Chicago Redshirt

Walker's reaction to Bucky saying "he didn't kill Lemar, John" was a scoff and shaking his head. That could equally go with each of the categories I laid out above. 1. He could be thinking, "These guys think I'm the crazy one, but Nico totally killed Lemar!" 2. He could be thinking "I can't believe these guys are going to argue semantics and technicalities, when Nico is obviously an accomplice in killing Lemar." 3. He could be thinking, "Damn, my gaslighting didn't work. Time to change the subject."

In at least U.S. law, there is a concept called "transferred intent." If A intends to shoot and kill B, but C jumps in the way of the bullet, A is still guilty of murdering C even if A never intended to do C any harm. There is also a concept called the felony-murder rule, which holds that if A and B are committing an inherently dangerous felony (say a bank robbery) and someone dies during the that crime, A and B are guilty of murder. That is true if A kills the person, B kills the person, a cop kills the person, the person, the person who dies is a fellow criminal C, and various other scenarios. Also "premeditation" when it comes to murder does not have to be an elaborate scheme. The intent to kill can be formed in a second. So operating under those principles, Karli's killing of Lemar is nothing but murder. She was trying to kill Walker and hit Lemar instead. Giving her the benefit of the doubt that she wouldn't have intentionally tried killing Lemar, it still doesn't matter. Had Walker been able to control himself and simply captured Nico, there's no doubt that he could have been tried for murdering the 11 people at the base Karli blew up and that he should be found guilty. As to Walker's understanding of Nico and his complicity, there's a few possibilities, and I don't know if there's a concrete best one: 1. Walker truly believes that Nico personally caused Lemar's death and thus his actions in killing Nico were justified. He told the Hoskins that he got Lemar's killer because he actually thinks he did. 2. Walker understands that Nico did not personally cause Lemar's death but is talking about Nico being guilty because he is an accomplice. He tells the Hoskins family that Nico was the killer either to spare them pain or him embarrassment. 3. Walker understands that Nico did not personally cause Lemar's death and but tries to put the blame on Nico as part of a coverup/spin control that starts with Bucky and Sam and continues with the Hoskins family.

Yeah, Kara should be able to muster the enthusiasm for finding her father that she does for being able to get a dumplings feast! It seems to me that all the Arrowverse shows except for Superman & Lois and maybe Batwoman seem tired. Maybe that's partially the pandemic, maybe it's just that the rest have had their run, maybe it's me as a viewer. But it feels particularly acute with Supergirl that the actors and writers seem to be playing out the string more than anything else. I assume things are already in the can at this point and not much can be done to change course. But a quick rundown of what I see as the problems with the present status quo: 1. Having Kara separated from everyone else is a bad idea. The show's strength has always been the relationships Kara has with J'onn, Alex and the rest of the cast. Now we're deprived of that. We're also deprived of her doing Supergirl things by virtue of this extended Phantom Zone plot 2. Too many characters to try to service. Back in the day, it was about Kara/Alex/Jimmy/Winn/J'onn with Cat drivebys. Now it's Kara/Alex/J'onn/Brainy/Dreamer/M'Gann/Kelly with a side of Andrea/William. I'm sorry but I don't care all that much about J'onn/M'Gann's romance, Brainy/Nia or Alex/Kelly. 3. The show is in dire need of a better caliber of villain. Lex is past his expiration date. The Phantoms aren't particularly scary or interesting or fun to watch. Nxy could maybe get the job done, but right now it's one-sided since she has powers and Kara doesn't. Maybe she gets Kara back to Earth soon and then a powered Supergirl can fight her?

Yeah, it seems weird that Our Heroes can't think of anywhere to get actual Kara DNA given they have access to her home, the Tower, the Fortress of Solitude. I forget what has happened with the DEO in the current continuity, but presumably they could get actual DNA from various treatment of her over the years when she was depowered or weakened by Kryptonite. And at the same time "digital DNA" apparently counts. I don't like that this many years into things, J'onn, Brainy, and Lena all need pep talks about things that should be relatively obvious. But as long as people are going to be talking through their trauma, maybe it would have been a good idea to have the character who is a psychiatrist by training help people work through their grief and loss.

Wait, she was married to dude, without telling dude that she had been a serious relationship with a woman, let alone their boss's daughter who was still in their orbit. They totally dropped that plot thread, right? No mention of him for like a season now?

Very true. I wish Marvel would make a one-shot or an animated movie/mini-series -- something -- showing Isaiah in his prime. We already have quite a few plot points that seem like they would be interesting to flesh out -- his origin, his fight with Bucky, his rescue of his fellow POWs, his being framed, the experiments and ultimately his escape. Animated movies are one of the places where Marvel has traditionally been behind DC, and this might be a good place to try to catch up.

One thing that I don't think people commented on previously (or if I missed it, apologies, but it deserves being said again): Isaiah's backstory about some of his colleagues being captured and the Army writing them off is a parallel to what happened in Cap: The First Avenger. (except even worse because instead of just writing them off, the Army was getting ready to kill them). Steve and Isaiah both went rogue and both launched a successful rescue mission. But instead of fame and flirtation, Isaiah got screwed over. imprisoned,, experimented on, etc.

Also, i get how Safiyah could get the conclusion that Batwoman had used a Desert Rose to cure herself of Kryptonite poisoning (as opposed to having enlisted the aid of Supergirl/Superman like we have been screaming that she should have). But what makes her think that a) Batwoman would still have that Desert Rose after she used it to cure herself or b) Ocean would be the best person to send on this mission to find Batwoman given that she just had Alice stab him in the heart and she has a whole bunch of operatives to choose from?

I would have to guess that the body count attributable to Loki in Avengers probably would have to fall in the thousands., between the two attacks on the SHIELD facilities and the Battle of New York. I have no problem with him being sexist or making sexist comments. It's more with the intensity of of that particular comment. Calling someone a whore/bitch and those sorts of things is IMO a different universe than using the c-word, and "quim" is an old-fashioned version of the c-word. By the same token, it seemed clear (to me, anyway), that Klaue had a whole bunch of racist attitudes going on toward Wakanda, but never in a million years would Disney allow him to call T'Challa or Wakandans out and out slurs.

I'm still amazed that Whedon got away with having Loki call BW a "mewling quim" in Avengers. It would be like someone using a racial slur to describe T'Challa.

No worries about missing things! As long as you're having fun. And yes, the box is from Wakanda. It almost certainly is a Captain America uniform that includes a new set of wings. But we'll presumably see that borne out (or rejected) in the finale.

I am not saying that she was evil for choosing the route that she did. I am simply saying it is false to say she had no other options. She clearly had other options that were available to her that were (or should have been) apparent to someone of her intelligence and creativity.

At a minimum, Pen could have told Eloise the whole truth and counted on her to tell Colin. I will never ever believe that someone as clever and resourceful as Pen is could not have found a less painful way of letting Colin know that Marina was running a game on him than to write about it as LW.

Kudos to the show for having the first episode in I don't know how long where Sophie is generally proactive, intelligent and useful. And yes, it was fun to have Luke play like he had no idea who Ryan was, and fun to see F&F: Gotham Drift. But, is it me or was there no reason to the FFS using speedy drivers in hopped up cars? Couldn't they just use regular unmasked drivers, doing things at regular speeds in regular vehicles? Wouldn't that be better to avoid the attention of cops and Crows? Good on Ryan for figuring out BW's secret but I wish they had her do it not by obtaining a recording of her confessing to being BW, but from the abundant clues that she has had right in her face that she should have been able to put together, having literally spent hours in BW's presence and knowing of Ryan for years. The notion that Agent Whatshisname is on the verge of potentially figuring BW's secret out on his first case involving her makes Sophie and the rest of the Crows look bad. Jacob may be tweaking on Snakebite but maybe his decision to kick Sophie to the curb wasn't such a bad one after all. There's no reason Alice should trust Enigma to remove her memories of Beth, because after all, once Alice submits to Enigma's hypnosis, Enigma could make Alice strut around clucking like a chicken and forget that Enigma ever existed. There is no reason Enigma would have put up with Alice's nonsense rather than just giving her the Julia Pennyworth amnesia special other than the show is going to keep Alice front and center. Maybe if they had played it with Enigma going along for the ride over curiosity what might happen, and then being bored now when Ocean showed up. No Mary and barely a mention of Mary in reference to her car makes me a sad panda.

First of all, we don't know if Walker was not accepted as Cap by many, or really any. Heck, even Bucky and Sam didn't question out loud Walker's right to go around calling himself Cap or the government's right to set himself up as Cap, they just didn't like that he had Cap's shield. So I don't think we have one on-screen example of anybody saying that Walker isn't the "real" Captain America. But even accepting it as true for discussion's sake that there is in the MCU a widespread #notmycap sentiment out there, it's mostly irrelevant. The government put Walker out as a valid Cap replacement, created what has to be a major publicity push of him as Cap, including a splashy production and Good Morning America interview. It seems reasonable that the government would want to move on in as quick and efficient a manner as possible. There is a possibility that if you put Walker on trial, he wins. There are almost certainly people who would say that Walker was justified in killing Nico despite the optics, as Val alludes to. What do you do then, if you're the government, if he gets a jury of such people and they acquit him? Keep him on as Cap even though many people think he is a murderer? Indeed, there are twin risks here -- that you alienate people who think that the killing was justified and you offer proof to those who might say that the government is running wild and doesn't care what Walker did. Even if you could guarantee a conviction, there are probably some messy details about Walker that you might not want out in the open. That the actual trial is conducted in private would not stop there from being extensive coverage about it, leakage of testimony, and either the wrong result or messy results. Prosecutors have wide discretion to bring charges or not bring charges generally. So it's certainly plausible that they could look at this not as cold-blooded murder, but a combatant death or that they could just let political considerations take precedence.

[quote]If I understand the whole thing with the flag smashers correctly, it is not that there weren't any borders after the Snap, but because so many people were suddenly missing, refugees were more welcome to fill the gabs which were left in the workforce. But now where all countries have their own "refugees" (meaning people who came back during the snap and now need to get back into their lives), there is a renewed interest in getting rid of those refugees, maybe partly so that the jobs they do can be done by those, who used to do them, again. Kind of like how after the war a lot of women lost their jobs they were encouraged to take on during the war to returning soldiers. Naturally the whole thing is meant to be a reflection of the current refugee discussion (with certain States basically wanting to put them into cages and forcing them out of the country, and the EU sometimes bringing up moral arguments but being unable to "win" against certain member states), but it doesn't really work because the references are way too vague for someone who hasn't paid attention to the topic, and too clumsy for those who have. It is also kind of odd that in a story about "Captain America" they mostly show how refugees in the EU life, but don't address the topic at all in the connection to the US (other than apparently this conference happening in the US and the guy from the US being some sort of a-hole about it).[/quote] I once again wish that we would have a series set in the time between the Snap and Endgam (or further) because that seems like such fertile ground for stories. Right now we basically have background lines from WandaVision where Hayward says that people who were Snapped are lucky because they didn't know how bad things got, and people like Karli and the Flag Smashers looking at the period as some sort of Golden Age that is now threatened by the return of everybody. We have been largely left to fill in the gaps and reconcile the somewhat contradictory takes. My personal take: A lot would depend on how the Snap manifested itself. Things would be different, for instance, if more than half of the world's billionaires were Snapped, or if some countries were more heavily affected than others. Some people and countries would see power vacuums and try to take advantage of them. Some people and countries might have to set up the new alliances that were alluded to in order to stop them. Right now, the world has enough resources to make sure that everyone has enough to eat and drink, has their basic medical and housing needs taken care of, has quality education and employment options etc. But we don't make sure of that because of various political and philosophical obstacles. It's possible that against the backdrop of losing 3.5 billion people, Earth abandoned those philosophies and started being more equitable. It's possible that against the backdrop of a major threat from the stars that literally wiped out half of life in the universe and other unnamed threats, countries stopped spending trillions to prepare to fight each other and banded together as "One World. One People" in anticipation of future extraterrestrial threats. And the shared trauma probably would also have united the survivors to a certain extent. Then comes the return of 3.5 billion people. For those people, they have not had the political/philosophical/mental shift of those who were not Snapped. They largely have had their possessions taken away because they were presumed dead. They don't fit into the New World Order. Up comes the Global Repatriation Council, which seems at least from Karli's perspective, too willing to bend over to accommodate the returnees and restore the old way of doing things.

Taking a response to the MCU thread.

The trouble with this series in my book is it asks us to buy in to a lot of things that just don't make sense and I don't know what its point of view is supposed to be, or what sort of point of view we are supposed to have about it. Hazel's relationship with her dad never seemed to be all that warm. In fact, she had cut him out of her life for the last 10 years, and despite having married into fabulous wealth, he was still living in the same shitty town that they had grown up in. Is that because she didn't care about him, because she didn't dare ask Byron if he could maybe spare a few hundred grand for dad, or what? Were there signs all along that Dad had cancer? Or was that grafted on to make Hazel choose to stay with Byron? And does that choice even make sense? Even supposing Byron could be trusted and he will devote money and energy to keeping Dad alive, he's not a god. Does she jet as soon as he passes away. I don't think it was medicine that got slipped in the drink, but rather something to knock him out so that the Gogol minions could transfer him into a cube at the Hub. Which of course raises its own set of moral issues and practical issues. It doesn't seem like they could keep up the facade of it being the real world for very long. Eventually, he's going to want to go shopping or drinking or talking to some other people or doing things that can't be duplicated easily in the cube. Hazel knocking him out and essentially putting him in the same position that she's been in -- nonconsensual, ignorant prisoner and victim of Byron's misguided, creepy, patronizing whims, is not a good look. Hazel was willing to commit suicide to get out of Byron's manufactured world. It just seems too dark that she is willing to go back to this existence for the sake of a father she isn't particularly close to. From the start it felt like they just wanted Hazel to have a bunch of misadventures rather than just do what I'd imagine the typical person would do if they found themselves in her situation, which is take things to the press or a real set of attorneys. He had made a public announcement about Made For Love. The notion that he put this chip in her brain without her consent has got to be a criminal act. Or at least a path to the freedom she wants. Yes, I know he was able to blackmail that one rando lawyer. But it would be way harder to do with a big law firm and get away with it, or with the Wall Street Journal.

It's interesting. The Marvel Netflix series generally felt like they had at least an episode or two worth of padding in the 10-13 episodes. This show and WandaVision easily could have had an extra episode or two more. I would have loved for them to do more to establish who the GRC is, what issues it has been grappling with, more about what the Flag Smashers' beef is with how the GRC is operating and what happened during the Blip. But there's only so much that can be put in 6 episodes and given that it's Marvel, it is going to prioritize fight scenes, plot points and character moments over world building. Just showing a GRC commercial and having Karli monologue that the GRC are evil is going to have to do.

first, I think there's a pretty big "if" when we talk about if the Contessa was telling the truth. This version of her seems to be extra shady. But regardless of who is the proper owner of the shield (and the wings), the crimes that Sharon was arguably guilty of include: Aiding and abetting international fugitives from justice Treason Espionage against the U.S. Obstruction of justice Conspiracy Official misconduct Nico and the Flag Smashers are morally and legally guilty of Lemar's death. But Walker portrayed things to Bucky/Sam and the Hoskins family as though Nico personally killed Lemar, and that is obviously not the case. Whether Walker has snapped and thinks that it is the case, is deliberately lying to try to convince others that his killing of Nico was justified, or has something else going on is an open question. Putting aside for the moment that the officials would have to catch Bucky first, there's an issue of proof. The circumstantial evidence of Bucky causing the breakout hasn't left too many fingerprints. The main evidence would be that Bucky visited Zemo the day of Zemo's escape, and Zemo and Bucky working together after the escape. The fact of Bucky visiting the same day does not mean that Bucky helped in the escape, any more than, say, Joker deciding to escape Arkham after a Batman visit. It could just mean that Zemo got riled up by the visit and decided to escape, or it could just be pure coincidence. Not too many other people know about the evidence of Bucky and Zemo working together after the escape: Zemo (not talking), Walker (chose to try to use Bucky and the rest to find the Flag Smashers rather than attempt to rat Bucky out initially, and now discredited), Hoskins (followed Walker's lead, and now dead), Sharon (claims to be on the run, also has some residual fondness for Bucky and Sam), the DM (who again have fondness for Bucky and were willing to cut him slack), and various Madripoor villains (not the type who would turn Bucky in to Western authorities because they'd prefer to kill him and collect the 1K Bitcoin reward offered.) Zemo's presence in the story helped on a number of fronts. On a mechanical level, it gave Our Heroes the means to travel internationally in pursuit of the SSS and the Flag Smashers and added conflict/drama/action. It afforded character and philosophical moments, as Sam and Bucky (and by extension, we the audience) both got to debate and contemplate issues about super powers and Steve Rogers, Bucky's attempts to make amends, Sam's questioning about whether he can become a symbol. There were even bits of comic relief that Zemo's presence added. The writers could have brought the DM into the story without Zemo being involved if they wanted to. Also, the Wakandans didn't provide funds for the Wilsons' business. That was, as we saw, Sam drumming up community support to fix the boat and get it back on its feet. Yes, it is somewhat of a plothole, because at least hypothetically, Sam could have sent T'Challa, Pepper, Rhodey or others a text and gotten a gift/loan of however much was needed to fix the boat. But oh well. Bucky was on a pardon, not parole. We don't know what all the terms of the pardon were other than he was supposed to have regular therapy sessions. So we don't know necessarily that he has violated the terms of his pardon further. We do know that Walker pulled strings to even make the regular therapy sessions not something that Bucky was going to have to go through because he considered Bucky too important an asset to be tied up with that. But even assuming for argument's sake that Bucky's actions in some way violated his pardon, there really has not been that much time that has passed. It was somewhat of a fluke that he was caught the first time. As others have said, the hearing was not a court martial. But anyway, considering Walker is at least somewhat crazy, it's amazing that he put himself together enough to put on his dress uniform. It is not "necessary" per se for Sam to become Captain America. But Steve's actions in Endgame left a void. Steve wanted Sam to fill it. Sam has been doing good work as Falcon and could continue to do so. But as Falcon, he is not the living legend that Steve was, or a singular force to inspire people, bring them together and give them hope, like Steve did. He could be all those things, at least hypothetically, if he becomes the new Captain America. But self-doubt and the issues about race (among other possible things) made him initially decline. Over the course of the series, he has both increased in confidence that he can fill Cap's shoes and he has seen the possible ramifications if he lets others dictate who might attempt to replace him. And so, it looks like he is ready to take up the mantle. There are various ways that one can look at Bucky's statement. Bucky may have oversimplified things. Falcon was the first to speak up about issues with the accords, but it is certainly possible that he would have gone along with them if Cap had gone along with them. It is also possible that Bucky did/does see Sam as less than Steve, which makes sense because Bucky sees Steve as a god. In any event, Bucky was obviously not present for the discussions about the Sokovia Accords, so he probably would not know the details of Sam being the first to speak out. There has not been a ton of time for the Flag Smashers to go after Zemo, nor does it seem like the Flag Smashers are the sort of organization that are particularly well equipped to go after Zemo. Attacking stationary government facilities that are obvious targets is one thing. Trying to track down an elusive fugitive with resources is another -- especially if one factors in that there's not necessarily any reason that Karli would even recognize who Zemo is. She only saw him briefly and has no particular reason to have known Zemo from his involvement in Civil War or his recent escape. There's every possibility that there would not be that much information about either available to the general public. There doesn't need to be "a" main villain or antagonist for a story to be successful. In this case, Sam and Bucky are seemingly going to find themselves caught between (among possible others) Karli and the five remaining Super Soldier Flag Smashers, John Walker, Batroc, and possibly the Power Broker's men. They are also going to find themselves at odds with systems: the government that is going to want to repossess the shield, at least one set of shady spies if not two. I could see the Hoskins family doing everything from consciously shutting out all the information about Lemar's last day because it was too painful to voraciously consuming everything because they want to have every detail. Depending on the nature of the video and how much it contained, I would think that seeing essentially want happened would at least engender some question as to whether the terrorist was telling the truth about what happened. I suspect that the Hoskins family would be fine with every one of the Flag Smashers being brutally killed in retaliation. They'd probably be less fine about Walker hiding the truth from them. I imagine that there is some clout that civilian leaders can probably negotiate with military leaders in the real world. Even though the military (presumably) officially has the final say about a court martial, I would imagine that it would not be too difficult to persuade the military powers that be that putting Captain America on trial is not in the military's best interest, or the country's. Well, the remaining top Flag Smashers know that Walker has been juiced because he displayed super-soldier level strength in that fight, and Val explicitly knows, plus whoever she either told or got the information from. I would think that some people in the government must suspect, given the way he caved Nico's torso in. And more likely than not, Walker had to do some sort of debrief where he may or may not have mentioned it.

Best case scenario if they didn't ask him for the shield: Walker surrenders to his puppetmasters, gives them the shield and they announce Cosplay Cap 2: Super-Soldier Bugaloo. Which puts things potentially right back where they started from: some strangers deciding who is worthy of carrying the mantle of Cap when real Cap has already designated Sam as worthy and when Sam IS worthy in his own right. Among the various other bad scenarios: Walker goes on a rampage juiced on SSS with the shield and uses it to murder more people. Or the government rationalizes Walker's killing of Nico and embraces him despite him having soiled Cap's legacy. It makes sense to me that they took the stand where/when they did. Probably more a kidding...not kidding scenario. Pretty sure a lot of guys would not want their sister dating Broody McBrooderson Staring Machine. I think the show is about what it means to be Captain America from a number of perspectives: What is it like to attempt to follow in the footsteps of Steve Rogers, a living legend? What would it be like to be Cap without actual powers? What would it be like to be Cap as a personal friend of Steve? What would it be like to be Cap in our celebrity culture? What would it be like to be Cap as a Black man? And part of that also is, what would it be like to be Captain America in the 2020s in an increasingly global landscape, and particularly against the backdrop where there had been for the past five years some greater sense of an international community than there is in our real world? I too would have preferred a series that consisted almost entirely of exchanges like Sam/Isaiah's and minimized the fist fighting, one that better fleshed out the GRC, the status of the Sokovia Accords and on and on, but that's probably asking too much of a Marvel series.

I think his destroying government property is not a crime Walker cares about. The senator did ask for Walker to return the shield "expeditiously." It is possible that was just for show and like Val, they know he doesn't have it. Or Val could have better sources than the council does. As I understand it, in the comics, Val was originally a girlfriend of Nick Fury and a SHIELD agent in her own right. But later versions had her being or breaking bad. Where she falls in the MCU is unclear. I saw her as a little too chatty and friendly. I would think that there would be a little more aristocratic disdain about someone who would actually bring up her title. I would say that Lemar did worship Walker largely as a hero. So the picture and the way his family talks about their relationship seems to fit. My guess is that Sharon has hired Batroc to infiltrate the Flag Smashers and he will do a heel-face turn to stab them in the back during the final episode.

It's equally possible that Walker is straight up crazy/in denial. He told Sam and Bucky that Nico killed Lemar when he knew (or should have known) that they knew he did not. It's possible that he was trying to get them to buy into the lie or at least to see if they might. It's also possible in his mental state he had confused what the case was. He has little reason to try to deceive Bucky or Sam about Lemar's killing. It is also worth noting that presumably some cell phone video exists showing that Nico was protesting his innocence when Walker killed him. Whether the Hoskins family would be aware directly or indirectly of the contents of that video or what was said about it, who knows?

Well, deep down, we all know why from a plot standpoint: If Bucky remained half as skilled/deadly as he did during TWS, there wouldn't be much of a conflict. The WS who fought Cap/Falcon/BW to a standstill and even the WS in Civil War who could clown elite soldiers and who with Cap could take down Iron Man would have made short-work of the untrained and no-gizmo having Flag Smashers and the trained-but-little-experienced Cosplay Cap. Heck, even IW/Endgame Bucky would have just shot himself some fools. The best in-universe explanation seems to be that he is consciously trying to not be the hyper-deadly assassin and is using force as a last resort, or perhaps that as part of his deprogramming, he has lost a step.

I didn't put the two and two together about Uncle Sam until the previews this time around. The Raft is a secret prison that is in international waters where people basically have no rights to speak of. Much of Team Cap was incarcerated there in Civil War till Cap broke them out.