Agent Carter: Better Angels

January 27, 2016 9:03 AM - Season 2, Episode 3

Peggy Carter, the SSR and Howard Stark dig deeper into the conspiracy surrounding Isodyne, while villains set their own plans in motion.

This episode took us deeper into the mysteries of Isodyne, the shadowy council of potential HYDRA masterminds, and Zero Matter/Darkforce -- but also dropped a few surprising Marvel Comics deep cuts.

Howard is directing a film version of the Kid Colt comics; not only was Kid Colt a real-life gunfighter in the MCU, but he's also a comic-book hero there -- meaning that just like in the comics, the MCU has in-universe funnybooks detailing its heroes' adventures. Will we get Steve Rogers drawing Captain America comics? Only time will tell.
Whitney Frost's hometown of Broxton, Oklahoma hosted the city of Asgard on Earth for about five years of comics.
Frost has developed the ability to absorb people into the mystic Darkforce after being consumed by it herself. That's the superpower of Tyrone Johnson, AKA Cloak -- half of Marvel's most prominent Darkforce-related superteam, Cloak and Dagger.

posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish (29 comments total)

Glad to see Dr. Wilkes back, but I was a little puzzled last night if they are honestly trying to make him invisible and without much agency until a white man steps in as part of a larger commentary on racism in the 1940s, or if it is just a really questionable decision to do that to the one minority character.

Anyways, loved Jarvis getting into the fight this episode and doing ok. And Stark is at least amusing, if nothing else Missed Ana and Rose a lot. Intrigued by Whitney's developing storyline, which makes her the intellectual power behind Isodyne, rather than her husband.

Not caring too much about New York guy at all right now, and hope they make that storyline interesting.
posted by nubs at 9:54 AM on January 27, 2016

Not caring too much about New York guy at all right now, and hope they make that storyline interesting.

I liked him in this episode. He protected Peggy from being associated with a Communist Spy, and chastised Peggy for the Warrent-less search of the arena club (which is related to hydra, just look at the symbol and watch agents of shield) and prevented her from accusing a potential senator of election rigging without any evidence, drawing the SSR into public light and opening it up to attack, thereby compromising any future investigation of Isodyne.
posted by FallowKing at 10:10 AM on January 27, 2016

I laughed for about five minutes at "I just get confused around books!"
posted by skycrashesdown at 10:21 AM on January 27, 2016 [6 favorites]

It's Peggy vs. Evil Hedy Lamarr!
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 11:25 AM on January 27, 2016 [10 favorites]

I liked him in this episode. He protected Peggy from being associated with a Communist Spy, and chastised Peggy for the Warrent-less search of the arena club (which is related to hydra, just look at the symbol and watch agents of shield) and prevented her from accusing a potential senator of election rigging without any evidence, drawing the SSR into public light and opening it up to attack, thereby compromising any future investigation of Isodyne.

It's not his actions that bug me, because they are reasonable actions for the director of the SSR to take, but the fact that his motivations aren't grounded in being the director of the SSR, it's in him being compromised. It just makes the character somewhat tedious - he's not an obstacle for the reasons that would give the character some nuance and depth, he's just becoming another bad guy. Unless they are trying to position him as getting some inside intel on what this branch of Hydra is up to; if that's the case, it isn't coming across to me at all.
posted by nubs at 11:27 AM on January 27, 2016

I feel like Jack seeing the newspaper at the end of this episode is going to be a turning point as far as working with vs. spying on the bad guys (Who I think are supposed to be analogous to the Secret Empire? But that was a Hydra spinoff anyway). He was compromised by Kurtwood Smith, but his reason for going along, given what he knows, isn't evil, just self-interested -- postwar, the SSR and FBI are redundant to some degree, and if he wants to keep his job, he needs to make sure there's a spot for him after they're reorganized. Until now he didn't have hard proof that there was more going on here than an aggressive interdepartmental power play. Now he does, and we'll see how he reacts.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 11:35 AM on January 27, 2016 [3 favorites]

It's Peggy vs. Evil Hedy Lamarr!

THAT'S HEDLEY!
posted by Strange Interlude at 1:22 PM on January 27, 2016 [5 favorites]

Glad to see Dr. Wilkes back, but I was a little puzzled last night if they are honestly trying to make him invisible and without much agency until a white man steps in as part of a larger commentary on racism in the 1940s, or if it is just a really questionable decision to do that to the one minority character.

The original character in the comics was a white dude, so win some, lose some. Yeah, it's a black character, but boo, things are awkward. Particularly since the original character managed to figure out how to make himself visible.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:27 PM on January 27, 2016

Howard Stark seems tremendously less annoying than last season. I'm not sure why, but I am grateful. Perhaps his flippant, manic personality seems more at home in LA?
posted by pjsky at 5:45 PM on January 27, 2016

i can't wait for chad michael murray to get hit by a blimp
posted by poffin boffin at 6:05 PM on January 27, 2016 [11 favorites]

I hate Jack Thompson THE MOST and spend all of my time gritting my teeth when he's onscreen. I have zero knowledge of any of the preceding comics (or the deep details of the MCU), but I can't wait for him to either be unmasked as a bad guy or sacrifice himself heroically. Whichever gets him away from Peggy (and me!).

Aaanyway. I'm glad they finally showed Peggy working out.
posted by wintersweet at 8:05 PM on January 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

I'm gonna spend a whole lot of time thinking about her punching that bag. I'm sad I have zero photoshop skills and thus cannot addThompson's smarmy douchebag face to it for punchings.
posted by poffin boffin at 8:42 PM on January 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

Apparently a lot of people ship them. Now, there's no wrong way to ship, except when there is, and THIS IS THE WRONG WAY TO SHIP. /judgey
posted by wintersweet at 9:25 PM on January 27, 2016 [5 favorites]

G R O S S
posted by poffin boffin at 9:36 PM on January 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

This episode was wonderful. However the most wonderful thing was that purple and green dress she wore in the start of the episode. It was stunning. But yeah, she's becoming more of a badass and the humor was spot on - especially Jarvis saying he didn't want to be a disembodied voice!
posted by Crystalinne at 10:28 PM on January 27, 2016

The disembodied voice remark was a bit heavy handed for me. Mainly because I've wondered if Jarvis' voice from the movies is meant to be Edwin or his male relative who Tony makes into a digital butler after his death. (I've gone through lengths to explain different actors and digital!Jarvis' origin story.)

I'm curious to see how Jack processes his realization that the newspaper thing was legit. I think he'll confront Hydra guy but go along with being on the wrong side - he's clearly been groomed to go along with the senator from That 70s Show. Maybe he'll try to double agent things. Generally I think he's a dick and am okay with him going evil or dead. I can't believe people ship him with Peggy - I might go find some fanfic to hate read about them.

I loved watching them storm the men's club. Money can really open a lot of doors. His comment about race limiting Wilkes from the old white men club was a nice way to vocalize racial issues of the time.
posted by toomanycurls at 10:57 PM on January 27, 2016

Jack lied to the 70's show guy about viewing the film and was visibly jarred by the following day's headlines. Peggy's dressing down about taking credit for others' work seemed to hit home too. I'm guessing he'll be the good guy and work towards breaking up the "A" club, but look dirty as hell to team Peggy while doing it. (I'm also waiting for Red to call someone a Dumbass.)
posted by klarck at 5:13 AM on January 28, 2016

I like Jack as a character to watch on TV, as they've given him a background that is more than 'this is an evil guy'. He's flawed, making decisions that you can at least understand, if not agree with. I hope his development continues, unlike Sousa's, who seems to have stalled out as a character.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:28 AM on January 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

Yeah, Sousa's the only character I feel like I don't have a handle on. He's still the competent insider, but that isn't much of a character now that Peggy is not running a parellel investigation.
posted by humans are superior! at 8:52 AM on January 28, 2016

Here's a fun interview with James Darcy about Jarvis. He has some things to say about the voice. ;)
posted by wintersweet at 9:57 AM on January 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

I liked the information about the flamingo:

...Cannibal just went to town, just, like, pecking away like a maniac. And so I thought, "This is worrying."

And then, it turned out that Cannibal really liked me! Cannibal sort of refused to peck me or chase me or be chased by me. Cannibal just wanted a hug.
posted by nubs at 10:05 AM on January 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

70's show guy

Based on his current character, I'd rather call him the Robocop guy.
posted by Peccable at 7:46 PM on January 29, 2016 [1 favorite]

Cannibal just wanted a hug.

obvious promo for S4 of Hannibal
posted by poffin boffin at 9:42 AM on January 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

What was that weird couple of seconds of street footage about 26 minutes in? The blur and grain suggested that it was old film rather than the usual sets+cgi. It's the first time in the series that I've noticed that. Do they do it a lot? It really stood out for me.
posted by pipeski at 2:47 PM on January 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

No, I noticed that too, I don't think they've done it before.

I just took it as a clever visual thing, using actual stock 40's LA footage for that brief transition rather than shooting something new. Maybe a bit of a call-back to secret agent/spy/thriller serials made in the 40's, the low-budget ones often used stock footage.
posted by soundguy99 at 10:46 PM on January 30, 2016

yeah, I was thrown by the stock footage too, it seemed out of place. For a moment, I thought maybe it was some in-universe footage shot for Stark's movie, which would have made more sense.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 12:56 PM on January 31, 2016

Based on his current character, I'd rather call him the Robocop guy.

"Can you flyyyyy, Bobby?" is actually a semi-reasonable question in the MCU, since there are people who can totally do that.
posted by Strange Interlude at 7:07 AM on February 2, 2016

The other heavy-handed comment was Peggy saying that a movie based on a comic book sounded like a terrible idea.

I still laughed.
posted by gaspode at 10:27 AM on February 5, 2016

Until now he didn't have hard proof that there was more going on here than an aggressive interdepartmental power play. Now he does, and we'll see how he reacts.

I took his inviting Sousa out for a drink as a genuine attempt to reach out. Feeling disconnected and disrespected by everyone he's working with might just push him over the edge.
posted by ODiV at 7:57 PM on February 8, 2016