"Agent Carter" season one discussion and spoilers

[Guy Gardener]

Was Zola connected to the SSR database or an old SHIELD Database?

I feel that he was air gapped, but I could be wrong.

 

[Turtletrekker]

How's this for an obscure comic easter egg-- Remember the guy Peggy fought on the boat? According to Thompson his name was "Jerome Zandow. He had a side-show act on Coney Island."

"Zandow the Strong Man" first appeared in Captain America 5, 1941.

 

[RJDiogenes]

This was another strong episode, with some very good characterization going on, especially for Jarvis.

Agent Carter had to both sacrifice her credibility to save Jarvis and give up the credit for tracking down Stark's goodies, both of which were painful for her-- she dearly wants respect. And the resulting death of the obnoxious agent also hit her pretty hard. She is feeling responsible for that.

As for Jarvis, we not only got his backstory from Budapest-- that was quite an honorable bit of treason-- but he had a whole sequence of great moments: His handling of the interrogation, his mock interrogation of Carter, his attempt to struggle with the bruiser who was attacking Carter, and his disguised voice on the pay phone. His disguised voice cracked me up.

I have a feeling that there's more to the hotel for women only than a demonstration of female chauvinism-- I think the new girl from the midwest will be an important character, and that the expelled girl and her boyfriend will have some significance to the story as well.

I wonder if Peggy's going to run into a big goofy brunnet named Buffy and her shorter blond friend Hildy sometime?

I thought the same thing.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

New York's geography has to be among the most thoroughly documented among Earth's cities. If you can't nail down a grade-level crossing somewhere in 1946 Brooklyn...

I think the worst offender was Battle: Los Angeles, which featured Los Angeles in the title, referred to specific geographic locations, and still managed to screw everything up.

Given the time pressures of television combined with the 70 year break in history, I can forgive them for not being as precise as they should be for a relatively minor plot point (the travel time from their office to this location).

 

[Marsden]

How's this for an obscure comic easter egg-- Remember the guy Peggy fought on the boat? According to Thompson his name was "Jerome Zandow. He had a side-show act on Coney Island."

"Zandow the Strong Man" first appeared in Captain America 5, 1941.

That's awsome! I love that stuff! Thanks for pointing that out, first the devil cow and now this!

I really don't know what they are going to do with Black Widow's age. Her backstory was supposedly told breifly in Avengers, but that really could be all just a cover.

 

[Forbin]

New York's geography has to be among the most thoroughly documented among Earth's cities. If you can't nail down a grade-level crossing somewhere in 1946 Brooklyn...

I think the worst offender was Battle: Los Angeles, which featured Los Angeles in the title, referred to specific geographic locations, and still managed to screw everything up.

Given the time pressures of television combined with the 70 year break in history, I can forgive them for not being as precise as they should be for a relatively minor plot point (the travel time from their office to this location).

Ever see Rumble in the Bronx? It was shot in Vancouver. There were scenes with the Cascade Mountains clearly visible in the background, where very-flat New Jersey should be .

 

[Christopher]

I really don't know what they are going to do with Black Widow's age. Her backstory was supposedly told breifly in Avengers, but that really could be all just a cover.

There's no reason why the movies' Black Widow has to be any older than she appears. The only reason she's so long-lived in the comics is because of Marvel's sliding time scale -- the character was introduced in 1964, and since it's all treated as a single continuity, they have to come up with cheats to explain why characters who were around in the Cold War are still young in the 21st century. But the movies are a separate continuity that's less than seven years old (wow, that recent?), so it doesn't have the same continuity baggage and doesn't have to employ the same contrivances and cheats to deal with it.

 

[Gaith]

I think the worst offender was Battle: Los Angeles, which featured Los Angeles in the title, referred to specific geographic locations, and still managed to screw everything up.

Nah, the worst of all time's gotta be Bullit: Steve McQueen, over the course of the famous car chase, teleports from Potrero Hill to Pac Heights, which, okay, fine, but then he drives west along the Marina, heading towards the Golden Gate Bridge... and presto, several shots later, he's in some rural rocky cliff-lined highway that looks nothing like any part of Marin, with no Bay or Bridge in sight. And this occurs during the big car chase!!

 

[Silvercrest]

Well, they were driving really fast, so....

 

[Tom Hendricks]

New York's geography has to be among the most thoroughly documented among Earth's cities. If you can't nail down a grade-level crossing somewhere in 1946 Brooklyn...

I think the worst offender was Battle: Los Angeles, which featured Los Angeles in the title, referred to specific geographic locations, and still managed to screw everything up.

Given the time pressures of television combined with the 70 year break in history, I can forgive them for not being as precise as they should be for a relatively minor plot point (the travel time from their office to this location).

Ever see Rumble in the Bronx? It was shot in Vancouver. There were scenes with the Cascade Mountains clearly visible in the background, where very-flat New Jersey should be .

Actually New Jersey isn't very flat. It has some serious hills and even a few mountains, like the Ramapo Mountains, which I use to hike often.

 

[Kosh Naranek]

I have now watched the first 3 episodes. I am enjoying the show thus far. HA has been great since Capt America and I love JD as Jarvis.

There were pictures of Carter and Stark hanging side by side in Winter Soldier. So, I assume that Stark must not screw her over too badly, if at all.

Would her coworkers not be aware of her war record? Or, does she just keep mum to earn her own way with a new group?

Perhaps the waitress is up to something, but I would rather her be a regular person - a break from the spies.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Perhaps the waitress is up to something, but I would rather her be a regular person - a break from the spies.

Me, too. I could be wrong, but I have a feeling that she's going to end up helping Peggy out of a jam, probably at the boarding house.

 

[Corran Horn]

Enjoyed this episode a lot, but, there's some weird-ass geography going on. Stark's mansion is only a short distance to industrial-type docks, okay. But the SSR agents must have been moving at Barry Allen speed to get to the scene (in Brooklyn, was it?) in the minutes between the time Jarvis hung up, even if he paused for a smoke or something, and their arrival. And then... was the prisoner being brought to the Manhattan office? (The chief said he didn't want to blow up the island.) But what kind of train tracks lie between the Brooklyn shore and Manhattan?!

I looked on a map and it looks like (now, anyway) there are some tracks in Long Island City - not sure how that works out but I guess he could have gone that way.

 

[Tom Hendricks]

Also the song playing while Peggy was talking with the waitress at the end was Someone to Watch Over Me. Can't be to much of a coincident that it was playing.

 

[DEWLine]

Definitely the Zola AI was "air-gapped" - if I understand the term correctly - for security reasons. So whatever the truth of MCU-Natasha's age, the Zola AI need not have been aware of it.

Back to the streetcar line stuff. I'm defending the show's depiction of rail lines in Brooklyn.

Not sure where the Stark mansion on Long Island would be in relation to the Heartbreak's port of call.

 

[Greg Cox]

I really don't know what they are going to do with Black Widow's age. Her backstory was supposedly told breifly in Avengers, but that really could be all just a cover.

There's no reason why the movies' Black Widow has to be any older than she appears. The only reason she's so long-lived in the comics is because of Marvel's sliding time scale -- the character was introduced in 1964, and since it's all treated as a single continuity, they have to come up with cheats to explain why characters who were around in the Cold War are still young in the 21st century. But the movies are a separate continuity that's less than seven years old (wow, that recent?), so it doesn't have the same continuity baggage and doesn't have to employ the same contrivances and cheats to deal with it.

I think Natasha did reference working for the KGB in one of the movies, though, which doesn't quite work if you do the math . . ..

 

[Forbin]

I think the worst offender was Battle: Los Angeles, which featured Los Angeles in the title, referred to specific geographic locations, and still managed to screw everything up.

Given the time pressures of television combined with the 70 year break in history, I can forgive them for not being as precise as they should be for a relatively minor plot point (the travel time from their office to this location).

Ever see Rumble in the Bronx? It was shot in Vancouver. There were scenes with the Cascade Mountains clearly visible in the background, where very-flat New Jersey should be .

Actually New Jersey isn't very flat. It has some serious hills and even a few mountains, like the Ramapo Mountains, which I use to hike often.

I know, I live in Oakland, right at the edge of the Ramapos. Almost THIRTY miles from the Bronx. And we're talking, in the movie, NJ as seen from the Bronx (Or would it be Staten Island?). When I fly into Newark Airport, with Manhattan out the windows on one side, and look out over NJ, it is very FLAT as far as the eye can see. And certainly flatter than the freakin cascade Mountains!

 

[Marsden]

I really don't know what they are going to do with Black Widow's age. Her backstory was supposedly told breifly in Avengers, but that really could be all just a cover.

There's no reason why the movies' Black Widow has to be any older than she appears. The only reason she's so long-lived in the comics is because of Marvel's sliding time scale -- the character was introduced in 1964, and since it's all treated as a single continuity, they have to come up with cheats to explain why characters who were around in the Cold War are still young in the 21st century. But the movies are a separate continuity that's less than seven years old (wow, that recent?), so it doesn't have the same continuity baggage and doesn't have to employ the same contrivances and cheats to deal with it.

I think Natasha did reference working for the KGB in one of the movies, though, which doesn't quite work if you do the math . . ..

Yes, I remember that, born 1984, KGB presumably stopped opperating around 1991, which would make her about seven, but then she did say to Banner in Avengers that she started young, specifically in refrence to the girl that lured him to the house for the meeting. Could she have been in the KGB as a seven year old? Hard to say, but at least it almost works.

Plus, Chris is right, she doesn't have to be as old as Cap. It can be just the MCU Black Widow is young. But I've noticed a trend to "fill in" some of the post WW2 pre Iron Man time frame, Agent Carter and the upcoming Ant Man specifically, and there could be some "legacy" characters that explain the time frames,or maybe not. It would be interesting, though because Winter Soldier is a Soviet creation and they preserved him between missions, maybe she was and doesn't have any memory of it. I just think it would be an interesting story for another time, but they might be planting the seeds of it in this story.

Oh, and BTW, animal name.

Any generic sounding name really could have more than one owner. It's not like there's a superhero trademark agency slapping them with law suits. "Hey, I'm the real Captain Liberty, not you!"

 

[Tom Hendricks]

Ever see Rumble in the Bronx? It was shot in Vancouver. There were scenes with the Cascade Mountains clearly visible in the background, where very-flat New Jersey should be .

Actually New Jersey isn't very flat. It has some serious hills and even a few mountains, like the Ramapo Mountains, which I use to hike often.

I know, I live in Oakland, right at the edge of the Ramapos. Almost THIRTY miles from the Bronx. And we're talking, in the movie, NJ as seen from the Bronx (Or would it be Staten Island?). When I fly into Newark Airport, with Manhattan out the windows on one side, and look out over NJ, it is very FLAT as far as the eye can see. And certainly flatter than the freakin cascade Mountains!

I'm from Hawthorne, small world. Went to Cub Scout Gymboree in the Ramapo's. Of course Rumble in the Bronx was laughable about placement. Just wanted to point out that the whole of NJ wasn't some flat, barren wasteland, that's what we have North Dakota for.

 

[Christopher]

Would her coworkers not be aware of her war record? Or, does she just keep mum to earn her own way with a new group?

They know of her record, but they assume her status came mainly from being "Captain America's girlfriend" -- that he did the heavy lifting and she just basked in his spillover glory.

I think Natasha did reference working for the KGB in one of the movies, though, which doesn't quite work if you do the math . . ..

Good point. But if they do make her older, it should be because they have some story of their own to tell that works within the MCU, rather than just out of some kneejerk imitation of what the comics did.