Hello everyone! 🙂
Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!
After enjoying eight weeks of ‘WandaVision’ on Disney+ from January to March, it’s time to check out the next ‘Marvel Cinematic Universe’ web-series called ‘The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’. It stars Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson/the Falcon and Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes/the Winter Soldier.
It’s great to be watching these new ‘MCU’ shows on Disney+. It makes up for the absence of being able to enjoy the ‘MCU’ films at the cinema with the world currently going through a pandemic – please keep safe. I pray we’ll get to see ‘MCU’ films at the cinema soon once the pandemic is over. 🙂
In the meantime, let me share my thoughts on the first episode of ‘The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’. The series takes place after the events of ‘Avengers: Endgame’ where Sam and Bucky are adjusting to life, having returning from the Blip which took five years during the events of the film. 😐
The series was created by Malcolm Spellman and the episodes are directed by Kari Skogland. I enjoyed the first episode of ‘The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’, although I wish we could have seen Sam and Bucky meeting each other as they were mostly separated from each other in this episode. 😦
‘The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’ is meant to last for six episodes and is meant to be a continuing story like the ‘WandaVision’ series was. I think the storytelling is more straightforward in ‘The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’ and there are some more serious undertones compared to ‘WandaVision’. 🙂
It’s six months since the events of ‘Avengers: Endgame’. Sam Wilson/the Falcon works with the U.S. Air Force in order to stop George St-Pierre as Georges Batroc, who is a mercenary and the leader of the criminal group called the LAF. Georges Batroc appeared in ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’.
Whilst that’s going on, Bucky Barnes has been recently pardoned for being the Winter Soldier in the two ‘Captain America’ movies ‘The Winter Soldier’ and ‘Civil War’. He has to attend government-mandated therapy but he struggles to open up his feelings and share that he’s had some nightmares.
Just to give you a refresher about who Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes are: Bucky was Captain America’s friend in World War II during ‘Captain America: The First Avenger’. Sam was Captain America’s friend during ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’. Both friends from different periods! 🙂
Looking ahead, I hope we’ll see more of how Sam and Bucky will work together as a pair and how they contrast in terms of being Captain America’s former friends. I guess there will be some tension between them, especially with Bucky being a former brainwashed assassin compared to Sam here. 😐
At the end of ‘Avengers: Endgame’, Captain America gave his shield to Sam. Sam however doesn’t feel he has the right to own that shield, so he gives it to the U.S. government for a museum display instead. I don’t think Sam should’ve done that considering what happens by the episode’s conclusion.
The episode also features a brief appearance of Don Cheadle as James ‘Rhodey’ Rhodes who used to be War Machine alongside Iron Man. There’s also Danny Ramirez as Joaquin Torres, a first lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force who serves as Sam Wilson’s support staff as they investigate the Flag-Smashers.
There’s also Erin Kellyman as Karli Morgenthau, the leader of the Flag-Smashers, an anti-patriotism group who believe the world was better during the Blip. And there’s Adepro Oduye as Sarah Wilson, Sam’s sister who runs the Wilson family’s fishing business in Louisiana. Nice to see her in this series! 🙂
The first episode concluded with Sam watching the news on TV as the government announced a new Captain America. This happens to be Wyatt Russell as John Walker. I don’t believe we saw him early on in the episode since he just appears for the very first time at the end. It was totally unexpected. 😐
I enjoyed the first episode of ‘The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’ very much. I was disappointed that Sam and Bucky didn’t meet up with each other in the first episode as you would expect, but I hope that’ll be made up for in the following episodes. Who is this new Captain America being introduced?
Stay tuned for my review on the second episode of ‘The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’ next week.
Thanks for reading!
Bye for now.
Tim. 🙂
Bradley's Basement 