Agent Carter: 2.04 “Smoke and Mirrors”

WHERE IS ANGIE (I’m just gonna keep shouting this until my perfect cinnamon roll comes back to me.)

In 1920s England, a young Margaret Carter gallops around, dressed as a knight, rescuing princesses on her own and cutting off dragon’s heads, until her older brother swipes her sword and she fights him like the little scrapper she is. Their mother comes out, and declares, “One day you’ll be the death of me, Peggy Carter! One day you’ll have to start acting like a lady!”

Cut to the present day, where Peggy is cramming a cannoli into her face, while she and Jason look at plans and stuff. Jason misses food, but he’s not hungry. In fact he can’t really “feel” anything, and then lays on the smooooooove: “If spending time with you is the by product, I can’t help but think it’s worth it.” My roommate makes retching noises. Peggy and Jason find this all frustrating for probably similar reasons.

Jason tells Peggy that what they’re looking at are plans for a reactor – and Agnes/Whitney has drawn up plans for something that can generate like 1000 times more power (and looks REMARKABLY like an arc reactor). “So she’s a genius.”

Jason shakes his head. “I’m a genius. She defies categorization.”

In Whitney’s dressing room, the maid brings in a package with air holes. It’s a cage full of white rats.

At Chadwick’s campaign office, Jarvis comes out and gives Peggy a button – Whitney is not there. Peggy drops the button out the window, and they see that the driver, Mr. Hunt, coincedently has the same wound that Peggy inflicted on her attacker. It takes Jarvis a few seconds to catch on. They follow the car, and get Rose to find the info on the owner of the car (which she does, because Rose is a wonder). The owner is also the head of security at the Arena Club, and they both suspect that he holds a great deal of useful information. However, he’s tough, so they need a plan. Jarvis has an idea.

Because he has a tranquilizer rifle. Because of the koala. “It’s adorable appearance belies a vile temperament.”

“Hm.” Peggy pulls out the darts. “What are you feelings on committing a felony, Mr. Jarvis?”

“In this case, decidedly for.”

In Sepia-toned Oklahoma, a tiny blonde Agnes sits at a kitchen table where she’s fixed the broken radio and is doing recreational math. Her mother tells her that “Uncle Bud” is coming by, and Agnes is to be “sweet” to Uncle Bud. Agnes darkly mutters that he’s NOT her uncle. “He’s good to us.” A man walks in, gropes Agnes’ mother, grabs the pencil out of Agnes’ hand, and tells her that he bets she’d be real pretty if she smiled. He goes upstairs, and her mother scolds her for not being sweet, and tells Agnes not to bother her for the next couple of hours. That man ain’t gonna take a couple of hours. Yuck.

In the present, Whitney begins her science notebook: “Zero Matter Experiment #1.” The mark on her temple is growing, and she picks up a rat, and tries to absorb it. Nothing happens, and then Chadwick knocks on the door. She hides the rats and lets him in. “What are you doing in here?” “Running lines. It’s a busy day.” Well, it would be if anyone could find her director, except he’s been Zero Mattered. Whitney scoffs that he’s known to be a drinker, so they’ll probably find him facedown in the reservoir (side note: now that the California reservoirs are empty, how many bodies HAVE been found there?). “Don’t say that! That would be terrible for the campaign.”

Chadwick wants her to wear the white dress for an event that evening, and she’ll be on the cover of Life and, “If we play our cards right, you’ll be the most beautiful First Lady this country has ever seen.” Whitney smiles, “No one deserves this more than you.” They’re having this conversation while looking at each other in the mirror. “That’s my beautiful girl.” He tells her not to be late and leaves.

She locks the door and pulls out another rat. It bites her, and the adrenaline spike makes it into Zero Matter in her hands, and the crack at her temple gets bigger. Because she is a scientist, she faithfully writes this down.

The driver sits in his undershirt in his grimy apartment, and there’s pounding on his door and a suspiciously familiar voice yelling, “OPEN UP THIS IS THE POLICE.” The driver gets up and pulls on pants. We cut to Jarvis, who is of course pretending to be the cops while a nice old lady watches him. Hunt runs out the back window, and Peggy shoots him with a dart. “Remember me, Mr. Hunt?” He keeps coming at her. “Oh for heaven’s sake, that’s enough to take down a rhinoceros!” They tussle, and she eventually stabs him with a second dart. Smash cut to Jarvis shutting the trunk and dusting his hands. “Easy as pie.” The trunk opens, and Hunt lunges out and Peggy smashes in his face with the butt end of a rifle, and back in the trunk he goes. However Hunt did manage to nail Jarvis with a dart. “Mr Jarvis, are you all right?” “Jarvelous!”

(Being in the Boston area, and thus New Hampshire gets TV from us, I am going to be SO HAPPY when the NH Primary is over. SO TIRED OF ALL THESE ADS.)

Peggy drives back to Stark Manor West, where Sousa is there to let her know that JackOff approved her vacation days. Fantastic, busy day, must go. Sousa also brought a file on Whitney Frost. “I will dive right into that when…” Whitney became her studio’s top name by 1938. “Are you okay? Because I know when somebody is trying to brush me off.” Sousa eyes Peggy for a second and ambles to the car where Jarvis is smooshed against the window. Because of drinking, Peggy says. But then there’s a thumping from the trunk. Sousa eyes Peggy and Peggy’s like, “Um, we….caught a possum?” The possum talks, though. “Or I have a man stashed in the boot.”

Inside, Sousa and Peggy duke it out – I thought we were a team (also this is a felony), we are a team (whatever), if we were a team you would have called me for back up, I did have backup, Mr. Jarvis was there (to which Jarvis, flopped on the couch, mumbles “Oh, mummy, it’s the biggest horsie ever!” Sousa makes the best “…..” face ever.) You kidnapped somebody! “I was giving you plausible deniability.” Fine, whatever. “What’s your plan for Hunt?” “I was thinking I’d kill him.”

Sousa begins the interrogation, and gets nowhere. Hunt lays it down. You wanna start in with torture? Fine, ’cause I already got tortured by the Japanese, and there’s nothing you can think of that will top what they did, and they got no information from me, so have at it. Peggy fills a hypodermic needle, and Sousa turns Hunt over to her.

“We’re not going to torture you.” Hunt scoffs that of course she won’ t- she’s running around pretending to be Elliot Ness. Peggy has this dangerous quarter-smirk on her face, as Hunt tells her that people on her side have a line and they won’t cross it. “Oh, see, we’re not going to torture you because we don’t have time.”

Flashback to Bletchley Park, in 1940, where a young codebreaker named Peggy Carter is showing off her engagement ring. Peggy is called into her superior’s office, where he offers her congratulations, and also an offer from the Special Operations Executive, where they want to train her for field work. They need women, and someone sees a great deal of potential in her. She doesn’t think that she’s meant to be in the field, but she’ll discuss it with her fiance. “But I don’t think I’m cut out for that sort of work.”

Smash cut to Peggy plunging the needle into Hunt’s neck. She’s been in a war too, and she’s done her homework on him – you’ll recognize the effects of malaria, and we have an antidote, and we COULD give it to you, but why bother if you won’t talk. Anyway, the symptoms become fatal in 20 minutes, so we’ll be back in ten. CARTER OUT.

Outside, Sousa’s like well, that’s a method. What did you give him? Oh, Howard’s been trying to create a cure for the common cold, and he made this, which gives you symptoms of a severe cold. “You gave him a cold.” “A SEVERE COLD.” Oh my god just make out already. Hunt yells for help, and Peggy smirks. “This is crazy,” Sousa mutters.

Back in Sepia-toned Oklahoma, Agnes is now a teenager and doing science at the kitchen table when her mother and Bud come downstairs fighting, and he evicts him, right then and there. Agnes’ mother blames Agnes for not being nicer, and then shows Agnes the rejection letter from the University of Oklahoma – “That fancy science program isn’t going to take a girl.” Agnes is like fuck this shit, “I’ll get out of here and away from you!” Her mother drags her before a mirror and tells her that no one will ever care about what’s in her head; all anyone will care about is her pretty face. “This is the only thing that’s gonna get you anywhere in this world.”

In her dressing room, Whitney gets a call from Chadwick – she’s blowing off the event and he freaks out that the cover story will get cancelled because, “It’s your face that they want.” She hangs up.

Sousa tells Hunt that all they need is one name. Peggy says that she’s impressed, and she can’t tell if he’s motivated by strong convictions of spite. Sousa mutters that maybe they should put the brakes on… they’ve only got five minutes left. Hunt cracks and gives a name: Thomas Glouster. The Wall Street guy. Hunt’s like, I’m gonna get killed no matter what, you can’t protect me, no one can. “What they can’t buy, they destroy. President McKinley? Black Tuesday?” In the storage room, the Council of Nine records all their meetings, so anything Peggy and Sousa need to know, it’s on those tapes.

In the lab, Jarvis is writing the science for Jason. Jason had a theory that his atoms lost cohesion, but the science didn’t check out, and while staring at the chalkboard, a crack like the Zero Matter appears to him. Jarvis can’t see it, and Jason eventually snaps out of it as Peggy and Sousa come in, looking for the phone so they can get the warrant to raid the Arena Club.

In the SSR office, Sousa is issuing the marching orders, including how to deal with the hidden door and the secret room. “That’s right,” Peggy says. “You heard hidden door and secret room. We’re dealing with old rich men here, they love this sort of thing.” But then FBI!Red comes in, shutting this shit down. The War Department has decided to audit the L.A. branch’s cases, past and present. So everything is on hold.

“And you must be the Agent Carter that I’ve heard so much about. Have I been dying to talk to you.”

In the conference room, FBI!Red and Peggy face off. “How are you enjoying your vacation?” “Vigorously.” JackOff calls her an independent thinker. “I’m sure he meant that as an insult.”

Peggy lays out what she thinks they’ll find – evidence that the Council is up to, well, everything. FBI!Red asks for the name of her source. Peggy won’t tell him, but both she and Sousa have signed the statement, and that’s more than enough for a warrant. Hm, FBI!Red says. Who is he? Peggy won’t answer. Call it independent thinking.

Well, the Hollywood 10 thought they were independent thinkers, too. Peggy snorts at the mention of communism. Spies and communist and all that… “A tidal wave is coming, Miss Carter. And you’ll have to work very hard to stay afloat.” “Oh, I’ll manage.” “Your friends could still drown.” Pan down to Sousa, trying to manage everything.

Back to the war, Peggy is at her engagement party, where her brother and her fiance are meeting for the first time – Fred is shocked at the idea that Peggy could knock back a whiskey (“Oh, not…recently.”) and Michael is stationed at the front, and Fred works at the Home Office, and tries to be nice and say that Michael should let him know if there’s anything he can do for him. Peggy, in an attempt to defuse the situation says, “Can you believe they recruited me to be a spy!” and Fred’s like, “OF COURSE YOU TURNED IT DOWN, can you imagine? Behind enemy lines and doing god knows what” and Peggy’s side eye is epic. “One thing I’ve learned from the war. A boring life is a privilege.” He leaves to get more drinks.

Peggy tells her brother that she wants him to like Fred, and it turns out that Michael was the one who recommended her. “I know you better than anyone. This isn’t what you want. You want a life of adventure.” Michael’s like look, you let everyone else drum your dreams out of you, and stop pretending to be someone that you’re not. Peggy storms off.

At the SSR, Sousa apologizes to Peggy for the mess, and they’re both like welp, they’ve certainly moved the evidence, and the best shot we have at getting into the Arena Club is in a broom closet at Stark manor West, and we really can’t poison him again, so…. Peggy says that she will handle things and Sousa should stay here and protect his ass. “Why? Because a tidal wave is coming and all my friends are gonna be labeled as communists?” Nah, he’s got actual work to do. Well, Peggy says, they just seized all of our evidence. Not all of it. Sousa’s swiped the tissue sample from Jane Scott’s autopsy.

In the broom closet, Sousa cuts Hunt’s ties, and pulls a gun on him. He says that he just can’t risk having Hunt return to the fold, so sorry dude, but you gotta go. Sousa pulls the trigger, and there’s a click but no shot, and Hunt punches Sousa out and runs out the door. Peggy watches this go down, and goes to check on Sousa. “That went well!” “Yeah,” groans Sousa. “Don’t know why I had to take a punch, though.” “It’s the least you should do. He’s already throttled me twice.”

Hunt limps his way to Chadwick’s house, and Whitney lets him in. Peggy and crew are listening in. “I ain’t talking to you. Where the hell is Chadwick?” He’s still at the event, he could be hours. “What happened?” Hunt refuses to say a word to Whitney about anything and demands a drink. Sousa says that a drink DOES sounds good, and he, Peggy, and Jason all look at Jarvis, who goes to get the bottle.

Peggy, in her wedding dress, with her mum. She’s beautiful, but not herself. The SOE letter is still on her bureau. A horn honks downstairs, and Mum Carter goes to see who it is. We hear Mum sound distressed, and Peggy looks out the window to see two men in uniform and her mother collapse, and Peggy wails, “Michael.” She changes, packs, picks up the SOE letter, leaves her engagement ring, and goes to become the Agent Carter we love.

As they wait for Chadwick to get home, Jason is staring off into space, and Peggy is worried. He feels tired, bone tired, and something is calling him away. He doesn’t know where, and it would be easy. “My brother used to say that I was born to fight, and I think you’re cut from the same cloth.”

Chadwick is home! Hunt fills Chadwick in on the fact that he got kidnapped by Peggy. “I’ll have her job for this! I’ll have her deported! Who does she think she is!” Chadwick gets all overemotional, and Whitney cuts through the bullshit. “What did you tell her?” “I didn’t.” “What. Did. You. Tell. her.” “She injected me with something. I thought I was dying. She wanted names.”

“We hired you because you couldn’t be broken, and you’re gonna have to answer to the council for this!” The two men spit at each other that they’re each gonna answer to the Council. Whitney draws all the curtains. “Sweetheart, I have to show you something.” Chadwick tells her to go away and let the men deal with things. No, see, this is IMPORTANT. See, Hunt made a mistake. Whitney strokes Hunt’s cheek, then grabs his throat. He implodes into Zero Matter while Chadwick gurgles in fear, and then the audio feed at the SSR cuts out, and our heroes are mystified and concerned.

Sepia-toned Hollywood, 1934. A young Agnes walks to a movie theater, playing The Spanish Tower with Tessa Montgomery. She doesn’t have the money for a ticket, though, and the ticket seller, a young black woman says that she saw Agnes last week. It’s the same movie – why would she want to see it again. “It’s a nice escape from the world.” The ticket seller slips Agnes a ticket. “Just this once.”

At the door, a slimey man says, “You know, I bet you’re real pretty when you smile.” Agnes considers gutting him, but instead smiles. He’s a talent agent, and he bets he can get her work as a model or maybe an actress. “That sounds real interesting.” She’ll need to change her name though – “A name as pretty as you are.” He is GROSS. “That’s the beauty of Hollywood. You can be whatever you want.”

At the Chadwick’s, Whitney stares at her hand and then glares her her husband. “What happened? What was that, Whitney?” “That was me. Fixing another one of YOUR PROBLEMS.” “What are you?” “Whatever I want.”

CarrieS: It was the best of episodes; it was the worst of episodes.

Bad stuff first: I have never felt a need to see Peggy’s origin story. I felt like Haley Atwell conveyed it just fine in her line in Captain America: The First Avenger, “I know a little of what that’s like. To have every door shut in your face.” For me, anything else is just embellishment.

My personal lack of interest in her origin story aside, I don’t think the story presented in this episode works. Her transition from someone who is working for Bletchley Circle to brainless fiancée to Captain America’s mentor happens too fast, and we don’t see any transitions that make it believable. If my history is correct, Peggy wouldn’t have started working at Bletchley Park until 1940 (possibly 1939). And she meets Captain America in 1941. That means that in a single year, possibly a year and a half, she meets a guy, gets engaged, works long enough and well enough at her new job to be recruited with a tip from her brother, calls off the wedding, and becomes a highly skilled and fairly highly ranked British Special Agent. That’s pretty darn fast even for war, a time when people do change hella fast.

The biggest problem is that Peggy is at her ditziest with the Bletchley Ladies, but those ladies were tough smart women. If anything, Peggy should have leveled up during that time. If her ditsy phase had happened prior to joining the project, it would have made more sense. It also would have worked thematically, with Whitney being undermined by her mom, while Peggy is encouraged by her work companions.

Now the good: I did love Whitney’s backstory. I love her character, I love the actresses, and I love how this series keeps bringing us a variety of wonderful villains, from officious sexist bureaucrats to batshit crazy patriarchy stompers. It’s entirely possible that at some point Whitney might actually say, “If you tell me to smile, I’ll fucking eat you just like I ate that cage of rats.” I love that Peggy is the embodiment of all that is good but I keep sort of wanting her, Rose, and Angie to team up with Dottie and Whitney and just stomp the shit out of the patriarchy. Is that so wrong? Can you imagine Dottie and Whitney meeting? First they’ll try to kill each other. Then they will try to one-up another, and Whitney will win:

“They made me kill my classmates and they handcuffed me to furniture.”

“Oh yeah? They made me smile when I was busy thinking.”

“Oh honey, that’s awful! Let’s go kill some people!”

At some point they will get really drunk. I NEED THIS.

Also – I miss Angie and Rose and Ana and Violet. Especially Angie. Come back to me, Angie.

Did Howard invent a cure for the cold or did the minion just look better because of the placebo effect? Because I have a cold right now and if there’s an antidote, I want it.

My qualms about Peggy’s backstory aside, I thought this episode was just incredibly thrilling and exciting and wonderful, just packed with scenes that showcased fantastic actors brining their best comedy and drama and nastiness to the screen.

RHG:

I do agree with Carrie that the Peggy flashbacks weren’t necessary and also the math doesn’t check out (and also if her brother died, THEN WHERE DID SHARON COME FROM? WHERE? No other siblings were mentioned. Please insert your theories here.)

Agnes/Whitney’s origin, though? Marvel is GOING IN on “stop fucking telling women to smile.” They are GOING IN and I am HERE FOR IT.