On a special preview episode of our Marvel podcast, we’re breaking down everything we know about The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. With Bucky and Sam both having possible claims of Captain America’s shield, are we heading for a showdown? How do Baron Zemo and Batroc play into this? And will the show attempt to tackle the classic Marvel series “Truth”? All this and much more as we get prepped for Marvel Studios’ follow-up to WandaVision.

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Full Episode Transcript

Alex:                 What is up, everybody. Welcome to MarvelVision, a podcast about Marvel, the MCU. And coming up, the Falcon and the Winter Soldier, not one but two of them. I’m Alex.

Justin:              I’m Justin.

Pete:                I’m Pete.

Alex:                 And we are doing here a preview episode for the Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Now we have been doing this Marvel podcast throughout the run of Wanda Vision. It’s been very fun talking to you all, getting your theories either on our Patreon Slack, patreon.com/comicbookclub, or socially at MarvelVisionPod.

Alex:                 But we’re moving on to the next series. We’re going right into it. This is a slam bang action spectacular, where the last one was a sitcom puzzle box, I guess we can call it.

Justin:              Ooo, okay.

Alex:                 How does that work?

Justin:              I like it, it’s good.

Alex:                 But I’m excited to chat about this. I’m excited about this, not least of which because this was supposed to be the first series out of the gate. They were supposed to release Falcon and the Winter Soldier, then they switched it up and went for Wanda Vision first. That obviously enormous hit, I think way beyond their expectations.

Justin:              Yeah.

Alex:                 But interestingly, and I’m curious to get your guys’ take on it, I think this has set up very different expectations for Falcon and the Winter Soldier. What’s your guys’ take?

Justin:              Well, I do think it made so much sense to put Falcon and the Winter Soldier first, because it was going to be just the most seamless tonally into Marvel movie on television.

Pete:                Right. Yeah, exactly.

Justin:              And Wanda Vision would have been a great like, oh, you like what we did Falcon Winter Soldier with all these fights and fun stuff.

Pete:                This is different.

Justin:              But this is a little different. So that got upset, and the order was swapped. But it actually works this way too, because the way Wanda Vision ended was with sort of the big Marvel movie action that you might expect, with just some great emotional moments. So now we’re just picking up on the Marvel movie action beat and just giving you sort of a much more fun, guns, punches, talking shit.

Pete:                Are you sure though, Justin?

Justin:              Well, pretty sure. I’m pretty sure.

Pete:                I don’t know, man, what if people are like I miss the weird, quirky, I don’t know what’s happening. I’m trying to shoe horn in my philosophies from comic books onto the show, and it may or may not pay off.

Justin:              Wait, are you saying that maybe grief is just a buddy comedy persevering? Is that what you think?

Pete:                That’s right.

Alex:                 What if each episode of Falcon and the Winter Soldier is a pastiche of all the action shows? So like the first episode is Gun Smoke? And then the next episode is A-Team.

Justin:              Oh, yeah.

Pete:                Come on, dude, yes A-Team, just stop there. That’s where it peaked.

Alex:                 Oh, that’s it?

Pete:                That’s it.

Alex:                 Can’t get any better than that? Miami Vice, there’s a Miami Vice episode.

Pete:                Aw man, that would be crazy.

Justin:              Magnum PI.

Alex:                 Now let’s talk about the actual contents of the show before we get too far into it though.

Justin:              Air Wolf.

Alex:                 I’m sure everybody is familiar, this is picking up on the end of Avengers Endgame. It was actually supposed to come out I believe in August, right after that.

Pete:                Yeah, what happened?

Alex:                 I don’t know. I haven’t heard any news on it.

Justin:              Don’t tell him. We’ve lasted a whole year without telling them anything about COVID. Don’t tell him at this point, he doesn’t know anything about it.

Pete:                Everybody looks at me weird when I walk outside, I don’t get it.

Alex:                 Pete still thinks we’re talking about Ovid, his favorite.

Justin:              His favorite canonical poet, is that what you were driving, Alex?

Alex:                 I was going to say philosopher, but that was wrong.

Justin:              You know, there was some philosophy in there.

Alex:                 So this series buddies up Bucky Barnes, AKA the Winter Soldier, and Sam Wilson, AKA the Falcon. Takes them and is picking up on the fact that Steve Rogers passed the shield onto Sam Wilson. We don’t know a lot about the plot, but we do know a couple of things that are going to happen, and certainly have some speculation and guesses. We know that Daniel Bruhl is coming back as Zemo this time, wearing that classic purple mask that everybody loves so much.

Justin:              The people have been dying for that mask. Everyone’s crazy about that mask.

Alex:                 I want a turtle neck and the mask.

Justin:              Yes,

Alex:                 Here’s the big, I love Zemo as a villain. I’m excited about the mask.

Justin:              One hundred percent, and that’s what that moment was for, him holding a purple mask. But can you imagine being like, I just love, I’ve really enjoyed, I really liked Iron Man 2 and that’s all the Marvel movies I’ve seen. I’m curious about this new show, why does everyone care about the color of that dude’s fit ski mask? I feel like that’s the approach their making.

Alex:                 The funnier thing is all we know really from the trailer is that Zemo says something like superheroes are over, there’s no room for superheroes in the world.

Pete:                That’s right.

Alex:                 Instead, I’m going to put on a purple ski mask and blow shit up all over the place. You know, not like superheroes.

Justin:              I mean he is a Baron. So think of the other Barons you know, like Red Baron-

Pete:                Sasha Baron Cohen.

Justin:              Sasha Baron Cohen, also a huge Baron. Lot of Barons out there.

Alex:                 [crosstalk 00:04:45] Snoopy Cartoons are the ones were Sasha baron Cohen is chasing him through the air.

Justin:              Oh man, what a prankster.

Alex:                 Goes up to Woodstock, says, “My wife.”

Justin:              The next in a long line of many, many barons is Baron Zemo.

Alex:                 Yes, exactly.

Justin:              A turtle neck on all of them.

Alex:                 Other folks that are showing up, we know that Emily VanCamp is going to be back at Sharon Carter, AKA Agent 13, so that should be fun. And there’s a new one, which is a very interesting twist on the plot, Wyatt Russell is going to be there as John F. Walker, AKA US Agent. So we’ve talked about this a little bit on other podcasts, we do a live show every Tuesday night at 7:00 PM, Crowdcast and YouTube. I think we talked about it there. But US Agent is I think presumably going to be the person that the government assigns to be Captain America, leading to some sort of battle for the shield type thing. Does that seem fair?

Justin:              Yeah, and I think it points to this show is going to be about who deserves the mantle of Captain America, with John Walker being like definitely not him. But really being the interplay between Bucky and Sam, and I think they’re both going to want it. They both think they are the more, the better inheritor of the shield than the other.

Pete:                Well, always-

Justin:              Let me finish. But also it’s a heavy mantle. They know that they can’t ever really live up to their idol, their mentor, Steve Rogers. So it’s a great push pull between the internal fight of do I deserve this, and the external, well, I deserve it more than this dude over here. All he does is have one big metal arm.

Pete:                Wait, wait, wait. First off, there was a handoff, all right? Old one handy or one army didn’t walk over and grab the shield, all right, so he’s got no claim to it. There’s no take backsies. You can’t be like, hey listen, I know that Captain America was super old and gave you the shield, but you know how old people are. He was kind of out of his gourd, and I don’t think he was smart enough. I think I should take the next shift.

Alex:                 Yeah, dude, right after Endgame, that dude ran and won the Presidency of the United States. So that’s pretty impressive, before you slam him, Pete.

Justin:              It is true, in candid Joe Biden?

Pete:                I don’t know, oh, you’re calling him Joe Biden, okay.

Alex:                 Nope, I don’t think I will. I could see a world. I’m curious to see how this plays out, but to Justin’s point and kind of to the point you’re making Pete, sort of, I do think we could see a world where Bucky starts to feel like no, Sam is not the right person for this. I worked with Captain America, Sam is doing something, Sam is going rogue, who knows.

Justin:              Oh, I think-

Pete:                No, no, no, they’re going to fight because it’s two dudes, so sure there’s going to be that kind of fighting. But I would hope that they have a little bit more reverence for the shield and wouldn’t kind of fight over the shield.

Justin:              Well, based on the trailer it does seem like there’s at least a competitive element to what’s going on.

Pete:                Sure, agreed.

Justin:              The whole trailer is built around that. So I do think there’s going to be something that happens either to Sam or to Bucky that causes them to question who should be the person to take the shield. And that’s an exciting thing, that’s a great emotional undertone for what also is extensively two dudes quipping at each other while they fly underneath trucks and screw around fighting anti superhero terrorists.

Alex:                 Well… oh, go ahead.

Pete:                That’s the thing, like the great TV shows of past, like an A-Team if you will-

Justin:              Like your A-Team.

Pete:                Yeah, yeah, where you just were waiting for the action sequences. You wanted to see someone jump over a hay barrel, that’s the fun. So I think it’s-

Justin:              Real quick, sorry to interrupt you, did you say hay barrel, because I don’t know why farmers keep their hay in barrels, because that’s an expensive place to keep your hay dry.

Pete:                Well, okay, sorry sir.

Justin:              I guess a barn is technically a big hay barrel, if you think about it. I’m from the country, so let me speak to this. You’re in my world here.

Pete:                And I know that’s true, because I’ve seen your teeth fallout. It’s one of those things.

Justin:              Donkey Kong famously rolled a bunch of hay barrels trying to get Mario. Allergic to hay, is what happened there.

Pete:                Oh man. So I just think that don’t fuck up this great thing that we know and love. The two of them, kind of odd couple working together, is going to be fun. We want to see over the top action. We’ve got to find a working relationship with those two, and I think that’s where the show should be. I don’t want it to start one person questions somebody’s leadership and stuff like that.

Alex:                 No, I just think we could see that as a plot point at some point. I don’t think they’re going to end up in a place where Bucky’s going to try to kill Sam or anything like that.

Pete:                Yeah, that would be whack.

Alex:                 Zemo’s whole thing in Civil War was working behind the scenes to, successfully mind you, break up the Avengers. Zemo one at the end of that movie, regardless of him ending up in jail.

Justin:              The watch hit.

Alex:                 So his MO is not necessarily to be like I’m going to shoot you until you die, I’m going to do a heist. He plays on them psychologically, so I could see a plot line where he brings Sam and Bucky to a breaking point, but then they get past it and work together to ultimately beat him at the end.

Pete:                And I just want to correct you real quick. Zemo did not win.

Alex:                 He won. He won the Civil War.

Pete:                Winners don’t get thrown in jail, okay? Well, sometimes, I mean it’s a fucked up, horrible-

Alex:                 Nelson Mandela.

Justin:              Yeah, Gandhi.

Pete:                All right, yes, okay, it’s a horrible system. I’m just saying that like-

Alex:                 Charles Manson.

Pete:                What?

Alex:                 Sort of. Too far?

Justin:              Larger topic, all right.

Pete:                Yeah, way too far.

Justin:              You should check out our True Crime Podcast, where Alex roots for the killers.

Pete:                I just-

Alex:                 I hope they get another one, I always say.

Pete:                Maybe I have to rewatch it, but I remember Black Panther coming out on top at the end of Civil War. So that’s how I will remember it.

Justin:              I think at the end of Falcon and the Winter Soldier they take the shield, split it in half, best on one side, friends on the other.

Pete:                Hang it on their necks. It’s a necklace.

Justin:              They each take their half and whenever they come together, they get a whole shield.

Alex:                 That’s going to be great. A couple of other details to mention about the show. We are going to see Batroc the Leaper is going to be back again, so that’s super fun.

Pete:                I’m sorry, what?

Alex:                 Also Don Cheadle is going to be in it as War Machine at some point, he revealed.

Justin:              Ooo, very good.

Alex:                 And one I’m very excited about, Erin Kellyman, who’s an actress who she played, what was it, Enfys Nest in Solo. I don’t know if you remember that. Which ended up at a very weird reveal and petered out, and obviously people have mixed feelings about Solo.

Pete:                Don’t say stuff like that.

Alex:                 But she peted out, sorry.

Justin:              Pete LePaged out.

Alex:                 But she was great in that movie, and she’s going to be playing Flag Smasher. So I think that’s going to be exciting to see. And the last thing that I’ll mention that I do think is kind of interesting is that Malcolm Spellman is the guy behind the scenes. He’s the guy who created the show, is the showrunner of the show. And I do get a sense, based on his previous work, that there’s going to be a little more or maybe a lot more to do with race than we think from the explosive trailers.

Pete:                Cool.

Alex:                 There’s some hints. We were certainly speculating, again, when we were talking about the series earlier that maybe they might start to go into the truth storyline for the comics, which showed that there was a Captain America before Captain America who was African-American and experimented on like the Tuskegee experiments. And that to me feels like that’s a lot going on in six episodes, but potentially a natural extension to show Sam and Bucky, if they do get to a point where they’re fighting about the shield, to be like, no man, this doesn’t even belong to Steve. This was somebody else’s first.

Justin:              I love that. Especially like as a full episode where we get, or three quarters of an episode or whatever, where we get that backstory, I think is a great episode. And I don’t know how explicitly they’re aiming at young Avengers with what we saw at the end of Wanda Vision, that Billy and Tommy-

Pete:                Those kids are dead.

Justin:              They’re probably still out there-

Pete:                Those are dead kids.

Justin:              Speed and Wicked, two of the young Avengers, to set up to go into this and get into that storyline. And we’ll set up a third young Avenger, so I think that’s very exciting.

Pete:                Wait, first off, a couple of things that you touched on there, Alex, I want to dissect. First, what the fuck you mean only six episodes?

Alex:                 I mean, it’s only six episodes. They’re going to be longer episodes.

Pete:                Are they two hour episodes? What are we talking? I’m not going to fucking invest time for a half an hour, six episodes. I mean what the fuck is that?

Alex:                 Yeah. And they’re going to release them every two to three years and call them movies, Pete.

Justin:              Yeah.

Alex:                 So Marvel is still experimenting with the lengths of their shows, but Kevin Feige said as they’re going into it that they are going to be aiming for half hour-ish shows, with variation for more comedically inclined serious, like Wanda Vision as we saw at the beginning. And once it’s stretched into the MCU nature the episodes got a little bit longer. She Hulk, which is coming down the road starring Tatiana Maslany, that’s also going to be a half hour comedy. It’s going to be a legal comedy, and that’s kind of what they’re aiming for there. But things like Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and presumably also Loki, are going to be more hour long shows. And in this case, that means 40 to 50 minute episodes, typical TV length.

Alex:                 So no, we’re not talking two hour episodes. We are talking six episodes that are about 40 to 50 minutes long. The last little bit of clarification to calm you down a little bit, Pete, is that Kevin Feige, Anthony Mackie said that it was about a eight hour movie. Kevin Feige said, “No, it’s not an eight hour movie, but it’s not exactly eight hours.” So the point there being, they’re not going to be six 40 minute episodes, like shorter than six hours. Some of them might be a little longer, some of them might be a little shorter. But they’re essentially aiming for like six Netflix length episodes, so to speak.

Justin:              Wow. That’s a long way of saying time.

Alex:                 Pete is very upset right now, so I’m trying to help him out here.

Justin:              It’s going to be like a 30 second TV commercial that lasts a third of one day. Okay? That’s the way to think about it.

Pete:                Oh man, that’s disappointing. And then what was the first person-

Justin:              You’re disappointed? You’re getting so much content, what are you disappointed? I don’t want to hear that word, get that word out of your mouth.

Pete:                What was the first person you said, Zalben, when you listed, and it was a character I didn’t recognize? I wanted to go back.

Alex:                 Batroc?

Pete:                Yes, Add Rock. I know from the Beastie Boys Add Rock.

Alex:                 Nope.

Pete:                But what Add Rock are you talking about?

Alex:                 Batroc the Leaper.

Justin:              He’s a French Leaper.

Alex:                 He was in Winter Soldier, right, not Civil War at the beginning?

Justin:              Yeah.

Alex:                 He was in Winter Soldier, he was at the beginning there. Batroc the Leaper, he fought Captain America. He’s been in the comics a bunch of times, usually has a very pointy mustache.

Pete:                Oh the mustache guy, all right.

Justin:              Ah, that sells it.

Pete:                Speak English when you’re doing stuff.

Alex:                 Of all the details about Batroc the Leaper, the guy who was dressed in purple and yellow and jumps around, the thing you remember, I knew it, was the mustache.

Justin:              Mustache.

Pete:                Yeah.

Justin:              Purple are going to be playing big in Falcon and Winter Storm.

Alex:                 Mm-hmm (affirmative), also the bruises, those will be purple as well. Before we wrap up here, any last thoughts on Falcon and Winter Soldier? Anything you’re particularly excited to see? I guess what we did was vision board for Wanda Vision. We can keep with that, we can keep doing that. Pete, what is on your vision board for Falcon and Winter Soldier as we head into the first couple of episodes?

Pete:                Well, I don’t want to just get excited about a TV show and then have it end. That’s going to really blow. So-

Justin:              I got bad news for literally everything in the world and your life.

Pete:                Okay, great. Great. But the trailers look amazing, and they action looks unbelievable, so I’m excited to get some more of that.

Alex:                 Yeah. Justin, what about you, what’s on your vision board?

Justin:              I mean, just sort of what we’ve been talking about. I want to see how they play. If they get into some of the race issues that are on the table here, that would be really great. I’d love if they got into some real stuff. Every Marvel sort of, now TV, but movie, I feel like they find a central emotional arc for the movie or theme in the main characters. And if this is about feeling like you deserve something and whether or not you do or, or in competing for that with the people around you, I think that’s a great theme. I’m excited to see that play out. I like both of these characters, and they’re going to be great together I think.

Alex:                 Yeah, I agree. That was my big thing as well. I know Pete’s going to call a flex on this one, but I will mention that I’ve seen two extended scenes from the episode. The first one was a nine minute-

Justin:              Extended. I think you mean flex-tented scenes?

Alex:                 Mmm, there you go. I saw a scene, it was a nine minute non-stop action sequence with Falcon, which was very cool and very big and felt like an MCU movie. And then there was I think a six or seven minute scene with Bucky, some stuff happened that I won’t get into for spoilers. But it had more humor to it and had more psychological stuff going on. So these were two scenes, clearly probably for the first episode, but it’s hard to put together what the actual plot was. But my big impression there is I’m excited to see if they can take those different tones and mix them together. I think they can. I think that’s a very small lift to be like, can you do it a buddy action comedy? Can you do that? Can you figure out how to do that? I think the MCU can.

Alex:                 But that’s something that I am excited to watch and I think that’s going to be fun. And honestly, as much as I loved Wanda Vision, there’s going to be a certain level of relief of just like, boom, boom, pow, pow, yeah this is fun. Let’s just watch this and have a good time. You know?

Justin:              Yeah.

Pete:                That sounds great.

Justin:              Who knows, maybe there could be a mystery. And for those of you who don’t know, nine minutes, let’s see, that’s like how long it takes to… It’s like making seven pancakes.

Pete:                Wow.

Justin:              Is that about? Because [inaudible 00:18:46] give the context for the context.

Alex:                 Thanks for being our time master, as always, Justin.

Justin:              Time master spoiler, that’s my role in the MCU.

Alex:                 Oh, man. For all of you out there, we’re going to have the regular episodes rolling out on it Fridays after the episodes air on Disney +. So be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Android, Spotify, Stitcher, or the app of your choice. As mentioned, you can support these podcasts at patreon.com/comicbookclub. Also, we mentioned the live show every Tuesday night at 7:00 PM to Crowdcast and YouTube. @marvelvisionpod on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, follow us for all sorts of good stuff. Comicbookclublive.com for this podcast and many more. Until next time, hey Charlie, killing other one.

Pete:                What the fuck? That’s how you’re going to end?

Alex:                 Too dark?

Pete:                Yeah, what the fuck, man?

Alex:                 All right, I’ll do another take.

Pete:                And you did like the finger guns like a psychopath.

Alex:                 Okay, keep marvelous.

Justin:              Almost more terrifying, honestly, like scarier.

Alex:                 The second one was scarier, right?

Justin:              Because the second one was more like you’re the killer, and I think that’s the worry.

Pete:                Yeah, keep it marvelous.

The post MarvelVision: The Falcon And The Winter Soldier Preview appeared first on Comic Book Club.

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