Saturday 14 March 2015

Agent Carter: The Iron Ceiling

"He may be an utter wanker but he is one of us."

Nice title; alluding to the glass ceiling that pretty much defines the show, but also a nod to the presence of a Stark. Nice episode, too, giving us a potted history of Peggy's new, mysterious neighbour who, it seems, is a Soviet agent with a past all bound up with Stalinist darkness; her continuing habit of chaining herself to the bedpost is nicely symbolic.

Howard Stark is still not Peggy's favourite person, but Jarvis manages to mollify her somewhat; Stark may be a git, but he's a good git. And there is still tension in relations between the series' two biggest protagonists.

The glass ceiling is exemplified, rather blatantly, by Peggy's brilliant code-breaking work not getting her anything in this man's world. And yet, when she ultimately gets her way and gets sent on a mission, Dum Dum and the other Howling Commandos, old war comrades of hers, treat her with both an affection and a respect that her colleagues will never show. Only in the heat of war can a woman like Peggy show what she's made of. It's 1946. Feminism is a generation away. But at least this time with her real friends help her to decide how she really feels about Stark. 

We end with Peggy's star on the relative rise, but Daniel is suspicious. By this point the series is beginning to feel a little too slow-paced, but the characterisation. And spectacle continues to impress.

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