Power Broker (The Falcon and the Winter Soldier)

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"Power Broker"
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier episode
The third of several art posters released for the series, with art by Bella Grace
Episode no.Episode 3
Directed byKari Skogland
Written byDerek Kolstad
Produced byMalcolm Spellman
Cinematography byP.J. Dillon
Editing by
Original release dateApril 2, 2021 (2021-04-02)
Running time53 minutes
Cast
  • Lemar Hoskins / Battlestar
  • Desmond Chiam as Dovich
  • Dani Deetee as Gigi
  • Indya Bussey as DeeDee
  • Renes Rivera as Lennox
  • Tyler Dean Flores as Diego
  • Noah Mills as Nico
  • Veronica Falcón
    as Donya Madani
  • Neal Kodinsky as Rudy
  • Nicholas Pryor as Oeznik
  • Imelda Corcoran as Selby
  • Olli Haaskivi as Wilfred Nagel
Episode chronology
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"Power Broker" is the third episode of the American television

Helmut Zemo to learn more about the creation of a new super-soldier serum. The episode is set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), sharing continuity with the films of the franchise. It was written by Derek Kolstad and directed by Kari Skogland
.

Atlanta metropolitan area
and in Prague.

"Power Broker" was released on the streaming service Disney+ on April 2, 2021. Critics were more mixed on the episode than previous ones, criticizing its multiple story elements and use of existing tropes, but many praised VanCamp's return as Sharon, the action sequences, and Brühl's performance. A brief moment of Zemo dancing spawned various internet memes and led to the release of additional footage.

Plot

Madripoor, a criminal sanctuary city-state run by the mysterious Power Broker
. Zemo asks Barnes to act as the Winter Soldier while Wilson poses as a gangster who frequents Madripoor.

After Zemo uses Barnes to get the attention of high-ranking criminal Selby, the group meet with her and reveals that

saves them from the bounty hunters.

Carter uses her connections in Madripoor to find Nagel's lab and takes Wilson, Barnes, and Zemo there. Nagel explains that he recreated twenty doses of the serum and they were stolen by the Flag Smashers' leader

Global Repatriation Council (GRC) storage facility in Lithuania
for supplies, and Morgenthau blows up the building with personnel inside to send a message.

Zemo, Barnes, and Wilson travel to

Dora Milaje
, who demands that Barnes hand Zemo to her.

Production

Development

By October 2018,

Louis D'Esposito, Victoria Alonso, and Nate Moore.[6]: 15  Derek Kolstad joined the writing team in July 2019,[7] and revealed in March 2021 that he had written the third episode,[8] which is titled "Power Broker".[9]

Writing

The episode visits the fictional country of

Helmut Zemo meet a character named Selby, which is the name of a mutant from the comics that understands binary code.[10] During writing, Spellman had not initially envisioned creating Madripoor, but instead a setting that was based on an "outlaw city that actually felt like Madripoor in real life", as the creative process had been focused on telling the best story possible. Eventually, the creative producers allowed them to integrate Madripoor into the MCU as they felt its qualities had appropriately aligned with their vision of the MCU.[11][12] Daniel Brühl was excited to portray Zemo with his comic-accurate outfit, and said the episode explored his backstory being an aristocratic baron, calling that "side" of Zemo "a bit arrogant, and posh, and suave". He also enjoyed Zemo's comedic moments in the episode, particularly during the scene in which Zemo, Wilson, and Barnes discuss Marvin Gaye.[13]

Spellman said the writers "geeked out" at being able to use Madripoor in the series, while co-executive producer Zoie Nagelhout felt it was incredible to introduce the country to the MCU and expand that world. Nagelhout said Madripoor was used to make Wilson and Barnes feel like "fish out of water", and also as a place to reintroduce

Wakanda. Matt Patches of Polygon felt including Ayo was satisfying for audiences and was a way to connect Wakanda to the series with "thematic resonance" beyond simply pulling from the MCU's lore because of Barnes' history with the nation, and because The Falcon and the Winter Soldier was dealing with racial issues in America and global class warfare which are themes that were addressed in Black Panther (2018).[18]

Casting

The episode stars Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes, Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson,

Veronica Falcón as Donya Madani, Neal Kodinsky as Rudy, Nicholas Pryor as Oeznik, Imelda Corcoran as Selby, and Olli Haaskivi as Wilfred Nagel.[19]: 48:50  Haaskivi originally auditioned for a character simply called "Doctor", and did not find out his actual role until a few days before filming. He researched the comics once he knew the name, but did not find much information on the character and felt he was able to create his own interpretation instead.[20]

Design

Production designer Ray Chan built the sets for Madripoor at

Atlanta, Georgia, as the production team originally planned to film Madripoor scenes in southeastern Asian countries such as Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam, but could not due to scheduling difficulties.[21] Skogland wanted to create a signature look for Madripoor, something that she hoped would be "exotic and a bit familiar but off-grid; to have a real street feel but be quite colorful and eye-popping". Many different real-world locations were used as inspiration for the fictional country.[14] Skogland and Chan had used a lookbook containing photographic references, while Chan also created concept art with Feige, which was later incorporated into the sets once they were approved.[22] Cinematographer P.J. Dillon wanted to make sure the final product had the feeling and tone of the concept art, knowing that the team wanted it to be dark, but colorful. He added that Madripoor was subconsciously inspired by Blade Runner, feeling that every futuristic sci-fi show "absolutely references" the franchise because it set the benchmark.[23] The Madripoor location had influences from Asian style and culture, and was divided into two regions, Hightown and Lowtown. Chan and art director Jennifer Bash researched Vietnam and was inspired by the "almost claustrophobic space" people lived in. Costume designer Michael Crow had also added that the "general idea was to create something that didn't have a specific time or a specific place to it". When choosing the color palette of the location, Crow had used green, brown, gray, and darker shades of blue and purple in order to give it a "greasy grimy feel" and an "oil slick kind of vibe to it", and had mainly implemented this color palette for Lowtown, but was also used for Hightown. The team also researched real-world gangs, mafias, and criminal groups located around the world and incorporated that into the design. While designing Hightown, Crow wanted to maintain the "oil slick vibe" but also wanted it to represent the richer class of the residents. He wanted to "elevate" the fashion, but wanted to "make it feel a little seedy and have a little bit of a dark undertone".[24] Chan built steel bridges and commissioned many custom neon signs and over 80 light boxes for the set.[21] As for the Brass Monkey bar, Skogland described it as being like a street bar that had a sense of it "emerging out of the bricks" from the starting bridge location.[14] The Brass Monkey Saloon contained a 270 degree aquarium with 100 Orange goldfish, while a Los Angeles graffiti artist, Jake, decorated the wall with a "unique style of gangster art".[21]

Filming and visual effects

Filming took place at Pinewood Atlanta Studios in Atlanta,

Atlanta metropolitan area and in Prague.[27][28] Prior to filming the shipyard action sequence, VanCamp had discussions with the stunt team regarding how they would depict Sharon's combat style. They felt that as the comic books depicted her as a competent special agent, the choreography was essential in demonstrating her fighting capabilities. As such, during the shipyard combat sequence, Sharon uses any weapons she can find for fighting, which VanCamp felt "made it a little bit more brutal and gritty and interesting" and described the stunt training as being challenging.[17] Similarly, Bruhl was excited at being able to portray Zemo with his mask and bought comics during filming to understand his character better.[29] Additionally, he also improvised a moment in which he plays with Barnes' chin cleft and said there were a "couple of takes where he couldn't deal with it" and enjoyed how his "funky choices" had been used in the final footage.[30]

External videos
video icon One Hour Dancing Zemo | Marvel Studios' The Falcon and the Winter Soldier | Disney+ presents the full dance sequence with Zemo as an hour-long loop, YouTube video from Marvel Entertainment's channel

A brief moment of Zemo dancing and fist pumping in the episode spawned various internet memes after its release. This was improvised during filming by Brühl, who felt that since Zemo had been in prison for years he needed to "let off some steam and show his moves". He thought it would be cut from the final episode.[31] Approximately 30 seconds of footage existed of Brühl dancing, more than what was included in the episode, and Marvel released the full sequence on social media on April 8, 2021, along with a looping hour-long version.[32] VanCamp called filming during that day as "insane", and said footage also existed for Mackie and Wilson dancing too.[17] Disney's president of marketing, Asad Ayaz, said his team was aware of fan reactions and trends on social media, and when they saw that Zemo dancing was a trending topic they worked quickly to release all of the available footage. Ayaz felt this was "not traditional marketing and advertising, but... a sensation" that "just took off".[33] Despite the COVID-19 pandemic affecting various parts of the series' production, Oduye and Mackie were able to film the phone call scene where Sarah accidentally blows Wilson's cover in Madripoor together, with Oduye calling Mackie generous for doing that so she did not have to talk to a random person.[34]

Visual effects for the episode were created by

criminal underworld, with Rodeo FX Producer Graeme Marshall citing Singapore and Shanghai as additional sources of inspiration for Madripoor. They also had to make the appearance of Madripoor consistent across the episode, and did so by repositioning establishing shots. The establishing shots were created from plate footage filmed in Prague, with the "Trojo Bridge" [sic] being a main focal point.[36]

Music

Selections from composer

Marketing

On March 19, 2021, Marvel announced a series of posters that were created by various artists to correspond with the episodes of the series. The posters were released weekly ahead of each episode,

Mystique, Daken, and Krakoa, as well as Shang-Chi; these names were later removed from the site.[43]

Release

"Power Broker" was released on Disney+ on April 2, 2021.[44] In March 2022, an alternate cut of the episode with certain scenes edited, censoring and removing some instances of blood, was accidentally published on the platform in place of the original version. This was done in an attempt to correct a credit in the episode, and Disney said the original version would be restored.[45] The episode, along with the rest of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, will be released on Ultra HD Blu-ray and Blu-ray on April 30, 2024.[46]

Reception

Audience viewership

Nielsen Media Research, who measure the number of minutes watched by United States audiences on television sets, listed The Falcon and the Winter Soldier as the second most-watched original series across streaming services for the week of March 29 to April 4, 2021. Between the first three episodes, which were available at the time, the series had 628 million minutes viewed, which was identical to the previous week.[47]

Critical response

The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported an 86% approval rating with an average score of 6.9/10 based on 36 reviews. The site's critical consensus reads, "Falcon and the Winter Soldier is still spreading its wings when it should be soaring during this transitionary installment, but 'Power Broker' is still a lot of fun thanks to the return of Daniel Brühl and Emily VanCamp to the MCU."[48]

Sulagna Misra at The A.V. Club was critical of the episode, giving it a "C" grade, saying it "seems to be about gathering intel on the super-soldier serum and the Flag-Smashers, and even expanding Sam and Bucky's universe of associates. But it seems most interested in playing into action movie tropes more than anything else", and Misra felt it failed at that, elaborating, "The whole episode, I was just thinking of the times I've seen better versions of each of these scenes." She was also critical of the episode's characterizations, especially Sharon's which she described as a "failure of writing".[9] Alan Sepinwall of Rolling Stone said the episode was "mostly just competent and not much more. We know Marvel Studios is capable of doing much better." Sepinwall compared the episode's action to Marvel Television's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. since it felt "pretty utilitarian" and was "cobbled together from ideas that have been done to death elsewhere, in the hopes that the mere presence of familiar (or, in some cases, semi-familiar) faces from the MCU will make it seem brand new and thrilling". He did enjoy Brühl's performance as Zemo.[49] Writing for Entertainment Weekly, Chancellor Agard was ambivalent on the episode, saying it moved the story forward but was not satisfying enough on its own, and indicated that the show's creators were trying to stretch a two-hour film across six episodes. Agard did find that the introduction of Zemo helped to complicate the Wilson/Barnes dynamic while avoiding hitting the same beats as the previous episode, and he enjoyed Zemo's assessment of Trouble Man along with Ayo's appearance. He had a "cold and unsatisfied" feeling with the Nagel scene, even though he felt the exposition was necessary, and ultimately gave the episode a "B−". His colleague Christian Holub added, "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is definitely playing with some interesting ideas, but I don't yet have the sense that the show knows exactly what it wants to do or say with them", feeling a bit confused by the various story elements but intrigued by what their conclusions would be.[50]

Matt Purslow of IGN was more positive on the episode, calling it a "chunky chapter that efficiently unpacks many of the story's main plot threads" while also not sacrificing character development. He praised Brühl's performance, noting that his line delivery came with "a small smile and a dash of dry humor", and pointed out the similarities in the episode to the John Wick films which were created by this episode's writer Kolstad. Purslow concluded that after three episodes the series was "firing on all cylinders", and gave "Power Broker" a 9 out of 10.[51] Den of Geek's Gavin Jasper gave it 4.5 out of 5 stars and felt it was a "breath of fresh air" and a true sequel to Captain America: Civil War (2016) since it was "a new spin on the same general concept". Jasper said Brühl's performance made Zemo "incredibly likeable and charismatic", likening it to Loki's role in Thor: The Dark World (2013), and was hopeful Marvel was planting the seeds to eventually introduce the Thunderbolts team from the comics to the MCU. Jasper did criticize the origins of the Flag Smashers, since it felt like "the status quo is the status quo and the MCU refuses to be changed too much by the developments of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier".[52]

Notes

  1. ^ As depicted in Captain America: Civil War (2016).

References

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External links