History Recap / TheFalconAndTheWinterSoldierEpisode2TheStarSpangledMan

* WhamLine: The Flag-Smashers mention the Power Broker, who in the comics was the man that John Walker and Lemar Hoskins went to buy Super-Soldier serum from back when John became the Super-Patriot. This explains where the Flag-Smashers got the serum.

* ArbitrarySkepticism: Sam's idea of the big three threats that superheroes face consists of androids, aliens, and wizards. Bucky vehemently denies the existence of wizards, despite not only fighting alongside magic users like Doctor Strange but even acknowledging him by name. It gets more even arbitrary when focusing on Doctor Strange. "He's a ''sorcerer''." So wizards don't exist, but sorcerers do.

** A new rendition of "[[Film/CaptainAmericatheFirstAvenger Star Spangled Man]]" is played by the marching band during Walker's interview. As the song was an in-universe propaganda piece, it was most likely an {{invoked trope}} to appeal to the public's nostalgia.

-->'''Sam:''' Look at you all stealthy. What, you spend a little time in Wakanda and come out White Panther?\\

* IWasBeatenByAGirl: Karli beats Bucky in a fight, much to Sam's amusement.
-->'''Sam:''' That little girl kicked your ass!

* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: Bucky immediately orders the Jeep to pull over and continues walking to the airport after hearing that Hoskins’s code name is Battlestar. Sam follows a few seconds later when Walker makes the mistake of saying that [[InnocentlyInsensitive it would be easier to be Captain America if he had Cap’s wingman on his side.]]

* ThisIsGonnaSuck: When Bucky is informed that the plane is too low for a parachute but too high to jump, he grits his teeth and jumps out anyway. He uses his vibranium arm to slow his descent as he falls, screaming through the trees, and he lands flat on his face at just under terminal velocity.

* IncrediblyLamePun: John calls Falcon Steve's wingman.

* ReplacementScrappy: [[invoked]] Openly acknowledged by John Walker himself: while public sentiment seems to be on his side so far, he nonetheless admits to Sam and Bucky that trying to replace/one-up/live-up-to Steve's legacy is a pointless exercise -- he wants to make it work, and he thinks he could do a better job with Steve's actual comrades on his side. Sam and Bucky don't like him very much anyway, and take particular offense to being treated as mere "wingmen"/"legitimizers".

** The cops who stopped to hassle an AngryBlackMan on the street get this once they realize they almost had the PR disaster of their worst nightmares on their hands because he's an Avenger and war hero.

* WorthyFoe: Bucky views Isaiah this way not only because he kicked Bucky's ass but because Bucky was working for HYDRA when he did so. Because of this, he preferred to leave Bradley in peace rather than intrude on the peace he found after his release from prison.

* AtrociousAlias: When Lemar reveals that his codename is 'Battlestar,' Bucky demands that they stop the Jeep they're riding in so he can [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere get out and walk the rest of the way to the airport.]]
* BadassNormal: Despite his tremendous physical abilities, John Walker mentions that he doesn't have any super-strength. His best friend and partner Lemar Hoskins/Battlestar is likely this as well.

--->'''Isaiah:''' People running tests, taking my blood, coming into my cell... ''(looks at Bucky)'' Even ''your'' people weren't done with me.

* BothSidesHaveAPoint: Walker tries to get Sam and Bucky to help him in dealing with the Flag Smashers, but they would rather continue working by themselves. Walker makes a fair point that they didn't do too well by themselves and that strength in numbers could be a big benefit. Sam acknowledges his point, but also notes that Walker has to work inside a system that requires him to get authorizations and permissions to take action. As free agents, he and Bucky can work faster and with more flexibility.

** A new rendition of [[Film/CaptainAmericatheFirstAvenger "Star Spangled Man"]] is played by the marching band during Walker's interview. As the song was an in-universe propaganda piece, it was most likely an [[Main/InvokedTrope invoked trope]] to appeal to the public's nostalgia.
** The whole public event and pageantry unveiling Walker as the new Captain America also invoke Steve's USO shows, and Walker is even shown practicing and stumbling over his lines, much like Steve did when he first started.
** Bucky jumps from the plane without taking a parachute-- like Cap from ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheWinterSoldier'' though Bucky's landing isn't as graceful.
** When questioning Walker's credentials, Bucky asks him whether he's [[Film/CaptainAmericaTheFirstAvenger jumped on a grenade]] before.
** John Walker also references the 'Big Three' when attempting to talk to Sam and Bucky about the Flag-Smashers.
** John Walker’s TrainingMontage shown on ''Good Morning America'' directly mirrors Steve’s journey of becoming Cap, with John’s sprinting being a mirror of Steve running at [[Film/CaptainAmericaTheFirstAvenger Camp Lehigh]], and John boxing a punching bag being a mirror to when Steve [[Film/TheAvengers2012 knocked a punching bag off its chains.]] Even in the shot where John trains with the shield in the montage, he’s wearing the same kind of white muscle shirt that Steve wore in [[Film/CaptainAmericaTheWinterSoldier D.C.]]

* CaptainEthnic: Sam gets called Black Falcon by a Baltimore kid who assumes that it's his name because that's what his father calls him. Sam gets one over by asking if he's Black Kid.
** This could also be an example of FiveSecondForeshadowing as Isaiah Bradley is introduced moments later.

** Played with– as soon as Bucky hears Battlestar call himself that, [[NoJustNoReaction he asks the jeep they're in]] [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere to stop, and leaves]].
** Subverted, however, in the case of Bucky himself: when Sam jokingly calls him 'White Panther' for his stint in Wakanda, he matter-of-factly corrects him that his actual codename is 'White Wolf,' and Sam responds with a FlatWhat.

* ComicallyMissingThePoint: When Bucky asks John whether he's ever jumped on a grenade, John begins telling him about how he's done it four times using a reinforced helmet to smother the blast, clearly missing that what Bucky was really asking was whether he'd be willing to sacrifice himself to save his comrades.

** As part of his introductory PR tour, John Walker gets interviewed on ''[[{{Creator/ABC}} Good Morning America]]''.
** A brief shot of the surveillance footage of Zemo shows that his cell number is 2187-- the same cell that Princess Leia was held in during ''Film/ANewHope'' and the same identification number as Finn's in ''Film/TheForceAwakens''.

** Bucky jumps out of a plane without a parachute just like Steve in ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheWinterSoldier'', only it doesn’t turn out so good for him, what with being over land instead of water.
** Everybody assumes the Flag Smashers are one of the Big Three: Aliens, Androids, or Wizards, because that's the sort of thing the MCU has faced. Apart from Red Skull, they haven't faced Super Soldiers like they are now.

* FirstNameBasis: Walker repeatedly calls Steve Rogers (whom he's never met) "Steve" and Bucky Barnes (whom he ''just'' met) "Bucky," even though Bucky's own therapist calls him "James." Bucky and Sam, in contrast, call him [[LastNameBasis "Walker."]]

* ForeignQueasine: Rudy (the German Flag Smasher sympathizer) offers the Flag Smashers some of his wife's homemade cooking, an old family recipe made from chicken livers. The Flag Smashers fight over who doesn't have to eat it.

* GilliganCut: Bucky tells Sam that he's coming with him to Munich. Sam tells him, "No, you're not," but then the scene cuts to Bucky sitting with Sam on the plane.

* TheGreatestStoryNeverTold: At the start of The Winter Soldier’s career, when he was starting to make his legendary reputation and at his physical prime as the “fist of HYDRA,” a lone American operative was sent to deal with him in the Korean War... and walked away after tearing his cybernetic arm off. But because he was black and the result of secret Super Soldier experimentation, the world never heard the legend of Isaiah Bradley, who was imprisoned and experimented on afterward. Sam, understandably, is pissed.

* HomoeroticSubtext: Bucky and Sam's 'session' with Dr. Raynor is explicitly modeled on couples' therapy-- not to mention the invoked lack of personal space in their staring contest.

-->That little girl kicked your ass!

* OminousLatinChanting: [[Music/WolfgangAmadeusMozart Mozart’s]] ''[[https://youtu.be/k1-TrAvp_xs Lacrimosa]]'' plays during the montage which shows Zemo in prison, highlighting his evil nature and what Sam and Bucky are getting themselves into by going to talk to him.
* PintSizedPowerhouse: Karli Morgenthau looks like a regular young woman but beats the crap out of the two Avengers, the new Captain America, and his sidekick. This is because she has super soldier serum in her veins.
* PlotMandatedFriendshipFailure: This episode shows how Sam and Bucky are starting to resent each other. As soon as they deal with the Flag-Smashers, they never want to see each other again.

** The episode is titled "The Star-Spangled Man."

* PretenderDiss: Bucky's default conversation tone with Walker-- in that nearly everything he says to him is about how he has nothing on Steve (not unreasonably so). Sam, for his part, tries to be civil, but Walker and Hoskins' MO makes it very difficult for him to empathize.
* {{Profiling}}: {{Zigzagged|Trope}}: After leaving Isaiah Bradley's house and having a shouting bout, Sam and Bucky were stopped by police who are clearly ready to take Sam (a black man) into custody for assaulting Bucky (a white man). Bucky only prevents it by invoking YouHaveNoIdeaWhoYoureDealingWith, with the police [[MuggingTheMonster embarrassed to realize that they've tried to arrest an Avenger]]. ''Then'' a call comes in, and they are forced to arrest Bucky instead--[[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome because he skipped out on his court-mandated therapy]].

* ReplacementScrappy: [[invoked]] Openly acknowledged by John Walker himself: while public sentiment seems to be on his side so far, he nonetheless admits to Sam and Bucky that trying to replace/one-up/live-up-to Steve's legacy is a pointless exercise-- he wants to make it work, and he thinks he could do a better job with Steve's actual comrades on his side. Sam and Bucky don't like him very much anyway, and take particular offense to being treated as mere 'wingmen'/'legitimizers.'

* RulesLawyer: Ultimately, John Walker's attitude to his role as Captain America is to be 'the perfect soldier,' which means respecting and enforcing U.S. government guidelines over him and other Sokovia Accords-covered peoples. This means, then, that he will choose to obey orders instead of seeing things Sam's and Bucky's way. They part [[{{Understatement}} on bad terms]] by the end of the episode. Needless to say, this was not the philosophy of Steve Rogers, who always chose Good over Lawfulness.

** The Flag-Smashers have all taken some variation of the Super Soldier serum that empowered Steve and Bucky, giving them similar abilities.

* TimeSkip: John and Lemar’s conversation during the opening of the episode tell us that about two weeks have passed since the end of the first episode.

** The Flag-Smashers' discussed world-view, i.e. they do not like that governments seem to be using [[Film/AvengersEndgame the Snap]]/serving those who were victims of it in order to encroach on many things (as well as Sam and John Walker discussing the GreyAndGrayMorality involved in the process), is a highly-simplified demonstration of what Canadian author and activist [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Klein Naomi Klein]] calls "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shock_Doctrine disaster capitalism]]".
** While at face-value, the Flag-Smashers' view that governments should care about people who were 'here the whole time' rather than people who are displaced may mirror 'anti-immigration and anti-foreign-aid rhetoric', later episodes would point out that in the InUniverse narrative, the Flag-Smashers were in fact originally immigrants.

* UnderestimatingBadassery: Even after realizing the Flag Smashers have more than one Super Soldier, Sam and Bucky don't realize that they're ''all'' super soldiers. This especially kicks them in the teeth with respect to Karli, who they initially think is a ''hostage'', thus letting her absolutely get the drop on Bucky.

* VillainousUnderdog: The Flag-Smashers are former civilians going up against military operatives (with two being bonafide Avengers). They still leave them in the dust due to their surprise ace up the sleeve, super soldier serum.
* VillainousValour: Whatever negative actions and situations the Flag-Smashers cause, they seem to be genuinely committed to what they are doing-- and they are even willing to perform individual sacrifices so that the group can survive.

** All of us are familiar with the capabilities of both Sam and Bucky (since their [[Film/CaptainAmericaTheWinterSoldier MCU debut]]), while John Walker is established in the first minutes of the episode to be at least physically and politically capable of performing the role of the government-sponsored Captain America. That said, all of them come away empty-handed in their firsts encounter with the Flag-Smashers-- who avoid MookChivalry and exploited their numbers to overwhelm and neutralize whatever experience advantage they had. Bucky gets the worst of it and is the first to be taken out of the fight, despite being the only one of the four who should be a match for a super soldier, mostly because they gang up on him.

* WreckedWeapon: Redwing, unfortunately, gets smashed in half by Karli. [[AndThereWasMuchRejoicing Bucky practically celebrates its "death."]]