Agent Carter is in a world of trouble as she is interrogated in this week’s episode. Check out our recap of SNAFU along with Josh and Violet’s thoughts after the jump!
Don’t need the Agent Carter episode recap for SNAFU? Click here to jump directly to Violet’s thoughts on the episode!
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Episode Recap of Agent Carter, Season 1 Episode 7: SNAFU
This episode of Agent Carter opens in World War II on the Russian front. Dr. Ivchenko is using his powers early on, trying to help save a Russian soldier. The soldier needs his legs amputated, so the Doctor has the soldier “focus” on a happy thought, which is almost a hallucination for the soldier–playing chess with his mother. The surgeon begins operating, and the soldier doesn’t seem to notice. Dr. Ivchenko’s power seems to be pretty strong.
Back in the present time for Agent Carter, Peggy is in some deep trouble as Sousa and Thompson are interrogating her. Nobody is believing that she is actually one of the good guys. Meanwhile, Chief Dooley and Dr. Ivchenko watch through a two-way mirror. Dr. Ivchenko decides he is getting in the way, and goes back to Dooley’s office. Dooley, Thompson and Sousa continue their interrogation of Agent Carter. The agents begin asking Carter about the container of Steve Roger’s blood, but she refuses to provide any answers on that.
Then the episode shifts to Dottie, who buys a baby carriage. Obviously it is not for a baby…
But at the SSR, Jarvis walks in and wants to speak to Chief Dooley. The receptionist is nervous about him, but once Jarvis says he has a signed confession form Howard Stark, Jarvis gets their attention. Jarvis says they have a deal to offer Dooley. Howard will confess, and turn himself in given that both Jarvis and Carter get to walk free. Dooley is suspicious of the deal, and won’t do it until Stark shows up, Dooley makes it a point to say that Carter is fired as well.
Jarvis then admits something–he forged the signature. Carter realizes they are in deep now, worse off than what they were before. Carter and Jarvis discuss their options.
In Dooley’s office, he seems to be making a personal phone call, with his wife, and is trying to make amends with her. Dr. Ivchenko makes a comment, and seems to be helping with this “mending”. Then Dr. Ivchenko begins some more morse code at Dooley’s window. Carter can see him from the room she is in, and realizes that Leviathan is coming in 90 minutes.
Carter makes her play–she admits that the confession is a forgery, and pleads to let Dooley hear her side of the story. She sits down with Dooley, Sousa, and Thompson. She tells them everything that happened. She then says that Dr. Ivchenko was receiving a message. The agents are very skeptical of her, and ask her why she conducted her own investigation. She explains that being a woman let her blend in, making it quite easy. To try to gain the agents’ trust, she even gives Dooley the sample of Steve Rogers’ blood.
Dooley, Sousa, and Thompson meet, and Thompson seems to believe Carter, as does Sousa. Dooley is skeptical still, but decides to have agents see if there is someone in the neighboring building. Dooley returns to his office, and asks Ivchenko to close the window. As he does, he sees the agents heading across the street. The Doctor then begins working his magic on Dooley, who begins hallucinating a happy dinner with his family. Dooley seems to nearly slip out of the hallucination, but Ivchenko is able to keep him “focused.”
The agents across the street begin searching the building. Thompson warns Sousa to shoot first after seeing what the Russian trained girls were capable of in Russia. Sousa is the lucky one to run into her, and doesn’t follow Thompson’s advice, and attempts to arrest her. She is able to make a getaway though.
Meanwhile, Dooley locks Carter and Jarvis in an interrogation room, and breaks the lock, trapping them inside. Ivchenko then has Dooley head to the lab, and find Item 17. In the search, Ivchenko finds a vest he seems very curious about. Dooley locates 17. Ivchenko thanks Dooley for his help, and while a little hesitant, Dooley gives Ivchenko the item he was looking for. Ivchenko gives Dooley the vest to wear, and he leaves the building. Ivchenko meets Dottie at a car, and they drive away.
Carter and Jarvis plan their escape, which is, after some banter, shoving a table through a two-way mirror. Thompson comes in that door, and is confused as to what is going on. So back to Dooley, he is having a vision of his family again. In reality, Dooley had put the vest on. The vest turns out to be an item designed to be a body armor and provide a heat source for people working in cold environments. Problem is, as Jarvis explains, the power source for the vest is very unstable, and will explode. Unfortunately, taking the vest off is not an option, as that will also make it explode.
Dooley realizes his only course of action. He tells the agents to not let Ivchenko in their head, and reveals he was forced to steal an item from the lab. Dooley then steals a gun from an agent. He demands that Carter stop these people, and runs full force to a window, shoots it, and jumps out. He explodes midair, blowing out the windows of the SSR, but saves anyone else from being killed.
So the episode finishes with Ivchenko and Dottie testing their new “toy.” Dottie rolls a baby carriage into a theater. Turns out there is no baby in the carriage, but it is Stark’s device. She activates it, which releases a white mist. Soon people begin coughing, then wind up attacking each other. Everyone winds up dead in the theater.
Josh’s Thoughts: Agent Carter, Season 1 Episode 7: SNAFU
I really felt sorry for Chief Dooley this episode. Despite his clearly being wrong about Agent Carter, I can totally see where he was coming from. It does seem odd that Carter would have been able to pull off her own investigation for so long. Dooley did always seem like he was on the up and up though. He was trying to do his best to solve the case in the way he thought he knew how.
It is too bad he wasn’t able to resist Dr. Ivchenko’s ability a little more. There were a couple times where I thought he might be able to snap out of it. In the end though, he went down as a hero. It was a heroic scene watching him charge the window and make a jump for it. But that does beg the question, who will be in charge now? I would guess Thompson will be promoted. He seems to be second in command. Although it would be amazing if Carter was given that honor.
I have a theory about Steve Rogers’ blood though. We can presume that the Winter Soldier was made using Steve Roger’s blood. I have a feeling in the last episode, this last vial will somehow end up in the Soviets’ hands, which leads to the creation of the Winter Soldier. We may not actually see Bucky in the final episode, but I am going to guess that the episode will end implying that is where the vial ends up.
I am curious to know what Ivchenko has planned. I would think Stark’s device he stole would only work on enclosed places. So what would be his target? I really have no idea at this point. I guess we will find out next week!
Violet’s Thoughts on Season 1 Episode 7 of Agent Carter: SNAFU
Wow, what a cliffhanger to leave us at until the season finale!
This episode, we got a little more insight into what goes on when Dr. Ivchenko hypnotizes his victims, telling them to “focus.” It’s not as simple as just rubbing his ring and telling them to focus, but he has to get inside their minds first, and find out something about them that he can cause them to hallucinate about, somewhere that they would not want to leave. Although it’s still not clear exactly how he is able to accomplish this. Is it the ring? Is it some sort of psychological thing? Or does he have a special power? I’m not sure that this will be explained, but I am curious to know!
Dooley did seem to almost snap out of it a couple of times, and I was rooting for him to fight against it and get out of it, but the scene with his family was just too happy for him that he would rather stay there than leave. Then when it was revealed that his life was in danger from the vest, I thought for sure they would find a way to get it off of him. So it was a big shock to me when he jumped out of the window and exploded. I did not see that one coming. I guess this leaves Thompson in charge of the SSR, considering that Dooley had left him in charge when he went out of town.
This episode also perpetuated the notion that women were not seen as equals during this time period. Even after all that Sousa and Thompson had witnessed Agent Carter do these past few episodes, they were still incredulous about the fact that she was able to conduct her own investigation, just because she was a woman. However, it was exactly because of that fact, that she was a woman, and able to slip below the radar, that enabled her to conduct her own investigation without anyone noticing. Then, despite this lesson about women being empowered and dangerous and overlooked, Sousa doesn’t listen to Thompson’s advice to shoot Dottie on sight. One could argue that it was Sousa’s nature that he didn’t want to shoot anyone, but I think it was more so the fact that she looked like an innocent woman. I’m not so sure he would have been so hesitant had he run into a man.
So now, Dottie and Ivchenko are on the loose with this gas that will cause people to violently and fatally turn on each other. It kind of reminds me of the rage virus in 28 Days Later. So you could almost say this is turning into a zombie show. If you know me, you know one of my favorite subgenres is viruses that threaten to cause an apocalypse, which may or may not be a zombie apocalypse. So yeah, Agent Carter just got really interesting to me! This season finale looks like it’s going to be a good one!
Scenes from Agent Carter, Season 1 Episode 8, Valediction
Here are scenes from the season finale of Agent Carter, titled Valediction:
