How's About A Discussion On The Series?

Not so sure that he's normal. Apparently they tested him in the recent past (probably as a prelude to having him take the job) and his scores were up there with what Rogers would have done. That isn't from being a "good ole Georgia boy, clean living, etc". Somehow I don't really think all that muscular outline on him and Battlestar is Kevlar in the suits. Would not doubt that Mutt and Jeff have a pair of enhanced skeletons in their lockers (so to speak). I mean, look at the difference between him flinging the shield and Wilson. Walker throws with the strength of Rogers (or Barnes, for that matter). Part of Wilson's problem with the shield is like he said "I do what he does" (pointing at Rogers) "just slower."

And, yeah, Georgia boy has a rather large chip on his shoulder (even though he gaslights pretends that he doesn't). A lot of what I'm getting from him is that he's hiding something that he really doesn't want folks to find out (and... points to conversation in previous paragraph). Quite possible even his bosses in the DOD have no idea of this.





The Flag Smashers (the red hand brigade) are bad guys. Just like Hydra, AIM, The Ten Rings, The Mandarin (the real one, not the one we saw in Ironman 3), COBRA, the Brotherhood of (Evil) Mutants, Humans First or any other group of "freedom fighters" who take it upon themselves to kick over the soup pot and throw gas on the fire and up the level of chaos. Because the five years of The Blip were not days of peace, love, Age of Aquarius, doe eyed folks in love beads, head bands and bare feet circle drumming and singing "Hakuna Matata" while sharing blunts and brownies.

And I wasn't referencing the comics. The bits and pieces picked up in Endgame and WandaVision plus extrapolating from the various responses from what I've seen on the news of other countries and their handling of the past year.

With Spoilers.

Okay, so saw Ep. 3. Some edge-of-the-seat stuff while they're visiting Madripoor. It's one of those Star Wars types of den of villainy etc. where poor Sam has to drink something with snake guts in it. Baron Zemo is... I don't know what to think of him. He's rich, he's a good fighter, he has tons of cool old cars (that I covet) and an ancient servant (how was that guy getting paid all that time?). He comes off very well as an ambiguous sort, the kind you don't trust but who, so far at least, has come through. Love the coat, too.

Plot advancement: super serum had twenty phials. All stolen. Apparently, the researcher has been able to duplicate it without all the fuss and bother of a machine, and later on, Karli describes its initial effects as painful.

Karli. Karli says she wanted to be a teacher, but then blows up a building with trussed-up captives inside, startling her companion. IMO, if anyone's the 'evil mastermind' type, it's her, not her buddy who at least nominally leads this Flag Smasher group. His reaction to the explosion, something like, 'There were people in there!' makes me think he'll be more, um, sympathetic? to Our Heroes once they tangle. Karli's obviously a problem.

Wakanda wants Zemo. That's where it ends, as it should. Interested to see what comes of this development.

Vague analysis (which I'm not very good at):
This is the first of the two middle episodes, probably the start of the second act if this were a film. Our Heroes should be trying out a resolution that causes more problems. I think this fits with the addition of Zemo to their ranks. They didn't do much with our New Cap and his sidekick, but I think that subplot will end up echoing the Karli/Beard Man plot with New Cap as Karli. This sub-cast had a try and fail at finding Karli's group, then disappeared from the episode early on until near the end when New Cap makes his startling (I forget what it was but his buddy was taken aback) pronouncement about Sam and Bucky. This brings in a second complication that must be resolved in the next three episodes. Since the trailers showed Sam slinging the shield, I expect that New Cap and Sidekick will be demoted and Sam will take up his rightful place as Ruler of the Unive... the new Captain America.

Ouch! I would never work in a restaurant that houses live cobras. Even if I don't have to deal with them for the job, what if they're freed - earthquake, drunken brawl - and I'm standing there? No. Heck no.

*cringe* At least they use the whole snake. I'm guessing the snakes are 'ranched' in some way so they're more like venomous cattle than something brought in from the wild.

Not eating there. Not gonna. I'll stick to something familiar and a little less danger-fraught, like McDonald's in the middle of a racetrack with only a crosswalk for access.

Lol! The ex had such on many occasions, having been raised on a ranch. Fry it up with some chorizo and viola! (<-- another dyslexic moment from my childhood, btw) Lunch.

Meh. The finale was decent, tied up loose ends, put out strings toward the future, but it was very uneven yet again. That's been the Achilles' Heel of this series - it goes from good to mediocre and back again over and over. Too much talk and down-time. Positives: it didn't make the baddies two-dimensional. It showed depth and nuance in the characters and their backstories that logically lead to what we see on-screen. I did like Bucky flirting with Sarah. I like that she flirted back or at least was pleased by it. I liked that Sam got onto Bucky about it but not Sarah. Brothers, MIRight?

I liked (to hate) New Cap/U.S. Agent. He's nastily ambiguous. I was sorry to see Lamar/Battlestar get killed off. He was Walker's brace and shield. With him gone, New Cap was out of control. I liked their backstory of being buddies in the war even though the husband (rightly) pointed out that, by their ranks, they probably wouldn't have had much if anything to do with each other in real life. I'm doing Marvel's work by making them either friends because their wives were in the same knitting group or they themselves were on the same bowling team back in garrison, or they were childhood friends, or something, anything, to get them together. They worked well together as characters, and I think the actors worked well off of one another. Good pairing.

The chief baddie. Her story was good, it showed reasons why she felt they had to terrorize the entire planet. She's young so you expect a certain lack of forethought. She showed a lot of sincerity in her expressions and voice. She seemed to actually regret what she was doing. What put her over the edge as an irredeemable villain was that she still thought that killing people was all right so long as it furthered her agenda. She had to die. Her compassion ended where her fanaticism began. The actress did a good job of showing the nuances since she didn't get a lot of dialogue or chatter about her positions. I hope they bring both this actress and the Battlestar actor back in the MCU or somewhere. They're good at their craft.

Elijah got a stereotypical character arc. The actor did what he could with it, bringing it above what the writers gave him. I would like to have seen a little more between him and Bucky at the end, just to wrap that old animosity up.

Sam. Bucky. I like that Sam rose above the current debate over race and decided to do what was right. I like that he was protective of his sister and I like that she sort-of dismissed it and went her own way. I like the way Sam and Bucky interact, and that the actors also seem to share some camaraderie along those same lines. They worked well together and I believed that the characters were able to intuitively understand where the other one was coming from and how each would play into the scheme. Even though I don't think this was Marvel's best offering I do think they effectively spotlit characters who were only B-string in the movies and made them accessible.

Zemo. Gotta love that character! His contribution made sense, and I loved his action sequences. I hope we see more of him.

Spoilers: Yeah, the murderous Flag Wavers, the core group who were perpetrating the terror, had to die. I'm not sure if the soldier who put them in the vehicle was one of them or if he was just lulling them into a false sense of security. If it was the latter, what is the group that soldier works for? Will they be a problem in the MCU later on?

Sharon Carter. The husband called it. I thought she'd be more ambiguous going forward but they tagged her as an outright villain almost immediately. I was displeased. Her aunt and Steve were such good and patriotic people, it was a slap in the face that she'd want to sell weapons and secrets against U.S. interests. I don't like her, and I don't like her deceptively innocent looks. I guess they'll do the character good going forward but I don't like her in that visceral way that I don't have toward Walker. Her reinstatement opens up a lot of possibilities for the future of the MCU. I dread seeing more of this character. The actress did a good job, though, in making me actively dislike this character. I don't care that the character was done wrong. She has a fatal flaw that made what was done to be deserved, IMO. Visceral, I know, but that's part of story-telling. Like Loki in the Eddas, you like him, you're sympathetic, then he goes too far and you just dislike him and that you ever did like him. Iago in Othello, too, same way.

With the stated agenda of the writer's group, it played out as it must have. Not too happy with people pushing their politics like Soviet propaganda. It doesn't wear well, and it doesn't age well. There are examples going back to WWII and before of the same sort of thing. Think Disney wartime cartoons or the little morality pieces that are shown to children in grade school. Christian movies come to mind - they make the faithful happy but they're second-rate entertainment because their agenda is writ large. Subtlety is the name of the good entertainment with a message game. Always, show, don't preach.

Well, they introduced U.S. Agent so they'll probably get a couple of movies or TV shows out of the Dark Avengers. Young Avengers, too, since they introduced Wanda's kids and Isaiah Bradley (grandson, see I do occasionally remember right!)

I totally missed that it was Zemo's butler who blew up the truck. I thought it might have been that soldier or someone working for the Power Broker or the Contessa.

Bucky's not going to die, at least not any time soon, IMO. He's popular and Sebastian Stan is a fan favorite. We must go to different sites because no one I was hearing or reading even suggested in passing that Bucky might die.

What I do in those circumstances is email the link to myself so I can pick it up on the computer. I don't know if you can do that with the same email account (that is, me@somemailsite.whatever to me@somemailsite.whatever) but I do it with my Google mail to my ISP mail.