Agent Carter, Season 2, Episode 10: Hollywood Ending
That was... a very functional ending. The main villains are all taken out, and while there are enough plot lines to strike intrigue for the third season, so much has been built up across Agent Carter's second season that it really feels like a letdown that very little of what has been seeded really came to fruition. I still have a lot of questions regarding what's going on -- like the ancient Hydra pin, and it's really annoying that it was built up in the first two or three episodes as this big conspiracy that's going to drive the second season, when in reality it's just laying the groundwork for season three. We've got the redacted files that Thompson discovered two episodes ago... season three. We don't get any answers to what Zero Matter is (apparently it's an adaptation of the comics' Darkforce?), just what is the voice that Whitney and Wilkes are hearing, just what the Council of Nine is beyond the couple of executives we saw, why did the Zero Matter pick Wilkes over Whitney, et cetera, et cetera.
And really, the big cliffhanger at the end of the first season, a team-up between Arnim Zola and Dr. Faustus ended up not factoring in anywhere, and for all the entertainment factor that Dottie Underwood gave us in the mid-season episodes, she also ended up not appearing at all -- I half expected her to be a wildcard or hanging out with Team Frost, at least as a secondary threat so our characters don't just stand around talking and waiting for Frost to walk to their trap.
Really, it's a shame since Agent Carter's second season was actually pretty good. It isn't super-duper excellent, but it's a definite improvement over the first season, it's got solid storylines and fleshed-out characters, and despite being very pessimistic regarding the quality of the first season, I really enjoyed this second outing with Peggy Carter. But this final episode of the second season? Yeah, it's easily the weakest of all 10 episodes.
The ending really felt like 'oh well, it's the final episode, let's set a trap and catch Whitney Frost and yay it works'. Whitney Frost herself has grown so insane and unstable that even her one ally, Joseph Manfredi, ends up seeking out Team Carter to help 'fix' Whitney Frost. She just doesn't really... feel like she's a threat, a cunning intelligent schemer with black hole powers... she's just this erratic animal that needs to be put down (we even get Jarvis running her down with a car rather hilariously), and it is really far removed from what made Whitney Frost so interesting in the first place. She spends nearly the entirety of this episode just mumbling and pulling a Phil Coulson and sketching random equations on a whiteboard, then she gets the bait, and then she gets the Zero Matter sucked out of her.
From then on it's a matter of one-thing-leading-to-another and they save the day. Yay.
And, well, Howard Stark shows up for the requisite final episode appearance, and he was fun, I guess? But not even Howard (or, really, Jarvis returning to his snark-mode) really made this episode be anything more than a mediocre, lackluster ending. Though seeing him trying to play golf with a freaking hole in the universe was hilarious as all hell.
After that sequence where everyone wants to be a hero, Jarvis shoots Howard's flying car (Lola nooo) into the Zero Matter portal and pop it goes off. Whitney Frost goes insane, trying to claw her face off and imagining herself with Chadwick while Manfredi is forced to visit her... maybe her being alive will lead to more answers regarding the Zero Matter thing if we get a third season?
Oh, and after everything is okay and it looks like we're going to have one of those 'where are our characters now' epilogues (including Sousa and Peggy being an official couple -- not a long stretch since Wilkes was boring as all hell), suddenly Thompson gets shot by a mysterious man who took the redacted document about M. Carter. Whoops! Cliffhanger for season three. A bit of a pooper there, though I don't really mind this that much.
Overall, though, while this final episode was a bit of a disappointment, season two of Agent Carter really was far more exciting and definitely stronger than the first season. Now, it really could've benefited from a lot more improvements -- making sure that some secondary characters were more relevant, like Dottie Underwood and Jason Wilkes, who received a lot of attention but ultimately ended up only paying off for a single episode for the former and being absolutely underwhelming for the latter; and, y'know, not building up so much for the third season and use some of the buildup you've done for the plotlines this season. But, eh, can't really find the energy to complain that much. I did have fun watching this season, after all.
As much as I love the concept of the series, gotta disagree with you about this season being better than season one. It was good, but I think season one was better. Season one was more personal, the New York setting worked better, and the story made more sense.
ReplyDeleteThere was some good things to touch one though...
Dottie Underwood...the reasoning behind releasing Dottie from prison made no sense and just seemed a very bad excuse to bring her back into the show. Wanna make it clear, it was stupid. Utterly stupid. That being said, HOLY CRAP ON A CRACKER she is one outstandingly sexy, scary lady! As good as she was in season one, she was even better here. It's worth a third season just to see her and Peggy lock horns again. She is so good, I don't think I would even mind if they brought her back to present time Winter Soldier style, as contrived as that may be. I just want her around. One of Marvel's best villains.
Whitney Frost....Oustanding performance by the actress Wynn Everett, playing a woman who is pretty, smart, and accomplished, yet oozing with frustration on how she has been held back from getting more out of life.
Ana Jarvis...Whatever she has, they should bottle it and make a fortune. The very moment she was on screen I loved this character (she's a hugger). She is an 11 on the likability scale.
The rest of the cast was great, with one blaring exception...
Jason Wilkes...Wow, I know that Zero Matter had energy absorbing properties, but who would have guessed that energy would be charisma. My humble opinion, of course, but this guy had no presence. Zip. Nothing. Nada. Even when he was visible he was invisible. Didn't really care if he lived or died. And to make matters worse, the story had Peggy falling for the drip. The only times in the story when there was a whisper of interest is when he encountered the racism of 1940's America, and even that seemed muted.
This show had all the ingredients to improve on the first season, but I get the feeling they held back. It's like hiring a five star chef to make macaroni and cheese. Sure, its really good macaroni and cheese, but its just macaroni and cheese.
Season one was more consistent and solid, I agree... but it was also a lot more boring. It's good, but it's also extremely very formulaic. Oh, there's the helpful frienzoned dude. Oh, there's the obstructive bureaucrat douchebag. Oh, there is the obligatory wider-MCU cameo. The actors are good, the scripting was decent, but the plot is so very much cookie-cutter. The fact that I don't care much for the big stakes, there were a crapton of random slice-of-life subplots that just grated (up until Dottie revealed herself to be a Black Widow, but that's too little payoff for so much buildup at that damn housing place).
ReplyDeleteBut what season one did well was make all its side characters matter, either as fodder or as character growth -- I mean, Whitney Frost is a way more interesting villain than Dr. Faustus or whoever that old dude was, largely thanks to them going all 'oh wait this side-character was the big bad all along' which is annoying -- but by and by we have a couple of duds like Jason Wilkes being a bland brick, Manfredi ultimately amounting to nothing, Howard really being unnecessary to the whole thing and Dottie's role in the plot was cool but ultimately a distraction.
I went from really hating Dottie for being a pointless side character to really liking her for, well, fooling even the audience watching the show with her faux-innocence. But the way she was brought into this was rather haphazard, and up until the final episode I was honestly expecting some kind of payoff. Hell, maybe having her be the one to shoot Thompson would at least give her some more relevance in the climax.
Whitney Frost I think is still my favourite villain among Carter's rogues' gallery, though.
Season two had some missteps, of course -- which I have covered enough in the above review and I don't see the need of repeating myself there.
I dunno about holding back, though. I mean, sure they could've gone more with Zero Matter and Leviathan and everything, but one of the biggest weakness about telling a prequel story in a heavily-established universe is that, well, you know nothing is going to go wrong. Even moreso than your normal superhero stories, New York's not going to get blown up, Peggy Carter's not going to die because she shows up in the present day, SSR's going to survive to become SHIELD and infiltrated by Hydra, etc etc. Obviously as they demonstrated there are still ways to make us care and raise the stakes, but both season finales for Agent Carter really fell flat. This particular episode really didn't feel like they even put that much of an effort, which is a darn shame because up until an episode ago everything was going at tiptop condition.