Posted in General

Peggy Carter was my favorite love interest in the Marvel films. She didn’t feel shoe-horned in like Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster or eclipse the hero like Gwyneth Paltrow’s Pepper Potts (to be fair, I really liked Potts until Iron Man 3: Pepper Power came out). Carter was awesome: a good shot and a tenacious soldier, she saved the captain’s bacon a couple of times without ever calling for help. If anything, the Carter was the only real pang of loss we felt watching the Captain plunge into the ice. Somebody at Marvel recognized this, and so we got a compromise: the Peggy Carter show. It’s good, and here’s why:

The Cast

Scoring Hayley Atwell is a coup for a TV program. She’s a damn good actor who does an impeccable American accent, she has sharp comedic timing, and yes, she happens to be stunning. Yes, part of the appeal of Agent Carter is watching a beautiful woman dress up in fun costumes, but that didn’t keep us from watching Alias. Other cast members include Lyndsy Fonseca (Kick-Ass) as a friendly waitress, tragically underused Enver Gjokaj as Carter’s co-worker, and James D’arcy (Cloud Atlas) as Edwin Jarvis, butler and sidekick to Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper). Really, the whole cast is spot-on in their casting and performances.

A Limited Run

I’m happy to watch a mini-season of the show, rather than a “full” 20-something episode run. If the writers only have ideas for an 8 episode arc, I’d rather see only 8 episodes over fluff. One of the things that really hurt American television is the creation of filler episodes to pad a network’s schedule. I’m happy to see the trend slowly dying.

Tone and Scale

Agent Carter can’t avoid obvious comparisons to Agents of Shield, and it shouldn’t. The two programs are virtually companion pieces to one another. Where Agents of Shield failed by giving us a ’90s TV tone and straining their budget with an overblown scale, Agent Carter succeeds. Peggy Carter is not an Avenger. She’s not even qualified to be an Avenger, and the show makes that clear. She’s a tough lady, but her action scenes thus far are intimate, close-quarters fistfights that create more tension and excitement than the Whedons’ attempts to make Ming-Na-Wen out-Widow Scarlett Johansson.

There’s something more palpably evil about the bad guys in Agent Carter than there is in most of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The man in the green suit is one of their least powerful villains to date. Carter can take him in fistfight and the only special ability he’s displayed (thus far) is his ability to fall from heights without taking harm. Yet he kills so casually. He murders the unarmed and unthreatening because he (and his bosses) find it easier than letting loose ends dangle. There’s no silly taking of hostages or brainwashing, just killing. Something about that character is totally believable and much creepier.

The Past…

I don’t know how accurate the show is to 1940s New York, and to be honest, I don’t really care. I certainly don’t intend to get caught up in anachronisms on a fantasy show. It feels real to me. The costumes, props, and vernacular all feel like they belong in post-WWII 1940s America. Even the colors and cinematography have a dreamy, old Hollywood feel about them. The result is pretty fun.

It’s also pretty sexist. Alongside the forces of evil, Carter finds herself battling the forces of sexism and workplace harassment. She works with veterans at the SSR that don’t begin to take her own service record seriously, and seem to resent the presence of a woman in their midst while relegating her to paperwork and beverages. They based this on a real phenomenon: when GI Joe came back from WWII he wanted his job back, and Rosie the Riveter wasn’t always sure she wanted to give it up. In this case, Carter’s situation feels more representative of the time period than it does true to the characters. But, overall, it doesn’t hurt the quality of the show.

…And the Future

So, where do we think the show will go? We’re not entirely sure. The cool thing about these offshoot projects is that Marvel is sailing unfamiliar waters, and they can do almost anything they wish with these characters. Carter will survive, get married, and end up seeing Steve again. We know that. But quite a bit could happen along the way. She doesn’t have to save the day, she doesn’t have to set up a franchise, so we could see this go to some cool places. I have some predictions: