Agent Undead
We pick up right after the end of last week, when Dr. Jason Wilkes wandered in just as Whitney Frost was about to kill Kurtwood Smith, and he burst his zero matter all over her in a non-euphemistic way. It was like Hulk Smash meets the La Brea Tar Pits. Jason survived, but just as Peggy is digging his dazed ass out of the wreckage, Whitney rises from the chaos and starts menacing them.
Again, it is hilarious to me that this show was able to make up SO COMPLETELY what Zero Matter does to people, simply by establishing that, hey, it's crazy and totally different all the time and NOBODY knows what to expect. So, like, why didn't Jason die when it blew up all over him? Why did he turn to vapor when Whitney stayed solid? Why didn't it infuse him the way it did her? (Possibly because he never used it to kill.) Why didn't it suck up everything around it the way the vortex did? Why did Jason get sucked into the vortex, only to blow up and have all his zero matter go into Whitney now? The answer: for plot convenience. What the writers need is totally driving this, rather than any internal logic, and yet the show gets away with it by being... well, lovely.
Agent Dynamic Duo
In a lovely bit of timing, these two screech up with a rescue car and plow right into Whitney Frost. And I will say this: I had issues with Dominic Cooper when they tried to SHOW him being a ladies' man, but when he's just sort of a buffoony egomaniacal blowhard with occasional SCIENCE!!! brainwaves, he's a delight. Here, he pops out and is all, "Mr. Jarvis, you've hit her with the car. SHE'S WON TWO ACADEMY AWARDS." I will miss their interplay.
Agent Crazy
Whitney is coping with her latest disappointment by using the walls of her bedroom to scribble equations. It's stuff like this that must either delight or FRUSTRATE the props people, because it might be fun to come up with vague SCIENCE!!! sketches and rantings, but also there may be a point where they have 25 and need 50 and are like, "I DON'T HAVE ANY MORE IDEAS FOR DEPICTING THE EFFECTS OF HYDROMANIACAL INVISIBILITY SERUM???" Whitney, though, is just trying to figure out how to reopen another chasm into the Voldevortex. And because nonsense science is her specialty, she's totally cracked it like the horcrux cracked her face.
Agent Stick 'Em Up
Ken Marino, meanwhile, drops by Howard's house with a gun jabbed in Jarvis's back. James D'Arcy delivers the most Jarvis-y version of this in the world. And of course, he's held up in the act of bringing mustard to the table, so Howard stands up and is like, "LET THE MAN PUT THE CONDIMENT DOWN," which made me laugh again. As long as I'm not required to believe every nubile lady in a 20-mile radius wants to unlace his trousers, I rather like Howard.
Anyhoo, it turns out he and Ken are old pals (what?) and Ken is just there because he is worried about Whitney. Her vaporizing people and having some kind of space effluvia oozing out of her face didn't faze him, but now that she's doing MATH -- ON THE WALLS! WALL MATH!!! -- he's well and truly freaked, and he wants the Voldemark to be blitzed off her face. He's going to help Team Carter.
Agent Surprise
Peggy and Sousa break into Whitney's bedroom and take pictures of her scribbles -- Sousa even cleverly alters a number later, to throw her off -- while Ken Marino distracts her by asking her to put the fear of Goo in one of his thugs. But of course, he doesn't explain to the goon he asks to play along exactly WHAT all he's playing along WITH, so the mere sight of Whitney's powers makes him blubber all about the very real betrayals he's committed. Ken Marino is bummed out that he now ACTUALLY has to kill this person. Sigh. Murder can be so inconvenient.
Agent Orgy
Oh, just three men drunk on SCIENCE!!!!
Agent Eggplant
Peggy looks splendid in purple and it was important that we celebrate that one last time. The next phase of this episode gets really cockamamie, so we need to enjoy the quiet moments. And the blouses. And the LIPSTICK.
Agent Flirt
I also enjoy that Howard is taken with Rose. Unfortunately, she is taken right back. I wish she had been like, "Eh," and gone over and planted one on poor old Dr. Samberly, whose name I don't even get right half the time.
Agent Twist
Squint, meanwhile, is going through Kurtwood Smith's files. He finds the Arena Club pin, and gives it a random twist, and POOF: It turns into a key. He later gives this to Peggy. Let's pretend that in the season three that may not exist, they will tie that back to Dottie Underwood and we shall not have seen the last of her vague arousal at the prospect of facing off against Peggy.
Agent Rip
Then there's a lot of scientific blah-blah and a plan in which they go ahead and open the vortex -- Howard's photo-developing and enlarging capabilities are epic, it seems -- and wait for it to draw Whitney near. They do it at Howard's film studio, which explains why it basically resembles someone lighting an old cloth set on fire. It actually reminds me vaguely of the scene in Blazing Saddles where they build the fake Rock Ridge, except with more phallic SCIENCE cannons involved.
Agent Fore
Howard, of course, is keeping busy during the wait by trying to hit gold balls into the vortex. The show DOES thoughtfully explain that the vortex only sucks in things within a certain radius, a line that Peggy draws in the dirt for helpful reasons of Someone's Going Over The Line Later.
Agent AAAAAARGH
And then Whitney walks in and looks right out of an old musical number. Those are some SERIOUS evil jazz hands. She would make a magnificent sci-fi Roxie Hart. "The name on EVERYBODY'S lips is gonna be 'Whitney.'"
Agent Tee Hee
"Oh yes oh yes oh yes they both oh yes they both oh yes they both reached for the goo the goo the goo the goo they both reached for the goo for the goo."
Agent Suave
Naturally, the gamma cannon jams, or something, and... I don't even know. Basically, everyone is arguing over who has to go stand under the vortex and crank the whatsit until the thingamy goes blam and closes the hoodle. The only one NOT arguing is Sousa, who has strapped himself to a lamppost on the safe side of the line and crossed over to try and save the day. Hotly. I mean, talk about turning my crank.
Agent Rescue
Peggy, however, refuses to let Sousa die. So she grabs his line NOT A EUPHEMISM and pulls as hard as she can GET YOUR MIND OUT OF THE GUTTER and then everyone gets in there and starts grunting and oh forget it there's no going back now. It's an orgy of rescue.
Agent Near Miss
Poor Sousa goes fully vertical. DEAR GOD THE DOUBLE ENTENDRES DO NOT STOP.
Agent Doc Brown
And then the much-mentioned Hovercar of Howard's comes into play. In the end, they figure out they can still remote-detonate the cannon if they can just fling it up into the hole (WINK WINK). And there is no good explanation for how this works. They just throw the thing in there, activate the Hovercar, and it just... flies up right on target. I assume there is a SCIENCE!! Garmin on board to drive it. A Jarmin, if you will. And it works, and Sousa crashes to the ground exhausted but fine, and Whitney loses all the Voldemess in her body, and THE DAY IS SAVED.
Agent Lust
Please observe the look of erotic relief on Peggy's face when Sousa goes limp. (Sorry. I'm committed now. I had to finish this juvenile rendering.)
Agent Costumes
I am really going to miss these tiny, tiny ties. It feels like the more powerless the dude, the tinier the tie.
Agent Gorgeous
Peggy looks fabulous the next day at breakfast when she begins to say her goodbyes. She's going back to New York, you see, because her roommate and her job are still there. Peggy, did you even CALL your roommate? And also you technically quit your job.
Agent Cute
She and Jason ergo acknowledge that while they were hot for one another, she's leaving and he's got to go work for Howard and it was nice while it lasted and YAY we're all so glad you're not made of zingomorphic phyllangic vapor anymore.
Agent Missed Potential
Ana Jarvis was awesome. Ana Jarvis NEVER got to be as awesome as she could have been. Ana Jarvis deserves a third season. DO YOU HEAR ME, UNIVERSE?
After Peg says her goodbyes, Jarvis convinces her that her life could be in LA now, if she'd just go ahead and shove her tongue into Sousa's mouth. (I'm paraphrasing.)
Agent YES
AHD SHE DOES. When she goes to close up the case, Sousa scolds her for violating her own logic: She was mad at Sousa for saving her instead of following through on the mission, and then she went and did the same. Peggy responds to this by grabbing his face and PLANTING ONE ON HIM in a way that is so perfect. Because of course Peggy would own this moment. I love it.
However, this is a very weird way of giving us what we want, because Peggy never CHOOSES, exactly. She says adieu to Jason because she's moving to New York, and then suddenly Jarvis is like, "Don't move, and go kiss Sousa," and she's all, "OKAY!" But what matters is, she realizes that this face and this mouth are both excellent places to be and SO SHE GOES THERE. Like a boss.
Agent MORE YES
I'm serious. She basically drives him back into his chair with the force of their passion, and he is SO DOWN WITH IT. And so am I.
Agent Crazy
Whitney is in prison, hallucinating that Chadwick is still alive and they're still plotting to take over the world. Ken Marino looks sadly at her loopy, chopped-up face, then gathers himself and goes into visit her. He's a murderous gangster, and yet he's awfully likable and he's not leaving Whitney to rot in the psych ward. That's love.
Agent THE FINAL SQUINTDOWN
But then: MAN DOWN! Just as Squint is heading back to New York, someone mysterious shows up at his door and shoots him in the chest, before stealing the redacted classified file about Peggy -- which we always thought Kurtwood Smith had made up, but maybe it's real. Or maybe it's about someone else and he had Peg's name put into it. Anyway, we leave the series with Chad Michael Murray bleeding out on the floor -- ostensibly dead, though I find myself hoping not -- and that's about right for me. It's a tiny cliffhanger, but it's not one that has kept Peggy from getting her mack on with a well-chosen and smart dude who adores her.
I shall miss you, and I hope that if ABC is dumb enough to let you go, Netflix will scoop you up into its Marvel arms. This would be a bizarre fit with Jessica Jones and Daredevil, but whatever. All darkness needs its light, right?