Review: The Falcon and the Winter Soldier – The Whole World is Watching s01e04

As we reach episode 4, ‘The Whole World Is Watching’, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is ambling along its journey. It’s not entirely clear though what the destination is, or if there will be some more interesting stops along the way. *Warning! Spoilers Ahead!*

This series seems to be a bit of a contradiction, as it is undoubtedly entertaining, and it does tick a lot of the boxes that anyone would want ticked, but it doesn’t seem to truly excel in certain areas.  The problem may lie in the underlying plot points and structure of the show, as it uses some very old, and in some cases, tired devices.

The main one of these is the way they’ve broken Zemo (Daniel Bruhl) out of prison, as it is in theory the only way they can further their investigation.  That moment has passed though, so why is he still with them?  They got the critical information they needed from him last week, and Dr Nagel (Olli Haaskivi) has now been eliminated, so what do they need him for now?  It’s pretty clear that the writers clocked this, so conveniently have him escape during this episode.  This is irritating, and really needs to bring something unique to the table to justify it.

There’s too much of a reliance on that kind of broad stroke, simple trope and characterisation, and its stopping this show from really flying.  Aside from Zemo, the other main case in point is Karli (Erin Kellyman) who is just your run of the mill misguided good person, who has unfortunately turned to the dark side because of how they have gone about making their point.  It’s an old device which could be explored more in depth, but even here they sort of dodge that.

The storyline has a propensity to sidestep an interesting point by suddenly having everything explode into an action sequence.  In ‘The Whole World Is Watching’, the most obvious one is when Sam (Anthony Mackie) is talking to Karli, and they’re finally discussing the issues, when John Walker (Wyatt Russell) comes crashing in.  It’s almost like they realise they’re close to something, so need to distract the audience.  Even the way they do it seems a bit clunky, and more than annoying.

What’s even more frustrating is that away from the main plot, there are really interesting things to look at.  What happened to Sharon (Emily VanCamp) is a particularly egregious omission at this point, and far more intriguing than Bucky (Sebastian Stan), Sam, and Zemo’s keystone cop investigation.  Equally interesting would have been a closer look at Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly) and his super soldier past, as that was very briskly swept under the rug.

On a positive note, this episode has begun the exploration into John Walker and it looks like it will be relatively well handled.  As is the way with the super soldier serum, it looks like all the negative aspects of his character that are self-evident to everyone, have been magnified, causing events to descend into a dark place.  Obviously, we all knew this was coming, and they have been laying some groundwork for his increasing dissatisfaction to boil over into taking the serum at some point.

I can’t help but feel though that it would have been more interesting for the trigger point for him taking the serum to have been pure desperation at his inadequacy compared to the others and his self-doubt, rather than anger at Lemar’s (Clé Bennett) death.  It seems like more of a blunt transition, rather than the nuanced psychological one we could have had.  It makes John Walker less interesting in the long run, and much more of a shallow character than he probably is.

So, ‘The Whole World Is Watching’ wanders vaguely along, just spinning its wheels, except for the John Walker moments, and there doesn’t seem to be a clear direction.  At the same time, it is still entertaining and hangs together ok, but you do find yourself wondering about the other roads available to them.  Would this journey be more interesting on some of those, instead of this well-worn path they’re on? Probably, so hopefully there will be a detour soon.