(no subject)
Feb. 12th, 2015 10:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretHm... reaction to the new Agent Carter?
I thought the episode was badly paced in that kind of typical way when you're an episode or two before the finale and you need to manipulate a lot of the pieces into their proper place for the finale. Both Russian subplots were awkwardly developed... I didn't comprehend at all the placement of Dottie's kiss in the storyline. I guess it reinforced the theme of men underestimating women, with the crowning irony that if they had heeded Peggy's warning about the Red Room, they might have caught her. But the emotional swing from Peggy's free to Peggy's about to be killed to Peggy's in SSR custody was strange and did disservice to the Red Room plot. Likewise, the Ivchenko storyline had several false starts that nicely built suspense... it would have been nice if it had also had an ending. It's not a subplot I care enough about to be anxious about through to next week.
I loved Angie's moment in the sun. I loved the fight in the Automat, and how brutal and terrible Peggy's escape from Sousa and Thompson was.
About Angie's moment in the sun: Peggy acts because she trusts Howard Stark is not a traitor. Repeatedly, she insists that Howard Stark is not a traitor, and repeatedly the SSR disbelieves her. When she meets Thompson and Sousa in the alley, she likewise asks them to trust her, to continue the chain of trust forged of working together, fighting together, spending time judging each other and proving each other out. It's a great echo of the premiere. They refuse to trust her, though Sousa at least wavers. But Angie is asked to trust Peggy over the government authorities and she does it without thinking, because that's what friends do. (Because that's what Steve would do?) I love that moment. I really do think that the Angie crying scene is one of Agent Carter's best, most earned emotional moments- built from awkward lunches and brooding silences and shared confidences at the boarding house table, until it seems inevitable.
And this is back from last week, but I still think it's startling that Dottie did not find Steve's blood last week, and I don't understand why they would tell the story that way. From a Watsonian perspective, how could Dottie go over the room as thoroughly as she did, thoroughly enough to find the poison lipstick, and not check behind all the paintings? And from a Doylist perspective, why would you write this scene where the Russian spy searches a room where we just saw our hero carefully hide an emotionally important object, and not even hint at the spy finding that object? It's just a strange oversight, a narrative pulled punch.
I was also a little disappointed by Miriam's appearance in this episode. She's been set up throughout as more an obstacle than a character. "No men above the first floor" is almost her only character trait, and that's been fine up to this point. Certainly it was all that was needed in the Howard Stark infiltrates the second floor episode, and it was a fine addition of unexpected stress when Peggy was looking for a new apartment. But with the government agents knocking on the door of the Griffith, it was a missed opportunity not to give a moment to humanize her- to let her stand up and say "I may not have always trusted Peggy Carter, but I believe she's a good girl, and I will not allow you to violate the rules of this establishment without showing me some proof to the contrary." And to have it stick. To let Miriam Fry be the hero of her own story. Her only character trait is that she is an obstacle to men trying to get on the second floor, so it was frustrating to see the SSR men brush past that obstacle as if it didn't matter, when being that obstacle could have constituted the sort of quiet female heroism Agent Carter is ostensibly about, the sort of quiet female heroism that Angie is allowed to exhibit minutes later.
That being said, Agent Carter is fantastic overall. It is, after Parks and Rec, the show I am most excited about watching each week. And I'm going to miss it when it's over.
I thought the episode was badly paced in that kind of typical way when you're an episode or two before the finale and you need to manipulate a lot of the pieces into their proper place for the finale. Both Russian subplots were awkwardly developed... I didn't comprehend at all the placement of Dottie's kiss in the storyline. I guess it reinforced the theme of men underestimating women, with the crowning irony that if they had heeded Peggy's warning about the Red Room, they might have caught her. But the emotional swing from Peggy's free to Peggy's about to be killed to Peggy's in SSR custody was strange and did disservice to the Red Room plot. Likewise, the Ivchenko storyline had several false starts that nicely built suspense... it would have been nice if it had also had an ending. It's not a subplot I care enough about to be anxious about through to next week.
I loved Angie's moment in the sun. I loved the fight in the Automat, and how brutal and terrible Peggy's escape from Sousa and Thompson was.
About Angie's moment in the sun: Peggy acts because she trusts Howard Stark is not a traitor. Repeatedly, she insists that Howard Stark is not a traitor, and repeatedly the SSR disbelieves her. When she meets Thompson and Sousa in the alley, she likewise asks them to trust her, to continue the chain of trust forged of working together, fighting together, spending time judging each other and proving each other out. It's a great echo of the premiere. They refuse to trust her, though Sousa at least wavers. But Angie is asked to trust Peggy over the government authorities and she does it without thinking, because that's what friends do. (Because that's what Steve would do?) I love that moment. I really do think that the Angie crying scene is one of Agent Carter's best, most earned emotional moments- built from awkward lunches and brooding silences and shared confidences at the boarding house table, until it seems inevitable.
And this is back from last week, but I still think it's startling that Dottie did not find Steve's blood last week, and I don't understand why they would tell the story that way. From a Watsonian perspective, how could Dottie go over the room as thoroughly as she did, thoroughly enough to find the poison lipstick, and not check behind all the paintings? And from a Doylist perspective, why would you write this scene where the Russian spy searches a room where we just saw our hero carefully hide an emotionally important object, and not even hint at the spy finding that object? It's just a strange oversight, a narrative pulled punch.
I was also a little disappointed by Miriam's appearance in this episode. She's been set up throughout as more an obstacle than a character. "No men above the first floor" is almost her only character trait, and that's been fine up to this point. Certainly it was all that was needed in the Howard Stark infiltrates the second floor episode, and it was a fine addition of unexpected stress when Peggy was looking for a new apartment. But with the government agents knocking on the door of the Griffith, it was a missed opportunity not to give a moment to humanize her- to let her stand up and say "I may not have always trusted Peggy Carter, but I believe she's a good girl, and I will not allow you to violate the rules of this establishment without showing me some proof to the contrary." And to have it stick. To let Miriam Fry be the hero of her own story. Her only character trait is that she is an obstacle to men trying to get on the second floor, so it was frustrating to see the SSR men brush past that obstacle as if it didn't matter, when being that obstacle could have constituted the sort of quiet female heroism Agent Carter is ostensibly about, the sort of quiet female heroism that Angie is allowed to exhibit minutes later.
That being said, Agent Carter is fantastic overall. It is, after Parks and Rec, the show I am most excited about watching each week. And I'm going to miss it when it's over.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-02-13 08:29 am (UTC)That would have been amazing.
One of the things that people elsewhere were pointing out is that, to some degree, her general viciousness and hatred of "men above the second floor" is not, entirely unreasonable, given the society she lives in. For example, in many instances, she is providing a cover (or may even think of herself as providing a cover) for women who are staying there -- it is not that she doesn't like the guy, see, it is that the matron won't allow him past the entrance, so pressuring her is just pointless, for example. It is the sort of thing that I find it interesting to explore, for personal reasons, and while I wouldn't really want the show to go in that direction, it would have been nice to have at least the concept of two-dimensionality acknowledged here.
Unrelatedly, I want to take this opportunity to mention the other thing about Agent Carter that I found interesting, which is that her moment of triumph with the annoying coworker in the airplane in the previous episode mostly... reminded me of the NYT article about how women are expected to do the emotional work around the office. He starts being friendly with her and including her in the office life because she is willing to comfort him about his war crimes, which isn't something that a man would be expected to do, ever. I don't think that the show was going with that intentionally, but I thought that it was interesting.
Man, I like Dottie. I should probably feel bad about enjoying crazy badass Russian women in my fiction, but I kind of enjoy it a lot. "That gun. I want that."
(no subject)
Date: 2015-02-15 01:30 am (UTC)But one of the things I really enjoy about the way the show represents the Griffith is the constant reminders that the women who live at the Griffith understand that there is a gap between the rules and the enforcement of the rules, that the rules only have as much hold over them as they let them. The cheerful way that everyone was complicit in stealing food from the dining room was a great example of this. It gave all of the women in the Griffith a lot more autonomy than you usually see in media representations of this kind of setting.
One of the things I really like about Dottie is that she's not being written as the typical stone-cold Russian sleeper agent. She has a personality, and it is fucked up as hell, but it's a personality. (This is, by the way, such a step up from the robotic brainwashed Agent 33 on Agents of SHIELD, which was such a waste of a clever idea.)
(no subject)
Date: 2015-02-16 04:53 am (UTC)I was mostly referring to her expulsion of that girl, in episode 3 -- sure, I can see the argument that if people know, she needs to act, but an immediate public expulsion? Sure, yeah, 'she feels maternal to the good girls and protects them from the bad' and 'the past is a foreign country', but that seemed somewhat cruel and vicious, to me.
>> "But one of the things I really enjoy about the way the show represents the Griffith is the constant reminders that the women who live at the Griffith understand that there is a gap between the rules and the enforcement of the rules, that the rules only have as much hold over them as they let them."
Well, yes, but also no. I didn't get the impression that the food smuggling was as significantly prosecuted as the man above the first floor, for example. It is true that the obedience of the rules at the Griffith is clearly more lax than, for example, a tyrannical cult where everyone actually believes in the justification. That's a high bar though, and they are all what, 20, give or take a few years? The rules have hold. The impression I got is that, at best, the show thinks that they have enough alternatives that they would be OK even if they were kicked out.
We have personalities, just not feelings. :P But yeah, seriously, I agree, she is pretty great.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-02-16 01:56 pm (UTC)Yeah, I mean, that's the thing, right? There are other options, for sure. The Griffith is probably a particularly good option for young single career women, because I would bet it is comparably cheap, has comparably favorable rent terms (if a girl gets suddenly married, she can leave easily), has the companionship of the other women, is comparably safe, has the resources of support Miriam can provide, etc... But there are options for young women who don't want to play by these rules, as we saw in Agent Carter's apartment in Episode 1 for example. So the women at the Griffith agree to at least pretend to play by these rules they don't necessarily agree with, for the advantages it provides. And that's coercive but maybe not oppressive?