Marvel's Agent Carter: Hollywood Ending

"I don't speak megalomaniac. Fortunately Mr. Stark does."

I've got a lot of TV series on the go and have started three more lately; time to finish one, I think. And the last episode of this season- indeed, it seems, the last episode ever- delivers in spades.

There are several types of season finales; this one, quite appropriately is a fun romp with lots of action, the good guys winning and Peggy finally getting the guy (Daniel) in a knowingly and delightfully cliched way. But the main thing is, of course, Howard Stark arriving like a whirlwind and, while not saving the day, becoming an indispensable part of the team with his wit and genius and, rather neatly, ending up with giving Jason a job; few others would in the racist 1940s. Even
Manfredi joins in as everyone uses cleverness to stop Whitney at long last. All this, and Howard putting golf balls into the portal to zero matter, as you do.

We end on a cliffhanger, as Jack is mysteriously shot dead and the dirt on Peggy stolen. Will
This ever get resolved? Regardless, this is a superb ending to an excellent two seasons. I'll miss Peggy Carter and co.

Marvel's Agent Carter: The Edge of Mystery

"Lift the chorus, speed it onwards!"

It's getting close to the end now and the level of excitement duly intensifies, although not for poor devoted Jarvis at his vigil by the bedside of his injured wife. Eventually we see her recovery but not, alas, unharmed; there will be no little Jarvises.

Whitney, meanwhile, has Jason , and eventually persuades him to side with his fellow dark matter hybrid person although, after a shocking scene where he explicitly switches sides, this doesn't seem to do Whitney much good by the end of the episode. While sinister plots are being made by Masters to accuse Peggy of war crimes (is there any truth to this, though?), Jack finally realises what side he's on and joins Peggy, Sousa, Jarvis and the ever-chippy Dr. Samberley for a showdown in the desert. And we get a dramatic ending.

Amongst all this plot stuff, though, there's still room for an amusingly Sopranos style matriarchal Italian family with a drama-addicted comic relief matriarch. But we end with Jason- not Whitney- being briefly taken through the dark matter portal. What happened? Things are, perhaps, beginning to tread water a little ahead of the finale. But this is still bloody good stuff.

Marvel's Agent Carter: Monsters

"He kissed me. I indulged him."

Masters has Dottie all there and ready for, ahem, "advanced interrogation techniques" but it seems she has the upper hand. What with him now being Whitney's bitch he probably isn't a very happy male chauvinist. No wonder he's out to get Peggy.

Jason is now corporeal but still not quite stable. He's still able to snog Peggy, though, adding yet more complications to her tangled love life. She's still Peggy, though, and both she and Jarvis cheerfully walk into Whitney's trap. There follows an interesting scene with Peggy and Dottie in a cell together desperately trying to escape first while Dottie makes some interesting comments about how corrupt the SSR is; I suspect that by the end of the season we will find that she was right in every detail and that Peggy will either leave or end up in charge. That's my prediction.

The big twist, of course, it that the trap is not for Peggy and Jarvis- they're only imprisoned to keep them out of the way while Whitney jabs the real prize- Jason. Which she does. And the episode ends with a shock as she shoots Ana Jarvis in cold blood to aid her escape. This despicable act rather undermines the noble sentiments she was just espousing to Jason about racism and misogyny, but she is a baddie, after all.

We end with an infra-SSR coup as the dastardly Vernon Masters seizes control from Sousa. The season hasn't long left to go but I'm certainly enjoying the ride...

Angel: Expecting

"I learned men are evil… no, wait, I knew that."

Boo! Weren't expecting this, were you? Neither was I, to be honest. This blog is still more or less on semi-hiatus until after the first week of August but I find myself with an unexpected free evening. What could be more appropriate than to watch and review an episode of Angel called Expecting?

About ten minutes in, I was all ready to hate this episode. Cordelia has sex with someone she hasn't known for long, and whoosh! She's pregnant the next morning. At first glance, this appears tiresomely puritanical in its message, especially with Cordelia's pre-existing issues (emphasised here) with thinking that she's being punished. But that's not what this is about. For one thing, Cordelia makes it clear that "everything was safe", a line which could only be there to signal that none of this is her fault; she took precautions. What it is about, I think, is arrogant, entitled men who think it's fine to get someone up the duff and then bugger off, leaving her with all the consequences. It's fitting that it should be Cordelia who knocks the errant father, personified as a demon, into a million pieces.

Oh, and if that wasn't enough to prevent this from being the Pope's favourite episode of Angel, the whole plot is essentially about procuring an abortion.

It's well executed, too, much as there were a couple of clichés that made me smile. Wilson is sweet, considerate, self-aware- he must be evil, right? And the sex montage, showing us lots of short scenes of kissing, bedclothes, the Sun rising and essentially chaste stuff fading into one another, is really a bit too much of a cliché to be done without irony.

Great episode, though. I loved the fight early on, seen only through shadows on the wall, and Dennis looking after Cordelia- aaaah! Oh, and the bartender in the club- isn't he the janitor from Scrubs?

I love the continuing subtle developments in Wesley's character. (He's still not an "official" member of the team, although he seems to do an awful lot of unpaid work!) He's still as much of a klutz as ever (love the axe scene- Alexis Denisof is great at physical comedy), but also extremely brave, much braver than he was in Buffy. His rapport with Angel is developing nicely, too; the two of them are beginning to make a highly amusing double act.

But most interesting is how this episode highlights the way Cordelia's character has developed- beneath the surface she's both much, much tougher and much, much wiser. Fittingly, the final scene consists of her running rings around the two boys. But that last line shows how much she appreciates them. Again, aaaah!

There. Don't expect updates all that regularly until a week into August, although I'll make sure I keep up with the BBC's "Hollow Crown" Shakespeare adaptations, at least. There may be a blog entry on Friday, too. Fingers crossed…