The following contains spoilers for the first two episodes of The Falcon and The Winter Soldier.
The Falcon and The Winter Soldier has already surprised and satisfied fans with its action set pieces and the deeper themes it has started to explore, even in just the first two episodes. The show is diving into trauma and racism, and they’ve begun to set up multiple conflicts for Sam and Bucky to encounter over the course of the remaining four episodes.
However, there is a question of whether or not the show has set up too many conflicts. They’ve already set up many possible antagonists for the heroes to encounter, and it’s still not clear who the biggest threat is. This would be fine in a longer series, but with only a four episodes left, some fans have been left wondering if the show has bitten off more than it can chew, and is trying to juggle too many things at once. Having a lot of villains is fun, but there comes a point where it begins to convolute what should be a fairly straightforward story.
Let’s take a tally of which villains (or possible future antagonists) have been set up so far. There are the Flag-Smashers, who want a world without borders and for everything to go back to how it was during the Blip. They were set up early on as the main problem, but it remains to be seen whether or not that will continue in the rest of the series. There’s Zemo, who was teased at the end of episode 2 to be helping Sam and Bucky gather information, but it’s also possible (especially considering footage from the trailers) that he will be a larger villain in the series.
There’s also the loose cannon of John Walker, who told Sam and Bucky to stay out of his way in episode 2, and will clearly be hostile to them if they try to interfere with him. Many fans have speculated he will ultimately be an antagonist, perhaps with some sort of turn to the “dark side” or something along those lines. There have also been fan theories circulating that another Marvel villain, Power Broker, might show up and be the one who is really behind the Flag Smashers. At this point, it’s a classic MCU move to present a “bad guy” who actually turns out to be working for a much bigger threat (think Loki working for Thanos in The Avengers, or The Mandarin reveal in Iron Man 3), so this is entirely possible for the show.
That’s already four separate entities that have been presented as possible (and likely) villains for the series. It’s beginning to feel as though they’ve set up too many obstacles for Sam and Bucky, and are trying to weave some sort of intricate plot with too many threats, instead of just sticking with one or two of them and making the story much more straightforward, and therefore more effective. It might be difficult, especially for viewers who are not as familiar with previous MCU entries, to keep up with the events of the show, and to keep track of all of the characters and where their allegiances lie.
Of course, it’s entirely possible that not all of these options will turn out to be villains to Sam and Bucky. We don’t know exactly what Zemo’s role in the story is yet, and it’s possible (though perhaps unlikely) that he won’t be antagonistic. The Flag Smashers also might prove to be more of a sympathetic group rather than a villainous one, as their mission of a unified world is not necessarily a bad one on its own, though perhaps the means they use to achieve it are not always as admirable. Displaying the group as more complex would actually be a really interesting move for The Falcon and The Winter Soldier to make, and it would add another level of depth to the show if they explored that more deeply.
Another possibility is that having this many villains is the entire point of the show. Perhaps it’s supposed to be symbolic of the journey that both Sam and Bucky are on of learning who to trust in this new world that they’ve stepped into post-Blip. Bucky especially is struggling with the issue of trust after no longer having Steve Rogers (the one person in this world he did trust whole-heartedly) around. If everyone around them seems like an antagonist, it highlights the struggle that these characters are having with knowing who to align with. Bucky doesn’t trust anyone other than perhaps Sam (and only begrudgingly), and Sam clearly feels like he can’t trust the government after they told him that giving up Cap’s shield was “the right move” and then turned around and immediately entrusted it to Walker.
This is one way in which having this many antagonists could actually serve the show, but only if they actually bring attention to this theme and prove that it was intentional. Otherwise, it comes off as a little messy. Having to follow this many plot threads is going to be difficult for the show to pull off unless they manage to bring it around in some way, but it’s still early in the show’s release so it’s entirely possible that they will be able to do it, and all of these villains will be intentional in the end. At worst, it ends up just being a poor choice that made the story more complicated than it needed to be.
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