The Falcon and the Winter Soldier has reached the actual edge of its six-episode curve, which seems as good a time as any to carry the stock of what Marvel and particularly show-runner Malcolm Spellman have portrayed out. Too much has been made about the MCU’s first few trials into the television space on Disney+, with “WandaVision” perhaps making the utilization of the aesthetics and language of television to wallpaper over any narrative issues. During some times “WandaVision” was analyzed to be like a six-hour movie broken up quite purposefully into 20-minute parts, “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier seems to be like the the10-12 shows being squeezed into one, which, at this time, is less than a complaint than being noticed.
In episode 3, that is titled “Power Broker,” was comparatively less barbarous in the setting of the process, but however, it achieves the time to bring forward the Global Repatriation Council, which is a new Marvel setting of superficial scum and antagonism in the form of Madripoor, and the comeback of Emily VanCamp’s Sharon Carter, on the run herself since the happenings of Captain America: Civil War.
It gets proved with every episode that viewers are being pushed and attracted quite down into the marvelous crowd in the seeking process for the show’s big bad, known as the Power Broker. But it’s also using very bad real estate in building up other characters and plot lines that seem to be less narrative for the eponymous characters than the happenings with stakes and characters with arcs of their own.
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier almost looks like to be creating the opposite, like making space for its narrative wide rather than making a deep hole further into the depth self of either Sam Wilson or James Buchanan Barnes, which is also an embarrassment when there’s so much there. While the balancing and topmost subplot, it’d be good to watch more of Sam’s thought process with regard to his letdown veil of Captain America. No doubt, there are racial encouragements to his choice, and as he made that clear to Bucky in Episode 2 that he doesn’t have to give any clarification for himself further. But there seems to be more in the box.
The episode steps forward with an unrealistic commercial for the forerunning Global Repatriation Council before the transition to New Captain America and Battlestar appearing a few days late to the last known location of the Flag Smashers. The resulting bit of business in the hidden highlights are the most obvious differences among John Walker and Steve Rogers, along with Walker busting in devil may care, needing a translator, and lastly, being fighting upon by opponents who neither fear nor respect him
Overall, there’s a lot in the box to admire about “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier,” but at times, especially in “Power Broker” it seems more like a bunch and a gathering of good and mind-blowing scenes or set pieces that don’t quite add up to a satisfying whole. A sprawling narrative structure works for cherished shows like “The Wire” where a) the sprawl is the point (a snapshot of a city in peril) and b) there’s still time (five seasons) to dig a little here and there, but here it can feel, to borrow a metaphor from the show, like adding a new ladder (or two) to the side of a building instead of stepping one rung up.
