"Do you see the day I've had?"

This is my second "Agent Carter" post. I'll try to avoid spoilers. The title of this one is a line from the third episode. Although I love most of the lines in the show, this line speaks to me. Carter says it after a long day of being underestimated and demeaned by her supposed partner, her boss, and her coworkers. Although Peggy gives into what is being said to her, the audience can see what she's saying. Her day had been hellish.

As I mentioned in my first blog, Peggy Carter takes up space. Even when she is ignore by her coworkers, her presence is noticeable. Although when she wants to be, she can be invisible. She dresses to fit the occasion. When infiltrating a party to steal a bomb, she dresses to the nines. When walking through the sewer, she wears a jumpsuit. In both situations, she gets into fights and wins.

There are numerous parallels between Peggy Carter and Captain America. It becomes difficult to separate the two. After watching the first Captain America movie and "Agent Carter", their fighting styles are very similar--brute force-- and what they are fighting for is identical. Throughout the season, we see Peggy deal with the lingering grief over Steve Rogers' death (at least as far as anyone in 1946 knows). She isn't turned into a vigilante superhero by her grief like Batman. She moves through grief like the rest of us. Eventually she accepts that they have to let him go, but that doesn't mean forgetting.

Halfway through the season, there is a confrontation between Peggy and one of her friends/allies. She has been lied to and reacts by punching him in the face. To be fair, this is one of Peggy's main reactions. She says, "You don't get to use my reaction to your lies as a reason for your lies." I love this line. Lying friend is trying to justify his actions with saying he knew Peggy would react this way and she refuses to let him off the hook.

A lot of what she says resonates. She is a character I can identify with and that makes me happy.

Within half an hour of starting the show, I had found a new role model. Peggy Carter can stick up for herself and knows what she can do. She is fashionable and smart, classy and strong. While her entire office plays right into the hands of the bad guys, she works faster, smarter, and better than them. By the end of the season, she says "I know my value, anyone else's opinion doesn't really matter." And that is something hard to fully believe. Society inundates us with images of what we should be, especially women and it is hard to find value in yourself sometimes, especially when the people around you, without meaning to often, don't. "I know my value, anyone else's opinion doesn't really matter."