Agent Butler
The episode opens on the shenanigans of Jarvis, which is wrenchingly misleading, as he doesn't do that much the rest of the way. Basically, this is just the show's attempt at an action-filled opening, so Jarvis is fending off some gun-toting blackmailers who do not appreciate a man who knows how to wear a waistcoat AND iron one.
Agent Death From Above
This is also an excuse for Peggy to save the day by dropping bricks on people's heads.
Agent Billiards
And what they're haggling over, it seems, is access to/secrecy about the contents of a shipping container that contains one Howard Stark, and a lot of fine-living accoutrements, which naturally he WOULD require if he were smuggling himself back overseas. Including not one but TWO candelabra that it would be a bad idea to light, and working electricity, and probably a Gutenberg Bible. Maybe this isn't a shipping container; maybe it's just a storage unit he uses as a hideout. But he DID smuggle himself back into New York. And he DOES chuck the cue ball at the head of one last henchman. He does NOT seem to have included an expansive enough whiskey collection, which I assume he will rectify next time.
Agent Coal Hole
Howard, however, is still wanted for terrorism, and the SSR has staked out a lot of his most secret safe-houses, so Leggy WHOOPS I MEAN PEGGY has to smuggle him into The Griffith: A Hotel For Women, which she does using something labeled "coal chute" without getting a speck of debris on anyone's clothes.
Agent Dumb Waiter
She then, to the delight of anyone who has ever read Harriet The Spy, packs Howard into the dumb waiter to get him upstairs undetected. I was going to cry foul about the proprietress being SUPER uptight about cheating the rules and yet having an unmanned (no pun intended) coal chute AND a dumb waiter, but sure enough, she appears as Peggy claims to be sending her laundry up, and gives her a lecture about ethics and stuff before marching upstairs with her and nudging her to open it up again to reclaim her clothes. It would seem LOTS of ladies have tried the Man in the Dumb Waiter gambit, which... at that point, why not just LOCK IT and make them carry their smalls upstairs? Don't be such an ENABLER, lady.
Agent Shenanigans
Naturally, Howard has disappeared and left behind a bag that passes for something Peggy might have stuffed clothes into, so Mrs. Nosy toddles off... and like ONE SECOND after she's around the corner, Peggy validates the name of the device by sticking her head into the dumb waiter and hissing, loudly, "HOWARD?!?" And then she hears him FROM DOWN THE HALL canoodling in 3B with a lady. Which presumably did not, by convenience, only begin that very second, so why Mrs. Nosy wasn't hearing it with her bionic nooky sensor is beyond me.
Agent Squint
I know, Chad Michael Murray. It didn't add up for me, either, but then, I'm just a woman and I don't know how to do the numbery bits.
Agent Smoochy
Twice, Howard is found getting it on with her various neighbors, and twice, he lies that he's Peggy's cousin -- even though this one girl is all, "DOESN'T YOUR COUSIN LOOK LIKE HOWARD STARK?" I know he's an irresponsible, irrepressible playboy, but he's also WANTED BY THE GOVERNMENT FOR TREASON MOST FOUL, and this is leaving an AWFULLY large footprint -- and one that traces right back to Peggy. Keep it in your pants, Howie. Although, I must say, I find Dominic Cooper cute in other things, but as Howard Stark, he leaves me colder than a yeti's toenails.
Agent Supper
Peggy does flagrantly stuff extra dinner rolls in her purse for Howard, which leads to a cute bit in which every girl in there is revealed to have a Secret Pocket somewhere -- an actual one, not a euphemism implying they steal stuff via their birth canals -- and bumpkin Dottie eagerly wants help making a pickle-size one. Another girl had one to ferry gravy upstairs. GRAVY. True confession: I don't like gravy. But if I did, I STILL can't imagine being like, "Yes! The perfect night in: stories on the wireless, my dressing gown, and the VAT OF GRAVY I stole last night."
Agent Gadget
Howard produces a camera-pen for Peggy to use in the evidence lab at work, and she's not that impressed. He's insulted. But seriously, she already had a safecracking watch and some Sleep Lipstick to which she is immune. The world's first Selfie Stick of sorts is not going to blow her mind that hard.
Agent Subtle
I enjoy the discretion with which Peggy clicks that pen. The show added such loud camera-click sound effects to it that it's almost distracting when the lab tech doesn't notice it. She might as well have walked up behind him and shouted, "SUSPICIOUS NOISE! SUSPICIOUS NOISE!"
Agent Fire
Then again, he might have been distracted by the guys testing Howard's inventions, and frequently setting themselves on fire. And it's here where I find myself wishing Agent Carter had hired Lem and Phil from Better Off Ted. I am disappointed that it's impossible, but I'm trying to DEAL WITH IT, because we're dealing with things now, per Phil's life choice.
Agent Squint
Yes, Chad Michael Murray, it is unfortunate that your technical people are self-arsonists. You should probably diminish their manhood in some way.
Speaking of that, Chad may also be confused here because it would seem wardrobe has stepped up its shoulder pad game where he's concerned. Also, he's about to take over the department while his boss goes to interview a Nazi plot device to understand how the two Dead Silent Villains survived a battle with Russia in which they supposedly died. Let's get that out of the way: Nazi Plot Device claims there was already a pile of dead Russians when they got there, torn apart without a trace of how or why. Then he gets hanged, because he's a Nazi. But CMM figures out that Howard Stark was on a plane that arrived at the scene of the carnage one day later, because WHAT? Stark can move freely about the country right now but wasn't able to cover those tracks?!? Squint, Chad. SQUINT.
Agent Squint
Good dog.
Agent Purple
Peggy apparently has MORE lippy in her arsenal, this time to match to her foxy purple dress. She looks awesome, if slightly as if she hopes to date the Fruit of the Loom grapes.
Agent Fingerprint
Okay, so remember in the last episode, when Peggy and Jarvis had their hands ALL OVER the giant crates of Stark weapons, and I complained that they weren't thinking about fingerprinting? Apparently that is a thing in this era, because Agent Souza decides to go dust for prints on the payphone from which the Anonymous Caller (Jarvis) tipped them off. WHY ARE YOU NOT DUSTING THE BOXES TOO, THEN. Do I have to do everything?
Agent Dreamy
However, Souza is both good looking and sensitive and secretly not bad at detective work, so he's probably going to find out Peggy's secret and struggle mightily with it and then maybe kiss her and ultimately die? I don't know. Here, though, he just looks dapper as he presses some homeless dudes for information. One of them HAS information but prefers not to hobnob with cops, so of course he gets belligerent and gets himself taken into custody. Which could've been avoided if he'd said, "Sorry, I didn't see anything, I was passed out for HOURS that night." Think, McFly. THINK.
Agent Chug
CMM thinks Souza is a loser for bringing in this guy, especially when his Good Cop routine doesn't work. But CMM does eventually agree that the man is worth questioning, so he interrupts the interrogation with a burger and whiskey and in about two seconds gets the guy to admit to what he knows (which is: that a nattily dressed man and a brunette left the ship before the agents arrived). At first I thought they'd planned this, but no, CMM just busted in and took over and then totally pandered to Souza IN FRONT OF the homeless man after his technique worked. CMM, you may have delightfully weird ties, but you do not have my affections right now.
Agent Zzz
This guy. Sigh. This is the dude whose minions were harassing Jarvis at the top of the hour, and basically, his tailing of Jarvis and Peggy is just an excuse for a) this amazing shot, in which he reminds me of the little old jeweler/doll-repairer from Toy Story 2, and b) him breaking into The Griffith to kill Peggy...
Agent Nutjob
... and getting his neck broken by Dottie, who wall-jumps from her door to reach him before he can shoot her with his automatic. "I want that," she whispers about the gun, and then we see her later playing lustily with it while Dead Psycho's body lies under her bed, his face frozen eternally in an expression of deep shock. Oh, Dottie. Might I suggest the dumb waiter?
Agent Darkroom
These two are developing the film from the pen-cam in Peggy's bathroom, presumably after she ran out on an errand to get all the right chemicals and lightbulbs. But then, as they're studying the fresh negatives, she gets called down to dinner and has to go to keep their cover. Now, I learned from life and The Great Muppet Caper that when you let in light too soon, your negatives will shrivel up and die and POOF there goes your proof that Charles Grodin is a jewel thief. The show gets around this by not actually showing Peggy opening the door, so maybe she slithered out through an air vent, or sent her Patronus or something.
Agent Squint
Yes, Chad, I feel DOUBTFUL about that also.
Agent Ball
Howard realizes that ALL his inventions are at the SSR offices, including his Deluminator -- seriously, its job is to cut the power in a city in one swoop, but it's faulty and he can't undo its damage yet -- and he needs Peggy to pop in and pocket it before anyone manhandles his ball for ill. He proudly offers her an identical decoy that he just whipped up real fast out of sex and plastic.
Agent Balls
So Peggy replaces Howard's ball with the fake one and hopes no one will test it and find out it's been deflated to a lower psi, or else Agent Belichick will totally deny everything and use Agent Brady as a human shield because nobody likes it when super hot, competent people might be cheaters and therefore maybe if it's strongly hinted that Agent Brady is responsible then maybe everyone will just DROP IT.
Agent Test Tube
But Peggy can't resist opening the ball, because a twitchy Jarvis gave her the impression Howard was lying to her. And when she does spring open Howard's ball with the gentlest touch of a finger, she finds what appears to be the raw pigment for her favorite lipstick. But ACTUALLY, Howard reveals later, it is the last vial of Captain America's blood, and he needs to protect it from the government. Peggy slaps the bejeesus out of him, because she thinks he's a lying manipulator and she doesn't trust that he wouldn't sell it for profit, and kicks him out of her apartment without even asking if she can wear it around her neck. I guess it's true that Billy Bob Thornton didn't exist yet at this point, so she had no frame of reference for what to do when you're obsessed with a person.
Agent Squint
Yes, Chad, you should DEFINITELY tell Peggy -- in a tone ostensibly sympathetic, but instead dripping with condescension -- that no man will ever take her seriously as an equal because women have vaginas and vaginas are just great big holes where smart thoughts could go, and men are better because they have a big brain cylinder there instead.
Agent Shut Up
Peggy, fresh from feeling betrayed by Howard, gives him a look of both exquisite hurt and exquisite defiance. She excuses herself with some snappy retort or other about how lucky she is to have him there to shoot straight with her, but she clearly wants to suggest that he can go shove his bonus brain straight into the nearest light socket.
Agent Sweatervest
Agent Souza is in an extremely sensitive Detectiving Sweatervest, while he stares at the photo of the back of the Mystery Blonde (who we know is Peggy). He had asked the Homeless Witness if the woman he saw was blond, and she wasn't, and then Souza gets all full of gumption again and starts coloring in the blond hair on the photograph and OMG YOU GUYS IT MAKES HER A BRUNETTE HOW IS THIS SORCERY EVEN POSSIBLE IN THIS UNIVERSE.
Agent Wallpaper
At first I thought perhaps Peggy was merely affronted by this aggressive wallpaper in her apartment. But in fact, she's bashing a hole in the wall and putting Howard's ball and Cap's blood tube into it, before hanging a picture back over the evidence. Don't worry - she put on some loud music before she started ripping through the walls, so I'm sure Mrs. Nosy just thinks she's getting banged up to her ears by an illicit male caller.
Agent Magic
And at the end of the hour, after the chief is back and he and CMM have discussed this big fake war carnage issue in Russia, the magic typewriter -- which they all CALL The Magic Typewriter -- starts to work. Someone is playing that sucker like a piano, and the chief can only watch and wait to see what it says. I hope when he pulls out the page it says, "Murder, she wrote."