Producer: ABC Studios
Writer: Brant Englestein
Director: Lawrence Trilling
Featuring: Hayley Atwell, James D’Arcy, Chad Michael Murray, Enver Gjokaj, Bridget Regan, Wynn Everett, Lotte Verbeek
Release Date: OUT NOW!

If you thought the second season of Agent Carter was going to start out slow and safe you will be happily disappointed with Agent Carter Season 2 Episode 1, The Lady in the Lake. The first scene explodes with a knuckle-down, drag-out fight between Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) and Soviet spy Dorothy “Dottie” Underwood (Bridget Regan).

In Agent Carter Season 2 Episode 1, The Lady in the Lake a woman is found frozen in a Los Angeles lake in the summer and Peggy’s on the first flight west (the episode’s title is an homage to the Raymond Chandler LA hardboiled detective novel). Carter is reunited with Edwin Jarvis (James D’Arcy—always a treat) and the hobbled Agent Daniel Sousa (Enver Gjokaj). We also get to meet Jarvis’s wife Ana (Lotte Verbeek), who is a delightful scamp. Except for Peggy and Jarvis nobody is who they appear to be, and even Sousa is hiding something.

An interesting addition to the series is the introduction of Whitney Frost (Wynn Everett), whom Marvel Comics readers may know better as Madame Masque. Masque is the star of the movie Tales of Suspense, the name of the comic book in which Captain America’s Silver Age series debuted. Back in New York Agent Jack Thompson (Chad Michael Murray) is trying to determine his role as director of the S.H.I.E.L.D. pre-cursor the Strategic Scientific Reserve in a post-war world.

Agent Carter Season 2 Episode 1, The Lady in the Lake is fun and exciting, peppered with good dialogue and high production values. It’s refreshing to see Marvel continue to hold Agent Carter to high standards, and the series continues to be not only one of the best comic book shows on television, but a fine series by any television standards.

Reviewer: Joe Lovece
Reviews Editor: Steve Hooker