Agent Carter 1.08
Feb. 25th, 2015 10:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenak...and it better be 1.08 to be followed by 2.01, though if this the last we see of Peggy Carter, it was a wonderful miniseries. Not perfect, but wonderful, and I adore it.
Since I did guess right about how things went down in Finnau, including Howard originally designing the gas as something else, realising it was unusable and dangerous in time but the military going ahead with it anyway, let me acknowledge what I got massively wrong: no one at SSR was a mole, Angie wasn't, either, and neither was Anna. (BTW, new guess as to why we never saw Anna: because they didn't want to cast an actress for a two line cameo in order to be free to cast someone if/when they get a season 2 without needing to get Original Actress back.)
It's been said before: this show's narrative basically retcons/makes the first Captain America movie as Peggy Carter's superhero backstory pain and Steve's "death" into her origin trauma. Peggy, through the show, had two main arcs - leaving aside the tracking down of bad guys and finding MacGuffins stuff -: finding a way to exist that allows her to do what she's best at and be valued for it, and to work through her grief and let go. Fittingly, the finale gives her the open acknowledgment (the cheers from the other agents) but also also has her state her realisation a moment later, when Thompson gets the credit for her work from the Senator (because that's how the system works, and Thompson may be not a one dimensional jerk anymore but he's still an active part of the system so of course will take the credit), to an indignant Sousa that she doesn't need Thompson, the President or anyone else acknowledge her worth; she knows it, and that's all she needs. (BTW of course Peggy had self respect at the start, too, but back then she DID want open acknowledgment from the sexist guys around her.) And fittingly, the finale puts her through her original trauma again with Howard in the plane, this time changing the outcome, and gives her the chance to bring the last part of Steve (as far as she knows) home (the Brooklyn Bridge!) and let him go. One of the many things about Captain America: The Winter Soldier that I loved was that the movie in the scene with old Peggy and Steve showed us that while she never forgot him, she didn't spend the rest of her life pining away, she moved on. Old Peggy tells Steve that she's lived her life, and it was a good one; that her only regret was that he didn't get to live his. (Note: his, not theirs. This wasn't Peggy wishing she's spend the last 70 years with Steve instead of the way she did, with the other people she loved whose photos we see on old Peggy's shelves, it's Peggy wishing Steve hadn't been frozen and now stranded in another time instead of living through the decades like everyone else.) And the moment when we see Peggy pouring that blood into the Hudson, saying "goodybe, my darling" is when she completes that letting go that will help her move forward. Both pro and fanfiction so often define true love as loving only once and never ever letting go, so I treasure this part of Peggy's emotional arc all the more.
Speaking of people who pine, though: I guess one sided Howard/Steve is canon now. :) (Which totally fits with Tony's line from Avengers re: Steve: "This is the guy my father wouldn't shut up about?!?") Mind you, I did have a bit of a problem with the writing because basically a minute after we had Howard express his guilt re: Finnau the show tells us his greatest shame/regret is not having been able to save Steve. It's not that I don't get why: if Howard had been hypnotized into a preventing Finnau fantasy instead of a saving Steve fantasy, it would not have the same emotional resonance with Peggy, and the show needed for Peggy to relive her trauma (guy in air plane carrying stuff which could kill thousands of people unless guy and air plane go down before reaching this point, her on the other and of the communication) and for her and Howard to feel similar emotions so she can let go. (You can even make the meta point here that Howard, who according to Nick Fury never stops looking in the ice for Steve and never found him - but found other dangerous things like the Tesseract - and who couldn't really communicate with the son who resembles him so much, is an illustration of what would have happened to Peggy if she hadn't been able to do that, of the danger of staying trapped in the emotional past.) But still: priorities, Howard. A massacre should trump Steve's death.
(Though I'm also a sucker for Peggy's mixture of exasparation and fondness for Howard - that eyeroll she and Jarvis shared when he finally remembered Dottie's alias was perfect - and his basically making his grand atonment gesture because he cares what she thinks of him and snapping out of his perfect moment fantasy her her. Also that he doesn't try his Casanova act with her; she's "Peg" and "pal", and utterly uninterested in him sexually.)
Jarvis was perfect throughout, and definitely the standout new character the series added to the MCU for me. (Peggy being an already established one.) (Yes, okay, we speculatively knew Jarvis probably existed in the MCU since Tony named and modelled his AI after him, but you can still count on screen Edwin Jarvis as a new character.) His sidekick to hero chemistry with Peggy was amazing, his respect for her never wavered, he always had his own mind (the one time he followed orders over his own judgment was not telling Peggy the truth re: Steve's blood, which is why the last Peggy and Jarvis scene with him giving the blood to her while letting Howard think it was destroyed was so appropriate), the banter between him and Peggy was golden yet never romcom, and I'm so glad said last scene also made it clear he's ready to assist her in her future heroic endeaovours whenever she wants. (Someone write me a "Mr. Jarvis, we are needed" ficlet.)
Angie did get one scene in the finale, and while it didn't have her helping to save the day, it showed Peggy and her moving in together (in one of Howard's houses), which should please Peggy/Angie shippers, especially since Angie's room at the Griffith was just fine, she could have stayed there. Peggy inviting her (after Angie had invited her at the start of the show) to share her new place of residence is really just about mutual fondness and wanting to live together.
Daniel Sousa clearly has read the Odyseey and uses that knowledge wisely; the earplugs to foil Ivchenko/Faustus were great, and of course he lets Thompson sweat a little first. Sousa/Peggy shippers also get thrown a bone; while not saying yes when he asks her out for a drink, she does smile fondly when he can't see it, so maybe she means "someday".
Now yours truly doesn't ship Peggy with any of the cast in the romantic sense; if anything, I appreciate the series didn't make Peggy moving on from her lost love happen via a Mr. (or Mrs.) Right showing up. "Whom will Peggy date?" was never a question during these eight episodes, and sadly that's still unusual with a female main character. Go show! This said, of course in terms of fanfiction there is fodder for plenty new and old relationships. Not to mention it thoughtfully provided Peggy with a female arch nemesis who already kissed her. Of course Dottie survives. (BTW: "I can be anyone" - I was reminded of the Natasha and Steve conversation in the car in The Winter Soldier.)
...and of course there is a Marvel tag scene: never has the sentence "America is the land of opportunity" sound so sinister as when Dr. Zola murmurs it to Dr. Faustus. This was the tie-in to The Winter Soldier we've been waiting for, which is why I'll handwave the logistics of Ivchenko/Fenhoff/Faustus being put in the same cell with Zola. Speaking of Ivchenko/Faustus, I continue to find the show's version more interesting than his comics counterpart because the Finnau massacre (and having to live through it, seeing his brother die that way) certainly gave him an understandable reason to hate Howard Stark and want revenge, while not excusing his own post-Finnau utter disregard for life. Dottie and Ivchenko as the two main villains of the season managed to be both their own people and a Marvel continuity treat (Black Widow and Dr. Faustus). Well done, show. So very well done.
There's definitely room for improvement: characters of colours with actual roles and personalities, for starters. But these eight episodes were still a treat for me, and I'm over the moon they were made.
Since I did guess right about how things went down in Finnau, including Howard originally designing the gas as something else, realising it was unusable and dangerous in time but the military going ahead with it anyway, let me acknowledge what I got massively wrong: no one at SSR was a mole, Angie wasn't, either, and neither was Anna. (BTW, new guess as to why we never saw Anna: because they didn't want to cast an actress for a two line cameo in order to be free to cast someone if/when they get a season 2 without needing to get Original Actress back.)
It's been said before: this show's narrative basically retcons/makes the first Captain America movie as Peggy Carter's superhero backstory pain and Steve's "death" into her origin trauma. Peggy, through the show, had two main arcs - leaving aside the tracking down of bad guys and finding MacGuffins stuff -: finding a way to exist that allows her to do what she's best at and be valued for it, and to work through her grief and let go. Fittingly, the finale gives her the open acknowledgment (the cheers from the other agents) but also also has her state her realisation a moment later, when Thompson gets the credit for her work from the Senator (because that's how the system works, and Thompson may be not a one dimensional jerk anymore but he's still an active part of the system so of course will take the credit), to an indignant Sousa that she doesn't need Thompson, the President or anyone else acknowledge her worth; she knows it, and that's all she needs. (BTW of course Peggy had self respect at the start, too, but back then she DID want open acknowledgment from the sexist guys around her.) And fittingly, the finale puts her through her original trauma again with Howard in the plane, this time changing the outcome, and gives her the chance to bring the last part of Steve (as far as she knows) home (the Brooklyn Bridge!) and let him go. One of the many things about Captain America: The Winter Soldier that I loved was that the movie in the scene with old Peggy and Steve showed us that while she never forgot him, she didn't spend the rest of her life pining away, she moved on. Old Peggy tells Steve that she's lived her life, and it was a good one; that her only regret was that he didn't get to live his. (Note: his, not theirs. This wasn't Peggy wishing she's spend the last 70 years with Steve instead of the way she did, with the other people she loved whose photos we see on old Peggy's shelves, it's Peggy wishing Steve hadn't been frozen and now stranded in another time instead of living through the decades like everyone else.) And the moment when we see Peggy pouring that blood into the Hudson, saying "goodybe, my darling" is when she completes that letting go that will help her move forward. Both pro and fanfiction so often define true love as loving only once and never ever letting go, so I treasure this part of Peggy's emotional arc all the more.
Speaking of people who pine, though: I guess one sided Howard/Steve is canon now. :) (Which totally fits with Tony's line from Avengers re: Steve: "This is the guy my father wouldn't shut up about?!?") Mind you, I did have a bit of a problem with the writing because basically a minute after we had Howard express his guilt re: Finnau the show tells us his greatest shame/regret is not having been able to save Steve. It's not that I don't get why: if Howard had been hypnotized into a preventing Finnau fantasy instead of a saving Steve fantasy, it would not have the same emotional resonance with Peggy, and the show needed for Peggy to relive her trauma (guy in air plane carrying stuff which could kill thousands of people unless guy and air plane go down before reaching this point, her on the other and of the communication) and for her and Howard to feel similar emotions so she can let go. (You can even make the meta point here that Howard, who according to Nick Fury never stops looking in the ice for Steve and never found him - but found other dangerous things like the Tesseract - and who couldn't really communicate with the son who resembles him so much, is an illustration of what would have happened to Peggy if she hadn't been able to do that, of the danger of staying trapped in the emotional past.) But still: priorities, Howard. A massacre should trump Steve's death.
(Though I'm also a sucker for Peggy's mixture of exasparation and fondness for Howard - that eyeroll she and Jarvis shared when he finally remembered Dottie's alias was perfect - and his basically making his grand atonment gesture because he cares what she thinks of him and snapping out of his perfect moment fantasy her her. Also that he doesn't try his Casanova act with her; she's "Peg" and "pal", and utterly uninterested in him sexually.)
Jarvis was perfect throughout, and definitely the standout new character the series added to the MCU for me. (Peggy being an already established one.) (Yes, okay, we speculatively knew Jarvis probably existed in the MCU since Tony named and modelled his AI after him, but you can still count on screen Edwin Jarvis as a new character.) His sidekick to hero chemistry with Peggy was amazing, his respect for her never wavered, he always had his own mind (the one time he followed orders over his own judgment was not telling Peggy the truth re: Steve's blood, which is why the last Peggy and Jarvis scene with him giving the blood to her while letting Howard think it was destroyed was so appropriate), the banter between him and Peggy was golden yet never romcom, and I'm so glad said last scene also made it clear he's ready to assist her in her future heroic endeaovours whenever she wants. (Someone write me a "Mr. Jarvis, we are needed" ficlet.)
Angie did get one scene in the finale, and while it didn't have her helping to save the day, it showed Peggy and her moving in together (in one of Howard's houses), which should please Peggy/Angie shippers, especially since Angie's room at the Griffith was just fine, she could have stayed there. Peggy inviting her (after Angie had invited her at the start of the show) to share her new place of residence is really just about mutual fondness and wanting to live together.
Daniel Sousa clearly has read the Odyseey and uses that knowledge wisely; the earplugs to foil Ivchenko/Faustus were great, and of course he lets Thompson sweat a little first. Sousa/Peggy shippers also get thrown a bone; while not saying yes when he asks her out for a drink, she does smile fondly when he can't see it, so maybe she means "someday".
Now yours truly doesn't ship Peggy with any of the cast in the romantic sense; if anything, I appreciate the series didn't make Peggy moving on from her lost love happen via a Mr. (or Mrs.) Right showing up. "Whom will Peggy date?" was never a question during these eight episodes, and sadly that's still unusual with a female main character. Go show! This said, of course in terms of fanfiction there is fodder for plenty new and old relationships. Not to mention it thoughtfully provided Peggy with a female arch nemesis who already kissed her. Of course Dottie survives. (BTW: "I can be anyone" - I was reminded of the Natasha and Steve conversation in the car in The Winter Soldier.)
...and of course there is a Marvel tag scene: never has the sentence "America is the land of opportunity" sound so sinister as when Dr. Zola murmurs it to Dr. Faustus. This was the tie-in to The Winter Soldier we've been waiting for, which is why I'll handwave the logistics of Ivchenko/Fenhoff/Faustus being put in the same cell with Zola. Speaking of Ivchenko/Faustus, I continue to find the show's version more interesting than his comics counterpart because the Finnau massacre (and having to live through it, seeing his brother die that way) certainly gave him an understandable reason to hate Howard Stark and want revenge, while not excusing his own post-Finnau utter disregard for life. Dottie and Ivchenko as the two main villains of the season managed to be both their own people and a Marvel continuity treat (Black Widow and Dr. Faustus). Well done, show. So very well done.
There's definitely room for improvement: characters of colours with actual roles and personalities, for starters. But these eight episodes were still a treat for me, and I'm over the moon they were made.
