Spoilers for the first episode of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier - "New World Order" - lie ahead.
Marvel and Disney+’s newest series, The Falcon and the Winter Solider has finally made its debut. With the series taking place roughly six months after the events of Avengers: Endgame (a.k.a. “post-Blip”), series star Anthony Mackie is revealing why the Blip is looked at differently in Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes' eyes.
When Bruce Banner snapped his fingers and brought everyone back, he created what is now known as “The Blip.” Everyone who vanished at the end of Avengers: Infinity War returned, albeit five years later. The term was established in Spider-Man: Far From Home but, in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, there’s another term that can be used, at least for Bucky and Sam, according to Anthony Mackie. During a virtual launch event for the series, Mackie revealed that the two heroes are trying to navigate a new reality without Captain America:
Most people say ‘post-blip’ but I think for the two of them, it’s ‘post-Steve.’ They’re trying to figure out how to acclimate themselves to this new reality.
In The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Sam is trying to get back to his family life. While he was gone for five years, his sister and nephews were living life as normal as they could, and they are now in financial troubles. Meanwhile, Bucky is also trying to get back to his life, in he’s not fighting and trying to make amends and is even seeing a therapist. The show’s director, Kari Skogland, mentioned that it may be hard for the heroes to get back into things:
Sam has blipped back, so his family life has continued while he’s gone, so he’s going to have to reintegrate into that. And Bucky has changed. And he has maybe healed. Maybe not.
While Sam and Bucky know what really happened to Captain America and why he gave Sam the shield, what the rest of the world thinks happened to him is questionable. It could have been said that Cap died and sacrificed himself during the battle with Thanos, but it’s also not known if the elderly Steve is still alive after passing on the shield, since he could have died of old age. Watching Sam and Bucky navigate this new world without Steve Rogers will be interesting, especially when they finally get together. In the premiere episode, it was revealed that Sam was texting Bucky, but Bucky never replied back to him. Only Sam knows how Bucky feels and vice versa, but just how will that help them in the long run?
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier still has five episodes to go and, while it’s hard to predict just how the series will go, one thing’s for certain: The post-Blip, or post-Steve, world will be a hard one for Sam and Bucky, no matter what they do. Check out the next episode when it drops on Disney+ on Friday.
