Agent Doofus
We get here a whole sequence where Nurse Violet thinks someone has broken into her house -- and of course someone did, and it was Sousa, who wanted to surprise her with a romantic dinner and a proposal. Except he fell asleep on the couch, and when she wakes him, he realizes he can't find the ring. The whole scene where he spills the beans, and they look for the ring, is terribly endearing, and Violet is great, and that's how you know she's doomed -- either by evil's hand, or the Guillotine of Forbidden Passion.
Agent Enjoy It While It Lasts
Sousa DOES seem really happy with her. I guess she represents having a more typical life, and Peggy represents A Life Of Adventure; both women are smart and witty and kind. I like the idea of him ending up with either one. Subtext: WOMEN ARE AWESOME AND YOU SHOULD CONSIDER YOURSELF LUCKY TO HAVE ANY OF THEM.
Agent Ghost
Peggy also has a man in her bedchamber, but alas, one with no corporeal form, so she can only really make out with the air around where she thinks his mouth should be. It's Jason Wilkes' Science Mist, sneaking into her room to ask her to come down to the lab -- because he can't wait until morning, obviously, or else he wouldn't get to see Peggy in her jammies (here, she apparently sleeps in a full robe).
Agent CGI
Jason had been noodling around the jar of tissue from Episode 1 Dead Girl's body, which Sousa stole from the SSR office before Kurtwood Smith could confiscate it. Jason waves his hand around it and some Zero Matter shoots out and clings to the side, like metal shavings to a magnet. Then, it momentarily possesses Jason and makes him whole -- Peggy does not seem all that concerned about how it also turns his eyes into Satan's windows -- before zipping back into the jar. Jason blinks and says he's had a vision of where Whitney Frost is going.
Agent Scared
Whitney's husband is terrified of waking the sleeping horcrux. He goes to get dressed and sneak out but she is RIGHT on that, telling him that they ALSO need to go get funky with Dead Girl's corpse. The Zero Matter is playing matchmaker in a big way. I think it's rooting for an evil orgy of some ilk.
Agent Handy
Peggy looks dashing in this blouse. She of course knows where the body is, so she and Jarvis are going to hop in there and snoop. She is standing on his shoulders, and casually notes that he could've just pulled up the car under the vent and have her stand on that. "And scratch the paint with those HEELS?" he sniffs.
Agent Feet
Here is a blurry shot of said heels as Peggy dives headfirst into the vent, which I only show you because...
Agent Oh Hello There
... she seconds later pops her face out to call down to Jarvis and lend him a hand. Then she pulls him up and off they go. So... basically there's enough room in there for her to have done a full 180, brought in another human, and then done ANOTHER full 180? That seems... well, whatever. SCIENCE!
Agent Corpse
Jarvis and Peggy watch from the vent as Whitney and Chadwick walk in, Whitney's eyes alight with lust as she rips off the tarp and touches the dead girl's body. All the black Zero Matter marks on her skin disappear, and it appears that all the goop flows into Whitney's body. I don't know what percentage of her innards are organs, and what is goo. At some point she may realize she hasn't eaten in a week and it's because her stomach was dissolved by Zero Matter and replaced with the souls of the bodies she's melted.
Whitney then gets all aroused by the evil, as is her wont, and announces that NOW they need her nukes. Because she's got some, obviously. There is some malarkey from Team Carter about how Whitney i a scientist and so she's going to want to recreate the Zero Matter experiment EXACTLY. But she was a scientist before; why hasn't she tried to recreate it yet? Why did it take being steeped in tar for her to be all, "Oh, hey, let's go blow a hole in the Earth again"? Maybe she was just playing by the rules of the Arena Club before, but now that she's a dark wizard, she knows that dark wizards don't faff around waiting for old rich dudes to get ambitious.
Agent Yes
Swoon.
Also, this is Peggy walking in on a scene where all the guys are congratulating Sousa on his engagement. She congratulates him, but not before an awkward undercurrent. There have been a couple references in this show to Sousa running off to LA due to heartbreak, or somesuch, and it feels like they're allusions to something that happened between him and Peggy that we don't yet know. Presumably all that is coming. Also, I feel for Peggy. The only other guy she's been hot for this whole time is now made of vapor and she has to shoot him with a pump gun every few hours to get him to materialize. That's a lot of work for not a lot of help cleaning the house.
Agent Exposition
So: Everyone figures out that Ray Wise's company, Roxxon, is storing Whitney Frost's nuclear weapons. Naturally, Howard Stark has scouted this facility before because of corporate espionage, and so yada yada yada they need an elevator key. Peggy is going to steal it, and she does so by putting on that delicious fake American accent and a great skirt.
Agent Wig
She also puts on this wig and immediately transforms into Late Season 90210 Emily Valentine, because if ANYONE can ferret out a nefarious key, it's the person who drugged Brandon Walsh into being temporarily fun. (That is a terrible lesson. Kids, don't do drugs. It only made Brandon fun because he was terrible to begin with.)
Agent Zap
The comedy bit here was superb: Peg's SSR techs got her a memory-erasing device that wipes the past two minutes from the person's brain. She has to keep using it on Ray Wise because he keeps realizing he's met her before, and THEN she has to search his body. And he keeps popping up mid-pat-down, saying a different chauvinistic remark or come-on each time. Finally she fries him for an extra long spell and then scurries off with the key she found in his belt buckle. When he emerges, all disheveled, his secretary has returned and she asks if he had a nice lunch. He glances down at his ruined clothes and undone belt and says, nonplussed, "I MUST have." It was really well done. Even if it wasn't entirely surprising, it was executed with charm and panache.
Agent Marino
Ken Marino pops up here as a gangster ex of Whitney's who doesn't seem to appreciate being cast aside for Chadwick, yet also doesn't hold a grudge against her for it. She strikes up a deal: He'll give her hired goons (she doesn't tell him why), and shell make Chadwick influence the papers to keep his name out of the headlines. I have a suspicion he's going to end up going POOF and taking up residence where Whitney's spleen used to be.
Agent Oven Mitt
Sousa has some bomb-defusing experience, so he's tasked with neutering the bombs while they're inside the storage unit. He's practicing here with what appears to be a giant salami. Can I use this as an excuse to buy my own giant salami? It might be a good skill to add to my resume. Also, looking at this makes me think it's Thanksgiving morning and he's just pulled the salami out of the oven for basting. As you do.
Agent Team
Peg rounds up the team: Jarvis, Rose the receptionist (you might recognize Lesley Boone from "Ed"), and the scientist whose name I don't remember so let's just call him Q because that's basically what he is. Q is a bit annoying, but he's also REALLY keen to do field work, so they let him come in exchange for his gizmos. He's also in love with Rose, who Sousa didn't want to bring, until they saw her kicking some guy's ass in their fake casting agency (I think he got handsy or something). Competent women are ABUNDANT on this show and it's a treat. Now WHERE IS MRS. JARVIS?
Agent Oops
As you might expect, things go haywire, and Jarvis gets locked in the room with the bombs. He has to defuse them himself. He does. Nobody gets nuked. I'm sorry if you needed me to draw out that suspense, but I feel pretty good about my decision to get that all out of the way.However, things are not going as well for Peggy, who decided to chase Whitney Frost WITHOUT BACKUP and I'm pretty sure Whitney didn't even know they were there yet so WHY ARE YOU ANNOUNCING YOURSELF, PEGGY? THIS SEEMS CARELESS. And sure enough...
Agent OUCH
... Peggy gets knocked off a ledge and falls into A GIANT METAL ROD. Also, aren't those cinder blocks? Why did none of this blow her skull or spine to smithereens?
Agent Creepy
Glad the Impaler is pretty proud of herself, though.
Agent Medic
Sousa takes Peggy to the only place he can: Violet's living room. They think the bad guys will find them at a hospital, which is a pretty slim excuse -- if they wanted to find you, they could do it fairly easily here, I would think -- but it gets our protagonist to bleed all over our OTHER protagonist's fiancé's sofa. The very one in which Sousa lost the engagement ring. Violet is a bit thrown but then snaps into action, because she is the world's nicest person.
Agent Chemistry
And poor Violet sees Sousa fussing over Peggy, and lingering a bit too long here and there and everywhere, and puts two and two together and gets foreplay.
When she confronts Sousa later about whether he's in love with Peggy, and whether he fled to L.A. over heartbreak and not just a desire for change or whatever, he doesn't deny it. POOR VIOLET. Poor Sousa. Maybe Violet and Dr. Wilkes can get it on when he stops being made of pericombibular nexusdust. I like him, but he might be too... gentle... for Peggy. She needs a doer.
Agent Props
I love the gold phone Chadwick has in his house. The prop is more important to me than his face, basically. Sorry, Chadwick. If you're wondering, he's FREAKING OUT that he's married to the Voldemark, and so he calls an emergency meeting of the Arena Club council.
Agent Lovely
Peggy gets set up back at home, looking remarkably fit for someone who just had an iron rod POKING THROUGH HER BODY. But I guess she has bigger problems...
Agent Bye
... because Dr. Wilkes' interstipular prolation has returned and so he disappears back into the SCIENCE! hole. This will make having sex with him OR Sousa VERY complicated INDEED, because if she jumps on any other man, wouldn't she always wonder if Jason was still hanging around in his invisible form, watching? Maybe she's fine with that, I don't know. Peggy could be progressive.