Headscratchers / The Falcon and the Winter Soldier

Torres not caring about jurisdiction

Why is Torres in Switzerland to stop the Flag Smashers in the first place? He is not asuperhero, not a law enforcement officer. National or international, and is not a Swiss citizen. Isn't he, as a United States Air Force officer, causing a diplomatic incident by trying to arrest bank robbers in another country?

• "I'm just an American citizen on vacation here, I saw something suspicious and when I found out it was a bank robbery I tried to stop the robbers. I'm a trained military officer, I thought my training would be enough to take them on."

No Missile Countermeasures

• Why does Sam's suit not have any countermeasures to defend against missiles?
  • Given what we've seen, the primary strengths of the EXO-7 Falcon are its Fragile Speedster capabilities, and being a much smaller, nimbler target than a fighter jet. Sam is probably expected to outmaneuver, outrun or dodge any missiles fired at him, as the majority of the wingsuit goes towards keeping him airborne and moving. And if he actually got hit with a missile it's not like he'd survive anyways, rendering countermeasures pointless in the first place. Unless we're talking about electronic countermeasures, in which case your guess is as good as mine.
  • He could conceivably have electronic countermeasures that help slow down missiles from getting a lock, allowing him to dodge. But there's definitely no room for a reasonable amount of chaff.

So the Avengers didn't get paid?

• The Avengers can afford the fancy compound and lots of staff and equipment but they didn't pay their members?
  • Least Sam still has a job with the Air Force. Was Wanda going to magic up some money? Besides, it was made clear way back in Age of Ultron that Stark was the one to fork over the cash. You'd think he'd set up a trust fund or something. Heck, Pepper probably has a lot on her plate right now, but maybe take five minutes and five millions of $ to help out people who got blipped away and then were resurrected to find themselves in a battlefield for the fate of the universe.
  • Sam has plenty of money; he's a high-ranking officer of the US military with a unique and valued skillset. The problem is that his sister refuses to accept charity—she barely consented to letting him co-sign a loan that she would repay herself.
  • Sam was on the run with Captain America after the events of Civil War, so was likely not drawing a salary and probably had his assets seized. Then he was blipped for 5 years and returned to a world without any Avengers. That's a lot of years without income, and now he's back working as an independent contractor with the Air Force in a high-risk role.
  • Right, the high-risk thing is a big part of it. In terms of risk assessment, Sam could be killed on any random mission, which makes him a bad investment from the bank's point of view. He does have a government pension (which he mentions) that his sister will get if he dies, which should be enough to cover the payments, but with everything else they have enough of an excuse to turn him down.
  • Tony says in Age of Ultron that he pretty much pays for everything, i.e. the compound, the staff and the equipment, so it's a safe bet that included paying for everyone's living expenses for those who lived on-site (Sam, Wanda, Vision). If you have someone paying for your apartment, all your utility bills, your food and other day to day expenses etc, you only really need money for some personal stuff. Plus, if Tony actually did give the Avengers a paycheck for the work they do, that would make the Avengers be classified as private military contractors, which would just make their deployments draw a lot more public scrutiny and controversy given some of the incidents that firms like Anvil and Blackwater have been caught up in.

Did Steve die?

• Was Sam's speech at the Smithsonian museum a eulogy, or is Steve in retirement (or maybe has dementia) and Sam is merely talking about Steve's legacy, and passing it on to future generations? And if it was a eulogy, why wasn't Bucky present for his best friend's memorial?
  • The implication is that he died of old age. There wouldn't be rumors about him hiding on the Moon if he was just hanging out on some plot of land enjoying his last days. The museum event was not a eulogy; that would have happened a while ago. This was just a speech about Sam donating the shield to the museum.
  • A close look at various visible texts in the Smithsonian exhibit point to him having retired with no mention of him passing away. If you subscribe to the Russos' interpretation that Steve marrying Peggy was in an alternate timeline then he traveled to the main timeline to deliver a replacement shield, and after that probably went back to that alternate timeline.
  • They probably don't want to explain why Steve Rogers looks like an old man now, so "didn't survive putting the Infinity Stones back" would be a decent cover story to everyone not in the know.
  • It's unlikely that the common population know about the Infinity Stones, or the Time Travel (especially the latter, with all the implications if the knowledge fall in the wrong hands), so, it's probable that the "official story" is that Cap fell in battle.
  • Again, the official story as stated on the Smithsonian exhibit is that Steve simply retired after Tony's death.
  • The writers may be deliberately leading the viewers to think Steve has died, so that they can do a surprise Chris Evans cameo at some point later in the series.
  • As of episode 5 Sam has said, "...Steve is gone." That's usually what people say when someone is dead.
  • On the other hand, in episode 6 a high-ranking GRC member says "I thought Captain America was on the Moon." So either there wasn't a lot of publicity on the matter, or that guy is just an idiot.
  • As Steve would likely want to live out his final days in peace and quiet, one would assume that Sam and Bucky never told anyone about old Steve. The official story is likely that he died in the Battle of Earth. Far From Home included him among the memorial video of fallen Avengers. Or those who knew about his mission to return the Infinity Stones (those who saw Steve alive and well after the battle, like at Tony's funeral) were probably left to believe that he never returned and is presumed dead.

No Backup in Munich

• In the second episode Sam, Bucky, new Cap and Battlestar are planning to take down 8 supposed super-soldiers alone. And it's happening near Munich, Germany. They're shown to have a transport plane, a helicopter and a humvee for transportation, but not real backup apart from Redwing. Why didn't they follow the Flag-Smashers with the GSG-9 (Grenzschutzgruppe 9)?
  • In Sam and Bucky's case, they didn't fully know what they were dealing with other than one person with possible super strength. As for John and Battlestar, I'm chalking it up to overconfidence.
• And by the way, why didn't they use guns? Actually, John has one as does Redwing. And Sam used to have ones and wasn't afraid to put them to use.
  • Redwing did use its guns before getting destroyed.
  • Exactly. So, they don't abstain from using guns for some moral reasons. And Falcon did kill some of Batroc's henchmen in the first episode, even if it was Disney Death. So where are his SM Gs which he used before?
  • Battlestar especially having no guns on him despite lacking a shield, wings or superstrength is the oddest.

How could've Bucky told anyone about Isaiah?!

• Sam isn't happy in the least about finding out about Isaiah Bradley, a black super soldier, and lashes out on Bucky for not telling anyone. While Bucky not telling Steve to not upset him and leaving Isaiah alone is understandable, and Sam getting upset because of the implications of Isaiah's existence, how could've Bucky told anyone? He was in and out of cryosleep for the better part of 70 years, only being awakened as a brainwashed killing machine, then when he finally was free of that, became a wanted fugitive, then put into cryotherapy, then snapped from existence for five years, and now trying to deal with his raging PTSD just months after that... How, HOW could he have been able to tell A SINGLE SOUL (least of all Steve) about Isaiah? Sam is being (overall) way too harsh on Bucky.
  • That's the thing. Sam's anger isn't rational. He just witnessed a very ugly part of America's history come to light in the form of Isaiah Bradley, and given that he's a fellow black man like Isaiah, at least a part of his anger is rooted in the concept that in an earlier era, Sam being Captain America would've led to that same fate. To say that America has issues with racial inequality is a massive understatement, and Sam, who is fairly outspoken on just about everything, would have something to say about it regardless of whether it was logically sound or not. He knows Bucky can't tell anyone, but he's too caught up in grappling with horrifying dirty laundry regarding the government he faithfully served for years to factor things through logically. Basically, he just witnessed a fellow black man dealt a terrible injustice walking around and he's pissed off about it.
  • Sam knows that Bucky had reasons to don't tell anyone about Isaiah. He's just venting his anger with Bucky because the latter is the closest person there.

Not so subtle White Wolf

• In Episode 2, Bucky runs up to the semi on point because both he and Sam believe there's a hostage there. He does this in the view of the driver of the trailing semi, and he casually walks around, taking in the sights and calls out to the supposed refugee with all the calm in the world. All in the view of said driver. Predictably this goes badly, and it would've gone badly even if it wasn't a trap. What the hell, "White Wolf"?
  • Right up until he got punted thirty feet, Bucky had absolutely no reason to believe that the people in the area were anything but your bonafide standard humans. Try as he might to deny it, Bucky is the Winter Soldier, a biologically-enhanced Super-Soldier with 70+ years of combat experience, an Avenger, a Howling Commando, and a trained U.S. Army soldier, and he has repeatedly been shown to be able to singlehandedly take out an entire platoon of heavily armed and armored soldiers by himself with his bare hands. Presumably, he was thinking that he'd get the hostage out and then singlehandedly take out everyone else, which, of course didn't happen because new super soldiers in a world where the Serum isn't exactly commonplace was an Outside-Context Problem.
  • Except Sam informs that they are strong like Bucky, and the latter witnesses (and concedes) their strength when he sees them carry a huge crate like it was nothing.
  • Just because he acknowledged strength, doesn't mean he thinks he can't take them. Again, 70+ years of combat experience. I'd think that level of acumen would make you even a bit cocky in certain situations.
  • It's also now an established point in Episode 3, that the current iteration of the serum does not cause its recipient to visibly bulk-up, despite still providing all of its other benefits. If Bucky's working on outdated knowledge based on how the serum changed Steve, it wouldn't be surprising he thinks the fairly short and slender Karli to be a normal human. Likewise, the rest of her crew were all wearing concealing clothing and seemed to already be of fairly large builds.

Bringing Bucky

• Bucky and Sam start working with each other in the second episode. But Bucky isn't an active soldier—he's a civilian, a retired veteran pardoned assassin with mandatory psychological counseling for his horrific trauma. Hell, Sam didn't even invite him, he just showed up and refused to leave. How is it legal for him to participate in combat missions?
  • Telling the Winter Soldier he can't have his way seems like a great way to end up in the ICU. That, and the mission seems like it was super short notice, without the ability to properly set up a support team, so presumably, Sam gave up and let Bucky come along because the man is there offering his help and Sam, a trained soldier who knows more is better, just went with it.
  • Sam doesn't have the authority to reactivate a retired soldier. On that first mission, sure, Bucky refused to go away and Sam knows he needs help. But after that, Walker and the therapist both take it as just understood that Bucky is active again, and the only problem mentioned is his therapy.
  • Sam also establishes with Walker that he remains a free agent that simply happens to be taking on military contracts. Outside of the military chain-of-command Sam isn't really obligated to enforce Bucky's retirement.

Why not make more shields?

• In this series, Cap's shield is treated like a unique, one-of-a-kind weapon that can't be replicated, just like it is in the comics. However, in the comics it's explicitly explained that the unique vibranium alloy the shield was made of was created by accident, and no one has been able to replicate its creation process ever since. But IIRC the MCU has never come up with such a backstory for the shield, so why hasn't the US army produced more of them? Couldn't they have made one for Battlestar too, for example?
  • They do explain some of the shield's history in The First Avenger, where Howard Stark says that the shield was unique and it contained all of the vibranium that the Allies had. In Age of Ultron, the Avengers are surprised to learn that Klaue has more vibranium, since they thought that Tony's father had gotten all of it. However, now, with Wakanda established to have large vibranium deposits and opening their borders, the rest of the world should be able to get more so that excuse no longer holds water.
  • Even with opened borders, Wakanda is unlikely to just give out all its vibranium to any buyer with deep pockets, and likely not in a form that can be freely molded to create another shield as opposed to pre-made items like Bucky's vibranium arm (and the only reason he gets it is because he's a very special case).
  • Echoing the above; while we haven't gotten much of a sense of how Wakanda opened up to the world in the two years between T'Challa becoming king and Thanos' snap, it seems safe to assume that the country is wary enough of other world powers to want to keep some of its secrets to itself, which is likely a major factor in why their capital city is still hidden with the dome cloak when the Avengers come to visit in Infinity War. Wakanda has other, more valuable resources than just raw vibranium (the insights they've gained in medical research must be invaluable and doesn't have to involve exporting raw materials) and to think that they'd willingly hand it out to any and everybody — least of which the U.S. military or associated private contractors like Stark Industries (notice Tony's nanotech wasn't vibranium, it was something he developed himself) — is somewhat naive. (The likely reason S.W.O.R.D. was able to obtain Vision's vibranium body as seen in WandaVision is probably because the Wakandans let the surviving Avengers leave with it out of respect for them, but it's also possible Hayward took advantage of the strife left by the power vacuum to invade Wakanda and seize the body.) Not to mention that they’ve been affected by the Blip as much as everyone else - and likely feel the impact of it more because the Snap was committed by Thanos on their soil in the first time the country's been involved in a foreign conflict - and seem to have largely gone dark in the wake of their king being among the vanished; all of this suggests that they might not exactly be in much of a sharing mood only 6 months later.
  • And let's not forget that, more than anything, Captain America's shield is a symbol. Even if they could scrounge up enough vibranium to make another one, it still wouldn't be his shield, and everyone knows it. There are better ways to use any vibranium they do get their hands on, especially since they already have the real shield.
  • There is also the fact that, T'Challa, the king of Wakanda, is most likely dead (given Marvel's decision of not recasting the role, after the tragic passing away of Chadwick Boseman). The country just lost her king again, right after the Blip. Providing Vibranium to other countries just so they can make shields wouldn't be a top priority right now.

Are the Falcon and Bucky working for the military or not?

• At the beginning of "The Star-Spangled Man", when Bucky joins the Falcon on the mission, they are clearly still working for the US military, as they are flown to their target on a military plane, Lieutenant Torres is acting as their liaison, etc. But at the end of the episode, Sam says that they have more freedom to operate than Walker and Hoskins, since they are free agents... Which would mean they are not working for the military anymore, unlike Captain America II and Battlestar. But if that's the case, where would they get transport to Berlin to meet Zemo? Who would even authorize such a meeting with a state prisoner? Who's gonna fix Redwing if the military isn't involved anymore? Why would the US government even allow someone like Bucky to work as free agent, given his history and the terms of his pardon?
  • Sam explains in the first episode that he's an independent military contractor. They hire him when they need something specific done, but otherwise he's self-employed.
  • And, while self-employed and working for someone that the U.S. might not approve of, it seems evident that cutting ties has cost Sam some of the support he had. Sam no longer seems to have access to his flight-suit and any iteration of Redwing. Beyond that, Sam likely has enough money of his own to arrange a flight, and beyond that it isn't on Sam to enforce the terms of Bucky's pardon. As to who allowed Sam and Bucky access to Zemo? It was presumably the German government. Which probably wasn't hard to get, given that they're two of the figures at the center of saving the known universe. Just ask a few favors and you're good.
  • Sam does still have his suit, as seen in Episode 4, so maybe that's treated as his personal property or belonging to the Avengers- and correct me if I'm wrong, but it's a different suit from the one they stole from Fort Meade anyway, the thrusters and wings are almost completely different designs, and then there's the fact Redwing has been incorporated into it. The original suit was trashed by Bucky during Captain America: The Winter Soldier anyway, one wing was ripped off and Sam had to jettison the other, and what was left of them either fell into the Potomac or went down with the helicarrier. The likelihood is this suit (and the previous iterations, since every one has seemed a little different) is Stark tech duplicating and improving the original specs as supplied by Sam around the end of Age of Ultron.

Sympathy for the Flag Smashers

• The series seems to try to paint the Flag Smashers as Robin Hood like figures fighting for the put aside from the Blip and fighting for one unity. Except that they're acting like the people who blipped are getting special treatment while the ones who didn't are being forgotten about. If anything, the other movies and tv shows set after the Blip show the people who got blipped are the ones who got the raw deal of the things considering the majority of them are possibly homeless, jobless, their significant other might have moved on, they miss a good chunk of their kids lives, basically having their lives ruined from being dusted. Even ignoring that, from what we saw in endgame didn't exactly look like a good time during those 5 years. Yet the Flag Smashers want to go back to that? exactly what is there for me to sympathize. If anything they sound like selfish assholes for being angry at people who had no control over what happened to them
  • The third episode has them burn alive a bunch of GRC staff, so they're not so sympathetic anymore.
  • The issue seems to be that some people actually did have their lots in life improved by the Snap, as Thanos envisioned. It's established that the whole world economy has been upturned twice, borders shifted, new powers have risen and fallen. In that five year period some people managed to get themselves re-situated, started rebuilding their lives again. Only for billions of people that arguably have a right to get back what they had before the Snap came rushing back. People were displaced, told to give up what they'd gained in that five years, and forgotten as the world focused all of its efforts on those that returned. While they are jumping down the slippery slope by now, it's made pretty clear that the Flagsmashers have been bringing necessary supplies to overpopulated refugee camps and are practically folk heroes to some people. Even Lemar has to point out to Walker that the Flagsmashers have helped a lot of people that needed that, and that earns their loyalty.
  • Episode 4 provides a bit more context for this. After the Blip, it seems that many countries opened their borders to migrants to help replace the labor force that they lost. But once people returned, they started sending these migrants back, which leads us to the refugee problem shown in the show.

Why is Zemo still in prison?

• Zemo should have definitely escaped prison by now. He's a very clever man who probably would have been given a major opportunity after the Snap. From a Doylist perspective, having Zemo be out of prison would make the story a bit simpler because Sam and Bucky wouldn't have had to break him out. Why did Marvel make Zemo still be in prison?
  • Because it was very likely he didn't want to leave? At the end of Civil War, when our heroes catch up to him in Siberia, Zemo admits he doesn't have much of an idea what to do after destroying the Avengers with his manipulation. He was content with his work done. In fact, he was ready to kill himself had T'Challa not stopped him. In all likelihood, Zemo was fine being imprisoned for his actions, because of the rift it created for the Avengers.
  • As seen at the end of episode 3, he probably knew that even if he escaped, the Wakandans would hunt him down. Better in a relatively cushy German prison than dead.
  • It also hasn't been stated which side of the Blip he was on, so there's a 50/50 chance he was among the people who vanished for five years.

Nagel 'perfecting' the Serum

• So Dr. Nagel claims he had perfected the original formula by it no longer physically changing the recipients to become large or muscular and instead make them look like anyone. But that never happened, Bucky wasn't physically altered nor was Blonsky (initially) or the HYDRA test subjects. Steve only changed because he was put in a Vita-Ray machine, so what was Nagel going on about?
  • All of these examples involved the subjects going crazy. So far, the Flag Smashers seem perfectly within their mental faculties.
  • Bucky, Blonsky, and the HYDRA subjects were already trained soldiers at good physical health compared to the frail riddled with illnesses Steve so it might had been less noticeable of their physical changes but there was indeed changes.
  • Bucky did change physically. If you go back and rewatch Captain America: The First Avenger, Bucky was nowhere as huge as he looked from Captain America: The Winter Soldier onwards. The problem is, unlike Steve, who was only 5'4" (according to the museum scene from The Winter Soldier) and was skinny to the point that you could almost see his ribs, Bucky was a 6 foot tall man with a healthy physique. Post his transformation into the Winter Soldier, he just bulked up, which is probably not that noticeable, but he did change.
    • Also, while recently rewatching the first Captain America movie, I noticed Bucky also looks a little shorter than Post-Serum Steve, but The Winter Soldier onwards, he and Steve have the same height, meaning he also grew a bit taller (if it is not him simply wearing boots with heels).
  • Blonsky was also given a specifically lower dose of the serum originally. He's not given the full dose until near the end of The Incredible Hulk (before getting Banner's blood), and his body is very much changing then.

Sam's Role

• Given that the price of being found out would be death, why did Zemo not coach Sam at all on the character he was supposed to play (i.e. who he is, his history, his likes and dislikes, questions he's likely to be asked and the answers to them, his drink of choice, etc.)?
  • Because Zemo is a dick who enjoys watching stupid Americans squirm? Sam was ultimately doing fine, just a bit uncomfortable, until his sister called, which neither of them could have anticipated and which coaching wouldn't have helped with.
  • The bartender already had his suspicions, and it's implied that he gave forewarning to Selby considering she immediately noticed that he was off, given her comment about him being taller than usual.
  • It's also possible that Zemo overestimated Falcon's ability to convincingly act like someone else, and didn't expect Sam to screw up that badly. Sam did tell Nick Fury that he was more of a soldier than a spy after all.

Zemo's Travel Choices

• If he was rich all along, why would Zemo (a wanted man) take a commercial flight to Russia instead of his private jet?
  • Arguably a flimsy reasoning as this is a retcon to fit in line with Zemo's comic book counterpart (to some degree) but it was possible Zemo didn't want to include his family's butler in with his plot as well as the other possibility being he deliberately outed himself out for the Avengers to chase him down for his plan in Civil War to work the way it did.
  • When you're planning to commit a high number of crimes to try to do something as huge as break apart the Avengers, you really don't want people to notice you. Using a private jet to go to places would definitely alert people to your location, hence why Zemo takes a commercial flight to blend in.

Lack of firearms

• Both Sam and Bucky have made extensive use of guns in the past, yet they seem to not just carry guns when fighting, instead trying to fist fight super soldiers. It's weird for Falcon since his thing is extensive use of his wings in which having a long range weapon is extremely useful, yet none of that flight advantage is used as he relies on fist fighting. In comic book land, heroes with unique skills and weapons can be superior to firearms, and thus the heroes wouldn't need a weapon, but that isn't the case here since one of the Flag Smashers were easily defeated by a group of cops with guns. It's especially weird in the case of Battlestar and Sharon. Battlestar is pretty normal, and he never even tries to pull out a gun, and Sharon is an agent, yet she had to take an enemy's gun. Plenty of Badass Normals make way with not using firearms, but they either have the justification of only wanting to use non lethal weaponry, and thus they are better than normal cops in that they can do the job with no casualties. Either that, or their skills and tools really are more effective than firearms, even if they wouldn't be in real life, thus making them better than cops who just have guns. Here, the cops with guns have an easier time defeating a Flag Smasher, so Sam and Bucky are really only better on an investigative level. Might as well just focus on finding the Flag Smashers and leave the fighting to the cops.
  • It's not that easy to travel around the world with firearms. Fiction makes it seem ridiculously easy for spies to travel anywhere with pistols and SMGs galore, but it's actually a huge hairy deal to even get through airport security without a very exclusive license pretty much outing you as a law enforcement or similar personnel, and if you're trying to travel covertly, you don't want to do that. In Sharon's case, she's an ex-agent, as in disavowed and in hiding, so she may or may not carry a gun depending on what the circumstances are. She pretty clearly had one when she saved our heroes the first time by shooting through the windows at the bar.
    • They aren't going through airport security. Plus, they carry other weapons around the world, if Sam can bring his wings, he most certainly can bring guns.
    • At some point they certainly are. Even if they're being ferried around by the military initially, they aren't by the time they go to Madripoor, which, even if it's a criminal haven, is also a place that almost surely doesn't want foreigners bringing personal guns into the country. And a wing suit is not a firearm. That's like saying "I can bring a hang glider in my checked luggage, so I can bring an AR."
  • Could be an example of Executive Meddling, Disney does not want R rated programming on Disney+ (R Rated material is shown on Hulu also owned by Disney) Gory bloody gun shot wounds is a real good way to get your rating pushed up into R so they may have had to keep it down to a minimal. Most of the gun use in previous Marvel films was against aliens or shown minimal blood which helps keep the rating down.
    • It literally can't be Rated R, it's not a film, it's a tv series. Not only that but the amount of PG-13 films that contain people getting shot is countless. TV-14 shows are able to easily have action scenes where people get shot. People have gotten shot on this show, a Flagsmasher was riddled with bullets by the cops which is why this Troper asked why the heroes didn't take advantage of it when they've used firearms extensively in past PG-13 films on normal humans.

The Winter Soldier's fame

• In Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Natasha says the Winter Soldier is so elusive that most of the intelligence community doesn't know he exists. So how does some random guy in a Madripoor bar recognize him and point him out like he's some kind of celebrity?
  • Considering that the news of the Winter Soldier supposedly causing the UN explosion that killed King T'Chaka spread like wildfire shortly after it happened, chances are that the Winter Soldier isn't exactly as mysterious of a figure anymore. Plus, Madripoor is basically a haven for criminal activity, and the Winter Soldier was dispatched to take out anybody who could pose a threat to S.H.I.E.L.D/HYDRA's plans, so criminals would likely be pretty jumpy around him.
  • Natasha says most of the intelligence community doesn't know the Winter Soldier exists during the events of The Winter Soldier. At the end of The Winter Soldier, she leaks all of Hydra and SHIELD's secrets. Plenty of time from then to now, especially after the UN explosion as mentioned above, for the Winter Soldier to become recognizable to the general public.

Wakanda Not Holding Zemo

• It makes sense why Wakanda wants to capture Zemo, given that he's responsible for the death of their previous king. I'm just wondering: why didn't they have him in their custody after Black Panther stopped his suicide attempt?
  • The secrecy of Wakanda was still very much at stake. Once the UN realized that Wakanda had Zemo, the eyes of the intelligence community would all turn directly to Wakanda. They have withstood inquiries in the past specifically because the world decided to ignore the seemingly "backwards" nation of farmers and shepherds. However, any attempt to throw their weight around on the world stage would instantly raise eyebrows.
  • In accordance with this, T'Challa had just given sanctuary to Bucky and Steve. Having the UN breathing down his neck would be last thing he needed. Better to give up Zemo to the German government, and have the Dora keep an eye on him should he attempt to escape justice.
  • It's made clear in the casino scene in Black Panther that T'Challa and Everett Ross made a deal (probably off-the-books). In exchange for giving him Zemo, Ross kept mum about T'Challa being Black Panther.
  • It might also be a case for diplomacy and justice as well. Zemo did kill other people. He may have assassinated the Wakandan king, but that was just one man. It'd be more a sign that justice is being served by having Zemo in a 'public' prison, rather than taken away by a secretive nation and made to disappear.

Super Soldier Serum Timeline

• What exactly is the timeline of the Serum? Based on The First Avenger, the entirety of the USA's supply was used on Steve, which is why the process isn't replicated, because Erskine didn't record the formula. Hydra had a version, used on Bucky, but apparently Zola didn't have the ability to make more of it. In Agent Carter, Howard Stark specifically wanted Steve's blood to replicate the serum, among the other potential medical breakthroughs. He succeeded in replicating it by the early 90's, which Hydra murdered him for, to use on the new Winter Soldiers. This means whatever process was used on Bucky could not be replicated, but a new version was created for the Centipede Serum. General Ross was able to get a defective version working as well, but it appears the US Government went in a different direction after the failure of Blonsky and instead relied on the Patriot Serum. But, this show establishes the US Government got a version working on Isaiah Bradley in the 1950s, but either lost it or stopped using it, which is why they imprisoned him for years to run experiments. So how is it that both Hydra and the US Government both created and lost it multiple times?
  • The timeline is this:
    • Erskine develops the Serum, uses it on Schmidt and Steve, who then both go missing.
    • Agent Carter, which takes place a few years later, reveals that the blood samples taken from Steve are being considered for research in hopes of recreating the Serum, and Peggy destroys it. This presumably only stalls the Serum's recreation by a couple of years, as Zola, who built a second, imperfect serum used on Bucky, was recruited into SHIELD, and presumably the US government gets their hands on it and that's how Isaiah Bradley gets the serum.
    • Flash forward a few decades and Howard Stark, by virtue of his near-Tony levels of brilliance, recreates the serum. HYDRA finds out, sends Bucky to kill him and collect it for the other Winter Soldiers, who then go on ice because of their instability.
    • In 2012, Steve comes back and the serum research gets amped up as per Agents of SHIELD, and then finally, here in FATWS, it's been fully recreated by a madman who more-or-less recreated it after years of work. So in conclusion, the reason why they create, recreate and lose it multiple times is because basically every time they synthesize it, it either doesn't work the way they want it or someone destroys the work that's already been done.
  • Episode 5 clears this up, if you assume Zola is behind the creation of Isaiah Bradley. After the success of Bucky, Zola wanted to continue the efforts, but could not replicate the procedure. Isaiah and his teammates were given imperfect versions of the serum, which killed all of his team except him. The military used his disobeying orders as an excuse to imprison and experiment on him, again also probably with Zola's encouragement. However, even after 30 years, they could not replicate the success of Isaiah. Howard Stark was able to do so independently, which led to HYDRA having him assassinated to the serum. Howard's success, even if short-lived, led to General Ross becoming more interested and greenlighting the Weapon Plus program, which lead to the Hulk and the Abomination. Meanwhile, HYDRA failing with the new Winter Soldiers lead to them going back to the drawing board with the Centipede Serum.

How much of the Winter Soldier still exists within Bucky?

• In episode 3, Zemo tells Bucky "Something is still in there!" right after testing the trigger words on him. How much of the Winter Soldier is left in Bucky?
  • That's the question that drives his entire character so there's no clear answer.

Why did Walker go after Nico?

• Why did Walker go after Nico and kill him, when Karli was the one responsible for killing Lamar?
  • Walker was blinded with rage and hatred and wasn't thinking properly. In Walker's mind, he likely wanted to take retribution on the nearest enemy he can find, no matter how little sense it makes.
  • Nico was unfortunately slow enough for an enraged Walker to catch up to and Walker himself immediately demanded to know where Karli is going before ultimately going for the kill.
  • By the next episode, seems that Walter initially believes that Nico was the one who killed Lemar. After Bucky tells him that Karli was the actual killer, Walker is just deluding himself to justify killing a defenseless man.
  • Because Nico was holding John down for Karli to stab him. Regardless of what his specific role in the attempted murder was, he's just as culpable as Karli; and at no point did he surrender after throwing a concrete pillar at John.

Weird reason for putting on the mask

• Why exactly did Zemo make a dramatic showing of putting on his mask just to kill some nameless mooks in the third episode? Everyone in Madripoor already knew what he looks like by that point, so it just seems kinda pointless.
  • Rule of Cool.
  • Doylist reason: Daniel Brühl only signed on to return as Zemo because he was specifically excited to portray the character closer to his comic book counterpart. So, he certainly wasn't going to pass up an opportunity to get into that sweet, sweet purple hood.

When did Yori's son die exactly?

• The last time we know that the Winter Soldier was actively carrying out assassinations was during the titular Captain America movie, and counting in the time skip during the Blip, it has been almost ten years since Bucky went off the grid. Yet the show kind of implies that Yori's son's death is recent, with Bucky having nightmares from that particular hit and Yori's pain still feeling fresh. Has it been stated somewhere when Bucky killed his son? Or could it be just old wound resurfacing through Bucky's attempt to make amends with Yori?
  • The whole thing with Yori's grief is that even to the present day, he has no idea who killed his son. A sudden death or accident of one's child would had been devastating but think of them being murdered for no reason and the killer has yet to be put to justice. It makes moving on a difficult process when you know the killer is out there. This adds double to Bucky's guilt because not only was he the killer, it wouldn't help to know the Government themselves gave him a pardon that absolves all his murders. How in the world can he tell Yori that just wouldn't crush the man's soul?

Walker's team

• Why doesn't Walker have a team? He tried and failed to recruit Sam and Bucky, but he should at least have a well equipped fire team. Rogers always had a team backing him up when situations would allow him to get one. Even when he went solo into that Hydra POW camp he kept himself hidden until he could free the prisoners and bolster his numbers. However Walker only brings Hoskins with him into combat. Both lack super powers or special equipment beyond the indestructible shield. While the shield does prevent Walker from using anything larger than a handgun, Hoskins should have an assault rifle or something. While Walker took the serum, they went up against what they could assume to be at least six super soldiers with only a team of two and little in the way of equipment.
  • Keep in mind what Walker is to the U.S. government: a propaganda vehicle, like Steve before him. Just like Steve, more often than not, just had himself and Sam, the U.S. conveyed the same image through Walker and Hoskins. Even though they had no serum to give him, they wanted to have a "Star-Spangled Man with a Plan" out in the field, getting things done in the name of America.
  • Walker only ever appears as a duo with Lemar in two situations: when they attacked the Flag Smasher convoy, and in Latvia. The former is probably a rapid-response thing; they sent the pair ahead in a helicopter and the jeep came in later. In Latvia, he and Lemar have gone off-book to pursue Sam and Bucky. No support for an unsanctioned mission. When the pair raid the Flag Smasher safe house, they do have a full support team. Simply put, Walker isn't placing himself in situations where he would either need or could get an entire team of people backing him. Cap, on the other hand, gathered his team because he was being deployed as a covert strike team; get in, get out, let the army mop up.
  • It's a good way to show that this was something not properly thought out by the government and seems kind of slapped together more for propaganda. Remember that Steve was originally used in a similar manner just for government propaganda and raising war bond money. Once he was able to get actually combat work (which involved having to disobey a few direct orders in the process) he was able to recruit the Howling Commandos. When he worked for SHIELD he had the STRIKE team with Rumlow. The same senator that seemed to be pushing for the new Captain America was also on the GRC council and showed that he was not really one for any type of large scale or long term planning since his plan was to send in the troops, round up all the immigrants and send them packing by force if needed be. Who cares what happens to them afterwards?.

Super Soldier Bone Strength

• The super soldier serum clearly significantly increases the subjects bone strength, since Steve was able to jump thousands of feet out of a plane (it had to be that high for Rumlow and his team to parachute jump) into the ocean, fall down a missile silo, and survive punches from Thanos. Bucky also fell down a missile silo, landed on a car with enough force to cave in the roof, and fell hundreds of feet out of a plane at cruising speed hitting several trees on the way down. Walker also landed on a car with enough force to cave in the roof. With all this mind, would Bucky's strength and the thrust from Sam's suit really be enough force to break Walker's arm?
  • Bucky is also a super soldier, so all things being proportional, he probably has enough strength to break the bones of one. And Sam's thrusters are also pretty powerful, capable of making a full-grown man fly (seriously, his wings are not even helpful in his flight if you think about it, at most they help with the trajectory, at worse they're just more weight to lift). Add to that the fact they used his arm as a lever, which on its own is a force multiplier, and you could expect that if John wasn't a super soldier, his arm would have been ripped right out.
  • Bones don't work in isolation, either. Muscles and tendons are what keeps the skeleton together. Stronger muscles, by putting more pressure on the bones, stimulate bone density. It's logical to think that a super soldier would develop some pretty strong bones. It's also quite probable that the serum stimulates bones as well; after all Steve Rogers grew nearly a foot in height, his skeleton must have grown in concert with his muscles.

Zemo on Bucky's list

• Why is Zemo on Bucky's list? Bucky never did anything to Zemo. He was just a pawn in Zemo's plan for revenge on the Avengers. Bucky has nothing to make up to Zemo.
  • He could see himself as atoning for the consequences of Zemo's actions in a manner similar to Senator Atwood.

The reveal of the power broker

• So Sharon Carter is revealed to be the Power Broker and it raises one question. Why did she lead Sam, Bucky and Zemo to Wilfred Nagel's actual lab in episode 3? Even if she hadn't expected to them to kill Nagel, she still risked her ability of making more Super Soldier serum on the promise of Sam helping to get her a pardon.
  • It's actually unclear if Nagel was the only one working on the super-serum. Is completely possible that Sharon just make copies of Nagel's version of the formula behind his back, before sending Sam, Bucky and Zemo to kill him.
  • In the after credits scene though, It's clear she's lost all access to supersoldier serum.
  • It's probably because she considered the loss of the Super Soldier Serum, which seems to have caused her more grief than gain, is an acceptable sacrifice for the access to everything she'll be able to profit from, now that she has been officially exonerated.
  • Considering that other people have managed to recreate the serum or create a similar one, we can assume she figured sacrificing the serum in the short term was worth it given that Sam and Bucky's investigation risked exposing her if they dug deep enough.

Killing their own hitmen

• If Sharon Carter really is the Power Broker, why did she kill several bounty hunters that she herself set on Sam and Bucky while they were confronting Dr. Nagel? Did she really not want them to pay them that much money?
  • All part of the facade. Any bounty hunter who gets killed isn't worth her money anyways. Plenty more of their level in Madripoor anyways.
  • The bounty seemed to be set by Selby’s people, not the Power Broker.

Where the hell is Spider-Man?

• You're telling me there's a massive terrorist attack in the middle of New York and Spider-Man just decided to sit this one out? It clearly wasn't a case of it being too sudden for him to get there given how the police had enough time to set up a perimeter around the GRC and prepare to evacuate the council.
  • There could be a multitude of reasons. He could've been preoccupied with some other crime issues in his neighborhood. It could've been tough for him to traverse all the way to the middle of New York from Queens. Or at the time of the show, which is still prior to Far From Home, he may still feel too unnerved with dealing with bigger threats after the events of Endgame.
  • For the same reason that Rhodey (or any other superhero) never show up, either. This show is an story about Sam, Buck and Walker, any other superhero doesnt fit here.

Is Power Broker killing Karli a kick the dog moment?

• Sharon was doing it purely to silence Karli. However, A) Sharon was the one to put her gun down and tried to talk things through (she still could have ended up betraying Karli), B) Karli shot Sharon after Sharon shot Batroc, C) Karli was seconds away from shooting Sam.
  • Ultimately, Sharon only did it to cover her actions under the guise of saving Sam. The overall point with Karli is that underneath the super strength and charisma that convinced many of her cause, she was just a scared teenager, someone who was really crying for help in a really terrible situation, who took matters in her own hands both when the government failed to help and when she gained power. Sam wanted Karli to finally realize that and stand down in a similar vein to Steve reaching out to Bucky in their fight in the Helicarrier, where the risk of dying to save the other of themselves was possible. Sharon took that chance away though we the audience will be unsure if Karli would have ever pulled the trigger at the end had Sharon not been involved.

Power Broker timeline

• Zemo was aware of the Power Broker prior to going to prison but Sharon was still a CIA agent when he was put in prison. The only explanation would he that Sharon was the Power Broker long before she became disenfranchised with the government which doesn’t fit with what we know of the character.
  • Sharon might not be the first Power Broker. Sharon is clearly working with someone else behind the scenes and is mainly taking an active role. Given the series' main plots about taking up legacies and mantles, it's not too far of a stretch to assume Sharon is a successor to a villainous mantle.

Why did Bucky give away Steve's book?

• Why did Bucky give away Steve's book to his psychologist, especially since that particular item is presumably the last thing Steve left to him?
  • Considering that Sam was urging Bucky to not define himself by Steve's desires, maybe that symbolizes Bucky finally deciding to let go of his old friend.

A Black man carrying the Stars and Stripes

• The government of the United States was unwilling to let a black man become the next Captain America, hence the cruel treatment of Isiah Bradley and that is also why they made John Walker the new Cap. But then, why did they choose Rhodey to be the Iron Patriot in Iron Man 3? Is it a bit of Early-Installment Weirdness on Marvel's part, on not showing real world problems like racism in their movies (much like how Captain America: The First Avenger had a very Politically Correct History), or is it because it was just a guy in a Powered Armor and the race of the guy inside the suit didn't matter? Or is it because the Iron Patriot title isn't as much of a big position as the title of Captain America and therefore, they didn't care that he was a black guy?
  • Partly because Iron Patriot isn't a symbol in the same way that Captain America is but also they didn't pick Rhodey for that, they rebranded the existing War Machine suit, it's implied that Rhodey is the only one other than Tony than can fly it at least in Iron Man 2. Though clearly in 3, AIM can fly it once they renovated it. So giving it to someone else may not have been an option.
  • The US government doesn't have clean hands in the MCU, but Bradley's treatment was significantly influenced by Zola and HYDRA. Further, it's not clear that they blocked Sam from becoming Captain America. He refused the shield when Steve offered, so they named Walker.
    • Original poster here, the senator (who was white) clearly says "You did the right thing" to Sam when he handed over the shield to the government and then, the same senator went on to present the new Captain America to the world in the end of the episode. Clearly this was not just a "getting a new Cap just because Sam didn't want to" scenario. It is subtly implied it was very much a race based decision.
    • There is zero proof that Bradley treatment was influenced by HYDRA, that would be a simple too a easy cop-out; also as seen HYDRA ironically cared more for results over race. Considering the show was mirroring Bradley's mistreatment to the mistreatment of African-Americans and African-American service men throughout American history, with a specific parallel to the infamous Tuskegee Experiments, the US' actions regarding Bradley was depressingly accurate.
  • As Val at one point mentioned, the shield (as well as the Captain America mantle) doesn't really belong to the government. Sure, they made Steve into "Captain America" as a propaganda tool in WWII, and they funded the research that turned him into a super soldier and made the shield, but when he came back to life in the 2000s he fully took the mantle and shield as his own, and acted as an independent agent from them on (in fact, both his second and third solo movies are all about him working against the government when he thinks they're not doing the right thing). As such, when Sam had the shield, they really didn't have the power to choose whether or not he would be the next Captain America, he could just take the mantle as his own, like he did at the end of the series. But once the shield was in their hands, the choice was also theirs, and they preferred to ignore Isaiah in the time between WWII and Cap's return to life, and pick someone with "blonde hair and blue eyes" once Sam unwillingly gave them the choice back.
    • This doesn't answer the Iron Patriot question.
  • One has to understand that Iron Patriot was first and foremost a weapon to be used in the hands of the US government, something like Tony Stark throwing the US government a bone to get them off his case. A black man being used as a weapon by the US government is a very different context from a black man being held up as an ideal American in Captain America.
  • The government didn't choose Rhodey, Tony did. The suit only works for him, so they could either endorse him or he'd resign and work for Stark instead.
    • Original poster here, Tony designed a suit that was a grey/metallic version of his own suit, the government gave it the Iron Patriot paintjob. And gave it the Iron Patriot name, which Tony hated. I think the other arguments (Iron Patriot being a weapon, not a symbol of peace) answered my question well. This one, however, sounds a little inaccurate.
  • This is like asking how the US could have a Black president in the 2000s but not in the 1960s. Not to say that racism isn't still rampant, but society has changed quite a bit since Bradley was in his prime.
    • Original poster here, the US having a Black president yet still racism being rampant now, is a fair comparison. Your comment about the 1960s part is confusing. When I said a Black Captain America, I was talking about Sam Wilson, not Isiah Bradley, but me misreading your response gave me a satisfactory answer, i.e: the original question is like asking how come US had a Black president for so long, yet racism is still there.

Why is Sam way more sympathetic towards Karli than he is towards Zemo?

• Karli has sympathetic reasons for her actions, but her actions almost inarguably less sympathetic than that of Zemo's. Karli's actions involve restoring the world to a status quo of how things were before the Blip was undone, where half the world had vanished and many who remained were traumatized, whereas Zemo's involves revenge on the Avengers who, even if indirectly, are responsible for the end of his family and country, since they did create Ultron. Furthermore, Karli likely executed more people that Zemo did throughout their time. So not only are Karli's actions less justifiable, she arguably did more damage than Zemo did. Yet Sam seems to view Karli in a better light than Zemo for some reason.
  • Sam agrees with Karli's views about the refugees; that the governments are just helping the blipped, ignoring those who remained. However, he doesn't agree with her methods. Basically, he sees Karli as a victim of the system and a kid who chose the wrong way to make known an injustice. Just listen to what Sam said to the senators, he's telling them that, if they still choose to follow what they planned, they're going to create another Karli.
  • Why he doesn't express this same level of sympathy towards Zemo, even when Zemo has equally, if not more, valid reasons for his actions and didn't do nearly as much damage as Karli did?
  • Zemo's actions forced Sam to live as a fugitive from the U.S government for two years. Sam probably has a bit of resentment towards the Baron for screwing up his life for that long, even if it wasn't something he intentionally planned to do. Plus Zemo's actions partially resulted in the Avengers not being united when Thanos showed up, which resulted in half the universe getting dusted for five years and all the consequences of that, including the very conflict of the series.
  • The difference, is that Zemo is an adult who chose to be evil, while Karli was a misguided teenager who, most of the time, doesn't seem to realize that what she's doing is wrong.
  • The MCU has painted Zemo's acts as one of petty revenge. Zemo to some extent acknowledges this as well. It was never his intention to affect change in the world other than by driving the Avengers apart so that they could know the pain of losing family. Karli at least starts with a well-intentioned cause, although one could argue by the time Sam first meets her, she's probably already lost sight of her initial vision, making Sam naïve.
  • Sam's not naïve, he is empathetic. While Karli had crossed the line, she was not all the way gone yet, hence her being receptive to his argument. He had a "breakthrough" with her and had opened a dialogue. Sam saw that she started with good intent and had crossed the line out of frustration, he was able to make her pause and given time, his empathy and the moment where she questioned her motivations could have lead her on another path. With Karli, there was a possibility of salvaging her, of possibly changing direction. With Zemo, there is not. In some ways, Sam understands Zemo. Able to read him, his "tells" as well. Something that lead to Zemo respecting Sam. Zemo is set on his course no matter what. With Karli on the other hand, Sam had a moment where the course could be corrected or at least questioned until he was interrupted.

Zemo in the Raft

• Wakanda might not want to hold Zemo in their own prisons, given that it might draw some unwanted attention. But why would they imprison him in a place meant to hold super-empowered individuals? Zemo isn't nearly as dangerous as Wanda Maximoff, Clint Barton, or Scott Lang.
  • Clint Barton, Scott Lang and Sam Wilson are not empowered either. Once you take their equipment they are normal people. There aren't enough empowered people in the MCU (at least the movies) for the Raft to be needed for just them; it has to be basically an extra-secure prison for anyone. And Zemo just easily broke out of a secure prison with minimal help.
  • The Raft in the MCU seems more like an international prison for those who got on the wrong side of the Sokovia Accords than anything else. Zemo by all means should already have been there for his Civil War behavior, but maybe his money and influence allowed him to avoid it that time.

Walker's folly vs. "Government sees all"

• Did the government, Global Repatriation Council ever know about and/or discover Walker's Super Soldier serum? Considering the circumstances (and frankly likely after every physically-gruelling) it seems impossible that Walker, unstable as he was after killing Nico wasn't given a physical post-mission. And what about the shield? Did no one of Walker's direct superiors notice he had no shield? Had both those circumstances been known by the government^note this troper assumes that the United States govt. does not have a perfect copy of the Super Soldier serum, Walker would have gotten much worse than an OTH discharge. Maybe even doing an Isaiah Bradley.
  • The new version of the serum works in weird ways, making the person stronger without actually increasing muscle mass and so on. Maybe it's undetectable in regular examination as well. As for the shield, they were under the impression he had it, but didn't bring it on his person whenever he presented himself back.
    • Which brings me to a strange conclusion. The GRC members after being rescued seemed to not be surprised at all that Sam had the shield, which is jarring given that up until the end of Walker's discharge, they were under the impression he still possessed the shield. It seems absurd to me that they didn't blast the nearby Walker on the spot for losing the shield and more importantly, not reporting said loss. Just because (in some discussions above) the shield isn't technically property of the US government doesn't mean that Walker can't be prosecuted for withholding important information. Possible Sequel Hook, even if Walker's actor may not return?
    • On the serum topic, what would the government have done to Walker if they knew he had injected himself with the Super Soldier Serum? Experimented on him like Isaiah Bradley?
    • Yes.

How exactly were the Flag-Smashers going to accomplish their goal?

• Behaving like a stereotypical terrorist organization seems extremely counterproductive.
  • That was the whole point. It became more and more apparent that Karli is only making her cause, which were legitimate complaints the government is not addressing in favor of those who were blipped, look far worse as she grows increasingly violent just to spread her message. While it does garner followers, it's simply just escalating the violence to the point even her own circle grew uneasy. All Sam wanted is for her to realize this flaw and back down before things get worse.
  • Every time Sam tried to talk with Karli was pretty much to make her realize that what she's doing is wrong, and likely guide her to the right path. The kind of things that Tony made for Peter Parker.
  • Given that the group is lead by a bunch of teenagers with steroids raging through their body, the irrational and escalating violence was not totally intentional.

Lack of interest in John Walker

• Seeing as though Zemo is staunchly against any form of a super soldier that exists in the world unless they prove themselves to be noble like Steve or Bucky, wouldn't Zemo have a problem with John Walker's existence? He spent much of his effort to eliminating the Flag-Smashers for their misguided goals, so you'd think Walker's execution of a Flag-Smasher in public would make Zemo wary of him...
  • That's counting that Zemo is aware of Walker being a super soldier.
  • On top of that, Zemo escaped and headed back to Sokovia well before Walker took the serum and then publicly murdered Nico. Zemo was shortly arrested after that, and so even if he did catch wind of Walker's incident, and even if he also became aware at that Walker was now a super soldier, he still had bigger fish to fry at that point in arranging for the rest of the Flag-Smashers to be eliminated. Suffice to say, there's not much he can do about Walker now.

Saving Cap

• Why didn't Sharon let Karli kill Sam? She could've waited for Karli to pull the trigger and then kill her. That way, Sharon disposes of two threats to her plans.
  • Saving Captain America would have made Sharon look more of the hero than she really was. With this act as well as Sam's word, it would have made getting her pardon and old position a breeze, and further her own agendas with no one wising up to it.
  • Even Evil Has Standards? Maybe Sharon isn't far enough gone to allow a friend who is not a direct threat to her get killed.

Zemo's fancy containment

• Given how severe Zemo's crimes were in both Civil War and in this series, how is it that Zemo gets reading and radio-listening privileges? He's a baron and all, but those crimes he committed would allow for special treatment, especially in the Raft where it's designed to be a miserable experience.
  • His accommodations are about the same as the others had when we last saw the Raft. Having books and a radio isn't out of line with real-world solitary confinement. Plus, if you're trying to encourage good behavior, you need privileges that can be taken away for bad behavior.

Walker dismissed for killing a terrorist

• Walker is dismissed when he's recorded killing a man. Sure, it's clear that he's in an irrational rage and executing a helpless man pleading for his life, which isn't what Captain America is all about. This would be a huge problem if Walker were a policeman and the man were a civilian, but Walker is a soldier and the man is a proven terrorist. The terrorist's group has already murdered people and were fleeing the scene of murdering an American soldier. From a moral and legal point of view, America is perfectly comfortable killing terrorists in the field and does not require due process. What's the difference between Walker's act and a drone strike? And from a logistics standpoint, everyone knows that the Flagburners are supersoldiers, making it next to impossible for Walker to take one prisoner by himself. Was there some other context that made this act worthy of not only stripping Walker of his Captain America role but of taking away his military benefits and narrowly avoiding a prison sentence?
  • Bad PR. He beat the guy to death in public with tons of people watching, and basically destroyed his own reputation as a symbol of America.
  • On top of that, he's also the guy who's supposed to be the new Steve Rogers. Steve wouldn't have killed a terrorist unless there was no other way to stop them, and in the situation, said terrorist wasn't an immediate threat. The government can't say, "Oh, by the way, our new Captain America is going to kill people," - they need him to be an absolute paragon.
  • Sure, making America look bad could get him dismissed from being Captain America if the government thought it was best, but his actions are treated as criminal. They get him an other-than-honorable discharge, which is a big deal, and he's said that he's not being brought up on criminal charges by a huge act of leniency. For killing a terrorist in the process of a terrorist act?
    • Walker committed an extrajudicial/unsanctioned killing of a foreign national on foreign soil. It's unknown if they came to this conclusion because the footage of Walker paints that he wasn't acting in self defense (Nico is basically prone, hands up, indicating that he's clearly no longer a threat). Even assuming the US is totally fine with other unsanctioned killings, failure to prosecute a US agent who is killing (instead of simply detaining) someone who has already been subdued in front of dozens of witnesses with video evidence is at the very least a bad look. Even if there were no such laws on the book, throwing Walker under the bus serves an important PR function.
• He flat out murdered an unarmed individual who he'd already taken down, and who had his hands up in submission, repeatedly striking him while he wasn't resisting just to make sure he was dead, not having made any attempt to simply arrest him. The fact that he was allegedly a terrorist doesn't automatically nullify all legal protocols. For all intents and purposes Walker was acting as a police officer, not a soldier. The US was not at war with the Flag Smashers. It was not a battlefield. Walker was a federal agent assigned to apprehend the leader of the Flag Smashers, not assassinate enemy combatants. Frankly, Walker got off easy.

"Black Falcon"

• Why would members of the African-American community think it appropriate to refer to Sam that way?
  • Because he's black, they're black and he's a flying Falcon? What else would they call him? In-universe as a black man, he's been treated worse and realistically would have been called worse by those not in the African-American community.
  • This answer makes sense if you don't think about it too long, but Sam is the only Falcon. I can understand the distinction if there was also a Falcon who was white, but that isn't the case. We don't go calling Storm "Black Storm" or Static "Black Static." Black Panther is called such because he dresses as a black panther.
  • It's sort of implied that the "Black" was added specifically to emphasise the fact that Sam is black. As in, it's intended as a mark of pride that he's a black Avenger. It's probably worth pointing out that Sam himself clearly doesn't think the renaming is appropriate and effectively dismisses the logic of calling him "Black Falcon" just because he's black and also the Falcon as soon as it initially comes up.

How did Sam catch the truck?

• In the finale, Sam catches the truck containing the GRC members. That thing easily outweighs him, yet he pushes it back up Superman-style. Thing is, the series made a point of Sam not being enhanced like Steve was, so that truck should've crushed him.
  • His new vibranium equipment compensates the lack of super-strength.
  • His new vibranium equipment is a flexible weave. Stab resistant yes, even bullet resistant, but you can wrap a hot dog in the strongest cotton imaginable, that's completely impossible to tear, and it won't become a rigid material that can take the load for you.
    • Remember that vibranium is a fantasy element and one of its fantastic properties is the ability to absorb and redirect kinetic energy.

Karli, why you didn't rat Sharon out?

• As she dies, why doesn't Karli Morgenthau, in addition to apologizing to Captain America for her actions, also inform him that Sharon Carter is none other than the Power Broker? Something like "I'm sorry, Sam. But Sharon has shot me because she is the Power Broker!". As Sam doesn't suspect anything of Sharon right now and Sharon has been pardoned by the government, at least a warning out of human decency towards Sam could have been very useful given Sharon's plans...
  • Because nobody suspects that Sharon is the Power Broker. Why would anyone believe her?
  • Her last words were "I'm sorry". She's a teenager driven by frustration and a super serum that has been amplifying her most extreme emotions, she's just been shot in a vital enough spot to kill a super soldier THAT quickly. That is not a good formula for thinking clearly, and she only has a few seconds left to process what will become of the cause she was fighting for after she's gone, whether or not she's been making the right choices so far and how to deal with the man who almost got through to her. Unlike us and Batroc, Sharon's Secret Identity wasn't The Reveal to Karli, it was something she had known for quite a while. It wouldn't be something she would have thought of immediately.
  • Heck, it's possible that she didn't even know anything about Sam and Sharon's relationship or even Sharon's background (Agent 13 was a secret agent through and through, not an Avenger with that kind of celebrity status) or she could have even thought that Sam knew who Sharon was.

Whatever that was in Madripoor

• The gang go undercover in Madripoor to find the Power Broker and talk to a woman named Selby to gain intel. Sam is pretending to be a criminal named the Smiling Tiger, only Sam's phone goes off in the middle of their meeting, and his sister refers to him as "Sam", apparently blowing their cover. Despite how ridiculous it is that Sam wouldn't silence his phone when going undercover, why is this what uncovers the ruse? Does Selby not know what an alias is? Did she truly think Smiling Tiger was Sam's name?
  • The Smiling Tiger had a name: Conrad Mack. It's implied that Selby and her workers were already suspicious of Sam, hence why she orders him to answer the phone on speaker in the first place; it's clear that they know Conrad Mack since he has a "usual" drink order and, on some level, they're aware that he's not behaving as he should right from the start. Add to that the phone call was clearly not one an international criminal who would be attending a meeting with Zemo and the Winter Soldier would be receiving - even though they have no context for the conversation, they hear a woman talking to a supposed international criminal in a very blunt tone asking if he's high, clearly having some crisis with a child and talking about a mess with a bank; Sam's attempts to cover it don't exactly do anything to hide just how out-of-place Sarah's tone and language is when compared to his cover, and it arguably destroyed the only reasonable excuse he could have given: he could have said, for example, that the caller thinks he's just an ordinary guy as part of some scheme he's got going on his own and brushed the whole thing off that way but that excuse goes out the window as soon as he talks about killing someone at the bank. Sarah calling him "Sam" was just the most in-your-face piece of evidence in a long list that "Smiling Tiger" wasn't who he was claiming to be.

Captain America and the Winter Soldier?

• When you think about how important labels and identities are to this show, and that Bucky's arc is supposedly about moving past the "Winter Soldier" part of his life...why keep that name? Why not "Captain America and the White Wolf?
  • It seems Bucky's arc was not moving past the "Winter Soldier" part of his life, but living with the PTSD from it and finding true closure and forgiveness . As in the upcoming "Thunderbolts" movie he still identifies as the "Winter Soldier" as that was who he was for decades. He has not been just Bucky Barnes for a very long time, now he wears the name not out of shame but a form of atonement.