Marvel’s Agent Carter Recap – “Better Angels”

Howard Stark returns in this week’s Marvel’s Agent Carter! It’s always fun when a Stark shows up.

Not-So-Short Summary: The SSR is at Wilkes’ house trying to find any leads on what else he may have been up to. Agent Carter and Sousa find a lot of framing details, including cash on hand and a Russian passport to “prove” that Wilkes was a Communist.

Peggy and Jarvis come to meet Howard Stark on set, dropping comments about the public not ready for a movie based on a comic book (of all things!). They show him the footage of the zero matter, which he comments is a power not found on this earth. But even more importantly, he drops the bombshell on that lapel pin:

It’s The Arena Club. “They keep their ranks male and pale,” Stark remarks. It’s a social club for the LA silver spoon crowd, and Howard doesn’t enjoy the fact that they do not allow women.

Thompson shows up at SSR West, giving Peggy the “Midge” treatment still and gussying up her report of the prior night’s proceedings by covering up what she actually did with Wilkes. Peggy storms out in a ticked-off rush, missing the keys and pens hovering inches above a nearby desk.

Peggy enlists Howard’s help to infiltrate the Arena Club…by bringing in a lot of ladies to cover her own infiltration while she plants recording devices. Of course she gets trapped in the Library (with a candlestick?), but sneaks out to report back to Thompson on what she found: these old white men are rigging the future.

Things get heated between Agent Carter and Thompson and she throws everything at him. She tells him that he’s doing what he always does: burying the dirty truth and hoping someone pins a medal on him. It’s a deep cut, deservedly so since Thompson is still very unpleasant this season, but it gets her sent back to New York…

Not before she and Sousa notice floating keys and pens around her at her desk. They whisk her off to Howard where he discovered a disruption in the gravitational field around Agent Carter. He’s created a chemical solution that makes all invisible rays/wavelengths/etc. visible and recordable. He sprays his solution around Peggy to reveal Jason Wilkes.

Wilkes has been trying to get Agent Carter to notice him the whole day. He gives his spiel, giving the reveal of Whitney Frost (who called off work today) before he disappears again. Howard vows to work day and night to figure out how to bring him back.

Agent Carter waltzes into Whitney Frost’s dressing room to grill her on the Isodyne incident. It gets her nowhere, other than proving that Miss Frost is great at covering everything up–or at least having an alibi. It freaks Whitney out, but Chadwick doesn’t seem to care until Whitney brings up “The Council” finding out about the incident. They bring in Mister Hunt to “take care of her.”

She shows back up at Stark labs with Wilkes back in action. They’re still trying to find out how to make him corporeal again, because you can’t really waltz an illusion out into public (or whatever you want to call this manifestation of Wilkes).

Later that evening, when Agent Carter is working out her frustrations on a punching bag, Mister Hunt attempts to kill her…only to get tossed into a pool (while strangling Peggy) and shot at.

Howard is off to Peru to get another expert to try to fix Wilkes, while Peggy and Wilkes get a nice bonding moment. He tries to be a good guy and take himself out of the equation before anyone gets hurt, but Peggy tells him that he can’t leave–they need him there, they will figure this out.

Back at SSR West, Agent Carter checks in with Sousa to see what he’s found. As it turns out, he’s found quite a bit: Agnes Culley, a genius inventor from the war time, is Whitney Frost. Everyone in the country sees her, but they don’t see her. It’s brilliant.

Post-Credits Stinger: The studio wants to replace Whitney Frost, but her director pushes for her to stay on. He attempts to make advances on her, but discovers the zero matter scar on her forehead. Before he can storm off, however, Whitney’s grip unleashes the zero matter and sucks him away, making her scar more gaping than before.

Badass Moment of the Week: Howard Stark walking straight through Wilkes without a second thought. I expected it, but it still garnered a laugh out of me.

Best One-Liner: “Who is Dottie Underwood?” Howard asks with a bit of annoyance.
“…She kidnapped you? …At gunpoint, not long ago…” Jarvis fills in.

You know how I brainstormed where exactly Jason Wilkes could be in an article last week? Well, in my initial notes, I made a comment about how he could have been sucked in by the zero matter and stuck inside Whitney Frost, but thought that might be a bit too weird. Looks like I should have followed my instincts, eh?

On the Thompson-side, his FBI buddy, a member of the Arena Club, drops in to ask Thompson to turn over any information regarding zero matter. Thompson gives him the film reel with the zero matter discovery. He also takes Thompson to the Arena Club, introduces him to Chadwick, and hands him a newspaper with the headline Peggy quoted the day before it came out. Warning lights go off in his head.

How about that sweet moment between Howard and Jarvis discussing Peggy? They do make quite a good team, and it’s touching to hear that Howard’s actually paid enough attention to notice.

More props to the writers/producers of Agent Carter for their music selections this season. That first scene at Howard Stark’s pool had Glenn Miller’s “Pennsylvania 6-5000” playing.

It certainly isn’t taking long to get Whitney Frost to the super villain side of things, is it? That’s just fine. I’m excited to see how Agent Carter works with Madame Masque. Next week will give us a nice look at Peggy breaking all of the rules and seeing just how crazy Whitney Frost will start to be.