Sam’s Refusal to Fight
The season finale of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier wrapped up the story and answered the show’s biggest questions. Will Sam take up the shield? Is Karli going to win? And what is going to happen with John Walker? Some of these questions were open-ended while the others were completely answered. At the end of the day, it was a great finale that tied the various themes and characters.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the finale was Sam’s final showdown with Karli. The previous episode saw Karli taking her grandest action yet as she went after the GRC headquarters. This episode picks up right after as Karli and the Flagsmashers take control of the building. But when it came to the final showdown, there wasn’t much fighting. In fact, Sam explicitly refused to fight Karli in the final moments.
Back in episode 4, “The Whole World Is Watching,” we got to see a moment of genuine connection between Karli and Sam. Sam tried to talk Karli out of escalating her crimes further, and later on, Karli tried to talk Sam into joining her. These moments demonstrate that Sam and Karli are on similar paths. They both believe in the same causes, but their means are different.
Additionally, Sam’s refusal to fight shows off what kind of hero he wants to be. He doesn’t intend to go in punching but is willing to try and reach the other person. Sam has proven himself to be an understanding person throughout the show, no doubt because of his background counseling soldiers.
By using the shield as more than a weapon, Sam takes a stand for the kind of justice he’ll enact as Captain America. One that will try to serve as many people as possible, and one that is always willing to see the best in people. Even when Karli had a gun pointed between his eyes, Sam didn’t try to fight. He believed that Karli would make the right choice, and he was happy to give her that chance.
This kinder heroism is a stark contrast to John Walker’s brutal methods that raided camps and lead to unnecessary deaths. Walker saw the shield as the ultimate form of justification. He was Captain America, therefore his actions were just. That was what he took the shield to mean.
That self-serving justice backfired on Walker as he was stripped of the shield and title after taking the super soldier serum. Walker’s role as a darker reflection of Sam paid off here, in this single moment where Sam was willing to listen.
By contrasting the two Captain Americas, it gives us the audience a chance to ask what the shield means. What does it mean to be Captain America? The legacy of Steve Rogers has little to do with a vibranium disk and the stars and stripes. It has to do with character. By showing us the worst-case scenario in John Walker, it makes Sam’s use of the shield all the more poignant.
The fight with the Flagsmashers concludes after Karli’s death at Sharon’s hands, when Sam publicly scolds the members of the GRC. This was the highlight of the show for me. Sam told the senators not to call the Flagsmashers terrorists anymore, that the armed men they sent in camps around the world were hardly any better than the armed men who stormed their building.
Sam’s speech was a public announcement of who he is as Captain America. Like Steve, Sam went against the powers that be to stand up for individuals. The denouement of the episode gives us a hint of Sam’s impact on the world. We learn the GRC is no longer planning to displace the huge numbers of refugees after Sam’s speech. He won.
The Falcon and The Winter Soldier ran across six impactful episodes and brought them to a satisfying end. A new Captain America has risen to take the place of Steve — a proper one, not the knock-off version. By refusing to fight and standing up for those who he fought against because their cause was just, Sam proves that the shield has fallen into good hands and ushers in a new age of heroism in a post-Thanos world.
