Sam and Bucky head to Madripoor with Baron Zemo in tow as we recap The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Episode 3, “Power Broker.” With Zemo on the team, it’s off to Low Town to find clues about who gave the Flag Smashers the Super Soldier Serum… Leading to a reunion with Sharon Carter, a.k.a. Agent 13. But that’s just the beginning, as things go predictably wrong, and things start exploding. And meanwhile, John Walker is one step behind…

From that surprise cameo by Ayo from Black Panther to Smiling Tiger to whether Madripoor is teeing up the X-Men, we break down all the Falcon and the Winter Soldier Easter eggs and comic book references in Episode 3.

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Full Episode Transcript

Alex:                 Welcome to MarvelVision, a podcast about Marvel the MCU and Falcon and Winter Soldier. I’m Alex.

Justin:              I’m Justin.

Pete:                I’m Pete. Zalben, this is your ep, buddy, huh? You excited?

Alex:                 Number-one Baron Zemo-

Pete:                To see your dad on screen?

Alex:                 … fan over here. My time has finally come. My ship has come in. We’re going to be talking about Power Broker, the third episode of the series. Now, requisite spoiler warning here. If you haven’t watched the episode, go watch it. I’m sure you woke up at 3:00 AM just as we all did-

Justin:              Just like us.

Alex:                 … and we’ve been talking about it nonstop for the past couple of hours-

Pete:                Nonstop.

Alex:                 … just really breaking down, heavily scripting this show. So we are ready to go.

Justin:              I like to get up at like 3:02 to really let it marinate a little bit for those first couple minutes and then press play, you know?

Pete:                Wow.

Alex:                 Yes. 100 percent, and also, I like to just sort of fairly let people have the chance to watch it. So that’s why I-

Pete:                [crosstalk 00:01:03 ].

Justin:              Exactly. Before I start shouting spoilers on Twitter, I wait until 3:02 .

Pete:                Super nice of you guys.

Justin:              Of course, Alex, you scream first when you press play on it, right?

Alex:                 Every time for every show-

Justin:              Dope.

Alex:                 … even when it’s just on broadcast-

Pete:                [crosstalk 00:01:16 ].

Alex:                 … [crosstalk 00:01:16 ]. I’m first.

Justin:              At Broadway performances, you’re like “First. Yeah. I love this.”

Alex:                 So in this episode, just to give you the broad strokes, this picks up right where we left off pretty much in-

Pete:                53 minutes.

Alex:                 Left off in episode two as Sam and Bucky have gone to visit Zemo in prison to get information on the Power Broker. They don’t know about the Power Broker yet, but find out about the Power Broker, find out how the Flag-Smashers got the Super Soldier Serum and what’s going on with that. He has researched that over the years. So they think he’s going to be a good source, but of course, as we suspected the last episode of this podcast, they end up actually breaking Zemo out of jail and teaming up with him-

Justin:              We called it.

Alex:                 … in a hilarious buddy comedy, and they head to none other than Madripoor, which is a very important location for-

Justin:              I love this.

Alex:                 … X-Men fans. I’m sure we’ll get into this a bit. That’s where they meet Sharon Carter, who’s been hanging out there. They get into a big action scuffle there, find out more about the Super Soldier Serum, head on the next chapter of their journey, while in the background, John Walker and Battlestar are hot on their heels and just getting hotter on their heels as we go, and when we leave off, they’ve gone to investigate the next lead, and enter Wakanda. That’s where we leave off at the end there. So lots to talk about in this episode.

Pete:                Hey-oh.

Justin:              Hey-oh.

Alex:                 I’m curious. I think we’ve talked about this a little bit, and I know Pete’s going to yell at me because he never likes anything negative to be said. So I’ll caveat this with I continue to have fun watching this series. I enjoy part of this, but I’m still not 100 percent sure what’s going on with the characters necessarily and the themes. It’s starting to feel much more muddled to me episode by episode-

Pete:                You’ve only got-

Alex:                 … while-

Pete:                … three more eps left.

Alex:                 Sure, and it might all wrap up. That’s why I’m holding off for the moment on making any broad judgments, but I definitely felt, too, with this episode, a lot of it was setting up plot but not focusing on the part that I’m most interested in personally, which is Sam and his battle for the shield.

Pete:                Dora Milaje.

Alex:                 That was only very tangentially touched on, and it feels like a lot of the themes in the episode are not touching on that either. They’re there to service the super soldier plot. What’s your guys’ takeaway? Are you feeling the same way? Or you completely disagree?

Pete:                No, no. First off, first off-

Alex:                 Pete, I know.

Pete:                … go fuck yourself.

Alex:                 Wait. Pete, just to frame up for anybody who’s new to this podcast, Pete knows that if I say anything bad about Marvel movies or TV shows, that’s it. They’re not going to make any more.

Justin:              Yep. They’re shutting it down.

Pete:                All right. So-

Justin:              Atlanta? They shut it down.

Pete:                So first off, no. That is not my point. My point is all you’ve been doing is being like “Man, I can’t wait for Zemo. Oh, man. Just give me a Zemo ep. Where’s my god damn Zemo ep?” You get a whole Zemo ep. Zemo dances. Zemo puts on the mask. You don’t know if he’s going to put on the mask, but then he woops ass with the mask on then takes it off and being all cool. You get to see his rides. You get to see his style. All you get is Zemo in this ep, and then you have the balls to turn around and go “Muddled. I want to know about the characters.” Shut the fuck up.

Justin:              Yeah. Yeah.

Pete:                Eat your popcorn and enjoy the ride, because you’re getting-

Alex:                 Eat your popcorn?

Justin:              Eat your popcorn.

Pete:                You’re getting exactly what you fucking wanted.

Alex:                 Yeah. I mean, hold on. I’ll tell you what I do, Pete, because a lot of people on the podcast don’t necessarily know this, and you know this, of course. That’s why you brought it up. Because we watch these episodes first thing in the morning, I’ll set the popcorn maker on a timer the night before.

Justin:              Oh, so smart.

Pete:                Because you’re smart. Because you’re smart.

Alex:                 So I wake up to those sweet, sweet sounds of … and if I don’t get there in two and a half minutes, I’m screwed. That’s burnt popcorn, baby.

Justin:              Yeah, and of course you-

Pete:                Oh, man. Nothing worse than that.

Justin:              You purchased one of those Coke machines where it’s just a bunch of buttons and you can get any flavor of soda.

Alex:                 Freestyle? Yeah.

Justin:              Freestyle.

Alex:                 Absolutely.

Justin:              You got one of those in the house. You hired an usher there, who’s like “Hey, man. Feet off the seats. Enough of that.”

Pete:                Yeah. He says-

Alex:                 Yeah. I hired-

Pete:                Can I see your tickets?

Alex:                 I was like “Listen. I want a surprisingly aggressive usher,” and they’re out of work right now. So I’m just helping the community.

Pete:                Surprisingly-

Justin:              Flashlight in your face.

Pete:                … aggressive.

Justin:              Obviously, and for those of you that don’t know, Pete is Alex’s father, and Alex wanted Zemo for his birthday, and then Pete got it for him, and clearly it wasn’t enough for Alex.

Pete:                It was enough. You know, do you know how long I had to stand in line to get that Zemo for you? They were almost out.

Alex:                 I appreciate it.

Pete:                I had to fight off a little-

Alex:                 They gave you the vaccine at the sam