S01.E07: SNAFU

[FurryFury]

Well, I'm not sure there is such a thing as "evil" accent. (On American TV, it's usually just "horrible", at least when it comes to Russian).

[Traveller519]

I've seen this alluded to elsewhere, but are we supposed to be assuming that the good doctor's hypnotism/mind-control is the basis for

Hydra's "Compliance" program

we see in AOS?

[tessaray]

 

I will miss this show so desperately. Every time I see an AoS commercial, I want to cry. Even my husband, who's a big AoS fan (I don't watch it), said he'd be fine with a few more weeks of Agent Carter.

 

I love this show and don't want it to end. Last night had me holding my breath in a couple of spots and I've been watching television for more than 4 decades (and haven't been surprised by much in the last 3). 

[DeLurker]

Fantastic!

Now I want to see Boris & Natasha do this!

As much as I enjoy Agent Carter, it doesn't make me appreciate AoS less.

[dusang]

I've seen this alluded to elsewhere, but are we supposed to be assuming that the good doctor's hypnotism/mind-control is the basis for

Hydra's "Compliance" program

we see in AOS?

 

The compliance program seems a lot more Clockwork Orange than proximity based hypnotism.

[Rick Kitchen]

This may be taking me into Simpsons Comic Book Guy level but... Why was the Dr. using Morse Code in English? Is there a Cyrillic version of Morse Code? If it was that, does Jarvis know Russian? 

 

The Russian doctor and Dottie spoke to each other in English, although we can handwave it that they were really speaking Russian and we just heard it as English.

[NCChic]

 

R.I.P. Dooley.  Well, now there's an opening for Agent Flynn (Bradley Whitford) to take over in the Agent Carter One-Shot, unless they will eliminating that from continuity.  (But if so, it will be after this series - he's not on the guest cast list for next week.)

Can anyone point to if that's available online? I've wanted to see it (Bradley Whitford fan) and can't find it.

If anyone has seen Kingsmen-The Secret Service that movie theatre scene was quite familiar. That's what I thought of anyway.

RIP Chirf Dooley. Didn't expect him to die.

And, according to commentary from Stargate SG-1 DVDs, if you have an accent, you are automatically considered evil. So I think that when someone comes on screen if I don't know the character first.

[dargosmydaddy]

 

Oh, and Sousa was an idiot, but it was expected. Still not feeling this character at all, even if I've noticed Enver really tried in the interrogation scene.

I want so badly to love Sousa, and I just can't. I don't dislike him, I just wish there was more to him.

 

Jarvis, on the other hand, I love with the heat of a thousand suns...

[benteen]

Can anyone point to if that's available online? I've wanted to see it (Bradley Whitford fan) and can't find it.

If anyone has seen Kingsmen-The Secret Service that movie theatre scene was quite familiar. That's what I thought of anyway.

RIP Chirf Dooley. Didn't expect him to die.

And, according to commentary from Stargate SG-1 DVDs, if you have an accent, you are automatically considered evil. So I think that when someone comes on screen if I don't know the character first.

 

Yep, I mentioned that about Kingsmen earlier.  Ironic they both debuted that scene only a matter of days apart.

[kili]

Thompson might have [shot Dotty on sight], after having seen the girl in Russia. But even then I'm not sure.

 

Didn't Thompson do just that? He came into the stairwell and just started shooting at her. That's what caused her to use her fancy stair descending skills.

 

They would flinch at shooting a woman in cold blood (hell, I'd hope anyone would, regardless of their era), especially if they had not seen this woman do anything criminal or dangerous yet

 

But they believed Peggy. Peggy had been knocked out by her and Dotty had been about to filet her making Dotty both a criminal and dangerous. Both Sousa and Thompson saw Dotty with Peggy, so they knew what she looked like. They have a positive ID and a trusted source  (Peggy) telling them how dangerous she is, I would not fault them for shooting first. Especially Thompson who saw how very dangerous people trained  in that program are. Sousa might not totally believe Thompson, so I can see why he might not have believed she needed to be shot without asking questions.

Edited February 18, 2015 by kili

[LadyMer]

I dearly want another season of this show, set in the 60s with Peggy and Jarvis globetrotting and fighting bad guys. It'd be like the Avengers (tv series)!

[Shanna]

Didn't Thompson do just that? He came into the stairwell and just started shooting at her. That's what caused her to use her fancy stair descending skills.

But they believed Peggy. Peggy had been knocked out by her and Dotty had been about to filet her making Dotty both a criminal and dangerous. Both Sousa and Thompson saw Dotty with Peggy, so they knew what she looked like. They have a positive ID and a trusted source (Peggy) telling them how dangerous she is, I would not fault them for shooting first. Especially Thompson who saw how very dangerous people trained in that program are. Sousa might not totally believe Thompson, so I can see why he might not have believed she needed to be shot without asking questions.

When Thompson shot, she had already attacked Sousa I think.

Even if they were 100% sure of Peggy, all she knew for sure is that Dottie knocked her out. The rest was an educated guess. I just can't see Sousa shooting a woman for walking in the hall, regardless.

[Bort]

Jarvis, on the other hand, I love with the heat of a thousand suns...

Or the heat of a thousand exploding Dooleys?

What… too soon?

Edited February 19, 2015 by kariyaki

[Rocket]

 

Try not to think about the people who were on the sidewalk below him. 

Previously Review

 

Thanks now got me thinking of the reddish mist descending. Hopefully the following glass, wood, and stone chips distract from that and not maim. 

 

Love how the characters have all been fleshed out. 

 

The lock in buckles I think was the vest was part of a armor suit project and they put the no out side tamper locks on way to soon for a prototype.

 

Howard is a menace founder of a pattern of menace gadget people in the Marvel Universe, that includes Fury storing all the fun stuff instead of shooting it into the sun like he was supposed to. On the other hand high tech aliens do exist so Earth does need to get it's game on for the future. 

 

Have loved the show and as a Agent of Shield fan looking forward to that as well. But hope Agent Carter gets another season. All the additional revenue streams make forecasting what will happen to shows harder. Plus some of the key ratings details are the things the networks have to pay for and are not publicly released as enforced by contract. (yes sometimes you see them in an article but that is always as a leak so not totally reliable) I hope Carter gets some functioning as a advertisement for the Marvel Universe consideration as well. 

[JillPole]

 

 

I want so badly to love Sousa, and I just can't. I don't dislike him, I just wish there was more to him.

Jarvis, on the other hand, I love with the heat of a thousand suns...

This is exactly how I feel. Sousa is very nice, very handsome, very well-meaning. Zzzzz. I simply cannot care about him. In the past couple of weeks I've really been enjoying his scenes with Thompson. The bit with them and Angie was great. Thompson encouraging Sousa in the elevator was great. I'm invested in their growing friendship. But his interactions with Peggy are pretty dull. I do like the contrast between the two agents who have both slowly come around to Peggy. Sousa is rather sweet on her and has her on a pedestal. Thompson was a simply sexist ass. Both were equally failing to see who she truly was, in different ways. 

 

But Jarvis? All the love. He and Peggy are hilarious together. Real friends. He's dorky and vulnerable and earnest. A little useless sometimes, but hey, he wasn't trained for this. 

 

I liked that Jarvis's past with forgery came back up.

[rozen]

Howard is a menace founder of a pattern of menace gadget people in the Marvel Universe, that includes Fury storing all the fun stuff instead of shooting it into the sun like he was supposed to. On the other hand high tech aliens do exist so Earth does need to get it's game on for the future. 

 

That's the hard time I had with Winter Soldier

 

when Captain America was all anti-superweapons and pro-superheros. It's like, what if you die? What if you fall into the rainbow bridge to another world? What if villains decide not to attack the same city 10000 superheros conveniently live in?Thor could annihilate a couple of European countries in the time it would take for them to get over there. And he's not even close to the strongest person in the multiverse, or whatever. I feel like Earth has been relatively safe just because it appears it's such a backwater that Real Badguys have minimal interest in it. That's not a great long-term strategy.

 

But then, flawless HYDRA infiltration, so *shrug*.

 

Editz: I wonder if we will see Angie swoop in as the SSR's martial arts savior? Cause I don't think anyone left on staff is capable of handling Dottie.

Edited February 19, 2015 by rozen

[justjoan]

 

I’ve never been convinced that Dooley was much of a Chief. His death was handled well, even if I never could warm to him, except maybe at the very, very end when he essentially put Peggy in charge of avenging him. Maybe I’m just not able to buy the whole mind control thing, but it made him seem weak and even less fit to run the SSR. The most resistance he was able to muster was to pause at the elevator and say he didn’t think the Stark tech should leave the building, but then, you know, “focus”.

 

It's really difficult to compress 40-odd years of character development down into eight episodes (a great length for ensuring no fatty bits, but not so much for deep examinations of supporting characters), so they may not have quite hit the target squarely enough. "Mind control" can be tough to convey and there are factors beyond the writing and performance that come into play, like the watcher's own pop culture experiences and biases. Canonically, though, Dr. Faustus is a horror show of the first degree. He reeks of betrayal and death. He crawls into the mind and dismantles everything warm and good, and he does it without the benefit of mutant abilities or magic, just real world psychological manipulation turned up to eleven (well, more like fifteen). He's required to fail over and over, of course, because those are the rules of comics, but there have definitely been story-lines where it was clear he lost only because It Was In the Script. Most importantly, he has mind controlled Steve Rogers several times (and even killed him once- long story), and Steve is the pinnacle of human willpower in the Marvelverse. That Dooley was able to shake off his influence even momentarily speaks volumes about his own mental strength. He essentially wrestled a grizzly bear with his brain. And yeah, the bear ate him in the end, but he held his own for a minute, and that is very impressive.

 

I had to watch Dottie's stairway parkour about twenty times. So cooool. I mean, evil. Yes, that's what I mean.

[APSimpson]

Good episode. The show is just hitting its stride, I think, with all the pretentiousness wearing off and it's actually quite enjoyable now. Too bad it's over soon, but maybe there's a way it can continue or come back in spurts.

 

I like the interaction between Carter and the boys. Too bad they killed off the Chief just when I was starting to like him. Thompson, Sousa and Jarvis I like and Carter is a striking heroine. Loved the pants she was wearing in this episode. Looking forward to her taking out what's-her-face. And how creepy is the doctor? *Shiver*

Edited February 19, 2015 by APSimpson

[dwmarch]

Can anyone point to if that's available online? I've wanted to see it (Bradley Whitford fan) and can't find it.

 

Here you go:

 

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1viter_marvel-one-shot-agent-carter-2013_shortfilms

[Andromeda]

I love this show so much. My son and I watch it together (then Flash and Arrow). I really hope it comes back in some form -- I'm going to miss Peggy and her shoulder pads when she's gone!

[romantic idiot]

Plus Jack seems to have warned only Souza about the scary female agents (telling him in the elevator to shoot first and ask questions later). I thought that was a good moment for the two because it showed that Jack does respect Souza and want him to live. Although, Jack should have probably told the entire team.

 

It is an interesting switch from Jack's earlier statement to Peggy that no matter what she does, she will always be seen as woman. That trip to Russia totally changed his perspective. Not only did Jack learn to respect Peggy, but he learned not to underestimate women in general. He also seems to be the one believing Peggy's story the most. The others seem to think that it is a wild goose chase, but Jack seems to think that Peggy knows what she is talking about, that Dottie is a threat and that this search isn't to be taken lightly.  He may have thought that only Souza might heed is warning anyway.

 

I thought it was a nice piece of work that Souza went back to investigate what Dottie was up to. Everybody else seems to have just returned to the office and been swept up in the next disaster. The main male characters may be blinded by sexism, but they are reasonably competent at their jobs.

 

I also had to LOL at the cheap husband refusing to pay for parking saving the couple. I've had that argument a few times about just parking the stupid car so we don't miss the start of things. I guess I'll have to stop complaining.

 

 

Speaking of Sousa, I completely understood his not shooting Dottie immediately. I think he needed confirmation that she was actually a bad guy, beyond guesswork and Peggy's word. Once he got that, he did shoot. I actually was impressed that he mostly held his own in that fight.

Yeah, in fact, I've been reading about Sousa being stupid not to shoot on sight, but to me he remains the only man so far whose defeated both Peggy and Dottie. 

 

I haven't enjoyed seeing a woman be so kickass and multifaceted since Alias or even La Femme Nikita.  

 

I'd go further back and count Xena, Buffy and Aeryn Sun. Unless you meant original Nikita, in which case, okay. 

[Miss Dee]

That's the first time I saw the short. I enjoyed it, but I hate thinking Peggy goes back into that kind of environment after she's made the inroads with these agents here.

[Danny Franks]

That's the first time I saw the short. I enjoyed it, but I hate thinking Peggy goes back into that kind of environment after she's made the inroads with these agents here.

 

I'm guessing that the short is going to be considered a sort of 'prototype' for the show, an alternate take on history. Because it doesn't make sense that she would go backwards and end up as the coffee girl again, after all that's happened on this show. The way Dooley looked to her, the way Thompson and Sousa trust her now, she's going to be the boss of that office before long.

 

Unless something happens in the finale that ruins all her credibility, but I don't see this show doing that.

[rujasu]

Well, Chief Dooley's respect might not help much, with him being dead and all.

[Danny Franks]

Well, Chief Dooley's respect might not help much, with him being dead and all.

 

And who did he look to as the natural leader, moments before his death? Not Sousa and not Thompson. He looked to Peggy, and I don't think it was just because she's the title character.

[stealinghome]

Yeah, I don't know what has been said about the short and its relationship to continuity before now, but it's REALLY hard for me to imagine that they can slot it into the Agent Carter TV canon. If nothing else, there's no way, after the events of the TV show, that Howard Stark would/could have that type of easy relationship with the SSR. But I also agree that there's no way Peggy could be transferred to a different SSR branch and have everyone there not know/respect, not just what she did in the war, but also like one week ago against the Leviathan forces in NYC! That would defy all logic. I'd rather they leave the short an Easter Egg of sorts.

 

tbh, I thought this episode pretty obviously telegraphed that Peggy and Howard are going to found SHIELD (or at least the idea of SHIELD) in the next episode, because Dooley's "you're out of the SSR!" and Peggy's later "It's Miss Carter, I'm no longer Agent" seemed to be pretty big foreshadowing.

[Cthulhudrew]

I had a feeling that Dooley wouldn't make it through the season, and while I'm disappointed, they gave him a really great sendoff. I actually thought for a moment that the evil doctor had actually sent him home to live a contented life with his wife and kids, turning his back on the SSR (and wouldn't that have been a twist? If the bad guy did something completely selfless for a troubled individual even in the midst of his mad plot to destroy the lives of countless strangers?)

 

I don't recall seeing any of Shea Whigham's work before, but he (and the writers) crafted such a complex, nuanced character in a relatively small amount of screentime and with a rather sparse bit of dialogue. I'm continually blown away by how this show demonstrates that it is possible to accomplish some very real character development and growth in the increasing vacuum of the television medium.

 

To add to that, all of the characters have been given a lot of life by the writing and acting, and it has been a slow but wonderful build. So much so, that I found myself fearful at various points for all of the non-Peggy and Edwin characters in this episode (especially Sousa and, of course, Dooley). The creators of this show have been able to get me invested in a way that many other shows do not (particularly that other Marvel one, to which this show puts to shame. Shame. SHAME!)

 

EDIT: Oh, and that confessional of Peggy's? Great, great scene. I really hope she (and the rest of the cast and crew) get a second season.

Edited February 20, 2015 by Cthulhudrew

[EyewatchTV211]

Here you go:

 

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1viter_marvel-one-shot-agent-carter-2013_shortfilms

"Learn to count."  Awesome!

[Sharpie66]

I've been trying to shoehorn this into the storyline alongside the One-Shot, and unless they do end up viewing the O-S as an alternate take (as Danny Franks suggests), the only way I can see it is if they bring in the Whitford guy as a temporary head agent (note that Peggy refers to him as "Agent," not "Chief"), and he brings back the old ways of doing things since Dooley let a foreign agent do so much damage to the SSR, including overhauling the agents by transferring out Thompson and Sousa but being stuck with Peggy due to Howard's insistence (they might not have SHIELD ready to go yet, but he obviously has serious pull in the SSR from the conversation that he has with Whitford). The "three months" timeframe that Peggy refers to in the O-S might be the length of time she's served under Whitford.

 

Then again, I could be completely wrong...

[Shanna]

I could see that working. Peggy in the one shot at least wasn't getting coffee, she was code breaking and doing analysis which is a step up. Doesn't explain why none of the others are there or why she seems so down.

[SophiaD]

 

Doesn't explain why none of the others are there or why she seems so down.

 

This is total retconning, of course, but if she was instrumental in protecting Howard and/or saving the city and/or bringing Dottie and the Evil Doctor down, it may have been hard for her just get slotted in to going back to doing desk work again, especially if she has had more recent field experience than all of the rest of the guys put together - and, more especially, if they keep screwing up.

 

I imagine that she might have hoped that she'd finally broken through the glass ceiling (this particular one, anyway) and might have gotten to co-run the agency with Thompson.  But with the arrival of Agent Flynn, who is an idiot, she's almost right back to where she started again.  He probably read the reports - or will read them, and downplayed her role, just like Dooley & Co. did.  I'd be depressed , too.

 

This is probably off topic for this thread.  Maybe I should move it to the Short thread? 

 

I do hope Thompson and Sousa survive next week's episode.  It was nice seeing them all, finally, start to gel as a team.  And heartbreaking, to see how the whole tragedy could have been avoided.  Dooley really showed major hubris, in thinking that he could handle the Evil Doctor, not questioning himself - and Thompson will probably be kicking himself for not pushing back harder for a long, long time.

[Carbon60]

I love the nascent team developing here too.  I hope the final episode lets us see Carter, Thompson, and Souza working together to defeat Leviathan. Or at least to beat back the immediate threat.  

[KirkB]

Going back to Howard and his inventions, I think this is a trait Tony got from his father. Both of them are the types of geniuses with unlimited resources who will actually try and create every idea that comes into their head just to see if they can, That's why Tony ended up with dozens of Iron Man suits. Howard probably came up with the idea for a gas to knock out soldiers without hurting them or something, but it was unstable and turned them murderous instead. The warming suits he built a couple of because the idea was sound, only one of them exploded so he locked the other one away instead of destroying it because you never know when you might figure out how to make it work.

 

As for fitting the one shot into the show, I don't think you can. Even making it the end of the series doesn't work because while I can buy the office being shuffled after Dooley's death leaving Peggy the only one there and thus reverted to being the office girl because none of the new guys know any better, I have a hard time working Howard being the head of the organization given he is still considered a traitor.

[paigow]

Sousa is alive because he got his ass kicked in the same direction as his gun. 

[Mrs Trick]

Loved this episode, and as I was reading the comments on this forum I got an ad for Hydra jewelry! (I'm not from the U.S.)

[Terrafamilia]

But of course the phone operator with her revolver at the ready like

the old lady with the Thompson submachinegun in the First Avenger

serving the point security role distracts from the entire theme that the men did not trust the women to fight that Agent Carter has used.

I tend to agree. However, while I am no expert in the genre, dames packing heat would not be out of place in the pulp fiction of the day, though dames being judo masters would be more uncommon. It is no accident that firearms are considered the "equalizer". It is more of a modern take that a "strong" female character should be expected to kick male ass as well as any Navy SEAL. Patrica Savage might be able to carry that off, and later, Mrs. Peel, though she could be considered a modern character.

 

Based on popular entertainment the menfolk of the time could be receptive to the competence of some woman in particular, after being presented with the clear evidence of it, even while not being receptive to the idea being applied to women in general.

[paigow]

I tend to agree. However, while I am no expert in the genre, dames packing heat would not be out of place in the pulp fiction of the day,

Annie Oakley & Calamity Jane would have been role models for early 20th century female gun enthusiasts.

[beedub]

Thanks for posting the link to the One-shot, dwmarch. I had only ever seen a very brief excerpt from that before, and seeing the whole thing was quite a revelation.

 

Basically, while not necessarily intended as such, it seems to serve as the pilot for the series we got, and is really a version of the entire series encapsulated into one short. So no, I don't expect we'll see anything from it transposed into the series (except perhaps some version of the final moments when SHIELD is about to happen), as an expanded version of everything in the short has already happened in an altered form in the series: Peggy was reassigned following the war; she was on limited duty and wasn't respected by the SSR; she gets a chance to go on a real mission and succeeds, proving herself; it still doesn't seem to be enough for her superiors, until she gets the call to join SHIELD.

 

The main difference is that in the short, Stark is in a position of power and influence over the SSR, while in order to make an 8-episode series work, it was fleshed out with the hook of having Stark be an outlaw and Peggy working secretly on his behalf.

 

I really enjoyed the short, but understand why the changes were made to make it work as a TV series. But clearly they both represent events taking place during roughly the same period of time, with similar beginning and end points and somewhat different middles, and we won't be revisiting anything in the short if there's a second season. On the plus side, with the way the TV series was expanded, we got the bonus of Jarvis!

[TudorQueen]

Cthulhudrew, Shea Whigham played Eli Thompson, Nucky's younger brother, on Boardwalk Empire. The character was presented as his brother's not-terribly-bright and deeply resentful 'muscle', serving as sheriff. Whigham managed to find a great deal of nuance in the character, and was often quite moving. So I wasn't at all surprised to see him bring those qualities to Dooley almost from the beginning. I was stunned and saddened by his death. The Chief actually lived up to his best ideals, doing all he could to make sure his death didn't bring down his colleagues - his other family.

Ralph Brown and Brigid Regan were as entertaining as they were evil. I expect more of the same tonight.

Jarvis is wonderful. I can't say it enough. And is it just me, or does James D'Arcy have a mild Benedict Cumberbatch vibe?



 

[paigow]

Jarvis is wonderful. I can't say it enough. And is it just me, or does James D'Arcy have a mild Benedict Cumberbatch vibe?

 

It's like the Jaguar commercials... all these British guys are interchangeable.

[KirkB]

I love that commercial.

[Zuleikha]

He crawls into the mind and dismantles everything warm and good, and he does it without the benefit of mutant abilities or magic, just real world psychological manipulation turned up to eleven (well, more like fifteen).

 

Since the MCU isn't bound to the same continuity as the comics, I hope that Dr. Faustus will have either superpowers, magic, or an artifact in his ring. That type of powerful mind control made sense in a time period when Mesmerism was commonly thought of as possible, but it breaks my suspension of disbelief. Of course, Dottie's spider walk down the stairs also breaks my suspension of disbelief if the MCU Black Widows don't have superpowers, and presumably a real person did that stunt so perhaps I'm the problem. :) (but really... the way they film her movements just do not seem human!)

[Bort]

Dottie's spider walk down the stairs also breaks my suspension of disbelief if the MCU Black Widows don't have superpowers, and presumably a real person did that stunt so perhaps I'm the problem. :) (but really... the way they film her movements just do not seem human!)

Because the stunt person was on a wire harness that was CGId out, so it wasn't exactly real either way.

[Zuleikha]

Well, then my objection to the idea of MCU Black Widows not having superpowers stands then, and I will assume Dottie was the beneficiary of the Black Widow serum unless MCU canon clearly establishes otherwise. (I haven't seen Valediction yet, so I don't know what gets shown there)

 

On a different note, I find it interesting that Jarvis is being played as growing contemptuous of Howard Stark. I haven't seen the first Captain America and I'm not super into Marvel's continuities, but Jarvis's feelings are mirroring mine. I initially saw Stark as a good person with some flaws, but as we see more of his inventions and choices, I'm seeing him more as a bad person with some redeeming qualities. He's just so careless! That vest, the formula, the Madbomb... these are things that if he had to invent because his genius mind wouldn't let him rest until he had, he should have neutralized or completely destroyed rather than locked away in a vault.

 

I know it's not fair to lay Dooley's death at Stark's feet, but Stark should have provided Peggy with instructions for how to neutralize the bad babies once he knew they were in SSR scientist hands. That's one of those choices that could be a plot hole, but here, it doesn't feel like one. It feels like we were shown Peggy as barely having time to breathe much less think to request that from Stark, and Stark as being the type of person who just wouldn't think of that. Because he would have to think about other people for long enough to realize how necessary that would be and how could he be expected to think of other people when he had a floor full of women to seduce?

[charis]

I'm not sure I read Jarvis as much 'contemptuous' as 'realistic about Howard's flaws and resigned to the fact they'll never change', if the distinction makes sense. IMO he still respects Howard (unsurprising, given Howard's part in Anna's survival), but isn't blind to his employer's shortcomings.  (Which might well have been what you're trying to say -- contemptuous just doesn't fit for me.)

 

I wonder if Howard even bothered to find neutralisation methods for all of his inventions. That doesn't seem to me his style -- more 'shove it in a corner and ignore it because ooh, shiny new challenge!'. Howard is ... not very grounded in reality, and seems the type to think that locking something up obviously means no one will go after it (despite having seen evidence to the contrary in the past). He's not very good at thinking things through, is he?

[Zuleikha]

(Which might well have been what you're trying to say -- contemptuous just doesn't fit for me.)

 

 

I struggled to find a word and I agree "contemptuous" isn't right. Maybe "distasteful"? 

[charis]

I struggled to find a word and I agree "contemptuous" isn't right. Maybe "distasteful"? 

 

That certainly seems like a better fit, IMO -- especially when one thinks of poor Jarvis' face when Peggy drags him door to door through Howard's exes. He just seems so squirmingly uncomfortable with some of what he has to do on Howard's behalf. Poor put-upon man. XD

[theatremouse]

Well, then my objection to the idea of MCU Black Widows not having superpowers stands then, and I will assume Dottie was the beneficiary of the Black Widow serum unless MCU canon clearly establishes otherwise.

While I agree that scene was almost certainly shot with a harness that was edited out, if you think about some of the weird shenanigans that happen on American Ninja Warrior does it make you feel any better? Because there are lots of stunts on that show, that had I not seen it, I would've thought were not possible for humans to actually do. So it makes it easier for me to buy many a no-superpowers-but-how'd-they-move-that-way stunt on many other (fiction) shows.