Agent Carter S:01 E:08

Episode Title: Valediction

Original Airdate: 2-24-15

And there it is. After a short but very interesting Season, Marvel’s ‘tie-in’ show to the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe, in the form of an 8 episode mini-series spin-off of a fan favorite character introduced in one of the movies, is at an end. ‘Agent Carter’s Season Finale nicely wraps up all loose ends and explains every tie bit and set up dropped during the course of the show. It’s a satisfying resolution to the story of Peggy Carter and her colleagues, while thematically concluding a more emotional story arc for the main character, making its title, ‘Valediction’ completely appropriate.

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Agent Carter S:01 E:06

Marvel's 'Agent Carter' starring Hayley Atwell & James D'Arcy

Episode Title: A Sin To Err

Original Airdate: 02-10-15

After an action and story packed episode last week, this week’s ‘Agent Carter’ slows down a lot to make room for more, Peggy / Jarvis silliness before switching gears again for the 3rd act in favor of a cliffhanger ending and an interesting twist. While not as fast paced as the last episode, episode 6 of the series, entitled ‘A Sin To Err’, may not have moved things along as fast as it could’ve. And with only 2 remaining episodes, is the slowed pacing really a good idea? Lets find out.

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Agent Carter S:01 E: 05

Marvel's 'Agent Carter' starring Hayley Atwell & James D'Arcy

Episode Title: The Iron Ceiling

Original Airdate: 2-3-15

After some episodes that didn’t really advance the plot much, this week’s ‘Agent Carter’ gives us its best episode yet. Titled ‘The Iron Ceiling’, everyone from the writers to the cast blows the roof off this one with a story that encapsulates every aspect of a spy adventure series that this one was advertised as. The episode has dollops of adding back-story to certain characters developing them further, strengthening relationships, explosive action, familiar faces from the Marvel Cinematic Universe and dramatically advancing the story and raising the stakes for the remainder of the series.

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Agent Carter S:01 E:04

Marvel's 'Agent Carter' starring Hayley Atwell & James D'Arcy

Episode Title: The Blitzkrieg Button

Original Airdate: 1-27-15

‘Agent Carter’ returns after a one-week break with an episode that is hopefully setting up the remaining half of the 8-episode mini-series. One of the more slow episodes of the Season thus far, The Blitzkrieg Button focuses on Howard Stark’s return to New York in order to check out which of his inventions the S.S.R has confiscated, while the officers of the S.S.R. follow their leads to get further clues about the mysterious villains introduced in earlier episodes. This episode is much lighter than the others, especially when you see Stan Lee make an appearance, and not a lot happens until the last 10 minutes, where a lot is set up for future episodes.

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Agent Carter S:01 E:03

Marvel's 'Agent Carter' starring Hayley Atwell & James D'Arcy

Episode: “Time And Tide”

Original Airdate: 01-13-15

The third Episode of Marvel’s Tie In to their Cinematic Universe pulls back the scope of the series to focus on one character and solidify the original premise a bit more. While the first two episodes dealt with finding bad guys behind the theft of a super glowing bomb that was stolen from Howard Stark, this episode Agent Peggy Carter begins her official investigation into the theft. Having been left a message by one of those bad guys, who maybe could’ve been good, Carter is able to track down where the rest of Stark’s ‘bad babies’ were kept.

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Agent Carter S:01 E:01 & E:02

Marvel's 'Agent Carter' starring Hayley Atwell & James D'Arcy

Episode: ‘Pilot’ & ‘Bridge And Tunnel’

Original Airdate: 1-6-15

‘Agent Carter’ is (so far at least) a one shot mini series that expands on the Marvel Cinematic Universe from the movies with stories that act as a prequel. The show is an 8 episode mini series that focuses on a character first introduced in ‘Captain America: The First Avenger’ as Steve Rogers‘ love interest, Agent Peggy Carter played brilliantly by Haley Atwell.

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Agent Carter: Theories, Predictions & Connections To The MCU

Marvel's 'Agent Carter' starring Hayley Atwell & James D'Arcy

Movies based on Comic Books are all the rage, infiltrating the small screen with multiple shows of varying levels of success. Even ‘event stories’ from Comics have made their way into films with Marvel’s Cinematic Universe where multiple movies with solo heroes culminate into one team up film combining all the individual stories. And soon, another comic universe concept will become part of the film and TV universes: the tie in book.

Marvel’s ‘Agent Carter’ will supposedly be a prequel story set after the events of ‘Captain America: The First Avenger’ focusing on the character of Peggy Carter from the same movie, and will tell the story of the founding of S.H.I.E.L.D. and her contribution to it. But I suspect there will be more at play than just that, especially given that S.H.I.E.L.D. no longer even exists in the MCU. So it’s strange that Marvel would put out a prequel in the middle of the mid season break of an existing show such as ‘Agents Of SHIELD’, if it didn’t somehow connect or ‘tie in’ (see what I did there) to what more is to come in the MCU. Given that, here are some theories and thoughts of what ‘Agent Carter’ may be about and where it could lead.

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Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S:02 E:09 & E:10

Episode: …Ye Who Enter Here
Original Airdate: 12-2-14
Episode: What They Become
Original Airdate: 12-9-14

I know, I’m a week behind on this, but it just slipped my mind. It’s not because of the lack of interest because I’ve been enjoying the second season quite a bit. The characters have really meshed well together, the story arc is getting interesting, and I keep hearing good things about what’s going on. I will be combining these two episodes as I watched them back to back and am not entirely sure where one episode ends and the other begins anymore in my memory. This marks the return of Rayna who was left to run off into the wild so that she could more or less lead S.H.I.E.L.D. to Whitehall because he was after her. One of the best parts of the moment where Rayna gets recaptured by S.H.I.E.L.D. is the return of Patton Oswald as the Koenig triplets who are down to two, though there’s a question as to whether there are more brothers out there that we haven’t been introduced to yet. With all of the action going on and the politics between Hydra and S.H.I.E.L.D, the comic relief of Patton Oswald is worth the minor budgetary special effects used in order to sell the twin effect. I loved the little jokes that he kept doing like when he said there were thirteen of them, and then later when his brother was off screen he joked that he had to recharge his batteries. There’s also a great moment of return of Agent 33 who still has the technology that gave her Agent May’s face and voice, although because of the electrocution from their earlier fight it apparently is permanently fused to her face, only there’s a large burn scar on one side and the voice modulation isn’t working correctly. Although I imagine that part of that is so that Ming Na can get a little bit more screen time as well as the chance to play a villain because she is so great at being the badass. And now that the team dynamic has shifted in season 2, she hasn’t had nearly as many opportunities to be that badass, especially since Skye has started to transition more into that role herself. And she gets a great chance to kick some major ass here during a fight with Agent 33, though she doesn’t come through it completely unscathed. But some of the major relationship issues get resolved here in the midseason finale portion. Skye gets one of the greatest moments with Ward when he starts working with her again, and she just shoots him the moment she gets a chance to, even though he does manage to survive. It really shows a lot of growth for Skye’s character compared to how she started out in the first season. There’s also the slight surprising moment where Whitehall gets shot by Coulson, not only that, but he shoots him right before Skye’s father gets his moment of revenge for the death of his wife and Skye’s mother. Or technically Daisy’s mother. I must say that I almost expected during the moment when Skye’s father starts humming “Bicycle Built for Two” and Skye says that she had heard that song before, I totally expected her to say something along the lines of “that space movie with that psycho HAL computer”. And we finally get to see what’s inside the buried alien city which is mainly just a lot of weirdness, and we do earlier get to find out that the aliens definitely are the Kree who play an important part in the Marvel universe, though I personally don’t exactly know what that part is. It’s sad to see Agent Triplett go, but I am curious to see what the future holds for Skye and Rayna in the latter half of the show.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S:02 E:08

Episode: The Things We Bury
Original Airdate: 11-18-14

This was a great episode, especially for anyone who thought that they might still be angling towards some sort of redemption for Ward’s character. No, he is fully within the realm of a villain, and a very interesting villain at that. He’s good at what he does, he has intimate knowledge of S.H.I.E.L.D. and its operations, and there’s honestly no telling what his real motivation or goal is. There’s been some speculation that he might end up becoming Taskmaster who was featured in the recent direct to video Marvel animation Iron Man and Captain America: Heroes United, speculation that Brett Dalton himself appreciated but did not confirm or deny. At the end of season one I was a bit worried at what he would become here in season two, but I must say that I do like the direction they are going, especially after his full turn here. There’s still an element where he is working both sides, but I’m pretty sure that whatever his goal is, it’s entirely for his own purposes and not to specifically align himself with either Hydra or S.H.I.E.L.D. On the other side of things, Skye’s father gets a bit more screentime and allows himself to become quite the person of interest as well. There’s also plenty of flashbacks that shed light into Whitehall’s background and how he has remained youthful for all these years. We also get a brief cameo from another Whedon alum who I recognized as Sierra from Dollhouse who plays what appears to be Skye’s mother in a great reveal at the end of the episode. It’s such a simple moment, but it informs so much more about what angle her father is playing and what is actually so special about her. It’s really a standout episode in an already stellar season, I can’t wait to see where everything goes from here.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S:02 E:06

Episode: A Fractured House
Original Airdate: 10-28-14

Honestly, this episode felt like a giant excuse to show how much of a badass Ward can still be even though he has more or less gone rogue and escaped from S.H.I.E.L.D. custody. But as much as some people like Ward, he just seems way too good at everything he does. There’s still a question of his overall motive, but I’m glad that they don’t seem to be going for the full redemption storyline that I suspected at the end of the first season. Even though he is working for the good of S.H.I.E.L.D. at the moment, the way he is going about it is way too reckless and violent for him to continue to be a valued asset for the team. The only positive outcome I can see at this point for his character is that he might become someone like the Punisher when he was part of the Avengers where he is called in to do the jobs that no one else is able to do, the ones where they need to do the jobs that require the elimination of the target. The other aspect of the episode finally answers the question of the mysterious alien writing that has been plaguing Coulson and a few other members. While I’m glad that this issue has finally been resolved, I didn’t quite like how everything was wrapped up in a neat little package. And now it is all ok. The solution that the map was three dimensional was the one aspect that I liked about it, but time will tell if this new-ish alien city aspect of the story pans out in a good way or a bad way.