Episode Recap: Agent Carter, Season 1 Episode 5 – The Iron Ceiling

Episode Recap of Agent Carter, Season 1 Episode 5: The Iron Ceiling

So, this episode of Agent Carter sheds some light on who this Dottie character is. The episode opens up in Russia, in 1937. Many young girls are in what looks like an orphanage, or boarding school, and they are all handcuffed to their beds. All of the kids seem to be learning to be US girls, but also learning to fight. Then one girl, presumably Dottie, is told to kill another one of her students in their practice fight.

Back in the present, Dottie and Carter are meeting at their local diner, and they are being the best of friends. Dottie “accidentally” knocks over Carter’s purse, and while picking up her belongings, steals her apartment keys.

So later in the episode, Dottie decides to mosey into Carter’s apartment and does some looking around. She finds a box which contains photos of the weapons of Stark’s that Carter took. She then leaves, and for some reason puts paper on the door lock.

Back in her apartment, Dottie heads to bed, and the only way she can sleep is handcuffing herself to the bed.

Carter on a walk, is approached by Jarvis, and Carter is still not wanting anything to do with Jarvis. Jarvis pleads for help for Stark, but Carter insists she will make her way through the SSR, despite her being a woman.

Back at the office, Carter walks into a frenzy, and it is over the typewriter’s new message. The decoder working on the encoded message isn’t able to figure it out, but Carter does it with little problem. The message is a location, describing a location where Stark will be selling a weapon to a Russian organization. Dooley wants to get a team to Russia ASAP, and Carter insists that she goes. Dooley isn’t too keen on doing it, until Carter is able to get the fabled “Howling Commandos” to help the SSR on their mission.

So after some awkward moments in the men’s locker room between SSR Agents and Carter, she gets geared up for heading to Russia. Over Poland, the team gets ready to parachute out. On the ground, they meet up with the Howling Commandos, lead by Dum-Dum Dugan. Dugan provides transportation, and the route to their mission coordinates.

Back in the US, Dooley heads out of the office. Agent Sousa, meanwhile, has a revelation after his run-in with Carter in the locker room. He had seen her gunshot wounds from previous battles, which he found in the photos attained from the party that Carter infiltrated in the blond wig. Dooley, meanwhile, meets up with a mystery man at a bar. This man seems to think that Stark is innocent, and that the case he is working on is bigger than Dooley knows. Apparently Stark ticked off an army general, McGinnis, and Stark broke ties with the army.

Dooley decides to speak with Jarvis, and Dooley admits that there is something going on, and he just wants to get to the truth about Howard Stark.

Back in Russia, the team splits in two, and heads into a Russian compound where the coordinates they had led. Inside, they find a classroom, looking very much like a US children’s classroom. They then find a young girl, who sees scared. They find her, in what looks like the boarding school from the beginning of the episode. The girl winds up stabbing Dugan and shooting another Howling Commando. The girl is able to make an escape in the chaos.

Moving further into the compound, the team runs into a Russian scientist and psychiatrist. Turns out the scientist is a little crazy. The doctor tells Carter and the SSR that he supposed to build a bomb for the Leviathan. The doctor tells them Stark has not been seen anywhere on the compound.

Their conversation is cut short though, as the team becomes under attack. In the middle of the fire fight, The mad scientist takes one of the Commandos hostage, to try to negotiate for his own release. The Russian doctor tries to talk him down, but he is forced to shoot him himself. Carter takes the lead in the firefight, and Agent Thompson is frozen from what appears to be shell shock. Dugan is able to get the team an exit, but Thompson is frozen. Carter is able to snap him awake, and they all flee the compound.

The SSR and Howling Commandos part ways, and the SSR heads back to the states. The Russian doctor heads to New York with the SSR too. On the plane ride back, Thompson explains the reason for his freeze up–he accidentally killed several Japanese soldiers in World War 2 that were surrendering.

Meeting with Dooley, Thompson and Carter tell of their Russian doctor help, and Carter also says she doesn’t think that Stark is connected to Leviathan. Thompson still isn’t convinced. Carter gets an invite to the after work bar stop, but before leaving, she talks with Sousa, who is visibly distressed, and the reason is over what he discovered in the photo.