Agent Ana
I'm going to start with a gripe, though. Ana Jarvis gets very minimal use this week, and while I was happy to see her, I felt like she got botched a little. Peggy getting hurt has her very nervous and skittish and emotional about Jarvis going on these missions, so she quietly freaks out in both her scenes. MAYBE if we'd been checking in with her as we went along, this would have felt earned. But the lsat time we saw Ana Jarvis, she was supremely cool and confident and chill with all this, AND it was revealed she's Jarvis's judo sparring partner. I don't know how we got from that Ana to this one. Certainly you could argue that Peggy's injury brought home the dangers -- they haven't really gotten banged up before now -- but I still got the impression they were building her as an unflappable cool head and Superspouse, and then to have her all, "WHAT? DANGER? O SHIT IMMA DROP THIS FRAGILE THING I'M HOLDING" didn't track. Let Lotte Verbeek be as badass as the rest of them.
Agent Horcrux
Chadwick tells Whitney that he's convinced the council to take its first-ever meeting with a lady. Whitney is thrilled that this means they're showing her professional respect, rather than just looking upon her as the pretty face next to her husband and then also an ass to grab. He is, of course, lying, and plans to turn his back on her and have them all dispose of her.
He tells her that they have to go to his fundraiser together, at which point they'll convene a private meeting that very night. This was Contrivance No. 1 for me. There's no reason they couldn't have met another time that day. Or the next day. It didn't HAVE to be DURING A FUNDRAISER. Most people would be like, "Yeah, get there 45 minutes early and we'll chat." Chadwick knows he needs his wife at the fundraiser, I suppose, but also: If they're going to dispose of her, doing it RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE IF AN EVENT is a strange idea. Chadwick, you are going to make a terrible president.
Agent Sadsack
Poor Sousa is bummed out about his broken engagement. He's so upset he couldn't even bring himself to put on a patterned shirt that morning.
Agent Tough Love
Peggy, despite being in pain because of how eight hours ago she was kabobbed by a rebar, pulls him out of it with a mission. They decide they need to infiltrate the fundraiser and steal some of Whitney Frost's Zero Matter -- they are assuming, fortunately correctly, that jabbing her with a vacuum syringe will pull that and not, say, blood -- because: SCIENCE. Peggy remembers that Jason stopped being made of serioartoxic mitochlorox when the Zero Matter jumped at him from the other tissue. (She has FORGOTTEN, it seems, that it turned his eyes to tar.) So her theory is, he can build a containment chamber big enough for him (as he built the ORIGINAL chamber), they'll inject him with the matter, and then stash him in there and he'll be human. Great! Except YOU CAN'T BANG A DUDE IN A CONTAINMENT CHAMBER, PEGGY. THIS PLAN IS FLAWED.
Agent Bad Idea
Also flawed: Her idea for sneaking inside. Peggy can't do it because she's too hurt and too recognizable, given that Whitney just impaled her. Rose is conveniently visiting family or something. She and Sousa prattle on and on about how are they EVER going to find someone highly qualified but also unfamiliar to Chadwick, and I kept thinking, "Oh, GOOD, Ana Jarvis, Judo Master, is going to get involved in the fun now." But NO. Nobody suggests her at all. She's jarvis's wife, so she'd have the perfect cover to match him claiming he's there as Tony Stark's proxy. She knows how to defend herself. She's crafty. Do they think of any of that? NO. Here is what they do...
Agent Smitten
They break out Dottie Underwood. The moment where Dottie realizes Peggy has come for her, and that it's for mischief, is wonderful because she just smiles so lovingly at her nemesis. Bridget Regan is just fabulous at playing her utter adoration of their rivalry. Also, YOU GUYS, THIS IS A REALLY MISGUIDED PLAN. Peggy cannot establish any leverage here -- she admits she knows Dottie will run, and that she's not offering Dottie anything in return, so Dottie automatically has NOTHING to gain from behaving herself -- and yet she lets the woman out anyway. There is nothing in it for Dottie. WHY, PEGGY. I'm glad she trusts in her own competence, but she's not even going to be inside with her! She's going to be in a van down by the river (or, you know, next to the curb)! Peggy is putting the uncontrollable element into the hands of people who have no idea what to do with her and no thrall over her! ERROR.
Agent Net
Peggy tells Dottie to run right when she escapes, so of course Dottie runs left. Peggy anticipated this, and Sousa shoots her with an electroshock net. Peggy zaps her one more time for good measure. Peggy is becoming such a sadist.
Agent Psychiatrist
Also, why is Dottie Underwood suddenly in Los Angeles? Peggy caught her in New York, and she was turned over to Kurtwood Smith's government agency, which presumably is based in DC. And yet they've moved this fugitive to L.A., where Peggy Carter is, and what's more Peggy KNOWS THIS despite the fact that a) she's "on vacation" from the SSR, and b) Dottie isn't in the SSR's purview anymore? I am sure the idea of a scene in which they explain the logistics of how they found her would have been boring, but I'd even have accepted an on-screen hand-wave brushing all that aside.
Agent Salon
Dottie comes to fully dressed and with her head inside a dryer. Peggy explains to her the plan, and then Jarvis asks for a weapon. Peggy points out that, as Dottie has just managed to lift his wristwatch while in shackles, he can't be trusted to safeguard a weapon. I would also argue this means Jarvis cannot be trusted to safeguard Dottie, either.
Agent Comedy
This bit made no sense either, but it was amusing. It's established Dottie can't hear anything under the dryer. When Jarvis goes begging for another weapon, Peggy switches it back on, at which point Jarvis begins EXAGGERATEDLY pantomiming all the things he might need that night, like knives, spears, and some kind of oral toxin. So basically, he could only be pantomiming them for Dottie's benefit. Why turn the dryer back on at all, then? I guess... maybe her hair just wasn't dry?
Agent I'm So Sure
This made me laugh out loud. Whitney flips her horcrux over the fact that her Voldemark is too big to hide with just hair anymore. Chadwich pulls out this tarantula of a hat and plops it on the side of her head. "Gorgeous," he says. She's thrilled. DO YOU GUYS NOT HAVE EYES. She looks BANANAS. She would look better if she just Voldemarked it all over town and told people it was a new trend in makeup.
Agent Stripes
Ana Jarvis may be uncharacteristically upset right now, but at least her blouse game is tight. Also, she's sitting here twisting coils, doing immaculate SCIENCE! work for Jason. UNCREDITED awesome SCIENCE work, I might add.
Agent Secret Lab
Also, OBVIOUSLY, they brought the murderous Russian traitor right down to the Secret Lab portion of their hideaway. GREAT idea. She sees Jason and starts hitting on him, but when she reaches out to grab him, her hand passes through his body. This is her reaction. Peggy somehow does not notice that Dottie tried to touch him, even though she was more or less watching. PEGGY. Always more watching, not less, when it comes to Dottie.
Agent Overhead
In the spirit of Downton Abbey, I give you this aerial of the fundraiser, where Jarvis and Dottie are dancing. He regrets to inform Peggy that Dottie is quite capable at it. I wish we'd gotten a peek at the Soviet Waltz Training portion of her youth.
Agent Squint
And WHAT HO, LOOK WHO IS SUDDENLY ALSO IN CALIFORNIA, along with Kurtwood Smith (who, at least, may have stuck around for his phony SSR bureau investigation). Jarvis freaks, and yet doesn't seem in that big a hurry to hustle Dottie out of sight.
Mayor McSquint is fed all KINDS of lines by Kurtwood about how these men are POWERFUL and CONTROL THE WORLD, and all he has to do if he wants to sit at the table is disable Peggy Carter, "the only black mark on your record." Last we saw El Squinto, he was realizing that Peggy was telling the truth about the newspapers being faked ahead of time, so I guess in the interim he... just stopped thinking about it and binge-watched Real Housewives of the LA River and did nothing.
Agent Ha
I had to show you again. I cannot but laugh at this every time. Here, she is hitting on Squint in front of everyone. Maybe Zero Matter makes you horny.
Agent Glasses
Jarvis's transmitter is hidden in his specs, so he of course grabs them and yells RIGHT into them when he is scared of getting caught by Squint. Peggy instead asks him to stall while Dottie goes after Whitney and gets the sample. I repeat: Peggy is ADVOCATING letting Dottie out of Jarvis's sight, and out of ANYONE'S sight, as if wearing a transmitter in her own hat is enough to keep her from misdeeds. HATS COME OFF, PEG. (Which, spoiler, is exactly what happens.)
Agent Cockblocker
Squint is getting chatted up by a nice young lady when Jarvis butts in to "distract" him. I'd like to note that if Jarvis paid attention to things, he might have noticed that Squint was about to be distracted JUST FINE all on his own and that therefore Jarvis had no need to interrupt and then act suspiciously squirrelly. This moment reminded me of -- this isn't really a spoiler -- the moment C3P0 is introduced in the new Star Wars movie. I shan't say more. But Jarvis is, in many ways, the C3P0 of this series: diffident, brainy, well-meaning, often too stiff to be useful, speaks the language of moisture evaporators.
Agent Spy
Dottie has ripped off her hat and left it by a running faucet, but of course she tries to flee with the Zero Matter sample right when the meeting is convening, forcing her to hide in a closet. WITHOUT her transmitter, so Peggy doesn't get any of this useful intel. Also, when I start a shadowy organization, remind me not to furnish the room with ANYTHING big enough to conceal a listening person.
Agent Meeting
Whitney addresses the scheming old dudes, excitedly telling them that Zero Matter is ultimate power and that she's offering them a way to control the world that is unlike any other. Now, you'd expect them all to be hot for it, but I think these particular scheming old dudes recognize that an unpredictable dark force might be hard to control down the line and that perhaps it's best to stick to mischief that involves no SCIENCE!
Agent Whoops
So they tell Chadwick they understand what he was talking about, and call in two security guards, who throw nooses over her neck like she's a rabid animal being taken to the pound. Naturally, in her rage, she Zero Matters the two goons, a couple of the Scheming Old Dudes, and Chadwick into oblivion. Chadwick, you moron. He's SEEN HER DO THIS. How he did not know she'd be able to turn it against them.... I mean, SHE CAN MAKE THINGS GO POOF. They should have tricked her into falling off a building, at least. Do I have to do everything?
Whitney then tells the remaining men to clean up this mess in the papers, and then do her bidding in exchange for their lives and untold wealth and power. First, she wants nukes. Ray Wise is all, "Cool, can't wait!"
Agent Busted
Dottie, on her way out, runs into Kurtwood Smith. This leads to a chase, some fisticuffs, and Dottie shoving some people out a building window. She's apprehended by Squint, but not before she drops the Zero Matter syringe, which Jarvis conveniently recovers. (She does seem to REALIZE she dropped it, as she looks RIGHT at it, but I can't tell if she dropped it on purpose. It looked like it fell out while she was walloping someone, and that she just couldn't get over to it before Squint dragged her away.)
Agent Makeout
The more important news is that Peggy's stitches pop, and when she starts talking about getting Violet's help again, Sousa confesses they broke up. And THEN Peggy starts going off about how she's going to give Violet a piece of her mind for this catastrophic mistake, forcing Sousa to admit that she dumped him because she thinks he's in love with Peggy. Our girl immediately falls silent and then apologizes for ruining his life, and then blah blah blah they are TOTALLY about to kiss when one of Dottie's attackers drops out the window and lands on the top of their van. SIGH.
Agent Ooooh
This is Jarvis's reaction when he hears the true confessions coming out of Sousa's mouth. Jarvis LOVES a good piece of gossip.
Agent Squint
Kurtwood Smith blames everything on Earth on Squint, because he thinks Peggy Carter arranged the night's shenanigans, and that Chad Michael Squinty is the one responsible for her being off the SSR's leash. He makes Squint promise to neutralize her (Squint points out that Peggy has something on him, so he can't full-on blackmail her), even if it's just by discrediting and embarrassing her so thoroughly that any of her findings will be categorically dismissed.
Agent Threesome
Jason jealously notices a weird vibe between Peggy and Sousa. I hope he doesn't go all ZERO MATTER SMASH when he gets juiced up and then find out he might have missed the boat on account of being comprised only of non-fistulating groboparticles. Peggy also is sidelining Jason's Building a Better Container For My Corporeal Form Once It's Tainted With Zero Matter project because she thinks Dottie is still out there...
Agent Kidnapped
... but she is, instead, trapped in a box someplace where Whitney Frost opens it, contemplates Dottie briefly, and then closes it up again. I'm looking forward to Dottie Underwood kicking Whitney's behind. We also don't yet know why Dottie was going after the Arena Club pin in the pilot. I sense a merger of storylines coming our way.
Agent Threats
Squint shows up to Peggy's house and basically begs her to come back to New York and heel; she refuses, and effectively quits her job rather than be forced. he offers up mysterious wisdom about how she won't see it coming when she's wrong and the world gangs up on her, and she watches perplexed as he shuffles out of there. She cannot fathom why he didn't pick a better outfit for tho confrontation.