Posted in: Movies, TV | Tagged: Agent Carter: Snafu, entertainment, tv

Leviathan Is Coming – Recapping Agent Carter: 'Snafu'

By Amanda Gurall

Russia, 1943

Doctor Ivchenko (Ralph Brown) is on the battlefield reading The Tragic Life of Doctor Faustus so right off the bat we have a big reveal, that he is in fact Doctor Faustus from the comics. Faustus does not have super powers but rather his human ability to use his very high intelligence to hypnotize people is that which makes him powerful.  He (I will still be referring to him as Ivchenko) is asked to come into surgery and use his skills to help a soldier survive an amputation without anesthetic.  He succeeds by taking the soldier away in his mind to a positive memory, specifically playing chess with his mom before the war. Right as they start sawing the leg we cut to the SSA office while Ivchenko and Dooley (Shea Wingham) watch the interrogation of Agent Carter (Hayley Atwell).

Sousa (Enver Gjokaj) is doing his best but getting nowhere with Carter as can be expected.  They are all ignoring her pleas to take action against the actual enemies. Ivchenko worms into Dooley's brain the entire time with suggestions and manipulation. It is possible that the Doctor hypotonized his way into the SSA off screen and my annoyance last week that Dooley let him get so close was unfounded.

Thompson (Chad Michael Murray) tells Carter that he knows something is not adding up that she saved his life and served wiht valor in Russia. We go back and forth with he and Sousa getting increasingly angry with her accusing her of sleeping with Stark (Dominic Cooper) and finally getting to the Blitzkreig Button.  Dooley has a try and brings up the battle of Finow which leads to a fantastic monologue by Carter.

"You think you know me but I have never been more than what each of you has created. To you (Dooley) I am a stray kitten left on a doorstep to be protected. To you (Thompson) I am a secretary turned damsel in distress, (to Sousa) the girl on the pedestal turned into some daft whore. You're behaving like children and what's worse, what's far worse is that this is just shoddy police work. You were inches away from the woman you want when  you loaded me into your car. You should be looking for Dottie Underwood by now, I assume, has shed her alias."

This goes a bit deeper into our usual look at the sexism she endures in her job and really gets into the fact that these men looked at her as a less-than, a blank slate to project what they needed to see.   This is not limited to women of course but in the show being female is the only thing that made this happen.  They treat Sousa badly because of his disability but he is given the benefit of the doubt, sent on missions, does not file and fetch.  They were each put in their place and if nothing else develops from the interrogation to effect their future work together it is that they will not see her the same way again.

The aforementioned Dottie Underwood (Bridget Regan) is wearing a fabulous high fashion ensemble, shopping in a high end baby store. She ends up buying a baby carriage and a lovely pink blanket.  This sounds like it is going to turn out well.

In the interrogation they have reached the point where they are going to have to start torturing her and Thompson implores her not to let him get to that point.  Ding! The elevator downstairs in the phone company arrives and Jarvis (James D'Arcy) enters the scene, briefcase in hand. He is fantastic as usual and goes right to the ladies at the board and asks to enter the SSA. They play dumb for as long as they can and we even see the lead operator reach for her gun under the desk when Jarvis tells them he has with him the signed confession of Howard Stark and they all freeze. Hold, please! And he is in..however I am wondering how he got into the building before when he was questioned.  I did not think of it before but they have to have a separate entrance to bring people in it would have been nice to see it at some point.

In a conference room we have Peggy unchained and the three lead investigators listening to Jarvis.  His story is that Stark is in a plane from Europe on his way to Teeterborough airport in New Jersey.  He will be arriving at the office that evening and his attorneys have sent along his signed confession, once the SSA agrees to his terms and sets Carter and Jarvis free he will appear and take responsibility for everything. Dooley is not comfortable with this offer and says he will not let either of them go until Stark shows up and they have a "garbage exchange".  They uncuff Carter but tells her that once Stark enters the building she is free from prosecution but she's also out of the SSR. Sousa and Thompson look sad they have to know she does not deserve this.

Jarvis admits that he panicked and the confession basically sets Carter up as a dim witted woman who fell for the charms of Howard Stark and was an unknowing patsy. He also ends up admitting that he made the entire thing up, wrote and signed the papers himself and Stark has been unreachable.  Across the office Dooley is making plans to visit his wife and kids, apologizing and paving the path to moving back home. Ivchenko is lending his caring support while signaling morse code to Dottie, back at the now fly infested dentist's office.  Carter is going over their options, which are really bleak, when she notices Ivchenko tapping the windowsill. Jarvis helps her decode the message: prepare for evacuation, then a timetable which gives a 90 minute deadline.  What happens in 90 minutes, Jarvis asks?

Leviathan is coming.

Agent Carter gives the team the truth, the actual and whole truth about the Heartbreaker incident and everything else.  She is trying to make them believe her to prevent the imminent attack but it is a hard sell. Ivchenko looks like a harmless older guy and they know she is a skilled liar. They cannot believe that she got away with successfully running her own investigation right under their noses and are shamed for the second time because she points out that she was invisible to them. Dooley is the only one not believing her so she brings up the Blitzkreig Button, or Steve Roger's blood.  Carter is watery eyed as she explains what it is and why Stark was trying to acquire and protect it. All three men are moved by her saying she just wanted a second chance at keeping it safe and even though they still do not trust her they send a team to the building across the street to investigate.

Dooley finds Ivchenko back at the window and asks him to close it.  Before doing so, Ivchenko sees the team crossing the street and knows this might be his only chance to fully hypnotize Dooley. He does so by using his family and makes him envision the "perfect evening" for their reunion that night.  We see the fantasy about the family eating dinner overseen by Ivchenko who keeps Dooley in the trance even though he tries to escape it.

The team of Thompson, Sousa and a few other men start searching the building although they send one man per floor which is pretty lame considering both Thompson and Sousa both say they believe Carter.  Thompson tells Sousa that if he comes across "Dottie" he is to shoot to kill and not hesitate. Sousa stubbornly asserts that he can handle himself and we all know how this is going to go down. Sousa is alone on the floor, ends up with the chance to do as he was told and take her out but he hesitates and is roundly beaten. Dottie escapes, they are all trying to capture her but she uses her mad parkour skills and hops? Glides? Makes her way down about 10 flights of stairs like a flying squirrel. Sousa checks the dentist office and finds his corpse, Dottie's rifle and her notes deciphering Ivchenko's codes.  It is really strange that they communicated in English and her notes are in English, though very helpful for the SSA.

While this is happening hypno-Dooley locks Jarvis and Carter in an interrogation room and takes Ivchenko down to the lab to Shanghai the poor scientists.  They clear them out and start looking for Stark's crate #17 which was in the photograph of the crate label that Dottie took from Peggy's jewelry box.  They find the item as well as a vest that excites Ivchenko greatly.  Ivchenko gives it to Dooley and tells him to follow the instructions before strolling out with his item #17.  Dooley is back at dinner with his family in his mind we know this cannot end well. Ivchenko is picked up by Dottie and they discuss trying out item #17 to make sure it works.

Carter and Jarvis have a funny scene with some physical comedy as they use the table they are chained to to break through the two sided mirror in the interrogation room it was just enough distraction to be a good break from the action without taking away from it. Thompson finds them and they go to find Dooley who is mentally in his house in a suburb, visitng his wife and kids. We know this is a dream type sequence but it was still sad and touching when dream Dooley tells his wife he failed, that he let a criminal walk right out of the building with something dangerous. Of course he is actually at his desk where Carter and the team find him half aware and wearing that vest Ivchenko gave him, glowing exactly like the inside of a big toaster.

Jarvis explains this is the prototype of an impenetrable vest for use in cold European war fronts and when you lock it on someone instead of simply creating heat through the self sustaining power source it becomes unstable and will invariably explode. Get the scientists!  Toaster-Dooley is literally roasting and the scientists cannot save him, time is running out.  Watching this I knew what he was about to do but it did not make it any less horrible. Dooley asks them to tell his wife he is sorry, sorry he missed her.  He painfully tells Carter to promise to get the son of a bitch who did this and when she agrees he says atta girl. He takes off running and shoots the window apart so he can break through and he flies out, exploding in midair and saving them all in a surprisingly sad moment.

The office is stunned and picking themselves up through the broken glass and Carter is feeling responsible for bringing Ivchenko back and causing this. She and Dooley were exceedingly trusting of an unknown person but I also agree with Jarvis, that this is all the fault of Stark's inventions. Those bad babies caused so much grief even when they were not used. Carter thinks that the blood might have been what Leviathian is after and they run to the lab. I would have thought that Carter would have fought to keep the blood safe with her before this point but perhaps it was too hard without her purse. They discover that item #17 is missing however nobody knows what it is.

Well guess what? The blood was not the target after all. Dottie is in a movie theater pushing her carriage down the aisle.  She leans over and we see her push the pink blanket aside and open the valve on a canister of some sort of gas and walk out, barring the exit and getting away.  Strange that nobody, even the people who complained she was bringing a baby into the film, made a comment or seemed weirded out that she left a baby and walked away but it doesn't matter in the end. The gas makes the patrons go wild, attacking each other violently. The last scene is a couple late to the theater being shown in by an usher.  The woman is complaining what a cheapskate her husband is for not paying for parking and making them late.  The usher gets the door open and they find the entire theater full of bloodied corpses. Best husband ever, I'd say.

The thought of such a weapon being unleashed upon a crowded city is horrifying and this next episode's season or perhaps series end is going to be intense and probably a lot of fun. This show has been so solid from the start particularly for a network show that I truly hope it goes out with a smart, sassy bang.

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