With a proverbial bang, Marvel’s Agent Carter‘s season two came to an end Tuesday night. Whitney Frost was defeated, Peggy saved the day with a little help from her friends, and the love triangle that has been a thorn in the side of this show was finally settled.
While a solid and entertaining season, it left me feeling a little saddened by the fate of our favorite S.S.R. agent for four reasons.
1) Whitney Frost’s worst nightmare came true. I’m not talking about the loss of her Zero Matter powers. I’m talking about all the work she put into the conception and design of the Rift Generator only to have it stolen by Carter and crew.
The next scene gave us three men fighting over the naming rights to her work. After everything she did to move along in the world, Frost still didn’t get any credit, reduced once more to her outward appearance and nothing more. Perhaps a fitting end to one of the best villains the Marvel Cinematic Universe has given us but certainly not something to cheer for.
2) Where’s Dottie? Using Dottie to help with the undercover work was a brilliant bit of story this season, as was her getting captured and finally being scared by something. There was a character development that we didn’t see in many other characters, outside of Jarvis.
And Peggy risking her life as well as the lives of her friends to save Dottie was an interesting look into Peggy’s character until it wasn’t anymore. Because after Ana got shot, we never heard about her again. Dottie was gone and that was that. That storyline evaporated into thin air, which was disappointing because it had been my favorite part so far.
3) The Love Triangle. Or as I like to call it the Bermuda Love Triangle because somewhere in the middle of that mess, Peggy lost herself. Even at the most trying times, we have seen Peggy be confident, always trusting her gut to lead her to the right decision. But the moment Sousa and Wilkes start competing for her attention, she dawdled and fretted and even stopped halfway through a mission to talk about the men in her life. It didn’t feel like Peggy and left a sour taste in my mouth, even if I think she made the right choice (out of the two options the show gave her).
4) The fate of Angie Martinelli. All season I waited for Angie’s triumphant return, even though I knew she would only be in one episode, and a dream sequence at that. But after a season-long arc last year, one that led to Peggy and Angie moving in together, to have left her out nearly completely was wrong.
Peggy lives with an actress and spent the entire season in Hollywood; you can’t tell me that the writers couldn’t find any way to get her there for an episode or two? A mention in the finale, not even by name, was not enough for someone who obviously plays a large role in Peggy’s life. She was her conscience in the dream sequence, for goodness sake! Can I start a petition now to #bringbackAngie2017?
I still love Marvel’s Agent Carter. I think it is one of the best shows on television and I will be waiting with baited breath until May when we find out if it is being renewed or not.
But after season one which set the bar for woman-power on television, season two felt like a step in the wrong direction. When (I’m being optimistic) it is renewed for season three, I hope the writers remember what it was we loved so much and go back to doing just that.
I think the biggest thing that would fix Agent Carter would be a longer season. It seems like most of the problems everyone has are storylines that didn’t wrap up by the season finale, or that did not get worked into the storyline. Yes, they could have brought Angie in, but then what would they have cut? I just felt like there was a story the writers wanted to tell and they just could not work all the elements in — in fact, I think that’s at least part of why the finale felt so rushed, because they ran out of time!
THANK YOU FOR BEING POSITIVE. I hate all the “this is wrong” criticisms that are based more on not knowing something or on personal preference. Yes, there are loose ends, because the creators are hoping to come back! (My theory was that Dottie was the assassin at the end, but then the showrunners have been stressing the ambiguity of victim-I-will-not-name-because-it-seems-more-spoilery-than-anything-in-the-article’s fate, and I realized if it HAD been Dottie, she would not remotely have failed to kill said person, so, that would not be ambiguous!)
Anyway I appreciate your spin, it’s refreshing.
Yeah, I’m getting kind of tired of the people who need t rip things to shreds because it didn’t live up to their personal expectations. It’s not perfect, I know, but there have been definite signs of trying to fix the worst flaws, which gives me hope. Of course, I’m one of the weirdos who really enjoyed the dream sequence, so what do I know? 🙂
Solidarity! (really, I feel so much better just hearing someone else say this). I’m in the ruminating stages of developing an article for GeekMom about different types of criticism, actually. I guess this is another nudge at me to go through with it.
I really do feel like one of the biggest problems I’m finding with a lot of the causes I believe in is not so much the radical nature of some of the people, but how semantics get played, over-played, and ripped apart. There’s no feeling of debate when people disagree, only of attack. I know some of it is because there’s no reading physical cues such as facial expression or vocal tone over the internet, but sometimes I wonder if it’s because people feel the need to get information back and forth too quickly, without stopping to think about what they’re reading or writing.
That was a very long-winded way for me to say “go for it!” 🙂