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Six Reasons We're Overjoyed Peggy Carter is Back on Our Screens

By Craig Wack | TV | January 20, 2016 |

By Craig Wack | TV | January 20, 2016 |

After what feels like ages, Agent Carter returned for its second season and there’s certainly reason to celebrate.

Not only do we get some quality time with series star and Pajiba favorite Hayley Atwell (which is even more precious since she left social media), but we are also once again able to explore the post-war Marvel Cinematic Universe while seeing the reflection in our own modern day reality.

Here are six reasons you should scramble to catch up if you missed the two part Season 2 premiere.

1. The Action

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The shift in location from New York to Los Angeles hasn’t made Peggy go soft and she’s got a shotgun and sack of silver dollars to prove it.

Peggy still uses her wits and feminine wiles to get the job done, but sometimes it also requires the skills of her new hobby, punching all of Los Angeles.

There have been a few new ass-kicking women hit the superhero TV scene since we last saw Agent Carter, but not many can be so ferocious and yet stay so elegant as Peggy.

2. The Banter

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Part of what made Agent Carter so charming the first time around was Peggy’s chemistry with Jarvis (James D’Arcy). It didn’t take the show very long to rekindle one of TV classiest parings.

Jarvis met Peggy at the plane and picked up the banter right where they left off, discussing the finer points of Howard Stark’s proclivities and Jarvis’ continuing battles with the Devil in Pink.

3. Squad goals

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Let’s get the bad news out of the way. Angie didn’t make the trip to California with Peggy. While it is kind of a bummer, the show has given us three new members to Peggy’s support system who are all delightful in their own right.

First and foremost on this list is Ana Jarvis (Lotte Verbeek). The loving wife of everybody’s favorite butler, who takes a shine to Peggy from the word go and understands the agent’s struggles right away. Ana is far from the fragile flower from Jarvis’ description, she’s whip-smart, knows how to dress for success in L.A. and knows when the situation calls for two fingers of whiskey rather than a cup of tea.

Second is Rose (Lesley Boone), who you might remember as the hat-loving phone operator from the series pilot. Rose escaped the concrete canyons of NYC in favor of the Malibu surf when the SSR opened its West Coast offices.

Now, when not maintaining the office’s brave front as a talent agency, she’s dreaming of her board and some tasty waves. Let’s hope she gets to go on a field trip and punch someone’s lights out before this run of the show is over.

Finally there’s Violet played by Sara Bolger of Into The Badlands and The Tudors fame. She’s the would-be fiancé of Sousa (Enver Gjokaj), who has been promoted as the chief of the SSR’s West Coast branch.

Violet is an outgoing nurse and the fly in the ointment of a potential Peggy-Sousa ship. Instead of Peggy being all jealous and attempting to undermine the relationship as TV tropes demand, she’s a rational human adult who realizes that she and Sousa didn’t really communicate for a year and it’s not his responsibility to reciprocate feelings that she didn’t make clear in the first place.

Seeing as how we are in a world of spies and whatnot, there’s a high likelihood that Violet is a graduate of the Black Widow Finishing School sent as some kind of honeypot to manipulate Sousa. It would be a real shame for the show to make us dislike Bolger because she is a fun follow on Twitter.

4. Dottie’s back!

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A hero is nothing without their nemesis, and we’re treated to the villainous Dottie Underwood (Bridget Regan) right in the cold open.

Dottie has become obsessed with Peggy all the way down to Peggy’s trademark blue suit and red hat. The enemies duke it out in a bank vault before matching wits in the interrogation room.

Of course Chad Michael Murray’s Chief Thompson sets the season in motion by getting Peggy out of his hair and on to Los Angeles. Without Peggy to play with, Dottie teaches Thompson a lesson about bringing carrots and sticks to a table fight and ruining her game.

Even though we last saw her in FBI custody, you know that’s not the last we’ve seen of Dottie.

5. More powerful women

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As if Peggy, Dottie, Rose and Ana weren’t enough for you, we were introduced to Whitney Frost (Wynn Everett). On the outside she might look like an aging B-movie actress, but she’s really the brains and the power behind her mogul husband Calvin Chadwick.

Frost (who is the Marvel villain Madame Masque) understands the value of this season’s MacGuffin (more on that in a second) more than anyone else. When she moves her hand her husband’s lips move. She’s going to be a force before the season is over.

6. It’s all connected

Marvel TV’s battle cry since the first episode of Agents of SHIELD was on full display during the Agent Carter premiere.

That lapel pin with the Lambda design Dottie broke into a bank to steal? It didn’t take long for fans to see the resemblance to the chain of HYDRA iconography broken down during this season of SHIELD.

This year’s mystery science stuff? The producers have already gone on the record saying that it’s Darkforce, one of the keys to the power of Doctor Strange, who just happens to have a movie coming out in the near future.

So in addition to Peggy’s adventures and some kickass spy fun, we’ve got a couple of months of hunting for Marvel Easter eggs ahead of us too.

For discussion of other comic book TV shows please join Craig Wack and Pajiba commenter Tatiana Torres for the Agents of GEEK podcast updated every Friday and now on iTunes.