(and the promised content update.. in the nick of time as usual.)
So Marvel´s next TV series has hit the airwaves and this time we
connect with future Alzheimer’s patient and founder of S.H.E.I.L.D agent
Peggy Carter. For the full backstory on Peggy Carter in the MCU you
have to watch the first Captain America movie. But the long of the short
is that she is a British agent attached to the super soldier experiment
and later Captain America. Now this series is basically a tall
mini-series with 8 episodes and the opening act being a double feature
leaves us with six episodes to go.
The Cast
Hayley Atwell is Agent Peggy Carter. Reprising her role from the Cap
am movie and marvel one-shot feature Agent Carter is portrayed as a
proactive but somewhat naïve junior agent at the Strategic Science
Reserve (SSR) a covert department dealing with the fallout of Nazi super
science and other oddities. To the world around she is just a
switch-board operator.
James D’Arcy is Edvin Jarvis. Jarvis is Howard Starks butler and…
well… go to guy it seems as he has Howards full trust and confidence. He
is new for this series even if his character is a nod back to the
comic-books as Tony Stark used to have a butler before that became
“obsolete”. He is also supposedly the inspiration for Tonys A.I. He is a
very loving and caring family man who has a strong sense of duty.
Dominic Cooper is Howard Stark. Returning for some more fondue as
well as being the main plot point in this series Howard does not get
that much screen time and in essence just provide the McGuffin of the
day as his super-secret vault of bad stuff was raided, for those
familiar with Iron Man comics it is pretty much the armor wars
storyline. Still Dominic does a good job as Howard and pull off the
loveable douche character well.
Chad Michael Murray is Jack Thompson. This is your average alpha male
with a chip on his shoulder. Jack is a war veteran and see the SSR as a
way to get up in life. Not much else Is known about him but he bears
some resemblance to Eugene “Flash” Thompson of the spider-verse and
could very well be said characters future father. Not that the subject
will ever be explored due to licenses. =) Any way not much else to say.
If you make it through even the first episode without wanting to toss a
brick at him you are a better human being then me.
Enver Gjokaj is Daniel Sousa. Another original characters and filling
the role of confidant within the SSR. Sousa have a defunct leg and thus
preventing him from being an active field agent. Sousa is a desk jockey
and take some flak for not being a “real” agent. He seems to have some
interest in Carter but feel that he might have a hard time living up to
her former fling… Not much else to say about him yet.
Apart from these main players a bevy of secondary characters flash by, the most noteworthy being Anton Vanko.
I am not going to spoil the exact details plot per se but as I
mentioned the driving force of the show is someone stealing a bunch of
Howard Starks “bad babies” inventions that are too dangerous to let
regular people… not to mention military scientists handle them. Howard
himself is in a bit of a pickle and it is up to Agent Carter to find the
items and untangle the mess Mr. Stark has created. To aid her and keep
tabs on her Howard assigns Jarvis as Peggy´s driver/assistant… From
there we get a fairly standard procedural drama with a McGuffin… In this
case an explosive. But it is still well written and well-acted with set
designs and music being very fitting for the era it takes place in, at
least to someone who did not live in it. The show does lean a bit heavy
on the “convenience” card as things very often just fall in to place for
Peggy but at the same time they need to keep the run time of each
episode down so it is forgivable. It is also a show with the roots in
super hero comics… So one could say they are staying true to the source.
Agent Carter did surprise me by being better than I expected but if it
simple becomes an “X of the week” show I will be very disappointed. I
will do a summary once the show has concluded and give my final
thoughts, but for now I say give it a shot. If not for the banter
between Carter and Jarvis.
Agent Carter is the first of the new lineup of Marvel series followed
by DareDevil in April on Netflix as well as the next season of AoS 2015
is looking to be the definitive Year of Marvel.
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