Her name was Lola...
For the December talking meme, 
emmzzi asked me to talk about Lola today. (Happy birthday!)
Which prompted a brief discussion about which Lola she meant. Showgirl? Coulson's car? Another Lola I'm unaware of?
Well, Coulson's car is a big of a showgirl, so that does work out rather nicely ;-)
The level of fandom excitement when we all realised that Coulson's car was a flying car can't be expressed. Really, it was already enough that Coulson had a beautiful red car that he was ridiculously protective of. That it flew? Yeah, that was nice.
(To the three people out there in fandom land who complained about how unrealistic a flying car is...you can accept a Helicarrier, a guy who doubles in size and turns green, Asgardian gods, and super soldier serum, but it's the flying car where you draw the line? Really?)
Anyway, Coulson's car. Lola. She's hot red, and she flies. I love her.
The part that made me really happy is what it says about Coulson. On the surface he's the buttoned up G-man, the spy, the guy who can go undercover as an accountant and nobody would question it. He's not the flashy guy with a girl on each arm, who doesn't look entirely convincing in most of his undercover roles. Coulson blends into the background. That's the guy we see for the first time in Iron Man: a non-descript, quietly efficient agent man.
As the films went on, we got to see a little more of the personality underneath that unassuming agent facade. We got to see that he's a Cap fan, and he cares for his people, and that there's a whole person underneath the suits. A person with quirks and collecting habits and moments of steely determination.
And then Agents of SHIELD premiered, and we got to see Lola. For me, that car is one of the biggest hints we're given that "quietly unassuming agent guy" is yet another of Coulson's cover identities. He collects all the cool spy gadgets - witness the gadgets in his office on the Bus and his excitement and detailed knowledge of the old spy tech Trip brought - and Lola is the biggest item in his collection. My headcanon is that she's an iteration further on of the flying car we briefly glimpsed Howard Stark developing in the first Captain America.
Lola is the ultimate spy gadget. She's the flashy, cool *thing* that Coulson probably saved for a long time to buy.
(She also hints to me that SHIELD agents are pretty well paid, because even if she'd needed restoration when he first bought her, something like that doesn't come cheap and he's got a pretty large collection of rare items.)
He's protective of her, which is a hint to me that he's done all the restoration and maintenance on her. Or it's been done with his constant supervision and involvement.
And yet, she's a working gadget. She's used on multiple ocassions through season one, including a daring rescue that could easily have destroyed her. I've wondered since whether that also tells us a lot about Coulson's relationship with Skye, that he was willing to do something so dangerous to Lola's continued well-being in order to rescue her.
Coulson collects things and cares about their history, but when necessary, he will use them in the field. He'll be unhappy about it (witness his little whimper when his one of a kind watch had to be destroyed), but he'll do it. And he seems to enjoy having the chance to show Lola off and put her through her paces, although presumably he'd rather not do the seriously dangerous stuff with her *that* often.
Lola is a prop that keeps on telling us things about Coulson, and now about Mack, too. There was a lovely moment in "What Lies Beneath" (I think) where Mack made a mini-Lola, because he's hoping it will show Coulson he can be trusted with Lola's maintenance. Mack identified that Lola is important to Coulson, maybe above all his other collectables, and he wants to prove that he's worthy of caring for her. I'm not sure how Mack feels about Coulson himself, but he loves that car and he knows that Coulson won't just let anyone work on her. For me, it read as Mack knowing that how he'd feel if he was Lola's owner and someone wanted to work on her. He knows that he needs to win Coulson's trust, and Lola would be the biggest sign out there that he's done it.
You know, when I started writing this, I wasn't sure I'd have much to say. It turns out that I have a lot of feelings about Lola, her role in the show, and what she tells us about different characters. How about that?
This entry was originally posted at http://selenay.dreamwidth.org/517989.html. There are currently
babbles on the entry on Dreamwidth. Leave comments at http://selenay.dreamwidth.org/517989.html?mode=reply
emmzzi asked me to talk about Lola today. (Happy birthday!)
Which prompted a brief discussion about which Lola she meant. Showgirl? Coulson's car? Another Lola I'm unaware of?
Well, Coulson's car is a big of a showgirl, so that does work out rather nicely ;-)
The level of fandom excitement when we all realised that Coulson's car was a flying car can't be expressed. Really, it was already enough that Coulson had a beautiful red car that he was ridiculously protective of. That it flew? Yeah, that was nice.
(To the three people out there in fandom land who complained about how unrealistic a flying car is...you can accept a Helicarrier, a guy who doubles in size and turns green, Asgardian gods, and super soldier serum, but it's the flying car where you draw the line? Really?)
Anyway, Coulson's car. Lola. She's hot red, and she flies. I love her.
The part that made me really happy is what it says about Coulson. On the surface he's the buttoned up G-man, the spy, the guy who can go undercover as an accountant and nobody would question it. He's not the flashy guy with a girl on each arm, who doesn't look entirely convincing in most of his undercover roles. Coulson blends into the background. That's the guy we see for the first time in Iron Man: a non-descript, quietly efficient agent man.
As the films went on, we got to see a little more of the personality underneath that unassuming agent facade. We got to see that he's a Cap fan, and he cares for his people, and that there's a whole person underneath the suits. A person with quirks and collecting habits and moments of steely determination.
And then Agents of SHIELD premiered, and we got to see Lola. For me, that car is one of the biggest hints we're given that "quietly unassuming agent guy" is yet another of Coulson's cover identities. He collects all the cool spy gadgets - witness the gadgets in his office on the Bus and his excitement and detailed knowledge of the old spy tech Trip brought - and Lola is the biggest item in his collection. My headcanon is that she's an iteration further on of the flying car we briefly glimpsed Howard Stark developing in the first Captain America.
Lola is the ultimate spy gadget. She's the flashy, cool *thing* that Coulson probably saved for a long time to buy.
(She also hints to me that SHIELD agents are pretty well paid, because even if she'd needed restoration when he first bought her, something like that doesn't come cheap and he's got a pretty large collection of rare items.)
He's protective of her, which is a hint to me that he's done all the restoration and maintenance on her. Or it's been done with his constant supervision and involvement.
And yet, she's a working gadget. She's used on multiple ocassions through season one, including a daring rescue that could easily have destroyed her. I've wondered since whether that also tells us a lot about Coulson's relationship with Skye, that he was willing to do something so dangerous to Lola's continued well-being in order to rescue her.
Coulson collects things and cares about their history, but when necessary, he will use them in the field. He'll be unhappy about it (witness his little whimper when his one of a kind watch had to be destroyed), but he'll do it. And he seems to enjoy having the chance to show Lola off and put her through her paces, although presumably he'd rather not do the seriously dangerous stuff with her *that* often.
Lola is a prop that keeps on telling us things about Coulson, and now about Mack, too. There was a lovely moment in "What Lies Beneath" (I think) where Mack made a mini-Lola, because he's hoping it will show Coulson he can be trusted with Lola's maintenance. Mack identified that Lola is important to Coulson, maybe above all his other collectables, and he wants to prove that he's worthy of caring for her. I'm not sure how Mack feels about Coulson himself, but he loves that car and he knows that Coulson won't just let anyone work on her. For me, it read as Mack knowing that how he'd feel if he was Lola's owner and someone wanted to work on her. He knows that he needs to win Coulson's trust, and Lola would be the biggest sign out there that he's done it.
You know, when I started writing this, I wasn't sure I'd have much to say. It turns out that I have a lot of feelings about Lola, her role in the show, and what she tells us about different characters. How about that?
This entry was originally posted at http://selenay.dreamwidth.org/517989.html. There are currently
babbles on the entry on Dreamwidth. Leave comments at http://selenay.dreamwidth.org/517989.html?mode=reply