This week’s episode finds Peggy, Jarvis, Thomson and Sousa investigating the incident at the movie theater. Sousa finds the canister and accidently sprays himself with the gas. He sees Thomson and immediately tries to kill him. Fortunately, Sousa is quickly knocked out. Back at the S.S.R. everyone is trying to figure out what the gas is until Howard Stark shows up to explain everything.
The gas was meant to give soldiers the ability to stay awake longer, but something went wrong and instead, it quickly gives the person the affects of sleep deprivation, like anger and psychosis. That’s what happened in Finow. It was secretly used on the Russians soldiers to give them an advantage in battle, but they ended up killing themselves. Stark blames himself for what happened, but he isn’t the only one.
There was one survivor, Dr. Ivenchenko, and he is out for revenge on Howard. We also discover that his real name is Johann Fennoff who, in the comics, is Doctor Faustus. He proclaims himself the “Master of Men’s Minds” and uses hypnosis to defeat his enemies, though not with a ring. Stark comes up with a plan to lure Fennoff and Dottie out into the open, but it fails, ending with Stark being captured instead.
Fennoff begins to hypnotize Howard. Stark now believes that he has found Captain America and is going to retrieve him in hopes of redemption. Fennoff has planted the canisters of gas in Stark’s plane and when Stark lets them drop over New York, he will be responsible for the destruction of the city Hoping to lure Fennhoff out into the open, Howard volunteers to act as bait and holds a press conference.
Following on the villains’ heels is Peggy, Jarvis, Thomson and Sousa. Thomson and Sousa take down Fennoff while Peggy throws Dottie out of a window. Jarvis then takes off in a plane following Stark. He will be the one to pull the trigger if Peggy can’t snap Howard out of his hypnosis.
Howard does snap out and the good guys win, even though Dottie survived her fall and got away.
Peggy is still on the fence about rejoining the S.S.R. even though she has finally earned the respect of her colleagues. Howard offers her and Angie of his penthouses to live in and Jarvis tells Peggy that Stark has decided to destroy all of his inventions. He then reveals that he stole Cap’s blood and gives it to Peggy. In a final moment of letting go of her past, she takes the blood to the river and pours it in.
The final moments of the season reveal Fennoff being sent to prison and meeting his new cellmate – Arnim Zola. This was a great way to end the season because there are enough loose ends that they could go into a second season or they could leave it there because we already know the end of Zola’s story.
A lot of people, myself included, thought that Agent Carter was going to show us the beginning of S.H.I.E.L.D. but instead we saw the beginning of the Black Widow program and the Winter Solider program. Overall, I really enjoyed the show. What about you?
Would you like to see it renewed for a second season?