Critics Aren't Too Thrilled With 'The Falcon and Winter Soldier' Finale, The Season's Lowest-Rated Episode

Marvel Studios

In the grand scheme of things, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier — which was *originally* supposed to be the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s grand debut series on Disney+ — was an absolutely massive success. Not only were fans and critics alike both satisfied with the series, praising its movie-quality set pieces and exploration of racial themes, but it also broke all sorts of records for Disney+, which, at the end of the day, is exactly what they’re looking for.

Warning: spoilers for the season finale of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, “One World, One People”, will follow.

But while The Falcon and the Winter Soldier may have been a booming hit in the macro, the same cannot be said about the micro, as the season one finale as the episode, “One World, One People”, is the worst-reviewed episode on Rotten Tomatoes and by quite some distance.

#FalconAndTheWinterSoldier E6 was the worst-reviewed episode of the series

🍅 E1 — 93%
🍅 E2 — 100%
🍅 E3 — 85%
🍅 E4 — 90%
🍅 E5 — 100%
🦠 E6 — 57%

(via @RottenTomatoes) pic.twitter.com/VRj9WQGyUN

— ScreenTime (@screentime) April 23, 2021

Ultimately, this merely proves that Marvel is a victim of its own success. On the scale of Marvel content, sure, perhaps it’s not necessarily earth-shattering, but when compared to regular television standards, it’s an absolute triumph. Rarely has an action sequence on television looked as spectacular as Sam Wilson’s first flight as Captain America. This episode needs to be judged as if it were the third act of a Marvel Studios film, not the final chapter of a prestige drama.

Regardless of the finale’s sub-standard Rotten Tomatoes score, the reaction to The Falcon and the Winter Soldier has been sweepingly positive: episode one was Disney+’s most-watched series premiere (topping the likes of The Mandalorian, which is wild considering how massive of a show that is), and reports broke yesterday that series showrunner Malcolm Spellman is developing a fourth Captain America film for Marvel Studios.