The Falcon and The Winter Soldier Season 1 Review

 [Music] [Music] hi and welcome to the dynamic duel podcast a weekly show where we review superhero films and debate the superiority between marvel and dc by comparing their characters and stat based battle simulations i’m marvelous joe and i’m his twin brother johnny dc and in this episode we are going to review the disney plus television show the falcon and the winter soldier yes the second mcu television series that disney plus has put out after one division and we’ll talk all about it later on this episode before that we’re gonna break down the comic book movie news and podcast news from the past week including the new announcement from apple regarding the apple podcast subscription service that they’re going to launch in may yeah it’s not superhero movie news related in any way but it’s important to this show and podcasts in general the whole medium so we want to talk about it with you guys after that we’re going to talk about the shang chi and the legend of the 10 rings official teaser we’re going to discuss how emilia clarke has been cast in the secret invasion disney plus series and finally we’re going to talk about the new modoc trailer the animated show that’s going to be on hulu that’s right no dc news this week this is a all marvel episode all the time that’s how this podcast should always be i mean i’m not too angry because like dc has kind of dominated the news cycle for the past few weeks so yeah i’ll give it to you i mean those have all been small stories but okay if you guys have listened to the show for a while and you want to support it there are three ways you could do that the first way is to follow us on social media please especially follow us on instagram because we’re trying to get to  and if we do we have a special surprise for you guys you can also rate us or review us on your platform of choice whatever you’re listening to us on including apple podcasts or podchaser.com yeah if you don’t use apple podcasts your best bet is podchaser when it comes to podcast reviews the third way is you can join us on patreon we’re starting at two dollars a month you can chat with jonathan and i on discord and get access to monthly bonus content including a blooper reel and our monthly bracket brawl tournament from there we have higher tiers where you can even become an executive producer of the show we want to thank everyone who chooses to support this show means a big deal to jonathan and i who put a lot of work into this podcast and with that out of the way quick to the no prize so a no prize is an award that marvel used to give out up until the 90s to fans our version the dynamic duel no prize is a digital award that we post on social media that i personally draw for those who we feel gave the best answer to our question of the week last week’s question was who do you hope pilu aspect will play in aquaman 2. and this came off of the news that pilu aspect was cast in the film in an undisclosed role we don’t know who he’s playing so we wanted your best guesses and for those who don’t know the name or the actor he was you’re on greyjoy from game of thrones if you watch that show that might help out great actor let’s go over the honorable mentions as well as the no prize winner our first honorable mention goes to corey wooten who said hey guys corey wooten here um speaking to i believe it’s pronounced alpin uh euron greyjoy um cordax he could play cordax he’s got the size the hair the crazy look in his eyes um i thought the best i could come up with um i’m not sure like you guys said aquaman does not have a great list of um um odds and ends character sounds like he got cut off but not a bad answer with cordax cordax was this ancient atlantean who sort of was the first one able to communicate with sea life there’s this thing in atlantean mythology in dc comics where if you’re born with blonde hair you have the curse of cortex which means you like him can communicate with sea life aquaman is one of those people which is why he was abandoned on mercy reef in one iteration of his origin i don’t know if they’re gonna go that route with this film series considering jason momoa is not blonde same thing with palu aspect too right yeah maybe it’s not the blonde curse maybe it’s the uh awesome facial hair curse or something yeah yeah or tattoo cursing i don’t know badass eyebrow curse there you go there you go there you go but no cordax would be a pretty cool villain to see teamed up with black manta for the aquaman sequel our next honorable mention goes to michael hagerty who said hey guys michael hagerty here so who will he be playing the actor who i will not even begin to try to pronounce because i’ll probably butcher it i think he’ll be playing charybdis or i might have butchered that one too so maybe it goes hand in hand um yeah i know he’s the piranha man he’s the guy who uh you know he did the thing with the thing and the thing but uh you can’t pronounce either their name so maybe that’s why he will be cast as him michael hagerty made a great use of that 30 seconds [Laughter] yeah he filled it up but he has a point maybe it’s fate that the actor with the unpronounceable name gets cast as the character with the unpronounceable name tribness trivis is how you pronounce it right yeah he’s named after the monster in the greek story the odyssey yeah right in the comics he was the villain responsible for aquaman losing his hand which i kind of hope they go with in the aquaman sequel because the only thing that would make jason momoa more badass is jason momoa with a harpoon for a hand i’ve always wanted to see that from a superhero although he has the trident so why the hell do you need a harpoon hand if you have like the kingly trident i don’t know maybe he loses that or something like that i don’t know that would be lame i do like to try it maybe his hand is a trident he just shoves the trident into his like stump arm okay our final honorable mention goes to dustin balcom who said hey dynamic duel dustin balcom here and as someone who actually really enjoys the character of aquaman and has read quite a few of the comics i would say quorum wrath would be great for that actor to play he is someone who is angry towards the sentimental nature that aquaman has towards the surface world and is angry about it and kind of rises up as a terrorist organization to try to disrupt that piece and even take over the throne at one point so i think that would be a great great character for him to play yeah of all the answers we received i actually think corm wrath is probably the most likely character that blue aspect would play in a movie you know now that aquaman is king he’s going to have to deal with people who don’t like the fact that this outsider is on the throne and karmarath could represent that perfectly yeah going up against an insurrection within his own kingdom and going up against black manta he’s getting it from both sides i think that’s a great way to put aquaman in the ringer and then maybe quorum wrath like breaks orm out of sea prison or something like that so that he can be back on the throne since he’s like a true atlantean that’s perfect yeah my bet is on quorum wrath for pillow aspect great answer great answer but not the winner before we announce the winner we want to give a quick shout out to everyone who went onto our website and gave us their answer for the question of the week we appreciate you guys taking the time to do so so special thanks to shane havison and i think it’s pronounced grim rothour it wasn’t quite clear by the audio thanks to al gustafsson and matthew gonzalez yeah thanks a lot guys but this week’s no prize goes to mickey madden ian who said hey guys this is maggie and i was hoping the palau aspect would play boston x in aquaman 2. i was hoping the sequel would follow the story of the others in the new 52 and i think it would just be a great way for black manta to up the stakes and the dc and dcu to introduce new characters now i don’t even consider the others as being potential characters within the aquaman sequel but now that miggy has introduced that into my brain it has to happen i love the others i love that new 52 run of aquaman jeff johns did a great job with that if you’re not familiar with the others they’re sort of like aquaman’s own justice league in a way there’s seven members of them each one has a different atlantean relic that kind of gives them super powers like the trident like the tridents like the helmet which is what vostok has there’s seven of them total the helmet the key the scepter the globe of transportation the manacles of force the power glove and the seal of clarity each member of aquaman’s team came from like a different part of the world and since right now we don’t really know the future of zack snyder’s justice league i would love to see like another super team on screen i think that would be really cool for the sequel how does that tie into black manta well in the comics black manta was seeking out each of the artifacts and he started to kill members of aquaman’s team so aquaman and the remaining members of the others were trying to sort of regroup and collect each other’s artifacts before black manta did that kind of sounds like thanos going after the infinity gems or something like that i guess it could be but considering you know the first film was like this globetrotting adventure if you want to continue that this is a way to do that and i think it’s a really fun and interesting way to do that i think i’d rather see that for like a third movie in the trilogy and then stick with quorum wrath as they will end in the sequel just to continue that arc i don’t know that’s valid i would love to see both of those films but i’m more excited to see the others we’ll see what happens congrats again to mickey madden guillen for winning this week’s no prize if you the listener want a shot at winning your own no prize stay tuned to later on this episode when we’ll be asking another question of the week and now that that’s done on to the news so guys not related to either marvel or dc comic book movie news but related to podcasts in general this past week apple has unveiled their new changes to the apple podcasts service they’re going to introduce what’s called apple podcast subscriptions which lets podcast creators offer their show at a price of their choosing to listeners essentially it’s a way for apple to begin normalizing paying for podcast content now when a podcast signs up to participate in the apple podcast subscriptions they set the price their listeners pay that price on a monthly or yearly basis the show is hosted on apple podcast servers which means it’s exclusive to their platform correct i mean the show still has the rights to distribute for free on other platforms and just have it paid on apple but they would have to host it multiple times what this means though is that in order for other podcast hosting platforms to stay competitive they’re going to have to offer a means for podcast creators to be able to monetize their show on their platforms as well just to make it worthwhile for podcasts to continue to put their episodes on other platforms outside of just apple exactly because apple basically popularized podcasts you know they’re named after the apple ipod and their platform apple podcasts or itunes is still the number one platform for podcasts in terms of listenership right so podcasters all over who currently produce their content for free are going to be faced with the decision of putting their content behind a paywall or at least some other content if they’re not already finding other ways to monetize their show yeah joseph and i we’ve never done this for the money we are fortunate enough that this show does make some money already but this new payment model offers tremendous opportunity to possibly you know do something like this full-time right because jonathan and i both have full-time jobs but we also both put about 20 hours a week each into this show that being said there are also downsides to this such as audience growth while apple podcasts will be able to let us offer some episodes as a free sample and offer people like free trials to listen to the show it will actually be really hard to maintain and grow an audience if the show is behind a paywall and we also have to consider those people who don’t use apple podcasts which is actually a vast majority of our audience we would also have to publish the show on something like patreon so that people can access the rss feed and put it on their own podcast player there’s a lot of ifs a lot of unknowns change is always scary and it’s not quite clear what the future of podcasting is and honestly the future of this show honestly our whole initial goal with this podcast was just to get onto rotten tomatoes yeah so that we could get free movie tickets to advanced screenings that hasn’t happened yet ron tomatoes if you’re listening call me and with all the fans that we currently have and you know the accolades we received last year from the colorado podcast awards i feel like our show is already a success and i don’t want to cheapen that by monetizing it that being said if we don’t do it we’re also throwing money out the window if people even want to pay to listen to my shitty voice they may not that’s what i’m worried about yeah we have no idea what to do guys but uh that brings us to our question of the week are your thoughts on paying to subscribe to normally free podcast content speak from your heart guys we really want to know how you feel about this potentially controversial paradigm shift for podcasts i’ll tell you my thoughts like over time i’ve listened to about  only like three or four of them at any given time i kind of like jump from show to show so i could probably afford it to pay like a cheap monthly price to listen to the content that i’m currently engaged with but there’s no way i would be able to afford paying subscription fees to every podcast that i’ve listened to it’s right no way yeah no way i’m hoping that maybe google or some other competitor comes out with a program that treats podcasts kind of like youtube videos where like google will put an ad before the content so that the podcast is free but it can still be monetized who knows how long free content will still be free yeah henceforth podcasts are going to be kind of like movies or books or music you know and it’s kind of weird and it’s kind of sad but uh record your answer at dynamicdull.com by clicking on the red microphone button on the bottom right hand corner which will prompt you to leave us a voicemail your message could be up to 30 seconds long and don’t forget to leave your name in case we include you on the podcast we’ll pick our favorite answer and draw that person at dynamic duel no prize that we will post on social media be sure to answer before may 1st and to be honest i have no idea how we’re going to qualify the best answer probably the one that’s like guys i will pay you to make the show for a living i wish but back to comic book movie news this past week we got the xiang chi teaser trailer our first look at footage from the movie and it blew my damn mind it reminded me of how i felt about like the first black panther teaser or like thor ragnarok or something like that it looks so fun and exciting i’m not gonna lie this looks dope as hell like this is probably my favorite marvel trailer ever i think it’s just because i was so unfamiliar with it and it was so surprisingly more interesting and cool than i thought it would be the martial arts action looks like it’s gonna be top notch yeah we got some pretty cool fight scenes in this trailer including when chongqi is training and finding a bunch of ninjas as a kid that looks dope and then there’s the fight where shanxi goes up against the death dealer with the digital billboard in the background in hong kong that was very evocative of the fight scene in spectre but i guess that technique has been used in like the matrix revolutions and even highlander where it’s the silhouettes yeah yeah it’s so cool to see though yeah that looks cool the 10 rings look cool i love so much that they turned them from like finger rings if that’s even the word for them into like iron bands that martial artists wear yeah i think that was a great idea the rumor is that those bands that win woo wears on his forearm i don’t know why the mandarin’s name is wenwu in this in the comics shang chi’s father was sheng zhu if you remember from our lady shiva versus shanxi duel but of course he’s like an amalgamation between the mandarin and fu manchu but anyway the rumor is that these forearm rings are actually finger rings that a dragon used to wear oh that’s cool we’ll see if that actually happens but that’s really cool in concept they do look kind of alien i guess because i know they were alien in the comics yeah yeah they were mcluhan and mcclellan’s are these dragon alien creatures ah i totally hope shang chi gets those bands by the end of the movie because i noticed he wasn’t wearing his trademark bands yeah in the trailer yeah and that was a big deciding factor within our lady shiva shangchi fight if you recall because i remember they’re very much a signature part of his look and if you look at shang chi’s final costume within this movie he’s wearing like this red tunic but his forearms are exposed which i think leaves room for potentially donning the rings by the end of this movie my favorite shots of the trailer happen in quick succession there’s two people fighting in a bamboo forest and then there’s also like this ancient war with like a lion it looks so cool yeah it looks both mythical like crouching tiger hidden dragon style fighting as well as grounded hard hitting action like in the cage match or against the death dealer it absolutely feels mythological sort of like we’re seeing mythic thor type stuff but from east asia you know we’re going to see what was going on there yeah that’s true and that’s pretty damn exciting i’m actually surprised that this movie seems to be taking place in america it looks like in san francisco yeah you could see like ghirardelli square and stuff yeah but a lot of chongqi’s history has been spent in london you know he worked with mi6 as an international spy that being said this approach definitely seems more palatable at least to american audiences uh which provides a big portion of box office revenue how cool is it to see the mandarin depicted as he should be this time though i mean i can’t even say how much of an upgrade it is from the iron man 3 version yeah ben kingsley yeah yeah tony lung looks like a badass and it’s cool to see that he like always wears the rings sometimes it looks like they kind of gather around his wrist and sometimes they kind of travel up his forearm which is interesting maybe like repel each other when activated or something like that they’re just powered up i don’t know yeah it looks amazing they did a fantastic job with all the choreography all this don’t work yeah the fight on the bus looks pretty cool that whole bus fight is kind of interesting i wish they would have ended the trailer with aquafina’s character katie asking him like who are you and then he poses and then it says shang chi with the cool ring animation they should have ended it there as opposed to the tact on scene which was mainly played for laughs and to give aquafina a moment to shine well yeah it’s it’s a marvel trailer they’re going to end on a what they think is a funny note aquafina is funny i definitely think that there’s something more to her character though because she’s just billed as katie and no main character is ever going to be given just one name yeah maybe she’s like a double agent for his father like keeping tabs on him or something like that maybe yeah her name’s definitely not really katie it’s something else we’ll see what happens the music was really cool in this too it sort of reminded me of black panther in the way it makes sort of hip-hop and like african music together here i heard a hip-hop and like asian fusion and it worked really well i thought it fit the trailer perfectly it makes everything so much cooler and it was already way cool i can’t wait for this movie to come out in september it’s gonna be a lot of fun in other marvel news we learned this past week that emilia clarke has been cast in the secret invasion disney plus television series she’s joining samuel l jackson ben mendelsohn newcomer kingsley ben adir and olivia coleman and i would have to assume tayonna paris from the wand division television series now reps for marvel and clark declined to state what role she’ll be playing but i think it’s got to be fairly obvious that an actress of her caliber and star power would be playing a pivotal new role she’s got to be playing varankhi the queen of the skrull empire oh really i assumed she was going to be taylor’s daughter just like grown up why because she was a female scroll that you had seen before well that but also because you know olivia coleman is older than amelia clark and i figured she would be the queen well varanki is not an elder queen oh i don’t know that i guess i also assumed that emilia clark wouldn’t want to be typecast as like the evil queen kind of role or maybe that’s exactly why she was hired when she ends up being taylor swift’s daughter i want an apology we’ll see when it comes to the skrulls almost anything is possible maybe she’s queen varanki shape-shifted as taylor’s daughter as maria hill you could get crazy with it i mean i want to be second-guessing every single actor all the time when watching this series i’m really excited that they brought on emilia clarke maybe she’ll transition this role from the shows into the movies you know depending on who she plays this is all conjecture but i’m just that much more excited to see a talented actress join an already talented cast in our last bit of marvel news uh we got a new trailer for the modoc animated television show that’s going to be on hulu later on this year now this was the only surviving series to last through the dissolution of the marvel television division ever since it was taken over by the marvel studios division led by kevin feige i was actually looking forward to all those shows like the kevin smith howard the duck series the hip monkey show and this one being that it was written by and is starring patton oswalt who is a hilarious comedian i totally could have played modok in the mcu yeah he’d be a perfect live-action modoc the thing is though would you ever want to see a live-action modoc it just seems so barf inducing the concept like i get flashbacks to hector hammond from the green lantern movie what the testicle head with the testicle head yeah exactly the characters are actually pretty similar yeah we’ll have to probably do a duel with those two around the time that this show comes out because we will be reviewing this show i’m a sucker for a comedy i’ve always been a huge fan of like the robot chicken series on adult swim and that’s what this show seems to be emulating did you ever watch the dc comic specials of robot chicken i saw the first one it was hilarious [ __ ] hilarious great it was such a good time and i’m hoping that this show will be the same thing but for marvel do you think that it has the potential to be given what we’ve seen in this trailer yeah i mean based on this trailer i would say that’s exactly what this is i find it fascinating that they’re able to use characters like iron man yeah and iron man is being voiced by jon hamm although as one of our patrons john strarovsky pointed out he sounded a lot like brendan fraser in this trailer they have literally the same voice [Laughter] jon hamm could have been voicing robot man in the doom patrol series this whole time and we never would have known what the [ __ ] i thought it was also really cool how we got to see wonder man voiced by nathan fillion yeah that’s fantastic you know wonder man has always been a really prominent avenger but he’s never made an appearance within the mcu i mean sort of like didn’t nathan fillion have a cameo like a cut cameo from guardians of the galaxy 2 where he played simon williams yeah simon williams the actor who is wonder man but i don’t really count that as an appearance since it was you know cut it’s just a great callback i thought yeah absolutely absolutely nathan fillion would make a great live-action wonder man we’ll do a duel with wonder man probably around the time that this show releases too which is just actually a month away on may 21st so i’ll have the wonderment duel we’ll have the modok duel and there you guys will learn that modoc actually wasn’t born with this giant head he was this aim scientist who underwent genetic mutation to expand the size of his brain because they needed somebody who could understand the calculations required to create a cosmic cube oh weird yeah so he wasn’t a womb wrecker as it were but uh great joke nonetheless a great joke a lot of these jokes really nailed it like the whole thing with like the divorce or the kids would be at fault if they told their mother what he was telling them yeah that was great the coffee joke at the very end oh i’m sorry i thought this coffee was for everybody yeah the show looks like it’s as good as i dreamed it would be when they first made the announcement that this was happening yeah and it’s rare that you get like these comedic takes on these comic book characters if you could do it with any character morocco is definitely you know at the top of that list but i think that does it for the news for this episode so let’s go ahead and get into our main event where we talk all about the marvel disney plus television show the falcon and the winter soldier [Music] okay the falcon and the winter soldier is a six-part series created by malcolm spellman and set in the marvel cinematic universe the actors from the movies reprise their roles here including anthony mackie as falcon and sebastian stan as the winter soldier i think it was a solid entry in the marvel disney plus lineup i really liked it even though i admit i went into it expecting something of the level of quality like captain america the winter soldier or captain america civil war and while this series didn’t quite reach those heights i would definitely say that i enjoyed the show overall i think the social commentary was even greater here than in those films i think the themes were relevant the action was very cinematic and of course i liked the lead characters there were some structure and plot issues i had but i’d recommend it to people who haven’t seen the show especially if you’re a fan of the captain america films to definitely check it out for those of you who haven’t seen the show i would recommend listening no further to this review because we’re going to be discussing spoilers from the show as all of our reviews are spoiler reviews i mean if you haven’t been keeping up with the show either it’s really hard to avoid spoilers online for these marvel shows like the ending for this was totally spoiled for me before i saw the final episode right because of the news that sam wilson will be starring in his own movie as captain america well not only that but like on instagram and twitter they were posting pictures of him in his captain america suit we also kind of knew that this is where the story was going anyway though well that’s not entirely true i did think it was a big mystery as to who was going to take up the captain america title you know bucky or sam considering both of them have been captain america in the comics before yeah i guess that’s fair i do wish they would have given each of them a chance to don the mantle at least once in the show but there is a lot of other story to get through yeah absolutely you know after the avengers end game the films and shows of the mcu have all dealt with the fallout of the events of the blip caused by thanos and i love that they honestly could have just dealt with like the entire fallout in you know spider-man far from home and i would have been satisfied but the fact that they’re getting so deep into it and really looking at like a real life examination of what would really happen not only in the show but also in one division it’s ambitious and i really respect you know the writing team for not glossing over the fallout and situation and really taking a closer look at it yeah one division was a personal story about wanda’s grief over vision you know spider-man far from home specifically touched on the legacy of tony stark and the falcon in the winter soldier specifically touches on the legacy of captain america but it also goes further and addresses the geopolitical consequences of having half the population come back after being gone for five years that’s one of the things i’ve always liked about the captain america franchise is that it always felt less contained to just the hero’s story and more topical to the world at large this is no different it addresses some challenging issues which i think is commendable and probably the best thing about this show yeah it really gets down to the street level of the mcu yeah and it’s just great world building yeah one of those challenges that the show brings up is the issue of refugees the perspective of looking at refugees as people not outcasts not inconveniences but real people with feelings and needs that cannot be met without the assistance hospitality and generosity of governments or other organizations the main villain’s primary goal in this series is to get back at the societal apathy that marginalized her and other displaced people the villain herself wasn’t very sympathetic we’ll get into that later but i think her cause certainly was not the whole like destabilization of nations and borders thing but her cause of defending those who are now facing deportation and who had never received the proper resources in those forced camps yeah i really have to commend marvel for approaching this from a standpoint where as the audience member you don’t know what the right answer is you know like sam you can kind of see both sides and it’s great honestly that they had the hero at the end still not have the answer yeah because there is really no correct answer and so instead of trying to force like a viewpoint or anything like that it’s really just saying hey let’s talk let’s work through this let’s look at both sides let’s try and be better so great i love the ending of the show yeah the fact that you know the show brings up the perspective of refugees is noteworthy and that’s something you typically see in superhero media no it’s not something i’ve really even thought about but this show gets me interested in that another issue that the series raised was institutional racism which is super topical in america right now absolutely absolutely if you listen to our robin vs patriot duel episode we go into the tragic backstory of isaiah bradley who is known as the black captain america in the comics basically the story goes that the us government tried to recreate the super soldier serum that transformed steve rogers and used a contingent of african american soldiers as guinea pigs isaiah was one of only 7 survivors of the tests and the only survivor of their secret suicide mission during world war ii he stole a spare captain america triangle shield and completed his mission liberating a nazi death camp he was later court-martialed and imprisoned for nearly 20 years before being released and sworn to secrecy and while isaiah’s story has no actual basis in u.s history it does hearken to the disproportionate number of institutional injustices black men and women have suffered in america sam’s discussion with him did a great job of highlighting why a black man may take issue with becoming an icon for a country that has always supported his people isaiah’s anger is completely understandable but sam’s decision to make the struggles of the past worth it by taking on the legacy of captain america was so admirable and i think a great lesson in how pushing for progress in the face of adversity is the best way forward i love the line from sam in the end where he was like what was the point of all the suffering if we don’t continue to push forward essentially yeah it was a profound statement i think now this show isn’t the first to address institutional racism uh the black panther movie also brought it up uh through the character of killmonger but i think this show approached the topic from a more historical american perspective kind of like watchmen oh yeah i mean watchmen was way better it did a way better but yeah yeah watchmen was amazing the way they tackled racism in america and superheroes i think entries in the superhero medium are at their best when they tackle these larger ethical social and moral issues and provide some insight to the questions that we all have you know regarding power justice mercy larger themes like that and of course you know entertainment is important too though right jonathan oh my [ __ ] gosh we’ve been getting into a debate recently on the discard with all of our patrons about the value of entertainment and i’m sort of on the side of arguing that entertainment is secondary to telling a good story and we all think that you’re a snobby piece of [ __ ] apparently yeah entertainment for entertainment value’s sake i think has merit as well it’s why we enjoy movies like you know punisher war zone who the [ __ ] enjoys those movies i do no thank you that’s a big fat waste of time but the falcon in the winter soldier series was certainly not just popcorn fair and i really appreciated that what i didn’t appreciate i think my primary gripe with the show was its sense of rhythm and structure now generally in film you want the energy of what you’re watching to ebb and flow in a graduel manner so the audience doesn’t lose their understanding or focus the same applies to television although that’s a little bit harder because the narrative has to maintain its energy not just in every episode but across the season as a whole yeah typically in tv the way they do that is by juggling a whole bunch of different side stories this show didn’t have too many of those when they did try to do side stories it kind of didn’t work like when it came to sharon carter like the whole reveal with her oh suck don’t get me started about that we’ll get into that hold on to that thought but this show veered wildly between intense action to quite introspective moments to character drama to fast-paced exposition to pointless nothing building a boat exactly you know at times the show was rushing you through the story so fast and at times the story seemed to stop like there was literally a moment where the characters were like well guess we can’t do anything right now exactly okay so just wait around this is just the waiting game yeah i’m not sure if it was just me but this pacing and rhythm issue caused the show to get a little confusing at times where like a vital bit of dialogue would be dropped in a seemingly low part of the story and i’d be like wait wait why is this happening what did i miss it wasn’t the type of show where like every line was vital and every bit of dialogue and form to the larger narrative but it was a show that would drop some of its vital bits seemingly at random like specifically in regards to the flagsmaster’s mission and their issues with the grc and things like that i’m not sure what caused the show to feel this way it may have been due to behind the scenes reshoots and edits that i heard took out a virus storyline or maybe that the show was trying too hard to feel like a film in its structure and it couldn’t balance movie rhythm with television rhythm but it was off and the narrative energy just couldn’t maintain that’s interesting that they cut out a substory it kind of felt like that’s what happened yeah as i was watching it yeah like something’s missing here yeah apparently i guess the flag smashers were going to release a virus on the world or something and that’s how they were going to kill half the population yeah i think so that’s so much better than just trying to stop a vote so much more on keeping i think with their mission yeah wow because they felt that the world was better before the return of people from the blip and the stakes are so much higher they should not have cut that kovitz sucks another reason to hate kovid if we needed another reason but i do have to say that the action in the show was really damn good like after watching one division which was you know more of a high concept show that was lighter on action i was hoping the falcon in the winter soldier was going to really deliver on giving us a lot of high octane action now the action we did get i thought was really good and very cinematic the cinematography as a whole on this show was [ __ ] incredible like every scene looked like a movie the opening action sequence between the falcon and batroc was amazing that scene in tunisia was by far like the most exciting action scene that we’ve gotten and may ever get with sam wilson i was blown the [ __ ] away as soon as that scene ended i literally paused went back and watched it again because it was so dense with cool moments it was a great start to the series and i thought that scene was an indicator that every episode was gonna have a big action scene like that but not only was that opening scene actually the best action scene that we’d get from the whole season i’d say the whole show was a little light on action set pieces overall and maybe i was just getting greedy but that opener was so good i just wanted more more more yeah absolutely i feel like a lot of the marketing for the show really tried to sell the action but it turns out all of those action scenes happen in the first two episodes yeah between tunisia and the truck scene yeah yeah it wasn’t really until we got to the last episode actually where i was finally like wow there’s a lot of action here seeing the falcon in action it’s just so amazing the things he does with those wings like i never wanted to be the falcon he’s like a seedless hero but after this i’m like he’s like b-list come on give him some credit here well well now he’s like almost an a-list in my book yeah he’s badass i want that jetpack i want red wing that’d be cool i want a pair of falcon wings if i don’t get it before i die i will be pissed oh that’s like me and like hawkman’s ant metal wings i think the aunt metal could cut through vibranium i’m just saying that no no i can’t one other minor issue that i had with the series was the dynamic of sam and bucky to me was always best when it was slightly antagonistic like in captain america’s civil war i loved their back and forth such as when they were fighting spidey they were kind of like that here particularly in their earlier episodes when bucky resented sam for giving up the shield but we did kind of lose the fun good cop bad cop rivalry within their friendship when they first announced this show i was like oh falcon and the winner soldier you know they’re going to be so funny together and that wasn’t really the case if anything their characters were handled more dramatically overall yeah again that’s another thing i think that was really sold in the trailers like this whole back and forth kind of thing that they really didn’t follow through with starting with you know like the middle episodes yeah but i do think that both anthony mackie and sebastian stan gave solid dramatic performances within the series let’s talk about the cast in our character breakdown sam wilson aka falcon aka captain america played by anthony mackie he was definitely the star of the show like despite the fact the characters had co-billing in the show’s title it was all about sam ultimately about his acceptance and transition into becoming the new captain america now he initially turned down cap’s mantle because he didn’t feel qualified but he also knew of the judgment he would face not just from racists but from people who wanted someone else from people at first to change all kinds of people putting pressure on him so he did what he thought was right and he gave the shield to the smithsonian and the government instead gave it to john walker and made him the new cap the devastation on sam’s face when they revealed john walker that was palpable yeah that devastation echoed throughout the far rooms of the internet too yeah yeah everybody hated john walker but we’ll get to him i think sam learned over the course of this season that america does need that icon that beacon to show people that they can be better it wasn’t just about being a good soldier like john walker but about being a good man like erskine said all those years ago it was interesting how they moved sam wilson’s hometown from harlem in the comics to new orleans in this show but i’m glad they did it though for several reasons one it tied up being closer to isaiah bradley who had strong southern roots in the comics two luke cage is so synonymous with harlem and this gives the audience the opportunity to explore other communities rich with african-american culture and three anthony mackey is from new orleans so it made his performance feel that much more real i didn’t know that that’s cool that’s awesome yeah what did you think of the new cap costume like i don’t think they need like the full like face chin strap wrap around thing just keep the goggles yeah when i first saw the outfit i was uh actually amazed i thought it looked really good he looked really cool as the new captain america oh yeah he did look really cool overall if i had to give the costume a rating it would be like eight nine out of ten yeah but it’s really when you take a closer look at it and you start nitpicking you do see kind of things that you would change but hopefully when sam gets his own movie captain america four they’ll have made some slight improvements to the costume yeah they usually do what do you think of the vibranium wings those were dope as hell it’s so cool that they’re you know just as strong as his shield that moment where he like folded his wings around himself and like protected himself from a [ __ ] crashing helicopter was mind-blowingly awesome yeah he even had like the shield on top it was kind of a nice shadow to the comics how you know sam got his wings from wakanda yeah that’s true yeah in the comics they weren’t military tech they were wakandan tech that black panther gifted to falcon after being impressed by him in battle i did like how the thrust was blue in his captain america suit as opposed to red in the falcon suit i thought that was a cool design element i love sam’s arc throughout this whole show i love the fact that you know they didn’t make him captain america right away like he really had to think about it and dwell on it and not necessarily earn it but like feel like he’s ready for it yeah you don’t have to be steve rogers to aspire to steve rogers you know and i think that was the lesson he learned let’s talk about james buchanan bucky barnes also known as the winter soldier played by sebastian stan now sebastian stan has always added this kind of nervous aggravated walled off energy to his performance as the winter soldier which suits the character well given bucky’s history but there were moments here where he really broke down and it was so well done i think when he realized the winter soldier programming was gone from him in wakanda and the weight that was lifted from him in his decision to forgive zemo and not assassinate him the relief in those scenes was very evident in stan’s acting yeah there was another great arc for his character here you know we’ve sort of been waiting to see this since the end of civil war you know how he’s going to sort of move on from the winter soldier programming and settle into a semblance of a normal life yeah this show may have been sam’s story of acceptance but it was also definitely bucky’s redemption story the fact that he was putting in the hard work at the end of the show as hard as it was it was the right thing for the closure of the people that he had affected during his time as a brainwashed assassin and it showed real growth for bucky he’s such a fascinating tragic figure and the closer he gets to like full catharsis the happier i am for him and it’s cool like at the end when he’s at sam’s party he’s like finally smiling again that was pretty cool to see now is it just me were you hoping to see him do more with that wakandan arm of his like i was expecting like a laser cannon to pop out at some point never happened no well you know in the books he’s gotten upgrades to it where he could like shoot fireballs from it and like discharge electricity and heat his palm up like heat coils right it would’ve been cool to see some of that stuff i think it’s like why have this really high-tech fancy wakandan arm if it’s not going to do anything fancy i mean it punches people really hard oh cool he’s already a super soldier that’s totally fair let’s move on to carly morgenthau aka flag smasher played by aaron kellyman now i said earlier that some of the flag smashers cause was sympathetic but the villain wasn’t that’s largely in part that this role was miscast i’m sure aaron kellyman is a fine actress in other work and she may have even acted in this to the best of her ability but i didn’t believe anything about her she wasn’t charismatic enough to lead a global revolution she wasn’t hardened enough to be physically threatening she wasn’t sympathetic enough to make me care about her she wasn’t menacing enough for me to root against her she was a net zero of all traits and therefore one of if not the most bland villain of all time what really pissed me off was there was nothing in her history to suggest that she could beat john walker in a one-on-one fight like she couldn’t conceivably have had the same amount of training he did and they were both enhanced and his will to win was at least equal to hers and she was beating the [ __ ] out of him like who was this show trying to make her out to be like some kind of hand combat prodigy like she beat the [ __ ] out of sam and like roared at him to like stay down and i wanted to laugh my ass off i did i did i think it was a performance thing like on paper this character seems to work fine but you need an actress who can convincingly sell the traits the screenplay ascribes to her you know maybe someone older definitely someone with presence someone who looks like they could win in a fight against someone with relatively twice her muscle mass i honestly did not think that she was going to be the main villain of the show like from the trailers and stuff so i was really surprised by the end of the series when there really was no larger threat above her i can maybe understand the angle they were going for with casting aaron kellyman where she’s like the little guy standing up to the big machine you know the system but it didn’t work here for me at least  failed the villain alone in this series brings my star rating down by like half a star it was that disappointing no i i think that’s totally fair this show definitely had a villain problem speaking of villains let’s talk about helmut zemo aka baron zemo played by daniel bruhl complete reversal from flagsmasher like i loved baron zemo in this show bruhl was a great villain in civil war and here he wasn’t a villain so much as like a wild card ally but he was so freaking smart so steadfast in his pursuits so refined yet so ruthless he was like the hannibal lecter of the mcu and i loved how the story’s circumstances made it plausible that zemo’s goals would align with sam and bucky’s that the emergence of these dangerous enhanced beings would cause zemo to fight alongside the heroes in the comics zemo’s motivations were never so principled but zemo has gotten into the anti-hero business before uh in the comics as the leader of the thunderbolts superhero team as uh citizen v correct yeah correct i thought zemo was was great in the show again there’s definitely a disappointment factor there though in that we didn’t see him more in his trademark mask yeah that’s true and also the fact that like he didn’t end up being the main villain in the end you wanted him to be i thought he was gonna be the power broker just kind of like pulling all the strings in madge report you know regardless to me ultimately zemo was a disappointment no i liked him too much in this to be disappointed by him i do wish that he wore the mask more often though let’s talk about john walker aka us agent played by wyatt russell now in the comics usage has always been the guy you love to hate and the guy you hate to love he’s the douche captain america who makes the wrong decisions albeit with the right intentions who usually seems to find a way to redeem himself and i think this show nailed that wyatt russell did a fantastic job capturing the dichotomy of the character where you can’t [ __ ] stand him but can understand where he’s coming from you know they really humanized him in like the locker room scene seeing how much pressure he put on himself to live up to the captain america legacy it was really well done and i’m interested in seeing where they take the character as us agent working for contessa valentina allegra defontaine and whoever she’s working for probably like leviathan i would guess yeah that julia louis dreyfus cameo came out of [ __ ] nowhere yeah it did that was pretty cool though especially with the character like contessa has always been nick fury’s like love interest and you know she’s had some turns in the past and everything like that but it the reveal felt bigger than the character actually is from the comics you know i loved how much the internet hated us agent yeah that was so good i mean like they were supposed to but like people were pissed they’re like not my captain america and it’s like yeah that’s kind of the [ __ ] point exactly people were like what are you doing marvel and you know that vitriol was by design you know i think white russell did a great job nailing the beats that he was supposed to in regards to the audience’s perception of them yeah yeah absolutely in the comics walker became enhanced through the power broker so when they first mentioned the power broker in the show i thought that’s where they were gonna go with it with john walker getting his powers and that was how the flagsmaster got his powers too in the comics through the power broker but they didn’t really touch on any of that in the show wait flagsmaster is a real villain in the comics yes carl morgenthau he was gender bent for this series interesting yeah well i guess you could technically say that u.s agents still got his serum from the power broker though yeah i guess that’s true okay let’s talk about the power broker sharon carter was the power broker in this show she’s played by emily van kemp what the [ __ ] like i know people change over time but agent 13 went from the most honorable field agent ever freaking girl scout to one of the most dishonest serious people ever that seems like a stretch to me she tries to avoid persecution for the crime of getting cap and falcon their stuff in the civil war movie by moving to magipore and becoming its secret crime lord that makes no sense i don’t care how resentful she is or how much [ __ ] she went through it’s so out of character yeah i agree this this thing came out of nowhere sharon being the power broker also creates so many holes in the story so go with me here as the power broker sharon worked with the scientist wilfred nagel to complete his work on the super soldier serum and magipore is her city she almost certainly knew where he was in the shipping docks already before meeting sam bucky and zemo so a why did she need to throw a party to speak to her contacts to find nagel b why would she even arrange for them to meet with nagel especially zemo who definitely was going to ruin her chances for her own super soldier army c as the power broker couldn’t she have called off the bounty hunters looking to kill them like why did she put her own life on the line and go through the trouble of fighting those guys on her own right d if she didn’t want to kill sam and she did want to kill carly why the [ __ ] did she hire batroc to do the reverse of that if she could have batrock find carly she should have had batroc kill carly instead of like spying on the flag smashers e why would she kill batrock when he threatened to out her as the power broker if she were smart she would have been like okay i’ll pay you four times the deal now let’s kill carly and then when they kill carly she should have been like psych and then shoot batroc like you don’t [ __ ] around like that in a mexican standoff this whole sharon carter power broker thing just didn’t work it was a bad idea and the show should feel bad yeah it definitely gets like another half star demerit just for this whole shitty reveal it’s too out of character and it brings up too many plot holes and the crazy thing is that you know she’s going to come back probably for the captain america movie so how are they going to resolve all of that by making her a scroll maybe you could do that or you could make her like a secret double agent for shield oh that could work like she was secretly pretending to be evil in order to draw out the real bad guys at madrid exactly hmm i’ll allow that that’s really the only positive way i could see this whole thing let’s move on to isaiah bradley who is played by carl lumby now i don’t have any notes on the character other than i’m really glad that they included him in the show because i wasn’t expecting that i’m not sure how many people know of isaiah bradley outside of the hardcore comics fans or listeners of our show but i’m glad he got his moment especially at the end of the season when he got his section in the captain america museum when i saw that i was like ah my heart and i almost teared up it was like the most poignant moment in the entire season yeah it was definitely special um i really hope he returns for the captain america four film and i really hope he like ends up giving a blood transfusion to his grandson yeah to set eli up as one of the young avengers exactly yeah he’s like the last one that they have to set up right yeah because they have speed and wicked already to go they’ll have kate bishop cassie lange is already in the movies but they still need hulkling they have kang coming off yeah and they’ve already done vision they can merge the two i don’t know all i know is that they already have their eli yeah eli is a fascinating character in his own right again guys listen to our patriot versus robin episode for all that let’s move on to our story highlights episode one was called new world order working with the us air force falcon saves a hostage from a terrorist group led by batroc struggling with the concept of becoming the new captain america sam gives the shield to the government for museum display bucky attends therapy as a condition of his pardon from his assassinations as the winter soldier sam learns from his associate joaquin torres of an anti-nationalist group called the flag smashers and debates with his sister over the family’s fishing business in louisiana the government announces john walker as the new captain america wielding the shield as we mentioned before the tunisian airspace fight was the best action scene of the entire season between the bad guys wing suits zipping through the canyon the red wing drone was so cool the way like he destroyed the helicopter and the way falcon grapple-lined to that gunner from the helicopter he [ __ ] eats a dude in the cliffside and he sticky mined that helicopter and it blew up and the way the missiles locked onto him and he got those to blow up the other helicopters and how it ended how he flew through the helicopter to save captain vassant it was it was nonstop it was so amazing yeah it was high octane edgy receipt top-notch action i’m about to go watch that scene again after this review because it was that cool it was a fantastic way to start the series you could have done better than that no it was cool to see james rhodes cameo in this episode too that was cool i thought he was going to pop up towards the end again to give him like his new wings but it was also cool to see that they came from wakanda this episode did seem to suggest that the avengers don’t get paid for their superheroic work in the mcu but it should be noted that in the comics the avengers do get a stipend from the united nations for the heroic acts it doesn’t pay well apparently but it does pay episode 2 was called the star-spangled man we learned more about john walker as he pledges to honor the mantle on television bucky gets pissed at sam for giving up the shield but accompanies him to confront the flag smashers they find them stealing a truck shipment of medicine and the pair fights against them alongside the new cap and his sidekick battle star the flag smashers turn out to be super soldiers and they escape investigating how they got the serum sam and bucky visit isaiah bradley a black veteran super soldier who was imprisoned and experimented on for 30 years isaiah refuses to help them and sam and bucky decide that their next best lead is beren zemo who knows about hydra’s old winter soldier program is battlestar uh actual character from the comics yeah he was actually a character who uh acted as a villain for usage to kind of like promote him as a hero what but uh he ended up becoming u.s agents sidekick later episode three was called power broker so offering his help to stop the super soldier’s flag smasher zebo escapes from prison with bucky’s help turns out zemo is former sokovian royalty a baron and he flies samubucki to the crime-ridden island of majapur to meet with a contact named shelby who tells them that a scientist named nagel managed to recreate the serum through sharon carter who now lives on the island dealing stolen art the group finds and meets nagel at his lab they learn he created 20 doses which carly morgenthau the head flagsmasher stole zemo kills nagel as the group is attacked by bounty hunters they fight back and escape from madrapor to latvia where they believe carly is bucky runs into the dora milaje there who want zemo imprisoned for killing their former king t’chaka i did love that this episode got hashtag released the zemo cut trending and marvel released it an hour long video of just baron zemo dancing so great kudos to them yeah episode four was called the whole world is watching wakanda gives the group eight hours before they bring zemo in they find carly but are intercepted by the new captain america and battle star sam tries to reason with carly but walker intervenes and attacks her zemo shoots carly and destroys her supply of remaining super soldier serum vials except for one which walker finds and takes zemo escapes the dora melange and the group confronts the flagsmashers again in the fight carly kills battlestar and in his rage john walker decapitates one of the flag smashers in public i don’t think they specified whether or not he decapitated him i thought he just like split open his chest or stomach or something i mean it’s possible i don’t know what’s more violent yeah neither one is better than the other he’s still dead that shield was still covered in blood that was quite the visual that was really troublesome to see i love how badass the dora milaj they are and i love how they were able to take out john walker without the super soldier serum and i love that he was pissed about it yeah that was great just really put him in his place because he was like really [ __ ] condescending yeah he thought like [ __ ] captain america made him kink over everyone he needed to get his ass kicked and yeah glad that happened episode 5 was called truth sam and bucky forcefully take the shield back from walker who destroyed sam’s wings sam travels back to the states while bucky finds zemo and sokovia and turns him over to the dora milage to imprison him in the raft walker gets dishonorably discharged but is approached by contessa valentina allegra defontaine with the promise of a job sam takes the shield to isaiah who states that after the way he and other african americans were treated by the government no self-respecting black man would want the captain america mantle sam helps fix his family’s boat with bucky’s help who gives sam a new vibranium wing suit from the wakandans sam trains with the shield and decides to take up his rightful mantle as captain america meanwhile the flag smashers plan an attack on the global repatriation council in new york joined by batroc this episode kind of drug on for me with the whole boat thing this was the episode where they’re like well we have nothing to do until there’s something to do this episode had a pretty cool easter egg with joaquin torres who ends up becoming the new falcon i don’t know if you remember from my falcon bio where we put him against dr midnight but he’s the guy who gets spliced with falcon dna he ends up getting falcon powers and sam can communicate with him telepathically since in the comics sam wilson has a psychic link with all birds that’s right that was weird i’m betting that joaquin torres will show up again in the new captain america movie as sam’s sidekick episode 6 was called one world one people sam bucky john walker and sharon carter attempt to stop the flag smashers attack and save the grc members from being killed sharon corners carly and it’s revealed she’s the power broker who wanted the serum recreated to form an army of soldiers under her control and magipore batroc threatens to reveal her secret and sharon kills him before killing carly too sam reveals himself to the media as the new captain america during a lecture and how the blip refugees have no say in what happens to them and the council should advocate more for them and not forcefully relocate them the remaining flag smashers are killed in an explosion orchestrated by zemo from prison walker gets a new suit and the code name of us agent bucky makes amends with everyone he affected as the winter soldier and sam has a memorial dedicated to isaiah bradley at the captain america museum in the mid-credits scene sharon receives a full pardon and her old position at the cia and offers to sell government secrets to her contacts again hopefully that’s all like a double agent thing that’s the only way i’ll accept that i almost feel like the climax of the show like the final battle wasn’t necessarily any of the fighting but the conversation between sam and like the senators and the other members of the grc council yeah that was a great moment that’s when he like revealed himself to the world through the media that he is the new captain america and the message was so i think profoundly stated and it kind of wrapped up so many other threads and arcs that they had throughout the series with like isaiah bradley and about the conflict of you know refugees but also the issue of legacy it was just a nice moment towards the end there yeah i really like that and though it was the climax that’s not to say that the action in this episode wasn’t awesome because i thought it was i liked a lot of the action scenes just seeing sam fly with the shield and like use the shield in combination with his wing attacks was really cool to see how more versatile it made him now that he’s taken up the legacy of captain america the mantle it does make me wonder how long he will have that role and how that’ll affect the comics yeah we’ll see you know there are a lot of things to really love about this series there are also a few things to hate especially the villains but i think that you know the action scenes and the character arcs of both sam and bucky and the social commentary that the show provided went a long way to making me really enjoy the show overall yeah the best thing i think this show had going for it was the arcs and the story for both sam and bucky i think maybe if the show had a little bit more action and a little bit less down time maybe everything would have balanced out and i would have carried or noticed as much but overall there seems like quite a few missed opportunities here with the story and the side characters you know i think when you balance all the pros and cons out you end up with a show that’s mostly good and actually has something to say and because of that i’m gonna rate it three and a half stars out of five yeah i know again i definitely appreciate what it has to say so i i would agree three and a half stars is probably good rating but that does it for this review let us know what you thought about the show by writing to us at dynamicduelpodcast gmail.com or by visiting us on facebook instagram or twitter you can find links to all of our accounts by visiting our website dynamicduel.com and again a reminder to follow us on instagram if you can also on dynamicduel.com is a link to our merch store where we sell t-shirts hoodies stickers and more with our dynamic duel no prize artwork and do you know who you’re drawing this week uh this week i will be drawing daredevil as a lead up to our next episode which is episode  between the suicide squad and marvel’s street team the defenders with like daredevil luke cage iron fist and a whole bunch of other characters like that yeah it’s going to be a big one we said we’d give you guys a big team duel match up every  we wanted to make sure we got this review out of the way first but look forward to next week because it’s going to be epic we want to remind everyone again to please subscribe to our show if you haven’t or please leave a rating or review on your platform of choice sharing this show on social media or in person is also a big help for us but that does it for this episode we want to give a big thanks to our executive producers ken johnson jace krump john strarovsky john spees john betcha nina and zachary hepburn for helping make this podcast possible and we’ll talk to you guys next week up up and away true believers