“We’re going to fix this damn boat.”
Sometimes a rickety fishing boat on the Louisiana Bayou is nothing more than it seems. Unless it’s a ship moored in a series about pieces of metal and what they symbolize. In that context, too, it becomes a hopeful metaphor to make the bitter pill of greater morality run more smoothly.
“The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” was sold to us as a straight forward action series that taps into the chemistry between Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson and Sebastian Stan’s James “Bucky” Barnes, and sure, that part has been great. This proposal was enough to lure us in, but is not a sufficient foundation for building an origin story for a black American superhero.
To do that, you have to dig up a country’s rocky soil and analyze what makes it good and fertile, and it’s just as important to consider all the ways it has been contaminated. To fulfill that mission here, you need to delve into what Captain America and all of the super-powered protagonists stand for, and how ambitious symbols can become dangerous idols.
Indeed, this season’s lesser villain, Baron Zemo (Daniel Brühl), puts it best: “The desire to become a superhuman cannot be separated from supremacist ideals.”
Supremacy as a concept makes people uncomfortable, especially as it shows up in brutal discussions about what’s wrong with America. In the course of this supposed reckoning we find ourselves in, wise people have often pointed to the many ways this country is built on white supremacy – and a great many who swear they mean well never want to hear that.
But that’s an accurate assessment of America’s social and political architecture. Look at Minneapolis, where an unarmed biracial black man, Daunte Wright, was murdered by police at the same time as the trial of Derek Chauvin, the cop who murdered George Floyd, is taking place.
In the same week and in the same state, a white man named Luke Alvin Oeltjenbruns attacked a cop with a hammer and towed him with his truck at speeds reportedly reaching 40 miles per hour. He was arrested and booked and is very much alive. Supremacist systems are built to protect some people and destroy others.
This is a shade too heavy for the Marvel Cinematic Universe to approach straight on, so although an early episode of “The Falcon and the Winter Solider” features a scene where Sam is harassed by agents, his fame as The Falcon ultimately saves him.
The Mighty Avengers always prevail, and Steve Rogers, the first of their name, represents the best of American myth. As my colleague Amanda Marcotte noted in a piece on ‘Captain America: Civil War,’ the MCU and Chris Evans, the actor who plays him, draw Steve as’ a New Deal Democrat who consistently stands up for liberal values’, ‘anti- racist, anti-sexist, values transparency in government and its belief that we should be the people in power. “
He is also a prime beneficiary of white supremacy.
Such a terrible thing to say out loud about such a nice man, right? We also know that things would have turned out very differently for an asthmatic black boy with the heart of a hero who lied to the military several times in a quest to fight in World War II.
As if to predict anyone would argue this point, “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” introduces Carl Lumbly’s Isaiah Bradley, a black super soldier who emerged after Steve disappeared and was erased from history. The government also forced him, but instead of being supported, promoted, and deified, Isaiah was imprisoned for 30 years and treated like a lab rat.
At first, Sam can’t imagine Isaiah’s torture being wrapped up in Captain America’s legacy, so he pushes that story into the back of his mind as he and Bucky head into the season’s main mission. They are called in to stop a group of super soldier terrorists – or revolutionaries, depending on whether you’re a government official or a refugee – who are committed to defeating the global (supremacist) council that is trying to get poor people displaced by The Blip , forced to repatriate to their countries of origin.
Sam and Bucky grapple with that mission’s justice as they collide with the “new” Captain America, John Walker (Wyatt Russell).
Walker is a MAGA-era superman who refuses to accept that the world isn’t his, and given the military complex’s definition of who qualifies to be Captain America, Walker is flawless. He is the recipient of multiple Medals of Honor and a hero of the war in Afghanistan, physically skilled, extraordinarily arrogant. Saddling him with a black sidekick named Battlestar whose main job is to support his ego is the Chief’s kiss on the entire character.
During his media tour Walker assures America that he has it guts required for the job, and that’s when you know he’s just the wrong guy to carry the shield. Steve led with his heart, fueling Bucky’s drive to preserve his legacy by stealing the shield and, conversely, informing Sam’s reluctance to include it.
Walker’s gut reactions cause his partner to be killed, himself magnificent humiliated by the Dora Milaje and – as soon as he drinks his own vial of super soldier serum – brings out so much of the worst in him that he kills an innocent man with the noble logo of Steve Rogers.
After that, the supremacy subtext gets particularly intriguing.
Ultimately and through great efforts, Sam and Bucky reclaim Captain America’s shield from Walker before the government deprives him of his duty and issues a dishonorable discharge. Nevertheless, the system wouldn’t work if Walker didn’t get a chance to fail upward. At his lowest point, he is approached by the MCU version of Rebekah Mercer, Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus in a fantastic surprise cameo), who assures him that they have a future together. (Greetings Hydra.)
Still, Falcon and Bucky’s victory doesn’t confirm Sam’s right to wear that complicated piece of metal. To fully defeat Walker, Sam must dismantle the white supremacist ideals he’s internalized. (Witnessing a group of elite Wakandan warriors shredding Walker to pieces probably helps; it was certainly therapeutic to watch.)
Again, the writers use Zemo to explain what this means. “You must have really looked up to Steve,” Zemo tells Sam in the third episode. “But I realized something when I met him. The danger with people like him, America’s super soldiers, is that we put them on pedestals. They become symbols, icons, and then we start to forget their shortcomings. From there, cities fly. Innocent people die. Movements are formed. Wars are fought. “
The Zemo turns to Bucky. ‘You remember that, don’t you? As a young soldier sent to Germany to stop a crazy icon? ‘
Let’s think for a moment about how smart it is that these truths come from this bad man. Zemo is awful. A murderer. Nor is he wrong. (Plus, this series isn’t the first superhero TV show to earn these marks.)
But these observations are less for Sam to accept than for the public to digest, because on some level the ‘Falcon and Winter Soldier’ writers understand that those words touched differently from the brain that nearly broke The Avengers.
When Isaiah repeats Zemo’s point – “Blonde hair. Blue eyes. Stars and stripes. The whole world has been chasing that Great White Hope since he first got that serum!” – ask yourself if the ordinary guy on the street would take him as seriously as a member of the European aristocracy. Supremacy. It’s a real thing.
All of these factors culminate in the inner transformation that Sam undergoes in the fifth episode, “Truth,” once he sits down with Isaiah.
In previous episodes, Sam acknowledges the ways America has failed him. Nevertheless, and in his own way, he still believes in it. More than himself.
Sam originally refused to compete for the shield because he said it wasn’t in his hands and thought he was doing the right thing. In fact, he also knew that America wouldn’t easily accept a Black Captain America.
But it is not until he brings the shield to Isaiah that his final ironwork begins. “I was like you,” Isaiah tells him, “until I opened my eyes.”
Then Isaiah tells his story of being inadvertently injected with an unstable version of the serum and being told it was a tetanus vaccine, watching his brothers die, disappearing and being transformed into a government test subject. Despite all this, Sam insists the world is different.
“That’s why you’re here,” Isaiah says. “You want to believe that prison is my fault because you have that white guy’s shield … They’re never going to let a black man be Captain America. And even if they did, no self-respecting black man would ever want to be. ”
With that, Sam, his sister Sarah and his cousins return home to Louisiana and resume his other mission to save his family business.
Which brings us back to that boat and another important chorus this season, and that’s the reminder that the world is broken, upside down, and he needs a new captain. Rhodes says it. Bucky also says it several times. The local bank refusing Sam and Sarah a loan, despite knowing Sam is a national hero who saved the world a lot, should have been a clue.
Then they try to sell the boat, the only man who would have bought it lets them know that it has deteriorated beyond repair. What else does that remind you of? Maybe a broken world that needs to be mended.
A lazy story may have solved this by having Stark Industries dump an angel loan to the family from scratch. Not this symbol-heavy yarn. Here, the community muster their strength to save the Wilson family from destruction, by lending Sam and Sarah the parts and labor they need to get their wreckage seaworthy again. Bucky shows up with a mysterious box of Wakanda and borrows his super-powered elbow grease to save the day. The trust that ordinary people had real power is a real Steve Rogers truth and it takes place before our eyes.
As this is a comic book, much of Sam’s determination is materialized through a few heart-to-heart conversations with Sarah and Bucky, glimpses of his cousins playing with the shield, and all-important workout montage. Imprints! Crazy marathons! Shield frisbee, with acrobatics! Sam punishes his form into something bigger, better and faster without scientific intervention. Working five times harder to fight for a job you’ve already proven you deserve is pretty much the Black American experience in a nutshell, so I suppose that should be part of Sam’s inevitable audition.
If doubts still remain as to whether he is ready, whatever Wakanda has given him should speak about it. The vibranium in Captain America’s shield comes from that country, and there is a poetic righteousness to the idea that someone of African descent is striving for it.
And it is amazing to think that “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” would visit these places so that Sam would sell himself and the public believing in such a miracle. Only a self-respecting black man has the strength to stand up to the supremacist forces aligned against him and refuse to bow, determined to win and take what is rightfully his.
Let’s see what America has to say about that.
“The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” is currently streaming on Disney +. The final debuts Friday, April 23.