I binge-watched the series last weekend, but gave my thoughts a few days to percolate. And just to be clear: I don't know any of the comics, just the MCU. And I'm sorry, this turns out to be quite long.
I was looking forward to seeing more of Bucky and his journey towards redemption (if only in his own perception)... and while there was some good stuff about that, we didn't actually see it come full-circle. Not showing that last conversation, especially Bucky being confronted with that old man's emotions, possible anger, is a cop-out. Just as much as it was a cop-out never to have any mention or scene with Bucky and Tony after Siberia, just that ridicoulous letter by Steve (granted, we had a small Thanos- and larger snap-issue to deal with, and they couldn't exactly hug it out like Tony and Peter did during the battle... still...).
However, by the end I enjoyed having Bucky smile more, flirt more, interact with other people more, and more genuinely than in the first episode, and form a firm friendship with Sam. There's still much work to be done (as expected after 70 years of brainwashing, torture etc), so I feel it's right that the "Winter Soldier" part's kept in the title - after all, for him to be the White Wolf we'll have to actually see him interact more than in a teaser and a couple of scenes with the Wakandans. The flashback to the testing of whether the programme was broken (and I definitely had the impression that this was the final test after all the work Shuri and the Dora put into deprogramming him, not him being put back into WS-mode and the Dora telling/ordering him to be free) was well done. Definitely one of the finer moments of this series.
On to the Falcon/Captain America part: First of all, so far I was not a Sam-fan. I thought him a spineless follower. He had a job as counselor, and still he leaves everything behind after one meeting with Steve and not actually knowing what's going on. And I honestly despised his role in Civil War. As a military man he should know that there has to be accountability and a chain of command, that you can't just cross borders on a whim. That's what he, Rhodey and Bucky should know much better than Steve who performed as dancing monkey, never fought in an actual unit and disobeyed orders and rules left and right (until they just gave him his own unit and let him be).
However, I liked his transition into taking up the shield. I especially liked that he never once thought of juicing himself up - or that he has to in order to pick up the shield. He went back to his roots, let his perceptions be turned upside down in meeting Bradley, and then came to a decision and trained to achieve his goal. I also enjoyed that TPTB went back to his training as a counselor: with Bucky, with Karli. And yes, Captain America will have to use his fists and the shield occasionally - but the difference (to Walker... and to Steve in a way) is that fighting can't be the first solution, it has to be the last.
Although I thought the final speech rather preachy and cringe-worthy (saying "do better" in far too many ways and far too long-winded), I'm looking forward to seeing more here: an ordinary human-being taking up the shield, a black one at that... he'll have to fight to be heard, to overcome prejudice, a fight that can't be fought with fists. I know it's Marvel, it's supposed to be action, not so much dialogue, but I really hope TPTB won't just go back to business as usual.
Walker and the flag-smashers:
Well, Walker was a good soldier, but he's ambitious... and he had certain expectations, one being that he never thought he'd be challenged as Captain America. It was pretty clear where and how he'd end up. That the black best friend had to be the red shirt wasn't exactly necessary, but that he lied about killing the one who actually killed him, said much about his character. To me it's not quite clear when he exactly used the serum because quite honestly, killing that flag-smasher wasn't brought on by the serum. It remains to be seen what his role in the future'll be (and what the agenda of Louis-Dreyfus' character is)... adversarial?
Seeing him kill in cold blood (hot rage whatever) reminded me of Siberia, Steve pretty much holding the shield in the same way over Tony (who definitely expected the shield to his head at that moment). I wonder if that similarity was coincidence or should highlight that Steve still had control over himself whereas Walker did not...
The idea of the flag-smashers is an interesting one (and the underlying issue of displaced people just as important as the BLM), and I regret that Karli and that movement devolved from their original moral high ground into killing, kidnapping etc. It would have been interesting to see Karli react had the group broken up due to her decisions, not just uttered weak dissent. Was she already by the first conversation with Sam so far gone or could he have reached her (if not for Walker's interference) and maybe prevented further violence? I hope that the underlying issue of the now displaced people will be addressed in the future!
Karli reminded me of Wanda, to be honest - but whereas Karli at least had some higher goal (and devolved then), Wanda's was only to take her revenge. But both were treated as "kids" (despite Wanda's being in her mid-twenties)... but that doesn't mean not having to face consequences for your actions. (And we know from WandaVision that she at least still has no regrets about joining Hydra and manipulating other minds...)
Sharon and Zemo:
Honestly, I couldn't care less about Sharon. She was a minor character in 2 movies, a possible love-interest... nothing more. But it would be interesting exactly what role she played in Civil War: Was she even genuinely helping Steve? Let's not forget, there are easier ways to kill someone than in close quarters, especially someone with super-powers. I'd have sent a sniper to eliminate Bucky if there was really a kill-order back in Bucharest. Even later, if she wanted to help she'd have offered to open a way to communicate and not returned Sam and Steve's weapons. She's a manipulator, she was that back in the movies from the beginning posing as Steve's neighbour, she's so now. So, my investment in her is negligible - I find her uninteresting, and I'd rather see her gone sooner than later (or at least revealed as the villain to Bucky and Sam).
Zemo on the other hand made some good points. And while I understand where the Wakandans were coming from, I'd have expected him to end up in some Wakandan prison, not on the Raft. Why there? He's not a superhuman, after all, and presumably spent the last 7 years in that German prison without any problems. The problem was Bucky in this case. Is the raft now an official supermax-prison? I'd love to see more of him in the future!
But again, I can see his points: Power corrupts, the serum corrupts... and worshipping Steve's memory doesn't change the fact that he was far from flawless: stubborn, self-righteous, distrustful and full of his own so-called moral superiority. That doesn't make him a bad human-being. But he was human, and not perfect (and not only by those not-perfect blue eyes). He was wrong sometimes just as much as everyone else. Maybe what's been missing for me in all the talk about him is that Steve wasn't an icon, he was a human-being making rash decisions which his friends should know, even if they'd rather think about the good times.
Overall:
I really enjoyed this series, the various issues it raises in a serious manner - and I can only hope that this will continue and not just be pushed to the side in order to get back to more action now that the personal conflicts of the protagonists are more or less resolved.
Looking through the comments here, even older ones, I can't leave this one uncommented:
You mean the invasion of New York where the U.S. govt tried to nuke the city? The Project Insight where HYDRA had taken over SHIELD under the nose of the govt and was about to use the helicarriers to attack "threats" to HYDRA across the globe, killing millions?
Sokovia/Ultron were Stark tech, the helicarriers were Stark tech, Loki was hooked into Stark tech to power his stargate. The Avengers as a group, apart from Stark, didn't cause any of this, they were scapegoats.
This is simply a preposterous example of the single-minded hatred some people have towards one character. I'll even grant you Sokovia (albeit with the addition that multiple factors caused Ultron's creation, not just Tony).
* the helicarriers had Stark's repulsor engines - that was it. Isn't SI allowed to make contracts with a legitimate goverment agency (which SHIELD at that point still was)?
* Loki hooked into Stark tech - okay, so Tony shouldn't use the arc reactor for clean energy, just because some alien could use it to invite other aliens to Earth
But of course, let's just put everything on Stark.
And let's not mention that Stark could have helped in Washington (hello computer hacker) so that the files wouldn't have landed on the internet with who knows how many undercover agents left out in the open. There's no in-universe reason for him to be left out, especially since it's been established that he was on the list of targets (i.e. not Hydra)...
And Loki... well, perhaps it was Thor's little adventure, or even Marvel and SHIELD's playing around with the Tesseract that led Loki and Thanos to Earth in the first place. Having a way to build a wormhole is a nice plus, but the invasion would have happened either way.
I think it's important to realize that all these (fictional) characters have flaws - even the ones we love. It's no secret that Tony's my favourite character in the MCU (followed by Bucky)... but initially, I was on Steve's side, the first time I watched Civil War. But then I (re)watched all the other MCU-movies, and came out firmly on the other side... because while Steve might have said his issues were about the accords, they weren't. It was all about Bucky, and had Steve come clean earlier (and not done what he accused Tony of, namely keeping things from him), all this could have been prevented and together, they could have turned the Accords into something everyone could agree on...
