Carter 2.10The team come together to end Whitney’s threat once and for all… with the aid of another unlikely ally…

Well, I say unlikely, but there really was no surprise in Joe Manfredi’s coming to Peggy Carter and co. for help in stopping Whitney. It’s been clear that he’s desperately in love with her (as the coda to the episode showed very well), and Ken Marino has been one of the unacknowledged stars of this season – although the character was initially something of a cliché, Marino has made it much more often with just a look in his eye. The person who I did expect to be part of the final solution though wasn’t there – Bridget Regan’s Dottie is severely conspicuous by her absence… I had hoped that she was in that very last scene with Jack Thompson until we saw it was a male figure who interrupted his phone call.

The banter and dialogue in this episode was some of the show’s best across the two seasons. The scenes with Peggy dealing with the three scientists, and some of both her and Jarvis’s putdowns to Howard were worthy of Blackadder at its best, while there was time for some proper reconciliations between characters who had fallen out (for good reason). If the show doesn’t come back – and I fervently hope it does – then many of the character arcs have been satisfactorily brought to a good resolution.

It’s been noted that some of the Netflix shows haven’t felt quite as much part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but Agent Carter has always made sure it’s front and centre – there are plenty of “throwforwards” to events later in the 20th century, and even the 21st, while the producers have hedged their bets with regard to Peggy’s timeline by not saying definitively if Peggy really has met the husband she referred to in The Winter Soldier (particularly as the One-Shot has Peggy back in New York with no reference to a husband).

Verdict: Agent Carter been a highly enjoyable excursion into the backstory of the MCU, and goes out on a suitably epic note. 9/10

Paul Simpson