Agent Carter, Season 2, Episode 1: The Lady in the Lake
Well, that was fun, if nothing else. I've never really been too impressed by the first season of Agent Carter -- it was certainly a good show, a fun show, but I remain unconvinced that it needs a season two. I mean, this episode is definitely great, and the little ancient-Hydra-cult pin (which probably makes jack shit sense to anyone not caught up to Agents of SHIELD) alone means that there would be tie-ins to that series... and it's definitely a solid episode, and Peggy Carter certainly has her fans out there. I just... I dunno, a series set in the past of a continuity with such a rich present-day storyline means that there's not much that you can really change and the status quo can't be shaken. It's a given that Peggy Carter will survive, that the SSR will get dissolved and replaced with SHIELD, and whatever big threat we're facing will inevitably get taken out. But I digress, because I like Peggy Carter as a character enough -- she's fun -- and the series is serviceable even if it never really reaches the epic heights that other superhero series do.
The show has kinda changed genres as well, as instead of being a Cold War piece where Peggy needs to gain the respect of her SSR teammates and be regarded as someone more than a secretary... it's delved into a bit of a mystery detective show. And it's definitely an atmospheric piece. I honestly don't care too much about David Sousa and her ship-sinking moment with Peggy when it's revealed he has a new woman during the timeskip, but having Peggy and Edwin Jarvis back is definitely a blast. The two are simply hilarious to watch, and play off each other so well. The main plot is serviceable... the mysterious frozen body in the lake ends up being something far more sinister than a serial killer, and the friendly policeman that Sousa and Carter befriended, Andrew Henry, turns out to be the killer, hired by someone big. But he's contracted the mysterious freezing-virus or whatever the hell that is, and ends up dying. It's a nice enough plot twist, I guess.
The ones behind Henry's death and the whole frozen thing is revealed pretty quickly, as Calvin Chadwick and Whitney Frost, the two owners of Isodyne. Of course the character named Frost is going to be involved with someone getting frozen, eh? Whitney Frost shares a name with the alias of a Marvel supervillain, Madame Masque, so we're going to have ourselves another worthy opponent for Peggy Carter to fight, in addition to the possible team-up of Johann Fenhoff and Arnim Zola that was teased at the end of last season. Oh, and Dottie Underwood.
Dottie shows up at the beginning of the episode, impersonating Peggy and robbing a bank... and immediately gets taken down by Peggy herself. The proto-Black-Widow is one of the outstanding plot strands form the finale of the first season, and I for one am glad that season two is not going to be all about fixing the cliffhangers from season one. Dottie gets arrested, but because Jack Thompson is a bit of a dick (and a sexist dick, though not as much as he was in season 1, and it might be because he just wants the credit here) he pulls Peggy off the Dottie case and lobs Peggy off to Sousa's branch office in L.A.
Jack gets utterly humiliated during his interrogation of Dottie, though, who nearly snaps his neck with a table. Dottie only wants her beloved Peggy and there's definitely some twisted infatuation on Dottie's part. And then Agent Vernon of the FBI shows up, takes Dottie away, and tells Jack that the SSR is done for and the times they are a'changing. Jack is enough of a power-grabber that he decides to throw his lot in with the FBI, though I honestly don't care about Jack Thompson as a character. Dottie, though... I doubt her character's going to be written out so soon, and I wouldn't be surprised if she breaks free and shows up in LA to fuck things up in Peggy's campaign against... whoever the hell it is she's fighting.
In addition to Calvin Chadwick and Whitney Frost, we get a new character, dr. Jason Wilkes, who is this scientist who quickly flirts and struck up a friendship with Peggy but ends up apparently being involved with some... floating black goop that I'm sure is the plot device behind all the freezing things and whatnot. Jason Wilkes is an extremely minor character in the comics, so I didn't get much about him from a quick google... though honestly I don't care enough to know everything about every new character and would prefer to be surprised by what they do and who they are.
But the plot with Frost, Chadwick and/or Wilkes honestly don't interest me that much. I mean, it's cool, I guess, but it's so ambiguous at the point that it's hard to care about them beyond being the threat of the week. No, what's fun in this episode is Peggy, Jarvis and the previously-unseen Mrs. Anna Jarvis just mucking around and interacting. And Bernard Stark! Who is Bernard, you ask? Well, Howard Stark's new flamingo! The episode gets a bit too comedic at times, the show might get, yes, but it's certainly fun. It benefits in cutting out all the surplus fat from the first season like the whole Fry's dormitory or the endless scenes in that diner.
Overall, though, the episode felt a bit choppy as we cut back and forth between the various plot strands and the various new characters, but it's definitely a strong, if low-key, opening to the second season. This show might not be as spectacular or heavy in universe-building as Jessica Jones, Agents of SHIELD or Daredevil are, but it's definitely a fun little side story. Can't fault that, really.
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