Agent Carter 1.05

[selenak]

I have no feelings about the Howling Commandos one way or the other (not least because the one time I rewatched the first Captain America movie, I fast forwarded through all the WWII fighting scenes), so this episode's reunion did nothing fo rme beyond "nice for Peggy". This was how I felt about the entire field trip - I mean, nice for Peggy that she finally officially gets to do stuff again, but it's not as interesting to me, character wise, as her one scene with Jarvis. Thompson got fleshed out a bit beyond "sexist jerk with brutal interrogation methods", and while his backstory makes psychological sense (i.e. the shame about being credited as a hero for what was actually a war crime makes him constantly pull a tougher than tough act), it doesn't make me like him more, either.

Otoh the fantastic opening sequence with the girls had me declare "they're really doing the Red Room" in horrified delight. (Horror because of the content, delight because it's such an iconic part of comics!Natasha's past, and even if MCU!Natasha was really born in 1984, a) we can assume something very like this was still her past, and b) Dottie now all but is confirmed as an earlier incarnation of the Black Widow. (Yelena? New character?)

BTW, this is as good a point as any for a whole rambling aside on why MCU Natasha does it for me as a character in a way MCU Bucky does not (yet - maybe that'll change in the future). What happened to Bucky is entirely external. He was operated on, he was brainwashed to the point where he appears to be little more than a moving automaton in The Winter Soldier (until his memories start to come back, of course). There is no indication he had something like a personality or relationships while in the Winter Soldier state. (Speaking solely of the MCU. Comics are different, I know.)

Now, these little girls getting trained as child soldiers is originally external, too, of course, and it's horrible that this is done to them. But they're still able to develop personalities in this state. Have thoughts. Form relationships. Natasha had a lot to come back from, but she wasn't a walking automaton before that, and she still uses the training she was given then. She has internalized it. This is just much more interesting character background.

Back to the actual Agent Carter episode. The Red Room girls learning to speak English via Disney movies was a great touch, and an even better one Peggy's discovery later, that the cartoons come with sublimal messages. Ditto child!Dottie (whatever he real name is) sharing the bred with the friend she later kills in training, and adult Dottie offering to share her bread with Peggy at the diner. I'm now really interested in Dottie, and what exactly her mission is. (Beyond keeping an eye on Peggy.) And while Dottie can't be Anna if she was one of the girls in 1937, I'm still betting on Anna being blackmailed by Leviathan and/or being originally a Red Room girl herself.

Also, the plot thickens as to why Howard stopped working for the US military in the first place. If all the dead Russians had been the result of a solely Russian experiment gone wrong, there'd be no triggery event, and the last episode clarified it wasn't a German experiment, so my money is still on the US army trying to replicate the Super Soldier experiment on a grand scale, possibly together with the Russians who were after all war allies, and it having gone disastrously wrong. Which could be what Howard found out and another reason why he was so set on not letting the SRR keep his vial of Steve's blood.

Lastly: did I mishear or was the Russian they retrieved called Luchenko? Luzhenko? As in....? (After all, there has to be a reason why Leviathon lured them there to begin with, and it couldn't be just so that Dottie got a chance to search Peggy's hotel room.)

Comments

[likeadeuce]

You mean as far as Howard or as far as the Red Room?