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ggyppt · 4 years ago

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In my 372nd review I take a look at The Falcon and the Winter Soldier 1x03 "Power Broker"

Spoilers Below

This episode finally feels like this show has settled into the grove of the larger narrative. Most of that has to do with the additions to the cast, most notably Baron Zemo (played by Daniel Brühl from the Alienist). Though, these additions also add a major level of frustration to the proceedings as well, which again, most of this centers around Zemo, they are still very welcome additions that ends up making the dynamics of the group finally feel complete. This, in turn, once again makes the previous episodes feel worse, and makes me actively not want to views those episode again cause they do feel left wanting knowing the places that the interactions go as the show goes forward. That in of itself is a major issue that this show keeps on doing, as rather than feeling like each episode is an improvement on the last, each episode has continually showed that those opening episodes were so much worse than I originally viewed them as, simply by being so much better at the functional aspects of being a show while barely being a better complete product than the previous episode.

Now, all that being said, we have to talk about Sharon Carter (played by Emily VanCamp from Revenge and The Resident) who comes back into the MCU with a splash. She is the star of this episode, between her absolutely amazing screen presence to the way she both feeds into and feeds off of the larger world of Mandripoor that she is existing in. With how naturally she fits into the seedy yet captivating realm of Mandripoor, the shifts that her character has taken offscreen feel natural. On the other hand, the fact that she feels natural in the world as a pre-established character ends up making Mandripoor feel like a grounded place that exists in this world, despite being a completely made up place. This balancing act hinges on the symbiotic relationship between Sharon and Mandripoor, and this show manages to pull it off. On top of that, Sharon is such a better presence in the fight scenes that we actually have the first truly engaging fight scene in the entirety of the series, though that falls away when it becomes a strict gunfight rather than letting Jess Durham’s (Emily VanCamp’s stunt double) skill in the close combat action.

Then we have Zemo, who ends up also working to seal up the hole that has been felt within the action scenes, and some of that credit must go to Daniel Brühl’s stunt actor Caine Sinclair. The character, portrayed by either Daniel or Caine, has such a strong physical presence in the scenes that your eyes are drawn to him even when he isn’t speaking. Then he starts talking and he becomes a fantastic counterpoint for our leads, and in the end, a much more interesting presence. That in of itself ends up exposing a foundational weakness in this show, where the actual characters we are supposed to be rooting for are far less interesting to engage with than the side characters that we know from previous experience that we are supposed to be rooting against. Now, while it is entirely possible for them to do a full face turn for Zemo, I find that highly unlikely, but once again, this is going to be an aspect of the show that will adjust as the full view of the series comes into focus.

Now, I’m going to take a second to explain terminology that I use. Face and Heel are two terms that I have stolen from wrestling, as I have found them to be more useful descriptors than hero and villain when it comes to talking out storytelling. This is because they end up having much simpler meanings that are also devoid of the moral factor that can sometimes make hero and villain bad descriptors. Face is just the person that you are supposed to root for, and the heel is the person you are supposed to be booing.

Thus, when we get into this situation where Karli (played by Erin Kellyman from Solo and Raised by Wolves) who is currently being depicted as a heel, and Zemo, a character who has traditionally been a heel, are both making great points that are important to be heard. In Karli’s case, speaking about how violence is the only way to get your point even heard a point that is a little too true to ignore in the current state of the public news cycle. In Zemo’s case, it’s his small speech on how we make people into icons and forget their faults, something that this society consistently does from the level of influencers all the way up to basically every president we’ve had for my entire lifetime. In turn, by putting the words through the mouths of the heels, they are vilifying them. That in turn, makes me opposed to the viewpoint of the show, in a sense, thus, untethering me from the reality that the show is trying to present. I cannot sink into and just enjoy this show because of the way they present these things, and to be uncritical of these things, alongside other things this show has done like their costuming (which I will not be letting go of) is to be complicit in a non-functional status quo that this show is advocating in favor of.

Now, that isn’t to say that this show isn’t also above villainizing its representation of global power, in the fact that is has continually showed US Agent to be actively at odds with the common people, with the opening scene actively throwing shade at the United States and their habit of playing global police. Instead, the show seeks to push the perspective that the right way is to leave the deciding of global right and wrong in the hands of these symbolic people, aka superheroes, a thing which Zemo has already been actively criticizing in a compelling fashion. This ends up leaving the show at odds with itself in ways that are down to perspective and performance more than anything else, which has caused major issues for this episode.

Then we have the ending, which is the closest to an actually effective cliffhanger that this show has gotten to. While it doesn’t quite have the feel of the actively game changing cliffhangers that WanderVision created, it is still something that leaves a hook behind that will create interesting drama heading into the next episode. The implications of which end up being a lot more, ‘how will they get out of this situation,’ and less the much more compelling, ‘what does this mean and how do we need to reevaluate what we already know’. This show really has been suffering from being the follow-up to WandaVision as it hasn’t lived up in any regard, but this is probably the regard that it has fallen the furthest behind on.

Overall, this is a major improvement in the actual functional aspects of the show, making it feel much more cohesively an actual TV show, rather than just a long movie. Though, this episode ends up creating those improvements at the detriment of it’s previous offerings rather than making this episode an obviously better complete product. Add this too some of the questionable presentation of political ideas that this show has put forward, which don’t work for me but that quality will vary person to person. This barely feels like an adequate episode of television, one with some of the worst foundations of a show that I have seen function as well as this one does, since the two lead characters are the worst part of the show at this point. 7/10

#ggyppt reviews #spoilers #the Falcon and the Winter Soldier

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