This
week brought us the return of Agent Carter (again filling the hiatus of
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.). Much of the two-hour premiere I found fun and
familiar, though I'm a bit hesitant about what seems to be this season's
overall plot.
In
the unreserved enthusiasm column, Hayley Atwell is still perfect as the
title character; she makes the show. She can handle the action and
fight choreography, she has great comic timing for the funnier moments,
she nails the more dramatic sequences, and she's incredibly nimble when
Carter has to adopt a different accent and demeanor in an undercover
persona.
What's
more, Atwell plays wonderfully off so many others in the cast. Carter
and Jarvis remain the most fun pairing on the show, and they're
potentially even more interesting now that Jarvis' wife Ana is in the
mix. What a relief that we're not going to see any petty jealousy from
Ana over this clearly platonic relationship. It paves the way for plenty
of fun in contrasting Ana's outgoing cheerfulness with Jarvis' stuffy
fastidiousness. The typical triangle is instead reserved for Carter and
Sousa (another great pairing), and Sousa's new girlfriend Violet -- and
even that may come in blessedly mild doses thanks to Atwell having still
more chemistry with new actor Reggie Austin as the scientist Wilkes. (I
don't buy that he's dead.)
Wilkes
is an interesting new presence on the show (part of why I don't believe
they've offed him already), allowing the writers to explore racism in
the 1940s in the way the first season explored sexism. Not that the
sexism angle is off the table; though Carter is now working with people
who respect her and her skills, the new character of actress/villain
Whitney Frost was used to continue portraying attitudes against women.
Indeed, in this season's new Hollywood context, those attitudes (sadly)
don't even come off very dated.
Where
I'm not on board yet with the new season is the more supernaturally
based story of "zero matter" and its weird properties to consume,
flash-freeze, and what-not. The X-Files revival is just days away, and
Supernatural is still part of my regular viewing (it still manages many
good episodes, even in season 11). I'm just not sure if this shift in
tone on Agent Carter is filling a void in my entertainment. And at the
moment at least, I feel like it's asking my memory to be better than it
is. When we saw the hovering, morphing blob of zero matter, I recalled
seeing something like that way back in season 1 of Agents of
S.H.I.E.L.D. Where it last swallowed up a guy, I think? Never to be
heard from again? Unless it was meant to be the same "monolith material"
that transported Simmons to the alien planet in this season's story
line? Am I supposed to already be clear on all these questions? I'm not.
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