- Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter
- James D'Arcy ( Cloud Atlas ) as Edwin Jarvis
- Chad Michael Murray as Jack Thompson
- Enver Gjokaj ( Dollhouse ) as Daniel Sousa
- Shea Whigham as Roger Dooley
- Lyndsy Fonseca as Angie Martinelli
- Bridget Regan as Dottie Underwood
- Dominic Cooper as Howard Stark [ recurring ]
Season 1
Agent Carter [Season 1, Episode 1]
Now is Not the End
Shown 06/Jan/15
Peggy Carter ( Hayley Atwell ) is bored with her new job as a US Federal Agent. During the war she used to fight people, but now she just gets to make the coffee. Her partner, Daniel Sousa (Enver Gjokaj - Dollhouse ), is likewise excluded because he was crippled in the war.
Carter's wartime buddy Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper) is facing a HUAC-type Congressional investigation. The Government claims it found some of his technology in the hands of unspecified enemies. He claims he has been framed, so he flees the jurisdiction. He asks Carter to clear his name, and leaves his butler Edwin Jarvis (James D'Arcy - Cloud Atlas ) to help her.
Peggy Carter moonlights from her Secret Agent day-job as a night-time vigilante. She goes undercover in a blonde wig and a cleavage-enhancing dress. She discovers that rent-a-villain James Frain ( The Cape ) copied Bane's plan in Dark Knight Rises , and tunnelled in under the bottom of the hero's secret arsenal.
There is a nasty undercurrent of sexism in this show. It is set in 1946, when war veterans deserved a home fit for heroes. Peggy's room-mate is a Rosie the Rivetter type who is afraid of losing her dangerous blue-collar job to demobbed GIs who risked their lives for their country. The job she loves has given her a serious medical condition, but she is too stubborn to change career to something that involves indoor work with no heavy lifting. Perhaps Rosie should work herself to death paying taxes to support the welfare payments that the heroic warriors would need to survive.
Peggy violently threatens a heroic ex-soldier to defend the honour of gal-pal Angie Martinelli ( Lyndsy Fonseca ) who can barely master the simple skills required for waitressing. Looks like the ladies had the best of both worlds, according to this show. Lots of freedom but no actual responsibility, just like in the 21st Century. Please note, the show is not entirely sexist. The ideal man is presented as being Jarvis himself, a breadwinner who doubles as a home-maker to look after his wife, but also is supportive to a career woman like Agent Carter.
Agent Carter [Season 1, Episode 2]
Bridge and Tunnel
Shown 06/Jan/15
Peggy Carter ( Hayley Atwell ) gets a lead on the dealer (James Frain – The Cape ) who took the truck full of secret explosives. She closes in on the suspect, eager to get there before her bosses do. But the mysterious hit-man from the first episode is after the shipment as well.
One suspect is a billionaire rival of Stark’s, Hugh Jones (Ray Wise - Twin Peaks ). Mr Wise unwisely tries flirting with Peggy, although his tone of voice is always flirtatious. Look at how he speaks to his favoured son in Reaper ! Peggy, on the other hand, adopts the aggressive demeanour of Virgil Tibbs. They call me MISTA Carter! she may as well have intoned.
Peggy's workplace is supposed to be sexist, but it looks more like the boss merely allocates staff to their optimal position. The one-legged man is put in charge of photo interpretation. The big dumb guy is given a crowbar and told to dig up some evidence manually. Peggy, as the only woman, gets to search (and presumably to interrogate) female suspects. Naturally, she is frustrated at not being given field assignments, but every agent in the room is a war veteran with the same qualifications and experience as her.
Peggy is still looking for a new place to live. She declines to stay in Howard Stark’s secret love-nest, as it would be seen as compromising her impartiality. Instead she lets Angie the waitress ( Lyndsy Fonseca ) talk her into moving into the Hotel for Young Ladies. This is not Mrs Palmer’s home for young seamstresses, it has a strict code of virginity. Peggy promises the landlady that she will only keep her day-job until she finds a husband. This is ironic, because her goal in life is not to be a home-maker but instead to be a breadwinner ... for a lot of cats!
This may be turning into the new Alias - the female Secret Agent hunts for magical artefacts by day, and hangs out with her gal-pal at night. But Fonseca is more than just a superhero’s love interest from Kick-Ass ... she was a female Secret Agent herself in Nikita. Could there be a surprise twist in the offing? Or will her scenes be the bits when you pop out to put the tea on?
Agent Carter [Season 1, Episode 3]
Time and Tide
Shown 13/Jan/15
The SSR discover that a car registered to Howard Stark was at the scene of the implosion in the first episode. Since Stark is unavailable due to his status as a wanted fugitive, they bring in his Chauffeur Jarvis (James D'Arcy - Cloud Atlas ) for questioning instead. Peggy Carter ( Hayley Atwell ) has to sabotage the case by making it look like she is incompetent at paperwork. The problem is that when she goes all Clark Kent with the easy things, such as office work, she makes it so much more difficult for any of her co-workers to respect her.
Carter’s self-appointed mission this week is to track down the rest of the gear that was stolen from Stark’s secret vault. She starts in the vault, travels through the sewers (rather than just look at a nice safe map) and locates the gear on a conveniently located boat. Yes, they just left it sitting there waiting to be found.
Every episode so far has had a brutal hand-to-hand fight between Peggy and a much larger male opponent. This episode is no exception. Strangely, even though she carries a pistol she does not use it in combat. This may be for a political gun control reason, or an attempt by the TV network to lower the amount of violence on-screen. However, Peggy fights dirty – she repeatedly bludgeons her opponents about the head with random objects. This is both realistic (explaining how she can take out men twice her body-weight) but also incredibly brutal for a TV show that children might watch. Easily-imitated violence is one of the things that censors target, of course.
Peggy’s relationship with her co-workers gets further development. We get a brutal reminder that their job is a life-and-death one. The co-workers (and everyone else in society) may exude benevolent sexism but they do so to protect young women like Peggy from brutality and violence. After all, she is the Clark Kent of the office, despite her entitled attitude.
Agent Carter [Season 1, Episode 4]
The Blitzkrieg Button
Shown 27/Jan/15
Howard Stark is back in town, thanks to a black-market smuggler named Mr Mink. Stark has Peggy Carter ( Hayley Atwell ) double-cross the double-crosser, but they evidently forget to pay the man altogether because he comes after them for revenge.
Peggy lets Stark hide out the only place he can – her apartment in the chaperoned, ladies-only hotel. He avoids the matron and befriends several of the young ladies. Remember how in the previous episode a young lady was exiled for inviting her boyfriend upstairs? What a nice piece of writing that provides texture to the setting without burdening us with plot-heavy antics. Well, her replacement is still around - and forms a vital part of the plot.
Back in the office, the boss pulls out all the stops to find Walter’s killer. Daniel Sousa (Enver Gjokaj - Dollhouse ), the token cripple (treated like the office gimp) now inherits the work of the dumb Polack. How ironic that a show which seeks to enforce political correctness and undermine negative stereotypes is itself riddled with such stereotypes. In order to undermine them it must first perpetuate them, because it is focused on outmoded gender (and other) roles that modern audiences are unfamiliar with.
The SSR seem to be doing a decent job without Peggy doing any of the actual work. They are shown to have two new methods of interrogation, or rather two variations on a theme. Formerly they only used the stick (quite literally), but now they use the carrot. Sousa the crippled agent interrogates a down-and-out who unknowingly witnessed Peggy’s antics on the boat. The witness had his job stolen by one of the Riveter Rosie types that Peggy championed in the first episode. Unfortunately, the 1940s women seemed keen to play the bread-winner's role but were less willing to allow the man to be the home-maker.
The SSR boss travels to Germany and interrogates a Death Row inmate, a German officer who witnessed the battle of Finau that the two dead Russians were supposedly killed at. Will the American be more honorable than the German, or less so?
In yet another example of blatant sexism, Peggy is the only one in the unit excused from doing overtime. She does not openly protest this, of course, because it works in her favour. Not only can she continue her secret off-the-books investigation, she can cover her tracks to keep her day-job secure.
Peggy learns that she cannot necessarily trust Stark himself. He can certainly do a better job of defending the world than the US Military can, but Peggy is paranoid and patriotic – an unfortunate combination.
Agent Carter [Season 1, Episode 5]
The Iron Ceiling
Shown 03/Feb/15
The magic typewriter in the SSR evidence locker receives a message from Leviathan. The US Military cryptographer cannot decipher it, but Peggy Carter ( Hayley Atwell ) was trained at Bletchley Park so she breaks the code. It helps that she is fluent in Russian. The message is a map reference – obviously a trap ...
Peggy blags her way into a mission behind the Iron Curtain, so she can break the glass ceiling. The SSR plan to fly a DC3 with her and three other agents over the Polish border, all the way from NYC. Presumably they stop to refuel en route. Luckily for Peggy it is a case of not what you know but who you know that counts. Thanks to the Old Boys network, she arranges for the Howling Commandos (including Neil MacDonagh - Arrow S4 ) to be there as backup. This excellent piece of name-dropping is enough to get Peggy her foot in the door.
The target facility that the team discovers, from map co-ordinates in a message sent by Leviathan, is a secret base where young girls are trained as Soviet assassins. This is where Peggy’s new neighbour got her fighting skills from, in the same gymnastic style that Black Widow used in Iron Man 2 ... and that Ilsa Faust uses in Mission: Impossible 5: Rogue Nation . It seems to be all the rage now, but one cannot help but feel that the style owes more to US Comedy (Okay, choreographed) wrestling moves than to a mystical martial art of the exotic orient.
Peggy’s co-workers are given some character development too. The cowardly lion has a heart, and the tin-leg man has a brain. Who would have thought it? The others are expendable red-shirts, but who cares?
The SSR boss visits an old pal, journalist Jon Glover ( Smallville ). The boss is softening his ways, and tells Stark’s chauffeur Jarvis (James D'Arcy - Cloud Atlas ) that he is willing to hear Stark’s side of the story.
Agent Carter [Season 1, Episode 6]
A Sin to Err
Shown 10/Feb/15
The SSR Chief debriefs the Russian psychiatrist that Carter's team rescued from Leviathan. However, the shrink's skills include the ability to verbally hypnotise people.
After the encounter with the Ruskie hit-girl in the previous episode, Carter works out that Leviathan has deployed one or more female agents. She and Jenkins set out to find the femme fatale who seduced Howard Stark. Mr Stark has had quite a large number of sex partners in the last few months. It is quite shocking to realise that for a man to have an equal access to sexual partners that Agent Carter does, he must be the richest and most powerful man in the world.
While Carter hunts the Ruskie Agent, Daniel Sousa (Enver Gjokaj - Dollhouse ), is closing in on her.
Agent Carter [Season 1, Episode 7]
Snafu
Shown 17/Feb/15
Peggy Carter ( Hayley Atwell ) is in custody of the SSR. Jarvis (James D'Arcy - Cloud Atlas ) tries to talk them into letting her go by providing Howard Stark's signed confession. Will Peggy let Stark plead guilty to something he did not do in order to clear her own name?
The SSR's lead field agent tells Peggy he does not want to beat a confession out of her, but that he is willing to do so if the need arises. To her credit, Peggy does not play the victim card and try to weasel her way out.
The Leviathan agents are after a specific item from the SSR lab. Is it Steve Roger's blood, which Peggy has been protecting? Or is it the item that caused the mysterious deaths that the Germans discovered during the war?
Agent Carter [Season 1, Episode 8]
Valediction
Shown 24/Feb/15
Peggy Carter ( Hayley Atwell ) and the SSR agents discover that the Leviathan agents have made off with a gas that acts like the steroids in Jacob's Ladder . And it is now VE day, when a hundred thousand civilians are gathered in Time Square ...
An African-American policeman pulls the Leviathan agents over for DWB - Driving While Blonde!
Howard Stark returns to give some much-needed exposition. He could have told Peggy the truth about the Battle of Finau in episode one, but that would have removed all suspense. However, Stark is the villains' target. This makes him the perfect bait for a trap.
Stark is motivated by guilt, deepened by the verbal abuse Peggy heaped on him in their previous encounter. Can she talk him out of a suicide-run on NYC? Will she even bother?
In the final sequence, we discover what happened to the Red Skull's sidekick (Toby Jones - Wayward Pines ).
