WARNING: The following contains spoilers for The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Episode 2, "The Star-Spangled Man," now streaming on Disney+.
A Reddit user posted some pictures of leaked Marvel Legends action figures that tie into The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, including U.S. Agent, Bucky Barnes and Helmut Zemo. Most of the accessories are fairly standard action figure fare, including interchangeable hands, heads and weapons, but the Zemo figure also includes an accessory that might foreshadow a key element of the show's plot.
Zemo's figure is packaged with a small replica of the Winter Soldier's book -- the same book he used in Captain America: Civil War to find and access the Siberian Hydra facility where the other Winter Soldiers were kept. The book also contained the trigger words that Hydra programmed into Bucky that would cause him to go into assassination mode. Zemo used these words to weaponize Bucky, and later in Wakanda, Shuri helped deprogram Bucky, so this shouldn't happen again.
This raises some questions about what's to come of it in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Since Bucky has been deprogrammed it's highly unlikely Zemo will be able to use the trigger words on him again. However, there's some valid speculation that the book contains trigger words for other Winter Soldiers -- sleepers Zemo might seek out and utilize.
One possibility is that one or more of the Flag Smashers are Winter Soldiers. The Flag Smashers are an anarchist group with the goal of creating a "world that's unified without borders," and they exhibit enhanced strength and durability. When Joaquin Torres tangles with the Flag Smashers, he discovers at least one of them has super strength. It's then confirmed in Episode 2 that all the Flag Smashers have super-soldier like abilities. With the direction the show is going, it's likely they received super-soldier serum at some point, and the Winter Soldier program is one of the likely causes of this.
It's true that Zemo appeared to have killed all of the remaining Winter Soldiers who were in stasis in Siberia, but it's also a possibility that at least one of them survived either by escaping from the facility or by having been dispatched on a mission elsewhere beforehand. It's also possible there were separate and unknown facilities to house additional Winter Soldiers, other enhanced assets or the serum itself.
If this is the case and Zemo found out about it, it would stand to reason that he would try to either kill or work with the remaining Winter Soldiers. It seems unlikely that Hydra would have kept the trigger words for each Winter Soldier in a separate book, so the book viewers have already seen probably has the words to activate other Winter Soldiers, as well as their potential locations, thus pointing Zemo in their direction to either finish what he started or get their help.
It's also possible, though less likely, that the U.S. Agent is a sleeper agent. He could have been embedded in the American government by Hydra and set on the path to become Captain America's replacement by the evil organization, and Zemo would either try to stop him or use him. Zemo could also try to activate Bucky and fail, since presumably he's unaware of the deprogramming, but this also seems unlikely. With Bucky and Sam confronting Zemo in the upcoming episodes, it's likely audiences will learn what else Zemo knows about these new super-soldiers, as well as where his allegiances lie.
Directed by Kari Skogland, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier stars Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan, Emily VanCamp, Wyatt Russell, Noah Mills, Carl Lumbly and Daniel Brühl. New episodes debut on Fridays on Disney+.
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