S03.E03: What If...The Red Guardian stopped the Winter Soldier?

[AnimeMania]

It is 1991, and the Red Guardian takes it upon himself to join a high-profile mission and prove himself to his Red Room superiors. When his antics interfere with the Winter Soldier’s own mission to kill Howard Stark, the two Soviet supersoldiers must form an alliance to escape the United States.

Premiere Date: December 24, 2024   Disney+ 

Jeffrey Wright as Uatu / The Watcher
David Harbour as Alexei Shostakov / Red Guardian
Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes / Winter Soldier
Laurence Fishburne as Bill Foster / Goliath
America Ferrera as Ranger Morales
Piotr Michael 

[Spartan Girl]

Well, Alexei and Bucky made a pretty good team.

[thuganomics85]

Ah, a potential look at what some of Thunderbolts might look like with an Alexei/Bucky roadtrip to Vegas!  Pretty fun, although I still feel like Sebastian Stan is underplaying/borderline phoning it in for a lot of this, which is odd since I remember enjoying him a lot the previous seasons.  Probably was more noticeable since David Harbour was really laying it on thick, but for a show like this, camping it up is usually the right call.

Meanwhile, despite barely even remembering Bill Foster, Laurence Fishburne manages to make the character stick out more in this series compared to his live action outing.  Seems to just be having a ball here.

Hope this isn't the last we see/hear from America Ferrera as Ranger Morales.

The Obadiah Stone reveal was good.

[arc]

Honestly, I thought Harbour could have dialed it back several notches. But he was performing to the level of the material, which was really, really broadly written.

I liked Bill Foster breaking out the Goliath gear well enough. And I really liked Red Guardian shoehorning his way into the classic Avengers 1 team-up circle shot. (Though Hawkeye doesn't look anything like Jeremy Renner.)