#staron

To start with it's now the third Captain America film. TWS's biggest problem is it has to introduce two major supporting characters (Sam and Sharon) and tell a pretty complex story for a superhero film (but it's based on the best). Instead Sharon is introduced in film 2 as a major character while Sam is a minor character (but will shift into major in the third film). And Strikw Team Alpha play a minor role, to establish them as characters.

The plot has Steve and Sharon going up against The Watchdogs because it's good enrichment for Steve to fight neo nazis and they're a group tbe MCU haven't used (afaik, I stopped watching after FATWS).

The film is focused on Steve and Sharon's relationship (with a little bit of Steve & Sam friendship and Sam & Sharon friendship) as well as showing Steve that the country still needs someone like Captain America, and there's always something to fight against.

Sharon is introduced as Agent Sharon Ayres (after Dick Ayres, who is one of the three people credited with creating her) as that's the name she joined SHIELD under (only Fury is aware of her connection to Peggy, and the audience wouldn't officially find out who she is until the next film). Steve is attracted to her right from when they meet, but Sharon keeps things impersonal and professional (she's keeping her distance because she's pissed that Fury has assigned her to work with Steve as she is into him but feels awkward about his thing with her great aunt and worries that if he finds out then he'll either reject her or be into her for the wrong reasons. Again the audience wouldnt know about this until TWS).

Yeah, the film I've got in my head here is 'buddy cop/rom com with nazi fighting.

(There is absolutely a moment where theyre undercover and go dancing because she is the right partner! He's found her!)

Anyway, Sharon does have a bit with Fury where she says that she thought Romanoff was meant to be working with Steve and we get Indications that Natasha has vanished.

Basically the film is playing the vital role of being the second part of a trilogy: establishing stuff for the third (and hopefully telling a good story in its own right)

Also TWS is set after AoU because that makes far more sense. And Pietro is still alive.

TWS is set two years later. It's very similar to the canon film since ScarJo was playing Sharon in that movie. Obviously there's no neighbour Kate.

Steve is also already friends with Sam and their talk near the beginning includes Steve talking about how Sharon keeps confusing him because sometimes she seems interested but then closes off and is this modern flirting?!?

For the most part the film is the same except Hydra is not nearly as powerful as they were in the film. The whole 'all the evil shit the US governent has done is actually the fault of the Secret Nazis(tm)' is a cop out. Almost as bad as saying that WW2 was organised by a secret group and and not because the nazis just hated Jews (glaring at Captain America: Cold War so hard right now).

They're still within SHIELD but not to such an extreme extent

Since they're less powerful Insight Day is now the first move in a war rather than them just taking over.

Also the Soldier was KGB and nothing to do with Zola (but his experiments definitely helped). When Lukin was selling off Karpov's stuff he did sell the Winter Soldier to Hydra, unlike in the comics (he does keep back several of the shutdown codes and overrides for the Soldier because he's not stupid). So Hydra have only had Bucky since the end of the Cold War.

Steve for his part is desperate for Hydra to be behind everything because that's an enemy he can fight and blame. This all ties into his choice at the end to give up being Captain America (which means we get Nomad!Steve much earlier).

Anyway, when Steve is first on the run from SHIELD he's saved by Natasha, who promptly double crosses him because she's Hydra (not really. She actually a deep cover agent for Fury and has been for over two years. Her 'betrayal' (trying to get the thumb drive) was her own way of seeing if Steve could be trusted.)

Anyway, he and Sharon investigate, both of them get super uncomfortable in Camp Leigh, neither are happy to find that Zola's server room is right under Peggy's office.

It's while confronting Zola that Steve finds out Sharon's name is Carter, not Ayres, and both of them realise (by putting together the fairly obvious clues the Russos gave us before they decided they hated Sharon and Peggy can do no wrong) that Paggy - at best - knew whar Zola was doing within her organisation and at worst was collaborating.

Either way both of them realise that they never truly knew her.

At Sam's Steve confronts Sharon over why she lied to him about who she was. She says she didn't, Ayres is her mother's name and the name she legally uses. The only thing she left out is being related to Peggy because she's been compared to her aunt her whole life, and that was the last thing she wanted from Steve.

Anyway, they bicker back and forth about trust and SHIELD and Bucky and what can be done to stop him BUT the most important thing is it ends in their first (proper) kiss (which Steve initiates).

Things after that go much the same but data dump is now Hydra's secrets, not everyone's and with the advantage of Natasha being secretly on their side.

During the final scenes she's still the one to give Steve TWS's file but she can't help him further because Fury is legally dead and she has no proof she's not Hydra so now she's a wanted criminal.

But Steve, Sharon and Sam go off to find Bucky. The end.