REVIEW -- Marvel's Agent Carter (TV Series) - Season One

Marvel's Agent Carter, or simply Agent Carter, is an American television series created for ABC by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, inspired by the films Captain America: The First Avenger and Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and the Marvel One-Shot short film of the same name. It is set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), sharing continuity with the films of the franchise.

The series was officially ordered on May 8, 2014, and the first season aired from January 6 to February 24, 2015, during the season two mid-season break of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Despite steadily dropping ratings, critical response to Agent Carter was positive, with much praise going to Atwell's performance, the series' tone and setting, and its relative separation from the rest of the MCU.

Cast:

Main

Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter
James D'Arcy as Edwin Jarvis
Chad Michael Murray as Jack Thompson
Enver Gjokaj as Daniel Sousa
Shea Whigham as Roger Dooley

Recurring

Kyle Bornheimer as Ray Krzeminski
Ralph Brown as Johann Fennhoff
Dominic Cooper as Howard Stark
Meagen Fay as Miriam Fry
Lyndsy Fonseca as Angie Martinelli
Bridget Regan as Dottie Underwood

Guests

Lesley Boone as Rose
Alexander Carroll as Yauch
Kevin Cotteleer as Alex Doobin
James Frain as Leet Brannis
Ralph Garman as the radio announcer
James Landry Hébert as Sasha Demidov
Toby Jones as Arnim Zola
James Austin Kerr as Jonathan "Junior" Juniper
Neal McDonough as Timothy "Dum Dum" Dugan
Devin Ratray as Sheldon McFee
Walker Roach as the "Captain America" radio actor.
Leonard Roberts as Samuel "Happy Sam" Sawyer
Benita Robledo as Carol
Costa Ronin as Anton Vanko
Richard Short as Percival "Pinky" Pinkerton
Erin Torpey as the "Betty Carver" radio actress
James Urbaniak as Miles Van Ert
Ray Wise as Hugh Jones

Stan Lee cameos in "The Blitzkrieg Button" as a shoeshiner patron, while John Glover cameos in "The Iron Ceiling" as a journalist and friend of Dooley. Chris Evans appears in "Now is Not the End" as Steve Rogers / Captain America via archive footage from Captain America: The First Avenger.

Premise: 

In 1946, Peggy Carter must balance the routine office work she does for the Strategic Scientific Reserve (S.S.R) while secretly assisting Howard Stark, who finds himself framed for supplying deadly weapons to the top bidder. Carter is assisted by Stark's butler, Edwin Jarvis, to find those responsible and dispose of the weapons.

Episode List:

Episode 1 - "Now Is Not The End"

In 1946, Peggy Carter, mourning the apparent death of Steve Rogers, returns to work for the Strategic Scientific Reserve in New York City following the end of World War II. The S.S.R. investigates industrialist Howard Stark for apparently selling weapons to enemies of the United States. Stark secretly reaches out to Carter, and asks her to help him clear his name. Before he leaves the country, he tells her about his formula for molecular nitramene that is going to be sold at a club. Infiltrating the club in disguise, Carter learns that the formula has been weaponized. She shows one such nitramene bomb to Stark Industries scientist Anton Vanko, who deduces that it came from a Roxxon Oil refinery. Carter, along with Stark's butler Edwin Jarvis, investigates the refinery, and encounters Leet Brannis, who apparently works for an organization called Leviathan, and escapes with a truck full of the nitramene weapons. Before leaving, Brannis drops a nitramine bomb, and as Carter and Jarvis escape, it destroys the entire building.

Episode 2 - "Bridge and Tunnel"

Carter goes undercover again to search for the truck with the weapons, and finds the address of the truck's official driver. The S.S.R. agents interrogate Miles Van Ert, the Roxxon scientist who made the weapons, and learn of the address as well. Carter and Jarvis arrive at the house first, and find Brannis, who they force to go with them. The three are attacked by Sasha Demidov, who works for Leviathan, an organization that it now seems Brannis has betrayed. Carter fights Demidov, but he still manages to mortally wound Brannis. Jumping to safety with Carter and Brannis, Jarvis forces the truck to careen off a cliff with Demidov, and the weapons inside implode. Before he dies, Brannis draws a symbol in the dirt. S.S.R. agents Dooley, Thompson, and Sousa later arrive to find Brannis's body, a woman's footprints, and a hotel key (belonging to Demidov). Meanwhile, Agent Krzemenski, sifting through the remains of the Roxxon refinery, finds the license plate for Stark's car that Jarvis and Carter used to get away.

Episode 3 - "Time and Tide"

Dooley and Agent Krzeminski investigate Demidov's hotel room, and discover a typewriter. Thompson and Sousa take Jarvis in for interrogation, and the former threatens him with revealing an old treason charge to the immigration office. Carter, feigning ignorance, botches the interrogation to get Jarvis out, and receives a stern reprimand from Dooley. Carter and Jarvis then follow the sewer system below Stark's vault, through which Brannis took the stolen technology, to the docks, where they find the weapons on board The Heartbreak (a ship bearing Brannis' symbol). Jarvis anonymously gives the S.S.R. their location, while Carter fights off a guard who had been working with Brannis. Carter and Jarvis are forced to leave him behind as the S.S.R. arrives. While being transported back to S.S.R. headquarters by Krzeminski, the guard is about to identify Carter as the woman interfering with the Stark investigation, when an unidentified assassin kills them both.

Episode 4 - "The Blitzkrieg Button"

After learning that Brannis and Demidov were supposed to have died during the Battle of Finow, Dooley travels to Germany to speak with the Nazi colonel who lead the opposing forces, and though he doesn't learn how Brannis and Demidov survived, Dooley does discover that their Soviet forces were seemingly massacred before the Nazis even arrived. With Carter's only job to collect lunch orders, she meets up with Stark, who has secretly returned in the wake of his technology's discovery. Looking at photographs Carter takes of the weapons, he identifies one of them as the Blitzkrieg Button, which he claims can cause a permanent blackout throughout the city. However, a suspicious Carter opens the device to find a vial of Rogers' blood. Angry at Stark for lying to her, she hides the vial. The criminal who smuggled Stark into New York, but was scammed out of his money by Carter and Jarvis, follows Carter back to her apartment, but he is killed by her new neighbor, Dottie Underwood.

Episode 5 - "The Iron Ceiling"

Carter decrypts an encoded message, received from Leviathan through Demidov's typewriter, for the S.S.R., learning that Stark will be selling weapons to Leviathan at a Soviet military complex. Thompson is sent to stop the sale and apprehend Stark, and is forced to take Carter when she enlists the help of her war comrades, the Howling Commandos. They discover that young girls are trained at the complex to infiltrate the US as sleeper agents, and realize that they have walked into a trap when one girl kills the Commando Junior Juniper. Soviet soldiers attack the team and Thompson freezes under fire, but Carter ensures that they escape, along with imprisoned psychiatrist Dr. Ivchenko. Meanwhile, Underwood, who is actually a sleeper agent trained at that complex, discovers the photos of Stark’s weapons in S.S.R. custody when searching Carter’s apartment, while Sousa realizes that Carter is the woman who has been interfering with the S.S.R.’s investigation.

Episode 6 - "A Sin to Err"

Carter and Jarvis investigate the women that Stark has been involved with over the last six months, believing that a female Leviathan operative may have been used against Stark and to kill Krzeminski, but their search is unsuccessful. Sousa reveals to Dooley that Carter is an apparent traitor, and all agents are tasked with tracking her down. They eventually corner her and Jarvis, but Carter fights them off. During the commotion, Dr. Ivchenko, who is actually working for Leviathan, hypnotizes Agent Yauch, who reveals that only Dooley can access Stark's weapons. Yauch shows Ivchenko how to get out of the S.S.R., before Ivchenko forces him to commit suicide. Carter retrieves Rogers' blood from her apartment. As she tries to escape the building, she is knocked out by Dottie Underwood, but not before realizing that Underwood is the Leviathan operative. Underwood is about to kill Carter when Thompson and Sousa arrive. She feigns ignorance, and the agents arrest Carter.

Episode 7 - "Snafu"

As Carter is resisting interrogation at the S.S.R., Jarvis appears with a fake signed confession from Stark, promising surrender if Carter is released. Carter sees Ivchenko communicating in Morse code with Underwood, and reveals the truth about her own investigation to her colleagues to gain their trust. Ivchenko hypnotizes Dooley and has him steal one of Stark's weapons from the S.S.R.'s labs: a gas cylinder that Underwood and Ivchenko activate in a crowded cinema before leaving and locking the door behind them. The agents find Dooley wearing a Stark experimental vest given to him by Ivchenko, which Jarvis explains will explode with no way to deactivate it. Dooley jumps out a window moments before the device detonates, killing him but saving the others. The gas in the cinema makes many in the audience become maniacal and attack each other violently, and when an usher arrives soon after, the entire audience is dead.

Episode 8 - "Valediction"

The S.S.R. discovers the gas cylinder in the cinema and realize that Ivchenko possibly plans to turn all of New York on itself. Stark returns and explains that he had developed the gas, named Midnight Oil, to give American soldiers extra stamina during war, but it caused psychosis and lead to them killing each other. During World War II, the American military stole Midnight Oil and used it on the Soviets at Finow. Stark believes that Ivchenko – real name Johann Fennhoff – blames Stark for the ensuing massacre, and allows the S.S.R. to use him as bait to draw Leviathan out. This plan goes awry when Underwood distracts the agents while Fennhoff kidnaps Stark, and uses hypnosis to convince him to drop the gas on Times Square. At Stark’s secret plane hangar, Sousa apprehends Fennhoff while Carter defeats Underwood (who escapes) and convinces Stark not to drop the gas on the city. Carter later dumps Rogers' blood in the East River, finally moving on with her life, while Fennhoff is imprisoned with the scheming Arnim Zola.

The Verdict: 

I'm going to start off this review by addressing some of my readers and followers on social media who wouldn't give this show a fair chance because they only support Agents of SHIELD or want to disregard this show as non-important since it's not set in the present day Marvel Cinematic Universe. Agent Carter serves as a break between Agents of SHIELD's winter mid-season finale and also serves as gateway point to reflect on how SHIELD was established and how everyone (namely Peggy Carter) continue to live their lives in a world without Steve Rogers after the events of the original Captain America film. If you have been a fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe up to this point, it would benefit watching this mini-series. Agent Carter fills the gaps on some unanswered questions to this point in this continuity and opens the door to other tidbits that will make the pending future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe even more exciting to watch unfold.

Ties to the Marvel Cinematic Universe

The biggest note to take away from this mini-series is the introduction of the Red Room, the organization who were responsible for training Black Widow agents, including Natasha Romanov, along with the other powers at play within HYDRA's ranks in the wake of the Red Skull's disappearance. 

Episode 1 references Anton Vanko, who is the father of the same Vanko who becomes Whiplash and serves as Tony Stark's primary antagonist in Iron Man 2, along with a Justin Hammer. Roxxon Oil is a corporation that is referenced frequently in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In the comics, one of its subsidiaries are responsible for reverse-engineering the Deathlok (Michael Peterson) cyborgs.

Episode 2 references the Stark family mansion, which serves as the Avengers' home and base of operations in the comics continuity. Edwin Jarvis was their servant in the comics as well, but in this continuity of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Jarvis' human counterpart serves an inspiration to Tony Stark's computer AI assistant. 

Episode 5 references the Howling Commandos as they continue to fight for justice even after the war was won out of respect to Captain America's memory. The Red Room is hinted at in this episode as the ones responsible for training Dottie Underwood as a Black Widow. Dr. Faustus (Johann Fennhoff) makes his first appearance in this episode as Dr. Ivchenko. 

These references aren't just limited to these episodes but scattered throughout this mini-series from start to finish of this season.

Weighing In

Haley Atwell as Peggy Carter was one of the only things that I adored about Captain America: The First Avenger and it was a joy to see her back to reprise the role of Peggy Carter again in her own opportunity to shine on her own. Much like Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, this was another risky gamble that managed to pay off for Marvel Studios.

I loved that retrospective aspect to the cinematography in this series. It wasn't nothing over the top nor futuristic. As a fan of film noir and this time period in general in cinema, I could personally watch this stuff all day. Sadly, we're limited to a eight-episode mini-series with this premiere season. James D'Arcy (Jarvis) and Atwell play off each other flawlessly throughout the course of this series; it's a match in cinematic heaven. Atwell's natural charm is reflected throughout Peggy Carter's character, making her captivating to watch. To see a woman shine as a star in this time period makes her an Avenger in her own right in this series, despite the lack of a fancy costume and super powers in this male-dominated world.

Isn't it ironic that it wasn't Scarlett Johannsen (Black Widow), Ming-Na (Melinda May), nor Chloe Bennett (Sky/Daisy Johnson) who got their own spin-off series, but it was Haley Atwell as Peggy Carter to serve as the first female of the Marvel Cinematic Universe to stand on her own with a spin-off. Despite my doubts, Marvel's gamble paid off. Why not cover the founding lady of the SHIELD organization? Agent Carter's personality and character was something that was merely glossed over in Captain America: The First Avenger, so it benefited to give her a chance to have her story (along with SHIELD's origins) to be explored further here. SHIELD needs to acknowledge their past for the past mistakes won't be repeated in the present as the organization is restructuring and rebuilding itself currently in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The series is on a grounded level, much like its counterpart, Agents of SHIELD, proving that you don't need superpowers to be a hero, especially for a woman. Once again, Marvel hits an unique milestone for this series and for their universe as a whole in this time period by showcasing that a woman can survive and dominate in this male-driven environment without being half-naked nor overly sexuallized. It was brilliant and clever writing for this series to have Carter use her "disadvantages" of being a woman in this era to be her greatest asset throughout this series, which allowed her to topple her male adversaries time and time again. In a lot of ways, Carter is a soldier comparable to Steve Rogers/Captain America. When you take the superpowers out of the equation, she is sometimes on par or even better than him with her battle prowess and resourcefulness.

Speaking of combat, the fight choreography in Agent Carter is top notch and a welcome improvement over Agents of SHIELD's normal fight sequences. Someone need to write a memo to Marvel and tell them to get these guys doing fight choreography for Agents of SHIELD regularly for the episodes following the winter break. The fights aren't over-the-top, yet they are believable for a woman in this era's build, given her experience. Bridget Regan (Dottie Underwood) got to fulfill some geek fandom as she was a fan favorite choice to play the role of Wonder Woman for DC Comics. Seeing her kick-ass as an early Black Widow had to be one hell of a consolation prize, right?

Favorite Episodes

Episode 4 - Blitzkrieg Button

Why? This episode serves as Carter's first moment of weakness as her iron walls of emotion came crashing down at the revelation of Steve Rogers' blood in the vial that Howard Stark asked her to retrieve for him. Carter is normally depicted as a strong-willed woman, so it's compelling to see her breakdown here.

Episode 5 - The Iron Ceiling

Why? The Howling Commandos. 'Nuff said. Plus, we learn more about the sleeper agents who are trained to become Black Widows by the Red Room. Not to mention that Carter is an absolute bad-ass among her peers once she steps onto the battlefield on this episode.

Episode 7 - Snafu

Why? We see the extent of Ivchenko's hypnosis at play as Dooley is forced to be his unwilling pawn. Before his noble sacrifice to save his colleagues, Dooley forces Carter to promise to bring Ivchenko to justice. Dottie Underwood aligns herself with Ivchenko as they test out one of Stark's experimental weapons in a cinema. It's ironic that the gas works similar to The Joker and/or Scarecrow's gas from Batman: The Animated Series, causing mass hysteria to the populace - resulting in the people violently lashing out and attacking each other.

Episode 8 - Valediction

Why? Howard Stark AND Peggy Carter come to grips with Steve Rogers' "demise". This episode serves as another emotional roller coaster for Carter, finally coming to grips with saying goodbye to Rogers and having to move on with her life. This episode also serves as the climatic finale between Carter's rivalry with Dottie Underwood.

Closing Thoughts

"Crikey O'Reilly!"

For those skeptical on this venture for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, give this mini-series a shot, even if Agents of SHIELD isn't your cup of tea. You can easily watch this without any prior Marvel Cinematic Universe knowledge and exposure.

From beginning to end, Agent Carter has a variety of lovable characters - Peggy Carter, Edwin Jarvis, Howard Stark, Angie Martinelli, Dottie Underwood, etc. There's something for everyone here.

I'm glad to see that Marvel Studios continue the high standard of fight choreography that they definitely raised the bar with after Captain America: The Winter Soldier. I'll say this now for those wondering, but Marvel definitely continues this trend in the Netflix-exclusive TV series, Daredevil.

I love how Carter and Angie's friendship is left open, along with just about everything else in this corner of the MCU so that if Marvel wants to revisit this era again, they can pick up where they left off.

Watch It or Don't Bother?

Definitely watch Agent Carter. Haley Atwell's Peggy Carter serves as the first woman in MCU to stand on her own in her own solo series in a narrative that isn't quite like anything else to date in Marvel Cinematic Universe. For those of you looking for a bit more drama and a faster paced spy-fiction than the slow, grueling pace of Agents of SHIELD, then you get your wish in this compact mini-series. For those of you looking for that Whedonesque charm that was reminiscent with Buffy the Vampire Slayer that paved the way for female heroines kicking ass and taking names on television, you can't go wrong with Agent Carter.

If you need anyone else's opinion on the series, take it from Peggy Carter herself:

“I know my value. Anyone else’s opinion doesn’t really matter.”
—  Peggy Carter