Falcon Winter Soldier Season 2
Overview
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Season 2 finds Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) fully established as Captain America — shield, wings, and the full weight of what that symbol means in a fractured, complicated America — and Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) finally, perhaps for the first time in decades, attempting something like a normal life. Sam has been traveling the country, appearing at community events, speaking to veterans' groups, and trying to rebuild the trust that the superhero community lost after the Blip and the events of Endgame. He has a small team working with him: Joaquin Torres (Danny Ramirez) is now officially his partner, flying as a new Falcon; and Bucky has been brought on as a consultant, though he is technically still on parole. But normalcy has always been a luxury neither of them has been permitted to keep for long. A new threat emerges that specifically targets the Cap mantle and everything it represents — not the man wearing it, but the idea, and the dangerous gap between what America promises and what it delivers. This threat comes from inside the government: a faction within the CIA believes that superheroes are a liability and that the only way to maintain national security is to control them, by force if necessary. Sam's background as a counselor for veterans gives him tools for this fight that no amount of super-soldier serum ever could, and the show continues to take seriously what it actually means to be a Black man carrying an icon built for a different America. Bucky's work in therapy, the amends he has been trying to make, and the relationships he has been carefully rebuilding all face their most serious test when someone from his past as the Winter Soldier resurfaces, with evidence of crimes that Bucky cannot remember committing. The Flag Smashers' ideological successors are more sophisticated and more sympathetically drawn than pure villains, forcing Sam and Bucky to grapple with the genuine grievances beneath the violence. The season also introduces new characters: a female super-soldier who was part of a secret government program; a senator who is running for president on an anti-superhero platform; and a mysterious figure who has been watching Sam since he took up the shield. Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan have built one of the MCU's finest friendships — hostile, funny, caring, and completely real. Falcon and Winter Soldier Season 2 is a grounded, politically engaged superhero story.
