Agent Carter - Season 2

[Star Wolf]

RJD, I don't think it's a portal, I think it's like a small black hole that just absorbs and crushes it into a tiny area. But I don't really know either.

t.​

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Metatextually, we've been told that "Zero Matter" is actually the Darkforce, a thing from Marvel that I believe exists in some other dimension. So things are getting sucked into another dimension, most likely.

After all, if the mass were being compressed inside Whitney's body, then after absorbing two adult males and about a dozen rats, she'd be maybe four times her original weight by now and it would be having an effect on her mobility.

I have been hearing that rumor so much it is borderline spoiling . I do know on first watch the portal being years closer in memory than gravitonium that I am willing to speculate that a monolith sample was nuked "discovery requires experimentation" I do miss Dr Whitehall

 

[The Old Mixer]

And there was at least one anachronism: The agent who discovered Whitney said, "That's what I'm talkin' 'bout." A bit too contemporary sounding.

That didn't seem anachronistic to me, and my first thought upon reading this is that it sounded like something they might have been saying back in the '20s...and look what I found:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=that's+what+i'm+talking+about

Etymological note: This phrase can be heard in a recording of the (ca.) 1929 Fats Waller song "The Joint is Jumping".
"Get rid of that pistol, yeah, get rid of it... yeah... ha ha... that's what I'm talking about..." (from abovementioned recording, spoken)

 

[RJDiogenes]

"Oh, mommy, it's the biggest horsey ever!"

That was it. That just cracked me up.

My biggest laugh this season was still when Peggy was trying to get Stark to follow her, and she waved a bottle of booze and said "Come on! Who's a good boy?"

I loved that scene. Peggy's humor has definitely improved this year, which was about my only quibble from season one.

RJD, I don't think it's a portal, I think it's like a small black hole that just absorbs and crushes it into a tiny area. But I don't really know either.

Wasn't this "dark force" created by nuking a fragment of the monolith, or was that just speculation? At this point I can't remember.

I agree with that, too. She was being held back by her mother's expectations and the fiancé seemed to be the culmination of those expectations. The brother was only pointing out that they weren't Peggy's own true expectations, that she was settling.

Yeah, one of the things that I love about this show is that it's genuinely Feminist. It's not just boys versus girls, as the Millennials would have it, but a cultural paradigm. There have been women who have bought into the paradigm, like the house mother and Peggy's mom, and men who haven't, like the guy who served Peggy the SOE notice and her brother. To say that she can't be inspired or motivated by her brother because he's male goes against the tenets of breaking down barriers that real Feminism espouses.

That didn't seem anachronistic to me, and my first thought upon reading this is that it sounded like something they might have been saying back in the '20s...and look what I found:

Yeah, it's true, a lot of slang phrases go back a lot further than seems likely. Maybe it was just his inflection or something. But I'll cross that one off my list.

 

[JD]

I really enjoyed getting flashbacks for Peggy and Whitney. It was interesting to get to compare how they grew up, and where things led them.
I wasn't that bothered by Peggy's backstory. I was a little surprised to see her in such a mundane life before her brother died, but given the era I thought it made sense. I can kind of see the annoyance that it was a male character who motivated her to start on the path to the SSR, but even with a feminist character like Peggy not every major figure in her life is going to be a woman.
The bit with the tranquilizer gun and Jarvis was funny.
It's nice that Souza is actually willing to help Peggy. After she spent so much time
having to sneak around, it's nice to see her with a cooperative boss.
I liked them making Hunt think they had given him Malaria, when it was actually just a very severe cold. I'm loving all of the different stuff they're getting from Stark and all of his experiments.

 

[Christopher]

I can kind of see the annoyance that it was a male character who motivated her to start on the path to the SSR, but even with a feminist character like Peggy not every major figure in her life is going to be a woman.

But she's already got Steve, Col. Phillips, Howard, Dugan, Jarvis, Sousa, etc. It'd be nice if there were some woman who'd inspired her as well.

The bit with the tranquilizer gun and Jarvis was funny.

Honestly, I found it too broad. I think he's funnier when he's more prim and proper.

 

[Turtletrekker]

What was missing from the flashbacks was a sense of the adventurous Pre-Fred, older Peggy, the one who would belt back shots with her brother.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Something I was wondering about that might be a glaring anachronism...a quick search indicates that commercial radio seems to have just been getting going in 1920, and sets were still very rare in households. Anyone here better-versed in the subject? If that's true, it seems pretty unlikely that Whitney's family out in rural Oklahoma both owned a radio set and were picking up music broadcasts with it. My sense from what I browsed is that it was about as rare then as TV was in the late 30s/early 40s.

Of course, Howard Stark's dad might have helped to get it all going sooner....

ETA: Yeah, it seems like they were at least 2 or 3 years early...not too glaring, but still.

 

[Arrrrgggh]

They were common enough to support over 600 radio stations by 1922. At least that's one of the first things that came up on Google. I don't think that counts as being all that "rare."

 

[The Old Mixer]

From the link I posted above, emphasis mine:

Most radio historians asert that radio broadcasting began in 1920 with the historic broadcast of KDKA. Few people actually heard the voices and music which were produced because of the dearth of radio receivers at that time. The public, however, was overcome by a radio craze after the initial broadcast. Radio became a product of the mass market. Manufacturers were overwhelmed by the demand for receivers, as customers stood in line to complete order forms for radios after dealers had sold out. Between 1923 and 1930, 60 percent of American families purchased radios. Families gathered around their radios for night-time entertainment. As radio ownership increased, so did the number of radio stations. In 1920, KDKA was not actually the only operating radio station, but it remains a benchmark in most accounts. And by 1922, 600 radio stations had sprung up around the United States. Chicago's first radio station, KYW, begun in 1921 [. . .]

It seems like it really started to boom in the early-to-mid '20s, but wasn't at the point of being a common household item quite as early as 1920...nor were stations common, if a major city like Chicago got its first station in 1921. Like I said, at least two or three years early.

(KDKA was a Pittsburgh station, though I thought call letters beginning with "K" were only west of the Mississippi.)

Also, it seems like one of those crystal radio sets would have been a better fit for young Agnes to be tinkering with.

Not too big a deal...it fits the Goldbergs paradigm of everything that happened in a decade being depicted as having happened in the same year.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Probably just a little artistic license for effect-- and it is an alternate universe, after all. In one of my stories, set in the 30s, I had a character at a Bund meeting about five years before the organization existed. In Tales of the Gold Monkey, Jake Cutter was a member of the Flying Tigers several years before they were established. Nothing wrong with that.

 

[The Old Mixer]

TotGM doesn't even pass the Goldbergs test of keeping things in the same calendar decade. Jake was a combat-experienced ex-Flying Tiger in 1938, whereas the Flying Tigers didn't go into action until after Pearl Harbor.

 

[Sean_McCormick]

I knew that FBI guy would be nothing but trouble. Sousa said the judge he used for the warrant was under the thumb of the council, but it's pretty clear that the FBI guy is, too

Did't they actually show him as a member at the club (with pin) introducing Thompson last week?

 

[Forbin]

Probably just a little artistic license for effect-- and it is an alternate universe, after all. In one of my stories, set in the 30s, I had a character at a Bund meeting about five years before the organization existed. In Tales of the Gold Monkey, Jake Cutter was a member of the Flying Tigers several years before they were established. Nothing wrong with that.

There is, really, but we let it go for the sake of entertainment. I loved Gold Monkey, but Jake being a EX-Flying Tiger 4 years before they existed always made me shake my head.

 

[The Old Mixer]

It effectively amounts to a guy in a pre-war setting who has combat experience in WWII...which might be easier to overlook if it hadn't been referenced so frequently and prominently (IIRC...haven't seen the show since it originally aired, but AIRC, he wore a very distinctive Flying Tigers jacket).

 

[DWF]

Well code breaking is pretty far removed from what I would call a life of adventure. And the Peggy who left her parent's house was still a ways away from the one we meet in The First Avenger, at least to me.

 

[Marsden]

Did't they actually show him as a member at the club (with pin) introducing Thompson last week?

That's what I thought I saw, too. When Thompson saw the paper Marge saw the day before.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Did't they actually show him as a member at the club (with pin) introducing Thompson last week?

Yes, but that didn't make it clear, at least to me, that he was in on the shenanigans. He could just be an innocent member of the "outer" club, and just a dupe of the inner Council.

There is, really, but we let it go for the sake of entertainment. I loved Gold Monkey, but Jake being a EX-Flying Tiger 4 years before they existed always made me shake my head.

Eh, it's not a documentary, it's essentially Pulp fiction, so there's room for artistic license. I mean, the character of Peggy Carter herself is a bit of artistic license. Not that there weren't female espionage operatives-- click on the Heroes link in my sig and find my essay on Josephine Baker-- but I doubt if there was anyone resembling Peggy in real life. Of course, it's all in how it's presented and what the purpose of it is. I have particular story reasons when I do it; Gold Monkey may have just been a mistake, or perhaps they were planning on a story to explain it but never had time.

It effectively amounts to a guy in a pre-war setting who has combat experience in WWII...which might be easier to overlook if it hadn't been referenced so frequently and prominently (IIRC...haven't seen the show since it originally aired, but AIRC, he wore a very distinctive Flying Tigers jacket).

Actually, it's really not that hard to envision such a scenario in a slightly alternate universe. The Flying Tigers were actually a covert operation created by presidential decree, using volunteer airmen, and had been training for a while before America got into the war. That's why they were ready when Pearl Harbor happened-- they would have gone into action in any case. In fact, a lot of those airmen had already seen action against the Nazis in Europe during the 30s in prior covert operations. Roosevelt understood the need for us to be involved in the war, but isolationist sentiment was strong (ironically, from the Right Wing in those days) until the attack on Pearl Harbor. Lots of secret stuff was going on.

 

[Zaku]

Agent Carter and Jessica Jones taught me an important lesson: if a man asks a girl/woman to smile, he is a horrible, horrible person.

 

[Reverend]

^If anyone has to ask anyone else to smile for them then they're probably doing something wrong.

 

[The Old Mixer]

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