Now that WandaVision has come to an end, Marvel fans are looking to the next Disney Plus show coming out to feed them their much-needed MCU content for the next several weeks. The first episode of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier drops on March 19, and the show has been much anticipated by the fandom, particularly those who have been big fans of Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes in the past MCU movies.
The show will hopefully be an opportunity for Marvel to explore these characters more fully. If WandaVision is any metric to go by, it's safe to assume that The Falcon and the Winter Soldier might take a different direction than a lot of the Marvel movies that audiences are used to, and will spend more time on characters than on big action set pieces (though it seems that TFATWS will have more action than WandaVision, which makes sense in terms of the individual story each show is telling). At least, that's the hope. Fans have to put their trust in Marvel that the show will take the time to look into the characters, and not get caught up in the usual MCU problem of worrying too much about setting up for the future that they don't tell a complete story in the present.
Sam and Bucky are both characters that have been in the MCU for a very long time, and yet they have rarely gotten the chance to take the spotlight. The audience gets hints and tidbits here and there about their personalities, but in the end it still doesn't feel like enough considering how long these characters have been in the franchise. Bucky has been in the MCU since Phase 1 - Captain America: The Winter Soldier was even named for his character and was also the first film that Sam Wilson appeared in.
For being characters that are so pivotal to Steve Rogers’s story, fans have never really gotten to see as much from them as they would like, and have had to rely on their own fan theories to insert a lot of personality and backstory into these characters. It will be interesting to finally see these characters get to shine in their own show, and flesh out their backstories further.
It’s not like there’s a lack of material to dig into for Sam and Bucky either; Sam is a military veteran who spoke briefly about his PTSD from combat in The Winter Soldier, and Bucky has a whole slew of traumatic issues that he will undoubtedly have to work through in this show, considering he was a brainwashed assassin that has lived through decades of history and committed a number of terrible atrocities without any say in the matter. The most interesting thing TFATWS can do, following the themes of WandaVision, is to dig into the trauma that these characters carry with them and focus on how that affects them to this day.
While it seems that the show is going for a classic Marvel tone (action mixed with comedy), and is especially leaning into the buddy cop comedy feel, it would be a disservice to these characters if the show didn’t spend a significant amount of time examining what makes Sam and Bucky tick, and the weights that both of them feel on their shoulders. It might be difficult to focus on either hero in total depth because there are two stories to balance, and importance should be given to both, but given the fact that Marvel was able to set the lengths and amounts of episodes in their series, they should have been able to take the time they needed to truly tell the stories of their characters. Fans don't just want to see action, they want to see the tragic backstory that makes these characters who they are.
It also seems that TFATWS will tackle racial issues, as Kevin Feige and Anthony Mackie have mentioned that this show will be focused on Sam figuring out his role as a black Captain America in today’s world. This is another great opportunity for Marvel to dig into important social issues and also give depth to this character. Sam especially has not been given a lot to do in the MCU unconnected from Steve Rogers, and his character really hasn’t been fleshed out very much. Giving him a story like this is a great way to ground the character and make him interesting and three-dimensional, and to give him a real, definable personality outside of “Captain America’s Sidekick”.
From what the actors and showrunner have said about The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, fans should be confident that they will get to see at least a little bit more backstory from these characters, and that the show will give them the space to be able to express their full personalities without being relegated to side characters. Though the audience wants to have faith that Marvel will do right by Sam and Bucky - because the MCU is normally pretty good about telling decent stories, and even showing characters more in-depth in entries such as WandaVision - there's still a small fear amongst fans that this show could fall into the typical "Marvel spectacle" problem. It would be a big shame if Marvel dedicated a whole series to two fan-favorite characters and fans still felt like they didn't know the characters as well as they should by the end of it.
Everyone is always excited to see what Marvel’s going to do next, which was incredibly evident during the release of WandaVision, perhaps to the detriment of the show. The MCU can often get a little carried away with setting up the universe for the future (by including things like Easter eggs and cameos) that they forget to make sure that they’re telling a complete story in the present. It would actually be great if The Falcon and the Winter Soldier was a self-contained story that didn’t heavily rely on setting up the future of the MCU, and was only focused on fleshing out these characters in a way that they haven’t been able to do before. Though there will certainly be elements of TFATWS that set up the MCU for the future, it would be nice if just this once, they decided to focus most on the present, and on the characters they already have.