The second and final season of the American television series Agent Carter, which is inspired by the 2011 film Captain America: The First Avenger and the 2013 Marvel One-Shot short film of the same name, features the character Peggy Carter, based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name, as she moves to Los Angeles to deal with the threats of the new atomic age in the wake of World War II, gaining new friends, a new home, and potential new love. It is set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), sharing continuity with the films of the franchise, and was produced by ABC Studios, Marvel Television, and Fazekas & Butters. Tara Butters, Michele Fazekas, and Chris Dingess served as showrunners.
In May 2015, a second season of Agent Carter was ordered, with Hayley Atwell, who reprises her role from the film series and One-Shot as Carter, returning to star. Alongside her, James D'Arcy, Chad Michael Murray, and Enver Gjokaj also return from the first season. Filming took place in Los Angeles in late 2015, with the season contrasting the lives of Carter and the Hedy Lamarr-inspired Whitney Frost, portrayed by recurring guest star Wynn Everett. Visual and practical effects were mixed to realize the setting and more fantastical elements of the series, while David Zippel and Louis van Amstel provided a musical dream sequence for the season. Other characters from previous MCU media also appear, as well as elements shared with the films and the television series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
The 10-episode season aired on ABC from January 19 to March 1, 2016, during the season three mid-season break of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and received generally positive reviews. Critics praised the performances, setting, and character development of Whitney Frost, but some elements, such as the season's ending and humor, were criticized, and viewership for the season was deemed too low. ABC canceled Agent Carter on May 12, 2016.
Episodes
Cast and characters
Main Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter James D'Arcy as Edwin Jarvis Chad Michael Murray as Jack Thompson Enver Gjokaj as Daniel Sousa
Recurring
Bridget Regan as Dottie Underwood Wynn Everett as Whitney Frost Reggie Austin as Jason Wilkes Currie Graham as Calvin Chadwick Lotte Verbeek as Ana Jarvis Lesley Boone as Rose Roberts Matt Braunger as Aloysius Samberly Kurtwood Smith as Vernon Masters Rey Valentin as Vega Ken Marino as Joseph Manfredi
Notable guests
Ray Wise as Hugh Jones Dominic Cooper as Howard Stark Lyndsy Fonseca as Angie Martinelli
Production
Development In January 2015, showrunners Michele Fazekas and Tara Butters confirmed that Agent Carter was not intended to be a miniseries, and that a possible second season would not necessarily be limited to eight episodes like the first. The series was renewed for a second season on May 7, 2015, intended to debut in 2016 of the 2015–16 season during the midseason break of the third season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Later in May, Hayley Atwell stated the season would consist of 10 episodes. Butters explained that this would probably not allow for any standalone episodes, "but I definitely think it allows for more character, because we can have more personal stories built into the framework of the overall arching mystery".
Writing
Before the second season was announced, Fazekas said that "We've certainly been talking about what a second season would look like...what's great about the structure of this show is, you can tell so many different stories and go so many different directions." Thus, Butters said of the first season storyline featuring Leviathan, "we wrapped up that story" already, with Toby Jones' cameo as Arnim Zola in the first-season finale just "a fun tie-in" rather than something that would be followed up on in the second season. Series creators Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely revealed they "had a really nice story about who Peggy is and where she came from" that did not make it into the first season, but they hoped could be explored in a second, while Fazekas and Butters also revealed that there had been a story about Carter having "a night out with the girls" to explore her personal life, as well as more material for the character Angie, that they felt would both be easier to tell in a second season.
Season two is set in 1947, approximately six months to a year following the events of the first, with the time jump made to show "people are in a little bit different positions, and things have happened between these seasons that we maybe don't know about." Fazekas noted that "the challenge" for the season was to find a way to reunite Carter with Edwin Jarvis since he is "not an agent....that's a really important relationship, how do we keep them together?...The nice thing about Peggy this season is she's not having to hide her agenda from the SSR. [Jarvis] is helping her out, just in a different way." Elaborating on the SSR's role in the season, Fazekas explained that when Markus and McFeely created the organisation for Captain America: The First Avenger it was inspired by the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), which was "somewhat disbanded after the war, because it was created because of World War II. So now that the war is over, things are changing. And in real history, the OSS sort of became the CIA and some of its other functions went under other departments. There's a little bit of change going on within SSR and so Thompson [is now the New York SSR chief, but he] has a boss [in Vernon Masters] that's going to be saying, "Look, things are changing, and you need to look out for yourself."" The season also sees Daniel Sousa promoted to the chief of the Los Angeles SSR office.
The fictional company Isodyne Energy, who is involved with nuclear testing in the desert, was influenced by the real life 1940s companies such as Radiodyne, General Atomics or the beginnings of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, "all of which were in L.A. in the '40s, and were developing the space program and were developing nukes." Additionally, the season avoids depicting real life Hollywood stars from the 1940s because "the focus would shift from story to: does that person look or sound like an actor?" Instead, the character Whitney Frost is depicted as an actress "who will have a part to play in our larger storyline." The season introduces the Council of Nine, based on the Secret Empire, who "meet at the Arena Club, which is like this social club of white guys. They're just the guys who sort of run the world. They have orchestrated assassinations. We insinuate that they orchestrated the 1929 Stock Market crash." Members of the Council include powerful businessmen Calvin Chadwick and Hugh Jones, and their influence extends to "high levels of the government" as seen with War Department veteran Vernon Masters. Despite close similarities between the "A" symbol of the Arena Club and a Hydra symbol introduced in the third season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Fazekas stated that she "would not say" there was a connection between the Council and Hydra.
With the introduction of Jason Wilkes and Frost, both considered "outsiders" as Carter was in the first season, co-showrunner Chris Dingess noted how their arcs in the season would be similar, yet different from Carter's, saying "I think everyone, to get to that place of getting respect, has a different road to get there. Everyone makes different choices along the way that define that road and I think with these three characters, everyone has a distinct, separate path." Atwell spoke specifically about the season's approach to diversity and prejudice, and noted that the series' crew had expanded to include African American and Asian writers as well as a female director. "Since the first season heavily focused on a woman in a man's world," Atwell said, "we're now going into more diversity and we're investigating different prejudices within this time and one of them absolutely would have been race, as we all know....if you have a staunchly white male cast then it might be more accurate of the time, but it becomes less relatable to our audiences, especially when the Marvel world's so diverse." On the racism issue, Butters stated, "We didn't want to just have an African-American character and not talk about that. That would have been very inauthentic." As for the sexism Frost faces, Gina McIntyre and Andrea Towers of Entertainment Weekly saw similarities with Jessica Jones when Frost is asked to smile by two different men in her flashbacks in "Smoke & Mirrors". Towers said, "The talent agent [who asks Frost to smile] may not be the Purple Man, but Whitney is certainly being ushered into a brainwashed mindset that will set her on a path she can't deviate from easily."
At the conclusion of the season, Fazekas recalled the potential story revolving around Carter having a girls night out, saying that they realized that "once Peggy is on the mission, it starts to become difficult for her to have a social life...we kept sort of punting that scene because every time we tried to do it, it was like, 'She's not going to stop to go out to dinner. She has the world to save.'" Also, they felt they were not properly servicing Angie's character, instead "just sticking her in scenes just to be there," resulting in the decision to ultimately not bring Angie back for the season as planned. In her place, the characters of Ana Jarvis and Rose Roberts are featured as confidante's for Carter, "both people who are 100% in on Peggy's secret. Angie sort of figures it out at the end of the first season but Ana and Rose—there is no need to hide the truth from them. So it makes it a lot easier for her to confide in them."
Casting Hayley Atwell, James D'Arcy, Chad Michael Murray, and Enver Gjokaj return from the first season to star as Peggy Carter, Edwin Jarvis, Jack Thompson, and Daniel Sousa, respectively. By June 2015, it was reported that Marvel was working to have Bridget Regan (Dottie Underwood) and Lyndsy Fonseca (Angie Martinelli) return for the season. At Fan Expo Canada that September, Atwell confirmed that Regan would return for the season, with Dominic Cooper and Lesley Boone later also confirmed to be reprising their roles, respectively as Howard Stark and Rose Roberts. In December 2015, Fonseca was confirmed to return for a dream sequence in "A Little Song and Dance". Also returning for the second season was Ray Wise as Hugh Jones.
In August 2015, it was revealed that the character Whitney Frost would appear in the season, and Currie Graham was cast as her husband, Calvin Chadwick, the owner of Isodyne Energy. In October, Wynn Everett was revealed to be cast as Frost; Reggie Austin was cast as physicist Jason Wilkes; Lotte Verbeek was cast in the role of Ana Jarvis, the wife of Edwin Jarvis; and Kurtwood Smith was revealed to be recurring as Vernon Masters, a veteran of the War Department. The next month, Ken Marino was cast as Joseph Manfredi, leader of the Maggia crime syndicate. Additionally, Matt Braunger was cast as SSR lab tech Aloysius Samberly, and Rey Valentin was cast as SSR Agent Vega.
The dream sequence in "A Little Song and Dance", dubbed an informal crossover with Dancing with the Stars, features many of the professional dancers from that series, including Louis van Amstel, Dmitry Chaplin, Karina Smirnoff, Anna Trebunskaya, Sasha Farber, and Damian Whitewood. Dancers Robert Roldan, Malene Ostergaard, Amanda Balen, Serge Onik, Jenya Shatilova, Lacey Escabar, Alla Kocherga, and Paul Kirkland are also featured in the sequence.
Design