The Sam and Bucky Show: Finale

[owlmoose]

Mostly great, with one significant complaint and a couple of more minor ones.

We tend to watch TV with subtitles on these days, and -- for this episode only -- when Sam was in uniform, the subtitles referred to him as Captain America. I loved that. I loved the title change at the end. Some other things I enjoyed: the helicopter chase, Bucky trying to talk Karli down, Bucky making amends, everything about Sam and Isaiah (no matter how unlikely it seems to me that the Smithsonian would put up a museum exhibit about a living American citizen without his permission - EDIT: forests_of_fire reminded me that Isaiah was declared dead to facilitate his escape from prison, so I officially withdraw this objection), everything about the BBQ scene at the end. Sam and Bucky are a team for real now, and it's pretty great.

I do not buy Sharon's heel-face turn at all. They needed to build up to that a lot more, and give us much better reason than "Sharon felt abandoned by the team". Not to mention that I also find it highly unlikely that neither Steve nor Fury would have tracked her down after the events of Civil War and brought her back into the fold. I mean, Steve broke Sam (and presumably Wanda, maybe some of the others) out of the Raft! You're asking me to believe that he then left Sharon to rot in Madripoor? Nope, sorry, can't do it. It's a characterization fail at so many different points that I can't really accept where it ended up: Sharon as an arms dealer mole in the service of the US government. That's a story they could tell, sure, but they haven't done the work to tell it.

I also wish that Walker had required a little more image rehabilitation, but I don't know much about U.S. Agent; maybe he's not really in the public eye. I'm a little more along for the ride on that one, so we'll see where it goes, and if he ever even turns up again.

Still, I can forgive these things for a show that had so much to say about power and privilege and who gets to be a hero. Especially when part of the answer is that Sam gets to be a hero. It's being reported that showrunner and creator Malcolm Spellman is working on a new Captain America movie, and I for one am excited to see it.

Comments

[grammarwoman]

I had the exact same problem with Sharon's storyline that you did, for the exact same reasons. I have to hope that she's: a) brainwashed, b) a Skrull, c) someone else entirely behind another chameleon mask, or d) being set up for a bigger/better storyline, because what we got was garbage.

I enjoyed the rest of it, even if Sam's speech to the GRC was perhaps a touch hokey, but I love that he prefers to de-escalate and solve problems with his words. Go Sam!