people or else they wouldn't have a superhero show.
One of my few complaints about The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is that despite the explicitly addressing race relations and its ugly history in the USA, they still killed the black friend. Lemar was setup as a really interesting counterpoint to John, and I don't think it was necessary to kill Lemar off to move the story forward.
But this is coming from one of the whitest guys you will ever meet, so maybe I'm reading too much into it.
Could also be that Lamar died because Walker didn't listen to him in favor of believing in his right to run roughshod over the situation. Lamar died because of the arrogance of a juiced up white dude wrapped in the trappings of America who knew he had to be the hero of the story.
That doesn't make it not a movie trope - the reason he died was to serve as a motivator for the white male who has the larger role in the story. It's a textbook example, and it's not even true to the source material. It's not the worst thing ever but it's worth noting.
It follows a trope, but here it's inextricable from the story. The story absolutely changes if John has a white best friend or even if Lamar is selected as Captain America instead of Walker. Either of those changes avoid the trope, but do they make the story any better? If they don't, then why avoid the trope?
I guess you could have Lamar be secretly alive or something. But does it have the same impact?
Yeah, it can definitely be read as horseshoe theory tripe. You got the symbol of the authoritarian state and the symbol of anti-authoritarianism going loopy while Sam, who is basically the "you got a point buuuuuuut" guy in the middle is the one to take up the shield.
It can also be surface read as a critique on power, though, with the two super soldiers being the one to lose their shit and the unpowered Sam being the one to take up the mantle. Buuuut, I kinda suspect the actual undertones to be the horseshoe theory thing.
Amd yeah, there is no way in hell a company like Disney would ever get into proper intersectional class analysis in a show. Reductionism is the name of the game cause Disney likes the position they're in, the way things are, and making billions of dollars. It's good to see the discussions they do have on TV but it is a very calculated opiate drip feed. (Just to clarify, I do really enjoy the show, I'm just getting real for a rare second before I turn my brain back off, lol)
Yeah, it can definitely be read as horseshoe theory tripe. You got the symbol of the authoritarian state and the symbol of anti-authoritarianism going loopy while Sam, who is basically the "you got a point buuuuuuut" guy in the middle is the one to take up the shield.
It can also be surface read as a critique on power, though, with the two super soldiers being the one to lose their shit and the unpowered Sam being the one to take up the mantle. Buuuut, I kinda suspect the actual undertones to be the horseshoe theory thing.
Amd yeah, there is no way in hell a company like Disney would ever get into proper intersectional class analysis in a show. Reductionism is the name of the game cause Disney likes the position they're in, the way things are, and making billions of dollars. It's good to see the discussions they do have on TV but it is a very calculated opiate drip feed. (Just to clarify, I do really enjoy the show, I'm just getting real for a rare second before I turn my brain back off, lol)
I mean, I'm somewhat happy with the undertones we're getting here even if it's far less than what I'd really like, like they make it clear that the show is talking about race even if they're mostly talking around it in euphemisms, they're not afraid of being pretty directly critical of the US and institutional racism, and to see that happen in a huge property like Marvel indicates at least some social shift in perception to how appropriate it is to address these things in our day-to-day entertainment media. These are not things you would've seen actually addressed at all in these kinds of movies/shows a decade or two ago. The fact that the viewpoint is going to regress to that of the moderate neoliberal is honestly just to be expected, but it feels at least a little bit like this show demonstrates a nudge in the overton window.
They're an anti-nationalist group, that's the entire concept.
They're anti displacement, they want things to go back before the snap because they were afforded more opportunities, places to live, etc. (Thanos' desired effect, no less). Before, a lot of bad people in power were snapped away, and then suddenly they're back and in power again.
They specifically rob banks, steal medicine, and more even before killing people. These are extremists more than protesters, and they are fighting back against the power structures that disappeared and then came back after everything was undone. Antifa hasn't gone anything even close to that level so I don't buy the analog.
One of her lines is that "they care more about the people coming back than the ones who've been here all along." You could draw more parallels to extreme alt right groups, whom became radicalized through online platforms and apps that allowed dangerous rhetoric to proliferate and gain influence. She's basically pushing the line that the GRC only cares about some people, forgetting that the unsnapped are displaced people as well, whose homes have likely become refugee camps in the 5 year gap. It's a no-win situation, either nothing is done about the 4 billion people who just reappeared suddenly or the rest have to shoulder the burden of helping things get back to "normal" (and people will probably never be satisfied with any status quo because we always leave some people behind).
I'm actually impressed with the amount that this show attempts legitimate commentary while scrubbing any explicit discussion of the modern problems it's trying to refer to. It's a strange sort of balancing act they're running making the show on one level what it actually wants to be about and then on another level what it needs to be about as a merchandisable Marvel Disney product.
Of course, paint me absolutely unsurprised that the direction they went with their antifa stand-in was horsehoe theory bullshit, but then so was the source material so at least they're being faithful.
Except for that scene where Sam is accosted by police immediately after discovering Isaiah. Or that scene where he, despite saving the world twice, can't get a bank loan. Or the fact that, despite having accomplished the exact same things as Walker, Lemar was never considered for the shield. Or the fact that the government manipulated Sam into giving up the shield so they could give it a "proper" representative.
I'm not sure how the line "They will never let a Black man be Captain America and, even if they did, no self-respective Black man would ever want to be" equals "scrubbing any explicit discussion of the modern problems."
They're an anti-nationalist group, that's the entire concept.
They're anti displacement, they want things to go back before the snap because they were afforded more opportunities, places to live, etc. (Thanos' desired effect, no less). Before, a lot of bad people in power were snapped away, and then suddenly they're back and in power again.
They specifically rob banks, steal medicine, and more even before killing people. These are extremists more than protesters, and they are fighting back against the power structures that disappeared and then came back after everything was undone. Antifa hasn't gone anything even close to that level so I don't buy the analog.
One of her lines is that "they care more about the people coming back than the ones who've been here all along." You could draw more parallels to extreme alt right groups, whom became radicalized through online platforms and apps that allowed dangerous rhetoric to proliferate and gain influence. She's basically pushing the line that the GRC only cares about some people, forgetting that the unsnapped are displaced people as well, whose homes have likely become refugee camps in the 5 year gap. It's a no-win situation, either nothing is done about the 4 billion people who just reappeared suddenly or the rest have to shoulder the burden of helping things get back to "normal" (and people will probably never be satisfied with any status quo because we always leave some people behind).
I think you're not seeing the forest for the trees here. You're focusing on details of how they attempt to weave this concept into their fantasy world, but the concept behind the Flagsmasher has a character and the choice to use it here is not a mistake. Flagsmasher has always been an anti-nationalist, even this version pretty explicitly wants a dissolution of borders.
The fact that they escalate this group to an extreme is for the purpose of creating a villain/threat. But the ideological positioning of the group relative to all the other players is pretty clear in how it correlates to modern America.
I'm actually impressed with the amount that this show attempts legitimate commentary while scrubbing any explicit discussion of the modern problems it's trying to refer to. It's a strange sort of balancing act they're running making the show on one level what it actually wants to be about and then on another level what it needs to be about as a merchandisable Marvel Disney product.
Of course, paint me absolutely unsurprised that the direction they went with their antifa stand-in was horsehoe theory bullshit, but then so was the source material so at least they're being faithful.
Except for that scene where Sam is accosted by police immediately after discovering Isaiah. Or that scene where he, despite saving the world twice, can't get a bank loan. Or the fact that, despite having accomplished the exact same things as Walker, Lemar was never considered for the shield. Or the fact that the government manipulated Sam into giving up the shield so they could give it a "proper" representative.
I'm not sure how the line "They will never let a Black man be Captain America and, even if they did, no self-respective Black man would ever want to be" equals "scrubbing any explicit discussion of the modern problems."
All of that except for Isaiah's line was still relegated to subtext. To us the message is obvious, but in almost every instance this show is not willing to outright say the words.
I'm actually impressed with the amount that this show attempts legitimate commentary while scrubbing any explicit discussion of the modern problems it's trying to refer to. It's a strange sort of balancing act they're running making the show on one level what it actually wants to be about and then on another level what it needs to be about as a merchandisable Marvel Disney product.
How so? The show is very up front with systemic racism, how Black people are oppressed in society from getting loans to interactions with police and gone into vets chewed up by the system and mental health. All of these are modern problems with explicit commentary given by main characters and supporting. Is heavily implied with he Walker storyline about American cops
Of course, paint me absolutely unsurprised that the direction they went with their antifa stand-in was horsehoe theory bullshit, but then so was the source material so at least they're being faithful.
Kari's not a straw man by any stretch. They've given her depth, and the protagonists are open to understanding her more so than Walker when he went off the edge. Many characters, including hose in the GRC council and Falcon agree with her goals not her methods. She's nothing like her straw man character was in the comics. They also implied the serum was messing her up as an out. Left wing characters being terrorists is true to life, they're not making that up. The IRA, for example. Falcon and Winter Soldier are going to huge lengths to support BLM, they're not supporting Walker or the Asshole Congressman.
They made Walker into a liberal!
I mean, given the interactions between Sam and Karli that have been shown up to this point and what he's meant to represent within the narrative compared to what she is, I think it's pretty clear that the flagsmashers are meant to be transposed onto the concept of "scary violent protestors", who have a sympathetic goal but we can't condone because they do mean things like smash windows and set fire to buildings. Only because they need to escalate the group to make them a moral threat they of course have to make her callously kill people or else they wouldn't have a superhero show.
The Flagsmashers were never protesters, when we first met them they robbed a bank. Robin Hood, a concept Kari's followers have glommed onto them isn't a protester, he's a revolutionary . Protesters don't blow up buildings or assassinate people, terrorists do. Their political ideology is irrelevant, Sam would be fighting hem if they were doing this as right wingers, because it's the methods he hates - Sam isn't going along with anyone who blows up buildings on a matter of principal. If all Kari was doing was protesting Sam wouldn't care about her methods, he'd have no need to. Except they're also doing that with Walker, because they need bad guys to stop. The Flagsmashers aren't American, they come from Europe.
I'm actually impressed with the amount that this show attempts legitimate commentary while scrubbing any explicit discussion of the modern problems it's trying to refer to. It's a strange sort of balancing act they're running making the show on one level what it actually wants to be about and then on another level what it needs to be about as a merchandisable Marvel Disney product.
Of course, paint me absolutely unsurprised that the direction they went with their antifa stand-in was horsehoe theory bullshit, but then so was the source material so at least they're being faithful.
Except for that scene where Sam is accosted by police immediately after discovering Isaiah. Or that scene where he, despite saving the world twice, can't get a bank loan. Or the fact that, despite having accomplished the exact same things as Walker, Lemar was never considered for the shield. Or the fact that the government manipulated Sam into giving up the shield so they could give it a "proper" representative.
I'm not sure how the line "They will never let a Black man be Captain America and, even if they did, no self-respective Black man would ever want to be" equals "scrubbing any explicit discussion of the modern problems."
All of that except for Isaiah's line was still relegated to subtext. To us the message is obvious, but in almost every instance this show is not willing to outright say the words.
It's not subtext if it's literally text. Sam and Bucky's friendship is cemented by the latter's acknowledgement that he and Steve didn't understand what it was like for a Black man to be handed the shield. That's followed by a scene with Sam and Sarah discussing what Isaiah told him.
The entire premise of the series is Sam's reluctance to take up the mantle in the face of America's racism. It's not subtext.
They're an anti-nationalist group, that's the entire concept.
They're anti displacement, they want things to go back before the snap because they were afforded more opportunities, places to live, etc. (Thanos' desired effect, no less). Before, a lot of bad people in power were snapped away, and then suddenly they're back and in power again.
They specifically rob banks, steal medicine, and more even before killing people. These are extremists more than protesters, and they are fighting back against the power structures that disappeared and then came back after everything was undone. Antifa hasn't gone anything even close to that level so I don't buy the analog.
One of her lines is that "they care more about the people coming back than the ones who've been here all along." You could draw more parallels to extreme alt right groups, whom became radicalized through online platforms and apps that allowed dangerous rhetoric to proliferate and gain influence. She's basically pushing the line that the GRC only cares about some people, forgetting that the unsnapped are displaced people as well, whose homes have likely become refugee camps in the 5 year gap. It's a no-win situation, either nothing is done about the 4 billion people who just reappeared suddenly or the rest have to shoulder the burden of helping things get back to "normal" (and people will probably never be satisfied with any status quo because we always leave some people behind).
It's not that bad politicians were snapped away and have suddenly returned. It's that half the planet's population were snapped away and have now returned. Think about how much movement there would have been from less developed to more developed nations, places with a higher quality of life, but desperate for immigrants to help maintain their chains of supply and services. Then, suddenly, everyone comes back, and your house now belongs to its blipped owner, you've been laid off to make room for returning employees with two or three times your experience, and the countries you have immigrated to, but haven't lived in long enough to get residency or citizenship, are now pushing you out of the country, because they have their "real" citizens to look after.
That's why they are "displaced" rather than refugees. They moved to help the First World keep First Worlding, and now that they aren't needed anymore, they are being kicked to the curb.
Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion.
It's a no-win situation, either nothing is done about the 4 billion people who just reappeared suddenly or the rest have to shoulder the burden of helping things get back to "normal" (and people will probably never be satisfied with any status quo because we always leave some people behind).
From what we've seen, it isn't a no-win scenario, though. The GRC doesn't give a shit about actually helping refugees, it's using them and the resources meant for them as a way to grab more power and wealth for the people running the GRC. The stuff they steal is actually meant for the people they give it to, but the GRC has literally been refusing for months to let the supplies go out to help the sick, starving, and dying. Karli's mentor/adoptive mother dies because of that lack of medicine. The existence of Karli's group is probably intentional, since radicalized refugees give the GRC even more power and leverage.
And the refugees have every bit as much claim to the lives they've made in those 5 years of Blip as the people suddenly coming back. As Karli mentions, the people that are now refugees were formerly welcomed with open arms and became part of the communities they worked in. Now they're being thrown out not by those communities, but by politicians and faceless government agencies trying to reestablish old bullshit zones of dominance. They went from living their lives normally after working hard to help places to recover right over to getting kicked out of their homes wholesale and left to rot in the street.
The solution is simple. The Blip was an unprecedented event, but everybody gets one chance to stay where they've chosen to live and become a citizen instead of this bullshit where they just get kicked around as stateless. Housing is harder, but it's absolutely doable. Basically, a blanket one-time amnesty. But the GRC doesn't want that, it wants to wield the refugees as a club to bloat itself on resources and power.
It's a no-win situation, either nothing is done about the 4 billion people who just reappeared suddenly or the rest have to shoulder the burden of helping things get back to "normal" (and people will probably never be satisfied with any status quo because we always leave some people behind).
From what we've seen, it isn't a no-win scenario, though. The GRC doesn't give a shit about actually helping refugees, it's using them and the resources meant for them as a way to grab more power and wealth for the people running the GRC. The stuff they steal is actually meant for the people they give it to, but the GRC has literally been refusing for months to let the supplies go out to help the sick, starving, and dying. Karli's mentor/adoptive mother dies because of that lack of medicine. The existence of Karli's group is probably intentional, since radicalized refugees give the GRC even more power and leverage.
And the refugees have every bit as much claim to the lives they've made in those 5 years of Blip as the people suddenly coming back. As Karli mentions, the people that are now refugees were formerly welcomed with open arms and became part of the communities they worked in. Now they're being thrown out not by those communities, but by politicians and faceless government agencies trying to reestablish old bullshit zones of dominance. They went from living their lives normally after working hard to help places to recover right over to getting kicked out of their homes wholesale and left to rot in the street.
The solution is simple. The Blip was an unprecedented event, but everybody gets one chance to stay where they've chosen to live and become a citizen instead of this bullshit where they just get kicked around as stateless. Housing is harder, but it's absolutely doable. Basically, a blanket one-time amnesty. But the GRC doesn't want that, it wants to wield the refugees as a club to bloat itself on resources and power.
But now you've just changed which group is displaced. In the situation presented, one group was going to have to lose out.
I mean yes, that's a problem. How the GRC is doing it is bad. But I also don't know if that solution covers everything neatly, because people likely won't trust the government when they come knocking with citizenship paperwork. They make think it's an elaborate scheme to round up those who shouldn't be hanging around, etc. And how do you handle people who do want to return to their homelands, now that their family and loved ones are back? Do you give them all dual citizenship? There's so many outliers there I wonder what the most elegant solution would be.
The whole thing would likely be a massive logistical mess, and simply shooting everyone citizenship idk if it solves where to put people, how to feed them all, etc. I do think kicking them out is a terrible way to handle things, but it is realistic in how real world governments might handle it. I do know that if I was blipped and came back to find someone else in my childhood home of 25+ years and lost it to a guy who lived there for 5 years, again it just doesn't make sense. There's much more nuance to it than just being like "fuck it, you all live everywhere now." Ideally though, both the snapped and the survivors should be considered equally because it's neither of their fault.
I'm actually impressed with the amount that this show attempts legitimate commentary while scrubbing any explicit discussion of the modern problems it's trying to refer to. It's a strange sort of balancing act they're running making the show on one level what it actually wants to be about and then on another level what it needs to be about as a merchandisable Marvel Disney product.
Of course, paint me absolutely unsurprised that the direction they went with their antifa stand-in was horsehoe theory bullshit, but then so was the source material so at least they're being faithful.
Except for that scene where Sam is accosted by police immediately after discovering Isaiah. Or that scene where he, despite saving the world twice, can't get a bank loan. Or the fact that, despite having accomplished the exact same things as Walker, Lemar was never considered for the shield. Or the fact that the government manipulated Sam into giving up the shield so they could give it a "proper" representative.
I'm not sure how the line "They will never let a Black man be Captain America and, even if they did, no self-respective Black man would ever want to be" equals "scrubbing any explicit discussion of the modern problems."
All of that except for Isaiah's line was still relegated to subtext. To us the message is obvious, but in almost every instance this show is not willing to outright say the words.
It's not subtext if it's literally text. Sam and Bucky's friendship is cemented by the latter's acknowledgement that he and Steve didn't understand what it was like for a Black man to be handed the shield. That's followed by a scene with Sam and Sarah discussing what Isaiah told him.
The entire premise of the series is Sam's reluctance to take up the mantle in the face of America's racism. It's not subtext.
At the start of the show Sam feels he isn't worthy, he feels like his good friend Steve made a mistake and that he can't live up to his example.
Sam isn't blind to racism (Thank Christ, didn't need that thread) but he believes in the ideal and does what he feels will help move that ideal closer to reality.
When he walks into that bank he's not only served the country as a soldier, he's saved the world from Hydra domination a d he's helped save it from total desolation. It's worth nothing.
The government doesn't even ask for his blessing on a discount Captain America that they started picking five minutes after he hung up the phone to tell them he wanted to put the shield in a museum.
And then Bucky drops Isaiah on him.
And since then it's been an arc of him coming to terms with both how shitty the powers that be have been even on this hyper specific issue (Captains America) and I think combatting the weight of the subconscious bias he feels literally all of the time.
Sam not feeling worthy is a symptom of our country telling him he isn't and him (Wrongly) internalizing it.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
It's a no-win situation, either nothing is done about the 4 billion people who just reappeared suddenly or the rest have to shoulder the burden of helping things get back to "normal" (and people will probably never be satisfied with any status quo because we always leave some people behind).
From what we've seen, it isn't a no-win scenario, though. The GRC doesn't give a shit about actually helping refugees, it's using them and the resources meant for them as a way to grab more power and wealth for the people running the GRC. The stuff they steal is actually meant for the people they give it to, but the GRC has literally been refusing for months to let the supplies go out to help the sick, starving, and dying. Karli's mentor/adoptive mother dies because of that lack of medicine. The existence of Karli's group is probably intentional, since radicalized refugees give the GRC even more power and leverage.
And the refugees have every bit as much claim to the lives they've made in those 5 years of Blip as the people suddenly coming back. As Karli mentions, the people that are now refugees were formerly welcomed with open arms and became part of the communities they worked in. Now they're being thrown out not by those communities, but by politicians and faceless government agencies trying to reestablish old bullshit zones of dominance. They went from living their lives normally after working hard to help places to recover right over to getting kicked out of their homes wholesale and left to rot in the street.
The solution is simple. The Blip was an unprecedented event, but everybody gets one chance to stay where they've chosen to live and become a citizen instead of this bullshit where they just get kicked around as stateless. Housing is harder, but it's absolutely doable. Basically, a blanket one-time amnesty. But the GRC doesn't want that, it wants to wield the refugees as a club to bloat itself on resources and power.
But now you've just changed which group is displaced. In the situation presented, one group was going to have to lose out.
I didn't say anything about kicking out the people that came back, just letting the people that moved during the Blip stay in the area they've been living and building new housing as needed. Further, provide incentives for those that have returned to move to a new place; I'd bet shitloads of people would be willing to move a couple of miles for a payout when they come back and find everything they owned is gone anyway.
Anything but rounding up the non-Blipped folks and imprisoning them before throwing them into some shithole concentration camps somewhere out of the way while depriving them of food and medicine, which would obviously piss a lot of people off.
Building new housing is going to be tough. People returning means that there is now a serious demand for new housing, but for the previous five years that demand has effectively been nil. More than just about any other sector I can think of, the snap would have completely gutted the construction industry.
Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion.
Especially I'm assuming many people flocked to cities where they likely only can build so much. Add in that maybe some of those buildings have stood derelict for 5 years now, they may need work to even be liveable.
Building new housing is going to be tough. People returning means that there is now a serious demand for new housing, but for the previous five years that demand has effectively been nil. More than just about any other sector I can think of, the snap would have completely gutted the construction industry.
Logistically it probably did gut a portion of the construction industry based around new construction but a whole bunch of those not snapped would still be needed for maintenance and repurposing existing structures and a bunch of trades people just came back into existence and they are in need of work...
There is certainly a way to Green New Deal by building MCU future tech Wakanda influenced cities in this as opposed to starting up the kind of camps that lead to someone like Magneto holding a grudge, to a very real degree, the power structures in play are choosing to be shitty in its aims instead of going all FDR on this.
on some level i am sympathetic to this show not getting too detailed about snap politics because you can't really look at it too hard without it falling apart, and it wasn't their decision to write the snap, it's just something they have to write around. but on the other hand, they did choose to write a show where grievances about snap politics would be a major part of the story
on some level i am sympathetic to this show not getting too detailed about snap politics because you can't really look at it too hard without it falling apart, and it wasn't their decision to write the snap, it's just something they have to write around. but on the other hand, they did choose to write a show where grievances about snap politics would be a major part of the story
I think the bigger issue they're suffering from is show length. Even one or maybe two more episodes would have given them the time to give us a little bit of a better look at the background stuff. Granted, it likely then would have suffered every so slightly from lagging a bit, but they seem like they're doing pretty well with it all things considered.
Personally, I think they've struck a pretty good balance. The show acknowledges the blip to the point that its' fallout serves as the main motivating factor for the antagonists of the series but wisely opts not to go into the details because, as you all noted, the ramifications of such an event could serve as a focus point for multiple series and stories far beyond the scope of what we're focusing on in this story (Sam and Bucky). Basically, they're treating this major event with a respectable amount of seriousness, acknowledging that it's a big deal in-universe, without letting it dictate entirely the story they're trying to tell. This is hard to do, and this show succeeds at it, in my opinion.
I’m glad the MCU is embracing the snap’s consequences. I was afraid they were gonna gloss over the ramifications after Far From Home, but seeing it played out is fun from a world building perspective. I got a feeling phase four is gonna be heavy on dealing with a post-snap universe.
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I’m glad the MCU is embracing the snap’s consequences. I was afraid they were gonna gloss over the ramifications after Far From Home, but seeing it played out is fun from a world building perspective. I got a feeling phase four is gonna be heavy on dealing with a post-snap universe.
And not just the Snap, either. I appreciated Zemo's dig about none of the Avengers having gone back to Sokovia's memorial. It feels like a lot of the show's undercurrent can be summarized as the aftermath of heroing.
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ChaosHatHop, hop, hop, HA!Trick of the lightRegistered Userregular
You know, I was just thinking about Walker's homebrew shield. He has to know nothing he could build would be of the same quality and I don't think he's just dumb and is thinking "screw it I'll make my own shield with blackjack and hookers" only to look like a fool in a real confrontation. Without the magical properties of the original shield it would probably be a real liability in a fight. Heavy, probably only mediocre at stopping bullets, no longer a ranged weapon, etc.
So what are the odds he's just trying to pull a fast one and do a switcheroo and make off with the real shield in a moment of confusion?
They're an anti-nationalist group, that's the entire concept.
Anti-nationalism is about opposing nationalism, which could be considered something like "my country is the best country." Anti-fascists ("antifa") oppose fascism, which, yes, is a kind of authoritarian ultranationalist ideology; so you could consider anti-nationalism a subset of anti-fascism. But the Flag Smashers aren't either of those things.
The Flag Smashers want things to go back to the way they were before Banner brought the snapped folk back, but we're not given many details on what that means outside of not being displaced.
If 50% of the population disappeared for five years, it stands to reason that people would clump together in population centers. There's already infrastructure for handling lots of people in place. The thing is, the snapped folk? They just pop back into place, not having any concept of what happened in the last five years.
It'd be like waking up one day to find a stranger in your apartment, claiming that you've been gone for five years and this is their place now. Understandably, you would probably not consent to that. The GRC doesn't appear to be a fascist dictatorship; they appear to be an international council, so they don't appear to be nationalist at all. The GRC is probably supported by the majority of the population - most of the people who were blipped back don't want to be displaced, and at least some of the people who weren't snapped probably want things to go back to the way things were before the snap.
We know the Flag Smashers don't want that. They don't want a strong central government. They might be considered Libertarian in the classical sense, being anti-authority and anti-state power. They might be full blown Anarchists, rejecting all forms of hierarchy and calling for the abolition of the state. They're definitely OK with killing to get what they want, so you might consider them terrorists.
You know, I was just thinking about Walker's homebrew shield. He has to know nothing he could build would be of the same quality and I don't think he's just dumb and is thinking "screw it I'll make my own shield with blackjack and hookers" only to look like a fool in a real confrontation. Without the magical properties of the original shield it would probably be a real liability in a fight. Heavy, probably only mediocre at stopping bullets, no longer a ranged weapon, etc.
So what are the odds he's just trying to pull a fast one and do a switcheroo and make off with the real shield in a moment of confusion?
He's using his Medal of Honour, so I assume he's going to use it himself, at least as a symbol if not in combat
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I realize it's grieving parent, and that they were close to Walker and want to see the best in him. It still just felt off, tonally, and rushed. As if they just wanted to get the point across that he's trapping himself in a lie and an obligation, and just needed to check that character development box and move along in the story.
Honestly, Lemar's death also feels like a wasted opportunity to add complexity to things all around. It would be far more compelling if Lemar survived but was just paralyzed. Or, if that's too on the nose compared to Rhoades, is in a coma or something. Making the killing even more unjustified, but also adding judgement about that decision from his closest friend and additional reminder of his guilt to grapple with since he won't be getting free Stark tech to fix it.
But this is coming from one of the whitest guys you will ever meet, so maybe I'm reading too much into it.
Could also be that Lamar died because Walker didn't listen to him in favor of believing in his right to run roughshod over the situation. Lamar died because of the arrogance of a juiced up white dude wrapped in the trappings of America who knew he had to be the hero of the story.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
That doesn't make it not a movie trope - the reason he died was to serve as a motivator for the white male who has the larger role in the story. It's a textbook example, and it's not even true to the source material. It's not the worst thing ever but it's worth noting.
Or Lamar was the thing that kept him good and without him he's a rudderless shit heel. If you look back, it's always Lamar's take that gives him direction and confidence, not his own.
It sucks that something that is worthwhile on it's own merits in the media it's presented in is also unavoidably tainted by the racism in the not so distant past.
Of course, paint me absolutely unsurprised that the direction they went with their antifa stand-in was horsehoe theory bullshit, but then so was the source material so at least they're being faithful.
If anything, it just needed more episodes.
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It follows a trope, but here it's inextricable from the story. The story absolutely changes if John has a white best friend or even if Lamar is selected as Captain America instead of Walker. Either of those changes avoid the trope, but do they make the story any better? If they don't, then why avoid the trope?
I guess you could have Lamar be secretly alive or something. But does it have the same impact?
It can also be surface read as a critique on power, though, with the two super soldiers being the one to lose their shit and the unpowered Sam being the one to take up the mantle. Buuuut, I kinda suspect the actual undertones to be the horseshoe theory thing.
Amd yeah, there is no way in hell a company like Disney would ever get into proper intersectional class analysis in a show. Reductionism is the name of the game cause Disney likes the position they're in, the way things are, and making billions of dollars. It's good to see the discussions they do have on TV but it is a very calculated opiate drip feed. (Just to clarify, I do really enjoy the show, I'm just getting real for a rare second before I turn my brain back off, lol)
I mean, I'm somewhat happy with the undertones we're getting here even if it's far less than what I'd really like, like they make it clear that the show is talking about race even if they're mostly talking around it in euphemisms, they're not afraid of being pretty directly critical of the US and institutional racism, and to see that happen in a huge property like Marvel indicates at least some social shift in perception to how appropriate it is to address these things in our day-to-day entertainment media. These are not things you would've seen actually addressed at all in these kinds of movies/shows a decade or two ago. The fact that the viewpoint is going to regress to that of the moderate neoliberal is honestly just to be expected, but it feels at least a little bit like this show demonstrates a nudge in the overton window.
They're anti displacement, they want things to go back before the snap because they were afforded more opportunities, places to live, etc. (Thanos' desired effect, no less). Before, a lot of bad people in power were snapped away, and then suddenly they're back and in power again.
They specifically rob banks, steal medicine, and more even before killing people. These are extremists more than protesters, and they are fighting back against the power structures that disappeared and then came back after everything was undone. Antifa hasn't gone anything even close to that level so I don't buy the analog.
One of her lines is that "they care more about the people coming back than the ones who've been here all along." You could draw more parallels to extreme alt right groups, whom became radicalized through online platforms and apps that allowed dangerous rhetoric to proliferate and gain influence. She's basically pushing the line that the GRC only cares about some people, forgetting that the unsnapped are displaced people as well, whose homes have likely become refugee camps in the 5 year gap. It's a no-win situation, either nothing is done about the 4 billion people who just reappeared suddenly or the rest have to shoulder the burden of helping things get back to "normal" (and people will probably never be satisfied with any status quo because we always leave some people behind).
Except for that scene where Sam is accosted by police immediately after discovering Isaiah. Or that scene where he, despite saving the world twice, can't get a bank loan. Or the fact that, despite having accomplished the exact same things as Walker, Lemar was never considered for the shield. Or the fact that the government manipulated Sam into giving up the shield so they could give it a "proper" representative.
I'm not sure how the line "They will never let a Black man be Captain America and, even if they did, no self-respective Black man would ever want to be" equals "scrubbing any explicit discussion of the modern problems."
I think you're not seeing the forest for the trees here. You're focusing on details of how they attempt to weave this concept into their fantasy world, but the concept behind the Flagsmasher has a character and the choice to use it here is not a mistake. Flagsmasher has always been an anti-nationalist, even this version pretty explicitly wants a dissolution of borders.
The fact that they escalate this group to an extreme is for the purpose of creating a villain/threat. But the ideological positioning of the group relative to all the other players is pretty clear in how it correlates to modern America.
All of that except for Isaiah's line was still relegated to subtext. To us the message is obvious, but in almost every instance this show is not willing to outright say the words.
How so? The show is very up front with systemic racism, how Black people are oppressed in society from getting loans to interactions with police and gone into vets chewed up by the system and mental health. All of these are modern problems with explicit commentary given by main characters and supporting. Is heavily implied with he Walker storyline about American cops
Kari's not a straw man by any stretch. They've given her depth, and the protagonists are open to understanding her more so than Walker when he went off the edge. Many characters, including hose in the GRC council and Falcon agree with her goals not her methods. She's nothing like her straw man character was in the comics. They also implied the serum was messing her up as an out. Left wing characters being terrorists is true to life, they're not making that up. The IRA, for example. Falcon and Winter Soldier are going to huge lengths to support BLM, they're not supporting Walker or the Asshole Congressman.
They made Walker into a liberal!
The Flagsmashers were never protesters, when we first met them they robbed a bank. Robin Hood, a concept Kari's followers have glommed onto them isn't a protester, he's a revolutionary . Protesters don't blow up buildings or assassinate people, terrorists do. Their political ideology is irrelevant, Sam would be fighting hem if they were doing this as right wingers, because it's the methods he hates - Sam isn't going along with anyone who blows up buildings on a matter of principal. If all Kari was doing was protesting Sam wouldn't care about her methods, he'd have no need to. Except they're also doing that with Walker, because they need bad guys to stop. The Flagsmashers aren't American, they come from Europe.
It's not subtext if it's literally text. Sam and Bucky's friendship is cemented by the latter's acknowledgement that he and Steve didn't understand what it was like for a Black man to be handed the shield. That's followed by a scene with Sam and Sarah discussing what Isaiah told him.
The entire premise of the series is Sam's reluctance to take up the mantle in the face of America's racism. It's not subtext.
It's not that bad politicians were snapped away and have suddenly returned. It's that half the planet's population were snapped away and have now returned. Think about how much movement there would have been from less developed to more developed nations, places with a higher quality of life, but desperate for immigrants to help maintain their chains of supply and services. Then, suddenly, everyone comes back, and your house now belongs to its blipped owner, you've been laid off to make room for returning employees with two or three times your experience, and the countries you have immigrated to, but haven't lived in long enough to get residency or citizenship, are now pushing you out of the country, because they have their "real" citizens to look after.
That's why they are "displaced" rather than refugees. They moved to help the First World keep First Worlding, and now that they aren't needed anymore, they are being kicked to the curb.
- John Stuart Mill
From what we've seen, it isn't a no-win scenario, though. The GRC doesn't give a shit about actually helping refugees, it's using them and the resources meant for them as a way to grab more power and wealth for the people running the GRC. The stuff they steal is actually meant for the people they give it to, but the GRC has literally been refusing for months to let the supplies go out to help the sick, starving, and dying. Karli's mentor/adoptive mother dies because of that lack of medicine. The existence of Karli's group is probably intentional, since radicalized refugees give the GRC even more power and leverage.
And the refugees have every bit as much claim to the lives they've made in those 5 years of Blip as the people suddenly coming back. As Karli mentions, the people that are now refugees were formerly welcomed with open arms and became part of the communities they worked in. Now they're being thrown out not by those communities, but by politicians and faceless government agencies trying to reestablish old bullshit zones of dominance. They went from living their lives normally after working hard to help places to recover right over to getting kicked out of their homes wholesale and left to rot in the street.
The solution is simple. The Blip was an unprecedented event, but everybody gets one chance to stay where they've chosen to live and become a citizen instead of this bullshit where they just get kicked around as stateless. Housing is harder, but it's absolutely doable. Basically, a blanket one-time amnesty. But the GRC doesn't want that, it wants to wield the refugees as a club to bloat itself on resources and power.
But now you've just changed which group is displaced. In the situation presented, one group was going to have to lose out.
The whole thing would likely be a massive logistical mess, and simply shooting everyone citizenship idk if it solves where to put people, how to feed them all, etc. I do think kicking them out is a terrible way to handle things, but it is realistic in how real world governments might handle it. I do know that if I was blipped and came back to find someone else in my childhood home of 25+ years and lost it to a guy who lived there for 5 years, again it just doesn't make sense. There's much more nuance to it than just being like "fuck it, you all live everywhere now." Ideally though, both the snapped and the survivors should be considered equally because it's neither of their fault.
At the start of the show Sam feels he isn't worthy, he feels like his good friend Steve made a mistake and that he can't live up to his example.
Sam isn't blind to racism (Thank Christ, didn't need that thread) but he believes in the ideal and does what he feels will help move that ideal closer to reality.
When he walks into that bank he's not only served the country as a soldier, he's saved the world from Hydra domination a d he's helped save it from total desolation. It's worth nothing.
The government doesn't even ask for his blessing on a discount Captain America that they started picking five minutes after he hung up the phone to tell them he wanted to put the shield in a museum.
And then Bucky drops Isaiah on him.
And since then it's been an arc of him coming to terms with both how shitty the powers that be have been even on this hyper specific issue (Captains America) and I think combatting the weight of the subconscious bias he feels literally all of the time.
Sam not feeling worthy is a symptom of our country telling him he isn't and him (Wrongly) internalizing it.
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I didn't say anything about kicking out the people that came back, just letting the people that moved during the Blip stay in the area they've been living and building new housing as needed. Further, provide incentives for those that have returned to move to a new place; I'd bet shitloads of people would be willing to move a couple of miles for a payout when they come back and find everything they owned is gone anyway.
Anything but rounding up the non-Blipped folks and imprisoning them before throwing them into some shithole concentration camps somewhere out of the way while depriving them of food and medicine, which would obviously piss a lot of people off.
- John Stuart Mill
Logistically it probably did gut a portion of the construction industry based around new construction but a whole bunch of those not snapped would still be needed for maintenance and repurposing existing structures and a bunch of trades people just came back into existence and they are in need of work...
There is certainly a way to Green New Deal by building MCU future tech Wakanda influenced cities in this as opposed to starting up the kind of camps that lead to someone like Magneto holding a grudge, to a very real degree, the power structures in play are choosing to be shitty in its aims instead of going all FDR on this.
I think the bigger issue they're suffering from is show length. Even one or maybe two more episodes would have given them the time to give us a little bit of a better look at the background stuff. Granted, it likely then would have suffered every so slightly from lagging a bit, but they seem like they're doing pretty well with it all things considered.
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And not just the Snap, either. I appreciated Zemo's dig about none of the Avengers having gone back to Sokovia's memorial. It feels like a lot of the show's undercurrent can be summarized as the aftermath of heroing.
So what are the odds he's just trying to pull a fast one and do a switcheroo and make off with the real shield in a moment of confusion?
The Flag Smashers want things to go back to the way they were before Banner brought the snapped folk back, but we're not given many details on what that means outside of not being displaced.
If 50% of the population disappeared for five years, it stands to reason that people would clump together in population centers. There's already infrastructure for handling lots of people in place. The thing is, the snapped folk? They just pop back into place, not having any concept of what happened in the last five years.
It'd be like waking up one day to find a stranger in your apartment, claiming that you've been gone for five years and this is their place now. Understandably, you would probably not consent to that. The GRC doesn't appear to be a fascist dictatorship; they appear to be an international council, so they don't appear to be nationalist at all. The GRC is probably supported by the majority of the population - most of the people who were blipped back don't want to be displaced, and at least some of the people who weren't snapped probably want things to go back to the way things were before the snap.
We know the Flag Smashers don't want that. They don't want a strong central government. They might be considered Libertarian in the classical sense, being anti-authority and anti-state power. They might be full blown Anarchists, rejecting all forms of hierarchy and calling for the abolition of the state. They're definitely OK with killing to get what they want, so you might consider them terrorists.
But they're definitely not antifa.
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He's using his Medal of Honour, so I assume he's going to use it himself, at least as a symbol if not in combat