Spoilers

Sam and Bucky head on the trail of the Flag Smashers, but how will the new Captain America react?

Episode 2 picks up from the ending of the first but with a unique point of view about the new Captain America. It’s a clever little technique which allows the show to give us context for this new man with the shield.

From the start the new Cap is presented as being one of the good guys – he’s won medals, been brave, performed exceptionally and comes across as humble and conscious of the weight of the symbol he’s being asked to carry on his shoulders.

However, there are subtler messages here too if we’re willing to look for them. The intro music is marching school band rather than the normal Marvel orchestral arrangement and it’s redolent of renditions of the Star Spangled Banner at college football games. Make no mistake – the new Captain America is presented as putting America First regardless of the man behind the mask’s views which we don’t really know very well.

There’s also an awkward moment when he and his best friend talk about how they were going on an op in Chile and how it was cancelled…which for those of us who know about the US support for the overthrow of Chile’s democratically elected president in 1973 and support for his grim, murderous replacement is particularly jarring. Not least because this throwaway line continues to showcase the US as a colonial power at ease with itself. I’m not sure what to make of it in the context of the show. It could simply be a line in a show, but at the same time it’s telling us something about the new Captain America’s views of the rest of the world in relation to the US whether intended or not.

What’s most interesting though is that the new Cap is someone likeable. He’s not a chump in a mask, not a fool and desperately wants to do the right thing even if he’s not quite sure how to do the diplomacy stuff which could bring people on side.

And two of those people are Sam and Bucky who finally get together here. It’s done without much fanfare and leads directly into an action sequence which is built as an echo chamber for several of Steve Roger’s own iconic moments. It’s clear from their actions both Sam and Bucky have Steve looming over them in ways they can’t articulate nor let go of and is a fabulous bit of work.

The other thing neither of them can do is accept a new Captain America – even one who wants their help, their advice and to do good by them. It’s one of those situations where you can see someone who was eager hardening their heart because those they look up to treat them badly. This seems like it may well shape up to be a completely avoidable tragedy set in motion by other people and, honestly, I’m really interested in that playing out.

There is definite buddy movie vibes in Sam and Bucky’s interactions but they feel better rooted in where these characters are coming from. It’s not simply chalk and cheese – what divides them is as much their shared history as it is their own view about their place within that history.

In particular Sam is clear he wants to be his own man and we come as close as we’ve yet been to his insistence that the reason he gave up the shield was at least as much about being Sam Wilson and not Steve Rogers mark 2 as it is about anything. In a world where Sam can still be profiled by the police and called the Black Falcon by people on the street this feels very important for him and makes real thematic sense.

It’s also past time to talk about the kind of masculinity on display here. There is So. Much. Testosterone. From laughing at someone being beaten up ‘by a little girl’ to being unwilling and incapable of expressing emotions without it being a personal catastrophe. The two main characters are able to empathise with each other or other people and they’re not alone – the new Captain America and his buddy Battlestar are similarly unable to process their emotional experience, resorting to punching things as their ‘manly’ tactic.

It’s fascinating to see this on display in such a full throated manner and I don’t really expect the arrival of Sharon Carter to change that.

This is a show concerned with the experience of two men, men of war, and it is playing their emotional experiences in two registers – sombre and worthy of dark palettes and for laughs with their (unwanted) therapist. It’s an unfortunate juxtaposition – I really appreciated the former in the last episode but the presentation of their emotional struggle as laughable undermines that work. In both cases emotions are to be feared, run from and pushed down. Sam literally says as much about three quarters of the way in.

It’s a huge shame for these two to be portrayed as so illiterate and also so happy with that state of affairs. Sure, this is the experience of many men I know but most of them struggle with this, accepting it with resignation and nearly all of them do look to express themselves more clearly if only for the sake of those around them. As portrayed, Sam and Bucky are not looking to become more of who they are inside – indeed they would scorn the idea.

I won’t say much more about this episode’s events except to say there are a lot of hints in this episode that it’s going to be satisfyingly complex with some new to the MCU characters and ideas.

Oh, and Daniel Brühl, who with one dip of the chin just owns the entire thing.

Rating? 7 special forces soldiers out of 10.

Stewart Hotston