I am about to admit something that will probably make you
think less of me. I…am not always
offended by a predictable plot twist.
Please don’t take that to mean I’m gullible or feeble
minded. I often can see the plot
twist coming – I just don’t mind it.
Maybe it makes me feel like a genius because I figured it out before the
big reveal. Maybe it makes me feel better about the stories I’ve contrived in
my own head. Or maybe, even when I know what’s coming, I’m able to just sit
back and be entertained.
I’d like to think it’s the latter. I grew up in a family
that really enjoyed movies. Money was
tight, so we didn’t often get to see movies in the theater. Most of our viewings
took place at home, in our living room, with generic sodas poured out of 2-liter
bottles into Tupperware glasses and popcorn served out of salvaged margarine
containers.
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| My Mom was repurposing long before we all did it out of guilt. |
Dad would often not tell us the name of the show that was
about to start. He preferred to watch
our faces and grin widely as we each discovered the night’s entertainment on
our own. Movies were an experience. They
were special. So, even if one of them hadn’t previously been of interest to me,
it was hard not to be drawn into the excitement of it all. I learned to excuse things like
predictability and campy performances because I was too busy just having fun.
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| Admit it - your heart beat just a bit faster when you saw this. |
I think I’ve carried that into my adulthood. When selecting movies or TV shows, I tend to
ignore reviews and ratings and just go with what entertains me - which is how I
became a fan of Marvel’s Agent Carter – a show about SSR agent Peggy Carter set
in the 1940’s. Peggy is struggling with
the assumed death of her love, Steve Rogers (Captain America) as well as the
difficulty of asserting herself in a field dominated by egocentric men
who continually underestimate her abilities and validity. She finds herself
undermining the agency to get them off the trail of an innocent associate,
Howard Stark.
Even though the show wasn’t really getting as much traction in the ratings as hoped, I absolutely loved to tune in each week just to watch such a fun, strong, female character kick the crap out of everything that got in her way.
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| Gentlemen, I'll make this brief. |
I sincerely looked forward to it. So when they introduced Dottie Underwood in episode 3, I didn’t really care that her over-the-top chumminess and southern accent told me right away she would turn out to be Peggy’s foe. And in that same episode, when a concealed character drove up behind an SSR agent with a suspect in custody and murdered them both in the street, I was actually excited to turn to my husband without hesitation and say, “It was Dottie.” The sudden body count paired with the addition of a new, suspicious character added up in my head. I also couldn’t think of any other existing characters the writers could afford to tarnish in that way, not without completely upsetting viewers and digging up roots that had already been planted.
If the ease with which I had figured out Dottie’s actual purpose
had offended me, I probably would have been taking myself and the show a bit
too seriously. I may be fully capable of
picking story lines apart until there’s nothing left to enjoy, but why? I’m much more content to channel that
wide-eyed kid my Dad loved to surprise instead.
Sure, I had a pretty good idea how things were going to end,
but I still wanted to watch it play out.
And I’m glad I did, because I would have completely missed out on
learning how to efficiently disarm an intruder in my home.
And I would have never figured out the fastest way to travel down several flights of stairs.
And I would have kicked myself for passing up the opportunity to see Peggy toss Dottie out a window! (I'm pretty sure every woman has fantasized about doing this to another woman at some point in her life. If not, she just hasn't met the right woman yet.)
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