Is anyone else finding "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier" a bit of a slog?

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🚨 Spoiler alarm: this post contains spoilers up to an including the third episode of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. 🚨

Maybe I was just spoiled by the innovative storytelling of Wandavision, but The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is just NOT doing it for me. The most recent third episode had me looking at my watch the whole time.

I realize COVID fucked up Marvel’s planned release dates for their Disney+ shows — Falcon was meant to come out first, followed by WandaVision, and then Loki, but due to the pandemic and the ease of filming, WandaVision was ultimately finished first. (The next Doctor Strange movie was supposed to come out almost immediately after WandaVision’s finale, too, which obviously isn’t happening.) The problem is that Falcon is such a straight-forward superhero story that it feels like a huge creative drop from WandaVision.

All we’re getting with Falcon so far is Sam and Bucky muttering “I hate you” to each other and then getting into fights. Instead of shocking plot twists and turns like WandaVision, we get “Hey, look, it’s that minor Marvel character you haven’t given a second thought to, and we’re giving them character details that make no sense.” You’re telling me the US pardoned Bucky but didn’t pardon Sharon Carter? Come on. And when we first met Zemo in Civil War, he was a broken family man living in hostels, and now it turns out he’s mega rich and has a private plane??

The introduction of a new Captain America (played very well by Wyatt Russell, who I have a big crush on) was such an interesting move at the end of the first episode! Especially when, in episode 2, it looked like they’d all have to work together, whether they liked it or not. But then Bucky and Sam are like, “Actually, it doesn’t make sense for us to work with you, so byeeeeee.” Yes, we’re still seeing the new Captain America’s struggles in his new role, but by sending him off on his own, they just dropped a great conflict that would also help to bring the feuding main characters together.

And, honestly, I just don’t care about this whole super soldier serum plot. I’m bored.

There are still three episodes left, so maybe things will pick up, but right now, it feels like I’m twiddling my thumbs, waiting for Loki to finally get released.

What do y’all think?

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That’s all for me today, gorgeous! Talk to you soon.

Love,

Kat

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