Quoting Dr. Erskine to young Steve - “...The serum amplifies everything that is inside, so good becomes great; bad becomes worse. This is why you were chosen. Because the strong man who has known power all his life, may lose respect for that power, but a weak man knows the value of strength, and knows... compassion.”

Well I mean most of the people in the MCU are assholes...

Vulnerable yes, i thought it interesting that this time around, instead of being armed by codes, he is disarmed (no pun intended)

Don’t forget that Bucky had been working on it for 2-ish years. The entire time out of the freezer in Wakanda was a giant therapy session trying to recover from 50 years of torture.

Thank you for sharing part of your story. I guess I would wonder if there is a difference between a serum that makes you feel significantly better, but still within the range of “normal health/fitness” and a serum that makes you the absolute pinnacle of human strength, stamina, etc... like it does for Cap, Walker, the…

Well, you’re right about that. I don’t disagree at all.

It’s not as if there’s only one therapist who can only block out a certain amount of time and the government has to pick one of these two guys to go. Bucky’s clear need for therapy does not negate John also needing it. Besides, you’d think the government would want to completely clear (and regularly check in on)…

They both walk around with severe trauma. I understand the rubric, but the rubric is flawed! And when the rubric is flawed you get a man brutally murdering someone in public. 

I know what you’re trying to say, but I’m speaking very much to my own experience. I was sick for a long time without knowing it and then, after medication, I felt significantly better.

To be fair, Bucky spent 60 years as a brain-washed murderbot and John Walker didn’t. It’s not *that* hard to figure out why one of them was mandated therapy and the other wasn’t.

Which is weird, because it shouldn’t be that way. Take away the vibranium left arm and you still have a one-armed super soldier with super speed, super strength, super reflexes, and super durability. I think it was just the mental shock of being so rapidly disarmed that froze him.

... the way that the characters deify Steve as the only person to respond well to the serum feels remarkably unfounded. It’s not that Steve was a better person than anyone, but the situation behind him taking the serum has yet to be repeated.

lol, Bucky is still vulnerable to being totally owned by anyone who knows the secret codes to him, now it’s just a tactile code

“In fact, the way that the characters deify Steve as the only person to respond well to the serum feels remarkably unfounded.”

the opening scene was heartbreaking; beautiful acting, and another angle of insight into the damage done by what Bucky went through, from brainwashing to recovery.

1. Bucky, Walker, and Lamar come in.

That’s funny that you pointed out the similarity to the shadow broker name because one of my thoughts while watching was “they definitely had to use power broker because shadow broker is already taken, right?”

My goodness, that opening scene with Ayo and Bucky had me from the start. She’s so good! And him initially fighting back tears in fear of becoming the killing machine again only to realize he’s free and cry out of joy hit so well!

Bucky’s “You’re doing great!” when Sam asks if they should do something was the best. Mackie and Stan nailed the delivery.

Enjoyed this episode and considered a vast improvement of the previous, as small of a hurdle as that is. It was still really dumb a lot of the time, but in a way that wasn’t distracting and it had those character moments that allowed just being in that moment in the screen. Although I will admit I was a bit amused how…