’The Falcon and The Winter Soldier’ Writer Malcom Spellman Breaks Down the First Episode

Marvel’s next Disney Plus series, “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” focuses on Sam “Falcon” Wilson (Anthony Mackie) and Bucky “Winter Soldier” Barnes (Sebastian Stan), as they confront the world after returning from the Blip. As viewers of the first episode can see, “FAWS” is in many ways connected to the world we live in now. For one, Sam has to deal with being a Black man who is handed the mantle of Captain America by (a very old) Steve Rogers, at a time when issues of race and representation are at the forefront of a fraught national conversation. As head writer Malcolm Spellman explains to Variety, all of this was very much by design — and became even more so after the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the production.