Agent Carter Catch All (no spoilers beyond what's aired)

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Everyone was talking and nobody was thread-creating.

So, that premier was awesome. And it's nice to see Victor getting work.

Somebody said that Marvel has a different genre for each of their movies. With Agent Carter, they seem to be going for a Mad Men meets super-spy vibe.

Gremlin wrote:

Somebody said that Marvel has a different genre for each of their movies. With Agent Carter, they seem to be going for a Mad Men meets super-spy vibe.

Well, it's not like they can set something in a post WW2 era and completely ignore the socio-political dynamic that existed back then. To me, that it rings the "Mad Men meets Super Spy" bell so hard is indicative of them doing things exactly right.

I'm also glad to see Eli from Boardwalk Empire being sort of typecast here.

We watched this on Hulu last night - fabulous in every way. Can't wait to see more!

Also, random aside - the waitress is played by Lyndsy Fonseca, who was the daughter in How I Met Your Mother

Tanglebones wrote:

We watched this on Hulu last night - fabulous in every way. Can't wait to see more!

Also, random aside - the waitress is played by Lyndsy Fonseca, who was the daughter in How I Met Your Mother

I can see why they filmed the final shot of the kids so early in the show's run...
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.
.
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...on second thought, it'd have been funnier if they brought them back in to imply Ted's story took a reaaaaaally long time.

Gremlin wrote:

With Agent Carter, they seem to be going for a Mad Men meets No One Lives Forever vibe

Seriously. (I've not played NOLF, but watching Carter makes me want to play it really bad now).

This kinda came out of nowhere for me since I didn't realize it was showing up so soon in the year. Very happy with where this is going especially after SHIELD's shaky start. It's like the perfect panacea for the post-Korra blues.

no spoilers beyond what's aired

Is that possible?

garion333 wrote:
no spoilers beyond what's aired

Is that possible?

Ask Gaald.

Agent Carter is the mother of the guy from Welcome Back Carter. You can tell because they have the same last name. Oh wait it was Kotter not Carter. No tie in I guess.

Baron Of Hell wrote:

Agent Carter is the mother of the guy from Welcome Back Carter. You can tell because they have the same last name. Oh wait it was Kotter not Carter. No tie in I guess.

UP YA NOSE WITH A RUBBAH HOSE!

Also, I liked the first episode. Going to see if my wife will watch it.

Tanglebones wrote:

We watched this on Hulu last night - fabulous in every way. Can't wait to see more!

Also, random aside - the waitress is played by Lyndsy Fonseca, who was the daughter in How I Met Your Mother

Holy smokes! My wife was saying how she looked familiar, and I agreed.

b12n11w00t wrote:
Baron Of Hell wrote:

Agent Carter is the mother of the guy from Welcome Back Carter. You can tell because they have the same last name. Oh wait it was Kotter not Carter. No tie in I guess.

UP YA NOSE WITH A RUBBAH HOSE!

Also, I liked the first episode. Going to see if my wife will watch it.

My wife and I both enjoyed it.

I thought both the first two episodes were fantastic and refreshing. While the production values are great, I think the quality is mostly due to the writing. The character development packed into two episodes has been impressive. Of course, the strong women characters and focus on them is great and refreshing. The thing that really stood out to me was the writing of many self-centered and stupid men. They handle it with enough tact though that it just ends up being funny and gels well with the tone of the show. I've never seen a show that's done something quite like this with their character pool, and I'm really excited to see what they do with it.

With the writing in Legend of Korra and now this, I have high hopes for the future of character writing in TV shows.

I really enjoyed this show! Wonderful atmosphere, a good mix of action and wit. I am fascinated with how brutal they stage Agent Carter's fights. Most of the time fighting women are show using agility to get the upper hand on bigger men, but Agent Carter just plows through everyone with anything she has on hand. I like that she is kind of rough and flawed but still lots of fun. And Jarvis is just great!

Yeah, I love Jarvis. There's stereotypical butler stuff but somehow the character feels very unique. I think it's mostly because the actor doesn't really look like a butler.

Spoiler:

I'm very interested in the "wife" situation. Not sure where they're going with that.

garion333 wrote:
no spoilers beyond what's aired

Is that possible?

Using a very expansive definition of "spoilers", yes. Anything past the end of the closing credits of the most current episode is considered to be "beyond what's aired". So the post-credits teaser for next week's episode, or a television commercial, or an interview with the show's writer/actor/director, or a news story that such-and-such character would be returning... All of that is a spoiler.

Basically, if it wasn't included in the main running time of the most recently aired episode, it could be considered a spoiler.

Building on tuffalobuffalo's point, the interesting thing is that, by breaking out of the square-jawed pulp-heroes mold, it lets the characters come into their own. The men in the agency get to be individuals, unconstrained by the rigors of protagonism, and walk the morally-grey-line of pulp cops. And serve as foils for Carter, and the looming threat one step behind her.

Carter, meanwhile, gets to display her range as she works in the system, with the system, outside the system, and against the system, sometimes all at the same time. They let Carter win brutal fights (reminding me of Every Frame a Painting's analysis of Jackie Chan's fight scenes). But they also let her break down and cry when her friend dies, letting her be human.

Yeah, I was pleasantly surprised that Smarmy McOnetreehill wasn't completely incompetent. He was just slower to the finish line, mostly hindered by a common prejudice of the time. I'm hoping that the direction the show is going is her challenging their perceptions and making them reevaluate how they think of women. Not just her constantly one-upping her male counterparts with Victor smirking on the sidelines. And it seems like they'll do that since the show is taking time to focus on Carter learning to trust others.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Yeah, I love Jarvis. There's stereotypical butler stuff but somehow the character feels very unique. I think it's mostly because the actor doesn't really look like a butler.

Spoiler:

I'm very interested in the "wife" situation. Not sure where they're going with that.

Spoiler:

Me too. Something seems odd. Or maybe it's a red herring, and on the final episode, we'll learn that his wife and their marriage is perfectly normal.

Gremlin wrote:

Building on tuffalobuffalo's point, the interesting thing is that, by breaking out of the square-jawed pulp-heroes mold, it lets the characters come into their own. The men in the agency get to be individuals, unconstrained by the rigors of protagonism, and walk the morally-grey-line of pulp cops. And serve as foils for Carter, and the looming threat one step behind her.

Yes! I'm particularly excited to see what they do with the ex-soldier fellow. I hope they explore some PTSD stuff with that character. It would be a shame if they don't develop that character beyond his backstory and current state.

as someone who thinks agents of shield is some of the worst tv on tv it's such a happy surprise that I like this show so much.

Cool.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:
Gremlin wrote:

Building on tuffalobuffalo's point, the interesting thing is that, by breaking out of the square-jawed pulp-heroes mold, it lets the characters come into their own. The men in the agency get to be individuals, unconstrained by the rigors of protagonism, and walk the morally-grey-line of pulp cops. And serve as foils for Carter, and the looming threat one step behind her.

Yes! I'm particularly excited to see what they do with the ex-soldier fellow. I hope they explore some PTSD stuff with that character. It would be a shame if they don't develop that character beyond his backstory and current state.

The interesting thing is that contemporary cinema has tended to avoid looking at the post-war conditions of WW2 soldiers. There was some of that immediately after the war (The Best Years of Our Lives won 7 Oscars for a reason) but more recent films have tended to lean hard on Greatest Generation glorification tropes and leave the costs-of-war discussion to the Vietnam films. This feels like they're going to look at how the war affected people from close up; I hope they do.

Fedaykin98 wrote:
tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Yeah, I love Jarvis. There's stereotypical butler stuff but somehow the character feels very unique. I think it's mostly because the actor doesn't really look like a butler.

Spoiler:

I'm very interested in the "wife" situation. Not sure where they're going with that.

Spoiler:

Me too. Something seems odd. Or maybe it's a red herring, and on the final episode, we'll learn that his wife and their marriage is perfectly normal.

Spoiler:

I'm betting it's a very sterotypical situation with a guy in that erawho has a "wife" that nobody ever sees.

AnimeJ wrote:
Fedaykin98 wrote:
tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Yeah, I love Jarvis. There's stereotypical butler stuff but somehow the character feels very unique. I think it's mostly because the actor doesn't really look like a butler.

Spoiler:

I'm very interested in the "wife" situation. Not sure where they're going with that.

Spoiler:

Me too. Something seems odd. Or maybe it's a red herring, and on the final episode, we'll learn that his wife and their marriage is perfectly normal.

Spoiler:

I'm betting it's a very sterotypical situation with a guy in that erawho has a "wife" that nobody ever sees.

Spoiler:

The "wife" is Howard Stark in disguise :p

Demyx wrote:
AnimeJ wrote:
Fedaykin98 wrote:
tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Yeah, I love Jarvis. There's stereotypical butler stuff but somehow the character feels very unique. I think it's mostly because the actor doesn't really look like a butler.

Spoiler:

I'm very interested in the "wife" situation. Not sure where they're going with that.

Spoiler:

Me too. Something seems odd. Or maybe it's a red herring, and on the final episode, we'll learn that his wife and their marriage is perfectly normal.

Spoiler:

I'm betting it's a very sterotypical situation with a guy in that erawho has a "wife" that nobody ever sees.

Spoiler:

The "wife" is Howard Stark in disguise :p

Yea, I could see that too.

Demyx wrote:
AnimeJ wrote:
Fedaykin98 wrote:
tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Yeah, I love Jarvis. There's stereotypical butler stuff but somehow the character feels very unique. I think it's mostly because the actor doesn't really look like a butler.

Spoiler:

I'm very interested in the "wife" situation. Not sure where they're going with that.

Spoiler:

Me too. Something seems odd. Or maybe it's a red herring, and on the final episode, we'll learn that his wife and their marriage is perfectly normal.

Spoiler:

I'm betting it's a very sterotypical situation with a guy in that erawho has a "wife" that nobody ever sees.

Spoiler:

The "wife" is Howard Stark in disguise :p

Spoiler:

What if it's May Parker? She could have been previously married before Ben... /monkeywrench

Gremlin wrote:

Building on tuffalobuffalo's point, the interesting thing is that, by breaking out of the square-jawed pulp-heroes mold, it lets the characters come into their own. The men in the agency get to be individuals, unconstrained by the rigors of protagonism, and walk the morally-grey-line of pulp cops. And serve as foils for Carter, and the looming threat one step behind her.

Honestly, I'm hoping her boss, even if he does sideline her, also is perceptive enough to know that she's not an idiot. I loved her going in to give the other guys coffee, largely being paid no mind, and then was additionally happy when her boss was suspicious of her presence. It gives a sense that there's a reason he has the job that he has while the younger and more inexperienced fellow is not quite as perceptive.

I do not, however, enjoy the inevitable turn where Carter is on the run from her coworkers because they "catch her red-handed", only it turns out she and Stark were innocent after all.

garion333 wrote:
no spoilers beyond what's aired

Is that possible?

Don't watch the previews shown at the end of the show. I kept thinking I saw something as they were going through the various scenes, and played some parts back in slow-motion, and sure enough -- big spoilers for me. Still, it made me very happy to see!

I watched the first half of the 2 hour show, and my wife, who does not care much for Marvel stuff (she can take it or leave it), got pulled into the story and watched the second half through to the end. I think she's hooked now too.

Think I'll buy this on Amazon Prime.

ccesarano wrote:
Gremlin wrote:

Building on tuffalobuffalo's point, the interesting thing is that, by breaking out of the square-jawed pulp-heroes mold, it lets the characters come into their own. The men in the agency get to be individuals, unconstrained by the rigors of protagonism, and walk the morally-grey-line of pulp cops. And serve as foils for Carter, and the looming threat one step behind her.

Honestly, I'm hoping her boss, even if he does sideline her, also is perceptive enough to know that she's not an idiot. I loved her going in to give the other guys coffee, largely being paid no mind, and then was additionally happy when her boss was suspicious of her presence. It gives a sense that there's a reason he has the job that he has while the younger and more inexperienced fellow is not quite as perceptive.

I do not, however, enjoy the inevitable turn where Carter is on the run from her coworkers because they "catch her red-handed", only it turns out she and Stark were innocent after all.

You haven't seen the Agent Carter short, have you? Her boss is absolutely that imperceptive. That kind of shortsightedness regarding what women are capable of was a total societal norm from this time period.

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