I watched the season premiere of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier five times in the last week, that’s how much I enjoyed it. It opening action sequence had me marveling at the screen, the character development felt both rewarding and poignant, and the first episode just really started off with a bang. The only nitpick I’d have to say about the first episode was that it almost felt TOO similar to Captain America: The Winter Soldier all the way down to the story beats and I was kind of missing the originality that we got to see with WandaVision.

So this morning I watched the second episode and right from the get-go you get the feeling that it’s really going to delve into more character development that’ll enhance the story greatly.

SPOILERS AHEAD!

Last week ended on a what-the-heck note when a new Captain America was announced via John Walker, the guy recruited to take Steve Rogers’ place. I knew he was going to be in the show of course but I never expected to instantly despise him in the way that I do. (Great casting, Marvel Studios.)

So, to give some more context to John Walker and his role trying to fill the shoes of THE Steve Rogers the episode starts with a heartfelt conversation between Walker and a couple of his friends. He seems a bit trepidacious to take on the role as Captain America, which he rightfully should.

Steve Rogers embodied Captain America in a way that is hard to replicate but the government thinks Walker is up to the task. We get a bit of highly-appreciated information and we quickly learn that Walker’s a bit of a bad***. It doesn’t mean he’s worthy to be Captain America though.

From there we have Bucky and Sam reunite and that’s when the episode, and the series, truly begins. We get plenty of humor with some truly hilarious moments between the two. Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan seem so comfortable with one another you can almost get the impression that they’re ad-libbing most of their lines.

There’s a comfort in the tone of this show that WandaVision didn’t exactly provide. WandaVision was mysterious and left me with so much anxiety and questions every week and this show is just doling out great content while leaving plenty of contemplate over.

I’ve got to admit, Bucky made me tear up twice in this episode. His story is just so tragic and we’re really getting a chance to see how much Steve was an essential part of his life and what it means to not have Steve around anymore. Bucky’s still dealing with a lot of trauma and by the end of this series, I just hope he finds some sort of peace…or happiness.

All in all, this episode was perfect from start to finish and its 50-minute runtime felt so nice. Both The Mandalorian and WandaVision were series with episodes that varied in length to the point where you were always experiencing a sense of whiplash in the amount of content we were going to get.

To have two 50-minute episodes that actually feel like tiny movies is just…exceptional to say the least. I can’t wait to see what happens next week and where this story is going to continue to go.

I thank you for reading and I hope you have a wonderful day.