Marvel’s Agent Carter Brainstorm: Where Is Jason Wilkes?

The premiere of Marvel’s Agent Carter‘s second season gave us plenty of familiar faces, but plenty of new, intriguing ones as well. From Whitney Frost to that slew of older dudes who totally aren’t but probably are HYDRA running along with Calvin Chadwick, we’ve been given a lot to digest and process

Even before Whitney Frost appeared in that post-credits stinger at the end of “A View In The Dark,” you had to think that wasn’t the end for Jason Wilkes. A brand new character to the series, suave, good-looking, with a bit of humor and an immediate rapport with Agent Carter on both a professional and personal level? Well, he’s either doomed or sticking around for a while.

The episode’s ending led us to believe that both Wilkes and Frost were sucked in by the zero matter. Several different reviews I read after the premiere protested this move, upset that a Marvel television series killed off yet another African American character (looking at you, Agents of SHIELD, while I pretend Triplett is alive in an alternate universe).

But you have to remember that this is a comic book series, and people like to come back from the dead (“dead”?) more often than appropriate. And if you really want to get technical, go to IMDB and check out Reggie Austin’s page. He’s in ten episodes of Agent Carter this season, a.k.a. all of Season 2. So probably not dead.

With the reveal of Frost back in the real world, it’s implied that she and Wilkes managed to escape the implosion. Or perhaps they were sucked in and by some happenstance, were spat back out, keeping part of the zero matter inside themselves. That scratch on Frost’s forehead seems pretty ominous.

It seems as though the zero matter imploded and pulled Jason Wilkes and Whitney Frost inside of it, transporting it elsewhere, just like the scientists and tanks during the atom bomb testing in the desert. While they were never seen again, that’s not to say it killed them; it just transported them elsewhere in the world — or even to another world, a la Agent Simmons in Agents of SHIELD.

It would be too easy if Wilkes was transported to the same place as those scientists and is able to bring back valuable information about where they’ve been, how they survived, if they have any insight into the zero matter. That would feel very much like a cop-out.

What seems more likely is seeing the repercussions through Whitney Frost’s point of view while she tries to be less of an “aging starlet” on the Hollywood scene while Peggy Carter and the SSR try to find any remnants of the zero matter, only to have Jason Wilkes barge into their headquarters in the last few minutes of episode three, much to Peggy’s relief.

But your guess is as good as mine. One thing is for certain: Wilkes will be returning with more of a mystery around him than before.