Here's What Captain America: Brave New World Revealed About Bucky's Post-Falcon And Winter Soldier Life
The following contains spoilers from the Marvel Studios film Captain America: Brave New World, now in theaters.
The Winter Soldier's career has taken quite a turn since the events of TV's The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
WHERE DID THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER LEAVE BUCKY?
In the Disney+/Marvel series' April 2021 finale, Sam Wilson (played by MCU vet Anthony Mackie) — amid much internal debate, after having his eyes opened by Black super soldier Isaiah Bradley's (Alias' Carl Lumbly) tragic tale — picked up Captain America's mantle after war hero John Walker (Lodge 49's Wyatt Russell) did it dirty by murdering a Flag Smasher in cold blood.
With encouragement from Bucky Barnes (MCU vet Sebastian Stan) as well as his own sister Sarah (Adepero Oduye), Sam decided that the suffering of Isaiah and others would mean nothing if he didn't step up, stand up and keep fighting.
Bucky himself, as the TV series drew to a close, proceeded to do the work assigned by his therapist and make amends to those the Winter Solider wronged — including Mr. Nakajima, a former neighbor whose son, RJ, the Winter Soldier killed during a mission. Bucky was last seen celebrating the neutralizing of the Flag Smashers with Sam, Sam's sister Sarah and others at a family shrimp boil down in Louisiana.
WHAT IS BUCKY BARNES UP TO THESE DAYS?
Anthony Mackie (of course), Danny Ramirez (as Joaquín Torres/wannabe Falcon) and Carl Lumbly all in significant ways reprise their Falcon and Winter Soldier roles in Captain America: Brave New World. Sebastian Stan, though, only makes a brief cameo as Bucky.
Here's why Bucky appeared when he did, and what was revealed about him during those few minutes.
About two-thirds of the way through the MCU film, Sam is at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, concerned about the surgery being done on a wounded ally, when his solitude is interrupted — by Bucky, rocking both a lot of scruff but also a suit. With Sam once again second-guessing his worthiness to wield Steve Rogers' mighty shield, Bucky delivered a much-needed pep talk, saying that whereas Steve's Cap gave people something to "believe in," Sam's star-spangled man gives people something to "aspire to."
Sam welcomes the words of wisdom, then quips/asks if Bucky's "speechwriters" helped with that. After Bucky leaves, President Ross' (Harrison Ford) security advisor, Ruth (Shitsel's Shira Haas), refers to Bucky Barnes as a "future congressman" — which does jibe with Bucky wearing a U.S. Congress pin in the trailer for the next and final Phase 5 movie, Thunderbolts* (due out May 2).
How does a Soviet asset-turned-congressman wind up on Valentina Allegra de Fontaine's (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) ragtag "Thunderbolts" team? We shall see. Though we have seen U.S. congressmen have stranger side hustles, equally sordid pasts.
DOES CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD HAVE A POST-CREDITS SCENE?
The penultimate MCU Phase 5 film has just one post-credits scene, in which Sam pays a visit to Tim Blake Nelson's Samuel Sterns aka The Leader at The Raft. Sam gloats about winning their bet/thwarting Sterns' grand plan, but the locked-up villain is not triggered.
Rather, the super-brainy Sterns informs Sam, "I've seen the probabilities, seen them plain as day.... All you heroes protecting this world. You think you're the only ones, you think this is the only world?
"We'll see what happens when you have to protect this place from the others," he warned, clearly planting a seed for the Secret Wars storyline that will drive Phase 6 of the MCU films.