Marvel’s Agent Carter returns for its fourth episode this week. Agent Carter has had to deal with politics and corrupt officials in high positions getting in her way so far this season. Add in the supernatural and she may have just met her match. Still on leave from the SSR and taking a few vacation days, Peggy Carter goes outside the box to get answers to what happened to Dr. Wilkes and finding out what she can of the elitist Arena Club. Her plans last week didn’t work out the way she had planned and an assassin was sent after her before Jarvis’ timely arrival allowed her to fight him off, let us see what this secret agent gets up to this week.
Looking Back
The show starts with a flashback to a young Peggy Carter and her getting lectured about not acting like a proper young lady. It cuts to present day and Peggy and an intangible Dr. Wilkes having mounting frustration do to their obvious attraction to each other. Wilkes’ research makes mention of how Whitney Frost’s brilliance is almost undefinable. Good timing as the show jumps to Whitney Frost and her receiving a whole bunch of white mice. Jarvis and Peggy are out looking for Whitney Frost trailing future Senator Chadwick when Peggy notices that the Senator’s driver has the same injury she gave to her would be assassin. A quick call and Peggy and Jarvis have a name and a lead. Using tranquilizers supplied by Howard Stark is how they plan on safely taking down Mr. Hunt to hopefully lead to them to finally getting some answers.
Another flashback takes us to 1920’s Oklahoma and a young Agnes (Whitney Frost) has fixed a radio at a very young age. She is a very serious young girl who doesn’t approve of her mother’s male companion and doesn’t act to kindly towards him. Present day and she is trying to figure out what the zero matter has done to her. The scar on her forehead has grown bigger before a knock on the door interrupts her. An impromptu chit chat about meeting at a dinner later leaves her in a foul mood but it’s that mood that leads to success. Using her strange powers she absorbs the first mouse making the scar grow bigger.
Taking Prisoners
Jarvis is banging on the door of Mr. Hunt forcing him to run out the back door where he meets a tranquilizer shot from Peggy. Things don’t quite work like they planned and it takes another dart and some blunt force to keep him down. Unfortunately for Jarvis he gets a bit of the tranquilizer as well and loaded in the car along with Hunt. Agent Carter is driving up to Stark Mansion when to their unfortunate luck see Chief Sousa waiting for them. Sousa seems more upset that Peggy didn’t keep him in the loop and use him for backup than the fact that she crossed a few lines to obtain Hunt. Sousa and Hunt have some war talk where Hunt refuses to divulge any information regardless of what they do when Peggy walks up and injects him with some type of virus. The scene quickly cuts to another flashback to a young adult Peggy Carter and her receiving the offer that would lead her to eventually meeting Steve Rogers. At the time she is a good code breaker and set to be married and is very hesitant to take the offer revealing she doesn’t feel she is cut out for that type of field work. Irony at its finest. Back in present day Peggy tells Hunt that she just objected him with Malaria and that she would be back before the effects became permanent.
Another flashback am takes place to 1928 Oklahoma and Agnes watching her mother being broken up with by her male companion forcing them to move. Her mother blames her and while Agnes Cully is determined to get away from Oklahoma her mother tells her that only her looks will get her anywhere in this world. Present day and the former Agnes Cully seems to have truly become Whitney Frost. Sousa and Peggy’s interrogation finally pays dividends and Hunt gives them what they need to know revealing the secrets of the Arena Club and some of its members knowing he is already a dead man. Jarvis and Wilkes are walking on a formulaic explanation to his problem with Sousa and Peggy show up with good news about getting a warrant to search the Arena Club.
Government Interference
Bad news for Sousa and his warrant when it is denied when the war department sends Vernon Masters to take over all the files that the SSR have. With his men taking over all case files, Masters and Peggy finally have a face to face where it quickly becomes evident that the Masters is not on the up and up and is very persistent on acquiring Hunt’s name from her for some reason. He leaves Peggy with a threat that may not be towards her but her friends. A flashback to World War II and Peggy and her fiancé are having dinner with her brother. It is revealed that Peggy and her husband to be turned down the SOE job and her brother can’t figure out why. Her brother Michael just wants Peggy to stop pretending being someone she is not and going after the job. Sousa and Peggy have a quiet chat where Sousa reveals he was able to keep a small sample of evidence before it was taken. Managing to make Hunt think he escaped, they plant a bug on him that gets them inside Chadwick’s house with Whitney Frost. We come back and we are taken to 1940’s England on a day Peggy is trying on her wedding dress. This proves to be a fateful day as she and her mother quickly learn of her brother dying in the war and leaves to her joining the SOE.
Frost
Peggy and Wilkes share a moment when the bug on Hunt picks up the voice of Chadwick and the beginning to some of the answers the SSR have seemed. Hunt has had enough and makes an attempt to blackmail Chadwick when Whitney Frost shows off her new powers absorbing Hunt somehow and leaving Sousa, Jarvis and Peggy clueless. Another flashback takes us to Agnes Cully in Hollywood just before her big break. A chance meeting with a slimy talent agent and his suggestion of changing her name lead us back to current day Whitney Frost and the madness that has over taken her.
A fun exciting episode that lights the way for next week’s episode. Marvel taking the series back in time is a first for Agent Carter but very effecting in establishing how our two female leads became who they are. It was very enlightening to see the role that Peggy’s brother played in her life and how his death is what led to her to stop pretending to being something she wasn’t. Lots of smaller things going on including the obvious attraction Sousa still has for Peggy despite being engaged and her interested in Wilkes. The stakes are only going to get higher and that can only mean good thing for the viewers.