2x02 A View in the Dark

6.5/10 This episode was slightly better than the previous one, though it shares many of the same flaws and foibles. There's still some odd choices in the production and cinematography of the show, and strange, exaggerated approach to much of the acting that renders the episode feeling more in tune with Hercules and Xena than The First Avenger. But let's focus on the positives.

The best things about this show, in order, are: 1. Peggy Carter 2. Jarvis and 3. Peggy Carter and Jarvis. This episode leaned into their delightful and amusing rapport in everything from their judo scene to the hilarious bit where Jarvis explained to Peggy how Howard Stark's car works. Every time they're on screen together is a hoot, and this episode gets improved marks for spending time with the both of them.

The other positive is that as inert and generic as the Wilkes character feels in presentation and the actor's performance, I love the idea that Peggy, despite her reluctance, connects with him on the basis that they're both outsiders who've had to prove themselves twice as much to get half as far in their chosen fields. It'd be easy for a network drama to gloss over issues of race in a whiz-bang superhero show--and in truth, it doesn't delve very deeply here--but its nice to see the show address it with details like the club that Peggy has to meet Wilkes in, or the donut shop clerk's reaction to the two of them together.

But otherwise, there was a lot of fluff in this one. Both Agent Carter and Agents of Shield have a certain mystery box storytelling approach, to where each episode tries to leave a few breadcrumbs about what the ultimate conflict and villain for the season are going to be. But it feels like they're being parceled out a little slowly here. It's easy to understand that Frost and Chadwick want the zero matter in connection with some Hydra (or proto-Hydra)-like organization, and that Frost has some other anti-aging angle on it. But that's a pretty standard macguffin-y story, and thus far the show hasn't been able to develop the characters or the settings beyond Peggy and Jarvis enough to where I'm invested in the path to the reveal.

Atwell and D'Arcy still do great work as the leads, but it's hard to get too invested in a somewhat forced love triangle between Peggy, Sousa, and his new romance, or in the fairly generic bad guy and evil plot they're all going up against. I'm still high enough on the prior season that I'm committed to see it through to the end, but the first pair of episodes (aired together) were not a particularly promising start.