The Ringer-Verse - 'The Falcon and the Winter Soldier' Episode 2 Instant Reactions

Episode Date: March 26, 2021

Van Lathan and Charles Holmes return to discuss the major events and revelations that take place in the second episode of 'The Falcon and the Winter Soldier'. They begin by recapping the episode and breaking down our introduction to the new Capitan America and what it means for both Bucky and Sam to see someone else take up the mantle. Then they discuss the major reveal of Isaiah Bradley and what they would love to see from the next episode. They also share their reactions to the new James Gunn-directed 'Suicide Squad' trailer. Hosts: Van Lathan and Charles Holmes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome into the Ringerverse. I am Van Lath, and I'm joined once again by Charles Holmes, host of the Ringer Music Show. Charles, what's up? Hey, man, not much. This is, of course, if you're here, you're listening, you know that this is our instant reaction show to the Falcon and the Winter Soldier on Disney Plus.

We're going to give you our knee-jerk and very, very impulsive reactions to the show. Friday, we do the instant. reaction show on Tuesday, you have analysis and insights with Mao. Now, midwet next week, we're going to add a podcast, okay? We're given extras, bonus clips, all right? Bonus clips. Reason why is because Godzilla versus Kong. Godzilla versus Kong is dropping.

It's dropping. Are you excited about Godzilla versus Kong, Charles? Are you excited about this? Absolutely. Is it a spoiler alert if I ask you who you got? No, it's not spoiler alert. You know what's crazy? I got Kong, and I'll tell you why.

Dog, stop. I need the Kong contingent to stop. There's no one. I got Kong. I got Kong. How? Number one, I have more of an intimate relationship with Kong. Okay.

Godzilla has popped in and on my life like an absentee father. You know, he was there when I was a kid. And then all of a sudden, Godzilla wanted to come back when I was nearly in my 20s to be like, hey, I'm still here. Not Kong. Kong has always been there for me. You got different versions of Kong. and then you had Donkey Kong, which is a Kong cousin. We're not talking about power sets, though.

We're not talking about power sets. Who I feel connected to. I was played Donkey Kong country. And by the way, Donkey Kong, good dad. I know it's not King Kong. It's Donkey Kong, but I'm still putting it in the Kong family. Donkey Kong, good dad, had Diddy Kong with him. Although Diddy Kong might be his little brother.

I can't remember. I thought he was his nephew. Wasn't his nephew? Or did he's a good uncle? I don't know. Who is Diddy Kong to Donkey Kong? I used to love that game. It's not his son.

Is his nephew? I have no clue. I really don't know. But I used to play the hell out of that game. Play the hell out of the game. So I just feel more connected to Kong. I feel like. And plus, you know, keep it all the way gangster, man.

Kong from Africa. Wash. Kong from Kong. I'll let you talk about that. He's getting washed. Kong from Africa, bro. That's the home team for me. You know what I'm saying?

I'm going with Kong. You think that Godzilla's going to win because of Godzilla's power set and you think Godzilla got more your Godzilla. He can breathe. fire. Like what is like what are we talking about? You don't know if that Kong will block that shit. You don't know. This is like this is like the Batman argument where like Batman could be Superman if he had if he had his utility about enough time. Why are you assuming that

that fire could just hurt Kong? Do you realize that Kong is like an a thousand tonne gorilla like monster? Like you know like fire is going to hurt him. You know, I mean? I'll see. The teeth, the fire but this is not a Godzillaverse podcast. It's a about going to a little circle podcast. See how we just went on a nerd tangent right there. But I can't wait.

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She's like I said, she's going to do the deeper dive. She's going to have all your mailback questions to kind of round out your understanding of this show, which is picking up and it's going to be fantastic. Now, coming up, we're going to have our biggest reveals from Falcon and Winner Soldier, episode two. Fun moments of Easter eggs, our biggest questions about episode three based on this one. And also, we're going to give our instant reaction to something that actually just happened, which is the trailer dropped for James Gunn's Suicide Squad movie. And I'm not going to give away too much of what I think about it, but I think we were both pleased at what

we saw in that trailer. Absolutely. Absolutely. Now, as always, we're about to get in into the Falcon and the Winter Soldier recap. As always, right now, if you haven't seen it yet, this is your first and last spoiler warning. We are talking about it like you've seen it. We assume that you're as into this as I as we are, because we're the midnight boys,

12 a.m. We're assuming that you saw it already. So it's going to be spoilers, him here on. Okay. So, I've been going too long on these recaps, okay? I've been going too long in these recaps. People have said, van, the recaps are taking too long. Take the fun right out of the podcast. I'm people.

I'm people. Your people. Yes. Yes. But Charles, seriously, the one thing I've learned about you is you could find fault in an ice cream store. Stop. So it doesn't, the fact that you don't like the recaps, I don't care. Charles, you don't like

You don't like Jesus. All right. So wait, actually, I'm going to ask you. You have problems with Santa Claus. I want to ask you for a favor of this episode. Can I ask you for a personal favor? Ask me for a person of favor.

I've been getting roasted. I've been getting roasted from the age of old time. Tearing your ass. I've been getting a roasted for Lex Luther. So if I have a wild take during this pod, you got to warn me. You got to tell me like they're going to destroy you, bro. What are you talking about?

Brothers, you got to tell me. On the last episode, on the last episode, you said something. and I told you you were a drug addict. I said, you're snorting cocaine. It was wild. But look, the way you feel, I always knew kids like this, right? I always knew kids like this.

It's like, Kobe Bryant go out, score 81 points, God rest of God rest and so. I knew guys would be like, man, how many shots he took? Don't matter. Score 81 in the NBA game. Don't matter. He was getting buckets.

Like, get out of here. But that's, you know, that guy, you're the, yeah, but his full percentage, his still vote percentage was, and Michael Jordan had a game where he scored 60, but anyway. Okay, okay. All right, so what we're going to do is because I've been going too long with these recaps. We're going to do a 30-second recap.

My goal is to do this every single show. A 30-second recap for Captain America and the Winter Soldier. Oh, no. For Falcon and the Winter Soldier, I'll miss you so much, Steve. Falcon and the Winter Soldier episode two. So 30 seconds on the clock, recap starts. Now, okay, the episode starts off with Steve. He is going out to find the Flag Smashers,

who he has just been kind of put on in so much pressure. He's just kind of been very aware of their presence. This is where he meets Bucky. All right, he meets Bucky. Bucky and Steve have this sort of back and forth, old wives tale, old, old married couple type of deal. Then they go into, actually, let's start. We have to start over.

No, you can't start over. Okay, okay, let's do it again. Because this is actually hard, okay? All right, let's start over. All right, 30 second recap. Starts off. Starts off with our new Captain America. John Walker, he is getting interviewed on Good Morning America,

and you see this big whole deal, big to do about him. Then we cut to a buck and Falcon. They are going to fight the Flag Smashers. They're getting their butts kicked. Who shows up? New Captain America. with his sidekick, also a black guy, weird, but taken from the source material in the comics,

Battlestar, John Walker. Then, from there, they go to try to find. So, boy, it's hard, man. It's hard. It's hard to do it in 30 seconds. You got there. Actually, you almost got there. That was actually a pretty good run.

It's hard to do it in 30 seconds. Okay, just real quick. What happens after that is they go out to try to get answers about the Flag Smashers, and how superpowers they are, they then run into the fact. They confront racism, both past and present. Buck is arrested.

After Buck is arrested, we learn more about the Flag Smashers. And then the episode ends up with Buck and Sam figuring out that there's one person that they have to go talk to to get a heads up on all of this stuff, and that's Zima. So that's kind of the episode in a nutshell. We learn a little bit more about who the Flagsmasters are.

Okay. I'm going to do better at the 30 second recap. I failed. By the way, that was the second attempt. The first attempt, I didn't even get through three sentences and we have to do it all over again. So I'm 0 for one right now in 30 second recaps. 0 for 1.

Oh, for 1. Charles, give me your instant reactions to this episode. Oh, man. It was a thing of beauty. This is, I think, when Kevin Feigey and Marvel said that they were doing TV shows, I think this was kind of what I always hoped in. dreamed. And honestly, I think that this second episode in many ways should have been the first, because we get everything we love. We get Falcon and Bucky going at it in this buddy cop way.

We have big reveals that kind of open up the MCU and the history of the MCU. We have villains that have motivations that you can understand, even if they may not be right. This is, I will say this, and I'm going to get, I'm going to get massacred. But if they pull it off, if they pull what they set out to do, Malcolm Spelman in the showrunner, pulls it off. I think Falcon and the Winter Soldier can break top five Marvel entries by the end, by the end of episode six.

I think so, if they can land it. Okay, so I don't think that's a hairbrain take at all. What I would say is that this episode, episode two, really, it really did something that was akin to Captain America of the Winter Soldier for me, which is it, it built

this world where characterization is number and the seedy government surroundings of superhero activities just bolsters that. So the reason why the first episode did really do it for me is because there was just so much stuff that I didn't care about. You know, as much as I care about Sam's life, I've got to be honest with you, I don't really care.

We got six episodes, man. We got six weeks of this. I don't really care too much about what's going on back home with the boat. You know, I know we're going to get more of that. And I know they wanted to give his, character a little bit of depth because we've seen so little of his backstory, but I wasn't there for that. I understand it had to be done. But in this episode, there's no fact. Every single scene is getting to the point of what we need to see from this, which is to build out the world of the

MCU without Steve Rogers. And I thought they did a masterful job. Now, before we move on, we got a little bit more of John Walker, Captain America, the new Captain America in this. Talk a little bit about his character as far as what you know about John Walker and what you thought about him in this particular episode. So I think just in this episode, leaving the first one with the twist that John Walker, U.S. agent is Captain America. I was ready to hate him as a character.

I was ready to hate him. And I think the episode did a very good job starting off, making me feel for him. He's never going to be my cap, but it gave him a little bit of pathos. It gave him a little bit of meat to work with. By the end of the episode, I did end up hating him, but it was like, I wasn't annoyed by him anymore. And I think what we know of U.S. agent from the comic books, he's an asshole. He's an asshole. And he, he's going to make that villain turn. That's just kind of my prediction. but the show did an amazing job setting him up as someone that I want Falcon to beat the living shit out of.

Because the quips that he got in at Falcon, calling him Cap's wingman, I'm like, all right, man, I need to get to like episode 5, 6 where you beat the snot out of him. How did you feel about U.S. agent and kind of how they built him? I thought it was interesting to introduce him on such a milktoe show as Good Morning America. I'm sorry.

to the people over at Good Morning America. That's not a diss. But that's a very, very safe sort of, that's a safe place. That's a, hey, America, get your arms around this brand new hero place to introduce a guy, to introduce that character. If you know anything about John Walker from the comic books, John Walker was invented by Mark Greenwald at a point,

introduced into comics at a point where a lot of people thought that Captain America was too soft, that Captain America wasn't an exciting character anymore. so they wanted to introduce a rougher, more violent version of the character, right? And so to see him introduced on Good Morning America, knowing that he's going to make the turn that I think he's going to make,

if it's in any way connected to the comic book, was very, very interesting. There was mention of the Power Broker in this particular episode, too. The Power Broker is a character from Marvel. That would, if you wanted to be a superhero, you could go to the Power Broker, and he would then make you a superhero.

But normally after that, you have to fight in something. This actually exists in the comic books. I remember this was such a big deal. There was a superhero wrestling circuit that existed in the comic books. And you have to go fight in the superhuman wrestling circuit when the power broker would give you powers. You'd like, you know, then you would go do that and you would have those powers. And it seems as if the flag smashers,

Carly Morgenthau, who's based on Carl Morgenthau from the comic books, who was the flag smasher, the son of a diplomat. diplomat who decided that nationalism all over the world was a terrible thing, and he wanted to have one world. They tinkered with a little bit and made it sort of, there was one world during the blip, and they don't want to see all these different nations come back. They don't want to see borders anymore. They're trying to rip down borders, right, which was the flag smashers.

His same sort of motivation in the comic books, obviously they've changed the character a little bit. It seems like right now that I am calling it right. now that at some point we are going to see this John Walker, this Captain America, become a superpower being because he's not yet, okay? No. And he will at some point introduce himself to the power broker or go to the power broker. I think that's the point that you're going to see him turn into a complete dickhead asshole because he was an incredibly violent character, at least initially as Captain America.

And then after that, he actually ended up having to face off against Captain. America. So I think you're going to see that turn come from him pretty soon. And it's going to have to do with him becoming a superpowered hero. Do you think, do you think right now with the show, they're juggling a lot of different villains, you know, they got, they have Barron Zemo in the mix. We have U.S. agent. We have Batroc somewhere out there. Are they trying to set up the Thunderbolts? Because it's just like, I'm trying to figure out how all of these villains are going to wrap this up by episode six. There's a lot of different people. they have to fight at this point.

It's true. What I would say, Marvel does a good job of giving you an adversary and then giving you a villain. The adversary is a person working against you for whatever reason, right?

The villain ends up becoming the actual person who has to be stopped. So, for example, and Winter Soldier, Winter Soldier was the adversary, the guy standing right in front of Cap making Cap's job harder, right?

Yeah. But Alexander Pierce was the villain. he was the guy cranking the wheels doing that whole thing. So I think right now the flack smashers are our adversaries. They're the people right in front of these guys. But the villain,

we don't even know who that's going to be yet. And I think you heard Powerbroker's name in there. I'm wondering if some way if Zemo is Powerbrook, I don't know. But we still have yet to find out who the actual villain of the show is. That is very true. And I want to get your

your take on this. It's seeming like the theme of this episode and honestly the theme of the whole series is legacy. We were talking we were talking last week you brought up, can Marvel make

mantles? Can we, can they make us believe that another person can be Iron Man, another person can be Captain America? And right now in this show, they're opening that wide up. The big twist is we see Isaiah Bradley as some version of a Black Captain America,

we might get another Falcon, Torres, who in the comic books is the second Falcon. Right now, we don't know if there's nomad running out there, the leader of the Flag Smashers. There's all of these different, like, legacy characters that they're playing with. And it was very funny when the big twist, when Eli opens the door,

because if anybody has read the comics, we know that Eli's Patriot. the leader of the Young Avengers, the same group that has Wanda's twins in it. So basically in episode two, they kind of dropped everything on us. Let's get to all these reveals then.

So we are revealed with Isaiah Bradley. We do get Eli, who is Patriot, one of the leaders of the Youngerfield. Did you see any other big revelations here? Because Isaiah Bradley Revelation is something that you had actually thought was going to happen like, but this is a huge deal.

I remember reading the book, Truth, when it was such a controversial move when this came out. It was such a controversial move. Here is a black man because it made at this particular point, it made the comic books sort of reconcile themselves to the real horrors, some of the real horrors in American history, right? So here was a situation to where there was a guy who had been injected with the Super Soldier serum to see if it was going to work on anybody.

They'll say I'd be experimenting on with it. And he went out and had all of these missions, did all of this fighting, but had his legacy completely erased because he was a black man. And that was the character of Isaiah Bradley. And that story in and of itself was incredibly controversial, but ended up being absolutely amazing. And in this episode, we saw Isaiah Bradley, right? And we saw someone with all of the bitterness and all of the animus

that an erased hero would feel for you seeing that on screen. And then that scene goes from exactly from there to Sam being profiled by the police. How did you feel like, though, we had a couple of arguments last week about how Marvel was attempting to talk about race in those things. I didn't really see it. Obviously, a blind man could see it in this episode. How do you feel like they handled that? I think the Isaiah Bradley reveal, they handled that beautifully. because that actor only got a very, very small window

to show how aggravated and just angry someone can be for getting injected and experimented on for years. The government drops you into these zones. He said the story, he damn near ripped off Bucky's metal arm. And then to be forgotten, to be basically he lives in

in Baltimore in this house that's like run down. And I think what the most exciting part of that is that now you get Sam and he says something very powerful. He says, Bucky, you knew about this? And it's like that opens up so much tension with Bucky. For the whole episode, it's just like banter, banter, funny, funny. But now you have a real like,

Bucky did not tell him. He did not tell Cap for a reason. And what does that do over the course of the six episodes? Did you think that they handled the reveal well? Because one thing I did also did not, I thought they could have done it is like, I'm like, yeah. Y'all could have shown him kicking Bucky's ass in the past. Y'all could have shown that action sequence. Like you could like, I wanted that so bad.

Did you think that was a missed opportunity? A little bit. I do want to do one thing. I want to shout out that guy, Carl Lumbie, who played Isaiah Bradley, who also was in the movie South Central. If you haven't seen South Central, it's an older film from like 1992 or something like that with Glenn Plummer where he goes to jail. He's OG Bobby Johnson. He goes to jail, right? And then he gets, he becomes a Muslim in jail.

And then he comes home after he becomes a Muslim and he just wants to get his son back. And Carl Lundee in that movie plays OG Bobby Johnson's Muslim mentor. It is a great scene where he talks about how he drove his son too hard. South Central is one of those classics. It's a classic, but we haven't really... I'm calling on Bill right now. It'll never happen. Bill, we got to do a South Central rewatchables.

Because it's a classic. If you know, you know about South Central, a classic movie. And also is a very familiar voice if you watch it Justice League because he's the voice of Martian Manhunter. The most recent one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, give it up to the legend. For the Justice League animated series, he's the voice of Martian Manhunter.

Before we move on from this, I actually want to, like, call out the dialogue, a bar. He says, Isaiah Bradley says, you think you can wake up one day and decide who you want to be. It doesn't work like that. Well, maybe it does for folks like you. For folks like you.

Now, let's stay in that scene real quick. All right. Let's think about that. Let's stay in that scene real quick. that was a brilliant line because here we have Bucky who has killed I talk about this all the time

I love you Buck I love you Buck you kill a lot of people right he's got a pardon from the government now granted he did come back and fight against He helps save the universe He helps save the universe. I'm not saying he doesn't deserve his pardon

but if you're Isaiah Bradley right and you have been persecuted by your own government that you fought to help and been thrown in jail and experimented on this entire time, there's no way you can look at Bucky and not have some resentment. Also, Buck and Steve exhibit some of this stuff because they really do

legislate in their minds what they feel like people should know. So Steve made it. that decision all of those years to not confront the reality that Buck had killed Tony's parents. He made that decision unilaterally and

didn't even, and it came out whenever it came out, right? At the same time, Buck knows that there's a guy out there that has these experiences. He's got to know that Sam would want to know about him, yet he keeps it to himself.

This is the type of frame of the relationship and a type of the question, it makes Sam start asking the questions, well, what kind of world am I actually in? Am I fighting for the things that I thought I was fighting for? Does all of this stuff, am I actually useful to this in the way that I am? And then it just gets exacerbated when they hit the streets

and you see the cops out there. Now, you know, he's an Avenger. He's fought against Thanos and beaten Thanos, but can he beat the system in America that still sees him as a particular? to criminal when he's literally a living legend and a walking hero. I thought that the episode did an amazing job at laying those two things out in that little run of scenes. Oh, when we think about in that first episode, why Sam doesn't want the shield, when we get to this episode and he's talking to Bucky and we're talking about the legacy of Captain America, America, all this things, it underlines what Sam, how Sam, how Sam,

felt and how much Bucky and Cap didn't know what burden they were placing on him because now we see what happened, how America treated the first Black Captain America. And that's what I loved because like, even Bucky still doesn't really understand what he's doing to Sam when he's just like, you let Steve down. And like, Sam's like, you don't understand Bucky. You two don't know what it's going to be like if I pick up the shield. And I think that whole scene beautifully plays out the stakes because now we have a physical representation of, look, Bucky's living well. Like the government is taking care of Bucky. He has a nice apartment.

And then you see how they treat this black Captain America who seems like he's living in poverty after them sending him on all of these missions. So I thought that that scene was a beautiful representation of what the first episode didn't do. And now it gives more credence to like Sam picking up that shield is going to be harder than I think any of us thought. Well, there are more dynamics to him picking up the shield, right? There are more dynamics to him picking up the shield. Now, picking up the shield is, and, you know, I'm not got to be honest with you.

It does lend itself to some of the things that you talked about in the first episode. I got to be real with you. Is this a compliment from Ben? I'm giving you a compliment. Let this, put this in the crock pot. Let it sizzle. Look, it does. I thought that you jumped a little bit too far by saying that Sam was basically Colin Kaepernet.

I don't think that you, I don't think that you, I don't think that you, I don't think that you were more prescient in that because I really didn't see it in the first episode, but it was all over the place right here. And there's a, there's myriad reasons that he decided he didn't want to be Captain America, some he knew and some he didn't know. And I think these are ones that he didn't know, okay? Have you read Alan Heinberg's Young Avengers run? Yes.

Classic, classic run, like one of my favorite comic books ever. Right. They introduced who I believe is Eli. And Eli, somebody has been sidelined in the comic books because basically Alan Heimberg is a white man. And we find out that, like, Eli Patriot is the grandson. He takes up the mantle. And we're like, how does he have powers? And in the comics, he injects himself with mutant growth hormones.

We all know why that's problematic. But I was very surprised that Marvel went there because I was thinking Miss America, who's going to be in Dr. Strange was going to be part of the Young Avengers. But we might get a version of Eli now, which is a character that I love. I'm not the biggest fan of the Young Avengers. You're not a big fan of the Young Avengers. I think that that run was amazing. I'm not a, I'm not a huge fan.

I like them. Like, they're cool. I'm not a huge fan. As an old head, seeing like many versions of other characters, it doesn't really do it as much for me. I never, I told you this before.

Like, I spit so much for, forget about the Young Avengers. Like, X-23, all new, all different Marvel, right? you have X-23. You have all new, all different Marvel. X-23 is now.

That was the line where we got Falcon as Captain America. We got X-23 as Wolverine. Thor, that's where we got Jane Foster replacing. Right. Odin's son is Thor. So just for the audience, that's where basically a lot of these new MCU stories are coming from now where all of the heroes got replaced for about, like,

so let's tell you guys, just if in comic books, stagnation is terrible. So there's only a certain way that you can write a character, which is why Mantles make sense in comic books. There's only so many different ways you can write a character. Thor's been worthy for X amount of time.

Now it becomes more interesting for Thor to be unworthy, right? So when you have unworthy Thor, you have him, he doesn't have me in there anymore. And then you have to make someone Thor, Jane Foster's Thor, I have that sitting over there. It's cool, it's fine.

Those are things that I read to be up on comics and to have a connection with them. but sometimes it's hard for me. So, and when I look at X-23, who's a cool character, right? Or Falcon is Captain America, all of those things, it's cool. I read it.

But the Young Avengers is a whole team to me. Let me just keep a gangster with you. Of knockoffs. And I'm a be honest, it's not that it wasn't written well. It's not that it wasn't awesome, but it's a whole team to me. I read it.

But it's a whole team to me of knockoffs. It's like AAA baseball players. Are the Teen Titans a whole team of knockoffs? Come on. Like, give them a little bit more credit. But that's not what the Teen Titans are, though. The Teen Titans are a completely different group of heroes. So the Teen Titans, like, there's not cyborg and the big cyborg.

There's not like. There's kids flash and there's Flash. There's Al-Latin. Aquaman, like, there's Robin and there's Batman. Well, Robin and Batman are two completely different. Yeah, you have made some points, but Robin and Batman are two completely different. They're two completely different

characters. Okay. Like, they're two completely different characters. And no, there is Aquilad, and there is, there is Kit Flash. But I get what you're saying, the basis, the ones, the Raven, the Beast Boys, the Cyborgs, the real OG ones. The OG ones, those are new characters who are just younger, right?

Yeah. Or like the new warriors, or the new mutants. You have, but the Young Avengers, they're like Little Avengers. And that's like, I don't want to watch. I read it. I'm less interested in it. But I do think that Marvel could make a fantastic Young Avengers movie or television show come to life because they have to reboot their characters anyway. But so I'm less excited about it.

But I do understand why there are a lot of people who love Wicken and Speed, who love Patriot, who love Miss America. Also, let's be, it's a generation gap where it's like I was coming. of age reading that. And I was like, oh, and I read the older comics. So to me, that's still, it's closer to my heart. But I can see if, like, you know, I grew up in, like, the 90s, 80. I was like, what the fuck is this? Like, why?

When they made Jane Foster Thor, which actually was an incredible run, when they made Jane Foster Thor, Thor, I was more interested in what was happening with Thor Odenson. I was, I was more interested in who wasn't Thor than who was Thor. But we're digressing a little bit. That was such a digression, but it was a good digression. It's okay. Let's get back to Falconer and Winter Soldier. So John Walker, his character.

So he's positioned as a soldier, a guy who had a guy who has served, who now has been picked to be Captain America. He is the absolute best of the best. Three different medals of honor, which you got one of those things. you are a god amongst the American military, right? And he's there with Battlestar Hoskins, his sidekick, that's something for the...

I know there, listen, there's going to be a lot of people out there. There's, look, there's going to be a lot of people out there that see John Walker and Battlestar and goes, okay, here go, White Captain America, Black sidekick. This looks a little off-brain. Oh, I already... I was just like, wait, are they really doing the thing where we got... Oh, we got Black Falcon and White Bucketton.

and then be out by Captain America, big Captain America and his black sidekick. I was like, oh, man. But they already, it already have been done. It's in the comic, so I was like, I got it, but like, see, yeah. They gave us Trader Joe's Captain American Falcon, bro. Come on. No, they gave us Trader Joe's Captain America.

I got to be honest with you. That's a Sam's Club, Falcon. That's like, you ever, y'all, y'all ever go to Sam's Club? Like, I used to go to, like, I was talked about this on Higher Learning. I'm a co-host, Higher Learning, with Rachel Lindsay. Like, I would be in the house and, you know,

I would see that we didn't have no fruit loops. And then I'd be like, mom, I want some fruit loops. And, and Mama will go, mama will go to Sam's Club and it wouldn't be fruit loops. It'd be like fruit o's.

And it wouldn't be too can Sam on the box. It'd be like two can Darius. It doesn't even come in like a box. There was some fruit loops that would come in like the bag. The bags, right? It looked like a dog food bag. You would just like after, It wouldn't even be like a photo shoot on the box of the toucan or the pelican or whatever it was.

It would be like a candy. Like they just snapped the picture of this man while he was trying to shoot dice and then put it on top of the box. You know, but anyway. So yeah, it's glaring. It's glaring. But I do think that they did something which is, you know, pretty hard. If you know more about John Walker, Captain America slash U.S. Asian in the comic books, He seems to be a likable character at this point.

He seems to be right now to me a likable character. For the first half the episode, I was like, I don't hate him. Like, I don't hate him. He seems to be somebody who has the right motivations, right? He seems to be thoughtful about taking up the mantle. He seems to be very sincere about why he wants to do it. And he's brave. He jumped into battle against some superpower beings.

They got their ass kicked on top of that, on top of those trucks. but still, it seems as if they're doing a good job. I thought they'd play that a little different. I thought they'd have him come out and be a jerk so that we felt something was a little off, but they didn't come with a heavy hand right there. You know, why Russell's doing a good job of playing them up as someone who at least seems to be,

who wants to be heroic. You know what I mean? I want to ask you, we got a big reveal in this. That Bucky, one of his favorite books, was The Hobbit, released in 1937, Saw when he came out. He was alive. Yeah, when he came out.

He's missed a lot. Bookies missed a lot. So if we're going to make a Bucky Book Club, what are some of the books knowing that he's a fan of the Hobbit that we think Bucky should be reading? Oh, wow, interesting. Ooh. Because he missed out on Harry Potter.

And I really want to know what he would think of like, like where children's lit is now. A song of Fire and Ice? Ooh, would that be a little bit too much for him? He was reading a Hobbit. Yeah, but just like I wanted to ease him in. Like that's a big like, that's a mini book. You read the Hobbit?

Do you remember the Hobbit? All in the books was like, yeah, you get the song, Fire and Ice. Maybe when did the joint by the guy we had to read it and it was really about, damn, it was really about Jesus and stuff. We read it in elementary school, then they made a movie out of it. It was really about, nah, dog.

Like, come on, man. It was like. The Lion, the Witch of the Wardrobe. The Chronicles of Nine. Narnia. He would love the Chronicles of Narnia. He would love the Chronicles of Narnia. I wonder if that came out

while he was alive, though, because that was old? Let's do a fact check. Was he alive when... When the Chronicles of Narnia came out? Oh, so we missed it. What else? I'm going, I think, Hunger Games.

I think he would find a lot of things about the Hunger Games to like. So I'd probably throw him the Hunger Games. A series of misfortunate events. I'd probably give him that as well. That's a lot of... Come on, man. Sorry.

Hey, everybody listening to this? Make sure you hit up the Ring of Verse. Twitter or hit us up directly on social media. What do we think Bucky's book club should be reading? Well, we want some other books to like, for Bucky too. We feed Bucky some milk toast bullshit.

Like what about, you know what I'm saying? Like, Bucky, there's a lot of other shit. I'm not giving Bucky like Toneheesey Coates. No, it's a lot of other shit for Buck to read, man. You know what I mean? It's a lot of shit out there. Bucky, try Catcher on the Rye, Breakfast of Champions. Get in there. You know what I'm saying? Like, get in there. He would love Catcher in the Rye. He has a

very similar, like, moody type of disposition as Holman-Cafield. Buck would love Ketra and Aran. Right. 1984, he would find a lot of similarities between Hydra. Come on. Hydra, the whole nine. Buck, get in there, man. Brave New World.

All of these things. Buck, like. And read some black people, too. Buck, read Alice Walker. Read the color purple. Read Sula. Oh, you didn't tell you. He did the color purple.

Buck, read the color purple, bro. Buck, he could you. No, I'll tell you one thing. If Bucky had read the color purple, he wouldn't have tried to hide that black man. He would have red the color purple. And then right away, go give that brother his problem. All right, but so I thought that,

so I actually liked the character of John Walker. I thought that it was that they're doing a good job with it. But I do think that the character is going to be faced with some sort of dilemma that's going to make that character make a turn. Now, we have to talk about the villains to here, which, or the adversary, shall I say, which are the flag smashers, were introduced to a different version of that from the comics,

Carly Morgan Thal. It seems as if right now, they seem to be a pretty sincere group of anarchists, and they are beloved by people, wherever they go. You see them being given cover, and you see that there is a real sort of bond between them,

as it's very hard for Carly to watch one of her brothers in arms give his life so they could get away from the power broker. Could you explain to the audience what the global repatriation council is because it seems like the flag smashers are running up against this global

initiative or I don't even know how to describe it that was put in place post-Blip to deal with all of these refugees, all of these displaced people who were gone for so long and now need social security, now need housing, all these things. it seems like I couldn't tell if that's kind of what the flag smashers

are trying to go up against? Right. So, the best sort of conjecture I can make about that is based upon who the flag smasher is in the comic books, his association with ultimatum and different, so the flash smasher

in the comic books is somebody, and we've talked a little bit about this, who wanted to stamp out nationalism wherever. He legitimately the first time he was around, went to a flag store and like, splash the window in and smash flags, okay? Of course he would run into Captain America. Of course he would run into Captain America

because Captain America is the living embodiment of a flag. In that particular place, in that particular world, the flag smasher just represents sort of really a more of a lowly Captain America villain, if we're being honest. Somebody that was around in the 80s who was brought back a little bit later on, but was an anti-nationalist, someone who believed that we needed to come together, he wanted to stop borders. this particular group is a little bit different

because what they're fighting is a world that's trying to reacclimate itself to what it was post blip and pre-blip and what this world is trying to do is essentially put people back into their boxes. This group is trying to free people from being put back into some of the constraints

that society had in them before because they must have liked it the way it was in the blip. I guess the questions for me is what their relationship to the power broker is because they're obviously enhanced the way they destroyed Sam and Bucky and then the new Captain America

I guess they did destroy Captain Bucky because John Walker was up there. Wait, so is this Galaxy Brain? This might be Galaxy Brain. Ride with me here. When I saw the Power Broker, all these people are running around Super Soldier Serum, we got Isaiah Bradley.

We know in the comics that Captain America is a part of the weapon plus the weapon 10 that gave Wolverine his powers. Right. Well, at first we didn't know that. That was heavy recconning that was done later on. That Captain America, that did this entire time

that that was a big, just let me nerd out for a second. That was a big deal because, you know, it was, when they did that, that actually Weapons Plus have been working with Steve Rogers, Weapons Plus have been working to actually create a group

that could always run a check on mutants so that they had super soldiers to actually fight against mutants. Like, that was a huge, huge deal. I did not like it at first. I was like, this is, it basically changes the whole way we think of Captain America

in the same way of realizing that there was a black Captain America running around. So, like, part of me is I'm like, one of the predictions I have is that they're going to go to Madrepoor at some point. Do we, are, Are we getting the mutant growth hormone? Are we getting weapon plus?

Is that where we're going? Or am I jumping too far ahead? Well, are you saying that do you think this will sort of introduce mutants? You know what? I think one question that we can all stop asking is how are mutants going to be introduced into the MCU? I'm not even, I don't even think this would be the right time. But if they're doing Madrapore, which is central to the X-Men, which I think they are going to do. and we're getting people running around with powers

and we know in the, like in the Marvel comics, that is mutant growth hormone. At what point do they just pull the trigger? And at what point do they have to explain, like, this is how they got the other power. Like, I don't know. I don't actually know as a comic figure

how they're going to do this. Could be. I will say this. A lot of us are right. We're simping for the mutants a little bit. You know how you sent for a girl. It's like, yo, baby, when we go and we did not, nah, no, let's just let it happen, bro.

Stop simping. We're waiting for the text back, I think. We definitely waiting for a text back from the music. And we did the second text. And you know that's the one where you were. You're not supposed to double text. We double text in these meetings. We're like, yo, we asked a museo, hey, mutants you up.

And the mutants have not hit us back. Let's just wait for the mutants to hit us back. I know we all want them, but let's just wait for the mutants to hear us back. I'm not about to triple text because that I'd have to mute my life. So fair enough, man, fair enough. Right, right. Okay, I thought as villains, the Flack Smashes came on and we got a pretty good feel of who they are. They seem to be, I think the most important thing about them was that they made them seem like a group that had, for whatever reasons, sincere motives.

And I keep telling you, we keep talking about this, that's what makes the best villains. Like, Joker is a great villain because he is the most sincere character. Joker is pure than Batman. Batman is driven in a lot of ways about the confusion that he sees. Joker is grounded by a very, very simplistic view of the world. This world is bullshit. Let's burn it all down.

That's it. It's no, I have a code. It's the easiest way to look at things. Batman is a very complex character. To me, Joker's a very simple one. And so when villains have simple and definable motivations, that's what makes them the best. And in this particular point right here,

they didn't seem overly vicious. They seemed like they were on a trade. They were trying to rob something of vaccines, something that people need right now, and then deliver it to people. To a refugee camp, it almost seemed like. To a refugee camp. So, you know, it's a...

Wait, so let me ask you this question, though, because TD and I were talking about it earlier today. One thing that the two Wanda Vision and Falcon and the Winter Soldier have done well is that it gives these characters room to breathe. And one thing that I think the MCU has always been dinged for is that the villains can be a little light. Like you get your Thanos is who are amazing, you get your loki's, but like it's spotty for a lot of the other villains.

Do you think that the TV, do you think we can ever go back to the movies when we get to live with these characters for six, and eight episodes, and the villains get to have clearly defined motivations. We kind of get to sympathize with them. That's actually the thing that I'm worried about now. Now that we've lived with these characters for six or eight hours, why would I want to go watch a two and a half hour movie where they don't get served as well? I think having more fully formed characters on screen means that you can do more with them.

So you could start if there was a, let's say there was a Sam and Buck movie, right? you could start it right in the middle of the action. We don't need too much fat there, which was the, which was, which is the great part of the Marvel universe. See, these movies aren't exactly movies as much as they are just episodes of the MCU. Yeah.

That way when you start them, which is the problem that DC is having. DC is having a problem because they're trying to put the cart before the horse. All right. Don't, don't give us a Justice League movie three years later. build up all your characters so that you don't even have to waste time

with origins in a Justice League movie we know who these characters are like build them up smaller give us a little bit more and then by the time you give us the whole enchilada it tastes better right and so I think you could still do a movie with these guys you just blow the scale out

you don't have to do any of the smaller set pieces and any of the other stuff we've seen all of that you still do it you give them a bigger villain you give them a bigger purpose it's going to make it easier in my opinion. Like, for example, I bet you are more jazzed about seeing Scarlet Witch in multiverse of madness because of Wanda Vision. They got all this shit out of the way. They got all the character development out of the way. So, like, when they start, I'm like,

Sam Raney just take me on the journey. You don't got to do any of the building. Just plot me right in. Right. There was, actually, before Wanda Vision, there was no Scarlet Witch. No. There was, no, there, there was no Scarlet Witch. There was Wanda Max. them off, but Scarlet Witch didn't exist yet. So now we have Scarlet Witch. And so I think that makes for a more interesting movie. And I think that can be said roundly, in my opinion, for a lot of these shows.

I think if done right, and I have faith that they will be done right, that they'll make it actually a lot easier to digest these characters when they're on the screen because we could just get to the point. And if you have less hero building to do, you can do more villain building. See? The reason why Thanos was such a good thing. good villain was because he was built over time, right? And we got to see in Infinity War a lot of Thanos.

He was the protagonist of that first movie. Yeah. We got to see a lot of Thanos in Infinity War. And you just wouldn't be able to do that if you still had to build out your other heroes, but you didn't have to. So wait, going forward, would you want? Do you want like an Ant Man three? Or would you rather be like,

yo, just give me the Ant Man TV show. Like, let me rock with this smaller character like in this six episode, eight episode, are you know what I'm saying? You're not going to demote Ant Man at this point. You know, Ant Man Ben had his own movie. If I'm Paul Rudd and I'm looking at that,

I'm like, nah, I'm not, no, I'm not going, no, you're not sending me down to goddamn the superhero G League. Don't call the G League, bro. Come on. It is kind of the G League. It is not the G League. It's kind of the G League.

Disrespectful. We've switched roles on this episode. That's wildly disrespectful. There's nothing wrong with being in the G League. Jalen Green is in the G League right now. I think he's going to be one of the best players in the NBA in the next couple of, in the next five, six years. There's nothing wrong with being a G League. But let's be honest with you.

It is kind of the G League. And the only reason why I say that is because these are people that haven't had their own movies yet. That's the only reason why it's the GLE. But here's what I will say. This movie is setting up when we get the next Avengers movie. Anthony Mackey gets top billing.

Like when he shows up as Captain America, I'm gonna be like, all right, I get it. Do you know why? Because he'll be out of the G league. Oh,

that's what you call a full circle moment. Put a little bow on the take. Because he'll be out of the G league. And so if I'm, if I'm Paul Rudd, right, I'm gonna be like, yo man, uh,

it's cool. But I, I had two movies that went to the theaters, this movie going to the theaters too. You know what I'm saying? And, and, and,

and, besides James Rhodes, we haven't really seen yet a lot of the other MCU cinema characters in these movies. That's why to me it was such a big deal that Dr. Strange did not show up in Wanda Vision. Ooh. So I'm not saying that there's anything there because those characters obviously are, but, you know, besides the main characters, we haven't seen any of the Put it this way.

We haven't seen any of the non-G-leaguers yet show up in these television shows. Yeah, Benedict Cumberbatch is like, I know they call. He's like, hey, yo, my man, you want to make a cameo? He's like, nah, bro. He Robert Downey Jr. He's like, you guys got baby and milk. He's just to show up for 30s.

All right. One last thing I want to touch on. Something was kind of fun. The little, the little, I just, this is like the, I want to do every episode. I'm going to do the cute scene of the episode. Because one of the things that this episode really got right is Sam and Buck's, they're dynamic. They're back and forth.

It was beautiful, bro. Their dynamic is perfect. Their dynamic is perfect. When Buck jumps off the, when he jumps out of the airplane and he lands down there and Sam's messing with him, these are two guys. This is a perfect example of people who have a mutual friend. Sometimes you, sometimes you're friends with someone, right? Because you love them. sometimes you're friends with someone because you guys have a mutual friend

and really you guys are just kind of friends but it's a deeper friendship because you are both so deeply friends with this one guy or this one person. So because you're so tight with them, you almost have to be tight with the other person but it's not like you necessarily like them. Is that weird? It's that weird moment where it's like a trio and like your friends

and you're like, all right, we're all going to come to the bar. And then, like, the one friend that binds you doesn't show up for an hour. So you got to have to chop it out. So now got to. So now you got to be like, yeah, man. So you just moved out here, huh? That's crazy.

That's dope, bro. So, I mean, you know. That's the beautiful part of the TV show. They got that banter of, like, two friends that really don't fuck with each other. Right. Having to, like, go out for a night and be like, all right, man, I guess. Like, come on. There's always a moment with those two guys because I'll never forget this.

my boy Justin. My best friend, Ryan, I've known him since the first grade, right? We go to college and Ryan starts hooping in the gym a lot more. He meets this guy named Justin. They, for whatever reason, in high school, here comes the bitterness. In high school, playing ball, it was Van and Ryan, both on the wing doing our things.

But Ryan and Justin just played beautifully together. But then one time we all playing together. game and we're playing NBA 2K on the Dreamcast which is a fucking fantastic game. Like we and Ryan got mad just real quick. Just a quick sidebar. Ryan got mad because he would win like 85% of the time. Justin picked the Blazers and Ryan had the Spurs. And in the first like five minutes of the game, Tim Duncan went down and we all in the

room because we, if someone wins too much, it's just natural to root against them. So, like, Tim Duncan went down and we was like, oh, shit, we thought it was going to be be a quarter or two, and it said, Tim Duncan, out for game. And the whole door room went, oh, shit, now we're about to see what's up. Justin had the Blazers and Arvita Sabonis had a night. When I tell you, Arvita Sabonis had a night. And so Ryan got so pissed off after that happened, right? Just losing one time that he left.

And so after he left, me and Justin was just there, just me and him. And we played the game over and over and over and over again. And we legitimately, on our own merit, got tight. This is the situation that Sam and Bucky are in now. Their homeboy is gone. Now we're going to see them get tight. Before they've been holding each other accountable, they're talking past each other, all of this stuff.

One of the big things about this show is going to be making this relationship turn into one more akin to what Steve had with Sam and what Steve had with Buck. And I'm interested to see how they get that done. One thing I want to ask, would we technically be the Falcon and the Winter Soldier of the Ringer? Who was our cap? Who was our cat? Who's our cat? Probably Sean Tennessee?

I don't know. It could be like TD. We got a bunch of different caps. It's a lot of caps. To be honest with you. It's a lot of cap. They put it together. Like make a show.

Be friends. Do the thing. Yeah. Yeah. So it's a lot of cap at the ring. So like it like a couple of different caps right there. Two really cute scenes. One is the white wolf and winter soldier situation.

I thought that was like a little key scene. It was so good. A little cute white wolf in the morning social because they called Buckie. They called Buck the white wolf when he was in Wakanda. And that would be cool if they were the white wolf, excuse me, the white wolf and the black falcon. And then the black falcon moment where the kid says,

my dad says it's your black falcon. And the falcon looks at him and goes, are you black kid? I like it. All right, you know that was her in. That had to be like Anthony Mackey, like, was just like, all right, let me like freestyle a little. bit. I can't. That has to just be a

Mackey bonus. Yeah, that was him being Uncle Falcon. I like Uncle Falcon. Little Uncle Falcon. He was with the kids in the first one. It was very cute. Wait, are you? Another, another cute seed, but like, I thought it would go to far. It's like, they're really hitting home. They're like black people, white people together.

Because we got, we got Falcon and Bucky. We got fake cap and his black sidekick battleship or whatever he's called. Battlestar. What you would call it, U.S. Agent or John Walker. has a significant other this black woman. I'm like,

God damn, there's just so much interracial togetherness on this show. It is, man. It's wild. I mean, John Walker like black people, man. Hey, I will say, I thought the little moment with his girlfriend was actually like a very humanizing moment. I'm like, this is actually like

very cute. Like it made me feel for me a little bit. Very cute, you know, he got the black home girl. You know what I'm saying? He got the black home girl. You got the black best friend. He went to a black high school. Went to a black high school? When the marchion bed came out, it was like a drumline moment. And I was just like, what?

I'm looking at that. I'm like, you know, John Walker there at the all black high school. The only thing I hope that they don't do is use that in some way as like a struggle story for him. It's like, you know, I because, you know, I wasn't like the rest of the guys. I was down there, you know what I'm saying? I didn't go to, I was down there going to, I was down there going to, Malcolm X high school. I was in the trenches.

You know what? I don't want it to be. Wait, do you know, you've seen drumline, right? Yes, of course. Yeah. I don't want it to be that moment where it's like the white dude

in drum line has to prove that he has soul. So he has to like do the little like dance to like get on the team. Like I don't want that John Walker moment where he has to prove he has soul to hang out with the black people. Like we got to steer clear. Obviously he'd improved it. You know what I mean? Like he liked the, you know, obviously he didn't prove it. He basically like Kevin Federline of Captain America,

like a bunch of little, like, you know what I'm saying? Obviously he didn't prove. I'm telling you, he must have, I'm being for real. He obviously proved it a long time ago. Because, you know what I'm saying? Like, Captain America is Jack Harlow. Dog, bro. That's foul, boom.

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Then you'd want a cargo liner or a road trip goes sideways, ketchup goes rogue, ice cream drips. Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those WeatherTech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer. You don't need WeatherTech unless you plan on doing summer. Visit weathertech.com today. This episode is brought to you by Two Good and Company coffee creamers. Howdy take your coffee, piping hot, ice, strong, frothy. But if you love rich, creamy goodness and delicious flavor in every sip,

try Two Good and Company creamers. They're made with farm fresh cream and real milk. Each serving has just three grams of sugar, 40% less than the leading coffee creamers. Two good creamers are available in sweet cream, roasted vanilla, and lavender. So which one are you trying first? find two good creamers at your local retailer in the creamer aisle. So now what are your questions heading into episode three? I think big question.

Are they going to give Isaiah Bradley a little bit more time on the screen? Are we going to see him as a Black Captain America? Are they going to develop that story? I think it's you can't just drop that. You can't give it to us because that comic book is actually like a very, very good comic book. So big question, are they going to drop that, brought it up? How are they going to reconcile all these people running around super soldier? Are we going to get a weapon plus?

Are we going to, is there going to be a big reveal about how powers work? Because that's the big thing in the MCU. They've never actually kind of codified. Are they metahumans? They couldn't say mutants before. The inhumans didn't work. So I want like, how do people get powers in this universe? That's kind of one of my big questions leading into that.

I think the Eternals is going to answer a lot of that questions. Really? Yeah, because in the Marvel universe, all of that stuff comes down from their lineage, right? So you have the internals, you have the deviants, and then you have regular humans, some humans who can then accept powers if they're granted them, and then other humans who are mutants. So Thanos is actually human. Did you know that? I didn't know that.

Basically human, whatever. But so they are, so their, so their internals are probably going to, I would imagine the Eternal's are going to figure out, tell people where all these powers come from, and kind of more precisely deal with the beginnings

of the Marvel Universe. I'm not saying like the one above all is going to be in there or anything like that, but I'm saying that it's probably going to more precisely deal with the beginnings of the Marvel Universe. I would say that the Eternal

will probably do that. But you might get a little bit more of it here. Another question that I have, I want to know more to your point about Isaiah Browley's, life because I want to know why he's aging. So being that he was a super soldier and Bucky is a super soldier, now there are some things you can take from the comic books that would explain that.

Did they give him the same serum that they gave, Steve? The reason why Buck killed Howard Stark was to get more super soldier serum to make more winter soldiers. I mean, to be honest with you, they're kind of depowering Bucky a little bit in this. I know we're running long, but that's... fight scene, I was just like, this is not the same man that was beating all the Avengers is Civil War. Stop. That was messing over the Avengers and also was going

head up in hand-to-hand combat with Steve fucking Rogers. Okay? Hold on for a second. He was going, Steve Rogers, top three hand-to-hand combatants in the entire Marvel universe, right? Top three. Him, Wolverine, maybe like Taskmaster, or I don't know, but like, he's, he's way up there, right? Way up there.

Buck was going head up, head up with Steve Rogers for an entire movie, and he is getting ridiculously, ridiculously fucked up by the Flagsmasters. Also, Flack Smasgers seem like regular people who do. just got powers and I'm just like, how are they handing Bucky his ass? Like this makes no sense for everything we know. I also think to your point from last episode dog, they punked Falcon again. Like Falcon still getting watching every fucking. Still getting his asswood. Still get his asswood.

Still get his ass whip. I'll be honest with you. Uh, so I want to, so I really kind of want to see what happened to Isaiah Bradley, uh, how, what his experience was with what that was like and how Marvel reconciled that. And of course, I want to see, you know, what Zimo has to say. Zimo in some way is going to wriggle his way out of jail. I want to see what Zimo's relationship to the Power Broker is. I want to see what Powerbroker's relationship to John Walker is going to be.

So there are a lot of questions. The episode answered a lot of questions, and there are a lot of episodes that are going to be waiting around for the next episode. And you guys don't know. I was right about Isaiah Bradley in the first episode. My second one is they are going to match them. Like I'm putting money on it. We bet a couple bucks on it. Before we go, before we get into the Suicide Squad trailer,

is there anything you want to say to trigger people? I mean, you weren't. No, house game. I was going to make sure. All right. Oh, actually, I'll do my top five, my top five MCU. Top five MCU. Give me a top five MCU.

So we're going to do this every single week. We call it Charles the Trigger Man. Trigger Man, like Trigger Man Chuck. That's Charles's name. Trigger Man Chuck. That's what he is right there. Trigger Man. Trigger Man.

That's no unique name. Give us your top five. Give us your top five. That was funny. Our producers just came in. TD said, we should call him Coke Baby Charles. That's funny.

Like, I get murder on this show. That's Coke baby Charles. Give me your top. Do it. Go ahead. Trigger him. Trigger Man Chuck. Top five.

Captain America Winter Soldier, Thor Aignerock, Guardians of the Galaxy, Black Panther, Avengers Infinity War, shaky, shaky, just gets in there. Because it's not rewatchable. So here's me triggering people. Black Panther is not a top five MCU movie. Stop.

Stop. Stop. Are you joking me? No, isn't it? Black Panther is not top five MCU. It's top five off Michael B. Jorin's performance alone. No, it's not.

I'm sorry. I love the movie. Wait, give me your top five then. I love the movie. Put your top five up against my top five. This is my top five. This is my top five. So my number one is Captain American Winter Soldier.

All right. My number two is Avengers Endgame. To me. To me. To me. To me. I can't finish, finish. To me, my number two is Avengers in game.

My number three is Thor Ragnarok. My number four is Avengers Infinity War. And that fifth spot, Infinity War is a great fucking movie. Like, like, that, the Infinity War is a great fucking movie. That fifth spot can be any number of movies. That fifth spot could be Guardians of the Galaxy. That fifth spot could be the OG Iron Man.

That fifth spot could be a couple of different movies, right? But it's not Black Panther. It's not. I'll be honest with you. Black Panther for all the cultural reasons. Black Panther is firmly at six to me. This is a wildly a question. Like, I thought I was pretty good at this episode.

You going in on Black Panther. Now, I'm not saying it's a masterpiece. I did not go in on Black Panther. See what you just said? To me, Civil War. I would have Civil War at five. Civil War is not even that great of a movie. Okay.

I disagree. All right. I disagree. We got to talk about this. But this is wild to me because you have endgame, which is fine. but Endgame and Infinity War have no rewatchability besides. You are, bro, you are out of your fucking shit.

They don't. They don't. I love them. They're big. If I would go to a theater today and watch them in a theater, I've tried multiple times watching both at home. And they don't have the same replayability as the Guardians of the Galaxy or a Winter Soldier. You know why you can't watch them over and over again?

Because you high on Coke. That's why. Because you can't watch the movies over again because you're snorting drugs. Like you're so high on. Coke that you Coke baby Chuck Coke baby Charles you're so high on Coke that you're like what's going on on the screen? Why does he have Thor's hammer? You're looking around

your room trying to pick up a hammer and you're like Tony in the last you think Tony you think Tony Montana in the last in the last scene of Scarface could have enjoyed Infinity War hell no. Oh you're you're comparing me to Tony Montana thank you man. By the way yeah yeah by the way it's not a compliment he just got shot by his sister

like anyway we just got the we just got the the trailer for suicide Squad. We told people we will talk about this. Once again, make sure, make sure that you're subscribing to the Ring ofverse, following us on all social media, and make sure that you tune in

Tuesday for Mallory's in-depth, deep dive on this episode of Falcon and the Winter Soldier. But for right now, we got the Suicide Squad trailer, directed by James Gunn. What do you think? What were your initial reaction to the trailer,

Charles? I was so hyped. Because here's the thing. James Gunn, when he went over to D.C., he could choose anything. He had the whole toy chest. And when he chose the suicide squad,

I was like, he's out of your mind. And then when I started to see, like, Pete Davidson is in this movie? And I love me some Pete Davidson, but I'm like, for real, though? And this trailer proved that, like, I'm wrong, that James Gunn might be,

this might be a hot take, might be the most talented superhero director that we have for putting it together. Like if he pulls off the suicide squad, it's a problem. Yeah. I mean, look, this is what I'd say. I'd say normally, you know, we haven't seen very much success. Obviously, Josh Whedon made a great Avengers movie, at least I think it's great, which, by the way, I could have that at number five, too, but whatever.

Josh Whedon made a great Avengers movie and then did not make a great Justice. This is a league movie. So it showed that he was in his back when he was on one side of the fence and not in his back on the other side of the fence. It's hard. It's hard to adjust to a different universe, a different set of characters and a different tone. I thought the trailer looked amazing.

And I'll tell you why. It looks like a movie. Now, this is not, we haven't seen the David Air Cut of Suicide Squad. We haven't seen it. So we don't know, right? But that didn't feel like a movie. There was absolutely zero story to that film. It was just a collection of scenes.

It was style. It was a lot of style. Lacking substance. And that's kind of what happens sometimes on the other side of the comic book universe pawn. It's kind of what happens to D.C. They just, you know how, you know, people, was that hold? They said put words together just to match.

You know what I mean? And so sometimes it seems like D.C. put scenes together just to match. And it's not, there's no real film there. That's why Beres, Prey was so good to me. Birds of Prey was so good to me because Birds of Prey was an actual film

with with heroes in it, which is the movies that we love. We love movies that have heroes in them. Not superhero movies. Because there's a way to just make that a big popcorn fest. And this movie seemed as if the characters had real

quirks that was really grounded. We're going to get some, we know that James Gunn knows how to do spectacle, so that's going to be okay. So it looked like that if you could Get that from that trailer. I got that from that trailer. Here's the thing. What I think is also very smart

that James Gun did is that we've seen the best of these superhero movies. They pick a genre that we love and they go hog wild with it. When we're talking about why we love Winter Soldier, we know what it is.

We know it's the spy espionage thriller. When James Guns, Guardians of the Galaxy, we know that's a prison breakout movie like rogues on the run, becoming a family. And with Suicide Squad, he's making a war movie. It looks like a 70s gritty war movie.

The Suicide Squad, if you know from the comics, they're called that because at any moment any of these characters can get killed. And we're already seeing like, no one's safe

in this movie. They're going to a tropical paradise and they have to, like, they're storm in the beach. And that, to me, is like the perfect setup for a suicide squad movie because they can be as violent

as they want. They can kill a bunch of people. And like, we're going to get that gritty movie that like the last one when they were when they were like battling some mystic mumbo jumbo I'm like for real

this is what we're on and but I want to I want to ask you what did you feel about the twist that they revealed they're like it's a kaiju and then we got starro that's funny it was pretty good it was pretty good I like I like them a bunch of reasons can you tell people who starro is because starro is like

a like a deep cut justice league villain actually the first villain that I think that the Justice League ever fought For real? Yeah, in the OG Staro. Let me see this. Let me fact check this. The first villain to face the original Justice League.

How did I not know that? Oh, I got one on Van. I got one on Van. I really didn't. I really didn't. Boy. The Brave and the Bowl number 28. It's the Justice League,

but it's only Green Lantern, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, flash Martian Manhunter. Do Dakota about to be mad at me? My friends, Dakota and Irvin, my brother Gibral, all of my comic heads. I did not know that. Damn. So my next question for you is, are we more excited for Idris's blood sport or Will Smith's Deadpool or Deadshot?

Or Will Smith's Deadshot? I suppose to know that shit. I thought Will Smith's Deadshot was cool. But, you know, I loved him. He carried that movie. I thought his Dead Shot was good. I thought Will Smith's Deadshot was cool. I thought it just, you know, you just can't, you can't put perfume watching.

The movie just wasn't any good. He was, honestly, it felt like he was in the wrong situation. It was almost like, you know, like Anthony Davis being stuck on the Pelicans. It's just like he's not the right situation. Yeah, it wasn't going to work. That's perfect. But I'm excited for what, for what, for what Aegis-El was going to do with Bloodsport. I'm depressed about the Starry thing.

And, like, I'm excited for that. And also, I'm excited eventually for Will Smith's return. to the suicide squad because they've left the door open for him to do that. Wait, who's return? Will Smith's return to the suicide squad.

I'm, well, they left the door open for him to do that. Aegis Elbae in this film was supposed to play Deadshot at first. But they actually brought

a different character in so that Will Smith could potentially return to the role of Deadshot at some point because they wanted to leave that open. I think this movie's gonna... Do you think James Gunn even asked Will Smith?

That's my... I'm not sure about how that actually went. I think that there was some talk about Will's schedule because he probably was busy, like, you know, making Instagram videos or TikToks or something like that. But here's my thing with Will. Motivational advice or having awkward conversations with his wife about who she was sleeping with. So he has a lot on his play.

Let's bring James Gunn to the red table. You know what I'm saying? Let's talk about why Will Smith isn't in this because Will Smith, we know, has a shaky history with scripts and a shaky history with picking good directors. And my issue is like, if James Gunn could. bring out the best in Will Smith, can bring out the best in him. I'm looking forward to,

I'm looking forward to the movie. The trailer really, really got me. All right, we are over time, man. We had a good time today. I'll tell you what, we went over, but this episode of Falcon and the Winter Soldier deserve this much post-credit. More than deserve.

This much. Deserve this much. It's been fantastic. Listen, you guys, subscribe to the ringerverse. All right. You got me on Friday. You got Mal on Tuesday With the deep dive

Mailbags All the intricate stuff that is going to make you The most knowledgeable person About the Falcon and Winter Soldier around You can follow the Ring ofverse On all social media feeds We already out there on the IGs We already out there on the Twitter's

In the Twitter sphere Of course Charles Holmes You are the host of the Ring of Music show When are you guys dropping again? We're reviewing the Demi documentary this week. You actually make an appearance in the first episode.

I was surprised. I'm like, that's my man. Vin. I'm in the Demi documentary. Yeah, like when I was pre-pendemic body, pre-pandemic face. It was very,

very tough to see myself in that documentary. I got out of work to do. I'm Van Lathan. See y'all later. I'm Charles Holmes and see y'all later. Charles was surprised

at his name. Charles was so high on Coke. I didn't know if you were going to give me a send him. That's like Coke baby Chuck. Like Charles is how, y'all, we out of here, Messia, that's right?