Mikes Film Talk

Agent Carter: The Atomic Job starts off with a lighter tone, as Peggy is woken up suddenly by Jason and she puts a gun through his head.  Later as Carter, Jarvis and Wilkes talk about infiltrating Hugh Jones’ facility, the butler’s repetitive phrase of “and Kill us all,” setting the tone for most of this episode.

Wilkes wakes Agent Carter  to show her what happens when he goes near Jane Scott’s tissue sample.  During his demonstration some of the zero matter zips out of the sample and into his body making him corporeal for a moment.  Peggy grabs his wrist and then Jason becomes intangible again.

It is decided that the corpse of Jane Scott needs to be retrieved in the hopes that Jason can absorb enough of the zero matter to cure him. Unfortunately Whitney Frost gets there first and while Peggy and a nervous Jarvis watch from the air ducts, the woman absorbs all the zero matter from Scott’s corpse.

Carter and Jarvis hear Frost say that she needs an atomic bomb. The idea being to replicate the experiment that generated the matter initially. The plan then becomes one of stopping Whitney  from getting her hands on two A-bombs in storage at Hugh Jone’s ROXXON facility. (It is the discussion about breaking into the heavily guarded building that prompts the amusing “And kill us all” repetition.

Sousa asks Violet to marry him, despite losing the ring and Peggy tells her boss about getting the special elevator key from Hugh Jones.  The two head to Dr. Samberly’s office for  assistance and he gives them an electric memory inhibitor that, when placed on the subjects temples, causes them to forget the “last two minutes.”

Thus setting up the funniest bit of the episode, and quite possibly the series, where Hugh Jones (Ray Wise) is repeatedly zapped with the  memory inhibiting device when he  remembers where he knows Agent Carter from.

Jones: “Agent!”

Carter (Zap)

After the above interaction occurs a few times, the scene devolves into Jones waking up and being zapped immediately unconscious. After Carter finds the key (it is hidden on his body) by riffling his clothes, she leaves. Jones wakes and walks out of his office with his clothing disheveled.

Secretary: “Did you have a nice lunch?”

Jones: (looking at his messed up suit) “I must have…”

Whitney and Calvin go to see her ex; the gangster Joseph Manfredi (Ken Marino) to gain access to Jones’ facility.  Sousa reluctantly allows Peggy to talk him into including Rose (Lesley Boone) as a member of the atomic job and the shoe is on the other foot when Daniel includes Dr. Samberly on the team as well. 

The gadget-man crushes on Rose and the two play a married couple, much to Samberly’s delight, at the storage site.  Jarvis, Sousa, Carter, Samberly and Rose all enter the building and begin searching for the two atomic bombs. The scientist unlocks all the doors and once they find the bombs,inadvertently  locks Jarvis in with the weapons.

As the plan was for Sousa (Enver Gjokaj) to disarm the bombs, he now has to talk a terrified Jarvis through the procedure. Peggy goes to confront Whitney and Calvin. The two women fight, very briefly, and when Frost grabs Peggy the battle ends. Carter is overpowered and thrown over a railing. 

The agent dangles high above a lot of rebar and as Frost moves in to finish Carter off, she loses her grip and falls, impaling herself one of the bars.  Sousa and Jarvis take Peggy to Violet’s house for treatment and Daniel’s new fiancee learns that Carter and he have a past.

Violet is not happy.

Calvin Chadwick (Currie Graham) discovers just how powerful his wife really is and it scares him. After Whitney shows him who is in charge, her husband calls for an emergency meeting of the council. Meanwhile, as Jarvis insists that Peggy rest and leaves the room, Jason suddenly vanishes mid conversation.

By the end of The Atomic Job, Agent Carter is wounded but recovering, Jarvis is relived, Whitney is in charge, Samberly is in love and Violet is not pleased with Daniel at all.  Most importantly, Jason Wilkes (Reggie Austin) suddenly disappears, his condition has not improved at all despite absorbing more zero matter, and Peggy is dismayed by the turn of events.

This episode allowed Ray Wise to show off his comedic chops, as well as Hayley Atwell being allowed to show hers, to great effect.  The scene between the two was the highlight of this installment, even overshadowing the “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”  type impalement of Peggy later on.

Agent Carter airs Tuesdays on ABC. Tune in or miss this series and miss all the Marvel fun and adventure.