Agent Carter - Season 2

[RJDiogenes]

Well, this was another great episode. Even better than the first, I think. Looks like we have another epic on our hands.

It seems that the writers agree with me that Peggy needs to loosen up a bit. I loved her "date" with Wilkes, talking about her wartime experiences, taking in the view, threatening the clerk, locking lips in the phone booth (and I really wish I could think of a joke about her being with Wilkes in the booth). I'm really loving the complex and realistic depiction of "race" relations in the 40s-- especially since I just did something similar in a story I wrote last month (although mine was set in the 30s). I really hope that Wilkes isn't dead (and doubt that he is), because he's just what Peggy needs.

On the other hand, Peggy also seems to regret not taking up with Sousa when she had the chance. And Sousa is also pretty clearly still smitten. So what will happen when Wilkes turns up alive and Sousa's fiancee turns out to be a Black Widow? Triangle!

I'm also loving Anna and unaffected trust for Jarvis. The way the writers played the judo scene against the audience expectation of jealousy made me smile. It's so nice to see characters on TV behave like adults.

Yeah, I know there's some sci-fi plot, too, but that'll work out.

 

[The Old Mixer]

(and I really wish I could think of a joke about her being with Wilkes in the booth)

If he's still alive and they need a little more privacy next time, they could try making out in the John at the theater.

It's so nice to see characters on TV behave like adults.

Indeed, quite the stark contrast to the WB-style angsty melodrama.

 

[RJDiogenes]

If he's still alive and they need a little more privacy next time, they could try making out in the John at the theater.

Yeah, I thought of using John as a synonym for bathroom, but I didn't like it. I also thought of using it as a synonym for prostitute patron, like "The cops might think Peggy had a John when she was linkin' up with Wilkes in the booth," but it just seemed clumsy.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Lesley Boone.

Loved her on Ed, I want to see all her dreams come true.

 

[Captain Craig]

I enjoyed the 2 part opener last week and am looking forward to seeing how this season unfolds. The creation of SHIELD is apparently coming!

 

[Sean_McCormick]

I was yelling at the screen to Sousa that his girlfriend was obviously a Black Widow...
I wasn't totally convinced until the "bearclaw scene" where she is strategically waiting for him on the porch of his house first thing in the morning. She is too perfect, the way Dottie was a too perfect best friend to Peggy in season one. She isn't placed in the story so that Sousa can have a perfect girlfriend. She is placed there to put Sousa in peril and show regret that Peggy had been the obvious choice that he missed out on.

She is definitely a plant. Although IMHO she is not working for Leviathan but the Hydra-faction, that seems to be the Big Bad this season.

I'm actually entertaining rhe idea, that Dottie's bank job in the beginning was part of an attempt to infiltrate that group and that in the course of the season Peggy will have work with Dottie in fighting the Big Bad.

 

[JD]

IGN has a new interview with Hayley Atwell.

Spoiler: Stuff Atwell said

She does confirm that Wilkes will be back, but that he will have been changed some how and Peggy will be determined to save him.

 

[Marsden]

Yeah, I thought of using John as a synonym for bathroom, but I didn't like it. I also thought of using it as a synonym for prostitute patron, like "The cops might think Peggy had a John when she was linkin' up with Wilkes in the booth," but it just seemed clumsy.

Don't say John Wilkes Booth, it's too soon.

 

[The Old Mixer]

IGN has a new interview with Hayley Atwell.

Spoiler: Stuff Atwell said

She does confirm that Wilkes will be back, but that he will have been changed some how and Peggy will be determined to save him.

Heh...I figured as much.

 

[Christopher]

Man, they really are basing Whitney Frost on Hedy Lamarr. They explicitly gave her credit for the exact same rotating-frequency thing that Lamarr invented (and which is the basis for modern cellular communication networks). Although I doubt Hedy Lamarr could engulf people in black goo and consume them.

Hmm, now that her face is becoming increasingly damaged, Miss Frost may have to consider donning some kind of... mask?

I thought that Peggy's plan would be to have Howard plant the bugs in the Arena Club for her, but I like her actual plan better. Of course she'd insist on doing it herself, and she and Howard got to offend the sensibilities of a bastion of white male privilege. Although those bugs were anachronistic, with their LED lights and modern bleepy sounds. Then again, the first LED was invented in 1927 but the technology wasn't developed until the '50s. Maybe Howard Stark's genius led to an earlier breakthrough. Still, I would've preferred something more retro, like a little toggle switch that made a nice solid click.

Speaking of anachronisms, "Let's do lunch" was a glaring one. That phrase apparently originated in the 1970s.

Best Jarvis line of the evening: "I have no intention of spending the rest of eternity as a disembodied voice."

Thompson is still a jerk, but now that he's seen the headline Peggy told him about the previous day, maybe he'll do the right thing.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Speaking of anachronisms, "Let's do lunch" was a glaring one. That phrase apparently originated in the 1970s.

I spotted one last week as well. At one point, Rose is talking about the local beaches and the surf and she mentions "Leo Carrillo". However, the beach currently known as "Leo Carrillo State Beach", named after the actor, wasn't named such until the 50s.

 

[RJDiogenes]

I noticed one, too, but now I can't remember what it was.

Don't say John Wilkes Booth, it's too soon.

My bad.

Heh...I figured as much.

Hmm. Kind of repetitive. They did that on SHIELD.

 

[Forbin]

Speaking of anachronisms - while Peggy was under the table, my attention was momentarily diverted from her cleavage by the modern conference room chairs behind her, complete with plastic bases, adjustable piston pedestals and myriad adjustment levers. I'm sure the director was counting on Haley to keep us from noticing, but what they didn't count on was a picky nerd looking for mistakes.

And... I SO want a secret room behind a book case!

 

[The Old Mixer]

I noticed the "do lunch" reference myself. I hadn't been sure exactly how old the expression was, but it definitely seemed like a "my lifetime" thing.

 

[Marsden]

Man, they really are basing Whitney Frost on Hedy Lamarr.

That's Headly!

 

[Greg Cox]

Probably the most authentic one was the Doctor Strange pilot movie, which I've never actually seen; I'm mainly taking Greg Cox's word on that.

To clarify, the DOCTOR STRANGE movie also took plenty of liberties with the comic: The Ancient One was British; Clea was not from another dimension, just an Earth woman with psychic gifts; Strange was an actual M.D. who worked at a hospital, and I believe they ditched the whole business with his injured hands.

But the TV-movie was clearly trying to capture the feel of the comic: complete with astral journeys to psychedelic dimensions, actual demons and evils sorcerers, and magic spells being tossed around with abandom, as opposed to the most of those CBS adaptations (including THE INCREDIBLE HULK) which tended to steer clear of the more fantastic elements of original comics in favor of more mundane plots and villains. ("This week, Banner helps a teenage runaway expose a corrupt businessman.") The DOCTOR STRANGE movie was at least trying to do justice to the wild occult fantasy elements.

Plus, they got the Sanctum Sanctorum right . . ..

 

[Samurai8472]

I did geek out at the historic event of a disembodied JARVIS voice coming from Starks home for the very first time.

 

[Christopher]

But the TV-movie was clearly trying to capture the feel of the comic: complete with astral journeys to psychedelic dimensions, actual demons and evils sorcerers, and magic spells being tossed around with abandom, as opposed to the most of those CBS adaptations (including THE INCREDIBLE HULK) which tended to steer clear of the more fantastic elements of original comics in favor of more mundane plots and villains. ("This week, Banner helps a teenage runaway expose a corrupt businessman.") The DOCTOR STRANGE movie was at least trying to do justice to the wild occult fantasy elements.

Yeah, Hulk rarely dabbled in sci-fi elements. Usually it was extensions of the core premise of gamma mutation -- "The First," involving an older, evil Hulk; the Kim Catrall episode involving evidence of a prehistoric Hulk; "Prometheus," the Andromeda Strain knockoff where David was captured by a secret government agency and kept half-transformed by a gamma-emitting meteorite; and the occasional episode where an attempted cure had some harmful effect on David. Other than that, there was an episode involving a psychic, and maybe a bit of Asian mysticism in the episodes Mako was in, but that was about it. (Which is why I found it so incongruous when the first revival movie teamed the Hulk with Thor, bringing outright magic and supernatural beings into the show's grounded universe. The second movie's use of Daredevil was a much better fit, since Matt also got his powers from radiation.)

Other '70s superhero shows like Spider-Man and Wonder Woman did often involve sci-fi or fantasy elements, just original ones unconnected to the comics. Nicholas Hammond's Spidey took on a telekinetic cult leader, a mind-control gas, and even his own clone, unconnected to the comics' clone storyline. Wonder Woman dealt with alien visitors and assorted supervillains and allies with paranormal abilities (even a leprechaun once), but never any comics characters aside from a couple of obscure '40s villainesses in the very early first season.

 

[Greg Cox]

True, they dabbled, but I wanted the Green Goblin and the Abomination and Doctor Octopus, damn it, not plots that, more often than not, could have just as well aired on CHARLIE'S ANGELS or BARNABY JONES.

This bugged me even back in the days of George Reeves and THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN. Where were Brainiac and Bizarro and the Bottle of City of Kandor? As much as I enjoyed those old shows as a kid, part of me was always disappointed that they were never as colorful and amazing as the original comics.

To give the old BATMAN series its due: as campy as it was, at least it had honest-to-goodness super-villains, often straight from the comics.

So I liked the DOCTOR STRANGE pilot because it felt much more comic-booky than the other CBS adaptations, and am loving the fact that AGENT CARTER is not afraid to delve into "zero matter" and such.

 

[Christopher]

True, they dabbled, but I wanted the Green Goblin and the Abomination and Doctor Octopus, damn it, not plots that, more often than not, could have just as well aired on CHARLIE'S ANGELS or BARNABY JONES.

I often wonder what the Bixby Hulk would've been like if General Ross had been a character, at least. I wonder who could've played him. (Maybe John Vernon, who voiced Ross in the '90s cartoon.)

I think they did consider giving him Rick Jones or at least a Rick Jones-like sidekick who would travel with him in an RV so they'd have at least one standing set and be able to reduce the show's high budget, but Kenneth Johnson refused.

This bugged me even back in the days of George Reeves and THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN. Where were Brainiac and Bizarro and the Bottle of City of Kandor? As much as I enjoyed those old shows as a kid, part of me was always disappointed that they were never as colorful and amazing as the original comics.

To give the old BATMAN series its due: as campy as it was, at least it had honest-to-goodness super-villains, often straight from the comics.

That was the exception even then, though. Even when Superman was this huge multimedia sensation in comics and newspaper strips and radio and theatrical cartoons, they almost never shared villains. The radio characters of Perry White and Jimmy Olsen got adopted by the other versions, but villains didn't cross over -- unless you count the radio show's half-assed attempt to copy the titular robots from The Mechanical Monsters, the second Fleischer cartoon. They only did the one robot, though, and Superman only had two very brief confrontations with it over the course of a weeks-long storyline, because the radio show just wasn't used to writing that kind of action. Otherwise, the comics and radio and cartoons all had their own separate villains who never crossed over. The only crossover I know of is when Lex Luthor showed up in the Atom Man vs. Superman serial in 1950. And the theatrical serials based on Captain Marvel and Captain America and Batman and the like all invented their own villains too -- heck, the Captain America serial didn't even use Steve Rogers.

And even Batman '66 invented more than 2/3 of its villains, drawing only a few from the comics.