How Agent Carter Lost Its Step (and How To Get It Back)

[TMC]

http://screenrant.com/agent-carter-season-2-review/

Agent Carter‘s first season, was quite possibly the purest distillation of that other side to Marvel’s successful formula. While technically based on a supporting character from the Captain America comics (the original WWII era ones,) Peggy Carter is otherwise as conjured wholecloth from the film division as Phil Coulson; she exists as a fixture in the pop-culture imagination almost solely on the basis of Hayley Atwell’s considerable charisma and the quirk of fate that unlike other fan-favorite supporting players (Pepper Potts, Ant-Man‘s extended family), she couldn’t simply be carried over into Captain America’s future outings – meaning that Marvel would have to make something special just for her in order to make use of the asset. Giving her a TV show? It was the most sensible call the studio could’ve made.

Peggy Carter faced a more literal version of this, with her wartime heroism being deliberately obscured and her undermining of male authority figures being more about thwarting a terrorist act; yet the allegory allowed for an intriguing tour of “lost era” history in terms of sexual politics (Peggy hides out at a women’s-only hotel that offers welcome protection for single women – but only if they stay “virtuous”) and gave the MCU another great villain in Bridget Reagan’s unhinged Soviet assassin Dottie Underhill, a.k.a. the pre-Black Widow Black Widow. It also knew how to milk a great ensemble cast, even while being explicitly a star vehicle for Atwell.

So it was sort of discouraging to realize, midway through Season 2, that it just wasn’t working. Not in the sense that Season 2 is bad television – it’s really not, especially considering what usually passes for programming meant to “fill in” during another series midseason break – but it was a definite come-down after how unique and interesting Season 1 ended up being. Maybe that’s mainly the expected effect of getting a good show that you have no idea what to expect from versus a follow-up season where expectations are all you have, but it was consistently disappointing (not everyone agrees, obviously) to continue tuning in to Agent Carter: Season 2 and being left mainly with a feeling of “that’s it?” Now, having come to the end of the season, it feels very much like a decent effort but largely a missed opportunity – though not one that can’t be recovered from.

[king of comedy]

I gave up on Agent Carter. It started to stunk in the second season.