Agent Carter, Season 2, Episode 8: The Edge of Mystery
I really need to be stepping up this TV show reviewing thing, but, y'know, real life. Blah blah blah. Agent Carter's been over since a month ago, and by my count I have like a-dozen-plus episodes from the assorted TV shows I'm reviewing that I haven't written reviews for, plus the entirety of Daredevil's second season, which will probably be a massive undertaking... oh, near late April, I guess.
Mind you, I've finished watching Agent Carter around two weeks ago, as well as catching up to at the very least The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow and Daredevil. I believe out of Arrow, Agents of SHIELD and Supergirl, I have like two or three episodes outstanding. Doubtful that I'll catch up and review Gotham, at least in the near future.
Anyway, this episode was pretty good! We've got Edwin Jarvis slowly going slightly more and more erratic, which I thought was easily one of the highlights of the episode. Throughout the second season, Jarvis has been even moreso than before reduced to a hilarious sidekick. Which was still fun and entertaining, but it's great to see the actor and the character explore the ramifications of his wife getting shot. It was a heartbreaking moment as he sits there cradling Anna's hand and making promises to... just change and do everything and anything and promise everything just to get her back. And, well, there's really no telling what's going to happen to Anna Jarvis, who I honestly thought was going to buy the farm this episode.
Except that, well, she doesn't. She recovers, which made me go 'yay!' because as much as I hate cheaping out on death scenes -- Felicity's relatively recent bout in Arrow's fourth season being a prime example of me throwing a hissy fit over it -- Jarvis just looked so miserable and broken that, well, Anna waking up and making a joke just feels me with the warm feelings. Of course, though, next comes the revelation that Anna will never be able to have children... and the expression change on Jarvis's face is just so... heartrending.
It also, in a way, paints just why antisocial little Tony Stark is sentimental enough to name his AI butler Jarvis after, well, the human Jarvis. You'd imagine that Tony, who we knew from the first two Iron Man movies to have a shitty relationship with his father, would find a surrogate father in Jarvis... who would be childless and definitely yearning for one.
And it culminates in an amazingly awesome moment as Jarvis just walks up to Whitney Frost and shoots her point blank in the face. Of course, Zero Matter powers meant that it ends up being more of an annoyance than anything, as well as a complication, but Jarvis flipping out and taking the initiative into his own hands after losing what he lost was awesome.
We've got some more hints with just what the whole Zero Matter thing is as both Whitney and Wilkes talk about this... supernatural voice that's talking to them. I don't particularly care enough for Wilkes to be surprised about his betrayal (he's easily the weakest link in the main players of this season), though him phasing out of the truck was a pretty slick and awesomely-CGI'd moment. I guess the voices did get through to him after all. This unholy alliance led Whitney Frost to finally be able to re-enact the big Zero Matter nuke portal explosion thing, but the Zero Matter or whatever force/being/Cthulhu is behind that portal, it chose Wilkes instead of Whitney.
And while Team Carter came through with bringing up a gigantic Gamma Cannon (hey Bruce Banner!) and shooting it into the rift and deactivating it, Wilkes came back with a crapton of Zero Matter within him.
Manfredi was also awesomely funny, especially in that scene in the restaurant where he's just arguing with his grandmother of all things about recipes and soups while Carter and Sousa are kung fu fighting outside. His grandmother might be my new favourite character -- lady was about to take a knife to stab the fuck out of the two agents if Manfredi hadn't told her to calm down!
The rest of the cast is exciting too, though not to the degree that Jarvis was. Despite being a dick with a file on (Michael?) Carter's war records and trying to blackmail Carter, Thompson's better nature wins out, and I love how conflicted he was about it. Him overhearing and eavesdropping on Vernon Masters all on his own, and finally decides that he's gone one step too far (and hilariously getting mindwiped off-screen) and finally throwing his lot in with Carter and Sousa and the rest is well done.
There was some shipping moments between Peggy and Sousa though it was kinda muted by all the far more interesting things happening with the rest of the cast. And despite the darker tone, it still manages to be a fun episode still, with Aloysius and to some extent Sousa carrying Jarvis's torch as being comic relief. I might've glossed over a couple of things, but y'know, I've got a crapton more episode reviews to write.
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