Marvel’s Agent Carter Review – “The Iron Ceiling”

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Marvel’s Agent Carter takes us to Russia this week, gives us the Howling Commandos (a warm welcome to the familiar faces!), Thompson as Carter’s foil, and almost too many plot threads to keep straight. I’ll try my best to keep them all separate!

Not-So-Short Summary: It’s our first glimpse at a room full of young girls, chained to beds, then chanting along with Snow White, facing off against each other in hand-to-hand combat until the one girl breaks the other girl’s neck.

It turns out that was Dottie. Flash forward to the present and she’s hanging with Agent Carter at Angie’s diner. Dottie wants to see the city, Peggy says to not fall into the tourist traps and start in Brooklyn. Dottie snags the keys out of Peggy’s purse by accidentally knocking it off the table and hastily picking it up for her. Later on, she breaks into her apartment to snoop around. She finds a box with pictures of Stark’s inventions in SSR custody. She leaves a piece of string on Peggy’s lock–at least I think that’s what it was? If anyone is more enlightened, let me know. Edit: As several people informed me, Peggy had the string over her lock at the beginning to tell if anyone breaks into her room. With Dottie replacing it, Peggy is none the wiser. This makes total sense.

When Agent Carter makes it into the SSR that morning, her cohorts are trying to decipher a code that came in over the vintage AIM machine. Peggy breaks it almost instantly. It’s map coordinates for a drop-off in Belarus that mentions Howard Stark. Despite breaking the code, Dooley and Thompson are hesitant to let her go on this mission, unless, of course, she can guarantee the 107th to see them through to Russia. Which she does with a quick phone call.

Look, I know this show kind of overdoes the male/female societal norms for that time and even despite Dooley’s Catch-22 about letting Agent Carter go and even with Thompson’s snark about how she did so much in the war because she was surrounded by the best of the best, I find their obstinant nature almost too unbelievable. Then again, do any of her coworkers know how much she did during the war? That might be her downfall. That might be why they undersell what she can do for them on this mission.

In Poland, the team jumps out of the airplane to meet up with the 107th, whom they find almost immediately. In case you couldn’t tell by the commercials and promo pictures, but the 107th is The Howling Commandos. What can you say about them? A breath of fresh air, abrasive to the SSR guys and nothing but supportive of Peggy, treating her like she’s one of their own (and she is). Also, they are almost comic relief.

In the back of a truck, Dum Dum Dugan and Peggy catch up. She brings him bourbon from the States, tells him about Howard Stark, how the SSR feels about his position, and how she is working covertly to clear his name. But the joviality does not last long. Their conversation takes a turn for the dour. “Yeah, I miss him, too,” Dugan mumbles at the end of their conversation when Peggy’s comment about being fun before tapers into an awkward silence. Captain America brings everyone together.

Story time around the campfire happens that evening. Thompson recalls how he got his Navy Cross, how he fell asleep on the night shift, six Japanese soldiers walked into his camp. He killed them before they could slit anyone’s throats while they slept. Showing Thompson as more than just a misogynistic male coworker of Peggy’s works on a couple different levels, but I’ll touch on this more later.

In the morning, they infiltrate what turns out to be a boarding school and find a little girl sobbing. Dugan goes to calm her down, gets stabbed in the chest, and insanity ensues. The little girl steals the gun, shoots one of their men, and runs away.

While trying to follow her, they stumble upon a cell of prisoners who are being held to build a weapon Leviathan doesn’t know how to build: a Photonic Amplifier, blueprints stolen from Howard Stark.

In one of the better standoffs in this series so far, we find our Howling Commandos and SSR agents cornered in the boiler room. It’s not a fabulous set up and the effects aren’t crazy over-the-top, but it’s the close quarters-ness of it that makes it feel a little more authentic. That and the fact that Thompson completely fades from the present, suffering from PTSD at gunshots so close, so very aimed at him. Dugan blows a hole through the wall to give them a back exit from the fray, and Agent Carter has to risk her own neck to bring Thompson to safety.

On the plane, Thompson remarks on his mess-up in the school. He also confesses to what happened in the war to get him such notoriety. The Japanese were waving white flags, the ones he killed and got his medal for, but he didn’t realize it until it was too late. He buried the flag before anyone else saw it and everyone thinks he’s a better guy than he truly is. He opens up to Peggy and the moment is sweet, despite his war story painting him as an even worse character than he was before.

The doctor they saved doesn’t believe Stark has anything to do with Leviathan. Dooley even gives Carter a “good work.” She even gets invited to drinks! It’s kind of cheesy, but it still made me grin, especially with how happy Agent Carter looks at the promise of a social evening.

In the meantime, Sousa looks into into Peggy’s file. He saw two gun shot scars on Peggy’s shoulder in the locker room, the same two marks on the blonde in the pictures from the club. He doesn’t know what to do with the information and looks like a wreck when they get back.

Badass Moment of the Week: Dum Dum Dugan blowing a hole in the wall of the boiler room and yelling “wahoo” afterward. Runner-up: Peggy going crazy with a machine gun to cover Thompson’s escape out said hole.

Best One-Liner: “Miss Union Jack!” Dugan exclaims, finding a nickname for Carter. “Whaddya think?” he asks.
“Never speak again,” she replies.
“Okay.”

The rapport between Agent Carter and Dum Dum Dugan makes me incredibly happy. This is an episode that gives us the Peggy Carter we came to know in Captain America: The First Avenger. No longer is she lurking in the shadows and working in secret; now she gets to shine doing what she does best. She’s in her element, and the Howling Commandos make it clear to the SSR agents that she knows what she’s doing and it’s okay to put her in charge for once. It’s like they are subtly saying, “Wait, you SSR guys put her on a desk job? What’s wrong with you idiots?”

I didn’t say much on the awkward run-in between Sousa and Carter in the men’s locker room when she was changing into her tactical gear. It was humorous to an extent, because of how well both Hayley Atwell and Enver Gjokaj downplay the incident while still showing how embarrassed they both are. I feel like this show is pushing the Sousa-is-Carter’s-mysterious-husband-she-mentions-in-Winter-Soldier a little too hard so that it’s almost a fake trail. Five bucks says it’s Thompson. Come on, I have to have some crazy theories, right? With how much he opened up to her on their Russian trip, I might actually be onto something… but probably not.

Speaking of Thompson opening up, we saw a different side of him, as I mentioned before. It’s almost subtle, but we see that Thompson needs Agent Carter on this mission more than she needs him. He opens up to her in ways he never has before. Again, it’s not played up in a romantic way (for which I am thankful). It treats them both as soldiers, gender roles not in play.

Dooley is hardly mentioned up top either. He’s trying to figure out what happened at the Battle of Finow. Stark was there for the clean-up of the massacred Russians; Stark took a swing at General McInnis at the same time. Dooley tracks down Jarvis and tells him that if Stark ever wants to give his side of the story to call him. He just wants the truth (or so he says).

Next week, Peggy seems to be on the run from the SSR and we also get more than a glimpse at the Red Room, which I mention in last week’s brainstorming article. With not many episodes left, some of these loose plot threads are going to have to be sewed together sooner rather than later.