The Falcon and The Winter Soldier has come to its conclusion with an action-packed finale.
The Flag Smashers have attacked the GRC meeting in New York to stop their vote on the forced relocation. This brings Sam and Bucky into action with Sam now wearing a new costume and in procession with Captain America’s shield.
“One World, One People” was like the season finale of WandaVision where all the characters and their plotlines were tied together. To put it another way, it was the final act of a Marvel movie. It was fun to see Sam finally become the new Captain America. He got to wear a new costume and he was able to combine his flight suit and the shield. It was triumphant to see Sam fly in, smash through a window and use the shield.
Sam had the best action scenes in the episode, like when he had to fight Karli. The rest of the action sequences were less impressive. It’s made even worse when you consider the series having some strong fight and action sequences in the previous episodes. The worst part of “One World, One People’s” action scenes was when Bucky and John Walker were fighting the Flag Smashers on the streets and the editing was so choppy it became hard to follow the action.
As The Falcon and The Winter Soldier progressed it had become more and more frustrating. The series had issues with its characterization, dialogue, lingering plotlines, and political messaging and the finale had all of these. John Walker has been an inconsistent character. Initially he was portrayed sympathetically because he had the weight of being Captain America on his shoulders and then showing his temper in later episodes. The final episode had Walker going on a vengeance mission against Karli before having a sudden redemption. The expository dialogue came when the identity of the Power Broker was revealed and it was incredibly chunky.
The series did attempt to have a social-political message. This was done in two ways – the first was the impact of reversing the Blip which drove Karli’s ideology. The second involved the theme of race and raises the question about how America would react if a black man became Captain America. These two themes merged when Sam comes down the street like an angel carrying Karli and talks to the media about being a black man dressed in the iconography of America and saying that Karli did have a legitimate cause even if her methods were extreme. It was a ham-fisted way of getting this message across. This episode and TV series as a whole was just an excuse for the MCU to have Sam as Captain America. However, audiences who watched Endgame knew this was going to come anyway. Captain America 4 has already been announced.
At the time of writing “One World, One People” only has a 59% rating on Rotten Tomatoes which is really low for a TV episode. It’s fitting for a series that has sadly underwhelmed and one of the weakest MCU projects.
