Marvel's Agent Carter: The Life of the Party

"You look terrible."

"Says the woman with the rebar through her abdomen..."

Taking a chance to catch up with Agent Carter; bear with me. My wife has already seen this and I'm not around much at home on my own these days. I'll get it all done, trust me.

Anyway, we get an entertaining episode, if a but perfunctory, as a still injured Peggy is forced to rely on the decidedly dodgy Dottie in order to get a dark matter-infused tissue sample from Whitney Frost, which is rather urgently needed if Jason is to avoid losing physical form completely. It's a funny and eventful episode, just one whose function in the arc is perhaps just a little too obvious. You can see the joins a bit.

Ominously, Peggy's boss is informed by the powers that be that he's not simply to sack her but to utterly destroy and discredit her; none too nice times are ahead. And Whitney's speech towards the council goes unexpectedly- their attempt to kidnap and use her utterly fails and she takes over, killing those who stand in her way- including her husband. The episode ends with the season's big bad looking frightfully powerful.

There's room for the human element, too, as a guilt-ridden Peggy learns why Sousa's engagement has been broken off. I suspect dark times lie ahead.

Agent Carter: SNAFU

"Have you ever been hanged, Mr. Jarvis?"

"I don't think I have, no."

"It is quite unpleasant."

The penultimate episode, then, and a dramatic one, with Dooley's horrific yet heroic death as its centrepiece; hypnotised into wearing a suicide vest, he heroically defenestrates himself to his doom, and that's a phrase which one doesn't often get a chance to use. Get in.

Peggy's desperate attempts to get the SSR to believe the truth- Dotty Underwood and her hypnotist mate are the baddies- flounder on the usual casual sexism; the assumption, predictably, is that she and Stark had a "thing". Fortunately, the potentially frustrating scenes of the SSR not believing Peggy don't outstay their welcome; the episode soon becomes a gripping thriller. 

After a gripping final scene with gas being released at a cinema we are left eagerly anticipating the finale. Agent  Carter may have suffered some pacing problems in the middle but the concluding episodes have been excellent so far. 

Agent Carter: A Sin to Err

"I knew you didn't work at the phone company!"

Yes, this is the episode where Peggy gets caught by her SSR "mates", and also the episode where the plot crystallises; Leviathan (much fleshed out in this episode) are after Stark's inventions. But let's talk about Angie for a minute.

She's in the series mainly to perform a narrative function, that of Peggy's female friend and confidante, so obviously she has to find out her friend's secret, as she does here. But she's also a parallel character to Peggy, also stuck in a traditionally female job, constantly suffering the slings and arrows of sexism and misogyny. She, too, aspires to greater things, in her case Broadway stardom rather than being a spy. And which of all plays is she rehearsing? The Doll's House.

On a similarly feminist note, it's also fun to see Jarvis getting slapped by a parade of Howard Stark's exes. But the core of the episode lie in Peggy being caught just as the true baddie lady, Dottie Underwood, is about to strike. All relies on Peggy's ability to convince her former comrades of the truth before it's too late. Only in handcuffs is she finally taken seriously.

I can still why the series has been criticised for its slow pace, but things are beginning to speed up now. Two more episodes...

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.

Agent Carter: The Blitzkrieg Button

"Hey, can I borrow the sports section?"

Yes, it's the inevitable Stan Lee cameo, sitting on a park bench. He's 94, you know.

A confession: I have in fact seen the whole series of Agent Carter, having intravenously injected the whole addictive series a few days ago. Try as I might to maintain dramatic irony, I know how it ends. I shall discuss the hows and wherefores at the end, but in the meantime you may wish to look up the YouTube channel of a certain MrVortexofDOOM, especially if you're partial to reconstructions of missing Doctor Who. It's jolly good.

Anyway...

This episode is where we really get to know Howard Stark. Then again, we already do; he's a genius millionaire playboy, exactly like his son, and he does absolutely nothing that you can't imagine being played by Robert Downey Jr. Dominic Cooper is an excellent second best, though. The scenes with him "hiding" in Peggy's apartment are a hoot.

I also loved the '40s science lab, and the proto-James Bond pen. But the episode is mainly about a big plot twist; Howard's big, dangerous MacGuffin is not in fact a big bomb but Steve Rogers' Super Soldier blood. This, naturally, is not without meaning for Peggy. And the temperature is rising for our Peg, technically committing treason although, it must be said, Jarvis seems to be more worried on her behalf than she dies. Their relationship is touching; alone of all the men in this (well, besides Stark), he respects her and I'm so glad there's no suggestion of sexual attraction between them, which would entirely spoil things.

We end, though, with Peggy beginning to harbour doubts about Stark; were all the risks she ran for nothing? And what of her blonde neighbour's propensity for duffing people up? Halfway through, and this is more and more intriguing. This is gripping stuff.

This blog post was brought to you by a man with his baby daughter in one arm, so hopefully there aren't too many typos...!

Marvel's Agent Carter: Time and Tide

"If you wish to clear Mr. Stark's name, you must do so from the shadows!"

The third episode, then, and things are moving into place for some serious alteration of the status quo. It's suddenly clear that Peggy can't keep getting away with her supposedly treasonous activities for much longer. I predict an upcoming episode will consist of her getting caught, swiftly to be followed by a massive reversal of fortune. After all, we know she founds SHIELD, and this series looks suspiciously like a "Secret Origin".

Oops. Sorry. Wrong comics company.

Anyway, we get more espionage, more sexism, more awful '40s clothes and cool '40s cars, and the overall movie serial feel continues. Jarvis acquires a bit more depth, with the unearthing of a minor scandal from his past, but I hope he doesn't acquire too much depth; it doesn't suit him. And I hope we never actually meet his wife; that would ruin a running joke.

We end with a significant death (which Peggy, once more, blames on herself) and a redoubling effort against Stark. Big things are going to happen now...

Marvel's Agent Carter: Bridge and Tunnel

"What's your first name?"

"Agent."

"That has a ring to it..."

Two episodes in and I'm rather enjoying this. Hayley Atwell is great, and I'm loving the mockery of 1940s social attitudes, objects and fashions, although 1940s suits looked awful. Really awful. '70s awful. Still, the fetishisation of 1940s is a delight, as are the constant reminders that this is the Atomic Age. And the framing device of the Captain America radio drama is the icing on the cake. The constant juxtaposition of the simpering Peggy from the radio show to the kick-ass reality is a delight. Plus it reminds me of going to see that Round the Horne thing in Leicester Square several years ago. And I bet very few of my readers will get that reference.

It's a delicious contrast; Peggy is so very kickass yet again, going undercover with aplomb and fighting a baddie on the top of a van, yet at work she's expected to do the filing and answer the phone, and if she gets caught working for Stark she's in deep doo doo. 

There are lots of other nice touches; I loved the literal carrot and stick. And the '40s fashions and radiation aspect- in fact, the plot itself and the heroine put in frequent peril- make this feel very much like a '40s movie serial. I suspect that's intended.

Only at the end do we find a chink in Carter's stiff upper lip armour; Jarvis, who admires her and sees her for who she is, sees that she's afraid of letting people get too close to her unless they get killed- like her last flatmate. So we end (after a jaw-dropping interview with the landlady) with Peggy agreeing to live next door to her friend Angie. Let's hope Angie lives...

Loving this. Can't believe there are just six episodes to go.

Marvel's Agent Carter: Now Is Not the End

"You're an agent. They treat you like a secretary."

First impressions count for a lot, which is fortunate, as first signs are great here. Like Mad Men, this miniseries hangs a lot of its charm on recreating the look and feel of the middle of the last century, and succeeds magnificently with the cars, the (awful) clothes and the social mores. There's also more than a little influence from Raymond Chandler, and many of the action sequences look like a film that could star the likes of Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman.

This isn't, despite the presence of Enver Gjokaj, a Mutant Enemy production, and Joss Whedon's involvement is even less than it is with Agents of SHIELD. The writing, though, is excellent, even if I haven't ever heard of the writers. It's fun seeing the Marvel Universe in 1946, with Howard Stark being just like his son (albeit on the run from a thinly veiled HUAC), and names like Roxxon and Abraham Erksine. We also have, of course, Jarvis, an engagingly Giles-like character.

Hayley Atwell, though, is magnificent as a kind of stiff-upper-lipped River Song for the 1940s, engaging in setting-do with the best of them and, in a nice little scene, giving a sexist, groping bastard in a diner a bit of a shock; this woman has balls. And yet she is, privately at least, devastated at the death of her flatmate, a death that happened because of her.

This is a splendid opener, much more so than the pilot for Agents of SHIELD. This series promises to be good. So let's have a UK screening please!