"Agent Carter" season one discussion and spoilers

[Forbin]

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.

Small world indeed!
Here's a view for you:
http://www.inpayne.com/nikki/nikki2014-50.jpg

We live halfway up one ridge of the Ramapos, and you can see the next ridge in the distance. The Ramapo River and Ramapo Valley Rd are in the valley between.

 

[CaptainCanada]

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 . . ..

I would be 99% sure that they said "KGB" because nobody in the audience would know what the "SVR" is.

 

[Gaith]

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?

"Don't wave your war record in our face, Dr. Jones. We all served."

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.

What, is Chakotay coming? Run!!

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

The Heartbreak was in Brooklyn, right? So I assumed that Stark's mansion was there too. Didn't the show establish the ship as being within eyesight of the end of the underground tunnel, which was only a few minutes' walk from the house?

 

[The Old Mixer]

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.

That's lovely, but I'm still waiting for somebody to identify the R&B song that was playing in the car when Agent Whatshisname was killed. *

The Heartbreak was in Brooklyn, right?

I thought it was down at the end of Lonely Street....

*******

*ETA: Don't knock yourselves out, people...I found it in the episode's IMDB entry. It's "Jam that Boogie" by Lowell Fulson, and it would appear to be a bit of an anachronism, as I'm finding a release date of 1948. I'll cut them some slack given that it seems to be a fairly obscure song.

 

[Tosk]

It's "Jam that Boogie" by Lowell Fulson, and it would appear to be a bit of an anachronism, as I'm finding a release date of 1948. I'll cut them some slack given that it seems to be a fairly obscure song.

The show has already previously used other non-period songs, so I wouldn't worry about it. They're just going for the "sound of the era" rather than accuracy. Which is fine by me, but I'm sure someone somewhere is pulling their hair out over it.

 

[Christopher]

Odd that people get more upset about anachronistic songs or slang than about anachronistically advanced technology like super-soldier serums and implosion bombs. It's not our world, so maybe the songs came out sooner there.

 

[Guy Gardener]

After Peggy Sue Bodell discovered the Beatles in the late 50s, there was a gold rush on the rest of the as yet undiscovered mid 20th century popular contemporary music catalogue till the Time Cops really started knuckling down.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Did I in any way give the impression that I was upset? I was going for informative with a dash of whimsy.

 

[Tosk]

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 . . ..

Except we don't know what year the Soviet Union broke up in the MCU.

Odd that people get more upset about anachronistic songs or slang than about anachronistically advanced technology[...]

Who got upset?

 

[RJDiogenes]

I don't get upset over anachronisms either-- I've used them deliberately in my own period stories-- but it's still about the "sound of the era" thing. It's one thing if a show set in 1946 uses a song from 1948, quite another if they use a song from 1975. Same with slang.

That's assuming you're going for verisimilitude, of course. I understand that American Horror Story is using songs that are decades out of place. Other shows, from Hercules to Jesus Christ Superstar, have used wildly anachronistic slang to good effect. But Agent Carter isn't that kind of show (but, again, it was the Captain America movie that used the turn of phrase that jumped out at me).

 

[Marsden]

Odd that people get more upset about anachronistic songs or slang than about anachronistically advanced technology like super-soldier serums and implosion bombs. It's not our world, so maybe the songs came out sooner there.

WHAT ARE YOU SAYING!!!!!!! IT'S NOT REAL?????????


AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!! **thud**

 

[The Old Mixer]

Something like that bugged me a little on American Dreams, a family drama from around a decade back that was set in the early-to-mid-60s. It was produced by Dick Clark, and part of the premise of the show was that the main protagonist, a teenage girl, danced on American Bandstand. Sometimes they'd show actual vintage Bandstand performances on the monitors while stand-ins were artfully blocked out on stage. Other times they'd get hot current artists to perform as the vintage artists.

Given all of that, plus the way that the show tended to use historical events as the basis for drama in the characters' lives, you'd have thought that the musical chronology would have been something they'd pay a great deal of attention to...but it was relatively all over the place. It may not sound like a big deal in another context, but it would jump out at me when, for example, they had Jennifer Love Hewitt on as Nancy Sinatra performing "These Boots Are Made for Walking," a song that charted in early '66, at a point when the show should have been in early '65. Being something of an aficionado of that era, I just knew that was "wrong" before I looked up the date.

It sounds silly even as I type it, but for my money, there was too much going on in the development of popular music at that particular point in time to pass off a well-known song as being a year younger than it actually was. Only three years separated "She Loves You" from "Tomorrow Never Knows". Yet I still wouldn't say that I was "upset" about it...more shaking my head and tsk-tsking.

Ladies and gentleman of the jury, Exhibit A:

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_80ccYCzNw[/yt]

 

[Christopher]

Did I in any way give the impression that I was upset? I was going for informative with a dash of whimsy.

I said "people," not "you." I was commenting on the general pattern that your remark simply put me in mind of.

 

[Forbin]

Ladies and gentleman of the jury, Exhibit A:

I'll be in my bunk...

 

[Forbin]

My wife and I watched That 70s Show with a bit of a critical eye, since we were teenagers at the time the show was set. The look of the show was pretty much right on for the time (my wife even recognized fashions she wore), but the dialog would occasionally be contemporary (I really don't remember anyone saying "Dude!" in the current context back then). I guess it makes the show more accessible to younger audiences, which is fine. Happy Days and Wonder Years probably did the same.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Anyway, back to the show: Is anyone else convinced that Bridget Regan's new tenant at Peggy's building (Dottie, I think it was) is the same person as the mysterious assassin? They wouldn't have introduced Regan without having some purpose to it. And the skulking figure did seem to have a lean, feminine quality to me.

Plus shoes with heels of maybe two inches, or more.

 

[The Old Mixer]

I'll be in my bunk...

I thought that might make somebody's day.

BTW, for those who enjoyed Heroes while it was good, that cop you barely glimpse before the video cuts out was Ted the Nuclear Guy's previous life (the blonde girl's uncle on the show).

 

[Nerys Myk]

My wife and I watched That 70s Show with a bit of a critical eye, since we were teenagers at the time the show was set. The look of the show was pretty much right on for the time (my wife even recognized fashions she wore), but the dialog would occasionally be contemporary (I really don't remember anyone saying "Dude!" in the current context back then). I guess it makes the show more accessible to younger audiences, which is fine. Happy Days and Wonder Years probably did the same.

Happy Day's pretty much gave up after a while when it came to hair.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Episode 5, "The Iron Curtain", sees the return of the Howling Commandos. Except Dum-Dum seems to the only Howler from the movie who will appear. Instead of Gabe Jones, Falsworth, Morita and Denier, we will see the MCU debut of comic Howlers Sam Sawyer, Junior Juniper and Pinky Pinkerton.

Spoiler: Episode description.

"The Iron Ceiling" - Peggy is finally trusted with a mission and calls upon her trusted Howling Commandos squad for backup. But her cover could be at risk when SSR Chief Dooley also sends Agent Thompson with her, on "Marvel's Agent Carter," Tuesday, February 3 (9:00-10:00 p.m., ET) on the ABC Television Network.

"Marvel's Agent Carter" stars Hayley Atwell as Agent Peggy Carter, James D'Arcy as Edwin Jarvis, Chad Michael Murray as Agent Jack Thompson, Enver Gjokaj as Agent Daniel Sousa and Shea Whigham as Chief Roger Dooley.

Guest starring are Eddie Shin as Agent Li, Greg Serano as Agent Ramirez, Neal McDonough as Dum-Dum Dugan, Bridget Regan as Dottie Underwood, Leonard Roberts as Happy Sam Sawyer, James Austin Kerr as Junior Juniper, Richard Short as Pinky Pinkerton, Ralph Brown as Dr. Ivchenko and Jared Gertner as cryptographer.

"The Iron Ceiling" was written by Jose Molina and directed by Peter Leto.

 

[Guy Gardener]

The Russians, Hydra, or maybe even Khaos, are going to see the level of discontent in Agent Carter and think her prime for flipping.

After all if she was happy at work and respected by her peers, would she have taken Howard's mission to betray America?