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"Agent Carter" season one discussion and spoilers

Didn't the showrunners say in an interview back in November or December that they were going to steer clear of any hints about Hydra infiltration? I forget the exact reason though, maybe they didn't want to show Carter getting punked on her own show. Or maybe they just thought they had other more interesting stories to tell, and didn't want to waste precious time on a story everyone already knew.

The former explanation sounds familiar to me, though it's probably both. The problem with including HYDRA infiltrators in this show is that the heroine can never find out about them (since they weren't unearthed until 68 years later), and that would make her seem ineffective.
 
Ivchenko seems to have quite the formidable power of persuasion to compel that guy to kill himself ...

Based on the old adage that you can't hypnotize someone to something against their nature, I think he only compelled him to walk across the street. At just the right moment.
 
Based on the old adage that you can't hypnotize someone to something against their nature, I think he only compelled him to walk across the street. At just the right moment.

It's more than an adage. From what I've read, a "hypnotic trance state" doesn't really exist; it's more just a conscious choice to let go and be extremely relaxed, uninhibited, and submissive, to suspend your behavioral filters and let yourself act in ways you normally wouldn't act because you can shift the responsibility onto the hypnotist. So you can only be "hypnotized" in the first place if you really want to go along with it. (I suppose it's similar to the submissive role in BDSM play, but without the sexual element -- a state of extreme self-abnegation, but one you enter by choice and still have control over.)

I've seen on Mythbusters that when you try to make a suggestion to a hypnotized person that they aren't willing to follow, they get uncomfortable and say, "No, I don't want to do that." They don't snap out of their ultra-relaxed state, but they still have control over their own choices; they only go along with a hypnotist's suggestion if they want to, not because they're compelled to. And a "post-hypnotic suggestion" isn't really a hidden bit of programming that you don't remember, more just sort of a motivational technique, a thought that you train yourself to bring to mind in the prearranged context. You may not clearly recall being given the suggestion until the trigger event comes up, but once it does, you become aware of the suggestion and where it came from, and can choose whether to act on it.

Of course, in fiction it's usually portrayed differently, with hypnotists being able to get people completely in their power. It's unclear here whether Ivchenko got that power from the ring he was manipulating (I've seen it suggested that it could be one of the Mandarin's Ten Rings), or if the repeated gesture with the ring was just a focusing technique (like the classic swinging pocketwatch) and the power came from Ivchenko himself -- and, in that case, whether it was a metahuman ability or just the kind of advanced hypnotic skill that normal people are supposedly capable of learning in fiction.
 
Didn't the showrunners say in an interview back in November or December that they were going to steer clear of any hints about Hydra infiltration? I forget the exact reason though, maybe they didn't want to show Carter getting punked on her own show. Or maybe they just thought they had other more interesting stories to tell, and didn't want to waste precious time on a story everyone already knew.

The former explanation sounds familiar to me, though it's probably both. The problem with including HYDRA infiltrators in this show is that the heroine can never find out about them (since they weren't unearthed until 68 years later), and that would make her seem ineffective.

I agree with that - and also they can't do *too* much badness so really it'd just be for BWAA-HAA-HAA sake so why bother, I guess.
 
I was trying to figure out if the noise they were doing each time Dr. Ivchenko hypnotize was actually supposed to be there, or if it was just a sound effect for our benefit?
I have to admit I was surprised that Angie found out about Peggy, I didn't expect her to.
We also know now that Leviathan and the Red Room aparently are both part of the Soviet government.
The end was pretty intense. That was a great fight scene at the Automat.
 
I was trying to figure out if the noise they were doing each time Dr. Ivchenko hypnotize was actually supposed to be there, or if it was just a sound effect for our benefit?

It sounded to me like an eerie musical motif, to underscore that he was doing something ominous.
 
I could see it either way. No real way to know for certain. If it's a sound, the people being hypnotized by it don't register it.
 
It definitely sounded musical to me, but sound effects aren't always meant to be diegetic. For instance, in The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman, I don't think anyone was meant to be able to hear the "ta-ta-ta-ta-tang" sound of the bionic limbs; it was just symbolic to let the audience know that bionic strength was kicking in. (In fact, it wasn't even standardized as a "bionic strength" sound effect until late in season 2 of 6M$M; initially, it was used as a sort of "whoosh" sound to represent objects being swung or propelled forcefully through the air in a slow-motion sequence, whether by Steve Austin or anyone else.) And the very first time the '70s Wonder Woman show added the flash of light and "POW!" sound effect to Diana's spin transformation into Wonder Woman, it was in a dormitory with a bunch of sleeping women nearby, yet clearly none of them heard it.

(When I was growing up, I was never really sure whether the transporter sound in Star Trek was meant to be audible to the characters or not. I was so used to cartoons adding sound effects to normally silent things -- like the descending whistle of the Coyote falling off a cliff -- that I never took it for granted that a sound effect could be heard. And I think there were some scenes where someone was stealthily beamed up or down and nobody nearby seemed to hear anything, like in "Tomorrow is Yesterday," "Assignment: Earth," or "The Enterprise Incident.")
 
But they won't take it easy on her because she's a "girl." Now that's respect. :rommie:
 
"Is this the end of Peggy Carter?" Given that we saw her aged 70 more years - prolly not.

I would love to see each season of eight eps or so take place as a self-contained story in a different era--a couple of seasons in the fifties and then the sixties, for example.
 
"Is this the end of Peggy Carter?" Given that we saw her aged 70 more years - prolly not.

I would love to see each season of eight eps or so take place as a self-contained story in a different era--a couple of seasons in the fifties and then the sixties, for example.

+1

I think she is going to be in Ant Man in some way, that would make a good tie in, plus maybe Ant Man could be in an episode. You wouldn't need Rudd or Douglas to be on tv because the actor would be playing young Pym, so it could be recast like Dominic Cooper and John Slattery are both Howard Stark.
 
Tonight...

“Snafu” – Peggy is cornered and more vulnerable than ever as Leviathan makes their move against her. As the SSR zeroes in on Howard Stark, they may pay the ultimate price as they find their true enemy is closer than they realized.
 
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