Agents of SHIELD season 7 has just revealed what happened to Peggy Carter after the end of Marvel's Agent Carter. Agents of SHIELD season 7 has taken the SHIELD team on a magical mystery tour through the history of the MCU. An alien race known as the Chronicoms are attempting to write SHIELD out of existence by changing the past, and Mack and his agents are pursuing them through the timestream.
Agents of SHIELD season 7 is the show's final season, but it's more important than that. This is also the end of an era, because Marvel Television as fans know it is winding down. Last October, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige was also appointed Chief Creative Officer of Marvel Entertainment. Since then, Disney has begun the process of absorbing Marvel Television into Marvel Studios, with a slew of cancellations. Even planned projects such as Ghost Rider have been shut down. Agents of SHIELD season 7 increasingly feels like a last hurrah for the old Marvel Television.
As part of that, Agents of SHIELD season 7, episode 3 took the SHIELD team to 1955. There, in an exciting adventure set at a SHIELD maximum security research base at Area 51, they battled the Chronicoms to prevent a number of key agents being wiped out. The episode saw Enver Gjokaj reprise the role of Daniel Sousa, an important character in the old Agent Carter TV series. And the plot used the opportunity to wrap things up nicely for Peggy Carter and her friends.
Where Agent Carter's Ending Left Peggy, Sousa, & SHIELD
Agent Carter was supposed to be the story of how SHIELD was set up after the events of World War II. It chronicled the adventures of Hayley Atwell's Peggy Carter, Steve Rogers' love interest in Captain America: The First Avenger, who returned to the United States after the war to continue her career with the SSR. Unfortunately the show didn't pick up a large following, and ABC decided they wanted Atwell to star in a different TV series, so they cancelled Agent Carter after just two seasons. That meant Agent Carter failed to deliver on its promise; season 2 was set in 1946, roughly three years before the SSR was transformed into SHIELD.
In Agent Carter season 2, her colleague Daniel Sousa had been transferred to Los Angeles to head up the new SSR base there. Peggy Carter traveled out to help him, pursuing a shadowy organization called the Council of Nine. These were subtly implied to be a Hydra cell of rich and influential businessmen, and Carter and Sousa failed to uncover the true scale of the cabal. The series finally fulfilled the will-they-won't-they romance between Carter and Sousa, with the latter proving his heroism and the two sharing a kiss; Marvel Television was clearly setting Sousa up to become Carter's main love-interest, perhaps even the eventual husband teased in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The season 2 finale ended with an unexpected twist, with another SSR agent murdered and important files stolen; the Council of Nine was far from defeated.
What Agents of SHIELD Reveals About Their Stories
Agents of SHIELD skips the 1940s, jumping straight to 1955. It's an era that has previously gone unexplored in the MCU, both on the big and small screens, affording the writers a great deal of creative freedom. They avoid dealing explicitly with the fallout from Agent Carter season 2 - which makes sense, given those events happened nine years ago in-universe, and only hardcore fans would remember plot points from a cancelled show four years ago. The Council of Nine is mentioned, but subtly, meaning it's impossible to say whether the feud between Carter, Sousa, and the Council continued or came to an end. Still, for all that's the case, Marvel Television do make a lot of things clear about the fate of Peggy Carter, Daniel Sousa, and SHIELD.
According to an official MCU timeline, the SSR was transformed into SHIELD in 1949, and Peggy Carter became the organization's first director. Carter initially based herself at the Playground, a major SHIELD installation at a classified location that played a prominent role in Agents of SHIELD season 4. Agent Daniel Sousa, it seems, remained head of the Los Angeles SHIELD base, but his remit gradually expanded over the entire West Coast. By 1955, Agents of SHIELD season 7, episode 3 reveals he is the one technically responsible for overseeing security at Area 51, and presumably numerous other secret SHIELD bases as well. The romance between Peggy Carter and Daniel Sousa must have petered out, because the episode subtly implies they haven't crossed paths in a while, and Simmons recognizes Sousa as Peggy's old partner - not her lover. Still, Sousa is single - he doesn't wear a wedding ring - and he clearly still has feeling for Carter, taking the time to smarten up a little before a potential meeting with her.
SHIELD's remit in 1955 is unclear, but it appears to have played a prominent role in the early Cold War, helping developed advanced technology to kick off the space race. The SHIELD of 1955 is thus an America-only organization, not yet tied to the United Nations. This, sadly, explains why SHIELD was so vulnerable to infiltration from Hydra; German scientists were drafted into US projects as part of Operation Paperclip, in order to advance American science and secure advantages against the USSR. A guest list for Area 51 suggests this early SHIELD works closely with the USAF and the Pentagon, foreshadowing the establishment of Project Pegasus seen in Captain Marvel. For all SHIELD 1955 is an America-only organization, this guest list is impressively diverse, suggesting Carter had a broader vision - one that would ultimately be fulfilled, when SHIELD expanded and wound up under the jurisdiction of the World Security Council.
Agents of SHIELD season 7, episode 3 may, unfortunately, hint at a coming tragedy for Daniel Sousa. He has begun to suspect SHIELD is being infiltrated by dangerous forces, and has apparently contacted the CIA to express his concerns. Unfortunately, it's a matter of MCU history that Sousa did not successfully root out Hydra; worse still, according to Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Hydra carefully assassinated anyone who became a threat to their continued operations. It's entirely possible Sousa is destined to become one of the Winter Soldier's high-profile targets.
Does Peggy Carter's Story Lineup With Avengers: Endgame?
The final scenes of Avengers: Endgame saw Steve Rogers claim his own "Happily Ever After," traveling back in time to 1949 to spend the rest of his life with his beloved Peggy Carter. There's actually some confusion over how this works out in terms of time travel theory, with Endgame's writers and editors openly disagreeing over it. According to directors Joe and Anthony Russo, Steve Rogers created an alternate timeline in which he married Peggy. Writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely disagree, insisting Steve has lived in the shadows all this time, the man Peggy Carter married all along.
Agents of SHIELD season 7, episode 3 would fit with either interpretation. Indeed, this is probably why Marvel Television avoided bringing back Hayley Atwell herself; they don't know which of the conflicting models of time travel Marvel Studios will embrace. Still, whether Steve Rogers is in this timeline or not, one thing seems certain; the romance between Sousa and Carter won't be rekindled, based on Simmons' throwaway comment about his being Carter's old partner. Simmons is so thrown she would undoubtedly have slipped and said more if the two were fated to become a couple again.