Agent Carter
Jan. 22nd, 2016 01:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
netgirl_y2kAgent Carter returned for its second season the other night.
Weirdly, given how much I'd loved the first season I wasn't too excited by the prospect of a second. I think it was that the show was stuck in will-they-won't-they renewal limbo for ages, and then when the second season was announced a lot of things that came out about it seemed to come from the mouths of people who hadn't been expecting to have to come up with a second season, and were panicking.
I wasn't too impressed by the change in location to LA. And while I wasn't particularly bothered by the absence of Angie (I did ship Peggy/Angie, but it was more jumping on board an active and cheerful femslash ship than actually feeling it in my bones, you know?), but it resulted in a lot of negativity among people I was following that left a bad taste in my mouth. And then the dreaded words - love triangle - were uttered.
So, it was with more antipathy than excitement that I watched the first two episodes of the season, which ultimately I liked much more than I had expected too.
-I really liked the cold open with Dottie in her best Agent Carter cosplay, and her newfound slightly creepy fixation on Peggy in the interrogation scenes. I'm not usually one for enemy ships, but I'll be interested to see how fic writers run with this. I hope we get more scenes of her and Peggy together. And, well, it doesn't hurt that Bridget Regan with dark hair really does it for me.
-I do not ship Peggy/Jarvis at all. I do however ship Peggy/Jarvis/Ana. Get on that, people!
-Rose is back, and has lines, and surfs, and calls Daniel out on his Nice Guy-ness. Thank you, show!
-I assume that Jason Wilkes is alive. In part because Whitney Frost still is, but mostly because I don't think the Agent Carter writers could possible be that tone deaf after all the diversify Agent Carter stuff; nobody could be that dense, right?
-Jason is cute, and has great chemistry with Peggy. The racism stuff with the dickwad in the bakery was a little on the nose, but it was exactly as heavy handed as the sexism stuff last year. Agent Carter is not a subtle show; I mean that affectionately.
-Honestly, though, the identity of the ultimate Mr. Agent Carter has always been the least interesting thing about Peggy to me. So you can imagine how defuckinglighted I was that the show decided to gift us not one but two love triangles.
-And neither of them (Jason/Peggy/Daniel or Peggy/Daniel/Violet) do anything for me. Like, what exactly happened between Peggy and Daniel? I know some time was meant to have passed between the end of S1 and the start of S2 because it's mentioned that they've been looking for Dottie for months. But if their relationship never moved on from where it was at the end of S1 (if you ask me out again I'll probably say yes) then they're both being a bit dramatic, especially Daniel; if anything actually did happen between them prior to Daniel moving to LA, not returning Peggy's messages, and deciding to marry Violet, then that makes Daniel look like more of a dick than I think the show wants me to believe he is.
-One of the reasons I'm not too fussed about Angie's absence is that I'm not sure how well the LA and New York plots are going to hold together. They could possibly have stood not to bring back Thompson either.
-But I loved the scene in the bar with Thompson about the SSR going the way of the dinosaur, which is obviously going to happen sooner or later to make way for SHIELD. By the way, Peggy's journey to becoming Director Carter of SHIELD is what I find most interesting about her, and that's the plot I want.
Weirdly, given how much I'd loved the first season I wasn't too excited by the prospect of a second. I think it was that the show was stuck in will-they-won't-they renewal limbo for ages, and then when the second season was announced a lot of things that came out about it seemed to come from the mouths of people who hadn't been expecting to have to come up with a second season, and were panicking.
I wasn't too impressed by the change in location to LA. And while I wasn't particularly bothered by the absence of Angie (I did ship Peggy/Angie, but it was more jumping on board an active and cheerful femslash ship than actually feeling it in my bones, you know?), but it resulted in a lot of negativity among people I was following that left a bad taste in my mouth. And then the dreaded words - love triangle - were uttered.
So, it was with more antipathy than excitement that I watched the first two episodes of the season, which ultimately I liked much more than I had expected too.
-I really liked the cold open with Dottie in her best Agent Carter cosplay, and her newfound slightly creepy fixation on Peggy in the interrogation scenes. I'm not usually one for enemy ships, but I'll be interested to see how fic writers run with this. I hope we get more scenes of her and Peggy together. And, well, it doesn't hurt that Bridget Regan with dark hair really does it for me.
-I do not ship Peggy/Jarvis at all. I do however ship Peggy/Jarvis/Ana. Get on that, people!
-Rose is back, and has lines, and surfs, and calls Daniel out on his Nice Guy-ness. Thank you, show!
-I assume that Jason Wilkes is alive. In part because Whitney Frost still is, but mostly because I don't think the Agent Carter writers could possible be that tone deaf after all the diversify Agent Carter stuff; nobody could be that dense, right?
-Jason is cute, and has great chemistry with Peggy. The racism stuff with the dickwad in the bakery was a little on the nose, but it was exactly as heavy handed as the sexism stuff last year. Agent Carter is not a subtle show; I mean that affectionately.
-Honestly, though, the identity of the ultimate Mr. Agent Carter has always been the least interesting thing about Peggy to me. So you can imagine how defuckinglighted I was that the show decided to gift us not one but two love triangles.
-And neither of them (Jason/Peggy/Daniel or Peggy/Daniel/Violet) do anything for me. Like, what exactly happened between Peggy and Daniel? I know some time was meant to have passed between the end of S1 and the start of S2 because it's mentioned that they've been looking for Dottie for months. But if their relationship never moved on from where it was at the end of S1 (if you ask me out again I'll probably say yes) then they're both being a bit dramatic, especially Daniel; if anything actually did happen between them prior to Daniel moving to LA, not returning Peggy's messages, and deciding to marry Violet, then that makes Daniel look like more of a dick than I think the show wants me to believe he is.
-One of the reasons I'm not too fussed about Angie's absence is that I'm not sure how well the LA and New York plots are going to hold together. They could possibly have stood not to bring back Thompson either.
-But I loved the scene in the bar with Thompson about the SSR going the way of the dinosaur, which is obviously going to happen sooner or later to make way for SHIELD. By the way, Peggy's journey to becoming Director Carter of SHIELD is what I find most interesting about her, and that's the plot I want.
no subject
Date: 2016-01-22 07:29 pm (UTC)I expect Mrs. Jarvis will get her threesome before the season's out. She's alright giving off that "I want to watch vibe" when she looks at Peggy and Edwin.
It's interesting that Angie left, but S2 has already given us more active female characters in 2 episodes than S1 ever did.
no subject
Date: 2016-01-23 11:41 am (UTC)YES. Except I think she both wants to watch Peggy and Edwin and coax Peggy into watching her and Edwin :-)
I think Angie's absence was an actor availability thing, and honestly I think maybe they went a bit overboard with trying to bring absolutely everyone from S1 back, especially with the change in setting. It remains to be seen how well Dottie and Thompson are going to tie in with what's going on with Peggy in LA, and I think Bernard Stark would make a more than adequate permanent stand in for Howard.
no subject
Date: 2016-01-22 10:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-23 11:32 am (UTC)I love that Rose is back, but I do worry that Violet is going to turn out to be either a bad guy or a murder victim.
no subject
Date: 2016-01-23 08:08 pm (UTC)I really hope Violet is just Violet and keeps being just Violet.