Marvel's Agent Carter: Time and Tide

Mild spoilers.

Time and tide waits for no man -- or woman -- but fortunately, Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) doesn't need it to wait; she is always arrives on time... unless it's for her increasingly belittling job at the SSR. She has much more interesting things to do with her new pal, and partner in crime, (and crime fighting) like trying to find out how Howard Stark's secret weapons were stolen to help along their recovery.

Peggy Carter fighting crime.

For episode three of the eight part series, the mystery aspect is kicked up a notch -- now that the introduction has been sufficiently made -- and it is intrigue worthy of Marvel. Perhaps it was because of the first two episodes being aired back to back, making them meld into one, but this ep also seemed to be more concise; it knew what it wanted to do, and didn't dawdle in getting it done.

The episode's highlight was in the department of character development, as I imagine it will often be, starting with a nice background story for the before mentioned pal and partner, Mr. Jarvis (James D'Arcy) as his helping out Peggy lands him in the need of a little help as well. I enjoyed the glimpse of his darker side, but still my favorite aspect of him remains to be his perfectly delivered punch lines, which in spite of the added drama to the character are of no less quantity or quality than before. His "American accent" was just great.

Whoever was taking these photos definitely likes Agent Thompson more than Jarvis, and I'm extremely disappointed in them.

Of course Peggy is the heroine of this story, and even though she already has miles more development than any other character here, she still got plenty to chew on, and remains the best feature of this show. Her budding friendship with Jarvis is my personal favorite feature however; they're scenes together never fail to be the best and most fun. The way she gets Jarvis out of trouble was very smart (on her part and the writers) -- it gave credit to the disrespect she receives at the office, which I very much appreciated. Though I'm still not approving of this extreme depiction of the 40's female plight, at least now it's believable and has some ground to stand on in Peggy's case.

She can hold her own in a fight, but not too unrealistically so. Jarvis to the rescue!

Other than being given reasons to not appreciate Peggy's work, her co-workers still don't have much development to their name. Granted, Agent Sousa (Enver Gjokaj) had more from the start and is now accruing interest. The others have settled into their rather shallow characters a bit now though, and I still hold out hope that they'll be able to dig deeper in the future, especially considering as certain interesting event that occurs at the end of the show -- a clear spark of potential is seen!

Also on the other subject that bothered me last week, the futuristic and dangerous gadgets of Stark's do get another appearance, but -- perhaps because I was expecting it this time and not setting my hopes on a fully retro show -- it didn't bother me much at all. When I'm not expecting something bothersome is when it really gets to me. This time, it was Peggy's waitress friend and next door neighbor Angie (Lyndsy Fonseca), who seemed like a reasonable, down-to-earth kind of gal at first, but here is offended at the drop of a hat, and very inconsiderate and not at all understanding. I'm sure she'll be back to normal next week.

Peggy came out of the situation well; we see she's gracious enough to right a wrong that really wasn't her fault.

I found myself wishing that it were another two-hour night of vintage spy fun and excitement, but then kindly reminded myself that it's good that it's spread out over seven weeks -- just before discovering the existence of a two-week break in between this episode and the next! Now I must kindly (with some difficulty) remind myself that "anticipation is half the fun." Either way, this is the most fun show on TV.

If you haven't read it, here is my review for the first two episodes. And catch the next episode on Jan 27th, 9/8c on ABC!