Agent Carter (2015-Present)

Oh, I needed this show.  From the moment I heard of its impending existence, I needed it to be amazing.  While Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has smoothed out some of the bumps from its rocky first season, it’s still not everything an Avengersverse TV series could be, and Captain America’s sterling Peggy Carter deserves nothing but the best.  Well, the season just wrapped up, and I couldn’t be happier with the show – I’m only disappointed that it’s over so soon, and I’m desperately hoping ABC/Marvel give us more Agent Carter next year.

Set in 1946, several years after the events of the first Captain America film, the show finds Peggy still working for the Strategic Scientific Reserve (the SSR, a precursor to SHIELD that oversaw the super-soldier project that gave us Cap.)  The days of working alongside Cap and the Howling Commandos on highly-classified, larger-than-life missions are long over, however – the war is over, the world is moving on, and women are expected to quietly bow out of the workforce (it’s like The Bletchley Circle, but with comic-book technology.)  Though Peggy is an agent, she’s treated instead like a secretary who’s there to file reports and fetch coffee for the male agents doing the real work.  Her coworkers, whose only knowledge of her war history is that she was Captain America’s girlfriend, disregard her ideas, mock her abilities, and scrutinize her body.

It’s in this crucible of frustration and indignity that Howard Stark, one of Peggy’s old-days friends, becomes the target of an SSR investigation after a number of his deadliest inventions show up on the foreign markets.  Unable to convince the agency that Howard isn’t the culprit, she sets out on her own mission to learn the truth, recover the weapons, and exonerate her friend.  She’s helped by Edwin Jarvis, Howard’s butler on loan, who is entirely new to the spy game but eager to do his part.  It’s been too long since Peggy worked with someone who recognizes her competence, and while trust is slow to develop, Jarvis soon becomes an invaluable ally.  Also, Russian assassins and comic-book explosions and female boarding houses, oh my!

It’s a terrific series through and through.  The period setting feels sleek and stylish, and the story highlights the sexism and inequality of the era in a way that feels genuine, never preachy.  With one main arc for its eight-episode season, the narrative builds and crescendos almost like a movie.  There are one-off side plots (chasing down specific Stark Industries McGuffins, a splendid appearance by another Captain America familiar face, etc.,) but each episode also makes progress on the central arc and ramps up the tension.  Can Peggy stop the bad guys?  Where will she the proof she needs?  Will the SSR discover she’s working at cross purposes with them?  It’s been such a treat to watch that the hardest part of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s winter hiatus is that it’s coming back next week because this one is done.

As Peggy, Hayley Atwell is predictably sublime – tough, sincere, clever, and badass (she staples a guy in the face!)  Even when the show’s plot has comic proportions, she’s an eternally humanizing presence.  Dominic Cooper makes recurring return appearances as Howard, and James D’Arcy is both amusing and affecting as Jarvis.  Additionally, we get the incredible Enver Gjokaj (Victor from Dollhouse) as a fellow SSR agent – the only coworker who seems to value Peggy’s work – and a very funny Lyndsy Fonseca (Alex from Nikita) as a non-work chum of Peggy’s.