Peggy Carter is a compelling character on paper with the potential to also be an unforgettable love interest. But strip away Atwell’s charisma and the aesthetics, and it unfortunately becomes clear the Marvel films give Peggy very little to work with. She represents the life Steve Rogers lost and a promise he couldn’t fulfil, and that would have been fine if the franchise had left their origin story as it was. But since Endgame insists Peggy is the only home worth returning to for Steve, let’s take a look at why she could have been but is absolutely not that.

She Has Little Texture

Atwell plays Peggy Carter brilliantly — so brilliantly that we almost forget the character is vibes and very little else. From the films, we know that Peggy is a supervising officer who oversees Steve Rogers’ division. She walks in and out of fights looking flawless. She has a low tolerance for misogyny. And that’s about it.

Compared to other female characters originally written as love interests, Peggy barely feels like a real person.

Pepper is allergic to strawberries, likes gardening, and from her conversations with Tony, we know she buys her own birthday gifts with Tony’s pre-deposited money. She runs Stark Industries, and the movies give us instances where we see Pepper’s side of the challenge. While Tony is out there making suits and being an innovative disaster, Pepper manages the logistics. We see clearly why neither Tony nor Stark Tower could survive without her.

Christine Palmer takes risks as readily as Doctor Strange does. When she gets a difficult case, she bypasses the chain of command and seeks out Strange directly. That opening sequence tells us almost as much about Christine as it does about Strange. She’s a woman who is confident in her own expertise and knows exactly how to play within the hospital ecosystem.

Jane Foster prefers living in her RV over her actual house. She’s a little messy, doesn’t do dishes as often as she should, scribbles things in a notebook, and builds her own stargazing equipment because standard models are too basic for her.

When we are told these women are capable and intelligent, there are scenes beyond them propping up the heroes’ self-esteem that demonstrate they are, indeed, capable and intelligent, and that they exist outside of the heroes’ lives.

What do we really know about Peggy? What kind of dancing does she like? Does she have a pocket notebook? What’s her type beyond “man with a good heart”? What’s her favorite song? Etc.

And while the writing keeps insisting that she’s a capable military agent, we almost never see her do her job. What we get instead is Hayley Atwell looking brilliant in period-accurate military wear while punching men.

Poor Emotional Regulation Is Not an Attribute

In The First Avenger, we see Peggy physically assault another person twice. And we are not saying Hodge doesn’t deserve it; he obviously needs a reality check, and we cheer for Peggy as she delivers one. But consider this: Peggy is a supervising officer at the time, ranking above him. She had other options to discipline Hodge while preserving her authority in front of the recruits she’s supposed to manage — reporting him to higher command, making him run laps, engineering situations where he humiliates himself, which shouldn’t be hard given how little brain the guy has.

But no, she punches him, and we are supposed to take that as a moment of female empowerment. And while we might explain the incident away as this is a military setting, people having it rough is the default setting, but that doesn’t explain Peggy’s second outburst where she shoots at Steve’s shield.

Someone kisses Steve, Peggy gets jealous, picks up a gun, and fires at the vibranium shield. Yes, that is what that scene is. She’s not teaching him a lesson or demonstrating a weapon test in code, as many fans love to claim. If it were about wisdom or firearms training, she would have picked a different location.

The shield, at the time, is described by Howard as a prototype, implying it’s still being stress-tested for combat. “Stronger than steel, one-third the weight, vibration-absorbent.” And apparently, that is all Peggy needs to grab a gun and open fire at it in an enclosed space with non-combat personnel standing around.

Across the Infinity Saga, no other protagonist, male or female, resorts to physical violence to resolve their personal feelings without the narrative addressing it. If they do, it is either treated as a character flaw or tightly woven into the plot and confronted by the story. Even Wanda sends a warning before burning down Kamar-Taj — proof that Marvel knows how to write powerful women who escalate with intentionality. They just didn’t extend that to Peggy.

If Peggy’s poor emotional regulation were written as a flaw, it would have been compelling. But it isn’t. Her moments of lashing out are presented as empowering. Steve swoons, and we are supposed to think, “You go, girl.”

As a Love Interest, She Knows Almost Nothing About Steve

While Atwell and Evans sell great chemistry on screen, squint slightly and you’ll realize this dynamic has less depth than one of those War Bonds posters.

People love to point out that Peggy believes in Steve before the serum — that she sees the man behind the shield. But based on what we actually see in the film, there’s nothing Peggy recognizes in Steve that other people around him don’t also recognize.

Erskine sees it. So does Bucky. So does Chester Phillips, even if reluctantly. Jump to the present, and Natasha, Sharon, Sam, and even Tony all see the man behind the shield and engage with him as a person without it. Seeing Steve Rogers for who he is is the baseline for being in his orbit.

For a woman celebrated for “seeing the man behind the shield,” Peggy shows remarkably little curiosity about who that man actually is. She gives him inspirational speeches. She cheers him on. She breaks the rules for him. But during all of this, she apparently never once asks him about his sketches.

The movie goes out of its way to stage a scene where Peggy sees Steve drawing a monkey in his notebook. A golden opportunity for an organic exchange with Steve the Artist — the man without the shield that Peggy supposedly has a monopoly on. Instead, we get… nothing, really. Just a reflective moment from Steve, a quick “lab rat or dancing monkey” rhetorical question from Peggy meant to inspire him to do more.

Given that art is one of Steve Rogers’ most humanizing details of his inner life, one wonders why the love of his life — Endgame‘s words, not mine — treats it like a seasonal background and nothing more.

Now, Does Agent Carter Count?

I’d love for it to count. The show doesn’t do much better at making us believe Peggy knows anything about Steve that other people don’t, but at the very least, it fleshes Peggy out as a character.

But if we factor in the show, then Steve’s decision to time-travel to the past and live with Peggy looks even worse than it already does. Because it would imply that he sees everything Peggy has built — her legacy, her family, her achievements — and decides nonetheless that he prefers the version of her that was still mourning him.

Pick your poison.

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