| Agent Carter | |
|---|---|
| Season 1 | |
 Promotional poster andDVD region 2 and4 home media cover art | |
| Showrunners |
|
| Starring | |
| No. of episodes | 8 |
| Release | |
| Original network | ABC |
| Original release | January 6 (2015-01-06) – February 24, 2015 (2015-02-24) |
| Season chronology | |
Next → Season 2 | |
| List of episodes | |
The first season of the American television seriesAgent Carter, which is inspired by the filmCaptain America: The First Avenger and theMarvel One-Shot short film ofthe same name,[1] features the characterPeggy Carter, based on theMarvel Comics characterof the same name, as she must balance doing administrative work and going on secret missions forHoward Stark while trying to navigate life as a single woman in 1940s America. It is set in theMarvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), sharing continuity withthe films of the franchise, and was produced byABC Studios,Marvel Television, andFazekas & Butters. Tara Butters, Michele Fazekas, and Chris Dingess served asshowrunners.
Hayley Atwell reprises her role from the film series and One-Shot as Carter, withJames D'Arcy,Chad Michael Murray,Enver Gjokaj, andShea Whigham also starring. In May 2014, ABC bypassed apilot, ordering a show based on the One-Shot straight to series for an eight-episode season. Filming took place inLos Angeles from September 2014 to January 2015, andIndustrial Light & Magic provided visual effects. The season introduces the origins of several characters and storylines from MCU films, while other characters from the films and Marvel One-Shots also appear.
The season, which aired onABC from January 6 to February 24, 2015, over 8 episodes, aired during theseason two mid-season break ofAgents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Despite steadily dropping viewership, critical response toAgent Carter was positive, with much praise going to Atwell's performance, the series' tone and setting, and its relative separation from the rest of the MCU. The series was renewed for a second season on May 7, 2015.[2]
| No. overall | No. in season | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original release date [3] | U.S. viewers (millions) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | "Now is Not the End" | Louis D'Esposito | Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely | January 6, 2015 (2015-01-06) | 6.91[4] | |
In 1946,Peggy Carter, mourning the apparent death ofSteve Rogers,[a] returns to work for theStrategic Scientific Reserve (SSR) inNew York City following the end ofWorld War II. The SSR investigates industrialistHoward Stark for apparently selling weapons to enemies of the United States. Stark secretly contacts Carter, and asks her to help him clear his name. Before he leaves the country, he tells her about his formula for molecular nitramene that is going to be sold at a club. Infiltrating the club in disguise, Carter learns that the formula has been weaponized. She shows one such nitramene bomb toStark Industries scientistAnton Vanko, who deduces that it came from aRoxxon Oil refinery. Carter, along with Stark's butlerEdwin Jarvis, investigates the refinery, and encountersLeet Brannis, who apparently works for an organization calledLeviathan, and escapes with a truck full of the nitramene weapons. Before leaving, Brannis drops a nitramene bomb, and as Carter and Jarvis escape, it destroys the entire building. | |||||||
| 2 | 2 | "Bridge and Tunnel" | Joseph V. Russo | Eric Pearson | January 6, 2015 (2015-01-06) | 6.91[4] | |
Carter goes undercover again to search for the truck with the weapons, and finds the address of the truck's official driver. The SSR agents interrogateMiles Van Ert, the Roxxon scientist who made the weapons, and learn of the address as well. Carter and Jarvis arrive at the house first, and find Brannis, who they force to go with them. The three are attacked bySasha Demidov, who works for Leviathan, an organization that it now seems Brannis has betrayed. Carter fights Demidov, but he still manages to mortally wound Brannis. Jumping to safety with Carter and Brannis, Jarvis forces the truck to careen off a cliff with Demidov, and the weapons inside implode. Before he dies, Brannis draws a symbol in the dirt. SSR agentsRoger Dooley,Jack Thompson, andDaniel Sousa later arrive to find Brannis's body, a woman's footprints, and a hotel key (belonging to Demidov). Meanwhile, AgentRay Krzeminski, sifting through the Roxxon refinery remains, finds the license plate for Stark's car that Jarvis and Carter used to get away. | |||||||
| 3 | 3 | "Time and Tide" | Scott Winant | Andi Bushell | January 13, 2015 (2015-01-13) | 5.10[5] | |
Dooley and Krzeminski investigate Demidov's hotel room, and discover a typewriter. Thompson and Sousa take Jarvis in for interrogation, and the former threatens him with revealing an old treason charge to the immigration office. Carter, feigning ignorance, botches the interrogation to get Jarvis out, and receives a stern reprimand from Dooley. Carter and Jarvis then follow the sewer system below Stark's vault, through which Brannis took the stolen technology, to the docks, where they find the weapons on boardThe Heartbreak (a ship bearing Brannis' symbol). Jarvis anonymously gives the SSR their location, while Carter fights off a guard who had been working with Brannis. Carter and Jarvis are forced to leave him behind as the SSR arrives. While being transported back to SSR headquarters by Krzeminski, the guard is about to identify Carter as the woman interfering with the Stark investigation, when an unidentified assassin kills them both. | |||||||
| 4 | 4 | "The Blitzkrieg Button" | Stephen Cragg | Brant Englestein | January 27, 2015 (2015-01-27) | 4.63[6] | |
After learning that Brannis and Demidov were supposed to have died during the Battle ofFinow, Dooley travels toGermany to speak withErnst Mueller, theNazi colonel who led the opposing forces, and though he doesn't learn how Brannis and Demidov survived, Dooley does discover that theirSoviet forces were seemingly massacred before the Nazis even arrived. With Carter's only job to collect lunch orders, she meets up with Stark, who has secretly returned in the wake of his technology's discovery. Looking at photographs Carter takes of the weapons, he identifies one of them as the Blitzkrieg Button, which he claims can cause a permanent blackout throughout the city. However, a suspicious Carter opens the device to find a vial of Rogers' blood. Angry at Stark for lying to her, she hides the vial.Otto Mink, the criminal who smuggled Stark into New York, but was scammed out of his money by Carter and Jarvis, follows Carter back to her apartment, but he is killed by her new neighbor,Dottie Underwood. | |||||||
| 5 | 5 | "The Iron Ceiling" | Peter Leto | Jose Molina | February 3, 2015 (2015-02-03) | 4.20[7] | |
Carter decrypts an encoded message, received from Leviathan through Demidov's typewriter, for the SSR, learning that Stark will be selling weapons to Leviathan at aSoviet military complex. Thompson is sent to stop the sale and apprehend Stark, and is forced to take Carter when she enlists the help of her war comrades, theHowling Commandos. They discover that young girls are trained at the complex to infiltrate the US as sleeper agents, and realize that they have walked into a trap when one girl kills the CommandoJunior Juniper. Soviet soldiers attack the team and Thompson freezes under fire, but Carter ensures that they escape, along with imprisoned psychiatrist Dr.Ivchenko. Meanwhile, Underwood, who is actually a sleeper agent trained at that complex, discovers the photos of Stark's weapons in SSR custody when searching Carter's apartment, while Sousa realizes that Carter is the woman who has been interfering with the SSR's investigation. | |||||||
| 6 | 6 | "A Sin to Err" | Stephen Williams | Lindsey Allen | February 10, 2015 (2015-02-10) | 4.25[8] | |
Carter and Jarvis investigate the women that Stark has been involved with over the last six months, believing that a female Leviathan operative may have been used against Stark and to kill Krzeminski, but their search is unsuccessful. Sousa reveals to Dooley that Carter is an apparent traitor, and all agents are tasked with tracking her down. They eventually corner her and Jarvis, but Carter fights them off. During the commotion, Dr. Ivchenko, who is actually working for Leviathan, hypnotizes AgentYauch, who reveals that only Dooley can access Stark's weapons. Yauch shows Ivchenko how to get out of the SSR, before Ivchenko forces him to commit suicide. Carter retrieves Rogers' blood from her apartment. As she tries to escape the building, she is knocked out by Underwood, but not before realizing that Underwood is the Leviathan operative. Underwood is about to kill Carter when Thompson and Sousa arrive. She feigns ignorance, and the agents arrest Carter. | |||||||
| 7 | 7 | "Snafu" | Vincent Misiano | Chris Dingess | February 17, 2015 (2015-02-17) | 4.15[9] | |
As Carter is resisting interrogation at the SSR, Jarvis appears with a fake signed confession from Stark, promising surrender if Carter is released. Carter sees Ivchenko communicating inMorse code with Underwood, and reveals the truth about her own investigation to her colleagues to gain their trust. Ivchenko hypnotizes Dooley and has him steal one of Stark's weapons from the SSR's labs: a gas cylinder that Underwood and Ivchenko activate in a crowded cinema before leaving and locking the door behind them. The agents find Dooley wearing a Stark experimental vest given to him by Ivchenko, which Jarvis explains will explode with no way to deactivate it. Dooley jumps out a window moments before the device detonates, killing him but saving the others. The gas in the cinema makes many in the audience become maniacal and attack each other violently, and when an usher arrives soon after, the entire audience is dead. | |||||||
| 8 | 8 | "Valediction" | Christopher Misiano | Michele Fazekas & Tara Butters | February 24, 2015 (2015-02-24) | 4.02[10] | |
The SSR 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 causedpsychosis 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 SSR 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 onTimes 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 discards Rogers' blood in theEast River, finally moving on with her life, while Fennhoff is imprisoned with the schemingArnim Zola. | |||||||
By September 2013,Marvel Television was developing a series inspired by theAgent CarterOne-Shot short film, featuring theMarvel Comics characterPeggy Carter.[24] On May 8, 2014,ABC officially ordered the series, bypassing apilot order,[25][26] and later confirmed thatAgent Carter would air between the 2014 finale and 2015 premiere of thesecond season ofAgents of S.H.I.E.L.D., beginning January 6, 2015.[27][28] Later in May, starHayley Atwell stated that the season would consist of eight episodes.[29] Executive producers for the season include Tara Butters, Michelle Fazekas,Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely, Chris Dingess,Kevin Feige,Louis D'Esposito,Alan Fine,Joe Quesada,Stan Lee, andJeph Loeb.[30] Butters, Fazekas, and Dingess serve asshowrunners on the season.[31][32]
Markus & McFeely, writers on theCaptain America films, had written a script for the first episode by January 2014.[31] They stated in March that the series would be set in 1946, occurring in the middle of the timeline established in the One-Shot.[33] In July, Butters and Fazekas revealed that writing for the rest of the season would begin in August 2014.[34]
In July 2014, Fazekas stated that it was "fabulous from a writing perspective" to have an eight episode order, as "you can plan it and know where you're heading... They're all their own stories and they all have their own drive, but it's sort of building toward a big thing at the end of the eight episodes."[34] Elaborating on this, Atwell said, "it's incredibly tight, the script, which is great. It's fast moving and fast paced but luckily because it's not stretched out of 22 episodes, nothing is diluted. Every line is vital to not only moving the story and the action [along] but also developing the characters."[35] The season's overarching storyline revolves around the chemical weapon Midnight Oil, which is based on the Madbomb of the Captain America comics. The Madbomb was originally considered for use inCaptain America: Civil War, before negotiations with actors to adapt the "Civil War" storyline were completed.[36] Also in July, it was revealed that Carter's husband would be explored in the series.[37] However, he was ultimately not explored much in the first season, with McFeely saying, "This was the season where she says goodbye to Steve [Rogers]... In a second season, she could be freer to have those conversations about a life after him."[38]
Speaking about the season's use of 1940s terminology, Fazekas stated that terms like "broad" and "dame" were preferably avoided, while research was done to ensure terms that were used in the series were actually in use during that time, with Fazekas giving the example, "you know what didn't exist in 1946? Smart ass. I looked up the etymology on that, didn't exist in 1946. Turns out it was a term that came around in the 60s. But for instance, I wrote a line that said, "Oh I think someone's yanking your chain." And I had to look it up, did that exist in 1946? And actually it did; it's a mining term that exists from a long time ago. That's our research that we do." Research was also done on radio shows of the time to ensure realism when creating the fictionalCaptain America Adventure Program, with details discovered and replicated on the series including the use of lobsters and ham to create sound effects for the radio show.[39] The Griffith Hotel, the all-women boarding house where Carter lives, is based on the real-lifeBarbizon Hotel for Women.[39][40] Butters felt that while working in the time period, it became an issue to not sound "too period". Additionally, it was difficult to write British people from the time in order to avoid stereotypes such as the "typical British butler". However, D'Arcy, who is British, felt the writing staff wrote the British characters better than anyone else he had worked with, despite there not being any British writers on the staff.[41]
The main cast for the season includesHayley Atwell asPeggy Carter, reprising her role from the film series,[1]James D'Arcy asEdwin Jarvis,[11]Chad Michael Murray asJack Thompson,[12]Enver Gjokaj asDaniel Sousa,[13] andShea Whigham asRoger Dooley.[14]
In March 2014, Markus and McFeely stated thatHoward Stark would be a recurring character, contingent onDominic Cooper's involvement.[33] In June 2014, Atwell confirmed that Cooper would be involved with the series.[42]Kyle Bornheimer,[17]Ralph Brown,[20]Meagen Fay,[18]Lyndsy Fonseca,[16] andBridget Regan[19] also recur asRay Krzeminski,Johann Fennhoff,Miriam Fry,Angie Martinelli, andDottie Underwood, respectively, throughout the series.
In November 2014, it was announced thatCosta Ronin would portray a younger version ofAnton Vanko,[21] who was portrayed inIron Man 2 byYevgeni Lazarev.[43]Chris Evans appears asSteve Rogers / Captain America via archive footage fromThe First Avenger.[44]Neal McDonough andToby Jones also reprise their roles ofTimothy "Dum Dum" Dugan andArnim Zola from previous MCU films, One-Shots, and television series during the season.[22][23][45][46]
Filming began inLos Angeles around late September – early October 2014,[32][34][47] with theworking titleNylon,[48] and was completed on January 20, 2015.[49][50] Filming occurred at "everyback lot" in Los Angeles, includingUniversal Studios Lot, Paramount, andWarner Bros. Studios Burbank,[51] with location filming occurring atLos Angeles City Hall,Griffith Park, Royce Canyon, the marina inSan Pedro, and thePort of Los Angeles.[48]
CinematographerGabriel Beristain, returning from the One-Shot,[52] used a combination of modern digital technology and traditional analog techniques to replicate the feel of classic films that are set in the 1940s, but to also have the convenience and consistency of modern technology. Beristain uses theArri Alexa digital camera, along withLeica lenses and silk-stocking diffusion nets, the latter on which he recalled "I had last used in the 1980s in England on videos and commercials. I remembered that they were fantastic. In combination with the Leica lenses, the look is very classic, very much like a 1940s film. When I saw it, I said, 'This is absolutely Marvel,' and [D'Esposito] agreed." For the series' lighting, Beristain again mixed modern and traditional, usingLED fixtures to recreate classic Hollywood lighting. He called his lighting of Atwell "an homage to the great cinematographers who litLauren Bacall andGrace Kelly."[53]
Sheena Duggal, who served as visual effects supervisor on theAgent Carter One-Shot,[54] returned to the position for the series, while the companiesIndustrial Light & Magic (ILM) andBase FX created the visual effects.[55] Work by ILM includes the creation of backdrops for the series, includingmatte paintings, depicting 1940s New York.[39][56]DNeg TV also created visual effects, with ILM coordinating with them and Base to maintain a "seamless workflow". The season had 1,038 visual effects shots, with multiple episodes being worked on in post-production simultaneously to complete the work. In addition to all the set extensions required to depict the period through green screen and matte paintings, Duggal also noted difficulty in simulating the imploding bombs and creating a fully CG truck that drives off a cliff.[51]
In September 2014,Christopher Lennertz officially signed on to compose for the series,[57] having previously composed theAgent Carter One-Shot.[58] Lennertz combined all the different style elements of the show in the music, such as mixing jazz and period elements, with orchestra and electronic elements. In his research of the music of the time period, Lennertz learned thatjazz was shifting frombig band to smaller ensembles, andbebop was being introduced. This allowed him to incorporate trumpets in his scores, to harken to the time period and because they are "also very sneaky, and it lends itself to espionage".[59] Lennertz used the alto flute to capture "Carter's aura", saying, "It feels like a strong woman's voice, especially as she's sneaking around....it also has that spy quality."[60] Additionally, Lennertz was able to reorchestrate "Star Spangled Man" for the season, which is originally byAlan Menken forCaptain America: The First Avenger,[59] and introduced a folk choral piece performed by a Russian men's choir during "The Iron Ceiling".[60] A soundtrack album for the season was released oniTunes on December 11, 2015.[61]
All music composed by Christopher Lennertz.[61]
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Peggy Remembers Cap" | 1:51 |
| 2. | "Back Alley Surprise" | 0:58 |
| 3. | "Bad Babies" | 2:52 |
| 4. | "Typewriter Spy Messages" | 1:26 |
| 5. | "Green Man Fight" | 2:02 |
| 6. | "Blindes and Money" | 1:29 |
| 7. | "Roxxon Plant Implosion" | 5:14 |
| 8. | "Morning After Shooting" | 1:42 |
| 9. | "Dairy Van Implosion" | 1:31 |
| 10. | "Dottie's Training" | 1:17 |
| 11. | "Forgot the Password" | 1:23 |
| 12. | "Thompson's Navy Cross" | 1:37 |
| 13. | "Instill Fear" | 3:09 |
| 14. | "Dottie Sneaks In" | 3:47 |
| 15. | "Peggy Saves Thompson" | 6:13 |
| 16. | "Dottie and Doctor Plot" | 2:52 |
| 17. | "Inside the Minds of Soldiers" | 2:38 |
| 18. | "Interrogating Peggy" | 2:08 |
| 19. | "Enter Dooley's Head" | 1:09 |
| 20. | "Leviathan is Coming" | 0:57 |
| 21. | "I'm Invisible to You" | 1:55 |
| 22. | "Doctor and Dottie Escape with Item" | 1:40 |
| 23. | "Vest of Destruction" | 4:18 |
| 24. | "Check the Rooftops" | 1:44 |
| 25. | "Bring Him Home" | 1:23 |
| 26. | "Badass Girl Fight" | 2:12 |
| 27. | "We Have to Let Him Go" | 2:10 |
| 28. | "Peggy Gets Her Respect" | 2:26 |
| 29. | "Honored to Assist You" | 1:28 |
| Total length: | 65:31 | |
Markus, talking about the series place in the greater architecture of the MCU in January 2015 said "you really only need to drop the tiniest bit of hint and its connected. You don't have to go, "Howard Stark's wearing the same pants that Tony wears!" ... Everything is enhanced just by the knowledge that its all connected."[62] The season introduces theRed Room program,[63] which would eventually produceNatasha Romanoff,[64] who appears in multiple MCU films portrayed byScarlett Johansson.[65] Although the origins of the program are explored, the term "Black Widow" is never used in the series.[63]Agent Carter also explores the origins of theHydra-ledWinter Soldier program, as seen by the end tag in "Valediction" whenArnim Zola approaches Faustus about mind control.[38][66] The law firm Goodman, Kurtzberg, and Holliway is mentioned, with a modern-day version of the law firm, Goodman, Lieber, Kurtzberg, and Holliway, appearing in theMarvel StudiosDisney+ seriesShe-Hulk: Attorney at Law (2022).[67]
In the lead up to the airing of the series, Atwell made several appearances as Carter inAgents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'ssecond season.[68][69] Footage from the first episode was shown atNew York Comic Con on October 10, 2014,[47] and again in ABC's one-hourtelevision special,Marvel 75 Years: From Pulp to Pop!, which aired in November 2014.[70] The first teaser for the series debuted duringAgents of S.H.I.E.L.D. on October 28, 2014, with the tagline "Sometimes the best man for the job ... is a woman." Though the trailer itself was received positively, the tagline was criticized as "awful" and "ridiculous",[71] andAlan Sepinwall ofHitFix said "I get that one of the themes of the show will be Peggy dealing with the sexism of the time, but these ads exist in 2014, not 1945. Please find a new tagline."[72]
Agent Carter debuted in the United States and Canada as a two-hour series premiere on January 6, 2015, onABC andCTV, respectively.[73][74] It began airing in New Zealand onTV2 on February 11, 2015.[75] In October 2014,Channel 4, the channel that airsAgents of S.H.I.E.L.D. in the United Kingdom, stated that they did not "have any current plans [to air]Agent Carter".[76] In June 2015,FOX UK purchased the broadcast rights for the United Kingdom,[77] with the series premiering on July 12, 2015.[78]
The season was released onBlu-ray andDVD on September 18, 2015, as anAmazon exclusive.[79] On November 29, 2017,Hulu acquired the exclusive streaming rights to the series,[80] and the season was made available onDisney+ at launch, on November 12, 2019.[81]
| No. | Title | Air date | Rating/share (18–49) | Viewers (millions) | DVR (18–49) | DVR viewers (millions) | Total (18–49) | Total viewers (millions) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Now is Not the End" | January 6, 2015 | 1.9/6 | 6.91[4] | 1.1 | 3.25 | 3.0 | 10.16[82] |
| 2 | "Bridge and Tunnel" | January 6, 2015 | 1.9/6 | 6.91[4] | 1.1 | 3.25 | 3.0 | 10.16[82] |
| 3 | "Time and Tide" | January 13, 2015 | 1.5/4 | 5.10[5] | 0.8 | 2.56 | 2.3 | 7.66[83] |
| 4 | "The Blitzkrieg Button" | January 27, 2015 | 1.3/4 | 4.63[6] | 1.0 | 2.54 | 2.3 | 7.16[84] |
| 5 | "The Iron Ceiling" | February 3, 2015 | 1.3/4 | 4.20[7] | — | — | — | — |
| 6 | "A Sin to Err" | February 10, 2015 | 1.4/4 | 4.25[8] | 0.9 | — | 2.3[85] | — |
| 7 | "Snafu" | February 17, 2015 | 1.4/4 | 4.15[9] | 0.8 | 2.09 | 2.2 | 6.24[86] |
| 8 | "Valediction" | February 24, 2015 | 1.3/4 | 4.02[10] | 0.9 | — | 2.2[87] | — |
The season averaged 7.14 million total viewers, including from DVR, ranking 74th among network series in the2014–15 television season. It also had an average total 18-49 rating of 2.3, which was 46th.[88]
Thereview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes reported a 96% approval rating with an average rating of 7.90/10 based on 50 reviews. The website's consensus reads, "Focusing on Peggy Carter as a person first and an action hero second makesMarvel's Agent Carter a winning, stylish drama with bursts of excitement and an undercurrent of cheeky fun".[89]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 73 out of 100 based on 27 reviews, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[90]
Brian Lowry, reviewing the two-part premiere forVariety, felt that giving Atwell her own television series was "a pretty smart bet" by Marvel, and he called the episodes "considerable fun". He noted the period setting as contributing to this, and positively mentioned the score by composer Christopher Lennertz.[91] Darren Franich ofEntertainment Weekly felt that "the show isn't as retro-stylish as it thinks it is ... the first hour ofAgent Carter feels like an above-average episode ofYoung Indiana Jones Chronicles", noting that it tonally aims forHis Girl Friday,Dick Tracy, andAlias ("A tough tonal mixture on a weekly broadcast budget, but also an ambition worth pursuing"), but praised Atwell's performance, calling her "a delight" and "firing on all cylinders". Franich was negative about what he saw to be common MCU tropes, notably "Somebody named Stark invented something dangerous; everyone wants an All-Important Glowing Thing; there's an implicit promise that nothing will be solved for weeks/years to come." Though he was wary about the series being forced to contribute to the rest of the MCU, he did note that "Agent Carter feels pleasantly segmented off from the greater Marvel Machinery".[92]
Eric Goldman ofIGN gave the first season an 8.8 out of 10, saying, "Agent Carter didn't need to succeed by setting up something to pay off inGuardians of the Galaxy 2 – it just needed to be an entertaining, involving show. And boy, was it." He also praised the Peggy and Jarvis dynamic, the MCU tie-ins and connections the series included, such as the Black Widow program, and the strong portrayals of the season's supporting characters.[93] Amy Ratcliffe atNerdist called the season "a memorable splash" a noted that the lack of filler in the short season lead to "action-packed but not overstuffed" episodes. She praised the "period aspect that's defined so well by music, sets, and costumes" as placing the series "head and shoulders above others", and called the cast "eminently talented".[94] On the other hand, Lowry ultimately found the series "just didn't have legs", saying that after the premiere it "meandered through several episodes that merely seemed to inch the story along, rallying only slightly in the not wholly satisfying conclusion." He felt that outside of Atwell's Carter and D'Arcy's Jarvis that characters were not developed enough, and said that the MCU tie-in with Toby Jones' Arnim Zola made the series seem like "a footnote".[95]
Maureen Ryan ofVariety named the show one of the Top 20 Best New Shows of 2015,[96] whileDigital Spy ranked it 10th on their Best TV Shows of 2015 list.[97]The A.V. Club named Atwell's performance as one of the "Best Individual Performances" of 2015.[98]
| Year | Award | Category | Nominee(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | Hollywood Post Alliance Awards | Outstanding Visual Effects – Television (Under 13 Episodes) | Sheena Duggal, Richard Bluff, Jay Mehta, Chad Taylor, and Cody Gramstad for "Now is Not the End" | Nominated | [99] [100] |
| Saturn Awards | Best Superhero Adaptation Television Series | Agent Carter | Nominated | [101] | |
| Best Actress in a Television Series | Hayley Atwell | Nominated | |||
| Best Guest Performance in a Television Series | Dominic Cooper | Nominated | |||
| 2016 | Visual Effects Society Awards | Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Photoreal Episode | "Now is Not the End" | Nominated | [102] |
| Make-Up Artists and Hair Stylists Guild Awards | Television and New Media Series – Best Period and/or Character Hair Styling | Agent Carter | Nominated | [103] |
She's Dottie for now. And the fact is, the great and exciting thing for us is we're showing the precursor to the Black Widow Program, as you will see in the upcoming episode, 105
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