TFATWS, 'Truth' - April 19

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, though sometimes you choose to take a risk, come Hell or high water because it is worth it. Beyond that, I do not really want to talk about myself or my family, so let us talk about TFATWS’ penultimate episode instead. It is called ‘Truth’, ironically enough, and what about it?

Well, first, the big cameo in the episode – it is JLD, the titular character of the now ended political comedy show ‘VEEP’. In MCU, JLD played contessa Valentina, who comes across both as a cougar and a female Phil Coulson – a femme fatale of no determined age that should’ve belonged to AoS, only, again, AoS is over and done with MCU and vice versa. Pause.

Throughout the weekend, fans and co. were discussing as to how ‘Val’ was one of the Marvel comics’ characters who were Madame Hydra. Fair enough, JLD’s version of Val has clear femme fatale vibes, and the way that she came between Captain Walker and his wife suggests clearly enough that she is a harbinger for worse things to come in the life of the good captain.

Captain Dubya’s situation is clear enough though – not unlike Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, (who was a titular character in one of Shakespeare’s historical Roman plays), an initially good person, who becomes undone, and a villain, (well, in Coriolanus’ case it is more of an enemy of the state situation), instead.

Seriously, remember the second episode of TFATWS? The initial depiction of John Walker shows him as a good man rather than a bad one, but that is not a guarantee of anything; in the case of the original Captain America, the super-soldier serum made a good man into a great man; in case of John Walker, the reverse seems to be true, (so far).

And contessa Val? (Que Karliene’s ‘Blood Countess’ song, I daresay). Right now it is shown that she is going to separate John from his wife, the last good thing from his pre-Captain America days, the only thing that stops him from going full villain, (or not, cough, the new shield, cough). His wife, mother and daughter stopped Coriolanus from destroying Rome; here, there is only a wife, and she is being replaced by the contessa.

Back to the contessa herself… can she be Madame Hydra too? MCU already had a Madame Hydra, in the person of AIDA, back in the AoS’ S4. AIDA was a complex entity, but she did fill the hole – and the role - of Madame Hydra in MCU’s (admittedly messed-up) S.H.I.E.L.D. vs. Hydra discourse that was supposed to be what AoS was all about. And yes, there are several characters that were, and are, called Madame Hydra in Marvel, but given how S.H.I.E.L.D. isn’t talked about in MCU – and S.W.O.R.D. was invented/reinvented to fill the S.H.I.E.L.D.-esque hole in WV, I doubt that Val will be Madame Hydra, (or that Hydra itself will ever return). Rather, she may be the actual Power Broker – or a Power Broker, I suppose, since in Marvel, the Power Broker is both a single person and an organization, but the mention of S.H.I.E.L.D. brings us to Sharon Carter…and also to Georges Batroc.

Well, with Georges’, it is all quite clear – he is the Box Ghost of MCU, so he will probably survive because MCU will need a lesser, but a recognizable villain for some time at least. Sharon is more complex; she may be the Power Broker instead of Val, or she can still be working for Fury (and S.H.I.E.L.D.?), or she may not be Sharon Carter at all, but rather some Skrull – or any other shapeshifter, really – who is pretending to be Sharon Carter for her own reasons. Either way, her apparently sending Batroc to bulk up Karli and her Flag-Smashers is morally ambiguous at best.

Speaking of Karli, how did her and her Flag-Smashers arrive in U.S. from the E.U.? The original Karl ‘Flag-Smasher’ Morgenthau was a rich WASP male, who had no such problems, but Karli herself seems to be a proletariat person, a Greta Thunberg gone wrong, and she is a wanted criminal by now, so how was she able to achieve this feat? ‘Why’ is simple – MCU wanted the final showdown of TFATWS take place in USA, and so it shall be! …Anything else?

Well, Zemo was written out of the rest of TFATWS, as were the Dora Milaje. If they were around to show that Bucky transformed from the winter soldier into the white wolf, then they did their job, though they were rather underwhelming, especially the Dora Milaje; and if they were for any other reason, well… then they are even moreso. Pity.

As for the titular characters… I honestly do not know. By now, it is reasonable to assume that they have stopped being TFATWS, and instead became CAAWW – Captain America and White Wolf. The former is explanatory – now, USA is being represented by an Afro-American person, (one that is not Luke Cage, BTW), and it will live with it, somehow – or not, given that MCU is not the most rational of the fictional universes. With Bucky, it is more complex – White Wolf is not the most known character of the Marvel comic universe these days, so it will be rather interesting to see as to what MCU will do to Bucky next… but that is not the point. The point is that MCU has progressed further from where it ended at the end of Phase 3; now it has a new Captain America, a new (first) White Wolf, and a new Falcon, if J. Torres is anything like his comic book counterpart is. The other characters are more secondary, sadly – ‘so much for Fortinbras’, since we’ve mentioned Shakespeare earlier. Anything else?

No, not yet. So far, after TFATWS’ series’ finale, MCU seems to be taking a break – May is marked only by the new ‘Cruella’ movie, and ‘Loki’ the TV series is coming only in summer. Fair enough, and see you all soon!