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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 315908" data-attributes="member: 23">Agent CarterBetter Angels /Smoke & Mirrors / The Atomic JobI’m finding lots to enjoy with Season Two. If I were ranking the episodes, Smoke & Mirrors would be a top three episode of the series so far (along with the final two episodes of Season One). The flashbacks to Peggy’s past - from childhood to engagement to recruitment - and her relationship with her big brother were really well done and I appreciated that the same episode simultaneously fleshed out Whitney Frost by flashing back to her past as well. The missions and battles have been thoroughly enjoyable. The formation of a ragtag team with Peggy, Jarvis, Daniel Sousa, Rose Roberts and Aloysius Samberly was fun, and the latter two in particular brought some welcome levity, adding to the balance. While I’ve neglected to mention him so far, it’s been great to see Ray Wise’s occasional appearances as Hugh Jones, and it was good to see more of him in The Atomic Job with some enjoyably funny faces as Peggy repeatedly used the Memory Inhibitor on him. While it’s been enjoyable to see mid-century California (a street of little bungalows where Jason Wilkes lived looked particularly good) I do still miss the New York atmosphere. I also miss some of the Season One supporting cast. Not just people like Angie Martinelli who are still there, but also the ones who were killed off in Season One. In particular, the SSR material lacks gravitas now that we don’t see characters like Yauch and Roger Dooley. There seems to be less emphasis on character roles at the SSR in Season Two, with us mostly just seeing main characters interact and very few other roles to add flavour. Jack Thompson is a most unconvincing Chief of SSR, with Chad Michael Murray - for all his attempts at intense staring - looking out of his depth in the role. I’m not sure if this is intentional on the part of the writers, since Thompson is meant to be green. Either way, I feel less invested in the SSR stuff this year. A benefit of the series being based mostly in California now is that I’ve just enjoyed a couple of episodes with a complete absence of Chad's overacting. Incidentally, does Chad Michael Murray’s bumfluff count as an anachronism? I’m fairly sure designer stubble wasn’t really a thing in the Forties. In other potential anachronisms, Sousa greeted his girlfriend with “Hey”  while Rose told Aloysius “You got this” (as a way of saying “everything’s under control”). Both sounded very contemporary to my ears. </blockquote>

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