What Would Agent Carter Season 3 Have Been About?
Agent Carter producer Jose Molina outlines what Peggy Carter would have been up to in Season 3.
Fans have been hoping for a miraculous resurrection of Agent Carter in the form of Agent Carter Season 3 since the show was cancelled. And they’re not the only ones.
In a recent interview with Den of Geek, Agent Carter producer Jose Molina outlined what would have to happen to see the show return, saying:
I think the creative team would all line up to return — the cast, the writers, etc. — it would just be a matter of finding an outlet interested in airing the show. Given the series’ ratings when it aired on ABC, finding that outlet seems like a bit of a long shot. It would be lovely to think that Netflix (home to so many awesome Marvel shows) would pick it up, but their shows all share a common universe and timeline that Carter doesn’t share. Creatively, these shows tend to be very dark, and Agent Carter just doesn’t have dark and brooding in its DNA.
Molina also shared what a potential Season 3 would have looked like, saying:
If memory serves, the initial thrust was going to come from the investigation into the assassination attempt on Jack Thompson. We were hoping (assuming we could afford it) that the story would then lead us to London, where we would learn that Peggy’s late brother Michael was not only alive and kicking, but involved in some very nefarious, super-villainous shenanigans.
A season of Agent Carter in London? Further insight into her family? Yes, please.
ABC cancelled the series back in 2016 in favor of another Hayley Atwell drama, Conviction, which will run during the 2016-2017 season. ABC also decided not to go ahead with Agents of SHIELD spinoff, Marvel’s Most Wanted.
The cancellation came as a surprise to Marvel TV chief Jeph Loeb, who got an abrupt call from ABC. “There were no conversations,” he told Business Insider. “We had a call from the network. The network said they were cancelling the show.”
While we’re big fans of Agent Carter, the reality is that the ratings for the show’s second season were dismal. It debuted to a series low 3.18 million viewers and dropped steadily, at one point falling as low as 2.39 million. For comparison, the first season opened with nearly seven million viewers and fell to about four million by season’s end. Mr. Loeb couldn’t have been that surprised.
He’s still hopeful, though. “Let me just put it this way: I watched The Avengers,” Mr. Loeb said. “Phil Coulson died. His story was done. We’re about to go into the fourth season (of Agents of SHIELD)…So I like to think that anything is possible. And that’s one of the reasons why I enjoy my job so much.”
Despite that, any hope we may have had about getting Agent Carter Season 3 over on a streaming service like Netflix have been dashed by Netflix CCO Ted Sarandos, though. “We’re looking for truly original brands to own,” Mr. Sarandos told EW back in July 2016, “and in that Marvel space we already have [original comic book shows] – so that was mostly why.”
But there are other business issues at work, too. “They also have some output deal complexities,” he continued. “So when you pick it up, being able to pick it up globally is difficult even after it’s canceled. Some of those output partners still had it on the air, so they would argue its covered by their output [deals]. Unfortunately, it was a business decision more than a creative one.”
Agent Carter was a cult favorite, and it was a shame to see it get the axe. Still, if anyone can beat the odds, it’s Peggy Carter.