So season one had mixed reviews with an incoherent story line, long preambles.
This season
Right off the bat, costuming was gorgeous , cars were reasonable for the late forties, except for a shot of a super connie, which may or may not have been in service at the time.
Again, for a period piece, its nerfed for todays television audience. No smoking, and diverse character casting.
So pretend its an alternate universe where things happened differently.
It wasn’t bad , and as cringe worthy as the season one opener was, but no impact story. I guess they will get to it, when they get to it.
Nice touch, the SSR is not long for this world. Pretty boy is getting positioned to be a somebody in the follow on agency and the FBI finally makes an appearance. Not that it matters.
I had been curious how SHIELD ended up being a secret organization, if they all go around telling people who they are, even though the SSR has hidden entries into secret bases, which are apparently multiple stories of office buildings, with hundreds of people working there… maybe they’ll decide that NOT telling people who they are is probably a better idea, when they switch over to being SHIELD.
I just assumed the dark matter was the portal from Agents of SHIELD…
Agreed. Good start. Flipping Mrs. Jarvis to be an Irish minx eager to support the Scooby Gang and engage in a little three-way badinage was interesting. So was the use of race (facing petty racism the way Peggy faces petty misogyny; the setting at the club).
Guess: Sousa’s GF isn’t exactly what she appears to be.
Also - is it just me, or are there too many '40’s-perfect blondes to keep track of right now? Dottie, Whitney, Sousa’s GF. And of those, man, the way they made up Bridgit Regan as Dottie - she looked like an alabaster statue of Greta Garbo or something. Classic.
There was the whole scene in the café where the guy at the counter wouldn’t serve him but would make change for Carter if she bought something. It seemed a bit of a stretch to have him there but he was pretty charming and he and Carter had good chemistry. Captain America, Jarvis, Howard Stark, Dottie… I’m thinking Hayley Atwell has good chemistry with just about everyone. Not that I’m complaining.
It was subtle, but Wilkes’ race came up a few times.
Sousa said the club where they were meeting was a colored club.
Wilkes had the whole story about growing up picking oranges, and how he’d never get out. And Isodyne was the only company willing to hire someone like him.
And the most blatant was the guy in the diner calling him “boy”. I’m wondering if in a future episode Peggy will pay the diner another visit and clean the counter with the guy’s face.
The donut shop guy + the hotel where he wanted to meet Peggy was known for being ‘for them’ (don’t remember exact words). There were quite a few references, but they were (until the Donut guy) farily subtle.
Yep, and I am pretty sure all of that (except the Janitor line) were from the second episode.
When Peggy first enters the club there’s a low mixed crowd line of something like “is she sure she’s in the right place?” but then on the dance floor there’s a white couple right behind them dancing. It seemed odd. Why undercut the scene with Peggy standing out, when there’s already white people in the club?
could be the other couple were regulars and Peggy was ‘new’ - but I took that line to be a typical ‘peggy slam’ - that everyone constantly questions if she’s ‘in the right place’.
Just checking in again now that the season has finished.
Seems we as a messageboard community were much less enthused by season 2.
I, personally, quite enjoyed it. I feel like my overall enjoyment of season 1 was greater than my overall enjoyment of season 2, but when it comes to listing individual aspects about the season there’s a lot that ends up on a list of things I liked.
[ul]
[li]I liked the broader comedy bits played by Jarvis (though he ended up going on a murderous rampage which I liked less).[/li][li]I loved loved every second that Dottie Underwood was onscreen. They’d do well to give her a much bigger part in season 3.[/li][li]I thought actress Wynn Everett was excellent as Whitney Frost. I’d never seen her in anything before. When she’s in scenes with men it is really really obvious how very petite she is in stature and yet she gives such a commanding performance that you can totally believe people being very afraid of her.[/li][li]Ana Jarvis, completely delightful.[/li][li]I liked that they went more ensemble rather than daring duo for the protagonists, but the dynamics weren’t perfect. As an SSR scientist, Dr. Samberly should be completely brilliant (and supposedly he was) but showing his personality quirks got in the way of showing his competence to the point that he almost didn’t seem competent at all (I also thought his comic relief function fell flat). I thought Rose was great when they allowed her to be great, but she got pushed to the background as they couldn’t figure out what to do with her (even had her out of town visiting her mother for one episode!). I like the expanded role for Sousa and exploring a partnership between him and Carter but I didn’t see enough in him for me to believe Peggy being in love with him.[/li][li]Kurtwood Smith![/li][li]Ken Marino![/li][li]An out of nowhere song & dance sequence![/li][/ul]
So, I’m on board for season 3. I like the whole 10 episode season format, I think it works especially well for this show.