The six-episode series , is small in scope, and self-contained, and the conflicts take place at ground-level.
Loosely based on a beloved run of comics written by Matt Fraction with art by David Aja, the series has Clint facing off against a gang of dim-bulb Russian gangsters he calls the Tracksuit Mafia.
We get a lot of information about Kate: We learn that she is an accomplished athlete, that she is very wealthy, that her mother runs a security company — and if you think that last fact won’t come in handy once Kate needs to locate someone, you haven’t watched a TV show in the past decade.
This may, of course, turn out to be the character’s narrative arc, over the course of this season — the evolution from privileged dabbler into dedicated crimefighter — but there’s little evidence of that kind of personal growth in the first two episodes, in which Kate’s habit of talking to herself seems like the kind of “cute” characterizing detail that’d be more at home on the Hallmark Channel.
His storyline, however, goes weirdly lumpy pretty quickly, as his search for a missing superhero outfit sends him through Manhattan alleys in the dead of night as well as through a gaggle of nerds in Central Park in the full light of day.
The Tracksuit Mafia — lifted straight from the Fraction/Aja comics — makes for a not-particularly threatening villain, but then, they’re not meant to.
The comic’s standout character — a one-eyed dog who loves pizza — is brought over to the small screen and is, by any reasonable measure, a good boy.
In The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, the banter between the two leads often — too often — felt forced and leaden; here it moves at a fast clip.
It’s true that in the first two episodes, most of that energy is spent maneuvering the characters into position.