Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

This summary of Captain America: The Winter Soldier runs from Rogers confronting Fury about the data grab to a three carrier showdown that brings down S.H.I.E.L.D.'s headquarters, and it reveals the whole story, including the ending.

After the rescue mission, Rogers confronts Fury about the secret data grab. Fury says he distrusts Insight and asks Alexander Pierce, a senior official, to delay it. Soon after, a masked assassin called the Winter Soldier ambushes Fury, who survives long enough to hand Rogers a flash drive before he seems to die. Pierce declares Rogers a fugitive, so Rogers and Romanoff go on the run and trace the drive to a hidden S.H.I.E.L.D. bunker.

Inside, they wake the preserved mind of Arnim Zola, who says the Nazi era group Hydra has been growing inside S.H.I.E.L.D. for decades. A missile destroys the bunker, and the pair realize Pierce is a Hydra leader. With Sam Wilson's help, they capture Jasper Sitwell, a Hydra agent, who explains that Insight will use Zola's algorithm to kill anyone Hydra sees as a danger. The Winter Soldier then kills Sitwell and attacks the group, and Rogers sees that the assassin is his old friend Bucky Barnes, who was captured, brainwashed and kept frozen for decades.

Maria Hill takes the heroes to a hideout where Fury is alive and ready to sabotage the carriers. At S.H.I.E.L.D.'s headquarters, Rogers tells the staff the truth, Romanoff exposes Pierce and releases the agency's secret files to the public, and Fury shoots Pierce. Rogers and Wilson swap the targeting chips on two of the carriers, while Barnes fights Rogers on the third. Rogers fixes the last chip so the carriers fire on one another, and the wreckage brings down the headquarters. Rogers falls into the river and is pulled out by Barnes, who then disappears.

The ending of Captain America: The Winter Soldier leaves S.H.I.E.L.D. wrecked, its secrets public and Bucky Barnes alive, and in my opinion that combination makes the film a key hinge in the saga.

The plain facts first. After the carriers destroy one another and the headquarters falls, Romanoff faces a government hearing, and Fury goes into hiding to hunt the remaining Hydra cells. Rogers and Wilson decide to search for Barnes, who has started to remember who he was. That is why the film closes on a promise rather than a victory.

So, how is Bucky still alive? The film answers this itself: he was captured, brainwashed and kept frozen for decades, then used as the Winter Soldier. His rescue of Rogers from the river is the first sign that the conditioning is slipping, and I would argue it is the emotional payoff the whole film builds toward. The fight on the third carrier is a punch up, but the pull from the water is the real turn.

The bigger shift is structural. In Captain America: The First Avenger, Hydra is a wartime enemy led by Johann Schmidt. Here, it has been growing inside S.H.I.E.L.D. for decades, which turns the agency Rogers worked for into the enemy's tool. Perhaps that explains why people ask why the film is so good: it takes a clean hero and removes the institution he trusted, leaving only his own judgment. The fallout carries into Avengers: Age of Ultron through the mid credits scene. That being said, Rogers still holds the title here. Bucky does not become Captain America in this film, and later in the saga it is Sam Wilson who carries the name in Captain America: Brave New World.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier has two post credit scenes, one in the middle of the credits and one at the very end.

The mid credits scene shows Baron von Strucker and Hydra scientists in a lab, studying a glowing scepter and two test subjects with superhuman powers, one who is fast and one who is telekinetic. Joss Whedon wrote and directed this scene. It is a direct lead in to Avengers: Age of Ultron, where the Avengers raid a Hydra base in Sokovia run by Strucker, recover Loki's scepter and meet the twins Pietro and Wanda Maximoff, who gained their powers from Strucker's experiments.

The final scene shows Bucky Barnes looking at an exhibit about himself in a museum. It matches the ending, where Rogers and Wilson plan to search for him, and it shows that Barnes is already confronting his past. If you are following the saga in order, see Marvel movies in order for where this film sits.