So I thought I'd dig into it and try to understand it better.
The scene takes place on a road after Sam and Bucky's first battle with the Turkey Hand Mask Face League™. It has three main sections: Bucky and Sam walking when Walker and Battlestar show up; the four of them in Walker's jeep; Sam and Walker talking briefly after Bucky gets out.
It also has a very clear thrust: Walker is trying to get Bucky and Sam on board with him. Writer Michael Kastelein does a great job of making that goal visual. The scene begins with Walker driving up, opening the jeep door for them to hop in. They refuse, and he follows.
You could have the scene on mute and you'd still completely understand the goal of the scene.
On the road, Walker talks like they're all on the same page, even calling back the Sam joke about the Big Three, complete with Bucky's refusal to accept wizards as a thing.
But here mentioning the Big Three is at the service of Walker's goal:
Walker: ...So we gotta work together.
Bucky: Just because you carry that shield doesn't mean you're Captain America.
Walker: Look, I've done the work, okay?
I love this line. It's such a douchey 2021 way of thinking about being Captain America. It tells you so much about how Walker thinks.
Bucky: You ever jump on top of a grenade?
Walker: Yeah, actually I have, four times. It's a thing I do with my helmet, it's a reinforced helmet, it's a long story.... But look, it's 20 miles to the airport, you guys need a ride.
Finally, they get in.
Mostly this interchange is serious and direct: Do this. No. But it ends on a funny note, as Walker turns Bucky's doubt about his credentials into a nerdy moment of explaining his special method of jumping on grenades.
Getting in the car, we start with serious conversation about the bad guys, the four of them trying to figure things out. We get a little business around Redwing, which is funny because it's already been established Sam is so overprotective of his device, and also because Bucky gives great stare.
Then we go back to Serious Talk* about the efforts to restabilize the world post-Blip and how Walker and his partner fit into that.
*I'm always fascinated by how writers get exposition across without killing a story's momentum. This scene has plenty of information-to-share--the world Post-Blip; NotCap's role; his past experience; the hack; Lemar's identity and role. But it doesn't drag the scene down, I think in no small part because it's all being delivered in the context of the bigger interpersonal conflict between Walker and Sam and Bucky.
I wonder if having the characters driving doesn't help, too. Even as we're having information downloaded to us, the scene tells us things are moving.
And for the second time Walker makes his pitch.
Walker: If you guys joined up with us...
Bucky: No.
Battlestar: Man, I got mad respect for both y'all, but you were kind of getting your asses kicked til we showed up.
Bucky: Who are you?
Battlestar: Lemar Hoskins.
Sam: Look, I see a guy hanging out of a helicopter in tactical gear, I need a lot more than "Lemar Hoskins".
Battlestar: I'm Battlestar, John's partner.
Bucky exits.
This is really the climax of the scene, and again it leads from clear desires. Walker wants them to join up. Bucky wants nothing to do with him.
But the moment is also scripted like a joke. We start with the set-up, aka the problem: Who is this guy? His answer creates a complication: "Lemar Hoskins" tells us nothing. Hoskins' subsequent attempt to explain himself opens the door to Bucky's great punchline: Basically, #!%! this guy.
Back on the road, Walker tries to pitch Sam one more time. And actually the moment works very similarly to the last one. We start from Walker making a sales pitch, this time a much more authentic and personal one:
Walker: I get the attitude. I'm not trying to be Steve, I'm not trying to replace Steve. I'm just trying to be the best Captain America I can be. That's it.
Then we get the complication:
Walker: It'd be a lot easier if I had Cap's wingman at my side.
And the "punchline":
Sam:It's always that last line....
Sam exits.
++
So what've we got: Clear, opposing desires that drive the scene -- Walker's to get Sam and Bucky onboard, and Bucky's to reject him--which have pretty high stakes. Walker needs Sam for legitimacy. Meanwhile, Bucky absolutely cannot accept this guy who has replaced Steve without earning it.
Compare that to the 2 Bucky/Sam scenes from yesterday: What are the characters' desires there, other than to push each other over on the playground?
In the Walker scene, Comedy get sprinkled throughout, but always emerges from the characters' goals. There's no joke here that feels like an aside or off topic, and the scene moves through those moments briskly.
At the same time, The scene keeps leaning into the classic joke structure of set up/complication/pay off. I don't want to overstate the significance of that choice, but I do wonder if it doesn't yield a kind of funny bone osmosis, the joke structure giving the scene a humorous energy.
Again, compare that with either of the Bucky/Sam scenes. The second, at the shrink, has plenty of set up--You guys need to make up, to which they say No. And it has some pay off--I'm afraid I can't change/Let's go our separate ways when this is over.
But there's not much in between either to complicate or justify those pay offs.
The first scene doesn't even provide much of a set up. Neither character is given a motive that drives the scene in any kind of personal stakes-y way.
Which leads us back to that improv idea: Try to be funny and you won't be. Try to be true to what you want and eventually you'll be hilarious.
