Action-Adventure Television Series Episode Review: Agent Carter - The Blitzkrieg Button

In the fourth episode of Agent Carter Peggy and Jarvis get in contact with Howard Stark while the SSR continues their investigation of him.

Peggy Carter and Edwin Jarvis deal with black-market smugglers in order to get in touch with Howard Stark, who is still successfully avoiding capture by living off the grid.

Peggy keeps Howard from being caught when she discovers agents are covering even his better-hidden residences. Because of this, she has to sneak Stark into her apartment despite her landlady's extremely strict rule restricting men above the first floor.

Meanwhile, Captain Dooley leaves Jack Thomas in charge as he goes to Germany to get information by talking to the Nazi killer in charge of the concentration camp at Finow, the same place from which their two deceased suspects hailed. He is scheduled to be executed via the electric chair, so Dooley leaves quickly in order to get there in time.

The SSR looks through Stark's inventions, which leads to a humorous scene where Peggy stealthily takes pictures of Stark's confiscated equipment with the pen camera Stark invented while two scientists keep setting themselves on fire. 

Peggy and Howard turn her apartment into a dark room for developing the film she took at the SSR, while Peggy goes downstairs to have lunch with Angie, the waitress at the diner Peggy frequents and who is her only female friend. When she returns to her apartment, Stark reveals that one of the photos is of a weapon he called the "blitzkrieg button" that destroys the electrical grid of an entire city.

Sousa, an agent who was injured in World War II, conducts an investigation on his own. However, because of his disability, he is looked down on by Jack and the rest of his colleagues. Sousa investigates a homeless veteran from the pier.

Thompson comes in and offers the man a bottle of liquor, and he gives Jack the information, which disappoints Sousa as he was trying to respect the man for being a veteran but he fits the homeless stereotype instead. He tells the agents that a fancy man and a woman were involved. He tells them that she had dark hair, inching the investigation closer to Peggy. 

The double investigations in the United States and Germany are interesting because the US investigation pointed towards Peggy, and the German investigation took them closer to Howard Stark. 

On top of that, Howard told Peggy to prevent the destruction of the power grid which led to a great heist scene. Jarvis and Peggy work great as a duo, and I'm glad Jarvis is getting more to do. I also loved the twist on who the real villain turned out to be. It honestly caught me off guard, in a good way.

"The Blitzkrieg Button" was one of the most fun episodes of the run so far. It also included a Stan Lee cameo, which added to the fun. One of the best parts of the episode was Howard Stark's return. Dominic Cooper is always great at bringing out the smarmy charm of the Howard Hughes-inspired character, and he certainly doesn't disappoint here.

Final Verdict:

4 out of 5

Agent Carter Season 1, Episode 3 Review

Agent Carter Season 1, Episode 4 Review Coming Soon

Action Television Series Episode Review: Agent Carter - Time & Tide

In the third episode of Agent Carter, Peggy settles into her new apartment at a ladies' only residence while still investigating the Leviathan and trying to stay one step ahead of her co-workers at the Strategic Scientific Reserve.

The SSR investigated the license plate that was pulled from the 10-ton ball of concrete and metal. After running the plates. they discovered that it was registered to a vehicle owned by Howard Stark.

They bring Jarvis in and interrogate him, but both he and Peggy have to pretend that they don't know each other. Jack Thompson, the SSR's best interrogator, reveals that Edwin Jarvis was found to have committed treason. He threatens to deport him and arrest his wife. The latter causes him to break his cool demeanor.

Carter pretends she lost the missing car report, which caused Chief Dooley to chew her out and make her apologize to Thompson, a huge misogynist. 

Peggy Carter was originally going to let the revelation go unsaid, but decided she didn't want to have anything further to do with Jarvis until he told her why he was charged with treason. He revealed he did it to get a Jewish person away from the Nazis and that Howard Stark used his influence to save both the Jewish person Jarvis tried to save as well as Jarvis himself. This improved her opinion of both Edwin Jarvis and Howard Stark.

After she's satisfied, Jarvis and Peggy head to the docks to look for a ship that is reportedly connected to the theft of Howard Stark's inventions. They find dangerous inventions, but not the nitromene. Not wanting to let the inventions fall into the wrong hands, she has Jarvis disguise his voice to phone in an anonymous tip about their location.

Meanwhile, one of Peggy's co-workers is killed along with the man that he was bringing into the SSR office, which only tightens their resolve to bring down Stark. 

Meanwhile, Peggy decides to work on her personal relationships as she finally confided in the waitress who had been trying to be her friend while a new resident named Dorothy Underwood moved into Peggy's apartment building.

Tide & Time is another fantastic episode. The action is once again fantastic, as is Peggy's quick thinking against men that are much bigger and stronger than her. The reveal of some of Edwin's background makes Jarvis a much more sympathetic character, and the dynamic between her and Peggy is quickly becoming one of the best parts of the show.

Final Verdict:

4 out of 5

Agent Carter Season 1, Episode 2 Review

Agent Carter Season 1, Episode 4 Review

Action Television Series Episode Review: Agent Carter - Bridge and Tunnel

In the second episode of Agent Carter, Jarvis gives Peggy Carter a place to stay in one of the residences used by Howard Stark for his romantic liaisons.

Agent Carter and Jarvis still need to find the nitromene. She uses her talent in accents to pretend to be a health inspector as she searches milk trucks for the dangerous substance with a vita ray detector she kept from her disastrous first attempt to get her hands on the nitramene. 

This causes her to come at odds with her fellow agents at the Strategic Scientific Reserve, as they work through the ten-ton ball of metal and rocks that used to be a building as well as a bumper from Howard Stark's car. Jarvis disposes of the car since it would be full of vita radiation, which would link it to the building implosion.

Making things harder, Peggy has to test every woman who works for Stark's competitor for vita radiation, while also having to rid herself of anything that contains vita radiation. If she recognizes someone, she can't say so as it would prove she was at the scene of the implosion. Instead, she uses her wits and once again proves that she is a better agent than the men she works under.

That's not to say the men are incompetent, as they employ torture tactics to get the information that they need, a method that was unfortunately common at the time.

Meanwhile, a waitress named Angie tries to make friends with Peggy, but she is busy with her job, revealing a major drawback in her work.

A fun aspect of this episode is the Captain America radio show, which portrays Captain America in a virtuous voice and Peggy Carter, or "Betty Carver", in an overly sexy female voice.

Carter and Jarvis track down the nitramene, and the men transporting it. They try to get information about the organization behind the nitramene theft, Leviathan. The truck crashes into the ocean, causing a huge implosion. Jarvis and Peggy then have to flee the scene.

Meanwhile, the man's accomplice runs down the road tied to a chair, where he is picked up by the SSR. He reveals that he was tied up by a woman matching Peggy's description, leading them to get closer to discovering her secret investigation.

Bridge and Tunnel is a fantastic episode full of mystery and intrigue with a bit of humor mixed in. It's a fantastic episode that proves just how much fun Agent Carter was and how much of a shame it was cancelled before its time.

Final Verdict:

5 out of 5

Agent Carter Season 1, Episode 1 Review

Agent Carter Season 1, Episode 3 Review

Agent Carter Review

Before she became the co-founder of S.H.I.E.L.D., Agent Carter received a Marvel Studios One-Shot. This was a format for ideas that didn't warrant their own film. They have been used for humor, to fix continuity issues, and as springboards for television series. It's the latter use that Agent Carter falls under, as it acts as both a sequel to Captain America: The First Avenger and as a prequel to the Agent Carter television series.

After the end of World War II, women returned to their status as homemakers. Those who didn't were ridiculed for continuing to work in an all-male environment. Peggy Carter was expected to leave the Strategic Scientific Reserve, however, homemaking was not in her nature. She was a better agent than the men in her office, but they kept getting field work while she was forced to act as a secretary.

When a late-night call comes in, she is the only person in the office. Peggy saw it as an opportunity to prove herself, so, going against regulations she goes out in the field to take care of the mission alone rather than relaying the message to the men in the office.

Haley Atwell was one of the best parts of Captain America: The First Avenger, so it was great to see the story of her hard-hitting heroine continue onward after the apparent death of Captain America. The storyline and fight choreography are top-notch and make the best out of the smaller budget given to the One-Shots. It is no wonder why an Agent Carter television series was greenlit, as this was and still is, one of the best One-Shots ever released.

Final Verdict:

5 out of 5

What If...? Season 1, Episode 1 Review

Agent Carter: Season 1, Episode 1 Review

Action Television Series Episode Review: Agent Carter - Now Is Not the End

This review was originally posted on the McMurray Internet Channel website on December 10, 2018.

The first episode of Agent Carter picks up after Captain America: The First Avenger at the end of World War II. Agent "Peggy" Carter of the Strategic Scientific Reserve is still trying to cope with the loss of her love interest Captain America while finding herself in a world that is becoming ever more hostile to her life as an active field agent at a time when men are returning home from war while women are laid off from the jobs they had during wartime to return back to their expected roles as wives and homemakers.

Her former war ally Howard Stark, a wealthy inventor, founder of Stark Industries, and the best civilian pilot she had ever seen, finds himself sidelined from founding S.H.I.E.L.D. and in trouble when the United States government. Congress believes that he had staged a break-in at his secret vault so that he could sell his most dangerous weapons on the black market. With no one else he could trust, Howard Stark turns to Agent Carter, granting her the services of his butler and driver Edwin Jarvis, so that together they could retrieve his weapons and clear his name.

The first weapon, and the most dangerous, is the formula for an experimental implosion device, molecular nitromene. It uses the same vita radiation as used in Project Rebirth, the top-secret government program that created Captain America. Stark and Jarvis want Peggy to try to get the formula back before the thieves can weaponize their own version.

The short runtime of this season, with only 10 episodes, did a great deal for it, since the episode manages to introduce the main characters exceptionally well while still maintaining an action-film level of excitement as Agent Carter and Jarvis rush to keep Stark's implosion device from the hands of the mysterious Leviathan. By the time the episode reaches its conclusion, it hardly feels like it has been on for even half its 42-minute runtime, and the conclusion leaves you wanting more. Thankfully, in the era of Blu-rays, Hulu, and binge-watching, that's easily accomplished.

Final Verdict:

5 out of 5

Agent Carter One-Shot Review

Agent Carter Season 1, Episode 2 Review