After the first two episodes of The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, there wasn’t that much to shout about. Underdeveloped villains and their recycled tropes of doing bad for good and a new, rather uninteresting Captain America stand out most of all, but The Falcon and The Winter Soldier’s action sequences and a team-up between Bucky and Sam kept us hanging in there.
Safe to say, as the credits rolled for Episode 3, there was a great deal more to shout about. So much so, it’s hard to know where to begin. Action-packed is something of an understatement. “Power Broker” welcomes two new characters into the Disney+ ring, last seen during Captain America: Civil War.
There’s Emily VanCamp as Sharon Carter, Peggy Carter’s great-niece, and Helmut Zemo, a former Sokovian Colonel responsible for tearing apart the Avengers. Let’s begin with Sharon. She’s certainly not the same woman we knew during Civil War, arguably more bitter but no less lethal when she’s kicking bounty hunter butts. After Shield fell, she was forced off the grid, abandoning her family without the back-up of the Avengers. You’ve got to feel bad for her, and rightfully so, the writers gave Sharon her due.
Then we move onto Helmut Zemo, who is becoming something of a meme with his dancing moves, (yes he’s likely going to turn on our heroes at some point soon, but who knew Zemo could be so cheeky and likeable). He’s broken out of prison by Barnes, who with Sam, travel with this rogue Sokovian Colonel to Madripoor.
Here we learn of the titular ‘Power Broker’, a mysterious antagonist we’ve seen yet to see who employed Dr. Wilfred Nagel to create the serum after the events of Civil War and Hydra’s fall. Long story short, while Nagel was able to perfect a refined version of the serum. This is news to our heroes considering Nagel turned to dust, courtesy of Thanos.
Karli Morgenthau stole the vials Nagel had created with the Power Broker none too happy. So the question remains, who is this mysterious Power Broker? In the closing moments of the episode, as Bucky, Sam and Zemo arrive in Riga, Latvia, to track down Karli Morgenthau, Bucky meets Ayo, a member of the Dora Milaje, Wakanda’s all-female special forces, out of revenge against Zemo for King T’Chaka.
