#71 – Captain America: The Winter Soldier: Winter's Shadow & Shielded Struggles

Welcome to Marvel Maniac and MCU after show. This is your host, Eric Cicada, aka mr. Honest, back with you for another phase two after Show. That being Captain America, the Winter Soldier. This movie is iconic in the MCU. It sets paths for plenty more MCU stories to come, and it's kind of the beginning of these, like, team up movies that we get, that being we get Black Widow, we get the Falcon in this movie. We get Nick Fury and Bucky Barnes himself, the Winter Soldier, all coming together for this action packed showcase with plenty of twists and turns. Captain America The Winter Soldier stands as one of the greatest films in the MCU, and without it, we might not have gotten a lot of our favorites that we've come to know, like Infinity War, Civil War, and Endgame. All directed by Joe Russo and Anthony Russo and written by Christopher Marcus and Stephen Mcfeely. This is the team right here. It's almost like an Avengers level team up for the writers room and the creators of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I hope we get more of these guys going forward. I'm going to put an active spoiler alert warning for all of Captain America's story through the MCU, through Endgame, and even the Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Everything's on the table here. We want to talk about how this movie impacts the story we've come to know. So this movie kind of starts with one of my favorite lines on your left, and that is Steve Rogers meeting Sam Wilson, our future Captain America, on your left, being a line that we see all the way through in Avengers Endgame, when Sam Wilson is brought back by the second snap from well, secondly, the third snap. Cassandos does two snaps in Infinity War post Infinity War, but let's just not get into those details. Sam Wilson is brought back, and he's the first one to arrive to that epic battle between Thanos and all the Avengers in Endgame. And I love that this movie starts something that goes all the way through to that movie, and it does that in a lot of ways with a lot of storylines in this, including Sharon Carter, we get to see the beginning of her story. And that goes all the way through the Falcon and the Winter Soldiers here today, where she takes a lot of turns in her story leading up to becoming what we know as the powerbroker. Only her first name is revealed in this movie. She's not even known as a Carter until Civil War. However, we do get the beginning of her story. So Sam and Steve do meet in the beginning of the movie, and they kind of relate to each other. Sam is a veteran of war himself, and he talks to Steve about how the beds are as soft as a marshmallow and they're used to sleeping on rocks from their time that they served. And you can already see like a really good chemistry between Steve and Sam from the beginning of the movie. From that point, Black Widow picks Steve up and this is the first time we see her in the movie. And they're going on a mission to the Lumerian Star, a ship that is launching satellites for this thing called Project Insight, which we learned throughout the movie to be this terrible thing that targets just anyone that is a threat to Hydra based off of what they are going to do. And in this movie, we even hear Steven Strange as a threat to Hydra and he's going to be taken out in Project Insight. I mean, if this thing goes through by the end of the movie, it pretty much is like the worst thing to ever happen on the planet Earth in the history of the MCU. So the threat in this movie is huge. I'm a huge fan of Captain America and I think this is such a staple holder movie for him. All his movies are vastly different from one another. This one and Civil War a little bit similar in that we have Bucky, the Winter Soldier kind of driving the plot. However, this movie is just one of a kind in the MCU. It's a political thriller and it has those bursts of action and also drama. Good mix of the two and I really like how the twists just keep coming in the movie. The first one in mind when Nick Fury gets bombarded by the police officers and then the SWAT team, that moment is just shocking. You do not expect Nick Fury to be being chased down as like a vigilante. And at that point in the movie, you have no idea what's going on, so you're just worried about Nick Fury. And it's like probably the biggest break in the movie we get from Steve Rogers himself. That scene with Nick Fury when he's just being bombarded and he has the gun and he shoots the Shield agents from his window in the car and he has to put it on autopilot to escape, that just sets the tone for all the action we're going to have in this movie. I mean, the battle on the Lumerian Star at the beginning actually does where Captain America takes down this whole ship crew in secrecy so he can save a bunch of hostages. On the Lumerian Star, this is turned out to be like frame. This is a frame for Nick Fury in this movie. So it's made to look like Nick Fury set this whole thing up on the Lumerian Star at the beginning of the movie. And later Pierce tells Captain America that because this meeting and deal went south and because Captain America came in and stopped it from happening, this is why Fury was attacked by Bertruff's people from the beginning of the movie. However, this is just all a coordination from Alexander Pierce to take Nick Fury down and get him out of the way. One of his many threats, one of the many threats that Zola's algorithm assess and decides need to be taken out nick Fury. And we do see in Zola's computer at Camp Lehigh, this is a camp that Steve Rogers ended up training at in the beginning Captain America movie. This is where Zola's computer is headquartered. And we do learn very subtly that Howard Stark was taken out by Hydra. And it does even nod. It shows like a picture of Bucky's arm. And it shows then a picture of Howard Stark deceased. And then it shows Nick Fury deceased, kind of implying that it was Bucky Barnes. And this is kind of where Steve Rogers learns how Howard Stark ended up going and it was at the hand of the Winter Soldier, aka his best friend Bucky. And the Cap decides to hold on to that information until it is just dropped on him in Civil War later on. I don't know if Bucky fully knows that it was him, but he can only assume, he could really only assume that it was Bucky that killed Howard Stark. That reveal that Hydra has been in Shield. Working its way, like kind of like an infection through the system and infiltrating all of Shield. And even the government, as we see the senator from Iron Man Two, Gary Shandling, rest in peace, he is a Hydra agent as well. He goes to Sitwell and does a Hail Hydra to him in the middle of broad daylight. So this thing runs really deep. Captain America is absolutely a man out of time in this movie. Like, his first movie takes place in the World War II era. And right now, he's in a present day political thriller setting. And you're no better reminded of that when he meets Peggy Carter when she's older, you don't even know really she's still alive until this point in the movie. And he's visiting her and she's kind of sort of suffering from dementia. And it's really hard on Steve to be a man out of time. And this goes to show like the love of his life is standing right in front of him, but he missed her life. And it's so heartbreaking. This scene where he sees Peggy is one of the most heartbreaking in the movie. You really feel like you missed that time with Steve and you wanted Steve to be with Peggy. He wants you to be with Peggy. And at this point in the franchise, there's literally no way for that to happen. There's no chance in hell Steve Rogers is going to time travel to go meet Peggy Carter and fulfill his destiny of love, which I will go on to probably talk about how that maybe this isn't the end of their story and the TVA will come along during that final dance. So that doesn't take away from the fact that Steve and Peggy do reunite and he does come back for that dance. And this low point where he sees old Peggy man, it does break my heart for Steve Rogers in this movie. And that's why we're lucky to have him as our hero in this movie, because he sees through all of shields and hydro's games, and he kind of kind of sees things for how they are, even from the beginning when he sees the holocarriers. Fury shows Project Insight to Cap pretty early on in the movie. And Cap's reaction to it is like, what, you're holding a gun to everyone's head and calling it safety? This is a really good indicator that Steve sees right through, even past. Like, Nick Fury can't see what's really happening with these helicarriers, and Steve sees it because he's just so pure. I like how leading up to this scene where Steve's introduced to Project Insight, it's kind of like mirroring a later sequence of scenes where Steve is in the elevator going down, and then he leaves. When he's leaving Nick Fury in that scene, he's going across the bridge, which later we'll see in a much more action packed sequence where Steve's being brought in by Alexander Pierce to be questioned on what really happened to Nick Fury. I mean, of course, Pierce knows what happened to Nick Fury. He's setting Steve Rogers up right here. This is how he's going to take Captain America out of play and just the mirroring of those two scenes of the elevator and then the bridge, not knowing that later Steve is going to have to jump out of this elevator and ride on a motorcycle over like a flying plane and destroy the plane. That part was so cool. Like I said, the action in this movie doesn't really stop. And once Nick Fury is kind of out of play and tells Steve not to trust anyone, it makes it really hard for Steve to trust anyone, because he saw what happened to Fury and he saw the Winter Soldier, the night that Fury was pretty much killed. I mean, to Steve's knowledge and to our knowledge, for the rest of the movie, we lost Nick Fury. In this movie, Nick Fury was dead. Nick Fury might never have come back from that death. In fact, if we're looking forward to the show Secret Invasion, it is revealed to us in Spiderman, Far from Home, that Nick Fury is kind of secretly an alien. Who knows how long it's been that way? He's a skrull. Talos, I think, I believe, was taking control of the Nick Fury persona while Nick Fury was in outer space on a Sword base. So the Secret Invasion storyline can maybe even be tracked all the way back to this movie. This could be a point where Fury realizes that Shield. Is compromised and he needs to start something new. And maybe when he dies in this movie, it does go down like we know it in the movie where he did take the thing to fake his death. It's something that Bruce Banner created to help slow his heart rate to one beat, like a minute. And this may be a point where Fury switched out with Talos. I am so excited for Secret Invasion that it's kind of eerily amazing how they could be doing, like pulling out plot threads from this early in the MCU to current storylines that are going to have an even bigger impact on the future story. It kind of just goes to show how long Marvel has been planning something like this. I mean, Marvel might not have been planning Secret Invasion at this time, but they could easily ride it in. And who knows? They could have been planning Secret Invasion in a sense for a long time. And at least when they decided to do that with Fury and have it so in Captain Marvel that Fury knows the Skrull personally, the fact that he has known them for so long just goes to show that he possibly has been playing with us as an audience. I don't know something about that scene in Age of Ultron where Fury comes in to the barn to talk to Iron Man. It's just a little scrolly if you ask me. A little curious. We'll talk about that when we get to Age of Ultron. However, I do think that this is a big hint in this movie, like Fury dying, fury getting so beat up after he's served for so long, he lost an eye. He lost an eye for this job. And the fact that he was treated so poorly and Shield. Came down, shield. Is the main base of operations for him. I can't get off the topic that I really think something went on in this movie having to go with the Secret Invasion storyline. So we'll see what happens with that. Fury leaves Steve with the hard drive that was acquired by Black Widow on the Lemarian Star, and this leads Steve and Black Widow to team up, who Steve Rogers doesn't fully trust at first. Natasha could be playing both sides, and Steve is fully aware that before being brought in to be questioned by Shield, aka Hydra, about Fury's death and Steve's involvement in it, steve decides to hide the hard drive in a vending machine. And this is where Black Widow will inevitably pick it up. And she's blowing bubblegum and kind of shows Steve that she has the hard drive when he comes back after Steve goes to Shield. Has the giant notorious elevator fight. And that scene, by the way, let's talk about that for a second. That scene is iconic, like maybe one of the most iconic fight scenes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And it's all kind of on the same page. You're on the same page as Steve Rogers in that, like, something is wrong here, but we don't know exactly what. Steve Rogers gets fully surrounded very slowly but surely and the best part about it is he asks if anyone wants to leave first before he pretty much manhandles all of them and they put these like briefcase handcuffs on him and strap him to the wall. But nothing could hold down Captain America and he takes down everybody in the elevator, including Rumlo, our future crossbones, who gets completely obliterated by the end of this movie while chasing Sam Wilson. We're running all over the place in this episode, plot point to plot point. So much goes down in The Winter Soldier that my mind runs all over the place with the possibilities that it brings to future stories. Like for example, Falcon and the Winter Soldier. They have their first fight in this movie and the Winter Soldier rips off Falcon's wing and takes them out of commission towards the end of the movie. And it's just kind of cool to see these two characters meet for the first time and knowing where their story is going to go and that they're going to be teaming up on kind of like a buddy cop adventure a few phases later in their own show. It's just so fun and it's so exciting that these characters meet in earlier phases in earlier movies. I'll talk all day about how I just love that interconnection in the MCU and I think that's what brings people back to see these movies, even if they haven't seen them all. To go back and watch these movies, like the future installments makes your rewatches very valuable. And when I watched Captain America The Winter Soldier this time around, it was a very valuable rewatch. So Steve wins the elevator fight. He breaks out of the elevator with a shield and lands probably like 100ft down, survives the fall because he's Captain America and he escapes on a motorcycle and they're trying to block him in but they can. And Steve takes down this plane that's blocking a bridge. I mean, come on, this is over the top. This is clearly something bigger is happening here. I'm surprised more authorities didn't catch on to this Nazi overthrow the government type situation that was happening. Some people in shield. Did, though. Sharon Carter wanted to know like, if we're going to have a man for Captain America, we deserve to know why. And they pretty much try and sell everyone on the fact that Steve Rogers had an involvement in Nick Fury's death and he's not answering or cooperating, so henceforth he needs to be captured and taken out. They probably would just straight up murder Captain America if they got a hold of him. So it's a good thing Cap escaped, made it back to the hospital where Nick Fury was pronounced dead and he goes to look for the hard drive and teams up with Black Widow who has it. They go to a mall and an Apple store and they trace the hard drive back to Camp Lehigh. And during this sequence, they're being tracked by Hydra. And Rumlo just gets more and more beat up throughout this whole movie. Another thing I like is Rumlo's introduction as Crossbones. He's not Crossbones in this movie, but he does have kind of like an X on his shirt kind of future kind of showing his future as Crossbones. And it's cool that we get a character in this movie that is deeply impacted by the falling out of Shield. And the reasoning for the beginning of the Sokovia Accords is like the actions of this guy being pretty much a terrorist. He turns into literally a terrorist because of this movie. And that just goes to show the line that Hydra has been walking on and like the type of people that they recruited, like Captain America is storming this ship at the beginning of the movie, the Lemurian star and he's taking out every soldier but not killing them. And then the first time Rumlo drops in, he just shoots the guy and it's kind of like looked over. But Rumlo is evil and he's a bad guy. And a lot of the people in Shield. Hydra on that mission are kind of the future Hydra to Captain America will be fighting by the end of the movie. So by the time Black Widow and Captain America escape, they go to Camp Lehigh. Escape the mall. They escape the mall and they go to Camp Lehigh where Steve Rogers was trained in the first Captain America movie. Such a nice reference, except there's this Barak, there's this building that stands that isn't supposed to be there, steve doesn't recognize. So he naturally takes that as maybe the place where the signal was coming from that they needed to find out what is going on. What is all this about? So they go into the bunker and there's a bunker below a bunker on the first level. It's the founding headquarters of Shield. And we get to see a picture of Peggy Carter and Howard Stark and also the general played by Tommy Lee Jones. I don't know the general's name, but man, would it be great to get that guy again. I swear, man, just pause before we go down that elevator shaft to unveil Hydra. If Tommy Lee Jones comes back in whatever way to play that general, I just hope it's in like Secret Wars when they're going to recruit Steve and Steve is on an active mission for the army or something like that. I imagine Steve in his parallel timeline when he goes back to meet Peggy, he's going to probably stop Hydra from starting, which will create a variant timeline which maybe the TVA wouldn't be. So I don't know forgiving of so it's kind of confusing, exciting to wonder what could happen with Captain America when he went back. The whole opening sequence of that movie could be Steve Rogers bringing those Infinity Stones back throughout the places they were taken from in hilarious sequence of events. I mean, he's going to be bringing the reality Stone back when the Dark Elves are attacking, and he's also bringing Thor's hammer back at that time. That could call for a really great scene, him encountering the Red Skull, him on Vormir, meaning the Red Skull. It's just almost like a necessary meeting that we need to see. It is like a full circle thing. Will they fight? Does Steve Rogers have to fight to put the soul stone back? Can you put the Soul stone back? Does Steve Rogers hold on to the soul stone? And maybe that's what empowers him to stay in his timeline with Peggy. Somehow, some way. There's so many questions to be answered with that, that I just refuse to believe that we're done with Steve Rogers story past endgame. And this movie is a really big staple for his story and a reason that Steve Rogers would alter his timeline. Steve Rogers wouldn't let shield. Be infiltrated. He just wouldn't unless he believes Back to the Future like time travel law. And it's not like he had an extensive conversation with the Hulk before he left about what he was going to do. Nobody knew but Bucky that he was going to go stay in that timeline. So it's interesting. It's just so interesting. And I think we're going to get answers for it. There's just so much to be answered that I'd be really surprised if we never heard about what happened to Steve. And I think the TVA might come get him. I think he will be dragged into the Secret Wars in one way or another, and hopefully he'll get to meet Captain Carter, too. I don't know. I'm just very concerned for Steve Rogers happy ending, because I don't think it's going to end that way. I just don't think it's going to end that way because when Steve and Natasha Romanoff Black Widow go down the second secret elevator shaft in the Shield. Base, they learn that Shield hydra has been compromised forever, ever since they brought Zola in. And they have been working their way, like I said, like a parasite throughout the government and through Shield. I mean, they're everywhere. So it's kind of tough for Steve to even handle this in this movie. As we see in the post credit scene, hydra did get a hold of Loki staff, which contains the Mind Stone. And the Mind Stone is a very powerful Infinity Stone, and it gives the twins, the Maximov twins, wanda and Pietro, their powers. And we get a hint in this post credit scene with Baron Von Strucker. He is talking about the creations, and I mean, he's just kind of rambling about how it's really important to continue doing evil science on the Infinity Stones. But we see Wanda, and she's like, holding up brick cubes with her magic, and then she collides the cubes, and it reminds me of Incursions, and worlds colliding, and the incursions that she's most likely caused in Dr. Strange in the multiverse of madness. Marvel has had plans for this character for such a long time. And this is where her story starts. In the post credit scene of this movie that will lead right into Age of Ultron. I mean, between this and Age of Ultron, there is Guardians of the Galaxy. You can't just call these movies set up films. There are films that set up, right? They're not just set up films. Maybe like a film like Iron Man Two is more of like a setup film. But I think all of these movies are films that also set up. And this movie does a solid job of getting us really ready for what's to come. In the MCU, after the reveal of Hydra being fully intact and taken over Shield, this is just revealed to be a distraction by Zola because this place is about to be nuked. And Captain America, luckily finds a hole in the ground to cover himself and Black Widow, and they make it out. And this is when they go to Sam Wilson for help. Thank God for Sam Wilson in this movie, who's just like working at a VA, and he's just trying to get over War himself, not knowing that he's about to become a literal avenger. In this movie. He tells Steve a little bit about his past and how he lost a friend, similar to how Steve lost Bucky. And I found it really charming that Sam tells Steve about this friend kind of early in the movie. And then Steve remembers his name. And I don't remember his name, but I think this guy, this guy that Sam lost, it helps Steve relate and it kind of helps Steve trust Sam. He sees himself and Sam, and it might even be one of the earliest signs that Steve sees Sam as worthy of holding the shield and holding that title of Captain America whenever he decides to pass that on. Steve probably had that idea for a long time. It's like, who can I pass this on to? Sam Wilson. He'd be the guy. And you could see in this movie how pure of heart Sam is if you watch the Outtakes for this movie, too. Sam Wilson is Anthony Mackey. He is so funny. And he's just got this catchphrase. He says, every time they wrap up filming, I can't think of what it does. I watched the special features like a week ago. But watch the special features on Disney Plus. They have all the extras. If you go into the extras of the movie, I talk about this last few episodes, but if you go into the extra section of whatever movie you're watching, it will have deleted scenes and kind of like behind the scenes stuff. So you can learn a lot more about the movie just by going there. If you have a Disney Plus subscription, there is no gain for me telling you that. But you may be enjoying the movie just a little bit more because Disney doesn't really promote that. So we get the senator from Iron Man Two meeting with Sitwell, and this guy totally gets arrested by the end of the movie. Although I wonder if the real actor, Gary Shandling, if he didn't pass away, if he would have had some sort of future involvement as a villain or something in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, like coming out of prison or however deep his roots with Hydra were, who knows where he would have played another part in the future. Rest in peace. I think that this scene is really cool where they pick up Sitwell because Sitwell has been kind of around in the background. He was in even a few MCU One shots. And he is a familiar face for Shield. And he's totally a compromise agent. Steve and Black Widow take him to the top of a roof, and they threaten to throw him off. And Sitwell says, that's not really your style, Cap. And he says it's hers. And Black Widow kicks him off the roof. Man, that must be terrifying. He's just free falling for however long until Sam Wilson reveals himself as Falcon and brings him on top of the roof. And he kind of reveals the whole Project Insight and what it's really about and how it can target anyone who's even a minor threat to them, even before there are threats. So after they get this information, it's about 16 hours until Project Insight is officially launching, and they are going to go straight to the source. They're going to go bring Sitwell and have him use his retinal ID scan and take down Project Insight. Just walk straight up to it, and that's not going to go down. This is where one of the biggest fight scenes in the movie takes place. The Winter Soldier attacks the car that they have Sitwell and rips them out of the window, throws them to a passing truck. Bye bye, Sitwell. It's no more Sitwell after that moment. And this is like not just your average superhero fight. There's just a sense of urgency and overwhelming chaos in this scene. And you do feel overrun by the Winter soldier and hydra, just like Steve and Sam and Black Widow do. It's a really long action sequence, and all the characters almost lose their lives. People get thrown out of cars, launched over bridges, and Steve Rogers isn't even in his Captain America uniform in this. He's just got the shield. And he's regular day Steve Rogers with the shield. He's got a lot of looks in this movie. I don't know if I mentioned the beginning look he's got with a gray suit. It's just so cool looking. I really like his early movie suit. And then at the end of the movie, when he suits up, he gets his World War II attire from the first Avenger, his first outing, and. Man. So many Captain America. So much Captain America. Apparel. I learned from a new Rock Stars video. If you haven't watched new Rock Stars videos on YouTube, very good Marvel content right there. I learned from one of their videos that the soundtrack for the Winter Soldier is the scream of Bucky as he's falling out of the train. And it's distorted and remade, and it's like this kind of like eerie horror movie scream every time the Winter Soldier is shown on camera. And that is so cool. What a cool detail. The fact that they'd use that exact like it's the exact line of Bucky screaming as he's falling out of the train. In the first movie, we get to see Steve's reaction to Bucky being alive. And it is after a huge fight in the street where they're exchanging blows and Bucky is smacking Captain America with bullets, but he's dodging him with a shield. And I really dig this action, but it's even more dramatic when Steve finds out that it's Bucky and he says, Who's Bucky? So Bucky is completely brainwashed. But this is the thing that's kind of waking Bucky up. Something that I needed to learn a little bit over time was the time between this movie and Civil War. There's a little bit of time, right? And I just didn't fully understand how Bucky's thoughts worked. How does he remember? But he doesn't remember well. You get to see in this movie after this fight sequence where they're kind of broken up, after Steve learns that it is Bucky because they're so stomped up in that moment where he realizes it's him. That by the time that that realization set in. SWAT teams have rolled in, and the compromised shield is taking and arresting sam, Steve and Natasha. The three of them are being held in the back of a caravan. A black widow has been shot. And it was revealed that even on a previous mission before, like off screen, that Black Widow was shot by the Winter Soldier. And she has a big scar from it saying she can't really wear bikinis anymore, it seems like. I'm sure you look horrible in them. A lot of flirting between Natasha and Steve in this movie. I feel like Black Widow has always kind of got that flirty personality with the heroes in their own movie, which is why I think it was really important that she got her own movie later. I think she's just probably always kind of has that seductive way about her because she's a spy. She has to get information out of people. And a really good way to do that is through charm. Maria Hill breaks the trio out of this caravan and brings them to Nick Fury, who is revealed to be alive. Meanwhile, Bucky is being repaired from his fight with Captain America, and he's having flashbacks to him being captured by Hydra and Zola hovering over him and putting on his metal arm, saying that he's going to be like a weapon for Hydra. Zola says to put him on ice, kind of indicating that Bucky doesn't see a lot of time alive as the Winter Soldier unless he's completing missions. So his time being, having even time to think at all, he's being brainwashed. And we see how that kind of has been happening through this electric chair. And they put a thing over his head. The minute he starts talking to Alexander Pierce about him knowing that guy on the bridge, they start to torture him. And pretty much he disassociates everything through that pain. So there's a good reason for Bucky having a hard time remembering. There's just so much trauma that Bucky has been through, and it's just actual trauma. What a tragic character and what a good conflict for our super morally strong Captain America to be going up against. The one thing that's going to stop Steve Rogers from completing the mission is his best friend. We get this flashback of the two and it's, I believe, when Steve Rogers, his mom, I think, died, and Steve Rogers is really down in the dumps, and we get Bucky telling him, I'm with you to the end of the line, pal. And that is one of the most powerful lines in the movie. And it's later repeated back to Bucky by Steve when Steve pretty much throws a shield down the helicarrier after everything's pretty much been completed, project Insight has been taken down, but the matter at hand is Bucky at the end of the movie. And Steve Rogers won't kill Bucky, and he won't take Bucky down because he sees the good in him. And this just throws Bucky off so much. Steve Rogers being so pure and that friendship he had with Steve, it stands through time and through all the trauma Bucky's been through, he just knows not to hurt Steve, and he ends up saving Steve's life. When this whole thing crashes down, he drags Steve out of the water and protects him. So I had to jump a little bit ahead to the end of the movie. But, I mean, we're pretty much there. And I think the way that they take down the helicarriers, it's really cool. They have to go to all three and put these chips in that will recordinate them to target each other. Very smart because there would have been millions of lives lost otherwise. You see the targets go down from, like, millions to just three by the end of this to get in to Shield. Black Widow disguises herself as one of the members of the World Council meeting with Alexander Pierce, and we get to see her use this disguise technology in her own movie where she trades places with her mom. And I think that's really cool. I think a lot of things are really cool. Okay, I don't realize I say that a lot. However, Black Widow being the ultimate spy in this moment and putting out every tiny bit of dirty history on Hydra and Shield. And revealing to the world that Shield. Has been compromised. Pierce reminds Natasha Romanoff that your secrets are going to be out there, too. And that's going to lead to people wanting to come after you and blame you for whatever you've done in your dark past. And she doesn't care. Are you ready for your secrets to be revealed? And this is when Nick Fury comes in and reveals himself to be alive after the attempt on his life by Alexander Pierce himself. He gets the face pierced and look him in the eye. After we get that flashback scene, I'm with you to the end of the line, pal, by bucky to Steve. We get Sam Wilson approaching Steve on the bridge before they decide to make their final move against Hydra. And it's kind of like a nice mirroring symbolism of these are the two guys that are with Steve, and these are Steve's best friends, his old best friend and his new best friend. And his new best friend is going to help bring his old best friend out of a dark place. Whether or not the new and old best friend like each other or appreciate each other that much, that's how important Steve Rogers is to both of these guys. Our Stan Lee cameo in this movie is him being a security guard at the museum of Steve Rogers and all Steve Rogers accomplishments. And he realizes that Steve's suit has been stolen, and he says, I'm so fired. Epic. Stanley Cameo. Every Stan Lee cameo is almost my favorite part of the Marvel movies. I'm sad that we're not getting them anymore. Will they eventually start CGI Stan Lee into cameos? Is that wrong? Because it's like honoring him in a way, but it's also, like, maybe disrespectful in a way. I don't know. What do you think, [email protected]? That's the weirdest [email protected] I've ever put out there. But you know what? I miss Stanley Cameos. And he's such a face of Marvel that I think to honor him with CGI cameos, I don't think that would be the worst thing in the world. I think he would probably would have been down for that. But maybe they had that conversation, and maybe they were like, wait five years. He was like, wait five years or something. Or maybe they'll never do that. Except there's this one kind of half cameo by a not Sandley and Spiderman, No Way Home, where even in the script, this is probably from new rock stars or screen crush, I always have to credit them because I love those guys. I love their videos. They write that when Peter Parker walks in at the end of no Way Home into the coffee shop, there's like a guy that's supposed to look kind of like Stan Lee, but it's not to give you kind of that feeling of that Peter Parker has after losing his association with everyone he knows. So that a little bit off topic again, but that's what this show is all about, off topic. And MCU after show. I apologize if me being off topic is disorienting. However, this is how I have fun by ranting about Marvel stuff and putting it up so you can listen to it. We get a cameo from Danny Putty, who plays Abed, and Community, another show. The Russo Brothers are affiliated with one of my favorite shows, and we get more of these Community cameos later in the MCU through other Russo Brothers films. They also are affiliated with Arrested Development. And we get the Staircar in Civil War and the blue men in the Collector's chambers in Infinity War. So I love that they pay homage to their comedies and where they came from in, obviously one of my favorite cinematic ventures. So it's a good combination of nerd, foreign nerds. Steve Rogers breaks into this comms room and gives a message to all of Hydro Shield. And there's still good people in Shield. At this point, so he's letting everyone know who doesn't that Shield. Has been compromised by Hydra and we have to stop them. And he says, the price of freedom is high. It always has been, and it's the price that he's willing to pay. But if he's the only one, then so be it. But I'm willing to bet I'm not. Says Steve Rogers. And this does give hope to Sharon Carter and the other guy who disobeys Rumlow. And he says, Sorry, captain's orders. And Sharon agrees. Captain's orders. This is when kind of a little war breaks down in the Shield. Operations center, and this is kind of when all the action breaks out. Captain America making his way onto the helicarriers, which have been launched because of his speech a little bit early. So Steve Rogers has to get up aboard these things with the help of Sam Wilson. Steve Rogers lands on one as it's coming up from the ground, and Sam Wilson flies off to go get pretty much barraged by missiles. And Sam Wilson takes a lot of fire in this movie, and he does a really great job of holding his own against the evil forces of Hydra. He says, how do we tell the good guys from the bad guys? And Steve says, if they're shooting at you, they're bad. Where's the end here? I mean, the action is so incredible. The Falcon has some of the best flight sequences you probably have ever seen him have. Such a great introduction to that character. Steve puts the chip, or the giant thing that needs to go into the ship to override it. He puts it in one ship, and then Sam Wilson makes his way to another, and then that leaves one ship left. However, when Cap is about to get air support, the Winter Soldier completely bombards his airfield of Shield. Operatives, the good ones. And he takes out, like, four airplanes, and he takes an airplane up to the final helicarrier for his final showdown with Steve. Nick Fury confronts Alexander Pierce, and Pierce is arguing that he can bring peace to 7 billion people by just ridding of 20 million. Kind of overlooking the idea of genocide. There kind of like a Thanos level like idea from Alexander Pierce, which makes him that much more villainous. Just him writing off lives as if they're nothing. To get these files out that Black Widow is trying to release to the public, there needs to be two retinal scans. And Fury reveals that his eye that is damaged by the cat from Captain Marvel, which, by the way, it totally looks like it's scratched by a cat like his eye in this movie, which is really a really cool detail. I don't know if they planned that, but it seems like they maybe built that in around the scratch. It looks pretty scratchy, which means the cat totally just hurt his eye in cat form and not like monster form. So our strong Nick Fury was deed by a cat. I don't think the word deed is right. His eye was destroyed by a cat that happened to be an alien flirting type thing. Fury tells Pierce, if you want to stay ahead of me, secretary, you have to keep both eyes open. And he reveals that his defective eye can be scanned along with his to release these files out to the public, which is just for the good of everyone. Falcon swoops in and picks up Steve from falling, like, hundreds of feet and brings him to the final hollow carrier. This is where Sam and Bucky first meet, and they have a fight where Sam loses his wing. So the Falcon and the Winter Soldier are united at this very moment, not knowing that they would go on future adventures leading up to the new Captain America being Sam Wilson. We get that idea in Endgame, but it's further flushed out in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. And, boy, is that a heck of a story. That's a heck of a story leading into the next Captain America film, New World Order, after I mean, the next Captain America film from this point in time is Civil War. And then we got New World Order coming out in like 2024, I believe. With 1 second to go, steve Rogers stops Project Insight from actually launching and targeting and destroying all of these lives. Steve Rogers saves the day in the greatest way, but however, it's not completely saved because Bucky is still fighting Steve. And Steve Rogers takes bullets from Bucky in this fight, and yet he's still not willing to take Bucky down fully because he sees his friend in there. Pierce has Black Widow hostage because he takes out the whole Security Council by the things that they put on their shirts when they enter the building. They completely eliminates them. So he has Black Widow hostage. I'm not sure why he didn't take Black Widow out too. While he could have that might have not taken his leverage away from Nick Fury, I suppose. So this is kind of like his final form of leverage, and he's watching the helicarriers being destroyed outside his window. He's like, what a waste. This guy's a pure villain. Black Widow actually sets the thing off that is on her by herself manually, so Fury can get the upper hand. And before Fury shoots and eliminates Alexander Pierce, he tells Pierce that, I would have taken a bullet for you at one time. So Fury shoots Pierce, and Pierce dies. We do get another appearance from Alexander Pierce in Avengers Endgame showing how Hydra got Loki's staff and Antman's even like, These guys look like bad guys. Why just give them the staff? So it's kind of cool that we get to see him again. Pierce being played by Robert Redford, really cool villain for this movie, and he plays it so well. One of the helicarriers lands in the exact building that Rumlo and Sam are fighting in, and Rumlo does not make it out as undamaged as Sam does. Sam actually gets saved by Nick Fury and Black Widow in a helicopter, and he says, 41st floor. Nick Fury is like, they don't paint the numbers outside the windows. And it's like a nice interaction between those two characters. You could see why the events of this movie may have led to the Sokovia Accords, in a sense, because of how much destruction was brought on, and literally buildings upon buildings are destroyed. But it's kind of crazy that they blame the Avengers for this, because this is something that needed to be taken care of. And it would have been way more catastrophic if Captain America didn't intervene in Project Insight and the launching of that. But we see by the end of this movie, when Black Widow is kind of being tried at court, that the world government and the governments don't really necessarily see what was about to happen. They don't really know what they were saved from, and it seems that they just want to blame the heroes for the destruction. So it's kind of a nice hint, the way Black Widow is being questioned. And she says, you won't arrest us. You'll never arrest us. Well, that will change. There will be Avengers that get arrested in Captain America Civil War due to events like this. Steve and Bucky are having their final showdown, which is just glorious. So much action. And Steve Rogers is trying to remind Bucky Barnes who he is. James Buchanan Barnes. And Bucky screams shut up. And throws fist at Steve, trying to deny his past because it hurts to think about what he's gone through. He says you're my friend to Bucky. And Bucky replies, you're my mission. And Steve says, we'll finish it because I'm with you. To the end of the line, pal. And calling back to that line earlier in the movie and in that flashback. And it's the thing that kind of wakes Bucky up. Steve falls into the water and Bucky drags him out, not really fully knowing. Like Steve doesn't fully know that it was Bucky, but could probably assume that it was Bucky. And all he knows is Bucky didn't let him die and Bucky held back his punch. So it's enough for Steve Rogers to know that his friend is still in there. You could really see it in his eyes, like the way Sebastian Stan plays Bucky is so well, I appreciate his performance of Bucky. Steve Rogers wakes up in the hospital with Sam Wilson sitting on his right. However, he's playing the Troubleman song, and that is the song that he recommended. Sam Wilson recommended Steve to listen to at the beginning of the movie to catch him up on all his music. Another musical reference in the movie is when Steve Rogers enters his apartment to have Nick Fury sit in there all bloody dual pulp after being jumped. The song that Steve and Peggy danced to at the end of Endgame is playing throughout Steve's apartment. Steve Rogers actually says, on your left to Sam when he wakes up, kind of setting up that line again in Endgame for Sam to give it right back to Steve. I love it. Get a montage to the Troubleman song that kind of reminds me a little bit of the show The Wire, and it kind of shows the rest of the characters and what they're doing, like Sharon Carter shooting at a gun range. We see Maria Hill going in for a job at Stark Industries. Now, is Maria Hill a scroll? Is she secretly part of the secret invasion? Is this another early sign? I mean, we know that Maria Hill is posed as a scroll in Spiderman Far from Home. However, we don't know how long she's been a scroll, if not forever. Has Maria Hill always been a scroll? That's a very good question that I'm hoping we'll get an answer to in Secret Invasion, senator from Iron Man Two is arrested. We get a shot of Rumlo, who is completely bloody to a pulp. We get the scene of Black Widow on Capitol Hill, in quotes, mouthing off is what one of the senators says to her. And this is where she says that we don't belong in prison because you need us. In her own words, she says, the world is a vulnerable place and we help keep it that way, but we're also the ones best qualified to defend it. She goes on to say, if you want to arrest me, arrest me. You know where to find me. A lot of foreshadowing going on and like Black Widow kind of being on the run after civil War in her movie and The Avengers being arrested as a result of civil war, the next Captain America film. It's just a lot of foreshadowing. Like I said in this movie, there's another shot of Nick Fury setting all this stuff on fire, including an eye patch. So I don't know if that's like an indicator that this is where Fury maybe actually, at this point, leaves to go to outer space to start Sword, or maybe I'm looking way too far into that. He meets Sam and Steve at his own grave, and he says, So you've experienced this sort of thing before? And Steve says, yeah, well, you get used to it. Fury asks Steve to come to Europe with him to help him take out the rest of rats that didn't go down with Hydra. Kind of hinting towards the fact that there's other Hydra operations around the world, including the one we get in our post credit scene with the Romanov. I always want to say Romanov twins. It's Natasha Romanov. The Maximov twins. And I'm going to keep that in because mistakes are genuine. And I don't think you get to what benefits you from hearing a mistake. Nothing. I'm going to keep it in because I'm lazy, and it's probably funny, and hopefully it comes off as genuine. Fury also asked Sam Wilson to come with him, and Wilson replies, I'm more of a soldier than a spy. Sort of highlighting the theme of this movie. Just what does it take to be a soldier? What defines a soldier? We get three soldiers, steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes, and Sam Wilson in this movie, and they've all had very different experiences being those soldiers. Then Black Widow comes to the grave and is giving Steve Rogers a file. She says she blew all her covers and she has to find a new one. Natasha wants Steve to call that nurse, aka Sharon, Sharon Carter, and it does hit towards a little bit of romance happening between them in the next movie, and a little bit awkward of a thing that I think needs to be addressed in one way or another. I want to hear Steve admit to Peggy, because he's such an honest guy, that he may or may have may or may not have gotten with her niece, and that he's very sorry he was missing her so much in that sense. Natasha also reminds Steve that she might not want to pull on that thread in the file that she gives him containing information about Bucky Barnes, aka the Winter Soldier, who is now on the run. Sam says to Steve, you're going after him. And Steve reminds Sam that, you don't have to come with me, and he says, I know. When do we start? And the movie ends. What a solid ending. It's just giving Steve Rogers even more of a purpose in this present time. It sucks what happened to Bucky, in a sense, but he still has a close friend to look out for and think about and care for and save. He needs to save Bucky. And it's clear that Steve Rogers is on this mission at the end of this movie until he completes it. This is where we get our post credit scene with Von Strucker and talking about this isn't a world of spies or not even a world of heroes anymore. It's the age of miracles. And that there's nothing more horrifying than a miracle showing Wanda just breaking these bricks in front of her with her power, like I said, hinting towards her future as the Scarlet Witch. Our post postcredits scene is Bucky at the Steve Rogers Museum discovering an exhibit about himself, kind of learning about who he really is. And the look on his face is that of shock. And that's Captain America the Winter Soldier. It goes down, like I said, as one of the most iconic movies in the MCU, let alone the Captain America franchise. And it kind of world builds in a way where you just can only wonder at this point, if you haven't seen the rest of the movies, what impact is this going to have? Like Hydra and Shield. And Bucky being out on the loose. There's so many loose threads they're all followed up on. Steve Rogers learning about who Bucky Barnes really is is probably like an absolute point in time, in a sense. Him crossing paths with the Winter Soldier is extremely iconic. And the reveal of Hydra infiltrating shield. It goes right into the next Avengers movie. And without Hydra infiltrating Shield. And having Loki staff, we wouldn't get Ultron. And I'm really excited to talk about Avengers Age of Ultron here with you in a couple of weeks after our Guardians of the Galaxy discussion. Do you want me to jump ahead and talk about any recent releases that I missed, like Dr. Strange in the multiverse of madness thor love and thunder. I'm thinking about hitting those back up in chronological order, like from where I am now, going through the things that I missed in phase four. I did cover most of phase four. If you haven't, go back and listen to some of those older episodes. My name is Eric Cicada, aka Mr. Honest. I'm your host. This has been marvel. Maniac and MCU. After Show. Make sure to reach out to us on social media. We're at Marvel Maniac Pod on TikTok, Instagram and Twitter. We're on Facebook at Marvel Maniac podcast and MCU after show. We're also on Patreon Patreon.com, Marvelmaniac on YouTube. We're everywhere. Show your friends and give us a rating. It goes a really long way and it means the world to me personally. It's been a lot of fun going back through phase two and talking about it in the context of everything that's already happened. And I'm looking forward to where the MCU even goes from where we're at right now. After the release of Antman and the Wasp Quantum Mania, do you want me to touch on the first Antman film or should I maybe just pass that? Because I did an episode called Antman and the Wasp Through the MCU, which you can go listen to right now, kind of covering Antman's whole story. I am just so excited to be talking marvel with you on this podcast. And again, thank you for listening. Thank you for being here. It means the world to have you as a listener. It is my pleasure to be talking about one of my favorite things in the world with you, one of my favorite people in the world, because you showed up here and you gave me your time of day. This is, again, Eric, aka. Mr. Honest, your host. I hope you have an amazing week and until next time, adventures disassemble.