Avengers 3: Civil War: The Black Panther/Spider-Man Movie: Thoughts and Discussion
My wife wanted to go see Captain America: Civil War on Mother’s Day. Because she is awesome.
I don’t have the time for a full review, but had lots of thoughts I wanted to put out there. And hey, what the internet really needs is one more place for people to discuss the latest Marvel movie, right?
If you haven’t seen it yet and don’t want to be spoiled, turn back now…
SPOILERS AHOY
- After seeing Batman v Superman, Captain America: Civil War is freaking Shakespeare, man.
- Am I the only one who just wanted to give Wanda a hug? And also maybe a kitten? (And an appointment with a good therapist?)
- Actually, therapists for everyone would be a good idea.
- From a storytelling perspective, I appreciated that both Steve and Tony were particularly raw and vulnerable. Tony was broken up with Pepper, and Steve lost Peggy Carter. Neither man was thinking clearly, and it helped build sympathy for both of them.
- “That shield doesn’t obey the laws of physics at all.” I love Tom Holland’s Spider-Man, but this line in particular was one of my favorites from the whole movie. Possibly from the entire Marvelverse.
- Black Panther was a great character, particularly in the final act. The “I will kill this man based on a grainy photo” thing was rather meh, but seeing him in action, and seeing his development over the course of the movie — I like this guy a lot.
- Steve Rogers and Sharon Carter felt a little squicky … but I loved the reaction shot of Bucky and Sam.
- “But he killed my mom.” Oh, Tony. You’re so broken, and I still wanted to give you hugs and kittens and a therapist.
- This movie hurt. We’ve spent so much time getting to know these characters, and their decisions were generally in character and understandable and it just felt like a punch to the heart every time things went downhill. Well done, moviemaker people.
GeneralSecretary Ross makes a comment about Thor and Hulk, talking about how much trouble he’d be in if he lost two nukes. *Cough* Abomination *Cough*- Black Widow is excellent, as always. I love her changing sides at the end. It felt in character for her, and helped keep it from being a simple black-and-white conflict.
- Why does Ant-Man get so much slower when he’s giant? He doesn’t seem to get faster when he’s small.
- I love that even in the midst of fighting, you get that these characters love and respect and care about one another.
- The end with the break-out and the letter from Steve to Tony felt a bit rushed, like they were trying to wrap up too many loose ends in too little time. It was a long movie already, but that felt a little off.
- I thought Bucky was going to die. I like the alternative they came up with.
- Baron Zemo’s plan worked better than pretty much any other villain plan we’ve seen. He basically accomplished most of what he intended to do. But as a character, I had very little sense of who he was. Which worked for the movie, I guess, but it was unsatisfying.
- Thank you, movie people, for giving us humor and levity.
- “Underoos.” “Tic Tac.” Heh…
- This would have been a much shorter movie if Nick Fury had just shown up and started cracking some sense into people’s heads.
- All in all? Not perfect, but very well done. One of the better Marvel movies, in my opinion.
What did you think?
Elspeth
May 10, 2016 @ 2:24 pm
The conversation mid fight between Clint and Natasha.
“Are we still friends?”
“Depends on how hard you hit me.”
And then Wanda.
“You were pulling your punches.”
SO MUCH LOVE!!!!
Also, the fact that Sharon hadn’t told her Aunt that she was spying on/”protecting” Cap so that she didn’t have to keep a secret from him…so sweet.
All in all, I loved most of it, and forgive the plot holes because trying to put all of that in one movie is hard. I just wish we’d gotten a little more of Bucky, so we could emotionally connect a little better.
Jim C. Hines
May 10, 2016 @ 2:27 pm
Yes! These were generally good people who cared about each other, and it showed. Which, to me, makes it an infinitely better movie than BvS, despite having the same core plot seed.
Beth Johnson
May 10, 2016 @ 2:39 pm
I felt like the Sharon/Steve romance was shoe-horned in similar to the Natasha/Bruce one. However, the light flirting between Vision and Wanda was adorable, and I really wanted more of that. I’m also glad Vision didn’t use his powers to much advantage. He picked a side, sure, but he could have been far more destructive.
Most memorable parts of the movie involved Black Panther and Spider-Man, so I completely agree with the title of your post. I’m really glad they didn’t rehash Spidey’s origin story. We all know. We all got it. “With great blah blah blah…” So thanks to the writers for keeping that simple. Also, didn’t RDJ and Marisa Tomei date at one point? LOL
My biggest gripe, and boy is it kinda small, is trying to figure out when Cap found out about Bucky and Tony’s parents. My friend says he got the list of Hydra kills in Winter Soldier, and I’m definitely going to need to rewatch that and this one to clarify, but I felt like that reveal was off a little — as if we missed a scene somewhere. Although, hey, long flight to Siberia, so maybe Bucky finished the whole “done bad things” conversation.
Jim C. Hines
May 10, 2016 @ 2:47 pm
That threw me for a bit too. But I got to thinking about the end of Winter Soldier, when Natasha gives Steve the file on Bucky, and warns him that he might not like what he finds.
But for that to work with Civil War, you have to remember a little line of dialogue from the end of a movie several years ago.
Michael Cannon
May 10, 2016 @ 2:47 pm
***SPOILERS***
While Zemo was effective, he was almost unnecessary. The Accords already set a framework to divide the team. The collateral damage in Wakanda itself should have been enough to get the Black Panther involved. The reveal that Bucky killed the Starks could have been revealed without Zemo. Heck, you’d think that all that intel that Widow released would have contained that bit of info. I didn’t dislike the character, but I also think they could have told pretty much the same story without him.
Rebecca
May 10, 2016 @ 2:53 pm
The file on Bucky can’t be where Steve found out that Hydra killed Tony’s parents, because he tells Tony that he didn’t know it was Bucky.
Jim C. Hines
May 10, 2016 @ 2:56 pm
Does he? I don’t remember that. Maybe I need to go back and watch it again…
Jim C. Hines
May 10, 2016 @ 2:58 pm
I would have liked to have seen him pulling a few more strings, yeah. At the same time, putting too much of it on Zemo would risk minimizing the very real fractures and disagreements within the team. I don’t have an answer, but yeah…it wouldn’t have been very different without him.
Sarah Wynde
May 10, 2016 @ 3:44 pm
Exactly the part I was going to mention! I knew I’d see the movie because my son and I have a long tradition of Mother’s Day superhero movies, but I didn’t actually expect to like it. But I really did and this line encompassed why. Yes, the characters are fighting, but nobody became a bad guy. Tony was a jerk, but that wasn’t uncharacteristic.
AmyCat =^.^=
May 10, 2016 @ 3:45 pm
Yes… My BF and I wondered the same thing, and like all of you here, can’t come up with anything. My thought was “maybe it was in the Hydra Info-Dump?” But as Rebecca says, he should then know it was Bucky, not just some Hydra AnonyGoon.
AmyCat =^.^=
May 10, 2016 @ 3:49 pm
Er, itty-bitty correction, Michael: the “collateral damage” wasn’t “in Wakanda itself”; the dead Wakandans were doing some sort of foreign-aid thing in the building into which Scarlet Witch accidentally tossed the exploding villain.
AmyCat =^.^=
May 10, 2016 @ 3:58 pm
Agree especially & wholeheartedly with #2, 3, & 8. I think giving the Avengers (#TeamCap & #TeamIronMan both) an entire animal shelter’s supply of ALL THE KITTENZ!!! would be a great start… Extras for Bucky, though IMO he’s a cat himself (semi-feral, with at least 9 lives…) SO glad T’Challa didn’t kill Bucky: the cool cats should stick together! 🙂
Marshall Ryan Maresca
May 10, 2016 @ 4:06 pm
“Why does Ant-Man get so much slower when he’s giant? He doesn’t seem to get faster when he’s small.”
Well, if you think about the relative distance he covers while small, I think he is moving faster.
As for why is he moving slower, he’s moving the same speed he always is, but the distances are farther. Normal-sized, swinging your arm in a fist is making, let’s say, a one-meter arc. Giant-sized, it’s now a ten-meter arc. Even he can move five times faster because he’s stronger, that still will look like half-speed.
Melissa
May 10, 2016 @ 4:14 pm
My heartbreak at the end was for the Bartons. Clint Barton, father/husband/farmer/home improvement fan, is a fugitive from a federal holding facility. Even putting aside the issue of illegal confinement with no access to counsel and no charges brought, Clint can’t go home again. Even contacting his family puts all of them at risk. All because he is a good guy and went to Wanda’s aid because 1) Cap asked, 2) he felt he owed it to Pietro for saving Clint’s life, and 3) she’s a kid and needed his help. Maybe they’ll do a Swiss Family Robinson in Wakanda.
As I said to my friends, to me the whole reason behind Tony’s actions with the Accords is that he’s realized HE needs someone to help rein him in, because he has a flawed moral compass and sense of what’s right. He can’t accept that OTHER people have strong moral codes that govern their actions.
I thought Rhodey was a real a-hole and wasn’t too sorry to see him hurt….and that it was, effectively, a friendly-fire failure of what was ultimately Tony’s own creation kind of felt like poetic justice.
Jim C. Hines
May 10, 2016 @ 4:19 pm
I was thinking about Clint and his family too. I suspect it depends on just how good Nick Fury was at setting them up and keeping them off the grid. And how much anyone really wants to hunt him down. I can’t see the other Avengers wanting to go after him, and as for Ross, that probably depends on how much of a backlash there is over the mess from this movie.
But yeah. Clint and his family potentially sacrificed a hell of a lot for this.
Stacy
May 10, 2016 @ 4:44 pm
I was also wondering why he seemed to have extra power at that huge size, because he’s supposed to have the power of a full-grown man at ant size, which means proportionally he should have *less* power when he’s bigger, not more.
Dave Hogg
May 10, 2016 @ 4:51 pm
Peggy Carter’s funeral ripped my heart out, from Sharon’s eulogy all the way to Nat showing up for moral support. Tell me again why we have to wait for the Black Widow movie?
Spiderman was fantastic. Wandavision is my new favorite Marvel couple, just beating out Falcon and Ant-Man.
Flaws: Why did Clint join in the Great Airport Charge? How did Steve know that Hydra killed the Starks without knowing it was Bucky? How do you do Civil War without the X-Men? Isn’t dating your girlfriend’s niece a little weird?
Jim C. Hines
May 10, 2016 @ 4:54 pm
“Isn’t dating your girlfriend’s niece a little weird?”
Yes. Yes it is.
Hayley Atwell did an interview where she was asked about Steve and Sharon. Her response:
“She’d have a few words to say to Sharon. Sharon’s her granddaughter, right? Or niece. Either way, it’s wrong! I think she’d lock her in her room, and ground her. I would be like, go find another family! Go away from mine.”
Michael Cannon
May 10, 2016 @ 5:05 pm
There was collateral damage in Wakanda in Age of Ultron.
Michael Cannon
May 10, 2016 @ 5:16 pm
No, wait, I getting loopy. That was Johannesburg.
Mason T. Matchak
May 10, 2016 @ 8:09 pm
There are many, many, many good things I could say about this movie. I’ll stick with one, though, and I think it’s one of the big ones:
Neither side was ever shown to be the right one.
For all the promotional material asking which side you were on, there’s no point in the movie where either side is made out to be right, nor where either side is made out to be wrong. I saw an interview with the directors where they said this was deliberate, and I think that was an excellent way to play it. Besides, everything goes from being about the Accords to being so completely personal by the end, which I loved.
So, yeah. My thoughts are a little scattered, but this was easily one of my favorite Marvel movies, and I might see it again soon. ^_^
Jim C. Hines
May 10, 2016 @ 8:16 pm
Agreed. I really appreciate that they didn’t try to force an easy answer. Yeah, Tony got played re: the Winter Soldier bombing thing, but in the bigger picture? It never felt like anyone was clearly right or wrong, and I think that was the right way to go with the story.
Alana Joli Abbott
May 10, 2016 @ 10:17 pm
To Tony’s credit, Steve was also being a jerk. His reasons for refusing to get on board in the comics Civil War were much easier to defend than the reasons for not signing the accords–something they could have fixed with a few lines about how, you know, other international oversight organizations had been infiltrated before. But that’s really the only complaint I had about the movie; there was a lot of awesome to outweigh those bits!
Alana Joli Abbott
May 10, 2016 @ 10:22 pm
Didn’t the X-Men pretty much sit out of Civil War in the comics? I recall Emma telling off the Avenger trying to recruit her, saying basically “We’ve been registered by a horrible law for forever and no one’s lifted a finger to defend our rights. Go figure out the Superhuman Registration Act on your own.”
It was AvX where they were vitally important.
Jim D
May 10, 2016 @ 11:22 pm
It’s indicated that the Starks were killed by Hydra in Captain America 2, and I always got the fealing that it was done by Bucky, with him being the Hydra assassin, as well as the context of the conversation with the scientist/computer (who’s name escapes me)
RSA
May 11, 2016 @ 2:06 am
So was I the only one who absolutely loved, ‘Move, or be moved”? Because I’m dying for her movie now. Also, I think she might be the only person who could kick Black Widow’s butt.
Jim C. Hines
May 11, 2016 @ 8:31 am
You are not the only one, no 🙂
Tamora Pierce
May 11, 2016 @ 10:41 am
I was left profoundly depressed. Rather than being out in the world dealing with real bad guys and real bad situations (Syria, anyone?), the gang has turned against each other. (This is a quarrel I’ve always had with Marvel, comics and movies, btw. They refuse to have the heroes who are supposed to help humanity deal with any of the modern day hot spots, like water for refugee camps, renegade war lords, and the death of civilians who are bombed by their own leaders or capsized at sea. Instead they gin up a bunch of weird guys in armor or–tada! turn them against one another.) Seeing Widow fighting Clint and Cap at first breaks my heart, and even Tony vs. Cap makes me sad a little, though I haven’t forgiven Tony for taking up the conservative side since the comic. This movie just made me hate him by the end. I’ve never been one for smug, self-righteous people, which is how he comes off. I totally agree with Melissa above, who points out that Tony needs something to rein himself in, but that doesn’t mean he’s entitled to force others to make his choice.
I loved Ant-Man, Clint, and Spidey for bringing lighter notes to what I feel was a horribly depressing movie. Falcon was his usual wonderful self, and Widow broke my heart, caught in the middle (again!). I loved Panther, and he was the character I was most apprehensive about in terms of “will he be handled well/respectfully?” I liked Bucky in this more than I ever have, but I keep wondering if Cap shouldn’t have let him go a while back. And yes, the kiss with Sharon has squicked everyone I know, including me.
So I endured the last hour in a state of deepening depression, and it will be a long time before I see this movie again, preferably with a fast forward button under my finger. But I think not. Negative premises have never been my thing.
Jim C. Hines
May 11, 2016 @ 10:57 am
I don’t disagree. I thought they did a wonderful job of telling this story, but ever since they announced they’d be doing the Civil War storyline, a part of me has wished they just wouldn’t. Because you’re right, this isn’t what I want from my superhero movies. (It’s one of many reasons the Watchmen movie never really worked for me either.) I think it’s a well-done story, but it’s a painful one, a story where the bad guy essentially wins.
Tony … I’ve got some sympathy for movie-Tony. He’s so broken, and has been pretty much since his very first movie. Others have written elsewhere about his PTSD, and how the rest of his team keeps ignoring or blowing off his symptoms. He’s to the point of inventing tech to try to do therapy on himself. It doesn’t excuse some of the messed-up crap he’s pulled, but I can’t bring myself to hate him.
“Negative premises have never been my thing.”
That gets to the heart of it, for me. I just hope now that they’ve gotten this movie done, that they can move back toward more positive/hopeful stories. (Not meaning warm and fluffy and light-hearted, but with characters we care about coming together, and giving us an ending that lets you leave the theater in a happier mood.)
bluestgirl
May 11, 2016 @ 3:51 pm
The thing that bugs me about the “I knew, I just didn’t know it was Bucky,” is that if he got info from Nat’s released files, then those aren’t, like, special to Cap. Right? So if Cap knows, so do a whole bunch of other people, and it’s not a secret, just a secret from Tony, and he should be pissed at EVERYONE, rather than personally pissed at Cap.
Megpie71
May 12, 2016 @ 8:56 am
The problem with the argument that “Tony’s realised he needs someone else to rein him in” is he canonically has been looking for this “someone else” all the way through his cinematic history – and then ignoring them or effectively destroying them every single time he finds them, because the other thing he also wants to do, equally strongly, is avoid taking responsibility for his actions.
The closest we see Tony Stark coming to owning his actions is during the first Iron Man movie – when he holds the press conference after returning from Afghanistan, and when he says “I am Iron Man” at the end of the movie. He’s owning the responsibility for the creation of weapons of mass destruction, the responsibility for the power of the suit, the responsibility for the destruction of Obadiah Stane. But by the start of the second Iron Man movie, we see him basically shucking all of those responsibilities off onto other people – Pepper Potts gets to handle the responsibility for Stark Industries, and putting that onto a “clean energy” footing rather than a “weapons manufacturer” one; James Rhodes gets to handle the responsibility for being Iron Man for the US military, and dealing with the chain of command about it. Tony gets to go back to being a billionaire inventor goof-off.
In Avengers: Assemble, Tony basically bounces hard off the idea of actually playing as part of a team, except when it suits him (Battle of New York). In Iron Man 3, he’s still rejecting the idea of being responsible for himself, for his reactions, for his relationship with Pepper – and it has consequences.
In Age of Ultron, it’s clear he’s already deteriorating – he’s gone back on his destruction of the suits (wonder why Pepper left? Clearly she got sick of talking to the walls all the time, because Tony sure as heck wasn’t listening to her!), he’s ignoring his team-mates unless it suits him, and he basically perpetrates a plan which is “Project Insight V2.0: This Time It’s The Private Sector” using a core component of a sceptre which was previously used to mind-control people (and which is, as a reminder to the viewers of its previous purpose, used again for this during the movie itself). He was relying on Bruce Banner to stop him, but seriously, the only way Bruce could have realistically stopped him was to hulk out and sit on him before he grabbed the staff, and then call for Steve and Natasha to explain “Why Building An Artificial Intelligence To Protect The World Whether The World Wants It Or Not Is A Bad Idea” in Hulk-level language. Instead, we see Tony attempting to hand all the tricky moral dimensions of being a superhero over to JARVIS (or his equivalent) – and effectively killing the JARVIS AI off (that JARVIS is effectively “reborn” as Vision is beside the point – Tony attempted to hand his responsibilities off to another entity, and it effectively destroyed them).
(I suspect at least 50% of the reason Bruce Banner ran off at the end of Age of Ultron is because Bruce could see the writing on the wall where Tony Stark was trying to shuffle the responsibility for keeping Tony’s conscience onto Bruce).
I can quite understand why Steve and Tony wind up on opposite sides in the argument, because one of the core concepts in Steve Roger’s personal moral lexicon is that everyone takes responsibility for their actions (Steve’s demonstrated doing this all the way along, from turning himself in after going AWOL in The First Avenger; to being willing to stand against the whole of HYDRA single-handed in Winter Soldier), while Tony Stark is terrified of the notion of being responsible for his actions – Tony wants someone else to control him, but I really don’t think he’ll like it when he finds someone who can.
Tamora Pierce
May 12, 2016 @ 10:19 am
If I could clone myself a thousand times (o I wish), we would all be standing right now, applauding till our hands hurt, and shouting “brava!” This is a wonderful and thorough analysis of Tony’s character that explains his behavior through the movies far better than anything else I’ve seen. Thank you!
Tamora Pierce
May 12, 2016 @ 10:21 am
The introduction of a youthful, giddy, and un-angst-ful Spidey gives me hope. But I’m sure Marvel will find a way to screw it up. That’s who they are; that’s what they do.
It’s a hard, hard age to be a fan of Marvel heroes.
brian ledford
May 12, 2016 @ 10:28 am
I loved that it wasn’t physically dark. all the action sequences happened in well lit areas, so you could see what was happening. And the teamwork in the opening bit was glorious. re:tony’s parents, I think the armin zola computer revealed that in winter soldier. It wasn’t obvious who did what, I don’t think. And it seems reasonable/possible to know that stark’s parents were killed by hydra but be sure that they were killed by bucky. Also, especially if you think bucky was brainwashed, I could see keeping that suspicion back so bucky gets treatment and not executed.
chacha1
May 12, 2016 @ 4:19 pm
I haven’t seen CW yet, can’t wait, but based on everything I’ve read so far I have a theory.
The theory is, the excellent actor playing Iron Man/Tony Stark has a desire to go really deep into the psychology of the character. Stark needs to deal with the tsunami of personal shit that has come his way, more or less continuously, since Afghanistan; and the existing CW canon storyline (of which, full disclosure, I am happily ignorant) could be tweaked in a way that set up a complete breakdown.
From my own point of view as a reader and writer, Tony Stark has had just about nothing good happen for or to him during the entire story cycle. He has made some lemonade out of a hailstorm of lemons, mostly due to 1) insomnia 2) neurosis 3) compulsive activity. But this is a guy who has successfully fended off all attempts by outside parties to provide the safe place to 1) decompress 2) unwind 3) reconfigure that he obviously desperately needs. Even the Pepper relationship was mostly proximity/convenience. (The Pepper character’s considerable competence was established in parallel with her disdain for almost everything that makes Tony Tony.)
Anyway, as an RDJ fan I hope my theory is correct, but we probably won’t know for a few years. 🙂
hk hill
May 15, 2016 @ 6:41 pm
When the Avengers were being berated about the damage caused, why did no one point out that the alternatives were not great :{ Would the governments really prefer life under the aliens and Loki, or Ultron?
Jean
May 17, 2016 @ 3:18 am
I was never really clear on how having UN committee oversight would actually help anything. Take Lagos. Assuming that the Avengers had been ordered to rescue the red vial of infectious disease before it was stolen, would the UN have put in the orders “By the way, there’s a skyscraper full of international diplomats right next to the market, so whatever you do, aim away from it”? Because Wanda had the expression that said to me “Oh hell, where did that skyscraper come from? I swear I was aiming for empty air away from people…”
Fraser
May 19, 2016 @ 7:33 am
I was bemused by the idea the U.S. government in the 21st century would care about collateral damage to third-world nations, or about what other nations think of us.
Fraser
May 19, 2016 @ 7:34 am
Someone pointed out elsewhere online that as soon as Tony decides the government’s not making the right call, he immediately forgets everything he said about accepting their authority.
Tamora Pierce
May 19, 2016 @ 10:14 am
Ooooooo! BURN!!!!!!
Nice!
KatG
May 19, 2016 @ 5:02 pm
He doesn’t forget it. He just has more leverage. Tony didn’t want to accept the UN accords entirely because he thought it was totally right about oversight, but in large part just to protect Wanda — because if they didn’t go along with it, he knew the Avengers, whom he bankrolls, could go into the black ops prison and lose all control of everything. When Cap gets Bucky away, the situation gets more dire on freedom for everyone else. He keeps telling Cap that they should go along with it now and they can “fix” it later.
Cap argues that they aren’t necessarily going to get to fix it later. Cap had already given up control to SHIELD and then see Hydra take it over and make him a fugitive. He’s less afraid of being out on his own than he is of that mistake happening again, especially since the UN won’t negotiate over Bucky. But Tony, who has a whole company of employees, Pepper, Rhoades, Vision, and all the Avengers, is taking the position that Bucky is less important and they all have to pull together and knuckle under for the moment — which is why he keeps warning Cap that there’s a line that if crossed, Tony won’t be able to save the Avengers from the governments’ wrath.
But when Tony checks Cap’s evidence about the bombing, he realizes that Cap was right and he was wrong, that there is a bigger potential threat, and further that Ross is now in a mess and the Avengers have leverage again. And Cap gets the imprisoned Avengers out but lets Tony know that they’ll come help if needed, which is what Tony most cares about — protecting the Avengers.
Tony became Iron Man — his epiphany — to protect people. His upset over himself is in his failure to protect people, that they got hurt for his arrogance or his incompetence. His beef with Cap is that Cap seemed to be not protecting the team in his attempt to save Bucky. But he realized that Cap was trying to protect everybody, so he supports Cap and is happy the rebel squad got away, even though the issue of Bucky is still a debate between them.
KatG
May 19, 2016 @ 5:17 pm
The romance with Sharon and Cap started in Winter Soldier. Sharon was an effective undercover op on Cap because she got intel from her great-aunt on him. He was attracted to her on her own, but then found out she was Fury’s spy on him. She learned that he was as cool as her great-aunt said and was attracted to him. They worked out a detente in the crisis where she helped him. It’s clear that they’ve been in touch since, but also keeping their distance of anything occurring since their history was complicated. That doesn’t mean that the attraction went away. Obviously, one of the reasons she didn’t tell him she was related to Peggy was that it would seem at least another betrayal to him. But once it’s out at the funeral, the ball is then in Cap’s court as to whether he is going to stay cut off and alone, mired in his past, or move forward and act on his feelings. She lets him make the decision. He decides to act on his feelings after she steps up and helps him despite the risk of losing her job and being imprisoned for treason, showing that she believes in him. Peggy got to find love again and have a life. She wouldn’t want Cap to not have the chance to do so. And it’s not Sharon’s fault that she happened to be Peggy’s great-niece. But in any case, all he got was a kiss, cause now he’s a fugitive again. 🙂