Originally Posted by Hammock Parties:
The whole show is ****ing laughable. Any government with decent spec ops would have popped a cap in Karly's head from 200 yards already. She's out in the open a lot. She'd be ****ing dead.
John Walker is the only one with the balls to actually do something about amateur terrorists (do they even have guns? they are laughably under-armed), and yet somehow he is played up to be more of a bad guy than Karly.
This series better end one way - the death or life imprisonment of Karly, or it is sending a horrible message to the kids watching.
This "villains are a gray area" message is dangerous. The producers and writers of this show are a bunch of idiots.
Yeah - the writers aren’t nuanced enough to really capture a true “grey area” with Karly. Basically their way of doing it is by telling us there’s “grey.”
To compare it to Game of Thrones. It reminds me of how so many Game of Thrones characters were saying Dany was evil to remind the audience without Dany actually doing anything to earn that title (seriously, Arya? You’re mad that Dany executed enemies of war after you massacred the Freys and fed Walder’s sons to him?)
Writing grey, nuanced characters is tough, and so far the writers to TFATWS are falling short of the mark (if that’s what their endgame is here). [Reply]
It's also quite evident she was cast based upon her character in Solo.
There the writers actually did a good job with that character, seeing as how she wasn't a fucking mass murderer.
There's also a key distinction here where we don't actually see "the bad guys" doing anything bad - it's just alluded to. So we don't ever really develop a hate for the bad guy.
Then the instant we do see something bad happen at their hands - the murder of Walker's buddy - it is used to tear down one of "the good guys."
I think the loan approval guy at the bank is a bigger villain in this show than Karly and her Flag Smashers. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Tribal Warfare:
Critiquing the show thus far, they should've had John Walker play out as a Jack Bauer being in plain/street clothes with a time sensitive plot. Thus, that in mind his namesake in the comic " US Agent" will be more established. I would've ended it with Walker becoming Captain America in the last episode that would leave narrative that the Cap mantle has a feeling of anxiety and worry going forward.
The Heart Shaped Herb and Abomination's(Blonsky) DNA, should've been the McGuffins for Hydra/The Ten Rings to steal and retrieve to engineer their own Super Soldier serum and perfect it . You'd have Sam and Bucky trying to obtain it with John Walker being James Bond/Jack Bauer of the story in plain clothes and not dressed up for propaganda. The U.S. Agent Walker is attempting to obtain both the DNA and the HSB for the United States by ruthless means if necessary to complete a successful mission.
John Walker isn't a douche but is a representative of what a hero needs to do to survive and overcome the odds, and not era driven ideals like Superman or Cap
The Heart Shaped Herb would've been the key if you wanted to bring the Wakandans into the fold [Reply]
Originally Posted by Cave Johnson:
This boat montage is super indulgent.
If that white boy Tony Stark gets a suit-building montage, by jove our Black Character of Flawless Character and Honor TM GETS A BOAT BUILDING MONTAGE. [Reply]
Very "meh" finale. It would probably register a little better in my mind had WandaVision not come out first. WandaVision was better by leaps and bounds. Maybe it will improve after I watch some of the nerds easter egg videos on youtube later today, but just very "meh." [Reply]
At the end of the day, I think the writers got caught up in the fact that they had 6 episodes and overextended themselves with the characters, storylines, and thus this series just suffered from having too much going on the entire time.
What I liked...
ZEMO and his Butler - seriously, so much fun. Wish they would have had more time -- this will be a common complaint.
I ended up liking John Walker. Cut the flag smashers and have him and Sam be teaming up to stop threats on a week by week basis while Sam is noticing him getting more and more aggressive throughout the series eventually the threats could have been linked to the Power Broker or some such. There were so many better ways they could have approached the antagonists (and the protagonists!) in this series. JLD was also inspired casting on their part. Very excited to see what they do with him as US Agent.
What I was meh on...
It's not a good sign when I just felt completely "meh" about the protagonists over six episodes. It was like the internal doubt Sam felt in the series was also felt by the writers trying to transition The Falcon from a supporting character to a main character. Big waste of Anthony Mackie's talents, dude is a born lead.
Bucky --- I know a big part of this series was him disconnecting from the WS (which explains his nerfing throughout), so it felt weird he kept the title in the end (was hoping they'd go White Wolf).
The Power Broker reveal. Just... eh. I know it's something "different" for Sharon. But even if she had 7 years. 7 years feels like way too short of a time to have cultivated the reputation she did in the city. Also, it feels like they went that direction to make her "evil" just to have a twist. Again, more time would have been really beneficial here. It's possible The Power Broker could have a Dread Pirate Roberts reveal where many held that title before her to build that legacy. Marvel fans are really hoping it's a set-up for the secret invasion storyline, but most admit they hope this because otherwise this reveal was just a big, big meh.
What sucked.
The Flag Smashers. I know COVID completely altered their storyline but they were unnecessary from the beginning. You devote a total of 30 minutes over 6 episodes to the antagonists and then go for an emotional death with Karli? Not at all feeling it. The show would have been much better cutting them from the get go and giving more time for everything else to breathe.
And to beat a dead horse.. THERE WAS TOO MUCH GOING ON. Nothing had time to breathe. The reveals and politics often felt forced, and while Anthony Mackie did the best he absolutely could, there was only so much he could do with such a crammed script and his development being left to montages. At the end of the day, didn’t the Falcon and the WS end exactly at the place we thought they’d be at the end of Endgame?
And with that finale, I think there’s a fair argument that it was the worst thing the MCU has ever done. They really did not need to devote an entire series to making Sam Captain America (which was already the implication at the end of Endgame), especially if that series was going to be as uninteresting as this.
Meh. It is what it is. A comic book based TV show. 10-15 years ago this would have been the best comic book TV show ever made. Definitely had some sloppy plot lines and basic timing issues, but I enjoyed the last 2 episodes. [Reply]