Agent Carter: Review: Series 2 Episode 1: The Lady in the Lake

After finally taking down her nemesis, Peggy Carter is not impressed when Jack Thompson sends her to Los Angeles to help the new bureau chief investigate how someone was frozen to death in the middle of a heatwave…

And so, a couple of weeks later than anticipated – thanks, Obama! – Peggy Carter is back in action, with a slamdown battle with Dottie Underwood starting the hour before being sent off to the West Coast, where Mr and Mrs Jarvis are waiting to assist her. It’s a fun episode, although it feels as if it could have done with a little bit more time rather than being rushed through.

Hayley Atwell is as strong in the role as ever, whether she’s putting up with Jack’s idiocies, charming a scientist, or getting on with the investigation. If you’ve not been following Agents of SHIELD, the significance of the ending may escape you, but from all accounts this is part of Marvel’s Phase Three plot development across large and small screen franchises.

We get to meet a new femme fatale in the shape of Wyn Everett’s Whitney Frost, a name that will be familiar to readers of the comics. There’s a neat tip of the hat to her origin in the title of the movie in which she appears in this… As the closing part of the episode suggests, she’s the power behind Senator Chadwick’s throne, and how many bets that Peggy will take some time to get Daniel Sousa and the other men in LA (bar Jarvis) to believe her about that? As for the previous femme fatale, Bridget Regan continues to have fun as Dottie, with her scenes with Jack Thompson demonstrating just how little the latter has learned from Peggy!

Verdict: Inevitably there’s lots of setting up in this episode, making its broadcast with episode two sensible, but it does contain its own particular LA brand of mystery – and it’s always good to have Peggy back. 7/10

Paul Simpson