‘Marvel’s Agent Carter’ Goes Hollywood for Season 2

Michael Logan January 7, 2016, 6:00 am

Hayley Atwell - Marvel's Agent Carter — ABC/Patrick Wymore

MARVEL'S AGENT CARTER - "Marvel's Agent Carter" returns for a second season of adventure and intrigue, starring Hayley Atwell in the titular role of the unstoppable agent for the SSR (Strategic Scientific Reserve). Dedicated to the fight against new Atomic Age threats in the wake of World War II, Peggy must now journey from New York City to Los Angeles for her most dangerous assignment yet. But even as she discovers new friends, a new home - and perhaps even a new love - she's about to find out that the bright lights of the post-war Hollywood mask a more sinister threat to everyone she is sworn to protect. HAYLEY ATWELL

Lights! Camera! Murder! Marvel’s Agent Carter kicks off its sophomore season in 1947 with SSR agent Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) reassigned from New York to Hollywood to solve a bizarre death—that of a woman whose body is found frozen in a lake during a major heat wave. It turns out she’s tied to an evil industrialist with political aspirations and his actress wife. When the coroner examines the corpse and becomes a pile of black shards, Peggy seeks advice from Jason Wilkes (Reggie Austin), a particle physicist as handsome, charming and quirky as he is brainy. Cue the chemistry.

“We play with a wonderfully weird love triangle between Peggy, Wilkes and SSR West Coast chief Daniel Sousa [Enver Gjokaj], which makes Peggy feel completely awkward,” executive producer Tara Butters says. “She’s so kickass in dangerous situations, but when a man shows interest in her, she doesn’t know how to handle it.”

And we finally meet Ana (Lotte Verbeek), the much-discussed yet unseen wife of Peggy’s stuffy butler sidekick, Jarvis (James D’Arcy). “Ana is not at all what you’d expect, and it takes all the sexual tension out of the Peggy-Jarvis relationship,” executive producer Michele Fazekas says. “She’s bold, outgoing and fabulous—and Peggy is crazy about her!”

Also joining the cast is Kurtwood Smith (Resurrection) as Vernon Masters, a suspicious War Dept. vet who considers the SSR to be a dinosaur. “This is a season of big consequences and big tension,” says Butters. “Peggy’s actions not only affect herself but also her friends. Someone she’s close to could be hurt…or killed. We really put her through the emotional ringer.”

Why the move to Tinseltown—besides, that is, giving Atwell an excuse to wear fabulous sunglasses? “We were inspired by the great film noir mysteries set in Los Angeles, like Chinatown and L.A. Confidential,” says Fazekas. “The look and feel of Hollywood in the 1940s is so fantastic—the sun, the palm trees, the old Spanish-style mansions, plus the great locales like the Griffith Observatory and the Santa Anita racetrack. And it puts us right in the thick of the Red Scare and the Hollywood black list.”

Jarvis’ boss, billionaire Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper), now runs a movie studio “which will play a very big part in our season finale,” hints Fazekas. “Los Angeles is the place people come to start over—the land of reinvention. It felt like a great way to evolve both the show and Peggy Carter. We do one black and white sequence where Hayley looks just like Rita Hayworth. She was made for this era!”

Marvel’s Agent Carter, Season premiere, Tuesday, Jan. 19, 9/8c, ABC