In the mid-2010s, Marvel Television expanded its broadcast television presence on ABC with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and its companion series, Agent Carter. Set after the events of Captain America: The First Avenger, the show centered on Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) and featured a strong supporting cast, including Chad Michael Murray as S.S.R. Agent Jack Thompson. The series was canceled by the network in May 2016 after two seasons, leaving the fates of several characters unresolved. Speaking with ComicBook while promoting Freakier Friday, Murray revealed what he believes happened to his character after the show’s shocking final scene.
“Told and assumed are two completely different things,” Murray said when asked if the Agent Carter team ever revealed what happened to Agent Thompson. “Jack would have been back. I always envisioned, if there were a Season 3, that Jack would have been back and he would be barking orders from the hospital bed, not able to get out, picking on Souza, that he doesn’t know how to do his job, even though I’m not doing a damn thing from bed. And then, he actually earns a rite of passage at the end of the season. You know, he and Peggy are up against the wall, and you hear gunfire, and it’s Jack in his hospital gown, ‘I knew you needed me.’ That’s what I envisioned. That’s my Jack goodbye.”
Murray’s vision provides a heroic conclusion for a character whose story ended on a major cliffhanger in the Season 2 finale. Set in Los Angeles, the season concluded with Thompson preparing to return to the S.S.R. headquarters in New York. Before he could leave his hotel, he was shot by a mysterious figure who stole a redacted file. That file had been given to him by his mentor, Vernon Masters (Kurtwood Smith), a high-ranking member of the Council of Nine who was allied with the season’s villain, Whitney Frost (Wynn Everett). The file contained damaging information about Peggy Carter, and Thompson was shot before his true intentions with it were made clear.
Is There Any Chance of Seeing Agent Carter Characters in the MCU Again?
While Agent Carter was canceled in 2016, the modern MCU has established a clear precedent for resolving storylines from past television projects. A direct example of this occurred in 2020, four years after Agent Carter‘s cancellation, when Daniel Sousa (Enver Gjokaj) was brought back for the final season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. The plot of that season involved the team traveling to 1955, where they discovered Sousa was historically destined to be assassinated by Hydra. The team intervened by faking his death and bringing the real Sousa into the present day, giving the character a satisfying new arc that concluded his story.
The path for such returns has been cleared even further by Marvel Studios’ current strategy of fully integrating characters from the former Netflix shows. That initiative was solidified by the March 2025 release of Daredevil: Born Again on Disney+. The series continued the stories of Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) and Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) within the main MCU timeline, and Marvel has already confirmed that Krysten Ritter will reprise her role as Jessica Jones for the show’s second season. The successful returns of these actors were significantly bolstered by passionate fan campaigns, which demonstrated a sustained audience desire that the studio ultimately acknowledged.
This same model could apply to Agent Carter. Given the unresolved cliffhangers and the established fan base, a vocal push could convince Marvel Studios to produce a one-off Special Presentation. This format would be perfectly suited to finally reveal who shot Jack Thompson and give the beloved series the conclusion it never received.
Murray will be seen next in Freakier Friday, which hits theaters on Friday, August 8th.
What Agent Carter mystery do you most want to see solved? Let us know in the comments!
