Agent Carter, Season 2, Episode 3: Better Angels
A bit of a slower episode than the previous two, and a bit more toned-down in terms of comedy and action, but that's not to say that it isn't good. We get the more-than-welcome return of Howard Stark and he's a blast. Howard, Peggy and Jarvis are just reverting to their season one team when it's them against the world, now that Jack Thompson acts like a total dick and ends up shutting the official SSR investigation down.
Yes, Peggy calling Thompson out on doing nothing and getting a medal is a low blow considering Thompson's backstory, but Thompson is being a huge asshole. At least we see that despite his swagger, he's still far more decent than his season one pre-character-development counterpart, taking Peggy's advice and seeing the Zero Matter film reel for himself, realizing that Peggy is telling the truth when he was invited by Vernon to the Arena Club, and was that him actually trying to mingle with Sousa there? Thompson is an asshole, but he's an interesting asshole, at least.
The plot goes deeper as we learn more about this mysterious council which may or may not be affiliated with Proto-Hydra. For lack of a better name and since they're based on this Arena Club, I'm calling them that. Anyway, the Arena Club is a front of rich-white-men-only gentleman's club, and the team makes liberal use of Howard Stark and his legion of women to sneak Peggy Carter in and gain some information. Peggy doesn't find anything that could be used as evidence -- mostly because she's busy dealing with sneaking away from the guards investigating the secret room -- but she does see enough, like the newspapers and the anti-bug things, to make her suspicious.
We also get the return of Jason Wilkes. His obscure comic-book counterpart (who lasted an issue in a very old comic) turned invisible, but his live-action incarnation take sit a step further. With some scientific mumbo-jumbo that actually fits into the theme of Howard Stark making a movie, Howard produces this paint-spray thing that causes anyone to be able to see things on the ultraviolent and infrared spectrums, and lo and behold, Jason Wilkes is intangible and invisible. Howard and Wilkes spend a good chunk of the latter half working together, both admitting that the other is good, and Howard's coffee-fueled hyperactivity is just fun. Wilkes is a bit bland, really, but he gets to play off the far more entertaining Peggy and Howard which helps him out a lot. Apparently Howard and Wilkes are off to... wherever... to find some professor, Abner Brody, which is going to be Howard Stark's excuse to be absent for the next couple of episodes.
By now it's clear that Chadwick is definitely subservient to Whitney Frost, even if Frost needs to pull off some 'fake crying' acting chops to get what she wants. Frost gets more characterization this time around, and like how Daredevil learned with Kingpin, the main villain is far more entertaining when she is a proper character with her own problems. And Frost? She has to deal with the mysterious Zero Matter scar on her forehead, she has to deal with the acting job that she very clearly didn't really like at this point... and also, apparently she's in reality Agnes Cully, this super-awesome scientist lady.
Peggy confronts Frost this episode, too, acting like a cop, which causes Frost to sick a hitman (a Mr. Hunt, which I don't care enough to google) that got totally beaten up by Peggy and Jarvis (who manages to do his judo moves from last episode!) but not before getting away. Frost also gets confronted by her director, who shows up and pretends to be supportive, telling her that he got the studio execs to back off from firing her in favour of a younger actress, but then gets rather grope-y. And then the director just goes nuts when he sees a blemish on Frost's face... which is when the Zero Matter just goops out, eats the director and returns back into Frost's body. It's a really interesting power, and I guess I could go out there and read up just what Madame Masque's powers and backstory is, but it's also equally nice to sit back and not knowing what to expect. Frost is a highly interesting character, and I really hope the show manages to do a lot with her.
We get a fair amount of references, too. We get the totally-not-subtle line from Peggy about making movies based on comic books, we get this odd stained-glass art in the Stark laboratory of the Iron Man arc reactor, the film Howard is filming is based on Kid Colt -- a Marvel cowboy comic book in real life, but also a comic book in the MCU... and apparently Kid Colt himself existed in history, a la Captain America. The idea of Jarvis as a disembodied voice, of course, refers to his future/present day counterpart as the Jarvis AI.
Overall it's a bit slower paced, and nothing really moves the plot forward with a good chunk of it just either Team Peggy finding out things that the audience already knows or just catching Howard Stark and Jack Thompson up to things, but it's still entertaining stuff.
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