Spoilers

After bringing down John Walker, Sam and Bucky are benched by the government…

John Walker runs and he remembers advice but only the advice he wants to remember. Picking up the shield he tells himself it’s time to get back to work as if that’s an option. Wyatt Russell sells John Walker perfectly throughout it must not be an easy character to play if only because of fandom.

Bucky and Sam have followed him and in the confrontation it is clear he is willing to kill them too because In his mind  nobody understands what Captain America has to do. It feels like he has gone off the deep end; unable to contemplate failure he instead externalises his problem so that it is the world which is to blame and not his own actions.

It takes both Sam and Bucky to bring John Walker down. While he is summarily fired from his role and told in no uncertain terms he is no longer Captain America (a state of affairs he refuses to accept), the authorities also bench Sam and Bucky.

Sam, in possession of the shield, and with Bucky having walked away, does what should have happened a long time ago. He goes to see Isaiah Bradley. People are going to say he is the first Captain America, certainly the first black Captain America but this is to miss the point and to miss the root of Isaiah’s bitterness. Whether he is the first or not is irrelevant to him because he was not alone, but a member of a team and it was all of them who were betrayed by their country. It was all of them who were detained, tortured, experimented upon and used as nothing more than the property of the United States.

Isaiah is angry and bitter for good reason and the conversation between him and Sam is dynamite. Isaiah asks Sam hard questions about what it means to be a black man in America. He challenges him to look the truth of how their country treats them not to simply listen to what they say they believe but look at what they have done.

For the second time this week I am reminded of the phrase, ‘you shall know them by their fruits,’ and in that judgement we can only side with Isaiah who finds his country weighed and falling short.

Sam immediately wants to solve the problem, but Isaiah tells him there is no room in this world for people erased deliberately, which is what has been done to him. Isaiah points out that Sam can believe things have changed but they have not and it is hard to argue with him both within the show and from a standpoint of being an observer. For instance you can look at this show with its dual headline of two superheroes and wonder if Sebastian Stan’s brilliantly played but chronically underrepresented Bucky is in it not because of his connexion to Steve Rogers because Marvel wasn’t quite confident in letting a black man be the sole lead in one of its tent pole shows.

For Isaiah the shield represents White America and he cannot conceive of a self-respecting black man who would pick it up and use it. In his mind it would not simply be ignoring the injustices he has faced but it would be tacitly approving of what was done and Sam walks away taking that very seriously. I am so glad this conversation took place because until this point Sam has been a blank sheet. Isaiah challenges him on this, challenges him to look at what has happened rather than pretend things have changed, because for Isaiah and Sam’s sister and so many others it does not feel like change has come at all.

Can any person of colour in good conscience pick up that shield and represent an America which overlooks them?

From here Sam returns home certain he needs to be with his family. He is greeted by bad news but takes it on the chin and uses it to be the Sam Wilson we have glimpsed over the last two episodes. He reaches out to his wider community and asks for help. He admits vulnerability and he looks to his roots and builds upon that legacy rather than trying to build himself up from scratch. He’s taken Isaiah as instruction to look to the past seriously.

In a fantastic series of conversations with his sister and others we see him admit to himself that his way of approaching the world has not worked and he has to follow the advice he has given to others; to be true to who he is because change starts there.

Watching Sam’s journey is a wonderful piece of television, not simply because I find myself at the end of it believing he can be a Captain America who doesn’t simply represent the white military industrial complex. He also represents a male role model without toxicity. He is sensitive, caring, kind and most importantly is able to listen to others and ask for help. This is the kind of role model I want to see, the kind of man I want my son to see on screen as someone to be looked up to.

At the same time we see what look like the most important steps of Bucky’s journey. My personal view is that he has been underserved by a show in which he has joint heading. It feels like he has been the tagalong and so much of this despite bringing emotional depth and perspectives no one else has.

Sebastian Stan has played him not simply as a psycho staring machine but as someone profoundly lost. I’ve read his staring at people as the expression of a man who’s seen 100 years of life and simply doesn’t have time for people with self-delusions about meaning and power and how the world should be.

Even through to the end of episode 4 he was holding on to Steve Rogers really tight.

Sam is working with his sister when Bucky arrives looking for someone to offer him sanctuary once more. Sam’s family welcome him and in that small gesture we see Sam find the key to unlocking this stranger for both of them.

While we clearly see that Sam is sensitive and in touch with his emotions, we also get full on men doing manly things as the two of them work together to repair the boat. Sam is a man’s man according to the show but the cliche works because Anthony Mackie delivers it straight down the line with no hesitation or embarrassment.

Bucky’s journey has been a long one, but we finally see him understand that he doesn’t have to be alone and that he might actually have found a new family, people upon whom he can rely, and I will admit from the moment Sam meets Isaiah through to the moment Bucky and Sam realised they are going to be friends forever I was struggling to keep it together.

In a candid conversation with Sam, Bucky is given the final piece of the puzzle that will allow him a route out of his solipsism. Able to look beyond himself and see the world as a place in which he belongs. I’m not sure where Bucky goes from here and in some ways stepping away from being a superhero is what he needs as a person.

What shouldn’t be overlooked however is how important Bucky’s support is to Sam – both in Sam realising he can be the man he wants to be (a truth he knew but had difficulty in bringing into the world), but also that the other man who Steve Rogers loved is behind him 100%.

This show gets male friendship right and it’s glorious to see on screen.

Should Sam pick up the shield? I’m not sure, and I don’t think Marvel is either, but what they do here is pitch Sam against John Walker as a fight between two visions of America. I can see many people actually being team Walker, but I am team Sam.

We head into the last episode with what appears to be a final confrontation looming but there are at least two sets of antagonists in the wings and I cannot believe they will stay there. With a lot of the emotional heavy lifting done in this episode I do not feel like the landing here is at risk and with Marvel finally addressing the elephant in the room around Sam in an honest and open way I am 100% behind this show.

Rating? 10 shabby fishing trawlers out of 10.

Stewart Hotston