Agent Carter
I was wildly excited when it was announced that Hayley Atwell would be reprising her role from Captain America on the small screen for Agent Carter. Not only is it Marvel's first female-led adaptation, it's also a period piece, and there was no way I wasn't going to watch a show about an ass-kicking female secret agent set in the 40s.
Is it as good as I thought it might be? In a word, yes. In two words, hell yes.
Warning - minor spoilers to follow.
There's just so much to love about this show. For starters, there's the retro styling, which I'm obviously predisposed to like. I was really excited about Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which is Agent Carter's sister show in a lot of ways, but it ended up feeling a bit generic. It was just the actors, but the settings and situations. Agent Carter, thankfully, has an abundance of personality. It's not just Peggy, but all of the costumes, all of the sets - even things that might come across as hokey if not handled deftly just remain charmingly vintage, like Peggy's boarding house.
The storytelling, thankfully, has remained taut, and the show has taken advantage of the limited run to make sure that each episode is well plotted, moving the action forward and never leaving any narrative thread hanging for too long. While sometimes it means that the show takes shortcuts to things up (*cough* Peggy and Jarvis literally just following the hole in the ground from Howard Stark's vault to the ship where his stolen goods are still hanging out *cough* wow that's some amazing detective work *cough*), it also means that the show feels propulsive, exciting, and tense. After each episode ends, I literally find myself on the edge of my seat, wondering what's going to come next.
I also can't oversell just how wonderfully Hayley Atwell is as Peggy Carter. She does a wonderful job anchoring the show, providing emotional depth, witty banter, and serious action chops in one impeccably dressed package. It's hard not to watch the show and just want to be her, because she's just so fucking cool. While sexism is a major theme of the show, it never feels too preachy, just because she's got such an amazing attitude and presence that you can't possibly see her as a victim of the patriarchy. She also plays wonderfully well off of the rest of the cast, especially Jarvis, Howard Stark's butler. The two have a fantastic report, and their banter frequently makes me laugh out loud. Not *lol*, but literally cackle out loud in the middle of my own house. Not many things do that.
The show is winding down, now, and the last episode is scheduled to air next week. While part of me wants there to be more Agent Carter to enjoy after this, another part of me wants it to end right now, when it feels like it's as good a show as it could possibly be. It would be really hard to top just how amazing it is, and there's nothing I would hate more than seeing it run into the ground in service of making a few extra dollars.
Have you been watching Agent Carter? Do you love it just as much as I do?
