Agent Carter season 2
Mar. 10th, 2016 05:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
schneefinkMore fun! I already wrote some earlier episode reactions, under the cut reactions to the second half and the season as a whole.
This season had more supernatural stuff than the first one, and for a moment I feared that it would go into an "Agents of SHIELD" direction with more and more aliens and superpowers. Thankfully that wasn't the case and Zero Matter was the only supernatural element that showed up.
Politically it also became more complicated, with multiple outside connections playing a role and sometimes complicating the chain of command. For example when Vernon took over the LA SSR office from Daniel after having Daniel beat up I wondered how that's possible since Vernon works for the FBI. Does the SSR officially report to the FBI? Or it was not official and one of Vernon's guys did something with the paperwork.
We see Peggy doing exercises and boxing! Yes! She is in very good shape, I love that we're shown that. Even Jarvis exercises, though the show generally didn't portray him as very competent when it comes to fighting.
Whitney torturing Dottie, ouch.
Of course Dottie escaped. I almost expected her to show up again, but she was so scared of Whitney it makes sense that she'd stay away. Now that we know that the Arena club pins are also keys it makes more sense that she tried to steal one – though I wonder why she broke into a bank instead of stealing one directly from a member, seems like that would be easier. Except of course if she didn't want anyone to know she had it. Of course Leviathan would be very interested in the Arena club.
Whitney telling Jason that he was only hired because he was expendable, ouch. Further proof of how lucky Peggy was.
I was very surprised that Jason Wilkes survived, I was so sure they'd kill him (again.) Sad that my expectations are so low. And he got a job with Stark Industries, happy ending for him.
I wanted to like Dr. Samberly more than I did: brilliant but socially awkward scientist who wants more fieldwork and more recognition can be done very well. Instead he was mostly annoying comic relief, and he was annoying poor Rose. Shame.
Rose, on the other hand, is fantastic and definitely deserves better.
It's a bit sad Daniel didn't make more/better friends in LA in the six months he's been chief there: He met Violet and got engaged, he's friends but not close with Rose who he knows from New York, and other than that there's nobody in the office that he feels like he can trust. Later we even see two of his agents, Vega and someone else, betray him. He'll have to do a lot of housekeeping, and he'd been understaffed as it was.
Since they were understaffed, and Vernon kept them busy with the bullshit audit, I wondered every once in a while how Daniel had so much time to spend with Peggy. Chief's prerogative, I suppose.
Daniel, jeez, when Jason threatens to kill Peggy if you don't give him the location of the uranium, here's a thought: lie. How is that not immediately obvious? It was so obvious to me that I was confused when afterwards characters reacted as if it'd been the truth. Okay under pressure people make stupid choices, but still. Peggy was right Daniel wasn't "dispassionate", as he put it when talking with her about Jason, she was right to call him on it (and Jack, "I'd have let him blow both of you away", heh); and he calls her out on the same thing later, after she saved him from the Rift. Both of them are hypocrites.
Jack finally switched sides again was good, but the switch itself wasn't as good as I hoped it would be. He did it because he couldn't allow Vernon to give the uranium to Whitney, but does he even know why that would be such a bad idea? How much does he know about Whitney?, I didn't think he knew about the Zero Matter. Granted if he thinks it's for a "normal" nuke that's more than bad enough. But then Vernon makes him forget and all Jack knows about why he switched sides is because Vernon zapped his brain? Seems very little. Plausible because he had doubts before that, but still I was hoping for a bit more.
And then of course playing the double agent, pretending to offer to kill Sousa etc., always fun. Daniel tells Jack he doesn't trust him. That may take a while.
Ana Jarvis :( And of course (Edwin) Jarvis loses it for a while. I liked his fight with Peggy in the desert, some brutal things but probably better aired than left to fester. Yes there are consequences.
Ana and Edwin are very sweet together.
"Do as Peggy says," heh.
Musical number! Did not see that coming xD A bit random, but okay. In her mind Daniel doesn't have a crutch.
Peggy says she doesn't know what she wants, and it's not just about her love life. She says to her brother that she's doing what he wanted her to do. He says that she's doing what she wanted to do, and while I usually hate other people claiming they know someone else's feelings better than they do, in this case it's Peggy's subconscious. Oh Peggy, after all this time you still don't completely admit to yourself that you're doing what you're doing because you love it? Seems sad.
Jack collecting the dinner orders OMG yes.
He might be on their side now, but Jack works differently than Peggy or Sousa. Peggy doesn't want to kill anyone, Jack is perfectly willing to do that if it's for the greater good. He even left Vernon to Whitney, and that's a terrible fate. Cold.
Of course Jack would have pulled the trigger. He's right that Peggy wouldn't have shot him, but mostly because it would have been too late after the bomb exploded.
Speaking of the gamma bomb, I wonder why they didn't activate it when fleeing from Whitney, seemed like the perfect time.
Why have the final showdown on the movie set and not in the desert? Oh well. Actually having places to hide stuff from Whitney when she shows up makes sense.
The scene where all of them want to take on the kamikaze mission and meanwhile Daniel just goes and does it *g* and he comes up with a plan to survive it, yes good.
Jack wonders if Peggy will turn him in for cooperating with Vernon. In a way I like that that's what he's prepared for, but I wonder how that would work in practice. Vernon disappeared, but what's the official story? They have Vernon telling the two (SSR? Why not use his own people?) agents to shoot Sousa and Samberly, but I wonder how much the official reports will include about Whitney Frost, Zero Matter, and the Arena club. My guess is not all that much, because a) hard to believe, b) they can't trust that the Arena club doesn't have other people sitting above them in the hierarchy.
Speaking of hierarchy, what does that look like? Vernon alluded to the SSR's standing sinking. We know there are at least two SSR offices, are there more? Is Jack chief of the whole SSR after Dooley or "only" of the NYC office? I assumed the former, but I'm not sure. Does the SSR officially report to the FBI?
Even if Peggy tried to turn him in Jack could most likely talk his way out of it, but even better if he doesn't have to.
Peggy tells Jack he's a good man, aww.
Peggy/Daniel! I like that she kissed him after he calls her a hypocrite and points out they are both emotionally compromised. My second reaction was "making out in the office is incredibly unprofessional." Especially for Peggy's reputation it would most likely be bad, and that in an office where most agents don't know her yet. They'll realize how capable she is eventually, but it won't look good.
Ouch, Jack. I was spoiled for that, otherwise it would have been quite ashock. I'm surprised the hitman went after Peggy's file. Who even knew Jack had that? I guess Vernon could have told someone. Jack alluded to Peggy having committed war crimes, Peggy doubted the file was real, curious to find out what's inside.
Open questions for a hypothetical third season: who shot Jack and why, what's in Peggy's file, what is left of the Arena club and what are their plans, what does the Arena club pin key open, what is Dottie (and Leviathan) up to, and how goes Angie's acting career.
To sum up, I enjoyed the series a lot! If there's a third season that'd be fantastic, and if not there's a lot of fic I want to read and some I want to try to write.
This season had more supernatural stuff than the first one, and for a moment I feared that it would go into an "Agents of SHIELD" direction with more and more aliens and superpowers. Thankfully that wasn't the case and Zero Matter was the only supernatural element that showed up.
Politically it also became more complicated, with multiple outside connections playing a role and sometimes complicating the chain of command. For example when Vernon took over the LA SSR office from Daniel after having Daniel beat up I wondered how that's possible since Vernon works for the FBI. Does the SSR officially report to the FBI? Or it was not official and one of Vernon's guys did something with the paperwork.
We see Peggy doing exercises and boxing! Yes! She is in very good shape, I love that we're shown that. Even Jarvis exercises, though the show generally didn't portray him as very competent when it comes to fighting.
Whitney torturing Dottie, ouch.
Of course Dottie escaped. I almost expected her to show up again, but she was so scared of Whitney it makes sense that she'd stay away. Now that we know that the Arena club pins are also keys it makes more sense that she tried to steal one – though I wonder why she broke into a bank instead of stealing one directly from a member, seems like that would be easier. Except of course if she didn't want anyone to know she had it. Of course Leviathan would be very interested in the Arena club.
Whitney telling Jason that he was only hired because he was expendable, ouch. Further proof of how lucky Peggy was.
I was very surprised that Jason Wilkes survived, I was so sure they'd kill him (again.) Sad that my expectations are so low. And he got a job with Stark Industries, happy ending for him.
I wanted to like Dr. Samberly more than I did: brilliant but socially awkward scientist who wants more fieldwork and more recognition can be done very well. Instead he was mostly annoying comic relief, and he was annoying poor Rose. Shame.
Rose, on the other hand, is fantastic and definitely deserves better.
It's a bit sad Daniel didn't make more/better friends in LA in the six months he's been chief there: He met Violet and got engaged, he's friends but not close with Rose who he knows from New York, and other than that there's nobody in the office that he feels like he can trust. Later we even see two of his agents, Vega and someone else, betray him. He'll have to do a lot of housekeeping, and he'd been understaffed as it was.
Since they were understaffed, and Vernon kept them busy with the bullshit audit, I wondered every once in a while how Daniel had so much time to spend with Peggy. Chief's prerogative, I suppose.
Daniel, jeez, when Jason threatens to kill Peggy if you don't give him the location of the uranium, here's a thought: lie. How is that not immediately obvious? It was so obvious to me that I was confused when afterwards characters reacted as if it'd been the truth. Okay under pressure people make stupid choices, but still. Peggy was right Daniel wasn't "dispassionate", as he put it when talking with her about Jason, she was right to call him on it (and Jack, "I'd have let him blow both of you away", heh); and he calls her out on the same thing later, after she saved him from the Rift. Both of them are hypocrites.
Jack finally switched sides again was good, but the switch itself wasn't as good as I hoped it would be. He did it because he couldn't allow Vernon to give the uranium to Whitney, but does he even know why that would be such a bad idea? How much does he know about Whitney?, I didn't think he knew about the Zero Matter. Granted if he thinks it's for a "normal" nuke that's more than bad enough. But then Vernon makes him forget and all Jack knows about why he switched sides is because Vernon zapped his brain? Seems very little. Plausible because he had doubts before that, but still I was hoping for a bit more.
And then of course playing the double agent, pretending to offer to kill Sousa etc., always fun. Daniel tells Jack he doesn't trust him. That may take a while.
Ana Jarvis :( And of course (Edwin) Jarvis loses it for a while. I liked his fight with Peggy in the desert, some brutal things but probably better aired than left to fester. Yes there are consequences.
Ana and Edwin are very sweet together.
"Do as Peggy says," heh.
Musical number! Did not see that coming xD A bit random, but okay. In her mind Daniel doesn't have a crutch.
Peggy says she doesn't know what she wants, and it's not just about her love life. She says to her brother that she's doing what he wanted her to do. He says that she's doing what she wanted to do, and while I usually hate other people claiming they know someone else's feelings better than they do, in this case it's Peggy's subconscious. Oh Peggy, after all this time you still don't completely admit to yourself that you're doing what you're doing because you love it? Seems sad.
Jack collecting the dinner orders OMG yes.
He might be on their side now, but Jack works differently than Peggy or Sousa. Peggy doesn't want to kill anyone, Jack is perfectly willing to do that if it's for the greater good. He even left Vernon to Whitney, and that's a terrible fate. Cold.
Of course Jack would have pulled the trigger. He's right that Peggy wouldn't have shot him, but mostly because it would have been too late after the bomb exploded.
Speaking of the gamma bomb, I wonder why they didn't activate it when fleeing from Whitney, seemed like the perfect time.
The scene where all of them want to take on the kamikaze mission and meanwhile Daniel just goes and does it *g* and he comes up with a plan to survive it, yes good.
Jack wonders if Peggy will turn him in for cooperating with Vernon. In a way I like that that's what he's prepared for, but I wonder how that would work in practice. Vernon disappeared, but what's the official story? They have Vernon telling the two (SSR? Why not use his own people?) agents to shoot Sousa and Samberly, but I wonder how much the official reports will include about Whitney Frost, Zero Matter, and the Arena club. My guess is not all that much, because a) hard to believe, b) they can't trust that the Arena club doesn't have other people sitting above them in the hierarchy.
Speaking of hierarchy, what does that look like? Vernon alluded to the SSR's standing sinking. We know there are at least two SSR offices, are there more? Is Jack chief of the whole SSR after Dooley or "only" of the NYC office? I assumed the former, but I'm not sure. Does the SSR officially report to the FBI?
Even if Peggy tried to turn him in Jack could most likely talk his way out of it, but even better if he doesn't have to.
Peggy tells Jack he's a good man, aww.
Peggy/Daniel! I like that she kissed him after he calls her a hypocrite and points out they are both emotionally compromised. My second reaction was "making out in the office is incredibly unprofessional." Especially for Peggy's reputation it would most likely be bad, and that in an office where most agents don't know her yet. They'll realize how capable she is eventually, but it won't look good.
Ouch, Jack. I was spoiled for that, otherwise it would have been quite ashock. I'm surprised the hitman went after Peggy's file. Who even knew Jack had that? I guess Vernon could have told someone. Jack alluded to Peggy having committed war crimes, Peggy doubted the file was real, curious to find out what's inside.
Open questions for a hypothetical third season: who shot Jack and why, what's in Peggy's file, what is left of the Arena club and what are their plans, what does the Arena club pin key open, what is Dottie (and Leviathan) up to, and how goes Angie's acting career.
To sum up, I enjoyed the series a lot! If there's a third season that'd be fantastic, and if not there's a lot of fic I want to read and some I want to try to write.
no subject
Date: 2016-03-11 04:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-03-11 11:37 am (UTC)