Falcon & Winter Soldier is an enigma, because the character work, cinematography and themes being explored are among the most mature and interesting things in the MCU to date, but the plot itself is extremely clunky and it’s never quite clear where exactly we’re going or why

With every passing day, I’m more and more grateful that the “fighting an army of frozen super-soldiers” plotline in Civil War turned out to be the red herring by the end, because now we’re finally getting that story and I’ve gotta say it’s far from compelling

Am I the only one who thinks it’s kinda weird that Sam and Bucky had their big argument and couple’s therapy scene in the very first episode they were together? Shouldn’t that beat happen closer to the end of the 2nd act? It’s like their relationship has been static since then

That first episode with Sam and Bucky’s backstories was legitimately one of the best MCU things we’ve ever seen. Since then though, it feels like both characters have been kinda...passive?? Mostly they’ve been whisked around by outside forces making occasional exposition comments

The biggest problem is that Sam and Bucky just don’t have very strong motivations for doing whatever they’re doing here. The two characters with *really* strong motivations have been Zemo and John Walker - and wouldn’t ya know it, whenever they’re onscreen the show has real drive

One thing this show is doing really well though: making me retroactively adore Chris Evans as Steve Rogers even more than I already did