Agent Carter - Thoughts on Season One

Tonight I watched the season finale of Agent Carter S1 Ep 8 "Valediction" The S.S.R. discovers the gas cylinder in the cinema and realize that Ivchenko possibly plans to turn all of New York on itself. Stark returns and explains that he had developed the gas, named Midnight Oil, to give American soldiers extra stamina during war, but it caused psychosis and lead to them killing each other. During World War II, the American military stole Midnight Oil and used it on the Soviets at Finow. Stark believes that Ivchenko – real name Johann Fennhoff – blames Stark for the ensuing massacre, and allows the S.S.R. to use him as bait to draw Leviathan out. This plan goes awry when Underwood distracts the agents while Fennhoff kidnaps Stark, and uses hypnosis to convince him to drop the gas on Times Square. At Stark’s secret plane hangar, Sousa apprehends Fennhoff while Carter defeats Underwood (who escapes) and convinces Stark not to drop the gas on the city. Carter later dumps Rogers' blood in the East River, finally moving on with her life, while Fennhoff is imprisoned with the scheming Arnim Zola.

First I want to talk about how much I really enjoyed this final episode. In the back of my mind I knew Stark wasn't going to die but man I really did think Jarvis was going to shoot him down. And It was heart breaking watching Peggy go through this all over again, this is in reference to the scene with her talking to Stark over the radio as it felt very similar to her talk to Steve before he "died".  I liked the end scene with Peggy and Sousa, he finally gets the nerve to ask her out but she declines with a smile (like telling him to not give up on her). I wish there was more scenes with Jarvis and Peggy as I love those to together but what did get was pretty awesome. I also like Peggy and Angie moving into one of Starks homes and Angie's reaction to having a phone in every room... priceless. And the ending is heartbreaking as Peggy finally says goodbye to Steve and lets him go, literally and figuratively.

This series has become one of my all time favorites, it's only eight episodes but not a single one of them is a dud. I have all eight episodes still on my Tivo and I don't plan on getting rid of them anytime soon (or at least not until I can buy this on blu-ray).

I'm happy and bummed that this was only an eight episode season. I mean it was great because it kept the episodes moving full steam ahead. There was no time to rest from episode to episode. But it is bad in a sense that I'd love to see more of that world and it's amazing characters. The sets and costumes were fantastic, the attitudes of the men and women of the time were spot on (though hard to accept these days).

Chemistry was key for this series and the non-sexual chemistry between Peggy and Jarvis was undeniably the best part of the series (for me). I also thought the sexual chemistry between Peggy and Sousa was fantastic, you can't help but want them to get together.  The character of Peggy is so well written that you couldn't help but love her. She is strong, tough, independent, loyal, honest, hard working, loving, caring & vulnerable. All she wants in her job is to be seen as an equal, though she is far superior to all the men she works with.

I hope this isn't he end of the series, so far it was only meant to be a filler between midseason finale and the spring startup of Agents of SHIELD. And the ratings weren't stellar but I do hope they consider doing another eight episode season two in between S3 of Agents of SHIELD... so fingers crossed. If this is all we are going to get for Agent Carter then so be it, I'll just have to enjoy all eight episodes of season one over and over again.