S02.E01: The Lady in the Lake / S02.E02: A View In The Dark

[pcta]

Loved it and have little I can add to the discussion. Two things jarred me. An interracial couple would have a lot more negativity thrown at them - but this is a light show so maybe I can understand them just briefly touching the issue. The other thing that bugged me a lot was that they had Peggy in pastel lipstick - not period.

[Minneapple]

There is no way Souza's girlfriend isn't evil or...something. I mean she's a curly haired blond, which is like a great big flashing signal. Also there's no way she'd be so chipper and happy after Souza ran off after Peggy like that.

 

I enjoyed the Los Angeles setting. It's a nice change of pace from New York last season.

 

I sincerely hope Wilkes isn't dead, just in another dimension or whatever. His character was great and I liked him with Peggy. Hayley really does have chemistry with everyone.

 

LOVED Mrs. Jarvis. I really look forward to her developing friendship with Peggy. 

 

I get the complaints about the screwball comedy. I do think they ratcheted it up a bit and it seems a bit too cheesy and cartoony.

[tankgirl73]

I'm wondering if at the end of the second episode, when the zero matter falls after Whitney and Dr. Wilkes fight, what did Whitney mean about only her knowing what the zero matter really was?  I get the feeling that she may have been using the zero matter for something (looking or staying young maybe) and hubby was in on it.  But now it's gone and she's locked herself in her dressing room panicking even before her husband came by to tell her the bad news.  Why would Chadwick be telling his wife anything about the zero matter in the first place?  She's an actress, not part of Isodyne.  The mark on her head may be a crack in her veneer that the zero matter was helping to keep hidden.

 

Yes! Thank you. I was starting to wonder why nobody else was posting about this. She *clearly* is way more involved and knows way more than we've been shown thus far. Is she an Inhuman? Some other alien? What is her involvement?

 

With the 'crack' on her forehead -- I was actually left wondering if it's not so much an injury she suffered, but that she actually *absorbed* all the zero matter. Something about whatever she is absorbed the explosion completely. Including Dr Wilkes. Just like Harry Potter's lightning scar left him with a piece of Voldemort inside him, she now has Dr Wilkes trapped inside her. Dr Wilkes, inside the zero matter, which is inside her. That's my guess, anyway.

[xqueenfrostine]

So glad this show is back!  I really missed Peggy and Jarvis.  I'm not keen so far with this season's B-plot with Thompson, but I can be patient with that so long as it leads up to the end of the SSR.  I'd really like to see the formation of SHIELD come sooner rather than later, so if we have to sit through a slower storyline in NYC to get there, that's okay by me!

 

I was a little annoyed with Souza for the way he handled his relationship with Peggy.  I'm not a Carter/Souza shipper so I'm not bothered at all by the fact that he got a new girlfriend in California but I thought it was rather cowardly of him to ignore Peggy's calls while she was in New York rather than being straight with her that he had met someone else.  Then it really annoyed me that he couldn't man up and tell her once Peggy got to LA!  I know he clearly still has feelings for Peggy, but it seemed a little shady that he couldn't tell her about a woman he was planning on marrying.

 

 I can't keep ll the comic plots straight, but I thought the Zero Matter acted more the gravitronium from AoS than the monolith.

 

I agree, I definitely think that if the zero matter is a substance we've already seen in AoS, that the signs point more towards gravitonium than the monolith.  The zero matter never appeared to stop moving, making it very unlike the monolith.  Plus we've never seen the Monolith cause giant objects to float the way the zero matter did in the video that Wilkes showed Peggy.  And it doesn't suck things toward it either.  

 

That said, I really hope that whatever zero matter is, it's only taken Wilkes to a place he can come back from.  He was my favorite new character, and I don't want to believe that he's truly gone.

[Advance35]

Both Dr. Wilkes and Sousa were not saved by Captain America in Europe... So CA:Winter Soldier exposition excludes them as "Mr. Carter". Not to eliminate the possibility that those kids in her bedside photos had a different bio-dad than "Mr. Carter" ....

 

 

And Peggy and Gabe Jones broke up.   They never got married.  I honestly can't recall WHY they broke up but they definitely didn't end up together, though I feel like he ended up with someone prominent, I just can't recall.

 

I also TOTALLY detected a one-sided attraction from Thompson towards Peggy.   He wants her but is inside eating jealous of her as well.   I don't ship them but I do like to see these two interact as I think Jack is a well drawn character even though I don't like him.   And he's still such a weasel, that was a really childish trick to play on both Peggy AND Sousa.

Edited January 21, 2016 by Advance35

[Tiger]

I love that Rose is being a prominent role this season, and that she's such a Peggy/Daniel shipper. Ana Jarvis was also fantastic. I love that we have three women who all "know [their] value".

Anyway, I couldn't stand Prof. Wilkes. But I think that's just because I ship Peggy/Sousa big time. I font care if it doesn't 100% give with what was established in the movies and AoS.

[snarktini]

I wasn't, but I figured that while Dottie might be able to win a fight with Peggy, her SWF obsession wouldn't let her kill our gal quickly and there was no way she'd be getting out of SSR headquarters with an unconscious Peggy in tow. I did wonder if they were going to let her decapitate Thompson, though. You'd think after his adventures with the Howling Commandos last year he might be more mindful of the fact that there's a whole world of people out there way more badass than he is. He should know Dottie isn't some Manhattan gangster's moll that he can intimidate.

 

That scene felt odd to me. Jack couldn't even conceive that he should be afraid of her, or that she wouldn't be intimidated by a little pain? I mean, seriously. It was so obvious she was going to eat him for lunch.

 

I think they're having a hard time nailing his characterization. They want him to be unrepentantly sexist and self-serving, while not making him one-dimensionally stupid or bad. They've shown him go one step forward, and two steps back. But then underestimating Dot was too stupid even for him. You'd think his self-preservation would have kicked in there a tiny bit, after what he's seen. For now I'll hope that this is intentional, setting him up for a big fall and a learning moment. 

Edited January 21, 2016 by snarktini

[stealinghome]

What made Agent Carter stand out in the first season was how Peggy was able to overcome the social conventions of the day and still  get the job done. Sometimes it was heavy-handed, but it was fun to see how Peggy dealt with being ahead of her time. Things seem pretty easy for her in LA.

The show in S1 also took a lot of flak for being so OTT, as-subtle-as-a-sledgehammer-to-the-head about the sexism Peggy faced, though. Fairly or unfairly, it was often mentioned as something that turned people off from the show. I'm not surprised they toned it down this season in response.

 

I get the complaints about the screwball comedy. I do think they ratcheted it up a bit and it seems a bit too cheesy and cartoony.

Agreed. It was fine for the opener and to set the tone for LA, but I hope they tone it down in future episodes.

 

but I thought it was rather cowardly of him to ignore Peggy's calls while she was in New York rather than being straight with her that he had met someone else.  Then it really annoyed me that he couldn't man up and tell her once Peggy got to LA!  I know he clearly still has feelings for Peggy, but it seemed a little shady that he couldn't tell her about a woman he was planning on marrying.

This is why love triangles never, ever end well. Sousa was a pretty weak character in S1 to begin with...I'm baffled that the writers thought THIS was a good avenue for his character. Literally NO CHARACTER has EVER benefited from being the cowardly waffling guy!

 

I think they're having a hard time nailing his characterization. They want him to be unrepentantly sexist and self-serving, while not making him one-dimensionally stupid or bad. They've shown him go one step forward, and two steps back. But then underestimating Dot was too stupid even for him. You'd think his self-preservation would have kicked in there a tiny bit, after what he's seen.

Agreed. Had Dottie killed him in the interrogation room, he would have rightfully won a Darwin Award. I mean, Thompson isn't the brightest bulb, but that was a whole other level of stupid.

 

I agree that they're having a hard time getting his characterization--they seem to want to make him just sympathetic (or at least interesting) enough so that we want to see more of him, but keep him as Peggy's main workplace antagonist. At a certain point those two things can't really go together. And tbh I think part of the problem is CMM. A better, more charismatic actor might be able to make us interested in Thompson even if we don't like him per se (think Robert Carlyle in the first few seasons of OUAT), but CMM just doesn't have the chops.

[Tim Thomason]

According to Peggy in Winter Soldier:

A blizzard had trapped half our battalion behind the German line. Steve...Captain Rogers, he fought his way through a HYDRA blockade that had pinned our allies down for months. He saved over a thousand men, including the man who would...who would become my husband as it turned out. Even after he died, Steve was still changing my life.

 

 

 

 

The implication is that she found out much later that Captain America saved the man who would be her future husband, and it was really non-consequential. Sousa and Wilkes are both World War II veterans, and I don't see anything that rules them out of being one of the over a thousand men who were trapped by a blizzard in German territory.

 

Except that Wilkes was a Naval engineer, and I'm scratching my head to wonder if the Navy had support ground troops on the Western Front (they were mostly a Pacific theater group).

[Netfoot]

I'd really like to see the formation of SHIELD come sooner rather than later, so if we have to sit through a slower storyline in NYC to get there, that's okay by me!

 

I love Agent Carter, but in my opinion, AoS is a steaming pile o' shite.  I hope they never form SHIELD, and we have Peggy for many entertaining seasons to come.

[Athena5217]

So happy to have this show back! I want to be just like Agent Carter when I grow up. Yes, I'm 40, but I'm a late bloomer so there's still time.

I like how the writers don't forget about comic plot point. So the fake talent agency doesn't just have the dancers in the beginning--the clown shows up later. Jarvis later chases the pink flamingo he had when he picked Peggy up.

I didn't like Sousa's treatment of Peggy. Not telling her about Violet was just as disrespectful to her as those jerks in the NYC SSR were. Worse because he knows better.

[xqueenfrostine]

The show in S1 also took a lot of flak for being so OTT, as-subtle-as-a-sledgehammer-to-the-head about the sexism Peggy faced, though. Fairly or unfairly, it was often mentioned as something that turned people off from the show. I'm not surprised they toned it down this season in response.

 

I never got this criticism.  Do people really assume that women were experiencing subtle sexism in the 40s?  It was a time when women were being laid off in droves from their wartime jobs in order to make room for men returning from the army.

 

I love Agent Carter, but in my opinion, AoS is a steaming pile o' shite.  I hope they never form SHIELD, and we have Peggy for many entertaining seasons to come.

 

What does one have to do with the other?  You can hate AoS and still be interested in watching Peggy forming her own inteliigence agency.    

[ElectricBoogaloo]

First, I have to tell you guys that back when I was in college, I was hired to work in a vault and I was extremely disappointed when I showed up on my first day and it wasn't full of gold bars and stacks of money like we saw in the opening scene. Actually, my first expectation was that it would be a room filled from floor to ceiling with money like Scrooge McDuck's.

 

Loved seeing Lotte Verbeek as Anna (even though she will always be Giulia Farnese to me!), and I really REALLY love that she showed no signs of jealousy about her husband's friendship with Peggy. I am so tired of tv shows acting like two people of the opposite sex must be attracted to each other. I love that Jarvis is clearly very fond of Peggy (and he was really worried about her when she sent up the bat signal) but that it's completely non-sexual.

 

I also like that Violet is not showing any signs of jealousy either, but the jury is still out on her. She could be an awesome girl whose only flaw is not being Peggy or she could be a spy sent to keep an eye on Souza. But I do like that she already knows what he does so that he didn't have to make up some ridiculous talent agency emergency that would have kept him out all night.

 

I really liked Wilkes so I hope he's not gone for good. At first I was suspicious of him, but he was fun and smart and not freaked out (well, okay, a little bit freaked out but still functional).

 

Jarvis continues to be a delight. I love his flamingo nemesis Barnard.

 

And Howard Stark manages to be entertaining even when he isn't on the show.

 

Dottie is a great villain. I never liked her more than when she was choking Thompson with the interrogation room table. I know we're not supposed to root for the bad guys, but if she keeps doing stuff like that then I will definitely be on her side.

 

And Peggy mentioned her brother which is I suppose how we get Sharon Carter.

And then little Aaron Carter?

[tankgirl73]

Guys, guys, guys -- I had a revelation last night while drifting off to sleep.

 

Any conversation so far about 'zero matter' has been about how it looks like the monolith, or like gravitonium. But let's not forget about what it supposedly *does*.

 

I don't mean the sucking stuff through cracks in the universe. I mean that their entire research with it is focussed on using it for energy.

 

Easy, limitless energy.

 

Who else do we know in this universe who has something to do with an unusual type of matter that produces vast amounts of energy? Maybe something someone would have left secret instructions on the atomic structure of it for later generations to find? Because other than this particular weapons-related accident, they didn't yet have the technology to replicate it safely? Or even store it safely?

 

It's clear from the known future in this universe that they are not going to be successful at figuring out how to use the stuff for energy, as the Bad Guy and the Frost-girl-who-knows-more-than-she-lets-on and the good folks at Isodyne were all working towards. So what happens to this McGuffin? Perhaps it does indeed turn out to be the precursor to gravitonium. Or perhaps Ms Frost, imperiled and changed by her up close and personal experience with the stuff, encounters a brilliant young man named Howard Stark -- perhaps initially as an actress for his new movie company. She realizes he's the only one who can help her and confides in him. He manages to help get the stuff out of her, and learns a lot about the stuff in the process, including the fact that it's an ideal source of energy but not with their current technology. The experience draws them together, she leaves Mr Bad Guy and bears Howard a strapping young son who they name Tony. Knowing how volatile and dangerous the stuff is, Howard can't leave instructions for its synthesis lying around where the Council/Hydra can find it, so later in life he hides the information in a promotional movie.

 

This is my official prediction. The connection about the unknown matter being an energy source just suddenly struck me and it seems too much to be just a coincidence!

[Raja]

According to Peggy in Winter Soldier:

 

 

The implication is that she found out much later that Captain America saved the man who would be her future husband, and it was really non-consequential. Sousa and Wilkes are both World War II veterans, and I don't see anything that rules them out of being one of the over a thousand men who were trapped by a blizzard in German territory.

 

Except that Wilkes was a Naval engineer, and I'm scratching my head to wonder if the Navy had support ground troops on the Western Front (they were mostly a Pacific theater group).

Those big amphibious invasions in North Africa, three or so in Italy where we were shown Captain America's first operations, Southern France and the big one on D-Day at Normandy. Along with smaller commando raids and full scale rehearsals left for plenty of chances for a sailor to be taken prisoner by the Germans from the ground and not just as a survivor of a sinking ship.

Edited January 21, 2016 by Raja

[KirkB]

It doesn't even have to be a soldier. The Red Skull was rounding up everyone he could get his hands on. Peggy's future husband could be some random guy from the area who she met up with later on in some capacity.

Edited January 21, 2016 by KirkB

[blackwing]

Guys, guys, guys -- I had a revelation last night while drifting off to sleep.

 

Any conversation so far about 'zero matter' has been about how it looks like the monolith, or like gravitonium. But let's not forget about what it supposedly *does*.

 

I don't mean the sucking stuff through cracks in the universe. I mean that their entire research with it is focussed on using it for energy.

 

Easy, limitless energy.

 

Who else do we know in this universe who has something to do with an unusual type of matter that produces vast amounts of energy? Maybe something someone would have left secret instructions on the atomic structure of it for later generations to find? Because other than this particular weapons-related accident, they didn't yet have the technology to replicate it safely? Or even store it safely?

 

It's clear from the known future in this universe that they are not going to be successful at figuring out how to use the stuff for energy, as the Bad Guy and the Frost-girl-who-knows-more-than-she-lets-on and the good folks at Isodyne were all working towards. So what happens to this McGuffin? Perhaps it does indeed turn out to be the precursor to gravitonium. Or perhaps Ms Frost, imperiled and changed by her up close and personal experience with the stuff, encounters a brilliant young man named Howard Stark -- perhaps initially as an actress for his new movie company. She realizes he's the only one who can help her and confides in him. He manages to help get the stuff out of her, and learns a lot about the stuff in the process, including the fact that it's an ideal source of energy but not with their current technology. The experience draws them together, she leaves Mr Bad Guy and bears Howard a strapping young son who they name Tony. Knowing how volatile and dangerous the stuff is, Howard can't leave instructions for its synthesis lying around where the Council/Hydra can find it, so later in life he hides the information in a promotional movie.

 

This is my official prediction. The connection about the unknown matter being an energy source just suddenly struck me and it seems too much to be just a coincidence!

 

I don't think Whitney Frost can be Tony Stark's mother.  His mother Maria Stark has been mentioned (but not seen) in several of the MCU movies already.  I guess you could say that Whitney Frost is a stage name and her real name is Maria, but that would really go against the comics, where Whitney Frost is

the daughter of the Avengers villain Count Nefaria and becomes the Maggia leader Madame Masque.

 I know they have deviated from the comics to some extent in the MCU (notably, Clint Barton living on a farm in Iowa and married to someone who is not Mockingbird) but this would be quite a change.  Although I suppose this Agent Carter version of Whitney Frost could be the mother of the comics Whitney Frost.

[Bruinsfan]

It's unlikely they'll introduce a modern day Whitney Frost as an Iron Man love interest/antagonist at this late juncture, so I imagine the one we're getting on Agent Carter will be the one and only. Maybe she'll end up having a similar relationship with Howard Stark instead. I do think the mysterious cabal seems more like the Maggia than a hidden remnant of HYDRA, since its aims seem to be economic and political power rather than technological/military, and it goes back at least to the 1920s in America.

 

Also, this is probably an unpopular opinion (very, very unpopular on tumblr for sure): I don't miss Angie. At all. I'm sure we'll see her again someday and I like her character well enough...I just don't miss her. The tumblr fandom is already beginning to ruin my enjoyment of this season because a ton of them are whining about Angie not appearing. Didn't her actress have scheduling issues? It's not the writers' fault.

Right there with you, Angie was like the second coming of Darcy Lewis and both characters are as nails on a chalkboard to me. But apparently catnip to Tumblr's hordes of tween girls looking for someone to imagine themselves growing up as now that Bella Swan is no longer on cinema screens.

[AzureOwl]

About Violet- if Sarah Bolger isn't an agent, I'm gonna seriously question her choices. She practically had "B. Widow" stenciled on her lapel. Never trust the blond chics in AC-ville.

 

Loved Sarah Bolger on "The Tudors".  I was sad that they wouldn't continue "The Tudors" beyond the death of His Royal Poopypants Jonathan Rhys Meyers.  A series focusing on Mary Tudor would have been awesome.  I feel bad for her here though, as she is clearly cast in the role of the third wheel.  I'd love to see her as an agent.

 

There is no way Souza's girlfriend isn't evil or...something. I mean she's a curly haired blond, which is like a great big flashing signal. Also there's no way she'd be so chipper and happy after Souza ran off after Peggy like that.

 

Add me to the crowd who suspects Violet is another secret agent. Not necessarily another black Widow, but definitively undercover for someone. In addition to being so perfect, the fact that her grandfather is supposedly from the same town as Peggy screams of a manufactured cover designed specifically with the contingency of meeting Peggy in mind.

And then from the Doylist perspective, I find it very suspicious that Sarah Bolger's casting received so little publicity. I follow her on Twitter and Instagram and she didn't drop a single hint, and her name didn't come up in any of the pre-premier articles or news stories. Makes it look like they're trying to hide something. 

[Tara Ariano]

In case you missed it, here's the Previously.TV post on the episode!

 

Welcome Back, Agent Carter
It's the same cool spy stuff, but this time it's in Los Angeles and there are palm trees. And shotguns!

[tankgirl73]

I don't think Whitney Frost can be Tony Stark's mother.  His mother Maria Stark has been mentioned (but not seen) in several of the MCU movies already.

 

Okay -- the main point of my 'revelation' was about the energy source/matter/etc anyway. The idea of her being the mom was just a wild stab based on some previous comments wondering who the mom would end up being. I'd presumed from that, that she hadn't yet been named. I missed it in the movies I guess (and I don't know the comics history of all the character).  I thought it would be a fun way for the plot to get there -- but the main point was still that this McGuffin is the source of Tony's new power source.

[that one guy]

One thing I like about this show is how it can look like a comic book without being cheesy or campy. The shot of Peggy knocking out Dottie in the bank vault with the coins flying everywhere was just beautifully done. I hope somebody does it as a page from a comic book and posts it online somewhere. 

 

In no particular order:

 

Peggy has a brother. Peggy has a family! She's from a town! I want to know more, now. I suppose a younger sister played by separated-at-birth twin Daisy Ridley is way too much to ask for...

Dottie is great, less unhinged and thus more dangerous in this one. I liked the language of the interrogation, that she's seen as a Russian spy and not just Leviathan. The villain of season 1 was a little bit of a letdown. I mean, from Loki to Kilgrave the MCU just loves mind control as a plot device. But evil guy bent on revenge was just not as scary as it would have been for the enemy to be the actual Soviets. I mean, come on, it's the late 1940s, you don't need to invent a supervillain when you actually have Stalin to work with. Stalin wants to steal plans for superweapons would have been an excellent first season plot, because that really happened. Anyway Dottie seems smarter and more devious here, and I hope she escapes and comes after Peggy. I loved her dressing like Peggy at the beginning, except more over the top, wider lapels, goofier hat. And I've forgiven the show for not having Lyndsy Fonesca be the Russian spy. Almost.

 

Ray Wise's character (Hugh Jones?) was the guy who bought the explosives from the always evil (Orphan Black, True Detective, Gotham) James Frain last season. He wasn't behind the main plot last year, and since he wants this thing shut down this year and Ms Frost is having none of it, he's not behind the main plot this year, either. But the idea that the chairman of Roxxon is involved in some kind of overarching conspiracy behind the scenes suggests they have plans for at least one more season. Even though it's a different franchise, I'm just going to think of them as SPECTRE until somebody has another idea.

 

I like Sousa but it would be difficult to care less about whether he and Peggy ever get together. Thompson experienced some growth as a character last year, but it all seems to have disappeared and he's back to being Captain Douchebag again. I got the feeling that he sent Peggy to LA just to fuck with Sousa for some reason. Like, "he seems to have moved on and established a healthy relationship. Since that will never happen for me because I'm a dick, let me see if I can screw things up for him." Hell yes I was rooting for Dottie to break his neck.

 

ETA: The Dunbar Hotel was a real place, and was the center of the LA Jazz scene in the 1940s. One good thing about moving the show to LA is the ability to use real locations instead of green screen NYC. Although I can't seen that Observatory location in anything without thinking the Terminator is about to show up and beat up Bill Paxton and steal his jacket.

Edited January 21, 2016 by that one guy

[AnnaMayWong]

I did think it hilarious that Jack took ALL of that time delivering the carrot and the stick story with such menacing undertones in speech and with physically threatening overtones by placing the stick upon the table as Dottie gazed at him in obvious amusement and disdain, and, then, rapidly and effortlessly throttling him.

[AnnaMayWong]

..and, I agree with the ☝ABOVE⬆-- that scene with the bank bag bursting (and coins flying) while being bashed against the back of Dottie's head WAS beautiful.

...

Edited January 23, 2016 by BookElitist

[Julia]

And she had to work at not killing him, too. She was laying on top of a table pressed against his larynx. She had to have extraordinary balance not to add a few pounds more pressure and crush it.

[paigow]

According to Peggy in Winter Soldier:

The implication is that she found out much later that Captain America saved the man who would be her future husband, and it was really non-consequential. Sousa and Wilkes are both World War II veterans, and I don't see anything that rules them out 

Sousa would have talked about being rescued by Captain America in S1, no reason to keep it a secret. None of the NYC SSR men served with or met Cap. The writers went to great expository lengths to say that Thompson served exclusively in the Pacific Theatre.

[charis]

Lotte Verbeek's accent is all over the place.  I don't find it an excuse that she is Dutch.  The character is supposed to be an Eastern European Jew.  But when she showed up in the morning and asked Peggy if Jarvis was using his patented tortoise of fury, she sounded English.  Then when she asked Peggy if she wanted to go another round with her husband, she sounded Russian.  Later, when she was first talking to Peggy about the dresses, she sounded American.  She needs to pick one accent and stick with it.

 

She not only jumps around in accent, she just plain doesn't sound Hungarian. One side of my family are expat Hungarian Jews, and nowhere in accent soup did she sound anything like them. Hungary's Jews were fairly well-assimilated at the time, from what I recall, and Hungarian is a language isolate, having her sound (for example) Russian or "vague Hollywood Eastern European" makes no sense at all. (Even a German accent would've been more plausible, between the vestiges of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and possible Yiddish influences (if she were from a less-assimilated family.) NGL, it bothered the heck out of me. (I found Anna kind of grating as a character, but the accent kind of capped it all.)

 

I think my favourite surprise with the new season was Rose coming across the country, because she was just delightful.

 

I am 100% here for the ongoing Peggy vs. Dottie show, and the Peggy uncovering mysteries show, and the Peggy smacking people with whatever weapon of opportunity is at hand show. I am much less here for the Peggy romance show, so I hope they don't spend too much time there.

 

Still, very much looking forward to the new season!

Edited January 21, 2016 by charis

[Tim Thomason]

Sousa would have talked about being rescued by Captain America in S1, no reason to keep it a secret. None of the NYC SSR men served with or met Cap. The writers went to great expository lengths to say that Thompson served exclusively in the Pacific Theatre.

Maybe, but would he know? The way I interpret the line is that over a thousand Allies (or half a battalion) was pinned by HYDRA in German territory due to a blizzard that cut them off from support. Not necessarily POWs or anything, just left to fend for themselves with the enemy closing in.

 

Then Captain America comes and takes out the HYDRA forces (destroys their leadership? causes them to retreat enough to bring in support?). Perhaps his, and I presume the Commandos' involvement was top secret. So Souza or Wilkes or Bruce Banner, Sr. might not even know of Captain America's involvement until years later, or even are sworn to secrecy about it or something.

 

And Peggy is well-known to Souza for her past with the Captain. Perhaps he was being delicate about ever mentioning Captain America in front of his famous girlfriend.

 

But this is all digression. I'm not promoting Sousa or Wilkes as Peggy's future husband. For all I know, the line could be retconned away and someone completely uninvolved in the European theater could end up as her beau.

[stealinghome]

I never got this criticism.  Do people really assume that women were experiencing subtle sexism in the 40s?  It was a time when women were being laid off in droves from their wartime jobs in order to make room for men returning from the army.

I think it's a combination of things. First, I'm sure part of it is fanboys (or a certain segment of the male population) not liking to see a reflection of their own sexism. Second, I think there's a difference between subtle vs. overt sexism and how subtle or not-subtle the show is about the sexism it portrays, if that makes sense. I agree that it makes total sense for Peggy to face a lot of pretty overt, in-your-face sexism. But I do also think that the show at times could feel very preachy about it last season, and that the message would have been more effective if the show itself had been a little more subtle.

 

Right there with you, Angie was like the second coming of Darcy Lewis and both characters are as nails on a chalkboard to me. But apparently catnip to Tumblr's hordes of tween girls looking for someone to imagine themselves growing up as now that Bella Swan is no longer on cinema screens.

I am not on Tumblr and not a tween girl, but the Peggy-Angie friendship was one of my favorite parts of S1. I'd happily, happily trade Thompson and Sousa in to get Angie back. Fonseca has more chemistry with Atwell, and far more charisma as an actress, than either CMM or EG.

Edited January 21, 2016 by stealinghome

[Guest]

I was thinking that we had mentioned the possibility that Sousa's girlfriend is genuine or evil.  And I thought she was genuine up until the last scene that just felt wrong.

 

But one thing that just occurred to me is that Sousa may be undercover because the girlfriend is suspected to be tied to something hinky/evil. 

[missbonnie]

I'm with you on the Hydra connection. I binge-watched AoS to catch up a couple of weeks ago and think the lapel pin and logo is close to some of those pre-Hydra drawings FitzSimmons found.

Is Ms. Frost (haha) now zero matter? I love almost every character in this show other than Thompson because he's an ass.

I noticed that on the pin right away as well as when I saw the black matter I immediately thought of the monolith. I am wondering if Mrs. Frost is an early version of what Ward in AoS is now. I have never been able to see Thompson as anyone other than Lucas Scott from OTH, especially given the fact that he loves that era in real life and OTH did an episode set in that time. Also Red Forman, is SO much a part of the early Hydra organization.

What does one have to do with the other? You can hate AoS and still be interested in watching Peggy forming her own inteliigence agency.

OR, you can love them both for different reasons like I do.

Edited January 22, 2016 by missbonnie

[Emily Thrace]

Loved it and have little I can add to the discussion. Two things jarred me. An interracial couple would have a lot more negativity thrown at them - but this is a light show so maybe I can understand them just briefly touching the issue. The other thing that bugged me a lot was that they had Peggy in pastel lipstick - not period.

 

Yeah that felt a little off. Especially him hitting on her, even today black men especially are often careful about hitting on white women and this guy was doing it in 1947.  In front of an LAPD officer. That felt off I can see the writers wanting him to be seen as reaching for more but people in those days used coded language for a reason. I can see them not getting looks in a club if they were talking but even in a majority black club I have to wonder if dancing together might have been crossing a line. Something that white people don't often realize is that white bigots aren't the only problem most often mixed couples face stronger opposition from the other side as well. It was definitely a little optimistic but then it is LA most my reading for that era has been in the south or north east. Its also not quite the fifties yet so there was still a little post war pre-MacAthur freedom in the air. Peggy's reaction was fairly optimistic as well if we're going for accuracy . Someone from her class in particular probably wouldn't have been nearly as open minded in real life.  I get that Marvel has a bit of an idealistic spin on the past but I also would hate to see the actual real life struggles of black Americans minimized. 

[ahisma]

Peggy's reaction was fairly optimistic as well if we're going for accuracy . Someone from her class in particular probably wouldn't have been nearly as open minded in real life.

1) Peggy is British, and wouldn't have the same historical baggage around Black people. Britain is not a kumbaya paradise, but did have centuries of tradition of Black freemen, outlawed slavery much earlier than the US, and did not have Jim Crow laws.

2) She spent most of WWII around the Howling Commandoes, the first integrated unit. She never had any problem hanging out with any of "the boys," Black, French, or Japanese American.

[Bruinsfan]

A friend pointed out to me that during WWII British pubs' response to white American servicemen's objections to shared spaces with black ones was often to tell the white ones to GTFO, and British parents tended to have better reactions to their daughters dating black US soldiers than white (the latter tending to be less polite). Peggy not giving a whit about a prospective date's race reads true to me, but her outraged surprise at encountering open racism after living in the US for years doesn't.

[Raja]

A friend pointed out to me that during WWII British pubs' response to white American servicemen's objections to shared spaces with black ones was often to tell the white ones to GTFO, and British parents tended to have better reactions to their daughters dating black US soldiers than white (the latter tending to be less polite). Peggy not giving a whit about a prospective date's race reads true to me, but her outraged surprise at encountering open racism after living in the US for years doesn't.

The problem becomes we are talking about American history. This episode and probably the Agent Carter season is ret conning Marvels ignoring race in Captain America The First Avenger and Agent Carter's first season away since they want to tell a racial story. Not only were the Howling Commandos integrated but so was the SSR training camp, the Army forward base in Italy and the audiences at the Captain America war bond tour stops. And in post war New York a character was thought to be having sex with an undercover Peggy with no explanation that. The colored folk had a safe space in his club, later an Asian SSR agent and a black NYPD officer being on general patrol with no one questioning their authority. Edited January 22, 2016 by Raja

[Raja]

Yeah that felt a little off. Especially him hitting on her, even today black men especially are often careful about hitting on white women and this guy was doing it in 1947.  In front of an LAPD officer. That felt off I can see the writers wanting him to be seen as reaching for more but people in those days used coded language for a reason. I can see them not getting looks in a club if they were talking but even in a majority black club I have to wonder if dancing together might have been crossing a line. Something that white people don't often realize is that white bigots aren't the only problem most often mixed couples face stronger opposition from the other side as well. It was definitely a little optimistic but then it is LA most my reading for that era has been in the south or north east. Its also not quite the fifties yet so there was still a little post war pre-MacAthur freedom in the air. Peggy's reaction was fairly optimistic as well if we're going for accuracy . Someone from her class in particular probably wouldn't have been nearly as open minded in real life.  I get that Marvel has a bit of an idealistic spin on the past but I also would hate to see the actual real life struggles of black Americans minimized. 

After seeing a similar situation in a New York nightclub in season one I thought Marvel was just plowing forward from their past position. The only notice of race, in a world were they must have a diverse, cast was Dum Dum Dugan noticing another POW to be Howling Commando Jim Morita was Japanese and later a crack made by Samuel L Jackson's Nick Fury about what he thought was going to be a driving while black stop in The Winter Soldier. I was shocked when the detective made the comment about "the janitor".

 

Dr Wilkes, bio in the real world being that the US Navy was the worst US service for black men would have probably been in the V-12 educational deferment program and not a mess steward. His commission to Ensign would have come in late 1944 or 1945

[LilJen]

Sousa was Sousa, Dottie's back, the flamingo was nice comic relief, we should at least see Bucky this season (the frozen lady was loaded into the same thing Bucky was in in that photo at the end of Winter Soldier, along with the freezing), and we'll get more Howard working with Peggy and the SSR, perhaps Sousa will let Howard help him with his leg.  I liked this episode, and I'm looking forward to this season.  There is one bad thing, where is Angie?

Yes, I want to see Angie pop up. It IS Hollywood there, after all!

[Canada]

I love this show and loved these episodes!  I like a TV show to have some humour, so the humour they have in Agent Carter really works for me.  I had to give up on shows like Agents of Shield because they're just all serious, all the time.  It just was not entertaining at all.

 

My only issue with this show?  Can someone please get Sousa fitted with a cane/walking device that's actually the correct size for him???  He's always a bit tilted when he walks, but on these episodes, so was tilting over so far, I'm surprised he didn't fall over!  Completely unnecessary and that poor actor is going to suffer some physical damage, having to walk like that all the time.

[quangtran]

I'm wondering if at the end of the second episode, when the zero matter falls after Whitney and Dr. Wilkes fight, what did Whitney mean about only her knowing what the zero matter really was?  I get the feeling that she may have been using the zero matter for something (looking or staying young maybe) and hubby was in on it.  But now it's gone and she's locked herself in her dressing room panicking even before her husband came by to tell her the bad news.  Why would Chadwick be telling his wife anything about the zero matter in the first place?  She's an actress, not part of Isodyne.  The mark on her head may be a crack in her veneer that the zero matter was helping to keep hidden.

She's probably both. This incarnation of Whitney Frost is based on real life classic screen actress Hedy Lamarr who was also an inventor.

[AnaRow]

Jarvis' wife fits into the series nicely. If she and Edwin were still around when Tony was a kid, I'm sure he'd have found her amusing.

I'm pretty sure Jarvis ends up raising Tony after his parents are killed. That's why Tony named his computer program J.A.R.V.I.S.
 

 

They've shown him go one step forward, and two steps back. But then underestimating Dot was too stupid even for him.

I don't think that was an issue of him underestimating Dottie but overestimating himself. He believes himself to be deserving of his position or wants to believe it. That's why he keeps either messing up or taking credit he doesn't deserve.
 

 

Or perhaps Ms Frost, imperiled and changed by her up close and personal experience with the stuff, encounters a brilliant young man named Howard Stark -- perhaps initially as an actress for his new movie company. She realizes he's the only one who can help her and confides in him. He manages to help get the stuff out of her, and learns a lot about the stuff in the process, including the fact that it's an ideal source of energy but not with their current technology. The experience draws them together, she leaves Mr Bad Guy and bears Howard a strapping young son who they name Tony. Knowing how volatile and dangerous the stuff is, Howard can't leave instructions for its synthesis lying around where the Council/Hydra can find it, so later in life he hides the information in a promotional movie.

Wow! First, Tony's mother is Maria Stark. Second, Whitney Frost is clearly evil. I think we can be sure she's not Tony's mother.

I haven't watched AoS this season so I can't talk about whatever's happening there. I'm thinking the zero matter might actually be the infinity stone from "The Dark World". We know it's on Earth somewhere. Isodyne seems to think they accidentally created it but I think they just uncovered it.

[marcee]

For whatever reason, I don't think Thompson is as slimy as douchey as he's made out to be. I vaguely remember him being surprisingly smart and capable last season and recognizes that Peggy is as well. I always appreciate when they sneak that revelation in there to counteract what we usually see as douchey and condescending.

[Julia]

Didn't the conversation with the older man establish that Thompson was given his job because he had friends in high places? Maybe he's so desperate to prove himself because he knows he wasn't even good enough to get his job.

Besides, look at it from his privileged proto-bro side. Who keeps wiping up the floor with him? Women and a guy he's trying to dismiss as a gimp. That has to give him indigestion.

Edited January 22, 2016 by Julia

[that one guy]

Yeah that felt a little off. Especially him hitting on her, even today black men especially are often careful about hitting on white women and this guy was doing it in 1947.

 

They did set their "date" at the Dunbar, which is the one place in 1930s/40s LA you'd be most likely to find an interracial couple. It was the center of the West Coast Jazz scene, which was integrated long before the rest of the country. It must seem like quaint grandpa music to lots of people today, but jazz at the time was associated with daring improvisation, beatniks, marijuana, cultural nonconformity, and radical politics, as well as opposition to racism. If grandpa's record collection contained old LP's by Art Pepper and Chico Hamilton, Grandpa was cooler than you knew.

 

And when they left the neighorborhood, they were greeted with something like open hostility by the white small businessman when they were looking for a phone. So I don't think this was unrealistically portrayed. What flies in one ZIP code gets you flak in another, even today.

This incarnation of Whitney Frost is based on real life classic screen actress Hedy Lamarr who was also an inventor.

 

Which makes me uncomfortable, because Frost looks like a villain, while Lamarr was more or less a hero. Of Jewish descent but married at 19 to an arms dealer who ended up being a Nazi who threw parties attended by Hitler and Mussolini, she desguised herself as a maid and escaped to Paris ahead of the Anschluss. She did whatever she could to help the war effort, and her design for a torpedo guidence system is the basis of all spread spectrum communications technology, like GPS, your cell phone, Bluetooth, you know, the whole damn 21st Century. Just to make things weirder, she also looked a lot like the actress who plays Dottie.

 

She would have been a cool character to introduce on the show, possibly as a co-founder of SHIELD. She did live in LA, after all.

[Dandesun]

Lamarr was absolutely heroic but I see Frost as more along the lines of taking that concept 'the beautiful movie star who happens to be brilliant' and making that Peggy's opposition for the season. Hollywood in the 40s was absolutely in the midst of the 'Studio System' where they found 'talent' and then made them part of the imaginary world of Hollywood... name changes, speech lessons, everything controlled by the studio as part of the product they were selling... hence the director commenting on Frost's 'lines around the eyes' and telling her she needed to skip lunch. It's all IMAGE IMAGE IMAGE and the mind underneath is less important.

 

Whitney Frost is the other side of what Hedy Lamarr was... where Lamarr was brunette, Frost is blond; where Lamarr was the one who escaped the Anschluss; Frost strikes me as American born and bred. 

[Guest]

I'm pretty sure Jarvis ends up raising Tony after his parents are killed. That's why Tony named his computer program J.A.R.V.I.S.

 

Well, I live in a fantasy world where Cap and Tony settle their differences when they realize that Cap's Peggy is Tony's "Aunt Peggy" and they reconcile over home movies of Jarvis and Peggy and sometimes Howard being generally very entertaining.

 

And I expect to see it in the movies, frankly.

[Rick Kitchen]

I love Haley Atwell's spot-on American accent. But Sarah Bolger's is perfect, too. Though I hated her as Princess Aurora on OUAT.

 

Whitney Frost's purple fingernails were completely anachronistic, though it's possible the film was in black and white.

 

If Wilks was working on Zero Matter, why was he making wine in his lab?

 

Peggy seemed uncharacteristically rattled after the explosion.

 

Did Daniel park his car in the middle of the street?

 

I wonder if Whitney's face is going to start getting worse and she has to start wearing ... dum dum dum ... a Masque.

[Julia]

Whitney Frost's purple fingernails were completely anachronistic, though it's possible the film was in black and white.

 

If Wilks was working on Zero Matter, why was he making wine in his lab?

Because, wine.

For whatever little it's worth, the movie Jezebel had a red dress as a main plot point, and IRL the dress was green because red doesn't look red in black and white.

[anna0852]

Well, I live in a fantasy world where Cap and Tony settle their differences when they realize that Cap's Peggy is Tony's "Aunt Peggy" and they reconcile over home movies of Jarvis and Peggy and sometimes Howard being generally very entertaining.

 

And I expect to see it in the movies, frankly.

I had just been thinking this! Given that we know Howard is alive in 1989 and still working with Peggy, there is no way Tony didn't know her growing up. Heck, Tony probably knew her far better than Cap. I'm really hoping that this is revealed in Civil War. Heck, I hope this is the revelation that gets Cap and Tony to call a truce. Cause Peggy is just that awesome!

[stealinghome]

Well, I live in a fantasy world where Cap and Tony settle their differences when they realize that Cap's Peggy is Tony's "Aunt Peggy" and they reconcile over home movies of Jarvis and Peggy and sometimes Howard being generally very entertaining.

 

And I expect to see it in the movies, frankly.

No way would Peggy have let Tony grow up to be the spoiled brat he was, though. I dearly WANT this headcanon to be true--can you imagine Jarvis, Ana, and Peggy raising a wee Tony??? That would be AMAZING--but at the same time, I don't want to think so low of Peggy's parenting/aunting skills.

[paigow]

No way would Peggy have let Tony grow up to be the spoiled brat he was, though. I dearly WANT this headcanon to be true--can you imagine Jarvis, Ana, and Peggy raising a wee Tony??? That would be AMAZING--but at the same time, I don't want to think so low of Peggy's parenting/aunting skills.

Peggy had her hands full with her own kids [and husband? and SHIELD?] in the 50's & 60's so any time at Casa Stark would be limited. Although if HYDRA was able to assassinate the Starks, how did Peggy survive into the 21st century?