Ideologies come to ahead as John Walker, the Flag Smashers, and our titular Lads™ clash in “The Whole World is Watching” from Disney+’s The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
Kenneth Laster: We are really in it now in this episode. This show is still pretty messy for me ideologically but now it’s finally committed to be entertaining. How did this episode find you Justin?
Justin Partridge: OH WOW, y’all. Lots of emotions around this one for sure. First off, I just want to say how so happy and thankful I am to be guesting on our F&TWS coverage. I’m a HUGE fan of Kenneth’s writing AND our ongoing Sam & Bucky column so I’m just pleased as punch to be here.
And talking about a WHOPPER of an episode. Both in terms of shocks and dodgy politics. I was wondering when we would get to the episode in which Karli had some sort of laying out of her ideology behind the Flag Smashing. And it should be troubling to the writer’s room to know that I don’t, like, disagree with her.
It’s that (regrettably) standard “lost and wayward but okay with murder” motivation we have seen through a few of these types of antagonist characters. Hell, the actress BEHIND Karli even played one of these before in the criminally undervalued Enfys Nest in Solo: A Star Wars Story, which is still regrettably that movie’s title still.
They obviously try to cut this, pretty well actually! By flinting her against Sam (a welcome and much needed callback to his time as a combat trauma counselor), who leads her to face the human cost of her and her new super-soldier’s missions. It’s beautifully acted and a much needed shot of emotion the show has lacked around Karli.
But then it’s busted up by a barely hinged white guy and two more POC characters die by the credit’s end (one by the…frankly pretty gruesome actions of the aforementioned barely hinged white guy). It’s…not great.
But to answer your FIRST question, finally (I’m so sorry), I DID actually find this episode pretty thrilling. I’ve been hotter on it, I feel, than my peers (I do love me some Bucky and Sam just generally before the MCU), but I do have to recognize that it absolutely has problems that should be talked about.
KL: And talk about them we shall! Let’s dig in!
The Hunt for Red Flag-Smasher
KL: We pick up just around where we left off with the boys following a lead on Karli’s whereabouts. We get a lot of stuff to take in including a flashback to Bucky’s deconditioning and how Zemo, Bucky, and Sam go about their search. What were your thoughts on this part of the episode?
JP: THIS I feel like is where the episode really starts to sing for me. Buffered by the wonderful cold open, showing the always incredibly striking Ayo finally shepherding Bucky through his Winter Soldier programming (more truly gorgeous acting from Stan and Florence Kasumba), the script puts a number of ticking clocks on the audience and the characters.
Our Team Triple-Ship only has a number of hours to track down Karli, who is only in the area for a finite amount of time. John Walker and Battlestar give our boys only a few days until they snap back up Zemo. While finally, the Dora Milaje give Cap’s buddy Bucky about the same until THEY take Zemo themselves. It adds a wonderful pressure to the episode, but I’m worried the character beats were a tad under baked just for the sake of speed.
Is this me projecting or did you pick up on this either, Kenneth?
KL: I felt similarly! I was surprised that a consensus was that this episode felt better because the characters got more focus in this one. I was shocked because that “more” was literally “some”– specifically regarding Sam who had been really sidelined so far. This episode does give a bit more focus on characters applying themselves within the plot. Like I said I particularly liked the trios approach to finding leads. Sam kind of goes in heart first without really questioning his position there while Zemo goes in with a creepy yet effective method that he uses as leverage. Sam’s tactic as a character really works as a beat as we’ll get into in the next section, but I do worry about Marvel making their Black leads empathetic to the point of naivety or walking into dumb situations. In this case it’s meant to paint Sam as the clearer successor to Steve in terms of empathy in comparison to Walker but the great Stephanie Williiams noted that John Walker works better as a direct comparison for Steve not Sam, which is why this direction doesn’t really hit as hard.
As for the investigation period, it did feel weird in terms of the pacing of this episode, and goes back to my complaint of this feeling less episodic and more like one MCU movie stretched over six episodes. It sort of feels like two episodes in one this week with the first half getting the short end. By the time we reach the conclusion of the episode, I hardly remember Ayo’s ultimatum at the top since we kind of move past it so early in the episode. This episode was definitely jam packed but I’m not certain that was food the best pacing wise. Any last thoughts before the meeting of the minds?
JP: I will absolutely agree that it feels like morsels we are mistaking for a meal. Everything up until now, really, has just been a lot of set up, positioning Sam, Bucky, and the new ancillary characters up for this finale three parter. So I totally understand and empathize with the criticism that this is just an sectioned out movie.
Probably even more so than WandaVision, as WandaVision at least has a thematic skeleton to work with, or maybe gimmick is the better word in play over the course of its episode order. While I’ve been really enjoying The Sam & Bucky Show, I don’t honestly see why this couldn’t have been just a feature.
Of course, if it was a feature, we wouldn’t have gotten scenes like this!
Ideological Impasse
JP: So as we alluded to above, one of this week’s major “set pieces” is basically just an conversation between Karli and Sam Wilson, both of whom are using the funeral of a local community elder as a neutral space to actually talk for once (while John Walker and company wait for the right moment to strike).
The scene itself is good, largely in part to the performances but the politics and optics presented therein (on top of where the scene builds to) is, shall we say, a bit dicey.
That’s not hyperbolic to say, right, Kenneth?
KL: Not hyperbolic at all. I will say that this scene made me almost want to pull back on my critique throughout since Sam ultimately met her at her level and flat out states he agrees with her. This conversation kind of gets into the murky nuance in a way I wasn’t fully expecting. It’s not amazing but it’s more time than I thought Karli would get to speak her case. It also gave me the sense that the pathos given to the Flag Smashers and them being seen as having good intentions as a feature and not a bug. Last ep gave them their “gone too far” moment but it continues to empathize with them in a way that is surprising to me based on how frequent the trope is. They definitely still play at Karli being the villain here or that the serum has made her too far gone, but this conversation and the show always coming back to her heart, even promising she would never actually hurt Sam’s family, makes me think (hope) that they aren’t going to completely wipe these guys off the table at the end.
One thing that really did stand out to me that is a big “duh” moment that I’m shocked that I didn’t realize sooner is that the show kind of positions Karli as a third “successor” to Steve in terms of ideals. John’s the one on the other end and Sam’s being pushed as the middle ground which…I mean is going to be very centrist of an end goal but again–Disney. But I think taking that into mind did make me appreciate her more even if the show still hasn’t decided whether is supports or condemns her. What are your thoughts Justin?
JP: you are absolutely NOT wrong in categorizing it as “centrist”. But you also hit on why it ultimately works! We now have an explicit text of the show basically agreeing with Karli, or at least giving real credence to the Flag Smashers’ overall ideology.
I also think framing it all through Sam is also a wonderful choice and at least allows Sam to be more the empathic and grounded person for a few moments before it all starts to kick off. I LOVE the reading of Karli as successor too. THAT’S something that would have never have occurred to me.
Like you said, it might not be the most nuanced or articulate way of framing these ideals, but at least the show is allowing room for it amid all the punching and flag-smashing.
My Captain, Not My Captain
KL: So after getting the most satisfying ass beating in the MCU, John Walker has a very eventful day in this ep! What were your thoughts on John Walker’s descent in this ep?
JP: WELL, I’ll say, I think it’s very quick for sure. But that doesn’t mean that it’s exactly not well executed.
BECAUSE AGAIN, super talented actors in play here and Wyatt Russell has been really, really selling both the twisting sincerity of Walker as well as his growing insecurity about being just a “normal soldier” in the face of super soldiers.
I also think too the “ticking clocks” of all the plots in play, as well as the constant ass-kickings the script delivers to Walker throughout this whole episode (the Dora Milaje fight in particular is Good Stuff™️) further sell his dissolution and anger toward his failure to live up to the bar set by Steve Rogers.
You nailed it earlier, we now can absolutely see how Walker is not that far a walk from Rogers. The only difference being the walk itself. Steve was faced with a “just” war (and knew the value of a “weak man” even before enlistment while John seems to be here a born soldier) and Walker was sold one. Further causing him then to deploy a different form of “heroism” in order to survive it. I think the choice to explicitly make him an Afghanistan campaign vet is a smart one (alongside another canny similarity to SAM in this canon) because at the very least you, the MCU audience, know that that is already a recipe for disaster.
Stanley Tucci said it in the first movie. “The good becomes great, but the bad becomes worse”. John Walker explicitly states here that he and his partner had to do “bad things” to save people in Afghanistan. That his accolades and honors were only there to distract him from the “worst day of his life”. That if he was just MORE, that he could have DONE MORE. It’s a terrible road to go down altogether and I think at the very least the text of the episode supports it (albeit at a somewhat accelerated pace).
I am also less familiar than my more well-read peers about the Mark Gruenwald era of Captain America, so I had a VAGUE idea where this was going (as I’ve also been aware of John on the page somewhat in co-starring appearances) but I genuinely didn’t expect it to be THIS gnarly.
KL: Yes for sure! I read up on primers specifically for this show, but I had always generally had the idea of John Walker as Asshole Cap, but yeah they really take him there. I agree fully with what you said above and I am kind of surprised this pentagon backed project let Shitty Captain America™ imply he got medals of honor for war crimes. Wild! I came into the series thinking that they were going to play John Walker as explicitly right wing and making him an easy target but he really embodies a very relatable and realistic type of white American and I think it’s still fully on brand with his comics counterpart while still making him work for the story and for the time. John Walker getting his ass whooped and remarking “they weren’t even super soldiers” is such a funny moment but it also really sells just how entitled he feels to be Captain America and as a white man in general. There’s a sense of him being deserving of beating them at his bare minimum, regardless of how skilled the Dora Milaje are. It’s a different type of rancid whiteness that is more subtle but still relatable.
That relatability…is also an issue. There are strangely people out there lacking media literacy that see John as good and or sympathetic at this very moment and that is troubling to say the least. Episode 2 John? Maybe. But people seeing the man brutally kill someone in broad daylight with Cap’s shield and still finding sympathy is wild for me. It’s also troubling regarding John’s place in the comics where he’s always sort of around despite being shitty Cap. He’s even been on the Avengers. As much as I like Wyatt Russell in this role, I am concerned for whether this character needs to come back after this series. I’m worried about what John Walker around in this universe as a protagonist in a Thunderbolts or something or other is going to signal to certain people. He shouldn’t be a “Captain America who’ll get his hands dirty,” he should be a cautionary tale if anything.
JP: OH GOD ABSOLUTELY. Also the turn in which Russell’s Walker has gone from “friendly oafish meme” to “Well, Actually, This Cap is MY GUY (because of all the killin’)” is also REAL troubling for me as well. These are the same people that sometimes yell at me when I dare suggest that Steve Rogers maybe didn’t love (or at least relish like they want) the actual bloody work of being a soldier.
But it also ABSOLUTELY speaks to your point about white expectations and the myth of an unimpeachable soldier. Since the hack and slash days of Support the Troops, we have the lost the ability to be able to say ANYTHING resembling critical language in and around this idea of The Troops. Which has morphed (thanks to a fair amount of stoking from neocon grifters and ghouls) into this un-fuck-withable bastion of heroism, despite tons of evidence to the contrary.
So I, like you, was pretty shocked as to the level of criticism aimed at the meat grinder that is American Military service. AND frankly, with the level of positive reaction is getting from the more 4Channy members of the social sphere. But it also stands to reason that the wrong people would be reacting positively to a character openly committing murder in front of the eyes of the world, dressed in a flag.
I don’t know. I am still very struck by the level of violence in the scene (arguably the gnarliest MCU moment? I mean, they did full on decapitate Thanos and hold on his severed head for a bit) as well as the ratcheting way the sequence overall cranks up to its crescendo. But also, like you, I don’t know really what you do with this John Walker now in the fabric of the MCU. I don’t love the idea of having a “Cap Who Kills” just around but also at the same time, could see his story value to a movie Thunderbolts or maybe even a Nomad sort of deal.
I suppose I have at least two-three more hours to get right with it and go from there.
Kenneth Laster is a critic, cartoonist, and cryptid with a movie degree.
