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Top TV Memes: The Best Meme Formats From 'The Falcon And The Winter Soldier'
Editor's Note: This entry contains spoilers for The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Read at your own caution.
Marvel’s second Disney+ series, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, just finished airing season one last week. Already, it’s been rated highly by critics for its creative expansion of the universe as well as its intelligent discussion of topics like racism. It starts six months after the events of Avengers Endgame and follows Captain America’s unwilling successor (Anthony Mackie) and former brainwashed assassin Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) as they travel the world to face a threat from a radical group of super soldiers.
Anytime Marvel releases something, it becomes memed in as many ways as possible. This is as true when it comes to its two television shows as it is with the MCU’s Endgame or Infinity War. Before the series was complete, there were already thousands of memes out there glorifying The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Here are some of the best episodes to find formats.
Most Popular Memes: Episode 3: "Power Broker"
In this episode, Sam and Bucky travel with the prisoner they’ve formed a temporary alliance with, Zemo (Daniel Bruhl). The three of them spend some time on a plane where they discuss "Trouble Man" by Marvin Gaye. Zemo describes it as complete and comprehensive, then goes on to say it "captures the African American experience." Sam doesn’t approve of this description, but relents with, "He’s out of line, but he’s right." This is currently the most heavily memed line of the series. It works great as a format with multiple panels or simply with Sam’s response as a reaction image. It remains many peoples’ first introduction to the series and has been popular ever since episode three aired. It’s likely it will continue to remain in meme circulation for a long time due to its many uses.
A lesser-recognized moment in this episode that also rightfully became a meme occurs when Zemo tries to blend in with the crowd at a dance club. This results in him doing a really awkward dance for a few seconds on screen in which he pumps one of his arms like a broken wind-up toy and appears to be in intense emotional pain. Zemo’s club persona is the person we’re taught to fear when we learn the "stranger danger" rules, and also serves as a walking reason to never leave your drinks unattended at a party (for more reasons than one). Along with this scene being an underappreciated meme, Zemo’s dancing moment would work as a great GIF for literally any situation since it’s so indecipherable that it’s deep while remaining entirely meaningless.
Most Meme Potential: "The Whole World is Watching"
In this episode, we see the "best" of John Walker, a really bad replacement for Captain America we have to endure when Sam initially rejects the new title to remain the Falcon instead. Walker is one of the most annoying TV characters ever, and our hatred of him is thoroughly justified. In this episode, he reaches a breaking point and murders someone with "his" shield while being filmed, now known as Captain America Shield Smash. Since we all have such horribly corrupt senses of humor, this has become a popular meme template. Evidently, people love the look of fear in someone’s eyes before a weird man in patriotic costume screams and slams a giant painted trash can lid down on them.
Honestly, there are a lot of other Walker moments in this episode that are memeable. Any moment you see him on screen is like feeling your brain cells die one by one. He’s the mall cop version of Captain America that literally no one asked for, and he goes off the rails in a major way in this episode. This has led to many, but not enough, memes about why he’s the worst. While he’ll never be hated as much as Grandpa Joe or Joffrey Baratheon, he’s still bad enough to get a lot more devoted memes than he currently has, many of which could be created from an image of Walker doing just about anything in this episode.
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