Meet AGENT CARTER

Article originally written for Seat42F.

MARVEL’S AGENT CARTER is Alias in the 1940s, so with a large dose of how women were treated in the first season of Mad Men. Set two years after the events of the main plot of Captain America: The First Avenger, SSR Agent Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) has been relegated to a desk job that wastes her talents. But when Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper) is accused of selling weapons to the nation’s enemies, he calls upon her to secretly investigate who stole his tech.

AGENT CARTER is not about the start of S.H.I.E.L.D., set prior to that organization’s founding, nor does it feature connections to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., at least not yet. Instead, the miniseries is its own thing, a self-contained mission seemingly designed to highlight Atwell’s talents and prove her worthiness to Stark, who certainly needs no further evidence. It’s not ground-moving to the Marvel universe, but it is enjoyable.

For those wondering about continuity, well, it works fine with Captain American, but not with the Marvel One-Shot, Agent Carter. In the One-Shot, which takes place one year after Captain America, thus one year prior to AGENT CARTER, she is rescued from obscurity by Howard to begin the organization Nick Fury will one day run. This hasn’t happened yet, and she’s still locked in the desk job, albeit with a different boss and co-workers than in that short. Toss out the One-Shot, or assume it happens at a later date, and all is well. Though, it’s a tad disappointing we don’t get to see Peggy traipsing the globe with Dum Dum Dugan and the Howling Commandos, picking up artifacts as glimpses in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. this fall.

Taking AGENT CARTER on its own merits, I like it. It’s a new take on the detective / cop / spy story, with Carter having to work behind her superior’s backs because they don’t trust or believe in her. She has a sort-of bumbling male sidekick, Stark’s butler, Edwin Jarvis (James D’Arcy, Those Who Kill), and when she’s not working, she has a gal pal to hang around with, waitress Angie (Lyndsy Fonseca, Nikita). There is character development when someone Peggy is close to pays the cost of Carter’s activities. Peggy’s adventures are exciting enough, and it’s fun watching her kick butt and brilliantly outsmart the villains, including Spider Raymond (Andre Royo, The Wire), Leet Brannis (James Frain, Grimm), and Miles Van Ert (James Urbaniak, The Venture Bros.).

AGENT CARTER is feminism in action without pounding you over the head with it. Sure, Peggy’s boss, Roger Dooley (Shea Whigham, Boardwalk Empire), has no confidence in her, nor do co-workers golden boy Jack Thompson (Chad Michael Murray, One Tree Hill) and bumbling Ray Krzeminski (Kyle Bornheimer, Perfect Couples). But Stark and Jarvis have plenty of faith in her, and her peer, Daniel Sousa (Enver Gjokaj, Dollhouse), respects her, too. So how people regard Peggy is more about them as individuals than the time as a whole.

Where the show gets most preachy is when we hear the Captain American radio plays, which paint Peggy as a damsel in distress that the hero must rescue. Of course, at one point this is interspersed with her beating the heck out of a baddie, so it’s more laughable bit than social commentary.

AGENT CARTER feels fresh, and it feels new. I think making it a period piece sets it apart from other network fare, and while the structure of show isn’t wholly original, making it one big story instead of cases-of-the-week keeps it compelling. I do wish it had been set in the early days of S.H.I.E.L.D., thus adding to the franchise as a whole, but it’s still a fun piece without that, and I look forward to seeing where the plot is going over the next six weeks. And maybe season two will satisfy that other want?

AGENT CARTER airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET on ABC.

THOSE WHO KILL Are Featured Too Heavily on Television

Article first published as THOSE WHO KILL Review on Seat42F.

Following Bates Motel tonight on A&E is the new drama THOSE WHO KILL. Other reviewers seem to be mixed on whether this show succeeds or not, but most take one position or the other. I’m torn in the middle, seeing both the positive and negative points made. This is yet another crime drama with a few very formulaic elements and some, at-times, shoddy writing. But it’s also a heck of a character study for its lead, whom is brilliantly acted, and it does veer away from the rote procedural.

As the “Pilot” begins, Detective Catherine Jensen (Chloe Sevigny, Big Love, Portlandia) is examining a mummified corpse. Her fellow officer, Lieutenant Mike Dunn (Christopher Michael Holley, Smokin’ Aces), a seasoned veteran, doesn’t want to expend much effort on what he feels is an open-and-shut unsolvable case. The thing is, even the viewer can tell at a glance by the corpse’s painted fingernails that Dunn’s theory is wrong. Jensen, of course, bulks, finds some more clues, some with the help of her medical examiner friend, Mia (Kerry O’Malley, Shameless), and quickly gets on the trail of a serial killer.

If that paragraph made the show seem predictable, well, that part of it is. Dunn is a ridiculous cop, but one television viewers will be familiar with, and Jensen is a brilliant hero, again, another oft-used type. If there wasn’t more to this story, then THOSE WHO KILL would end pretty quickly. But that’s just the start of things.

Knowing she’ll get little support from Dunn, Jensen enlists an academic, Thomas Schaeffer (James D’Arcy, Secret Diary of a Call Girl), for assistance. He turns out to be just as weird and eccentric as she is, and together, the two come face to face with the bad guy relatively early in the episode. That doesn’t mean the case is over and everything is solved. That just means these guys are good. Very good.

Throughout this first installment, we learn little bits about both Jensen and Schaeffer that are disturbing, more so for the former, but surely more will come about the latter. Jensen cuts herself and keeps pictures of serial killers’ homes on her wall. She is obsessed with a missing brother and a mysterious father (Bruce Davison, X-Men). Schaeffer’s wife (Anne Dudek, Covert Affairs) does not approve of him getting involved in an active case, and her opinion is justified when Schaeffer gets a little too creepy putting himself in the mind of the killer, a la Will Graham in Hannibal, to a much lesser extent. His rocky, but unrevealed, past with Jensen’s boss, Frank Bisgaard (James Morrison, 24), also counts against him.

The parts of THOSE WHO KILL that work best are when the series dwells on the darker nature of its players. Yes, Dexter has already given us just about all the psychopath anyone could want, and Luther and others have played for the more complex version of the part, so it’s not really anything new. But Sevigny is just so darned good that one can’t look away from her performance, even when the script falters.

And falter it does. Besides Dunn’s unrealistic dismissiveness, there is a terribly botched capture attempt, a run-in that should have ended the episode, a few leaps of logic to move the plot along, and the setting itself of run-down Pittsburgh. Bisgaard tells Jensen she should feel responsible for every death until they capture their man, bad advice that no ordinary cop could take to heart and stay sane. But at least the main cops actually call for backup when going into a dangerous situation, and said backup arrives in a timely manner, a situation almost unheard of in the television crime body of work.

The hardest thing THOSE WHO KILL has going for it is that it’s another crime show. The genre is tragically bloated, so it’s almost impossible to add anything new to it. Networks need to stop trying, immediately and almost permanently. The good thing is that it’s paired with a show that has a similar tone and sensibilities, albeit with a bit more originality and teen angst, and the cast, especially Sevigny, is amazing. Her contribution cannot be overstated. So it has a chance. It’s certainly the second best series A&E has made, a bit above Longmire, and miles over The Glades.

THOSE WHO KILLS airs Mondays at 10 p.m. ET on A&E.