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America, The Land Of Opportunity – Recapping Agent Carter's Finale: 'Valediction'

By Amanda Gurall
The Captain America radio hour returns! We start the last episode of the season (it is possible that we will have an announcement of a second season soon) with the radio show enacting the last moments between Cap and "Betty Carver" which is a nice bookend to the first episode in which we started with the actual moment between Peggy (Hayley Atwell) and Steve. We then jumped right into Carter, Thompson (Chad Michael Murray), Sousa (Enver Gjokaj) and crew investigating the movie theater massacre.

The bodies are bitten, torn and bloodied and as they look around in horror Sousa runs to the baby carriage, and is relieved to find it empty next to the canister on the floor. Not only does he touch it with his bare hands he turns the knob and get a nice spray in the face. What an idiot.

Dottie (Bridget Regan) and the Doctor formerly known as Ivchenko now known as Johann Fennhoff (Ralph Brown) are in the car and Fennhoff is genuinely in awe of New York City as the world's beacon of progress.  It does not seem like he wants to destroy America but might be focused on a more personal target. They are almost caught by a cop but Dottie seems to take him down and they escape.
Sousa recovers and they are back at work in the SSR office trying to figure out their next move. The scientists have confirmed that Fennhoff has enough gas to send half of the city into a homocidal rage.  What could the target be? Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper) walks in and says, "The target is me." The men arrest him despite the evidence they have that he is not the villian in the situation.  It turns out Howard designed the gas called midnight oil to keep soldiers awake for days at a time for the army.  General McGuinness had the gas and all of his research confiscated even though or perhaps when Stark realized that the gas caused murderous rage instead of sleepless nights.  McGuinness dropped the gas on Finow and we all know how that ended.  Stark went to Finow to see the massacre for himself and he immediately stopped his work with the army and started to build his vault for the bad babies.  Stark decides to be the bait in a trap to catch Fennhoff and to appear in a public press conference.

Fennhoff and Dottie were about to steal a plane when they hear the radio announcement about the press conference and decide to head back to the city. Too late for the guard she just shot to death, but no matter.  Stark busies himself getting pretty with the help of Jarvis (James D'Arcy) who tells him after clipping them that his nose hairs look like a nest of spiders with very short legs. So gross and funny. Jarvis seems to have lost some of his shine and is possibly less enthusiastic about assisting Stark. Stark takes Peggy down to the lab to find his own body armor and he starts freaking out about how his inventions are being treated.  If it's that important to you maybe you should have, I don't know, not lost them in the first place. They talk about his plan and both know he is doing this out of guilt which Peggy is sympathetic to even if she barely tolerates his antics.  He grabs the Blitzkreig Button with the actual blood sample as they walk out.
The press conference starts and a few dozen people are in the crowd listening to Thompson tell everyone that Stark is innocent and at Stark's prompting reluctantly says he is also a hero. Peggy is on high alert so when someone shoots the window behind Stark she and the other agents mobilize quickly to the hotel across the street. Jarvis secures Stark and runs him over to a police car to bring him back to the station but as the car peels out Jarvis sees two officers shot dead in the alley. The cop driving the car is the one that stopped Dottie and Fennhoff at the beginning of the episode, hypnotized.  How they got him to do this the day after they "met" him I don't know but it seems to work. Jarvis frantically runs for help while Peggy and Thompson find the rifle in the hotel room set with an automatic firing mechanism aimed at the window; they all know they have been had. Peggy realizes that it is May 8th, VD day and Fennhoff must be planning to hit Times Square with the gas.

Sousa finds the car with the dead cop inside and Stark gone. Stark is of course riding with Fennhoff and Dottie whom he immediately tries to flirt with.  Unfortunately he doesn't remember the weekend recently spent with her and he gets a gun butt in the face for not remembering her name. I am not sure why a programmed assassin still manages to care about being remembered from a liaison but this continues as they tie him up in his airplane hangar.  The hangar that Jarvis admits the SSR never found, filled with all of his vehicles. More great comedic timing from D'Arcy.

We see Dottie pretending to be Ida from the fundraiser in a glamorous dress and Howard showing her the hangar and his cheesy pick up lines.  Present day she is hitting him and Fennhoff taunts him about the horrors his inventions have created.  Fenhoff was at Finow and not only saw the horrors though his gas mask but also lost his brother.  Stark is legitimately moved and gravely regretful that his invention was used to such an end so he asks that when they kill him to please leave innocent people out of it.  Unfortunately Fennhoff's  plan is to create suffering and not death. He starts his ring spinning and convinces Howard to go back in his mind to a time and place that holds his greatest shame.
We find them in a frozen tundra with a soldier telling Stark that they have a signal from the Valkyrie, which has to be Captain America.  Peggy arrives in a hat and fur, holding caps shield and asks Stark to bring him home. Cut to Peggy running after the plane as it takes off, Times Square replacing Cap's plane in Stark's mind. Making him kill half of NYC with his own invention then allowing him to live is pretty harsh payback.  We all knew that Fennhoff's plan would be motivated by something personal but it seems a little weak to go to such lengths over Finow and a lost brother. I am wondering if Levathian is aware of Fennhoff's actions? We have never seen him checking in with a superior officer like we saw in the flashback should we assume he is acting on his own or is he a top ranking member who can do his own missions?
At the airport, we find out Peggy and friends have about 12 minutes to act and they decide to take another plane up and shoot Stark down if they are not able to stop him from reaching the city. The only one who can pilot a plane is Jarvis. He agrees this is what stark would want and sadly agrees to follow his friend and probably shoot him down so the gas would effect as few people as possible over the river. While the men get the plane ready Peggy goes alone to the office and finds Fennhoff continuing his hypnotizing on the radio, giving Stark his final coordinates. Peggy has a rifle and seems to be in charge though Dottie catches her off guard and attacks.

They have a decent fight scene which at one point is knife against….scarf? Dottie has a blade and Carter grabs a scarf, using it effectively to wrap Dottie's hands and get an edge on her. Peggy fights with whatever she has while Dottie is more methodical which gets the better of her eventually.  Fennhoff runs away and Dottie rounds on Carter, saying, "I used to be so jealous of girls like you. I would have done anything to walk like you, to talk like you.  But now I can be anybody I want."  She hits Carter brutally with a baseball bat, excited twinkle in her eye. "Maybe I will be an SSA agent next!"  She looks at Peggy, half beaten and breathless and continues, "I thought you'd be better." She takes a final lunge with the bat and Peggy kicks her out the office window.  Peggy looks down and sees her bloodied body on the wing of a plane.  Peggy your next step is yelling or using the walkie for someone to go down and make sure she is dead, or to shoot her while she is still.  No? Ok then. She does radio Thompson and says Fennhoff has escaped.
Thompson reminds Sousa not to let Fennhoff talk and to shoot him the first chance he gets.  As he has done before. The men are looking around the hangar when they hear a noise and Thompson goes to find a piece of metal on the floor, bends to pick it up and is knocked out by Fennhoff.  It's like these men have no training or have never read a comic book. Sousa finds Fennhoff and holds him at gunpoint, NOT shooting while Fennhoff starts his hypnotism. Sousa gets closer and closer, Thompson wakes to find Sousa about to kill him.

Peggy gets on the radio and starts to talk Stark down which proves unsuccessful at first because Stark is so overjoyed that he is about to find Steve Rogers he ignores everything she says about reality.
Sousa has his gun on Thompson and right as it seems like he is about to shoot, he punches Fennhoff to the ground.  He removes earplugs and smiles widely.  I love Sousa having the upper hand and saving the day however shouldn't he have given some earplugs to Thompson and Carter as well?  I know that some of these more logical or realistic points are lost on a show meant to be fun with an element of cheese like a vintage comic but it drives me a little crazy.  I suppose we could conclude that the agents are just not very good.  I would have enjoyed the show even more if Peggy wasn't the only one worth employing at all, that at least half of the agents were as elite as they should be.

Stark is still on his way, Jarvis is behind him ready to shoot one mile from land.  Carter breaks down at the radio and has to tell Stark that Steve is dead and that he cannot be saved. Stark has an authentic moment when he admits that so many of the things he has done in life have caused destruction but it was project rebirth that stands as the one thing he had done to bring good into this world. Peggy cries and says they both loved him but this will not bring him back.  Steve is gone and they have to move as impossible as that may sound.  She turns to the other radio to tell Jarvis to shoot when Stark finally responds.  It works and Stark snaps out of the trance, a relieved Jarvis leads him back to the airport. Happy tears all around.

Agent Carter leaves the radio office to find nothing but blood and glass where Dottie's body was. Not overly worried she meets Jarvis and Stark outside. They hug and have a little exchange of words then look over to Fennhoff gagged in the back of the car, why oh why didn't they kill him? I know this is America and we prefer to try people for their crimes, a notion I usually support.  However the man has the ability to manipulate anyone and the hot headed Thompson doesn't shoot him? All three of the agents have killed on the battlefield and in their job. Howard then remembers that he knew Dottie as Ida! "Steel trap!" he says and taps his head. Well done, Stark.

Back at the SSR office Peggy has come back to pick up her paycheck and has not committed to returning yet. The girl probably needs a damn vacation. She is clearly wanted back at work and I think it's safe to assume she will be treated as an equal in her work from now on, as long as Thompson and Sousa are around.  Just then a Senator comes into the office and grandly thanks Thompson for saving thousands of lives.  He pontificates about how amazing Thompson is and tells him not only does the President himself want to speak to him but he may receive a congressional honor.

Does Thompson decide to tell the truth and give Carter and Sousa credit? Unfortunately he remains true to original character and takes all of the glory. White flag buried, he strolls off and Sousa is steaming mad,  he is about to demand credit for he and Carter but Peggy has other ideas.  She tells him she knows her accomplishments and her value and not even the President's opinion matters.  Sousa is surprised and impressed.  So much so that he finally asks her out for drinks after work.  I expected her to reject him but she smiled so much while doing so and after he turned his head that it looks like she is interested.  She actually is busy that night but perhaps they will find another time.  We do not know Sousa's war story, he has avoided telling it.  We wonder if Captain America ended up saving Sousa at some point, fitting in with the scene in Winter Soldier where she says she married someone saved by Rogers.  Of course that smile could just be symbolic of her willingness to move on and find a personal life again and not necessarily implicating Sousa as a future spouse.

Agent Carter's plans that evening were to go to one of the grand apartments that Stark owns with Jarvis and Angie. It seems that Stark is giving the ladies the massive and elegant home to live in for as long as they please. Angie goes bonkers over the place and can't believe there is a telephone in every room, rushes off to call her mother.  This mini series has been reliable in the build up of the relationship between Jarvis and Carter so to give them a great scene near the end was satisfying. The actors have such great chemistry and comedic timing together that it is especially meaningful when Jarvis talks about going back to his more mundane duties that he ends up pledging his loyalty to Peggy.   We find out that Stark is going to destroy his inventions once he gets them back from the SSR because he continues to believe that no government including our own can be trusted with the inventions which is some impressive personal growth.

Jarvis then pulls Steve Rogers' blood out of his coat and tells Peggy that Stark thinks the blood was lost while he was hypnotized.  Jarvis says, "I owe Howard Stark a great deal. But he does not own my integrity. I am quite certain there is only one person in the world who knows what to do with this. You, Miss Carter."
The song "The Way You Look Tonight" by Bing and Dixie Lee Crosby plays as we see the sun setting at the Brooklyn Bridge. Peggy has come back to Steve's Brooklyn to dump his blood into the East River and tearfully say, "Goodbye bye, my darling" and finally let him go.  If we see a second season I think we will have moved on completely from Captain America's shadow.  At first I was a bit annoyed that she was dumping something that could have been used for good but they are all right that most of humanity, specifically governments or evil organizations, could never be trusted with the blood and it is better to let it go as well.  I then wondered what it might do to the creatures in the East River but I don't think that it is what the director intended us to dwell on. Ending the show in such an emotional way was the right choice, I love the fights and the intrigue but no hero is satisfying to watch if they are nothing more than a cheesy radio show.

Now the season is over and we will wait to see if there will be another.  The low ratings might not be enough to stop ABC from trying one more mini season, as the reviews of the show have largely been positive and a large section of the Marvel fan community also enjoyed it. How does this fit in with the one shot which seems to follow the show? I think it is fair to guess that Thompson could find the glory of politics alluring and he would leave the SSR after a short period of time to be replaced by Agent John Flynn (Bradley Whitford) from another office, who accepts Carter as an agent but keeps her on code breaking and other office duties. She is still up to her old tricks and ends up finding the zodiac serum as she does in the one shot, eventually leading to Stark making her the head of S.H.I.E.L.D.  Another season of Agent Carter could take place between the current one and the one shot pretty easily or it could start after the one shot, showing us how she establishes S.H.I.E.L.D. which sounds like a great idea.  It does not have to resemble Coulson's efforts on AOS but a completely different set of problems and missions.

Whatever they choose to do, I believe the show deserves another chance, I found it very fun to watch.  It could have gone South quickly if they continued to make a feminist statement at every turn but instead they allowed that to respectfully dissolve into a show that happens to feature a female hero dealing with her disadvantaged reality. This is the type of show I want my daughter to watch and enjoy right along with the male heroes.  We are far from where we need to be to represent women in comics and the MCU but things are going in the right direction.
Wait a second!  The show is not quite over until we see the doors to a jail cell being opened and Fennhoff is led in by a guard.  He is wearing a primitive metal Hannibal Lector style mask, which looks incredibly uncomfortable; it might have been more humane to remove his voice box.  In any event a voice comes out of a dark corner of the room and we see Doctor Arnim Zola (Toby Jones) creep out from the shadows! He tells Fennhoff that they can work together on a new vision because after all this is an American prison and America is the land of opportunity.  Hail Hydra!

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