The Falcon and the Winter Soldier director discusses Easter eggs and deleted scenes

This article contains spoilers for The Falcon and the Winter Soldier

Kari Skogland, the director of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, has revealed there are “plenty” of deleted scenes she “would have loved” to keep in the show.

The first episode arrived on Disney+ on Friday, with Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan starring as the respective heroes of the title. Both characters were best friends of Captain America (Chris Evans) in different time periods – Mackie’s Sam Wilson was chosen as his successor in Avengers: Endgame, and Stan’s Bucky Barnes was a Second World War army sergeant turned brainwashed super-soldier.

Taking place in the immediate aftermath of Captain America’s last stand in Endgame, the show explores what they did next: we meet a Wilson who is uncertain about his new responsibilities, while Barnes is off atoning for his past misdeeds.

In a new interview with Digital Spy, Skogland discussed Easter eggs and deleted scenes.

“There were plenty that I would have loved to have had, or different ways to take a scene,” she said. “That’s just the nature of the creative process."

She added: “What I can say is that there’s nothing on the floor that felt like it was a game-changer. So there’s nothing that I go, ‘Oh!’, lamenting. Truthfully, everything that is great, is in there.”

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Skogland revealed that the actors did a “fair bit of ad lib” that ended up in the final edit, in particular during the certain moments on the dock and in Bucky’s therapy scene.

The director also said that the show’s Easter eggs are all included “organically”.

“You never create a scene around the Easter egg,” she said. “The Easter egg is always just, ‘Oh, there’s an opportunity for something that the fans will enjoy if they can spot it.’ It’s fun, because it doesn’t drive anything. It’s quite the opposite.”

Many fans were devastated by the first episode’s closing scenes.

In a three-star review of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier for The Independent, Adam White wrote: “There is intrigue and action, but this latest MCU spin-off series struggles beneath the shadow of WandaVision.”

He added that the show will leave viewers “neither overwhelmed nor underwhelmed”. “To steal a line from 10 Things I Hate About You,” he wrote, “it is the TV embodiment of ‘whelmed’ – a sturdy, functional and generally not-bad vehicle for a handful of the studio’s B-listers.”

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier airs every Friday on Disney+.