ABC kind of sets viewers up premiering two episodes of the second season of Agent Carter. With our modern binge viewing mindset, it’s hard to get audiences weened back on waiting six more weeks for this all to play out. And I kinda desperately need some answers after this episode. Seven days is too long to wait, darn it!

The show hadn’t gotten off to a slow start, but a lot happened by the end of this second episode. Knowing the limited 10-episode format of the season, I’m more inclined to believe the show can continue at this level throughout this year.

But first, kudos to the showrunners for not shying away from even the possibility of Peggy and James becoming romantically involved. That phone booth kiss was pretty steamy for this show. As much as I liked the show bucking tradition with an interracial relationship tease, I appreciated the reality check for the time period with a store owner putting on his bigot hat when Peggy and James enter his restaurant.

The writers didn’t shy away from addressing the obstacles James faces as he explains his reluctance to reveal Isodyne’s secrets since Calvin’s corporation was the only one out of 16 that would hire a black scientist. James revealed Isodyne is in possession of a dangerous substance called Zero Matter that ingests all the energy around it. This is similar to the Marvel Comics’ Darkforce property, which I’ll assume like the Tessaract was in Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron [Blu-ray], will be revealed in its proper name later on like say Doctor Strange.

I’m hoping this flamingo running around the Stark estate actually pays off in some manner other than making Jarvis look like a buffoon otherwise I’m going to be greatly disappointed. Jarvis and Peggy’s discussions about Howard Stark remain a high point as the show portrays Howard like James Bond minus the super spy parts. And again in limited screen time, Ana steals the episode acting like Jarvis on top of Peggy after their sparring bout is perfectly normal and not remotely jealous of her. Supergirl is often a little too clumsy in its rah-rah females! bit, but Ana being totally secure in her marriage and not being the cliche wife stuck at home somehow comes across less forced.

Sousa seemingly reigniting his torch for Peggy while preparing to propose to his perfectly great nurse girlfriend Violet (Sarah Bolger) feels unnecessary and is a bad look for the otherwise noble Sousa.

Whitney and Calvin continue to be fascinating additions to the show. They’re not the standard, cackling evil villains as we learned here. Calvin is part of a secret cabal that all sport the same nifty pin Dottie was trying to steal from the bank vault, but he’s treated more like the junior partner than a pivotal decision maker. Whitney has her own issues as her latest director is aghast that he’s working with an aging starlet. Of the two, Whitney seems more poised to do something crazy, which didn’t take long to play out as she made a play for the Zero Matter resulting in an explosion and James’ disappearance from the Isodyne lab.

With Whitney alive, there’s little chance James is actually dead, but with Whitney sporting a nice Zero Matter scar, I’ll be curious to see how James fared. Random thought, in the MCU, could James eventually come to father Tyrone Johnson aka Cloak of Cloak and Dagger since he likely has some exposure to the same Darkforce Cloak uses to teleport? This was a creative way to work in Iron Man foe Madame Masque into the mix and I’m hoping Whitney is rocking a Madusa mask very shortly.

Rating: 9 out of 10

Season 2 is 2 for 2 with a pair of highly entertaining episodes. Not like this was in the same early creative rut as Agents of SHIELD, but this season is already proving to be an improvement over its predecessor.