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Agent Carter: A Sin to Err

"You're telling me one woman took out a team of highly trained government agents?"

They are, she did and it was bloody awesome.

We're getting closer to the series' endgame and this is typically when everything tends to go pear shaped for heroes. And it certainly did for Peggy. Her double (or is it triple?) life was exposed and she ended the episode in handcuffs about to be interrogated by someone she considers to be a friend. But before the shit made its inevitable collision with the fan the writers decided to have a little fun.

This episode was evenly split into two halves. The first half was almost a comedy episode as Peggy and Jarvis went around visiting the many women Stark has discarded by proxy, also known as Edwin Jarvis. This entire sequence was just hilarious from start to finish. It was great to see the Peggy and Jarvis partnership back with a vengeance. The show is always at its best when the two are working together and trading droll witticisms. The second half was pretty much pure action as S.S.R. went after Peggy. The fight scene in the Automat between her and the agents from Washington, all set to an old timey tune, was just amazing. The best one yet.

After doing little more than pour coffee and be adorable for six weeks, Lyndsy Fonseca finally got a chance to shine this week, as Angie put on the waterworks to distract the S.S.R. agents when they came looking for Peggy. Broadway's loss is Agent Carter's gain. I was seriously worried for her safety when she started knocking on Dottie's door at the end of the episode. Thank God the Griffin's resident Russian assassin appears to have vacated the premises. Phew.


Before we continue, let's recap what we've learned about the season arc so far. Leviathan, a covert branch of the Soviet government, wanted hold of an item that was in Howard Stark's vault, an item that is very likely connected to what happened at the Battle of Finow, which Stark saw the aftermath of. Knowing  Stark's weakness for beautiful women, they sent a Black Widow, likely the woman we know as Dottie Underwood, to get close to Stark and learn everything she could about his vault. They then sent Leet Brannis - who was supposedly killed at Finow - to break into Stark's vault and steal the item. But Brannis betrayed Leviathan, stole everything from Stark's vault and started selling them on the black market. Leviathan sent Sasha Demidov - who was also supposedly killed at Finow - to eliminate Brannis and retrieve an item. But Demidov was killed by Peggy and the contents of Stark's vault fell into the hands of the S.S.R. So Leviathan changed tactics. Dottie was dispatched to keep an eye on Peggy. At the same time a fake message was sent to lure the S.S.R. to Russia so they would bring Ivchenko back with them so he could get into the office, hypnotize Dooley and get hold of the item.

Hmm, a psychiatrist with mind control powers. Could he be Doctor Faustus? Whoever he is, it's obvious that he's going to be the main baddie for the remainder of season. I liked how Ivchenko wasn't your typical "look into my eyes" evil hypnotist. He used his skills as a psychiatrist to get his targets talking, revealing their weakness. For Dooley it was his wife's infidelity, for Yauch it was his feelings of being unappreciated. Once they opened up and let down their defences, Ivchenko used his evil hypno ring to make them his puppets. Dooley narrowly avoid this (for now). Poor Agent Yauch wasn't so lucky.

Ivchenko is making the same mistake as Dooley by underestimating Peggy. He quickly saw how much of a threat she is and ordered Dottie to kill her. Speaking of the assassin formally known as Dorothy Underwood, she was a busy little spider this week. Killing the seedy dentist so she could use their office to communicate with her boss (I actually thought she was going to take a shot at Dooley and pin it on Peggy) to being the first person on this show to actually get the better of Peggy Carter. To be fair, I doubt any of us saw that kiss coming. Was it done simply to catch Peggy completely off guard (which it certainly did) or does Dottie have some kind of twisted attraction to Peggy? If so, that should make their inevitable fight to the death a little more interesting.


Intel and Assets

--The annoying saga sell was back.

--Dooley's wife cheated on him with the plumber while he was away serving. Although it doesn't excuse it, this might explain some of his hostility towards Peggy.

--Only three agents? To arrest Peggy? Did Dooley even read Peggy's record?

--I do hope Stark is paying Jarvis a lot of money. He endures a lot of grief and physical abuse, because of his employer.

--If you look carefully you can see Enver Gjokaj is failing to suppress a laugh while Angie is fake crying.

Peggy: "How can he possibly meet this many women?"
Jarvis: "Well, the Academy Awards is a very busy time."

Peggy: "You think Ginger Rogers is a Russian assassin?"
Jarvis: "You should've seen her eyes when I escorted her from Mr Stark's villa...the darkest gates to the abyss."

Peggy: "Who were you talking to?"
Jarvis: "Future Mafioso."

Sousa: "She ever tell you about her work?"
Angie: "At the phone company? Just the usual. Complained about her fathead male co-workers a lot."

Four out of four dentist drills.
---
Mark Greig has been writing for Doux Reviews since 2011. More Mark Greig.

5 comments:

  1. I enjoyed this one a lot -- especially liked the great bit by Lyndsy Fonseca, and the terrific fight scene at the automat. And the window communication fake-out with the Black Widow and the evil shrink.

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  2. This is a very fun episode. I really loved Angie's fake tears and the parade of slap-happy exes.

    I'm really curious to see how this all wraps up. I've assumed that by the end of these eight episodes, we'd see Peggy Carter well on the road to founding SHIELD. Now I wonder if they could cover that much ground in just two more hours.

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  3. Looking forward on the fight scene between Peggy and Dottie. :)

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  4. I figured that the doctor was a double agent/plant. A psychiatrist would likely work with the "human weapons". Then when he opened the window, I thought for a moment that Chief Dooley was going to be the double agent and that he'd set the guy up to be in the perfect spot to be killed by Dottie. Took me a second to realize that they were communicating.

    I love Angie, and hope that there's nothing more to her than what she appears, but when she was in Dottie's room, I expected a reveal that she's actually Hydra.

    At some point, these boys need to start taking Peggy Carter more seriously.

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  5. I went back and watched this more closely, and you can definitely see Enver trying not to crack up when Lyndy Fonseca(Angie) starts the whole "dead grandma" riff. The outtakes for that scene are probably a hoot. Heck the outtake reel for the whole season must be awesome. :)

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