This week on Agent Carter, we’re still cuffed to a table. But we’ve got to make a break for it before Dr. Ivchenko’s true nature is revealed, Leviathan comes out to play, and Howard Stark’s inventions make life a hell of a lot more difficult.
All my themes and clever little feminist theory tie-ins have fallen away as of this episode. From here on out, we’re rushing to the finish line, and no matter how hard I tried to shoehorn this episode into some kind of big master plan about brainwashing, or invisibility, or trust, I kept getting distracted by the sheer amount of stuff happening on my TV screen.
We open in Russia, 1943. Dr. Ivchenko is working in a military hospital at the front (reading “Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus”), where supplies of anaesthetics are so depleted that a surgeon asks him to use his brainwashing skills on a young patient who needs his leg amputated. And so the good doctor hypnotizes the man with a vision of his mother and an idyllic chess match that apparently takes place in a Chekov short story.
In the present day, Peggy is being interrogated by the S.S.R. In an interesting twist from how this whole story started, Sousa is the bad cop, while Thompson wants to trust Carter and urges her to give them something, anything they can use to let her off the hook. I didn’t want to believe Thompson, the classic chauvinist pig could be redeemed, but it happened. I’m also pretty sure my Carter/Sousa ship has crashed on the rocks.
More importantly, though, Dr. Ivchenko is watching the proceedings through the obligatory two-way glass. He brands Carter a pathological liar, which is convenient considering that she’s the only person here who has an inkling of the truth.
Meanwhile, at Gimbel’s, Dottie is picking out a baby carriage. For what purpose we can’t entirely be sure, but somehow it manages to be nightmare fuel. Because Dottie is scary badass awesome terrifying. And I covet her lipstick.
Back at the phone company, Jarvis talks his way through the decoy operators and into the S.S.R. with the promise of a signed confession from Howard Stark. Which of course backfires immediately, especially because the only way the men of the S.S.R. can understand what’s going on is by assuming Peggy Carter is a floozy who is doing Stark’s bidding because sex. It’s not as if a mere woman could have thoughts of her own, or any kind of agency. Oh no. So instead of allowing Stark’s supposed confession to exonerate Carter, Dooley fires her.
Dooley then retreats into his office to reconcile with his wife under the guidance of Dr. Ivchenko, because obviously that’s top priority right now. Does anybody get a Rasputin vibe from Dr. Ivchenko? While Dooley’s conversation plays out, Ivchenko stands in the window, again signaling to Dottie across the way. And in a stroke of luck, Carter notices! She sees exactly what he’s doing and it’s just in time, because Leviathan is coming.
Peggy realizes the S.S.R. is the only hope against whatever Leviathan is planning, and that the only way to get her colleagues to see the threat is to win their trust by spilling her guts. To be honest, I’m not entirely clear why she didn’t talk when she was initially caught, since she knew Dottie was the real threat at that point, and it seems as though Sousa had her pinned, anyway. But the stakes are high, the time is right, and now is Peggy’s moment.
Dooley, Thompson, and Sousa come to the long overdue (if reluctant) realization that they have to trust Carter. Dooley starts by checking in on Dr. Ivchenko, who takes this opportunity to complete the brainwashing process by getting him to envision dinner with his wife and children. It’s interesting how Ivchenko’s hypnosis tends to revolve around images of women and domesticity. “Think about what really matters,” he stresses to Dooley.
Across the street, Thompson, Sousa, and two redshirts hunt for Dottie. This is an intense sequence, as on the one hand we want them to find her and thus prove Peggy was right. On the other hand, do four S.S.R. agents stand a chance against Dottie Underwood?
We cut back to the S.S.R., where a fully brainwashed Dooley handcuffs Carter and Jarvis to the table in the interrogation room. He is now free to do Ivchenko’s bidding. Which means it’s off to the science lab to get Stark’s mysterious Item Seventeen and a vest that looks half Kevlar and half something Marty McFly would wear. Ivchenko gives Dooley some mysterious commands and then makes his exit.
Unfortunately, it seems that our boys in the S.S.R. were truly no match for Dottie. She makes her getaway and picks up Ivchenko and Item Seventeen. They speed off with schemes to see just what this mysterious Stark invention can do.
In the interrogation room, Peggy and Jarvis bash out the two-way mirror with the interrogation table before realizing, ummmm, they’re still cuffed to a table. Luckily, Thompson appears. Now there’s a sentence I did not predict I would ever type.
It seems like Dooley’s instructions were to go home to his wife and kid? I’m not going to lie, in every moment of this scene, I was sure Dooley was going to enact some kind of family murder-suicide. This is a masterclass in how a scene can be written one way – the heartfelt reconciliation of an estranged husband and his family — but played another.
Thankfully, it was only Ivchenko’s brainwashing, and Dooley is actually asleep at his desk in his office. Wearing the vest. Which is now glowing. In a way that looks painful. The team wakes him up and Jarvis reveals that the vest is a portable heating device designed by Stark for use at the front. In the event of a surprise attack, it could be used to turn a soldier into a living bomb.
Is anybody else starting to get pissed off at Howard Stark and his not only useless, but unbelievably dangerous inventions? I know Marvel fans love Howard, but it has to be said. Howard Stark: Worst Inventor Ever.
The only thing for Dooley to do is sacrifice himself. He goes out in a blaze, through the side of the Phone Company building so as to minimize S.S.R. casualties. As the dust settles, Peggy blames herself (even though this is all Howard Stark’s fault, it has to be said). But her train of thought leads her back to the beginning of the story: Leet Brannis’ theft of the Stark inventions. The team runs to the lab in search of Item Seventeen, which of course they find missing. The scientists don’t know what it does, but we’re about to find out.
In one of those gorgeous movie palaces you hardly ever see anymore, Dottie and Ivchenko set off Item Seventeen, which is some kind of invisible gas. As the moviegoers inhale it, they fall into a violent rage and tear each other limb from limb. Turns out Item Seventeen is not magical unicorn sparkles and a cupcake for everyone in New York City. Darn.
The credits roll on yet another exciting cliffhanger, which brings us to my homework for this week. How can we do brainwashing without talking about The Manchurian Candidate? Both Ivchenko’s storyline and the Red Room Academy For Violent Ladies call back to this classic Cold War film about a Korean War POW who is programmed to come home to America and kill. Please do yourselves a favor and watch the original 1962 version, which includes some fantastic performances by Frank Sinatra and Angela Lansbury.
So, what are your thoughts? How do you guys feel about Dooley’s death, Howard Stark and his dumb inventions, and our small taste of Item Seventeen? And more importantly, how sad are you guys about the fact that next week is the last episode of Agent Carter?
Sara Clarke is the creator of the web series Fake Geek Girls. When she’s not writing and directing her own film projects, she’s coming up with new questions for her next live trivia comedy show and slaving away at her TV production day job. She reads Ms. Marvel religiously. Find her on twitter: @sara_clarke.
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