Agent Carter returned to air Tuesday night with the tables being turned on Carter. She goes from finally getting some respect from the SSR to being a wanted fugitive on the run from the same people. This gives Marvel the chance to create a fast paced episode with a twist and drama at every corner but they instead chose to make dull episode with more of what we've seen the last five episodes.
The show starts with Chief Dooley questioning the Russian doctor that was rescued from the leviathan training grounds last episode. After Carter interrupts Dooley's line of questioning several times he tells her to go chase her own theory of Stark's innocence and to let him gain other information from the doctor. While Agent Carter goes off to run her own leads on the Stark case Dooley returns to the doctor and tries a more personal approach.
Meanwhile, across the street in the building directly across from SSR headquarters Dottie makes her way into a dentist office for a job interview. Remember last week we discovered that Dottie is a leviathan assassin working in New York. Dottie kills the dentist interviewing her for the job then sets up what appears to be a sniper rifle and takes aim at the doctor in Dooley's office. The doctor goes to the window and views the building across the street when Dottie starts using a light on the rifle to communicate via Morse code. The doctor notices and using Morse code himself tells Dottie her new objective is to kill Peggy Carter. While it is revealed to the audience that the doctor is a bad guy Dooley remains clueless and continues to talk to the doctor who almost hypnotizes Dooley using a ring on his finger.
Agent Carter enlist the help of Jarvis to run down her theory that one of the girls from Russia seduced Stark and is behind everything that has happened in the last few months. After stopping at several addresses of women Stark has been with they decide to separate and meet back at the diners little later to go over the rest of the list of girls and try and get a break in the case.
Before Dooley can be fully hypnotized Agent Sousa interrupts to brief Dooley on his findings that Agent Carter has been working in secret to recover the Stark devices before the SSR can. Dooley then sends the SSR after her and Jarvis at the diner they are planning to meet at. Inside the dinner Carter immediately comes to full alert when the civilians are sent out of the diner and she fights her way out only to be cornered by Agent Thompson in the back alley.
Back at SSR headquarters Doctor Ivchenko is brought into another room during the Carter chaos and is assigned a young SSR agent to watch him. Ivchenko uses his ring to hypnotize the young agent into drawing him a map of the SSR building and tell him how to retrieve all of Stark's weapons. After gaining all this information he the tells the Agent to go have a glass of whiskey then walk in front of a bus. A cutaway scene shows the agent following his instructions and dying in the street outside a bar.
Back at the diner, Carter knocks Thompson out cold and is about to escape to her dorm room to recover Captain America's blood sample when Agent Sousa comes around the corner holding Carter at gunpoint. She tells him that he don't understand the full picture and runs away since Sousa can't find it in himself to shoot her. Carter makes it to her room and secures the blood moments before the SSR kick in the door. She escapes out the window on to a foot ledge and hides before trying to get into her friend Angie's room.
The SSR break up Carter's attempt to enter Angie's room and tell Angie Carter doesn't just work at a telephone company. Angie, who is an Broadway actress, fakes crying about her grandma to make the male SSR agents uncomfortable and they leave her to cry. Carter then enters the room and tells Angie she will explain the truth to her one day before leaving out the door to meet Jarvis. Carter runs into Dottie in the hall way and Dottie kisses her using Carter's lipstick laced with sleeping chemicals to knock her unconscious.
Before Dottie can kill Carter in the hallway the SSR discover them and unaware of Dottie’s attempt on Carter's life, handcuff Carter and take her to SSR headquarters. Once there, Carter is taken to the interrogation room and Sousa and Thompson prepare to question her and Dooley instructs them to not take it easy on her. The episode ends with Carter trying to tell them they have it all wrong.
Review:
The episodes have become increasingly boring lately with a the exception of last week's episode. The show lacks any great suspense or meaningful twist in the show. Everything is very predictable and that causes scenes like Carter's show down with the SSR at the diner to lose a lot of the drama and surprise that should come with such a twist. With only two episodes left it is increasingly less likely that SHIELD will have a significant role in the show other than a brief mention of founding a new agency in the final ten minutes of the last episode. It would have been nice for the show to at least dabble with the original Human Torch or any of the other invaders but it's looking like Marvel will either leave that out of the MCU or use it if they decide to make another run in the fall with Agent Carter.
Episode rating: 5
