Recap / The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Episode 4 "The Whole World Is Watching"

The reason Erskine prioritized a good man over a perfect soldier.

Bucky is given eight hours to finish his business with Zemo before the Dora Milaje take him, while Sam tries to talk down Karli before she's too far gone. But their attempts to stop her, along with Walker's attempts to take matters into his hands, come to a shocking conclusion.

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Tropes:

• Accidental Murder: Lemar tackles Karli before she can stab Walker in the back. She responds by reflexively punching him away, sending him into a pillar with such force that the impact instantly kills him.
• Amazon Brigade: Ayo and the Dora Milaje, as usual, trounce the ever-loving crap out of Walker, Lemar, Sam, and Bucky, even though it's three against four. Sam even warns Walker that he'd have a better chance of defeating Bucky than taking them on.
• Arrow Catch: A Flagsmasher flings a knife at Bucky during the fight in the complex. He catches it mid-air.
• Badass Boast: When Walker tries to tell Ayo that she and the Dora Milaje have no jurisdiction in Latvia.
  Ayo: The Dora Milaje have jurisdiction wherever the Dora Milaje find themselves to be.
• Badass Normal: After he, Lemar, Bucky, and Sam get defeated by the Dora Milaje, Walker laments how they weren't even Super Soldiers. For the record, Bucky is a super soldier.
• Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work: Subverted. Zemo shoots Karli when she manages to escape the attention of everyone else, but she finds cover before he can deal a fatal blow. In doing so, she knocks over the vials of super serum and Zemo shifts his focus to destroying those, allowing Karli to escape.
• Behind the Black: Walker throws his shield into a concrete wall, and when he pulls it out, a flag smasher is leaping at him from his left. This person was obscured to the camera by the shield, but should have been visible to Walker.
• The Berserker: Taking the serum turns Walker into this. Previously, he fought more conservatively and relied heavily on his shield. After he takes the serum, he acquires a taste for hand-to-hand combat and uses his shield offensively.
• Beware the Superman: Zemo is convinced that the Super-Soldier serum will turn anyone who takes it into a supremacist, to which he gets the ultimate counter-example with a mention of Steve Rogers. That being said, John Walker later proves that he has a point...
  Zemo: [referring to Karli] The desire to become a superhuman cannot be separated from supremacist ideals. Anyone with that serum is inherently on that path. She will not stop. She will escalate until you kill her. Or she kills you.
  Bucky: Maybe you’re wrong, Zemo. The serum never corrupted Steve.
  Zemo: Touché. But there has never been another Steve Rogers, has there?
• Bloodier and Gorier: Though it is not shown in full, Walker’s killing of Nico is much more savage and visceral when compared to the relatively tame, stylized violence of the rest of the episode (and the series as a whole, and most of the MCU otherwise). It marks the first time in the entire MCU that Captain America's shield is visibly stained with human blood.
• Buffy Speak: Sam warns Bucky that Zemo tilts his head during attempts to manipulate someone, calling it a "stupid head tilt thing".
• Call-Back:
  • Zemo's Boring, but Practical method of gaining intel from someone (bribing a kid with food) — instead of trying to appeal to their better nature or Commonality Connection — is virtually identical to Jack Thompson's way of gaining intel from a hobo witness in Agent Carter.
  • Once again, Bucky makes a disbelieving face as his cybernetic arm is effortlessly foiled — the first time being Spider-Man's Punch Catch in Civil War.
  • One of the Dora Milaje (named in the credits as Yama) does the same step-on-the-edge-of-the-shield-and-catch-it move that Steve did in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
  • When Bucky reattaches his vibranium arm after Ayo disables it, he does the same arm swinging motion to recalibrate it as he did when he was the Winter Soldier.
  • When Walker breaks the door open to get into the building where Karli, Sam, and Bucky are meeting, it's shot very similar to a scene from the montage in Captain America: The First Avenger of Steve with the Howling Commandos behind him. Lemar even follows to his side the same way that Bucky did.
  • Sam witnessing Lemar accidentally get killed while John is helpless to stop it is very similar to what happened with Tony Stark and Rhodey in Captain America: Civil War, especially as in both instances, Sam was antagonistic to the pair of friends.
  • The music during Walker's chase of Nico evokes the Winter Soldier's Leitmotif. He also jumps out of a window, like Steve did in TWS, and lands on a car much like the Winter Soldier did during the highway chase.
  • The camera angle used to shoot Walker while killing Nico with the shield is the same angle used to show Steve Rogers when he smashed Tony Stark's arc reactor back in the final fight of Captain America: Civil War. The key difference, of course, is that Steve only disabled Tony's suit, whereas Walker actually caved in the man's ribcage.
  • Walker's murder of Nico in the middle of a crowded European street is a dark recall to Steve's Big Damn Heroes entrance in Germany in The Avengers.
  • John's final scene is somewhat similar to T'Challa's capture of Klaue in Black Panther, with two key differences. T'Challa stops because of the cameras and takes his "prey" into custody; Walker bashes the victim's chest in and glares around at the cameras, bloody shield in hand.
• Car Cushion: When the Flag-Smashers scatter after Lemar is killed, Walker pursues them by leaping out of a window and landing on a van several stories down.
• Central Theme:
  • 'A means to an end' seems to be a recurring idea throughout this episode. It starts with Bucky insisting that he only freed Zemo to track down the Flag-Smashers, while Karli Morgenthau and eventually John Walker resort to the Super Soldier serum to further their goals, which inevitably end in violence. On the other hand, Zemo and Sam reject the serum (i.e. a means to their ends) and proceed towards their goals in very different ways, Zemo through subterfuge and Sam through diplomacy.
  • Zemo also expands on his belief that Super Soldiers, and superhumans more broadly, can't be allowed to exist due to them being inextricably linked to supremacism, noting that Steve Rogers is the exception that proves the rule.
• Children Are Innocent: Exploited by Zemo. While Sam and Bucky try to talk to adults in the displacement camp, Zemo goes straight to the group of children playing in the courtyard and tricks one of them into telling him how to find Karli.
• Combat Pragmatist: The Dora Milaje repeatedly made use of staunch pragmatism combined with great fighting skills to trounce Walker, Lemar, Sam, and Bucky, not taking any chances despite being confident of their ability to defeat them, especially when faced with the two members of the Avengers whose abilities naturally surpassed theirs. They made sure they were all armed with their spears against Lemar and Walker, even after Ayo shows she can easily knock him down without one, and when Lemar is barely holding off their spears after being put in a hold, they simply respond by kicking him down, while they also pin down Walker using the holster for his shield with a spear. Nomble breaks out of Sam's grip on her spear by making use of his focus on the tip to instead deliver blunt blows on him that quickly knocks him down. Ayo gets the credit for making the most impressive shot against Bucky of all people when he clearly demonstrates she can't outfight him and her spear isn't of much threat to him by promptly shifting to using her bare hands to successfully activate the detachment function installed on his arm, as while her bare attacks would definitely not be able to harm him much as she is just a normal human while he is a super soldier and they both know it, Bucky doesn't even know his arm can be disarmed that way and she doesn't need any actual strength at all to make the move, just the speed and momentum needed to catch him by surprise.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Ayo reminds Bucky how Zemo bombed the UN and killed King T'Chaka, something she takes personally because it was her job to protect him.
  • Sam mentions to Zemo and Karli how he used to counsel veterans with PTSD, like we've seen him do in D.C.
  • Lemar says that the super soldier serum makes people "more of themselves", which Erskine noted all the way back in Captain America: The First Avenger.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • The Dora Milaje easily wipe the floor with Walker and Lemar. Sam and Bucky, not being willing to give it their all against the people who used to be their allies, also gets trounced despite putting up a better show than Walker and Lemar, Sam managing to stop Nomble from attacking him with her spear until she simply beats him with the non-lethal parts of her spear while Ayo deactivates Bucky's cybernetic arm after he had initially easily fended off her assaults with her bare hands, which catches him completely off-guard and makes it easy for her to finish the move.
  • Bucky easily defeats any Flag-Smasher who attacks him in a matter of moments, showing and proving that the only reason they defeated him last time was because they caught him off-guard. Walker hopped up by the super-soldier serum and armed with the shield also stomps several members of the Flag-Smashers.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Walker and Hoskins discuss the mission in Afghanistan that gave Walker his medals, and how they had to resort to extreme methods to succeed in their mission. It's clear that Walker is still haunted by this.
• Dead-Hand Shot: Nico's bloodied hand falling down is the only close-up shot of him after Walker kills him with the shield.
• Death by Adaptation: Lemar gets killed off in this episode, effectively taking the role that John Walker's parents had in the comics where his death serves as John Walker's Rage Breaking Point. In the comics, Lemar is still very much alive.
• Death by Irony: Nico the Flag-Smasher gets smashed to death by a man wearing a flag.
• Disproportionate Retribution: John definitely shouldn't have tried to get personal with the Dora Milaje. Even so, when he touches Ayo, she responds with a No Holds Barred Beat Down and even tries to stab him several times. Bucky intervenes before that can happen.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?:
  • Walker, who is supposed to apprehend the Flag-Smashers lawfully, beats a subdued and unarmed Nico to death on a busy street in front of a crowd of horrified bystanders, several of whom are recording or streaming the assault with their phones. It calls to mind many high-profile police shootings, which was likely intentional on the writers' part, given the series's overarching political and racial themes.
  • Zemo giving candy to a group of hungry children, warning them not to trust Sam or Bucky (two other adults), and then later bribing one of the children further while singing a lullaby, has some creepy-as-all-hell implications.
  • The Smashers in general and Karli in particular increasingly resemble the many, many groups who tried to fight the flaws of society and help the oppressed, only to become corrupted and hurt good, innocent people (in this case Lemar) themselves. The very situation of the Flag-Smashers and of those pursuing them (Sam, Bucky, Walker, and Lemar) also mirrors tensions between soldiers and insurgents in any conflict worldwide — and how peoples' political biases affect their perception of the extent to which their actions are justified.
• Doesn't Trust Those Guys: The people in the displacement camps refuse to trust any outsiders. Sam and Bucky get nothing from them but the cold shoulder, and Zemo has to bribe some children with sweets to get them to talk to him.
• Double-Meaning Title: "The Whole World Is Watching" refers to the aftermath of the previous episode, where Karli bombing the GRC outpost gained the Flag-Smashers more attention, and the ending of this episode where Walker murders a Flag-Smasher in front of horrified civilians, with many of them filming it.
• Downer Ending: The episode ends with Walker completely losing it and killing Nico in front of an entire crowd (with people recording it on their phones, no less), as a Roaring Rampage of Revenge for Karli accidentally killing Lemar.
• Dramatically Missing the Point: When Walker asks Lemar if he should/deserves to take the Super Soldier serum, Lemar reminds him that he has three Medals of Honor and consistently makes the right decisions in the heat of battle. As Dr. Erskine would argue, all those only prove that Walker is a good soldier, but nowhere is it implied that he's a good man, the true defining attribute of Steve. Walker himself lampshades it by implying that the things he did in Afghanistan to earn those medals felt the furthest from the right thing, something that Steve Rogers seldom had to struggle with.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • Zemo agrees that Steve was not corrupted by the serum, but says that there's never been another like him. Unlike Sam, Bucky, and the audience, Zemo has never heard of Isaiah Bradley.
  • When Walker asks Lemar about taking the serum, the audience knows that Walker actually has the serum, so his question probably isn't as hypothetical as it appears to Lemar.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: Again, Walker gets no respect as the new Captain America, other than from some civilians asking for an autograph. Sam and Bucky make it clear that they aren't taking orders from him, and the Dora Milaje easily whup his ass when he tries to get too chummy.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Despite the tension in their reluctant alliance, neither Walker or Lemar are willing to let Sam talk with Karli out of genuine concern of what would happen to him if she ends up attacking him.
  • Walker and Lemar are also visibly uncomfortable and disturbed when Zemo's informant turns out to be a little girl, Walker even stating "What the hell?".
• Exact Words: When Walker fights the Dora Milaje, Sam wonders if they should give him some help. Bucky responds by helpfully shouting encouragement.
  Bucky: Lookin' good, John!
• Fake Arm Disarm: Ayo inflicts this on Bucky when she deactivates his vibranium arm with a few hits which make it fall on the floor. Downplayed, as this didn't permanently disable or destroy the arm, instead merely taking Bucky out of the fight, with Bucky reattaching and recalibrating it a few moments later.
• Flashback: The episode opens on a flashback to six years ago in Wakanda, shortly before the events of Avengers: Infinity War, where Ayo recites Bucky's Winter Soldier Trigger Phrase to him to test if he's free of his brainwashing after the deprogramming that he went through.
• Foil: Four of the five central characters, Sam, Zemo, Walker, and Karli, contrast each other on several themes, with Sam and Walker representing the "heroes" while Zemo and Karli are the "villains".
  • Sam and Zemo opt for the subtle, diplomatic approach that causes minimal harm and attracts the least attention, while Walker and Karli resort to violence and actually want people to pay attention to and respect them.
  • When it comes to the Super Soldier serum, Karli and Walker both take it as a means to achieve their violent goals, which makes things worse as a result. Sam and Zemo, on the other hand, flat-out reject the serum, although Zemo does it out of his warped ideals, while Sam doesn't even seem to be tempted by it.
  • Karli and Zemo are supremacists, thinking of the other side as unworthy of compassion, and see killing their enemies as a necessary evil if that's what it takes to pursue their cause. (Ironically, Zemo cites Super Supremacist ideas as his motive for destroying the serum.) Walker, despite his faults, is like Sam, trying to keep the peace and serve a greater good with the power and position they've been given.
  • Zemo and Karli, despite being villains, easily get a lot of grassroots support from commoners. On the other hand, Sam and Walker are treated with suspicion and disrespect, despite being heroes, which ultimately results in Walker going down a dark path.
  • In dealing with loss, Sam and Karli turn their grief into compassion, where they work towards a greater cause that attempts to unite people. Walker and Zemo, on the other hand, channel their grief into hatred, vengeance, and destruction.
  • Karli at one point mentions that Captain America's shield is a symbol of the past that should be destroyed, something that Sam himself said just an episode prior.
  • Zemo and Walker are both former special/black ops soldiers, but while Zemo is a "villain" and seems sinister, he doesn't do anything particularly evil, besides antagonizing Sam and Bucky and escaping because the Dora Milaje were going to capture him. Sam even remarks that he's actually been useful, as opposed to Walker, who despite being a "hero", is on the case partially to gain recognition for being Captain America, keeps messing up by antagonizing everybody, and eventually commits an unmistakably villainous act with the murder of Nico.
• Food as Bribe: Zemo uses some Turkish delights to get some kids to give him the time and location of Donya's funeral. He tops it off with an actual cash bribe later.
• Foreshadowing: That Sharon has access to spy satellites is a good hint that she's the Power Broker.
• Freudian Slip: Karli tries to explain to Sam that she doesn't want to harm anyone, and what comes out of her mouth is that she is perfectly willing to kill people to get what she wants.
• From Bad to Worse: By the end of the episode, Zemo has escaped, Lemar has been killed, and the ramifications of Walker's Fallen Hero actions as a result of the latter will be severe.
• A God Am I: Sam thinks that, for all his talk against supremacy, Zemo sounds like he has a god complex himself.
• Gory Discretion Shot: Walker brutally murders the Flag-Smasher Nico with the shield, to the horror of the civilians witnessing the attack. Only Nico's limp, bloodied hand is shown onscreen afterward, and the camera cuts to a wide shot when Walker looks at the crowd to obscure any detailed wounds on Nico's corpse.
• Grey-and-Grey Morality: Discussed by Nico:
  Nico: You know, back then, there was just good and bad, but the world's more complicated now.
• Handshake Refusal: Walker offers Ayo a handshake. She simply stares and he awkwardly withdraws it.
• Heart Is an Awesome Power: Sam proves in this episode that his experience with being a therapist and counselor allows him to instantly pick apart Zemo's attempts at manipulating Bucky (mocking the former's Quizzical Tilt as a form of intimidation), and actually make headway with Karli by just talking and listening to her instead of fighting.
• Heroic BSoD: Walker getting his ass handed to him by the Dora Milaje breaks him, as they were otherwise normal people who still mopped the floor with him even with the shield.
  Walker: They weren't even super soldiers...
• He's Dead, Jim: After Lemar is kicked into the column by Karli, his head slumps and he is unresponsive towards Walker's attempts to get a reaction from him. Walker then briefly checks for Lemar's pulse on his neck before concluding that he is already dead and beyond saving.
• Hesitation Equals Dishonesty: Zemo is impressed when Sam says that he's not tempted by the possibility of becoming a super-soldier with no hesitation. Similarly, Lemar says without hesitation that he would, while Walker, who actually has access to the serum and is on the fence about taking it, hedges and questions whether it would change a person fundamentally.
• Hope Spot: Midway through the episode, Sam and Karli have a chat in which they note their similar backgrounds and social standings, and Sam comes this close to talking Karli down and ending her crusade against the world's governments. Then Walker barges in, and it all goes to hell.
• Hypocrite:
  • Zemo advocates that Karli must be killed and stopped for good because she's a Super-Soldier. Anyone who wants that is de facto a Super Supremacist who wants to lord over others. A bold stance from a man born into wealth and privilege.
    Zemo: And we cannot allow that she and her acolytes become yet another group of gods amongst real people. Super Soldiers cannot be allowed to exist.
    Sam: Isn't that how gods talk?
  • Walker argues that the Dora Milaje have no jurisdiction in Latvia. He's not in any position to talk, having gone off-book to pursue Sam and Bucky. However, he's not wrong, and the Dora Milaje's responding Badass Boast could have caused an international incident in almost any other context.
• I Have Your Wife: Karli gets Sam's attention by calling Sarah and threatening her children. Karli claims she meant Sarah no harm and only wanted Sam to know that she was serious. She was also deliberately trying to get Sam angry enough to come alone.
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness: In a discussion about how the super serum corrupts the people who use it, Zemo concedes that Steve is an exception.
• Informed Attribute: Lemar tells John that he "consistently make[s] the right decisions in the heat of battle", a skill of which no evidence is shown either in this episode or anywhere else in the series.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: One Dora Milaje throws her spear through the straps of John's shield, threading the spear perfectly to pin him to a table without damaging the shield's straps or physically injuring him. Unable to free either, he frees himself instead, allowing the Dora to pull the spear free and then expertly stomp the shield onto her arm, the same move that Captain America himself pulled after the elevator fight in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
• Insistent Terminology: The Flag-Smashers don't want to be called refugees, but instead refer to themselves as internationally displaced persons.
• Ironic Echo: Albeit in body language. When explaining to Bucky how super-soldiers are inherently supremacists, Zemo tilts his head to the right. When Walker sees the last intact vial of super-soldier serum, he tilts his head to the right, foreshadowing that he is inherently supremacist enough to take it.
• Irony: Zemo points out the irony of someone like Karli, who according to herself wants to end supremacy, being a super-soldier which is inherently supremacist. She literally made herself better than others in order to fight for the ideal that no-one is better than anyone else.
• I Was Beaten by a Girl: An unusual variation. John is visibly shaken when the Dora Milaje soundly whoop his and Lemar's asses, though not because they were women, but because they were normal humans and not super-soldiers (though it's implied that their being women compounded his humiliation). This is what drives him to take the Super Soldier serum.
• Jerkass Has a Point: John Walker is right that the Dora Milaje do not have jurisdiction to act outside Wakanda, regardless of their grievances with Zemo. Their insistence that they do by virtue of being themselves could start a very messy diplomatic incident.
• Jumping Off the Slippery Slope:
  • Sam insinuates that Karli is losing touch with her motives because her methods are becoming more violent. Creating a gang of superpowerful people to forcibly take what you want and intimidate people? That sounds a lot like what she hates. She concedes the point, but refuses to back down.
  • Walker murders Nico of the Flag-Smashers in front of a crowd of people in retaliation for Karli accidentally killing Lemar. There is a nice, wide, lingering shot of his blood-stained shield to underscore just how far he is sliding.
• Jurisdiction Friction: Walker tries to claim jurisdiction when the Dora Milaje arrives to take Zemo. They're not having that, and prove it with an ass-kicking when Walker makes the mistake of trying to be personal with them.
• Knight Templar: Downplayed, because Zemo is honorable and reasonable about it and quite calm, but he's very serious in his insistence on destroying super serum. When he sees Karli's supply spilled on the floor, he confirms what it is, then starts smashing it. Of the 20 vials remaining, only 2 survive once Walker knocks him out.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: When Sam first approaches Karli, it's as an unarmed civilian. When she threatens his sister and nephews to arrange a second meeting, he comes in full "Falcon" costume to make it clear that she's crossed a line.
• Let's You and Him Fight: Bucky and Sam initially make no effort to stop the fight between Walker & Hoskins and the Dora Milaje, only stepping in when it's clear that the men are in over their heads and the Dora might kill them.
• Literal Disarming: During the fight with the Dora Milaje, Ayo deactivates Bucky's vibranium arm and causes it to fall off.
• Loose Floor Board Hiding Spot: Subverted. Karli and Nico hid the vials of serum beneath a stone in Nico's grandfather Lukas's gravesite.
• Manly Tears: Bucky sheds tears of joy when he realizes that he's free of the Winter Soldier programming in the flashback.
• Medal of Dishonor: John mentions to Lemar that his three Medals of Honor only serve to remind him of the worst day of his life because he had to do some terrible things in Afghanistan to survive.
• Mêlée à Trois: In the fight to determine Zemo's fight we have Bucky and Sam, Walker and Hoskins, and the Dora Milaje.
• The Millstone: John, continuing the trend from previous episodes, makes things even worse here. He ruins Sam's attempts to convince Karli to surrender peacefully, and his attempts to play mediator between the Dora Milaje and Sam, Bucky, and Zemo result in Zemo escaping. Then he damages public opinion of the heroes' side by murdering a defeated Flag-Smasher in broad daylight, surrounded by cameras.
• Moment of Silence: The sounds are muted after Karli punches Lemar into a column, killing him, which signifies the shock of everyone present.
• Moment of Weakness: The temptation of taking the Super Soldier serum gets played in two ways through the episode:
  • While Sam and Zemo discuss the ethics of superheroes, Zemo questions if Sam would take the serum given the opportunity. Sam definitively says that he wouldn't, and Zemo praises him for answering him without any hesitation.
  • John similarly has a conversation with Lemar after secretly procuring the last surviving vial of the serum. John confesses his insecurities, and Lemar unintentionally convinces John that nothing about him would change for the worse if he were to become a Super Soldier since he always makes the right call in battle. This is the final motivation that John needs to inject himself with the serum off-screen.
• Morality Chain: Lemar has consistently been shown to reign Walker in when he was about to get violent. Walker essentially asks him for permission before injecting himself with the super serum, by asking if Lemar would take it or if he thinks that the serum would change Walker himself. Within minutes of Lemar's death, Walker has killed someone who was down and had surrendered, in full public view.
• Musical Nod:
  • Part of the score from Black Panther plays over the introductory shot of Wakanda in the opening scene.
  • The Captain America: Civil War theme plays when the camera is on Walker after he just got utterly beaten by the Dora Milaje despite them not being Super Soldiers.
  • The Winter Soldier theme plays in the flashback as Bucky's traumatic memories as the Soldier bubble to the surface, but the theme fades when he realizes that he's free of the programming.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Karli looks horrified when she realizes that she killed Lemar, as she only wanted to kill the new Captain America and was just trying to get Lemar off her.
• My Greatest Failure: Ayo reminds Bucky that the death of King T'Chaka was a failure of the Dora Milaje, which fills them with grief and shame.
• Mythology Gag:
  • In the comics, Walker's parents are held prisoner by the militant Watchdogs. When his attempt to rescue them ends in their deaths, Walker goes on a rampage murdering the group. In this show, Walker's attempt to rescue a captured Lemar ends with his death, and Walker is driven to a murderous rage.
  • Walker's execution of Nico, raising the shield over his head with both hands and bringing the edge down, mirrors Steve's execution of Baron Blood◊, the first time in modern comics that Captain America was depicted killing someone (rather than it being implied).
• Never My Fault: Ayo blames Bucky for Zemo escaping while they were fighting, even though if the Dora Milaje didn't start a fight with John, Zemo wouldn't have found and taken the opportunity to escape.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • Sam gets close to talking down Karli, but Walker blows it by moving in to arrest her and making her think that Sam betrayed her.
  • By the same token, Bucky initially moves to stop Walker from interfering, but Walker plays on his concern for Sam and gets him to stand down.
  • Walker tries to defuse the situation with the Dora Milaje in a way that provokes them. In turn, the Dora become so focused on fighting Walker and the others that they let Zemo slip through their fingers.
  • Lemar unintentionally pushes Walker into taking the super-soldier serum. As Erskine warned, it makes him "more of what he is", and Walker has plenty of negative qualities. Without Lemar around to anchor him, he quickly goes over the edge.
• Never My Fault: Ayo blames Bucky for Zemo's escape, despite the fact that she started the fight.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: John Walker delivers one to Nico after Karli unintentionally kills Lemar. He knocks Nico prone, throws the shield at him a second time, and then stands over him and basically guillotines him three times; at no point does Nico act aggressively during this. ^note Though his lack of remorse didn't probably didn't help.
• Noodle Incident: Played for drama. We don't learn exactly what John did in Afghanistan with Lemar that got him his third Medals of Honor, but it's obvious that the incident severely traumatized him.
• "Not So Different" Remark:
  • Bucky notes that something's not right with Walker and states that he can see it because he's crazy himself.
  • Zemo, once again, compares the Avengers to the Nazis.
    Zemo: [Karli] is a supremacist. The very concept of a Super Soldier will always trouble people. It's that warped aspiration that led to Nazis, to Ultron, to the Avengers.
  • Karli says to Sarah that she reminds her of herself.
• Nursery Rhyme: Zemo sings the nursery rhyme "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep" when he approaches a group of children to ask them about the location of Donya Madani's funeral. Him being the black sheep who is willing to bribe children with candy, a move which never even occurred to the four more heroic-minded men looking for the same information.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Dovich gets this when he sees John bend a pipe he was using to fight him and promptly books it.
  • Everyone gets this when Karli kills Lemar. Karli looks genuinely appalled, Sam and Bucky are speechless, and all combat in the room stops as the realization sinks in that Walker is about to completely lose it. An even bigger Mass "Oh, Crap!" comes right after, with Walker snapping and eventually bludgeoning Nico to death on the street; everyone on the block (including Sam, Bucky, and Karli) can only stare in horror.
• Oh, My Gods!: Invoked: after disabling Bucky in a fight while they were trying to apprehend Zemo and John Walker disrespected them, Ayo gives him this:
  Ayo: Bast damn you, James.
• Pass the Popcorn: Sam and Bucky are in no rush to help Walker and Lemar when the former pisses off the Dora Milaje, with Bucky even sarcastically cheering Walker on. At the same time, Zemo takes a calm swig of his whiskey. Sam prods him into trying to defuse the situation, which only serves to get them involved in the fight.
• Person as Verb: A fight breaks out with Walker and Lemar against the Dora Milaje, and Sam and Bucky get involved, so no one notices Zemo slipping away. Upon discovering that he escaped through a hatch in the bathroom, Sam comments that Zemo "pulled an El Chapo".
• Photo Op with the Dog: John casually gives a fan an autograph while talking about the super-soldier serum with Lemar.
• Pressure Point: Ayo does a variation with Bucky's vibranium arm, hitting just the right points to make it deactivate and fall off. Bucky didn't know that was possible. Thankfully, the arm reboots a few moments after the Dora Milaje leave.
• Psycho Supporter: Zemo keeps trying to convince Sam that Karli is beyond saving, especially since Sam wants to talk her down despite her terrorist actions so far.
• Punched Across the Room: One of the first few signs that John has become a Super-Soldier is when he sends a Flag-Smasher flying across a flight staircase and into a wall.
• Quizzical Tilt:
  • Sam lampshades this Character Tic of Zemo when telling Bucky not to waste his time arguing with the man. Zemo even straightens his head when he notices that he really is doing it.
  • Walker tilts his head when he sees that one vial of the Super Soldier serum has been left undamaged.
• Rage Breaking Point: John is on edge for most of the episode as the desire to catch Karli escalates, but when she kills Lemar, he snaps and throws the rulebook out the window in a single-minded quest to get revenge.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: After failing to catch Karli the first time, Walker barges into the apartment and orders Sam and Bucky to turn over Zemo. Sam responds by telling him that all he's doing is running his mouth and has proven himself nothing but a liability, while Zemo has actually done something useful. Walker can only respond by turning up the bravado in an attempt to intimidate Sam into complying. The Dora Milaje interrupt before that particular fight escalates.
• Revenge Before Reason: John Walker brutally murders a defenseless Nico for Lemar's death right in front of witnesses.
• Revenge by Proxy: Karli (accidentally) kills Lemar, so John kills Nico in retaliation.
• Rule of Symbolism:
  • A subtle one. After John Walker gets his ass kicked and humiliated by the Dora Milaje, he attempts to retrieve the shield that's being pinned by a vibranium spear to a table, but can't pull the spear free. One of the Dora (credited as Yama) easily yanks the spear away and kicks the dropped shield into her hands in the same way that Steve Rogers did in his iconic elevator scene, as if to imply that not only is she more skilled at wielding the shield, she (a Wakandan woman) is also more worthy of holding it and being Captain America than John Walker. As an added insult, she then hands it back to him when ordered to leave it; he didn't earn it, it was just given to him.
  • The last shot of the episode shows Walker in his Captain America costume holding the shield, covered in visible blood for the first time in the entire MCU, symbolizing how his actions have tainted the mantle of Captain America, laid bare the brutality of American military policing, and basically proved that he will never be Captain America.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
  • Baron Zemo slips away through a trap door in the bathroom during the battle between John Walker, Lemar, Sam Wilson, Bucky, and the Dora Milaje.
  • The Flag-Smashers scatter after Karli kills Lemar.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: The way that Walker talks about what he and Lemar had to do in Afghanistan deeply implies that he's still haunted by his experiences, calling the event for which he was awarded his third Medal of Honor the worst day of his life.
• Shout-Out: Zemo obtains information on the Flag-Smashers by offering the local children Turkish delights, similar to the White Witch and Edmund in The Chronicles of Narnia.
• Sigil Spam: As Sam looks for someone to talk to about Donya Madani so he can talk to Karli, he keeps seeing the Flag Smashers' handprint painted on things.
• Solemn Ending Theme: Given that Walker just murdered a man in cold-blooded revenge, the usually upbeat, folksy guitar end credits are replaced with a much more sinister, tragic-sounding composition, foreshadowing the dire consequences that his actions might now have.
• Surprisingly Sudden Death: Lemar is punched into a pillar and dies on impact, just like that. His death is so shocking in-universe that the melee instantly stops, as friend and foe alike can hardly believe what just happened.
• Surveillance as the Plot Demands: As it turns out, Sharon has access to a couple of spy satellites that she uses to track Walker for Sam.
• Sympathy for the Devil: Sam openly agrees with many of Karli's viewpoints and her general philosophy, but he stresses that he cannot agree with her actions.
• Talking the Monster to Death: Sam attempts this with Karli, and makes significant headway, so much so that at one point, he sits right next to her, his back to her, without his suit, leaving him completely vulnerable. Then Walker had to jump the gun and ruin everything.
• Tears of Joy: Bucky cries when Ayo says HYDRA's code words, but they don't have any effect on him for the first time.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Sam, Bucky, and Zemo with John and Lemar. The former group prefers to be subtle and diplomatic, while the latter group takes a straightforward and aggressive approach.
• That Came Out Wrong:
  • This exchange.
    Zemo: [Karli] is a supremacist. The very concept of a Super Soldier will always trouble people. It's that warped aspiration that led to Nazis, to Ultron, to the Avengers.
    Sam: You're talking about our friends.
    Bucky: The Avengers, not the Nazis.
  • Karli has a similar moment when she describes the people she's killed as "Roadblocks in her way that need to be removed." When Sam calls her out on this rhetoric, she backtracks and claims that he "tricked her into sounding like..." (the kind of supremacists she claims to be fighting).
• Touché: Zemo mentions how the Super Soldier serum corrupts people, but Bucky counters that it never corrupted Steve Rogers. Zemo concedes the point, but he adds that Steve would appear to be an exception to the rule, as there's never been another like him (having never heard of Isaiah Bradley).
• A Tragedy of Impulsiveness: Every fight that breaks out in the episode is a result of John becoming impatient and attempting to physically assert his authority over the situation, with worsening results, until it finally indirectly creates the circumstances that get Lemar killed.
• Trauma Conga Line: After being distrusted, mocked, challenged, disrespected, spat upon, and stymied in his investigations in the previous episodes, John Walker's torment continues in this episode where he loses the Flag-Smashers again due to a combination of his impulsiveness and Sam's caution, gets his ass handed to him on a vibranium plate by the Dora Milaje, and then his best friend gets killed by Karli, which leads to an enraged Walker brutally murdering her second-in-command, in full view of horrified civilians.
• Trial Balloon Question: Walker, having secretly gotten his hands on the last vial of the serum, starts a "hypothetical" discussion with Lemar about whether it would be a good idea to take it. Lemar enthusiastically says that he would if given the chance, assures Walker that he always makes the right decisions in battle, and even laments that they could have saved even more lives in Afghanistan if they had the serum at the time. As a result, Lemar unwittingly encourages John to take the serum, indirectly setting the rest of the episode's events in motion.
• Underestimating Badassery: Walker ignores Sam's warning about the Dora Milaje, clearly not thinking much of them since they're just humans and he's been fighting super soldiers. He gets a painful lesson on just how wrong he is.
• Unstoppable Rage: When Lemar is killed, Walker brutally murders the first Flag-Smasher that he catches, which happens to be Karli's friend and second-in-command, Nico.
• Verbal Backspace: Karli tells Sam that she wants to kill her political opponents, then insists that was not what she meant.
• Vigilante Injustice: Ayo invokes this when she claims the Dora Milaje have jurisdiction wherever they are.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: When the Dora Milaje and Walker go at it, Zemo uses the opportunity to escape through a hidden passage in the bathroom.
  Sam: I can't believe he pulled an El Chapo.
• Villain Has a Point:
  • Sam (and by extension the show) acknowledges that Karli has a very legitimate grievance, i.e., that during The Blip, borders became meaningless, and the labor-starved nations of the world welcomed anyone who could help rebuild, only to take their new homes and jobs away from them when The Blip was over, forcing them to live in squalor in refugee camps while awaiting "repatriation".
  • Zemo raises a very legitimate point about the super soldier serum that echoes some arguments about nuclear proliferation and American Gun Politics: as Dr. Erskine said back in Captain America: The First Avenger, the serum is a weapon with no inherent morality of its own, and magnifies everything about the recipient. And most people aren't Ideal Heroes like Steve Rogers, so proliferation of the serum (and by extension other MCU means of Super-Empowering) is inherently dangerous to the public. That this conversation foreshadows Walker taking the serum and proceeding to brutally murder Nico with Rogers' shield just serves to emphasize the point.
• Villain Respect: Sam finds himself receiving this from both Zemo and Karli.
  • Despite his overall distaste for the Avengers, Zemo admires Sam for his convictions, which only goes further when he asks Sam whether he'd take the serum if he could, Sam responds "no" without any hesitation. And as he's monologuing about how anyone who takes the serum will be corrupted, Bucky says that Steve never was — and Zemo shrugs and says "Touché," showing that he has respect for Steve, too.
  • Sam makes two separate attempts to try and solve the conflict with Karli through diplomacy. Through a combination of John Walker ruining any attempt at negotiation and Karli remaining steadfast that she can't stop now, she still finds herself liking Sam and wishing that he'd fight for her side.
• Weaponized Exhaust: Sam uses the thruster on his flight pack to singe one of the Flag-Smashers when he's grabbed from behind.
• We Can Rule Together: Downplayed, but during their second conversation, Karli openly espouses interest in the concept of Sam joining the Flag-Smashers due to his sympathies for the cause. In her mind, she is the heroic side, and Sam is a hero who is unfortunately fighting for the oppressors.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Sam tells Karli that he agrees with her cause, but the means that she is using to pursue it are completely unacceptable.
• We Used to Be Friends: Ayo and Bucky are shown to be friendly during Bucky's stay in Wakanda, both emotionally relieved that the latter is free from his Winter Soldier deprogramming. Bucky's decision to free Zemo and begrudgingly defend Walker seems to have tainted Ayo's fondness for him, and her suddenly deactivating his arm without warning also clearly sends Bucky into shock, flying in the face of the work that they did together to improve his health.
• Wham Shot: Walker throwing the shield hard enough to embed it in the wall, confirming that he took the serum off-screen after a couple of subtle hints. In case the viewer chalks that up to a lucky throw, he definitely shows it by kicking Dovich across a room and bending a metal pipe as if it were made of putty.
  Sam: [after watching Walker scare off Dovich] What did you do?
• What Measure Is a Mook?: Subverted. Walker treats Lamar's death as a tragedy of the highest order, with the fight pausing to note the death and his response to it. However, it also shows the horror of him chasing down a random Flag Smasher to demand to know where Karli is, only to beat the man to death in front of a crowd as he pleads, "It wasn't me!". It's treated as a monstrous act, with the moment that follows forming the page image above.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Ayo calls out Bucky for allowing Zemo, the same man who killed the previous king of Wakanda, to assist them in finding the Flag-Smashers instead of rotting in prison. Bucky understands this and assures her that Zemo is a "means to an end", and is given eight hours before Ayo and the rest of the Dora Milaje come to take Zemo.
• What You Are in the Dark: When Zemo sees the vials of Super Soldier serum at his feet, he smashes them without hesitation, never once considering taking such power for himself. This contrasts with Walker, who knocks Zemo unconscious then pockets the one vial Zemo hadn't broken yet, ultimately using it on himself when his inferiority complex gets the better of him.
• The Whole World Is Watching: That's the episode's literal name, reflecting the pressure John Walker is feeling in his new role as Captain America. And at the end, as he ruthlessly kills one of the Flag-Smashers, people with cell phones are shown not far away recording it and then him standing with his blood-stained shield. The implication is clear: the entire world is going to see this.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Walker takes the Super Soldier Serum and, in doing so, gains the physical acumen of Captain America. It also unhinges him. After everything he has been through this episode already, it drives him to murder one of the Flag-Smashers in broad daylight.
• Willfully Weak: Sam and Bucky when fighting the Dora Milaje. As they were allies who fought together against Thanos, neither of them wanted to harm them and only wanted to stop them from killing Walker and Lemar and negotiate with them to let Zemo be with them for a little while longer. Bucky not fighting back at all and Wilson not using his suit is the only reason the Dora Milaje wipes the floor with them, being that as members of the Avengers, not even the Dora Milaje would be able to defeat them had Sam and Bucky been pulling all the cards on their sleeve. Although this comes off as the right decision as the Dora Milaje quickly decide to leave them unharmed after beating them, seemingly realizing that the two members of the Avengers were really sincere in their desire to resolve things peacefully, while they still wanted to kill Lemar and Walker and only decided against it as it would be a waste of time.
• Would Harm a Child: Although she claims that she wouldn't have actually hurt them, Karli has no problem threatening the lives of Sam's nephews to make sure Sam comes to their meeting alone.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: Zemo, once again, demonstrates his ability to adjust his plans as events unfold, so that he accomplishes his objectives.
  • When he's informed that the Dora Milaje have come to take him into custody and Bucky has only bought him a few hours, he secures intelligence on the Flag-Smashers for Sam and Bucky and refuses to share it, making him indispensable. He even reinforces the suspicions of his information source so they can't do what he did.
  • After Sam fails to talk Karli down and the Flag-Smashers scatter, he tracks her down inside the building and shoots her; cutting the head off the snake, as it were. As she scrambles to find cover, she knocks over the case containing the super serum. Seeing this, Zemo prioritizes smashing the vials and allows her to escape. Without the serum, the Flag-Smashers are limited to the super soldiers they already have, whereas with it they could potentially create even more than the remaining 12 vials they have left, with the right expertise. Even Walker stopping him before he can stomp the last vial works in his favor because Walker proceeds to go Jumping Off the Slippery Slope and provides another proof for his Cape Busters motivation. However, this is a happy accident on Zemo's part, as he didn't anticipate being interrupted, much less by the one man who would be tempted.
  • When the Dora openly broke into their hideout to get him, he decides that his time with Sam and Bucky is at an end, one way or another. So when the collective tensions of Sam, Bucky, Walker, and Ayo have them punching each other, he uses the opportunity to "pull an El Chapo" and escape through a tunnel in the bathroom.

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