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@breckstonevailskier
Nothing's more adorable than a beautiful Vault Dweller channeling her inner Jinx 😍😍😍
Lucy MacLean: Well, I'm good for heads! 😁 They're just ghouls, right? 😂
Cooper Howard: 😬😬
Lucy MacLean: Got any cigarettes? I'd like to try one. 😀🚬
Cooper Howard: One addiction at a time. 🤨
Ghoulcy and Water
So I’m not sure if I’m the first person to point this out, but the motif of water comes up in Cooper and Lucy scenes sooooo much, like only when they’re with each other and I wanted to just dig into that.
Why water?
Disclaimer: I have my degree in lit so I feel somewhat qualified to ramble about this but if it makes you feel better I actually consulted my old lit professor for help lol
In a lot of western fiction we see water appear as a motif for transformation and/or atonement. You are made new and clean by the rain or the river. We see this come up in stories like Fahrenheit 451 when the main character escapes by jumping into the river and being carried away.
Another use of this metaphor in the more literal aspects of water. It can also symbolize an impossible obstacle, a monolith, something you can drown in, swim in. Deep water hides secrets, treasure, darkness, bodies. Rivers can lead you to safety, quench your thirst. Rain and storms can sweep you away or wash you clean. In this way water is as versatile in its metaphor as it is in its form.
However I’m more interested in the transformation of water, how water baptizes individuals, and maybe, in a cruder sense, awakens a part of the self not yet known.
The poison river
The first time water appears in a cooper/lucy scene is the poison river. The first time they physically touch is in this scene, and it is a violent touch, followed by an immediate shift in both characters.
Lucy admires the river when she finds it, it’s one of the few instances of life in the wasteland as the river is surrounded by lush trees and grass, and Lucy even finds a baby deer, but the water hides monsters in the form of radiation and the Gulper. The Gulper snatches the pure little baby deer and drags her under the water (along with wilzigs head). Notably, the deer isn't mutated by radiation, but in fact is untouched, perfect and clean and innocent in comparison to the harsh world it comes from. Here the deer symbolizes Lucy's naivety, vulnerable and out of place to the harsh realities of the wasteland.
But then there's the Gulper, the mutated abomination that snatches the deer away so easily, dashing any hope Lucy had on the banks of the poison river. It goes with out saying how this moment works as a clear metaphor for how the Ghoul subsequently apprehends Lucy directly after this moment, which the same brutal ease of the Gulper eating the deer.
But instead of gobbling her up, he uses her for bait, dropping her into the poison river in a cruel form of baptism. This is the moment Lucy begins her transformation from idealistic vault dweller to jaded wastelander, though this is a slow and ongoing procress (and rightly so, you can't undo a lifetime of indoctrination in a few weeks). After the Gulper escapes, Cooper lashes out at Lucy, and we see her do something we have not yet see her do before at this point in the show: she lashes out right back, and while this is a normal reaction from our perspective considering the circumstances, from Lucy its the first time we see her lose her cool.
The Ghoul has baptized her in the same poison that transformed him into what he is, and from here we will see him push her to the brink trying to drag the same monster that exist in him, out of her.
"Ain't much stays clean up here, Vaultie."
By far the most significant appearance of water in the duo's relationship is drinking water, and works as the main mechanism for the Ghoul's torture of Lucy when she is his prisoner. He doesn't impede her from drinking out of contaminated puddles, but he does taunt her, dripping the water from his canteen into his mouth like precious drops of holy water, only to dump it on the ground in front of her when she begs for a drink.
While it could be argued this is the Ghoul throwing her cushy vault lifestyle back in her face, where she likely took her access to clean water for granted, I think his main goal is trying to get Lucy to sink to his level. Water is a key component of survival, and while he brings Lucy discomfort in a number of ways, depriving her of water is the fastest way to push her over the edge. He wants her to fight him for it, to hate him, and ultimately succumb to the temptation of violence, of contamination.
So when Lucy does finally give in and drinks from the piss puddle in the old tire, she is not only giving in to radiation, she's giving into his violent worldview. When he crouches down in front of her and asks "how does your golden rule jive with what's going through your head right now?" he is breaking her world view over his knee. But Lucy doesn't lash out yet. So disgusted at the monster of a man in front of her, she asks him "what are you?" because surely this cruelty is not human, it is corruption. But to her dismay the Ghoul counters, "I'm you, Sweetie, just give it a little time."
Here we see the Ghoul's worldview, that his hatred and jadedness is as inevitable as radiation poisoning. But what he is telling Lucy in this moment is, there's no trick, no inhumanity, no radioactive magic that has made him the way he is, he's just as human as she is, and that is where the cruelty is coming from. He is trying to teach her that it's not the radiation that makes monsters, but human nature.
And we see how Lucy has already been contaminated him when shortly after drinking from the puddle, she lashes out at him in violence, biting off his finger. In this moment I argue Lucy isn't even trying to escape, she's getting revenge, trying to inflict pain on him the same way he has inflicted it on her. This is how we know her transformation is underway.
Drinking from the same canteen
The next time the dynamic of drinking water comes up is one of the first moments we see the two together in season 2. Lucy drinks from her canteen and the Ghoul demands a drink. For the first in their relationship, Lucy holds some power, be it small, of possessing their water supply. Instead of asking her, he asserts his power by demanding a drink, before snatching right out of her hands. As he drinks Lucy asks, "Have you always been this rude?" and then asks if his family would like the person he's become when they find them. The Ghoul pauses his drink, still walking ahead but we can see the question has clearly unsettled him.
Clearly the influence of the water flows both ways, as from this point we see Lucy's influence over the Ghoul. In drinking from her water, the pure uncontaminated water, he seems to gain clarity, a conscience. Not only do they begin walking side by side from this point, but they begin to mirror the other's behavior and speech patterns. The Ghoul throws the golden rule in Lucy's face when she chooses to save the Legion slave over him, Lucy describes the NCR as "just a bunch of matching jackets" no doubt a sentiment she learned from Cooper's attitude towards factions, and even when they both ridicule the Legion's pronunciation of Caesar.
In a sense they has both drank of each other, and now are being transformed, intermingling their natures. Even the way they both drink from the same canteen, a simple but deeply intimate gesture of sharing a drink. It could be argued in a survival environment one cannot turn there nose up at water over cooties, however we know Cooper has his own canteen. So he is not only letting Lucy control their water supply while traveling together, but he is also choosing to put his mouth on the same canteen, as if they've been traveling together for much longer than they have in the show's timeline. And in doing so, he lets Lucy in, to his body, his heart, awakening the long suppressed humanity he had been avoiding.
This may be a stretch, but before and after he betrays Lucy, he drinks whiskey, as if trying to wash the taste and influence of her away in order to let her go. Lucy also vomits before being betrayed, throwing up his corruption over her before punching him out the same window she purged from.
Honorable Mentions
The ocean: Its the first thing Lucy sees when she emerges from the vault. I think it symbolizes the insurmountable task ahead of her, but I would also posit it represents Cooper in a way. Like him it has survived the nuclear war and destruction of the world, it has an permanence Lucy looks to for hope the same way she looks to cooper for reassurence in S2 E4
The Ship of Theseus: This also ties in with the ocean metaphor, again Cooper stands the test of time, even if he thinks he has been fully transformed, that he's not who he once was, "just a fucking pile of wood." Is he just the idea of Cooper Howard or his old humanity, is he just performing cruelty as a way to keep Lucy at arms length? This question also applies to the way he conceals his true identity from Lucy, he is preforming a character, but now he is more the Ghoul than he ever was Cooper Howard, and if that's true, what is the point of his existence? But the thing is, at his core he is still Cooper Howard, and the Theseus monologue proves it. This moment stands out because we see this rare vulnerability from the Ghoul. In a way he is admitting to his loneliness, that he can't even imagine being close to someone anymore when he's not who he was. but the very desire to be needed by Lucy, to protect her, to be chosen by her, is the real Cooper Howard and his humanity slipping through the cracks. And like water, Lucy is wearing away this walls the same way the sea seasons a ship.
The swimming pool in Novac: this is a looser connection, but I find the inclusion of the swimming pool as a set piece an interesting choice, especially when looking at the role water has play in the two's relationship. There's so much going on in this scene that is unspoken, the fact that Cooper is risking his life to keep Lucy from starving is quite revealing, even in when taking into consideration that he needed her as a bargaining chip. It's an extreme sacrifice to make for someone who you plan to discard in the near future. But anyway, but top the pool. Cooper takes cover in the pool, and as the camera reveals the scene we see "death before surrend! R!!" painting on the wall above his head. I believe the pool represents Cooper's inner desire for companionship, and how empty of any love or friendship he hides behind these walls, willing to die before making a connection with anyone. This scene demonstrates that on some level he cares for Lucy, but will not surrender to showing that. Here a pool, usually a place of fun and relaxation, has become a means for violence the same way his inner emptiness, a place meant to be filled with the nourishing water of relationships, makes him lashes out at the world... lol I know its a stretch but I tried
The hot tub flash back: Ok forgot this on so this is an edit but the scene where cooper discusses the future with Barb in the hot tub. He wants to get away from Hollywood and Vaultec and she immediately denies the idea and gets out of the hot tub. In this scene water could symbolize truth, honesty, or their relationship, and Barb choosing to remove herself shows that she's not being honest.
So that's it, thanks for coming to my ted talk. if you made it this far you're actually really cool.
'I Know My Love' never goes out of style 💚 Live from our 20th Anniversary Special. via YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_v8spdSWc4
KATHRYN NEWTON as SARA McKENNA THE DEVIL'S MOUTH (2026) dir. Jeff Wadlow
Lucy MacLean: "I am done with all of the sidetracks and the detours! I say we just run on through, fudgin' cares!"
The Ghoul: "That's the drugs talkin'! Truth be told, I like what they're sayin'. 😏"
I hate that I'm saying this, but your "Blind Spot" fic does a better job at explaining how Fisk could get himself elected into a public office like Mayor of New York City better than DDBA does.
I just don't see any plausible scenario in canon under which Fisk gets elected. The man was convicted and did time in prison for crimes that include acts of domestic terrorism (like blowing up buildings and assassinating cops). And while he somehow avoided conviction for his DDS3 crimes, that he was jailed for and stood trial for more acts of terrorism (Dex's attacks on the Bulletin and the church) can't be swept under the rug.
We really needed a whole season dedicated to Fisk's campaigning to show him doing what he has to do to sway enough of the voters, and engaging in various shenanigans to get him into office (public works like the pothole thing, blackmailing his opponents into dropping out and endorsing him, etc.).
Haha, thanks! I also figured it would be ridiculous for him to win over voters that easily. Which is why I brought the blip into it, the way it disillusioned voters toward the system, and also had governmental overreach involved. Plus plain old cheating, lol. Even then it requires a LOT of suspension of disbelief.
I also think it could have been interesting if DDBA s1 was devoted to the campaign itself, and he was only elected at the end of it. We could still have had a lot of the politics with the campaign itself, as well as the Buck and Daniel stuff. But it would have made his election more plausible if we had buildup.
I also think it was a missed opportunity not to bring up the blip at all, and the way it played into things. It could have explained a lot about how he got out of prison, with the confusion of the system and records getting lost in the shuffle, etc. etc. It's weird that Marvel seems to be sort of distancing themselves from the blip storyline in recent years
I also think it could have been interesting if DDBA s1 was devoted to the campaign itself, and he was only elected at the end of it. We could still have had a lot of the politics with the campaign itself, as well as the Buck and Daniel stuff. But it would have made his election more plausible if we had buildup.
That's more or less what I had thought. Fisk's campaign would make a 13 episode season in and of itself. He campaigns, while Karen, Matt and Foggy make every effort to stop that from happening. Foggy's faked death happens as the result of Vanessa deciding to strike a critical blow against Karen and Matt to keep them from uncovering a smoking gun that could kill Fisk's campaign in time for it to be useful.
It's during this campaign that we see some of the things Fisk does in the actual DDBAS1, like the public works. And we see him and Buck working through the NYPD to look for members to pick to form the AVTF, among other things. This means we get an episode that revolves around Powell, Cole North, and some of the other future AVTF members as Fisk gets his hooks in them. Some of them, he's able to secure their loyalty through bribes. Others require intimidation or manipulation.
I know Echo exists, but I think before Fisk declares his candidacy, we should have a few scenes where he discusses with Vanessa whether or not he should run for mayor himself, or he should arrange for a useful puppet of his to get elected into office (much like how he influenced politicians behind the scenes before his first arrest).
Season 2 then starts with Fisk's swearing in. Now he's in power, which means Matt and Karen (and Foggy once they learn he's still alive) have an even bigger uphill battle.
I also think it was a missed opportunity not to bring up the blip at all, and the way it played into things. It could have explained a lot about how he got out of prison, with the confusion of the system and records getting lost in the shuffle, etc. etc. It's weird that Marvel seems to be sort of distancing themselves from the blip storyline in recent years
As things were, we get that half-assed explanation by Vanessa during the flashback of her tasking Dex with taking out Foggy, where she talks about Fisk getting somehow acquitted (going off the Netflix show, this had to have involved jury tampering). Which isn't really a lot to work with, to be honest.
I also think it was a missed opportunity not to bring up the blip at all, and the way it played into things. It could have explained a lot about how he got out of prison, with the confusion of the system and records getting lost in the shuffle, etc. etc. It's weird that Marvel seems to be sort of distancing themselves from the blip storyline in recent years
The Blip's this double-edged sword. Sure, in this context it'd be a useful storytelling device, much like Daredevil used the events of The Avengers to 1) explain the resurgence of crime in Hell's Kitchen and 2) some of Fisk's criminal schemes at the time. But at the same time, you can't deny that it'd also be a particularly depressing event to be including. WandaVision may have been able to flawlessly incorporate the Blip because it nicely fit the show being a story about grief (Wanda's grief over Vision's death, Monica's grief over her mother dying while she was dusted). But the Blip informing some of the events of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier wasn't done all that well. And of course there's the lightheartedness of Spider-Man: Far From Home that's kinda jarring considering it's happening while the world is only a few months removed from the reversal of a mass genocide. So I don't know how well Born Again could've made use of the Blip to inform the storytelling here regarding Fisk getting out of prison and all that.
One of Ireland's most treasured folk songs. ‘Down By The Salley Gardens' from Postcards From Ireland via YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JfPGlJ5v6g
New photo of Cooper Hoffman in Vancouver with his DURANGO co-star, Kathryn Newton and writer/executive producer, Eliza Clark.
The pilot just wrapped filming this week.
📸 @/elizaclarkw (IG story)
Lucy MacLean: "Oh, I'm sorry! I should've just let you use me as BAIT IN A POISONED RIVER?!?! 😠😠"
KATHRYN NEWTON as FAITH MACCAULLAY READY OR NOT 2: HERE I COME 2026, dir. Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett
A song that always brings a little light 💙 'Rainbow' from our 20th Anniversary Special. via YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IylMLbO_uf8
Title: “Your Song” (Elton John) Swing Cover by Robyn Adele Anderson Description: My favorite movie of all time is Moulin Rouge. I was in sixth grade when I first saw it and was instantly entranced by the intricate costumes, the La Bohème inspired love story, and the way modern songs were reimagined to fit the turn of the century setting. Little did I know that someday I’d be making my own Baz Luhrmann-esque covers for a living. I knew I couldn’t do Ewan McGregor and Nichole Kidman’s version justice (or Elton John’s for that matter!) and I didn’t want to mess with a good thing so I kept my version sweet and simple. Enjoy! ❤️ Pinup Print Shop, CDs, Vinyls, and more: https://ift.tt/uKPBQ6F For more videos, support me on Patreon! https://ift.tt/2HLpYIe Check out all my music on your favorite platform! https://ift.tt/MixEazt Subscribe to my YouTube channel! https://www.youtube.com/user/AdeleRobyn Find me on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter! https://ift.tt/oQDunER https://ift.tt/1ytM75F https://ift.tt/qBZV8bv https://twitter.com/robynadele The Band: Vocals — Robyn Adele Anderson Keys — Ben Covello Bass — Wallace Stelzer Drums — Tom Jorgensen Trombone — Jacob Melsha Trumpet — Michel Sarian - Arranged by Robyn Adele Anderson Mix and Master — Tom Jorgensen Audio — Amrish Mahabir Video – Max Arias Filmed at Smash Studios NYC “Your Song” (Elton John) Swing Cover by Robyn Adele Anderson All my videos are done live, using one take. YouTube URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPdZK9fEtao
Forgive me but can you outline how nazis infiltrated PC's organization 4 times?
(👉in ref to👈)
No problem, but it’s actually six times!
.
1. CATFA.
Peggy claims she's in charge of supervising all SSR operations.
(Nothing any man says or does, or anything in the sets, script, or costume design, supports this claim- and in fact a lot of what she and other characters do appears to directly contradict it- but anyway!)
Obviously shady saboteurs are loitering outside the Top Secret SSR lab in Brooklyn.
She fails to clock them.
The SSR has been infiltrated under her watch, and is sabotaged.
(This happens in more than one universe.)
Because she/Hayley Atwell is busy channelling Marlon Brando, groping and and/or keeping the inconveniently pretty nurses away from CEvans/Steve, she is not paying attention.
So she fails to stop the Nazi saboteur stealing serum, killing Dr. Erskine, detonating two bombs (including one on a crowded public street), and getting away (despite firing five shots at him, including when he was in the same room as her).
For this failure, she blames... Steve??
All this is incompetence.
If they had simply not said that she supervised all SSR ops, none of this would’ve been her responsibility, and thus her fault.
In fact, if she was, eg. just a secretary, it would’ve been both brave and going above and beyond duty, for her to follow the saboteur out of the Lab with someone else’s gun! (Someone else’s, because she has not been given one of her own. Important person, how?)
But they wanted to make her a Badass.
(By having... all of the men, including the superhuman one, somehow not be able to keep up with a woman in high-heeled shoes, for like minutes of screentime. The only way she looks good is if there's literally no one else there to make her look bad by comparison? 😬)
Instead they made her incompetent and a failure.
.
2. Agent Carter (a).
(set during the time period in which the main films and her own short tell us she had already co-founded SHIELDra, released and employed Zola. But anyway!)
In the first instance of them stealing Bucky’s war record for her, supposedly Great Spy Peggy leads the Howlies in a non-spy commando mission somehow despite not being a soldier.
So, she is in charge = is responsible for what decisions are made.
( Disclaimer: she was NOT shown being a commando or a soldier or a spy during the war, not in the film or script for CATFA.
There were NO armed female British combat troops, and if there were in the ‘verse of AC, then she should NOT be treated as if she’s the Only Woman in all of Europe who is Special Enough to be given a gun! (This is just more Not Like Other Girls nonsense!)
In CATFA she is explicitly shown and described in the script as doing a desk job, a job she asked for, a job she explicitly whines about having, in Allied-held locations (totally-useless locations for Allied spies to be stationed btw). She is told off and threatened with sacking for exceeding her remit and doing non-administrative things, she is told she is completely expendable, and she has an image of her face broadcast in a propaganda reel (again: not a soldier, not a spy)
She only appears in a battle once they’re taking everyone, even old men and scientists. But anyway!)
During the AC mission, she fails to clock that scientist Johann Fennhoff, the Soviet mind-control expert, is a bad guy who is pretending to be trustworthy.
She releases him from prison, and she alone recruits him for the SSR.
(Not Howard Stark. Not Col. Phillips. Not the Howlies. Not the other (male) SSR Agents. Not some nebulous unnamed higher-up politician man invoking Operation Paperclip. Her, Alone.)
Fennhoff gets up to a bunch of stuff in NYC, massacres 40+ innocent people (great job, Peggy!) and another SSR agent, and his mind-control thing is eventually uncovered.
At the end of his run, Zola is shown openly recruiting a muzzled Fennhoff, with tremendous ease, because Fennhoff is put into the same prison cell as him. 🤦♀️
This is implied to be the origin of the Winter Soldier mind-control program in which Zola tortured Bucky.
So Hydra’s Winter Soldier program, Bucky’s torture, was only possible because Peggy failed to clock a bad guy and committed the catastrophic idiocy of recruiting him into the SSR. Which she is shown having the authority and impetus to do, even before she is a Director.
This also makes her indirectly responsible for the mind-control enslavement of little girls in the Red Room (which she also knew about since the 1940s, as shown in both her show and in at least one other universe in What if). Because that tech was stolen from the Winter Soldier programme while it was stored in an American SHIELDra lab (the North Institute) in Ohio in 1995.
Incompetence again!
(And is she fired for her incompetence once again endangering her own colleagues and leading to the death of double-digits civilians and another SSR agent?
Pff! Of course not! Don't be silly, her daddy’s friends with a Senator!)
.
3. Agent Carter (b).
Peggy’s show also has (suddenly-giving-a-shit-about-feminism-once-she’s-being-criticised-for-things-she-actually-did) Peggy saying that her male colleagues can’t see what a great spy she is because she’s a woman...
While she has failed to notice that a Black Widow (y’know, an actually competent female spy) has moved into her apartment building.
And she continues to fail to notice her... right up until that spy is literally kissing her full on the mouth. 🤦♀️
If Hydra and the Red Room are intimately connected, as Fennhoff and the Black Widow movie imply, (and this Black Widow is shown working for Fennhoff), then this is a subset of Peggy yet again being incompetent when it comes to spotting Hydra operatives right under her nose.
And it gets worse...
Given her later behaviour, guess what Peggy does with this Hydra spy after she has found out that she is one?
That’s right!
She... uncuffs her (to show off how un-afraid She is... because that’s what really matters, right? Peggy looking good?), frees her, and collaborates on missions with her, which in one instance leads directly to the (at the time) only-named Jew in the entire MCU being rendered infertile via GSW (despite Peggy being impaled in the gut and just walking it off. But the lone Jew gets sterilised.) Because Peggy is knowingly walks into another villain’s trap, in pure hubris.
Both incompetence and deliberate collaboration.
.
4. CATWS.
Reveals she hired Zola in 1945 (less than six months after Steve sat in a pub, crying, saying he wanted all of Hydra dead or captured. Zola had already tried to kill Steve once at that point, had tortured members of the 107 to death, and tortured / 'killed' Bucky. But anyway!)
As a result of which, Hydra flourished throughout the 20th century.
She also oversaw Zola being literally immortalized and turned into an AI and kept in the Camp Lehigh bunker (her preferred haunt) which had her photograph on the wall, and with her office a mere elevator ride away (as shown in EG *ach-tw*)
Was she wandering around with her eyes closed and her fingers in her ears for decades singing LALALA?
Zola being hired was front page news, also. And he was even photographed. I know she hates paperwork, but is she too stupid to read or look at pictures?
Freeing a Nazi and then making them immortal (in multiple universes, mind you) is the precise opposite of ‘dead or captured’, like Steve and all decent people wanted.
Old Peggy knew Zola was alive, but even when she was having lucid episodes she didn't warn Steve on any of the occasions when he came to visit her.
When Steve voiced his completely-justified and understandable doubts about his current SHIELDra employers... she laughed at him, dismissed his doubts, said he was being ‘melodramatic’ and didn’t warn him, instead told him to move on.
'Don't think about SHIELDra being suspicious Steve! move on! it's not that deep!'
As a result of which, Zola was free to try and kill Steve personally again, for the second time, alongside Natasha and millions of other innocent people.
And she could've warned him, but didn't.
This isn't merely incompetence. She collaborates with Nazis and then endangers innocent people to cover up her own culpability.
This is directly endangering Steve and millions more.
(Not the first time! Interrupting the Valkyrie run at a crucial moment, to make him kiss her. A Nazi spy would've done the exact same thing.)
.
5. What If (a).
Zola exists as an AI in the universe Clint & Natasha are from (where Ultron won).
It is mentioned that the Camp Lehigh bunker version of him we saw in CATWS existed there (since the Soviet bunker version of him, which Nat and Clint get a hold of is, a copy of that first Zola. Further linking Zola and Fennhoff and Soviet Hydra from the live-action universe and AC.)
Which means Zola was also recruited by SHIELDra in that universe.
And if all those plot points are the same in that universe, it also means Peggy was co-founder of SHIELDra in that universe, and did the recruiting of Zola.
(As we’ve already seen; it’s her that does that. Not Stark, or Phillips, or any other AOS, or government official. Also, if Nat exists as a Black Widow then the Red Room also exists. And if that's the same then Peggy knowing about the Red Room for decades and doing nothing about it also happened. But the sycophants running the writing think Nat would want to be her 'bestie.')
So that’s three universes in which Peggy has willingly hired and collaborated with this specific Nazi, who tortured and killed soldiers of the 107, leading directly to Zola being immortalized, (in more than one way!) as a world-threatening A.I. and other people’s lives endangered.
(Which makes WI(b) doubly her fault).
Again: not an accident.
.
6. What If (b).
They come up with Plot Reasons why the heroes have to collaborate with Nazi Zola (to excuse collaborating with a Nazi) to stop Ultron.
Peggy is put in charge of the team (so, again, she’s responsible.)
She finds out Zola is alive and an AI.
They say she wasn't aware of that in this Captain Karter universe...
Because they time-jumped her over the period in which she, canonically, they are aware, was doing all this original heinous shit.
(‘She’s not a bad person! She didn’t do any of that evil in this universe!’ OK but she would though?? you already proved she literally would?? and she's literally working with the exact same guy she's claiming not to know about working with, in this episode?? And you also just admitted that the only reason she wouldn't do that again is if she physically could not? 'I didn't know we worked with leopards eating peoples faces!' says Woman currently working with leopard eating peoples faces, after working with leopards eating peoples faces in other universes. Dear writers, it's not giving what you think it's giving.)
To reiterate: this is specifically done to whitewash the fact that she was not only aware but also directly responsible for Zola’s employment happening in the main MCU universe AND the universe which this-Zola comes from.
What's fascinating about this is:
The circumstances in which she works with a Nazi -- on screen, in front of you -- are identical to the circumstances she described in her Agents of SHIELD cameo, under which she admitted she would consider working with a Nazi.
So she's following through on her own, admitted, pro-Nazi-collaborating stance.
(See below.)
So. She oversees the team working with Zola.
And guess what happens?
That's right! Surprise surprise! Zola immediately proves untrustworthy once he takes over Ultron's vibranium body, which Peggy helps him to do.
(It’s Clint’s arrow, and IIRC Nat stabs it into Ultron, but they can only do so because of Peggy’s help).
Deus ex Machina Sorcery Stuff has to happen and that entire universe sealed up just to prevent this from hurting trillions more people.
Incompetence again!
(Sidenote: This episode is of a piece with the recent rightwing Disney media, wherein Colonial-power characters and Nazis (not ever actually called Nazis) are either heroes or allies, but leftwing people -- especially black leftwing people -- are villains, and Nazi villains are only kept villains after they have been reconfigured as leftwing, or recast as black.
See: Nazi Cynthia Glass being given Peggy Carter’s name and future, as if she was really in Operation Paperclip, thereby implying (viz: propagandising) that Cynthia's originally-Fascistic traits are positive, and rewarding herself with superserum (like many other villains, and even another Nazi villainess who infiltrated Project Rebirth in the comics: Krieger Frau). Or villain Stormtroopers now reconfigured as black people in Star Wars. Grindelwald no longer wizard Hitler tyrant but now gay leftist revolutionary with the popular vote. BLM villain Killmonger opposing Heroic ‘Harmless’ Friendly neighbourhood CIA Agent Everett Ross, (who is only interfering in a resource-rich African country’s elections for their own good!) The now-POC socialist villain BLM Flagmashers of FATWS while our black Cap is allied with CIA Sharon, thinly-veiled-Nazi Zemo (no longer explicitly a Nazi except in every single characteristic but one. DOGWHISTLE) & Walker (who, like Peggy and Red Skull, also stole serum for himself!), while saving the lives of white government officials. The High Evolutionary with his eugenics obsession in GOTG3 now recast as a black man so that white supremacy is visually no longer linked to Nazi eugenics, etc. etc. Even though Zola is a Nazi, in this WI episode, Killmonger is implied to be equal in villainy? Alarm bells should be ringing! )
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+2 Bonus Times!
7. Ant-Man.
where smirking Hydra Baddie Mitchell Carson is head of Defense at SHIELDra when she is supposed to be Director (ie. in charge of hiring).
If you pay attention to the scene, like (almost all) Peggy scenes, the men simply ignore whatever she is saying. Therefore, what she says has absolutely no impact on the course of the conversation or the trajectory of the plot, and she could be cut from the scene entirely or replaced with a piece of furniture without anything changing.
(This what we mean when we say she fails the Sexy Lamp Test).
A charitable interpretation is that they're trying to imply it's only obliviousness and powerlessness against men which makes Nazis keep happening on her watch. That she simply can't clock a bad guy when they're right under her nose and that she would be ignored if she objected, anyway.
But again:
A) her own show bends over backwards to say that she does what she wants, regardless of men,
B) she knew Zola was a Nazi before she employed him
C) she alone definitely recruited him and the Nazis by her own admission.
(Howard and Mitchell Carson don’t seem to get along. Even more likely Mitchell was her hire.)
It’s nonsense to say she would be shocked and not happy to find out Carson is a Nazi when she has already given a job to Red Skull’s chief scientist and right hand man and he's acting just like a Nazi in front of her and she's not doing anything about it.
D) powerless pre-serum Steve clocked villains and punched their clocks, consequences be damned. ”The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” But Peggy isn’t a man, so it doesn’t apply to her?
E) Hank Pym finds out someone in his organisation is openly doing wrong, because they're Hydra, and what does he do? He confronts them, punches them, and leaves the organisation in protest.
Peggy finds out the exact same things about Carson in the same scene as Pym and yet she's happy to stay put.
Her own actions prove she wouldn't do right even if she knew wrong was happening in her organisation, under her auspices, even in the same room as her.
oh and:
F) in other universes where they bend over backwards to show that Peggy definitely is in charge... (What If s1) she still ends up working with Nazis!
It's incompetence, collusion, or cowardice, but not an accident.
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8. Agents of SHIELD.
Lying about her war-record and stealing Bucky’s again, despite her lack of any military rank, and despite CATFA movie and script clearly indicating that Peggy was in a bunker in London and only once on the frontlines (alongside old men and scientists; other non-coms)...
She is again shown leading the Howlies, to capture SS Officer Doctor Werner Reinhardt (AKA Daniel Whitehall).
Later, Peggy interviews Reinhardt in SHIELD prison.
This is still in 1945, and is consistent with AC show where she hires Johann Fennhoff even as a lowly SHIELD agent, not Director.
So... once again:
It was NOT Howard Stark, the science guy, doing Nazi scientist prisoner interviews.
NOT Col. Phillips, any other Agent of SHIELD, or any other government official!
It was Peggy, on her own.
This (and WI) contradict CATFA, where it was Col. Phillips who went to interview Zola.
They’re in such a radfem rush to give Peggy all the stuff to do, stealing deeds already shown being performed by male characters, that as usual they haven’t realised what it is they’re implying:
That it was definitely she alone who is in charge of dealing with Nazi prisoners who are later given jobs.
( Like in WhatIf episode 1, where she --- it’s hinted -- tortured Zola. Another attempt to steal from male characters to retcon her close relationship to Zola, which lasts... until the end of that season? 🙄 )
During her interview with Werner Reinhardt, Peggy is asked:
“So, curiosity brings her back. Have you come to make a deal?
I considered it. As you said, the skies might open up one day, your work would be valuable. But if that day comes, I know who I'd want by my side. It isn't you [...] Instead, we'll forget... forget you, forget your work. When I leave, no one else will come, no one to hear your stories, study your deadly artifacts. You'll be buried.”
The writers think they have created a scene proving that Peggy wouldn’t work with Nazis.
But, as usual, they fuck that up.
Because:
A) she admits that she alone listened to a Nazi’s arguments for why he should be employed, and thought they were important enough to memorise them.
B) she admits she did consider it.
(And we know that she’s lying when she claims she wouldn’t work with a Nazi or a villain, because by this point she already has; she already has employed Zola, and Fennhoff, and Dorothy Underwood. It's a moot point. It amounts to saying 'I wouldn't work with THAT Nazi... because I already have one.' And thinking that makes her Good.)
C) she describes a Nazi’s torture experiments and discoveries, not as reprehensible, but as “valuable.”
(Top of the list of ‘Things Steve Rogers Would Never Say.’)
This is textbook ends-justify-the-means speak, which honourable Steve showed he abhors when he objected to Hydra guns and Project Insight.
He and Peggy are not the same.
Peggy says she wouldn’t want to fight alongside Nazis? Not if her own neck was at risk?
D) Except ... as I said ... that’s exactly what she did do in What If; the skies did open, and she did openly fight alongside a Nazi.
This cameo has her, herself describe the exact circumstances in which she would work with a Nazi and then WhatIf shows her doing just that.
(Because the writers think the circumstances excuse that, just like the US did with Operation Paperclip).
Her other-universe selves betray her hypocrisy and lies, in both universes.
She can make all the pretty speeches she likes, but Peggy’s actions speak louder.
( And in What If they made all the true heroes work with Nazi Zola, too, to make it seem less egregious that she did.
(Multiple wrongs make a right?)
Yet none of those heroes had Steve crying over his best friend, having been murdered by that same Nazi, and saying that he wanted all Nazis dead or captured...
And, in that universe, neither did Peggy, because they also cut that scene out, to further whitewash her canon treachery and hypocrisy.
What really comes across is that it is Peggy’s pride moving her to claim that she wouldn’t work with Hydra.
She thinks she isn't the sort of person to do that, even when she's literally describing circumstances in which she would...
Even though she already did do that in her own show... and the films... and the other show... multiple times...
(Oh! And the Illuminati? Also not great! Comics Steve was kicked out for protesting them!)
She, the actress, and the writers, have an ironclad image of Peggy as an honourable decorous person, which appears to continue untouched by the exactly-contradictory facts of her history.
Ironically, Peggy claims that the Nazi scientist will be forgotten.
Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that her collaboration with Nazi scientists will be forgotten, by Her as it is in Disney.
(No points for guessing why; Disney would want people to forget or get over collaborations with Nazi scientists. They were happy to associate with Leni Riefenstahl (Hitler’s ‘perfect german woman’ whom Walt gave a personal studio tour), and Wernher Von Braun, pictured alongside Zola in CATWS, the guy who drew slave labour from Buchenwald concentration camp... who was also eulogised in Iron Man 3 to handwave another Stark’s arms-trafficking past. Disney were also happy to employ openly pro-Nazi voice-actors -- such as Christian Rub, the man who voiced Geppetto in Pinocchio -- and early animators had regular fisticuffs with antisemitic colleagues.)
The other reason that this Peggy scene with Reinhardt is so damning, and the writers clearly don’t realise:
Both characters’ dialogue makes it absolutely 100% clear that, at this time, it is Peggy’s decision whether a Nazi will be freed and employed.
(Meaning the decades after, when Nazis were employed? Her decision.)
When she arrived, Reinhardt didn’t ask if someone else, some higher-up man, some government official, had come to a decision about him; only Peggy, and she never mentioned anyone else’s opinion as having an impact.
What is true of this employed Nazi repeats the pattern of employment shown in the Agent Carter show and in other universes in What If: Peggy alone decides whether a Nazi is allowed on the team.
So when there is a Nazi on the team, it has been okayed by her.
And, by her own admission, after she leaves, ‘no one else will come.’
She appears to be under the impression that her word alone is definitive, when it comes to Nazis.
Yet, incompetence strikes again.
Because Reinhardt is later released from custody (just like Zola) the same year as her retirement, and allowed to continue his work torturing and experimenting on humans, with disastrous consequences for the main characters of the AOS show.
(So, Peggy was both incompetent to believe her word was final, and negligent not to have put in place any guarantees that this one specific Nazi could not be freed later, after she had retired.)
They again attempt to whitewash Peggy’s culpability for this by attributing this decision to Hydra Head / then-Undersecretary of the World Security Council, Alexander Pierce, not Precious Miss Miaow-Miaow, after her tenure.
But:
if Peggy had done what Steve wanted ( all Nazis dead or captured ) Hydra would never have re-grown.
There would never have been a Head of Hydra.
So no Nazi would ever have been in a position to release more Nazis.
Pierce’s power is a direct result of Peggy's delusional hypocrisy and knowing collusion.
This is also not an accident.
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9. *UPDATE* After What if season 2...
We are shown a universe where SHIELD is founded and run by some of the same people... (Hank Pym, Howard Stark, and Bucky) ...except for Peggy.
And in that universe, where Peggy is not in charge of SHIELD, there are no Nazis mentioned as being employed by SHIELD.
If her absence in SHIELD = absence of Nazis, what are we supposed to infer about her presence in SHIELD?
(No mention is made of Col. Phillips in this universe. So I think we can assume he wasn't part of SHIELD, either. But, of the three OG founders, he is the only one to specifically mention wanting to fuck up Nazis. To "personally escort Adolf Hitler to the gates of Hell." )
The other reason for the absence of Hydra is that Steve and Bucky hunted them all down. So that's what competent, moral people would've done in her situation.
We're also shown a moment where Peggy and Howard meet the Winter Soldier (whom Peggy refers to as an "it," not a human being) and both reveal that they knew The Winter Soldier was Bucky for decades and didn't do anything about it.
Like the Ant Man cameo this reiterates:
Peggy is the common denominator in Nazis being employed in SHIELD.
If Howard knows something it's likely Peggy knows it too. In the main timeline Howard not only recognised TWS as Bucky (a man he was never shown meeting!) 40+ years after Bucky is supposed to have died, when he's standing on a dark street, with long hair in his face, and while Howard was disorientated from a head wound, with blood in his eyes, and when TWS was sent without his identity-concealing mask on for the only time ever, while Howard has WS serum in his trunk that he could only have got from Bucky. AND! When he recognised Bucky, he didn't sound surprised. He knew. Ergo, Peggy knew.
mythbusted: the idea that Peggy and Stark can't have known about bad people in SHIELD because they would've done something about it if they had. Here again is the proof that Peggy wouldn't.
unlike heroic selfless Steve, Peggy is likely to ignore it if she sees "a situation pointed south". Just as likely as Howard Stark. As Peter Parker said in CACW: "when you can do the things that I can, but you don't, and then the bad things happen... they happen because of you." They even try to frame doing nothing as a noble act, when that is antithetical to this definition of heroism, and even her own show frames inaction as a lazy privilege.
Not only would they not do something about Bucky if they knew, they wouldn't even do something about him if it was another organisation, other than SHIELD doing it to him! (Which in this scenario it is.)
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Conclusion:
Every time Peggy (says she) is in charge, and Nazis are around, they end up either on her side with her blessing, directly aided in their endeavours by her, and/or getting away with whatever they want to do, when she’s supposed to be in charge of making sure they don't.
And when she isn't in charge of SHIELD... there are no Nazis employed there.
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A common defence of Peggy I see is that she’s ‘just’ one of three founders and that, even though they never show it, she could have objected to Zola’s employment, etc. etc.
But this is a pedestal fallacy, because:
A) If it isn't shown they don't get to claim it happened. That's not how writing works.
B) multiple TV shows have her unwittingly revealing that she wouldn’t object to working with Nazis because she admits she would and then does work with Nazis, as she does in the films (More on this below...)
C) multiple TV shows also make it explicit that it’s her decision alone to employ Nazis, before other characters became involved with that decision-making.
D) she is also shown being friendly with Howard Stark (in a way which allows her to shatter a glass ceiling that would otherwise limit her power as a woman) during the period in which he is friends with Arnim Zola and has given Zola the nickname ‘Arnie’ and Zola's computer/brain is shown under her office. She cannot be friends with a known Nazi’s friend, when that Nazi is almost literally right underneath her nose, and not do anything about that, and still somehow be a good, competent person.
E) so she’s a girlboss right up until she’s supposed to take responsibility for the things she’s responsible for?
This isn't strong feminist writing of a character, it's benign misogyny and peak white feminism.
Either she’s important and responsible, or she’s not important, and is therefore a delusional egotist, for believing she is and claiming otherwise (which is at least more interesting).
In turning her into a white feminist/2nd wave feminism's self-insert Mary Sue, the center of the universe- nay, of all universes!! -What If s2 has shown that the writers at least believe she is important.
Which means she is responsible.
Not a hapless helpless bimbo.
And if she were a nobody, she's still a coward for not doing the right thing despite being the underdog -- the way Steve would (or even Hank Pym would!)
Because:
F) being institutionally powerless does not excuse collaborating with Nazis.
Steve was powerless, and he was willing to fight Nazis despite experiencing both considerable societal pushback and physical weakness, both before and after serum.
If Peggy is supposed to have been an anti-Nazi spy as a woman during WWII she doesn’t get to suddenly play the girl-card as an excuse for doing nothing about Nazis post-WWII.
She can punch a US private for questioning her authority, but she can’t punch Nazis?
If a random computer nerd in CATWS can refuse to launch Nazi helicarriers, even with a literal gun to his head, if a mere scientist like Hank Pym can punch a Nazi and leave the organisation in protest, there is absolutely no excuse for Peggy.
She is not exonerated of blame just because she’s a Girl.
Shotgun sisterhood.
Kate O'Flynn as Patricia
“Your Baggage” | Widow’s Bay 1x08
