Kyle’s Thoughts

Agent Carter found a way to connect to the greater Marvel cinematic/TV universe with “A View in the Dark.” I don’t know if this is a good or bad thing but the monolith makes its first chronological appearance in this episode—actually it made a cameo in the previous episode of Agent Carter “The Lady in the Lake, but who’s counting?—and we could either get background info on Hydra’s exploits to grab the monolith and get a Star Wars prequel approach to Agent Carter or we could get a new story entirely. Fortunately, it looks like the latter.

I’ve been on record saying that I didn’t want this series to function as grout between the ending of Captain America: the First Avenger and the modern Marvel cinematic universe. We need something a little more and it looks—for the time being—like Agent Carter could be giving us something more. I’m withholding judgment.

The thing I noticed in “A View in the Dark” is that Agent Carter has committed to a location shift from the east coast to the west coast. I guess this was inevitable since Tony Stark starts in Los Angeles and then relocates to New York City but I’m wondering if this is more a function of the ridiculous taxes and fees associated with filming in NYC. Perhaps it’s a little of column A and B. The new locale works for Agent Carter. The color palette shifted to a warmer and inviting one and it feels like a different creature but I think the show would benefit from globetrotting and if it does, it should continue to make each location its own entity. Agent Carter also branched out from its theme of sexism to issues of race but it didn’t harp on the issue as much as did sexism last season. We got one full scene to drive the point home and that’s good.

I would say more about the main arc but I’m afraid we’d get into spoiler territory. For now let’s say that it holds my interest and it works with what Marvel has planned for the rest of its universe. In short, Agent Carter continues to deliver a fun, watchable product that features one of Marvel’s few leading ladies.