Agent Carter - Season 2

[Christopher]

Yeah, the dream sequence was fun. What was the song they used?

Joseph Manfredi clearly has a thing for Whitney, but I'm wondering if he already has a wife. He should be the father of Silvio Manfredi, the Spider-Man villain Silvermane, who's generally portrayed as extremely elderly. Since this is only 70 years in the past, that means that if Silvermane exists in the MCU, he should probably already be alive at the time of Agent Carter.

Anyone else tickled that Thompson planned to turn the gamma cannon into a bomb? Nah, they wouldn't....

Except the MCU has already established that Bruce's metamorphosis resulted, not from the gamma bomb, but from a project meant to replicate the results of Project Rebirth and create supersoldiers, substituting gamma rays for the Vita-Rays used by Howard Stark to create Captain America. It involved an apparatus very similar to the one from the Bill Bixby series.

Odd bit of phrasing that stuck out at me: "110 percent" has a very '80s ring to my ear.

Here's a reference to the phrase being used in the 1920s, though it's secondhand. And I'm sure it's older than the '80s, because there was a joke about it in a 1992 episode of The Simpsons, so it must've been well-established by that point. (It was in "Homer at the Bat." A hypnotist brought in to condition the power plant's softball team told the entranced players, "You will give 110 percent." They replied en masse, "That's impossible. No one can give more than one hundred percent. By definition that is the most anyone can give." Which is wrong, by the way. The standard for 100 percent performance of a thing is generally set at the maximum safe or sustainable level, e.g. the maximum rated load of an elevator, and it's certainly possible to push it beyond that level for a limited time, at the risk of damage or failure.)

I was wondering if the Asian-American doctor who tended to Mrs. Jarvis was an anachronism, but apparently the first licensed Asian-American physician in California began practicing in 1904.

 

[Star Wolf]

The worst part Agent Vega and his partner going out on an assassination mission, even if Chief Thompson talked them out of it, they were supposed to be SSR not..... Hydra yet

Yeah, the dream sequence was fun. What was the song they used?

Joseph Manfredi clearly has a thing for Whitney, but I'm wondering if he already has a wife. He should be the father of Silvio Manfredi, the Spider-Man villain Silvermane, who's generally portrayed as extremely elderly. Since this is only 70 years in the past, that means that if Silvermane exists in the MCU, he should probably already be alive at the time of Agent Carter.

I would imagine that a hood of his assumed rank had a manor of mistresses

I was wondering if the Asian-American doctor who tended to Mrs. Jarvis was an anachronism, but apparently the first licensed Asian-American physician in California began practicing in 1904.

Another example of my primary gripe with MCU history, especially with them trying to insert racial issues in this season's Agent Carter. We are shown one world which the selected lines of dialog aimed at Dr Wilkes as a colored scientist doesn't override.

 

[Christopher]

The worst part Agent Vega and his partner going out on an assassination mission, even if Chief Thompson talked them out of it, they were supposed to be SSR not..... Hydra yet

So? Hydra doesn't have to have a monopoly on evil and corruption. The Council has clearly been active in America for decades -- they were alleged to be behind the assassination of President Warren Harding and the 1929 stock market crash. Their old boys' network has a hand in all the major institutions. Perhaps this season's actions will lead to its downfall (Whitney's already killed half its top people) and clear the way for Hydra to begin its infiltration of the SSR's successor.

Then again, the Arena Club's insignia on its pins does look a whole lot like the emblem used by the proto-Hydra organization Gideon Malick belongs to in Agents of SHIELD. So the Council and the Red Skull's Hydra might both be offshoots of the same original group.

Another example of my primary gripe with MCU history, especially with them trying to insert racial issues in this season's Agent Carter. We are shown one world which the selected lines of dialog aimed at Dr Wilkes as a colored scientist doesn't override.

I don't know what you're saying here. As I said, in reality, there were Asian-American doctors in California as early as 1904, so the doctor here was not an anachronism.

There have always been people who accepted racial diversity existing alongside those who believed in segregation or white superiority. Fiction of the past tended to favor the latter viewpoint, giving an incomplete picture of what American society was really like. Modern fiction like this tends to focus more on characters who share the former viewpoint, because that meshes better with what audiences today want to see. They're both equally slanted, but neither is truly anachronistic; they're just emphasizing different facets of what was there.

 

[Forbin]

I love musical dream sequences.
So there.

 

[auntiehill]

^Me, not so much. That went on far too long for me.

Still, I'm really enjoying this season---love all the cast of characters coming together, REALLY love Peggy and Daniel together and seeing more of Jarvis & Ana.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Joseph Manfredi clearly has a thing for Whitney, but I'm wondering if he already has a wife. He should be the father of Silvio Manfredi, the Spider-Man villain Silvermane, who's generally portrayed as extremely elderly. Since this is only 70 years in the past, that means that if Silvermane exists in the MCU, he should probably already be alive at the time of Agent Carter.

Could be his nephew or cousin.

 

[Christopher]

Could be his nephew or cousin.

Hmm, good point. I double-checked, and in the comics, Joseph Manfredi is Silvermane's son, not his father, and Silvio himself was born in Italy. The name of his father is unrecorded. So this Joseph could well be Silvio's uncle, say.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Except the MCU has already established that Bruce's metamorphosis resulted, not from the gamma bomb, but from a project meant to replicate the results of Project Rebirth and create supersoldiers, substituting gamma rays for the Vita-Rays used by Howard Stark to create Captain America. It involved an apparatus very similar to the one from the Bill Bixby series.

None of which matters in a joke....

Speaking of--and please don't feel the need to fill me in on the actual dangerous properties of gamma rays--I think that they were also being winky-nudgy with us when they had the scientist humorously emphasizing how dangerous they are.

Here's a reference to the phrase being used in the 1920s, though it's secondhand.

Okey-doke, that one has an alibi.

And I'm sure it's older than the '80s, because there was a joke about it in a 1992 episode of The Simpsons, so it must've been well-established by that point.

But hypothetically, I don't see that as being a problem. If the saying was popular enough for me to know in the '80s, then it was out there enough for The Simpsons to use it.

I was wondering if the Asian-American doctor who tended to Mrs. Jarvis was an anachronism, but apparently the first licensed Asian-American physician in California began practicing in 1904.

I got a malware alert when I tried to click on that site, so does it establish that he was in general practice, or was he specifically treating segregated Asian American patients?

 

[Christopher]

I got a malware alert when I tried to click on that site, so does it establish that he was in general practice, or was he specifically treating segregated Asian American patients?

Oh, I didn't think of that. Actually it looks like he got his degree in California but went back to China to practice.

 

[Silvercrest]

The worst part Agent Vega and his partner going out on an assassination mission, even if Chief Thompson talked them out of it, they were supposed to be SSR not..... Hydra yet

That whole scenario bugged me. What was the plan if those two simply opened fire before Thompson had a chance to speak?

Hmm, good point. I double-checked, and in the comics, Joseph Manfredi is Silvermane's son, not his father, and Silvio himself was born in Italy. The name of his father is unrecorded. So this Joseph could well be Silvio's uncle, say.

Yes — going by memory, I believe Joseph Manfredi in the comics is Blackwing.

It's just as likely that in this universe there is no Silvermane and they're just reusing a familiar name.

 

[Zaku]

It's just as likely that in this universe there is no Silvermane and they're just reusing a familiar name.

Silvermane is primarily a Spider-Man character. Perhaps there are some licensing issues..?

 

[RJDiogenes]

I don't even think it was a particularly good musical number.

It was a good musical number, but the director had no idea how to direct a musical number.

Odd bit of phrasing that stuck out at me: "110 percent" in context of giving extra effort has a very '80s ring to my ear. I checked, the phrase was in use, but the first couple pages of Google Books results from the appropriate time range all seem to be in an economics context.

The possible anachronism that jumped out at me this week was when the scientist guy said something like, "Way to screw up the moment." Come to think of it, the character of the scientist guy seems anachronistic in general.

 

[Retu]

One thing that bugged me was the periodic table of elements in front of the SSR lab safe. It showed 118 known elements, though during that time period only about 96 were known.

 

[Tosk]

It's a series set in an alternate world to ours, a world with superheroes and mega-scientists. (How did Stark get that car to float?) It's not a documentary. Mistakes happen. Frankly, I'm amazed they can pull off the '40s so well on a TV budget. The ease of CG backgrounds these days certainly helps, but I quite dig the style the show has. ('40s-esque without going nuts about it.)

 

[Star Wolf]

I got a malware alert when I tried to click on that site, so does it establish that he was in general practice, or was he specifically treating segregated Asian American patients?

Sure there were also "colored" doctors and Miles Davis was the son of a respected dentist.
More to the point of show don't tell, it shows a honky dory world of 1940s America where race was not a factor which the occasional "colored scientist" line of dialog about Dr Wilkes doesn't work as a tell about the problems he faces

 

[Christopher]

Silvermane is primarily a Spider-Man character. Perhaps there are some licensing issues..?

Spidey and his world are part of the MCU now thanks to the deal with Sony. Even if there are licensing issues in the way of Silvermane appearing in a Marvel Productions movie (similar to the issues with Universal that I gather have limited the number of Hulk appearances), he could still appear in a Sony-produced Spidey movie that would count as part of the MCU. I'm just saying that Joseph's existence in the MCU implies that Silvermane could exist as well.

One thing that bugged me was the periodic table of elements in front of the SSR lab safe. It showed 118 known elements, though during that time period only about 96 were known.

Well, maybe some of those elements are things like vibranium, promethium, nautilium, etc.

More to the point of show don't tell, it shows a honky dory world of 1940s America where race was not a factor which the occasional "colored scientist" line of dialog about Dr Wilkes doesn't work as a tell about the problems he faces

It shows a world where there's one black scientist and one Asian doctor and everyone else in any prominent position is white. That alone proves that race is still very much a factor.

 

[Star Wolf]

It shows a world where there's one black scientist and one Asian doctor and everyone else in any prominent position is white. That alone proves that race is still very much a factor.

No it hasn't look at the background in the SSR offices and the crowd scenes. The President might not be Black but prominent positions like Federal Agents looks like the Criminal Minds office

 

[Christopher]

Yet the secret all-powerful Council consists entirely of white men.

As I said, there were always people even in the '40s who were more racially progressive than the society around them. What we're seeing is a show that concentrates on people like that and only occasionally touches on the wider racism of society as a whole. But that racism is still there, implicitly. Of course they have to balance that with the need to cast actors fairly and not practice discrimination in real life. So that gives them a reason to err on the side of inclusion. But that's hardly the same as "a world... where race was not a factor." Race is still very much a factor today, for a great many people. Just because the show's '40s is slightly less horrifically racist than the real '40s, that doesn't mean race isn't a factor at all. Less is not none.

 

[Marsden]

I was watching the doctor taking care of Mrs. Jarvis and wondered if he had been relocated to a concentration camp a few years back like many Japanese Americans had been from the west coast.

I don't think Dr. Wilkes is going to be back in the last episode. First Chief Dooley goes to pieces in the 2nd to last episode last season and now Dr. Wilkes. I sense a pattern.

I also liked the call backs to first season.

BTW, I expect a lot of people have already seen this but I'm posting this link: http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Jason_Wilkes_(Earth-616)
One appearance in Tales of Suspense. Interesting.

 

[Christopher]

BTW, I expect a lot of people have already seen this but I'm posting this link: http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Jason_Wilkes_(Earth-616)
One appearance in Tales of Suspense. Interesting.

Wow, that is a deep dive into continuity. A one-shot anthology story about a guy who turned himself intangible? How did they even find that?