Warning: SPOILERS follow for the entire season of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
With The Falcon and the Winter Soldier now complete and any and all surprises revealed, it has been noted that there were no upcoming MCU cameos - and with good reason. Although MCU films teased upcoming movie releases from Phase 1 onward, hiccups in the schedule of MCU films, owing to COVID-19, disrupted the intended schedule for cinematic releases. The film most in keeping with the themes of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier would have been Black Widow, but had the projects been released in order, Black Widow would have enjoyed a theatrical release in May of 2020, and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier would have followed it in August of that year.
Re-shoots could have included a new cameo promoting one of the upcoming films - Spider-Man: No Way Home has a New York-based protagonist conspicuously absent in the dramatic scenes set in that city. The series focused more on the MCU's future, after Falcon and Winter Soldier, laying the groundwork with potential antagonists including Sharon Carter and Baron Zemo. In a very real sense, the series did feature cameos, but primarily for projects that do not yet have release dates. It would be easy to imagine that Carter will end up an antagonist in Armor Wars, and the end of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier dovetailed into the announcement of Captain America 4.
Having The Falcon and the Winter Soldier remain fairly self-contained within the cast necessary to the series allowed for a greater focus on unity of theme. Phase 1 cameos like Nick Fury appearing in Iron Man were reserved for post-credit stingers, hinting at subsequent films yet to come, while the last episode of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier did have a mid-credit stinger, it focused on Sharon Carter. Revealed after many hints to be the Power Broker, Sharon Carter is seen talking on the phone promising access to U.S. Government secrets and technologies. While it lacks the surprising twist that Nick Fury or Thor's hammer in a crater in the desert provided, it serves the same purpose – hinting at and establishing the groundwork for a subsequent film or series.
It would do a disservice to the upcoming Black Widow film to cameo Yelena Belova, even if the release dates had worked out as intended. The climax of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier focused on Sam Wilson's journey to becoming Captain America. While Bucky may have backstory ties to the Black Widow project in the comics, this would have drawn focus in an already tightly-paced series, unless more time was dedicated to Yelena's appearance. The hypothetical cameo would therefore be caught between a rock and a hard place: Either wedge in Yelena Belova to meet Bucky, but not allow her enough screen time to properly introduce the character, or disrupt the pacing of an already short series.
Although part of the MCU canon, both WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier have existed a step apart from the conventions of the films. They haven't been afraid to make bold declarative statements about what's going on in the MCU, but they're also paced very differently, and with the apparent intent to allow people to enjoy the films even if they haven't seen the series. It's a difficult needle to thread, as bigger changes make the series more interesting and engaging but run the risk of alienating potential future moviegoers without a Disney+ account. Happily, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier has split the difference, introducing just enough that can be recapped as necessary.
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April 26, 2021 at 04:55AM
