Season 1, Episode 3, “Power Broker”

Good storytelling involves the use of tropes, and one trope that I always enjoy in action movies is that you can always tell when a plan will work. Plans fail when you see characters discussing them ahead of time, but they come to fruition when you’ve just thrown yourself on the scene.

The best part of “Power Broker”, the third episode of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, is when this trope is deliciously skewered. Bucky describes to Sam a “guess” on how they could get Zemo out of his maximum security prison, just before Zemo gets out. It’s a shame the prison escape plot is one of the most boring I’ve seen –Avatar: The Last AirbenderThe “Boulder” episode was more interesting. But then, I guess that’s not the subject of this episode.

What is this episode, exactly? At first glance, “Power Broker” appears to want to gather information on Super Soldier Serum and Flag-Smashers, and even expand the universe of Sam and Bucky’s associates. But he seems most interested in staring in action movie tropes more than anything else, and you know what? He fails. The whole episode, I was just thinking about the times I saw better versions of each of those scenes.

The scene in the club makes me think of the better casino scene in Black Panther. Heck, even those scenes in Principle where the main character poses as someone else has a better grasp of the particular balance between irony and suspense. Perhaps this is the odd direction, where it’s hard to tell where people are in a scene at all times. Or maybe it’s the edit – the way the snake cocktail scene was cut made me feel like they were trying to make the audience laugh, but the joke fell flat for me. Maybe because I love snakes, or maybe because a snake gut cocktail doesn’t even sound cool, just gross? Now if they used venom, that would be tough in a fun way. What might actually undermine the whole business is the fact that we get very little context or humor for the character Sam is supposed to play, or even how exactly Zemo is so well connected to Madripoor. After escaping from prison, he is conveniently very wealthy because he was a member of the royalty of Sokovia.

Zemo always seemed to be presented as a number, a godsend in Captain America: Civil War, but beyond that, his characterization struck me as somewhat rote and boring. (Zemo? More like ZERO, am I right?) It’s not necessarily Daniel Brühl’s fault, but I have to say that my image of him in the MCU has always been clouded by Inglorious Basterds. He played this Nazi hero a little too well, which I think speaks to his acting skills. But I guess I also have to pay tribute to Quentin Tarantino for the way he directed Brühl in these scenes, because I feel like he was given a lot less for his character in this episode.

Zemo’s most interesting scenes are also at the beginning, due to how he alternately lines up with Sam and Bucky. As someone obsessed with breaking up the Avengers using their own flaws against them, you see small parts of that emotional intelligence show up in this episode. Bucky looks at him fearfully but seems drawn to Zemo’s power over him. (Wow, he’s really the character in the MCU who needs therapy the most.) Meanwhile, when Bucky and Sam argue over how Bucky holds Steve’s notebook, Zemo trumps Sam when he says that The soundtrack for “Trouble Man” says a lot about the African-American Experience. Sam, shocked, says, “He’s irrelevant, but he’s right.” Once again, I’m aligned with Sam and his thought process. How? ‘Or’ What dare Bucky says he “just loves’ 40s music.” Open up, man! I guess he’s quite different from Steve – he can have dates (and dating apps apparently set to “both women and men”) But can’t he enjoy modern music? Come on man. Also, as I’m sure we can all agree (and please kindly comment in the comments), when you share some of your favorite media with someone, you have to offer a lot more than “J liked it “. Sam is suffering with us, my friends.

But okay, does Zemo have any black friends? He also dismisses Sam’s frustration with his disguise, saying, “Only an American would think a well-dressed black man looks like a pimp.” WHAT I? Is Zemo listening Solange? Unfortunately, this aspect of his personality falls by the wayside because [sigh] they are trying to strike a deal with Selby, a Briton who has the information they need. I’m sorry, this scene just reads like “references to James Bond without the wit and humor” to me. After Selby’s assassination, Sharon’s reintroduction to our characters even feels like a writing failure. In fact, this whole episode has a strange characterization.

I think this is the biggest problem with “Power Broker”. Even small moments, like Walker shouting at the owner of the cafe in Germany “Do you know who I am?” while Karli kills several people with a car bomb with a real jaded attitude, feel extremely out of sync with last week’s episode.

Finally, the worst part of the episode is how it leaves the best part of the series hanging. Sam and Bucky barely talk to each other or check their plans. Sam asks Bucky several times if he’s okay, but Bucky doesn’t even seem to know how to respond. And when Bucky asks him, Sam tells him he’s overwhelmed by the people who have been caught in the crossfire – Sharon and Isaiah, in particular. And even though he resumes his decision to let go of the shield, he feels more than he should have destroyed it.

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Erroneous observations

• I’m pretty sure, thanks to Sam’s call with Sarah, that this episode and the last two episodes all pass the Blackdel test, the black version of the Bechdel test. (They also simply pass the “DuVernay test. ”)
• Even the club scene is disappointing. They leave the next day acting like they’re partying, but Sam and Bucky are just holding each other awkwardly! Zemo does a bit of dancing, but I just don’t see why they couldn’t do it all and give us the MCU equivalent of this scene of Parks and recreation.
• The scene with Nagel reminded me this scene of The UNCLE man, except, of course, the latter was better. Nagel seemed to channel Lex Luthor by Jesse Eisenberg from Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice.
• I loved Sharon’s fight scenes – her use of the knife in the shootings reflects Steve at his best. Bucky was also in great shape when he returned as a Winter Soldier.
• I half expected Zemo to leave them in a bind. I really expected him to put Sam with that snake cocktail, or even poison the food he serves Sam and Bucky so nicely. Who is this guy?
• When they hang out with Sharon in her beautiful apartment (I think so?), Bucky says, “She’s kinda horrible now,” lying to himself because he knows he’ll never be this cool in his life, even though he is alive for another 100 years.
• Sam’s awkward phone call also falls flat as a way of humor? The suspense? I tried more to understand why he had brought his phone, let alone why he couldn’t put it on airplane mode.
• I wonder if Sharon killed Selby. I guess she doesn’t work for the Power Broker, but I’m curious where her loyalty lies now.