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Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Marvel's Agent Carter: SNAFU

Mild Spoilers. Bigger Spoilers are marked.

Peggy (Hayley Atwell) and Jarvis (James D'Arcy) have hit one; a snafu; a problem that slows down their mission. It lands Peggy in the SSR interrogation room, with Dooley, (Shea Whigham) Thompson (Chad Michael Murray) and Sousa (Enver Gjokaj) all taking turns at her, while the real baddies set their plan in motion.

While the plot speeds and slows and turns in strange places, these two are always there to keep everything hunky-dory.

And, more importantly, the show hit one too; it's the second-to-last episode, so why is there still so much plot-delaying going on? Peggy and Jarvis spent this entire episode inside the SSR, mostly not even doing anything -- except talking, which really wasn't that bad since that's what they do best together -- but the action was limited, and limited mostly to Thompson and Sousa, and there was hardly any forward motion plot-wise. Or character-wise for that matter.

Sousa's character took a few limping steps back (sorry) when he suddenly got to be a temporary idiot so that Evil Dottie could escape (Thompson had his turn last ep, so I guess Sousa had it coming). At least he also got to be the first to decide to believe Carter. And even if the final installment gives no more development that this one did, he'll still be a good, well-handled and interesting character in my opinion. I certainly hope they don't though; he's just good enough to need to be even better.

You go Sousa, you can overcome these disabilities! And I'm not referring to the leg...

Thompson however, has reached him peak, so I didn't regret the lack of movement his character got. Accept it, and move on. Chief Dooley got the highest concentration this time, and they gave it their all, but he still didn't manage to go anywhere special or memorable. (Spoiler) When I sat down to write this, I momentarily forgot that he had died, and only remembered it as a plot point, not a character one. I appreciate their attempts at trying to jerk feelings for him out of us by including his family problems, but they should have started earlier if they really wanted it to work. (End Spoiler)

Peggy's character development seems to have been hijacked by her evil opposite; I'm fairly sure that Dottie (Bridget Regan) actually got more screen time than Peggy did this time. And Dottie's character has nowhere to go -- she's a stone-cold murdering psychopath. You make your villains stone-cold murdering psychopaths so that you don't have to spend time and effort on them!

One more of Jarvis because I haven't been able to use as many pictures of him in my past reviews as I would have liked. Jarvis is not a stone-cold murdering Psychopath. He is awesome.

Poor Peggy and Jarvis are left in the waiting room with not much to do except set each other up for cute, witty one-liners (as fun as those are). They do have one good, classic scene, all funny and cheeky, that was able to distract me until next week (I hope). And otherwise, Peggy coming clean to her co-workers about her personal mission and then getting emotional over wanting to protect Steve Rogers' blood was pretty interesting. And I thought it was totally sweet when Jarvis told Peggy how many times he panicked with he realized something had happened to her.

Next week is the last episode, and the less it moves along, the less I want it to end. Right now I really, really, really don't want it to end.

The past six episode's reviews:
Episodes 1 and 2
Episode 3
Episode 4
Episode 5
Episode 6

10 comments:

  1. A note: you're seriously good at analyzing plots, if I ever write a book I'm gonna be asking you for editorial help in that area. ;)
    I like how you capitalize the e in Evil Dottie. Nice touch. ;) "Jarvis is not a stone-cold murdering Psychopath. He is awesome." Nicely put, and yes. Very much awesome. D'Arcy plays him so well. The conversations between Jarvis and Peggy are one of the best parts of the show.

    I can't believe there's only one more episode after this...I like that it's short, it makes it something that you can just pull out and rewatch, if you know what I mean, but, jeepers, it's ending already?! That was so fast. And I agree what you said about this episode not having revealed much, especially in light of the fact that it's the second to last ep.; also about the characters not having as much development. I really hope the last episode makes up for that. Sousa is such a great character. My favorite. He too is awesome. ;) But I really did enjoy this episode, and I loved the interrogation room scene.
    I thought the chief had a 'good' death, doing the right thing in the end and sort of sacrificing himself for his agents, it was a good way to go out as the chief character; it leaves everyone under him still respecting his office and Dooley himself.
    And I like how the writers leave clues for upcoming events, like how in episode 3 (I think) we learn that Jarvis has past experience forging signatures, and then in episode 7 he appears with a testimony from Stark and makes a point of saying that it's signed, giving you just enough time to guess it's a fake.

    Now I'm just wishing this show would go on longer. Do you think there's much chance of a second season? That would be awesome. *crosses fingers*

    xx

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    1. Oh. That's long. Just kinda happened I guess.

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    2. Haha, long comments just kinda happen to me all the time too. :D

      Haha, wow, thanks! :D Oh I know, I could go on and on about how much I love Jarvis and the awesomeness of his and Peggy's dynamic. They're fantastic!

      Yes. Oh yes. I know exactly what you mean. I feel the same way. If it could go on forever like thing I would be happy, but I imagine it wouldn't have the same quality as a longer-running show. And re-watch-ability is a very good thing. I'm definitely hoping for a second season sometime. The potential is just too good to waste!

      At first I thought the only worthy characters this show would produce would be Peggy and Jarvis, but Sousa has definitely joined their ranks now. He's great. :D

      Okay, yeah, I agree that it was a good death. Noble and such. I just never cared for the character beforehand, so it didn't affect me as much as it could have.

      Oh yeah! I remember that, but I didn't catch it before! I knew of course that Jarvis had faked the signature, but I didn't remember that we were supposed to know that's something he does regularly. That is cool. :D

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    3. Yeah, that's true, the quality is great as it is, I'd be sorry for that to change. I didn't ever care much about Dooley either, I was just glad he gets a good death as he's the boss.

      Oh, dear, the last episode comes out tomorrow...

      xx

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  2. This show is getting better and better with every episode unfortunately it'll end next week..D:

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    1. I know! I'm so scared and simultaneously excited for the end!

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    2. Oh I thought that comment above mine was by yourself has same name as yours lol :P

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    3. Oh yeah, haha! But we have different pictures. :P

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    4. hehe We should form a club or have a special cyber fist bump or something: the film-interested, Marvel-loving Sarahs. ;)

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    5. Haha, yeah, there sure does seem to be a lot of us! :P

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