 |
| Image Courtesy www.facebook.com/AgentCarterTV |
After “Peggy’s bad day”
in the last episode, this episode only let things get worse. Peggy is now in custody, and everything is
starting to unravel around her as the S.S.R. focuses all of its energy on
breaking her while the Leviathan operatives continue to work their
conspiracy. We still don’t know exactly
what they are up to, but the pieces are just about in place by the end of the
episode.
Reminder: Retro-Reviews contain potential spoilers for everything to-date.
The episode begins
with a bit of a twist reveal: “Doctor
Ivchenko” is not who he claims to be; he is actually Johann Fennhoff, a villain
from Marvel Comics who is also known as “Doctor Faustus” due to his incredible
ability to hypnotize people into doing his will. For as cool as it is to find out at the
beginning of the season who the villain will be (such as season 2, with the
reveal that Madame Masque will be the villain), I also enjoy the twist reveal
when we find out that the villain is someone unexpected (such as Agents of
S.H.I.E.L.D., both seasons)—though in this case we already had some idea
from the previous episode. Depending on
the story they are trying to tell, both options have their merits.
We see at the
beginning of the episode just how effective Fennhoff’s hypnosis really is: powerful enough to keep a young soldier from
realizing that his leg is being amputated.
Wow. And as an added bonus, we
also discover just how Fennhoff came up with the alias “Ivchenko,” as the young
soldier’s last name is “Ovechkin” (a palindrome of “Ivchenko”).
Meanwhile, we cut back
to Fennhoff in the observation room watching Peggy’s interrogation, as Sousa,
Thompson, and Dooley all try in turn to break her and get information out of
her. We don’t know exactly how long the
interrogation has been going on, but Peggy doesn’t say a word until Sousa
accuses her of killing Krzeminski. This
is finally what gets her to open up. All
of her “admissions” under interrogation are very enlightening. The two things that get under her skin are
the accusation of killing Krzeminski and the implication that she slept with
Howard Stark. She tells them that she
has simply become a stereotype in their minds:
a stray kitten… a secretary-turned-damsel-in-distress… the “girl on the
pedestal.” None of them really know her
because none of them are interested in knowing her. None of them caught on to her because none of
them were paying any attention to her. I
think this is the most that Peggy has opened up to them in the entire series so
far. I really like how much this series
has focused on the characters. If this
interrogation scene were just about revealing the facts of the case, it would
be boring and fall flat—we already know everything that Peggy knows. However, revealing facts is not the
goal. Instead, it is all about learning
what makes Peggy tick.
 |
| Image Courtesy www.facebook.com/AgentCarterTV |
The interrogation
comes to a sudden and surprising conclusion when Jarvis walks into the phone
company, goes right up to Rose (the switchboard operator), and requests a
meeting with Dooley to deliver a signed confession from Howard Stark. This is not enough to secure Peggy’s
immediate release, but it is enough for Dooley to agree to release her once he
has Stark in custody. That would be just
great… if the confession were legitimate.
Unfortunately, Jarvis forged the confession in the hopes that the S.S.R.
would allow him and Peggy to leave (yeah, really thought that one
through…). However, before Peggy and
Jarvis can come up with an alternative (“‘Get the drop on them?’ You’ve been in custody all of an hour and
already you’re Jimmy Cagney.”), Peggy notices “Ivchenko” using Morse Code to
communicate with someone (Dottie) through Dooley’s window. Peggy and Jarvis translate the Morse Code and
realize that Leviathan is planning something which will happen in less than 90
minutes. This pushes Peggy to make her
play: she tells Sousa, Thompson, and
Dooley that she is ready to confess and tells them everything about her
investigation, up until she discovered the boat full of stolen inventions and
called it in. This, along with revealing
the contents of the Blitzkrieg Button, is almost enough to make the others
believe her story about “Ivchenko.” At
the very least, they are willing to check it out by sending Thompson and Sousa
across the street with a small team to find out if “Ivchenko” was really
passing messages to someone.
Unfortunately, this leaves Dooley in the office alone with
“Ivchenko”/Fennhoff, who realizes that his mission is in danger and puts it
into overdrive. Yet again, most of the
action here is character-driven: Peggy
and Jarvis working together, Thompson and Sousa deciding to believe Peggy for
their own reasons.
Fennhoff hypnotizes
Dooley using his troubled home life and uses Dooley to lock Peggy and Jarvis up
in the interrogation room. They then clear
out the lab, allowing Fennhoff to discover the Stark invention which brought
about this conflict: Item 17, whatever
that is. Fennhoff takes Item 17 with him
and leaves Dooley behind with instructions to put on a special piece of
experimental body armor.
 |
| Image Courtesy www.lestoilesheroiques.fr |
Meanwhile, Thompson
and Sousa search the building across the street, where Sousa confronts Dottie. The two engage in a quick fight, though
Dottie succeeds in taking the upper hand very quickly. I was actually a little surprised by how well
Sousa could fight despite his injury, even using his crutch as a weapon. However, I don’t think the outcome was ever
really in question; the only thing that saved Sousa’s life was the proximity of
his pistol and the fact that Dottie cut and ran as soon as he got close to
it. It was really cool to see Dottie jumping
between the railings of the stairwell to descend quickly. She escapes after killing the final S.S.R.
agent and picks up Fennhoff in a car, at which point the two of them go to test
out Item 17 in a crowded theater. As the
people inhale the gas, they start coughing, going berserk, and beating each
other up, creating a grisly scene for the theater usher who makes the
discovery. At this point most of the
pieces are in place for us to figure out what exactly happened at Finow, but we
still need someone to put it all together in the finale. And I wonder who that will be…
Back at S.S.R.
headquarters, Peggy and Jarvis try to rescue themselves, though they only
succeed in drawing Thompson’s attention.
They all go to Chief Dooley’s office, where they discover that he put on
the body armor and activated it… and like all of Stark’s inventions it doesn’t
work properly. This particular prototype
uses an experimental energy source to generate heat, but it inevitably
overheats and causes an explosion. There
is no way to stop the reaction and no way to remove the armor, so Dooley
chooses to sacrifice himself to save the rest of the agents. It’s actually a pretty cool shot when he
grabs Thompson’s gun and runs at the window, using the gun to shoot out the
glass. He just barely clears the
building before the armor explodes, killing him. I think Dooley’s death was much more
effective and shocking than Krzeminski’s because of how well we had gotten to
know Dooley over the course of the season.
At the beginning he was just another agent who disregarded Peggy; by the
end of the season he was more interested in the truth than in Stark and more
willing to give Peggy a chance despite being a woman. Even after the revelation that she was
running an off-the-books investigation he is still willing to believe her—or at
least give her the benefit of the doubt.
They did kind of telegraph that he was going to die by revealing his
troubled home life and giving him multiple idyllic scenes with his wife and
kids, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing.
It certainly helped to humanize him much more than the little glimpses
into Krzeminski and Yauch did before their deaths. I’d like to see more shocking twists from
these series going forward, but even then they can’t make them all
shocks.
Overall, this is a
very good character-driven episode. It
ups the emotional stakes for our heroes with Peggy’s struggle to regain trust
and Dooley’s death. It delves into the
characters’ motivations. It sets up the
conflict for the season finale by showing just what the villains are capable
of. Long story short, it definitely
makes me excited for the season finale.
What did you think of
this episode? Do you like the surprise
twist of “Dr. Ivchenko” turning out to be Johann Fennhoff/Doctor Faustus? What other villains do you want to see on Agent
Carter in the future? Let me know in
the comments!
If you want to get an
email whenever I publish a new article, go to the top of the page and enter
your email address in the box labeled “Subscribe to Mostly MCU Reviews” and
click “Submit.”
No comments:
Post a Comment