Entry tags:
Agent Carter 1.07
Only one more episode to go, woe. This series has been such a treasure.
The most surprising thing about the opening flashback is that it presents the Ichenko of 1943 in a completely sympathetic light - hypnotizing a young wounded soldier who is about to have his leg amputated without anaesthetic so he won't feel the pain - while also revealing who he is/will become in the MCU. In case you've missed the Christopher Marlowe play he was reading before the surgeon asked for his help: Doctor Faustus. Who in the Captain America comics is a supervillain whose trademark plot involves manipulating his foes into positions where they will, essentially, kill themselves, and I can't believe I didn't realise that already last week when he made Agent Youch commit suicide. Of course Faustus in the comics is a psychiatrist from Vienna and essentially evil popculture Freud; making him Russian instead works far better with the Leviathan plot.
(Meanwhile, if Ichenko is Faustus, he's unlikely to pop up in the present once the MCU does Civil War, which is reassuring in terms of Agent 13 aka Sharon Carter, she says pointedly.)
The Peggy interrogations went about much as I imagined they would - the montage was effective there - and then we got great pay-off for the "Peggy rescues Jarvis via completely humiliating herself in front of Dooley and everyone" plot of episode 3 when Jarvis walked in to deliver himself and a (forged) Howard confession in exchange for Peggy's freedom. (Also great continuity for Jarvis' backstory of having forget that general's signature for the transit letters.) This provides us with more golden Peggy and Jarvis interaction and enables Jarvis to be at hand to explain what Howard's inventions do when Ichenko masterminds his grand escape after Peggy catches on to him. On which occasion Chief Dooley becomes the third SRR Agent to die. Making hypnotising chilling instead of campy was always going to be tricky, and of course it's eyes of the beholder, but for me it worked. It also worked in terms of the show having established Dooley as competent (he unearthed more about the Finnau mystery than any other character, and in the previous episode was willing to consider an alternate explanation to the "Howard Stark did it" theory) in addition to the standard sexism he flounts throughout; I didn't exactly like him, but he was more than a cardboard cutout.
Meanwhile, Thompson and Souza did have some named character privilege in their encounter with Dottie, who kills the redshirt they bring along but not them. BTW, Dottie making her exit the way she does via the stairs was awesomely Black Widow again. At the same time, the show did make the point that Dottie and Ichenko are really bad news beyond fun moves via the cinema with the gas that induces killing rage in everyone. (I was tempted to say "the shards of the mirror" because that was what a current OuaT plot advertised as doing and eventually just delivered a comedy version.)
Peggy's speech about how each of the guys sees something they project into her but not her was a bit on the nose in terms of scriptwriting but worked for me. As did Dooley asking her to avenge (ahem) him at the end. Otoh, everyone coming around to believing Peggy when she tells them about Steve's blood smacks a bit of "oh, when she's emotional, then they believe her", but that might be intentional. After all, it's one of the episode's themes that you see what you want to see, which is why Jarvis' faked Howard confession where Peggy was blinded by love is instantly believed by the agents as well.
BTW, I'm assuming we just got our explanation as to what happened at Finnau, and what Howard's fallout with the military (where he punched a general) was about. Remember, in Finnau you had lots of dead bodies and no one, Germans or Russians, taking the credit for actually killing them. So my current guess: Howard invents this gas (no matter what he tried to accomplish, and I'm guessing he wanted to invent something else, much like the jacket was supposed to be a survival tool in the winter, that was what resulted) as part of the war effort, realises what it could potentially do, says it's not useable. US military uses it anyway, presumably intending to use it on Germans but accidentally getting the location wrong which means a lot of dead Russians instead. Howard arrives there, realises at once what the reason for all those dead bodies must have been, is horrified - as Dooley's reporter source and Jarvis mentioned last week - decks General and walks away from his contract with the US forces. General hushes this up because the Russians are allies, after all, major embarassment, and everyone thinks the Germans did it. The war ends, the Russians find out the Germans didn't, Leviathan gets on the case to a) trace down that weapon, and b) get it for themselves.
Lastly, finale speculation: I seem to recall they got Dominic Cooper for three episodes, so Howard will be back in the finale; after all, Jarvis left messages, and also, Jarvis is now furious with him, so Howard definitely has to do something heroic to explain why Jarvis will work for him well into Tony's childhood, not to mention why Peggy will found SHIELD with him. So my guess is that Howard will be the one who ends up dealing with Ichenko (and has to come up with something to neutralize that gas, that's what you have inventor characters for in the Marvelverse) while Dottie has been build up for Peggy to fight in the grand climax. If Dooley hadn't died in this one, I'd have said either Thompson or Sousa will definitely die, probably Thompson who has his war crime to atone for, but now I'm not sure anymore. Since Peggy as of the end of the episode isn't under arrest anymore, she won't need rescuing by Angie, so I have no idea whether they'll find a way to incorporate Angie in the finale. And there'd better be some kind of pay off for off screen Anna if it isn't her being Leviathan.
And a couple of links:
Reasons to love Agent Carter (what she says)
For the historical interested, related to my last entry on Wolf Hall, some side chapters of Tudor history:
The strange life of Elizabeth Barton: aka the "Holy Maid of Kent", who actually was a well known figure before Henry decided he wanted a new wife.
The Execution of Margaret Pole : still wins for most gruesome in Henry's gruesome reign.
The most surprising thing about the opening flashback is that it presents the Ichenko of 1943 in a completely sympathetic light - hypnotizing a young wounded soldier who is about to have his leg amputated without anaesthetic so he won't feel the pain - while also revealing who he is/will become in the MCU. In case you've missed the Christopher Marlowe play he was reading before the surgeon asked for his help: Doctor Faustus. Who in the Captain America comics is a supervillain whose trademark plot involves manipulating his foes into positions where they will, essentially, kill themselves, and I can't believe I didn't realise that already last week when he made Agent Youch commit suicide. Of course Faustus in the comics is a psychiatrist from Vienna and essentially evil popculture Freud; making him Russian instead works far better with the Leviathan plot.
(Meanwhile, if Ichenko is Faustus, he's unlikely to pop up in the present once the MCU does Civil War, which is reassuring in terms of Agent 13 aka Sharon Carter, she says pointedly.)
The Peggy interrogations went about much as I imagined they would - the montage was effective there - and then we got great pay-off for the "Peggy rescues Jarvis via completely humiliating herself in front of Dooley and everyone" plot of episode 3 when Jarvis walked in to deliver himself and a (forged) Howard confession in exchange for Peggy's freedom. (Also great continuity for Jarvis' backstory of having forget that general's signature for the transit letters.) This provides us with more golden Peggy and Jarvis interaction and enables Jarvis to be at hand to explain what Howard's inventions do when Ichenko masterminds his grand escape after Peggy catches on to him. On which occasion Chief Dooley becomes the third SRR Agent to die. Making hypnotising chilling instead of campy was always going to be tricky, and of course it's eyes of the beholder, but for me it worked. It also worked in terms of the show having established Dooley as competent (he unearthed more about the Finnau mystery than any other character, and in the previous episode was willing to consider an alternate explanation to the "Howard Stark did it" theory) in addition to the standard sexism he flounts throughout; I didn't exactly like him, but he was more than a cardboard cutout.
Meanwhile, Thompson and Souza did have some named character privilege in their encounter with Dottie, who kills the redshirt they bring along but not them. BTW, Dottie making her exit the way she does via the stairs was awesomely Black Widow again. At the same time, the show did make the point that Dottie and Ichenko are really bad news beyond fun moves via the cinema with the gas that induces killing rage in everyone. (I was tempted to say "the shards of the mirror" because that was what a current OuaT plot advertised as doing and eventually just delivered a comedy version.)
Peggy's speech about how each of the guys sees something they project into her but not her was a bit on the nose in terms of scriptwriting but worked for me. As did Dooley asking her to avenge (ahem) him at the end. Otoh, everyone coming around to believing Peggy when she tells them about Steve's blood smacks a bit of "oh, when she's emotional, then they believe her", but that might be intentional. After all, it's one of the episode's themes that you see what you want to see, which is why Jarvis' faked Howard confession where Peggy was blinded by love is instantly believed by the agents as well.
BTW, I'm assuming we just got our explanation as to what happened at Finnau, and what Howard's fallout with the military (where he punched a general) was about. Remember, in Finnau you had lots of dead bodies and no one, Germans or Russians, taking the credit for actually killing them. So my current guess: Howard invents this gas (no matter what he tried to accomplish, and I'm guessing he wanted to invent something else, much like the jacket was supposed to be a survival tool in the winter, that was what resulted) as part of the war effort, realises what it could potentially do, says it's not useable. US military uses it anyway, presumably intending to use it on Germans but accidentally getting the location wrong which means a lot of dead Russians instead. Howard arrives there, realises at once what the reason for all those dead bodies must have been, is horrified - as Dooley's reporter source and Jarvis mentioned last week - decks General and walks away from his contract with the US forces. General hushes this up because the Russians are allies, after all, major embarassment, and everyone thinks the Germans did it. The war ends, the Russians find out the Germans didn't, Leviathan gets on the case to a) trace down that weapon, and b) get it for themselves.
Lastly, finale speculation: I seem to recall they got Dominic Cooper for three episodes, so Howard will be back in the finale; after all, Jarvis left messages, and also, Jarvis is now furious with him, so Howard definitely has to do something heroic to explain why Jarvis will work for him well into Tony's childhood, not to mention why Peggy will found SHIELD with him. So my guess is that Howard will be the one who ends up dealing with Ichenko (and has to come up with something to neutralize that gas, that's what you have inventor characters for in the Marvelverse) while Dottie has been build up for Peggy to fight in the grand climax. If Dooley hadn't died in this one, I'd have said either Thompson or Sousa will definitely die, probably Thompson who has his war crime to atone for, but now I'm not sure anymore. Since Peggy as of the end of the episode isn't under arrest anymore, she won't need rescuing by Angie, so I have no idea whether they'll find a way to incorporate Angie in the finale. And there'd better be some kind of pay off for off screen Anna if it isn't her being Leviathan.
And a couple of links:
Reasons to love Agent Carter (what she says)
For the historical interested, related to my last entry on Wolf Hall, some side chapters of Tudor history:
The strange life of Elizabeth Barton: aka the "Holy Maid of Kent", who actually was a well known figure before Henry decided he wanted a new wife.
The Execution of Margaret Pole : still wins for most gruesome in Henry's gruesome reign.
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I really hope they find a way to put Angie into the finale. Even if it's just at the end, Peggy going to her friend to explain, I want to see Angie there.
I'm still torn on whether Anna was intended as a deliberate "we never see her, she's always in the background" character, or whether there's still a revelation to come there. I really didn't want her to be Leviathan, just because I love her story with Jarvis so much, but I'd like to meet the woman he was willing to commit treason to save.
They're doing such a great job at tying all the threads together, even ones I hadn't thought would be relevant, like Jarvis's forgery. It's hard to believe there's only one episode left, though. I'm going to be devastated if it doesn't get picked up for another series next winter.
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I'm really interested in how this all wraps up (and of course I want to see more Howard).
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That sounds about right for Finnau, though possibly the US knowingly gave it to the Russians to see what happened and the Russians (not knowing the consequences) ended up dead. Either way would also explain their focus on Howard Stark.
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Alternate scenario for Finnau: yes, that would work, too.
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Dooley's death was actually emotional for me, since the actor sold both the backstory elements and the realization that he has to sacrifice himself to save the others effectively, and because Ichenko's actor manages to appear so genuinely scary, I bought the danger despite cheesy elements. (Also, I'm a sucker for these "avenge me!" moments, damn it!)
Souza annoyed me for the first time on the show - and good, too, because if he had been more progressive, Dottie probably would have killed him, due to (show) reality breaking apart otherwise. I still think she could have kicked him a little more, just for good measure.
I agree that they'll probably try to keep Murray and Gjokaj for a prospective (hopefully!) second season, especially because Shea Wigman(?) was probably the most expensive of the secondary regulars, given experience, etc.
I really hope they find a way to get Angie into the finale, I mean, they found a pretty clever way to get Jarvis into the SSR building...
ETA: About the guys buying the "Steve's blood" explanation so easily: a bit of sexism here, yes, but I had the feeling at least Souza and Thompson were actually quite the Steve Rogers fanboys - Souza definitely, and Thompson I think just hid it a little better. So, of course they would buy that Peggy would go this far for StEVE ROGERS' BLOOD (OMG!).
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Here's hoping for Angie getting a part to play in the finale and a second season. *eyes network gods* If not, I hope terrific film and tv offers come Haley Atwell's way, because she has been awaesome in this series.
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Yes, please. (I get so angry about that. STILL.)
I like your theory. It's a good one.
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