The Falcon and The Winter Soldier is much more down to Earth compared to its predecessor, WandaVision. It is what you would expect from a Marvel Cinematic Universe series, action, superpowers, and world building.
The chemistry between The Winter Soldier AKA James Buchanon “Bucky” Barnes (Sebastian Stan) and Falcon AKA Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) carries the show, the character growth and mannerisms that change over the span of the show are a nice touch and provide extra depth to a character. Zemo (Daniel Brühl) is given much more diverse characterization compared to Captain America: Civil War where he was sidelined. The introduction of the new Captain America (Wyatt Russell) is done perfectly and the actor does a great job to show how nervous his character was trying to take up the mantle.
The plot is wonderful, much better than I thought it would be and it very much parallels our society. We also get shown that the superhero-filled world is not perfect, minor spoiler; Sam Wilson tries to get a loan in the bank to fix his boat after he was ‘dusted’ for five years, and he is told his record is not good enough to get a loan. The fact that this series is six episodes long allows the story to provide more explanation to what is going on outside of doing missions; the heroes of the world do not even get paid for their work.
We also get a glimpse into the fact that even though Sam Wilson is a hero, he still has to face racism. When in an argument with Bucky, two cops confront them and ask Bucky if Sam is bothering him. This is also addressed multiple times later in the series and once again reminds us that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is just as broken as our own.
Bucky’s arc throughout the series is trying to write his wrongs when he was being mind controlled by the Nazis; this arc is not thrown in your face and does not take center stage but when you focus on that it is prevalent through all of the episodes. Bucky also is dealing with being friends with nobody and settling back into a world after being frozen in ice and fighting for years and years without stopping. After Captain America died he had no one to hang out with and was left with a permanent mental scar from the fact that he remembers every single person he killed.
The threat of the series is not anywhere as big as any of the movies or as WandaVision, but that was on purpose. This season was more focused on finding out what the characters were dealing with providing world building to the Marvel Cinematic Universe rather than fighting a big evil alien.
Overall The Falcon and The Winter Soldier is a great watch if you like action and will definitely be down your alley if you like good fighting, choreography, and character development. The ending of the show was a bit rushed, but that was because the season was initially supposed to have more episodes but was cut short for Covid-19 reasons. With that being said, it was very entertaining, and I look forward to seeing how these characters will progress in their future appearances in the MCU.
