They've really got a lot of Marvel-owned names to use if they're milking the old anthology titles.
Agent Carter - Season 2
- Thread starter Gaith
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Well, I guessed wrong on that one. I knew Anna would not get out of this unscathed, but I thought she would be paralyzed from the waist down or something. The childbearing thing never occurred to me. I guess I never thought of Jarvis and Anna as the type to want children. Nice twist, though. But it was interesting that we didn't see her reaction, and I'm wondering if there will be something about it in the final episode.
Turning Jarvis into a grim avenger was probably the most boring thing they could do, but it led to that really cool conversation between him and Carter in the desert, so I guess it can be forgiven. At least he seems to have learned something about himself and Carter. I also liked the little confrontation between Carter and Sousa.
So it looks like Thompson was only playing Frost and the FBI guy, but he was also playing Carter and the rest. I wonder if he'll live through this series. I'm wondering the same thing about Wilkes. He's already admitted that the Zero Matter is no excuse for his behavior, so his days may be numbered. I have a feeling that there will be a major death before it's all over, like Dooley in the first season, and it will probably be either Thompson or Wilkes.
The song-and-dance routine was pretty cool, but the director really didn't know how to direct a musical number. I still enjoyed it, though, and it was funny that super-serious Peggy Carter dreams that her life is a musical.
Another possible anachronism: Did Sousa tell the scientist that he was "getting on his last nerve?"
Turning Jarvis into a grim avenger was probably the most boring thing they could do, but it led to that really cool conversation between him and Carter in the desert, so I guess it can be forgiven. At least he seems to have learned something about himself and Carter. I also liked the little confrontation between Carter and Sousa.
So it looks like Thompson was only playing Frost and the FBI guy, but he was also playing Carter and the rest. I wonder if he'll live through this series. I'm wondering the same thing about Wilkes. He's already admitted that the Zero Matter is no excuse for his behavior, so his days may be numbered. I have a feeling that there will be a major death before it's all over, like Dooley in the first season, and it will probably be either Thompson or Wilkes.
The song-and-dance routine was pretty cool, but the director really didn't know how to direct a musical number. I still enjoyed it, though, and it was funny that super-serious Peggy Carter dreams that her life is a musical.
Another possible anachronism: Did Sousa tell the scientist that he was "getting on his last nerve?"
Maybe, maybe not. Joyce used "getting on my nerves" in Ulysses, which was published back in 1922.
I can't find a citation, but "gettin' on my last nerve" sounds like an older phrase to me, the sort of thing Bogart or Cagney might've growled out in warning. It just seems to fit the idiom and mindset of '40s slang imagery, that kind of colorful embellishment -- that something has not only gotten on your nerves, but has gotten on your last remaining nerve so that you're on the verge of being pushed too far. Google Ngram does find instances of "my last nerve" going back to the 1800s, but it's in the sense of "summoning my last nerve," as in one's last reserves of strength or courage.
Yeah, that one doesn't sound period-inauthentic to me...and it's the sort of thing my mom used to say, so that's putting it close enough.
Still, I'd be happy if the Agent Carter characters spouted some of the '40s lingo that isn't still used today, like calling someone "a bad actor" (in the sense of a dangerous or villainous person, someone who commits bad acts) or saying that something was "strictly from hunger" (i.e. undesirable or of poor quality, like food so bad you'd only eat if if you were starving). I mean, the writers keep having the characters reference '40s celebrities that a lot of modern viewers have probably never heard of, so what's wrong with a few unfamiliar idioms as well?
It might confuse the audience?
There was a humorous line when Jarvis told Peggy that Howard "does have a woodie."
There was a humorous line when Jarvis told Peggy that Howard "does have a woodie."
That's what I'm saying -- references to '40s celebrities would confuse much of the current audience, but they include them anyway. So I don't see why a bit of '40s slang would be any different.
Besides, it's good for fiction to confuse the audience sometimes, if it's the kind of confusion that can be eased by learning something new. Fiction should expand one's horizons.
The difference between using dated celebrity references and unfamiliar turns of phrases is that the latter lend themselves more easily to misunderstandings. Take your "bad actor" reference; I'd hesitate to use that phrase in its original sense because it might be misinterpreted.
"Huh? Why is Peggy calling that guy a bad actor? Was he pretending to be something he's not?"
As opposed to a stray reference to Fatty Arbuckle which might be more or less figured out from context, even if the name rings no bells. "Oh, must be some old-timey movie star."
I imagine the show has to strike a balance between trying to sound "period" and not sounding too dated or corny to modern ears.
True story: I once wrote an AVENGER story, about the old 1930's pulp hero, in which I maybe went a little overboard with the retro dialogue. "Get your mitts off of me, you big palooka," that kind of thing.
Not surprisingly, my editor asked me to tone it down a notch.
That reminds me of Jarvis trying to act like an American.
Yeah, "getting on my nerves" has been around forever, but "getting on my last nerve" sounds like a modern variation.
Yeah, but when? It has kind of an 80s vibe to me.
Now, see, that's the kind of thing I love. If I was that editor, I would have told you to ramp it up.True story: I once wrote an AVENGER story, about the old 1930's pulp hero, in which I maybe went a little overboard with the retro dialogue. "Get your mitts off of me, you big palooka," that kind of thing.
Not surprisingly, my editor asked me to tone it down a notch.
It's true that a lot of these modern-sounding phrases did technically exist back then, but when I'm writing a period piece, I always favor the lingo that does sound the most dated-- not just because it's fun, but because it's evocative of the setting. It's easy enough to write something in a way that the meaning can be derived from the context.
Perhaps, but it can be understood from context. I got these phrases from listening to the Adventures of Superman radio show, and I didn't understand them myself at first, but the context, and the actors' delivery, let me figure out what the characters meant.
Looks like you're right...the phrase "on my last nerve" is completely flatlined until 1975, and peaks sharply from the late '80s on. Maybe I was misremembering, or it could be that Midwestern parents threatening their children in the '70s were ahead of the curve on this one....
Or it could be that it was a phrase more commonly used in colloquial speech than in printed works. Tracking word and phrase origins is a tricky business, since surviving sources aren't ever going to be comprehensive. That's why etymology citations only say that a word or phrase is "predating" the earliest date they have on record -- all they can say is that it must've existed by then, that it's the earliest source they were able to find. There's no way to prove it didn't exist earlier.
I'm hoping for "The whole nine yards," which my Mom says all the time (she would have been 17 in Peggy's time period). The phrase originated in WWII, referring to the length of a belt of .50 caliber machine gun ammo - "Give 'em the whole nine yards, pal!" Mom uses it simply as a way to say "the whole thing", i.e. "Tad (my sister's BF) came over today and mowed the lawn, trimmed the hedges, watered, weeded - the whole nine yards!"
I always hated that saying. You can only give 100%, no more. Yet people always try to make it look like they did better than their best. Sorry, no such animal!
And how far along was the SHIELD Academy's version of the periodic table as of 2014?
Ah. AoS: Season One Declassified reminds us that "Seeds" had an eighth Group and in "The Asset", Gravitonium was tagged as "Element 123". A quick image search with search terms "SHIELD" and "periodic table" will provide the image from that book.
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