REVIEW: Agent Carter Is The Hero You've Been Waiting For

Marvel Studios makes its second foray into television on ABC with Agent Carter, a seven-week television event that will take Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s timeslot during the regular series' extended winter break. The series focuses on Steve Rogers' "best gal'" and fan favorite female supporting character, Agent Peggy Carter of the Strategic Scientific Reserve, played by Hayley Atwell. Based on the first two episodes, the series (helmed by showrunners Tara Butters and Michele Fazekas) brings a welcome new perspective to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, while still feeling very much at home in it.

The basic structure and tone of the series nestles neatly into what's expected of Marvel Studios, with an action-centric, high adventure premise that promises to tease audiences with mystery, but never takes itself too seriously. Where it stands apart is through its protagonist's perspective. Carter as a singular woman who is perhaps as out of time in her own era as Captain America is in the modern era, and the series depicts her as being just as capable and heroic as the man she loves, perhaps even more so, as she's the hero who has to struggle against the society she's seeking to protect as much as she does the villains who seek to destroy it.

The series also plays with gender expectations in the odd couple relationship between Carter and Jarvis. Carter plays the adventure hero, while Jarvis is the domesticated, and sometimes meddlesome, support character. The relationship serves, thus far, as a satisfying denunciation of the expected, and it's this freshness that makes Agent Carter feel like more than a way to keep your TV on until Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.comes back.

"Now is Not the End," written by series creators Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, and directed by Louis D'Esposito (who directed the Agent Carter one-shot) is a set up episode, and adds at least one major new player (not to be spoiled here) to the MCU. The episode shows Carter dealing with the emotional fallout of losing Steve Rogers, which is an important character beat, but also makes the episode feel like it's leaning a little too heavily on Carter's previous adventures. "Bridge and Tunnel," written by one-shot writer Eric Pearson and directed by Joe Russo (co-director of Captain America: The Winter Soldier) builds on the groundwork laid out by the first episode, and adds some extra flair, with a creative fight scene at its climax serving as the nascent show's best sequence so far.

The 1940s setting of the series helps to give it up a pulp vibe, with many transactions and events happening in seedy but glamorous clubs and dimly lit rooms. Christopher Lennertz score adds a heroic element, which helps remind audiences that, despite being a period piece and lacking characters with actual superpowers, the series is still firmly rooted in the MCU, creating a similar feel to Captain America: The First Avenger.

Agent Carter brings a new and welcome female perspective to Marvel's Cinematic Universe, and the creative people behind the series have done well to hone in on it as an identifying theme. The top-tier talent of writers and directors provides strong characters, which are played well by their actors, and fun, sometimes quite memorable, action sequences. There's no need to wait for Captain Marvel, Agent Carter is the hero you've been waiting for.