Agent Carter, Season 2, Episode 9: A Little Song And Dance
The penultimate episode to Agent Carter's second season is... well, a decent episode, but that's about it. It doesn't really build up the threat or the big confrontation any more than any of the previous encounters did. And while I do appreciate the hilarity of seeing the entire cast going in for a bit of a song and dance routine, it went on for a bit too long to be anything but distracting. I liked the sequence enough to laugh at it, but it kind of came out of nowhere and really wasn't what I expected considering the tone that the last episode ended in. It was, ultimately, a big distraction.
There's a lot of content to make up for it, though -- Peggy and Jarvis's argument through the desert is one of the best moments either character has offered throughout all two seasons, and how both Peggy and Jarvis are absolutely brutal with their choice of insults, with Jarvis pointing out how people die around Peggy, while Peggy pointing out that all Jarvis wanted was the thrill of the adventure while hoisting the blame when his wife got shot (and not killed), and then the devastating revelation from Jarvis to Peggy that, well, Anna can't have children. Ever. It even concludes with Jarvis accepting his own weakness and cowardice (especially involving not telling Anna about her not being able to have children anymore), and they did make up at the end of it. It was a really great scene -- and I do like it when conflicts like these are brought to their boiling point but not dragged along for entire seasons. Ehm, Arrow?
The rest of the episode is just a race to whether they can get to Whitney Frost before he dissects Wilkes and uses all the Zero Matter to blow up the city, and, well... as much as I like Whitney Frost as a character, she really doesn't feel that big of a threat with everyone -- now including a gang-pressed and tricked Vernon Masters -- gunning after her. I think Thompson, after an entire season of being this jackass who's looking out for his career, finally gets his time to shine. The gambits and the fact that he's ultimately on the side of the angels is utterly obvious from the get-go, but there's enough 'will he or won't he' to make it somewhat interesting.
And just how he plans to take both Whitney Frost and Vernon Masters out with a bomb? I mean, as viewers we know there's one more episode to go, but it would have been a really good and practical plan. They were in a dump (sorry, sanitation facility...) and Thompson wasn't even trying to martyr himself in the process. Vernon and Frost would die, and maybe Manfredi and a couple of his goons -- really, other than the fact that Wilkes is inside (and Thompson does make a good point that Wilkes betrayed them once before) there's really nothing to stop them from pressing the trigger and ending both villains. Thompson's double-crossing and eventual triple-crossing of the two villains in this piece is fun.
Plus, speaking of not killing Vernon and Frost thanks to Wilkes being around... didn't Peggy just give a long spiel earlier to Jarvis about how emotions are clouding his judgment? Well, you're being a bit of a hypocrite there, aren't you, Peggy? I mean, yeah, a case could be made for this action preventing the death of an ally, whereas Jarvis driving down and shooting Whitney Frost in the head won't save Anna, but still.
As it is, it ends up with Whitney Frost consuming Vernon, Wilkes showing up probably blowing up, and all members of Team Carter still mostly accounted for. It's a strong episode... just not a whole lot happened since it was mostly focused on the big Thompson gambit. It just ends up feeling a bit unfocused and honestly nowhere as threatening or attention-grabbing as the conflicts in the episodes prior. I can't really put my finger on just what this episode is lacking, though.
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