The Falcon & The Winter Soldier (Kari Skogland, Aug 2020, Disney+) • Page 6

But then they threw the closeup of the list in after that just to make extra sure.

 

This is one that probably would benefit from the drop everything at once and binge model vs week to week. There’s not much to speculate on so you’re like “That was good. Can’t wait for next week.” and move on where WandaVision was helped by the time in between and all the speculation fueled its popularity.

 

I’m sure the show will be even more interesting when Zemo appears

 

no Zemo or Sharon Carter in the first ep when the whole season is 6 episodes long definitely surprised me. the payoff should be good, but yeah, this kinda felt like the setup act of a movie more than a television episode

 

Steve is probably back in the alternate Earth where he married and grew old with Peggy Carter. I don’t think he’s on this Earth at all anymore.

 

I don’t think that’s an alternate reality is it? Isn’t it just that 1945 is now his future??

 

yeah i took it like david said. certainly a lot of different possibilities but it feels pretty obvious they kept the door open to eventually have a return if they so choose

 

Well, so the way it works in this series’ logic is as the Hulk describes it in Endgame. If you travel to the past and change something then that past becomes your future and the present day you left behind becomes your past. So by going back in time and being with Peggy, Steve has created a branch universe where he and Peggy are together in the past. He shows back up in our timeline as an old man to pass on the mantle, presumably (and this is very much my assumption here since, in our timeline, Peggy has already died as well and old Steve seems pretty wistful) because Peggy has died and he’s reflecting on the long life he lived with her. So whether or not he went back to his new timeline, or stayed here in ours now that Peggy is gone and maybe he’s just in hiding as an old man or something, is undetermined.

The timeline stuff was confirmed by the Russos in an interview somewhere.

Edit: This was also elaborated on by Tilda Swinton’s Ancient One character when she was discussing the ramifications of removing the stones from the timeline with Bruce.

Edit 2: This is also why the Avengers couldn’t just go back and change the past with Thanos, stopping him from snapping his fingers. That wouldn’t change their past. What happened, happened. That’s why they could only go back to the past, rob it of the stones momentarily, and then bring them to the present to change their future. That’s why they could only bring everyone back from being dusted after the five years had passed rather than preferably stopping it from happening in the first place or bringing everyone back from the snap just seconds later. They can’t change the last five years and stop them from happening. If they did that, then that would be a new branch timeline and they would be leaving theirs behind to continue suffering without their lost loved ones. That’s also why when we see Peggy as an old woman, she had married someone else and lived her entire life apart from Steve. So effectively the Peggy that Steve ends up with after the events of Endgame WAS our Peggy up until the moment Steve came back for her. At that point she branched off into Alternate Peggy.

 

Damn I didn't realize it was only 6 episodes that's a bummer

 

Solid first episode, cool to get a closer look into the issues these two are having and I'm into the idea of the government trying to have their own Captain America because of course they would.

 

Yeah, I'm just going with "Steve's dead" lol

 

lol so much easier.

 

Like... how exactly did Steve find his way back to *this* universe in that scenario? Seems like so much more head-canon to keep in place compared to either "too old for this shit" or "too dead for this shit" but that's just me /shrug

 

I mean, yeah, basically it’s best to just view it that way regardless because the timey wimey stuff doesn’t really matter (for now anyway...). An attempt to explain how old Steve came back always runs along the lines of “well he’s got the time travel mechanism with him when he leaves to go return the stones to the times and places they were taken from so he must use it to come back of his own accord. Maybe, in his new timeline, he enlists the help of Howard Stark and Hank Pym. I don’t know, doesn’t really matter.”

 

Since Steve overstayed in the past I just rationalized it as he didn’t come back exactly to the return pad when Hulk activated it. But yeah based on the time travel logic that the movie establishes, when Steve went back to the past to stay with Peggy he created an alternate timeline/universe where they spent their lives together. It made for a better image to have him just be on the bench watching the water than for him to just have reappeared on the pad as an old man, though, so I give them a pass on the logic of it.

 

They actually could have reversed the prior five years with the second snap, the Infinity Stones could have essentially undone everything and returned everyone to where they were five years ago. Tony made Cap swear they wouldn’t do that as a condition of him helping them, however, because he didn’t want to lose Morgan and the five years they spent together. So really, Tony is responsible for the Blip not being fully undone.

 

Oh really? I guess I didn’t realize that part. I thought Tony was just saying he didn’t want to lose Morgan in that he didn’t want to die and miss out on the good that had come out of the horror of the last five years, which he then realizes he has to double back on when the entire fate of humanity is at stake, including his own daughter’s future that will never come to pass if Thanos wins. So he chooses to sacrifice himself.

 

Yeah after Tony figures out how to make time travel work he makes Cap promise him that they’ll just bring everyone back, not undo the past five years. They shake on it.

 

I guess I just never took it that way, partially because of this:

Avengers: Endgame Directors Say Robert Downey Jr. Gave an “Awards-Caliber Performance”

Also, sorry for linking this particular site. Just couldn’t find the original source.

Edit: But yeah, I definitely understand how I misunderstood the five years thing.

Edit 2: Because somehow I was able to understand the silly time travel logic, but completely skated over this simple plot point because I is a dummy.

 

Yeah exactly, in that moment he realizes he has to die in order to save everyone, Morgan included. If anything, Tony requiring the Blip to not be undone ensures that he sacrifices himself.

 

Tony’s fate was pretty much sealed as soon as he decides not to throw the work for time travel into the lake

 

I think it's easier for me to accept Steve staying in the past without creating an alternate universe cause like... I just assume he settles down and gets boring with Peggy, so it doesn't spiral things off into a new alternate future/universe like removing an infinity stone would? Especially with him being "out of time" in the first place anyway.

Do we ever see a picture of the man Peggy ended up marrying instead of Steve? Cause I also have fun with the headcanon that it's been Steve all along (since he went back in time) and every time young Steve came to visit old Peggy, Old Steve had to like piss off to the market or something with all the family pics of him and Peggy to keep the loop going lol

 

It has to be what happened no matter what, though, because that’s how time travel works in this world.

Another explanation could be that a different Steve Rogers from another alternate timeline, one that was identical to the one that we are seeing, also traveled back in time, creating the timeline we’re seeing, and also decided to give Sam the shield, and that was the Steve that we saw on the bench.

 

Yeah my understanding of the way Ancient One explained it was that removing the stones caused splits and alternate realities. Steve's future simply being that he went back in time and stayed there shouldn't create an alternate reality under those rules, no?

The...possible paradox I guess?...seems to be that, if they thought Steve came back in 1945, why would they go looking for him in the ice, thus he'd never be thawed out in the future and etc.

 

Old Steve is Mephisto.