Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for ‘Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One’Hayley AtwellandShea Whighamare the latest names to joinTom Cruise’s blockbuster spy franchise withMission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One, but this actually isn’t the first time the two actors have worked together. That honor belongs to a forgotten Marvel series that deserves much more attention. Before Marvel took the streaming world by storm with shows likeWandavision,Loki,Secret Invasion, and more (all of which seem to have beenthrown under the bus by Disney CEOBob Iger), there was a remarkably entertainingspin-off series on ABC calledAgent Carter.
What is ‘Agent Carter’?
Long before the entertainment industry fully immersed itself in the age of streaming, Marvel Studios was looking for different avenues to expand the Marvel Cinematic Universe after the wild success ofThe Avengers. Television seemed like the obvious way to go, and while they would eventually explore streaming with the Netflix collaborations and the Disney+ shows, Marvel first looked to ABC to develop televised content. This led to the creation ofthe long-runningAgents of S.H.I.E.L.D., the short-livedInhumans, and of course,Agent Carter.
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Premiering in 2015,Agent Carterfollows the exploits of Agent Peggy Carter (Haley Atwell), the confident U.S. spy who developed a relationship with Captain Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) inCaptain America: The First Avenger. Taking place after World War II in the year 1946, the series shows Peggy has been relegated to a secretary for the Strategic Scientific Reserve in New York City, all while she continues to mourn the presumed death of Steve Rogers. From start to finish, the show is an exhilarating and entertaining period piece that is packed withMarvel Easter eggs, including the butler who inspired J.A.R.V.I.S., the origins of the Black Widow program, and the mad scientist who would become instrumental in the creation of the Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan).
While she tries to find her place as a good-hearted agent, Peggy has more than a few friends who help her in the show’s inaugural season. This includes her long-time ally Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper), Stark’s aforementioned butler Edwin Jarvis (James D’Arcy), the cocky kiss-up bully Jack Thompson (Chad Michael Murray), and Peggy’s co-worker and future husband Daniel Sousa (Enver Gjokaj). Also present is Peggy’s well-intentioned but intense boss, Roger Dooley, played byShea Whigham.
Peggy Carter and Roger Dooley Face a New Threat in ‘Agent Carter’
When MCU fans catch up with their favorite wise-cracking agent, things are not going great for the war hero and veteran who helpedbring down H.Y.D.R.A.While she is technically still considered an agent, she is clearly not considered an equal at the SSR, with the male-dominated sector repeatedly belittling and dismissing her. Some are kinder like Sousa, others are more abrasive like Thompson, but then there are those in between like Dooley.
Being the leader of the SSR in New York, Dooley recognizes that Carter is an incredibly skilled agent, especially since they’re both veterans of the Second Great War. However, Carter’s gung-ho attitude and disrespect for authority often puts her at odds with Dooley. Those tensions reach a contentious head when Peggy uncovers a secret Soviet organization known only as Leviathan. The leader of this nefarious think tank is one Dr. Johann Fennhoff (Ralph Brown), a manipulative Russian psychologist who’s taken a page out ofKingsman: The Secret Service’s book on how to take over the world. The mad scientist has created a gas capable of sending anyone who comes into contact with it into a blind rage, to the point where the victims will kill each other without a second thought.
In addition to creating a lethal bio-weapon, Fennhoff is also a skilled hypnotist, and he convinces Peggy and many of her allies that he is a face to be trusted. One of these victims is Dooley, who Fennhoff tricks into thinking Peggy has gone rogue. Before Dooley can realize he’s been manipulated, it’s already too late, as Fennhoff fits the noble government agent with a defective and deadly Stark heat vest. With the vest slowly overheating and reaching the point of exploding, Dooley knows his time is running out. After making Peggy promise she’ll find Fennhoff and bring him to justice, Dooley sacrifices himself to save his team by jumping out a window, exploding almost instantly.
Peggy is ultimately able to put Fennhoff behind bars, butthis happy ending has a catch. That’s because Fennhoff’s cellmate is none other than Arnim Zola (Toby Jones), the H.Y.D.R.A. scientist who would later put his consciousness into a supercomputer beforeCaptain America: The Winter Soldier. Zola’s suggestion that the two mad scientists form an alliance heavily implies that Fennhoff had a hand in the brainwashing of Bucky Barnes, AKA the Winter Soldier.
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part Onesees the characters played by Hayley Atwell and Shea Whigham on opposite sides, though neither are villains in the film’s epic story.Atwell plays a mysterious characterknown only as Grace. She’s a skilled thief and pickpocket that finds herself in a world of espionage after she steals a key that unlocks the power of a massively powerful artificial intelligence. Though she spends much of the film looking out for her own interests, Grace eventually comes around to helping Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his team stop the nefarious AI, and might even start a path to becoming an IMF agent herself.
With Ethan Hunt and his team going rogue for the seventh time,She Whigham’s character of Briggsis the one brought in to take them down. An overall by-the-book CIA agent, Briggs and his partner Degas (Greg Tarzan Davis) spend much of the film tracking down the rogue IMF agents. Briggs even implies that, while he’s never met Ethan personally, he has some sort of personal grudge against Ethan. What that grudge is, along with whether he and Grace will return in the sequel, remains to be seen. We’ll have to wait forMission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part Two.
