Goddamn, this was a good show. I enjoyed every single episode waaay more than I enjoyed WandaVision as a whole. Boy. Where do I start? Do I go episode by episode? Do I talk the characters? Do I just rant and rave?
Why not all three?
Firstly, this show was pure fanservice for a guy like me. The fact that we saw Madripoor, onscreen, in the MCU had me rolling in my seat. Also the John Wick-vibes in that Madripoor episode were superb. I loved the scene where all of the bounty hunters get a text message that the club-owner is dead and then everything turns into a nonstop shoot-em-up. All of the hinting at future things to come were amazing. Hell, the simple fact that we got Madripoor seems like a scruffy, eye-patched present from the show runners.
If you know what I'm talking about...
The action scenes were on-point. You always had a sense of where everyone was. You had a feel of the environment and the stakes. Turning off this show and watching Mortal Kombat had me really appreciating the coherency of each fight. Perfect blocking and choreography all around. Especially the fight between Sam, Bucky and John Walker.
And speaking of John Walker. I fucking loved every single scene he was in. Every single one. I went back and read the comics where John goes from the Super-Patriot to Captain America, to U.S. Agent and goddamn they ripped him straight from the page and put him on the screen. The bit where John frequently asks himself what Captain America would do, and somehow decides to do the exact opposite of what Cap would do is ripped straight from the comics.
You get a sense of just how unhinged he is, and how much insane will-power he has bottled up inside. And every time he introduced himself as "Captain America" I couldn't help but crack up. You don't get a sense that he's bad guy so much as he's a top-notch soldier conflicted about what's actually right and wrong. If Captain America were created in the 1980s this would be what he represented. And that's such a perfect characterization of U.S. Agent. I loved Zemo for exactly the same reason. They took the heartbroken antagonist from Civil War and transformed him into the cynical, affluent, supervillain from the comics. You never knew what the hell Zemo was up to, and he was one of the best things about this show. Zemo always maintaining leverage, and scheming behind the scenes is the heart of that character.
The Dora Milaje were insanely cool. That fight with John where they pinned his shield to a table was hilarious. And watching Ayo deprogram Bucky was genuinely heart-warming. I really didn't understand them just taking Zemo back to the Raft instead of punishing him.
Falcon's Captain America suit is ripped straight from the comics. And I loved all the hinting that Torres would eventually become the Falcon like he does in the comics.
On the negative side, I didn't really like the way the side-characters were portrayed. The frequent attempts to paint the Flag-Smashers in a sympathetic light felt a bit forced. And the sad music that played when Karli died really felt out of place. Do her motivations make sense? Yes. Does she feel like an accurate representation of what would happen if the Blip happened in real-life? Yes. Yet, she's violent, misguided, and kills innocent people. A lot like a lot of terrorist group leaders in real life. She feels way more like an Isis expy than anyone to feel sorry for. You don't change laws by blowing people up, and robbing things. And if she hadn't killed people to get her way, maybe I'd feel more sympathetic. But a murderer is a murderer. And she wasn't killing in self-defense. I just can't feel sympathy for terrorists, no matter how attractive they are.
Sam's sister and most of the boat scenes were just annoying. I get that the point was to humanize Falcon, but there had to be a less contrived to do it. GSP will never be able to portray a menacing villain. I don't care how much he scowls, speaks angry French, and shoots at people, all I see is GSP in a bodysuit trying and failing to be intimidating. The fact that I've seen him beat the hell out of other trained fighters and I'm not shit-scared of him should give you an idea of how not-intimidating he is. In a company chock-full of happy-go-lucky foreigners, GSP was always the most happy-go-lucky of them all.
I didn't like The Truth: Red, White and Black at all. And if you've read it yourself, you know why they removed it from canon.
It was the shitty, surrealistic art...
But I get that Marvel is setting up the Young Avengers in the MCU, and how else would we get Elijah Bradley without introducing his grandfather?
Most of the plot-points in the show were predictable. It didn't really affect the story much, but I often found myself accurately guessing what was going to happen next. Maybe there was just ample foreshadowing. Maybe I've ruined my enjoyment by having read too many comics. I think we all saw Sharon being the Power Broker from the moment she was introduced. I knew that John Walker would go crazy and paint his suit black from the moment he showed up on screen. I knew Lamar was going to somehow get killed as soon as he was introduced. However, I never would've thought John would react the way he did to it. That shot where John is standing in the middle of a city, twitching, with blood all over the shield was beautiful. Probably one of my favorite moments from this show. Julie Louis-Dreyfus is always fun to watch and she seems like she's getting more attractive as she ages.
Sometimes, it felt like the show was trying to beat you over the head with the message that black people have it hard. It's true and it's a good message, but the MCU has never tried to impart any heavy-handed social commentary, before. And I gotta admit, I don't really like it. Captain America comics have been chock-full of social commentary for decades but none of his movies have been this explicitly drenched in subtext. The most we got was Winter Soldier hinting to always question authority.
I feel like I'm making it seem like I didn't enjoy the show, which I assure you I did. The show leaves a lot of loose ends, and I can't wait to see how they're all tied together. I hope that Wyatt Russel's U.S. Agent comes back in a large capacity (and given that Russel's first audition ever was for Captain America, I think he will). Sharon Carter is the Power Broker and she's infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. Zemo seems like he's planning something, and all of the earlier MCU villains that didn't die have been explicitly stated as being in the Raft, also. (Fingers crossed for Abomination to come back.) And all of the Young Avengers are officially in the MCU. I like that they avoided revealing what happened to Steve.
It would've been awesome to see Garry Shandling's Senator Stern as part of the group of senators that got held hostage, but alas that couldn't happen. And honestly the fact that I'm thinking about characters that aren't even mentioned on-screen is a testament to how expansive the MCU feels nowadays. And the best thing I can say about this show is that it expanded the already massive MCU even further. This series felt way more impactful than WandaVision, and it changed a lot more for the MCU going forward than that show did.
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