Agent Carter, Episode 8: Valediction
It’s definitely a solid episode to cap off the first
season of Agent Carter, with most of the loose ends and plots wrapped up
whether there will be a second season or not. Granted there’s really no tension
of Howard Stark or Peggy Carter dying (or Carter not returning to the SSR)
considering we know of how events will play out, so that kind of makes the
final ‘will Jarvis shot down Howard if Peggy fails to talk him down’ scene kind
of tenseless… but the showmakers do manage to make it be very feels-y by
exploring several emotional themes for not only Carter, but also for Howard.
Howard Stark, of course, returns for the finale and takes
on a far larger role than his two previous ‘talk a bit, drop a bombshell, then
going off’ appearances. And while he continues to make a lot of antics similar
to his son and generally making an ass out of himself, I do like how Jarvis is
just basically eye-rolling every time Howard does particularly assy things. Like
his expression during Howard’s first appearance, how he’s just talking about
how the SSR should’ve hired him for security, or how he follows Peggy in
walking off in disgust when Howard tries to pinpoint what Dottie’s name really
is.
Fennhoff’s master plan is apparently very personal to
Howard Stark, and Howard finally reveals the significance of Item 17 and how it
ties into the mystery of the Battle of Finow. ‘Midnight Oil’, as it’s called,
is supposed to make soldiers be able to go without sleep and fight for days,
but it instead causes them to enter a stage of heightened sleep deprivation and
thus causing them to become, well, psychotic angry rage-monsters. It’s a nice
touch to see that not all of Howard’s inventions are meant to be weapons, but
like Fennhoff mentions, Midnight Oil only exists because of Howard.
We also see Carter, Sousa and Thompson investigate the
aftermath of Midnight Oil on the theater and Sousa accidentally gassed himself
in the face with Midnight Oil and gets into a fight with Thompson before he
gets knocked out. And apparently Midnight Oil can cause asphyxiation, and they
note that the two Leviathan members who had their larynx destroyed probably was
exposed to experimental Midnight Oil… which is kind of weird, but it makes more
sense than them just being a psychotic cult. Still doesn’t really give an
explanation why they were masquerading as soldiers killed in Finow, but I guess
that’s just them being weird.
That’s about the connection to Leviathan as a greater
organization as we get, though, since the rest of the episode only focuses on
Fennhoff and Dottie (or Dr. Faustus and Black Widow, whichever you prefer) as
the threats. Howard Stark kills two birds with one stone by having Thompson
declare him innocent in a big public statement whilst drawing Fennhoff back to
try and nab him. It solves the big plot of declaring Howard’s innocence pretty
well, and I do like Howard just pulling a Tony an telling Thompson to throw in
words like ‘brilliance’ and ‘humbled’ and whatnot.
Of course, Fennhoff and Dottie manage to nab Howard Stark
with the aid of a hypnotized police officer (who later gets disposed of), and
we get a couple of flashbacks on how Dottie indeed seduced Howard and Howard
had shown her his private collection of airplanes and whatnot. Fennhoff reveals
his backstory, how he was present at the Battle of Finow when the Russian
soldiers were gassed with Midnight Oil and he had to see his brother get torn
apart. It helps make the conflict between Fennhoff and Howard feel a lot more
personal, and ties in the whole Finow thing even more.
I do like how Fennhoff hypnotizes Howard Stark, and this
forces him to deal with his own inner demons. How everything he created has
been destructive, Midnight Oil included, and how his only real positive
creation, Captain America, is gone. And Howard’s happy place is flying a plane
to bring Captain America back, and it is honestly heartbreaking to see Howard
just being so happy with how he’s telling Peggy how he’s bringing Steve home…
when he’s driving a plane filled with murderhate gas to New York. While we do
get fights against Black Widow and Dr. Faustus, I think the real climax is
Peggy Carter talking Howard down, which is a climax both plot-wise and
emotional-wise as Peggy tells Howard that they both loved Steve Rogers, but he’s
dead now and there’s no use clinging to the past and they have to move on, and
you can just see from Peggy’s expression how her own words apply to her as much
as they do to Stark.
Jarvis himself also gets to participate, hopping on a
plane and ready to shoot Howard down should they fail to talk him down but this
naturally doesn’t happen. Speaks volumes for Jarvis, though – despite how cowardly
and passive he’s been most of the time, and how much he respects Howard Stark,
he seems pretty ready to shoot down his boss and friend.
We get a couple of final battles here, with Peggy Carter
facing off against Dottie the Black Widow. I just wished Dottie was more
developed as a character so there would be more impact when she was ranting
about how she had always wanted to be like Carter, and I thought Dottie’s ‘death’
was a bit disappointing with her just falling out of a window. But I do like
how Carter is unable to outpace Dottie physically since, y’know, Russian
super-assassin and all. Fennhoff faces off against Sousa, and tries to hypnotise
him too, playing off his insecurities as the cripple and almost getting him to
shoot Thompson… but Sousa is wearing earplugs so he’s just stringing Fennhoff
along. That was actually funny how that scene played out.
And after the bad guys are taken out, we get a little closing.
Dottie apparently escaped having her head split open by the fall and escapes to
fight another day, but they captured Fennhoff. Howard apparently destroys all
his creations off-screen, which is another parallel we can draw between Howard
and Tony. And we get the little SSR scene where everyone basically acknowledges
Peggy Carter’s role in bringing down the big conspiracy… but the senators and
whatnot, naturally, acknowledge Thompson and I do like how Thompson doesn’t do
a 180 from his initial characterization, and while he respects Peggy as shown
from his many lines both this episode and before, he is still enough of a
jackass to take the promotion from the senators.
Peggy herself seems to have outgrown the need to be
lauded with praise, though, and I do like how she tells Sousa how it doesn’t
matter what other people think of her – only what she thinks of herself. Sousa
kind of asks her for a date and gets rejected, but Peggy’s smile may hint on
future developments of their relationship… after all, if she moves on that
quickly from the grief and loss of Steve that quickly it wouldn’t feel too
natural.
As a little closure to the stupid dorm, Howard and Jarvis
give one of Howard’s house for Peggy and Angie to live in… and Jarvis talks to
Peggy and tells her that she is the only person who has earned his integrity,
which is a pretty awesome and touching scene. I guess Howard being a dick got
to bite him in the ass, as Jarvis hands over Steve Roger’s blood to Peggy… and
Peggy pours it over the Brooklyn Bridge as she says farewell to her darling,
fully embracing the grief and sort of moving on. I guess that’s the sort of
closure she needs, bringing at least one part of Steve Rogers back to his home?
I dunno. Not really feeling up to analyze the emotional ramifications of that
scene, but I am touched and kind of sad because of it. It’s a nice page to
leave Peggy Carter on, that’s for sure.
Meanwhile, the final scene shows Fennhoff placed into the
same prison with… Arnim Zola! Arnim Zola was among the characters people were
expecting to show up in Agent Carter, and while him showing up isn’t entirely
unexpected, it does come as a surprise that the very final scene will show him.
Arnim Zola basically recruits Fennhoff into Hydra, or at least they share
enough information for Arnim Zola to manage to get his hands on Fennhoff’s
little methods of hypnotism, which would explain Daniel Whitehall’s penchant
for hypnotism in Agents of SHIELD, as well as the Winter Soldier program, both
affiliated with Hydra. Or it might point to something more direct in future
Agent Carter seasons. Maybe we’ll see Hydra actually infiltrating the SSR or
SHIELD?
Anyway it doesn’t really matter as the show’s loose ends
were all tied pretty nicely, but there’s enough openings to explore in a
hypothetical season two. Presuming the Black Widow Program will be touched upon
in Age of Ultron (coming soon!), the only real cliffhangers are Dottie’s escape
and the true scope of Leviathan, which would
be interesting as a season two but on the other hand I wouldn’t really shed
any tears if those plot threads weren’t explored at all.
Overall plot-wise there really isn’t anything fresh
beyond the two ‘harmless character is actually evil’ plot twists, and thanks to being set in stone there really isn't much tension as far as pre-established characters are. But for its tension and pacing problems, it’s
definitely a more character-driven series than I expected, especially this last
episode. It’s not a perfect series, that’s for sure, with several pacing
problems especially early on and the whole Leviathan thing built up in the
first three episodes being a big red herring, but while undoubtedly with its
problems, I certainly enjoyed Agent Carter thanks to the strong performances
put in by its actors and actresses. Next week we’ll return to Agents of SHIELD,
who, hopefully, is better paced than the first half of the season now that they've got more than two months to sort things out. Anyway, Agent Carter has been a pretty fun show. It's not particularly great, but it's definitely good. I definitely enjoyed myself more than I thought I would for a character that I didn't really care much about.
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