Hayley Atwell brings back ’40s-era for ‘Marvel’s Agent Carter’
It’s Buffy meets Bomb Girls!
OK, not literally. But Marvel’s Agent Carter focuses on a young woman with pluck (that’s the connection to Buffy the Vampire Slayer) trying to make her way in the 1940s (that’s the connection to Bomb Girls).
Debuting with a two-hour instalment, Tuesday, Jan. 6 on ABC and CTV, Marvel’s Agent Carter is a mini-series that is filling the slot usually reserved for Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which resumes its second season on March 3.
Now, putting the word “Marvel” in front of something automatically attracts certain TV viewers and repels others.
Want to know which group you’re in? If I added “Marvel” to the names of existing shows – say, Marvel’s The Big Bang Theory, or Marvel’s MasterChef, or Marvel’s How To Get Away With Murder – would you perk up or turn away?
Kidding aside, all these Marvel TV shows and movies are connected. In this particular case, Marvel’s Agent Carter is inspired by the movies Marvel’s Captain America: The First Avenger and Marvel’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier, along with the direct-to-video short film Marvel One-Shot: Agent Carter.
At this point, you’re either in the club or you’re not. Personally, when I see the word “Marvel” in front of something, I cringe a bit, because I figure that just means I’m not going to know what the hell is happening.
Do you need to be a Marvel devotee to watch Marvel’s Agent Carter? Not necessarily, I suppose. But it certainly helps to be at least vaguely versed in this world.
The time frame in which Marvel’s Agent Carter is set presents a world all on its own. And it’s a world where most men are sexist jerks. You know, not like today (feel free to make up your own joke here).
Anyway, many years before the S.H.I.E.L.D. team swore to protect those who cannot protect themselves from threats they cannot conceive, there was Agent Peggy Carter. She is played by Hayley Atwell.
It’s 1946 and World War II is over. Great news, right? Well, not for Peggy’s career.
She works for the covert organization known as SSR (Strategic Scientific Reserve). But with oodles of male soldiers returning home every day, Peggy finds herself demoted to making coffee and typing letters. She would much rather be back in the field, using her considerable skills to fight evil.
As if that weren’t enough, Peggy also has lost her true love, Steve Rogers, a.k.a. Captain America. That’s gotta hurt. So Peggy is navigating life as a single woman in an era when single women of a certain age were looked upon with curiosity, if not outright suspicion. You know, not like today (again, feel free to make up your own joke here).
The stakes are raised for Peggy when her old pal Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper) discovers he is being framed. Word is going around that he’s willing to sell the deadly weapons he has created to the highest bidder, regardless of national loyalties. It apparently isn’t true, but Howard needs Peggy to track down the truly guilty parties, dispose of the dangerous arsenal and clear his name.
Howard instructs his butler Edwin Jarvis (James D’Arcy) to help Peggy in whatever way she needs. But Jarvis is one of those old-timey dudes who is tied to routine. “Seven o’clock sherry, eight o’clock Benny Goodman, nine o’clock bed,” Jarvis informs Peggy. He obviously is in for a rude awakening, literally and figuratively.
This may sound weird, but Marvel’s Agent Carter is a little too “comic book-y” for my personal tastes. So is Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., for that matter. It’s one of the reasons I’ve been enjoying Gotham so much this season, because it’s not as “comic book-y” as some of its cousins, if you know what I mean.
But Atwell is impressive, undoubtedly, as Marvel’s Agent Carter. If you’re in the mood for Buffy meets Bomb Girls, that is.