Agent Carter Episode 4: The Blitzkreig Button

WE’RE BACK

Previously: Douche Number 2 got killed, everyone is upset.

In a train year, Jarvis is meeting with some shady as fuck people, with a briefcase of money (with $1K bills) to get a “package.”  They try to get more money out of him, which a third loser tosses a ball at a dark wall to pass the time.  The ball fails to come back, and it’s Peggy, who beats the shit out him and two buddies because it’s been two weeks. (We missed your fists of fury Peg.)  The lowlifes demand another 100K to keep their mouths shut about the smuggling operation, and Jarvis Britishly agrees to another $50K, and hands them a briefcase after pressing a button on it.  It explodes a powder in their faces, and Peggy punches them out, too.  Someday they will tell their kids about how they got punched out by Peggy Carter, and it was AWESOME.

In the package is Howard Stark, of course.  Howard tells Peggy that Jarvis makes a mean goulash, and tells Jarvis that Peggy can 107 one-armed push ups.  They head for one of Howard’s myriad apartments, but SSR agents are staking the place out, and because they blame Howard for Douche Number 2’s death, all of his apartments, businesses, etc are under surveillance.  “Then where can I hide out?”  Peggy sighs heavily, “God help me.”

They drive up to the Apartment Building of Well Defended Virginhood, and Peggy sneaks Howard into the laundry room, and shoves him into the dumbwaiter, as he protests vigorously.  The Dowager Guardian of Virginhood appears behind Peggy and remarks that she is most concerned about Peggy’s hours- less a respectable telephone operator and more like someone who frequents taxi dance halls.  Also many intruders have been caught in that very dumbwaiter, so let me show you to your room?  Peggy tries to not crap her pants.

The Old Boys and trying to sort out the dead Russians, and got a report from the US Army about the battle in which they were involved (look it’s been a while since we talked about this, so I think the Americans they swiped their identities from actually died in that battle and were replaced by Russians?) anyway the report is completely blacked out, so it’s useless.  JackOff asks if they tried to get anything from the Typewriter Transmitter thingie.

DoucheBoss has learned that the Russians were overrun by a Nazi regiment, and their commander is about to be executed in Nuremberg, so he’s going to Germany.  He leave JackOff in charge, which I’m sure will go well.

Back at the Apartment Building of Well Defended Virginhood, the Dowager is lecturing Peggy on controlling compulsion.  Howard has disappeared from the dumbwaiter, and once the Dowager and her backwards ideas on women’s education (don’t strain yourself!) go off to whatever it she does at 6 am, Peggy finds Howard in someone else’s room, covered in lipstick kisses.  Sigh.

Peggy changes to head back to work, while Howard give her a camera pen to take pictures of which of his toys are held by the SSR.  She would also like him to leave as soon as possible.

At the Old Boys Club, JackOff first lectures the troops- Agent is the most important part of everyone’s name, and everyone is going to get assignments and no one sleeps until they figured out who murdered their guy.  Sousa gets ready to leave to try to get a print off the public phone the tip came from.  Peggy tries to nudge him away from this course of action, and JackOff tells Sousa that with Douche Number 2 gone, Sousa is now the biggest yo-yo, and then tells Peggy, “Marge, start taking the lunch orders.”

Peggy heads for the lab with the camera pen, and finds some of the lab boys setting themselves on fire (in colors!) and the head lab guy is still trying to figure out what most of the stuff does.  “Howard Stark is either a genius or an ignoramus.”  “Most likely both.”

Sousa tries to get a print, but finds a couple of bums who hang out around the marina instead.  One of them takes a nickel and says he wasn’t there, but the other one, Frank, takes exception to the idea that he would tell a cop anything, the implication that he made the tip at all, and to Sousa’s general existence.  Frank tries to throw a punch, but Sousa knocks him down with a crutch.

The lowlifes from the episode opening meet with Mr. Fink, who is blonde and creepy.  He is miffed that they didn’t get all the money he told them to (“But he brought a girl with him….and six or seven other guys.  BIG ONES!”), and shoots them with what kind of looks like a handheld mini-gatling gun.  He is very not pleased and will take care of it himself.

Back at the Apartment Building of Well Defended Virginhood, Peggy comes home to find Howard not in her apartment, and instead in yet another women’s room.  “You are disGUSTing.”

Sousa brings back Frank to the SSR, and everyone mocks him.

Peggy and Howard look at the teeny tiny film from the camera pen, the first ten of which are not suitable for Peggy’s delicate eyes (“She seems…. uninhibited”).  Angie knocks on Peggy’s door to see if Peggy is heading down for dinner, and Howard sends Peggy off with an order for ham, bread, potatoes, mashed: “You know what I like, surprise me.”

Back at the SSR, Sousa starts to interrogate Frank, using the “comrades in arms/forced teaming” technique, pairing them as two broken veterans against the world.  Frank says he won’t talk to cops, not even pathetic ones.  JackOff is unimpressed with the whole idea of Frank, and tells Sousa to go find Stark.  Sousa thinks actual police work means actually looking for witnesses and shit, and running around peering under fedoras for one dude in New York City is a fucking waste of time.

At dinner, Peggy is sneaking food, and trying to justify herself, while everyone else is trading tips on sneaking food to their rooms (“she once snuck a whole chicken in her bra.”)  These ladies would have done well in my college.  Peggy goes back to her room where Howard announces that he needs her to steal back one of his inventions.  Peggy reconsiders feeding him at ALL.

Howard created a “blitzkreig” button, which would have turned off all the lights in a city, to create an instant blackout, and it’s just too dangerous for the SSR to have.  He’s got a mockup for Peggy to swap out.  Peggy and Jarvis head out, while Mr. Fink sits in a car and watches Peggy leave.

Back at the SSR, JackOff crashes the interrogation with a sandwich and bottle of scotch, and tells Frank “you tell us what you saw at the boatyard, and this is all yours.”  This works, he saw a guy and a woman with dark hair- so not the blonde woman from the jazz club.  Frank slams some scotch, and JackOff tells Sousa “Not everyone came back from the war wanting a hug.”

DoucheBoss meets with the Nazi, who starts off with a crack about his new necktie, and then says “Please excuse the gallows humor.”  Hee.  DoucheBoss tells him that if he tells DoucheBoss what he wants to know, he’ll help the Nazi escape.

Peggy and Jarvis discuss the blitzkrieg button and Howard’s motivations- “If I were to press it, at least no one would get hurt.”  Jarvis tugs on his ear nervously, and tells her to just please get it.  Peggy is dubious.  They are still being followed by Mr. Fink.

Back in Germany, DoucheBoss tells the Nazi that sometimes executioners don’t take into account weight and hanging can be slow.  He has pills hidden in his watch, and says they are cyanide- quick, painless, you can have ‘em if you just tell me about this battle.  The Nazi says that no German soldier fought at Finnow, they just found a massacre, and no idea who was responsible for that particular battle.  DoucheBoss hands over the pill, leaves, and offers the guard a breath mint, pulling it from the same hidden compartment the “cyanide” came from..

Peggy sneaks into the SSR, where JackOff and Sousa are still mulling over what Frank told them: “A well dressed man and a dark haired woman.”  The lab is empty, so Peggy can make the swap easily, then takes the blitzkrieg button and presses it.  The power doesn’t go out, it opens to reveal a vial of a red liquid.

Peggy slips into the interrogation room to avoid being seen, and JackOff is still there.  In this scene is he crux of the show:  He reminds her that only the men have to work overtime, and then says, “Why do you work here?”

“To uphold democracy.”
“Yeah, but the men get to do things other than taking lunch orders.”

“You’re trying to hide something, Peggy, and the only one you’re fooling is you.”
“What’s that?”  “
No man will ever consider you an equal.  it’s sad but it’s true.”

Peggy heads back to the Apartment Building of Well Defended Virginhood, with Fink watching.  Flat out asks Howard what’s in the vial.  He tries to deflect by saying that opening the vial was dangerous, and she’s not having it.  “You’re angry.”  “I’m not, I’m curious.” (She’s beyond angry.  She MAD.) “You know.  We both know.”  “I don’t.  What’s in the vial?”  He sighs. “Steve Roger’s blood.”  She reflects on that for about 0.3 seconds, and punches him so hard Tony is unsure why he has a tender spot on his face 70 years later (I stole that joke from someone, I forget who).

Down at the desk, Fink walks in with a vase of flowers, and asks if he could please deliver them to Peggy.  The Dowager won’t let him up, but writes down a note with Peggy’s room number, and Fink peaces out.

NOW Peggy is angry.  “You used me, you lied to me!” “YOU HIT ME.”  “You don’t get to use my reaction to your lies as the reason for your lies!” Howard tries to justify himself, and Peggy shuts his shit down- her tender lady emotions are not at issue.  Howard says that his natural instinct is to lie because that’s what he had to do to break through the ceilings he went through.

Howard got the vial because he was one of the scientists on Project Rebirth, and he doesn’t want the SSR to have it because they’ll blow through it like they blew through the rest of their vials.  He wants it to create vaccines and the like.  Peggy demands to know how much Howard will make on this.  “Steve Rogers dedicated his life to the SSR and this country, and you don’t deserve it.”  She tell Howard to move his ass on to other places.

Fink sneaks in through the HVAC system, with his repeating revolver.  Dottie comes out of her room, “Are you lost?  Are you looking for Peggy?”  He aims the gun at her, and her face goes intent.  “Is that an automatic?  I WANT THAT.” He gets a second to be confused, before she Black Widow’s herself up the wall and breaks his neck with her thighs and half the audience goes “OMG RED ROOM.”

Jarvis finds Peggy walking up the street, and he apologizes for the hot ass mess things are in.  “I can trust the actions of men who don’t respect me more than those who do.  At least when they ask for something, they mean it.”  Jarvis finds Howard at a shoe shine booth, and says “I thought I built up a callous apologizing for you.”  Howard is sad that the two people who could help him are so disappointed in him, and then Stan Lee jacks his newspaper.

Sousa looks at the picture of the blonde from the jazz club, and colors in her hair. DoucheBoss is back, and gives JackOff the recap, and JackOff says he’s also got something- after the battle of Finnow, a plane landed there with Howard Stark on it.

Peggy smashes a hole in her wall and hides the vial of Steve’s blood in it.  Dottie admires her new gun, with the body of Fink under her bed.  DoucheBoss contemplates his murder board, and then the typewriter transmitter starts receiving a message.

NEXT WEEK:  Peggy and the Howling Commandos go to Russia.  Marvel fanatics know what this might mean.

Reviews:

CARRIE:

Ouch, Peggy.  This episode was basically just a bunch of characters, both new (hello creepy blond villain, goodbye creepy blonde villain) and old (everybody) getting kicked in the head, figuratively, literally, or both.  I thought Peggy’s line about being able to trust the men who don’t respect her more than the men who do was particularly telling.  Everybody in the series, with the possible exception of Jarvis, is alone, everybody is wounded, and everybody is a bit of a jerk.  Except Stan Lee.  He’s perfection.

 

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I didn’t think this was the most fun episode but it sure hammered home the whole “war is hell and it leaves a terrible legacy.”  I think it might have been overkill, because now I’m depressed.  By the end of this season, I want to see a more victorious Peggy.  The episode was good but not satisfying.  Remember the pilot when she had a small victory by getting the asshole out of the diner?  I want more of that, even if she’s struggling in the larger arc.

Bits and pieces:  Kudos to the AV Club for pointing out that all the women in the boarding house are adept secret agents, what with smuggling in men and turning dinner into a full-blown covert operation including gadgets (or at least special pockets).

This week in fashion:  Peggy is wearing lipstick the exact shade of her blouse.  I don’t know what I think of this.  It’s either fashion genius or overkill.  See, this is why I don’t wear lipstick – it confuses me.

This week in martial arts:  I see Devious Dottie has been watching the hallway fight scene in Iron Man II.  I assume there will be follow up re the blonde killer dude but frankly I think it would be hilarious if there is no follow up and he’s just some random bad guy who gets tossed under a bed.  Like, there’s so many bad guys that we can chuck them out of windows every week if we want and never run out.

RHG:

Oh my god, this show.

I mean, JackOff was a little on the nose with his “No one will ever respect you no matter how hard you work.”  And watching Peggy absorb that blow with barely a flinch… ouch.  And her flat out saying to Howard “You don’t get to use my emotions as an excuse for you being a dick.”  How many times have I said to men?  Not enough.  How many times have I thought it VERY LOUDLY at men?  A million.  This year alone.

There was a tumblr post explaining the difference in attitude towards food between a woman who was in the UK during WWII “Rationing is king, no hoarding, everyone takes enough and no more” and American women who came of age during the Depression “YOU DON’T KNOW WHEN YOU’RE GONNA GET FOOD AGAIN SHOVE THAT CHICKEN DOWN YOUR BRA BETTY.”  Sneaking food to her apartment is probably something that didn’t even occur to Peggy- who would do that?  Not sneaking food wouldn’t have occurred to the other women- who WOULDN’T do that?

I’m going back and forth about Howard.  Is he actually the huge manwhore he seems?  Is there something deeper going on?  I don’t know.  If he’s playing a part, he’s committing to it (closets of costumes, sneaking to every woman on Peggy’s floor), and why?  So people will not always notice what he’s actually up to?  I suspect there is something more going on, but that doesn’t preclude him from being a manwhore.

That said, he did deserve to get punched in the fucking face.  And if he’s not banging all the women, he’s still trifling with them.  What’s your deal, Howard?  WHAT’S YOUR DEAL.

I just want to get to next week and the Howling Commandos and the implied Black Widow tie in.  GIVE IT TO ME NOW.