‘Falcon and Winter Soldier’ Episode 3: Sharon Carter Returns

SPOILER WARNING: Don’t learn in case you have not seen Season 1, Episode 3 of Disney Plus’ “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.”

The topsy-turvy world created by the Blip will get much more difficult in “Energy Dealer,” an episode that introduces a model new location and a number of other new rogues to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (properly, for some time, anyway). Bucky (Sebastian Stan) helps Zemo (Daniel Brühl) get away of jail. John Walker (Wyatt Russell) continues to exhibit how ill-suited he’s to the title of Captain America, whereas Sam (Anthony Mackie) turns into so disillusioned with the entire concept of an excellent soldier that he needs he’d destroyed Cap’s protect outright.

Most significantly, we’re re-introduced to Sharon Carter (Emily VanCamp), and be taught that getting pressured to go off the grid as a result of she helped Steve Rogers in “Captain America: Civil Warfare” has dulled the readability of Sharon’s ethical compass.

We’re midway although “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier,” and we nonetheless have questions left to reply. So let’s get to them!

What’s Madripoor?

After Bucky breaks Zemo out of jail to allow them to use his information of Hydra to chase down the Energy Dealer, Zemo — who, it seems, is an extravagantly rich baron — takes them in his personal jet to Madripoor, an island nation that traditionally was a sanctuary for pirates and has change into a lawless haven for all method of malefactors.

Why haven’t we heard about Madripoor earlier than? Effectively, the placement was first launched in X-Males comics within the Nineteen Eighties, which implies that till 2019, the movie and TV rights to Madripoor have been the mental property of twentieth Century Fox. Now that the X-Males comics are again beneath the Marvel Comics fold, the MCU can take full benefit of its personal Hong-Kong-by-way-of-Tortuga as a way-station for the nefarious and determined alike.

I may speculate that the inclusion of Madripoor in “FAWS” means that mutants are on their means into the MCU, however we simply went via that futile music and dance with “WandaVision,” and there’s sufficient happening on this present as it’s. Let’s transfer on!

How for much longer can Bucky and Sam belief Zemo?

In “Civil Warfare,” Zemo was so monomaniacally fixated on bringing down the Avengers that he didn’t have time to be humorous, so it was a deal with to see that “FAWS” has discovered room for Brühl to make use of his deadpan humorousness. However Zemo additionally nonetheless clearly delights in testing Bucky’s boundaries, performing as if he nonetheless has the important thing to controlling Bucky’s thoughts — and though Dr. Nagel (Olli Haaskivi) ranked a full Zola on the creepy amoral scientist scale, that didn’t give Zemo license to kill him in chilly blood.

Which is to say, Zemo is utilizing Sam and Bucky as a lot as Sam and Bucky are utilizing him, and sooner or later, the steadiness of that association goes to tip too far into Zemo’s favor. The query is whether or not Sam and Bucky will be capable of see that coming.

Is Ayo alone?

Bucky, no less than, did see the looks of Dora Milaje warrior Ayo (Florence Kasumba) coming, due to her — seemingly deliberate — path of Kimoyo Beads that lead Bucky straight to her. Ayo was the primary member of the Dora Milaje to look within the MCU in “Civil Warfare”; she is aware of first-hand about Zemo’s homicide of King T’Chaka, so it is smart that she’d come for him.

We all know from “Black Panther,” nevertheless, that Wakanda not often sends one particular person to gather an individual as harmful as Zemo. Are extra members of the Dora Milaje along with her? From the beginning, “FAWS” has leaned into what it means to be a Black man in America who can also be a superhero; bringing Wakanda, a far totally different expression of Black excellence, into the present ought to proceed to scramble Sam’s reckoning with who he’s and what he means to the world.

Is Sharon Carter…evil now?

Is Sharon Carter the Energy Dealer? The episode positive appeared designed to steer us to that conclusion. In her years residing underground after “Civil Warfare,” Sharon has established herself properly sufficient in Madripoor that she owns a large penthouse condo within the Excessive City district that showcases main stolen art work. However she’s additionally intimately acquainted sufficient with the seedy occasions in Low City that she clocked Sam, Bucky and Zemo’s sudden look there.

She owns a wardrobe that might be finest described as villain stylish. She’s embittered by being forged apart whereas Bucky bought a full pardon. She tells Sam that “the entire hero factor is a joke.” And she or he even tells Sam and Bucky to cease chasing after the Energy Dealer, saying, “You actually ought to keep away from all this.”

Sharon can also be a stone-cold killer now, not hesitating to kill anybody who will get in her means, particularly within the prolonged sequence through which she dispatches the mercenaries looking Sam, Bucky and Zemo within the transport container yard. Additionally, how did she know so rapidly to go there, and precisely which container to go to to search out Dr. Nagel?

However, if she’s the Energy Dealer, why would she lead two Avengers to the person who cracked the tremendous soldier serum? As a result of Karli Morgenthau (Erin Kellyman) stole her total provide, and like everybody else, she’s having a tough time determining the place to search out the chief of the Flag Smashers — and he or she’s betting Sam and Bucky will be capable of discover her. Now that Zemo killed the one man who may recreate the serum, she wants it again greater than ever.

At the very least, that may be what’s happening. If Sharon is the Energy Dealer, it’s additional proof of simply how twisted the world has change into — and additional calls into query Steve Rogers’ judgement. As Zemo mentioned, after we make folks into symbols and icons, we begin to neglect about their flaws. Maybe “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” is supposed to remind us that even Captain America was removed from good.

“The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” streams new episodes Fridays on Disney Plus.