Agent Carter S02E10 Review: Honestly Anticlimatic

Agent Carter, Season 2, Episode 10: Hollywood Ending

That was... a very functional ending. The main villains are all taken out, and while there are enough plot lines to strike intrigue for the third season, so much has been built up across Agent Carter's second season that it really feels like a letdown that very little of what has been seeded really came to fruition. I still have a lot of questions regarding what's going on -- like the ancient Hydra pin, and it's really annoying that it was built up in the first two or three episodes as this big conspiracy that's going to drive the second season, when in reality it's just laying the groundwork for season three. We've got the redacted files that Thompson discovered two episodes ago... season three. We don't get any answers to what Zero Matter is (apparently it's an adaptation of the comics' Darkforce?), just what is the voice that Whitney and Wilkes are hearing, just what the Council of Nine is beyond the couple of executives we saw, why did the Zero Matter pick Wilkes over Whitney, et cetera, et cetera. 

And really, the big cliffhanger at the end of the first season, a team-up between Arnim Zola and Dr. Faustus ended up not factoring in anywhere, and for all the entertainment factor that Dottie Underwood gave us in the mid-season episodes, she also ended up not appearing at all -- I half expected her to be a wildcard or hanging out with Team Frost, at least as a secondary threat so our characters don't just stand around talking and waiting for Frost to walk to their trap.

Really, it's a shame since Agent Carter's second season was actually pretty good. It isn't super-duper excellent, but it's a definite improvement over the first season, it's got solid storylines and fleshed-out characters, and despite being very pessimistic regarding the quality of the first season, I really enjoyed this second outing with Peggy Carter. But this final episode of the second season? Yeah, it's easily the weakest of all 10 episodes. 

The ending really felt like 'oh well, it's the final episode, let's set a trap and catch Whitney Frost and yay it works'. Whitney Frost herself has grown so insane and unstable that even her one ally, Joseph Manfredi, ends up seeking out Team Carter to help 'fix' Whitney Frost. She just doesn't really... feel like she's a threat, a cunning intelligent schemer with black hole powers... she's just this erratic animal that needs to be put down (we even get Jarvis running her down with a car rather hilariously), and it is really far removed from what made Whitney Frost so interesting in the first place. She spends nearly the entirety of this episode just mumbling and pulling a Phil Coulson and sketching random equations on a whiteboard, then she gets the bait, and then she gets the Zero Matter sucked out of her. 

From then on it's a matter of one-thing-leading-to-another and they save the day. Yay. 

And, well, Howard Stark shows up for the requisite final episode appearance, and he was fun, I guess? But not even Howard (or, really, Jarvis returning to his snark-mode) really made this episode be anything more than a mediocre, lackluster ending. Though seeing him trying to play golf with a freaking hole in the universe was hilarious as all hell. 

After that sequence where everyone wants to be a hero, Jarvis shoots Howard's flying car (Lola nooo) into the Zero Matter portal and pop it goes off. Whitney Frost goes insane, trying to claw her face off and imagining herself with Chadwick while Manfredi is forced to visit her... maybe her being alive will lead to more answers regarding the Zero Matter thing if we get a third season? 

Oh, and after everything is okay and it looks like we're going to have one of those 'where are our characters now' epilogues (including Sousa and Peggy being an official couple -- not a long stretch since Wilkes was boring as all hell), suddenly Thompson gets shot by a mysterious man who took the redacted document about M. Carter. Whoops! Cliffhanger for season three. A bit of a pooper there, though I don't really mind this that much. 

Overall, though, while this final episode was a bit of a disappointment, season two of Agent Carter really was far more exciting and definitely stronger than the first season. Now, it really could've benefited from a lot more improvements -- making sure that some secondary characters were more relevant, like Dottie Underwood and Jason Wilkes, who received a lot of attention but ultimately ended up only paying off for a single episode for the former and being absolutely underwhelming for the latter; and, y'know, not building up so much for the third season and use some of the buildup you've done for the plotlines this season. But, eh, can't really find the energy to complain that much. I did have fun watching this season, after all. 

Agent Carter S02E09 Review: Crazy Musical Numbers & Thompson's Scheme

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. 

Agent Carter S02E08 Review: Angry Jarvis & Gamma Cannons

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. 

Agent Carter S02E06-S02E07 Review: The Widow vs the Madame

Agent Carter, Season 2, Epsiode 6: Life of the Party

These two episodes came at around the same time, and I actually did a rough-bones review of it when it came out... so let me finish writing it, a good month after the episodes actually premiered. Whoops. By this point the second season has ended, and I'll be reviewing the rest of the episodes in the near future, before moving on to Daredevil's season two.

Anyway, this two-parter focuses more on Team Peggy recruiting Dottie Underwood, a.k.a. Black Widow I, back into the fold to combat the larger threat, Whitney Frost. It's all entertaining spy stuff, and it very much raises the stakes for the second half of the season. Agent Carter's second season has one of the most solid first halves, and Whitney Frost has been built up to be this interesting and formidable villain. So like any good work of fiction, they pit last season's villain against this new big bad. Except, y'know, Dottie's a rather colourful character herself, where she's got this... unhealthy, explicitly-ship-inducing interest in Peggy Carter, which is part of the reason why she's interested in helping.

At least they lampshade what a stupid and reckless idea it was to bring Dottie into the fold beyond 'let's do this for, uh, reasons' like they often do in Arrow, and Peggy's abdomen-impalement injury is a good enough reason as any. Plus there's the Suicide Squad collar on top of it all. And it is fun to have Jarvis and Dottie interact and try their level best to outsnark each other in that gala... even if we have some rather irritating-yet-funny Peggy-Sousa drama shoved in the middle of it all.

But really, Whitney Frost is still one of the most awesome characters in this season, easily outshining Dottie. Chadwick and the Council try to set up a trap for Whitney, and when she realizes she was betrayed by Chadwick, well, she uses her black-goop powers to eat Chadwick and half the council, who I have given up hope on being relevant in any way to the story. Vernon Masters is one of those spared, and he did get a bunch of buildup with Thompson throughout the episode so it's nice to have him grow somewhat as a character instead of just Corrupt FBI Man.

Thompson continues to be annoying, though at least he's showing visible reluctance at cooperating with Vernon. In his line of work, what can you do? He seems to be having some conflicts of interest as he overhears some sensitive stuff that Vernon and the other council members are saying, and I'm 100% sure he'll be redeemed at the end mostly because, y'know, we went through the 'is Thompson evil or just a dick' bit already.

It's a great episode, though. It moves the plot along, it's got this fun little moments both in the planning and execution of the plan, it proves that the main character can sit out most of the action while the secondaries have a time to shine, and Whitney Frost continues to be a fun and unique villain in the MCU.

Agent Carter, Season 2, Epsiode 7: Monsters

This episode followed up the previous one as a pretty strong installment, and brings Dottie and Frost facing off against each other. Dottie gets herself captured by Frost's forces, and I do like the scene where she gives these gory descriptions about the tortures she suffers daily to Vernon. There's definitely a nice callback (call-forward, in-universe) to the Avengers movie where Black Widow was being tied down to a chair and being absolutely nonchalant about torture. And then Frost comes in with her Zero Matter powers and puts the fear of god into Dottie. Because, y'know, metahuman powers are a bit more scary than something that you've grown desensitized to over the years. The image of the black goop running across Dottie really isn't that horrifying that I buy her breaking immediately, but Dottie's reactions certainly sells it.

Peggy, of course, does show a wee bit of attachment for Dottie (let the shipping bells ring) by refusing to blow the Suicide Squad necklace up, and there's a nice bit of ethical debate between the members of the team on just what action to take -- use the necklace to attempt to blow up Frost, while almost certainly killing Dottie who lest we forget is an assassin and a murderer -- or, um, do nothing. I would definitely blow up that necklace, but that's why I'm not a paragon of justice and ideals like Peggy Carter.

Dottie's status as a rogue agent gets solidified when Vernon enforces the fact that the Soviet will never accept her again, but her betrayal of the SSR this episode (and her subsequent murder-escape at the end of this) solidifies that she's not going onto the side of the angels either. She escapes to return another day, though unless she charges in like a wild card in the finale... not in this season, I think.

This episode is definitely a bit brought down by the rather odd love triangle between Peggy, Wilkes and Sousa, but at least the show (and Jarvis) is not beyond lampshading it, and Peggy herself seemed flabbergasted at the amount of attention she's been getting. Wilkes, I think, still is being somewhat forced into the plot. He still is more plot device than character, really, be it being Mr. Intangible or being Love Interest #2. Yeah, he gets to turn half-corporeal within Howard Stark's machine, and he gets fought over and kidnapped by Frost, but I still don't really care all that much about him to care that he's been kidnapped.

Also, Joseph "Blackwing" Manfredi has basically taken up spot as Whitney Frost's number two, driven by old love for her, and, well, Manfredi is a lot hammier, funnier and far more entertaining than Chadwick.

Sousa gets beaten up by Vernon's people. Thompson works with Vernon's people. I don't care either way -- I've grown somewhat attached to the two of them over the course of 20 episodes or however long Agent Carter has been, but they really haven't done much this time around.

Anna gets a whole lot of screentime here, though, and it's a great development from her scenes in previous episodes where she worries about Jarvis. Her conversation with Jarvis and her newfound concerns about the sheer reality of Jarvis' escapades with Agent Carter is a nice touch, and something that's wonderfully done -- Anna is both supportive and rightfully worried at the same time. Usually in superhero shows people generally lean way too much on either camp, almost to the exclusion of the other, but Anna strikes the perfect balance between the two. Of course, she immediately gets shot in the gut at the end of the episode because, uh, that's what works of fiction do. They make you get attached to minor characters and then they kill them off.

The jury's still out on whether Anna dies, but it's certainly a big escalating point in the story, and Anna certainly is disposable enough (unlike Peggy or Howard, who are both almost certainly alive by the time present-day MCU rolls around, or Jarvis, who will survive long enough to meet Kid!Tony) and would definitely strike a blow to the team. Hell, Jarvis's expressions of horror and panic alone made me well up a little -- James D'Arcy is a really great actor, I must say.

It's your requisite 'darkest moment' part of the plot, with Wilkes kidnapped, Anna possibly dead, the SSR team really reaching nowhere, Frost getting the lead, Vernon's people beating up Sousa, Thompson working with Vernon and Dottie escaping. It's not overdone, though, and if nothing it certainly makes the wait for the next episode a lot more exciting, if only to see if Anna survives.

Agent Carter S02E05 Review: Heist

Agent Carter, Season 2, Episode 5: The Atomic Job

Another strong episode from Agent Carter. Again, it's nothing particularly spectacular, but it was enjoyable, I didn't have anything that I dislike about it, and it progressed the main story. Where last episode we've got an origin story for our leading lady, this episode we have... a heist! And plot development! Jason finds out that he can suck up the Zero Matter within the autopsy chunk from the frozen lady, so Peggy and Jarvis go on wacky capers to steal the body... only to find out that Whitney Frost is literally a step ahead, and drains every single Zero Matter from the corpse.

What follows is, well, Whitney Frost wanting to re-stage the atomic bomb explosion that formed the Zero Matter in the first place. There's a bit of foreshadowing/world-building as both Jason and Whitney note that they are drawn to other sources of Zero Matter, but we'll probably save that for later.

What more exciting, though, is the heist! In addition to show regulars Peggy, Jarvis and Sousa, this time around we recruit two wacky characters. Rose, the fat jolly secretary lady who, like the grandma from Captain America: the First Avenger, is a fully trained agent on her own. She just never stepped into the battlefield. We also have the thankless passive-aggressive dr. Samberly, who's got a nice decent scene in the first two episodes that make him memorable enough. And honestly, I actually kinda feel for the poor dude. No one likes him, he gave up so much to join the SSR, and he really sin't appreciated. Yes, he gets to be a bit of a butt monkey and source of comedic relief, but is he so different from Peggy Carter herself, living a thankless life, no one remembering him, despite performing admirably? The dude invented a memory wipe, for fuck's sake! I mean, yeah, dude's a bit bumbling and a bit of an idiot, but I was glad he made it out safely.

Including Rose and Samberly actually also raised the stakes of the heist, really. I mean, we know Peggy's absolutely safe, and both Jarvis and Sousa are main characters and are safe enough until there's like a big end-of-season conflict or something. But Rose and Samberly? Especially with Sousa going on the tangent that Rose is untrained? Yeah, I was totally scared that one of these two would bite it -- they were actually likable people and having them die simply would be quite sad indeed. 

Also, how hilarious was that slow walk? I mean, Guardians of the Galaxy did the 'slow walk while everyone isn't taking it seriously' first, and I bet some other movies did it as well, but how many of them have the group arrive at the spot, and then it turned out to be just wrong because Jarvis parked the car elsewhere?

We get a couple of wacky hijinks, of course, with Samberly accidentally locking Jarvis in a room with an atomic bomb, forcing our favourite butler to handle the disarming of the nuke himself. We get Samberly being all awkward around Rose, we get Rose taking down Maggia goons on her own, we get some crazy James Bond-style lightning field disc grenade thing courtesy of Samberly... it's all fun and good, and we even get a great climax with Peggy facing off against Frost. I mean, yeah, we all know that Peggy's not going to be eaten by black goop or die from that rusty spike, so it's a good thing the show doesn't treat us like idiots and have the show cut straight to Nurse Violet patching Peggy up.

Not really a big fan of Violet being all "you're still in love with her, aren't you?" bit, though Sousa's disaster of a marriage proposal earlier this episode was actually pretty freaking hilarious. Sousa's not going to survive this series, is he? He's definitely grown on me since season one, being actually likable instead of being just the love interest archetype. But that scene where Violet confronts Sousa about his old love really felt jarring considering the really sweet and well-done awkward confession earlier in the episode.

I've gone through nearly the entire episode without talking about Whitney Frost, but man, she's also awesome! She's basically running this show now, and that fact is further enforced by the scene in the end where Chadwick refuses to help her out after they failed to get the nuke, and she basically puts her feet down. But Whitney Frost has been dominating every scene, more and more subtly undermining Chadwick's supposed authority over her.

The scene with where she dominates the conversation with the mob boss and basically forces her husband to be indebted to Maggia mastermind Joseph Manfredi is awesome. Joseph Manfredi is better known to Marvel comic fans as the anti-hero Blackwing, and is the leader of the Maggia, Marvel Comics' version of the mafia, though the organization went unnamed in this episode. Manfredi had a short scene, though he definitely stole it with his eccentricities, like totally beating the crap out of one of his bodyguards for "undressing a lady with your eyes". I'm not sure if Manfredi's going to be a secondary antagonist for the second season, or if it's just a nice little nod to the fans, but I could very easily see this psychotic mob boss be an ally for Whitney Frost... especially since Chadwick is scared shitless and summons an emergency meeting of the Council of Nine at the end of the episode.

We also get more references to Thomas Gloucester this episode as a powerful influential member of the Council of Nine -- he showed up as 'Tom' in the Council's first appearance and the previous two episodes made references to him by name. I dunno, I hope more of the Council's members actually do something instead of just being ciphers or bumbling idiots like Hugh Jones (who I honestly forgot had met Peggy Carter before, actually). As a side-note Thomas Gloucester is also apparently based on a Marvel comics villain as well, so hopefully he manages to do something interesting. 

I do like how basically both Peggy and Whitney play their hands to each other -- Whitney displays her power and Peggy shows that she's totally onto Whitney -- so we won't have too much silly subterfuge between the two main players in the episodes to come.

Oh, and Jason also possibly disappears elsewhere, so we're definitely hopefully getting more about that mysterious Zero Matter origin dark dimension thing that I've been trying to avoid spoilers about. It's overall a mostly light-hearted episode right until the final scenes where things get serious. I thought that Peggy-goes-undercover scene with Hugh Jones or whoever the Roxxon head is went on for too long, but holy shit abusing the memory wipe device is hilarious. 

We get some plot develpoment, we get development of primary and supporting characters, the plot goes on... yeah, I honestly didn't see myself really getting this hooked to Agent Carter, but I actually am. It's never going to get 10/10 or 9/10 scores if I were the type of reviewer to give scores, but it consistently scores between the 7-8/10 range and above-average consistency is definitely something I can appreciate.

Agent Carter S02E04 Review: Flashbacks Galore

Agent Carter, Season 2, Episode 4: Smoke & Mirrors

Agent Carter is consistently good every week. It still doesn't quite have the same 'wow' effect as the big revelations about the Zero Matter in the second episode, but it's still consistently quite good. This week is both fast-paced and slow-paced at the same time. Fast-paced because we get a lot of plot being moved forward, namely Peggy and Sousa deciding to assault the Arena Club... even if it got shut down rather quickly thanks to some administrative red tape thanks to our good buddy FBI-man Vernon. I think the weakest point is another sense of deja vu that Peggy Carter is once again doing an investigation where the authorities have shut her down, though at least this time around part of the SSR is on her side. 

On the villain side, the hitman, Rufus Hunt, gets bullied around, interrogated with the fake malaria injection, before being eaten by Whitney Frost's new Zero Matter powers. Whitney Frost embracing her powers by experimenting with rats, her brief panicking about her looks, something that her shitty mother told her is the only thing she's worth for, and ultimately embracing it by consuming Rufus Hunt in front of poor, frightened Chadwick... yeah, plot progression is hard and fast this episode.

On the other hand, we get a lot of flashbacks for both Peggy and Whitney -- though for a moment I got confused and thought that they were all about Peggy. Oh well. Mea culpa. It's slow-pawhaced, really, but functions somewhat to build upon the characters that this season is telling us about. Necessary? Hardly. But are they entertaining, and do they build up the characters? Yeah. Poor Whitney Frost (well, Agnes Cully) had a shitty mother who didn't approve of all her interest in science, insists that her looks are the only thing that will get her ahead in life, blames her for her lover sleeping around with other women, and generally is a shitty mother all around.

Peggy's mom kinda disapproves of her wanting to be the dragonslayer instead of the princess in playtime, wanting her to be a good little girl, but nowhere to the extent of Whitney's shitty mother. We see more of Peggy being engaged to a 'Fred', while her brother, Michael, wants Peggy to choose a life of a spy, something that Michael knows is more suited to what Peggy wants to. And, well, Michael died. Man, that was sad. It was a nice development and a nice juxtaposition how they were both forced to be moulded into what women should be at that time period, and how Peggy ultimately rejected her 'perfect life', which she fooled herself of wanting, and instead chose her heart's calling. A bit odd that we've never heard about Michael Carter at all before this, but the scenes really worked well.

Again, feminism handled well. A lot better than how Agent Carter's first season was, and definitely miles and miles more well-written than Supergirl. I could be mean and start nitpicking that show, but let's not.

Incidentally, Rufus Hunt is played by the same actor that played Reactron from Supergirl. 

Ahem. Back to Agent Carter... Jarvis was still funny with his antics with the tranquilizer gun, pretending to be an American toughie and everything. Sousa was fine, being a nice ally, and the revelation that Vernon gave the same communist speech to him was kind of hilarious in hindsight. Wilkes is still the weaker part of the protagonists, with the potential romance angle really not working out as well as it should, though with him seeing visions about dark holes and shit are definitely interesting. Does he have more powers? What are the extent of his powers beyond just being intangible? And, more importantly, what are Whitney Frost's limits?

Overall, a lot happened in the present day, but it moved so fast thanks to a good chunk of the screentime used for flashbacks. And while it could've been trimmed out a little the flashbacks did help to build Frost and Peggy's characters. The Zero Matter and Council of Nine (we have a name!) plotlines continue to move forward, and I'm definitely far more interested with this season than I was at this point last season. 

Agent Carter S02E03: Light-Man and Dark-Woman

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.

Agent Carter S02E02 Review: Zero Matter

Agent Carter, Season 2, Episode 2: A View in the Dark

Still a lot of fun and far more interesting than the first season of Agent Carter was at this point in its life. We get straight to the point with the whole Isodyne conspiracy, revealing that Chadwick is a member of a secretive Council which may or may not be Hydra/AncientHydra (whose only other member is the underwhelmingly-named 'Tom'), but Chadwick himself seemed to not be the brains of the outfit, and rather the more active beast among the pair is Whitney Frost herself. Chadwick gets dismissed by the Council who appreciate having a senator among their members more than, well, anything about the Zero Matter project that he put a lot of resources and time into... though, as Frost points out, it is Chadwick's womanizing that apparently put him into all this business, even if I'm not quite sure what Chadwick banging Jane Scott has got to do with Jane Scott touching the Zero Matter.

 We also get some backstory regarding the black goop courtesy of Jason Wilkes, who helps Peggy out. The black goop is named Zero Matter apparently, which is this mysterious crack in the universe that resulted in Isodyne's atomic tests... which then proceeded to suck up a crapton of tanks and soldiers before becoming, well, a goop. That absorbs everything around it unless held in place by all the special harness and whatnot. By the end of this episode the Zero Matter explodes, seemingly consuming both Wilkes and Frost, but since Frost is revealed to be alive, albeit a Zero Matter crack on her forehead... things are going to get interesting. This is certainly a plot that could rival the likes of Agents of SHIELD instead of some spy stuff... which, while certainly interesting, is extremely underwhleming compared to everything else running along in this universe.

We get a bit more romance on the Peggy front. She seems quite accepting of Sousa finding his love of his life -- though to be fair the nurse and Peggy got it off almost immediately. Sousa seemed to be pretty sure too, intent on popping the question that night until Peggy's SOS (to Jarvis, admittedly) caused him to completely lose everything and go ballistic. I do hope we don't get too exhaustive with this little 'does Sousa have a torch for Peggy' arc. Peggy herself seemed to really like Wilkes during the short time they were together, and I found it pretty decently done even if Wilkes is written to be pretty flirty from the get-go the two actors do have some decent chemistry for Peggy to mourn his death.

(This is the MCU, though. Wilkes will probably return as a metahuman soon)

We also get some nice, far more subtle yet still present addressing of sexism in the era, most notably to Whitney Frost, who in her day job has to struggle at being a slightly older lady actor, having to deal with an actor who disparages her body shape and age to her face. Way more subtle while still being pretty prominent of showing how women are discriminated against instead of... well, everything Supergirl does. Meanwhile, when she's not doing her day job, she apparently is far more active than Chadwick is, going off and threatening doctors with a gun to hand over liquid black hole. Wilkes himself also gets to deal with being a black man in the 40's, briefly dropping the fact that no other company would have his kind as a scientist, and that random eclair-selling douchebag refusing to even talk to him. 

We get a couple of decent action scenes, and a fair amount of cool scenes with both Jarvis and Anna... including Jarvis lifting weights while dressed like someone about to participate in Smackdown to battling with Bernard the flamingo. They don't appear as much as the first episode with the focus on Peggy and Wilkes, but are still a pair of fun characters to be around especially when they deliver comedy in small doses. We don't get anything from Jack's end of the story which I don't mind because I honestly don't care.

Overall a pretty decent episode, quickly setting up all the sci-fi bits. Again, far more eager to start telling the story about Zero Matter and the Council and everything, still fun, still solid and a vast improvement over the first season. Also, it goes without saying that it's a better female superhero show than Supergirl is, tackling feminism without being laughable in the way it does that, handling the romantic subplot well and generally having better pacing and buildup than it. The only thing Peggy Carter really lacks is powers and super-suit. And honestly, I've gone from being apathetic and indifferent about this show to actually quite liking the fun charm it has. 

Agent Carter S02E01 Review: Frozen Corpses and Wine Refineries

Agent Carter, Season 2, Episode 1: The Lady in the Lake

Well, that was fun, if nothing else. I've never really been too impressed by the first season of Agent Carter -- it was certainly a good show, a fun show, but I remain unconvinced that it needs a season two. I mean, this episode is definitely great, and the little ancient-Hydra-cult pin (which probably makes jack shit sense to anyone not caught up to Agents of SHIELD) alone means that there would be tie-ins to that series... and it's definitely a solid episode, and Peggy Carter certainly has her fans out there. I just... I dunno, a series set in the past of a continuity with such a rich present-day storyline means that there's not much that you can really change and the status quo can't be shaken. It's a given that Peggy Carter will survive, that the SSR will get dissolved and replaced with SHIELD, and whatever big threat we're facing will inevitably get taken out. But I digress, because I like Peggy Carter as a character enough -- she's fun -- and the series is serviceable even if it never really reaches the epic heights that other superhero series do. 

The show has kinda changed genres as well, as instead of being a Cold War piece where Peggy needs to gain the respect of her SSR teammates and be regarded as someone more than a secretary... it's delved into a bit of a mystery detective show. And it's definitely an atmospheric piece. I honestly don't care too much about David Sousa and her ship-sinking moment with Peggy when it's revealed he has a new woman during the timeskip, but having Peggy and Edwin Jarvis back is definitely a blast. The two are simply hilarious to watch, and play off each other so well. The main plot is serviceable... the mysterious frozen body in the lake ends up being something far more sinister than a serial killer, and the friendly policeman that Sousa and Carter befriended, Andrew Henry, turns out to be the killer, hired by someone big. But he's contracted the mysterious freezing-virus or whatever the hell that is, and ends up dying. It's a nice enough plot twist, I guess.

The ones behind Henry's death and the whole frozen thing is revealed pretty quickly, as Calvin Chadwick and Whitney Frost, the two owners of Isodyne. Of course the character named Frost is going to be involved with someone getting frozen, eh? Whitney Frost shares a name with the alias of a Marvel supervillain, Madame Masque, so we're going to have ourselves another worthy opponent for Peggy Carter to fight, in addition to the possible team-up of Johann Fenhoff and Arnim Zola that was teased at the end of last season. Oh, and Dottie Underwood.

Dottie shows up at the beginning of the episode, impersonating Peggy and robbing a bank... and immediately gets taken down by Peggy herself. The proto-Black-Widow is one of the outstanding plot strands form the finale of the first season, and I for one am glad that season two is not going to be all about fixing the cliffhangers from season one. Dottie gets arrested, but because Jack Thompson is a bit of a dick (and a sexist dick, though not as much as he was in season 1, and it might be because he just wants the credit here) he pulls Peggy off the Dottie case and lobs Peggy off to Sousa's branch office in L.A.

Jack gets utterly humiliated during his interrogation of Dottie, though, who nearly snaps his neck with a table. Dottie only wants her beloved Peggy and there's definitely some twisted infatuation on Dottie's part. And then Agent Vernon of the FBI shows up, takes Dottie away, and tells Jack that the SSR is done for and the times they are a'changing. Jack is enough of a power-grabber that he decides to throw his lot in with the FBI, though I honestly don't care about Jack Thompson as a character. Dottie, though... I doubt her character's going to be written out so soon, and I wouldn't be surprised if she breaks free and shows up in LA to fuck things up in Peggy's campaign against... whoever the hell it is she's fighting. 

In addition to Calvin Chadwick and Whitney Frost, we get a new character, dr. Jason Wilkes, who is this scientist who quickly flirts and struck up a friendship with Peggy but ends up apparently being involved with some... floating black goop that I'm sure is the plot device behind all the freezing things and whatnot. Jason Wilkes is an extremely minor character in the comics, so I didn't get much about him from a quick google... though honestly I don't care enough to know everything about every new character and would prefer to be surprised by what they do and who they are. 

But the plot with Frost, Chadwick and/or Wilkes honestly don't interest me that much. I mean, it's cool, I guess, but it's so ambiguous at the point that it's hard to care about them beyond being the threat of the week. No, what's fun in this episode is Peggy, Jarvis and the previously-unseen Mrs. Anna Jarvis just mucking around and interacting. And Bernard Stark! Who is Bernard, you ask? Well, Howard Stark's new flamingo! The episode gets a bit too comedic at times, the show might get, yes, but it's certainly fun. It benefits in cutting out all the surplus fat from the first season like the whole Fry's dormitory or the endless scenes in that diner. 

Overall, though, the episode felt a bit choppy as we cut back and forth between the various plot strands and the various new characters, but it's definitely a strong, if low-key, opening to the second season. This show might not be as spectacular or heavy in universe-building as Jessica Jones, Agents of SHIELD or Daredevil are, but it's definitely a fun little side story. Can't fault that, really.

Agent Carter Episode 8 Review: Moving on. Also, Arnim Zola

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. 

Agent Carter Episode 7 Review: Hypnotism

Agent Carter, Episode 7: SNAFU

It’s a pretty solid episode, that’s for sure. I thought it wasted a fair bit too much time on the interrogation sequences and the whole internal conflict between Peggy Carter and the rest of the SSR which didn’t really seem to have much of an impact to me personally. But there are a fair amount of excellent scenes that more than makes up for it.

The most excellent one is, undoubtedly, Chief Dooley’s death. I’ve been waiting for one of the three obvious death candidates (Dooley, Sousa and Thompson) to kick the bucket, and this episode delivers with Dooley’s death and it is one of the most cruel bait-and-switch ever. Chief Dooley spent most of the episode under Ivchenko’s hypnotism, and after he helped Ivchenko lock Carter and Jarvis up, and later stole Item 17, it looks like he returns home to have dinner with his estranged family and manages to take solace that despite the fact that he ‘let the bad guy get away’ he doesn’t care so long as he can get back to his family. And indeed, Dooley’s desire to reconnect with his family and his regrets about being absent from his family has been Ivchenko’s “in” so his hypnotism could work.

And we’re brutally ripped out of that fantasy, which is apparently what Dooley has been seeing, to see him strapped onto one of Howard Stark’s failed creations, a heating vest that malfunctions and is impossible for them to remove. Dooley’s sacrifice is kind of what you’d expect. The mentor tells the main character (Carter) to get the villain, before running and detonating where it won’t hurt anyone. Granted it’s convenient that the suit went off just as Dooley jumped out of the window and not while they were talking or when Dooley hit the ground, but that was a nice and sad death scene so I won’t bitch too much about the logic of that scene. The little hope spot that Dooley was merely a failure certainly made the sadness all the more poignant as his last thoughts turned to how he can’t do anything to reverse the past – either regarding his family or regarding his failure in letting Ivchenko get the drop on him.

I also do like how Jarvis breaks his normally staunch stance regarding Howard and blames Dooley’s death squarely on ‘Howard’s bloody inventions’. And I do like the subtlety of calling the vest an ‘armour’ powered by a goobledeygonk sciency power source no one understands. Not quite similar to the Iron Man suit, but definitely nods to it.

The interrogation scene was kind of redundant, but it does give some rather excellent lines and confrontations between Carter and the three SSR men. Plot-wise it really didn’t make sense for Carter to be indignant and not just spill the beans regarding her actions and explain everything before Ivchenko puts his plans into motion, but the fact that Sousa and the rest didn’t particularly trust her at that moment probably made her guarded. I also do like how Carter lampshades Sousa’s view on women, namely how a woman is either an virtuous angel or a whore… which Sousa definitely had coming considering he basically explodes on Carter. Granted he probably felt the most betrayed among those present, but damn, Sousa, that didn’t mean you had to imply Carter was whoring it up with Howard Stark.

I also do like how Thompson, despite still retaining his jackass aura, keeps noting how the Carter he fought alongside in Russia doesn’t seem to be the type to be a traitor and kind of hints that he doesn’t want to go all Jack Bauer on Carter and later on agree with Sousa that they believe in Carter. It’s a nice little bit of character development for Thompson. I also thought that he was a goner when Dottie got away from Sousa during the little battle in the building , but Dooley is the only casualty in this episode.

Other than her finally exploding out about how no one respects her and whatnot, I thought Peggy Carter’s clincher scene was revealing Captain America’s blood to Dooley and the others, and the rather heart-breaking delivery of the line where she says she wants a second chance to keep Steve Rogers safe… which delivers rather poignantly that she still loves Steve Rogers with all her heart and definitely blames herself for not being able to save Steve before his perceived death. And that survivor’s guilt certainly explains her desire of being recognized as competent and all that. And I definitely like how Peggy’s love to Steve Rogers and dealing with his loss is explored but it doesn’t take up the entire show.

Also Carter is fired from the SSR… which honestly we all know won’t stick because we have seen multiple times in the Captain America movies and Agents of SHIELD show that Carter will go on to be a member of the SSR for quite some time.

Jarvis also shows up, faking a confession by Howard Stark to attempt to barter for Carter’s freedom. And he’s bloody fun! His little exchanges with Peggy Carter, their little comedy scene with using the table as a battering ram, Jarvis’ awkward confession that the confession was a fake… and I do like how Jarvis isn’t just a bumbling yes-man and acknowledges Howard Stark’s bloody inventions as being rather fucked up.

The best character so far, however, is probably dr. Ivchenko. We start off this episode with a flashback of a younger Ivchenko helping to hypnotize a young soldier as his leg was amputated, and we see how Ivchenko’s hypnotism works, by putting the patient in a ‘happy place’ in the past and talking to them so they wouldn’t want to leave despite realizing what’s happening in the real world. I had thought this was a bit of a redundant scene until it finally ties in with Dooley’s death.

Ivchenko seems to be shaping up to be the final villain and mastermind for this season, though he’s definitely not the leader of Leviathan or whatever. At this point I don’t think we’re even going to deal with Leviathan at all, only Ivchenko and Dottie… and that kind of makes the big foreshadowing with the typewriters and whatnot just a rather large red herring or just building it up for season two. Oh well. Ivchenko is too entertaining not to like.

Also, as a final note, it appears that Ivchenko is not his real name, but rather a pseudonym based on the soldier he saved in the flashback, namely Ovechkin. His real name, established by the flashback, is dr. Fennhoff. He’s apparently MCU’s version of a Captain America enemy, Johann Fennhoff, otherwise known as Doctor Faustus (and he was reading that same book in the flashback, too). Not being a big Marvel comics reader, I know absolutely nothing about Doctor Faustus, but I thought this yet another in a series of ‘this seemingly-original character is actually an actual guy from the comics using a fake name’ after Skye, Skye’s Father and Dottie. Not that it’s a bad thing, but really all the multiple names is kind of confusing.

A nice little nod is that Doctor Faustus has, as someone informed me, been mentioned before in Agents of SHIELD’s second season, where Daniel Whitehall briefly mentions the ‘Faustus method’ of hypnotism while doing his whole compliance thing. And with Fennhoff (I guess I’ll call him that from now one) display of his hypnotism skills, it’s a rather awesome little tie-in between both shows.

Fennhoff’s big plan is to steal Item 17 from Howard Stark, and I can’t decide if he was working with either one of the Leviathan agents from the first two episodes and I don’t particularly care, to be honest. Item 17 is apparently a gas canister which Dottie unleashes upon a theater using a baby stroller which is darkly humorous. The gas is basically the Hate Plague from Transformers, amplifying anger and causing people to tear into each other and all that. Except since it’s happening on real people biting and tearing flesh instead of robots in an 80’s cartoon, it’s kind of more horrific. No idea why Dottie and Fennhoff are unleashing it on a random theater beyond being evil, but I guess they have a final endgame in play for the next, final episode.

Dottie is also pretty cool in this episode and busting out all her Black Widow moves. She did fail to kill Sousa, which sucks since Sousa is a cripple (a cripple with a gun, but she’s a goddamn Black Widow)… but I guess it’s another subtle exploration of the ‘don’t underestimate people who look weak’ theme running alongside this series. The scene with her just parkour-ing down those stairs is pretty awesome, though.

It’s not really an original plot by any means, and I’m slightly disappointed regarding the whole Leviathan thing and lack thereof, but I do like the smaller scale direction that the show is taking. The threat feels a lot more concentrated and localized with only two villains – Fennhoff the hypnotist and Dottie the Black Widow – and I really did like the whole concept about hypnotism. I thought the episode was slightly oddly paced, but it did help to illustrate just how hectic the situation is and everything. I also do appreciate that they cut down on the jokes significantly this episode, concentrating it to the rather sparse but hilarious Jarvis/Carter moments so as not to distract. 

Agent Carter: Episodes 2-6 Review

I did say that I won't be following this show, but I was bored one time so I binge-watched five episodes at once. It's still my least favourite among the superhero TV shows, not because the lead character is a woman, but because of other reasons. Like some obvious things that are going to happen, generic supporting characters, somewhat poor pacing and a dearth of interesting plot points. The show definitely picks up in episodes 5 and 6, and I may be a little too harsh since (a) it's still season one and (b) being absolutely tired when I reviewed episode one.

That said, I don't think I'll talk too much about each episode, so I'll just lump them all in one go.

Agent Carter, Episode 2: Bridge and Tunnel

Episode 2 is more of what episode 1 did, and I must say that the two pilot episodes were actually quite weak compared to the rest of the series. We've got way too much of 'let's put Agent Carter in funny situations to see how she acts' and kudos to Hayley Atwell for switching from Peggy Carter to her cover roles on the snap of a finger, but that doesn't really lend well for interest. She and Jarvis are the only two people that are remotely really interesting in the show, Jarvis moreso due to his wacky butler skills and generally being a fish out of water with everything that's going on which isn't what I expected. "Please stop shooting things" indeed. I think this was the episode that Jarvis notes how Carter has a death wish? Interesting, but I don't think it was explored much more in the future. Their interactions and exchanges of hilarious British dialogue is really the highlight of the show, moreso than practically anything in the episode or indeed series in general.

The blatant 'oh look sexism is bad' is still annoyingly as subtle as explosions in a Michael Bay film. And while it's definitely a great message to send out, especially in a show starring a woman, it's also absolutely distracting. Subtle ones, like the SSR agents thinking Carter can't stand the sight of some rough torturing, despite her being a WWII veteran? That is good. Ridiculously blatant ones like the 'Captain America Adventure Time' with Peggy Carter's expy being turned into a generic damsel in distress? Cute for all of five seconds before it refuses to stop. Yes, we get it. Sexism of the time. Alternating between Peggy beating up a dude and having the show on is a bit too much on the nose, especially since we had a full minute of the show already earlier in the episode. Thankfully it's never brought up in any future episodes.

The other SSR people are kind of generic. Chief Dooley is the generic 'fair but slightly sexist thanks to the time' good boss. Thompson is a jackass sexist pig. Sousa is the cripple nice guy who may be on to the picture of Peggy in a wig being, y'know, actually Peggy. As for the people in Peggy's life, Angie is the chipper friend of Peggy's that really kind of generic and sucks too much screentime. None of them are really interesting.

The Leviathan plot is... still pretty underwhelming. Green Suit, the evil Leviathan dude, kills Peggy's roommate and I must say I don't really care? We saw her for all of two, three scenes and my reaction was 'good, they got rid of the chipper but annoyingly irrelevant character'. It does let Carter get some angst, though, so her death at least serves as a point. Green Suit and Leet Brannis, the rogue Leviathan dude, both die in this episode which is great because both of them are pretty generic villains. Green Suit at least gets a couple of moments of evil-monster douchebaggery, killing off not only Carter's roommate but also a bunch of other civilians.

We get some cool action scenes, some nice CGI implosion-explosion thing that wiped out Roxxon, some nice callbacks to the greater MCU with vita-rays and whatnot... but otherwise it's a generic plot. And it's not helped with the padding of 'oh, look, Peggy Carter is making a fool of herself hiding under a desk' and 'oh look Peggy Carter is impersonating a health official'. There's too much of these moments that I'm just kind of annoyed at the rather iffy pacing.

Agent Carter, Episode 3: Time and Tide

We explore a couple of cliffhangers from episode two, namely Krezminski finding Jarvis' car plate among the Roxxon wreckage, Sousa coming ever closer to deducing Carter's 'secret identity' and the weird symbol that Leet Brannis wrote before he died.

Bute before we delve into the important plots, we get at least five full minutes just bullshitting about Angie introducing Peggy Carter to the new dorm with the super-strict-super-conservative-men-are-evil lady and holy shit do I give no fucks to this scene. It might have happened in episode two, actually. Don't care enough to check. I don't care fuck shit about the rules of this stupid dorm, and even as a location setup it could've been done more elegantly and take up far less time.

A couple of the plots laid out in the two pilot episodes also get resolved... somewhat. Because Ray Krezminski, a bigger asshole than Thompson, kind of discovers that Peggy Carter might have been involved in the whole Howard Stark business. And this episode really lays it on thick that Ray Krezminski is a gigantic douchehole jackass, even moreso than Thompson. He's a jackass to Sousa, a jackass to Peggy, cheats on his wife, is mostly incompetent... he's basically your textbook definition of 'jackass who will get his comeuppance' although that particular comeuppance was kind of brutal since he wasn't outright evil. And then he gets killed off alongside the random thug by the end of the episode. And while I thought Krezminski was another unmemorable, two-dimensional character, I really liked how his death wasn't glossed over like many shows do, and the SSR office was actually pretty damn downcast after Krezminski's death and despite hating Krezminski I do like how Peggy Carter was actually sad for his death.

Jarvis also had some great moments. Again, his dialogue flowed really well with Carter and I enjoy their little wacky odd-couple moments a lot more than Carter trying to tone out Angie's civilian talk. I very much enjoy Jarvis' little backstory about how Howard Stark basically helped him to get together with his wife during the war, earning his undying loyalty. And I do like how Thompson's interrogation against Jarvis and pushing his buttons about deporting his wife nearly got him to snap... and while Carter rescues Jarvis by playing up the 'bumbling secretary' that the SSR men think that she is... well, she kind of trades in what little respect they have for her. Which is a lot better way to show sexism, again, than spending a sizable chunk of an episode stabbing people in diners or having that stupid radi show. And this one actually helps to show Carter's characterization too in a way, which is definitely welcome.

We get introduced to a couple of random residents in the dorm which I kind of tune out too -- not because they are women -- but since they are mostly all just generic cheerful Angie expies. Which actually worked pretty fucking well considering the big revelation in episode five, but hey.

Carter and Jarvis track a buttload of Howard's inventions to this ship, the Heartbreak, and after taking out the thug with a nice little action scene involving Howard Stark's muscle-destroying-massage-machine, I do like how Jarvis calls it into the SSR with a stupid-sounding American accent. Jarvis also acknowledges Carter's desire for respect among her peers in the SSR, which I think is kind of painfully obvious. There's also this plot point about how Green Suit and Leet Brannis aren't real names and they are names of people confirmed dead during a certain battle, which is kind of a mystery I don't particularly care about other than the nice little worldbuilding.

So overall, other than development for Jarvis and Carter, it's mostly an open-and-shut case with the SSR recovering most of Stark's inventions and there being a presumably Leviathan-allied killer around. And the SSR is naturally (and understandably) blaming Howard Stark. Better than the two pilot episodes, but it still feels like Gotham and Arrow's earliest episodes in that it is just so shaky.

Agent Carter, Episode 4: The Blitzkrieg Button

A rather oddly-paced episode compared to the first three, but also one that had less pointless padding. And that definitely wins out. Howard Stark returns and he still does his big swagger thing, except Peggy Carter isn't really interested in taking shit from him. The plot this time around is basically Howard Stark asking Peggy Carter to recover this little item he calls the 'Blitzkrieg Button' which he claims to be a city-wide EMP bomb... but plot twist, it's actually Captain America's blood! Yeah, all right, I actually was impressed by this little plot twist I didn't see coming, and it actually helps to keep the Captain America theme going on in this show. And Captain America's blood is definitely more personal and far more effective plot device for Agent Carter to fight over compared to some random energy source like the Nitramene was. That's actually nice.

But there is still a rather unnecessarily large amount of unfunny-funny moments, especially involving the dorm and Peggy Carter sneaking Howard Stark into the dorm via dumb waiters and whatnot and Howard Stark getting into trouble by fucking anyone in sight the moment Carter lets him out of her sight. Or Carter stealing food for Howard or just generic 'oh must avoid the landlady' bullshitting. Also the rather pointless opening action scene that, while funny with the little punchline that the thugs were smuggling a billiard-playing Howard Stark, kind of took up too much space. And the whole pen-camera thing? Yeah.

And Jarvis' little 'touch my ear when I am lying' quirk? Especially when he delivered relatively splendid performances for a civilian in previous episodes? That was kind of stupid.

Thankfully this episode still has several more scenes going on for it that puts it head and shoulders over episodes 1 through 3. There's the obvious Carter emotional moment when she's basically ranting at how Howard Stark is just trying to profit out of Captain America's blood and basically is out for himself and never trusting people. And really, there is no reason for Howard to not trust Carter about the information since she's proven to be anything but untrustworthy so far. Howard's little speech about how he lies instinctively while he and his parents clawed from the muck of society to be the successful people they are now is kind of a nice little speech about pragmatism, and there's a bit of a pragmatism-versus-ethics debate thing that's going on here, which is definitely the highlight of the episode.

We've got a generic villain in Mr. Mink, who has a gatling gun pistol and is out for revenge after he thinks Howard Stark didn't pay enough money for smuggling him in. He never really feels like a threat, but he acts like Green Suit does as a scary murdering man. But he gets stopped by the fucking landlady because NO MEN ALLOWED which I thought was the only point in this show that the rather pointless setting actually worked out well.

And then Mink gets absolutely taken out like a bitch by Dottie, who before this kind of blurred together with Angie and the other dorm girls as happy, chipper civilians. No, she jumps into the air and snaps Mink's neck and it appears there is more to her than meets the eye. And it's heavily implied (and confirmed by later episodes) that she is a different incarnation of Black Widow. Which is fucking awesome! I definitely didn't see that coming, and it lends credit to the point the show is making that women are often overlooked. Which is nice, because I was defintiely not expecting that.

I thought the scene with Chief Dooley talking with the Nazi on death row, Colonel Mueller (who, incidentally, is apparently a minor Marvel comics character), was pretty well done. Dooley gets deeper in the whole 'every member of Leviathan uses the fake identity of people who died in the Battle of Finlow', and apparently the Nazis wasn't responsible for that particular massacre. I thought the little fake-out with Dooley giving him the cyanide pill was clever, and fleshes out what is easily the most generic member of the SSR.

Sadly the rest of the cast doesn't get much to shine. There's the moment where Sousa brings in a hobo who saw Carter board the Heartbreak, and Sousa's appealing to his better senses gets rejected while Thompson bribing him with food gets the answers they need. Thompson is a gigantic dick and while not a one-dimensional one like Krezminski (he doesn't exactly dismiss Sousa's suspect but acts like a dick nonetheless until he gets results) he is still a dick. Especially when he basically launches a bunch of generic 'you woman you never get respect' insult at Carter again. And Sousa continues his slow, slow realization that the woman in the photo resembles Carter. The cliffhanger shows the typewriter moving, and that is how you make use of the wacky typewriter. Not showing it type every single damn word.

Overall a rather nice episode for the great character moments for Carter and the surprise reveal that Dottie is a Black Widow, and the fun little unexpected Stan Lee cameo near the end. I do like the little fallout between Carter and Howard Stark too, which was a nice if not unexpected development. It's a bit clunky, really, but this is the point when I watched the series when I don't just fast-forward through chunks of the episode.

Agent Carter, Episode 5: The Iron Ceiling

Definitely my favourite of the episodes I’ve watched so far, and the one that made me go, ‘okay, I was definitely too harsh on this show while reviewing episode one’. We get a bunch of stuff going on in this episode, starring a couple of familiar guest stars, some interesting backstory that I actually give a shit about beyond ‘ooh creepy Leviathan’, and a fair amount of progression for both Carter and Thompson, the least likely among the supporting characters I thought would get characterization.

And this episode is definitely helped in no small part with the inclusion of things that are bigger nods to the greater MCU, the most relevant being the Black Widow program… which is actually set to be touched upon in Age of Ultron if trailers are anything to go by. The Howling Commandos also make a return. Well, Dum Dum Dugan does, at least. Apparently the members that show up in this episode are people from the comics that didn’t make the cut for the first Captain America film. I don’t know anything about Captain America comics, but it’s nice to see the Howling Commandos show up nonetheless.

The most interesting part of this episode for me, however, is about Dottie, or Black Widow. The show doesn’t exactly call her that, but we get a pretty nice flashback of the Black Widow program being this fucked-up school and process where the girls are bred and chained to bed, and Little Dottie shares some bread with a fellow Widow and later kills her in a goddamned exercise. I absolutely am all for this expanding of universes. There’s also the Widow trainers training the girls via cartoons implanted with subliminal messages. It’s nice and kind of fucked up, but definitely makes the whole Black Widow thing feel like an actual threat that Leviathan really didn’t manage itself to be.

Also I kind of like how the cartoon that the Black Widows use to learn English is Disney’s Snow White. Marvel-Disney merger working to create the ideal image of psychopathic assassin-children.

We also get to see a second Black Widow in the show, a younger, unnamed one that attacked Carter and the Commandos and managing to kill one of them. I don’t think she died in this episode, which is cool. Don’t think we’ll be seeing much of her, though, since Dottie is the most prominent and most dangerous Black Widow in this series. The unnamed Black Widow managed to kill one of the two generic SSR agents that tagged along as well as one of the Howling Commandos, so good for her!

Dottie gets some nice moments this time around, poking around Peggy Carter’s apartment and bypassing her string-on-door security system and searching for… stuff, presumably the Captain America blood vial. She gets her hands on Peggy’s knockout lipstick from episode one, which is nice. Also she talks to a mirror with an English accent about how she is Peggy Carter, which is unnerving. It’s definitely jarring how she is just so happily talking about seeing all the sights in New York in the opening and being a klutz (I do like how the show doesn’t zoom in on her swiping Carter’s key, but eagle-eyed viewers will notice that she does that) and then when she’s alone she’s this creepy emotionless human thing. It’s a nice little switching of roles in that Peggy Carter now falls for the ‘bumbling woman’ act she often puts up earlier in the season to get what she wants.

Carter also gets to absolutely flaunt her competence in this episode. First by decoding a crazy Russian cipher code thing from the typewriter cliffhanger last issue basically on the go. Kind of impossible I think especially since she does both decoding and translating together, but eh, nice to see that expression on Thompson’s face. Carter also calls in the Howling Commandos with what amounts with an offscreen call lasting less than a minute, bonds with the Commandos and treated as one of them, and takes charge of the shootout while Thompson freezes up. I definitely like how Dum Dum Dugan and the rest of the Commandos basically treat Carter as an equal, especially at the end where Dugan lets Carter be the one to cover their escapes.

Thompson, though? Thompson gets the biggest brunt of characterization this time around, as he gets absolutely destroyed and deconstructed. His attempted swaggering and trying to discredit Carter being useful and being a war hero gets being outed as him killing a couple of Japanese soldiers who snuck into camp and the Commandos basically only want to follow Carter… though Carter isn’t that big of a jackass to make use of this and halfway through they kind of go ‘let’s hear your opinion on this mission’. He also freezes the fuck up during the final shootout and Carter had to bail him out. And he reveals that the Japanese soldiers he killed were trying to surrender and he didn’t realize, so his tough-guy thing was a sham. Well, Thompson, you just sunk into a lower level of douchebaggery. And at the end he kind of warms up to Carter and brings her along with the boys for a drink. I still dislike Thompson, but nevertheless I do like how his character is absolutely expanded upon.

Dum Dum Dugan is still a gigantic rowdy guy and he is absolutely a blast to have around, being a boisterous partner to Carter while she’s on cold terms with Jarvis, and I absolutely love the two of them just hanging out and gossiping and reminiscing about Captain America and whatnot. Their friendship feels really genuine and I absolutely love the jokes they crack with each other. Dugan also brings up this excellent point: why doesn’t Carter join the Howling Commandos, where she is respected and even adored? Well, it’s her choice and she wants to make a difference. Kind of inefficient, but hey.

The other Howling Commandos, Junior Juniper, Happy Sam Sawyer, and Pinky, uh, something, are kind of generic, sadly. Junior gets killed off by the Black Widow. No real explanation to where the rest of the Commandos went, although it isn’t too unbelievable that they are divided up into several teams. Jarvis gets a short scene where he talks to Dooley, and while refusing to entertain him, apparently realizes that Dooley is at least fair. He also remembers not to rub his ear, which thankfully he does because that was kind of dumb.

Despite some sexist comments on his part, Dooley gets the whole ‘I am fair’ treatment, as he acknowledges that despite Howard Stark being their target, he might not be the actual responsible one. Sousa slugs even closer to the whole ‘Carter is the mystery woman’ shebang which is really taking its sweet time. And he did that by accidentally peeking on Peggy changing clothes in the men’s locker (although her underwear was, true to the time period, basically fully clothed anyway). So I guess Carter gains Thompson's grudging respect only to shortly lose it from Sousa.

Carter also recruits the Russian psychologist Ivchenko into the SSR after liberating him from the prison, which is kind of nice that their hard work was rewarded with some information regarding Leviathan. (Oh, if only). We get a bit of them kidnapping other engineers to try and replicate Stark’s creations, including this crazy dude Nikolai who dies at the end of the episode.

It’s absolutely nice to see Carter actually taking it into the field and actually showing her stuff instead of just going with pointless espionage and pretending to be health inspectors. And she’s an absolute badass too, fighting next to the Howling Commandos and generally outing Thompson and the other SSR people as incompetent idiots. And the world-building with the Howling Commandos and the Black Widow program is absolutely cool, and will make watching Age of Ultron somewhat different now than if I didn’t catch up to this show. Which is something, at least.

Agent Carter, Episode 6: A Sin to Err

 A bit slower than the past two episodes in my opinion, but that’s mostly because plot threads culminate. Some scenes run a fair amount longer than they should, especially the scenes with Ivchenko. Apparently, like the ditzy country girl Dottie, the bubbly funny Russian man Ivchenko is also a double-agent! And Ivchenko is in league with Dottie, and he displays a pretty realistic version of hypnotism by giving suggestions and repetitions instead of the more Hollywood-y ones with spinning things and pendulums. Of course, this also meant that the scenes he spent with Chief Dooley took a fair amount of time longer than it should.

Sousa outs Carter’s possible working with Howard Stark to Chief Dooley, and a good chunk of this episode is basically Sousa and Thompson leading the manhunt for Carter. We get Carter and Jarvis beating up a room full of government agents which is absolutely fun, especially Jarvis’ brief ‘hey, I took one out!’ which is a nice little moment especially since we’ve been seeing him struggling to keep up with Carter and basically playing a supporting role and nothing much. Carter is also forced to take out Thompson (who at least acknowledges her abilities after last episode) and run out on Sousa without the opportunity to really explain the reasons she’s been doing things. Which is a nice bind our heroine finds herself in, and by the end of this episode the SSR manages to capture Carter. Of course, there really isn’t much tension on this part because we know Peggy Carter will be remembered as a hero so next episode or the following one (which is the finale) she will be cleared of all charges. Which really is the biggest problem with these flashback shows. It’s kind of cool to see it play out after being built up and kind of dragged along for the whole season.

That action scene was pretty great, though, I must repeat.

I did think her sneaking around in the dorm took too long, though at least Thompson nicely shut the annoying landlady up by absolutely ignoring her. Angie finally gets to do something by putting her acting skills to use and basically clearing her of suspicion by crying about her grandmother and whatnot, allowing Carter to seek refuge in her room. That was actually quite cool and kind of gives Angie’s constant presence throughout the series some payoff. And now I actually care enough about her to kind of feel tense since she wanders into Dottie’s room at the end of the episode. Won’t particularly be sad if she died, but it would suck.

Sadly, Dottie the Black Widow is still in play and she takes Carter out with the knockout lipstick… although I wonder why she doesn’t just stab her from the get go. I do like the scene with Dottie and the sniper rifle was a ‘oh, which one is her target’ moment until it’s revealed that Dottie is actually using the sniper’s viewfinder to communicate in Morse Code with Ivchenko. Cool stuff. Dottie taking out the pervert dentist by stabbing him in the eye with a drill is a lot more relevant to the plot, allowing Dottie to gain the vantage point the needs to communicate with Ivchenko and showcases more Dottie psychopathy. Far more well-done and elegantly done than Carter stabbing some random pervert with a fork for no good reason.

Ivchenko’s little hypnotism session with Dooley is pretty fun and gives some backstory for Dooley regarding his broken marriage, and while it’s interrupted, we see Ivchenko managing to get this random agent, Yauch, to face his insecurities and manage to manipulate him to basically let him go and walk into the path of a moving truck. There is definitely a theme of ‘overlooked competent people’ with Carter, Dottie, Ivchenko and Angie in varying degrees.

Peggy and Jarvis’ little outing isn’t quite as fun as it was earlier in the season, even if I do find the ‘Howard Stark bangs a lot of women’ kind of funny. Basically Jarvis serves the role that Pepper Potts served in the first Iron Man movie pre-love-interest, except Howard’s former lovers are prone to slapping the ever-loving shit out of Jarvis.

We get a couple of call-backs, like Sousa talking to the one loose end, the one man not affiliated with Carter who saw her face and is still alive. Or the knockout lipstick. And there’s the nice acknowledgement that Dottie most likely used Howard Stark’s womanizing habits to get the information she needed out of him.

Kind of a tense episode, and while not quite as strong IMO as the previous two, still a lot better than what I initially gave Agent Carter credit for. The shorter season definitely helps it out to not feel dragged along, because as much as I enjoy the later episodes I still feel like a large part of this show is kind of redundant with the foregone conclusion. Though with two episodes left to it, I will admit that Agent Carter does deserve its great reviews. It’s a great show with its problems (but what show doesn’t?), just not for everyone and not a particularly geeky one, and is definitely not for everybody.