"Agent Carter" season one discussion and spoilers

[Christopher]

I agree with you that Daredevil was fantastic and easily Marvel's best TV effort so far, but I don't agree that AoS is terrible and needs to be put down. It fills its own niche (it's basically Daredevil's polar opposite in terms of tone and pacing) and does a pretty good job of it. It's nothing amazing but it's improved quite a bit from its early episodes and is pretty fun to watch.

Agents of SHIELD and Daredevil aren't trying to fill the same niche, so it's not really a matter of comparison. AoS was designed to be an "entry-level" Marvel TV show -- a fairly standard TV procedural that happened to take place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, something that would be accessible to viewers new to the MCU and accustomed to a certain type of weekly TV experience. Daredevil, being on a commercial-free pay service, is more of a specialized, premium-TV project. In its own way, it's just as entry-level, starting out in a very grounded way and avoiding the colorful costume and nicknames until the very end, and only hinting at some of the deeper, more mystical elements from the comics; but it's aiming for a different baseline audience to begin with.

And there's room for both. It's good that the MCU isn't all one type of thing, that it has something for multiple different audiences and tastes. Arguing about the merits of AoS versus DD is kind of like arguing about the merits of The Sarah Jane Adventures versus Torchwood. They're not going for the same audience or trying to tell the same kinds of stories. And it's good that they aren't. I think they're both good at doing their own distinct things.

That said, AoS has had Quake, Mockingbird* and Deathlok, with the promise of a larger team of supers to come next season.

*They need to come out and use these names. Especially "Mockingbird". SHIELD has had agents code-named "Hawkeye" and "Black Widow" (and "The Cavalry"), so it's not an unprecedented thing.

Indeed. There's plenty of precedent for spies and agents in fiction (and maybe in reality for all I know) using code names when talking over comms on missions. It would make perfect sense to call Bobbi "Mockingbird."

 

[JD]

Did they never call her Mockingbird in the show? I could have sworn they did somewhere, but I could just be confusing the show itself with all of the promotional stuff.

 

[Masiral]

SHIELD has had agents code-named "Hawkeye" and "Black Widow" (and "The Cavalry"), so it's not an unprecedented thing.

"The Cavalry" wasn't a codename, it was a nickname (and one that May never liked).

 

[Christopher]

Did they never call her Mockingbird in the show? I could have sworn they did somewhere, but I could just be confusing the show itself with all of the promotional stuff.

I've been listening and hoping, so I don't think they have used it. She's just Agent Morse, Bobbi, or Barbara.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

^ I haven't heard it either.

Does that mean there will now be 10 weeks between the first and second half of Agents of SHIELD next season? Because that really, really sucks, and I'd say that even if I didn't loathe Agent Carter.

I'd rather see a full run of Agent Carter with ten episodes of AOS in the middle.

I'm hoping AoS season 3 will be the last one. Although it's improved, it's still very poor and watching the fantastic Daredevil series proves how Marvel could be better using it's time and money.

Don't start me on bloody Agent Carter. None of the TV chanels over here purchased it, its not on cable, Netflix or PS+ and you can't buy it.

I'd love to have an opinion on it...

Since you have no opinion on Agent Carter and the Netflix shows are separate so production of one doesn't seem to impact the network stuff, it sounds to me like what you're saying is "I hope it gets canceled so we get less Marvel television."

 

[Turtletrekker]

The only time I've heard them use the name "Mockingbird" was in this bit made for SDCC, which is obviously non canon...

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akCVyJ8uziA[/yt]

 

[Relayer1]

^ I haven't heard it either.

I'd rather see a full run of Agent Carter with ten episodes of AOS in the middle.

I'm hoping AoS season 3 will be the last one. Although it's improved, it's still very poor and watching the fantastic Daredevil series proves how Marvel could be better using it's time and money.

Don't start me on bloody Agent Carter. None of the TV chanels over here purchased it, its not on cable, Netflix or PS+ and you can't buy it.

I'd love to have an opinion on it...

Since you have no opinion on Agent Carter and the Netflix shows are separate so production of one doesn't seem to impact the network stuff, it sounds to me like what you're saying is "I hope it gets canceled so we get less Marvel television."

Well, idealy, I'd like to like AoS more. I'd like the characters to be better, I'd like the cast to be better, I'd like the plots to be better and I'd like it to feel like more than a cheap knock off of the MCU.

There's a part of me that kind of resents watching it as I follow all of the MCU, and that's the part of me that would like to see it cancelled. That's a mean spirited, negative part of me though, and there's another part which wants AoS to continue to improve and go on to further seasons. Overall, I am a bit sick of it though.

I want MORE Marvel on T.V. (though, obviously, not necessarily AoS). I want one of the U.K. networks to pick up Agent Carter, I got Netflix specifically for Daredevil (O.K., Lilihammer too), and as long as it's good, the more the merrier !

 

[nx1701g]

Did they never call her Mockingbird in the show? I could have sworn they did somewhere, but I could just be confusing the show itself with all of the promotional stuff.

I thought that they referred to her by that name in her second appearance on the show? I wanted to say she was called Mockingbird by Gemma once?

 

[Gaith]

I like AC and all, but no disrespect to Haley Atwell, I find Skye a considerably more interesting character than Carter at this point. (Ditto for May and Simmons, really.) And I found both Jarvis and Sousa more interesting characters than her in AC S1; to me, Carter's facing a similar problem as Romanoff - she's too competent and cucumber-cool to be all that interesting. She's a very likable and charismatic presence, but what have we really learned about her personality and history over the course of her first season? The most interesting thing about her is how her accomplishments and skills outweigh the sexist hurdles she faces.

Just some two cents.

 

[Christopher]

Not sure that's a fair comparison, since by this point we've only had one movie, one perhaps-now-apocryphal short, eight episodes, and two cameos to judge Peggy by, whereas we've had 44 episodes to get to know Skye (and May and Simmons).

 

[Gaith]

^ Perhaps, but how many of said 44 episodes have centered around May or Simmons, whereas Carter headlined all eight eps of the show named after her? (I'll give you Skye clearly winning on the screen time/story-focused counter.)

Now that we've had a full season establishing Carter as a skilled and strong enough fighter to take on multiple fellow agents and hold her own against a Black Widow, not to mention rock a very convincing American accent and show as much courage under fire as any Howling Commando, here's hoping we see more complexity to her character next season and/or show her having to learn a skill, rather than it being a given. For all the Mary Sue accusations against Skye, after all, she at least had to gradually learn to fight from credible teachers. Who taught Carter her skills?

 

[Mr Light]

Captain America and the Howling Commandos?

Actually she was already well trained when Skinny Steve met her.

 

[Christopher]

Is it really that unusual for Marvel characters' skills to be a given? Where did May or Ward learn to fight? Where did Tony Stark go to engineering school? Who trained Thor to fight? How did Ben Urich become such a damn good reporter? I've got nothing against a little competence porn, as they say.

 

[Skywalker]

Where did Tony Stark go to engineering school?

I get what you're going for with your post, and I agree with you, but...he went to MIT.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Or did he just do his reading the night before and go in to test for his degree?

 

[Gaith]

Is it really that unusual for Marvel characters' skills to be a given?

Maybe not, but for general audiences of the sort the series is aimed at...

Where did May or Ward learn to fight? Where did Tony Stark go to engineering school? Who trained Thor to fight? How did Ben Urich become such a damn good reporter? I've got nothing against a little competence porn, as they say.

In "Seeds", Ward talked a bit about attending SHIELD's operatives school; May could have gone there, also. Tony almost certainly went to a prestigious engineering school, and Thor grew up in a warrior culture. I don't know who Ben Urich is. The more pertinent question is, how many upper-class English women growing up in the 1920s/30s learned how to brawl well enough to take on several guys? (Or did she learn fighting with the Commandos?) She's obviously upper-class because it's highly unlikely she would've become a British military officer otherwise given their class system at the time, especially as a woman.

And my point in asking isn't to heckle, but to observe that there could be an interesting and unique story as to how she learned to be a badass. AC S1, however, gave us no hints about it; we literally know more about Jarvis' unseen wife's past than hers.

 

[Christopher]

Is it really that unusual for Marvel characters' skills to be a given?

Maybe not, but for general audiences of the sort the series is aimed at...

Plenty of competence porn outside Marvel. MacGyver didn't need an origin story. There's a long history of TV characters -- movie and radio too -- who are just very, very good at their jobs. Heck, Arthur Conan Doyle never wrote "Sherlock Holmes Begins."

Where did May or Ward learn to fight? Where did Tony Stark go to engineering school? Who trained Thor to fight? How did Ben Urich become such a damn good reporter? I've got nothing against a little competence porn, as they say.

In "Seeds", Ward talked a bit about attending SHIELD's operatives school; May could have gone there, also. Tony almost certainly went to a prestigious engineering school, and Thor grew up in a warrior culture.

Do you suppose I might have been asking rhetorical questions?

I don't know who Ben Urich is.

Good gods, why have you not watched Daredevil yet?

The more pertinent question is, how many upper-class English women growing up in the 1920s/30s learned how to brawl well enough to take on several guys? (Or did she learn fighting with the Commandos?)

Only has to be one. Really, though, there have always been some really capable women doing impressive stuff, even if the history books have glossed over them. Look at Kate Warne, the first female Pinkerton detective, who actually saved President Lincoln from an assassination plot (no, not that one). She's a real-life badass detective who totally deserves her own TV series, and she was active 80 years before Peggy Carter. There's also Nellie Bly, the intrepid female reporter from the late 1800s, who re-enacted Verne's Around the World in 80 Days in real life (beating Phileas Fogg's time by about a week) and who went undercover in a horrifically abusive mental asylum to do an expose about it. And in the silent film era, there were several adventurous female action stars who did their own very dangerous stunts.

So the existence of women like Peggy Carter in the past isn't unrealistic -- just underreported.

 

[Gaith]

Heck, Arthur Conan Doyle never wrote "Sherlock Holmes Begins."

Well, the trio of "The Gloria Scott", "The Musgrave Ritual" and "A Study in Scarlet" come pretty close...

I don't know who Ben Urich is.

Good gods, why have you not watched Daredevil yet?

Thought I'd save it for the in-between SHIELD seasons drought. I still haven't finished Flash.

So the existence of women like Peggy Carter in the past isn't unrealistic -- just underreported.

I don't doubt that there have been badass women in every time, but how many of them have been upper-crust Brits like Carter? Anyhow, moving on, I don't mean to demand an origin story for her or anything, but I do stand by my point that we still know next to nothing about her as a character, and that she could therefore use some more depth next season, much as May and Skye have gotten.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Add Deborah Sampson to the list of unsung real-life action heroes.

Or did he just do his reading the night before and go in to test for his degree?

No need. He wrote it.

 

[Reverend]

The more pertinent question is, how many upper-class English women growing up in the 1920s/30s learned how to brawl well enough to take on several guys? (Or did she learn fighting with the Commandos?) She's obviously upper-class because it's highly unlikely she would've become a British military officer otherwise given their class system at the time, especially as a woman.

And my point in asking isn't to heckle, but to observe that there could be an interesting and unique story as to how she learned to be a badass. AC S1, however, gave us no hints about it; we literally know more about Jarvis' unseen wife's past than hers.

Uh, Peggy is not upper class. Her accent and what I recall of her background is that of a decidedly middle class grammar school girl. Where did she learn to fight? Judging from the style, someone obvious gave her boxing lessons. Maybe she grew up with a lot of brothers and maybe she had an unusually forward thinking father or grandfather who taught her how to bare knuckle fight?
Hell, if she managed to survive a girl's boarding school in the 20's, Nazi Germany should have been a doddle.

Keep in mind that most of the female spies in WWII came from pretty much this type of background. They had to be intelligent, literate, often able to speak several languages. Those sent into the field were given advanced hand-to-hand and survival training and expected to be able to handle themselves in a pinch, or die trying. Several did both of those things. A few were parachuted in to work behind the line with partisan forces, training resistance cells in guerilla warfare, gathering intel on the Germans and acting as liaisons to the Allied Forces. Most of them were young, some even teenagers.

Her file in the Avengers deleted scene is a bit odd as it has her in the SAS in '36 - '40 which is a bit of a trick given the regiment wasn't founded until '41. But before that it says she served as an Army nurse, so it's not too much of a stretch to imagine that she enlisted before the war.
At some point, probably early in the war she was noticed by someone who recognised her talents were being wasted in the wards and recruited her into the SOE. She mentioned on the show she spent some time at Bletchley Park where she received her training in cryptography. Again, she was most likely recognised for her skill, determination and toughness and selected to be trained as a field operative.

Sure, things are a little bit exaggerated, but no more than anything else in a retro pulpy sci-fi spy thriller.