Shields are thrown, legacies are questioned, quips are tossed as Sam and Bucky finally reunite to meet John Walker, the new Captain America in âThe Star-Spangled Manâ from Disney+âs The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
Kenneth Laster: Long ago, Kevin Fiege said that this television show about a man in a bird suit and a Cold War assassin would explore the realities of being Black in America and a shiver went down the spine of millions, here we are today for episode two of said television show. Thank you for joining me today Corey! What are your initial feelings towards this ep?
Corey Smith: Hey Kenneth, thanks for having me! I’ve gotta say, I liked this episode a lot more than last week’s, but by the end of the hour, I was downright exhausted. I don’t think I ever saw Truth: Red, White, and Black getting adapted into one of the world’s biggest media franchises, but there’s a lot of baggage that comes with that.
Sam & Bucky, Together Again For the First Time
KL: Indeed there is! But all of that baggage is in the guise of a fun buddy comedy! A pretty regular anecdote passed around is that this show was born from the scene in Civil War of Bucky asking Sam to move his seat up. Five years and one episode later, and the two are forced to work together. What was your take on these two just hanging out and having difficulties?
CS: Honestly, I absolutely loved their dynamic in Civil War, and this was just more of what made that work. I think we’ve all been in that position, with a coworker who we tolerate from exactly 8:00 AM, to when we clock out at 4:51 – or, more accurately, someone we only put up with because of a mutual friend. With Steve out of the picture, they’ve lost that connective tissue, and what we’re left with is two people who very clearly respect each other, but have absolutely nothing else in common.
KL: Definitely! Itâs very much a dynamic thatâs easy to buy into from the jump and I think that the show does a good job when weâre into the banter, but I feel like I do get tonal whiplash at times. It kind of threw me how Bucky and Sam are having a kind of intense talk on Steveâs willlegacy and Sam giving up the shield and they kind of just slipped into their banter. It wasnât super distracting but it definitely was a weird balancing act with some of the heavier topics that the show wants to explore. Itâs definitely an old criticism of the MCU, consistently undercutting tense moments which humor and even though it never came off as tasteless, I definitely felt myself just going âoh I guess that part of the conversation is done.â
However when the banter popped off, it was pretty good! The âbig threeâ is a fun enough bit and I laughed Sam calling Bucky âWhite Panther.â Itâs hitting the comedy part of the buddy comedy even though it may or may not have flowed super well for me. Any more thoughts?
CS: I definitely think you’re right there – we’ve all come to expect a certain level of levity and glibness from the MCU, even when it’s not exactly tonally appropriate. There were times where it really felt like they didnât know how to progress a scene without having to commit to actually saying something about the things they were bringing up, and whenever that happened they just moved along with a joke. There was a clear pattern of Bucky coming in with his âover-extended life,â as Sam so eloquently put it, telling Sam what he should be doing, and any attempt at calling that out inevitably ended up with someone cracking a joke. Obviously the fact that our leads donât communicate well is the point, but as a Black viewer, it was really frustrating seeing Samâs justified annoyance constantly being blown off by the narrative.
The Star-Spangled Man with A Gun
CS: So, after managing to set the entire internet ablaze with rage last week with little more than a smile and a wink, this week we were able to spend some⊠letâs be generous and call it âqualityâ time with John Walker, our new, government-assigned Captain America. How do you feel about the pasty patriot?
KL: âThe Pasty Patriotâ Indeed! Iâm actually kind of surprised at how earnestly they approached him in this after his huge, âlook at THIS assholeâ moment at the end of the last episode but they really give him some pathos here. I still believe heâs going to have a heel turn in the show, but I think they are going to try and give it a slow burn (or as slow as you can with four episodes left). I think itâs also interesting with Walkerâs role in the comics, heâs objectively an asshole but heâs also stuck around as âgood guyâ for way longer than I personally expected, even as a card carrying member of the Avengers. However John Walker in this episode really tries to sell him as âgood guyâ and not a right wing weirdo and I think thereâs one big element that helps with that and itâs by surrounding him with Black people and culture. His girlfriend is (maybe) Black, the marching band introducing him is the most HBCU-ass band on mainstream streaming since Homecoming (BeyoncĂ© not Spider-Man), and the introduction of Battlestar (his Bucky from the comics) is much more straightforward and supportive than his comics counterpart.
Itâs a conscious choice and I think a really intriguing one with just how the show continues to show him as âoff.â Just outright carrying a gun and his ominous âstay out of my way,â at the end of the ep. Stephanie Williams, queen of comics, had a good insight on the type of relatable white the show is repackaging him as. And with this in mind I am so curious where the show ends up taking him. Thoughts on the once and former Super Patriot?
CS: Man okay first of all thank you for the validation, because the second I heard those opening notes I thought “there’s no way in hell that’s a white band.” I don’t know if the OST is out yet, or if these shows even get one, but if that performance doesn’t get some sort of full release, I’m gonna fight.
But no, for as much as everyone’s been jumping to fight Walker since the first episode, even knowing what I know about his comic inspiration, I found it oddly hard to dislike him in this one. Williams definitely nailed it with that relatable white description, though – he strikes me very much as the type of surface level ally who’s not consciously racist, but has absolutely no problem benefiting from white privilege, and is unwilling to examine their own position in that structure.
That said, and here’s where people are going to get pissed off, I don’t think that’s any different from most of the other leads in the MCU! One of the downsides to the franchise’s love of quippy, snarky, characters, is that Walker genuinely doesn’t come across as any more of an ass than Stark, Quill, or even Thor. The only person he seems noticeably ruder than is Steve, which is kind of the point. He’s not Steve Rogers, and that shows in everything from the way he throws the shield to the way he interacts with others. Am I gonna feel as generous on Friday? Who knows. But for now, I’ve got an open mind – it wouldn’t be the first time the MCU played with my expectations.
KL: Thatâs an excellent point! The MCU is brimming with snarky jerks. Only time will tell if Johnâs the type we shouldnât like. Honestly I have to say if the MCU version of John Walker turns out to be a scathing look at âwell intentionedâ white liberals, I will be very intrigued. It would be a lot more of an interesting statement than some of the other things we get–speaking of…
Red, White, and Black
KL: One of the more interesting elements of the conceit of this show is that it sets out to explore the complications of a Black man taking up the mantle of Captain America. On one hand itâs very much something that would need to be explored in this situation, but at the same time this is the same show that had Monica Rambea– How did you put it Corey?
CS: Taking a very real bullet for Wanda’s imaginary, fake-ass, Blooreguard Q. Kazoo kids?
KL: Exactly! So we have reason to be apprehensive…This episode takes some swings in interesting developments on this line but falls back on some exhausting tropes. What were your thoughts on it?
CS: “Exhausting” is definitely the word. After Luke Cage and Black Panther, this is the third MCU property I’ve seen with an unambiguous Black lead, and we’re three for three on racism being the driving force in the plot. It’s the Black experience, it’s all around us, and but I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t sometimes wish it wouldn’t follow us into media. When I see Sam, or Luke, or Jeff Pierce over on Black Lightning getting stopped by the cops while they’re just minding their Black-ass business, it takes me out of the story entirely – sometimes a brother just wants to see some superheroics, instead of being reminded of the fact that it’s not safe to walk down the street, y’know? These are important stories, but they shouldn’t be the only stories.
KL: I agree completely. I really think about how much of, specifically recent, attempts at representation rely specifically on Black pain and I think back to just how much Black media there was that was so unconcerned with reproducing trauma. Living Single, A Different Wold, Fresh Prince, and Moesha (I could go on). There would be a special episode probably, and a lot of them havenât aged perfectly but they very much were shows by Black people for Black audiences and I think this new wave of Black media for ârepresentationâ are honestly just the Black experience packaged for a white audience. Itâs just so clearly not for us because why in the world would anyone want to see trauma reproduced so damn often. We are well aware of how the police treat us and thereâs truly so much more of our experience than that.
My other gripe about seeing this scene again within the MCU is that why keep showing this, if no oneâs going to do anything about it. Disney is never ever ever going to put out a piece of media that calls for the abolishment or defunding of the police so what the hell is the point to keep showing this happening. We have gods, aliens, and superheroes who solve problems every movie but Black characters getting a gun pulled on them is just texture. No exploration of why the police are an extension of a white supremacist structure (because there will be good cops at some other points in this franchise) so the statement is âthere are some bad copsâ or even worse âthis is just some weird thing that happens to Black people :/ nothing to be done about it.â
The fantasy that they keep wanting to explore with Black heroes is not being dying in an interaction with the cops which is such a much more depressing option than exploring the fantasy of there *not* being cops which will simply never be entertained by this corporate product.
Once again, I totally understand why this show is exploring race and I agree with the showrunners sentiment that it would be disingenuous to not explore race and the mantle of Captain America but my thing is they were already doing that in a unique way by bringing Isaiah Bradley into the show. Itâs Black trauma for sure but damn itâs different from the same âthis character might get shot by this copâ scene that I am so tired by. But speaking of Isaiah Bradley, youâve been reading Red, White, and Black yes? Any insights into his appearance here.
CS: So, weirdly enough, Red, White, and Black was the first Captain America story I ever read, back around 2008, followed quickly by every scrap of content I could find regarding Patriot. Prior to that, Iâd largely been ambivalent to the franchise – after all, a surface look at Cap doesnât exactly seem like it has a lot for me. Red, White, and Black, however, really managed to grab my sixteen year old heart – I was at an age where I was starting to learn about the history that school didnât teach us, or glossed over. I had been reading into the Tuskegee Experiments on my own, and a teacher who knew I was into comics pointed me in that direction. The comic, hell, Isaiahâs entire character, appealed to me, and while Eli was often treated as a strawman, the kid raised some valid points!
Like you pointed out, Isaiahâs trauma (and make no mistake, you canât discuss his character without discussing his trauma) is, if nothing else, unique among Black superheroes. As a kid, still naive enough to think America was starting to get past its racist history, it was painful to read. Going back to it now, after thirteen years of having that belief not challenged so much as absolutely annihilated, it honestly manages to hit even harder, to the point where I still havenât been able to finish the reread. If the show is going to adapt it accurately, itâs going to be rough viewing.
That being said, you were entirely correct about the fact that the MCU seems to bring up Black trauma just to bring it up, without having anything to say. You absolutely couldnât say the same thing about the book – it asked the hard questions, and when it didnât have answers, because dammit, sometimes there just arenât any, that was part of the answer itself. It wasnât afraid to be dirty, or ugly, or downright uncomfortable. Robert Morales has the audacity, the honesty, to put the experience of a Black character out there, and not immediately try to play things off with a joke.
As sad as it is, I absolutely do not trust the MCU to approach the topic with the same conviction, or engage in any discussion beyond sanitized, defanged, entry level praxis. At best, I feel weâre in for another summer of âKillmonger was Right,â from fans and creators who think thatâs all the engagement thatâs needed, without any examination of the actual issues. At worst⊠well. Iâm sure anything I imagine wonât hold a candle to what actually happens.
Corey Smith
Corey Smith is probably tired right now. He's definitely trying not to think about everything he has to write! When he's not staring at a blank word document, odds are he's tweeting, playing Pokémon, or wondering how he ended up with such a smart-ass kid.
Kenneth Laster is a critic, cartoonist, and cryptid with a movie degree.
