Monsters – Wilkes’s stabilizing machine is a success but when Dotti spills the beans on his condition, Whitney Frost takes a keen interest. Vernon Masters wants Sousa to retrieve the stolen uranium rods and won’t take no for answer.
The second half of this week’s double-helping feels a much more sedate affair with minimal action and instead continues the major character developments of the prior episode. Again, the most interesting character in play is Dotti, who has a very varied episode. She’s brilliant in her anti-torture resolve against Vernon as she takes his tough guy talk like a lioness being addressed by a feisty sloth. It’s a classy equivalent of Sacha Baron Cohen’s Dictator torture scene (resisting the urge to name anal implements). It’s great viewing and perfectly sets up the reversal of seeing Dotti overwhelmed and broken by Whitney’s abilities. Their contrasting torture moments are among the most horrific the show has produced (and the recent Zero matter events haven’t half been getting creepy). We get some greater depth on how Dotti’s life and motives have changed from last season. After the New York plan failed she’s been disowned by Russia and Leviathan which nicely positions her to ally with Peggy by choice (or at least necessity) rather than just being forced which may well happen in the looming season finale. The pair have some great moments together again this episode with a curious feel of slowly, on some level, warming to each other.
The only topic that’s more dangerous than uncontained radioactive matter rears its head again..... a love triangle. With Wilkes back in the game and Sousa back on the market Peggy finds herself with a difficult decision. Despite the mass pitfalls of the subject matter, the episode does approach it well with a combination of humor from Jarvis as he presses the conversation and a refreshing almost indifferent stance from Peggy. Rather than being torn between two loves, instead she isn’t overly sure how she feels about either them. It plays well on the themes of female empowerment to make Peggy seem like she’s being forced into a choice but decide for herself that she doesn’t want to make it. However, the real love story this week is between Mr. & Mrs. Jarvis as after notable worries last episode, Mrs. Jarvis comes clean to her husband about being afraid for him. Both their affections and concerns feel very genuine and despite screaming heavily of impending doom the end result has at least some degree of surprise to it.
The week area of the episode is the Vernon Masters Vs Sousa affair. While it has some good comparables to it as Sousa shrugs off the Vernon’s approach that successfully duped Jack, their scenes feel lacking in drama and tension. While we understand the difficulty in Sousa’s position, both men play it far too calm and controlled, making their exchanges less effective than Vernon Vs Peggy when she isn’t afraid of rising to him. The end results are worthwhile as it kicks more legs out from the team’s support but the show could have made much more if the conflict these two men.
Finally, Whitney Frost too has a more mixed episode. Her early scenes of fake mourning has husband’s supposed tragic accident are excellent, as is her villainess ordering about of her Council, but her later encounter with Dr Wilkes becomes way more dull than it really should. There’s plenty of curiosity over how their Zero matter states affect each other but the heavy dialogue of Brandon Easton’s script doesn’t deliver the quality to match its quantity. Sure, there’s a nice little Easter Egg for Iron man, “Is he constructing a palladium core?” but there’s not enough conflict to make this feel much more than an idol chat when it should be one of the episode’s payoffs.
It might have been bumped into a double bill for time constraints or maybe because Monsters is the weakest episode of the season date. It still has many good moments but spends too much time meandering rather than making progress. With any luck, it will just be a mistep to cover a few required motions but in the business end of any season, every episode counts and Agent Carter needs to be careful not to count itself out.