Agent Carter / YMMV

Abandon Shipping: Peggy/Jarvis, quite a popular pairing in the first season, died a rapid but peaceful death as a canon wish among fans with the on-screen portrayal of Ana Jarvis in season 2, because she and Jarvis are so downright adorable and devoted to each other that breaking them up just seems wrong. Cheering continues for the badass Platonic Life-Partners relationship between Peggy and Jarvis, however.
Accidental Innuendo:
- Although the tropes Mistaken for Cheating/Not What It Looks Like are averted, Ana Jarvis still rather innocently asked Peggy if she wanted another round^notefor judo training with her husband.
- Upon confronting a Maggia thug armed with knife, Rose exclaims, "I've seen bigger".
Alas, Poor Scrappy: In the last few episodes of Season 2, Thompson finally starts coming around on Peggy, even humbling himself to taking her dinner order. And then he's unceremoniously gunned down in the season's final moments.
Alternate Character Interpretation:
- Howard Stark as of "The Blitzkrieg Button". Was he sincere when he said he wanted to use Steve Rogers's blood for good, or was Peggy right in calling him a greedy liar? Keep in mind he would eventually have Vanko sent back to Russia because Vanko tried to sell arc reactor tech to foreign enemies. Does that mean Howard learned his lesson from Peggy or that he never had profit in mind in the first place?
- Also for Howard Stark: brilliant scientist, or the inventor version of a Walking Disaster Area, cursed to see all his efforts to produce innocuous items create only weapons. His personal massager is a cattle prod so powerful it can break bones. His heated clothing is a powerful suicide vest. His helpful stimulant is a gaseous Hate Plague. It starts to look like a pattern after a while. Stark himself seems to have this viewpoint when he refers to Steve as the only thing he felt he did right in "The Blitzkrieg Button".
- After his actions in "SNAFU", Agent Sousa is viewed by the fanbase as either a still-Nice Guy who was harsh on a possible traitor, or a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing who's just as sexist as the rest of his coworkers, though "Valediction" has helped give him some redemption.
- Dottie Underwood. After decades of brainwashing, how in control of her actions is she, especially after a hypnotist was her boss for a while?
- Angie's funny story about her brother dying. Either she's just being her usual scatter-brained self. Or she's intentionally making the story as funny as possible to cheer Peggy up after she's clearly had a rough day.
Anti-Climax Boss: Whitney Frost in Season 2. After being introduced as so powerful, first she gets knocked out by a car and then easily lured into a trap and depowered.
Anvilicious:
- The series isn't exactly subtle about the era's sexism. The first few episodes are rife with Straw Misogynists and open condescension for Peggy. Even Carter's counterpart in the Captain America radio show is reduced to a nurse and constant Damsel in Distress. Over time, though, most of the supporting cast gradually starts to nuance their feelings about her.
  [knock on the door]
  Nurse Carver: Oh, no, it's the Nazis! ... Again!
- The Big Bad organization of Season 2 is literally a bunch of crusty old white guys who secretly control the world. Word of God is that they are the MCU version of the Secret Empire.
Base-Breaking Character:
- SSR Agent Jack Thompson moved from a Hate Sink to this with the reveal of his backstory in "The Iron Ceiling." Some fans feel more sympathetic towards him as a result, believing it developed his character, and would like to see his relationship with Peggy further explored, while others feel that the fact that he covered his failure up makes him an even worse person and think he doesn't deserve any forgiveness. Also adding fuel to the fire is the producers teasing him as a candidate for Peggy's husband mentioned in The Winter Soldier. His refusal to give Peggy and Daniel any credit when he's assumed to have saved the day in the final episode also didn't win him many fans. The crew seemed to pick up on this, as in Season 2 he's back to just being a jerk. And then he gets shot in The Stinger.
- Inversely, Daniel Sousa started out very well liked by fans and was the expected choice for Peggy's eventual husband, but his popularity took a nosedive after "SNAFU", when he accused Peggy of being seduced by Howard Stark as why she was working against the SSR. Some fans see his actions as heat-of-the-moment, and that his willingness afterward to believe Peggy's testimony and stand up for her achievements redeems him. Others say he's only shown himself to be just as sexist as his coworkers and needs more to go through to be redeemed. Come Season 2, though, and most have forgiven him. However, Sousa would not be truly Rescued from the Scrappy Heap until his reappearance in the seventh and final season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. when he joins Agent Coulson's team and has much better Ship Tease with Daisy Johnson.
- Whitney Frost as a villain is divisive. See They Changed It, Now It Sucks! below for the camp that doesn't like her. But there are just as many who love her for being a villain with good Character Development and find her fascinating.
Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: A Golden Age of Hollywood-style musical number plays at the start of the Season 2 penultimate episode after Peggy is knocked out and captured. It Makes Just as Much Sense in Context.
Broken Base:
- It seems there's quite a split with audience reaction to the show's handling of the era's sexism. Some feel it's slapped on too thick to the point of being Anvilicious, while others feel it's justified given the era, and praise the show for also demonstrating that sexism isn't always men against women (given the deconstruction of Thompson's 'manly-man' persona and Miriam Fry's Female Misogynist and misandrist leanings). There's also those who feel the show sometimes dips into playing into the same sexist tropes they're trying to criticize.
- The second season decides to dive into the era's racism as well, showing the difficulties a black man faces in breaking into a 'white man's career' like physics. On the one hand, it fits well with the above, brings in a well-developed, well-acted character as a likable Love Interest for Peggy and shows the writers aren't just focused on the plights of women, but on the other hand, it's still just as unsubtle, and in-spite of that, some fans feared they would kill the black guy off after he disappeared in the Zero Matter explosion. In the end, the next episode shows him to be very much alive, although invisible and intangible from the zero matter explosion.
- The quality of the show compared to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is also a point of contention among fans of both shows.
Catharsis Factor:
- Seeing Peggy punch Vernon Masters over and over again into the ground during "A Little Song and Dance" was worth the price of admission.
- Likewise seeing Jarvis shoot Whitney Frost after she shot his wife and it later gets revealed left her barren is incredibly satisfying. Even if it doesn't kill her and she jumps up pretty quickly.
Crack Pairing: Jarvis and Bernard the flamingo, based on their Sitcom Archnemesis moment. Agent Carter official Facebook page even created this◊ during Valentine Day 2016.
Cross-Cultural Kerfluffle: Australian audiences found it difficult to take Midnight Oil seriously, as it's also the name of a rock band.
Die for Our Ship: A lot of Cartinelli fans don't take particularly well to Sousa and haven't forgiven him for his outburst in Season One after he and Peggy became an official couple, with some saying that Angie "deserves" Peggy more than him, or that the two were Strangled by the Red String so the show could engage in Bait-and-Switch Lesbians. While Angie and Peggy weren't officially shipped, their fans at least got their wish of Sousa not hooking up with Peggy in at least one timeline when Steve Rogers went back in time at the end of Avengers: Endgame and married Peggy. Sousa in the meantime would not be truly Rescued from the Scrappy Heap until the final season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. via time travel, which also gave him better and more natural Ship Tease with Daisy Johnson.
Ensemble Dark Horse:
- Ana Jarvis, who was a popular source of Fanon in the first season, is introduced properly in the second, where she proceeds to be a total Genki Girl who bonds quickly with Peggy, shows no jealousy towards her, is extremely affectionate to everyone (especially her husband), and basically steals almost any scene she's in. It helps that she's also really adorable.
- Rose got a large amount of fans with the revelation in Season 2 that she's quite the capable Action Girl herself.
- Johnny Manfredi, Whitney Frost's Affably Evil Mafia boyfriend, who steals practically every scene he appears in due to a combination of being a badass, sarcastic, unrepentant Mafia don and genuinely adorable with his equally crazy girlfriend.
- Samberly, the obnoxious, but overly kind hearted scientist, who saves the day more than once, but just doesn't get the recognition he craves.
- In the context of the greater MCU, Edwin Jarvis has become this as he became the first character to first appear on a TV show and later show up in the movies when he reappeared in Avengers: Endgame.
Fandom Rivalry: To its sister show Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.. Asking which show is better or which shows deserve the renewal more can all lead to Flame Wars. The revelation of the friction between Marvel movie and TV divisions and the amount of Marvel studio (the movie division) involved in Agent Carter have led to some considered it to be a direct shot fired at Marvel TV division.
- The actors themselves didn't help matters when they pitted their fans against each other during their "Dubsmash War," explicitly asking fans to be either "Team SHIELD" or "Team Carter."
- Though this died down quite a bit when the final season of Agents, in which the team time travels to various points across the franchise's history, took the opportunity to wrap up the show's storylines that were left hanging by its cancellation.
Fanfic Fuel: "Better Angels" reveals that Kid Colt, from a Golden Age western series as yet unconnected to the Marvel Universe in the comics, was a real person in the MCU. That should provide some fun time travel fics.
Fan Nickname: Agent One Tree Hill for Jack Thompson due to it being his most famous role. Agent Chad Michael Murray is also commonly used as a nickname for him, since that's the name of his actor. And, in the right corners of fandom, you will occasionally see him called Agent Douchebag, for his general bad attitude during the series.
Fan-Preferred Couple: Although Peggy is teased romantically with various men, and eventually ends up with Daniel Sousa, Peggy and Angie is the most popular ship in the fandom. It helps that Angie fulfills a lot of the roles that a love interest would typically take in superhero/spy movies, such as finding some resistance from Peggy when she tries to bond with her, being irritated when the hero's double life interferes with her being able to spend time with Peggy, and trusting Peggy so much that when Peggy is being pursued by the SSR, she helps her without asking for any kind of explanation.
Fanon:
- Angie being a former Mafia Princess is a popular backstory for fanfic writers who'd like to see her kicking ass alongside Peggy. It's bolstered by canon references to her cousin's criminal past, her brother's willingness to lend a car to a fugitive from the law, and her Italian heritage.
- Because the show developed the friendship between Peggy and Howard, fans tend to assume that Tony Stark knew Peggy and thought of her as an Honorary Aunt. Furthermore, since we know Peggy will eventually marry another man and have a son and a daughter with him, it's possible to assume if her children would be Tony's Childhood Friends, Love Interest (for the daughter only), or perhaps even friendly rivals of sorts.
- Since this show explores Howard's younger life and how he... Really Gets Around, some fans may also assume if he was dating Pepper Potts' mother at some point before he met his future wife Maria. This connection would allow their children (Tony and Pepper) to know each other earlier than one might assume, foreshadowing their relationship in the future.
- It was widely assumed that, being their chauffeur, Edwin Jarvis died in the same HYDRA-engineered "car accident" that killed Howard and Maria Stark. "Was" because it was Jossed in Captain America: Civil War, with Howard driving when he and Maria are assassinated by the Winter Soldier.
- Thanks to Ant-Man establishing Howard and Peggy would work with the original Ant-Man and Wasp, it's also became fairly popular to assume that Peggy and Janet van Dyne were close friends before the latter disappeared.
- There were a fair number of fans who assumed that Peggy's brother Michael didn't die, and was the one who shot Thompson in The Stinger... until the producers actually confirmed it.
Harsher in Hindsight:
- Ivchenko being introduced to bourbon after being freed (and his love-hate relationship with it, compared to his preferred choice of vodka) is a combination of both heartwarming and funny, and paints him as an endearing character. The following episode reveals he's a Leviathan mole inside the SSR and even uses bourbon while coercing an agent into killing himself.
- Dottie's Fake Pregnancy seems more gut-wrenching after in Avengers: Age of Ultron, Natasha revealed that she's sterilized when she's graduated from Red Room Academy. So, it's most likely that Dottie is sterilized, too; and her statement that she's jealous of girls like Peggy also sounds more tearjerking as we all know from Captain America: The Winter Soldier that Peggy will eventually have children, while Dottie won't be able to have children. Depending on how old Dottie is, it might have been quite recent.
- This gets even worse in Season 2, where Dottie is used to draw Peggy and Jarvis away from Dr. Wilkes so Whitney can kidnap him, which results in Ana getting shot and losing the ability to conceive.
- In the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe, those who saw Captain America: The Winter Soldier know what becomes of the SSR.
- After JARVIS's destruction in Avengers: Age of Ultron and Peggy's death and the flashback to Howard's in Captain America: Civil War, any scene featuring our One True Threesome here, knowing in the present any remnant of them is gone.
- Peggy's death in Civil War becomes this even more, considering the show was cancelled a few weeks later.
- Depending on which interpretation of the ending one buys into, Avengers: Endgame implies that despite the ending of the first season, Peggy never truly did get over Steve's death in the way that she thought she did, and her romance with Sousa would eventually end badly, allowing Steve to return as the man stated to be her husband in The Winter Soldier. This gets worse when Sousa later appears in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. via time-travel shenanigans, and it's confirmed that he and Peggy broke up shortly after the events of Agent Carter.
- The Falcon and the Winter Soldier reveals that the US government experimented on black soldiers to restart the Super Soldier program no more than five years later, resulting in the creation of Isaiah Bradley who was operating by 1951, and meaning that Peggy's efforts to retrieve Steve's blood and discard it so it could not be exploited by the government didn't stop them for as long as she thought.
- Howard's remark to Peggy that he'll take advantage of his Kid Colt movie potentially failing to get a massive tax write-off during the Season 2 episode "Better Angels" is likely to make people wince after several big-name studios (including Disney, who owns Marvel) began cancelling already-completed movies and TV shows in the early 2020s to get similar write-offs.
Heartwarming in Hindsight: It's revealed in Season 2 that Peggy had an older brother who served as a captain in British Armed Forces. This means two of the most important men in her life, Michael Carter and Steve Rogers, are captains in their respective country.
He Really Can Act: James D'Arcy as Edwin Jarvis was always one of the most enjoyable aspects of the show as the comic relief, but following Ana being gunned down by Whitney in episode 7 of season 2 we get to see him deliver a stellar dramatic performance as he grieves over his wife's injury, especially when it is not known whether or not she'll survive. Then it turns out she will survive, but there are... complications.
Hilarious in Hindsight:
- The show features a Running Gag of Peggy accidentally knocking people out before she can interrogate them, while during filming Hayley Atwell had quite a problem with accidentally punching people for real during fight scenes.
- The shadowy Russian organization fought in Season 1 is named Leviathan. Around the same time as Season 1's release, Russia's Best Foreign Film nominee for the 2015 Oscars was Leviathan.
- This HISHE video has Black Widow telling a Disney-quoting Ultron that he is "ruining her childhood". According to the show, the training of the girls does involve cartoons.
- In "Better Angels": "Plane leaves in a little bit over an hour. Plenty of time [for drinks]." Not with post-9/11 US airports it wouldn't be.
- Season 2 reveals that Kid Colt was real in the MCU, shortly before Legends of Tomorrow featured its own source material's major Old West character Jonah Hex.
- Enver Gjokaj first appeared in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a cop in The Avengers taking orders from Captain America. Now he's playing a character alongside Cap's girlfriend.
- In Season 1, when trying to hunt down the Russian assassin who posed as a conquest of Howard's, Peggy eliminates any well known actresses or celebrities from the list. Come Season 2 the Big Bad is a well known actress.
- Peggy is irritated by her counterpart on the Captain America radio show being reduced to a Damsel in Distress nurse. And in Season 2, her Second Love grows apart from her... by dating a nurse.
- A brunette, English intelligence agent pursuing a blonde, crazed, Russian assassin obsessed with her. Sounds familiar?^Though
- With the release of WandaVision showing more of the Wanda Maximoff/Vision relationship, some fans noticed the parallels between them and Edwin and Ana Jarvis. With Vision's personality being based off of Mr. Jarvis and Wanda and Ana both being redheads of Eastern European descent, it could be said that the Jarvises have a type.
I Knew It!: Dottie being a lethal assassin. Some viewers were calling it as far back as the announcement that Bridget Regan had been cast for the role, while others figured it out in the scene that introduced her as an aspiring ballerina because they immediately made the connection to the Black Widow.
Iron Woobie: Peggy Carter may be significantly underappreciated as an agent in her era, but it doesn't stop her from regularly saving the day.
Jerkass Woobie:
- Thompson may have been initially shown as a sexist jerk, but once it's revealed that he's a Shell-Shocked Veteran as a result of accidentally killing surrendering Japanese soldiers during the war and then he himself was unceremoniously gunned down in the second season's final moments after having Took a Level in Kindness, you can't help but feel some degree of sympathy for him.
- Dottie is a deadly assassin, but she was unwillingly brainwashed into villainy and was even nice to another assassin-in-training before being forced to kill her.
- Whitney Frost may be an evil genius, but few people can help but sympathize with her when shown all the sexist crap she has to put up with while on the set of a movie. The scene in which she discovers her newfound powers is a particularly good example. Her backstory helps making it even worse, as it echoes Peggy's and shows just how much she hates being reduced to "just being a pretty face".
Just Here for Godzilla: Some fans are giving the show a shot largely to see Enver Gjokaj of Dollhouse fame take a somewhat leading role again.
Like You Would Really Do It: Few people believe that Jason Wilkes really died in "A View tn the Dark", due to having Never Found the Body and the fact that Whitney Frost was in the explosion as well, and she survived (and is set to become the Big Bad). Furthermore, Reggie Austin is part of the main cast. Sure enough, Word of God is that he ultimately survived.
Magnificent Bastard:
- "Dottie Underwood" is a Red Room graduate and accomplice to Fennhoff. Seducing Howard Stark so that he would show her his vault of inventions, Underwood later befriends Peggy Carter as her neighbor. Spying on Carter without detection, Underwood makes contact with Fennhoff and helps him to capture Stark, evading arrest from both Peggy and other S.S.R. agents. Upon finally being captured, Underwood easily resists giving up information and humiliates her interrogators, before being broken out by Peggy to help spy on Whitney Frost. Underwood continues to laugh off torture when captured by Frost's minions, only breaking when Frost uses her Zero Matter powers on her. Psychotic yet flirtatious, especially in her rivalry with Peggy, Underwood ends the series a free woman after escaping both Frost and Peggy's custody.
- Season 1: "Dr. Ivchenko", in reality Johann Fennhoff, is a high-ranking Leviathan agent who orchestrated the theft of Howard Stark's inventions. Posing as a kindly psychologist prisoner of Leviathan, the "rescued" Fennhoff befriends S.S.R. chief Roger Dooley, giving him advice on his collapsing marriage while gradually brainwashing him and making contact with Leviathan operative Dottie Underwood. Often allowing his victims to experience one last pleasure before killing themselves, Fennhoff has Dooley give him access to the recovered Stark weapons and takes the Midnight Oil, having Dooley put on a suicide vest as a distraction while he meets up with Underwood. After capturing Stark, Fennhoff reveals that he seeks revenge for the death of his brother, planning to hypnotize Stark into releasing the Midnight Oil on New York so his guilt afterwards will destroy him.
Memetic Mutation:
- The series's poster (shown as the page image) drew comparison from Michael Jackson to Carmen Sandiego to Paddington Bear. Even Ms. Atwell herself got in on it.
- "Is it going to be Angie? Please don't let it be Angie."^Explanation
- "Howard Stark invented the selfie".^Explanation
- "Do as Peggy says!"^Explanation
- "I know my value."^Explanation
- #SaveAngie^Explanation
- U-hauling^Explanation
Moral Event Horizon:
- Dr. Fennhoff/"Ivchenko", first when he hypnotizes Agent Yauch into committing suicide just to cover his own tracks, and then blows past it when he hypnotizes Dooley into locking away Peggy and Jarvis, gets him to steal Item 17 from the SSR's lab, and then finishes Dooley off by forcing him to put an exploding vest on himself in an attempt to wreck the SSR's offices entirely. And shortly after this he takes it even further when he and Dottie use the stolen Item 17 to unleash a Hate Plague on a crowded movie theater and locks the door, causing everyone to go into a homicidal rage and kill each other. And he was going to do a repeat performance of that last one on everyone in Times Square.
- Whitney Frost has made crossing this line her signature in Season 2. Most of the crossings are explainable as covering her tracks or removing an equally bad person, but the one that is indisputably inexcusable is when she shoots Ana just to delay Peggy from chasing her, sterilizing her permanently in the process.
Narm:
- The marketing campaign's first tagline: "Sometimes the best man for the job... is a woman!" Luckily, it was quickly shelved.
- Jarvis pulling his ear when he lies. The acting and direction both make it perhaps the most obvious "tell" ever put on screen.
- The loud, ominous music that plays during Dottie's investigation of Carter's room in search of intel.
- The show makes frequent use of the Red Shirt trope. Viewers may have to stifle laughter if they see what's coming a mile away.
- If you know Mortadelo y Filemón, Howard Stark's inventions' penchant for Going Horribly Wrong makes him look like a Darker and Edgier, Hotter and Sexier version of Doctor Bacterio.
- Sousa's Never Live It Down moment is already bad enough (see below), but what makes it particularly cringe-worthy is that at one point he yelled at Peggy "Tell that to Krzeminski!" Considering how much of a Fat Bastard who constantly belittles Peggy the dead agent was all the time, it's rather hard to take Sousa's (personal) anger on Peggy at this point seriously.
- In the Season 2 premiere, Peggy somehow manages to miss Dottie with a shotgun at very close range, actually seeming to hit the doorframe instead.
- Hugh Jones' insanely blatant bit of As You Know about how the guy sitting next to him created the Great Depression. Poor Ray Wise looks like he's in physical pain trying to make it sound natural.
- The way how Rufus Hunt effortlessly assassinated two SSR Agents who were about to transport Jane Scott's corpse. It should've been safe to assume that they're just SSR Scientists without combat capabilities (since they do exist in the agency), and thus had no sufficiency for self-defense. Unfortunately, Sousa had to make a point that one of them was a marine with three tours while the other one had black belt, making their deaths fell into Narm territory.
- When Rufus Hunt tries to get out of the truck after waking from the tranquilizer and Peggy knocks him out back in, you an easily tell he purposely putting his leg back in.
Never Live It Down: Looking at Sousa's character sheet, you'd think the only thing he did the entire season was call Peggy a whore. Especially because he never actually did; Peggy herself used the word when describing what Sousa thought of her.
One-Scene Wonder:
- In the first season, John Glover of Smallville fame, appears in a single scene as a journalist at who gives the chief some information on a massacre caused by one of Howard's inventions.
- In The Stinger for the last episode of the first season, Arnim Zola leaves a serious impression.
- Likewise Season 2 has the SSR's base posing as a talent agency. Each episode features someone trying to get hired, and they're bound to be one of these.
- Also in Season 2, Nana Manfredi has a very small role with several great moments.
Portmanteau Couple Name: "Cartinelli", for Peggy/Angie shippers, and well as "Carvis" for Peggy/Jarvis shippers, "PeggySous" for Peggy/Sousa shippers, "Cartson" for Peggy/Thompson shippers, "Cartie" for Peggy/Dottie shippers and "JackDaniels" for Sousa/Thompson shippers.
Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Howard was hardly a Scrappy, but it can be frustrating to know in Season 1 that for all of his geniuses, he's not only a (somewhat) deconstructed Insufferable Genius but also a Walking Disaster Area whose inventions cause nothing but many deaths. Not to mention he also manipulated Peggy, one of the very few persons who trust him, to retrieve Steve Rogers' blood so he (supposedly) could make a profit out of it. Other than that, he also made fun of US Senate in the first episode to the point that Dooley was frustrated that Howard was really not helping his case by treating the whole thing like a joke, as well as showing Lack of Empathy by mocking SSR office's security while the agents are mourning for Dooley's death and then belittling SSR scientists for apparently mistreating his inventions (in reality, he distracted them so he can steal the aforementioned Steve's blood, which Peggy gave to the SSR to gain their trust in the previous episode, for himself). Come Season 2, Howard is more helpful, resourceful, useful, and being comedic in more appropriate way.
Ron the Death Eater: Some fans reacted excessively to Violet's reaction when she picks up on the feelings between Sousa and Peggy. If they were to be believed, she screamed all sorts of abuse at him for no good reason - and she's apparently a Clingy Jealous Girl. Instead, she calmly asked Sousa if he has feelings for Peggy, and reacted perfectly reasonably for a woman who discovered that her fiancé has been lying to her. Let it be noted that Violet also kept calm in front of Peggy and waited until she was gone before discussing it with Sousa.
Salvaged Story:
- After the first season attracted a lot of criticism for its conspicuous lack of black characters^noteexcept Andre Royo as Spider Raymond in defiance of how diverse New York's population in the 1940s actually was, Season 2 finally did cast the black Reggie Austin as Jason Wilkes... and moved the setting to Los Angeles.
- After fan outcry at Angie not appearing in Season 2, she was brought back for a cameo in "A Little Song and Dance".
Ship-to-Ship Combat:
- Initially, there seemed to be three major ship options involving Peggy: perky waitress and friend Angie Martinelli, Nice Guy maybe-love-interest Daniel Sousa, or snarky butler Edwin Jarvis... who's also married. Since then, two more ships have joined the ships wars: controversial Jerkass agent Jack Thompson and Leviathan assassin Dottie Underwood, who kissed Peggy while wearing the "Sweet Dreams" lipstick to knock her out.
- And now that Jason Wilkes has joined the fray, the Ship-to-Ship Combat has reached peak volatile levels - even Jarvis notes that Peggy now has two equally kind and handsome men vying for her affections, an observation that irritates Peggy by no small amount.
Smurfette Breakout: A major example of this. Few were expecting Peggy Carter to be the surprise star of Captain America, especially since her character in the comics is at best an important footnote and Doomed by Canon to die of Alzheimer's. Hayley Atwell's strong depiction of Peggy's independence even in the 40s coupled with great chemistry with Chris Evans left fans clamoring for more of her, resulting in her getting her own TV show, of all things.
Special Effects Failure: A very obvious jump cut appears in Season 2's second episode when Jarvis manages to pin Peggy during their boxing match.
Take That, Scrappy!:
- Miriam Fry being escorted by SSR agents to be locked up in her room "for her safety" (actually to shut up her annoying complaining) in "A Sin to Err" counts.
- Peggy's "The Reason You Suck" Speech towards her sexist interrogators in "SNAFU."
- In the Season 2 premiere, Thompson kicks Peggy out of her interrogation of Dottie with his usual condescension, saying he can handle it himself. Dottie promptly starts kicking his ass and he has to be rescued by other agents.
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: The general reaction to Whitney Frost prior to the second season starting, due to her being In Name Only to her comic book counterpart, Madame Masque. A major source of contention was the fact they chose to use her due to the lack of female villains and decided to introduce one, but chose to change the character so much that she no longer resembles her comic self (who is a very popular Iron Man villain, and one of his most iconic), raising the question as to why they didn't either create a new villain or use a character who resembled what they had in mind. As a result, it's unlikely a more 'traditional' Madame Masque will appear, unless they make her a Legacy Character.
Unexpected Character:
- Leet Brannis was a crook who appeared in stories involving the Whizzer (a character that has rarely appeared after The Golden Age of Comic Books), so his appearance here is surprising to say the least.
- The appearance of Jerome Zandow, whose Earth-616 counterpart was known as Zandow The Strongman, a member of the WWII-era of the circus of crime.
Unpopular Popular Character:
- Jarvis. Loved by fans, loathed by the SSR, and sometimes irritating to Peggy.
- Peggy herself, being one of the most popular MCU ladies, but getting almost no respect within her own world.
The Woobie: Wilkes in the second season, after a few episodes. Thanks to some inspiration to be heroic he's at ground zero for an explosion of exotic matter, that robs him of visibility and tangibility, leaving him unable to interact with the world at all until Stark sprays him with developing solution. Even then, all he can do is be seen and heard. His efforts to help Stark reverse his condition are limited to standing back a few feet and speaking. He's visibly upset, but maintains his composure.

YMMV / Agent Carter

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