I thought Season 1 of Agent Carter was really drinky, but Season 2 was over the top. The combination of more scenes with Howard Stark (and he’s always drinking — yet rarely drunk), so many bar scenes — the Dunbar Hotel which was swimming in drinks, Chadwick’s fundraising event where everyone had a drink in their hand and multiple scenes at the Arena Club. The story here is that powerful people drink a lot, the good guys and the bad guys. The only character who was more moderate was the super-villain of the season Whitney Frost/Madame Masque, who really only celebrated once.
I think this show was partaking in the Mad Men thing, where late 40s early 50s Americans were constantly drinking alcohol. I expect that’s somewhat true…it’s something we’ve seen in our “Monster In A Glass” podcast, but I do not expect to see particle physicists drinking bottles of scotch while engaged in quantum computations whose success is imperative to avoiding massive, imminent destruction.
I did notice that as the season wore on, the overall cases and environments with drinking slowed a bit to the point where really only the mob boss Joseph Manfredi was still indulging and that all seemed sensible. Unfortunately, this is the last season of Agent Carter (with so many loose ends untied) and I hope to see in future films and TV series any references to this show to link the MCU. Additionally, I know the reputation of Tony Stark in Iron Man…I expect the booze tally to be insane…but I’m really more interested in seeing the consumption levels in other TV series like Agents of SHIELD…how is booze represented? do they tie one on as much as the SSR agents? is it only the thugs and villains who drink? It’ll be interesting to see the interpretation of those agents in this current era. But first there are some set up films and shorts to watch.
