Agents of SHIELD: Alien Commies from the Future
This week, we get a guest star from another series, a superstar from another field entirely, and the bad ol’ days of the 50’s.
This week, we get a guest star from another series, a superstar from another field entirely, and the bad ol’ days of the 50’s.
Haley Atwell is back as Agent Carter… in voice only. She’ll reprise her fan-favorite role on the latest incarnation of the Avengers cartoon. I’m glad to hear this, but I still want more live-action Agent Carter. Then again, I also preferred Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes on the cartoon front.
You want the good or the bad news first? Well, we’re going with bad.
Aptly titled, the second season of Agent Carter ends with “Hollywood Ending.” Of course, that ends up working on more than one level as we await word about Season Three, which seems like it’s not coming until May. They manage to work in a few good surprises this episode.
Episode Nine of Agent Carter is amusingly and accurately called, “A Little Song and Dance.” The Netflix Jessica Jones series was the first one to bring sex into the Marvel Universe. Now, Agent Carter has brought in musical theater in a really entertaining number. I’m not sure why they decided to go that route, but it’s a fun scene, and the timing is decent since the movie “Hail, Caesar,” has some similar numbers and just recently came out.
Agent Carter’s troubles in California continue in “The Edge of Mystery.” This is one of the more serious episodes, and a lot happens. There were some interesting twists along the way, most of which caught me by surprise. I thought it was a good episode. Rumors about cancellation are still in the air for the show, but there is no confirmation that I can find anywhere. If it does get cancelled, it would be the first failure of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, if you can apply that term to something that lasted for two seasons.
After the chaos of last episode, Agent Carter and friends now have to deal with “Monsters.” Whitney Frost, drawing on her acting skills, has a press conference about the death of her husband, and his “colleagues,” the Council members she killed with her Zero Matter powers. Carter and Frost glare at each other across the reporters before Frost retreats into “mourning.”
Things keep going strangely for Agent Carter in “The Atomic Job.” Wilkes, fortunately for him still in his intangible state, wakes her up, all excited to show her something he’s learned. He has a tissue sample from Jane Scott, the titular “Lady in the Lake” from the season premier, and Wilkes can pull the dark matter out of the sample, as well as make it do odd things. With this small piece, he manages to temporarily become solid again, as well as home in on Scott’s body.
“Smoke and Mirrors” goes into a lot of background for our two main female characters- Peggy Carter and Whitney Frost. It was interesting to see that they grew up on different continents and took very different paths in life, but had a lot of similarities. Let’s face it, the early half of the twentieth century wasn’t a great time to be a smart, gifted, driven, and strong woman.
Agent Carter’s trip to California continues in “Better Angels.” In the wake of the disaster at Isodyne, Dr. Wilkes has been very neatly framed. Between his being black, and the paranoia about communists, it’s not a hard sell to most. Carter, of course, doesn’t buy it. Equally of course, Sousa is about the only one willing to listen to her.