Watching Sam and Bucky rebuild a dilapidated boat gave me more joy than nearly everything else in this show. It’s impossible to ignore that Sam manages to solve the problems of the first episode with a few phone calls and a montage, but it’s a fun, touching sequence. A Sam Wilson faced with a prideful sister who wouldn’t accept a handout, but earns her blessing by investing his hands-on labor and his place in the community, is a more interesting arc than a Sam Wilson who is thwarted by plot machinations. What’s frustrating is that I don’t think this show needed the machinations of selfie-taking loan officers to get Sam to this place. Here, those beats are played out with a sense of community and good humor. I complained in week one about the structure of Sam’s relationship with his sister, and the relative plot contrivances generated to create tension. I was surprised to find this week that so many of the little plot threads that didn’t work in past episodes absolutely seem to be clicking this week. Here’s hoping it manages to keep up the momentum next week. For now, this is The Falcon and The Winter Soldier’s “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms”, a bastion of character and light in a season of rushed television. While we know the show wraps up in a – let’s be kind – rushed manner, that episode allowed each character to have warm, emotionally fulfilling beats before what they believe to be an approaching doomsday. A smaller, character driven episode in the show’s final year, it serves as the “night before” the giant battle with the White Walkers. To be fair to Thrones‘ most-maligned season, it does have one absolutely elite episode: “A Knight of the Seven Kingdom”. So… the rest of the show! Last week, I analogized it to the last two seasons of Game of Thrones. She’ll elevate any project blessed by her presence. I do not suspect we’ll see her again on The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, but her presence in the MCU is a source of deep joy for me. Every little choice she makes in her two minutes of screen time pops. Her one scene absolutely pops with energy as a titan takes the stage. Here she appears as Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, a spy-type character of regularly shifting loyalties in the comics. She has two truly peak performances ( Seinfeld and Veep), and, even if the MCU is her Washington Wizards’ run, she remains nothing less than the most interesting thing on the court. Julia Louis-Dreyfus might be TV comedies’ Michael Jordan. As the MCU realm enters television – The Falcon and The Winter Soldier was intended to launch the Disney+ level of the “real” MCU – it only makes sense that they might want to add perhaps the greatest actor in the history of television. What a flex by Marvel mastermind Kevin Feige. No sense beating around the bush here – there’s one thing I want to talk about most: Julia Louis-Dreyfus. 5) marks one of the most extreme course corrections of any show in recent memory – a standout episode of a flawed series. The Falcon and The Winter Solider: Truth (Ep.
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