Why didn’t Bucky kill Zemo in Sokovia

In Marvel’s Falcon & The Winter Soldier, Bucky Barnes does not kill Baron Zemo in Sokovia, signifying his decision to advance from his dark past.

Warning! Spoilers ahead for Falcon and the Winter Soldier Episode 5, “Truth”

At Marvel’s Falcon and the Winter Soldier In Episode 4, Baron Zemo managed to escape during the fight, but Bucky decided not to kill him once he caught up with Zemo in Sokovia. The three-way fight broke out between Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes, who got him out of prison, the Wakandans who were looking to bring him in, and John Walker’s Captain America and his partner, Battlestar, who also wanted to bring Zemo. Traveling to his home country of Sokovia after escaping, Zemo is eventually found by Bucky at the Sokovian monument that was erected after Ultron’s attack, the inciting incident that put the Baron on his way to destroy the Avengers, breaking the team in Captain America: Civil War.

While teaming up with Zemo in taking down the Flag-Smashers, the brainwashed former HYDRA agent found himself in scenarios where he had to play the Winter Soldier when they were in Madripoor. Reviewing his dark past was a potentially compromising act, though not nearly as much as being in the general neighborhood of Zemo. Zemo believed that a part of the Winter Soldier was still buried within Bucky even though Bucky’s mind had been freed with the help of the Wakandans. Zemo manipulated Bucky and used his trigger words programmed into Civil warbut he’s been constantly pressuring Bucky and testing the former killer to see if he would fall back into obscurity in the Disney + series.

Related: Why It Took 10 Years For Marvel To Turn Bucky Into An Avenger In The MCU

Similarly, Zemo has continually tried to appeal to Bucky’s darkness regarding Karli Morgenthau and her Flag-Smashers, believing that the only way to stop her and her fellow Super Soldiers is to permanently end them. However, Bucky eventually proves Zemo wrong about the Baron’s belief that Bucky is still a murderer when he catches up with Zemo at the monument. By putting a gun to Zemo’s head, it seemed that Bucky was prepared to end Zemo’s life for all of his terrible crimes, both on a global scale and to Bucky personally. After pulling the trigger of what was actually an empty firearm, Bucky shows Zemo the bullets in his other hand, confirming that he had never loaded the gun, indicating that his days as a killer and assassin are over.

It’s an amazing scene that communicates a lot about Bucky and his growth since he started resisting HYDRA’s control at the end of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Now he’s his own man, free to make his own decisions and forge a new path for himself (even one that someone like Zemo couldn’t predict). The baron seemed willing to die because of his confidence that Bucky would act as he expected, operating from a place of darkness that Bucky would never truly abandon and could never redeem. However, Bucky is prepared to do just that, and is now ready to make real amends on Steve Rogers’ notebook that he has been using to track down crimes for which he himself has to atone.

With his life spared by Bucky, the inhabitants of Wakanda arrived to take Baron Zemo to the raft, the super prison built to house the world’s most dangerous criminals, and Bucky Barnes closed his last encounter with Zemo in the best possible way. He refused to compromise his choice to be better than the killer he once had no choice to be. While he still has work to do before he can put the nightmares of his Winter Soldier past behind him, Bucky Barnes is on his way to doing it as Marvel’s. Falcon and the Winter Soldier continues on Disney +.

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