Agent Carter Season 2, Episode 2 - A View in the Dark
Well, hello hello! It’s been almost three years since my last Marvel recap (aside from the quick one-shot I wrote a week or so ago), and I’m so so happy to be back. The MCU has greatly expanded in those three years, and I have a lot of catching up to do! I’m excited to dive in and continue doing these recaps for YEARS to come. Because you know it’s going to take me years, and I’m going to continue to fall behind. It’s fine! Everything is fine!
I’m picking up where I left off, with the second season of Agent Carter. I wrote up the first episode back in the summer of 2020, so I rewatched again, caught up again, and am now diving into the rest of season 2. So without further ado…
Highlights
Peggy walks in on Mr. Jarvis working out, lol. He promptly challenges her to take him down, she does, and then he takes her right to the floor with him, just as Mrs. Jarvis walks in. I really enjoy having Mrs. Jarvis as part of this season!
Sousa and Rose, the best secretary of all time, are walking into the office when Rose asks him if he intends to tell Peggy about his new girlfriend anytime soon. Not to worry, Sousa - Peggy already knows and is already on it! Meaning that Sousa’s gf is waiting for Sousa at the office with cookies and Peggy is hanging out there with her. Sousa’s gf invites Peggy on their dinner date that night and it’s awkward and the best. She leaves, and Peggy announces that the body of the lady in the lake should be arriving that afternoon for the scientists. Except! We see two Tyvek’d peeps wheeling the body out of wherever it’s been stored, and they both get shot by someone I don’t think we’ve seen yet!
Chadwick shows up at a dark bar and a “council” is already waiting for him in a secret meeting room. They tell him they’d like to shut down Isodyne. These dudes apparently orchestrated the crash of ‘29??? Who are these people?? Now Chadwick is blabbering on about atomic energy, and each member of the council uses their fingers to put out the candles? This is so weird. But the decision has been made, and Chadwick apparently agrees and puts out his own candle with his fingers.
Peggy and Sousa watch the bodies of the Tyvek’d people get loaded into the coroner’s van. As they’re standing there, discussing what to do next, they receive a search warrant from New York?? For Isodyne?? Spoiler, that’s not how search warrants work (at least not in modern times) but WHATEVER, moving on. Peggy and Sousa immediately go to Isodyne and encounter that front desk lady again. There’s been a containment leak! They can’t go in! Dr. Wilkes shows up, Peggy confronts him, and he secretly passes her a note. He wants to meet! That night! He seems to think that Isodyne is up to something too. Wilkes sneaks into a file room that says “Authorized Personnel Only” on the door and steals a file labeled “atomic energy project” or something like that. When he sneaks back out… someone sees him!
Sousa and Peggy discuss the note that Dr. Wilkes gave to Peggy, and Peggy insists on going alone. Sousa doesn’t hear her, until she finds the engagement ring that fell out of his jacket pocket. She congratulates him, and then goes back to Stark’s house to change clothes. And Sousa looks very… wistful? Is that the word I’m looking for here? It’s clear that Sousa still has a thing for Peggy, and the difference this time is that Peggy is feeling it right back. Although she maybe also likes Dr. Wilkes?? Ugh.
Mrs. Jarvis helps Peggy pick out an outfit while Peggy gushes on and on about Dr. Wilkes. Ughhh. Part of what I loved about the first season was that Peggy didn’t have a love story—she was her own person, and she was still grieving for Cap, which made her complex and interesting. It would appear that they want her to move on for season two. -___- In any case, Jarvis shows Peggy the features of Stark’s “leisure” car (ick), and she goes to the downtown hotel to meet Dr. Wilkes.
It’s clear that Dr. Wilkes also has a thing for Peggy, and she feels the same way in return, at least to a degree. I would guess that she sees Sousa as off-limits now, because of the whole engagement ring thing, ya know? They exchange a lot of background stories before he starts telling her about Isodyne. I think it’s very safe to say that his reluctance to share any secrets about Isodyne is that they were the only place willing to hire him as a scientist at that time because of the color of his skin. They leave the hotel, and the same guy who killed the dudes with the body earlier is sitting at the bar! He appears to follow them. Dr. Wilkes then takes Peggy to the Griffith Observatory, and he describes his day at Isodyne… not a good day, to say the least. Lots of lawyers! He then shows her a video of an atomic test, which is what produced the goo that we saw at the end of episode 1. They’re calling it zero matter, because it doesn’t correlate with anything on the table of elements. YIKES.
After they turn the film player off, they hear something outside the room they’re in. The audience has already seen that the dude from earlier in the episode is there with some buddies, and they’ve slashed the tires on Mr. Stark’s leisure vehicle. Peggy and Dr. Wilkes find a backdoor and get out of the building, then see the incapacitated car. Peggy gives Dr. Wilkes her gun and he shoots back while she works on hot wiring the bad guys’ car. Eventually, they take off in the now stolen car, but they don’t get very far. The car quickly overheats, and Dr. Wilkes has them pull into an alley to lose the bad guys. Then they walk to find a payphone so they can call Mr. Jarvis and Sousa (Peggy has set off the SOS in Stark’s car), and some asshole is racist to Dr. Wilkes. Then they realize the phone doesn’t even work. Some other guy pulls up to the store, and Peggy and Dr. Wilkes steal his car to get back to Isodyne, where they plan to steal the zero matter. Also, they kiss.
At Isodyne, Dr. Wilkes and Peggy quickly realize that they’re not alone. Peggy goes off to handle all of the muscly dudes and Dr. Wilkes goes into the building to package up the zero matter… if you can call it packaging? Peggy goes about her normal evening, beating up some dudes without even having a gun, and Dr. Wilkes runs into none other than Whitney Frost. Who, it turns out, also wants the zero matter. I forgot to mention that earlier in the episode, some sexist director says that she’s old now or something. Yawn. Anyway, Frost and Dr. Wilkes get into a tussle and the zero matter falls to the ground, causing an implosion that supposedly kills Dr. Wilkes. No one seems to know that Frost was even there, but we’ll get back to that.
Meanwhile, Jarvis gets Peggy’s SOS and calls Sousa. Sousa tells his gf that he can’t go out, he has to go rescue Peggy. Flash back to the office, where Sousa, Jarvis, and Rose discuss the discovery of Stark’s car with lots and lots of bullet casings, and Sousa goes into his office and starts throwing things around. Then he comes back out and starts barking orders—an APB on Wilkes, things like that. Then Sousa and Jarvis head to Isodyne.
Once there, there are ambulances and all kinds of chaos going on. And Sousa and Jarvis find Peggy in the middle of all of it. She starts giving Sousa a rundown and he interrupts her to make sure she’s okay and to tell her she’s going home. She says that Dr. Wilkes is dead, because of the zero matter implosion. Peggy asks Jarvis for a ride home.
Sousa greets his gf, who was waiting at his house for him to arrive home. He pulls the ring out of his pocket again, kind of shaking his head. What’s going on, Sousa?? Where are your fEeLiNgS?? Time will tell, I’m sure.
We end the episode with Whitney Frost, who has apparently absorbed the zero matter. She looks and sounds the same, but there is a blackish-purple vein on her foreheads that’s sort of moving… that’s the zero matter. And she looks terrified. But she was at Isodyne to also steal the zero matter, so… is she actually terrified? We’ll see!
Timeline Progress
It’s 1947 in Los Angeles, so no real progress since the last time I recapped. This episode was particularly interesting, because we got to see some of the post-WW2, pre Civil Rights era, which was EXTREMELY RACIST. More on that in a bit.
Connections and Easter Eggs
The guy who owned Roxxon, who appeared in a couple episodes of Season 1… he was at the Council meeting. So that will probably lead somewhere. Things are starting to build in the universe, but we don’t have a lot to go on quite yet.
Likes and Dislikes
Likes: Peggy! Rose! Sousa! The Jarvises! Mostly Dr. Wilkes, although he was acting a little shady at first. And I always like the premise of a secret council!
Dislikes: Chadwick and Frost. Stark’s leisure car (ick). The idea that Sousa is going to propose to anyone other than Peggy (although his girlfriend seems perfectly lovely!). And the RACISM. Gross. Sure, a product of the time, but GROSS.
Rating
A reminder of the rating scale:
Red = Couldn’t even get through it
Orange = Ugh, no thank you
Yellow = I mean, I’ve seen worse, but there were problems
Green = This was good!
Blue = Oh my gosh, I loved this movie/show!
Purple = This is the unicorn of movies/shows and I will be rewatching it until Disney+ starts asking questions and EVERYONE should be watching it!
This is one of those episodes where things are getting set up for future episodes. It wasn’t a bad episode, but I still feel like we’re missing a lot of pieces. There weren’t problems, and I’m eager to keep watching, so I’m going to give Season 2, Episode 2 a GREEN rating. More to come!
Higher, further, faster, baby!