Agent Carter 2.10

[selenak]

First of all: am v..v relieved re: Jason Wilkes. I truly thought he was a goner, but letting him survive, unevil, and in happy circumstances (a new callenging and well paid job with Howard, as promised in 2.02.) was a big relief. I mean, it still underwrote him in the middle, but it did alright by him in the end.

Secondly: while enjoying the episode while watching, I felt it lacked the emotional stakes of the s1 finale. Not least because Whitney Frost was too easily deposed with for a seasonal antagonist, but also because Peggy's friends literally helping her to pull her friend and future love interest to safety felt more cutesy than dramatic. (As opposed to last season's Peggy and Howard replaying the loss of Steve and letting go.)

This said, I thought Manfredi helping out our heroes precisely because he loves Whitney and wants to save her was a good twist, and of course he and Howard know each other of old, probably since their boyhood in New York. Sergio Leone's theme from "Once upon a time in America" started to play in my head right there. Howard in general was great fun and reliably delivered the one liners (see also: scientists stealing from each other), and I would never get tired of him and Peggy amiably bickering and Peggy rolling her eyes at him, except the way it looks like I won't ever watch it again on screen, sob.

Peggy and both Jarvises: love. Peggy and Sousa: nice, which I mean unironically. I have seen complaints that they're boring, I've seen ecstatic shipper happiness (apparantly they're called "Peggysous"?): I like both characters and with them years of happiness without being either ecstatic or opposed.

Jack Thompson getting the cliffhanger "dead, or is he?" Scene with Possible Michael Carter (or a colleage of same) shooting him: he's now Schroedinger's Thompson, dead or alive as fanfiction wills it. (In rl, he'd be dead, but on tv, Special Agent Cooper and others survived these wounds easily.) I didn't mind the show solving the previous cliffhanger by letting the Zero Matter explosion make the standoff redundant, so that we and Thompson never find out whether or not Peggy would have shot. It fitted the lighthearted tone of the finale. But it also is typical of what I mean with "no emotional stakes". The character who actually had these in the finale, who had to make a difficult decision which on the one hand worked but on the other also took the reason why he made it, wasn't Peggy, it wasn't Whitney, and it wasn't one of the good guy supporting cast, either: it was Manfredi. (By allying with the good guys, he saved Whitney from the Zero Matter without killing her, but this also destroyed her, and took what she loved most, what was truly most extraordinary about her, her mind.) And when your minor supporting villain has more interesting emotional character stuff going on than your heroine, maybe you should rethink your writing for the seasonal arc.

Of course, if there's a season 3 then they'll probably give Peggy her version of the Winter Soldier tale with Michael, and these would be tremendous personal stakes, plus the characters deserve a happy break in between angst. I enjoyed a lot about this season (and hope that future fanfic will include the fabulous Rose), and would be very sorry if this is the end; flaws not withstanding, it's my favourite Marvel show, and I love it.

Comments

[saturnofthemoon]

I really think Thompson is a goner. Whoever took him out, probably Michael Carter, The Winter Soldier or one of his associates, was a professional and they don't miss. Also, given all the near misses the team had this season and the easy victory over Whitney Frost, I feel someone had to die to show that you can't have your cake and eat it too.

[selenak]

Oh, if I had to write the sequel, he WOULD be dead, though mainly for another reason: to heighten the emotional stakes. Because of course Peggy would be horrified if Michael has become a Black Ops Assassin, either way, but it's still different if he's killed someone she knows and to some degree cares about.

However, re: professionals not missing: that's what they said about Stormtroopers in "A New Hope" and we all know what became of that. *veg*. More seriously, I think if the episode makes wanted to make it clear that Thompson really is dead they'd have made it a head shot. These do happen on tv, rarely, but they do.

[endeni]

LOL Schroedinger's Thompson... :D
/And when your minor supporting villain has more interesting emotional character stuff going on than your heroine, maybe you should rethink your writing for the seasonal arc./ - Oh, yes, you quite nailed this season problem there. *nods*
/Peggy her version of the Winter Soldier tale with Michael/ - Oh my, I'm so sad all over we'll probably never going to see that, I'm going to miss this show... *sighs*

[selenak]

There's always the outside chance of Netflix coming to the rescue and picking up the show. *crosses fingers*

[endeni]

That would be grand indeed. *nods*

[st_aurafina]

It's totally Michael, isn't it? I'm all on board with that story.

I liked so much about this season! But the things I didn't like - I found what happened to Ana very upsetting (or at least, the way the story was put in Jarvis' hands rather than hers) and why Violet didn't have more to do - were more disappointing because I want to love the show so much.

Howard and Wilkes totally hashed out this new job thing in bed, I'm fairly convinced. That was a morning-after breakfast conversation they were having.

[selenak]

It totally is. But I hope for something less clear cut than "he was completely brainwashed", because it's always more interesting if the character has an agenda. And a Michael Carter who keeps up being dead because he knows Peggy would be horrified by who he has become is more interesting than one who was mindwiped.

I can just see Howard arguing that they need to a) check Jason Wilkes' body reaaaallly thoroughly for remaining Zero Matter in the interest of science and b) celebrate, and there's a method to do both, so clearly... Wilkes is in for an interesting time at Stark Industries, that's for sure! :)

[andraste]

Agree that Whitney was taken out too easily, leading to a somewhat unsatisfying conclusion. But at least I liked where everybody ended up. Especially Wilkes being neither dead nor evil, but employed and happy even if he never got to finish his date with Peggy.

I have some hope that the show might be picked up by Netflix after it's near-inevitable cancellation by ABC. It's very different in tone to their other Marvel properties, but there's no reason they couldn't make something different from Jessica Jones and Daredevil. No reason that it has to happen right away, either - we know Peggy stays in the spy business for decades, so there's no reason they couldn't rest it for a year or two and then give us another arc set after a time jump. So maybe we'll find out what happened to Schroedinger's Agent Thompson and if Michael Carter is indeed a Winter Soldier one of these days.

I think the thing that delighted me most about the finale was Howard's shameless flirting with Rose :).

[selenak]

Here's hoping that Netflix comes to the rescue. And Howard flirting with Rose was made of win. Maybe she'll take him surfing. :)

[likeadeuce]

Oh I totally missed the clues about Michael maybe being a Winter Soldier but I'm all over that. Maybe we'll get a TV movie to wrap things up if not an actual new series??

[likeadeuce]

Also I'm for Sousa & Peggy & Angie all living together in Howard's house with the Jarvises & Howard dropping by from time to time...

[selenak]

A tv movie would be good if we can't get another series. But I doubt you could get Sousa to move in at Howard's; he'd have a hang up about not wanting to be a kept man. :) Angie will probably keep the New York mansion, though, unless she gets a film job.