Agent Carter is a show all about sexism , and particularly all about the notion that after World War II , women who had made a material contribution to the state of war effort were evidence to go back to their previous subordinate function . But whereas the show ’s first season was a clean simple story , time of year two is delving into a lot more complexness .
Spoilers ahead …
In season one of Agent Carter , the kvetch - in - the - guts intensity comes from visualise Peggy , who we know is ultra - open and a total badass , being understimated and abuse by her colleagues at the SSR . All of the men consider she ’s just there to fetch coffee and answer the phones . And meanwhile , Peggy has been forced to shit her colleague so as to sack Howard Stark ’s name — so she actually is behaving in a manner unworthy of an SSR agent . It ’s a fairly wrench storyline , in which Peggy is simultaneously dealing with guilt and unfair discrimination .
But season one also feel , at fourth dimension , kind of too one - dimensional in its depiction of Peggy ’s circumstances . Even if it was arguably pretty naturalistic , the first season ’s oppressiveness started to finger a slight one - note after a while , and maybe even kind of cartoony . It made signified : The show was take up intemperately from a videodisk - only light photographic film in which Peggy Carter ’s underestimated by the SSR factor for a few over - the - top minutes , before she kvetch some ass and then becomes the head of SHIELD . All in like 15 instant . Boom .
I delight time of year one of Agent Carter a deal , but thus far season two seems to be doing something a bit more interesting . This time around , Peggy is n’t just up against the otiose , unthinking sexism of a clustering of seasoned agents , but instead an “ honest-to-goodness male child ’s night club , ” which has its finger in every part of American social club . And we know that even if Peggy get ahead this engagement , she ’ll drop off the warfare , since Hydra will end up pass through and ruining SHIELD for the next several decades , no matter what hap in this individual story .
Peggy is up against the Council , an governance of super - powerful white men in finance , industry , and other stuff . They have cool lapel pins and they seem to be some sort of precursor of Hydra , or mayhap just an avatar of 1950s patriarchy in the making .
But a caboodle of the most fascinating scenes in this time of year involve Jack Thompson , one of the handsome sticker in Peggy ’s side , getting suck into the Council ’s orbit , becoming a stooge for the cheesy Vernon Masters , in central for vague promises that he ’ll become an important hombre in the New World Order . These scenes are fascinatingly gross , with Thompson — who ’s impudent enough to know well — getting soak up into playing along with this bullshit . ( And we ’re cue of how , at the terminal of time of year one , he took all the reference for Peggy ’s triumph and lease them label him a hero , which is what start out him down this path . )
And meanwhile , Daniel Sousa , who ’s been Jack ’s hydrofoil since the very showtime , is also getting blackmail by Vernon Masters to play testicle with the Council . And because he resists , he get the crap beaten out of him by mask manpower ( one of whom might be Jack , I could n’t tell for sure ) and then has Vernon Masters himself replace him as L.A. section top dog of the SSR .
But instead of just pull up stakes the Council as the stiff monolith of white manlike power and authority , last night ’s Agent Carter fructify up a pretty surprising reversal . A big arc in last night ’s two instalment involved Whitney Frost , the Hollywood starlet who also hap to be a genius physicist , demonstrating her weird flesh - dissolve powers ( gained from an exposure to “ Zero issue ” ) to the Council — who immediately close that she ’s dangerous and endeavor to dispose of her . Whitney ’s husband , the craven Senatorial candidate Calvin Chadwick , has arrange her up , claiming that he ’s going to aid her gain the Council ’s support when he ’s actually asked the Council to help him get rid of her .
But Whitney turns the tables , evaporate most of the Council members include her married man . And the remain Council members , including Ray Wise ’s Hugh Jones , aver fealty to Whitney . Soon Vernon , the uber - male chauvinist , is working for the calculating Hollywood starlet , which seems like a weird turn of result . And when Whitney come to abduct Jason Wilkes , the Isodyne scientist who ’s also been affected by Zero thing , she attempt to attract to a share sense of oppression because Dr. Wilkes is African American . It ’s like Zero Matter , this mysterious fatal goop from another dimension , is actually a kind of equalizer that helps the oppressed people of the post - world-wide War II to deform the mesa on their oppressors .
You sense that somehow , Whitney Frost is going to die in her attempt to turn the machinery of the post - war patriarchate to her own vantage — you just do n’t know how , yet . possibly Peggy will be the tool that the Man uses to take Whitney down and restore the innate order . Or maybe the establishment will confirm itself some other style . In any pillowcase , it ’s sort of uproariously enchanting that the first matter Whitney does when she study exponent is raise her old beau , Joseph Manfredi ( Ken Marino ! ) to become her lieutenant , devil the heck out of Vernon .
There are a few reason why this year ’s gender politics seem more unpredictable and fascinating than last year’s — even if they ’re perhaps not quite as grounded in reality . One is the said bearing of actual scumbags like Vernon Masters , who represent the factual index bodily structure that put sure-enough snowy fop on top in the 1950s .
Another , though , is the bearing of a number of middling vivid female character this time around — the Russian spy Dottie Underwood is back , and she ’s pleasingly psychotic with her screaming resistance to torture and her penchant for killing everyone who gets in her fashion . But then there ’s also Sousa ’s bride-to-be , Violet , a perfumed nurse who utterly will not have any truck with her beau ’s lallygag crush for Peggy . And Ana , Jarvis ’ wife , who ’s sort of a kooky “ liberal spirit ” who vex about Jarvis hasten into danger for the thrill of it — only to get herself shot by Whitney Frost , trying to be a hero . And Rose , the cute SSR switchboard wheeler dealer who gets to take part in a covert operation and turn out to be a instinctive .
Whitney Frost , though , is the main reason why this is regulate up to be such a memorable chapter in Peggy ’s saga . You ca n’t help sympathizing with Whitney , who had veridical scientific genius but learn the hard path that humankind only valued her for her beaut . And then , because she meddled with forces that yadda yadda , that beaut was turned weird and revolting by the Zero Matter infection . The scenes where her husband tricks her into think he ’s really on her side , and he ’s cashing in all his chips to help her , are actually pretty grievous , because of the promise on her human face . And now , she ’s trying to move around the mesa on the whole damned world that strain to push her down . She ’s really sort of a tragic physical body , but with blind spots the size of Australia .
But the most interesting affair , frankly , is see so many multitude admonish Peggy that if she goes up against the Council , she ’s go to lose . It feels like prefiguration of something really dreary and interesting — even though we already know that in the long ladder , Peggy is fine , she dies in bed of one-time age after decades of being the boss of everything . ( But she also all miss that the organization she ’s assist to run is on the QT evil . Oh well . )
Oh , and I really like that Peggy gets horribly offend in one instalment and then is n’t just running around jumping off buildings and kick people in the side in the very next installment , the path she would be on most idiot box show . ( It take two episodes instead ! )
The latitude that this show save playing with , of Peggy and Whitney both struggle against the same monolithic pulley block of male prerogative and mete out with it in very dissimilar ways , opens up a more complicated view of the show ’s late-40s gender government . The skilful part ? Neither Peggy nor Whitney is handling the problem of the Council particularly well , or astutely . They ’re both making mistakes that will cost them in the longsighted terminal figure . They ’re just dissimilar types of misunderstanding , in all probability leading to different sorts of hurt .
Anyway , if you look on time of year one of Agent Carter and have n’t come back from time of year two , it ’s emphatically meter to get up — this show has never been ripe .
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