The latest products from Marvel Studios have been some of their most unintentionally illuminating. WandaVision, their first Disney+ exclusive, showed us what sort of in-text behavior the Twitter stans will let slide (partly because the text in question does little to decry said behavior) when the themes/metaphors are somewhat poignant and, more importantly, the star of the show is really hot (which I can't dispute, since it's Elizabeth Olsen). The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, meanwhile, is the most relevant and revealing show they've ever made, for wholly unintended reasons.

In its attempted parallels to the geopolitics of today, it reveals how sloppy the MCU writers' sense of continuity will get when there's lucrative commentary to be made (reminding me of HBO's Watchmen, which sacrificed its believability as a sequel for the sake of topical allegorizing and petty jabs at its own IP), while also exposing how susceptible we've become to what streaming sites and Instagram feeds will tell us about who's good, who's bad, and what the past looks like -- including periods we're old enough to have experienced and should be familiar with. In its short run, it shows exactly what's gone wrong in the world of fandom, and the world at large.

First, let's talk about continuity versus trendy social commentary. Obviously, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier explores the aftermath of "The Blip", that moment in Avengers: Infinity War where Thanos erased half of all life on Earth, leading to five years of largely unseen disarray. The fact that this particular story takes place after any Avengers film is problematic enough, so we'll talk more about the Blip stuff later.

For one, the show implies that a black man, namely the new Captain America candidate Sam "Falcon" Wilson (Anthony Mackie), wearing the American colors is a touchy prospect, given the unfortunate history of the country (that is, in real life and not so much within the MCU, though they do add a neglected black war hero to the mix), and that even a global super-celebrity like him must endure cartoonish police racism until a different officer points out who he is. It's not just that this seems ignorant of in-universe history and the existence of figures like the Iron Patriot; it's that this ignorance rubs off on the audience, effectively getting THEM to ignore OUR universe.

Said fanboys will praise the show for "finally" giving us a piece of superhero media led by a person of color. It's bad enough to be unaware that today's comic-book cinema largely owes its existence to Blade (1998), but have they already forgotten Black Panther (2018) from this same canon? What about the fact that Wilson has financial struggles (which also doesn't seem wholly believable in the established timeline) and how this makes him more relatable than any other Marvel hero? Really, guys? I know there are too many Spider-Men to keep track of but surely we know better than to swallow this stuff uncritically?

This lack of critical thinking is, in a nutshell, what's so fascinating about the response to TFATWS. Through very deliberate music choices, framing, and other shortcuts, the show makes it very clear we're supposed to ultimately admire the plight of the Flag Smashers -- a globalist, AntiFa-looking bunch of supersoldiers (apparently Erskine's serum wasn't all that tricky to replicate) who wish to return to the borderless "utopia" of The Blip -- while the new Captain America replacement John Walker (Wyatt Russell of Black Mirror), who's trying to stop them, is clearly a dick.

But really, if you actually LOOK at the text, the worst thing Walker does isn't much more horrifying than the routine acts of the Flag Smashers or their leader Karli (Erin Kellyman). HER actions are meant to seem somewhat pardonable, as she's fighting against fascist government, the mistreatment of refugees, and I guess nationalism. Does that reading make sense if you actually analyze the sequence of events and what the character is objectively guilty of? Not especially, no.

Still, the music and imagery insist we shall loathe entitled-white-guy John Walker and simply deem Karli to be a tragic, if misguided revolutionary, her actions rarely being framed as gruesomely as Walker's big kill (if ever). Thus, that's what the Twitter stans are rolling with, albeit disagreeing with the "misguided" part -- even this faintly negative attribute gets lost in the glorified presentation. (In other circles, this intent has clearly backfired, à la the New Guy meme and the supposedly-piggish Don from Captain Marvel, as Walker's being hailed as a wholesome good guy.)

And to be honest with you, in the show's treatment of politics and activism, it seems like the opposite has happened: that the tweenagers and Twitter stans influenced the art, not the other way around. The commentary in this show is so naive, so bereft of real answers, and so proud of this fact (The Falcon declares it might be a good thing that he doesn't understand the complexities of why politicians can't just "open all the borders" or "print more money" or whatever) that it feels like a teenager who just learned one or two buzzwords wrote it. People who hate the series might think I'm stupid for agreeing that Karli is a realistic, believable figure, but I absolutely feel like someone like her would write The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and then insert herself into it kinda like this. I'm surprised she doesn't wind up making out with Bucky Barnes wearing tighty-whities.

The show isn't even really saying "AntiFa activists aren't terrorists, you guys". It expressly rejects the label, yes, but we've already talked about why its intended message doesn't match its actual text or plot. Functionally, it is instead saying: "AntiFa ARE terrorists but here's why that's good". Whether our political youngsters have influenced the writing or Marvel is just pandering to them (by neither understanding their own world nor ours very well), TFATWS is indeed a product of the times.

Was there anything I liked? Well, I do like Mackie as an actor and person, even if The Falcon was arguably done dirty here (there's a scene where he rejects black identitarianism, which I initially appreciated, but this turned out to be a part of an arc where he eventually "knows better"). I enjoy his banter with Sebastian Stan as Bucky/The Winter Soldier, seeing the Dora Milaje was fun although their inclusion made little sense (given what we know of Wakanda), and Baron Zemo (Daniel Brühl) is still one of the better MCU antagonists, even if he's more cartoony here than in Captain America: Civil War -- the groundedness of which I now admire all the more. Watch that one instead tonight, or switch to Prime for some Invincible.