Agent Carter

Ah, the sad life of the Hollywood scientist.

They tend to fall into two camps…

The first is the Evil scientist, hyper-efficient, thoroughly immoral, clutching for power and mastery over the elements, man, and God. He will eventually fall victim to a horrendously gruesome death at the hands of his own creations.

Then there is the Good scientist. The flawed genius, performing calculus before they were potty trained, the ugly social outcast, sporadically inspirational, unflappably moral, and prone to using the phrase…

Hey ! 

I think that Marvel must have read my reviews of the last season!

We start by addressing one of my comments about the last episode of season one, namely the short fight between Peggy and Dottie. This is rectified almost straight away with a satisfyingly brutal set to in a bank vault which, to coin a phrase, is right on the money! 

Endgame.

End of plot, end of season, end of Peggy?

We'll come back to that point in a little while.

This episode begins with the gruesome discovery of the effect of one of Stark's inventions, and what it does to one of the SSR boys. 

Now that it has been tested with sufficiently eye-gouging results, Ivchenko - sorry, Fennhoff and Dottie put their plan into action. Several people die as a result. Seems to be a theme this. 

And after all of the chasing and hiding...

Let's play find the lady. 

In fact let's play two versions.

One is straightforward. 

Find Dottie Underwood before she does something horrible. 

The other is more complex. 

The SSR boys play find out what their lady Agent has been doing. This involves interrogation by Dooley, Thompson and Sousa. All three take different approaches, but not the ones you might expect. Souza is bad cop, Thompson the mediator, and Dooley is downright complimentary.

As usual Peggy tears a strip off them. This time during her answers while they are interrogating her!

Almost immediately this week you can see where the consequences of the characters actions are leading.

After being rescued from the Leviathan camp last week, Dr Ivchenko is happy to give information to the SSR team and a relentless Agent Carter.  He happily imparts what he can, but also starts to lead a merry dance with everyone's heads, especially volunteering info about how well female spies and double agents can go unnoticed in a man's world.

If I ever want a career change I need to steer clear of intelligence work. 

It's not the secrecy or the dangerous missions, it's the training that worries me. Too much kill or be killed for my liking. I mean how do secret sinister organizations end up with so many members, the attrition rates are horrendous?

Ah, those pesky men.

A quick list of some of the finest specimens...

Agent Thompson - self important,egotistical,smug, sexist, bigoted asshole.

Howard Stark - skirt-chasing, two-faced, arms dealing liar.

Edwin Jarvis - stuffy, useless in a fight and far too loyal to his master.

Agent Souza - Dogged, intelligent, sympathetic but looked down on because of his war injury.

Chief Dooley - Stark-hating, devious, suspicious but finally showing some competence. 

Mr Mink - sadistic, smuggling, extortionist murderer.

It's still a man's world for Agent Carter.

And the men are getting the ladies into a spot of bother.

Firstly at the Griffith Hotel where a daring lothario gets a resident expelled, and then in the office when Peggy has to think on her feet and come up with a plan protect Jarvis from cracking under interrogation by Agent Thompson and Chief Dooley.

At the Griffith, this means Dottie, a new neighbour for Peggy.

At the SSR the consequences are potentially career ruining.

We also learn Jarvis' secret and why he owes a debt to his employer.

After an Explosive (and Implosive) start to the series, we now need to get down to business. The business of clearing Howard Stark's name. 

Being such a popular, millionaire philanthropist playboy, you'd think that it would be quite tricky to find anyone willing to stick the boot in. Surprisingly you would be wrong.