Stephen McFeely

‘Captain America: Civil War’ has everything a superhero movie needs to save the day

Agent Carter is an interesting property, in that it is a spinoff of an ongoing movie franchise centering on a major supporting character from that franchise who is also being portrayed by the same actress as in the film. Audiences who watched the first Captain America film (which is presumably most of the series’ initial audience) are already familiar with Hayley Atwell as Agent Peggy Carter of the SSR, giving the pilot episode the task of not only reestablishing her as a character, but doing so for any new viewers without alienating existing fans with repetitive exposition. On top of that, the show has to fill in the blanks as to what has changed for Peggy since the war ended and her high-flying adventures alongside Steve Rogers came to a close. It does all of this succinctly, with the wise decision to pour a ton of background information out all at once in the beginning of the pilot and then sprinkle references to her time as Captain America’s sort-of-partner throughout the rest of the two-hour premiere.