What If…? (2021) s01e05 – What If… Zombies?!

Even with the trite, albeit genre-appropriate conclusion, this episode of “What If…?” is definitely the series high. And not just because Jeffrey Wright barely has any lines. It’s an actually good script—credited to Matthew Chauncey—with good action set pieces, better voice acting, and some good twists and turns. However, after a strong start with Mark Ruffalo, it turns out—once again—the secret to the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is Tom Holland’s Spider-Man.

Even if Tom Holland’s not playing him. Instead, they get Hudson Thames, who does a fine Tom Holland impression. The episode takes place when Ruffalo arrives on Earth in Avengers: Infinity War and discovers the world overrun with zombies. Worse, they’re superhero zombies. Turns out the original Avengers (we miss the Captain America and Iron Man reuniting, once again) went to save the day in San Francisco where the outbreak starts—tying into Ant-Man and the Wasp—only to get immediately taken out.

So when Ruffalo’s got to warn the world of Thanos’s impending arrival… turns out they’ve got bigger problems. Ruffalo teams up with Thames and the rest of the, ahem, new Avengers, like Sebastian Stan, Danai Gurira, Emily VanCamp, Evangeline Lilly, and then superhero adjacent Jon Favreau and David Dastmalchian. It feels like an on-a-budget Disney+ kind of cast, but not in a bad way. All of the voice acting from the survivor team is great. Of course, the opening titles have given away three more big Marvel movie superhero appearances, but the action’s so tense I forgot to wait for them to arrive.

When they do, it’s with multiple good surprises.

Marvel Zombies was a comic book sensation (of sorts), riffing on Marvel fans being called “Marvel Zombies,” complete with an Evil Dead crossover series (and an excellent fan-made short film), and this “MCU Zombies” is way better than the comic. Again, the ending’s a bit pat and undercooked—having Wright narrate it doesn’t help—but “What If” finally doesn’t seem cheap. If only Bryan Andrews’s directed every episode as well.

It might also help they’re not jockeying a PG-13 line either. The zombie gore is a lot more than I was expecting. Great voice performances from pretty much everyone, including the three not-surprise surprise actors. But Ruffalo, Gurira, Lilly, and VanCamp are standouts—besides Thames, of course, whose Tom Holland is the web fluid holding it together. The big surprise is Ruffalo being so personable since his last appearance on “What If” was so blah.

A New Avengers is a fantastic idea, but they really need to get Holland signed up for more than one. Or maybe they can just CGI him and have Thames do the voice?

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021) s01e06 – One World, One People

Turns out forty-five minutes is the just right length for a Falcon and the Winter Soldier, even if Sebastian Stan gets startlingly little to do in the final episode of a show where his character’s name is in the title. Stan ends the series with less of a character arc than either extremely shallow villain Erin Kellyman or murderous Captain America Wyatt Russell (it’s really bad but I think Chris Pratt’s better than Russell, who manages to be worse with less than dialogue than with more here).

A lot of the episode is Anthony Mackie’s, which is fine and good and maybe even great, if it wasn’t all a bunch of respectability politics for the Black guy in the end and failing upward for the white one. No real spoilers but let’s just say there’s a Don Cheadle-sized hole in the episode, which seems to be more about setting up casting in subsequent Disney+ Marvel shows than resolving anything for the protagonists.

There’s a bunch of action; most of it’s really bland superpeople fighting in cities at night stuff—though I guess there are some cool flying sequences—before there’s a big warehouse fight section. The warehouse fight section, which involves a reveal I called last episode, is fairly bad. I was actually expecting it to be good—director Kari Skogland did what I thought was a Welles homage a couple episodes ago but I think it must’ve been a mistake. The action directing this episode wouldn’t fly on an Arrowverse show.

Good acting from Mackie, which is all that matters (mostly because no one else has enough dialogue for it to matter), and it’s nice to see Carl Lumbly but the resolution on him is peculiar.

Everything about the show, however, ends up being a cop out. There’s no significant character development—the entire cast (so Daniel Brühl, Adepero Oduye, Emily VanCamp, even Julia-Louis Dreyfus) pops up in the epilogue to remind viewers they were on the show (in Oduye’s case) and they can return for future MCU ventures (everyone else).

Last episode I thought Falcon and the Winter Soldier would’ve worked better as a movie, but not anymore; not with such a nothing finish.

There’s some cool technology special effects (who doesn’t want to see Iron Man-tech but from Wakanda) but it’s barely in it and doesn’t get a good showcase because Skogland’s really bad at the action scenes here.

Again, no spoilers, but there is no Poe and Finn get girlfriends at the last minute—even though there’s a threat—but there’s also no real resolve to Stan and Mackie’s character relationship arc because Stan’s not in the episode enough for them to do one. He and Mackie have like two and a half scenes together and I’m being generous counting one of them. The half is because there’s no dialogue just music for a montage. And the generous one is one of the boring action scenes.

Falcon and the Winter Soldier seems to be promising something more interesting will be coming for everyone involved—except Oduye (oh, wait, I don’t think she gets any dialogue here)—which is never a great way to end five hours and forty-five minutes.

Stay for the end credits if you want a whiff of a “surprise.” No wonder they ran WandaVision first.

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021) s01e03 – Power Broker

This episode feels the most like an overlong section of a movie, as heroes Sebastian Stan and Anthony Mackie have to break bad guy Daniel Brühl out of prison so Brühl can help them. The show’s quick about the breakout, then slow about everything else. Including having multiple expository dumps for supporting cast members to give them something to do—otherwise new Captain America and fascist thug Wyatt Russell (sidekick Clé Bennett is starting to notice him breaking under the stress) and hippie revolutionary Erin Kellyman (who goes from feeding refugees to mass murder faster than a Thanos snap) wouldn’t have anything to do this episode.

Of course, while Mackie and Stan are in the episode the entire time, they’re just there to give Brühl someone to out act. Show’s called “Falcon and the Winter Soldier” (admittedly, Stan gets a whole bunch more than Mackie here) but it’s the Brühl hour, with asides to also returning to the franchise Emily VanCamp.

The boys have to go to a lawless twenty-first century pirate’s paradise, Madripoor (from the X-Men comics, but they don’t spend the entire episode pretending Hugh Jackman’s going to show up at least), where they find VanCamp’s been living since her last outing (Captain America 3, also where Brühl showed up).

There’s a lot of action for VanCamp, there’s a very happening party, there’s Brühl lecturing Mackie about what it means to be a Black man in America, there’s a surprise guest star at the end. It’s fine. Nothing about it seems like they needed to make a six episode series. The episode’s got a couple action beats you could keep, the rest is just filler and promise of eventual (not this episode or maybe even this season) “payoff.”

Director Kari Skogland does well with all the action, but really she just sets the shot and lets Brühl walk through the scene and away with the show. If he was always going to be this compelling a guest star, they should’ve brought him in earlier. He and VanCamp bring a decisiveness the show’s been lacking. Not to fault Mackie or Stan, of course; it’s the script. Derek Kolstad’s script very definitely centers on Brühl, centers on VanCamp. It’s like “Falcon and the Winter Soldier” is trying to prove the case Mackie and Stan shouldn’t have their own show, let alone movie.

Maybe it’ll change next episode.

Again, whatever, it’s fine. But it’s also pretty lazy.

Also, there’s a very strange, very pointless supervillain mask moment; it’s pointless in the narrative, it’s pointless for the character, really doesn’t belong. It’s just for the trailers. Actually, there are a number of made-for-the-trailer shots this episode. But they usually aren’t pointless. “Falcon and the Winter Soldier” is overly verbose as is, the show doesn’t need to add any more padding.