I understand what they were trying to do here, I just think they botched the execution. Factionalism in revolutionary movements happens due to power and social dynamics within the movement, not because a single individual gets the idea "what if we start killing people?" There's a desire to prove yourself as being the most true to the cause in order to prove something to the cadre. The show didn't really feature this dynamic, it just showed Karli as an extremist and the other Flag Smashers being hesitant, but eventually complying.
Their compliance is born out of underlying fear-laced loyalty; as in the Black Liberation Army example, within certain cells there were individuals who were not on board with the plan to assassinate police officers, but in the end, fell in line with the leaders due to fear and a sense that to resist was hurting the movement from within. That's the place the other Flag Smashers found themselves in when Karli issued her "all or nothing" plot to kill the hostages (and sacrifice themselves, if necessary).
Which would be fine if she was presented as some sort of crazy psychopath using the movement for her own shits and giggles, but she was clearly not - scenes like her being at her adoptive mother's deathbed drove home that she was fundamentally speaking a normal person, not a villain.
Ah, but notice when she met Sam only moments after the funeral, her extremist leaning raced to the surface when debating with Sam; instead of any sort of neutral approach, she rejected his position outright, revealing her to be the worst of her lot, so her actions were not dropped out of nowhere in the series finale.
I agree that Karli wasn't a hero, but she didn't work as a villain either - not even a tragic one. She just came across as a messed-up kid who made some poor choices, which meant there really wasn't any emotional catharsis to her being "defeated," just a sad tragedy - a waste of life.
That's the point of a portrait of extremist movements as seen in the series: it is not uncommon for young people who join such movements to end up chaining themselves to dangerous ideologies / actions without the psychological maturity to be able to discern the inherent, disastrous nature of said movements. In other words, once they're in, they're
in, historically until they are imprisoned or killed. Karli's age was referred to a number of times in the series, as she was a representation of lost youth electing themselves to fight, then caught up in situations they never had the psychological tools to understand or navigate.
To be clear, I think the idea of having a more complex antagonist who's not just a total asshole is a good one for the MCU. I just think that the series ended on a bit of a damp squib structurally because Karli's death didn't really bring closure - that if anything the real antagonist was the complex social problems the Blip and the return had caused - problems which I'm fairly sure every Marvel show from here on in will basically ignore unfortunately. Sam's "can't we all just get along" speech didn't cut it for me, not one bit.
I think the core problem of the Blip is the MCU's utter failure to believably address the weight of its effect on the average
population (yes, that includes
Wandavision), not just selected, random people. In its wake, its just been FX-laden spectacle (and teases for more of the same) than anything else.
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier was the only Marvel production to seriously acknowledge and address the social, medical and financial morass that would result from the Blip while building on its grounded legacy from the Cap end of the MCU. No Marvel production since TFATWS has adequately picked up where this series left off in any serious manner (the only hope rests with the forthcoming
Captain America 4). Its just another "event" and now its skipping off to see Kang, et al.
Overall, TFATWS was--at present--the last, mature MCU production, with themes (Bradley, Sam's struggle to embody what the Stars and Stripes means, but is seen--even by certain comic/media review channels on YouTube--as "belonging" only to a White male) or levels rarely covered in the endless Marvel film and TV offerings.
