Update Monday, April 4: Justice is restored for the blood and violence of The Falcon and the Winter Solider. After an edited version of the “Power Broker†episode was accidentally uploaded last week — a “human error†per a source at Disney+ — the original version of the episode is now back on the streamer. While it’s good to have the correct form of the episode back up, we’ve got to say, we’ll miss this goofy scene.
Original story follows:
Remember The Falcon and the Winter Soldier? Marvel’s second Disney+ streaming series is finally back in the public consciousness because keen-eyed fans on Reddit noticed that at least two scenes in the series have been altered to reduce the blood and violence onscreen. While Disney hasn’t said what prompted the changes, fans spotted it weeks after the arrival both of the (formerly on Netflix) MCU shows on Disney+ and of the streaming service’s new parental controls, making the tweaking of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier — a show that premiered on the platform just last year — all the more baffling. A source at Disney+ told us the incident was isolated and chalked this up to the wrong version of an episode being uploaded, but as of Wednesday afternoon, the edited version was still up on the site.
So what got chopped? Two scenes with dramatic edits were spotted by Reddit and The Direct in episode three, “Power Broker.†(Surprisingly, the most brutal scene of the series, in which U.S. Agent murders a guy by repeatedly bashing the Captain America shield onto his head, has not been affected yet.) The episode is fairly action heavy, as Falcon (Anthony Mackie), Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), Zemo (Daniel Brühl), and Sharon Carter (Emily VanCamp) hunt down the titular Power Broker to bust an illegal Super Solider serum operation. The foursome end up finding a Hydra scientist, whom Zemo shoots in the chest at the episode’s 35:27 mark. In the original scene, you can see the scientist sprawled out on the floor with blood spattered across his chest and face, while now he looks like he’s just snoozing.
The second edit of the episode comes soon after, when Falcon, Bucky, Zemo, and Sharon make their escape. Despite Sharon’s literally stabbing a dude in the arm minutes before (which is still on Disney+), the edit comes where Bucky, originally, throws a pipe straight through an antagonist’s shoulder to pin her to the wall at the 37:46 mark. The scene now shows the pipe barely missing the antagonist, who dramatically pushes herself back. (The moment honestly looks pretty funny now, so props for this one.)
Thus far, those are the only changes to The Falcon and the Winter Soldier that have been found, but they also feel somewhat … superfluous? There’s seemingly no rhyme or reason to why Disney+ would censor these few scenes in a Marvel show that could easily be put behind its parental controls, especially when there’s now bed-breaking, bone-crushing, ass-kicking, Marvel action series on the service. And one can’t forget the newly premiered Moon Knight, the MCU’s attempt at grittier, edgier fare. In a recent interview with Empire, Marvel president Kevin Feige even said, “It’s been fun to work with Disney+ and see the boundaries shifting on what we’re able to do. There are moments [in the series] when Moon Knight is wailing on another character, and it is loud and brutal, and the knee-jerk reaction is, ‘We’re gonna pull back on this, right?’ No. We’re not pulling back.†If you say so, Kevin!