This episode picks up right after last weeks really funky the Blitzkrieg button and continues the fast pace that Agent Carter is known for. While right from the title we’re getting a nice wordplay with “glass ceiling” being replaced by “iron ceiling” we get a lot more than we’re expecting in the growth of Thompson and Dooley and without giving too much away it looks like the best detective they have at SSR – Sousa – is finally putting things together and coming up with a conclusion that he doesn’t really like!
Recap
In a nutshell the mystery typewriter starts to function and Peggy manages to decode the message sending her and Thompson on a mission with the Howling Commando’s into Eastern Europe. We get a really quick flashback (from Dottie’s point of view) at the start of the episode of a Leviathan program (although not named as such we all know this is the Black Widow program) intended to train young girls as killers and assassins and we see in the flashback that this is not a gentle training regimen as young Dottie kills another girl who wasn’t as strong as she was.
When Peggy and Thompson + the other agents are on their way to Europe – they are (for some reason) changing into their gear inside the SSR building … here Thompson in his normal infantile way, tricks Sousa into going to the other side of the room where Peggy is changing. Peggy and Sousa are both flustered at finding Peggy in her undergarments but Sousa notices something which we’ll come to later.
Dottie meanwhile has stolen Peggy’s keys from her purse and has broken into her apartment within the housing block – they don’t really explain why Dottie targeted Peggy … I guess you have to assume that Leviathan intelligence for obvious reason’s doesn’t discount the worth of a person simply based on their gender! – and she finds the photo’s that she took for Howard in the previous episode.
Once Peggy and the other agents meet up with the Howling Commando’s within Europe, Thompson initially try’s to take charge of the mission but he quickly sees the respect that they all have for Peggy and is forced to defer to her. As the episode progresses we learn that his medal for bravery earned for fighting the Japanese was actually obtained by killing soldiers trying to surrender and he’s perhaps not the poster boy for evil that we (myself anyways) first thought. He’s a significantly more flawed and humane character and while he won’t replace Sousa as my favorite SSR agent, he’s not as horrible as I thought he was. On the mission, they find a Soviet military complex which seems to be a training site for children to infiltrate the United States as sleeper agents. Peggy and Thompson aren’t able to find any significant information on Stark, but they are able to rescue a prisoner that might have some information on Leviathan and they take him back to the States with them.
Stateside, Dooley continues to investigate Finow and manages to get additional information from a reporter friend who makes him realize that perhaps Stark isn’t public enemy number one after all and that there might be more going on than he initially realized. In addition as I’ve already alluded to, when Sousa saw Peggy in the changing room, he noticed some scars on her shoulder. After digging into it further he learned that she acquired these during the war but taking out his picture of the blonde lady – he sees that she too has the exact same scars.
Review
Well, all of the episodes of Agent Carter have raced along at a breakneck speed and this one is no exception really! Its very nice to see Peggy redeem herself after last weeks forced blunder to save Jarvis and I think Thompson at least sees her in a very different light. It’s always good to see the Howling Commando’s off course & Dottie as mentioned last time is a very, very interesting person. She has masks that she seems to be able to don based on the occasion and while there was no real shock from her this week (in comparison to last week) her development is ticking along quite nicely.