Is the Agent Carter One-Shot Still Canon?

Is the Agent Carter One-Shot Still Canon?

Before the Agent Carter TV Series was released there was much debate online about how it would fit into continuity with the already existing Agent Carter One Shot. After all, the One Shot is a fairly self-contained story in which Peggy Carter not only takes her first assignment but is also immediately recruited into S.H.I.E.L.D. the very next day – it didn’t really leave much scope for telling further tales of Peggy’s post-war years with the SSR.

When asked during pre-production about the potential timeline of the TV Series in relation to the One-Shot, co-screenwriter Stephen McFeely said: "If you cut the One-Shot directly right down the middle, and you don't get to the next morning, you've got a whole show in there."

So now that the Agent Carter TV Series has concluded, how well does this claim still hold up? Does the TV Series integrate directly into the One Shot’s timeline as McFeely suggested or is there perhaps another answer? In this article we will consider 5 basic scenarios which should help us to answer the question of whether the Agent Carter One-Shot is still considered canon.

WARNING - The following article may contain spoilers for both the Agent Carter One Shot and the Agent Carter TV Show.

 

Scenario 1: The TV Series occurs in the MIDDLE of the One Shot

So first let’s look at McFeely’s claim that the TV Series is intended to occur in the middle of the One Shot. In support of this argument would be the fact that if the lead writer says it’s the case, then who are we to doubt him? Well, perhaps you do.

Even the most basic look at the narrative structures of the TV Show and One Shot will probably tell you that there is no real way that the events of the TV show could possible fit into the middle of the One Shot. To do so, you would have to take McFeeley’s statement  about “not getting to the next morning” quite literally, with the entire 8 episodes of the TV Series taking place in some sort of quasi-reality between “last night” and “the next morning”.

And even if you found the space within the narrative of the One Shot to fit the TV Series, many other things would still not add up if you accepted this sequence of events. First there is the fact that Bradley Whitford’s Agent Flynn is clearly the director of the SSR’s New York office at both the start and the end of the One Shot, and yet he is not the director of the SSR’s New York office during the TV show. Then there is the fact that the interior (and exterior) of the SSR’s office is different between the two, and that Peggy’s SSR co-workers are also completely different.



You could perhaps argue that there are maybe two different SSR offices in New York that Carter went back-and-forth between in her career, but really on a purely logistical level the idea that the TV series occurs in the middle of the One Shot doesn’t make a lot of sense.

I think what you have to do is take McFeely’s comment about it being “right down the middle” on a thematic level, rather than narrative level. As screenwriters they wanted to delve deeper into the idea of Peggy Carter returning to a male dominated workforce after the war and show her being constantly overlooked and put down by her misogynistic co-workers and superiors, and hence their story kind of fits into the middle of the One Shot in that regard, but on a purely practical level it simply doesn’t work.

So what are the other possible explanations to consider?


Scenario 2: The TV Series occurs BEFORE the One Shot

On a story level this perhaps seems like the most obvious choice. After all, the One Shot ends with Peggy Carter being recruited into S.H.I.E.L.D. and leaving her desk at the SSR straight away. Therefore the Zodiac mission depicted in the One Shot must have been the last thing Peggy did with the SSR, and as such the TV Series where she still works for the SSR has to occur before the One Shot.

For this to work, you would have to explain away Peggy’s line at the start of the One Shot about having “yet to be sent on my first assignment”. There are two possible ways around this: first you could argue that given the vast differences between the two SSR offices (Dooley’s and Flynn’s) that it’s only been 3 months at this particular New York Branch that she has yet to be sent on her first mission there (having previously done lots of missions with Dooley’s branch).

Or equally you could argue that all the assignments that Peggy undertook during the TV Series were technically as a Rogue Agent or were otherwise off the books (such as the mission to Russia), and therefore she has yet to be sent on her first “official” assignment.



Another consideration we could make here would be to look at the SSR’s attitude towards Howard Stark as a clue to the relative timeline of events. At the start of the TV Series Howard Stark has been accused of selling weapons to enemies of the United States and is pretty much public enemy number 1 as far as the SSR are concerned. Yet during the One Shot, Agent Flynn calls him “Sir” and pretty much bends over backwards to do as he says.

You could probably argue this both ways however – either that Howard Stark’s high status amongst the SSR during the One Shot is as a result of his redemption during the TV Series, or that Howard Stark’s high status in the One Shot is a carry-over from his work with the SSR during The First Avenger and that his fall from grace at the start of the TV Series came later. Either is certainly possible, though I think I prefer the former explanation here.


 

Scenario 3: The TV Series occurs AFTER the One Shot

The third possible scenario is that the TV Series occurs after the One Shot. For this to work you would obviously have to explain why Peggy Carter is not off working for S.H.I.E.L.D. but I guess you could make various arguments on this front. For example, perhaps Howard’s plans to form S.H.I.E.L.D. hit some delays as a result of the weapons dealing accusations, which forced Peggy Stark to continue working for the SSR for a while longer (albeit at a different SSR office within New York City).

The biggest argument in favour of this sequence of events however would be the fact that the TV show directly features footage from the One Shot in a flashback montage, right at the start of the first episode. Its certainly a strong argument and hard to dismiss, though if I were going to counter it I would point out that the purpose of the montage is really to contrast Peggy’s mundane existence now (doing the Ironing, Watering the Plants etc.) with her exciting life during the war, going on daring missions with Captain America etc.. It that regard the One Shot provides a rich source of pre-existing footage to illustrate this point and avoids them having to rely solely on her limited action sequences during The First Avenger, and so it isn’t necessarily intended as a “flashback” per se, but more of an illustrative comparison sequence.



The other major argument for this sequence of events would be some of the dates visible on certain props. For example, in the One Shot the intelligence report that Peggy hands to her colleague is dated March 14^th 1946, whilst in the TV Series the Newspaper that she reads in the opening scene is dated April 21^st 1946, clearly placing the One Shot first and the TV show second.




However if you start trying to over-analyse little details like this you will quickly find numerous trivial inconsistencies across all the MCU movies (this website HERE provides a comprehensive round-up) and adhering to many of them would result in huge segments of the entire MCU timeline being placed out of sequence simply to cater for minor details which were only ever intended as set dressing and not to indicate major plot points.

What’s more important to consider really is simply the overall narrative, and in that regard all you can definitely say is that both the One Shot and the TV Series take place one year after Captain America’s apparent death and that the TV Series finale very specifically takes place on the first anniversary of VE Day – May 8^th 1946.


Scenario 4: Only the TV Series is Canon

The fourth scenario we have to consider is that the TV Series effectively replaces the One Shot, with the latter dropping out of the continuity all together. This is perhaps the cleanest explanation (avoiding all the aforementioned continuity issues) but it isn’t perhaps all that satisfying an answer for continuity enthusiasts, and in particular would be a massive shame given how good the One Shot is.



 
Scenario 5: Only the One Shot is Canon

For the sake of completion the final scenario we have to consider is that despite the TV Series being the more recent addition to the MCU, that it is actually the older One Shot that remains cannon and not the newer TV Series. Again, whilst this is obviously a possibility, it’s not an entirely satisfying explanation and again the TV Series is simply far too good not to count.

That said, removing the TV Series from the canon would actually fix one or two minor continuity errors – for example, in Iron Man 2, JARVIS says that Anton Vanko didn’t defect from the USSR until 1963, and yet in the Agent Cater TV Series he is clearly seen working as an employee of Stark’s during 1946. Likewise, in The Winter Soldier it explains how the US recruited Arnim Zola in 1945 along with many other Nazi scientists, and yet in the Agent Carter TV Series we find him still locked-up in prison in 1946 (though I guess there are plenty of creative explanations as to how he wound up back in jail)
 

Conclusion

So in conclusion, what have we learned? Is the One Shot still canon? Well I guess that depends on how particular you want to be about things really. If you are a strict continuity buff the answer is probably no. There are far too many incongruities between the TV Series and the One Shot which don’t reconcile. If however you are someone who subscribes to the idea of there being multiple layers of “canonicity”, with the Movies at the top, the TV Shows second, the One Shots third and the Comic Tie-Ins fourth (and maybe even the Video Games fifth if you are so inclined) then I’m sure you can find room for both of the excellent Agent Carter properties in there.

As for the order of the two, well perhaps that’s something that might become more apparent if we get a second season of Agent Carter. Personally however I hope they simply avoid any awkward questions about whether the One Shot counts or not by simply skipping ahead 5 or so years, delving deeper into the Cold War and further exploring the Leviathan mythology, and let us fans decide for ourselves whether the sequence of events shown in the One Shot is how she was recruited into S.H.I.E.L.D. or not...

But what are your thoughts? Do you have any theories as to how the two fit into continuity with one another (if at all)?

Also, if you would like to read either of my two previous MCU related articles you can do so HERE and HERE.

Thanks for reading!